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We’ve landed back in the asylum, though hopefully not for long. After three peaceful weeks in Brittany, France, disembarking at Detroit airport was truly like returning to a madhouse. Whoever designed that tunnel between concourses at Detroit must have been out of their minds. Garishly-colored sheets of ever-shifting light covering the walls and ceiling…

…coupled with a cacophony of discordant noise emanating from all directions, blew my mind long before I reached Concourse B.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone. The airport website sees fit to carry this warning:

While the Light Tunnel is an extremely popular feature, the Airport Authority recognizes that the combination of light and sound may be uncomfortable for some travelers. Customers may suspend the program for a five minute period by pressing the button marked by signage at each end of the tunnel (to the right at the bottom of the escalators). For more details, just ask any member of airport staff inside the terminal.”^[1]

If we’d anticipated any degree of sanity settling over this nation while we’d been away, our disappointment would have been palpable. Not that we did. The madness continues, seemingly unabated. The US government continues to stockpile arms in Poland, then expresses self-righteous outrage when Putin counters by announcing an increase in Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

We now learn from the BBC that “The world ‘largely likes’ the US”^[2], but the opinion poll that delivered this verdict was run by an American think-tank, so perhaps the result wasn’t entirely surprising. The Pew Research Center is respected by media organizations throughout the world, but it may not be as non-partisan, non-advocacy, and non-policy forming as it declares on its website. The center relies for its funding on the Pew Charitable Trusts (well, it would, wouldn’t it?) and heading that organization is Rebecca Rimel, described by Philadelphia Magazine back in 2004 as:

…one of the most powerful women in
America.^[3]

It was she who, according to SourceWatch:

…was instrumental in the legal maneuvering for the takeover of the Barnes art collection — a large prime collection of artwork with an estimated value of $25 – $30 bn^[4]

The film documenting the events surrounding this ‘legal heist’ caused the late Roger Ebert to write:

“It is perfectly clear exactly what Barnes specified in his will. It was drawn up by the best legal minds. It is clear that what happened to his collection was against his wishes. It is clear that the [Philadelphia] city fathers acted in obviation of those wishes, and were upheld in a court of appeals. What is finally clear: It doesn’t matter a damn what your will says if you have $25 billion, and politicians and the establishment want it.”^[5]

For “establishment” read “Rebecca Rimel”?

It’s general knowledge that Pew, in its entirety, is still owned by oil magnates viz: the Pew family of Sunoco (Sun Oil Co), and given the vast sums of money involved, and Rimel’s cozy relationship with the corporations and Congress, one has to wonder just how “non-partisan, non-advocacy, and non-policy forming” the Pew Research Center can really be.^[5]

Only in an insane asylum could the actions of a 21-year-old mentally unhinged youth gunning down nine worshipers in a church result in three hundred million people coming to blows over a flag.

A hearty “Well done!” to the US media and the NRA. It sure took the heat off gun control. ^{(You surely don’t need a link to this one!)}

I’ve always considered circuses to be somewhat scary, probably because they’re full of weird clowns. None more so, however, than the political circus presently in full swing throughout the US, as ten (or, is it eleven…twelve..?) Republican escapees from the institution vie to become the next president of the United States.

The Pope recently spoke out strongly about climate change. Every Republican candidate, bar one, basically agreed the Pope should stick to the Bible and keep his nose out of politics. They all believe climate change is a ‘political issue’, which speaks volumes for their lack of mental acumen. Perhaps, it well qualifies them for the post they’re hoping to attain.

If all this weren’t evidence enough that we’re three hundred million living in a madhouse of a country, then the latest news from Congress must surely clinch it. Today it was announced that our beloved and respected representatives in the Senate have voted to “fast-track” that infamous “trade deal” known as the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP, through Congress, despite almost all of them being opposed to it last week.^[6]

I wonder what changed their minds?

^{[1] “DTW-Tunnel”}

^{[2] “The world ‘largely likes’ the US, says global survey” BBC, June 26th 2015}

^{[3] “Philadelphia Magazine” August 2004}

^{[4] “Rebecca Rimel” SourceWatch}

^{[5] “Rebecca Rimel’s Millions in Compensation at Pew Charitable Trusts and Elsewhere” NPQ, March 12th 2015}

^{[6] “Obama’s ‘fast-track’ trade bill clears key Senate hurdle”BBC, June 23rd 2015}

I have escaped.

Well, in truth, not quite. I’m hopeful of winging my way out of this madhouse they call America in a matter of hours. We’ve made it to Detroit airport without being apprehended. Our flight leaves for London, England at 2218 hours. From there, a car to France – and sanity!

