>> at Zen Habits, 12 Practical Steps for Learning to Go With the Flow. A simple list. I like the quotes, especially this one: 'Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.' - Chuang Tzu. I wonder whether the idea of accepting whatever I'm doing is consistent with Christianity, with prayers of confession, etc.

 

>>  from Life 2.0, Follow Your Bliss. The central idea, similar to the quote above, is 'no need for self improvement.'

 

"The central premise behind all the self improvement stuff (although often unseen as it can be oh so subtle) is that there is something wrong with us, something flawed that needs to be improved, something we need to do in order to be happy, healthy, successful and fulfilled.  It is this unexamined assumption, that we can be improved and therefore must be less than perfect, that keeps us in chains ... that reinforces this illusion of brokenness, powerlessness and being a victim-of-circumstances-beyond-our-control, which we see reflected back to us in the world we perceive around us."

 

Instead, this weblog counsels "an alternative to self-improvement, a spiritual path or another kind of seeking.... Vow to do what makes you happy right now and see where that takes you." Ah, but "anything we think we want, we have been conditioned to want," so it's not as easy as it might seem to do what makes us happy.

 

What I can't help thinking is that this plan to "be happy" is self-improvement by another name, with its implication that we're not happy enough already, and that we need to do something about this lack.

 

 >> "Jesus Made Me Puke" by Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone, about a 3-day "Encounter Weekend" retreat with John Hagee's Cornerstone Church:

 

"The program revolved around a theory that [pastor Philip] Fortenberry quickly introduced us to called 'the wound.' The wound theory was a piece of schlock biblical Freudianism in which everyone had one traumatic event from their childhood that had left a wound. The wound necessarily had been inflicted by another person, and bitterness toward that person had corrupted our spirits and alienated us from God. Here at the retreat we would identify this wound and learn to confront and forgive our transgressors, a process that would leave us cleansed of bitterness and hatred and free to receive the full benefits of Christ.

 

"In the context of the wound theory, Fortenberry's tale suddenly made more sense. Being taken on that eighteen-hole golf trip with the barmaid, and watching his family ditched by Dad, had been his wound. It was a wound, Fortenberry explained, because his father's abandonment had crushed his 'normal.'

 

"'And I was wounded,' he whispered dramatically. 'My dad had ruined my normal!'

 

"The crowd murmured affirmatively, apparently knowing what it was to have a crushed normal."

 

 

>> at Marginal Revolution, How To Choose An Apartment. How much does the actual living space matter, and how much does the location matter? Do we under- or over-invest in one or the other? Interesting anaylsis via comments.  I now live in a house I don't really like, in a location I love. Before this, I lived in a house (including extensive grounds) that I loved in a location I didn't like. I still don't know which is better.

 

 

>> provacateur PJ O'Rourke's "Fairness, Idealism and Other Atrocities," commencement advice. His advice: make money, don't be an idealist (they're bullies), get politically uninvolved (politics is anathema to truth), forget about fairness, be a religious extremist (that is, realise that "using politics to create fairness is a sin"). 

 

About fairness:

"Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, 'That's not fair.' When she says this, I say, 'Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you.'" 

 

 

>> 25 Things All Women Should Learn to Do Already by the women at Jezebel. Ranges from manual and practical skills like rapid vegetable chopping, masturbation, financial investing, and assembling furniture, to the more abstract realm of truth-telling, and social skills like withholding information, getting angry without being passive-aggressive, and not taking things personally. And of course, there are comments. 

 

>>  "Total Recall … Or At Least the Gist" at Miller-McCune, on the differences between gist and verbatim memory. What interests me here is the hypothesis called 'fuzzy trace theory,'  which "explains how we can 'remember' things that never really happened:"

 

"When an event occurs, verbatim memory records an accurate representation. But even as it is doing so, gist memory begins processing the information and determining how it fits into our existing storehouse of knowledge. Verbatim memories generally die away within a day or two, leaving only the gist memory, which records the event as we interpreted it.  Under certain circumstances, this can produce a phenomenon Reyna and her colleagues refer to as 'phantom recollection.' She calls this 'a powerful form of false alarm' in which gist memory -- designed to look for patterns and fill in perceived gaps -- creates a vivid but illusory image in our mind."  ...

 

"Gist memory allows us to make snap decisions. But life does not always follow familiar patterns, and harm can result when we discard evidence that doesn't fit our assumptions."

