Dear friends,
I have been surprised by two developments this Spring semester 2010 that have greatly added to my regular teaching responsibilities. As such I have been quite behind in my own main blog Rattus Scribus, and criminally negligent of Rattus' Tales, let alone visiting and commenting on the blogs of dear friends. But I am nearly done with a fully developed short story that I will be posting on Rattus Scribus and Rattus' Tales, and possibly also on a blog called Nowhere begun by our dear friend The Duchess. My short story will give readers an in depth look at Rattus Scribus and the circumstances of his first encounter with Spinoza, a hedgehog who subsequently becomes a life long friend. A highlight is that my wife Anita of Castles Crowns and Cottages (and other blogs) will be contributing her wonderfully humorous drawings to accompany the story.
Your devoted scribe,
Rattus
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Never Want to Wake From You.
Happy Anniversary, Anita.
Lyrics and music by Ruben Rivera (aka, Rattus Scribus). (Sightly revised from my original composition of March, 1997)
He met a princess in a world of dreams
With hair like night, and starry eyes
The heart of legends they sing far and wide
And in between she won her lover's soul
After all these years, I love her so
If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
Or fly with wings
Or make a carousel from Saturn's rings
But not one of these compares with you
and the love I feel when I sing you to you:
If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
If growing up
--------
Lyrics and music by Ruben Rivera (aka, Rattus Scribus). (Sightly revised from my original composition of March, 1997)
"Long ago..." the story goes
He met a princess in a world of dreams
With hair like night, and starry eyes
The heart of legends they sing far and wide
And in between she won her lover's soul
After all these years, I love her so
If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
In dreams where anything comes true
I can do anything I want to
Live in the sea
I can do anything I want to
Live in the sea
Or fly with wings
Or make a carousel from Saturn's rings
But not one of these compares with you
and the love I feel when I sing you to you:
If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
If growing up
and waking means
that life is real
and love the dream
I'd rather stay asleep with you
and show to all the world what love can do
For love can make this world a fantasy
like heaven where we're meant to be
If you're my dream
and love the dream
I'd rather stay asleep with you
and show to all the world what love can do
For love can make this world a fantasy
like heaven where we're meant to be
If you're my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
If you're my, my dream
I never want to wake from you
Happy Anniversary, my Anita
March 6, 2010
March 6, 2010
--------
Photo credits:
#1 Castle, unknown
#2 Summer Dreams, by Dameon and Meagan
#3 Anita, Mancester-by-the-Sea, MN, 2008, by R. Rivera
#4 "Robin & Marian," Sean Connery & Audrey Hepburn Columbia Pictures, 1976.
#5 Polar bear cub, unknown
#6 Manatees, unknown
#7 Flying dog, unknown
#8 Saturn, Cassini space craft
#9 Carousel, unknown
#10 Panda, unknown
#11 Sleeping dog, unknown
#12 Old dog cartoon, unknown
#13 Dog eat dog cartoon, unknown
#14 Enchanted Beloved, Andrew Annenberg
#15 Earth, BBC WorldWide, 2009
#16 Adventures of Robin Hood, Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland, Warner Bros, 1938
#17 Bunny Heaven, by angrymikko
#18 Sleeping Rabbit, by Kelly Dyson
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Wisdom From The Outer Limits: The Sixth Finger. The Wisdom to be Human Lies Not in the Distant Future
By Rattus Scribus© Sunday, 7 February 2010
You may want to read the introduction to this series here
The story:
In a mansion on the outskirts of a Welsh mining town, Professor Mather (Edward Mulhare) has advanced the science of genetics. Out of guilt for his part in the creation of the nuclear bomb that now threatens to wipe out all life on earth, Mather has invented a machine to speed up the evolutionary process of humanity in a desperate attempt to “make war impossible.”
Young Gwyllm Griffiths (David McCallum) jumps at the chance to be the first human subject for the machine, anything to escape the mining job and town that have condemned him to insignificance. The experiment succeeds. Evolved 20,000 years into the future, Gwyllm emerges with a much larger head and the bud of a sixth finger on each hand, denoting a human future of vast intellect and greater manual dexterity.
Scene: The Sixth Finger
But the machine unleashes the self-perpetuating forces of evolution and Gwyllum continues developing at an exponential rate. Eventually he evolves into a being with near god-like capabilities, complete with twelve fingers, a massive head/brain, and (for reasons unexplained) pointed ears. In the script, he also becomes translucent and lives now by photosynthesis, thus no longer requiring food or sleep; but none of these characteristics (except no longer needing sleep) are clear in the television episode.
Scene: The Sixth Finger
Having evolved the equivalent of well over a million years into the future, the only thing remaining of the original Gwyllm is his hatred for the town and, in general, for the ignorance, prejudice, and unreasoning destructive hatred of “man.” He is set on destroying the entire town with a mere thought (and afterward, to teach the entire world a similar lesson?), but then he evolves past the need for revenge or power, and indeed all things material.
