Chile aid donors

Before you give, especially you young people, read this article. Look up the AP story Chile military delivers aid but 1st to their own.

Read the whole thing, especially where gov't is refusing deliveries to desperate poor neighborhoods because they broke into stores to "loot" food, while they are delivering to people who have had food since the earthquake.

Hmm.

(And nothing like those "compassionate women who make better leaders" huh?)

Haiti: message to young people

While this writing, as all of mine, are of course for all people, I am thinking of your special gifts and potential to serve, young people, as I know that you wish to do.

First, I am so proud at the outpouring of donations that I know many young people are leading in the appeal for funding to help mitigate and eventually rebuild from the disaster in Haiti. You are able to see in this, which I wanted to point out to you, that millions of you donating a little can rock the world. Many of your parents and teachers thought that "good deeds" require big bucks, you know, millionaires who build hospitals to have their name written on it. Notice, by the way, that St Jude in Tennessee is not named the "Danny Thomas" hospital. (Read the story of how Danny Thomas founded this great hospital in perfect humility and prayer.) Anyway, I wanted to point out the obvious to you, dear friends, because you are having your first chance to see how millions of you with a few dollars, Euros or whatever each can create an outflow of goodness that is based in modesty and collective anonymity!

But we are all frustrated at the usual problems with actually getting even a first response of aid at all, after four nights of this disaster, to hundreds of thousands of people. Young people, for some reason the older generations act like every time a disaster hit, they are seeing one for the first time. They come up with the same old bureaucratic processes, the same old infrastructure "barriers," the same old lack of creative logistics, the same old lack of organized grassroot responses. Young people, prepare to sweep that all away, if you all hope to survive, thrive and serve humanity and, of course, God.

As you watch the coverage (and I congratulate CNN for the most continual coverage, for it IS important, and it's NOT a problem "over there") use this as a case study to prepare yourselves for this same model of grassroots leadership that you are using in texting your donations in small but numerous components.

Look at the people and think about all these disasters. What is always lacking? The basics for people clawing by bare hands to get to buried neighbors. That is the first thing people in any disaster need. I mean, am I the only person to think, how hard would it be to airdrop gloves, pickaxes, car jacks, sledge hammers, crowbars, just even the basics to help until the heavy equipment gets there (if ever). Is that a "duh" or what? Do we not admire the strength and calmness of the Haitians who have suffered such a devastation, yet are digging with bare hands day after day? Am I the only Einstein of the obvious here? Could helicopters not have dropped bags of these types of tools collected from average citizens who are concerned, like you? I mean, sheesh, if I had been running this show I would have had every person in a city with a spare hammer or tool take it to a collection point and had it choppered there within hours. Many more people would have been saved if even ONLY that had been done!

So young people, study what you see and think about how, for example, many small collections delivered immediately by air drop in waves would have had immediate benefit and life saving grace.

Think of this in the waves of need. Drop the darn tools that the victims-who are their own first responders-need right away, not the "ideal" that arrives days later if ever. People do not live buried until "the right equipment" shows up.

Then once you have a working system of rapid targeted collection points for a specific need, continue the waves of small but numerous potent deliveries. So the second wave could be of water, food basics, but also lots of tubes of antibiotic cream. Imagine if all the young people in Miami, or Dallas, or any place bought a tube of antibiotic cream and took it to a place that bundled it into sacks of several hundred at a time and then choppers dropped those all over the quake area. I mean, again, I know I am Captain Obvious here, but am I really alone in seeing this? I've been thinking this for many years (say decades) and I wonder who really is asleep at the wheel of the Good Ship Logic Clue Phone.

The military (and bless their hearts) have the long term serious delivery mechanisms, but they are warehouse/pallets/cranes to unload/prepackaged assuming a certain disaster/needing all sorts of port or landing strip capabilities... they are simply too hide bound, too rigid and working on a bureaucratic model that, frankly, writes off as unsaveable many of the people who survive, but are trapped, wounded, deprived, the initial disaster. The government and military (AND THE AID AGENCIES, DO NOT KID YOURSELVES) simply do not use hive mind and Internets (you young people know what I mean) to get the needed stuff collected by many individual hands and flung out of choppers or ATV's by many individual hands within hours of the need. We need to start thinking, as we should always have thought, that those who survive the disaster are BLESSED and before the serious infrastructure gets there, we have energetic young people send waves of targeted deliveries of what is needed within hours of the need.

I mean, sheesh, how much effort would it take for young people in Brazil, the USA, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico... everywhere, to collect hundreds of boxes of retail antibiotic and bandages, throw them in knapsacks and have someone with access to air service drop it over there? Trust me, I would have had that done on day one (right after the tools, since we'd have tested how well and how many drop points we could identify with the first gloves and tools drop), and they would not have even had to call it the MaryMajor Good Samaritan ain't she wonderful air drop.

So while this is going on and all our hearts bleed for both the disaster and the many tragic missed opportunities, use this to observe and use logic, thinking about what you would need if you were in the situations we see so well covered today. Think about how you can study more about this, if for no other reason than to be well informed and ready if things happen in your own community. Learn how to use the tools, learn more about urban infrastructure, and observe how people with ready, even wounded hands, lacked even the most basic first response. I mean, sheesh, how many helicopters are there in the world, in that region? (Now, please do not take off across the Gulf on one on impulse after being fired up reading this, we cannot afford to lose a single one of you, believe you me). But see the logic of what I am saying and break away from the moribund and tard mentality of even the most "well meaning" agencies who are once again acting like this is the first disaster, first earthquake, first inaccessible disaster they have ever seen. It's like they have logic Alzheimer's or something. Why have we not had hundreds of private choppers all ready identified in areas who could do it, and better yet, some MadMax ATV drivers in the unaffected areas ready to receive drops and then drive them into the affected city? True, I was flummoxed trying to drive in the mud on the Navajo reservation, ha, but there are plenty of drivers better than me (like the Navajo friend who took the wheel of my rental car and she drove it with perfection!) Hive mind figures out how to get knapsacks of tools and medical aid collected by many, dropped by the daring and able, and driven by the modest and mighty into town.

I hope you have found this helpful, thinking of you, miss you and again, I'm so glad to see your response and concern.

Understanding God: how God "thinks"

I am going to give you an analogy and a case study that will help you to understand "how" God "thinks" (by that I mean his perspective on human actions). My purpose is not to help you to try to understand what cannot actually be understood by humans (or even by angels, who while they share God's vision they cannot comprehend how its perfection originates in God, which is why they constantly praise God in heaven). Rather, I am going to help you to look at a sad and unpleasant earthly issue and be better able to make just, righteous and virtuous choices and thus form your own opinions accordingly. I've thought of a few analogy and case studies so here is the first one.

