Opinion

I am concerned about a current tendency to confuse privately held opinions, shared between correspondents or confidantes, and public declarations. I am noticing frequent, slow-newsday pieces in the media about leaked emails, which were never meant to be public information. Usually, these emails have something to do with gender, race, ethnicity or sexuality.

A person thinks such-and-such about gay people, for instance, as expressed to a friend or colleague in a private message. Someone gets hold of this by someone else pressing "Reply All" when responding to the email or by some other thoughtless mistake or by some malicious intent to settle a score. Suddenly, the person who wrote the email or made the comment is subjected to public shaming by a press conference held by some anti-defamation group, to whom the email has been sent or comment repeated.

If we all start having the same opinion about everyone and everything, there will be no room for constructive criticism in our culture. Without constructive criticism, we will stagnate and get more stupid than we already are. This is the nightmare of political correctness, which seems to be endlessly encroaching upon society's tolerance for varied or eccentric opinion.

The issue which does not get addressed often enough in these instances is the total lack of ethical accountability on the part of the leakers of private information to public media. In an era when most people rail against privacy violations when it is inconvenient for them, I find it rather hypocritical that these same people salivate over the opportunity to throw stones at someone whose private correspondence is exposed and found to be politically (conformistly) incorrect.

This is all very immature and unconstructive. If you wish to encourage sound, progressive dialogue on issues of difference between people, this type of mob shaming through politically correct media press conferences, based on purloined documents which violate a person's right to privacy, is as offensive, in my opinion, as saying the "f" word or the "q' word or the "n" word. It is the adult form of school-yard, "gotcha" bullying. It accomplishes nothing positive.

Wind

The conflict between the better mind of human beings and the weight of human possessiveness and greed is quite apparent in the Cape Wind conflict, which moves closer to resolution today at the Massachusetts State House.

The best scientific minds have guided the public to an awareness of the effects of depending heavily on fossil fuels to maintain the easy lifestyle of machine-dependent nations. Fossil fuel usage poisons the atmosphere and disrupts the balance of gases in the planet's atmosphere, causing devastating sea level rise. None but those on the fringe dispute global warming.

Wind power, currently being exploited with urgency from Europe to Saudi Arabia to China, is a low-carbon, renewable (perhaps endless) supply of electrical power. Now, if I can imagine myself on an alien space ship looking at the situation, I think I'd be saying, "Wow, those humans finally realized the power source they used to grind grain to feed themselves centuries ago can easily produce electricity and maybe save their planet."

This hasn't been the opinion on Old Cape Cod. The wealthy on Cape Cod and the islands have caught the NIMBY bug with considerable financial booster shots from the fossil fuel industry, who have contributed to at least one opposition group loudly protesting the construction of a wind farm in Nantucket Sound on the grounds that it will spoil their views, scare the tourists and knock some misguided birds senseless. The NIMBY-ites have also pulled in the American Indian community who claim that the wind farm obscures views of the sun, essential to their rituals. Apparently they plan to position the casinos they would like to develop away from holy horizons.

So far, Cape Wind has generated more hot air than energy. Nearly ten years of contention have brought us to the announcement today from the Secretary of the Interior, which will either bless or nix the project from the Federal government's perspective. This will not be the end. Further court battles will most likely ensue.

The better judgment of the human mind would vote to restore the planet's viability for human life, no matter what it takes. No planet to live on means no views, no Indian rituals, no worrying about concussed birds, no law suits at all. But, as amply illustrated by the opponents to Cape Wind, clinging to what we already have can be the enemy of getting what we need.

Jihadists

If you wish to see the underbelly of anachronistic Muslim patriarchy, watch PBS-Frontline's Dancing Boys of Afghanistan on line.

In a world obsessed with pedophile and pederast Catholic priests, it is interesting to see the roots of the problem magnified in Afghan society, which is living centuries behind ours in economic and cultural development. Examining the victimization of poor boys and girls which exists in Afghanistan is time travel. These abuses were omnipresent in the West through the 19th century. Poverty with high birth rates provides the playing fields for abusers, usually adult males, heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual.

