Nervous Systems

Hope everyone is doing well.  I took a break from writing for nearly a year.  The Election was a big part of it.  I don’t think my council was missed.  The last time I wrote was shortly after being Red Pilled.  A less than ideal term, nonetheless apropos.  It was somewhat accidental.  What began with wondering why video satires were taken down on FaceBook , lead me to discover Girl Writes What.

Blame a woman.  It worked for Adam.  So Karen, I blame you!

I watched her talk Feminism and the Disposable Male, and it got me thinking. Ideas that had worked for decades quit working.  Auto nearly shook apart!  I began to question assumptions, and was burdened by thoughts that make most of my friends and family uncomfortable. The Red Pill has side effects.  Do I need an antidote?  Is there a remedy?

Peace has been called a bitter cup.  Seems like a lot of medicine is too!  Like most people, I care about health, and want the world to transform.  Indeed, the author of the letter to the Romans compares the pain of the world to that of giving birth!  The Gospels has interesting analogies about birth as well, but I digress.

I try and read a few books every year, although I read a lot of articles, and listen to lectures and VLOG’s on Youtube, I still try and finish books.  I spent several months, last summer and fall, reading, Reveille in Washington by Margaret Leech, published in 1941.  It is a history of the District of Columbia, commonly called Washington DC.Prior to the American Civil War, the City, wasn’t even that?  Although many fine buildings and monuments had been constructed, there was no plan, or vision, to the development.  A popular joke at the time was to call it,”A City of Vast Distances!”

As a carpenter, I must say that there were many building projects in DC, and it was good work, if you could get it.  The Treasury Building took decades to build.  I can’t remember how many years it took to get the dome on the Capitol.  At 555 feet tall, the Washington Monument became the tallest structure built since the Great Pyramid.  If you could get on a crew, I imagine you could work for years.  There were still swamps, and really few proper sewers, or paved streets.

Broadly speaking, from the beginning DC attracted, idealistic people, who were forced to settle for practical.  There were many areas in America with work, and promises of a better life. But they settled there. I am biased with an interest in early America, perhaps because of knowing of no ancestors who immigrated after the Revolutionary War.  No doubt they exist, though I may have to leave it to others to untangle that web!

Working in construction has shaped my approach to life.  I like making things better, especially, unsafe and unpleasant conditions.  I find it rewarding.  I am fortunate to be near Music too, and record and work Sound in and around Bellingham.  It is not enough to live on, though it makes life way more worth living!

I find people more perplexing (& vexing) than any problems in construction or computers.  I am always looking for efficient and inexpensive ways to build.  And I like to think about computers.  Although I make an effort to ponder the problems of the world, I don’t always try to understand people motivations, as I’m supposed to.  I do try, though for sanity’s sake, one ought to only compute, so many digits of pi!

I have mentioned in past Blog’s, my interest in the Gospels, early Christians, and reading these in Greek.  I think it is fair to say, I have studied Religion, though I don’t describe myself as religious, or a Christian.  I was raised Protestant, and am lucky to have married a partner of Catholic tradition.

I think Christianity, has a bad rap, when comparing Founding Documents.  How can I say such a thing?  Where in the New Testament is any war or killing condoned?  I have written previously (check it out!), criticisms of Christianity, and feel no need to further today.

I like the stories from the Hebrews.  That’s not to say,  some of the stories aren’t difficult.  Our thoughts are close akin.  We owe a great deal to the Jews, for hygiene, law, and wisdom. In ancient times, the Ten Commandments were popular, prior to Christianity with many people surrounding the Mediterranean, who were not Jewish.  Their ideas were recognized as having merit, and virtue, by many who encounter them, even today.

I do wonder sometimes about forgiveness and redemption.  Does one need to practice religion, to see the need to heal and repair?  I spoke at a friend’s memorial 3 years ago, and I recall saying, it is a shame that we need religion to go to church!   I think we have a need to gather, and to do better.  We need to acknowledge our limits, as the writer of Corinthians (one and two) quips, “the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!”

