In Flower

2011 09 05 I was just shocked to realize that these graphics can't have loaded since the US court destroyed, censored all my domains following their Constitution-violating arrest of me in 2006: my images were stored at PKImaging.com: no more business domain, no more data support. So: I reload the images at my new blog where I'm recreated Knatz.com. This post will henceforth display there.

The Essence of Government

You bump against the fire, something burns, you jump back. You don't wait for permission from the priest, or the shaman, or the mayor, or the president ...

Evolution has developed individuals as making their own decisions.

Up to a point: where lots and lots of individuals congregate, group decision making becomes more and more prominent.

Scientists tell us that each bird in a flock is making it's own decisions about when to fly, when to take the lead, when to fall back and rest. The apparent order is emergent; not directly caused by individuals.

Now we're in the 21^st Century. You walk down the street, the guy jumps out to mug you. Everything in your Scottish or your Zulu lineage tells you to fight that guy to the death rather than give him one penny. Oh, no, says the cop: give him the money. If it's rape the guy has in mind, and the victim is female, different programs run instantly in her head. Her father, her brother, her financée ... are not there. What to do must be strictly her decision.

The essence of government is to rewire society so that the burned individual will not jump out of the fire till told. School ... church .... it's all part of the government.

Pretend Words

"The community ... the community ..." the newscaster keeps saying. What are they talking about?
I lived in a sort of community as a kid, I attended temporary sorts of communities at church camp, I was transplanted to a sort of community when I went to college, but then I was removed from community by the army: and have never lived in anything I'd agree was a community since.

"Community ... community." The newscaster is reading a script from Tampa. Are there any communities in Tampa? of the kind I grew up in? Perhaps, but I bet fewer and fewer, less and less: just as I bet any caveman, any peasant ripped from 12th-century France or the mountains of Cambodia a century ago, would have difficulty seeing what I thought was community in my Rockville Centre of the 1940s.

If we say "tree" we've communicated a class of thing to a number of people, without misleading anyone, even if someone might argue that the particular tree indicated is actually a shrub. If we're French, or Cambodian, or a caveman, it's pronounced differently. I'm not talking about language differences, words. The caveman would have the concept "tree" whether he called it tree, arbre, or iboo. If he was pre-linguistic, or post- but mute, he's still have the concept "tree": even if he's an Eskimo, lives on the ice, can't think when he last saw a tree.
And, he'd have the concept community. So does modern man: as we live in the thing less and less.

Everything becomes clearer if we realize how many of our words serve pretending rather than observing. If democracy were defined, clearly and simply, how many Martians freshly arriving from Mars for the first time would find that democracy fits the United States? If education were clearly and simply defined, how many Martians would imagine that that's what our schools are supposed to be for? If Christianity were clearly and simply defined, would any newbie from the Deneb star system guess that any member of your church was supposed to be a Christian?

First we cut down the forests, then we hang a woodland scene over the couch. First we kill the natives - human, animal, vegetable - and replace them with Eurasian types, cows for bison, Scots-Irish for Mohawk ... Then we make movies about noble savages.

There would be few humans alive if we hadn't learned to cooperate more often than to not cooperate and to learn it a long time ago. But the societies that invented literacy and wrote the books taught competition over cooperation, trying to rearrange us: succeeding. But we miss our real selves: and so we invent fantasies of love and charity. but they are not descriptions. Neither are they accurate labels. They're fantasies.

Some are wishful. Others are flagrant lies. Stalin's Communism was a flagrant lie.

Keep this in mind when you listen to our news. "There was a fire on Elm Street." I bet that's factual: whether or not there's a single Elm on Elm Street: that's still its name. But when the talk is about "leaders," or "charity," or "entertainment," or "teachers," or "heroes" ... Watch out.I scribbled this here but intend it for Knatz.com's Society section, subsection Reality. Additions and corrections will go there.

