Musical Hair's Musings

Hey,

I can not figure out how to put a link in a post.  Is there some way to do this?  Any insight at all would be appreciated, and I'm not just fishing for comments, but I would like to put links to whatever I'm writing about.

I would put a link to my Daily KOS "diary", but I dont' know how.  Instead I'll just refer you to the right column here where you can click on it if you feel like it.

I wrote about Harry Reid visiting Evo Morales in Bolivia.  Did some one say Action packed?

Not me, I didnt' say action packed.  I'm still too sick to go to the gym where I think I might have left a spare set of keys a week ago.  That's how sick I've been.

later,

Here is a link to article at Yahoo about China's intentions for a bigger military.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_r e_as/china_military

I'm in no position to tell any country what to do with their own military. I'm not writing about what China should do. My concerns are with my own country first and foremost. We should have expected China to do this a long time ago, and they have been pretty open about their desire to become more of a world power. While that is their business, I don't see any benefit to us from enabling it. They are doing it on our dollar though, and that is our fault and the fault of our trade policy. Our foolish trade policy will lead to problems in foreign policy later.

Trade policy is not just a tool for the development of business; any business development that comes from it should be considered a secondary or tertiary benefit and not the primary aim. Trade policy must always reflect our foreign policy goals with respect to national and global security. Trade policy is also a great tool for the promotion of human rights and civil rights. Sadly, our politicians neglected the need for human and civil rights when they've negotiated our trade agreements.

The greatest shame of GATT and NAFTA and the subsequent trade agreements, besides their passing in the first place, was the decision to free them of any environmental or wage requirements. The people actually doing the work would have benefited greatly if reasonable standards had been put in place. Instead, every consequence predicted by Ralph Nader came true. We lost jobs, we lost salary and wages. We gained hours worked to make up the difference, losing time with our families and our communities. Workers in other countries gained burning mountains of discarded Nike sneakers, sick kids, arthritic teens, and no right to strike for better conditions. For all this, our conservative pundits tell us we get cheaper goods to buy; but none of those pundits have seen the price tags on these sneakers, have they?

Trade policy should reflect our national security needs, not the greed of a narrow class of business elites at the expense of our common good or our common sense. Our trading partners should be our allies. Back during the cold war, at least that was clear. We traded with the free world because to do otherwise would bankroll our enemy. That simple logic is lost on our leaders now. Instead we have a president that claims to see into the heart of Vladimir Putin and see "good" while the man shuts down freedoms and consolidates power in a manner his country has not seen since Stalin. He even calls China an ally while they block action in Sudan, drag their feet with North Korea, and rattle their saber at Taiwan. For a man who supposedly divides the world into good and bad, he seems to have a strange definition.

China has never been and will never be our ally in the foreseeable future. If the student and worker demonstrators in Tiananmen Square had not been killed or jailed, and if they had risen to positions of leadership, we might be talking about a different China; but this China is no ally. Their jails filled with political prisoners, their media filled with the kind of blatant propaganda envied by our own conservatives, and even their internet filtered by software created by US firms and dreamed of US politicians: they are no ally to us. This is no basis for trade arrangements, and yet there it is: they are our biggest trading "partner". They take our money, they take our jobs, and they fund their military build up while we squander our global influence and our military strength in Iraq.

But it doesn't have to be this way. They don't have to build their military on our dollars. We can amend our trade policy, we can get it back in line with our interests instead of in line with the greed of a small handful. We need to rebuild what we let rot here in our own country and amongst our allies. There is nothing that can stop us except our own inflexibility.

This congress has a chance to get trade right. There are bills being crafted now that will either make things better or not go far enough; but we'll have to make the calls and write the letters to our congress people and senators if we want change. The cold war ended and we were supposed to get a "peace dividend" but instead we sat on our asses and let the world coast along. One terrorist attack and all the old cold warriors that were so wrong then about Russia's intentions and capabilities got whip us into a frenzy about another new enemy "terror" which will be a war without end and endless phantoms to fight. Mean while, China is emerging as the power in the east and Russia is restructuring-- like an US corp would-- into a leaner tighter version of Stalinism.

Trade policy is the first tool at our disposal to curb the creation of future enemies. Let's start using that tool for our own purposes instead of letting it be the play thing for a few wealthy fools that don't want to play fair with their workers.

I put the Ford blog below up at Daily KOS, so if anyone goes over there, be sure to check it out.