 

They note that this 'misremembering' is a very common, ordinary occurence.

 

>> "The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind" by Shankar Vedantam in the WaPo. Central idea: We are biased against people who are in proximity to people we are already biased against. Second idea: We believe that people "from other ethnic, cultural and political groups are quite similar to one another, whereas they know that people from [our] own groups are quite varied."

 

The study he cites is fascinating:

Volunteers in a research experiment see an applicant sitting in a waiting room next to an overweight person, while others see the applicant sitting next to someone of average weight. ... "A variety of experiments have shown that overweight people suffer from discrimination; what [researcher Michelle] Hebl wanted to find out was whether strangers in the vicinity of overweight people would share in such approbation.

"Remarkably, Hebl found that volunteers rated job applicants more negatively when they had been seen seated next to an overweight person than when they were seen seated next to an average weight person. The volunteers had no idea that they were showing not only a prejudice against fat people but also a bias against people who were merely in proximity to overweight people.

"The experiment tells us something about the Obama-Wright controversy. The presidential candidate may have made it clear that the minister does not speak for him, but every time Wright's words are replayed on talk radio and cable TV, they automatically retrieve mental associations in many voters' minds with Obama. Hebl similarly found her volunteers unconsciously made associations even after being explicitly told there was no connection between the job applicants in the waiting room."

 

Similarly, "men and women seen in the company of beautiful partners are perceived as being more attractive than when they are seen in plainer company." But -- "there is some evidence our minds are especially attuned to negative associations."

 

 

>> "The Gospel of Consumption And the better future we left behind" by Jeffrey Kaplan in Orion. The article, with a focused accounting of Kellogg company work-hour policy over the years, is primarily a vision of Americans working and spending less while living comfortably.

 

"Machines can save labor, but only if they go idle when we possess enough of what they can produce. In other words, the machinery offers us an opportunity to work less, an opportunity that as a society we have chosen not to take. Instead, we have allowed the owners of those machines to define their purpose: not reduction of labor, but 'higher productivity'  -- and with it the imperative to consume virtually everything that the machinery can possibly produce. ...

 

"By 1991 the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948. By 2006 that figure had risen another 30 percent. In other words, if as a society we made a collective decision to get by on the amount we produ€ced and consumed seventeen years ago, we could cut back from the standard forty-hour week to 5.3 hours per day -- or 2.7 hours if we were willing to return to the 1948 level.

 

"But we cannot do it as individuals." The marketplace doesn't offer "a choice to work less and consume less. The reason is simple: that choice is at odds with the foundations of the marketplace itself -- at least as it is currently constructed. The men and women who masterminded the creation of the consumerist society understood that theirs was a political undertaking, and it will take a powerful political movement to change course today." 

 

In a sort of rebuttal to PJ O'Rourke's suggestion (above) that democracy might mean having our clothing choices, e.g., determined by the majority (of shoppers, i.e., teen girls), Kaplan notes that Edward Bernays, "one of the founders of the field of public relations and a principal architect of the American Way," decreed that "the choices available in the polling booth are akin to those at the department store; both should consist of a limited set of offerings that are carefully determined by what Bernays called an 'invisible government' of public-relations experts and advertisers working on behalf of business leaders. Bernays claimed that in a 'democratic society' we are and should be 'governed, our minds ...  molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.'"

 

 

>>  "Engines of Emotional Pollution"  (continues here) by Steven Stosny, Ph.D., in Psychology Today, posits four mechanisms that "govern most human interactions:" contagion, attunement, negative bias, and reactivity.

 

Contagion for Stosny is "what makes you feel what the rest of the group feels."

Attunement is a type of contagion, or a response to it; it's when we match "the intensity and tone of [our] emotions with those of someone else." It's honouring the boundaries of social convention. Interestingly, "[a]lthough our unconscious sensitivity to others is almost always active when we're not alone, it is not always accurate, i.e., we sometimes misconstrue what other people are feeling. However, we are far more accurate in sensing what others feel than in knowing what they think. This disproportionate accuracy between sensing another's feelings and judging their thinking leads to most of our misunderstandings of one another." We're pretty accurate in knowing another person's feelings but in trying to account for what's behind them, we make wrong assumptions.