As you know, many people who oppose abortion understand that even certain forms of birth control have shades of abortion, since they destroy the created embryo by not allowing it to implant, etc. While the Catholic Church and others of their belief oppose all forms of terminating preborn life, they recognize that there is a difference between contraception (preventing the embryo from even forming in the first place) and abortion (destroying or hindering the growth of an actual embryo). Thus the Catholic Church opposes both but for different reasons, though both rest on the reverence and valuing of all human life. Contraception is opposed because there is a Biblical prohibition of "spilling one's seed on the ground," which means that all sex acts should occur in a marital situation that is open to the possibility of a pregnancy occurring. So contraception is opposed because it appears that God has instructed that the raw material of pregnancy should not be discarded, wasted or hindered from combining into a pregnancy. Abortion is opposed because it is viewed as not only being devaluing of life and irreverential toward God's commission to be fruitful and multiple, but because it also violates the Commandment against killing. So that is the medical and spiritual background against which this case study takes place.

One way people promote both birth control and abortion is to accuse those who oppose either or both of those practices of being "insensitive" and "cruel" in certain situations. The usual situation is whereby a victim of rape seeks an abortion. Now, the specific case study I want to give to you is the situation regarding why some people oppose giving "morning after" so called "emergency contraception" pills to a rape victim. In other words, working in slightly different ways, these pills create an environment hostile toward a pregnancy either occurring (if it has not yet happened) or the embryo if it is in place being able to attach and grow. Many people, including those of good will and emotional thoughtfulness, wonder how people can be mean as to "condemn" a rape victim to a possible pregnancy.

Before I move to the analogy, where I explain God's way of thinking in the matter, let me remind you that I am not an absolutist, as I have blogged before. I believe that a small child who is raped and pregnant and who is seeking an abortion for the good reasons of her extreme youth and her fragile health, should receive one, and the sin of abortion thus rests upon whoever allowed the rape to occur. I remind you that I blogged about the most recent case of this happening so that you are not distracted in reading my analogy by the thought that I am insensitive and inflexible, for I am not, obviously.

So let's go back to the case study, which is a teenage or adult woman (in other words, not a child as I outlined above) is raped and seeks immediate "after the rape" "emergency contraception," which is medicine that either aborts the newly formed embryo or prevents the sperm and egg from fertilizing, if they had not yet. So I am speaking of someone who could bear a child with the normal risks of pregnancy, but not the additional risk and trauma of a little child being raped.

Here is the analogy that helps shed some light on how God views this dilemma. Imagine there is a poor and primitive village of indigenous people in a remote area, where they barely eke out a living to support themselves, but are otherwise content. One day a man goes insane and kills a married couple, leaving their small child alive, but now with no one to provide for her. How would you feel if the village decided to kill the small child, because they could not support her in the place of her parents and, and this is the important point, the fact that she is now unsupported is the result of a crime.

So think this through. These well meaning villagers have now lost two pairs of hands and legs that used to raise food, build dwellings, haul water, etc due to the crime of murder, and now with that loss of sustenance providing married couple, the village is stuck with a burden, the little girl, that did not exist before, and all because of a crime.

I'll bet many of you have to haul yourself back from the slippery slope of "understanding" that the "poor indigenous" people just "might have to" make a "tough decision" and being "unable to support the little girl" "through no fault of their own" and "because of someone else's crime," they just "can't support the little girl due to this crime" and thus (how long can we delay saying it?)... they kill her, either outright or by allowing her to starve or perish due to wild beasts in the forest, or from exposure to the cold.

No, God would not "understand" that. God would think that the people who do have enough to eat and shelter don't deserve to have even the little they do have if they cannot raise, support and comfort the little girl whose parents, those two able bodied workers, were murdered. Odds are that God would hardly bless the future of the village who killed the child because "they could not support her." Indeed, these villagers would all have to answer to him when they receive on their inevitable death personal judgment.

Now that you understand "how God thinks" in the analogy, now look back to the case study. In both situations you have a helpless child due to a crime (in the case study, due to rape, in the analogy, due to the murder of the parents). God does not want to hear lame, selfish and craven excuses from a poor village who murders due to poverty, so how much less does God want to hear such excuses from a society that has health care, hospitals, welfare, parents and grandparents with salaries, and the potential for adoption?

It is a hard message to understand how God thinks because his thought is entirely based on love and justice. No human can ever live up to that, but they sure should not provoke the obvious because of greed and selfishness, or, and this is understandable, where shattered emotions and self pity due to the rape can lead, due to the weakness of human nature, of blaming the child for "ruining" their "plans." "My life has been ruined, I've been raped and if I have this child I have to pay money and lose a year of college before getting my high paid job and giving the baby away in adoption." Put in God's point of view, while he understands the broken, selfish weakness of humanity (after all, Eve had everything and she still wanted more in the Garden of Eden), it is hardly as noble and kind hearted as humans think they are being when they urge a rape victim to consider "emergency contraception" and/or abortion.

Back to the analogy. Maybe those lazy ass villagers ought to work a little harder to grow a few more crops, rather than just the bit they have, in order to not murder the child. Maybe their doing so would result in them discovering a vein of gold in a stream that they had not noticed before. Sometimes even those in extreme economic situations through genuine kindness can exert themselves even more to support a child, rather than say "We'd like to but we can't."

God is the ultimate democrat, because every life is equally precious in its creation and its potential in his eyes. Many people alive today exist because somewhere in their family tree someone did not abort a child due to rape in warfare or other circumstances.

I hope that this case study and the accompanying analogy has helped you understand one aspect-a very important one-of God's "thoughts." More so I hope this helps you to not have knee jerk reaction to even painful events when developing your own stance, attitudes, thoughts, feelings and ultimately policies and decisions, where you react to the obvious sympathy and empathy without considering all the routes that genuine mercy, virtue and righteous do take place.

Case study: error of messiah complex social work

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kaiser8-2009feb08,0,984334.story

***

The interesting story of Father John Kaiser, Catholic priest, in Kenya, part one of three. We don't even need to read the upcoming parts two and three to use this as a case study and a cautionary tale. His example is a caution against those individuals who believe they have either a divine mandate or a personal responsibility to "change the world" via "social justice."

Let's use deductive reasoning to help see the problem. Father Kaiser and others assume:

If A is true: There is terrible oppression, criminality and social injustice and
If B is true: And I am witness to it then
C must be true: One must either "speak up" to "fix the problem" or "be silent."

In other words, whether religious or laity it is easy to assume that there is only one choice to be made: whether to "speak up" and/or "fix the problem" or "be silent."

Genuine life demonstrates that this is a totally erroneous path of logic.

