GOIN' ON A JOURNEY

I, like you, have a divided self.  One part of me says a human being is a composite of things; another part asserts that a human being is a conscious composite of thoughts and feelings.  One part of me claims that even the brain is merely a combination--albeit an amazingly complex combination--of elementary particles.  The other part believes consciousness is irreducible and may well have at least a partial, very important non-physical component.

My name is Thomas.  Thomas l (the rationalist) and Thomas ll (the believer) have been with me all my life. They were at loggerheads in the past, but now, calmed by age, they mostly get along.  Thomas l and Thomas ll are undoubtedly part of you, too, so you might be interested in reading about them.  Your story is different, yes, but not that different.  So let me introduce me, that is, you, and briefly discuss the two basic components of our divided selves.

Since the internal division I speak of is universal, I will dispense with the Thomases as being too specific.  I thought of renaming them Head and Heart, but this is a bit too direct, and sounds to me like the title of a bad poem.  So I decided to freely translate these terms, with a result that makes them sound like a couple of  lawyers arguing their case, which, I suppose, is exactly what they do.  Head becomes Breitkopf,  (wide Head in German--the adjective's hint of arrogance is appropriate), and Herzl (German for little heart--the adjective is also appropriate, denoting a humble person who has difficulty putting his insights into words.) I want to make clear at the beginning that although these "lawyers" have very different positions, they have never doubted that they are members of the same firm.

I will now proceed with a brief summary of the inner convictions of both Breitkopf and Herzl.

BREITKOPF

I, Breitkopf, am, like the Hindus--that is, Hindu sages-- a monist. I believe that reality is based on one thing, and one thing only.  In contrast to gurus, however, who believe that one thing is consciousness, I believe that one thing is matter.  I know of no irrefutable evidence that consciousness exists outside a material body, specifically a brain.  The Eastern school thinks that consciousness is everything and causes everything.   The claims are both irrational and wild.   The body is inert, consciousness is what gives the body life; it is an immaterial all-pervading essence which may indeed be conveyed by matter (that is, by a brain) but is nevertheless independent.  The modern analogy is that the brain is the receiver of consciousness, not its sender.  Yeah, right.
I am what I call a materialist-monist.  Everything is matter.  It is a fact that there is no atom inside the human body--and brain--that does not exist in the exact same form outside the body. Life, built from inert elements, contains no specific "life element." We are carbon-based life forms; the carbon inside us is no different from the carbon in an asteroid hurtling through space.  Our bodies consist of mostly water, molecules formed by two hydrogen and one oxygen atom.  The hydrogen of the water came into existence shortly--that is, 380,000 years or so--after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.7 billion years ago.  The oxygen of the water  (as well as all  the other elements in us) were forged in the furnaces of suns which, when they died in a supernova explosion, were spewed into space; the clouds from these explosions eventually became our solar system, our Earth, our bodies, us.   All through natural processes, of course!
Life began on our planet shortly after it formed.  But for over three billion years  life was unconscious life, bacteria.  Consciousness--at first, a very primitive consciousness-- began as more and more complex nervous systems arose, beginning with the Cambrian Era,  500, 000,000 years ago.  It culminated when the inexorable laws of evolution produced us, the most complex life forms that ever arose on our planet by far, so far.
I readily admit that consciousness remains a mystery.  I also believe that this mystery one day will be solved through materialist science.
The brain's complexity is enormous, no doubts about that.  100 billion neurons--as many approximately as the number of galaxies in the observable universe!  What is truly astounding is the amount of connections between these neurons, a truly astronomical number, estimated in the billions of billions of billions!
But complex matter is still--matter.  Consciousness is an accident produced by our genes; it permits us to survive better, and slowly, according to the laws of evolution, may even grow in complexity, helping us--if we mange not to destroy everything-- to reproduce ourselves more efficaciously.  There's nothing immaterial in this truly astonishing process,
Daniel Dennett, the materialist philosopher--a Breitkopf cultural hero--is of the opinion that consciousness is not qualitatively different from matter; the opposite assertion is nothing more than an illusion.  I share that opinion.  The materialist, empirical world view is responsible for all the amazing theoretical and practical achievements since the Enlightenment.  Where are the exceptions to this monist view of the world?  Nowhere; there are none.

HERZL

Herzl remains silent.


The next day, Breitkopf and Herzl, fused as Thomas Dorsett, are--that is, is--in his automobile, driving to a place where he will do some volunteer work.  He will be playing the piano at a senior center.  The last time one of the listeners suggested that he play a hymn.  Thomas replied that he didn't know any hymns, but he would order a hymnal and play them for all once he had the music.  The online department from which he ordered the hymnal informed him that it would take about a month for him to receive it--hymnals, he mused, aren't that popular.  In the meantime, how would he be able to quench the old people's thirst for a hymn?  Suddenly, the problem was solved. While he was playing the piano the night before, a hymn, words and music, came to him, out of the blue, as they say.
He arrives at the nursing home and sings the following hymn while accompanying himself at the piano:

GOIN' ON A JOURNEY
(alternative version)

Goin' on a journey,
it's all right;
I'm goin' on a journey,
it's all right--
As I leave this world behind,                        
Very soon I'll see my Friend
who knows what bright world I'll find?        
smiling at the tunnel's end,
Goin' on a journey,
it's all right.

Sister made that journey,
it's all right;
Brother made that journey,
it's all right--
I will have no cares at all                             
Mother, Father and my Guide
with friends and kin behind the wall;        
meet me on the other side;
Sister made that journey,
it's all right.

I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right;
got to leave my loved ones,
it's all right--
It's hard, it's hard,
it's very hard--
I have to leave my loved ones,
it's all right.

Soon we'll be together,
it's all right;
we're gonna be together,
it's all right.
Soon we're gonna be together,
no umbrellas needed--EVER!
Soon we'll be together,
it's all right.

We're gonna be together, it's all right,
we're gonna be together, its' all right,
soon we'll be together, it's all right--
Everyone together: it's all right!

A few had tears in their eyes; everyone clapped.

On the way home the following dialogue took place inside Thomas's mind:

Breitkopf:  How could you compose such nonsense?  You have created something moving--but the music does not correspond to reality--and therefore has no meaning.  Are the words of your hymn to be taken  literally or symbolically?  In either case, it is emotional claptrap, what I call S.C.F.A., Santie Claus for Adults.  Grow up!  Accept the universe as it is.

Herzl: Your vast knowledge misses the one true mote that's essential.  You don't know everything.  I do; that's why I am silent.  And, by the way, the Hindus are right.

THE SUICIDE OF A SHAMED NURSE

1.

You all know the story by now.  Two silly Australian DJ's, a man and a woman pretending to be Prince Charles and the Queen, respectively, called the hospital where the  pregnant Duchess of Cambridge had been admitted for a severe case of morning sickness.  Despite their horrible accents, they were put through by the first nurse to Middleton's nurse, who gave a few bland details of the royal patient's very non-life-threatening condition.  The next day, one of the nurses, who undoubtedly felt more shame than she could bear for having been so royally duped, committed suicide.  Her name was Jacintha Saldhana, a reportedly excellent nurse; married; had a family, husband, son, daughter; gone forever at age 46.

It is important to note that she wasn't the nurse who gave the details about Kate's condition.  When the telephone rang, she answered as follows:

Hello, King Edward VII Hospital.

One of the pranksters, pretending to be the Queen, asked to be put through to her granddaughter.

Ms Saldhana replied:

O yes, just hold on, Ma'am.

Then the call was put through.

