Planet of the Blind

 

From the New York Times section on debate and analysis:

“The Vatican announced on Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans who are uncomfortable with the Church of England’s acceptance of women priests and openly gay bishops to join the Catholic Church. The Vatican will set up a formal conversion structure to allow Anglicans to preserve some of their liturgical traditions, including allowing married Anglican priests to remain married after they convert to Catholicism.

What does this announcement say about the Catholic Church and its willingness to grant such flexibility?”

It is our perspective that by inviting the overtly homophobic and misogynistic Anglicans into the Catholic Church the Vatican is simply declaring a its bankruptcy of spirit. Same old same old.

We were more interested in the news that Joseph Wiseman, the actor who played Dr. No in the first James Bond film has passed away at 91. Mr. Wiseman was a talented actor who disdained his role as Dr. No because he was seriously in love with the stage. Mr. Wiseman took a role in a movie that forever branded him and he’s hardly the first actor to have suffered an ignominious semiotic Hollywood scorching. We hope for him a heaven of thespians and singers.

Meanwhile here on Earth we imagine Dr. Julius No is alive and well in the Vatican.

 

S.K.     

I long most days for a voice of unnatural music.

Whether it’s a great tenor or soprano or the voice of Muddy Waters, I need music that bends a bright spear.

So when I turn on the radio and hear country music I want to throw myself onto stones by leaping from a great height.

The other night I couldn’t sleep and I went up and down the dial and thereby scoured the midnight static.

An adenoidal, sullen white boy was whining tunelessly about how he turned out alright despite the fact his mother smoked and drank and they never had seatbelts in the family car and no one in the lad’s fairy childhood was ever forced to wear a bicycle helmet–sweet Christ on a crutch, the fookin’ song went on and on… 

And the voice, the voice, like melting plastic…

This is music to make your blood grow cold. And Americans listen to it and think its poetry.

I wouldn’t begrudge anyone his or her melting plastic.

Not gonna be the Grinch.

It was rather silly of me to turn on the radio.

Once, against all odds, I turned on a daytime television show, one of those talky celebrity chat fests and Lo and Behold there was the great tenor Placido Domingo singing “Panis Angelicus” and I was utterly uplifted both by the song and by the sheer improbability of the situation.

Then they cut to a commercial for Preparation H. Really. No joke.

     

S.K.  

It is difficult if you believe as do the Jews that History is the simulacrum of God’s thoughts to be by turns a simple man or woman. Scientifically minded people believe in turn that the Cosmos (which we have inherited from the Egyptians and the Greeks) is the template of knowledge. That’s a useful view if you value scientific inquiry. Finally you have the Sweet Metaphysicians–William Blake, Emerson, Whitman, Swedenborg, Jakob Boehme, etc, all of whom imagined that Nature with a capital “N” was the local neighborhood of God and accordingly the sole purpose of life is essentially to keep your eyes and ears open.

Category 2 above suggests that if you study the stars and the creatures in the ocean you will not know much about divinity but you’ll gather a heck of a lot about the experiential digest we call knowledge. I’m a big fan of this category.

But hang on–don’t we need Category 1 if we’re to have things like ethics and civil rights laws? Yes. I’m a big fan of this category.

Alright, but William Blake and the poets are so persuasive! Surely the hand of God is discernible in the darkening beach grasses of Nantucket?  Ah! God is the only suitable explanation for our loneliness, a matter that gives the human imagination all its steep necessity. Can anybody really live without Number 3? Plenty have tried. How did that Soviet “thing” work for ya Comrades?

What’s to do? It’s Sunday and mild, late Autumn sunlight courses through the yellow leaves that hang in the poplar trees outside my window. How do we slow ourselves? How can we secede from the inventions of mind? And isn’t that the work of poetry in the last analysis? The world of poetry says we can be full of admiration for things that are insufficient. And isn’t this the experience of “being” in all its tangled, mispronounced, embarrassing exactitude? Poets are fools. We need them. We need to dunk our bread in the cheap wine along with the greengrocer who shows us that it’s good. We need intimations of our unanticipated moments of happiness. How hopelessly foolish!

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt, a very minor 18th century English poet wrote:

 

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

Throughout the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.

For my kopecs, that’s a good Sunday reflection. I shall conduct myself as naively on Sundays as I should wish. I’m going to toot on my fife some business of a crowded and glorious hour.

That’s what’s meant by “rest” I should imagine.

Isn’t Thomas Osbert Mordaunt a fabulous name?

 

S.K.   

