BUM RAP 1948
Ahead, on the icy windswept roadside, a flapping figure
in topcoat, rumpled and stained, button threads hanging,
eyes dull agates turned inward, unwatching as he thumbs his question.

Wife objects, but I brake and stop, and he from other worlds,
gets into ours, into the warm car.

He stares absently asks only how far, not where, and mumbles,
"I'm no hobo, I got prospects. I had a lotta bad luck in my life,
the little guy always get screwed." Then he retreats beyond smalltalk.

We drop him off at a cold crossroads with gritty cafe,
another station on his shuffle to a bleak Calvary.
I slip him a buck, "for soup" but he’s quick to ask for another,
“for the pie and coffee” so I ante up more conscience.
He goes, leaving behind a sharp raft of flophouse disinfectant.

Wife complains, “It will only go for drink. Two dollars is too much
on top of a ninety mile ride. Besides, he was ungrateful.”

I wondered why he was so truly damned,
like genetic chaff expelled from evolutionary grist,
blown into a hundred blind alleys, doomed without survival DNA.
There, but for the grace of God, go I?

A million miles down that road I am still without answer.
H.C. Klingman 1998

We had a case of termites that had burrowed up through our foundation and had eaten away all the wood inside the baseboards of our bedroom. The outside paint was still intact, so we didn't see a thing for a long time until we hit it accidently and then the whole paint surface broke like an egg.

That's kind of like America. Corruption has invisibly wasted the inside, and the only thing holding up the country is probably a thin naive optimism native to the American soul, which came from a couple of centuries of having it better than the places from which we all came. Faith in the system which we thought made us exceptional is doomed to be replaced by cynicism and hopelessness.

The rot has wasted our financial power, without which we will not long survive as world leader.

Debased currency has been behind the fall of every empire. John K. Galbraith warned of this specific danger thirty years ago. Disraeli and others said that those who ignore the failures of history are doomed to repeat them.

Knowing this I can lead the rest of my life without illusions and, as a student of Zen, know that my happiness does not require a belief in any political system, or patriotic fervor for any country.

There are those who say our economy will rise again from the ashes, and ascend Phoenix-like to new heights. I assume they have faith in some magic substance availabile only in America that will revive our whole eroded industrial base, create vast and amazingly new technology which we can once again sell to the world, all the while paying off our foreign and domestic debt.

The news is that we do not have the technologists, the scientists, or the intellectual property to do this. China and India now graduate far more elite minds than we can, and they will set the parameters for applied science in the next few decades dominating world trade. Already, China takes 80 % of the resource exports from the continent of Africa, and is making long term deals for oil in South America and the Middle East.

We blew our patrimony, the riches of a fallow continent, by using our energies in vain pursuits, catering to decadent appetites, and national megalomania.

SCIENCE vs SOCIAL SCIENCE

A friend recently told me that Social Science has not kept up with the “hard sciences” and technology.

The origins of science lie in philosophy. Ours originated in Greece in the sixth century BC. If only science had observed the strictures of philosophy with greater fidelity. So much technical and scientific effort has been expended on making better war machines. Man has not benefitted from this colossal waste.

In 2500 BC, oriental philosophers already had the same view of matter as 20th century physics. Metaphysics preceded Nobel prizes for science. Niels Bohr said, "For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory...we must turn to those kinds of epistemological problems which already thinkers like the Buddha, and Lao Tzu have confronted."
(Quote from "The Tao of Physics", by F. Capra.)

Aristotle said man's most important quest is the search for happiness. In the Zen perspective, man's drive to arrogate the products of science is an endless egoic quest, which can never be sated. It is actually the source of his unhappiness. Science has become our sacred cow, the golden calf that promises hedonistic worshippers comfort, wealth, and pleasure.

Advocates of material progress fail to mention that science and technology have produced WMD's, a world full of discarded environmental garbage, and the poisoning of air, soil, and water with the effluents of affluence.

Philosophy is concerned with one’s fundamental premises, and sets the stage for how you interpret the evidence of your senses. We would be better off by first directing our science students toward the enlightenment of philosophy and the moral imperitives of ethics. Afterward we could arm them with the scientific skills required, among other things, to reverse the damage done by their predecessors.
(MBA's and Law students would be separately re-socialized.)

