Saturday, January 29, 2011
DaysOfRage.com
Anwar Sadat was presented, posthumously, the Presidential Medal Of Freedom by President Reagan in 1984. Three former United States Presidents, Ford, Carter and Nixon, attended his funeral after he was assassinated in 1981 by those who hated the peace that he helped bring between Egypt and Israel. Hosni Mubarak was wounded in that murder and has ruled Egypt since then serving as a buffer between Israel and those who want to eliminate it as a state. He has survived a half a dozen plots against his life. If he survives the present turmoil in Egypt he will need to make concessions to democracy while at the same time trying to hold off attempts by radical Fundamentalists to take power through democratic means that they hate to begin with and will dismantle if they take power. If Mubarak does not survive in his position, Egypt as purveyor and beneficiary of peace in the Middle East will end, if not immediately, in the near future. I have mentioned before that Novembers 4th, 1979 was a day that I will never forget for my father died that day, later interred at Arlington National Cemetery through benefits given because of injuries sustained in World War Two. We never talked politics though I was enmeshed with it and we never talked religion either. The first a mere regret and the second an evidence of my own life at the time and something I will have to live with. I'm over a year an a half older than he lived to be. Two other things happened on that day. Ted Kennedy's run for President essentially ended in his disastrous interview with television anchor Roger Mudd. Also, Iranian students took 52 American hostages and would keep them for 444 days. Anwar Sadat honored the Shah of Iran, whom he considered a friend, with burial in Egypt. The Shah experienced his own days of rage beginning in mid-1978. He also named new ministers in an attempt to satisfy the various groups demanding his ouster. Within weeks of leaving his country, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran. He was supposed to be a religious leader but things did not turn out this way. Iran would eventually become what it is today, an instigator of havoc throughout the region and potential catalyst of world war. Mubarak was no Sadat, nor was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, but all three wanted peace in the region and were opposed by Fundamentalists who have an agenda that has nothing to do with democracy, human rights, peace or even fairness. Once again, in Egypt this time, Social Networking brought people into the streets, a medium that requires no contemplation and offers no long-term strategies. America experienced its own network uprising in 2008. It excited a large portion of the voting public and moved opinion like a rowdy moved cows on a cattle drive...Head 'em up...move 'em out! It worked, only the hope and change turned out to be something else. Would Martin Luther King take advantage of networking if he had it available to him? I don't know. I doubt it though for he didn't need it. People were determined to show up for demonstration after demonstration, march after march, to seek equality for all, and were looking towards legislation not riots. John Brown though, would have been texting from that armory in Harper's Ferry. How quickly things can change. Few envisioned only a week ago that Hosni Mubarak's family would be seeking safety today in England. The message for we Americans is primarily this, Super Bowls come and go every year and life goes on. Major snowstorms give only a few days of warning but give enough time prepare. We are currently sailing in a sea of warnings about our nation's future and it is past time to heed the warnings, prepare and seek safe harbor if necessary.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Giants
Do you become frustrated on occasions where you feel that there is nothing that you can do as our nation and our society heads, full steam, into the abyss, all the while knowing full well that our children, if things do not change, will not have the freedoms and liberties that we have had, may not live in an America that is able to defend itself against enemies and may be forced to worship at the altar of the state? Do you feel that there is little that you can do to help, apart from your vote? If so, I suspect that you are in a very large club and I submit to you that there is something that you can do, something that has great potential for changing the course our nation is on! You won't be impressed when I tell you what it is for at first glance it appears to be an insignificant goal but I submit to you that if it were to even come close to becoming law it would set in motion a holy crusade against it by those who would see in it the potential of chains falling off their prisoners, of control being lost over the rabble and of a sleeping Giant Despair being awakened. With all the technological advances that we have to contend with, television remains our chief source of news and our primary entertainment, and its usage is increasing. Every foreign enemy of America that exists at this time views the American malaise as its ally. With our entertainment driven life and subsequent inability and downright disinterest in sorting through the issues of the day beyond a nod of the head to two or three sentences from Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer or Brian Williams, we are proving ourselves to be a feeble, irresolute people, easily manageable as long as our interests are subservient to our libido instead of defending our liberty. Television is at the forefront of a host of entertainments that are more value to our enemies than, as Winston Churchill might say, a hundred divisions of soldiers. The next time that you turn television on, please analyze what you are seeing. Consider the research that must have been done by those amassing fortunes in how best to hold viewers to their ignoble fascinations, drain their minds and nullify any concerns they might have for their own safety and the security of their nation, all the while knowing that if the envelope of newer and more deplorable programming is not