 

Negative bias is related to attunement: Our 'negative' emotions influence us more than our positive ones, and we 'tune in' to negative emotions more than we do to positive ones: "So if you come home from work in a fairly good mood and find that your spouse is brooding or upset, attunement will bring him or her up a little and you down a lot. To keep from being 'brought down' by the other's negative mood, many couples attempt to dull their sensitivity to the other's emotional world."

 

Reactivity: is "learned resistance to the unconscious pull of contagion and attunement." It can be obvious -- 'I'm not putting up with your attitude!' or passive, ignoring another's bad mood.

 

From a Girardian perspective, I found this paragraph, which speaks of interdividualism (as opposed to individualism) without naming it, enlightening:

 

"The aspect of reactivity that makes it difficult to see, let alone change, is its illusion of free will and ego independence, even 'authenticity.' You think that you are acting of your own volition and in your best interest, when you are merely reacting to someone else. We've all uttered (or at least thought) the most ironic of all statements, 'You're not going to bring me down!' As long as you're in this reactive mode, you are down -- reacting to negativity with negativity."

 

 

 

Following Jane's lead, I'm blogging the (visible) brands I use today:

 

 

7:15-7:45 a.m. 

Getting up, getting ready ... Zadro is the Shower Bug I listen to in the shower.

I'll note only this first use of Quilted Northern ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

7:45 a.m.

Getting dressed ... socks and necklace don't seem to have a brand on them ...

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

What's happening in the virtual world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:15 a.m.

Dog feeding and cooking rice for future dog meals ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:45 a.m.

Feeding me, vitamins (some are not branded), cleaning up ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

9:45 a.m.

Going out -- need jacket, gum, shoes, and a treat for the dog ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:00 a.m.

Returning-home treat for the dog ...

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:00 - 11:52 a.m.

Now what's happening in the virtual world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:52 a.m.

Going out again for a walk ...

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

12:05 p.m.

Got a phone call while walking ...

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Home and reconnecting ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:27 p.m.

Water plus tonic water ... Lunch was leftovers in a non-brand plastic container, so no brands to record. Then in the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:50 - 2:00 p.m.

Playing with the dog ...

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

2 - 2:30 p.m.

Working out ... weights don't seem to be branded ...

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

2:52 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

3:00 -  3:40 p.m.

Watched taped "Workout" and blogged, read online, etc. ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

4:50 p.m.

Did dishes. Oh joy. (Swept earlier, but no brand names on broom or dustpan.)

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:15-5:30 p.m.

Made cornbread to accompany leftovers for dinner. Most cornbread ingredients not name-brand.

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:35-6:10 p.m.

Reading the paper online and doing email as cornbread cooks and before heating up leftovers ....

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:42 p.m.

Dog eats again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

6:15-6:55 p.m.

Dinner (leftovers, cornbread, and half of Christmas beer) and TV. Dog goes out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Reading. Drinking tea. One phone call.

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

9:55 p.m.

Dog to bed.

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

10:00 p.m.

 Evening ablutions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... you might like these books, suggested by members of various library listservs.

 

The query I sent out was:

 

I'm looking for fiction that will appeal to someone who likes the FOX TV show, House MD, starring Hugh Laurie. The appeal factors could include medical diagnostics or medical mystery, interesting dynamics among medical professionals, cynical smart doctors, close co-dependent friendships between male doctors or men generally, an underlying belief that 'everyone lies,' and so on.

 

Here are the suggested authors, series, and titles.  I haven't read any yet. I'd love additions, and comments if you have read them:

 

Ariana Franklin (pseudonym for Diana Norman). New historical thriller series set in the 12th century about cynical, smart female physician Adelia Aguilar who is brought to England to solve murder mysteries for King Henry II. She's a coroner. First in the series: Mistress in the Art of Death (2007). Last (and second): The Serpent's Tale (2008).

 

Eileen Dreyer. Standalone medical mystery thrillers featuring cynical, world-weary nurses and EMTs. Also writes a series featuring Molly Burke, forensic nurse and death investigator in St. Louis, MO. First in series: Bad Medicine (1995). Last: Head Games (2005).

 

Sequence (2006) and The Silent Assassin (2007) by Lori Andrews, medical thrillers featuring geneticist and forensic specialist Dr. Alexandra Blake, described as smart and edgy. (Reviews compare the books to the popular TV series NCIS).

