July 23, 2008

Sound and Fury Signifying Something

While lunacy abounds in our government and throughout the world, on August 23 we will be treated to the annual Rubber Ducky Race here in the Kern River Valley. The duckys will be released into the river at Kernville and people will cheer on their favorite duck. It is comforting to find this degree of sanity in the midst of so much madness, and I find it a cheerful note sounded as though in defiance of the cacophony of maddening noise and bad news all about.

But speaking of cacophony, among the blessings I enjoy here in my small part of the Sequoia National Forest is not having some brainless twit cranking on the thumping noise that rattles the windows of neighbors often accompanying the abuse of illicit drugs. Those that live among such barbarians or are subjected to this noise from cars in traffic have my utmost sympathy. I spent many years beginning in childhood as a musician and singer and know the difference between noise and music. But then I was raised by and among those with civilized good manners and taught what used to be courteous thoughtfulness toward others, something increasingly lacking in today’s America.

Homosexuals have promoted a brainless term homophobic as though anyone with a normal revulsion to perversion has an irrational fear of homosexuals. One has to suppose the homosexual propagandists depend on people being ignorant of what the term phobia really means. In just the same way the Devil has succeeded in passing off brainless, mind-numbing noise as music.

A scene that used to occur in some old comic strips was that of a child being given a toy drum. Now kids do have a way of banging on things and there was a reason why Tin Pan Alley got its name. But the comic strips would have someone eventually accidentally stepping on the child’s toy drum in order to stop the incessant, banging noise. These days it seems some people can’t distinguish the difference between noise and music. But as a matter of fact I never could stand the noise of Gene Krupa no matter how many people of my generation called it music. To my ears, his noise was little different than that of some drugged out people today.

Admittedly some of the music from the old days was just plain fun, the music of Spike Jones and the songs of Phil Harris and Tom Lehrer and the old Red Buttons song Strange Things are Happening comes to mind when I consider the blatantly obvious efforts of so many in the MSM shouting they want Obama as president, though in my opinion the Devil controls the American media as effectively as Hitler and Goebbels did that of Germany. TV and Hollywood devoted to noise, mayhem, violence, destruction and perversion it is only to be expected the Devil is the master choreographer and leads the orchestra, and his is not full of sound and fury signifying nothing, but quite the contrary. It’s the Devil’s work to make people go brain-dead through noise and drugs, to cause people to become callous to civilized manners and living.

I was once employed as a machinist in Culver City. The place had a large sheet metal shop and the din was so horrific I wondered the workers didn’t all go deaf! These days I suppose OSHA would require ear protection in such an environment, but it seems America is overwhelmed by the din of that sheet metal shop.

It does seem to me people are becoming more uncomfortable left alone with nothing but their thoughts, though they know silence is golden and everyone needs some amount of solitude and quiet time to nourish their souls and a healthy mind. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape the noise surrounding them. My last school contract position was as a Stanislaus County Resource Specialist, and I don’t doubt the rise in autism diagnoses along with some other things leading to the increase of using prescription drugs to modify behavior in children has somewhat to do with the noise infants and children are exposed to today.

However, since even the archangel Michael dared not upbraid Satan I’ll give the Evil One credit for not being stupid; otherwise it would strike me as exceedingly curious the GOP could not do better than McCain. I don’t wonder the media has avoided showing much of McCain since he does give the appearance of having one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Not quit cadaverous, but pretty close to the work of a mortician.

Me? I’m going to focus on things like the Rubber Ducky Race and other things if not of greater importance are at least not the workings of lunatics and the Devil and count my lucky stars I am removed from the noise surrounding so many either unable or unwilling to escape it.

July 20, 2008

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Not to disparage fine cookery as an art considering how seriously some people take it, one must suppose there are those seemingly born to eat far more than they need as a way of life. The epidemic of obesity plaguing America would seem to bear this out. And while I have dined in the finest restaurants San Francisco has to offer, such culinary artistry is for the better part lost on a man like me, a man of simple tastes.

I recall several times fishing Bull Run Creek years ago and frying the trout over an open fire on the blade of my machete. Not exactly haute cuisine, but it suited my idea of fine eating in that marvelously pristine part of our forest. However, when I was a boy living on the mining claim here in the Kern River Valley my grandmother did balk my grandfather’s and my considering the cooking of a great horned owl on one occasion.

There are many men who take cookery very seriously, a fact to which many great chefs give testimony. My youngest son Michael is visiting and his culinary skill is unsurpassed. I don’t recall eating so well in a very long while. If he manages to stay for any length of time I might actually gain some weight on my lean frame.

However, cooking has never been high on my list of priorities; just a necessary chore to be gotten out of the way as an alternative to starving. While attending undergraduate school, a roommate of mine was of the same persuasion. The menu one night was beans and cornbread, both of us raised to southern cuisine. I was in charge of the beans and it was this roommate that mixed the cornbread. We waited for the oven to do its job; and we waited, and waited. The stuff just didn’t seem to want to bake properly. Long past the appointed time when it should have been done, we removed it from the oven. It hadn’t risen, and what we faced was a pan of a substance that would have done good service as a yellow Frisbee. The material seemed to be vulcanized like rubber and had the same pliable, plastic consistency.

Now he and I were intelligent young men. It didn’t take us long to discover he had used baking soda rather than baking powder in his recipe. Well, we ate the beans and forewent the cornbread. But there was no denying the fact that, as men, we would have done well to have the proper guidance of a woman in our lives.

Notwithstanding the great chefs, Nero Wolf, and the Barbecue addiction of men, women seem to take such culinary tasks more seriously than men with the exceptions like my son Michael, and under their direction the kitchen doesn’t usually become a research laboratory. And I doubt any self-respecting woman would find herself cleaning hominy off the walls and ceiling of her kitchen; the result of circumstances to which we men fall victim at one time or another. In this instance, while heating a can of hominy on the stove in a pan of water I was interrupted by a phone call and forgot to punch the necessary hole in the can. It exploded like a bomb. But I imagine many a bachelor could tell of similar accidents.

I wish to make a confession, confirming some suspicions of a few readers. Yes, like Faulkner and some others I do write under the influence of drugs. My drugs of choice are caffeine and nicotine. Glad to get that off my chest. But while sitting and musing it occurred to me as per some comments I have received over the years concerning my writing that I do, indeed, write for a readership a notch above those to whom Bartok is a form of speech heard in gin mills or grog shops rather than the composer. And I do prefer to reminisce and write about the old days compared to what constitutes life in America today.

An old flying buddy of mine, a retired fighter pilot, and I were having coffee at the airport swapping hanger stories. He related an exchange of views he had just had with his wife. Seems my buddy loved an old car of his, a Continental convertible he kept on blocks in their garage. Eventually his good wife decided he ought to get rid of the thing to make room for her car. Over a period of time, according to my buddy, this took on the form of nagging. "Just last night she said to me ‘Why on earth do you have to keep that old thing anyway? What is this with you about old things?’" He replied, "Sweetheart, you had better be grateful I like old things." A word to the wise.

I know I am becoming somewhat preoccupied when I go into the bathroom and pick up my razor to brush my teeth. Didn't work of course; but it did remind me of once trying to put the broom in my refrigerator. I have a lot of fun referring to my bachelor way of life. While there are many books about this fascinating subject on the market, there may be room for another. I believe I can make a contribution to the body of knowledge.

For example, a visitor to my little cottage in the country might notice the collection of buttons I have on the bookshelf behind my workstation. Simple explanation: I often lose a button on a sweater, coat or shirt and keep them all in a neat pile where sometime after the Rapture or Millennium, whichever occurs first, I might actually get around to sewing them back on. In the meantime, I know exactly where they are. Such things remind me of an old comic where the punch line was always: Bachelors are a sorry lot!

Once in a while I mention something of my culinary achievements since even single men living alone occasionally have to eat. I'm not really into food as my wiry frame evidences; but I do, on rare occasions clean off the cobwebs, evict the spiders and fire up my stove. I have a very good reason for mentioning cooking; I find a lot of humor in it. Also, as an admitted ploy, my bachelor approach to the subject elicits a lot of sympathy from the ladies. I know they feel sorry for me and I can use all the sympathy I can get. I have visions of some lovely lady reading something I have written about my cooking and thinking "That poor man; there must be something I can do to help him?" There is.

No, modesty forbids. But aside from cooking, I'm a fairly normal man in some respects and even Batman was constrained to tell Kim Basinger, "There is something else that you have that I want." And we all know Batman wasn't talking about Kim's attributes in the kitchen. And, speaking of cooking, I wonder if any of you other single men have had the experience of trying to make chocolate chip cookies?

Now most people can sympathize with the need for a chocolate chip cookie. And I don't mean those things in bags at the supermarket filled with objects that make hockey pucks and poker chips seem pliable and tasty by comparison. No, when the craving for a genuine chocolate chip cookie comes upon you, you are ready to do anything short of holding up a bakery to get one. The real addict, I suppose, wouldn't even be prevented by this expedient.

So here I was; faced with the need for the real thing, a chocolate chip cookie fix that could only be satisfied with the genuine article. Being an adventurous and inventive sort I decided to give it a try. But not having all the exact ingredients like chocolate chips, I improvised. A little hard working around the chocolate chips, but hacking up a couple of Hershey Bars and tossing in a few Hershey Kisses with a dusting of Carnation Chocolate Drink seemed to be satisfactory. There were also a few green M&Ms, the gift of a lady friend with a sense of humor. I tossed them in as well. Like the small chunks of Hershey bars and the Kisses they might make the batter a tad lumpy, I thought, but would probably soften satisfactorily during the baking process.

I'm used to reading directions and have never joined those pitiful creatures that, after the disaster and all else has failed, read the directions. So I staved off a potential catastrophe by noticing that the recipe I had scrounged off a bag of candy called for Whole-Wheat flour. What's wrong with the white flour, which I had on hand I wondered? What have these people got against white flour? Are they prejudiced? What real difference could it make to use white instead of brown flour? Wouldn't the cookies just come out a lighter complexion?

Oh, well, I went to the store and got some of that peculiar brown flour; but the recipe called for oatmeal as well as flour. I had oatmeal but I didn't want oatmeal cookies, I wanted chocolate chip cookies! What was this concoction that called for oatmeal in chocolate chip cookies? To heck with that; I knew what I wanted and I forewent the oatmeal and simply increased the amount of flour accordingly.

Butter. I was out of butter; and I wasn't about to make another trip to the grocery store this month. Ah, but I had margarine. Just add salt and presto: Okie butter, right? But the recipe called for salt. How much more should I add to compensate the substitution of my salted margarine for butter? Oh, well, about another smidgen, a technical cooking term I had picked up from one of the truly great chefs, my great-grandmother. I utterly disdained the raisins and walnuts the recipe said I could add. Wonder they didn't say to add dandelions in my now thoroughly suspect recipe.

