I just watched the 4th Season of the biker drama series, Sons of Anarchy. I watched the first three seasons when I bought them at out door booth at Sturges North in British Columbia.
Steppenwolf and Animals, playing on stage that weekend, will forever be associated with that time.
The Hell's Angels were there along with the RCMP. Alot of Vets had ridden in too. I loved best the Vets Run that week. Made me proud to own a bike and ride with those Canadian guys who'd served in Kandahar.
Sons of Anarchy is this drama series with lots of motorcycles. I ride a Harley Davidson Electraglide. It's almost mandatory that we watch Sons of Anarchy. It's like ranchers watching Bonanza except the Sons of Anarchy are the bad boys. They really are. The women are 'old ladies'. It's a weird 'matriarchy' with adolescent emotionally stunted men and biker mommas. Lots of cultural and gang innuendos but the police forces come off looking shady and the town of Charmings, California business men don't look much better.
It's part of that new 'family' as God cult in Hollywood these days. Following on the "Breaking Bad" tradition where dad is a chemist turned meth lab criminal. Mafiosa adolescent thinking. The kind of stunted emotional growth spiritually bankrupt material we have come to expect from Hollywood. Lots of questions about the 'message' and really questionable 'ethics' and 'morality'. It's Dirty Harry except the bad guy has the glock and the message is always the same, me. I don't know if it's got any 'reality' to it but it's way better than the pathetic 'reality shows'. I sometimes watch the really good bike show where the family makes choppers and I like especially the two guys who blow up things as "myth busters'. This has a little of that kind of feel but in addition it's really great drama. That's mostly the product of the really great acting and characters of Katey Sagel and Maggie Siff.
I confess I love Hollywood for all the special effects and especially all of the variations on chases. It must be the dog in me but something about chases in movies and tv gets me going. Sons of Anarchy has one of best of all, a Hearse chasing a Harley Davidson Motorcycle. Not just a great and novel chase scene but marvellous symbolism even the stuck up European movie makers would envy.
Life is cheap in Charming. Revenge is what it's all about. Might is right. There's no elevation of the soul. This is knuckle dragging low brow brute crime drama made magnificent by creator Kurt Sutter.
Charlie Hunnan plays the protagonist "Jax" Teller whose mother is Gemma Teller Morrow played by the Oscar award deserving Katey Sagal. Jax's girlfriend is neonatal surgeon Tara Knowles played by the talented and truly beautiful Maggie Siff. Ron Pealman plays Clay Morrow, Gemma's partner the motorcycle gang pres and the step father of Jax. Episode to episode we see Jax twisting and growing while Clay gets rawer and rawer.
In the background historically is 'John" , Jax's father, the Vietnam Vet who began the motorcycle group and died questionably when he wanted to keep it out of the downward crime spiral of the Irish Republican Army. The boys are fighting black gangs and mex gangs and each other and just generally being robustly juvenile with all manner of great motorcycle riding scenes. The real drama though revolves around Gemma a conspiring mother hen. Tara, brilliant and "loyal in love", a trule sensitive getting harder, is brought into the orbit of Gemma and Clay by her love for confused bad boy Jax.
The show is a surprisingly complex entertainment with enough 'guy' stuff and 'girl' stuff to keep a highly mixed audience. At times I feel like I'm watching the very best afternoon soap opera with Jerry Springer somewhere in the wings conspiring with Oprah then next thing I'm transported to the best guy drama expecting Schwartzenagger, Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis to suddenly ride up on motorcycles to join in the latest Glock and Rocket Launcher fray.
Alright I'm hooked. 4 seasons. There's another to go and maybe one more. All the characters are amazingly drawn and cast. It's unfair just to mention the core ones because the sub plots with Jax 's friend Opie and his Porn Star girlfriend, the dirty land developer, the pot head police chief in love with Gemma but dying of cancer, the scarred cool cat Cartel leader, the lonely intellectual US attorney, they're all really fascinating characters. Rich and diverse personalities. Great bikes.
I love it. But it's not real. It's Hollywood's fascination and promotion of the criminal. It's the make a buck off the James Dean illusion, it's their fantasies of 'noble savages'. What it comes down to is a lot of damaged people hurting alot of people and Hollywood the most damaged of all. But God it's fun to watch. I 'm reminded of my first microscope and my fascination looking at the bugs in some dirt water.
