The first American-born Catholic saint:

Today, January 4th is the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the Roman Catholic Church. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13739a.htm

Will we ever have a "centrist" political party?

       As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I tend to consider myself a centrist in politics and in a lot of other things. It's not a perfect label as few labels are, but I was never able to pinpoint my views, really I'm all over the map. Other words commonly used are moderate (more a temperament than a philosophy), pragmatic (which I am but not on everything), compromise (a dirty word among political junkies- sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes not), radical middle or radical centrist (I used to like this term but "radical middle" blogs and literature don't seem to agree on what and where the radical middle is. "Conservative" and "liberal" are the most overused words in the media right now and it seems like they mean something along the lines of "us" and "them". Of course the media doesn't tell us what to think -wink-; they just feed us the "facts" (propaganda), and then let the viewer decide which side of humanity is pure virtue and which side is pure vice. Just like the other two terms I mentioned, "centrist" is a relative term. A right winger in the San Francisco bay region might be considered centrist in Mississippi or Alabama. The political spectrum is also not a linear one, there are also libertarians, paleo-conservatives (think Pat Buchanan, the Constitution Party, Mel Gibson), Anarchists (I could Google the word until I'm blue in the face and I still can't figure out what an Anarchist is beyond the literal definition), and there are ultra radical philosophies where far left and far right seem to coexist (ends meet). Late night talk radio is a good place to hear all types of viewpoints except for centrist (I guess we're too boring). There have been many small attempts to create centrist parties but it's hard to create a platform without blind compromise. Also a paradox on being anti-ideology, anti-label, pro critical thinking, and pro common sense is that if you try to organize it, it becomes an ideology of its own. (Common sense is also a cliche, overused term.) I run into a similar issue in Religion (although I am a Catholic) and other paradigms, I do believe that there is truth, common sense, goodness, critical thinking, and some absolutes too, but the way the human ego works, when people try to organise truth, it becomes a lie. Truth is not something that can be owned, patented, or bottled up and sold like spring water, it is elusive. If God is truth than certainly nobody can own God. Also, while I said I believe in goodness one reason I tend to be a little suspicious of "do-gooders" on the left, right, and everywhere else is because of the many tricks of the human ego (and from a Catholic viewpoint, the Evil One).
       Another problem with centrism is that many politicians who label themselves as centrists are more chameleons or opportunists. Others are just indifferent, anyone can be a centrist on the issues they don't care about. I have no desire to smoke cannabis for example, yet I could generally care less what others do when I'm not around, therefore it would be easy for me to take a "moderate" position on the "legalize pot" issue.
       Abortion is also an extremely problematic issue for a centrist party. Many people are willing to compromise on complex economic issues that they cannot understand anyway. Social issues are far different. I can't even blame either side for being rigid on this issue. I'm pro-life myself and believe life begins at conception, however I try my best to be fair and empathetic to both sides. For many this issue alone defines who is right, left, us, or them. I don't have any solutions myself that will please everyone, but I do know what won't help, that is the shouting and sloganeering on both sides. I keep remembering the old Dale Carnegie book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and the advice in there. You can't keep comparing people to Hitler and calling them "baby-killers" or "sexist woman-haters" and have them say "Gee, maybe I should start seeing things their way for a change..." I don't personally know of one person who has changed their point of view on anything because someone called them names or someone started an argument over Thanksgiving dinner with them and the other person won the argument. One cannot serve a greater cause and serve the ego at the same time. When people's egos enter a cause it may still accomplish superficial success in the short term, but it will corrupt things in the long term. Whether one is pro-choice and favors the bodily rights of the woman, or if one is pro-life and favors the infant's right to life, I can understand why neither side would want to compromise. Remember the Bible- Solomon's Baby- no one would want to cut the baby in half. