St. Anselm

The Hobo Philosopher

St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 – 1100)


Ontological Argument for God’s Existence


St. Anselm was born at Aosta in Piedmont. He became a Benedictine Monk. He was a prior, and an abbot of Bec. He succeeded Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1093.

He liked to argue with the King at that time. He was a Christian and a firm believer. He liked believing better than reasoning, “I believe in order that I may understand,” he said. He carried that even a step further; he felt that if you didn’t believe you couldn’t understand.

St. Anselm is most famous as originator of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. I think that when anyone first hears this argument, they instantly know that it is wrong, but they don’t know why. There certainly had to exist a better and greater and more perfect argument than this argument as imagined by Anselm.

Anselm claims that even a fool “... is convinced that something exists in the understanding than which nothing greater can be conceived ... And assuredly that than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality, which is greater.

“Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

“And it assuredly exists so truly that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and this being thou art, 0 Lord, our God.”

Did you get that? Wow! This guy is truly that which is greater than that which I have the ability to conceive. But you know nearly all theologians sound like St. Anselm to me. They all seem to hold a capacity that than which is greater than that
than which I have the capacity to conceive.

Believe it or not this argument has lived through the ages.

A contemporary of Anselm, another monk from Marmoutier, near Tours, a guy named Gaunilo disagreed. He applied Anslem’s logic to real things – like a beautiful island. St. Anselm dismissed Marmoutier by stating that his argument only applied to God and should not be used in any other examples.

They argued back and forth for awhile. Then Thomas Aquinas rejected the argument again about a hundred years later.

Thomas Aquinas said: “Even if it be granted that everyone understands this name God to signify what is said (namely, that than which is greater cannot be thought), it does not follow from this that he understands that which is signified by the name to be in the nature of things, but only in the apprehension of the understanding. Nor can it be argued that it is in reality, unless it be granted that there is in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought - which is not granted by those who maintain that God is not.”

But then came Rene Descartes: “It is no less inconsistent to think of a God (that is, a being supremely perfect) to whom existence is lacking (that is, to whom any perfection is lacking) than to think of a mountain to which a valley is lacking.”
But Immanuel Kant then countered: “I simply ask you, whether the proposition, that this or that thing ... exists, is an analytical or a synthetical proposition. If the former, then by its existence you add nothing to your thought of the being ... If ... you admit ... that every proposition involving existence is synthetical, how can you say that the predicate of existence does not admit of removal without contradiction.”

My God, how true, how very true!

Then Hegel mumbled something to the contrary and others followed. But what the hell is wrong with this argument? Better yet what the hell is this argument? What is the Premise?

Well the first premise is that something that is - is greater than something that is only conceived.

This sounds good when you are thinking strawberry shortcake; it doesn’t sound so good when you are thinking terminal brain tumor or a stick up the ass. To my way of thinking, the thought of a stick up the ass would be greater than actually having a stick shoved up my ass.

To tighten up here, the premise might be that it is greater to exist, in reality, than it is not to exist, or only exist in concept. To be or not to be, that is the question.

I suppose that first off most of us would say that it is better to be than it would to not be, but under analysis it may be otherwise.

Let’s speak theologically for example. If your being intends that you will end up in hell for eternity; I would say to not be or to never have been would be a much more rewarding alternative. In which case, it would be greater to not exist at all than to exist.

To exist entails both pain and pleasure. To not exist entails no pain and no pleasure. Depending on your tolerance for pain and suffering, if you were given an educated choice in the matter, you very well may have opted for non-existence. Unfortunately we got no such choice. And as Albert Einstein once asked; “Did God have a choice in his own existence?” Could God, if He does exist, not exist if he chose not to? Could God in the beginning have not been and then have chosen to be?
Another problem that I have with this Ontological proof of the existence of God is this: Most definitions of God include a reference to his infiniteness. Infinite in terms to His greatness would mean that there is no end to God’s greatness. In mathematics, for example; is there a number than which no greater number can be thought?

Whatever number you can think of, I can add one to it and have a greater number. Numbers are infinite. So then there is no number than which no greater number can be thought.

