Will Work for Change

Posted on April 5, 2012 by

Will Work for Change-POLITICAL BUTTON

Will Work for Change-POLITICAL BUTTON

Will Work for Change-POLITICAL BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

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I like this simple design because it has two meanings for the price of one.  Hopefully, the obvious meaning is that one will work for social change.  However, the other meaning, that one will work for a mere pittance, is a backhanded commentary on low wages and the all too common inability to earn a living wage for one’s labors.  What may be less obvious, is how I combine these two things in my own life.  First, I will gladly work for social change and social justice.  Secondly, living my life in a simple fashion, which I typically call living low to the ground, allows me the freedom of working for social change, while minimizing the worries of wage slavery, the difficulty of earning enough money for a decent living.  The simple fact is that the less money you spend and the less you consume, the less money you need to live.  Friends occasionally ask me, “How’s the button business.”  I am likely to respond something like, “it depends on what metric you might measure that by.”  The most important metric, the one that I judge my success and my business’ success is “I LOVE MY LIFE!”  The rest is details.

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What Are Conservatives Conserving?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by

What Exactly Are Conservatives Conserving (Earth) POLITICAL BUTTON

What Exactly Are Conservatives Conserving (Earth) POLITICAL BUTTON

What Exactly Are Conservatives Conserving (Earth) POLITICAL BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Political Buttons.

What exactly are conservatives conserving?  This is a great question!  Of course, I love the play on the similar root of the words conservative and conserving.  Conservatives love talking about freedom.  However it seems that if we listen to conservatives we would be free to live in a world that is being consumed by all of its so-called free human beings, and all these human beings would be competing to no end against one another.  Sounds like a crappy version of freedom to me.   Freedom without understanding and honoring the limits of the natural world seems to me to be simply a license to ignorantly destroy the planet and all of its inhabitants.  Of course, the shared reality of the natural world, if it is going to be protected for the benefit of humanity, must put demands and limitations on human freedom.  Human beings, though seen as the pinnacle of reality by many, are certainly not exempt from the feedback or karma that the rest of reality causes in response to our actions.  Oftentimes, when I hear conservative speaking of freedom, it sounds to me like some immature fantasy of being free from anything and everything (or anyone).  However, I believe that true human wisdom lies in discerning what we should do, not simply what we can do (or get away with).  Reality gives plenty of good feedback about what we actually can’t do, so the obsession with freedom seems to me to be a sort of moot question.  Like the existentialist philosopher John Paul Sartre says, “we are condemned to be free.”  Freedom actually isn’t even a choice; we are born free.  Certainly, living in community with other human beings is a complicated and difficult thing.  However, it strikes me as foolish to ignore or greatly discount all the great things that we get from community as somehow too fuzzy or somehow reducible to some  individualistic form of math (the whole equals the sum of the parts, not more) that need rely only on some “invisible hand” to do the difficult and messy work of creating and maintaining a healthy and functional community.  In the end, it seems to me that what conservatives are conserving is the right to be selfish – more of an excuse than a human right.  Then, to get out of this amoral or evil conundrum, they claim that selfishness is the highest form of selflessness or benefit to the common good.  I suppose it’s very difficult to argue against an ideology that creates both its central tenet in its exact opposite.  Let them eat cake and keep their cake to.  What could be more conserving than that?

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Mock Funeral – Occupy Toledo

Posted on April 2, 2012 by

Yesterday, April 1st, April Fool’s Day, was the one and only performance of Occupy Toledo‘s Mock Funeral — in life (and death) there are no rehearsals, this is it!  If you missed it, I truly hope that you were doing something else as fun and inspiring!  Thanks to all the players, readers, eulogizers, ushers, HOMElessLAND SECURITY, providers of food, and all who helped make Occupy Toledo’s RE-BIRTHDAY possible.  We rose like a phoenix from the ashes!!  Occupy Toledo will re-start the physical re-occupation of Toledo on May1, May Day, the day of a worldwide general strike!  Join us May 1 in Levi’s Square, downtown Toledo, St. Clair at Madison.  In the meantime you can come help plan the occupation of Toledo at our General Assembly meeting every Wednesday at 6:30 pm at Third Space.