Last night I watched “Dateline’s” Matt Lauer interview Dan Brown who has written a new thriller about Masonic symbols and evil magic in the corridors of Washington. “Wow!” I thought. “This is almost middle brow!” Now let’s be straight: I’m no cuff shooting academic who holds his head upwards at sharp angles. Hell, I even like “low brow” stuff like The Three Stooges though only when they’re tormenting academics or the rich and of course that means I like “the Stooges” most of the time. 

Silly Moi! That thar interview warn’t middle brow t’all!

Nope Skeezix! It was precisely in the wheel house of Dateline’s motto which you’ll find on their web site: “News stories about crime, celebrity, and health…”

If you have nothing better to do you can go to the interview link above and troll the salt flats of lurid alchemical sophistry that comprise most of Mr. Brown’s rendering of Masonic symbolism and Masonic ideas–matters that he holds are entirely a sub rosa trail of bread crumbs in the forest of conspiracies that “is” America. “Wow!” I thought. “This is almost a 1970’s college conversation with pot heads!”

Yep! I remember those conversations well.

“Hey Man! Have you ever looked close at the Marlboro cigarette pack? Yeah Man! There’s a little key that points east! Yeah Man! That means Lyndon Johnson killed J.F.K.!”

“Wow! Dude! You’re trippin’ me out!”

“Yeah! The Marlboro Man was really L.B.J. and he got the key to the East Coast Establishment after he killed Kennedy!”

If you weren’t in college in the 70’s that’s pretty much the way things went. “Woah! Dude! You’re gonna need a roach clip for that!”

All Matt Lauer and Dan Brown needed was a big, fat Doobie!

 

S.K.

 

 

1.

 

For reasons that are difficult to pin down the ancient Greeks one day conceived of their many gods as one and they thought this god was a spherical being. Overnight the old gods and goddesses of Olympus were relegated to a soap opera. The new god was Hermes who was essentially recycled from the Olympian melodrama.

Why was Hermes recycled?

Because he was acquainted with people who were dying.

 

2.

Hermes was believed to be compassionate. He could also fly. The Greeks always used flight as a metaphor for poetry and philosophy. The winged horse Pegasus was a Greek figure for poetry.

(People who came of age in the middle of the 20th century could see Pegasus flying above the gasoline pumps. The automobile was obviously a new kind of poetry.)

But I digress. Hermes could fly because his physical attributes were more complex than the mere sight of a flying man would have one suppose. His wings represented compassion for terminal illness. 

 

3.

In effect the Greeks woke up one morning and felt how alone they were. Nothing in the Pantheon spoke to matters of human energy. By this I mean the most basic of questions: how can I best live today?  

Suffering must make sense and sense must reconfigure suffering.

On the day that suffering must make sense the bread rising in the ovens must make sense; the lilies cultivated along the Nile must make sense; the spare and detached trees must make sense; and death also.

4.

Hermes new spherical conception means that the winged god is at the center of the universe and also at its circumference. He is the precursor of Christ who represents a compassionate cosmos and everlasting life. 

The thing that most interests me is how a culture moves toward this view.

 

5.

Culture is impenetrable as basalt and no responsible scholar can fully answer the “how” questions that mark the turning points in civilizations. But one thing is clear: free people become smarter over time.

Wise cultures move toward compassion, which is, if you will, the barometer of a culture’s intelligence-atmosphere.

6.

The health care debate going on now in our country is about compassion. No more, no less. I believe that Olympia Snowe understood this when she said recently that when history calls you must act–implicitly she was saying that a smart nation sides with compassion.

7.

The spherical god cannot be seen. But you can feel the compassionate geometry of sense and of the call to alleviate suffering.

Olympia Snowe felt it. More in the United States Senate should think more of circles and of Hermes and the mystical geometry of the cross.

Let the nation not conduct itself in the halls of government like frightened beasts.

 

S.K.

By Andrea Scarpino

(Who is somewhere we’re told…)

Grain-filled bread with butter, cheese. Radishes cut in long curls and salted, held between fingertips. A kitchen tool that only cuts radishes into curls. White asparagus. A special technique for eating white asparagus. Beer served in tall, thin glasses. Beer served in special steins. Biergartens covered in fall leaves. Parks that go on for miles. Running paths. Bicycles. Cobblestone. Tramways. Trains. Medieval walls. Gothic Churches. Rococo paintings. Children who stare at you on the bus. Adults who stare on the train. Chocolate. Beechnuts to pick from the ground and eat. Plum trees, fallen plums. Racism. “Problems” with Islam. “Problems” talking about race. Torture museums. Nazi museums. Diesel cars. Open windows, fall breeze. Thick children’s stockings. Teenage boys with spiky gelled hair, tight jeans, ponytails. Old people walking together in the park, grocery shopping with their own carts. Regional sausage specialties. Regional pastries. Regional dress. Soccer scarves. American pop music from the 80’s. Discos. Graffiti. Greek food. Cathedral bells. Organ music. Small dogs. Wood furniture. Practical coats, practical shoes. Brightly colored scarves. Cigarette billboards. Sandman cartoons for children to watch every night before bed. Ice cream shaped like spaghetti, lasagna noodles. Neighborhood schools. Swimming pools. Outdoor trampolines. Long Sunday walks in the woods. Stopping for snacks at a local biergarten. Swans. Canadian geese. Coffee and cake each afternoon.

