p40 Death Spiral

Several unrelated things, Plus a Death Spiral into a Dark Age

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 09, 1 Jalal, 165 BE

 

Last evening we had our monthly public meeting in the Dunnville Library. Anne Pearson gave a lovely talk discussing the qualities of leadership needed today, with reference to her grandfather, former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. This attracted several people who also reminisced about his time as our national leader. Anne pointed out that the Harvard Business School is now training the executives of tomorrow essentially to be like Pearson was, and Abdu'l-Baha for that matter. Students there have to learn to be servants first, to center everything on principle rather than personalities, to consult humbly, to lead by example, and to encourage initiative in what used to be called "followers." The old authoritarian style of leadership is out the window and a Baha'i-like style of diffusing power into institutions and civil society rather than individuals is being promoted.

 

I have written about the world food crisis lately, and several readers have responded with interesting articles. One recommended the book "The End of Food," written by an Ontario farmer, among other things, Thomas F. Pawlick. Heck, I have eaten the products of Ontario farmers all my life, why should I not start reading their books as well? Here is the blurb on Amazon:

 

"Award-winning Canadian journalist and part-time farmer Thomas F. Pawlick documents the impending food crisis and traces its direct cause to the harmful methods of food production and processing currently used by the so-called agri-food industries -- a corporate-run factory farm system that increasingly values profits over nourishment -- to the detriment of everyone's health and well-being. Its a bleak picture, backed by hard-hitting evidence and true stories, but Pawlick makes it abundantly clear that it is not too late and devotes the latter part of the book to the many ways that ordinary citizens can take back control of the food supply by becoming active on a local level. This is an essential handbook for informing ourselves about the frightening but real decline of the quality of the food we eat and a self-defense guide to what everyone can do to put a stop to it."

 

It looks like an excellent book, especially the suggestions for ways to end this crisis. It is now on my "to get" list.

 

Former Haldimand resident Gail Emberson, now living in Arviat, writes:

 

"This site will show you what has been going on in our little town this week. Watching the mushers finally arrive in town is somewhat like seeing Santa Claus come in except the sled driver is real and being pulled by sled dogs.  It is very exciting. Check out the site www.hudsonbayquest.com. I will send you some pictures some of us took once I get them."

 

There is a prominent scholar of the Faith called George Collins, but yesterday the George Collins that we around here know and love turned up in the press. He used to live in Brantford, and moved up north; I recall back in the 1970's being on a small youth team with Myron Duncan doing direct teaching in Brantford. We visited George and enjoyed his hospitality for a few hours. He was a guidance teacher at the time. Here is the article:

 

<http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/mar3_08gc.html>

 

I want to end with a quote from Abdu'l-Baha. Here is why I think it is important.

 

I was feeling guilty about so avidly reading Naomi Klein's book on disaster capitalism and discussing it here in such detail, since it definitely falls on the left side of the political spectrum. But today even the right is starting to realize that nationalist government and transborder corporations are in collusion. For example, it has been pointed out that the press is not just influenced by corporations, it _is_ corporations. The only owners of our press institutions are corporations. Government and civil society are on the outside looking in. Ditto for the White House. The president and his cabinet are not just influenced by corporations, they are executives. They are millionaire executives and owners of business. This is way beyond influence, it is beyond ownership, it is identity.

 

Government and corporations have, in the words of the TofA, "combined to assist one another" in order to plunder the public thing. This is the common heritage of the human race, and it is an extremely valuable commodity. We cannot hand it over by privatizing public equity. This unholy alliance between two powerful parts of society has happened in the past.

 

In the quote in question, Abdu'l-Baha describes how such a combination of priests with secular leaders corrupted Christianity. It went from a benevolent force for cross-cultural unity to an imperialistic cabal obsessed with power and doctrine. It was Friedmanism In Utero. The twin corruptors that dragged down the Roman Empire into the Dark Ages were the ascetics (on the individual level) and the monastics (on the collective level). Like today's capitalist politicians, they were obsessed with obscure details of doctrine, cared nothing for human suffering and were ready to kill or die for the most niggling point of difference. Here is the Master's description of how this unholy alliance spiraled out of control.

 

"The noted historians of Europe, in describing the conditions, manners, politics, learning and culture, in all their aspects, of early, medieval and modern times, unanimously record that during the ten centuries constituting the Middle Ages, from the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era till the close of the fifteenth, Europe was in every respect and to an extreme degree, barbaric and dark.

"The principal cause of this was that the monks, referred to by European peoples as spiritual and religious leaders, had given up the abiding glory that comes from obedience to the sacred commandments and heavenly teachings of the Gospel, and had joined forces with the presumptuous and tyrannical rulers of the temporal governments of those times. They had turned their eyes away from everlasting glory, and were devoting all their efforts to the furtherance of their mutual worldly interests and passing and perishable advantages.

