Volume 47

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007

47. 8: GLORIA IN EXCELSIS LUCRO 12.28.2007

Historically, there is probably a good case that that a Jewish baby boy, Yeshua bar Yusef, was born some time in the winter of 4 B.C. [1] He seems to have grown into a young man who confronted the establishment of the Jewish faith of the time, as well as run afoul of the insurgent rulers of his country, the Romans. He had ideas that, if they were not revolutionary, didn't fit very well with either source of authority, ideas he probably picked up from further East, during the time he dropped out of historical notice, from his early teens to his early thirties. These ideas got him into big trouble with both auspices of authority in Judea, and he ended up being crucified by the Romans. His best idea was that humans should love one another, but he got killed for it. Ironically, even people who have adopted the name given him by the Greeks—Jesus Christ—have conducted the most brutal atrocities on other people, putatively in his name.

Jesus Christ, of course, would not even have recognized that name, nor would he have probably had much to do withy the movement that came to be called Christianity. He would have had even less to do with and would likely have opposed the leaders of Christianity who have acted much more like the authorities that he opposed during his life and who put him to death. How would he have felt about the elaborate fairy tale that has been woven from the few words and little historical data that were his life? One could easily surmise that he would have renounced and condemned it all.

Baby Jesus' birthday is celebrated as ”Christmas,” but if you Google that word, you get mostly images of a third century Christian “saint” [2] from Anatolia who is mostly represented today to resemble someone much better known as Santa Claus. Whether St. Nicholas, who became a bishop and a patron saint of sailors, was fond of giving gifts, and did have white hair and a flowing white beard, doesn't much matter to anyone anymore. He is really the patron saint of a shopping spree that Christians honor much more than baby Jesus' birthday, despite the fact that Christian clerics are forever lamenting the commercialization of the holiday. Each time millions of kids are indoctrinated into the myth that a corpulent old man can get all over the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer with German names, and up and down chimneys with the same kinds of toys they see advertised on television and on the shelves of Toysarus, all of which seem to have “Made in China” stickers affixed to the lead paint on them. Getting kids to “sign on” to the Santa myth seems almost preparatory to them signing on to the other part of the Christian myth, the savior who dies for their sins, is resurrected, and will be waiting for them in a heaven with clouds as white and billowy as Santa's beard. They eventually come to the conclusion that Santa Claus is the myth that is built on the “reality” of the religious version of the life of Yeshua bar Yusef. They can turn on Santa's commercialization in righteous anger, especially when there are no close in parking spaces at the mall.

In this somewhat perverse way the two myths support one another. The message of “peace on earth and good will towards men” becomes a seasonal shibboleth, bound up with three kings from the Orient who have been following a shinning star to a greater king who will save all of mankind. [3] Christ's mother's conception, and even her delivery, would be sanitized by the Church (can't have any of that dirty old sexual stuff involved in the process), and scripture by scripture Yeshua is morphed into Jesus so that he fits better into prophecy and dogma. Christ becomes somewhat of a hand puppet for priests and pastors of all stripes who is made to pronounce the Christian position on abortion, stem cell research, same-sex marriage and evolution, and, rather than being a symbol of peace and tolerance, is held up as the basis for the latest Christian crusade against non-believers. Football players salute him for touchdowns and no Republican presidential candidate would dare not invoke him as his personal “lord and savior.”

This is because we cannot seem to find good reasons—outside of having a Savior or a Santa—for doing the things that these mythical entities are supposed to represent. We seem to need some scriptural (script) to follow rather than our own conscience, if we are to attain “salvation”; we seem to need “better not pout, better not cry” to receive the blessings of Santa (batteries not included, some assembly required). We also seem to need some reward for doing what we imply is intrinsically right and just. So we create, inflate and conflate these mythical versions of a Jewish rabbi and an otherwise obscure “saint” to the point where they become ludicrous caricatures and corporate icons trotted out for power and profit. (Would any parent dare ask their child who it loves more, Santa or Jesus?)

The irony is that the true descendants of Yeshua bar Yusef spend his birthday ordering in Chinese food or going to the movies and that the model for the jolly Kris Kringle from the North Pole was likely a Greek who hailed from the eastern Mediterranean.

These days, when Christmas rolls around, I try to resurrect from the cobwebs of memory what I felt when, as a kid, I held both of these myths in my mind with seemingly little cognitive contortion. In retrospect, I don't think I fully believed either of them, but let myself pretend that I did. I think that even at an age of easy credulity I liked the atmosphere they created. I liked the carols, the smells of pine sap and tallow candles, the wafting of incense at Midnight Mass, the crunch of fresh snow and the flakes floating down in the penumbra of the street lamps, and the surprise of what Santa might have under the Christmas tree on which I had placed with much consideration my favorite decorative ornament. I remember the innocent Christmas's of my youth fondly. If the nativity story and Santa myth were a part of it required a willing suspension of my incipient disbelief then my apologies to Yeshua and Nick the Greek

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[1] Supposedly the time when the Romans were conducting a census in Judea, not the presumed year 1 A.D.

[2] Some sources say he was never canonized.

[3] Ironically, the “Orient” of that time was the Middle East, and those kings would have seen their nations turn to Islam eight centuries later.

