American Dream
Redux Rendezvous II
02/June/2010 14:25 Filed in: Weekly
Column
Negative metaphors, metaphors everywhere, and all
of them seem to work. Into such a simplistic
worldly description, we continue treading water
this week. Just like where do we begin?
News that the United States is about to become a model of a failing European state are grossly optimistic or pessimistic, depending upon your point of view. The reason behind all of this hoopla is simply the fact that the vast majority of the American people are unwilling to play the game. The importance of this gaming the people punditry is being broadcast into our homes and offices by those needing to sell ideas, but also products deemed to make the world better.
If you seriously look beyond the hype and hyperbole however, you see that life goes on. Furthermore a realistic look at the present vibrantly illustrates, that in a realistic context the present isn’t all that bad, and generally Americans may not control the future, but they still have a faith in the God who does. In that context, the plans by the mice who say they know what they are doing in that land back where the sun rises, doesn’t seem to relate to the men and women who daily go about their lives out here in the hinterland.
So in that context of American development, we all have truly become a nation of Native Americans, some of them we call Indians, in that respect the Canadian term First Nations, seems more appropriate, but only on the surface of the current progressive spin. A deeper look shows that the old concept of unity in diversity, or “Out of Many, One,” is still very appropriate. The reality is if the immigrants to these United States had wanted to be and remain Europeans, or Asians, Latin Americans, or even Africans, they could have stayed where they were, even if they died trying, or returned later.
The continents we call the Americas were the last place that people settled and we are all immigrants to these shores, with the time frame measured in thousands of years at most, no matter how you spin the origin.
On Memorial Day I had the opportunity that I had wanted to do for a very long time, that was to attend the service at a church in Sherman, about seven miles northeast of the town a Wilbur (population 914 in 2000). Sherman today consists of a small church, built in 1888, an old grange hall, now converted into a storage shed, one singlewide manufactured home, a couple of other farms within line of site, and a cemetery.
Read More...
News that the United States is about to become a model of a failing European state are grossly optimistic or pessimistic, depending upon your point of view. The reason behind all of this hoopla is simply the fact that the vast majority of the American people are unwilling to play the game. The importance of this gaming the people punditry is being broadcast into our homes and offices by those needing to sell ideas, but also products deemed to make the world better.
If you seriously look beyond the hype and hyperbole however, you see that life goes on. Furthermore a realistic look at the present vibrantly illustrates, that in a realistic context the present isn’t all that bad, and generally Americans may not control the future, but they still have a faith in the God who does. In that context, the plans by the mice who say they know what they are doing in that land back where the sun rises, doesn’t seem to relate to the men and women who daily go about their lives out here in the hinterland.
So in that context of American development, we all have truly become a nation of Native Americans, some of them we call Indians, in that respect the Canadian term First Nations, seems more appropriate, but only on the surface of the current progressive spin. A deeper look shows that the old concept of unity in diversity, or “Out of Many, One,” is still very appropriate. The reality is if the immigrants to these United States had wanted to be and remain Europeans, or Asians, Latin Americans, or even Africans, they could have stayed where they were, even if they died trying, or returned later.
The continents we call the Americas were the last place that people settled and we are all immigrants to these shores, with the time frame measured in thousands of years at most, no matter how you spin the origin.
On Memorial Day I had the opportunity that I had wanted to do for a very long time, that was to attend the service at a church in Sherman, about seven miles northeast of the town a Wilbur (population 914 in 2000). Sherman today consists of a small church, built in 1888, an old grange hall, now converted into a storage shed, one singlewide manufactured home, a couple of other farms within line of site, and a cemetery.
Read More...
Why Me? The American Miracle
03/March/2010 09:35 Filed in: Weekly
Column
There is a historical interest article beginning to
make its rounds this week delineating a comparison
between the ship survivors on the Titanic and the
Lusitania. Probably the most interesting in the
free literature is the
Discovery article, but for those with ten
dollars to spare you can get the original from the
National Academy of Sciences.
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...
So far, we might conclude the ships of nation states around the world are economically in a potentially perilous position of sinking. From our leadership we hear that such a catastrophe is impossible. So too were the passengers on the Titanic until that pesky natural iceberg forever altered their reality. Then just three years later, no one on the Lusitania believed that a man caused disaster, the small German u-boat torpedo, could sink the ship in just 18 minutes.
The problem with political leadership is that they have a vested interest in projecting the past into a rosy future. If our ship had a hole in it, we have now by our own ingenuity and skills fixed the problem and we are again full speed ahead. Of course if some might ask the question, “Where are we going?” they are met with scorn and ridicule for being a conspiracy theorist, or a primitive common human, not highly evolved to understand the pleasures of a fantastic ocean voyage.
At Wonder Springs we speak a lot about the world being afloat on an ocean of non-energetic debt money. Just as in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” there is money, money everywhere, but none of it can you drink. Of course we are told that if we just have hope, someday a few drops of good money will trickle down to us, but just as with seawater, it is undrinkable and the salinity is such that it can’t be used to grow anything, or abstractly create wealth.
Read More...