Mencken on elections

Politics, under a democracy, reduces itself to a mere struggle for office by flatterers of the proletariat; even when a superior man prevails at that disgusting game he must prevail at the cost of his self-respect. -- H.L. Mencken

 

blood on the napkins

(Credit: Shutterstock/Salon)

see So Much For Family Values at
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/28/so_much_for_family_values/


blood on the napkins

family sittin' down to dinner
time's come to pick a winner
there'll be blood on the napkins tonight

papa loves an obvious sinner
mama says he's just a spinner
now they circle for their fight

family prospects lookin' dimer
water overcomes a swimmer
nothin's goin' right

now the gold starts to shimmer
in the blade you see a glimmer
there'll be blood on the napkins tonight

Suicide Church

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace according to the Pew Research Center. -- news item

1

Suicide Church
people lurch
mostly to the right

Suicide Church
worships John Birch
Jesus out of sight

Suicide Church
does research
on how to start a fight

Suicide Church
they gotta search
funding's gettin' tight

2

Who would go
when they know
no one can be free

Put on a show
ends in a row
sorry sight to see

They strike a blow
for to and fro'
folks getin' sleepy

They worry so
in the under-flow
church runn' on empty

Life Just Got Very Difficult for Someone

This just in ... Life just got very difficult for someone. But we have not been able to find out who that someone is. Nor are we able to ascertain the exact nature of the difficulty or how difficult the difficulty may be. It is entirely possible that the difficulty is horrendous. Or it might just be a note on a windshield saying: "Don't park here any more or we will put a bumper sticker on your car labelling you personally as a not nice person." This bumper sticker reads: "This driver is not a nice person. Honk if you want this driver to go to hell." That may be too many words for a bumper sticker but what it loses in readability it clearly makes up for in the general nastiness of its tone. So if no other driver can read it, so what? Do you understand how difficult it is a write a good bumper sticker? The last great bumper sticker was penned in 1961. It read: "I miss Ike. Hell, I even miss Harry." It was expressing dissatisfaction with Camelot before Camelot even got off the ground. Some people are never happy even if they have the original cast album, which is what people had in 1961. How many people saw the Broadway musical or even the movie and then counted the hairs on Lyndon Johnson's head. Not many because there is no record -- historical record not record album -- of anyone doing it. That's because it would have been difficult. You could see the Broadway show, you could easily do that. But how could you count the number of hairs on Lyndon Johnson's head? You could rip his full-color photo out of Life magazine at the public library and then try. But photo reproduction in that era was not what it is today when it is basically non-existent in terms of what you could photograph with a Speed Graphic, the camera newspaper photographers still used in 1961. The ideal way to do it would have been to find Lyndon Johnson in person sound asleep and then get real close to him and start counting. But the chances of doing that were next to zero. You'd have to be his wife or mistress to get passed the Secret Service. And how many mistresses did Lyndon Johnson have? You start with Helen Gahagan Douglas and then you count forward but it is no easy job. It is a difficulty. Perhaps the someone finding life getting very difficult is facing a similar dilemma. That would make sense as much as anything makes sense anymore. It is very difficult to make sense out of anything. That's what youth leaders are for but where have the youth leaders of tomorrow gone today? No telling until tomorrow when they start making sense. Youth leaders are not here today because they are waiting in the wings at the Youth Leaders of Tomorrow Conference and Expo in Modesto, California. Right now they are mowing lawns because there isn't a lot to do in Modesto. Go there some day and try to have a good time and you will find out just how difficult it can be once you mow a few lawns and rake up all the leaves. Then what are you going to do? Offer to clean the gutters? That is a strategy that worked in the past but may not be viable today and is certainly not as much fun as going to a Broadway show in New York City. Modesto simply cannot match New York, New York in arts and entertainment. So here you are with nowhere to go on Saturday night after you mowed some lawns and raked some leaves and cleaned out some gutters. Sure you've got money in your pocket but it's difficult to make a good choice. There might be a museum where you can guess the hairs on a California Golden Bear. But that's got to be very difficult because bears, let's face it, are very hairy. And bears will not usually stand still while you count all the hairs on their body. One strategy might be to drive down to Disneyland and count the hairs of the Bear Country bears. That's because they are made out of some plastic or cloth deal that the Disney Imagineers dreamed up and there's no real hair there. So you write zero down on your score card. Then you've won but what have you won? You don't know. Who made up this contest anyway and was there ever even going to be a prize or money or anything? So now you're in Disneyland with zero on your scorecard and you realize that you are the someone for whom life just got very difficult.

How Much Fun Can I Have Before I Go To Hell?

