Being creative is hard work- but worth it

It's the dawn of another year. Another year to be creative. Whether it's writing, painting, whatever. I need to kick the creative muse off my couch and go her going. As Jack London noted "You can not wait for inspiration, you must go after it with a club."

So I am attempting to do some thing creative every day of January and duly note it here. I got to make this blogging thing work for me or get rid of it and my sorry ass delusions of being a writer. A real writer, writes. A real artist does art and makes it worth doing.

Pandora's Box

We live in interesting times as the Chinese curse goes. Orwell was all too prophetic. “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Pogo declared. The newest twister of fate is a slight, white haired, deep voiced Australian. Julian Assange has shown us the emperor has no clothes.

He has -with the assistance of fellow rebels, opened pandora’s box to uncover the world’s love affair with secrecy. He has incurred the wrath of our government by undoing the carefully crafted image of the USA as a champion of free speech and democracy. He has done it without having an affair with a head of state, firing a shot or taking control of a third world country.

There are claims about Wikileaks being dangerous, treasonous, endangering lives and undermining politics. So far they haven’t exposed anything that hasn’t been revealed before but what’s difference this time is that it’s not a respected insider or nervy investigative reporter who has uncovered the misdeeds. No, it’s a self styled whistle blower and eccentric hacker dumping the information in the middle of the street for all to see.

It’s not the information Wikileaks has leaked that’s a danger to the status quo but how the powers that be have reacted to the threat of disclosure that will bring about their downfall. That may have been Assange’s intention all along; to reveal the monster behind the diplomatic facade.

“If their behavior is revealed to the public, [governments] have one of two choices: one is to reform in such a way that they can be proud of their endeavors, and proud to display them to the public. Or the other is to lock down internally and to balkanize, and as a result, of course, cease to be as efficient as they were. To me, that is a very good outcome, because organizations can either be efficient, open and honest, or they can be closed, conspiratorial and inefficient." Julian Assange noted in Time Magazine.

The angry response of government officials crying foul even as they try to dismiss the dirty underwear as nothing note worthy grabs ones attention. As the old cliché goes “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much”.

We are see governments that claim to protect free speech censoring it. We see the US which protested China blocking the internet doing the same thing. We see the Saudis, British, and Israelis- among others, playing both ends of the field in an attempt to sow discord and cover their ass at the same time.

Julian Assange is not a terrorist, he is a holy fool holding up a mirror to our dark side and like the kings of the past it would be wise to listen to his warning of power’s corrupting influence instead of trying to silence him.

When The Noise Is Too Much

I have been overwhelmed with a sense of ennui lately. I have opinions on many subjects as you know but lately- sigh, why bother? I have read articles about the TSA and their draconian tactics  and the media orgasmic response  to them and shrug. I read a lengthy conversation on reddit about people having bad encounters with cops and their truly awful behavior profiling skills. I was  ready to dive in with my observation that cops suspect everyone by nature of the paranoia they develop but thought meh, so what?

Maybe it's the alignment of the stars or the weather or my winter blues coming on early but it feels like there's nothing one can do about the strange, fundamental atmosphere that  grips our thinking these days. Public discourse on TV amounts to contests to see who can be the most hysterical. Hyperbole is the primary journalistic tool and frankly I'm tired of it.

What ever happened to quiet insightful, productive conversation? Whatever happened to critical thinking? There's to much reflexive reaction to events rather than calm analysis.

Call me old fashioned but I can live without a 24 hour news cycle. I prefer time between events to absorb the information and draw conclusions based on complete data rather than flash judgments. What everyone needs to do is calm down.

Police need to learn how to really understand what's going on before overreacting with violence, jumping to conclusions or expecting the worst based on panic rather than intuition.
The same goes for the TSA, the mainstream media, governments and the rest of us. That goes for me as well.

Let's all just take a deep breath and lighten up.

Quote of the day

"Nobody sees a flower, really-it's so small- we haven't the time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time."

-Georgia O'Keefe

Let's Play the Blame Game

Let’s play the blame game , where it’s everyone else fault but our own.

The President of the Boy Scouts council for the Portland metro area has testified he believes the parents of some Scouts were negligent and even criminal for allowing sleepovers that led to sex abuse.

A girl was subjected to months of verbal abuse to the point of her commiting sucide but, gosh the school adminstarion had no idea how bad it was.Tsk,tsk, it’s not our fault and expelling the little monsters wouldn’t be fair to them.

"It's a terrible punishment because that changes their whole lives and what they are capable of doing, and they have to figure out a way to renew and complete their education."

A woman has her head stepped on at a political rally and the assailant demands an apology from her.

The years of litigation and denial of responsibility have spawned an era where no matter what happens it’s someone’s else fault. In clinical psychological it’s called projection where someone is the cause of your behavior.

What the hell ever happened to taking responsibility for one’s actions and it’s high time to be reminded of this. It’s the core tenet of every major religion and we need to reconnect with the commandment to play nice with each other.