FRAUD RELIGION and LOOK AT DAVOS

    Balloons have lifted my spirit since I was a kid. They add cheer to anywhere, including an alley.

        Even the shadows are playful and teasing,

      and something to chase.

where a shadow haunts

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini Agency France-Presse

    The World Economic Summit has commenced again in Davos. 
    60 World leaders, countless corporate and business chieftains, academics and theoreticians gather each year to plumb the world's economy. This year there is more security than ever.

     Terror is a threat, in the form of armed zealots, but nature has done her part as well. A record 6 feet of snow has fallen. It is as though the planet's climate is demanding a place on the agenda.

Photo by Gian Ehrenzeller European Press Photo Agency

        There is also the growing terror of people dislocated by economics, war and disaster. There may have never been more refugees in history and more are likely. There may never have been a wider gap between the haves and the have-nots. The number of wealthy remains small-most of the rest of the world's population faces more struggle. A storm of another kind is brewing.

Photo by Fabrice Coffrini Agency France Presse

they wait for the rupture

    I attempt to avoid religion in these posts. A person's beliefs are their business, a most intimate and personal piece of being human. I think we should afford respect, but today I must speak.

     In the last couple of days two major news organizations have explored the support for donald trump by evangelical Christian groups, mostly right wing. There have been other pieces over the last year, but his recent profanity burst and the leak of his paying hush money to a porn star to be silent about their relationship prompted a new examination.

     They still back the vulgarian. That very support gives their brand of faith a black eye and a crushed credibility. 
     Trump is a liar, a swindler, a serial adulterer, an apparent racist, a sexual predator, a bully, worships money and is by most evidence stupid but conceited. All of that but the stupid makes him an ideal target for the evangelicals to capture- to change his heart, to convert him, to make him a better human being. But there is nothing in that to cause them to step away from the faith of Jesus to back  trump. They must have forgotten that Jesus was a radical rabbi who's rare display of anger was to turn over tables and toss out the swindlers. He spoke of eschewing all of the things that trump worships and does and how he lives and how he behaves.

    Can you imagine trump laying down his life for his followers, or living as a wandering vagrant, urging his followers to give what they have to less advantaged, or to decry violence, to be a peace maker, loving all, even those who are handicapped, or from Haiti, or Mexico, or Syria, etc, etc, etc.?

   So how do you justify going from a devotion to a Christ to a devotion to a trump? How? How in the hell do you do that? Ah, there is that!

      From my understanding of Jesus he would probably be the first to forgive trump and the first to try to bring him into the fold, but also the first to recognize the wrong or evil and perversion of the man's life and his devotion to himself. 
      Someone who purports to be a person with a genuine faith and who uses articles of that faith to support trump is, in my opinion, not to be trusted on matters of faith. Same for those who ignore trumps perversity of character.

      I knew Billy Graham and even worked with him and his senior staff over the course of a couple of years. I was leery of evangelists, but Graham was sincere and devoted to preaching. I came to a new understanding of Graham, his role and impact. Something that he wrote and spoke of is how he had been emotionally and spiritually swindled by Richard Nixon, with whom he had a close relationship. As someone pointed out recently he never got over how he was "snookered" by Nixon.  It would behoove his son Franklin and other evangelicals who somehow find a way to support the behavior and action of trump to learn the Billy Graham lesson. 

     To those who say they are evangelical Christians and who support trump-would you want to spend eternity with him? Not that you have anything to say about that.

     One year of him in the White House has been a kind of hell for the majority of US citizens and others around the globe. Try to save him if you wish, pray for him, but to take a pulpit or a public forum and endorse him or his actions makes you a phony and a fraud, just like trump. Your faith is more important than just another one of us mere mortals with feet of clay. To support trump or to ignore his perversity is to make a mockery of what you say you believe.
      And a reminder to me and everyone else, the founders were right with this idea of separation of church and state.

     And on that note, God bless you and God bless America, please! In fact, God bless this whole planet.

     See you down the trail.

     

      

Respect

orientation

     It is a difficult challenge that confronts all of us. In a time of intemperance, anger and hyperbole how can we remain civil?

     How do you disapprove, disagree and dislike attitudes and beliefs of friends and associates but not disrespect them?

     The old adage about avoiding religion, politics and sex never took with me. We have brains and spirit, passion and thoughts and we'd never fully engage our humanity if we did not exercise, fully exercise, our intellect and freely explore thought and especially those boundaries between us.

     The challenge, it seems, is to probe those lines of demarcation, so as to understand and learn, but do so in a way that does not threaten. And perhaps that is a flash point, threatening. It is difficult to watch and listen to an attitude or policy that seems anathema to those ideas and values one holds most dear. But, how to respond? I suspect this will be a growing challenge.

     

whither

into storms?

or

into light?

    My father Karl was also my best friend. I was particularly blessed that way. 