Scene: The Sixth Finger
Impatient to wait for the completion of the human evolutionary process into "Vortex" -- the non-material transition into cosmic being of pure "intelligence in space" -- Gwyllm returns to the lab and enlists the aid of Cathy (Jill Hayworth), a poor bread delivery girl who loves Gwyllm deeply and first introduced him to Professor Mather. Gwyllm enters the machine but, afraid to lose him, Cathy reverses the process and brings him back to his original state, exhausted, but "glad" to be back, says Cathy.
The context:
When "The Sixth Finger" first aired (Oct 14, 1963), America was engulfed in two raging conflicts, one foreign, one domestic. On the foreign front, the early 1960s was the height of the Cold War. Exactly one year before, the Cuban missile crisis (Oct 1962) illustrated the Cold War era madness that threatened at any time to bring the world to thermo-nuclear annihilation. Indeed, the previous OL episode, "The Architects of Fear," dealt with the nuclear war paranoia by weaving a tale in which altruistic but misguided U.S. scientists secretly manufactured an extraterrestrial harbinger of invasion in the attempt to unite the world's two main antagonists -- the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. / China -- to overcome their differences in order to repel a common threat.
American children were taught to head for a bomb shelter if they heard a civil defense siren, or to "duck and cover" if they saw a flash in the sky, as if hiding beneath a wooden school desk could protect them from the equivalent of a small exploding sun.
Ironically, while the U.S. lectured the world on liberty and was prepared to vaporize the earth in defense of it, on the home front, America was far from the model of democracy. For the legacy of slavery and racial segregation finally erupted into the protests and conflicts of the Civil Rights Movement.
1965: Police break up a civil rights protest,
ironically in front of a U.S. symbol of democracy: The White House.
Meanwhile the feminist, youth, and sexual revolutions were also creating tensions and resentments with the traditional holders of power. Finally, about a month after this episode aired, the United States would lose its president, John F. Kennedy, to assassination (Nov 22, 1963). Thus, while America saw itself as the world's physician, it was a physician much in need of a doctor.
The Wisdom:
There are always things one can find to critique in fictional drama such as "The Sixth Finger." One glaring problem for me is when devotees of the inductive science of evolution (who have often criticized deductive philosophy and religion for making unprovable claims about the divine origins and final non-material state of humans) themselves speculate on a final non-material destiny of human evolution that is just as unprovable. Evolution can only attempt to trace the material origins and development of biological life. It has absolutely nothing to say about what, if anything, happens beyond the vale of biological death. Nor can it track or prove any species development that includes non-material factors or states of existence. This utopic ideal of humans evolving to pure non-physical intelligence absorbed in the cosmic all, may be standard fare in many a science fiction novel or film like "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," or "The Outer Limits."
Scene: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But it has far more to do with Plato, or (ironically) religion, or plain wishful thinking, than with the science of evolution itself.
Scene: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Captain Decker "joins" with the entity known as "V'ger" and evolves to pure intelligence in space.
Nevertheless, in the paranoid and uncertain Cold War context, "The Sixth Finger" very deliberately attempted to illustrate humanity still in its developmental infancy, driven by primitive and petty motives of ignorance, hatred, lust and the quest for power. Technologically entering the space age but developmentally not essentially different from Neanderthal, humans seemed doomed to self-extinction unless something could render us "intelligent."
That something, it was assumed, was the progress of evolution. And why not evolution? Neither philosophy nor religion had as yet been able to render humanity intelligent enough to avoid the horrors of slavery, racism, sexism, war and holocaust. But, evolution is too slow. The fear is that humans are likely to destroy themselves long before reaching that state of blissful intelligence. Simply put, we cannot wait millions of years to grow up.
Scene: The Sixth Finger: "Evolution Machine"
Wouldn't it be great, therefore, if someone could invent a machine to do it all at once? Zap! Problem solved. That is the stuff of dreams and science fiction movies. The writers of "The Sixth Finger" of course knew that there was no such machine in reality that could come to our rescue. So all they can do is close the TV episode with the following narration:
"...And yet, may we not still hope to discover a method by which within one generation the whole human race could be rendered intelligent: beyond hatred, or revenge, or the desire for power? Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"
"Within one generation." Why the hurry? Because WWIII (or today, some other Weapons of Mass Destruction conflict, environmental disaster, water wars, etc.) could ruin our whole day. We cannot wait for "the ultimate goal of evolution".
But, if I may be so bold, there is hope for the wisdom we need, and we need not wait for the distant future. It has always been right here. We have all known people from ancient times down to our own day that have imparted to the world just that wisdom. Moreover, it is a wisdom that has nothing to do with the mechanisms of evolution, nor with advancements in science, technology, or futuristic material progress at all.