Sons of Anarchy certainly appeals to the psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist in me. Makes me think that there's a lot more work for us in Hollywood than all the country could afford. As for the Sons, I love their bikes. I love the tattooed old ladies. I especially love Gemma and Tara.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
St. James Anglican Church
Gilbert and I love to go to church when we're in town on the weekend. The people are so friendly. I love being greeted by Alice at the door. She's such a lovely lady and Gilbert likes her too.
St. James is Anglo Catholic. People come from around the province to attend this very old service with a truly amazing choir. There's a whole lot of ritual and vestment. Peter was saying that it was once just very high Anglican but today it's also got a very homey parish church feel. That's mostly after church over coffee where the regulars meet and greet. Bear and Dodo, Gilbert's friends often make a visit there too.
Today was the first Sunday of Lent. Father Greenaway-Robbins sermon was truly thought inspiring. Having lived in Israel he told of us his hike up the hill where the Temptation of Jesus occurred. Then he proceeded to list the temptations that the Devil offered Jesus. With each of these he reframed them in modern terms. That certainly brought the message home. I learned a lot today. As always I enjoyed the prayers, the Peace, and the eucharist. Leaving the church lighter hearted, I was ready for a new week.
St. James is Anglo Catholic. People come from around the province to attend this very old service with a truly amazing choir. There's a whole lot of ritual and vestment. Peter was saying that it was once just very high Anglican but today it's also got a very homey parish church feel. That's mostly after church over coffee where the regulars meet and greet. Bear and Dodo, Gilbert's friends often make a visit there too.
Today was the first Sunday of Lent. Father Greenaway-Robbins sermon was truly thought inspiring. Having lived in Israel he told of us his hike up the hill where the Temptation of Jesus occurred. Then he proceeded to list the temptations that the Devil offered Jesus. With each of these he reframed them in modern terms. That certainly brought the message home. I learned a lot today. As always I enjoyed the prayers, the Peace, and the eucharist. Leaving the church lighter hearted, I was ready for a new week.
Vancouver Boat Show 2013
The Vancouver Boat Show has for years been one of my all time favourite events. This year was no different. I love the opportunity to look inside the bigger boats and see the layouts. I love too all the paraphernalia that boaters enjoy. Having been boating for decades I've just about got everything I could hope for on my sailboat except perhaps a helicopter. What I did find again this year was Kits Inflatable advances in tenders. Every type of boat, sailboats, motor boats, launches, tugboats, kayaks were there though. At Granville Island there was a further display of big boats at the dock. I walked by there. There's no better place to see big boat interiors and compare. This year I was more interested in the small boats. I loved the McGregor as always, the best light coastal sailboat motorboat ever made. I did go into that and think that if I didn't have my own bigger sailboat this would be the most fun for weekends. Some of the tug boat variations were impressive as well. It really is a place to dream. A place of deals to. Over the years I've had amazing savings on offshore sailing gear, radars, and radios. I confess I like the people at the boat show. We all like the water. I happen to think water people are special.
Gilbert, the Cockapoo and Friends
Gilbert, my cockapoo will be 3 years old in a week or so. He's a fabulous dog, bright, intelligent, friendly, loving. I'm blessed to have him in my life. These days in addition to being a wet alarm clock he takes me on lots of walks. He comes to work with me, attends church and goes to meetings. On Valentine's Day he had a spa visit so is all trimmed and looking very handsome. He's made a lot of friends. He has his very favourite humans, and his favourite humans but these pictures are mostly his dog friends. 
Saturday, February 16, 2013
SV GIRI - Boat Work
I live on my 40 foot sailboat some of the time. Other times I'm in hotels or my motor home or travelling . When I'm not living on it I'm not fixing it up. I'd like to have it ocean crossing ready and right now it's only probably capable of coastal cruising. In a snap I'd sail across an ocean but I'm better equipped right now for harbout hopping up or down the Pacific Coast.
