Category Archives: Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

This is a series of personal blogs. Most are reproduced and some may be original. They are written on history, sex, language, religion, science, sex and many other subjects.

One of those rambling posts…

Posted on August 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is a rambling sort of blog post about a bunch of different things that have little in common except that I am interested in them right now.  This is a sort round-up post in the broadest sense. So here comes a numbered list folks….

1.  Despite disavowals  of doing so I have recently posted comments again on the Lords of the Blog and The Norton View in response to some of Lord Philip Norton’s posts on those sites.

2. I missed the New Orleans Saints preseason opener against the Minnesota Vikings without a really good excuse. Although this is only a glorified scrimmage (for the benefit of people who do not know our professional sports culture) it is still a bit shocking.

3. China is officially reported as the world’s second largest economy now. My own time in and involvement with China has a somehow slightly different light cast upon it because of these facts.

4. I bought birthday gifts all recent months but I have bought a birthday gift for my niece whose birthday is August 3rd, my sister whose birthday is August 5th, my sister-in-law whose birthday is August 8th and for each of three nephews who celebrated their birthdays together on the 14th of August. These sorts of calendrical anomalies really remind me of how limited my income is these days — but I did my best and hope it was OK…

5.The BP driller for the crucial relief well is a man named Wright with an impressive record and he feels that this is one of the toughest jobs he has ever done. He is also confident that he will succeed.

6. The name of the giant skimming ship that was sent here and did not work well in choppy seas was A Whale. This name has many associations for anyone here like anyone anywhere else. Acadians and the many other cultural groups have many people who use naturalistic names and appreciate them.  However, it is also eery for Acadians who see them selves as children of the Jonas in some ways as New Englanders relate to the Mayflower.  Jonas is the same personage as Jonah swallowed by (but also arguably saved ) by a whale. Nonetheless, this is not new because almost all sailors who read the Bible use Jonah as an unlucky term and Acadians are fairly unique among Judaeo-Christian seafarers in using or seeing the term distinctly. Neither Jonah nor his shipmates nor his ship were destroyed in the story after all.

7.  I had a very nice niece with one of my nieces today. While at lunch we ran into my ex-wife’s paternal aunt’s husband and his son and two of his grandsons. We  chatted and I introduced everybody. All of this makes me revisit my past which I am always doing anyway.

8. Both of my brothers who are fairly recently married have wives that are expecting and one nears delivery while another is to find out tomorrow if she is expecting twins.  All of this makes me daydream about my future which I am always doing anyway.

9. In the last few days I have bought eggs, bacon, varied canned goods, sodas, some condiments, sliced ham, milk, breakfast cereal, jalapeno and cheese pull bread, frozen fish and varied paper and soap products. In some houses and in this house at other times that would amount to really shopping and stocking up but here and now it amounts to getting oddments necessary to mostly sustain people in using up what we have before it goes bad and postponing the real shopping until such a fairly regular massive undertaking is ready to be undertaken.

10. In life there are different kinds of highs and different kinds of lows. Right now I think I am in the weary not entirely discontent blues.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, Environment, Lords of the Blog, Louisiana, New Orleans Saints, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Population Issues and America’s Future

Posted on August 11, 2010 | 1 comment

In many ways the policy sheet you are about to read here is virtually unimaginable. I am sensitive to all the things that seem offensive to some and less than ideal to almost all. However, I really believe in civilization. I think America is till aspiring to true civilization. It is vital that those who are willoing to kill and die and do unpleasant things can lead a civilization forward or else it will surely lose all its civilized qualities soon enough. I believe our situation is already precarious and the paths to survival are not apparent to most of those in leadership and authority. In order to justify the time you would spend reading and trying to understand this post which outlines policy for an institution that does not yet exist and will probably not exist you should have some idea of America’s population situation.  Here is  a set of links which will give you some idea of what is the situation now. They do not tell you all that much but they will put you on the path to some kind of understanding:

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h980.html

I will simply state that this is part of the larger model for remaking the United States as a society, country and union. I had written a paragraph about the model and several other paragraphs that I lost somehow so this will be shortened by my weariness with things.  In the model the DIG is the Direct Imperial Government. State Governments would continue to exist, the US Congress and Supreme Court would be reformed but continue to exist. However, some new things would be created and one of them would be a set of lands ceded to and governed by the Direct Imperial Government as the DIG lands. This is the population policy proposed for that as yet nonexistent institution. States would have a renewed sovereign autonomy over many issues related to this policy because of their  authority over domestic regimes and institutions. But there would still be a limited leadership inherent in the DIG. 

Population Policy of the DIG

I. New General Initiatives The regime would take a very serious view about human life, filiation and population which is distinct from what is the norm in the rest of the world. That will be one of many reasons why America will have to transform its foreign policy. There will not be the consensus based on lies and half-truths with which America currently functions in the world. 

A. Record Keeping

There will be a great deal of investment in records and record keeping in the DIG. The power generated by such records will be offset by empowering other institutions but the goal will certainly and unmistakably be a newer and more powerful system of more coherent government in the Direct Imperial Government leading the way in many specific ways. 

