Memorial Day message (a little late)

Just in case you missed it, from the hilariously funny Dave's Long Box, a (somewhat serious) little post about Congressional Medal of Honor recipients:

http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2006/05/off-topic-medal-of-honor-recipients.html

And in one of the comments on that post, there's a link to the story of one particular soldier (not yet a CMH recipient), from his valiant service in the Ia Drang Valley in Viet Nam (the battle depicted in the movie "We Were Soldiers" - his picture is on the cover of the book they based the movie on) to his death evacuating his office of over 2600 people in the World Trade Center on 9/11:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000307.html

At the end of that story is a link to The New Yorker article giving a deeper account of the life of this honest to god, real life, Celtic Warrior-Poet:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020211fa_FACT1

This was a real person. This was a modern day man. To reiterate the Shakespeare quote on one of the sites:

"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world 'This was a man!'"


And what did you do on Memorial Day?...

Yeah, me neither...

So I post this as my own little act of penance, and as my contribution to the continued remembrance of valiance and virtue. I believe these things need to be made issues in our own lives, and that dismissing such acts and feelings as "romantic idealism" or "patriotic clap-trap" disrespects the very concepts. But also that would indicate the degree to which these ideals are no longer revered in our culture.

And that would be as deeply sad a thing, as the heights of the greatest deeds done by man...

Mjt!

Pass the Peace Pipe, Please

What’s the point of it all? The world is going to hell in a hand basket. Who can tell? Who knows? Why bother? I’m right and you’re wrong. You’re full of it. It’s us versus them. I couldn’t help it. The devil made me do it. My dog is bigger than your dog. He with the most toys in the end – wins.

Rubbish.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of crap out there. I don’t mean physical crap – although our world is certainly filling up with that, too. (Stop it – I’m not some sort of environmentalist – I just see what the trash man picks up on our street…) I’m talking more metaphorical crap - Metaphysical crap: Crappy ideas. (Would that make it ideal crap?...)

You see it on the news and read about it in the paper. (How trite has that sentence become?...) – more apropos you can see it all over the internet. Everybody complains about it at one time or another. People of every creed, sex, color, size, and shape can see it. Hatred, mindlessness, injustice, corruption, insecurity, indecision, intolerance, death and destruction. I’d venture to say that for every one of those phenomena (and others like them – I certainly can’t list them all off the top of my head) there’s some sort of rationale that someone uses to justify imposing that on someone else.

Sure. Everybody knows that. But here’s where it becomes complicated. For every one of those rationales, there’s some – or in many cases, many – supposed “solutions” to the problem. We’ve got it all figured out, you see. This is the 21st century. Mankind as a species has expanded to all the corners of the globe, mastered the mysteries of science, received the blessings of God upon his “one true people”, developed the ultimate political systems, and conquered it all. And yet these problems still remain…

This isn’t really new news. Others have pointed it out before. But it seems to me that we’ve been aware of this problem (the problem of having problems…) for quite some time. And there’s a great deal of noise about how it could all be fixed, and a great deal of finger pointing as to why the “right solution” can’t be accomplished. The Right points to the Left. Liberals blame Conservatives. The East point to the West. The third world points to the superpowers. Blacks blame whites. The middle class blames the rich (who blame the poor). Women blame men (who blame them right back). And every organized religion in the world blames every OTHER organized religion

It seems like everybody is blaming everybody else, and then they shrug their collective shoulders and come to the conclusion that nothing will change. We just can’t fix things. “The others” won’t let it happen. And then they focus their attentions on their personal pleasures, or work on advancing within their profession in whatever society it’s a part of, or achieving a notable accomplishment within the limited circles they choose to run in (whether it’s the elite rich of Manhattan, or a tribe in Western Africa). Or worse still they rabidly cling to their adopted ideals, and aggressively protect them against all foes – real or (egad!) imagined. Shouting out how wrong “the others” are, they find a kind of security in clinging blindly to rage.

Rubbish.

I believe it was not too long ago people used to get together in the chief’s tepee – or the jarl’s longhouse – or the headman’s hut – or the elder’s yurt – and would sit around and talk about the problems they saw as a people. They’d have a warm fire going, and they’d take turns talking, and they’d pass around a pipe or a flagon of mead both to symbolize their equality and as a way of expressing the civility and fellowship they were fostering. And if somebody got all excited and started blaming others, or got all worked up and wanted to impulsively go off and do something foolish, the elders would in effect say (in whatever language they happened to use) “chill out, dude”. And if someone got all cynical and hopeless about a particular situation, there would be someone else who’d point out that there’s always hope, and a chance for something good to happen – even when things looked the bleakest. And more importantly (at least for purposes of this little essay…) there was somebody to gently and tactfully point out crap when they heard it. And then the group would discuss it, and the wise men would be consulted, and a peaceful understanding could be reached.