That's all she said--that's all!  For this was driven by shame into suicide.  It reminds me of poor kid I read about in an article the premise of which is that nowadays, unlike in  the past, suicides not infrequently occur at a young age.  The boy, age 7, hanged himself because of guilt.  He had clipped off the wings of a bug.

2.

What a horrible, unexpected--and preventable--tragedy!  I'm not going to write about the foolish DJ's who made the call, nor about  the society that paid them to act like spoiled kids.  I want to write about her.

Moved by such tragedies, I often fancy myself as being an Angel of Empathy--such is my vanity,-- able to travel not only through the air like Ariel, but also back in time, on the shoulders of  of a tachyon, to a person about to commit suicide.  Give me the gun!  You're thirteen years old and have no idea what you're doing!  If he didn't listen to my wise counsel--such is my vanity--I would get help or stay with him--or even restrain him--until the crisis passed.

I wish I could have talked with the young man, who had been one of my patients, as he got  ready to murder his parents and sibling.  I also wish I could have talked with Jacintha Saldhana, just before she decided to die.

 If I had been vanity-transported, I would feel like saying, almost in anger, "What is the matter with you!  You're 46 and the mother of two!  By now you should know that acute feelings of shame pass, like everything else.  How can it be that an educated woman has reached your age without perspective or a sense of proportion?  THINK OF YOUR CHILDREN--Do they deserve to be deprived of their mother FOREVER --for this?"

But, for her sake, I would remain calm yet say what I almost said in anger with understanding tempered by firmness.

She stares through me.  She doesn't even cry.  "For your children's sake, Ms. Saldhana, will you at least listen to what I have to say?"  She nods her head.

3.

You are an educated woman of Indian origin, thus by definition, a lover of Shakespeare.  Am I right?  She nods again.

Let me reacquaint you with Parolles, a cowardly blowhard from Shakespeare's All's Well that EndsWell.  He is corrupting the young, callow hero, Bertram, with his lies.  An older, wise gentleman throws this is Parolles's face:

Go to, sir.  You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate.  You are a vagabond, and no true traveler.  You are more saucy with lords and honorable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.  You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave.

Bertram, however, continues to think highly of his friend.  A war is going on, and a plot is devised to trick Parolles into showing his true colors.  Friends of Bertram capture Parolles and blindfold him before he can identify any one.  In a hilarious scene, he is brought to a place which "the interpreter"  informs him is the enemy camp.  He hears a nonsense language all around him which he believes to be the native language of the enemy.  The interpreter informs him that he is threatened with death and torture if he doesn't divulge information about his country's army.  He gives them more information than demanded, and denounces his compatriots, including Bertram, the Count of Rousillon.  He reveals himself as a vile, backbiting coward, doing anything to save his life.  Then the blindfold is taken off and he looks into the faces of those he had just denounced.

Now that's what I call humiliation.  Was Parolles, who had talked on and on about being a hero, driven to suicide? Left alone by those pranksters who thought Parolles wasn't even good enough to be killed, this is what Parolles said:

Yet I am thankful.  If my heart were great,
'Twould burst at this.  Captain I'll be no more,
But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft
As captain shall.  Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.  Who knows himself a braggart
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword!  Cool, blushes and, Parolles, live.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat a good woman?

If that didn't work I'd tell her about the true story of a man who lost his only child and wife in an accident.  He was drifting toward suicide but somehow went on.  He couldn't imagine that life would ever be worth living again.  Seven years later he was remarried, the proud stepfather of two children who adored him.  No, the tragic hole in his life would never be filled--but a delightful country had risen around it.  Point is, people in the grip of despair imagine it will last forever.  They imagine a desperate future, and, quite frequently, are happily surprised with what the future can bring.  That is, if they survive the initial shock.

If that didn't work, I'd tell her about the times I felt humiliated and terribly small.  Yes, sometimes I feel like a weed.  Then, after some time, perhaps just a day, I really feel like a weed.  A weed accepts life and fights to survive with no less vigor than a redwood tree.  And we're not mere weeds.  True, we can be racked by despair, but we also are able , if we work at it, to make amazing progress in wisdom and love.

Did you think you were SuperNurse?  Did your ego suffer shame?  If I found that to be true, I would quote Whitman: "Nor do I criticize the tortoise for not being something else."

I would go on and on.

If nothing worked I would restrain her, as the sailors restrained Odysseus, until all the destructive Sirens were silent.

If shame can't defeat a bad man, why should it defeat  good woman?

3.
After a while she would understand. She'd think of her husband, she'd think of her children, and think how dangerous--and  ridiculous--it had been to feel such shame. She'd take off a few days, then return to work and be an even better nurse than before.

Such is my fantasy. For you sake, Jacintha Saldhana, I wish that my inner Walter Mitty, the great Empathy Angel, had been on the morning of December 7th, no fantasy; I wish help had been real as the sorrow we feel.

Another fantasy: a potential Jacintha will access this article on the Internet, which will help her realize that dark emotions are as volatile as the light, and that--even if she's no better than Parolles--she would have a good cry, have a good laugh--and live!

TOWARD A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RELIGION OR CHERRIES AND THE RESURRECTION

TOWARD A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RELIGION

Part a, No More Dogma or Cherries and the Resurrection

This is the first of a series of essays on the theme of "Toward a Twenty-First Century Religion."  The readers I am seeking are those who are completely estranged from religious dogma yet have a deep spiritual sense and are searching to give it content.  Oh, and if you're an admirer or practitioner of science, don't worry, nothing in these essays will contradict science.  My ideal reader is one who is a student of science and yet has a "still small voice" within that is convinced that what can be found without is not everything.  The four parts of Toward a Twenty-First Century Religion are a, No More Dogma or Cherries and the Resurrection; b, Living with Ambiguity or The Grand Inquisitor; c, A Ray of Hope, Almost Nothing and d, Conclusion. This first essay deals with the fact that a literal belief in dogma is impossible for a rational person in the twenty-first century. Dogma might provide consolation for many, but it can also be very destructive--the danger of literal religious beliefs both to the individual and to society is also a theme of this essay.  It will end with a ray of hope, which will be expanded on in subsequent parts of the essay.

1.  Literal Religious Beliefs Can No Longer Be Maintained

We will use a quote of Luther's to illustrate the dangers of dogma.  We could have chosen many other examples both in Christianity and in other dogmatic religions--examples abound.  The quote follows:

It is truly a sin and a shame, indeed a miserable plague, that the time should come in Christendom, not only in these days of the world’s last dregs but even already in the time of the apostles, yes, even among those whom they had shortly before visited and taught, even where they had shortly before planted and founded Christianity, that such a calamity should befall so soon, that some of them dared to arise, such as the apostles’ disciples, and publicly proclaim that there was no resurrection and no future life, and that those who professed to be Christians should deny and ridicule this article, although they were baptized on it and had become Christians by reason of this, the article on which also all their hope and consolation should be based. Thus they had forfeited everything with this and had believed, acted, and suffered in vain. For where this article is surrendered, all the others are gone too; and the chief article and the entire Christ are lost or preached entirely in vain.
                                                                                     --Martin Luther

This is a lengthy quote, but an important one: in it Luther clearly states the position that if the resurrection of Christ did not literally occur, Christianity is unsalvageable and should be discarded.  (If he were a Jew he might have replaced resurrection with  a literal belief in the covenant; if he were Muslim, he might have replaced it with a belief that Mohammad literally received the Koran from Allah as mediated by the angel Gabriel.  Which dogma one believes in is not of importance here; what is important is that dogma per se can no longer be justified.)  