1. Two Levels of Application

Those subjecting themseelves to DIG jurisdiction will be more directly and quickly integrated into the records policy. However, the DIG will work with other authorities to achieve similar goals over time.

2. Life Accountancy

The most important part of this whole policy in many ways is a comprehensive system of cancelling birth certificates with death certificates and requiring people to register at 18, 50 and one hundred years of age. Real data on births and deaths of a really high quality will gradually emerge that will drive other policies.  

3.Marriage Certificates and Related Documents

All marriage certificates and Contracts of Liaison and Placement for Certified Mistresses will be attached to birth records, will record known sterility and will be used to get an idea also of trends merging in the popultion.

B. Marriage, Family and Domestic Regimes Government Support

1. Taxation and Withholding for Family Kinship and General Population Fund 

There will be a variety of revenue streams for non-residents of the DIG lands to pay into the General Population Fund. One percent of all the net income of DIG residents will be collected for and go directly into the General Population Fund. In addition part of the revolutionary remaking of the union would be some requirements imposed on all jurisdictions. One of the principal most important and most radical of these would be that all citizen-subjects of the Federal American Empire of the United States would belong to at least one family association and no more than three. The governments would collect a minimum of one percent of net income to be paid directly to these associations. The Family Associations would pay a small annual collection fee to their tax collectors.  The programs outlined here would be funded through these funds and not general treasury funds.  

2. Birth Bonus paid to mother

About a third of all funds accumulated in the General Population Fund would be paid out in Birth Bonuses to mothers every year. The bonuses would vary year to year by the amount of money on hand and the number of births. Mothers having babies on rich years with fewer babies would get mor money. The value of a birth bonus is represented here by the variable x.

a. Cumulative scale:   Every child starts off with x determined by monies available in fund

i. The following add monies to the bonus:

.5X First child, .25x child one to three, .35x above average health child at birth, .5x parents married in recognized high or monogamous marriage,  .25x parents joined in plural marriage or certified natural filiation relationship, .2X mother between the ages of 22 and 40 years of age , .2x White child, .15X child whiter than mother, .15X Aboriginal American Child and .1X Aboriginal American child largely White, .07x Old American mix child, .1X one or both parents are certified geniuses and 1.5X father dead in service of Empire or polity federated therein.

ii. The following deduct monies from the bonus:

-.11x child four to seven, -.14x child eight or higher, -.19x ilegitimate child under law, -.22x bastard under the law, -.08x mother is a felon, .-12x both parents are felons, .-15x child less White than mother,  -. 04X mother has been divorced, -.4 both parents are not citizen-subjects  and -.3X child is born of known case of adultery to one or more parents who are young married complainants.

3. Mother’s Christmas Bonuses

About ten percent of funds in the General population fund will be paid out mothers of minor children equally each year on December 10 regardless of religion. An additional ten percent will be divided among mothers who have a child turning one, two, five, ten, fifteen or eighteen years of age. These bonuses will have a formula but a simple and more equal one. Children committing juvenile felonies will receive a modest reduction. Otherwise, the mothers will receive on tenth of the child’s original birth bonus, one tenth of the average birth bonus given out in the years since the child’s birth and  an equal share of any remaining monies among all recipients once the first two amounts have been awarded. 

C. Empress’s Bureau of Women’s Affairs

There will be a major institution that is under the authority of the Empress and will have standing in most cases involving first impression issues relating to women and shall have funding and other things. This bureau will have the authority also to undertake and co-ordinate many projects and initiatives to benefit women.   

1. Motherhood Initiative

This will be  a nest of programs to promote quality mothering and family experiences and a progressive maternal culture in the Empire.  The approach will be more positive than one of policing infractions or failures. 

Items 2,3 & 4 are included because they are part of the whole policy but not explained because they can be discussed elsewhere and are not as central to these issues.

 2. Wives Initiative

3. Cottage Industries and Gardening Administration

4. Girls Sport Administration

5. Sex and Fertility Education Agency

All girls will be educated in detailed natural family planning classes certified by the Bureau in secondary school. We will be committed to a brief explanatory course for boys but not of the same depth or quality.

http://www.contracept.org/symptothermal.php

http://www.nfpprog.com/how_nfp_works/symptothermal.htm

6. Liaison to Women’s Religious Communities

Working with women who can find religious meaning in infertile lifestyles or mostly unfertile lifestyles to achieve the highest social good thereby.

7. The Ladies Alliance

Working with women of the nobility and titled gentry to deal with population issues an other issues affecting the Noble ranks of society. I do  not mean that this is mostly a population  agency but it is likely to deal with population a great deal.

II. Population Directed Programs and Agencies 

The Emperor will have a number of programs designed to deal directly with all the issues of population which would confront the Federal Empire of the United States.  This will be a theme woven through a great deal of policy rather than a cluster of poorly focused initiatives and ill-defined objectives.

