Response to a Friend on Discourse and Disrespect

Believing isn't the point. Being able to explain your beliefs in a way that makes sense is the point. All of us can be swayed by argument (in the philosophical sense) that is well reasoned and clearly presented. My pointing out the discrepancies in some religious statements is a way of presenting a chance for believers to articulate their beliefs. For example, you are clearly not a Muslim, but probably have challenged the idea that Islam is a peaceful religion when all you ever see is violence and death coming from Islamic countries.  For you not to challenge Muslim friends to explain/support the contention that theirs is a peaceful religion would be ignoring a festering reality. The same with Christianity. Challenging beliefs is the best way to strengthen them. Discourse is the best way to clarify your own thoughts as well as persuade others of the value of your opinion. So rather than disrespect, which is never intended in a rational discussion, you should see opportunity to educate. The example I cited from the Old Testament is a good one to start some discussion of the way religious thought has changed over the time since the “good books” were first written. No one with a rational brain would think that a wife should be stoned to death at her father’s door for not being a virgin is acceptable. But they did just that in the old days, and in many fundamentalist countries where Mosaic Law is practiced they still do. And they use the Bible to justify it. So if one asserts that the Ten Commandments are truly the word of God, and should be followed without any thought, then how can one deny the word of God as articulated in Deuteronomy? See? Here is where the discourse comes in. And you know that many Christians claim that with the coming of Christ, the rules of the Old Testament were no longer valid. The question is “which rules?” In an earlier posting I said that I agreed with Scott, not because I thought he was right, but because his argument was well reasoned and based on a premise he held deeply. No disrespect at all. And I have none for you. To answer the other two points in your posting, I think you do not know what my religious beliefs are. They are certainly not Christian or any other named religion, but even I don’t call myself an atheist. I have had a personally fulfilling relationship with an entity you call Jesus for many years, yet think the mysteries and rules attributed to him are mostly man-made and wrong minded. So I take exception to the people who use “him” to support an agenda that is clearly not at all what “he” is about. Your other point is also worth a mention: Christians do impose their religious beliefs on everybody, or at least try to. Many of the laws we have in this Nation, while supposedly secular are Bible based. Look at all the fuss about stem cell research and abortion and teaching creationism in schools. Behind every one of these is the Biblical argument about what “God” said and wants. Well, many people don’t believe in God, and thus should not have to follow those teachings. For example, if a woman believes that life begins at conception, she shouldn’t use an IUD for birth control. Nor should she make another woman become pregnant by making IUDs illegal to use. That is imposing a religious belief on someone else. Same with abortion. Same with stem cell research. Same with creationism. You probably don’t agree. So explain how outlawing abortion is a secular thing and not a religious thing. In other words what is the basis for outlawing abortion that is not based on a religious belief? If you can’t think of a good and rational reason, then you are in favor of imposing a religious belief on a non-believer.

Whew. See what happens when I get up early?  


Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx6qXC26ZzmFviyMhE9lyJ7hn2ExVCDGxoizzIZBLC84cFcsHggkSF80rv675P7H_dPhpVvFhRR9gRsAeQDk1EMAFdcXmWttMmP0BY2xFzW4qjtJyLTk-AnxYq_biTj9ihtsX7SQ5g9unMnZ6Q/s1600/discourse-into-the-night.jpg

Big Texan and Big Beer(1)

Amarillo started out as a cattle and ranching town. Over the last century it has become a modern city with a broad economic base. And now, finally, it has a craft brewery. Situated in the Big Texan steak ranch, brew master Tom Money crafts a number of memorable brews. The list includes a variety of drinkable beers from a nice honey blonde ale to a tasty "whiskey barrel" stout.

It wasn't very busy when I stopped by to have a pint of my favorite, Rattlesnake IPA. This hoppy ale pours a nice hazy golden color with a creamy head and good lacing. The bitterness is obvious on the front and lingers after the swallow. Exactly the way I like it. Tom was in the middle of getting a boil of Honey Blond going and I joined him in the kitchen where the kettle lives. Remember, this brewery is built within a restaurant, so some of the brewing process takes place alongside grills, stoves and setup counters. Not ideal, but tom has conquered the problems. Anyway, we talked about brewing and what was new or different while the kettle came to a boil. Tom showed me some changes in the brewing room, a reefer box attached to the back of the building. Then, back to the kitchen to begin hopping.

We moved to the bar and I sampled some of the other (besides the IPA) creations currently on tap. First the 1836 Chocolate Bock Ale. It carries a healthy 7.2 ABV and an 18 IBU and has a dark, rich color. The head is fairly thick and leaves fine lacing behind. The serving temperature is a bit low and carbonation level of all Tom's brews is a bit high for my taste, but drops to a pleasant level after sitting. I know that many people like the tingle of cold beer and I have no problem with that. My taste runs to British style cask ales that are served at cellar temperature and pumped from the cask with little carbonation. Back to the ale. It has a solid malty base with bitterness derived from the Belgian cocoa as well as mild hopping. Slight flavors of coffee, also from the cocoa, add to the complexity. The texture is typically of ales, but the color and taste couple easily be found in a porter.

