Posted on November 28, 2015December 1, 2015 in Uncategorized

What Do I Gain From All the Time I Spend on Facebook?

The most impressive outcome of the explosion in social media (Facebook, Twitter) is the stunning lack of discourse it engenders. For all the people who spend so much time expressing and sharing their opinions, no one is really saying much that is original to that person, or new. That which is offered rarely leads others to change their opinion. It’s all broadcasting and no receiving. No time for contemplation or serious consideration. That which is shared has often not been read by the person sharing it. It’s as if we were all standing on bridges tossing pieces of paper and photos into a fast running stream below. Much ado about nothing.

I suppose all these regurgitated opinions are a step up from sharing pictures of the meal you’re about to eat, or your cat sleeping in a box, or yet another selfie, but the biggest improvement in mass communications in history has resulted in very little ground-breaking improvement in the trade of ideas and information. In fact, social media isn’t about trading information, or discussing ideas. It’s a pep-rally. Preaching to the choir.

Some people are using the Internet to make hay while the sun shines, but they are few and far-between. Some of them fancy themselves “Digital Nomads,” but I fear most of them are living off trust accounts and playing at running an Internet business. One reads about young millionaires who maintain wildly successful YouTube channels, but I lump those with the Kindle writers who write best-selling vampire young adult fiction as people I no longer compare myself to even in my worst moments.

I’m not implying that my Facebook posts are any more important or true than others’, but I probably do post more original content than the average user. I take lots of photos and write a lot. Is this a public service or a lonely cry for help? Got me.

I have never photographed and posted a picture of something I was about to eat. For that, I am proud.

Posted on November 24, 2015December 29, 2015 in Uncategorized

The Illusion of Security and Resultant Wasted Time

Most of us are unconsciously but chronically waiting for circumstances to improve so we can be happy. We believe that we’re not quite able to be happy now, because problems and annoyances persist, but once they’re cleared up, then we’ll be content. This is foolish in many ways, but the greatest problem inherent in this line of thinking is that it dis-empowers us. It seems right, but it’s wrong. Happiness is a choice.

When I think of all the time I’ve wasted waiting for someone else to change, or to take some action, I’m appalled. Whatever risk I would have incurred by moving on would have been far better than patiently enduring whatever it was I was hoping would change. Risk isn’t so bad. Calculated risk underlies most achievements. Helen Keller said “The reason nobody has ever experience security is because it’s an illusion…life is either an exciting adventure or it is nothing.”

When Magellan circumnavigated the globe in 1519 he set off with that intention, but no real idea of how he was going to accomplish it because he had almost no knowledge of what was out there waiting for him. He wanted to find the “spice islands” and ended up losing his life in the Philippines. Only one boat out of the original five vessels reached home, and with only a fraction of its crew, but they did it. The first circumnavigation of the globe occurred because somebody refused to wait around for permission or certification or the illusion of security.

Posted on November 2, 2015November 19, 2015 in essay

America’s Love Affair with Bombing Others Into Submission

A resident of Wolmi Island, South Korea speaks, as quoted in the New York Times, August 3, 2008. “When the napalm hit our village, many people were still sleeping in their homes. Those who survived the flames ran to the tidal flats. We were trying to show the American pilots that we were civilians. But they strafed us, women and children.”

Americans have been bombing civilians for quite some time. In school we were told that the Rules of War impelled us, the good guys, to only deliberately target soldiers, and that any civilians causalities were “collateral damage” and accidental, but if this ever was the case it has not been so for some time. Napalm was developed as a way to most effectively burn down Japanese cities, causing huge fire storms as the paper and wood buildings caught fire. The canisters we dropped were designed to break through the roof of a house and detonate in the main living area. We were targeting civilians.

The firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden and Berlin were designed to force a surrender by demoralizing the populace. In Korea, we did the same, and seriously considered dropping nuclear weapons on the huge Chinese army that was massed along the Yala river border. It was only at the last-minute that President Truman stopped General MacArthur from doing so, for in fact the nuclear bombs had already been deployed.

During the Vietnam War, operations Rolling Thunder and Linebacker dropped four millions pounds of bombs on North Vietnam, mostly on Haiphong and Hanoi but we bombed neighboring Laos almost daily for eight years, dropping more explosives on that country than the allies dropped in all of World War II. Again, we were not targeting soldiers, but civilians. Laos had no army to speak of, but the population of that poor country was reduced to living in caves, because anything that moved became a target. We were trying to stop supplies moving along the area we dubbed the “Ho Chi Minh Trail.” It wasn’t much of a trail at first, but that didn’t stop us from daily B-52 bombing runs and finally considering using nuclear weapons to take out convoys of wagons, bicycles and mules until someone had the sense to say that would be a very bad idea, possibly sparking Russian or Chinese retaliation in kind. Curtis Lemay, the U.S. Air Force General who had been responsible for the fire-bombing of so many Japanese cities, vowed that we would bomb Vietnam “back to the stone age.”

America is addicted to the idea that we can exercise persuasive military might without putting “boots on the ground,” by bombing people from plans that are so high up they can’t be shot down. Now in addition to bombers we have drones that can fire missiles, so the notion is even more attractive. Remote control bullying.

One thing we certainly accomplish by bombing people who don’t agree with us is that we make generations of these same people hate us. When fire rains down from the sky, the death toll is indiscriminate. Korea, Laos and Vietnam tell stories of villagers hiding in caves who were incinerated by napalm strikes.

North Korea’s hatred of the United States is so highly developed it would be funny if it weren’t grounded in a resentment that simply won’t die. They still blame us for everything bad that happens in their country. This resulted from a United Nations Police Action (as was the Vietnam War) where we had not formally declared war. There was no truce because there was so surrender. But there was and is hatred, lingering smoldering hatred that will take many years to extinguish.

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