REM symbolism

Swamp wisdom

Often the deepest insights comes to us in dreams.

Last night I had such a dream.

Imagine “Animal House” meets “Night of the Living Dead.”

It all started out at a big college. Bluto (John Belushi) and company are up to their usual hi-jinks. The pranks are driving the dean absolutely crazy, and the whole fraternity is on the brink of expulsion.

Then comes the final, greatest prank of them all: Bluto puts a giant vampire frog into a cabinet in the biology lab. This thing is the size of a bed pillow, with glowing red eyes and long retractable fangs.

The prank is a hit. The biology professor is scared out of his wits, the girls scream and the good guys all have a good laugh.

The frog spreads vampirism throughout the campus. At first, this is not much of a problem. Bluto is a vampire, D-Day is a vampire… they grouse a little about having to go to sleep during the day, but it is not a big deal. They occasionally feed from a co-ed, and at the end of they day they have themselves buried in the mud by pledges.

Then things start to get strange.

The population of vampires grows out of control. There are only a few humans left, and we have to destroy the vampire’s hiding places during the day so we can survive the coming night. We smash a great number of the stone markers that protect the vampires, but we can’t get all of them. Among my compatriots Anna Nicole Smith is killed horribly by vampires… then I woke up.

I think the lessons here are clear.

Did I see what I thought I saw?

Swamp wisdom
Pervez Mushareff was just on the Daily Show.

I don't like to double post in a day, but... the despot of Pakistan was just interviewed by Jon Stewart.

He seemed cute and cuddly.

What the heck is going on?

God loves secular government

Swamp wisdom
Alright, maybe that is a silly way to put it, but today'’s wisdom from on-high is an exploration of why the is a great nation.

The answer is not that the people of America are smarter or inherently better. The answer is not a comment on the relative worth of the peoples. The answer, largely, has to do with the relative place religion occupies in the political sphere.

In many nations, political parties have strong religious affiliations. Policies are drawn from religious law. No matter how dominant one religion is as a demographic, the result is that public discourse is poisoned. If the basis of a debate gets boiled down to "“God says X," then reason can not prevail. Reason is what makes a government great.

Faith can be a great force for good, but when it rides in the same car as government it turns to oppression.

And, it doesn't even make sense to pull the two together. If you believe you have the true word of God, why bother with the state? God will judge adherence to divine law in the end and deliver the kind of justice that needs to be dealt out. The state is a poor substitute for this.

When the state is too closely intertwined with the church it creates two camps within the nation: Believers and Infidels. The state enforces the law of the Believers. Many nations resolve this conflict with violence.

Only a fool would deny the role faith has played in solidifying the collective sense of right and wrong that is the basis of law, however moving past that is a dangerous exercise.

On the other hand, secular government is careful not to use the state to step on the toes of Believers of any stripe with prohibitions against their religion. Secular state also keeps off the toes of Infidels. This is because secular government is based on God'’s greatest gift to mankind: REASON.

Reason is the ultimate common denominator for our species. When we embrace it we create the largest community possible. When we compromise it we cut people out of the civil society.

Our founding fathers were wise to not mention God in the Constitution. They were wise to establish secular government. We would be foolish to throw away this gift.

In these difficult times it is tempting to run to God for comfort in all facets of society. Maybe this is a good thing, in all things save for one: government.

Textbook definition of cowardice

Swamp wisdom
I promise that I won't do this often, but this is definitely worth it. Please read this commentary. If you do, gentle reader, I will only post links when absolutely vital.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15004160/

Where we Liberals dropped the ball

Swamp wisdom

It pains me to pontificate on this, but it needs to be done.

In New York we call ourselves the “Empire State.” This legacy of self-congratulation has created the wretched state of Upstate.

Basically the problem is that in our efforts to fix problems of social justice and the environment, we created a vast array of government programs and regulations. We allowed our outrage at some disreputable businesses to shape our efforts, with an end result that we made our new laws “anti-business.”

We assumed that our economic strength was so great that this did not matter. We assumed that no matter how vindictive our regulatory climate was, there would be enough wealth to make up for it.

We were wrong.

I am not for a second saying that we need to roll back the clock and trust business to regulate itself. This has been tried before, and the results were disastrous. What I am saying is that we need to change the tone of our regulatory climate.

We need to start with the guiding principle that people who run businesses are not evil, nor are they angels. They are just people trying to make a living like everybody else. We need to recognize that if all the businesses close, there will be nobody around to pay for our wonderful social justice programs.

I would suggest that perhaps what is needed is a strategy whereby we increase the number of watchdogs, and decrease the cost of compliance. To keep everyone honest we need to make penalties for breaking the law truly punitive. Punish the bad, reduce the cost to the good.

This is a problem that is much bigger than New York. The solution is national, and perhaps international. It is time for us all to be pro-business, as long as we never ever forget to be pro-citizen first.

What would Jesus Bomb?

Swamp wisdom
According to Pervez Musharraf, Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan back into the stone age if his country did not cooperate in "The War Against Terror."

I am not sure what the big deal here is. I can think of a few places that we should consider using this tactic on if they fail to cooperate with whatever our goal de jour is.

England: if I was deputy secretary of state, I would threaten to bomb England back into the stone-age unless they agreed to improve their food. The British have been committing crimes against people who eat for centuries. Surely it is time to put this to an end.

