May Day - Celebration and Consolidation

I am generally pleased with the topics of talk radio today from Ed Schultz to Randy Rhodes.  People were talking about the celebration today as perhaps the start of spring, that is a "liberal spring" as well as a time to sit and reflect about how far we've come and to mentally collect ourselves and make plans for future strategies.  Republicans have rightly come under the microscope.  As the bible says 'You shall be judged on every idle word that comes out of your mouths".  Interestingly when Chuck Smith quoted this passage in Matthew - words Jesus actually spoke - - he immediately followed it by the disclaimer "but of course I don't believe this scripture is literally true".  He did well do do this considering how many lies Calvary Christians have told over the years.  None the less I believe it is a sound Biblical principle found both in the old and in the new testaments.  So we have Mitt Romney's words about how it would be a needless expenditure of time and effort to catch just one man, no matter who he is.  John Mc Cain went farther. He rebuked Senator Obama's words in saying he would go after Bin Laden in Pakistan by saying "We can't go into Pakistan because Pakistan is a sovreign country and we wouldn't want to upset or go contrary to their wishes because we need them as an allay for support".  Of course the President knew better- - - literally.  The President said "It is a risk worth taking" and a risk he did take, and won.  Had he not been successful in the mission a year ago you know Bin Laden would be on every campaign poster of the Republicans in the 2012 elections this year.  Bin Laden and George Bush are the best friends each other has ever had.  Each desperately needed the words and deeds of the other as a recruitment incentive for their side.  No wonder a pall of doom and gloom and a distaste for celebration - - if I may say so - - for the death and "bringing to justice' of Bin Laden.  As some Black caller put it today "Now what they did to Martin Luther King was an assasenation.  What happened to Bin Laden wasn't an assasenation; it was a bringing to justice".  Well put.  My only disagreement in strategy with the President is that were I in his shoes last year I WOULD have showed photos of the dead Bin Laden.  Showing death photos is a power incentive and rallying point for our side and I would hope "our side" consisted of ALL Americans - - not just Democrats.  By his Refusal to air these photograph he was saying to the other side 'I'm not Bush".  And the other side needs no more reminders that "Obama is not Bush", if you catch my drift.  Now the president has just made a speech from Afghanistan in TV prime time and I missed it because I was at dinner at this absurdly early hour out here.  But the bottom line is that the Republicans did NOT want to get Bin Laden because he's worth a lot more to them alive than dead as an issue, in the same spirit of Roe verses Wade was to Bush, which is why he never moved on that issue when he was in office.

Now we hear that they are surgically implanting bombs in the innards of terrorists and sending them out to board planes and detonate the bombs in mid flight and kill a lot of Americans, and that these bombs don't have any metal parts.  Airport security is told to be cautious but one wonders how they would possible screen for such a thing.  But I never really was that worried.  These people have cried "Wolf" too often.  Clearly- - - and this is something else the Republicans hate- - the CIA scored a major intelligence Coup in taking out Bin Laden.  We have his writings where he bemoans the "suffering setback after setback" of Al Qaeda.  There was talk of abandoning overt presence alltogether and going into a more underground, cloaked phase or something.  The US Army, once against the wishes of Rush Limbaugh who believes the military are just for "killing people and exploding things" has done a lot of grunt work in working with the people and the government of Afghanistan, and trying to bring the Afghans into the twentieth century, if not the 21st. in terms of health and women's rights and all of the amenities we Westerners take as normal.  Obviously many now see America in a whole different light lessening the threat of terror.  This obviously is the last news the Republicans want to hear.  Fear and terror and war are their bread and butter.  Groups like Blackwater and Haloburten rely on war to profiteer and get access to cheap oil or whatever.  You must keep in mind that Jimmy Carter TOOK a risk to get the hostages back in April of 1980 but that mission failed because of a sand storm.  So we already KNOW how the republicans respond when a President tries his damndest and still fails in a mission.  So to say they would not have done the same with Obama is just kidding yourself.

