So what's the karmic deal yo?

Just how does a particular religious system influence people's behavior? Are Christians better than others? more moral, more ethical, somehow more virtuous? Are they the salt of the earth? You'd think so but to give a perfectly honest answer in my long experience......NO, uh-uh. For example to put it in the work context again I've had my share of Christian bosses, some Catholic bosses. Many were underhanded, screwed the worker, weren't fair and as for other Christians they gossip, backstab, throw others under the bus with the best of them. Not an indictment of Christianity btw since I'm a Christian myself but why this contradiction? I'm going to heavily paraphrase from a point made over at Lista's, gonna do some major-league spinning myself here but the idea of you can keep on sinning and just keep going to Christ who will forgive you over and over and over again...I think the average Christian feeling liberated from the whole karmic cycle feels he or she can do what they want and get forgiven later. OK maybe that's an oversimplication but to paraphrase from St. Augustine "make me not gossip Lord or throw other people under the bus but not yet." Many Christians behave like the rest of the lot and then take their Souls to the cleaners on Sunday as my brother likes to say. The Christian/Catholic running the department now, doesn't strike me as being overly ethical, maybe the Church is more a social watering-hole......Perhaps the karmic believers are better people, live better lives because karma is so much more demanding and unforgiving and yes fear-inspiring. Pope Benedict would do well to address the issue again as he's addressed karma in the past and is well familiar with the topic. I believe it was when he was Cardinal he made the point that the beauty of Christianity is that Christ enables you to break free from the harsh and never-ending cycle of karma, that's the positive aspect but on the downside imo is the general character of today's Christian. The Pope would do well to talk up the issue again this time in the context of you people are misapplying Christ's Message and the Gospel if you think you can just go on sinning and......but is karma real? does it actually operate in this life in the here and now and not just in lives to come? A stronger variation of the biblical you reap what you sow I've seen some evidence. I'd love to hear examples here from the resident bloggers who are big on karma. As a rule I generally don't blog about presidential vacations, God knows they all take them so I just wanted to go with a karmic thrust today:)

Are most people selfish?

There are some very interesting discussions going on at Lista's about karma and I will be expanding on some of the points like, oh I don't know tomorrow or beginning of next week but the topic of selfishness is too broad here. Are most people selfish? Since we spend so much time at work I'll put it in my usual context of the workplace (after 1,000 posts it's still a tick on my ass). Dunno if my place is a microcosm, God I hope not! but I've come to the conclusion that most folks are selfish. Now they're not viciously selfish, they come across as quite nice. They don't have fangs and will buy you a cup of coffee but when push comes to shove their interests come first. Take vacation time. We have a problem going on right now where everybody wants to take their vacations at the same time and we're not talking a week off here and there but like a month devoted to European travel alone. Now back in the day I still remember a system, a kind of unwritten code that you took turns, you went and then he went and then she went when Bob got back and if you had to sacrifice for the good of the Company by pushing up your much-looked-forward-to vacation by a week or two well that just showed what kind of a sterling guy or gal you were. Now it's like this isn't even an afterthought and I've spotted another trendoid and it has to do with new hires. Now many of these monstrous jaunts, random globetrekking are being taken by the fairly new employee, the recently hired and it's not that they're getting paid for all this free time but that's not the point. It's still leisure time and the department runs less effectively due to their prolonged absences, the burden then being shifted onto the few who remain like moi. I asked a co-worker about this, new workers pushing for and getting massive time off when they haven't even put in a year yet. I queried him well is it a part of some contract, some kind of secret handshake, an overly generous boss, some spit the love juice out from under the table kind of a deal but he said no, that they just have their minds set on going is all, doesn't matter if they started a new job. Of course back in the day when you were lucky enough to get hired for a spanking new job you would happily wait and chug along until you qualified for at least one full week of paid vacation time and then it would properly accrue over time but this selfishness thing is cutting across all age and ethnic groups, spilling over all kinds of boundaries and it's not just the young, an easy enough group to pick on although I don't like working with them either. Calling Out Sick, that's another one. Now I don't do it anymore but the few times I did in the past I at least chose a day when it would have the least impact, made sure there were enough people on staff. Not anymore, I've seen people simply call out sick even if the whole day depended on their presence and not a twinge of guilt upon their return. The selfishness thing is kind of disturbing, the blitheness with which it's practiced and goes straight to our character deficit in this country. Since this ultimately ties into the whole karma thing I'll be working on that one next. As I said to my friend once I think we were born in the wrong era:)

If Obama were Bush......

