Category Archives: Religion

February 11, 2016 · 22:59

By Their Bumper Stickers Shall You Know Them

I don’t think it’s ever a good thing to judge total strangers based on a first impression or some potentially superficial facet of their persona. But I’ll make an exception for bumper stickers. If you’re passionate enough about something to start advertising it as you drive around, you’re fair game for a snap judgement based on the advertising you choose for your vehicle.

Two cases in point from LA’s streets:

First, I’m one of those guys who, either for altruistic reasons or for neurotic reasons (or both), will flash my headlights at someone who’s driving at night with their headlights out. About 98% of the time it’s totally ignored – someone who’s clueless enough to be driving without headlights is also so brain dead or distracted behind the wheel that they simply don’t notice anyone flashing their lights. About 1% of the time it actually works – they get the signal, recognize it, go “Oh, shit, that’s me,” and turn on their lights.

The other 1% I ran into on my way home tonight. His custom plates were something like “GOD♡4EVR” and there were at least a half dozen bumper stickers on the back gate of the minivan asking if I had been saved, warning me that in case of the Rapture the car would be empty, and so on.

Coming up behind them I could see that the tail lights were dark, and as soon as we got to a darker stretch of the road it was obvious his headlights were off as well. The brake lights were working fine, so the problem was obvious. I flashed my lights, once, twice – nothing. We were coming up on a light that had just turned red, there was no one else around us, so I switched lanes and pulled up beside the guy. I rolled down my passenger window and honked, trying to get him to look over so I could tell him what’s wrong.

Nothing. I honked again. Still nothing. I tapped the horn a third time and let my car drift forward a few inches so that I could see the driver better. Isn’t the normal reaction to at least glance over and see who’s honking and why?

The look on this guy’s face said it all. It was a middle aged white guy, balding, collared dress shirt with no tie but buttoned all the way to the top. He was staring straight ahead and scared shitless. There was no way on Earth he was going to glance over and make eye contact.

MY GOD SOME LUNATIC ON THE ROAD HAS BEEN FLASHING HIS LIGHTS AT ME AND NOW HE’S HONKING AT ME IT’S PROBABLY ONE OF THOSE GANG INITIATION THINGS THAT I HEARD ABOUT ON HANNITY OR THE 700 CLUB AND IF I LOOK OVER THERE IT WILL BE A LOW-RIDER FULL OF GANG MEMBERS JUST WAITING TO BLOW ME AWAY SO WHATEVER YOU DO DON’T LOOK! DON’T LOOK! DON’T LOOK! DON’T LOOK!

I left him alone and gave him plenty of space, not honking or flashing any more. About a block later he turned off into a subdivision which, coincidentally, had a serious lack of street lighting. It was almost comical as I went by to see how he suddenly slammed on his brakes in the middle of the road and finally turned on his lights.

Do I think he suddenly said, “Ah ha! That’s what that guy was trying to tell me!” Or do I think he’s at home on some whackjob website perpetuating that stupid urban myth?

Second guy, while I was taking a quick walk around the block at lunch yesterday. A guy is trying to parallel park. He’s got a Prius. He’s trying to parallel park into a spot big enough to easily fit an Escalade. The key work is “trying.” Once, fails. Pulls out and tries again. Fails. Pulls out and backs up to try to pull forward-ish into the spot. Fails. Pulls back out and tries the parallel parking again. Fails and almost hits the car that’s already parked there.

I was going to stop and give him some hand signals or help (remember, altruistic and/or psychotic) when I saw the not one, not two, but three “Ted Cruz” bumper stickers.

For all I know he’s still trying to park that sucker.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Politics, Religion

November 17, 2015 · 22:07

Too Much World News

I’ve always been one who wanted to keep abreast of the news, even when that meant the evening news with Huntley and Brinkley and the Chicago Tribune. Or the Springfield Times-Reporter and John Chancellor. That interest in current events and world news became an obsession when I was a midshipman at Annapolis.

One of the “learning exercises” that is used to train plebes is to have them memorize massive amounts of information, then regurgitate it on command of any upperclassman or officer. This is, of course, impossible by definition. It teaches many things, among them how to think under pressure, how to keep track of large amounts of data and multitask, how to fail and still keep going, how to prioritize your time, and so on.

One of the particular techniques used for this is the delivery of a morning newspaper every day, usually before dawn. If everyone else is up at 0600, plebes need to be up at 0500, scanning the paper for details and news that might be of particular interest to the upperclassmen in their company. These are the ones most likely to be grilling you at breakfast. You learn quickly that this one’s favorite baseball team is the Yankees, his favorite player is Lou Piniella, so you need to know the score of last night’s game, what Piniella did, where the Yankees are in the standings, who the winning and losing pitchers are, where they’re playing tonight, who tonight’s starting pitchers are… Tomorrow you get to learn that all over. And the next day.

