In Search Of The Magic Christian

   My close personal friend has extended an olive branch to me as it concerns my views on the socio-political climate we all find ourselves in at the moment and so I offer this short treatise in response to him and to anyone else who will consider an opposing statement without shooting me down with ALL CAPS blazing.
   First of all , I love living in America although I hear that Venus is nice this time of year...tanning weather for sure. There are certainly some picturesque places that I dream about experiencing but the blueprint for The American Way of Life is by far the best. Freedom, opportunity and limitless avenues for finding love and happiness. It is my home. One of the reasons that this country is so great is because the people in it have the freedom to consider possibilities for improving aspects of living that are troublesome to us all. I've said it before, dreamers have been our salvation. Technological leaps have saved us from extinction through dealing with the wants and needs of humanity. I am thankful for air conditioning, heaters, refrigerators, cars, phones, television, radio, computers and a whole litany of other cool stuff that makes life tolerable and enjoyable. That's a global phenomenon and not limited to the citizens of the U.S however. What sets our country apart from most other countries is our form of government that provides liberty and justice for all  with a constitution and a set of laws that allows freedom within those laws. Liberty and Justice are broad concepts though and whether we want to admit it or not, they both come at a premium. More to the point, Money is freedom and money buys justice. I think everyone will agree with me so far. The controversial point though is why doesn't capitalism provide equal access to freedom and the answer is simple. Capitalism is based on the idea of a stratified population of citizens. In other words , the haves and the have nots.  The American/ Puritan work ethic in a nut shell is this: Work hard, be rewarded monetarily for your hard work and finally be free.  Unfortunately, every good idea that comes from well meaning people gets corrupted by other equally opportunistic people who spoil it for everybody else.

   Let's talk about Capitalism and Socialism for a moment as separate means to an end.
America is broke. It's been broke for decades. The United States Government is so far into debt it can't conceivably ever pay it down. Look it up. That's what I did. It's so humongous that the Federal Government struggles just to pay the interest annually.  Here's the part where I tell you that the hopelessly broke Government was created by design. Corporations have thrived with the assistance of public monies and politicians ingratiated by those corporations have willingly enriched themselves through corporate and political connections.  The Conservative and Liberal Rich both share the blame for the current state of affairs. Politicians have put the money and the power in the pockets of the Wealthy Elite and they in turn put a little something in the pot for the politicians.  Are there any truly sinless politicians in government? I don't know.  How could I? The Government is broke and a very small percentage of the U.S. Population owns 95% of the country's wealth. Again, look it up. Research it on your own. Be honest with yourself.
    Here's the Truth Bomb. Capitalism did this. Socialism had absolutely nothing to do with it. This ridiculously skewed distribution of wealth was created by a competitive system based on a perceived reward for hard work but only a fortunate few reap that reward. In part I blame the Stock Market and the slick idea of investing instead of working. I recently read an article on money laundering and found out a couple of things. The top legitimate businesses for laundering money are storage units, strip clubs, car washes, casinos and mattress stores. Who knew? Anyway , on a larger scale the top two methods for moving and hiding money among the ultra elite are real estate transactions and the stock market. Mouse clicks...the new Puritan Work Ethic. No sweat equity at all , save the possibility of a Justice Department investigation. Never forget this...Knowledge is Power, but really cool power comes from lots of money. Politicians know it. Corporations know it.
    Poverty has no power and lacks freedom. We may argue that some poverty is deserved and some is not. The same can be said about wealth. FU money is freedom in this world. It provides comfort, privilege and power. Who doesn't want that? But "working smart instead of working hard " is not an option for most. That's screwed up too, because worker production in the work force has been steadily increasing for decades but wages have not. Where is all that new money going? Where is the reward for that increase? Many employers have the nerve to answer that question by simply responding this way, "they get to keep their jobs."

   Now, what can Socialism offer to spread some of that wealth (aka freedom) to the masses? By the masses I mean me and you and everybody we know. Social programs proposed by the Socialist Democrats talk about free higher education, free healthcare and a higher but modest minimum living wage. The argument against such proposals is that they would bankrupt the country ,but as we know, that has already been done by Capitalism. Obscene Debt that can never be paid. I can only assume that the debt will never be called in and therefore can be ignored. The  debt ceiling is not so much a ceiling as it is a sunroof these days suggesting that the sky and the heavens are the new cap on spending. So even if Social programs designed to lift up the majority of our citizenry creates more debt, who cares?  The debt ceiling has obviously disappeared for good. They just keep kicking that can down the road. The "Socialist leaning" proposals that we hear everyone screaming about are not unreasonable, but Socialism is a scary loaded  word with many implications.
I suspect that the only ones who care are the privileged elite who see their power in jeopardy. Corporations and the very wealthy might actually be expected to cease hiding money and begin to pay taxes and share some of that sweet power with us. I recently watched a video that claimed that the  eight richest individuals on the planet would qualify as the eighth largest economy on the globe.
Wealth distribution... a global problem but certainly an American problem that deserves some problem solving.
    Socialism and Communism are both demonized by those who are comfortable just being comfortable. They have basic comforts and probably a mortgage and they are satisfied with that.
What most people fear about change is the possibility of winding up with less than what they started with, a reasonable fear because as we all know the Universe gravitates to chaos.
The Family of Man is a dysfunctional one for sure.  So many people to hate and so little time.  Charles Shultz once said " I love mankind, it's people I can't stand."  I agree , but I was raised to believe that all men are children of God and we all eventually share the same fate.  So according to religious circles we should care about one another. What has puzzled me most about the fear of Socialism among Christian groups is why they would reject a system that for all purposes portends to establish a kind of Heaven on earth that their God says He wants for all His children. I'm not sure how I personally feel about that myself. Sounds complicated.  But instead of embracing a system that would emulate a heavenly alternative the Christian Evangelicals reject it outright in favor of an exclusionary political ideology that encourages inequality and injustice.  I personally would love to see how Jesus plans to establish a heavenly kingdom on earth using Capitalism as his template. Evangelical Christians are officially a voting bloc courted to get votes. That's sad really because Christians have traditionally been easy prey for con men throughout their history. Many false messiahs came before Jesus and more recently mega church evangelists buy mansions and jets with parishioners tithes( the prosperity gospel at work.) Political dogma preaches that politics and war are the same and utilize the same method for victory... deception.
    Religion and Politics are a bad mix. That's why I am so perplexed by the Evangelical Right's fascination and support for Donald Trump. Make no mistake, I am not suggesting that politicians have to be or should be devout Christians, but Christians collectively have no business supporting someone like Donald Trump. Do your homework and run the numbers. I must confess I took offense at the numerous comparisons of Trump to biblical figures like Saul/Paul , Daniel and even Jesus himself. Internet memes circulated on Facebook by many people who I call friends. Really? Have you lost your mind? Donald Trump is the worst kind of con man, a self centered narcissist with a gangster swagger borrowed from a 1930s mobster movie and you fail to see through the facade.  I can only assume my friends and others are victims of a vast political conspiracy spread by subliminal mass hypnosis through digital media. Spoiler alert! There are two trigger phrases "Perfect Phone Call"and "Stable Genius".
  Socialist, Communist, Progressive, Liberal, Capitalist, Fascist. Easy labels for complex issues and very easy to throw around when an individual or a group want to discredit another. Peter Canellos of Politico.com writes about FDR and his disdain for the Socialist label his critics tried to hang on him. His New Deal policies were a solution separate from any single ideology as far as FDR was concerned and he shunned the label. Canellos suggests today that Democrats should do the same.
Give their platform legitimacy by emphasizing the problem and providing specific solutions without accepting the label. No one today can argue that where others failed, FDR succeeded.
Politics is forever a game with a gang mentality. Nobody snitches, nobody admits to the crime because their collective  survival is at stake. And we the voting public are drawn into their rumble pitting us against each other.
   So why is  the new generation embracing  ideas that have been previously rejected as a threat to our way of life? I think it's partially because they see the traditional work ethic as phony. The Rich have inherited the earth and the Meek have paid the bill. This is what we have handed down to our children. Maybe we owe it to them to give some scary ideas a new look and consider the possibilities without accepting a wholesale label. Maybe we need to let them find their own FDR. 