Fair Weather Fans

I characterize most fans as fair weather: and I count myself among them. That is, I'm for the winner: after the contest has been decided.
Sure I'll root for the team that seems most associated with where I happen to be living. I was raised in a suburb of New York: I was glad when the New York Yankees won year after year. When I moved to Maine to teach, it was nice to increase my awareness of the Red Sox, Boston being the nearest major city. But the Red Sox brought limited fair weather that year. When the World Series rolled around it was big Bob Gibson burning his pitches across the plate. Thus, I was for big Bob Gibson.
I have to admit that I followed the 1973 Knicks before they got to the finals, But when I point out that I became mad for the Chicago Bulls only after Michael was a routine news highlight, you see what I mean. When the Bulls disintegrated, I quickly switched my passions to San Antonio: then, to the Lakers.

This behavior puts me in the camp of many a champion. OK, I also rooted, fanatically, for Ali before (as Clay) he humiliated Sonny Liston. But Clay was already an Olympic champ before I ever heard of him. It wasn't me who backed him when he was eleven in Louisville.

So how come I've never supported the Detroit Pistons? They had a dynasty. I didn't follow basketball those years. (Of course I was living in my car at the time, had no access to TV.) Last year I rooted for the dysfunctional Lakers even while Detroit was beating them.
Right now, tonight, Detroit spotted San Antonio eight point in the opening moments of this Game Two. Good.
What do I have against Detroit?
I adored Dennis Rodman when he was the Bulls' bad boy; I'd ignored him when he was the Piston's wild man. Could it be because I've never lived for longer than a week in a market that gave a damn about promoting Detroit and Detroit products (not counting cars)?

Why am I writing while the game is on? I may add more later.

Man, oh man, oh Manu. Two - zip, Spurs. Is there ANYone in the NBA right now better for basketball than Manu Ginobili?
But I was talking about Detroit. How many Americans, over the TV at least, can "like" Ben Wallace? It's not his fault. I've never had a problem loving blacks: Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday, Dizzy, Miles Davis ... Sugar Ray, Ali ... E'en so, this WASP can't relate to Big Ben's mask of a face. He could be one hundred times "nicer" than I am (that wouldn't be that hard), but I don't feel it through his appearance. (Hey: he could play Greek tragedy without wearing a single prop!) (Assignment: write a Comedy! for Ben Wallace!)
I learned to love Rodman with his stupid hair and his godawful tatoos; but Rasheed Wallace? Yech. Rasheed's talent is awesome. He should be one of the best; but there's something screwy upstairs. Rodman was screwy too, but we loved him anyway (learned to): I did, at least.

Are my "reasons" real? Or is it after all just markets? The wizards who have sold New York and DC and Los Angeles up our noses haven't seen any incentive to make us want to love Detroit.
Or is it that Detroit really is a place that deserves to be presented to us as Elmore Leonard presents it? Of course Leonard moves his criminals back and forth between Florida and Detroit, occasionally foraying into LA. I live in Florida. I meet Okeechobee types, and have some experience with North Miami. I love Lake Okeechobee: even though I've barely dipped a line into it, have no fish stories to tell from that area. I like the whole schmeer from the Keys to the Palm Beaches, and on north to Saint Augustine. So what do I have against Detroit?Game Three: OK, Detroit looked pretty good. Manu never really got started, hurt his knee. Here it was Billups that shone! Richard Hamilton too, I suppose, but he actually does wear a mask! And speaking of the big man, Ben Wallace was truly awesome.
I may think of things of which-way-ever tendencies, but for now I'm merely going to add the story of my first experience with the phrase "fair weather." Grade school. Kid from school, lived across a street I hadn't long been allowed to cross, invites me to Cony Island. Oh, wow. I loved Cony Island. As a very young kid my parents had taken me there for my birthday. I loved to ride the swinging cars of the Wonder Wheel. I looked in awe at the Cyclone, at the Parachute Jump. With a cotton candy in my hand (and all over my face), I was in heaven. I said sure.
The kid's father, who would escort and chauffer us, was quick to add a warning: "You're not going to turn out to be a fair weather friend, I hope?" I didn't understand. I must have looked stricken. The kid explained to me: his father meant the he hoped I wasn't going to take the treats, the free trip to Cony Island, and then disappear: not be a real friend.