Multiply that by twenty or thirty or more. This one hates baseball but loves NASCAR. This one is keeping track of the development of the F-14 Tomcat fighter. This one wants to know anything significant about Detroit, his home town. That one follows politics and economics and wants to know what the Dow Jones is doing. And so on, and on, and on.

One of the side effects of surviving this (sort of) is that you either never want to see a newspaper or news report again, or you become neurotically obsessed with the news. Since most of the young men and women there are extremely bright, well educated, in touch with the world, and being trained for leadership roles, it’s almost always the latter.

Flash forward forty years, where 1974’s stream of information has become more like Niagara Falls. The internet, social media, FaceBook, Twitter, hundreds of channels of cable television, multiple 24/7 news channels…

As you might imagine, this is like giving a heroin addict a lifetime supply and an IV the size of a garden hose.

This is not to say that I spend all of my waking hours trying to “drink from the fire hose” of information. I manage to stay quite functional, thank you very much. But I do have a much higher than average interest in the news and keeping track of almost anything that I find interesting, be it local, state wide, national, or international. In my case, this also extends to interplanetary, interstellar, and intergalactic, as you may have noticed from some of the previous 1,000+ posts.

One of the serious down sides of this that I’m seeing is the almost overwhelming depressing tone of so much of recent news. Whether the terrorist attacks in Beirut, Paris, and Egypt, or just about anything coming out of any of the US Presidential candidates, it’s difficult to stay optimistic and upbeat some days. Yet, there’s that phobia, that fear (thanks, Annapolis!) that something important might get missed or overlooked if I turn away.

I find more and more that I find myself reaching my limit and turning away. I don’t know if it’s me getting older, or weaker, or if the news itself has just gotten to be more horrible. Actually, I think it’s just an effect of the sheer volume of information and news available today, not necessarily the nature of it. If the internet and social media had been around in all of their glory during the American Civil War, World War II, or even Vietnam, I’m sure we would be seeing horrors that would match anything that Daesch is doing or Trump is spewing out of his ignorant face. (Sorry, did that come out loud?)

So now that we can see cell phone videos from inside the theater where more than 100 people died on Saturday – I don’t need to. Now that we can see videos of Jihad John decapitating innocent hostages – I don’t need to. Now that the Republican presidential candidates seem to be trying to constantly one-up each other to see who can be the most ignorant, reactionary, clueless, and tasteless – I don’t need to watch.

Many people are responding to the deluge of hate, anger, and terror by posting pictures of kittens or puppies. Or penguins. That may be a better option for me right now. I’ve got stories to write, another major adjustment in my life to make, and enough stress in my every day life to keep me on my toes. I don’t have to pile the troubles of the entire world on top of that.

I no longer care what Bob Guida’s favorite football team did today or what happened in Detroit. Google it yourself.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Not My Float, Politics, Religion

July 2, 2015 · 23:38

Flash Fiction: Do You Believe In Love?

This week’s Flash Fiction Challenge starts with a song title. We were to pick a random song title (from our iTunes or Apple Music or iHeart or Pandora or Spotify or by taking the entrails of an albino crow and throwing them on our vinyl collection – whatever!) and using that as a “seed” to tell our story. I got a Huey Lewis & The News song. As always, comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE?

Slow fade to black, the sound of the paramedic getting fainter, the smell of gasoline and burning rubber wafting away.

A pinprick of light, a single star, getting extremely bright either very quickly or very slowly. No adrenaline left to fuel fear or panic, joy or jubilation. Only the base part of the primate brain clings to life, spawning curiosity.

Damn, my mother was right, there is an afterlife. I’m going to hate having her rub that in for all of eternity. Let’s just hope she was wrong about that vengeful God who was so hung up on judgement and salvation.

“Do you not believe in judgement or salvation?” There is no voice, just the thought which is both the approaching light and the receding darkness.

“Neither was high on my list. It all seemed arbitrary, no rules that made any sense.” I was never much for trying to bullshit my way through confrontations. This doesn’t seem to be a good place to start.

“Do you believe in rules?”

“Yeah, I guess I believe in natural rules. Physics, math, astronomy, chemistry – they all seemed to be bits of the big picture, a puzzle that added up to a complex universe.”

“Do you believe in a God?”

This might be one of the big questions. I wish I had studied for the quiz. “The Judeo-Christian guy? Garden of Eden, Noah, Moses, Jesus, all of that? Nope, sorry. Nothing personal if that’s you, but your plot has an awful lot of inconsistencies and loopholes.”