Karl's Shift

    Karl Tyler met a horrible death. His body was torn to shreds and his bloody limbs were strewn from one end to the other on aisle 6 of Dean's Family Grocery Store. There are things you need to know. Karl was 29 years old when he first walked into the store where he would work as stock clerk on the overnight shift for the next 6 years. Physically he was a tall burly fellow with longish, unkempt hair stuffed under a tattered black baseball cap most of the time. His face sported glasses that rested on the bridge of his nose cocked slightly down on the right. His spectacles left an impression of confusion more than intelligence. The acne on his cheeks and chin was hidden by remnants of a once healthy beard that was never completely shaved clean. He worked alone stocking grocery shelves and fronting and blocking displays in preparation for the store's opening the next business day. Karl worked the "zombie shift", a dismal 11:00pm till 7:00am schedule that never allowed for a normal life of the individual who worked it. The zombie shift was life turned upside down and backwards in contrast to most normal people. He slept while others worked and worked while others slept. The work that Karl did was satisfying for a while. He was content working unsupervised and unbothered by small talk and the mindless chatter of others. For a while the silence was soothing and satisfying for someone like himself. A loner who had no patience for the input of others, a solitary man who had no need for companionship and human interaction. The zombie shift was so named for this reason. The person who did this kind of work became a walking corpse of sorts. No friends, no contact with the others save the brief encounter at the punch clock. Living only to perform a repetitious, mindless and unrewarding task virtually every night of the week. Karl did this faithfully and dutifully for 6 years. It was Karl's shift.
    Some time after the anniversary of his first year Karl got into the habit of talking out loud to himself and eventually it developed into full blown conversations in nightly solitude referring to himself in the third person and often contradicting himself in a schizophrenic-like debate. Talking to one's self is not a crime and is actually more common than most people would care to admit. Some claim, in jest, that this habit is an indication... a red flag per say, for the onset of madness. In Karl's case however no one ever knew. It occurred unwitnessed, unnoticed by anyone other than Karl himself. Karl slipped into madness on the 3rd of October of his 6th year of employment at Dean's Grocery. His mind snapped without fanfare or acknowledgement. He retreated into a fantasy world. He sunk deeper into darkness.
    Oddly enough, Karl still delivered, still performed his work with amazing regularity. His insanity provided Karl with companions that mirrored his own broken life, his own dark cynicism and disgust for his hopeless existence. They were voices posing as individuals allowing Karl to discuss his frustrations about life, why things were the way they were and what he could do to set things better. Karl debating Karl. A sounding board in a mirror. Seeing both sides but accepting neither conclusion. It had become a nightly chat with himself while he coolly and calmly filled and blocked and faced with perfection.
    On the night in question Karl was performing this mundane routine when a noise on a nearby aisle broke the silence in the building causing Karl's senses to rise to alert status. He stopped what he was doing and paused to figure out where it had originated from. Maybe a box or package had been teetering on a shelf all day and finally reached the point of no return... finally dropping to the floor with a non-descript thud.  Maybe.
    Karl discerned that the disturbance emanated from aisle 6 where pet supplies and dog chow could be found on one side and laundry detergents, fabric softeners and household cleaning supplies on the other. Karl ambled slowly over to the area that he determined would reveal the source of the disturbance. He arrived at the end of the aisle and planted himself solidly in the middle of the midway and peered down the length of it. He waited and his eyes darted back and forth as he quietly scanned the shelves for movement of any kind. But nothing raised an alarm. All seemed normal on aisle 6. Karl cautiously moved down the aisle looking left and right  mumbling to himself in the process.
Keep it together Karl  Come out, come out wherever you are, he chanted. You better not stick around. I don't take kindly to pranksters or burglars!  The declarations weren't made expecting any answer. Past the cans of chicken purees and rice, boxes of kibble, smells of grains and canine and feline cereals on one side and fragrances of bleach, detergent and exotic granules from laundry fresheners and sheets of fabric softeners on the other. He was met with uncomfortable silence The faces of happy pets with canine and feline smiles lined the shelves. The image of a wholesome young woman with a modest red sundress and Spring bonnet adorning her head and curls that fell softly on her shoulders gazed back at Karl displaying her satisfaction with the fresh outdoor fragrance that her fabric sheets provided.
    Obviously he was alone and as he made that final determination he turned an about face around and stared back down the aisle he had just surveyed. To his surprise and dismay he was confronted by a large panting hound with saliva dripping from its mouth sitting squarely in the middle of the aisle in a crouched position. Karl reacted by stepping back suddenly to make sense of the hulking animal staring back at him with threatening red eyes. That alone was a shock but then the unwelcome visitor spoke emphatically to Karl, not with barks or growls or with bow wows,  but with words. "Evening Karl, running a little late aren't we or maybe I'm just hungry and you're just moving too damn slow."
It was important for Karl to keep a cool head under the circumstances. After all even in his current state he still questioned his senses and debated with himself whether there was indeed a talking dog chastising him for "moving too damn slow."  Karl collected his thoughts and timidly responded.
    "What...what did you say?  How did you get in here? The doors are all locked, and even if they weren't, dogs aren't allowed inside."  Karl asked reasonable questions but the large dog would have none of it. " That hurts Karl, after all, I live here. as a matter of fact I was here long before you ever arrived. Hell, I remember the guy before you. What was his name ?"
    Karl seemed puzzled, "what...you're asking me? Wait a minute. I know you. You...you're the dog on the Doggy Delights box." He paused and pointed, "right over there." The canine turned and acknowledged the row of Doggy Delights displayed a little farther down the aisle. "Not a good photo I must admit, but still I think you see my point. and the name is Max by the way"
    Karl was attempting to absorb what was going on around him while identities were being sorted out. "Max was the guy before me?" he asked. But before the dog could respond a voice from behind him spoke. "No, he's Max... you know, like Max is a good boy. No, the guy before you was Chuck." said a sweet feminine voice out of nowhere. Karl turned around to see who it was and he immediately recognized her but at the same time , he didn't believe it was happening. "Wait...hold on here," he said slowly. "You're the girl on the fabric softener bottle. I recognize that dress and the bonnet. But how?"
    "Lily is my name, Karl. We've known each other a long time. As a matter fact, you've known all of us for a long time."  The one named Lily moved closer and Karl noticed the smell of lavender and rain as she passed by. "And Karl, you asked how its possible and its really quite simple. You've done a fine job up until now. A really fine job but, lets face it, you're losing it." she said in a friendly clinical way.  Karl looked confused. "I'm...losing it?"
    "You're insane, Karl. Out of your mind dear boy. We've all noticed it. And how else could this conversation be taking place? We've taken a vote ...all of us ...me, Max, Tony, Lucky and the Cap'n."
Karl struggled to keep up with what she was saying. "You're not making sense. This can't be real!"
Karl stood there with his hands over his ears as if trying to block out the nonsense, but it was too late. Around the corner of aisle 6 emerged a group of characters all approaching in a menacing fashion and Karl knew them all. In front was a cartoon-ish naval officer with a respectable white moustache dressed in a puffy blue and white uniform and sporting a blue admiral's hat. There was no mistaking who it was....Cap'n Crunch. Behind him was a large brightly colored orange and white Tiger ...Tony the Tiger by name. Coming up from the rear was an outlandishly dressed leprechaun wearing a sparkly green coat and matching bowler hat riding atop a multi-colored pastel unicorn proudly advancing. "Thank you all for coming. The unicorn is a nice touch, Lucky!" said Lily.
Lucky hopped down from his unicorn and walked over to Karl looking him over carefully.
    "Too bad, Karl." he said," Up until now its been just magical... and delicious too. But we can't wait until you fall apart."  Tony, looking a little disappointed spoke up too. "Yeah Karl...you've been Greeaat! At least you're going out on a high note. Its best for everyone."