 

CL Grace's series featuring Kathyrn Swinbrooke, a female doctor in medieval times when only men could be doctors. Titles: 1. A Shrine of Murders (1992); 2. The Eye of God (1994); 3. The Merchant of Death (1995); 4. The Book of Shadows (1996); 5. Saintly Murders (2001); 6. A Maze of Murders (2003); and 7. A Feast of Poisons (2004). Some romance. (Grace is a pseudonym for writer P.C. Doherty.)

 

Echo Heron's medical thriller series featuring nurse Adele Monsarrat, who has a quirky sense of humor. Titles are Pulse (1998), Panic (1998), Paradox (1998) and Fatal Diagnosis (2000).

 

Lifelines (2008) by C. J. Lyons. Set in a Pittsburgh hospital, involves the new attending physician whose first night doesn't go well. When she's accused of negligence in the death of the son of the Chief of Neurosurgery, she starts investigating to save her career.

 

The Bugman novels by Tim Downs: 1. Shoofly Pie, 2. Chop Shop, and 3. First the Dead. The main character, Dr. Nick Polchak, is a forensic entomologist in North Carolina who helps solve crimes based on what the bugs say. He has a wry sense of humor. The books are marketed as Christian fiction but are not preachy; values are implicit, not explicit. 

 

Have you heard about Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain's response to her terminal diagnosis? I'm very attracted to the way she chose to live her last months, to her grief and depression as she says goodbye to what she finds meaningful and beautiful, and to her honesty as she faces the end of her time on earth.

 

The Guardian has the story and obituary; below are some excerpts from an interview with her at independent.ie in mid-April. She died on 9 May, about two-and-a-half months after her diagnosis, at age 68: 

 

"I was just reading about some best-selling man who says 'Live your dream to the end' and so on and I don't despise anyone who does, but I don't see it that way. Even if I gained time through the chemotherapy it isn't time I want. Because as soon as I knew I was going to die soon, the goodness went out of life. ...

"It amazed me, Marian, how quickly life turned black, immediately almost.

"For example, I lived somewhere beautiful, but it means nothing to me anymore -- the beauty. For example, twice in my life I have read the whole of Proust. I know it sounds pretentious, but it's not a bit. It's like a huge soap opera. But I tried again the week before last and it was gone, all the magic was gone from it.

"And I'm not nice or anything -- I'm not getting nicer. I'm sour and difficult you know. I don't know how my friends and family are putting up with me, but they are, heroically. And that is one of the things you learn."

 

 

"You see, the cancer is a very ingenious enemy and when you ask somebody how will I actually die? How do you actually die of cancer ?... I don't get an answer because It could be anything.

"It can move from one organ to the other, it can do this that or the other. It's already in my liver, for example. So I don't know how it's going to be. And that overshadows everything."

 

 

She says that she doesn't believe in an afterlife, or an individual creator, and goes on:

"Let poor human beings believe what they want, but to me its meaningless. ... And yet I want to mention one thing that you might play at the end, particularly for dying people, ... a song I heard a few years ago 'Thois I Lar an Glanna' -- a kind of modern song sung by Albert Fry and other Donegal singers. And the last two lines are two things, asking God up there in the heavens, even though you don't believe in him, to send you back even though you know it can't happen. Those two things sum up where I am now. (Crying)" 

 

 

"I am sick, but I am trying to say goodbye. So much has happened and it seems such a waste of creation that with each death all that knowledge dies. [and all that experience ... ]

"I think there's a wonderful rule of life that means that we do not consider our own mortality. I know we seem to, and remember, 'man thou art but dust', but I don't believe we do. I believe there is an absolute difference between knowing that you are likely to die, let's say within the next year, and not knowing when you are going to die -- an absolute difference."

 

The interviewer asks: "One of the things that you wrote about and wrote about is that what you thought mattered in life was passion?" to which O'Faolain responds:

"That seems a bit silly now. What matters now in life is health and reflectiveness. I just shot around. I would like it if I had been a better thinker.

MF: What about the passion?

NO'F: The passion can go and take a running jump at itself, that's what it can take.

MF: And love?

NO'F: Well, love's different, but I always [get the] two mixed up anyway."

 

 

"I know everyone says the hair matters, but that is not true. You can put a little cap on or something for the hair. That is irrelevant compared with having to leave the world behind." 

 

 

Tim Townsend's "Love Thy Neighbor: The religion beat in an age of intolerance" in the May/June 2008 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, is worth the read, in light of the Jeremiah Wright drama and the fundamentalist Mormon news of late here in the U.S., and the ongoing and manifold religious conflicts (and power conflicts cloaked in religion) all around the world.