The fact that you cannot elicit "proofs" in Social studies does not invalidate those disciplines. That is not their business. Their function is to give us the "oughts", the moral imperitives of human life, spirit to inhabit mortal flesh. This is difficult because our system supports science for its material payoffs.

The trick is to keep science as the servant of man, without stifling intellectual inquiry. But that may be like trying to put the genie back into the bottle.

Rules for civilized social conduct have been around longer than the Atom Bomb, and other weapons of mass destruction. They just have not been observed.

Is there a political party of moral precepts?

There was once a man who preached and practiced the Golden rule of non-violence. He was a humanitarian for the ages. He helped the poor, healed the afflicted, and fed the starving. He was compassionate toward sinners. Everyone deserved redemption.

He had no regard for money or bankers. His was a higher morality than is practiced by weekend Christians today.

You know who I mean.

If he were to return do you think he would be a Republican or Democrat?

ME, and the World

EGO, is the self-constructed false hope of permanency, our vain and chimerical search for immortality. It appears as attachment to manifestations and objects which have no intrinsic reality or permanence.
Oriental philosophy terms this as spiritual and cultural "ignorance".

Consigning the concept of "here and now" as a quality too "narrow" for considerations of human destiny is a false viewpoint constructed by the ego. Fundamentally, the here and now is the only reality. The past is gone, and the future is totally uncertain.
Living in the now, interconnected with everyone and everything in the universal continuum, is a happier alternative.

Check out Oriental philosophical and psychological secular teachings. They offer true happiness and spiritual peace not found in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic cosmos.

Aristotle and Eastern wisemen identified the search for happiness as man's pre-eminent goal. Western civilization seems to have answered this search by settling on the nostrum of material progress.
In doing that it has missed the mark. There is no peace or surcease from ego-satisfaction which creates only relentless hunger for more of the same.

The socialist bogeyman

Some agitated writers-in reveal ignorance of exactly what “socialism” is. They see social benefits as tantamount to state socialism. Theirs is a bogeyman projected through a skewed prism.

Civilized discourse requires closer knowledge and intelligent comparison of that system to current political events.

Socialism is state ownership of industry and capital. Neither we nor the Europeans are even close to that. Our business activities function in a market economy. Goods are freely traded. Most industries are owned by shareholders. Their securities trade in Stock Exchanges without much government interference. Millions of workers are privately employed. Private property and free enterprise prevail.

Minds fevered by political paranoia tell us that the bailouts and needed systemic reforms are really Obama’s Trojan Horse to smuggle socialism through the gates. Hardly. Health care, Social Security and public services exist in most civilized nations that embrace capitalism. We are catching up.

Worshippers of the cult of “Enlightened Selfishness” or “Rational Egoism” seem to be closer to the law of the jungle as practiced by 19th Century robber barons who thrived on laissez faire. Today that kind of individual grab bag is an anachronism.

Our rise as a nation was not simply the product of individual effort, but the result of much cooperation and self-sacrifice in times of peace and war. Our Constitution begins with, “We the people…” and that defines our national collective identity. Its idealism is for the ages. Its altruism aims at the highest hopes of mankind.

It is more than just a license to get rich.

Naples Daily News Guest Commentary 5/17/08

Capitalism, with a heart and a brain, will help U.S. recover


The “Evil Empire” of the extremist right has local advocates. Ultra-conservative views, appearing in the NDN, go beyond intelligent discourse, employing insult and polemic.

Jack Tymann and Andrew Joppa dance in lockstep to the siren strains of Ayn Rand, the goddess of reactionary economics. They promote the false notion that regulating business is tantamount to socialism. William Buckley, the founder of modern Conservatism, wrote, “Ayn Rand is dead. So, incidentally, is the philosophy she sought to launch. In fact, it was still born”.

Jack Tymann: “Wall Street wants the government out of the private sector”. Hello? We deregulated banking and the financial markets, and unfettered Wall Street waltzed us into recession. Does he want an encore of this danse macabre?
GM and Chrysler were unfettered but die anyhow. If laissez-faire really worked wouldn’t banks and auto manufacturers still be healthy?
Tymann wants all taxes cut. Studies show that the Bush and Reagan tax cuts created no net economic benefits except to concentrate wealth and increase the national debt. Compare: Clinton raised taxes and left us with a surplus.

