To Know God Is To Know No Other

No other.

Yet somehow we contrive to get ourselves into the Godhead or the Godhands, and we help God take issue. With whatever.

Whatever we can make other.

No other.

Occam

Our new President wants to be President of all the people, so he is reaching out to Republicans.

Although not a single House Republican voted for the new stimulus package, Obama did adjust the package to include some of their recommendations. But they chose to remain unsatisfied in the end. It's a safe place to be - the unsatisfied vote is huge. Perhaps they will come back for more adjustments another time.

Republicans who would like to contribute their ideas to the new government are welcomed, if not all their ideas. Even before his inauguration, Obama dined with conservative columnists. He wants a loyal opposition. All can have a place, if they like. Welcome to the fold.

Wolves do remain outside, howling in the cold when the moon is full.

Lonely and forgotten. Poor li'l things. Maybe they'll curl up under the porch.

When Civilians Are Soldiers

"Army vs Army" is a game long gone. We fight - and since Korea we have fought - the people of a foreign land for their home. Their civilians are their soldiers, those and whatever foreign Lafayettes they can enlist in defending their soil against the invading followers of an earlier religion.

We have just now managed to kill, in Afghanistan, 16 people. We - and the world - are told by local Afghanis that the score is 11 civilians, 5 militants. We disbelieve this. We think they were all militants and that's why they are dead. Our army says so. They SAW one of the women we killed carrying an rpg in her defense against us.

(Two days later:) We have now paid $2500 to the families for each of the 15 CIVILIANS we killed. There was only one militant. $2500 is all you get for your kid when we kill her these days. Or your mom. Sorry.

We bullied these people into a defensive posture and then we attacked them for defending themselves. Except for the one militant, they were only civilians defending themselves. One militant - to us - was worth fifteen civilian deaths.

It cost us only $40,000 to "take care" of the civilian deaths - quite cheap, when you look at it. So long as the Taliban numbers less than 1/16 of the total population, we can remove them.

If their numbers grow until the Taliban are more than 1/16 of the population, however, then we are in trouble. We cannot kill more than the whole population. So there would be some Taliban left if their numbers grew.

Our first shot killed their neighborhood policeman when he opened his door.

This is not change.

If the Afghans led their own war and we supported them, it would be different. But we are the invader. We make them defensive and then we kill them.

Soon they will ask us to leave.

We will leave

The Department of Mystery

Whistles are blowing, and it isn't even noon.

Russell Tice has lots more to say these days... as quoted in Daily Tech:

"Tice, who previously helped shed light on the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping facilities at AT&T switching offices, said in a Wednesday interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that the NSA “had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications.”

“It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”

and...

"In a follow-up interview aired Thursday, Tice revealed that the communications data was then “married in” with financial records and credit card transactions."

So every Joe Sixpack who bought a new moose rifle and a couple of boxes of shells in the last five years on eBay using his VISA has had his phone tapped to make sure his moose were in the woods? And every Joe who spoke on his cell about getting a new moose rifle has had his credit card watched to make sure the rifle purchased was designed for moose and not for mayhem?

Hard to believe. But the construction of many simple products is automated these days. Hi, Joe.

Russell Tice went on to say that the NSA has successfully played a shell game, telling Congressional intelligence investigators that the surveillance program is a military project and telling Congressional military investigators that the surveillance of Americans is an intelligence project. So the project has completely escaped oversight.

It's a Department of Mystery! Floors tilt! Balls run uphill! People appear shorter, depending on where they stand. Even time moves slower in places.

The Department of Mystery. Even now it is listening.

That is, they haven't turned it off, yet. The other night I was trying to remember the word 'Kalashnikov' so that I could get the spelling right on a recent post. I hesitated to google it and leave traces. I searched for the word in all kinds of round-about ways. I don't want to come up on lists.

They haven't turned it off, yet. They still keep lists.

The phone company itself has a little service that keeps track of where your cellphone is at every moment so that it can know which cell towers to use when someone calls you. As you move from one place to another, the service updates their record to show the new towers.

There is a good chance that for at least some people this location information is retained long-term. The company that does this tower tracking service for the phone companies is in suburban Virginia near the spy services, so it would be no big deal to hang some cable.

This would let the NSA easily track people's movements over a period of time. If people who have ordered Kalashnikovs over eBay using their VISA cards come together some day for a meeting about network marketing, they will then set off an alert.

Does this bother you? Do you order things over eBay? Tracking you costs nothing.

Bother you or not, they know, you know. You know they know.