Jesus of Nazareth did not, of course, rise from the dead in any literal sense.  For the modern mind, it is not even a possibility.  Luther wrote at a time when the scientific view of life was not yet fully established, having written the above statement years before the showdown between science and the Church which centered around Gallileo--The battle between science-based evidence and dogmatic beliefs accepted as facts is long over; science has won decisevely.  

In Luther's time--and for some time after-- one did not have to give up one's ability to critically reason to believe in dogma--after all, the great scientist Newton believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible.  Religious beliefs at that time remained largely unquestioned; it was axiomatic to believe in revelations(s) since the culture at the time was a  very religious one.  It was quite  possible to be a top scientist in the past and have a non-critical view of religion.  Today it is virtually impossible.  The vast majority of contemporary scientists know that dogmatic beliefs are completely unsupported by evidence, and therefore, invalid as being literally true.

Some reasons why the belief in the resurrection is unfounded:
.
1.  The evidence in the Gospels for this is rather thin.  Apparitions of the resurrected Jesus were allegedly seen by very few, the account of which was written decades after the so-called historical event.   The "evidence" for it is a weak case of hearsay. Just because a book has been cannonized by a church; just because belief in the stories of this book have become an integral part of past civilization, does not lift such beliefs to the level of, say, the proof that the three angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees.

2. Scientific laws do not permit a physical return of an individual from the dead.  There has never been a documented case of this in history.

3.  The dogma that the resurrection was a revelation--God's intervention into human history--is completely unfounded.  Anyone can claim something to be a revelation.   Just because millions of people believe something doesn't make it true. For a reductio ad absurdum,  I could believe that God intervened in human history by sending me a vision of Santa Claus.  If I could convince others to believe this, a new religion might arise, albeit an absurd one.  Christians believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead; Jews don't, Muslims don't.  On a literal basis,  it is no different from arguing whether Santa Claus is real or not.  Christian kids give up the belief in Santa well before puberty; it's time the adults, way after puberty, give up a literal belief in the resurrection, and other dogmatic formulations.

4. A group of Christian scholars, the so-called Jesus Seminar, do not think that the resurrection of Jesus is, in fact, a fact.

5. There is a cultural arrogance in believing the myth of your culture consists of facts while denigrating the myths of other cultures as products of fantasy.  

One could go on.  The point here is that a literal belief in the resurrection is completely unsupported by evidence, both historical and scientific. (One should recall that the audience I am seeking consists of those who already know this.)

Luther, as is well known, was a very anxious, perhaps even disturbed man.  He bravely went against a very powerful, corrupt institution.  He knew it was right to do this, but he must have felt very vulnerable.  He needed certainty; he could not tolerate the power vacuum once the divorce between him and the Mother Church had become final.  He doubted many things but was unable to doubt everything.  At least one  thing had to be absolutely true for him: the resurrection.  Without it, he thought, "all (our) hope and consolation" is in vain.  The whole world would collapse around him--figuratively, of course!  Life, which, despite all its sorrows, would become without this foundation hell overnight, with no hope of any morning to follow.  He therefore fought against doubt all his life; one can see that he did in fact doubt this belief at times.  If there was no doubt, he would not have written the above quote, which states that if this belief is denied, all is lost.  That at least allows the possibility of denying the resurrection. For instance, a mathematician would never begin a sentence with the phrase, "If 2 and 2 do not equal four" --as if this were a real possibility.

To believe in dogma Luther had to overcome doubt, which is possible; for the educated modern person to accept a myth as a fact, one would have to suppress the rational faculty, which is also possible,  but much more tragic.   Luther undoubtedly found consolation in literal faith.  And aside from offering consolation, dogmatic belief can be also very destructive as the following discussion of another quote by Luther makes clear.

2.

If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words, "I baptize thee in the name of Abraham."
                                                                                                                       --Martin Luther

The bane of European civilization was for centuries anti-Semitism, from which it has only recently, to a large extent at least, recovered.  (Unfortunately the world learned about the horrors of anti-Semitism in the worst way imaginable.)  The above-quote shows a very dark, inhumane side of Luther; when he wrote it he was obviously virulently anti-Semitic.  This, however, was not always the case.  What caused this vicious view?

Luther, a rather anxious, perhaps even depressive, individual, needed security.  His conscience removed for him and for millions the authority of the Catholic Church.  As the first quote shows, he found this security in an unquestioned belief in the resurrection.  Since he believed in it literally, he claimed this "truth" as a necessary belief for all people, Jews, of course, as the only significant non-Christian group in Europe, very much included.

He could understand why the Jews were not admirers of the Catholic Church; after all, he was very much in opposition to it also.  This, he probably reasoned, was why they rejected Christ.  Luther had, in his opinion, ushered in a new era and it was time to begin anew.  All the Jews needed was to listen to an ardent believer like Luther to be convinced of the error of their ways.  So he set out to convert them "in good faith."  He might have won a few converts, but, as one might imagine, he was overwhelmingly rebuffed--mostly politely, I imagine, but rebuffed nevertheless.  

There are two reasons I believe this rebuff made him furious.  The first reason is that the Jews' response called the resurrection into question.  The second reason is a variation of the first.  He must have observed that the Jews, even under the duress of living among a hostile majority, were like anybody else.  He probably came in contact with some good, wise Jews and probably also, with ones who were less wise and less good.  They lived in law-abiding communities.  The degree of literacy was considerably higher than among Christians, who were largely illiterate.  How can the Jews be as good as Christians--How could they be good without a belief in the resurrection?

Luther then had two choices.  He either had to conclude that a belief in the resurrection was not at all necessary to lead a deeply religious life, or he had to conclude that the Jews were nothing short of being devils in human clothing  for calling this belief into question.  The above quote shows which path he took.  As stated previously, he would have gone mad without this belief.  It is sad that he maintained his well-being by demonizing those who were living proof that the foundation of his sanity was built on sand.

This aspect of Luther is very important, since demonizing those with different beliefs is still widespread, and for the very same reason.  Such demonization must have no part in a twenty-first century religion. 

This is the dark side of literal belief.  What about the good side?  Literal beliefs inspired Bach to compose arguably the most profound music ever written.  Dogma inspired Bonhoeffer and Dr. King to do good with vigor.  This is undoubtedly true, but the destructive tendencies of literal belief--fanatacism--have scarred past and present history which has caused and causes unspeakable suffering.  And, as mentioned earlier, literal belief is no longer possible for those informed by science, which makes the dark side of such beliefs all the more apparent.


3. Symbolic Resurrection


Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
                                                                      --Martin Luther

Here we have a beautiful quote by Luther, indicative of a symbolic interpretation of the resurrection.  It was not necessary for Luther, due to ignorance of science, to separate the literal from the symbolic.  We, however, can, and should.  I will finish this first essay with a treatment of the resurrection in the spirit of the third Luther quote. (I am not implying that religion is only symmbolic however, as future sections of this essay will make clear.)




CHERRIES AND THE RESURRECTION


If we were repelled by their pits as by
those in ourselves, who’d eat them?
Ripe cherries, hanging from trees, falling
before hungry squirrels; how they sit

braced on hindfeet, holding lush globes
with their paws, nibbling till nothing is left
save the pits, which they drop without thought
as they rush to the next, till they fill--

What is hanging from full trees for us?
When a child needs bread, which father
gives stones?  Ours?  Cherry stones,
all the fruit eaten by animals; left

only pits; I pick some up off the ground...
If one had only these, could one deduce
that trees, heavy with fruit, existed
just above, every one’s source, a whole field?

Yet faith knows throughout winter that pits
become trees, now at the height of grace,
each grown from a stone, each a new body
after its old flesh was chewed up or rotted:

exposed to teeth, left to disintegrate,
like them, after a long, dark eclipse,
we, too, shall grow skyward again; spring:
life after death breaks you down to a seed.