Another conundrum; why did I have to mix the dry ingredients separately from the eggs and butter (margarine)? Why get two different bowls messy? I'm beginning to believe that like religion cooking has its mysteries, which remain such in order to intimidate those who are not members of the priesthood. But I am not a superstitious person and I am not going to be daunted by such attempts of charlatans who are trying to bamboozle me with mumbo jumbo and incantations, mystic symbols like lb., oz., cp., tsp. and tbsp. Instead, I mix the whole shebang together in one bowl and start stirring the tar out of the mess. Sometime into this procedure, I look inquiringly at my blender. No, on second thought I have had my share of disasters with that infernal machine.

Preheat oven? Whatever for? What a waste of gas. Cookie trays— I don't have cookie trays. Why in the world would any self-respecting bachelor have cookie trays? I go out to my shed. It is well supplied with materials and tools for doing the usual maintenance and repairs on house and car. Ah, hah! I find some sheet aluminum from a job that required cutting and fitting for replacing some steel sheeting on the roof that had rusted out. With a couple of pieces approximating the size my oven could handle I had that problem licked.

Deposit the cookie mixture on the trays in the amount of a tbsp. for each cookie. Thought they had me there but I knew what the mystic symbol Tbsp., stood for. However, this heathen and bigoted list of instructions, symbols and incantations now said that I had to grease the trays before depositing the globs of batter! These idiots say I have to grease the trays before baking! Now I've greased many a car. But grease for cookies? What kind of grease; bacon, wheel-bearing, axle? Nah, I really knew they meant something like Pam or Crisco. I'd read about the old Crisco parties in the past.

But I didn’t have the recommended grease for the pan and not nearly enough margarine left for the job. How about WD40 or LPS I wondered? I had those. I even had some bacon grease I saved in can on the stove just in case I wanted to have scrambled eggs and no bacon handy (I had not resorted to a largely vegetarian diet at the time). No sweat. I'm a good metallurgist having been a tool and die maker. Cookies were not going to stick to aluminum. Besides, I suspected the WD might leave some aftertaste and I wasn't partial to bacon-flavored chocolate chip cookies either though they might not be too bad. No, I wasn't about to risk that after my gargantuan efforts up to this point.

A final problem; how close should the dollops of batter be in order to avoid having a single cookie measuring 16 by 16 inches? Being a man used to using precision measuring instruments like micrometers and verniers, I guessed. Cooking time? Another obstacle. The now hated recipe said 8 to 10 minutes. I checked at 8 minutes. Not done. I checked at 10 minutes. Not done. At fifteen minutes they were done. Now if you are a normal person of normal curiosity, you are probably wondering how the cookies turned out. Great; apart from the 36 the recipe said would result came out to be closer to 96. I had to suppose that somewhere along the line during this Herculean effort at making chocolate chip cookies I probably made some sort of miscalculation.

July 17, 2008

Things are ok here in Bodfish

Things have settled down quite a bit here in the Kern River Valley after the recent fires and floods, so I celebrated the beautiful morning by going to the dump. We are so spoiled here in the valley without any traffic, no long lines anywhere including the local DMV, terrific senior services and medical services, no violent crime or graffiti and the beauty of nature surrounding in all directions. I don’t generate much in the way of household trash so it takes nearly three months before my small truck has enough to make the trip to the local landfill necessary, but sometimes like this morning it is worth the while to just make the drive up to Kernville and around the lake while admiring the beauty of it all and count my blessings that I can live here.

Since I first came here in 1948 with my grandparents to live on the mining claim that is now Boulder Gulch Campground I have never lost my appreciation for this area and the beauty of it. Granted the lake going in and people moving here over the years has changed things considerably since I was a boy roaming the forest and fishing the Kern River and Bull Run Creek, but most of what remains like the surrounding mountains hasn’t succumbed to what some consider progress. We still have abundant clean air and water without any taint of industrial pollution, and you can still catch fish without any hint of mercury in them. Our valley remains the crown jewel of Kern County, and would retain that distinction if it were located elsewhere in most parts of America. But alas, the barbarians having never learned civilized ways are in evidence around the lake and along the river, leaving their trash scattered about for others to pick up after them and occasionally defacing or destroying public facilities.

Occasionally things can get hectic and what with fires and floods, all the firefighters and equipment it reminds me how quickly people face disaster and how much we depend on those we need to be there in emergencies. Police are often maligned but when you really need a cop we depend on them being there, and while things are really horrific in some areas of America and you wonder why anyone would even want the job any more here in the valley the local police do a great job for us folks. No small reason for counting my blessings I can live here.

I do live an enviable life of solitude for the better part with only the forest critters and the resident cat for company, ideal conditions for a writer, but when I do venture forth like this morning’s trip to the dump I’m reminded to be grateful I no longer have to live in places like downtown Los Angeles. Here I am treated to the evidence of a healthy environment; the butterflies, hummingbirds, quail, doves and baby lizards that tell me I am favored over many that are facing deteriorating conditions for habitation, places where children never see a butterfly or baby lizard in the wild, too often not even being able to see the stars at night.

On the way back from the dump I stopped at the Von’s grocery store and people would smile at me, and even if we didn’t know each other we would greet each other with a friendly "Howdy." I sat on the tailgate of my truck for a while and viewed the surrounding mountains and people would smile as they passed by, often exchanging that friendly greeting with me. It was nice not to have to hurry anywhere. Of course, at my age I’m seldom in a hurry about much of anything.

We face an increasingly ugly and dangerous world, I often refuse to even turn the news on because I neither need nor want the reminders of how ugly and dangerous things are becoming. But here in the Kern River Valley people can still smile at each other and say "Howdy" without risking some gang member shooting you. I can sit in my yard without worrying about becoming a drive-by casualty of the inner city wars.

Fires have threatened and will doubtless continue to do so and I was once flooded here in Bodfish, but you will understand why I believe I am blessed by God above so many others just being able to call this part of the Sequoia National Forest my home all these years.

July 14, 2008

A Picture Worth the White House

Slice, dice, and spell it how you will baloney remains baloney and after that pic on the cover of the New Yorker hitting the MSM no matter how the spinmeisters attempt to deflect the criticism a lot of people are sticking a fork in the Obama’s to see if the roast is done. Roast or toast, you do kind of wonder who was really pulling the strings from the shadows for this particular cover of a magazine held to such liberal, lofty and elitist standards? Wait a minute; I think that may be it. Just between you and me, my personal belief is the Devil offered the New Yorker a better deal.

This is just an opinion on my part, but doesn’t the New Yorker want someone in the White House that would be friendlier to the global corporations pulling those strings from the shadows, including someone with real experience qualified to prosecute wars and would have no trouble getting what they want for the military, someone that wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger? If threatened, most of us want a very experienced cop that isn’t so politically correct he is afraid to pull the trigger.

It still remains to be seen who the choices for VP will be, and there is a lot riding on this choice. However, even those at the New Yorker must have realized the polls don’t reflect the reality of voter choices, and few are ready for a Negro First Lady like Mrs. Obama no matter how well some think of her husband. If nothing else the New Yorker reflects what is considered class and good taste among the upper classes; and Mrs. Obama misses this by a whisker as wide as Mississippi.

Voters actually do consider race an important factor, they consider gender an important factor, and many understand how a President and First Lady present an image of them and America to the world. StarKist wanted tuna that tasted good, but we want a Charlie with good taste. However, that doesn’t account for the present occupant of the White House but it accounts for a lot when it comes to his wife; and that does make a very considerable difference to voters.

I ask myself if anyone like George could have won without someone like Laura, and I seriously doubt it. Many share my opinion Laura Bush is the only touch of class in the White House, and I don’t believe we are going to settle for Mrs. Obama to take her place; and especially not after that New Yorker cover so well expressed the impression both she and her husband have made on ordinary Americans notwithstanding the polls and MSM.

July 12, 2008

A Government of Lunatics

When I read To Hell and Back many years ago I thought Audie Murphy had the right slant on religion saying a soldier’s god would understand him. The very brutality of kill or be killed in warfare does not discriminate on the battlefield though an occasional Sergeant York or Audie Murphy may survive and become heroic icons. But it seems to me the people most in need of killing are those that make the wars, and we seek in vain for the Sergeant York or Audie Murphy to slay these beasts in America because such beasts have always been politicians and the wealthy that buy them; and the Devil takes care of his own.

Our government being comprised of politicians is a black hole representative of the Prince of Darkness, one that captures all the light of truth and makes it disappear. The Bush administration dedicated to selling out and betraying America for the sake of empire and globalization for profit will be known as the most inept and corrupt in our nation’s history, the most infamous example of the black hole of government, but are we about to breach the event horizon where America as a nation will disappear? To watch what is happening in Congress leads me to that conclusion. While Bush and his cronies seem totally oblivious to anything but their own power and wealth those in Congress are no different nor are the members of the Supreme Court. None are held accountable and America is enslaved to a Federal Triune Dictatorship, one that swallows all light of truth and forces ordinary Americans to dwell in an increasingly evil darkness. And virtually all government agencies seem to be more representative of black holes than anything desiring the light of day be shined upon them.

God made the light and pronounced it good, separating the day from the night. Every culture has its way of distinguishing their thoughts on the subject of light and darkness. Jesus claimed to come as a light into the world to deliver from the darkness of sin, and it is accepted that some love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. I very well recall the expression "The lights of freedom are going out across Europe" and it seems America is poised on this very brink now.

It took the assassination of JFK to cause me to confront the fact my government was lying to me, and on such a massive scale as to be truly mindboggling! Following that realization I began to question many things including our involvement in WWI and WWII, Korea, and eventually Vietnam. Throughout all these conflicts the rich and powerful became richer and more powerful while things became increasingly dangerous for America, and Americans became increasingly the slaves of government. Are the present wars fomented by our government making things better or safer for the average American, or only making the rich and powerful richer and more powerful.

On the face of it the refusal to secure our borders is an act of treason by our own government, but none will be held accountable for this act of treason. We realize if illegal aliens were torturing, murdering and raping the families of politicians and judges our borders would be sealed in an instant. But so long as they live their protected and insulated lives of privilege and wealth politicians and judges will not lift a finger to protect ordinary American citizens from the depredations of illegal aliens. And those profiting from the slave labor and drugs from Mexico buy the politicians and judges they need ever as much as the Godfather in the film.

The evil in our government is so deep and pervasive when I first saw that obviously fake clip of Iranian missiles it reminded me of that scene where the Carcano carbine was being held aloft and displayed as the weapon that killed JFK. Ridiculous! Being a gunsmith and even owning one of these weapons at the time and knowing its limitations, that no one being an expert in firearms would ever choose such a gun for such a task I knew then someone was lying, but why? And over the years learning how those in government have lied to We the People repeatedly from WWI on I have no confidence whatsoever in our government to tell us the truth about anything.

