MAD-deningly Unthinkable Road to Megiddo

"MAD-deningly Unthinkable", two years ago, was a cautionary tale  I wrote about the possible rekindling of humanity's greatest fear of a nuclear war where "MAD" stood for Mutually Assured Destruction. For decades it was what reassured world leaders, politicians, military strategists, even philosophers that WWIII will be avoided because none of the nations who will engage in it will survive.  But what does that really mean?

It is not even a valid point of re-assurance because for MAD to work, everybody (from all opposing sides) should be convinced that each other's capability is exactly equal in magnitude and infallibly effective in every measure that no one side can survive. But we know that all it will take is for one or the other to believe that they have a winnable position through miscalculation, misinformation, self delusion, fueled by a misplaced sense of national pride or misguided  national hatred  towards the other side; just a few that can cause the perceived balance to tip disastrously. The news cycle, currently in today's geopolitical turmoil, does seem like a daily refrain constantly stoking that fear.

So, we have that and the history of humanity from which we are supposed to learn from but which we ignore or neglect to acknowledge. Either history is a poor teacher or man is a horrible student. If real events in history are not worth the pages they are written on, what are we left with to rely on to help us navigate through and prepare  for a future that is yet to come?

The future.  We can skip the so-called "think tank" projections, game theory probabilities, even artificial intelligence-aided scenarios because they are still based on human calculations and human parameters that we cannot trust.  What are we left with? Nostradamus, Jeanne Dixon, doomsday prophets..?

It appears then that many attempts by us to govern or assemble a sustainable order for all of humanity to live peacefully with one another have failed throughout our history.  From the time of the Magna Carta to all peace treaties that were signed and torn asunder to the Geneva Convention to the League of Nations to the United Nations, failure was a constant end to achieving eternal peace. Where else can we turn?

What we have not included from the first paragraph at the start of this musing (above) are the words from those who espouse predictions from the different points of view beyond what can be naturally explained - from the realm of faith-based or religious (if you will) prophecies.  We might as well, since so much has already been  tried but which has failed to live up to sustainable peace and harmony.

Referring to the first paragraph again, we may now include the religious leaders who were and still remain much less optimistic of the prospect of man-made solutions because ancient prophets have foretold the eventual end of the world from a different perspective.

Of late, we see and hear of the Middle East as the powder keg that can no longer be ignored that once lit could very well be the beginning of the world's real existential threat never once seen or experienced, except as depicted in Biblical prophecy.  Has the fuse already been laid out? Is there hope it can still be defused? Or, is there little we can do?

What different contexts can we then extract from a never tried source before?

The two major faith-based sources that were written from ancient times were the Quran and the Holy Bible subscribed to respectively by Islam and the combined designation  that we know as those belonging to the Judeo/Christian faith.  Both written references are considered by their respective adherents as divinely inspired and direct messages from God.  

It is critically important to note that, "The Quran assumes the reader's familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical and apocryphal scriptures".  Furthermore, "The Quran contains references to more than fifty people and events also found in the Bible". The Quran was written centuries after the Holy Bible was already in use by the faithful who switched from believers in multiple-god-worship to monotheism - the belief in one God.

Most, if not all, who read this will be from the Judeo/Christian faith so we will focus only on the perspectives from the Bible (Old and New Testaments). The contents of the Bible may be divided into historical events, moral and ethical prescriptions for righteousness and piety, the  Gospels (New Testament) that pertain to the Messianic teachings, His life, and eventual return for the final battle between good and evil, prophecies of events yet to come.

It will take a very long foray into historical and Biblical research to get into the nitty gritty of how this leads into making the Middle East as the center for much of what is predicted to be an all out conflict to end all wars. We will take a short cut because, for one, I am not a Biblical scholar, and two, neither is the reader. There is a short version from countless Biblical scholars whose conclusions on the validity of the predictions I leave to the reader to assess. Let's just take the following that scholars use as proof.

1) Before 1948, there was no state of Israel but its establishment was prophesied in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land” (Ezek. 36:24). Thus followed one extraordinary migration of Jews  after the war (WWII) when in 1948 the state of Israel was created.  They came from almost every patch of Europe, the U.S., Great Britain and from refugee camps everywhere.

