EXCERPT FROM A LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL

 Written in April of 1963.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice, who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice, who constantly say “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.” Who paternalistically believes that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom…” Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail. 

He echoes what I've often felt. Who are the greatest enemies of change? The diehard segregationists, abortionists, talking heads at least they make no secret of who they are? Or is it the nice people who just can't be bothered, don't want to rock the boat, don't have time or are afraid that they'll get into trouble too. 

And another group we've seen all too many of these last election cycles. They can't get al that they want, when they want it, so they pick up their marbles, go home and forfeit the more important right we have that is guaranteed under the constitution. The right to vote. Also the responsibility to make sure the candidate are there to do the job, not running as a spoiler. Jill Stein comes to mind as an example. And if Ralph Nader had sat out the election in 2000? Old news but it does get you to thinking. 

Also the churchmen who told King that he was supposed to stick with spiritual matters and not meddle in politics. But how can you separate the two? You can't. King pointed out that young white men and young black men were being sent half way around the world to fight toeither when in many parts of the country they couldn't sit down a share a meal in the local  diner. 

THE INCONVENIENT HERO

It's the annivesary of the I Have a Dream speech. Our national mythology drops MLK off the radar in 1963 and he resurfaces just in time to be murdered in cold blook in Memphis in 1968. Ah the sixties. frankly when you think about it very little permanent good came out of that chaotic decade.  

This is an excerpt from the conclusion of Vincent Harding’s essay The Inconvenient Hero found in his collection Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero.

This essay collection was originally published in 1996. The echoes of the fall of the Soviet Union were still reverberating. If he had revised the essay for the second edition he probably could have used manipulated anti terrorism and it would mean pretty much the same thing.

1996 the videogame industry was just taking off and “Reality TV” was a nightmare waiting to be born.

The so called Free Trade Agreement treaties were just being negotiated and signed. Beware when anyone in any government or corporate position tries to pat you on the head and tell you not to worry your little head about the details; it’ll all work out.

And the toxic hyper individualism pushed by the likes of the Ryans and Santorums was just beginning to send out its poisonous tendrils.

Harding really catches the cadence of the spoken word in the written word. If you can get away with it try reading it out loud. And Mr. Harding goes in the neglected Wordsmith column.

“Who dares recall the man when, when all the plagues he fought are still among us, standing in the way of the “America we hope to be”: poverty and exploitation, racism, militarism, materialism, manipulated anticommunism? How shall we recall him when the America which has been is still protected and justified by Bible quoting presidents and supine legislators who offer no visionary leadership to a spiritually crippled people?

Who dare rededicate themselves to the causes of this hero? Who is there now when major portions of his black middle class have made their peace, found equal opportunity in the America that is? Someone.

Who is there now when the overwhelming experience of the black church is still focused on the individualistic religious experience, breaking faith with the Tubmans, the Turners, the Truths, and the Kings (and the King)/? Someone.

Who is there now when so many Black youth in whom the fire once burned are now being cooled out by drugs, by jail, by military lies, by poisoned cultural opium in music and on screens, and by big money for small games? Someone.

Who is there when so many of his white comrades now stand by in cynicism, success, fear, and puzzlement? Someone.

Who is there when the poor (and the recently poor) now compete for crumbs across racial and ethnic lines, rather than standing together in vision, to pray, to recollect, to plan, to struggle? Someone.

Who stands with a hero who insists on living for the broken and exploited,  Who refuses to deny nightmares, who still will not let dreams die, and is not afraid to go on exploring, trembling, stumbling wherever dreams lead him? Someone.

Who will open the door for the children, to let them see him, feel him, as he was, to recall him as he is, perhaps to expose their hungry, directionless lives to the flaming vector of his passion for the poor? Someone.

Is he safely dead? Perhaps we should recall him and see. Now. Perhaps in the process we  learn again how to live – unsafely, in love with God and neighbor, with cleansing, purifying fire, with the America that is yet to be created – by us. 

THE BALONEY DETECTION kIT PART ONE

From the Rational Wiki and partly based on Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection kit. Personally I prefer another slightly longer word that also begins with the letter B. See below.