But while the stench of mendacity and corruption in our own government must reach up to heaven other nations are in no better case and some like Mexico and those of Africa and the Middle East even worse so I ask myself why those nearly cartoon like pics of Iranian missiles? Like that Carcano carbine didn’t the Iranians know such a ridiculous thing wouldn’t fool anyone qualified to discern the truth from a fiction? Or as in the case of JFK and possibly 9/11 is the truth so dark and sinister that reason of healthy minds is repulsed by the unclean thing? I strongly believe this to be the case.

If the Iranian leadership wants to provoke an attack by Israel it would be understandable they would be doing everything possible to do so; but to what real purpose and why such a clumsy attempt as those missile pictures? But I remind myself that wars are not always provoked and waged for profit, though the most evil will bend their efforts to profit from wars.

Emerson’s Concord Hymn and Archduke Franz Ferdinand come to mind as shots heard round the world have altered the course of history. But I remain of the opinion that no matter how dark the deed whether the murder of Lincoln or the Archduke while some are the result of passion there are always those dispassionate and amoral that take advantage to turn a profit, or even the most sinister that will murder those like Kennedy to further their own ends to enslave Americans for profit.

The insanity of it all is evidenced by Iran’s mad mullah, but such insanity is mirrored by our own government. The seeming madness of those in Congress presents an image of a stage play in which all the actors are lunatics, each one intent on the destruction of America. In my opinion the Devil has written the script and is in charge of the choreography, and anyone of a sound mind cannot fail to see America being represented on TV as a nation of imbeciles. But the books have been written outlining the decline and fall of America notwithstanding the Bible and the Evil One’s part in the end of the age.

Some believe Mother Nature is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore! I have my own front row seat provided by Mother Nature surrounded by the mountains, rocks and trees here in the Kern River Valley. Remember Orphan Annie’s "Leapin’ lizards!" I can actually see the lizards doing this in my yard as they frolic among the rocks and the tiny baby lizards are among nature’s cutest little critters. I’m entertained by the numerous quail and doves along with other feathered friends, the jewels of nature are well represented by butterflies and hummingbirds. And though the fires rage throughout my native state and smoke lingers in the air hereabout while I listen to the constant sound of fire fighting aircraft passing overhead I remain safe.

The all too typical oppressive heat of a Kern County summer makes things difficult for me at times, nevertheless I’m grateful to be free from want and have managed to escape not only the fires but the dire poverty inflicted upon so many by the selfish lunatics in our government, so I am well established to take stock of the situation and offer my views of how I see things. I do question why I should be so well favored while so many are suffering, but I have no satisfactory answer.

July 8, 2008

Yes, as a matter of fact, things are going to hell!

With Russia threatening America and the Israelis getting ready to attack Iran things are bound to get interesting in a hurry. A privileged planet, a Goldilocks planet, a unique world in a unique solar system of the universe with intelligent life capable of believing there is a God and responding. Of course it’s a minority view in respect to our earth and intelligent life, but it’s one corresponding to the somber pronouncement by Jesus that very few are going to be saved; and here in America one only has to view and listen to the Devil’s control of the media, especially TV to believe our nation is going fast to hell.

Devoted to programming filled with violence and perversion, mind-numbing drumbeat noise TV may well be thought run by the Evil One, and even many so-called "news" channels push idiotically grinning people obviously in need of a brain slavering over celebrities while the world is going to hell you can’t help but wonder who gave them their jobs and believed they could be taken seriously?

But much of religious TV broadcasting is of Satan in my opinion. To watch the shamelessly embarrassing antics of some of these charlatans is to wonder why God would put up with such fools trying to make God look foolish? Years ago I formed the opinion too many churches were trying to compete with Hollywood, and the result has been an absolute travesty of anything approaching what the churches used to be. However, while "the church in the wildwood" can’t make it to the big time there remains "no place so dear to my childhood."

Teachers can’t win competing with Hollywood and TV, and neither can the churches. The schools are there to teach children, not entertain them. And the same can be said of the churches in respect to their congregations. Like Benjamin Franklin I believe the churches should serve as a moral basis of instruction for people, places where people can gather together to fulfill the need of congregating for the good of society, but never in competition with the theater.

While the Gabriel Tablet is getting some attention those of us with theological backgrounds find no surprises when it comes to either Messianic or resurrection stories. And while my own personal belief is the Bible is true in many instances, that God did in fact speak to some people and the voice of the Lord is heard in those many passages that have the ring of truth to me, I don’t credit the story of the divinity of Jesus above that of all the children of God having that very same divine parentage. I do credit Jesus passed on things he had learned of God, that like some others of the Bible he had a particularly teachable spirit. But I am not about to blame Jesus for the many abuses of religion in his name or for megachurches and TV evangelists.

Sinclair Lewis had fun with those like D. L. Moody and Billy Sunday much as some others did with radio preachers who would tell folks "Put your hand on your radio and be healed," but it was Aimee Semple McPherson, though denied by many, who in my opinion truly fascinated him; so he made Sister Sharon Falconer a fascinating woman. And I always appreciated Lewis’ dedication of Elmer Gantry "to H. L. Mencken, with profound admiration."

Through the many twists and turns of my life I’ve had cause for doubting many things of religion no less than Lewis, but there are some things in the Bible and Nature that proclaim God is, things not bound to any organized religion but common to many people such as myself with no religious affiliation.

But if things continue to become increasingly interesting, things like Israel attacking Iran I won’t be surprised to learn a whole lot of people are going to get religion in a hurry. I just hope it won’t be the religion of politicians and TV hucksters.

Ours may be a privileged planet; intelligent life may yet prove unique to earth. And if so, it might serve well to take heed to the words of Jesus that only a few are going to be saved. Whatever the purpose of God in Creation, it seems it is one that requires only those very special few that live their lives in accordance with the universal gospel that clearly teaches us to honor God in our lives and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Things have really heated up here in Kern County with soaring temps and the fires still burning. Maybe as Rhett suggested to Scarlett there isn’t any hell, but it takes people to make for a living hell on earth. I happen to think such people are the servants of Satan, and if not there is a pretty good chance in my opinion things will turn out that way regardless.

July 7, 2008

Hotter than Bakersfield!

Ask any alcoholic and they will tell you no one can save them but themselves; and not every alcoholic wants to be saved but when it comes to sin many want salvation. It’s the theme not only of the Bible but of some of the greatest writers like Sinclair Lewis. Had he not been able to use this theme to weave his word tapestries like Elmer Gantry he may have remained an unknown. Sin, like sex, sells, and there is always a ready market for stories that emphasize the human propensity for sin. If it were not for sin, the point of many stories like The Scarlet Letter and sermons like those of Jonathan Edwards focusing on hypocrisy would be without basis and many a moral would be wanting.

As I write ashes from the Piute fire are falling about and the smoke is making breathing difficult even for those without respiratory problems. But it brings to mind the phrase hotter than hell, and the forecast is for those high temps so characteristic of Kern County in general and Bakersfield (Bako) in particular of over one-hundred degrees to set in and make life even more uncomfortable for many. However, here in the Kern River Valley we are not experiencing any actual threat of fire as yet and hoping that will remain the case though that phrase hotter than hell is going to be the watchword even here.

But one cannot mention hell without the Devil and sin coming to mind and in one sense we have sin to thank for some of the greatest art and literature including the Bible, and without sin many an artist and writer would have little to work with. After all, it isn’t the milk of human kindness that sells newspapers it is sin in one form or another. The world, the flesh, and the Devil reign supreme over human efforts to shed light on the path of humankind, frustrating the efforts of the noblest working for peace because while fools make a mock at sin there are many of them making a profit by it.

It is a mistake to sell the Devil short; he isn’t stupid and he isn’t a caricature running around in a red union suit with horns, tail, and a pitchfork. He could hardly have earned the title Arch Deceiver and be so ridiculous or easily discerned. According to the Bible he was created a beautiful angel but fell from his place of honor through his pride, and if the serpent in The Garden the most beautiful and intelligent of creatures. At that, it seems from the book of Job he is included among the sons of God and even Michael the archangel had to treat him with respect according to the passage in Jude. I’ve always believed it was a particular stroke of genius placing that brief but very powerful epistle just before Revelation.

When some deride me for being a well educated man but believing Satan is real, I need only point to the art and literature by some of the most gifted and greatest minds believing the same thing to silence naysayers. It might be truthfully said the Devil is more real to many people from the lowest to highest rank than God; or rather more personal since so many feel their connection to the Devil a closer relationship, a point made in the film Tombstone when Kurt Russell sees the part of the Devil in Faust was played by the beautiful girl and says in amazement "I’ll be damned," and Val Kilmer replies "You may indeed; if you’re lucky." Sin and sex; remarkable, really, how the two seem conjoined as though to validate the story of The Fall and its consequences.

But after all the jokes have been told and all the fun poked Satan is the one left laughing and there are the wars of men while women try to make homes, the fact the greatest nation in history, America, refuses to protect children from the monsters of Satan preying on them, too many of our legislators and judges chosen by the Evil One loosing such monsters time after time to continue their depredations against children. If for no other reason than this I would find sufficient ground to confirm my belief Satan is real. And if that generation of children without natural affection, children acting out the role of demons rather than humans is a sign of the End Times it does seem America is bent on producing such a generation of children. And since the children of a nation are its future, this causes me to have a grave foreboding about the future of America.

Walt Kelly enjoyed poking fun at organized religion and had the Fox, Seminole Sam, pointing out the Devil was where the real money was to be made. While there is a lot of money to be made in religion, Walt knew it was the Devil’s work to profit from religion. Walt may have credited the words of Jesus that the children of God are not in the "business" of religion; that the real prophets do not purport to speak for God on the one hand while faring sumptuously and accumulating gold and mansions on the other. Too many of these servants of the Lord are no better than Tom Lehrer’s Old Dope Peddler.

A hierarchy and council of gods as one might assume from the beginning chapters of Genesis and in Job is anathema to monotheistic religions, and yet I’m more inclined to the pantheon of the Egyptians and Greeks with this reservation: A Supreme Deity may well be the ultimate Creator of the universe and giver of life while at the same time allowing for the creation of lesser deities and some of these mixing with humankind in some fashion. And from the Biblical stories and some other mythologies something went horribly wrong, and it became hell on earth ever since.

But given the very strangeness of the universe and the mysteries right here on our own planet there is room for speculation of great variety including gods and goddesses, demons and angels, and no one person or organization has a monopoly on such speculation. And while the Bible prompts much speculation much of even the most fantastic variety is provoked and arises from the discoveries of science.

July 5, 2008

Where would Jesus begin cleansing the Temple today?

Even if the Ethiopian can’t change his skin as stated by Jeremiah, the question is would he want to? Barack Hussein Obama meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates and tells him he was the first Negro President of the U. S. St. Peter asks him when that happened and Obama replies, "About twenty minutes ago."

