Generic Management 101 (My palindrome)

[A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same, backward or forward, like "RADAR."]


A BMW; a rake--

EGAD! A geek!

A raw MBA!

TORQUE

(Sent as an e-mail in March, 2003.)

I was always troubled by my attraction to fast cars as somehow a confession of sexual inadequacy.  I read that somewhere in some self-help or wimmin's magazine written by some Birkenstock-wearing weenie who drove an automatic Ford Escort or some such, probably while munching sunflower seeds and watching "Oprah" regularly. 

Having materially participated in the design and (re-)engineering and rebuilding of my '66 Pontiac GTO (since 1986, when I took it off the road), I may be able to point to that in lieu of my general disregard for my own physical prowess.  I am not in very good shape these days, being too fat and lazy, but my car is FAST!  With a much more potent 5-speed in place of the original 4-speed, I can now have a "granny" first gear and a stupendous high-speed "Positraction" final drive of 2.93:1, which calcs out to about 150 mph top end (not that I have the balls to find out).  I used to be able to do all that, but I have lost both my hair and my nerve over the years. 

The engine has been replaced/rebuilt several times, it now being a 400c.i. (orig. 389 c.i.) with the original 3-deuce intake, slightly “fatter” (than stock) cam and roller rockers, cast-iron semi-headers and low-restriction exhaust system.  It runs nicely around town on 93-oct. unleaded, but it will leap like a scalded dog when stomped.  I have wrung out 3d gear, but I have no nerve to see the limit in 4th or 5th. 

It will do almost 60 in first! 

When the clutch is dumped and the accelerator is stomped, the front end of the car arches up and twists simultaneously against the torque of the engine, the clutch disk slamming against the flywheel.  The noise is unbelievably loud, with all three carbs sucking deep, their reptilian hissing mixed with the honking wail of the engine.  The noise obliterates one's thinking.  One is literally slammed into the back of the seat, unable to lean forward at all, barely able to peer over the front edge of the hood.  The compressed vitreous humor squeezes the available retinal field of view to a pinpoint, probably centered on the optic nerve end. With proper feathering, the tires will slip very little, they having been converted from the original bias-type tall, skinny "bicycle" tires to a low-profile, fat radial that is mounted on a repro Rally Type I wheel that is an inch larger in diameter (15") and inch wider (7") than the stock originals.  With a re-engineered suspension that uses offset upper control-arm shafts that pull the top of the wheel in toward the engine to get proper camber for the Firebird spindles now installed, the car corners very flat and sits about 3" lower than stock, using 1-1/2" sway bars front and rear.  All of this is backed up with massive disc brakes up front and the stock drums still in back.  GTO's didn't have disc brakes until 1967. 

All of this ensures that my car will do what the original GTO's would not: corner and stop.  The originals were great for straight-line acceleration, but way too many would try to straighten out curves and climb trees.  That is why there are fewer of them left, and a lot of counterfeits built from LeManses and Tempests abound.  The upholstery in the passenger seat is puckered, however, from the abject fear of the passengers.  It is a frightening car to ride in, despite the 5-point racing harnesses I added.  The console holds a pint of gin, "church-key" and bottle of Tabasco very nicely.  My college roommate inspired that rather proper use of the console!

  Nevertheless, the car lives up to its original acronym: GTO--gas, tires and oil--because it burns all three!    So!  Go ahead and color me "inadequate."  I do have an automatic in my truck, however.  No need to shift gears when there's no one to impress with burnouts!

Global warming?  I'm doing my best to contribute!

Be Prepared

(This piece was written in October of 2006 for a childhood friend with whom I had been in the Boy Scouts.)

BE PREPARED

Those of us in the front lines of male Baby Boomers may well remember our days as budding adolescents, starting around age 11 or 12 concurrent with graduation from the Cub Scouts to the Boy Scouts. By then, I was already somewhat aware of (and stunned by) human origins by “sexual congress,” so I was quite ready for the evil, wonderful ways of the Boy Scouts. There was much more to learn.
I was a member of Troop 141 in Roanoke Rapids, NC, a small industrial cotton- and paper-mill city. Our sponsor was the cotton mill up on the hill above our cinder-block Scout building. More of my close friends were also in the Troop, and the highlight of our scouting experiences were the 8 or 10 camping trips we took each year, winter or summer, supervised by our two long-suffering but quite tolerant Scoutmasters, a retired cotton-mill worker and a city police sergeant, who had also been my Cubmaster.
A few years ago, in a pathetic fit of would-be paternal bonding, the Scout movement decided to include fathers in their sons’ camping adventures, encouraging them to come along and be a “pal” to their sons. One of my friends was complaining about being unable to get together with me on a given weekend as he had to go on a camping trip with his son. I implored him to leave the poor boy alone and let him go on the camping trip without a parental unit on hand to kill the joy. I told him I would have been absolutely mortified if my father had been along on any of my Scout camping trips which, back in the 1950’s, were an opportunity to smoke cigars, throw eggs at cars, tip cows, roll yards with toilet paper (preferably in the rain), throw cans of beans in campfires (for an explosive “event”—never mind the shrapnel) and generally get away with bloody murder while no one was watching. Today’s self-appointed moral authorities are surely to be outraged that such shenanigans happened in the august Boy Scouts, of all places, but they did. I was a witness to history. Had my father been present, it would have been a much more boring time, indeed.
Our Scoutmasters were tolerant in the sense that they did not act like Gestapo, interrogating us about certain “events” and administering punishments, but it was understood that no one was to tempt fate by doing all manner of prohibited conduct in their presences. No point in rubbing it in their faces. I think that both men are now dead, but I honor their memories and will love each of them until I die, even though one could never get my name right. Like most Scouting volunteers, they freely gave of their spare time and efforts without any compensation other than maybe the certainty that they were good role models for each of us and maybe the notion that we were absolutely devoted to them. Having also worked for the Boy Scouts later on, I know something about the multiple differences between the unpaid volunteers and the “pros,” which are considerable.
Anyway, we were an all-southern-white, mostly Christian bunch of boys. We did not know diddly-squat about “diversity.” That word probably didn’t even exist back when I was in the Boy Scouts. We also did not obsess about homosexuals or atheists among our ranks; though we knew of some and made fun of them, we were certainly not fearful of them. It was never mentioned, and the thought that some kids might have been excluded from our tawdry ranks because of somebody else’s decree from on high sounds really stupid. Our rag-tag group was perfectly capable of making anyone’s life miserable by ourselves. I daresay the obnoxious prohibition recently declared by the Boy Scout organization against such folks seems a recent phenomenon contrived by those predatory weenies in short pants and knee socks in high places, those despicable folks who constitute the “pros” referenced earlier, for whom I worked in the Summer of 1970 as a Scout camp waterfront director in New York state.
But, I digress. There are too many wonderful stories to remember from my own Scouting days, and the monstrous wildfire is among them. I mentioned earlier that smoking cigars was one of our favored pastimes. We also bought and consumed many packs of cigarettes as well. The notion of 13-year-olds smoking is abhorrent now, but that is what we did (most of us do not smoke today). Anyway, we were on a camping adventure one weekend and were to set up our army-surplus tents in a field covered in broomsedge, with “alleys” mowed through. Those tents seemed to date from World War II, and they were somewhat water-proofed with a dried, oily residue.
That fair spring Friday afternoon, we fought a huge wind blowing across the field as we struggled to tie down our flapping tents. We had gradually gotten them under control and set up, when all of a sudden, three or four boys exploded from their tent and then, almost simultaneously, the tent exploded in fire! All of us were transfixed as we watched the tent dissolve to ash almost immediately, but we were unprepared for what happened next, as the adjacent broomsedge caught fire, too, and the wind whipped it into a screaming freight-train of pure fire, racing across the field away from our tents (thankfully) and toward some houses in the distance! I have never seen anything so frightening move so quickly.

