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[wellseasoned]

        Perversions?

Liberalism belongs first

   in education as in colleges

of arts and sciences

   for improving creative

and critical thinking.

Conservatism belongs first

   in sustainability as in improving

our lifestyles in balance

   with nature’s ecosystems.

Politicians and constituents

   would do well to embrace

both - - - together,                                           JDN

[wellseasoned]

          Double Bind?

Religious authorities who teach

   that the use of contraception

   is a sin,

get couples creating child after child     

   until, sooner or later,

they make a habit

   of withholding affection

as a form of birth control.

Either way,

   it fills the pews.

[wellseasoned]

As we celebrate 250 years since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, let us remember that he also wrote, “The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

[wellseasoned]

                 Our God

A father-figure in the heavens

   as the Higher Power in charge

has made a comforting metaphor

   for many centuries,

However, methods of science

   have now made clear,

the most useful definition

   of our Higher Power,   

“from whom all blessings flow,”

   is Nature.

JDN

[wellseasoned]

Family Planning*

To best love all children create no more

   or one or two if none,

 ‘cause when it comes to people,

   the planet is overrun.

Hunger, diseases, the homeless keep growing.

   And some groups are always at war.

The future would be helped by less people

   and sure will get worse if there’s more.

[wellseasoned]

My “take” from 87 trips around the sun: We live in a system of interacting variables, individual, social, and ecological. If we want to maximize our happiness, we must focus on peace of mind, physical health, and feelings of loving kindness as indicators, followed by the ability and the will to promote and share fresh air, clean water, living topsoil, modern contraception, and the knowledge of why these are most important.

[wellseasoned]

          Ignorant?

Truly country people want

    to be surrounded by Nature

 and not have to travel to it.

It seems most city people

   prefer Nature at a distance

and don’t want to get

   any of it on them.

Jerry Nathan

[wellseasoned]

My take from 87 trips around the sun: There is capitalism that enhances humanity and there is capitalism that diminishes humanity. This is also true of technology, the “highest fruit” of capitalism. We need to be attending more to the natural and social sciences to tell the difference.

[wellseasoned]

My take from 87 trips around the sun: Social scientists will say 99% of the present rests upon the past. To better understand the present, we must study more than the recent past. This is the importance of historians and journalists, their posts, their articles, their books in libraries. We stupefy ourselves with sanitizing and censorship. It short-sights progress in becoming more civil as in civilization.

[wellseasoned]

Act My Age???

Rest assured, this old dog

    could learn new tricks

if he wasn’t plumb satisfied

   with old tricks

he learned

   when he was

 a new dog.

[wellseasoned]

My take from 87 trips around the sun: Our institutions of higher learning, aside from being stupidly expensive, seem more focused on the physical engineering sciences to provide bigger and faster things in the world and less on the social sciences and humanities for providing more health, peace and meaning in the world. I think that’s backwards.  

[wellseasoned]

My view from 87 trips around the sun: AI is a thing. Things should serve people and not the other way around. The physical sciences should be governed by the social sciences. Generally speaking, people are more important than things no matter how extraordinary.

[wellseasoned]

My take after 87 trips around the sun: There are two rules that human society needs to follow to get off the path to extinction. One is to educate every body in the arts and sciences. The other is to not procreate more every-bodies than they can educate in the arts and sciences. It’s the sciences that make life sustainable. It’s the arts that make life worth living.

[wellseasoned]

        Such a Deal

Rural people

   once took care of themselves

and each other

   by growing their own food

and depending on the weather.

City people try to take care

   of themselves and each other

by growing an economy

   dependent on corporations

that ruin the weather.   

                                  JDN

[wellseasoned]

        The Un-United States

We got ourselves so polarized

   the problem that I’m seeing

is trying just to understand

   seems like we are agreeing.

                                       JDN

[wellseasoned]

      10,000 Years of Competition  

So, Earth’s human tribes

   got themselves into a population race,

followed by a land-grab race,

   and a money race,

an industrial race,

a technological race,

   including an arms race

going into space.

Shouldn’t we declare

   a finish-line to these races,

before Nature says you are, indeed,

   finished?  

[wellseasoned]

My view from 87 trips around the sun: The chief cause of war is competition that gets out of hand. The chief cause of competition that gets out of hand is too many people in a natural habitat. There is a difference between the competition of ideas for the benefit of people and the competition of people for the benefit of ideas.