“Do you believe in a Devil?”

“No more than I did the rest of the dogma. I understand from a storytelling view you need your antagonist to offset your protagonist, yin and yang, black and white, good and evil, but when the God character isn’t believable, the Devil doesn’t do any better.”

“Do you believe in good and evil?”

“Sure, all you have to do is watch the news. It’s all over, in both the macroscopic and the microscopic views. Gandhi vs Hitler at one end of the spectrum, letting the guy merge into your lane or cutting him off at the other.”

“Do you believe that you were good or evil?”

Who knew that the afterlife would be a job interview where I have to name my best and worst qualities? “I think I was good, but I wouldn’t claim to be perfect. No one is purely one thing or the other, no matter which dimension or parameter you’re measuring. I think overall I was getting into the ninetieth percentile on good, but that doesn’t mean that I never went off on someone who didn’t deserve it or think non-monogamistic thoughts about Peggy in accounting.”

“Do you believe in absolutes?”

Ooh! Ooh! I know this one! “Nope, you screwed that up when you came up with quantum mechanics. I don’t know what you were smoking, but it must have been good. Which left us with nothing at all black or white, just infinite shades of grey. Not that that’s stopped people from making a good living out of selling a million varieties of dogma as each being the one, true word.”

“Do you believe in religion?”

Somehow I don’t think that being an altar boy fifty years ago is going to help me now. “Sorry, gave up on that a long time ago. I may or may not have tried to chat with you one-on-one every now and then, but if you were holding up your end of the conversation, I wasn’t able to hear it. But all of that fighting over who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s going to Heaven and who’s going to Hell? I had better things to waste time on.”

“Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?”

“No. Heaven as sold sounded boring, and as much as they wanted me to believe in eternal torment, that didn’t make any more sense than eternal bliss. Angels? Devils? Purgatory? Mortal sins? Venal sins? They had more rules than the IRS, and their rules made just about as much sense.”

“Do you believe in the afterlife?”

“No, but the longer this conversation goes on, the more likely I am to change my mind.”

“Do you believe in me?”

Is this what Eternity is, playing twenty questions raised to the Nth power? Hell is sounding better by the minute. “You haven’t said who you are. Conventional wisdom says you’re God, but I believe you’re just as likely to be a hallucination going on in my consciousness as the last oxygen gets used up and neurons start firing at random. If the Universe and this conversation go away and I become nothingness, I’ll never know, or care. So, answer a question for me. Who are you and what’s going on?”

“Do you believe in love?”

“Is that supposed to be an answer? Are you God, and are God and love one and the same? That’s a common part of many theologies and it’s one of the better points, but it doesn’t have anything more to back it up than any other article of faith. Who are you?”

“Do you believe in love?”

Okay. Maybe this is the really big question. Either that or there’s a glitch in the automated menu on the entrance exam to the afterlife. Just my luck.

“Yes, I believe in love.” Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with images of family, friends, pets, high school sweethearts, a flood of emotion. “It’s undefined, unmeasurable, ephemeral, completely outside of the rigorous scientific universe, yet it’s still the thing that keeps us moving from the day we’re born until the day we die.” Again I’m smothered by visions, flashes showing my wife, kids, mother, father, grandkids. “Love is still here with me, even beyond death. Yes, I believe in love.”

“Good. I love you.”

The light expands to fill the void, fill me, fill the universe.

Again, I am.

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Filed under Religion, Science Fiction, Writing

June 6, 2015 · 23:50

Guardian Angels

I knew what I was going to write for today’s post, or at least how I was going to write it – then one of those king-sized roadblocks reared up and has me totally flummoxed and unable to continue down that path, at least for today.

I hate it when that happens.

I’m sure I’ll figure out something (probably at about 3 AM in the middle of a really good dream) and carry on that assignment later, but for now…

And there goes my muse / subconscious / guardian angel again. I was just about to bitch about how I had no ideas for tonight, and there was one in the paragraph above, and now there’s another one in this paragraph, just spewing out and staring me in the face.

Let’s go with “guardian angel.”

The tl;dr is, “I’m not a believer, but that’s adult me talking – easily impressionable, seven-year-old me was being molded onto the fast track for Pope, would have believed anything, and had a lot of weird shit put into my head by old fashioned nuns.”

It might be worth talking some nuts and bolts theology with someone someday to see if “guardian angels” are actually a legitimate part of Catholic doctrine. It could be that the concept is just some sort of boogie-man made up by scary nuns to keep little kids in line. I suspect the latter.

