Religion and Politics

I remember growing up when there seemed to be so much time between presidential elctions. Kennedy was elected when I was in 3rd Grade, Johnson in 7th and Nixon in 11th...eons of time between elections. Now it seems that candidates are running for president continually.

I've found myself voting for various candidates from various parties all across the politcal spectrum, from Gus Hall to Bo Gritz, knowing that my vote or non-vote in Utah will make little difference in the big picture. I've also voted for John Anderson and Ralph Nader.

The other day I received a group emailing about how weird it is that the Republicans can support Newt Gingrich, who cheated on his wife. The following is my response:

Ah, the conundrums of the far right and far left, where ideas become ideologies and where fear and hate flourish and dictate actions, REactions and votes. If there were an adulterous democratic challenger to the left of Obama, he or she might win a primary run-off because of all the times our "Uncle-Tom President" has "caved."

Just curious how many of you would vote for a monogamous democrat over a polyamorous republican? :-) I wonder how many people in Utah would support Romney if he were not LDS, given the perception that he is a moderate.

We really don't vote on issues, do we? It's basically emotion, fear of Mormons, fear of minorities, communists, fear of terrorists (which means they win). We are moved by a need to blame and mistrust groups, the media, the government, corporations, Jews, Muslims, unions (especially teacher unions) or anything that offers alternatives to our ideology, which possesses and identifies us: liberal, conservative, tea party, occupier. Are there any people left out there who exist independent of their self labels or the labels we tag onto them?

Gingrich's second wife's interview gave him the chance to attack the media, tap into that mistrust and need to blame the messenger. If we can discredit the media then we are free to believe whatever we want to believe... neat trick, eh? I don't have TV and am curious how Fox covered the ABC interview. The lady may have been vindictive, delusional or whatever. For sure she's opening up her life to all kinds of scrutiny.

Here are a few of my predictions, based on my narrow perspective and having been alive during the past 11 administrations and having seen a few elections. If Santorum stays in the race, he will be Romney's main opponent. He may not because of $, but the Cain, Edwards...infidelity thingy should catch up with Gingrich. Of course, he's a good communicator, clintonesque, and may get by it, but I think his ex has some fire in her belly and is willing to take it to the next level. Romney should win the nomination. The commercial media would have us believe that every primary or caucus is a king maker-breaker (stay tuned after a word from our sponsors) I'm not as confident as I was before of Romney being able to beat Obama because he doesn't have the emotional appeal that would get the ultra-christian conservatives to the polls, especially as he moves to the center to appeal to more voters after the primaries. Plus, if the economy is swinging up come the summer there are a few who would rather vote for a left-of-center Christian than a right-of-center...whatever Mormons are. Gotta love religion and politics.Save Now

Update Jan 2012

I thought I'd include some random photos from 2011, up to Christmas. The first shot is from Silver Lake Reservoir, kind of a retake of an earlier shot, perhaps from my first entry in here. It's just 5 years later and such a great picture.

Others are of Christmas this year. Every year we have a Shepherds Supper where we eat Mediterranean foods on Christmas Eve. We play games and pig out on figs, melons and

other anti-pasto dishes. People in the pictures include Kristina, Anthony and his wife, Catherine and Rebekah (red coat) who is my baby. Anyway, 2011 was a great year in which I learned soooo much and watched diverse strands of my life and such emerge and interweave, taking me in directions I may not have been able to

imagine earlier.

So much has happened over the past year, Landmark, Community Garden, Japan and on and on. I'm not sure if it's a factor of aging or reverse aging or what. I hear people talk about this time of life as when people slow down and time speeds up. Time is definitely clipping along but life, projects, school, ideas just keep coming, and I'm loving it...actually.

I wish I could keep up with myself. I wonder if just doing a lot of things, fingers in a lot of pots, is an obsession or just an excuse to not do anything well. I am energized by so many things. I love schol and am in the midst of many projects and am enjoying being suffocated in the excitement.

Perhaps the thing that's most on my mind, at the moment, is ANETA. That's the acronym for the academy that I'm involved with...not exactly an academy yet. That's the point though: all sorts of ideas, models and excitement. It's truly something on which I could focus in my quest to "save the world."

I sold the goats, grrr...sigh. I miss them but I wasn't able to take care of them, especially when I had to rely on others if I was out of town. So it's bees and grapes for now.

The Secret

Three years ago I got a MacBook Pro for making and editing documentary movies for my classes. One of my aides whose mother is from Taiwan uploaded a picture of an incredibly beautiful Buddist temple. I always assumed that it was in Taiwan, since he visits there often.

Last night I slept in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto and visited two others today. The second one was the same one I've had on my desktop for almost 3 years. Kinda reminds one of the movie,"The Secret" where the guy buys the house he had in the collage on his wall. The pic on the top is the original desktop. The others are ones I took today. Crazy stuff, eh? I wept openly when I rounded the corner of the little lake and got my first glimpse.

It's About Time

We are everywhere doing everything we can in such a short period of time. The past 5 days have found my group in Nagasaki visiting schools, Ground Zero, the Peace Gardens, Christian Churches, Tea Ceremonies, Universities and a recycling plant. All of that plus eating some of the most outstandingly amazing foods I've ever experienced. I also, through an incredible coincidence (do they exist?) was lined up with an LDS family for a home visit over the past weekend. I went to church with them. It was the first time I've been to church in more than a month. It was a good place, a good space, for me and seemed to be a positive experience for everyone.

I have sooo many images I could upload, but am prohibited from uploading the best ones. Those w

ould be the faces of the children at the schools we have visited. They are incredibly beautiful. sitting with them, feeling their energy, innocence and passion for life was/is

transformative.

So much to write...so little time.

One thing that's coming to me about ESD is that there will never be sustainable solutions for sustainable development issues, be they energy, housing, transportation, resource depletion, climate-change, sustainable food supply, world peace or any other SD issue of substance just by teaching it in the classrooms. There are some internal issues that a substantial number of us will have to confront. It will require a shift in our nature or at least in our perceptions of

who/what we are and our place and relationship with everything and everyone else.

It's about time, no?

Thursday we went to a public bath at a hot springs. It waas a little different :) but very relaxing. The meal we ate there reminded me of an Italian wedding. We ate such a variety of foods, including Kobe beef which is the most expensive beef in Japan. We also spent some time at the longest suspension bridge in the world, 2 1/4 miles long. If one picture is worth a 1000 words I'll add a lengthy chapter here.

One pic is a cross-section of one of the cables used in building the bridge. Wactually took an elevator up onto the bridge.

Japan is AMAZING

Actually, its the Japanese who who are so hospitable and proud to do the best they can as they perform their jobs. The airport was unlike anything I've ever experienced, so polite and orderly. Anyway, I'm here in Kobe with the Fullbright ESD teacher exchage. I'm just going to add some pics for now of our first evening here.