Actually right now I'm waiting for a new prop and shaft since hitting a log on my return last year. I'd just epoxied the bottom of the boat having it on the hard for days so didn't want the cost of pulling it out until spring. I'm waiting now to haul out the boat so I can fix the prop and shaft and throw on a fresh coat of bottom paint. Haul outs in total cost about a thousand and need to be done yearly.
Today I cleaned the boat some. I found my table again and one of the sedans. I vacuumed everywhere and shook out the mats. To do this I had to tidy up Gilbert's toys. Back on the boat he went through the pile of them I'd made. They're all over the floor again, the way he likes it.
I topped up the water in the batteries. Then I made a run to the gas station bringing back a full propane tank and 12 gallons of diesel. I poured that in the tank which the diesel heater stove feeds off.
I enjoyed baking halibut I'd bought at the market in the stove I had installed last year. I like that everything works and I'm comfortable with the propane situation.
Last year I got a new dinghy and traded my bigger outboard in for a lighter 4 hp I could more easily lift onto the deck of the sail boat from down in the dinghy. I 've ordered a larger commercial inflatable runabout with bigger engine. That's going to serve for scuba, fishing and be trailable for inland fishing and hunting.
Jim replaced the starter on the main Yanmar engine last year and now has a better starter to replace that one so it will serve as my back up. It was my back up until the one I had on the engine died last year after many good years of service.
Jim's going to start work on the upgrade to the electrical panel. The present one has been added to and added to since it was first installed 18 years ago. There's just been no room for the gadgets I've kept adding.
I took off the old torn dodger panels and they're in being resewn now. The dodger has done really well for the years of service.
My main concern once I'm back on the ocean is the autopilot. It's central to my enjoyment of the boat as a solo sailor. My Wagner has been giving me trouble with S turns no matter what I do so it's time to get the technician back. That's the one thing I might consider replacing before I went on a long voyage not that I have one planned.
It's just these are the things that go on on a sailboat. It's like having a racing car and needing to keep it competitive. In my case it's not about competition but about it's ability to do what it's meanto which is sail accross oceans. It's more than up for anything coastal and I know it would weather storms in the middle the sea, since we did bring it back from Hawaii and it's much improved from then. I 'd just not want the worries so little by little I'm making it capable of facing the oceans surprises. It was such an incredible trooper of a boat when I sailed solo in winter to Hawaii through storms.
That's what cruisers do. Boat work. I'd be a whole lot richer in material wealth living in an apartment but I'm still astonished to be sitting in a vehicle that can go anywhere in the world. I've got the skill apparently and the boat has the capability. I'd rather have company if I do another ocean passage though Gilbert and I could do it solo.
Anyway those are the thoughts on a never ending project. Meanwhile I've been watching netflix tv with my personal hotspot. I must renew my Nexus for land and sea. I've kept up the sea one but I missed the deadline on the online renewal of the land one so now have to make a trip down the street from where I work, since they no longer require we go to the border as before.
Actually right now I'm waiting for a new prop and shaft since hitting a log on my return last year. I'd just epoxied the bottom of the boat having it on the hard for days so didn't want the cost of pulling it out until spring. I'm waiting now to haul out the boat so I can fix the prop and shaft and throw on a fresh coat of bottom paint. Haul outs in total cost about a thousand and need to be done yearly.
Today I cleaned the boat some. I found my table again and one of the sedans. I vacuumed everywhere and shook out the mats. To do this I had to tidy up Gilbert's toys. Back on the boat he went through the pile of them I'd made. They're all over the floor again, the way he likes it.
I topped up the water in the batteries. Then I made a run to the gas station bringing back a full propane tank and 12 gallons of diesel. I poured that in the tank which the diesel heater stove feeds off.
I enjoyed baking halibut I'd bought at the market in the stove I had installed last year. I like that everything works and I'm comfortable with the propane situation.
Last year I got a new dinghy and traded my bigger outboard in for a lighter 4 hp I could more easily lift onto the deck of the sail boat from down in the dinghy. I 've ordered a larger commercial inflatable runabout with bigger engine. That's going to serve for scuba, fishing and be trailable for inland fishing and hunting.
Jim replaced the starter on the main Yanmar engine last year and now has a better starter to replace that one so it will serve as my back up. It was my back up until the one I had on the engine died last year after many good years of service.