That was the first time I had the commercial facts of outings shoved in my face. Of course some adult had to take us: and bring us back. Of course some adult had to pay. That's what adults were for, wasn't it? Were we supposed to owe something back?
I was being told that if I didn't remain this kid's "friend" I'd be a stinker. But I wasn't this kid's friend! I'd never said a word to him! This kid was fat: and dull. I had no intention of being his friend. He lived on the far side of the busy street. But I did want to go to Cony Island.

It was a fun trip. Mr. Henn kept us away from the biggest, most violent rides, but he did give us several trips on the Thunderbolt: my first experience of a roller coaster.
And I never again talked to that kid. Neither did he come visiting me. Then the worried father and the fat son moved away.

I never rode the Thunderbolt again till I was in the army. My buddy, who'd worked one summer as brakeman on a roller coaster, riding "the world's tallest roller coaster" all day, used the Thunderbolt to show how blasé he was. Good. Now we're ready for the Parachute Jump! And the Cyclone!
I don't think my friend ever forgave me.

Whew. Seven games ... and David Stern's international future prevails. Beautiful to see Manu, Horry, Duncan ... Bowen, Barry ...

Lousy with Stars

"Gee, the sky is lousy with stars." So said the father of one's of my wife's friends just before proposing to the mother, and it could be the first, might be the only half-romantic thing he said in his life. For me and Hilary it was a favorite quote for a while.
The quote presumably occurred in the late '30s, early '40s, and we were citing it in the early '60s. By the later '60s I was beginning to hear things quantified that had formerly, for me and my habits, remained unnumbered. Thus I heard that there are only 2,000 stars visible to the naked human eye at the earth's surface.
I could have heard that from Bucky Fuller. I could have read it in Isaac Asimov. Guys like Nigel Calder and Carl Sagan said those sorts of things since then.
Now I think to ask other questions around that fact, about that fact. First I presume the figure is a round number: if one actually counted 1,999 or 2,001, one would say "2,000," wouldn't one? But who did the counting? Using whose eyes, whose counter? Were they counting what the eye takes in in one glance? or were they counting 360 degrees, horizon to horizon to horizon? How many stars are visible from earth throughout the night: every constellation and everything in between? And are we sure it wasn't a camera lens and not an eye that did the seeing?
Whatever the answers, I'm satisfied that the quantity will still be in four figures, or a low five. That's quite a contrast from the numbers that Sagan would intone for his Cosmos series: hundreds of billions of stars in almost any of hundreds of billions of galaxies: with previously uncounted stars and galaxies coming into view almost daily: these days.

Now, I'm going to be using those images shortly in the post I'm about to write -- Finite Casting Call. But I post this first and separately: mainly to ask a question. Does anyone out there have answers for any of my questions? Do we see "2,000" stars in one look? Or do we have to be a fish-eye, lying on our back throughout the night?

Reluctant Recycle

The dragon fly grabs the insect, eats it, makes it dragon fly. The hawk grabs the dragonfly, makes is hawk, and hawk shit. Insect, dragonfly, hawk ... eventually the vultures get it, the worms, the bacteria: turn whatever into vulture, worm, bacteria ... The cat kicks dirt over its shit: gets it to the bacteria faster: recycling, hygiene, and esthetics matching.

The hominid was as reluctant as any creature to be eaten by the leopard, but before his control of fire, before tool making, s/he couldn't do much about it. With fire control, with tool making, man eats the bird, the deer, kicks dirt over his shit (or sluices his shit into the river), but when dead he still doesn't want anything to eat him. No matter what, the worms, the bacteria will get him anyway, but survivors of the dead succeed in cutting the leopard, the hawk, the vulture out of the circuit. So we can be reborn with our bodies intact.