continually pushed, the trance might be broken. Consider also the human mind and try to envision the person whose highlight of the day is a Modern Family, then weigh the enormous problems besetting our nation. Consider the effect of the occult, the violence, the banality, the American Idol mentality and the "mature content" from their "babysitters" most recently Glee and Skins on our children. Consider God's warning on where we should not lead our children. Finally, consider that your cable channels are "bundled." You, if you subscribe at present, are forced to support these barbarians within our gates. There is an answer! You can be part of it. If we are given choice in what programming our money will go to, it will be the beginning of the end of the mogul's hold on the collective American mind. There are multitudes in America who value God, family and country but are more often than not confounded as in what to do. Given this choice they will make the right one and in short order it will become noticeable that Americans are waking up to the realities before us and we will see improvement in all of our choices from politics to our entertainments, to what we purchase, to what we save, to what we invest (both money and time) in, to the questions that we ask and the answers we give to questions asked of us.. The audience that chooses to stay in bondage will shrink. If only a few indomitable of spirit in Congress take hold of this concept of a la carte cable, a firestorm will arise from opponents of choice in television! This in itself will expose how important this is to those who will see their hold on the American public beginning to give way. So you indeed can do something, for every voice will be heard in these initial stages of this effort. This is a snowball sitting atop a mountain that if given a push will turn into an avalanche. There was an article in yesterday's The Guardian newspaper from Britain titled Social Networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-skepticism sweeps US. It mentions six books in America that are giving a warning that cyber-space has the potential to rule our lives, three of these books have been reviewed in this blog and a fourth, Sherry Turkle's Alone Together I'm starting to read right now. I've written quite a few times on my extreme concern about Facebook. Aside from the grand waste of time and feeding frenzy of narcissism, the company is growing in more ways than just users. Most recently Goldman Sachs was in the position to offer investment opportunities up to $1.5 billion and, at the last minute, decided to offer this only to non-US investors. My concern is that once addictedd to Facebook in so many areas of our lives, that this company can then, in effect, guide us in where to get our information. This latest turn to foreign investment brings us closer to the world of un-American philosophies and Russia has more than taken advantage of these investment opportunities. At present, Mark Zuckerberg and his associates call the shots in his company but a day may be near where he has to cede decision making to the major investors. Cyber-space and cable television are a one-two punch to the American way of life, the American Creed, to freedom and liberty itself. Social Networking is a monster and bundled cable television is a dungeon and its keeper "Giant Malaise" feeds us its potions of entertainment, violence, mayhem and wonder-lust every morning, afternoon and evening. As John Bunyan's "Giant Despair" saw its demise in his marvelous book Pilgrim's Progress, so can we rend this new giant impotent by severing the lock it has on us through cable television! My first blog, in November of 2008, was on this topic of a la carte cable and a number of blogs since then. If but one candidate for President in 2012 has the prescience to see that this issue has great potential to stir a public already boiling over an insurmountable debt, then a major obstacle, albeit just one, of regaining our discernment can be hurdled.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Ringelmann Effect?
George Will is a nationally syndicated columnist and one of the more respected commentators in our society today. I don't always agree with him but he has been on a roll of late. It's not that he is leading the way in warning us that our constitutional government is in jeopardy, for the message has been out there for some time but he is one who contemplates patiently before joining a fray. I refer you to his latest article that can be accessed at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/.
If I could summarize just a few points here: Will begins by taking us back to the Founding Fathers intent on three issues, the rule of law, the relevance of the Constitution and American Exceptionalism. He gives two reasons for the necessity of action, the first being that we have elevated the office of the Presidency above what it was meant to be and I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. The second is that government regulation is growing at an alarming rate and that that very regulation is "an apparatus responsive to Presidents." The cause of this he assigns to Congress with words from The Bard, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
According to the author the Congress has permitted this to happen in assigning its responsibilities to others. He quotes James Madison from Federalist 45 in "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." Will rightly describes the concept of American Exceptionalism as "obnoxious to progressives (liberals.)" thinking it a "crude stain of patriotism." This is part of the problem today in that many proclaim that they love America and that they are patriots but their actions belie their proclamations.
Will writes that the result of a "long pedigree" and "rich scholarship" was our "exceptional Constitution," which says not what the government must do for Americans but what it cannot do to them." He hit the nail square on the head when he summarized with "Two years into Barack Obama's presidency, we know what he meant about hope and change -he and other progressives (liberals) hope to change our national character."
