Fish

I finally had a chance to swim today and it was awesome. Usually when I open the gate and walk onto the deck, the pool is full of people treading water. Well, some bounce up and down in the shallow end, exercise of some sort I'm sure. Never very inviting to me; I'm a fish

Well, maybe I'm a grizzly. I stalk the deck growling at the water's inhabitants. Every so often take a swipe at them with my long arms. No reaction. Bastards. I head back home where I feed on fermented fruits and work on my temper. They'll be sorry.

I was born in California and the earliest pictures of me are running around on the beach. Growing up in the Chicago area, on every sunny day of every summer I was hanging out at the community's pool. I was in the water always; swam in school and was a fairly good diver. 

Of course when young I was involved in many sports. Participated in track as well where I ran and ran; racing around the track. Leaping hurdles with abandon, I was an antelope as well.

So not being able to swim a few laps, which my out of shape body needs, has been driving me crazy. I try different times of the day, always seems crowded when I show up. Last year while visiting, I only got in one swim the entire time I was here and that was in the unheated pool. Jo tossed a frisbee and I couldn't help but chase it down, even as it plunged into the water. Apparently on many days I'm a dog. In fact I remember being called a dog by many women, so must be true. 

Always had pools in the family after growing up and moving out of Illinois. The first home I bought in Michigan had an in ground pool in the backyard. Great selling point for me. Had a young stepdaughter and her and her friends had great times there. Hell, I had great times as well. Great diving board, not some crappy springboard, but one where you could actually get altitude. I scared the hell out of my second wife and friends many a time. I flip around in a pike position over and over because of course, I'm also a dolphin.

I've thought about the fun I've had in all the pools, lakes and oceans in my life. Great times all. I think, how do I get the people lazily hanging around in my habitat to move. I mean, it is my habitat, because I'm a fish. I dream about creating a large whirlpool that sucks them all into the vortex and down into the depths of the world leaving me my private water, but though the dream is fun the reality is they're still there.

Then finally, I show up and no one is in the pool. Oh yeah, my personal playground. I hiccup a few times to get the gills a moving and jump in. I read an article about humans and fish sharing that gene but I really don't know much about science or mathematics or anything else; hey, today I'm a fish.

But finally, a long glorious swim. Backstroke, sidestroke, breaststroke and all the damn strokes; yeah baby. Damn signs said no diving, but hell, a couple of quick back dives from the side of the pool were in order and how can anyone not do a can opener or some such dive that throws water all over the place? I leap in the air, spread my legs and grab my balls; The Preacher is what we called that when I was young. Seemed appropriate at the time.

Apparently, though I am human first, I am everything. 

Jail

I look at the gulf through the bars of the tall fence-like structure that protects the condo inhabitants from falling off; guess old people aren't very bright. The image of a jail comes to mind. Not sure for the moment if it is me that is imprisoned, or the warm waters of the gulf. I would think that even though I can go touch the waters, the resources are not for me, they are for the rich.


For many people in the world are imprisoned; at least they are prevented from using the resources that are available. Whether it is from empire building, where we take or buy the resources in their natural form and make crap out of it to sell back to those who owned the resources in the first place, or chance put them in a land without resources; regardless, they are in jail. Then there are areas where resources are being held by private companies that hold, or try to hold, countries hostage.


On a personal level, we are all in a jail that's getting larger. Big business is doing its best to ruin the gulf, its been over fished so slowly dying, and there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. We can protest, sign petitions, talk to our elected officials; yet big business will keep on killing. In MI, they want to drill for oil off the lakeshore. Instead of wind power, lets kill another environment. My drinking water is effected by the factory farm down the road, my food sources isolated as Monsanto winnows the food supply.


I've been reading about Blue Lake in Alaska. The last I heard a portion of the water had been bought and was going to be sent to India. India, which will probably be the first country to use up that life giving resource. We sell pristine water that is this countries natural resource; are you receiving money for the loss? The resources of this country belong to its citizens, not the few who inhabit wealthy world. This is not a humanitarian endeavor only basic capitalism.


Every part of life costs. An easily foreseeable future is watching people die because the resources they once had are used up, or have been sold to the highest bidder.


I am in jail, fed with what someone wants to feed me, watered with whatever fluid some company claims is healthy for me. From the time I'm born until the time I'm dead I'm a slave. My time is not mine, my life is not mine. As resources become the property of individuals or big business, we work so we're allowed to consume the resources that we need to live.


Working together to solve problems that dwindling resources will create would be the preferable solution. One that will not happen because money runs the world.

Joy

A couple of days ago Jo and I watched a man and his dog on the beach. Possibly a mixed breed but mostly resembled an irish setter. Jo is not a dog person since she was ferociously attacked while young by a chihuahua, (a story she doesn't tell often; I laugh so hard), so I was describing the mood of the dog by his actions. He was attentively eyeing the human, and doing those leaps and bounds that say only one thing, let's play!