It took perhaps 30 seconds for the fire to race across at least 100 yards of distance, and it would have likely eaten those houses but for a paved road between them and the field on fire. The wind was so strong there were no fires caught on the sides, and the fire “engine” gave out of gas at the road. Whew!
Needless to say, there was much chagrin and second-guessing about what we had witnessed. It seems that the boys within the tent had lit up some cigarettes, and something therein had caught on fire. The rest is well-known. I suppose we were all lucky that no one got hurt and nothing got destroyed but the old tent and a couple of sleeping bags and some clothes, but I would not trade that fabulous memory for anything.
I cannot finish my recollections without remembrance of “Aunt Creasy” and “Mary Jane Hockaday.” Our Troop’s preferred campsite about 8 miles from town was a wooded area down behind a hunting cabin owned by the family of one of our Troop members. We probably went there 5 or 6 times a year. One of the benefits of longer-term membership in the Troop was the “matriculation” from camping novice to seasoned elder. Aunt Creasy’s rundown shack was further down in a field behind our wooded campsite. The first time I had to go into it was terrifying. I was not even 12 years old yet, and I almost froze to death that winter weekend (or so it seemed) because I did not have a proper sleeping bag, only a borrowed woolen bag-liner, and it was COLD!

Aunt Creasy was reputed to have been a very old former black slave who had lived in the shack prior to her death. The shack was OBVIOUSLY haunted by her restless ghost! Each of us novices was tasked one night to fetch a large stick on the floor inside the shack. There was an old well out in front of the shack, and it had been rigged by one of the older Scouts in the Troop with some sort of remote noisemaker that could be actuated by pulling on a wire from a distance. As I passed the old well, a moaning sound emitted from it, and I was almost paralyzed with pure unadulterated fear. I could barely stumble up to the shack and go into its dark recesses with only a weakening flashlight beam for guidance.
I cautiously entered the shack and pushed on the front door which was barely hanging on one hinge. I knew I could not turn back to certain derisive ridicule and probably the inevitable paddling that the older kids enjoyed administering to the younger ones. (Yes, corporal punishment was frequently administered.) Trash was strewn across the floor everywhere, and the old-shack smell of wood smoke and stale grease and garbage was almost nauseating. I pushed into another room and saw, by the dim glow of my flashlight, the big stick to be retrieved.
As I bent over to pick up the stick, a huge older Scout jumped out from behind a door yelling, grabbed me roughly and scared the living you-know-what out of me! I almost peed in my pants. I swear. I have often wondered, however, if he, too, was somewhat scared, listening to the well moan and waiting for some naïve Tenderfoot to come along looking for the stick. I know, when I later assumed the same role, I was apprehensive about being in that “haunted” shack by myself.

The 10-foot-long sunken grave of Mary Jane Hockaday was across a dirt road from the shack of Aunt Creasy in some woods. We knew her name because it was on the tombstone at the head of the grave. She had died a long time earlier according to the dates also on the stone. It was common practice to tell campfire stories about Mary Jane Hockaday, the monstrous, evil woman 9 feet tall who had gone to an early grave after eating children and dying, etc. It was all totally believable, especially by the solitary glow of a campfire. Again, the task was to retrieve a big stick on the grave, and at the moment of retrieval, an older Scout would jump out from behind a big tree adjacent and grab the hapless novice. It is a wonder there were no heart attacks on those camping trips!
I had to experience the terrifying gauntlets of both Aunt Creasy and Mary Jane Hockaday as a novice Boy Scout, all without the assistance of my father, who would surely have been worthless under the circumstances. It is probably good that he never had to apologize for my terror or cowardice. I am not sure he could have handled it.

Mississippi Cool

(This piece ran in the Richmond (Va.) Style Weekly as the "Back Page" editorial July 13, 2005.)

MISSISSIPPI COOL

In August of 1964, just before I turned eighteen years old, three bodies were found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi, after their disappearance the previous June. Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two guys from New York, were down south “agitating” by registering blacks to vote in Neshoba County. They, along with a local man, James Chaney, were apparently murdered by some members of the Ku Klux Klan who did not take kindly to the notion of blacks exercising the civil right to vote, nor those “stirring things up.”

No one was ever prosecuted under Mississippi law for their killings until last week. A federal jury had deadlocked in 1967 in the case against Edgar Ray Killen, “a former Ku Klux Klansman … part-time preacher and sawmill operator” (according to recent AP reports) but finally the 80-year-old Killen, in a wheelchair and with an oxygen tube up his nose, was convicted in state court of lesser charges of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years on each charge, consecutive, which amounts to a life sentence.

