(from God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens)
". . .Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion. . ."
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AMBIENCE & WINE
Where's the cheer
That I should feel
Inside my heart
This time of year
While all the
Televisions
Newspapers
And billboards
Count the shopping days
For me
It appears
To me that
I'm the only one
Who doesn't see
The fine and natural
Attraction to what seems
Part race
Part obstacle course
I believe
Long ago I leaned that we
Celebrate this season
Anniversary of the birth
Of someone named Jesus
Through the years
How my perception of it all
Has gone awry
When so much
Manufactured hype
And pressurized requirements
Make it all seem a lie
How I wish
Since it's the
Time of year that
Dreams can come alive
That you and I
See one November when
Without the retail forecasting
Some peace on earth
Goodwill to all arrives
CHEER(from
Black, & White Then Back due April 2013)
Very soon, a tremendous number of the earth's population will observe a 'celebration' of the birth of a possibly historical Palestinian Jew over 2,000 years ago, to whom the origin of a mega-religious institution (and philosophy) is attributed. This person, whether truly historical or not, totally human or some combination of spiritual, human, super-human, affected all humanity in the civilized (or semi-civilized) world that followed in some way or another.
What better way to celebrate this occasion than to . . . go shopping?????!!!!!!
(from NBC News.com)
". . . To those who spend the Friday following Thanksgiving doing things like spending time with family, or working, or volunteering, or attempting to construct the world's greatest turkey leftover sandwich, Black Friday devotees are a mystery. Yes, an estimated 147 million Americans plan to go shopping sometime this weekend, according the National Retail Federation. But who are these people, what's the psychology driving them to rise before dawn in pursuit of a deal -- and have they really never heard of online shopping?
"The deals are part of it, but I don't think it's the bigger piece of it," says Jane Thomas, a professor of marketing at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. "This is the family ritual, as much as eating turkey and dressing is -- it's going shopping as the start of the holiday season together.". . . "
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. . . and although I've been called a turkey before (and even worse things, truth be told), the annual feast of thanks is now over and it's time to give yourself a break. So here's your invitation to kick back, take it easy, have some very fine cuisine and enjoy. . .
Ray Jozwiak
Gonzo Piano
Friday November 23 @ 6:00PM
at Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue, Towson, MD 21286
410-337-5282
http://bandcbistro.com/
Really. You deserve it. . .
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I think sometimes, probably more so during the year-end holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years for all of the 'religiously-persecuted') that we as a species have arrived at a particularly crucial point in our development.
On the one hand, the more educated and sophisticated we become, the greater our preoccupation with our self-realization. As this takes place, we find ourselves less involved with the intricacies of our extended families. In fact, sometimes we find that while we love the members of our extended family we don't, in truth, like them as much as other, more-similarly (within the realms of intellectual, artistic, political, and humanitarian areas) disposed people.
So as we attain greater freedom, movement, awareness and development, we lose the commitment, duty, obligation to care for our family members who, in tribal times long gone, we would have spent our entire lives with- day in and day out.
I don't know what or where the happy medium between these two extremes exists. I most certainly understand and appreciate the value of existence at both ends of this spectrum.
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Instead of being gushingly trite, and predictably thankful this holiday time, (not because I don't appreciate many things, but as a result my life's learning to date and my current philosophy, I sense no 'being' [other than many humans in my life] to whom I need to offer thanks) I've decided to be a truly modern, state-of-the-art American and instead, ponder some things that I don't, but wish I DID have.
More money, an opportunity to pursue my passion (music) for a living, time (to devote to all previously listed items and to humanitarian causes).
It's really not that long a list. But it's a BIG list.
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(Excerpt from The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago
and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage_New.aspx?isbn=9780374531508)
". . . John Edwards, the Democratic party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that “your future is our future” and said that the bond between the United States and Israel “will never be broken.” Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being “in a country I love with people I love” and, aware of Israel’s deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that “it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!” Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that “when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise,” while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that “Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory.” Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this “moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel . . . what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what’s right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism.” One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian “suffering” at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. . . "
(from http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12821-elites-will-make-gazans-of-us-all)
". . . Because it has the power to do so, Israel—as does the United States—flouts international law to keep a subject population in misery. The continued presence of Israeli occupation forces defies nearly a hundred U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for them to withdraw. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, established in June 2007, is a brutal form of collective punishment that violates Article 33 of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention, which set up rules for the "Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War." The blockade has turned Gaza into a sliver of hell, an Israeli-administered ghetto where thousands have died, including the 1,400 civilians killed in the Israeli incursion of 2008. With 95 percent of factories shut down, Palestinian industry has virtually ceased functioning. The remaining 5 percent operate at 25 to 50 percent capacity. Even the fishing industry is moribund. Israel refuses to let fishermen travel more than three miles from the coastline, and within the fishing zone boats frequently come under Israeli fire. The Israeli border patrols have seized 35 percent of the agricultural land in Gaza for a buffer zone. The collapsing infrastructure and Israeli seizure of aquifers mean that in many refugee camps, such as Khan Yunis, there is no running water. UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) estimates that 80 percent of all Gazans now rely on food aid. And the claim of Israeli self-defense belies the fact that it is Israel that maintains an illegal occupation and violates international law by carrying out collective punishment of Palestinians. It is Israel that chose to escalate the violence when during an incursion into Gaza earlier this month its forces fatally shot a 13-year-old boy. As the world breaks down, this becomes the new paradigm—modern warlords awash in terrifying technologies and weapons murdering whole peoples. . . "
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