 OK, before anyone gets overly offended most of the arguments have to do with evolution vs. young earth Creationism. Probably because that's what's in the news the most. But once you recognize the arguments you can fight back against all sorts of baloney. Sagan was too kind. I tend to substitute bullshit for baloney, because frankly most of what we're hearing out there is bullshit. Prize for today. Candidate for congress from the cheese state of Wisconsin regarding gay marriage. "They can get married. Just not to each other." Face palm etc. Getting married to EACH other is the goal. What do you suggest? That they marry other people and have an affair behind their backs? That slope isn't just slippery. It's covered with six inches of ice.

Anyway here goes.

Type of Fallacy:
Ad hominem

Definition:
An ad hominem argument attacks the messenger not the message. Also known as “don’t kill the messenger.” The argument may be true. It may be false. The quality of the argument doesn’t depend who is carrying the message.

Example:
“The secular geologist can’t see or hear the message about Creationism because of their academic indoctrination in anti-biblical uniformitarian assumptions. The reason that most Christian geologists can’t see it is the same, plus the fact they have believed the scientific establishment more than the Bible that they claim to believe is the inspired, inerrant Word of God.”  Oh, that pesky secular education.

This doesn’t say anything about the argument of Creationism, but rather the scientists. And the assumption that because you happen to be a geologist and a believer you are also going to share the fundies belief that the theological library in a book is inspired, without error and to be taken literally There are believers in the sciences, they just don’t share the beliefs of the Ken Hamms and the guy who owns Hobby Lobby. They read the textbooks, read the papers, listen to the arguments and MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS.

Can't have that now can we?

STILL PASSING FACE PALM APPROACHING MELT DOWN

 

When I originally wrote this entry you could make comments on the reviews on Amazon. Back in 2020 Amazon not only removed the ability to comment on a review but removed all the comments already written. Too bad. It was a riot to read the comments on this particular review. 

I have admited over the years that admired Carl Sagan. He may not have been the best scientist in his field but his ability to explain how science works was remarkable. He didn't talk down to his adience. He assumed that anyone who was curious, willing to listen, perhaps willing to do some of their own research was capable of understanding the basics of science. He had his prejudices and was upfront about them. Didn't have much use for astrology or the UFO mania. He didn't discount the possibillity of life on other worlds just that was no hard evidence that thos possible aliens had visited earth. Or if they had they didn't leave any evidence  behind. I still make no apologies for being totally PO'd  at a reivew written by someone who didn't bother to watch the series or do any basic reserach on Dr. Sagan's background and education. And it's only gotten worse. At least it looks like it to these tired eyes. 

Between politics, crap like this and some stories about rape/shaming culture in certain fundie colleges in this country I was just about ready do somebody some serious injury last night. So I wrote it out instead of punching it out. 

“I rented the 13 episode series after having watched a portion on PBS, thinking that it seemed like a good watch. How wrong I was. This is nothing more than a New Age brainwashing series. The music, often Vangelis, repeating the same things over and over, does nothing but brainwash and dumb the viewer. The overall purpose of the video series is a "science as religion" infommercial (and perhaps a means of self-worship -- he seems to enjoy the sound of his own voice). Sagan, as it should by now now be widely known, himself engaged in his fair share of pseudoscience. He is best described as a sci-fi writer pretending to be a scientist. By accusing others of pseudoscience, he was able to divert attention away from his own pseudoscience because clearly, anyone accusing anyone else of something can't possibly be doing the same thing. That would be hypocritical! And, after almost 30 years, the tapes still sell for this ridiculous price. Save yourself the time and/or money and restrict yourself to series about real science. This is in the same league as "What the bleep do we know?", judging by the trailers and clips of the latter.”

This is a review of the original Cosmos series I stumbled over on Amazon. I do love the one star reviews. In a back handed, how can anybody be so freakin’ braindead in the 21^st century sort of way.

One the reviewer doesn’t tell us how much of the series he/she actually watched. I’m guessing just enough to trigger the inbuilt fundie meter. I gathered enough from their other reviews to suspect we might be dealing with some kind of “theology” student here.

Anyway, typical fundie bashing of anyone they don’t agree with. Beginning with, drum roll please.