Here's a link:

http://www.dailykos.com/user/musicalhair" title="http://www.dailykos.com/user/musicalhair" target="_blank"http://www.dailykos.com/user/...


There is a poll at the end.

I remember Gerald Ford as president, I remember Nixon for that matter too. But I was pretty young so all I remember from Ford was "WIN" buttons meaning "Whip Inflation Now", which I don't know how those buttons were going to whip inflation now. My family are Republicans. My mother has always been a county committee woman, and organizer in the local republican party. I even wrote a lot of campaign literature for local elections when I was in middle school.

I don't remember Ford's presidency very much, but I remember the Ford Reagan primaries. There was a real fear, maybe more real to a sixth greader but still there, that Reagan was a lunatic that would plunge the country into nuclear war with the Soviets if he won. That was back when people called it nuclear and not "Nuke-U-ler he-he-he".

What the pundits are saying is that Ford's subsequent defeat to Carter turned out to be the end of the "moderate" Republican-- the fiscal conservative, socially libertarian, blue blood wing-- allowing the "social conservatives" to take over. What surprised me was something some "presidential historian" said tonight on Lou Dobbs show on CNN (Lou being home tonight). She said that Ford's defeat was because the social conservatives, Reagan's wing of the party, stayed home on election day.

Looking at an election map from 1976 shows the south, from Texas to Virginia all going to Carter, probably the last time a Democrat pulled that off. I would have thought it was because he was from Georgia himself, but according this historian she said republican turn out was low that year in places were Reagan was strong. By staying home, they set up the take over of the party the next time out and reshaped for the worse the political landscape in our country since then.

People voted for Reagan because they thought he'd kick Iran's ass. He didn't. If anything, with all the evidence that points the Reagan-Bush October surprise they exasperated it for political gain. Exasperating problems for political gain seems to be the modus operandi of the Republicans since Ford. Our country suffers for it.

I got to thinking about these holidays. I thought about the Christmas trees that were taken down and then put back up, because the mall or the town or whatever decided they'd almost rather not have a Christmas display if it meant having to have a Chanukah display. I thought about the disgusting way Bill O'Reilly freaks out over "Happy Holidays", and how he turned around his insensitivity to the fact that other holidays are celebrated by other people, and feigns indignation when others acknowledge this diversity. He almost has me stopping my saying of "Merry Christmas".

Anyway, I don't get what he has against Chanukah. OK, I'm being facetious. I know he is just a jerk only "Christian" enough to use it to bully minority religions in this country. But the war on Christmas crowd loves Leviticus and Judges and Deuteronomy as much as any Gospel. The go running to the old testament when ever they faced with having to "love" or seek peace or any of the good "bleeding-heart" ; Christian things they don't want to do. Slavery, anti-race-mixing, Sodom and Gomorrah, Samson, capital punishment, all good Christian positions for those that seek refuge in the old testament when the Gospel might lead them down a hippie liberalism.

What better way to embrace this than celebrating Chanukah and Christmas. See, I always seek to unite and not divide. Here, I'll be dividing myself away from my kid's favorite holiday. If one thinks Christianity is an extension of Judaism, and see the old testament as God's word well, what better way to express this than celebrating the Jewish holidays too.

Now for me-- who is starting to suspect that Christianity has its roots in Platonism and Pythagorism, as well as seeing Judaism's texts as an amalgamation of "near east" religious thought, legends and superstitions, getting a coherent theology only after the influence of Zoroastrianism-- well I'd be out of luck.

I'd feel like the guy that recognizes "under God" in the pledge of allegiance was put there not by the authors, but by congress: not as an act of faith but as a way to find communists during the MCcarthy era. As much as I find it distasteful, It was using God as a prop to make an empty statement about communism than it was to respect the constitution and the separation between church and state. In a way it is like forcing "Merry Christmas" down everyone's throat in total disregard that there are other holidays going on at the same time.

I think it is impossible to over-estimate the impact James Brown had on music.  We lost a truely amazing artist and performer.  I'm going to try to point out somethings that he did, and maybe convey some sense of the range of impact he had.

When you listen to his earliest recordings you hear a pretty typical R&B artist.  Shortly after that though the real James Brown sound or formula or system starts to emerge.  He rightfully saw the importance of rhythm in the musical experience, and understood the role of space in music.  He focused on the rhythm section of his band, creating with them parts that made more sense when heard as a whole than as individual parts.  He came up with the parts, the musicians played exactly what he wanted them to, so once we start hearing the "James Brown" sound we are hearing his ideas and not the musicians ideas in his songs like with most artists.