Killen’s misfortune was to have outlived most of the other suspects. Many folks celebrated Killen’s convictions last week, but they were based, not upon live testimony but mostly upon read statements of decedents that were admittedly not subject to cross-examination by his lawyers. One has to be concerned about the due-process implications of those convictions, but such concerns will be muted in the clamor of celebration. The horrific case is given credit for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

At the time of their deaths, I was one of those callow white southerners who wondered what the fuss was all about. Most FBI agents and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, were also openly indifferent to the plight of civil rights workers in the South. One wonders if he, too, did not feel they got what they were “asking for.” The movie, “Mississippi Burning” purports to credit FBI agents for diligent investigation and prosecution of early civil rights offenses, but it is a lie. Like myself at the time, the FBI and Hoover didn’t give a damn.

A lot of southern politicians have rankled under the South-focused enforcements of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act and have railed against them over the years. Even recently, the Mississippi Senators Thad Cochran and former Majority Leader Trent Lott refused to support an anti-lynching resolution that passed the US Senate. (Hang ‘em high—still.) However, those relatively modest legal changes were really good for the South and all of us inhabitants. We white folks in the South owe a lot of our current freedoms to the memories of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, and many others who died for our civil liberties (but not our sins).

During the 2004 presidential campaign, for some reason I was reminded of something that I had forgotten: the underlying basis for my strong dislike of Ronald Reagan, which I have felt all these years since he started his first campaign for President in the summer of 1980. I have found myself in a persistent lonely position. My first memories of Ronald Reagan were pleasant ones from his hosting of the “GE Theater” and of “Death Valley Days” on TV. I could easily have become a Reagan supporter like so many others drawn to his cheery, avuncular personality. After the dour, unfortunate presidency of Jimmy Carter, many voters were ready to kick him out of the White House and install the ever-optimistic Reagan. The fact that he is now dead further protects his popular legacy.

Some Republicans have been very adept at exploiting the underlying residual fears and resentments of many white Southerners regarding the true emancipation of blacks. The repugnant inactions of Senators Cochran and Lott are but one example. Democrats have piously resisted, for the most part, such exploitation, but many blacks feel “tokenized” by the Democratic Party to this day. Ronald Reagan was one of those politicians who did not worry himself much about residual memories and images. He soundly defeated Southerner Jimmy Carter in the South in 1980.

The thing that sealed my hostility toward Reagan was his early trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi in the summer of 1980 to basically raise Hell about the popular legal fiction of “states’ rights,” a red-meat issue for white Southerners. Reagan (and his handlers) had to know what the specific history of Philadelphia was, and I believe that is specifically why they went there, to assure white voters with a wink and a nod (Reagan’s famous signals) that he “understood.” What business would a former California governor otherwise have in a backwater like Philadelphia, Mississippi, except to say, “I’m one of you”?

Somehow I was reminded of all this 24 years later. I remembered that a US presidential candidate was openly sly and indifferent to the murderous horror of what he was seemingly endorsing. Mean, unambiguous messages were being sent, but the animosity toward Jimmy Carter was so intense, no one I knew cared. But I never really forgot how I felt about Reagan, to the point of nausea.

Edgar Ray Killen will enter the penitentiary, probably never to come out, except in a body-bag. We should remember that Ronald Reagan proved in the summer of 1980 that “politics ain’t bean-bag,” as his political nemesis Tip O’Neill supposedly said. Ronald Reagan proved that winning is everything, and that being president means never having to say you’re sorry.


POSTSCRIPT, 2007: I recall that W. C. Fields's tombstone epitaph supposedly reads:
"All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." I think he was not referring to Mississippi.

Koo-koo, ca-choo

(This piece was submitted to Richmond (Va.) Style Weekly in June of 2005. It did not run on the "Back Page" but was published on its Website around that time.)

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, MRS. ROBINSON?

(Paul Simon)

(Soaring from “The Graduate” to crashing and burning at “The Big Chill.”)

Long hair. Long hair was a totemic icon in the late 1960’s, for both guys and gals and a bitter point of contention for many others. My own hair was never very long, but I liked it on the ladies. Back then, long-haired Katherine (sp?) Ross was a lust-muffin for a lot of guys, and many of us were envious of Benjamin Braddock’s dilemma of lackluster courting of her character, Elaine Robinson, in “The Graduate” while having illicit, hot adultery with her perfectly-coiffed, “middle-aged” mama. (Dustin Hoffman should be so lucky. Nobody cared it was acting.) Most guys my age nurtured the fantasy of sex with the seductive 35-year-old Mrs. Robinson brilliantly rendered by Anne Bancroft. We never knew her given name; she was always “Mrs,” which lent even more mystery and attraction to the idea. Though some of us also fantasized about an encounter with the long-haired, plain-vanilla daughter, she was totally eclipsed by the mother. Katherine Ross has aged along with the rest of us, and now “Mrs. Robinson” has gone—forever.

Most of us lost our relative innocence with Benjamin in “The Graduate.” Our journey toward redemption with “The Big Chill” has been sidetracked in many ways. Those of us born in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s are truly middle-aged now, and we are as differentiated as the members of any other “generation,” notwithstanding the Baby-Boomer pigeonholes into which so many marketing types and journalists wish to cram us. Many of us arrested as our hardened, cynical selves exemplified by William Hurt’s character in “The Big Chill” without any such redemption. We hold ourselves up to the light and try to see the homogenized, media-generated Boomer archetype in ourselves, but to no avail. None of us ever got to make love to “Mrs. Robinson” or “Elaine” for real, and because they never really existed, that is probably a good thing. Yet, one thing we all pretty much share is the intensity of our aversion to getting older, and that seems to be what is driving the marketing bus. Most of us think of ourselves as forever young enough to walk in Benjamin Braddock’s flippers. Most of us aging guys who “graduated” with Benjamin Braddock in the late 1960’s will forever remember “Mrs. Robinson,” while few will remember “Elaine.” I shall always treasure the lust in my heart created by Anne Bancroft’s intense performance in “The Graduate.”
I was also quite interested by Anne Bancroft’s long-term marriage to the great funnyman, Mel Brooks. Somehow that fits: a “love totem” married to a comic genius; “Springtime For Hitler” meets “Mrs. Robinson,” proof that each had great tastes in the opposite sex. I truly envied Mr. Brooks his comedic achievements and his companionship to Ms. Bancroft.
So life passes by and we dote on our offspring; we deplore their failures and take pride in their accomplishments. We dread what the future will hold for them as we wondered about our own. We want to caution them against all the false turns and dead ends that we discovered (as if for the first time ever), but most of us should understand they will just have to find that out for themselves. We should warn them about the futility of following “role models” and the traps of fantasy romances, all to no avail.
Listening to NPR recently, I heard a clip of an interview with Ms. Bancroft mildly complaining about the preoccupation of many identifying her with “Mrs. Robinson.” I understand her annoyance, but I wanted her to understand what I was feeling also. And I never did get into “plastics,” as Mr. Robinson exhorted Benjamin to do.
So, with the untimely death of Anne Bancroft I shall simply say, with total affection that just about all of us, not just Jesus, will forever love “Mrs. Robinson” more that she will know.