2. Jacob was renamed Israel by God. Out of that lineage were the 12 tribes that spread from the time of the exodus from Egypt into the desert then followed by centuries of migration to places farther away that later became what is now known as Europe.  Only a portion of those tribes kept practicing what is now the Jewish faith to retain their identities as such.  The rest are what historians would later refer to, rightly or wrongly, as the lost tribes of Israel. But they have kept their affinity to the Bible for their faith so that even after centuries of migration  and assimilation and the spread of Christianity, these people adhered to what is now known as the Judeo/Christian faith that retained the Holy Bible central to their beliefs and for spiritual guidance.  

Centuries later the constant movement through either migration on their own or banishment through political persecutions, many went to settle lands of Scandinavia, later crossing the channel to settle westerly into what is now known as the British Isles. From there came the settlement of the New World, later to be called America.  Biblical scholars, not all but some, proclaim that the creation of the British Empire and later that of the USA is fulfilment of the prophecy that was God's promise to Abraham, "Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body.  (Genesis 35:11)

The same scholars claim that "a nation and a company of nations" refer to what would become the British (commonwealth) Empire and the United States, that helped liberate Europe that  saved the Jewish survivors and kept its iron clad support of Israel even today. Farfetched?  Debatable? Believers in it cite the rapid growth in terms of political, military and economic prominence of Great Britain and the USA as nothing short of miraculous in the time frame and scope that they occurred.

This takes as to today.

Megiddo from the title of this musing refers to the Biblical prophecy that is a real geographical location "as the site of the final battle between the forces of good and evil at the end of time, known as Armageddon. (Revelation 16:16). The word is mentioned only once. Today it is believed that, "Armageddon comes from Har Megiddo—Hebrew for the “mound” or “mountain” (har) of Megiddo".

Presently, it is a kibbutz in Northern Israel, created in 1949.

3. "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come" (Matthew 24:6). From today it will still take a long time before Armageddon.

It will perhaps take a decade or more before Megiddo becomes the central point of conflict.  That is how long it will take for the conditions to happen  before the final war.  Meanwhile, regional conflicts and rumors of conflicts will continue.  Anti Semitism will continue to escalate here and abroad (particularly, Europe).  

Germany will once again become a military power and so will Japan.  Why?  In Europe, NATO will continue to be under pressure from Russia which will impose real economic blackmail through the oil and gas supply to western Europe and the constant threat of the use of nuclear arms.  Germany  will use its technology and economic leadership to re-arm.  Japan is concerned about China's military and economic power in the region, so it too will re-arm.  Both countries have in their constitution that prohibits them from re-armament, except for civil defense. That prohibition will be waived by  conditions that will make re-armament a necessity.

One crucial thing to watch is the alignment between Russia, China and Iran. Oil - Middle East oil - will play a key role. 

All of these shall come to pass first. But not sooner than a few years from now or at least a decade or two.  At that point, other things will happen.  Food will become a major issue for much of the world  population, recurrence of health threats (regional or worldwide pandemic) will re-immerge and there will be turmoil in governments from many areas of the world.

Britain and the U.S. will by then be perceived to have weakened from within - cultural divisions, moral degradations, political turmoil and economic hardships, perceived erosion of their military - that will result in the other nations to miscalculate and misinterpret as to embolden them into the unthinkable.

That is how we will get to the end before eternal peace can begin.

Now, we can ignore all of the above.  We can treat this as nothing more than a thesis. Of course, it will also mean continuing with what had gone on for millennia; let history continue to be unlearned; let the future unfold purely from human machinations. We can  take that position.  Actually, we have done that exactly for all the centuries that have already elapsed. As such, it will have to take a catastrophic event  for humanity to learn its final lesson with or without spiritual or faith-based introspection. The question then is, "Are we ever going to learn on our own and only through our efforts without supernatural intervention?"  

 

The Empty Nesters' "Privilege"

Or, is it the perquisite well deserved and unique to the so called "baby boomers" of our time.

According to the Nasdaq data, 50 percent of the wealth in the U.S. are held by the baby boomer generation, more than any one generational sector of the population. 

"Americans have roughly $156 trillion in assets, according to Visual Capitalist, but half of that wealth — $78.1 trillion — belongs to the baby boomers. The rest is spread out across Generation X, the Silent Generation and Millennials".  