A. Emperor’s Minister for Integrated Population Study and Management

This minister will be in charge of forging a coherent population policy throughout the government. He will work with relevant institutions to improve the population impacts of their work.

1.Liaison for Fertility 

This liaison will work with many diverse elements of the government to monitor and address issues of human fertility.

2.Liaison for Human Habitat Expansion

This liaison will work primarily with the agencies and ministries which will  focus on human habitat expansion. Therefore he or she will be primarily a sort of single customer official.  

3. Liaison for Foreign Affairs

This liaison will work to promote marriage and sound filiation policy, girls sport, sound fertility education and every other imperial value in the limits of Foreign Policy restrictions as well as to focus these values on the very slow population growth we see as the ideal demographic pattern for humanity as a whole.

4. Liaison for Immigration

This  Liaison will work not only with direct Border Zone related programs but also all aspects of the government that relate to both immigration and population. We live in a world and country where this will always be very challenging.

5. Liaison for Monasticism and Near Monasticism

Dealing with tradition in which not having children is incorporated into a larger lifestyle and a religious ideal.  This liaison will work with the Chaplain and other religious ties of the Emperor. However, the liaison will also work with all qualified groups in the Empire including the non-Christian  entities. 

The large remaining portion of this outline in numbers 6,7 & 8 has to do with the making of a society which can realistically chart slow and real population growth indefinitely. It is not a simple matter as each Liaison will work keep this goal in view for the government. 

6. Liaison for Waste Policy

7 . Liaison for Population Density

8 . Liaison for Reward Efficiency

 B. Imperial Cryptkeeper General 

The Cryptkeeper will be in charge of making the Death of those who die for the Emperor or Empire and his federal partners as glorious as possible. In the Empire a certain budget of young and glorious deaths is part of overall social  policy and it is admitted that this includes population policy.

  1. Liaison to the Imperial Chaplain

2. Liaison for Tombs and Monuments

C. Court Physician’s Office for Meaningful Medicine Minister of Population

1. Sub-ministry for Hospice

This ministry will acknowledge the precious and sacred character of human life. However, he will also be charged with assisting the Court Physician with spending relatively more resources on people who can largely recover and not spending enormous resources on people who remain sick, dying and expensive to care for indefinitely. This includes having death benefits, counseling, burial support and other resources in the sub-ministry at his command.

2. Sub-ministry for Natural Family Planning and Registered Condom Programs

This sub-ministry would seek to create culturally authentic programs that recognize the many real challenges of fertility management and seek to address these challenges at a level of wisdom and class not really available to disparate small entities. The programs will mostly be outreaches of the ministry.

3. Sub-ministry for Risk Integration

This will seek to recognize how activities that people choose to engage in and which shorten life will be integrated into an evolving society so that not everyone has to aim to live to be a hundred years old to affirm the value of human life. 

 III. Special Category

A. Death Penalty

Using a wide variety of offices and programs the Emperor and DIG will promote relatively cheap, easy and swift administration of the death penalty where allowed  by law elsewhere and within DIG jurisdiction for Murder, Agravated Repeat Incident Manslaughter, Agravated Rape of a Child and Felony Assisted High Treason. In the transition to the new regime it might be necessary to execute people currently set free to re-establish an understanding of what justice systems will be like.

B. Dueling and Vendetta

The new regime will have a fivefold nobility. Three of the Noble types Ordinary, Sword and Games will be expected to use the Office of Ritual Confrontation relatively frequently to resolve disputes. The programs are designed to make peace and preserve honor. However, there will be an acceptance of a number of deaths of valued people in these programs over time.

C. The Absolute Person

The Emperor can be resisted in persona so long as the force and means are less or nearly equal to those he brings and their is a real threat and the proceedings are personal and the intent is to survive, in such cases there is no treason. Flight from an angry Emperor is also not treason under similar limitations. However, the personal wrath of the Emperor effected by himself with weapons he can carry has no legal recourse — neither civil suit, criminal prosecution nor equitable injunction is allowed as relief to the victim.  In his own person the Emperor can do no wrong. The exceptions are constitutional and do not embrace physicalities no matter how great the harm to a person. Resistance and flight provoke an investigation as to whether the alleged victim committed a Misdemeanor against the Court, Low Treacherous Acts or High Treason or whether the Act was Justified. 

1 Comment

Posted in Christianity, Geopolitics, Healthcare, Louisiana, polygamy, Population policy, race, Sex, United Nations, United States of America, War

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reconnecting

Posted on August 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is a certain kind of blog post of which there will be relatively few. It is about connecting specific recent events in my own life and internet activity to the larger patterns of society and the world. I do similar things but not this subset of specific things. I may drop down to some tiny little number very soon but as of a few minutes before writing this line I have 823 Facebook friends.  There are a truly thousands of people I know and sometimes think about who are not on that list. There are many among the two or three hundred people I would most like to have contact with through Facebook and other means who are not on my Facebook list. In general my relationships as carried out by way of Facebook’s services are not very complete an are relatively unsatisfying. In addition they make one aware that sustaining real relationships (especially if one has the disadvantage of being me)  is really rather difficult and uncertain. I enjoy the fact that in some way academic, political, religious, space-oriented, paramilitary, missionary, media and other spheres of activities and groups of associates are joined fo me in representative samples in one convenient place.  