The wisdom that is selfless, other-oriented, and at peace (neither afraid about things one cannot control like Hurricane Katrina, nor withdraws from things one can ameliorate, like human poverty and injustice) have found expression in many cultures. Socrates of Athens, Gautama Buddha of India, Jesus of Nazareth, Sor Juana de la Cruz of Mexico, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Mandela of South Africa.
Gautama Buddha
These and other sages have shown us the heights of human wisdom, love, and fraternity. Ironically enough, much of this wisdom has been around since ancient times: so much for modern progress and final evolutionary scenarios. Indeed, this kind of wisdom actually violates the basic evolutionary impulse of self-preservation and species propagation.
For there is a wisdom without which human life is simply another animal species competing for domination in the food chain. Without such wisdom, the human, dare I say it, may not be worth preserving. And it is our only hope, lest our scientific knowledge and inane pursuit of material success so far outpace our human wisdom and character, that we render life on this planet a purgatory, or end ourselves altogether.
That would be most tragic. For if there is a great cosmic record of all things -- an Encyclopedia Galactia -- there will be but a tiny footnote on one of its countless pages that reads:
Jesus preaching "The Sermon on the Mount."
Or, the human race can become an inspiring and important part of the galactic story.
But for this to occur, we must acquire and live by the ancient wisdom that is not motivated by nor captivated to mere "animal" impulses and pursuits.
It is a wisdom from the Outer Limits, and it has long taught us such timeless principles as:
--Examine your lives and question what you think you know. (Socrates, paraphrased)
--"Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely." (Buddha)
--A good idea put to action is better than just an idea. (Buddha, paraphrased)
--"Treat everyone as you would wish to be treated," "You cannot love both God and money," "The greatest commandments are these: Love God, and your neighbor as yourself," "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Jesus)
--"Be the change you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)
Nothing of this wisdom is dependent upon or proven by the mere progress of science or evolution. The Wisdom from the Outer Limits is available to us all, here, now.
------------
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1900.
..
You may want to read the introduction to this series here
The story: In a mansion on the outskirts of a Welsh mining town, Professor Mather (Edward Mulhare) has advanced the science of genetics. Out of guilt for his part in the creation of the nuclear bomb that now threatens to wipe out all life on earth, Mather has invented a machine to speed up the evolutionary process of humanity in a desperate attempt to “make war impossible.”
Young Gwyllm Griffiths (David McCallum) jumps at the chance to be the first human subject for the machine, anything to escape the mining job and town that have condemned him to insignificance. The experiment succeeds. Evolved 20,000 years into the future, Gwyllm emerges with a much larger head and the bud of a sixth finger on each hand, denoting a human future of vast intellect and greater manual dexterity.
Scene: The Sixth FingerBut the machine unleashes the self-perpetuating forces of evolution and Gwyllum continues developing at an exponential rate. Eventually he evolves into a being with near god-like capabilities, complete with twelve fingers, a massive head/brain, and (for reasons unexplained) pointed ears. In the script, he also becomes translucent and lives now by photosynthesis, thus no longer requiring food or sleep; but none of these characteristics (except no longer needing sleep) are clear in the television episode.
Scene: The Sixth FingerHaving evolved the equivalent of well over a million years into the future, the only thing remaining of the original Gwyllm is his hatred for the town and, in general, for the ignorance, prejudice, and unreasoning destructive hatred of “man.” He is set on destroying the entire town with a mere thought (and afterward, to teach the entire world a similar lesson?), but then he evolves past the need for revenge or power, and indeed all things material.
Scene: The Sixth FingerImpatient to wait for the completion of the human evolutionary process into "Vortex" -- the non-material transition into cosmic being of pure "intelligence in space" -- Gwyllm returns to the lab and enlists the aid of Cathy (Jill Hayworth), a poor bread delivery girl who loves Gwyllm deeply and first introduced him to Professor Mather. Gwyllm enters the machine but, afraid to lose him, Cathy reverses the process and brings him back to his original state, exhausted, but "glad" to be back, says Cathy.
The context:
When "The Sixth Finger" first aired (Oct 14, 1963), America was engulfed in two raging conflicts, one foreign, one domestic. On the foreign front, the early 1960s was the height of the Cold War. Exactly one year before, the Cuban missile crisis (Oct 1962) illustrated the Cold War era madness that threatened at any time to bring the world to thermo-nuclear annihilation. Indeed, the previous OL episode, "The Architects of Fear," dealt with the nuclear war paranoia by weaving a tale in which altruistic but misguided U.S. scientists secretly manufactured an extraterrestrial harbinger of invasion in the attempt to unite the world's two main antagonists -- the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. / China -- to overcome their differences in order to repel a common threat.