Wo-wo-wo.

Freedom's Just Another Word ...

(This piece originally ran under the title, "Hallowed Ground" as a "Back Page" editorial in the Richmond (Va.) Style Weekly in late January of 2005.)

FREEDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD …

(Kris Kristofferson)

 Several Virginia legislators, including Delegate Bill Janis (R-Henrico, Goochland) propose[d--it failed] to amend Article 16 of the Declaration of Rights in the Constitution of Virginia with new language as shown in italics below.  The Virginia Declaration of Rights is very old and predates the First Amendment to the US Constitution and is also its legal predecessor.

Section 16. Free exercise of religion; no
establishment of religion.

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any
religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor
shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened
in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on
account of his religious opinions or belief; but all
men shall be free to profess and by argument to
maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and
the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect
their civil capacities.

To secure further the people’s right to acknowledge
their faith according to the dictates of conscience,
neither the Commonwealth nor its political
subdivisions shall establish any official religion,
but the people’s right to exercise their religious
beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property,
including public schools, shall not be infringed;
however, the Commonwealth and its political
subdivisions, including public school divisions, shall
not compose school prayers, nor require any person to
join in prayer or other religious activity.

And the General Assembly shall not prescribe any
religious test whatever, or confer any peculiar
privileges or advantages on any sect or denomination."

Delegate Janis has informed me that he intends to support the amendment to the Virginia Declaration of Rights.  There is absolutely no evidence that anyone’s “exercise of religious beliefs” has been “infringed.”  Delegate Janis, however, said  the following in a recent e-mail to me:

“From my seat on the floor of the House of Delegates directly beneath a marble plaque dedicated to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, I watch warily as many of my colleagues -- the very successors of Jefferson, Madison, Henry and Monroe -- enact statutes, regulations and laws that daily encroach on the free exercise clause, ostensibly in the very name of our shared heritage of religious liberty. They want a Commonwealth free from religion. ...”

In reply, I pointed out to Delegate Janis that he had not specified a single actual event of his colleagues “encroach[ing] on the free exercise clause. …” yet he had nothing further to say in that regard.  His irresponsible accusations without proof are dangerously inclined to provoke misunderstanding among the people about what is actually going on, a misunderstanding intended, in my opinion, to procure the approval of a totally unnecessary constitutional amendment.  It is simply untrue that individuals are being repressed in the personal expression of their religious faith, and of all places, Virginia has done the most to ensure such freedoms.  We lawyers are used to examining the “fine print” of documents to see what is really being said in them.  Consider the language of the proposed amendment:

“... but the people’s right to exercise their
religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public
property, including public schools, shall not be
infringed; ....”

As I wrote Delegate Janis:

"What does it mean “right to exercise ... shall not be infringed ...”?  You and I both know these words are not innocent words of art.  They are precise words designed to enlarge something that someone thinks is too restricted."

If, in fact, such “infringements” are happening, then writing more words won’t help.  There is no such “infringement” of an individual’s “exercise” of religious belief anywhere in the United States, unless we are talking about someone monopolizing public (tax-supported) property for particular religious purposes.  But if we allow such public religious monopolies, we are no longer dealing with an individual’s religious expression but instead trying to get the stamp of state approval on a certain religion and a certain exclusive religious viewpoint on state “turf.”  That is what is prohibited by both Virginia law and U.S. constitutional law, and Delegate Janis and his fellows are trying to change that.  They see the “free exercise” clause of the First Amendment as allowing the “oppressed” majority to freely impose its beliefs on others at taxpayer expense.  Religious people are free under current law to use bumper stickers, signs in front yards and vacant lots, billboards, tent revivals, radio and TV ads -- whatever is desired to promote their specific beliefs.  What they cannot legally do is use public property for such purposes. Why it is so important to anyone that public property (courtrooms, schools, town halls) and employees (teachers) be exclusively co-opted for such purposes?  All the various factions and beliefs cannot possibly be accommodated.  The proposed amendment is unnecessary unless we are trying to convert the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia into a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, then this amendment is the camel’s nose under the tent.

More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson anticipated that someone one day would try to change the delicate balance of religious liberty crafted in Virginia.  He was no stranger to religious extremism even then.  In his Statute For Religious Freedom he said:

“… to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of
no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do
declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the
natural rights of mankind; and that if any act shall
be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to
narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement
of natural right.”

All patriotic and devout Virginians should reject the amendment’s intrusive, dishonest foolishness for what it is.

VA. STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM--Thos. Jefferson (Recitation)

Va. Code § 57-1. Act for religious freedom recited.
The General Assembly, on January 16, 1786, passed an act in the following words:
"Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishment, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, have established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical, and even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors, for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though, indeed, those are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet, neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he, being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rules of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere, when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail, if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested or burthened, in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.
"And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that, therefore, to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind; and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."
(Code 1919, § 34; 1985, c. 73.)

Va. Constitution, Religious Liberty

Constitution of Virginia

ARTICLE I

Bill of Rights

A DECLARATION OF RIGHTS made by the good people of Virginia in the exercise of their sovereign powers, which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

* * *
Section 16. Free exercise of religion; no establishment of religion.

