Leo Volont Spirituality Dreams Religion,History, Politics, etc...

Is Prowinds Any Good, No!

2011-04-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a decent professional level saxophone, and when I went over all the reviews on everything I could think of and everything I found along the way, well, even the best Saxophones, that is, the most expensive saxophones, had occasional problems. It was all very worrisome. Any purchase seemed a bit of a gamble. But Antigua Bells (cheap) and P. Mauriats (mid-price) had good word of mouth, and the only American dealer seemed to be Prowinds. And they had a nice well done webpage, and so I trusted them.

So I decided to get a P. Mauriat. I ordered online and they confirmed my order with an email.

Now, I’m used to Amazon.com where after a few days you get a shipping notification. Nothing came from Prowinds. So I emailed an inquiry. They didn’t answer. I looked up Prowinds online to see if there was any chitchat about them, and it seems they hardly ever answer emails. I supposed they used to be a Telephone Center Wholesale Operation and they were still more comfortable talking to customers on the phone. So I called. Well, the reason the Saxophone was not shipped was that it had not even been in stock in the first place, but I was assured that the Order had been shipped and that it would arrive from China in just two or three weeks

If I had been a suspicious person, I would have become suspicious. You see, I am presently staying on an island in the Pacific, and NOTHING ships ocean freight in just “two or three weeks”. Ocean shipping is more likely to take two or three months. So I assumed they arranged some kind of new style expedited shipping.

So I decided to be patient and wait two weeks before my next call. When I called I was told it would be another week or two. It came the end of the month and I saw on my Credit Card Statement that I had been charged for a Saxophone that neither myself or Prowinds had ever yet set eyes on. You know it doesn’t quite seem ethical to process a purchase for payment that hasn’t been shipped yet. But, yes, we are not talking about Ethics. We are talking about American Capitalism, freedom and all that. We can check with Fox News, but Ethics is probably a front for Socialism.

I tried to be patient, called just once a week, but I became concerned when the “One or Two More Weeks” seemed to become too much like the Shop’s Mantra, the Store’s Slogan – Prowinds, Everything in just One or Two Weeks… and then One or Two Weeks more.

Well, I had said earlier that I was staying on a small island in the Pacific, and I hadn’t really thought it was at all possible to find any half decent saxophone on the island. Yes, there was a Yamaha Music Store, but when I had inquired about Yamaha Electric Violins a year or so back, their talk of a six month ordering backlog had scared me away from making any further inquiries there about anything, and I had only noticed guitars and keyboards and didn’t remember seeing any saxophones anyway, and so I did not go back to look, after saxophones caught my interest. Well, as luck would have it, my Yamaha SO3 Synthesizer developed Dust Death in a few of its keys and so I took it to the Yamaha Shop to get it fixed. Talking to the Sales Guy, it turns out they do have Saxophones, but they don’t put them out on public view because people paw at them and they get damaged. But they had both a YAS-62 and YAS-82 in the back store room and would be glad to show them to a serious customer. I told them I was sorry but I had a P. Mauriat on the way. But they only wanted $1900 for the YAS-62. Wow, that was a good price!

Well, I week later, I went back and bought the YAS-62… too good a deal to pass up. When the P. Mauriat arrived, I told myself, I would do what I do with my other multiples of the same instrument, that is, audition them against each other and have a Best and a Back Up, or use one for one kind of Song, and the other for that other kind of Song.

But when almost 7 weeks had gone by and I realized that the YAS-62 was a splendid saxophone, without needing to make any comparisons, I decided to cancel my order with Prowinds. I did it over the phone and asked the Telephone guy (actually they have two, Doug and Ian) to confirm with an email. I felt quite relieved when I got the “Order Cancelled” email.

But then I started going online to check the activity on my Chase Mastercard Account. Prowinds was not refunding my money. I called, and guess what they said? “it usually takes one or two weeks”. Two weeks later, they said, “we’ve been so busy, it will take another one or two weeks”.

I began to worry and so I brought the Credit Card People in on it. At first they insisted on my quickly sending in documentation on projected delivery dates and all that, but I sent them the few actual emails I had gotten from Prowinds, and told them that Prowinds avoids documentation when at all possible and likes handling things over the phone, and that because everything with them had always been some future promise, and they had not been straight with me from the beginning… confirming an order for a not in-stock item, giving the impression that the item was in-stock… so I had cancelled the order, and they had acknowledged that the order was cancelled, but were simply holding onto the money, which didn’t seem quite fair. A Lady from the Bank contacted me and apologized… it seems they were all in a dither to get the most out of me as quickly as possible because Prowinds putting me off as long as they had ALMOST put us over the Dispute Claim Deadline. But with the information I provided, they could certainly rule in my favor immediately. And, yes, the nice people at Chase Mastercard sent my my credit card statement this month where it seems they owe me money… which doesn’t happen very much.

Could it be that Prowinds really was trying to sucker me over the dispute deadline so they could keep close to three thousand dollars for nothing, or to keep my money hostage to use as leverage to compel me to buy some other one of their instruments? Well, maybe there is an innocent explanation, for why it would take a month to do ten minutes of paperwork.

Look Prowinds up on line. One guy says that they didn’t even have reeds in stock. Did they do the same thing to him as me. Charge him for reeds that he’d have to wait for until the next recurrent shipment, which can be months sometimes. Oh, that reminds me that Doug, one of the telephone guys, that when he had been asking me to wait for the Saxophone, he said that the promotional complementary year’s supply of reeds that would come with the saxophone were in stock, and that was worth the wait. Well, let’s analyze that. He felt it important to say that a shop that is supposed to cater to professional musicians would have reeds in stock, as though that is the exception and not the rule. Something is wrong with that Prowinds Shop.

But some people like Prowinds. I hear there is an actual store. So apparently it really exists and isn’t just an online scam. But I would never order online from them again. If you are in America, you can always buy a P. Mauriat and have it shipped from Britain, France or the Netherlands. Or maybe just find a good saxophone that is sold from a company that is partners with Amazon… they all seem to have the same high standards of business ethics, particularly in notifying customers of truthful In-stock and Procurement Status. When there are so many honest shops on the sunny side of the street, why go down the slippery dark alley of Prowinds.

P. Mauriat, you need a new American Distributor.

Antigua Bell, you need a new American Distributor.

So Arabs Want Democracy

2011-03-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

We are being told that all the Arab Protestors want democracy. Really? The fact is that the Arab World enjoyed something like a ‘baby boom’ that has now grown up, kicking up the adult unemployment rate at exactly the same time as the World Commodities Price Crisis is shooting up the prices of Food and Fuel, throwing Economies into a New Recession before they had even begun to recover from the Old Recession. And the People, grasping for any straw, grasp for Democracy.

But would Democracy help? Well, they should read a few newspapers and see whether Democracy has been much help in America, in Europe, in Asia. These Economies are in just as much trouble, and if they are better positioned than the Arab Economies, it is only because they started out with more, having been successful Colonial Powers, before the Anarchy and Insanity inherent in Democracy made them fumble that card with a series of self-inflicted World Wars.

Democracy won’t bring jobs. China has more jobs than anybody, and they aren’t democratic. It’s the security and stability of their Authoritarian System that has attracted the capital that established so many jobs. America, the primary Torch Bearer of Democracy, has lost jobs.

There is one tactical advantage to Democracy. People don’t protest. They simply complain about the Party presently in Power and in the next Election, they vote for the other side. Democracy is a hypnotic Shell Game. Let people complain, and let them vote for the Other Guys. The problem is, the Other Guys are never much different from Original Guys. The Same Money nominates them both.

The Propagandists for Democracy emphasize the People’s Power to Vote. What they never mention is that the People are no where near being around when Candidates are picked out by the Powerful Few who pick the candidates, fund them, lay out their Media Plans, etc. The People only get to Vote for the Show Dogs that had already won the most important part of the Game – getting the Un-Official but all-important Nod of Approval. The Vested Interests run everything within Democracies. Yes, there may be sometimes crazy fringe minority parties, but they are hardly an improvement on the typical Oligarchy and Rule by the Rich, who may be selfish but are at least sane.

If the Arab Protestors and the Truly Disaffected, and not just opportunistic troublemakers in the pay of the Americans, then they would want productive Governmental Reform. Not Democracy, but a Meritocracy, and a Bureaucracy that operates transparently. Do you want in Government? Then take the Test. Do you want to stay in Government, then submit to the strictest Financial Audits. It would create Government that would be truly and effectively independent of Vested Interests and Foreign Influences, that is, Money.

Or you can do what the West does – vote vote vote vote vote, and nothing ever gets any better. Not only is it that the wrong people get elected, but that most Democracies had been intentionally designed to be institutionally weak and ineffective. The Rich and Powerful step in from the very beginning and assure that Government will never be anything they need to worry about.

So if you are willing to die for Democracy, just think of all the Rich People in the World, sitting with their feet propped up on Democracy, who are laughing at you. And they just can’t wait to kick their feet up on your Country too.

Neil Diamond “Dreams”

2011-02-12T23:31:00.000-08:00

Timothy Yap did an excellent review of this album’s content, so I can do him the honor of not simply repeating the same message –‘less is more’ and all a very beautiful presentation.

But it needs to be said that Neil Diamond was the Producer on this project. My God! That is where he really shined!

Yes, the presentation did seem stripped down, but when one listens closely and repeatedly to this beautiful collection, well, the individual performances and the arrangements are genius. Now, that is what a producer does with a checkbook and a telephone, that is, if he is a great producer. Neil Diamond got the absolutely best people – the violin in “Blackbird”, the horn section in “Don’t Forget Me”, and the very heavy piano we hear throughout the entire repertoire. And all the studio time it must have taken. It was probably a considerable expense.

The Production Standards are some of the best I’ve ever seen. They remind me of the Rod Stewart ‘Great American Songbook’ collection, over the years finally getting up to Volume 5, which is really good, but they all have their merits, chiefly in the area of production values and standards. Great people were brought in and allowed the time to do their best work. And you can hear the fun they had making it.

I certainly hope that Neil Diamond’s “Dreams” is successful, or at least that it breaks even financially. Neil Diamond must have worked hard and found it very tiring, at his age, but at the same time, work of this quality is rewarding in the spiritual sense. So, if he is not financially ruined by this first installment of “Dreams”, then maybe, like the successful Rod Steward Series, we will see more of these superb collections from Neil Diamond. The titles will be fun – “Keep Dreaming” is one suggestion. Let the Old Man retire? Certainly not! There is plenty of time to retire when he is dead. If we buy these Dreams, he will keep making them because he is fulfilled by it.

And we do so much need collections of the Best. The Singer Songwriter era of music gave us so many wonderful songs, but they were only the tip of the iceberg of almost endless crap. To find the good songs, we had to suffer thousands of songs that the record companies foisted upon us. It’s the way Capitalism perverts things – original copyrights make more money, theoretically, than beautiful songs in the Public Domain, so the Capitalists wanted plenty of original copyrights – a new song every minute, but so few of these money grubbers had any true instincts for quality and culture and so most songs suck. So we were all submerged in this virtual landslide of garbage, yes, with a real potato here and a real carrot there, but mostly just garbage. The singer-songwriters were put under contract to produce, and produce they did, mostly bland stupid or eminently forgettable songs. That is why Greatest Hits albums sell so well, it is because people came to distrust ordinary albums, mostly stuffed with filler… songs nobody could possibly have been happy about, but simply produced to keep the Stupid Mindless Capitalists happy. Even most Greatest Hits albums are mostly filler. Honestly, most of the Singer Songwriters of this Era, had maybe one or two real ‘hits’ – songs that deserve to be remembered. One Hit Wonders. Any songwriter that has 3 or more actually good songs to their credit, should be honored with a ticker tape parade and a hero’s pension for Life… free coffee at Starbucks, etc. So, most Greatest Hits records should have only two or three selections. What purpose does it serve to roll out the filler garbage one more time in even their Greatest Hits Albums. It only tends to spoil the meal.

So it has become so hard to listen to any album from beginning to end nowadays. That is perhaps the most ascendant virtue in Neil Diamond’s “Dreams” , that every song is good, and one needs to skip over nothing.

So we do need Collections of the Good Songs. And it is good that one of the best Singer-songwriters of our Age uses his other considerable talents, the knowledge and taste he has acquired over the years, to give us not only the Best there is, but the Best that it can possibly be made to be. He takes the best and makes it better. We need to throw that man a parade… and buy his record.

Oh, a personal note on Neil Diamond. It’s odd, considering the body of his work, that he was never considered in the very top rank of the ‘Stars’. Maybe he wasn’t grungy enough, or he should have started off in a band. But he was always considered a fraction of a level down. Well, it didn’t keep me from buying his records. Indeed, there was a strange phenomenon that persuaded me to keep my mind open about the exact merits of Neil Diamond. I’m an amateur musician and my first love is the violin. Well, I NEVER break strings, that is, except when playing along with Neil Diamond’s “Holly Holy” . The song just builds and builds and builds, and one finds oneself scrubbing and sawing the violin like never before, trying to keep up with the building intensity. So, two or three times Neil Diamond has sent me to the store to get new violin strings. Nobody else. So when people criticize Neil Diamond… well, the Beatles never caused me to break a string… The man knows how to do a song.

Problems with Democracy

2011-01-29T20:25:00.001-08:00

With the World now facing so many very serious problems, it is demoralizing to realize that nothing can be done about them. You see, most of our problems have been brought to us by the various special interest groups – Capitalists, Marketers, Military Industrialists, etc – and only Governments with the Power and the Will and the Ability to counter such special interests could ever hope to rein them in and advance any positive program to save the World. But most of the most powerful nations on earth are Democracies, and Democracies have almost entirely defined themselves as the Vehicles for the Special Interest Control of Everything.

Of course, Special Interests do not have an absolute hold on Politics. Racism and Ethnic Identity also fit in. Woodrow Wilson, who was a Professor of History before he became President, had issued a Theory that Democracies resolve into Ethnic Self-Determination, and so the Rise of Nazism and all subsequent Ethnic Pride Parties had been predicted. Remember that in the parlance of Politics, Ethnic “Pride” is just another name for what we understand to be racial hate and prejudice, or the distinction is meaningless as to whether they just love themselves more, or just hate everybody else a great deal, as the end results are divisive politics and Democracies that fail to represent Minority Groups, or Split Majorities – when a Majority Ethnic Groups divides along real political issues, allowing a Hate Group Minority Party to capture an election.

Anyway, even in such cases where Ethnic Parties come to power independently of Special Interests, the Special Interests are usually able to sweep in afterwards and make enough contributions to the New Power Structure to bring them onboard and at one with the Special Interest World. Those who don’t are isolated by Sanctions. For all of the love we hear about for Democracy, it only applies for those nations and people who vote in accord with the Special Interests. Palestine, Iran, Venezuela go their own way and so are treated as though they are enemies.

While Ethnicity does a great deal in distorting Democracies in their role of providing impartial and independent Governments, still, the much greater problem is with Special Interests.

How do the Special Interests control Politics and Politicians? While outright bribes are still nominally illegal, the Lobbyists have made a science of finding myriads of legal avenues through which money can go from the pockets of Special Interests to the campaigns of Politicians. Indeed, that brings us to the Paradox of Campaign Finance Reform, that it so entangled Campaign Finance Law, that now nothing in Politics can be done without the Lobbyists, as they are the only ones with enough money to hire the legal teams sufficient to keep everything straight.

Years ago there had been a fad about Term Limits – the idea being that if a Politician only ran once, he would have no incentive to sell his soul to the Special Interests. Well, what then occurred was that nobody could enter into politics as a career, and so very few truly independent people ran for office, if any, and this allowed the Lobbyist Firms to run their own people – good looking young men and women who could read a speech and do what they were told. And after their Term of Office, they could return to the Lobbying Firm they came from, with a big raise in salary. All legal.

Even if the Special Interests do not apply their monies directly to the different campaigns, they can still operate by effectively buying up Media Influence. Newspapers and Networks claim to be independent, but, really, their advertisers must exercise a great deal of influence. Or the Media Owners are so wealthy in their own right, that they are their own Special Interest, pulling the strings for whatever whim entertains their fancy, as for example, drumbeating the World to War, because Wars make the News so much more fun to print for the Media Tycoons.

But even if Special Interests, the Media and Ethnic Hatreds and Pride could be isolated away from that much of an effect on the World Democracies, still there would be one more annoying factor to deal with, and that is that Democracy does nothing to guarantee the abilities of those who run for office. Good looking people who can read a speech and make promises win elections all the time. Some of the stupidest people on earth do rather well at Politics, George W. Bush, being the first example to come to mind.

Really, what the World needs now is a Bureaucratic Meritocracy – Professional Government open to anybody who can Pass the Test. No Campaigns and no Campaign Contributions, and no Job Jumping from Government to a Special Interest Corporation – these measures would curtail most every evil from the Special Interests. Government workers would have to be in it for Life, or at least never be allowed to work for anybody or anything he had anything to do with while in Government Service. Money and Property of Government Workers would have to be monitored to assure that there was no trading of influence. This would give Government the Independence and Intellectual ability and integrity to Save the World, even while the Special Interests do all they can to destroy it, if that is what they think gives them a stronger return on their Capital for the upcoming Fiscal Quarter. Yes, they don’t mean to destroy the World… that is not even what they are thinking about.

It’s the Job of Government to think about the things that Special Interests have no interest in thinking about. And only a Bureaucratic Meritocracy could be fit for such a Job.

Turning a Jazzmaster Into a Baritone Guitar

2011-01-02T02:09:00.000-08:00

I had bought one of the new “Blacktop” Telecasters and converted it to Baritone by stringing it with the 6 heaviest strings of a set of D’Addario Jazz Light Seven Flats. It was easy, I just had to get a fresh stone-encrusted finger nail file and widen the Nut slots a bit. The Telecaster, with its Humbucker pickups was perfect for the new application. The Telecaster as Baritone, has these really nice round and clean tones.

But it was so good, that I wondered what I was to do with my Jazzmaster. The Jazzmaster, as it is, is thin on the high side … I had to adjust up the pickups on the high side, and tweak up the sound system equalization to help out the high notes. Perhaps it would be better to “bulldog” the Jazzmaster too, that is, to turn it into a Baritone Guitar and forget about the High Side by simply eliminating it

When I decided to “Bulldog” the Telecaster, I had ordered the D’Addario Jazz Light Seven Flats from two different venders, on the chance that I’d get one set sooner than later. You see, I play violin and bass too, where the strings are relatively expensive, and so the cost of guitar strings seems like nothing in comparison. Anyway, the second set of D’Addario Sevens came in today. It made me think of putting them to use.

I looked over the Jazzmaster. Convertering it to Baritone would be a bigger job than the Telecaster. Not only would I have to widen the Nut slots, but there was the Bridge Slots to deal with. And the Bridge was made of medal.

But when I cut off the old strings and just removed the Bridge simply by lifting it off the keeper pegs, I saw that the Bridge Slots were not even differentiated – they are all just the same size little “Vees”, that the strings could settle into – one size fits all. Well, that seems to be why the Jazzmasters have their famous Problem, that vigorous picking or even finger plucking, knocks the strings off their bridge seats – the bridge slots are too narrow, and ‘V’ shaped – the strings just slip up the slant with the least little sideways force.

Converting the Jazzmaster to Baritone would ‘kill two birds with one stone’; I could lower the range more into its natural bandwidth (it likes Low Notes better than High Notes), and I could work the Bridge so that it could hold the strings better.

I had to think through the process. I could use a Dremel Tool for widening the Bridge Slots, but the problem with Power Tools is that, while they are faster, they also make irreparable mistakes very quickly. So I decided to use hand tools. I found an old hack saw blade. Hack saws are made for cutting metal. The particular blade I found was something of a compromise. It would make the slots a bit too wide for the little strings, but not wide enough for the fat strings, particularly the .65 B String that would be the new Low String.

I hacksawed the existing “Vees” down so that they now had square corners. The Strings could now settle into slots. It would be much more difficult to knock a string off the Bridge now. The hacksaw might have left some rough edges, and so I got Sandpaper and folded it and ran the sand paper into the groves. For the wider slots, I folded the sandpaper around an old fingernail file. I used sandpaper from 80 grade to 220 grade. The metal had to be smooth, or the strings might be damaged. I’m an old man and so I used a jewelers loupe to see with magnification, to make sure the sizing and the smoothness was just right, but younger people would probably just ‘eyeball’ the whole process.

After having done the Telecaster Nut, the Jazzmaster Nut was easy. I finished by using a thin stick and a Carpenter’s Pencil to rub some of the graphite powder ( a very good dry lubricant) into the Nut Slots, to make tuning easier.

The skinny strings had a bit of side to side play in the Bridge Grooves, but no problem manifested while playing. Just as I expected, by squaring the Bridge Slot edges and deepening the grooves, there was no longer a problem with knocking the strings off the bridge.

How did the Jazzmaster work as a Baritone?

Now the Telecaster, converted to “Bulldog”, was superb – nice clean round tones from low to high… what was left of high, which seemed to be plenty. So I did side by side comparisons with the Telecaster Baritone and the Jazzmaster Baritone. The Jazzmaster was a bit less ‘round’ but equalization could fix that. But the Jazzmaster does have the Tailed Bridge which makes those pretty, though somewhat unpredictable, flared notes (which is why Jazz Players seem to prefer Tailed Bridges). The both of them were so good – the Telecaster with the Humbucker Pickups, and the Jazzmaster with the shallow single sided pickups and Tailed Bridge, that there really was no choosing… not, on the basis of performance. I finally decided to make the Jazzmaster the Practice Workhorse because it had the Rosewood Neck, which doesn’t stain from hours of sweat and skin oils. Also, the Jazzmaster I have has those Dual Controls… you can set up for both Lead Guitar and Rhythm and switch back and forth. I rarely use it, except for when I play Deep Purple’s “Woman From Tokyo” which is hard-driving Rock except for a very pretty middle part… with the dual controls I can go from “Hard Driving Rock” to “Pretty” at the flip of a switch.

But, yes, both guitars are extremely better as Baritones.

Oh, when I used to play normal guitars, I tuned to E A D G C F instead of E A D G B E (it keeps the string intervals at Perfect Fourths, while the B E tuning, to bring those strings down a step, it only helps with chording for people with short fingers. Who know where that tradition starte?). With the Baritone ‘Bulldogs’ I keep the Perfect Fourth tuning – B E A D G C. But traditionalist Guitar Players, with short fingers who want to keep doing their old chords, well, they could tune to B E A D F# B… you would just have to transpose a little to get the exact chords you want, but the neck would still be the same…except for being a Perfect Fourth lower.

If in doubt about String Tension, consult the D’Addario String Tension Chart on their Website, or just do a Web Search for D’Addario String Tension Chart.

Humbucker Telecaster (Blacktop) Turned Baritone Guitar

2010-12-31T23:47:00.000-08:00

I had gotten the Blacktop Telecaster because the humbucker pickups, particularly the neck pickup, gave it a good clean round ‘O’ sound, much like the thin single pole pickups in the Jazzmaster. Well, I already have a Jazzmaster, but the problem with the Jazzmaster is that, with a shade too much enthusiasm, you can whip the strings off the tailed bridge (the trade off for the inconvenience of a trailed bridge, is that at certain intervals the strings have a nice swelling flare, although steals a bit from sustain).

Anyway, the Humbucker Telecaster seems like a kind of best of both worlds kind of instrument – nice clean round sound from the pickups and strings that you can get rough with without scaring them off the bridge.

Anyway, I bought it and as I was leaving the Shop, the owner of the place asked me if I thought of ‘baritoning’ it. You see, he was familiar with me going from Violin to Viola (a viola is a violin that goes lower than a normal violin by one string interval), and tuning up a step on my Fender Jazz Bass, to keep the D’addario Light Flats tight (The D’addario strings were designed for 36” Scale but the Fender Bass is a tad shorter and so taking the strings up a notch would simply keep all things more or less even). Oh, and with guitar he knew I was going from the traditional E, A, D, G, B, E tuning to E, A, D, G, C, F, that is, to keep the strings at Perfect Fourth (5 step) intervals (they only tune up the B and E strings to make chording easier for short fingers… no other reason). Anyway, the shop owner had every reason to suspect that I might try some tuning change with this new telecaster, and was simply curious about it. Well, actually, I hadn’t thought ahead that far, but it gave me the idea.

Yes, they do have ‘Real’ baritone guitars – acoustics that are built on a longer scale, because, well, with acoustic guitars it is the actual physical dimensions that resonate with and support the sound of the strings. But with electric guitars and their pickups, physical dimensions are no longer so essential.

But converting the Telecaster to Baritone would require an extra big fat string that I could tune down to B. I looked around and found that D’addario makes a set of strings for 7 String guitars – “Jazz Light/ 7-String”, ECG24-7. They were all a bit fatter than what I am used to (D’addario super light Flats), but, checking with D’addario’s String Tension Chart, they would be usable, even with me tuning up the last two skinny strings, to preserve the perfect fourth (five step) intervals. So I ordered some strings. I actually ordered two sets, from different suppliers, Wiener Music, through Amazon, and Just Strings, hoping that one would come before the other. Wiener Music won. I’m still waiting for the Just Strings set to come through, but they did email me with an apology, as there had been some kind of delay.

Oh, with using a much fatter string in the old Fat E position, and using larger strings in every position, really, I would need to enlarge the groves in the Nut up at the top of the neck. So I bought one of those Nail Files with crushed industrial diamonds… which look a lot like sand.

Meanwhile, I played the ordinary tuning, for me (E A D G C F) for a week. I even had an All Nighter Practice to get acquainted with the new instrument and its new sound.

When the strings came in, I got out my Jewelers Loupe and worked the Nut with the fingernail file until the notch sizes seemed suitable for the new fits. The new strings went on without event. The strings were a bit stretchy and required a lot of retuning between songs, but only for the first evening. They settled in after a day.

Oh, the intonation was effected. But Intonation adjusts on this Telecaster are easy – just detune the strings until you can push back the bridge block with your finger, and then just take up the slack by tightening up the screw that goes through the spring. It took a lot of adjustment… more than a quarter of an inch… the Fat B String going back almost to the ‘wall’, but alls well that ends well. I suppose the intonation adjustment was necessary because I went to higher tension strings, and not so much because they were simply fatter strings.

The ‘Bulldog’ Telecaster sounds great. Sacrificing the high E string for the low B seems like a wonderful trade-off. Just like going from violin to viola, or from a 4 String Bass to a 5 String. One loves going lower but, in the case of the Viola and Bulldog Baritone Guitar, doesn’t miss the shorted higher reach at all… to go high you can just work down the neck a bit further than usual.

Its funny, the strange phenomena whereby one gets used to an instrument’s range. When I was still playing an old 4 String Precision Bass, I wondered why anybody would ever need a 5 String, as it seemed every song could be done without going up past the nut of the 4 String’s E String. I thought the same about my violin’s G string. I play by ear, and so apparently the first thing my brain does is organize riffs and arrangements according to available range. But after five minutes with the new Range, one wonders what one ever used to do without it.

When I first got my 5 String Jazz Bass, I read on line some guy that was saying that the “common mistake” new 5 String owners make is that they play their new Fat String too much. Well, that’s not really a mistake, is it? For instance, if you have an old dog who has been kept in the back yard its whole life, and then you decide to add the side yard to his enclosure, well, where do you suppose the dog will go at its first opportunity? Of course it will sniff out its new territory. So spending a lot of time, at first, in one’s new Range is not such an odd thing for an old musical dog.

Music Practice, a Poem

2010-12-26T03:35:00.000-08:00

At first you are thinking about the Instrument, and you are listening closely, but after about 20 minutes or so you are warmed up, and you trust your playing, and instead of standing over your playing like a slave-master, you let go and just listen to what the Angels of your Higher Mind and Right Hand and Left Hand are playing for you.

The competent playing is reassuring. And so you let yourself think, you let yourself go. Your Mind drifts. You think about memories. You might even come back a little bit to think about left hand and right hand stuff, and your hands seem to take the suggestions…and then your mind wanders again. A wandering mind is like a dream.

Or it’s like being High. When you are High you think the thoughts you think are the most important thoughts that have ever been ‘thunk’, but a moment later you forget what you had been thinking about – you only remember that you had seen the Face of God, but forget what He looked like.

Music Practice is much the same. Hands flying free playing the songs of Angels, one thinks the highest possible thoughts, and you even think that you will remember to call friends, write to friends, and share these Divine Revelations that you had received during Music Practice…

But Music Practice ends. You have to cook dinner, or whatever, and all you remember was, well, it was one heck of a great music practice… it is like you know you had one heck of a wonderful dream, but just don’t remember the details. You know you had seen the Face of God, but just forget what He looks like.

Fender Needs a Premium Electric Violin

2010-12-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

The FV1, an old thing which they still sell I believe, looks terrible. The FV3 is a gorgeous Violin, apparently made in a Chinese Furniture Factory which accounts for why it looks so much like a lacquer coffee table, but apparently the design calls for the bridge crushing down on top of the piezoelectric-pickup that lays under it in the bridge well. My FV3 had to go in for repair after less than a month. And the wood of the head and the pegs are incompatible – the hard wood of the head squeezes down and polishes the pegs smooth so that they begin to slip. Every few weeks one has to unstring the violin and sand paper the pegs so that they will grip again. I suppose one would have to experiment with light glues or bee honey, or whatever would keep the peg tuners from slipping.

And the tone of the FV3, while superior to most entry level electric violins, doesn’t come close to the pretty sound that such violins as the NS Design CR4 can make. Oh, don’t confuse the CR4 premium series with the NS Design WAV Series, which don’t sound any better themselves than the FV3, but at least they stay in tune and their pickups don’t drop dead or die out.

Anyway, the FV3 has now been around for years. I suppose it once made sense for Fender to test the Electric Violin Market, but what sense does it make to test that Market with a noticeably inferior product? … Well, inferior when compared to the Quality and Value end of the market, when price point goes much above the ‘entry level’ level.

And we are talking about Fender!? Why is Fender, of all companies, splashing around at the shallow end of the Pool, so to speak?

Fender, while not being the priciest vendor in the Guitar Market, they have always been known for a certain basic quality… and the FV3, if it wasn’t before, in a less developed Market, it is now not up to those same quality standards that we would expect of them. Such a product line, left unimproved, could only hurt them.

And who is their competition? NS Design is selling their CR4 and CR5 Series Violins and Violas at $2000+. Well, Fender is able to put out almost their finest quality guitars and basses for that price… signature editions going for only a little a bit more. We’re talking about extremely high quality product! So certainly, violins and violas are well within their engineering parameters for producing a BETTER violin than NS Design, and which they could sell for $1800, cutting the market out from under NS Design (or forcing NS Design to a more realistic price points for their relatively simple ‘blocks of wood’).

What would a New Fender Electric Violin look like? Well, it would look like a Fender. Forget the traditional Violin Head with its slipping Pegs. Use a Fender Style Head, with all the geared metal guitar style tuners on the same side and with that distinctive tilt. They could use the tuners from any Telecaster Guitar… I measured… they would work just fine. It is difficult to beat the NS Design string setup and tuners… strings on an NS Design can be whipped in and out in mere seconds, and tuning stays rock solid for just about forever… as long as one is using stable steel and chrome steel strings. But tuning holes and guitar style tuners are easy enough to deal with, and everybody is already used to them. The NS Design string setup might be inherently better, but not $500 better. And the guitar style tuners have a ‘look’… a penache… where the NS Design strings system, is, well, invisible.

Now, violin shape. Remember that traditional violins have a particular shape in order to develop a pleasing audible tone. But whatever the shape of the violin, in whatever ways it sticks out on the sides, it gets in the way of the bow… that is why they dig those indents into the sides of the traditional violins, so that the bow can come down to the sides unobstructed. But the traditional violin only offered a few inches of freedom, when really, in a perfectly free Electronic World, the violin should remain narrow all the way up its neck, so that the bow can be used, well, anywhere up and down the neck. But that would basically be a head with tuners on a neck that would go down to the bridge… basically a stick with strings. It would be fairly ugly, just as many of the better electric violins today are monstrously ugly. Again the NS Design has hit a fairly good compromise between bow friendly narrowness of body and aesthetic good looks… using some old European lute shape to give the violin some hint of character and a moderately pleasing line. Fender could try the about same thing, fleshing out a narrow body, but with a more contemporary line, using round and rolling lines where NS Design used primarily straight lines and flat edges.

Next we get to the Chin Rest and Shoulder Rest problems, and this is where Tradition haunts us with so much that is simply inconvenient nowadays. Traditionally one held a violin steady by clamping it down with ones chin against one’s shoulder. Chin rests were invented to conform comfortably to the chin, and shoulder rests were invented to conform comfortably to the shoulder. And it all works well with feather-light traditional acoustical violins… they don’t weigh anything and they are therefore easy to support in this bazaar but traditional manner. But Electric Violins are heavier, which makes the old chin and shoulder rest solutions problematic but which suggest newer and better means of stabilizing the violin for playing. Why not just collar the violin closely around the neck and play it a bit more in front instead of exactly over the shoulder, which I always felt to be uncomfortable anyway.

I played the FV3 without its stupid shoulder rest (designed to fall off anytime it was not planted firmly on a shoulder) using a choker collar tied to the tailpiece strap to keep it close to my throat and never needed to bring my chin down on the chin rest.

The NS Design has its Shoulder Rest, with its awkward bend made to go over the shoulder, but if one swings it down to be used to support the violin on one’s chest, then the shoulder curve has a bit of an unpleasant stab behind it. But as a general principle, a violin supported by a neck choker would benefit by some under-support on the chest to keep it at a flat angle or at whatever a player’s preferred angle happens to be. The FV3 was broad enough in its base so that it held itself flat almost automatically and so no under-support was really needed. So maybe if the violin is designed to have something of a broad base, no under-support is necessary at all. Also, a broad base would add to stability weight, but since the center of gravity is so close to the point of support on the choke collar around the neck, any extra weight would not be noticed by the left hand which could remain busy with the business of playing the strings and not having to hold the violin in proper position.

I’d like to be able to simply do away with Chin Rests. While the Shoulder Rest of the NS Designs can be useful, the Chin Rest simply gets in the way and starts stabbing me in the neck and throat. I had to use the Chin Rest just to keep it in one safe place where it wasn’t always trying to kill me. I finally ended up wrapping it in some ugly foam padding so I could go back to ignoring it altogether.

I thought of the Violin Choke Collar and therefore I have it patent pending, but I am so found of Fender Company, having a few of their guitar and bass models, that I would sell them license rights to the Violin Choker for a virtual song. Oh, another advantage of the Violin Choker, is that when the violin is not being played, one can simply let it drop down on one’s chest. Violins and even Violas are relatively small, and one can go about one’s business with hands free. The NS Design is a but more cumbersome, with its large shoulder rest contraption, but even all of that is not much when it is lying flat on one’s chest. I do sound studio work, and even go to the kitchen to make a sandwich, all with a violin hanging around my neck. While performing, one can break off from playing and sing a verse or two into a microphone, hands free (well, except for the bow), but immediately begin playing violin again, because one never really put the violin down.

Oh, and there is a more basic thing about Electric Violins. Everybody is using Piezoelectric Pickups or little microphones as the heart and soul of the Electric Violin electronics. Ostensively they don’t use the same kind of coil pickups that electric guitars use because some violinists still want to use ancient style cat gut or the more modern synthetic strings wrapped in aluminum, neither of which have enough feral magnetic content that they would be ‘picked up’ by a coil pickup. But nowadays most Electric Violin Players use steel strings, because of their superior tune stability and durability. And durability is no small thing. The Aluminum Windings on synthetic core strings is delicate, brittle… I heard it compared to butterfly wings in regards to its fragility. I’ve had sets of strings that did not last a week of even mellow Rock and Roll practice. Barry Manilow is too rough for an aluminum wrapped core string! Also, aluminum, even with flat windings, is NOT smooth… the molecular structure of aluminum is coarse and grabby and prevents a good finger slide, even when oiled! Whereas steel strings and chrome steel wound strings are slippery smooth and durable.

So, if steel strings are so good for electric violins, why aren’t we using coil pickups for violin. Remember, with a narrow body design, the bowing can be accomplished either over the pickups after the fingerboard runs out, or the bowing can be done over the fingerboard itself. There can be two sets of pickups… just like on the guitars – a neck pickup and a bridge pickup.

Oh, and sooner or later somebody has to figure out how to make an affordable laser pickup for strings. If they can shine a laser on a window pane of glass and use it as a spy microphone, then certainly laser reflections off a string a fraction of an inch away can be detected for audio tones. But electronic coils might be the least expensive way to go for still some time, although with technology getting cheaper and cheaper, soon it might be less expensive to produce a cheap little LED laser pickup and it logic chip than to wind an expensive magnet with expensive copper wires.

Anyway, I suppose we are all looking forward to seeing a good Fender Electric Violin in the foreseeable future… even fans of the NS Design Violins and the other brands out there who have their price point up above $2000.

Wood Brand Viper Electric Violins

2010-12-12T02:33:00.000-08:00

Firstly, since these strange things use guitar tuning, 5 steps between strings instead of the violin families traditional 7 steps between strings, are they really to be considered as being in the violin family at all or are they simply exotic guitars, meant to be bowed instead of picked it?

And these Vipers have frets. With violins, which are fretless of course, the violin player warms up for a few minutes and then knows where all the strings are and can land his notes with absolute precision. Besides, the strings don’t change from day to day, and the Notes are always in the same place as they were before. There should be no trouble finding them again after one has done just a little bit of violin practice. So why would anybody need frets? Well, frets are for guitar players who have never learned to listen to what they are doing. They play the chords that they have learned – chords they find in books, or chords their friends teach them. So without frets – designated places to preposition their fingers – well, they’re completely lost on the violin.

So the Vipers are NOT violins at all – they are guitars sold with bows instead of picks. The Guitar Players who buy them can hope to simply do their usual chording and try to get away with it, along with co-opting the credit for having learned to play the violin, which they haven’t done at all… they’re still just memorizing chords and applying the same old fingering charts. These transplanted Guitar Players don’t deserve to use a Bow. A bow is for Violin Players… that is, musicians who hear what they play and can play what they hear… without having to consult some chart or other.

Oh, and the practical problem arises of what the heck do you do when you break a string on one of these Vipers. These Exotic ‘Violins’ have no support and infrastructure behind them. Even on the Websites that sell these monstrosities, there is no a mention at all of Strings – brand names, types, costs, venders… nothing. I guess if you ever break a sting you need to buy a whole new Viper.

Oh, and there is the Number of Strings thing. You know, more strings is not necessarily better. On the traditional violins, violas, cellos, etc. with their four strings, there is plenty of arc on the bridge between strings, meaning that with just a bit of bow control, the violinist, can easily play on just a single string at a time… to feel out a new song and work out a melody. But if you add strings to the limited curve of the bridge, then the degree of arc between the strings is greatly reduced – flattened – meaning that it is extremely difficult for the bow not to scrub more than one string at a time. In real world playing sometimes single notes need to be struck and held, or used in melodic transitions and riffs. But with the overcrowded bridge of the Viper, with six and seven strings, instead of the optimum four, well, with any pressure on the bow, no single string between any two others can be rung without accidentally buzzing the one or the other on either side. These Vipers must sound sloppy as hell, when they are played like real violins.

Three Changes for Civilization

2010-12-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

(forgive me until I have time to edit this raw essay)

Actually the Modern World, that is, the World we know today, is not Civilized. Yes, there are laws and armies, jails and schools, roads and utilities; but the truth of the matter is that the Barbarians who run everything have just implemented enough quasi-civilized institutions and policies to suit their own needs, but that nothing about it is planned or sustainable when the entire World is taken into account. And if a Civilization is not sustainable, well, then its not really a Civilization, is it?

Our biggest clue is the barbaric economic policies. Globalization is mostly about competition between Growth Based Business Plans, on all of the continental, national and corporate scales. As I have pointed out in previous essays, the Capitalists, according to their most core principals, do not pay out to their workers nearly enough Money to buy what they produce, so every Capitalist Economy is necessarily Export Driven -- if you do not pay your own people enough to buy your Product, then you need to raid other Economies for its Customers and Consumers. Now, consider, if the World becomes One Global Economy, then there is nowhere left to export… unless one discovers Consumers on Mars or on the Moon. Therefore the least competitive economies are going to wither and die, one by one. This would serve them right, but I doubt that the weakest economies, also being the Strongest in regards to Military Power and Nuclear Armament, will go off and die quietly and peacefully.

