Ducks

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A Gathering of Gulls -pen drawing

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News on the March- climate control

Here is a piece of news that every American ought to read with care:
Hurricane Irene and the recent East coast earthquake were directed at America’s politicians, according to a statement from Michele Bachmann
The Minnesota congresswoman and presidential candidate told an audience gathered at a Shriner’s temple in Sarasota, Fla., Sunday that God was trying to communicate a message about fiscal responsibility via the two recent natural disasters. From the St. Petersburg Times:
I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

For some, Bachmann’s comment this weekend immediately brought to mind televangelist Pat Robertson, who infamously claimed Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for legalized abortion.29-08-11 (.(ack: Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket)
Does not the American voter worry that his or her vote could send some stupid candidate to the highest office?
I know now why the USA is hit without let up by bad news. The stupidest and the least deserving fellows enter politics and they entertain notions being a member of a political party would provide the necessary camouflage to merge among the like minded politicians. They beat the drum, wave their flags and make appropriate sounds so they would not be caught on the wrong foot. Then these caterpillars of the nation announce their intention to be pillars of the Capitol Hill. Pat Robertson tried to find a reason why Hurricane Katrina made a landfall and made the underprivileged of the land suffer all the more. According it was due to the abortion law. Only they were too poor even to pay for abortion!
National Police also got into the act blasting some of these huddled masses to kingdom come. For they looked ready for mayhem! The police found their teeth chattering and body steaming from dehydration and they looked to mischief ready. So the law acted in self-defense.This time around Bachmann found God giving her the presidential address well before hand. Of course she was to use it only when she was elected.
Never have I laughed so loud for a long time since I heard George W. Bush speaking how God charged him to ride into the streets of Baghdad- and not Laredo, mind you,and save the Nation. After many convulsions of conscience and economic malaise I laughed now and said to myself, ‘If the nation is going to take Bachmann’s word as gospel truth I am making a trip to the USA. I have a business deal to close. A fellow by name Perry is interested in buying Brooklyn bridge, ‘as is where is’ condition. Perhaps it might be like stealing the candy off a baby.’Since I heard he is also a Presidential candidate I cannot wait.
benny

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Grand Gazelle-sketch

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How Did Deserts Come About?

When the merchant prince al- Marauf thought he would cross the Arabian desert he asked his friends if they felt inclined to accompany him. None wanted to make the journey. Disheartened at the polite refusal the merchant asked Mulla Nasruddin who out of the blue had dropped in. He asked if he felt up to make a journey. ‘ I must warn you, Mulla it might kill you.’ Mulla asked,’Are we going on camel’s back or take donkeys all the way?’
‘What has it got to do with crossing a desert?’ it was the turn of the merchant to be amazed. Mulla said,’ if we are taking camels I am your man. ‘ Mulla Nasruddin explained that he was an expert of camels. Merchant prince immediately set about his train of camels and baggage.
Soon after on an evening they set off. Everything was so quiet and by nights they would camp in some clearing and after a meal by campfire they would tell stories to entertain the company.One night it fell to the lot of Mulla Nasruddin to tell a story.
Mulla asked if they ever wondered why deserts came about. None knew. ‘ What you are crossing this great desert without knowing why?’
Mulla continued,’The First Man Adam, blessed be his name, was fashioned by Allah and He also made animals to amuse him. He told the four legged beasts,’ My beautiful creatures, show this Man how wonderful you are!’ On hearing the horses galloped while elephants showed how clever they were. Only camels remained unimpressed;and they stood there as if they were bored stiff. Adam felt sorry for their lot. He asked if they cared to accompany him and Eve. The animals shook their heads and it was awful! Never had they felt so awful with camels making them all the more downcast. The camels bore upon man and other animals as well. The dispirit of camels was spreading all through the creation of the Lord. Adam asked ‘ Who can bear this!’ almost pulling his hair by the roots. He asked the beasts,’Perhaps you will be pleased to see a great conflagration of fire?’ No response. Adam set fire to the garden and the camels merely turned their heads away in disgust. It made the First Man try harder. He did all to get some response from camels. To none effect.
One noon the camels made such a ruckus and Adam and Eve were awakened from their siesta. The camels were gamboling and kicking up heels in joy, unconfined! There was desert stretched out as far as eye could see. The garden was completely gone!
Camels at last found what pleased them most. The Lord of three worlds asked if Adam liked what he saw.
Adam shrugged his shoulders to say,’ That beautiful garden is gone for ever. But considering the awful look of camels that made our spirits squirm it is no big loss.’
Looking at the company who heard him in total silence, Mulla Nasruddin ended by saying, ‘Camels got what they wanted. And of course we lost gardens of the earth.’
Next morning as the caravan continued, the camel let out a such foul smelling fart. The merchant asked,’ I thought you were an expert on camels? Because of your story it is certain the camel took offense and I,- get his full blast!’
Mulla Nasruddin replied, I did not say I can anticipate what he will do on any given situation.’
benny
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landscape art- delicate arch, Arizona

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Mulla Nasruddin-comic strip-#7

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Pen Portraits- the Bard of Avon

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) British
Dramatist and poet