When you listen to the bass lines in his music, regardless of which bassist he has at the time, the parts are full of space and rhythmic bursts that sit in the drummer's groove perfectly.  Once you learn to hear a bass line in the James Brown way, you will never play bass in the same way again.  Bootsy might have had more freedom than other bass players, but I also think that Bootsy never sounded better than his early days with James Brown.

The guitar parts in James Brown's system are also the archetype for guitar interaction.  Typically in&n bsp;his songs o ne guitar would  play chords up on the treble strings and the other guitar would play a sinlge note line on the bass strings.  The key to hearing how these parts fit, or how he came up with them goes back to the drums.  Everything feeds off the drums.  It seems to me that the single note guitar line comes last, adding a busyness and foward motion to music.  The repetition of the parts then become the canvas upon which the rest of the music built.

The horns often were just another layer of the groove, which was much more like a machine than a band up till that point in time.  This system allowed James to create a vocal line that now that I think about it might have been more like a blues guitar solo than singing.  It is tough to compare James Brown's way of singing, but easy to contrast.  Just listen to Sam and Dave or the Four Tops or anyone for a contrast.  In the same way that riffs and hooks and rhythmic phrasing replaced harmonic progression in his system, these same elements replaced most standard melodic devices.  All the subltle aspects of songcraft were pushed aside for a much more emotionally charged almost seemingly free form chanting or riffing for lack of a better word.

The impact this had on other musicians is staggering.  Every funky drummer that practially blows off the rest of the drum kit for the snare, kick and hi-hat is pledging allegiance to the Godfather of Soul.  Every bassist that leaves the space playing staccatto, sneaking in 16th note Root - octave or root fifth flurries working almost solely off the "box" pattern R-Octave-b7-5 is ripping off James Brown.  The 16th note groove might have been underneath a lot of music as the foundation, but James Brown put it out front saying it was&n bsp;all that wa s needed.  He broke  it free f rom all the&nbs p;restrictions of&nb sp;nice arranging&nb sp;and structures&nb sp;and instead  he let it  run amoke.

It would be silly to list all the 70's funk and soul acts that count James as the primary influence.  It shouldn't be neccessary to point out that hip-hop would have nothing to sample if not for James Brown, he was the primary source with noone of significance in second third or fourth place.  Listen to today's "Jam bands" for yet another logical extention of James Brown's ideas on what makes music groove.  His band laid down the ultimate beats to blow over for jam bands in the same way they were the ultimate beats to rap over in the late 70's and early 80's.

Listen to "Afro-pop", and the various kinds of electric music coming out of Africa.  Two things happend that changed the music in Africa, James Brown toured Africa, and Bob Marley toured Africa.  The inspiration they gave to the local musicians (not to mention the jamming they did) gave us every shade of Afro-pop that we have.  Listen to Fela Kuti's music, or King Sunny Ade (but now that I mention it, listen to Fela Kuti for some more life changing music).

I not one for hyperbole, but it is safe to say that James Brown is as important as Chuck Berry or the Beatles or John Coltrane or Miles Davis in terms of impact.

Hey,

I was going to make a Chanukah post but Opera kept crashing on me.  I upgraded to the lasted revision, and it all seems to be working fine.  I should be doing this in Firefox, but old habits die hard.


Anyway, I was driving home thursday night and passed a car coming the other way with this huge Menorah on its roof.  It was like cut white plexiglass or something with red plexi for the flames, with lies on the inside so that the white candles and the red flame could be seen at night.  It must have been something to make.



It was similar to but different that this:

http://www.carmenorah.com/Parade/images/New" title="http://www.carmenorah.com/Parade/images/New" target="_blank"http://www.carmenorah.com/Par...%20Haven,%20CT_jpg.jpg

I think it is pretty cool.



Anyway, I've got to run and I'll finish my subversive and trouble making take on this later.  This is a good breaking point from a happy post to a political take on these holidays.

Merry and Happy to all.

This Christmas is kinda weird. The kids are getting excellent presents, the best year for them. This will also be the best Christmas in terms of gifts for my wife by far. We did OK this year. We even got gifts for all my aunts and uncles, because when you do OK you have to remember to "kick some up" to the bosses.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just setting up the contrast. Most of us are all sick as hell right now. My wife just got over a cold. I was getting over a cold and when my wife got it, I relapsed worse. I start kicking that and I go see an old professor of mine who was sick, and I got sicker. I start recovering from that and I dont' know what happened but I'm now more sick than I've been in about 7 years.