47. 7: THE TREMENDUM CHINGUALUNUM 12.15.2007

Note: This essay contains material of a graphic sexual nature and may be offensive to young children and Republicans of most any age. [1]

My college alumni magazine has a section that invites alumni to submit for publication their “favorite [my alma mater] [2] memories.” Most of those I have read so far are rather banal, or either are, or attempt to be, uplifting. Each time I read one I try to think of my favorite memory. [3] And each time it is usually one that would never be printed in the alumni magazine.

My memory is already experiencing some vagueness about my favorite, so I feel I should get it down in print before more of it goes. As we all know, in the telling and re-telling, such memories get embellished, or bowdlerized as the years go by. It goes—as best I can remember—like this.

When I lived in the dorm my first, and only, year at college (living there another year would have resulted in my flunking out), there was a guy a year ahead of me who lived on the same floor. Three characteristics about him remain indelible: One, he was about a five-foot-six Italian-American guy; Two, his eyesight was so bad he wore both contact lenses and glasses, and; Three, he possessed what (as well as I can recall the term employed around the dorm) a “trememdum chigualunum,” a no doubt made-up term for his out-sized male member.

Guys being guys, most reference was made to number three, but there was speculation that his poor eyesight was related to the blood it deprived his vision. Sorry, but I do not plan to dwell on his “trememdum chigualunum,” even though it was worthy, as anyone who encountered him coming out of the shower room will attest, an appellation of its very own. Of course, this fellow had his own name, but he was often referred to, with respect, as the “trememdum chigualunum” (hereafter “TC”). But the speculation about it, and its relationship to his vision, does have bearing on the rest of my favorite story.

Above the door, inside each dorm room, was a crucifix about fourteen inches in height. (Did I say this was a Jesuit Catholic College?) As it was told to me, there had been an altercation between the TC and his roommate, whereupon the roommate stormed out of the room slamming the door and dislodging the crucifix from its nail. The crucifix fell to the floor, the force if its landing separating the body of Christ from the wooden cross. The TC opened the door and yelled some expletives at his roommate's back, then returned to the room, but did not close the door.

The TC then set about repairing the crucifix. Somehow, by feeling about he managed to find the nails—the body had been attached, as many are on such crucifixes, by little nails through the hands and feet of the body of Christ figure, just like the real thing—and not having a small hammer, proceeded to use a stapler to try to pound the nails and re-attach the figure. He did this while kneeling over his project as it lay on the floor.

The repair was not going well, probably mostly due to the TC's poor eyesight—it was rumored he could only make out silhouettes at more than a few feet—but also because the stapler made for an inadequate hammer. Moreover, he was still boiling over his argument with his roommate.

So one has to imagine the scene of the TC murmuring imprecations and oaths over a crucifix on the floor and vainly trying to pound tiny nails into the hands and feet of the Christ figure with a stapler. It was just about that time, summoned from his corner room by the shouting and commotion, emerged the priest who presided over this floor of the dorm--Father “Nasty Ted.” [4] A tall, sturdily built man with hands like bunches of bananas, he was so called because he was not someone it was wise to upset. When he arrived at the room it was tableau of the re-nailing of Christ to the cross that greeted him—a student desecrating his Lord and spewing filth.

From down on the floor Nasty Ted appeared only a dark blob to TC, who, thinking his roommate had returned, called him some names that reflected upon his parentage and referred to an act of oral sex. The TC was rising to add to these compliments but, as the story goes, it was the last he remembered of the incident, as, apparently, Nasty Ted, aptly “cold-cocked” him. For a time the TC thought the dark figure might have an avenging angel punishing him for his sacrilege. But there were those, peering through the slightly “cracked” doors of their rooms who saw Nasty Ted storming back to his room, having performed his exorcism.

Since I resided on the other corridor I was not witness to these historic events, but as a dormie, I have some “rights” to relate this historic tale. I should add it also made me wonder that there must be a job in some crucifix factory where some workers have to nail all those Christ figures to those wooden crosses. Do they feel like those Roman soldiers who nailed the original Christ to his cross? Do they have nightmares about it? It seems like a thankless job. It is very “close-up” work with those tiny nails and little hands and feet of the Christ figurines. The sort of that is suited to men with a condition that causes extreme myopia. The Lord often has mysterious purposes for his creations, and maybe these men who weild little hammers in the crucifix factory are aptly referred to as tremendi chingualuni.

Hey, that wasn't so terrible a story, was it? I'm just speculating about the last part, but Maybe I should send it in to the alumni magazine as “my favorite memory” after all.

Nah. It's more appropriate for the esteemed pages of Dragon City Journal .

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[1] Some subscribers, who attended the same institution of higher learning, and resided in the same dormitory will find this story familiar but, in the intervening years may have a slightly different mnemonic record of some of its particulars. Any additions and.or corrections are welcome.

[2] To spare it any embarrassment.

[3] My actual really favorite memory is of meeting a beauty named Patty Ann Lynch. So this one is my favorite “whacky” memory.

[4] Surname withheld since Nasty Ted may still be alive, but could e dangerous from wherever he is.

47. 6: TESTIMONIAL 12.11.2007

“Long Live the Unity of the People of the World” Chinese poster, CA 1960s, by Qian Shengfa.

Secular propaganda from an “officially” atheist country; but why do four smiling people in

the front row carry rifles? At least they are not shouting “slay the infidel!”