Jim's going to start work on the upgrade to the electrical panel. The present one has been added to and added to since it was first installed 18 years ago. There's just been no room for the gadgets I've kept adding.
I took off the old torn dodger panels and they're in being resewn now. The dodger has done really well for the years of service.
My main concern once I'm back on the ocean is the autopilot. It's central to my enjoyment of the boat as a solo sailor. My Wagner has been giving me trouble with S turns no matter what I do so it's time to get the technician back. That's the one thing I might consider replacing before I went on a long voyage not that I have one planned.
It's just these are the things that go on on a sailboat. It's like having a racing car and needing to keep it competitive. In my case it's not about competition but about it's ability to do what it's meanto which is sail accross oceans. It's more than up for anything coastal and I know it would weather storms in the middle the sea, since we did bring it back from Hawaii and it's much improved from then. I 'd just not want the worries so little by little I'm making it capable of facing the oceans surprises. It was such an incredible trooper of a boat when I sailed solo in winter to Hawaii through storms.
That's what cruisers do. Boat work. I'd be a whole lot richer in material wealth living in an apartment but I'm still astonished to be sitting in a vehicle that can go anywhere in the world. I've got the skill apparently and the boat has the capability. I'd rather have company if I do another ocean passage though Gilbert and I could do it solo.
Anyway those are the thoughts on a never ending project. Meanwhile I've been watching netflix tv with my personal hotspot. I must renew my Nexus for land and sea. I've kept up the sea one but I missed the deadline on the online renewal of the land one so now have to make a trip down the street from where I work, since they no longer require we go to the border as before.
Forgiveness
Jesus taught Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself. The Lord's Prayer says "Forgive me as I forgive them."
Emmett Fox teaches that to have a resentment is to hold the delinquent prisoner. The trouble with having a prisoner is that it automatically makes you a jailer. Therefore you and your prisoner are in jail. To set yourself free he says to sit quietly, read a Bible passage to help centre oneself, then tell God I forgive this person by name. He goes on to say that once you've forgiven the person ask God to set you free from the resentment and the person.
There are people who are delinquents in my life. These people have attacked me, thieves, liars, false accusers, and their supporting institutions, and government who bites the hands that feeds taking my tax dollars to hurt me, they're all fairly easy. I don't want the psychopaths and sociopaths and corrupt government institutions in my life so I can ask God to free me from them. The trouble is I've little resentments about even those people I dearly love. I don't want to be free of them. I want to be less sensitive and less judgemental and more protective and discerning.
Right now, in this day, I'm blessed. I've prayed as Emmett Fox taught. We're all God's children. We're all interconnected. We're all facets of God. The world is a reflection of my self in some ways and vice versa. The answer is always love.
Fox teaches that when that person or institution comes to mind again we just bless them. We don't need to keep forgiving them over and over and going through a formal ritual. Just 'pray for your enemies', bless them and hope that they stay away and you don't attract any more like them.
Jesus says we should clean our house of demons and not let even one back in because they bring their friends and next thing your house is no longer a temple of God. That goes for 'peace of mind' too. Those who meditate call the mind 'monkey mind' because it's all over the place.
I have so much to learn and the practice is truly onerous. I remember Willie Gutowski, the minister and psychiatrist, saying that the mind is like a radio and that we should keep it tuned on the God Channel. He joked with me saying, maybe I should use both hands. At that time I'd bought a really cheap truck radio. Whenever I hit a bump, like train tracks, it would suddenly skip from the gospel channel to heavy metal. I'd be forever putting it back on the channel I wanted, whatever that was. The synchronicity of his message and my having that radio really struck home.
Today I'm still trying to keep my mind on the God channel, staying positive, using the up elevator. It's like riding my Harley motorcycle though . I dare not lose focus or I end up in the ditch.
