farming never-neverland

     I watched a video about farm life the other day, hoping that it could help to explain food production. It couldn't. Some people do not believe that food comes from farms--and when told, deny it, as they already "know" better. They "know" that farms are pretend, or out of the past--we get food by some more modern method now--factories, or machines. I have spent hours on the video clip site, trying to put together a set of films that would show plowing, planting, tending, harvesting, transporting, processing, and distribution. I found a lot of videos of combines and harvesters, but I couldn't arrange the set I wanted.  I'll have to try again, or contact an educational video service. I'm looking for a video that will show that farmers are real, not  fantasy characters. The video should show that farms and farmers are modern, not a historical re-enactment. The film should explain what "factory farming" means, as the same people who don't believe that food comes from farms have "decided" that this means food comes from factories. Any suggestions?

the death penalty and religion

     I have read a lot of different arguments both for and against the death penalty over the last thirty years. The one argument I find insupportable is the religious conviction that we, as a state, are acting out the will of God, or instituting divine justice of some kind, through the execution of criminals. I, as one of "we the people", do not consider myself a god, or an agent of God. I do not believe in the Jungian "oversoul" God--the God made up of all the people together. Although I am not a Christian, the "pot cannot be greater than the potter" certainly should have warned any Christian away from this view. If God is the creative force behind all the life in the universe, that God does not reside in the minds or the sex of human kind, except to the extent that it has created humankind.
     The religious view of the death penalty also denies the redemptive power of God--and I do believe in redemption. For a Christian, it also denies the redemptive power of Jesus--something I though all Christians believed. I believe that any human being can be redeemed at any time, although I do not belong to a religion that requires this belief of me. I believe it because I have seen it, and I know that it is possible.
     If this argument is based on a tenet of faith, those making the argument ought to be able to state plainly just what that tenet is--and they don't seem to be able to do that.

hippopotamus, hippopotami, hippopotamuses?

     Ever meet one of those people who manages to arrange a chance to display his or her so-called erudition at every opportunity by working words like "hippopotami" into everyday garden-variety conversation?
     Resolved: I shall never write about more than one hippopotamus at all. If there are two or more, someone else will have to tell the story.

old books

      One of the things cyberspace hopes to accomplish is to scan every book ever printed. At least one copy of everything would be in a computer file somewhere, even if the file is not available to share. People are also working on projects to transcribe old written records into typescript--as computer files. There are still mountains of old court records, church records, government records, diaries and manuscripts--all written on paper in old-fashioned script. Some of these records are available to the public, but to see them you would need to visit the building in which they are housed. Photocopies are sometimes available, but that only works when a researcher knows what he or she is looking for. No one would take on the job of photocopying an entire set of records just so a researcher could look through them--and if they did, at 10 cents or 25 cents a page, the cost would be enormous. The internet can someday make all of these records available to anyone who wants to look at them--they are public records, after all.
     The internet could also make rare books available, or books long out of circulation.  Libraries do have a system of loaning books to one another when someone requests them, but the internet could make that much easier. The book has to be put in the mail, which takes time, and someone has to pay the postage costs. It has cost me as much as $10 to borrow a book. Even with an interlibrary loan system, some books are too rare and valuable to borrow. People are sometimes permitted to look at them in person--by visiting the library that owns them. A trip like this might  not be possible for everyone who might like to look at a rare book--making rare books available online would solve this problem. Many of the rare books  belong to public libraries, and the public that supports the libraries ought to be able to use them.

government by the people

     Why government by the people? Because nothing else works--not because it's an ideal we may never reach, or a high-sounding notion--because it works. When people know they have made the decisions by which they live, they make better decisions, and are much more likely to abide by them.

bring back Mighty Mouse

     Tomorrow Philadelphia will have its Thanksgiving Day parade. Santa Claus will come to town, welcomed by marching bands from Florida shivering in the cold--but Mighty Mouse won't be there--again. I miss Mighty Mouse.

theocracy

     Many people argue that a theocracy--a government in which the church is part of the state--can't be democratic, because everyone would have to belong to the same church. That much is true. Consider England, the theocracy with which Americans are most familiar. As long as the monarch of England is the head of the Church of England, and Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords, England remains a theocracy. At one time its citizen-subjects did not have the same civil rights, according to religion. It was considered impossible to be a loyal subject of the crown and not belong to the Church of England, as the head of state was also head of the church. This is the same tradition that made of dissenters, pilgrims--those same pilgrims who came to America in search of religious freedom.
     The other "side" to this argument is that we now supposedly believe in the "right to the self-determination of peoples"--that is, that other people have a right to have whatever kind of government they want, without an exception for theocracy. The British seem to have solved this problem in their own country--everyone votes, with no test of belief. But for other purposes, Church of England membership counts. Anyone who wants to know more about theocracy should look at the history of the church and state in England.