American children were taught to head for a bomb shelter if they heard a civil defense siren, or to "duck and cover" if they saw a flash in the sky, as if hiding beneath a wooden school desk could protect them from the equivalent of a small exploding sun.Ironically, while the U.S. lectured the world on liberty and was prepared to vaporize the earth in defense of it, on the home front, America was far from the model of democracy. For the legacy of slavery and racial segregation finally erupted into the protests and conflicts of the Civil Rights Movement.
1965: Police break up a civil rights protest,ironically in front of a U.S. symbol of democracy: The White House.
Meanwhile the feminist, youth, and sexual revolutions were also creating tensions and resentments with the traditional holders of power. Finally, about a month after this episode aired, the United States would lose its president, John F. Kennedy, to assassination (Nov 22, 1963). Thus, while America saw itself as the world's physician, it was a physician much in need of a doctor.
The Wisdom:
There are always things one can find to critique in fictional drama such as "The Sixth Finger." One glaring problem for me is when devotees of the inductive science of evolution (who have often criticized deductive philosophy and religion for making unprovable claims about the divine origins and final non-material state of humans) themselves speculate on a final non-material destiny of human evolution that is just as unprovable. Evolution can only attempt to trace the material origins and development of biological life. It has absolutely nothing to say about what, if anything, happens beyond the vale of biological death. Nor can it track or prove any species development that includes non-material factors or states of existence. This utopic ideal of humans evolving to pure non-physical intelligence absorbed in the cosmic all, may be standard fare in many a science fiction novel or film like "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," or "The Outer Limits."
Scene: 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it has far more to do with Plato, or (ironically) religion, or plain wishful thinking, than with the science of evolution itself.
Scene: Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Captain Decker "joins" with the entity known as "V'ger" and evolves to pure intelligence in space.Nevertheless, in the paranoid and uncertain Cold War context, "The Sixth Finger" very deliberately attempted to illustrate humanity still in its developmental infancy, driven by primitive and petty motives of ignorance, hatred, lust and the quest for power. Technologically entering the space age but developmentally not essentially different from Neanderthal, humans seemed doomed to self-extinction unless something could render us "intelligent."
That something, it was assumed, was the progress of evolution. And why not evolution? Neither philosophy nor religion had as yet been able to render humanity intelligent enough to avoid the horrors of slavery, racism, sexism, war and holocaust. But, evolution is too slow. The fear is that humans are likely to destroy themselves long before reaching that state of blissful intelligence. Simply put, we cannot wait millions of years to grow up.
Scene: The Sixth Finger: "Evolution Machine"Wouldn't it be great, therefore, if someone could invent a machine to do it all at once? Zap! Problem solved. That is the stuff of dreams and science fiction movies. The writers of "The Sixth Finger" of course knew that there was no such machine in reality that could come to our rescue. So all they can do is close the TV episode with the following narration:
"...And yet, may we not still hope to discover a method by which within one generation the whole human race could be rendered intelligent: beyond hatred, or revenge, or the desire for power? Is that not after all the ultimate goal of evolution?"
"Within one generation." Why the hurry? Because WWIII (or today, some other Weapons of Mass Destruction conflict, environmental disaster, water wars, etc.) could ruin our whole day. We cannot wait for "the ultimate goal of evolution".
But, if I may be so bold, there is hope for the wisdom we need, and we need not wait for the distant future. It has always been right here. We have all known people from ancient times down to our own day that have imparted to the world just that wisdom. Moreover, it is a wisdom that has nothing to do with the mechanisms of evolution, nor with advancements in science, technology, or futuristic material progress at all.
The wisdom that is selfless, other-oriented, and at peace (neither afraid about things one cannot control like Hurricane Katrina, nor withdraws from things one can ameliorate, like human poverty and injustice) have found expression in many cultures. Socrates of Athens, Gautama Buddha of India, Jesus of Nazareth, Sor Juana de la Cruz of Mexico, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Mandela of South Africa.
Gautama BuddhaThese and other sages have shown us the heights of human wisdom, love, and fraternity. Ironically enough, much of this wisdom has been around since ancient times: so much for modern progress and final evolutionary scenarios. Indeed, this kind of wisdom actually violates the basic evolutionary impulse of self-preservation and species propagation.
For there is a wisdom without which human life is simply another animal species competing for domination in the food chain. Without such wisdom, the human, dare I say it, may not be worth preserving. And it is our only hope, lest our scientific knowledge and inane pursuit of material success so far outpace our human wisdom and character, that we render life on this planet a purgatory, or end ourselves altogether.
That would be most tragic. For if there is a great cosmic record of all things -- an Encyclopedia Galactia -- there will be but a tiny footnote on one of its countless pages that reads:
"Human Race, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy: Extinct from stupidity."