    "Could I say a word, Karl?" Cap'n Crunch cleared his throat and stepped up to Karl. " You know Karl, life is short, at least that's what everybody says. But what do I know? I'm an imaginary character at best, so technically I have no credibility here. Let me just say that, in my opinion you're not really living anyway so why delay the inevitable?"
   Karl listened intently and finally sat down in the middle of aisle 6 with a look of resignation on his face. The group of visitors drew closer and with every step they changed somewhat in appearance.
Max, Lily, Tony, Lucky and the Cap'n showed claws and fanged teeth and glowing red eyes.
   Karl cried out as he realized their intent. "But you're not real!" he screamed.
The last thing Karl heard was a somber phrase. "At least I'm a captain. What are you?"
   Karl fainted and never woke up.

    Dean's Family Grocery carried on without Karl. The mess of his death was cleaned and sanitized and the mystery of what had happened remained a mystery, but the gossip died down and a permanent replacement was found for the so-called zombie shift. Some guy named Larry. He learned the ropes, just as Karl had, without much thought of it being a permanent job. Maybe a stepping stone to something better. Meanwhile on those lonely solitary nights from 11:00 to 7:00 , Larry made his way down the aisles doing his duty...fronting, blocking and facing as Karl had done before him. The routine would be new for awhile but that would surely pass. Maybe Larry would someday take a closer look at his surroundings and eventually familiarize himself with the items on the shelves of every aisle in the store. If he by chance took the time to closely peruse the many varieties of breakfast cereals available for consumption, he may notice a new variety setting on the shelf. A recent addition.
A bright red box of corn flakes mixed with a medley of puffed rice, raisins, strawberries, blueberries and nuts ...and who knows what else. The front of the box features the face of a  sparsely bearded smiling man sporting a black baseball cap and wearing glasses that cocked slightly down on the right.











 

The Hole In Heaven

                                                   "Don't know where we come from

                                                    Don't know where we're going to

                                                    But if all of this should have a reason

                                                   We would be the last to know

                                                   So let's just hope there is a promised land

                                                   Hang on till then, as best as you can"