“New Age propaganda.” New Age as defined by Webster: an eclectic group of cultural attitudes arising in late 20th century Western society that are adapted from those of a variety of ancient and modern cultures, that emphasize beliefs (as reincarnation, holism, pantheism, and occultism) outside the mainstream, and that advance alternative approaches to spirituality, right living, and health. If this mindless twit had bothered to actually watch the series he/she would have discovered that Carl Sagan was about as New Age as my mother. He doesn’t mention reincarnation, had no patience with the occult, astrology or the UFO cult of the times. He doesn’t discount the possibility of extra terrestrial life. Just that we’ve been visited recently. Or any time for that matter.

Geez, what do you have against Vangelis? The soundtrack also includes other “New Age” brain washers such as Vivaldi, Bach, Pachelbel and Rimsky Korsokoff.

Science as religion. Excuse me while I go take forty turns around the yard to cool off. Science is just that science. And Sagan did spend a fair amount of time over the course of the series lamenting what we’ve lost in the fires of history. Also lost libraries.

“loves the sound of his own voice.” Yo, Spam for brains (sorry for insulting a perfectly useful if calorie and salt laden lunch meat) he’s the narrator for cryin’ out loud. The programs are his personal opinions so there are very few other talking heads involved. I guess he could have collected a bunch of slides, put labels on them and did a thirteen hour slide show. 

“A pseudo scientist pretending to be a scientist.” Face palm, head bounce, ear splitting scream. Two bachelors, a master’s and a PhD. Taught in California, at Harvard and Cornell. He participated in several space missions through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I mean how much MORE DO YOU WANT!!!. I have at least four of his essay collections in my library. Demon Haunted World was probably the best.. He did write ONE novel. Contact, which I haven’t read. Saw the move though. It was cool. Known as a science fiction writer pretending to be a scientist????? Are we even on the same planet?

I suspect that the so called pseudo science in question is Sagan’s thorough going, passionate defense of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. And I do mean passionate. He spent at least ten minutes in the second episode waxing nealyr poetic over the shared ancestry of bacteria, fish, trees…and us. And I just rewatched the third episode. I suspect the other "pseudoscience" is climate change. Sagan was ringing the alarm bells back in 1980. 

This is a prime example of the mountains of crap we have to put up with as we try to too many of our fellow citizens kicking, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs out of the Dark Ages and into the future. Can’t stop now there’s too damn much to lose.

 And please excuse the caps and extra punctuation, but I passed pissed off yesterday and am rapidly heading into ballistic territory.

One consolation out of thirty six comments originally attached to this one star review, ninety five percent were of the “bro, what HAVE you been smoking” variety. 

THE PALE BLUE DOT

Shot taken by the Cassini space probe. That tiny dot below the rings of Saturn is our earth. What Carl Sagan called "the pale blue dot."  

When the Voyager space craft had reached just beyond the outer planets Carl Sagan persuaded the  mission controllers to turn the space craft around to take pictures of the planets. Earth didn't even cover a whole pixel. And this is what Carl Sagan had to say about that piece of a pixel. 

What he had to say about that small island in the Cosmic Ocean can't be said often enough. Neil Tyson used this quote in the finale of the final episode of the new Cosmos. That quote and his summing up are enough to get me to buy the series.

"From the Pale Blue Dot.

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar. Every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, live there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturing, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity-in all this vastness- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and if I might add, a character building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known..

 Carl Sagan.

Yes, it's the only home we have or will have in the forseeable future so we do we keep treating it like a garbage dump? Why do we treat our neighbors as if they were disposable trash? Why, oh why, oh why. I was literally in tears at the end of the episode. We're capable of so much more. So damn much more.

A CELTIC PRAYER

This is an adaptation of a Celtic prayer that I found in the book KNITTING INTO THE MYSTERY.

May the blessing of light be on you,
light without and light within
and light inside the darkness within.
May the blessed sunlight shine upon you
and warm your heart 'til it glows,
like a great peat fire, so that strangers may come
and warm themselves; and that friends may come.
And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you--
The soft, sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that the seedlings of light
in you shadow may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool,
and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing for the earth be on you--
the great round earth
who carries all; the great round earth
whose suffering has already become radiant.
May you ever have a kindly greeting for people
you pass as you are going along the roads.
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly,
your kin and all creatures.