Jesus preaching "The Sermon on the Mount."Or, the human race can become an inspiring and important part of the galactic story.
But for this to occur, we must acquire and live by the ancient wisdom that is not motivated by nor captivated to mere "animal" impulses and pursuits.
It is a wisdom from the Outer Limits, and it has long taught us such timeless principles as:
--Examine your lives and question what you think you know. (Socrates, paraphrased)
--"Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely." (Buddha)
--A good idea put to action is better than just an idea. (Buddha, paraphrased)
--"Treat everyone as you would wish to be treated," "You cannot love both God and money," "The greatest commandments are these: Love God, and your neighbor as yourself," "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Jesus)
--"Be the change you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)
Nothing of this wisdom is dependent upon or proven by the mere progress of science or evolution. The Wisdom from the Outer Limits is available to us all, here, now.
------------
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1900.
..
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wisdom from the Outer Limits
By Rattus Scribus© 31 January 2010
But there have always been attempts to use film to critique contemporary culture, events and trends. The most obvious form of informative and analytical film is the documentary. But once in a while, creative stories and a desire for social commentary combine to create highly rated TV shows. One such ground-breaking show was the 1960s prime-time series, "The Outer Limits." It aired for only two seasons (1963-64 and 1964-65), but it was popular for its day and left a lasting impact. When released on DVD in 2002, popular novelist Stephen King called The Outer Limits, "The best program of its type ever to run on network TV." The program still has a loyal following of rerun and DVD watchers; and several decades later a new series of The Outer Limits ran for seven seasons (1995-2002).
When writing about what the past can teach us today, it is important to play fair. For example, it is easy to critique, even make fun of, old TV programs for the inferior production values of the past, with their very visible "invisible" wires suspending people and objects, serious characters made to wear cartoonish make-up and costumes, and painfully obvious set miniatures. Inadequate as they were, these were the cutting edge "effects" of the day. It therefore makes no sense to compare The Cold War era "Outer Limits" (OL) with, say, James Cameron's recent CGI movie blockbuster, "Avatar," any more than it makes sense to criticize the past for its horse-drawn carriages because it had nothing that could match the Ferrari of today.
It is, however, fair game to point out, for example, how many old TV shows where hopelessly mired in the contemporary values and worldview of the dominant social group of the era, which was overwhelmingly white Midwestern middle and upper class males. For example, in the context of the civil rights movement, the 1960s original Star Trek series did try to push the boundaries of race relations: to wit, when the corn-fed Iowa interstellar playboy Captain Kirk (William Shatner) kissed the Bantu African beauty Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).
Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren" (Nov 1968). Considered by many to be the first interracial kiss on U.S. television, but African American entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. gave a friendly kiss to white female singer Nancy Sinatra on her variety show on Dec 1967. And in fact Shatner had kissed an Asian actress in a previous Star Trek episode. But the Shatner - Nichols (white - black) kiss that was overtly romantic had the whole studio buzzing prior to and during the filming. It was too much for some TV stations in the south which (according to some accounts) originally refused to air the episode.
Yet, despite the underlying presumption of human evolution, and predicted scientific and social advancements hundreds of years into the future, such as faster than light travel, teleportation, and interstellar civil rights, the U.S./earth-centered Federation of Planets will still be predominantly a male-run affair. Meanwhile, the women of the future will, apparently, still be bouncing about like forest nymphs in 1960s style mini-skirts.
Because…what woman wouldn’t want to wear a regulation uniform with the coverage equivalent of a scarf, while splayed out under an electronic panel trying to restore subspace communications after a deadly Klingon attack?
Or, when forced into mortal combat with a Barbie-bodied female alien from another galaxy who, miraculously enough, is wearing a regulation bikini from 1960s Earth. Apparently, females are the same in every corner of the universe: men wear clothes during space travel, or in battle, or you know, in public. Women? What need have they of anything more than a mini-skirt when they accompany men to other worlds, or get into a cat fight with Alien Malibu Barbie who knows better than to wear even a mini-skirt to battle, when far less will do?
"Mini-skirts? Hah! Who wears a mini-skirt to a bikini fight? Earthlings, fools all! Prepare to die embarrassed!"
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
...the whole reason they existed at all...
By Rattus Scribus@ 20 January 2010
"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least considered and ignored persons in society, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40
One of the most powerful movies I have ever seen is Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, a true, albeit made-for-Hollywood saga about illegally kidnapped Africans who revolted on the Spanish slave-ship la Amistad. Recaptured by Americans, justice for the Africans was circumvented time and again by greedy Spaniards and Americans, as well as Southern slave-holders who threatened to embroil the young nation in a war over the issue. The Amistad case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.
Lower court trial at which Pedro Montes identified
Cinque as leader of the Amistad mutiny.