The repression of sexual feelings, encouraged by religion, messes up human beings. This is no news flash or fringe speculation. Freud spent much of his career trying to figure out how to fix the problem. Subsequently, the Women's Movement and Gay Liberation offered a solution to millions. Now, in these reactionary, post-HIV times, exploited by the Reaganites, Thatcherites and their ilk, we begin to fight the battle for liberation all over again, globally and at great cost.

SEC

Once upon a time, Nero fiddle while Rome burned. Now we find our financial drones diddled while America sank.

The revelation that SEC "investigators" were apparently playing with themselves while watching porn on the job while Wall Street ran the U.S. economy into the ground comes as no great surprise. This is the trouble with a culture of narcissism, enabled by virtual escape from reality and no accountability with serious consequences.

House

a house is not a gnome

in the garden nor castle
from plywood and nails.

at best it's shelter from
prying eyes, cold or heat
of the night or blue days.

at worst it's a holy shrine
of flash and shining ego
with designer labels about.

materialism won't feed
you, homeless in the night,

even in an ivory mansion.

move the furniture now

and throw everything out.

windows and doors wide.

do welcome in the outside.

make your own house just,

a place for love and peace.

Corruption

The Republicans in U.S. Congress are now mounting a mock battle against financial reform after organizing gun-toting, bullying goons against health industry reform on the basis that the government unjustly bailed out Wall Street. Think about it. Is it about what's best for the American people? Obviously not. It is about Republicans wanting control of the graft and corruption in Congress. They will do anything to regain that control.

"In the Senate Gregg was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program, which bailed out financial institutions, while he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America." ---Wikipedia, "Judd Gregg".

Humanism

If there was a Jesus, he was a human being.

If there was a Buddha, he was a human being.

If there was a Moses, he was a human being.

If there was a Prophet, he was a human being.

Isn't the lesson simple?

Every human being has the potential to improve the world.

Perspective

One measure of the conformity and alienation of the times is the conflict between media perspective and individual perspective. News media are hyper-focused on political propaganda and theater. After all, selling laundry detergent has always required getting the attention of the viewer with sex, violence and loud noises.

The perspective for many of us on the ground is quite different from the melodrama on TV, radio and Web. We know that money is tight for most of us. We see the depressed and anxious faces on subways, in supermarkets and on sidewalks. Those of us who live near an affluent city, like Boston, see something else as well. We can walk along Boylston Street in Back Bay and see a micro-sample of the wealthy from all over the U.S. and the world. They stay in the new, expensive hotels. They are shopping in posh shops. They are sipping expensive drinks in chic bars and eateries. They project arrogance and lack of consideration for anyone else. Their perspective of the times is quite different, I am sure. It always has been.

Working out the dissonance between what we are fed by corporate-controlled media and what we are actually experiencing is a modern existential burden. We can fall into the trap of seeing polarity and dichotomy in abstract political terms, such as Liberal and Conservative, as the media portray society to sell their soap and cars. Or, we can strive to reach out to each other in society to learn what we are thinking and perceiving. We can use our own eyes to see what is really happening and openly discuss our experiences with each other.

Perhaps those who have run to the banners of the various Tea Party groups are seeking to do just that in a country which does not readily allow dissent against the media portrayal of society after the Bush era. Perhaps those who ran to the Obama campaign were also seeking a different perspective than the one handed to them by media under the controlling Bush regime. Some have sought this sharing community among vocal atheists, whose life-view is dissent in religiously dominated culture.

The media, once seen as an essential part of civilized society, have flagged in their responsibility to be fair and impartial. They have become tainted by political money, which is the money of corrupting corporate power. They had bowed to George Bush, Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoch. They are in the habit of bowing and cannot seem to stop themselves.

Adoption

The current flap over the returned Russian adopted boy from Tennessee illustrates a basic disconnect in the human psyche when it comes to reproduction and population policy. Few in the U.S. may be aware that Russia is panicking over decreasing birthrate to the extent of offering government subsidies for pregnancies. Meanwhile, Russia has a booming adoption industry, similar to China's. There are between 600,000 and 750,000 orphans now in Russia, according to a variety of sources. Does that sound like a shortage of births in Russia?