Mr. Tymann calls Tea Parties …”the great American silent majority” in need of “national leadership”. His soulmate Newt Gingrich, ever ready to lead a new charge up Capitol Hill, is waiting in the wings. Fair enough. But do not insult the intelligence or the integrity of an opposition whose administration is supported by 2/3 of the American people, and whose President is liked by 81%.

Mr. Joppa, a former teacher of Business Ethics, has thundered at suggestions that the American brand of capitalism needs government oversight. He has denied that greed is present in the system. His defense of Tymann and Randian principles involve using intemperate and abusive language inappropriate for intelligent discourse. In these columns he calls the political left, “deranged and repugnant”.

He excoriates critics by calling them “progressive assassins”, “dangerous political mystics”. Even moderate positions are cholerically branded as “vacuousness”, “dangerous and erroneous hyperbole”, “misguided”, “ludicrous”, and “tragically naïve”. He offers strong opinion, and an avalanche of invective decidedly unintellectual.

In answer to my reasons why “America needs hybrid of capitalism”… Joppa attacks. He misquotes me as saying capitalism is dead. I said essentially that it needed reform. I pointed out that successful industrial societies of Europe, and China, even with extensive government regulation or supervision, are outstripping us. He is unable to explain this contradiction.

How well has American Capitalism been doing compared to industrial nations with other socio-economic systems? The CIA World Factbook 2008, the World Bank, IMF and UN, available on the Internet, give answers.
· The“Human Development Index”, measures health, education, access to resources and life expectancy. The USA is in 15th place behind liberal democracies of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and France.
· The “UN Poverty Index” shows the USA in 17 place behind almost every EU social economy.
· Our overall GDP, adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, trails the EU.
· GDP real growth rate has the USA at #180 out of 216 countries. China is #8.
· GDP per capita. We are in 17th place. Adjusted for PPP we are 8th.
· Unemployment. We are 88 out of 200 behind Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, the Ukraine, Austria, Japan, the UK, Canada and others.
· Inflation. We are 67th, far behind the EU at #41. France is #10, Canada is #7, Netherlands is 15th, and Sweden 16th.
· Public Debt as % of GDP. We are #22. Austria, Norway, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, China and Russia are better.
· Current Account Balance. We are in last place, #191. China is 1st.
· Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold. We are 23rd far behind China, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, and even Switzerland. Our reserves are less than Sweden, Denmark, and Finland combined.
· We are behind the EU in education expenditures, 57th out of 182; also in life expectancy and infant mortality, in telephone lines, cellphones, Internet users and railways.
These figures demonstrate that other countries have flourished under conditions asserted by Joppa/Tymann to be detrimental to economic and social development. One must earnestly question whether we still are, in Tymann’s words, …”the greatest, most prosperous” nation in history.

Time to move on, get away from stale dogma, evolve out of the cycle of boom and bust, give American capitalism a new heart, and brains for new impetus going forward. But before we can make progress, we have to be honest about the way we look at ourselves.

A Christmas Carol

Dec. 24, 1937, Buffalo, N.Y.

The snowstorm delighted my kid brother and I, not for making snowballs, but for making nickels and dimes by shoveling out neighbor’s yards. We worked hard that day moving wet snow from back yards out to the curb.

Though tired, we had to go to church for evening service. The younger kids, like my brother, were to recite passages from the Nativity legend. He looked forward to it, and knew his piece by heart, having rehearsed for weeks. He wanted that small box of striped hard candy from the Pastor, a reward for effort. In those days, that was a treat.

The sermon dragged on into the evening. In the overheated little church my brother, wearing a woolen suit with knickers, nodded off. When the recitations began he was unable to stay awake.

All of the other children had finished when my brother's name was called for the closing episode. I shook him, and he went to the front, sleepy and totally disoriented. He turned and faced his audience in panic, completely forgetting his piece. He was paralyzed and in my pity I felt like shouting his opening lines.