Another problem with Growth Based Capitalism is that growth, in any venue, will eventually hit a saturation point. We live on a finite planet with finite resources. We can grow until we hit the Ceiling, but then what?

Look at the most resent Recession that still grips the World. The Propagandists all claim that it began with the Real Estate Mortgage Crisis in America, and this line of argument insulates from criticism the basic cause which was Growth Based Economics. You see, the first Cause of the mortgage crisis was that people could not pay their mortgages, and they could not pay their mortgages because Food and Fuel prices had skyrocketed – it was a Commodities Shortage Crisis! How soon everyone forgets, but remember the news stories about grain prices doubling and tripling because Grain Alcohol, which they called ‘Bio-Fuel’, was the New Oil and therefore locked in Price to the rising price of Petroleum.

The high price of premium Real Estate, that is, properties conveniently located where people actually work, forced most people to buy homes at great distances from where they worked, and shopped. And still these homes out in the middle of nowhere were still just barely affordable for Working Class People. So when the price of Gas and Food went up, people had to chose between driving to work, eating food, or paying their mortgages. A Crisis was inevitable.

Nowadays, we hear even President Obama talking of “Growing our Economy out of the Recession”. Really!? But if we were to recover from the Recession, well, wouldn’t we be exactly were we were before? We would fall immediately back into the Commodities Crisis – a severe Inflation which would pinch the Working Class back into either not paying for their homes, or buying Consumer Goods.

In short, the only thing keeping us out of Recession is the Recession we are already in.

And the Commodities Shortage Crisis will only get worse. India and China with their huge populations, dwarfing the American and European demographic numbers, are growing at a rate of almost 10% a year. Workers in India and China who were riding a bicycle 20 years ago, who rode a scooter 10 years ago, are now driving cars. They eat meat. They are beginning to buy consumer goods.

America’s answer is to have these Growing Economies appreciate their currencies, so that their money will be worth more. Duh!? If their money is worth more, they will be able to buy more of the stuff that is available on the Global Markets, and the Declining Economies will have to go through severe inflations in order to try to keep up. In plain terms this means that if the Chinese and Indian Currencies double in value, Gas in America will go up to $20 a gallon, Bread will be $20 a loaf, and the Economy will collapse and Law and Order will be a nostalgic memory from the past.

The Argument for devalued currency, which America wants for itself, is that if the American Worker could be paid Less Value for his productivity, then there would be more Export Customers. It’s a fine theory, but everybody forgets that America had effectively De-Industrialized. The Engineers and Skilled Workers of the Great Post-War Era are all in retirement. And the Universities aren’t turning out new Engineers. Everybody had gone into Business and Finance… the easy money where one didn’t actually have to learn anything or really study very hard. The Roads and Rails have fallen apart. America needs to face the fact that it is no longer an Industrial Nation, or even capable of being one any longer.

The problem of Skilled Labor is indeed a real problem, and one that can not be fixed by any Modern Democracy. You see, something of a Privately Confidential Report was issued by one of the Right Wing Think Tanks, and it correlated Low Education with Right Wing Voting Patterns, and likewise correlated Moderate and Liberal Voting Patterns with Higher Education. Therefore, one can immediately discern that in all of the World’s Democratic Nation, Every Right Wing Politician will be busy sabotaging Education. It is obvious in America. And without an Educated Workforce, their can be no serious Industrialization, or indeed anything of an intelligent and productive Economy.

So America’s devaluing their Currency will only give the Chinese more for what they produce without really furnishing any means for the Americans to jump in and fill in the capacity gap created by higher Chinese prices.

Maybe the American Working Class needs to promise the Right Wing that in exchange for adequate Educational Resources, that they will vote like absolute Fascists and Nazis. Sarah Palin will beam with delight. But as long as College Educated and Skilled Labor vote Democratic, Education will be under a blight in America. If you are smart enough to vote Right Wing, which is pretty basically stupid, then that’s as smart as you need to be… according to our present set of Policy Makers.

Another thing we need to consider is Global Warming. The Wild Cancer of Growth Capitalism has created this situation where the Planet is now obviously burning out and going into a phase of instability. More Growth is clearly not the answer.

What needs to happen is that we slow down Growth and concentrate only on the Essentials. So much could be saved. Capitalist Competition duplicates almost every effort a hundred times. We do not need the duplication of hundreds of Corporate Staffs, hundreds of Factories working at a fraction of their capacity. Concentrate Production.

What about all the Workers who will be fired. Well, simply give them Free Money for Obeying the Walls and keeping up with their Education so that they will be useful when and if they are called back to Employment.

Really, if Modern Technology and Automation does not NEED everybody to work, then why is everybody still expected to scratch and claw out a Job?

And we have to consider that the most costly and wasteful aspect of this Growth Capitalist Model for Social Economy is that forcing Everybody to get jobs also forced Everybody to drive back and forth to work, everyday.

Look at what saved us from the last Commodities Crisis. Just 10% Unemployment, that is with just 10% of the people staying home from Work, relaxed the extreme demand on Gas Prices (and Bio-Fuel prices that linked directly to Food Prices).

So the answer is not More Work, but Less Work… but to still provide a rewarding income for those who obey the rules and do what they had been taught to do.

Another aspect in this category of Unnecessary Work is the Criminal Justice System. The Lawyers and Judges have learned to treat Repeat Offenders like Return Customers. The Lawyers and the Judges cannot remain in charge of their own Funding… they demand more each year and give back less and less for it. We can reduce much of the expense in the Criminal Justice System simply by executing criminals proven to have set up a career in Crime. And no costly appeals. Proof is proof. Hang them the next morning the way it used to be done.

Of course, in years to come, when Civilization again hits a comfortable patch of Stability, then one can look into Rehabilitation Programs for Professional Criminals. I would expect Good Peer Group Immersion Therapy to work the best. You see, ordinary stupid people are influenced more by their Group than by any other factor. Put these Followers in with good people and they will become Good People themselves. One only has to look at the Mix and Proportion. The Good People of the Group must be by far the greatest influence. Too many Bad People in the mix and one will only have Sub-Groups developing. Anyway, let the Psychologists work out the fine details. But in any case, while our Society is heavily burdened by Crime, it probably makes as much sense to summarily execute Criminals as it is to summarily execute the people we label as ‘Terrorists’… and perhaps even more, as when was the last time we had a car stolen, our house burgled, or were mugged by a ‘terrorist’?

Without Repeat Crime, and certainly less living Criminals, the requirements for so many Prisons and Jails will decline. You know, now, in America there are more Prison Guards than School Teachers, and because they have a more effective Union, they even make more money. A ‘Dumb Screw’ makes as much as a High School Science Teacher. These Guards are the first we would want to be put on Simple Pay. The Job of Guard is more than any other De-humanizing. Nice People do not stay Nice People and continue working as Prison Guards. The Mean Streak comes out more and more.

There is another Change that should be made, and this is perhaps the most profound. Organizing Society around the Nuclear Family – Mom and Dad and the Children – in isolation; well, its been a disaster. You know, it has never always been like that. What is more typical is the Extended Family, where Grandfather and Grandmother could oversee the less experienced parents, and show a more benevolent kind of Love, and where Aunts and Uncles could show a broader view of the World’s Opportunities than just Mom and Dad. And perhaps even better than the Extended Family is the Clan or even a Tribe-like Organization.

I’ve read that the optimum number in a close Social Organization of from about 100 to 150 people… after that you start seeing the Group break down into competing Sub-Groups. This would largely eliminate the occurrence of so many dysfunctional families. Yes, there could be dysfunctional Groups, but with careful administrative oversight, transfers in and out could keep a good enough balance of good people in every group.

Of course, no change is possible while we still live under the tyranny of Democracy, where Special Interest nominate nearly every candidate and sponsor their campaigns. Just because we get to Vote on the small offerings given us by the Israel, Gun and Banking Lobbies doesn’t mean that we have True Representative Government. And even with the Voting, in most modern Elections close to 49% of the Voters actually LOSE, that is, they are completely disenfranchised and the New Rulers become their sworn enemies. Democracy can be vicious.

It would be so much better if we threw over Democracy and adopted some form of Professional Government Bureaucratic Meritocracy. Kids go to school and if they want to serve in Government, they take the Test, which decides the Upper Limits of their Service Capacity. No Special Interest Influence at all. Indeed, one of the requirements for Government Service would have to be complete transparency of their finances and property.

Government would be helpful and honest because there would be no interest in being otherwise.

NS Design CR4 Violin and CR4 Viola

2010-12-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

NS Design CR4 Violin and CR4 Viola

I had been reluctant to buy such an expensive electric violin… in a world where for the same money one could get a stellar first rate premium signature edition electric guitar. Yes, the Electric Violin market is a smaller market, but still the hesitation over price seemed entirely reasonable. When the WAV 4 Chinese NS Design models came out at bargain prices, I jumped and bought one and was largely happy with it (see my Amazon Reviews of the WAV 4 and the Fender FV3 vs the NS Design WAV4).

I heard of people stringing violins for viola tuning (CGDA instead of GDAE) and was fascinated with the idea. I ordered a C string and strung it on the end of my FV3 and ran the other strings over a slot, leaving the E string off when I got to the end. I loved the viola tuning, but couldn’t find a C string that sounded quite right with the other strings. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to achieve viola tuning is with a real viola.

Now, if one thought that the market for Electric Violins was small, well, the market for Violas is even more constricted. I kept returning to the NS Design, and because the CR Series describes so well in their own promotional literature, and because the On Line Reviews were so favorable, I decided to order an NS Design CR4… after a few drinks, of course.

Amazon often resorts to The Electric Violin Shop for some of these items, and so I went directly to their site. I remembered that months ago I had inquired about ordering a Bridge Electric Violin from their store and was annoyed that my particular island out on the High Seas was not included on their address drop down list… making the order impossible to conduct as per usual. I complained in their Contact Us Box and then quickly forgot about getting the Bridge Violin anyway… the pretty colored ones were all sold out, leaving only the ugly colors available, and not at reduced pricing either… full price for the ugliest things you would ever not hope to see. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe what happened! These wonderful people took my harsh suggestions to heart and fixed the addressing problem. When I went to order the NS Design CR4 Viola, there it was, my Island was on the drop down list… which was when I remembered how hard I had been on them (remember I had had a few drinks). Of course, with my order, I included a heart felt apology as well as expressions of my deepest gratitude for appreciating my business and preparing for it.

With orders of that price, the ordinary mails of the United States can not be trusted… it seems that the Ordinary Mail Service can hire thieves to work at much lower rates than honest men and women, and at the end of the day the Ordinary Postal Service doesn’t need to worry about delivering quite so much as they would if their low wage employees didn’t pick through it all at first. So The Electric Violin Shop uses premium shippers, adding almost $200 to the Order, but my CR4 arrived almost the same day, except that Thanksgiving Day intervened. The Sales Lady had included a nice little hand written note thanking me for my business and wishing me luck. I think I will be a return customer to that particular Electric Violin Shop.

I had read a CR4 Review before which spoke of an NS Design Violin arriving in tune. Well, so did mine. Plugged into my existing Electric Violin settings and sound systems, I was playing in a manner of minutes.

Oh, if you read my older Reviews, you will find that I have had problems supporting the heavier electric violins, that is, just holding them up in a position to play, and they tend to slip slide around a lot. Its all rather distracting and takes a great deal away from the Music. So I did take about 20 minutes to fashion a Violin Choker, patent pending (see my other reviews on the WAV and the Fender FV3), out of a key ring, and key ring clip, and some cotton cloths line rope and cotton string. I clip it through the NS Design Shoulder Rest bracket and it holds the Viola very closely under my chin. The Viola remains so steady, I don’t even need to use the chin rest.

The volume knob on the CR4 works well… on some instruments the resistance of the volume potentiometer seems ill selected, as not much actual volume range is covered using the instruments volume knob, and one has to make all of the big volume changes at the amplifier and processor stages.

There are two tuner controls. The first should be labeled “BETTER” and the second one labeled “WORSE”… the first does away with that harsh electric sound, and the second one heaps more of it on. Anyway, the CR4 can probably be dialed in pretty close to whatever it is you are looking for, even before outputting to whatever processors and effects units are awaiting down-line.

Fit and finish is really superb. I knew that the NS Design CR4 had active electronics and so must have had a battery, but did not immediately see where the battery access panel was, or even how to get into the string bay, as I had done with the WAV 4. But eventually the little retainer bracket moveable tab attracted my attention, and when I moved the tab off to the side, the battery and string bay cover fell right off. You know, the entire back panel and battery string cover had fit so well together, I had thought it had been one entire piece. I had actually been set to take a screwdriver to the whole thing.

The wood, body and finger board are excellent and attractive. You know, I confess to using olive oil on my fingers to speed up my fingering and make modulating the strings easier, and this is the first time ever that a new violin has not turned my finger inky black. That means that after their last staining of the fingerboard they had actually taken the time to do a fine sandpapering of the fingerboard… it was so nice and smooth. Usually I have to do that kind of fine detailing myself, but they had done it for me. Thank God, for a change.

Oh, and the strings seem fine. Usually one has to toss that the strings that come with these things, But NS Design used what sound like premium steel chrome wound strings.

I had complained of the WAV4 being stiff and inflexible… not giving much of a sense for player ‘feel’, but the CR4, at least the Viola (I haven’t played the CR4 Violin but imagine it is quite similar in all regards), seemed to have flexibility… that when using some strength and force in modulating the strings, the violin actually bends in a bit… a great perception of playability and control… a rewarding ‘feel’ to the instrument. One has to wonder how they did it… apparently the CR4’s are not the same thick blocks of wood that the WAV models are.

Now a word on Violas in general. I had heard it said that Violas, being larger, are therefore slower. Well, my Fender FV3 Violin measures from the nut to the bridge for a string length of 12 7/8 inches, while my Viola measures 14 1/4. That is not much of a difference… just ten percent. But it does seem to give me more Tonal Resolution, that is, it’s easier to land on exactly the right note sweet spots, so to speak, even if one has to move a bit further to reach them. And when one rolls one’s fingers to modulate notes, one can get in a much more vigorous wiggle without worrying so much about over-modulating. Anyway, after having played both Viola and Violin, and not to sound condescending, but the Viola seems more fit for men, while the violin seems better suited for the smaller hands of boys and girls.

Oh, and as far as trading the Violin’s high E String for the Viola’s low C String ( violins are tuned to GDAE while violas are tuned down to CGDA ), while occasionally the lilting and ethereal E string has its valued uses, particularly when clustered together with other violins in concert, still in most cases that really piercing high string is used only because it is there, and the results are shrill and often clash with the other instrumentation. Bands are often afraid of including an Electric Violin, and only because they fear those wildly high E Strings stabbing into their brains by way of the ears. The Viola, however, with that C String on the low end, can reach some real bassy lows, and one can still finger far enough down on the high end A string to suggest the musical mood and intensity of Going High without actually going so high as to be positively annoying. My feeling is that if Violas became better known, they would certainly become more popular, and would largely replace the violin everywhere but in concert venue.

Electric Violins Fender FV3 vs NS Design WAV4

2010-11-07T01:33:00.001-07:00

Electric Violins Fender FV3 vs NS Design WAV4

Both of these Electric Violins retail at closer to five hundred dollars than a thousand, which make them both great bargains compared to anything but the really cheap curlicue plastic things one sees for sale online which I’ve heard aren’t really worth the decent strings and bow it would take to really play them. I was shopping for an Electric Violin and liked the glossy photo images of the Fender FV3 but was almost worried about its so low price point when compared to the other Brands out there, notably NS Design Electric Violins which apparently thought that it would take closer to 3 thousand dollars to build an acceptable Electric Violin. But then there came the advent of the NS Design WAV4, also manufactured in China along with the Fender FV3, and priced to take on the Fender FV3 in an even up war where perceived quality would decide the outcome of the sales battle.

Of course, NS Design is a very reputable firm, relatively ancient in the somewhat new field of Electric Violins. Fender, on the other hand, perhaps the most glorious of the electric guitar makers, has had very little presence in the Electric Violin Market, accept for its kind of ugly FV1 which didn’t exactly take the Violin World by storm. So I decided to start out by ordering the NS Design WAV4. My first impressions of the NS Design WAV4 have been covered in previous Reviews. But the highlights of those reviews are… what!? No bow! Granted, a new bow, without a good week of being rosined up… seasoned… will simply make it seem that a new violin that comes with it sounds horrible, and so NS Design decided to dodge that bullet simply by not offering a bow. Oh, and the Shoulder Rest – I broke it by trying to make it comfortable… the flexible “Custom” Shoulder Rest I had read about needs to be special ordered, while the stiff hard as a rock shoulder rest is what you get standard with your order. The WAV4 is heavier than a regular violin, which makes it harder to keep in place and to control, and so I fashioned a ‘Dog Collar’ (patent pending) for it, to retain it close to one’s neck and throat. That was a great idea… I have subsequently made Dog Collars for even my real violins… one no longer even needs to use the chin rests… the violins stay right where they need to be to be played perfectly well. The Electric Sound of the NS Design WAV4 took a bit of dialing in. Really, Electric Violins can sound absolutely hideous if you just plug them into something and begin to play. What I found that works best, with the equipment I had on hand, was an Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor which I set on its Non-Linear Chorus setting, cranked up to where it only just begins to get thick and full of echo and then back it off a notch (I think that what the Non Linear Chorus does in effect is take the annoying High Frequency components on the low strings and blends them out while mixing in non-harmonic components from the primary fundamental note so that the final sound is fuller and smoother, while still being a recognizable single note. Using the regular chorus settings brings out what hints at distinct harmonically related notes and chord sounds which could actually conflict with the music one is playing). From Effects Processor I go into a Peavey 6 Mixer – one of the channels with pre-amp, and I dial up the Low and Medium equalizers to 75% of their gain while leaving the High Freq dial to zero. It’s doesn’t make for a Pure Acoustic Sound, but it is a very progressive sound that is attractive and not annoying. The important thing is that a violin not be annoying.

My Review of the NS Design WAV4 made me sort of famous, on a small scale. It was even picked up and posted on some Blog somewhere. So people started asking me how the NS Design compared to the Fender FV3.

Now, the FV3 has some splendid reviews online, albeit there are a few loud dissenters out there. Anyway, though a bit nervous about it, I ordered a Fender FV3.

Yes, the photos show it to be a lovely violin… perhaps the prettiest of all the electric violins on the market today. But those are just pictures. What I was afraid of was that in reality the actual look would be cheap, artificial and plastic. So I was quite relieved when the package came and I found that it was so very beautiful. The wood work looked like one of their premium signature guitars and it was bordered by this exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay. I had to catch my breath!

It transported me back in time to when I was a child… my mother inherited this antique coffee table. She summoned all the children together to lay down the new rules, which when taken altogether in sum meant that the beautiful coffee table was far more important than the transient goings on of mere children. After all, children would eventually grow up and leave home. But the beautiful coffee table was meant to stay… and to stay in its pristine condition of absolute perfection. In her ordinary life with so many ordinary things, the beautiful coffee table would be a central and special work of beauty… a piece of Heaven in the home place. And now, when I looked at my new FV3 Violin I saw something surely the equal of my mother’s precious coffee table. It was one of those eternal moments where the generations could come together, even beyond the grave, and find understanding. But, yes, the FV3 does look a bit like a coffee table… but a very beautiful coffee table.

Oh, and the Fender FV3 case was a hard case, of top quality, with even one of those humidity meter devices built into it… whatever they’re good for. And there was a bow. Not the best bow in the World. A few cranks on the bob to tighten it up a bit showed that it was going to curve a little to the right. But, who can’t use a spare bow from time to time… even one that wants to point east. But it’s much better than no bow at all, which is what NS Design offered for roughly the same price. Oh, and the NS Design case was little more than a cloth bag, with no place to put that Shoulder Rest contraption, unless you wanted to take the whole thing entirely apart… which, really, you don’t want to do. Practicing Violin should not be as difficult as assembling a hang glider. So I was putting the NS Design WAV4 in my sock drawer, shoulder rest still attached, and tossed the useless case up into the closet.

Oh, what was I to do with two electric violins? Well, first, I was going to have something of a ‘First Chair Shoot Out’… a competition. The Winner was to be my Violin, and the loser was to become an Electric Viola… throwing out the little E String and moving the G D and A strings down, with a new C string taking the low string position, that is, tuned to CGDA instead of GDAE.

Before I could start the competition, I made a new ‘Dog Collar’ for the FV3. Remember, one of the biggest complaints about the FV3 online was that it was heavy and would slip out of control. People needed to quit playing so they could put the violin back in position. The Dog Collar held the slightly lighter NS Design WAV4 in place and so it would also hold the Fender FV3 in place.

Then I started tuning up. I was startled to find that the G String was not even a real G String… I think it was another D String. It was simply too flabby at G. Anyway, the first rule for any ‘affordable’ violin that is not specifically set up by the Store’s Shop with specified quality strings, is to re-string it. Don’t keep a string unless you know what it is. I had re-strung the NS Design, though it was not nearly so bad. For the NS Design I had used Thomastik Superflexibles – steel braid in chrome-steel wrapping (reported to be the mellowest and least shrill of all the steel strings… and I am simply too rough on aluminum synthetic core strings to ever use them… so the best steel strings will have to be good enough for me). And the Superflexibles are great strings, though I found that it might take a day for the G string to mellow out to the same tone as the rest. For the FV3, The American Music Store gave me a set of Rotosound RS6000, steel core chrome-wounds, and I promised to try them out. They took about hour before they stabilized into tune… kind of longish for a steel string, but they ended up sounding perfectly lovely.

But here the Fender FV3 again surprised me. It was not staying in tune. One could see the pegs unwinding themselves like some ghost from the great beyong. The pegs were slipping. Well, it is a good thing I have something of a workshop. I removed the pegs and spun them in some medium grade sandpaper, about 220 grain. After that the pegs held solid… almost too solid. That reminds me to get some of that ‘peg stuff’ for sticky pegs. Anyway, with the pretty gold fine tuners mounted on the regular violin tailpiece of the FV3, the pegs only needed to get within a few notes of tune, and then the fine tuners could handle the rest.

Oh, and the finger board was a bit rough. I like my violin finger boards to be smooth as silk, and so I took some fine grade sandpaper and smoothed it down a bit. I had had to do the same for the NS Design. Also, I’ve found that most student violins can use a bit of sanding. You see, I use a bit of olive oil on my fingertips to help with my string slide action and have noticed that a lot of new violins will turn my fingers black. So, I guess that much of the perceived roughness on these new violin fingers boards may just be from the black stain finish they use. You see, liquid stain raises the grain of the wood. After any moist staining, every fine wood surface needs a final very fine grade sanding to re-smooth everything down. But one can’t expect such attention from these budget factory shops in China (although it only takes a minute) and so one has to do these little things for one’s self.

Oh, before we get to the actual playing, we need to remember that the FV3 too, also comes with its own special shoulder rest. You see the FV3 is smooth all around and doesn’t have the characteristic edge going all around which the typical violin shoulder rests are made to clip onto. The way the FV3 shoulder rest works is that it uses little male plugs that insert into little female jacks. The plugs are attached to little fittings made of spring steel which can be slightly bent so that when inserted into place a certain amount of spring preloading will keep the shoulder rest from simply dropping off. There is no clunk or indent or stop to hold it in place. The advantage is that it is very easy to remove when one is finished one’s practice. The disadvantage is that it will sometimes just simply fall off. Putting a good deal of bend into the spring fittings and even bending the shoulder rest itself to increase the tension of the spring preloading can minimize the problem. However, with my ‘Dog Collar’ holding the violin in position snug to my throat, the shoulder rest is also effectively secured. I didn’t have a problem, but if played like a regular violin – up and down up and down – I could see there being a problem with the shoulder rest occasionally hooking onto some article of clothing or whatever and being pulled off to drop on the floor or stage.

Anyway, finally to the actual playing. I was afraid I would need half the evening to find acceptable digital effects and equalization settings for the Fender FV3, just as it had taken a while to find settings that flattered the NS Design. But no, it was largely as easy as plug and play, that is, the settings that suited the NS Design WAV4 were equally flattering to the FV3. Yes, the low strings of the FV3 sounded a bit buzzy at first, but when I plugged in the NS Design WAV4 to hear a comparison, it was roughly the same thing, and after a few dial tweaks to the Peavey 6 and the Alesis Nanoverb all of the harshness was smoothed out. I had at first put a piece of old innertube over the bridge of the NS Design WAV4 to help cut the buzziness on the low strings, but found that a bit more patience with the electronic settings makes such mechanical interventions largely unnecessary.

It seems that the FV3 had an overall stronger gain coming from its sub-bridge pickup. Playability was good on the FV3 and I could instantly get nice action on the strings. With the NS Design WAV4 I had to use the screwdriver adjust to raise up the Bridge a bit because the strings were too close to the fingerboard, leaving next to no wiggle room for finger modulations. Now on a regular violin, so light and flexible, one can modulate the tone even by flexing the violin’s neck and body. But the NS Design is really something of a solid block of wood. No give at all. For any modulation to be possible at all one has to raise the bridge to allow for finger modulation and one has to really learn how to roll those fingertips. The Fender FV3, while not being quite as flexible as a good shop made acoustic, has some flex to it and one feels a bit more in control of the playing. The angle of the fingerboard must also be good as I noticed that the string tones stay good even when going very far down the neck, where with the NS Design, too far down the neck hits a dead zone where the strings muffle out and die… again, I suspect the bridge is too low. You know, one can only raise the bridge so far before one worries that one will simply break something off. The workmanship of the NS Design, while rugged enough in a back-woods rural Chinese factory kind of way, leaves one with the impression that one can only go so far screwing around with a simple block of wood before something snaps off. The bridge adjusted using these big coarse threaded wood screws… not adjustment screws, but the kind of screws you would use to hang a heavy picture frame into a support beam at the local tavern. I could screw them in to raise the bridge, but if I changed my mind and wanted to back out, it would probably have left everything loose and wobbly. It seems you might only have one chance to get it right. So when it seemed good enough, I stopped there. The Fender doesn’t have an adjustment, or none that I needed to look for, but fortunately no adjustment was necessary… the geometry, as factory set, is perfect.

The sound and playability of the Fender FV3 was better than the NS Design WAV4, but not by much. The Fender FV3 did have some particularities, which may account for the most horrible review I read concerning the FV3 – that it sounded terrible. You see, if the bridge piece of the FV3 wanders off too far to the side or leans a bit too forward or too backward, even by a little, then the pickup gain will drop to almost nothing. Unless you already have all your settings adjusted for a good normal gain, you will not know that something is wrong if the bridge had slipped into its dead-zone and you will simply assume that the FV3 is always like that … that it ‘sucks’. So, you need to be careful when stringing and tuning the FV3… tighten down to snug both a left and right string together at the same time to keep the bridge piece perfectly centered down the middle, and then double check that the bridge is perfectly straight up, forward and backward, after tuning. Oh, if you get a soft lead Carpenters Pencil which use a lot of graphite in the pencil lead, a good dry lubricant, then even with the strings fully tight in tune, one can still adjust the bridge’s verticality, slipping the bridge forward and aft under the strings. Even then, sometimes the sound connection between the bridge piece and the sub-bridge pickup will seem to ‘fall asleep’ between sessions… when the violin has been set aside for awhile. It seems that just trying to wiggle the verticality or flicking the bridge with finger kick is enough to ‘wake it up’… to bring it back to full gain again. Yes, the NS Design was never so fussy, but when the FV3 is working right, it works better.

And then there are the stunning good looks… of the Fender FV3. If the FV3 is an easy Nine on the famous 1 to 10 scale, then the NS Design WAV4 needs charity just to stretch it to a Six.

The NS Design also has the “what is it?” problem. It doesn’t look like a violin. It takes ordinary people a long time to figure out what it is supposed to be. And it seems small. Even experienced Violin players wonder whether it is the right size. Every violin player I know looks around the room for a violin to compare it to… thinking that the nut to bridge length must be shorter than ordinary… as though it is a children’s Electric Violin, size ½ or ¾.

So the First Chair Shootout went to the FV3. As I had said, the Loser would become a Viola, and this is where I found a problem with the NS Design I had not expected. You see, the strings go onto the NS Design somewhat backwards. The Ball End of the strings are up at the top of the neck. Now, this NS Design way of stringing had seemed so innovative – new strings are simply pushed into a slot and pinched down and tuned up. Easy as pie! But just try de-stringing! It turns out that out of 4 strings, 3 string balls were jammed solid into the little hole sockets… the varnish on the side of the sockets acting like a kind of glue. I had to get a paring knife from the kitchen and literally dig the old strings out. So why does there have to be a indented socket for the balls to get stuck in… would it have been some sacrilege against fine German Engineering for the balls to stick out somewhat from a metal fixture flush to the neck’s head? Anyway, when I re-strung the NS Design WAV4 to Viola Tune (C G D A instead of Violin G D A E) I made sure to tie a little string in front of each ball end, so that when the time came to restring, the balls could simply be pulled out… without resort to kitchen utensils.

Oh, some may wonder where I got a C String to fit a violin. Well, since NS Design builds 5 string violins, the 5th string being a C, I simply ordered one of them from Johnson Strings. Next time I might try a Jaguar Chrome String for 15 inch Viola which may be a fit more snuggly, but the NS Design C String works well enough to prove the principle… that an Electric Violin can be tuned to Viola.

This is how good the NS Design WAV4 actually is, despite loosing its competition. Even with a new Violin to play with… one I liked better… the Fender FV3… I ended up playing the NS Design WAV4, now an Electric Viola, for more than an hour. It was just so much fun! I couldn’t put it down. You know, I think it is something of a trend in the Music World… for instance, people ‘Bull Dogging’ old 4 string basses, that is, getting old traditional basses tuned to E A D G and then tossing out the light end G string and move all the other strings down one and putting in a heavier B string from a 5 string set at the low end, for a tuning of B E A D. Tuning a Violin to Viola is like ‘Bulldogging’ a violin… more rough and tumble bass at one end and less of those wussy shrill high notes at the other.

Anyway, the Viola tuning was so much fun in the NS Design WAV4 that I decided to ‘Bulldog’ the Fender FV3 too (luckily I had ordered two C Strings from Johnson Strings). And I played another six hours… forgetting about dinner… just to prove to myself that the E string was entirely unnecessary. Yes, a few times I went pretty far down the neck on the A string, but not once did I try for a high note I couldn’t reach. You know, I think the E String is a problem on Violins. The E String is there and one feels that one needs to use it, and so one contrives for reasons… thinking up musical phrases that pierce the sky and make dogs howl. But, really, all the Feeling and Intent of music can better be served without going to such extremes. Yes, yes, in orchestras the E Strings can set up high harmonic lilts that compliment the other instruments that for the most part do a good job of drowning out the E String’s inherent shrillness. But when the Violin is a stand alone instrument or a lead instrument, then that E String can simply be too much, particularly when it keeps one from sliding the other more pleasant strings down and putting in a much more useful C string on the other end.

So the Fender FV3 won and the NS Design WAV4 lost, but, remember, not by much.

Oh, but do keep in mind that the sound I was getting from these two splendid Electric Violins were a final product of the Alesis Nanoverb Effects Processor (set to Non Linear Chorus) and the Peavey 6 Mixer. My guess is that running either of these violins into a simple unfiltered amplifier would result in the most horrendous of infernal noises. The Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor is less than $150, as is also the Peavey Mixer. And I use the same equipment with my guitar and bass. Anyway, when budgeting for an Electric Violin, keep in mind that Effects and Equilization will necessarily be part of your package. Oh, and go to Johnson Strings and look into a half decent bow. I got a Jonpaul Bravo for about $250 and it really does make a difference… expressive down to slightest whisper or up to the most desperate howl. If you need to save money, then don’t eat lunch for a month, but buy a good bow…

..... Update, after a weeks playing.

It turns out that the most elegant solution to the Shoulder Rest Problem, of it inadvertently falling off, is just to let it lay... or to pick it up and put it back in the case and forget about it. If you use a 'dog collar' (or Violin Choker, as some prefer to call it) to support the violin just under your chin, while the violin may seem a bit wobbly at first, you will find that even without a shoulder rest it is quite under control, and without the shoulder rest, it may even help on occasions where you wish to roll the violin in to make the low strings more available to the bow. So if you tie the violin around your neck, you don't need a shoulder rest.

I was a bit worried about the 'sleeping pickup'. Over the week I had absolutely no problem at all... as long as I made only minor tuning changes. But when I decided to run out the Fine Tuners and re-snug up the Peg Tuners, then the Pickup came up 'sleeping' and I had to give the Bridge a little finger kick to wake it up. I wondered what was happening and decided to take off the Mother of Pearl access panel cover on the back and take a look. It turns out that the coax wire to the pickup goes up through the top, so the Pickup is actually just up on top under the bridge, secured by tape. Anyway, center the bridge exactly over that taped up pickup and you should be fine. When in doubt, just flick it a few times or thump down on the bridge. Really, when its working, it give a really full great gain.

Oh, after a full week ... and getting used to the transtion from violin to viola ( tuning from GDAE to CGDA) I really am confirmed in my love for the Fender FV3. There are more expensive violins out on the market, but they aren't nearly as good looking, and I can only wonder how they could possibly sound any better...

...................................
Update after 3 weeks:

Oh, I remembered one problem I had been having with the NS Design WAV4, that bringing the bow down on the strings would create a low bass tone ‘RUMMFF’ sound, and especially if you wanted to do a ‘tremolo’ – short quick bow strokes, or any kind of bow bouncing around action. It was very distracting and annoying. I just got into the habit of not doing anything fancy with the bow while working with the NS Design WAV4. I inadvertently took the same habit to the Fender FV3.

But suddenly I noticed that the Fender FV3 was entirely immune to the problem… probably because the Pickup is ‘floating’… just sitting there in between the bridge home pocket and the bridge. I’m not certain, but perhaps the pickup of the NS Design is structurally fixed to the violins rather solid body, and every little secondary vibration comes through loud and clear, whether it is desired or not.

Oh, I am beginning to think that the ‘Pickup Falling Asleep’ problem with the Fender FV3 is only temporary… that once the Pickup Package ages and settles in, it begins to be quite consistently good. Anyway, I have not had a problem with it this last week… and I play every day.

I’ve heard that NS Design is coming out with an entire Violin Support System… a yoke that holds the violin in front and which balances it around one’s back with support beams and counter weights. It all looks like it could all rather get in the way. As I mentioned before, the “Heavy Violin Support Problem” can be solved in a half an hour with several key ring circles and clips and a short length of cotton laundry line rope and medium heavy cotton string. I had been calling it a “Dog Collar”, because that is what it reminded me of, but the Lady in the local Musical Instrument Store prevailed upon me to start calling it a “Violin Choker”. You simply make a few loops of string around the violin tail piece loop, and use that string loop to secure a short length of cotton rope with key ring rings secured to the ends. The rope only has to be long enough so that the clip fasteners will attach around the side of your neck rather than just under the throat, which would probably be quite annoying… and, place the rings far enough back so that the clips do not line up with that artery which carries blood up into the brain. One can fit out the ‘Violin Choker’, patent pending, making loops with the rope secured by temporary knots of string, and then sliding the rope loops tighter or slacker until it is all quite the perfect size for you, and then finish the job by using multiple string windings on the ends of the rope loops. If done carefully, the job can even be fairly presentable. And as I have said before, this simple contraption provides an elegant and comprehensive solution to the whole Violin Stability problem. One doesn’t even have to use the Chin Rest anymore, and I have found that I no longer need the Fender Shoulder Rest, though I’ve kept my real Violin’s shoulder rest… out of concern for its very expensive finish, which isn’t an issue for the Fender. The advantage the Violin Choker would have over the NS Design Support System Yoke, is, well, its not so obtrusive. Between songs, one can simply let the violin hang down on one’s chest. One can have a drink of beer, and rosin one’s bow… even go out into the kitchen and make a sandwich. But the NS Design thing looks like it would only be useful only during playing, but otherwise would be entirely in the way of everything one would like to do between songs.

Fender FV3 Electric Violin One Month Update

I had bumped the FV3 while playing and the D string unwound itself out of tune. Then the peg wouldn’t hold tune upon retuning but would slip almost immediately. The FV3 must be made of a relatively hard wood which compresses the softer pegs to a bright slippery shine, and then the only thing to do is to unstring the violin and give the pegs a medium to light sandpapering, to rough them up enough so that they will again stay put and hold tune. Oh, remember to turn the pegs in the sandpaper evenly in order to keep them uniformly round and in about the same shape as they should be. Anyway, that wasn’t such a big problem. The big problem came when the FV3 Electric Violin came up completely dead after restringing. Not just low gain, but absolutely nothing. But then when I moved the bridge back and forth on its front to back angle, suddenly the piezo pickup snapped on loud and clear. But something was clearly wrong. A wire was severed or a solder joint was cracked or the piezo-elements were shorting together, but something was clearly wrong and it probably would not fix itself… as I had been hoping.

Coming up on 30 days from purchase I decided to inquire at the local Fender Store about my options. They emailed Fender and Fender came back with the reply that they would FEDEX out a complete Electronics Kit for the FV3 – not just the piezoelectric pickup but also the jack connector and control potentiometers. The local electric guitar smith would install the electronics kit and Fender would be billed for his trouble.

After all of this transpires I will get back and report whether the new set of electronics fixes the problems I have had with the FV3 being glitchy and temperamental. Oh, and I am so happy I did not give the FV3 a 5 Star Rating. One should not give an item 5 stars just because the Company provides great warranty support for when the thing craps out almost immediately… Anyway, keep in mind that the FV3 is still a rather nice violin for just $700, and for that price one might expect to run into some difficulties. This reminds me… I had sent off for a NS Design CR4 Viola, having liked the FV3 when I strung it to viola tuning. Now THAT is a great instrument… the active electronics can be set to a nice MELLOW, and it stays in tune from session to session, and though its shaped quite the same as the WAV Series, its final finish is SO much better, and the thing even seems to have some flex and feel… as though they had done a bit of a better job shaping the basic block of wood out of which it is hewn. But the NS Design CR Violins and Violas come in at a good deal more than $2000 (that is, more than 3 times what one would pay for the WAV or the FV3) where if one did not receive some fairly obvious quality, then accusations of robbery and reactions like rioting would not be quite too far out of line even for the most civilized and polite among us. But yes, the NS Design CR4 Viola is splendid and I love it… even while I might have to skip lunches for the next six months in order to pay for it…

...........Back From Repair with new electronics

Now the pickup isn't intermittent, and no longer just dies until I bring it back to life by wiggling the bridge. but I had gotten a NS Design CR4, which sounds so much better than both the WAV and the FV3, that it was a bit demoralizing trying to dial in a good sound for the FV3... and I tried for almost an hour. An edge of electric harshness can never entirely be eliminated... not without also killing the response on the high strings.

Then, I was spoiled by the NS Design String and Tune system. Changing out strings takes only a few minutes with the NS Design, and then, if you use steel strings, the violin stays in tune... solid, in tune, practice after practice. With peg tuning in general, maybe there is peg slippage, or the string coiled on the pegs pulls out or squeezes down, but, in any case, peg tuning doesn't stay put. In the case of the FV3, I think the hard wood used for neck and head, which holds the pegs, well, I think the wood is not any real kind of violin wood. The hard wood compresses in on the pegs and makes them smooth -- shiney smooth, and the pegs begin to unwind. It happened to me three times, and I owned the FV3 less than 2 months. One has to unstring the violin and then use sand paper to rough up the pegs... but it apparently just a temporary fix. Maybe one needs to put honey or a light glue on the pegs, and then tune them close enough so that the fine tuners, which don't seem to have the same range as ordinary violin fine tuners, can take over. But, as time went on, I found the FV3 tuning instability and chronic string problems to be very annoying.

The WAV sounded only a bit inferior to the FV3, but now that I have had to live with the FV3 for almost two full months, with all of its quirks and repairs, I certainly would now give the Win to the WAV. Ease of operation and reliability have to count for something, and it sounds 98% as good, when the FV3 decides to work right.

But if you find that you can afford to spend a lot more money, the NS Design CR4 Series does dial in to a very good sound, and has a much lovier physical presence... the WAV series looks like the CR Series in shape, but that is as far as it goes. The Finish of the CR4 is far superior and almost worth the added cost in itself.