                                                             --Thomas Dorsett

HOW I GOT OVER

I.
During my son's first year of life--and later--I would periodically play a Mahalia Jackson record and dance about the room with little Philip in my arms, both of us laughing with delight. Her music, like all great music from Carnatic to classical, touched me very deeply. That was when I was middle-aged and he was an infant; now he is no longer young and I am old. The great gospel singer's music, unlike so many things that affected me then but leave me cold now, still can bring tears to my eyes.

One of her signature songs is the gospel song, "How I Got Over." The emotions--gratitude praise ecstasy--that she conveys in the song about overcoming the vicissitudes of life is astounding. My soul looks back in wonder, how I made it over...

I remember listening and dancing to this song many years ago; yesterday I listened to it again. The passage of three decades has deepened my experience of this music; then, "How I Got Over," probably had more of a context of having survived a difficult day; now, the deeper meaning, of "How I Got Over" a rather difficult life is joyfully apparent. Although I must say, along with the Spiritual, that "sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down," I am indeed still dancing, figuratively and literally. Not bad, not bad at all.

Some time after listening to that great gospel song again, I thought that those who "got over" might indeed have something to say to those who, as yet, haven't. That is the subject of this essay.

ll.
When my son was a little older, I took him to the Maryland Science Center. One of the exhibits there fascinated me a good deal more than him. When you pressed the bottom-most button, you were presented with a picture of a cohort of one hundred newborn crabs. Each of the upper buttons would have announcements such as "six of your siblings have been swept out to sea," "ten of your siblings have been eaten by birds," etc. until, at the top, only one of the original crabs survives--indicating a survival rate of only one percent! If crabs were able to sing gospel, I would imagine that they would all be singing in a minor key, say, Soon I Will Be Done With The Troubles of the World--very soon indeed!  My cohort, American males born in 1945, had an average survival rate at birth of 65 or so, my approximate age now. That means only one in two born then are still alive now--I am pleased, indeed, to count myself among them.
Nature is obviously much more wasteful with crabs than it is with humans. We are at the top of the food chain, very very rarely becoming an animal's meal--while we're alive, at least. We have much to pass on to our offspring to help them succeed in producing the next generation; for this reason, and perhaps others, nature permits us to have a longer lifespan, which, as modern science has amply demonstrated, can be increased considerably by human effort.

So it is nature and an extension of nature, human intelligence, that has helped us to live (relatively) long lives. It is, of course, also luck. Cancer, accidents, suicide, etc. will always cause the deaths--in increasing numbers, as time goes on--of some in a  cohort of people born in any given year. Sometimes it is a matter of pure luck to have escaped them. It is also a matter of genes. To my mind, the most significant factor--even more important since it is somewhat in our control--is the quality of life one leads. A good life tends to lead to a good old age. What matters is not just physical survival, but psychological survival: health is indeed very important, but a successful old age is more or less a matter of perspective, a matter of wisdom.

Wisdom--have you read the papers lately?--is always in short supply. Thus it is critical for all older people who are happier now than they were when young to reflect on the reasons for this, and to find ever better ways to pass on what experience has taught. That is why, I believe, human evolution fosters survival past the reproductive age.  This is especially true, as research shows, for individuals with a positive outlook on life--depressives tend to die at younger ages. Such individuals  are still here not only because they like being here but because they have an evolutionary task, that is, to pass on wisdom to the young so one day they too might say, "My Soul Looks Back in Wonder--How I Got Over!"

lll.
Cleaning up my blog, I found this draft fragment written a few years ago.  I don't have the heart to delete it and do, alas! have the folly to post it.  Life has become tougher and rougher--and that's with the help of a good wife and son! Yes, I am lucky, but I am now not as sanguine about the joys of old age in this world as I was then--except when around loved ones or friends, or when  I am writing or listening to or playing music.  (And, I am happy to say, I still do these things!  Still--)

For those who would like to listen to Mahalia Jackson's version of the gospel song, I have provided a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVr0opLX9Fg

THE REAL ROMNEY HAS FINALLY STOOD UP

The real Romney has finally stood up.  Thank God the American people have voted him down!

On November 14th, Romney held a conference call with rich donors, during which he  mentioned the main reasons he thought their big bucks failed to buy the election.  He blamed Obama for a campaign that "made a big effort on small things."  He brazenly implied that he, Romney, dealt with the major issues, a strategy that lost out to Obama who "focused on giving target groups big gift(s)... which, by the way add up to trillions of dollars."

"The big gifts" he mentioned were free contraceptives for women; "forgiveness of college loan interest" for young people; the gift of Obamacare, which, he mentioned, allows young people to stay on their parents' insurance until  the age of 26; and reaching out to Hispanics with the Dream Act.  He stated that "the Obama health care plan's promise of coverage 'in perpetuity' was highly motivational to those voters making $25-35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters."

What a horribly bitter exit!  Do the math: minus the groups Obama supposedly favored with free stuff--women, Hispanics, African Americans and the young, and what do you have left?  Older white men.  Older white men who don't need Obamacare, that is, rich older white men. And, of course, Romney never advocated policies that favored them.


The condescension!  He implies that Obama offered candy to children and all the kids said, "Whee! Yummy!  Obama's for me!"  Women and minorities can't be expected, of course, to vote for what they believe is best for their county. Only old white men are able to do that.  If a young women objects to the current tax mess, all you have to do is throw her a pack of contraceptives and she will start demanding--Heaven forbid!--some redistribution of wealth.


A brief description of Obama candy: The Dream Act allows for undocumented aliens who have lived in this country for years to become legal residents if they pursue a college degree and/or serve in the military--obviously good for the country.  Obamacare  is also obviously good for the country--otherwise why would every other industrialized  nation have mandated  comprehensive health care for their citizens?  Reducing the interest rate for college loans--obviously good for the county by helping out a terribly burdened group, freeing up income which will stimulate the economy. Free contraceptives--obviously good for the county, since many poorer women can't afford co-pays.  This policy is good for the country because the management of unwanted pregnancies is so much more expensive.

And what about Romney's enormous gifts which he proposed for the rich?  Yachts for his yes-men--is that good for a country where 93% of the benefits from the ongoing financial recovery has gone to the top 1%?

He wanted to keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy at a time when revenue is sorely needed.  He proposed keeping them while closing loopholes that would be revenue-neutral. The rich get richer the poor get poorer--let's call his policies for what they are: balancing an elephant-idol on the backs of the poor  I pledge allegiance to the oligarchy of the United States of America--Ain't freedom grand.

During one of my essays written during the campaign, "Romney and the Triumph of the Egg,"  I argued that Romney didn't have the personality to become president.  Too stiff; too undiplomatic, too prone to gaffes.  I thought I might have been too harsh, after the first debate, during which the mock sun shined.  Now tht the sun has set, I am convinced that he not only lacks the personality but the moral fiber as well.

The two states that knew him best, Massachusetts and Michigan, voted overwhelmingly  for Obama.  Now the United States is knows his number, too.
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During his career, Romney, as is well known, has "been all over the map" on many important issues such as health care and abortion.  (Once he claimed that his position on abortion was to the left of Kennedy's!)  I realize all politicians--Obama included--have to say things on occasion that they don't really mean if they want to get elected.  But most politicians keep a central core of beliefs to which they remain true.  Not Mr. Romney.  I have never known a politician willing to say just about anything to get elected.  To be fair, he has always remained faithful to laissez-faire capitalism and to the "military-industrial complex" as the much more nuanced and better Republican, Eisenhower, called it.  But that's about it.  True, he had to adapt to a radicalized party--but what about those core beliefs that he should have had?  Is ambition that will adapt to anything in the best interest of our county?

