Archive for February, 2011

While freedom is messy, tyranny is neat, but misery is always somewhere in both. As though living in a fifties sitcom, tyrants always choose to portray life in their domain as spotlessly perfect, and if they can’t find such illusions to share, they manufacture them…while those they subjugate chafe and suffer, convinced they are truly alone by two hideous watchdogs, cruelty and ignorance. Oppressive systems are not hard to find; look for any government restricting the INFLOW of information.
As long as you can keep people cloaked in endless night, sadly, it works, and while the rest of the world knows what it sees is only fantasy, truth can’t pierce the darkness because the light there has sputtered and died, scrupulously extinguished by selfish men. I often wonder what propels such men, who usually gain power offering hope and promise before slowly surrendering to oppression, terror, hate, and the accumulation of personal wealth, somehow abandoning the path of goodness for evil.
How many men and women do they needlessly have to torture? How many do they have to kill? How many mansions do they need? How many luxury cars? How many toadies and syncophants? How much excess? How much money? I think I know the answer. It’s NEVER enough…because deep down where the fluttering spark of whatever humanity remains is dying, they know they’ve failed. It takes effort to smother the inherent compassion and love built into their souls, and when it’s too tiny to torture them, they begin filling their days with meaningless self-indulgence, caricatures in a black-and-white, imaginary world.
I’ll just bet they smile when they see the contrary, noisy, often embarrassing world of freedom, where misery within is not only noticed but vigorously attacked. Smugly confident, they survey the neat surface of their realm, maybe even laugh a little when they see angry men and women shouting and holding hand-lettered signs in masses of protest on the other side, but there’s something they don’t know…and in their carefully costructed illusion could never know. Those people, those images they watch so intently are FREE, and freedom DEMANDS attention to injustice and inequity, even when it isn’t pretty.
Free lives aren’t neat or perfect, nor always certain of the truth, but they almost invariably try every way they can to improve the lot of ALL, often redirecting those they’ve chosen as leaders to share the common joy only a free system can provide. Freedom allows for differing opinions, sometimes heatedly and angrily defended. It may not look good on TV, but it works, I think because it’s moderated by a sacred, treasured, universally accepted bond.
When free people discover a mistake or injustice, they work to correct it, however painful that course may be. When they disagree about things, in time…maybe after a lot of cursing and yelling, but in time…they come together, and self-satisfied tyrants should take care before they decide what they see as division is actually weakness. Actually, it’s neither. Once the fire has been nurtured properly, it becomes self-sustaining…and unassilable. What they see is not fractionation but the steely work of freedom in a free society, a considerable strength.
The things those benighted guys seem to want, huge cars, luxurious homes, solid gold bathroom fixtures, phony obeisance, and what not, must cost a FORTUNE, and it looks to me like they’re willing to pit the value of what they’ve accumulated against that of freedom and democracy. You’re going to lose on that one, Bad Guys, mostly because almost everyone on our side remembers the grinding wheel of oppression he or his ancestors have felt sometime in the past, and we’re more than ready to defend the promise of our system and its incalculable value to humankind.
So…puffy, illusory despots everywhere take notice. You can’t subdue mankind’s inherent urge to be the best it can. When challenged, free minds quickly abandon discord and link arms to confront the advancing threat. You’ve kept people under your heel so long you’ve forgotten about humanity’s innate intelligence and determination. Your subjects obviously prefer a fractious but promising life to endless, insipid, empty versions of Leave it to Beaver or Life with Father overlying grief and misery. They’ve peered behind the screen you constructed and don’t like…or want…what they saw there.
As I said at the beginning, freedom and democracy are messy and imperfect, works in progress…but they’re a hell of a lot better than the stuff the tyrants are peddling.