Blessed be

I've noticed that prayers of the Celts can't be read quickly. They loved their words and every one of them counted. To be said slowly, mindfully.

THE BULLSHIT PRINCIPLE

Sometimes you just have to call bullshit by its right name. 

Sounds  about right. Some folks may not believe the moon is made of cheese but they will claim until both sides are blie in the face that the moon lnadings were faked. Only now it's the twin towers were an inside job, there was massive voter fraud in 2020, heck there were claims that Uvalde was "fake news" before the victimes were even buried. 

IT'S ALL A DANCE

 

Much more fun than trying to take any longer than necessary with the sad sack in the last entry. They are out there and like a black hole. They will suck all the joy and mystery out of the universe if you let them. 

That is a map of the tectonic plates. And that little guy up north is the Juan De Fuca plate. It's subducting, slowly moving under the Pacific Northwest and northern California. At the blinding speed of up to two inches or so a year. The whole surface of the earth is moing in one direction or another. It's too bad this map doesn't show the deep ocean trenches where basaltic magma flows up to the surface pushing everything next to them away. 

And while those plates are creeping along the earth is rotating on its axis. Spinning at about one thousand miles per hour. So much for the sun standing still over Jericho. Just my personal opinion. The earth revolves around the sun at about sixty seven thousand miles per hour. The solar system revolves through the Milky Way Galaxy at just over half a million miles per hour. It takes us about a quarter of a million years to make just one revolution. The whole galaxy is rotating around the galactic center at about four hundred senventy miles per hour. 

I've been trying, with some success, to work my way through a geology text. But when I got to the point where I was contemplating all that spinning, all going on at the same time, I got just a little dizzy. And then I stepped back a little and just thought about the wonder of it all. And at all the hard work it takes to make the measuments, double check, do it again and maybe give up a cherished belief or two that the evidence won't support anymore. 

There are two ways of looking at the world. You have evidence and come up with an explanation that fits the evidence. Or you have an explanation and you go looking for the evidence to back it up. Even if you have to twist the evidence like a pretzel to back it up. Treating scripture as a science textbook is one glaring example. And I believe I will stop there. 

DON'T KNOW HOW TO TITLE THIS ONE

 

This is from a page on Face Book. It is not a fake page. I'm not really sure where the author of this word salad is coming from. I assume with the crack about our president that he is referring to the folks who believe that the 2020 election was not stolen from the previous tenant of the White House. There are a lot of words that don't say a whole hell of a lot. And honestly say more about the author than they do about the targets. The crack at the end. You all don't know how sad your are but I do. Whew!

I was going to do more with this sad sack. Glad I do not know this person. 

THE CLIMATE BAROMETER SHRUB

Back in the mid seventies I bought a rhododendron for my folks anniversary. We planted it on the south east cornor of the house. It was the last to bloom and the last to bloom out. Usually about mid June.

By the mid nineties I started to notice that I was dead heading the shrub by the end of May. A full two weeks earlier. That bush became my "climate change" barometer. 

By the early teens the hot weather was arriving in early July instead of mid July. The temps were a little higher and it was lasting longer. To make it more interesting we were getting some colder spells in the winter. That last winter were were in Springfield it got to sixteen below and for the lower Willametter Valley that is COLD. 

I also learned another valuable lesson with that shrub. It's called Blue Jay. And I was told that is would live up to it's name. It's actually lavender blue. If you want it "bluer" dig in some iron sulphate around the roots. Give 'em an iou and go shopping when the plant is actually in bloom. Saves time. 

WARNING SNOWFLAKES AHEAD

 

An individual snowflakeis easy to melt. Put a lot of snowflakes together and you get avalanches or glaciers. Either one can kick your ass. Avalanches now. Glaciers slowly and steadily as they reshape the landscape.

