The Life Of Dosteovsky

If the works of any man could make his biographer write in exasperation as thus:“All the while I was writing the biography I had to fight off a revulsion that kept rising within me,” we know it has to be that of Fyodor Dosteovsky. Leo Tolstoy was in full agreement with Nicholas Strakhov, who was the biographer. Such classics as The Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and Brothers Karamazov have passed into our treasury of literature as supreme examples of Russian genius.
Tolstoy a great author himself, ridiculed Dosteovsky’s exaggeration, his implausibility, inchoate style, his grammatical errors, his mania for peopling his imaginary universe with epileptics, alcoholics and paronaiacs. Tolstoy never did experience such ups and downs and sordidness as he did. Dosteovsky was sick in himself, who thought of himself noble and happy and yet lacked courage to see any further than himself. To quote his biographer again,” He was vicious, envious, depraved and spent his life in a state of emotional upheaval and exasperation that would have made him appear riidiculous had he not been so malicious and so intelligent.”
Where Mozart rose above the immediate circumstances over his disappointments and misery the Russian writer sank under, into lower depths. How much more sickening one can get than his boasting about his encounters with little girls and not having any repugnance over them? Once Turgeniev, the author of Fathers and Sons bristled at his confession and asked rather angrily why he was telling him that. “ I just wanted to show how I despise you,”was his answer. He rearranged his life however scabrous or demeaning it might have been, into works something that still have universal appeal.
Our life is real, transient realty to be precise, while such works as that of Dosteovsky or Kafka fall within the realm of supra-reality that we can accept as self-evident. Can we explain reasonably why a bright child of three suddenly fall victim to cancer? Or a child, an apple of the eye of its parents see before their eyes fall a victim of hit and run case? Try explain it in a way its parents can understand.
2.
Our soul is what makes our lives from being swamped by things accidental and unjust events that our human condition can hardly cope with.
Reason like religion is a fine idea but doesn’t bear well in the way it is put into practice. Yet we must come to grips with it however absurd or cruel it be. Our souls serve as our wings to rise above every barrage that life may let loose against us.
Dosteovsky may have peopled his stage with the sick and the unpalatable types for our liking and yet there is a higher truth that the soul can take note of and feel refreshed. Delving in the depths of their misery we are touched and in turn cleansed inside out.

Catharsis: It is that lump in the throat, which only a good cry can get out. Aristotle said it but when I read great works or listen to music I use it as matter of course.
benny

Marriage and Love

12.
Aesop was 15 years in the house of Iadmon when the question of marriage came up. (482 BC.) Iadmon was enthusiastic about the idea. As he got older he wanted to see more order and happiness about him. He recalled his marriage was success. Once when he and his wife had time alone they sat together in the courtyard and talked of their early years. What struggle they had! So unlike and yet they thought nothing but the joy of sharing it all as one.
What she could not stop in her husband was his greed, she recalled. But she noted with satisfaction he did not bring that avarice into home. Looking at the old companion she noted he had totally put his incessant talk on money-grubbing behind. Thinking over it she asked, ”Where did our greed go to?”
Iadmon looked at her in surprise. “Greed? O dear!” he sighed, ”You meant to say my weakness? Did you not?”
She said patting his hand, ”When I married (*512 BC.), your greed also became mine. How I trembled to hear others speak ill of you. It was as if they cast it to spite me!”
“Where did our tears go to?”
“I suppose the same place where our fears, joys and dreams go to.” He looked at her and he thought he saw her as she was some thirty years ago with her youthfulness still so unforgettably etched in her face. “Can you love this old goat still dear?” “Oh yes,” she said with a chuckle, ”We loved each other in the strength of our youth. Didn’t we?” She continued, “Older and wiser what do we feel? Strength stronger than before.” Yes it was the truth of experience she meant. Truth that is collated from life shared with all life-beings on the earth, in her case living with Iadmon. Truth of action was in his learning to put a lid on the greed that made her feel humiliated.
“So we shall drink to Happiness?” She nodded. They did.
(Selected: The Life of Aesop Ch-7.12 pp 135-136)

benny

As The Twig Is Bent...

Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), American religious leader,

There are prophets self- appointed and those who think God set them up for a special mission. Under which category Charles Taze Russell belongs you may decide for yourself.
Prophets no matter what message they carry, begin in the household earthly parents. They show their upbringing no matter how bizarre or luminous their messages might be.
Russell began helping his father who had a chain of clothing stores. Naturally a man born to affluence and of his mercantile class would know how far one dollar would go. In 1911 the Brooklyn Eagle charged the "Pastor" with profiteering in the church's sale of "miracle wheat" to members, who were told it would produce fantastic yields. Once touched by filthy lucre it is not difficult to see what motivates these self appointed prophets. They may claim a church of faithful adherents but the heart is in the money-box. Naturally he also founded a sect, known as Russellites or Millennial Dawnists, which provided the nucleus for the Jehovah's Witnesses sect.
As for the quality of a prophet’s message is inescapably enmeshed with his or her early upbringing. Russell’s parents awed him at an early age with grim tales of hellfire and damnation. While helping his father build the family's chain of clothing stores, Russell began to question the validity of including the concept of eternal damnation in Christian dogma. Bible study, fascination with the Millerite, or Adventist, movement, and his own inability to reconcile hell with the Christian concept of mercy caused him to develop a personal theology, which he began to teach others. Russell believed that Christ's Second Coming might be invisible. When others were disappointed because Christ's much-predicted advent did not seem to occur in 1874, Russell always had an answer. Did God put it there we may never know. Only that he had a ready answer. Russell believed it had happened invisibly, and he wrote The Object and Manner of Our Lord's Returning.
benny

Which Yardstick Shall We Use?

