Community

I live in a densely settled neighborhood near a large metropolis. I was born into this type of living. I grew up in a densely populated small city next to Boston. My first memories are set in an apartment in an old, three-unit tenement building. My first playground was the street.

One of the side effects of the increasingly mobile American culture is the loss of bedrock populations in neighborhoods. In my own city, the transition in every neighborhood is visible and palpable. I walk quite a bit around the city and witness the constant changes. My city is mostly populated by people of low-to-middle incomes. The ripples of immigration are touching many neighborhoods as well. This was true of my native city in my childhood. I am familiar with it.

Despite all the benefits of diversity and mobility, the losses are also considerable. Change is never all good or all bad. It simply is.

My particular neighborhood has a scattered, diminishing long-term population, bound to it by socioeconomics largely. The poorer sons and daughters of original homeowners have stayed in their humble family homes, attached English-style townhomes in four-or-five-house rows. Because the houses are at the low end of price for my city, new immigrants have often bought or rented when houses come on the market.

The older residents all know each other. They have had their bonds and their feuds over the decades. There are cliches of old women who know each other for various reasons, such as shared church or club. The general attitude of these older residents towards new ones is cool, reserved observation. It takes some effort to get them to say "hello".

The newer residents, mostly foreign-born, stay to themselves. A few have developed curbside relationships based on shared nationality or ethnicity. Those of us who are American-born and new to the neighborhood manage to connect randomly with a neighbor here or there, but the reserve of old to new never quite melts.

Some may say this is a Bostonian or New England phenomenon. Bostonians have a repuation of being reserved. New Englanders have a reputation of being parochial. However, I feel this is more than that. I think this is genuine culture shock. And, I think this in part accounts for the current extremes of anger at the political process in the United States. After all, who is screaming loudest? Those who are screaming loudest are those who live in cities like mine, which voted overwhelmingly for Tea-Party-sponsored Scott Brown for the U.S. Senate after decades of being centrist Democrat.

The price of change is often discomfort and anxiety. Without a concerted effort, led by government in many cases, building community from isolated populations can take decades. And, how can the government build community when there is an absolute phobia in the U.S. about 'socialism'? This is a symptom of the absolute failure of the government to take control of immigration policy, and its failure to compensate American cities for its effects on public education, infrastructure and civic planning.

The key issue of immigration, in my opinion, is not legality or illegality. The key issue is community. If community is valued and fostered by government policy on local and national levels, the negative side effects of immigration can be minimized.

However, in the current exploitive political climate, dominated by corporate profit motives and tax avoidance, this is impossible. The wealthy interests in this country are obviously willing to sacrifice the community fiber, the social fiber, of the country to maintain their greedy accumulation of wealth. Wealth accumulation is the actual religion of our time. And, the gated community, the refuge of the wealthy, is the proof of it.

Freedom

"Freedom" is a word bandied about in today's discourse about legislation and political bias. Freedom from something? Freedom to do something? The state of being free?

In the current context of U.S. political debate, freedom is coming to mean individualism. Individualism, unbridled by social responsibility, enforced by law and government, is just a euphemism for anarchy. Anarchy, the absence of government or rule of law, is by nature violent and socially regressive.

I would suggest that a citizen who, informed that the broken health care system is imperiling the health of the economic fiber of the nation, rails against fixing the problem through elected, legislative government, is an anarchist. Now, given the choice between anarchy and socialism, I would most certainly choose democratic, legislative socialism.

It is important to see what reactionaries of any stripe have to offer behind their rages. I see no intelligent alternatives offered by the Tea Party Movement, for example. I do see a propensity for anger and violence. In my opinion, I see the same rage once whipped up by the Militia Movement in the 1990s. This led to incidents like the Waco Siege. I doubt any sensible U.S. citizen wishes to see our country repeat those unfortunate times.