This conclusion has been at the forefront of my thoughts since the junior Senator from Illinois and acolyte of various and nefarious world changers such as Saul Alinsky and George Soros came into prominence with their writings and their money in that he (Barack Obama) wants to change America, from being America...to something else. This is a far cry from merely changing the results of our common hopes and goals. This was done with deception, knowing that Americans would consider a change in course for the Ship of State but never lower the Stars and Stripes to raise another flag. Even exceptional articles such as George Will's latest will not ruffle the feathers of those who have assumed their new posts of power for they know very well that more is involved here than merely presenting information to have it scrutinized by the public, for that public is so enmeshed in pastimes and entertainments that it does not have the ability to think through issues anymore.
As Evgeny Morosov puts forth in his new book The Net Delusion, The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom, people will utilize the trivial entertainments of the Internet before they consider the political ideas that come from it and that this plays into the hand of tyranny more than freedom loving activists. Morozov also refers to what has become known as the Ringelmann Effect in that a French agricultural engineer conducted a experiment in 1882 where he was able to determine how much effort an individual put into a designed task of pulling with all his might on a rope. He was then able to have a group pull on that same rope and divide the tension by the number of people. What he found out was that people expended less energy when pulling within the group. The individuals had slacked off when not on their own. This is where we are at today. We depend on talk radio or a Tea Party, or in this case Congress. We live in a malaise as a fish lives in water. We take pride in being part of a group but if that group should collapse is there any substance in us to continue?
Similar to what George Will wrote, we have let ourselves down. We've done that by not relying fully on God as our strength. He was pushed aside one step at a time and we considered it the better part of valor to let it happen. America has no future recognizable to any of its past if we do not, individually, humble ourselves before Him. Our Constituion cannot help us if we look to it as a god in place of a gift of order given by God. As we pull on this rope in a tug-a-war we need dependence on Him who will not slack off. I have reprinted in my blogs a number of prayers from the book Vally Of Vision edited by Arthur Bennett and available at any bookseller (isbn 9780851512280) and I'll offer another here. If and when you see through the mist that our beloved nation is in dire straits, prayers constructed such as this one can, should God will it, guide us even through the thickest fog:
O Thou Giving God,
My heart is drawn out in thankfulness to thee,
for thy amazing grace and condescension to me
in influences and assistances of thy Spirit,
for special help in prayer,
for the sweetness of Christian service,
for the thoughts of arriving in heaven,
for always sending me needful supplies,
for raising me to new life when
I am like one dead.
I want not the favour of man to lean upon
for thy favour is infinitely better.
Thou art eternal wisdom in dispensations
towards me;
and it matters not when, nor where, nor how
I serve thee,
nor what trials I am exercised with,
if I might but be prepared for thy work and will.
No poor creature stands in need of divine grace
more than I do,
And yet none abuses it more than I have done,
and still do.
How heartless and dull I am!
Humble me in the dust for not loving thee more.
Every time I exercise any grace renewedly
I am renewedly indebted to thee,
the God of all grace, for special assistance.
I cannot boast when I think how dependent
I am upon thee for the being and every act of grace;
I never do anything else but depart from thee,
and if I ever get to heaven it will be because
thou willest it, and for no reason beside.
I love, as a feeble, afflicted, despised creature,
to cast myself on thy infinite grace and goodness,
hoping for no happiness but from thee;
Give me special grace to fit me for special services,
and keep me calm and resigned at all times,
humble, solemn, mortified,
and conformed to thy will.
If I could summarize just a few points here: Will begins by taking us back to the Founding Fathers intent on three issues, the rule of law, the relevance of the Constitution and American Exceptionalism. He gives two reasons for the necessity of action, the first being that we have elevated the office of the Presidency above what it was meant to be and I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. The second is that government regulation is growing at an alarming rate and that that very regulation is "an apparatus responsive to Presidents." The cause of this he assigns to Congress with words from The Bard, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
According to the author the Congress has permitted this to happen in assigning its responsibilities to others. He quotes James Madison from Federalist 45 in "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined." Will rightly describes the concept of American Exceptionalism as "obnoxious to progressives (liberals.)" thinking it a "crude stain of patriotism." This is part of the problem today in that many proclaim that they love America and that they are patriots but their actions belie their proclamations.
Will writes that the result of a "long pedigree" and "rich scholarship" was our "exceptional Constitution," which says not what the government must do for Americans but what it cannot do to them." He hit the nail square on the head when he summarized with "Two years into Barack Obama's presidency, we know what he meant about hope and change -he and other progressives (liberals) hope to change our national character."