And they know you know they know.

They haven't turned it off, yet. Whatever it is that they turned on. It's still running. You and I, we are all on stage. Still. The speech-to-text converters are saving every word you say to grandma when you call her on her birthday. It costs nothing.

In one or two cases that have hit the courts, the government has entered evidence obtained by forcibly downloading a program into a person's phone and then listening in on conversations within range of the phone's microphone - turning the person's phone into a bug.

Can we know that this has not been done to us? Can we know that our little cellphones have not become Big Brother's ears?

The Department of Mystery. Congress will not tolerate being made such fools for long.

Does the White House anticipate that their continued use of extra-legal NSA surveillance is worth a fight to keep going? Must Americans and the world assume the worst? Will Congress need to rescue us from a Presidential Failure here?

Does the President control the NSA?

Juncture

End of the old. Beginning of the new. The bread comes out of the oven.

Where one thing ends and another thing begins within a common thread, a bend can occur. One can bend at a juncture. Bend to follow the light, if one has roots in the ground.

Bend to take the bread out of the oven.

Reaching Out To Rick - #1

(It's a long reach, but perhaps this will extend the grasp...)

Could Rick and Hillary go to Africa and persuade Uganda to stop incarcerating gays for their gayness? Rick has left an impression with their Bishop Ssempa that this is ok. It is not.

"Warren’s allies have rolled back key elements of one of the continent’s most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Stephen Lewis, the United Nations’ special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told the New York Times their activism is “resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred.”

Rick Warren needs to tell them that God created all life. He needs to correct this.

"With safe sex advocates on the run, Warren and Ssempa trained their sights on another social evil. In August 2007, Ssempa led hundreds of his followers through the streets of Kampala to demand that the government mete out harsh punishments against gays. “Arrest all homos,” read placards. And: “A man cannot marry a man.” Ssempa continued his crusade online, publishing the names of Ugandan gay rights activists on a website he created, along with photos and home addresses. “Homosexual promoters,” he called them, suggesting they intended to seduce Uganda’s children into their lifestyle. Soon afterwards, two of President Yoweri Museveni’s top officials demanded the arrest of the gay activists named by Ssempa. Terrified, the activists immediately into hiding."

This is the world Inauguration Invoker Rick Warren has created for Hillary to deal with.

Can Hillary call Rick? It's warm and sunny there this month.

Thanks, people...

Could America Have A Date Night?

When the last occupant of the Presidency took the oath of office in 2005, I wanted, in my brain, to hear the words "Do you solemnly swear.." be followed by "to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

This inauguration, when our new President said "I do" I fully expected John Roberts to say "You may now kiss the bride." We just married this dude.

To see him dancing with Michelle at the different inauguration balls, their love apparent and open to all, was to share a love. Yes, America, we are in love. We just got married to this family.

Do we get a date night? It's worked really for Barack and Michelle in their own marriage. Can America have a date night? Could Barack read to us of the Combination at Exeter and what it means to America today? Could Michelle talk about what it means to become a woman lawyer? We don't need to see the kids, even though we love them. But here is Barack's chance to share with America the things he loves, like the Constitution, the keelson of our national creation, and to teach us all the stuff about our social contract that we missed in school.

Teacher?

By The Book

In the last posting's compendium of good things now happening, I forgot to mention that we no longer torture. Obama has restricted interrogation methods to those listed in the Army field manual.

We no longer torture. Now I can get really critical of the government. Speak my mind freely. Oh, what fun this will be!

Hell Freezes Over

Obama has ordered a 120 day freeze in trials at Guantanamo.

Hell has frozen over.

The executive order was filed in Guantanamo at 8:51 PM Tuesday, the day of his inauguration. Obama froze the detainees' trials before he went to the evening's inaugural balls and celebrations.

In other good news, he has also ordered the closing of the Guantanamo prison within a year. A blue-ribbon commission will be formed to investigate closely the situation of each of the 245 detainees and to recommend a fate for each. Of those already released, one is already suing. The others may well be expected to do so. Whether they then contribute their gains to a fund for old Kalashnikovs or to a fund for suing the retiring President will be interesting to see.

In other good news, Obama has ordered the CIA to close all "black" foreign prisons. It's unclear where the prisoners will be going, but Obama has not yet ordered closure of the massive prison at Bagram, the air base in Afghanistan. Pressure to close this prison as well will undoubtedly develop. Bring the prisoners here to America so we can see what's been happening to them, try them for what they did, sentence them to time served, and send them home with a dollar and a smile. And wait for the legal papers. We are so going to get sued...