All those who have hurt me knowingly and unknowingly, I forgive. All those I've hurt knowingly or unknowingly, I ask that you forgive me. May we all be released from prison. I don't want to be a prisoner or a jailor. I want to be joyous and free as God would want me. Those I love and those who love me, I ask God that I might learn to love and be love more humbly and more fully.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Emmett Fox teaches that to have a resentment is to hold the delinquent prisoner. The trouble with having a prisoner is that it automatically makes you a jailer. Therefore you and your prisoner are in jail. To set yourself free he says to sit quietly, read a Bible passage to help centre oneself, then tell God I forgive this person by name. He goes on to say that once you've forgiven the person ask God to set you free from the resentment and the person.
There are people who are delinquents in my life. These people have attacked me, thieves, liars, false accusers, and their supporting institutions, and government who bites the hands that feeds taking my tax dollars to hurt me, they're all fairly easy. I don't want the psychopaths and sociopaths and corrupt government institutions in my life so I can ask God to free me from them. The trouble is I've little resentments about even those people I dearly love. I don't want to be free of them. I want to be less sensitive and less judgemental and more protective and discerning.
Right now, in this day, I'm blessed. I've prayed as Emmett Fox taught. We're all God's children. We're all interconnected. We're all facets of God. The world is a reflection of my self in some ways and vice versa. The answer is always love.
Fox teaches that when that person or institution comes to mind again we just bless them. We don't need to keep forgiving them over and over and going through a formal ritual. Just 'pray for your enemies', bless them and hope that they stay away and you don't attract any more like them.
Jesus says we should clean our house of demons and not let even one back in because they bring their friends and next thing your house is no longer a temple of God. That goes for 'peace of mind' too. Those who meditate call the mind 'monkey mind' because it's all over the place.
I have so much to learn and the practice is truly onerous. I remember Willie Gutowski, the minister and psychiatrist, saying that the mind is like a radio and that we should keep it tuned on the God Channel. He joked with me saying, maybe I should use both hands. At that time I'd bought a really cheap truck radio. Whenever I hit a bump, like train tracks, it would suddenly skip from the gospel channel to heavy metal. I'd be forever putting it back on the channel I wanted, whatever that was. The synchronicity of his message and my having that radio really struck home.
Today I'm still trying to keep my mind on the God channel, staying positive, using the up elevator. It's like riding my Harley motorcycle though . I dare not lose focus or I end up in the ditch.
All those who have hurt me knowingly and unknowingly, I forgive. All those I've hurt knowingly or unknowingly, I ask that you forgive me. May we all be released from prison. I don't want to be a prisoner or a jailor. I want to be joyous and free as God would want me. Those I love and those who love me, I ask God that I might learn to love and be love more humbly and more fully.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sexual Significant Other - the Mate
"A man without a woman is not a man," Jewish proverb.
In todays jargon this would perhaps no longer be gender specific. It speaks to the essentially relational aspect of the individual. We lack eyes in our back for defence. Together with another we can stand back to back and even hugging we have a 360 degree view of our environment. When one is sleeping the other can be awake. The dyad rather than the monad is the essential 'unit' of mankind.
In the the days of Winston Churchill and before, almost up to present days it was ever said, "Behind every good man there is a good woman." Hitler's problem according to the high self esteem women, in part if not all, was that little tart, Eva Brawn, Hitler's girlfriend. The male joke today is that she was the one who was refusing sex unless poor Adolf killed her more Jews. She definitely wanted the English Crown Jewels and the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth were not going to give them to the whore of Germany.
With the rise of Margaret Thatcher to English Prime Minister and given her impressive partner the saying was extended to be 'behind every good woman is a good man.' "Birds of a feather flock together' is well acknowledged despite the fact that all criminals insist they didn't know their mates were up to no good when the groups are caught red handed.
Much as the Feminism of Social Communism would claim "all men are victimizers" and "all women are victims", despite the the facts of history, the limits of generalization, and the ethnocentricism of the culturally ignorant rhetoric of these western university WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). Personally coming from a Celtic Egalitarian background, with equally powerful complementary parents, so different from the patriarchal Mediterranean Israel, Rome and later Germany, we've always celebrated the outstanding women. Pelagius the Aberdeen monk pilloried by Augustine was considered more offensive for his tonsure and love and celebration of the mother than his famed "Pelagian heresy".
