Tom Brokaw - America's Greatest Twit

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm Okay

Sleeps all night and I works all day."

- Monty Python

I love words.  There is magic in them for me.  There are some words and phrases that just roll from the tongue, like Boolean Logic.  In Neal Stephenson's new book, Anatheum, he has created the phrase, "Hylean Theoric Flow".  Sometimes the symphonies that good wordsmiths are able to compose, can impact us as much as the meanings of the words.  Of course, I could be "hoist by my own petard" if I did not mention an old friend, Bill Shakespeare, and his uncanny ability to create phrases that are still in use (or should I say overuse?).  Why do I want to talk about words?  Because they have meaning and because they can do great things by those who read them, listen to them, and act upon them.  Why talk about words now?  I just finished listening to President Obama's Inaugural Address for the third time, and I believe words have meaning for him and that they are important to him.  And when he speaks them, he moves people emotionally.

Why is Monty Phython's Terry Jones pictured as the Naked Piano Player?  Because I was thinking about America's 'Greatest' Twit, Tom Brokaw.  Obviously, because Mr. Brokaw has been reading the  news over many years in his best melodic voice he has come to believe that his opinions are fact.  A situation that is innocent enough, but extremely dangerous.  I certainly do not mind Mr. Brokaw having an opinion as to the WW II generation being one of America's 'great' generations, but when he calls them the 'greatest' generation, he is leaving out many generations he has not a clue about, generations as yet unborn.  You may think this is a petty complaint.  Maybe so.  But I think it may be a small reflection of a much larger problem.  People who are hired to read the news of TV are hired to do so because they have melodic voices, good delivery (occasionally), and are not too repulsive for the viewer to look at on the Tube.  Hell, in the 21st Century, pronunciation is not even an issue.  They are not hired because of their intellectual brilliance.  When a journalist states his opinion as fact, especially one who is well respected within his profession, s/he moves into a new category, that of Twit.

Twits outnumber journalists on TV by an alarming number.  Print journalism is becoming increasingly similar.  That leaves the Internet to actually discover the facts about a story.  Ah, but at one time it was so easy, today it is a bit more difficult.  Tom may not be the 'greatest' twit, but he is one of the 'great' twits of his time, spewing his little redundant homespun homilies as though they were facts about a story and not his opinions.  Hell, they do not really qualify as opinions, but that's another story.

Until next time Kimosabe, I remain just another Rodeo Clown watchin' the evenin' news, you betcha'!

 In the beginning was the Word...

John 1:1

Nonoverlapping Magisteria

It doesn't matter if you win or lose

As long as you're in there swingin'

- Tarzan

I have been perusing several different blog sites lately and it occurred to me that there are a lot of folks that can't seem to separate science from religion.  Worse is that they cannot seem to comfortably live with two separate disciplines.  Of course, I don't think anyone can explain it better than Stephen Jay Gould in his essay on Nonoverlapping Magesteria, I guess I'm just perplexed that so many folks are still arguing about religion and science.  I am fascinated by the number of folks trying to prove there is a God to folks that believe there is not a god and vice-versa.  Proving there is or is not a God is not something science is capable of nor does it have the ability to do nor does it want to.  But for some reason there are those who want to prove that God does exist.  Believing there is a God is just that, believing.  Science is about facts.  These facts provide the basis of theories about how they work.  It is an old cliche, from a great play, Inherit the Wind, but it still holds true today, "science is more interested in the age of rocks, while religion is interested in the rock of ages. "  When Pope Pius announced in 1950 that the Church recognized evolution as a science and then again in 1996, Pope John Paul recognized evolution as a science supported by data, you would think the religious right would give up its endeavors to have Genesis interpreted as facts in the form of 'creationism'.  Not so, they just had the name of their 'science' changed to 'intelligent design'.   

Stephen Gould had it right, Science and Religion are separate magesteria, neither of which should infringe on the others domain.  In this way they can learn from each other and share a path that seeks truth, loves mercy, walks humbly and desires justice.  Personally, on the Dr Atomix scale of believing, a scale that goes from 1 to 10, 1 being a true believer and 10 being totally atheistic, I'm sure most folks will find themselves on one end or the other. Not a lot of 5's or 6's.  If you ask them to write down or share their values with you, you might be surprised about how many are identical.  It's not science that divides us, its beliefs.  I believe it's time for a drink...

Until next time I remain just another Zoroastrian Cowboy at the Rodeo of the Absurd.

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so

is good news from a far country.

- Proverbs 25:25

Huis Clos

When I do Good, I feel Good

And

When I do Bad, I feel Bad.

That is my religion.

- attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Back in 2005 we were visiting different schools around the Northeast where our daughter was auditioning for different music programs.  While we were in Baltimore visiting the Peabody Institute, I had a birthday.  So we drove down to Washington D.C..  It was something I had wanted to do for a long time, because I had not been there since 1970 and I had heard that a lot of changes had taken place.  In 1970 Washington D.C. was not a very attractive city, right up there with Bagdad.  There were certain areas of town that were off-limits to young Marines and anyone else who enjoyed breathing.  In the back of my mind somewhere, I really wanted to visit the 'Wall' honoring the more than 58,000 who died or were missing in Viet Nam.  Eventually we got around to the reflecting pool and the three of us began our walking tour.  We began at the WW II monument and worked our way along the south side of the reflecting pool to the Korean War monument.  The WW II guys either had better lobbyists or it was a more prestigious war to serve in, because their monument beat the Korean monument all to hell.  Hey, but what do I know monuments? 