Its a shame that a reputable company like Fender doesn't even offer a premium class Electrical Violin. Considering the fit and finish in their $1000 Guitars, if all they had to do was compete with NS Design's $2000+ Price Point, then one could expect Fender to be able to turn out THE BEST ELECTRIC VIOLIN IN THE WORLD for roughly $1800. They could call it the 'Arrowcaster' (you know like 'bow' and arrow... and the name would be reminiscent of their famous series of 'Telecasters' and 'Stratocasters').

Jay Haide Balestrieri Violin Review

2010-09-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

What a superb violin!

I had never been able to get a decent violin before. First I had to suffer the poverty of youth, then the poverty of college, then the poverty of the Peace Corps and entry level jobs and the recessions brought on by Capitalism’s healthy corrections (thank God that Capitalism can remain healthy, even it it takes throwing half of us out of work for it to stay that way), then the poverty of marriage and the poverty of bringing up a little family, then the poverty of divorce. Poverty, poverty, poverty. The best I was able to do, from time to time was buy the most affordable entry level violins. Hey, a cheap violin is infinitely better than no violin at all … unless, of course, you ask the neighbors.

Anyway, as the years progressed, I had been doing a lot of keyboard work, and filling out my experience with guitars and bass guitars, and then remembered my original and ancient love for violins. I guess I had shied away from getting back to violins… it had practically broke my heart when decades ago a young and pretty wife had put it to a practical choice, her or my cheap violin. I told myself I didn’t need it… the violin, not the pretty wife… and must have rather convinced myself. Violins became too sad a subject for me to easily think about. But eventually Time heals such old wounds, and so one day while I was scanning the market for a feasible electric violin purchase, I got another cheapie acoustic entry level violin to tide me over for a spell – a Mathias Thoma Model 30.

As for the Electric, I eventually choose to get the NS Design WAV4 Electric Violin from Johnson Strings, and while I was tying up that purchase, and ordering little accessory knickknacks, I asked if they had any mid-level decent violins at an affordable price. And then I described the tone I wanted.

Now, they have a vocabulary for violin tones, and it takes a while to totally grasp it and I still don’t know whether I entirely have a hold on it, but “bright” and “brilliant” mean shrill or strident, that is carrying a lot of high frequency components even on the lower strings. “Dark” means the tones stay close to their fundamentals with low harmonic content. “Rich”… well, I’m confused about what that might mean.

Anyway, they had me speak to their Sales Manager, Mr. Mathew Fritz, and simply to alley any misunderstandings, I described how I set up my electric guitars, electric bass guitars, and now even my electric violin, and asked him if he had an acoustic violin that would come naturally that way. You see, what I do is turn the bass way up and the trebles way down – I hate buzzy high frequency components and like the tones to be round and clean, full of their own body and not borrowing from the higher registers of harmonic distortion. As my father used to say, “treble” is another word for “tinny”.

He told me that what I wanted was a “dark” violin, and the darkest violin he had in my price range was a Jay Haide a l'ancienne Balestrieri Model. I was told that I was not the only violin player in the world to express a desire for The Dark Side. While most the World flocks to some derivative or another of the Stradivarius violins, their particular ‘brightness’ puts off a sizeable minority. Now, I had been thinking in my ignorance that there was either the Stradivaris or the Guarneris, the Guarneri being purportedly “darker” than the Stradivari. But apparently a generation or two after Stradivar and Guarneri had their glory days there were violin makers who went into the business of adding extra emphasis to what the players of their own day considered the separate virtues of the two great rivals. Well, Belestreri stepped forward and proclaimed that if people wanted Dark, well, he could deliver Dark like nobody else ever before him. So it was that Mr. Fritz suggested, in so many words, that if I were not to go just half way, merely in the shadows of darkness, but wished to totally plunge into the most dismal gradations of somberness, then I should have to get a Belesteri Model.

Oh, and then I told him that there would be an important proviso – I would be using steel strings. I tried various brands of Synthetic Core Strings, but what they all have in common is aluminum windings. Well, aluminum is the most fragile substance on earth and it simply doesn’t last. Go online and search up ‘unraveling violin A strings’ and see how many hits you get. The Forum Discussions almost entirely blame the players. All these strings are failing but somehow it is not the fault of the string. The most cogent advice I found was that if one simply had to have the Synthetic Core String Sound and hope to have the strings last more than a few practice sessions (yes! I had synthetic strings that did not last even for a single week!), then one would have to play one’s violin “as though it were encrusted with butterfly wings”. Now, that’s wonderful advice for delicate little girls and too-soft little boys, but for a salty old man who sometimes likes to have a drink or two before playing along with The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” (still the best violin solo ever in Rock and Roll history), such advice is useless, except for sending one off to find an alternative to Aluminum Wound Synthetic Core Violin Strings.

Well, online rumor had it that the mellowest of all the steel strings was the Thomastik Superflexibles, which are a braided steel core wound in chrome-steel. It was either that or D’Addario Helicores… so I flipped a coin. The Superflexibles are fine… although I’ve found that the G string will sound a bit buzzy on its first practice session, but the next day it will sing an “OOOO” for you just fine.

Anyway, Mr. Mathew Fritz allowed that given a naturally brighter string than most synthetics, the Jay Haide Balesteri was the best suited for dealing with it… that not all of the Balesteri’s natural darkness could possibly be washed out by a marginally brighter string, especially allowing that the Thomastik Superflexible was considered widely to be the mellowest of its steel string genre.

Oh, and Mr. Fritz pointed out that the Jay Haide Violins were wonderful values for the money; that young professionals were getting pit work and studio work in New York with them, ostensibly passing them off as much better healed instruments.

You know, after talking with Mr. Fritz of Johnson Strings, I wondered that he had not recommended one of the Chinese Shopmade Instruments , but a quick search online corrected me in that regards. The Jay Haide violins are made in China. This a good thing. A lot of nice things are said of the woods available in China. Now, it is also said that the Chinese have been a bit impatient with their curing and drying, but this is also one of the contributing factors for the affordability of Chinese Violins. The important thing to remember is that a Chinese Violin will get significantly better in just a few years… even a few months…, as it reaches an optimum dryness. But a European Violin, as good as it is, will be as good as it gets, unless one can wait a generation or two for some incremental improvement.

Anyway, it all came to the test when my Jay Haide Balesteri Violin arrived in the mail (international shipping… I couldn’t believe how quickly it arrived, and that Johnson Strings shipping department had wasted so little time). My first impression was that the antiquing is startlingly convincing. One opens the case and sees what looks like an actual museum relic. It is really beautiful once one adjusts to all the faux-scratches and faux-fades and faux-wear’n’tear. Really the skilled blend of the reds and browns in the antiqued varnish… well, the beauty of it is transfixing. Sometimes I don’t even play… I just stare at that beautiful violin in a state of aesthetically induced ecstatic rapture. .

Oh, but was Mr. Fritz right about the sound? Did the Darkness of the Balesteri survive the steel string setup. Oh, yes, by the way, Mr. Fritz will have their shop setup the violin any way you like. So I did not have to wait to change out the strings myself… he sent it prepared just as I asked.

Well, yes, but the violin did apparently need a few days to settle in – bringing full tension to the strings and allowing the bridge and sound post to settle in. And the new Thomastik Superflexible G string always takes a day to round itself out, tone wise. Anyway, after a few days it sounded lovely. The darkness resides best in the two lower strings, but if one is careful on the bow with the A and E strings, then even these naturally shrill strings are willing to sing nice round sounding “OOOOO”s.

Oh, I did have one problem. It seems that all quality violins are sold with just one fine tuner, for the E string which is always a wire and therefore hard to tune in with just the clunky old traditional peg. The problem is, though, if one uses steel strings, then they are all virtually like wire, and peg tuning to any consistent accuracy is practically impossible, and always more time consuming than it really needs to be. So if you are going to use steel strings with your fine violin, then order three more finetuners… only $2.50 a piece. Mr. Fritz will probably even offer to have them installed during his courtesy setup.

Yes, I’ve heard that they say that Fine Tuners will dampen some of the Violin’s tone. But remember, when they talk about structure dampening tone, primarily they are talking about muffling those bright and brilliant, shrill and strident, high frequency components. Remember, Structures attenuate high frequencies while allowing low frequencies to pass. In short, the fine tuners might actually make an instrument “Darker” and if darker is what one likes, then don’t hesitate to get the fine tuners! Also I heard it said on line that sometimes the fine tuners will buzz. Well, they are designed to be slipped into the tailpieces string holes and tightened down with these round knurled nuts, so just make sure they are tightened snuggly and that will preclude them buzzing because they are loose. But, admittedly, from the engineering standpoint, little components like that might also buzz if surrounding vibrations cause them to hit their own natural resonant frequency. Well, I played my scales really hard, up and down, hitting every good note and as many of the bad one’s as I could figure on, and was not able to elicit a single aberrant ‘buzz’ from my four fine tuners.

Incidentally, the case is really nice. There is enough room even for a conventional shoulder rest.

So, in brief, I am very happy with the Jay Haide Violin, and with the entire staff at Johnson Strings – Sales, Bills and Accounting, and Shipping. It makes one appreciate how wonderful it could be to live in a Perfect World and to hope with just a few more such encouragements, that Life is perhaps beginning to become ‘fair’. Or if life again proves to be miserable and disappointing, well, at least one has a good violin to play. If one must ‘fiddle while Rome burns’, one should at least do it on a nice fiddle like the Jay Haide Balesteri.

Violin Collar (patent pending) Vs Violin Shoulder Rest

2010-09-06T00:38:00.001-07:00

I remember some poor Reviewer complaining that the Fender FV-3 Electric Violin was so heavy that he could not hold it in place. It would not keep still and it took so much Left Hand effort to steady it, that the Hand was seriously distracted from work of actually playing the violin.

So I didn’t get the Fender FV-3. I got the NS Design WAV 4 Violin in stead.

And I found it so heavy… Well, it was the same problem.

But you can’t just toss these things in the Dust Bin, can one? So I thought and thought and thought, and an inspiration came to me. Hang the darn thing from one’s neck from a kind of collar that connects up to either the Shoulder Rest mount, or from the Bridge Nut Mount, as on a standard acoustic Violin. You see, the Center of Gravity of an Electric Violin, and even a standard acoustic violin is very far down, close to the chin rest. If all that weight is hanging from one’s neck, on a short chocker collar, then there is little weight left to bother one’s left hand.

After a few weeks of trying various forms of collar and fasteners (cotton rope and key rings and spring loaded clips) I got it about right for both my electric and my ordinary violins. I really don’t even have to use the chin rests anymore. Keeping the shoulder rest does help orientate the violin correctly. And I can play and play and play and never have to worry about adjusting the violin’s position.

Oh, and the bonus of using a collar… one does not need to put the violin down all the time… to rosin one’s bow or select new music or whatever. One simply lets go and the relatively small violins simply drop down on the chest unobtrusively. If one is a Bar Room Musician, then one no longer has to worry about one of the clients grabbing your violin and racing out the door with it.

Oh, I was told to patent the thing, so, sure, I’ll patent it. But if anybody just wants to make one at home, or put together something of a dog collar to do the same thing, feel free. I just don’t want to see them for sale anywhere unless it is I doing the selling.

Learning Music The Easy… The Right Way

2010-09-06T00:10:00.001-07:00

Years ago there was this thing called the Suzuki Method, it came out of Japan after the War … the whole idea of it was that it was supposed to be easier for little kids to learn music, because it’s easier for little kids to learn language. Hand a little kid a fiddle and tell him to play with it, while immersing him in an environment rife with music and other musicians, and pretty soon the little kid would be carrying a tune like other little kids carry the mumps or the measles.

Unfortunately the foundational premise of the Suzuki Method is so discouraging for anybody over the age of about 4 years old when that Language Advantage parallel levels off and disappears, and, besides, its wrong!

While adults and older children may have a tough enough time when it comes to learning the proper conjugation of French Verbs, when a catchy tune comes over the radio, nobody has any trouble remembering how to hum it exactly, hours or even days afterward. Mr. Suzuki might have been bright enough to know that Catchy Tunes cling to the mind a lot better than those devilish Foreign Languages. Maybe he was too dazed by the War, or just grateful he could come up with some reasonably credible justification for his Big Moneymaking Scheme. Well, we all have to eat, don’t we. But its left to other people to clean up after such Intellectual Sloppiness.

So, yes, Music is different. Having heard a song once, People, even those older than 4 years old, stroll down the street skipping to its beat and “la la la-ing” it. And everyone else who has heard it knows the song. People get music right… often the very first time they try. Yes, and as Suzuki might have predicted, often these adults and older children don’t get the language of the songs quite right. While they get the melody just fine, as, for instance, when they sing a new song in the shower shower, the words are almost always not quite correct… but the substitutes and faux-rhymes are often as good as the real words… or even sometimes better. As far as words and Modern Music are concerned, it is not as though the bar is set so very high.

You know, playing tunes on a musical instrument is almost just as easy as singing in the shower or humming while subtly skipping down the street. One only needs to get acquainted with the instrument one plans on playing. And that is not really as difficult as the Professional Musician Culture makes it out to be. After all, ‘They’ already know we think they are lazy, and they don’t wish us to find out that what they do for a living is easy as well. So they do what most professions do – they pretend that what they do is difficult so they don’t have to apologize for all the money they take away for doing it. Well… not that 99% of professional musicians don’t live in the most abject poverty… but its always the top 1% that controls the Public Relations, is it not? The Voice of One Madonna drowns out the lamentations of a million low paid songsters who crowd the slums like so many pathetic rats… rats who can whistle happy tunes and tap their little paws in time…

Here is an illustration of just how easily music comes to us, even as adults. In Germany there was this policeman who had been shot in the throat in the line of duty. It destroyed his vocal cords. Since it was not in America, it was decided that no public expense would be spared to rehabilitate the man and bring him back his speech somehow. So they got him this Sound Generator Box with a touch sensitive activation screen. It was programmed to operate like a kind of palate – consonants could be formed and then tones could be modulated like the various vowel sounds and then more consonants… you know, like real words and real language. At first they were going to make it monotonic, as a pitch control would have added another complication to an already complicated little piece of equipment. In other countries they may have thought that a common man would have trouble working through so many intricacies and variables, but remember that this was in Germany where they rather take high levels of common intelligence for granted, and so they heaped on the tonal pitch control, supposing it could be used to make the ‘voice’ more natural with just a dash of sing-songiness, once the man got used to the controls and didn’t overdo it. Well, long story short, after only a few months the man was not only able to form intelligible and surprisingly natural sounding speech… German even!... using the fingers of just one hand, but he was able to “sing” with it, and then just by using various vowels and tones on the little box he was able to “play” it, mimicking various musical instruments!

Now, violins, pianos, guitars… aren’t they about like the same thing, or even easier? Remember, we only have to get familiar with the things and how they work. And if we commit a little time everyday, its bound to become easy. Just think about it. Everyday, the same old strings. Everyday, the same old notes. It is not a moving target. Nothing moves. Nothing ever changes. Of course one would get the hang of it.
Nowadays I don’t even bother taking the dust cover off my keyboard… after you hit the first key… blind… you got your orientation and your hands know where all the other keys are. On guitar and violin, while I still watch the pick or bow to keep them on the straight and narrow… from inadvertently dinging the next string over, the finger board fingers are free to roam where they want… they know their landscape perfectly well.

So it is that the Relationship between the Keys or the Strings never Change. Learning it doesn’t take long and once you know it, you know it forever.

So what is stopping everybody? Well, the Music Teachers! Let me illustrate with a story. I remember when I was a kid. My parents got my older brother a guitar, and sent him to a music teacher for an official music lesson. He came home with a book. His first Music Book. Apparently Music was to be treated like some kind of an intellectual endeavor. In his first week he was supposed to learn the chords for the song “Red River Valley”. What this means in practical terms was that in his first week he was expected to master the coordination of all six strings of a guitar with one stroke of a pick. And when he learned “Red River Valley”, they would teach him a new song. Apparently the idea was to learn every song in the Universe, one at a time, a week at a time. Well, the practices must have been hateful! All he was doing was straining to put his fingers in the correct mechanically pre-determined positions to fill out these mysterious chords, which, if he did it correctly, would mechanically result in the sounds of the correct song coming out. Not the least bit of art in the entire thing. It was all rote memorization and finger bending races with a metronome.

But the Music Teacher could show mommy and daddy that after just one week Little Johnny was already playing a song. What a Success! Music done like its some kind of a trick. Shortcutting the process so badly that sometimes these ‘musicians never really learn the strings. They tend to fall back on their mechanics… the chords they know instead of the chords they are hearing.

But it’s not like that everywhere. In the South, in those Blue Hills of Kentucky and thereabouts, they would get a kid a Thing with a mop handle with one string running from the top on down to a fastening in the bottom of a bucket – the Ol’ One String Bass. They’d turn on the radio and tell Little Johnny to play along. “Boing, ka-boing, ka-boing boing boing”. No further instructions required… well, not until little Johnny mastered the One String and wanted to add a second string or even a third string, and then Mom and Dad or Cousin or Uncle Bob would sometimes get involved… “Johnny, do you want 2 full tune steps between strings, like a bass guitar, or 3 tune steps like a big ol’ fiddle bass?” Well, most ‘Johnnies’ try both ways. So we have thousands of these ‘Little Johnnies’ out in Them Hills that in their first few months of practice learn how to move comfortably between the World of Violins and Guitars. Hopefully the parents time it all correctly so that by the time their Little Johnny starts to rig his Ol’ One String into being a 4 or 5 or even 6 “stringer”… replacing the Mop handle with a shaved down 2X4, Christmas will arrive so that Johnny can be presented with his first ‘real’ guitar or fiddle… which, given a few minutes to adjust to the new feel, he would already be able to play half as well as Elvis, who probably learned the same way. Well, perhaps not the chords to “Red River Valley”, but he would be able to jump in and play the songs on the radio, just as he had with his Ol’ One String Bass.

At first he would move very quickly between strings, covering all the necessary harmonic blends and tones within the song, and then with time he will get lazy like everybody else and simply hold down all the appropriate strings at once in their necessary positions – making Chords… but he won’t have to ask anybody what they are or should be or what to call them. He will simply just know them by intimate acquaintance. Of course, out in the Hills people ‘know’ chords and teach each other chords, but they aren’t held back by them. They can all jump right into new songs, and the chords might be some very fast finger-picking at first, but by the end of the song the right chords will be strumming away. Its not so much that they know the chords as that they know the Neck of their Guitars.

And, really, adults in the Civilized World could learn Music in about much the same way, and just about as quickly… if they were willing to put in as much time as Little Johnny. It’s just embarrassing for adults to start off learning new things if it can be held up to public ridicule. So just find a room with a lockable door and a musical instrument that can play into headphones, and you’re set. People will simply think you’re in there looking at Porn, which by Today’s standards isn’t nearly as embarrassing as learning to play a musical instrument.

Well, technically, to do what Little Johnny does… to play along with the Radio or the Stereo or whatever, but secretly, you’ll need a two channel mixer… to hear both the Song and the instrument you are using to play along with it.

I really recommend the Violin as a first instrument. Pianos have discreet keys and guitars have those discreet frets. When given these discreet units, the Intellectual part of our Minds try to learn them intellectually. The Left Brain tries to co-opt a Right Brain activity. What keys are which notes? What frets are which notes? One is full of questions. But the violin, while having four discreet strings, which is perfectly obvious, has no frets. A beginning Musician will simply have to squirm around on the strings and find the note he is looking for. Yes, for a second or two it can be very discouraging, but then when one lands on the exact right note, and hears the perfect harmonization between target song and what one is playing on one’s own Instrument, then it is a virtual moment of bliss from heaven.

But don’t get ahead of yourself. Remember the Ol’ One String Bass … start with just one string. With a violin, start at the low end, or the high end, but pick an end, and just see what you can do with just that one string. You know, there are actually a lot of possible notes in each one of the violin strings, from the top of the neck at the nut to as far down the neck toward the bridge as one can reach on the fingerboard… at least the match of most people’s singing voice range. You see, the way Strings work is that from the Top to the exact middle of the String is one full octave, but then the next higher octave takes only half that same distance, the next octave just half of that half of a distance – the notes get closer together as you come down the neck, and it gives each string a heck of a lot of range. You know, Little Johnny really was able to play songs on that One String thing. One string was plenty at the beginning, but it was also enough.

No one will have to tell you when you can go to the next string. You will get lazy about moving all the way up or down on the string to get to a note you want and you will figure it’s just easier to reach across to the next string where the desired note is situated closer… more conveniently. You see, stringed instruments have more than one string not to make it harder to play, but to make it easier… once you know the relationship between strings.

One of the best exercises for after you have mastered One String Playing, is to never play a repeating note twice in a row on the same string. On guitars where the strings are only two full steps apart… 5 frets which include those Sharp and Flat half tones… it is actually quite easy to play the same note on three adjacent strings – boing, boing, boing… going diagonally across the fingerboard. Violins with their 3 full steps between strings, well, the same note is a bit more of a reach between strings, so there it is sufficient to play the same note from one string to the next… the third string might be a bit of a reach. Anyway, once your Hand knows this string to string relationship, all else quite easily follows, and moving between strings will come quite as naturally as just playing just one string… only easier.

Keyboards are in fact easier than string instruments in their own way… and harder. One can learn the Octave Spacing of a keyboard within minutes, but the very ease of being able to beat on so many keys at once, well, introduces the possibility for so much error. Easy to play, easy to get wrong. And then with the sharps and flats … those annoying Black Keys… arranged on a different plane and level from the Full Note White keys… it throws a non-linear relationship into the whole thing and makes it far more difficult than it really should be – than if they had simply put all the notes in the same row and on the same level. But, still, the keys never move, and are the same from day to day, and so after a while one eventually gets used to the arrangement.

Keyboards are not given to the “One String Bass” mode of learning, but one can start in a comparatively easy fashion by using far fewer than all ten fingers. I would have suggested starting with the Index Fingers of both hands, except that this will lead you to a preference for the White Keys, so start your first keyboard exercises using Thumbs and Index Fingers – the Thumbs covering the White Keys and the Index Fingers held in reserve for when your Hand senses that one of the Black Sharp or Flat Keys would seem to be more appropriate… at first hit both the White Key and the Black Keys close above, and sound them out for which is best. Start Practice with one hand, giving the Ear its full attention, then switching to the other hand, and then finishing your songs with both hands, letting your Ear get used to the blend of sounds. With enough practice, thumb and forefingers only, your hands will eventually sort through the whole full note, sharp note and flat note thing – the White and Black Keys and their different levels. And just like on guitar or violin where you tried to limit yourself to just one string, after a while it will become impossible to keep the other fingers from joining in on the keyboard. But try not to rush it. Let it happen naturally. As you stretch into larger chords and more dashing speeds and broader riffs, you might exceed your present capacities and get a jarring off-note or two, as is to be expected. Just remember, though, if it gets too bad, you may be adding too much at time. So go back and retrench with your basics. Listen to the left hand. Listen to the right hand. Use fewer fingers and make sure you are hitting the basic chord outlines. Once the basics are solid, then you can add all the pretty details and flesh out the songs.

The ultimate trick is to remember that Music is done with the Right Side of your brain, while the Left Side of your brain is busy thinking of method and rules and theory and all of that. Now, as you begin Practice, it is difficult to simply turn off the Left Side of the Brain, which, really, more often than not, interferes far more than it contributes. What you need to do is tire the Left Side of your brain out… practice until you notice that your Left Side Brain is no longer really paying attention… that you are consciously thinking about other things, all the while the Right Side of the Brain continues to play. This is when the real work is being done. Typically after an hour of practice even the most tenacious Left Side of the Brain is fatigued beyond caring, and the Right Side of the Brain is allowed to learn … and play… unmolested. So try not to cut your practices short. If your mind begins to wonder, CONTINUE, BECAUSE THAT IS A GOOD THING! This is when the magic of new skills develop, when you will see and hear your hands do things that you really didn’t have to teach them. Believe me, you will never have to just sit around and think up neat things to do you’re your musical instrument. All that stuff comes during the long practices. Manna from heaven. You just find yourself, tired, distracted, doing new and wonderful things. And they don’t go away. On the next nights practice, they will be their waiting like you had been doing it for the last 20 years.

Well, yes, I may need to clarify something… the Left Brain can sometimes be a little bit helpful. It’s the Left Side of the Brain that suggests volume changes, and adjustments to the knobs and petals. When a string falls seriously out of tune, it’s the Left Brain that yells “ouch!” (the Right Brain would just keep playing and find new frets or different violin ‘positions’ to compensate for how the string jumped out of tune… but the Left Brain notices and yells “Whew! That’s Bu Shi”. Oh, “Bu Shi” is Mandarin for Not Is and other approximate concepts. I think that is where the American’s got their colorful colloquialism from, which really has nothing to do with boy cows and feces). Or matters of Taste. The Left Brain is the Judge of all that. One will be jazzing along hard on what should be a Sentimental Ballad and the Left Brain will be drawn back to attention and remark that it would all sound much better with deeper Feeling and less effing around. So the Left Brain does have its place. But 99% of the work of learning to play a Musical Instrument is accomplished by the Right Brain – the seemingly effortless way one dances one’s fingers over the Keys or the Strings… that is no Intellectual Left Brain accomplishment. If it were, then Little Johnny, no intellectual giant by any stretch, would not be quite so good at it or enjoy it quite so much.

Oh and a final word about Level of Accomplishment, and Pleasure in Playing. You know, I’m pretty sure that there is no cap on the enjoyments one realizes while achieving the triumphs that are had at one’s present level of ability. Happiness is Happiness. The King conquering the World is really no happier than the Cat given its tuna dinner. Getting better and better does not make one happier with one’s playing. Indeed, the most bored musicians are those who have hit a plateau at the highest level of accomplishment. I remember a story about a German Composer and Piano Player who was so sad about leveling off at Perfection, that he designed a “Finger Spreader” to stretch the span of his grip so he could hit slightly wider chords. It gave him arthritis and destroyed his ability to play at all. So I guess the enjoyments of Music are a lot like enjoying the Trip and the Scenery along the way, as there will never be any Final Ecstasy at some Perfect Destination. The Beatles played the Metropolitan Opera, the Mecca of all Stage Musicians, symbolizing having arrived at the top of the Masters of their Craft. And what a poor pathetic lot of miserable dogs they turned out to be. And if that doesn’t convince you, we can talk about Michael Jackson…

Now, of course, where other people are concerned, it is far happier to be Accomplished. Especially in the sense that if one is not completely Accomplished, and according to every taste and preference, then there will be people out there screaming that ‘You Suck!’. But here we are moving away from Pleasure and entering the considerations of Work and Professionalism – how one is auctioning one’s self off to the Public. Actually, it is probably best to keep Music as a pure and private Pleasure, and where Work and Professionalism is involved, to simply keep one’s Day Job. Of course, with the intense Competition of Global Capitalism side-lining more and more of us, downsizing away thousands of ‘Day Jobs’ every day, we may have little choice but to dance for our dinners… or to play for those who do dance.

Oh, and I just had a thought while reading some criticisms of the Suzuki Method. People complained that the very young children were not being terribly creative… playing what they heard and not doing a heck of a lot of change-ups. Well, duh. People need to realize that the Conceptual Mind does not even turn on until we are about 8 years old. Indeed, one of the things that make Language Acquisition so difficult after that age is suddenly so much more is expected of a Language. Conceptualization, so difficult even while Thinking in one’s Mother Tongue, has to struggle with the nuance of unfamiliar words. So it is similarly with Musical Conceptualizations… making up new songs, or new riffs and arrangements for old songs.

I’ve heard of a great many autistic musicians who can play what they hear but can never think of anything new or different. That’s sad. Since so much in Today’s Music can stand improvement. After all, look at the Process for turning out Today’s Music. Everything is rushed post-haste through the Studios because to the Producers its just a Business and their Target Audience is really not very selective anyway. Everything hits the Market being barely good enough to please the Standards of an Industry where the standards fall ever lower each year. So of course one can play music like that and improve upon it. Just note the differences between the original Beatles “With a Little Help From Your Friends” and Joe Cocker’s version To Joe the song was familiar and he probably dabbled with it long enough to get some good ideas for it. He took longer than 5 minutes before rushing it through the studio which is how it sounds performed by the Beatles. Hmmm, Joe Cocker also did a good job with Randy Newman’s “I think it is Going to Rain”. Just listening to Randy Newman’s original, one would think that the song held no promise at all. Oh, and during the Sixties and Seventies there was practically an Industry all to itself dedicated to bringing out Laura Niro songs with more polish than the originals.

So, yes, playing along with Music is often more than just playing what one hears being played. It is also about one’s Imagination sometimes taking over and playing what SHOULD HAVE BEEN played. For instance, after 30 years of playing it, I think I have a better piano solo in “Home Again” than Carole King… or just more elaborate. That is one Album nobody has ever been able to improve upon… Carole King’s “Tapestry”. That girl came into the Studio with her guns loaded…

More later…

Mellow Out that Electric Violin

2010-08-29T02:22:00.000-07:00

Fender FV3
NS Design Electric Violin

One of the most blatant problems with electric violins is that there is only one piezoelectric pickup in the bridge, and the same equalization controls have to apply to all of the strings, the low strings and the high strings. That means that one cannot really even out those annoying high frequency components on the low strings, the G and D strings, without also shutting down the high strings where the high frequency components rightfully belong.

I had arrived at a kind of a sound stage compromise where I had been turning up the base and dumping the medium and high controls to almost nothing, and enough of the high strings would get through while attenuating most of the buzzy high frequency components on the low strings. But the fix was not perfect.

Then it occurred to me that one has more than electronics to fiddle with, excuse the expression. One can deal with the physical properties of the violin. I was thinking of how when neighbors are playing their music too loud, mostly it is the Bass that gets through the wall. The only time one hears a lot of high notes is when someone hits an iron railing and one hears the complete full bandwidth twang twang through the iron. So it is that hard materials will pass all frequencies, even the high frequencies, but if one adds less hard materials, such as plasterboard and insulation, then the high frequencies are attenuated and mostly the low notes get through.

Hmmmm. So I thought of the solid piezoelectric bridges on most electric violins. Solid little rocks, really. Why not introduce a softer porous more resilient material between the strings and the solid bridge – the low notes will get through and the high buzzy frequencies will be attenuated.

So I found an old bicycle inner-tube and cut a square that I could drape over the bridge and tie in place with a slip-knotted string. I have an NS Design WAV 4, and the bridge is set a bit low to begin with, so the extra bit of height added to the bridge with this dampening padding only helped, as it is easier to modulate the strings if they are not entirely flat down on the finger board.

Yes, it worked. The low notes are a lot cleaner, far less buzzy, and I really didn’t notice any difference with the high strings. The Electric Violin is a great more civilized now.

Review NS Design WAV 4 Violin

2010-08-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Review NS Design WAV 4 Violin

Overall this is going to be a favorable Review; however, I certainly have a few reservations and then some positive advice.

Firstly, if you are in love with the sound of an acoustic violin… even a cheap basic student violin with steel strings… then the WAV 4, straight out of the box will terrify you with its heavy coarse raw electrical sound. But since the WAV 4 is ‘passive’, that is, it doesn’t have a built-in preamplifier and some elaborate onboard set of equalizers and effects switches and knobs, then you will almost certainly have to get or already have some kind of an pre-amp and amplification system. Depending on the controls on your amplifier/preamplifier, you might be able to minimize a great deal of that buzzy electronic sound character of the WAV 4.

My own setup may be unnecessarily complicated. You see, I use the same Input Cord for everything I play – a couple of electric guitars, an electric bass, and now the electric Violin. Changing instruments just takes resetting a few dials. I use a Bass Amplifier as my Preamp Stage, bringing the signal out from the Headphone Jack. Then it goes into a Alesis Nanoverb 16 Bit Digital Effects Unit, and then goes through a Peavey PV6 Mixer with LO Med and Hi adjusts on the channel. The Final Stage is runs to my headphones. I could probably pull the Bass Amp out of the setup and let the Alesis Digital Effects Processor handle the job of being a preamp, but sometimes it is good to leave well enough alone.

It turns out that the WAV 4 Violin likes about the same settings as my Bass Guitar, and for about the same reason. The worse Electronic Sound comes from high frequency components riding on the sound from the lowest strings. Turning the Treble of the WAV 4 all the way down brings out a fairly natural sound on the A and E Strings (the two highest strings on a violin), but so much high frequency stuff still rides on the G and D strings that one hardly suspects that these are supposed to be low notes. So on my first stage of amplification going through the bass amplifier, I turn down the Medium and the High filters and set up the Low knob to pass more Low than anything else, and I do the same with the Mixer Controls. Yes, it does knock some of the final volume off of the high strings, but plenty of that A and E high pitch gets through, so it is not really a problem. Besides, just a touch of Treble on the WAV 4 brings back plenty of A and E String volume.

It turns out that the rather affordable Alesis Nanoverb Effects Processor (I think I got it for a bit more than a hundred dollars) is just the right thing to have if you actually LIKE electric violin sound. I was able to adjust it for some really nice professional sounding effects – chorus with echo and all of that. But one can dial down these effects so they are barely noticeable while still being a bit helpful. For instance, a slight bit of ‘chorus’, whether linear or non-linear, helps to fill in the Low Strings, giving some of the roundness back to the sound that is robbed by the electronics

I was not able to totally drive out the electronic sound and arrive at a perfect acoustic sound, but I got satisfied enough so that I did not have to throw the whole heap into the trash can. One will never be invited to play with a chamber orchestra or with an unplugged folk music recital, so keep your real violin if you still want all of that. However, when playing with an Electric Band, one can get close enough to the acoustic sound to satisfy for violin parts in songs that are supposed to have that natural sound. It might not be a perfect fit but remember its only rock and roll.

This sound stage setup work took about 5 hours. Then I had to get used to actually playing the WAV 4 Violin. It doesn’t play like your standard violin. The Chin Rest is different, and there is that god-awful Shoulder Rest contraption, which turned out to be actually quite a diamond in the rough after I learned to deal with it (more on this below). Anyway, you can’t just stick the WAV 4 under your chin and go like its your old fiddle.

The WAV 4 is heavy. It’s a block of wood, hallowed out only as much as necessary to put in the Bridge Mounts, the String Things, and the Pickup Jack. Then the metal brackets for the Chin Rest and the Shoulder Rest are heavy enough to mount a sixteen inch cannon onto a battle ship. Given all this weight, the Shoulder Rest would need to be perfect so that one would be able to play without constantly needing to use the left hand for manually holding up and repositioning the violin, when, really, the job of the left hand should be exclusively taken up with dancing fingers upon the strings. But there was just no getting the Should Rest right… for the first several hours…

But I kept at it. The Cushion Part of the Shoulder rest is rubber foam glued on this thick curved metal blade, curved nicely on one side, but apparently shaped to go over the shoulder on the shoulder-most side, and so it guts inward. This is great if you play the violin absolutely sideways, with the violin positioned exactly over the shoulder, forcing your head around to create a permanent crick in the neck. Yeah, yeah… that is how one is supposed to play. All the Best Schools constantly reiterate that the Best Way must necessarily always be the most uncomfortable way. If what they instruct isn’t hated and resented, then it can’t possible be technically ‘correct’. However, in the Real World, a great many violin players fall away from such standards of school house perfection, and we play with the violin set more forward. Some people play the violin right under the chin, head and eyes forward. Well, for those Non-Conformists the Shoulder Rest jutting blade stabs them in the chest – giving them the punishment they so rightfully deserve! But really, that’s not what they spent their money for, is it?

I was reading on the Ned Steinberger Site (NS Design apparently stands for Ned Steinberger Design) and I saw promotions for their Custom Shoulder Rest, which is flexible. Apparently they had received hundreds of thousands of complaints regarding their standard Shoulder Rests and so they redesigned the Shoulder Rest, but they are still selling Violins with the Old ‘Stabber/Punishment’ Shoulder Rests. Anyway, I thought that my Shoulder Rest was one of the new Flexible ones (I should learn to read websites more carefully), but when I tried to bend it with my fingers, there was no give at all. So I tried to tweak it a little with a BFH (Very Big Hammer) and it snapped. Really, it was not malleable in the least. You would think it would bend a little before breaking, but, no. after five or six very sound blows – Snap! But the good news is that it is no longer stabbing me. The rubber pad glued to the bottom of the thing holds the pieces together. Anyway, I have emails out to Ned Steinberger and Johnson Strings asking about what I have to do to get one of the new Custom Shoulder Rests.

Well, even after breaking the Shoulder Rest which represented some progress in fixing the inherently flawed design, I still could not dial it in to the point where I could play the violin for longer than 20 seconds without having to stop to reposition the thing. The weight of the thing was making it inexorably slide down the chest. And constantly supporting the weight of this Battleship Violin… well, it was giving me a upper back ache and muscle fatigue in my left arm. I have to admit that I was getting a bit discouraged, but then I had this wonderful inspiration!

The Bar and Tee arrangement of the Shoulder Rest provided an excellent hook up spot for a simple strap that one could wear around one’s neck. What I did was I tied off my Scapular Cord (A Scapular is a Catholic Religious thing that just happened to hang from a thick cord I had woven from 9 strands of wool yarn – a rather nice piece of rope, really) to a length that would just barely fit over my head and I passed it through the Chin Side of the Shoulder Rest Blade and over the Fastening Knob, and now all the weight of the violin hangs from my neck on that neck strap. It worked wonderfully well! I was finally able to get in a good practice, with the violin staying put long enough to warm up on the fingering and decide that, yes, indeed, it was an actual violin I was playing. And, with the Shoulder Rest looped through the Neck Cord, one does not need to put the WAV 4 Violin down… between songs, or rosining the bow, or whatever. One simply lets go and the smallish violin simply hangs down on one’s chest, like a big jewelry pendant. If you wish to make your own neck strap, then any heavy cord or strap looped to be about 23 inches in diameter, just fitting over your head, would be suitable.

Oh, the WAV 4 Violin comes with the Bridge adjusted very low. I used those screwdriver adjusts to bring up the Bridge a bit to help with the kind of string modulation you do by wiggling your fingers on the string… if the bridge is too low, you lose a lot of that effect.

So, in summation, the WAV 4 probably sounds no more “electronic” than any of the other Electric Violins out there, and once you learn to strap the Shoulder Rest around your neck, then that horrible monstrosity of a Shoulder Rest actually becomes a positive attribute for selecting WAV 4 from amongst all of its competition. It makes me think of objections I have heard regarding Fender’s FV-3 Electric Violin – that it was overly heavy and constantly needed to be repositioned. Well, with its standard acoustic style Shoulder Rest, there’s not much that one can do about the weight – there is nothing that I can see to tie onto or hook up to in order to provide the Neck Strap relief available so easily on the WAV 4 Violin. Such is probably the case with most Electric Violins – because they are heavier than normal acoustic violins, the struggle to keep the violin stable while playing is intensified. And it is a struggle, even with normal violins. Just go search up information on regular violin shoulder support systems… obviously, people are having problems keeping their violins still enough to play upon.

Oh, and a final point on Electric Violins in general. Wow, are they quiet! I had no idea that traditional acoustic violins had such a potent magic for amplifying the sound of the strings. With the same strings strung exactly the same way over a simple piece of wood, or your typical electric violin, without any electronic amplification, the strings emit barely the slightest whisper. So, if your primary urge for buying an electric violin, is so you do not put off your neighbors, family or roommates with the volume of a regular violin, then getting an electric violin really is a good choice. The volume difference is, well, I guess a hundred to one. My headphones probably make more noise then the electric violin itself.

………………………………..
Addendum to NS Design WAV 4 Violin Review

I’ve now had the WAV 4 Violin just over a week, and it has gotten even better in my estimation. At first, you will remember, I was obsessed with how well it compared to ordinary acoustic violins, but now that seems almost beside the point. Electric Violins are, after all, electric, and while it would be an additional feather in their cap if they could sound natural, as electric they have a great many advantages over regular acoustics. For instance, one can play an Electric using a wide range of playing sensitivities – a soft light bow sound can be had while turning up the volume enough for your audience to actually here it. To be heard with an acoustic violin in any large room with the least bit of any other noise going on, one has only the option of grinding down very hard, therefore loosing the illusion of sensitivity.