"Ultimately things reached a point where the masses were hopeless prisoners in the hands of these two groups, and all this brought down in ruins the whole structure of the religion, culture, welfare and civilization of the peoples of Europe." (Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 86-87)

 

 

Five Points

In the Lecturer's Superbowl

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 08, 19 Baha, 165 BE

Some guys follow football, hockey or baseball, I follow the annual best lecturer competition among Ontario professors, sponsored by TVO on their show, Big Ideas. Since we do not have a television, I access the talks by means of TVO's podcast service. This year there was a delay of months as I figured out how to get the talks onto our iPod. Late last night at last I listened to my first contestant, one Christopher diCarlo. I found out this morning that he was the eventual winner of the contest. What a disappointment, like watching the Stanley Cup final as the season opener. Anyway, it probably deserved the honor as I learned a lot in spite of the fact that I was dropping off. His words washed over a semi-conscious brain. In other words, it was just like my old student days.

This lecture was broadcast on March 29 2008 and was called "The Relations of Natural Systems." <http://www.pluggd.tv/audio/channels/big_ideas/episodes/4486n>

I reviewed the talk again this morning, and here are my notes.

diCarlo opened up by pointing out that the greatest discovery in history was a negative one, that is, we learned to recognize what we do not know. Socrates and the other skeptics were the first teachers to teach about the limits to knowledge, and to show how effective epistemological humility can be. It is how the scientific method came about.

(half asleep, I think: obviously this fellow is an atheist, since religion has been teaching that humility since day one by means of an obscure technique known as "prayer")

diCarlo continues, saying that there are 5 questions that are the most important in the world, namely,

What do or can I know?

Who or what am I? or, How do I define myself?

Why am I here at all?

How should I behave?

What is to come of me?

As he listed these questions, a strange image popped into my semi-catatonic mind of a pentacle or star. This is the symbol of man, and was the form in which several Tablets of the Bab and Baha'u'llah were written, and here it was, floating before my face. As he named each of the five questions it appeared at a pointy end. The first question, what can I know?, popped up at the "head" of the pentacle. What am I? came on the right "hand" or arm of the star, and why am I? sat at the left hand. The right point or leg was the question, how to act? and at the left leg was, what is to become of me?

diCarlo went on to say that each question can be answered naturally (small t truth) or supernaturally, by means of big "t" Truth. The natural or scientific answer would be something like:

What can I know? This is limited by language and my understanding of the physical universe.

Who am I? I am a physical being that evolved through accidental combinations of atoms over millions of years in a chaotic universe.

Why am I here? Accidentally, without reason. We could as easily have not been here.

How should I behave? That depends on the rules we come up with in discussion. We may decide on a Machiavellian "might is right" approach, or take an egalitarian, cooperative approach.

What is to come of me? Nothing. We have one life to live, so do not blow it.

Or, alternatively, the questions can be answered supernaturalistically, or in terms of religion.

What do or can I know? I know absolute truth. How do I know that? I have it all written down here in this holy book. I can just read my infallible guidance out to you.

Who or what am I? I am essentially a spiritual being. Behind the physical body is a je ne sais quoi.

Why am I here? To do God's work. To behave in a manner befitting the God that created me.

How am to behave? According to what the scriptures tell me.

What is to become of me? That depends how I behave towards others while I am here.

Our learned professor then goes on to say that the latter supernatural world view is absolutely certain. Believers say, "I have nailed it." Many believers, maybe, but not Baha'is. Our world view is as relativistic as any scientist's. The Guardian, following the Iqan, stated that,

"the fundamental principle which constitutes the bedrock of Baha'i belief (is) the principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is orderly, continuous and progressive and not spasmodic or final." (Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, 115)

The physical monument of our relativistic credo, of our as it were "post-Einsteinian" transcendentalism is the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, which according to the Guardian is a symbol of the "fundamental verity underlying the Baha'i Faith, that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is not final but progressive." (Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration, 185)

This relativism of Baha'is raises the question, if we recognize and claim to know the absolute, why are we not absolutists? Would it not be more loyal to our Creator to hold that God is capable of giving us absolute certainty by the miracle of faith?

No, again, I hark back to the existence of prayer. If God made us absolutely certain there would be no need for prayer. If there were no uncertainty, if our will were utterly identical with God's, Jesus for instance would not have prayed to have the cup of martyrdom to be taken from His lips. No, there would not even be a need for questions. The pentacle that symbolizes the human, and the five questions coming out of its points, would have as little meaning for people as it does to a rat or a tree.

p06 Food

Forel and the Food Crisis

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 07, 18 Baha, 165 BE

 

Our policy on the Badi' Blog is first things first, always to put the most urgent issues first. Then I try to come up with a Shangri-la solution, if only in my mind.