Meditation

Much has been made of meditation in pop American culture in the last 40 years. There was the craze of Transcendental Meditation, sold to a young intellectual crowd in the 1970s by the Beatles and their guru, who became a multimillionaire on it. There was Insight Meditation, another intellectual movement, inspired by meditative Buddhism. There were various self-actualizing New Age meditation gurus whose self-help books were eagerly adopted by the addiction-recovery industry. Zen meditation has been a constant path for those who turn their backs on frenzied, urban materialism. And, Tibetan Buddhist meditation has been popularized by the Free-Tibet movement. Thomas Merton wrote about Catholic monastic meditative traditions.

My question: Meditation or medication?

I have had some of exposure to all the meditative disciplines mentioned. I accept the validity and efficacy of meditation as a worthy behavior, regardless of the methodology. However, I do take issue with the concept that meditation has any cumulative effect if used only as a treatment in reaction to a psychic headache or worldly stress.

As I understand the traditions that developed meditation as an effective tool to expand consciousness, relax the body and calm the static interference of obsessive thought, their prescription for the use of meditation, based on centuries of its application to millions of lives, is the daily use of meditation as an exercise to build psychological strength and focus.

Therefore, when a regularly stress-polluted mind infrequently yields to meditation like taking an aspirin, its headache may temporarily be mollified, but the root causes of the problem are untouched. As occurs with the person who runs to the gym in May to feel comfortable in a swinsuit in June, backache is a more likely result than fitness.

Meditation of any kind, when practiced routinely, is both restorative and cumulatively empowering. Its restorative effect, in my opinion, becomes secondary to its strengthening of sustainable vision and focus in daily life situations. Like muscular exercise, meditation as habit eventually leads to greater emotional and intellectual fitness.

Churches

I recently watched an apologist on TV excuse the papacy for its collusion in pedophile sex abuse. This man was once a mayor of a major U.S. city and ambassador to The Vatican. He also has been suspected of political corruption and has a reputation as a brazenly public alcoholic. Therefore, his moral compass apparently points South. Perhaps this is the best modern media outlets can do in the papal-apologist category after the unrelenting revelations of wretched and chronic child abuse by Catholic priests and nuns.

Why would any sane, truly moral, truly ethical person continue to identify himself as a Roman Catholic after this has come to light? I don't know.

Christ's composite biography, whether fictional or factual, describes an admirable human being. Actually, he was outstanding in his time, which was an age of brutal materialism, like today. Christ did not belong to a church. He was not Catholic. He was born an ethnic Jew, but his disdain for institutional Judaism is quite obvious in the various records. In fact, politicized, institutional Judaism colluded in his execution. Everything I have read about Jesus cries "anti-religious".

Now, if you profess to be a Christian, you are actually following the teachings of someone who would not belong to your Christian club. He would not wear funny clothes and wave around the thing they hung him on to execute him. Who would? Unless, of course, you think Jesus was a masochist. I don't see that in what I've read about him.

When I read about Jesus Christ, I see a man who loved people, despite the fact they frequently let him down. He didn't care about toys and status symbols. He didn't own a house or even rent one. He slept outside a lot. He had a real temper, and I'd love to see what he would have done to a priest who he found abusing a child. My guess is he'd have beaten the living crap out of him.

So, why is it that religious Christians don't get it? Why do they keep getting suckered into building megachurches and paying for BMWs for their pastors? Why do they listen to puffed up con-men who have absolutely no resemblance to Jesus Christ, whom they claim to emulate and represent? Are these religious Christians deaf, dumb and blind? Or are they simply lazy? Or do they accept corruption of Christ's message in their pastors to excuse it in themselves?

You do not have to belong to a church to be a Christian. Just follow what Christ taught. Read the New Testament and follow it in every situation every day. It would be very hard, but that would definitely make you a Christian more than being dunked in a river or singing hymns on Sunday. And, you'd probably be a lot happier.

You don't have to belong to a club to be a good person. I consciously choose to live an ethical life with compassion and generosity, as difficult as it can be. I call myself a humanist, but actually I am simply a human being. I associate with other humanists, but I don't pay dues or feel the need to wear a T shirt to be one.

The more we can all accept our ability to be good, non-violent and ethical human beings without picking a side, a uniform or a label to do it, the better off we will all be.