GENERATIONS

 More than once I've had a comment on story answered with "if you don't like it here..." And my usual answer, back when I cared enough to answer, ran along these lines." I'm Scots, Irish, English, Welsh, German and I go back far enough to include Kievan  Russ and Armenian. And for all I know some Hungarian. The last ancestor to land here came off the boat in New York in 1850. Boarded in either Belfast or Liverpool. The earliest in the middle 1630's in Massachusetts. Or what became Massachusetts and Connecticut. Where do you think I should go and if you can beat 1630 we'll talk." Funny how no one has ever answered back. Can't imagine why.

Anyway this entry was inspired by this story. Arizona used to be part of Mexico so at least some of those Latinos being harassed have probably been here awhile. And then there's that pesky Native American who has us all beaten on the centuries his family has been here.

Ironically I have Hispanic relatives. Mom's big brother marries a lovely young lady named Soccora, better known as aunt Cora, just before the end of WWII. Left the navy and became a cop in LA. Her family came from what is now Arizona and New Mexico. One of her grandfathers came from Spain, probably before the Mexican War. Lost a relative or two to the Yaqui indians. Some of the cousins definitely favor their mom's side of the family. 

I find myself wondering how they fare sometimes. And really, as much as you want to are you going to tell some asshole packing a gun to just MYOB or better yet F*** O**? I have to be honest. At my age and limited mobily I'm not sure I'd have the guts. 

Wonder how many of those flag waver's ancestors came through right after Ellis Island was opened. When if you looked healthy and strong enough to work in the factories or sweat shops you were in like Flynn. And the current occupant is second gen on his father's side and first gen on his mother's. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

In the five years or so since I wrote the orginal entry, bold paragraphs newly added, nobody has ever taken me up on the "can you beat the 1630's challenge. Gotta go recheck Thomas Hooker. He led a walk out from Massachusetts to what became part of Connecticutt over voting rights.

HYPHENATED AMERICANS

 Some white folks are complaing that they can't celebrate being "white" matters the same way "black" matters. Well for starters the only group of white folks that don't celebrate just being white are the English Americans. And if we can trace that part of our heritage back far enough we're likely to go back to the county great grandpa about seven times removed came from.

In my case Yorkshire. The west riding to be exact. York was it's own kingdom a long time ago during the Danish occupation of that part of England. The one thing I thing remarkable is that once that long lost Norman ancestor got there the family stayed there. For five hundred years. Probably married a Saxon. And the County of York was so big it was split into three sections or ridings. An old Viking word. And looking at the map. Yorkshire is just a little more than half the size of Wales.

And if your name was too long, had too many syllables that nobody could rightly pronounce, your English was passable and your accent not too pronounced you move someplace else and lose that first half of that hyphenated description and change your name. Especially back when paper work wasn't so organized and small towns didn't care too much about the details.

Anyway we've got Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Scots, Germans, Finns,Hungarians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians, Greeks, Russians. A real alphabet soup of hypenated citizens. And I have traced on little branch back to Armenia. A very long time ago. I am a walking, talking, union of hyphens.

Even Native Americans have a good idea where at least part of their ancestry comes from. Lakota, Cheyenne, Cree, Cherokee, Mohawk, Yakima, Umatilla. They are rediscovering their roots and not all of them ever lost them in spite of the electied hired help's best efforts to wipe them off the face of the earth.

Now the descendants of the Africans kidnapped and sold into the West Indies and the American colonies and southern states don't have those options. Can't change your skin color. Even worse you don't know which part of west Africa your ancestors came from or what tribe they were part of. There are no Yoruba Amercans, Igbo Americans, Fulani, Ashanti, Hausa, Kongo. At least most folks call them African Americans now. But Africa is a continent, not a country. Although it seems that more than a few of my fellow Americans flunked basic geography.

And as for last names. Slaves didn't have any. The names they were born with were stolen from them. I remember a scene from Roots where Kunta Kinte becamce Toby, if I remember correctly. And if I remember correctly, whipped until he answered to it. And in Stephen Foster's song we hear about Old Black Joe.

 So how did slaves get surnames. Some took or were given the last names of an owner. I suppose some were given the last name of their white fathers. After the civil war some took the last name of Freeman or Freedman. Maybe the job they were good at a Wheeler or a Carter.

 I sincerely hope that some African Americans that share one of my family names were given it because they were owned by my first cousins a few times removed, or they chose it, not because they are family. I would be proud to call them family, but not proud lf how they may have bocome family.