Canada: These no good Alan Thicke producing, hockey-heads have chased one NBA franchise and one Major League Baseball franchise out of their country. I can only assume it is because of hideous oppression. I would insist they clean up their act or face the consequences. The great thing about this is that the Canadians are such a polite obliging peoples that they are very unlikely to call your bluff.

Tennessee: Stay with me on this one. I would demand Tennessee do something impossible, like, say, turn over the "king of the molemen" or give me ten words to rhyme with orange. You see, I just don't like Tennessee. Have you ever been there? Honestly, if you had, you wouldn't need any justification here. You would just smile, nod and hope they didn't meet my demands.

Mr. Roger's Neighborhood: I would demand they help me take on Sesame Street. Elmo must be stopped. Elmo must be stopped ELMO MUST BE STOPPED!

Rivendell: In the Lord of the Rings it takes more than a movie and a half to get them into the war of the ring. I see a lot of parallels here to The War Against Terror. With a little Bush style diplomacy a lot of lives could have been saved. (The same argument can be used with Tree-beard.)

The Headquarters of the AFL-CIO: Pluto needs to have its title as "planet" restored. I would demand that the AFL-CIO help me put the pressure on the International Astronomical Union to make it happen. (They're affiliated, aren't they? They didn't leave in that recent mutiny, right? Please tell me I don't have to threaten the Teamsters to get this done.)

Ain't diplomacy grand?

What is the nature of strength?

Swamp wisdom

I think this is an important discussion for our nation.

As it stands, there are two schools of thought here. One school of thought says that we show our strength by essentially sacrificing a few freedoms in return for greater security. They say that it takes strength to make this kind of sacrifice. That is undoubtedly true. It is no small thing for an American to say that “until the war on terror is done, we have to make this sacrifice of a little liberty.”

However, I think that strength can more readily be found in adherence to our ideals and traditions. Bravery is to say to the world "you can throw airplanes at us, and bomb our malls, but our spirit can not be broken. You can not destroy what it is to be American. You can not frighten us, no matter how hideous and vicious you are."Under this kind of bravery, people like me are willing to accept the risk that our enemies will abuse our freedoms in order to hurt us. It is a blind, unflinching faith in the justness of our values.

It all comes down to where we think our strength as a nation comes from. Does it come from guns or from our character?

If our strength as a people is in force of arms, then those who demand leeway on torture are right to do so. If America is a shining light for the world because our bombers can hit any target on earth, then we are correct to sacrifice privacy for security, because that is the only way they will get it.

If our strength as a nation is in our traditions and liberty, then sacrificing them for security is folly.

Terror is an insidious weapon. When it is effective, it makes you forget your soul because you are too concerned with you skin.

I concede that we need to evolve how law enforcement deals with protecting us from those who would do us harm. However I am of an unshakable belief that this evolution has to be done in the best traditions of American liberty.

The Cold War didn’t mean we lost our liberty, and in that conflict we risked literal destruction of all life on our planet. We need to be strong and not give in to fear.
Strength of arms is transient. Strength of spirit is eternal.

Lasting Grief

Swamp wisdom

Over the last few years we stories have come into the media about Jesus and the Virgin Mary appearing in toasted cheese sandwiches, bank windows and salt stains by highways. The other night I had a vision in a dream: Steve Irwin.

In this dream he was showing poisonous snakes and reptiles to a group of people. They were all unaware of his passing, except for me. I was very sad in the dream, on the verge of tears, but he had a look in his eyes that told me it would all be ok.

I don't know why I am so bummed about the passing of that lunatic. But I am.

Hell, conventional wisdom had it that he would be eaten by some animal while trying to film it. But a Stingray? Who saw that coming?

To be honest I think I had always assumed he was immortal. Anybody who did what he did and lived had to be.

There have been a lot of other deaths over the last couple of years that I have been upset about. Just recently Ann Richards died, and I really admired her. But it's not the same.

I think that somehow all these other people had a dark side somewhere. However, with the crocodile hunter there was a sense that he really was just that simple.

I use the word in the best possible sense, and I mean it sincerely as a compliment. He was that passionate wildlife guru who blamed himself when an animal bit him. You never watched him thinking there was anything but sincerity there. He was crazy, but he came by it honestly. And most importantly, you never got the sense that he had to hurt anyone (deservedly or not) to get where he was.

He was a child. A high profile child. And I can't help but be sad even now.

And so, when he came to me in a dream, I took it as a holy revelation. By crikey I'm resolved to found the First International Church of the Crocodile Hunter.

Or maybe this is all just a focused reaction to the overwhelming horror of our world. Here is one tiny tragedy that I can wrap my head around, so it becomes the focus of the epic uncertainty I feel about everything.

Maybe I should just put on some khaki shorts and meditate on that until I can work it out.

I resisted, now feel my wrath

The Swamp is my secluded basement bar, where I do my best work, thinking and drinking. Now, this may come as a shock to most of you, but I have a few opinions to share. I wanted to stay in my 19th century mindset of pocket watches and record players, and skip the blog phenomina, but it drew me in like a hinted weapon of mass destruction. So, on my first day of blogging, I make this pledge to you:
1. I will not use this blog to name-call, no matter how big a jack-ass the president is.
2. Healthy debate is good, but I may have to cut your mic off.
3. No more wimpy chips.
4. Ideas are important, I take them seriously.

Well, that being said, I hope you enjoy this. Hell, I hope I enjoy this.