You know you shouldn’t laugh at such a thing, and some wanting to dance on the grave of Jesse Helms believe the story about Obama meeting St. Peter would be characteristic of the late and not everywhere lamented senator. But over the years I have taken a lot of criticism as a Caucasian for expressing my opinion the seed of America’s destruction was sown in slavery, for expressing my opinion that I believed Benjamin Franklin who I think was every bit as prescient as Emerson foresaw this very danger to America when he attempted to have slavery abolished by our Constitution.

I wonder if the same people consigning Helms to the outer reaches of perdition will have the same attitude to the Newsweek article Blackout? "Despite Italian Vogue's recent black issue, the international fashion world still prefers white skin. In a tidy piece of cultural synchronicity, last month saw both the arrival of the latest issue of Italian Vogue, which exclusively features black models, and the debut in earnest of Barack Obama's presidential campaign as the Democratic nominee. Race has been a singularly polarizing, and thus creatively compelling, issue for centuries, but Obama's emergence onto the national and international stage has brought the topic out from the shadows. Sadly, in the modeling industry, attitudes about race aren't nearly as progressive as they appear to be in the political world. Italian Vogue's initiative has prompted some industry dialogue about why black models remain marginalized, but the issue runs across the entire color spectrum, affecting more than just black people. In the fashion circuit of cities like New York, Paris and Milan, or extended to a more international network of major cities like Sao Paulo, Tokyo and Bombay, racism is alive and well. Despite vastly different cultural and geographic contexts, and the unique physical characteristics of each country's citizens, in most places, light is still right…"

Sigh. There is no getting around it. While Obama gets all the favorable press his wife will remain a major obstacle. It is true that politics is about perception but this is nothing compared to what people perceive as beauty, and the standard of beauty is as the article states "in most places, light is still right." It is Fay Wray in King Kong and in every Hollywood production and even in other nations throughout the world, that beautiful light skinned women of whatever race is the standard of beauty when it comes to perception. Despite all the university spawned political correctness and racist hyphenation the perception of beauty remains light skinned.

Are the sons of Ham truly cursed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, or are we what we are solely by accident of birth alone? Was it fated the nations of Western Civilization, light skinned, largely Christian and Bible oriented were to accomplish the greatest advances in science and the arts while the dark skinned continued in barbarism? Or are these things only a matter of the accidents of birth and geography? Whatever one’s thoughts, there can be no dismissing reputedly the wisest man of his time, Benjamin Franklin, while at the same time attempting to have slavery abolished by our Constitution continued to prevail on others of the Founding Fathers to look to God for guidance and encouraged prayer in all their decisions; though in my opinion they failed to find the proper guidance from on high in respect to slavery. Then again, I wonder if this issue ever entered into their prayers? I would guess not.

Lincoln had the good sense to pronounce he did not know which side God was on during the attempt at national suicide, but he also expressed wonder that Negro leaders would refuse his offer of relocation choosing rather to remain in a country where they would never be considered the equal of Caucasians. But by this time it was too late, and in the relatively short time between "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" and Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin with its aftermath that seed of slavery had become a harvest of evil disaster for America.

A house divided cannot stand; but Lincoln’s War only exacerbated the house divided ignoring the fact that Jesus was referring to Satan who was not divided against himself. But the seed of the evils of slavery had been sown throughout America and neither a Civil War nor all the laws since have been able to get rid of the resulting weeds in our garden. And only the angels of God are going to be able to separate the good fruit from the tares the Evil One has sown in the night.

Some were amazed and asked "Is Saul also among the prophets?" and when Jeremiah Wright pronounced "The chickens are coming home to roost" perhaps he also prophesied better than he knew. If one sows the wind, only a whirlwind can be the expected harvest. Our own Supreme Court has played the role of Devil’s Advocate in pronouncing equality by laws that can never be achieved in reality, but has rather resulted in the making of classes of professional victims throughout America.

Earl Warren did not have to live with the chaos resulting from desegregation; he and the rest of the court would continue to live opulent lives of privilege protected and separated from the realities that it was only to be expected Negro children would find the Caucasian doll the prettiest. Children in the nations of Africa would have made the same choice as the Newsweek article Blackout emphasizes. The cited irreparable harm had already been done with the introduction of Negro slavery and what Brown v Board of Education did was prompt what became known as white flight and hasten the whirlwind. Today, the schools throughout the inner cities of America are filled with violence as I know from personal experience, the dropout rates are catastrophic and little in the way of educational goals is being met. In far too many cases there is no father in the homes of these children and the attitude toward and the treatment of them is that of their being human weeds.

Open borders and globalization is all about slave labor. Those in our government and their corporate bosses refuse to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor from Mexico. And no matter who becomes our next president this situation is not going to change.

When I ask myself who is behind all the violence and perversion being flaunted on TV and by Hollywood, what motivates legislators and judges to protect the monsters that prey on women and children the only satisfactory answer I can come up with is Satan. I credit the stories in the Bible to be drawn from facts in many instances. Among these is war in the heavens brought to earth, an enmity between the Evil One and his followers against the children of God and this accounting for the prevalence of evil throughout all of human history.

America has been an aberration in many ways, a success story unparalleled in history. But believing as I do that our nation is the Babylon of Revelation I conclude the seed of our destruction bringing us to this tragic and prophetic end was sown in slavery. Being of sound mind I cannot but hope I am wrong; but being of sound mind I cannot dismiss the signs of the times, and in my opinion these do not bode well for America. Perhaps this is because I cannot help but see the irony in those words at the beginning of our Declaration of Independence knowing such fine words crediting the historical caveats chose to ignore the realities of which I believe Benjamin Franklin was aware, and it would be interesting for me to know where Jesus would begin cleansing the Temple today?

July 1, 2008

Orbs and Butterflies

There is a reason for stars, planets, baseballs and marbles being spheres, but when Emerson wrote his fascinating essay Circles he didn’t know about plasma life forms though Mel Gibson may have been aware of them. However, I’ve always credited Emerson with his towering intellect having a degree of prescience about many things and he was certainly aware of crystal balls which may have had their origin in the plasma life forms as spheres being studied by physicists while those involved with metaphysics know them as paranormal orbs. And perhaps what existed as the seed of the universe was an orb.

Plasma Life Forms - Spheres, Blobs, Orbs and Subtle Bodies by Jay Alfred, Life-Like Qualities of Plasma will leave some people numb trying to absorb the possibilities, since any study of such things is not only steeped in physics but metaphysics as well. Mention of transparent and translucent orbs is to be found in ancient texts as well as more contemporary literature often described as behaving like intelligent entities and have a history of appearing in photographs. I recall someone sending me copy of a photo in which three small orbs appeared looking like soap bubbles that she said were not seen when she snapped the picture. Since she was a professional photographer I had no reason to doubt her story, especially since such occurrences are so commonplace. And no, not all are the result of indulging in magic mushrooms.

Now I do have my Val Saint Lambert crystal frog, but it just doesn’t seem to have the essential characteristics needed for scrying. It just sits there with nary even a ribbit out of the critter, and despite the reputation of crystal skulls I believe nothing can take the place of a crystal ball. I’ve checked out the various purveyors of crystal balls online and haven’t quite made up my mind yet whether to purchase one, my frog having failed to deliver.

Wonderful SciFi classic; The Blob, and I still enjoy it for the classic it is. But the actual physics and metaphysics would have orbs being more likely than some gooey substance; however an orb would not have fit the plot so well. Yet the science being brought to bear on the idea that life began on earth as energized orbs is absolutely fascinating, as is an electrical charge used for in vitro fertilization:

"During in vitro fertilization the human embryo is given an electrical jolt to spark-off cell division. The purpose of this routine electrical intervention is not known. All is known is that cell division is unlikely to occur in the absence of this electrical intervention. According to plasma metaphysics (Our Invisible Bodies, 2006), this electrical spark is necessary to generate a plasma bubble which acts as a catalyst during embryogenesis. Unlike a biomolecular environment, a plasma environment allows long-range correlations, without which a 3 dimensional structure could not be projected from a 1 dimensional gene. An embryo within a human body is protected by the plasma bubble (i.e. the physical-etheric double) of the mother and inherits a bubble within this environment. (In this process, it acquires what the Qigong literature refers to as ‘prenatal qi’.)"

Fascinating, especially "The purpose of this routine electrical intervention is not known." Those of us who credit the Bible story of Creation being drawn from facts have no trouble with the claim that God is a spirit, that the spirit of God energizes life, is in fact the source of all life. My own thought of the soul not being formed at birth but needs to be nourished and tended like a seed has its basis in distinguishing between spirit and soul, that while the soul that sins may die the spirit does not but continues in continuity with God our Creator. That some such spirits may take the form of orbs that have been observed here on earth is still the stuff of the metaphysical and paranormal, but scientists are doing some remarkable research and making some astounding discoveries about orbs that hold some hope of bringing these studies and beliefs together.

As to the soul, I’ve always liked John Wayne’s line in The Shootist "My soul is what I’ve made of it." But it takes time to grow a soul in my opinion, just as it does any earthly plant. There may be an age of accountability based on this growth of the soul. And the monsters among us that prey on women and children may be satanic creatures without a soul. I do believe Satan exists, and I believe he plants his seeds of evil as Jesus described in the Parable of the Tares. In supposing such a thing I admit to believing the germ of life can be satanic in some instances.

Whatever happened that became the story of The Fall in Genesis there is no mistaking the curse came down particularly hard on women. And if that old serpent in The Garden was the Devil, he seems to take particular delight in targeting women. I just wonder, for example, if Mortimer Adler looked at the paucity of women in the U. N. and decided if they were not found worthy of leadership and representation there why should they be represented in The Great Books?

Whatever it is that energizes life and departs at death is beyond our present state of science to identify and explain. But great scientists of imagination like Michio Kaku encourage me that answers may be forthcoming, though with this caveat: There remain things in the universe not only unknown, but perhaps unknowable. However, I believe scientists may have to become more open minded concerning things like paranormal orbs and crop circles. We simply do not know what energy is, we do not understand the forms it takes or how the universe holds together. There is this thing called gravity, but we do not know what it is.

No one can dispute the observation by Jesus that it is impossible by some exercise of the mind to add an inch to our height, but with the increasing power of computers his comment that the very hairs of our head are numbered by God, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without it being known by God becomes quite believable.

In my opinion the knowledge of many things of ancient people could not have been gained by observation alone anymore than one of them could add an inch to their height by an exercise of the mind. They could not have discovered iron and learned to work it by either accident or observation. The constellations and planets could not be discerned by their unaided eyes no matter how long they stared at the heavens. Knowing this I conclude the knowledge of the ancients was gained by revelation of some kind from some unknown source much as we find in the Bible concerning certain things.

As heretical as it is I do not believe the greatest of scientific discoveries like those of Kepler and Newton came by their unaided genius; I believe they came by these monumental ideas through revelation. And I ask myself, to what purpose these revelations from whatever source? The world continues to be filled with evil and violence and the greatest of our scientific achievements have not solved the problems of evil and violence. We have the knowledge to destroy ourselves, but lack the wisdom to save ourselves.

