Orgainzied Religion

 

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As I have grown older, I have come to distrust organized religion. It isn't the gods, or the ceremonies or the view of the afterlife that have bugged me. It is that word; "Organized".

Why do religions have to be organized? I can see having a shaman, or a priest, or a spiritual leader like a Rabi, but since when do people of the same faith have to come together to 'knock heads' so that other folks can see the one true way? All these folks claim to support peace and harmony, but all through the centuries, they just seem to keep racking up one hell of a body count.

I ran across this little presentation on the web recently, and it compliments this thought pretty well. We think of the Middle East as some place where we can walk in, throw out the bad dudes, and install a government to the peoples liking and everything will be hunky-dory. Only problem is, we don't really understand the mindset of the folks that live there. This isn't south Jersey. It is a battlefield that has been fought over for the past 3000 years. They see history in millennia, not in centuries. They see struggle over dozens of generations and not just the loss of their last son or daughter. We see the instant fix, they see the eternal struggle. Their concept of organized religion is a bit different than ours.

Imagine living in Baghdad and growing up knowing that your city has been over run by invaders for centuries. We aren't the first and certainly won't be the last.

The thought of giving 'democracy' to these people is somewhat humorous. It is like giving a big lollypop to a starving Darfur infant. It is a nice gesture, but it won't save their life. It will only give them a sugar buzz and diabetes.

 

Officer Friendly Is Bored

Selective Law Enforcement


I haven't really 'ranted' much recently so I feel that it is time to blow off a little steam. This all started about 2 years ago and it just seems to be snowballing. I am sure that it isn't over yet.

This has to do with the breakdown of American culture and society, and how it catches up with all of us sooner or later. The concept of law enforcement and equal protection under the law sort of left us somewhere between when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon and O.J. Simpson bought his way off death row. Laws have to do with money, and not controling the social fabric of a community anymore.

The fact that there is a stop light in the middle of no where, right next to a convience store, isn't to control traffic. It is to get you to stop, so you are more prone to buy something. If you run the red light......more money for the city.....IF THEY HAVE PHOTO RADAR!!!

For those of you that don't know what this is (it is common in the American Southwest), it is a way of giving out traffic tickets at random, with no human interaction. Traffic lights are rigged with radar guns and cameras, supposedly to catch cars that run the light when it is red. Sounds all fine and dandy on the surface. The radar sees you in the intersection when the light is red, it takes your picture (your face and the license plate of the car). The picture is run through DMV and they send a ticket to the registered owner of the car.

Only problem is, what if you aren't driving the car and the car is stolen? What if you are racing to the hosptial with your pregant wife? What if you entered the intersection on a yellow light and it changes red when you are in the middle (the latter is what happened to me).

You get the ticket anyway, and you have to go to court to explain it to the judge. Nice to know if someone steals your new Corvette, you lose your pride and joy, your insurance company only pays you 2/3rds of what it was worth...and THEN you get a ticket from the city becuase the theif ran a red light. You have to explain this all to the judge in person.

This is what happened to me. As I approached the interesection, the light turned yellow. I had a split second to either slam on my breakes (I was doing about 35mph) or roll through the intersection, which I knew from the drivers test was perfectly legal, as long as I entered it while the light was still yellow. Only problem is, the camera didn't know that. Off go the flashes and three weeks later I get a $180 ticket in the mail.

At this point I have two options. I can take a day off work and go to court and HOPE the judge is in a good mood and dismisses it, or he can be pissed off and let it stand in which case I have to pay the fine AND I get points against my driving record, which in turn would jack up my liability insurance.....OR....I can enroll in traffic school for $220, take an entire Sunday off, and sit for 8 hours in driving school and have the ticket 'expunged' from my record. It is obvious which one I chose to do. I would pay more and make sure my insurnace rates didn't go up. (the law is a matter of economics after all).

But wait....it dosent' end there.....ow no...not by a long shot.

Since I pretty much felt 'screwed' by the system at this point. I chose to make sure this didn't happen to me again. There is a way to combat the evil scurge of the Red Light Camera. It is call the license plate lens. A peice of plastic that goes over your license plate. Viewed from the back it looks normal. Viewed from the side, it blurs your plate so that the camera cannot photograph it. The laws in this state are ambigous about these lens'. The law states only that your plate has to be visible form a distance of 150 feet. It dosen't say from any angle. So they are not illegal per sae.

So a year after this red light incident, my wife and I are heading out to do some shopping. As we pull into a parking lot and police officer pulls in behind us and turns on his lights. I had been driving with the lens on my vehcile for over a year and have seen them on other much nicer cars than mine.