We stumble, which is the root of the word Scandal.  How we do we get back up, how do we redeem ourselves?  I am not sure.  Some say, acknowledging the problem is the first step.  I have done wrong.  I have caused harm.  I have not always sought to understand.  I lost a friend or two this last year.  I took a break from writing,  I couldn’t find the words, or the proper magic spell.

Notice how this has become the rage?  Gender Pronouns, the latest manifestation, of the word made flesh!  The Gospels actually devotes some acreage to questions of gender and sex.  Heard the verse much,  “In Heaven, people are neither male nor female!”  Preach?

We argue with words, about words.  We call the desire to transform the Uni(verse), casting Spells.  How Bow Dat?

I upset some people, posting an article from Breitbart by Milo, about Radical Islam terrifying Gay People.  “By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”  Is that Gospel?  I heard a theologian on Larry King in the 1990’s, mention that in the New Testament, the word often translated as ‘homosexual’ is actually condemning sex with minors.  In Greek, the term means one not yet an adult.

Need I say more?  Perhaps the strongest curse uttered in the Gospels, “Scandals are going to happen, though those that cause harm to children, throwing in the sea with a (huge) millstone around their neck, won’t be enough!”  Maybe I found the passage?

Milo has sinned, he has fallen into scandal. It appears that he may have been pushed, though he had it coming?  He was mean, rude.  I learned about virtue signaling from him.  I am grateful for that, though it too, has a bitter taste.  Can he be redeemed?

He might think my prayers a waste.  I learned too much from that snarky man!  There is one thing I must say he did right, using words instead of advocating for bullets, and he knows both.  Enough about that, I haven’t brought up racism yet?  It is in the air.

A couple months back, a person I respect, though don’t know well, sent me an odd message, which questioned why I wonder about racial differences, and am supportive of police.  I was puzzled, as I think these are fair subjects to express in one’s own home.  Rather than get defensive, I wrote back, apologizing if I had misspoke, or offended.

I can’t think of a subject, more taboo, except sex and religion, than race.  Few want to talk about it, some want to tell you what to think, but it is rare to find souls who really wonder, and are not quick to answer.

I know we are all related.  The Bible tells me so!  DNA says Amen, Amen!  And I know that word is from Egypt, and predates Books.  The Data is clear, we have much in common.  Computers are helping us understand not only language, but life itself!

I am trying to remember the Cyber, when thinking about life.  We didn’t invent either, not in the Big Picture.  Sometimes I wonder if computers aren’t part of the renewed struggles over language, religion and race.  Robots aren’t science fiction! Monkeys are playing Pong with their minds.  I read that an AI which translates language for Google, started borrowing from other languages, on its own initiative, to improve its spelling.

I don’t bring up race with my kids, except to treat all people with respect.  I don’t bring up religion often, though I have tried to express traditions and ideas, which I hope they will at least ponder, if not emulate.

“Something’s are getting better, other things are getting worse” as the song goes.

In the 70’s and 80’s (and later) I will admit I had a little pride in being able to speak a little Spanish slang in San Jose.  I could go into rather rough areas, and get along with many diverse peoples. Things have changed, and many areas, are “no go zones”, at least during certain hours, not only in the Bay, but in too many cities, and countries.

Perhaps I have spoken with more than most, at least for a Yank.  I like to learn.  Not always sure what I am open to, I tend to like most music!  I see ways we share, love of family, sharing food, and friends. We share these things in common. So much We the People are!  We have seen division too.

I often visited the South as a child growing up in the 1960’s.  I have seen some changes for the better.  The last few years, racial scars, seem to be re-opening, as the stories of sailors stricken with scurvy experienced.  I have often wondered why wounds persist.  Sure, I have had a few, being a carpenter, left some scars.  I like to fix things.  This includes my own body.  It is damn hard work too!  But you know how it is.