Dog owners know what the look is like. The dog leaps but stays fairly stationary. Not running away but energetic. Tail wagging and the playfulness cannot be denied by any objective observer. Alert. The dog's interest is up. Hey, sandy beach and water breaking on the it, what fun. I watched him dance for awhile and tried to get Jo to see what I was seeing.

Joy, happiness; however you would like to describe the emotion.

The next day another perfect example of joy comes by. A couple and their very young daughter are strolling the beach. All of a sudden the young one takes off, little legs pumping like the sand pipers that are their company. The father runs with her, not racing but playing. The young one turns and Mom slowly trots in the opposite direction and there she goes, chasing her mother. Then off on her own towards the condos, then spinning around and back to her parents.

The resemblance of happiness between the two species is remarkable, if not almost identical.

I'm pointing this out to Jo, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking about how easily observable the link between life is. Even though emotion as an attribute in animals is still disputed, anyone that has enjoyed the company of another species almost instinctively understands what their pet is feeling. Whether emotion is stimulus-response behavior or not, what difference does it make? Would it not be the same for humans? Would a dog's joy because of stimulus be different that our stimulated joy?

Sometimes I wonder if animal emotion is debated only because of our relationship with food. Maybe we really don't want to know how close to us other species are. Sure, we'll look at it genetically. We'll look at it in regards to evolution. But very few seem to really want to know the answers. As long as we use our cousins as a food source, we really can't humanize them without being aware of our own possible intent to keep them as our slaves.

I observe the emotions that effect animals. Is it that hard to see or am I easily deceived?

My Friend Walt

My friend Walter, (he disliked Walt), passed away a few days ago. Still fairly young at 57; cancer had his number.

Walter was a very intelligent man. His mind contained more knowledge about aviation than almost anyone I've ever known; a shame that he lost his mind as the disease spread. By the time it was his time, he barely knew where or who he was. He was a pilot as well as a controller, so knew both sides of the coin when it came to his profession. He worked day shifts, came in early; always grumpy. Made us laugh. Usually we'd leave him alone until he woke up, but every so often would have to tease. He also was extremely detailed in all that he did. If you asked Walter for instructions on how to get somewhere, you should take a seat. Every street and every landmark would be given; it would be a long discussion.

My friend Walter never talked about religion, but some time after the onset of his disease, especially into retirement, he started attending church regularly. Maybe he always attended church and never mentioned it? He knew I was an atheist, so maybe that's why he never brought up his faith. In fact, it was others who told me he went to church every morning.

I hope it brought him some comfort.

Whatever I think of religion as a whole, I've always tried to maintain the thought that it is not the person, but the institution that I have a problem with. Yes, those who preach also come under the gun as they should, but those who hold onto a private belief do not earn my dismay. As far as I'm aware, he had a catholic upbringing, so the institution is the reason for his thoughts.

I'm not positive on this point, but if memory serves me right, his wife friended me on FB. I do not hide what I am; an atheist. I was leery about friending her, since I knew Walter was going to church everyday, but I wanted to be kept in the loop so I accepted. A few weeks or a month later, I looked at my list and noticed she was no longer there. I decided she didn't like my status and I let it go.

Not going to rub salt into an open wound. 

One thought to keep in mind is that religion's greatest assets can be our friends and family. That is how the institution stays alive. It is not the anti-science group, or the silly religious arm of conservative groups. It is the liberal theists who maintain a relationship with those who are firmly planted in reality. It is those we care about that keeps religion alive in the world, because we are normally too caring to hurt them.

Religion tears family and friends apart in many subtle ways.

We never regularly hung out, but when you work with someone for a couple of decades plus, they become family. I hadn't seen Walter for a year and a half or so, always thinking we'd get together one more time. 

Never will happen now. I will miss him.

Litter

I was walking the beach today and came across an ugly example of human idiocy. Empty containers from a fast food joint that at one time contained burgers, fries and cokes. Well, maybe tacos, nachos and a root beer; who knows, didn't examine too closely.

I've read here and there others who have had a distaste for people who seem to enjoy leaving their garbage for others to clean up. It's an odd habit, one I don't understand. Even though I don't have the immaculate home that others have, I don't walk out into the world throwing my shit around.

Do people that have clean homes throw their garbage in the street?

It is not a problem in most places I'm at. Sometimes high traffic areas get messy, but if it's high traffic someone is probably going to get paid to clean it up. I guess the mess hits harder when it is an isolated incident. Those that inhabit the beach usually like it clean themselves.

Doesn't matter I guess, probably upbringing.

What came to mind while walking, walking, walking; was that religion is a special kind of litter itself. As life comes into the world minds are pristine. Perfect creatures to be imprinted with the best that mankind can offer. Instead, at an early age, the waste starts building up.