Below is a picture of our own Rev. Ed Heilman serving as mock preacher (note the dollar sign on his bishop’s hat and the dollar sign cross on the altar)

Mock Funeral Preacher (Rev. Ed Heilman)Here is Occupy Toledo’s Obituary from the Mock Funeral:

“Occupy Toledo was born October 10, 2011, to it’s parents, the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. Born of hope, Occupy Toledo burst onto the scene in its own charmingly childish way. However, from the birth of Occupy Toledo, few people could understand what it wanted. Onlookers mumbled again and again: “What do they want?” “I don’t get it.” Occupy Toledo flailed around for about 6 months until it realized that it was too small to succeed. After scrutinizing corporate behavior, Occupy Toledo in due course discovered that the nobility of American corporations was unparalleled. The dearly departed realized that in these great United States of America, injustices are so few and far between, that it could no longer even occupy itself. Unavoidably, Occupy Toledo came to its senses, recognized its irrelevancy, and accepted that resistance to corporate rule is futile. Fortunately, in the end, Occupy Toledo had gained at least the good sense to crawl into a coroner’s office and die. Occupy Toledo died on April 1, 2012, due to apathy. Protesters were the Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2011. Gracefully, protesters like Occupy Toledo are stepping aside to make room for the inevitable Time Magazine Person of the Year for 2012: the Corporate Person, born of Citizens United, the true will of human persons across America. Occupy Toledo is survived by countless cousins around the country, many of whom have not achieved enlightenment, so they have not yet abandoned their vain struggles against corporate America, which is obviously too big too fail. The bad news is that Occupy Toledo is dead. The good news is that its condition is stable.”

Below is a picture of our own local activist doctor, Johnathon Ross, M.D., reading Occupy Toledo’s Death Certificate and pronouncing its death.

Mock Funeral Doctor (Johnathon Ross, M.D.)Here is Occupy Toledo’s Death Certificate from yesterday’s Mock Funeral:

“I hereby certify that Occupy Toledo, born October 10, 2011, has died on this day, April 1, 2012. The immediate cause of death was apathy. The underlying causes of death included: 1) an atrophied brain due to an overexposure to TV news and infotainment, talk radio, and so-called “reality” TV; 2) learned helplessness, due to an enlarged gullibility, making it susceptible to corporate propaganda and so-called political pundits; 3) a weakened constitution due to lack of exercising freedoms and widespread metastases of planetary consumption; and lastly, 4) pure exhaustion from running on the treadmills of trying to earn enough to maintain a decent household and fend off crushing debt.”

Of course, after the 1% overstepped their hand with their crass compulsions (by bidding on the Phoenix egg for their breakfast), the Phoenix’s prophecy was fulfilled:

“Hear this prophecy: The crass compulsion of the few to buy anything and everything is complete. The few dare to literally buy and consume the HOPE of the many. Because of this abomination of the few, the Phoenix’s prophecy is complete. The many, the 99%, Occupy Toledo, will be re-born one month from today in this same place. HAPPY RE-BIRTHDAY OCCUPY TOLEDO. Join us on May 1, May Day, a world-wide general strike, for the re-occupation of Toledo. Thus speaks the Phoenix, ‘You, the many, the 99%, shall arise again and be free. Join together with the peoples of this land and from around the world, and the few, the 1%, will be vanquished.’ “

Below pictured is yours truly, Dan Rutt, alias “Top Pun” (it’s just, my pun name), with the HAPPY RE-BIRTHDAY card placed over the tombstone announcing the re-occupation of Toledo.

Mock Funeral RE-BIRTHDAY CARD! (Dan Rutt as Funeral Director)

Here is some Toledo Blade coverage for the Mock Funeral.

If you’d like to read the Occupy Toledo Mock Funeral script, you can re-live the event, or get a greater taste of the drama of the day.  Here is a printer-friendly PDF version of the Mock Funeral of Occupy Toledo.

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POLITICAL CARTOON: Comedian Jesus – Tough Crowd

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

Comedian Jesus Speaks!