I was looking forward to the Whisky Barrel Stout and was not disappointed. At 9.22 ABV and 26 IBU this stout holds its own. It pours with a creamy head and has a smooth feel as it is sipped. Yes, sipped. The echoes of oak and Whisky are complemented by a caramel base, no doubt from the roasted barley and some possible caramelization during the boil, and a hint of vanilla. Overall a fine brew and one with which I would end a robust meal.

Next up was the Texas Red Amber Ale. This is a quaffable ale that would be a great pairing with a hot Texas (or Florida for that matter) bar-b-que afternoon or a fiery curry. Easy drinking with a crisp taste and here the carbonation is a real plus. This is exactly what you want after a hot day of work. That feeling in the throat from the first long pull, really refreshing.

I finished up with a glass of Pecan Porter. Here is Tom's description: “Dark ale dominated by the rich malty aroma of pecans. Light notes of chocolate, molasses and brown sugar. Northern brewer, Williamette, and Hallertuer hops provide a moderately spice earthy component. 4.5 ABV – 28 IBU”. I usually stay away from beer made with fruit or nuts so I wasn't actually planning to try this one. But as luck would have it, I had a long conversation with a trucker, a regular at the bar, who stopped in for lunch. He had a big mug of this brew with a BBQ plate and raved about both. I didn't try the BBQ but he was right about the Porter. It delivered Tom's expectations nicely, and with an IBU of 28 had enough bitterness for me. The lesson learned was not to pass up a brew because it has strange things in it.
So, after the Pecan Porter I bid Tom goodbye and returned safely to my room for a nap.

All in all a very good day and, I will be back in Amarillo again and back at the Big Texan. Thanks, Tom, for a lovely day. See you soon and on Facebook.

1. Origionally posted on the Southern Beer Magazine site.

A Tale of Three Visits

I was botany graduate student living in a douche bag apartment off of Red Road in Miami. I worked hard and partied hard. Saturday mornings were sleep in times except for early Everglades field work or fishing. So one Saturday the doorbell rings, I get up, look out the window and see an older woman with a younger one standing behind and off to the side. I open the door, wrapped in a towel, politely say “no thanks” and close the door. Next week same people same thing. But I tell them I am not interested. Next week, same thing same people except I answer the door, open it all the way, completely naked. I ask them to tell me about their religion, they turn and walk away. Never saw them again. I hoped the younger one would come back, but she didn’t.

Two Mormons. Different apartment same deal. I was only a couple of years older than these guys and enjoyed talking to them from time to time. Different guys each time. So this one morning I was in a rush to get out when the bell rang. I answered in a towel, told them I was going to take a shower, get dressed and leave because I had something to do. One of them asked if it was OK to come in and talk to while I got ready. Sure, I said. So they followed me into, INTO the bathroom where I dropped the towel and got into the shower. They talked, I washed. I got out, dried off with then still there, went into the bedroom, with them following and talking, got dressed, walked out with them following, got into my car, said “bye” and drove off, leaving them on the curb with their bikes. Never answered the door for 2 young men in white shirts and bikes again.

But, years later I was living in Charlottesville, VA, about  a mile off the main road. One very cold and snowy morning I was under my truck attaching the chains so I could get out to the main road and two pairs of legs appeared. I said something and one of the pairs of legs asked if I had time to hear some news. I slid out from under the truck and saw two young men, winter coats with 2 bicycles. You guessed it. I told them I didn’t have time, got into the truck and backed out of the driveway. They pushed their bikes out and moved on down the hill. There was a foot of fresh overnight snow on the ground and they couldn’t ride. On the way out I passed a car with a bike rack on the back. You figure the rest. One of them was named Elder Romney. (Just Kidding).

Image:Mormons: http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/file.php?40,file=33840,filename=mormons.jpg

Image: Witnesses: http://www.wordsoftruth.net/wotvol10/wotbulletin10252009_files/door-knockers-2.jpg

 

No time for the faint-hearted

U.S. Consulate Buildings Burn in Libia

I know many Muslims are peace-loving people who just want to get on with their own lives. But, and this is a very big “but”, there is obviously a fairly large population of Muslims who believe in the jihadist philosophy of attacking innocents for the perceived crimes of a few. These minorities form a dangerous and easily led core of radicals who pose a threat to the peace of many places in the world if not the entire world.