Evangelists are always testifying. You know, professing their "saved" and "born again" credentials and going on about how morally superior they are because they have decided to believe in something that has no more basis in fact than the fairy tale of the Three Bears. They love to testify.

I always have a little mental chuckle when they use the word testify. Being an Italian American who grew up in my early years in and I-A neighborhood, I remember guys who used to grab their testicles when then were professing something they wanted you to accept. Balls in hand, they might say something like, " Bahfungool , man, I'll pay you back the money next Friday. I'm good for it." (the bahfungool adds a little something I-A to the pledge, but let's leave it at that for now).

Testify comes from testes, so it literally means "I swear on my testicles that what I say is true, or sincere." So I imagine all those evangelists grabbing their testicles and testifying that "Jesus is my personal lord and savior. I bet my testes on it." [1]

This whole business of swearing on the tender parts of one's anatomy is, of course, to put them up as sort of collateral against reneging on a pledge or not really meaning what you testify. In other words, you are really honest and sincere, or "they" fall off (or out) [2] .

Evangels do not, would not, grab themselves. They would rather stand by the thousands is some megachurch in Colorado, arms raise heavenward, eyes closed, testifying their faith. They would probably be scandalized by a bunch of “goombahs” standing on a street corner in Brooklyn, grabbing their crotches and testifying, “Bahfungool, man, Jesus Christ, he's my personal lord and savior. Hey, how would Jesus bet the point spread on the Knicks game tonight?”

But I am really digressing, because my motivation for this piece is that I think that for all the shots I have been taking at the church, Christians, and religions in general, it is time for me to get a grip on my testes and testify as to where I stand, to what I believe in. Some people think that nontheists like myself do not believe in anything; they think we are amoral nihilists. But they are wrong. We can be very passionate about life—this life—not some imaginary afterlife that no one really knows exists, or not. Being concerned with this life, or “age” is what makes us “secularists” (from saeculum , for the age or times.) But it also has the connotation of meaning non-religious.

So I testify that I am a secularist. And, since I am more concerned with mankind—which is something I can attempt to know and understand, and with which I share some common destiny—I regard myself as a “humanist.” [3]

Put these together and you get Secular Humanist. Ask a fundamentalist Christian about Secular Humanists and you will get some blather about Satanists or worse. (Don't ask them to define the terms because they will not be able to.) Since secular humanists are nontheists, Evangelists consider them to be infidels, non-believers, to be their enemy. Evangelists live in a Manichean dualistic world of simplistic thought.

But here's what Secular Humanists really profess, what they would “testify” to:

Secular Humanists are primarily concerned with human potential, with human fulfillment, growth and creativity, both individually and collectively. If there is purposes and meaning to life, this is what it is. Man should be the measure of things, not some scriptural injunctions or dogmas, or invented deities, saints and angels. If there is a commandment attached to this notion it is the “golden rule.” [4] If you are theistic this is the same as the Second Commandment. If you can't love your fellow human beings then shut up about loving Jesus, or God because you are a hypocrite.

Secular Humanists do not accept things on faith. This means not just religious beliefs, but political and social ideologies, philosophies, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster. These things are subject to scrutiny and test. We regard people who say “the Bible says it, therefore God wrote it, and that's good enough for me” as lazy-minded morons.

We are committed to the tenets of the scientific method of inquiry about existence—factual evidence, test, and proof. Faith, mysticism, and the crap doled out by such as oxymoronic “creation scientists” and laughable “intelligent designers” does not even come close to be science. We search for objective truth where the facts are, not in Genesis or the Book of Revelations. And we allow that new factual information might alter existing theories. We believe that facts and values are as categorically different as we believe it is imperative to separate church from state.

This means that we seek knowledge of the world through rationality . We attempt to acquire knowledge by observation, experiment, test and replication. We believe that action based on knowledge through reason , which is application of experience consistent with the norms of Secular Humanism. We also believe that the arts are a relevant dimension of human experience to inform reasoned discourse and social action. Hence we do not believe that prophecy, superstition and so-called “revelation” are a basis for knowledge or social action.

We are committed to this life and making it better for everyone. We do not approve of strapping two pounds of C4 explosive on your belly and blowing up a bus of school kids, or making preemptive war on nations that have done us no harm, so that one can get seventy-two virgins, go quail hunting with Jesus and Dick Cheney, or enhance our earthly habits and desires at the expense of others. We do not believe in snatching souls; we believe in engaging minds.

We believe that civilization begins with the recognition of the rights and dignity of our fellow human beings regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, or any other thing their DNA or circumstances of their birth gave them. We should regard people for what they do, for and to others, as well as to themselves—how they play the cards that life has handed them. We are committed to the precept that each person be allowed to find their own meaning for their lives.

We are committed to the search for ethical principles to guide human behavior and government with honesty, fairness and integrity. We do not believe that moral principles derived from various religions—although some of them may be virtuous and consonant with appropriate ethical principles—should be the basis for societal guidance. Hence, we believe unequivocally in the strictest separation of church and state.

We believe in tolerance of those who choose the conduct their lives by faith and superstition, in so far as that tolerance is returned. However, we will employ all means of argument and the exercise of the political process to prevent religious intolerance and the imposition of articles of faith and superstitions religious beliefs from being imposed upon society and from being codified into laws and governmental practices.