For some of us the last chapter of the Bible suffices to assure us all turns out well in the end. But in the meantime here in the Kern River Valley we not only have the annual Turkey Vulture Count, we have an annual Butterfly Count also. While the vultures serve a utilitarian purpose in nature, I think I will just sit back and enjoy the butterflies for a while. And should I happen to see one in an orb I don’t believe I’ll be all that surprised. After all, both seem quite reasonable as expressions of God and I never ask myself, why the butterflies? I simply take delight in them. I can’t do anything about the huge plume of smoke from the fire south of me here in Bodfish; I can’t put out the fire. But I take encouragement from the butterflies; that beauty will prevail over ugliness in the end.

June 28, 2008

The Vultures are Circling

Beaky Buzzard is a great favorite of mine, and I still enjoy that marvelous first cartoon appearance of his with Bugs Bunny. It isn’t often Bugs gets upstaged, but Beaky managed to do it. Despite the smoky haze the wonderfully warm weather drew me outside early this morning where I could enjoy the wonders of nature of my surroundings in this part of the Sequoia National Forest. But as the cat and I were basking in the warmth of the balmy summer morning I noticed the Turkey Vultures circling overhead.

The Kern River Valley boasts a nature preserve that draws birders worldwide, and is also the Butterfly Mecca of California. But we also have an annual Turkey Vulture count, and here in Bodfish Canyon where I live the sky overhead has been darkened by as many as 200 of the critters circling in a bunch all at the same time as though orchestrated by some master choreographer.

Now I grant you the spectacle of vultures circling overhead brings to mind many a scenario, and what with earthquakes, floods, fires, and drought I can’t help but consider these winged scavengers and what they represent of death and destruction. Poe had his Raven and we have plenty of those here in the valley as well; but as a sure indicator of the presence of death though Hitchcock didn’t use them the vultures are the most significant sign of such. While Poe could hardly have written such a masterpiece using a vulture they remind me of Ben Franklin wanting the wild turkey to be our national bird. Fortunately in this particular instance despite Ben’s genius and practical bent he was outvoted. While turkeys are a valued food item even my own Indian ancestors sang the praises of eagles as a symbol rather than turkeys notwithstanding Ben and T. R.

But as I watched the vultures circling overhead this morning I was reminded once again of something Henry Thoreau wrote: "There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion." Henry was making direct reference to the evil arising from the unintended consequences of those forcing their view of what is best on others not like minded and "would rather suffer evil the natural way." Nature does indeed provide vultures whose purpose is to cleanse the earth of carrion, but we seek in vain for the vultures that would cleanse humankind of the divine carrion of tainted goodness.

No one for example of any noble character wants to be a politician. Like lawyers in too many instances the role of a politician is that of Henry’s goodness tainted, divine carrion the stench of which reaches everywhere but without the benefit of Nature’s vultures to cleanse away the filth. So it is that as I watch the circling vultures here in Bodfish Canyon I’m reminded they still represent Nature’s way of dealing with carrion, and cannot help wondering if Nature herself has had it with our species defiling our planet? As a metaphor, I see the vultures circling everywhere and just waiting for the moment to descend when the stench of death has reached Biblical proportions.

There is an old hymn we used to sing in our small church in Little Oklahoma that goes "How beautiful heaven must be." Considering the plight of our species and how we have fouled our own nest, it isn’t any wonder some of us are longing for a promised heaven in a hereafter we are not likely to ever experience on earth. It seems there are just too many descending on us promising to do us good, insisting on doing us their idea of good from whom we should flee as quickly as Henry claimed he would from such persons, knowing they represent divine carrion, goodness tainted by such people demanding we all become part of their odd society.

It may be there are vultures circling ready to pick the bones of America and there is nothing I can do about that, but I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I am going to enjoy what I can of summer’s warmth here in the Kern River Valley; I am going to enjoy watching the vultures circling overhead, the butterflies, quail, doves, hummingbirds and others of my feathered friends, the numerous lizards frolicking among the rocks and count my blessings I am able to enjoy these companions in such a setting.

June 26, 2008

Books and Writing

As though the usual world class air pollution was not bad enough in Kern County smoke from the many fires is hanging heavy in the air here in the Kern River Valley making it hazardous for young and old alike. Fortunately feeding myself and the resident cat is the extent of the essential exertion I face and I’m reminded it took a leisure class to produce the great works of literature. But whether such leisure is had by poverty or wealth a good education and a mastery of language, the skills and discipline of writing remains essential.

It used to be that a library of finely bound books of great literature was the hallmark of a civilized society, and for those of us born to read before the advent of TV books were our path to imagination and adventure lifting us out of the ordinary affairs of day to day living, and in some cases delivering souls from desperate poverty. Benjamin Franklin was a man of great genius, and in his genius recognized the need of a public library in order to make books available to those who could not afford them. Alas, the libraries of America have fallen on hard times due to electronics and illiteracy and this generation does not cherish books the way past generations of Americans did.

People interested in writing today should read the interview of Harper Lee by Roy Newquist. Her remarks are a scathing indictment on the lack of writing skills and the teaching of these in the universities over forty years ago, and the situation has only worsened since. When I wrote my critique of To Kill A Mockingbird I had the benefit of knowing the era and the kind of people Ms. Lee wrote about. And while derided by many, I have a beautiful cameo embossed and gilded rare copy of Thomas Nelson Page’s IN OLE VIRGINIA, and most of the great southern writers knew his work well though as the years passed many would become increasingly circumspect about even mentioning the name of Page let alone familiarity with his writings.

When I began teaching in the 60s I became quickly aware of the coming slide into illiteracy due to the very things Rousas Rushdoony pointed out in Intellectual Schizophrenia and Harper Lee mentioned in her interview, things she undoubtedly knew were not going to be corrected, things that despite the Blue Book A Nation at Risk would become increasingly worse in the universities and their product schools of America. It was while teaching a graduate class of prospective teachers, all university graduates with their B.A.s in hand none of whom could write a paper worthy of a college freshman I knew there was little hope of improvement.

Here is a continuing source of consternation when it comes to literature. To my utter amazement when the first edition of the Great Books of the Western World came out not one single woman was included! And despite the sop to women in the second edition, one must read Mortimer Adler’s justification for the exclusion of women to fully appreciate what the thinking of Adler and the committee was that led to the exclusion of women entirely from that first edition; quite remarkable, really. And all you ladies, you owe it to yourselves to familiarize yourselves with this.

Gerry Trudeau had quite a bit of fun satirizing the common thinking of men during colonial times in America that the minds of women were too weak for the classics of literature. But here is Henry Thoreau’s comment: "Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations… By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last." And given the admiration Margaret Fuller was accorded by transcendentalist luminaries of her time it is doubtful any thought a woman too weak minded for the classics of literature. While Mortimer Adler didn’t come right out and say such a thing, he may as well have.

You see, I was raised with the books by Stratton-Porter and other gifted women writers. I was fortunate my reading was not confined to male authors, but included women as well. However, as Harper Lee pointed out writing was falling to an abysmal level in America and though hers became known as The Novel of the Century it must be admitted there are women whose writings are as dreadful as those of some men.

Good writing, great writing has everything to do with the advancement of a civilized culture and a civilized society. TV supplanting literature has not contributed to a civilized America but quite the contrary. And it did not take the kind of vulgarity that began to creep into American writing that made the greatest of literary works what they were and continue to be as "the treasured wealth of the world."

Literature as the symbol of a nation must be the very best. And while America has such a great heritage of literature this has been squandered to the vulgar tastes of an increasingly barbaric nation that has left off the good manners and civilized speech that used to qualify the best of literature that is now mocked in the universities of America and our schools. For my part, I want the realism of Stratton-Porter’s Limberlost, Ingalls’ and Cather’s Prairie as opposed to the kind of violent, vulgar, profane and perverted realism in which America and the world is drowning.

There is no denying the benefits of books that have stirred social conscience and led to the redress of righteous grievances. But neither is there any denying the need of books that make their own unique contributions to a healthy mind, a mind in which imagination, hopes and dreams find a safe harbor apart from violence and barbarism and encourages civilized, proper speech and behavior. Somewhere there must be room left for idealism in the face of pragmatism, and the best books keep such ideals alive long past the lives of their authors.

June 24, 2008

Powerful Symbols

Moby Dick was very poorly written and John Steinbeck was a fraud. That these opinions of mine did not set well with some of my instructors as a literature major you may be able to imagine and caused me no little grief. But as to Steinbeck, my contributions to the Weedpatch Memorial Library pretty well covers my disaffection with his view of the Dust Bowl migration and the way his socialist views obscured what was really happening. For people who know nothing about life in the camps of that era and among people like the Joads but want to pontificate on the subject much in the way of the myth of the noble savage, I can only say you must know that kind of poverty without the benefit of Steinbeck’s silver spoon pedigree to understand.

Socialism has often proven to be the siren call to those who find it so easy to be on the side of the angels, as they construe such beings, while ignoring the grim realities of life. It is for this reason the universities are filled with those out of touch with reality even from the time of Emerson that know very little about such grim realities but taut socialism and have earned the pejorative appellation Ivory Tower.

These days what with socialism so well entrenched in the universities, their product schools, and throughout America and virtually half of Americans feeding at Caesar’s table drawing a government check in some fashion it has become downright heretical to speak against the early socialists like Steinbeck that promoted the idea everyone was owed a living rather than earning a paycheck. Utopian ideals were placed in the hands of politicians who promised everyone a chicken in every pot and a living without having to earn their own way, and those that took advantage of the ignorance and desperation of the Dust Bowl migrants were easy targets of socialists like Steinbeck. It’s easy to hate those that take advantage of others, but not so easy to place blame on those who look to politicians to take from the productive to feed the unproductive.

My having been born in Weedpatch some of my earliest memories include bigotry, prejudice, and what the insults Okie and white trash meant. In too many instances of my own personal experience such insults were all too well earned, and the myth of the noble savage as abused by Steinbeck had no place among those who had to root hog or die, though the best of southern civilized good manners were still to be found. But the false idealism advanced by socialists and the universities through pandering politicians has brought us to the place we are today, a place where slave labor from Mexico is used for "Work Americans won’t do!"

It was easy for Henry Thoreau to fault those that built pyramids for "some ambitious booby" calling such workers "degraded," and to compare such an Egyptian temple to the United States Bank. "It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter." To bring Henry’s estimate up to date, we must include beer as well. Henry went on to say, "For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them,—who were above such trifling."

But trade cursing everything it touches, as Henry pointed out, and when there is a living to be made people adjust to whatever is required of them. Henry’s fault was in failing to acknowledge the fact that people "degrade" themselves to menial tasks when there is no other way of putting food on their tables. He was astute enough to plant beans, to learn what beans could teach him when it came to providing the necessities of life but was not himself in danger of starving whether he planted beans or not. And that is a very significant difference, the kind of difference that made Steinbeck a fraud.

