To End an Eagle – In the Days of Daddy-Dumb - Part 1

A “heroes' journey”, the story begins with a crisis, the loss of lives, and ends as life is celebrated, hereafter., when darkness is no more.   

Eli the eagle is the protagonist; Vile the vulture, the antagonist.  Other characters include a host of birds as well as a few ground creatures.   Who is good, light, and who is not?   Who helps Eli along this journey, intentional or not? 

Eli embarks on this journey without knowing where he is going or will end up.  Passing from the natural to the unnatural, the eagle descends into an underworld of darkness and despair—confronted by/with things never encountered before let alone imagined. The underworld is owned by the worst of the worse; the human species that historically have provided little benefit to eagles and the natural in general. 

What becomes of Eli is indeed a resurrection, a new life in spite of many open and unending questions from the pr

Decline of the West - Decisions

Much is written and broadcast about this, but again I turn to Malcolm Muggeridge.  

Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.

Losing, Loss and Lost (Storms and Mega-Storms)

These words strike fear in the most competitive, hard driven, of the herd.  Whether winning or the undying determination to, win, the notion of not—winning—is not an option.  

A man of many years came to the realization late in life that losing, loss and lost, while undesired, is unavoidable, inescapable.   How else do we learn but through loss, the losing of something special, irrecoverable yet forever there? 

Defeat is death is some degree; an experience to assess what happened if not why (it happened)—except that any journey is marked by challenges, conquerable or not, with the outcome or end, uncertain, unclear.   

As to the worry and wonder of why…, the reason, that too is uncertain, unclear.  That “man of many years”, Malcolm Muggeridge, said:  

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.” 

Malcolm Muggeridge

What is "the message"?  

Flesh & Blood - "The Obsolete Man"

The Obsolete Man

In the dated, Draconian, series from "The Twilight Zone" (1960's) comes one called, "The Obsolete Man"; a story of one--among others--fleshed-out of the system for, well, his flesh & blood.  Described by his judge as, "an anachronism", the central figure is sentenced to extermination.   


The crime:  possessing books; yes, he works at a library. 

This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone.

In the closing words of this series: 

Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all.

Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete. 

Defiance

"Defiance" is a word the elicits sacrifice, suffering. Resistance to authority, defiance is more than taking the lessor road--it is taking the dense, even unexplored, ground that few if any think about, let alone venture.  

Yet history has its rebels, renegades and revolutionaries; it has those that simply say, "No!", accepting come what may even if the that to come was never considered before, sacrifice and suffering.   

What makes the defiant?  Is defiance ever justified, a good thing? 

The film, DEFIANCE, portrays a people, a partisan, eking out an existence in the dense forest, their lives radically changed without any real sense of what lies ahead except, in the worst of possibilities, their extermination.  Traditionally a peaceful lot, they take up arms to defend what little remains, some semblance of existence, while waiting for the war to end, peace to come.  Chaos around and within their ranks, the community is under constant threat, the elements intense, indomitable.  

How far will someone go before giving-up is often the unclear until there, in the throes.... Conditioning and coping are cousins, you know. 

VW Vagabond

Why “VW Vagabond”; what is the association, the application?

“VW” is universal:

• Volkswagen has sold ore vans-trucks than any other…in the world
• Classics like the Bug and Bus are iconic
• Camper conversions are about as condensed-compact as any

“Vagabond” is recently inspired by the news source, “The Last  American Vagabond” and reading the book,

Nomadland; Surviving America in the 21st Century, by Jessica Bruder; these and other unmentioned influences are the inspiration for this title, the vagabond

Battlefield America: The War On The American People (John W. Whitehead)

Recently purchased, this book is a collection of documented abuse, statecraft; it a an expose on the developing police state.

Yes, "it can happen here" (see Lewis Sinclair, It Can't Happen Here); the upstaging of a supposed democracy with more a fascist government that exercises the heavy hand and long arm from top to bottom, and more.

So far, and for all that remains, the content is eye-opening.  Here is a link to interview with the author.

Battlefield America - interview with author, Whitehead

The more I think about it, the more I realize that James Madison was right when he said:

No Nation Can Preserve Its Freedom in the Midst of Continual Warfare. 

Violence as a cultural condition is fostered by our violence extended worldwide.  When and how  it will end is a real crisis for which recovery and correction is more than possible.   

CHILDREN

Grateful that after many passing holiday seasons, my life is presently part of yours....

Being young as you are, many experiences await.  

My desire is that you develop as good people that are willing and able to love, to sacrifice and to support the things that matter most.  How you treat these "matter most" things is often a reflection of how you feel about you; thus, if you treat them with care, you treat yourself in kind.   

The years to come are, I strongly believe, going to be a great testing of integrity, strength.  

From my favorite book since a child, The Count of Monte Cristo:  

Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. 

Life is a storm, my friend