 

Today food has jumped the queue and is crying for immediate attention. Headlines make it impossible to ignore the fact that food prices have shot through the roof. Our crops are fed by petroleum-based fertilizers, and the price of oil is skyrocketing. Food riots are breaking out in many places, and throughout history this has been the first step to revolution. Man does not live by bread alone, but without bread we there is no avoiding imminent death. For that reason, Abdu'l-Baha advised that if someone in your town has no food or shelter, we have a moral duty not to sleep until they have a meal and a bed. He also said, significantly, that whenever you see things come to such a turn that people starve, tyranny is behind it. The least I can offer are some ideas for eradicating the long-term causes of this problem.

 

The roots of this crisis are unusually clear-cut.

 

Economist Paul Krugman lists the factors concisely in his latest column, "Grains Gone Wild" in the New York Times. People in poor countries are paying more than half of their income for food, and shortages are becoming endemic. Petroleum prices rise from the higher demand of India and China as they grow economically, and especially as the latter switches over to a Western, meat-intensive diet. Eating excessive meat is turning out to be not only suicidal but also a moral form of homocide, since meat production is the most petroleum-intensive form of nutrition. Meanwhile prime farmland is excluded from agricultural use, thanks to what even Time Magazine calls the "scam" of growing subsidized corn for biofuels.

 

Another spanner in the works is the subversion of democracy. The ignorance of an elite electorate is pandered by perverse profiteers. In Krugman's words, "...people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." Meanwhile global warming, also caused by lousy or non-existent planning, is turning large areas from drought conditions to out-and-out deserts, especially in Australia. Here is Krugman's to-do list for addressing the food crisis,

"What should be done? The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress: the U.N.'s World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more funds. We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake. But it is not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past." (Op-ed, New York Times, April 7, 2008)

 

In other words, let us all just throw up our hands and give up on long term solutions. Heaven forbid that the imminent death of most of the human race should make us change the ground rules in the slightest.

 Here are some ideas: Re-introduce organic farming techniques everywhere. Stand up for eater's rights before those of producers; eat locally and import from other areas at most a quarter of the diet. Stop greenhouse gases by switching over to an all-electric economy based only renewable energy sources. End all subsidies to any activity that harms the environment. Allow advertising only to food products that satisfy the demands of common sense. Keep food out of factories. Tax sugar and other adulterants to the hilt. Plan the infrastructure of every community according to world standards. Reform democracy. Educate the next generation to be world citizens concerned with the needs of the entire human race. End racial, religious and ethnic tensions through education and a world language.

 

Here are some more suggestions, based on predictions for the future made in 1927 by the Baha'i scientist August Forel, as summed up in Vader's biography (For the Good of Mankind, pp. 62-63), along with my comments.

 

Triumph of the supra-confessional Baha'i religion...

Triumph of an improved Esperanto...

General spread of the prohibition of alcohol. (jet: drinking grain products for pleasure, alcoholic or not, sooner or later will be seen to be as irresponsible as gorging oneself on grain-fed beef for culinary delectation. Ditto for cropland being co-opted for other mind-altering drugs, legal or otherwise. Food for the body rather than poison for the mind must come first.)

(spread of) the right to vote of women.

Free trade and monetary stabilization. (jet: both can happen rationally only under the guidance of a world government. Now we should be thinking about a single world currency, rather than mere stabilization)

Educational reform along the lines Glockel's system in Austria (?)

Civil service for both men and women as a substitute for military service. (jet: people starving? Until the problem ends, send every young person for a year to work in areas of need. We fight wars for freedom, how is the war against starvation any different?)

Simplification of life, abolition of the Parisian fashion. (jet: now maybe Forel would say the New York and Hollywood fashions. How about a moratorium on commercial films and television until the starvation is ended? It is immoral to spend on frivolities when people are dying.)

Education of youth for work as a duty-bound responsibility. (jet: end the crass exploitation of their time and minds by video games, screens and other sterile distractions)

Gradual replacement of our technical, feverish lifestyle by quieter living, return to agriculture, development of science, deepening of art, and of our knowledge of human psychology. (jet: this a huge order, but sooner or later it has to be done; I may devote an entire essay to the implication of this.)

p22ep

Remembering a Forgotten Essay

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 06, 17 Baha, 165 BE

I wrote the following last week but what with one thing or another, I did not send it out until now. For one thing, I could not come up with a title. Here are some attempts.

Diversity

American Politics

Atonement for forgetting earth hour

You have got to have a good title, but this time all I can come up with is "forgotten essay." I guess part of the reason for the delay was that I was worried about the fact that the essay is about politics. On the one hand, Baha'is are not to "breathe a word about politics," and on the other hand, the Guardian encouraged us to study social disciplines like sociology and political science in school. It would be as difficult to investigate history or political science without breathing a word of politics as it would be to go to medical school without saying a word about the human body. So I suppose what is meant by not breathing a word is that we should never throw fuel on the fire of a charged "politicized" atmosphere, not that we should not do our best to discuss and understand the political thing.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the essay I forgot to send.

