John Steinbeck, "East of Eden," Chapter 34

A child may ask, 'What is the world's story about?' And a grown man or woman may wonder, 'What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we're at it, what's the story about?'

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too -- in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof (old terms for weaving cloth) of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite changes we might impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well -- or ill?

Herodotus, in the Persian War, tells a story of how Croesus, the richest and most favoured King of his time, asked Solon the Athenian, a leading question. He would not have asked it if he had he not been worried about the answer. 'Who,' he asked, 'is the luckiest person in the world?' He must have been eaten with doubt, and hungry for reassurance. Solon told him of three lucky people in old times. And Croesus more than likely did not listen; so anxious was he about himself. And when Solon did not mention him, Croesus was forced to say, 'Do you consider me lucky?'

Solon did not hesitate in his answer. 'How can I tell?' he said. 'You aren't dead yet.'

And this answer must have haunted Croesus dismally as his luck disappeared, and his wealth and his kingdom. And as he was being burned on a tall fire, he may have thought of it and perhaps wished he had not asked or not been answered.

And in our time, when a man dies -- if he has had wealth and influence, power and all the vestments that arouse envy, and after the living take stock of the dead man's property and his eminence and works and monuments -- the question is still there: Was his life good or was it evil? -- which is another way of putting Croesus's question. Envies are gone, and the measuring stick is: Was he loved or was he hated? Is his death felt as a loss or does a kind of joy come of it?

 I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone received the news with pleasure. Several said 'Thank God that son of a bitch is dead.'

Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I wondered if he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died, the nation rang with praise, and just beneath, with gladness that he was dead.

There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance, but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when there were ugly forces loose in the world to ultilize their fears. This man was hated by the few. When he did, the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, 'What can we do now? How can we go on without him?'

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved, his life must be a failure to him, and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action we should remember our dying so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

 We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly re-spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new, fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

Flashmob Video

I never get tired of watching this.

An Open Letter to Michelle Dugger

An Open Letter to Michelle Duggar As She Celebrates Her Victory In Repealing Anti LGBT Discrimination Laws
By Carissa House-Dunphy on December 13, 2014

Dear Mrs. Duggar,
Over the years, I have often defended you to friends and in online comments that criticize the life you have chosen for yourself. I’ve seen and heard comments that describe your family as abusive since your older children become caretakers of the younger while many feel that they should be enjoying their youth, and that you blatantly exploit your children by allowing cameras to record their every awkward and private moment for your own profit.

I have defended you despite how differently your life is structured from my own. I never chose to have children, and I’ve taken a lot of criticism and have been the target of a lot of confused reactions to that choice. Despite my own feelings about whether or not to become a mother, I have always defended your right to have as many children as you wanted and to earn money to raise those children in any way that you saw fit. I would never support any law that discriminated against you for your religious beliefs or your decision to birth nineteen children. I would never stand for our government limiting your right to express those beliefs, or allow a landlord to discriminate against you by refusing to rent you a home to house your family of twenty-one, or an employer to discriminate against you by refusing to allow you 19 separate maternity leaves. You see, Mrs. Duggar, I get that your being granted those rights doesn’t affect or harm me in any way. None of my beliefs about motherhood, marriage, or religion are challenged by your own, nor are my rights limited because you’re allowed the right to live a different lifestyle than mine.

You and I were both raised in a Christian church. The core beliefs, similarly, were based on the words of Jesus. Somehow, though, I missed those passages printed in the Bible in red where Jesus said that we must discriminate against others in order to follow His teachings. Instead, I was taught Biblical passages such as “Judge not lest ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1), “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), and “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

While you celebrate your successful campaign to repeal anti-LGBT legislation in your town that would prevent housing and employment discrimination based on a tenant’s or employee’s sexual identity, I stand here, confused. While the country screams “discrimination!” and “unconstitutional!” over a decision to kick Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson out of the NFL because one chose to abuse his wife and the other his child, there is still such a large faction of fundamentalist Christians who believe that they should be allowed to discriminate in hiring an LGBT person. While landlords rent every day to people who commit all sorts of sins, as we all do according to the Bible (“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23), the messages you received in church somehow told you that your sins are lighter and less offensive to Christianity than the sins of others. I’m not sure, Mrs. Duggar, that you and I really were both raised in a Christian church with a Christian message.

You see, I understand that making life more difficult for LGBT people will not reduce the numbers of people who identify as other than heterosexual, nor should that even be a goal. LGBT persons have lived and struggled to be accepted despite decades, centuries even, of LGBT living as targets of violence and discrimination.
I also know that it is not an increase in protections for LGBT people, or same-sex marriage rights, or work in eliminating the discrimination levied against transgender people, that are turning people away from the Christian church. It’s hypocrisy. Hypocrisy such as yours, Mrs. Duggar, in thinking that any sin you commit should be weighed less heavily or considered less of a sin than anyone else’s. Hypocrisy such as yours, also, in saying “I’m a Christian” despite your lack of kindness toward and acceptance of other people.

Yet, I’ll continue to defend your choices. I’ll continue to do so because I DID hear those messages in church that told me that I was not better than anyone else in the eyes of God. I heard those messages that told me not to judge others. I heard those messages that told me that God sees my sins as no different than anyone else’s.

I heard the words of Jesus that told me to love others.
Sincerely,
Carissa

I"ll See Your Reasons, And Raise You Measured Data

I found it.
Actually I just ran across it accidentally while reading the econoblogs and following links, but I had been wondering if there was a simple presentation of this somewhere.

A Facebook friend of a friend had commented on my friend's post saying that volcanos produce way more carbon dioxide than humans.  This was in the context of global warming isn't real because, you know, reasons.  There was a strong suggestion that she believed that the thousands of climate scientists around the globe over the last several decades had somehow failed to account for the amount of CO² produced by volcanos, and possibly other natural sources, in their measurements, and that, since she knew about this and they didn't, that she had knowledge superior to the so-called experts.

Okay, that sounded a bit more contemptuous than I intended, but I'm going to let it stand.

My reading last night led me to this article, which had the following graphs.

  The black line in each graph represents actual measured temperatures, and the red line in the top graph represents the median temperature predicted through modeling.  The top graph represents both natural and man made contributions to greenhouse gasses.
    The bottom graph removes the man made contributions from the equation, the blue line representing the median temperature predicted through modeling.  This chart would cover everything natural, like volcanos, cow farts, and forest fires.
   So yes, it seems that someone has indeed taken the time to figure out how things would be if we weren't around to screw things up.