Sadly, it’ll only be for three weeks, but even that short duration will be heaven, and there’s hope we may one day return there for good. This trip is a recce of the housing market and the delights Brittany has to offer. I hope to convince my good lady that life can be better elsewhere than America.

Until later…

Au revoir et bonne journee!

The recent expose of Scientology by HBO (based on Lawrence Wright’s book) leaves many unanswered questions concerning human society and the way it is organised and regulated. Perhaps a more appropriate phrase might be, “…how it is disorganized and unregulated”.

The marketing of snake oil has never been an entirely American invention. Conmen and tricksters have been around this earth since time immemorial but it’s taken the United States, with its twisted Constitutional ideals of “freedom”, to really hone the art of snake oil marketing into an art-form so perfect it’s allowed Scientology to evolve into a multi-billion dollar entity sufficiently powerful to force the Internal Revenue Service into capitulating to its demands.

I know of no other nation in the Western world where Scientology would have been allowed to blossom as it has in the United States of America. It’s so obviously not a religion that a levy of taxes would have rapidly put paid to its leaders’ aspirations, as would have been the case in America had the First Amendment of the Constitution not been so successfully twisted as to allow this monumental confidence trick to take on and win its case against the IRS.

We are living in a world where the violation of religious principle for political power is only too evident. Scientology bears no more true adherence to a religion than Star Trek or Game of Thrones. ISIS has as little to do with true Islam as The Unification Church has with orthodox Christianity.

Everywhere, religious belief is under attack from those who would use violence and brainwashing to gain power over others. And, who is to blame for this situation? Can there be any other fault but our own?

The human ego has long refused to accept its mortality. How can we possibly be just another animal? After all we have intelligence, and abilities impossible for any other creature on the planet. We put great store by our intelligence. We’ve built civilizations – but, so do termites. We’ve learned to farm and harvest our food – but, so do ants.

We’ve studied the Universe and discovered our beginnings – while systematically destroying our only planetary home. We’ve harnessed the power of the atom – primarily to subjugate and slaughter our fellow beings. We’ve learned to manipulate the minds of our brothers and sisters – to possess power and riches at their expense.

Animals do none of the things mentioned in the last paragraph. They helped maintain the balance of nature, until we came along and disrupted it. They hunt only for food and will rarely kill their own species. They know not riches and power, for they have no egos.

Maybe our “intelligence” is not so beneficial as we like to think it is. Perhaps it’s no more than a quirk of evolution, a branch on that great tree of life destined to wither and die for no other reason than it just doesn’t work.

Scientology could be considered a pinnacle of human intelligence. After all, it’s persuaded hundreds of thousands of human beings to part with their money, give up loved ones and friends, and devote themselves to making the cult’s present leader, David Miscavige, a cool $50,000,000. And that takes some doing!

Of course Miscavige is not alone. There have been far too many so-called ‘pastors’ of mega-churches, TV evangelicals, and even tent-revivalist preachers living in million-dollar mansions, flying around in personal Lear jets, and enjoying a lifestyle that’d cause their Holy Benefactor to spin in His grave, had He not already left it and flitted up to Heaven.

Our intelligence and ‘superiority over the animals’ doesn’t seem to have done us much good long-term. We continue to prey on each other. We seek out and exploit the weaker in society for our own gain. After all, riches don’t come from Heaven, they’re the result of one man (or one group) coining in the hard-earned gains of thousands, sometimes millions, of his fellows.

We are, in fact, our own worst enemies. Our self-centered greed, fueled by the power of our egos, prevents us from working out a future for the whole of mankind. Instead, we work only to further our own individual needs and desires. We may believe in climate change, despite the ravings of lunatic politicians and fossil-fuel wealth creators, but we bury our heads in the rapidly-heating sand and choose the latest Ipad rather than a solar panel. Filling the tank of our gas-guzzler produces cries of woe whenever prices rise, and the glee of affording that new 70-inch TV screen when they drop.

Meanwhile, the pastors, popes, and Imams cajole us into believing their god will make everything right and lift us up to his/her bosom when our life on earth is over.

We think we are intelligent, yet the majority of humankind still believes such gobbledygook, and is prepared to take often violent steps to not just perpetuate, but forcibly propagate these ancient, twisted, myths.

If the human race is the pinnacle of evolution, then “God help” evolution. It has nowhere to go but down. But then, neither it seems has the human race.

Though, in all probability, the egos of David Miscavige and his ilk probably wouldn’t allow them to agree.