The Gen Z generation is blaming the baby boomers for the tight housing market by holding on to their homes - now predominantly giant empty nests that, according to the young generation, are real estates that could be put to good use, if only the baby boomers vacate them and live out their sunset years in designated retirement communities, where homes are mere fractions of the size. 

Does the young generation have a point?  First of all,  Gen Z must wait their turn because Gen X already has first dibs on the wealth that the baby boomers had accumulated.

Breakdown of Wealth by Generation

"The Visual Capitalist used the Federal Reserve’s data from the final quarter of 2022 to provide a general breakdown of generational wealth. Here’s what they found:

Baby boomers: $78.1 trillion (50%) (Born (1946-1864)

Generation X: $46 trillion (29.5%)  ( 1965-1980)

Silent Generation: $18.6 trillion (11.9%)  (1928*1945)

Millennials: $13.3 trillion (8.5%) (1981- 1996)

Generation Z: Insufficient data (1997-2010)

Generation Alpha: 100% Dependents, Pure Nesters (2010-2024)

So, the baby boomers have become  Gen Z's boogeyman for their travails and inadequacy at dealing with their place in society. Let's look at the baby boomers from the perspective of several angles.

They were born after the war (WWII). Their parents have seen the war, their fathers fought in it, their mothers worked at the factories in the absence of many men who were away on foreign lands they didn't know till then where and who it was they were fighting for. 

Of course, it was worse  in places from many parts of the world - from the plains and mountains of Europe to the oceans and jungles of Asia that made up the so-called theaters of war. It was in Asia I and my generation grew up in.

Demographers labeled it the population explosion, although in the west they’d coined the phrase “baby boom” to describe the decade and a half following 1945. There was a reason for the distinct labels, I soon learned, because a generation of baby boomers in post war North America had so much to live for, along a path of opportunities set up by their parents who became the first generation to pave the road to untold personal affluence and national wealth in a relatively short period of time for America and Canada, while Europe was still struggling to clear the rubble of war.  

On the other hand, in much of Asia, the newborns must first survive birth without prenatal care or benefit of sterile maternity wards in the harsh conditions of a war-torn environment where lack of medicine, doctors and nurses meant that health care was as primal as survival of the fittest.  Everyone was born at home, delivered by the local midwife. Surviving the first-year increased survivability significantly but growing up past that was like fish swimming upstream, against a current of poor nutrition, inadequate natal medicine, pediatric care and horrible sanitation. Countervailing those odds were the indomitable determination of the mother and the instinctual fervency of the child to survive.  I did not know about baby boomers until much later in life so the generation I grew up with was a collective story of survival as every child in a post war environment fought dearly to make it past the ages from seven to the pre-teen years.  

The succession of infants and toddlers that followed, year in and year out, made up the inevitable phenomenon of nature filling a vacuum. We had a population explosion; the west had a baby boom.  I and my family were fortunate later on to have immigrated to a country that is  America.

The baby boomers were likely the first to go to college in their families. Those who didn't went to work after high school.  The latter were the definition of what became the blue collar workers, after WWII. By late 60s and early 70s the boomers filled 75% of the workplace.

The boomers were also the first generation to have participated in the saving and investing spree brought on by 401K and other workplace enhanced savings programs (such as matching, or at least through company/employee jointly-participated contributions and stock ownership participation).   These programs, as a result, brought on not only an exponential growth in savings and investment participation by employees but also a dramatic increase in capitalization of businesses and industries.  The baby boomers were in no small measure responsible for the unprecedented economic boom in the U.S.

The baby boomers are the Generation W, superseding the XYZ generations, and should instead be the Wealthy generation that is not likely to be matched anytime in the foreseeable future.  How did they become that?

There was an earlier generation who were born between 1901 and 1927. "They were shaped by the Great Depression and were the primary generation composing the enlisted forces in World War II. Most people of the Greatest Generation are the parents of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers.."  This was true not just in the U.S. but for those born in other parts of the world affected by the depression and the last great war - Europe, Canada,  Asia and Australia.

Soldiers came home to find work, start a family while young women became mothers forever reminded by the depression and still recovering from the ravages of war, indirectly or had lived it in their personal experiences. They were the parents of most of the boomers who grew up remembering the hardships their families went through.

By the early 60s, the boomers started to work after high school, followed by those who finished college by the late 60s. Many lived through credit financing to buy their first cars and settled in their first homes.  Those who made it unscathed by the financial burden were frugal and  savers even as the economy was growing to unprecedented heights.