                                                                   Rock Me Baby

                                                                    Steppenwolf

                                                                         1969

"The event that humanity had long anticipated with equal consternation and joy occurred unannounced and unexpectedly on the 17th of  June in the year 2019. The arrival of countless disembodied spirits of long dead relatives, friends and historical figures great and small from the beginnings of recorded time occupied the ether of the globe  and its skies. Ancient and alien creatures long dead and beasts yet to be, drifted silently half transparent and barely carnate above the cities, mountains, plains, valleys and over the vastness of the oceans and the seas. This event...this overflow of spirit into creation, and more specifically upon our world, happened with little notification from the cosmos itself. We did not understand immediately. It began as an anomaly in space. A slight quiver in the gravitational pull of what our scientists used to call the monster black hole in galaxy NGC 1277 in the constellation Perseus. An observation...   It was a sign of what was to come, both beautiful and horrifying and monumentally staggering in its implications. Nothing malevolent in the beginning but something that quickly transformed into an event that most would expect from divine heavenly hosts of angels preparing the earthly masses for the arrival of their God. Amazing at first as an expanding spectacular celestial light show, it became a gut wrenching sickening experience that some interpreted as the end of time itself, a collective realization that all regrets and revelations had come to fruition at last.  But it wasn't... and as it happened in its finality it gave answers to questions that humanity had grappled with since its inception eons and eons before. The gushing forth of consciousness from this hole in heaven into the realm of the corporeal finally provided the answers to questions we had craved for thousands of years
    We came to understand that all of our mythology explaining the great mystery of what our Creator was and had been, was false and merely manipulation of men by other men throughout our history.
For the living , the apparitions described a version of the afterlife...the other side and the true nature of existence that no one had considered. Every possibility of consciousness all past, present and future released back onto the physical plane and allowed to partially reincarnate into all it had ever been, all at once. Every version of every individual who ever existed or would exist...their knowledge demolished, shattered  all perceptions of God and Heaven and Hell. The Heavenly Father was gone and with Him all concepts of a human savior or ancient enemy of mankind. They no longer made sense.The idea of God as a deity that demanded worship was a misconception constructed by unenlightened souls and opportunistic beings struck ignorant from their separation from their places in the eternal consciousness.This we understood now.
   The Black Hole , or the Hole in Heaven as it was eventually dubbed was merely and fantastically an aperture, an Einstein bridge of sorts separating the material from the thought...the discarnate from the  carnate. It was a holding pen for the entirety of what we now know as the original  consciousness. The intelligence that existed eternally and the originator of the physical universe itself. Out of this outpouring from the hole we  sensed an overwhelming regret from the consciousness itself conveyed to us all. We could call it God but it was cognizant of the flawed creation it had conceived itself. All of humanity had been and would be pieces of that consciousness and we were all responsible for its existence. What some had referred to as The Holy Spirit was this entity and it indeed was accesssible to us all through our eternal connection to our larger self. We could call it prayer if we wanted to because the connection could provide enlightened perspective. And if we wanted to believe in sin we had to acknowledge that our only sin was regret as accessories in the creation of the inferior material world that separated us from the eternal perfection that was the singularity itself. Pure love corrupted by flesh, intellect perverted by greed, mischief grown to cruelty, wisdom watered down by physical need...all opposite of what spirit had anticipated at the moment of inception of the material.
    What had prompted this release? It was a flaw in a flawed design, a weakness in the wondrous creation left to itself that inadvertently allowed the overflow to take place. And it was soon to be undone and resealed . In the days that followed the revelation, mankind pondered the truth of all existence and it made choices based on all that it now knew. Our fate...our collective destiny without fear, without pain, without judgement awaited us in the void.
    Globally, millions upon millions chose to end their lives and reunite with Spirit ending abruptly the struggles and unhappiness of the material world. They understood it for what it was for them... an inferior existence compared to what awaited us all. But what may have been more wondrous or more miraculous was that many chose to stay.... holding out for hope and reluctant to abandon the flawed creation. It was no surprise that the wealthy and the powerful chose not to leave. The privileged saw no reason to hurry given  how they had grown in stature outside of consciousness....outside of the collective one in favor of the  mine.
    There is beauty in the world... and goodness. We ,the remaining, realized the significance of very specific and small things that, although acknowledged in Spirit, would lack power separated from our physical senses. There is value in the material. To touch...to feel, to see and hear the beauty in this broken cosmic creation. But it was but a whisper ...a glimpse of the beauty from wherein it was derived.
     Spirit gave pause in its decision to close the aperture once again, for in its transcended state it
acknowledged the effect of time on memory and humanity's predilection for re defining the truth to suit its own immediate need in the carnate world. Humanity would comprehend and assimilate this accidental epiphany for now but over generations the truth would again become confused and revert to the state it had been previously before the outpouring in this Hole in Heaven.  Wars would again erupt. Hatred and violence would be reborn as new generations wrote their own eclectic versions of the origin and meaning of life.  In this way the unity and understanding given to us by this consciousness...this spirit, would be lost.  The Hole In Heaven would become an event half remembered and half translated into a fictional mythology as before. It will be a story full of supernatural creatures,  jealous gods, divine wars
and fearful obedient sheep praying to and worshiping their God.
 
 

Bondage

My love for you is weakness
my everlasting sorrow
draped about my shoulders
a cruel razor across my pale skin.

A compromise of trembling flesh
where crimson trickles from the wound
Blood mingling and merging with tears,
one flow indistinguishable from the other.

A smothered heart and gasping breaths
If love could die then I could live
But love endures at my expense
and passion stands immortal.

Against all reason, I long to resist a haunting futility.
A whispering bondage, an ever present pinprick
A quivering cloak...invisible, wrapped light about me
and at my feet, desire collected.

Relentlessly swimming in a magnificent pool of pain.
If there is no you, there is  but a ghost of me.
The new day ensures my suffering.
It always will be so.

LapTop Rick

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? Walt Whitman
I Sing The Body Electric