In Geometry: is there a straight line that which no longer straight line can be thought? As with the greatest number stated above, so it is with the longest line. Lines are infinite and therefore a longer line than any line contemplated can be conjured. So is there a line whose length no greater can be thought? No.
This is the nature of infinity. If God is an infinite being, then His greatness is without capacity. To say that there is something that exist that which nothing greater can be thought - may be self-evident to the fool; but with regards to the infinite or infinity it is not true. Infinite greatness would imply that no matter how great I could imagine God to be - He is greater. So: is there that which nothing greater can be thought?

No.

So the basic premise: that even the fool must admit of a being that which no greater being can be thought - is false. Infinity has no end or capacity.

The second premise: that existence is greater than no existence, is debatable. It would depend upon the state of said existence and upon the notion that non-existence is even possible.

A non-existence without pain, suffering or angst would in my opinion be greater than an existence filed with pain and suffering; surely greater than an infinite existence of unimaginable suffering - which is promised by many religions to non-believers and sinners.

I’m not a mathematician but ... Is zero greater than minus one?

So, are there any more premises left to this proposition?

Does infinity exist only in our understanding or in reality?

It certainly exists in our understanding, but as for reality we can only suppose.
The Universe could be infinite - if not the Universe, then Space.

Einstein, as I understand, claimed that space was merely a property of matter. As an amateur philosopher, I find this notion impossible - unless, of course we then claim that it is matter that is infinite. If we say that matter is finite and limited, then space must be infinite. To say that the Universe (both space and matter) is limited is conceptually and logically impossible because, if the Universe is limited, it must be limited by something.

If we define the Universe as - all that is. Then whatever it is that limits the Universe would be part of the universe and thus the universe would be unlimited. If what limits the universe is limited, then what or where or in what does it exist? This is an infinite regression (or expansion). It tells me that the universe can not be thought of as anything but unlimited or infinite.

For more information on this title click on book cover at right of this blog. Thanks.





Sewer Covers

Today’s question is: Can a sewer cover be made to fall through the hole that it was designed to cover?

We were playing stickball up the old Howard Playstead when our sponge rubber ball got away from us. It rolled down the Birchwood Rd. hill or went over the Howard Corner wall and right into the sewer on Lawrence St.

Losing rubber balls of one type or another down a corner sewer was a common childhood experience in Lawrence and I imagine in any inner city. The balls were not all that expensive as I remember, but none of us ever had a dime between ten of us. Even if we all chipped in and came up with the required amount then we would have the problem of whom the ball actually belonged to once the game was concluded. But in truth the option of buying a new ball was rarely even considered.

We all gathered around the sewer and contemplated.

The ball was right there. We could see it bobbing up and down. Could we get it with a stick or maybe two sticks? What about a tree branch? How about a coat hanger with a loop in the bottom tied to the end of a stick? How about a stick with a Dixie Cup tacked to the end of it? This was a job for Plastic Man.

What if we lifted the sewer cover off the hole and then had the one of us with the longest arms reach down into the sewer and grab up our ball? Good idea.

The sewer cover was heavier than we thought. It took four of us gripping the sewer cover through the square holes to get it up and carry it off to the side. But then we realized that our sewer with no cover was right on the corner of busy Lawrence St. and Birchwood Rd. If a car was coming up Lawrence St. heading to Broadway and it wanted to turn on Birchwood, its front tire could go right into the hole. Oh man, it could get destroyed.

Some of us would have to direct traffic around the sewer hole while the rest of us rescued our ball.

Well … not so simple! Even Dolan who was all arms couldn’t reach it – even with one of us sitting on his calves while two of us each grabbed onto a foot and sneaker. There was only one way. We would have to dip Dolan down into the sewer, head first, while two of us held him by the legs.

Dolan opposed this idea. “What if you guys drop me?” he argued.

“Why would we drop you?” we countered.

“Because two of you ain’t strong enough.”

“Okay, what if we put two guys on each leg?”

“And what if you guys decide to drop me just for the fun of it?” Everybody laughed. “Yeah, see?”

