dingdongheads

I am incensed over the latest Muslim nonsense. Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed with a bomb shaped turban or some such thing. Great that our government sponsored the proliferation of this for an entire generation in the 70's and 80's. My boss's boss fought against us in Afgahnistan when we were supporting the Taliban. He is Russian. Not too funny how this has come back to bite us. Evil communism doesn't seem so bad now, huh? - A self-curing thing, communism - I think if we hadn't given the USSR the extra incentive to fight the cold war it would have ended ten years before it did. What's the incentive to get up in the morning? - To be a surgeon and make just as much as the guy who sweeps the streets? We have an excellent system of rewards in the world. Let's call it: Survival of the Fittest. Take that incentive away by pretending everyone's equal and what do you get? - Looks like standing in line for toilet paper and vodka to me... ANYWAY - now we have an entire generation of ignorance on our hands. The last time something this bad had to be eliminated there was an entire race walking the desert for 40 years until that generation of idol worshippers died off. (Which reminds me, how do the Catholics get exempt from the third fourth and fifth commandments about bowing down before statues and worshipping graven images and such?) I digress... So how do we educate an entire generation of Muslims who have gone the radical route? It seems a losing battle... How can anyone who believes that their peace is so frail that a cartoon in a newspaper in a small European country is going to ruin their world be helped? Is it peace that they are after? - I just don't get it. The perplexity of Christians in Africa on the slaughter in God's name rings a bell... Did education rid this scourge? - One can still find radical Christianity mostly south of the Mason-Dixon line where thses odd spirals of rationalization still occur. Killing those who perform abortions - !? - I guess we all hear what we want when we learn about religions.... maybe everything.

I was heartened by an Israeli friend of mine who's accent was recognized by a Manhattan cabbie who was Muslim. She told me that he immediately said to her, "Do you know what the problem is over there?" - a rhetorical question at best - he was Palestinian - he continued, "Lack of education... " he explained that he was putting his two children through school - one a vetenarian and one a pharmacist - so that they could look above false beliefs and lead productive lives.

I remember working at a book publisher in Iowa and producing psychology books. Lots of interesting facts were gleaned from reading these books for graduate students... One thing in particular was a graph of overall happiness and what the income levels were and beliefs and what they read and such. The unhappiest were the extremes - including the richest - the poorest - the most educated and the least - it pretty much showed that an income above the norm, but not so high as to have skewed values was best for happiness. The agnostics were happiest, not the ultra-religious who are above their human doubting, or the athiests who's beliefs are just as religious, but against religion somehow!?

The above was all a rant, so rudely interrupted, that just kind of left off in the middle of nowhere... obviously pissy and of no value - however, now that I am FORCED to make a freaking account (pet peeve number 10,006) to post a comment on my LOVELY girlfriend's latest missive, I will put this up!