Jesus Cartoon: Comedian Jesus - Tough Crowd

Well, this week marks a difficult week for comedian Jesus.  As is the case with many standup guys, one day they get adulating crowds, then the next day they get deeply disappointed crowds.  It is the fickle reality of a comedian.  Upon Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem for Passover, the crowds went wild and it seemed that he could do no wrong.  However, by the end of the week, Barabbas, the crowd-pleasing insurrectionist, would be the flavor of the day.  Fortunately, for those patient enough to stick with Jesus, he’s working on some really great new material for next week, and presaging a deadpan Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesus matter-of-factually reminds his crowd, “I’ll be back.”

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POEM: Financial Wizardry

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

Steal from one
You are called a thief
Steal from many
You are called a financial wizard

I like this short poem because it plays with the idea of how we interpret personal or individual acts versus impersonal and large-scale actions.  This poem fits the same format and tone as:  kill one and they call it murder, kill many and they call it foreign policy.  Each of these highlights the apparent bias that we have against individual or personal harmful acts, and our apparent bias in favor of impersonal and distance actions.  On the one hand, this makes sense since you can more easily see and connect the dots to the harmfulness of someone stealing directly from you in person, or assaulting you in person.  Yet, on the other hand, by stealing little bits from many, many people in an impersonal fashion and across great distances, Western civilization has frequently decided to term this financial wizardry or good foreign policy protecting our national interest.  It seems to me that much of the so-called success of Western civilization has been a drive toward maximizing impersonal and large-scale relationships to avoid accountability.  However, beyond avoiding accountability, such crimes actually become laudable and bring many benefits, such as wealth, control, and status.  An alternative to this facet of Western civilization would be to move toward and value more highly personal, local, and more organic human relationships.  Some of us might call this anarchism, the free association of individuals to come together and determine their common destiny.  This concept of anarchism is less about individualism than is about maintaining the ability to forge a common destiny, mediated by a shared reality.  Community is necessary since we have a shared reality.  This type of anarchism is democratic, but is skeptical of so-called representation by others, and favors direct democracy where people represent themselves.  This poem is a quick way to highlight the dangerously wrong direction that scale and impersonality or dehumanization can bring.  My own view is that if we don’t humanize so-called civilization, then so-called civilization will dehumanize us.  Most importantly, a humane world will not need a lot of financial wizards.

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Reality Television: Poverty Grows

Posted on March 30, 2012 by

Reality Television: Poverty Grows – POLITICAL BUTTON

Reality Television: Poverty Grows--POLITICAL BUTTON

Reality Television: Poverty Grows – POLITICAL BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Political Buttons.

While many seem obsessed with reality television, it seems that many more important realities are being overlooked.  I’m amazed by Western civilization’s capacity to distract.  I would hope that the chasm between reality television and reality would be something that most people could discern; though my optimism may be showing through.  While this is disturbing enough, I find myself increasingly surreal state when we propose one thing and live truly do the opposite, and then had the audacity to call these opposite the same.  Now I’m a fan of paradoxes as much, probably even more, than the next guy, but holding fast to literal contradictions seem to be an unnecessary grasping of the absurd.  Let me offer an example.  The above design references the reality that poverty grows.  This can be taken as one half of the proverbial the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  However, poverty is not something that we can discuss in polite company in America.  For instance, Pres. Obama in his State of the Union address this year was the first president since Harry Truman to not even use the word poverty in his State of the Union address.  Now, this might not be so unusual if we were in a period of expansive economic growth and poverty was receiving, but, alas, we are in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and poverty is growing.  But, let’s back up to our most recent period of apparent untrammeled economic growth.  Democrats like to call them the Clinton years.  I can’t help but notice that the same Clinton cronies that Obama hired to get us out of the most recent economic crisis are exactly the same people who led us into the crisis.  But back to Clinton.  One of the so-called crowning achievements of the William Jefferson Clinton presidency was his so-called welfare reform, which I prefer to call welfare deform.  Here is where holding fast to a literal contradiction comes into play.  President Clinton used the language of reducing poverty as the ultimate goal of his proposed welfare reform.  In other words, the ultimate success of this policy was supposed to be measured by how much it lifted people out of poverty.  However, virtually every analysis of the policy from left to right, governmental and nongovernmental, concluded that Clinton’s welfare reform legislation would result in more poor people, more poverty.  And sure enough, more people were pushed into poverty.  Unfortunately, a new measure, perhaps actually the original measure, was how many people were on welfare rolls.  This actually went down.  Surprise, surprise!  When poor people received less help, they became more poor.  Oh yeah, that idea that generous Americans and the church folk would feed, house, transport, tutor, and provide jobs for poor Americans without government involvement turned out to be a pipe dream. Wow, and I didn’t have to mention the Bush administration, one or two, Papa or Junior.