Asked what he would change if he could change any one thing about man, Gregory Bateson answered "the fear of death." That's deep: and I agree wholeheartedly. I add a wrinkle though: I believe we should transmute our wish to be preserved into a yearning to be recycled: to live on in the guts, then the tissues, of the wolf, the leopard, the shark ... the worms, the bacteria. Hell, we're all descended from the hollow-bodied worms; and they're descended from bacteria: go back to the source, be grandpa: or part of him.

Our attempts to preserve ourselves has always been illusion anyway: on several levels. The makeup is just makeup, a cover. There's no evidence that anyone has ever been born again into his old body: and how could it be? Even the Egyptians scooped the brains out as an early part of the mummification process. Does anyone really think that they'll do well back in an old dead body with the brains scooped out? I'm just reading the delicious Elmore Leonard's Mr. Paradise. In the morgue, they snip off the guy's rib cage; they lop this that and the other thing out of the dead chick, put the parts in a plastic bag, stick the plastic bag back in the cavities ... What's anybody but a worm or bacteria gonna do with all that? And even they, the bacteria, will have to wait till the plastic disintegrates. Might be a long time.
I want to be eaten up by my beloved bass, my bluegills, so long victimized by me, fooled to their panic, pain, and sometimes death (me nearly always eating the kill: very few mistakes, spoilage, waste), when I'm freshly dead (should I die ahem naturally), chopped up only for the eating convenience of the fish (my habits concerning small freshwater fish, not sharks).

Yes, as the body ages, the teeth disintegrate, the hearing fades, the eyesight fails, the mind loses its threads, can no longer even watch a movie uninterrupted, I believe we should look forward to being Other.

Even the bacteria, even the damn matter, will return to the Void. Greatgrandpa. Greatgrandma. Not even sexed.

2005 06 06 It wasn't altogether chance by which I selected sharks as an example the other day: I'd just been watching a movie of great white sharks breaking the ocean surface as they hunted fur seals from deep below, off an island on the African coast. Now today's Reuters has a story about sharks taking spear fishermen as the latter spew the waters with blood from their fish kills: then tether their catch to themselves! Just remember: the humans are behaving dangerously in shark water; the sharks doesn't come up to their apartment, knock on the door, and say "Candygram," as Chevy Chase, with a papiermaché shark head, did to Gilda Radner back on SNL.
Last evening there was a news item about residents near Yellowstone complaining about grissly bears in their back yard. Why then are they living near Yellowstone? That's where the fell human socity is trying to recover a bit of bear population. If they move to Los Angeles, they won't find any bears in their yard.
I still often wade while fishing. But it's been a while since I kept my fish string tied to my waist, thirty, forty, one mad (and unconsciously illegal) time I had roughly eighty-five big bluegills on my string. Even so the alligators never came closer to my string than say forty feet. They followed, but kept their distance. What though if they hadn't? What if one had started eating the bluegills off the hind-end of the string and worked their way closer till they were chewing on my rump? Well, I hope I would have tried to get out of the water. But I assure you: after invading THEIR turf, I wouldn't have gone crying to the lawmakers. If, when I lived in the Apple, a 'gator had climbed up out of the sewer, taken the elevator to my floor, knocked and said "Candygram," I would have shot the interloper. My turf was mine, not his.

Cathedral versus Stadium

Once upon a time in the synagogue Abraham was the guy no Jew could be as good as. Once enough time had passed, Moses was another guy no Jew could be as good as. For Christians it's Jesus. For Chinese, for the longest time, it was Confucius: or at least Lao Tsu. We build cathedrals to enshrine the past.

That's on Sunday: or whatever day your "sabbath" is. And all the cultures we're acquainted with have some sort of a sabbath, don't they? On Saturday we go to the stadium and root for Jeter, or Rodriguez. Whoops. I refer to Yankee Stadium: and there's a problem there, right away. In Yankee Stadium we might well be looking at Jeter: and remembering Henderson, or the Mick, or Dimaggio, or Gehrig, or Ruth ... anyone of whom some fan might think of in sacred terms: the past diminishing any possibilities for the present.