Maybe it’s Omaha. You get to a place where you can’t go there any more. Like Hemingway said about the war. It was there but he could not go to it any more. And you can’t go into that darkened bar and play the fool for the patrons of the arts. You can’t believe that America is a great country so it deserves great art. What the hell could that mean? McDonald’s is a hamburger so it deserves great art. Jesus is God so he deserves great art. And what is great art anyway. Some dimwitted college professor with tenure and a bad case of herpes decides what’s great art and when he writes about it in The New York Times it becomes the Word of God. Please. But this is Omaha and you can’t go any further. You get out of the car, off the bus, deplane and un-board the train. You lay your motorcycle down in the road and just hope nobody hits it. You are stopped dead in your tracks and a man comes up to you and says when this war’s over we’ll kill everybody we meet. And you move on alone. You move on because you’ve got nobody to go see and you don’t want to hear about the Supreme Court going deaf. That’s their problem. Your problem is moving and staying put. All together now. All together now. What is your problem? It’s the trouble with going nowhere fast. Where is nowhere and how fast can you get there. You heard about a kid in New Orleans wearing a t-shirt that said: “How much fun can I have before I go to hell?” That seems like a legitimate question. Why don’t the big brains work on that one? Why don’t the preachers talk about that one? No way, Jose. We don’t get into philosophical and theological issues such as resolve: how much fun can this boy have before he goes to hell? We can’t debate that. We’d have to take the whole country apart and start over. And first we’d have to define what fun is. And the whole thing depends on what hell is. And you’re just in Omaha overnight thinking you can’t go on. You can’t go on even if there is hell out there that you could go to if you could just figure out how to have fun. You don’t know. Tomorrow, they’ll bring you your bike and say ride white boy ride. What will you do then? Try to explain Omaha? It could be beyond the scope of the discussion. So you rent a room and wait. And you never know how much fun you could have had before you go to hell.

The Lost Temptations of Christ

The Devil wore a digital watch.


This is a little known fact.


Jesus was in the wilderness

for 40 days and didn't know

what day or time it was.


Then the Devil showed up

and said: "It's the Sabbath."


And Jesus said: "How do you know?"


Then the Devil showed him his

digital watch and said:

"See you should be in temple."

But Jesus said: "The Sabbath

was made for man, not man

for the Sabbath."


And generations of football fans

yet unborn and un-named gave

thanks for this teaching.


However, the Devil would not

give up that easily.

He whipped out his iPhone.


"Look at this! It's a combination

telephone, digital time keeper,

personal calendar, and you can

check out your favorite Websites,

and send email, update your

Facebook and Twitter."


But Jesus said: "I don't Twitter.

I don't email. I don't have

a Facebook page and I keep my

personal calendar in my head."


At this point the Devil saw

a potential sale slipping away, so

he produced a 3D flat screen TV.

"Look you can watch all your favorite

shows in three dimensions."


But Jesus said: "I don't have any

favorite shows and I already see

the whole world in three dimensions."


In desperation the Devil took Jesus

to a big box electronics store,

which was a wholly-owned subsidiary

of Hinges of Hell Enterprises, Inc.


There were rows of personal computers,

and all manner of hi def televisions,

and tons of portable mobile accessories.

Everything sparkled like new wine.


"All this plus iPhones yet to be

invented can be yours if you will

just follow me," the Devil said.


"You can't fool me," Jesus said.

"All this will turn to rust and dust,

except for the plastic parts that

will pollute landfills for millions

and millions of years."


"Oh, come now," the Devil replied.

"Surely you could use an iPod

to play you some tunes during those

lonely nights in the desert. It's

a great little device. It brings you

full surround sound stereo through

these little ear buds. Try it out.

You can hear all the instruments."


But Jesus looked around the store

and said: "These are instruments

of the Devil. These are the Devil's

own devices of distraction."


Then Jesus walked out of the store,

passing the counter where he might

have applied for easy credit with no

payments until January 2013.


And the Devil stood there screaming:

"Socialist! Luddite! Environmental

extremist! Anti-American! Killjoy!

I hope I'm not leaving anything out!"


Jesus just kept on walking, and never looked back.

Alan Watts: The Zen of Getting Over Yourself

The paradox leading to Zen awakening begins, Alan Watts once said, "at the level of spirituality where the highest ideal is to be unselfish, to let go of one's self.*"

But what happens when you realize that trying to be unselfish is a selfish act?

You want to be unselfish so that others will see you for the spiritual giant you want to be. But you cannot make yourself unselfish by force of will.

As Watts said: "You can't be unselfish by a decision of the will any more than you can decide not to think of a green elephant."

He goes on to explain that this is the common dilemma faced by students when the Zen master asks: "Show me your true self?"

Students are faced with the impossibility of doing what they came to the Zen master hoping to learn to do. The students came seeking their true unselfish self. And now in the midst of Zen training, that true self fails to show up for class.

As Watts explained "...the student finds that there is absolutely no way of being his true self ... "

This is the moment when the impossibility of an answer becomes the answer.

Watts asks: "What does that mean if I can't do the right thing by doing and if I can't do the right thing by not doing?"

Then Watts answers his own question.

"There is no independent self to be produced. There's no way at all of showing it because it isn't there."

And this is Zen-style good news.

"You recover from the illusion," Watts said. "You discover that what you are is no longer this isolated center of action and experience locked up in your skin. The teacher has asked you to produce that thing [the self you call your own] and show it to him genuine and naked. And you couldn't find it. So it isn't there. And when you see clearly that it isn't there you have a new sense of identity. You realize that what you are is ... the whole world of nature."

* Alan Watts quotes are based on notes I made from a Podcast titled "Intro to Zen 4 of 4" at the Alan Watts Podcast Website.