To me, old lighthouses are sad. Once vital to survival, now rendered irrelevent by progress, the grandfathers of hope and security at sea stand idle in a new and different age. Some of them are given a second incarnation as a tourist destination, with their quaint, old-timey feel and the promise of a cheerful, windswept afternoon and memorable photographs, but most stand empty, unused, and mostly unnoticed, silently weeping, their lights forever extinguished.
Bravely suffering the elements in their foggy, senescent memory, they go back to other days when they shone the way for grateful seamen, exposing rocks and turbulent waves, a fanning dagger of light the assurance of security and hope. No plaques or markers number the vessels spared violent, deadly disintegration or the men who entrusted their lives and slept peacefully while careful helmsmen guided them through dangerous narrows, past treacherous reefs.
Symbols of a successful past, a role they never asked for or expected, they’ve learned how cruel a master time can be, how merciless progress, and how quickly value erodes and is forgotten. Standing, sadly crumbling facing the open sea, they can’t see the dark, sweeping screens in wheelhouses or hear crackling radios warning of approaching weather and impending danger, leading ships safely through the darkness in a graceful, silent ballet.
Though the technology on those vessels gliding quietly through the night is a godsend, our lighthouses wouldn’t agree completely, longing instead for another chance to be useful, another opportunity to make daylight the night and reclaim their dissolving validity while they slump and decay, unappreciated and unloved, fading into history. There is permeating but unavoidable sadness in the death of a beacon.
Like those structures on its shores, America was once a proud, solitary light in the west, her joyful beams announcing the promise and hope of a form of government lost for thousands of years but returned to life in a new and profoundly different world. Like those fading pylons, it illuminated lives, assuring security and opportunity with a beam powerful enough to encircle the planet.
There was fire in that light, at first unnoticed by a new nation defending its right to exist against mighty world powers, forging its resolve in a devastating Civil War, and ultimately proving itself inextinguishable as the flame it had lit in the darkness, and when its glow ignited tiny, growing embers throughout the world, in fear, monarchs, autocrats and tyrants quickly began building walls to shut out the simple purity of its truth.
Strong barriers effectively blocked the brilliance, mercilessly preserving the sameness of people’s lives, and they succeeded for centuries while the small daughters of our beacon quietly grew and prospered amid those shielded from the light who remained in darkness and squalor suffering the absence of hope only ignorance can endow.
Now, technology, time’s stepchild, has pierced their gloom continuing the destiny of our patient beacon, challenging it perhaps, as it challenged the relevance of our crumbling costal sentries…but nonetheless welcomed, and throughout the world, people are coming together in a new electronic beam of truth, a phenomenon despots, like our lighthouses, could never have envisioned.
When an oppressed man or woman encased in cracking old walls can reach out to another living in freedom and use the same technology to organize, protest, and topple tyranny, we shouldn’t fret or fear but rejoice because the sublime purpose of our once lonely light has been fulfilled. Our task now is to prove to those freeing themselves we were more than a solitary beam in a dark night and remain much more than an outdated lighthouse time has discarded.

Lately, this blog has been all doom and gloom, the weather has been nothing short of horrible, and I haven’t played disc golf in two weeks. About now, I’m dying to have a little FUN, some play time…so here goes.
I love waking up on cold nights when I have to kick my half of the electric blanket up to 2 or 3. Angel kind of picks and chooses between my side and my lady’s, which is usually up around 5 or 6. We leave the ceiling fan on, mostly for Angel because we know she’s encased in a luxuriant, furry coat, but sometimes when she decides she’s had enough, a soft growl prompts me to let her slide to the cool floor just below my head where she always surrenders consciousness when she’s not up there with us.
Angel dreams, and I’ve always wondered what’s going on in that restless little mind of hers. Sometimes they’re unusually active, with muffled barking and legs going like a bat out of hell. Once, I asked my lady what she thought about it, and she said, “Rabbits…I bet she’s dreaming about chasing rabbits.” But Angel has never SEEN a rabbit, maybe cats or possums…she’s seen them…but where the hell would she have seen a rabbit?
