Another forum post on truth worthy of my journal
05/22/2010 01:09 p.m.
I'm surprised I don't do this more often, but there's nothing like a good forum discussion to inspire my thinking process. Here is yet another forum post I feel very strongly about....
JJ


Speaking of truth, I have some very strong opinions on the latest bunch of lies being perpetrated on the youth of America. This sort of truth is usually left to the victors of war to rewrite the facts of some horrendous life taking that had been done in the battles and incidents inflicted on the enemy. But now, those who teach the children of Texas are inserting a boat load of lies and half truths into the text books they use in schools there.

Now I realize that Texas wants to become it's own country, but until they secede from the Union and win the battles the United States Military will fight with them in order to stop them, they should not be allowed to rewrite American history and teach American children that political lies are how it really is. Ok, I am opening a political can of worms, and maybe this should be in a different thread, but it is still about truth, so I don't think propaganda is off topic.

It's one thing to debate what is truth, it is another all together to knowingly teach children misinformation and things that are simply are not so. It is un-American to put lies in a text book that children will believe is true. Because it is their main educational tool, text books carry a lot of weight with children. This is the kind of faux truth-telling that really gets me angry. Once these kids grow up believing these lies, then they will be willing to fight for those lies, claiming them to be the truth because they do not know otherwise. Does anyone really want to die for a lie? I grew up believing that George Washington never told a lie. No matter how many people believe in a lie, it won't make it so, it just means that a whole lotta people have been duped into believing something dangerous. An 11 year old child can be brought up to adulthood believing that Barack Obama is not an American Citizen and become an adult while President Obama is still in office. An entire generation of Texas children will be adults who believe the lies they were taught in school and potentially decide to start the next Civil War.

I have this viewpoint that manipulating the truth always comes down to issues of hatred. Pride, greed and fear are the 3 seeds of hate. That's my truth, hatred is the pathway to power. It is the tool that Hitler used to gain power in Germany and it has been used since the beginning of life. It doesn't usually grow to the extreme limits that Hitler was able to exploit it, but even in the smallest of disputes it is true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because we learn from our mistakes does not mean people will stop trying to obtain authority over others, it means, rather, that those who wish to wield power will study the failures of those who did not obtain the power they sought, or lost that which they had gained, and use the knowledge to succeed in their quest.

The debate over the truth, no matter how insignificant the particular subject of the debate may seem, is a stepping stone to larger issues. I'd like to believe that this will lead to a healing process and not to the opening of more wounds, or worse....

JJ

I am currently Thoughtfull
I am listening to Silence

My forum post on Truth
05/19/2010 05:43 p.m.
I wrote this in the forums and decided I wanted to keep it from getting lost in the waterfall of forums that become water under the bridge....



Way back in 1985 I wrote a poem called "A Question Of Faith". One of the stanzas goes like this:

It may be true that more than one truth exists
And that each and every person sees their own
But after this life on Earth is over and done
Is that still true, or is there only one?

It's in my library within the folder Chapter 3: Faith: Search Within, should you wish to read the entire poem.

In any case, religion is a means to practice ones faith. Faith is a belief, and by it's own definition cannot be the truth. It may turn out to be true, but it is what we believe to be true that may not actually be true that is the basis of all religions. If something were known fact, it could not be a belief and therefore not be a matter of faith. Anything that is proven fact no longer has the comfort of being believed, it simply is. The whole point of faith is to give a "deity" greater power. After all, what would be better for a god than to have people believe in it. If God or gods made themselves known to humans, they would no longer have the devotion of believers. They may have the devotion of knowers, and indeed have the truth on their side, but as a god, if I were one, I would keep the people guessing and bask in the warmth of their faith.

No religion is true, none can be the truth. As concepts created by the minds of humans who believe, but do not know, they simply cannot be the truth. Even if the Old Testament is the word of God, it was physically written by humans at some point in time after God spoke or imparted in some fashion, his word. The same goes for every religious book or tablet or cave wall painting ever made by humans, they are not the writings of God or gods, they are the beliefs of humans. They are faith, and for being faith they cannot be fact and hence are greater than truth.

If we still had the stone tablets that God wrote the Ten Commandments on, we could say, yes, this is the truth. Because then you would have the actual handwriting, or whatever appendage God used to write with, of God. Then of course, after thousands of years we would debate if God had actually written it, converting it to a matter of faith and right back where we started.

The truth is, we will never know what is true so long as we live. After that, we might find out, and some of us may not be so happy with the way the truth pans out for them. On the other hand, if it turns out there is no God or there are no gods and life is the do-all, end-all of our existence, then we won't know and it won't matter. So I'm all for believing, as it has a much longer future than the alternative. But feeling that way I am left to wonder why I find it so hard to have faith.