The most essential (and I will say also, true Christian) attribute is human kindness —recognition, compassion and action—of, and toward, others. This must also include a corresponding kindness toward their (and our) environment. To over-exploit, degrade and destroy the earth is genocide. To divide the world into “good and evil” is to denigrate entire peoples and to invite wars of genocide.

It should be evident, then, that Secular Humanists are not nihilists, do indeed stand for something, but they do not subscribe to deriving their principles from fairy tales, popes, mullahs, dalai lamas, or blow-dried evangelist prayboys. We stand for humankind and its potential and we believe in facts over prayer, state over church, and science over superstition.

Some will see this testament as a lot of soft-hearted liberal notions that does not take account of the nastiness of much of the world, that there are evil empires, and axes of evil. Theirs is the view that does not see synthesis, or tolerance and compromise, as the as the result of differences, but rather a pretext conquest, dominance and even annihilation. They will also see Secular Humanists as weak, and as pacifists and appeasers. This is mistaken. We fill fight and go to war if it is necessary to resort to force to protect our rights and those of others. But first we will fight with facts, and reason, scientific inquiry, and we will not act from fear, prejudice and moral superiority.

The credulous will not act kindly toward Secular Humanists. Incapable of defeating their arguments, religions resort of demonizing the non-believers. They cannot conceive of a philosophy that does not accept the existence of their gods, and that does not hold out hope for heavenly reward and some fairytale afterlife. They cannot see any moral worthiness to a secular philosophy whose behavior is not motivate by the merit it earns to win the approval of God, Allah, Yahweh, or some other deity. They can't imagine doing anything that is not done in the name of their god and the self-interest of their own salvation. Indeed, sometimes their deity tells them to go out and slay the believers of some other deity so that they can earn their place in the afterlife. They de-humanize; we humanize.

So Secular Humanists are probably nicer than the religionists, too. So be nice to us. I mean this; I testify while I am holding my . . .

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[1] Now I realize that this etymology raises a problem for female's to testify, if you know what I mean, they lacking any, well, you know what I mean. Maybe we need a gender-specific term for testifying. How about "ovafy" ("I swear on my ovaries"), and women could sort of grab themselves with both hands just below their hips in gestural confirmation when the “ovafy.”

[2] Which, in the female case, they do, monthly anyway. So. women would not be allowed to “ovafy” during those times (Leviticus 23: 18)

[3] Each time I see the word humanist I think of Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). What concerned Paul was the conception of human life, of which he thought there wasn't enough, so it was about birth control. To hell with the rest of human life. This, written from the perspective of a guy who was putatively a lifelong celibate.

[4] I am not referring here to the Republican-Religious Right version of the “golden rule”: the one with the gold rules.

47. 5: LOOKING FOR MR. GOOD-BIGOT 11.7.2007

A friend of mine idolizes Ronald Reagan; “Dutch,” he calls him, like others call him “The Gipper,” phony sobriquets for a phony who dressed up in military uniforms, but never served. That doesn't matter too much, not as much as the fact that he might well have been called Ronnie “the Racist.” I bring this up because the Republicans keep saying these days—when you look at the line-up of dorks they have as nominees for the presidency—that they wish they had another Ronnie in the wings.

The Republican apotheosis of Reagan is constructed of the same kind of truth-bending that they used for George Bush. Reagan was supposed to have “defeated the Soviet Union.” Baloney. The USSR was heading for crumble well before Ronnie came along, and their Afghan war and the loss of oil revenues from dropping barrel prices of OPEC were what really did the commies in. Ronnie was just the opportunist to take credit for it.

That is how he became Ronnie “the Racist,” too. In his California governor days he opportunistically jumped on the “Cadillac-driving welfare queen” exaggeration and played it well enough that “she” just had to be a black woman from Oakland. By the time he was ready for president he was ready to ply the Republican “southern strategy,” of playing to those Southern states constituencies—particularly southern white males—who bolted from the Democratic party because of Lyndon Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1964. He stepped right into the abyss the Republican party wallows in today by selling its soul to southern racism and religious fundamentalism.

Being the great communicator” Reagan was masterful at, if not being an outright racist himself, using racism to political effect. He could hide it under the euphemisms such as “states rights,” which he did when he bemoaned, in the 1976 campaign, able-bodied (read Black) men “using food stamps to buy steaks.” Reagan didn't always deliver what the southern conservatives and evangelists wanted, but they loved him for his unconstitutional Iran-Contra deal, and his de-regulation fervor, and he wasn't going to pull a Lyndon Johnson on them.

Now the Republicans have a bit of a problem. The conservative movement and the religious right are showing signs of fracture. McCain kissed Falwell's pompous fat ass (and then the Reverend went and died on him) Pat Robertson is endorsing abortion rightist Guiliani to the consternation of clinic bombers, another religious faction is endorsing the Mormon Romney when a lot of Christians regard Mormonism as a weird cult because they think the are the lost tribe of Israel and wear strange underwear, and the largest anti-abortion coalition is endorsing Thompson, a guy who looks like they mistakenly aborted his fetus and brought up the afterbirth instead. The Reb-publicans will likely end up having to choose between Romney and Rudy. Romney looks like Reagan (the hair), but Rudy is more like Reagan. Guiliani has divorced, is not anti-abortion, not demonstratively religious, tough-talking on defense, and a phony hero. He is close to being Reagan without the hair.