Flooding

Here in New England, we have had quite a bit of rain lately. Many of us are bailing out basements and mopping up cellar floors. After hearing a considerable number of these stories, I spent some time thinking about the whole process in relation to the cycles of life and death. I summarized my thoughts in the following poem:

iFlood

by Paul Creeden

veneered with flood water
mottled gray basement floor
not deep but seeping up
from under earth beneath.

cannot push it down, away.
must suck it up and spit it out
down the back walk asphalt
to the gutter storm drains.

dead things, decomposed, stay.
the soup of deep water dried
shows brine and bacteria skin
around the rough cellar edges.

scent of drying decay reminds
how we are just bits together
until we die and soak and rot
to parts of low ground water

someday after some heavy rain
somewhere not too far from here
my bits may visit you invisibly
rising with the damp under foot.

don't hesitate to flush me out.
travel will be my way of life.
from pump to drain to sea mist
and back to flood water again.

.

Israel

The current Biden-visit flap about construction in East Jerusalem and Prime Minister Netanyahu's exploitation of the situation in the U.S. to self-righteously rally American Jewish supporters of Israel for increased financial and political support seems a transparent attempt by a foreign government to shape U.S. foreign policy as it effects the entire Middle East and beyond. While I understand the sentimental significance of Israel as Jewish Homeland, I do not understand how a nation, formed in reaction to persecution and prejudice, can continue to foster socioeconomic, ethnic apartheid within its borders. To exploit a contentious issue, like increased incursions into traditionally Palestinian areas, seems to indicate that the Israeli government is committed to solidifying that apartheid, rather than loosening and eventually dismantling it.

Palestinians are impoverished and debased. Some may say by their own doing. However, an impoverished and debased population will not respond to more debasement and more marginalization with anything but hatred and violence. As a person with some genetic Jewish roots, I fail to see how rational, democratic, American Jews can cheer and hoot Mr. Netanyahu's obvious delight at goading the Palestinian people. This looks like hatred-based, ethnocentric bullying to me.

Intelligence

The human brain has propelled the evolution of our species. The natural selection which led to the development of the frontal lobe has, in some ways, jettisoned our species out of the non-human evolutionary sphere of the planet. I see our species as out of sync with the evolution of other species, which do not have the capability of synthesizing their own environments and their own DNA. Perhaps evolution itself is evolving.

The implications for humans and the planet are becoming glaringly evident, as polar ice caps melt, flooding increases, the quality of the food supply deteriorates and potable water resources become more precious. While many Green advocates focus backward at the swath of environmental destruction our species has left behind, others wisely look to the future. The truly intelligent of our species consider mobilizing our frontal lobes to place us in sync with the planet's natural environment and attributes. Renewable energy, low-carbon footprints, reproductive education, local food production, biological diversity management. These all make sense and provide a hopeful alternative to the impending train wreck of fossil fuel dependency, real estate profiteering, overpopulation and natural-resource exploitation.

The intellectuals in colleges and universities worldwide have been slow to understand their role in all this. Still clinging to traditional academic hierarchies and bureaucracies, based in arcane competition and publishing showmanship, they have seemingly been incapable of mobilizing their considerable resources to focus on the crucial, real issues facing the planet. Instead, they have focused on the politics of change, rather than change itself. In the U.S., this is understandable, since the funding mechanisms of higher education are highly politicized and capitalized.

So, as our species gapes at its self-induced environmental threats, our public preparatory educational systems are at a low point. The price of higher education is excluding many inventive and innovative minds from campuses. The increasingly undereducated, uninformed and mass-media-mesmerized populace rallies against raising taxes, quality testing and detaching student loans from gouging private banks. Those of academic provenance and privilege, who largely populate and control the influential academic environments, climb a few flights higher in their ivory towers for better views of multi-billion-dollar sports complexes and entertainment venues, where they play chess with star athletes and toe-tap to celebrity performers.

I see publicly funded education as a basic human right and a basic human responsibility of those who have children and the whole society. And, I think it is imperative that publicly funded education includes the highest levels of education available in a society. An intelligent society should provide unlimited, quality education to those who qualify for it. An intelligent society should understand that providing this would yield those with the ideas and skills to save the human species from its own follies.