I have a couple of thoughts. First, the concept of declining national or ethnic birthrates, applied to wealthy economies, with millions of starving children all over the planet seems absurdly anachronistic. Xenophobia, racism and poor government stand in the way of ethically and efficiently redistributing many more children from poverty to security via adoption worldwide. It would serve the capitalist interests of wealthy nations to facilitate and promote adoptions for their interested citizens in cooperation with informed and supported parents in underdeveloped countries.

Instead, wealthy countries cling to capitalist nationalism. Intentional reproduction is still practiced as narcissistic self-replication by all too many educated and financially motivated people. The ancient concept of legacy abounds and trumps the concept of the universal quality and value of human life. This process of producing heirs to satisfy a personal legacy is seen as a reproductive right. Meanwhile, illegal immigration is seen as a boon to those aggressive and desperate enough to attempt it. This is the current methodology of compensating for declining birthrates in wealthy nations. Immigrants crowded into substandard housing in the worst parts of wealthy cities raise their deprived children to be the low-wage servants of rich native populations.

I think those who adopt with a simple motivation to improve the lot of poor children from underdeveloped nations are benefactors of the human species. I see them as highly evolved human beings with great compassion. And, I see anyone who would abuse these adoptive parents or the process of ethical adoption as representative of the worst of humankind. I wonder how long it will take for the human species to progress to an understanding that the quality of life of the entire species is dependent on the individual lives of its children, all of its children worldwide.

Context

Fluto Shinzawa, sports reporter for the Boston Globe, was interviewed this morning on WBUR, one of Boston's NPR stations. In discussing the recent "groin injury" of one of the Boston Bruins (hockey) players, Mr. Shinzawa was asked his opinion of the player's future performance. He responded. "No telling how long that groin will hold up."

Taxes

Yes, it's that time in the U.S.. Appropriately, Sarah Palin will be doing her shrewish vixen act here in Boston today for the Tea Party enthusiasts. Scott Brown will be absent. In fact, all the legitimate GOP candidates will most likely be hard to find. I am happy to observe that Sarah P.'s propensity for racist and birther remarks don't play well with most Massachusetts folks.

However, I do have something critical to say about our tax system, especially the Federal tax system. In making a well-meaning attempt to make a tax payment today, I decided to pay the IRS on line. The payment I was making was not associated with tax-prep software. Well, boys and girls, Uncle Sam doesn't do computers well. Someone needs to show him how to use an i'Phone.

The registration process at the special Web site is like learning a secret handshake for some arcane society, like The Sacred and Esteemed Order of the Holy Mongoose. I was eventually forced to call an 800 number and speak with an efficient rep, who seemed on the verge of either crying or screaming at any moment during our conversation. And I was being nice.

Now, we hear daily about the huge Federal deficit ($1.5 trillion, approx.) and the huger national debt ($12 trillion, approx.). The Republicans have become particularly obsessed with it all, which is odd, since the Republicans also fund the Tea Party enthusiasts, who rail against easily fixing the deficit by levying taxes. Funny times we live in.

One would think logically that a government strapped for cash would bend over backwards to grease the wheels of any tax payment vehicle. Not the case. Some time from now, after I have done three hand stands and bowed thirty times to The East, I may have in hand a mystical number which will then allow me the privilege of completing my Web registration, which will perhaps allow me to pay the government some money on line in future.

I've mailed them a check for now, but, to my horror, I am beginning to think those Tea Party enthusiasts aren't quite as nutty as I once believed.

Celebrity

An NPR story on Washington Mutual's mortgage swindle reminded me of celebrity AIDS poster-boy Magic Johnson, who was an endorser of Washington Mutual back in the day.

Oh, relax. Magic Johnson is just doing fine. He's a corporate mogul in L.A.. However, many of those swindled by the company he represented and pushed in minority communities are dispossessed and bankrupted.

This is the culture of celebrity. Celebrities exploit everything from sexually transmitted disease to spousal abuse for attention and financial gain. This infects the society as media-washed brains imitate these behaviors in everyday lives. Those who sell this celebrity culture, the agents and publicists, are motivated by profits and greed. Personal lives are peddled for photo ops and ad deals. Tiger Woods sells sportswear with his dead father's voice.