I find myself, advocating understanding, and forgiveness (to use an old term), as I was raised to do, though this has not been well received.  Are you shocked, dear lurkers?

It is all relative.  Einstein was a dead beat dad.  But we owe him a debt for his theories, even if he didn’t credit his first wife, with some of the ideas.  Speaking of the saint, he and Bohr took great pains, to not use the term Reality.  They knew that they didn’t know.  I wish we could acknowledge our own ignorance.  Thoreau wrote of our need to do this, in order to grow in any profession. Of course, nobody wants to pay us for what we don’t know!

I mentioned the book earlier, Reveille in Washington.  Although I have read a number of books on the Civil War, her perspective is unique. Rather than focus on the minutia of battles, tactics and strategies, Leech shows how the war changed life in the United States by focusing on the changes in Washington DC.  The District was created by Congress, to be the Capitol of the Nation.  It was intended to be a place of mixing.  She writes about how racial relations changed during the war, predicated in large part by thousands of refugees, especially former slaves, called at the time Contrabands.

I was puzzled by the grain Rice, mentioned in writing about the Civil War.  I found this recently:

“South Carolina was trying tobacco and wheat.  But in the last years of the seventeenth century a ship touching at Charleston left there a bag of Madagascar rice.  Planted, it gave increase that was planted again. Suddenly it was found that this was the crop for low-lying Carolina.  Rice became her staple, as was tobacco of Virginia.
For the rice-fields South Carolina soon wanted African slaves, and they were consequently brought in numbers, in English ships.  There began, in this part of the world, even more than in Virginia, the system of large plantations and the accompanying aristocratic structure of society.  But in Virginia the planter families lived broadcast over the land, each upon its own plantation.  In South Carolina, to escape heat and sickness, the planters of rice and indigo gave over to employees the care of their great holdings and lived themselves in pleasant Charlestown.  These plantations, with their great gangs of slaves under overseers, differed at many points from the more kindly, semi-patriarchal life of the Virginia plantation.   To South Carolina came also the indentuered white laborer, but the black was imported in increasing numbers.”  Pioneers of the Old South by Mary Johnston 1918 Yale University Press

While the stories leading up to the 14^Th Amendment are well known, and the shifting attitudes before and during the war towards slavery, there are less known experiences which I have read nowhere else.  While I had known that the Union Army paid black soldiers only 3/5 of whites, and that this injustice took months to change, I learned that the Navy has always paid all sailors equally, since its inception, four score and seven (ish) years before the time in question. The location of the  first Black Brigades, was a closely guarded secret within the Army, prior to being deployed in Battle. Most Union soldiers quit resisting fighting along side blacks, once they had.  As I recall, it wasn’t until the Korean War, that the US Army integrated.

Her writings on the social life of DC during the war are of interest and merit.  Bars, hotels and brothels flourished in DC during the war.  Police departments, jails, and a myriad of hospitals were created.  There were many foreshadows of the struggles which lead up to and characterizes  the Era of Prohibition, half a century later.

Her focus on women during the war is extensive, and illuminating, and worth study.  How the Union dealt with Southern Sympathizers covers many pages. Lincoln wasn’t the first President to have issues with the Press!  He jailed a number of reporters, usually under the pretense of protecting National Security.  I’ve made some study of Lincoln, my favorite President. He held ideas which today deserve rejection, though he changed during the war. His son Willie died during the war of Typhoid Fever, which foul unsanitary conditions in the city spread. I think General Lee had Malaria, and suffered from its effects during the war.  But I digress?

Lincoln’s personal transformation,(to use a modern term) saved the Union, though the South was in ruins. America changed through the war, and has been trying to forget this ever since.  Bureaucracy, Cowards, and Greed, oh yes!  The President, tried to cultivate the “Better angels of our nature”, though this is more easily said than done.  It has been written.  Read their words.  They merit time.  This is when the world changed!