“No we won’t let you go. We need the ball. It would be stupid for us to let you go.”

Dolan was not thoroughly convinced but he agreed. He laid down on the ground and scootched himself forward over the sewer hole as far as he could. Two of us on each side grabbed a leg and upsy-daizy went Dolan. We lowered him down into the sewer, head first.

It was a bit hairy there for a moment or two as proper positioning got a little cramped and guys started stumbling over one another’s feet. Then Dolan, feeling the stumbling, began screaming and cursing up at us. Unfortunately this started me laughing. As the laughing spread, Dolan began screaming louder and louder. But in-between the sputtering we got him down low enough into the sewer that he was able to latch a mitt onto our ball. There were several other balls down there and one of the guys suggested to Dolan that while he was down there why didn’t he toss the one he had in his hand up and out of the sewer and then start gathering up some of the others.

Dolan’s response to this suggestion was not nice – very, very gutterish. A kind of sewer talk, you might say. This caused a resumption in the sputtering amongst the holding crew. Dolan demanded to be fished back up immediately.

We began stumbling away from the sewer in a direction to Dolan’s advantage. When we finally dropped Dolan on the asphalt we all dropped to the ground laughing.

Okay, the operation was a success now all that was necessary was to get the cover back onto the sewer hole.

We took our positions around the sewer cover and dead-lifted the monster. We clumsily side-stepped, our way back to the sewer. We had four of us holding the sewer cover about 3 feet above the sewer hole. It was heavy and we were all straining. “Let’s just drop it,” someone suggested. “Then we can straighten it up.”
It was agreed that on the count of three we would all let go of the sewer cover and jump backwards getting our toes out of the way. We didn’t want any smushed toes.
“Okay … one … two … three … drop it!”

The drop went perfect and none of us got our toes smushed but to our total amazement the sewer cover dropped somewhat tilted and instead of landing a little off center, the damn thing went right through the hole and splashed down into the sewer.

For some reason our first reaction when any catastrophe struck, was to run. Somebody screamed “Oh shit!” and we all took off running. We didn’t get further than the next corner when someone yelled, “We can’t run away. What if a car goes into the sewer hole and then crashes and kills everybody?” We all spun around and ran back to the sewer hole. We positioned ourselves around the sewer and then sent Jack Greco, who lived nearby, to call the cops.

Calling the cops was not something that occurred to us on a regular basis. It fact, it almost never occurred to us. But on this occasion, it somehow came right to mind.
When the cops got there we told them that when we arrived at the corner to play a little stickball we noticed to our horror and shock that the sewer had no cover. So, good citizens that we were, we immediately stationed ourselves around the sewer and had somebody call the cops.

The cops looked at us very suspiciously but called the city department nevertheless. The city department came out with warning sawhorses with reflectors and placed them around the sewer. Both the cops and the city workers complimented us on our community spirit. One of the cops kept smirking at us as we all gleamed and glowed and took our bows. It was like he knew but for some reason wasn’t going to rat on us. We all played it for all that it was worth. We were the little Howard Playground heroes.

But after the cops and everybody else left we all breathed a sigh of relief and slapped each other on the back. We agreed unanimously that removing the sewer cover was stupid. We tried to recall which one of us decided that we should all return to the scene of the crime and then have Grecs go back home and call the cops. Dolan said that it was his idea but that didn’t … float. We all quickly agreed that a good idea from Dolan would be without sufficient precedent.

It is rather amazing in retrospect to reflect on how stupid can turn into genius with the casual flip of a sewer cover.

For more information on this title click on cover of book to right of this blog Thanks.

"A Summer with Charlie"

Chapter One






1 Charlie Gets Liberty


“Rich?” my buddy Willie said in a whisper, slipping up next to me at the pool table. “That was Charlie, man.”

“Charlie?”

“Charlie Kareckas!”

“What’s he doing home from the Navy?”

“He’s dying, man. Didn’t you hear?”

“Dying? You’ve got to be kidding?”

“No man! He got some disease from workin’ them X-ray machines for the Navy.”
“How come he ain’t in some Navy hospital or something?”