Cinque, Portrait by Nathaniel Jocelyn, c. 1840
John Quincy Adams
Scene in Louisville, Kentucky. Life Magazine, Feb
1937. What is wrong with this picture?
"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least considered and ignored persons in society, you did it to me." Matthew 25:40
One of the most powerful movies I have ever seen is Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, a true, albeit made-for-Hollywood saga about illegally kidnapped Africans who revolted on the Spanish slave-ship la Amistad. Recaptured by Americans, justice for the Africans was circumvented time and again by greedy Spaniards and Americans, as well as Southern slave-holders who threatened to embroil the young nation in a war over the issue. The Amistad case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.
Lower court trial at which Pedro Montes identified
Cinque as leader of the Amistad mutiny.
At this point, Cinque, leader of the embattled Africans, utters one of the most profound statements I have ever heard. Although he knew that the upcoming court hearing would be extremely difficult to win (as all previous cases were won and then subsequently set aside), Cinque said he was nevertheless prepared because he had called upon the help of all of his ancestors. For it was his ancestors' lives and labors that made Cinque's tribe the people they had come to be, and "right now," he said, "I am the whole reason they have existed at all."
Cinque, Portrait by Nathaniel Jocelyn, c. 1840
This astounding statement was not lost on Cinque's aged lawyer, John Quincy Adams, who like his father John Adams was a former U.S. president and a "father" of the nation.
As some of you may know (and as I state on my sidebar profile), I see human history as a struggle in closing the gaps:
"The struggle to close the gaps between what is believed and what is done, what is and what could be, is the greatest human drama of every culture in every age. The heights of human imagination and achievement, as well as depravity, dwell in the gaps. The former escape to brighten the world. The latter remain forever imprisoned, and constantly seeks company."
The case of the Amistad Africans is one of many examples of North America's long struggle to close the gap between its much vaunted ideals of inalienable rights and liberties on the one hand and actions too often motivated by selfishness, greed, prejudice and fear on the other.
John Quincy Adams
Miraculously, Adams argued the case successfully before the Supreme Court. Surprised and elated, Cinque asked him what words he could have said to persuade the judges (some of whom were from Southern slave states) to free them when all previous words and court cases had failed. Adams replied: "Yours." He referred of course to Cinque’s words that at that moment, he was the whole reason his ancestors had existed at all.
Think how the greatness of American or even Christian ideals are to be measured. Not by the rights, wealth and deference enjoyed by the powerful, but by the rights, dignity and opportunity enjoyed by the powerless.
Scene in Louisville, Kentucky. Life Magazine, Feb
1937. What is wrong with this picture?
A believer in American ideals of liberty cannot escape the truth of the statement that "any nation is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members" (Cardinal Roger Mahony).
A believer in the Christian ideal of love of God evidenced by love of neighbor cannot escape the truth of Jesus' statement that the way we treat those least in our society is a reflection of how we treat him. In other words, to claim to love a God we've never seen, but not love people we can see everyday, is not a religion that Jesus had any part of.
If our American and Christian ideals (and I am not necessarily equating the two) mean nothing for the Cinque's of the world (for women, the poor, people of color, the discarded laborer, the disabled, in a word, the "other"), then do we not dishonor those ideals and the people who sacrificed so much to make them a reality? That is to say, do we not dishonor those we claim so much to honor?
After all, the very least regarded individuals among us, are “the whole reason they existed at all.”
Monday, January 11, 2010
People Are Not Just Meat
By Rattus Scribus@ 11 January 2010
All the years that my wife was pursuing her college degree and teaching license, she worked part time at a food market for well-to-do Minnesotans. Now many of you have heard me say that Anita is one of the kindest, most humane and sensitive persons I have known.
It therefore angered me when a customer treated her like something on the bottom of their shoe. We've all heard the common store motto that "the customer is always right." But in my experience, the customer is not only frequently wrong, but quite nasty about it too.
"The Customer is Always Reich, I mean Right"
I could tell you countless stories of abusive customers, but I will tell you only one here, and hope to draw a common sense lesson from it.
Anita was working at the deli section of the market, when a man quite rotund in circumference came up and asked her for an order of Asian food that included rice and a mound of battered fried spicy chicken. Now, leaving aside for the moment the irony of my wife, healthy eater extraordinaire, working at a job that caters to "upscale" Americans who eat more meat than a velociraptor, the man took one look at the pyramid of fried flesh and fumed:
"You're not doing it right! The small section is for the rice and the large section is for the meat!"
Background. The oval plate has two small sections for rice and another side dish, and the large center section for the main -- always some kind of meat -- entrée.
My wife's unpardonable sin? She had put the rice in part of the large (meat) section, and put the meat on the rest of the plate, the difference to the portions of which was nothing.
But he insisted: "Do it right!"