This conclusion has been at the forefront of my thoughts since the junior Senator from Illinois and acolyte of various and nefarious world changers such as Saul Alinsky and George Soros came into prominence with their writings and their money in that he (Barack Obama) wants to change America, from being America...to something else. This is a far cry from merely changing the results of our common hopes and goals. This was done with deception, knowing that Americans would consider a change in course for the Ship of State but never lower the Stars and Stripes to raise another flag. Even exceptional articles such as George Will's latest will not ruffle the feathers of those who have assumed their new posts of power for they know very well that more is involved here than merely presenting information to have it scrutinized by the public, for that public is so enmeshed in pastimes and entertainments that it does not have the ability to think through issues anymore.
As Evgeny Morosov puts forth in his new book The Net Delusion, The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom, people will utilize the trivial entertainments of the Internet before they consider the political ideas that come from it and that this plays into the hand of tyranny more than freedom loving activists. Morozov also refers to what has become known as the Ringelmann Effect in that a French agricultural engineer conducted a experiment in 1882 where he was able to determine how much effort an individual put into a designed task of pulling with all his might on a rope. He was then able to have a group pull on that same rope and divide the tension by the number of people. What he found out was that people expended less energy when pulling within the group. The individuals had slacked off when not on their own. This is where we are at today. We depend on talk radio or a Tea Party, or in this case Congress. We live in a malaise as a fish lives in water. We take pride in being part of a group but if that group should collapse is there any substance in us to continue?
Similar to what George Will wrote, we have let ourselves down. We've done that by not relying fully on God as our strength. He was pushed aside one step at a time and we considered it the better part of valor to let it happen. America has no future recognizable to any of its past if we do not, individually, humble ourselves before Him. Our Constituion cannot help us if we look to it as a god in place of a gift of order given by God. As we pull on this rope in a tug-a-war we need dependence on Him who will not slack off. I have reprinted in my blogs a number of prayers from the book Vally Of Vision edited by Arthur Bennett and available at any bookseller (isbn 9780851512280) and I'll offer another here. If and when you see through the mist that our beloved nation is in dire straits, prayers constructed such as this one can, should God will it, guide us even through the thickest fog:
O Thou Giving God,
My heart is drawn out in thankfulness to thee,
for thy amazing grace and condescension to me
in influences and assistances of thy Spirit,
for special help in prayer,
for the sweetness of Christian service,
for the thoughts of arriving in heaven,
for always sending me needful supplies,
for raising me to new life when
I am like one dead.
I want not the favour of man to lean upon
for thy favour is infinitely better.
Thou art eternal wisdom in dispensations
towards me;
and it matters not when, nor where, nor how
I serve thee,
nor what trials I am exercised with,
if I might but be prepared for thy work and will.
No poor creature stands in need of divine grace
more than I do,
And yet none abuses it more than I have done,
and still do.
How heartless and dull I am!
Humble me in the dust for not loving thee more.
Every time I exercise any grace renewedly
I am renewedly indebted to thee,
the God of all grace, for special assistance.
I cannot boast when I think how dependent
I am upon thee for the being and every act of grace;
I never do anything else but depart from thee,
and if I ever get to heaven it will be because
thou willest it, and for no reason beside.
I love, as a feeble, afflicted, despised creature,
to cast myself on thy infinite grace and goodness,
hoping for no happiness but from thee;
Give me special grace to fit me for special services,
and keep me calm and resigned at all times,
humble, solemn, mortified,
and conformed to thy will.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Fire!...Water!.......Order!!
The following blog post is from August 31st of 2009. The negative depictions of our society have continued to spiral downward but the positive signs have strengthened so that the strained discourse of the citizens employed by both trends would have been predictable. The situation in our nation is worse but we are more aware of it now.
There is a joke that some Presbyterians like to share with one another, to laugh a little bit at themselves, and it goes like this: Ministers from various denominations were meeting in an auditorium to discuss some matters of interest when a fire broke out in the hall. A Baptist minister jumped up and yelled "Fire!" A Methodist minister jumped up and shouted "Water!" followed by a Presbyterian minister who stood up and yelled "Order!"
The Westminster Assembly was a gathering of well over 100 ministers and some laymen that met from 1643 to 1649. This assembly produced the Westminster Confession and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms. These Standards eventually were adopted by Presbyterians. The effort was arduous and meticulous and it resulted in a work of exemplary precision. We are not a society that values these type of works anymore. We like to envision the United States Constitution in our own words. We apparently have a tendency to pass legislation without even bothering to read it beforehand.