Lifestyle

The word "choice" has become imbued with connotations of individualism by its constant use in reference to reproductive rights of women. However, I see choice as the key element of humanist practice, or humanist lifestyle.

"Paper or plastic?" This question, slowly becoming obsolete with the advent of pay-per-bag policies in food stores, is a good example of choice in a materialistic, consumer-driven society. It is a trick question for the humanist, in my opinion. The mindful humanist answer would be "Neither, I have my canvas bag, thank you." This mindful, practical humanist would have made the choice to bring his reusable bag, in other words. And, if he forgets to make that choice, he could choose either option as long as he recycles whichever bag he chooses. In other words, all choices aren't necessarily polar, dichotomous or rigid.

These minor daily lifestyle choices comprise what I call my humanist practice. I have been inspired to make the connection between lifestyle and practice after being accused recently on several occasions of incorrectly using the term "humanist" in reference to these lifestyle choices. The accusers were quite obviously offended by my use of the word "practice". Inferences were made that I might well be a closeted Catholic or Buddhist. In other words, choosing an ethical lifestyle and associating it with my sense of humanism apparently offended them as self-identified Humanists, with the capital H.

Living in any closet or behind any banner is alien to me. At first, these challenges confused me. After all, I hadn't prescribed my particular humanist lifestyle for these Humanists. I did choose to tell them what my humanist lifestyle entails. I did sit and hoped to hear what their Humanist lifestyles entail. I am still listening, but, frankly, I haven't heard much from these particular Humanists about their Humanist choices in daily life.

So, I wonder, is the new Humanism just another coffee-social opportunity for those who wish to gingerly approach humanist action for the betterment of the species and the planet, as long as it is not inconvenient or costly? After all, that is also a choice of lifestyle. Any movement ultimately reflects those who shape it and maintain it. Humanism, as a growing social, ethical movement, will reflect the choices and lifestyles/practices of those who support it.

For my part, as someone who has consciously tried to live a personal humanism in work and relationships throughout my adult life, participation in the activities of the current Humanist movement is simply an extension of my humanist lifestyle. However, I am beginning to question whether many in the new Humanist movement are simply joining another club for networking or social gratification without making a personal, daily commitment to advocating for and working for the ideals of universal human rights, universal human education, universal human health care, universal human economic justice.

Yes, my ideals are lofty. If ideals aren't lofty, then what's the point of having them? I am an older man with a lot of mileage and wear. But, I cannot see the worth of any ethical movement in the current world we humans have made which does not actively address the growing problems and inequities which will develop with ecological deterioration and overpopulation, caused by the human species.

This activism begins with individual, moment-by-moment commitment to mindful, just and compassionate choice. I call this my humanist practice, or my humanist lifestyle, if you wish. What do you call the process of your daily choices?

Appreciation

An open letter of appreciation:

Herr Ratzinger,

Danke. I wanted to convey my heartfelt appreciation to you. Your expressions of homophobic venom and actions of covert enabling of sexual exploitation of minors by your religious brethren has helped my gay/lesbian brothers and sisters, present and future, a great deal.

By banning gay men from the priesthood, you have spared them from a tortured life of self-hatred and schizoid behavior. By banning women from the priesthood, you have encouraged Catholic lesbians, who feel religiously motivated, to look elsewhere. By horrifying the most reactionary Catholics with your hypocrisy, you have dealt a potential death blow to an institution which would darken and pollute the lives of families with gay/lesbian children into the future.

And, if you yourself might have some sexual secrets of your own to share or confess, I would encourage you to get them off your conscience now. It could not be a better time. You could not do much more harm to your institution. And, you will feel much better.

Yours in the light of day,

Paul Creeden

Practice

I come back over and over again to thoughts of practice. Perhaps I am simply post-traumatic.

The earliest years of my education were spent among American Catholic clergy in the 1950's. Coming from a English-Russian-speaking home, since my grandmother who lived with us spoke Russian, I endured daily U.S. propaganda and Vatican propaganda about the evils of the Soviets, referred to as "the Russians". And, at home, I listened to stories about how my Russian-American uncle, an engineer, caused the family to be under constant Federal scrutiny because he worked for the Manhattan Project during WWII.