The US Supreme Court upheld the ninth circuit court of appeals in a ruling that stated that prisoners have the right to sue the LA County sheriff - -  for acts the DA and Sheriff's office may have instigated  or at least not dealt with and otherwise ignored, when it came to certain prison violence, either guard on prisoner or prisoner on prisoner.  Often racial gang vendettas are encouraged for their own reasons.  The Prisoners are still protected by Federal civil rights laws and these are not forfeited merely due to incarseration.  There was one guy in a related issue who was placed on an Immigration Hold while his papers were varified.  He had a Visa but apparently it needed to be checked out.  So he was thrown into the LA county penal system.  But technically he could be held, not just 48 hours - - as long as Federal laws permitted- - but indefinitely.  And since "technically" he was under a state of "Arrest Warrent" he didn't get Bail and could be held indefinitely by the Sheriff's office.  The guy was going nuts in prison rightly seeing himself as Innocent of any charges.  And the other inmates - - predominently minorities- - were sympathetic to his cause and showed kindness to him, because they too know what it's like to be charged on the most petty of matters and thrown in the Tank.   But as David Cruise says, this is an issue that the LA Sherif's office will now have to be accountable for.

I would like to offer three object lessons here.  The first is that the rice for dinner was the most impallitable form of mush meal scarcely even recognizable as "rice".  I don't see how they can consistently screw it up so bad because it always comes out fine when I make it myself.  The object lesson here could be applied to religion or government or whatever.  When I eat rice I kind of like the idea of individual distinct grains of rice.  If not exactly "aldente" they should still be discernable as separate grains with a little texture as such to them.  Object lesson number two.  I noticed that my medication said "Resperidone" rather than"Resperidol" as I had always thought.  Was it a different drug or have I just had the word wrong all there years.  If the latter than a table made had the identical "misconception".  The med lady just said that I must have had the word wrong all these years.  Here's a free bonus extra.  My table mate is perfectly comfortable talking to me about the topic of cooking and food preparation.  It's something we have both had experiance with.  But the table mate also indicated he used to work in the aerospace industry.  When I began sharing what I knew here - - he phased out- - as if nothing I said he could relate to.  If I didn't know better I'd say he was "non compus mentus" on the topic, kind of like the kid doing an oral report on a book he's supposed to have read and the teachers knows he's faking it.  Even if he thought I was full of it (and I don't think I was) the least he could have done was to show me up and correct my (many?) errors.  We now move on to object lesson number three.  You know that story in Oh God about the Tiger that George Burnes told John Denver and he asked what the point was and Burnes said tohim "There's no point to it - - I just think it's a cute Story".  But clearly there WAS a point to that story.  And that is "Don't pull the same bullshit on the one who told you how to do it as you do on everybody else".  So kind of in that vain I'd like to offer up a story with perhaps a more obvious point to it right now. You know that little girl and the lion at the bank?  I was thinking of a skit where I tell the little girl “I’m going into that room down the hall where God is waiting for me and I’m going to take a picture of him and send God into the Lion cage at the San Diego Zoo.  I leave and come back a minute later and tell the little girl, “Well, God is gone now.  You can go in the room and check yourself.  Then I say, “And now I’m going to take a picture of your mother because she’s so hot” and the little girl says, “No, Marcus, no” and I explain to her, “Don’t worry, this camera only does that with made up people like God”.  And now I'd like to do a little word exercise with you.  We know that "Words mean things" just as "Actions have consequences", which is one statement the "broken clock" in the guise of Rush Limbaugh speaks that is actually a valid point.  Is it proper to say, "Let me pour you another glass" or "Let me fill you another glass".  Don't answer too quickly.  Techincally the correct answer is "Fill" rather than "Pour".  Because "Fill" is a transitive verb that takes the D O or "glass".  Whereas if you talk about "pouring a glass" one may infer that your pouring liquid glass into some mold or something.  Capish?  No you POUR whatever it is you are pouring such as Ale or Wine or what have you.  You would no more properly say "Pour the glass" than you would "Fill the wine".  Now we come to the word Ontological that Rush Limbaugh was so taken with.  You can speak of something being a physical certainty, or even a metaphysical certainty, or total certainty, or absolute, or 100% or what have you.  But what you cannot say is "Ontological" certainty.  No.  The word "Ontological" goes with "Necessity".  Something is an ontological necessity - - but not an ontological certainty.  It's different words.  Here is an example of ontological necessity.  There is a computer program where I give the exact WRONG instruction in it saying "make this variable Zero".    ZERO is the ONE number you should NOT use with this input variable.  It's like if you say a "prayer of consecration" to God - - you lay your life out and say "OK God, I have Nothing.  I can offer nothing to save myself.  I need your help.  It all depends on you.  I look to you now".  Whatever happens - - - OUGHT to be 100% GOD's doing.  Of course as a determinist I believe GOD is 100% in control of everything that happens anyhow.  But Particularly in the case of a Prayer like this- - God ought to be Accountable for Whatever next comes to pass.  Capish?  Good.  Point made then.  Entonces eres verdad.  Eso lo que dicho.