By late 80s they were saving even more through 401Ks and other investment programs. At the turn of the century through the first decade, the boomers start retiring.  Money to travel, purchases of nicer vehicles took little dents into their savings, most of which were kept in investments while day-to-day expenses were taken off pensions (those who had them) and Social Security benefits and interests from investments.  Many went for their versions of their dream homes upon realizing they still had enough retirement years ahead of them (clearly more than the last generations had).

By 2010 and forward, all boomers have become empty nesters. But they kept their homes.  The very same homes the Gen Z are complaining about and clamoring for (though it's a mystery how they can afford them in today's market).  

So, why are the empty nesters not relinquishing their grip on their (now "empty") nests?

1. They are living longer, relatively feeling better about their health compared to their parents. They have access to modern medicine, medical care and health related technologies.

2.  Unlike the previous generation they can afford the upkeep of a big home when previously property taxes, energy and maintenance costs were real deterrents to keeping them.

3. They can afford to pay for house cleaning, yard work and even home delivered meals. They've upgraded their bathrooms with all the safety and convenient features and walk-in tubs that not only make soaking baths safe and convenient but come with the wonders of aroma, music, hydrotherapy and micro bubbles, temperature control at the touch of a button. 

4. Their mobility is unhindered even if they no longer drive due to ride share services like Uber and Lyft.  Some healthcare advantage services offer rides to and from for outpatient procedures (colonoscopy and the like) and there is a new service provided where health personnel will come to the house instead of a trip to urgent care facilities. Online stores are their shopping malls, so what is there to miss in going shopping.

5. Boomers are not giving up their hobbies at home, their knick-knacks, photo albums, and collectibles even if they are not worth much except for the priceless values of memories they held. At least they do not want to have them disposed of until they are gone; at which point they could care less.  Boomers don't go to movies anymore when movies come to them "streaming" that allow them unlimited trips to the bathroom or refrigerator without missing a scene or misunderstanding a dialogue, courtesy of close captions and the rewind button.

6. Retirement homes/communities are no longer the attractive denouement to those facing the sunset of their lives.  The Boomers believe that retirement homes have become rules-laden, even inconveniently restricting places for a generation of people who went by the rules all their lives.

7. Boomers, in short, will stay in their homes because they can and deservedly so. Most of all, they spent a good portion of their lifetime saving for it.

And just like that .. 1969 

was 

55 years ago

But who's counting?

😎

STRESS: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Eons ago while still a new denizen of the "Corporatory" (not a real word but something I just made up since Purgatory would be too severe to describe the workplace), I inquired from the other "seasoned" co-workers  about a particular manager.  Everyone said, "He is not known to suffer from stress himself but he is definitely a carrier".  As a new immigrant then, I was still processing every nuanced message from native speakers because often I would misunderstand idiomatic expressions.  That was one of the funny  but also often true expressions, albeit a polite assessment of one manager's Draconian management style that I soon realized.

Stress, I  surmised, is either a builder of character or destroyer of an otherwise sound physiological system, let alone a psychological torturer, the anathema to mental serenity.  Now, that was heavy.  Let's start from somewhere lighter first.

How about high school physics, where formulas were usually made up of no more than three letters. F=p x a, the force applied to a surface is equal to the amount of pressure multiplied by the area; alternatively, p=F/a.  Air pressure is a good  example, aka barometric pressure, that we are all familiar with when talking about the weather. All it means is that if you draw a one inch square on a flat surface, say on a table or pavement, and extend it imaginarily upwards to the limits of the atmosphere above, it will encapsulate a column of air that weighs (F) on average a total of 14-15 pounds, thus exerting a pressure of say 14.5 pounds per square inch (a) - a typical atmospheric pressure (p) at sea level; which, by the way, at ground level, we are literally at the bottom of the ocean of air.  That is why pressure at higher elevation like a mountain top or where airplanes cruise, is a lot less - the column of air as in the previous example is a lot shorter, shallower if you will, or less of it, up there.

Well, that was a convoluted way to get to one definition of pressure.  But it is one way of defining what could possibly be a precursor to stress. A weight pressing down from above; such as the boss I described earlier. He may not suffer from it but he was a carrier that conceivably caused those under him this well known malady of modern society - the weight of stress. It too can be from unreasonable deadlines or workload or unclear objectives.