I wish I knew the truth. No wait, I don't want to know the truth, I want to believe the truth, or believe what might be the truth so long as it means I get into Heaven. But what if that's not where I am going, or some other religion turns out to be the truth, then what? Maybe I am better off if religion is all just a figment of the imaginations of those who wanted to believe that death was not the end.

What saddens me most about religion in general is that faith drives those with the greatest zeal to hate others who do not share their beliefs. Hatred always leads to more offenses against our fellow humans. Maybe that is why I have no faith, maybe it's simply too offensive a thought that I would be lead down a path of hatred by one who is supposed to be guiding me down a path towards love, even for my neighbors and enemies. As far as I'm concerned, the most dangerous thing about believing one "truth" or another, is what will be done in the name of that "truth" to those who believe in another "truth".

I am currently Divine
I am listening to Silence

We owe no one an apology
05/20/2009 03:23 a.m.
An email was forwarded to me with pictures of American military cemeteries around the world, where American soldiers are buried who died protecting those lands. Those heroes were being exploited in this email to suggest that the war in Iraq is justified because so many of our soldiers in the past died protecting America and the rest of the world. Nothing that has ever happened in the past has any linkage to this war and none of what has happened can justify what the Bush administration did and also what it failed to do.

Had we put the resources into going after Bin Laden instead of Iraq, we'd have found him years ago, and could still have dealt with Iraq without an all out war. We might net be any closer to solving the problem of Iraq, and Hussain may still be alive, but he wasn't really doing anything that bad at the time that we needed to have a war over. If we had taken priorities in order, we might very well have lost thousands fewer American soldiers and still have the respect of the rest of the world. Also, I have to wonder if the economy would be so bad right now if we hadn't spent the billions upon billions we did in the war. I wouldn't be so critical of the money if it had been used to take out those who really did attack America.

I can't understand why Bush decided to use fabricated evidence to have a war when he could just as easily gone after Bin Laden and be remembered as one of the great Presidents of the United States. As much as I like the idea of Bush being remembered and one of the worst Presidents ever, I would gladly see it the other way around if it meant our soldiers and the innocent civilians who have died over the past eight years did not.

This has never been an issue of respect for our soldiers. I am not of the "Universal Soldier" mindset that Donovan sang about in the sixties. I've always thought that those who are brave enough to put themselves in harm’s way to protect America, or even other countries that need help protecting theirs, are heroes and should be honored for doing so. Soldiers do not make the decisions in war; they can only expect that those who do make those decisions will make good and honest decisions. Unfortunately, in this war, that was not the case. I don't know how the soldiers feel, but as an American citizen, I feel betrayed by the Bush administration. I can't imagine how I would feel, if I put my life on the line for a lie, for many lies. It's not the soldiers who have anything to apologize for, it's the Bush administration, and I don't think an apology is nearly sufficient for all of the lives that were lost.

JJ
I am currently Reflective
I am listening to My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

What do steroids and politics have in common?
05/12/2009 07:54 p.m.
Why is it that we hold baseball players, Olympians and other athletes, and famous people to a higher standard? Why do we lable them role-models? Why aren't parents better role models?
Why am I mentioning this at all when what I really want to talk about is Presidents and other elected officials, along with the people they select to help them do their jobs. You see, I just can't understand how it is that we can have Congressional hearings about steroids and lying under oath about using them, when we allow a President and his entire administration to break laws and lie under oath and torture people, and then not do a damn thing about it. If we have the time and money to embarrass and prosecute baseball players, then we sure as shit better have it for the people who really should be role-models, who swear and oath to God and country, with their hand on the Holy Bible, to UPHOLD the LAW. Baseball players don't do that. I've never heard about Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds putting their hand on the Bible and swearing not to take drugs, drink, smoke or use performance enhancing drugs, but here we are in this insane situation, ready to imprison people for cheating at a game, but let killers and torturers go scot-free.
How many people living in America have dead children because George W Bush lied about nuclear weapons programs and waged an illegal war that we are still losing lives in, still trying to win and still trying to figure out how to end and get the rest of our soldiers back home alive?
And we have to spend our tax dollars on steroid investigations? I wouldn't mind so much if the issue didn't pale in comparison, but we are talking about something far greater than any game. If we do nothing about those who tortured, then our own children will pay when other countries we go to war with decide that torture is just fine and dandy with America. Might as well waterboard your kids at home so that when they go to war they will be desensitized to the treatment. We already have them oblivious to blood and guts on TV, in video games and the movies, so why not give them some of the real treatment right there in your living room? This way they will be able to make an informed decision before going to war. Just rip off a few finger nails, get out the soldiering iron and burn them in sensitive places, maybe some boiling water to scald their innocent flesh. They really have to be made ready for what's going to happen when they are captured. And oh yeah, while your at it, why not make a party of it? Bring over your friends, have them drag their kids along for a real, knock down, drag out torture fest. Strip them naked, make your boys lay naked on top of each other and take pictures of them. Oh, and now that we send our girls to war, put them on the bottom of the pile of naked boys for some real good humiliation training.
This is what you want after all, right? Because this is what you are telling the rest of the world is ok when you allow your leaders to use these tactics, even though it's against international laws that we helped create and signed. Just like the oaths of office so many take and break right here in America, we don't keep our word when it comes to torture either. So why should we prosecute those who are in high places, apparently above the law? Because your children will be tortured, that's why. I don't care if you love George Bush, if you think he and his administration deserve to get off without severe punishment, then you might as well be the ones ripping the flesh from your children’s bones!
Steroids indeed!
JJ Johnson