I am not a big fan of modern science fiction. I don't watch it much and I certainly don't read it. Science is not my thing but Fantasy intrigues me. In 1962 an episode of the Twilight Zone borrowed the above phrase from Walt Whitman's "I Sing The Body Electric" and featured a life-like robot Grandmother who assumed the role of lifetime caregiver to three young children who had lost their real mother. The robot with its kind human maternal qualities assured them that she was indestructible and would never die in effect calming all their fears about losing yet another mother. This was just one story out of many that examined the possibilities of a new machine age. Some were sentimental as this one was but others were effective in pointing out the shortcomings of a technology that mimics human behavior but lacks the soul of humanity.
What if our society had no dreamers with ideas that change our view of what is possible and what isn't. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a Visionary myself, but I'm the first one in line to marvel at the guys who are. I mean Steve Jobs alone ... really?
When I turned on a home computer for the first time and was greeted with music and a vivid "graphic interphase" I remember at the time I sort of froze and said "Wow" out loud. And the computer keyboard just by itself changed my life too. I never learned to type and typewriters were not user friendly at least not to me.
Thank you Bill Gates. Thank you word processing software.
You gave me a voice I never had before. In short, with the development of digital hardware and software our world realized a quantum leap in the quality of our lives in every respect. But with it ,
as before cautionary tales and foreshadowing warnings appeared about the dark implications of cyberspace and the "information super highway."
In an episode of The X-Files ( Kill Switch) first aired in 1998 on the heels of the digital revolution, the ideas of virtual reality and the possibility of uploading human consciousness into cyberspace were introduced to us. I liken this to instances of dreaming about the possibilities earlier assigned to robots. The old rise of the machines phobia re-examined. The fear is seasoned with envy though, ambivalence about using machines and possibly being replaced by them , against seeing a virtual reality as a more desirable reality for us all.
Could anyone really prefer human consciousness to a seemingly immortal cyber consciousness? Thats scary at least for a young generation not yet concerned about the comparatively short span of life that lies ahead. But what about those of us on what can safely be considered the "back nine" of this game called Life. Still a scary prospect but compared to the alternative, worth pondering even if it is presently impossible. Cue the imagination , enter the dreamer.
As I sit here writing this , I still get giddy over the absolute magic that is my iPhone. Someone once said that if technology is advanced enough, it will be perceived as magic. And I am a believer. I love my iPhone. I love my computer too but I love my phone more because of its size. If I'm ever in need of an answer to a question when I'm at work or among friends
I jokingly whip out my phone and announce, "well, I just happen to have the world's largest database in human history ...in my back pocket.!"
It gets a few laughs or smiles. I'm not proud. Having a communication device superior to the communicators and tri-quarters from Star Trek is really cool. Not only is it a wireless phone and camera, it performs countless other tasks too and between Google and YouTube, it provides hours of entertainment for me. I do subscribe to a newspaper but I must admit I get most of my news from Google and internet sources.
I read a news article recently that said scientists have discovered particles around a black hole's event horizon that are traveling faster than the speed of light. Up until now that has been considered an impossibility. And yet here we are.
What are the implications of that phenomenon ? If you're like me you immediately think..... time travel.
As far fetched an idea it is , it still opens the door to the possibility.
The fantasy of time travel is probably my favorite topic to ponder because even with all its obvious paradoxes and dangers, we still like the idea of a temporal second chance. To right the wrongs , etc via the quantum leap.
Knowing what we know now about our uppity machines and their possible rise to dominance over us, it's nice to know that we could go back in time and fix it like in "The Terminator."(1984) At least hypothetically at this point.
But wait , it gets better.
In my daily perusal of news I came across at least two or more articles on the subject of life extension through uploading consciousness to computers. You say to yourself at this point, "yeah, that would be cool but that is of course impossible."
Enter the dreamer once again.
Ray Kurzwell, director of engineering at Google and Russian multimillionaire Dmitry Itskov , founder of the 2045 Initiative, are
certain it is possible to achieve but that it will be difficult in the beginning. Speaking at the futurist conference in 2016 they saw the task of mapping out the roughly 86 billion neurons in the human brain a grueling goal but do- able with the use of nanobots. ( The Immortalist. March 14 2016. BBC magazine)
("We'll be uploading our minds to computers by 2045." The Daily Mail.
Victoria Woollasten.2013)
Naysayers are quick to point out the complexities of human personality.
. "The challenge is precisely how to go from a physical substrate of cells that are connected inside this organ, to our mental world, our thoughts, our memories, our feelings," says neuro biologist Rafael Yustef at Columbia University.
What I say to that is "well, duh!"
The thing that gets me about this brainy science stuff is that it ultimately collides with matters of the spirit.. what we perceive as our spirit or our soul. So when we get into a discussion about transferring human consciousness to a computer it gets tricky and borders on heretical thoughts regarding religion. If we read enough about it we hear about the possibility of having multiple copies of the same person's mind.
That's figuratively and literally mind-blowing. I imagine a scenario where copies of people will reside in a state of virtual immortality while the flesh and blood original eventually wastes away. But what does that accomplish? It's all very confusing and depressing.
Growing up I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy on TV and in movies. Not serious science fiction but watered down stuff for easy consumption like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Some of the "science" depicted in 50's science fiction and horror movies was laughable ,outlandish and unrelated to real science. One of my favorite comedies was Get Smart that showed tremendous vision in predicting clever inventions like the shoe phone ( the first "Smart phone.) It's funny and ironic that TV writers inspire and change the world in seemingly insignificant ways.
Some one proposes an idea and down the road someone else makes it happen. Writers like George Orwell and HG Wells predicted a lot of things with no real idea as to how to make them happen. It just takes time and the right person to be inspired and driven. And that brings me back to the immortality issue.
Nowadays and more than ever, it seems like science and religion are duking it out for dominance in culture. Most recently I've seen traditional religious teachings challenged and re-interpreted to be more palatable to the percentage of the population that rejects the illogical claims made in The Bible.
I've always been taught that dinosaurs died out long before man appeared on earth but now I hear that dinosaurs were passengers on Noah's ark.
The very existence of God is challenged by the scientific community not because they don't want to believe but because faith to them is hollow without some scientific substantiation. Celebrities such as Bill Nye and Neill DeGrasse Tyson profess to be agnostics because science continues to chip away at the mysteries attributed to God. They believe the existence of a God is beyond our scope of knowledge to prove or disprove....... at least for the moment.
I I wish I could be there when the time travel thing is announced but I'm skeptical that we will solve that riddle for a very long time. Neil DeGrasse Tyson brings up a good point when he says "if we ever conquer time travel in the future, we should be seeing time travelers now."
Good point unless they're really good at hiding. Not holding my breath on this one. Let's move on.
IIf we are ever able to actually upload a consciousness to a computer server then I think it would do at least a couple of things. First , It would create a kind of prison for the soul not unlike what we call Hell or maybe something less like The Phantom Zone in the Superman Comics.
. ( Hmmm....another visionary from comic books no less.)
Secondly, it would create yet another second class citizenry that would be shunned by others for its religious heresy. And Why haven't more people decided to freeze their head to extend their lifespan? Probably the cost and maintenance fees involved, not to mention the stigma attached to being a frozen head.
The same logic would apply here.
Robots provide yet another option... a mobile ,more human option. I'm not talking about the CP30 variety, I'm talking about a deluxe model like Data ( with a tan) from Star Trek or the super cool grandmother mentioned at the beginning of this piece. If I was a robot , I would choose to be an attractive robot and one that was able to live a life similar to what I knew before. The cost would be enormous no doubt and I would want to mingle with regular people and not be forced to just spend time with my brother and sister androids. So to summarize , I would not choose to be a laptop.
 I would want to be a great looking android , able to walk and dance and not be subject to religious or social bigotry. Is that asking too much?
Probably . And now that I think of it, this is a lot like deciding whether I want a Mercedes or a Jaguar. It really doesn't matter. It's a rich man's dilemma, not mine.

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The Flawed Revolution

Several years ago I had the opportunity to be in a television studio audience where Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz were being interviewed. When asked about the Sixties their reactions were funny and most likely canned answers having been asked so many times.

Micky responded with a sly smile, "I was told I had a very good time."

Davy quipped ,"they say that if you remember the Sixties you weren't really there." Both answered in typical rock star fashion acknowledging that 

drugs played a major part in the 60's counterculture philosophy of freedom outside of the establishment. 

    Of course we all knew that. As impressionable teenagers we were bombarded with it. But I was only 14 at the time living comfortably at home with mom and dad and the worst thing I was struggling with was if girls would like me even if my face broke out with a pimple. Of course that's important too but it never made me want to overthrow the government. 

    I sought refuge in music in 1967 starting a band with friends that on the surface was about music but in reality it was about girls. Yes it's true.

I think any successful rock star will tell you that their reason for playing rock initially  was to impress girls. 

Further than that though I watched a lot of TV. One particular show I  in the late 50's and until 1963 was The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis. It was based on a popular book of the same name written by Max Shulman. Yours truly took the time to find that book and check it out from the public library and study it for clues on how girls like to be treated.

Surprisingly it didn't help. Females are impossible to understand. It was true then and trust me it's true now.

But Dobie Gillis wasn't just about the pursuit of romance. It was about the complexities of American life and about the young people who were trying to figure out who they were. To review, Dobie was the star of the show but he was not the lesson that I learned. Wisdom about life was garnished from one Maynard G. Krebs. ( the G is silent.) Before Gilligan was Gilligan, he was Maynard. You need to think about that for a minute because I believe Bob Denver may have played two of the most pivotal characters on television at the time and each of his characters represented separate shifts in a cultural revolution.

Maynard was not Wally or Beaver or Ricky or Opie or any other non-threatening kid on 50's TV you can think of. Maynard was a Beatnik who lived at home with his parents and who rejected the established ideas of conformity and the necessity of a solid Puritan work ethic. He was a product of the Baby Boomers who returned from the war with a sexual imperative to "catch up" on lost time. I'm going to get back to this in a minute after I tell you what I know about the aforementioned "Beat Generation" so bear with me.