“He’s gone, man. There ain’t no cure. So I guess the Navy just let him go and he’s back home at his mom and dad’s house until he croaks. They called me up to find out where all of us guys were hanging out now. I guess Charlie just sits around the parlor staring out the window and smoking cigarettes. Mr. and Mrs. K don’t know what the hell to do, I guess.”

“No joke?”

“No joke, man.”

I stared down at the pool table as I pretended to be racking up the balls. Chucky was home from the Navy. He was home to die.

Charlie’s home, and my home, was a mill town in the northeast corner of the State of Massachusetts. It was thick with people, rough and tumble, down and dirty. It was tough, blue-collar, working, immigrant folk from just about every country in the world. In fact, today it calls itself The Immigrant City. There aren’t too many places like it in the United States that I have ever seen. I have been all over the United States and I haven’t seen anything like it. I’m not saying that Lawrence is or was something great, I’m just saying that it is unique, a one of a kind. Seeing it once, though, would probably be enough for most folks. This is where Chucky and I were raised.

Robert Frost graduated from Lawrence High School which was just one block north of the “Y” (YMCA). I had to tell you all that. It’s the only fact that most of us know to brag on in old Lawrence.

Across from the Y was the Common. The Common was a city park. It had a baseball field, and a softball field, a wading pool and played host to many city events. I’ve since read that one-eyed Big Bill Haywood was there in 1912 for the famous Bread and Roses labor union strike. The largest labor union strike of the era, involving tens of thousands of workers. Supposedly that strike changed labor history and turned things around for the workingmen, women and children in America.

I always thought that it would be interesting to research that strike. Two of my grandparents were there and probably on different sides of the picket lines.
My grandmother on my mother’s side was a weaver, and my grandfather on my father’s side was a mill foreman at the Arlington Mills on Broadway. My grandmother worked at the Wood Mill.

The Wood Mill was the largest of its kind. It was built, owned and operated by a William Wood. My grandmother, the weaver, was Polish and my grandfather, the foreman, was Irish. My grandfather might have been standing, looking out a fourth floor window, slapping a club into his palm or wielding a shotgun, while staring down onto the street at my Polish grandmother marching and picketing with her newly arrived, poor, immigrant friends.

Growing up, I never heard one word about unions or strikes. I never heard of the Bread and Roses Strike, or Big Bill Haywood, or Elizabeth Gurley Flynn or Mother Jones. Nor did I hear about the deaths of strikers that were caused by the authorities and then blamed on the strike leaders. A little Italian girl by the name of Anna LoPizzo was shot and killed by police and a fifteen year old Syrian boy by the name of John Ramy was bayoneted by the militia and eventually died in a Lawrence hospital. They framed two of the union leaders for the murders. Smiling Joe Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti were in jail for over a year and finally absolved of the trumped up murder charges brought against them by the state.

My friends and I never discussed any of this. The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 is the most documented labor/management disaster in union history, yet I never heard mention of it in or out of any of my Lawrence school houses. I don’t know if the town was ashamed of it, or it was my Catholic, “support the State and keep the peace” education. Maybe there were such hard feelings over it that everyone just refused to talk about it. So there you go - history in action.

Big Bill Haywood stood up on the bandstand at the Common and gave his famous, or infamous, clenched-fist, unity speech. Each finger standing alone was destructible, but once the hand was closed into a fist and united, the fingers could now defend themselves like a club - today’s black power salute.

Dwight David Eisenhower appeared in the Common in 1952 on his first run for the presidency. Between Lawrence, Lowell and Haverhill you probably had several million eligible voters. I don’t remember Ike being there at the Common. I would have been nine or ten at the time. I could have been there in the crowd for all I know.

“Hey Charlie, you feel like losing a game of pool, do yah?”