So some of us Scots Irish English Welsh German Americans would do well to remember that some other folks can't call themselves Yoruba Igbo Ashanti Americans. At least not without some pretty fancy DNA testing.

BUTTERFLY IN SPACE

 

 

The butterflynebula  loacated in the constellation Scorpius. Shot was taken by the Hubble telescope. 

Because to be honest trying to deal with that last belief about liberty in the back country brought to the colonies by the borderers and scots Irish is too damn depressing. Actually what it boils down to is what we are seeing around us. Shert definition "you have to respect my rights and I will respect yours when or if I feel like it. See you later after I spend a little time contemplating thst beauty.

AN AIRLINE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR 2

 

Originally posted on FaceBook by Rick Archer

 

Kulula is a low-cost South-African airline that doesn't take itself too seriously.

What a pity Kulula doesn't fly internationally - we should support them if only for their humour:

 

On a Kulula flight , (there is no assigned seating, you just sit where you want), passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing their seats, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people, we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!

 

On another flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies & gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."

 

And from the pilot during his welcome message:

"Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"

 

From a Kulula employee:

"Welcome aboard Kulula 271 to Port Elizabeth. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised.”

 

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite.

 

"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."

 

"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane"

 

"Thank you for flying Kulula . We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.”

 

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Durban Airport, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker:

"Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

 

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."

 

Heard on Kulula 255 just after a very hard landing in Cape Town: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump and I know what you all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the asphalt.”

 

Overheard on a Kulula flight into Cape Town, on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain really had to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Mother City. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"

 

Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal”

 

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline". He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment.

Finally, everyone had got off except for a little old lady walking with a cane.

She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Why, no Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?”

The little old lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"

 

AN AIRLINE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR 1

This will take a couple of entries. These shots are of the planes of Kulula Airlines in South Africa. Unfortunately they just went out of business in May of this year due to financing problems.  Too bad, these guys and gals didn't take themselves too seriously. You have to know your audience. I really can't imagine too many of my fellow citizens appreciating their humor. I could be wrong. But I didn't come across anything in online comments that complained of lost luggae.

Anyway these are aome shots of the planes.

SO MUCH MORE

 I'd forgotten about that poem. It's modeled after some of the works of Amergan. trying to get my head facing in the right direction again.  I guess you could call this a stream of consciousness exercise. All I know is that more than once I've started out heading in one direction and ended up somewhere else. 

I’m your typical American mutt. Scots, Irish, English, Welsh and touch of either Dutch or German. When I Google dad’s last name, Heaton, I end up in Yorkshire, a coastal county in northwestern England. There were Viking settlements in Northern Ireland and the north west of England so there may be a touch of the Scandinavian in the mix too.

All of these countries have one thing in common, the people who live there are never very far from the sea. And, except for most of Ireland, Holland and much of Germany; if you aren’t dealing with the ocean, you’re trying to get over a mountain. That may explain why both sides of dad’s family didn’t waste any time getting from the east coast to the west coast. The same is true of mom’s grandparents. They came from Tennessee and Indiana. When it was time to light for good, they were in Oregon.

One of grandma Heaton’s ancestors was born in Vermont in the early 1800’s, the family was in Iowa by the time she was born in 1889 and she was in Oregon before dad was born in 1915. If there had been more land west of Oregon, I don’t think she’d have stopped until she reached the Pacific.

 The sea longing is always there. A gossamer thread most of the time, but when I really stop to think about it, an ache that won’t go away.

We give the oceans names and think the naming gives us some sort of control. A name on a map.  A barrier to be crossed in a cocoon of pressurized air. Or the support of a sea going city as we flee the familiar while surrounded by the familiar on the way to more of the same.

When it could be so much more if we could only remember. If we could only remember the time when

I was an olive tree, gnarled roots clinging to tide washed crags;

I was a gull, wind tossed in a North Sea gale;

I was a wave, a crashing rainbow on black cliffs;

I was a branch, left on a beach as the tide ebbed;

I was a grain of sand, cut from the cliffs by the wind;

I was the sun, lost in the mists;

I was a cloud, pushed inland to be caught snow by capped peaks;

I was a drop of rain; at home in a mountain stream;

I was the river; caught between two shores;

I was the sand bar; carved by the tides;

I was all these things and will be again.