If our measure of success as a nation is that Steinbeck’s success has been the supplanting of Okies with Mexican slave labor from which he and his family profited then where is the advantage to America? As a symbol, The Grapes of Wrath aided in large part by the film was spectacularly successful. That these are socialist propaganda conveniently sidesteps the larger issues of what has taken the place of honest labor Americans not only used to do, but is now denied them by welfare or the inability to speak Spanish.

Nothing can take away from Steinbeck’s honor due his artistic ability as evidenced by both his Pulitzer and Nobel. As a lover of great literature, as a writer and author I fully appreciate his artistry and find no fault in that. But I’m acutely aware of the prevailing attitude of the better classes of Steinbeck’s era, one in which socialism was gaining in strength advanced by the universities of America. But today, I think of Al Gore’s praise by the very same kind of people who were heaping praise on Steinbeck. Al has both an Oscar and a Nobel, but these do not make him an honorable or truthful man cleaving steadfastly to the truth.

As those on the side of the angels sing the praises of the dignity of labor while damning the exploiters of the common man, I’m reminded of the German fellow I knew while working as a machinist that told me, "We were starving until Hitler came to power; and when he took over we had meat and potatoes."

There has never been a more successful symbol of power than that of Hitler’s design of the black, white, and red Swastika flag that even today evokes a visceral response in anyone seeing it. No one of any sensibility would compare such a symbol equated with the ruthless power of evil to The Grapes of Wrath or An Inconvenient Truth. But when any symbol comes to represent "vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter" it serves us well to question the value and aim of such a symbol and question the real motives of those bestowing the honors on the creators of such symbols.

June 22, 2008

Life Becomes Increasingly Uncertain

When a young fellow back in the 60s came to school and tried to check his gun in at the front office while he attended classes and wanted to pick it up after school so he could protect himself on the way back home, from the reaction of the principal you would have thought he was making an unreasonable request. For my part, I thought it quite admirable the young fellow was even trying to attend school under the circumstances. These days, when the young people are carrying guns to school they aren’t as courteous as this young fellow was.

One reason, and a considerable one, that I was able to make it at David Starr Jordan High in Watts during the 60s was my reputation as a skilled gunsmith. I usually knew who was carrying and who was not at the school, and sometimes my expertise was needed in some rather clandestine fashion that while undoubtedly still going on in some inner city schools seldom make any headlines. The greater problem is that our schools are supposed to be the bulwark against a descent into all out barbarism; and the schools, particularly those of the inner cities are being asked to do the impossible in the face of so much against them not the least of which is the threat of lawsuits from every direction.

I was teaching metal shop as well as working security for the L. A. City Schools, but it was my ability to teach the young people how to operate machinery, to do welding and foundry work, all the metalworking skills, useful skills that made me both accepted and respected. Things were always a little different in Watts, as some in the Firestone Division of South Central L. A. from those days could tell you. And given the environment, that young fellow with the gun was acting sensibly being armed though some might fault his judgment in trying to check his gun in at the office.

Of course I know how fanciful such a story sounds. But it was one of the reasons I used to tell people "Things aren’t as bad as you think in the schools; they are far worse!" Coming from industry into education I saw things from a considerably different perspective than most teachers going through the system directly into the classroom and never having punched a clock for a living. And what I saw was something I began to realize even back in the 60s when it came to education: A system for failure could not have been better designed had it been done intentionally! And I knew what I was experiencing in Watts at the time was bound to eventually infect schools across the country. Not only in terms of drugs and violence, but in dropout rates and illiteracy as well. But I also came to realize the fundamental problem in the universities responsible for education in America was impervious to any change for the better.

However, that was Watts; and all that most of the country knew about that community was from the riots with the senseless violence and destruction born of anger and despair being shown on their TV screens while Ozzie and Harriet was on another channel. Who was going to speak up about the impossible odds the children and the schools in that area were facing? There was no political incentive to do so, and every reason politically to keep quiet and the job of the schools in that part of Los Angeles was to just try to keep the lid on because of all the violence. Now gentle readers, do you suppose things are any better in the schools of the inner cities these many years later?

This morning I read an article at MSNBC where the writer is asking whether things in America are spiraling out of control? It’s increasingly obvious no one seems to be minding the store, but this should have been obvious back in the 60s. Mulholland Falls is one of my favorite films, faithful in the details to what I recall of that era when the L.A.P.D. took care of business as portrayed. But the F.B.I. as portrayed in the film, ah, I understand the Chief’s attitude toward that agency because that’s the way things were back then in the 50s. However, it didn’t get any better for the F.B.I. in the 60s despite the propaganda like Mississippi Burning.

Along with a young man wanting to check in his gun at the school office, how is this for surreal? My being a Caucasian teacher in Watts made me unusual to say the least. But here come two young men, Caucasians, dressed in three piece suits and wearing hats, F.B.I. agents coming on campus asking to speak to me in private. These two were right out of the film Mulholland Falls, and might as well have had F.B.I. stenciled on their suits for the whole campus to see, asking me to tell them if I heard or saw anything that might be of interest to the agency? Talk about making me a target! And it didn’t exactly endear me to administrators and faculty. Ruby Ridge, Waco, these did not surprise me. That neither Janet Reno nor Louis Freeh could even turn on a computer let alone use one didn’t surprise me. The agency did much better in The Pelican Brief, though I doubt if computer literacy and systems have improved all that much.

Problem is we can’t trust those in government to tell us the truth about anything. We hear of potential threats of Armageddon having been averted, things like the various accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis, of how close Russia came one time to launching nukes, and right now the possibility of Israel attacking Iran. What I know is that I’ve experienced so much of the ineptitude and duplicity in government including the educational system, police agencies and government related industries to provide me plenty of cause for concern.

Carlos Castaneda was a pretty popular fellow when I was doing my doctoral work, but then so was Viktor Frankl whom I met at my university where he was a guest lecturer. Both had their own worldview, and each had its attraction though I never credited Castaneda’s personal claims in many instances and voicing my objections led to some spirited debate in a couple of seminars I attended at the time. But each of them seem fanciful in their own way and serve to remind me that the truth is often stranger than fiction.

The point being that when we are being confronted by so much uncertainty, when things seem to be spiraling out of control there is room for both reality and fancy to come together to help us through these very uncertain times. Hopefully we will not lose touch with reality in the process, but why fault anyone for taking the path of fancy when the reality is more than they can handle. If someone’s fancy should take the turn of religion or other similar means of dealing with the ugly and uncertain realities as long as they do not incite hatred or do harm to others they are welcome to do so.

But neither should those compelled to do what they feel they must be faulted for their continued efforts to right the many injustices and inequities of this world system no matter whether they meet with any success in doing so or not just so long as they act from the pure motives they demand of others. I would far rather the guns be checked in at the school office, but so long as there is a need for guns just to attend school we have every reason to be concerned for the direction of America. Things change from any existential mode to grim reality in a heartbeat, but I remind myself allowance must be made for fancy as well if we are to retain any grip on reality.

Mine are only the wonderings and ponderings of an old fellow that has experienced enough of reality, wondering how I have lived so long, to know it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between the lunatics of this world and who really has a grip on reality. But as I view what is happening in America, I have cause to wonder just who our real enemies are? Some are readily identifiable, but I don’t trust our government to tell us who they are.

June 20, 2008

Everyone has to be Somewhere

An anecdote in Reader’s Digest some years ago described a woman who found herself seated next to Bing Crosby on an airliner. Staring at him, the woman exclaimed, "Why, you’re Bing Crosby!" Bing calmly replied, "Well, everyone has to be somewhere." Bing was correct of course; but I find myself asking lately why everyone thinks they have to be in California? So when I read a headline regarding Kern County stating "And now for the bad job news" I realize things are not getting better, but might be some better if there were not so many people living here.

What with all the bad news both here in America and throughout the rest of the world I await the predicted major earthquake that will cause a good part of my native state to be shaken into the Pacific Ocean taking out Frisco, L. A., and Dago and wondering just how bad things can get? Ok; that bad. Might have been better had the Lord a hankering to get the business done during the time of Dana’s recounting his adventures in Two Years Before the Mast. My, but that man could write! He makes you feel and taste the sea and the rime around your mouth as you read that classic of American literature.

But way back in the time of Dana’s classic the west coast was not that populated and the loss would not have been the disaster it would become now. The disasters of the 1906 quake, Katrina, the flooding in the Midwest now will pale if what is forecast for the west coast takes place both in the potential loss of life and financial. But for the millions of us sitting here happy as clams, well, maybe only a couple of clams, such a thing might as well be some horrific SciFi disaster tale. But alas Krakatau was real, Tunguska was real, Myanmar, the list goes on of the catastrophic dangers facing us wherever we dwell on this planet. However, with the many millions now in harm’s way the disasters of the present era take on a greater significance in terms of the loss of life.

As Bing so well said, everyone has to be somewhere. But with the burgeoning billions now inhabiting the world the more desirable places to be are coming at an increasing premium. And while I used to live in Oakland for example I wouldn’t want to live in most of the neighborhoods there. I can say the same for many of the most desirable places throughout the west coast in which I have lived at one time or another but are now gang-ridden and graffiti smeared. If a catastrophic earthquake takes out the west coast haters of America will be dancing in the streets as they did on 9/11; but I wonder if Mexico will sue America over the loss of millions of its citizens here illegally?

Like Lawrence of Arabia in the film, I find the great western deserts desirable because they are "clean," without fences, asphalt, or concrete; just the wide panoramic vistas of the Big Empty’s that I find enchanting and mind expanding. But this has never dulled my senses to the fact that abundant water and greenery are desirable for the mind as well, and most people quite reasonably would prefer Malibu or Tahoe to Death Valley.

But as to everyone having to be somewhere, if threatened by a comet for example and I couldn’t escape I would prefer the end of Richard Crenna and those Indians in the 1978 TV film A Fire in the Sky, just kicking back with a pipe of magic mushroom out in the open desert, watching that comet approach and waiting for the end to come. Now that I think about it, here I am in the Kern River Valley with abundant clean air and water, no traffic congestion, no gangs or drive by shootings, no graffiti and some visitor from one of the congested warrens of L. A. might look about and ask me like Shoeless Joe in Field of Dreams "Am I in heaven?" But now, Kevin Costner wouldn’t want to be in Iowa and The Music Man certainly wouldn’t be getting off the train there. How quickly our circumstances can change from heaven to hell, and even a far less significant earthquake can cause Isabella Dam to break and wipe out the town.