We didn't--at least I didn't--know who Romney really was.  Now that the election is over, he has made his true colors known, white and clear.

We realize that he has been running for president for over a decade; the defeat was a big blow.  His ungrateful exit, however, reveals what a flawed candidate he really was.

It's not surprising that potential Republican candidates for 2016--Rubio, Jindal, Christie, Haley--have all distanced themselves from Romney's repudiation of every group except white men.  I am sure this will be the last Republican presidential election by and for Aging White Knights.  We need policy changes, however, and not mere outreach.  If the Republican Party turns into Aging White Knights with several divisions of rainbow-hued peons, it will surely lose again.

I'M RELATED TO A SAINT!

                                                                1.

It's true!  Well, the connection is not all that direct--she is related to me through marriage.  She is, however, directly related to my brother-in-law Jose, who is married to Mridula, my Indian wife's sister. (Jose is a Syrian Christian; his name does not rhyme with today but with nose.)  The name of Jose's blood relative is Sister Alphonsa, and since her cannonization  by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, Saint Alphonsa.  She was my brother-in-law's grandfather's sister's daughter. If you don't think she is thus closely connected to me, one must recall she is the only Catholic saint in all of Asia.  For a white guy to get a first prize in this, as it were, Asian lottery--what are the chances of that?  About five billion to one; not bad.

I didn't know who Alphosa was until, one night, during a visit to my in-laws in South India, I noticed, while eating my dahl and rice, the saint's picture on a key chain.  Who is that, I asked.  "My Aunty," Jose replied.

He then told me about his "aunty"--this term is used quite loosley in India.  She had had a hard life.  His blood-relative (that is, his grandfather's sister, Alphonsa's mother) died young, leaving her daughter in the hands of a character well known in fairly tales, the Horrible Stepmother.  When Alphonsa reached marriagable age, she had a terrible accident.  She fell into a ditch of burning rubbish, severely injuring her feet.  Rumor has it that she did this to avoid being married off, since no Indian male, she presumed--and was undoubtedly correct--would want to stroll down the beach beside a woman whose feet were gnarled up like the roots of a banyan tree

She got her wish and became a nun.  She was very sickly.  Rumors soon started that she was taking on the suffering of others, who became better as she became worse.  She had severe digestive problems and during the last phase of her life--this will be significant as this story progresses--she could only eat a type of very bland food called nul puttu.  She died (probably from stomach or colon cancer) at the age of 35.  

After her death, miracles began to pile up.  She became, as it were, The Podiatrist From The Other Side, having an understandable sympathy for those who where afflicted, as she had been in life, with deformed feet.  

By this part of my brother-in-law's narration, we had finished up our dahl and were slurping up lovely handfuls of pal paysam for dessert; I must admit, I was getting a bit bored.  The Doubting Thomas in me came to the fore.  I interrupted him and asked, Did she ever perform a miracle for you?

His eyes glistened.  Yes, indeed, he said.  I listened.

Alphonsa died in 1946.  The miracle occrued in 1948. when my brother-in-law was just a tambi, a little kid. He was out shopping with his mom on a day when the Kerala sun, which makes the land either hot, hotter or hottest, had reached the superlative form of the adjective.  They were miles away from home.  Poor little Jose had reached such a state of parch that he began to cry.  Bitterly he told his mother, "Aunty helps and cures strangers all over Kerala--she's my aunty not theirs.  Why doesn't she help us now?   I'm dying of thirst!"  

Immediately after he said this he had to duck a coconut which abruptly fell from a tree. (Now don't expect too much--a plastic straw did not fall down beside it.)  Jose's mother gasped then shouted, "Miracle! Miracle!"  Jose, being a little kid, thus believing that the impossible is not only possible but occurs with a frequency that elicits wistful smiles in adults, promptly ferreted up the coconut, brought it to the nearest coconut seller, who cracked  it open with his little scythe and gave it to Jose--along with a straw.

Well, doubting Thomas wasn't convinced.  Perhaps you, dear reader, scoff now, as he scoffed then, at such credulity.  I ask you, however, to read on, for the miracles do not end here.


                                                   2.

First I must digress a little and discuss the Indian rice-noodle specialty, nul puttu.  The dish consists of  patties made of  rice noodles which were, as mentioned previously,  the sole form of nourishment of Saint Alphonsa during the last few years of her life.    It is a very popular dish in South India; it is called nul puttu in Malayalam, idiyappam in Tamil and has one of the strangest names of all in Indian English.  Yes, even the so-called Anglo-Indians, remnants left over from the British raj, love nul puttu.  (They are a dying breed; you can recognize them on sight since they wear--the women at least--dresses that reach below the knees which can easily double as curtains on windows of Victorian bungalows; you can also recognize them by the sound of their affected, Victorian English.)  Anglo-Indians disdain the "local languages" and either do not wish to or are unable to pronounce things such as nul puttu or idiyappam.  Guess what word they came up with?  They call them string hoppers!  The first time I heard that word I laughed as hard as I did  when a colleague spoke about the 'eleemosynary concerns of the Health Department'.  I had been waiting all my life for a person to be sufficiently affected to use that word in a sentence.)

A few days after I arrived in India for the first time in 1977, Nirmala's mother made nul puttu and I fell in love with this delicacy.  It is not easy to make--at least at that time.  First, a servant would have to grind rice in a mortar and pestle on the floor.  (So-called lower caste Indians love to squat.)  Then the rice flour is mixed with water. The dough is then put into a stainless-steel cylinder; a piece with little holes in circular arrays fits into the bottom.  At the top is a handle; as it is rotated, the dough is pushed out.  Sort of like a meat grinder.  After steaming, the rice noodles are served with sweetened coconut milk..  It is really delicious.

I made sure we bought a nul-puttu-apparatus on our very first trip.  We didn't enjoy it very often, since my wife and I were very busy with our professions at the time.  Then somehow the handle got lost and we forgot about nul puttu.  Time to recount the second miracle!

It was the eve of my sixtieth birthday.  It is a tradition in our family to make a special birthday breakfast for all family members, depending on whose birthday it is.  I fell into a deep sleep.  Suddenly I saw myself floating down a tunnel into a room of white light.  And there she was, Saint Alphonsa, looking much like she does in the photo above, smiling at me with outstretched hands before a table that displayed the most delicious-looking nul puttu you could ever imagine.  Overjoyed, I screamed, "Noodles!  Noodles!"  I apparently not only screamed in the dream world, for my wife woke up, terrified.  We calmed down and went back to sleep.

The next morning I found an array of nul puttu on the kitchen table, looking much like the celestial nul puttu of the dream. From that day on, Saint Alphonsa has been  known in our family simply as Noodles.

I wanted to write to the Vatican but decided that those bureaucrats would not be all that impressed by Noodles having produced a magic coconut in 1948 and a magic breakfast in 2005.  I'm sure they're busy with more important things, such as proving that someone's leukemia was dispelled by another person's miraculous sneeze.  I gave up the idea.  Truth is, Noodles hasn't done much for our family since.

India has changed; nul puttu has changed.  It is now available  in the frozen section of every Indian grocery store that caters to South Indian tastes.  We began to have it quite often.  The fact that I began to call the dish string hoppers is a good indication that I was getting sick of it.  I didn't tell my wife this, since she loved to surprise me occasionally  with gobs of steaming nul puttu. We no longer had  it very often; she continued, however, to microwave the stuff for me on every birthday since that second miracle occurred.  On my last birthday, just last month, I had that dream again.  Noodles was now offering me a palmful of nul puttu much the same way a Hindu priest offers prasadam to a devotee.  I shouted out in my sleep, "Enough already! Noodles, be gone!"

