Blessed Assurance

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh, what a foretaste of Glory Divine!

Not far from the home of my youth was an old graveyard which I visited occasionally, checking out old headstones, some of which were of historical interest, or had interesting inscriptions. I remember one epitaph in particular: They died in certain expectation of a glorious resurrection.

It’s interesting, I thought-- here lies a couple who had no doubt that when they died, they would continue to live in another form, presumably altered and improved, of course.

In my mind there was something oddly biblical about that rural area: sheaves of wheat, barns full of hay, fields of cows, century-old white clapboard churches, but 19th century reality couldn’t have been much different from our own time. People got sick, people died, people were killed in wars. There were good times and bad. Were they so devoid of intellectual curiosity that they could avoid any doubt that things would work out pretty much as their religion indicated?

Oh, to have that same kind of certain assurance in this day and age!

But even in biblical times eyewitnesses to the miracles described in the four gospels still doubted. They were there when Jesus reportedly fed four thousand people. They saw him heal people. Some saw him walk on water. Three of them saw the “transfiguration.” Yet when the chips were down, they scattered like scared rabbits. And when he appeared to them after he “came back,” one who wasn’t there refused to believe it, until he himself had seen him in person, the original “Doubting Thomas.”

To me, Doubting Thomas’s position seems perfectly sensible. Let’s have a little honest rational skepticism going here. That’s why the position of atheism, as opposed to agnosticism, seems to be more of an emotional, rather than an intellectual argument. Based on solely scientific and deductive reasoning, agnosticism seems to be the only purely logical world view. Things of the spirit can only be perceived “through a glass darkly,” as Paul theorized.

There’s no logical way to prove or disprove the existence of God. Belief always requires a leap of faith. We just can’t know one way or the other.

I am a Christian because of a series of personal “slaps upside the head,” that left me, like Thomas, saying, “My Lord and my God!” I admit to a certain paranormal, and for lack of a better world, emotional undertone in my reasoning.

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Atheism requires a certain emotional edge in my opinion. In a way atheists are pushing their own conclusions on others in a manner oddly similar to the “Jesus Saves” crowd. The determination of the atheist, whether it’s a college boy trying to shock his peers, or a well-known writer touting a book or article, seems to me to be a cri de coeur, “Prove that I’m wrong. Show me that I’m wrong. Please! Please!”

Can y'all dig it?

So I stumbled on this from one of the many other blogs out there.

When I was a teenager someone showed me a page printed in this "new language," Interlingua. At first it seemed like gibberish, but after looking at it for a few minutes, it was--amazingly--understandable! Here's a more recent sample from the article linked above:

Interlingua es un lingua auxiliar international naturalistic basate super le vocabulos commun al major linguas europee e super un grammatica anglo-romanic simple, initialmente publicate in 1951 per International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA).

Interlingua es le resultato del labores de 15 annos de un equipa de linguistas.

Le labor pro crear Interlingua habeva le start in Europa, a Liverpool in 1936 e le fin a New York in 1951, le equipa de linguistas ha extrahite le vocabulario international del linguas europee.

In 1967, ISO (International Organization for Standardization), que normaliza le terminologia, ha votate in unanimitate proxime de adoptar Interlingua como le basa pro ille dictionarios.

Interlingua = “International Lingua” es intendite que illo debe devenir un lingua commun del mundo pro succeder in servir le humanitate, ma non un solo lingua comun.

Apparently a team of linguists constructed the "language" from words common to several European languages--thus the fact that it's relatively understandable to speakers of those languages.

"Wow, this is great," I thought. "Now there'll be no real need to learn a foreign language!" But, alas, artificial languages may be useful for scientific papers, but, lacking the nuances and slang of an everyday living language, they can never become a substitute for authentic, natural human language. Things just don't work that way. (Sorry, kids.)

In fact, if I understand the above article correctly, the originators hoped it would develop into something useful, but had no illusions of it becoming a single common world language (un solo lingua comun, dig it?).

For better or worse, thanks to the internet, English has now become as close to a world language as any other, despite its odd and antiquated spelling "system", a fact that has allowed most Americans (in spite of the influx of Spanish speakers) to remain abysmally ignorant of other languages.

Not that it's willful ignorance by any means. Some Dutch people I knew, who settled in West Virginia, were often told, "Ya know, y'alls language can't be all that different from ours. We can almost understand some of what y'all say!" Problem was, they were speaking English.

Hoovervilles?