Forgotten Essay

2008 Apr 02, 13 Baha, 165 BE

The "extra features" section of Michael Moore's Sicko DVD has an interview with a leftist politico from England. He talks about how in early youth he learned to lust after justice. He got it from his mother's teaching the message of Jesus, the imperative of protecting the oppressed from the powerful and privileged. Socialism, for him, means nothing else but the revolutionary message of Christ put into practical application.

He also points out that the redistribution of wealth to the majority is a natural and inevitable consequence of democracy. It always and inevitably goes like this: as soon as the poor, who are in the majority, get a say in the direction of their affairs, they immediately vote out what is against their interest. They support social programs. They see to it that the lion's share of a nation's wealth passes into their hands, either directly through communism or indirectly, through social programs like libraries, public works, universal health care and welfare.

Who can blame them?

But this point raised some nagging questions, not all of which are answered in Moore's DVD. If the poor majority know what is good for them and vote for that, why do the workers of the United States not vote for social programs? Why was communism rejected, even in the face of some of the grossest and brutal exploitation of the indigent in the world? Why with every passing year is its wealth concentrated into fewer and fewer hands? This is no tin pot dictatorship, it was second democracy in modern history, after Switzerland (and some African and Aboriginal tribes). Democracy, crippled as it is, is hardly unheard of in America. If so, why do Americans not turn to socialism with a vengeance?

What is going on?

An Op Ed article in the New York Times, evidently written in response to a speech on race by Barack Obama (featured on this blog lately) has been haunting me for the past week. It is as if the author of this article had heard set out an answer to the above questions about American democracy. In fact it raises one more question as well, is the article itself racist? It starts off,

"In 1893, Friedrich Engels wrote from London to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, another German Communist then living in New York, lamenting how America's diversity hindered efforts to establish a workers party in the United States. Was it possible to unify Poles, Germans, Irish, the many small groups, each of which understands only itself? All the bourgeoisie had to do was wait, and the dissimilar elements of the working class fall apart again." New York Times, March 31, 2008; (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31mon4.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin)

In other words, racial and ethnic differences are why socialism was stillborn in America. The communist party was always weak, except during a brief time in the 1930's. After FDR died, the left fell so far out of favor that even the word "liberal" became a dirty word. The diversity of the workers permanently crippled them. As a result, the otherwise inevitable transfer of wealth that democracy sets in motion never gained traction. No matter how hated, disadvantaged and indigent the masses were, they never posed a threat to the elites, except during the Depression. But this writer goes further, he seems to believe that diversity always and inevitably trumps democracy.

"Ten years ago, William Julius Wilson wrote that American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using their hard-earned taxes to give blacks medical and legal services that many of them could not afford for their own families. ... in a nation of as many hues, tongues and creeds as the United States, it struggles against self-defeating human behavior: racial and ethnic diversity undermine support for public investment in social welfare. For all the appeal of America's melting pot, the country's diverse ethnic mix is one main reason for entrenched opposition to public spending on the public good."

Is this racist? It is certainly provincial. Diversity does not, in-and-of itself, lead to diffraction or disjunction. Under the right conditions, it can even strengthen a society. Nobody with any familiarity at all with history and geography imagines that diversity is always at the root of disunity, division, pettiness, and weakness. You expect that on extremist websites but in the exalted New York Times?

The parallel American experiment, Canada, proves that diversity need not blind the poor majority to its own best interest. Has this writer never heard of Toronto? Our Golden Horseshoe, extending from Hamilton to Oshawa in Ontario, is considered the most diverse region in the world by the UN. Do you see us dismantling our social programs and robbing from the poor to enrich the rich? Are the white folk here beset by petty fears that our tax dollars might somehow benefit people of darker skin? I am not saying that we are void of the racism and tribalism that stains any non-stateside society. But we are not stupid; we do not cut off our nose to spite our face.

Abdu'l-Baha warned against the pernicious effect of the race problem, a problem that has had a ripple effect around the world in the century since He said this,

"This question of the union of the white and the black is very important," He (Abdu'l-Baha) warns, "for if it is not realized, erelong great difficulties will arise, and harmful results will follow." "If this matter remaineth without change," is yet another warning, "enmity will be increased day by day, and the final result will be hardship and may end in bloodshed." (quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, 38)

YIC and chess

A Night at the Youth Centre

 

Last night volunteering at the Youth Impact Centre was like trying to keep an undersized lid on a barrel full of monkeys. Silvie, as so often, spent the whole evening writing a story. This time it was fiction, the story of a boy named Tommy (nothing to do with her brother or his friend, also named Tommy). Tomaso, though, was ever in the forefront of the hijinks. The older teens were stuck to the computers but were constantly wandering in and out. I had to dust off and enforce Dom's old rule that you are either here or you are gone for the evening, not both. I reduced the inflow and outflow with a great effort, in the face of protests that the new pastor running the center does not care about that rule.