 

Andrea Scarpino is the west coast Bureau Chief of POTB. You can visit her at:

www.andreascarpino.com

I don’t know what channel it was but there was Deepak Chopra on my TV and I was drinking my first cup of coffee and trying like some kind of bug mantis to hold my head up. I was barely alive. It was worse than that. Its only because I love you that I won’t go on.

Deepak Chopra was talking about the ten things you need to do every morning to achieve physical and spiritual health. Things like: “find the light inside” and “reflect on the gift that is you alone–or something like that.

I couldn’t help it. I thought Deepak Chopra was full of shit. My inner light is filled with mosquitoes and the gift that is mine is mostly my own business thank you very much. Today I will make a difference in the world by not touching anybody. And I won’t kill any turkeys.

There are 45 million people in this country who can’t get a flu shot because they don’t have any health insurance. I guess they should just find the light that is inside. Maybe they should just swallow a flashlight?

Feeling mean! Yep. Mean as a wild boar among the lilacs.

Grrrrrr!

Hey! Fred Astaire! Wipe your shoes you sonofabitch! That’s a brand new carpet!

God Almighty!

Grrrrrr!

I feel like a cottonwood stump.

I’m the Adonis of stumps…

But I’m still mean. Don’t ring my doorbell Mrs. KIndhead. I’m not donating a thing to the Community Chest.

Okay. Everybody has an inner light whether they’re rich or poor. Sure. Fine.

Sure.

Let’s tell the poor who huddle in the emergency rooms to float in the seven spheres.

Fine.

Dear Mrs. Kindhead: I’m going to donate my TV.

 

S.K. 

The following excerpted article is from The Inclusion Daily Express:

 

White House Makes Push For Agencies, Contractors To Hire People With Disabilities
(Federal News Radio)
October 7, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC– [Excerpt] For the first time, the White House is strongly recommending contractors and grantees join agencies in providing more employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

President Obama Monday kicked off National Disability Employment Awareness Month by detailing several initiatives the federal government will lead.

“Across this country, millions of people with disabilities are working or want to work, and they should have access to the support and services they need to succeed,” the President says in a statement. “As the nation’s largest employer, the federal government and its contractors can lead the way by implementing effective employment policies and practices that increase opportunities and help workers achieve their full potential. We must also rededicate ourselves to fostering an inclusive work culture that welcomes the skills and talents of all qualified employees. That’s why I’ve asked the responsible agencies to develop new plans and policies to help increase employment across America for people with disabilities.”

Mr. Obama’s announcement comes as the U.S. Access Board is leading an effort to update the accessibility standards, known as Section 508, for technology. Additionally, the General Services Administration will begin surveying agencies on how they are implementing the 508 regulations.

Entire article:
White House makes push for agencies, contractors to hire people with disabilities
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=35&sid=1780206
Statement by U.S. Education Secretary Duncan on National Disability Employment Awareness Month (U.S. Department of Education)
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/10/10062009.html

 

by Laura Castle

Radio demagogue Michael Savage recently spewed some hatred toward “the vermin in Child Protective Services” on his show (September 21, 2009.)  Responding to an unfortunate incident in which little girls were temporarily removed from their home because of innocent bathtub photos, Savage blasted the “demented perverts in America who work at CPS whose entire goal is to take children away from normal families and give them to perverts.”

For decades the incidence of children in emergency rooms who have been beaten by their parents was merely whispered about by worried doctors who had no recourse, no legal right to intervene and nowhere to turn.

In 1962, the term “battered child syndrome” was introduced to describe the injuries seen so often by physicians that did not appear to be accidental.

In the beautiful, shining year of 1974, Child Protective Services (CPS) was established nationwide to investigate reports of child  abuse. It was designed not only to protect children from abuse, but to encourage family stability.

Today the process of investigation includes interviewing, observing, and information gathering in order to determine the validity of the report  and determine whether or not intervention is necessary for the child’s safety.

When CPS workers find problems in the home that do not warrant removal, they will encourage the family to take child parenting classes. An example might be a child who is spanked too hard and too often, but does not have the injuries that would warrant immediate removal from the home. Contrary to the hysterical rants of those who think being hit is good for a child, CPS does not forbid parents to spank children although it will help parents learn more effective methods of discipline.

