Letters to the Editor
Monty Johnston
Published Letters: 119 Editor's Choice: 9
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Political correctness > stuff white people like
[Read the article: The unbearable whiteness of being]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Back when conservatives started laughing at us for our political correctness (which is just a little over-codification of being nice to people), it brought me back to 10 years before then, to where I first heard the term. It was from my liberal Boston relatives, who were using it to laugh at themselves. I liked it then.
So it makes me wonder what conservatives are going to do with Stuff White People Like in ten years.
But what's true is that we do so sociologize, both others and ourselves. It is often laughable, and it does now and again cross into prejudice. We can cut ourselves off from the wider world with it, depending on the depths of our other-direction. Also, though, it is a crazy world and we get comfort from groups we're simpatico with, which can be fine. (It's fun when mean conservatives or cynical alienated liberals, all eschewing comfort as sentimental and not hip, join their mean or cynical alienated groups to find comfort.)
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")(and, soon, "Egolessness")
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ABBA, yes
[Read the article: Knowing me, knowing ABBA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I heard the ABBA Gold CD a few years ago I thought, "Shit, how did I miss these guys?" I loved them. (Of course I'd known Dancing Queen and Take A Chance On Me.) I lived in a hippie commune in Cambridge from 1973 to 2000 and we were always looking for good music, but somehow ABBA, even with our disco forays, didn't get to the center of our radar screen.
So after hearing the "Best Of" CD, I pulled down my trusty Rolling Stone album guides/encyclopedias and found these sad cynical shaming ABBA reviews of some of the best rock and roll I'd ever heard. One of my favorite parts of the '60s, of which the '70s was my favorite part, was the open-mindedness. And here those poor damaged alienated rock & roll critics had been keeping us from rocking out.
So, well, my wife and I went to "Mamma Mia!" The Movie last night and I thought the whole thing might be possible, though I haven't seen the musical. Well, it wasn't. Or, as the NY Times said, it's hard not to have at least some grudging fun there. But it missed the point that ABBA - shoot, that Zorba - gets: You don't get to enthusiastic good times by trying to have enthusiastic good times. That's called addiction.
But cynicism doesn't get you there either. That is to say, tacking on my moral, cynicism and and trying to have a good time are just masks unhappiness puts on. Meanwhile, rock on.
Anyway, I'm going downstairs and put on some ABBA and eat lunch.
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(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston". Or try "Egolessness" +"Monty Johnston")
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where religion came from
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I don't have faith. I have experience." Joseph Campbell said this to Bill Moyers on PBS-TV in 1988. (Program 6.)
Mysticism and transcendence as something people do almost seems to get poo-pooed here. James Carse is into it for the mystery, but mystery is what someone on the outside sees when they're looking at what poets, artists, and mystics do. And all of us could do. Which is more ancient than any religion. James Carse could be a mystic. Shit, check out your local church basement this Thursday night and you'll see a bunch of drunks being mystical while stopping a dread disease. And some of them are atheists.
No, religion started with immanent transcendence, with egolessness, one version of which is stated by Jesus as, "The kingdom of god is within you." Religion, in its conversion of egoless experience to belief, is too often a perverter of mysticism, around which people sit perhaps gawking at the mystery instead of rolling up their sleeves and plunging into life.
But James Carse sounds like a nice guy. Don't get me wrong. And I liked the interview.
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(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston". Or take a look at "Egolessness - A Handbood of Possibilities" +"Monty Johnston")
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white roofs
[Read the article: Paint your roof white, save the planet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, I've been thinking this same thing. We have a lot of standing-seam tin roofs here in Virginia that need roof paint. (Many aren't galvanized, and the galvanized ones lose it.) Silver seems to be most used by local folks, though us transplants tend to go for those colorful colors. Ours is now green, after twenty years of grey. But white or silver it next.
I started thinking of this after hearing of the geometrical downward prevalence of snow; that less snow generates less snow, via increased solar collectivity of unsnowed-upon ground. Lets see if we can get more snow by making our roofs reflective colors. Give government rebates, I say, to light roof paint or shingles.
Best,
Monty Johnston