Monk Anselmo once received a monk of exceptional parts and he spoke eight languages and had translated the Holy Writ in each. I was present the time he explained to the yokels of The Pie-In-the Skye the manner God had blessed him. He was sure it was to spread the word of God to people of all tongues all over the earth.
After all the excitement died he said with a very woebegone expression that it set off a bitter feud among nations as to the day when the Lord God rested from his labor. ‘Eight times I have been burnt in effigy’ said the vising scholar monk, ‘and it makes me sad.’
After a week he asked Monk Anselmo pointing to me and Master Crapper, “This two have been idling for a week. Are they sick or something?”
Monk Anselmo called me and asked me to answer the monk. I explained.
“ We got the Holy Writ by all acounts on Sunday. The day our Good Lord rested after creation. Sunday of the Lord enjoins us to take rest. So we refuse to work as matter of principle.”
“One cycle of cosmos is one day in Lords’s calender,” added Master Crapper, “Come next cycle we shall work our butts off.”

benny

Cosmos And I

Think of cosmos like a pulse or cycle. What the Big Bang ushered in has not had its end written as yet. The beginning of the Main Event point to one fact: there shall also be an end.
At the point of singularity matter was so compressed that Space and Time didn’t exist outside that point. Some 14 billion years have passed and the Sun in our Milky Way has only touched somewhere the middle of its main sequence. There shall come one day when the star shall cease to be. Death of our Sun is still within the cosmos that also shall be folded up. It points to the End. End of the Main Event: where every matter shall be gathered up by its own gravity or attraction into one single mass. You and I shall be part of it. Our experience also figure in it.
I suppose all that mass packed into one point ( with material and abstract components) must at some point give way with an explosive big bang. The show must go on and there shall occur another cycle of the Main Event. There is a difference though: you and I being part of it make this Big Bang special. Thus we shall not remain disinterested parties at least in our abstract or spiritual ‘bodies’ to what goes on in cosmos.
benny

Going Straight?

In Nature I haven’t seen a true straight line. The moon orbits around the earth; so will the sun cover a cosmic year in an elliptical line. A growing plant won’t take one; neither will branches from the main stem. A marine mollusc like nautilus hates to go straight, so will an oyster. How far the expression ‘as the the crow flies’ is true? (Think of our faces. If from a photograph, a composite image is made up using only half of your face you shall notice the image strikes you far stranger than you thought possible. So much for our symmetry.)
If one draws a straight line using a ruler and pencil on a piece of paper it may seem a straight line but not true: examine that supposedly straightline under an electron microsope to know what I mean. We humans can only approximate. Our ideas must similarly shape up from what we say in absolute terms.
benny

Quote For The Day

"I have so much that I want the world to hear about. So I tell you in strictest confidence. "
benny

Two Parallell Lines Meet At..

If God is infinite ever present and omnipotent He shall know what is ultimate reality. We are finite so what standard we employ is inadequate.
We have a reality as much as water has its reality. Ice has similarly another; so has vapor. So ultimate reality must be where all these are at home. No one has seen it or known so we leave the unknowable and get busy with what is knowable.

Parallel lines meet at infinity. There our transient realities must be resolved. Perhaps we may realize parallel lines were merely figment of imagination. Who can tell?
benny

A Tale of Two Cities

Look at the mess Russia is now. There were two streams in Russia at the turn of 20th Century: when the Workers Paradise was ushered in 1917 Communism and Criminality coexisted. Under the most repressive rule of Stalin the black market was alive and active. How did Bolsheviks come to power? Using violence as the means they robbed banks and noble houses; counterfeiting currency was another. Where did they get money to buy armaments? The revolutionaries relied on the underworld from the start and their collusion helped each other. Naturally the Criminals kept out of news and attention that suited them while New Class used an ideology to lord over the proletariate. What of society? the darker side of Russian society was made up of criminal elements while the sad oppressed face of Russia, the other seemed like the icon of Black Madonna. When Soviet Union collapsed communism ceased to be a power. Now Crime syndicates have taken control.
Their attitude and their extent of power in the present you may see in the three unrelated incidents. Firstly inexplicable fires that make the news: quite a few historical buildings in the heart of Moscow have since Putin took over, caught fire and razed to ground. Have they been torched deliberately? You may be sure that the sites when developed shall make phenomenal profits. Who stands to benefit? You may ask yourself.
Silencing the opposition, mass media and assasinating journalists critical of the governement or the powerful have also made news. Thirdly the polonium 210 killed a former KGB in the heart of London. In the process whoever left a trail carelessly all over Europe showed utter disregard for human lives.
These are the sort of tragedies that man has created and man must solve them. Whether in Red Square or in Capitol Hill people let ignoramuses and crooks to the positions of trust and untold power. A fool in such heights may do as much havoc as a crook, who will not stop at nothing to keep his illgotten gains secure.
Need we ask then why we have no peace?
benny

Designer Labels

boy: (noun.)- An original state between swimming( in mother's womb) and wilting (under peer pressure).
benny

..or Fate?-Cont'd

2.
We are victims of chance. Hence we ask why? How God Zeus may see from Olympus is like God who is the Ultimate Reality. He doesn't have to ask questions as we. He is omnipotent. Yet being ultimate reality he doen’t have to change since any change means he didn’t get it right the first time. Oh no! That would be impossible. This we may be certain: he is not going to change things for you or for another.
Why Athens must fall or Sparta should come to power have their reasons. Athena the goddess of wisdom is unconcerned since man belongs to homo sapiens( the wise ones) he must set right where he messed up. It is his look out and responsibility.
We humans create history ever so little be our part in it. With our way of living and work of our hands, we weave warp and woof of it. We all have our energy levels and how we spend it create waves: we give little push and little there. We live our lives but that connect with other events. Some clever fellow like Themistocles ride on the wave but may cause greater damage than we can. Like Bush or Putin and the laws they enforce hold greater damage or some good (whichever way you want to look at it). Had not Bush gone into a war so ill prepared think of 3000 US soldiers who would have been spared of untimely death? Or so many Iraqi civilians killed everyday. These are all chance. Where did it begin? One will have to go back in time. No one may exactly see the real reason because the present needs all the attention.
benny

Uncertain Realities or fate?