No problems are solved simply through the process of 'denouncement.' For example, we have the problem of tainted peanuts (with salmonella) in the United States. The solution is not to have a loud rhetoric of denouncement since accusation and shaming usually results in people thinking they should have hidden the problem better. That is a problem of human nature. Denouncement triggers a human response, which is to not modify the behavior but to hide it better.

The second problem is that there is an assumption that people are just too ignorant and weak to solve their own problems and change their own government. That is ultimately paternalistic and racist. Father Kaiser fell into the common problem in Africa, which is to assume that unless "bwana" "leads the people to freedom," that they will continue to suffer in injustice. Maybe they will and maybe they won't. Every country on the planet has a different history that demonstrates that there is no "one man or woman bwana fixed the mean bad government to free the downtrodden." Every country and culture achieves freedom and social justice in its own organic way of life, with many swerves along the way.

The key to freedom is education and the uplifting out of poverty. I would argue that if Father Kaiser and others focused on quietly building good and simple Catholic schools, for example, that perhaps instead of him thinking he is "bwana" himself, he would have raised twenty graduating classes of well educated kids out of which a handful might have gone into politics and achieved much, much more themselves.

If you want to help an oppressed group you do so by grassroots provision of, of course, spiritual resources (the sacraments if you are a Catholic priest, for example) but on a secular level by teaching people how to make the best of their situation and improve in their poverty mitigation and their educational goals. It is not a coincidence that generations of Catholic priests, brother and nuns worked the fields among their flock, and built and taught secular educations in addition to religious, rather than run around denouncing injustice.

That does not mean one remains silent. However, the tone must be set by the bishop, not a priest. The bishop has the responsibility for any denouncing that must take place. There are many reasons for that and all of them match human nature and what works and what does not. Throughout faith history it is the bishops who would confront, for example, an unjust king, not a priest. The priest must preserve himself for the uplifting of his flock, not risk his head in a spiritual clash with a high secular power. That is why the bishops, like the cardinals, wear red.

The middle ground offers many solutions that are invisible to someone who is too extreme in their zeal, too black and white in their view of injustice, and too inflated about their own individual role and "destiny." Father Kaiser could have been a thousand times more effective if he had understood that.

For example, what if he built a Catholic school that offered a solid and noncontroversial education, and had stayed put in one place, nurturing that school and class after class of kids? Who know what stability that would have brought to that one community, that parish, and all the kids and their families as they progressed through the years. What if that good example did more to shame the corrupt powers than loudly denouncing them?

Want to win a corrupt power over? Build a school and name it after him or her, and show decency through your own quiet example. What if we could have been reading in the LA Times about the "Father Kaiser and Kenya President" schools, and all the poor kids who received hope over the generations (while also receiving the sacraments), rather than a self doomed messiah complex priest who "made his own bullets."

What would Jesus have done? Isn't that awfully obvious to someone is has not driven themselves crazy with messiah complex? Jesus would have had the whole country covered with grass hut schools within twenty years, naming them after anyone who at the very least did them no harm. Jesus would have set up "Caesar's school for poor kids" all over Jerusalem if that had been his mission, even if Caesar did not contribute a single drachma, denaris, piece of silver or whatever. Jesus would not and did not run around head butting and confronting every secular injustice, of which there were aplenty. This is partly because that was simply not his ministry, as he made perfectly clear. But it is also because Jesus is not there to take away people's normal lives from them. People need to evolve their own cultures and governments, and reach their own justice as a group, not by looking for a "bwana." This is why the cream of Europe arose from people who believed, who were Christian, but who attended schools that taught secular subjects and ethics within the framework of the monasteries and other real life institutions. People followed Jesus and developed appropriate institutions; they did not try to "be" Jesus.

The point is not to pretend to be this generation's "social justice Jesus" but to recognize that no one is or will be Jesus but Jesus himself, and, rather, to role model one's self after what has worked. People achieve social justice when tribal and other hostilities are overcome by a common grassroots lifting out of poverty and the establishment of even the most humble of schools (laptops really not needed, thank you very much).

Just to recap: be alert for error in logic if you find yourself thinking "I 'must' 'do something' about this 'social injustice.'" The emphasis on "I" and "must" should be a warning that you have assumed that there is a problem that other people have that only you can fix, and that is an error in logic. People fix their own problems when given the tools and the accurate facts.

Here is a silly analogy, just for a smile. Suppose you encounter a village that is starving, and you find it is because someone has convinced everyone that the seeds they plant for their crops will only grow if you throw tar over them first. Do you confront and insult the elder? Maybe, but if you fail, the people continue to starve. Go down the road and buy some land. Start planting the seeds the right way. As the crops grow give them to the people to eat. You've now given them face saving room. The elder can say, "Well, he probably is lucky and got ground that does not need the tar" or "the tar must be invisible in that patch of land" or whatever. The point is that by not confronting you are not "being silent," but instead, you are letting your actions speak for you and not cornering people in a place where they have no choice but to fight you.

Humility, humility, humility.

Capitalism/financial crisis tutorial telecoms study

Capitalism/financial crisis tutorial

Here is another installment of my continuing series on this subject. This one is particularly important to understand because it is a gigantic case study of a large chunk of our economy where everybody of all economic philosophies made the incorrect decision. It is important to understand this example that I am giving you because I understand that people can be reading my tutorials and understanding the correctness of what I’m saying, but wonder “Is it too late?” and “How could people have avoided making mistakes in the implementation of our capitalism?” So if you’ve not read my previous posts on this subject, please do since I’ll now apply the principles I explained.

Just to reiterate my basic definition of capitalism as provided by the analogy of the “inventors” or “discoverers” or “first practitioners” of capitalism: Capitalism is where surplus of a good or service is produced in an amount beyond what is needed for subsistence, where the surplus is sold on the free market in order to obtain cash. I’ve explained that the fundamental error that specifically the USA has fallen into is to subject the population’s subsistence needs to free market surplus control, and that is the huge error of false capitalism masquerading as true capitalism. Subsistence goods and services (those required for life) should never have been placed in the free market “surplus” sector of the economy. True capitalism sprung from the basic foundation of humans who were able to provide their own subsistence (food, clothing, shelter) through the labor of their hands and who then developed free market capitalism as a way to sell and market (promote) their surplus (extra) goods and services.