Religion litters the thought process. Where reason is fairly straight forward and shows almost immediate results, religion wanders around the synapses fucking up all our thoughts. Instead of a child studying a blade of grass and wondering, "how does it grow," he walks on it not caring. If he sees a bird flying through the clouds, he can easily accept that birds fly, and that clouds form, without needing to understand why.

God crushes the desire to know. The answer is already there; magic.

As children go through school, some will want to know why things happen as they do, others will not because they believe they already have the answer. Those that grow up wondering "why" invent and explain what information our senses gather. Those that grow up content in the knowledge that there is no other solution to the world than god, do not. Though good schools, whether religious or not, do turn out thinkers; what a challenge to overcome. What if a child never had the litter of religion to clean up before they could move into the realm of reality? How much greater would the world's knowledge be?

Religion turns the minds of our children into a wasteland.

A Walk on the Beach

For those who would like to listen,  A Walk on the Beach.mp3

Sunday morning knees missing the sea paying the fee for sins and mercy
while heathens feel no need to kneel since what is real is immune to the faithful
a walk on the beach puts ideas in reach that teach not preach
a run in the surf's bubbling mirth as you swerve from life unearthed

We persevere making it clear life we revere shouldn't be feared
if there's a plan it was made by man life takes a stand against the scam
priest is a middleman a businessman that really began as the bogeyman
the fools with their rules make children tools in their schools
We need a purge to emerge and converge on a surge
that limits and inhibits the thickets of bishops
we exist to assist those who resist fantasies twist
on what is real this is the ordeal to reveal and not conceal

For man is the buzz he's a whiz at the quiz
priestly assassins in their mansions filled with contradictions and immoral passions
from the womb leading us to doom as they presume in their costumes
to pretend they transcend those who are condemned and resent
the attack on humanity with a tenacity that lavishly destroys reality

Misogyny and Violent love are Acts of Unreason

Since at least the time of the greek gods and philosophers, women have taken a back seat to man. Most religions that developed from the mists of times have in one way or another dismissed woman's worth. Creating barbaric laws that were only meant to keep one gender in line.

Throughout the centuries one religion after another maintained a patriarchal leadership that concentrated on one recurring theme. Yes, theft, killing and numerous crimes were examined and punishments thought appropriate were given, but controlling women, keeping them in their place, was always on the minds of our leaders.

Aristotle found woman to be less than the perfection of man. Christianity in its earliest form, and in some sects still to this day, maintains that women are to be seen, not heard. Woman should not be teachers, in fact, they shouldn't speak anywhere besides in the home.

Religious texts were not even as horrible as what man defined them to be. Wiki's statement on Islam:

"Thanks to the subjective interpretations of the Quran (almost exclusively by men), the preponderance of the misogynic mullahs and the regressive Shariah law in most “Muslim” countries, Islam is synonymously known as a promoter of misogyny in its worst form. Although there is no way of defending the so-called “great” traditions of Islam as libertarian and egalitarian with regard to women, we may draw a line between the Quranic texts and the corpus of avowedly misogynic writing and spoken words by the mullah having very little or no relevance to the Quran."

Apparently even ancient books of supposed religious truths are not as bad as what man interprets them to be. Man has thoughtfully, and with known lies and malice, enslaved half of the human population on the planet. I'm not giving the bible, quran or any other text a break here, they are all misogynist reads, but man had the gall to expound on and make worse the conditions that woman would live in for the greater part of their existence on the planet.

Even the newest religions promote the same nonsense. Scientology states that, "A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on its way out," and continues with, "The historian can peg the point where a society begins its sharpest decline at the instant when women begin to take part, on an equal footing with men, in political and business affairs, since this means that the men are decadent and the women are no longer women. This is not a sermon on the role or position of women; it is a statement of bald and basic fact."

From ancient to new writings on religion, one truth binds; women are lesser creatures. This is the only societal reason we treat our partners in life with such contempt. It is an ugly thought that should not be part of atheism. Though there are a few who would like to make atheism misogynist; if this happens it would destroy atheism. It goes against what atheism promotes so cannot exist in the community except as human aberration.

Acts that damage or maim a woman's body, or even kill, that are based solely on a human's normal social behavior, is the most atrocious behavior that a man can partake in. Ignorance is no excuse.

Though religion and man appear to be the creator of this hatred, we know it is not the only abomination that exists because of primitive thoughts. We see children dying from being beat in supposed enlightened countries because of religious texts. We see children in the same countries dying from curable diseases. We see rapes and killings in other countries under the christian cross.

As an atheist thought, violent and love are two words that should never belong in the same sentence.

Religion is the most violent form of love that exists on the planet. If atheism is allowed to be permeated with the same senseless and brutal thoughts, it would then be no different that what we oppose.

We will have become the enemy.