One morning Zeus sat on his throne above the Mount Olympus and he was deep in thoughts. Athena went up to him and wanted to know what was worrying him. The Chief God said, “ I am worrried over Athens. The city shall be levelled to a rubble.” Athena who was the guardian spirit over Athens shrugged her shoulders to say it was no concern of his. “ I am worried for you, daughter. It is your name that will be despised for the ruin.” The goddess shrugged it off and went off.
Meanwhile in the city of Athens, Themistocles who was the undisputed darling of the masses was listening to one Simonides. The man wanted the hero of Salamis to use his influence to give his family some honors that he felt was due. From the crowd one soothsayer came out to abuse Themistocles saying, “ Here is the one who is going to destroy the city!” Simonides became very angry at her disrespect. In order to show off his loyalty to Themistocles he asked his servants to drag the woman away. The woman was not to be silenced and she continued hollering, “ Because you want some favor for your family must you make a fool of yourself?”
Themistocles drew Simonides aside and said, “ Do not for my sake treat her vilely. Mind her age?”
“ But she is attacking your good name!”
“What if she were proved right after all?” Themistocles asked, “ I may be beloved of the people. One month from hence what they may say about me or what I shall do no one can say for certain. Let us now talk about the matter at hand.”
Themistocles indeed was proved right. He caused great mischief to the city that made him famous.
How a hero becomes a zero or a nobody becomes the darling of the masses and wars won or lost have their causes already in circulation. Events pile up on events and these chain of events direct nations and persons to respond. It may be for good or bad. No one may say for certain why it had to so that an event came to pass.
benny

Down to Earth

Have you seen a five and ten cents man? He is so down to earth that even worms complain they can’t get enough of him. He looms large on their radar, you see. Such a man went to the Bank because he knew five cents when deposited in the bank got interest and ten cents got you double. His life was uncomplicated since he knew simple arithmetic of life added up. Thus he went singing a tune, ‘a bird in hand is two…’ You ought to know how people burst into a song when they have loose change in their pockets. ( It loosens their spirit to soar a little. Obvious isn’t it?) Our five and ten cents man sang a little out of tune. It was OK since it wasn’t a million but measly five and ten cents. How much do you think one can sing with it?
There was suddenly a scream. People shouting of a hold up. Our man was crossing the pedestrian walk while a car came as though devil was behind the wheels. People ran helter skelter but five and ten cents man stuck to the pedestrian walk since he had the right of way. He knew that auto was coming on the wrong direction. ‘Thank God I’m not breaking any rules...” Next moment he was down.
His life did not add up since others had other ideas. It was sad. The five and ten Cents of his life had gotten into his soul so much so it could not lift him out of his rut.
Imagination is there to make you fly past danger whenever you come across one. The biggest danger is not an asteroid hitting you when on a walk but those little devils of boredom in everyday life. You are lost if you didn’t learn to improvise in a manner suited to any occasion.
benny

Quote For The Day

The boss: “None could have brought order in the Inventory Dept., as you did. Now give me some problem so I could let you hold your job.”
benny

On Angels

Interesting that you write about angels. I haven't seen angels as I imagined them to be from my Sunday school days. I can’t say I care to look for them given my preocupations with mundane matters on hand.

You do not believe in God. I donot believe in the kind I was made to believe when a child. It doesn't bother me if God for me is something else, an ultimate standard to live up to. It is a state of being while we are on this state of being having to wash our faces and shave, worse still keep a deadline and collect our paychecks and do grocery etc.,

Angels are God's messengers so says the Psalmist. You and I are alike messenges in a sense. We do often acts of kindness without intending to. Sometimes we do consciously too. I believe in angels -whoever does some good so another may pick oneself and go about his or her business with a song in his/her heart is an angel. Can we cheer up others when they are blue? In my case I have been cheered up. So I believe it is possible. Similarly I hold that a word or an example can shape the direction of another and work great changes in his/her life. We may have never anticipated or intended it. Still such changes are possible. Ah angels we think of them as guardian angels. It is more apt to say they guard nothing while we are building them. What we don't know well we can always bring to life in the way we give a form. Angels must be something of that kind.
benny
(This is a comment I left on a journal yesterday. Expanded and revised.)

Quote For The Day

'Success begets success. His life was such a success that his death, as reported by his heirs was even greater.'
benny

An Announcement

Well I have been blogging for some time and I would like to believe I was read; If I had some regular readers well I would address this to them in particular. I thank all my readers who read me in the past. Irrespective of who agreed with what I wrote or disagreed. I thought what pleased me and set down without intending to hurt anyone or expecting favor by phrasing my thoughts differently to suit some. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Since I haven't heard as to this I presume that my fears are unfounded.
I am now taking some months break from blogspot. I may not have time to post my thoughts or opinions as I was used to since my wife and I are planning to settle down in India. After some five or six months, who knows I may be in a mood to take up blogging once again. I shall stop by second week of next month.
I have two books put up for sale through www.lulu.com. I may write some more non-fiction and write poetry on the side. Some stories for young adults. My creative surge is still so overflowing but I must channelize for what is more needful at the moment.
So I have put this announcement in advance.
With best wishes to all my readers
benny

Quote For The Day

"We are much lower than dogs in the matter of smell. Our eyesight when compared to that of eagles is merely adequate. In the matter of earthworks beavers can teach us a few tricks. As for digging up we are backward than warthogs. These dig up roots without the use of a spade. Then what are we good at?
Of course we humans are good at calling a spade a spade, though I may think twice before using one."
benny

Quote For The Day

"Keep looking for the mouth of your gifthorse and in all probability you will end up with a gift from its rear end."
benny

One Man's Perfection Is...