In November we were enjoying a cabin at Toledo bend when a neighbor came by and asked if she could let her horse graze in our yard. Of course, we said yes, even though it wasn’t REALLY our yard, and she tethered her horse to a tree and let him chomp away. On the porch while this was all happening, Angel went completely NUTS, and I could just hear what was going on in her head. “That’s the BIGGEST damned dog I’ve ever seen!” When we let her loose, she even tried to make friends with him, but he wasn’t even slightly interested.
I’m always amazed to see how she reacts when I light a fire in the den. When the blaze is crackling and growing, she parks herself right in front of the fireplace and goes to sleep and I suspect dreams of a pack-life with human beings she’s NEVER experienced…you know, a roaring fire, primitive protohumans petting her, and the promise of some roasted meaty tidbits a little later on. How the hell is THAT possible?
She was born in a kennel, NEVER had roasted meat, never even remotely experienced anything like a roaring fire until she saw ours, but somehow SHE KNOWS. I hate to attribute so personal an experience to instinct. Mostly, instinct seems to be a catch-all to me, a convenient way of explaining things we don’t understand…particularly when it comes to dogs, but all that sort of disappears when the fire is crackling, Angel is sleeping, and my lady and I are sitting there enjoying the evening, happy and content.
I learn it anew every day; dogs are a WONDER, but I know there are cat-people out there. We even had an indoor cat once, Winston, because he looked a little like Winston Churchill, but Winston never got close to the level of love we feel from Angel. Yes, he was cute, and VERY friendly, but once in an instant, I discovered the tiger hiding inside. We named him well; in many ways he was much like the original Winston, friendly…but FIERCE.
One night when I was lying on the bed under a coverlet with a lot of decorative holes in the knitwork, Winston seemed fascinated by it, so I poked a finger through one of the openings and wiggled it…BIG MISTAKE! Blurry at incredible speed, he reared, exposed his claws and slashed the daylights out of my poor finger. After quickly applied first aid, I knew I had learned something important; cats aren’t NEARLY as civilized as we tend to think.
My lady LOVES cats, worries about them, endlessly takes care of a few we have in the back yard, but if it was up to me, I’d be just as happy with trees, shrubs, and grass. Though I gotta admit…during a cold snap or a hurricane, I worry about those little creatures out back, too, not because they’re cats but because they’re fellow beings, mammals…and you gotta stick with mammals in danger when you’re one of them.
But somehow, the cats ALWAYS survive…no, not survive…they TRIUMPH! Ok, ok, I’m willing to admit it…cats are smarter than dogs…but not NEARLY as loving. They’re domestic PREDATORS in our world, constantly patrolling, always trying to figure out what they can get from us…and ME personally a lot of the time. Angel knows if she’s cute and kind of submissive, wonderful things come her way, but CATS PLAN…endlessly. They know the ropes, and by now they’ve scoped us humans out completely.
They kill a mouse or snake from time to time, and it’s not because they want to help but because THEY ENJOY DOING IT. Cats ALWAYS do their own thing, while we stand and try to connect…kind of like peaceful co-existance. Angel only wants others to love her, but cats don’t give a whit…and I used a “w” instead of an “s” because I’m in polite company. Our friendly little dog even has a FAVORITE cat, a little orange and white one, her pet, the only one she allows in her part of the back yard.
When she sees that particular cat, she runs up to it with a big smile on her face, assumes her play posture, wags her tail, and waits for a response, but nothing ever happens. With cold disdain, the little cat looks at her for a second or two then sort of checks out, sometimes even sleeps a little, friendship the last thing on her mind. Though Angel obviously doesn’t realize it, cats are far beyond conventional thinking.
I’ve heard it said…dogs say, “They love me, they take care of me, they feed me, they must be GODS!” Cats say, “They love me, they take care of me, they feed me…I MUST BE A GOD!” Takes all kinds, I guess.