The little fellow knew he had to do something but couldn’t quite remember what it was. After moments he improvised a desperate, unsolemn substitute. He surprised us by bursting into song: “Jingle bells, jingle Bells, jingle all the way ...”, and sat down with his candy fighting back tears against the laughter of the congregation.

It was his last performance. Later, he would become a fine engineer.

The Bible, guaranteed by man.

Re: Biblical citations.

We were taught that the Bible was the undeniable word of an infallible God. It said so right in the Bible itself. That was proof enough, said our Pastor back in the day. Whoops, I thought, "Faith, the enemy of reason".

One wondered, “Why did omnipotent God, who could write graffiti on walls (“Mene, mene tekel…”) and chisel Mosaic Law on stone tablets, bother to use earthly scribes with such potential for error to record our Bible?”

Jesus wrote nothing. God’s Word filtered down to us haphazardly, anecdotally. Parsed and eagerly edited, it further suffered numerous translations and subjective revisions. Biblical writers, anxious to exalt, reported miracles as proof of divine power. Church Councils decided the Table of Contents. Stuff got blown up or omitted. The Word became what the Man said. The leap of faith kept growing.

The Word spread anyhow. Heathen cults gave way to Christianity which later splintered into a numerous manmade sects. Each claimed infallibility based on different biblical passages. Ethical essence became obscured by dogma and liturgy. Powerful hierarchies evolved with customized belief systems. Evangelists messed with politics, preached in great temples and became rich by selling eternal life to the poor. The Golden Rule was nowhere in evidence as Christians followed the cross into war.

Illustrations showed the anthropomorphic God as an old bearded man levitating on a heavenly cloud. How could God have made us in his image? Most of us are younger than he, and half of us are women. Then there are the fairy tales of Genesis and Revelations, which confound science and common sense.

Pity the Bible was not copyrighted. Six hundred years later the Koran appeared, and made all kinds of trouble.

everglades reverie

ebb tide ripples,
boat glides silent
through shallows,
of mangrove islands.

dawn filters
thru night mist.
feathers stir and
birdwings flutter-up
egrets, herons, osprey
kites, pelicans,
terns and cormorants,
all foraging for
marine tidbits.

coons skulk
for crabs
or sniff for
other scraps
near tidal shores.

diving porpoises,
frenzied in chase,
lunge swiftly
through schools
of wheeling mullet,
making waves
while they feast.

then quiet and peace
in this holy wilderness
of natural wonders,
where everything is
part of everything else,
and I become wiser.

I sit now, far away
in a busy city
where men wear suits
and dream of promotions,
and wonder if my spirit
will dwell in that
peace, that paradise
yet once more.

BLITHE ARTIST

You smile
when others frown.
Your good will
and open heart,
mislead and
divert our gaze
from the gift
that lies within.

Your spirit creates
because it is inside
and wants expression,
a soul giving us
not a fantasy world,
but focused visions
that we can see
even in our myopia.

Depression Snapshot. How we ate well 1933-1939

We beat the thirties. My folks pulled us through. In those days there were bread lines, soup kitchens, and many bums roaming the streets begging for handouts at back doors.

Pa did odd jobs when unemployed, Ma cleaned houses, and helped out at parties. I sold newspapers, caddied, and shoveled snow for spending money. Welfare was unthinkable. In the worst of times they bought a two family house, paying the mortgage with income from one flat while we lived in the other. They never owed money for anything, always paying cash. There was a savings account, but no checks.

We survived through peasant frugality, brought from Europe, along with knowing how to work the earth. One of my jobs was to shovel up horse-balls deposited by nags that pulled the iceman or the baker’s wagon down our street. That’s free fertilizer for the gardens that filled our pantry with home-canned fruits, produce and preserves. Our organic rhubarb and tomatoes were the biggest and tastiest around. Italian neighbors had large gardens and also knew how to put food on the table.

Convenience foods were unknown. Supermarkets hadn't yet appeared. Ma made everything from scratch, mouth-watering German dishes and pastries. Noodles were rolled out on the dining room table, cut and hung over a broomstick to dry. What we had to buy came from small corner stores. Every meal was a treat, and I didn’t have my first American hamburger until I was 15.