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon#.22Splitting_the_baby.22 For a centrist party to be successful, I think they would have to remain open and neutral on this issue (or even pro-life but show a lot of empathy for all sides). I don't think abortion should even be framed as a "culture war" issue. I feel the debate needs to boil down to just a few things: When does life/personhood begin? Where there is personhood, where do the woman's rights to her body end and the infant's rights to life begin? How do we define these rights and enforce them? I feel thinking along these lines will bring more critical thinking to this otherwise emotional issue. Also one should not try to package abortion and gay rights issues together, they are very separate issues, gays aren't even the ones having abortions, and this only frames it all as a "culture war" or "us vs. them" issue rather than issue of the right to life. I'm not pro-life just because my church says so but for human rights reasons. I actually didn't write this post to debate abortion either, but because I feel it is the most divisive issue of our generation and if we can find some civility and common ground on this issue then the rest will come a lot easier.
       As far as the real "culture war" issues I think the best way to win the culture wars is to stay out of them in the first place. Let every individual have their own culture insofar as it doesn't interfere with other people's right to have their own culture.
       I am concerned that if we do come up with a centrist party it can be easily hijacked by people with more extreme views. (Also many blogs and websites claiming to be centrist or "radical middle" are actually libertarian or paleo-conservative) (Plus, the term "third way" is also confused with centrism but usually seems to refer to paleo-conservatives, agrarians, distributist or old-right populist types of groups.) A common propaganda technique by extremists is to frame themselves as centrists. Actually according to most polls there are almost as many self-identified moderates in the USA as there are conservatives and liberals. According to exit polls from Election 2008 the highest concentration of moderates tends to be in the inland Northeast in the suburban and even rural areas (Yankee pragmatism?). Where I live in Pennsylvania in some ways is like a "centrist Vatican". Even a lot of ideologues I know of have an "ideological beauty mark". There are many "pro-life Democrats", "gay Republicans", right wingers who don't believe in God, political liberals who are theologically conservative and straight-laced in their personal lifestyle. In suburban America and in the growing sun-belt there are many people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal or libertarian, to many this is the definition of centrism but I disagree. There are also many blue-collar rooted Democrats in the Northeast and rust belt region who are left wing but lean slightly to the right on cultural issues. The area I live is like that. (Notice I say blue-collar rooted since many of the industrial revolution paradigms that political analysts tend to use are outdated- i.e. blue collar, white collar, working class, blue bloods...) Don't forget too the right/left paradigm as most Americans know it is mainly an Anglo/Western one. In other cultures the terms we use can have very different meanings.
       I hate to have so many links to Wikipedia. I know it looks lazy on a blog, I know it isn't perfect, it's not immune to bias, and the articles are not stable and subject to change, but there are so much good info there I just can't help it sometimes:
Here are some current attempts at Centrist parties:
Modern Whig http://www.modernwhig.org/
American Centrist: http://www.americancentristparty.net/
Here are some other articles to help explain what I'm getting at:
False Dichotomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Demagoguery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogy
Centrism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrism
Radical Center: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrism
Modern Whig Party on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Whig_Party
Political Correctness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness
Cynicism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary)
Do-Gooder: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/do-gooder
Pragmatism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism
       It seems to me that if there is one big thing that all ideologies, non-ideologies, philosophies, religions, organized moral systems, social movements, and political parties have in common is this: One can make and clarify rules as eloquently as they want and identify with who one wants to, but if their heart isn't truly in it or when the ego sneaks in even a little, then people will always find semantic or legalistic loopholes as well as double standards to suit their own interests. It's part of human nature. The ego can rationalize just about anything.