From my perspective, the U.S. bathes in its own hypocrisy culturally. I touts equality and is racist, sexist. It touts democracy and is a plutocracy. It touts morality and is hedonistic. It touts peace and is militaristic, belligerent, aggressive. It touts diversity and is exploitive of new immigrants. It touts mass prosperity and begrudges the people health care. It touts free markets and exploits nationalism.

So, how does this relate to humanist practice? Humanist practice, as I see it, is an antidote to hypocrisy. If I attempt daily to live with midfulness, honesty and compassion in all aspects of my life from moment to moment, I cannot be hypocritical in the moment. This is a key process to overcoming personal fear and insecurity. It is liberating. Liberation promotes internal peace. Human beings, freed of internal fear, are less likely to be materialistic, greedy, aggressive or defensive.

The first benefit of this practice is the practitioner's internal peace. As personal liberation takes hold, the humanist can be more open and understanding in each moment. Truly owning oneself in honesty and in peace leads to greater individual balance in the world. This is an ongoing and dynamic practice, requiring daily commitment and perserverance.

Arrogance

Whatever a fool learns,

It only makes him duller.

Knowledge cleaves his head.

For then he wants recognition,

A place before other people,

A place over other people.

"Let them know my work,

Let everyone look to me for direction."

Such are his desires,

Such is his swelling pride.

---Dhammapada

The challenge of secular humanist practice in the 21st century is the double edged sword of knowledge which comes with education. I believe it takes a considerable amount of formal or informal education to progress from ritualistic religion to humanism. Academia or School of Life, either or both bring the thinker, the awakened, to humanism in name and/or practice.

Class consciousness is corrosive to humanist practice. Education and its socioeconomic benefits can lead to an unconscious and poisonous elitism in the humanist, as it has in the religious for centuries. The intentional denial of classism in the U.S. presents a particularly difficult challenge to humanist awareness in practice. The veneer of political correctness and superficial diversity, based in race and ethnicity, covers an entrenched socioeconomic class system, which is becoming more and more destructive to the democratic ideals of the U.S..

Within humanist communities, often centered in cosmopolitan centers, which in themselves are becoming economically gated communities for the wealthy, the challenge of elitism can often be ignored and minimized. It may be fashionable in some circles to scoff at the concept that simplicity, modesty and even poverty can lead to greater mindfulness, liberation and compassion. The secular cult of materialism and greed may be seen as acceptable and even honorable among "Sunday humanists" as it has been for centuries among "Sunday Christians", for example.

Arrogance leads to prescriptive moralism. The elite bolster their own holiness, their own superiority, in endless, subtle ways. Before long, a jewel-encrusted Hierophant is dispensing indulgences within a gated, vaulted cathedral, while the great mass of humanity starves on its steps.

The solution is simple to see and difficult to master. This is the middle way. This is the true meaning of practice. Practice is lived on the ground with the people in every situation of every day. This is humanist practice, as I see it and attempt to live it.

Fear

How much of your life is governed by fear? Fear of animals? Fear of disease? Fear of pain? Fear of violence? Fear of theft? Fear of poverty? Fear of loneliness? Fear of loss? Fear of fire? Fear of commitment? Fear of abandonment? Fear of the unknown? Fear of social ostracism? Fear of forgetfulness? Fear of mockery? Fear of passion?

My experience with fear, which is extensive, has taught me that the first step of freeing myself from its effects is to acknowledge and clearly examine it, despite my anxiety in that process. "Face your fear." It's a common approach, and it works, with practice and conscious effort.

The most dangerous fear is the fear that goes unrecognized. It eats like invisible termites at the foundation of personal integrity. Eventually, integrity gives way to fear and collapses under strain. The erosion of the German popular psyche in the Nazi era is an all-too-grotesque example.