As soon as I got a handle on the big kids, I had to turn to the little ones who were climbing the furniture or running around bumping into objects and people. A wild ping pong game went on among the pre-teens, boys against boys and then girls against girls, where the ball rarely came close to hitting the table. A pool game on the newly repaired billiard table was in constant danger of being used as a convenient drink holder. One kid went behind the counter and helped herself to the candy bars. I really missed my co-volunteer, Stu, a retired teacher who can lay down the law on kids like nobody's business, who was on vacation this week. The only other adult, Gord, did turn up, though, and helped me out a little.

While doing all this, I was playing a game of chess with Gord. He is an experienced club player who was a member years ago of the Hamilton Chess Club and has played tournaments in Toronto. He has a much superior knowledge of the openings. I know them maybe four or five moves deep, but he is still on familiar ground eight or ten moves into the game. With that advantage, he beats me a good nine out of ten times we play. In fact before last night I only recall beating him twice.

My first win was a long rook and pawn end game that kept us an hour past the normal 10 o'clock closing time. It was a tense, suspenseful game, but I was sharp that night. The young ones were gone and there were about a half dozen adult kibitzers hanging about watching the board. Toward the end, when Gord left for a few minutes the audience were convinced I was done for. They tried to prove it to me but I said confidently that was a won game. With my finger I pointed out a sacrifice of my passed center pawn followed by a five move maneuver of my rook around his position that assured my other pawn would be promoted. Sure enough, when he returned he resigned after the predicted five moves.

One of my finest hours.

The other win happened after he fell into an opening trap and lost a minor piece for two pawns. Playing accurately, I tightened a noose around his center position. When he resigned I had almost achieved Zugzwang.

The last few games Gord and I played were complete blunderfests. It was the man who makes the last error loses, with my errors outnumbering his by two to one. It is extremely difficult to play with so many interruptions. We should call this little Friday evening "The Ironman Chess Club." With all the distractions, noise and shouting going on while playing a game it is not unlike running a hundred yard dash while fighting the current of a knee-deep torrent. Even a fairly simple game leaves you depleted, mentally and physically.

What was astonishing was that last night's game was accurate. No obvious mistakes were made on either side, as far as I could see. I was white in a Ruy Lopez opening, and he steered me into a variation that was new for me and advantageous for him. Then, intentionally or not, he traded off my knights. This is a ploy that Stu learned a year ago after many, many losses. No doubt this information had communicated itself to Gord.

Ever since I played for the Ancaster High School chess team I was wicked with my knights and helpless without them. When Stu learned my fatal flaw he traded off my knights from the board early, and he started winning every game. I got around this by three months of almost-daily training. I played against a 1900 rated Chessmaster 9000 computer opponent that favored its knights. This meant that it went through every hoop it could calculate to get my knights off the board in exchange for bishops or the three pawn equivalent.

I lost every game against this automated knight hog at first, but I did not care. I was not going to suffer the humiliation of losing against somebody who believes in reincarnation and swallows New Age pap whole. Gradually I learned to play well without my knights. I had to figure out the rather strange openings this opponent liked. After endless defeats, I at last started to win fairly regularly. In time I lost interest in playing with this character, an algorithm that had been given by the game designers a black face. I had no success with the other computer opponent at that level, a Caucasian female. She used a different strategy. Maybe I am just more racist than I am sexist, or maybe my natural level is an 1800 rating, or lower. But as far as Stu was concerned the damage of that four months was done. Ever since, though I never practice, I beat him almost every time.

After the opening in last night's game it resolved into a position with both queens and all four rooks still in play, one of the most difficult and unpredictable kinds of endgame. One slip and you are dead. Playing it is like juggling flaming swords while wearing flammable clothing. Then the distractions got worse. The telephones went dead and the teens at the computer terminals switched over to instant messaging to communicate with friends and parents. I had to throw out one nine-year-old because he had turned a pool match into an explosive sort of bowling game on the hardwood floor.

Concentrating on the game, I realized that without a functioning phone my one recourse in the event of another confrontation, calling the police, was out of the question. Then, with a chill, I remembered that this pastor is a former rock musician and mixed martial artist who is teaching these kids and teens a deadly new form of hand-to-hand combat, Jeet Kung Fu, that makes the Judo I learned as a kid look as mild as needlework. Silvie is his most enthusiastic student. Fortunately, she was the one kid I did not have to worry about. She only attacks me, arms flailing, when I go against anything she wants, and now she wanted to write.