I had just walked into the YMCA. The gang from the old Corner had migrated to the lobby at the Y. I didn’t even know what the letters YMCA represented. I really didn’t care. The important thing was that for fifty cents I was now an associate member of the YMCA. Being an associate member entitled me to complete and unadulterated access to the Y lobby and its multiple and various facilities. This included a free seat in the “peanut gallery” for TV viewing; access to two official-sized pool tables; visiting privileges to the public reading room; and permission to use one of their chess boards, checker boards, or decks of bicycle playing cards. It was really the best deal for a winter quarters that our street gang had ever stumbled upon. A nice warm lobby with all of the above mentioned amenities, plus vending machines that sold hot chocolate, coffee, potato chips, crackers, Coca-Cola and a whole array of other goodies. I don’t know which one of the guys had discovered the associate membership to the Y lobby, but this was the berries. This was the closest we had ever come to being treated as adults in our entire career. It was great; coatracks and everything. Just like real people and not street hooligans or roughnecks. That’s what my mother used to call me and my buddies ... roughnecks. “Where are you and your roughneck buddies going tonight? Don’t let the cops catch you. STAY OUT OF TROUBLE!” Yah, yah, yah.

I heard a familiar voice call out my name, but my quick scoping out of the peanut gallery revealed no recognizable candidates. I proceeded across the lobby and over to one of the pool tables. I put my quarter in the machine apparatus, shoved in the sliding doohickey thing and then started racking up the balls.

The peanut gallery was always dark, so that you could see the TV which was elevated high up on a wall. If you wanted to change the station on the TV, you had to drag one of the folding or straight-backed chairs over, and climb up onto it. Of course, you had better ask the crowd in the peanut gallery before you ever made such an attempt, if you didn’t want to get lynched.

I saw a smile spread under the porkpie hat over in the dim, poorly lit corner.
“Well,” Charlie said rising up from his chair. “I suppose that this will be embarrassing. It has been so long since I’ve shot a game of pool.”

“Oh my god, will you listen to this? The overseas, international billiards champion of the entire US Fleet and it’s going to be embarrassing? Yah right! Don’t give me any of that Willie Mosconi hype. I know better.”

Charlie was laughing now. By the time he got to the table, I had the balls all racked.

“You break ‘em, hustler,” I said with a grin.

Charlie picked himself a cue and rolled it around the table. After three or four cue sticks bumped their way over the felt, he grabbed up the last one and laughed.

“That’s a good one. You can probably shoot around corners with that sucker.”
“Yah, right.”

Charlie didn’t look like Charlie anymore. His face was all puffed up. He was a little chubby. He wasn’t the lean, mean, fighting machine that he was when he had joined the Navy. If Willie hadn’t come up to me and pointed him out, I certainly wouldn’t have recognized him. He didn’t look sickly though. He still pranced like a young colt with his leather healed loafers clicking on the hardwood floor. He always dressed well; neat and clean, not fancy. Charlie was a sharp looking guy - neat, trim, good looking. He used to slick back his hair and puff a big wave up in the front, as we all did. We all looked like Elvis in those days.

Charlie had been a member of the “corner gang” since the early days. Myself and John Robert Michael McSheehy Sr. were the organizers of the original Corner Gang. We were on our way home from the St. Rita’s grammar school in route number four when we got the bright idea.

The “routes” were the organized and patrolled or supervised pathways to our various neighborhood homes, orchestrated and devised by the Good Nuns. The Good Nuns, the Sisters of Notre Dame, had everything under control. The nuns were sweethearts I know, but I still don’t think that I had a nun in any grade who was unable to press her own body weight in the gym. I never saw a nun with a tattoo, though. I walked home in route number four because it was the shortest route. It was only one block long, and it ended at Nell’s Variety Store. I don’t know what brought up the idea of starting a Corner Gang, but we thought that we would like to start one. John Robert Michael McSheehy Sr. thought that starting a gang would be easy.

“Just start hanging around the same place at the same time everyday, and pretty soon you will have a gang,” he suggested. I didn’t believe it but I always hated going home so I suggested that we give it a try. John Robert Michael McSheehy Sr., commonly known as Jack, was agreeable to the idea. So everyday after school we went into Nell’s, got a bag of Granite State Potato Chips in the sealed fresh aluminum bag and a bottle of C & J (Curran and Joyce) Orange Phosphate, or Lime Rickey and we were in business. We would just sit outside on the steps of the store, or on the sidewalk or the steps leading up to the upstairs apartments and just wait. At supper time we would go home and eat quickly and then run right back. I remember thinking at that time that this was the most exciting thing. I couldn’t wait to get back to the Corner after supper each day. It was like fishing. How many bites would we get today and then could we hook them?

