Month: July 2024

Listen to the Writing on the Wall.

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A lot is being said about the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. The political oricales are out in force trying to interpret what effect this will have on the presidential campaign.

Security analysts are deep in review of what the Secret Service, state and local law enforcement should have done that they didn’t do. Investigators are now swarming all over Thomas Crooks like locusts on a wheat field. He is the slain, lone gunman on the roof who police believe was the shooter. They are picking apart his electronics devices –even possible purchases at Home Depot–looking for a motive.

Eventually these experts will come up with some sort of narrative. If it is one thing we are good at, it is creating an explanatory narrative.–a timeline with a story. In the past NASA come up with a narrative on how the Apollo 1 fire occurred killing three astronauts. The message of that investigation: We might be in a race but we have to slow down if we want to win. Later, they created a commision to determine the destruction and the death of seven crewmen of the Space Shuttle Challenger. One thing that came out of its investigation was the need for better communication between managers and engineers. (Something Boeing is experiencing.) The Shuttle was a complex machine. The whole program ground to a halt from the failure of a simple O-ring; and the lack of communication, particularly the part of communication that involves listening.

Explanatory narrative “is the mechanism used by historical studies to create reasonably justified truths about the past. It describes the idea that a narrative has an inherent ability to carry an explanation of why things happened or why historical agents acted in a particular way.–IGI Global

President Lyndon Johnson authorized the Warren Commision “to investigate the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy… “to evaluate matters relating to the assassination and the subsequent killing of the alleged assassin, and to report its findings and conclusions to him,” according to the National Archives. (I italicized matters because in the minds of many conspiracy theorists, the Commission created an 880 page report that created more questions than it answered. Everybody has a theory on who killed Kennedy.)

But maybe we should take another tack at looking at the attempted Trump assassination. Sure, there is plenty of human activity to evaluate, the what ifs, why was this done or not done, what can be done to prevent this in the future. All needed, relevant and purposeful investigations in trying to keep presidents from a person with a gun who’s on mission. Particularly if this person is an armed-young man looking for the basement of a Washington DC pizza parlor; or crossing state lines with a long gun looking to join in on a riot.

Without a doubt there are enough crazies out and about to go around for any event at any time or any where. But what about the more rational people who join the crazies. What were they listening to when they began storming the Capitol looking for somebody to hang. Is this our new normal: hanging vice presidents and shooting former presidents.

It has to go deeper. There has to be a cosmic reason that will never be found in a six-month, 1,500 page government investigation. It goes deeper than an Incel with a weapon. Maybe the universe keeps trying to tell us something and we are just not listening or seeing it.

It reminds me of Daniel in the court of King Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who sacked Jerusalem. Ole Belsh and his nobles, his wives and his concubines where having a grand old party. The band played on, and to add some more glitter to festivities, it was decided that they should be drinking from something better than the Big Red Cups they picked up at Costco. Belsh calls the Royal Cup-bearer to get the good cups from the royal vaults. Bring up the gold goblets: The one father looted from “the temple of God in Jerusalem.”

I want to a pause here for a moment and explain something. There are many things in life where commons sense comes in. Some are just little sayings like don’t count your chickens until they hatch. Jim Croce sang a song about tugging on Superman’s cape and spitting into the wind. There is always a line we should not cross. No matter how invisible that line is, we know it is there. And we have all known when we have crossed it, felt that warm saliva dripping down our face.

The Royal Cup-bearer returns with the silver and gold goblets from the Jews. The Party was crossing that cosmic line when they started drinking from those looted-gold goblets. To add insult to cosmic injury, as Ole Belsh, along with “his wives and his concubines drank, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.” It is one thing to drink from your defeated advisories’ cups, but do you have to mock them as you do it.

Here is where the mysticism, the supernatural part of the Bible kicks in. Belsh’s sacreligious good time was suddenly ruined when “fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall…The king watched the hand as it wrote.” Needles to say he freaked out.

Like any good government official, King Belshazzar set up a commission to determine what this bodiless hand just scrawled on the wall. He called for his enchanters, astrologer and diviners–today’s pundits, podcasters and cable news squawking heads. But, much like Humpty Dumpty, whose king’s men had no idea how to put an egg back together, Belshazzar’s wise men hadn’t a clue what was scrawled on the wall. Despite seeing the writing, it went beyond the scope of their visual interpretation.

There was one person in the kingdom that had some experience in dealing with dreams and interpreting the supernatural. Daniel, a kidnapped Jew from Jerusalem who was sent to learn Babylonian ways. And here again I want to take a moment for people who have doubts about the authenticity and the verity of Biblical narratives. I am not trying to preach. However, there is a deeper secular meaning and message that can be applied without getting into the whole “God Thing.”

Sometimes trying to interpret human activities and events goes into another dimension. We have all zoned out once or twice and snapped to with some authority figure, usually a parent, asking forcefully: What were you thinking? Lines are easily crossed in moments of mild cognitive impairment. It is when our mind wanders off to who knows where. It is a place where our senses abandon us to the gray areas of different mental realities–off in the ozones racing around with our heads in a cloud.

The first thing Daniel tells Ole Belsh is you “have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this.  Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven.” Here again, let’s not get bogged down with the Lord of heaven but let’s look at the reality of that invisible line of reality that the universe puts before us. It is line that we should not cross any more than sticking a nail in an electric socket. Nothing good really comes from that whether you believe in God or not.

Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall telling King Belshazzar that “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

That, however was not all. Unlike some fairy tales with happy endings where the king lives happily ever after, according to Daniel, “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.”