I used to work in enivronmental consulting-- hazardous waste and fun stuff like that-- and I would go into things everyone else would be getting out of and the nastier the gig the more I liked it. But, it took it's toll on me. by the time I left it I was having two asthma attacks a day, fighting off colds for a month at a time, and just weak-- not physically but "constitutionally&qu ot; I guess. I used to be able to-- not to gross anyone out but-- spit a cold out of my system before started that gig. Growing older had a lot to do with it, not just the toxic mess I thought I was tougher than.

But after that work, every cold I got would descend into my lungs and I'd be sucking on my inhaler all day and not even getting out of bed for weeks at a time. When I finally left I stayed in bed for two weeks sick too sick to get up. Every cold I had for at least two years would knock me down in ways you can't imagine, and I'd be sick like 4 or 5 times each winter. Each time it would descend into the lungs and I'd be sucking on the inhaler like an addict.

Eventually I started to regain my strength or resiliancy, but it was slow going. For a few years now I've been pretty strong and healthy, but this cold last night started to descend into the lungs. It isn't there yet but I know the feeling and I'm fighting it as best I can. Enough about my whining. Two days ago I was saying to my wife how lucky we are that the kids aren't getting these colds we've have. Last night the oldest one starts coughing and blowin her nose and needing the inhaler. the youngest one is tough as nails though and she's OK so far. I'd be shocked if it takes her down very much if it does hit her.

But wait there's still more whining! We were going to go to my parents house yesterday, to check on my mom as she comes out of the hospital for some tests to see how her bladder cancer is doing and to check out an infection she has, and to celebrate in a small way my father's 80th birthday. Well, she's too sick and just wants to lay in bed. I'll call and check in with them today but she was too ill for us yesterday. (Dad don't want a big deal made of us 80th birthday anyway, at least he says.)

But wait there's more! We were also going to my parents house on Christmas and we were going to go to a restaurant (because we've found all that cooking of a big holiday meal can be exhausting and going out is kinda easier sometimes in and around NYC there are alot of places that really do a nice job of serving Christmas dinner, T-day too for that matter), but mom was too sick to make the reservations and it looks like we're doing leftovers for Christmas because we're all too sick to cook and shop. Luckily the presents are all squared away.

There! So, since I haven't blogged in like two years except for this past week or so, I got in my full year's worth of whining all in this one blog. No more whining for the rest of the year from me, I promise.

ARGGGGHHHH!!!!! I've tried to put up two new posts and both times Opera crashes on me. I've upgraded to the latest version (9.10 from 9.02), but am using Mozilla's Firefox for this post and will probably use it a lot more when posting here. Anyway, hopefully I'll re-do the post about chanukah, which might be cool. Right now I've got to go shopping for the wife.

My littlest one (5 1/2) had her first piano recital today. I hear it went well, I was still finding a parking space when she played. Buy the time I got in she had already played. She played two little studies from her method book-- "La Method Rose" by Van De Velde. She had a lot of fun she said, and her teacher seemed pleased. Other kids played, all students of this one teacher.

When it was over and the mingling had begun some of the kids went over to the piano to play for each other. My oldest got her turn and played the famous Bach Minuet in G from the Anna Magdelena notebook. About a year ago I was surprised to learn that the tune was probably written not by JS Bach, but mostly like by Christian Pezold Bach. When she finished and walked away, another kid sat down and played the same piece, the first half anyway. This kid looked at least a year older than my older one, and based on what I saw in the recital, she was the best of these students-- but I think my oldest can play better.



I'm glad the kids got to see their pals from the music school, even though my oldest didn't get to officially preform in the recital. I think it might make her want to work hard for the spring recital when she is supposed to play.



Both kids though are going to be monsters on the piano. They've both got great ears, and they're surrounded by music. The older one has good solid technique, she has to make certain mechanical changes as she grows (the way you use your pinky as a real little kid is different than when you're older, and you can "dig in" more when you're older but I can't describe it any better since I'm a guiarist), but her musical memory is great and she is a wiz with her scale work. She is already on course for being a pretty fast player.


The little one picks out the melodies that the older one is working on by ear. It is pretty funny actually. She wants to play the stuff the older one is working on. Her teacher asks her to write songs and she comes up with really nice stuff. She gives them crazy names like "The Brand of the New Hope" which is one of her better songs.