It was only a matter of weeks before we had a gang. First came Dolan, who lived just around the corner; then Costello, who lived right across the street from St. Rita’s; then Cusack, then Comier, then Charlie who also took route four; then Vinnie Whaley; then Mike Torla who was a friend of Jimmy Costello. It wasn’t long before there were fifteen or twenty of us out there every afternoon and evening. It wasn’t long before we were a part of the local police department’s regular routine also.

“Okay, let’s move it. Come on, come on. Don’t you little bastards have a home to go to, anyway?”

“You know officer, now that you mention it, you look a little like Dolan. You ever spent any time on Hampshire Street, sir? What do you think Dolan?”

“Daddy, daddy, oh please, can I go home with you tonight?”

“Get movin’ you little shits. If we have to get out of this cruiser you guys will be in big trouble.”

“Yah like what are you gonna do ... arrest us?”

“That’s it. Let’s get ‘em Billy.”

“ALL RIGHT! They’re gonna arrest us! SHOTGUN!”

“No no, I’m riding shotgun. You got to ride shotgun last time.”

The cops were a regular thing. It was a joke. This was a Catholic tenement-house city, with ten damn kids on every floor. The Police didn’t know what to do with us. They tried to keep us moving from one place or from one corner to another. But whatever corner we migrated to, the neighbors didn’t want us there either. But the truth was that most of the cops were just like us. They were Irish Catholic or sons of immigrants. They each had six or seven brothers and sisters, and they grew up in the streets or hanging out on the street corners just like we were. They mostly just laughed at us and told us to take a walk and give the poor people living in the surrounding tenement houses a break. We used to go on walks all over the neighborhood, but invariably ended right back where we started; sitting on the steps at Nell’s Variety.

“So, what’s the deal, you out of the Navy for good now, or just home on leave or something?” Small talk. I knew all the answers but you have to say something.

“I’m gonna be around for awhile,” Charlie offered, while inspecting the pool table for a good shot.

“Lucky us.”

“Yah, lucky you guys.”

The guys who hung out on the Corner were more like family than acquaintances or even buddies. We all knew one another better than we knew our own family members. We sat there everyday, day after day, talking our personal stuff and our personal problems.
Charlie wasn’t one to be confessing a lot of personal stuff. He was busy, busy, busy. He was always just coming or just going. He was a year or two older than me and Jack and some of the others. He liked playing cards, shooting pool, and pitching pennies. He was a listener, and a laugher. He was the tease-ee rather than the tease-er. He loved getting razzed, or being the subject of a joke, but he never told any himself, and he didn’t tease others. He was the kind of kid who beamed when you called out his name or bumped into him someplace downtown. He loved to be recognized. He loved being a part of the Corner Gang. He played in all of the activities. He was an independent type. He had his own car when we got bigger.
He had his own cigarettes. He never bummed a cigarette. And he didn’t indulge those who did. He always had his own money. He never talked or complained about his mother or father or his sisters or brothers. In fact, I don’t know if he had a sister. I know he had a younger brother.

Charlie was up the Corner all the time, he was one of the guys. He skipped out of the senior prom to come down to Walter’s Variety to get a pack of cigarettes. Walter’s was one corner up from Nell’s and it was our latest refuge and hangout. Everybody loved that one. A dapper dude in a tux, smoking a cigarette, and reading comic books at Walter’s Variety on senior prom night. Walter loved it. He thought that was the greatest. Charlie was a pisser. He was no class clown, but he did unexpected things. Charlie was really so straight and conventional that when he did something out of the ordinary, it really stood out and made you giggle. When you were with Charlie, you always did the talking. I don’t ever remember Charlie voicing an opinion on anything. He was easy to be with. He was easy to be around. He was very easy to like. It would not be easy to watch him die.

A Baker’s Dozen









For more information on this title click on "Baker's Dozen" bookcover at right on this page.