Our political elections are but appearances, sound bites and media manipulations. Our corporations craft ethics codes and then, all too often, promptly ignore them. Our educational system seems intent on crafting its own brand of tolerance and building self-esteem rather than retention of facts and analytical thinking. Our Higher Education has become hamstrung by diversity, being politically correct and striving for any statistic that will improve its U. S. News & World Report "College Rating." Our families increasingly consider manual dexterity on the latest hand held gizmo and navigation of Facebook to be preparation for future scientists, doctors and lawyers. Many schools are foregoing teaching cursive writing, for the future is the keyboard. One can sit in Sunday School classes for 20 years without hearing the words Pelagianism, Arminianism or even justification.
On the bright side...yes...there is a bright side; we have learned about our own Constitution in the last eight years and we had a crash (no pun intended) course in economics in the last twelve months. We have seen just how ill-prepared a President can be and how arrogant the Congress can be, and should pay quite a bit more attention in the next election. Many are turning off the television and tuning in the radio where the spoken word is the medium rather than pixels.
The new radicals on campus are the conservatives. Authors like Michele Malkin and Mark Levin sit atop best seller lists while national political leaders such as Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin are sprouting up. As for the Christian church, we still need a return to preaching Christ and we need fathers again assuming their role of Sunday School teachers with their own families, but the fuel of faith is a high grade and should God ignite it, our pews will fill with people desiring to know Him, our pulpits could not be restrained from preaching Christ and fathers once again would relish catechizing their children.
There is a joke that some Presbyterians like to share with one another, to laugh a little bit at themselves, and it goes like this: Ministers from various denominations were meeting in an auditorium to discuss some matters of interest when a fire broke out in the hall. A Baptist minister jumped up and yelled "Fire!" A Methodist minister jumped up and shouted "Water!" followed by a Presbyterian minister who stood up and yelled "Order!"
The Westminster Assembly was a gathering of well over 100 ministers and some laymen that met from 1643 to 1649. This assembly produced the Westminster Confession and the Longer and Shorter Catechisms. These Standards eventually were adopted by Presbyterians. The effort was arduous and meticulous and it resulted in a work of exemplary precision. We are not a society that values these type of works anymore. We like to envision the United States Constitution in our own words. We apparently have a tendency to pass legislation without even bothering to read it beforehand.
Our political elections are but appearances, sound bites and media manipulations. Our corporations craft ethics codes and then, all too often, promptly ignore them. Our educational system seems intent on crafting its own brand of tolerance and building self-esteem rather than retention of facts and analytical thinking. Our Higher Education has become hamstrung by diversity, being politically correct and striving for any statistic that will improve its U. S. News & World Report "College Rating." Our families increasingly consider manual dexterity on the latest hand held gizmo and navigation of Facebook to be preparation for future scientists, doctors and lawyers. Many schools are foregoing teaching cursive writing, for the future is the keyboard. One can sit in Sunday School classes for 20 years without hearing the words Pelagianism, Arminianism or even justification.
On the bright side...yes...there is a bright side; we have learned about our own Constitution in the last eight years and we had a crash (no pun intended) course in economics in the last twelve months. We have seen just how ill-prepared a President can be and how arrogant the Congress can be, and should pay quite a bit more attention in the next election. Many are turning off the television and tuning in the radio where the spoken word is the medium rather than pixels.
The new radicals on campus are the conservatives. Authors like Michele Malkin and Mark Levin sit atop best seller lists while national political leaders such as Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin are sprouting up. As for the Christian church, we still need a return to preaching Christ and we need fathers again assuming their role of Sunday School teachers with their own families, but the fuel of faith is a high grade and should God ignite it, our pews will fill with people desiring to know Him, our pulpits could not be restrained from preaching Christ and fathers once again would relish catechizing their children.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Violence, Mayhem And Fifteen Minutes of Fame
I had planned on my next post being an already composed book review on Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants but America's latest horrendous mass murder, this time in Arizona, has pushed that aside. The two topics are not totally unrelated and many are beginning to scrutinize the effects that the Internet and other technological entertainments have on our society. Kelly labelled the unstoppable growth of technology as the technium and although warning about it's negative potential, even saying that it may be near 50% of the overall influence, wrote that it cannot be stopped and therefore we must attempt to tame it.