In 1965 Len Deighton's spy novel was made into a movie, "The IPCRESS File" that starred a young Michael Caine. It was, representing the genre of its time - the 60s - a story about brainwashing and mind control in espionage. The title was an acronym for 'Induction of Psycho-Neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under Stress'.  Indeed, fiction or in real life, stress can alter narratives, at least as to how people cope, when under psychological pressure. In other words, stress can indeed have physical and psychological effects that can be employed against susceptible individuals.

One of my favorite authors, also in the 60s,  Alistair Maclean wrote "The Guns of Navarone", also made into a movie, starring Gregory Peck, about a secret mission to destroy the big guns that the Germans used to thwart Allies shipping in the Mediterranean during WWII.  When the commanding officer of the mission was injured, the commando team was forced to leave him behind to be captured by the Germans.  Before they left him, they gave him information on the change of plans, while in reality pursuing the original strategy.  They knew that once captured by the Gestapo, he will succumb to  torture. He was going to give up under stress the information fed to him.  The rest was the story of a successful mission that depended on the commandoes skill and abilities to operate under stress and on the Gestapo's faith in extracting information under the stress of extreme torture.

Our real lives are not driven so dramatically  as in the above examples but, nevertheless, the effects of stress, or the day-to-day accumulation of stressful conditions in our lives, do have similar manifestations to lesser or sometimes somewhat greater degrees.  Stress from work, personal relationships, money issues, a chronic illness, etc. are real but there is no clear straight forward formula in dealing with it because it affects individuals differently, or some are able to deal with it differently from others.

But that's all bad and ugly, what's the good?

Stress was "baked into" both our physiological and psychological makeup. Physical exercises and mental activities through learning and memorization create stresses to better prepare our bodies and minds from the moment of our youth to adulthood (which includes the sunset years). It is not just for the average life but more so for those in the military.  Navy SEAL and Army Ranger training are examples of rigid, robust and sometimes torturous training to better prepare these men for all kinds of stresses in combat.  

Workouts through strength and stamina training are forms of stresses athletes put their bodies through to meet the challenges of competition.  The Spartans trained for extreme survivalism against tremendous odds. Stress conditions the mind and body to respond instinctively without hesitation or doubt.  In metallurgy, knives and all types of cutting tools are stressed through high temperature heat treatment, then quenched in either oil or water to relieve the stress. The metal is hardened as a result.  Another example of stress being applied even on inanimate objects changed large structural construction when in 1886 an American engineer patented pre-stressed concrete.

"Compressive stresses are induced in prestressed concrete either by pre-tensioning or post-tensioning the steel reinforcement".

Stress has  positive impacts even in our daily lives.  The fear of failure in one undertaking or another creates stress that can be put to good use.  We study more, we learn new skills, we are careful because fear of not being up to the task creates stress that makes us work harder.  The stress from fear of danger triggers us to be careful or we take safer routes or take the time to think first before "jumping".

In my woodworking hobby where power tools, sharp chisels,  drill and router bits rotating at high speeds are constant reminders of potential injuries, the stress level at first was high where most hobbies are supposed to be fun.  But that is why when confronted with doing something more hazardous than usual, I either do not do it or I create a jig to make it safer.  Often, I would spend time making one jig even for one operation.  That is a good stress because not only do I learn to avoid dangerous pitfalls, but the jigs serve others willing to copy the contraption (I had a few tips published in Woodsmith Magazine).

I guess we can say this. Stress that used to only play a role in our early ancestors' lives as a matter of "fight or flight" response trigger, we can still put it to good use in one positive form or another in our present society.  One thing we cannot do is let stress hold us back from trying new things or paralyze us into inaction because of it.  On the other hand, "paralysis from over analysis" is the weight that stress sometimes puts on any kind of decision making.

There is no such thing as a stress-free life.  Anyone who claims that, is not telling the truth.  Even so called stress-free vacations are not real expectations.  In fact, worrying about what could possibly go wrong is stressful in and of itself.

In conclusion, stress is and will always be part of our lives.  The secret is in managing it.  Those who manage it well are guided by the recognition that stress has its good, bad and ugly features we can live with. And commit to deal with it as best we can.