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. In no way am I suggesting, equating, comparing, associating or lumping together anybody of today with King Belshazzar and his merry band of nobles, wives and concubines. All I am implying is that maybe there is a greater message for us. There is a deeper metaphysical, cosmic meaning to Trump’s assassination attempt that goes beyond the observations and understanding of the physical and political senses. I find it interesting that Trump was shot in the ear. Is the universe sending us a message. Telling us to listen. (Maybe Biden got the message.)

For instance, people are talking about dialing down the violent rhetoric that has been building for more than a decade. I hate to say it but that bull is already in the ring. Donald Trump did not create the foundations for our dysfunctional political and judicial environment we have today. He is, however, the poster person for it with his irreverent comments, particularly those aimed at immigrants, opponents and black cats that cross his path. His comments are often laced with hostility and are aimed to either agitate and antagonize most everybody. It is just not good karma. He plays upon this negative narrative like Keith Moon drumming during a Who concert.

Maybe we should forgo the explanatory narrative. Instead, listen to the universe’s writing on the wall. Its giving us wake up call. A call for all of us to just shut the f**k up and listen for change. It is calling us to listen to that small voice of sanity within each of us.

A “Baby’s Brain and an Old Man’s Heart”

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Political pundits are trying to make sense of what was supposed to be a Presidential Debate. I am not sure what we witnessed. The one thing we did see was two old men suffering from some sort of cognitive brain dysfunctions. I don’t think you have to be a brain surgeon, or a rocket scientist, to see there was a serious lack of gray matter being utilized in both debaters.

From the first Egyptians who used crude tools to bore through the skull to cure brain disorders, to MRis, scientists have been trying to map out the functions of the brain and its various parts. I am not neuroscientist, and far be it for me to analyze two old man banding about their golf handicap; but from where I sat, it was sad sight to see the cognitive dysfunctions of both debaters, one of whom will be the leader of the free world.

According to the Cleveland Clinic the gray matter in the brain “is where information processing happens. The grey matter is the seat of a human’s unique ability to think and reason. The grey matter is the place where the processing of sensation, perception, voluntary movement, learning, speech and cognition takes place.”

It was obvious there was some sort of cognitive disconnect sparking back and forth in the debat. Biden’s debate performance was much like an aging quarterback struggling to avoid being gang tackled. Our brain controls different signals that control different processes, It is how our brains interpret what we want to call the real world.

Biden appeared to be two steps too slow throughout the debate. Most of the time he looked like a duck who just got hit on the head. It was a Looney Toon moment: “Dah, which way did he go…” It was obvious that he lost his train of thought. It appeared he was confused on his own talking points, which for a politician is like a life preserver for a drowning man. Sure, he got a few good quacks in, like when he told Trump that he had the morality of an alley cat.

On the other side of the debate stage Trump was the surfer masterfully riding the wave of lies he has been surfing for eight years. His strategy was “go with what got you there.” It was the “Home of the Whopper”–super size the lies. And during the debate those lies were flying off the debate stage like Blow Flies heading for a shit house. It is really too bad that this debate leads the way to the White House.

Today, researchers have more tools than the sharply honed rocks the Egyptians used to look into the skull. Researchers believe that the various regions of the brain serve different functions from processing information and transmitting information to other parts of the brain and various parts of the nervous system. It would appear, to me, that each debater was using different parts of their brain to make their points. And to be honest, I don’t think they were making any good connections within their own brains because whatever was coming out of their mouths made no sense at all.

For instance, according to mindful.com, the amygdala is “the brain hub for emotional and arousal processing, often associated with the fight-or-flight response.”This is the area of the brain that shows the highest level of activity when the very first self-serving lie (is) told.” The level of activity in this area of the brain can possibly predict how big the next lie will be.

According to a recent Nature Neuroscience study by Tali Sharot and her team at University College London, “the more we lie for our own benefit, the more desensitized we become to the negative emotions associated with lying, and the easier it becomes to tell even bigger lies. She says, “part of the emotional arousal we see when people lie is because of the conflict between how people see themselves and their actions.”

The psychology of dishonesty, be it a child stealing marshmallows or politicians covering up large economic scams, stems from a deep primitive mechanism for self preservation, both physically and mentally. The protection of the ego, the need for others’ approval, the strong urge to escape negative and uncomfortable feelings, are all motivations for self-deception–mindful.com

It seems obvious that the GOP has no problem with this strategy. After all, it was Trump’s administration that introduced us to “alternative facts.” We have bee desentized to their alternative facts. Alternative facts are like Fashion Fidget Dolls : “they can go wherever you go! Fashion Fidgets combine the stress release & focusing benefits of a traditional fidget toy, with the imaginative pretend play: you can collect them, and trade for them, you can even mix and match them.”

If this election were a football game, Trump is GOP signal caller. The Supreme Court seems to be his offensive line with various federal judges throwing downfield blocks to keep their man on the field. There are plenty of Congressmen and Senators coming into the game, too. They all want to run that trick play that can possibly give them a shot at owning the libs.

On the other sideline, the question Democrats are asking is do you send the veteran Joe Biden back in? Do you send him out for the second half? Does he have one more inning left in him? They are mulling does one bad outing signal its time to bench the starter, bring up somebody from the bench or just retire a player that as literally been a major player for the Dems for 50 years. Eventually Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron called it quits. But if this was the second half of the Super Bowl or Game Seven who do you want with the ball? The aging crafty veteran or younger, stronger more agile signal caller lacking game time.

The question I ask is how as a nation did we get in this position of having to decide between a convicted liar and Grandpa. It was “a long time ago” maybe “in a galaxy far, far way” that we thought Richard Nixon was a crook and Reagan was to old be president. Boy, we were not even close.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24831-grey-matter

https://www.mindful.org/this-is-your-brain-on-lies/#:~:text=Our%20Lying%20Brain&text=The%20amygdala—the%20brain%20hub,in%20the%20amygdala%20would%20drop.

Liars’ Brains Wired Differently