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Force Attracts Men of Low Morality

Posted on March 29, 2012 by

Force Always Attracts Men of Low Morality–PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

Force Always Attracts Men of Low Morality--PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

Force Always Attracts Men of Low Morality–PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Peace Quote Buttons.

Albert Einstein is recognized as perhaps one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived regarding physics.  However, few people realize that Albert Einstein was also a great genius of metaphysics, or spiritual physics if you will.  This simple rule that force always attracts men of low morality can be a powerful organizing principle in how we relate to the world.  What if we realized, truly realized, that the world of command-and-control, the world of the military and security apparatuses, did not attract the so-called best and the brightest, but attracts those of low morality.  While Einstein certainly devoted the better part of his life to understanding physics, his number one extracurricular activity was to work for peace and the uplifting of all humanity.  Of course, these types of activities typically don’t make the history books, if for none other than the simple reason that history books only deal with great persons in history with a few paragraphs at most.  However, dealing with issues of morality in our culture seems strangely avoided.  This seems to be entwined with the Western civilization worldview that science is objective and all is science, that is reductionistic science.  We simply don’t know what to do with subjectivity, of which morality is one of the more obvious subjects.  Is it any wonder that Western civilization can be strikingly amoral?  So-called Western civilization has nearly perfected the ability to neuter any productive conversations about subjectivity or morality.  Oddly, this is probably viewed as a highly moral position.  You’ve got to love the irony!  Well, back to Einstein.  I like to think that his commitment and fascination to humanity springs forth from the essential truths that he reflected and meditated upon in physics.  I believe that all things are connected, and that this is a profound truth that underlies both physics and metaphysics.  I would hope that very few would object to the premise that all things are connected, as this is profoundly interwoven in the assumptions of any science.  The problem that many people shy away from, of course, are those connections that could be called subjective between humans and the rest of reality.  In the end, I guess my point is that many would view of what Einstein as a prototypical scientist.  If this view is based in any reality, we should pay attention to the fact that Einstein concerned himself with the nature of humanity that cannot directly be put under the proverbial microscope.  While Einstein is perhaps the best example, and he is the most well-known, there are many examples of theoretical physicists who have  immersed themselves in and accepted a mystical reality that cannot be fully explored with traditional hard science.  Yes, Einstein was a softy – a really smart softly.

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POEM: Near Life Experience

Posted on March 28, 2012 by

I once had a near-life experience
but that’s another story

I like this funny two-line poem because it turns around the mysterious fascination with near-death experiences.  This poem implies that near-life experiences may actually be the uncommon experience.  This is driven home even further in an ironic fashion by not even bothering to tell you about the experience but simply referencing it as just another story to tell.

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Blessed are the Peacemakers

Posted on March 27, 2012 by

Blessed Are the Peacemakers – Jesus Quote–BUTTON

Blessed Are the Peacemakers--BUTTON

Blessed Are the Peacemakers – Matthew 5:9 – Jesus–BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Peace Quote Buttons.

