Centime

Letter to the Goddess

My dearest Goddess,

It really is about guilt. Only by projecting my need to care for myself on you does it make it okay. It's a trick of the mind, isn't it? Already I fell less guilt when I claim I do it to honor you. Others would say I should have spent yesterday spraying the weeds and cleaning the house. But because of you and because I realize that when I feel better I can do more and stay better focused on my works for the god of wealth, business and industry. Thank you.

Liberal Bias My Ass

So I am at work. I have Yahoo as my home page. What do I see today?

Headline: Parties tearing country apart. Then, in tiny letters, Wall Street Journal

Headline: 'Nightmare Scenario', The fierce battle for the Democratic nomination could lead to a messy convention. Then, in tiny letters, ThePolitico.

The end times

I have always wondered why people so anxiously await the ‘end times’ and the second coming of Christ. I could understand if we lived in an endlessly hopeless time. But we don’t! Yes, there are some big problems that seem unsolvable.

I guess wishing for the magical appearance of something that would solve all the problems of this world is appealing. But I suspect that what God is expecting of us is that we solve our own problems. Perhaps we are here to become adults and not remain children waiting for the adults to come along and sort everything out. I’m no expert on all the religions of the world but from what little I have seen there does seem to be an emphasis on telling us to behave ourselves or the big daddy will punish us. Whether you are talking about the ‘end times’ or humming along to the Christmas song, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, you are basically being told to behave and follow the rules. Think about the lyrics to that song and how Santa is keeping a list and checking it twice to see who s naught and who is nice.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Jesus were to come back and immediately condemn all those who have been so anxiously awaiting his return because they had done nothing to make the world a better place? An amusing thought, don’t you thing? Well, until you stop and think that maybe you haven’t done much either.

Unfortunately, what is more likely is that millions will die in an apocalyptic war and Jesus won’t show up. Then generations if not millennia will be spent getting back to where we are today. Is it possible we have gone down this road before?

I almost forgot....

Yea! White Sox win the World Series!

Woo-hoo!!!!

maybe next year it will the Cubbies....

On writting...

However, throughout my career in corporate America I have seen and been involved in a many crazy, Dilbert-like situations. All through this I have thought that someday I would write a book. Very few novels and movies truly capture the craziness of it all. Especially not the craziness of us techies. Yes, I want to write a book.

So, with starting a new job and a new project, I thought that I really need to get a start on this someday now. I have begun to take notes about this project as it goes along. I am attempting to now only capture my own experiences but those of others as well. Currently it is being written as a blog with postings and diary's entries of the various characters/colleagues. Eventually I hope to convert things notes into a cohesive book or narrative.

However, I am discovering that I don't always remember things completely. It is very hard to remember all the conversations and actions and the order in which everything occurred. In addition, I don't make these entries at work but have to them later so quite often I don't get all the facts down before I forget them. It is also a challenge to capture the viewpoints of others. Another challenge is coming up for names for everyone.

I may never get this book written, but I certainly now understand why authors spend months and months writing novels.

Katrina, Our Chernobyl

Hurricane Katrina is our Chernobyl. I know that on the surface it may seem as though they have little or nothing in common. Chernobyl was a man-made disaster whereas Hurricane Katrina is an act of Mother Nature. However, both are environmental disasters. Both with take years to recover from and some places may never again be inhabitable. But what they really have in common is the fact that the government is acting like it is in denial. Government officials’ right after Chernobyl refused to admit that the reactor had had a meltdown. Just like now, our government official are refusing to admit the inhuman conditions in New Orleans.

I am not blaming the president for this. Although I have stated before and continue to believe that he had no concept what the average person deals with day to day, month to month and year to year. Never has he had to deal with not being able to pay his bills at the end of the month. He's a spoiled trust-fund baby brat who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself, his family, and his cronies. His first four years in office he did nothing to try and win support from those how did not vote for him. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t vote for him last year. My expectations of him are low. But his claiming that there was no way a disaster of this could have been foreseen is pure bullshit. It has been well documented and publicized that a hurricane of this magnitude could swamp New Orleans. It's been hanging over our heads for at least a hundred years.

However, there are many other layers of government that should have responded better and faster. The disaster was declared before the storm hit. Why weren't National Guard resources called up for duty earlier? For better or worse, a significant chunk of the National Guard is in Iraq. However, we are a big country with plenty of places that don't currently need their National Guard. Why are they only getting to New Orleans FOUR days after the storm struck? Because our government is in denial and refused to believe that things were as bad as they are. They believe their own lies that the media exaggerates things.

BTW, am I the only one who suspects these god-awful snipers down there might actually be terrorists? Disrupting our efforts to provide help down there would be kicking us while we are down. Also, ig I were a terrorist, this would be a mighty good time to strike us elsewhere. It’s a good thing these terrorist are neither nimble or imaginative....

I must also say that I love New Orleans. It is one of the most beautiful, vibrant places on earth. I hope that one day I can return there and that it will be better than ever.