So the case study I wish to present is the deregulation and break up of the telephone monopoly. For you youngsters reading this, until the past few decades there was only one Phone Company, called by the nickname “Ma Bell.” It came from Bell Laboratories (as in the famous inventor Edison). That is pretty much what happens when something is invented, and is the proper thing, really. Someone figures out how to do something, like the principles of having telephones and telephone lines, and they form a company to roll it out. The most recent century, the 1900’s, was the time when many “new inventions” and advances were developed or discovered, and then rolled out across the country. The most fundamental example of this was electricity itself. The electrification of the country was something that occupied much of the last century, finally reaching the more rural areas in the 1940’s. Congress guided the rolling out of electrical power provision to ensure that all areas received electricity even, as I said those sparsely populated rural areas. Thus the last century was a time of large public works projects that implemented new technology, such as electricity, as they were developed, such as telephones, by companies, usually the “inventors” of the technology enabling devices, which were usually the only provider, and thus started to be called “monopolies.” So “Ma Bell” became, over time, branded by some of a certain economic philosophy as a “monopoly.”

Here’s the problem with thinking of something as a “monopoly,” with the accompanying implication that there is something stifling and wrong with that. People usually start calling something a monopoly when they resent that the company is making a lot of money because they had the idea first, and they implemented it first. A complication is that the monopoly at some point comes under government control via legislation (in order to protect the consumer, for example), and that is a reasonable and correct thing to do. However, once a monopoly is regulated by the state or federal government, those who envy the business have leverage to charge that the government has somehow conferred “preference” to that monopoly so that only they make money off of, as in this example, the product of telephone lines and telephones. So far so good, the technology and roll out developed as it should, the government regulated where it should, and potential competitors are asking questions, as they should. But here is where it goes all wrong.

People do not recognize that telephone service has become a “subsistence” part of the economy, since people literally cannot live without telephones anymore. Old time farmers walked across the field and talked to their fellow laborers with their mouths, they rode horses to the market and talked with their mouths to customers, and they talked to bankers and other community members with their mouths in person. Now we have a society where that is impossible to do. One needs to have a telephone in order to “subsist” at all. Thus when the legitimate conversation that was initiated by potential competitors was first raised, the government should have recognized that only the “surplus” part of what came to be called telecommunications should be granted free market and competitive rights.

Here is how it should have worked. The national monopoly of providing basic telephone lines and phone hand sets should have remained with one company, and continued to be appropriately regulated by the government. The objective of the monopoly, let’s just call it Ma Bell, would allow for the earning of profit, certainly, but it would not have been a free for all “gouge the consumer for all they can make” since it is viewed as a subsistence service. And the monopoly executives would certainly understand that (not everyone was insanely greedy back then). So the theoretically continuing and ongoing Ma Bell monopoly could make money, but not by raising prices, and they would be happy with that. Why would they be happy? Because competitor rights would be granted to new telecommunications companies to develop all the new “value added” services, and they would “snap on” these services, which are true “surplus services” onto the monopoly’s subsistence service highway.

So the theoretical “Ma Bell” would continue to provide low or almost no cost subsistence basic phone service to all USA customers. They would invest in upgrades to the network, which would be their responsibility, to add bandwidth, locations and for technology advances, such when analog was converted to digital. New companies would have been formed to snap onto to the basic phone company new services, such as when advanced handsets were developed, capabilities such as computer access, texting, etc. In other words, we’d have seen the flourishing of free market “surplus” telecommunications in competitor companies as they marketed their products as “add on” to the basic monopoly backbone infrastructure, which continued to provide basic service at low cost, even no cost to the poorest. This is because as the population increased one could continue to charge a low rate for basic service simply because there were more subscribers, as we would have seen in the 1950’s through 1960’s. The free market competitors would pay the theoretical “Ma Bell” for access to the cheap network so their products would work and be carried on the network. So in theory, “Ma Bell” would provide the bandwidth, the basic handsets and the ability to be carried on the network. “Ma Bell” would make money from the very low basic service fee but would make the real profits via charging the free market competitors for access to the network of their products.

How would that have looked today? Like true capitalism that is also providing social justice in provision of cheap subsistence services too. Many people who really did not need all sorts of fancy services and opted for just basic phone would be paying something like $5.00 a month for phone service, period. Then those who have business needs where, for example, they wanted mobile phone service would have, just as they do today, have purchased them from among competitors without driving up the prices of those who remain with the basic service. Likewise the family with texting obsessed teenagers would buy those services from among competitors, just like today, and they would pay through the nose for it, just as they do now, but without messing it up for the subscribers who still want and need the basic service.

And here’s the bonus. Suppose all of a sudden every free market competitor telecommunications company went out of business all at once. The USA would still have basic phone service provided to every household. No one would have “gotten rid of” their basic home service (you know, that service that works even during power outages?) The poor would have that basic service already provided for them, wired into every apartment, rooming house, SRO and home, just like the middle class and rich. We’d have people paying the same amount or LESS for basic phone service decade after decade, not seeing inflated prices ever. The country is extremely foolish whenever it allowed a subsistence product or service, such as in this case basic telephone capacity, to be subject to free market “competition,” thus making prices rise to what the highest payer will pay, and therefore forcing people to fragment what is a basic need of our country. “If I had been in charge” when all this was being decided, I would have pointed that out, and today every single residence would have basic phone service included at extremely low and unchanging basic cost, including free for those at the bottom of the economic scale. When one buys a house or rents an apartment that service would already be there as it would be as basic as the walls and the roof. So in the way “I would have done it,” visionary competitors could have happily developed and marketed their expensive “value added” telecoms services and products, just as they do today, but they would not have deliberately or inadvertently destroyed what is a subsistence basic phone access that is crucial for every person in society today AND is crucial for the country.

Look at the 911 mess. One can no longer just dial 911 without thinking about if your phone will “come up” in the local 911 or where your phone is registered. That is insane. This is just a small example but in “the way I would have done it,” every residence would have a cheap or free phone that obviously when one dials 911 one gets the local 911, where they have all the information they need for an emergency. Who here thinks that 911 is a profit making “competitive” capability? We never would have had the snafus regarding 911 “if it had been done my way in the first place!” Further, with a basic monopoly service, we could have everyone obtain the same information in times of emergency, you know, that homeland security and weather disaster type of situation? We’d already have the entire country able through consistent cheap or free technology to receive all essential (“subsistence”) telecommunications services.

I could not believe it when I watched the “bad old evil monopoly” of Ma Bell being broken up without any of these so called economic or technology geniuses pointing out even once what I have just explained here. This is one of the most visible examples of the USA derailing all at once 1) true capitalism 2) support for the poor and 3) its own national security, all because people wanted to be greedy. That’s the kicker: they could have been greedy all they wanted and have had their free market for the surplus services all along. But they would have gained their profit by not destroying the very basis for provision of subsistence service and would, in contrary, have worked in partnership, allowing the basic theoretical “Ma Bell” to make profit and keep prices low. The theoretical “Ma Bell,” incidentally, would have continued to be one of the basic low cost but totally steady stocks on the stock market, regardless of what was going on in the nation or the world. In true capitalism one needs subsistence product and service stocks that never lose their value. They may blip up and down but their desirability and foundational role in a portfolio would never be at risk. And remember, that is how “utilities” used to be viewed, as highly reliable though boring stocks with modest returns. But the breakup of monopolies destroyed the strength of the theoretical core utility stock, since, for example, electric companies are regional and subject to good/bad decision making and market forces. If there had been a stock in a monopoly nation wide electrical grid, for example, and, as I posit in this case of the theoretical Ma Bell, a stock in the basic subsistence telecom service to every residence, those stocks would never lose their desirability or value, even if returns are modest, steady and boring.