Why don’t we do that any more? Is there anything close to a modern day equivalent for this? When’s the last time that people with opposing views got together to hash things out – in peace and wisdom – instead of competition and self absorption? Who’s gonna be the one to tell the hotheads to “chill out”, or the myopic fanatics to “get over yourself”? It’s easy (and deceptively comfortable) to chat it up with those who hold the same views as you. Find your niche, and wallow in the security of it. And it’s far too easy to dismiss those who disagree with you. That seems to be the order of the day any more. For every point of view, there’s a “club” that supports it – to the exclusion of someone else – and joins you in pointing fingers. But that’s not going to solve any problems now, is it?

I’m not claiming to be some sort of street corner prophet (“...and if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don’t know...” – Kansas) with a vision of “the solution”. And I’m not setting myself up to be some sort of “crap police”. But it seems to me that this here interconnected web of information (gasp - “ideas!”) kind of makes it possible to have a “virtual get-together” (if you will). I’d like to stoke the fire, and invite others to come on in, sit down, and make yourself comfortable.

Pass me that peace pipe, won’t you?...

Mjt!

Manifesto de Blogiticus

So why do this? For what purpose do I create this blog, and take the time to post entries onto it? That’s an excellent question. Maybe I’m just bowing to the pressure of my friends who have blogs of their own (see Humid Cedar and Grinding Metal in the links section), and who have encouraged me to get one of my own. Perhaps I wish to contribute to the flotsam and jetsam floating on the sea of information that is the internet. Perhaps I’m indulging in my monstrous ego that I might have something significant to contribute to the world wide web.

Nah.

I just want to write. I’m an opinionated cuss who has sometimes ended up turning a simple email response or blog comment into the equivalent of a short story or opinion paper, and my friends tease me about the effort I put into it. “Get a blog”, they say – as if they were telling some young lovers to “get a room”. But I think there were a few other things that also pushed me into finally taking this step.

The other day I was surfing from a comic blog that I go to regularly (you know how one link leads to another, which leads to another), and I ended up at some random comic blog where the comments exchanged on one particular post “mutated” from a discussion about the nature of superheroes, to the social implications and origins of vigilantism, to the objective or subjective nature of morality. All this in a comic blog. Armchair philosophy geeks, who also liked comics. “Hey”, I thought, “I’m one of those too!” And I wished I had a place where I could talk some more about those kinds of things.

Also, I’ve recently discovered the phenomena of “fan girls” – women who enjoy comic books (I never knew any of those growing up). One in particular (Written World over in the links section) has really intrigued me with it’s posts on symbolism and feminism in the comic medium. Ragnell has raised some interesting issues, and I wish I could explore some of those concepts outside of the specific comic she analyses.

And my wacky friend Mad Science over at Grinding Metal (who coined my nom de plume “Notorious Mjt!”) likes to point out ludicrous events in politics and the media – among other things. In one of my comments on his blog I wrote “I’m interested in the underlying nature of [the subject of the day]… it’s base elements… and how to evaluate things through the more purified lens of that understanding.” I didn’t realize I felt that way until I wrote it – but that’s what I’m interested in. I want to explore the deeper, underlying, thoughts or feelings or concepts behind some of the everyday things we think about and deal with.

There’s plenty of personal blogs about this or that hobby. Or how someone’s day went. Or what their cat did that was particularly cute. I want to do something different. Not that I’m opposed to the mundane elements of life. In fact, I plan on writing about what I think when I see my dog looking into my eyes. Or what’s going on with that drive-thru clerk who pissed me off that one morning. Or what the significance is behind a particular media sensation-of-the-moment. But I want to explore the deeper, underlying issues – the ramifications – the implications.

And that explains the title of this blog. I’m into the deep stuff. I dig the concepts, man. That’s just how I roll.

Mjt!

N00B

So this is what the blogosphere smells like...

Hmmm...

Interesting...

I shall speak aloud my thoughts - throwing them out into the void - and see what returns. An echo? A response? A shout? A whisper?

We shall see...