The book I am reading at this moment is titled The Net Delusion, The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov while Saturday's Wall Street Journal book review was on Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think edited by John Brockman. I will be ordering a book coming out this February titled Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers Of The E-personality by Elias Aboujaoude and add to this the blog I did this past November on Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows, How The Internet Is Changing Our Brains and it is obvious that we are at least looking at how cyberspace may control us rather than us controlling it.
The social networking element of the technium feeds on a society that wants its fifteen minutes of fame, while that society feeds on the product that the enormous financial potential is more than willing to provide. This, the scrutiny of the Internet, only touches on the problems that we face. It is irony in that the very people who are calling for sanity, responsibility and the observance of the law (the Tea Party) are being tarred with that with which they warn about. It is also irony in that those that Dinesh D'Souza wrote this way about in his 2008 book The Enemy At Home, "What traditional societies consider repulsive and immoral, the cultural left considers progressive and liberating." are the ones that cast others as violent. The horror of Saturday's events are the results of a society that has forsaken God.
I'd like to return to my very first blog written on November 27th, 2008, and a couple more written before that year ended. In my first blog (untitled) I tried to encourage readers to support legislative efforts at the time to free subscribers of cable companies to be able to choose only those channels they want to come into their home instead of bundled options now in use. It was my opinion, and continues to be my opinion, that if Americans are given a la carte cable choice, the violence, the occult and the intellectual mayhem on television will wither and dry up and the fringe element of our society will shrink. Another post that I would like to mention was my third in which in attempting to defend then President George W. Bush I began "Is George Bush a murderer and a war criminal as has been said over and over by many people?" It was this very vitriol and the accompanying surreptitious agendas that have led to the movement that is accused of vitriol today.
Three weeks later I wrote about the Supreme Court's 1962 decision in Engle vs.Vitale where in a 6 to 1 vote, this prayer, written by the regents of New York's education system was banned from use in the classroom and led to multiple other expulsions of God from our children's lives, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers and our country." We are a violent society because we no longer wanted God's hand on our decisions. We have a fringe element because chaos has replaced order. This debate has to continue, not only in the public square but in our churches for we have forgotten God who alone established this nation and who alone can stop the carnage.
The book I am reading at this moment is titled The Net Delusion, The Dark Side Of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov while Saturday's Wall Street Journal book review was on Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think edited by John Brockman. I will be ordering a book coming out this February titled Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers Of The E-personality by Elias Aboujaoude and add to this the blog I did this past November on Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows, How The Internet Is Changing Our Brains and it is obvious that we are at least looking at how cyberspace may control us rather than us controlling it.
The social networking element of the technium feeds on a society that wants its fifteen minutes of fame, while that society feeds on the product that the enormous financial potential is more than willing to provide. This, the scrutiny of the Internet, only touches on the problems that we face. It is irony in that the very people who are calling for sanity, responsibility and the observance of the law (the Tea Party) are being tarred with that with which they warn about. It is also irony in that those that Dinesh D'Souza wrote this way about in his 2008 book The Enemy At Home, "What traditional societies consider repulsive and immoral, the cultural left considers progressive and liberating." are the ones that cast others as violent. The horror of Saturday's events are the results of a society that has forsaken God.
I'd like to return to my very first blog written on November 27th, 2008, and a couple more written before that year ended. In my first blog (untitled) I tried to encourage readers to support legislative efforts at the time to free subscribers of cable companies to be able to choose only those channels they want to come into their home instead of bundled options now in use. It was my opinion, and continues to be my opinion, that if Americans are given a la carte cable choice, the violence, the occult and the intellectual mayhem on television will wither and dry up and the fringe element of our society will shrink. Another post that I would like to mention was my third in which in attempting to defend then President George W. Bush I began "Is George Bush a murderer and a war criminal as has been said over and over by many people?" It was this very vitriol and the accompanying surreptitious agendas that have led to the movement that is accused of vitriol today.