One man’s perfection is another man’s second best.
As a scholar Su Tungpo was fascinated by Buddhism but Foyin, his friend went as far as to become a monk. Su Tungpo remained a chussu that meant that as a Confucian scholar he could live in married life without being a monk. Because of his great prestige some of the monks faulted him when great many chose to remain chussu as he did. One day Foyin called on him and said how his fame in art and literature had invoked many to turn away from leading the life of a monk he said:” My name has nothing to do with fame or with what others may want to do with theirs.”
“Still it cannot be helped but to notice how people closely read your criticisms and your views on art and life. Your life is a symbol, a sign.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Showing sheaves of papers thrown into the ground Su Tungpo said,” I have made for myself a symbol. Till I achieve that perfection all my literary exercises end up there.”
Foyin picked out one piece from the floor and read the lines and said:” I find them faultless.”
“That is where we differ... in the matter of what constitutes as perfection. Allow me to follow mine.”
benny

Office Blues

Employees who frequently work from home may be hurting their chances to advance their careers, a survey by Korn/Ferry International reported on Tuesday. Workers climbing the corporate ladder need 'face time,' said Robert McNabb, chief executive of Korn/Ferry's Futurestep division, which provides recruitment outsourcing services and conducted the survey.
"Corporate America (wants) people to make a commitment to live in corporate headquarters, to have face time with the board, to be in every planning and strategy session -- not virtually, but in person," McNabb said- NEW YORK (Reuters)
Naturally. How do you suck upto your boss? By sending him valentine’s card? Forget it. Your boss would like to watch you perform. That is as you go through the routine: you have to backbite, spoil the chances of your colleagues, lick his boots (that is if he is in the habit of wearing one) and feed his ego etc.,
He is your boss and how do you think he came to be there demanding service?
benny

Smell A Rat?

Eager to avoid an embarrassing congressional rebuke of the president's new war strategy, the administration seemed to hint that the effort — led chiefly by Democrats — might somehow be of assistance to terrorists. They also herded GOP skeptics to the White House, where they tried to allay the concerns of some of the Republican lawmakers of Virginia, Kansas and of Maine.
"What message does Congress intend to give?" asked White House spokesman Tony Snow. "And who does it think the audience is? Is the audience merely the president? Is it the voting American public or, in an age of instant communication, is it also al-Qaida?” (AP news of 1-17)
Is it better to save the lives of soldiers from needless killing or save the face of a blundering government?
Tailpiece: By the same argument a stronger but hawkish move would be incentive for the ‘terrorists’ to engage the nation into a war of attrition and prolong their attacks on American interests and civilians wherever they may be found.
Did the terrorist movement have a single hit in recent years? For what is happening in Iraq the reason we only need to look at the handling of war by Bush. Here and there are isolated incidents that owe to specific geographic realities where history and religion of the ethnic tribes hold the key. What is happening in Egypt of Saudi Arabia or the Philippines cannot be considered as ‘international’ terrorism any more than the market economy of the Netherlands or Great Britain being dubbed as American values. International Jihadism is more a bogey now than the truth. In fact whatever is left of it is dying what with more countries being extra vigilent to deny the terrorists their vital oxygen: flight of resources by way of currency or human components. Much more than any other reason the terrorists as a movement is bedevilled for want of anything new to inject into their cause.
Much of the Moslems all over the world are not seized of Jihad as much as their bread and butter things. Just like any Christians of all stripes and hues.
benny

On Freedom

“Freedom stagnation is when a citizen is made cash strapped and is forced against his better judgment to be part of the prevailing culture zealously maintained with the tacit approval and connivance of the powers-that-be, as a result an impression is created that acquisition of brand items being essential to the pursuit of happiness.”
Background : The Freedom in the World 2007 survey said the percentage of countries designated as free has failed to increase for almost a decade, suggesting "freedom stagnation."
benny

Going Cheap,...

What is the worth of life of man or woman? If we were to give points according to what is happening around us not much I tell you. Crucial to Christian faith is the sanctity of human life: ‘Man is created in the image of God’. If you believed it how come we read the following news?
The hosts of KDND-FM's "Morning Rave" were fired a day after the station announced it was suspending the show and investigating the death of 28-year-old Jennifer Lea Strange.
She died Friday after drinking the water in an attempt to win a Nintendo Wii, competing to see who could drink the most water without going to the bathroom. Strange died of water intoxication, according to a preliminary autopsy. Drinking large quantities of water rapidly can cause brain swelling and lead to seizures, coma and death.
John Geary, vice president and general manager of KDND's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, announced that 10 employees were fired. The county sheriff's office said it was not investigating. Ack: Associated Press of 1-16
Tailpiece: Instant gratification is the order of the day: where the poor are turned into ‘cannon fodder’ or participants of bumfights who are entertained and at whose cost?
benny

What Fools Good At

We are so easily gulled by our politicians who prepare us into a war as the only solution to a problem. Since our primitive part of thinking has not shed vestiges of paternalistic ‘Father-knows-best-syndrome’ from our reasoning, it makes easier to accept the reasons trotted by them as legitimate. Remember the former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s performance at the UN with all those ‘evidences’ to convince the world as to the danger posed by Saddam? The leader who is convinced of his God-given mission we know as often the case is, has neither let God into the plans hatched by him or applied his mind well into the consequences of his adventure.
War in Iraq as we now see is like splicing pieces of rope ino each other. Toppling Saddam was one piece. Then came the De- Baathification program initiated by Paul Bremer. It was a fiasco and now President Bush is trying to undo the damages of Coalition Provisional Authority. For instance: Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them." He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. "Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse." He is now called back. Desperate for new approaches to stifle the persistent Sunni insurgency and Shiite death squads that are jointly pushing the country toward an all-out civil war, the White House made a striking about-face last week, embracing strategies and people it once opposed or cast aside.
Two other key Baghdad appointments are from among the ranks of dissenters in 2003: Ambassador designate Ryan Crocker and Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who will take over command of all coalition forces in Iraq.
Crocker, who spent the summer of 2003 helping to form Iraq's Governing Council, left the country frustrated with the CPA's reluctance to reach out to minority Sunnis. Even before the invasion, he wrote a blunt memo for then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warning of the uncontrolled sectarian and ethnic tensions that would be released by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Petraeus, who spent 2003 commanding the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, chafed at the way reconstruction funds, personnel and decision-making were centralized in Baghdad. The CPA's policies, he said in 2004, should have been "tempered by reality."(ack: The Wa.Post. 14 Jan)
When I see the wanton destruction and death I ask myself: are wars ever fought as sloppy as this? I do think no one can have any certainty of success until the last nail of opposition is driven in place- dead. By such a reckoning you may be sure three such wars would depopulate much of this living planet.

