Red Barn Rockland

BLOG FROM 07/01/08 TO 09/30/08

Class In America

There was a time when we didn’t admit to class consciousness in America. In the “Guilded Age” it was too obvious to ignore. But now we have the “middle class,” the executives of major corporations, the “American workers” (McCain) or “working class” (Obama) and the poor, the latter largely unmentioned by politicians. These boil down to designations of income. There appears to be little correlation between education/culture and income. So-called “financial advisors” are no more deeply cultured or informed than shop keepers. Our “ordinary folk” at August family reunions have the same level of small talk and friendliness as we find at prestigious Boston club gatherings. I find intelligent conversations restricted to a few friends and family, some of the time. America continues to be classless in any quality sense. Were we to level the playing field economically, perhaps we would find real “class” in unexpected places.

09/26/08

Savings

When I was a child by the time I reached “the age of reason” the elders in the family had all conspired to donate to a savings account and savings bonds at holidays and birthdays. I spent them at college. But I always had a bit left and had my little savings book with deposit and interest entries. The younger generation has credit cards, not pass books. The virtue of pay-as-you-go has vanished. I have no debt, no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card balances more than a month old. What little I have inherited and earned in pension plans, has come from generations of frugality. I hope to have something left to send on to the future.

09/22/08

Afghanistan

Less is better unless we want to spend 10 billion a month there as we have in Iraq. It is a country on paper, regions and tribes in reality. The people are largely uneducated and traditional. Many grow poppies, a highly lucrative cash crop. It is not a so-called “democracy.” There is a rich history here as it has been a land junction for trade routes, layers of Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and now Islamic culture. Oil interests would like to put a pipe line through Afghanistan. Good luck! The more we bomb the more people turn against us as a result of so-called “collateral damage.” It would be better to buy them off and bomb Taliban on the mountain trails. I fear, should Obama be elected, Afghanistan will be his Vietnam.

09/14/08

Osama bin Laden

There seems to be some need by politicians to keep Osama bin Laden alive as our enemy. Democrats and Republicans alike want to kill him. Most of the world knows he died of kidney disease years ago. I wonder what they think of our so-called “intelligence” services. Politically driven blindness again?

09/12/08

Administration and Type

Yes, it is true, INFPs can’t organize themselves out of a paper bag unless they drop everything else and single mindedly focus. Even then we miss the details as we fall into the trap of all single minded efforts. We can administer this way for awhile, particularly if we feel it is critically central to do this work, but when it is over, our responsibility discharged, what a relief! Like children let outdoors for school recess! How nice to stampede back into peace and quiet, to meditate upon life and world, to connect with embracing values and subtle themes weaving through human wellbeing, the hope of the world.

08/22/08

“All of the Above”

A wave of the hand with “all of the above,” in addition to “drill, drill, drill,” will not do. Using less fuel and checking tire pressure too is too little too late but at least a bit. Here is my list of favored long range energy solutions in descending order: (1) drastic and accelerated auto design and building retrofitting, the latter with tax incentives; (2) solar with tax incentives; (3) wind with transmission infrastructure; (4) hydro power, for some reason not on the radar screen; (5) tidal, likewise (remember the Bay of Fundy proposal?); (6) mass transportation including rail passenger service; (7) gas and oil, with phase-out plans; (8) nuclear, only if waste disposal, security and insurance issues can be developed; (9) coal, only if carbon emissions can be minimized and the landscape from mining can be protected. “All of the above” sounds insincere to me.

08/06/08

Subliminal Ads

McCain’s ad placed Obama between two blond air-heads with three pillars, the Brandenburg Memorial, the Washington Monument – and in case you missed the point – the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is scum politics. It appeals to the misogamist prejudice in the backwaters of the mind. How can anyone not be disgusted with this level of political discourse in the McCain Campaign? I have heard few voices rising above the general bemusement.