This quote from Jesus from Matthew 5:9 is probably one of the most famous and well-known Jesus quotes from the Bible.  Though, however common the phrase blessed are the peacemakers is, you’d be hard-pressed to figure that Christians took this seriously, given how many Christians are in the military, in many a nation (often opposing nations), and how much counsel and comfort is given to those manning, and occasionally womaning, military enterprises.  Of course, many Christians would argue that war-making is a form of peacemaking.  I think that this was a popular argument in 1984.  Or, well, it’s a real job creator for theologians to figure a way out of loving our enemies, and allowing us to kill those that we hate.  This is one of those areas where I find that Christianity gets seriously in the way of following Jesus.  Many people do not realize that in the early Christian church, pacifism was the prevailing norm.  Refusing military conscription was a common form of martyrdom in the early Christian church.  Of course, later, when Christianity cozied up to the state, particularly in the fourth century when Constantine made Christianity the state religion, Christianity mysteriously came up with new ways to justify warring on its enemies.  This co-option into the ways of the world is as common as it is unjustified.  Just reflect on Jesus’ words for a moment.  Really, what blessings do we see reaped by the peacemakers?  In worldly wisdom, these so-called blessings are secondhand fodder for the weak, the lowly pacifist.  I don’t think that it was a mistake that Jesus’ words recorded here as part of the beatitudes, added for emphasis that peacemakers would be called the children of God!  he was trying to make a point!  This is a title reserved for the blessed peacemakers in Jesus’ list of who is blessed.  Most people stop reading the beatitudes soon after this because they are insane enough to suggest that those who are persecuted for righteousness sake are also blessed.  I also like to Luke version which mentions as one of the woes as all people speaking well of you, for this is what our ancestors did in speaking of the false prophets.  It seems that a common thread of the many rationalizations I believe stray from Jesus true message concerns avoiding a cost for our actions.  Some days I just wish that we had a courageous Messiah that spoke boldly and prophetically to the powers that be in this world, and they wouldn’t back down, even to the point of death by the cruelest means.  I can tell you one thing: they didn’t need to torture Jesus to get the truth from him.  However, the fact that Jesus was willing to put some skin in the game, all of his skin, speaks truth deeply.  Like they say, talk is cheap.  What would you be willing to sacrifice for peace?  And what blessings would you reap from this?

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Any Jackass Can Kick Barn Down, Takes a Carpenter to Build

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

Any Jackass Can Kick a Barn Down Takes a Carpenter to Build–PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

Any Jackass Can Kick a Barn Down Takes a Carpenter to Build--PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

Any Jackass Can Kick a Barn Down Takes a Carpenter to Build–PEACE QUOTE BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Peace Quote Buttons.

Destroying stuff is a lot easier than building stuff up.  Ironically, this seems to give a certain power to people who destroy or threaten to destroy stuff.  Since destroying stuff is easier than building stuff up, there seems to be a certain efficiency, or competitive advantage if you will, to be a destroyer or terrorizer of destroying. While I don’t care much for this apparent bias that seems to favor the stupid and the violent on our planet, it seems to be a reality with which we must deal.  Nonetheless, this reality also points to the value, and even sacredness, of those things which are both vulnerable and treasured.  There seems to me to be a reality that is way beyond our ability to change that is good and beneficent.  I think it is this deeper reality that has hardwired us for hope.  Still, it is difficult not to have one’s attention distracted from this deeper reality when there seems to be plenty of stupid and violent behaviors to go around.  I think that building and protecting those things in life which are both vulnerable and treasured is the most important battleground for humanity.  Then, the real question becomes am I going to vote with my humanity for building up things of real value, or am I going to use the power vested in me by being human to destroy or threatening to destroy that which is built by others in order to get my own way, whatever that maybe.  So, we need to pick sides.  Do you want to be on the side of the jackasses, or do you want to be on the side of the carpenters?  I hope that this answer is an easy one to nail.

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POLITICAL CARTOON: Country Club Jesus – Jewish, Non-American, Non-English-speaking

Posted on March 25, 2012 by

Country Club Jesus Speaks!