The older one doesn't write songs yet, but I think she want's to. Her teacher is focusing on "tone" which I didn't evern realize was an option for piano. On guitar we can get a lot of tonal "colors" and timbre and so on. The piano seems to me to be more limited in that way, but apparently there is something more to it than it would appear on the surface.


Anyway, it is cool watching them grow up. They are a great team. They're both very different, and in certain ways they both want to be like each other. They're both smart, but man they both are on track to be monsters on the piano. I can't wait till one of them starts putting in the time on the guitar. Partly because then the other one will too just to keep up. gotta run ...

Here are the links I forgot to add in the post below:

 

Christian Coalition president-elect quits over lack of focus on poverty  

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-11 -28-christian-coalition_x .htm" title="http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-11 -28-christian-coalition_x .htm" target="_blank"http://www.usatoday.com/news/...

 

Southern Baptists still back Bush, Iraq war

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/ world/15638737.htm" title="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/ world/15638737.htm" target="_blank"http://www.mercurynews.com/ml...

 

Southern Baptists Support a Vigorous War

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23023" title="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23023" target="_blank"http://www.frontpagemag.com/A...

 

Condi Rice tells SBC messengers America's job to spread freedom

http://www.abpnews.com/1092.article" title="http://www.abpnews.com/1092.article" target="_blank"http://www.abpnews.com/1092.a...

 

Profile: Silent Evangelical Support Of Bush's Proposed War Against Iraq

Morning Edition: February 26, 2003

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/tran scripts/2003/feb/030226.hagerty.html" title="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/tran scripts/2003/feb/030226.hagerty.html" target="_blank"http://www.npr.org/programs/m...

 

It should be noted that the support, mentioned in the headline from the last of the above, was never silent but always loud and 'in-your-face' because the stupid and the war-mongering have no sense of decency to keep silent.

I used to have a "disclaimer" box that would come up before you could get to my blog.  It was pretty funny, I think anyway.  But it was there for a reason: I reserve the right to say offensive and insensative things.  I'm exercising that right, now.   

 

In this case, it should draw no flack from anyone.  I'm about to "bitch" about some people's intolerance of others, and if anyone supports the group I'm about to slam, well they sort of have to support my right to slam them too.

 

might not have this whole "making a new paragraph" thing down yet, so bear with me.

---

 

From Yahoo News comes this nice little headline: Va. parishes split from Episcopal church ,

There, that should be "lavender".   Pardon me, while figure out what font I want this in ...

How's this?  OK, I'm sticking with it.  Anyway, here is a link to the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061217/ap_on_r e_us/episcopalians_split" title="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061217/ap_on_r e_us/episcopalians_split" target="_blank"http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20...

 

This has happened before, and I don't just mean this stuff going on with these churches freaking out over gay people.  I'm reminded of the way the Southern Baptists started.  Yes, I'm "going there" (as I answer the little voice in my head that is saying "Don't go there").

I can agree that gay marriage shouldn't be so analogous with the civil rights movement, but that doesn't make all the applicable analogies any less informative when looking at this issue.  In this case, we're talking about the start of a new sect.

New sects start, everyy religion we have today started either as a sect or something bigger or something smaller.  Most were looked at as cults, and most got their start from some actual theological innovation or spiritual awakening.  Most can point to a leader with a new take on things.  I think it would be instructive to look at the big picture and see how these sects evolved in comparison with sects that started in other ways.

I don't see this breaking away from parent churches as a theological matter, just as I don't see the manner in which the Southern Baptists were created as a manner of theology.  To point out that both groups-- this new Aglican and Episcopal group, and the Southern Baptits- are "conservative" might make some of us groan at an oversimplification of the word, but I say that is very much a part of it all too.  (I have on deck a review of conservatives in Iran, and how it is bickering caused by "conservatives" here and between "conservatives" in cross-cultural conflict that is at the heart of many of our problems in the world.)

This split now is not about how one views God; it isn't about one's relationship with God, and it isn't about anything that is in the chain of command (if I may use such a term) of parishioner to clergy to God.  It isn't about church book keeping, or business, or anything else.  It is about the relationship between the parishioners, and really let's admit it: hate.