 

Townsend is a reporter who has covered religion at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the last four years. The gist of this essay is that religion is divisive and religious folk -- Jesus, too! -- are polarising. (The Matthew passage he quotes at the start of the essay doesn't convince me, but I agree generally with Townsend that a prophetic message can be polarising, and that Jesus's harsh language at times is divisive. My view is that Jesus disrupts the 'peace' we cling to, the very peace Jesus threatens verbally in the Matthew passage, in order to displace that temporary, violent sort of peace with a shot-through-with-life peace ...)

 

Townsend suggests that this polarity is nothing new in America, citing Puritan John Winthrop's landing-in-America sermon outlining "a political system whose top priority would be ... 'the duty of suppressing heresy, of subduing or somehow getting rid of dissenters.'" Townsend doesn't state the obvious, that suppressing heresy and marginalising dissenters had been the modus operandi of many in power, or seeking power, long before this.

 

Later, he speaks of the current chasm in the Episcopal church, which he says isn't about "sex, or even theology, but about power, and who gets to make the decisions that will tie the hands of everyone else." He quotes Cathleen Falsani, a religion columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times: "'Heat is good for a story, and religion is consistently good for that. ... Religion is polarizing. Maybe that's not the way it's intended to be, but it is.'"

 

I think adherence to religion both is and isn't intended to be polarising; it's intended to bring cohesion among some by excluding, marginalising, demonising, and polarising others, and it's very effective. Townsend quotes Neela Banerjee, religion beat reporter for The New York Times, who, speaking of the 'culture wars' between 'secularists' and 'the Christian right,' says that "'each sees the other as a profoundly dangerous influence on society.'" Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service, agrees: "All parties, he says, feel their worldview is under attack." Look at almost any conflict, geopolitical or interpersonal, and you'll see the same mechanism, the same justification: the other is a danger, a threat, to what's good, to what's right.

 

Quickly, Townsend himself, when in his reporting he sought to respect all beliefs, became seen as the dangerous other and became the target of accusations: "Besides being called ignorant, arrogant, balding, stupid, rude, fat (my new nickname was Burger Boy), lazy, and incompetent, I was depicted as a Satanic baby. My mother was insulted. I was accused of lying about my academic degrees, having a comb-over, being a paid agent of the Saudi government, and acquiring 'numerous social diseases.' I was, apparently, a plagiarist and a terrorist. Someone did a search to see if I was a pedophile."  And not only was he accused, his life was threatened.

 

I think, from a Girardian perspective, one could say that it's never the other who is the danger; the danger -- the real obstacle to love and to life lived fully -- is the perception that it's the other who threatens us and our worldview. (For more, read an excerpt from René Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning at Paul Nuechterlein's Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary).

 

Reported today at CNN: "Mob burns to death 11 'witches, wizards'" in Nairobi, Kenya:

 

"Officials say a mob has burned to death 11 people suspected of being witches and wizards in western Kenya.  Deputy police spokesman Charles Owino says the mob hunted down the 8 women and 3 men in two villages in the western Kenya district of Kisii Central. Owino says most of the victims were between 70 years old and 90 years old. Only one of the victims was 40 years old.  Senior administrator Njoroge Ndirangu says ... 'These people identified who is to be killed by accusing their victims of bewitching their sons and daughters.'"

 

A BBC report on the attacks adds:

 

"The mob dragged them out of their houses and burned them individually and then set their homes alight, our correspondent says.

"Residents have been ambivalent about condemning the attacks because belief in witchcraft is widespread in the area...."

 

 

The International Herald Tribune put the size of the mob at "300 young men" and said that in some cases the victims' throats were slit or they were clubbed to death before being burned.

 

One police officer, Mwaura Njoroge, questioned how the young men could prove someone was a wizard and suggested that "'It is likely that the people who committed these killings had personal vendettas against their victims.'"