Then we walked up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial.  Now, THERE is a monument!  We stopped on the landing about half-way up and I asked my daughter, Cat, if she knew what famous American had once spoken here.  She looked at me as if I had dog poop on my head.  "Dad, everyone knows that.  It was Forrest Gump!"  Aha, I says to myself, this girl's education is starting to payoff.  Actually, we had a good laugh about it and then talked for awhile about Dr King's speech on our way into the memorial.  If it was built to inspire and awe, then it certainly achieved its purpose.  It was totally silent inside and provided a mood for meditation and reflection.  We spent a few moments silently reflecting on Lincoln's words, then became distracted by some rather large woman from Iowa whose underwear must not have fit her properly.  We walked outside and I wondered to myself who else had spoken from the steps of this memorial?  Probably some Punk Rock group.  

We walked over to the Viet Nam Veteran's Memorial but when I saw all these fat guys in mortorcycle jackets crying into their hankies and having their pictures taken with some asian tourists, I thought to myself, another time.  My memories of those I served with are just as fresh today as they ever were.  I try to honor them by the life I lead and the example I set.  Hope they don't mind that I didn't want to 'wail' on their wall.  But I must admit, it was the coolest of all the memorials, not the most expensive, but the coolest.  Eat your hearts out Korean vets, you didn't get diddly.  Where they will put the Iraq/Afghanistan Memorial is a question congress should be thinking about.  I'm sure it will be the largest, gaudiest yet.  Constitution gardens seems like an appropriate place and it's not very far away.

But then it occurs to me, how strange it is for the President who presided over America's Civil War, or as we like to say in the South, the War of Northern Aggression, who hated war and violence, to be presiding over war memorials.  Now, don't get me wrong, I think we need war memorials.  If they provide even a modicum of consolation for families who have lost loved ones in defense of their country, whether history judges the war justified or not, then they are worth it.  But it seems to me that it would be much more appropriate for the Lincoln Memorial to overlook The WW II Children's Hospital and the Korean Cancer Center and the Viet Nam Cultural Heritage Museum.  Based on everything I have been able to consume about Mr. Lincoln, these would be much more fitting memorials.

I do not know if Lincoln actually said "If I do good I feel good, if I do bad I feel bad.  That is my religion."  So many years after his death and still no one is sure about Lincoln's religion, but most feel like he was a man of deep faith.  I don't know about that but I do know that he was a man of deep understanding.  I do not believe he said those words attributed to him.  There were many things Lincoln believed in deeply and expressed as only he could.  But the pain and sorrow of the Civil War that caused him such deep depression could never be expressed in words or assuaged by monuments.  I think the quote must have been attributed to him by some theosophical adherent, from the 'If it feels good do it' splinter group.  Probably same folks that scheduled the Rockettes to dance there when GWB was inaugurated.  

Well, until next time, I remain just another Cowboy at the Rodeo of the Absurd...

I have reason to believe that

We will all be received in

Graceland

- Paul Simon

Chthonic Lucubrations

... the Evil that men do lives after them,

the Good is oft interred with their bones...

-Julius Caesar Act II sc. 2

A couple of guys brought a load of wood by the house yesterday.  For the most part it was really good,  fresh cut, solid Red Oak.  There were a few sticks of Hawthorne and Pine and a couple of others I didn't recognize.  Any wood that I don't recognize I automatically put in the category of 'trash tree'.  But I am not quite as Arboreal Challenged as a fellow we met in Spain.  His name was Jose.  Jose said there were two types of trees in Spain, Olive and not Olive.  I really don't know if the unknown species were trash trees, but I know they were 'Not Olive'.

Now, I have to admit when I first greeted Daryl and his other brother Daryl (a shout out here to Bob Newhart), I had these flashbacks of "Deliverance".  But after talking to them for awhile, I figured they were just a couple hardworking good ol' boys from the Ozarks.  Hell, if it had been a Community College course I could have earned a couple of continuing education credits.  After stacking about two cords of wood, Daryl (not his other brother) got this irregular grin on his face and stated in a kind of questioning way, "I hear they's a lot faggots in Eureka Springs?" You know, when someone first makes a remark like that, you don't know quite what to say.  In my youth, the '60s, I grew up listening to 'queer' jokes and all kinds of ethnic and minority humor loaded with sexual innuendo, and never understood the horrible negative effects they had on my views of people who were different from me.  It really didn't dawn on me until I was a young Marine in 1968, that all people were deserving of my respect and that it was morally and ethically wrong of me to try and deprive them of their rights or their personal dignity, but that's a whole other blog.  