www.seeds-and-weeds.com

I am currently Pissed Off
I am listening to Helter Skelter

My 46th Birthday
03/26/2009 06:29 a.m.
Well I certainly had an eventful day, but it wasn't what I was expecting. I thought I had lost $650.00 but it turned out it was just in another pair of pants. So I was in a state of panic for most of the afternoon. Then everything was fine. Wound up going out to dinner with a couple of friends at the new Restaurant in Crossgates Mall called Standard. It was actually quite nice. The food was made perfectly and the service was excellent. The helpings were large and they have a very nice selection. I had this really awesome Madera Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Mushroom gravy.
Then I had a banana thingy for dessert that nearly made me explode. I ate too much, but it was delicious. And to make matters better, they bought me dinner for my birthday. Then we went to a movie, but because it was a little late the only thing playing was Third House On The Left. It was terrible. One of the ten worst films I have ever seen. We thought it would be a thriller horror movie and all it was, was stupidity, blood, more stupidity, more blood and really bad dialogue, and then some more stupidity, just in case we hadn't had enough. And then the end was just about the stupidest ending of all time. And did I mention it was stupid? Ok, but all in all, it turned out to be an ok birthday, once my anxiety over losing all that money was eased. I should tell you how that happened, though it makes me feel really stupid, but not quite as stupid as the movie we saw, so I don't mind telling you what happened. Monday night, I was in a hurry to get home from work to see 24. It's one of the few shows I really enjoy. I was hungry and didn't have time to stop and buy real food, so I went to Five Guys burger joint. Well, as it happens, Monday night was extremely windy and cold, so after work, I put my wind-breaker pants on over my work pants for the ride home.
When I went to 5 Guys, I had to reach inside my outer pants to get my money out of my pocket. But after paying for my food, I put my money in the pocket of my outer pants. I forgot about this after getting home and threw them into my laundry bag. On Tuesday, I went to work, not even realizing I had no cash on me. Then my nephew stopped by to pick up a phone from me and brought me some lunch. I was going to give him some money, but when I reached into my pocket, there was no money, just my business cards. I wasn't really worried at the time, I figured I had just left it at home on my desk. But when I got home it wasn't there. I looked around but couldn't find it. I was a little worried, but I thought I might have left it in my drawer at work and wouldn't be able to check until the next morning anyway.
Well, after thinking about it some more, I realized the only place I had spent money at was at 5 Guys. That just made me worry all the more because if someone had picked it up off the floor, I was never gonna see it again. Then I just made myself angry imagining all these greedy people spending my rent money on frivolous crap. Of course this turned out not to be the case and I actually felt bad about accusing imaginary people of something that didn't happen in the first place.
So when I woke up, I called 5 Guys and asked the manager if anyone had found any money on the floor. As if I expected them to say yes.... Well, my drivers license was in the money holder with the cash, so whoever had stolen my money would have known who it belonged to, the rotten thief! Oh yeah, that was the rotten imaginary thief who actually hadn't stolen my money at all, but I was sure he had, since I couldn't possible be so stupid.
Ok, so the manager was supposed to look at the surveillance tape and get back to me by 4pm. 4:30 came along and no phone call. I went to the mall and stopped into Sprint to see if I might have left the money in my drawer, but it wasn't there. Of course not, it was safe and sound in the pocket of my pants in the laundry bag. Well, I didn't know that, so off I went to 5 Guys, ready to force the truth out of whomever stole my money.
OK, this is getting really long, but it has a happy ending. Oh yeah, I gave that away already, but let me tell you anyway, because it sure seemed real to me. Anyway, I get to the store and talked to the manager. At first he wasn't going to let me see the video replay, but after begging him to ease my mind and to see what I did with the money after paying for my food, he agreed to take a look. The video was a little hurky-jerky, but it was clear enough. I should mention that I had my receipt, so we knew exactly what time I had been at the register, which made it much easier to find the right spot on the tape. Funny thing is, there was grease from the French fries all over it, and the only part that was legible was the date and time I was there. What are the odds?
So anyway, I was looking very intently at the playback but could see nothing unusual. I took the money out, paid and put it back in my pocket. It was a distant shot, but clear enough to see what I was doing. And there was nothing on the floor, so I knew I hadn't dropped it. But then where the heck was it? Hmmmmm, I thought to myself. So I asked him to play it back again so I could see if I missed anything. Sure enough, as big as day, I saw that the color of my pants didn't look right. See, I wear black pants for work, so how come my pants look all gray? And then it came to me, I was wearing my wind-breaker pants over my work pants and I had put the money in the outside pocket. DUuUH!
So I went back home, opened my laundry bag and pulled out the gray pants, and guess what? Oh yeah, I told you that part already, but what a relief!!!!
I mean, talk about PHEW!
So as it turned out, seeing a really stupid movie made me feel better about myself. I am glad to know that there are people in the world even stupider than me....
And I learned a lesson about judging others, even if they were imaginary people, I realized that it's not right to condemn others, especially when it turned out I was the one who was wrong. I would apologize to them if they were real.
And a bad day isn't a bad day until it's over, and still bad at the end.
So how was your day?
JJ