But the point of bringing up the Facebook list is really how much I appreciate and enjoy it. I enjoy and appreciate the way i can get news from relatives, friends and acquaintances. I enjoy having direct and even sometimes only indirect contact with people from my sojourns in Mexico, Colombia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Tonga and the many foci of my activities in the United States. I enjoy having these contacts gathered together in one convenient medium.

I recently served as lector and pallbearer for an uncle only nine years my senior.  It was sad to say goodbye to Will. It was meaningful and even pleasant to reconnect with hundreds of people ( a good number well-known to me) who came to pay their respects.  Those days meant a great deal and I am still glad to have shared that time with them sending off one of those who had a real impact on my life.  This was a time of reconnection that meant a good bit to me.

I could write about so many people and probably could name them whom I have reconnected with in one of the two venues. Guys I went to school with and now can keep track of a bit better and cousins who had almost slipped off my radar screen but are now back in view deserve to be mentioned if  one goes by their importance in my life.  A few of these people  are “flat-out famous” as a friend of mine used to say. Perhaps I exclude their names partly to protect them from unwanted attention and partly to protect myself from their displeasure. Not any specific fear but just a habit of caution.

Beyond these two specific venues for reconnection I have also recently been involved in a couple of rather brief correspondences which had the effect of reconnecting me to my past as well. However, I feel reticent again to go into specific details about who these people were too.

That leaves me with one specific name to mention. I mention her because we are not friends I have therefore nothing to lose and she is so famous that my little blog is not likely to cause her any real harm or inconvenience no matter what which would not have come first from many other sources. 

Amy Grant is just a tiny bit older than I am and I have been listening to her music about as long as she has had a record deal. I used to own My Father’s Eyes, Age to Age, Straight Ahead, Unguarded and several other albums in what was never a really large record collection. She is the most successful artist in the history of the genre called Contemporary Christian Music.  She has won several Grammy Awards and a plethora of Dove Awards. She has been part of my life and I have played tracks of her albums at prayer services, lectures and retreats. But it has been a long time since I have played her stuff for anyone else. It has even been a long time since I owned any copy of her stuff.

I belonged to  (and still do belong to) a college household with a Hebrew name and have often celebrated Christian direct borrowings from the Sabbath Meal and the Pseder Supper. She made her mark with many songs but one of the early big hits was a song with a Hebrew lead line. I combined doing ministry and religious communications with involvement in secular media work. While she was a successful phenomenon it is still true that I could often see her working though decisions and difficulties that were the same as mine in that same process. Some challenges were identical, some very close and others just  resonant but it was a real bond.

I also went to her concerts a couple of times and I felt I could invite a variety of friends who would not  form a group elsewhere. Although the actual groups were small and kind of unsuccessful the potential seemed to be their. With my own sisters and some other young girls I could use her as a role model for a real young woman struggling to survive and grow in faith and be herself. Amy Grant was part of a soundtrack that included Michael Doucet, Bruce Springsteen, Rush, the Carpenters, John Denver, Willie Nelson, George Straight, U2, Rafe Vaughn Williams, Ray Charles, Fats Domino and many other artists when I was young as well as lots of live worship music. However, Amy Grant’s music has more special stories than almost all of the others from the large pop culture world.

I have recently downloaded some of her music and interviews and it makes me remember watching her career progress. She has now been married to Vince Gill for years and I remember when that was topic of conversation as an upcoming event. She has kept working and I have seen some of her stuff on tv and  now can see that she is still working.   I still find the vibe associated with her fascinating.

I want to put in a few links about reconnecting from her own work.

1.Here is  a mature piece of spiritual work than reconnects with her whole past I think: Better than a Hallelujah  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3AmhFXckSc&feature=related

2. Stay for a  While…  is about reconnecting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om_6q_diHw0&feature=related

3. Thy Word  Amy also reconnects with an old friend and the industry she made rock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZi-Nqndeok&feature=related

Leave a comment

Posted in Amy Grant, Arts, Christianity, Contemprary Christian Music, Country Music, Frank W. Summers, Music, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, Protestantism, United States of America, Vince Gill, William Charles Summers

Tagged , , , , ,

Some thoughts about marriage in America

Posted on August 7, 2010 | 1 comment

The US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has held that Proposition 8 which outlawed same-sex  marriage was unconstitutional and that this  is because heterosexual couples and same-sex couples were identical.  The judge ruled that the ban on homosexual unions was simply a kind of persecution which is at once entirely unmerited and simply cruel. There will be a lot of controversy as this goes through appeals and makes its way to the Supreme Court. But it does raise issues related to marriage and particularly polygamy that I wish to discuss here. I am going to point out a couple of my own posts where I have touched on issues relating to marriage, sexuality and the varied crises and have in one of them at least touched upon polygamy. However, the issues covered in this post do not require a close reading of these posts.  