So there you have it. I hope that you have found this case study useful.

Cultural diplomacy tutorial case study Part 1

I was listening to a talk show, and there was, by one of the guests, a mention of what he thought was an ironic contrast. The commentator was annoyed that some people make "value judgments" regarding "gay marriage" while the "same people" are "silent" about issues such as "female genital mutilation." Whoa, that really got my attention, since he did a bit of a rant about female genital mutilation (also incorrectly called female circumcision), accusing liberals of being soft on horrors such as this that he says they rationalize by calling it a "cultural" context. So I realized here is a great case study about cultural diplomacy.

Let me start by saying that female genital mutilation is never right, it is an abomination, it is not rationalized at all in the Qur'an, and it sprang up as a local cult belief among some tribal regions in Africa. I do not agree that either side, liberals or conservatives, are ignoring this issue or giving it a cultural "free pass." I do not agree AT ALL. I've seen great work and education by both "sides" of the western political persuasions. But here is what is missing. Both sides lack tools, understanding and adeptness at how to conduct cultural diplomacy.

Once a practice has taken root over hundreds of years, one cannot go in and argue that it had no legitimate foundation since unfortunately, there it is, and often large parts of the ethnic society are now structured around this belief. So even if you bring in Muslim scholars and elders to dispute the practice, that often is not a help except to guide when a decision has been made to actually stop the practice. In other words, religious leaders and elders from other villages or tribes can help facilitate the change and problem solve the process once agreement is made to abandon the practice. So how does one get a village, just to use an example, to abandon the practice?

The most common error by Westerners is to not 1) identify what cultural value the village is attempting to protect through the practice and then 2) propose an alternative activity or solution that protects the value without continuing the practice. Westerners often let themselves be blinded by the horror of what is being done, without considering what "horror" the traditionalists are seeking to avoid. Here is what I would do.

First of all, I would identify what cultural value they believe female circumcision is promoting or protecting. It is obvious that dialogue would reveal that the value they are attempting to protect is a girl or young woman's virtue. Many of these customs developed because they believe that 1) if sexual delight is destroyed in a girl that she will not have extra-marital sex and thus 2) in the marriage contract men can be assured she is a virgin and that she will not stray in marriage. As a result they do draconian things such as not only removing the clitoris, but they also actually sew up the vaginal openings of girls, barely allowing urine or menstrual blood to pass through. Needless to say childbirth and all natural functions become painful, infected and life endangering.

Arguing that this is unhealthy, painful, cruel and not a guarantee of virtue is mostly futile, since all the elders have to reply is "Well, we are still here, are we not?" So long as the population thrive, they will be fearful to remove even the most draconian practice. Westerners have no valid answer to the argument that their population is thriving (even with misery). Thus, what I would recommend is to agree that virtue is a valued and prized objective, and propose alternative ways to achieve it than female circumcision. Rarely do you get anywhere by jerking the rug out from under them, convincing them that it is "wrong," but then not replacing it with a new and powerful cultural practice that is consistent with their beliefs.

An example of an alternative is to propose that they create a system of "virtue chaperons" that girls can join at the age when circumcision would have been performed. Women, such as teachers or elders, could have a responsibility for monitoring the virtue of young girls who are joined with them in such a relationship. For example, a girl could be offered the alternative, circumcision or joining this kind of virtue guardianship. So while a girl might give up some privacy (perhaps agreeing to forgo some activities that circumcised girls could attend), she can avoid being circumcised. When the village has had a chance to see side by side girls who opt traditional and those who opt for the new virtue guardianship, and see that it works, they will not fear putting circumcision aside. Remember, those cultures have different views of privacy than westerners. Young girls would not mind an "auntie" kind of "virtue guardianship," even after they are married. Good health practices can also be taught, but be careful not to dive into western birth control and other ideas if they are not welcomed yet at that time. But what I am saying is that the virtue guardians can have a warm role, such as helping with a young girl's health questions, helping with babies when she is first married, that is more than a compensation for the "lack" of privacy, that is questionable in its cultural context anyway.

Young men, potential suitors, would be more likely to value a young girl with a certification of virtue guardianship than one that is suffering and mutilated. Once trust is established that virtue is being monitored (and the virtue guardians provide genuine helping hands to the young couple and family), it becomes win-win for all, while still preserving the cultural imperative to protect virtue.

I hope that you have found this case study of cultural diplomacy to be useful.

3/3 "Spread the wealth" and what the Bible says

The story of Jesus and the disciples utilizing the charity of the excess grain being kept in the field for use of the poor and the traveler is told three times in the Gospel.

Matthew 12:1-8. At that time Jesus went through the standing grain on the Sabbath; and his disciples being hungry began to pluck ears of grain and to eat. But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, “Thy disciples are doing what is not lawful for them to do on the Sabbath.” But he said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and those who with him were hungry? How he entered the house of God, and ate the loaves of proposition which neither he nor those with him could lawfully eat, but only the priests? Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are guiltless? But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. But if you knew what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would never have condemned the innocent; for the Son of Man Is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Jesus and the disciples were collecting and eating grain from the “pantry” that God mandates which is that part of the ongoing harvest of the fields must be kept available for those who were poor or were traveling. And notice that the Pharisees do not criticize Jesus and the disciples for that. However, the Pharisees and many of the devout Jews of that time had come to warp God’s instructions. In this example, the Pharisees had decided that the poor could not collect their food on the Sabbath since the act of picking up food was considered “work” and that is forbidden on the Sabbath. So the rich could eat food they had already harvested but the poor were expected not to “violate the Sabbath” by bending hand to stalk of grain and picking the food up. This is one of the many abuses that Jesus had come to chastise and correct. And so he rebukes the Pharisees pointing out the many scriptural examples where obviously something that would be considered “work” must be done in dire need and those who are sanctified. So this scripture is cited mostly because of Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees, but if you know your Bible you also know what I’m pointing out to you, that this is how Jesus and the disciples traveled and gleaned their food. They weren’t like Buddhist monks shuffling along with bowls begging under vows of poverty, though many modern liberals try to paint Jesus that way. Far from it, Jesus and the disciples availed themselves of these continuing food sources that God had mandated be available in every town, in every field, to be available to the poor, the widow, the orphan, travelers and foreigners passing through. (Another example is when Jesus curses the fig tree that is not available with fruit when he is in need of it. People think of that as ‘bad temper’ if they do not realize that it is instead a statement that all is subject to the Son of Man, and that Jesus’ action is to underscore that there is to be an expectation of food available as prescribed by God).