The next day, I found on the kitchen table, unlike the nul puttu that I had on every birthday for the past five years, something different, thank God!  fried eggs.  Was this a secular miracle?  I don't know, but the eggs were divine.

Regarding Noodles' interventions, you, as well as the doubting Thomas in me, are probably not convinced.  We would need better evidence.  For instance: if, in a dream apparition, Noodles formed numbers out of string hoppers, resulting in my winning millions of dollars in a lottery.  Then, perhaps, I could with good conscience stretch my arms toward Heaven while my soul flew to the Lord, as it were, sporting six antinomian wings.

I imagine, dear reader, that you are now as tired of reading about string hoppers as I am of eating them.  Be consoled.  Only when the lottery miracle or its equivalent occurs--which is highly unlikely--yes, only then will Doubting Thomas conjure up (hopefully from Paris) intimations of glory from Noodles again.

Postscript: Doubting Thomas has no doubt that truth is sometimes odder than fiction.  I finished this article on a Sunday evening at about six o'clock. Writing about Noodles made me miss her.  I was looking out the window nostalgically when my wife entered my study.  She informed me that, since we both had a heavy lunch, we would be having something light for dinner.  Guess what we're having?  To paraphrase a famous saying, Noodles does  indeed work in strange ways.

THE SECOND AND THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

October 16 and October 22, 2012

Well, they're over, and I'm glad. And the election will soon be over, too, after which politicians will cease tearing each other apart and return to governing the country.  (Ha! Ha!)  This essay is the last of ten op-ed blogs I have written about the election, especially about what I perceive to be Governor Romney's deficiencies. 

Presidential debates are well covered by commentators; I will try to discuss what--to my knowledge--hasn't yet been written about.  I will describe my favorite Obama Moment (OM) and my favorite Mitt Moment (MM) from the second debate; I will also discuss my What Took You So Long moment at the end of the second debate.  I will use the third debate as an opportunity to sum things up.

My favorite OM came during the discussion about the siege of the consulate in Benghazi, during which four Americans were killed, including the American ambassador to Libya.  Romney was blaming Obama for what he perceived to be lax security at the consulate,  implying that Obama's lack of attention to security abroad is endangering State Department personnel everywhere.  (This is particularly egregious, since Republicans removed 500 million dollars from the funds that provide this security.)  Romney's criticisms were unfounded; he was taking advantage of a national tragedy in order to score some points with his continuing caricature of the president as someone who is a poor leader; a "nice man" who is in over his head.  Obama called him out on this.  He stared at Romney--and, via a well positioned camera, stared at us--and told him that to politicize this tragedy was inexcusable.  (The murdered ambassador's father recently said the same.)  Did you see the president's face?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, the president finally showed some anger!  It didn't last too long, but for a while he looked truly furious.  Finally!

There have been theories about why the president, who has been insulted and provoked by his opponents perhaps more than any presidential candidate ever, has been so slow to react.  Pundits have attributed Obama's inability to get angry to what I call the Angry Black Man Theory.  It is the belief that if President Obama acted even a little like a Black Panther all the white cats wold scurry up trees in terror.  And when they came down and resumed human form, they would. of course, vote red.  (Relax, Mr. President, most of those white pussies are going to vote for Romney anyway.)  I never believed this theory, although it might have some truth to it.  Truth is--at least the way I see it--Obama is the type of person for whom expressions of anger do not come easily.  He is an intellectual, a policy wonk, and does not enjoy confrontation.  Neither does he enjoy the back-slapping, baby-kissing and supporter-fawning that are inevitable parts of politics.  He has come a long way; he had too.

Remember the first debate?  When I was a medical resident, one of the attending physicians who taught us was very coarse.  One of the residents thought that she should be taken to Charm School by ambulance.  Similarly, after the first debate Obama had to be taken to Debate School by ambulance.  The second and third debate demonstrated that a brief stay in an undisclosed political Intensive Care unit resulted in a remarkable cure.  Too bad he was too heedless to seek preventive care earlier, which might well have prevented his disastrous performance at the first debate.

My favorite MM (Mitt Moment) of the second debate also pertained to Libya.  Romney was driving home the point that it took Obama fourteen days to call the attack on the Libyan consulate an act of terror.  Obama gave a deadpan reply that he had called it an act of terror the very next day.  Romney couldn't believe his ears.  He feigned surprise that Obama was, well, apparently lying.  Obama told him to check the record.  The moderator stepped in ad said Obama did call it an act of terror the next day.  And Obama, masterfully, called out, "Would you repeat that a little louder, Candy?"--which the moderator, Candy Crowley, vigorously did.  Yes, Mitt couldn't believe his ears; those who prepped him undoubtedly told him to press this issue, which , they probably said, would expose Obama as incompetent, without a clue of what was really going on.  Then came the MM: Romney raised his eyebrows higher than I ever thought possible in a human being.  His supercilious look seemed to say, "What's the matter with these idiots?  How dare they give me a slap in the face and prevent me from delivering a sucker punch which was my due?"  The expression on this face was priceless; I will never forget it.  (Romney missed an opportunity here: Obama was referring as an act of terror on the part of young men going berserk because of an anti-Islamic video; he had no knowledge at the time that had been a sophisticated attack carried out by members of al Qaeda .)

My What-took-you-so long moment came at the end of the debate.  Obama was asked to correct the worst misconception about himself.  He stated that people don't realize that he is an ardent supporter of capitalism and the free market, thus not a supporter of Big Government.  He said on another occasion that government should never be larger than necessary.  What's necessary is, of course, open to debate but not the type of debate the Republicans want: they  want to come as close as possible to "eliminating the beast" of government.  I always knew that Obama was a centrist and wondered why he never came out and said it.  I am glad he finally did.

The last debate, like the second and so unlike the first, was a clear victory for Obama but, I think, not such a triumphant one as most commentators have asserted.  They missed the strategy that Romney somewhat successfully implemented.  He proved that he could be very aggressive in the first debate, thus shoring up his base.  In the last debate he wasn't as confrontational for two reasons.  First, foreign policy, the subject of the debate, is hardly Romney's strong point; hurling accusations at Obama on this subject would have the very real danger of ricocheting and hitting him, Romney, in the face.  So he basically agreed with Obama on many foreign policy issues, even complimenting him for the death of bin Laden.  The second reason for his show of amiability was his desire to reach out to the 4 to 5% of American voters who are still undecided.  He well knows that if a citizen is still undecided at this point of the campaign, that citizen is obviously not the brightest bulb in the room.  Those that pay less attention to substance pay more attention to appearance.  Thus Mitt wanted to appear presidential and conciliatory, veering from hard-line right positions to soft-line moderate ones, cynically assuming the persona of Moderate Mitt to pander to the undecided just as he had assumed the persona of Radical Mitt to pander to the far right in order to get the nomination. (What is his true persona?  Who knows?  Yet we can be sure of this: this "well oiled weather vane"  has little integrity.) He schemed to to play the role of Mr. Rogers pitted against Obama, who he hoped would play the role of the  Condescending, or even better, the Angry Black Man; this devious plan had some limited success  Obama did have substance on his side in spades, but he also appeared a bit too condescending and arrogant at times for the dimmer bulbs inside the heads of uncommitted voters.  I imagine his demeanor turned some of them off.

