|
Back to the Weekly Notes
Archives
September 12, 2005:
ADHD:
Thank Gord there was no such thing when I was a kid. I would
have been put on methylphenidate just like the poor little kids
are now. I would have grown up to be a controllable drone instead
of an amateur philosopher. I probably would have worked in a
steel mill or auto assembly plant. I probably would be going
very fast in small circles on a noisy machine waving my arms
and grinning and desperately pretending to be having fun? The
media says between 4 and 12 percent of school age kids are being
diagnosed with ADHD. That is like 1 out of every 10 kids. I am
convinced that is a lie, pure and simple. Who is doing this diagnosis?
If you check, you will find it is unqualified school teachers
labeling these kids. The doctors just go along as do the parents.
The goal is not healing, but control. Ritalin is nothing more
that a drug for controlling bothersome people. Usually, it is
the over bright kids who are bored to tears with the stupidity
of our educational system who are so labeled. What is being done
to these kids is criminal.
Focus:
I have a friend who is angry with United Airlines. With the help
of the courts, they are defaulting on his pension, a pension
he earned. He is working to attack the Airline by speaking out
in public against them. There are other people who speak out
about the postoffice and K-mart for similar atrocities and injustices.
I have done that. Recently a distraught mother has been making
a big noise in Crawford about the Iraq war. In fact, many people
are angry and are in the attack mode against various elements
of our culture. The truth is, they are all right. Our entire
culture is rotten and needs to be changed. It is not just parts
of it that need change, the whole system has failed us, but what
can we do?
We are all selfish people, ever looking at our own little
problems and trying to make changes in those areas from our focused
perspective. We fail to realize that the entire universe is interconnected.
Until we see the gestalt of the entire fabric, our efforts are
not likely to have much effect. We will, in fact, waste our lives
trying to make changes and the system will quickly restore itself
after we are worn out. To make real change, we must see the interdependencies
of the system and find the correct place to begin. For example,
I believe we must begin with children in order to change anything
else in America. The fundamentalist bible thumpers know this.
That is why they continuously try to leverage their primitive
superstitions and myths into our primary schools. Why don't the
people who claim to be thinkers see it? If we want America to
be great, we must act to make our children great. We are not
currently doing that. We are making them into average, mediocre
parrots. They will become the very people who will eventually
continue to maintain the system of rot and corruption.
Revelation:
I had one. The revelation is, the generalist has a better view
of realty than the specialist. I was reading "The Power
of Myth" in which Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Campbell.
Campbell was, in theory, the leading mythologist of the world.
He expired in 1987. I have no wish to denigrate his outstanding
achievement, but I did notice one thing. Bill Moyers does not
know more about mythology than Campbell. However, Moyers does
have a better understanding of the entire human canvas which
results, as I see it, in a better grasp of the significance of
mythology on the human condition. Of course, Moyers is not just
your run-of-the-mill generalist either.
I had another conclusion from this revelation. Although the
specialist is an important contributing member of our culture,
he cannot possibly be a leader. The generalist is necessarily
better qualified for the leadership role. It's about getting
the gestalt rather than understanding the details. The specialist
can well serve the leader in the role of understanding and explaining
the details. The superior dominant leader, however, will necessarily
be a generalist.
On the other hand Joseph Campbell is the only person I know
of who was only partly confused about what is conscious and unconscious.
Everyone else is completely confused. In a coupe of statements
Campbell seemed to see the awakening into the spiritual experience
as becoming conscious. The generally held conceptual confusion
about conscious and unconscious was caused by Freud's unfortunate
designation of our suppressed ego experiences as unconscious
or subconscious. Jung carried that forward and the label for
our spiritual reality stuck. The reality is, our so called conscious
waking life is really a state of unconsciousness. It is not until
we awaken to the latent spiritual powers within us that we become
truly conscious. The underlying reality is the consciousness
from which we are disconnected. Tell me that a rabble fool going
in circles on a three wheeler pretending to have fun is conscious.
He is not even aware, let alone conscious. The truth is, he is
more conscious when he is sleeping that when he is playing.
Art Form:
I noticed an ad on television by some auto company that used
a Guthrie ditty in one of their commercials. It made me so angry
that I started shouting about it and do not even knew what car
was being advertised. What they did is over-sound Guthrie's singing
with the sound of a modern auto engine such that it ruined the
effect. This is an ad that could have been art, but they turned
it into garbage. They could have had the song by Guthrie and
films of their product with a moving caption underneath telling
us what it was. They could have let us hear the music. Instead
they slammed a stupid sound of an engine at us. Don't they know
that all modern auto engines sound the same? It is in the nature
of Madison Avenue to go one step beyond reason and turn what
could be art into vulgar garbage.
Sixty Minutes:
They showed us some of what they called second wave people. These
are the children of the baby boomers. They featured a twenties
something man and woman. We must be careful with this because
Sixty Minutes has a habit of showing us a selected group and
attempting to make us believe they are representative of an entire
population demographic. Even so, the people they showed us were
startling. These youngsters were as shallow as a puddle on a
sidewalk. They seemed to have no souls at all, no sense of what
is important. They were instant gratification junkies personified.
I hope they are not all like that.
ABC National News:
September 7, 2005. Today I got the best news I have had in a
long time. New Orleans was not destroyed in the hurricane. They
showed us films of Bourbon Street. It was damaged by water, but
it remained intact. The French Quarter was on the highest ground
around. It survived. You might know, the French who had a history
of warfare, mostly against England, would instinctively build
on the most defensible ground available, the high ground. The
unfortunate English never learned that lesson.
In New Orleans, what we lost was a large amount of commercial
property and an enormous number of homes along with a tragic
loss of human life. I have no wish to mitigate that tragedy.
The survivors need all of the help we can give and America will
give it. I believe that completely. But, above that, the heart
of New Orleans, the French Quarter, has survived. The rest can
be rebuilt. I am sure that it will be rebuilt and New Orleans
will live again.
The Scapegoat:
They had to pick someone and they picked Brown the director of
FEMA. He was relieved. They could as easily have picked the director
of Homeland security, it would not matter. It just had to be
someone high up. Once the goat is designated, everyone else is
safe and they can continue bungling as usual. In place of Brown
they appointed the Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen. At least
he will understand the methods and techniques of command, things
Brown had no idea about. Allen is more than likely also experienced
in acting in chaotic situations.
Back to the Weekly Notes
Archives
|