The colossous who bestrode English literary scene with his immortal plays so diverse in subject, unrivalled in brilliance and depth, ironically remains still an enigma. Even its authorship has been doubted by scholars and critics who have analysed his plays – confronted with works of such grandeur can not attribute their authorship to who had such a humble beginnings.
It is true that all known facts of his life would fill only a page or two; He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire in the year 1564, probably on April 23, the son of John Shakespeare, a yeoman who later became an alderman at Startford.
William courted Anne Hathaway (1582), daughter of a substantial yeoman, who was eight years older to him. At the age of eighteen he married her. Later we hear him making a name in London as a playwright and actor. In those days and times a playwright was a mere play – provider – a man of the theatre, a master of the company, whose sole duty was to provide text. It was unheard of printing a mere playwright’s story, especially one who was not even of courtly status.
So little is known of his career in London. He appears to have been a handy man and a play provider rather than an actor at the Globe and other theatres. It was not until seven years after his death that two of his old friends and fellow actors saw to the production of the First Folio of his play. Similarly it was not until nearly a hundred years after Shakespeare’s death that his first biography appeared. We may have to rest content for want of better proof in the adage, “the life of an artist survives not in his biography but in the products of his art.”
But if his plays tell us little about himself, they reveal a mind rich in the knowledge of his fellow creatures with their greatness and their faults. He was a warm, pleasant and unassuming companion, the local boy who made good by his sharp business sense, was a boon companion as vouched by many of his contemporaries.

Anecdote:
One day Burbage who played Richard III in the Bard’s Company made a tryst for the night with a lady and the password for her chamber was Richard III. Overhearing this the Bard knocked at the lady’s door and gained admission using the password. While they were making merry the actor knocked at the door. In response the Bard sent word to Burbage that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.

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Pen Portraits- Baruch Spinoza

Spinoza, Baruch (1632-1677) Dutch
Philosopher

The greatest of the modern philosophers brought rational approach to the enquiry of great questions like God and human destiny. He laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment. His masterpiece Ethics never found light of the day in his lifetime. The reason was simple. He was excommunicated* for his heretical thinking from the Jewish community in Amsterdam and the odium of it had preceded his brief life; however stoicism of his race was in his blood as a result of persecution running through centuries, and made him think his own thoughts and make a living by an useful trade of polishing lenses. If he, despite all odds became the greatest ( Frederick Hegel on one occasion speaking to his contemporaries said thus: ‘You are either Spinozit or not a philosopher at all.’) it still owed to his Jewish identity. The fact that he was born a Jew was both a curse and a blessing.
All his works were put on the proscribed list (index librorum prohibitorum) by the Roman Catholic Church. He was greatly influenced by Bruno (1548-1600) whose dictum, ‘all reality is one substance’ naturally would make him oppose Descartes’ mind-body dualism. Bruno perished under inquisition and if the Catholic Church proscribed Spinoza the reason was obvious.
Spinoza’s thinking however latched on to an idea of Descartes that all forms of matter had a ‘homogeneous’ substance, and it propelled him in the direction his precocious mind was taking, and served as light clearing many dark recesses of doubts on way. In 1656 he was excommunicated on charges of heresy and the upshot of it was his father refused to receive him and his sister tried to cheat him out of a small inheritance. (He contested the case in court and won. He duly handed the bequest over to his sister.) Rejected by his family and friends, an assassination attempt on his life made him leave Amsterdam. He changed his name to Bernard de Spinoza and disciplined his life to extreme thrift. He was happy living within his modest means and many influential men of his day found him stimulating and his company congenial. Some of them offered help but he refused stipends and money saying, ‘Nature is satisfied with little; if she is, I am also.’
He finally settled in The Hague in 1670 economically secure and surrounded by rich and powerful friends who looked up to him with great respect.
As a person he was of middle size, his face pleasing, and skin somewhat darker and his hair curly and eyebrows dark and long stamping his Portuguese ancestry in his looks.
Spinoza chose not to found a sect and he founded none and yet philosophy after him was permeated with his thought. The great German polymath Goethe was converted after one reading of Ethics and also was cured of wild romanticism of his past. Spinoza supplied what his yearning soul had sought, dass wir entsagen sollen-‘that we must accept the limitations Nature puts on us.’
There is a statue of him at The Hague erected from public subscription collected from every part of the educated world. At the unveiling of it (1882) Ernest Renan made a moving speech at the conclusion he said thus.’ This man from his granite pedestal, will point out to all men, the way of all blessedness which he found; and ages hence, the cultivated traveler, passing by this spot, will say in his heart, ‘the truest vision ever had of God came, perhaps, here.’

*Excommunication
In 1656 the 24-year old Spinoza was summoned before the elders to answer the charges of heresy. One of the sticking points was his doubt regarding the belief in another life. The Synagogue was concerned such a view, contrary to the essence of Christianity would seem inimical to the community that had welcomed them into their midst. For their security in the host country the Dutch Calvinists had to be appeased and no cost was to be reckoned too little. The same mindset that had prompted Caiaphas to say about Jesus was alive in the elders of his time. (‘It was expedient that one man should die for the people’- Jn.18: 14) If the Synagogue had not spared Jesus or Uriel a Costa it was not going to spare the young Spinoza either.
The young skeptic was offered $500 in annuity for his silence and outward loyalty to the Synagogue and his faith. He refused.
On July 27, 1656, he was excommunicated with all the somber formalities of Hebrew ritual. During the reading of the curse, wailing of the great horn was heard and lights were put out one after the other, indicating the quenching of spiritual life of the man under curse. Spinoza took it under quite courage. He did not join another sect for comfort and determined, as he was to seek his own salvation. The form of the Synagogue and shape of elders that guided it was a mode far from the ‘substance’ of God that moved him. Mode pandered to circumstances and compromised wherever it suited while his soul was ever fixed. His life was his proof to his thought.
(ack: Will Durant- The story of Philosophy: Pub. The Washington Square Press-1964)

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Notice

I shall not be able to blog as I was used to at least for some time. Here is wishing all my readers everything that I can wish for myself and lastly but not the least my thanks go to the movers and shakers of WordPress without whose help I would have been speechless.
benny

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