Learning Of Ourselves

VDH has written a rather profoundly introspective piece on ourselves as revealingly gleaned from the rather abrupt and unexpected Sarah Palin candidacy, which essentially demonstrated how skewed our values and worldly perception have become.

It is not a pretty assessment, verbally castigating us for our rank deviation from righteousness and for how deeply we have strayed from what would be considered iron-clad standards maybe a generation prior, when we still had our heads screwed on right.

It appears from his assessment that we, or maybe more appropriately many of those belonging to the enlightened class of political pundits and media in general, have collectively taken leave of our good senses, thrown away and shunted aside the wealth of accumulated wisdom of our ages, and cast our lot with the ragged divestiture of traditional values and disgusting amorality that now appear to have taken hold of our social ruling class.

Warped values and callous cynicism to traditional values endeared and zealously guarded by generations past.

All in the hallowed name of political expediency, or maybe crass ideology. And maybe for the self-anointed intellectual media class as sneering putdown or arrogance against somebody so differently cast from the template that they have molded for themselves – an unwelcome outlier with very plebian origins and clothed with the humble accoutrements of upbringing outside the gilded environments of privileged families, renowned affinities and connections, and educational haughtiness in revered ivy-league schools.

Such snickering and dismissive gesture reserved for somebody so far below their perceived hallowed cognitive abilities, and privileged backgrounds.

Sarah Palin has been dressed up and played for a fool, like a court jester to be ridiculed and shooed back to oblivion. Or so they believe.

But the true winner and the one who has opted to take the higher moral ground, in all this is without a doubt Sarah Palin herself. Because she has unmindfully dismissed them all with the same nonchalant vigor and passion that they have denigrated her. Unobtrusively attending to her business and pursuing and espousing her believed causes before the huddled masses of the electorate, without mind and rancor to the many that have chosen to ridicule her.

Shame on them! And the day of reckoning hopefully will find them stripped of their base thoughts and shorn of their flagrant arrogance. And then hopefully, they can begin to feel self-dread and real shame.

Race to the Finish

We have barely 7 days to go before election time. Some SEO keywords to remember in trying to learn about the Obama-Biden ticket:

Unrepentant terrorist William Ayers - Obama’s favorite neighbor

Convicted Chicago landlord Tony Rezko

Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Damns America; and hateful Rev. Phleger

Community Organizer ACORN - Obama’s anointed

Massive voter registration fraud in Ohio and in at least a dozen other states, either under indictment or being investigated by FBI – credit all to ACORN

Annenberg Challenge papers and Stanley Kurtz – how to muzzle free speech and freedom of information

Thuggish methods in shutting down dissent – now includes a TV station

Unvetted past of Obama – undergraduate studies, school records, etc.

Unguarded “spreading the wealth around” comment. Bring me the good old socialism

Campaign contributions fraud – fictitious donor names and unauthorized charges to credit card accounts.

Obama – post-racial race-card player

When the rhetoric appears too good to be true, it usually is.

Guard your vote, vote with an opened mind.

..the journey of 7000 miles starts with ...

...packing your toothbrush.

Here we go again. Another arduous trek to the far Far East. Another 48 hours of uneasy travel before tired feet can land on familiar soil. And before it could even commence there is the confusing and beguiling chore of making sure everything needed, included those many items you are being asked to bring along, are all dropped and neatly bundled inside the cramped quarters of two small valises.

But the appointed time comes like clockwork and onward we drive to the airport. This time the trek takes on some easy changes and tweaking, taking on a different airline that will now be headed to a point due south and requiring only an overnight ferry ride to the ultimate decision. But now within the elongated time frame of about 48 hours.

I cannot be wrong when I exclaim that no passenger ever relishes such a tortuous trip, trying to steer easy in very cramped seats over a long period of time, and then jumping from one venue to another (airport to downtown, to pier, etc) with dragged luggage in tow. Not a lovely sight and process, indeed.

But like everything in our fleeting lives, this too will pass.

From one world to another, really.

From all the current turmoil in the beleaguered economy, in the over-heated politics, and all the vexing problems in between that is the US today. To the pervasive extreme poverty conditions, the grueling heat that tropical weather typically is, the overall chaotic living conditions in many congested cities, and all the other vexing problems inherent in most cities of 3rd world countries, that the old homeland is.

Not much changes, really. If one is used to both.

This will be an appropriate time to witness the trickling-down effects of this global economic meltdown, as it invariably affects all those surprised countries waiting in the periphery, waiting with bated breath how the big players in the global economy will handle their end of this gigantic problem .

For truly, we are a globalized and interdependent economy and community. For this particular country especially where 10-12% of its GDP is derived from inward remittances coming from its workers and former citizens living or working abroad, it is singularly of extreme importance.

So we will soon see.

Fooled By A Fool?

With their snide, or being coy or cute commentaries, some bloggers or commenters in many blogs I visit appear to be playing and baiting others to go down into a baser level of political discourse, fancying themselves a lot smarter and wiser than the objects of their ridicule. And maybe they truly are a lot smarter.

But to those I humbly suggest that they take the exercise of looking themselves up in the mirror, and measuring and gauging what they have done in their own lives, like what laudable impacts they have had not only on their persons but on the people around them. And to compare themselves with the people who are subjects of their ridicule and unkind criticism.

Compare themselves to say, a Sarah Palin, adjudged by a host of personages as the thoroughly dumb and hick VP candidate. In running and ruling as governor of her state, she has had to compete with a round of “smarter and wiser” people who were vying for the same position, and she has had to deal also with countless people, both private citizens and public officials, who have had dealings with her state of Alaska. And one can set aside her stints as mayor of her small town and commissioner of her state-wide energy commission. And since she carried as much as 80% approval ratings, then this dumb woman must have fooled a lot of Alaskans. Imagine counting the number of intractable fools in a state of almost 700,000 people!

Take that little exercise it could be elucidating, and leaven that liberating experience with a rereading of the lesson of the Pharisee and the publican.

Consider this as just some rambling observations from another equally intractable fool.

Who Said Elections Can’t Be Funny?

Here usually naughty Howard Stern, of all people, plays the maestro:



HeHeHe.

Hey, maybe all voters should be asked why they vote for a certain candidate, before they are actually given their ballots. Much like when one goes through the citizenship process where each candidate is asked several questions about US history before actually being sworn in.

Questions like: What was the cause behind the US Civil War and what resulted from it? The slavery issue which resulted in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Which truly was one of the questions asked me during my naturalization interview. And I actually gave that answer above.

Was I right?