Jesus Cartoon: Country Club Jesus - Jewish Non-American Non-English-Speaking

Country Club Jesus speaks to us in many ways.  Ironically, Country Club Jesus, perhaps soon to be an American icon (lol), is neither American, nor speaks English.  Even more shocking, is that Jesus was a Jew.  Of course, this week’s comic touches on all three of these issues.  Hearkening back to the days when country clubs simply did not accept non-whites or non-Christians, the revelation of Jesus’ Jewishness would be better kept as a secret, and better to let people assume that the Christ is in fact a Christian.  Returning to current day America, with a new brand of xenophobia, suspicions of the need to exclude would probably center more around Jesus as a Middle Eastern man rather than a Jew.  Profiling Middle Eastern men as potential terrorists it second nature in America today, and may even be classified as a national hobby/obsession.  Notwithstanding, I’m most curious as to how the English-only crowd sees Jesus who in reality is a foreign speaking (Aramaic), well, foreigner.  Even more oddly for the American English-only crowd, they seem to often have a fetish with the King James version of the Bible, which is hardly an American version of English, let alone modern-day British English, since it was completed in 1611.  Sticking to such a version strikes me as an unwise balance between tradition and accessibility.  I would argue that if the Bible cannot be translated into more accessible English, in the case of American English speakers, then there must be some fundamental disconnect between biblical truths and modern life (which I don’t believe to be true).  I also find it incredibly ironic that one of the most popular version of the Bible was commissioned and given oversight by a monarch, a king.  I find this ironic because I see Jesus as standing against worldly authorities, monarchies, and the like.  But hey, I guess you’ve got to have a wealthy and powerful sponsor to get your message across.  Maybe we should sell naming rights to the next version.  How about the Wal-Mart Bible, or the Exxon Mobil Bible, or the Bank of America Bible, the McDonald’s Bible, or the J.P. Morgan Chase Bible?

So, until next Sunday, with the next edition of Comedian Jesus, CEO Jesus, Country Club Jesus, etc., let me know what you think.

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POEM: Protesting Pet Peeves

Posted on March 24, 2012 by

I would protest against my pet peeves
Except, I’m not sure that “Honk if you want to end noise pollution”
Would work out so well

I like this funny little poem because it teases at the natural limits of something like protesting.  Many people consider me a big-time protesters.  Perhaps fewer people recognize that noise pollution is one of my major pet peeves.  I love the sign that protesters have that say “Honk for peace” or the like.  This is a great way to invite others to get involved in making a public statement about something very important.  However, when you put these two things together: a honky protest and a desire to end noise pollution, the incongruity becomes comical.  Life is funny!  Thank God!  Sometimes we just have to live into the mystery and find things laugh-worthy along the way, especially when dealing with serious or difficult issues.  At some moments in life, it may not be possible to have both peace and quiet; it may be a choice of peace or quiet.

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LOVE POEM: Stolen Glances

Posted on March 23, 2012 by

I have a confession to make
I’ve stolen so many glances of you
And just us demands
That I stare into your eyes
Until further notice

This love poem is dedicated to my sweetheart, Maryjo.  Fortunately, when only the two of us are involved, the eyes have it!  May it be the same for you and your sweetheart…

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POEM: Flowers Cut

Posted on March 22, 2012 by

I set before you these flowers
For your reflection and edification
These flowers were cut from my yard
A yard not unlike the two yards that will cover us all some day
Some may say that cutting short the lives of these flowers is wrong
But what do I say to this?
That the greater danger is cutting our own lives short
For it is much easier to harm ourselves than to harm another
Unlike most flowers and most of nature
This flower lives in the city
Most flowers and most of nature
Are as beautiful as they are unseen by human eyes
But these flowers, these city flowers
Go largely unseen, even as so largely present
People pass by, out of their minds
Racing to that whose beauty cannot compare
Neither flowers nor nature require our attention
But, ahhhh, the beauty is all sufficient
So, if I have cut short the life of these city flowers
By some few days such is life
Pardon my offense
And help me repay such expense
With such beauty they briefly impart
Not unlike this poem
Which from the mind will soon depart
Let such beauty replenish the beauty of your heart
And prepare you for every worthy start

The beginnings of this poem struck while I was taking a walk late yesterday afternoon.  I was to go to an Occupy Toledo General Assembly meeting early that evening, and I decided to take some cut flowers from my yard.  I love it when the muse strikes!  It is a glorious curse of the poet to pay homage to the moment when inspiration strikes.  Having a life where I’m able to do this brings me incalculable joy.  Some may say that I have too much time on my hands, but I certainly don’t have a watch on my wrist, or a cell phone in my pocket.  Anyway, to the calculating chronologist, we all have the same 24 hours each day.  Poets know better, I say in all humility, or rather awe.  While many of us live a similar amount of time, in terms of times our heart is beating and there are waves in our brain, there are simple and great differences in how well we live that time.  I am partial to the blessing given by the late Will Rogers in saying, “May you live all the days of your life.”

