Thanks for the photo of me as a kid, where I am looking so sweet and innocent.... taking a little break from beating and burning ants to death, I suppose. Photographs are interesting for the way they capture a momentary flash of something that looks like reality, but is just tiny sliver of the essence of what's really going on. Who knows what was going on in that imp's mind before, during and after the picture was taken?
For some reason, that reminds me of a very short book in the Bible, called Ecclesiastes. You should read it some time. It's fascinating. It is surprising, very surprising, that it was included among all the writings that were joined together into the book called the Bible, because its message is so joltingly strange and contrary to what the rest of the Bible says. The text begins: "Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless! What does a man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?" He goes on to say that the dead are better off than the living, but that even better than that is someone who has never lived at all. And "all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor." I thought about the book of Ecclesiastes, because after I looked at that photograph of me as a pure-looking kid, I remembered a line from it: "The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts..." Anyway, almost everything in Ecclesiastes sounds like the polar opposite of the Christian religion. Preachers very seldom mention the book in their sermons, and when they do, they say it's in the Bible to illustrate how horrible and pointless life is if you're not a Christian.
When you referred to "Octomom Nadia Suleman" I was thinking you were talking about some guy whose first name is "Octomom" and I was thinking it is a very unusual name, maybe Hispanic or Arabic? Then I realized she must be one of these cartoon characters, like the Kardashanians (?) that the media industry has invented to keep Americans amused, while they drain our pocketbooks and mold our perceptions of reality, and milk us, like cows at the feedlot. They want us all to be like autistic children, staring happily at the blades of a fan going round and round, with a dazed, contented look on our faces.
I see that Thomas Kinkade died recently. I wouldn't have known his name except that you told me about him in Salt Lake City, and I'm glad you did, since he's actually a pretty big figure in America. The New York Times obituary on him said that one in twenty homes in America has at least one piece of art by him, which is amazing. And now it has been reported that he was an out-of-control alcoholic, and that's no doubt what finished him off at the age of 54. Supposedly he was a devoted Christian, and he had it all in terms of what people usually long for -- fame, glory, oceans of money. There's part of me that wants to gloat over him, since I delight in seeing celebrities brought low, and his artwork that was so successful seems astoundingly junky and sickly sweet to me. But still, it's a sad thing. But then I read that one of his many business ventures was creating and selling gating communities with houses and grounds that built to look exactly like images from his paintings, and most of my sympathy evaporates, like the last glint of light in a sunset from a Thomas Kinkade painting.
On the radio yesterday, I heard a snatch of Mitt Romney giving a speech to the NRA. It's the most annoying thing I've heard for a long time, Romney going on in that wheedling voice of his, in front of a bunch of gun nuts. Later I read coverage of the speech in the newspaper, and read a quote of one diehard NRA member who said he didn't trust Romney because when he was governor of Massachusetts he came out in favor of regulating the sale of assault weapons. Just one more trace of previous reasonableness that chameleon Romney must now somehow try to erase from public consciousness so that he can be accepted at the crazy table.
By the way, we're thinking of going out to see Emma in Eugene in the early part of July. I was thinking I might go out several days ahead of time, in late June. Could I come to Lake Tahoe for two or three days?
--edward
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