The generic public concept is of a heavenly being that’s assigned to watch over us individually, keeping us safe from danger. Such as in the bumper sticker that says, “Don’t drive faster than your guardian angel can fly!” (Why can’t the guardian angel just get into the car with you? Or at least latch onto the roof, facing forward into the wind like a giant supernatural dog would if they stuck their head out of the car window. But then, what if you’ve got a luggage rack? See, this is EXACTLY the sort of thinking that got me in so much trouble with Father Murray and his minions!)

It’s a theme we see in movies and television shows from time to time. “It’s A Good Life!” every Christmas. “Saved By An Angel.” “City Of Angels,” which I’m a total sap about, always crying when Meg Ryan… (OK, no spoilers.) “Here Comes Mister Jordan,” and never that crap remake with Warren Beatty.

Actually, “Dogma,” “Angel Heart,” and “All That Jazz” (one of my all-time favorite films) are more my cup of tea for movies about angels. But, look, there I’ve gone off on a tangent again! Surprise!

The party line from the nuns and priests in the 1960s wasn’t simply that guardian angels were there to protect you. That was part of the job, but they were also there to watch you and rat you out to the Big Guy Upstairs. If you sinned (and by “sinned” they usually meant either thinking on your own or touching yourself in that place, or worse, touching Peggy Sue in her that place) and didn’t fess up to it in Confession, your guardian angel was there to not only bug you about it (a glorified Jiminy Cricket role) but to keep the Powers To Be updated on about what you were unrepentant.

I always wanted to bargain with my guardian angel. I figured there must be something that he wanted that I could get and swap for some slack. But how did I know that it was a “he”? Were there girl guardian angels? Did boys get only boy guardian angels and girls get only girl guardian angels? Or was it random? Could there be a girl guardian angel watching me when I, well, you know? Wouldn’t that be nasty for the boy guardian angels to be watching girls all the time, even when they were taking a bath?

There goes Father Murray again, hitting the sacramental wine! I should probably feel bad about that. Maybe.

Nah.

So “guardian angels” are a convenient and sometimes amusing plot device that the Catholics cooked up (or do any of the Protestant religions have them too? Jews? Muslims?) and as such they make a decent literal plot device for entertainment products. But do they really exist?

Why is it that many of the devout Catholics I’ve met scoff at the idea of alien life in any science fiction story, but they have no problem believing stories about invisible, immortal beings watching over each of us? And how many guardian angels are there, anyway? Human population has gone up drastically in the last couple of centuries – are they making new guardian angels to keep up? Or were there a zillion of them made in those first seven days and most of them have been bored for eons, but now human overpopulation is a full employment program for them? When you die, if you were bad, does the guardian angel get busted for doing a lousy job with you? Do non-Christians or even non-Catholics get guardian angels? If a guardian angel is assigned to someone who doesn’t believe in their existence, do they still have to be on their toes to do a good job?

Oops.

Sorry, Father Murray. My bad. (No — it’s not. Wait. That’s lying, which is a sin. Why didn’t my guardian angel stop me from doing it? Or did I get a guardian angel with a wicked sense of humor and…)

Right!

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Filed under Farce, Paul, Religion

April 2, 2015 · 23:59

Flash Fiction: Stream

Last week there was some considerable controversy in the publishing world that I lurk in when a new app called “CleanRead” came out. It’s now been pulled, in no small part because what it was doing was almost certainly illegal and a violation of copyright, but also in large part because of the backlash against it by authors, readers, and pretty much everyone who didn’t think that its (possibly) noble intent was in fact terribly off the rails and ill advised.

Our demighod Chuck Wendig was one of those objecting vociferously, so it’s only just that our weekly Flash Fiction Challenge is to write 2,000 or so words about filth. Sex. Profanity. Perversion. As well as the counterpoints of Censorship and Totalitarianism if you so wish.

As for me, as I’ve mentioned , March sort of clobbered me heavily about the head and shoulders, today hasn’t been any better (trying to finalize our income taxes), and it’s almost 2230 PDT. Chuck (or someone much like him) has said that when you’re exhausted, when the last thing you want to do is write, when you would do anything to just say “screw it!” and head for bed — then you must write.

But they didn’t say anything about editing, so fasten your seat belts, this could get interesting.

STREAM

“We can’t print this,” Carol said, tossing the manuscript back across the desk toward me. “You know that.”

“I know that you were going to say that,” I said, picking it up and tossing it back. “And once again I know that you’re wrong.”

Carol didn’t touch the document, just leaned back in her chair, tilted her head back, and reached up to start messaging the bridge of her nose.