I am currently Happy
I am listening to My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

Prose for my Father
03/05/2009 07:43 p.m.
My father's funeral was yesterday at which my brother Tom and I read eulogies for him. Before the service, we went to a private room upstairs and finalized each of them and then read them to each other. It was amazing, though not really surprising how much they were alike. After all, we grew up in the same house with many of the same experiences. But one thing that we talked about after each of us had read to the other, was just how consistent our father was. You know how some people are one way with certain people and another with others? Not necessarily two-faced, but there are some who are, and some that have so many faces you never know who you are talking to. But dad was different, he was the same person no matter who he was talking with or where he was. Because we had both worked with him at different jobs, nearly 15 years apart, we had both commented on our time with him there. It was not surprising to us that we had exactly the same positive experience with everyone he worked with. And he was the same person with family and friends no matter what the circumstances were.

I have posted the Eulogy for him in my library folder, "Chapter 4: Family".
I am currently Peaceful

Dad
03/01/2009 07:39 p.m.
Friday night my dad passed away. I was there with him, along with one of my brothers and a nephew. We were sitting and talking about fond memories when he simply stopped breathing. The cancers he had took him quickly, less than two weeks after being diagnosed. The day before he died I was finally able to tell him that I loved him. I stuggled with that for many years, but I could tell that he wasn't going to be with us for much longer and the urgency of that pushed me over the barrier that kept me from saying it all of my life. If anyone would like to read the page the funeral home has made for him, it is http://obit.brbsfuneral.com/obitdisplay.html?id=641032&listing=Current

Rest in Peace Dad,
I love you,
Joe
I am currently Somber
I am listening to Let It Be

History of me, repeating itself again
02/19/2009 06:00 a.m.
I'm pretty sure it was Yogi Berra who said, "Déjà Vu all over again". Somehow this has become the story of my life, though somehow it's never funny when it happens to me. Earlier tonight was a perfect example.
Let me go back a few days. My mother called me while I was sleeping one morning a few days ago. She never calls me early in the morning, so I knew it must have been important. She asked me if I was working on Wednesday and I told her I was. My mother has a tendency to be evasive when she doesn't want to talk about something, but she called me, so she must have had something to say that wasn't going to be easy to say. She wanted to get me and my brothers together to talk about some sort of family issue. She wanted to know if there was any way I could take the day off or get out of work. I told her I would call her back later that day from work after checking with my boss to find out. He told me I could leave early, so I let her know and made plans to go up to Saratoga with one of my brothers after I got out.

