Corroboration

Today I shall concentrate on considering the views of people with whom I may disagree on some major matters. I promise, at least, to regard, and think through their views, although I shan't go anywhere near as far as even considering, for a millisecond or less, that Donald Trump is a follower of the Galilean. That's off the board.

That said, let's consider the conservative view that we have created an over-regulated America. I don't agree fully. I stood on a balcony in Los Angeles in 1967 and my eyes stung and watered from the air pollution. I remember wondering what it might be doing to my lungs. I didn't worry too much for I was headed into harm's way and figured that would take care of things. Now, though, I do worry a bit about the not-so nascent ravages of Agent Orange. I think pollution ranks as a proper danger for regulation.

Also, I might be convinced about jail-time for anyone tossing soiled baby diapers onto a shopping center parking lot.

But, I do think we go overboard when we fine companies for not having warnings printed on the top of stepladders prohibiting the user from standing on the damned thing while working.

That's not protecting the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the community. No. That, in effect, is contributing to the pollution and weakening of the homo sapien gene pool.

Here is my take, for what it's worth:

If your job is to solve problems or carry out sound policy, it is fine to write regulations.

If your job is simply to write regulations, you will write regulations and some of them will make life unnecessarily more complicated and frustrating for the average person, with no discernible benefit to humanity. Hence, the requirement that the State of Arkansas create legal protection for a species of fish that cannot exist anywhere in the state's temperate zone. At least not yet.

I won't get into zoning regulations, a topic for which I have been deemed an expert in both state and federal courts. I run the risk of offending, and losing the work I do as a hobby in my semi-retirement. (Keeps me off tractors and from behind garden hoes).

So there, my conservative friends. I think we could sit down, with reason guiding us, and discuss this topic without once using the "F" word, as long as we avoided discussing the person who gleefully talks about grabbing things he shouldn't.

Next, the controversial topic of a society that forbids the concept of redemption. You called your sister a dirty name when you were eight-years old? Don't plan on running for office as a progressive.

Overcoming Guilt

I am, as most people know, about one wheel short of a semi-trailer rig. Take, for example, the concept of guilt. Oddly, I don’t feel guilty about having told some lesser being off, using swear words in at least four languages. No, in fact, I brag about such antics with Philosophy Club members who meet, from time to time, at E.J’s on the corner of 6^th and Center streets in my beloved city of Little Rock. They tend to guffaw at my antics and that makes me smile.

On the other hand, I feel guilty when I pick a turnip green, shredding its life in my fingers. I might add that such guilt only lasts until said plant, along with a crowd of its brothers and sisters, has been thoroughly washed, seasoned, boiled until it is tender and tasty, and served with other victims of planticide: juicy corn kernels made into a thick wholesome bread and accompanied by buttermilk.  Guilt only extends so far in my world, or so I'd like to believe.

Why bring this up? The latest guilt-laden escapade of mine involves a small wooden table. We, my wife and I, obtained it like most of the hundred thousand or so objects we own. People con us into taking them, she buys them at flea markets, people leave them to us, she picks them up from piles of discarded trash, she swaps her pal Nick Nicholson something for them, we inherit them, or people leave them at our doorstep, ring the doorbell, and run away.

Anyway, I have, after hours of sanding and stripping, reduced this table to near its natural state. This effort revealed that the top comprises a number of woods of different shades, textures, colors, and grain. Was this arrangement deliberate? We would have to travel back a hundred years, find an artisan, and beg for the truth. To hell with that.

What I want to do is paint it and use it as a “splash of color” in a lonely corner of a bathroom in our Lonoke house. The color I’ve chosen is Pantone Color Institute’s color of the year, “Living Coral. That places me among the elite cadre of tasteful aficionados who cherish the dernier cri. Look:

So, why the guilt? Am I killing the soul of this antique table by converting it to a “splash of color?” After all, when it was first utilized, there was no such thing as color in poor rural homes, only drab furniture on the floor, and newspapers pasted on the walls and ceilings.

Am I demeaning history?

It gets worse. Taking Herself to Lowes to seek out the Color of the Year, I found the closest thing I could and suggested it.

“No.”

“What?”

“Here.” She pointed.

Now, raw courage came into play. At the risk of divorce at best and a session with “Mr. Louisville” at worst, I managed, in as strong a voice as I could manage, on the floor of Lowes, “My precious. I love you like Jesus loves a sinner. And if a hand grenade bounced down the aisle, I would jump atop it to save you.”

“But?”

“But, Navy Blue is not ‘a splash of color.’”

It still stands in limbo. Anonymous suggestions would be welcomed.

Sunrise With Schubert: February 18, 2018

Perhaps we ought not to let the murder of 17 young Americans divide us further. We’re divided enough already, don’t you think?

I keep reading where we ought to talk to one another. That sounds like a good idea to me. I’m not quite sure how it would work, though. I’m not sure how to talk to someone who doesn't believe the scientists who say the Earth wasn't created 6,000 years ago. And I’m sure there are those who don’t know how to talk to someone who doesn’t believe scientists when they say that genetically modified foods are safe.

What are we to do? There are those in either direction who would change their beliefs on neither Torquemada’s grandest torture mechanism, nor from the soundest logic of Socrates. How can sincere dialogue take place in the middle of such chaos?

Maybe it could if we lop a couple of standard deviations off each side of the political spectrum and try again. I could start by saying that I know a few of things with which I think my philosophical opposites would agree, or at least agree to discuss without resorting to ad hominem attacks. To wit:

America, with all its warts and blemishes, is still the envy of most other countries. They wouldn’t criticize us so if it weren’t.

It’s not the number of activists who make change happen. It’s the type of activists who can work for change while attracting enough tacit support to allow victory and not pissing off enough people to ensure failure.

Science and technology are both wonderful things, but, as the late Stephen Jay Gould opined, the two of them can outrace, at times, our moral and ethical growth.

When regulators believe that their job is to write regulations instead of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the polis, we become an over-regulated society and many lose faith in government.

Without a system of governmental oversight, our rivers may catch fire, daily life may become a nightmare of anarchy, and dangers that we may not even imagine now may destroy us.

We don’t really want our planet destroyed.

We may not agree with Mattie Ross of the immortal True Grit, that “enough is as good as a feast,” but we should agree that those who have everything should not want to obtain more on the backs of their fellow countrymen. At least I hope we think so.

Few people or groups of people are either perfect or without some redeeming points.

A lack of education does not obviate a lack of goodness.

Education is not evil.

Southerners are not all racists idiots, Easterners are not all hypocritical elites who preach brotherhood from their limousines, Northerners are not all gangsters and union thugs, and Westerners are not all drugstore cowboys or nuts who have all rolled to the edge of the known world.

We’re all in this together.

Feel free to add your own. I'm ready to talk.

Talking is good.

Thoughts: November 25, 2014

Early morning thoughts with Gustav Mahler
and other old friends …

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
- From “The Second Coming”
William Butler Yeats

 “I, on men’s impious uproar hurl’d,

 Think often, as I hear them rave,
 That peace has left the upper world
 And now keeps only in the grave.”
- From “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens”
Matthew Arnold

 "Who's winning? Nobody's winning. Cities are dying and ships are sinking and aircraft is going in, but nobody's winning."

- From “Alas Babyon”
Pat Frank


Lynne Mapp Drexler, “Gotterdammerung”, 1959

See also: www.wattensawpress.com