Book Review



By Eve Paludan http://www.evepaludan.com/

[Eve Paludan is a writer and editor. Eve Paludan is an editor of scholarly works by day and a novelist by night, occasionally doing freelance fiction editing on weekends. She is currently attending Arizona State University (online) and is working on earning a Web Developer Certificate from Northern Arizona University. She is also writing another romance novel. Eve has been married for 2.1 decades to a software developer/publisher, Ron Paludan, who is also a 3D (Poser and Google Sketch-Up) artist, as well as a webmaster of commercial sites.]
REVIEW:

"A Baker's Dozen" Short Stories by Richard Noble is not only a treat, it is a feast for the mind, with some of the stories reminiscent of the O. Henry type of plot twists that have captivated readers for generations. Like the proverbial box of fancy chocolates, each story in this collection gives the reader a satisfying taste of a different flavor, and yet a cohesive theme of American blue-collar nostalgia makes a pretty box to contain these 13 delectable story treats.

A consummate storyteller, Richard Noble brings to life both civilized life -- with themes like marriage and running a business and adventures with drinking buddies and unions and such -- and uncivilized life, such as my favorite story in the collection: In "I'm Going Home," an itinerant fruit picker and pot dealer named Jon enjoys the freedom and economy of living in a national park but ponders the suspicious death of an alcoholic Jesus freak known as Pea-Coat. The trouble starts when Jon starts his own investigation of the assumed suicide. Wow, this story grabbed me and didn't let go, nor did it disappoint. Well done.

In "Cain & Bernard's," the author takes the long way to getting his own specialty butcher shop ready to open, which will require a plumber. His hilarious first-person retelling of his guy-centric path to his goals keeps getting diverted to a local bar where he has to drink with a plumber, seemingly for days, before they get down to business. Apparently, all of the regulars have long ago dated many of his aunts and his mom, which causes him some consternation and embarrassment. Oh, and existing on bar food -- mostly pickled eggs -- and alcohol is not a proper diet for a working man.

In "Love is Blind," Diane is a thirty-something spinster with a lovely apartment. She hasn't had a date for years. One night she gets a call from a war vet whose memories of them dancing at Arthur Murray as youngsters sustained him through the worst of times. What happens next left me with a lump in my throat. So poignant and romantic. A what-if that we all think about. Could someone from our past re-surface and...?

In "Gluckman's Poultry," the author goes wholesale meat-shopping on what are possibly the wrong side of the tracks and has a small adventure and a lesson in managing people at the bottom of the blue-collar totem pole.

In "Mussels in Marinara," more adventures in the butchery business ensue in South Miami with the author's friend, Lenny, after their meatpackers' union ditched them. This story is about crackers and beer, and Lenny's wife, who is simultaneously a princess and a shrew. There's something of an urban, blue-collar Shakespeare feel to this short story. Very enjoyable.

In "A Government Job," an ad for a nondescript job for a "coordinator" sends Richard, our hero, into unexplored territory as he bluffs his way through the job interview in some of the funniest b-s-ing I've ever read, as both interviewer and interviewee muddle through in a battle of wits!

"A Corny Christmas Story" presents the author as a little boy possessed of charm and surprising wit as he peddles his mother's hand-crocheted hats door to door, so that the family can buy a Christmas tree while Dad is off fighting a war on the other side of the world. I loved this! It should be a short film for a Christmas special. It's wistful, hopeful and amusing.

There are other great stories in this collection, and each has a sense of place and characters that are unforgettable. The author wrote some stories in first person, others are in third person with protagonists who are likely veiled characters of people he seemed to know well.

If you're looking for an entertaining short story collection with a sense of the past, Noble nails it with 13 gems that will make you laugh, cry, and swear at the adventures of a vivid and down-to-earth Americana.

Five stars for an entertaining short story collection of man stories that even a girl can love. -- Eve Paludan, author of Letters from David, a romance novel.

For more information on this title click on book cover to the right of this post.