Remember you have the power to go from this:

To this:

Your Call

Celebrating the Death Anniversary of Common Sense

September, 2019 was when I wrote the "Eulogy for Common Sense". I penned the first paragraph that went:

"Common sense had already sustained a thousand blows and lacerations.  It is time for its last rites and its eventual funeral. The long battle it endured lasted for at least a generation  now.  Its many attempts to fight back was akin to stopping the ebbing of a one-way tide that  had been receding for decades now and leaving behind a drying sand - now almost devoid of a living thought. Its last line of defense - critical thinking - is crumbling and quickly giving way to a horde that can only be described as capable of doing nothing but engaging in "groupthink" (from George Orwell's book, '1984'). If common sense is on life support it is now a matter for society in particular and for all of civilization in general to pull the plug. Yes, we can pray for a miracle but prayer is now  another collateral casualty."

Not long after that, common sense passed away.

Today, we remember its death anniversary months ahead of September, which by then would be merely a little over a month when perhaps this nation has a chance at some kind of resurrection, if that is possible, but it may take a miracle.  Indeed, it will.

It was quite daunting then,

"Common sense is dying from small blows and often lacerated with very little blood. It is now punch drunk from a jab here, a jab there, and body punches that merely stagger the senses without really causing a knockout, not even  a knockdown. Common sense has not gone down for the count. At least, not yet. But it has already had recurring standing counts. And that is worse than being counted out entirely. It is a pitiful sight".

But, it never recovered.  Much of what we can do today, anniversary or not, is open our eyes to the aftermath.  It is not a pretty picture.  It is as if the world has turned into The Twilight Zone, or ruled by Bizarro, who is the flawed duplicate of Superman now dead.  The previous sentence would be bizarre indeed if it was written a generation ago.

However, here we are.  We've written new words, or old words now mean differently.  What used to be moral is now immoral.  What used to be immoral is now moral.  When it used to be the proper and legal way to come by invitation only, to enjoy the privileges afforded by a generous nation, one may now just enter without permission and all legal terms that prohibit it had been put asunder.  Words evolved so that a person entering this great country went from an illegal alien to undocumented person to now dramatically become a "newcomer".

Almost five decades ago,  ten years  after my wife first applied for an invitation to become a resident of this country, we were summoned to the U.S. Embassy in Manila for an interview. Along with all the identification papers that proved who we were, we had with us a resume detailing our work experiences and educational background that was reviewed by, at that time, the vice-consul.  Once approved we were to have a physical exam that included submitting our Xray results to prove we did not have tuberculosis. 

But in a Bizarro world, even during Covid 19 when citizens of this country had with them their vaccination cards, when entering a bank wearing a mask used to alarm everyone, was now perfectly all right, none of those were required of the "newcomer".  Where homelessness was part of the big city landscape, the newcomers were housed in hotels and provided food at taxpayers' dime. 

Speaking of taxpayers' dime, what periphery of Common Sense makes it all right to forgive student loans for those who pledged to borrow money on a promise to pay it back but now it's never mind?  Won't those who did not go to college, worked after high school and paid their taxes during all that time, not mind?  What about those who already paid their loans at great sacrifices; won't they mind too?  Or, is this mainly one crazy idea of buying votes on the taxpayer's dime?  It is an election cycle after all. It is unlawful to buy votes when it is coming from the candidate's own pocket or campaign funds but it is all right if one uses taxpayers' money.  Common Sense will have a hard time resurrecting itself.

Collateral casualty to the demise of Common Sense is the subjugation of the meaning of words.  The word equity was a financial or business bystander.  Anyone who deposited a hundred dollars expects the same equitable amount of interest as everyone who deposited a hundred dollars. Today, it has been hijacked to mean that someone who deposited fifty dollars may expect to get the same interest dividend as those who put in a hundred dollars.  That is what is happening.  Where it used to be equal opportunity to anyone who seeks it, but that it was given that equal results were never guaranteed,  the government is now faced with the proposition that results should be equal for all.

Five years ago I wrote, "In Awe of Climate", Sept. 4, 2019, during a Climate Town Hall meeting. It and almost all the next get together and discussions to follow will be pivotal in one particular way. One of these candidates could conceivably shape the critical agenda for running the next government in case the present administration is voted out of office. It shall be a huge switch in policy because as one of the candidates said last night, "Every Policy Should Be Informed by Climate Change."  