You see this is why I REALLY hate politics, folks can't admit the obvious. Let's say everything that's happening under Obama's term now happened to Bush, the 9-9.2% jobless rate, the historic downgrading of our credit, entering into yet another recession (actually in my view the old recession never really ended just that the "experts" pronounced that we were out of it, remember that one?), the failure of our mission in Libya however you define it, our Syria non-policy, troop surges in Afghanistan and the two wars never really ending...well I daresay liberals would most assuredly hold Bush responsible, the buck stops with him and that's right and proper (disagree with me if you like but I'm consistent). OK let's just focus on the unemployment rate and that historic because it never happened before S&P downgrading of our credit rating since those are the two biggies here the fact remains that this happened on Obama's watch just like if they happened on Bush's watch it would be fair to say there was a lack of leadership. You see it's like this, let's say you have a store manager or a branch manager or even a company president. Charles is a swell guy, quite popular, chats with the workers around the coffee machine every morning, is good for morale, honors their birthdays when the time comes and all the other positive stuff but some of the workers aren't doing the right thing, some of the department heads ain't doing the right thing either. The place isn't functioning quite right, profits are down, maybe you can't put your finger on it but would it be fair to hold Charlie personally responsible? YES, a 1,000X yes because when anything bad happens in a business or government entity or a religious institution (e.g. the Church sex abuse scandals) the buck has to stop with someone and that someone is the head, it happened on his or her watch, he or she didn't lead, didn't have oversight. Democrats like John Kerry can call it the Tea Party downgrade if they like but that doesn't change the fact that the S&P action happened on Obama's watch and no other president's watch. What I see in President Obama is a lack of leadership, a failure to take personal responsibility and they're not the qualities and virtues I look for in a leader. What I also see is an incestuous relationship with Hollywood. Now Sony Studios which has been the biggest booster of Obama in Hollywood has a movie in the works about the raid that killed bin Laden (of course the events of that day are highly questionable but that's another blog for another day so for now just to make a point). Rep. Peter King is rightly indignant about all the leaking of classified information that's going into the making of the movie but here's the kicker, it's due to be released to the general public about a month before the 2012 elections. I've rambled on long enough but the death of bin Laden doesn't somehow magically delete the S&P downgrade or create millions of new jobs. I think race is a factor too. We all want the nation's first black president to be a success, to be more than a footnote in History or a piece of trivia in an almanac but it ain't working out that way. It's just way past time for liberals to man up and admit the obvious:)

Our Syria non-policy

What if we had gone after Syrian president/dictator Bashar al-Assad instead of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy? well about 2,000 Syrian protesters might still be alive today. What if we didn't have wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment maybe we could have gone after BOTH. Maybe if we didn't get involved in any of this mishegas we could devote full-time to the escalating crisis in Somalia, a country without a functioning government where 30,000 children have died from cholera there in just the last 3 months alone in this the land of Famine and Drought. The Arab Spring has turned into the long hot summer. We preferred to do business with Assad instead, Hillary even referred to him as a "reformer" not that long ago but here's a great way to cut federal spending and put a dent in the debt and deficit at the same time -- STOP ALL WARS! Just sayin'. BTW has "just sayin'" become an annoying catch phrase yet? just sayin':)