 1. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/why-i-dare-to-advocate-radical-change/

I start with this post above because I think that it is vital that we recognize how far away from any ideal of marriage that has been proposed by the Christian faith in it its most idealistic and monogamous we really are.  If polygamy could be achieved for a portion of the many who are having children and expressing their sexuality with no reference to that ideal then it would be progress in terms of social and cultural nearness to both the spirit of Christ and the life of the gospel. That does not mean that there are not real risks and nothing that can be lost which is valuable and precious.

The link below is one in which I have discussed both the nature of human sexuality and also how it relates to social development and royalism.  We must find a way to address sexual reality. That is especially true for those of us who have the kinds of ideals that relate to humanism, Christianity and Judaism. It is imperative that we become conversant with reality again.

2. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/monarchy-and-royalist-culture-in-america-past-present-and-future-part-3-3/

I am a Christian and Christianity has never been the most polygamous religion. However, it has never been as completely anti-polygamous as it currently has almost entirely become. The Roman Catholic theologian Tertullian argued against the common and theologically supported practice  of priests (some of whom were celibate even then) commonly marrying two wives and especially sisters. When Tertullian was later disciplined for other reasons it is possible that in part it was because of the portion of the church which believed polygamy was an important part of the Christian tradition for some men in leadership both royals and some clerics especially. But there were few Christian royals (not none) in the third century. This is just part of the picture: Charlemagne who was able to add the filioque procedit   phrase to the Western version of the creed was an open polygamist as were all of his sons. 

One issue that I think has to be discussed if one is going to discuss polygamy at all reasonably is that one has to begin to visualize it in order to understand it and discuss. Where it has been so universally illegal for so long it is not so easy to visualize. I want to include some film and television references that deal with varied and complex glimpses of polygamy and make it possible to see where the institutions of plural marriage have found their way into American viewerships and audiences.  Here are some worth watching:

1. One Night With The King: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430431/

The first link is to a film that tells the Biblical story of Esther.

2. The Other Boleyn Girl: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467200/

The second link is to  a film telling the story of Henry VIII and his women.

3. King David: http://www.amazon.com/King-David/dp/B000JGD264/ref=pd_vodsm_B000JGD264

The third link is to the telling of the story of King David which is extremely important to both Judaism and Christianity.

4. Big Love: http://www.hbo.com/big-love

The  fourth link is to a fictional family trying to restore and modernize Mormon polygamy. It is complex, muddied by multiple perspectives at times but I think it is a good show nonetheless.

Then I want to show some examples of contracted relationships between Americans in our history and present.  These are real lives past and present that matter to those who live them quite a bit. As a committed son of Louisiana I am pleased to discuss one of the institutions that expressed polygamy in a new and workable way tied to old traditions. Take a chance to look at this and I may return to it later and have actually touched upon this before in other posts. Clearly the social realities of the quadroon ball are very far from where we are now. But if you take a global perspective it is entirely clear to me that  they were often superior values and ideals from which we could still benefit some day.

The Quadroon Ball:

I. http://www.frenchcreoles.com/CreoleCulture/quadroons/quadroons2.htm

II. http://www.nathanielturner.com/livesandtimesofquadroons.htm

I also wonder how it would feel to be this young woman in the next video and be aware of all that is disastrous in our sexual realities in the world and still have one’s lifestyle just barely outside the criminal. I think it is horribly tragic.

Modern polygamy in the Mormon tradition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANXeiyGx7To&feature=related

It is to be remembered that if you are reading this blog you are reading the blog of someone who wants to change and reform the government and not either escape or limit it into insignificance. I think that governments of the States of the Union and of not yet existing institutions I have proposed would have a vital role to play in making any polygamous domestic institutions work.  It is not entirely clear to me whether the current king of Thailand can be said to ever really have entered into plural marriage. I have not confidential sources and the public sources that I have seen indicate all sorts of contradictory things. It is perhaps a powerful sign of anti-polygamy in the United States that the only true Oriental King to have been born to the rights of an American citizen is part of the possible complete dismantling of an institution so valued in Thailand. However, it may be that it has been a slightly concealed part of his life. To see something about the history of the royal polygamy of Thailand see the next link:   http://www.1stopchiangmai.com/articles/dara/

One thing to understand that is really vital is that those of us who would rather not lie, murder slaughter innocents wholesale or proceed blindly into the future have competitors and opponents who would  like to have all these thing happen routinely and others who would like most of them to happen often. We can still recognize that polygamy is something less than the best and highest forms of monogamy and acknowledge it has a role to play in the survival of anything that can be called civilization.