Mark 2: 23-28. And it came to pass again as he was going through the standing grin on the Sabbath, that his disciples began, as they went along, to plunk the ears of grain. But the Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and those who were with him were in need and hungry? How he entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the loaves of proposition, which he could not lawfully eat, but only the priests? And how he gave them to those who were with him? And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man Is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

While Matthew and Mark recall the words slightly differently, Jesus makes the same important point. God created rules for the benefit of humans, in his mercy, and not to enslave humans to rules. Thus it is obviously that God created the rule that poor humans could glean food they need from the fields for their benefit since the poor are high in the priority of God. Likewise the Sabbath is created so that all can rest, for their benefit, from their labors, not so that they have “another rule to follow.” Therefore it is doubly insulting to the great mercy of God that the Pharisees of the time had viewed both signs of mercy by God as a way to beat the poor down and call them in violation of the Sabbath because they fed their hungry stomachs on that day. That is quite an example of those who are supposed to know better to be preaching the opposite of what God intended. This is why Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man (so he can rest) and not man for the Sabbath, just to be having a rule to follow. And likewise Jesus is saying the same thing in Matthew when he cites God in scripture to the Pharisees “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” Providing food in the field for the poor is another mercy, not imposing another special ‘sacrifice’ on them because Pharisees try to keep them from “working” to gather their food.

Luke 6: 1-5. Now it came to pass on the second first Sabbath, that he was going through standing grain, and his disciples were plucking and eating the ears of grain, rubbing them with their hands. But some of the Pharisees said to them, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you not, then, read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? How he entered the house of God, and took, ate, and gave to those who were with him, the loaves of proposition, which no one may lawfully eat except the priests?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

I repeated all three of the scriptural references to this event of the plucking grain on the Sabbath in order to point out some additional information. It’s the same event but obviously described in separate writings from Apostles and disciples working separately so slightly different things are emphasized, which adds to understanding, not detracts. Luke, a Greek, mentions exactly how the disciples were gathering the grain, “rubbing them with their hands.” See, Luke is writing for those who are not necessarily Jewish and would not understand what “work” Jesus and the disciples are accused of doing on the Sabbath. A Jewish reader would understand, but a Gentile would not. So Luke adds the explanatory description that when one plucks a stalk or ear of corn (grain), one has to rub the stalk in the palms of one’s hands in order to loosen the grains from the stalk and make them free to eat. It is this rubbing of the hands together that the Pharisees accused of being “work.” I’ve done this, by the way, walking along some wheat fields in Germany back in the 1960’s, and the grains are kind of sticky and you do have to rub in order to get them loose from the stalk to eat.

So it simply is outrageous and not true when liberals try to portray Biblical charity and almsgiving as anything other than that described in the Bible per God’s direct word, and also the example that Jesus himself set of utilizing that very system that God had mandated.

Another problem is that in the New Testament the word “charity” does not mean specifically alms giving and giving or lending to the poor. Charity means “kindness,” including affectionate and benevolent thoughts. This is another thing that drives me crazy. So rather than reading what I have pointed out about what God has said about genuine charity, as in alms giving and lending, and how exactly to do it, those who try to pop culture Jesus erroneously use scripture about “charity” to justify whatever “good cause” and economic or donation structure they are trying to advocate. It’s totally infuriating. When Jesus preaches about charity, whether he uses that word or not, Jesus is referring to benevolence and kindness, not rewriting the rules of almsgiving and lending that God has laid out in the Law.

Further, one cannot argue that those rules were part of the “Old Covenant” and “only apply to the Jews.” No, you cannot. Why? Because as I cited God said in Deuteronomy 6:15 this line “If you but heed the voice of the Lord, your God, and carefully observe all these commandments which I enjoin on you today, you will lend to many nations, and borrow from none.” If God is referring only to the Jews, as a law they keep only among themselves, who are the “many nations?” God is “laying down the law” for all who are believers in him, and so that obviously applies to the Jews, Christians and Muslims. That’s another peeve of mine. Those who cherry pick Bible readings by their agenda like to arbitrarily assign what they don’t want to do as being “Jewish and part of the Old Covenant, and don’t need to do none of that, no sirree” while the stuff they want to do or that they want to apply to someone else (as in their crazy “interpretations” of revelatory material), don’t hesitate to decide what countries or people they wish to slap it onto. So one minute they will say part of the Bible applies only to the Old Covenant Jews, while the next line they claim is a prophecy about “Russia” or whatever. You must believe exactly what God said, and that did not “go away,” anymore than the Ten Commandments “went away” when Jesus arrived, which they clearly did not. In fact, nothing really “went away” from the Old Testament, there were simply the appropriate updates, to use a secular word, as per Jesus and the Apostles. For example, yes, circumcision was no longer required but something took its place, and that is baptism. So that is a primary example of where the spirit of all that was stated by God in the Old Covenant is retained, while the specifics of the New Covenant brought by the Savior fulfills not only the promise of the Messiah but also the behavior that is incumbent upon all true believers.

Think about it. It’s not like that when St. Paul and St. Peter and the other disciples started moving around and preaching in both synagogues and to the Gentiles that they stopped gleaning grain from the fields to sustain them “because the Old Covenant law is no longer valid.” I mean, duh. Their families would have maintained that form of charity and they also would have benefited from it; that would not have changed after Jesus. But because they were going into Gentile areas to preach, this is why they developed different communal and alms asking practices, since they were traveling outside of areas where these Old Testament “pantries” existed. It was not a new chapter in self abasing poverty, as certain ignorant nut jobs like to push. It was the reality of not only a spiritual mindset of “poverty” so that the Lord God can fill that space, but also a literal reality of traveling in areas that never received the original word of God and thus did not have the system of the fields, of the alms, of the lending admonishments, of the Jewish schedule for the forgiveness of debts and provision of free use of the fields, etc. When the disciples encountered such areas of Jewish settlement, obviously they partook of the system that God had established in the Old Covenant.