Then there is the point regarding acoustical sound, that there is a wide debate over just what constitutes an acceptable acoustical sound. While to the untrained ear all acoustical violins may sound the same, to a trained ear they all sound different, and in many instances not that particularly good. Some people spend thousands of dollars trying to get a violin that sounds ‘good’ and when they get one, they start saving up for one that will sound even better. It is all quite obsessive and endless. So it was a relief for me to finally determine that the sounds being produced from the NS Design WAV 4, with the help of my Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor and Peavey PV6 Mixer and Amplifier, were, well, better. It is not so bad, is it, when we can settle for “better”.

Oh, regarding the NS Design stock Shoulder Rest, which I broke with a hammer because I thought it was a Custom ( Flexible) Shoulder Rest, well, I got an email from Johnson Strings and they will special order me a Custom Shoulder Rest for $50.00. Cool! But I could as easily keep the old one. You see, I repaired it so it is now flexible in its own right. I had looked for just the right degree of flexibility and found it in the thick plastic of a kitty litter bucket top, and sawed off a piece of it to fit across the top of the broken shoulder rest blade, and then I wound it on using some really nice tan-brown wool yarn, using just enough carpenters glue to keep the yarn from unraveling, and which dries clear. It looks like I simply added a bit of extra padding to the shoulder rest.

Oh, and this brings us to the best feature of the NS Design Electric Violin, and that is that the inverted ‘Tee’ bracket of the Shoulder Rest provides the best tie-off potential of any Violin on the market, that I know of that is. Remember how I complained of the WAV 4 being too heavy to keep stable enough to play, and I found I could pass a loop around my neck and simply hang the Violin from my neck. Well, yes, that basic idea works, and I developed it a bit further. Firstly, it is perhaps a mistake to simply pass one belt or cord around one’s neck and around the Shoulder Rest’s Tee Stem. Why? Well, unless it is kept very tight, there is the possibility that the blades of the shoulder rest might wiggle under the cord or belt, and the violin take a plunge toward the floor. Mine did, but fortunately my first Performance Discipline was that of a Juggler and my hand automatically followed the falling Violin down and snatched it up before it hit the floor. Yes, so while I was never able to fully perfect my Act of juggling 5 flaming bowling pins to “Flight of the Bumble Bee”, still, I was able to snatch up one falling violin just when it really counted.

Anyway, in my Shoulder Rest Support System, I ended up using a loop of cord. I got some 36 gauge cotton string and braided 3 strands together to make a cord about 6 feet long. Be careful to start with pieces of string about 15 to 20% longer than what you will finally need, as braiding soaks up some of the original length of the strings you use. I tied the ends of the cord together to form a loop and I pass the end of the loop around the Tee Stem of the Shoulder Rest, and then encircle my neck with the rest of the loop. No, I do not pass the loop over my head… it is far too long for that. I keep the loop doubled over when I pass it around my neck, and my original intent was to loop the other end around the Tee Stem of the Shoulder Rest from the other side after having gone around my neck. And that does work, but things get crowded there, just under the chin rest, and when it is time to undo the loops after practice, it is difficult to feel which loop end should go where, and one is caught trying to find a mirror one can work with. So I ended up finally attaching a small single loop of cord to the Tee Stem, and a Key Ring Clip to the Primary Loop. The thing can now clip on or clip off in mere seconds. I keep it fairly tight, so that the chin rest is fixed just under my chin. Oh, this is why it is an advantage to use a double loop instead of a single cord around the neck, as the double loop while it can be arranged to be tight, has twice as much inherent ‘stretch and bounciness’ as a single cord, and that makes it more comfortable and easier to work with during a long practice. And in practice, the loop holds the violin in place so well, it is really something of an afterthought whether I use the chin rest at all. You see, here is where the weight of the WAV 4 might actually be something of an asset. Most of the weight is toward the bottom of the WAV 4, about even with the bridge. Once secured around the neck, most of the weight then simply drops into the Shoulder Rest, keeping the Violin stable even despite some rather energetic playing.

Oh, about the NS Design Shoulder Rest being a wonderfully innovative design. Well, yes, especially that one can adjust the longitudinal Axis of the Violin. With most other violin designs, one is more or less stuck with a Bridge aligned horizontally, that is, parallel to the horizon – flat and level to the floor. With the Longitudinal Axis adjustability of the NS Design, one can lean the G String of the Bridge up to make it easier to come up over the top of the strings with the bow. Honestly, after a week with it, I don’t know how I had ever been able to live without it before.

Oh, I forgot to mention in my first review that I had changed out the two fat strings with Thomastik Infeld Super Flexibles, and I like them a lot. They are steel-chrome wound braided steel strings, and are known for being the mellowest of the steel strings available for violin. If you already have plenty of high frequency buzziness inherent to the violin itself, which seems to be the case with Electric Violins in general, then a mellow set of strings seems to be the way to go. The original A and E, as they sounded okay, and good enough is, after all, good enough.

Oh, the literature included with the WAV 4 mentions that it would be compatible with perlon or synthetic strings. Yes, but take my advice and stay away from the Perlons and the Synthetics. Why? Well, they are wound in aluminum. And aluminum is very brittle. Go on line and search up ‘unraveling violin strings’ and you will see it is a chronic problem with just about every brand of aluminum wound string, especially the A Strings. Then another thing about Aluminum is that it is molecularly NOT smooth. Even when you oil an aluminum wound string, one can not easily slide a finger on an aluminum string. Aluminum if ‘grabby’. The molecular surface of the aluminum simply wants to dig into the surface of your finger’s skin. That is probably why these aluminum strings are so fragile – they grip so hard and do not want to let go, while the violin player is either trying to skillfully modulate his playing with some slight wiggling back and forth, or is desperately trying to slide into the correct note while time is still left on the metronome. Well, in any case, even good players can’t make aluminum strings last very long, especially not with the vigorous playing styles that one can expect of an Electric Violin. And let us admit that sometimes sliding between notes can be GOOD SOUNDING effect, and we shouldn’t HAVE TO avoid it because the strings are too delicate or grabby to allow for it. Also, new Perlon and Synthetic Strings regularly take an entire day to stabilize their tune enough to stay in tune from one song to the next. And you have to tune them up gradually so you do not break them during installation, and they will not stay in tune or even nearly in tune, from day to day, until they had settled in for the best part of half a week. Imagine if you were on stage and broke a perlon or synthetic string. You couldn’t just wind on a new string and play, like you could with all of your steel strings and chrome steel wrapped strings.

Oh, in this regards I do like the innovative string tuners and the peg-less head of the NS Design Violins. With the violin hanging from my neck for an entire practice, it is nice that I don’t have to worry about bumping the violin pegs out of tune.

I had read that the Bridge on the NS Design was infinitely adjustable. Yes, I did use the screws from the bottom to bring the bridge up in it mounts a little bit. But I also decided to reposition the strings along the top of the bridge, to spread them out to give the bow more clearance for One String At a Time playing. You see, no matter how far the strings are apart on top of the bridge, it is always easy to play two strings at a time. Keeping a Close Bridge is only important if one contemplates ”triple stopping”, that is, pushing the bow down on 3 strings at once (or even 4 strings, God Bless us, but that can only be done on shaved down almost flat ‘fiddle’ bridges, and that is too ‘incestuous’ for decent violin playing folk to even want to think about). No, that is not even one of my ambitions in life, to grind down on every string at once. So I spread the strings out, and the NS Design Bridge lets me do it. You just have to hold it in place for a moment while tightening up on the adjustment knob and then it stays put in its new location.

Oh, and that reminds me of another recommendation for Electric Violins over acoustics… that one does not have to reset the bridge periodically, as the bridges of traditional acoustics tend to lean more and more forward with each adjustment to their tuning. An Electric Violin’s fixed Bridge is just another easy luxury of life we can grow accustomed to. That and not having to worry about humidity, temperature or dryness compounding in ways that would destroy an expensive acoustic violin. The NS Design WAV 4 may be a bit on the heavy side, but it certainly isn’t delicate and I can’t imagine what could possibly hurt the thing.

Oh, and finally, the looks of the Thing. At first I had put the NS Design Violins toward the bottom of my list because, well, they did not look like Violins. But the look they do have – an old European Stringed Instrument Look – well, it is beautiful in its own right. This is while some of the other Electric Violins are positively Ugly – using plastic scrawling that is supposed to suggest the traditional lines of a violin… that is all simply hideous and cartoonishly immature. The NS Design is strong, compact and finally attractive… looking better in reality, in its actual physical presence, then what one captures from seeing it merely in the photographs. And since I wear it around my neck it is important that the NS Design is both attractive and compact.

Floppy B String on 5 and 6 String Bass

2010-07-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

Floppy B String on 5 and 6 String Bass

I noticed that a great many Bass Guitar Forums discuss what must be a chronic problem in the 5-String and 6-String bass world, that is, floppy B strings. (for the newly Initiated, Bass Guitars traditionally come with just 4 strings – and E, A, D, and G. On a 5 String, the extra string is a big fat B String on the low side of the neck. On a six string bass the extra extra string is not an even fatter low string, but a higher string on the other side of the traditional fours strings – a little skinny High B String.)

On a great many postings, people are blaming the particular basses involved. This can be a valid complaint, as long as people are comparing their respective basses only in regards to their Neck Scale. You see, given a string of a particular thickness and weight, or ‘mass’ as we should call it, it will be most ‘floppy’ on the shortest neck. All other things being equal, ‘long’ equals lower, and so to bring up the pitch on a string stretched over a longer distance between nut and bridge, well, it must be made more tight, that is, less ‘floppy’. So we should expect the most complaints of floppiness to come from those whose basses have the shortest neck scales

The different Neck Scales are as follows: – Short is 30 inches, mediums are 32, 34 inches is ‘long (with the proviso that one source has it that while 34 inches is considered ‘long’ for 4 string basses, a five and six string bass are not ‘long’ until 35 inches, but this represents less than a 3% difference in length and so is probably not overly consequential), and extra longs are 36 inches. Oh, scale is measured from the nut at the top of the neck to the saddle of the bridge, so, really, the only part of the string involved in the scale measurement is the part the wiggles back and forth while making the sound.

While Neck Scale helps us to understand the problem of B String Floppiness, it is not really something we can do anything about, unless we want to solve our floppiness problem simply by buying a new bass. Most people would hold off on that particular variable until driven to it as a last resort.

I’ve seen some online forum posts which posit the idea of fixing B String floppiness by shimming or placing spacers between the string retainer and the ball. They no doubt suppose that it is taking some of the slack out of the string. However, we need to remember the basic physics of our equation here – we are only concerned with the strings width and weight (Mass) between the Nut and the Bridge Saddle. You can put a mile of shims and spacers AFTER the Bridge Saddle and it won’t make the slightest bit of difference. Where people say that such things help, well, that is the Placebo Effect at work. After going through all that trouble, they don’t wish to admit to themselves that they wasted so much time and effort, or that they had been taken in by such blunt stupidity. So, it is my guess that if the guitar works after the installation of shims and spacers, then it probably was not in such bad shape before all that useless stuff was added into the mix.

The real important variable in all these matters of B String Floppiness is the actual string. Since we are stuck with our Neck Scale dimension, the only thing we can easily change is the Mass of the string we use. All things being equal, fatter strings are lower and will tune with greater tension then a skinny string. And if the width is held equal, then a denser heavier steel and chrome steel string will tune tighter than those made of lighter materials such as nickel and aluminum (Aluminum plagues the world of violin strings – it gives a nice enough tone but it is so brittle and fragile as to fall apart after only hours of any really exerted practicing).

So look for the specifications of your ‘floppy’ B String. B strings average around .125 inches in diameter, but you can get round wound steel strings all the way up to .145 ( for example, D’addario and DR String), or flatwounds up to about .136 (Thomastik-Infeld, though they are costly… about $45 for just one B string, but you can buy them singly). Now, while the round wounds seem to come in fatter sizes than the flatwounds, remember that the density of the flats are inherently greater, because they are filled in level to the very limits of their width dimension, while round wounds have all those empty spaces within all those little round grooves – they don’t completely fill in their given diameters and so they are actually less dense than their given diameters would imply.

I myself have a Fender 5 String Bass… I think all these Fender 5 Strings come in 34 Inch ‘Long’ Scale. These guitars, given their popularity, are the one’s most often complained about. I strung my particular Fender 5 String in D’addario long scale Flats, and the B String is a .132 diameter and it is wrapped in chrome steel, making it fatter and denser than the industry average. And, yes, while the B String certainly creates for itself a great deal side to side wiggle room when it sounds, the tone is fine.

Perhaps a great many people are concerned that the B Strings seem to take up so much room ‘wiggling’ back and forth. Well, this is all to be expected. I used to work with ‘Accelerometers’, that is, little devices designed to measure acceleration G Forces, and one of the immutable laws of Acceleration is that given similar G Force intensities, lower frequency movement will have the furthest displacement. Simply speaking, for the same sound volume as another string of higher note, a lower note will create more side to side wiggle movement in order to do the same job. Your B String, by its very nature, is simply going to ‘look’ more ‘floppy’ than the other strings.

So do you really have a problem? If you get the right tone and note from your B String, and if it doesn’t buzz on the lower frets and whack against the wood, then you probably don’t really have a problem with B String floppiness… or your problem is merely psychological. But if it really bothers you and you need to do something about it, then look for a thicker string wrapped in steel. The tighter tension of the greater mass will cut down on some of that floppy looking wiggle room that so annoys you.

Oh, there are instances where strings just seem to go crazy – seeming to violate all the rules of physics. One hears of ‘dead’ strings that no longer sound. Well, this probably involves the strings separating within their windings, creating light spots and heavy spots which cause vector interactions – the string wiggles all wrong and sounds funny. But such a string will not even tune, or will rise and fall or ‘warble’ in tone. This is not ‘floppiness’… it is an entirely different problem.

But there is way in which an aged string can become ‘floppy’ over time. It happens more often with violin strings. A string stretches out, slowly over time decreasing in diameter, and as more and more string ends up getting wound up onto the tuner, then less mass is left between the Nut and the Bridge Saddle. The old stretched out string gets thinner and becomes ‘floppy’. So in cases where you have a very old string that starts to buzz on the lower frets or begins to smack the wood, when it never used to before, then it is probably just getting old, and its time to replace the old baby. Now, if you buy somebody’s used bass and you have what you believe is significant B String floppiness, and you don’t know whether to attribute the problem to String Type or to String Age… well, its probably good to get a new set of strings in any case… make the Bass your own with a shiny new set of strings. And make sure you get a set with a relatively high diameter B string. More than .130 for Flat Wounds, and more than .135 for Rounds. And then, as long as everything sounds fine, you will soon enough get used to larger oscillation swings of your B String… that just means its working right.

Open Letter to the UFO People

2010-07-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

This World is in crisis. Control of everything is in the hands of the slightest percentage of people whose only guide and compass for their behavior is their own greedy self-interest, driving them to increase their own relative wealth by continuously increasing their levels of exploitation of both the Environment and their Fellow Man. Humanity has thus been vanquished and enslaved, and the World consigned to plunder. It will only end when every Being has been ground down to nothing, and every resource entirely exhausted. Then the last man standing will be able to declare himself the Winner of what had been a Grand Competition. You see, our System, if it can be so briefly described, is all about Competition. Of Billions of People, only one Winner will emerge, and everyone else will have to take the hind-most. The only consolation for the Losers will be that the Winner will be left with nothing much more than a cinder – a spent Planet in ruins and chaos.

Yes, of course, the People of this World should be able to perceive their own problems and arrive at their own solutions. We shouldn’t have to ask UFO People for help. The problem arises that the very people who are thinking clearly – thinking only of the Public Good without the burdens and blind-spots of self-interest and personal agenda – such people are effectively marginalized and silenced. What we have in this World is a situation where upwards of 90% of the Propaganda Media is owned and directed by just two extremely wealthy individuals. Obviously the Policy they seek to advance is the maintenance of the exactly the kind of Anarchy which allows two private individuals to buy up for themselves 90% of the World’s Propaganda Media. And then, most of the remaining 10% of the Propaganda Media is caught up in binding business partnerships which require adherence to the same anarchistic policies of the Majority Holders. Given the situation, we cannot expect that the Public would be so very well informed, either in regards to the Truth of purported Events, the ‘News’, or in regards to the span and possibilities of the choices they could be making.

Of course, in reference to our own History, and in what we can still discern from the News that they do concede to give us, we should still be able to piece together for ourselves a viable direction to take. But most people are tricked by being presented with just a few false choices. The Slave Drivers and the Plunders labor to present alternatives that seem worse than even Slave Drivers and Plunders – mostly they succeed by calling everybody else exactly what they are themselves. It’s the Burglar who allays suspicion by yelling “Stop Thief!” himself.

People who are able to arrive at the Truth themselves, well, as I’ve said before, they’re marginalized. No publishing company will publish them. No University, now controlled by Wealthy Alumni Groups, will take them on in Academia. Civilized Public Rationalism has been driven into Exile. ‘Freedom of Speech’ is now confined to some fairly narrow Corporate-Friendly limits.

This is where you UFO People could make a huge difference. You UFO People could bust wide open through the presentation of limited False Choices, and provide a Real, True, Proven, and Time-tested Alternative. You UFO People could provide a compelling glimpse of your own History, and an outline of your own Socio-Economic Institutions, that is, how you became Civilized, and how you managed to stay that way.

Yes, yes… it is obvious that you UFO People at one time or another signed some sort of a “Non-Interference” agreement. Well, while that may be true, is there any reason why you should honor such an agreement more stringently than the Earthlings you signed with. Why not do as the Earthlings themselves would – violate the agreement and leave it to some Court settle it. Screw the Contract, get a good Lawyer, and buy the Judge. Yes, it’s absolutely charming that you hold yourself to a higher ethical and moral Standard than your Partners in this Conspiracy of Silence. But they are probably just laughing at you for it. They’d never be so guilty of such naiveté.

Yes, I heard a rumor that you UFO People had once tried something close to ‘Interference’ before, and were burned for it. The World Governments were annoyed that there was so much UFO probing going on – people ‘abducted’ for study, and animals dissected and analyzed, and then just left to mysteriously rot away in the fields – it was all arousing so much suspicion that it was decided that you UFO People had violated the Non-Interference Clause of your Agreement, and sanctions were implemented. I heard a couple squadrons of Jet Bombers obliterated the Base that had been allocated for your use. Apparently they were also testing your defenses. Despite your advanced Technologies the guess was good that you UFO People did not prioritize bringing very many Weapon’s Systems with you in your odyssey across the Galaxy. We were able to figure out that you UFO People travel light. So, you are defenseless and everybody knows it. My guess is that you retreated to Deep Sea Bases that are a bit more difficult to detect and attack.

It also makes me wonder whether the losses you sustained in that Attack have permanently embittered you toward Humanity… something that the Governing Earthlings may have been counting on… an effective guarantee that you UFO People would continue to mind your own business, without any bothersome sympathies for the People of this damned World. A few people made you Enemies and attacked you so that you would hate us All. Please, I would hope you would reconsider. We are not all that bad. Many of us do not even Vote.

Anyway, we can stipulate to your reluctance to interfere in the Affairs of the World. But you need to remember that in all of this, you UFO People have now been here long enough to have some Standing… some Say… in what goes on. As it is, this World is now entirely regulated by the Push-Pull of various Special Interests, so why should your own Special Interest in all of these affairs count for nothing? How can it be to your own benefit that this Planet be plundered and destroyed by a relatively small band of ruthless Barbarian?

So, honestly speaking, as we say, the ball is in your court… it’s your move. Believe me, if your intention is to Help, than certainly nobody could possibly have grounds to blame you for speaking up.

And the Window of Opportunity is only open for a Moment. Now, this minute, the World Wide Web is still almost entirely unrestricted for most Computer Users. The Media Propaganda Companies have not yet figured out how to restrict it for just their own select Content. But it is only a matter of time until the Big Search Engines are fined tuned enough to isolate and reject, or ‘last page’ what it sees as contrary to the Accepted Media Propaganda. The time to act was Yesterday. Today is only second best but we must hurry.

What can you do? Well, three things. First, prove to everybody that you exist. Second, provide a viable example for our budding Civilization. And Third,… well, I’ll get to that.

Proving that you really exist is important. As it stands, the Powers that Be have been able to marginalize, ruin, discredit or otherwise silence anybody coming forward with information regarding your Existence. People are honestly afraid to speak seriously about the UFO People out of fear for their careers and professional standing. In one case I heard of the Government simply withdrawing all the identification, career and education credentials, and credit history of a certain individual. One day he was a Respected Scientist speaking out about UFO People, and the next he was reduced to being a penniless and homeless man, living on the street, begging his meals. It didn’t matter what he said… everybody figured he was crazy. The same trick works every time.

But if you UFO People were to make a sudden, concerted and deliberately large Show of yourselves, before the largest Urban Centers, and before the largest possible crowds, then the Method of Discreditation would no longer work… they can’t throw everybody on the street… at least not all at once. Yes, the Media would definitely go into a Frenzy of trying to prove to everybody that they did not really see what they saw, claiming mass hysteria or video projections tricks behind it all, and many people who are conditioned to believe the TV before they believe their own two eyes would be swayed into discrediting themselves. But if your UFO “Unveiling” is accomplished on a large enough scale, and everybody gets to See, then it would end in the decision that the People who still refuse to believe, that they are the new Crazy Ones.

Once your Existence is no longer questioned, then you could add your Voice to the Grand Debate – what is it to be a Civilized and Moral Being, and how does a collection of People come together to create a durable, sustainable, and yet still enjoyable Civilization. As I suggested at the top of this essay, you UFO People could publish On Line, while you still have a chance, a History of your Civilization and Blue Print of your Social, Economic and Governmental Institutions. Of course, if your Civilization is upwards to 50 Million Year Old then any detailed History would seem to go on endlessly. But in any case, selection and editing would have to cut down the bulk of it all to some reasonable length. How much? I would suggest 10 Volumes of about a 1000 Pages each. That would be 10,000 Pages. Most people can read 200 pages a week in their spare time without being excessively burdened, and at 200 pages a week one could read 10,000 pages in a year. It would help if the content, as much as possible, could be kept pithy and interesting – a lot of heroic characters doing and saying clever things – after all, we would want people to be able to feel some connection and sympathy with the Ten Volumes. This would without a doubt break through the Limited Choices problem now stifling our Intellectual Debates. Given the Solidity and Certainty of your Civilization, the Ways and Means of your Civilization could no longer be ignored out of some sense of Political Correctness – that anything not entirely good for Rich People is bad for Everybody.

The Third Thing… well, that is a special favor. So that the Ten Volumes will have some relatively rapid influence, it would probably be wise to publish it first in the most common vernacular Languages – English, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean… to name a few. But the greatest coup would be to have the Ten Volumes published in a Universal Language. It could be Your Language, providing Human tongues could wrap around it, or it could be an Intelligent Language created out of the wealth of the World’s already most prevalent languages… but with consistent rules, no ‘irregular’ verbs, and easy spelling.

Ever since the Tower of Babel Humanity has been divided by competing languages, jealous of their position and relative influence. One Language, presented as a Gift from outside, showing no favoritism to any particular group or nation, would be a veritable God-Send. The Foundation of a One World Civilization would be a One World Language.

Also, there would be a great many Interests out to discredit the Ten Volumes as some kind of contrived fiction – a huge fraud. But given a New Universal Language, with Reference Materials of course to aid in translation and study, then any opposing Interest Group would have a difficult time of it trying to equate the Scale of such an Accomplishment to being a merely just an On Line Trick. Yes, while some diligent crackpot somewhere could write a pile of books, and even get them translated somehow, it would be virtually impossible to do the same with a unique and comprehensive Language… not without some very extensive Institutionalized Resources. With all of our Spies, Police, and Intelligence Agents – Public and Private – it would soon become clear to everybody who had the means to check that no Human Office generated such content. .

Anyway, perhaps it will all help us to turn the corner and become a better World and a better People. We too can arrive at being Civilized – Moral and Caring People living in a Sustainable Way in a Healthy World. We just might need a little outside help in getting there.

Government Sponsors Crime

2010-06-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago in the News we learned that they had apprehended a prospective Terrorist. When it was suggested that he be tried in the Criminal Justice System, the shock and outrage was practically unbounded. This was Terrorism! It had to be treated seriously!

I was dumbfounded. This all suggested that Crime – everything that falls within the jurisdiction of the Criminal Justice System – IS NOT ‘serious’.

You know, they have a point. Crime really isn’t treated very seriously. It is rather like any Career Choice. Criminals can go years, and I suspect many go through their entire lifetime without being apprehended. And if they are caught, then they are sent off practically on ‘vacation’. Remember, Prison is paid for by the Public – the Criminal Prisoners receive free room and board, and in America they have a better Health Care Plan than anybody but the Congressmen and Senators. And then most career criminals are back on the Streets before 5 years. It is exactly as though Government is sponsoring these criminals.

Of course there would be outrage if the Government moved to ‘sponsor’ Terrorists in exactly the same way as they now sponsor Crime.

Why does the Government sponsor Crime? Well, it’s a huge Industry. First there are all the Police and their clerical staff. Next there is the lawyers. Each Criminal gets 3 lawyers – one prosecuting him, one defending him, and the Judge – a Big Lawyer -- who listens to the other two lawyers. You have the County Jail and all its personnel. There is the Jury Commission and its staff. Then you have the actual Prison and all of its staff. Between all the Police, Lawyers, Guards and Clerical Staff, the Criminal Justice System sucks up more Money than Health Care would, if they would ever provide Health Care to the General Public. I believe the Criminal Justice System runs a close par to the Education System. I heard somewhere that there is almost as many Prison Guards as School Teachers. One can only guess about who gets paid more.

Too many people’s livelihoods depend upon Crime for anybody to seriously propose bringing a complete end to it.

But what about the harm that Crime does to Society? Well, all of the People in Power have decided that it is the Cost of Doing Business.

When it was proposed that Terrorism be added to that Cost of Doing Business, certainly the outrage was justified. But we should reconsider whether it is really wise to give Crime a free pass simply because it represents so much easy money for so many people.

Oh, and it is ‘easy money’. Cops and Guards go straight to work with almost no schooling. And Lawyers! Well law school is a breeze compared to programs such as Science, Engineering and Medicine. The only reason they have Law School is so that Law can stay the domain of that privileged class that can afford law school. The real hurdle for lawyers is passing the Bar Exam. My guess is that the Study of Law makes its students too lazy for any actual hard studying, and that is why so many have such a difficult time when they are actually asked to pass a serious test. .

You know, they have a point. Society is full of Idiots and Incompetents… but they all have to eat. They all have to live in homes. If one seriously went about eliminating every Job that was not entirely necessary, I would guess that 80% of the World’s Population would end up unemployed. Honestly, it would probably be better is Society simply applied itself to providing for people’s Needs, without all this Jobs Jobs Jobs business.

But if we must insist that people get Jobs, we could probably put everyone to far better use than by Sponsoring a Crime Industry, don’t you think?

You know, we could put an end to Crime quickly enough if there was the will for it. Yes, the Police are almost completely useless, but they could largely be replaced by Surveillance and Monitoring Technologies. Track People, Track Property, and Track Money. Then just round up all the For Profit Criminals. As for Crimes of Passion – violent crimes as an expression of temper or sexuality – well, such as that are really the province of the Mental Health Establishment… if there were one.

And there is no need for Prisons. We do not need these ‘Vacation Resorts’ for criminals. If there is any evidence that deliberate crime has been engaged in for the sake of making an income, then there is no reason why there should not be summary executions. Any person who gets up in the morning with the plan to victimize others for his own benefit, well, such as that deserves to die.

Our Military kills Terrorists with far far less due process. Maybe our Military should be required to provide some documented evidence of terrorist involvement before we wipe out entire Wedding Parties because some of the guests wear turbans. But domestically, if we have proof that property had been taken without purchase or any pretence of prior ownership and then sold without valid title, then everybody involved in that illegal chain of events needs to be eliminated from the roles of Society.

Of course, if somebody could demonstrate that Criminal Activity for Profit is some kind of curable Mental Disorder, then I would be totally in favor of Hospitalizing such people. But there can be no question of ever letting such people back out into Society unless they have been cured.

The Red Chinese used to work a lot with Re-Education Camps and Mental Institutions. It would be interesting to know if they have had much luck in ‘re-educating’ or rehabilitating Career Criminals.

But I have a feeling that most career criminals pursue crime for a combination of mostly just two compelling reasons. First, Society does not even pretend to provide Jobs for everybody. The Interest Rates are manipulated so that there is ALWAYS about 10% real Unemployment. Either it is supposed that these deliberately unemployed people will starve and perish, or it is tacitly acknowledged that they will make a living from Crime. And then, secondly, as I discussed above, Criminals are well provided for… actually being better cared for than the Homeless and Unemployed.

Anyway, if there was a sudden crack down on crime… lining Main Street with gallows and putting heads up on pikes, then Career Crime would disappear over night. If the Risk is too great for the Return, then it would no longer be such a viable Career Option.

Oh, there is a last category of Crime which is sponsored by the State… in America anyway. America provides Courts set aside exclusively for people who quarrel over contracts and money. Now, that is simply silly. Why should the ordinary Tax Payer be made to pay for these “Country Club” establishments. This could be fixed in several ways. First, insist that any action that goes to Court must have criminal consequences. Simple Misunderstandings in regards to Contracts should be mediated before Trial becomes necessary, but if both parties are stubborn enough to insist upon standing before a Judge, then the Wrong Party… the Predator… the Victimizer – the Guilty Party needs to Die! We can’t just let Money settle these things. If a Wrong as been committed, it needs to be about more than just Money. Anyway, the “If you are found Wrong, you Die” policy would clear up the Civil Court dockets in no time.

Democracy is Inherently Corrupt

2010-06-12T04:01:00.000-07:00

Nowadays politicos endeavor to persuade the Public Mind that corruption is defined by illegality, and that unless a Law on the Books is violated, there is no corruption. Whatever action a person commits, if he cannot be arrested for it, then it does not constitute ‘corruption’.

We can see this most clearly at various Press Conferences where upon being asked if they are ‘corrupt’, the politicos will reply that they broke no laws.

But let’s look deeper at corruption, beyond defining it in terms of legality. Indeed, there is the complication that the very same people who are most suspect of corruption are the very same people who make the Laws. Making corruption technically legal may be their first act of corruption. In order for such Corruption not to evaporate at the stroke of the Governor’s or President’s pen, as they sign new laws that allow themselves anything, or abrogate old laws that once held them to some honest standard, we must look at corruption in and of itself, outside of purely technical considerations of the Law. We need to look at Corruption in practical and moral terms.

Giving it some thought, I suppose Corruption is best and most briefly defined as putting one’s self interest above the Public Interest.

It reminds me a lot of Adam Smith’s basic economic argument, that if Supply and Demand are left absolutely unrestricted, and each individual in Society is allowed to buy and sell in accordance to his own Self Interest, then we will have the Best of All Possible World’s. Adam Smith, a Scotsman I believe, wrote the pivotal economic treatise for this Age – “The Wealth of Nations”. It had the practical effect of destroying law, morality, ethics – indeed, all goodness and decency. It would Monetary Interests in charge of Everything.

At first Politics resisted the March of Money. Laws were set up barring blatant Corruption, that is, it was made illegal to outright buy votes and explicitly pay for Political Influence. But, then as now, Laws are easy enough to get around. Or Judges can be found who simply interpret words in their own peculiar way, as laws only mean what the Judges say they mean. There really isn’t any “Rule of Law”. We have the Rule of Judges, who can be just as politically motivated and corrupt as anybody else.

Anyway, it was relatively easy enough to throw large amounts of money into creating bulwarks for Self Interest within the Public Political Establishment. One could easily enough buy one’s own Newspaper, for instance.

There is also Jobs. Give Jobs to ardent supporters. Promise cooperating Candidates the security of a Job after the completion of their Term in Office.

It all comes down to the basic fact that Money can buy Influence without breaking any Laws.

Indeed, too many Laws makes it all rather worse. We can have what we have Today. Now there are so many “Campaign Reform Laws” on the books, that nobody without extensive legal training can understand anymore what is legal or what is illegal. So what do they do? They bring in Lobbyists – Lawyers specializing in Campaign Finance Law. The Lobbyists know all the loopholes – indeed, it is probably the Lobbyists who drafted the laws to begin with, leaving many a trap door and secret passage amidst the thousands of pages of fine-print that, really, nobody ever bothers to read before they vote on it. So by having an over-complexity of laws, we managed to empower the Very People the Laws were ostensively created to block and regulate. We can no longer deal with the ‘Chickens’ directly, but must submit all our dealing first through the Foxes.

Oh, Money can also buy Organizations. One thinks that there is such a thing as “Community Groups” – “Grass Roots Organizations” and such. But when one looks just under the surface, there is typically one or two ‘volunteers’ who effectively run their Organization. They treat it like a full time job. Nobody asks them how they make their living, but they are ‘fronting’ for various Special Interests.

It can sometimes be rather sinister. For instance, the Oil Lobby hired one guy to pretend to be a “Crazy Left-Wing Environmentalist”. He was given the go-ahead to bad mouth the Oil Companies as much as he liked, as long as his primary message was the demonization of Nuclear Energy. He even went so far as claiming time and time again that the Evil Nuclear Energy Industry was in cahoots with Big Oil. And it worked – a bunch of silly middle class women would be riled up against Nuclear Energy.

Similarly, Anti-Abortion Groups were salted into Catholic Districts, not because the Protestant Right Wing actually cares about Abortion, but because they saw an opportunity for breaking the Catholic tradition of voting Democratic and Liberally.

Oh, perhaps the most cynical ploy by the Lobbyists is the push for Term Limits. The Proponents claim that it would put an end to ‘Professional’ Politicians. That is true. What Candidate would bother putting all the necessary effort into getting what amounts to a temporary job? I’ll tell you who – an Employee of some Lobbyist Firm. In States where Term Limit laws now apply, the Lobbyists themselves are the ones who are running for Office, and once out of Office, they simply return to their Lobbyist positions, and sometimes move to another State where they effectively re-cycle themselves. Of course it never occurs to them to do the Will of the People. They do the Will of their Employer – their Lobbying Firm. Now, we can ask ourselves, did the people who voted for Term Limits really understand that they were being asked to replace Politicians directly with Lobbyists. They thought they were voting AGAINST Special Interests, but had been manipulated in exactly the opposite direction.

The influence of Money can be very cynical and jaded.

The Defense Industry and the Zionist Israeli Lobby has turned Monetary Influence into something of an advanced Art – making institutionalized corruption self-perpetuating. You see, they way it is now engineered, the Lobbyists exert their monetary influence in order to get Politicians to vote for Grants, Contracts, Loans, and Defense Expenditures. Then, roughly 5% of the proceeds from these Grants, Contracts, Loans and Defense Expenditures is plowed directly back into the Political Machine, in order to guarantee the next allocation of Grants, Contracts, Loans and Defense Expenditures.

Really, the Palestinians will never be able to match the influence of Israel until they learn to “kick back” whatever Money is occasionally granted to them by Washington. And with all the Oil Money that is controlled by the Arab World, you would suppose there would be more Influence exercised for the benefit of the Palestinians. But apparently the Arab World is still greedy at the Infantile Level, where they have not yet grasped the only slightly complex notion that it takes money to make money. They want Goodness, Right and Justice to make their own way, and stubbornly refuse to write a Check – to ‘grease’ the tracks of Righteousness. But all the Goodness, Right and Justice in the World is not what elects Politicians or keeps them in Office. As long as the bulk of Campaign Expenditures in American Politics, for both Political Parties, are underwritten by Zionist and Israeli Organizations, that is how long America will be irrationally fixated on never ever saying No to anything Israel does or anything Israel wants.

Well, I have been describing up until now all the corruption that has to do with monetary influence. But there is a more basic corruption. There is the corruption of the Voter’s own self interest.

Remember how we defined Corruption? – pleasing Self Interest above the Public Interest. Well, isn’t that exactly how people vote? People vote to protect their Jobs. People vote for bigger Social Security Checks. People vote to be exempted from Taxes. The People themselves are the Corrupt Basis of an inherently Corrupt System.

Remember Adam Smith and his doctrine that Economic Self Interest, if allowed a free hand, would automatically make for a Perfect World. Well, the same idea was applied to Politics, giving us Democracy. We were supposed to believe that in the Rough and Tumble of millions of people exercising each their own Political Self Interest, through their Votes, that the final Sum would work out to be what was Best for Everybody.

It was a Huge Guess. Democracy was an Experiment. They thought it would work… they hoped it would work. But did it?

What we ended up with is that the wealthiest and most embedded and ruthless factions end up with the Lions’ share of Political Power.

I said ‘ruthless’. Yes, sometimes Money isn’t enough. Look around the Globe and see how often Violence and Assassination shape the Political Landscape. Look at America. The Right Wing didn’t reach its Ascendancy until there had been a slew of Political Assassinations wiping out and intimidating their opposition on the Left. In Israel, didn’t they also shoot their Peacemaker?

Oh, and there is the fledgling Democracy in Iraq, where nobody lives long enough to Run for Office and get Elected unless they control a Militia of at least a thousand well armed street thugs – to guard the safety of their own persons, and to take advantage of any weakness displayed by rival contenders. Then there is also the matter of being able to win elections by killing or chasing away any group likely to vote against you.

But a lot of the Corruption inherent in Democracy is small and annoying in each individual instance, but as it salt and peppers throughout everything and everywhere, it must be holding back and diminishing our Entire World. I’ll give you an example. People can’t jog in this one community because there are vicious dogs running loose. And nothing can be done about the vicious dogs because they are owned by a Voter who had worked on the Campaigns of both the Mayor and the Sheriff.

So the Principle here is “laws do not apply to past or potential Supporters”.

We can just guess what would happen if there was a close election, and all of the Car Thieves, Burglars, Rapers, Prostitutes, and Drug Dealers got together and promised a certain Candidate their full support. In a Democracy, the Law and everything Good and Decent can be effectively done away with by the power of the Vote.

Then there are the Losers. Where the Winning Supporters have an effective Amnesty for Everything, the Losers can be hounded endlessly.

They say that in Democracies that the People choose their own Government – that it is Representative Government. But really, the Losers didn’t pick anybody in the Government. The Losers aren’t represented by anybody. And even among the Winners… we can suppose that many Voters go to the polls because they suppose it some kind of a Duty. They acknowledge that they had no real choice in the Nominations or Selection of Candidates – the Rich and Powerful decide who Runs. So people flip a coin or throw a dart and vote for the Candidate who they suspect will do the least harm.

Its often quite sad. All the Promises, all the Rhetoric, all the Hope. And nothing ever changes.

The Corruption Inherent in the System prevents any real change. Its in the nature of Special Interests to be Self Perpetuating. Influence creates power which generates more Influence.

What surprises me is all the Books out there advocating Change – some Green This or Green that, all the while supposing that it can be accomplished within the framework of our Institutionalized Democracies. I mean, if these Authors are smart enough to write a Book, then they should be smart enough to see that everything is stacked against them. I can only conclude that such Books are the results of some jaded Business Plans that the authors were able to foist on the Publishing Companies. Nobody believes any of it, but they think they can sell books… prostrating themselves before Lord Money.

Maybe I owe Adam Smith an apology. Maybe he didn’t say Money SHOULD decide everything. Maybe he just said Money WOULD decide everything. You can’t blame him simply because he was right. It is just disappointing to find out that, after this Huge Experiment in Democracy and Unfettered Economics, that People are basically bad – petty, small, nasty and selfish.

Maybe when everything collapses, the Space Aliens will finally step forward and put our World under some sensible Administration. Clearly Humanity is incapable of conducting its own affairs… At least under the present circumstances where all of the Power is controlled by the very people who are causing all of the Problems, that is Democracy.

Could Space Aliens Be Bad

2010-06-06T04:58:00.000-07:00

Could Space Aliens Be Bad

I heard that recently some big famous Media Scientist… famous for being famous…said that we should be very cautious regarding contact with the Space Aliens. His argument was that since we are civilized and evil, that it is likely that they also would be evil despite their level of civilization.

You know, I really suspect that these scientific sorts don’t do much reading outside of their field. After all, to be acquainted with History takes an awful lot of careful and thoughtful reading. I just don’t see how they would have the time. But they hold themselves as geniuses and therefore think themselves experts about everything.