The following is a segment of the conversation that I had with 'Officer Friendly';

ME: "What did I do?"
HIM: "What do you think you did?"
ME: "I don't have a clue, what did I do?"
HIM: "Whats on your license plate?"
ME: "A lens cover?"
HIM: "You think that is legal?"
ME: "Can you read my plate from 150 feet away?"
HIM: "Sometimes when we are driving around in traffic, we get bored and run license plates at random to see if cars are stolen. I couldn't read yours. Wait here."

Officer friendly departs. Sits in his squad car for 10 minutes, then returns to my car and starts removing the lens cover from my car without even talking to me. He then comes to the window, explains that it IS illegal and confiscates the cover and gives me a $115 non-moving violation ticket.

End result, it has cost me over $300 so far. I didn't run a red light, and I didn't have an illegal cover on my license plate. But the city still 'extorted' $300 from me.

While officer friendly was writing me up. A Lexus drove past us in the parking lot with a cover over it's plate and someone could be heard 'peeling out' of the local intersection. But Officer friendly chose to write ME a ticket for having a lens on my 2000 Suzuki.

Conclusion_1: I will just replace the lens cover. A $115 non-moving violation ticket is still much cheaper than $220 and a Sunday in dentention.

Conclusion_2: Beware the bored police officer. If it is near the end of your shift and you have to write at least 20 tickets per day. Look for the white folks in the late model SUV that will be easy to write up. For god's sake, don't pull over the car full of hispanics that probably don't speak english, don't have insurance, and don't have drivers licenses. That would be too much work. Lets face it, I was an easy mark for Officer Friendly.

Conclusion_3: They are going to get you one way or another. There are hidden costs / taxes associated with living in the modern world. Better put together a rainy day fund for when the city comes knocking with it's hand out.

Ow, and one more thing. My other car is a Lotus Turbo Esprit. It will do 170mph. It has a lens cover on it as well. The next time Officer Friendly wants to pull me over....he is going to have to catch me.

Closer To The End....

The Maestro,
He walked with a purpose
Riding the Matterhorn,
Forever.

Stories to tell
Projects to analyze
Live well
Laugh often
Love much

Gonna take
a Sentimental Journey
Iwo Jim Survivor
who never met a stranger

When flowers bloom
remember me,
and that I loved you
Our smile and music
will never end

I miss you so much
sweets
I love you a bushel
and a peck.

Hugs

Last Call
Yours till the end
of life's story

Send In The Clowns



I have been going to a lot of cemeteries recently. Loved ones are passing on and it gives you a time to reflect. It is sobering to understand that in life's journey there comes a time when you realize that you are closer to the end than to the beginning. When this sinks in, you start taking stock of all the things you have done and all the things you have left to do.

In the older cemeteries the markers are pretty terse. They give dates and names. Sometimes they indicate children or a rank in life, but not much else.

As society has changed, so has our desire to leave a message to future generations that we were once here. But the messages have to be brief. Tombstones are expensive and don't have a lot of space to explain things to our children.

In wandering the Arizona Memorial I have been struck by some of the snippets of life that I have come across. They are three to six words carved in stone to sum up a lifetime of experience. Some of the words are profound, some of them funny, many of them a mystery.

While documenting these markers, it dawned on me that they were free form verse, where the lines could be interchanged. No matter how you arranged them, the meaning of the poem seldom varied.

As we get closer to the end we should pay attention to what they are trying to tell us.



The Maestro




He Walked With A Purpose




Riding The Matterhorn Forever




Stories To Tell, Projects To Analyze




Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much




Gonna Take A Sentimental Journey




Iwo Jima Survivor Who Never Met A Stranger




When Flowers Bloom, Remember Me And That I Love You




Our Smile And Music Will Never End




I Miss You So Much Sweets




I Love You A Bushel & A Peck, Hugs




Last Call




Yours Till The End Of Life's Story




Send In The Clowns

Going To The Edge

One of my life time projects is cataloging all the film that I have shot since I was in college. There is only one problem. I tend to shot more film than I have time to catalog, so the backlog just keeps growing and growing. Most of this film is either Kodachrome or Ectachrome slides and I have been scanning quite a bit of them recently. Some of the images are approaching 20 years old and they bring back a lot of memories.



Santa Barbara Pier


Most of the pictures are landscapes. Places that I have been, things that I have seen. I keep meaning to delve more into portraiture, but it is hard to find folks to stand still and let you pose them.



Painted Desert


I suppose one of the benchmarks of our lives is where we have been and what we have seen. The images we take back with us from the places that were far away. I still yearn to see those places that I have only heard described in books and magazines (or the Discovery Channel). To date, most of the places I have seen have been limited to the western United States.



Monument Valley


I have never been a big vacation planner. I have always taken the term literally. Vacation means to 'vacate', or to leave. That is what I have done in the past. Unencumbered by children and spouses, I would get into my car, find a point on a map and drive till I got there. The destination was usually not that important. What I saw along the way was the important thing.