Sure enough, climate change is dictating or influencing  how the present government is conducting its business today with full endorsement from the press, aka mainstream media.  Just as an example, one daytime talk show host had a "totally out of ('body') Common Sense experience" when she blamed the New Jersey earthquake and the solar eclipse to climate change.  She's a lawyer but should we excuse her for missing a couple of high school science classes?

What some people considered what may have started as a joke is now a raucous point of contention in the realm of sports. You see, it may have started out this way.  A male swimmer who couldn't make it to the men's swim team one day thought, "Hmm, why don't I identify myself as female and compete in women's swimming? I bet I'll dominate the league". And he/she did! At one of the events he/she beat the next female swimmer by 38 seconds. If he/she elected to, he/she could have come out of the pool, toweled off and would have been dry before the next female competitor finished.  Common Sense had no chance at resurrection.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) used to be a serious and potent defender of women.  They were silent for a long time while all of these were going on.  Then they came out recently to say that they support biological male who now identify as female as eligible to compete in women's sports. Their support is solidly encapsulated by the statement that NOW just released, "Trans women are women".  They are serious but the joke's on them, it seems.

In all seriousness, how many biological females who identify as males ever competed in men's sports? None.  There was one exemption of a female's superiority over men, sort of, but it can only be found in Greek mythology.

When Atalanta was born, her father who wanted a son abandoned her and left to die in the forest.  She was rescued by a she-bear that nurtured her to become a powerful huntress.  She became famous when she outran everybody in foot races, including men.  Her father showed up after that and reclaimed her as his daughter.  Then one day he declared that Atalanta should get married.  Atalanta agreed but only to a man who can outrun her in a footrace.  

Enter Hippomenes, the most able competitor, although he kind of knew he can't beat Atalanta. Hippomenes sought the help of Aphrodite (goddess of love).  Aphrodite agreed because she didn't like that Atalanta did not seem to subscribe to the idea of love.  Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three golden apples and instructed him to throw one apple at a time in front of Atalanta during the race.  Sure enough Atalanta stopped each time to pick up every time the golden apple was thrown.  Hippomenes won the race.

Even then, that was the only time that a female could have beaten a man in a race but lost due to one clever subterfuge.  In mythology, at that.  Anyway, as far as I can tell Atalanta and Hippomenes lived happily ever after; despite the deception. Atalanta didn't seem to hold it against Hippomenes.  Now, keep in mind it was a myth.  Today, the truth is biological men in sports will outcompete every woman. That is not a myth. 

Takeaways from the story: Now, we have the word aphrodisiac in the English language.  The USA's busiest airport where running is almost always required to catch your connecting flight is named after a politician's daughter when the railroad junction  later became a town, then a city.  The daughter's name was Atalanta but somehow the extra 'a" was dropped to give us Atlanta, GA and the Atlanta Airport. But somehow, Atlanta is not famous for apples but for peaches. 

There I got carried away with the story.  However, I hope there was enough there to get the reader  to start his or her share of helping resurrect Common Sense from the deep abyss where critical thinking is also buried in limbo. But the reader knows where I'm coming from.  Unfortunately, we don't know where this will lead the world into. We must try to maneuver out of this. The death anniversary of Common Sense must be in our minds if only to keep alive the possibility of a reincarnation.  Perhaps, the reincarnated soul of Common Sense will be upon the land once more and restore our faith that order may once again rule over chaos.  

  

WHY, The Rainbow?

In a savannah somewhere, some two hundred thousand years ago, after a rainstorm as the sun begun to peek out of the horizon, and the curtain of dark clouds parted, there was a rustling of wet tall grasses as a handful of creatures begun to trudge for an open space to marvel at what was in the sky as the rain turned into nothing more than wispy waves of light drizzle that wafted in the slight cool breeze of the morning.  Those creatures were our early ancestors, now able to stand on their hind legs, free to use their hands as shade over their brows for a better look. They must have wondered loudly among themselves, perhaps in their own guttural ways, "What is that? Why? {That's all my  imagination since I wasn't there}.  But we were them, in a way - since their DNA, after countless  cell divisions over eons of adaptation and survival, are in us.

Many generations later when at last they had discovered the power of speech, to know what to call the things they saw, they still marveled every time they looked up at the sky to ask what was then and still today a profound question that even we might be hard pressed to answer, "Why, the rainbow?"  Our ancestors did not really have in their minds seeking answers to a scientific question. We too will find that dark clouds and rainbows may have more to do with our personal lives we yet have to discover.  More profoundly than you had ever imagined.