 

 

Added 22 May: In depth article on the issue of witch-hunting in Malawi, from the Women's Internatonal Perspective: "Mob Justice in Malawi: Accused of Witchcraft, the Elderly Are Rarely Protected by the Law" 

It's been almost a month since I last blogged about mob violence. Again, that's not because it's not happening but because it continues relentlessly. Here are some of the latest. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

 

26 April 2008 in the Erie Times-News, Erie, PA, USA: "Police charge 3 as victim remains on ventilator": Kyle Miles, 28, is in critical condition after being attacked by "a group of 10-15 people" who chased him and beat him severely after "a perceived slight triggered mob violence on a spring evening. ... The [original] assailant told Miles the assault was all about respect, said a witness. ... 'He was telling him that he (Miles) can't come down to this neighborhood and disrespect nobody.' ... The attacker boasted that he had dropped Miles with one hit. ... Arrington estimated up to 15 men in their late teens or early 20s chased Miles and gathered to watch the assault, as if it were a spectator event. 'Some girl said something. He said something. Someone took offense, and all hell broke loose.'

Conformity: The assault was a bonding experience for most of the onlookers. The cause of the brutal attack was a 'slight' that nonetheless seems to have justified the brutality in the eyes of the perpetrators. The victim was apparently someone from outside the community, since he ran the wrong way seeking escape.

 

28 April 2008, Karachi, Pakistan: "Jagdeesh Kumar, a 22-year-old Hindu worker in a garment factory in Pakistan's largest city, was beaten to death by a mob [as police looked on] for allegedly making blasphemous remarks about Prophet Mohammad. ....'His murder may have nothing to do with blasphemy. What we saw was an honour killing, coloured as a killing for blasphemy. Most, if not all, of the cases of killing for blasphemy have a different, more mundane and criminal reason. Blasphemy provides a cover,' says [A.H.] Nayyar [, an Islamabad peace activist]. He has reason to believe that the Hindu boy was in love with a Muslim girl."  Hindus make up less than two percent of the population in Pakistan.  (Sify News)

Conformity: Hindus, a tiny minority of the population in Pakistan, would be prime scapegoat material because they are non-conforming, marginalised and have been historically persecuted in Pakistan since the Partition of India in the 1940s. The scapegoating is cloaked in religious terms -- the scapegoaters claim to kill for sacred reasons -- while the truth seems rather different.

 

 

6 May 2008, Madurai, India: "A police official was stabbed and 17 policemen injured while a police jeep and four motorcycles were set on fire in mob violence which engulfed Eliyarpathi Village of the district today. Police sources said the trouble started when members of Mutharayar Community resorted to road blockade demanding action against some Dalits who allegedly desecrated a portrait of King Perumpidugu Mutharayar in the village. The incident was sequel to the stoning of Dalit houses in the villages by Mutharayars over a petty quarrel in a tea shop last night." (MyNews.in)

Conformity: Apparently a revenge attack. Dalits are the lowest caste in India, the so-called untouchables, and here they are alleged to have desecrated something sacred.

 

8 May 2008, Patna India: "Villagers pour acid into man's eyes in Bihar": "A man was severely beaten and acid was poured into his eyes by residents of a village in Bihar's Purnia district. ... The villagers "overpowered Vinay Yadav alias Pappu Yadav, wanted in connection with the February 28 killing of Bihari Lal Yadav and his grandson, and beat him mercilessly with sticks and iron rods on late Monday night. As Vinay collapsed in pain, the villagers poured acid into his eyes. The police soon arrived and took him into custody. He was rushed to the Purnia sadar hospital where his condition was stated to be stable. ...  A mob had recently gouged out the eyes of two alleged thieves in Bihar's Nawada district. "

Conformity: Not much based on this report, other than the mob aspect and the escalation (if acid in the eyes is worse than being beaten with an iron rod ...) . Ruthless revenge attack of an alleged murderer.

 

10 May, Patna, India: "Mob justice takes 5 lives": Four bank robbers (including a murderer) and a would-be thief were beaten to death in Bihar in two separate incidents.

 

"In Siwan, Chand Quereshi (29), was beaten to death right in front of Siwan police station early in the morning. The incident took place around 3am when Quereshi broke into the Jai Prakashnagar residence of Vinod Mehta. 'Some 10 to 15 neighbours rushed to the house, overpowered the thief and beat him up till he fell unconscious.' ...

 

"At Buxar, four robbers were beaten to death by a mob, while another drowned in the Ganga while trying to escape the crowd. The robbers ... were part of a group of seven, who were trying to flee after a loot this afternoon," which they had taken from a branch of the State Bank of India at gunpoint after shooting and killing the bank's guard. ... The alarm alerted residents and they chased all seven and overpowered six of them within 500m from the bank. A mob of 100 started beating the men up and attacked them with bricks, stones and sticks -- anything they could lay hands on."