Is he Mr. Good-Bigot? The Reb-publicans might well choose him as their new Reagan. Why?

He could beat Hillary. And, if Obama is the Democrat nominee? They might have to get out the ole Cadillac.

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47. 4 SPACESHIP EARTH I, The Capitalism Conundrum 12.2.2007

The term “spaceship earth” was supposedly coined by the late economist Barbara Ward back around the time of the moon landings. It was, and is, an apt metaphor, especially if one is looking at a photo of our little blue marble of a planet from the vantage of the moon. It is a capsule with a thin, fragile atmosphere and, though the sun's radiation comes in, everything else is pretty much contained (even those pesky greenhouse gases we have been making). Like a spaceship, a container that has to re-circulate its contents in order to sustain itself. Spaceship Earth has changed a lot over its six or so billion years of development (sorry you Genesis literalists) and only recently has been, in geological terms, a place with any biological life. But this the first time in a long history that the earth has produced a species with the capacity to influence its ecological course.

In the long run this raises a difficult question for a term that has come into greater usage in recent years— sustainability. Perhaps because of the spaceship earth metaphor there has been more talk of the notion that we must construct sustainable communities, sustainable cities, sustainable societies, and, ultimately a sustainable planet, if we are to “survive.” In the long run this may be delusional. I have always held with Heraclitus that “all things change, nothing remains the same.” We may just be the current arrangement of carbon atoms in the universe and, although we regard ourselves as the very purpose for creation itself, [1] we probably will not last as fraction of the time the dinosaurs were the species de jour.

This is not to gainsay the notion of sustainability. After all, trying to make the best of our tenure, however long it is to be, seems a worthy notion. The problem comes in when we begin to consider three interrelated dimensions of the life we have created for ourselves—our economic systems, our demography, and our relationship to our natural environment (spaceship earth). [2] I only want to consider the first one in this trilogy this time—our predominant, and all but worshipped economic system—capitalism. [3]

It seemed like capitalism uber alles time in the late 1980s; the USSR collapsed, the Berlin wall came down, Czechoslovakia had a “velvet revolution” and Deng Xiaoping already had China on its way to those 9% growth rates and making products for any global market that likes lead in the goods. Free enterprise, markets, profits, economic growth! It was capitalism time, almost everywhere; those godless socialistic systems were vanquished. The world was becoming one vast global emporium and the captains of the kapital of the new industry and their minions of investors and day traders would get gloriously rich along with them.

Republicans, who worship the canons of capitalism most fervently, set about tearing down every regulation of the freedom of the marketplace and the industries that supply it. Private enterprises who still felt fettered by rules, laws and snoopy bureaucrats were freer to just to pick up their marbles and move to Guatemala, Indonesia, India, or, of course, China, where capitalism was a new faith and children and women work for peanuts and lose fingers, breath bad air, and work in conditions that would be illegal in the good ole U.S. of A.

But the devilish little engine upon which this al runs is return on capital investment, and ultimately profit. So, in the end capitalism is a bit like an organism that must grow or wither and die. No growth means no return for those stockholders. Growth means bigger market share, innovation, new products, etc. Look at it this way (an over simplification) capitalism is rather like a line (imagine one on a graph, with a positive curve to it), and sustainability is rather like a circle , a container.

Do you ever ask yourself “Where in hell is this economic system ultimately going?” Then you say, “Nah, I really don't want to think about pulling all of that oil and those minerals out of the earth, clearing rain forests, dumping god knows what in the rivers and oceans and air, you know, the stuff that drives Al Gore nuts and is melting the iced caps and killing the polar bears . . . I just don't want to think about our economic system and spaceship earth.” That's OK, you're not alone. And you're probably thinking, “ Yeah, and I don't want to hear any more of it from the Chicken Little Commie bastard that wrote this piece. (Now that's just plain unkind of you.)

You see, capitalist theory sees itself as a self-adjusting system, the magic of the market and the see-sawing to the whims of supply and demand. And it does do that. That's the magic of the economic system. But that system interacts—indeed has its very raison d'etre in, and with—another system, the ecological system. The Ecological system operates by somewhat different dynamics, not those of continual growth and expansion, but by re-circulation; it is, for purposes of this discussion, [4] a closed system. That it has been, in relation to human activity, so large (and rather forgiving) a system for much of the period humans have been a variable within it, it has not shown much of the ill effects of that activity.

Until recently. Hence the talk of sustainability. More people are recognizing that this spaceship does not have a home to return to; it is home , and the only one we have. Screw it up and it is game over. A sustainable spaceship requires a lot of rules and regulations, precisely the sort of thing that the capitalists who are running it abhor. [5]

So, are the fundamental concepts of sustainability and those of capitalism inconsistent with one another? It would appear so. Some attributes of capitalism have been trumpeted as perhaps consistent with sustainability, that, for example, new fuels and methods of electrical power generation, or hybrid automobiles, will result from entrepreneurial opportunities. Even Google is looking into the prospects for fuel sources that are “cheaper than coal.” But, it may be countered that, as long as long as short term profits and return on investment remain central tenets of capitalism, these will have to be competitive against the cheaper strip mining of coal, pumping of crude oil and clearing of rain forests. As long as the “software” capitalism concerns itself foremost with the interests of the owners of capital, rather than the interests of the terranauts of spaceship earth, sustainability will remain no more than Al Gore's elusive dream.

