One-Day Blog Silence

Here's something that I ran across this morning:

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Silence can say more than a thousand words.

This day shall unite us all about this unbelievable painful & shocking event and show some respect and love to those who lost their loved ones.

On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech. More then 30 died at the US college massacre.

But it´s not only about them. Many bloggers have responded and asked about all the other victims of our world. All the people who die every day. What about them?

This day can be a symbol of support to all the victims of our world!

All you have to do is spread the word about it and post the graphic on your blog on 30th April 2007. No words and no comments. Just respect, reflect and empathy.

Spread the word about this event:

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My first reaction was "Cool, I'm in."

But then I read the text again. Originally conceived to show support for the tragic and horrible Virginia Tech shooting victims, the One-Day Silence now is trying to be an "all things to all people" vehicle.

Why?

This is what jumped out at me a few minutes ago:

"Many bloggers have responded and asked about all the other victims of our world. All the people who die every day. What about them?"

I can't believe this. Thirty two young people were gunned down for no reason by a psychopath, and now "many bloggers" want to hijack a tribute for them into some kind of emotional appeal that is so wide reaching that it completely dilutes the original substance. The only thing that's missing is for Rev. Lovejoy's wife to stand up and ask "But what about the children? Will someone please think of the children?"

It's too bad that the ODBS people responded by suggesting that

"This day can be a symbol of support to all the victims of our world!"

Not that victims of other circumstances should be ignored, of course. I believe, as John Donne said "Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." But why take an event for a very specific cause and then open it up so wide that it becomes virtually meaningless?

How much better if the ODBS originators had politely told the "many bloggers" who asked "What about the others?" something like this: "We appreciate your concern for the deaths of so many others, and we therefore encourage you to open a blog account and spread the word. Let us know if you need any help. In the meantime, we are taking this opportunity to show our sympathy and respect to the family and friends of thirty two people who should be alive today."

The deaths of thirty two, or even thirty two thousand unknown victims must pale beside the anguish one feels over the death of a single loved one. This is why I think that the way to show your support for those who lost their loved ones is to reach out to those people - in whatever way you believe appropriate - and not turn it into what is essentially an empty gesture.

Stressed!

They told me that I needed a stress test.

Funny. I mean, did they think that I didn't know how to get stressed properly on my own?

No, as it turns out, my blood pressure and cholesterol - genetically dispositioned to be high - had passed the point where we'd kept saying "We'll keep an eye on it for now." Since I'm also rapidly approaching the half-century mark, it was time to get a whole bunch of things checked out.

Stupid aging.

Anyway, I ended up spending the morning of Friday the 13th being tested, prodded, poked, and sent from room to room and back again as they checked out various things on my body. Admittedly, most of my time was spent in waiting. Waiting to check in. Waiting to get the IV setup. Waiting for the radioactive isotopes to be pumped around my body.

I brought something to read, though, so I was cool.


Okay, this is the beginning of my stress test.

Needles, IVs, and some people who are a little too cheerful this early in the morning. They just injected me with "nuclear" stuff, and I'm in the waiting area. My spider senses are not tingling!

At some point, though, I was sitting in the waiting area near the end of the day and reflecting on what had transpired. A couple of months ago I started taking medicine to reduce my high blood pressure, and it was tested to be well within the normal range. My cholesterol numbers were trending downward. They put me on a machine which traced the isotopes through my bloodstream so that they could see where blockages might be. I was wired to a machine that measured the electrical activity of my heart while I was running on a treadmill. And I walked around all day with a small device in my arm that made it easier for the various technicians to get various fluids in and out of me.

Think about how much of this technology was available when I was born.

Almost none of it.

And while I was waiting, I read a book with my Palm Tungsten, a book that was stored on a small card that I downloaded from a website that had thousands of free books. When I was tired of reading, I sent an email to a friend in Australia, sent an SMS (text) message to my sister in Brazil, and checked the Yahoo and Google websites for news. Oh, and I took a picture of a tube in my arm and sent it to my blog.

How totally cool is that?

Seriously, until a few weeks ago I'd had very little contact with doctors, and even less with the inside of hospitals. The hospital that I used for the stress test was not even one of those state-of-the-art facilities, and yet it still had a better range of equipment than any place in existence 48 years ago.

Technology. It's awesome!

... and so it went.

"'I am not your father,'" said Redwine. "'Rather call me brother. But I am not your brother. Rather call me son. But I am not your son. Rather call me a dog. But I am not your dog. Rather call me a flea on your dog. But I am not a flea. Rather call me a germ on a flea on your dog. As a germ on a flea on your dog, I am eager to serve you in any way I can, just as you are willing to serve God Almighty, Creator of the Universe.'"

"O Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia - what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing.

"Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool like Malachi Constant point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anybody who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!"

- THE REVEREND C. HORNER REDWINE

Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

By now, anybody who'd be interested in reading this blog probably has heard of the death of author Kurt Vonnegut. I was not a huge fan, and I'm sure that others have written - or will be writing - more eloquent soliloquies than I, a casual reader.

I was just out of high school when a college friend gave me a copy of The Sirens of Titan. I read it. And again. And again. I must have read that book five times, each time gleaning a little more, and each time wondering if I were missing some hidden meaning. It took me all that time before I really noticed the "quote" from Rev. C. Horner Redwine, about 2/3 of the way through the book, and my eighteen year old mind nearly exploded. It was, to me, a fantastic concept, somewhere between religion and atheism. A God that doesn't need men to do His work? Amazing!