I will make on of my personal revelations here in this post. I have been married only once and to only one person. Although I am involved with Christian ministry I am not a regular churchworker and not reaping rewards that would cause me to greatly limit my romantic life on that basis alone. Given the actual realities of my life I think it is true that I have had a very limited sex life outside of the seven years of my marriage. However, I have dated a lot. I have sometimes had more than one girlfriend who knew each other. In a few of those instances I have dated two women who were lesbians and attached to each other. I would not flatter my self so much as to say that had polygamy been legal I might have married those gals, certified one as a covenant mistress and one as her maid or whatever else. But it has been an issue in my actual life. I am getting old and tired and mean and in every way less eager to marry but I feel personally that  I have been harmed as well as in the lives of my friends.  

There is so much more to discuss. Polygamy has dark potentials and sides that must be resisted and that is why government has a role to play. I am not interested in persecuting homosexuals but I do think commitments between wives or ladies and maids in royal harems meets the needs of those who really need commitment and maintains marriage between a man and a woman.  I do not want a world where all monks and canons are presumed homosexual. But I do believe homosexuals who care for each other can find civilized happiness as part of such groups. We must find ways to embrace sane civilized options that are imperfect and build again. We live in a world where ruin and deliberate evil  combine to threaten more than most people can imagine. Life will not be improved by further simplifying a too simple society nor by pretending same-sex couples are capable of marriage to each other as heterosexual couples are  capable of contracting such unions.

1 Comment

Posted in Asia, Christianity, Frank W. Summers, Geopolitics, Louisiana, Royalty and Empire, Sex, United States of America, Western civilization

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

BP has announced cementing in the Macondo well

Posted on August 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

BP has announced it has cemented in the Macondo well from above.  It claims it will still seal things off from the bottom through the relief well. This is good news. Let us see what happens next.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Environment, media, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Wetlands

Awareness of Pain: A Post With Many Links

Posted on August 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

I think that most people who read this blog with any sense of fairness will recognize that I advocate much more sweeping and radical constitutional change in the United States than almost anyone with prominent access to prominent media advocates. It is a basic truism (and almost a basic truth) that in order to justify advocating  radical change a responsible person must have already found or must promptly find very serious problems and dangers that justify undertaking the risks inherent in making large changes. It is also fair to assume that regular readers will notice that in fact I have often pointed out very serious problems in this country. This post is about the awareness of those problems and dangers which beset our country. 

There is a film which by using Homer’s Odyssey set in the south of this country shows a bit of the gritty reality of our near past. It is part of a method of a awareness to watch such films and in that film there is song. The song does not  reflect the situation in the film. Go to the next link to find the film However, these lyrics are not taken directly from the film.

“Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/

Big Rock Candy Mountain

        C                                    F                     C
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there’s a land that’s bright and fair,
           F               C                   Am               G7
For the doughnuts grow on bushes, and there’s lots of cookies there,
         C                                F                C
For the dogs and cats are happy, and the sun shines every day,
            F         C              F          C
There are birds and bees, and the bubble-gum trees,
         F         C                    F         C
by the lemonade springs, where the whippoorwill sings
        G7                C
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

It seems a pleasant and fun place doesn’t it? Yet we also live in beautiful world and being aware of it and what endangers it is also a sacred trust. Here is a post where I linked to others sharing the burden and duty of that awareness:  https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/bp-spill-environmental-awareness-links-questions/ 

Let’s get back to that song set in a film reworking Homer’s Odyssey with slightly different lyrics longer and a bit more on our point but similar. 

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the houses are built of blocks
And the little streams of sody pop come trickling down the rocks,
The soldiers there are made of lead, and they are very brave,
There’s a lake of stew, and ice cream too
You can paddle all around in a paper canoe,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

If the soldiers were all made of lead one cannot help but wonder if it would be less important to fight just wars nobly and to seek peace. If ice cream fell like snow and lakes were full of stew then perhaps our agriculture and employment policy would matter less.  But for now we must be aware of how living things, people and communities do find their sustenance. Here is a post where I linked to others who were making us aware of what was at risk in the BP-Macondo Oil Leak:  https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/the-bp-transocean-gushers-risk-some-links-and-notes/

Now, we can return to  song which stands in for many other points of view. I recall, but have not checked, that in the film Brother Where Art Thou? they used the version of the song where the word “frogs” is replaced with “cops”. I think the cops version is the original there would be less food in a world where frog legs were toothpicks and that does not go with the song. On the other hand for someone who wants a free lunch the world would be more abundant if there were only cops with wooden legs and bulldogs with rubber teeth keeping him from other people’s property. 

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the frogs have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth,
and the hens lay hard-boiled eggs
There’s chocolate pie in all the trees, and jam in all the lakes,
Oh, I’m going to go where the wind don’t blow,
there’s a big free show, and candy snow,
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

The song is fun. Living in a world where policy is made on the basis of the idea the song represents but reality is what it is  would not  be fun for a whole lot of people. In many ways that is the world we live in today. Below is a link to a biographical entry describing the life and work of the physician who discovered that the horrors and deformities of leprosy must be understood almost entirely as resulting from the victim’s loss of sensitivity to pain.  