Since I have not heard anything like that in quite awhile, I was momentarily stunned.  Of course, the Imp of the Perverse (a Neal Stephenson creation) wanted me to respond with, "Daryl, you are the dumbest mothereffer I have ever met!"  Or better yet, "Why? You wanna squeal for me Daryl?"  But one of my better angels finally kicked in and I responded, "Yeah, there are quite a few Gay people here, as a matter of fact, you never know when you might be speaking to one of them. "  I secretly thought to myself, 'Dang, you hammered him pretty good you think were too hard on him?'   Hopefully, he got my message and maybe even spent about 15 seconds reflecting upon it, but I don't think so.  As they drove away I heard Daryl remark, "You think that ol' boy was faggot Daryl?"  After reading back over this it sounds a little 'preachy.'  That was not my intention, it was meant to be a snapshot of a 'A Day in the Life' kind of deal.  My granddaddy would've said, "God didn't put people here that don't think like you to make your life Hell, He does it to make you more creative!"  

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

You were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

- The Beatles

Existential Zoroastrians for Jesus

If you're a horse, and someone gets on you,

And falls off,

And then gets right back on you,

I think

You should buck him off right away.

- Jack Handey

So far, we have had the most amazing January, here in Eureka.  It gets a little cool night, but the afternoons, well... they have been downright balmy!  My entire life I felt a little out of place, most places, 'like a brown pair of shoes with a tuxedo.'  When my wife and I started visiting Eureka Springs a few years back, it was really magic for us.  I can't explain it, for if I do, it might lose its magic.  Magic is kind of like love in that regard.  I would never have thought that a small town in the Ozark mountains in Northwestern Arkansas would have anything that I might be remotely interested in.  How wrong I was.  It is an interesting community, originally developed as a health resort for the healing powers of its springs.  Of course the community has had to reinvent itself many times since then.  But the magic that drew people here to be healed, still exists.  Like most 'snake oil', it really won't heal you, but it will make you feel a damn sight better.  

Eureka is a community of artists and those who would be artists.  It is a community of those who would erect a massive concrete Jesus to watch over the town but who would later crucify the feet of Jesus so they wouldn't have to put one of those red blinking lights on his head to warn away aircraft.  It's been called the milk-carton Jesus and Willie Nelson in a dress. And the statue has been accused of having women's breasts, which fits in well with Eureka's Diversity Weekend.  Usually, when folks around here tell you they found Jesus, it means they found their way to the Great Passion Play or they were looking in the wrong direction while having a cocktail on the observation deck of the Crescent Hotel.

Eureka is also a community of entrepreneurs and restauranteurs.  Hell, artists have to eat, too! Eureka also has a mix of Wiccans, Monks, New Agers, Ancient Agers, Re-cyclers, Pre-cyclers, bicyclers, gicleers and some of the world's best trout fishermen!  A mix of people who welcomed me to make Eureka my home.  Milk Carton Jesus and all.  Well, our dog, Precious, is looking at me with her, 'Feed Me' look so I had better close my non-sequitor meanderings for now and find a Greenie for the dog.

God Gave us Brains and Expects us to use them!

But now they make sport of me,

Those who are younger than I,

Whose fathers I would have disdained

To set with the dogs of my flock.

- Job 30:1

Some ground rules:

• This Blog is for fun!
• This is NOT a religious Blog.
• This is NOT a New Age Blog.
• This is NOT any attempt to persuade you or guide you.

There is no minimum age for entry into the bizarre and arcane ramblings in this Blog, fifty might be apropos, with an equivalent reading age of, oh, say, fifth grade.  But that is so-o-o-o limiting!  In actuality, age and reading level should have no bearing on whether or not you receive any enjoyment from this blog.  Being open-minded and having sex immediately after reading this blog should grant you the highest level of satisfaction.  This Blog is certainly not for the faint of heart or those that have made that 'leap of faith.'  It is most assuredly NOT a Blog for the Conservative Fundamentalist, even though I believe it is possible for them to be able to derive maximum enjoyment from this blog.  God knows they have enough reading to keep them busy well into the next millenia, once they master the art of reading and give up allowing their Tele-Evangelists to interpret everything for them.

Most of the folks I know, young and old, have their own ideas about God, whether they are derived from some ultra-right wing fundamentalist explanation and interpretation, or whether they are based on their own interpretations and explanations.  Many of the folks I know tell me they don't believe in God at all, that religion was created to prey upon the weaknesses of the bourgeoisie in order to control them.  " 'Cause God knows they needed controllin' -Sarah Palin.   Hopefully, it doesn't matter where you are on life's journey, this Blog will provide you with some entertainment and some 'food for thought'.  And I enthusiastically seek your input, your stories and your thoughts about any ramblings I might present on this Blog.  Keep your critiques to your damn selves.  

Reflecting on your life and experiences, looking back over the ideals, motivations, and transitions you experienced at different stages in your life, and taking a hard look at who you are now may not dramatically affect your life at all.  But if there were that one percent chance that reading this blog and spending a few quiet moments in meditation might have some positive impact on your life, would you take that chance?  Again, your answer to this question revolves around who you are and where you are at this particular junction in your life.

You gotta dance with the one that bring ya' 

-Darrell Royal