My humanist practice has developed in part as my success at confronting my own fears has grown. I see these growth processes as intertwined. This is no surprise to anyone who has studied psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Fear triggers fight-or-flight mechanisms in the brain and body. It is difficult to be a nurse, when fear is constantly encouraging you to flee, I assure you. But, my battle with fear began earlier than that. It began with my fear of loss and abandonment as a child. As I struggled out of a pre-adolescent, suicidal depression, precipitated by the sudden deaths of seven key people in my life, I recognized that I had to force myself to see beyond my fear responses. It was very difficult, but I did it with the routine determination and perserverance of a gymnast. And, I still do.

In this age of PTSD awareness, more and more understanding of fear is uncovered by science. Fear is hard-wired. Living with fear and trauma-memory which re-triggers it, requires practice in order to be able to function as a caring and open person in the world. The individual must change to adapt to a slow-changing world of violence, insecurity, ignorance and poverty.

Breaking free of the crippling, inhibiting and/or diverting effects of fear through desensitization by experience is at the core of all forms of human liberation. Being truly, mindfully compassionate often requires acknowledging and calming one's own fear in the moment. Being balanced on the mindful path as a humanist is a constant quest to live in internal peace with all that is human within.

Rain

A pre-Spring rain storm has deluged my area this weekend. The power of wind and water is humbling.

When I encounter the unavoidable and uncontrollable effects of extreme weather, I try to use my powerlessness as a reminder of my true place on the planet and in The Universe. Rather than making it all about me, I try to understand that the "higher power" is simply the visible and invisible ecosystem within which I live, of which I am part. I am one relatively small creature in a massive ecosystem, relative to my size and individual, innate power.

Perhaps this is a key to why some members of the human species have taken a kick-the-dog attitude in their lives. Faced with their powerlessness in the face of their real place in Nature, they have retaliated against those elements in Nature which they can manipulate or destroy. They do this with a sense of impunity and entitlement, without regard to the ecological consequences for themselves, their fellow humans or the whole ecosystem itself.

This is not human ingenuity. This is a crime against humanity and our ecology.

The subtle and daily choices of the serious humanist in daily practice are sometimes exhausting. I often feel the temptation to say, "To hell with it!" And, sometimes I do simply go with the flow, when my energy runs out.

Each morning, however, brings an opportunity to start my practice anew, just as each moment is a decision, a cause, an effort. While water must seek its own level, we, as conscious beings, have the opportunity to actualize our own path, often against the gravity of human greed and indolence. It simply requires making that choice one moment at a time.

Awareness

Riding the subway yesterday afternoon, during the early rush hour, I was impressed with the lack of awareness of my fellow passengers. Small incidents with large implications for society, in my opinion. During my long ride, several people were forced to push past a fellow passenger when a polite "excuse me" was totally ignored. These same polite passengers were then given annoyed or glaring looks by the person who ignored them and was pushed.

Exhausted iron workers, many of whom live in my community, holding heavy lunch coolers or tool bags, stood half asleep in the aisle over oblivious teenagers, playing with their iPhones and taking up two seats with their schoolbags. An elderly man with a cane stood while a young woman sat with her seven-year-old child and stared up at him with indifference. A gaggle of day-schoolers, most likely commuting from a private school, occupied a section of the train and loudly shared comments about pornography sites they were viewing on their iPhones. None of the adults near them seemed to notice or care.

I laugh at the touted concept that it takes a village to raise a child. I am reminded of the cult film, The King of Hearts (1966), in which inmates from an asylum escape and take over a nearby village after it is abandoned during WWII.

The general isolation of individuals in society is evident everywhere. This alienation has a corrosive effect on a culture. Having lived in Manhattan in the late 1980s, before the current Renaissance began, I can attest to the eventual effects of this process. Those effects are not pleasant. I am quite sure that the pseudo-intimacy of virtual communities will not help, but will give people more incentive to retreat to their screens when the real world becomes more and more inhospitable.

Simple awareness could do so much to remedy this trend. The Boston of my younger years was a place where people interacted readily on sidewalks and subways. It was a place where passers-by offered to carry groceries for a struggling pedestrian or stopped, without being asked, to give directions to tourists who were showing signs of being lost. We were aware of our surroundings, our neighbors. This is not a fuzzy, warm memory, summoned by nostalgia. It was truly the way it was.

