New Sins, A Green Pope, Bioethics, & Human Welfare

Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man "in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils," reports Reuters, telling "the faithful" that they "should be aware of 'new' sins such as causing environmental blight."

So is he just another hypocrite, preaching green rhetoric with hands blackened from oil?

Actually no, he is not. Setting a supreme example for the planet, Reuters explains, the Vatican "has installed photovoltaic cells on [its] buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change."

In addition, the Pope has "made several strong appeals for the protection of the environment, saying issues such as climate change had become gravely important for the entire human race," writes Philip Pullella of Reuters.

This is a welcomed example and decree from a religious powercenter that commands the "world's largest single religious body" and has a following of about 1.13 billion people (wikipedia.org).

One could imagine that if all of the Roman Catholics really heeded the plea of the Vatican and followed its lead, they would be able to make as big an impact as if India with close to the same population became sustainable eco-friendly humans.

This is a most powerful proposition.

Unfortunately, this was undermined by the Archbishop's remarks to the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, wherein Reuters reports, he claims that "that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

I understand the philosophical morass and moral quandry Biotechnology presents to the Vatican's ideological structure - to many ideological structures - is serious.

But, shouldn't they be more concerned with events that are currently taking place, Climate Change, rather than developments like human cloning which has not happened?

Furthermore, which is more likely to have a greater impact on the live of the 1.13 billion Catholics, or the 6.8 billion humans:

That a man is cloned, a primordial embryo is lost,

Or

That grand glaciers melt, sea levels rise, flooding redoubles, extreme weather like tsunamis is provoked, drought and crop failures escalate (especially in the most impoverished nations on the planet), world hunger intensifies, and breathing becomes a health hazard (as is the already the case in Mexico City where breathing the air is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day) - to name a few?


Read the Reuters article.

American Pastoral

I have started engaging in discussions on what is basically an online bookclub, arguably the largest bookclub ever, called goodreads (check it out).

The first piece of fiction I has been discussing is American Pastoral by Philip Roth. He won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle prize for this. Also, the NYTimes said it was one of the best American novels written in the past 25 years.

Roth himself is the first three-time winner of the coveted Pen/Faulkner award, given only to books of exceptional caliber - sometimes it is decades or more before a book wins this award (though he did not win it for this book, see Human Stain).

Noting novels often defy life as they make order, system, and sense of out its chaotic madness - one of the exceptional things about this book is that Roth is able to intelligently execute an eloquent plot which spins on the very axis of this madness.

Here is a quote:

"What was astonishing was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for. It was as though while their lives were rich and full they were secretly sick of themselves and couldn't wait to dispose of their sanity and their health and all sense of proportion so as to get down to that other self, the true self, who was a wholly deluded fuckup."

Some thoughts on the quote:

Having seen people seemingly run out of whatever it is that makes them them, I guess as many do, the quote struck home for me. It's a fascinating phenomenon worthy of study in and of itself.

I would purpose, however, a question.

Does one really run out of their "essence" or do they simply forget to water the flower, purposely shove it in a dark corner, or actively pick its petals in some sort of self-destructive pleasure?

Does this "stuff" really just disappear, or is it hiding, lurking underneath other layers of ego and self, while we have convinced others as well as ourselves it is gone?

Can we really discard ourselves without, even unconsciously, keeping enough to know who we still are, that it's still us in there?

To read my review of the book go here and go to the posting by James.

America: Economics, War, and Hegemony: Part I

I've been thinking a lot about American Economics, War, and Hegemony and their relationship with one another. This piece is intended really as an introduction to a series of postings.

To begin, it is essential to ask the first question:

What drives the world's Economy?

It's materialism stupid.

Unquestionably, it is mankind's insatiable greed for things that directs world economic markets, their patterns fluctuating on what is bought, how much of it, and how likely or unlikely such a trend is to continue.