As France had her Joan of Arc, all Latin and South America celebrated the woman as mother. Catholics and Christians in general have always portrayed Mother Mary as next to God. An early pre Nicene or pre Roman empire Christian schism had God as dualistic, mother and father God. In, Evolution of God, Robert Wright traced the father-mother God to the early Jewish community before the Yahweh 'emperor' God of Jewish patriarchy. Orthodox Jews still at times pray "thank god I am not a woman' . Jesus's offence among many was his egalitarian approach to women, his friendship with Martha and Mary, his deferring to Mary, and his calling the ultra masculine Jewish 'Father' of the day ,"Abba" the diminutive 'daddy'.
Most of the great men of history were family men, men as fathers, not as boys. The rite of passage for most cultures was the marriage of a man and woman and the becoming of these adolescent individuals fathers and mothers and adults in family. Gender until very recently referred to the sex of man as boy and father and woman as girl and mother. The dissolution of family in the war of group versus individual invariably seeks to destroy all natural allegiance in exchange for artificial allegiances crown, flag or religious dogma.
Radical feminism was a theology of individualism, a death cult promoting abortion, ritual infanticide no different in it's scientific guise than the infanticide renounced historically as epitomized by the Abraham and Isaac sung so well by Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen. Radical feminism was by nature a rejection of the mother by the daughter. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and these daughters imitated their fathers and emulated the hard drinking, sexist, polygamous men of their hurt and angry girl imaginations. To them a man to a woman was as useful as a bicycle to a fish. There's nothing womanly about girlish 'radical feminism'.
Much of modern day confusion especially in the Courts and Government edicts reflects the ignorance of the laws regarding development and science. Intellectuals are forever formulating ideas alien to nature and playing out their 'experiments' on millions of people. The billions murdered by atheist communism in Russia and China speak to the failure of fundamental understanding of the 'interconnectedness' of individuals. No man and no woman is an island.' It was not surprising that the old 'women's studies' departments evolved to 'gender departments' as so many white girls maturing went on to become mothers themselves and realized their former dogma favoured killing off their sons.
The Chinese meanwhile were with patriarchal communist efficiency killing off all future feminists by selectively aborting female babies. The hijacked humanism of the original suffragette and women's liberation movement having weathered the obscenity of radical feminism expanded culturally to include women of all races where motherhood and children were not abhorrent and despised. On the international scene the simple education of women without abortion has reduced family size to three; not dissimiliar to the numbers common in aristocracy, which have usually celebrated their own children, no matter how much they had disregarded the children of the masses. The spiritual women studies today increasingly replace the paradigm of individualism and 'corporations' artificial legal constructs of the 'individual'. Today it's recognised that it takes a village to raise a child. Good children are a product of good mothers and good villages.
The importance of our most significant others cannot be understated whether or not one goes on to produce a family following marriage, adopting or simply maintaining a long term partnership, this relationship beyond the original family membership is the greatest developmental process in life.
It has long been understood that where there is no money or sex involved people can quite easily 'agree' in general. This is why coffeehouse intellectuals can have such fun playing with ideas. It's why governments and government committees are so exciting because they're invariably playing with someone else's money. Church ladies are forever making rules for 'other women' but rarely are willing to have their own behaviour held up for similar scrutiny. Censors love to read salacious material and censor you or me from the same experience.
The poor routinely criticize the way the rich spend money but invariably when the poor become rich they too spend similarly. Revolutions mostly exchange tyrants and little often changes. The 'reformer is the enemy of anyone who benefits from the status quo', so with reform comes a new 'status quo'. Progress when it occurs doesn't do so smoothly but rather in stops and starts with 2 or 3 steps forward and 1 or 2 steps back.
I loved that celtic Queen Boudica beat the Roman armies of Emperor Nero time and time again, being of such success that later Queen Victoria would celebrate and claim heritage. Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, Catherine de Medici, mother of three French Kings, Isabella I , unifier of Spain, Hariet Tubman, conductor of the underground railway, all are examples of extraordinary women who defy the feminist paradigm of woman as 'victim'. As scientists, when the data overwhelmingly defies an ideology, the ideology is chucked, whereas in politics the exact opposite occurs, with any evidence to the contrary and those who espouse it, removed to save and promote the ideology. Ideology and politics aren't about 'truth' but about money, power and people.