Three weeks later I wrote about the Supreme Court's 1962 decision in Engle vs.Vitale where in a 6 to 1 vote, this prayer, written by the regents of New York's education system was banned from use in the classroom and led to multiple other expulsions of God from our children's lives, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers and our country." We are a violent society because we no longer wanted God's hand on our decisions. We have a fringe element because chaos has replaced order. This debate has to continue, not only in the public square but in our churches for we have forgotten God who alone established this nation and who alone can stop the carnage.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Forty-two Days Without Hal
It took me about 48 hours to see that this six week experiment of doing without the Internet or cyberspace in any capacity was not only a good thing but not nearly as difficult as I feared that it would be. I was a little like a lost puppy that first day, two days before Thanksgiving, and was in bed at six o'clock (there would be two more days like this) but by the second day I was simply enjoying the benefit of not having to press "enter" on anything for a fix. I found that I had all kinds of time to do household chores. I didn't necessarily do them but I had time to. I noticed that my reading was done in longer increments. It had been a while since I sat down and read for two or three hours uninterrupted. I've been reading slower and underlining instead of slashing wildly with a highlighter. These sessions have been sit down meals not quick snacks. I had been in the habit of cutting out dozens of articles from the day's newspapers to read rapid fire as time permitted but now I'm reading the whole newspaper. I found that I had to listen closer to talk radio or radio news programs for there was no Internet research to be done on the subject when I sat down to the computer at night. As my wife and I were on a long drive I listened to a financial program on XM that offered some interesting thoughts. Normally I would have paid limited attention to it while planning on viewing its website later on but I knew that I had to commit some of the speaker's thoughts to memory right then. My television viewing may have increased 100% but that's really only about an hour a night over the previous 30 minutes. I do not miss Drudge. Whereas previously I checked the news about once and hour throughout the day I am now satisfied to hear it at 6am and then not again until 4pm and then again before bed. I don't know where the stock market is today and I don't have any idea what next week's weather is forecast to be. The only thing I miss about email is corresponding with our son but the telephone will suffice for now and I did send him a long letter written in cursive. The biggest difference is obviously the blog. That's at least two hours a day that I now have to read leisurely and retire early. I don't think that my consideration for the problems of the day has been diminished at all. In fact it seems that I am more relaxed as I think through the issues, meditating upon them. My talk radio listening had been generally 7 pm to 10 pm as I wrote the blog with an additional twenty minutes to and from work. I only get to hear Rush on my days off. During this first 14 days I spent much less time at the computer, so talk radio is down. Also, I feel a little bit less anxious over the issues of the day but at the same time a little more convinced and determined.
It has been 28 days, two-thirds of the way through this experiment. I've been getting a little bit itchy from time to time to continue with the blog but have not forgotten the reason I ventured into this experiment to begin with. I do not want to imbibe as I did before. I want to enjoy the reading as I do one beer and no more. I don't want to become inebriated with information. I want to chew my meals for better digestion. How I am going to do this, I have two weeks, Lord willing. to decide. I had a conversation this morning with a professor from a local college who enjoys, as I do, coffee and a comfortable arm chair at Starbucks. We are the same age and share very similar interests although our political philosophy is probably miles apart. Today's conversation touched upon mistakes made in our youth. He looked at boredom as the chief culprit which is similar to my conviction that idle time is an open door for idiots to walk through. I had very little idle time previous to this six week experiment. I have it now and found that quality meditation can fill much of it but not all of it. Whatever changes I may make will give me more time away from the Internet and I have to find a way to constructively fill it.
Well, it's been forty-two days since I put away the many uses of the computer other than the word processor that these words are being written on and I almost feel a hesitation to begin again. In retrospect, was this concern I had only with the computer or was it also with my overall compulsion to analyze anything. I've been analyzing one thing or another for the past 40 years since I was a communications analyst in the army. Scripture tells us that examination should begin with ourselves to see if we are in the faith but it also tells us to examine teachings that we hear in light of Scripture. Examination of the Bible itself only proves its veracity but we are not to attempt to analyze the mind of God apart from what He Himself tells us. I mentioned in a previous blog that if I were to label my philosophy of life it might be called the 70 year philosophy or some such title. We have only one life to live which I for the sake of order describe to be 70 years. The great peril of the agnostic is that he fails to cast a vote in the allotted time, thinking that his abstention is in some way wise and humble. The great peril of the narcissist is that he sees his life as living on in his reputation after he himself departs and therefore lives for what he will leave. Neither one has analyzed their philosophy, for the agnostic does not want to be wrong in the here-and-now and the narcissist does not want to be called wrong later. Neither wants to examine in-depth and make any stand. My compulsion to analyze does not frighten me but the possible failure to analyze, or examine, myself to see that I am always in the faith...does. The more one analyzes the world, the more improbable it becomes to analyze oneself.