That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. And the General Assembly shall not prescribe any religious test whatever, or confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any sect or denomination, or pass any law requiring or authorizing any religious society, or the people of any district within this Commonwealth, to levy on themselves or others, any tax for the erection or repair of any house of public worship, or for the support of any church or ministry; but it shall be left free to every person to select his religious instructor, and to make for his support such private contract as he shall please.

Section 17. Construction of the Bill of Rights.

The rights enumerated in this Bill of Rights shall not be construed to limit other rights of the people not therein expressed.

Duh-mock-racy

The purest form of "Democracy" is a lynch mob, for everyone in attendance agrees upon the outcome except for the victim!

PLEDGE OF A GRIEVANCE

I pledge a grievance

For the flask

Of the urinated state in Amerika

And for the repression

For which it stands.

One nation,

Undercover,

Invisible,

With library surveillance

For all.

WRECK OF THE OL' BILL OF RIGHTS (Song)

©  2003, 2009, 2012  All rights reserved.

 (To the tune of, and with apologies to the author of,"The Wreck of the Ol' 97")

Well, they give us our orders nearby Northern Virginia, saying

"Folks, you're way behind the times.

This is not '68, this is 2012--

You must surrender your rights and not whine."

Well, they turned around and said to the Enabler-in-Chief,

"Shovel 'em some 'Hope’ and ‘Change'!

And when folks realize they've been had, but good,

Just ignore their screams for revenge!"

Well, it's a mighty tough job to save our rights,

Never meant by “Original Intent”! 

We get secret courts and we lose due process,

Real patriots should never repent!

We are going down the tubes, making hash of our freedoms,

It's no use to yell or to scream.

A horrible wreck; dissent has been throttled!

Pledge Allegiance, or be kicked off the "Team"!

Well, the word come down from Washington, DC

And this is how it read,

"The spirit of the 'Sixties and your precious Bill of Rights

Are a-rotting in the grave somewhere dead!"

Now all you folks, you'd better take this warning

From this time on, and learn:

Never speak harsh words 'bout dem gum'mit boys,

You may see "Gitmo" and never return!

Passion for Religious Liberty

PASSION FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

(Originally written 2004)

After "The Passion of The Christ" finally came out on DVD, I was obliged to watch it, as I had missed it in the theaters. The imposing soundtrack was great on my surround-sound system, but the Big Screen would have admittedly been better. I had made some snide comments in an e-mail about Mel Gibson's hustling of crucifixion "trinkets" with flyers in the DVD's, and a friend who was not pleased with my attitude challenged me to watch the movie, then discuss it with him. This review is the result of that viewing.

Mel Gibson supposedly re-released the movie in a watered-down version, ostensibly less violent, for the following Easter season. The opinions of those who saw it in 2003 are more interesting than the movie itself.

The movie is pretty good historical fiction. It moves well, the characters are well-developed even if a bit simplistic, the plot is well-paced, and the organizational structure is well-established. Although it embellishes the accounts in the Gospels rather substantially, the "filler" is credible and seems accurate as far as the brutality of what likely would happen. Some have criticized Gibson for making an excessively violent film, but I think it is correctly violent for its treatment of a violent subject. Crucifixion obviously occurred, and it was obviously very brutal. The movie is true to its subject matter. I am personally sorry that Gibson seems to feel a need to “sanitize” it.

The plot and detail track the King James Version Gospel accounts fairly accurately. I re-read those accounts several times prior to seeing the movie, and they are rather skimpy on detail. They seem written many years thereafter, as frequently alleged.

Despite the movie’s strengths, I remain bemused by Gibson's hustling of Crucifixion trinkets; there was a promotional flyer in the DVD case. He has a right to do anything he wants to make money with his film, and he has made a lot. Probably 65% of adult Virginians have seen the film at least once. BUT--it is the published reactions to the film that give me pause, and the subjectivity of the film's impact is troubling.

Most Christians who have seen the movie seem to profess a persecution complex, considering the viewer comments quoted in the various media. The Gospel accounts and this movie (and the other Crucifixion movies over the years) understandably generate righteous indignation about the treatment visited upon Jesus by the Romans, by the Pharisees, and by the crowd of Jews (mostly). Many Christians see themselves as superior to those who schemed to put Jesus on the cross. The movie also subtly portrays the crucifiers as plug-ugly while Jesus's friends are all fairly good-looking. I am parroting an observation I read much earlier, but I did get the same impression.

Christians, in reality, are more empowered now (in secular fashion) than since the Middle Ages, when the Roman Church WAS the government in most of Europe. There is afoot a subtle imposition of a generic Judeo-Christianity as the official religion for our “Christian nation.” George Bush got re-elected in part by pandering to this cause. His faith-based initiatives to fund overt religious programs at taxpayer expense are happening, like it or not. Dems have been vigorous with professions of their own religious beliefs in feeble defense against the dreaded “L-word.”

I remember when John Kennedy was pressed to prove he would NOT allow his personal religious beliefs to influence his presidential acts. We have come a long way, indeed. There is now a well-established class of political Pharisees. Most Republicans are now compliant, whereas they once defended separation of church and state. Neither major party is willing to go out on that limb, especially since Bill Clinton blurred those lines among Democrats.

Which brings me to what I learned from Gibson’s movie: the Crucifixion is not about Jews vs. Christians, Romans vs. Christians, or Christian Jews vs. Pharisees. It is about power and its misuse. Gibson's movie tells the time-honored tale of what human beings will do with unchecked power over other humans. Ironically (and I think this is totally unintended by Gibson), it makes a very strong case for the Bill of Rights, separation of church and state, a strong, independent judiciary, fearless lawyers, and a citizenry trained to be instinctively skeptical of what comes out of the mouths of political leaders. Today’s political Christians are definitely not submissively hanging on the cross. They are in the clamoring crowd yelling for revenge.

Gibson’s movie shows what ordinary folks will do when they gang up on those who cannot defend themselves. Defining blasphemy in others can be gratifying. Then one gets to punish the “others” because they do not comply with the rules and, by the way, the deity is just too busy to take care of bidness him/herself and would appreciate the help. So it goes.