By and large, Americans are the most acquisitive creatures in existence and are thus at the heart of the global economy. With an omnipresent network of commercialism and materialism woven into every stripe and every star of American life, it's no wonder America has been dubbed the "economic engine" of the world.

(One could surmise if a poll was taken, shopping would be listed close to the top of favorite American pastimes, competing with baseball and American Idol.)

If the world economy is impelled by excessively object-focused peoples, then what is war impelled by?

War is often driven, if we're faithful to history, not to fight tyranny or proliferate liberty, not to halt atrocities or dispense global justice, though these are the guises, but by threats to economic interests and by efforts to reach Hegemony.

Paradoxically, to go to war to protect economic assets or cement geopolitical primacy, an entity has to already have substantial economic assets and geopolitical potency to fund and fight such a war.

That said, according to the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, "the total 2008 [US] military budget request is a whopping $647 billion." This includes the supplemental requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, in December of 2006, with already 687,000 active-duty troops, US President George W. Bush stated, "we do need to increase our troops — the Army, the Marines," costing he failed to mention about 1.2 billion dollars per 10,000 new recruits.

At that price, to bring the US troop census up to about 1970s levels (800,000), it would cost the US about $14.76 billion, and to bring them up to Korean War levels (1.6 million) from their current status it would cost about $110.76 billion.

Adding the cost of raising the US Military to 1970s levels to Bush's military budget request, one finds the price of US extravagant wealth and political prowess to total approximately $662 billion. There are not any plans to build up troops to the 1970s levels right now, but if current trends continue with military budget increases and incremental soldier boosts, we very well may exceed this figure in the next decade or so.

When a state requests almost two-thirds of a Trillion dollars to maintain its economic interests and hegemony, it requires an army of rapacious citizens dedicating their days and desires to the acquisition of goods, goods, and more goods. Without economic capital, military and political capital is nonexistent. The American government's faith in its people's addiction to consumerism is quite tremendous. It has to be. The hole system is based on it.

And so for me, it now clicks.

America's materialistic fanaticism is married to American's insatiate hegemony in what is most certainly a match made in Hell for everyone.

American Economics, War, and Hegemony

Do we really want this to be the last chapter in the book of Mankind?

The Power of Questions

They say

questions
just lead to
more questions,
but
we all know
this is farce -
there are
enough answers
to elicit
hope
and
hunger
for more,
and I demand
to know
which
questions
are the ones
that lead to such answers.

The never knowing
which
can
be
answered,
and
which
are
just
out there
lost and floating
through
endless cornfields,
is
confusing
deluding
and
conquering
each
and
every
one
of
us
on a
day to day
perhaps
moment to moment
basis.

It
has
driven
Man
to distort
reality
so often
that
his distortion
has become reality.

It
has
driven
Man
to a new
Madness.

Though
in
madhouses,

Men
very
rarely
discard
honest
interest
in
space
and
time
for
sake
of
ego
or
peace
of
mind.

When
faced
with
the
relentless
onslaught
that
is
existence,

These men face it.

They face it
like
bulbous knuckles,

They face it
like
shining razorblades,

They face it
like
cocked shotguns,


They face Life
like
Death,


defeating

meaninglessness

at every turn.


While


We face Life

like

we're Dead


adding
meaninglessness
to
our madness.


Do we have the whole thing backward?

Rain

Rain

I

don’t know

if there’s anything

quite as pretty

as watching

the rain's reflection

dance on my dash.

Each

drop

original

flowing

in

a

form

never

seen

and

never

forgotten,

creating

and

recreating

its shape

shaping

and

reshaping

its creation,

flowing

in and out

of perception itself,

vague existence

replaced

by vague nonexistence,

Where does the rain begin

and where does it end?

-James Floman-

Sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way

The following poem by Charles Bukowski is probably the most accurate and articulate commentary on Art - and Life for that matter -
that I have heard in a very long time. Enjoy.

So you want to be a writer?

If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready. don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self-love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.