“Naturally, such reasoning does not apply to everyone. There are people who feel no craving for immortality, and who shudder at the thought of sitting on a cloud and playing the harp for ten thousand years! There are also quite a few who have been so buffeted by life, or who feel such disgust for their own existence, that they far prefer absolute cessation to continuance”(301)
-- C. G. Jung “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” (1961)
In Jung’s estimation, those who hold to a belief in the afterlife “live more sensibly, feel better, and are more at peace” than those who doubt the mythic life. He describes those of us with little trust or faith in some atemporal beyond as living in a “senseless mad rush.” But isn’t it also a fact that the confidence and security true believers draw upon in assuming an “Indefinite continuity beyond their present existence” is what compels them to slaughter Indians and fly into skyscrapers in the name of some “He” who stewards their particular belief system? Jung sees modern man as too preoccupied with the physical and psychic present, but in valorizing the mythic over the “shortsightedness of super-intellectuals,” he loses sight of the fact that the “daemonization of the world” has always been perpetuated by racially and ethnically based religious myths that reject t
he authority of science and logic.
January 22, 2010
Editorial (New York Times
The Court’s Blow to Democracy
With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.
Congress must act immediately to limit the damage of this radical decision, which strikes at the heart of democracy.
As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.
I like that word, “disingenuously.” Fancy way of saying insincerely, but I like it. The dictionary says “Not straightforward or candid; crafty,” that also works. I mean, hey, it seems pretty straightforward to me, the court is upholding that most sacred freedom of all: the freedom to spend. Now spending is fine, but have you ever been or felt spent? That’s the feeling when you’re out of the game. That’s what happens when you’ve lost the ability to spend – when you’re broke. Funny word, broke, like you need to be fixed, something broken, obsolete, expendable. The high-fallutin academic word for this is commodified. I suppose the judges realized the maintenance of their inflated value as social commodities is a higher priority than the well being of the United States’ citizens.
“Report: 'U,' other universities failing in their public mission
Joseph Lichterman
Daily Staff Reporter January 18th, 2010
A new study found that top public universities, including the University of Michigan, are giving less financial aid to students from lower income families and are increasing their aid to students who come from more affluent families.”
January 20, 2010
We always knew there was an invisible affirmative action at work long before any of these socially misguided attempts were launched to upset the good old boy merit system. I mean, whether you attended Birmingham Seaholm in the northern suburbs, or Denby High School on Detroit’s east side, should have little to do with your academic skill set. Right? That the relationship between social strata and academic achievement is well documented is the reason Affirmative Action was struck down. The same conservative mindset that recently legitimized an heretofore illegal manifestation of corporate greed – the use of unlimited cash to directly influence the outcome of elections – is at work in the present push to give to the rich and take from the poor on the educational front. The aim is always the same: to vigilantly patrol and control the rigidly maintained boundary between
the fatted rich and the desperate poor and working middle class. The old saw, “money goes where money is,” seems appropriate here. I guess it’s another sign of these tough economic times we're in that it’s so bad even rich people need financial aid. I mean if paying the costs of your child’s tuition threatens to reduce the average percentage of yearly gain you’ve enjoyed for the previous decade, you deserve to have little Johnny’s tuition subsidized. Which institution is better served to do this than the University of Michigan. With a 7 billion plus endowment at hand, let’s make sure the money serves to ensure the status quo: an educational system that maintains a fundamental inequality based on racial and socio-economic factors.
January 20, 2010
Teacher With Bible Divides Ohio Town
By IAN URBINA
MOUNT VERNON, Ohio — Most people in this quiet all-American town describe themselves as devoutly Christian, but even here they are deeply divided over what should happen to John Freshwater.
Mr. Freshwater, an eighth-grade public school science teacher, is accused of burning a cross onto the arms of at least two students and teaching creationism.
…Mr. Freshwater, who declined to be interviewed, has said he did not mean to burn a cross on any student’s arm. Instead, he said he intended to leave a temporary X on the skin using a device called a Tesla coil during a science demonstration. He says he had done that, with no complaints, hundreds of times in his 21 years as a teacher at Mount Vernon Middle School.
One high school teacher said she consistently had to reteach evolution to Mr. Freshwater’s students because they did not master the basics. Another testified that Mr. Freshwater told his students they should not always take science as fact, citing as an example a study that posited the possibility of a gene for homosexuality.
“Science is wrong,” Mr. Freshwater was reported as saying, “because the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin, and so anyone who is gay chooses to be gay and is therefore a sinner.”
Me: Uncle Hackaloogie, having convinced us of the benefits of smoking tobacco, might you not render an opinion on Mr. Freshwater’s actions?
UH: I don’t know what the hell yer tryin to say, but he coulda been named Mr. Breathafreshaira. Your queer-lovin readers probably think it’s bad burning crosses on little 8th grade heathens, but these little pagans are only beginning to fill up with God’s loving nectar. Godamn right science is wrong. Fact is, most scientists are homos.
Me: Wait a minute, are you saying evolution is wrong, that the fossil record is a myth?
UH: I do own some records, but I never heard of the fossils. As for evolution, I think it’s a good thing, specially when yer revoltin against some terrorist dictator, like Obama.
Me: I didn’t mean revolution, I meant the idea that human life has evolved, starting with lower animal forms and stretching upward to man.
UH: You suck, with all your evil ideas about apes becoming men, and dead things meaning something. Fuck You!
Me: Any final thoughts about Mr. Freshwater?
UH: No!
Thank you Uncle Hackaloogie. And that concludes today’s hillbilly interview.
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