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POEM: Feminists Know Something

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

As a man
One day I wondered
How come there are so few
Women politicians
Women economists
Women lawyers
Then it occurred to me
Maybe they know something we don’t

The quest to understand the difference between men and women has probably been around as long as there have been men and women.  This feminist poem seeks to stimulate reflection around the issue of self-selection of a career or vocation.  While there are certainly barriers to women entering, succeeding or advancing in certain male-dominated careers or vocations, there are definitely self-selection factors based on gender.  In this poem, I choose the specific fields of politics, economics, and law for reflection.  These fields are dominated by men.  However, I suspect that much of the reason women are not attracted, or dare I say engendered, to these fields is because of both the nature of these fields and the way these fields have been shaped (or distorted) by a male point of view.  As a man and a feminist, I try to understand and value women’s experiences, ways of being, and points of view.  Of course, men’s experiences, ways of being, and points of view, are transmitted more easily in our society due to men’s dominant role and control over many structures and processes in our society.  Given these realities, we should all be feminists, seeking to strike a more healthy balance between the genders.  This requires that we all pay more attention to what women know; and by knowing I mean much more than simply intellectual content but the whole range of experiences, ways of being, and points of view.  And by all means, I don’t relegate the field of “doing” to men, given the fact that women do most of the work in the world.  Simple curiosity demands that men especially seek insight into what women know that men may not.  Of course, being counter-cultural, this takes work, and for some reason women either seem more willing to take on work, or just experience ending up doing more of it..  Either way, we should all pay more attention to these differences.

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POEM: The Human Race Is Not Well Done

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

The human race
Is
Not
Well
Done

I like the short poem because in seven words in five lines it can be read several different ways.  The human race can be seen both as a species and as an actual race, such as a foot race or a rat race.  Whether or not this race, either way you take it, is done well or, well, done is an open question.  You can meditate on that one for yourself, and for others if you like…

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Real Test of Power to Prevent War

Posted on March 19, 2012 by

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War--PEACE SIGN BUTTON

PEACE QUOTE: Real Test of Power to Prevent War–PEACE SIGN BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Peace Quote Buttons.

This peace quote reverses the typical notions of power.  Power is typically viewed as the ability to make things happen.  That is certainly true in the context of the capacity to make war.  However, the power to exert brute force and coercion is very different from the type of moral force is needed to build and sustain peace.  Morality, in its essence, is about restraint.  By contrast, amorality is simply having no restraint or limits on one’s actions.   Thus, when comparing the capacity to make war versus the capacity to prevent war, or to create peace, these concepts of power tend to clash.  War is hardly an exercise in restraint.  While war may require a lot of discipline in many respects, it requires unleashing incredible brute force that by its very nature cannot be controlled.  One simply has to recognize the reality that for every combatant killed in wartime, approximately ten non-combatant are killed.  Clearly, war is not a precise surgical procedure, despite all the talk about smart bombs and laser guided systems.

As the United States is beating the drums of war against Iran, there is talk about the right thing to do, the moral thing to do.  Of course, most of this talk is couched in terms of all the evil, bad, or immoral things that some other parties are doing.  Sort of by default, morality is imputed on people who oppose such evil doings and evil doers.  Unfortunately, what is lost in the mix, mostly of lies, is that morality is more about restraining one’s own behavior than about restraining another’s behavior.  By losing our focus on our own behavior, we can drift dangerously close to the unaccountability needed in order to wage war.  If you think war-making requires restraint and discipline, try peacemaking and loving your enemies.  The difficult task of taking personal responsibility for one’s behavior both as an individual and as a citizen of a nation can be costly.  However, there seems to be an  inertia in the human condition that defaults to blaming others for one’s own problems, and shifting the cost of relating to one another as human beings to other people that we see at fault.  Even if I have a relationship with someone where a conflict or “problem” is 20% mine and 80% theirs, this does not relieve me of being accountable for my 20%.  Rather than taking care of our own moral business and accountability, we often feel justified in focusing the blame and the full costs of the conflict onto those we see as enemies.  It is impossible to successfully wage war without demonizing one’s enemies.  This is the only way to justify killing a combatant.  This is definitely the only way to justify killing non-combatant.   Show me a nation that can create peace in the face of potential war and I will show you the most morally powerful nation on earth.