 

So, here I am; between the fire mountains and quenching seas, Poseidon’s country if He ever wanted to relocate from the Mediterranean. You see one of Poseidon’s nicknames, maybe the oldest, is Earthshaker. I think He’d be right at home on one of Oregon or Washington’s basalt headlands. And He wouldn’t have to go far to get a decent glass of wine.

THE INNER LIGHT

 The map is from How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. I don't agree with all of his ideas but the map really caught my attention. The Irish called it the Three Martyrdoms. Dying for the faith, becoming a monk or nun. or going on a pilgramiage. Monks trained by Saint Columba were among the first. Monks they trained moved further on. Through northern England, nothern Europe, down to the heel of the boot in southern Italy.

Lancashire and Yorkshire, home of the Quakers. Northern Europe home to the likes of Hildegarde, Ekhart and Martin Luther. Go a little further Assissi is right in the middle of Italy between Bobbio and Rome. Assissi home of Saint Francis and his Sermon to the Birds and the Creche at Christmas.

As I worked my way through the waves of English immigrants IFischer; discovered that there’s something you can’t escape. Religious history and political history are Siamese twins. You can’t understand the one without the other. And it’s our loss.

Each section of Fischer's Albion’s Seed has maps that show which part of England the majority of the members of that migrating group came from. Most of the Quaker immigrants came from northern counties including Yorkshire and Lancashire. As I was looking the maps, the highlighted regions seemed awfully familiar. They were. The counties that were home to the majority of Quaker immigrants overlap the paths the Irish monks took on their way to Europe. A path that took them through what became northern France and southern Germany all the way to the heel of Italy’s boot.

Those monks and missionaries planted their respect for the Creator and their belief that the believer could have a direct and personal experience of God. Perhaps that belief wasn’t so unusual in mystics like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Ekhart and Francis of Assisi. They all spoke of the Inner Light. Quakers continued the teaching and spoke of the Inner Light, but they went further in their beliefs. For a Quaker no intermediary between believer and Creator was necessary. No ordained ministers, no bishops. And at that point they parted company with just about everyone else in England. 

Like all new believers, the early Quakers were eager to share what they had experienced. They ran into immediate problems. They claimed the right to preach where they would and refused to tithe to the Anglican Church, the Established Church. Unless you accepted the 39 articles of faith you couldn't be liscensed as a doctor, lawyer, or teach in the universities. 

The preaching got them pilloried, whipped or imprisoned. The refusal to tithe led to confiscation of crops, stock and property. Often the value of what was taken was more than they owed the church. Quakers also believed in equality before God and played it out in the streets and the council chambers. They refused to take of their hats. Not even when they were before the king.  Most Quakers also refused to swear oaths. Their yea was yea and their nay was nay.

Enter William Penn. The son of an admiral in favor with the court of Charles II he converted in his early twenties. He managed to get himself arrested almost immediately for attending Quaker meetings. Young William traveled with George Fox not only in England but in Europe. He soon turned his hand to writing for the church. He turned out more than sixty pamphlets or short books, almost half of them on liberty of conscience.

One of the reasons I took more time with the Quakers had to do with a 1670 court case. Penn was arrested with William Meade and charged with preaching to a crowd of more than five people. They were denied the right to see the charges against them and the judge directed the jury to reach a verdict without the defense being allowed to present a case.

The jury returned a not guilty verdict. They were “invited” to change their verdict. The jury refused. The impasse continued over several days. When the jury continued to refuse to change their minds, the judge committed the defendants and the jury to Newgate prison. Penn and Meade for contempt and the jurors because he could I guess. 

One of the juror’s petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. After all he hadn’t committed a crime, he just refused to change his mind. Eventually, after some polite judicial back and forth over just which court he needed to go to for the writ, the writ was granted. Those justices also ruled that juries had the right to be free of intimidation. The right to habeas corpus in cases of unlawful detention was also upheld. Even though the trial was held in seventeenth century England, these rights found their way into American law.