Some Statistics:  In 2004, approximately 3.5 million U.S. children were involved in investigations of alleged abuse or neglect  and 87,000 children were determined to have been abused or neglected. Would the hate mongerers prefer that these children just quietly die because many other homes that were investigated were found to not be abusive? Or would their rants against CPS be less hysterical if they knew that 1490 children died in 2004 of abuse or neglect?
These were the children that CPS did not discover in time. When Mr. Savage spews fear and resentment towards an organization that saves as many children as CPS does, he makes it less likely that a worried neighbor will report the family next door whose child’s cries of pain pierce the night.

I take personal offense at Mr. Savage’s attack on CPS as I grew up before the United States had this agency, an agency  to which teachers, doctors and neighbors are legally required to report suspected child abuse with guaranteed anonymity.

Would Mr. Savage and his ilk like to see a return to the days when a little girl could lie in bed night after night, terrified with blood pouring from her nose, with blistered buttocks and legs from a beating with a belt, hearing her mother and her brothers and sisters scream in pain as her father attacked them?

Would Mr. Savage want the teacher the next day to look at the bruised and cut, badly dressed, dirty little girl and be helpless to intervene? 

I was that little girl and I would not sentence today’s children to the isolation and terror of a battered child in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Today this is what would happen: At the age of five, when I entered kindergarten, my teacher would observe that I was bruised, cut and dirty and that I seemed unusually terrified of adults. Knowing that she was legally required to report her concerns, she would make an anonymous call to CPS and express her worries about my home situation. Within 3 to 24 hours, a CPS worker would arrive at my home. Stunned by the incredible filth and stench that would greet him  at the door (dirty diapers, layers of dust, clothing strewn everywhere, filthy, unwashed dishes, big Florida cockroaches swarming), he would urge immediate removal of me and my brothers and sisters.

I sometimes wonder how my life would be different if CPS had existed in the 1950’s and I had been rescued at the age of 5 instead of running away at thirteen.

What difference would eight years less of beatings, emotional abuse and neglect have made on my ability to handle stress? How much less anxiety would I experience today?

I will never know, but I send songs of praise and love to the organization that works so hard to rescue today’s battered children. Thank you CPS!

Yes CPS makes mistakes and we must work to make it more efficient and less prone to error.

Ranting against an organization that saves so many lives not only hurts children, but it can also place CPS workers in danger of retaliation.

We must choose to focus on the good that CPS does. I send a heartfelt and long overdue thank you to Child Protective Services on behalf of all the lives they save.

 

Laura Castle lives in Florida and she writes (among other things) about violence against women and children. She is a frequent contributor to POTB.

There’s a lovely essay in yesterday’s New York Times by our friend Joe Blair who coyly describes himself in the bio line as a pipe fitter from Iowa City. That Joe is modest is certainly a fine thing–we who have no modesty recognize that it is a virtue. As a person with a disability modesty might have killed me in days of yore. But I digress. Back to Joe’s essay. Joe’s son Michael is autistic and when Joe and his wife Deb discovered that Michael loved the ocean more than anything (and that’s a “real” “anything”) they decided to get out of Iowa and move to Massachusetts. They’re in the very process of the move having found a place in Newton, hence a 30 minute drive to the sea. Iowa City is a 30 minute drive away from the Mississippi if you drive like a state trooper with Montezuma’s Revenge.

The poet Hokusai had 947 changes of address during his life. (See the post below. I should add for the sake of full disclosure that Joe Blair, essayist, alum of the University of Iowa’s graduate workshop in nonfiction writing has made his living in Iowa these past years by running his own heating and cooling business. Pipe fitting is a part of that enterprise but if you’ve ever looked an electronic furnace in the eye and rearranged its petulant circuitry, well I rest my case. Joe, back in town for the purpose of “finishing up” following his family’s move came over and fixed my furnace on the day of first snow. May the gods of Vesuvius bless Joe for many reasons. But I digress.

Joe has moved to Newton, in effect taking a risk in a depression (for that’s what this is, let there be no mistake) and I know that such faith is the right stuff. To quote old Joe Campbell, it’s always best “to follow your bliss” and Lord knows the ocean is the greatest bliss factory on earth.

Out here in Iowa you can blindfold yourself and stand in a corn field and sometimes in the wind it sounds like Cape Cod.

But Joe’s son Michael knew the difference. And Joe and Deb did too. “Look! Toto got away! He got away!”

Take a look a Mr. Blair’s splendid piece on autism as a form of knowing.

Pipe fitter, indeed.

 

S.K.