My wife then plowed what she already considered dinner for two onto a fresh plate with the rice and the meat in their proper sections.
End of story? Of course not. For he was now forced to ask what he really wanted but was too prideful or malevolent to ask kindly.
"I want more meat!" came the hiss between pursed and bloodless lips. And she gave it to him, lest the matter go all the way to the Supreme Court.
That day, in a lovely fashionable Minnesota market, some nasty cuss had two entrées: one was Asian spicy chicken; the other was a human being. To him they were both just meat.
I was determined after this incident that I would try to the best of my ability never to be the customer from the infernal regions.
There is something horribly wrong when the most trivial of things is all that is needed for one person to treat another in so shabby a fashion.
We are none of us perfect. But surely we can agree that a human being is worth a little more than an extra helping of Kung Pao?
-----------
Photo credits:
Human meat: http://www.liberacionanimal.org
All the years that my wife was pursuing her college degree and teaching license, she worked part time at a food market for well-to-do Minnesotans. Now many of you have heard me say that Anita is one of the kindest, most humane and sensitive persons I have known.
It therefore angered me when a customer treated her like something on the bottom of their shoe. We've all heard the common store motto that "the customer is always right." But in my experience, the customer is not only frequently wrong, but quite nasty about it too.
"The Customer is Always Reich, I mean Right"I could tell you countless stories of abusive customers, but I will tell you only one here, and hope to draw a common sense lesson from it.
Anita was working at the deli section of the market, when a man quite rotund in circumference came up and asked her for an order of Asian food that included rice and a mound of battered fried spicy chicken. Now, leaving aside for the moment the irony of my wife, healthy eater extraordinaire, working at a job that caters to "upscale" Americans who eat more meat than a velociraptor, the man took one look at the pyramid of fried flesh and fumed:
"You're not doing it right! The small section is for the rice and the large section is for the meat!"
Background. The oval plate has two small sections for rice and another side dish, and the large center section for the main -- always some kind of meat -- entrée.
My wife's unpardonable sin? She had put the rice in part of the large (meat) section, and put the meat on the rest of the plate, the difference to the portions of which was nothing.
But he insisted: "Do it right!"
My wife then plowed what she already considered dinner for two onto a fresh plate with the rice and the meat in their proper sections.
End of story? Of course not. For he was now forced to ask what he really wanted but was too prideful or malevolent to ask kindly.
"I want more meat!" came the hiss between pursed and bloodless lips. And she gave it to him, lest the matter go all the way to the Supreme Court.
That day, in a lovely fashionable Minnesota market, some nasty cuss had two entrées: one was Asian spicy chicken; the other was a human being. To him they were both just meat.
I was determined after this incident that I would try to the best of my ability never to be the customer from the infernal regions.
There is something horribly wrong when the most trivial of things is all that is needed for one person to treat another in so shabby a fashion.
We are none of us perfect. But surely we can agree that a human being is worth a little more than an extra helping of Kung Pao?
-----------
Photo credits:
Human meat: http://www.liberacionanimal.org
Monday, December 28, 2009
New Year's Reflection: The Life Lived Deliberately
By Rattus Scribus© 28 December 2009
" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
I have recently written two lighthearted poems (some might say frivolous rhymes). One on the day before Thanksgiving here on Rattus Scribus, written in the desperate need for distraction. The other on Christmas Eve and posted on Rattus' Tales, written in a moment of sheer lunacy. So I rather feel a little small starting this New Year's reflection with the august poetical language of Thoreau.
But as I look on this past year 2009, and my dreams for 2010, I feel I need help from the big guns. You might ask what right I have to appropriate from Thoreau's Walden -- a work that called his readers to the "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity" that the woodland-cloistered Transcendentalist found infinitely more meaningful than the time-wasting, unprofitable pursuits and responsibilities imposed by the "chopping sea of civilized life."
What can I, indeed what can most Americans, possibly have in common with Thoreau?
In a phrase: the desire to live life deliberately. To assess honestly, even brutally, what things in this world are essential to develop my life to the full, and to excise all the parasites of the deliberate life.
As 2009 comes to a close I am grateful to know people not so far removed as Thoreau, from whom I draw inspiration. I am only going to focus on one person in blogland here, though there are of course other dear friends and family I could praise.
Before I do, it would be an injustice if I did not mention my wife Anita from Castles Crowns and Cottages. Hers is among the most authentically lived lives I have ever known: her love of life, of God, of nature and its creatures, of artistic creations, her tenacity to accomplish goals (even those which have made her feel painfully like an insignificant fish in a cosmic pond), and her "natural" kindness" have blessed my life in a way it would not have been otherwise.
Anita & me at my doctoral graduation,
Boston University, May 2008
To Patricia (Tita) Cabrera of WoolyTales Miniatures.