Heart of the Americas:

A boom town in the middle of the Western Hemisphere (not to be confused with the smaller resort of the same name in northwestern Florida), this is Panama City, Panama:

Panama Skyline, Wikimedia Commons, 2010


Panama City, Avenida Balboa Construction Projects, by: Juliette Passer, 2010


Panama City, Panama- Wikimedia Commons, 2008

A Mysterious City:

Dubai (United Arab Emirates) is a city I still can't completely figure out. It has some unusual buildings and quite a few skyscrapers for it's size. It also has an indoor ski resort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai

Downtown Burj Dubai, by: Robert Luxemburg, 2008


Dubai Marina at Night, by: David Pin, 2008


Dubai, by: Jósa Levente Zoltán & Jósa András, 2007

Whose to say when it's New Years?

The calendar is another one of those things that is man made and not really an absolute. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year

A book that says it in a nutshell:

       This book provides a great introduction to Autism and Asperger Syndrome in very few words. It gives a very good intuitive understanding of the condition without easily misunderstood clinical jargon. My only issue with the book is that I'm more of a dog person but cats are cool too... http://specialchildren.about.com/od/booksonaspergersyndrome/gr/allcatshaveAS.htm

Also, here's a little bit of information on two rather successful people (both are married with children) who are confirmed to have the condition (Dan Aykroyd and James Durbin):
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Aykroyd
*http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary/201102/asperger-idol-james-durbin-blows-american-idol-judges-away
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Durbin_(singer) James Durbin got married yesterday, congratulations James!

More examples of non-verbal communication:

       In much earlier posts I discussed how subtle and ubiquitous non-verbal communication is. One example is "lifestyle branding" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_brand. Many of the things in a retail stores environment that we think are arbitrary are not by accident at all. Some retailers such as Wal Mart, Sears, or K-Mart don't seem to care who buys their stuff as long as you are wearing a shirt, shoes, and don't steal anything. Others have clever marketing nuances that throw hints at who their products are geared to and sometimes who they do not want wearing their clothes. Many times the lighting, the background music, the attitude of the employees, and the posters on the wall are used for selecting their clientele and creating discomfort, even intimidating those who they do not want wearing their clothes. Some examples, few modern stores today would dare put up a sign saying that a certain gender, age, ethnicity, or social class is not welcome, but there are some stores where men just don't go, some stores where elderly people just don't go thanks to dim lights and blaring music, some stores where only rich people are welcome no matter how much money is in their wallet, business where families with kids are not welcome, businesses where those living unconventional lifestyles are not welcome, many stores where the choice of sizes makes it clear that overweight people are not welcome, and even some "down to earth" businesses where "yuppies" are unwelcome (reverse snobbery). Many upscale restaurants even try to hide their prices by eliminating the dollar sign and decimal points and keeping the numbers small in size. In other words, if you need to ask than you don't belong there. Calvin Klein was famous for it's extremely thin models back in the 1990's. Walk into a Victoria's Secret, which screams out youthful femininity, and one better be female, accompanied by a female, or at least shopping for that special female. Other stored may be non-discriminatory on paper but countless minorities will complain of cold vibes, being followed, or even being shunned when they go in. An 18 yr old male may have no policy preventing him from joining some church prayer group of mainly elderly women, but no rule will prevent the others from wondering why he is not out kicking a football.
       A notable example of this is Abercrombie and Fitch, a once trendy (esp. in the early 2000's) clothing retailer known for its controversial marketing techniques. They tend to target a narrow but aesthetically pleasing demographic of middle to upper-middle class, young, suburban, thin, physically fit, conventional, collegiate crowd. They even go so far as to spray their stores with cologne daily. I can't recall seeing any overweight, elderly, or visibly handicapped people in their adds and the same goes for many other trendy retailers. I'll admit I got a few things in there years ago. I'll admit some of their clothes were comfortable and durable. I do have some issue with some of their marketing practices. This article here explains what I'm getting at very clearly, although I'd say this article is also a little exaggerated and deteriorates into melodrama toward the end. It does make a point however: http://bizcovering.com/major-companies/evil-racist-bigotted-and-rude-exposing-abercrombie-fitchs-true-colors/ I haven't shopped there in a while but not too long ago I wandered into Hollister (an affiliated company) out of boredom and curiosity and immediately felt like a fish out of water and yet entitled to a senior citizens' discount (I'm only 34 and neither bald nor gray yet).
       This is a free country, we are entitled to shop or not shop where we please and no one dares admit to caring what anyone else thinks of them, however these are some of the unspoken nuances we are to obey, and never acknowledge that they even exist- for that would be "stereotyping". Not minding these "unwritten rules" and we may and up feeling uncomfortable, and if not than we may end up branded as "naive". Bars and Nightclubs can be even less forgiving with their selectiveness. Going to the wrong one can result in wasting an evening and a large cover charge for an evening of cold shoulders and awkward vibes, but in some major cities one may get turned away at the door although in that case you won't waste as much money or time. I mean everyone makes a faux-pas now and then and society may be forgiving to a point. Sometimes the Internet is the best place to get advice on certain places and establishments to get the real scoop without getting accused of "judging", "generalizing" or getting your head bitten off for even asking.