But the day may not be far off when even the owners of capital will have nowhere to run. Or, is that why there is all this interest is Mars?

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[1] To provide The Creators with some companionship per saecula saeculorum ,

[2] I seriously tempted to include religious beliefs in this list, but I will leave it out for the times being.

[3] Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately-owned and operated for profit , and in which investments, distribution, income , production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a market economy .

[4] Unless you are a Genesis literalist, you already know that the nature of the earth's eco-system has changed considerably over some 4.5 billion years, and also that it's system is not so closed that there have been variable periods of different levels of solar radiation as well as a few meters, comets and asteroids that have made their way to its surface.

[5] We can observe the consequences the abhorrence that conservatives and libertarians have government regulation most recently in the sub-prime interest rate debacle that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and threatens to plunge the country into recession. Ayn Rand freak Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman who controlled the money supply mostly for the benefit of corporations was more responsible than anyone for the credit meltdown because of his refusal to use the Fed's authority to regulate loan-underwriting standards. The same anti-regulation mentality keeps George Bush from “fettering American industry” by signing on to the Kyoto Protocols. Never must any social or ecological concern or need get in the way of return on investment. Some people may regard America as a “Christian nation,” but the true religion of America is capitalism.

47. 3: I TESTIFY 11.27.2007

Evangels are always testifying. You know, professing their "saved" and "born again" BS and going on about how morally superior they are because they have decided to believe in something that has no more basis in fact than the fairy tale of the Three Bears. They love to testify.

I always have a little mental chuckle when they use the word testify. Being an Italian American who grew up in my early years in and I-A neighborhood, I remember guys who used to grab their testicles when then were professing something they wanted you to accept. Balls in hand, they might say something like, " Bahfungool , man, I'll pay you back the money next Friday. I'm good for it." (The bahfungool adds a little something to the pledge, but let's leave it at that for now).

Testify comes from testes, so it literally means, "I swear on my testicles that what I say is true, or sincere." So I imagine all those evangels grabbing their testicles and testifying, "Jesus is my personal lord and savior. I bet my balls on it."

Now I realize that this etymology raises a problem for female's to testify, if you know what I mean, they lacking any, well, you know what I mean. Maybe we need a gender-specific term for testifying. How about "ovafy" ("I swear on my ovaries"), and women could sort of grab themselves with both hands just below their hips in gestural confirmation when the “ovafy.”

Evangels do not, would not, grab themselves. They would rather stand by the thousands is some megachurch in Colorado, arms raise heavenward, eyes closed, testifying their faith. They would probably be scandalized by a bunch of “goombahs” standing on a street corner in Brooklyn, grabbing their nuts and testifying, “ Bahfungool , man, Jesus Christ, he's my personal lord and savior. Hey, how would Jesus bet the point spread on the Knicks game tonight?”

But I am really digressing, because my motivation for this piece is that I think that for all the shots I have been taking at the church, Christians, and religions in general, it is time for me to get a grip on my testes and testify as to where I stand, to what I believe in. Some people think that nontheists like myself do not believe in anything; they think we are nihilists. But they are wrong. We can be very passionate about life—this life—not some imaginary afterlife that no one really knows exists, or not. Being concerned with this life, or “age” is what makes us secularists (from saeculum , for the age or times.) But it also has the connotation of meaning non-religious.

So I am a secularist. And, since I am more concerned with mankind—which is something I can attempt to know and understand, and with which I share some common destiny—I regard myself as a “humanist.”

Put these together and you get Secular Humanist. Ask a fundamentalist Christian about Secular Humanists and you will get some blather about Satanists or worse. (Don't ask them to define the terms because they will not be able to.) Since secular humanists are nontheistic. Evangelists consider them to be infidels, non-believers, the enemy; the live in a Manichean dualistic world of simplistic thought.

But here's what Secular Humanists really profess, what they would “testify” to:

Secular Humanists are primarily concerned with human potential, with human fulfillment, growth and creativity, both individually and collectively. If there is purposes and meaning to life, this is what it is. Man should be the measure of things, not some scriptural injunctions or dogmas, or invented deities, saints and angels. If there is a commandment attached to this notion it is the “golden rule.” If you are theistic this is the same as the Second Commandment. If you can't love your fellow human beings then shut up about loving Jesus, or God. You are a hypocrite.

Secular Humanists do not accept things on faith. This means not just religious beliefs, but political and social ideologies, philosophies, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster. They are subject to scrutiny and test. We regard people who say, “the Bible says it, therefore God wrote it, and that's good enough for me” as lazy-minded morons.

We are committed to the tenets of the scientific method of inquiry about existence —factual evidence, test, and proof. Faith, mysticism, and the crap doled out by such as oxymoronic “creation scientists” and laughable “intelligent designers” does not even come close to be science. We search for objective truth where the facts are, not in the Book of Revelations. And we allow that new factual information might alter existing theories. We believe that facts and values are as categorically different as we believe it is imperative to separate church from state.