Life's little miseries

(TMI Disclaimer: If you don't like scatological commentary please turn the page. If u post thanx 4 sharing why did you just read the whole thing?) You see the thing about Port-o-Sans -- there are two on the South County Trail, one at Great Hunger Memorial Park in Ardsley which I still refer to as Woodlands and the other at the Farragut Ave. parking lot at the Hastings-on-the-Hudson end. Now for me to use a Port-o-San for the other thing it has to be Absolutely Necessary, some kind of an apocalyptic emergency, Omega Man with the trots and so yesterday sparing the reader the more graphic details a critical decision was rendered that at the end of my walk I would bite the bullet. There exists a Murphy's Law of Port-o-Sans, it's a cosmic mechanism that doesn't vary and that is that somebody always took a dump before you got there. Doesn't matter if the tank guy just came by a half hour before to clean the place out and hose it down and in this case that same tank guy ain't coming 'til next Tuesday and yesterday was Thursday. At this point due to the condition of the facility ANOTHER critical decision was rendered to wait for the public library to open at 10:00, geez only about 40 minutes away so this is where your meditative powers and use of nice pleasant imagery like babbling brooks comes into heavy play. Now I've used enough public facilities in my lifetime to come to the conclusion that this nation ain't digesting its food right, it's a public health concern and just this morning I checked out the other Port-o-San at Farragut out of a kind of perverse curiosity and same deal. Someone shellshocked by Life, the same jogger working off a bad divorce? Ah what job stress hath wrought, what it's done to our once fine country and they can't pay this tank guy enough imo (Spanish guy, go figure). Basic potty training is the foundation of Civilization and we're obviously a country in decline. When my friend worked at Pathmark in dairy I'd meet him there every once in a while towards the end of his shift to go out and had to go once, nothing serious mind you so he showed me through the breakroom and on to the Men's Room. Let's just say all three stalls were a federal disaster area and I asked him wha'happened? and he said one of the workers wasn't feeling good. OK I get it, I understand but how'd the stuff get on the walls? I honestly don't know how the gays do it, God bless 'em. The rest stop at the train depot at White Plains, pretty gangster. Ever have a bird crap on your head? Is that supposed to bring good luck?

Personality pools

You really do work with a garden-variety of people but I think the reason I've never fit into any of the cliques at work is I operate under a kind of inverse principle from everyone else: sometimes I'll dislike other people whom others like and conversely I'll like others who are disliked. Sets me at odds right off the bat. The majority of people I've worked with over the years seem OK but when I didn't like someone sometimes it was on a visceral, even existential level (Saty chalks this up to karmic crap in past lifetimes and it's an interesting theory). More likely of the ones I didn't like despite their popularity I saw them as somehow being phony and conniving or some other group of strong negatives. I judge character with other criteria besides popularity and it's like sometimes they know it, they can sense it and there's a vibe in the air and they know that you know you're on to them and whatever bullshit game they're playing. On the other hand back in the day we once had this district manager who was strongly and I mean strongly disliked and there was practically a consensus about him. Prick was one of the nicer terms used and yet I liked him and said to a co-worker once that you may disagree with him at times but what I like about him is he shows passion for his job, his position, takes it seriously and has a good knowledge of his district and what needs to be done. Most DM's I've encountered over the years come across as simply bland titleholders who are more interested in teeing off on a nice day than learning the ropes but this DM was different and had a kind of youthful enthusiasm for the job. Now my lady boss at the time when everyone learned he was being reassigned to our region was clearly perturbed, said he's a pain in the ass and other choice words and yet I felt like saying to her some of us feel about you the way you feel about him. The best workers I"ve worked with tend to fall into the ethnic categories of Latinos and Asians. I don't even care if the Latinos aren't full citizens as they say but they work their asses off and the phrase work like a Mexican came into widespread use for a reason. Asians are quiet and take orders without bitching and churn out the work product too and this goes back to their strict upbringings and the installation of values like appreciating being here in America, working and studying hard and it shows and they're moral too btw, don't go throwing other people under the bus. Getting back to the DM I think the reason why he grated so much is he just wanted people to do a little work is all and do the right thing and yet I had a manager once, an inveterate asshole who gave me a hard time but clearly won in the popularity sweepstakes. Tomorrow I have to say something about Port-o-Sans:)

Bad teachers or just bad kids?