If the Stadium is a shrine, then no new games ought to be played there. When the Mick sprinted for second, no one is the stands was passing out copies of the Iliad so all could read about fleet-footed Achilles. No, no: in the stadium our heroes are better than those old guys.
After all, don't the Olympic records keep getting broken? each new Olympics? A properly reverent society, that is stunted by reverence, would have no new Olympics, or would handicap the Mick with weights added onto his ankles.
But of course we don't do that: because then we would be conscious of a hidden function of a cathedral!

My church was quite right never to listen to anything I said about theology: in church no ten year old can possibly have anything to say: and no thirty year old, and no eighty year old either. Yankee Stadium's function has gotten confused. That's why some of us prefer basketball, where all of "the greatest players of all time" are still alive, many of them still in uniform. (Double whoops: we just lost George Mikan!) That's why it's a good thing that civilizations don't last very long: and all new civilizations need a Life Magazine to canonize its youngsters: Einstein, Pollock, Glenn ...
That's why school systems in a young civilization have to be shaken out and revolutionized every few decades. On the one hand, on the cathedral side, the Thanatos side of the culture, we use Pythagoras to bludgeon the math student into a permanent humility. Music students have to listen to Brahms in school; and save their Ray Charles for after school: and no rational comparison of Mozart and Charles is possible in the school: not in a culture where the school has a cathedral function. It gets confusing if the school gets run by the other hand, by the stadium, the Eros hand. Suddenly Bush is as great as Lincoln. (Hell, didn't Bush have the decency to slaughter people abroad instead of at home?)
(Has any culture ever been more conspicuously a stadium culture than the Soviets, tearing down everything and putting up Stalin, tearing down Stalin and putting up ... anything else?) (Uh, yeah: the Chinese reds!)

Previously Knatz.com has expressed these themes as "creative" cultures versus "custodial" cultures. (Can any mortal, gendered consciousness treat grandfather, father, and son as equals?) The stadium / cathedral equivalents just occurred to me as I was watching the Roland Garros semi-final, the "match of the year" between Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal. Federer has been an irresistible force recently. Then along comes young Nadal, nineteen years old today, and establishes himself as also an irresistible force on the clay court circuit. What will happen when irresistible force meets irresistible force? Nadal started the better, Nadal finished the better. Nadal won. Today. I was ready before the match to accept Nadal as a great; but not until Federer had established himself as the greatest: which requires him to win the French Open, the one tournament which has hitherto eluded him. "Cathedral" was dominating my sentiments before the match. Sure it's impossible not to love the teen muscle man, but I had heart bumps every time Federer's ball went, long, wide, or hit the net.

Roger Federer routinely looks fresh after he's demolished an opponent. Even on the terre battu he's looked immaculate as he shakes the umpire's hand in victory. Nadal by today's conclusion looked like he'd through the brick-crusher while it was making the red clay. John McEnroe was quite right to recall the nineteen year old Boris Becker in relation to Nadal. (Or did he compare him to the young Bjorn Borg? Both comparisons fit.)

Wait a minute here, Knatz. Are you telling us that your sainted Rod Laver no longer commands the sole prime elevation in your cathedral? Don't tell us you're converting your cathedral into a stadium!
Ain't it a bitch? Few cultures, thank god, few personalities, are so "creative" they have no saints, nor so "custodial" that they have no living heroes.
Over the next decade I'll be happy if Federer and Nadal wrest similar quantities of victories from each other.
What we should have, folks, in the present, in the making, in the immediate future, is a rivalry for the ages.

2011 09 05 It's something to reread the above on a Labor Day a half dozen years later. Prophetic! (I'm here because I'm adding IonaArc titles to PKnatz: then I may also move the post itself.