Years ago I read that scientists had the highest mortality rate as Private Pilots. You see, they wouldn’t take the time to actually learn how to fly… they wouldn’t listen to their instructors who they must of considered quite stupid … and they wouldn’t even read the “stupid” books. They just figured they were smart enough and knew everything already. Then they would take off, crash and die. And when they weren’t doing that, they would comment upon Social Issues and History. Super Nerds pretending to know about People.

Anyway, the difference between the Civilization of Space Aliens and our “civilization” is that they might actually have a Civilization. Here on Earth we have no experience with Civilization dating before the last 10,000 years. Here on Earth we have never had a successful Civilization. We have had unsustainable bursts of population. The Earlier Civilization may have been the most successful, if we measure them by their duration. But resent Civilization rise and fall all in the space of just a few hundred years. So, really, can we even say we have ever been “civilized”.

If an engine cranks, sputters and dies, well, we know it is getting gas because we have some cylinders firing, and we know it has spark for the same reason, but something must be wrong because it won’t keep going. Its not really a car if it can’t run. And what we have been doing on Planet Earth is not running.

But the Space Civilizations are not just 10,000 years old. These Space Societies could be hundreds of millions of years old. We are like babies – pooping ourselves, crying, throwing tantrums. So the Scientific Community supposes that Space Aliens are likewise ‘pooping themselves, crying, and throwing tantrums’. They don’t factor in maturity and experience.

Also, there is the matter that Our Governments are so keen to deny the existence of the Space Aliens. If the Scientists are so smart, why is it that they cannot figure out why our Governments are lying to us. If the Aliens were simply dangerous in the ordinary way, then the Governments would warn us, even to the extent of creating hysteria, and use it all as an excuse for some very profitable Military Buildup. But they resort to complete Denial.

I know why.

The Americans had captured some Space Aliens… I heard this from an Ex-Black Ops Agent… a “Spook”… who had been drinking a bit. Anyway the interrogators asked the Aliens about their Social System. They were hoping that the Aliens believed in Democracy and Capitalism. Well, the Aliens asked for a notebook and great deal of paper and spent a couple of weeks describing their Civilization and History. The notebook was yellow in color and so the book they wrote came to be called the “Yellow Book”. It turns out that the Space Alien Civilization was NOT Democratic, and was NOT Capitalist. But it was undeniably SUCCESSFUL.

So the Democrats and Capitalists buried the information.

The Approaching End of the World

2010-06-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Approaching End of the World

Arnold Toynbee, one of the greatest and most well respected Historians who had ever lived, recounted in his works how in the entire history of the World there has been only 21 Civilizations, and they all collapsed. They all failed. And each Collapse was a kind of an End of the World. Huge proportions of the Civilized Population simply died off. Life would slowly come back, but largely sourcing from Barbarians who had wandered in to help with all of the burning and pillaging.

Remember Rome. Well, nobody speaks Latin today… not even in Italy. Not only Languages, but Cultures, Traditions, Morals and Religions can be largely forgotten. Often enough, the Only Thing remembered after a Collapse is exactly the kind of Institutions that lead to the Collapse. Look at Chinese History. It rises and collapses in a cycle that can be counted in just a handful of generations. Swift Rise is always inevitably followed by an even swifter collapse. No New Dynasty had ever learned a single lesson from the Past. This is because each New Civilization is put together largely by the Barbarians who take over afterwards. And ultimately the inclusion of Barbarian Institutions in the formation of a Civilization are what prove eventually and inevitably Fatal.

The Problem today is with Growth Capitalism. You see, after the Collapse of Catholic Civilization, the Barbarians taking over decided to rebuild the World with Usury. Usury had been a Sin, but now it is the Pillar of our System – Capitalism which through Globalization has become almost universal.

The Praise of Capitalism is almost endless. Look how every Economy has ‘grown’. Even Today when it is acknowledged that Capitalism has some very serious Problems, most of the books coming out offer as a solution the not very novel idea that the Cure for Capitalism is simply More and Better Capitalism. “We fail because we are not Competing hard enough”. I suppose their underlying assumption is that the Capitalists were not really trying up until now.

But the basic problem with Growth Capitalism and Usury in general is that a continuously ‘growing system’ cannot reach any stability or equilibrium -- that would imply a cessation of ‘Growth’, which to any Capitalist Economist is the very exact signal of Failure. Leveling off is what they call a Recession. But Growth Capitalism depends entirely upon getting more and more and more…

Now, yes, if Capitalism is imposed upon impoverished barbarians, it does offer a means of producing and providing Wealth, but that is only when the conditions provide a glut of unused resources. Given a newly discoved Mountain of Gold, a Capitalist just starting out can haul away a ton this year and increase his take by 6% every year. It all works fine until the Mountain is worn down to nothing.

The reason I suppose that Civilizations had declared Usury to be a Sin is that any Advanced Civilization would have experience with a closed system with a fixed supply of resources, where just the physics of the situation point out that the Economy cannot do better than Break Even. Given fixed or limited resources, where is the extra Wealth that should pay for Profits and Interest to come from?

A simple example can demonstrate the problem with interest. Suppose we have a closed economy where all money comes from one Bank. Capitalists borrow money from the Bank and pay their Workers to produce Products. For the Products to make money they have to sell for more than was paid to the Workers to make them. Then the Capitalists have to pay the Bank interest on the money. Well, there is still only that fixed amount of money. The only money in the economy that can be spent is that which is given to the Workers. So in a Closed Economy there can be no money left over for Profit or Interest.

Now, in more elaborate examples, there is extra money. But what happens is that the Banks take in more money then they give out until they eventually arrive at the conditions of our simple model… and then it can no longer work.

Now, for the last several hundred years the Growth that Capitalists depended upon came by Exporting their Products. An Economies own Workers could go screw themselves. Capitalism became dependent upon Trade. One’s own Economy could grow only by taking away the Wealth of others.

It worked out fine for Europe and America, while vast regions of the World stood outside of their Monolithic Banking System. Growth was effectively pillaged away from other Societies.

But now with Globalization, we have reached the conditions of the Simple Model. Now, with Globalization, the Same Bank is lending to everybody. The Same Capitalists are employing every Worker. There is no longer any Extra Money outside of the System left over to feed the Growth.

Yes, so some powerful Economies simply start printing money to satisfy the Capitalists and Bankers who depend upon writing in larger numbers every year for what amounts to one fixed amount of Value. Of course it is Inflationary, to continuously multiply Currency that is intended to pay for a certain Fixed Value. It is like when the price of bread goes up simply because the Bakery knows that all the Factory Workers got raises.

Well, inflation can actually be useful. But Bankers hate it. They want more “Bread” and not just more Bills fresh off the State Printing Press.

So we get in Commodities Trading and Equities. They tried to keep the Banks out of it, but they bought Politicians and had the Laws changed. Bankers, given our now Universal System of Politics, where Bankers decide who should run for Office and pay for their Campaigns, well, Bankers are actually the ones in charge and can really do what they like. So it is that Bankers use Equities and Trading in order to convert Money into actual Wealth – Oil, Food Commodities, and Corporate Capital.

Now in the Past, all of this Real Wealth was a Growing Thing. More Food could be grown by opening up new Land, or by applying Science to existing Land. They could Explore for New Oil. Corporations could expand into New Markets or New Product Lines. This is from the Golden Age of Capitalism that everybody sings about. But now Resources have been pushed to the limit. There is No New Anything anymore.

The Banks are relatively happy since given all the fixed quantities of Wealth, their Value goes up. But the Value goes up only because of Printed Inflationary Money.

So we arrive at exactly why Growth Capitalism is going to collapse. Out Planet has hit is Resource Saturation.

But why is this Bad? What will happen to us? Well, as Prices spiral upward for an ever decreasing Supply of Resources – Food, Fuel, Clothing. More and more people will be left out and left to die.

Its already happening, or WAS happening. Remember before the most recent Global Economic Disaster, back in 2007 and 2008 when Petroleum Prices were approaching $200 a barrel and Agricultural Economies all around the globe were plowing under Wheat and Rice so that they could plant for Alcohol Fuel Production. It linked the Rising Price of Oil to the World’s Food Commodities Prices. All around the World there was some very grave concern about millions of people starving, and populations going into rebellion. But, ironically, were all saved by the Downturn. The Deep Recession lowered demand and Prices fell again with reach for most of us. Not all of us. The Crisis in Northeast Africa is no accident. That is exactly what happens when a Society can no longer keep up with Internationally Set Prices. Notice that the response of the International Community (America, really. America takes credit for everything Good but distances itself from everything bad) has been to simply throw a cordon around that Killing Field in Africa.

Twenty or thirty years ago there would have been massive amounts of supplies sent in from the World’s Surplus. Capitalists don’t mind giving up on Surplus – it raises the prices on their remaining Product. But now, obviously, there are no Surpluses, or the Surpluses are so precarious that, and the Situation now seen as so dire, that Surpluses are being retained for domestic Contingencies.

This means that not only are Things Bad, but the people in charge know things are bad.

But as I said before, no solutions are on the table. All of the recent books simply recommend More and Better Capitalism – compete harder, compete smarter.

But in One Globalized System, what good will Increased Competition do? Competition is about Winners and Losers. What are the Losers supposed to do?

They talk about it like it is a Game. Or they pretend it doesn’t really matter in human terms. I’ve read in a dozen books various Pompous Capitalists dismissing the pain that comes during Recessions because they were “Necessary Market Corrections” and that Capitalism is eventually healthier afterward – meaning that what is Bad for the People is Great for the Banks. It is like China saying that Dynastic Collapses and the death of hundreds of millions of Chinese is “a necessary correction” and China is ultimately better off for it. Yeah, nothing like killing off a million people to make Real Estate affordable again.

But the Losers in Capitalism’s big competitive Game simply won’t be able to go home without the Trophy. There would be currency devaluations and massive unemployment – most people without jobs and the people still with jobs not being able to buy anything with their cheapened money.

In real terms, there can be two basic Responses. Some Societies will move swiftly in order to cut off their Economies from International Pricing… so that Traders can’t just come in and buy up all the food stocks and ship them out. (It happens. I live on a small island where recently many of the shelves stood bare because a wealthy trader from another island diverted a fleet of cargo ships, offering a penny more than prices and contractual penalties. It was Great Capitalism, but the people of the island were made to be the Losers of it all). Societies convert over to Planned Economies.

The other Response is for Wealthy People to “ride it out”. We’ve seen a rise in systematic food hoarding. I hear that every Mormon is supposed to keep 18 months food supply. Who knows what the Masons are doing. But, yes, most Economies have no Contingency Plan for what would be a major Economic Disaster. Its left to Individuals to make their own way.

You know, History has had 21 Collapsed Civilizations, and it never has worked out like they think. The Rich have never been able to “ride out” a true and final collapse. The Mormon’s 18 month food supply will only last 18 months. The Rich depend upon Private Security Firms, but when the value of the Dollar drops to nothing, then the Security Guy with the Gun will simply take what he wants when he can no longer cash his tiny little checks. People think that hoarding Gold might help, but the value of Gold depends upon honest trade and law and order. But after the Collapse, a single good bullet might have more practical value than a ton of Gold.

So, really, the Planned Economies will stand the best chance in the end of surviving the Collapse. Ironically, those Societies most vilified by the West and condemned for falling so short against the Model of Growth Capitalism to which everybody and everything is compared, will remain intact. The very Isolation of such a North Korea or Cuba will be their insulation and protection. And their already Established Traditions of Planning might stand them in good stead of building a truly Sustainable Civilization afterward.

Of course, in most sectors, the Barbarians (the Americans, the Europeans and the Japanese) will survive, though at highly reduced numbers. Maybe 30% of the Barbarian Populations will survive. Given a few Generations, Law and Order will be re-established, and Banking and Usury will start up again. The whole thing will start over again. Land and Resources will be plentiful. Labor will be valuable. Yes, there will be Competition, but with so few people and so much stuff, for the most part people will not seriously get in each other’s way. Killers looking for trouble will find it, but there will be plenty of room for people who want to mind their own business.

The Living will forget the Dead and songs will be sung glorifying the Rise of a New Capitalism. It’s great to Win. They’ll have a New Golden Age which they think will go on Forever. And then it will all collapse again…

Civilization will never be permanent until it is built on the Model of Sustainability and Equilibrium. That is why the Wisdom of Civilization past had made Usury and Capitalism a Sin.

The Mindless Tenacity of Barbarism

2010-05-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Mindless Tenacity of Barbarism

As I have pointed out in numerous essays before, one can easily differentiate between Civilized and Barbarian Institutions simply by applying one objective criteria -- Population, that is, Civilized Institutions allow and provide for high levels of population and population density, while Barbaric Institutions favor depopulation and only thrive when the population densities are relatively low.

What we see in History is a series of Cycles… Cycles composed of Spirals to be more exact… in which Civilizations rise up and Populations grow until they increase beyond a certain point where its Civilized Institutions can no longer manage all of the complexities and requirements involved in housing and feeding so many People. Then the disintegrative and destructive Institutions of Barbarism come into play, reducing the overall population factors to a level where Barbarians can stretch out and again be thoroughly comfortable.

It may appear that I am being over-simplistic, but from the Civilized standpoint anyway, Civilized Institutions can be equated to Goodness and Light, while Barbarism, of course, is Evil – the veritable Reign of Darkness.

It is a terrible moment in any society’s history – the point where Individual Survival is advanced more through Evil than through Good. At that point in time when suddenly a Civilization exceeds its grasp and the advantage goes to Barbarism, then Goodness becomes a liability. Evil rises up wearing two races – first, those best suited to murder and mayhem will be the Big Winners as Civilization collapses. They are cold-blooded demonic thugs, but they call themselves “Warriors”. The other Face of Barbarism makes the best use of its Feet – these are the swiftest and fleetest Refugees – those who can turn their back on their Old Society the quickest and most rapidly abandon their Fellow and Family – these are the Survivors who live to repopulate the Post-Civilized World.

So it is that everybody’s Family Tree takes root in a manure heap.

History shows us that there is not really much of a moral difference between Barbarism’s Murderous Thugs and the Refugees. We have often seen that large Demographic Movements of ‘refugees’ pushed out of one region by overwhelming force, well, that they in turn become the ‘Murderous Thugs’ that push another Group out down the line. You see, once it becomes embedded in a Society’s “Moral View” that “Other People Do Not Matter” and that there is some kind of equivalent ‘Moral Imperative” that Personal Advantage should supersede all else, then it is just as likely that the person, the Refugee, who runs away from his responsibilities, will also not hesitate to kill someone else for their wallet… giving himself a promotion to “Warrior”.

One would expect that the Refugee’s great suffering would purge him of evil and leave him in a state of Purity. But no… Suffering gives way to Vengeance and the character of a Refugee People becomes vindictive. Such victims only swear to never be made such victims again, and then they do their best to become exactly like the Marauders who had victimized them in the first place. Attila the Hun had been a Refugee.

Of course a certain practical ‘leaven’ for Civilization is embedded within Barbarian Societies, and that is simply that the largest band of Thugs generally wins when it comes to violent contests for Territory or Resources. Big Gangs defeat small gangs. It moves up the scale until we are talking about entire Armies. To put that many people together without causing more self-destruction than practical benefit, we would have to have the resurrection of some basic rules, agreements, contracts, and particularly the psychological seed-sprout that a Cooperating Society is more powerful than any group of individuals standing alone. The first ‘virtue’ in any wholly Barbarian Society is Loyalty.

Indeed, the more ‘Civilized’ a Barbarian Society manages to become, the more successful it will actually be… which of course gives us the Rise of our ‘Civilizations’. So we would expect that Civilizations would rise up quickly, no?

Well, yes and no. Civilizations do arise, but there are problems.

Remember how we agreed that Barbarism favors and enjoys low levels of Population. Well, in the worst and most absolute collapses of a Civilization – not just the bottom of one of the ‘Spirals’ as things get worse, but the bottoming of the entire Cycle – the De-population is so extreme that the individual surviving Barbarians have really no effective competition for Land or Resources after the ‘dust settles’, so to speak. After a Deep and Final Collapse of a Civilization, with Population Levels dropping by 80 or 90% in just one or two generations, then Life becomes a veritable ‘Free For All’. Survivors can pick between any two or three Estates or Plantations to move into and take over as uncontested personal property. Food becomes plentiful and cheap. But, most importantly to our point, nobody needs to owe anybody anything – not a single virtue is required to get by well in any Golden Age of Barbarism. But even this total absence of Virtue can be made out to seem like a virtue. Thus it is that Barbarians at their absolute lowest will create a quasi-virtue – really the absence of all real virtue, and they will call it Freedom. Or they will be brazen about it and defy every true model of Morality with such slogans as “Greed is Good”. At such periods in History it is the Antichrist who reigns on Earth.

So it is that Barbarians will enshrine Freedom as the source of all their Wealth and Happiness. But actually looking at the facts, as we have, we see that they only enjoyed such Prosperity and Plenty because everyone else had died. So it is that the Doctrines of Freedom followed closely on the heals of any Black Plague or Major Famine, and of course enjoy a re-invigorating echo after any particularly grisly War. A Few Survivors get to keep what is left behind by the Dead Many. And then The Scheming Beggar who moves into a Palace pretends to his children that he was the one who built it in the first place. Freedom is the Right every pillager claims to keep what he has stolen.

So it is that Barbaric Societies, as they enjoy the Lowest Population Levels immediately after any Major Depopulating Collapse, will hone their doctrines and political theories to justify selfishness and division. As population levels naturally increase, and competition again begins to rise, then we will have practical benefits again accruing to the Communities that can best manage to suppress the Demonic Call to Freedom so that they can multiply their powers through Cooperation. But with Selfishness and Freedom so intrinsically a part of each Society’s kind of “Core Folk Religion”, any institutions built around Cooperation will be qualified and compromised. Civilization will grow up with the original stain of Barbarism, and the more pronounced that stain, then the sooner it will undergo the Next Collapse, where its half-hearted Institutions of Civilization cannot provide for even a moderately high level of Population.

Contingency for World Economic Disaster

2010-05-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

It seems that the entire World was caught flatfooted by the 2008 Economic Crisis. It makes me wonder whether it forced anybody to do any serious thinking as to what to do for the next round. And there will be a next round. The way such cycles work is that the swings become more frequent and more severe until it hits a bottom. Capitalists are famous for claiming that every Painful Recession is just a ‘Necessary Correction’. Well, the ‘correction’ for Capitalism, as a World Economic and Political System, may be about to hit ‘bottom’.

The big problem, as I see it, is the Growth Factor that seems necessary to Capitalism. Now, one can either have stability and equilibrium, or one can have Growth. And then Growth is only possible in an Open Ended Non-Saturated System. What is an Open Ended Non-Saturated System? Well, I shall provide an example in reverse and describe a Closed System. Imagine that instead of many Capitalist Banks, it is all just one Big Bank. It has ALL the money. Now it lends out it money expecting 6% interest on the principal. Well, where is this 6% extra money supposed to come from? In a closed System there is no extra money. The same goes in regards to Profits. Suppose there is One Big Factory that makes Everything and employs Everybody. Its Customers would also be its Employees. They would only have as much Purchasing Power as the same money that was paid to them to build what they are about to buy. There would be nothing left over for Profits. So both Interest and Profit are impossible in a Closed System. But Capitalism has not yet ever been ‘closed’. Capitalism always has sought its Growth in Foreign Markets. And then Capitalism also cheats by constantly expanding the Money Supply. Theoretically, some companies are supposed to make profits while other companies go bust. But imagine how happy the World would be if 6% of the Companies went bankrupt every year… it’d always be like it is now… and that’s a big problem. This is because Globalization is becoming a Closed Saturated System.

So far Capitalism had only been lucky. The discovery and opening up of the American and Australian Continents provided an escape valve for European Overpopulation, and then the discovery of Arabian Oil relieved for a while price saturation in the Energy Markets. America benefited by the Wars which virtually wiped out the rest of the World’s advanced economic powers. And the Wars also ‘corrected’ the population somewhat – the survivors after the War not only had their own jobs back, but the jobs of their Dead Buddies also… they had their pick and wages were high.

But now with One Global Economy, with no new open Continents, no new Energy Supplies, and with Machinery, Technology, Robotics and Automation taking over more and more of Labor’s Productivity; well, Commodity Prices will skyrocket just as 99 percent of the population lose their jobs and thus their Purchasing Power. Profits, Growth and Interest will be satisfied with the Cheating of the constant expansion of the Money Supply, but combined with increasing demand and scarcity of Food and Energy Commodities, it will all lead to a Hyper-Inflation and the Death of the American Dollar.

Does anybody have a plan?

Right now things are very touchy. Everybody seems to forget that just two short years ago the World was experiencing the beginnings of such a Commodity Price driven Inflationary Crunch. Indeed, that is what precipitated the Economic Downturn – so many Americans had to stop paying their mortgages because they needed the money they were earning for Food and Gas. The Downturn cut off the big demand for Commodities. But what will happen IMMEDIATELY after the mildest Recovery? The Commodities Crunch will pick up exactly where it left off. And the Swing will be worst because Prices will go far higher… all that New Money will go into circulation to buy the same limited supply of Stuff, leaving the Poor further behind than every before.

And it looks like everybody is just going to let it happen.

I suspect that China has some kind of a Secret Contingency drawn up. It doesn’t make sense that China lend America more money than America provides in payment for goods and services. It is as though China is both sending America goods and services AND they money to pay for them. In the short-term this may be necessary for China. China is holding so many trillions of American Dollars, that it thinks it necessary to jump into the breach to protect their value. But the continuous throwing away of its Wealth in order to float America can not continue forever. China must know that it is bankrupting itself by such a policy. Therefore, it is necessary to believe that such intelligent people as the Chinese must have decided on a point where they will Bail Out – where they will Cash Out on what dollars they have left, and use Emergency Powers to immediately transform over to a Planned Economy. We might be able to discern hints about such a move in the way China allocates funding for its Economic Infrastructure. When we see preparations for increased Domestic Consumption, large scale agriculture and transportation projects, then we can guess that China is about to Pull the Plug on the Dollar and weather the storm with its saved resources.

Europe, with absolutely no Leadership or resources, will simply collapse into another Dark Age, but this time with no Church to bail it out.

America also has no plans. Really, there should be Report to Work drills, where it is made clear to people that Employed or Not, people simply can’t just ‘stay home’. If the police ‘stayed home’… if the truck drivers who transport all the food ‘stayed home’… if the utility workers who provide electricity and water ‘stayed home’, well, the East and West Coast Urban Population Centers would collapse into starvation and food riots. The flow of refugees would be met by the Armed Resistance of all those American Gun Nuts. When it would be over not two out of a hundred Americans would still be alive.

But maybe THAT is the Plan. I’ve always said that Capitalism is Barbarism and Barbarism requires a low population density. Once 98% of everybody is dead, Capitalism will work just fine again. Don’t you just love these ‘healthy corrections’ that Capitalism is so famous for?

Heaven on Earth and Gov as God

2010-04-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

Heaven on Earth and Gov as God

There is a long-standing paradox regarding Civilization and Barbarism, familiar to Historians and Sociologists alike, that Civilizations rise out of war-torn and troubled zones of Barbarism, because the peoples pull together and create institutions and develop attitudes that foster Social Cooperation. Once there is a significant level of Social Cooperation, then everything is set for the creation, development, storage and distribution of Wealth. Civilization rises up. The other side of the Paradox is that Civilizations fall into Barbarism. Once the Times of Trouble are passed, and all the Enemies lay dead, then the Institutions and Attitudes of Cooperation are allowed to decline. Ideas that had pulled Society together are now cast in the light of holding back the Individual. Next, institutions are redrawn to favor Individuality and to effectively punish Cooperation. The Social Economy becomes a free fire zone of competitive hoarding and opportunistic pillaging. Of course, Civilization minus the Institutions and Attitudes of Cooperation, is unsustainable. The last gasp before a Civilization collapses back into the Troubled Times of perpetual War of every Man against all others, that is, the last Words written on the Wall just before the bonafide Return to Barbarism is, and we’ve all heard it a thousand times by now – “nice guys finish last”.

Civilization is the rise of the Collective over the Individual, and Barbarism is the Triumph of the Individual. It is sort of like Angels and Demons… you know, how the ancient legends bespeak of the Fallen Angels becoming Demons because of their Pride of Individuality. Heaven, with all of Its collective institutions really had no room for Individuality, or perhaps God had the sense to know where Individuality would take Heaven. You see, Lucifer was the first Free Enterprise Growth Capitalist, actually more Greedy than Proud. Exploiting the Poor, Hoarding Wealth, massive unemployment and chronically repetitive ‘Crashes’ would have to be an Earthly problem since God had decided to forbid such goings on in Heaven.

Anyway, well-studied and capable Social Planners have stood puzzled by this Paradox of Civilization – that as soon as things get ‘Good’, the People, or rather the succeeding Generations of People, want to forget all about the Good Things that got them to a Good Place, and they want to go back to the very same Bad Things that had caused all of the previous Badness. They forget that once you ‘burn down the Cathedral to steal a Candlestick’, that the Cathedral is gone, and likewise the candlestick.

Some perceptive Intellectuals have even noticed that some Moments of Social Crisis seem to be deliberately engineered in order to arouse some momentary Social Cohesion so that Special Interests can take advantage of the temporary spirit of political consensus to order to push through their self- seeking agendas. You see, although it seems necessary to have some sort of Big Problem for the People to face in order for them to maintain the Spirit of Unity and Cooperation, still, most responsible Social Planners are loath about deliberately engineering such Big Problems, and they are very cynical about it when they see it being done.

But, then I was thinking about the ‘Heaven on Earth’ essay I wanted to write and I was turning in my mind how I would deploy the notion that Heaven’s Virtues were being treated like the World’s Vices, that is, that God being All Knowing is a good thing, but that if Government were All Knowing then it would be a bad thing. The same in regards to being All Powerful – Good for God, but Bad for Government.

Then I remembered the old Biblical Quote, “the Beginning of Wisdom is the Fear of God”. Well, THAT’S IT! People don’t like God and never did! All the Love and Worship was a front for their Fear – that God would be somewhat less Terrible if they pretended to Love and Respect Him.

Nowadays everybody hates Government just as they used to hate God, but Democracy has given them the tools to actually be able to destroy Government. Popular Government becomes the dismantling of Government – a School without Teachers, a Prison without Guards, an Insane Asylum turned over to the Lunatics. Popular Government is Chaos – Civilization in its Last Stage – Dead but still to fall down.

Myself and other Social Planners had been stuck on trying to figure out how to make Government seem appealing… just as Theologians worry about making God seem appealing. But the Big Answer seems to be to LET Government be the Bad Guy. If the People need to face a Common Problem before they will willingly adopt and maintain Institutions of Social Cohesion and Attitudes of Cooperation, then set it up so that their Worst Nightmares will be all about Their Government.

Really, once Absolute Government is established, it would not take much effort in order to make it People’s Biggest Problem. Just think about it… if everything in your Life – residence, job, status – depended on what the Government knew about you, and you knew for a fact that the Government really did know Everything, then it would definitely have your attention, wouldn’t it?

The Trick for Government would be to hit Individuality very hard while promoting everything that is Collective and Cooperative. It’s like herding wild animals by beating the bushes where you DON’T want them to be. Beat on Areas of Individuality and people will take refuge in Cooperation.

Yes, I know that as a sheer matter of form, that such a Government would exercise every propaganda in order to be Universally Loved, and so they should, as that would certainly appeal to a wide enough demographic to make it well worth their trouble. Indeed, such a Government would require a Cadre of Bureaucrats and Functionaries who could be enlisted from the ranks of those who can be convinced that Government is actually a Good Thing (the Highest of Esoteric Teaching, as it turns out). But for most of the People, the Fear that Power inspires will be enough to keep them on the Straight and Narrow.

Yes, modern political sensitivities would cry out that the People would rise up against such tyranny. But I would argue back that I am speaking of a Government which tracks all movements, all transactions, and has every house, room, car, sidewalk or park wired for Sound. To make the first twitch of a Revolt would be tantamount to losing all Status as a Respected Citizen and being shipped to some Labor Intensive Re-Education Camp. As long as Absolute Government STAYED Absolute, it would have no problem in maintaining itself within its established Jurisdictions.

Oh, but people would certainly ague the old clique “Absolute Power corrupts absolutely” – that I should not want the only thing that could save us because it might be abused. Well, I’d answer that Power is either collected or it is dispersed. We can remember what Louis the IVX had said, that “One Big Tyrant is better than a thousand Petty Tyrants”. That Caste of Thinkers who have held with “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”, only managed to replace Effective Government with a Regime of dirty little Petty Tyrants – Corporations, Employers, Special Interests making all the Rules and collecting all the Wealth.

Really, we need something approaching Absolute Power just to contain all the Selfish Barbarism we see all about us in the World today. It is probably why God had to be All Powerful. Lucifer and the other Evil Angels could not have been sufficiently dealt with God had confined Himself merely to Political Compromise and Election Campaigns that would appeal the Center.

The Capacity of Saints Messiahs and Avatars

2010-03-14T03:04:00.001-07:00

I once saw an interesting argument put forward by Jews attempting to defend themselves from the members of the “Jews For Jesus” Organization. They pointed out that Jesus could not have been the Messiah because he was not a successful Messiah, that is, a Messiah can only be defined in the context of some rather convincing Messianic results. But in the case of Jesus we find that he was executed as a subversive troublemaker on his very first official visit to the Jewish Capital. This was thought to represent a clear and convincing rebuke to any of his Messianic pretensions. If God had sent him then he would not have failed so dismally.

At first this Argument seems logical enough, but it troubles me for two reasons.

First, the argument rests on an implied premise that God is All-Powerful and All-Knowing, even to the extent of knowing the Future in all of its details. Of course, this is not surprising to any Westerner versed in the Philosophies and Theologies after the Greek Hellenistic model, where all things Divine are defined in terms of Quasi-Mathematical Absolutes – Omni-This and All-of-That. But the Argument is being used by Jews. Jewish Theology as well as the Zoroastrianism upon which it was based never imagined that God was ALL powerful. Indeed, the Moral Innovation of Zoroastrianism was to posit the existence of Evil and to deduce from that the possibility that Heaven Itself was contested between Divine and Demonic Principalities. There was a Fair and Square Universal Battle between Good and Evil. And nowhere was there any guarantee that Good would triumph… at least not in the short term. Failure and Defeat are always a possibility. Just ask Joan of Arc – ‘Smokin Joan’, who had a wonderfully blessed career up to the point where she was burned at the stake… by the English of course.

Now, our Jewish Logicians must have already known this, that is, their own Theological Backgrounds. Besides, in their perspective how else could the rather bumpy History of the Jewish Diaspora be explained otherwise than by supposing that the Forces that favor the Chosen People are countered by opposing Forces that almost at times seem to be the superior of the Two? Up until very recently the Jews had not been so well known for their invincibility.

The Second reason why the Argument for Messianic Effect troubles me is that it equates Success in Worldly Conquest with Divinity and Divine Blessing. It alls sounds so much more like John Calvin than Maimonides. God chooses Winners because they Win, and he doesn’t care about the details. So we would have Messiahs confirmed entirely on the basis of their Military Power or their ability to extort or demand obedience or compliance. Such an Argument would make a perfectly good Messiah out of Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan or Bill Gates.

Most of us would have a hard time wrapping our heads around the idea of an Evil but Effective “Messiah”. But most of us, at least tacitly, support our Winner Take All Society. Really, what choice do we have?

But we as Spiritualists take upon ourselves certain Moral and Ethical boundaries. Triumph BY Evil is the same as the triumph OF Evil. Any Real Messiah should come to save us FROM such events – to put the whirlwind of Evil into a jar and bury it forever – not just to wield Evil better than all the other Competition for whatever Ethnic or Territorial Agenda the Messiah sees as worthy of his attention.

But unfortunately we are left wondering why God seems to do so next to nothing for the sake of the Good. Even after acknowledging that God has no Absolute Powers to completely and instantly conquer Evil, we would still expect some kind of a Token Gesture of Moral Support. We can legitimately be puzzled that God did so little to support the Messianic Candidacy of Jesus. There were some Miracles and some Protections early in his Career, but it was all just suddenly withdrawn before he was even 40 year old… not even really an adult yet. It was “Jesus meet Joan of Arc. Thank you so much for your dedicated Service, and now here is your Reward.”

So what is missing?

In the Bhagavad Gita it is said “by Sacrifice you will nourish the Gods, and then the Gods will nourish you”. Then, in our Modern Era we have nearly all of the Divine Marian Apparitions over the last 500 years, seeming to be speaking characteristically in one Voice, saying that Divine Grace can only be delivered down to Humanity in some determined proportion as the Prayers, and Penances that come up from Humanity. No Prayers, No Fasting, No Messiah… or at least no very effective Messiah.

There is one very amazing instance in History of the conjunction of Prayer and Penance to Divine Potency. Saint Vincent Ferrer traveled about Latin Europe with what was estimated to be “10,000” Flagellants – people who traveled from town to town, city to city, with Vincent Ferrer, bare foot, flogging themselves the entire way, fasting, and going without sleep. And in the History of the World there has never been recorded a greater Saint. One feel uncomfortable saying it, but objectively speaking, Jesus was almost nothing compared to Vincent Ferrer. It was said of him that any day without 10,000 Miracles would have had to have been a miracle, that is, miracles became the common place thing and everybody began to forget what Reality had been like. Vincent Ferrer emptied entire urban hospitals, curing everybody… and those were the Plague Years.

Vincent Ferrer would speak with pride of his 10,000 Flagellants. He would observe that even with the extreme fasting, the daily marches, and the constant flogging, not a single man or woman among the 10,000 ever became ill. Nobody slowed down. Nobody dropped out.

These People were the Power Battery behind this greatest Campaign of Miracles in History. Nowadays people wonder what it was all good for. Well, it is true that when the Protestant Rebellion fired up in the next Century, the districts where Vincent Ferrer had gone on Tour were to remain Catholic, that is the Barons and Aristocrats in the Vincent Zone foreswore murdering every Priest, Monk and Nun in their district in order to confiscate their Monastic Estates and Church Properties. In Germany and England we simply had Blood Baths and Land Grabs. Where Vincent Ferrer and his Righteous 10,000 had trod, even 3 or 4 generations prior, Morality and Ethical Self Restraint was able to hold sway over Predatory Self Interest.

It’s a shame that Vincent Ferrer had not been better traveled. A few more miles might have saved our Civilization.

A Dangerous Economic Cycle

2010-03-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

A Dangerous Economic Cycle

Does anybody remember how bad it was BEFORE the present economic collapse?

The World Economy had been so overheated that commodities prices were shooting above the range of a great many people to even be able to afford ordinary food. With Wars raging in the World’s Oil Zones, and with new demands for Oil coming from the growing Economies of India and China, it was understandable that Petroleum prices would sky-rocket. But then it was learned that grains and other foodstuffs could be boiled down and fomented into Bio-fuels, effectively linking Oil Prices to Food Prices, which would henceforth until forever rise or fall in tandem.

Some experts had projected that if Oil hit just $200 (and it had gotten as high as $150) a barrel, then over half of the World Population would be priced out of being able to eat a bare 800 calories a day. Combined with petrol-driven soaring transportation costs, some depressed areas of the Globe would not even see Relief Supplies – too expensive to buy and too expensive to deliver. Starvation would be massive.

The Financial Crisis rescued us from these hyper-inflating commodities prices, but at the cost of the loss of millions of jobs. With the collapse of production and employment commodities again became affordable, for those who still had jobs…Or the Capitalists who still had plenty of leisure savings.

We hear very little anymore about how the one crisis had sparked the other – how the Financial Crisis followed causally from the Commodities Crunch. With the upwardly spiraling food and energy costs, a lot of people could no longer afford to pay their mortgages… not with also being able to drive to work and eat food. People were driven to impossible choices. And for many people, paying off the Banks was not their top priority. Eating food or heating their homes was… while they still had homes.

So the Banks fell. Western Capitalism collapsed. The People of the World took on a crippling debt so that Capitalists could write themselves huge bonus checks and go back to business as usual. And it could all happen again tomorrow, albeit with so far fewer resources than we had the first time.

Now, the News Media, so concentrated in the hands of one or two of the World’s wealthiest Capitalists, is entirely behind Capitalism and never fails to present an optimistic view to our Future. We are told the World Economy is in the process of Recovery. But Recovery from what?

As soon as the Production and Employment picture improves, the commodity prices will begin to soar again. Millions of people still need to drive a great distance to work. These people still need to eat food. A lot of these same people have adjustable mortgages, so as soon as the Economies reach some real level of Recovery, then the adjustable Interest Rates will go up at the same time as fuel and food prices. The World Bankers automatically raise interest rates to suppress Inflationary trends. Recovery will inevitably trigger its own Recession. The Financial Crisis will simply repeat. It’s Cyclic! As long as none of the Variables are changed… as long as the basic factors remain in place, then we will all effectively be Damned if we Do and Damned if we Don’t.

Rule of Law the Non-Ideal

2009-12-05T04:23:00.000-08:00

People tend to assume that Western Political Values are unquestionably virtuous and stand as the highest achievements possible for their or anybody’s Civilization. In proportion as anything is different from Western Values, so it is considered by that same degree to be inferior, even Barbarian. But all of this is done under the spell of hundreds of years of propaganda, from minds clouded with nationalistic and ethnic pride, and from simply never having ever been exposed to anything else. Small educations make for small minds.

Rule by Law was not always and everywhere held up to be one of the highest Ideals. In Classical China there was quite an argument for and against it. Confucius lined up against Rule of Law, what was referred to then as Legalism, and not because he was some kind of an Anarchist, but because he recognized the limitations of Legalism and the tricks that could played with the Law.

You see, the Legalists claimed that everybody had a different sense of what was right and wrong and so in order to preclude the possibility of any misunderstandings, then everything should simply be spelled out in the Law. Just tell people what is permitted and what is not permitted. What could be simpler then that?

Well, Games have rules, but Life isn’t a Game. Unless one is a Player and wishes to be the Winner to everybody else’s Loser.

You see, once Legalism, or Rule of Law, is established then the Legalists, what we call Lawyers nowadays, can set to work creating all the loopholes, or ways to engage in ethically shady dealings without precisely crossing the exact letter of the Law. Indeed, this was all the agenda that the Legalists must have had in mind or cared about, because the other result of Legalism, or Rule of Law, serves nobody, and that is when somebody by force of circumstances happens to violate the law, but only because of overwhelmingly compelling reasons. But the problem here is that Rule of Law recognizes no mitigations, no exceptions. Unless a lawyer authorizes a well plotted Loophole, then breaking the Law is breaking the law. So it is that in a Legalistic Society a CEO of major Bank can bilk millions of people out of their fortunes and toss them out of their homes, while sending entire Economies and Nations into ruin, all while laughing in everybody’s face because no legislature had the foresight to craft exactly the right Law to forbid every conceivable financial trick and slight of hand. But if one of the victims were to accost such a Banker and punch him in the face for what he had done, although it could be counted as only the smallest token of what would really be deserved, then this poor Victim would be sent off to prison for assault – you know, there are Laws against such things.

What Confucius believed was that people, that is, most well-bred and brought up people know the difference between Right and Wrong, and should be held to that standard which all decent people know perfectly well without ever having to explain it or itemize it point by point against every conceivable situation. The advantage here is that there are no loopholes in such a Morality based system. And mitigating circumstances would be allowed, where actions are a salt and pepper mix of Good and Bad, as long as the prevailing intentions were mostly for the Good.

In the West, a certain concession used to be made for Morality within the Legal System. This was the Jury. The Law was the Law, but the Jury would add their own Moral Awareness to the legal equation. But now this function of the Jury System is being strangled away by the Legalistic Judiciary. Juries are being instructed to regard only the facts and to apply only the Law. Dissenting Jurors are thrown out, and some even imprisoned for contempt. Legalism is now entirely pure. Its untouched by any trace of Morality.

Really, it is the Legalistic Judges that need to go. The Law Books need to be tossed. We need to return to the appreciation and application of simple Right and Wrong.

Yes, it can seem almost comical sometimes, when humans guide their social and political actions by what they ‘feel’ is Right. I remember an instance from Greek History. A certain popular Politician gave a rousing speech for War, and nearly everybody voted in favor of the belligerent proposal. But when the war ended in disaster, the same group of politicians voted, again almost unanimously, to have the rascal executed. They didn’t blame themselves. The way they saw it, they had been successfully manipulated. They were made fools of, and so they had their revenge.