Flour came in 25 pound bags. Bulk items and freshly slaughtered chickens were lugged home from the outdoor Polish market. On Saturday Ma baked, and our oven was busy from morning till night, baking for the entire week. Eggs were bought in quantity when the prices were low, and stored for the winter in crocks of fluid to prevent spoilage. We smoked our own pork, which was bought on the hoof and slaughtered in our cellar. The stink would fill the house and last for weeks.

Poor kids from down the street came to our house for "Samitches", or asked for "dibs" when they saw another kid with a snack. They were skinny and malnourished. Their diet was Wonder Bread and candy, and all 5 had rotten teeth. Their father spent their welfare money at the saloon. The boys all were in special education.

In addition to meat, our beer, wine, and “moonshine” were home-made. By end October we had stored a full winter's supply of food and drink. We had no problems with wartime food rationing. But those are other stories.

Dirge

Perhaps it is
the raw power: marching threat of uniforms,
guns, blaring brass and crashing drums,
celebrating events of forgotten horror.

Perhaps it is ancestral memory of other marches,
of limping cripples and grieving women
become widows with war orphaned children.

Perhaps it was
a weeping youngster's farewell embrace
in a gloomy railway station,
imploring me to return from
my own march to war.

And perhaps that is why, even today,
a parade will fill me with great sadness
and I cannot help but cry.

Bumper Stickers

Question: Why do rightwing Christians want to put their bumper stickers, "In God We Trust," on school walls? Why are they always pushing for an opening into our public schools?

Answer: Because that's where the young, impressionable minds are. No sense proselytizing jaded adults out at the mall. You've got to go hunting where the ducks are. It has been suggested that if such signs are allowed, we would have to add "In Allah we Trust" to be ecumenically fair to Muslims.

But that opens the door to the claims of others in the name of free speech and equal time. Perhaps we can also look forward to these signs in our schools from various interest groups:

Agnostics: "Trust is Good, Proof is Better"
Atheists: "There is No God to Trust"
Hindus: "Trust Recycled Souls"
Anarchists: "Don't Trust Government"
Government: "Don't Trust Anarchists"
Bill Gates: "Distrust Antitrust"
School Boards: "Trust Us"
Boards of Commissioners: "Trust Us, Too"
Mobley and Marchiano:(convicted swindlers)"In God We Trust,but The Buck Stops Here"
Norris and Constantine: (crooked commissioners) "Trusted, Now Busted"
Naples Sewer Department: "Don't Trust the Water"
Naples Water Department: "Don't Trust the Sewers"
Environmentalists: "Trust Manatees, Not Developers"
Developers: "Trust Martha Dyckman" (Onetime spokesman for Developer's lobby group)

Bumper stickers or T-shirts on the above available from Jeff Lytle, Naples Daily News.

Depression Snapshot. The False Teeth (1933-39)

Annually, Pa would buy a hog from a farmer to turn into sausages, hams and loins. Store-bought was inferior and expensive. He smoked them German style to perfection, in a brick smokehouse that he constructed in our cellar. For many years it was his pride and joy until he unthinkingly agreed to smoke fish for a neighbor. The next batch of hams had a fishy flavor. That was it. With great curses and a sledgehammer, our now unusable smokehouse was demolished. The corner butcher was glad for our resumed purchases.

We bottled homemade beer, that Ma made in washtubs from a kit. Pa made a winter's supply of wine and hard cider, in large barrels. He coaxed booze from a still. Home distillation was illegal, so basement windows were covered to avoid scrutiny. But that fooled no one. The neighbors winked at each other when the windows were darkened. That was a dead giveaway. Besides, you could smell alcohol fumes blocks away. It was so evident we feared he would be reported and go to jail. But our food and drink was a resource no one wanted eliminated.

When the window coverings were taken down we got friendly callers who knew the signs. Hearty sausages appeared. Cold hard cider or beer slaked summer thirst. Then came wine and brain-rattling Schnapps. Ethnics tearfully sang about the old country, about Galway Bay and elsewhere. I played the accordian, the ethnic’s illusion of future glory.

One night, neighbor Harvey’s Irish thirst and blarney eased out one too many corks. Old Harv's income did not support his love of drink, and Pa was his backup. He was all leprauchan, telling fine tales while Pa poured. Later, he energetically puked in our bathroom and lurched home, singing. Through the window we heard his wife screaming “Ya drunken bum...”, followed by wild argument. It was then we knew he had gotten up his steps and was safely home.