I have preached tolerance for a long time, but am coming around to the position that many of the governments who tolerate these minorities and their hatred are unfit partners for the free world to court. Further, I think that the world has probably passed another tipping point where the radical Islamists are uncontrollable in the short run and quite probably in the long run as well. So where does that leave us? In a very dangerous world where allies must be chosen carefully, and supported strongly. In a world where none of us would wish to be, but we are forced to be in it anyway. In a world where Islamic nations increasingly hate the “west” (whatever that means) and work for our fall.

I don’t have a proposal on how to navigate this world, but it scares me almost to death. This latest round of riots, lootings and killings are just one more reason to be seriously worried about what the more radical elements of the Islamic world are up to and how far they will go to achieve their goals. We are in serious trouble here people. No time for the faint-hearted.

 http://www.mole.my/sites/default/files/images/120912113709-us-embassy-attack-01-horizontal-gallery.storyimage.jpg

Where Were You When JFK Died?

I was just finishing up the leek and potato soup, having a sit and listening to a retrospective of 9/11, and someone was asked where he was when it happened. I stopped reading and thought "I know exactly where I was". Then thought hmmm, how many other events can I say that about? I came up with three: The assassination of JFK, the first moon landing and 9/11. Sure, there are others that are burned in memory, but mostly they are multi-events like the end of the Vietnam War or the invasion of Iraq.

            The assassination of JFK: I was in a class on fungi in the old botany building at the University of Miami. Someone from the lab came in and said "Kennedy has been shot in Texas. Don't know if he's dead" and left. We all went after him, prof too, and spent the next several hours listening to the lab radio and talking quietly.

            Friday July 20th, 1969, three something in the afternoon. All the grad students from the trailer park got together in my trailer complete with many quart bottles of Bud and lots of Charles Chips and watched the landing. We sweated and cheered. We waited for the moonwalk watched for 2+ hours while they walked and bounced around on the moon. The next day they lifted off safely and eventually landed safely. Wow!

            Tuesday September 1th, 2001 I was driving to Thomasville, listening to NPR, when they interrupted the programing to announce that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers in New York. I was just outside of Beachton and hauled ass to campus. Faculty, staff and students were already gathered in the student lounge in front of the big screen TV. We watched as the second plane hit the second tower. And then we watched as each in turn came down. We stayed for hours, welded into a single grieving community. And then for days we watched the reruns of both of those hits.

            Some things you can never forget. Some good things and some bad things. And you know what? You better not EVER forget. Yet. Yet. I have students that look at me like I have two heads when I stop for a moment on December 7th. And many think the Vietnam War is in the dim past. They see the black wall as an artefact. I suppose someday 9/11 will be an artefact. But not in my brain, as long as it lasts.

 

Image: http://www.black-and-right.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/WTC-9-11.jpg

Was 9/11 Really Necessary?

 

Let’s get this straight from the get-go: the people who died, or were injured or were the heroes that worked the sites should forever be remembered and respected for their sacrifices.

But a larger question looms over the disaster of 9/11: could it have been prevented? Evidence is growing that it could have been prevented and that the White House knew the threat was imminent and chose to believe a different scenario. The battle was between the CIA and the neocons like Wolfowitz and Pearl and their ilk. Below is a small quote from a piece by Kurt Eichenwald (1) that begins to unravel the past. And it puts then President Bush and his crowd in a very bad light.

“The direct warnings to Bush, he writes, date back to the spring of 2001. On May 1, the CIA told the White House that there was “a group presently in the United States” that was planning an attack. On June 22, a daily briefing described the attack as eminent. Administration officials, however, dismissed the warnings, saying that Osama bin Laden was merely feigning an attack to distract the U.S. from efforts against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

“Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day,” Eichenwald wrote. “In response, the CIA prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.” (1)

So here we see direct evidence that the White House ignored the CIA in favor of the neocon perspective. One that turned out to be disastrously wrong. Mistakes are made in all presidencies, and some have disastrous consequences. Playing the “blame game” goes nowhere, but uncovering the truth and learning from it is very valuable. Current conservatives will probably cry foul asserting that blaming Bush for 9/11 is a ploy to distract. I disagree. Truth should never be considered a distraction; rather it should be viewed as a clear example. Yesterday I wrote about the road not taken, and in the months before 9/11 just such a divergence of paths were approached, one taken, the other not. There is no benefit in whining and gnashing teeth over the one not taken, but for heaven’s sake, can’t we at least agree to learn from it?

1. http://news.yahoo.com/report-documents-disclose-9-11-warnings-081156564--politics.html

Image: http://media.wnyc.org/media/photologue/images/e7/cache/9.11_Memorial_pools_storyslide_image.jpg

The Road Not Taken

 

I had a chance this morning to reread “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (1). A small poem full of promise and words to make us wonder: Which roads did I not take, and where might they have gone?

Well, the answer that came to mind was this: too many to count and no point wondering. Every single choice for the last 60 or so years ago, maybe a few more, had alternatives. Thousands of choices. I have no idea which ones I didn’t take. I do know this: some that I took were bad choices. And where might the ones not taken gone? Who knows. And if I am truthful about it, who cares either?