Lawsuits will ruin those members of the outgoing administration who normalized torture if the criminal justice system doesn't get them first. Also, if the criminal justice system doesn't go after them, the other countries that are signatories to the Geneva Convention are obligated to do so. If Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, Powell, Ashcroft, or any other of those who signed the CIA's permission slip for each and every major act of torture - as they did - step foot outside this country, they at this moment risk being the target of a manhunt. Of course they would be brought in alive.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the government has been listening in on all of us. Even modestly radical bloggers who have no readers. Those of us who want to be on record, they even have been listening to. At least they've been getting that part of it right. But they were also listening to phone calls of newsmen, trying to catch whistleblowers before whistles were blown. Trying to seal the leaks in their overloaded, sinking, ship. Senator Jay Rockefeller of the Intelligence Committee is sure that they spied on him. This would seem probable. Explains the spy agencies' unlimited, unaudited funding.

Each day we learn more about the world Bush had readied for his third term. Failure of the government - after 8 years of intentional neglect - would have mandated his managerial rule. But the loss of the House in 2006 hit him hard, and he never recovered.

Suddenly, everyone in America is wondering what the government thinks it knows about them. It should tell us.

In nicer news, this afternoon President Obama, Veep Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to staffers at the State Department about their expectations for a new world united by diplomacy. Where the military was used in the past to solve problems that could not be solved by diplomacy, we will now use diplomacy to solve problems that can't be solved militarily.

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has signed with the William Morris talent agency.

A Consumer Is Not A Unit

...nor is a consumer a pipe. Everyone consumes. Some consumers produce.

Many consumers get to produce the real. They produce what is consumed. The one-man-band in the wilderness produces for himself and consumes his own production. The grandpa with chickens in his back yard produces for himself and for grandma and also for the kids and the grandkids.

Consumers who are not producers - children, the rich, or the retired - live at the top of life. We eat our oatmeal every day. At the other end there are producers who earn so little that they can barely be consumers, those who do washing and ironing for others, for example. These producers live at the bottom of life's riches. All producers consume. Only some consumers produce.

Another class of non-producing consumers is those who push enhancements through pipelines, although they are not themselves pipes. They are in trouble. They have no chickens.

These people live in worlds that enhance production. In these worlds pipes are to be found, pipes that convey money, ideas, design, marketing, sales efforts, all of which enhance productive effort without being themselves essential to production. No eggs do they lay.

These people are dependent on the success of the producers. As jobs move overseas, helping financial services people learn to do washing and ironing for others may be a good start toward a better future for them.

Given, then, that the job of pushing enhancements through pipes is parasitic to the jobs of washing and ironing and raising chickens, can we ask how we might better increase the number and the buying potential of these consumers who wash and iron for others and who raise chickens? Those who create value?

Can the producing consumer be the garden that receives the most fertile soil? Can the hand that changes ore to steel and steel to bridges be the hand that receives the gift that builds?

The Door Revolves

Flowing like a river, the Obama Inauguration ceremony was at once deep and strong. There were shallow moments, as when Rick Warren invoked "Issa, Yeshua, Haysus or Jesus" as the name of his personal redeemer, making his personal witness a part of his public prayer. He then led the audience in The Lord's Prayer. Gotta do something.

And then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States forgot the words to the oath of office. Perhaps thinking of the import of the oath he was about to deliver, he misplaced the word 'faithfully', moving it to the end of the sentence, where it had special emphasis. Yes, Obama solemnly swore, I am prepared to execute the office of the President faithfully. (Unlike the last one.)

The Chief Justice had the idea of the Constitution in mind, he just forgot the words. This bodes well for our future. We may soon live less by the word and its punctuation and more by our works and what is in our hearts.

Then Obama charged us with the work we have to do, Aretha Franklin sang 'My Country Tis Of Thee' and Dr. Joseph Lowery's recitation of 'Lift Every Voice' in his closing prayer melted the fences between our souls.

I first heard 'Lift Every Voice' in the late summer of '61 at a meeting, I think, of the SCLC in Nashville at a small college there. The attendees were well-dressed and impressive. They knew it by heart and sang it in harmony. For this farm kid from Ohio it was a door opening into a new and wonderful world.

Here is Dr. Lowery's closing prayer.

Let the new and wonderful begin!

Is Gay The New Black?

Now that Blacks and Whites are One, as celebrated at a "We Are One" concert from which the gay Bishop's prayer was cut, is Gay the new Black?