The Wikipedia Biography of Paul Wilson Brand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wilson_Brand

The use of leprosy and its horrors as a metaphor for the results of many of the ills of humanity and  society are not starting with this blog post. In fact the next link is one to a poll as to whether the denial of sin by atheists is precisely that kind of leprosy  we are discussing:

http://jyte.com/cl/pain-insensitivity-is-to-lepers-as-denial-of-sin-is-to-athiests

Old Testament prophets decrying impiety and humanity, Romantic poets decrying the loss of understanding of nature, Revolutionaries decrying the loss of national integrity or sanity — these are  all examples of a nation’s pain response and awareness. Life is made less frivolous and harder because of the pain we feel when we want to lose ourselves in the moment or the life time of doing whatever it is we would rather be doing. Documentarians have played an important role in recent decades and over much of the last century in pointing out what is wrong  with the world — a useful thing to know.

The first shows a part of the truth of how America becoming play obsessed and focused only on market discipline can play out in a complex world. There is a lot more that is only hinted at such as the destruction of some of the local Mardi Gras and Carnival traditions by visitors who only come for debauchery without the limits of traditions. There is also the fact that things may be much worse than the show portrays in China since they are not exposing anything but what they are told willingly enough. 

Chinese workers export Mardi Gras in Mardi Gras Made in China:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436569/

The second film shows how complex struggles of oil and gas profits, ethnic values and wetlands management affect all of Louisiana and the nation. However, this is done in the context of a close-up portrayal of a few crawfishermen in the Atchafalaya who are not even filmed in an entirely accurate or honest way. The film is in many ways anti-Acadian in it biases and is only forced in the other direction by Katrina. The tendency is to represent swampers as typical Acadians and to represent all swampers as more cut-off from the larger economy than they are. But regardless of where it comes from it says good things with important images.

Angels of the Basin:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1338547/

Then we have the vast problem of angry,ignorant and hate-filled black racist destroying this country in so many ways with the support and formation that has poured in from the west-hating Moslem world for centuries but especially the last fifty years. We ignore all the signs and are headed to destruction but at least our reports give us some of the relevant factoids:  

Omar Thornton ‘s recent shooting is a good example: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20012557-504083.html

However, we have many others as well. We can turn to Wikipedia to remember the Fort Hood Shooting. However let us not remember how much racial-ethnic and religious and social forms of non-awareness contributed to this disaster. The way we have handled the aftermath is a terrible disgrace as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

Then we have two movies that show a somewhat unfavorable vision of the military and those who serve in it as well as showing why the enemy would not be so ready to flee at their approach. However, the movies are also full both of whole and partial truths as well as humane insights.  I recommend watching them both with a critical eye  but not disparaging the critical eye they turn towards our country and armed forces.

The Lucky Ones: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0981072/

Brothers: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765010/

The truth is that we have so very much to do as soon as possible if we are to be in any way successful as a society. We have many enemies and competitors around the world who will try to keep us from making and then securing the right transitions. However, we are full of internal problems that are far more dangerous. The time to act is here and will not last forever. However, awareness of the pain is the first step towards healing the wounds and pains.

In the models for change I have described here I have set forth a path that can lead to a btter future. But getting there will not be cheap and easy.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, blogs, BP - British Petroleum, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, media, Oil & Gas Industry, Royalty and Empire, United States of America, Western civilization, Wetlands

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Six Young People Die in Louisiana’s Red River

Posted on August 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

It appears that six young people from two families have drowned in the Red River today. None of the young people could swim and they were on a sand bar in a natural river recreating. Apparently one of the drowning youth, a fourteen year old, was rescued. This was in North Louisiana.  The drowned  teens were all apparently both black and African-Americans. One young person who was not of such a description and may or may not have participated in the successful rescue of the one that did survive reported losing another victim he was attempting to rescue from beneath the waters. Yahoo News has the basic story on video and in text: http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/21202902. I wonder how many ways issues of race affect this story and are  important to policy but are not being considered. The good probability that blacks in the age of Obama found directives about anything distasteful and not worth their time is pretty high. Not learning to swim and endangering themselves and other have a racial element.

In addition to this, I saw a report in which a young woman was injured severely, and may still die, from being dropped one hundred feet on to the ground instead of released on to a net from a similar distance. The girl’s father was a doctor.  He claims she was dead when he got to her. There is a story with some illustrations at this site: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/03/earlyshow/main6738986.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentAux

Here it seems to me one has to at least consider some other things as upsetting as suggesting that Black Teen culture may have reached all the way to rural Louisiana to help kill those six kids. A culture of short-cuts may have squeezed the life out of these black Americans, if in fact all were black and even if only one family was black. Here in the park I would want to consider cold-blooded murder as a possibility. I would want to examine all the reasons why it might have happened. Presumably it is an act of negligence or recklessness in a social context. But the act itself was a near execution. I think cold-blooded murder and thrill-killing deserve to be considered.