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POLITICAL CARTOON: Comedian Jesus – Love Your Enemies

Posted on March 18, 2012 by

Comedian Jesus Speaks!

Jesus Cartoon: Comedian Jesus - Love Your Enemies, Hah, Good One!

Welcome to Comedian Club Jesus!  This is the latest installment the Top Pun series of comics that run on Sundays, featuring CEO Jesus, Free Market Jesus, Country Club Jesus, General Jesus, Comedian Jesus, and who knows what other incarnations!  This is the first appearance of Comedian Jesus, but he will undoubtedly return again!  Comedian Jesus knows how to make them laugh!  People have taken Jesus way too seriously in the past.  Seriously, how may times do you have to read the sermon on the Mount to realize that Jesus was just being sarcastic.  My best guess is that the person recording the sermon was laughing so hard that their handwriting must have been abominable, and confusion was bound to follow.  Of course, experience with the classic joke of this week, loving your enemies, is enough to ascertain that Jesus was joking.  Trust me, just tell someone to love their enemies and wait for the punch line.  Of course, the punch line being an actual line of people waiting to punch you, either literally or figuratively for suggesting such a ridiculous notion.  Of course, my guess is that this is not the biggest disappointment that Jesus had.  For instance, Jesus was probably really bummed by having to be crucified rather than just having an arrow shot through his head.  But comics, particularly jesters, often have little control over how things end for them, or how they are interpreted.  I’m guessing that some people are really hoping to for some new material in his second show…

So, until next Sunday, with the next edition of Comedian Jesus, CEO Jesus, Free Market Jesus, etc., talk amongst yourselves or let me know what you think.

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POEM: Everything Reminds Me of Everything Else

Posted on March 17, 2012 by

Everything reminds me of everything else.

This one-line poem is a quick way to get into my mind and how it works.  I probably love metaphors as much as I do puns.  This short poem cuts to the chase, so you don’t really have to deal with all those messy details.  My thinking and belief is rooted in the idea that everything is connected.  Thus, if one is paying close attention, then everything and anything that you see, think, hear, or feel, can be traced back to everything else by some undisclosed number of degrees of separation.  Poetry is just playing with all of these connections and associations.  Metaphors are just representations of the next level of connections and associations that recognize that everything is connected.  People who are not poets may consider such things eminently impractical.  However, consider this:  if everything reminds me of everything else, then I don’t need Post-it notes.  Who says the mind of a poet isn’t practical?

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Risk Taking in War and Peace

Posted on March 16, 2012 by

PEACE QUOTE: Risks Making War Risks to Secure Peace–PEACE SIGN BUTTON

PEACE QUOTE: Risks Making War Risks to Secure Peace--PEACE SIGN BUTTON

PEACE QUOTE: Risks Making War Risks to Secure Peace–PEACE SIGN BUTTON

This cool design is linked to a button, but other great Top Pun products like T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, caps, key chains, magnets, posters, and sticker sheets can be accessed by scrolling down the product page.

View more Peace Quote Buttons.

This simple peace or antiwar quote challenges our thinking by asking a question about what we are willing to risk or invest in securing peace.  Everyone seems to understand that war is costly.  However, oddly, many people seem to think that peace should just happen.  Though, this might be true, if we just dis-invested from war, but this would involve great risk and sacrifices that I would simply call taking risks to secure peace.  Either way peace takes work!   The status quo, which is solidly in the war camp, is what will continue to happen if we do not change the way we do things.  This involves a cost, a high cost, the cost of war.  This is a choice, just as much as making a conscious choice to take the risks to secure peace.  As quoted elsewhere, war is costly, peace is priceless.  I hope this peace and antiwar quote stimulates some meditation upon what price you are willing to pay help secure peace on this precious planet, for all of its inhabitants human and otherwise.

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