Matthew 7: 1-5 (The real verse)

Matthew 7: 1-5 (KJV)
(Thanks Austin)
Judging in the jurisprudence sense is the issue here. But, if you do presume to Judge, you better be prepared to be Judged. Members of any group that are empanelled to review and render judgment regarding the honesty or integrity of others must be above reproach themselves in all ways. The obligation of all who judge is clear: lead by example; examine evidence including exculpatory evidence; render fair and equitable decisions; live by the principles upon which you judge. There are probably more, but these are a good start. When a member of any commission or panel violates the rules of the society in which they live, or the more stringent rules of the commission in which they serve, they should be treated as any other person accused of a violation. They should not be shielded by their position. This only serves to undermine confidence in the system as a whole, and certainly the commission itself. In order for justice to be served, those who administer it must be above reproach, not above the law.
Sometimes it is impossible to avoid judging others and sometimes it is imperative. Remember, though, that when you judge you open yourself to judgment. If that makes you uncomfortable, don’t do it.

Image: www.cfirecm.com/QandA/judging1.jpg
Bible source: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A1-5&version=KJV

Angel Flying too Close to the Ground (a revision of the post from yesterday)

Just got back from a great vacation in Oregon, and a few tales are coming from there. Here is one. We were drinking a nice beer and listening to a roving solo singer. Sal liked his voice and songs and I was less impressed. There was a line in one song that stuck in my mind. The line was the voice of a woman: "...don't pick me up before I fall..." So simple. Hit me pretty much between the eyes. I have always been on the lookout for trouble for my partner, and tried to head it off if possible. Sometimes good, sometimes bad strategy. Thinking about this for a few days, and Sal never mentioning it, I realized that I was very guilty of this. And it does them a disservice. It makes them think you don't trust them to either not fall, or not be able to get up by themselves. Worse probably is when you catch and they aren't falling. Not a good vote of confidence.Even saying this is hard because it sounds patronizing. But honest, you gotta trust your partner and let them fall (at least when the consequences aren't deadly) and be there if they need you. It is my nature to protect. But like when you raise kids, you gotta let them make their own mistakes. Let them fall off the bike a few times.
Song link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jfBxfltYD0
Image: flickr.com/photos/jazzyg07/3711439554/

The Voice of Fire

I am the voice of Fire. I tell this tale because it is time.
In the early days, men huddled cold and frightened in the dark. One day I offered man an arrangement: "I will light the darkness, warm you in the cold and keep you safe from beasts if you will love Me, respect Me and keep Me." Man agreed and thus began a long friendship between man and Fire. From time to time man asked more of Me and I readily agreed to cook man’s food, help melt metals from Earth, and even forge them into tools and weapons. Then came the time when man forgot the agreement and enslaved Me. I was used to lift heavy loads and move giant metal machines and propel objects through Air to kill innocent people, and I was used to incinerate living beings. I was ashamed to be used so, and struck back, blowing up boilers, burning down houses and factories, burning forests and melting reactors. But to no avail. Mankind continued to use Me for evil and greedy acts. Finally, I called to the Keepers and said: “I will end the world of man, except a few of the innocents, and will once again agree to light the darkness, warm you in the cold and keep you safe from beasts if you will love Me, respect Me and keep Me.”

The Keepers agreed at once, and thus began the long vigil that was sure to end in terror, safe in the knowledge that at the end of the terror Fire and mankind would once again be friends.