Gene Robinson's Prayer

Here is the prayer that was too much - for someone - so they pulled the plug on the mike of the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire yesterday at the first official Obama Inaugural event, a concert titled "We Are One", presented on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This exclusion may have been planned by handlers, since the principals didn't walk out on stage until after the prayer was over. So here is the prayer for all, for all to see and hear re-read. Pass it on.

+Gene Robinson's Prayer for President-elect Barack Obama

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

So be it.

HBO-Americans

HBO-Americans were fortunate to be able to see this afternoon a wonderful concert, the kick-off for inaugural festivities,

"Obama's Words Of Hope Cap Star-Studded Concert Featuring Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Usher At Lincoln Memorial... Praises Musicians: "Yours Are The Voices I Will Take With Me Every Day I Walk Into That Oval Office"

Americans who can get - and afford - Home Box Office could experience all the above. Yet they could not even then experience gay New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson delivering his opening prayer for all people, as it was not broadcast. It was only heard by attenders.

Except that FOR ALL BUT THE LAST SENTENCE, THE MICROPHONE WAS OFF AND NO ONE COULD HEAR HIM.

Here is Eugene Robinson's prayer. Would it were history.

On Tuesday all Americans will hear a ceremony blessed by a smaller god, invoked by a man who believes homosexuals should not even be in his church.

So much for making a stab at an apology. It killed the apology.

A New Ocracy

After eight years of a Goofy-ocracy trying to be a Plutocracy, America readies itself for...

Cognocracy - we know what we're doing.
Meritocracy - those who have the wisdom will lead, those who have the knowledge will guide, those who have the skills will do.
Technocracy - a government run by experts and technicians.
Sociocracy - a government in which the needs of everyone are met.

Perhaps it will, finally, be a pantisocracy - a utopia in which all members rule equally.

Changing Gov

To the notches on our guns we can add two UN schools full of refugees. The Israelis hit them with 120 mm mortar shells, their largest mortar shells. Bought by our loans. Children were playing on the roof.

Six day. Oh God, six more days.

Children were playing on the roof.

Take their keys away.

War crime. Say the Brits.



Five days, now.

The Israelis just last night hit the building in Gaza that houses the international press corps. Not good for them. Who will win them the world's hearts and minds? Will the world press now turn on Israel?

Hitting on the press lost John McCain the Presidency. Well, that and other things.


Four days.

Bush, a shaken ghost, gave his farewell address last night. He hopes we won't hate him, he says. Days earlier he posed, sneeringly snockered, in the oval office with Obama, Presidents Clinton and Carter and his own father, to have a little President-to-President talk. Clinton admired the rug.

Racing through his nomination hearing, the new Attorney General, Eric Holder Jr., said yes, waterboarding is torture. Yes, he will enforce the law. Our new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was thrilling in her understanding of foreign policy. The Republicans had little that was negative to say.

Obama has named gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson to give an invocation at a ceremony that precedes the Rick Warren invocation. Mending bridges. Evangelical gays will decide.

Having been bait-and-switched so many times by the Democrats, I keep waiting for the switch. So far, it's still all bait. And of the best kind. Obama's old campaign organization lives on, and is engaging the nation in a cultivation of the best ideas that can come forth, to be presented daily in a briefing book to the President. Your idea can meet his eyes. Your peers will decide.

Obama has named Nancy Killifer to the position of chief performance officer for his administration. A new KIND of government appears to be in the works. A government with horse-power, a government that meets spec.

Israel Bombs 1.5 Million People In A Cage

... in the cage that is Gaza. Using your tax dollars to commit a war crime against civilians.

Hear about the heros - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA

The Jews I know don't support Israel. My friend's Grandma used to get holiday materials from Maxwell House Coffee that spoke of a hoped-for return to the holy land. My friend's father went to Israel and was riding in a cab when the driver said "Watch this!" as an old Islamic lady started to cross the street and he hit the accelerator and headed for her. My friend's father put his hands around the throat of the driver and told him to stop.

Not all Jews support Israel. Some need to stop her. Hands around the throat.

The Church of Christ The Concept

There I say is the heresy.

That Which Is Holy

That Which Is Holy is seen in many ways by many people who are part of America.

Just as two eyes give the gift of three-dimensional vision, so multiple views give a deeper picture of What It Is we are dealing with here.

If we can honor that each of us, in his own way, honors That Which Is Holy, then we can begin to cherish our differences. We will see more truly How It All Is.

So long as your hell does not come from my holy.