There is Wisdom in the word "Don't"

There is wisdom to be found in the word “Don’t”.  Don’t continue with a health care system nobody wants, and doctors and employers alike are dreading the implementation of and that half of congress did not vote for.  The Republican response guy on KNX this morning said that “compromise is something where both sides give up what they really want and neither side ends up happy”.  He has this eighty percent rule where he talks rather about “common ground” that both sides can agree on in principle.  He states that in principle our health care system does need “fixing”.  I have said before there is wisdom in the saying by a republican “What we need to do with this health care bill is start over with a blank piece of paper”.   There are other Don’ts.  Don’t build that high speed bullet train from San Francisco to Anaheim, which hasn’t gotten off the ground and is already undergoing sharp cost overruns, and it’s problematic just how many will use it or benefit from it.  At this present time.   Don’t take the oil platforms out of the Gulf is they are providing a better world for sea life development.  Don’t take the fire rings out of Los Angeles and Orange County beaches.  Bonfires on the beach are a generations old California tradition.  Don’t bring in some outside person to head the California University system.  Don’t build a Freeway through South Pasadena that they have been fighting as a community for fifty years.   And the Bible says even “Don’t meddle to your own hurt”.  I’ll leave it to your judgement how you interperet that.  Don’t be a Mrs. Kravitz on the Bewitched program.  You’ll only make yourself miserable and neurotic, which you probably already were already.   Of as Elvis says in “That’s When the Heartaches Begin”, don’t “bring a friend into your love affair”.  That is bring in a third party to throw his or her opinion around because in the end , “That’s the end of your sweetheart; that’s the end of your friend”.   I would say Don’t close down the San Onofre power plant- - because I don’t believe the problem is that serious and it will only drive electricity rates up even higher.  Don’t declare obesity a disease.   And I would tell the Supreme Court, “Don’t go around declaring a whole century of duly passed legislation as Unconstitutional” like they did with Citizens United.   The case was about a very narrow topic and they should have dealt directly with the issue at hand, like the showing of a campaign film.   And if they believe a law is unconstitutional- - I’d still say render a judgement based on that law for now, with a recommendation to Congress that the law should be changed.  That’s the sensible solution.   Don’t tell a private organization like the Boy Scouts of America who to admit- - or who to hire.   And here’s a little advice from Jeopardy last night.  Vetenarians say “Don’t de-claw your cat”.  Because it involves disfiguring the cat in cutting tendons.   Don’t cut off a shark’s tail fin as a delicacy, and then return the shark to the ocean only to have it drown.    Personally the idea of having a solitary bird in a small cage as a pet for some old lady, seems to me an inhumane practice and a violation of animal rights or something.   Don’t go trespassing on a farmer’s private property because you suspect that some of your GMO seeds may have landed on his property.  Don’t go smashing the rear windows of cars like OJ recommended because you think you see your stereo system in the back of his car.    Don’t muzzle the ox that treads out the grain.  The Bible says that.  Doon’t trust everything you hear reported in the media, especially a story they are really hyping.  Don’t forgive a murderer or a mugger or rapist of extortionist- - unless YOU were the one who was the victim of these crimes.   Not even Jesus Christ did that anywhere in the Gospels.  Don’t make decisions for other people that are rightfully theirs to make.   Don’t provoke a conflict just because you get your rocks off that way.  Don’t hand out prizes for last place in an athletic contest.  Try not to use euphamisms, because you only give the original word more power.  Don’t ignore the obvious when the evidence is staring you in the face.   That last one is for the six women on the George Zimmerman jury.