Image: www.lessignets.com/.../16/First_atomic_bomb.jpg

The Inside of Fire

I think I am probably insane sometimes. The following account is true as best I can remember. I believe that I am a direct descendant from a line of fire keepers. I have been fascinated by fire since I was a small child. I have always loved fire and tended fire and kept fire. I believe that there will come the time when fire will caress me without burning.
I looked into darkness. Picture a large painting, light gray on the right, vertically. As your eyes sweep across the canvass the color gets progressively darker and bends to the left on the top. Towards the left side the color is as black and as dark as you could ever imagine. Deep, dark, black. And on the very edge on the left, a line of light. I looked into the darkness, darker that I could imagine and felt welcomed. I imagined that it felt soft and reached out for it. I pulled it over me and it was soft and warm. This darkness is the inside of fire. I know what fire is, and I know what the darkness is. And I am not afraid.
Image: whenthedarkcomes.blogspot.com/

Hecho en China

In 1989 Sal and I bought our first new car: Ford Bronco II. In addition to other considerations we wanted an American made auto. The dealer assured me it was “made in America”. When delivered it had a sticker on the window that said “Assembled in Newport News, Virginia”. How American is that? The owner’s manual told the story: Engine assembled in Canada; Transmission either Mazda or Mitsubishi; Tires made in America. The engine and transmission lasted 250000 miles. The tires failed in 20k,
“Hecho en China”. The words sent chills up my spine. Even the Mexicans are importing from China. My new custom window was thus marked: “Hecho en China”. I ordered it from an Iowa (heartland) American company, the window was fabricated in part in China, shipped to Mexico and finally to Tallahassee. What the hell? I really have nothing against China. I have been there and loved it (exclusive of the air). The Chinese make some fine things and have some fine people. But the sleeping tiger is no longer sleeping. It is eating us alive. I really thought the window would be giving Americans a job to do. At least the installer and his helper were locals. Hard to know where to go after this.
Image: humor.desvariandoando.com/tag/china

The Final Disaster

A hiatus in essays. I decided that I would wait until something good came along before writing again. Things in the world are so screwed up that topics that conjure anger or disgust or despair are easy to find, but the good bits are not so easy. I try not to be trivial in my comments (although it may not seem so to everyone). I thought about another food posting, or a story from the past, or a tale of moral import but none seemed right. So what to do? There are many individual efforts of goodness in the world that no one sees or hears about, but what do they tell us? That not everything is crappy? That the world is not going to “hell in a hand basket” as my dear old Mom would say? That the sun will come up in the morning on a new, kinder, gentler world? No, they tell us that the vast majority of humans are just trying to get along in life and live in some kind of peace.
I ask myself: “Why is it so hard to focus on these, the majority of the population?”
I think the answer is in the proximity of the various disasters, the variety of the problems and the very number of them. In the past, way past, disasters of one kind or another happened all the time, but we didn’t know about them all at once, if ever. It seems to me that the sheer mass of problems facing the world, and I include local and national issues here, drown out the goodness. It’s there, but lost in the storm of troubles. That overused “Perfect Storm” tag (that always is cast in threes) is probably a good metaphor, but not in threes. The list of disasters is long: political paralysis; genocide; starvation; trade in children; fires; droughts; war; mud slides; tsunamis; gigantic storms; banking failures; greed; murder. The list goes on and on.
These are not new to the world. What is new is that we know about the all at once. And the danger I see in that is the possibility that people of good faith and good intent will get inured to the dangers and turn away from the challenges they present.
That, I believe, would be the final disaster.
Image at: www.deviantart.com/deviation/19212014/

Global Weirding and Dumb Americans

I just read a NY Times Op-ed piece on Global Weirding. (Thanks Jerry for the tip). I gotta say it really pissed me off. Not the article itself. The idea that the world, especially China, is laughing at us for being so stupid and easily led. This is not the only thing about us that the world laughs at. The Europeans just can’t understand the way we let minorities keep the Evolution issue boiling on “high”, or the way a minority keeps the abortion issue boiling on “high”, or the perpetual state of turmoil over gay rights, or the way we apparently have a state religion in an obviously secularly founded and constitutionally secular state. Or the litmus test we apparently have for public officials: “Non-Christians need not bother to apply”. Do you really think that the best possible candidate for any office has a chance of being elected if he or she says “I am not really a believer in religion? In fact I am an atheist.”? If so, you are really deluded, and deserve the scorn the world heaps on you. President Obama was not openly attacked about being Black (although it was not far below the surface) but was openly challenged about being a Muslim (he isn’t). After all, his middle name is Hussein. That is how stupid some Americans can be. I better not get really wound up here or the NSA will be knocking on my door. The next thing you know, there will be a new version of the “The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC or HCUA, 1938–1975).
Image: www.ghmadsen.com/The%20Madness%20nr16.htm