benny

A Fable

War Feeds Its Own Monsters©
The Angel of Destruction went to King Pepperoni the Magnificent and pointed to the pretensions of King Gamba Luigi of Savoyards. Angel Bald-el gave reasons why he should be put in his place. Finally he added, “He can only grow at your expense. Decide if you or he should be the numero uno?” Pepperoni had well read into humanities and asked, “ Can we not jointly rule this globe? After all there is much more than we both can contain?” The angel who had read Machiavelli countered his objections to say a king as magnificent as he should have all that he could hold as his demesne and the rest for a spittoon. Thus egged by the angel Pepperoni went into war. It was bloody all right. And the bloody carnage made him take all those lands held by Luigi. The angel shortly thereafter asked him to string up those who were mourning over the death of the loved ones. Pepperoni hesitated. But the angel reminded how their plight would sooner or later bellow into hatred. ‘These orphans, widows and war children would become unmanageable and potential threat to the peace and stability.’ Pepperoni did as he was told. The traders complained their businesses were affected. Whereas some said hey were benefited and clamored for more positive engagements. King Pepperoni having let caution to winds wished to make his war a total success. So he went further with killing.
A war has its domino effect: once begun there cannot be an end. Each time there shall reasons be found and no one may trace the latest war to the first since so much would have happened by cause and effect.
benny

Uncertain Realities

A tantric Yogi by name Agastya lived in middle of two neighbors who could not live in amity. He was well versed in divine and black arts. He once brought to life one neighbor who had thought of ending his life due to constant pestering from his neighbor. Agastya called the other neighbor and said,” If you do not undertake to care for your neighbor I shall cast spells on you and you will wish that you died instead. Do you agree yourself to be bound as your neighbor’s keeper?” His neighbor agreed though he did not like it a bit.
Soon after Agastya was plagued by disasters one after the other. He did every trick he knew to avert misery from dogging his steps. At last he went to Kailas to meet his old mentor and said,” Oh master I am in such a sorry state.” He explained his case and ended saying,” I meant only well; for all that good I did it is I who suffer! I used my gifts to force two impossible persons to keep quiet.”
His mentor said, “They are keeping quiet because they are afraid of your gifts.” The elder added, “What sort of gifts are they anyway?”
“Divine as you yourself taught me. Black as I taught myself.” “Can you say which gifts did you use to make peace?” Agastya thought for a while.
“No.”
“That explains it,” Old Mentor concluded,” Both spirits that of Black arts and Divine arts, they are constantly fighting and each claim for success.”
We are so interdependent on each other we shall never be able to say Success came to us because of anything special. Since it is a cooperative effort we ought to have a reasonable attitude to success or failure. Only that we can give our best shot at any enterprise and leave it at that.
Automobiles were invented to connect people and places. But speed kills. For all those astronomical figure of casualties since Henry Ford put motorcars on the road we can see those who have been saved because of them. Speed also saves lives. Uncertainty principle rules the universe.
benny

Light And Shadow-contd.,

Socrates would drink the cup of hemlock as stoically as a Michelangelo, though not young and agile, would allow himself to be strapped into a bone- cracking posture (bent like a Syrian bow, as he put it) to paint a chapel ceiling, day in day out for some 4 years. Life is so positive that Renoir crippled with arthritis and continually in pain would still take up paintbrush to paint some anemones. “Pain is killing, but beauty endures.” would be the excuse of the old painter almost at the fag end of his life.
benny

Shadow Of Life Stretches On

Adrian Mills was a man on the hurry: he took every short cut he could take in order to get what he wanted. His neighbors in Brixton Mews knew it well and avoided him. He cheated his way through life and indeed made a great pile of money in his time. Before death came to him he realized all that he had hoarded would only go towards Death Duty. So to avoid paying to the government he put up a Trust that looked after Orphans and protected them from exploitation. The Trust fortunately was run by a group of dedicated citizens and consequently great progress was made in setting so many young on the right path. All those who benefited could thank Adrian Mills whom they never knew. Whenever they set apart time for volunteer work and those who were helped across the globe, showed their appreciation they could say, “Thanks to Adrian we just pass on what we may.” In the Third World the name Adrian Mills came to be synonymous with godly virtues.
While so many were for praising late Adrian Mills a great many, of course children of those who moved out from the squalor of Brixton Mews, had plenty of stories to tell of an ogre by name Adrian. Naturally one might ask, “Will the real Adrian Mills stand up? ” I can only say in conclusion: ‘Don’t waste time.’ The last word on any man or woman is not yet written.
Light And Shadow
An active life is the visible life, where most of us try to make ourselves economically viable by some occupation or other. So we may support a family and make ourselves useful to the society. We have ideas how to go about it and we train ourselves as seriously as an athlete would in order to succeed in our various enterprises.
Why so much of an effort? Because we have competition. Pure and simple. We thus give our ideals shape in order to keep our place in the race. We may not see visions as Theresa of Avila, but more of a challenging kind is before us, of beating back the tyranny of minutes, hours and days, of crippling monotony, like so many beasties trying to wear us down. Such a struggle requires our sweat, tears and blood. We suffer all these so we may live on even though we are made redundant because of old age. One example of this is so obvious: we give our children a good start in life so they may race ahead from where we stopped.
Our life has a shadow that still keeps moving when our substance is all but gone: our children bear proof of it. As much as our handiwork. If not, will the world wonder at that uncommon courage of a Socrates?
benny

As You Sow..

