Letters to the Editor
AJCalhoun
Published Letters: 964 Editor's Choice: 127
-
Maybe He's Just Paying His Dues
[Read the article: Obama in '08?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyonymous says: "Obama has decided to take the gutless path in the Senate, preaching to liberal Dems and refusing to stand up against some really bad Republican shit. Maybe this will get him the nomination sooner, but it won't help the Democrats or America."
First, I would say liberal Dems need a little preaching to. They need to be brought up to speed in a hurry, and Obama has done this, with all the skill and cunning at his command. All eyes are on him now, and all ears are listening - just in case. This is only to the good.
Second, as far as his failure "to stand up to some really bad Republican shit", see "First." Who actually has stood up to this shit from that side of the aisle? It wouldn't be appropriate for a Senator with so little time in to grab the wheel when there are people with decades in the Senate who aren't standing up to this "shit" (and it most certainly has been shit). I believe when push comes to shove, if it does, Obama will stand up to it if none of his seniors do, and so far they have been terribly ineffectual and tentative in doing so. You wanna throw the Negro under the bus? Is that it? No, I didn't think so.
The "game" played in the wings of the Capitol has some pretty explicit unwritten rules. Obama is no dummy. That's why we're sitting here discussing all this with such...uh...holy shit, I was gonna say "passion"! There's something new!
Meanwhile us "hillbillies" (no, anon., it wasn't you who used that term, nor "rednecks" either, I'm just using the Cheny "shotgun" technique here, hitting as many friends in the face as I can with one pull of the trigger) have one helluva lot more in common with Mr. Obama than we ever will with Ms. Clinton, who would do well to remain in the Senate where she can do some constructive damage. Talk about assuring a McCain victory! (And at this moment I'd take that over some of the choices I've seen suggested - and anything but what we've got right now, please lord).
I think Barrack Obama has been measuring his words and saving his wind and energy for the final few laps - "paying his dues" if you will, on a short-term plan - and will show up when - and if -he believes there really is no one else who can do this. I have faith (pardon the term) in this man - I can sense the natural political and spiritual savvy of a Noble Drew Ali in him - and if it is his time, he'll know it. We should be as insightful
-
Become a Carpetbagger?
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hell, reconstruction worked great in the south. It only took what? Lemme do the math...112 years to get things all the way cleaned up? Now Atlanta is NYC South, without the big hole in the ground. Yeah, I think maybe we all should rent "The Mouse that Roared" before they do come to save us, because we seem to have, um, how can I put this delicately? Fucked ourselves? Yeah, that's it...coming and going.
-
The Soul of a New Machine?
[Read the article: Divining the brain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is it possible that Newberg, via science, logic and reason, is approaching the development of a human soul? Is it possible that we may someday be able to achieve Krishnamurti's dream of action not influenced by the past? (I would argue that science is largely trapped in Krishnamurti's "prison of the past", as everything is predicated on something else and, therefore, potentially every bit as faulty as the lone potential flaw in any single theory or hypothesis). It is, at any rate, refreshing to hear a scientific thinker as he approaches don Juan's mesa, to which he helped Casteneda eventually travel, but from which Carlos had to make his leap beyond logic and reason and into the state where "...then I was alone." Free of the past. Free of all the constraints of the past, of science, logic, reason, religion, "cloud-daddy", all earthly attachments and, ultimately, nothing even the Self.
We may have been witness here to a confession similar to the one published by the original Rosicrucians in the 17th century, wherein nothing could possibly make sense to a "normal" person being driven solely by headcheese, but more like the speakers-in-tongues who leave the babbling, yakking carcass behind along with much of the brain, as they enter into their separate-if-seemingly-pointless reality. Newberg has made the most profound confession a man of science can possible make: that he doesn't know, that he can't explain, and that there may be something where nothing could possibly be.
The fear of a fall into chaos will drive many away from this path, but The Confession has already been made, already been read, already made a crack in the bulletproof shield of the mightiest religion: science. If you believe, let go. In this case, let go of the past. Hell awaits. So might heaven.