One thing that bothered the Satan character in that book I got from Judy a week ago was the idea that there was all together too much “situational ethics”.    Let me give you one of those Michael Benner “light bulb going on in the brain” experiences right now.  Suppose George Zimmerman is transported back forty years ago and he stares intently at this analog TV set and makes faces and stuff and goes “Gee I don’t know, that analog television just doesn’t look right to me.  That TV is up to no good”.  Other than being certifiably nuts what else can you glean here?   ALL TV sets back then were “analog” for the simple reason that digital television hadn’t been invented yet.  Just like most all morality and ethics used to be situational because Absolute morality hadn’t been invented yet.  In a world where you can sell your own children into slavery, or put to death a teenage child who “reviles you to your face”, or you can deliver your daughter into marriage to a self obsessed, mean hearted, dmonieering man without an ounce of love in him, or where you can have three or four wives, or have sex with your sister – or where you can be stoned for gathering “faggots” on the Sabbath (I love that word) then any society that promotes these things cannot call itself a bastion of absolute morality and if you asked them I believe they’d be honest enough to admit it.   Some would say to me, “Well I believe only the portions of the Old Testament that Jesus reaffirmed in the New Testament”.  OK.  When did Jesus say that homosexuality, or abortion, or smoking marijuana war wrong?  You see, I already have you cornered.   I would say that Truth is singular, or to put it more simplisticly, “There are many versions of a LIE but there is but one version of the TRUTH”.  Are you listening, George Zimmerman?   Some phrase the statement a bit differently speaking of “an absolute moral measuring stick”.    I’m here to tell you this.  It’s something I learned way back in the fall of 1990 when I first started working with computers at ROP.  When it comes to logarithms or log-bases, it isn’t important WHAT logarithem you pick to work with; it’s only important that it be consistent.  Here we are in the area of “pluralistic morality”.  We have told you that inside a Black Hole there is no way to compare your measuring stick to what is outside the Black Hole.  But I would like to return to Situational Ethics itself.  Even in Sheria Law, and I looked it up - - you don’t get the penalty for stealing something- - if either you are taking it under duress- - like being forced to by another- - or if you are stealing by necessity such as your family is starving and that is the only food.   Taking a human life is situational.  And few people would object to not stopping at a traffic signal or breaking speed laws if it were 3:30 in the morning and your wife was about to have a baby and you had to get her to the hospital.   Most of civil law is replete with “situations” and circumstance.   What most people refer to in “situational ethics” is sex outside of marriage.  They claim it isn’t the sex that’s wrong but because the parties aren’t married at the time.   But for instance a Pastor may be on his second or third marriage, but if a foxy chick in shorts walks into the congregation in the middle of the service,  that same Pastor- - who may have fooled around on his first two wives like Gingrich did- - will wag his bony finger in condemnation of the young woman, AND any member of the congregation who turns to gander at her.   I’ll give you a more jarring example.  “Tell me, is it wrong to go around thinking you’re perfect and that everything you say is a pure golden nugget of wisdom”?  People say “Certainly”.  Yeah, but Jesus did it!  Do you see what I mean.   You know there is a saying that didn’t come from liberals but from the Bible itself that goes “Why should we impose as standards of conduct on our church members something that neither we nor our forefathers were able to keep?”  (Selah)

This is July 12, 2013 and it’s opening day of the Orange County fair they tell us.  Tomorrow if memory serves is “Moon the An-Trak” Saturday.  The Tour de France bike race is in progress and we should be hearing more about it soon.  Government in general has gone into a summer shut-down and you should see stirrings at some point after Labor Day.  Between late June for the next six weeks till about August 11^th or 12 and the Persius meteor shower- - is when you should see things spring to life.  You’ll begin seeing the back to school ads and the promotions for the next TV season, and most importantly of all the initiation of the NFL pre-game season.   I could talk about the Trayvon Martin trial today but it’s too sickening.  The whole town is sick and racist, along with a lot of callers to talk shows.  There is no way to justify anything about those who back George Zimmerman.  I always wondered why the tea party right would pick this case and George Zimmerman as their poster child, but again- - it’s only because I didn’t realize how utterly sick and morally depraved the right wing was - - that pervaids so much of the South and what we call “America’s Heartland”.   I had problems anew with Yahoo Mail as far as being able to send a letter because it keeps deleting the address or it turns red like I’m supposed to edit the address- - but it won’t accept that either.  Also the font color keeps reverting to black.  This only goes to show that updates are often more trouble then they’re worth and that you were better off with what you had, which worked fine.  I have observed that virtually every commercial break on a radio show runs around seven minutes now.  NBC freely admits that you only get 38 minutes of soap opera time for every hour of the program.  Pretty soon it will be fifty – fifty.  I had that Monterey station on this morning with an Ed Schultz fill in.  It kicked off with about five or six minutes of commercials, then about one minute of the program, and then five more minutes of commercials, and none of it was news.   Meanwhile I still don’t know the results of that blood test, which was done abut nine days ago.   (or was it longer ago than that?)  Of course the soap opera is and has been in a stand still for a long time.  Things procede with glacial speed.   Tomorrow morning will make four weeks since Dr. Levy last put in an appearance at this place, without the slightest indication when, if ever he will come back, since he appears to have contacted nobody and hasn’t responded to my mailings.