Tita would never praise herself as I am about to do here. But she is a remarkable example of the deliberate life. Brazilian-born, she came to the United States and now lives on a working farm with her husband and seven children. Moving to a farm was a Thoreau-like equivalent of opting for a more deliberate life: a space where she and her family could "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," instead of yielding to so much in today's culture that sucks the life out of us.
When Tita is not home-schooling her children, or helping and supervising chores like raising chickens for a poultry company, keeping bees, making honey, baking breads and other goodies from ingredients grown on the farm, making butter and cheese from their cows and goats, making wine from apples or blueberries, sewing clothes for her family and more, she is engaged in other truly magical skills, and her children are taught these skills and enter into the play. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
She and her children put on puppet shows in public venues (all marionettes -- wonders to behold -- props, stories, etc., are done by her and her children).
One of my Christmas gifts to Anita:
Wirehaired Fox Terrier, by Tita Cabrera
She creates the most amazing pieces of art (dolls and animals, of which Anita and I have three) and sells them to bring in family income. She draws and paints beautifully on fairy story themes. All these things and more are imbued with magic, an incredible attention to detail, and constant gratitude to God.
Perhaps the surest sign of a person living deliberately is that they share with others those things that bring them joy. Tita does that, constantly, consistently, deliberately: from a simple word of kindness or thanks, to the magical productions of her substantial imagination. If you have not visited Tita's blog, do yourself a favor.
Thank you dear Tita. Your religious faith, your artistry, your generosity (you blew us away this Christmas) and your life lived deliberately have placed before both me and Anita a new benchmark.
Your devoted friend,
Ruben
" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
I have recently written two lighthearted poems (some might say frivolous rhymes). One on the day before Thanksgiving here on Rattus Scribus, written in the desperate need for distraction. The other on Christmas Eve and posted on Rattus' Tales, written in a moment of sheer lunacy. So I rather feel a little small starting this New Year's reflection with the august poetical language of Thoreau.
But as I look on this past year 2009, and my dreams for 2010, I feel I need help from the big guns. You might ask what right I have to appropriate from Thoreau's Walden -- a work that called his readers to the "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity" that the woodland-cloistered Transcendentalist found infinitely more meaningful than the time-wasting, unprofitable pursuits and responsibilities imposed by the "chopping sea of civilized life."
What can I, indeed what can most Americans, possibly have in common with Thoreau?
In a phrase: the desire to live life deliberately. To assess honestly, even brutally, what things in this world are essential to develop my life to the full, and to excise all the parasites of the deliberate life.
As 2009 comes to a close I am grateful to know people not so far removed as Thoreau, from whom I draw inspiration. I am only going to focus on one person in blogland here, though there are of course other dear friends and family I could praise.
Before I do, it would be an injustice if I did not mention my wife Anita from Castles Crowns and Cottages. Hers is among the most authentically lived lives I have ever known: her love of life, of God, of nature and its creatures, of artistic creations, her tenacity to accomplish goals (even those which have made her feel painfully like an insignificant fish in a cosmic pond), and her "natural" kindness" have blessed my life in a way it would not have been otherwise.
Anita & me at my doctoral graduation,Boston University, May 2008
To Patricia (Tita) Cabrera of WoolyTales Miniatures.
Tita would never praise herself as I am about to do here. But she is a remarkable example of the deliberate life. Brazilian-born, she came to the United States and now lives on a working farm with her husband and seven children. Moving to a farm was a Thoreau-like equivalent of opting for a more deliberate life: a space where she and her family could "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," instead of yielding to so much in today's culture that sucks the life out of us.
When Tita is not home-schooling her children, or helping and supervising chores like raising chickens for a poultry company, keeping bees, making honey, baking breads and other goodies from ingredients grown on the farm, making butter and cheese from their cows and goats, making wine from apples or blueberries, sewing clothes for her family and more, she is engaged in other truly magical skills, and her children are taught these skills and enter into the play. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
She and her children put on puppet shows in public venues (all marionettes -- wonders to behold -- props, stories, etc., are done by her and her children).
One of my Christmas gifts to Anita:Wirehaired Fox Terrier, by Tita Cabrera
She creates the most amazing pieces of art (dolls and animals, of which Anita and I have three) and sells them to bring in family income. She draws and paints beautifully on fairy story themes. All these things and more are imbued with magic, an incredible attention to detail, and constant gratitude to God.
Perhaps the surest sign of a person living deliberately is that they share with others those things that bring them joy. Tita does that, constantly, consistently, deliberately: from a simple word of kindness or thanks, to the magical productions of her substantial imagination. If you have not visited Tita's blog, do yourself a favor.
Thank you dear Tita. Your religious faith, your artistry, your generosity (you blew us away this Christmas) and your life lived deliberately have placed before both me and Anita a new benchmark.
Your devoted friend,
Ruben
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