Without meaning to, I gave up a pawn in exchange for the often ephemeral strategic advantage of having Gord's queen on the edge while mine was more centrally located. I got an open file with a rook looking down the center, and he cleverly counterattacked, threatening mate on my first rank, as well as pinning a rook in the center against my king. I ignored that. I honestly do not know how I did it, but while parrying these blows I won the exchange of a rook for a minor piece, then, in the last move of the game, suspecting some kind of deep trap, I accepted his offer of a free knight. No, no trap, he just resigned. Examining the position together, we agreed that there were no prospects for him. How had that happened?

I went home plagued with that same question, how did I do that? Why can I not be like that all the time? Normally, I collapse under pressure. In the best of times -- and this was a rainy, migrainy day -- I slip up. Blunders are the rule, not the exception. Where did I get the alertness to beat a better player while keeping the wherewithal to handle a room full of about thirty rowdy kids, the kind of job that I have no experience or training for? On top of all that, I just went on a new diet that has been making me slightly nauseated much of the time. Why did none of that tell on me?

I was still wondering as I dropped off to sleep. This morning I woke with an answer in mind: the day before I had gone through the long obligatory prayer followed by an ardent recital of the Tablet of Ahmad. Had not done that for a while. Maybe it was just the power of powerful prayers. I thought of the time the Master was walking with H.C. Ives and the latter was thinking how frail, old and sick He was when He suddenly picked him up like a baby and carried him up a long flight of stairs. There is no accounting for divine confirmations.

p22ep

Obama's Race Talk

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 04, 15 Baha, 165 BE

Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech about race recently that impressed many, or at least the commentators that I read. Although I studiously ignore ephemeral news items carried in the media, I had to sit up and take notice. It is hard to ignore politics and the American presidential race, what with the questions the kids are firing at me at random times. Evidently their teachers are of the opinion that this election affects the whole world, not just the tiny proportion with a say in its outcome. That may be so, but to me the question is, if it is a world election, why do I not have a vote? Anything else is a waste of my time. As an example of the questions, Silvie, who is in Grade Eight, asked who McCain, Hillary and Obama are (I barely know myself) and Thomas asked why George W. Bush is so evil (a loaded question, unanswerable by a Baha'i).

I ask you, what are you supposed to say to questions like that?

I really do not want to know the answer to these questions. For one thing, I cannot stand to look at any American president, never have. I cannot listen to a political speech for more than a minute or two. It does not matter who it is, left or right, I have a visceral aversion to leaders, and especially to the Presidents. I suppose in a past age a Gaul or Goth might have had this aversion to an image of the Roman Emperor. It took a transcendently detached Mind to hold up a coin and declare: render unto him what is his and unto God what is God's.

Actually I just thought of an exception to my revulsion rule. I confess that from time to time I wait until nobody is home, lock the door and shut the curtains tight, and then listen over and over to a recording on our ipod of FDR's "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" speech. Chills run up and down my spine as I hear an American president actually berate the wealthy and browbeat the privileged. Such talk has not been heard in Washington, well, in my lifetime anyway. I thrill to imagine hearing this from a modern leader of any stripe. What FDR says, especially in the latter half of this wonderful oration, is truly for the ages. He does not let the truth slip out indirectly or diffidently, he positively lambastes the elites.

"... the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men... Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Note the Biblical reference -- this is no pious invocation designed to garner favor, it is a bold application of what Christ taught at His most angry and revolutionary moment. FDR goes on, expressing the mirror opposite of the Friedman fundamentalism that infects the brain of the present president,

"Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy, the moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends, will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves, to our fellow men." <http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstinaugural.html>

Contrast this iron integrity in the face of the powers that be (now known as handlers) with the complacent, hyper-casual speech recently given by the man in the same office to nervous Wall Street investors threatened by a market China syndrome. Oh well, at least he persuaded them that he would be a great guy to invite to an informal barbecue or cookout.

In spite of my inability to listen to an Oval Office dweller directly, I did catch a very popular Youtube extract showing GW Bush throwing a pitch at a baseball game. He did not say a word, but gave the throw while being roundly booed. I cannot express how I felt to hear that angry crowd roar. When Caligula gets in bed with his horse, even Romans cannot fail to see what he has become. According to a comment from a person in the audience, nine out of ten were booing. I was so impressed that, in belated answer to Thomas's question as to why he is so evil, I told them about this little video clip. I was surprised at how strongly both kids reacted. They were incredulous at first, then immensely gratified, dancing around in joy. Either my indignation is rubbing off or there is a lot more political discussion in school than in my day.

Oh yes, I wanted to talk about Barack Obama.