While on vacation last week we caught a late night discussion between Bill O'Reilly and John Stossel (both of them well-paid broadcasters and political pundits) that left me with a really bad taste in the mouth, so to speak.
They were discussing some Republicans' reluctance to vote for extending unemployment benefits for out-of-work people. (Granted, part of the issue was the fact that further unfunded benefits add to the national debt.)
Stossel seemed to be saying that during the Great Depression, unemployed workers left their homes and moved to "Hoovervilles" outside of cities. (The picture above is actually the "Bonus Army" encampment outside of Washington, DC, but it's the same general idea. You left home and you're camping out looking for work.)
Stossel said "relief societies" took care of these peoples' wants and needs, and did it in a far more economical manner than any government.
The real facts are that--obviously--neither Stossel or O'Reilly has ever had to draw unemployment. And probabably neither one really knows anyone who has. They're smug and affluent, and their theorizing is in danger of approaching the "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" level.

Unemployment Compensation is one of the best things to come out of the post-Hoover era. An employer pays a small percentage into a fund as Unemployment Compensation Tax. When an employee is laid off, the employee can collect a small amount from the fund for a stipulated period. In this manner, the beneficiary can feed himself and his family, does not have to give up his living quarters, and can retain a modicum of dignity while looking for alternative employment.
The payoff for society is that we don't have families camping in vacant lots or living in vehicles.
Sometimes you wonder if the Chinese didn't have a good idea in rounding up the bureaucrats every few years and making them work in the rice fields. Might be good therapy for some of these pundits who are telling us what is good for us.

And while we're at it, I think we've had enough of this "let's go back to the Twenties" mentality. It's no secret that the "Middle Class" is going bye-bye. And through the magic of compound interest the rich are getting richer. All this is fine if you're talking about creating jobs, and so on, if that's what's really happening.
But now we're hearing that some people who really ought to know better are still touting a "Flat Tax" or "Fair Tax." Despite our national pluralism and diversity we're still in danger of ending with something less than a middle class republic.
Is there anybody out there talking sense these days?

Yadkin River Blues

The stock market surged yesterday after aluminum giant Alcoa posted better-than-expected earnings. As Wall Street applauded, more than a few people in North Carolina were scratching their heads. They're in a legal battle with Alcoa over the use of the Yadkin River, which flows south from the Blue Ridge Mountains, through central North Carolina, eventually becoming the Pee Dee River and exiting to the sea in South Carolina.

Years ago Alcoa build four hydroelectric dams on the Yadkin and used the power to run a smelter which is now closed. They would like to renew their fifty-year lease on the river, but some locals and politicians say "no."

If the state misses this chance, it won't get another one for 50 years. Meanwhile, Alcoa will have perfected a perfidious kind of globalism: It still generates power from the Yadkin, and the power is still linked to industrial jobs—only the jobs are in Iceland.

The only certainty is that lawyers in Washington and Raleigh will be haggling about this for a long time to come.

But back to the Yadkin:

Years ago our friend Glen leased a small farm along the banks of the Yadkin. Glen was never a small man, and some say he topped the scales at well over three hundred pounds at times. North Carolina can get hot in the summer, and this year's no exception. It's always cooler in the shade by the river.

One summer I went down by the river to cool off. The fish wasn't biting and after a while I got to feelin' kinda lazy. I said what the hell, ain't nobody around, so I got off all my clothes, left 'em right there on the bank, and got into the river. The water was warm and I just floated on my back lookin' up at the blue sky and the clouds.
It was so relaxin' just floatin' there thinkin' about nothin' and after a while I just drifted off to sleep.

I still don't know how long I was asleep, but some time later I bumped up against something--it was a bridge piling--and I woke up. "Where the hell am I?" I musta floated almost two miles downstream. There was a highway with cars goin' over the bridge!

"Holy s--t! What am I gonna do?" This was gonna be hard to explain. I waited for almost half an hour for the traffic to slow up. Up by the bridge there was a couple of posters for a county fair that was comin' up. In between cars I ran up and got both of 'em, and positioned 'em fore and aft, so to speak.

It took me almost two hours find my way back to where I'd left my clothes. By then it was late, but not dark yet. I still don't know how I made it back there without anybody seeing me.

....Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end....

A Life Examined

The Seablogger has died. Future historians may comment on how, toward the end of the 20th century, the internet changed the nature of human communication through the proliferation of "web logs," now more commonly known as blogs.

A couple of years ago I had the good fortune of stumbling on (another internet-coined phrase) Alan Sullivan's blog Fresh Bilge, immediately recognizing him as a Zeitgenosse: same age, same education, raised in the same region of the country, with some of the same interests. There was one critical difference, however. Three years earlier, still in the prime of life, he'd been diagnosed with a dangerous and ultimately fatal illnesss.

It's said that man is the only animal that has awareness of his own mortality and the ability to contemplate it. Alan had already laid out much of his life story on his blog site, along with his photos, writings, musings and poetry.
His daily observations of things which interested him attracted a huge following of internet users, many of whom joined in a lively on-line discussion of facts and opinions.

