PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 - RESULTS

The results are in and we have reelected our president, Barack Obama. Every four years, our political process affirms the greatness of our nation: change is decided upon (or decided against) not through violence and bloodshed, but through debate, discussion and voting. Our republic has stood for 236 years on the greatness of our citizenry's engagement in the electoral lifeblood of our system.

I interviewed several people today at two different polling locations. I will write about this shortly. For now, I will say that I was touched by the pride, joy and passion that these people expressed as they took part in the democratic process. America is healthy and strong.

I expected the president to win comfortably in the electoral college. He did. I expected him to win by slim margins in the battleground states. This occurred. However, I thought that the Republicans would contest the results in states where the president's margin of victory was slim. They did not. This is to their credit. Peaceful acceptance of the electoral process is the soul of our nation.

Congratulations to our president, Barack Obama.

May God bless the United States of America.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 - A PREDICTION

My quick prediction:

I think that President Obama will win the Electoral College vote by a comfortable margin overall, but  by a slim margin in the battleground states. Because of that, I expect votes in those states to be contested by the Republicans. As such, we will probably not have a final verdict on the election for a few weeks.

We'll see...

PRAISE AND THANKS

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death

Amen


Thank you, Christ Jesus and Blessed Mother, for your blessings and love.

THE LOOKING-GLASS WORLD

"Truth is perception and perception is everything."

-- A certain lady

Look at the above image. What do you see? Notice anything awry? Most people don't. Most people see precisely what they expect to see.

Now look again.

Aha!

You see it, yet you hadn't at first. You had been conditioned to see things a certain way. What is fact and what is perception and how are they distinguished? How much of what we believe we know is simply a function of what we know we want to believe? We live with this conundrum every day of our lives, but most of us choose not to question it because it's easier that way. What is more, we never stop to think of how it impacts all that we see and do-- everything from the choice of a lover...


to the choice of a president.

The magician knows this about the human mind and exploits it every time.

So does the politician.

This is the central issue that I have chosen to explore. I feel its effect every day-- those vast, multifarious and conflicting impressions that shape the interactions of our world. It is my belief that we live in a Looking-glass World: most of what we perceive is the opposite of what it truly is. Those they tell you are heroes are often villains, but in a world of media saturation, where image is king, we are wowed by charm, swayed by beauty.Twas ever thus, I know. However, the world is a much smaller place and the impact of such misperception is greater and wider than it has ever been.

This is just an introductory thought. Perceive it as you will. We're all through the looking-glass anyway.

COSMIC STREET FIGHT/LEGERDEMAIN

The hunger seems relentless. The smell of the hunt. It keeps coming. But I tell you this: The Beast of Seven and Ten will be stopped.

This is cosmic assault, plain and simple. It is a violation of spiritual law. The Beast of Seven and Ten will pay the price.

It is the nature of the corporeal existence of the human soul to navigate our relationships with the transcendent forces of the universe. For some, life is simple and the path is smooth. They engage with the better class of spirit in the better neighborhoods of For others, it's a cosmic street fights and some of those supposedly genteel higher powers are nothing but two-bit thugs. The Beast of Seven and Ten is one of 'em. He doesn't understand reason or fairness-- he only understands a poke in the chops, because that's what he wants: The Cosmic Street Fight.

Don't give it to him.

The Beast of Seven and Ten is a bully. He is strengthened by fear-- your fear-- and when he has you frightened, he's won. He feeds not only on your fear, but on your hatred and anger. Give him none. Outsmart him rather than outpunch him. Be of the moment. Be serene and strong.

Here is the secret: he's an evil magician, but once you know that his tricks are simple illusions, once you've mastered the magic of your own, you can triumph. Use your own magic while you keep a loving heart.

Time for a little sleight-of-hand.

2012 - REDUX

May you all be blessed with love, joy, good health and good fortune in 2012!

2012

Fasten your seat belt or grab some popcorn.

The games are about to begin...

OF LOVE - EROS

The scriptures say Love is patient. I say it's insistent. It demands and commands; it never asks politely. The arrow flies to your heart without warning, you get hit, you bleed. You lay there in a pool of passion. Not your choice.

The scriptures say Love is kind. I've found it brutal and confounding. A pugilistic conundrum and no title on the line. Styles make fights, This opponent, Love, can always break your defense. The smart money is against you the moment you step into the ring.

And yet you do.

For Love is mysterious, wondrous, comforting. What I'd love to show you, what I've seen, what things to which my mind wanders when driving down a dark highway in the desert night amid the crumbling ruins of the city called Syren Sea. The fading sun paints a burgundy sky as songs whisper on the radio their tales found wildness, soft madness and secret tender solitude shared.

I tell you to love, love deeply, love fearlessly, freely and unconditionally. If you could do one thing, and one thing only now, it should be to love with reckless abandon.

Dismiss the Socratic dialogue in your head, the contrary responses of others: softness, weakness, sinfulness. To the last, to love is no sin, love is the breath of God keeping us alive.

Leave the naysayers to me. I will slay that beast.

MUCH ADO ABOUT MADOFF

Ah, the "great men" of Wall Street are in a tizzy. "He's a sociopath," they cry as they beat their breasts and look towards the heavens. "He tricked us!"

That he did.

He harmed a great number of people. Innocent citizens whose entire savings were wrapped up in Madoff investments lost everything. Charities that helped the poor and those in need were left scrambling to survive and continue their good works. Make no mistake, Madoff's actions were those of pure malice. I feel for the innocent ones who were caught in his web.

Do I feel for the "great men" of Wall Street? Not so much.

These "Master of the Universe" are not so upset at the type of actions that Madoff took as they are at the fact that these actions were done to them. You see Madoff did to these titans of Wall Street what the titans of Wall Street have been doing to we, the average American, for lo these 30 years or so: he conned them.

What I resent, however, is the sanctimonious and cynical hand-wrining by his brethren on Wall Street. For well near 30 years now, we the American people have been subjected to the very same actions with the very same effects by countless denizens of that Financial Hades. We are a debtor nation and our economy is in shambles because of the same acts of greediness and heartlessness, the same acts of so-called financial wizardry that rewarded short-term avarice, insubstantial industries, and mendacious corporate heads.

We are told that the "market" prices in all information, that the market is savvy, that it sees six months ahead of the economy's present state. Well, if that were so, then how to explain a recession that already has lasted a year with a bull market that didn't catch up and become "bear" until more than a year after the downturned occurred? Not very persipicacious if you asked me.

We've endured the Internet bubble and the mortgage bubble, the astronomical valuations of corporations that have yet to turn a profit. We watch as the market soars on days when unemployment figures rise by nearly a half-million. We watch stocks go up when corporations post enormous losses because those losses were supposedly "not as bad as the market thought they would be." That's a bit like finding out that a loved one has died, but feeling happy because they were only hit by a truck when they could have been hit by a train.

Wall Street is obsessed with the most recent quarter of profits to the exclusion of that which builds strong companies and industries: long-range planning. This short-term thinking has hijacked the American economy and turned us into impulse financiers, only looking for what satisfies our obese cravings now, even if it will leave us hungry for a long time later.

Madoff is only a symptom of the sickness of the Wall Street Man. The only difference between Madoff and the others of his kind is that instead of relying complicated financial instruments like derivatives to pick our pockets, he did it the old-fashioned way: with a wink and nod.