It seems that Obama's pastor made some inflammatory comments. The budding leader had damage control to do. According to one editorializer, Obama gave a "pitch perfect" response. He did not shirk or minimize the divisive issue of racism. You can read the full text of his address at:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html>

I will only touch upon the opening words of Obama's talk. He starts by pointing out that the American experience is not perfect, never was, never will be,

Obama: "`We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.' Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy."

Government indeed is a controlled scientific experiment, incomplete and ever-improving.

Obama: "The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations."

Slavery, tyranny and exploitation are indeed the original sin, not only in the U.S. but the entire history of humanity. That is why the success or failure of the American experiment in democracy is at the heart of every world citizen's concern. Racism corrodes hearts and minds, but mostly it undermines the confidence and belief that keep us alive and striving from moment to moment. The Guardian wrote,

"To the faithful followers of Baha'u'llah who fully grasp the essential implications of the principle of the oneness of mankind so much emphasized in His teachings, racial prejudice, in all its forms, is simply a negation of faith, a repudiation of the belief in the brotherhood of man which is beyond doubt the cornerstone of the Religion of God. Loyalty to this basic principle should, therefore, be whole-hearted and unqualified." (Shoghi Effendi, quoted in, Lights of Guidance, 531)

If prejudice negates faith, this explains why polarization threatens American unity. We need iron resolve at a juncture of history when it is clear to the most pigheaded denier: our very survival as a species depends upon whether we act decisively, or continue to dawdle.

Obama: "Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time."

Maybe the problem in America is that this ideal was just that, an ideal. Maybe equality requires a total shift in vision, in how we look at one another. That, the Master taught.

"Intense is the hatred, in America, between black and white, but my hope is that the power of the Kingdom will bind these two in friendship, and serve them as a healing balm. Let them look not upon a man's colour but upon his heart. If the heart be filled with light, that man is nigh unto the threshold of his Lord; but if not, that man is careless of his Lord, be he white or be he black." (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, 113)

This different way of looking at one another cannot stay and ideal. It must be taught in school from the earliest age. It has to diffuse into our art, movies, book, and work into every cultural endeavor. Between individuals and groups we must reconcile, love, build friendship and let harmony take the place of the present ill-concealed hatred and resentment. The Master recognized that this takes tremendous determination on our part:

"Such an attainment is not possible without will and effort on the part of each; from one, expressions of gratitude and appreciation; from the other, kindliness and recognition of equality. Each one should endeavor to develop and assist the other toward mutual advancement.... Love and unity will be fostered between you, thereby bringing about the oneness of mankind. For the accomplishment of unity between the colored and white will be an assurance of the world's peace." (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, 38)

Later on in his speech, Obama says something that I sincerely hope is true,

Obama: Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity...

May God confirm those who hold to hope, who believe in our ability to make a turnaround that Abdu'l-Baha held sacred too,

"Inasmuch as this century is a century of light, capacity for action is assured to mankind. Necessarily the divine principles will be spread among men until the time of action arrives. Surely this has been so, and truly the time and conditions are ripe for action now." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 121)

Monthly Talk at Dunnville Library

Baha'i Talk: Environment, Spirituality and Peace

This is the age of responsibility, not leadership. Faith forms our view of the world, and worldview shapes our environment. Therefore, the causes as well as the solution to global warming are essentially spiritual.

Presenter:  Dr. Anne Pearson

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
8 PM
Garfield Disher Room,

Dunnville Public Library

 

Betty Frost's Submission to local newspaper:

The Baha'is of Haldimand are very pleased that the granddaughter of Lester B. Pearson (former Prime Minister of Canada and recipient of the Nobel Peace prize) has accepted our invitation to speak at the next open meeting here in Dunnville in the Garfield Disher Room of the Library.  It will be held at 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 8th and all are welcome.

When asked to give some indication of what she will be speaking about, she gave us the title: Moral Leadership and the Quest for Peace: Reflections on Lester B. Pearson.  Her summary needs no change, so it is simply quoted below:

When one asks about the evidence for moral leadership today, most people shake their heads with a sigh. Where is it?  "Why don't we have any when we need it?" seems to be a common sentiment.  So, what is moral leadership? (That is, principle-based, spiritually-grounded leadership.)  What does it look like?  Why do we need it?  Who are its exemplars?  And what is the connection between moral leadership, global citizenship and building a culture of peace?  These are some of the questions to be addressed in this talk, with special attention paid to the qualities of the speaker's grandfather, Lester B. Pearson, that enabled him to be judged the "best Prime Minister" of the last 50 years by the Queens Institute for Research in Public Policy.

Following the presentation there will be an opportunity for questions and following this, our usual friendly get-together over tea/coffee.