“Laurie, we’ve had this discussion at least a dozen times before. If we print a book like this, we get shut down. If we get shut down, all of us lose our jobs. Some of us, such as you the writer and me the editor, would have a tough time ever getting another job in this field. We’ll end up washing dishes at McDonalds for minimum wage, which will lead to drinking heavily, which will lead to pot, cocaine, meth, and heroin, which will leave us dying alone and unloved in a seedy, filthy, and disgusting opium den in Chinatown. I hate washing dishes, so we are not going to publish this.”

“First of all, McDonalds doesn’t have dishwashers, everything’s served on paper and Styrofoam. Do a little fact checking. Secondly, we’re writers, we already drink heavily and make far less than minimum wage. It’s in the job description. Thirdly, it’s absolutely critical that these ideas be out there. If we let the Church ignore its own laws and go off shredding the Constitution at will just because the Synod orders them to, then the world will never know the truth about the prison we’ve allowed to be created around us.”

“We’re back to the Constitution, eh?” Carol asked. “Have you finally considered my suggestion to publish this as a poorly written and dull fantasy or science fiction tome?”

“Don’t start with me on that, you know better!” Laurie was having a tough time keeping her temper. She took a moment to take a breath and let her blood pressure and adrenaline levels drop a bit. “You’ve seen my research, you know how thorough it is. You’ve seen the original documents. I don’t understand how you can continue to deny what I’ve discovered.”

“I’ve seen your stuff, but I’ve also seen how it could all be fake. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. You don’t have it. Face it, if what you say is true, why hasn’t anyone anywhere ever found out about it before? Why do you think that you’re the only one given the True Word that proves everything we know to be wrong?”

“I’m not the first, I’m just the only one who hasn’t been caught before getting this far. I’ve told you about all of the people I’ve found evidence of who were following the same research before simply disappearing without a trace. That’s why I told you to keep this so secret!”

“Paranoia doesn’t become you,” Carol said. “You really want to stick by this story? You honestly want me to think the story you have here is history, not fantasy?”

“Yes, I do. It makes sense. The evidence is all there.”

“So the world used to be cooler and covered in a million times more plants than it is today?”

“Trillions, not millions, but yes. Then we fucked it up.”

Carol sat up straight and leaned across the desk, her gaze intense. “You will not use that kind of language in my presence! I for one have no intention of burning in hell for all of eternity because of you and your foolish obsessions! Is that clear?”

Laurie returned Carol’s glare with a look of pity. “Carol, use your head. Think. You’re not going to hell. Or heaven. All that they’ve taught all of us for our entire lives is a lie!”

“George Washington, a lie? Thomas Jefferson, a lie? The Founding Fathers? The Constitution? The very basis of our society, the foundation which has allowed us to survive on this harsh planet, all of that’s a lie?”

“No, there’s plenty of truth there. The lies are all based on truths. But at the core are fantastic lies, huge falsehoods that they have to keep covering up with even bigger lies and even more bullshit!”

“Laurie!”

“Call it whatever you want, but it’s all a lie! We didn’t come here from some other planet and get saved by the Founding Fathers who bestowed upon us their blessed Constitution, showing us how to create a society based on laws from the Bible!

“We have always lived here! The world was green and healthy and there were billions of people on it, not thousands! It wasn’t always hot and stormy and dusty, there were places where there would actually be ice falling from the sky! The Constitution was written by people about allowing the people to decide what was best for everyone, not an addendum to the Bible giving unlimited power to the Church!”

Laurie’s voice had risen to an alarming level. As she realized it and settled back in her chair, Carol sat calmly looking at her.

The door behind Laurie opened to allow two large, hooded figures to enter. Quickly they grabbed Laurie and tried to hold onto her as she started flailing.

“You bitch!” screamed Laurie. “Of all the people to betray me, you were the last one who would! How could you do this? You’re my sister!”

One of the hooded men finally got his hand over Laurie’s mouth to muffle her screams. In his hand was a small cloth soaked with something pungent. Whatever it was, Laurie went limp within seconds. The second man slipped a hood over her head and tied her wrists and ankles.

“You’ll take care of her, won’t you?” Carol asked. “She needs help, she’s not in her head at all.”

“We’ll take care of her,” a deep man’s voice said from under one of the hoods. “You won’t have to worry about her ever again.”

“Thank, God!” Carol said. “I just had to do it. I had to call you before she did something that would irreparably condemn her soul to hell. Didn’t I?”

“You did well,” the voice said. “Your reward will be found in Heaven, as the Constitution has promised.”

The man slipped Laurie over his shoulder and carried her limp body out. As the door closed behind them, Carol heard the bells start to ring and she started her evening prayers. As the Founding Fathers wished for her to.

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Filed under Politics, Religion, Science Fiction, Writing

March 1, 2015 · 23:59

Islamic Leader Here For Celebration!