Next morning Harv showed up with a buster headache. Sheepish and pale, he asked whether we had seen his "foss teef". Pa got the wrench and retrieved them from the toilet pipe. After a quick rinse Harv popped them back in, and with restored jaw said, “ Oi, I could be usin' some hair of the dog.”

The idiom was unfamiliar, but Pa thought 120 proof would kill any germs, and got the bottle.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Changing Face of Capitalism
Last week our local newspaper, the Naples Daily News, published a commentary by a former business executive, which contained all the shibboleths of radical Conservatism. Then he urges that we find a consensus on his agenda in order "to come together.

Jack Tymann’s latest Promethean pronouncement, “America needs to stimulate Capitalism”, urges the retrogressive policies of Reaganism to save us from disaster.His rightwing nostrums are advanced as unimpeachable ideology. Stereotyped Capitalism and free market dogma are practically elevated to state religion. Ignored are needed corrections or variations to adapt to circumstances.

History shows Reaganomics fails on three accounts: Tax cuts are not self- financing, financial markets are not self-regulating, and trickle down is a hoax. Figures prove that tax cuts do not create net public revenue, and that wealth flowed upwards through these tax cuts. The Reagan and Bush tax cuts increased the federal debt enormously and the middle class got screwed while a few at the top got richer. “Starwars” and Iraq depleted our national wealth. Clinton’s tax hike, by comparison, produced surplus without inhibiting growth.

Reagan deregulation produced political and financial scandal: the Savings and Loan crisis. Deregulation under Bush required an even larger bailout of corrupted Wall Street. The Republican dogma promised that lifting supervision from banks would produce lasting prosperity. The opposite took place. Capitalism ran wild and the system crashed. Reagamaniacs spouted, “Let the market do it.” We did! And we got financial meltdown, and recession.

Should we now pursue the identical policies that caused the trouble in the first place, extinguish fire with a flamethrower? Thymann's Chauvinism and mythological assertions, ("we are the greatest, most prosperous, most compassionate nation in history", and "American's can tackle any challenge, defeat any adversary") ignore the reality that something has not been working properly, that our power has diminished in significant respects.

If there is to be a national dialogue and consensus it cannot follow Jack Tymann’s creed. New times require new solutions, not old partisan bromides.Any theory of economic organization is not written in stone. Capitalism is not a fixed concept, and must be adapted to prevailing circumstances. It is a great mobiliser of activity in formative stages of an economy. Incapacitated by age, as now, it needs government intervention. It was the withdrawal of regulation that permitted the sins of Wall Street, and onset of recession.

We will not turn to socialism. A different model of Capitalism will emerge, one evolved to be consonant with social responsibility, and with regulations designed to protect the economy from self-destructing.

Some deny it but evolution lives.

Take note all ye unbelievers. Here is the proof.
New survival challenges are already working changes on the human organism. The Age of Electronics has succeeded the Age of Reason. Brains and physiques, adapted to struggle and survival in a vigorous physical world, are evolving into new forms.
People are already fatter, butts broader, and legs stumpier from sitting before TV and computer screens. Runts rule. Gym rats will be considered unevolved freaks. Unable to find mates, their fate is extinction.
Handwritten letters have become obsolete. The human hand will change shape. At first, fingers will become pointed to fit a keyboard without straddling two letters. Ultimately, as manual typing disappears, unused fingers will turn into vestigial stumps.
Without fingers, rings will move to pierced lips, noses and ears that will enlarge to handle the load. Hitchhikers and flippers of the bird will be stricken dumb.
Heads will get smaller as minds, already beginning to atrophy, shrink more. The three R’s become fossils. One advantage: Screwball Letters to the Editor will stop as computerized form letters, spell checkers, and electronic dictionaries replace even rudimentary literacy. Memory and manual calculations will give way to EDP.
Instead of reading we will listen to talking file folders. Verbal fluency will disappear as we grunt English trash-talk from our residual vocabulary of 153 monosyllables.
For once Creationists will be silenced, because not even God will be able to love this evolved image of himself.