Pretty much the last mention of almsgiving (not the more generic charity of kindness of thought and deed) is Luke 14: 13-14 where Jesus said “But when thou givest a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; and blessed shalt thou be, because they have nothing to repay thee with; for thou shalt be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Again, this is Jesus being specific and connecting via parable exactly what God has already put forth. Jesus is reinforcing how God mandates sharing of the actual goods at the actual time they are being had by the prosperous, not later and not in token “donations.” Genuine charity as in the sense of almsgiving and tending to the poor is continually taught and mandated by God as being enfranchising the poor in normal life, day by day, on special occasions, and when they experience set backs, just as the scripture mandates that I cited from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Esdras. In fact, remember how Esdras taught the Law that during festival the poor should have the same fat meat and sweet wine as those who have? This is exactly what Jesus says here, with one exception. Jesus explains that now the “crippled, lame and blind” are to be also invited. It’s not like God “left them out” back in Exodus, but in the times of Jesus the erroneous teaching had arisen among the Pharisees and others that the sick and maimed were that way because of sin. So rather than erasing and replacing what is taught in the Old Testament, such as almsgiving and lending, Jesus explains over and over that this is to continue and to refute those who try to exclude in the name of God. Remember that the Pharisees tried to exclude Jesus and the disciples from eating what they gleaned on the Sabbath. Well, the Pharisees and others like them tried to exclude the sick and maimed also from pretty much everything, writing them off as “sinners.” This is of course never what God said or meant (God, in facts, warns in the Law that no one should put stumbling blocks before the blind, which means that people should not allow those who are blind to be hindered in their well being and survival because of their blindness).

Jesus repeated, rather than replaced, what God has mandated and taught, over and over and over again.

Luke 20: 45-47. And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, “Beware of the Scribes, who like to walk about in long robes, and love greetings in the market place, and front seats in the synagogues and first places at suppers; who devour the houses of the widows, making pretense of long prayers. These shall receive a heavier sentence.”

Interesting, the mention of the “market place,” isn’t it? It all comes back to how far astray both the economic structure and its moral unpinning has become, by both the right (“the lords of the market place”) and the left (“first places at the celebrity fund raisers”). Think about it.

I hope that you find this helpful. You better, my friends, you better.

Proper perspective about world's dire problems

I continue to personally suffer as a result of the many errors committed by many secretive and powerful people who embrace cultist beliefs. I suffer both in what is cruelly done personally to me, but also, as I have throughout my life, I suffer at seeing millions of humans self destruct their own souls, and truncate the lives and salvation of just about everyone around them that they touch, and through their influence, they touch just about everyone. It is not necessary for them to intend evil; in fact, most of them view themselves as some sort of secretive “reincarnated” karma heroes, “saving humanity.” In fact, they have done the opposite and despite my good natured and loving explaining amidst the most unbearable suffering, they continue to do their damage. As an example of how they do harm even if they do not direct their plotting and dark thoughts toward a person, but instead think of themselves as “charitable and good warriors,” look at where the “powers that be” make their investments. They would rather dole out crisis aid than actually build the infrastructure properly, providing both jobs and raising standards of living.

I'll start with an easy example. I never heard a good reason why a tsunami warning system was not in place before the great tsunami in Indonesia, even though the technology was well known and in place elsewhere. Cultists would rather dole out aid that is misused and disappears rather than invest in the infrastructure prior to the emergency. That is part of their fantasy. They like to view themselves as “riding in” after the disaster (who cares how many died; they call it an “act of God,” which is apparently the only time they believe in the one monotheistic true God) dispensing their largesse, rather than anticipate the disaster through common sense, not sorcery.

The next example is more complicated and egregious. I’ve mentioned many times that India maintains the cruelest caste system that ever existed in human history, as a result of cultist beliefs that everyone is born to their station in life (and of course, the stations must extend from the great enlightened “down” to people who are viewed as little better than dog crap). In the natural scheme of things this type of belief would have been erased, especially with the rise of Christianity and Islam, both of whom correct this error and affirm total equality of body and soul of all people. But modern cultists through their “investments” and “good deeds” keep the caste system thriving and violent, by neglecting the rungs of the ladder that would raise the lower castes and erase the artificial oppressive boundaries. Children, understand that India is like a country that gives you the two sides of a ladder but without the rungs in between them, and then tells you to climb. They pass laws and mouth good words that the caste system is outlawed, but they leave the people at the bottom holding two poles with no rungs, and telling them they have given them a ladder. The crude example I have often cited is that India still requires the lowest caste to work as night soil carriers. This is because India would rather invest in other things than toilets for one billion people. So people defecate in the street and the lowest caste, including children, remove and carry the fecal matter in their bare hands to take it to open dumping areas.

Western investment priorities and attitudes have long infested India, prolonging rather than curtailing the natural selection process that would have eliminated the caste system. So when you combine an ancient cultist belief with modern “remedies” that are misdirected (in large part because they are driven by hidden false “hero” Western cultist beliefs) the situation becomes more dire rather than evolving toward true enlightenment and charity. Extreme Hindus kill Christians because the Christians know in their heart that all are equal and loved under God and exercise that belief in trying to raise the standards of the “lower castes.” Instead, the Hindus ought to have been building dams and infrastructure to handle flooding, as with what happened recently, if you know what I mean. Neglect has a way of coming back and biting people in the ass (though it is almost always the innocent on both “sides” who are displaced and suffer). If Hindus were really interested in eliminating the caste system they would have done so. And the same extends to protecting and promoting the living conditions of the poorest among even their own “true believers.”

Westerners could have easily made investment in India conditional and targeted toward certain standards. For example, if I had been investing in a factory in India, I would have required that part of my investment be used to provide housing and sanitation facilities in the surrounding area. Westerners have had decades to do this, and they certainly should know better based on supposed morals and values, but they have not, and have in fact, colluded with those who continue to oppress, neglect and dehumanize millions of people based on fallacious, greedy and self serving cultural cultist “beliefs.”

Look everywhere around you in the world and see the suffering that is due to lack of traditional, rather than cultist based, Western teaching and investment in charitable infrastructure. Haiti is ruined due to deforestation and I sit here in my bottom floor apartment ignored while I could have architected recovery of that country any time in the past thirty years, and I wouldn’t do it by waving a magic wand. China is now suffering as ignorant and greedy contractors built substandard schools that are collapsing and killing their children. In a way, China is the most understandable of all the case studies because of their huge shortcuts they have had to take to support their large human population, but again, Westerners could have warned them of the dangers of such construction (although plenty of American buildings were at the same time also being built that would be also prone to earthquakes) and of course during the so called Cultural Revolution, they would never have sought Western advice and engineering anyway. But it is too valuable a case study to ignore. More schools fall with each earthquake and aftershock. And that brings us to New Orleans. Maybe if people cared less about vampires and more about infrastructure, there would be levees and other infrastructure that not only protects the city but allowed it to thrive. Even this week I spotted an error in design just by watching routine TV coverage, one that is not at all realized by humans.