08/03/08

Type and Candidates

It is risky to guess the type of candidates but my guesses have proved helpful in my attempts to understand the candidates. Here is a sketchy breakdown. I see Obama as an ENFP (extraverted intuition with introverted feeling) and McCain as an ESTP (extraverted sensing with introverted thinking). These are the same types as my best guess on two other presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush respectively. ENFPs love variety, are friendly, and are constantly stimulated and open to their surroundings. So enthusiastically drawn to the life around them are ENFPs that they often don’t stop to rest and regenerate. They also need to pay attention to continuity and follow-through. ESTPs know the conventional rules of society and are realists. But they also have a restless “lets get the job done,” and can often short circuit the status-quo to reach immediate goals. They can be exceedingly accurate in the moment but forgetful the day after. McCain wrote an excellent book of moral and conventional wisdom on how to live honorably. But his short term behavior seems to be getting elected, whatever the means. Obama gives too many nuanced responses, not particularly effective when his opponent ably shoots from the hip. We have an idealist vs. a realist confrontation here. Can the idealist address and resonate with the hurts and wounded hopes of the economic majority? Can the realist gain perspective to one side of the ruling economic interests to address the same hurts and wounded hopes? In tough and fearful times we tend to favor realism. The ball is in the idealist court to convince all of us that there IS light at the end of the tunnel and that with leadership and vision we can navigate the changes required.

08/01/08

Web Site Changes Ahead

My wife, Eleanor, is publishing a wonderful book of local history called, Mechanic Street: Uncovering the History of a Maine Neighborhood. Her fourth book of local history, it chronicles the stories of the twenty-five residences on the street plus the two shipyards, lime kilns, Outward Bound School, Maine Central steamship wharf and trolley line that used to operate on our street. It all dates back to my third great grandfather who owned Ingraham’s Point. Eleanor researched not only in his Diaries but at the court house, city hall, historical society, the rich oral traditions of our neighbors and wonderful picture archives so many families have treasured. It is published by Red Barn Publishing, giving us the opportunity to expand redbarnrockland.com. Stay tuned!

07/28/08

One Liners

McCain does very well politically with his one liners, the latest: “I know how to win wars.” It may or may not be true but there are millions who will believe him. His case in point is the “surge.” Deploy more troops; there will be more “victory.” Sounds good. It will at least win some time. The war against the uppity in Iraq may not be won, but it is prolonged. Obama’s response was a paragraph with several points logically developed and perhaps a subordinate clause or two. Do you remember it?

07/23/08

T. Boone Pickens

Even right-wing Texas billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, knows we can’t drill our way out of our energy crisis. He cites percentages of dependence on foreign oil: 24% in 1970, 42% in 1990, 70% in 2008. He rightly points out that the $700 billion leaving the U.S. each year is the largest transfer of wealth in human history. Some of this wealth comes back to compound the problem. American corporations and assets are being purchased which transfers their profits to others as well. It is time for a bold and comprehensive shift of our energy dependence from carbon based to wind and sun. With Pickens, I believe it can be done.

07/20/08

Eckhart Tolle

I finally read the book by Oprah’s guru, Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Several people had asked me what I thought of it and I knew I was not going to enjoy the read. I didn’t. He is a kind of Norman Vincent Peale for Theosophy. His villain is the ego, not an inflated ego but the ego itself. Ego is identified with form, the body, the mind, thoughts, emotions, the sense of self, attachments, having things, lies, memory, your story, history, personality. “The pain body” is “a close relative.” Ego is illusory, pathological, paranoid, dark. It can be collective as well as individual. “It uses people.” Ego is unconscious, his most striking assertion of all. Basically Tolle believes ego is the Devil. Its opposite is the reality that opposes the illusory ego. Reality is God, Beingness, Presence, Source, Atman, Life. The goal is to dissolve ego or darkness (to burn it up) and to realize the Presence or “light.” His is a strange Vedantic kind of dualism. The goal is to abolish the opposition of ego or illusion thus bringing in God, to be possessed by God or “the power that runs the universe.” He conflates all religions into agreeing with his purpose for life and identifies with elites everywhere who ‘know,’ “not everyone is ready yet.” Not surprisingly he is of the religion vs. spirituality school. He believes his view opposes all relativisms with the absolute Presence. Were his kind of world peace to ascend (i.e. to become manifest) the world would be very quiet indeed. It is not going to happen.

07/10/08

Going to Beijing?

You must visit the Altar of Heaven complex. With the wonderful buildings in the compound be sure to survey the altar itself with its confluence of square (Earth), circle (Cosmos), and cross (Tree of Life). There is a fine Taoist temple in Beijing, a small Confucian temple, a spectacular Lamist temple and the Forbidden City itself, organized along its spine as a temple as well. It was the Emperor’s role to cohere the Middle Kingdom under the “mandate of heaven.” Leave the shopping malls and tourist distractions for others. Whenever I travel I place myself into a pilgrimage frame, to visit my spiritual inheritance.

07/01/08

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