It is one thing for a person to be so freaked out by gays that they become all kinds of disfunctional-- you know, like failing to see the person for who they are because of some perference they have, and failing to welcome them into their own community in the manner every person should be welcomed--- but for entire congregations to up-and-leave a church over it is pretty amazing.  They are saying "we don't have to like, respect, tolerate, sit next to, and listen to any gay people".  That is it-- let's not pretend otherwise.  To them, an openly gay person can't stand in front them at church delivering sermons.  Closeted gays can, self-hating gays can, crooks can, racists can, idiots can; anyone can except gays, and women if you're Catholic. 

The Southern Baptists have a distinction I'd frankly be embarrassed about: they were formed because their members could not abide the anti-slavery stance of the rest of the church.  OK, you might think it should be left in the past, after all the church has made statements of apology and we're supposed think it has "come a long way". 

I don't think so.  I think it should come as a realization to the members that they were way wrong, and that maybe they might be wrong else where.  Maybe it isn't about admitting wrong, but just about letting go a position that is so untenable that it is no longer worth keeping in public.  That is no more outragous than the idea that gays and hollywood have a secret agenda of converting the world's population.

Why am I picking on Southern Baptists, do I want a fight?  No, not at all.  All I'm saying is there is something very wrong with a "conservative" church that splits itself way in that manner.  The idea that they were wrong about is not held in isolation but as part of a larger world view; and it is not reasonable to assume that switching from hating blacks to accepting blacks corrected the problems in the world view.  It isn't the same thing as putting tumeric into a tomato sauce instead of oregano. 

The hate was justifed and rationalized in their minds and they carried over those rationalizations into their theology and their reading of their bible.  Correcting the whole "hate blacks" thing takes more than switching it to "accept blacks, in order for the world view to be corrected a lot of relearning and personal growth had to take place.  They didn't just make a wrong or selfish choice when breaking away over slavery, they went down a long and wrong path. 

There is no quick two-block change of direction to get back.  How do I know this?   Below are a few links.  The war in Iraq had at it's very begining when too many of our sheepish population were cowering in fear from Sadaam's phantom nukes and chemical weapons (which Reagan sold him) that there was talk in the media (to help drum up support for the war) of a "biblically just war".  At most only and barely half our population ever supported the invasion before it was started, and that can't mean that more than half of any religious group would have supported it-- well, except for one.  The Southern Baptists seem to stand alone as not only supporting the war and Bush, but they seem to be war-mongers-- or at least war cheerleaders.  No concern over the deaths, no love as the solution to any problems, no turning the other cheek, nope: war is their answer.  Deep down inside they must know that the answer to the bumper-sticker question "who would Jesus Bomb" is no one.  There is something disfunctional in their world view that prevents them from accepting and acting on that truth.  It is the same thing that made it alright to hate blacks.

It is probably the same thing that takes the shock out of the odd fact that the president-elect of the Christian Coalition had to resign before even taking office because he wanted to fight poverty and take seriously being responsible stewards of the planet.  I can appreciate that there is little time after: fighting for tax breaks for the wealthy, fighting to destroy public education, fighting gays, fighting against affirmative action, fighting to make every pregnancy end in a baby (not a healty baby, not a baby that has a healthy mom and shelter and a doctor though), and fighting to get every town county and state to put baby Jesus on every street corner from labor day to presidents day to the exclusion of any other display.  Yes, they have little time to fight poverty or take the environmental problems of the world seriously.  They may have little time to add poverty relief to their agenda but they also have their priorities screwed up, and for the same reasons that lead the Southern Baptists to break away and from their own church.

Is it fair to compare the Southern Baptist relationship to slavery and the Christian Coalition's disregard for the poor to this new group of Anglican's hatred for gays?  Yes, very much so.  There is something I've always liked about the phrase: kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out.  We should love them all too, and let God sort them out; we should accept them all too, and let God sort them out; we should feed them all, and let good sort them out; we should share out communities and our churches and our institutions with them all, and let God sort them out.  We should deny nothing to anyone, isn't that in keeping with Jesus' teaching?  Freaking out over a gay minister or bishop without giving them the same chance and the same respect any other new minister or bishop would receive is just mean.  It says nothing about the openly gay person and everything about the newly created -- and not surprisingly-- conservative group.

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I don't have a way to preview this, so I'll publish it and edit it after.  I put this in Religion, but not because I'm looking for a fight.  If I wanted a fight, I'd put in in Food or Cooking so I can pick a fight with people that put tumeric in tomato sauce.  We have to fight back in this war on pasta.