Pole-itics

As the media barrage me with mournful stories about the death of the Polish president, I wonder how much American know about this man and his twin brother, former child stars in Poland. Celebrating the life of this man is comparable to celebrating the life of President Botha of South Africa or Yasser Arafat of the PLO. As an American with Polish genetic roots, I am all too familiar with homophobia in Polish Catholic culture.

Lech Kaczynski and Theodore Kaczynski were not closely related, but, in the minds of gay rights activists, they might as well be. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the President's brother and former Prime Minister, is a well known closeted homosexual, who, like many Gestapo Gays before him, preaches against any legalization of gay rights in Poland. All this homophobia has been loudly supported by the too-powerful Roman Catholic Church in Poland.

Fascists always can depend on kicking gay people to gain popular support. And, it seems, the U.S. media continues to turn a blind eye to LGBT rights when it comes to reporting obits of politicians.

Coal

The recent mining disasters in China and the U.S. reveal the underbelly of the petro-chemical economy, which drives the prosperity of the few at the expense of the many. Coal itself has no conscience. Nor is it necessarily a toxic material. It is a precious natural resource.

Coal mining, still carried on by poor, undereducated men and women from the underclasses at great personal health and safety risk, is currently an industry of profiteering and raping of the planet for financial gain by the owners of the industry. Mine disasters are caused primarily by faulty techniques and poor safety measures, even by the current low-technology standards of the industry. Mine operators try to ignore anything that interrupts profitable production. The miners pay the price with their bodies and their lives.

Coal could be extracted and burned for energy with minimal risk to human life and ecological damage. However, the vast number of consumers, who are just getting by in the uneven economy of most countries, would not bear the price without political protest. And, this political protest may just bring about more justice in elections, justice in the work place and justice in the tax codes. Profits for the exploiters would evaporate. Politicians would no longer get their cut.

West Virginia was one of the locales of the most ardent protests against health care reform. One might say the population deserves what it gets by bowing to the interests and propaganda of the mine owners. However, that population has been deprived of proper education and financial resources for nearly two centuries under the bully rule of the coal industry, aided and abetted by Washington, D.C..

Coal is indeed a fossil fuel, as its production is a fossil of a harsh and unequal age of human exploitation of mankind and the planet.

Insurance

Insurance, as a product, has no ethical basis. It is a scheme, not a service. Its premise is simple. Money is collected from a broad range of individuals, persons or business entities, who statistically have a calculatable risk of adversity, accident, mortality or other misadventure. Based on the mathematically calculated risk, based on historic data, a premium/cost is set for the policy or share, which has a predetrmined monetary value, collectable by the holder when adversity strikes.

When most people were illiterate and innumerate, the era when insurance was really a great racket, the issuers of insurance, the insurance companies, were like great casinos, which knew the odds and profited accordingly from customers who were generally clueless about the math, loopholes and cleverly worded exemptions, which allowed the insurance companies to avoid paying out and thereby get richer.

As I often say to anyone who lauds insurance companies to me, "They didn't build all those high rise monuments to themselves by paying out claims liberally and evenly."

The insurance industry in industrialized nations is under duress. Public education, computers, savvy judges and savvier lawyers all pose great challenges to the bottom line. Premiums are rising to breathtaking heights. In the U.S., libertarian-minded, healthy people feel persecuted by a government demand that they insure themselves for health care. Unfortunately, they don't understand that government is not the problem. It is the potential solution.

Religiuous adherence to capitalism ideology when it comes to insurance companies is not in the public interest. For one thing, health is not a commodity. It is a predictably degradable process with age in every human being. We all get sick. We all die.

As insurance companies are required more and more to live up to their contracts and pay out, premiums for insurance will continue to rise and rise. Sadly, the public will end up paying much more in insurance premiums for less compensation and security. If comparatively less money could be paid in taxes to a well run nationalized health care system which would eliminate the need for private health insurance companies altogether, we would all be much better off.