Betty Frost

Haldimand Baha'i community

p04 hsr

Being Mostly To Do With Science

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 01, 12 Baha, 165 BE

I am working on my long-unfinished book proposing infrastructural reformation in preparation for world governance. This is long term, more-than-one-day work, so for the time being the Badi' Blog will have fewer serious essays and mostly consist of links to things I find interesting.

I am intrigued by Seth Roberts, author of The Shangri-La Diet. The diet is interesting enough, but his characteristic self-experimentation method is especially interesting. Check out, for example, his blog entry connecting the ideas of Jane Jacobs with the drug companies.

http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/category/jane-jacobs/

His methodology seems like a scientific version of the first Baha'i principle, search for truth.

I heard about Roberts from an article in Scientific American called: "Self-Experimenter Freed Himself from Insomnia, Acne and Love Handles," By J.R. Minkel. Seth Roberts says the key to self-help lies in the scientific method

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=self-experimenter-free-from-insomnia&sc=WR_20080325

Science is the same method, seeking God, knocking and listening for an answer, that religion uses, that King Solomon applied in his reign,

"You, Solomon my son, know you the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts: if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever." (1 Chronicles 28:9, WEB)

One reason I am forcing myself against my inclinations to get back into this airy-fairy book is a realization -- pushed on me by my frustrated daughter -- that this is my calling. No, more than that, the very fact that we are in climate crisis means that this is not just my calling, it is everybody's calling. When I say calling, I am thinking of the last of the Hidden Words,

"O My Servant! The best of men are they that earn a livelihood by their calling and spend upon themselves and upon their kindred for the love of God, the Lord of all worlds." (PHW 82)

The challenge is simple: find a way to make a living from this yet to be written book, somehow. How can you, dear reader help? Ask me questions. Ask me to speak to your group, however small. The more often I go through this, the clearer it will get, the sooner the book will be written.

I have been reading William Hatcher's "The Science of Religion." Here is the full reference:

Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, Baha'i Studies, Vol. II, Canadian Association for Baha'i Studies, 2nd Ed., March, 1980

I enjoyed this publication when it came out, but left it at that. However, later on, one thing that impressed me was the fact that Dr. Muhammad Afnan, who was not only a descendant of the Bab but also a working scientist, a microbiologist as I recall, put great stock in this little book and carried it around and referred to it often. So, I am going through it again.

In it, Hatcher makes an interesting comparison between faith and a scientific theory. He suggests that they are very close to being the same thing. A Hindu holds to Hinduism in the same way that a biologist, for example, holds to the theory of evolution.

"Sooner or later, we are led to seek some global context, some point of view, which can infuse a sense of purpose into the external events of everyday life, events which often seem to have no meaning in themselves. In sum, we seek what science calls a theory, a consistent set of hypotheses involving abstract concepts which describes a model of reality and which allows us to deduce and thereby explain the known facts. In religious terms, we seek a faith, which is simply a theory to which we add a high degree of personal commitment and emotional investment." (Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, p. ii)

Then Hatcher goes on, I think, to lay the groundwork for a new definition of fanaticism or fundamentalism. These are, as it were, beliefs with hats on them, hats made of what he calls "meta-belief."

 "However, the multiplicity and diversity of belief systems do not, in themselves, necessarily produce conflict. Rather, it is the distressing tendency of belief systems to drift into competition with each other which most readily leads to conflict. This tendency is greatly accelerated when, as is often the case, each separate system includes among its articles of faith the meta-belief in its own absoluteness."  (Hatcher, William, S., The Science of Religion, p. ii)

Niels Bohr is quoted as saying that "the common aim of all science is the gradual removal of prejudices." Considering what Hatcher says above, you could define the common goal of religion and science as the removal of meta-beliefs. Or at least, it should be.

A Badi' Blog reader by the name of Steve Marshall left a comment on my post, "The Baha'i Way, Truth and Light." This was an essay on purity. He commented that, "This saying, that `a believer lives in this world and the next at the same time,' it is wise always to bear in mind. You may be interested in an exploration of this theme in "The Tablet of the Right of the People":

He pointed to a provisional translation of this tablet, as well as several other articles on the excellent site "OJBS: Online Journal of Baha'i Studies" (http://www.ojbs.org). The tablet itself is translated by Mehran Ghasempour in, "Baha'u'llah's Lawh-i-Haqqun-Nas, Provisional Translation,"

<http://www.ojbs.org//issues/issue_1_2007/OJBS_1_Ghassempour_Haqqun_Nas.pdf>

Plus, Jean Marc Lepain's, "An Introduction to the Lawh-i Haqqun-Nas" is as excellent a backgrounder as you could ask for. I learned a great deal from this Tablet. It could be given a lighthearted sub-title: "Salvidor Dali Meets The Scales of Justice." It is truly a mind bending re-examination of the question of divine balancing of wrongs done in this world.