That is what I got from Gibson’s “Passion.” Perhaps the passions of Easter Week will cause some to give thanks for the wonderful separationist principles of the First Amendment, which have protected individual believers especially well.

Brainwashing Allegiances

(September 17, 2005)
It first must be admitted that the EFFECT of a compulsory pledge of allegiance on kids in schools is probably benign. I doubt very seriously if any of them will be scarred for life (or otherwise). Being of the "Pledge Generation" myself as well as a former Boy Scout, I daresay that the best efforts employed to inculcate mindless loyalty in myself went eventually unrewarded. I think it was the stories about J. Edgar Hoover dressing up in short pinafores like a sexy (?) maid that finally undid my patriotism! The Trickster himself (Richard Nixon) also made a contribution.

Anyway, I would also agree that most of the litigation over the Pledge of Allegiance is a tempest in a teapot. A lot of folks who are opposed to compulsory pledges nevertheless are dismayed at Rev./Dr./Atty. Michael Newdow's foolishness. He is incompetent in the views of many, and he [has given] my side a really bad name.

HOWEVER--
Why is it so critical for so many that ALL public-schoolchildren be compelled by law (as they are in Va. under threat of criminal sanction) to stand and solemnly recite the Pledge (authored in the late 1800's by a SOCIALIST minister) as a test or proof of their loyalty to the USA? Why are all of the politicos and citizens so worked up about forcing compliance by schoolchildren?

That is why I have a problem with it--not the effect on children, but the notion that the government may compel human beings, with threat of jail or fine, to stand and pledge loyalty to a THING as a condition or proof of their duty as citizens. The age of the person so compelled is meaningless, except that it is a lot easier to coerce children into doing something in school than it is to coerce adults. Unfortunately, adult teachers are compelled by the same law to lead the children, and that is even more noxious, in my opinion.

The Pledge of Allegiance does NOT track Art. VI of the Constitution itself to provide for an oath to the IDEAS, the concepts of liberty expressed therein. No. It directs a pledge, a loyalty oath, really, to a piece of cloth, a "sacred" symbol (as decreed by a mere political majority), a "graven image" no more sacred than the Golden Calf around which the Israelites were reportedly dancing when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. The Pledge is NOT enshrined in the Constitution anywhere, and the Founders did not find it necessary to swear loyalty to a flag to get their amazing work done. How interesting that it has become a virtual necessity today!

That image stands for many different things, and it is a lot more terrifying and vicious a symbol to the survivors of Wounded Knee, My Lai, Ngo Gun Ri, Eye-rak, etc. It is no better (nor worse) than the Confederate battle flag nor the Swastika, DEPENDING UPON ONE'S PERSPECTIVE. And that is the problem, because it means a lot of different things to different people, whereas the Constitution's embrace of liberty and limted government is what all people are SUPPOSED to pledge loyalty to. Ideas, not things.

I think the compulsory pledge laws are designed, not for the children of True Believers and True Patriots, but perhaps for those children who are not getting the mindless loyalty message at home, who may, in fact, be taught by their parents that there are many shades of gray in "patriotism." It is upon THOSE children the pledge laws are focused. I think those laws are INTENDED to undermine independence of thought and differentiation. I think those laws are the equivalent of "love it or leave it." "My country, right or wrong." All utter nonsense.

Any child who dares to NOT say the Pledge will be hounded, harassed and ostracized. His/her patriotism, loyalty, honesty, parentage, etc. will all be called into question by at least his/her peers and maybe the teacher as well. And none of this is justified by (nor incorporated in) the powers delegated to any government to compel human behavior in certain circumstances. Loyalty oaths, ideological ("patriotic") indoctrination, religious experience, compulsory speech, NONE of these powers has been granted to any government in this country, and in MY opinion, to suggest otherwise is unpatriotic. I daresay that few would agree with me, but despite the "love it or leave it" mentality, it is my country, too, and I need not prove my "love" to anyone nor leave if I choose to disagree with conventional wisdom, that being one of the things that sets the USA apart from any other country and makes it great.

Schoolchildren, like all of us, are entitled to be protected from mendacious govt. efforts to enforce mindless ideological loyalty. It is not the effect on the children that is at stake, it is the govt. getting to big for its britches that is at stake.

Tax Cuts to the Quick

October 15, 2004)
I hold no brief for either "Dubya" Bush or John Kerry, but I ran my own spreadsheet on the tax bill a couple of years ago.  The thing got passed thru the Congress before I could send it out!  It was a rocketship piece of legislation, and no one at the time was discussing the very thing I figured out:

there is an almost straight-line progression with regard to the INCREASE in net after-tax income (comparing pre-change and post-change net incomes) as gross income increases.  In other words, and depending on whether the FICA rate is stated as 6.2% or 12.4%, low-income brackets barely broke even after the tax change or got a tiny increase in net after-tax income, while at a gross income of $250K, the net after-tax income increases by at least 11% over the pre-cut net income!!!

The comparison makes sense if one asks who now has more money in their pocket than before.

I ran the numbers in a spreadsheet for probable taxes and net after-tax income for families earning $20K, $40K, $60K, $80K, $100K, $150K and $250K.  I included EIC for the lowest bracket, and I made certain arbitrary assumptions, such as renting and no deductible mortgage for the two lowest brackets, figuring they had no means to buy a home.  I assumed mortgages on homes for the 3 middle brackets as a given percentage of gross income (I don't remember what it was) and I assumed a 2d-home mortgage for the two upper brackets at 80% of the first mortgage.  These itemized writeoffs give upper income-earners a big boost over the std. deduction for lower brackets.

I assumed the same numbers for basic costs like food, utilities, etc., and I assumed the same modest percentage for charitable donations.

I have argued that the full FICA rate of 12.4% should be fully assessed against wage earners since the employer-half share surreptitiously suppresses the ability or willingness of employers to hire workers at those levels.  All self-employed folks like myself must pay a full 12.4%, though we can deduct half of it as may an employer.