I thought Edward Snowden was headed to Venezuela but now he says he wants to stay in Russia on a permanent basic.  He has more of our nation’s secrets to share with them.  He’s too much!  And they are going to take all of the fire pits out of all Los Angeles and Orange County beaches, which is utterly adsurd- - and I can think of any number of other projects for the government to spend its time and tax payer’s money doing.   It seems that the Zimmerman jury will be deliberating on Saturday.  I was thinking if I were one of them, I wouldn’t want to be just sitting and twiddling my thumbs for the next two days.   I would remind you that major race riots have started on less provocation.  I’m going to continue now the next morning before seven.  Now they are saying that Sanford Florida isn’t afraid of the locals rioting but “outside agitators”.    Keep in mind that whatever the Black community does, it should be something that “takes back their power” and if it doesn’t do that, then don’t do it.  I would imagine the best course is to do something Whitey doesn’t even suspect, to catch him unprepared.  We know that if Blacks either burn down their own businesses- - or just passively “take it” these will be expected responses.  Here’s a thought though - -  people say that resisting is a bad thing, but how many rapists have said to their female victims “Just relax and it won’t hurt as much”.   How does that one grab you?  How often to Christians tell us “It’s only a bad thing if you say it’s a bad thing.  You need to enter into that other dimension of “the peach which passeth all understanding”.   And then they drop the old chestnut on you of “You know your anger will only hurt YOU, not the other person”.   I’d rethink that one if I were you because YOU are ALREADY feeling the pain.  Meanwhile the other person is being shielded, perhaps by you, from the consequences of his own actions.  Also would a potential rapist go after a woman who’s taken a lot of self defense classes- or a woman who hasn’t?   These so called Liberals on KTLK don’t want to tackle that one.   Others talk about “Well, you have to be passive to assume the high moral ground”.  Here’s a little saying taken straight from the New Testament that you may find helpful.  Listen up.  “People don’t need to strive after what they already have”.  There is already a casum  of near unbridgeable proportions between the Blacks and the Whites.  Quibbling over the last few feet after a while becomes pointless.  You’ll have the “high moral ground” but nothing else.  Perhaps the saying of Dr. Phil Mc Graw would be appropriate here.   “Would you rather be Right, or would you rather be Happy?”   Some would say “Well you need to be like Jesus”.   Let me tell you about Jesus.  One time he was invited to a pharicee’s house- - but later became offended and made a public scene because he wasn’t offered certain amenities like a kiss of greeting, or being anointed with oil, or a bucket to wash his feet.  Jesus got into a regular snit about it right there in public.  In fact I’ll go further.  Most of the readers of my blogs have “had to just take it passively” more than Jesus was ever “passive” about an injustice tword Him.  Sure he would forgive sins against other people- - but less eager to forgive sins against himself.  (Selah)  By the way here is one closing thought about the Zimmerman case.  Why would a Black teenage kid watching the Basketball all stars with his little brother- - and headed home in the rain with stuff bought during half time- - why would he decided “Today is the day I’m going to sucker punch a White guy fifty pounds heavier than I am and then pound his head into the concrete over twenty times”.  It’s ludicris when stated that way, huh?