There is not a single instance where our actions good or bad have vanished into some black hole to be lost for ever. In our present understanding imperfect as it is, we may think of black holes to come with a sign such as late President Truman kept at his desk: Buck Stops Here. I suspect matters don’t stop with back holes. Light sucked up comes back in circulation as energy or in some other form. Now to my main point.
‘All is fair in love and war’. It justified any means in order to achieve your ends. Love of your life could be person material wealth what you believe etc.,War may be trade war, war on terror, clash of civilizations etc., What was permitted to win the war shall be slightly revised and introduced to fit the peace time conditions. It shall neither be moral or even conducive to keep the peace of the citizens for long.
Having set off such a conduct (throwing all caution or moral principles to winds) do we expect it shall not have any consequences in every day lives?
Background news:
Some gangs have sponsored promising students from other disciplines to attend computer courses before planting them in businesses as "sleepers." The students write computer viruses, commit identity theft and launder money in a multi-billion dollar industry that is more lucrative than the drugs trade. The gangs' tactics echo the way Russian agents sought out experts at trade conferences or universities during the Cold War, the company said in an annual report. "Although organized criminals may have less of the expertise and access needed to commit cybercrimes, they have the funds to buy the necessary people to do it for them," the report says.
Hackers are paid to write computer viruses that can infect millions of machines to discover confidential information or send unwanted "spam" emails.

benny

Situation Ethics

A man had two sons. They were twins and they were brought up to carry the family honor and traditions of the family name as famous as Cabots and Vanderbilts. John followed his fathers footsteps in International Jurisprudence and Matt in armaments. Having worked with the Krupps he branched off to manufacture arms and ship it to various parts of the globe. As scions of a great family name they never played for peanuts. John defended the powerful and the great. He believed in situation ethics while his brother was an absolutist meaning the latter spoke of Truth in every sense of the word.
Before he shipped arms to a country that was on the proscribed list of the State Department his brother cautioned him to tread carefully. “ Why should I not?” Matt could not understand. Because he had supplied arms to the country till the month before. They were now on the enemy list.
John defended the policy of the Capitol Hill saying,
” Yesterdays enemies sometimes become our friends today. It is within our countrys interest. So do not go against the policy.” Matt believing in his own conscience went ahead. Of course his violation of law caused such a furore and he was hauled before the court of law.
John of course took up the task of defending his brother. John rescued his brother from ignominy of going to prison. Matt after he was cleared of all charges asked his brother why he took up knowing his values were diametrically opposite to his. John replied thus: “I feared more for the honor and the good name of our family than your views.” Yes John had his bottom line despite of believing in situation ethics.
Often what we face in our everyday lives is not the matter that determines the issue of life or death. Situation ethics is only valid where quality of life around us is increased by our sound responses to the challenges we face. It may be in our home or in schools or at workplaces. Situation ethics stops where it hurts our conscience and our further growth as responsible individuals is put in jeopardy.
benny

Wishy-Washy

Every atom is sensitized by the mystery of Cosmos: thus a flame shudders and goes out because there is no oxygen. A piece of iron when exposed to air is rusted. Piece of magnet similarly underlies the basic order of Cosmos. We are connected.

When a candle goes out do we not seek the reason? The gust of wind has touched the candle as well as us. Where did this wind come from? It is part of Cosmos: an ill wind that blows us no good. Ill wind? What if it must have done some good to another? Whether ill or good we are fed or felled by the same causes in Cosmos.

Perhaps an illustration from Tolstoy’s War and Peace I shall use: The apple tree is ripe for plucking and the boy from below looks at them with longing. He prays God to send one. If one apple does fall is it because God heard his prayer? Or is it because wind? Gravity? Or that certain apple had reached end of it tether? Or God was in each cause and worked round that prayer? One may believe any of these. It must be true in whichever manner one wants to interpret the event. But if next time the boy doesn’t get his answer don’t go about saying God didn’t want it to happen. This seems to be how the Church wants to explain God. What, did God appoint them to explain when He shall or when He shall not answer a prayer?
benny

Centuar-like

Just recently a meteorite crashed into an American home and was embedded in the wall. No one took it as a vistation from God. In 467 BC a meteorite crashed to earth, which prompted the Greek philosopher Anaxagores to say that heavenly bodies were not divine. He was indicted for atheism. We have come so far in our thinking. Haven’t we?
But when I see how we wage war on ideological grounds or hear clash of civilizations I am not so sure. May be we are half- half. Like a half baked pie. Or like an egg: Good in some parts and rotten in the other.
benny

Cause and Effect-a loop

Every morning as we wake up groggy eyed we have set certain chains of events in motion. The brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to thalamus, another part, which then directs itself elsewhere. Thalamus was earlier thought to be a fairly primitive structure and now it is thought to be more like a Club bouncer who checks out who goes in and who doesn’t.
Nitric acid a two atom molecule is the key component in processing information. Thu though bleary eyed we survey from bed for our slippers we know what we are looking at. Cognitive processing it is called. This molecule acts like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complex programs. In short how we process is not open and shut or simple. For example vision is not a straight run between eye and cortex but more of a loop.
This is how we need to understand cause and effect.
benny