The drumbeat of discontent started in the 50's manifested in what was named the Beat Generation. Allen Ginsberg , Jack Kerouac and people like them wrote and preached non conformity and social revolution. 

They were the poster boys for the Beat Generation and in my mind Maynard G. Krebs was a symbol adapted for television for that movement. He was comical and so not to be taken seriously. Honestly how can you claim  adherence to a philosophy of social revolution and  live in your parent's house. Regardless of whether Maynard was taken seriously. It  doesn't change the fact that life in the 50's wasn't perfect.  Maynard was the mascot that represented the early signs of what teachers used to call "creeping socialism."

Civil disobedience appealed to a generation reared on post war fatigue and ,even further back, there was silent resentment for  the American Industrial Revolution that required conformity in the classroom to produce a workforce more than to foster individuality. Whew, that was a long sentence. It's just a different way really to express dissatisfaction about life in America. It's centered on paranoia and distrust of the establishment. Even Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex. Wow, even the government distrusts itself. But I digress. My point is that Maynard 

represented what the establishment feared. Young people in a state of unrest. The show ran until 1963 which coincided with the airing of the first episode of Gilligan's Island. You can say I'm wrong if you want but I see it's release as a sign of two things. One, Maynard and the Beat Generation were now perceived as a non threat and, Two,  that threat was being replaced with a new and improved threat of kids in search of freedom from conformity. Gilligan stranded on an island with the others was not just hilarious , it was also TV's way of showing us a microcosm of what civilization would be like without the constraints of traditional

society. In short Gilligan was marooned on an island paradise. I'll stop short of comparing it to the Garden of Eden. You can do that for me. We are all now familiar with the group dynamic that developed on the island. Money didn't matter and they survived through cooperation and ingenuity and dare I say Love? 

To summarize, Bob Denver as Maynard and then Gilligan epitomized the transition of thought developing in young people at the time. Rebellion against authority and conformity and a search for a paradise...heaven on earth. The beatnik died and became what we laughably called the hippie.

   Let me tell you what I think doomed the counter-culture revolution. It was a number of things but three things spring to mind right away.

One, Media technology and the rise of consumerism. Two, the development of hallucinogenic mind altering drugs.

Three, the feminist movement and The Pill.

Television is insidious. It pretends to do one thing while doing something else. As a young person I never thought about the power of repetition  or the ability of media to shape me as a person, telling me what I wanted and needed at a subliminal level but it did then and continues to do so even now. In  addition to that it had the power to mold opinion on a nightly basis with world news recapped with live video, a new technology of portability that reported the rise of counterculture and anti-war sentiment to your living  room and as a side note to this subject, if you think about it , without Les Paul and his subsequent idea of a little thing called the electric guitar, there  may well never have been a 60's type revolution at all. 

Psychedelia requires electricity and technology provided that too. Various amplified rock mantras repeated endlessly on the radio ( again technology) that provided the background music for the restless generation percolating across the nation. I believe what we experienced in the 60's through television advertising and news, and radio programming consisting of youth oriented rock anthems touting the message of peace and love, ultimately produced  an irreconcilable state of contradiction in the minds of impressionable youth. Myself included,  although again, I was only 14 in 1967. 

I believe  it created an unresolvable struggle between an intangible ideal and the need for tangible goods engrained in us by both medias.  An orchestrated brain teaser with no solution. No wonder we were confused. If there were class songs for the love generation I would pick Scott Mackenzie's San Francisco as the idealistic anthem but The Rolling Stones Satisfaction would be the cynical reality . Freedom, peace and love faced off with materialism implied by consumerism and civic responsibility of American citizens.

The music fed the delusion that heaven on earth was possible. Getting back to the garden ... but TV was advertising all this cool stuff that I needed to buy.  Forgive me , I'm confused.

    What made it more difficult to support the ideal over the material was the fact that the spokesmen for the movement were making money singing about the rejection of money and responsibility over the message of peace and love.  Let me explain it this way. Let's say your parents routinely forbid you to get a tattoo because they're gross. At the same time they encourage you to accept Jesus as your savior.  But because you want a tattoo and they want you to know Jesus,  you come home with a tattoo of Jesus on your arm.  At that point don't be surprised if their heads explode. On the surface it was an attempt to resolve a conflict that satisfies both parties. But your parents heads exploded instead. The mid 60's were like that.

    Ask anybody what destroys the romance of a relationship and they will tell you that it's Money with a capital M. Or better I should say the lack of money kills relationships. Would that be a capital L? Not really sure.

 The hippie philosophy works the same way. If  there are any young romantics out there who think you can live on love against all odds, you need to learn from a generation who rejected work, money, religion and all things resembling conformity in their 20's and then summarily turned around in their later years to embrace materialism like no generation before them. That is the ugly truth... the hypocrisy of the movement itself. We the flower children never did "get back to the garden." Even hippies needed money for stuff.  For drugs if nothing else. That fact became more apparent over time.

    Bottom line... if you smell bad you won't get laid. So much for free love.  Individuals have standards above and beyond the hippie group mind set.

I suppose there are exceptions to that premise like if the two or three of you smell equally bad in which case it would be like two smokers not noticing that the other wreaks of tobacco because tragically you get used to it while everyone else is gagging. But that's not good sex.

No , I would say it's the opposite. I would call it hippie sex where expectations are low. Besides with hippies you can always fall back on the drugs which really isn't fair and clouds the fact that you're not really taking care of your self. Frankly the drugs are doing all the work.

     No, the hard fact was that love, peace, brotherhood and enlightenment will not tolerate a person for long if they show no signs of some kind of initiative to accomplish something of substance and to contribute to the collective. You can wear your hair long but you better wash it and have a change of clean underwear. Sorry Jerry Reuben you were just wrong. The truth is that Haight-Ashbury and San Francisco became a Mecca for homeless, uneducated, uninspired, drug addicted moochers. It's safe to say that the more noble aspirations of the movement were discarded in favor of drug addiction. Enlightenment where did you go? Getting back to the garden ... regaining our innocence through a simple life of communing with nature and one another.  A mass hallucination of sorts ... a philosophy best lived out in your head gently subduded with drugs. As an old friend might say... what a crock.

    I find it ironic that one of the 60's popular anthems urged young people to "feed your head." suggesting that drugs would expand their minds. What some learned and others didn't is that they should have fed their head with an education and ambitions beyond getting high and grooving on that.

Most people define the psychedelic era of the Love generation as beginning with the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and ending with the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969. In between these events the counter-culture had its best chance to make its case but to no avail.  Say what you want but Woodstock was its own kind of failure, relying on government help to handle food and medical emergencies. It of course made no money and had to make a movie to try and recoup its losses. See? Money does matter. I recently saw a list of all the Woodstock performers and what they were paid for their part. Some didn't show because their check never arrived. I totally get that too. 