Southern Utah


I would usually drive for half the length of my vacation. Stop and then turn around and race back home in time to get back to my cubicle by the last day of vacation. I called this 'Going To The Edge'. Seeing how far away I could get, before reality snapped me back.



Redwood Stream


Looking back, these were the best vacations. I was alone with my thoughts and my camera in the vast emptiness of the American west. I slept in my car or in a tent and ate on the move, never missing a chance to stop the car anywhere I wanted just to take a picture. What remains of those vacations are some stunning sights, many that I have forgotten until I pulled them from their plastic sleeves to be scanned.



Crescent City


I never could understand the concept of the 'planned' vacation. Itinerary and schedule seem to be counter-productive to the concept of vacating. You are supposed to be set free, not tied down. We are supposed to be free-range souls, not pre-programmed thrill riders.



Superstition Wilderness


So do yourself a favor, pile the wife and kids in a car and just drive somewhere you have never been. Do it as fast as you can. Don't think before you go, just think along the way.....and take a lot of pictures. You will be rewarded handsomely in 20 years when you are going through those photographs in a shoe box you find in the closet.

Meet Mr. Stage

28 Years Later


You don't know him. Chances are you won't meet him. You will probably never run into anyone like him. But you should. He could teach you a lot.

Mike was one of my best friends in High School. He was funny, had a bit of temper and was going to take on the world. We all were back then. We thought we knew everything. He married his High School sweetheart; they had a child and drove off into the sunset to make their way in the world. That was the last I ever saw of them. That was 1975. As I write this, it was over a quarter of a century ago.

During that quarter of a century, I went to college, held down about six jobs, got married, got divorced, took some wicked vacations and learned some valuable lessons from the school of hard knocks.

About three years ago I bumped into Mike's ex-wife on the internet. She had divorced Mike and remarried. She was living in Los Angeles with her 5 daughters. To my surprise she still knew where Mike was and gave me his address. On my next trip out to Southern California, I made a point to stop by and see him. I thought it would be a chance to re-live our youth one more time, but instead it showed me just how much our paths had differed.

After getting lost several times in LA traffic I finally pulled into an apartment complex parking lot and there he stood waiting for me. He looked the same. The years hadn't changed him that much. He was a little more wrinkled, his hair was a bit thinner, but it was the same old Mike. His smile told me that. After 5 minutes of catching up, we were right back where we had left off 25 years before. We still had that connection.

At first it appeared that Mike had fallen on hard times. But times are relative to those that live them. It was evident that Mike was happy. He wanted for nothing but also didn't have much. He had a minimum wage job, no savings, no car, no iPod, no Plasma television or broadband internet. But he didn't want them.

Mike hadn't listened to the announcers that preached the American Dream when we were growing up. Over time, his focus had shifted. His passion had become righting the wrongs of society. He was determined to be the lone man railing against the machine. He was the one that would stand in front of the column of advancing tanks and scream at them to go home. His uniform was denim, his resolution knew no fear, he expected no rewards.

When he wasn't answering phones in a call center, he spent his time with other like minded adults planning protests. Protests against police brutality, protest against the Iraq War, protests against big oil and big chemical. He gleefully related the time he was just missed by rubber bullets or how he had felt the sting of pepper spray on more than one occassion.

While listening to him passionately talk of the time he was beaten by the Los Angeles riot police or handcuffed in front of the county courthouse, it made me wonder about my life. The life that I thought was so successful and happy. What was I proud of? Was it my credit rating, my new car, my new plasma television? The more Mike and I talked, the less wealthy I felt.

Mike confided that he had been diagnosed with epilepsy several years earlier. He couldn't drive a car anymore, much less afford one. He wasn't really diligent about finding ways to pay for his medication either. He had blackouts and memory loss, but he managed to get back on track, eventually. But the more he talked, the more I realized that he didn't have a care in the world. It was all good. Life was a challenge. He was a fighter. He loved his daughters and the children that his ex-wife had with her new husband and looked forward to the days he could visit with them. Despite the fact that he had nothing, he had a passion for life.

We walked around Griffith Park that evening and then went out to dinner. We laughed and joked liked Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. We were a team again, if just for that one night.

I said my goodbyes after dinner and drove back to Arizona the next day, but my time with Mike haunted me. I drove back to a rat race, where I wrestled with the pack and saved for that vacation in Mexico and the new car stereo. Meanwhile, in LA, Mike and his cohorts planned a protest against the death sentence of convicted teenage boy. Hard times are relative. The more I thought about it, the more I was envious of Mike's time.

The Great Epithany

Open The Flood Gates


There are some things that you can't learn from books. You have to live through them and then look back with a critical eye. There are truths about the human experience, that no one ever talks about because we don't want to admit to them, but they are unspoken truths non-the-less.

I still remember the big truth that came to me as a young man. After years of being taught right and wrong by my parents and 5 years of college I still hadn't been taught this truth, because I had to live it first. Otherwise, I couldn't have really appreciated it.