Learning As You Go Along

Our history is like ropes spliced together as we go along. There was a time it was fashionable to hold Spain as the culprit for all the miseries or mass extinctions of native cultures in the New World. At present there is a controversy going on among the Mexican academics as to what caused the mass deaths. A revisionist view that it was caused by rats and not by the Spaniards is causing a stir. It owes partly to the finding of a first-had account of a report that was wrongly filed in the archives. Dr. Francisco Hernandez, a physician to the Spanish king who witnessed the epidemic of 1576 and conducted autopsies, describes a fever that caused heavy bleeding, similar to the hemorrhagic Ebola virus. It raced through the Indian population, killing four out of five people infected, often within a day or two.
"Blood flowed from the ears and in many cases blood truly gushed from the nose," he wrote. "Of those with recurring disease, almost none was saved."
Harvard-trained epidemiologist Dr. Rodolfo Acuna-Soto, a microbiology professor at Mexico's National Autonomous University, had Hernandez' work translated from the original Latin in 2000. He followed up with research into outbreaks in Mexico's isolated central highlands, where indigenous rats may have spread the disease through urine and droppings.
Acuna-Soto's theory — which has been published in several scientific journals, including Emerging Infectious Diseases and the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene — runs counter to the belief that most of Mexico's Indian population died of Spanish-imported diseases such as smallpox, to which their bodies had no immunity.
"This wasn't smallpox," Acuna-Soto says. "The pathology just does not fit."
He says some historians in Mexico are offended by his theory.
Further reading:
"Much of the reason why these epidemics were left unstudied was that it was politically and institutionally easier to blame the Spaniards for all of the horrible things that might have happened," he said. "It was the official version of history."
Certainly, imported diseases such as smallpox, measles and typhoid fever did cause huge numbers of deaths starting in 1521. But the epidemics of 1545 and 1576 struck survivors of the first die-offs and their children, who would presumably have developed some immunity.
While there is no reliable figure on Mexico's population in the 1500s — estimates range from 6 million to 25 million — it is clear that by 1600 only around 2 million remained.
The epidemic "was so big that it ruined and destroyed almost the entire land," wrote Fray Juan de Torquemada, a Franciscan historian who witnessed the epidemic of 1576, adding Mexico "was left almost empty."
"Many were dead and others almost dead, and nobody had the health or strength to help the diseased or bury the dead."
Conclusion:
We learn history from such incomplete and often from distorted viewpoints of those who stand to gain from it. Isn’t it necessary then to develop a spirit of enquiry first before jumping into the bandwagon of this or that ‘isms’ or factions? All the more reason that a nation stands to benefit from investing its capital in education.
Democracy without education at it core is like letting the bind and deaf to drink and giving the car keys to him to ride home alone.

benny

Our Middle State

Leave God to His thunder:
Unmentionable is His name
In our status as given,
Better than beasts of burden-
But we doubt Him for shame!
Who are we to steal His thunder
But middle of the roader?
benny

Credo For The Middle-of-the-roader

One of the bloggers wrote thus:
Benny, interesting thoughts on your blog. Since you are a Christian and you seem to talk about science a lot there, how old do you think the earth is and do you believe in evolution?
27 April, 2006 08:10
Sorry I didn't come to this site (since making my comment) and let me tell you as a freethinking Christian I do believe in God and evolution. Only that God is not as popular believers subscribe to any person but a principle. As made up of matter you have got to believe in your own existence at least. If you didn't have faculty for abstract thinking you would not be a man. How can you call yourself man or cabbage unless you give it a name? As freethinking, and partial to abstractions I hold God as the ultimate principle towards which I hope to arrive. When or how I do not know. But unless we are willing to make a go of it or give our best shot we do not justify our position among our kind as wise ones or homo sapiens. With regards to age of the earth you can get a more accurate answer from wikipedia.
Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year.
benny
05 January, 2007 07:15
Since we are middle of the roaders all,- and blind too( no one has seen in what he/she thinks is God), I must confess Christian as a label I can wear without any hang-up. My father was, as his forefathers were, a pracising Christian and I can appreciate his Christian side. So I take pride of being one. Freethinking is my conscious choice from where I may look at God. If I did not show that independent spirit I will not be justifying those influences, which shaped me what I am today.
benny

Cause and Effect

How we love to label people and events as if these could stand by themselves! Nothing in the universe stands by itself much less in our history.
Fathers eat sour grapes and if it should set our children’s teeth on edge (Eze 18:2) what do we make of it? The proverb is borne out to be true in the matter of human history. Consider the State Department vilified Saddam and found reasons to attack his country. What we often preach may be part of statecraft and it is acceptable to obfuscate( Afterall diplomats are sent to lie in the national interests) and we also seem to get away with it. What we often overlook is that some innocents are made to pay for our sins. Saddam’s hanging shall not be mourned for long. With his death a bloody chapter as far as international preoccupation with his ‘threat’ is concerned is closed. What connection could there be between Saddam’s execution and ‘accidental’ hanging of a fifth grader in Huston,Texas?
Background Newsitem:
Sergio Pelico was found dead Sunday in his apartment bedroom in the Houston-area city of Webster, said Webster police Lt. Tom Claunch. Pelico's mother told police he had previously watched a news report on Saddam's death.
"It appears to be accidental," Claunch said. "Our gut reaction is that he was experimenting."
An autopsy of the fifth-grader's body was pending.
Julio Gustavo, Sergio's uncle, said the boy was a happy and curious child. He said Sergio had watched TV news with another uncle on Saturday and asked the uncle about Saddam's death.
"His uncle told him it was because Saddam was real bad," Gustavo said. "He (Sergio) said, 'OK.' And that was it."
Conclusion: There is a cause-effect nexus but more of a loop than straight. So when we suffer think that it isn’t because of our sins or wrongdoing in th past (or previous birth) but it is simply because we are so connected with mankind.
benny

Post Mortem

Saddam Hussein "was courteous, as he always had been, to his U.S. military police guards," Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said. " As the storm over the handling of the hanging gained strength, Caldwell was among several U.S. officials who suggested displeasure with the conduct of the execution.
"If you are asking me: 'Would we have done things differently?' Yes, we would have.
Had Washington in Post -WWII done differently these would have happened:
1.
Cold War would have ended by itself.
Soviets would not have been able to hold on under the weight of its personality cult; Gorbachev did call for more openeness because he had no other alternative. A catastrophic event like Chernobyl showed the USSR had to update its technology and let in expertise from outside; Its ageing submarines around the Baltic and the North Sea for example. Dwindling population already decimated by WWII and under repression.
2. Osama bin Laden would have been the founder
of a chain of companies: or directing his own construction company from one of the Saudi office blocks spending his time with with his team setting new goals for branching out into different parts of UAE. Name of the company: Al Queida Construction Co.,
3. Saddam Hussein would have moved from being one of those street- smart hoodlums into the the service of some ageing Sheik. Or he would have continued in Egypt, sucking upto rich tourists coming in to visit the pyramids.
4. As for Iraq the British interests were already on the wane. America would have had greater role to play in the Middlle East. So many deaths on the sides of Iraq,Iran and of US Marines would have been spared.
This is terrible, I mean to rewrite history. Man being such a pathetic specimen whose forte is in making mistakes all along and then wondering what might have been I shall stop forthwith.
You see I am criticizing my own.
benny