This blog is written by someone who is moving a little further from the stream and flow of daily American life with each passing year. But if we are reaching appoint where we cannot ask ugly questions that the ugly facts may suggest in ugly situations then we truly are dooming ourselves in yet another way.

Leave a comment

Posted in family, race, Secrets, United States of America, Western civilization, White House

Tagged , , , ,

Blogs and Newspapers, Among Other Things

Posted on August 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

August 2, 2010 was the most viewed day on this blog up to now. One can’t help wondering however if someone’s pet happened to keep clicking the button on a computer. I have written for paid by stand and subscriber publications without advertising. I have also written for traditional American newspapers paid by both advertising and purchase and I have written for papers given out for free but funded by advertising. All of those give one a greater connection to reality than a blog like this does. First of all one can drive around and see one;s  work on newsstands and on tables and in hands and there is no doubt that it has been distributed. I know a lot of people and some of them are quite honest. However, I also know some of the most committed deceivers around and it is not inconceivable that a few of them could click a way at my blog to run up my markers. There is always some advantage to distorting one’s opponent’s view of  reality.  

It is also true that this blog is more personal even than a column.  I really do whatever the heck I want. One joy of newspaper writing is that even a truly honest person (and lets face it few of us are always in that category) can usually blame some of  his or her work’s worst faults on someone else.  Here,  I could clearly do better on almost any given measure if I personally undertook what was necessary to improve.

Another big difference in this blog is that I can and do add lots of links on some days and everyone reading it can choose to click-through to other sites. While in magazines and newspapers mostly one must deal with all one has to say in one place.

Another advantage (and also a disadvantage) is that I can go back and correct my blog posts here. There is not that chance with newspaper and magazine articles.

All of these little differences add up to create an enormously different experience. The differences are even greater and more numerous than I have suggested. Here a wide variety of my personality traits and writing interests are brought together in one place. In this blog I lack the attraction provided by numerous other writers, photographers and editors contributing to the work each day.

But the physical limits are the most different of all. There is so little certainty about where, how and if one’s writing and other work is being read and scanned. In some cases however, this can be a real blessing. One hears from someone who enjoyed a piece they would not likely ever have seen in a printed venue. It seems to me that all mass media have their place in the world.

We really sort of need film, newspapers, magazines, radio, blogs and other venues to make the world we have become function. I am adjusting to blogging a little at a time.  Whether making that adjustment will turn out to have been a good or bad idea and process will not be clear to me for a long time.  The blog provides a great outlet for expression for me right now. It will take a bit longer to see whether it provides a really good means of communication.

Leave a comment

Posted in blogs, Frank W. Summers, media

Tagged , , ,

Looking at the BP Macondo Oil Leak Today

Posted on August 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Here is a list of observations and factoids related to the BP oil leak as of right now. This is kind of quick and slap dash but here they are for your consideration:

1. Depending how you measure the same coastline can be measure as 1,000 miles long or 500,ooo miles long. However, at least 500 miles of Gulf of Mexico coastline have been at least partly oiled.

2. At least 3,500 wild animals have been documented as killed by the oil leak.

3. Eleven men lost their lives in the initial explosion and at least two others have died in related post explosion events.

4. Rescued animals have still been lost to local areas in order to save their lives.

5. Many thousands of fishermen, shrimpers, oyster farmers, crabbers and sports guides have lost work.

6. Many seaside hotels and resorts have lost business.

7. Seafood processors, brokers, shippers and restaurants have lost business.

8. Suppliers of sport fishing and hospitality and travel industries have lost business.

9.  The oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico has lost money due to the moratorium and have caused workers to lose paychecks.

10. Pollution assessment and clean-up are still not completely designed and defined for completion.

11. There are some good effects of all this tough questioning and thinking going on that are hard to assess just yet.

12. My blog is back to normal almost.

Leave a comment

Posted in Acadians, blogs, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Oil & Gas Industry, Sweden, United States of America, Wetlands

More Blog Stuff…

Posted on July 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

I mentioned the patterns in views of this blog in my last post.  I am mentioning in this post that I have added several pages today. Two pages relate to Frank Summers sections and are more or less biographical or autobiographical pages.  I posted some images of documents and so they would ordinarily be in the images section. But the things pictured relate mostly and directly to my  curriculum vitae. To offset this I included a page of text only in my Space Drawings section.  In addition to  these page, I have upgraded the Web Helm page and made some minor changes in other pages that I think will make this better.

It is worth noting that I am not commenting at Lords of the Blog anymore. The reasons are complex. I still am posting a link now and then on the Norton View. However I have not been posting text comments.  My e-novel account is fairly static for now — I have to figure out what to do next. The original novel draft is done.

I think that the quality of Twitter followers is quite excellent but there are not very many of them.  I do have pretty many Facebook friends and if you mention reading the blog I will usually let you join the list. That is another factor and medium of contact with me. I am also still a bit active in e-mail correspondence. However,  the center of what I am doing on the internet these days seems to be this blog.

Leave a comment

Posted in Frank W. Summers, media

Tagged , , ,