This is the third day after unlocking the computer. I have had one surprise. When I go to any news site I get a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that I do not get with newspapers or books. It's the same information but comes with something that I find unsettling, that being speed and enhanced images. There was a silly, filler song on Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii album called Ito Eats or something like that. I remember this song for I remember just about all of Elvis's songs up to the mid-sixties. The lyrics start this way, Ito eats like teeth are out of style. My habits of reading Internet news was like reading as if thinking is out of style. The format, the visuals, the brightness of the screen in a darkened room and the quickness of referencing anything in the world make it news and information on steroids. I drink only dark beer, for to this day domestic lagers take me back to a time in my early twenties when I flushed my system out night after night with them. No, I can't go back to this great blessing of the Internet, as some describe it, with the same abandon. This much I know and am thankful for. I'll pick this computer up as I pick up a pistol or a shotgun, with a healthy dose of respect for it's potential misuse. My Scripture reading more than doubled in the past six weeks for I read at length most every night. Has my personality changed? Maybe my blog entries will give a clue. As for the blog I hope to limit the posts considerably. I enjoy writing book reviews and have one ready to post and a second book that I will be going to in a few minutes when I log out and close this cover. Maybe this little foray into self-examination will encourage someone else to look a bit closer to their own cyber habits.
It has been 28 days, two-thirds of the way through this experiment. I've been getting a little bit itchy from time to time to continue with the blog but have not forgotten the reason I ventured into this experiment to begin with. I do not want to imbibe as I did before. I want to enjoy the reading as I do one beer and no more. I don't want to become inebriated with information. I want to chew my meals for better digestion. How I am going to do this, I have two weeks, Lord willing. to decide. I had a conversation this morning with a professor from a local college who enjoys, as I do, coffee and a comfortable arm chair at Starbucks. We are the same age and share very similar interests although our political philosophy is probably miles apart. Today's conversation touched upon mistakes made in our youth. He looked at boredom as the chief culprit which is similar to my conviction that idle time is an open door for idiots to walk through. I had very little idle time previous to this six week experiment. I have it now and found that quality meditation can fill much of it but not all of it. Whatever changes I may make will give me more time away from the Internet and I have to find a way to constructively fill it.
Well, it's been forty-two days since I put away the many uses of the computer other than the word processor that these words are being written on and I almost feel a hesitation to begin again. In retrospect, was this concern I had only with the computer or was it also with my overall compulsion to analyze anything. I've been analyzing one thing or another for the past 40 years since I was a communications analyst in the army. Scripture tells us that examination should begin with ourselves to see if we are in the faith but it also tells us to examine teachings that we hear in light of Scripture. Examination of the Bible itself only proves its veracity but we are not to attempt to analyze the mind of God apart from what He Himself tells us. I mentioned in a previous blog that if I were to label my philosophy of life it might be called the 70 year philosophy or some such title. We have only one life to live which I for the sake of order describe to be 70 years. The great peril of the agnostic is that he fails to cast a vote in the allotted time, thinking that his abstention is in some way wise and humble. The great peril of the narcissist is that he sees his life as living on in his reputation after he himself departs and therefore lives for what he will leave. Neither one has analyzed their philosophy, for the agnostic does not want to be wrong in the here-and-now and the narcissist does not want to be called wrong later. Neither wants to examine in-depth and make any stand. My compulsion to analyze does not frighten me but the possible failure to analyze, or examine, myself to see that I am always in the faith...does. The more one analyzes the world, the more improbable it becomes to analyze oneself.
This is the third day after unlocking the computer. I have had one surprise. When I go to any news site I get a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that I do not get with newspapers or books. It's the same information but comes with something that I find unsettling, that being speed and enhanced images. There was a silly, filler song on Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii album called Ito Eats or something like that. I remember this song for I remember just about all of Elvis's songs up to the mid-sixties. The lyrics start this way, Ito eats like teeth are out of style. My habits of reading Internet news was like reading as if thinking is out of style. The format, the visuals, the brightness of the screen in a darkened room and the quickness of referencing anything in the world make it news and information on steroids. I drink only dark beer, for to this day domestic lagers take me back to a time in my early twenties when I flushed my system out night after night with them. No, I can't go back to this great blessing of the Internet, as some describe it, with the same abandon. This much I know and am thankful for. I'll pick this computer up as I pick up a pistol or a shotgun, with a healthy dose of respect for it's potential misuse. My Scripture reading more than doubled in the past six weeks for I read at length most every night. Has my personality changed? Maybe my blog entries will give a clue. As for the blog I hope to limit the posts considerably. I enjoy writing book reviews and have one ready to post and a second book that I will be going to in a few minutes when I log out and close this cover. Maybe this little foray into self-examination will encourage someone else to look a bit closer to their own cyber habits.
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