(In this article I might mess up some terminology or term regarding this religious event going on. If/when I do, it’s simple ignorance on my part, not any sort of derogatory comment or criticism of the religion or its practitioners. I’m trying to learn here, so if you see something I’ve messed up, please let me know so that I can do better next time.)

It’s amazing what you can have going on in your own neighborhood and not have a clue about it – until you get stuck in the huge traffic jam!

Three years ago, four maybe, a mosque was built just a mile or two away, across the street from the high school, on the same street where there are a dozen or more synagogues, the local Roman Catholic church, and within two or three miles of a church for just about every other denomination you can think of.

It’s a very diverse area, to say the least, and that’s one of the things that I really like about it, even if I don’t belong to a church myself or get to any kind of regular services.

What I could see of the mosque, mainly the minaret and a bit of the building through the trees, looked lovely. While not a church member, I love church architecture, and I’m always curious about different religions, cultures, customs, and so on.

Yesterday and today, surrounding the mosque for blocks was a huge traffic jam. Along the two major streets that intersect at the site, there were people parking (and double parking to pick up and drop off passengers) for at least three or four blocks in every direction. The large parking lot at the high school was filled. In addition, there were large crowds, hundreds at a time, going to and from the mosque. All of the men were dressed in white robes and headgear, while all of the women seemed to be in intricate and colorful robes and dresses of every color in the rainbow. There were people in their 80’s and families with strollers and small children. You name it, they were there. All day Saturday, and apparently all day today.

Something was going on…

Yesterday I actually spent an hour or so googling Islamic holidays (and finding nothing that matched) and trying to get information on that particular mosque. About all I found was that it was called the Mohammedi Center, but not much more. At the time I figured it was a holiday of some sort and I just wasn’t asking the right questions. Then I saw the big crowd today again and figured it might not be that simple. In addition, today there was a large, ornate horse-drawn carriage out on the street with white thoroughbred horses being unloaded to pull it. Again, not something one normally sees in the west San Fernando Valley every day.

When I was stuck in traffic with pedestrians all around, I asked one family what the event was. I missed the first part of the answer, but heard that it was a festival of some sort and would be going on for three weeks.

Spurred on by this new information, I just did another search and found an article in the Daily News. Questions answered, and it’s more interesting than I had thought!

The mosque was built by the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Shi’a Islam and finished three years ago. But the mosque had not yet been inaugurated (blessed? consecrated?) and couldn’t be used for prayer.

Today was the first visit to the United States by His Holiness Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, the 53rd Dai al-Mutlaq. It seems he’s the equivalent of the Pope to the Shi’a sect from India, here to inaugurate this mosque, as well as two others in Orange County and in Bakersfield. (That could maybe explain the three weekends of celebrations mentioned when I inquired?)

In short, while there may be far fewer Shi’a in the world than Roman Catholics, it now makes perfect sense that the Dai al-Mutlaq’s visit would draw those kinds of crowds and that kind of excitement.

Cool!

Finally, and one of the things that really caught my attention while driving through the area, might be explained by the comment in the article about how inclusive the sect is. On the corner, waiting to cross the street to the mosque, was a group of bagpipers in kilts and full Scottish regalia.

Maybe they were here for this, maybe it was just a coincidence, but it sure was different!

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Religion

February 9, 2015 · 23:24

I Hope I Don’t Die For A Stupid Reason

There was an event today, probably minor in the big scheme of things, but it was a problem at the time. In the course of dealing with that, the thought crossed my mind that, somewhere, somehow, I had heard that people had been known to die while dealing with such a problem. It was rare, it might be apocryphal, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true.

That got me to thinking not-so-deep thoughts about my (presumably) inevitable demise. I say “presumably” because I still like Kurzweil’s ideas about The Singularity. He might be a full of crap and just as batshit crazy as Hubbard was with Scientology, but we’ll see. Maybe I did make it in time to have medical miracles, DNA-rebuilding nanobots in my blood, anti-aging regimens, and a lifespan into the hundreds of years.

But probably not.

So, back to my (probably) inevitable demise. Of course, if we’ve gotta go (and we do), it would be great if we could all go saving a building full of orphans from a fire, throwing ourselves on the grenade to save our whole platoon, or anything generally noble, sacrificial, and leaving the world a better place despite our passing.

That would be great.

More realistically (I’m getting there, slowly but surely) most of us are going to die from some useless disease that has us wasting away for our last few months or years, or else some moron on the freeway is going to be texting and drunk when that light turns red and we’re going to be a somewhat squishy hood ornament.

I could live with any of those – well, maybe “live” isn’t the right term. But at least my final thoughts wouldn’t be something along the lines of, “How am I ever going to explain THIS to St. Peter with a straight face?”