User of Religion

As I was reading a discussion over on Reid's blog I felt my eyes glaze over and my attention wander. There was this talk about universalists and legalism, unbelief versus unbelievers, was Jesus an man or god, etc.

I almost left a long comment on how they were sounding like a bunch of programmers discussing the virtues of C++ versus Smalltalk, the future of CSS or RSS or how SQR's can do anything an application engine can. In fact, in my world of information technology these discussions on what tools to use are called 'religious wars' due to the fact that we techies are quite passionate about our work.

However, people outside my profession - users - generally have no interest in how the job is done, they just want a report to do a certain thing, a page to behave a certain way and they do not care about the nuts and bolts of how it is done. Yes, their eyes glaze over and their attention wanders.

This made me realize that I am a user of religion and I suspect most people are. So, just like a user of technology looks to technology to provide functionality for all sorts of things like shopping on-line, paying bills, running reports to get information on their customers or on where the costs are being incurred, what do people look to religion or spiritually to do for them? What functionality are they looking for?

Just like in information technology, the answer depends on the user. Many users of religion look to religion to give them a sense of belonging to a community. This is one the major reasons my Mother attends church. Other users are looking for a set of rules and laws to live by. Hence, the popularity of the ten commmandments.

I have a strong distrust of organized religion due to my knowledge of history. Religious leaders came out strongly against women having the right to vote, they put Galileo under house arrest for his scientifically sound findings because they contradicted the bible, the Klu Klux Klan did most of it's recruiting in churches. Do I even have to mention whose idea the crusades were? Too much of organized religion is more political than spiritual.

For me, I look for help in getting through the day. I look for help in making life decisions and in keeping my head screwed on straight. I look for help in being happy and content. Yes, I am looking for my own personal meaning of life. Each and everyone one of us has a different reason for being here. Call it God's plan if you will.

If everyone needs something different from religion how can any one religion be the one and only way to God?

More Synchronicities?

This other consulting firm I work for now has just been merged with another consulting firm. When I started with them they had a logo in blue with an outline of a couple of mountains in the background. From my back yard I can see the Phoenix mountains and although the mountains depicted in this logo were are from Colorado I still had a good feeling about it. Also, this firms name begins with a C just as the independent consulting corporation I setup had begun with a C.

Now, the new company is a combination of the two names. Together they are a double C, just as my little company was also double C. But more importantly the new logo uses a combination of blue, green and orange. In fact, they are very similar to the colors I painted my last condo and to the tile topped table I bought for the patio here in the valley of the sun. I never got around to making a logo for my little company but I always envisioned it as being a swirly, swooping kind of logo and that is exactly what the merged company has developed. So, although mergers can be bad news for many individuals, I have a good feeling that in this case it will be good.

Another thing that keeps happening is that the tab thingy on my pens keep breaking off when I am in the vicinity of DB - one of the clients on this project.

The question is: are these synchronicities or am I just being goofy? According to Jung a synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence. While the logo thing might be significant and indicate that I have chosen the right company what the heck would a breaking pen mean?

Proof I am sick.

I am disappointed that Hurricane Dennis is not packing as big a wallop as Hurrican Ivan. Why? Because my brother's name is Dennis and I want his hurricane to the biggest bad ass hurricane ever!

Wait, hurricanes are bad. People die. Property is ruined. What am I thinking? I must need help.

Separation of Church and State

I have been trying to put into words why I feel so strongly about the separation of church and state. Partially it's a resentment of being told how to worship what I call the great entity and told what man-made teachings of god I should I consider the truth.

Partly I fear the social unrest as people rebel against the state religion. This should not be taken lightly, Protestants and Catholics have been know to rip each other heads off over weather or not the Virgin Mary was really a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus - like it really matters.

I also fear that an institutional religion will stifle the spiritual growth of many Americans, myself included. I flirted with neo-paganism or witchcraft for awhile. But all the candle lighting and chanting just made me feel silly. If there were no separation of church and state would I have been able to pursue this or would I have been breaking the law? Would the authors of the books I read been able to get their works published?

I grew up Methodist in a Catholic city. Catholicism permeated the culture of the city or at least the neighborhood I grew up in. Restaurants had fish fries on Fridays and people would discuss what to give up for lent. The wealth of the Catholic Churches seemed huge in comparison to the little Methodist church I attended sporadically while growing up. Although I was never directly threatened or insulted, I felt inferior.

People who live in communities where their flavor is Christianity is dominant really ought to consider how they would feel if they were the minority religion and the majority religion was telling them how to live. In general, the recognition of different paths to the great entity must be recognized by all flavors of all religions. Any religion that teaches otherwise should be publicly condemned and censored. If I could be made to feel inferior by a sister religion to my own how must a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Jew feel? A monument of the 10 commandments may not make me feel all that uncomfortable but if I were not at all Christian I would feel excluded. That is Un-American. Remember what it says on the Statue of Liberty,

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."