I was never that caught up in the whole education debate in this country, not that I don't care but in the conservative worldview if I understand it correctly and I think I do there are an awful lot of bad teachers in the public schools and so if we just got rid of teacher tenure everything would be hunky-dory. In fact this is one issue they really get their dander up about, endless columns to the point where I just cruise them and turn the page but dunno man, maybe the problem is with the Kids. In our discussion of utterly boring and meaningless jobs Saty had this to say: "Quite a lot of jobs could be made more interesting by the motivation and willingness of the person doing it to make it more interesting." Just substitute the word class for jobs and student instead of person and the same point applies to education. What's a teacher to do with a class full of asshole kids, fidgety brats who won't sit still and aren't willing to learn? I started out very early in the public school system but then my folks switched me over to private but out of all those years I don't really recall too many truly bad teachers. Maybe a few were too boring and dry for my tastes and could have been better but to hear conservatives tell the tale......Mayor Bloomberg's multimillion dollar Black and Latino Initiative in NYC has as a key component teaching the young'ens all about Sex, rubber instructions, things like that but if I may borrow from the soapster here it is not even the primary obligation of the State to educate your kid. It certainly isn't to teach them something Mom and Dad should be teaching them anyway and I say teach 'em a trade, how to make money, how to get a job. How is learning about Mike and Fred adopting a kid gonna pay the bills down the road? Now Mayor Bloomberg somehow got the law changed in the City so he could run for a third term and we get this stuff for his finale and pedestrian plazas where cars used to be and bike lanes nobody really uses and he even wants to have food grade inspections for New York's trademark fast food vendors because in his words if he's buying a hot dog he wants to know whether the guy washed his hands first. Maybe you want one of those giant salted pretzels and Moussa just took a dump. I just shut my mind off to it:)

Wasted time

A co-worker and I were having this discussion last night. Take the most boring, unsatisfying and mundane job you can think of, fill in blank but we can start with armpit sniffer if you like and I said in a way it's tragic, those are lost hours of your life you can never get back to read a book, to watch a documentary on cheetahs, to go for a walk, to cultivate a friendship or any of a hundred other activities that give enjoyment and meaning to you personally. He thought for a moment and considered but then said "but you're getting paid for it." A strong logical point and I had to think for a minute. His is a common attitude, perhaps the prevailing one but dunno I said, I disagree. Since work is such a large part of our lives, such a huge chunk of Time really it should at least be satisfying and fulfilling on some level, have some overall Meaning. Now we all feel being stuck in a traffic jam is a perfect waste of time but let's say we got paid a little for it to take the edge off, to compensate us for the pain of our boredom and delay would it still be wasted time? My friend would obviously say no but I say yes it would still be since a traffic jam is not even remotely related to the meaning and purpose of Life. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the motive power of Life is simply the joy of existence, that's good enough for me and by this standard being in a coma for ten years even if you're lucky enough to come out of it accounts for Time Lost and the Good Lord doesn't give those back unless there's some kind of holdover system into your next life. You'll often hear conservatives say that prisoners these days have the life. This is rather asinine and I have to say something about this. The prisoner's real sentence here is wasted time and I don't care if there's a gym involved and three square meals a day and cable tv, it's still prison. I would rather be at home at night watching that good cheetah documentary or reading a stimulating book or doing a challenging crossword puzzle and this is the short list because I'm somehow broadening my horizons, massaging my imagination, increasing my knowledge if only by increments whereas the totally nonfulfilling job takes important time away from doing this and far more besides and even taking into account the monetary consideration involved it's a total waste of my time although apparently not of my friend's and that's cool, to each his own as they say. If I could call this blog anything it's a kind of ongoing Manifesto of Life. They say you learn something new everyday. By my reckoning if you live to be 5oo you'll be a Genius:)