Romney is undoubtedly performing better than he had been.  Although he is wooden, and remains thoroughly incapable of emotionally connecting with his audience, he memorized his lines, and carried out the strategies of his advisers reasonably well.  He was looking  more presidential than before,  especially, perhaps,  to those who for whatever reason are unable to see beyond the facade.  Contrary to some liberals, I do not despise Mitt Romney.  Although I have lost nearly all respect for him, I do not deny that deep down he might be a nice man.  But his relentless ambition has severely, severely, compromised whatever  inner decency he still possesses.  He will say anything at any time and at any place if he thinks it will help him win the election.  As I stated before, it reminds one of King James I of England, who agreed to a deal that gave him access to the throne provided that he would remain silent about the execution of his own mother.  He has been very willing to deny just about every previously held core belief in order to gain power; that's sad.  It's even sadder that he felt he had no choice.  The Republican party has veered so far to the right, necessitating Romney to turn 180 degrees from previously held views. One could well imagine that in the days of Eisenhower or Nixon, Romney could have found a good home in the party as a moderate,  and might even have become a passable president.  But we must not make the Republican mess and Romney's mess our own.  Romney might be, deep down, a good, albeit cynical man, but those who would be swept into power along with him are a severe threat to the well-being of this country and to the well-being of the world.  They must be stopped.



I want to thank those all over the world who have read, and sometimes commented, on my essays about the presidential election.  I have, indeed, written them for you.

MORMON MITT, THE HYPOCRITE

Politicians have to bend the truth sometimes, or else they might not win elections.  We all accept this unfortunate reality; that's the way the system works.  Politicians can, and indeed sometimes do, accomplish good things; so, if the ultimate results are good, we should be lenient about their countering lies with, well, lies of their own.  It sometimes goes too far; and Mitt Romney is a classic example of this.  I know of no other major American politician who has professed diametrically opposite opinions on a whole range of issues--abortion, health care, gay marriage, etc--simply for expedience, simply to get elected.

A recent example, from an interview on the news program Sixty Minutes (September 23rd, 2012) is so egregious that it makes one wonder if he--like King James of England, who did not protest the execution of his mother, Mary Stuart, so that he could more easily become king--would do just about anything to gain access to power.  

This is what he said, in reference to the millions of Americans who have no health insurance:

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have health insurance.  If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die.  We pick them up in an ambulance and give them care.  And different states have different ways of providing that care."

Never mind that in 2010 when asked on TV  whether he believes in universal health care, he replied, "Oh, sure."  He cited that people who can afford to pay should not have access to free care.

In 2006, he said, "By law, emergency care cannot be withheld.  Why pay for something you can get free?  Of course, while it maybe free for them, everyone else ends up paying the bill, either by higher insurance premiums or taxes."  In other words, emergency care is not cost-effective. 

As someone who accomplished universal health care in Massachusetts, Romney knows this.  It is shameless of him to pretend otherwise.

One gets the idea from his September 23rd quote that he is advocating a two-tier system; health care coverage for the majority of Americans, and no insurance for at least 30 million others.  He is indicating that emergency room treatment is an efficient alternative for those without coverage.  After all,  Good Romney is concerned about all Americans--let's forget what Bad Romney said about the 47% of us who are "moochers."

The substitution of emergency-room care for primary care increases cost as it does human suffering.  It is not a good alternative, as Mr. Romney is very well aawre.

Emergency treatment is only free to those who have no assets.  The uninsured know that they can lose most or even all of what they have by an uncovered stay at the hospital.  It is even worse for them--insurances usually make deals with hospitals about how much they will be for a given service.  The uninsured get the full bill, often considerably higher than the bill an insurance company would receive.  Therefore, many delay treatment until a dire emergency forces them to go to the hospital.  Strokes caused by untreated high blood pressure, for instance, could have been prevented by earlier intervention, thus avoiding so much misery and expense.

Hospitals have charity funds to cover some of the expenses incurred by those on the brink of financial ruin due to unpaid hospital bills, but the system is not working, as amply illustrated by the article, "Hospitals Flout Charity Aid Law," New York Times, February 12, 2012.

I will give a example.  My wife is a doctor; her secretary and family lived in a small apartment while she worked as a medical secretary at my wife's office. She had lived in a moderate house before my wife hired her.  Her creditors seized the house because she could not pay her emergency room bill.  (Her family was uninsured at that time.)  Never mind that her stay in the hospital was caused by an accidental drug-induced coma, due to medical error.  She is a simple woman and did not know anything about lawyers.  After being forced to euthanize her two cats in order to be able to stay with friends in an apartment that did not allow pets, she began a new life without assets.  She eventually quit her job at my wife's office due to health reasons, and has now become what Romney would probably refer to (when speaking to rich donors) as "trailer trash."

It is obvious that lack of health care ruins lives, ruins health and increases costs.  Romney knows this.  Lying about it, though, just might help him get elected.

I am referring to him as Mormon Mitt the Hypocrite out of respect for Mormons, not to denigrate them.  True, their dogmas--as all religious dogmas taught as "Gospel Truth"--appear strange to me; a welcome  emphasis on morality, however, is certainly not lacking in Mormonism, and deserves respect.  Romney's willful abandonment of the uninsured is a prime example of a parallel abandonment of all that is good in Mormonism.  You don't believe me?  Then read these two quotes from the latest edition of the so-called Mormon Manual, (Teachings of the President of the Church, 2012.)

The following excerpt is from Chapter Two of the manual:

The Gospel teaches us to have charity for all and to love our fellows.  The Savior said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind; this is the first great commandment .And the second is like onto it, Thous shall love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The manual continues:

Let us evidence by our love, by our faith, that we do keep that great commandment that was like unto the first great commandment, "Thou shall love they neighbor as thyself."

Romney stands condemned by his own religion.  To him "neighbors" are only his family and friends, not the rest of us.  Practicing "Love They Neighbor" in this way reduces it to tribalism; the commandment is nothing if not all-inclusive. To knowingly flout this law in order to gain access to power is, according to the teachings of all the great religions, including Mormonism, nothing short of blasphemy.

THE FIRST DEBATE --October 3, 2012

Hello!  My name is Amoroni. I'm Mitt Romney's Guardian Angel. (Yes, all you angel-agnostics out there, we do exist.  We are, however, quite ineffective--we spend most of our time Thinking Good Thoughts on all types of clouds for our wards.  When we do try to intervene, we are almost always ignored.  Still, we sometimes try.)

Before the debate, I was willing to jump off a very comfortable cumulus and confront my client.  The cloud turned out to be a bit too fluffy; when I awoke, the debate had begun.  I wanted to appear to him just before dawn on the morning of October 3rd, while he was still more than half asleep.  This is how I envisioned our dialogue:

Mitt, O Mitt!

Yes, who is it?

My name is Amoroni, your Guardian Angel--I have important advice for you.  Just lie there and listen, OK?

(No response)

I want to comfort you, because you are going to lose the election.  Here is my consolation: You are a very successful man, a very rich man.  True, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but you were also born with a mighty fine collection of neurons.  You knew what you wanted to do and you did it.  You have been wildly successful in business.

It's true!

Very few get as far ahead as you have.  (True, you didn't make things, you're no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates--but you sure know how to turn a profit.)  That's the Good News.  Now for the Bad News.

ZZZZZZ

You're not presidential.  All those gaffes!  Mr. I-love-to-fire-people-I'll bet-you-10, 000 dollars, I was willing to look the other way, as Angels must do if they are to remain sane, but I had to face facts.  How you handled the Libya attack was really terrible.  A reckless attempt to score a few points!  Announcing that President Obama was sympathizing with the terrorists!  You were disgraceful; very unpresidentail behavior.