There is enough to worry about these days to satisfy anyone with a bent for gloom and despair, but even if given a normally sunny disposition one can be excused for wondering when the next shoe of disaster will drop here in America? As it is certain items are disappearing from store shelves across the country, and even here in the valley we are experiencing some shortages due to high fuel and food prices. Tomatoes? My, we have every reason to believe the worst of a government that can’t seem to tie its own shoelaces.

My electric bill for last month was $24.16; and that includes the power for my well. No A/C or swamp cooler and living alone with the resident cat does not require the use of much electricity. But I understand the needs of a family with children, and many in such circumstances could not live as simply as I do nor would many wish to. Still, just the high cost of fuel is causing some major readjustments in the lifestyles of millions of Americans, many such things beyond just inconvenience.

Few of us believe any politician is going to offer a cure for what ails America; but what if bread, TP and water to flush toilets become luxuries? Ah, then Americans will be ready for a Messiah to deliver our nation. And few will care whether he is of heaven or hell. Me? I’m now the elderly and somewhat detached observer of events like the price of gas, earthquakes and the floods in the Midwest over which I have no control. But I can’t shake the feeling I’m in somewhat the same position of Richard Crenna and those Indians, even though I haven’t yet seen that comet in the sky. I’ve got the pipe, now all I need is the magic mushrooms and all would be well. As it is, since everyone has to be somewhere I realize the Kern River Valley is a somewhere many would choose if they could and count my blessings accordingly.

June 18, 2008

Gold Fever

It’s very likely while panning a stream and you’re coming up with #8 birdshot and no trace of color you aren’t going to find any amount of gold. We have one of the most marvelous native trout streams here in the Kern River Valley; Bull Run Creek. The largest trout I’ve pulled out of this pristine, mountain stream weighed five-pounds, but the biggest I hooked and lost raised a rooster tail nearly two-feet high with my line sawing through the water as it made its run through one of the deeper pools and dislodged the hook before I could lessen the drag on my reel.

In 1969 I filed on an old lode silver mine up the stream, not with the intention of working it but to try to keep it from being trashed while also keeping the trail open for forestry and other avid fishermen like me. I had first learned of the mine and the stream from an old fellow that came by our cabin one day in 1949. When he discovered my interest in fishing, he drew a rough map of how to get there and I had been fishing it ever since until I was no longer able to make the hike.

Years ago forestry put a gate at the end of the pavement of Burlando Road, for which I was grateful. Any place easy to get to in nature is inevitably going to be trashed, and the entry to Bull Run was showing evidence of this when the lake went in and the population here in the valley began to increase.

There is an old saying; Gold is where you find it. I’ve done enough prospecting to learn the truth of this. But the beauty of Bull Run Creek had always been gold enough for me; the natural and unspoiled trout stream in a wilderness environment is something no amount of gold can buy. Fishing such a stream is time not subtracted from our natural span, and I often think of the judge who when asked why he spent so much time fishing replied, "Because it keeps me mindful of how very unimportant so many things in life really are."

To lie beside Bull Run Creek at night taking in the scent of the surrounding forest while a light evening breeze soughs through pine needles, listening to the stream and viewing the stars overhead unaffected by any extraneous manmade light is to see and experience heaven in its real glory so far as we earthbound creatures can do so. But I was to learn not everybody is sensitive to such glory, and one instance of this left an indelible impression on me.

A young fellow who wanted to go fishing with me at Bull Run also wanted to learn how to pan. So, along with the fishing gear I packed a couple of my gold pans. I knew there wasn’t much chance of finding gold in Bull Run, but this young fellow was anxious to try his hand at panning.

Arriving at one of the more beautiful spots in the stream where there was a goodly amount of black sand I showed him the fine art of working the pan. But to my consternation all thought of fishing, all thought of the surrounding beauty of our environment was lost to this young fellow as he spent the hours in a vain attempt to find some gold. To this day the mental image of this young fellow wading in the pristine, crystal clear water of this marvelous stream working that pan and wasting the precious hours of the day remains vividly with me, and I realized gold fever isn’t caught only by the sight of gold, but the hope of it as well.

There is many a homily to be drawn from this story, and over the years I have done so. One of the things that makes life a living hell on earth is the fact where people don’t care about the environment you will find trash. If there had been gold in Bull Run, it is doubtful it would remain the beautiful trout stream it is today. But when a nation is producing millions of unproductive mouths demanding to be fed, eventually the beauty of places like Bull Run will be sacrificed by politicians.

I’m all for the present demand for drilling for oil that will meet our needs. Other nations are not going to care for the environment no matter how green America tries to be. That pragmatic part of me realizes the futility of trying to save the planet when it has so many unproductive mouths demanding to be fed, when politicians, tyrants and despots are determined on their paths of power and wealth. But when you cram people together like rats you have to expect some to behave like rats.

I realize our species is not on the path to heaven being the global environment. But it’s the relentless gold fever of so many that seems to be pushing our species to extinction all the while the real gold of our planet is being sacrificed to greed and the kind of ignorance that makes slaves of billions. I’ve experienced Norman Rockwell’s America and I’ve experienced Bull Run Creek, and it would be a poor trade for the selfish interests of politicians and their corporate bosses to prevail over these. But the best of what our planet has to offer can only be saved through the cooperation of nations, and given our track record as a species this doesn’t look promising.

June 16, 2008

A Personal Note about Floods

An article I wrote about the local flood of February, 1998 that puts things in some perspective for me:

Well, we've been getting our share of water here in the Kern River Valley and it finally flooded. But not the flooding so many others are suffering. Snow surrounds the Valley and it's cold. Don't like the cold. I was eight days without propane, so no heat and the temperature went down to 27 degrees one night. That's cold for an old fellow. So I bundled like an Eskimo and spent a lot of time under my electric blanket reading and being grateful the power hadn't failed. A small electric heater at my desk enabled me to continue writing. Last winter I spent three weeks stranded by snow in Tahoe. This year I get flooded here in Bodfish.

It all started with some relatively heavy rain that caused comparatively minor inconveniences like a huge boulder, about 200 tons, that decided to cut loose and blocked the canyon to Bakersfield for two days until it could be drilled and blasted to clear the road. The rains create some interesting situations; and some tragic ones as well.

The only modest catastrophe I suffered physically during this early period of the rains was falling off a ladder while repairing a rain gutter. Of lesser damage to me was an incident that occurred while emptying the sump at my back door. This catches run-off and has to be emptied periodically. While performing this operation, the bottom of the plastic pail I was using decided to detach itself and I managed with superior skill and cunning to direct the contents of the bucket into my shoes. Once I had performed the appropriate rain-dance accompanied by the proper incantations directed at the perversity of the gods of El Nino and plastic pails (thankfully no women or children were about), I looked around at the snow-covered mountains and decided it shouldn't be so surprising the water in my shoes had the effect of soaking my feet in a very large, thoroughly and properly chilled martini (sans olive).

Through all the inconveniences (mostly the result of personal stupidity) to me I'm reminded that they are only that; inconveniences. I'm always sensitive to the difference between trying to decide what you're going to eat and whether you're going to have anything to eat, of having to fix the leaks in the roof and not having a roof to fix.

Well, early afternoon of February 23 changed things considerably. Bodfish got a taste of real flooding. It came like a flash flood down the canyon without warning. It was exactly as though a dam had suddenly burst up the canyon, and I had about twenty minutes to get what I could off the floor before the water began to enter the cottage. Within a half-hour, I had nearly five inches of water filling the house and still coming through both the back and front doors. I left them open in case I had to beat a hasty retreat.

But driving out, even had I been inclined to do so, was made quickly impossible with the river that was now so suddenly raging through my front yard and down Bodfish Canyon Road. But by the grace of God, so I believed, I never lost electricity. There were some extension cords and three breaker strips I quickly got off the floor. I missed the one in my bedroom, but when I had re-wired the house I had wired the bedroom circuit to the bathroom outlet and installed a groundfault breaker. When the water hit the extension cord plug, the breaker kicked out and saved that situation. Whew!

I watched anxiously as the water cut channels on both sides of my well. If the river carried away the pressure tank I would be in some real hurt due to the loss of fresh water, though I did keep a couple of gallons on standby at all times. A box of approximately 50 LPs had to sit it out on the floor. No time left and no place to put it out of the water— Shoes on the floor of the closet and under my bed; too late for those. The vacuum cleaner: too late and no place for that.

The water reached the coil of the refrigerator. Unplug that; same with the washer and dryer. Turn off the gas to the water heater, heater and stove. I had moved books and a couple of dozen items. A whole set of Britannica had to be placed above the water along with other books, various boxes of papers, stationary, etc. The bottom drawers of my filing cabinets; it was a frantic race against the rapidly rising water. In retrospect, I'm amazed I saved what I did.

By sunset, I'm in my recliner watching TV. The weather news is vitally important now. Stupidly, I didn't have any waders. I've been doing all this in the frigid water in my bare feet with my pants rolled up to my knees. I have an electric heater on the coffee table next to the chair. I put my ice-cold feet right up against the heater.

I think about the miraculous survival of some people who have lived through hypothermia, even while submersed in freezing water in Alaska, by the mechanism of their minds; truly mind over matter. The Will to Live is only a label, it doesn't explain anything. Perhaps, like prayer, God holds conversations with us through our minds. Perhaps it is Him, not ourselves, who carries us through such things. Certainly I credit God for carrying me through many a crisis. I can't quite believe it is only my strong will and mind (pigheadedness or stubbornness) that has saved me in such events.

As my feet gradually warm, I begin to take stock as I watch the rising water. It has reached the bottom fabric of the chair. Will it gradually reach high enough to saturate it and I can no longer sit in it?

By nightfall, the water is nearly seven inches high moving through the house. A couple of emergency workers, fire department, come sloshing into the house. Do I want to be evacuated? No. But I ask them if they happen to have a spare pair of wading boots? No. At this point, I'm willing to pay anything for a pair of waders. They would have spent $3,000 of taxpayer money relocating me to a shelter, but couldn’t give me a $20 pair of waders. Our government at work.

I do have plastic trash bags. I wade into the kitchen and get them. I slip some over my feet and using clothespins to attach them to my pants’ legs and large rubber bands to keep them snug, I fashion Okie waders. Just keeping the water off my feet is a relief though it doesn't do a thing to keep out the cold. My feet are really freezing.

But the rest of me is nicely bundled. So I watch TV and the water in the house and with both front and back doors closed praying it doesn't get any higher. The water reaches nearly three feet around my house and is booming like the sound of a cannon as it shoots out of a culvert under the road nearby. I try not to worry about the record albums and other things I wasn't able to save from the rising water.

Thank God the water didn't reach my bed. By midnight I've determined the water has stopped rising and I wade into the bedroom and with great difficulty I'm able to get into bed; fully clothed, of course. I've pinned my plastic bags to my top dresser drawer. When I get up, I'll be able to reach them. I fall asleep to the sound of the rushing water all around the house.