Joe Biden and the Tea Party Terrorists

Originally this blog was taking shape as all the various ways critics, usually liberal ones invalidate those with whom they disagee by the use of the political pejorative "extremist." SHAW does this and neocon David Brooks of the New York Times does it as well and it's an argument from intimidation, a deliberate polemical device to curb free-flowing and robust intellectual, philosophical and political debate and its purpose is to circumscribe already shrinking respectable parameters of civic discourse and yes it's an attempt at thought control although I can't obviously impugn motives to everyone here. On my walk today the way this was shaping up in my mind though is why we worship moderation so much (seems kinda boring and bland to have this as your overall guiding life philosophy), why it's now considered the supreme political virtue and basically I want to know do we worship moderation in and of itself as a goal and an end or is it simply a technique, an important at times and pragmatic step towards the Larger Goals (the Reagan approach)? If it's the former what's the point? if it's the latter I can understand and there may be times that it makes eminent practical sense although I can imagine my idealist colleague soapie disagreeing. Used to be if the word extremist was bandied about everyone pretty much knew who everyone was talking about, those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for instance, narrow folks who were seen as being overly cramped on the social issues. NOW it means especially for liberals anyone whom the wielder of the term disagrees with. If you're for fiscal responsibility and government living within its means you're an extremist. If you're against higher taxes on the wealthy (and don't kid yourself on everyone else) as a way of dealing with the debt and deficit then you're an extremist and I can imagine the list expanding. It means whatever SHAW and Brooks and others want it to mean. For liberals and conservatives some things are just not for sale whereas moderates want to sell the whole house. Oh isn't Joe Biden charming btw, just had another brain fart:)

A kind of closet environmentalist

Yesterday I took my long customary walk from Woodlands Lake in Ardsley, Westchester County NY all the way up to Rte. 119 in Elmsford figuring maybe the beavers moved downstream after all these years. When we were kids my Dad took us to Warehouse Lane in Elmsford off 9A where UPS is and where the Saw Mill River meanders its way through on its eventual destination in the Hudson River and we observed the local beaver population busy at work building their lodges and dams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver). Now there's much more industry here, there's a Sam's Club where the drive-in theater used to be and Masters Department Store has been replaced by a huge multiplex showcasing the latest in Hollywood dreck. Warehouse Lane, home to a huge Coca-Cola plant, FedEx, Conway Freight, Nestle Foods (Poland Spring and Deer Park trucks parked outside), a tire and auto place and San-Mar Laboratories, the Elmsford Animal Shelter and other assorted places of business. Over down 9A a bit by where you get on 287 is a Romantic Depot, an overpriced porn hut. Browser packs, a clown fucking some fat woman or maybe that's Giggles. It kind of melds together in your mind after awhile in one big existential landfill but I mean at least strive for Art. Wendy's, KFC, Grainger's, Rosedale Nurseries more in Hawthorne where the Saw Mill is very picturesque here and quaint like something out of a jigsaw puzzle. If Rush lived here he'd probably think it's all good, a hustling and bustling area, good population and jobs galore but you'd think a beaver population would be special, a kind of nurtured and protected area. Do we have ANY sense of the environment anymore? Does that make me an environmental wacko? maybe in his book but I'm just someone who would like the Dads of today to be able to take their kids there and learn something about Nature, about this special rodent that had been so heavily and tragically decimated back in the day, to see something they don't teach in school anymore because they're too busy learning about the Gay Lifestyle instead. Been meaning to ask btw, Powerwalkers with their weird arm movements, what's that supposed to do for you?

I don't want to bore you with this stuff

The New Debt Deal for Dummies

Nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts. The debt limit would be raised in two stages, a $900 billion increase now and a $1.5 trillion increase next year. Obama has a temporary authority to hike the debt limit without Congressional approval. The plan calls for at least $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and also takes place in two steps: $1.2 trillion in cuts now and at least another $1.5 trillion in cuts to be named by a special bipartisan committee by Thanksgiving. If the Congress doesn't act on the suggested spending cuts by 12/23 automatic triggers go into effect to the tune of $1.5 trillion and we're talking sacred cows like the Pentagon and Medicare here. Reforming entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are on the table as well as the tax code. My thoughts: reminds me of Astronomy which I was interested in as a kid. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year moving along at about the rate of 186,000 miles/sec. and this galaxy and that star are so many light-years away from Us and then you get into the whole area of black holes and event horizons and when you seriously begin to ponder the whole thing boggles the Mind and so these #'s from the Guv'ment are hard to wrap around so how does the average yokel know if they're good or they're bad? All I knows is keep raising the debt ceiling as it will be again in 2013 and you begin to escape the field of gravity (i.e. fiscal responsibility and good governance), actually we've been in Orbit for some time now. I'm not gonna be like the other erudite bloggers out there and pretend I understand this stuff. The whole thing imo is just an intergalactic clusterfuck:)