This means that we seek knowledge of the world through rationality . We attempt to acquire knowledge by observation, experiment, test and replication. We believe that action based on knowledge through reason, which is application of experience consistent with the norms of Secular Humanism. We believe that the arts are a relevant dimension of human experience to inform reasoned discourse and social action. Hence we do not believe that prophecy, superstition and so-called “revelation” are a basis for knowledge or social action.

It should be evident, then, that Secular Humanists are not nihilists, do indeed stand for something, but they do not subscribe to deriving their principles from fairy tales, popes, mullahs, dalai lamas, or blow-dried evangelist prayboys. We stand for humankind and its potential and we believe in facts over prayer, state over church, and science over superstition.

Some will see this testament as a lot of softhearted liberal notions that does not take account of the nastiness of much of the world, that there are evil empires, and axes of evil. Theirs is the view that does not see synthesis, or tolerance and compromise, as the as the result of differences, but rather conquest, dominance and even annihilation. They will also see Secular Humanists as weak, and as pacifists and appeasers. This is mistaken. We fill fight and go to war if it is necessary to resort to force to protect our rights and those of others. But first we will fight with facts, and reason, scientific inquiry, and we will not act from fear, prejudice and moral superiority.

The credulous will not act kindly toward Secular Humanists. Incapable of defeating their arguments, believers resort of demonizing the non-believers. They cannot conceive of a philosophy that accept the existence of their gods, and that does not hold out hope for heavenly reward and some fairytale afterlife. In other words they refuse to admit that their construct of a look-alike god who has given them an incontestable. They cannot see any moral worthiness to a secular philosophy whose behavior is not motivate by the merit it earns to win the approval of God, Allah, Yahweh, or some other deity. They can't imagine doing anything that is not done in the name of their god and the self-interest of their own salvation. Indeed, sometimes their deity tells them to go out and slay the believers of some other deity so that they can earn their place in the afterlife. Is here any altruism in that?

So Secular Humanists are probably nicer than the religionists, too. So be nice to us. I mean this; I say it while I am holding my . . .

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[1] Which, in the female case, they do, monthly. So, women would not be allowed to “ovafy” during those times (Leviticus 23: 18)

47. 2: CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH 11.23.2007

There is George Bush, looking as dumb-faced as usual, in front of the cameras last week, and telling General-President Musharraf of Pakistan that he must take off his military uniform. It's undemocratic for a leader to be president and head the military as well.

Hey! Hold on a minute! Isn't this coming from President Bush, who is also called “the Commander in Chief” of the Armed forces? So how come it's OK for Bush to be flown onto aircraft carriers to announce “mission accomplished” in a military “poopy suit” and he calls for Musharraf to give up his suit of medals. Maybe because Bush has given him $10 Billion bucks since 911, that's why. But Musharraf still hasn't done it, and might not.

Musharref plays Bush like a cheap tin whistle. Pakistan has for years; first because we feared the Soviets in Afghanistan, then since we fear Al Qaeda after 911. So we pay them to be our friends, but mostly they take the money and ignore us. Bush goes on about nuclear proliferation, but after Pakistani A.Q. Khan ran an eBay for nuclear secrets and materials to people we regard as enemies, we did nothing when Musharraf punished the bastard with house arrest on a nice lake. Of course, Pakistan has nukes themselves thanks to Mr, Khan, and Bush is terrified that they might fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or what he calls “Islamo-fascists”. We make deals with the leader, but most all of the people hate us and especially Bush.

So all this is typical of Bush, who talks about bringing democracy to the Middle East, but is friends mostly with dictators like the Saudis, Mubarek, and Musharraf. Bush is no more an exponent of democracy than is Musharraf. The man is nothing if not insincerity incarnate.

These two autocrats are cut from the same cloth. Not only do they both run their militaries like private armies, the share other behaviors toward government. Musharraf stacked his Supreme Court with favorites; Bush—who reigns thanks to the like of Scalia and Thomas—appoints only ideological favorites to the courts, and has federal prosecutors who convict Republicans purged. Musharraf controls his parliament; Bush ignores the efforts of congress with vetoes and signing statements. Musharraf imprisons adversaries; Bush can call anyone, even Americans, “enemy combatants and make them disappear into Guantanamo, or “rendered” to contract torture prisons abroad. Musharref declares martial law so he can forbid protests and shit down the media; Bush has the 2007 Defense Authorization Act that allows him to declare martial law any tome he chooses. They both spy on their own people and probably have plenty of waterboards.

Bush was in over his head when he ran a baseball team, but his stupidity and ineptitude in a complex world of international politics will resonate in debt and ill-will for decades. He is a man who lives on, and by, fear and greed, and he is a hypocrite. He's stupid. He's incompetent. He's Busharraf.

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47. 1: THE JESUITS, by Jonathan Wright, (2004) BR 11.4.2007

I recall with much clarity when, as an eighth-grader being taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph, it was announced in class that the Jesuits were coming to town. The nuns spoke of the imminence of this Catholic religious order of priests and brothers with the type of respect the residents of Dodge City must have shown when some feared and appropriately noir-attired gunslinger was coming to their town.