 

Conformity: Again, pretty common story of retaliation, in one case a small mob for an attempted crime and in another a large mob for an apparent robbery and killing. "Anything they could lay hands on" gives a sense of the frenzy of the mob. And did 100 men all start beating at one time, as if on cue, or did one start, and then another, and then the rest joined in? 

 

12 May 2008, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India : "2 Dalit boys paraded naked for killing birds": "In yet another instance of mob justice, two Dalit minors were paraded naked for allegedly killing birds at Byawar village in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district. ... The minors, identified as Vinod (12) and Sagar (10), belong to the Kanjar tribe. The two were caught by villagers while they were catching birds and, on rummaging through through their bags, were found with a few pigeons and partridges. Furious villagers then beat up the boys and stripped them naked in public, police said. The villagers then called a barber and got their heads tonsured before parading them naked in the village."

Conformity: Humiliation of two Dalit boys, the lowest Indian caste (the 'untouchables'), easily scapegoated. I don't know enough to know what the aparent crime was here, what made the villagers 'furious': that the boys killed the birds (animal cruelty? the birds belong to someone else?), an 'untouchable' touching the birds that others might want to eat? Keeping the birds for themselves (stealing)? 

 

13 May 2008 in the Sun News Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: "Police chief warns thugs following swarmings": Edmonton police chief Mike Boyd proclaimed that his city would not tolerate "this kind of mugging and swarming mentality against our police officers and any citizen in this city" after "the school resource officer at Eastglen high school was kicked in the head when he tried to stop former students from stunting in a vehicle. ... One pulled out a baseball bat but dropped it when the officer pepper-sprayed him. During the fight, the officer was pulled to the ground and kicked in the head, leaving him unconscious and having to be taken to hospital. ... Boyd said there have been other swarming incidents and muggings in which civilians are also being targeted.
 

Conformity: This story points to the no-holds-barred nature of group violence when the group feels provoked, including against law enforcement officers. (Perhaps drugs were involved, too?)

 

14 May 2008, Karachi Pakistan: "Residents of an apartment building attacked and set on fire three alleged robbers here on Wednesday, killing them all, police said. Police officer Amir Shaikh said residents of the building heard gunshots from an apartment where a neighbour had resisted robbers trying to steal his possessions. A mob of residents confronted the thieves and beat them with burning wood from the oven of a nearby bakery, setting them on fire."  (That's the entire reported story.)

Conformity: Another brutal act against would-be thieves. The intention and outcome, as it often is, is not just to keep the thief from one's possessions but to punish the thief indelibly -- either because there's that much rage towards the thief or to signal to others that such an act won't be tolerated. Does the mob really feel that their actions should be tolerated? Is there that much perceived justification?

 

17 May 2008, Calcutta, India: "Shop fire triggers mob attack": "Over a dozen youths today stormed the home of the owners of the Sodepur shop where 12 people died in a fire yesterday, and failing to find them beat up a heart patient who stood nearby." They were thwarted from setting fire to the garment shop owners' house by neighbours. Two of the owners were in intensive care after the fire while other family members had fled to avoid retaliation and/or probable arrest. "Faced with a locked house, the young men ... vented their anger on a local youth. Raju Nag Biswas, 30, was standing in front of the house ... when he saw the cars pull up. About a dozen men jumped out and rushed to the house, but seeing it locked turned towards Raju," whom they apparently took to be the shop owners' watchman. Raju "pleaded with them saying he was not the guard and was a heart patient. 'But some of them grabbed my collar and began slapping me.'

Conformity: Retaliation. The beating of the innocent bystander when the intended victim can't be found -- and the justification that the bystander was culpable by association, is as guilty as the intended victim -- is a hallmark of scapegoating. Any victim will do to discharge the rage, to bring about peace. Interesting that according to the victim, only 'some' of the dozen youths/men continued to attack him after he denied association with the shop owners.

Photos from the last few days are included in Garden Photos here. A few to make the blog look purty:

 

With the comment interchange about paths and truth in my mind, and a sermon from worship recently also fresh, I came upon a chapter titled "Creation in Christ" in James Alison's On Being Liked that I think is useful in considering how we think about everything, and specifically in the context of this conversation about Truth, Reality, God, the "something" that Mike posits in his comments.