Two hundred thousand plus years later in 1672, Isaac Newton established his first foothold into the early stages of physics.  Before his famous three laws of motion and many other significant crucial contributions to science, he wrote a paper on optics that proved that ordinary light was composed of several colors - different spectra of various wavelengths by splitting a light beam with a simple glass prism.  People then wondered, "How can ordinary, seemingly transparent light be made up of so many colors?"  Again, there was more beyond a scientific answer.

Let's go even way further back in time.  From the beginning.  We have nowhere else to refer to but what had been written about where and how everything begun. Let's look at one written text which, by the way, has similar versions from various  proponents of other faith-based systems. Let's take one from the Old Testament. 

When the Creator in Genesis 1:3  proclaimed, "Let there be light", we now know it was more than to illuminate the cosmos but that it ushered the greatest gift endowed to all living things - the sense of sight. 

Now we know even more when the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope enabled us to see for the first time the magnificently infinite grandeur of the universe.  The significance of, "let there be light" is that it came by the third verse just after verse, 1:2, ...The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters".  

Once more, we put aside the scientific answers because life is like a box of dark clouds and rainbows (a mild reference to Forrest Gump's famous quote).  We oftentimes don't know what's up above when we look up.

And so it was then and now that we realize that our personal life experiences are sometimes touched by some dark moments, hopefully not too frequently. Then, hopefully and more frequently each time, the dark clouds are soon parted and rainbows appear.  Life, we know by now, is a seesaw of moments that range from the annoying to heart rending predicaments only to switch to unexpected ecstasy beyond even our wildest wishes. Of course, we know that our appreciation for the good, sometimes even great, moments is possible only because we have seen and felt what it was like to be under some dark clouds that at times appear to hover over our heads longer than we can bear. 

These dark clouds come in many shades.  Worrying is a gray cloud.  It's darker when we get sick or a loved one is chronically ailing.  It is darkest at a time of grief. It is a different kind of dark when one is despondent from a failed relationship or loss of livelihood.  Now we know that dark comes  from the thin gray of worry to the pitch blackness of a seemingly bottomless pit when things did go wrong.  So many shades of darkness for any of us to fully prepare for one  or another that could engulf our lives.

I guess that is why a rainbow too comes in different colors.  That has to be the reason.  Not only did the Creator proclaim, "Let there be light", but that light came complete with a full spectrum of several colors, including those our eyes cannot see - from the infrared to ultraviolet rays.  Yet, it is just as miraculous that vipers, pigeons and bees and many other species of living things are able to see those that are hidden from our sight.  There is also a reason for that. Only the Creator can know what it is.

And then we are told also to know this. Not every adversity is a dark cloud, not every rainbow we imagine should be sought because sometimes our choices to seek and go after every rainbow are not the answer when not every problem is a dark cloud. Not every challenge is a catastrophe. Darkness is always temporary. It may often leave on its own or be pushed out by the approaching dawn. It is best to know that not every dark cloud needs a rainbow.

Make note of this.  Sometimes we could be looking for a rainbow we do not need over a dark cloud we only imagine.  That is one unnecessary burden we choose to carry  that is easily resolved.  We should set it down, untie the straps from our shoulders, get rid of the load, and soon we see that letting go is like parting the dark clouds; the freedom from want is all the rainbow we needed.  Young children of nomads in the upper Mongolia or inhabitants in the interior of the Amazon rainforests and from many remote places have one thing in common. They do not know to want more than they have, they do not know to seek for rainbows they do not need. 

Meanwhile, in the developed world life gets a little more complicated.  If it isn't, we try to make it so, anyway.  Sometimes we self-impose our own dark clouds, others make it a cottage industry  to turn thinnish gray clouds into a gathering storm. Rainbow "wants" somehow become a must (of "needs") to quell an imagined dark cloud even when we are already basking in and enjoying the weather in our already good life.

On the other hand, we have another perspective to rely on when our days get too dark, a Biblical passage once more, a quote, again from where and when it all begun in Genesis:

"Genesis 9:13-16

 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,

15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life".

Take this for what it is, or treat it as an allegory but it is a hopeful message when dark clouds hover above and be reminded that there is a rainbow when you need it.