Does this guy look worried about 2012?

This guy doesn't worry himself about doomsday, the next war, the next economic meltdown, who will win the Iowa Caucasus, how conservative or liberal some talking head on TV is,  or Mad Cow Disease... just about his next meal and maybe alerting the humans around him of any odd noises he hears outside.

Shedding some light on a common addiction:

        On this first day of 2012 I thought it would be a great day to discuss this. Many people, from certain New Age gurus to people who watch too much of the History Channel or late night talk radio, think the world as we know it will end on December 21 of this year. It already looks like the hotels in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula are going to get some good business out of the deal. One of the clearest memories of the turn of the Millennium for me is that nothing happened. I was in a not-so-crowded local bar with acquaintances enjoying my free champagne toast in a disposable plastic cup- nothing exiting. Doomsday prophesies and conspiracy theories are nothing new. I don't even think they are all false. I'm not a blind sceptic and am willing to keep my mind open to grains of truth from anywhere. The problem is that for many people they are an addiction- and I mean seriously. I do believe in the Bible, but that belief also includes the line about us not knowing the day nor the hour- except for the Father. Also God is a rather busy guy. I would think if he really wanted us to have a heads up about a coming catastrophe he would be more straight up about it and not be playing mental games with us so we can can go guessing dates. Other observations I have toward many "prophesies" is that they are rarely positive... (No one seems to care about predicting the next economic boom, the next disease cure, or the next big invention- just horrific disasters.), also people love to take credit for the prophesies after the fact. (I would suspect that if someone had accurately predicted something like 9-11 before the fact they would be the subject of a huge investigation.) For many I think they just find comfort in thinking that all the cruelty in the world will soon come to a head or that a world in which they feel alienated will end and the people who oppressed them will get justice.

       I also find it funny how people talk about preparing for the apocalypse, this can involve storing seeds, storing ammo, batteries, canned goods... If the world were to end this stuff is not going to do us much good, esp. if an asteroid destroys the planet and besides, if we had a chance to survive and be among the last handful of "enlightened" people standing, there will probably be no power, few doctors to help us, unpleasant disease threats, a huge mess, no running water- yuck, and a lonely, desolate environment, and not much to do except survive. Were all going to doe anyway within about a century. As a Catholic I think all we have to do is have our souls in the right place and love our neighbors. We would be better off in Heaven with God than still alive in some creepy, isolated compound waiting to die of old age.

       Conspiracy theories are another thing people get addicted to. I think to many they can be almost comforting to have a scapegoat to explain our misfortunes. I'm not saying conspiracy doesn't exist. No matter who we are there are people who are out to get us and people of all ideologies and religions who would rule the world if they had the chance, but there is a fine line between well informed and being paranoid. Blame games and separating the world into all good people to identify with and all evil people to be used as scapegoats can be addicting and dangerous. In Christianity we have a belief in good and evil and that evil will always be an enemy of good but good will triumph in the end. I'm not saying people should ever take our current lifestyle or freedoms for granted, but uncontrolled fear can turn into hate and create self-fulfilling prophesies. It helps to put the dangers we learn about into proper perspective.

       It also helps to realize that sometimes, -blank- happens. There have been wars and disasters since the beginning of time. To those who think evil and injustice was invented by some modern group of people who we don't like just look in the history books. Next time one sees a major storm, we should use it as an opportunity to appreciate the power of God rather than speculate on whether it was caused by Obama, Bush, Democrats, Republicans, man made climate change, a chastisement for some popular sin of the flesh, HAARP, UFO's, pesticides, radical feminist agenda, Opus Dei, Wal Mart, Vatican II, or the sodium-whateveryoucallit-sulfate in your shampoo.

Here are some similar viewpoints on stuff like this: *http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/05/why-do-so-many-people-love-a-d.html
*http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/05/why-do-so-many-people-love-a-d.html
* http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-end-of-world-myths.html

Happy New Year!

At least I can say in 2011 I started this blog which I have long procrastinated. Now it is time for the infomercials.