But because the Western business investment AND its “charity” is increasingly, both knowingly and unwittingly, “cultist belief” based, people are continuing to make bad investments that will reap sad and bad consequences. Mostly the cultists don’t mind because it is the “little people,” who are not astrologically or “spiritually” consequential who suffer. Like I said, then they rush to say those are “acts of God.” But not providing basic advanced infrastructure capabilities and safeties before the disaster rather than after is both material and spiritual negligence of the highest order.

Another example is the flooding that has occurred throughout the United Kingdom over the past few years. I mean, how stupid is a governmental system that no matter who is in power that they cannot anticipate and construct to remedy or mediate such circumstances? And then the droughts in certain regions of the United States, where one must wonder, instead of blaming “global warming,” why have not decision makers instituted wise water policy in the first place? I taught a seminar back in the late 1970’s while I was a university student myself about environmental law, and I pointed out the hundreds of years of conflict over water policy and how it is a dire problem. And here we are with things only worse, not better.

Again, this is not magic. Just several generations ago humans had the knowledge they needed in their hands, and the charity was growing in their hearts. But the cultist age of greed took over and before you know it, many regions of the world are worse off than they were after World War II and that’s a fact. Look at the drought in Australia, as they watch their farmland disappear and act like that’s never happened in the history of humanity. They are hurt and outraged, and I feel deeply for them. But I wonder at the past two generations who are so certain that they are entitled and that the world runs on a thermostat that they personally operate. If I had farmlands I would have planned for times of both abundant (too much, even) water, and extreme drought. Again, that’s not magic, that is using both reasoning skills and faith. Reread how Joseph advised the people of Egypt how to prepare for a dire regional seven year famine, it is all there in the Bible, both spiritual and material wisdom. So it is not as if this is an ability that humans don’t have; they had it in abundance until they decided to be manipulated into a cultist and false sense of reality regarding their lifestyle, their investments, their faith, their very reasoning skills, and the areas of humanity and environment that they willfully neglect and allow to suffer.

For several painful decades now people have marginalized and tortured me because they are more worried about “'who' I am 'really reincarnated from'” rather than reality, even though anyone could have asked me at any time and I would have witnessed to them that there is no such thing as reincarnation at all. I’ve sat here being tortured and maligned, watching how humans have set themselves up for their own destruction. At any point I could have forgiven all that has been done to me, to the innocents who have suffered, rolled up my sleeves and shown people how to raise the standards of both material and spiritual living for everyone, with total inclusion. Yet the more I point this out the more that I have been injured. And this is hardly a secret.

Let me tell you a story from sometime between 1981-5. I was working for one of the major oil companies and as a manager had to attend one of their many education classes that focus on skills and teambuilding. One was an advanced problem solving class and actually, that was quite impressive, as they taught some very interesting human techniques at problem solving and team building. One day we had an exercise where a team of three or four people had to try to figure out from a list of three possible answers the solution to a problem that they had no expertise in, or access to resources. Our team’s problem was why bears attacked certain electrical power structures.

As luck would have it, since I was an environmental science major I actually knew about this problem and the cause. But not wanting to ruin the exercise for my engineering and managerial teammates, I kept my mouth shut, except to contribute normally and positively as to where they were headed. But when I tried to actually drop some hints (as they were going off in the wrong direction) I got ignored and somewhat slapped down. So the team actually came to an erroneous choice from the list of three. During the debriefing it came out that I knew the correct answer. The team’s instructor correctly explained that this is an example of a shy or low key team member being beaten down, and how bad engineering decisions are made as a result, and how one should never underestimate the capabilities of a team member (remember, this was during a time when women had difficulty being heard in corporate settings too).

By the way, five years later the space shuttle “Challenger” exploded because it was launched in too cold conditions, overriding the concerns of minority team members about the O-rings’ ability to perform correctly. Yet, incredibly, there are many who ought to know better who continue to ascribe cultist beliefs to events like the Challenger disaster.

Humans have had a rich history of both spiritual and material progress in wisdom, yet they have deliberately polluted their own knowledge base. The more they know about flooding, the less they do. The more they know about droughts, the less they plan. The more they know about tsunamis, the less they do for the disenfranchised. The more people have older, traditional and conservative wisdom, the more they are mocked and shouted down, and persecuted out of the decision making process based on “who they ‘really’ were during a ‘past life.’” The more we know about biology and medicine, the more risky behavior humans embrace. The more humans poop the less they pick it up the proper way. Have trouble allocating resources? Blame babies; teach that too many babies are the root of all evil and shortages. Low self esteem? Tell your kids they are reincarnated alien superhero fighters rather than have them comprehend the goodness and singularity of their real actual life and the urgent need for them to make wise and not demented cultist based decisions. Have a problem? Solve it by being passive aggressive on one extreme or violent on the other extreme.

I see one or two examples of the truth beginning to dawn on people. For example, much of Louisiana evacuated successfully during Hurricane Gustav (I went along with them). I thought that the local, state and federal governments actually acquitted themselves admirably, opening referring to the lessons learned from 2005 when they did everything that they possibly could wrong during Hurricane Katrina. I saw a real maturity and depth of understanding in both the continuing leaders and the ones that were new since then. I saw many more people “get it,” and have a sense of the larger picture, and be able to reduce it to logical imperatives and cautionary steps, both individually and collectively. And I hope that they have a process by which they will evaluate even this iteration and learn what was omitted and what needs to be included “next time.” But Lord, oh Lord, this is one example of one disaster where improvement has been made in preparation and response. That is one drop in the bucket of the dire infrastructure mistakes and flaws that are destroying humanity’s present and future, both materially and spiritually. People do not have time to “try out doing one thing right” and “see how that works.” I personally don’t have the time, and neither do all of you.

Diplomacy consideration of previous post

And here is an important example. You have western aid workers rushing into places like Afghanistan. They want to "Americanize" through their volunteer work facilities such as homes and schools. They may be well meaning but this mindset causes trouble for two reasons. One it is not a consistent mindset with how life goes on there (the values and the culture), plus it is not long term and lasting. Just like I mentioned in the previous post, well meaning people go there to do some things on a check off list, and then leave.

If I were in charge of western volunteer aid workers in places like Afghanistan, here is what I would do. I would let local community leaders identify what they need for their children, community and economics to thrive. Then I would create guilds in those trades. Guilds are an honorable tradition in both western and eastern culture. Then I would endow organizations that could fund that activity using culturally appropriate means (such as Islamic banking traditions and organizations). So instead of westerners arriving to "build a school," the local people would decide what kind of school they need, the guild trade organizations would train and assemble the local people who would do the work, and they draw upon the well meaning charitable funding through regulated culturally approved means, such as an Islamic banking organization. Voila. Less danger and misunderstanding for everyone involved, and many orders of magnitude more permanent progress and lifting of standards of living for everyone.