When I graduated from college in 1982, it was in the middle of the 'Carter Malaise'. A period of economic downturn in the country when McDonald’s French fry cook was a hard job to get. The only job I could find that would pay the rent was as a janitor in a large manufacturing plant. So there I was, a BS in Management with a mop in my hand.

The company that I was working for had just taken over the contract for the cleaning of the manufacturing plant from an in house unit, in order to save the manufacturer some money. They had to retain all the old employees that worked for the manufacturer as part of the deal. I was hired after the change over.

After about 6 months, things started going screwy. Management started riding employees for the slightest infraction, and putting experienced people in no-brainer jobs and new people in the technical ones, which meant that nothing got done in any kind of efficient manner. There was chaos on the cleaning crew.

People got so fed up with the apparent lack of respect and management ineptitude that they just started walking off the job. The folks that they replaced them with weren’t any improvement and the spiraling turnover ratio only made cleaning the plant more laborious and tedious.

Having just gotten my sheep skin, I was perplexed that this company was breaking every rule in the book and appeared to be striving to fail. It was driving me nuts. After about 8 months of this chaos, I had had enough and walked out the door. This was nuts. But weeks later the problems with the job still perplexed me because there had to be a reason for all of this.

I lived in an old rented house with a leaning foundation and an old claw foot tub in the bathroom. My favorite pastime during those cold winter months was taking a long hot bath while reading War & Peace as Tchaikovsky played on the stereo. It was a heavenly escape. Three weeks after I quit the job, I was taking one of these prolonged literary baths when it hit me. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, it all made sense.

I had been looking at it from the wrong angle. I had made the assumption that the goal of the organization was to clean the factory. Boy was I wrong.

I got out of the tub. I was dripping wet with steam rising off my skin as I went to the dining room table, picked up a pencil and started to do the math.

The goal wasn't to clean the factory. The goal was not to be efficient and do a good job. The goal was to MAKE MONEY. The company WANTED to turn over the staff. By doing so, they could lose the $5 an hour staff and replace them with staff that made minimum wage ($3.25/hr). A quick calculation showed that by turning over all the inherited staff, they could pocket an extra $22,000 a year, not to mention the reduction in benefits.

Suddenly the clouds parted and a beam of light illuminated me from the heavens (figuratively). Doing a good job wasn't in the equation. Being efficient and having a good attitude wasn't in the equation. The bottom line was the money, and the corners you could cut to get more of it.

It dawned on me that there is profit in chaos and low moral. They told us the truth was hard work, honesty and commitment. They lied. The truth is, someone has a kid in college and they could pay off the tuition faster without you.

My parents had never taught me this. Five years of advanced business school had never taught me this. Life taught me this. Humans can lie to your face. If the truth is “we are out to screw you”; they won't tell you the truth. If you work for someone else, you are only office furniture. You are no different than a pencil, or a chair, or a desk lamp.

Ever since then, whenever an employer has used the word "Team Player", or "Office Morale", I have cringed. Because I know they are lying to me. I am either a profit maker or a loss center. But if they told me that, it would be the truth. They won't tell you the truth.

For those of you that have not been to business school, I just saved you $450,000 in tuition. No need to thank me.

Losing The Race

They gave us the option of taking the afternoon off and working from home in order to avoid the traffic hassles. The march organizers expected over 100,000 people to march through the streets of downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Immigration Rights is what it was all about, but must folks I know thought it was more of a protest for a free ride. The march route was going to lead right past my office window, so I was going to have a birds-eye view.



Imigration March, Phoenix, May 2006


I didn't take the day off like most of my co-workers since I only live a mile from work and usually walk home in the afternoon. (I hate commuting). The march started around 1am and when I turned around to look out my window at 2pm, there was nothing but a wall of white t-shirts and a little hispanic boy peering in through the window at me.



Imigration March, Phoenix, May 2006


I took the time to go up to the roof of the building and takes some pictures of this sea of humanity. This ocean of hispanics that were demanding inclusion, even though most of them had cheated in the process. In scanning the crowd, I noticed something that made me pause and think. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that we had lost the race. America had screwed up, and it wasn't from not locking down the boarders.



Imigration March, Phoenix, May 2006


It was the baby carriages. The infant stollers pushed by a legion of hispanic women. There were thousands of them in the crowd. I was amazed at how many of these mothers could take the day off and bring their children downtown. I assumed that most of them did not work outside the home and were full time moms.



Imigration March, Phoenix, May 2006


This is what we had lost. The goal of the family and focus on the raising of the chld. While we were all off working two jobs to afford our lavish lifetyle, the hispanics have been concentrating on the basics. Family, home and hearth. The things we used to hold so dear. But we lost our way and they have came in to fill the gap.

Welcome to minority status White America. We screwed up.