In my own life, I still persist in maintaining public awareness. My age and its impact on my energies has tempered my ability to intervene in some situations, but I practice general openness to people on the street or on the subway. I make eye contact. I often offer a smile. I find myself giving directions quite a bit as a result and occasionally helping someone with a bundle or some other minor need. It makes me feel like I still belong to this human society and that I am still a contributing member of it.

Haiku

narrow middle way
footpath parting darkest wood
forest voice beckons

Questions

On Darwinism:

Are human beings still subject to purely natural selection?

Does the human frontal lobe work for or against natural selection?

Is natural selection in the human species actually class selection?

Is the conflict between human beings and Nature a product of our frontal lobes?

Could the frontal lobe eventually become a negative factor in natural selection?

Competition

At the heart of Reaganism lies the enshrined myth of the powers of competition in free markets. Unfortunately, truly free markets do not and cannot exist in human society which aspires to honor the rights and dignity of all human beings. Human beings are not and do not behave as commodities in a post-slavery world.

While we do live in a society in the U.S. where people profit from aging, sickness and death, we are seeing the failure of that profiteering in the health care system. The majority of the American electorate acknowledge that this is a serious problem. They also demonstrate with polling that they have no idea what to do about it. This is the cognitive dissonance of Reaganism as it has been sold by Neo-con minions.

Corporate welfare has blossomed since the Reagan era. Multinationals are becoming the welfare mothers of the new millennium. The truly poor and the newly poor, once seen as the working or lower middle class, are dependent on ongoing funding bills in Congress to secure unemployment benefits, which are necessitated by the financial mismanagement and downsizing greed of corporations, whose bail-outs were swiftly paid out.

The relentless brain-washing of the populace by Murdoch media since the Reagan era has duped the general public in the U.S. into equating socialism with Nazi-ism. Meanwhile, Murdoch and his cronies are collecting billions in subsidies and tax exemptions. They are laughing all the way to their bailed-out banks. They are dancing at their own elegant tea parties, while funding uninformed malcontents to disrupt the people's business.

The myth of free markets often merges with the myth of competitive sports in pop culture. And, like the financial markets, competitive sports are a corrupted version of the ideals of team play. Drug-enhanced athletes lie in front of Congress with relative impunity. Sports venues are over-priced gladiatorial displays which represent big money and big profits, not fair play.

Why does all this sound so familiar? Well, human history has a way of cycling because human beings are generally averse to change. And, there isn't a quick fix for that problem as long as universal human rights and universal human education are seen as impractical, lofty ideals. Fighting for those ideals is not a free market principle. There is little profit in it.

Corporatocracy?

This video (link below) was produced for Bell Labs in 1958. It warned of global warming. I am sure the oil industry has been suppressing this information since before 1958. Eisenhower, having allowed Congress, the oil industry and auto industry to tear apart the public transit system in the U.S. in order to sell more cars, warned the public of the military-industrial complex too late. Was it the confession of a guilt-ridden man?

GO TO VIDEO NOW.

Out

"Word Is Out" (1977) is a groundbreaking documentary about individuals in the Gay Liberation Movement. It is being releaed again to theaters and offered on DVD in June. It is history. It is a representation of an imprtant part of my human experience. I wrote submitted this story to the film's blog on its Web site.

When I first saw "Word Is Out", I was a 27 year old, "out" registered nurse in a state hospital. I went to work in psychiatric nursing because I took care of two gay male patients during nursing school in 1975. They had both been imprisoned as adolescents in locked state hospital wards for being gay by their families in the 1930s and 1940s. They had been electro-shocked, beaten, and one had been lobotomized after multiple escape attempts. They had become institutionalized. Their lives had been ruined.

I swore to myself that I would not knowingly let this happen again to another homosexual person. So, at my first viewing of "Word Is Out", I cried like a baby. Tears of pain and joy and pride. At that time, it seemed to make all my risks and challenges of being "out" and being political worth it. It still makes me feel that way whenever I see it. Thank you so much for bringing it out again.