Growing up being indoctrinated in the niceties of Rule of Law, the instance from Greek History appears shocking. But if we only give ourselves a minute to think about it, wasn’t the outcome back then better then what we could expect now?

Is the Rule of Law really an Ideal, or is it just another scheme for protecting the scoundrels that run the show? Really, wouldn’t it provide so much more incentive for Responsibility if the rascals worried about being hanged by the people they trick and fool.

At a very basic and practical level the difference between Right and Wrong is that Right works out for most peoples’ advantage and Wrong screws things up and ends badly. When Success can pay off so well for People in High Position, then it would only be reasonable to expect them to assume some Risk for when things end badly. But in our Legalistic Society, there never is any real risk. Yes, it is a gamble, but they gamble with Other People’s Money.

Then there is the not so secret Secret that it is the Rich that mostly write the Laws and they largely exempt themselves from them. Only in the Moral Society, liberated from Legalisms, can the people demand Responsibility, and need no better reason then that they are outraged.

Not everything needs to be Rational. Sometimes Rewards or Punishments can simply be Poetic.

Garabandal vs Medjugorje vs Kibeho Rwanda

2009-11-29T00:27:00.000-08:00

Physiological Proof of Religious Visionary Experiences

Garabandal vs Medjugorje vs Kibeho Rwanda

The Catholic Church goes through its own processes for affirming or denying Religious Visionaries, and some of these procedures are troubling and stupid. First among the stupid things is that they have this extreme emphasis on protecting Catholic Orthodoxy. They are pretending that in any disagreement between Heaven and the Vatican, that the Vatican must always be right. What this leads to is a situation where even if there were any slight imperfections in the Catholic Church, then they would be absolutely uncorrectable, as even the very Voice of God, if He were to speak in order to point out such error, would be immediately discredited because, of course, every single Bishop who knows the letter of the Catechism would know better than God Himself. Yes, suddenly Tradition and the Absolute Truth of how Catholicism has always understood things can be tossed aside easily enough if the Bishops decide to have a kind of Political Convention and vote one way or another on things that they treat merely as policy issues. Such political haggling and horse trade, they call that the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is okay as long as it works politically and in the basest materialistic channels, where the Bishops do all their work. But certainly it can never be said that the Bishops of the Catholic Church have ever been influenced by anything Religious or Spiritual. That is simply not the Holy Spirit as they have grown from time immemorial to understand it.

But why should there ever be a Visionary? If the Church had everything absolutely correct, then God would have no need for sending any Visionaries, isn’t that so? So Visionaries are inherently a Corrective. Yes, the Church has no trouble approving Visionaries when the Visionaries speak in regards to correcting the people, the Laity or the Religious Orders, but the Church bristles when their own Fat Cat Bishops receive Heaven’s Scrutinizing Gaze. The only thing the Bishops need help with is their legal strategies for protecting their sexual lifestyle choices with children and such.

Another problem with Church review of the Visionaries is that there does not seem to have been an effort to arrive at some expected physiological baseline for genuine Religious Experiences, and this some 40 years after the publication of Charles Tart’s “Altered States of Consciousness”.

What brings this to mind is that I have been reading “Our Lady of Kibeho” by Immaculée Ilibagiza of Rwanda in Africa. Her description of the trance states of the Kibeho Visionaries reminded me of what I had read concerning the Garabandal Visionaries in Spain. Unfortunately, the physiological descriptions from Spain and Africa have only the most marginal similarities with those of the more famous Visionaries from Medjugorje in Croatia.

In Garabandal Spain it was obvious to everybody that at least something supernatural was going on, and the only choice was between whether the God or the Devil were responsible. The Visionaries would become impervious to their surroundings, their dissociation was so complete that they wouldn’t flinch in the least even under the most extreme tortures – driving nails into their arms, needles up the fingernails and applying flames to hands and feet while the Visionaries were in trance. And the Visionaries seemed capable of the impossible (which is what they mean by ‘supernatural’, isn’t it?), for instance, dashing about on the mountain side amidst the roughest terrain almost as if by levitation. In Kibeho Rwanda the seers would collapse and then assume the characteristic of being un-moveable – six strong men could not pick up a small teenaged waif. Also, in the African case there had been some rather extreme trances in which the seers had appeared death-like for longer than a day at a time. Finally, trained medical personnel detected something like an hourly breath and heartbeat. Ordinarily we shouldn’t expect teenagers to be able to fake such things.

But in Medjugorje the famous Seers only had to stop paying attention to the crowd, they only needed to all look up in approximately the same direction, and then they only had to agree upon telling about the same story afterwards. They brought in Medical Examiners who treated the Medjugorje Visionaries as authentic only because they blinked only half so often during their trances as at other times. Now, if they had not blinked at all…

In both Rwanda and Spain there was a certain vicious sadism applied to testing the Subjects for complete dissociation during the Trance States. We could certainly deplore such cruelty, had the seers felt anything, but what was generally conceded was that the children felt nothing at the time and had no experience of discomfort later – no open bleeding sores or third degree burns to treat. Why were the Medjugorje Seers let off so easy? Well, probably because they flinched at the first slightest tickle. They were given the Test, only they didn’t pass it. After that they were only measured on their ability to play pretend. Then Wishful Thinkers gave them the go ahead. Also, there may have been something of a material agenda behind Medjugorje. What all the books seem to say is that the Franciscan Religious Order in Croatia put together the entire Visionary ploy in order to draw tourist dollars to the area, so they could buy up weapons cashes in preparation for all the Ethnic Cleansing they would soon be engaged in. And it all seems to be born out by the subsequent facts. When one checks the Ethnic Demographic Map before the Civil War and then after, one finds that the Medjugorje District was perhaps the most successful at almost entirely becoming Ethnically Homogenous, that is the nice People of Medjugorje were successfully able to either chase away or kill nearly every single Serb and Muslim in the district. Mostly from the profits they made from Rosary Bead sales.

Anyway, the Catholic Church needs stop insisting on Doctrinal Purity. After all, nobody applied any such Tests to Paul who made up most of these Doctrines that they now must so stubbornly protect against so many attacks from Spiritual and Theological Common Sense and the dictates of Ordinary Morals. The Bishops conveniently forget that at the Height of Catholic Civilization most of Paulist Doctrine was ignored, and that the recognition and implementation of Paulist Doctrine, far from helping anything, in fact went hand in hand with the Decline and Fall of Catholic Civilization. So why protect something that is at best dubious in the first place?

It would be better to define exactly what one should expect physiologically from a true Visionary, and then just learn to live with whatever these True Visionaries bring with them from Heaven. The Jews had called them Prophets, and look at how well it worked out for them.

Alternatives to Costly Wars of Occupation

2009-11-26T01:56:00.000-08:00

Military Planners in the United States will probably not spend too many more years combing over History before they discover an alternative to the costly wars of occupation. Eventually they will take note of the Mongolian Experience. You see, beginning at about the turn of the First Millennium, about a thousand years ago, the Mongolians struck out from their bleak dry horse lands and established the largest Empire of Military Conquest that the World had ever seen, and they managed to do so without the debilitating expenses involving Occupations and Nation Building. They preferred implementing strategies of what we would call today “genocide”. Then they would utilize colonization and resettlement of friendly ethnic groups to once again return vacant areas to some economic usefulness.

It was puzzling for me to reconcile such historical facts of mass genocides in the regions of Mongolian Conquest with the modern demographic facts that not everybody in the Euro-Asian Continent between Vienna and Mongolian is pure blooded Mongolian. It is clear that a great many ethnic populations survived enough to be well represented later after the Mongolian Empire had receded. It was probably like with all of our Holocaust Survivors. So what exactly happened during these Genocidal Wars and Invasions?

Well, my guess is that all Populations that were directly encountered by the Mongolian Forces were annihilated, but that escaping hordes of refugees were allowed to flee almost non-molested – as long as you fled in front of the advancing Armies you would be okay, that is, until you starved or died of exposure or some such thing. In a way, it almost served to help their Strategy, as the refugees would flee into Countries not yet invaded, and would serve to destabilize those regions and weaken them ahead of the Mongolian onslaught.

One might ask about Resistance Fighters, what we nowadays call “terrorists”. Certainly the Mongols must have had problems with such insurgencies. But, no, not necessarilly. You see, Resistance Fighters are a product of attempting to coexist with an existing Population. Resistance Fighters can hide within the Host Population, or perhaps hide out in the Hills and Jungles, while being re-supplied and supported by the Host Population. It was this Support Population that the Mongols destroyed with their targeted Genocides. As it says in that famous Treatise on War, “if one kills the snakes body, the head automatically dies”. Once the Mongols burned the cities and then burned the farms, then the remaining elements of Population, living in the most abject poverty as vagabond refugees, would have more pressing matters to cling to than worrying about fighting back.

American Military Planners had already seen this model in action. Look at the American Civil War. Lincoln and the North had been at an impasse until General Sherman decided to burn Atlanta and every farm around it to a circumference of a hundred miles, thus completely ‘pacifying’ the region. It was this ‘Scorched Earth’ strategy that finally brought the South to the Peace Table.

This brings us to an expected Tipping Point of Genocide… well, at least the Mongols had not expected it. You see, once a certain number of Nations are completely leveled by genocidal slaughter, then at least some Nations next in line for invasion will utterly and entirely submit, using their own resources to assure that there is no ‘trouble’, and they will beg for survival on any terms.

It is interesting the first time that the Mongols had realized this dynamic. They had been slow to catch on – a few cities that had offered only the barest resistance were totally destroyed simply out of the inertia of consistent habit. But finally this one City made a strong impression which caused a Mongolians to do a Re-Think. You see, from the very first the Mongolians had the stated policy of Destroying any City that offered even the least resistance, but they never had to worry about NOT destroying a City because there had always been some resistance somewhere. But finally they came to this one City that welcomed them with flowers and banquets and wagons of loot, indeed, anything of any value that was not nailed down was already packed up and ready for shipment to Mongolia. And then one single idiot shot an arrow over the wall. Just when everything had been going almost unbelievably smooth. Did they really wish to mess it all up because of that hobgoblin ‘consistency’ ( “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” ).

Well, the General sent one of his Officers back to Mongolia to confer with Genghis Khan and his High Council to determine just how strictly they were to interpret their own nominal rules, of killing everybody for the least resistance. What happened in the Council was that it reminded a great many of them that a good many such instances had been occurring, where resistance to their Invasion had become almost completely insignificant and that their Commanders in the Field were complaining that would be cheaper NOT to kill everybody. Once over the Tipping Point, then Occupying the Enemies would be the easier way to go.

That particular Tipping Point still comes into play. There are probably many variables involves – whether a People as a whole are rational, peace-loving, foregoing and tolerant, or whether they are possessed by some semi-suicidal rage that gets the better of their common sense and instinct for survival. Remember a few years ago when the Chechen Resistance was being so troublesome for the Russian Army and for Russia itself, with the Chechen’s setting off bombs in Russia blowing up entire Apartment Buildings full of people. Well, the Russians let it out through discretely leaked information that they were planning to completely annihilate the population of Chechnya and resettle the place with ethnic Russians. Screw International Opinion. The World would yell and scream, whine and cry, and Russia would not get to host the Olympics for a couple of decades. But Russia’s problem with Chechnya would finally be solved. But guess what happened. Chechnya IMMEDIATELY decided to police itself and so it is that they staved off their absolute punishment.

What if American Planners did come to see the utility of genocide and resettlement in place of the old policies of occupation. Well, there would be certain new kinds of cost involved. For the Mongols, maybe because they conquered so much so quickly, it required nearly all of their available Man Power. Every able bodied man in Mongolia was expected to be a Warrior. They would bring in “slaves” to do all the other necessary work. For instance, Marco Polo the Italian, who had simply been traveling around at the time, was recruited to be such a “slave” for the Mongols, handling bank accounts in China for the Mongolian Invaders. Well, does America have that kind of a Military Culture where every able-bodied man would feel honor-bound to be an Officer in some Genocidal Army? Not at the moment, it doesn’t.

But Technology can be made to jump into the breach. Winning People’s Hearts and Minds may be a tricky and elusive goal, when it comes to occupying invaded Nations, but killing everybody might turn out to be a snap. One can envision relatively low-cost technologies for killing off populations, even one person at a time, putting just enough filtering into the Systems so that American and Allied Forces would not be targeted. One immediately thinks of the ‘Terminator’ series of movies, but the mistake there is in over-estimating the ability of humans to survive against even rather simple Artificial Intelligence Weapons. We would not need expensive Terminator Robots, when a little model airplane with a silent electric motor can kill somebody with a single small 22 caliber bullet to the brain. And we can assure that such weapons will never miss – we can simply make it a point of buying them from Japan.

And then there are biological weapons. While Genocidal War would still come with so many recriminations from ‘Civilized’ Peoples everywhere, a War using Biological Agents to spread Plagues and Diseases among specifically targeted genetic Groups, would seem, well, just like any ordinary Epidemic. The Nation under Biological Attack would be quarantined off by the International Disease Control Authorities and nearly everybody would die, and nobody would ever realize it had all been a Military Operation. Just like Aids had been in Africa. People had once worried that Africa would be the hub of the World’s worries over Over-Population. Not since Aids. Do we really think that was all a happy coincidence? A Disease that targets an ingrained habit among nearly all Sub-Saharan African Peoples, which after 3 decades still doesn’t have a cure. And that nobody suspects any Government of designing such a clever Disease simply proves the point of how useful it would be for Governments to exploit the use such Bio-Weapons.

Anyway, I do not suppose the World has very long before Genocidal War makes its comeback. Right now America is reviewing the Utility of War in the light of its recent failures to successfully occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, where it had been so expensive and politically damaging – where the worst people seem to win all of the subsequent local elections, unlike in America, of course. Anyway, soon America will realize that there are other possible Strategies available, even with all the allure of being Historically rather successful. They even have a phrase for it. Kill them all and let God sort them out.

Economic Growth versus Planning

2009-11-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

In every panegyric which lavishes praise upon Capitalism while castigating Socialism, we find that all measures are expressed in terms of ‘growth’. Capitalism and un-restricted trade are better because they grow better. Well, weeds grow. Cancers are famous for their ability to grow. So is it really correct to make Growth our only measure for Civilized Excellence?

One little narrow minded book I had been reading a while back spoke of a growing company in Brazil, so successful it was putting everybody else out of business. The author of the book never spent even a fraction of a second wondering whether one small companies success was worth the disruption of all the rest. Also, he never bothered to wonder what was being produced and how the money was being made. Child Pornography. Human Slave Trafficing. Burning down the Rain Forest. There is Profits to be made in all that. Not every Growth Industry is automatically All Goodness and Light just by virtue of feeding Greed, no matter how much praise we lavish on this Modern Virtue that the Ancients somehow managed to get all wrong.

Well, Growth might have its place. One can see the utility of the Growth Philosophy of Economics in severely under-performing developing Nations, but then we are confronted with the paradox where unrestricted Free Trade into Undeveloped Economies provides Goods and Services at already rock-bottom rates, preventing Developing Economies from ever, well, developing. So we have had countries like Japan and China, and even America, if we look far enough back, that protected their developing industrial capacities through trade restrictions and only opened their Markets when it was a game they felt sure they could win. Here we need to take a moment to admire the Americans for sticking by the same rules even after they began seriously to get their asses kicked.

In speaking of America we are speaking of a totally developed Economy, almost Post Industrial. If suddenly America were to be measured only in terms of Industrial Capacity, one could hardly be sure whether America could still be considered a ‘developed’ Nation at all. But their Gross National Product is high and so Americans think that it all amounts to the same thing. The problem there is in the way Gross National Product is measured. For instance, when Japan builds a TV Set and sells it for $400, that $400 is tallied up in Japan’s Gross National Product. That is easy enough to understand. But in America when a some Mutual Fund Company pays $400 for an Equity Purchase, THAT also is counted in its Gross National Product, even though nothing is produced – where there actually is no product. Ownership is transferred on paper. Indeed, simply transferring funds from one account to another is counted into America’s Gross National Product. What this tells us is that it is easy for a Banking Nation, such as America, to sustain a high GNP even while everything real is collapsing and falling into rubble. As long as the Super Rich keep shuffling their accounts around, America will still be able to pretend that the GNP demonstrates that they are as economically healthy as Europe or Asia – Economies which still actually make and sell real stuff.

So maybe America is not the best example we can speak of when hoping to discuss Developed Economies – we can call America ‘Post-Developed’. So let’s talk instead of Japan. Does Japan really need to ‘grow’? At some point isn’t ‘enough’ enough?

Yes, in Capitalism all Stock Pricing is predicated upon Growth. Profit and Growth are mostly about the same thing. We can speak of it in terms of Economic Theory, but maybe it was all because of Economic Habit.

A lot of this Capitalist Business began in England. They realized the connection between Growth and Profits early and began ‘growing’ first by privatizing the Roman Catholic Church Properties through confiscation, and then by privatizing the Common Lands – Growth through Theft and Pillaging, but it worked for the fledgling Capitalists. It was easy for the American Economy, the real Show Piece of Modern Capitalism, to grow because America had so much open free land, that is, once it was taken from the Indians, the French or the Spanish. So given all the Wide Open Space, Growth was easy. So no other thinking, no other tactics were ever really considered. Capitalism simply fell into the rut of equating profits with expanding growth.

It is such a habit that now already severely strained economies are endeavoring to import new populations into already crowded conditions. For instance, America that already bars 40% of its Population from its Doctors and Hospitals complains that it needs more people, in order to sustain its ‘growth’. New people would mean new houses to be built and furnished, and new cars and appliances to be sold. More People equals More Growth. And this is on a Planet that is facing a Global Warming Crisis mostly aggravated by the stresses of Over Population. Also, the international pricing on Food Commodities is going way beyond what the poorest 30% of the World Population is able to pay, but the Capitalists don’t see how that could possibly relate to their endless pushing of the Growth Paradigm.

If the Global Warming and Commodities Pricing Crises are to be addressed, then we really will have to eventually resort to Planning. The only solution that Capitalism would offer is for a Bidding War for scarce resources, and it would be a Bidding War in which most of the World’s Population would come up the Losers.

Paradoxically, it may be an area where America will turns out to be the Pioneer and Advocate. As I hinted earlier, Capitalism is beginning already to sour in America. When the Dollar finally collapses and Capitalism comes to a grinding halt in America, then America will either suffer the deaths of hundreds of millions of its Citizens… and millions more of its Illegals… or it will quickly jump into the breach by Nationalizing the Corporations and Banks, and replacing the Price Demand Economy with a Planned Allocation Economy.

And while the Rest of the World had been so happy to follow America in its Capitalism and its Democracy, it will probably be even happier to again follow America, this time in things that make sense for the most people – Planned Economies and Non-Divisive Government based on Bureaucratic Meritocracy.

Religions Are Of Two Kinds

2009-11-21T01:44:00.000-08:00

One of the silliest cliques going is that “all religions are basically the same”. They are really not, and I am not just speaking of the thousands of hair-splitting doctrinal, theological and philosophical differences. I am talking about differences of essential purpose. Certainly religions are not the same when they don’t even want the same thing.

Anyway, when it comes to wanting two different things, then we can identify two different kinds of Religion.

The first kind of Religion is what we would understand today to be like a Self Help Program – sad or unsuccessful people are looking for some kind of a key for improving themselves or for feeling better about themselves or at least to help them manage their depression.

The second kind of Religion is the expression of a Social Propaganda – a unifying Ethos for a Community.

Often a Social Ethos Religion can co-opt the Self Help model of Religion by insisting that Happiness can only be attained by being Community Minded – that Love for Others is the Supreme Happiness. “It is better to give than receive”. However, such Religions can point to relatively few Saints who had actually demonstrated much overt happiness at helping others, and so instead a great deal of attention is focused upon tolerating hardships and enduring suffering for the Good of the Many. People might be told that the Happiness they should expect will come only in an Afterlife.

The purely Self Help Religions can afford to be less contradictory, as their goal really is less ambitious and so much easier to envision if not to achieve. To be more successful and to feel better about one’s self, simply become consciously and deliberately ego-centric. Live for one’s self. To worry about other people only robs one of the energies that could be devoted toward furthering one’s own ends. Wolves are happier than sheep, especially at dinner time.

But, in the end, the Social Ethos Religions actually stand the better chance of making people Happy. Just think about it, that if a Social Ethos Religion finally brings peace to a once Barbaric Community, then a general happiness is likely to follow as destructive energies take more positive directions simply through default.

The selfishness engendered by the Self Help Egotistical Religions suffers from being tied too tightly to the Win-Lose construct, where there is naturally going to be more losers than winners. Every man at war with every other – making life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, that is, between the small celebrations of single Conquerors over multitudes of the conquered. The truth is that groups of selfish people make each other miserable.

So it is that the one most reliable indicator of a Self Help Egotistical Religion is the advise or injunction to go off and be solitary. Happiness in selfishness is so much easier when one is alone. Happiness is the best hiding place. Nowadays I believe they call it Meditation.

The Decline and Threat of America

2009-11-21T00:38:00.001-08:00

Everything hinges on the value of the Dollar.

Now, a currency is only worth what one can get for it. Well, America no longer produces anything, and with Global Warming messing with the weather, America might soon not even be able to sell wheat, soy, corn and rice. Such commodity sales are the last remaining healthy factors in the grand formula of American Trade, and so we should view any decline there with great trepidation.

The only thing left remaining that America would have to sell, in order to support the Value of its Dollar, is the ownership of its companies and its real estate. But would America have the will to bring itself to sell off its ownerships in just about all of its companies?

It had once almost happened before, with Japan, in the late Seventies. Remember, before China became Manufacturer to the World, it was Japan, and Japan had amassed a huge supply of Dollars. It stuffed many dollars into its Currency Reserves, just as the Chinese are now doing, and even after buying all of its energy and petroleum needs with Dollars, still had many Dollars left over, and so began putting them into American Companies and Real Estate. The most startling instance of this was when Japan bought controlling interest in, yes, Bank of America. Almost at the point of American Political Reaction, when grumbling in the streets was beginning to foment some political focus, Japan collapsed into a recession from which it still has not fully recovered. It was bad for Japan, but it saved the Dollar and put an end to the political grumbling, at least for the moment.

It had been a close call. You see, if America would have enacted some kind of protectionist legislation, prohibiting foreign nationals from purchasing American Companies and Real Estate, then the dollar would have collapsed back then. After all, if Foreign Countries are not allowed to spend dollars in America, then of what value are they?

The situation is much the same with China now, only bigger. The Chinese are playing a complicated and somewhat circular game – they are lending a great many Dollars back to America, thus keeping America’s economy from collapsing, which also allows Americans to purchase more Chinese goods, sending more dollars to China. Stuffing their dollars into Currency Reserves serves one very important purpose – it keeps the dollars out of circulation which keeps the value of the Dollar and of their own Dollar Reserves higher than it otherwise would be. But the Chinese must be clever enough to see the paradox here – that the Dollar is only worth something as long as they don’t try spending it.

I suppose the Chinese are biding their time, but I can’t really guess why. The Dollars present value, as high as it is after considering all of the factors that should be depressing it, is a kind of an Economic Bubble. And in all Economic Bubbles, the people who come out least damaged in the end are the ones who Sell first, cashing out before the panic sets in. If the Chinese wait for some other factor to take them by surprise, collapsing the dollar first, then they could end us sitting on Trillion Dollar Reserves that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Heck, all it would take is Saudi Arabia changing the Oil Currency to Euros, and the Dollar would collapse the very same day. And we can’t suppose that there are not hundreds of Saudi Princes all working toward that very same end … understandably or not resenting America’s War against Islam and the stalwart, absolute and unquestioned political and economic support that America provides for Zionist Expansion. With such forces afoot, every day that China waits could be the Dollar’s last.

But it is all very worrisome. The choices are not simple or easy. Spending Dollars could cause more problems then it is all worth. It puts me in mind of Pre-War Germany. Germany’s economy was put into rather shaky circumstances by the one-sided settlement agreement for the First World War, and the Banking Elites in both Germany and Internationally saw an opportunity – they restricted hard currency transfers to Germany, forcing the Germans to print unsupported money that was appraised at lower and lower value as it went along. When the Deutsch Mark finally collapsed entirely, the Banking Communities swooped in with relatively little amounts of gold and silver and bought up everything in sight. Although there had to have been many Christian Bankers in the mix, the most visible standouts were the Jewish Banking Families which had already caused something of a scandal by openly working with the American Government against Germany during the War… even while some of their own family members till lived and worked in Germany. It had every appearance of Treason. While the Economic Collapse and the subsequent “Rescue”, which resulted in a massive transfer of Ownership to Foreign Agents, may have all been an unplanned and unforeseeable accident, which is how History plays it, still, if it had all been a well laid trap, it could not have gone off better. But what was probably not planned for was that the German People became extremely angry, and for years could not get over it, finally resorting to extreme and radical Nationalist Politics which almost everybody admits turned out very badly for nearly everybody.

So, who in their right mind would wish to do it all over again, this time casting America in the roll of Crazy and Bitter Nationalist War Mongers?

With Germany, it took them about 10 to 15 years to assemble a military apparatus large enough to be worrisome. Really, only the French had foreseen such an eventuality, and nobody listened to the French. So the great extent of German Military Nationalism came as something of a surprise. But America offers a very different prospect. America now has more Military Equipment than all of the rest of the world put together, and is showing no signs of ever decreasing its procurements. And, yes, while America currently has a President that enjoys the trust of the rest of the World… that he won’t go crazy and order the bombing of every Capital on the Planet for not sending the Olympic Games to Chicago, still we need to wonder how long this American Political Moderation will last, especially since Political Moderation has now gone a full year while accomplishing virtually nothing. Those who rallied for Political Moderation are now discredited and demoralized. The Right Wing Fanatics will certainly capitalize on the failures of Moderation, and the next ‘Decider’ in the White House could be just as crazy as anybody Germany could ever have imagined, and this time with an Army, Navy and Air Force with a thousand times the destructive capabilities of anything Germany had at the absolute heights of its power and dominance.

So, probably the least worrisome thing China could do with all of their Dollar Reserves would be to simply funnel it all back to America in the form of Loans and Bond Purchases. I admit that it would seem like such an odd and unprofitable plan – to go through all the trouble of being Manufacturer for America and then never being able to spend any of the profits. But they are attaining a certain level of benefit throughout. They are buying up Manufacturing Capital, Technology and Machinery and even putting in place their own Research and Development Facilities. They are doing alright for themselves.

But there is one important thing China needs to keep in mind, and that is that never in a million years will America ever pay off that Huge Debt. Indeed, the way Banking works is that nobody even expects that the Principal, the initial amount of a Loan, should ever be paid back, just as long as the Interest on the loan continues to be paid (over years and years the continual payments of interest more than cover for the original principal of the loan). But at the rate at which America’s borrowing is going, there will soon arrive a time when America will no longer be able to pay even the interest on its loans. Already America has resorted to borrowing to pay the interest on some of its Loans… they call that ‘re-structuring’ but it is really just the prelude to downright bankruptcy, like what happens when an individual has to use one credit card to pay another. The end is near.

Anyway, China needs to look ahead and come up with some calm and cool contingency plans for dealing with the moment, not ‘if’ but, when America announces that it is reneging on its loans and renouncing its bonds.

But, really, what are the chances that cool heads will prevail. In a way it is kind of ironic. America had opposed Communism in both China and Russia, instead preferring the victory of Nationalist Political Factions. International Communism might have seen the utility of coming in and helping America with some International Scheme of some sorts. But the partisan Nationalists from all around the Globe that America had supported will simply wonder whether it isn’t just their lucky day that America has finally collapsed. You see, that is one of the problems with advancing Greed as a Virtue – once it is given to Another, it is likely to turn around and bite.

So, it is extremely worrisome for me, that even with the apparent backdrop of a successful Globalization, the most powerful developing Economies are becoming more and more Nationalistic – India with its Right Wing Hinduism, China with its Ethnic Han Supremacy, and Russia who really must feel screwed over by everything and nobody needs an essay explaining why they should feel pissed off.

Anyway, to sum it all up, when things finally collapse, I don’t expect that events will be met with calm heads and even reasoning. Just as the Twentieth Century had defined itself with all the rushing off into Wars and Holocausts, well, now I see about the same prospects for the Twenty-first Century. No Messiah came forward to stop it then, and so it would probably be unrealistic to hope for any Second Coming to save us now. Yes, after a Black Man became President of the United States, we are probably all out of Miracles.

Religious Based Rehab In Secular Society

2009-11-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

A lot changed when the Democratic Revolutions overturned the Monarchies, all except the Prisons. The philosophies of Crime and Punishment stayed largely the same. The system was justified on the grounds that individuals had Moral Responsibility, knew Right from Wrong, and would both deserve and understand their Punishment, that is, their terms of incarceration. The length of each man’s incarceration would be in proportion to the severity of his Crime. They would call it his “debt to society”. In popular parlance it would be “do the crime, pay the time”.

I suppose a few starry-eyed political optimists actually thought that prisoners would spend their years behind bars reflecting on the errors of their ways, and contemplating plans for a better more productive life. But, really, for the most part the traditional Criminal Justice System seemed designed to take dangerous and threatening elements of society off the streets and to put them into storage some place. The lengths of incarceration seemed planned out to make the maximum use of the existing facilities – when the Prisons are empty, then Bank Robbers get 20 years to Life in Prison, but when Prisons are overcrowded the same criminals get a Max of 5 years with the chance of early release in 2 for good behavior. It is all rather cynical.

The first reason for being cynical is that, well, the whole Right and Wrong and Punishment paradigm sort of presupposes that people have both Moral Responsibility and Choice of Action. Yes, yes, yes… the Social Scientists standing above it all on Mount Olympus, so to say, can point out a thousand possible directions for each person’s life. However, that is not exactly how it appears at ground level. When the choices and actions of most people are considered, a rather large proportion are simply carried along by their peer groups and take up whatever opportunities present immediately before them. It is almost as though being Conscious Reflective Beings is all wasted upon them, and they could have done the same things, and made the same choices while sleepwalking, or as zombie robots or whatever. There certainly isn’t much of a hint of Moral Responsibility there.

And it is not just stupid people. I was made aware of a case several years ago in which a Large Government Agency was assigned the task of giving qualification tests that personnel from other Government Departments needed to take and pass. Well, to protect this one group’s identity, we will say they were from “The United Queendom’s Marine Corps”. They had aroused suspicion because all of them together were consistently ‘acing’ their tests, each man getting 100%. They insisted it was because of their collective high standards for intelligence and their well disciplined study habits. “The Few, the Proud”, the very Smart… and all of that. Anyway, on the morning just before the next Test was to be given to a contingent of these Marines, the Agency Manager himself walked down and delivered a new test, that covered the same information almost exactly, but mixed up the order of the Multiple Choice Answers – A, B,C, and D were shuffled about. Well, guess what happened. They all failed. Every single one. And with exactly the same answers. They had exactly memorized the wrong answers.

Well, these young men aren’t stupid. And it can’t even be said that they entirely lack Moral Responsibility, as they were all able to defend their actions on the grounds of Group Cohesion, blah, blah, blah, that is, they were aware that they would need to come up with a quasi-moral excuse if they were ever found out. They knew they couldn’t just claim that cheating was easier and therefore preferable to studying.

So, yes, people even while doing Wrong, are aware of their guilt, that is, they retain at least some of the underpinnings of Moral Responsibility. Only it is not quite enough to factor much into the choices they make. Apparently a great deal counts for more than do the subtle pangs of Conscience. What seems to matter most is the Ethos of their Peer Groups.

Often a Peer Group will collectively act to diminish the force of Traditional Moral Awareness, by calling it effeminate or childish. In most cases a new Quasi-Ethos is put in its place – Morality is replaced by Machismo. Anyway, the primary effect is that Moral Responsibility, if not entirely forgotten, is at least thoroughly abandoned… left for girls and children.

Yes, certain Political Reformers have long observed the horrible inadequacies of the Criminal Justice System – of incarcerating mildly dangerous criminals and then turning them loose when they have become really dangerous. So attempts have been made for Rehabilitation. Even I myself had written a few essays on the subject. However, there has always been one huge factor that has tied their hands – Secular Governments are forbidden from appealing to Religion. So their most useful tools for Re-Moralizing people is forbidden them.

The most interesting examples here are concerning the Communist Re-Education Camps. The Communists for the longest time were aware that the Traditional Prisons were entirely counter-productive and so they tried to jump in with their own alternatives. I only wish we had more data available to us in the West on just how successful Secular Based Re-Education can be. I would be glad if it could be found that they had been able to make anything work – any Moral Success, with or without the aid of Religion, needs no excuse for me, as the way I see it, it is either From God or For Him.

You know, the Communists really should have listened to their own Propaganda, you know, about Religion being used to Control the Masses. Well, duh! When exactly was the last time that any Communist Government didn’t seem completely involved in trying to Control its Masses. They should really use any tool that presents itself. But they insisted upon the Highest Purity of Political Doctrine – a Total Materialistic Scientific Approach. They could only tell the “Truth”, as they figured it.

Truth, truth, truth…

Well, such talk was at the forefront of all the Modern Revolutions – Democracy, Communism. “The Truth will set us Free”. Free was supposed to be Good. But what is Freedom? Freedom would bring us lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. Freedom would be War of each man against all others. Yeah, they say that with Freedom comes Responsibility. What they really means is that to be Responsible we need to curtail all Freedom.

Well, the Communist Regimes have always addressed this issue of Responsibility by obliging everybody to the State, through huge networks of legalisms and administrative rewards or punishments. Those who went after the Rewards, if they could merit them, were well enough off, but those who were less worthy or optimistic learned only to become secretive and scheming. So the Communist Regimes all came to have problems with Sub-Societies and Black Markets. People were simply picking and choosing as to how they could maximize their Material Rewards, and a sizeable minority always seemed willing to bet against the State.

God and Religion in the Socialist Equation would have provided another important variable.

In the West the 12-Step programs are said to be very successful in Re-habilitating all kinds of Low-Lifes. They started with Alcoholics Anonymous but have branched out to every kind of crap and corruption imaginable. And a large part of their success is through appeals to Religion and Spirituality. I can’t help but to think they could have been even MORE successful if only they had changed their format somewhat. As it is they all operate in the same way – people stand up and boost endlessly about what horrible low-lifes they USED to be, and then about how happy they are that they changed all that. But the Bragging about Evil is such a large component in it all. They honestly try to one-up each other on just how low they can go, or went. I can’t fail but to suspect that some only moderately low-life people feel as though they are not yet worthy to be in the group until they go out and take a bit more of a tail-spin into the ground. The Groups all say it more or less openly, that “People only change after they hit rock bottom”. So the Big Tacit Message with these 12-Step groups is ‘go away and come back only after you have done some Real harm to your Self, your Family and to Society’.

So, yes, I think the 12 Step Programs would work even better if they took less pride in being so Evil… formerly. What I really think is going on is that their Bragging is a Survival of their Low Life Machismo Ethos alongside the resurrection of their Old Moral Ethos. While these people re-accept the Old Moral Values as part of the 12 Step processs, they are unwilling to relinquish the Bad Ass Credentials that had justified their Lives while they were in the active Process of doing so much Evil. So they stand up at each meeting and brag about what Bad Asses they are… or were. The problem is that I think it is a Mixed Message that probably does a great deal of harm. It has to be a factor in their Recidivism Rate… when these Relapsed Low-Lifers can reassure themselves that while doing all kinds of Evil, they are at least making great improvements on the Story they will be able to tell next time they stand before their Group of Proud Anonymous Low-Lifers.

Anyway, the Communist Regimes and the Secular Democratic Regimes could do themselves a huge favor by admitting that God has a Psychological Reality. It is not to the point at all whether or not God has a Material Existence. That God appears so often in Psychological Delusions and Hallucinations should prove something, that God exists in the Mind. God is an important Psychological Factor.

If only Science would appreciate this Spirituality Factor, and begin to do studies in the direction of designing Programs to take the greatest advantage of it, then we could possibly think of ourselves on the verge of arriving at a Perfectly Designed Religion.

And once we have a really good Religion, then there is no longer anything to stand in the way of the True Dawn of a Real Civilization.

Oh, I do have one practical idea for Rehabilitative Success, and that is to always isolate any New Comer into a stable well established Moral Group. In the case of Children, younger children should be placed with groups of older children, where no bullying of children their own age and size will help them protect and maintain their old Anti-Ethos. With adults, each new individual should have to feel entirely overwhelmed by his New Society. Remember the all-importance factor of Peer Group Acceptance. Control the Peer Groups and one controls the individuals.

Political Compromise and Political Necessity

2009-11-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

I have made the point often that the clearest distinction between Civilization and Barbarism is that Civilization offers Institutions that provide for a significantly greater Population Density, and that Barbarian Cultures are only appealing when their Population Levels are slight. You see, Barbarism, with its seething aggressions and cultures of competition and conflict, if the Population Density were NOT sparse, then it soon would be. The low population densities of Barbarian Societies is self correcting.

Anyway, Barbarian Cultures, when the population levels are low, have a great deal of slack built into them. Distances will exist between individuals that minimize conflict. Resources would be relatively plentiful. But when these certain favorable levels are exceeded, then the Bloodletting begins – Wars, Rebellions, Disease and Famine reduce the Population once again to optimum Barbarian Levels.

Civilizations have institutions in place to deal with Wars, Rebellions, Disease and Famine, and for many of the Societal Dysfunctions that are prelude to such troubles. But there is much less ‘slack’ within a highly populated Civilization. The margins are thinner. There is less room for error, and less allowances can be made for inefficiencies. With populations always approaching the very edge of Subsistence, and surplus reserves being finite, then Civilizations of necessity must make exactly correct choices, and must come to these precisely exact choices in a timely manner. Lives depend upon it and Civilizations take Human Life seriously. Barbarism has other Priorities, such as Freedom and Private Property Rights.

Well, here is a surprising tidbit – Barbarian Cultures, for all of their Aggressions, firmly promote the policies and practices of Compromise. It seems paradoxical, but we have many such paradoxes in Nature, for instance, the most dangerous predators such as Lions and Wolves will greatly restrain themselves during struggles for dominance, with winners and loser being decided with a minimal amount of damage being done. They roar and pose and then the lesser of the two roaring posers backs down. But deer and birds and other such ‘peaceful’ animals will often kill each other over dominance struggles. So it is that Predators and Barbarians are better at structuring and delineating violence and making finer distinctions in their Aggressions. So it is that they are willing to Compromise and have it so well built into their Institutions.

Remember that Compromise may have other purposes besides alleviating conflict. Compromise may be engaged in simply as a matter for ‘buying time’, so to speak. Compromise is more often then not only a prelude to a Violent Resolution of a Conflict. Appeasements come before Total War.

Civilizations, though, have embedded institutions designed to prevent internal conflicts – they are Police States that allow for no private militias, and there are few private arms allowed. In effect a Strong Government guarantees Peace by keeping a firm lid on aggressions, crimes and conflicts. So where such problems of Conflict between private parties is minimized by Civilized Institutions, there is less need for Compromise. Government is free to simply do things entirely in the most correct manner possible.

Now, yes, there is such a thing as an Engineering Compromise, that is, where more than one Factor is involved, and where one quantity can be increased or decreased for a positive result only in adverse proportion to another positive, then the Best Decision would be to arrive at the Best Balance. A good example of this is Automobile Design – small cars get very good gas mileage, but large cars are inherently safer, so it has to be decided what is the Best of Both Worlds, so to speak. But such Engineering Compromises are different from Political Compromises where the factors involved often only involve some small but powerful group’s greed or self-interest. It would be like deciding upon optimum Car Size on the basis of how much money the CEO of U.S. Steel can make on the deal.

All this comes to mind now because of concerns regarding Global Warming and the depletion of International Oil Reserves. Now, if we were Civilized and worried about maintaining the Highest Levels of Population Density, then we would acknowledge that Carbon Based Energies would soon become prohibitively expensive due to their increasing scarcity, pushing up Survival Costs past where billions of people would be able to pay, and that burning such Energy Sources would be extremely damaging to us all anyway. The Civilized thing to do would be to immediately implement policies that would put in place a new Energy Regime – reliable or renewable sources of Energy that would allow the Green House Gases quotient to stabilize and finally to drop, all while providing enough Energy to assure the affordable delivery of Life Sustenance to a highly populated World.