The individual is a construct of 'history' and 'media'. Even St Theresa is a product of the group of nuns who worked in Calcutta and she would be the first to say it. Even as General Patton would speak of his dependence on his men. We are not a collection of 'individuals' despite the fact we are born between piss and shit. Our birth is a dyadic phenomena of 'mother and child'. Paul Simon eulogized this in his song "mother and child reunion'. When we think of ourselves as a 'alone' we negate our very mother, deny the X and Y chromosomes of our father and mother, and that our DNA all apparently relates back to one African cave family some 80,000 years ago. No wonder people say to Barach and Michelle Obama, they've "come along way". In addition our birth more often than not involved community. Further, if we were collectively evil no child would survive infancy when their vulnerability is so great that they are wholly dependent on their parents and community. Even the greatest of us stand on the shoulders of those who went before.
That first child adult bond of family with siblings perhaps or not is next developmentally seen as the adult adult bond of the first and most important 'significant other'. Once the proto unit of family, though not always, to day with gay marriages and "DINKS - dual income no kids'" relationships and 'friends with benefits', despite all its permutations, this 'sexual significant other " still remains of paramount importance in and of itself. It is the cauldron of personal development and the foundation of connectedness with community.
In todays jargon this would perhaps no longer be gender specific. It speaks to the essentially relational aspect of the individual. We lack eyes in our back for defence. Together with another we can stand back to back and even hugging we have a 360 degree view of our environment. When one is sleeping the other can be awake. The dyad rather than the monad is the essential 'unit' of mankind.
In the the days of Winston Churchill and before, almost up to present days it was ever said, "Behind every good man there is a good woman." Hitler's problem according to the high self esteem women, in part if not all, was that little tart, Eva Brawn, Hitler's girlfriend. The male joke today is that she was the one who was refusing sex unless poor Adolf killed her more Jews. She definitely wanted the English Crown Jewels and the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth were not going to give them to the whore of Germany.
With the rise of Margaret Thatcher to English Prime Minister and given her impressive partner the saying was extended to be 'behind every good woman is a good man.' "Birds of a feather flock together' is well acknowledged despite the fact that all criminals insist they didn't know their mates were up to no good when the groups are caught red handed.
Much as the Feminism of Social Communism would claim "all men are victimizers" and "all women are victims", despite the the facts of history, the limits of generalization, and the ethnocentricism of the culturally ignorant rhetoric of these western university WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). Personally coming from a Celtic Egalitarian background, with equally powerful complementary parents, so different from the patriarchal Mediterranean Israel, Rome and later Germany, we've always celebrated the outstanding women. Pelagius the Aberdeen monk pilloried by Augustine was considered more offensive for his tonsure and love and celebration of the mother than his famed "Pelagian heresy".
As France had her Joan of Arc, all Latin and South America celebrated the woman as mother. Catholics and Christians in general have always portrayed Mother Mary as next to God. An early pre Nicene or pre Roman empire Christian schism had God as dualistic, mother and father God. In, Evolution of God, Robert Wright traced the father-mother God to the early Jewish community before the Yahweh 'emperor' God of Jewish patriarchy. Orthodox Jews still at times pray "thank god I am not a woman' . Jesus's offence among many was his egalitarian approach to women, his friendship with Martha and Mary, his deferring to Mary, and his calling the ultra masculine Jewish 'Father' of the day ,"Abba" the diminutive 'daddy'.
Most of the great men of history were family men, men as fathers, not as boys. The rite of passage for most cultures was the marriage of a man and woman and the becoming of these adolescent individuals fathers and mothers and adults in family. Gender until very recently referred to the sex of man as boy and father and woman as girl and mother. The dissolution of family in the war of group versus individual invariably seeks to destroy all natural allegiance in exchange for artificial allegiances crown, flag or religious dogma.
Radical feminism was a theology of individualism, a death cult promoting abortion, ritual infanticide no different in it's scientific guise than the infanticide renounced historically as epitomized by the Abraham and Isaac sung so well by Canadian poet, Leonard Cohen. Radical feminism was by nature a rejection of the mother by the daughter. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and these daughters imitated their fathers and emulated the hard drinking, sexist, polygamous men of their hurt and angry girl imaginations. To them a man to a woman was as useful as a bicycle to a fish. There's nothing womanly about girlish 'radical feminism'.