Egypt is in flames, literally and figuratively, and when I’m not being horrified by what I see on TV, I’m mourning for that wonderful country…mostly because it has given us SO MUCH while we’ve returned so little. Watching it disintegrate is almost like watching a beloved grandparent die, a dear progenitor who showed us what civilization is really all about when the rest of the world was mostly in the hunter-gatherer stage.
We’re pretty cocky about our 235 year old country. It’s a pretty long time for anything man-made to endure, but Egypt survived for THOUSANDS of years, not only survived, but prospered, thrived…and enlightened the planet in the process. While our forebears were still settling differences with axes and spears, Egypt had laws, enforcers, and courts, and it doesn’t stop anywhere near there.
Ancient Egypt was remarkable, not only because it was one of the first, or for the magnificent structures it produced, but for a body of knowledge that included justice, the domestication of plants and animals, the equality of women, SPECTACULAR advances in medicine, science, literature, and philosophy. Their religion is a little trickier. I know somebody’s going to point out they were polytheistic and worshipped some pretty peculiar gods, but that’s not the point. THEY WORSHIPPED and graciously adopted the concept that they weren’t the be all and end all of everything.
Yes, they also worshipped their leader, the pharoah, but I wouldn’t be too quick to judge that one; just look around. People these days worship athletes, rock stars, movie actors, money, power, even politicans…like that’s anything NEAR a good idea. Some today even seem to resent the idea of a Supreme Being and run around trying to eradicate all reference to Him…mostly, I think, because HE keeps getting in their way, perhaps also because they think He’s taking the place reserved for THEM.
And while we’re at it, I should mention Egypt also gave us our first monotheistic religion…Akhnaten and the Aten, but it didn’t catch on…too far ahead of its time. Egypt has touched all of the western faiths at one time or another, Moses, the Prophet, even Jesus, who was taken to the shelter of hospitable Egyptian soil when His life was in jeopardy.
Secure in the favored embrace of a benevolent river, Egypt gave us hope and beauty, indescribable beauty. I remember seeing the treasures of Tutankhamun, walking reverently between glass cases, constantly amazed to realize people had done all this three thousand years ago. And it wasn’t all the gold…it was the TENDERNESS with which things were rendered. I was particularly moved by a decorated gold shaft containing a simple reed. The inscription said, “Cut by His Majesty’s own hand.” Lovingly preserved, it was still recognizable…as though it had been gathered only a few weeks before. If you aren’t moved by something like that, you aren’t really alive…just not buried yet.

When I see what’s happening on the banks of the Nile these days, I tend to wish the pharoahs were still around. Guided by the principle of Ma’at, BALANCE, another way of saying fairness, you can just bet they’d do a far better job of bringing disparate, angry groups to consensus than all the envoys, politicians, secret agendas, position papers, and talking heads we have today. Pharoahs KNEW where their nation’s promise lay…in bountiful fields, tranquil homes, prospering businesses, loving families, and the glory of new generations…in PEOPLE.
And it seems to me like that’s what’s missing these days, fairness and the realization that most human beings are readily satisfied when you provide them the opportunity to pursue their dreams, happy, hopeful dreams instead of distorted nightmares from which they cannot awaken. Egypt is suffering, has been for a long time, and tonight destructive fires are burning brightly at the Cairo Museum. Countless treasures are in danger, unimaginable history and beauty, and I’m afraid even that reed I saw will be consigned to smoldering destruction…like Ma’at has been.
How do we tell that commoner who wrote love poems how careless we’ve been? How do we tell Imhotep what people have done to the land he so loved? How King Tut, Hatchepsut, or Rameses…and countless others including Cleopatra, who wasn’t even Egyptian…but thought she was and acted like it? How do we tell the future we got a really good look, but they’ll just have to take our word for it? Wonderful Ancient Egypt, Kemet, SACRED Ancient Egypt is dying alongside its modern counterpart. Weep with me. Tear garments, wail, and curse the night. Egypt is dying.