ZZZZZZ

I was willing to look the other way as you flip-flopped on nearly every issue since you were governor.  We know what the problem is: the party is the problem.  It is as far right as a quasar is far light.   But thee are other problems: You look wooden.  You are inarticulate.  You are too ambitious--even for a politician.  You're not likable.  You can't sing.  So be happy with what you have--a big family, a big circle of friends/business partners, and big bucks in banks all over the globe.  You're not going to win, Governor! But you're rich and famous.  Be consoled!


Well, that was what I was going to say before that first debate.  I float corrected. You shone!  When you memorize speeches, you can indeed deliver them well.  You were as aggressive and alert as Obama was non-combative and almost narcoleptic.  True, nearly everything said drove the fact-checkers wild, but I obviously have to take back my previous judgement: on October 3rd, you looked very presidential indeed.

But that's only half the story--To find out why Obama took all the blows and pulled few punches, I have to turn this essay over to an old devil I know only too well.

Hello!  My name is Asoporaph, the Evil Spirit who took possession of Obama during the debate.  I made him look tired, indifferent and aloof. (I keep whispering to him, Don't respond to such stuff!  Remain dignified! The strategy apparently worked.)  As for Mitt, (this Evil Genius was quite proud of him), he told the wildest lies convincingly--He would balance the budget and yet cut taxes for the rich--deep cuts that, get this--would be revenue-neutral.  He loves education.  He feels for the poor.  He loves the middle class.  He loves the military, etc.--wow, what a performance.  I hope my boss, the Prince of Lies, was watching.

I even dulled Obama's senses so much that he didn't even mention Mitt's condescending remark that 47% of Americans were not worth his concern, since they saw themselves as victims and moochers. Bravo!

Do you remember when Romney said that he loved Big Bird, the symbol of Public Television's educational programs for the young, but he was not going to borrow money from China to pay for it?  Instead of replying as he should have, I made the president talk about his grandma.  If it weren't for me, he would have said something like this:

Governor Romney says he will strengthen education.  The Public Broadcasting System is an infinitesimal part of the budget.  It provides first-rate educational services,  It reaches millions of children, teaching them to read and do math.  It is very inexpensive and very effective.  Yes, he says he loves Big Bird,  Yes, he says he loves the middle class.  But don't be fooled: he will show his love by trussing them up and serving them to his buddies for dinner.  There is a crisis of education in America.  If we just talk and don't do the walk, we might one day have to depend on China for charity...

He would have hammered away at Romney's infamous 47%  remark.  He would have decimated the lie that the Democrats, of all people, were intent on weakening Medicare.  He would have scoffed at Romeny's pie-in-the sky promises backed up with pie-in-your-face math.   He would have told the truth. Isn't that what you expected him to do?

Radical conservatives, you have me to thank for the president's disastrous performance.  I, Asoporaph, kept the great man half asleep.  Is he still sleepy?  Karl Rove, let's hope so--but I'm a nervous demon, and am not so sure.  Even Evil Spirits have nightmares, and this is mine:

He just might wake up.

MITTIYUCK ROMNEY

You've all heard by now about the Republican so-called War Against Women,  an allusion to, among other things, the Republican Party Platform which would forbid abortion even when incest, rape or the health of the mother is involved.  Have you also heard about  another conflict, Romney's War Against Words? Read on.

When Romney isn't reciting what his speech writers have written for him, his English is very poor indeed.  It is a double indemnity since he tends to say the wrong things--that is, wrong according to Repulican policy--which he also expresses in the wrong way, that is, clumsily.  I give you an example of his English, chosen at random, thus indicative of Romney neither at this best nor at his worst.  It is taken from his response to the notorious ant-Muslim video:

"It think it's dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say.  And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out a negative way is inappropriate and wrong..."

He goes on to say:

"I think the whole film is a terrible idea, I think him making it, promoting it showing it is disrespectful to people of other faiths.  I don't think that should happen, I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment--the good judgment--not to be--not to offend other peoples' faiths.  It's a very bad thing."

The English is, at best, clumsy, which makes the thoughts expressed appear rather fuzzy.  These excerpts would make a good assignment for a ninth-grade class; the students would be instructed to convert Romney's into acceptable English.  I will only make a few corrections; I leave it up to the reader to come up with her own version.

"I think it's dispiriting sometimes"--implying that at other times it's not dispiritng at all; to see some of the awful things people say--implying that other awful things that people say are just fine.  A film  is not an idea, and why does he qualify that noun with the adjective "whole?"  The inept video, "The Innocence of Muslims," languished on the internet for nearly a year before it was translted into Arabic--does this amount to "promoting it showing it" and "parading that out a negative way?"  It was posted on the internet, not shown in theaters.  He writes that the film was disrespectul to people "of other faiths"--does this mean that a Buddhist would be more offended than an agnostic?

The English-speaking world has produced many eloquent politicians--Jefferson, Lincoln, Churchill, etc.   Is it too much to demand that politicians on lower rungs of the ladder of eloquence to at least be able to organize their thoughts and speak simply, clearly, and correctly?  As a writer, Obama is not a Lincoln; but he is a Lincoln comparted to Romney, who, I fear, will prove, if elected, to be another Bush in regards to both language skills and policy.  A dreadful combination!

I understand Spanish, German and French and have listened to speeches of politicians from these countries.  They tend to speak well.  Georges Pompidou, by the way--oh, those lovely French vowels-- sounded as eloquent as an actor from the Comédie Française. (In the title of this essay I call Mitt Mittiyuck--this is a reference to Chidiock Tichborne, executed in 1586 at the age of 23, for his political activity.  On the eve of his execution he wrote an eloquent poem, "Written on the Eve of His Execution."   I shudder to think of the poem Romney would write on November 7th -it is of course exceedingly doubtful that he would write a poem on this or any occasion--entitled, perhaps,  "Written On The Morning  of His Loss."  I do hope, though, that the results of the election  will give him the opportunity to write such a poem.

I've read that in Britain glaring grammatical errors and poorly expressed thoughts indicate a lack of education.  Not here--Romney and Bush received Ivy League educations.  Although Obama's command of English is vastly superior to Romney's,  poor language skills, despite a so-called good education, has become, to be fair, commonplace.

I conclude with a poem I wrote in response to a judge's egregious assault on the English language.  (He has since had to recuse himself as the trial judge in the murder case against George Zimmerman, accused of murdering Travon Martin.)  The poem opens with a reference to Zimmerman's wife, who lied to the court. The judge did not not recuse himself, I might add, for his poor use of English:


LAST MONTH HE ACCUSED HER OF

“lying like a potted plant
while leading the court
down the primrose path.”

Today he said, “By any definition,
the defendant has flaunted
the system.” What would Dickens do?

Send him to gaol, goal, gaol,
send him to the English-language gaol!
Let Mrs. Grundy set the bail

at a billion proper darning needles!
Poke out his I’s after prepositions!
Make his home merely a house.

Let him learn some respect
for his tongue which is ours
until he opens his mouth.

Romney's poor language skills are consistent with someone who pays attention while reading only to the what and never to the how.  I doubt if he ever reads for the delight of reading.  (His lack of a sense of aesthetics was also demonstrated by the way he sang America The Beautiful--how can you sing a song like that with absolutely no phrasing, coupled with a very apparent inablilty ot carry a tune?  Ask Romney.)

Pundits tell us that Romney's recent foreign policy gaffe will not influence the election, since the electorate is more concerned with domestic issues.  The governor's atrocious English will be, of course, considerably less decisive.  But I do believe that poeple who can't think, speak or write well also tend not to act well--if you don't believe me, try reading Mein Kampf.