 The Beatles, of all people, may have provided the loudest declaration of surrender to the ideal of world peace and brotherly love of all.  John Lennon, icon and rock martyr wrote Revolution ( 1968) smack dab in the middle of the psychedelic movement. Yeah that same guy who wrote "All you need is Love." In the lyrics of Revolution he declares,"

You say you want a Revolution, well... you know... we'd all love to see the plan." To me that sounds like a statement made by a guy who saw the futility of that hope. It was a heavenly idea to wthat died in a material world and he had resigned himself to that reality. 

    And while we're on the subject, what about all those drugs? They arrived just in time to infiltrate the revolution. I'm not talking about the marijuana. I'm talking about the LSD.

Timothy Leary called it "the key to enlightenment " but it became the centerpiece of the revolution and brought it to its knees quickly. The enlightenment was random and hazy at best. I love the music of the 60's and some say the drugs should be given credit for a lot of it. Maybe.

Some icons of rock and the revolution made it out alive and as I said before , got rich as a result. 

For his appearance at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix got paid 18, 000 dollars more than anyone else who played.

That iconic performance was viewed by a relatively small percentage of those attending because it was near the end of the festival. His face was the face of Woodstock, and he was dead a year later. Drugs took him.

I guess at this stage in my life I'm too cynical. Some one told me several years ago that liberals eventually become conservatives in their old age and maybe that's true. I did my share of dabbling in my younger days and now I certainly see life differently.

Hind sight is .... what you see while your head is up your ass... no wait, it's 20/20 that's right. Well anyway, I see drugs from the 60's as a kind of ant poison for the flower generation.

Various sinister substances were created and distributed first to key people of the revolution and then to the foot soldiers and scouts who then brought them back to the mound where it killed them from within. Like giving pox infected blankets to the Indians.

And now on to women.

  I have a hard time believing that the majority of young women  in the 60's 

were on board with the free love idea being talked about by all the major figures of the flower children generation. Certainly not if you were a good girl and certainly not if I knew you. Of course I was only 14 at the time. Prudish behavior could always be justified before , because of the possibility of pregnancy but by 1965 just five years after it was introduced The Pill was being taken by 6.5 million women. Not even close to being a mind-altering drug it still changed the way women ( and men) perceived sex. At its core it was another avenue of personal freedom for women and,  I assure you,  men saw it as a valid argument for casual sex. Seems like solid logic except for the danger of spreading disease indiscriminately. It happens and it happened a lot. The hippies were also happily ignorant in their youthful knowledge of human nature and sexual intimacy.  When your high, maybe you don't care that your girlfriend or boyfriend is "making the rounds" with others in the commune but time will tell when the drugs wear off. Love that doesn't care is not love at all,  It's indifference, and free love is  a misnomer. 

    The enduring symbol of the 60's for me is the generic flower girl with 

"flowers in her hair", a delicate pure figure of beauty that spoke about peace and love with a soft whisper in her voice evoking a "back to the garden" innocence. I suspect that she never really existed back then, sort of like the 60's themselves. There was the dream and then there was the reality.

The Carnal Imperative

    I'm going to start with a joke. Its a joke that I actually created, at least I think I did. If someone else previously told this joke then I apologize ahead of time. Here it is.

    Ted walked into the office Monday morning eager to share the good news he received over the weekend.  "I'm so relieved," he exclaimed to his co-worker Frank. "My wife Linda finally got that part-time job she was looking for!"  "That's great Ted," Frank responded. "What will she be doing?"
"She's a waitress at the new Tapas Bar in town. She's very excited about it."
Frank had a shocked reaction. "A topless bar? That's her new job? Are you sure you want that for your wife, Ted?", he asked.
"Oh yeah," Ted replied. "I mean, you know what a people person she is and the money is great."
"But Ted," Frank asked, "what are you thinking...your wife...a waitress in a topless bar?" Ted finally understood Frank's confusion. "No Frank, not a topless bar, its a Tapas Bar!" he explained with a chuckle.
"Oh I see," Frank answered with a sigh. " Thats a relief.!" Ted laughed after clearing up the misconception.  "Trust me Frank, I would never allow Linda to work at a topless bar. It would interfere with her other part-time job at the strip club." .

Okay thats the joke. Now you're asking yourself, what does it have to do with what we're talkng about. It will become apparent shortly.