Responsibility

The crux of any personal practice for good is taking responsibility for oneself and one's actions in the context of society and community.

The current libertarian movements in the U.S., which tend toward survivalist individualism, miss the reality that human beings are social animals by nature and evolution. Their motivation, as I see it, is based in gun possession and personal wealth, unimpeded by taxes and regulation. This seems more than a little regressive.

Responsibility to the community and society is the basis of civilization. Taxes are a crucial part of maintaining that civilization and its life-improving benefits. No matter how inefficient or corrupt government may be, the maintenance of infrastructure, public health and education must still be supported by the public for civilization to progress.

If those who despise corruption and 'big government' focused their rage on improving the quality of social programs by improving the tax and regulatory codes instead of ranting against the very programs which will improve their quality of life, then we can move as united citizens to improve our country for everyone.

Ronny

hey, chimp-loving actor man

are you resting in peace alone?

no crowds there in the ground.
cameras are all turned off now.

remember me? could you now?

your big feet walked all over us.

that hollywood '40s wave smile

under your red-dyed white hair.

are you mingling with my pals?

killed by your anti-gay bigotry
killing the chance to kill a virus,

killing us sooner, you had hoped.

what do you say to quilt people?

do you charm them with a joke?

do you blame the darn russians?

do you cry "mommy'' to nancy?

your own gay son is born again.

jesus-loving son of rightist god.

the fanatics mass to your image,

print it on the fifty, they chant.

you are their addled golden calf,

elevated as the neo-cons' idol

in the face of any human justice,

false liberty's proud demagogue.

Hypocrisy

The current outrage at revelations about the deep hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic Church worldwide has triggered an apparent meltdown in the Vatican. Self delusion, as a defense against acknowledging one's hypocrisy, becomes addictive. The more the defense is eroded, the crazier the addict becomes, a withdrawal of sorts.

"No, I am not a hypocritical, repressed, homophobic gay man!" These words are chanted by exposed closet cases worldwide on a regular basis. However, when the closet cases run a potent global institution with wealth and influence, many with fortunes and lifestyles associated with the business of being Catholic will run to their defense. In my opinion, this makes the whole process one to be celebrated by human beings in favor of human liberation from psychological and political tyranny, like the toppling of the giant statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in 2003.

Over the centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has built billions of psychological Berlin Walls, with bricks of rigid, antiquated dogma and self-loathing for having normal human needs, in the minds of impressionable children, while simultaneously exploiting those same children for the psychological and sexual needs of its mentally ill clergy. It is time, Herr Ratzinger, to tear down those walls.

April

growth in my scrubby front garden

reaching to brief funneled sunshine

it's north facing but always hopeful

Swindles

I have a simple suggestion for particular young men and women who work in the financial sector and all the telemarketing, internet marketing, media marketing companies which support the financial sector. Listen up, if this applies to you or someone you know. And, if does not apply to you, share it with anyone you know in the financial (banking and investment) sector of the U.S., to whom you feel it does apply.

Stealing is not a legitimate business. Whether you disguise it as math or options or margins, stealing is stealing. Fraud is fraud. And, selling thin air, numbers without value, is fraudulent and unworthy behavior for anyone with a frontal lobe and a spine. Duping people and exploiting their human weaknesses is unethical and immoral. It cheapens the value of all human life.

Now, I know the federal government, in all its corrupt beneficence, has spared many of you from prosecution and jail time. In fact, for whatever insane reasons, the government has allowed you to continue exploiting the citizens of the U.S. in the name of "saving the economy". But, a great many of us out here just don't buy it.

I am appealing to the better human instincts in any individual person in this so-called industry who reads this. You know what you are doing is hurting people. You know what you are doing is simply accumulating wealth for people a lot richer than you'll ever be or need to be. You know you are contributing to the erosion of American democracy by increasing the gulf between rich and poor.

If you feel in the tiniest way that this message applies to you, I am simply asking you to consider doing something that will help humanity in a simple, direct and concrete way. Yes, you can go on the road of the Madoffs and the Enrons and the AIGs. But, you have a choice. You can choose not to. No matter what you are doing, always question whether you would want it to be done to you.