    A WWII combat veteran, political activist, competitive athlete, church officer, humanitarian, believer in human dignity and full human rights, he reared my brothers and me with the toughness of the drill instructor he had been but also with love and a liberal dosage of wisdom. A quote I grew up with was "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."

    Nothing was off limits in our dinner table conversations and they were lively. My parents often had guests in the home who held different views and politics. There were disagreements, but they were civil and often my dad would inject that quote. 

     By the way dad would frequently say "... as attributed to Voltaire..." I asked him once why he said that. He said it was what Voltaire thought but there was a question about whether he said it in those words specifically.  On later research it appears it was a summary of Voltaire's thinking and written as such by historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her book The Friends of Voltaire. She also wrote The Life of Voltaire. The wisdom and capacity of the philosophy is none-the-less a fundamental principal of a civil society.

      In the last analysis it's all a matter of where we stand as to how we see things.

  green extension  

   The magic green carpet of California's Central Coast extends into wine country as well.

     See you down the trail.

DOES IT MATTER?-NSA AND FREEDOM-CURIOS AND A THROWBACK

DOES IT MATTER?

       First Amendment rights are being challenged by an information gathering surveillance function of the NSA.
       The First Amendment protects and therefore guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press and the right to assemble to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK

CURIOS AND KNICKKNACK'S

 Curios are rare objects of value.  Knickknacks are odd, small and supposedly worthless household items. 

 THROWBACK TO LATE 70'S

   Hanging out with Elliot Gould who was passing through on a promotional tour.  Yep that's a chef's jacket I'm wearing. WNAP FM, where I was a newscaster, would frequently choose a location, set up a tent and cook breakfast for anyone who stopped by. We frequently created massive traffic jams.  On this day the crowds were even larger.

   See you down the trail.

MAHER'S MOUTH AND SELF INDULGENT MIND &SANTA ROSA CREEK

PROFESSIONAL WISE ASS 
LOOSES COOL AGAIN
If TV whiner Bill Maher had said about a Muslim and
Mohamed what he said about Tim Tebow and Jesus,
there would be a fatwa issued and a price on his head.
If you've not seen the tweet in question you
can read about it here.
Fortunately we live in a democratic republic where even
insensitive and offensive comments are tolerated.
I don't care for Maher, don't think I'd like to spend anytime with him, though I watch his HBO program REAL TIME.
Why do I watch a smug and self absorbed, sometimes humorous and occasionally clever, tiresome, trite, smarmy, pretentious, pseudo hip master of snark?
For the sometimes and occasional referenced above plus
the better moments which almost always come from
one of his panel of guests. He at least invites
differing points of view and he lampoons political
pomposity and fools.  He also explores the edges of
social humor. Years of journalism have prepared me to know
it is important to consider a divergence of views.
Nothing is gained by burying our heads in the sand.
I am comfortable enough with
my views and beliefs not to be rocked
by coarseness, vulgarity and mocking. 
It is here on this point that the wise ass betrays 
his own Achilles heel. Often, usually always with
religion, spirituality or faith he is a tired old act, sure not to
listen nor conceptualize on a deeper scale. He
insults, demeans and belittles. He is as 
tiresome as the nutty old Madeline Murray-Ohare
got to be, like a rusty old gate making a useless noise.
Still there is a place for him in the public square, even
if it is to be pitied. And there is a place for those
who wish to boycott his network.
What there is no place for is intolerance.
Even the Jesus who Maher demeaned said
we should forgive our enemies.
DAY BOOK

REFLECTIONS ON SANTA ROSA CREEK

See you down the trail.

QUESTS, DRAONS AND THE ORCHID

JOURNEYS
REEL THOUGHTS
Peace & Heroes

THE WAY
Directed by son Emilio Estevez, father Martin Sheen
plays a father who fulfills his son's journey 
on the El camino de Santiago from France to Spain.
The Way is an earnest film that has some splendid
moments.  Sheen must recover the body of his son
who perished on the journey. He decides to complete
his son's quest but he starts the pilgrimage with a 
hardened heart.  The journey and those he meets
on the camino have an impact.
Estevez is a fine director.
FINDING JOE
The documentary explores ideas of Joseph Campbell extrapolated from his life long study of faith, myth, religion, belief and spiritual disciplines.  This 
piece examines the idea of the Heroes' journey-defined as separation, initiation and return. The image of the dragon is used liberally as those "shoulds and shouldn'ts" of behavor and other limits to the human spirit.
 Cleverly filmed sequences help elaborate the occasionally exquisite point being made.  Campbell is not so much found as he is explained.  
He is certainly a man who's words
lend themselves to profound place and explanation.
Campbell fans, or those who feel at home in the deep waters of mixing faiths and human behavior will find 
FINDING JOE of value.
DAY BOOK
The new orchid.

See you down the trail.