As I said, my mother really knows how to avoid something she doesn't know how to say, so she does all sorts of other inconsequential tasks until no one can stand it anymore and forces it out of her. So after about an hour or so of procrastinating, my dad decides to tell us. He has cancer. He has cancer in three separate parts of his body and is not yet sure if it is treatable or not. Even if it is, it will be very expensive and he doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars that he doesn't have to possibly extend his life for some unknown amount of time. He is 77 years old and has had two major heart attacks and various surgeries over the years. That he has lived this long is a tribute to how strong the heart is beyond its own sphere of pumping blood. The one attribute of my father's that I have managed to inherit is kindness. Many people mistake kindness for weakness, but I can tell you with absolute conviction that it takes a very strong heart to be kind when others have no such value. I saw that in my father many times when I was growing up and it is a guiding force in my life. I have defined myself many times by saying that nice guys don't finsish last, we just want to be sure know one gets left behind. As true as that is for me, it is my father that allowed me to see that in him and reflect it in my own life.

So what's so bad about history repeating itself in my own life, you must be asking yourself by now???? It's got to do with expressing my feelings. Oh yeah, I write poetry and express all sorts of feelings in them, so what the heck am I talking about? I may have written about this in my book in the chapter about family, but if you haven’t read it, or my memory is faulty, before and after my father had his heart surgeries following his heart attacks, I was not able to tell him I loved him. I wanted to so terribly that I nearly started to cry because I couldn’t. I wonder if he thought I was tearing up over the situation rather than my inability to express what I was feeling. I had this same sort of reaction when my brother’s wife died from Cystic Fibrosis. But it doesn’t end there; it’s a life long problem that I have to this day. And so tonight, as I sat in my parent’s living room, I found myself wanting to say something, to tell dad I loved him and even just to hold his hand. I was sitting right next to him and I couldn’t even reach my hand out to his. Well, tomorrow we will learn the long term and short term prognosis and I really feel the need to get over this emotional barrier I live behind. I feel like Pink in the movie “The Wall” when the judge shouts out, “tear down the wall”! Writing my feelings into words has become a burden and a crutch at the same time. It’s so much easier to sit behind the walls of my apartment, alone, and share my feelings with the whole world than it is to tell my dying father that I love him. No wonder love has avoided me my whole life, I have been hiding from the pain it excretes when the bliss is silenced by its inevitable ending.

JJ
I am currently Pathetic
I am listening to Silence

A lifetime and then some
02/13/2009 07:45 a.m.
I was looking at my poem index and had sorted it by date written when I got to the bottom of the list and realized that I have been writing poetry for almost 30 years. Well, truth be told, it has been longer than that, but not the real kind. I don't think of the poetry I wrote when I was in school, writing for assignments in class, as real poetry. It's the one rule I have always held for my own writing, that when I write it must be inspired and come from my heart. Even my oldest poem here doesn't really fall into that category, not really. I did write it for a friend, but it wasn't really inspired. I wrote it in an attempt to manipulate a situation and edited it several times from it's original version that I sent to her. I have included it in my library only as an historical document, as the oldest surviving poem in a long line of rhymes. It's called "Hidden Alterations", but that wasn't even the original title, so it is more of a fitting title than "Changes", which was, I believe, the original title. That was so long ago I can't remember for sure.

Oddly, the poem I consider my first real poem is "Aisumasen Renee", which was inspired by a John Lennon song I heard the night he was killed, titled "Aisumasen". It's not a copycat poem, just an inspired re-use of the word on a very emotional night at a time in my life when I needed guidence. John provided it for me then as he has so many other times in my life. It's like the difference between making love and having sex, when it's the real thing, you just know it, and the residual ripples vibrate beyond the physical boundries of the body. I could have written a thousand poems in 30 years if I had chosen to ignore my heart, but what good would a thousand empty verses do for a heart that beats so deeply as mine?

JJ
I am currently Reflective
I am listening to I Am A Rock by S&G

Retired
01/17/2009 03:57 a.m.
Well, not from work, but apparently from poetry. I have written almost nothing since I moved back to NY from Cali. I only wrote a couple of things while I was there and really haven't felt inspired in a very long time. I think it's mainly because I have had no real love in my life in so long. For the longest time, I went through life having these pretend sort of loves. Some on-line, some in the flesh, but now I don't even feel desire. It just doesn't strike me anymore. It used to be that I would meet someone and want them with madness, usually unrequited. But over the past couple of years, I haven't really wanted anyone. I did meet one lady on Myspace, but she was 1000 miles from here, and as usual, the situation was impossible. The only women I have been remotely interested in the real flesh and blood world have turned out to already be married. It all seems a waste of time. So I have retired from love, retired from poetry and basically, the one thing I'd like to retire from, work, I will never be able to give up.
Who knows, maybe someday someone or something will inspire me again and I will want to write a new poem or fall in love again, but for now, it seems pretty much over.
JJ
I am currently Tired
I am listening to steam coming from the radiators

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