But the Barbarian Policy would be to delay any significant action with Compromise until it could be decided whether an Attack would be necessary to limit the International Demand for Petro-Energy, or whether the Catastrophes predicted to follow along with Global Warming would be sufficient to keep the Population Levels manageably low… well within the parameters that Barbarian Capitalistic Democracies can work with.

The unspoken Policy of America may be that the real Problem for America is a too high World Population, causing too much international competition for resources that would otherwise go to America, and that Global Warming is coming along just in time to solve these Problems. And if not, well, that is why America is still so focused upon keeping to itself a Military greater in size than everybody else’s Militaries all put together. The American Mindset, therefore, is entirely out of the Barbarian corner.

But when the dust settles, the World Population will again be so slight, that those few who remain will be able to enjoy their Freedom. Especially so since they will almost certainly be Americans.

The Right to Peaceful Protest

2009-11-06T03:59:00.000-08:00

The Right to Peaceful Protest

The problem with Sovereign Governments tolerating “peaceful” demonstrations in their Capitals is that peaceful protests are only peaceful until the Demonstrators realize that they outnumber the Police and the Army, then they move violently to take power for themselves. Every Revolution…even Rebellion… starts peacefully enough. Peace only seems to be a stage in the process of mustering forces and organizing a Command Structure. Once all the pieces are in place, then the Reign of Terror ensues.

What about the Leaders claiming to believe in Peace and Non-Violence. Well, even Gandhi admitted to his buddies in Detention that his Philosophy of Non-Violence was only a legal charade – the British defined Sedition as being the willful promotion of Violence. So Gandhi, who was first and foremost a Lawyer, branded himself as the total Pacifist. When Violence became necessary, he knew he could always just count on the natural tendency of the Mob to do what the Mob always does.

Do the Demonstrators themselves, the small pieces and pawns, do they ever realize the grand design? Well, some do but I would guess that most don’t. But, you see, it hardly matters, for what individuals think hardly counts when it is really a matter of Group Psychology. However separate individuals feel and think and behave when they are alone, that all changes when Group Dynamics take over. Yes, “Peaceful” Protestors will be peaceful enough when they are disorganized and outnumbered, simply out of fear, but add Organization, Command Structure, and overwhelming strength of numbers to the intoxicating mix, and then 98 out of 100 ‘peaceful’ protestors will be more than willing to take over the Capital Building, capture the Army Barracks, or man the barricades. The Leaders only have to point and yell “Charge”. Or, as Gandhi pretended, “Oh, no, don’t!” One never has to instigate such violence. When the numbers are there, it happens of itself.

So, should there be a right to Peaceful Protest. Well, no. Most of all because it never has ever made any sense. The Americans only believe in Protest because their Precious Revolution was born of Protest, and Americans are yet ready to blame themselves for killing so many innocent British Colonial Peace Keepers. Maybe after America has put down Rebellion after Rebellion after Rebellion, it will finally realize that Rebellions are not Glorious Affairs…not even their own. But back to my point here, and that is that any Protest is by definition disruptive, and disruptions are not peaceful. They are contradictory terms. A functioning and Peaceful Society should not have to deal with gratuitous disruptions. If one wishes to exercise some important freedom, then the freedom of Speech and Publishing should be plenty enough. As soon as more than two persons block the first curb or stand too long in front of a single door of home or business, then the arrests should be instant. Bring out the Horse Troops and ride down the Rioters! And hang the Gandhis of the World no matter how much they scream to be the Advocates for Peace and Non-Violence, for when they make every effort to gather every malcontent they can find, to march them up against the Army and the Police, deliberately threatening the Established and Legitimate Order, then they should be philosophically clever enough to realize that the Violence that inevitably ensues has been of their own making and they should be held responsible for it.

And it would be a good lesson for everybody else… to never play host to a bunch of idiots unless one is certain they can be kept under some control. To make empty talk of Peace is one thing, but to keep a crowd under an iron fist of an Absolute Discipline is quite another (and historically almost impossible to do. Gandhi could not or would not do it, and neither could or would Martin Luther King. They both presided over some of the deadliest and most destructive riots in their Nation’s History. If that is what they called Peace, then it is a good thing they never flexed their mean streaks. If they had really believed in Peace, they would have told their people to stay home). So whether or not the Trouble that occurs is the product of a deliberate call to violence, or only negligence in being able to keep one’s followers in line, as the Damages and Deaths are the same, and so should be the Punishments.

Permissive Morality, Amorality and Evil

2009-11-01T02:07:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago somebody in some cheesy disreputable Forum, I forget exactly where, accused me of having no morals. Odd, I thought, as most of my essays make quite a point of defending some moral point or another, or at least are involved with defending the causes of Religion and Civilization, which is almost as good as being moral. But I decided it was time to write an essay about Moral Distinctions, as it seems some people could probably use the education.

Well, first we must admit that Morality does have its philosophical problems. For instance, there is the argument I make with Atheists, that if one rejects God because Science can’t demonstrate any God, then it is more or less inevitable that Morality will suffer the same Fate. If one must wait upon Science and Philosophy before one decides to be Moral, then Self Interest and Self Indulgence are likely to take a very long head-start.

Yes, yes, Atheists endlessly point to people, who had become Atheists only yesterday, and insist that they are behaving morally – that it is their “Natural Condition”. However, it is more likely the case that people who behave morally are doing so in respect to customs and traditions of Morality. The best example here is Western Culture, which used to be Catholic Civilization. Civilization had been moralized from top to bottom, not only laying out models of moral behavior but also addressing much of the necessary underlying moral assumptions and moral premises – placing others before Self, Social Importance before Self Importance, and the whole sense of Spiritual Ideals being transcendent over gross materiality, etc. Just deciding one day that one does not believe in God, well, all the Moral Conditioning of the Religion and Civilization still remain…. For awhile anyway.

Really, if the Atheist really wants to prove his point regarding a Natural Morality, he would need to refer to the Primitives and the Barbarians, and demonstrate all their Natural Goodness. Yes, they can show us a Mother’s Love, which is fairly universal, but after that, it all goes downhill fast in the search for Natural Goodness. Remember how I am constantly dwelling on the point that Dense Populations seek out Civilized Institutions, while sparse Populations remain the most chaotic and violent. Well, this is what we see with Primitive Peoples and Barbarians. As Societies develop a better sense of Cooperation and Sociability, then their numbers are able to float upward. But Chaotic and Violent Societies will automatically keep their own numbers low. I once read an article about Primitive Culture, one particularly violent Tribe. They had no sense at all for any of our kind of Morality. Mostly they praised Bravery in Battle. While they could speak of Loyalty as a virtue, it was offset by a larger respect for any cunning, strength or cleverness that could forgo Loyalty and attain to a more Alpha-Dominant Position in the Tribe. Mercy toward enemies was entirely ruled out as showing weakness. Oh, and one had to never appear weak before the Women… or they would stop doing what they were told to do. These were not nice people.

Oh, what fools many Anthropologists into believing in some kind of a Universal Goodness is that Primitive Peoples can be so hospitable to strangers. However, this is a well adapted cultural survival mechanism. This is how it works. When one group of Barbarians overruns another group of Barbarians, there is not necessarily a Fight. Often it is enough to show Superior Strength of Numbers. Well, who has Superior Strength of Numbers? It becomes necessary for the Tribes to carefully look each other over. This is done through Hospitality – there are feasts and celebrations and everybody counts heads and looks to see how big and strong the big and strong ones are over on the other side. If it is too close to call, then Manhood, Courage and Bravery gets involved and there is a Battle. But more often than not, if the Hospitable Tribe also happens to be the obviously Smaller and Weaker Tribe, then it will suddenly be reminded of plans it had all along to head West or South to some newer and prettier Valley. They will pull up stakes and leave, allowing their Guests to move into their old haunts. And if they are lucky then they themselves will prove to be the Bigger Stronger Tribe down the trail and force some other Poor Barbarian People to go on the move in their turn. But if they are always the Smaller and Weaker Tribe, then they will always be the ones to keep going.

One can see the important role that Numbers play here. Bigger Tribes are better able to keep their place, or take preferred places if they should go on the move. This is how Barbarism grows toward Civilization. Larger Tribes can only become larger by adapting to behaviors of Cooperation. For instance, perhaps the most significant improvement was the substitution of Games for Mortal Combats in deciding Group Dominance. In the most Primitive Societies, the Alpha Males would outright kill their rivals, or chase them off into Exile. The Tribe, while having a strong leader, would be weaker in not having so many Second Best Males around to add to the Security Picture. But in the more advanced Societies, the Young Males were allowed to play Games, sort of mock-combats – almost lethal but not quite… like modern Football. By adulthood everybody more or less knew who the Accepted Alpha would be – The Team Caption, and everybody would fall in line behind him. The Older Alphas would bestow honors on the Younger Alphas and marry daughters off to them… all to assure a few more years of their own survival, where in a more Primitive Society, the Younger and Stronger would only have needed to kill off the Older and Weaker. Society would benefit from the additional experience that the Older Alphas had acquired and could apply, while the Younger Alphas were brought up to Authority in a more orderly, convoluted and time-consuming manner. But the More Advanced Society is basically better simply because it is Bigger… and its acquired Traditions of Cooperation, especially in Games probably play out better when it comes to a Fight as well. Even Today, they only insist upon Team Sports in the Schools, as expensive as they are, because it makes the boys more easy to Drill later on when they become Soldiers and are sent off to die for King and Country. Remember what Wellington said, “Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”. (Wellington was the English General who took the credit for defeating the French Emperor Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. And Eton was some snobby private school).

So, my point here has been that there is no Natural Morality… that the further we go toward Pure Nature, the more immoral it all becomes. All Morality seems to be Adaptive, and rises up to serve the cause of Civilization, Cooperation and Bigger Numbers.

Oh, but what happens when a Civilization establishes itself and then grows comfortable? Even if all of the Customs and Traditions are supported by Culture and Education, still, a certain decay may set in. If Individuals can break the Rules of Cooperation and enrich themselves by it, and be allowed to get away with it Publicly, then the Days of Civilization are numbered. People who follow Rules are called “Losers”. One encounters common expressions such as “Nice guys finish last”.

It is not so much that one needs to cry sentimentally for the cause of Lost Civilization. The real problem is that Fragmented Individualistic Barbarian Societies cannot support the same Population Numbers as Cooperating Civilizations. When a Civilization goes into Decay, soon to follow is always a huge Population Collapse. Always. History shows us that there had been 21 Civilizations. They have all collapsed. We know what that looks like. And it ain’t pretty.

Anyway, how can this decay creep in? What happens to the Morality of a Totally Civilized People? You know, if you read Literatures from any Golden Age of Civilization, you are instantly struck by so many Social Constructs… not just Moral Constructs, but almost everything is intertwined with Principles, Honors, Customs and Traditions. It is completely spelled out as to what a Good Person does and thinks in every permissible Social Situation. Such a Monolithic Social Morality does not crack apart in a minute.

So elements of decadence have to creep in somehow. In our own Catholic Civilization, what happened was the Printing Press brought out the Teachings of Paul – Salvation and Forgiveness of Sins became popular. You know, people think that Christianity had always been Christianity, in the way we think of it today, but Catholic Civilization had actually done a fairly good job at burying the Paulist Doctrines while inculcating Moral Responsibilities. The focus of the High Middle Ages had been on the Blessed Virgin Mother of God… and everybody was supposed to be Her well-behaved Child. Jesus was shown mostly as an infant. Yes, the Bishops knew about Paulist Doctrines, and that is why they were such a decadent bunch of Fat Cats, then as now, but at least in regards to the most part of the People – Rich as well as Poor – all of the Moral Obligations remained clear. Salvation and the Reformation would turn that all around.

So, what Paulist Doctrine and Forgiveness of Sins introduced was a first allowance for a Permissive Morality. People still knew Right from Wrong, Good from Bad, but they were given the idea that God loved them more than He cared about Scoring by the Rules. One could commit Sin and God would look the other way. Boys will be boys, as they say. Sin was Natural and so it would be Tolerated. What actually happened for the most part was that Protestant Greed was unleashed, and the race for Concentrated Wealth would take off. It would take Centuries but at last we could arrive at that epitome of Human Progress where 1% of the Population could control 90% of the Wealth… and pay 1% of the Taxes. I call it an Epitome to be both sarcastic, of course, but also quite truthfully, as that has been the highest and final stage of every Civilization, immediately before its Collapse. It there is a Higher and Better Stage… we have yet to see it transpire.

The next decline in the Descent of Morality, from Moral Permissiveness, is to Amorality. Amorality is of two varieties – there is the Brutish Amorality of the uncultured and the unschooled – people from the Hills or from the Streets who get nothing that they do not steal or fight for. Then there is the Cultured Amorality of the intellectually sophisticated. As I have said, it is no secret to the Thoughtful, that there is no scientific basis for Morality. Yes, Societies benefit by being Moral… but Individuals are well aware that their concern needs be only for Themselves. Yes, it is Historically Inevitable that Amoral Societies eventually undergo huge Populations Collapses – that nearly everybody dies, most especially people who had provoked grudges… the Poor typically slaughter the Rich. Still, that can take generations to happen, and in the meanwhile, all these Smart People can see clear as day that he who dodges the most Rules makes the most money and acquires the most power.

I read about some Game that was put forward by some Scientific Study. Each Player could put forward a sum of his playing chips, and they would be matched by the “House” and re-divided amongst everybody. Everybody could win. But some of the more cunning players soon thought it out, and discovered that they could hold back their own contributions, and still partake of the re-distributions. The Game would eventually fall apart, but for a while the most selfish players would seem to “Win”… having more chips then everybody else when the fighting and name calling would begin.

One needs to wonder why everybody isn’t Amoral – there being so many Worldly Advantages, but so strong are the old Customs, Traditions and Thought Patterns surviving from some Golden Age Civilization. We refer to it as Conscience.

The lowest level to which immorality can sink is Evil. Where Amorality is attuned to self-aggrandizement, Evil actually seeks to do harm for the sake of doing harm. Well, actually, thinking about it for a moment, Evil can be rather Utilitarian. When any one person wishes to be the acknowledged Dominant Individual of a Society – the undisputed Dominant Individual – well, the surest means is to be entirely Evil, and then destroy anybody that wants to complain about it. So Evil is essentially about asserting Dominance. So it is that those who are most successful at being Amoral will eventually, if they are so lucky, be lead to being Evil, to flush out and destroy their competition.

This is why it is so worrisome that America is making such a big deal about being the Undisputed Sole Super Power of the World. If America holds to pattern, then their proof of Power will be through some huge Evil, to force their Enemies to step forward that they may be disposed of.

New Anti-Insurgency Weapon

2009-10-25T03:03:00.001-07:00

New Anti-Insurgency Weapon

Artificial Intelligence is getting better and better. Now they have little vacuum cleaners that can go about the house, cleaning up, even removing empty beer cans and such. The same principle can be applied to ‘cleaning up’ hostile territories – send little machines out to shoot anybody that carries a gun, wears some form of hostile uniform, whatever it takes. If they do not accidentally kill off entire Wedding Parties then they would be better than what we have going now.

Anyway, I was thinking that Flying Robots would be better than ground deployed robot units, mostly because it could be anticipated that the robot machines would eventually break down, and would fall into enemy hands… the Insurgents would be able to scrap the Machines out for the little guns and cameras and stuff. We wouldn’t want that.

So little Airplane Models with small caliber guns, especially at night. Larger Mother Planes circling above could acquire targets and then release the smaller weaponized models to glide down quietly, very close to their targets, and make head shots, rev up and fly away, back up to the Mother Ship. We could call them ‘Killer Bees’ or some such charming thing.

But the engineering complexities kept bothering me… especially the little guns. It would still be possible that maintenance failures could put all such stuff into Enemy Hands. Then there is recoil. Guns have recoil… and engineers hate recoil, especially aerodynamics engineers… a plane in a slow glide can be stopped dead in its tracks by recoil. All sorts of algorithms would have to be set in place to allow for all that stupid recoil. And, besides, gun shots are so noisy. The first gun shot alerts everybody, and Attacks would therefore have to be limited to small attrition raids… killing a few Insurgents before all the rest run to take cover. Yes, repeated endlessly every night, eventually even attrition raids take their toll. But More is always Better, no?

Suddenly it occurred to me that the High Altitude Mother Plane only needs to drop small non-explosive Smart Bomblettes. The Smart Bomblettes could be built to be narrow and with slender teardrop aerodynamics with just small steering wings and rudders, with a little GPS Module and Camera Eye that could keep a Target acquired and centered… the circuit would be no more complicated than the Jitter Eliminator in every Japanese Video Cam now on the market. Dropped from an altitude of a few thousand feet, the Smart Bomblette would steer itself downward, building up speed, to clunk the Terrorist over his head, killing him instantly, and relatively noiselessly, that is, compared to a gun shot.

Just how fast could one of these things go, without any rocket propulsion? Hmmmm… the formula for Gravitational Acceleration eventually runs into the wall of Wind Resistance Drag, but I’m guessing that a slim teardrop projectile with just the barest control stubs would be able to hit 240 miles per hour or about 350 feet per second. That would make for fairly significant clunk on the head… even if one is wearing a big wooly Turban.

They would be cheap enough to build – mass produced IR Camera Arrays wouldn’t be too expensive (regular cameras could be used for Day Light Fair Weather versions of the Weapon… to save money where money could be saved), and then several small circuit boards, and some servo motors and controls with a lithium battery. And once they hit target, or hit the ground, well, there would be nothing salvageable after that kind of impact, or even if captured intact, of what use could it be to somebody on the ground?

Also, the advantage that the Smart Bomblettes would have over the small glider killer bees is that the Bomblettes could be used Day or Night. During the day, the Mother Plane would have to fly a bit higher to avoid observation or vulnerability to small arms fire, but nobody would be able to see the actual bomblettes being dropped… really, they should not be any larger than maybe six inches long… as long as a dollar bill. The only way the Insurgents could avoid such a Weapons System would be to never leave their Caves… supplies would eventually run thin, and the Insurgents would be starved out. Oh, I guess the Bomblettes could also be programmed for clunking Donkeys and Camels over the head… to interrupt the Insurgents ability to keep their Supply Lines going over rough terrain.

Nowadays they use “Predator” style Unmanned Drone Planes… but these continue to require some Operator Input. I can’t imagine that they are not largely computerized, and that the so-called Operator is there only for Appearance Sake (Machines don’t kill people… People kill people… especially those Wedding Parties), but it really needs to be emphasized that the State of the Art for Artificial Intelligence is now at a level sophisticated enough to allow for Seek and Destroy Weapon’s Systems. The Mother Plane Models I spoke of can be programmed to patrol a certain sector and then to come back when it has run out of fuel or Bomblettes. Solar Power panels could be used to keep them up almost indefinitely, that is, they would only have to return to base to pick up more Bomblettes. But, adding another level of Sophistication, there is no reason why such Model Planes could not be re-supplied by docking up, in the air, with even larger Models that could easily enough simply dump more Bomblettes into the smaller Model’s storage bin, and add more fuel as may be necessary, just as the Big Planes are now refueled in the air so they are not always having to return to base but can stay over the Tactical Area until the pilots are too exhausted to continue. But with Artificial Intelligence, there would not really ever be a reason to have the Model Planes return to base…Machines don’t tire nearly as easily or regularly as People do. Artificial Intelligence Weapons could keep operational 24/7, as they say.

Western Civilization Survival Projections

2009-10-25T01:27:00.001-07:00

I was thinking about the dynamics of Collapse of the previous 21 Civilizations, and just how much our Modern Progress seemed to copy the pattern. But there seems to be an important exception.

Now, in most cases what had happened was that there occurred a severe concentration of wealth into private hands, effectively cutting off public funds and resources. Importantly, money for police and military security was cut off. The Private Wealthy did not see this as an important problem for themselves because they had the means to hire vast resources of Private Security – the equivalent of the Modern Gated Communities. They just did not anticipate how bad things could get, and that vast hordes of invading barbarians, mixed with multitudes of Urban Rioters would easily be able to overwhelm the Private Security Companies that was supposed to keep wealth Safe. Not to mention the possibility of the Private Security Firms taking their pay and then going rouge, betraying their masters and then taking over the Mobs, to set up Power for themselves. Why take Orders when one has all of the Coercive Power necessary for giving Orders? As has happened so many times before, the Palace Guard takes over the Palace.

Now, today, yes, we are moving toward such dangerous levels of concentration of wealth. But what is different is that the Wealthy have worked out an unprecedented scam – bogus Military Emergencies are declared so that there can be Emergency Issues of Bonds and extensions of National Debt, all in order to fund more and more Military Weapons Systems. Bonds are converted into Cash which pours into the pockets of the Defense Industry… the primary holders of all the Concentrated Wealth. So, while in all previous Collapses, money had been diverted away from Security to go directly into the pockets of the Rich, in this case, Security was used as an opportunity for a Vast Money Laundering Scheme, and so, despite the Concentration of Wealth implications, there will at least be plenty of Security Resources available, and for a very long time to come.

Now, what are the problems. Previously, in other essays I had spelled out the working definitions for Civilization and Barbarism, in short, that Civilizations can support very dense and high levels of Population, where Barbaric institutions can support only thin levels of Population. Democracy and Western style Rugged Individualism is all rather Barbaric. All of America’s institutions derive from cheap and plentiful Land and, yes, thin levels of Population. The political polarization we now see in America is more than likely caused by stress on America’s mostly Barbarian Institutions, as more is being demanded of them then they can inherently deliver. The Rural Red States don’t like crowds and those Blue State City Slickers, demanding so much Cooperation, which might raise taxes a point or two, well, it makes the Red States so mad that they want to take out their millions of guns and go on a giant shooting rampage… which will indeed happen sooner or later.

Next, considering that America is setting up a virtual monopoly on World Military Power… having more Military Power then the next 5 Military Powers put together… 7 if you don’t count Britain and Israel which are actually sort of like the 51st and 52nd States… unless you choose to see America as again the Little Baby Colony of Great Britain… in which role it acted for almost the entire 20th Century. Oh, Israel… by a clever redeployment of Military Loans, kicking back millions of dollars each year into the American Political System, funding both main Political Parties, Israel exercises more influence on American National Politics than any group of states, corporations, or competing political lobby groups. Israel got everything that it paid for… using guaranteed American Loans to do it, but money is money. American Politics has been bought and paid for, making America the virtual Colony of Israel. Thank God that the People in charge of Israel are sensible and level headed.

Anyway, America’s abhorrence for crowds, and the Civilized Institutions necessary for maintaining People’s in Crowded Urban Settings, will contribute to greater and greater political friction around the World. America will see Other Countries institutionalizing Civilized Programs to manage their High Population Densities as Anti-American, Anti-Democratic, Anti-Capitalist. As America loses all other influence in the World, as the dollar must certainly collapse as it cannot indefinitely withstand the doubling and tripling of Bond Debt and Trade Deficits, then eventually America’s last resort will be firing off ALL THOSE MILITARY WEAPONS.

Now, there is good news and there is bad news. First the bad news – If America resorts to a Global Holocaust in order to keep its primacy, then the World’s Ruling Culture and Institutions will remain stunted in its Pre-Civilized Quasi-Barbaric Condition. Rugged Individualism will survive in order to rear its ugly head again and again and again well into the future. The Good News is that lower population levels, even if only temporary, will relax the heavy demands that have been put, lately, on poor Mother Earth.

What would be desirable would be to enable a modern set of Civilized Institutions which would allow for a High Population Density Equilibrium to be established… bringing as many Cultures and Language Groups on board as possible. But I don’t see how that could possibly happen… not in some simple ‘A to B’ trajectory, anyway. What we can see very clearly is that America could initiate a Global Holocaust any time it wants to. Remember, America’s military weakness is in Occupying defeated Nations. If all it wants to do was Kill Everybody, well, that would be easy.

Practical Reasons for Religious Tolerance

2009-10-23T21:22:00.001-07:00

Whether rationally justifiable or not, people become very emotionally invested in their Religions. What do you suppose occurs when these people feel that their Religion is under imminent threat? Psychology tells us that people in such a crunch will be impelled to Fight or Flight. Well, we cannot expect that everybody will run away. So much of the Violence we see in Religious History has been when Religion had taken to an active defense to an impending threat.

Usually the Atheist Community points out how reactively violent the Religious Communities are between each other. “Oh how terrible that the Religions are so antagonistic with each other… its all so simply Barbaric.”

But now the Paradigm is shifting.

I heard a News Story on the Radio about the Neo-Atheists. Probably because of the great success the Far Right has enjoyed with Confrontational Hate Politics, the youngest generation of Atheists have decided that they too would benefit from just such a similar strategy… an “Ends justifies the Means” kind of thing”.

So the tone has gotten harsher, more insulting… exactly like the Fox Network is toward Liberals except it is Atheists attacking Religion. Nothing is off limits. If Religion really is Evil, then the War against it should be total.

Oh, and if the Religions react violently to these assaults, well, again, it is something that can be blamed on Religion. When the First Punch can be rationalized away and justified, then the Punch Back can be blamed. All the focus can be placed upon the Religious Evil of fighting back. Besides, with Religion, any fighting, even fighting back, is clearly hypocritical. Yes, it just so happens that in regards to the Atheists, they can never be blamed for Hypocrisy. After all, Morality needs to come before Hypocrisy.

Anyway, lets look at this new Historical Dynamic, where Atheism is stepping into the Role of Opposing Religion for the purposes of instigating a New Religious War. Yes, yes… Atheism is NOT a Religion. My point is only that Atheism is now ACTING like a Religion, and in the worst way.

Oh, wait! I was ready to say that the most cogent argument AGAINST Religion had been that Religions caused polarization and conflict between Civilizations and Societies. We are supposed to believe that if it were not for Religious Differences, then all would go smoothly between different ethnic and racial groups – tribal affiliations, differences in language, culture, moral expectations, property dispositions, etc… all these things would be only a laugh and smile away from resolution if it were not for the hateful divisiveness that only Religion can be capable of. Only Religions cause War. And this is Religion’s biggest problem, or is it?

But now that Atheism seems poised on it own version of Religious War, do they really now find War to be such a problem? Now, I guess Atheism is growing more Higher Minded, and is probably claiming that the Biggest Problem with Religion is a Matter of the Highest Principle – that it Simply Isn’t True! Atheists have a Moral Duty to stop the Religions in their Lies! What is a little violence when it comes to defending the Highest Principles of Truth? Yes, it seems that Atheism is gearing up for War, and they no longer have a problem with that kind of thing… now that they are a part of it.

Anyway, I have one final argument here against Atheism, that it cannot possibly have any Moral Basis for exactly the same reason they insist that there is no God – that there is no Scientific Evidence for it. Yes, yes, I have heard it a million times that Atheism is not hostile to Morality. But just look around. The WORST Criminal Organization – the most ruthless and terrifying criminals – have all sourced out of the Territories of the Former Soviet Union… where Materialism and Atheism had been indoctrinated culturally for just 3 Generations. No, people were not positively taught to be Evil. I’m sure every opportunity was taken to stress the importance of Social Responsibility, Cooperation, Kindness, Altruism. But with the backdrop of Materialism and Reason, with its rejection of Religion and Spirituality… well, Morality just seemed silly. Selfishness… even Ruthlessness simply seemed for useful.

I wish Atheism would admit that they have a serious problem. Civilizations cannot survive, let alone coalesce, without Moral Beliefs… the general acceptance of inherently irrational moral assumptions. But since Atheism has turned Science into a Virtual Religion… Anti-Religion, that is, well, Morality necessarily has to be rejected. Natural Selection is not for Nice Guys.

When Push comes to Shove, the Atheist Community will count on Survival of the Fittest… what we usually refer to as “might makes right”.

And with their superior Technology, they will probably win any fight. But imagine the World these victorious Atheists will inherit, where they cannot make a single compelling argument not to be thieves and liars.

It reminds me of Voltaire, virtually the Father of Modern Atheism… he had been a Big Deal during what they called the Age of Enlightenment. Anyway, Voltaire had been put in charge of conducting the first French Lottery, and he rigged the game so he could win it himself (as any good Atheist would have) and thus became very rich. He bought an Estate and at first ran it like a true down to the bone Atheist. But then suddenly he built a Chapel and hired a Catholic Chaplin to oversee it and to conduct daily Mass. His Atheist friends were appalled. But Voltaire explained… “it is cheaper than letting the servants walk away with all the silverware”. His Estate could not run without a Moral Basis. Voltaire leaves us with the quote “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to create Him”.

Morality exists in the same Spiritual Atmosphere as God. We cannot do without the One because we need the Other.

Freedom and Privacy

2009-10-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

Freedom and Privacy

In the West we hear so much in praise of Freedom, but which kind of freedom? There are two kinds of freedom. There is the Freedom in the Light where every free act is done in the open, up and above board. Then there is the Freedom of Darkness, where all depends upon Privacy – concealed motives, hidden incomes, secret pass-times.

Whenever I hear Patriots on the Far Right glorifying the deaths of young soldiers who kill and are killed for Freedom, I wonder whether the gratitude is only about Protecting the Freedoms of Darkness and the Secrecy.

Yes, there are instances where there is some disagreement about what is and what isn’t shameful, that is, on what it is that requires so much Privacy. A great many Homosexuals would be happy to enjoy their Lifestyle in the open, but fear a crazy, bigoted and hostile general Public. Indeed, almost anybody even a shade outside the Sexual Mainstream is anxious about their Privacy. But we need to remember that Society has nearly always considered such things as the proper realm for Privacy. Sex, the Bathroom, and the Laundry – these things have always been private, and should really stay that way. Man as a Spiritual Being doesn’t need to be reminded so often of the Physical Things, and thus the Spiritual Importance of the Privacy of Home and Body.

Yes, while there have been historically recognized religious injunctions against some details of sexuality, in actual practice, most of the time, only discretion had really been required, and Religion would have been happy enough if only private matters had been kept private. While the Rules said “No Kinky Sex”, what was actually meant was “No Kinky Sex on Main Street in front of City Hall in the middle of the day”. Yes. Gay Sex Parades probably would never have been a good idea. But the same could be said for Straight Sex Parades. Such things should remain private.

Yes, yes… we now have large factions of the Public who are seriously hostile to and ready to attack certain groups because of their Private Behaviors. Legislation is invading the Home… even the bedroom. But honestly I think the motivations here are more seated in Democracy than Religion. When it is the Political Parties spending hundreds of millions of dollars to disseminate hostile propaganda and to establish Tax-Exempt Hate Action Groups, then we need to assign blame where the blame is due.

Yes, it is ironic that the same Political Groups that so loudly proclaim the importance of Freedom, are the ones who so readily jump to persecute others. The Conservative Freedom to Cheat on Taxes and Exploit the Lower Classes is somehow Sacred, but the Household Freedoms of the occasional sex act, which never impact anybody, are to be hounded out and destroyed.

And it is probably not even about Sex. Or Abortion. Or whatever. Remember, nowadays it is all about Democracy. And Democracy is about dividing and polarizing the Body Politic into Winning Majorities and Losing Minorities. Dividing. Not Uniting. The only things that matter are the things that can win or lose Elections.

We no longer have Good and Evil. We no longer have Right and Wrong. With Democracy has come a new operative Duality – Win and Lose.

It makes one willing to reconsider exactly whether or not Democracy should really be considered as a kind of “Ideal”, or should be grouped along with all of the other crazy excesses of History… another insane revolution, intoxicating the delusional Masses for an archeological moment, and finally ending in ruin and the collapse of Civilization.

But let’s return to the topic of Public Freedoms and Privacy. What kind of Man is Free – acts Free and lives deliberately – and has no need of Public Privacy? Well, of course, it is an Honest Man… usually a Working Man. Lives on Honest Pay, pays his taxes, largely stays at home, and doesn’t bother anybody. Then there is the Man who can be Free only behind the screen of Public Privacy. These are all of our Cheats and Criminals. I would guess most Politicians and Lawyers. Probably most of our Wealthy Classes are of this group. After all, it has been their Propaganda that has so closely tied Privacy with Freedom… and since Propaganda is not bought cheaply, they must want so much Privacy for some personally compelling Reasons. Also, in a highly competitive Marketplace, it is difficult to imagine how entirely honest men could get to the Top of the Heap when being dishonest and unethical would offer so many competitive advantages. I would suppose that the greatest part of any group of billionaires probably has something to hide. Large Fortunes, that is, Destructive Levels of Concentration of Wealth, and Mushrooms grow in the Dark. Yes, I know there is a difference. Only some Mushrooms are poisonous.

We’d all be much better off if all Public Privacy were entirely removed. Electronic Money to assure that every monetary transaction could be recorded and monitored, and cameras everywhere so there could be complete and total surveillance. We almost have all the Technology we need for it. Only improvements in Cataloging and Compressing an almost infinite amount of Data could make it all a bit more convenient.

Yes, yes, yes, we have been conditioned by Decades of Anarchist Propaganda into thinking that Surveillance is the worst of all possible Evils. Big Brother is supposed to be a Bad Thing. But we need to remember that at the turn of the 20th Century all the experts were worried about two conflicting Revolutionary Trends – it was the Communists versus the Anarchists. Now, a hundred years later, Communism has been defeated. But has anybody heard of the Evil of Anarchism lately. Not a word. Why? Well, because they were the Winners. They used Propaganda successfully to ‘normalize’ their crazy Doctrines. Anarchism became the New Mainstream. But if somebody were to visit from another Planet… the Planet of Objectivity and Reason, then the Anarchism would stand out for exactly what it is. Chaos.

All the Crime, Corruption, and Castles on Hills against the vast slums of Poverty… it’s the Chaos born of Anarchy. The Anarchists won.

We need to go back to the Middle.

And Total Surveillance would be a Good Thing. If the Police know everything, then Honest Men will no longer be condemned for not being able to produce their own alibis. “Where were you when…?” Criminals always have an answer for that question. Only Honest Men are caught short. A Total Surveillance Society would reverse that. Total Surveillance proves the Honesty of an Honest Man.

It would be a bit like Heaven. For after all, in Heaven does not God Know All, See All? And Pure Souls have nothing to hide from God. In the World, at least in the Public Realm… every man’s home still being his ‘castle’…no Honest Man should have anything to hide. It would be a Great Light from which all the Cockroaches of Crime would have to run and hide. We would trade a useless Privacy for a Substantial level of Security and Safety.

Subjugating Afghanistan

2009-10-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

Subjugating Afghanistan

Recently the Newspapers were all in a rage about the Italian Forces in Afghanistan paying bribes to the Taliban Forces to go easy. Apparently nobody had told the French, and so when the Italians rotated out and the French Rotated in, to what they thought was a Peaceful Sector, they were surprised when actual War broke out all around them. And of course the French, Moral Paragons one and all, absolutely refused to Pay for Peace… not when they could Kill for it.

Anyway, the International Consensus seemed to be that the Italians were not fighting fair, using money instead of mayhem.

Maybe it was because the word “bribery” had been used. You know, the American’s had done substantially the same thing in Iraq, only they did not call it ‘bribery’. There it was announced that General Patraeus “negotiated a settlement with the Sunni Insurgents whereby their militias would receive regular salaries and be issued weapons and ammunition in return for joining in the Fight against Al Qaeda”… all that said without using the word ‘bribery’ even once. But essentially it was the same thing… the Enemy was being paid off to go easy. And it worked! General Patraeus was hailed a huge Hero for practically winning the whole War single-handedly. They called his Strategy “The Surge”… but it was the surge of dollars into Enemy Pockets that turned everything around.

Oh, and it seems that it was more or less a personal agreement between General Patraeus and the Sunni Insurgents he had paid off. As soon as he left, taking his Promotion and moving on to Afghanistan, the Payments to the Sunnis entirely dried up. There were no official allocations or requisitions left in place. It all seems to have been done rather informally, as though General Patraeus had been taking the funds from Petty Cash or the Office Supply Budget. Of course, the Iraqi Government was free to renegotiate the Peace, picking up for themselves where General Patraeus had left off, but it is likely that the Shia Militants would rather keep the Money for themselves and go back to War with the Sunnis. They are, after all, Muslim. Besides, Iraq is a Democracy now. The Shia Politicians can’t very well announce that they are bribing Sunnis can they? So the Iraqi War will inevitably ratchet back up again.

Anyway, I have the feeling that the Italians in Afghanistan were just as careful about what they called their ‘bribes’ as General Patraeus was, but that the Media was not so kind to them as they were to the Americans. There are Perks in being the Last Remaining Superpower in the World. So the Media took the American Statement at face value, while they had no problem looking under the onion-skin of the Italian Statement to declare in outrage “But that is tantamount to Bribery!”

And this is why Democracies can’t fight Wars. Appeasing Public Opinion requires so much silliness. But what is needed in War must be practical and effective. What is practical and effective? Well, one offers significant rewards to those enemies who agree to cooperate – offering Jobs, Positions of Power, Social Respect and Status. But on the other hand there has to be a ruthless savagery delivered upon any Enemy who remains in the Field, to include entire Tribal Enclaves or even towns and villages that provide substantial logistical support for the Enemy. Remember, the Americans did not end their Civil War until Sherman burnt Atlanta and Lincoln assured the Plantation Owners that they could keep their Farms if not their Slaves. A Very Sweet Carrot or a Very Hard Stick. And Democracies are unwilling to do either one thing or the other. Look at the thanks Lincoln got.

Will the Messiah Be a Woman

2009-10-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

I recently had a dream; a dream that fit well within the new regime of dreams I have been having lately which place me as a member of a group. Yes, once I had been an individual, but now I have become a cog on the Great Wheel of Things. Anyway, at the center of this dream was a woman, not a young woman, who it seemed was being groomed and fitted out for some kind of role or contest. She was middle-aged and so it could not have been the usual ‘beauty contest’, but there seemed to be parallels. Attention was being paid to her appearance, but she was also being groomed for Talent and Expression. Interestingly, she did not smile… not that I was ever able to see. Not much levity in her character – this was a serious woman. But there was a great deal of gushing about her from the others. One of the ladies working upon her hair and make-up gave out the optimistic conjecture that she would certainly land First Place. Well, ‘optimistic’ projections into the future make me nervous. I always fear that hoping for the best brings the worst and that over-expectations attract a kind of ‘jinx’. So I spoke up, and not remembering exactly what I said, I said something like “No, we should be lucky if she gets second, and we certainly don’t want her to be proud”. At this moment the ladies had to go off and they got up to leave, including our Subject. As she walked by, while not remembering exactly what she said, she said something like, “yes, I will keep in mind not to be proud”. Well, it seemed like sarcasm and I echoed her on her way out… “You won’t be proud?”. It all came across as rather flat banter; that I DO remember.

After I awoke it occurred to me that I was nervous speaking around this woman, and that she was probably nervous speaking around me. Usually in my dreams I have gushing conversations with the ladies, but this was different. So it set me to wondering what was different. Why the tension?

Now, often in my dreams there had been elements describing the maturation and development of a Messianic Character… starting out decades ago, a Dream Character, as a young autocratic Prince, selfish to an infantile extent – everything was about himself. I would have to protect him from Palace Revolts. His egotism was that provoking. As years went by the Prince became idealistic, again to the extreme… he could not think clearly because of all his ‘principals’. There I had to protect him from his Wars. Wars are what occur when People in Power use any Means to protect even the slightest Ideals… not bothering to ask themselves “Is it worth it?”.

Several years ago this Dream Messiah matured. He was suddenly Wise and Clear Sighted, and not a little bit overwhelmed with the problems of the World, but I remember him resolutely marching off to address them. And he was definitely a male.

Was this Lady something of a feminine Messiah? She seemed already at the Mature Stage. There was no profound Egotism. She recognized the ‘Others’ all about her and made allowances for them. And her lack of Levity may have indicated there was no cloud of Ideals blocking her vision or putting stars in her eyes.

This all set me to thinking about the Real World. Might a Female Messiah be better received, over-all, than a Man? I was thinking that the Collective of Male Testosterone from around the world would perhaps bristle less in reflexive reaction to a Women rising to World Dominance, than some hairy man who wouldn’t get any respect until he had beaten everybody up, just like in any band of primates or pack of wolves. But, no, not really. I remembered that Female Heads of State have had a horrible time being accepted… as a percentage of their total, the girls get assassinated far more often than the boys. Apparently The Game is even rougher for the women.