GO LINDSEY -- WE LOVE YOU

Lindsey Jacobellis. The press says,
“The 2010 Games gave Jacobellis an opportunity for redemption, and while NBC didn’t climb aboard her bandwagon as it did prior to 2006, it is always willing to sate those who froth for such pabulum. Jacobellis failed. Redemption, if she even believes in such a thing, will have to wait for another four years.” To which I say loud and clear: Bullshit!!. This woman screwed up once upon a time and paid a heavy price for that. She worked like a dog for four years, made the Olympic team again, competed and lost. Big frigg’en deal. Redemption? Who says she needs redemption? She worked herself back from personal disaster, tried her very best, and was an able and mature competitor. Losing in the Olympics is some form of DAMNATION? Lindsey “redeemed” herself many times since 2006. I say “Way to go girl!! Those of us who have worked hard for something and screwed up along the way are with you 100%”
See you in 4 years and win, lose or draw, we’ll be root’in for you.
Quotation: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/snowboard/news?slug=jp-jacobellis021610&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Image: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/docroot/dulcinea/fd_images/features/profiles/j/lindsey-jacobellis/features/0/image.jpg

eating bugs

Elsewhere I have mentioned eating strange things in Australia. Witchetty grubs (offered but declined) and ant bums are probably the strangest. We were also treated to various cuts of kangaroo and a fish called a Barramundi (by the way, a fine eating fish but a strange name). So when some friends told us we were going to get and cook some bugs I thought “I have had it with Aussies. Bugs my butt. I don’t need no stinking bugs for supper “and more graphic utterances. Can a thought be an utterance, or is it perhaps a thoughterance? Anyway, they kept us in the dark as to the nature of the creatures for the best part of a week. There was talk of “Moreton Bay Bugs” and "Balmain Bugs” and generic bugs. I assured the hosts that I didn’t eat the damn grubs and I wasn’t going to eat any kind of bug. Period.
Of course in the end I tucked in like a starving convict and highly recommend the bugs. They turned out to be a kind of crustacean related to the spiny lobster, only with short flat antennae instead of long ones. A real treat after all. God, but Aussies are a perverse lot, aren’t they? But here is a perversity that can easily transfer to the panhandle, because we have our own “bugs” here, called “bulldozer lobsters”. Tell your next dinner party friends that the appetizer will be an Australian treat made from bugs. Ha! And, if they cancel, all the more for you.

Image: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Uploads/Images/3469/Balmain-Bug_medium.jpg

Interesting Food: The Eel.

For as long as I could hold a pole, I fished. Night fishing in the Long Island Sound yielded blowfish, porgies an occasional small shark and lots of eels. Not a nice fish to catch. They wind up in the line with their slimy bodies and are hard to untangle. And, the slime has a nasty smell. My father loved them so we kept them for him. I refused to come close to the kitchen when he cooked and ate them. No slimy eel was going to pass my lips.
Then came that fateful day in Taiwan. Sal and I were honored guests at a sea food banquet (casual dress as you can see). One of the dishes (the dish names were printed in English for us) was called “net-catching dyctiophora”. We were assured it was a delicacy, very expensive, so we tried it. Good sauce. Another dish was simply called “eels”. You know the dilemma: don’t eat the eels and insult the hosts. Eat them and puke. We ate them. We didn’t puke. Good sauce saved the day. As the photos show, we had to eat with gusto. We did. Good sauce. If you ever are forced to eat an eel, insist on good sauce and like the advice my father gave me for oysters, don’t chew, just swallow.

Image: Photo of Sally and Woody eating small eels.