Time-Cost Analysis

"Yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle."
Saddam Hussein was speaking to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie in Baghdad on Jul. 25, 1990, just a week before his invasion of Kuwait .
The Americans have great skill and capability at shedding blood and yet their lack of stomach to do so is central to the American character. ‘We are reluctant to shed not only American blood, but also enemy blood.’ Mr. William M. Arkin thinks it adds up to an advance in humanity, to a higher regard for the "laws" of war, to moral superiority.( Yahoo! News) Unfortunately their history doesn’t in my eyes do not bear it out. Superiority is subjective and it only suits to round off any argument from what position you may take either for or against it. Making some particular class in the society believe ‘war as a patriotic duty’ and send them off to the thick of fire is armstwisting; who benefits from these wars but some plutocrats? Is there any moral superiority to a nation that allows some crooks to make a cat’s paw from material that constitute the nation’s future?
Or what importance we attach to moral superiority we may deduce from the case of the final phase of the Cold War. CIA was active then arming Jihadists in Afghanistan to beat the Soviets but the fact that they didn’t disarm the ragtag band Muslim warriors after the USA had achieved the objectives shall ever remain the Achilles heel to its ‘moral superiority’. Similar to what we saw in Iraq. War on terror as it was called, would not have cost this much had the nation taken time to study the consequences or the course thoroughly. Why so many American deaths in a war that was touted to be a cakewalk?
Somebody had,- this much is certain, goofed. In consonance with the point at hand I might point to those planners. Who but some ‘thinktanks' who do not have a clue on the real world outside their narrow sphere of specialization? (Cheyny and Rumsfeldt had their own ideas to cut the flab off the Army and make it fighting fit. ) If the nation thought of saving the lives of the soldiers just as important as sparing these ('chicken hawks’) there must have a different strategy come in place.
There might be some truth in the late tyrant’s observation that America just might be the nation that cannot accept 10,000 deaths in one battle. In fact they do not want a war to drag on either. Is it because time-cost analyis of their enterprise any war that cost in time must also lose money?
Tailpiece: The USA had already started losing money in winning the Cold War as we now from hindsight see.

benny

The Undeserving Poor

©
Giant A-Plenty was in search of a place to lay his head and he found the county of Simply Fabulous suited to his purpose. The folks thought they had not seen anyone more impressive than him. Giant A-Plenty was sleepy so he settled himself in a field and slept!
What a sleep! While he slept the folks, little people to be sure, came out and admired his snoring person. They examined his personal belongings and never had they seen anything like it. His toothpick was so marvelous that they thought it made a good pole and his pocket comb the farmers used for scouring the fields. Except Squire Buddy-buddy. His field was already in use by our giant. The hapless squire didn’t have the heart to wake him up. His sneeze would have blown him off you see. So he suffered abject poverty for some ten years in a row.
At last the giant woke up and asked all the folks to line up. Having taken the census, a new word coined by him he ordered,
“ Each of you owe me something,- ‘I call it property tax’” he said. He made them all pay up and when the turn of Squire Buddy-buddy came he said he had nothing to pay. He made a litany of all the misery his family suffered. “ Failed crops! That is my ruin!” he bawled. He couldn’t have said the true reason lest he should offend the great person of A-Plenty.
What did the giant do? He possessed the field of Squire for what he owed to the nation.
The Nation? Yes he considered himself as one.
benny

Anomaly of Matter

Our cosmos isn’t smooth, uniform,or each part performing according to one single order. There are many contradictions or aberraions balancing each other to contribute their own distinct strengths and weaknesses to the whole. Thus we may never dismiss as the other as negative or destructive as neocons might view the nonconformist, left off the centre guy who may smoke pot and love listening to Sex Pistols.
Our cosmos shows how we ride on the dynamics of every other. What would that mean to us?
newsitem.
John Shalikashvili, who retired in 1997 after four years as the nation's top military officer, had argued that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would hurt troop morale and recruitment and undermine the cohesion of combat units. He said he has changed his mind after meeting with gay servicemen.
"These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers," Shalikashvili wrote in an opinion piece in Tuesday's New York Times.
Conclusion

The gays are not to be tarred and feathered by our prejudices (or is it secret fears in your own closet?)

Some backgound stuff:
A galactic black hole might be orbited by a ripple in spacetime—a distortion in the fabric of space itself.
Astronomers from MIT and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have seen evidence of hot iron gas riding a ripple in spacetime around a black hole. This spacetime wave, if confirmed, would represent a new phenomenon that goes beyond Einstein's general relativity. A spinning black hole can drag the very fabric of space around with it, creating a choppy spacetime sea that distorts everything falling into the black hole.
benny

A Bad Man Was...

A badman was hanged this morning
How bad no one may ascertain; His
Charge: crime against humanity
Fits for purpose of law to degree
For his friends and foes alike, an onus
That the executed man shall carry
Till Doomsday when he will need
Explain the simple matter of murder:
Whether one or million, bad is the deed.

A badman was hanged this morning:
Neither by birth nor by virtues was he
To honor and praise so well disposed.
Such honor as his, dispensed by man
For reasons neither here nor there we
May pass over; ‘Unformed was he
But with power others to their will bent’;
If power corrupts must he be so held
For rope- an ignominious end?

A badman was hanged this morning
His crimes most foul, not one he said
Was done by him in personal capacity.
Decrees presidential are valid: ‘I was
Committed to serve by oath to do no less.’
Men, women and infants gassed or shot
Didn’t happen at random but in his name
Day after day; With such a bloody blot
Who but a badman ask: ‘Am I to blame?’

benny