But a female Messiah might have greater credibility among Women in general. I might suspect that Women from all around the World have begun to be suspect of Men… at home, in Politics, in Business. They look around and they see the men in their lives, as they drink, as they gamble, as they smoke cigarettes and as they run around from whore house to whore house, lying about every single thing they do. Would these women have much trust in a Messiah, if he were a man? I would guess not. Especially after the big let-down of Obama. Male Messiahs would all seem like so much more bullshit.

But is it important what Women think? Well, yes. Women raise children. The first notions in a child’s head are planted there by the Mother. We get our first philosophies on our mother’s lap. If we want a Generation growing up respecting a Messiah, it would probably be best if the Messiah were a Woman.

Recording TV Shouldn’t be THAT Difficult

2009-10-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

Topics covered:

DVD Recording Errors

VHS Recording problems

Sylvania ZV450SL8

Pioneer DVR-650H

ATSC Tuning

NTSC Tuning

HDD vs. DVD vs. VHS

I suppose I am one of millions of people who used to watch one TV Show while recording another to watch later. We would all use VHS Tapes. In the old days you could buy some fairly reliable VHS Recorders… ones that would last 3 or 4 years. But that was long ago. I think the manufacturers finally peaked at the point where they could make the things very cheaply, out of the cheapest components – weak motors, lowest bid bearings, and electronics from the very latest Developing Nation to discover the Factory System while still having just the faintest inkling regarding Quality Control. Oh, the machines would have to be meaty enough to last through the warranty period. So, in the end they were selling us 60 day VHS Recorders. And the tapes seemed to have taken the same trajectory downward. In the Old Days I would use a single tape for years on end. Now, most tapes can’t survive through to their fifth use. The Industry seemed to have had a Race to the Bottom. Some Brands were worse, but none were good. You can take apart a “Premium Tape” and find, well, just throw-away parts… indeed you’ll come away surprised that they last as long as they do.

Anyway, I was getting tired of the cycle of buying new tapes, hoping I was having a chronic tape problem, only to find I needed a whole new machine. Or sometimes the failures were mercifully catastrophic – where a machine would just die, saving me from the nagging “it could be anything” kind of problems… forcing one to go out and buy head cleaners, new tapes, and eventually whole new machines anyway.

I was looking at my old machine, that Sylvania, that was slowly giving up the VHS ghost and noticed on the other side it had a DVD Recorder. Problem solved! I thought. So I went out and bought some DVD Read Writable Disks and got to work. Guess what I found. “RECORDER ERROR Can not record on this Disc E 4 5403900”. later I would get E 4 54043e02

It turns out that the Manufacturers agreed upon a common standard for Error Codes, but they won’t tell anybody what they mean. You can even search it on line and not find out any real information on these Universal Error Codes… I guess the Companies found a way to purge the Net, or they have assassin teams. Anyway, nobody is will to tell you what these codes mean. As far as the General Public is concerned, they all mean just about one same thing – “You’re Screwed!”

But I found a lot of Web Traffic from other people who were having RECORDER ERROR messages. There are a lot of problems out there. First, there is a difference between DVD+ and DVD-. The old machines, and mine was an old Sylvania ZV450SL8, don’t recognize the DVD+. Then there was the Speed Problem. The Old Machines don’t recognize the new speeds, and nobody sells the Old Slow DVD Disks anymore. Oh, you can try to buy new-old discs online, but half the time the Sellers will ship the Fast Ones thinking they are doing you a big favor… faster is better, right? Then the problem that breaks the Camels back is not all disks work in all players. Some Machines from some Manufacturers like Disks made by one company but not another. Nothing on the packaging tells you this. Some of the User Manuals, on page 37 or thereabouts, warn that special brands must be sought out, but who reads the manuals anyway?

You know, Government Regulated Standardization would have precluded all of these problems. We really do need Big Government… no, we need a HUGE Government. This letting EVERY manufacturer build and sell tricky recorders and tricky tapes where nothing works with anything else, and so much time and money is wasted playing mix and match… well, it all could have been settled in one big Planning Meeting where specifications could have been decided upon once and for all. And if something doesn’t work, then some Big Ass CEO goes to jail and a Vendor License gets lifted. No more getting stuck with useless Memorex Tapes. It all makes me wonder whether Archeologists digging up our Landfills thousands of years from now will be left to puzzle why Trash Dumps all around the World were peppered with spools of Memorex Disks still fresh in their packaging. I suppose if they still have Capitalism, they will understand quickly enough, for as long as Capitalism remains alive then the notion and appeal of baiting Consumers with pretty but useless junk and ripping them off will never be entirely forgotten or abandoned.

Well, but shaking my fist at the sky would not help… not indefinitely, anyway. I had to believe that something out there might work – that some certain Brand and Model of Machines with some certain Brand of Disks could make for a useable combination. They couldn’t all be bad, could they? So I did a huge Web Search to find something that I could confidently go out and buy. But I just found that there are a million problems out there. Yes, there were happy customers out there, but they seemed far too relieved. Everybody was going through way too much trouble! Oh, one guy On Line gave out the cogent and probably prophetic warning that DVD’s were probably a transitory medium anyway, and that it would be crazy to get over-invested in it, and that if one still had an old piece of junk VHS recorder and a pile of tapes laying around the house that still worked, then try to get another couple of years out of them to last you up to the point where we can all laugh derisively when the well deserved Death of DVD comes as it surely will. Unfortunately, my machine was choking on my last few tapes and I need something new now. I was missing TV shows.

You know, we have been in the middle of a Memory Revolution – hard drives with dazzling amounts of memory, and even little memory sticks that each have a hundred times more data capacity then NASA had in total when they ‘said’ they landed a man on the moon. With so much Digital Memory available so cheaply, why were we all still dicking around with disks and tapes? Why not just run the TV Shows into pure memory, simple and sweet?

Yes, there is TiVo. Isn’t that what TiVo does? They have a Webpage that doesn’t seem to work.. or I couldn’t make it work. Anyway, the word I picked up on TiVo is that it is akin to being in a kind of Cult or Secret Society that one has to join… that you can’t just buy a TiVo machine and go home and fire it up. I’ve heard that people have to sign up for stuff. Maybe you need to tithe and attend Sunday services for it. I’m not sure about anything…as I said, their Web Page wouldn’t even work for me. And it all sounds far too complicated from what I have heard in the general ambiance. Remember, it is all only about recording one TV show while one watches another. It shouldn’t involve monthly payments, calendar schedules, sworn oaths, giving up first born children and dancing naked at the bi-annual human sacrifice ceremonies. If I wanted that kind of thing, I’d buy a Saturn.

But once I got the idea of Pure Memory Recording, I searched around and found that Pioneer made a few Machines that might do the job for me. So I ran out and bought one right on the sport, right? No, wrong. There has been another Big Problem plaguing the TV Recording Crowd and that is the Tunerless TV Recorder – VHS or DVD Recorders without the “Antenna In” and “Antenna Out” Connectors. They sell them all over the place now. The first time I bought one, I didn’t believe it when I got it home and found that there was no place to plug my Cable. Honestly, what good is it? Yes, yes, the Sales People tell you that you can get a Top Box or a Set Top Box. But the stores never have one in stock to sell to me. I was told the Cable Company would be glad to rent me one… if I wanted to stand in line for it, and then add to my monthly payments. It was disgusting. Technology taking these huge steps backwards. New Recorders not able to replace Old Recorders.

Anyway, after looking long and hard I found Recorders with Tuners – with Antenna Ins and Outs. The boxes were labeled as having ATSC Tuners. And these worked fine. It turns out, though, that ATSC Tuners are specifically made to handle the new Digital Signals. But most Cable Companies are still putting Analog Signals out over their lines. Yes, they are receiving Digital Programming on their end and we can see the signs of this when the picture freezes or gets choppy or the voices get out of sync… all Digital TV problems, but the signal actually running down our cables is Analog, that is, unless you are actually paying extra to specifically get Digital Channels and those highfalutin HiDef Channels, and even then you will probably still have a range of Analog Channels… in my area is it channels 2 through 64. You know, we should be very happy and grateful that the Cable Companies are converting these signals for us, at their end, or we really would need those darn ATSC top boxes. Oh, if the Cable Companies ever do give up on giving us free Analog Conversion, then we will need not just one ATSC Tuner, but we will need Double Tuners, so we can watch one show while recording another. I saw it mentioned a few times while I was doing all that searching around. It all might happen in 2012, to coincide with all that other End of the World crap.

Anyway, I looked up the Pioneer specs and could find nothing anywhere that said anything about its having an ATSC Tuner. This was when I still thought that was what I needed. But in the Tuner section of the Specifications it listed NTSC. So I looked that up. It turns out that NTSC is Analog Tuning… what I had been getting all along. You see, the ATSC Tuners I had been dealing with were designed to recognize and pass-through Analog Signals to some bare-minimum NTSC Analog tuner that the TV would recognize. I thought I had been using the ATSC Tuners, but not really… not in the full sense. But I was getting a Picture and I was happy. I never knew the difference of the fine details.

Oh, by the way, Retail Salespeople are mostly young lazy idiots. Yeah, for minimum wage, what would we expect, but they are around the stuff all day long. It’s their job to know this stuff. Or maybe it is a matter of them being too young and too dumb to have any communication skills or realizing what the World really expects of them. In a highly technical business they need to be able to come to terms with all of the complexities involved – they need to know what all the little Letters and Logos on the Boxes mean, and they need to be able to explain their applicability to the Customer’s World and Requirements. But these kids are out of our School Systems. They think that they were doing fine with barely passing grades. Really, the schools do a great disservice to the children by providing so many Passing Grades in their Evaluations – A, B, C, D. Only ‘F’ flunks. Only 2 Grades are necessary for any Educational Evaluation – “Perfect” and “Go Back and Try Again”. Until they master everything that is expected of them, they should not be allowed go on and get out – keep them in School forever, or transfer them straight to Prison if they pass some certain age limit. But the Schools should not be allowed to release these idiots into the greater society. The Schools with their system of ‘Good Enough’ does not prepare these young people for a World where good enough is simply no longer good enough.

And with some of those kids one needs to wonder of their honesty. This one Pioneer Model in one large well stocked Audio Electronics Specialty Store had “Antenna In” and “Antenna Out” connectors, where the Tuner is, but it was not the traditional threaded 75 Ohm Cable Input that we are familiar with. He could find an adapter only for the “Antenna In”. I mentioned that I need “Antenna Out” also. He said “You are only recording, so you only need the ‘In’”. Well, I had explained earlier what I was doing – recording one thing while watching another, that the Signal has to be able to run through the Recorder to the TV Set for both things to work at once. He either didn’t understand, or he was lying to me. He was either stupid or he thought I was. That bothered me.

Anyway, when I finally understood that the Pioneer Machines probably would be able to work just fine with the cable I had at home, with their HTSC Tuners, I went out and bought one of their Machines.

I found a small shop where the Owner was the salesman. He had a bench in the back with equipment stacked up. He knew what all the Letters and Logos on the boxes meant. He knew ATSC and NTSC and showed me in his shop the hookups I would use at home, and that they would work. He was fun to talk show, and the demonstration was fun. It verified everything I had learned in all of my Web Searches.

I got a Pioneer DVR-650H. It has a Hard Drive with 250 Gig Memory… that is a lot of hours of TV. It also had a DVD side. Yeah, a lot of people buy these things so they can illicitly tape movies in the theaters with their camcorders and then ‘burn’ Cheap Pirate Swap Meet Copies to sell on the street. Salespeople were assuming that is why I wanted to buy such a thing and were giving me all the Details of the Pirate Trade, and I had to interrupt several times with “Excuse me, but do I really look that sleazy?” Oh, but the machines were rather pricey – three times what I would have expected to pay for a new VHS Recorder. Yes, so I guess it would be nice if the machine could help pay for itself, sleazy or not, wouldn’t it? The asking price was $699 but after I told my sad tale to the Store Manager, he good-willed a hundred bucks off the top and let me have it for $600 even. I was grateful, but still wonder how much just a Hard Drive Thing would have been. Maybe Pioneer should think of making something that can be used purely in the case where somebody wants to watch one TV Show while he records another. Sometimes spending a little bit for a machine that does the one simple thing that one needs it for is preferable to spending a ton of money for a machine that does that one simple thing, while also being able to do a million other things that will only collect dust, never be used, and slowly rot away from neglect. But, then again, it might simplify manufacturing and marketing to have One Model that keeps everybody happy. The big price bite was probably the Hard Drive thing anyway. All the other extras probably did not add up to much at all. So I should probably stop all my bitching.

This Pioneer thing, the DVR-650H, does seem to be a very good machine. For one thing, the NTSC Tuner seems to be a notch above the simple minimum that came in my Sylvania ZV450SL8. The same Cable Signal going to the same TV seems to have a lot more sharpness and clarity. Maybe even the DVD side works. I don’t know. After all these DVD problems I’ve been having, I simply don’t want to have to screw with it.

The important thing is that the HDD Side works very well. HDD is what they call the Hard Drive half of the thing. I thought I was having problems at first, because I couldn’t set out a “Title” which I thought it was necessary to do (you see, I had started to read the Manual. One should NEVER read the Manuals… they only confuse you and put ideas into your head). Anyway, if you just start to record something then the Machine will automatically give it a Title – referring to the time of day or the channel one is recording, which one can edit later at one’s leisure. I was actually making it quite harder than it needed to be. Really, it is almost as simple as just hitting a single button.

Oh, I took a guess and started to PLAY a previously recorded TV show while recording a new Recording, and, WOW, it lets you watch what you recorded before while recording something new. Now that’s progress! That old VHS Machines couldn’t do that.

Bumper Sticker Doctrine of Free Sin

2009-10-11T06:47:00.000-07:00

In my visits to America I had seen a bumper sticker: “I am not Perfect, just Forgiven”. Do a search, it turns out to be a title of a song… probably one of those twangy Country Songs done in a thick Texarkana accent that bespeaks the urge to fight the Battle of Appomattox all over again, hoping for a different outcome. I think they all think that EVERY white man had his own Plantation.

I saw the bumper sticker while on Route 66, the famous Highway that coincidentally follows the Bible Belt from end to end, from East to West, from start to finish. What is the ‘Bible Belt’, you may ask. Well, I’ve heard it characterized as Bible Churches and Honkytonks, competing for every street corner… that is, the ones not already taken up by McDonalds. The Bible Belt is also known for a great deal of incest, which probably needs no further explanation than all the chronic drunkenness…to be charitable we must suppose that such behavior can only be explained by actions committed during dead-drunk blackouts. Oh, and Blackouts are quite common in that region. There are Cowboys who think it quite normal to never remember how they get home, or how they manage to wake up finding themselves in jail. Oh, the women also, if one looks at them closely, they do not seem to trail far behind the men in their drinking, or their smoking, or in every means of pursuing a steady decline. So, anyway, all the talk about Incest is just a big rumor. But that doesn’t mean they know where all the babies are coming from. They simply can’t remember.

They really could use more birth-control. In the American South every woman over the age of six should be on birth control. Incest or not, it might serve to slow down the babies having so many babies.

Now, it might be supposed that the Churches are there to turn around this deplorable situation of abysmal morality, that the Churches would exercise a positive moral influence. You would think so. But actually these little Bible Churches are probably a huge contributing factor. They’ve been there from the first. After a few hundred years one would think their beneficial influence would have kicked in by now. But I fear that The Free Sin Doctrine is not lost on these people. While they may nearly all be Brain Rotted Stupid, still, the constant repetition finally gets through. Tell an idiot a million times that God forgives his Sins and he might begin to eventually consider the matter as a given… and then crawl into bed with his… close relatives.

Yes, yes, yes, Young Christian People are always arguing with me that NOBODY understands Christian Doctrine to imply Free Sin. They mean ‘nobody they know’. Not in the Churches where they have come from! How can this be explained? Well, the Churches in the Northeast and West emphasize a different facet of Paulism – Predestination and Election – that God signals who is Saved or Not by who is Rich or not. So the Protestants of the Northeast have to work hard and earn earn earn, in order to prove to God and Themselves that they are part of the Saved Elect. Of course, they still have Forgiveness of Sins, but ONLY if they are members of the Elect. So they are likely to do ANYTHING to get rich. Their eternal Salvation depends on it. You see, if they end up Poor, it means that they are and always have been and always will be, damned – ‘reprobate’ is the Theological Term. It all tends toward stratifying a Class Society, where a Social and Economic Elite will dig in and defend their Special ‘Spiritual’ Status… their ‘election’ or having been chosen by God. Yes, this is all morally reprehensible, bigoted and snobbish, but at least they are frugal and watch how much time and money they waste on drink and drugs, prostitutes, etc. This is all Church of England Protestantism and Presbyterianism. Oh, and they think it is all wonderful proof of how great their Religion is that so many of their Members are Rich as God. They really do in their heart of hearts directly correlate Material Wealth with Divine Spiritual Preference.

One can hardly decide which is worst. Rich Sinners or Poor Sinners.

But in the Bible Belt, it is nearly all Baptist. The Baptist Churches came out of the same Society as Plantations and Slavery. There was only one Rich Man in every town. The Church couldn’t tell EVERYBODY they were reprobate… so in that particular Doctrine (Amoral Election and Predestination), Paul was allowed to be ignored. But the REST of the Bible was definitely the Word of God! Especially those parts about Sin All You Want. Yes, in the South, and the Wannabee South of that great sprawl of Red States, they know their Bible… the convenient parts, anyway. Born Again! Saved! It is drummed into them from their mother’s lap. Believe in the Lord Jesus and your sins will be forgiven. Forget about being Rich when you can be poor and happy (they mean drunk and laid).

Oh, I shouldn’t just be singling out the moral decadence of America’s rural whites. I suspect there is also a connection between all of the little Black Protestant Churches and high crime rates in the Black Communities. And then there is the astronomically high rate of unwed preganancies, which are probably not entirely a bad thing. The young Black ladies have enough sense to kick the young men out who would otherwise be a drain on their households. Rural White Women need their Men, even if it drags them down. Black Women manage to get on by themselves. But there are social drawbacks. While it is good for the women, it deprives the men of the civilizing influence that the company of women often imparts. The men, not living with women but only socializing with them in the worst places, begin to extrapolate from their experience that women are only creatures of the night, and they become dismissive of them. Listening to Modern Urban American Music, there is no very high regard expressed for Women. And this only exacerbates the tendency for the Women to further isolate their Homes away from the men who so little appreciate them.

The Black Community may have some positive influences flowing in from Islam. Muslim Theology pays a great deal more attention to Moral Responsibility. However, the Muslim propensity for Justifying Violence is troubling, especially as it is being introduced into a Community that has enough problems with Violence already.

I’ve been watching the Tyler Perry movies. They are great break from the typical Hollywood formulas where every movie is great deal like the one before. Tyler Perry deals with some very deep and complex problems in the Black Community and he portrays the Black Churches as a largely positive influence. The Churches are centers for Community Support, and that can hardly be minimized. However, unless the Books and Doctrines of Paul are ripped out and tossed away, it does a morally troubled community little good to hear the preachings that God has a policy for endorsing Free Sin. The Black People only need to look over at the White People, their Rural Neighbors or the City Snobs, and ask themselves if that is what they wish to turn into. The Black Community should consciously separate Jesus out from Paul and formulate what they believe are the correct Doctrines. A Christianity of Just Jesus would have all the advantages of a Morally Stringent Islam but without the flaws of Constant Jihad against everybody and everything. Thank God that Jesus never picked up that sword that Mohamed took up and that has been following around Islam ever since. Mohamed may have had his reasons, but today every Camel Jockey from Mongolia to Zanzibar thinks they have plenty of reason too and the Example of Mohamed only encourages them.

The one advantage Islam does have is that you can’t nail a Bumper Sticker to a camel’s ass.

Child Molesting and the End to Salvation

2009-10-10T21:40:00.001-07:00

When the Bishops were found to have taken every dodge to clear Pedophile Priests or to allow them to escape the long arm of the Law, well, people could not understand it in the least. Was it Corruption? Was it simply dull witted insularism where the Bishops only had it in mind to protect the Us’s from the Them’s? But the Bishops were powerful Bosses of the Church, and the Priests, well, just little worker ants in the system. Why did the Bishops care so much? Why didn’t the Bishops simply throw those little perverts to the Wolves – turn them in for prosecution, ex-communicate them and fire their asses. Burn down their damn houses!

But nobody thought for a moment about Church Doctrine. Remember, Jesus died for our sins. Forgiveness. Salvation by Faith, not Works. In a Theological Setup like that, really, isn’t one sin much like the next. Are not all sins to be forgiven. So, yes, while there is a particular horror about Child Molesting, from the standpoint of Doctrine, the Bishops could not treat it in any other way than as though it were a normal sin like lying, cheating, exploiting the poor, or the usual adult heterosexual sins … the normal Work-a-day Bread and Butter Sins of the Confessional. The ones the Priests say they’ve heard a thousand times.

So, anyway, the Bishops were defending the Pedophiles because they thought they were defending Doctrine. Salvation hung in the balance. If God would forgive those cocksuckers, He would forgive anybody. Isn’t that what everybody signed up for? Hey, if you don’t like Sinning, what did you become a Christian for?

In the Middle Ages if anybody questioned Catholic Doctrine, then the Heel would fall. Complaining Communities would be declared heretical ‘en masse’. If some arrests and convictions did not turn things around, then there would be more, and more, and more. If slaughtering the entire heretical community was what it would take to silence the Questioning of Doctrine, then that is what it took. Oh, and remember that the Big Complaint was never that the Bishops were Morally too strict. It was always about Corruption. And, yes, there were always a great many complaints that the hired Priests were … troublesome. You know, honestly, the Bishops never did believe in paying their Priests what decent well educated Human Beings should be paid. So they paid Second Rate and got Second Rate. But despite all that it still remained firmly in the Field of Salvation Doctrine that people could not simply withdraw the Benefits of Salvation from some Christians because the Sins considered inconvenient. Salvation was Salvation. There could be no picking or choosing, or it all would be lost. Wouldn’t it?

But now we have the Modern World and the Church was being taken to Court and losing. Defense of Doctrine was not a permitted defense in the Secular Courts. The Law recognized only Moral Responsibility. And the Church was losing big. Some Cities had to sell off more than half of their Schools and Hospitals to pay off the Sex Victims… who deserved all they got. Afterall, people cannot be expected to give out Blow Jobs for free. They stepped forward demanding to be paid for their services. So give them the money. They must have worked very hard for it. We can all live without schools and hospitals as long as we know that all the various sex acts had been paid for in full. Yes, we can never forget who the victims were in all this.

Oh, by the way, the Catholic Church is constitutionally decentralized. The Pope is ONLY the Bishop of Rome. He would take care of Rome, and the Bishops would take care of their Towns. The way this came down legally was that the Lawyers could not sue Rome for what was done in Cleveland. So the Bishops had to pay their own bills. So, how long, then, could we expect that a Bishop would defend Doctrine if it meant he would eventually go bankrupt and lose his entire Diocese. Rome was not helping. Indeed, Rome seemed as ready to throw the Sinners to the Wolves as anybody else. The Vatican had released self-serving Comments deploring the decline in American Morals… and then European Morals when just as much Pedophilia was found Over There.

So Pedophilia was selected out as being the One Unforgivable Sin. No Salvation for the Pedophile. No Forgiveness. Christ did not die for no dick up the ass.

But wait… what does that do to the whole Doctrine? Remember that the Bishops earlier were probably not defending those little cocksucking Priests because of any sense of loyalty or attachment. They probably wanted to flog them to death for creating so much trouble. But they saw it as their Duty as Bishops to defend Doctrine above all else.

Well, now the doctrine has been cracked.

The World hated Pedophiles and so the Pedophiles be damned.

But now isn’t All Sin back on the Table. Can the Church really just throw out only a corner piece of Doctrine? Now that a Line can be Crossed, what new Doctrine defines that line?

What exactly were we going for when we wanted Forgiveness of Sins? What did we think Salvation meant? Just the little Sins? Of course we could not be forgiven if we did anything seriously wrong. But that reduces Christian Salvation to just silliness.

Anyway, I’m happy. Paulist Doctrine has been renounced. But how long is the Church going to let it go without making the formal announcement that Salvation is no longer in play?

Maybe the Church will be cynical about it all. If nobody has noticed yet, maybe they never will. They will simply run the Church one way, insisting upon Moral Responsibility and Good Works, while still paying lip service to Forgiveness and Salvation. The Church will pretend there is still Salvation and Forgiveness, as long as nobody expects to get any of it. They will continue to Write the Checks against all the old abandoned Doctrines. But since all the Lawsuits, they just can’t cash them any more.

Evil Monks

2009-10-10T05:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I had spoken with a fellow who, in his younger days, had been an American Peace Corps Volunteer in the Far East. Amidst his endless stories and observations was the fascinating tidbit that NOBODY ever decided to become a Buddhist Monk, that the Monasteries were actually just functional Orphanages. Yes, while it is supposed that some actual orphans were dropped off, that is, children who had lost their parents, in most cases it was probably prostitutes dropping off incidental babies, or a farmer dropping off the baby of an unmarried daughter after “a fox had jumped out her window”, whereupon the daughter could become a proper virgin again. So, in short, the Monasteries of the Far East are filled almost completely with … well, let’s keep calling them “orphans”. That’s nicer. His point was that in the Far East becoming a Monk represented no huge religious or spiritual commitment. Monks just happened to be Monks. Nobody ever asked them what they wanted?

Oh, and these people would continue to be Monks all of their lives, considering that there was a strong social stigma against… “orphans”. Somebody should probably look into that today. With Television everywhere, probably even in the Monasteries, these Monks would learn what it is to act normally. They could escape, grow their hair, go to the Big City and get a job. So it is that the Modern World changes everything.

Anyway, back to the Orphanage Monasteries. Yes, it is wonderful that in certain Monasteries the Monks are given such intensive training in matters of the Spirit… if we could only find where such a Monastery actually exists. But more usually we see Monks given enough vocational training to be manufacturers of Gift Shop Trinkets, or they are set out to beg at the train stations or airports. Their Spiritual Training consists of keeping to a schedule of mandatory prayers. Well… that better than nothing.

Oh, but there is far worst. We see all these Movies in which unscrupulous Administrators of these Orphanage Monasteries take all of these lads and train them up to be Fighters, Militiamen and Assassins. Certainly, it must be a far stretch to understand how Religion and Spirituality could have much to do with any of this. It is more likely that Chief Administrators with Priestly Titles have no official oversight and can make themselves rich in any way they can imagine, even by hiring out private armies and hit men.

Oh, it is not just the Buddhists I blame for this lack of centralized discipline and control of their “Priests”, but historically the Muslims have had the same problem with their Monasteries. The original Assassins came out of some very corrupt Muslim Monastery. And the Assassins would have made the Ninjas look like a bunch of little pussies!

Oh, and here is a puzzler… that there are so few female Monks, Nuns, in the Far East. Nobody ever says so out loud, but a lot of ‘nostril pinching’ is suspected. What they ‘say’ is that the female babies are far more frail than the boys and so many more female babies ‘die’ at birth… nobody says they are ‘killed’, but simply that they don’t make it. Yeah, pinching their noses probably doesn’t help since they are so frail already. Anyway, even if they are not wanted, the boys are passed along to the Monasteries. There is simply nowhere for the unwanted female babies to go. I hope this has changed. To me, the prejudice seems to go the wrong way. Girls can be so much more useful than boys in the Modern World. They cooperate better. Less testosterone. Anything a boy can do, that matters, a girl can do better.

Oh, the West should not be too judgmental about Infant ‘Nose Pinching’. Remember that only until recently “Infant Mortality” was high even in the West. And Mid-Nurses were employed. Now, what was a Mid-Wife’s job, exactly? The Mid-wife would come into the home. Talk to the wife. Talk to the husband. Have a look around. Then a baby would be born that would either live or die. Coincidentally, a lot of large families in small houses had a higher infant morality rate. Not a written word has passed into History… who would write such a thing? … but the Mid-Wives were probably nose-pinching. Oh, and while their services were much sought out, sometimes it was resented, and the resentment would on occasion explode. Most of the American Witch Trials targeted Mid-Wives. But they shut down those trials quickly. People needed to protect their Secret. Before Birth Control and Legal Abortion, and before there were Social Programs and Safety Nets for the miserably Poor, people needed to do something about their pest Babies. I guess nobody thought about sending them all to a School for Trained Killers. Oh, if only the whole World were Buddhist.

Civilization and the Internet

2009-10-10T02:47:00.001-07:00

The Ancient Greeks thought of themselves as ‘Civilized’ and thought of everyone else as ‘barbarian’. What they probably meant by it was whether or not people were familiar with their own local customs – they should have just said “Greek” or “Not-Greek”, not “Civilized” or “Barbarian”.

In the Modern World people use the word ‘Civilized’ to mean modern. Old ways are ‘Barbarian’ while all the new stuff is “Civilized”. It plays well into the idea that All Progress is Good.

Or the term ‘Civilized’ is used to cover everything they deem to be ‘politically correct’. When being judgmental, people used the term ‘Civilized’ to express approval, ‘Barbarian’ to express disapproval.

But important words need to be defined. If we really seek to be ‘Civilized’ we really have to have some fixed idea to aim for that does not shift with the popular taste or the political mood of the day.

Thinking about what Civilization has meant throughout History, at the most basic level it refers to those institutions and customs that allow for the greatest population densities. Barbarian, as the opposite, refers to cultural traits that keep population densities low, serving to engage conflict that either kills off population elements directly or serves to drive off population into retreat and emigration. Examples? Ancient China and India were able to sustain huge urban populations. Against this on the other extreme we have Nomadic Hunter Gatherers or Nomadic Pastoralists where populations were low and were actively maintained to be low – think the American ‘Indians’ or the Eurasian Steppe Tribes.

The other day I was reading a book that purported to lay out the next hundred years. Regarding the Internet, his comment was that it was ‘barbarian’ … I found the quote – “Computing culture is… by definition, barbaric. The essence of barbarism is the reduction of culture to a simple, driving force that will tolerate no diversion or competition”. Huh!? Sounds like he doesn’t like computers and so they are ‘Barbaric’… “by definition”. His definition of Barbarism, that it ‘tolerates no diversion or competition’, well that sounds like institutions that settle conflict and emphasize cooperation. And isn’t that Civilized? Remember it is the Lowest Population Density Cultures that allow for the most Competition, most of it very deadly. And as for ‘diversion’, the small tribal units that rise up and develop within the matrix of all the nomadic travel and the competing social organizations and individuals found in more advanced Barbaric Communities, well, are often very diverse, especially in regards to the development of new weapons systems to be used to advantage in all of their ‘competitions’.

It is the Civilizations that, on the other hand, prioritize conflict resolution and cooperation by regulating ‘competition’ and minimizing ‘diversion’ as a source of social friction. The author’s “definition” simply does not fit with the patterns of History. I think what the guy was doing was using a definition of Civilization and Barbarism that paraphrased “American” and “Un-American”. His book “The Next Hundred Years” was a thinly veiled manifesto urging America to launch a military assault on the rest of the World, conquering it before there could be any significant change in the balance of powers away from Unchallenged American Supremacy. Computerization, which could empower the Developing World, scares the guy and in his mind can end up hurting America more than it helps, so it has to be Barbarian – ‘by definition’.

Actually, Computerization has already proven to be rather ‘civilized’, insofar as it has been applied to organize or produce subsistence goods and to ameliorate the living conditions within the Modern Urban Sprawls. And the Sky is the limit. Left unrestricted Computerization and the Information Society could really collect and catalogue ALL information. Society and the Economy could be planned down to the finest details. Oh, and Crime and Corruption depends upon Shadows and Information Dark Zones. Complete Information would eradicate Crime and Corruption. A complete Civilization would definitely have a Computerized Backbone.

Yes, Computers have been used for assault and to divide, that is, Computers have had a Barbaric role in places. Barbarians use any Weapon they can find. Many Corporations and Political Activists have urged Computerization upon Authoritarian Regimes, hoping that “Freedom” of information would serve for the Collapse of Order, so that Western Corporations could swoop in and pick up the pieces. Use the Internet to spread Discontent and Rebellion – to burn ‘down Civilized Cathedrals’ so the Businessmen can get ‘a few golden candlesticks’ cheap at auction.

Yes, in fact the Internet can be destabilizing. However, behind the possibility of a little bit of destabilization, there is the huge potential for centralizing and collecting Information. This makes Control so much easier. Corruption and Crime were possible in previous Planned Economies, but with Computerization and the links between all Information and All Transactions, well, it won’t be quite so easy to make a bag of potatoes go missing as it was before.

There has been a previous Information Revolution in History. The Printing Press. It first arrived in China. The Chinese used the Printing Press to distribute Information Pamphlets. The first major printing in History was the title “Get Rich Grow Rice”, it was distributed free from the Government, and the little book gave precise details for building rice paddies and installing irrigation systems (“water always flows from up to down”) as well as setting out the calendar for planting and harvesting. The Chinese made much of their Information Revolution – Chinese Population grew enormously while at the same time larger surpluses were able to be stored to offset occasional famines and dry spells. Other forces eventually intervened, but largely Information proved to be a good thing in regards to promoting and maintaining a high population density… in being ‘Civilized’.

When the Printing Press got to Europe, it was used to reproduce the Bible, which was sold privately, and which effectively introduced Paulist Doctrine to the Masses. Paulist Doctrine? Think “Salvation” which is the code word for Free Sin and permissive Capitalism. European Civilization became fracture by Nationalistic and Class Wars and there was the rise of the exploitative Factory System, Usury, Rum Running, the Slave Trade. Of course, there was also the Chinese Style of Information Books getting out, though nobody ever gave anything away. The Printing Press Revolution in Europe was therefore half Barbaric and half Civilized – forces of conflict and selfishness offset by tools for production and cooperation. The Result still hasn’t entirely settled.

But the Computerized Revolution… well, it all gets cranked up by a significantly large notch, doesn’t it? I would bet on Civilization… eventually. The near view is a bit troubled, however.

The World presently is on the brink of disaster and I honestly can’t see it so swiftly turn back from the Edge, as it would need to do. So the Present Order is very likely to collapse and the 7 Billion people who live today will be confronted by a period of intense Barbarism. Remember that Barbarism cannot support any significant Population Density. As Economies and Product Distribution Systems break down, crowded metropolitan areas will simply starve out. I suppose when the dust clears there will be several hundred million people left on the entire Planet. Maybe as they rebuild they will be able to put Computerized Information Technologies to good use and perhaps introduce the World’s First True Civilization, and not the Hybrid Barbaric Civilizations we have had to deal with up until now.

Why Did God Abandon Christ

2009-10-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

Modern Jewish Religious Scholarship has an answer for the Christian claim that Jesus was the Messiah, and that is that a failed Messiah could not have been any Messiah at all. God would never allow a Valid Messiah to fail.

Hmmmmm. Considering all the support that Judaism and Zionism has been getting from Christians lately, particularly from the American Protestants who often act more extremely Zionist than even some of the worst Zionists, you would think that the Jews would develop a more tactful answer to such a crucial Christian question besides “there is absolutely no basis for your Religion”. But it does help explain why the Jews have been such a universally loved and adored people – why every Society that has ever had dealings with the Jews have come away with warm feelings and eternal gratitude. It is because the Jews have always been so consistently generous, accepting, and kind, especially concerning topics of comparative Religion.

But just because an argument is stark, mean-spirited and nasty does not mean that it should not be addressed. Maybe that even adds a priority. Why was Christ a failed Messiah? It all began with enough promise. In His infancy the Three Kings came from the Civilized East proclaiming that not only did Hebrew Prophecy predict His Coming, but likewise all of the World Religions were aware of His Coming and were wide open for His Acceptance. And Jesus became quite famous while still very young. He would have had decades to fulfill his destiny. But after only a few years, it was over. Jesus was knocked out by almost the very first flex of serious political opposition. It does appear that Christ was a bit too much of a light-weight to be a World Messiah and King of Kings. We could have expected a bit more Push and Gravity from a True Messiah. Or maybe a True Messiah could have harnessed his resources better – side-stepping early fights until he had the strength to win them.

So what happened? What went wrong?

Look at Mathew chapter 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19. We have the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and instigating a riot in the Holy Temple. Jesus objected to the vendors and money changers and we get the picture of Him knocking over tables and cracking a whip at middle-aged Jewish Businessmen who had been doing what they had always done, and were probably surprised and appalled at what must have appeared to them to be a crazy instance of mean-spirited lawlessness by some lunatic zealot.

In Mathew and Mark we also get the Story of Jesus blasting some poor fig tree with a curse. Jesus killed a tree. Now who goes about gratuitously killing trees? How does a tree go about deserving to die?

Okay, seriously, what happened? Did Jesus have some sort of a nervous breakdown? Apparently. How else can we explain it? What we do know is from that moment on Jesus no longer enjoyed the protection of God. There was no longer a protecting Army of Angels seeing to it that Jesus could not even stub a toe. Jesus was now entirely vulnerable.

Are the Jews correct about a Messiah necessarily having the endorsement God, no matter what? Yes, it is an argument with some apparent sense behind it, but then the Jews needs to wonder to themselves why they have NEVER had their Messiah. Until they have a True Messiah that has never failed, they should not talk about what constitutes a True Messiah. If we look at History, simply the way IT IS, and not as they think it SHOULD BE, then it seems that the Christian view is probably more correct – that God can send Messiahs, but that Messiahs can screw up. That seems to be what happens.

Jesus very well may have been a True Messiah that failed. David also might have been a True Messiah that had failed. Naked dancing in the street. Killing men over pretty girls. Yeah, David was a great Messiah… if he just only would have stuck to writing inspirational psalms and killing evil giants.

So, maybe Messiahs aren’t guaranteed any special sense for being wise or even very careful. And just being good is not always enough.

It reminds me of Joan of Arc, a veritable Messiah of France. Her Mission was to clear away Occupation Forces so she could get her King crowned. She succeeded brilliantly. History speaks of pitched Battles, blood and gore, but probably what had happened was that the British and Burgundian Forces largely withdrew ahead of the Maiden’s Advance, not wishing to face their Enemy at the height of their Enthusiasm but willing to back off and bide their time. They did not call it the “Hundred Years War” for nothing. But still, marshalling such Enthusiasm even for a limited Mission was a major historical feat. Even dealing with her own Armies was something of a miracle… getting so many Men to fall in line. But even after her God Given Mission was achieved, she kept fighting, and for reasons that were not really very clear. Pounding on walls of smoky little forts outside Paris. What on Earth for? So God withdrew the protection of His Angels and Joan was captured and suffered almost every indignity. She was burned to death. An English Cardinal was there… yes, the English were still to be Catholic for another 5 minutes in History before they would betray their Civilization… anyway, witnessing the Burning of Joan of Arc he said, “My God, we have burned a Saint! There will be nothing left for us now”. I guess the Cardinal had seen all the way into the Future, of England today, being a little Lap Dog for America.

Anyway, back to Messiahs. Apparently Messiahs have to pay very close attention to their Mission parameters. But even knowing exactly what their Mission parameters are must be a significant challenge. Jesus probably thought he was supposed to chase around businessmen, and Joan must have thought she had to carry on the Good Fight. Who knows what David was thinking… that Messiahs could do any damn thing they liked and God would just have to deal with it… apparently the Orthodox view of Judaism even back then.

But the Truth was that Jesus was probably supposed to act with Kindness, Patience and Due Process. Rule by Riot was not to be the first act of a Messianic Kingdom. Joan should have stopped and meditated on her next move. And David might have listened to his conscience. They all should have avoided making mistakes.

Maybe God can tolerate small errors. But Violence in the Temple was probably over the line. Joan attacking small garrisons just to flex her muscles was probably over the line. David being a drunken playboy, well…

It’s a shame that Messiah’s can’t have Coaches. Being a Player is complicated. One really should know better, but during the heat of the Game, well, the cool thinking of a Coach on the side-lines simply makes more sense.

“Jesus! We’ll worry about the Temple Business Plan Lay-out later. Right now our big problem is getting them the trust us.” If Jesus had only had a Coach shout in those instructions, maybe we would have had a Messiah and King of Kings, and the World would be Civilized Today. Maybe Americans would even have had Health Care by now.

Yes, maybe we should temper our prayers for a Second Coming of Christ, and remember to first pray for a Good Coach. With a Good Coach then maybe we could keep a Jesus or a Joan in play long enough to finally do some Good.