Why do I bring this up? Because there is a synchronicity (not to be confused with a Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum) in that one of my Masonic brothers has a discussion going on in which he quotes yet another esteemed author from the Sci-Fi genre, Robert Heinlein, and introduces a concept not unlike the one that prefaces this blog article.

From the Comments in The Burning Taper:

"The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens have ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history." — Robert A. Heinlein in Time Enough for Love.

Widow's Son replied with this because of a recent spate of posts from religious fundamentalists (all of them seeming to be of some brand of the Christian faith) who for some unknown reason believe that the best place to make their views known about Masonry would be on a blog authored by a Mason. Actually, I'm writing all of them, but it's quite possible that it's the same person. Some of those opposed to the fraternity seem to believe that they should use any means possible, even morally wrong ones, to achieve their goal of promoting goodness.

Perhaps a sign of my own naivete, I'm always taken aback when somebody suggests that my belonging to an organization that promotes tolerance for those of different faiths is not only misguided, but is actually making me a tool of evil.

I don't know what the anonymous commentators who feel the need to prevaricate about Freemasonry are trying to accomplish. Scaring me? Spreading the Good Word by showing me their virtue and morality? Leading me to the path of righteousness by demonstrating their ethical behavior?

I never know quite what to say to accusations that some demon hijacks my prayers, as if it were as easy to steal as cable tv. But now, thanks to Rev. Redwine, I know how to respond to those who believe that only their own particular, narrow-minded interpretation of ancient scriptures.

For that, God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut.

Blogster Against Idiocracy

Some of my brother Freemasons have joined the online movement "Blog Against Theocracy," which ostensibly supports the ideals of maintaining the political firewall between church and state. I write "ostensibly" because in backtracking the various links, I've noticed a few things that gave me pause for reflection.

For one thing, the logo proposed for the "Blogswarm Against Theocracy", designed by Mock, Paper, Scissors shows the US Statue of Liberty holding a large cross, with the international red "No" crossed circle around it. Okay, that's cool, but what this tells me is that this is not about theocracy in general. Nobody is protesting the Sharia in the various middle-Eastern or Asian countries. I live in an area of the US with a lot of Jewish citizens, but I never hear the term "right-wing Jewish Fundamentalist". Rather, this is about keeping (presumably) fundamentalist Christians out of American politics. Fair enough. I guess "Blogswarm Against Theocracy" is a catchier, umm, catch-phrase thingy then "Keep the Christian Fundies out of of Government."

I keep seeing the term "Democracy" bandied about, but I think that some of us miss the point: If a number of people in an area get together, vote en masse to elect politicians in agreement with their cause, and manage to change local laws to reflect their beliefs, well, isn't that democracy?

Yes, this is not a perfect analogy, but the point is that people tend to get the government that they deserve. If you and the other people in your area do not make your views known to the local politicians - loudly and clearly, then the politicians will listen to those who do manage. No, it's not "fair" in the sense that we would like to think that people have a reasonable expectation to not have repressive laws passed without representation, but it is fair in another sense to the people in a community who manage to make their views known to the legislature. That's the problem with a democracy - it's meant to be a form of representative government, but politicians themselves keep tweaking the system to get the votes. The only groups that can "win" are those who manage to tweak the politicians.

Look, I have nothing against the general concept of what "Blogswarm Against Theocracy" is trying to portray. In fact, I agree with the concept. I would like to see religious fundamentalists keep their ideals where they belong - in their communities. But by the same token, I also would like to see most other groups not force their personal ideals on the general populace. I maintain that the BAT people have got it slightly wrong; the real threat to our liberty is from those who are already infiltrated into our political system.

By that, I mean the politicians and their supporters. More specifically, the politicians who get elected and re-elected by promising things to voters that can only be given by taking things from one group and giving to another.

You're worried about religious intolerance? Barely a week goes by without a news report of an innocent civilian wounded during a police raid on the wrong home. Recently, a 70-something woman was shot because she brandished a shotgun at what she thought were intruders during a drug raid gone bad. Another home was raided twice in the same day as police got both the address and the name wrong.

You're worried about your neighbors having a problem with your views on religion? The "war against terror" has made business and vacation travel more costly and inconvenient as middle-aged suburbanites are hauled out of lines to be stripped of their nail-clippers and cork screws. The "war" has led to laws and edicts that tighten up on public security at the expense of the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

You're concerned about your children having to study Intelligent Design? In several large US cities, the food police have outlawed certain food products, not because they are poisonous, but because over-indulgence can lead to heart disease.

You don't want religious-based morals to interfere with a woman's right to choose? Your right to choose what to do with your body has already been compromised in Orwellian ways. Most states have passed anti-smoking laws for public places, and some states have now passed anti-smoking laws for private places, as well. Not content to stop there, some towns have banned smoking in your home if you live in a multi-family dwelling. Some areas are even passing legislation to ban smoking in your car.

You don't want certain religious groups vilifying your way of life? The perils of smoking and high-fat diets are being vilified in much the same way that alcohol was done right before the Prohibition. But more than that, some communities are looking toward regulating cell phone use, or the hours that teenagers can be at the local mall, or your the colors that you can paint your house. The color? Hell, thanks to the city of New London, CT, some people are now worried that the local government will simply take their house and hand over the land to any developer that promises to "benefit the community" by way of increased tax revenues.

Instead of protesting against minority religious groups, I'd like to see those energies directed toward blogging about the situations in which our freedom is already compromised.

To that end, I propose a blogswarm against idiocracy.

Anybody out there interested?

Zen Crossword

I wonder what Taoist Sudoku would look like?

Phone Blogging

Blogging from my phone. Totally cool.

Google is totally impressing the hell out of me.