Given the choice (and I won’t be), I would prefer to not die of something STUPID.

Because those methods of passing also exist all around us. The odds may be in favor of disease (eight of the top ten causes of death are medical conditions) or accidents (cars seem to be first, guns second) but there are all of those weird and low-odds accidental causes of death that just linger for us, out there in the long tail of the bell curve.

Some of those are just “sucks to be you” accidental deaths. You’re in the wrong place, wrong time, and all the planning and precautions in the world aren’t going to mean a thing. There’s a gas explosion, an earthquake, your cruise ship sinks, a tidal wave hits the beach, the plane crashes…

Actually, in my case, being in a plane crash is probably higher on the list than for most folks, simply because I have my pilot’s license and I occasionally (i.e., every chance I get) fly in old WWII planes and go fly aerobatics. I also want to go skydiving, and scuba diving, and hike the Appalachian Trail, and learn to fly a glider, and…

You get the idea. I don’t want to go out in an easy chair watching “Star Trek” reruns unless I’m at least 110. But at least none of those flying- or adventure-related deaths would qualify as “stupid” in my book.

Being hit by lightning? If it’s a “shit happens” event, fine. If you’re standing out on a golf course holding a metal club and ogling that odd-shaped cloud with your mouth open — stupid.

Watching fireworks which you dearly love and a freak accident detonates thirty tons of skyrockets all at once and you catch a piece of shrapnel while sitting a half-mile away? Not your day, sorry! Dying while making a “Jackass” video and lighting off M-80’s while drunk — stupid.

Pretty much anything that involves being a victim in a major natural disaster or catastrophe gives you a good story to tell while you’re in line at The Pearly Gates. If the National Guard, NTSB, and CNN are out there picking through rubble or debris looking for you, it’s probably not your fault. Tornado, earthquake, thermonuclear weapons, all are acceptable, at least so far as this particular idiotic rant goes.

Anything that involves the paramedics coming in and taking pictures to pass around at the station along while playing “Can You Top This?” — stupid.

“Yep, you think that’s good? We found this guy, wearing just a thong and his wife’s wig, covered in whip cream, spread-eagle, with this weird opera music playing full blast, and a goat in the room…”

No paramedics laughing so hard that they can’t even check to see if you’re still breathing. Please.

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Filed under Disasters, Farce, Flying, Health, Religion, Tornadoes

January 20, 2015 · 21:25

Hooray For Cat Hallucinations!

I’ve noted before (I used it as a starting plot point for the 2013 NaNoWriMo) that it’s freaky as all get out when a cat that’s resting comfortably and calmly on your lap suddenly bolts upright, ears twitching, eyes wide open, staring at something behind you that only it can see. It doesn’t help any when they spend the next five minutes with their eyes locked on whatever unseen horror it might be, their head swiveling as they follow their hallucination around the room, as if there’s some poltergeist or invisible zombie creeping up behind you.

When they start making that little chirping noise and twitching their butt like they’re getting ready to leap, and the idiot freakin’ raccoons on the roof choose that particular moment to run the 100-yard dash across the roof right above your head, it’s an invitation to a coronary.

On the other hand…

When you’ve spent the day dealing with people and situations that you swear are there just to see where your frustration breaking point is, then your nominal evening entertainment is all pre-empted by the State Of The Union address, and your substitute entertainment (social media) is saturated with bullshit from both sides on the aforementioned SOTU, and you’re just about to punch something just because, it can be a relief to have the sleeping cat freak out.

“Ignorance is bliss.” I’ve often thought it was nonsense to think that way. I always wanted to know and know more and to understand.

But in the case of both the political/social polarity/intolerance in our society and the invisible phantom haunting the room, I’m starting to place a higher value on ignorance.

In both cases, I don’t think there’s much I can do to change the situation, and being aware of it is just raising my blood pressure and making me feel bad. So while I’ve always hated being ignorant or uninformed, I think the argument could be made that I might be better off being blissfully ignorant.

Even if it does mean that I’m slightly less prepared to catch Ken Jenning’s record when I finally get on “Jeopardy!”

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Filed under Cats, Critters, Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!, Politics, Religion

December 9, 2014 · 22:19

Kyoto (Part Fifteen)

To Recap: In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by several days in Seoul. Now I was footloose and fancy-free (i.e., lost a lot) in Kyoto, Japan. I found one of the most beautiful and interesting places I’ve ever seen — just search for “Kyoto (Part Two)” through “Kyoto (Part Nine)“. (Yeah, that’s a lot of pictures of one place.)  The next day my daughter didn’t have classes so she started showing me the other sights of Kyoto, including beautiful and ancient temples along the Philosopher’s Path. The final full day took us to the Golden Temple and Nijo Castle.

