. . . the gory details of behind-the-scenes politics at the highest level of The U.S. government gives one pause. Granted, I was just a kid when these people were active, but it is absolutely mind-boggling to learn of the great lengths to which some will go in the interest of power. And money, for that matter, although my current reading material is about power while the sub-plot of 'money can easily buy power' (a fact of which our current conservative supreme court justices are blissfully unaware) is all too present. And this is really nothing new to our times, my lifetime or recent history. As long as history has been recorded the very same has been true. It makes me quite content with my own principles. I will never be rich (financially) nor powerful (politically), but I will always be honest and true to myself and in any and all human interactions in which I participate. Really!
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)
My latest solo release, '2014', can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
(from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/13/pope-francis-mafia-target-corruption)
". . . Prosecutor says pope's attempt to bring transparency to Vatican is making mobsters agitated. Pope Francis's crusade against corruption has made him a target for Italy's all-powerful mafia clans, a leading anti-mob prosecutor has warned.
Nicola Gratteri, who has battled Calabria's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis's attempt to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who do business with corrupt prelates "nervous and agitated".
He told the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano: "Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican.
"If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."
Francis, who has called for "a poor church", has backed reform at the Vatican's bank, which has been suspected for years of being a channel for the laundering of mob profits. This week police impounded a luxury hotel on Rome's Janiculum hill – formerly a monastery – which the 'Ndrangheta allegedly purchased from a religious order.
In a fiery sermon on Monday, Francis railed against corruption and quoted the bible's advice that practitioners be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck. . ."
(from http://mentalfloss.com/article/30140/acdc-tesla%E2%80%93edison-feud#ixzz2cKrbbFpN)
". . . Edison’s least favorite of Tesla’s “impractical” ideas was the concept of using alternating current (AC) technology to bring electricity to the people. Edison insisted that his own direct current (DC) system was superior, in that it maintained a lower voltage from power station to consumer, and was, therefore, safer. But AC technology, which allows the flow of energy to periodically change direction, is more practical for transmitting massive quantities of energy, as is required by a large city, or hub of industry, say. At the time, DC technology only allowed for a power grid with a one-mile radius from the power source. The conflict between the two methods and their masters came to be known as the War of Currents, forever immortalized by the band AC/DC.
Tesla insisted that he could increase the efficiency of Edison’s prototypical dynamos, and eventually wore down Edison enough to let him try. Edison, Tesla later claimed, even promised him $50,000 if he succeeded. Tesla worked around the clock for several months and made a great deal of progress. When he demanded his reward, Edison claimed the offer was a joke, saying, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Edison offered a $10/week raise, instead. Ever prideful, Tesla quit, and spent the next few months picking up odd jobs across New York City. Nikola Tesla: ditch digger. . . "
(from The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic by John Shelby Spong)
". . . How difficult it is for religious people to embrace an unbounded God. We have through our history sought to define God as a particular being, albeit one possessing supernatural power. With God defined as a being, we then had to locate God in a place. Ultimately that place was thought to be somewhere above the sky in a three-tiered universe. Then we had to build for this God earthly dwelling places that we called "houses of worship."
Next, we began to assert that God's very words were captured in the words of our sacred scriptures. Then we convinced ourselves that God's very nature could be defined in our creeds, doctrines and dogmas. We then built mythologies around each of these human creations, assuring ourselves that God was content to live within our developed theological and liturgical limits.
When these "sacred idols" began to be destroyed by the expansion of human knowledge, we acted as if God had died. The God who lived above the sky was rendered homeless when we began to embrace the infinity of space; yet we continued to address God as "our Father who art in heaven." Next, the scriptures, which we once thought of as God's literal words, began to be understood as tribal tales and as human interpretations; but when we read then in public worship, we still asserted that "this is the word of the Lord." Then the creeds, the doctrines and the dogmas-which, we asserted, had captured God's revelation-began to be understood as political and cultural compromises; but we, in our fear, had in the past invested these human forms with such authority that those who questioned them were burned at the stake as heretics, and we claimed the word "orthodox" for our own human formulations. . ."
. . . that the splendid job I was doing at my new place of employment merited no particular praise or attention but was simply the expected status quo. Trouble was, I could clearly see that status quo was not accomplished equitably. Not only was the level of accomplishment in the execution of the tasks at hand not as high as my own, but there were various and multiple agenda of certain individuals being skillfully carried out in addition management uneducated and inept yet power-hungry and self-preserving. Most of the above, as well, were carried out with the most scrupulous of hypocrisy.
My naive, childish perception of good humanity bubble had been burst.
What
do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)
"We are not dealing with a negative as well as a positive Power—not two
powers but one; a power that sees neither good nor evil as we see it. It
knows only that it is all, and since it is all, it creates whatever is
given it. From our limited standpoint we often think of good and evil;
not realizing that, as yet, we do not know the one from the other. What
we call good today, we may call evil tomorrow, and what we think to be
evil today, we may tomorrow proclaim as the greatest good we have known.
Not so with the Great Universal Power of Mind; It sees only Itself and
Its infinite ability to create. .
. . . The law is no respecter of persons and will bring good or evil to any, according to his use or misuse of it. . . "
What
do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
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newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE
'. . .All we have, as Vaclav Havel writes, is our own powerlessness. And
that powerlessness is our strength. The survival of the movement depends
on embracing this powerlessness. It depends on two of our most
important assets—utter and complete transparency and a rigid adherence
to nonviolence, including respect for private property. This permits us,
as Havel puts it in his 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless,” to live in truth. And
by living in truth we expose a corrupt corporate state that perpetrates
lies and lives in deceit. Havel, who would later become the first president of the Czech
Republic, in the essay writes a reflection on the mind of a
greengrocer who, as instructed, puts up a poster “among the onions and
carrots” that reads: “Workers of the World Unite!” The poster is
displayed partly out of habit, partly because everyone else does it, and
partly out of fear of the consequences for not following the rules. The
greengrocer would not, Havel writes, display a poster saying: “I am
afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.” And here is the
difference between the terror of a Josef Stalin or an Adolf Hitler and
the collective charade between the rulers and the ruled that by the
1970s had gripped Czechoslovakia.
Those who do not carve out spaces separate from the state and its
systems of power, those who cannot find room to become autonomous, or
who do not “live in truth,” inevitably become compromised. In Havel’s
words, they “are the system.” The Occupy movement, by naming corporate
power and refusing to compromise with it, by forming alternative systems
of community and society, embodies Havel’s call to “live in truth.” It
does not appeal to the systems of control, and for this reason it is a
genuine threat to the corporate state.
Occupy’s most powerful asset is that it articulates this truth. And this
truth is understood by the mainstream, the 99 percent. . . "
What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
Download
your
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ANOTHER SHOT
by Ray
Jozwiak