Much of modern day confusion especially in the Courts and Government edicts reflects the ignorance of the laws regarding development and science. Intellectuals are forever formulating ideas alien to nature and playing out their 'experiments' on millions of people. The billions murdered by atheist communism in Russia and China speak to the failure of fundamental understanding of the 'interconnectedness' of individuals. No man and no woman is an island.' It was not surprising that the old 'women's studies' departments evolved to 'gender departments' as so many white girls maturing went on to become mothers themselves and realized their former dogma favoured killing off their sons.
The Chinese meanwhile were with patriarchal communist efficiency killing off all future feminists by selectively aborting female babies. The hijacked humanism of the original suffragette and women's liberation movement having weathered the obscenity of radical feminism expanded culturally to include women of all races where motherhood and children were not abhorrent and despised. On the international scene the simple education of women without abortion has reduced family size to three; not dissimiliar to the numbers common in aristocracy, which have usually celebrated their own children, no matter how much they had disregarded the children of the masses. The spiritual women studies today increasingly replace the paradigm of individualism and 'corporations' artificial legal constructs of the 'individual'. Today it's recognised that it takes a village to raise a child. Good children are a product of good mothers and good villages.
The importance of our most significant others cannot be understated whether or not one goes on to produce a family following marriage, adopting or simply maintaining a long term partnership, this relationship beyond the original family membership is the greatest developmental process in life.
It has long been understood that where there is no money or sex involved people can quite easily 'agree' in general. This is why coffeehouse intellectuals can have such fun playing with ideas. It's why governments and government committees are so exciting because they're invariably playing with someone else's money. Church ladies are forever making rules for 'other women' but rarely are willing to have their own behaviour held up for similar scrutiny. Censors love to read salacious material and censor you or me from the same experience.
The poor routinely criticize the way the rich spend money but invariably when the poor become rich they too spend similarly. Revolutions mostly exchange tyrants and little often changes. The 'reformer is the enemy of anyone who benefits from the status quo', so with reform comes a new 'status quo'. Progress when it occurs doesn't do so smoothly but rather in stops and starts with 2 or 3 steps forward and 1 or 2 steps back.
I loved that celtic Queen Boudica beat the Roman armies of Emperor Nero time and time again, being of such success that later Queen Victoria would celebrate and claim heritage. Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, Catherine de Medici, mother of three French Kings, Isabella I , unifier of Spain, Hariet Tubman, conductor of the underground railway, all are examples of extraordinary women who defy the feminist paradigm of woman as 'victim'. As scientists, when the data overwhelmingly defies an ideology, the ideology is chucked, whereas in politics the exact opposite occurs, with any evidence to the contrary and those who espouse it, removed to save and promote the ideology. Ideology and politics aren't about 'truth' but about money, power and people.
The individual is a construct of 'history' and 'media'. Even St Theresa is a product of the group of nuns who worked in Calcutta and she would be the first to say it. Even as General Patton would speak of his dependence on his men. We are not a collection of 'individuals' despite the fact we are born between piss and shit. Our birth is a dyadic phenomena of 'mother and child'. Paul Simon eulogized this in his song "mother and child reunion'. When we think of ourselves as a 'alone' we negate our very mother, deny the X and Y chromosomes of our father and mother, and that our DNA all apparently relates back to one African cave family some 80,000 years ago. No wonder people say to Barach and Michelle Obama, they've "come along way". In addition our birth more often than not involved community. Further, if we were collectively evil no child would survive infancy when their vulnerability is so great that they are wholly dependent on their parents and community. Even the greatest of us stand on the shoulders of those who went before.
That first child adult bond of family with siblings perhaps or not is next developmentally seen as the adult adult bond of the first and most important 'significant other'. Once the proto unit of family, though not always, to day with gay marriages and "DINKS - dual income no kids'" relationships and 'friends with benefits', despite all its permutations, this 'sexual significant other " still remains of paramount importance in and of itself. It is the cauldron of personal development and the foundation of connectedness with community.
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