We are all the sum total of the roads we took. Change one and everything shifts. For better or worse there are none not taken I would want to travel if I could, for fear of where I might be now. Consider the last stanza:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

I really don’t know if I took any that were less traveled by, but I do know that the ones I took made all the difference.

Image: http://miracleworker84.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/tworoads.jpg

1. The Poem read by the author: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie2Mspukx14

I Hate Politicians and War.

In 2008, a young man was driving along a country road when his life was changed forever. An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated next to his vehicle and he was severely injured. In 2011 he was medically retired from the Army and now receives treatment for PTSD, TBI and permanent nerve damage. He is enrolled in college classes, and is my student in Anatomy and Physiology. His goal is to become a practitioner in a medical field.

But first, he must overcome the barriers of his own brain. Barriers that were not there before he went to war. Barriers that we as, a society, put there. He has learning difficulties, attention difficulties, movement difficulties, social difficulties. He went to war for reasons I don’t know and will not ask. He goes to school to become a productive member of the society that put him in harm’s way. It takes all he has and more to get up, face the day, and work towards his goal. Can you say the same?  I can’t.
His story isn’t’ unique, or the worst story either. There are thousands of injured Vets trying to get along every day. Some make it, some don’t. Some could probably do better than they do, and some can never achieve their former goals due to massive destruction of body, mind or both.
In some circles this is called “The Butcher’s Bill”. Personally, I don’t think the end was worth the means. So I ask “how did we get into this mess”, and “how do we get out”? I know the answer to both of these questions, and my vote this November will be the way I respond. In the meantime, I am working with a couple of the “wounded warriors”, trying in some small way to make right the wrongs perpetrated on them.

I hate politicians and war. Well, some politicians anyway.

Image: http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/ied-1.jpg

Said Miss Mona to Ed Earl: You know what really burns my ass?

Sal and Woody, only younger

Over the weekend we, Sal and I, got together with an old friend to celebrate his 84^th birthday. He is showing his age, physically more that mentally, but showing none-the-less. He follows alternative spiritual views of the world, some of which I share, and has no fear of dying. In fact, he firmly believes that the end time is just around the corner. Not necessarily this December, but soon. We talked a bit about it, but in the crowd of friends and family there was no time to explore deeply as we have done in the past.
After thinking about it for a while, I conclude the same: the end time is not creeping, it is thundering upon us. But not the end time he was envisioning. He literally thinks the physical presence of the planet, solar system and the universe will end. I do not. At least not for a very long time. Yet his end time is almost here. His, not ours. Not yet. Not being a believer in any supreme being (my friend is) or any continuance of life after death, I believe that every time someone dies, the universe ends. For them. That is what I see him facing. The extinction of awareness permanently. He believes we all go with him. If you know anyone who has died, you know that is not true. For those of us left after someone dies the universe goes on. Then, “wink”, and it is gone. Forever.

So, I started counting my remaining years, 20 or so with any luck, and then the universe ends. For me. That really burns my ass. So does a fire about 3 feet high. (1)

1. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-VrtP2butJhbJmm/the_best_little_whorehouse_in_texas_1982_ed_convincing_mona_to_close_the_whorehouse/

2. Image: http://cineplex.media.baselineresearch.com/images/316964/316964_large.jpg

I Am Not a Boomer!

Boomers have 5 times the rate of infection of Hepatitis C than the rest of the population (1). They die in disproportionate numbers from liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. Why you ask? The CDC is not sure, but proposes one reason may be the use of shared needles when this population experimented with drugs. Whatever the reason, the epidemic is real and lethal.
I am not a boomer. I preceded them by at least 5 years, never used drugs, alcohol excepted, and probably don’t have Hep C. I do get tired, though, of being assumed to be one. Boomer I mean. Ex hippie. Free love generation. Woodstock. The fact is I missed it. Too old by the time they started their “Flower Power” crap. I was ensconced in graduate school, busting my butt to get a master’s degree, fishing and walking miles on weekends in the Everglades. Flower power my ass, I thought, as I veered around snakes and scratched chiggers. “Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.” said Leary. Drop acid more like it and then self-destruct. My highs came from catching big fish in the Keys, and finding new orchids in the ‘glades, and the occasional evening drinking with friends.
My highs now come from the love of my life, the company of friends, and the occasional brew. So I repeat: I am not a boomer. I am not at risk for Hep C. I am at risk though. As we all are. They tuned in and turned on, and now we, the rest of the world, have to pay the freight. Next time one of them shows up in the ER, just give them the “peace” sign, give them a flower, and tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Flower Power my ass.

1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/16/158935794/cdc-recommends-hepatitis-c-testing-for-all-boomer

Image: http://aweirdthing.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/2.jpg