Red State/Blue State

Why would any group choose to behead someone? In the 21 st Century,  the words barbarians and beheadings should both be viewed as arcane language. Instead, we see South and Central American drug cartels plus groups of extremists fighting in the Middle East using beheadings as a frequent and popular method of murder. For those of us living in the relative shelter and peace of the Continental United States, it’s hard to fathom the black hole of hatred and darkness seen and used by these people. Why do they behead people? One clue concerning the Islamic extremists leads us to the time of Mohammed. Even in the prophet’s time, (570 AD to 632 AD), he was condemned for an act of violence which left seven-hundred Jewish men beheaded at the siege of Banu Qurayza. In certain parts of Italy and in the U.S., the Mafia and drug cartels of South America use beheadings to serve as warnings to those who would stand in their way. Sadly, we probably have not reached the end of this appall...

Can we have Peace in the Modern era? What would it take to bring about world peace? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the elusive quality of peace. Specifically, after the beheading of a journalist named James Foley, I wondered why a group of people would resort to such a barbarous and medieval act. In the name of religion, it’s sad to admit that many of our most barbarous acts of violence take place under the auspices of religious fervor. Why can’t some bunch of zealots start a Jihad for Peaceful Co-existence? It just doesn’t happen this way. Peace has the distinction of being all things to all people. The ever-changing definition reveals the subjective nature of peace.   My ruminations have led to the idea that human nature can never realize the concept of a world at peace. Our peace is not the same peace sought by those who live in different parts of the globe. Our foreign allies must struggle with a different definition of world peace. The type of peace we all know...

One way to suggest the type of president that Obama is may be explained by the advertising world. There's a different way that Mad Men may look at the Presidents. The Ad Men of Manhattan would look at the last half century or so of Presidents and attach labels to them based on their appeal to the American Public. They would be “Hot and Cold”. The list is as follows:   Kennedy: The first Television President...was Cool. Definitely Kennedy was cool. He was ultra-cool, a younger man’s president with young children. He appealed to women and knew the power of the new and all-powerful age of television. Indeed, he won the debate with Nixon through the appeal of his cooler look, as compared to Nixon’s “hot & sweaty” appearance. The adage- “Never Let ‘em see you sweat” was born with that debate. And through Kennedy’s tragic and untimely death, his image was further cemented in the public’s mind of a young man, never aging and alway...

  Thanks to Thomas Pynchon, I became aware of the definition of Entropy while reading, “The Crying of Lot 49”. While watching the roll-out of Obamacare, entropy immediately came to mind. A definition of the term  is clearly needed here.   I wish I could provide it, but the science is far too complex for my tiny mind. The best description I can bring forth is that entropy defines the energy within any given system.   We know from the law of thermodynamics that over time, in any given system, the energy will decrease. Eventually, this will lead to the death of the system, but to quote from the scientific analysis of thermodynamics, “interesting things continue to happen at increasingly low levels of energy.”   That sounds like a deliberately provocative statement. Of course interesting things may happen…but the fact that they may happen at increasingly low levels of energy makes me think of dying.   There is something about the waning energy ...