Dying

Craig Ewert died in Switzerland in 2006 by his own intentional plan. He was helped by two men, working with the Swiss organization, Dignitas. His devoted wife sat with him, massaged his feet and gently wished him a "safe journey'.

If you have not seen this week's PBS-Frontline presentation, "Suicide Tourist", watch it on line. The Ewerts will tell you everything you need to know about assisted suicide. My gratitude to them is profound. As a humanist, as a human being, as a nurse, I see them as courageous and highly admirable.

You may also watch "Right to Die?", the original documentary, in five parts on youtube.

Practice

Some years ago, while I was adjusting to living and working in Manhattan, I was involved with a sect of Japanese Buddhism, whose mission was to bring its brand of world-peace-oriented practice to Western lives through direct person-to-person contact. During one of our meetings, I voiced my frustration with my own inability to perform my role in the group to my own perfectionist standards. The Japanese leader of the meeting smiled benignly as I ranted. When I stopped, he broke the ensuing silence by saying, "Relax, Paul. It's only practice."

I was stunned. Nothing about my experience with that Buddhist group seemed at all relaxing at the time. Each of us individually chanted sutra at home every morning before going to work and every evening. We attended group chanting twice a week. We spent weekend evenings on the streets of lower Manhattan talking with whomever would listen about Buddhism, happiness and world peace. We sometimes brought these people back to my apartment to chant and discuss Buddhism.

It has taken many years and a lot of hard-road mileage for me to catch up with my Japanese mentor. I smile now whenever I think of his kindness and my ignorance.

Now I see that practice is what I am doing right now. That's it. The quality of this practice, this moment, is dependent on how seriously I consciously fill each preceding and following moment with mindfulness, compassion and right action. My practice is the constant, unrelenting commitment to be fully at peace with all humanity, while acting in the world for justice and truth. My practice is practice, because it will never be perfect. It is the process of my life.

Definitions

By defining who or what we are,

we often prevent ourselves

from becoming who we wish to be.

Miracles

We are conditioned from infancy to beileve in the paranormal from Lazarus to the Tooth Fairy. This creates a self-feeding cycle of belief in the actual, demonstrable existence of the paranormal. Science has been unable to verify these belief systems with any hard data.

Religion, routed in ancient folk lore, promotes this belief in external, seemingly magical interventions in our lives by unexplainable forces. It's a great way to draw people in. It's a great way to intimidate people to stay. It's a great way to scare people into silence. It can also be highly profitable.

I have found that erasing the blackboards of religion and superstition in my mind has allowed me, through the study of science, to experience an awe in the face of existence which far surpasses the wonder I once experienced as an ignorant believer. The mere fact of human consciousness of the Universe and its workings is itself a truly staggering wonder, when I look at the history and science of it.

Yet, I know from my own personal experience that certain phenoma have not been adequately understood, investigated or explained by Science. Do I need to relegate these experiences to superstition or some psychological dysfunction? Or, can I simply accept that the basis of all good science is an initial admission of ignorance of the unexplored or the immessurable by current devises?

I am averse to the adoption of Science as a new religion. In the way I see humanism as a process, an individual practice and responsibility, I see learning, of which science is a part, as a personal practice and responsibility. What is Science today can be seen as benighted folly tomorrow. Yet, the scientific method, like humanist practice of mindfulness, compassion and meditation, is a vital and changing thing, a process. I believe in learning and the process of change, tested by experience and scientific method, as part of a humanist practice.

Being open to what life offers is an amazingly renewing and difficult part of my daily practice as I age. Accepting change means accepting aging and eventual death, the natural process of life. Yet, defending against change closes the shutters to the very breath of life and stifles the spirit. This is part of the middle path, as I tread it, while trying to maintain balance and livelihood.

My self-adopted challenge, while actively working within my own present consciousness with humanist mindfulness within human society, is also to be more like a drop of water which does not worry whether it is part of a puddle, a stream, a river or an ocean. It is all that water is in itself. Yet, it can effortlessly merge into the massive force water can be. To be able to live in the present with this consciousness does not require a miracle. It requires moment-by-moment hard work, which I call practice.