Thus, a family of four earning the national household median income of around $50K (both spouses working at $30K and $20K respectively) will likely be in a federal marginal bracket of 28%.  That, plus 12.4% of ALL earned income up to $82K (and paid with after-tax dollars since it is NOT deductible for income-tax purposes), with likely no cap. gains or dividends, totals a net marginal bracket of over 40%, not counting state taxes!  How does that square with a marginal bracket of no more than 35% for wealthier taxpayers on all "earned" income above $82K PLUS only 20% on cap. gains and 15% on dividends where FICA is inapplicable!!!

Working stiffs are getting hosed under the present tax laws, and NOBODY is talking about these patent inequities.  Most folks who cover the tax "beat" are incapable of coherently presenting the facts.  It is hard for lawyers to understand.  And what we wind up with is rhetoric about the poor vs. the rich, which is distracting and inexact.

Finally, why may the wealthier deduct TWO mortgage payments, even on their cabin cruiser or Winnebago or beach cottage, but Joe and Rayette Sixpack can't deduct their measely rent payments?

There is a lot of complexity to the tax changes, but nobody is learned enough to discuss them or even report on them.  I am really disgusted that no politician or journalist sat down and really thought about what in the Hell was going on.

[2/25/07--I can make available the 2002 spreadsheet file formatted in MS Works if desired.  It should be updated, but isn't.  The income data and brackets have since changed somewhat, but the core principles are the same.]

There is another totally undiscussed issue raised by the more recent [2004] tax changes reducing the bite on dividends: since dividends are now taxed at 15% and cap. gains are taxed at 20%, why would an investor want stock to hopefully appreciate (& be taxed at 20%) in lieu of being paid a dividend to be enjoyed now and taxed at only 15%?  They wouldn't!  And why would influential investors NOT call  up the senior managers within a company and DEMAND payment of dividends rather than having net income reinvested at the corporate level in R&D, etc. that could only inflate cap. gain profits if there were any benefit derived at all?

Why did no one discuss the possible negative effect of the change in dividend taxation on R&D and other reinvestment that has no immediately enjoyable tax benefit?

This change in dividend taxation will cause American businesses to eventually eat their seed corn, and we will rue the consequences one day.

The silence is deafening.

Joseph Campbell

(March 4, 2003)
In the spirit of "Carneval," I thought I would share my latest readings with you.

I just finished Joseph Campbell's book "Hero With A Thousand Faces" last night.  The first edition was published in 1949.  The second edition of 1968 purportedly made few changes, so it is remarkably prescient and/or radical in its pantheistic notions.  It was a hard book for me to follow, for I do not think it has much structure.  Campbell seems to ramble in his observations about the shared Hero myths among most cultures and religions.  He observes that the Hero's journey from virgin birth to innocent crucifixion (or death-torture) are shared events among many cultures other than Christianity, many of them much older than Christianity and obviously sources for that latter manifestation.

I had wanted to read this book ever since Bill Moyers interviewed Campbell before his death in the PBS series, "Power of Myth," years ago.  I recall watching Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, desperately trying to get Campbell to say that Christianity was the most real or true manifestation of the various legends, but Campbell would have none of it.  In fact, many of Campbell's observations about Christianity are quite negative and not at all reinforcing.  If I had to guess, I would say that Campbell was most closely allied with the practices of Buddhism.

Here follow some paraphrasing of the most interesting passages--quote marks omitted--my editorial "observations" in []:
In a footnote on p. 150, he distinguishes Buddhism of South Asia (Hinayana Buddhism--Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand)) from that of the north (Mahayana Buddhism).  Hinayana reveres the Buddha as a human hero,  a supreme saint and sage.  Mahayana regards the Buddha as a world savior, an incarnation of the universal principle of enlightenment.  He also distinguishes a Bodhisattva as a personage on the point of Buddhahood; the Hinayana views a Bodhisattva as an adept who will become a Buddha in a subsequent reincarnation; the Mahayana have a pantheon of many Boddhisattvas and many past and future Buddhas, all  of whom are manifestations of the one and only Adi-Buddha, the Primal Buddha, who is  suspended in a void of nonbeing, the ultimate state.

I knew there were various sects among Buddhists, but I did not know these distinctions.

On pp. 156-157, he writes about the influence of totem, tribal, racial and missionizing cults.  He points out that: 

human ego is not minimized by such influences but is, instead, enlarged, and the individual thus differentiates between his own and outsiders.  Instead of clearing his own heart, the zealot tries to clear the world.  The laws of the City of God are applied only to his in-group (tribe, church, nation, class, etc.) while the fire of a perpetual holy war is hurled (with a sense of pious service) against whatever uncircumcised, barbarian, heathen, native or alien people happen to be neighbors.  [Sounds quite familiar.]

Thus, the world is full of the resultant mutally contending bands of totem-, flag- or party-worshipers.  Even the so-called Christian nations--which are supposed to be following a World Redeemer--are better known to history for their colonial barbarity and internecine strife than for any practical display of that unconditioned love, synonymous with the effective conquest of ego, ego's world, and ego's tribal god, which was taught by their professed supreme Lord: "I say unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.  Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you....  Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful." (Luke 6:27-36)  Campbell then offers the following in a footnote:

        IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1682
To ye aged and beloved Mr. John Higginson:
There be now at sea a ship called WELCOME, which has on board 100 or more of the heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penn, who is the chief scamp, at the head of them.  The General Court has accordingly given sacred orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig PORPOISE, to waylay the said WELCOME slyly as near the Cape of Cod as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship of these people.  Much spoil can be made of selling the whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar and we shall not only do the Lord great good by punishing the wicked, but we shall make great good for His Minister and people.

Yours in the bowels of Christ,

COTTON MATHER
[Amen.]
Apparently, Master Huscott was unsuccessful, for W(illiam) Penn went on to found the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania.  I think there is a lot of Cotton Mather in Dubya, John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.  Most "good Christians" hereabouts remain predictably silent whenever these buggers open their mouths to criticize today's "heretics and malignants," and they most all viciously see to it that the secular law continues to prohibit and/or criminalize the suspected private lusts and behaviors of the excluded few.