These nuns were women who were “brides of Christ,” whose salvation was pretty much “in the bag.” So, what did they have to fear from the Jesuits? Or were they just awestruck? Who were these priests who seemed to command more respect, fear, resentment, and admiration than other Catholic religious orders? Who were these members of the Society of Jesus, who were going to make the Basilian fathers who had the town to themselves for decades, look like quivering sheriff's deputies facing down the quickest, deadliest “guns” in the Roman Catholic Church.

I all but burst through the door to tell my parents, " The Jesuits are coming! The Jesuits are coming!” There was a momentous anticipation in the air. I felt like something big was in the offing, and though I don't know why, but I wanted to be a part of it. Beyond the brief hagiographies of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, the founding pillars of the Society, I knew nothing about the Jesuits. But if the were he Mantle and Maris of the Roman Catholic Church, I wanted to be on their team.

The Jesuits are perhaps the main reason why he institution of religion in general, and the RCC in particular, and even the power of belief, remain fascinating to me and lend a vibrancy to my enduring agnosticism. Because the Jesuits are those black-robed “gunslingers”—not cloistered monks trying to pray a better world into being, or parish priests readying for bingo night—but worldly men of action who follow Xavier's motto ignem mittere in terram , willing to commit metaphysical arson in service of Loyola's loftier anthem, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

The “jebbies” always had balls. They were the sort who wouldn't point to that part of the bleachers where they were going to hit a home run. They were not daunted by Hindus in Goa, Buddhists in Canton, or animists in Canada. If you want a prayer-chain supplicate a nun or a monk; if you want to extend the roads that lead to Rome, dispatch the Jesuits. These were guys, like Issac Jogues, and Jean de Brébeuf, o would saunter into Huron country in winter and feel fortunate if they came back with most of their appendages and maybe a few “soul scalps” hanging from the belts of their raggedy soutaines. These were guys like Manuel de Norbrega, or Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, who would brave venomous snakes and poison-tipped arrows in South American rain forests, foraging for souls and fomenting rebellion. [1] These are guys like Matteo Ricci, cleverly ingratiating himself to the Emperor of China with western philosophy and technology. [2]

Not all Jesuits dallied with martyrdom. Some were confessors, counselors and confidants of royalty and the politically powerful. They would have laughed at the notion of the separation of church and state. From the confessional they influenced finance and policy and conflated the “greater glory of God” with the greater glory of their clients.

Small wonder that there were, and still are, those who despised and feared these black-attired legions of the church. Interestingly, although there have always been Protestants who saw the Jesuits as enemies, it was often their co-religionists, fellow Catholics, who regarded them with extreme opprobrium. The Jesuits were fierce and effective competition for the other legions of the church, the Dominicans, Benedictines, Franciscans, Piarists, and other orders. Jesuits not only formed attachments with secular authority, but also seemed to have special access to the corridors of the Vatican. [3] These factors were certainly responsible for envy from the other religious orders, but perhaps the primary basis for this envy if the Jesuit educational system.

“Give us a boy until age seven and we well show you the man.” So confident in bending the will of young men to theirs so goes the Jesuit boast. There is more that a grain of truth; it is sometimes surprisingly easy for one “Jesuit product” to spot another. By the time the decided to open a high school in my town there were already Jesuit high schools, colleges and seminaries all over the world. There must be hundreds of schools named after Xavier and Loyola alone. I have spotted them in Nagasaki, Macao, Bombay, and on Southern Pacific islands. I don't know whether their effect is always the same on the young men who study with the Jesuits, but they do seem to imbued their charges, at whatever ages the get them, with a sense of ambition, purpose and service.

The Jesuits are men of action, not contemplation; they get things done, sometimes setting them “on fire.” This is not doubt why they have made enemies over the centuries, even at times angering the church that they serve. They have been prohibited, expelled, and executed, but the have prevailed, and their influence carries forward in the men (and women) they have taught.

I was often just in awe of my Jesuit teachers in high school, and certainly didn't know their history as a do after reading this book and a few others in the years since I graduated. But I got an inkling of their controversial nature the day after I graduated in the first graduating class of their high school in my town. By that time the original entrants had been winnowed down to those who could endure the sometimes withering academic pressures. A piece in the local paper the next day caught my eye. I can only recollect it with dim memory now, but it said much more than just the statistics. The article, obviously informed by a press release from my school said something to the effect that our graduate had been offered so many scholarships to colleges and universities that there were enough left over the might have bee used for the graduates of the other boy's Catholic high school in town. In other words, the Jesuit high school was the only place to go for academic excellence. That other school must have been pissed off. But by then it was too late; the blacked-robed Jebbies, the quickest gunslingers in the Roman Catholic Church, and the slickest public relations dudes as well, had already set the town ablaze.

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[1] Cf. The excellent 1986 film by Roland Joffé, The Mission, in which Jesuits fight against the enslavement of local tribes in Portuguese colonies.

[2] See, DCJournal No. 31. 2, a review of Jonathan Spence, THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI

[3] The Jesuits also competed with other religious orders (as well as the Protestants) through their missions, e.g with the Spaniards in New Spain and the Franciscans in the Orient. Although they were often the first to venture into new territory in search of souls, they were sometime beat out by other orders. For example, the Franciscans were in Western China well before the Jesuits. The Franciscans were in Mongolia in the early 14 th C, but apparently their connections there ended in 1368. It was the Jesuits, arriving with Matteo Ricci, whio made the most effective inroads into China.