The Country, near bankruptcy, still had the Herculean task of rebuilding, and learning to integrate.  The Union had been defeated many times during the war, and had an entirely new army at the end of the conflict.  Americans changed all Nations view of warfare.  They also changed the world.  Many have written how.  It was a time of doubt, defeat, and suffering.  The wounded howling in the fires at the Wilderness!  Avert!  Don’t go this way! And yet people did. And here we are.

During the war, the title of Commander in Chief was largely symbolic, after the time of 1st President, George Washington.  State Governors, controlled Militia, and which Lincoln found he could not persuade to follow his orders.  After teaching himself, through many questions, and trips to the Library of Congress to educate himself about military history, he decided to raise a Federal force of over 600, 000 troops. Lincoln left the Militias (and their Generals) for Governors to govern.

But as we know, the victory of the Union was marred by the assassination of Lincoln, weeks after General Lee’s surrender to General Grant.  His death was immortalized in the poem, My Captain, My Caption by Walt Whitman.  He was an admirer of Lincoln, and some say vice versa, though they could not speak in public, other than in passing.  This would have caused a scandal, as Walt was a known Sinner.  I think Whitman was an American Poet, and perhaps our first Guru.  He wrote extensively about everything, though his sexual liberties were not unknown, (as are Lincoln’s, though much less so). During this time, their love was forbidden.

“…He grew to like the Bucktails, especially Company K, with whose captain he became so friendly that he invited him to share his bed on autumn nights when Mrs. Lincoln was away from home.” From the chapter MADAM PRESIDENT p. 303 of REVEILLE IN WASHINGTON by Margaret Leech, Harper & Brothers1941

“I Sing The Body Electric”, was Rock and Roll, it was HOWL, back in the day.  Leaves of Grass, stands the test of time.  I want us too!  History inspires, though not always.  People have often complained about people not studying the past.  I have found it rewarding, though it is hard work, learning history, and admitting that opinions vary.  Many have found comfort, guidance and inspiration from study of those who have lived before us.  Whitman was especially good at embracing people of all walks of life, especially the working class.  He spent several years in Washington DC, and was famous on the streets of the City, and especially with soldiers whom he visited in hospitals through most of the war.

The most disturbing information which was covered by Margaret Leech was the Hell on Earth, which people created, through their ignorance of the science of hygiene and sanitation.  It was during the Civil War that hand washing became routine, at least in America.  The British discovered much through their own Hell, known as the Crimean War.  Florence Nightingale became famous during this time. All peoples, Men and Women, their relationships with themselves, and each other, were changed by the war.

Washington DC was attacked, by the British during the War of 1812, yet despite this, the District was by no means a fortified city.  When the threat of fighting, became all too real, though 50 years had past, DC was not able to defend itself. I think the events of that war; deserve attention, though that will be another time, though its effects are present today, especially in DC.

By the time of the Civil War, there had been tremendous advances in understanding anatomy, as well as sophisticated surgical tools and techniques.  However, lack of understanding of sanitation, and germs, contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men.  Doctors may have killed more than they saved during the much of the war.  Eventually, practices changed, sometimes by accident.  When silk became scare during the war, thread was substituted to stitch wounds.  Because it was not as soft as silk, it was often boiled prior to use.  It was soon noticed this caused much less infection, though they couldn’t explain why. I heard that on a field trip with a Middle School class not 10 years ago (since cancelled).

“The field medical service of the Prussian army in 1870 was modeled on [Doctor] Letterman’s plan, which forms the basis of the systems used by all modern armies.”  From the chapter, ‘The Great Army of the Wounded’.

I bring this up, as aren’t We doing something similar, causing harm, though intending good?  I’ve more questions than answers.  That may not change.  I risk writing about dangerous subjects, because dialog is needed.  I hope I have not injured anyone’s conscience.  Forgive my trespasses.   I’ve a bit on my mind, and a feeling, you too. I’ve voiced my concerns.  I better go.  Thanks for reading. All the best to you and yours, Roger Hull. 3-20-17