I felt like I hit one out of the park with my last post. I felt that right after I wrote it, and the long comments in it are really cool. The conversations around posts were always been my favorite part of blogging. I haven't posted since the one below, mainly because I haven't had time (the weather was nice here for a change and I've been sick), but also for a bigger reason: I had nothing of that level to follow it up with. I realize I shouldn't use my last post as a measuring stick for my next post. I have a few in the works, maybe tonight I'll post them. Actually I had a plan for another post to write: as I was planning the last one I had another idea and I was supposed to type it right after finishing the last one. But, as I researched it the premise seemed to be bogus and not at all reality based, so I scratched that idea and had nothing. It was a "big" idea too. It would have like unified a lot of ideas from my old posts on Akhenaton and monotheism and my last post and maybe even cured cancer. OK, maybe not cancer but maybe eczema or priaprism (which will be the name of my next rock band). In searching for a big idea to replace it, I came up with nothing that big, so I wrote nothing. Tonight, I'll write something. I hope.

I was struck by the fact that everyone has their own "version" of Jesus. OK, all the bible thumpers that are chuckling because they know Jesus personally via the bible can stop chuckling: it isn't everyone "else" that has their own version, but everyone that thinks about Jesus.

There is no real shock here.

 

We can not conceive of another person in our minds in their own entirety, but only as our own image of that person. The moment we gain an image of someone in our mind, we are contemplating what we perceive as their own circumstance against the background of our own experiences and our own lives. Even as remote their lives may be from ours, the contextualizing of their life within our experience is there. The better we get to know someone, the closer we may get to "them" as opposed to our first impressions; but there will always be a difference between our peception and their reality. This can only be even more so when we're talking about a historical figure, and it really is of no significance if that historical figure is a diety that enters our heart (or if the historical figure wasn't a historical figure in anyone's opinion).


Without going it long details, we all read about what the various words in the various gospels "really" mean and we naviagate these words putting together a picture that makes sense to us. The picture that makes sense to us is in part formed by us and our own interpreting and translating of these words into our own mind. The Jesus that sits in our own hearts is the one that makes sense in our own minds. I am completely "OK" with this. I think it can be no other way actually. As long as we are honest with ourselves about it. If I think Jesus was "of" the destitute poor, not a "carpenter" but a "laborer", a rabble rouser: I certainly would have my reasons and noone could really argue with them. If some else thought he was more middle class or of a skilled labor class, literate and educated in a manner the poorest could not expect to be: well, I know that would be reasonable. Where we'd go very wrong would be if we were to consider either of these two different impressions as "wrong" or "right".


Anyway, even all these words we are disecting come to us from copies of copies of copies of gospels that probably were not first hand accounts. It shouldn't be surprising nor disappointing considering the times we are talking about and the means available to those earliest Christians.


But here is something to think about: what language did Jesus speak? Well, if he was a Galilean: that was considered the most Hellenized area, and it was not uncommon for large populations of Jews to have forgotten their language and speak Greek exclusively.


Here is something that surprised me: what was his name? It seems to me his name was most likely "Joshua", and the hellenized version of Joshua was altered to create a "numeralogically perfect" name, which we then translate into Jesus. When we're told of the power in the name "Jesus" are we being told of the man's name or of the numeralogical perfection of the alteration? Might it be decidely "un-Christian" to suppose any name has "power"?

I think it doesn't matter how we conceive of Jesus, so long as we are honest with ourselves about it. If we know that "God's law" is written on all our hearts, and that it is up to us to detangle ourselves-- from our own disfunctions and our own problems and the culture we are in-- in order to see straight through to that "law" as it is written on our hearts. So long as we take that stuff seriously I think we're on the right track.

I don't know. I might start blogging again. I've been busy since my last posts on this, and I might post on some of this. I'm about to undertake some major changes in my life, but I don't like "jinxing" things by talking about them before they happen. What I would do is post as they happen, even if a small percent of these things pan out, it will be pretty cool to post it here. I am looking foward to the new session of congress; and "we" need to be very active and keep them focused on what needs to be done, which I think are: oversight of government contracting, investigating the abuses of power overlooked by the last (well, current) congress, minimum wage, funding the actions of government (taxation and revenue generation), restoration of civil liberities, overhauling energy policy to reflect reality, health care, and inserting economic justice, environmental standards into trade agreeements, and resusitating our economy. I have to run, but I'm looking foward to sharing what I hope will be good and new things going on here for me and my family and the people around me. later