Much later in the book (p. 248-249), Campbell gives examples of how important the role of myth has been in various cultures, but how it has been watered down and rendered lifeless as time has passed and civilizations have passed from a mythological to a secular point of view, citing Hellenistic Greeks (Mt. Olympus a Riviera of trite scandals and affairs), Imperial Romans (ancient gods reduced to mere civic patrons and household pets), Confucianism (a clutter of anecdotes about the sons and daughters of provincial officials who ... were elevated ... to the dignity of local gods).    Christ--Incarnation of the Logos and Redeemer of the World--is primarily a historical personage, a harmless country wise man of the semi-oriental past who preached a benign doctrine of "do as you would be done by," yet was executed as a criminal.  His death is read as a spendid lesson in integrity and fortitude.
Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.  The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky.  Furthermore, it is never difficult to demonstrate that as science and history mythology is absurd.  When a civilization begins to reinterpret its mythology in this way, the life goes out of it, temples become museums, and the link between the two perspectives is dissolved.  Such a blight has certainly descended on the Bible and on a great part of the Christian cult.

Ah, the oxymoron of "creation science."  Campbell died before that nonsense became a major part of White House philosophy among several administrations, but he could not have been more prescient.

Campbell tries to explain (p. 258) how: 

the human senses and logic interfere with the attainment of ultimate spiritual being via meditation and abandonment of the self in all its manifestations.  He maintains that rituals and myths are but a penultimate path toward the truth and openess beyond.  The ultimate is openess--that void, or being, beyond the categories (therefore not defined by either of the pair of opposites called "void" and "being"--only clues to the transcendency) into whichthe mind must plunge alone and be dissolved.  God and gods, Heaven, Hell, myths, Olympus, etc. are mere symbols to move and awaken the mind and be called past themselves.  In a footnote he says that in Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism, however, the personality of the divinity is taught to be final--which makes it comparatively difficult for the adherents to understand how one may go beyond the limitations of their own anthropomorphic divinity. [e.g., being created in the "image of God"--or is it God created in the image of man?].  The result has been, on the one hand, a general obfuscation of the symbols, and on the other, a god-ridden bigotry such as is unmatched elsewhere in the history of religion.  [Sounds like a take on our current Middle East entanglements.]

I won't restate it here, but he gives a useful recitation of the fundamentals of Jainism and Hinduism beginning on p. 262.  It is pretty tough going, but I found it interesting after reading it over a few times.

On p. 348 in a footnote he gives an interesting etymology of the divergence and spread of ancient Persian philosophy into India and beyond, evolving into Vedic beliefs, Buddhism, etc. in India and Sumero-Babylonian beliefs in ancient Persia.  He then says: 

the Persian beliefs were "reorganized" early in the First Millenium, BC by the Prophet Zarathustra to a strict dualism of good and evil.  He attributes an influence of this onto Hebrew beliefs and thereby Christianity.  He says it is a "radical departure" from the previous thought that good and evil originated with a single source.  [What about the notion of Satan as a fallen archangel, formerly of the Heavenly Host?  Mark Twain suggested that there were several minor falls prior to the Great Fall.]

There is a great recitation of the death of Buddha starting around p. 262 which I won't recite here.  I never knew any of that before, but I think it is interesting to note that the Buddha does not escape the reality of mortal death--a supernatural existence for him was simply not important to the extent and truth of the Buddha's enlightenment--his death was a necessary part of his journey to the next plane of Nonbeing.  It is truly celebrated.

Beginning on p. 368 there is a recitation from the Egyptian Book of the Dead of passage of the deceased's Osiris-spirit through the Underworld to the final resting place in the Great House in Heliopolis (the Sun?).  The mummified burial ritual is explained here as is the recognition of the unification of the divine hidden Soul and the universal being.  Great stuff.

Finally, Campbell has several observations (p. 387) about the preservation of myth among today's well-informed, well-educated people in the face of geographic, historical and scientific knowledge.  He says that: 

the hero-deed to be wrought is not today what it was in the century of Galileo.  The great coordinating myths are now known as lies.  Today no meaning is in the group--none in the world: all is in the individual.  But there the meaning is absoutely unconscious.  One does not know toward what one moves.  He says it is obvious we cannot turn back or away from modern accomplishments.  He says the problem is to make the modern world spiritually significant.  The national idea, with the flag as totem, is today an aggrandizer of the nursery ego, not the annihilator of an infantile situation.  Its parody-rituals of the parade ground serve the ends of the tyrant dragon, not the God in whom self-interest is annihilate.  The numerous saints of this anticult--namely the patriots whose ubiquitous photographs, draped with flags, serve as official icons--are precisely the local threshhold guardians ... who must be first conquered by the hero.  The great world religions have become associated with the causes of the factions, as instruments of propaganda and self-congratualation--even Buddhism.   Religious pantomime is hardly more today than a sanctimonious exercise for Sunday morning, whereas business ethics and patriotism stand for the remainder of the week.   Such a monkey-holiness is not what the functioning world requires....  [Can you say,  "Weasels of Mass Distraction"?  "Just War"?  "Enron"?  "Harken Energy"?  Halliburton"?  I knew you could!]

The idiotic public outcry against the recently affirmed decision by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to outlaw COERCED recitation of the "Pledge of Allegiance" by public-school students (and COERCED leading thereof by public-school teachers) is an example of this, I think.  Even the NY Times News Service has shamefully and incorrectly reported this decision as outlawing the primary recitation of the Pledge as most people misunderstand (and most national leaders willfully and deliberately and dishonestly mis-state) the decision.  Contrary to the deliberate lies of John Ashcroft and Dubya Bush, no one has been banned from truly voluntary participation in the Pledge of Allegiance which was, after all, a 19th-Century creation of the publisher of a socialist youth magazine!  The decision merely tracks the principles of the public-school-prayer decisions.


My purpose is transcribing all of this was not to inflict it onto anyone per se.  I wanted to record my own thoughts while they were fresh in my memory, and so I have.  But, I would like to hear from anyone who has also read this book and perhaps gets a different take on things than I have.  Joseph Campbell was quite an original thinker for his time and place; it is amazing that there has not been a pillorying of his thoughts and writings since his death, given the current climate.  Perhaps his death is more effectively magnified by being ignored.  I am sure very few True Believers even saw the PBS series, much less has any opinion about Campbell.  Perhaps they were too busy being "saved" by watching the "700 Club" instead.