 

It's a chapter that challenges the usual way of thinking about "the great panorama of Christian salvation," which is linear and logical: first creation, then fall, then salvation, then heaven. Alison rearranges it all, coming from a fundamental insight that we can explain creation only from the vantage point of salvation. We're not external viewers. We see everything only from where we are now. As Alison says, "our access to creation is present, as is our access to the past. ... The only access we have to the past is the access for which our present understanding equips us." Obvious, yes, and easily unacknowledged.

 

He also posits that "the answer to the question 'Where do we come from?' is narrated from within the schemes of power and social order which are in force. And the answer tends to maintain and shore up this order. ... [T]he description of the origins comes from an understanding of 'social' salvation which was already in evidence within the group in question."

 

In other words, creation stories come from a group that feels successfully ordered and constituted, and the stories are used to explain how it all happened in a way that necessarily supports the current standing. "The description of what things 'are' is strictly dependent on what they now 'ought' to be. ... [T]he perception of God is tied to the social world." Alison's claim (and Girard's) is that the Jewish scriptures divert from the usual creation stories in important ways (read the book for more on that).

 

Alison's major argument in the chapter is that by detoxifying death, Jesus opens us all to creation as it is and to the possibility of participating in bringing creation into being, now, every day:

 

"Part of the process of the discovery of creation is the discovery of an astonishing freedom with respect to what is, since what is seen and perceived, and what is are different things.  When we see and perceive, we do so still partially from within a world formed by our systems of order, of security, of identity, guaranteed in the last resort by death. And what is is not strictly attainable from within a mentality formed in this way."

 

(These sentences seem to me to go to the heart of both the problem with strict adherence or allegiance to a path (to a point where its protection requires a defense of what is perceived as 'the sacred') and also the desirability of emptying the mind of knowledge -- necessarily beholden to perception, to interpretation -- as a way towards an experience of what is.)

 

Alison goes on to say that "to the degree to which we cease to have our mind and heart formed by death, we cease having our mind formed by the perception that the social 'other'" is hostile or ambivalent, and we can discover that 'the other' is "benevolent, limpid, without ambivalence and without ambiguity. That is to say, the relationship between God and everything that is, is gratuitous and trustworthy. And if it is to be trusted, then we need not fear discovering the truth about what is, however little convenient that might seem in its social repercussions." His major point here is that what we discover is "something that is present, and able to be lived in the here and now." We can put into practice ourselves "the same overcoming of our culture shot through with death, trusting in a generosity that does not know death, and which will take care of us."

 

The tricky part of all this is that Alison's discovery about God or reality or what-have-you -- anything -- is discovered from the vantage point of where he is now. And my discovery, and yours. 

 

(I'm on the road this week and don't have time to parse this further online but may return to it later.) 

 

I read Barbara Bash's True Nature: An Illustrated Journal of Four Seasons in Solitude (2004) today while sitting in the sun with the dog. It's a simple, lavishly watercolour-illustrated journal of a retreat in the woods, taken during seven days in Summer, seven in Spring, seven in Fall, and ending with seven days in Winter. She's a Buddhist (Chögyam Trungpa is her meditation teacher) who is struggling with fatigue, fear of the dark, a need to do, a certain restlessness, loneliness, self-doubt.

 

This first journal entry reminds me of the 'grief' I wrote about yesterday:

 

"My insides are heavy. There are voices tisking and shuddering at such laziness, but I am listening to deeper voices."

 

That's how I feel. I can hear the voices that tisk and shudder, and, I can hear voices from a deeper place, and I am listening to them.

 

In Winter, she says something that seemed to me to reframe the dilemma a friend expressed earlier in the day:

 

"Here in this cabin for six days these demons of pressure and critique can be -- what? Loved? Banished? Teased? Ignored? Put down for a nap? ... It has been a day of doubt. The wind of my mind blew me around. Here's the dilemma -- to articulate the confusion, describe it, know it -- or to label it 'thinking,' let it go and return to the breath. I walk both paths."

 

It seems it's often a question of whether to engage with the confusion -- to work with the pain, resentment, desire for connection, longing for affinity, fear of disappointment, hope, lack of trust -- or to recognise that those feelings, opinions, beliefs, reactions, and thoughts are just 'thinking' -- they're transitory, they're a fantasy our mind weaves, they can be released. Yes. We do both.