The end was near.

After nearly three weeks in three countries on my first trip to Asia, I had to be on a plane that evening. I should have been exhausted, but adrenaline is a wonderful thing. There were two and a half hours before my daughter was meeting me at Kyoto Station, and I wasn’t going to waste them.

I had noticed that there were small shrines, temples, and gardens everywhere, and in looking at the city from the Kyoto Tower the previous day I had seen several within a mile or so of my hotel. It was time to start walking.

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The Shosei-En Garden had a type of architecture that I hadn’t seen before, as well as warnings everywhere to “Be Careful Of The Bee.” I was careful.

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Less than a half-mile from Kyoto Station, surrounded by a city that’s just about as crowded and busy as any in the world, you find this.

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In the trees around the edge of the park there were storks nesting in the tops of the trees. It must be great to have an apartment or an office in that building just outside the walls and watch them.

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On the ground, they weren’t having much to do with me, staying well out into the lily pads.

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Three blocks away, at the Higashihonganji Temple, I found this wonderful dragon fountain. No bees here, but there were signs warning against drinking the water. Is that really a problem and not pretty obvious?

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At almost all of the temples and shrines throughout the trip we would see school groups, from teenagers down to the little kids. This  one kid in particular was my favorite. He wasn’t going to stay in line no matter how much they yelled at him. It sounded like they were calling him “Joshua,” but that is almost certainly incorrect. Whatever. “Joshua” was my kind of kid, out to explore the world and in a hurry to do it! However, he had a cooler orange cap than I did.

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The Higashihonganji Temple was covered for the most part in scaffolding with major repairs and restorations underway. Here I found part that wasn’t, with a really cool circular underground room with glass to let in light? It didn’t seem to fit in with the buildings, rebuilt in 1895 after a fire destroyed the original buildings built in the early 1600s. On the other hand, as with many of the other shrines and temples we say, this one is not a museum but an active site of worship. In this case, the Higashihonganji Temple is the head temple of Shin Buddhism in Japan. So it might be a new, modern addition. (More information needed.)

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Nine blocks north of Higashihonganji was the Nishihonganji Temple. (Yet another World Heritage Site in Kyoto.)

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Nishihonganji is also a functional, operating temple, with some truly huge interior spaces, all created from massive wooden beams. In some ways similar to the architecture fueled by religion in Europe at about the same time (huge spaces, lots of power concentrated in the church), but also in some ways quite different (Europe went with stone and built up, not just out.)

With that, it was back to the hotel, checking out, saying goodbye to my daughter, getting on the train to Osaka, trying to stay awake while waiting for my flight, and then flying fourteen hours over the North Pacific to get into San Francisco.

Even crammed into coach, I slept well on that return flight.

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Filed under Photography, Religion, Travel

October 15, 2014 · 21:07

Kyoto (Part Eleven)

To Recap: In May, 2012 I went to Asia on the “Three-Countries-Three-Weeks-Three-Kids” tour. The first stop on this once-in-a-lifetime trip was Shanghai, followed by several days in Seoul. Now I was footloose and fancy-free (i.e., lost a lot) in Kyoto, Japan. I found one of the most beautiful and interesting places I’ve ever seen — just search for “Kyoto (Part Two)” through “Kyoto (Part Nine)“. (Yeah, that’s a lot of pictures of one place.)  The next day my daughter didn’t have classes so she started showing me the other sights of Kyoto.

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The next site we visited was the Nanzen-Ji Temple.

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The main temple building is huge and beautiful. You can climb up a very, very steep staircase (almost a ladder) to get to the upper level.

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From the upper level you get great views of the other temple buildings in the forest, and the main, modern city off in the distance.

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The main room of the temple, apparently still in use as a part of the Rinzai school, one of the three Zen sects in Japanese Buddhism.

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There were several of these gardens, immaculately maintained. Again, as with Konchi-in Temple, one of these gardens was laid out by Enshu Kobori in the early 1600s.

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Nanzen-Ji Temple was founded in 1291. While the Europeans were building cathedrals (and surviving the Dark Ages), the Japanese were designing and building places like this.

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Some of the vegetation was familiar to someone from North America, much of it was not. All of it was extremely green and lush, especially to someone from Los Angeles.

 

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Ponds, gardens, places for meditation, places for rest and thought, all beautiful.

IMG_4016 smallFinally, I was fascinated by this gardener. The area being maintained was covered with moss, so thin that it would make most putting greens look overgrown, yet he (or she, couldn’t tell) were taking care of it inch by inch, like it was one humongous, living piece of art. Which I guess it was.

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