His ongoing web Chatauqua soon became a daily habit with me, joining probably a couple hundred other "lurkers" and, as he termed them, "rare readers." The subjects under discussion included current events, politics, geology, weather, volcanism, travel, weather, poetry, medicine, his own health, and later, after an "epiphany on the beach," his transition from agnosticism to Christianity.

The man's knowledge and energy amazed us, as he contined his daily postings and his final work--a retranslation of some of the book of Psalms-- right up to his final trip to the hospital. Alan's friends and rare readers have eulogized him far better--and in more ways--than I could. I never met the man in person, and if I had, quite possibly might not have gotten along with him. But somehow, through cyberspace, I think he has shown us a little glimpse of heaven.

"The unexamined life in not a life worth living," said Socrates.(ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ.) You examined yours well, Seablogger, and we are all the richer for it.

Key West's "Christmas Tree Island"

If you've visited Key West, Florida, you probably saw Wisteria Key. It's the Australian pine-covered island across the harbor from the waterfront hotels and Mallory Square, home of the famous "sunset celebration."

The island was originally a "spoil bank," consisting of rock and sand dredged up a century ago in order to deepen Key West harbor. It came to be called Wisteria Key or Island after a ship that sank behind it. Eventually salt loving Australian pines took root, and the name Christmas Tree Island seemed more appropriate to locals.
Over the years the island has been home to hippies, vagrants, boat bums and the just plain curious. At one time someone wanted to put a campsite for handicapped people out there, but the local politicians saw that as a ruse and nixed the idea.
Now comes a more serious challenge. The island's owners and their partners want to put a real estate development out there. A citizens' group is saying "enough," claiming that they've known for years what they could and could not do under the county's long-term comprehensive plan.
So the battle lines will be drawn over individual property rights vs. sticking to a plan devised to preserve a unique area with limited land space.
The issue also raises the question of whether allowing development of this island will permit the development of the many other offshore islands, most of which contain flora and fauna found only in this part of the USA.
And of course there's the logistical problem of water, electricity, sewer connection and police and fire protection. The above picture is of a burning trailer on another offshore island, one of several torched by juveniles a few years ago. In that case there was no fire or police protection.
Coffee shop gossip says that the details of water, electricity, and sewer have already been worked out for Wisteria Island.
Here's a link to a recent article on the island.

Update! The plans have hit a ripple. If history is any indication, they'll be back to try again, but this summer's efforts have been a bust. The natives are restless, and after the recent school board and land trust scandals, are "out for blood."

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Probably most people are aware of the "Facebook Revolt" by now. And then there's a story that Google, in taking pictures for its "Street View" photos, was actually also collecting information about WiFi signals in the area!

Ironically, the admission comes following outspoken criticism from Germany's Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar, who was "horrified" to learn that Google's Street View car cataloged private WiFi network data like Mac (Media Access Control) addresses and SSIDs, in addition to snapping pictures of public streets.

I say it's ironic because a man with whom I used to work, who was a child during pre-World War II Germany, told me what it was like there in those days. "We could get only two radio signals. One was from Paris and the other was from Berlin. It was against the law to listen to the one from Paris, of course. But sometimes people would do it, because the music was better. But there was a truck with an antenna that came around the neighborhoods, and they could tell if you were tuned into the Paris station, so we never listened to that station. Only Berlin."
Of course this "begs the question," what happened if you were listening to the Paris station and they found about it?
"Well, they say that happened to a family up the street," he said. "One day they were just gone. We never saw them again."

I'd been going on a paranoid jag even before these events came to light, having realized that I couldn't continue to write some of the stories I'd been writing without changing the names and places in such a way that would distort the original essence of the tale, for fear of offending those still living or their relatives, some of whom I actually heard from. The cyber-world had become too large, or too small, or both.

Through Facebook, Google search, and other programs and applications it's simple enough to track down people you haven't seen in decades. In many ways this is good, but like all innovations, it can be a two-edged sword.

When I worked for a county in Florida years ago, I had to put up with a private detective sending me phony e-mails in an attempt to "catch" me in a real estate solicitation. I'd innocently left remnants of a web site up that led to the supposition that I was still in business, even though I'd given up my license a couple of years earlier.

Of course I'm now old, and unlikely to be employed by anyone but myself ever again. The young, however, might be will advised to curtail their impulses to put every thought and photograph out there, where the world will be able to look at them for the next 100 years or more. From recent reports it seems the smarter ones are beginning to catch on.

Futurists predicted years ago that there would be a reactive "privacy movement" in this decade, and I hope we are seeing the beginning of it. It's great to be able to contact old friends over the internet, but every new development seems to bring problems along with promise.

The trick is to harness the information age in such a way that it serves us, and does not hasten the coming time when all those who want to take part in any commerce will be tagged with "the mark of the beast," and privacy becomes once cherished but now long-gone right.

Don't think there aren't people out there who would hasten that day. It's much closer than we think.