In the gray morning light, I groggily assessed the disaster. There was still about three inches of water circulating throughout the house. The torrent had cut a channel at the end of my driveway about eight feet deep, eighty feet long and six feet wide. The river was still running with great volume and force through my front yard. I wasn't going to drive out anytime soon.

Stuff was stacked everywhere in the house but I had missed a few things. There just hadn't been enough time to save everything from the rising water. The moisture content in the house had reached one hundred per cent, and as the sun came up every window began to weep moisture; the greenhouse effect.

I had a small electric heater for which I made room on my desk. I had to try to keep the moisture from damaging my computer; I could survive if I could write. I know I won't be able to print, however. Every piece of paper in the house is moisture-laden. Books have swollen from the moisture.

But the little heater did the trick. The computer came up running. My dear friend Byron brings me a pair of waders in the late afternoon after the waters had abated sufficiently for him to do so. At that he has to brave the still running waters to reach my place on foot. I'm more grateful than I can say. I've been sitting at my desk in over two-inches of water and mud with the plastic bags around my feet as I write. A hazard of which I'm constantly aware: Don't drop anything! The TV remote for example.

One of the greatest difficulties throughout was my leg. The fall I had taken before the flood hit had apparently damaged ligaments and muscle. It is extremely painful and all the work I had to do moving things had only acerbated the damage. The leg had become swollen and walking was excruciatingly painful.

The biggest problem I now face is the mud. As the water in the house recedes, it is leaving about an inch of very fine silt, mud, throughout the entire house. This keeps the moisture content in the house at virtually one hundred per cent. With electric heaters and the sun now shining I can dry the air somewhat as the day progresses. But the nights are another thing. As I'm trying to sleep I think about an old medical term: Ague. I'm constantly breathing a lot of moisture. This can contribute to pneumonia; worrisome.

My house is front-page news in the local paper, The Kern Valley Sun. Since I'm at the bottom of Bodfish Canyon, I caught the brunt of the flood. There is an interesting picture of my little cottage with the river running around it and through my front yard.

But so many things are relative. I watch the news about the tornadoes in Florida with such loss of life. There are the pictures of houses sliding down hills in Southern California, the two CHP officers killed buried in the mud west of me. So many have lost everything, some their lives. I have no room to complain. And thank goodness my youngest son Michael showed up as soon as he was able to help me shovel out the mud and restore order. It’s the American way. And what with cinderblock construction and slab floor my little cottage is prepared for the next flood whether I am or not. Fires, floods, and earthquakes; I’ve been through them all and my heart goes out to all those suffering far worse than I have.

June 14, 2008

Strange Priorities

Disasters like fires, earthquakes, and floods order one’s priorities very quickly. And if the Big One strikes California, which could happen at any time, the priorities will suddenly be re-ordered and the issue of sex in my native state and county of Kern will certainly be knocked off the headlines. But I’m beginning to wonder if it will take something so catastrophic to get the attention of people to what the real priorities ought to be? Well, God has used things of such magnitude to get people’s attention in time past and I suppose this is still a viable option.

The Bible is remarkable in many respects, one of these being that no matter where you turn in its pages you find something of interest, especially regarding sex. This came to mind as my native county of Kern has been thrust into the spotlight over this issue. As Henry Thoreau remarked of economics that it may lend itself to levity but cannot so easily be disposed of, so it is with sex. Joking about it won’t make the matter of any less gravity, and there is much to be said for the Biblical view of sex having to do with original sin and the curse of God as told in Genesis. That the curse seems to fall disproportionately on women is a point I have attempted to understand for a very long time, and whether one accepts the Biblical account or not it cannot be denied that women suffer the results of sex far more than men and it has been one of the reasons for male domination throughout history.

Religion has certainly been a means by which men have subjugated women to a role of lesser value, a means by which men have notoriously and even infamously declared women to be inferior to men as Harper Lee so eloquently expressed it in To Kill A Mockingbird. But it isn’t a point being addressed by those attempting to use religion as an apologetic against homosexual so-called "marriage."

The issue of sex confronting Kern County is making national headlines and ideologues and hypocrites on both sides are using inflammatory rhetoric to propagandize their causes. While I don’t support homosexuals demanding their perverted view of marriage be acknowledged as "normal" in any sense of the word and using bullying tactics to force others to accept such a minority view, neither do I want those in the churches to resort to bullying in return. I’m more than willing to allow the decision to be made at the ballot box, though I’m acutely aware the will of We the People is too often circumvented by judicial fiat. That I have personally suffered in the workplace bullying tactics of both homosexuals as well as good Baptists simply means that good people will do good and the evil will do evil no matter their sexual or religious affiliation.

However, the whole idea of marriage, the ideals of family being the foundation of a society has been under attack for so long and suffered such devastation by the onslaughts of legislators and courts that no matter how Kern County or California comes out of this I do not see America surviving with anything approaching the ideals of the family structure that once dictated the morals of our nation. Just what, I ask myself, is the future of a nation without the foundation of family in the normal and traditional sense of the word? Nothing good, I have to suppose because there is no other viable substitute.

But while the Bible is clear on the subject of sexual perversion being an abomination to God the opening chapters of Genesis regarding the creation of Adam and Eve are confusing. There is the matter of a council of gods in making the determination to create humankind in their own image, then there is the matter of differentiating between the first generic Adam meaning both male and female, and the later reference to Adam being male and Eve being female. But while Adam is said to have named his companion Eve because of her being the mother of all living, Adam is not called the father of all living. Why not? Scholars of the Hebrew language and Old Testament are of no help in this matter.

The New Testament has it that the Jews were threatening to stone Jesus because he called God his father and that by doing so he was making himself equal to God. But Jesus called their attention to the passage in Psalm 82:6 declaring we are gods and the scripture cannot be broken. And while we may recognize God as our father even as Jesus taught the disciples to pray, while we may accept we are children of God this does not help us understand why Eve should be called the mother of all living but Adam is not called the father of all living. The subject of sex may come to the fore by way of explanation, but this would presume Adam knew Eve would bear children even before The Fall and the curse was pronounced upon our first parents, something that only leads to more confusion in attempting to make sense of the narrative.

Biblical studies have not only been my resort of interest and scholarship, but my refuge when the world seems too full of misery and suffering and I can do nothing about it. The Bible addresses the issues of life with which I am concerned, and though it has its weaknesses nevertheless within its pages there is always something to ponder and helps me to make some sense of the too often seeming futility and lunacy of life.

For example, while Young Frankenstein is a real hoot of a movie the idea of reanimating the dead is a very sober issue, though often the stuff of horror films. After all, what would be the point of experimenting with death unless there was hope of such experimentation having a positive impact on life? Even the many experiments having to do with life and death begin with life in some form, and science still has no understanding of either of these. Life may be considered energy, or spirit as the Bible has it, but that is only a label in lieu of understanding and death is the cessation of life. But what animates at birth and departs at death is still the greatest mystery of all. And rather than tilt at the windmills of so much prevailing evil in the world, I choose rather to give my attention to the great mysteries of our universe, of life and death and what could possibly be the meaning of it all?

We carry the fire of life about in these mortal bodies, but the real value of life to me is others I love and cherish; family and friends. These, and only these, make life meaningful for me, and it is the love we have for one another that I believe will triumph over death in the end. So while ideologies bring people into conflict, while monsters in the guise of human beings prey on the innocent and men without either soul or conscience wage incessant wars I have to find the answers that soothe my soul and mind in the love I believe God has for those who truly love Him and declare that love by their love for one another. It does not make the monsters go away, it does not make the world any less evil or perverted, it does not diminish the number of bullies or protect families from the depredations of those intent on destroying any semblance of a normal family in America, but it does distinguish between the children of God and the children of the Devil. And in the face of so much evil and inequity throughout the world that has to be answer enough for me.

Certainly it would be astounding to discover other intelligent life in the universe; it would be astounding to discover we are alone in the universe. But whichever it proves to be we will all die. Whether our questions will be answered then is also unknown. In the meantime if the stars declare the glory of God to me, if they speak to me in the language of God none are able to dispute this because such things are a matter of the soul and spirit and not subject to disputations of men. But I keep in memory the story about the death of a wealthy man, and when someone asked "How much did he leave?" another replied, "He left it all." Despite what the MSM and others consider the priorities, death remains the great equalizer and being the ultimate final disposition of life and all worldly affairs orders and arranges all of our personal priorities in the end.

June 12, 2008

Will Alec Baldwin now leave America?

Is nothing sacred? It’s the end of the world! When Belgians attempt to buy Budweiser you would think a beer brand name is more important than sex the way some people are objecting. On the plus side, it diverts some unwanted attention from my native county of Kern and the brouhaha here over homosexual so-called "marriage." Legislators will pass laws, judges will make decisions, but society will eventually determine the outcome when the lunacy of it all comes crashing down upon us; the kind of lunacy that the potential loss of Budweiser, a name many believe to be synonymous with all that is good in America, arouses in the righteous.

The madness of it all leaves me often wondering who the real lunatics are. But we may as well face it; America is for sale and waving the bloody shirt over Budweiser isn’t going to prevent profits being the driving force behind refusing to secure our borders and selling off America a chunk at a time in the name of globalization. However, the fact that our sorry excuse for leadership has driven America into bankruptcy speaks of a much darker game afoot in my opinion, one in which America is becoming a pawn rather than the King or Queen of the game.

It is well for me that I no longer have any delusions about changing things of even minor moment, let alone such monolithic things like government. I am fortunate to be able to take the position of the elderly and detached observer, taking note of things that interest me without any expectation of changing anyone’s mind or having to make the tiresome effort of attempting to advance my own opinions and beliefs beyond a cursory note at one time or another here and there.

For example, it was during the time Caesar Bush and Company was claiming to be looking for Saddam’s WMD that I wrote about the old fellow looking for his lost truck keys. He knew they must have been somewhere in his house, but he was out in his yard searching for them because the light was better outside and his eyes were going bad. If you know anyone like this old fellow you also know you can’t win arguing with them. Obviously there is something wrong in their brain, and just as obviously they shouldn’t be driving. But you can’t reason with such people; they are much like the drunk that believes they are a better driver after hoisting a few before getting behind the wheel.

Our government reminds me of that old fellow and the drunk driver. Neither should be driving but there they are, and no amount of reasoning with those in government will change them. There is something wrong in their brain that causes them to believe they should be looking for the keys in the yard rather than the house, something that causes them to believe they are better drivers when they are drunk. Unhappily for America, there they are out on the road and all we can do is hope we don’t get in their way. How much better if the oldster after losing their mind and vision would just stop driving, and the drunks would just not get behind the wheel. But there is as little hope of that as there is of changing the ways of those in government. No one of noble character aspires to becoming a politician.

It may be that the darker game afoot is an actual conspiracy of evil dedicated to the destruction of America as a free and sovereign nation. The pieces on the larger board seem to be moving in that direction, but I’m as helpless to prevent this as I am trying to convince drunks not to drive. How