    What a confusing, dichotomous season Mardi Gras is!  Its the time of year in New Orleans when we celebrate Carnival... a fun-loving ,seedy, uninhibited ;period of debauchery that when translated, literally means "Dance of the Flesh." Of course the depravity comes to an abrupt halt on Ash Wednesday as everybody who misbehaved yesterday seeks religious forgiveness today, in humble acknowledgement of their shenanigans from the previous three weeks. Like they say, its easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, but technically, we do have permission of sorts. Its always struck me as somewhat hypocritical to shut down the city for Carnival right on the cusp of Christianity's high holy day. Two diametrically opposed ideals coexisting at their own peril. I suppose when one thinks about it that conflict has always existed as a condition of our shared humanity. The struggle between the flesh and the spirit. I noticed this year 2018 that Valentines Day fell on Ash Wednesday making February a trifecta of human emotions ...love,depravity and spiritual purity. How can a person confidently navigate the complexities of all that in a responsible manner? I will try... for all of us.
    Lets take a look at sex and all it encompasses. How screwy is it that sexual gratification is a major motivator for human behavior. I think I can safely say it ranks an arguable number three behind access to food and water. But its not our fault apparently because, as it turns out, humans are "hard-wired" with a sex drive. Your next question of course is why, and the answer is supposed to be "to propagate the human race." but actually that stopped being the reason a long time ago  In the 1976 movie "Silver Streak", Jill Clayburgh asks Gene Wilder if he's ever written any sex manuals and if he feels that he's qualified to do so. He answers coyly, "well, I know what goes where and why." Good answer but a way simplified statement about a very complex and confusing subject. In today's society there are countless and perplexing motivations for engaging in sex. In the recent movie "Downsizing" Matt Damon is asked by a woman why he slept with her in the first place and she rattles off this list of reasons why she thinks he may have, including what she called the "pity f**k." . For some the sex drive is a short trip, but for others it's a cross country excursion that wreaks of desperation, like in the John Cusack movie "The Sure Thing" Its the drive to alleviate sexual desire and maybe even find love along the way. Okay, enough with the movie references. Lets move on
    That brings up another subject that complicates the mix. Love and Lust, both with capital Ls. I've brought it up before. Lust clouds the issue of what true love is, and, when you're young, its virtually impossible  to discern the difference. Fast forward in time and ask yourself why half of marriages fail and I think Lust is the culprit. Adults are ,of course, able to distinguish between the two, but even in their maturity they allow the dividing line to get blurry. Love takes a backseat to lust even when they recognize it. Confusion about what you really feel and what your lust says you need. Once again, a spiritual need at war with a physical desire. Are those last two sentences even sentences? Let's continue.
    Consider this for a moment without biting my head off. The Pornography Industry in the U.S. is a multi-billion dollar business for a reason. Estimates are between 8 to 13 billion dollars a year. It addresses a consumer demand. Ask yourself why professional sports is a multi-billion dollar industry. Demand is met in the marketplace.  To put things in perspective even more so, the pornography industry worldwide revenues  approach 97 billion a year. The Pornography industry makes more money than Major League Baseball, The N.F.L. and the NBA combined.   So what is my point? Is it possible that the availability of sexual imagery, and its cathartic effects, calms the masses and, perversely, preserves traditional values such as marriage and fidelity? Is that why it is so massive?
Probably not , but it does provide the thrill without consequences. That is its service and product.  But sexual content objectifies women and victimizes the young. Both valid points. Its a good thing that organized religion has stepped in and made it very clear that pornography is bad. That's what religion provides with its emphasis on family values and respectable behavior, promising an eventual heavenly reward. That's what its supposed to do and it largely does that. Bear with me though.
    Many years ago I had the occasion to attend an LSU- Alabama football game in Tiger Stadium as a a guest of a friend. I'm not a huge football fan now and had even less interest back then about the outcome of the game but I did know that most of my family and relatives were fanatics for the Crimson Tide. I should explain that I was a guest of a family who were huge Tiger fans and were allowing me to enjoy the game from the LSU student section. So there I was on the LSU side shoulder to shoulder with staunch supporters of the Tigers and for some reason I failed to acknowledge the inappropriateness of verbally rooting for the Tide while sitting neck high with Tigers in the LSU student section.
Well, needless to say I learned a lesson on that chilly Saturday evening. I could try to rationalize my behavior that night but honestly, I chose to ignore the obvious moral stand that I should have taken. I was literally sitting on the wrong side of a  room that identified me as having a certain mindset,  but I excused myself from behaving the way I knew I should have. By now, you're asking yourself what does that have to do with anything.  Its called hypocrisy in some circles, treason in others.  Just everything that's all.
    As I said earlier, The Church has officially taken, I believe, the correct  moral stand on the issue of pornography. As a physical concrete symbol of moral purity The Church cannot realistically take any other stand. Improper and deviant sexual conduct is a real problem in our society. That is the official stand and that's the side of the room they profess to occupy.  It speaks to the power of human  sexual desire and its many  diverse forms. However, according to statistics, use of pornography is "the sin of choice" within The Church in general. A former minister, pornography user and eventual counselor on the topic calls it "the dark magic."In essence he is saying that the human sex drive is God's dark magic. Could I have misunderstood that statement? Don't forget that we are "hard-wired" for sexual gratification as a species. It's God's doing (we believe), and as human beings we are left with the task of reigning it in and using it responsibly. I liken the whole thing to creating a toaster and then forbidding it to hang out with bread. I am particularly baffled with the whole idea of why God would intelligently design humans with an urge that so often destroys their lives and the lives of those around them. It is the one thing that has plagued humanity from the beginning. From what I remember from the Old Testament even God's angels wrestled with sexual desire and begetting was a major activity linking the Old Testament to the New Testament. The definition of begetting is not merely the act of sexual reproduction. It carries with it a historical causal domino effect. Sex is the seed by which sin is passed down through the ages. Sin being, ( and this is my own interpretation.), that which results in human pain and suffering.
    "The Devil made me do it." Isn't that what Flip Wilson used to say about prurient behavior?
Why Satan though?  Isn't it just testosterone? Maybe God and Satan are just convenient fall guys for explaining what we don't understand about the human mind. Why it does what it does and why it needs what it needs. By conventional thinking, God in His wisdom has combined this damning mechanism of sexual desire, testosterone, with the regulation of other essential bodily functions. Its a design flaw of the highest order.  So how does one placate the libido?
    Eliminating the human libido would be an awesome task, not awesome as in wonderful, but as in
"a tremendously protracted process involving generations of consenting participants dedicated to profoundly changing what it is to live in human society." Consider what it would mean to live in a world without the distraction of sexual desire. Notice I did not say without Love. Love is experienced free from the trappings of lust by virtue of proximity, shared values and shared experiences, as are other emotions separate from the libido. Sexual desire identified as a destructive part of our human makeup would not exist, and along with it the irrational behavior it inspires such as infidelity, sexual discrimination based on sexual identity and enterprises committed to sexual exploitation of humans. The term recreational sex would be meaningless. Sex as a group activity would be an absurdity. Overpopulation, unwanted pregnancy... gone. I know, that's not a sentence.  The pornography industry would collapse ( go limp, if you will) , human trafficking and , prostitution would all be a distant memory.
    Sadly, this bold step would not solve all of our social ills. Life and Death, love and hate, happiness and despair would still coexist. And furthermore because of that knowledge humanity would soundly reject such a proposal. I think we have to blame the engineer of our human behavior God himself for our predicament.  Sex provides too much pleasure, too much even if it is often at the expense of those around us. If only we could safely squelch the production of testosterone in humans. Its the culprit, Libido by another name. It is the serpent in our Eden. Unfortunately, testosterone is an essential element of biological regulation.  Our bodies need it for a bunch of other stuff. That's the Catch 22. Hmm, would that be yet another movie reference or a literary one? I'll say both. Nothing else seems to permanently kill the urge for the long term, and people have tried. Would you believe corn flakes, saltpeter and licorice were once considered "cures" for the human libido? Nowadays the closest thing we have to a cure is chemical castration using a substance called GnRH agonist mostly reserved for sex offenders. The fact of the matter is that if one day we do discover a way to eradicate the human sex drive with all of its negative fallout, I suspect there will be a mad dash to the back of the line. Its the way we are. Cost versus benefit.
     Would humanity's spiritual enlightenment increase in the absence of this Satanic carnal influence? That is the big question, and I think the answer is yes.
    I was watching a TV show recently that used the analogy of two dogs fighting for dominance inside the human psyche, one good and one bad. Upon hearing the analogy, another person asks which one eventually wins. The response was, "the one you feed." It brings up another question though that begs for an answer. What if there was only one dog... the good one?
    I promised to explain the significance of my opening joke before I shut this down and all I can say is this. Sexual desire may actually be the root of all evil, but the love of money runs a close second. It's a cost versus benefit comparison between the two. The illusion of sexual intimacy is marginalized and traded for money every day in this world. According to Rudyard Kipling its the oldest profession. The pursuit of both  test the limits of our humanity, but that is a subject for another day.
     Meanwhile, last Saturday on the streets of The French Quarter in New Orleans, the 10th Annual World Naked Bike Ride pedaled down the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter under the guise of promoting Bicycle Safety. Hmm, bike safety? If you say so.