Introduction

Adolf was a self-styled messiah, preaching a faith. He came from out the Germanic woods like the fabled Siegfried to rescue his people from world domination. World War I and his experience as a soldier formed the basis of his moral thinking and, from what I can see, his adult personality.

As I analyze this book it becomes more and more evident that these arguments of Adolf’s on varying subjects are still much of the political debate of today. Would Adolf be a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative?

A big debate going on at this moment deals with the study of Western culture. Some are ashamed of it, some are proud of it. We have the AIDS virus and Adolf had the problem with syphilis. There is a continuous and on-going argument as to what society should do with its non-achievers. The problem with youth, vagabonds, the homeless and street-corner hooligans seems to be ever-present. How a government should operate and what should be its legitimate limits and concerns, is always in discussion. What is the destiny of our nation, or other nations? What should a society do with its sick, aged and infirm? What should be a country’s attitude towards war and aggression? What is the purpose of the media in a society? What is the main function of our educational institutions? What is the role of banking and finance? Who should be in charge and how should they get there? What is the role of religion and what should be the attitude of the state towards religion? What should our attitude be with regards to our expanding population and the expanding population of the world? What is the role of science, architecture, the arts and history in our present day society?

The argument of which race is the greatest is as vibrant as ever. We have even managed to expand this argument into which sex is the greatest. The Japanese are still reeling from their incarceration in the U.S. during World War II, and the fact that the only nuclear bomb ever, was dropped on their tiny island, as opposed to Western Europe. The African and Spanish cultures are in a heavy battle to make prominent their share in the history and cultural development of the world. China is rushing towards superpower status, and even today it seems as remote and strange and distant as it ever was.

Communism, socialism and capitalism are related in bitterness as seriously as any moment in the last hundred years. The competition within the species goes back to the foundations of human history. Humans were engaging one another in war before this bloody competition even had a name. The internal and external struggles for power between and among representatives of the human species are ongoing and seem to be incurable.

Adolf says to the human race that it must face reality and actively engage itself in the battle for the survival of the “greatest.” I say that if this lunacy is not eventually controlled and hopefully stopped with the recognition of the greatness (or mediocrity of all) the bitterness and beyond that lies in the hearts of the human beings will eventually destroy its kind entirely or continue to reduce the progress of the human race to its present and historical state of crawl.

Adolf says that me and those like me are cowards. Yet in his attempt to destroy us, he found his own cowardly end. I guess that it is up to each of us to decide which philosophy will lead to the greatest eventual good for the future of mankind. The same choices are still with us. Pick a side.

This is a chapter from my book "Just Hangin' Out, Ma." Click on cover on the right of this page for more information

Brother Conrad


Brother Conrad was, in my opinion, one of the worst instructors ever at Central Catholic High School. But yet I have never forgotten the man. I had him for “Home Room” and for “World History.”

Brother Conrad was the size of a midget. One of his antics was to crawl up on top of his desk at the front of the room and peek down on somebody who was sitting up front, maybe eating their lunch or doing something inappropriate. He would belly-flop across his desk, his head propped up by his elbows with his chin in his palms. His feet would be in the air behind him, like a little kid lying across his bed at home. Everybody in the class would go into hysterics.

No matter what class he was teaching, he always drifted over into Lawrence, its politics or people. He was very concerned about the canals. He felt that they were dysfunctional and useless. He wanted them to be drained and paved or used for a subway or something.

He was brutally sarcastic. I’ll never forget the day that he walked into the classroom holding a copy of the Eagle Tribune high over his head.
“Lookie, lookie, lookie,” he squealed. “Did you see last night’s paper? We got two more.”

The front page of the Tribune had a picture of a car wrapped around a telephone pole. The car was estimated to have been traveling at over 100 miles per hour. Two teenagers had been killed instantly. The vehicle was hardly recognizable as an auto.
Brother Conrad thought that teenagers were violent and suicidal. He proposed a solution. He often suggested that all teenagers should be shuttled off to an island somewhere. Periodically a boat could be sent to the island and extract all of those who managed to survive to the age of 21 and return them to civilization.

In World History class he had one routine that went on and on. There was a student in the class by the name of Harcourt.

“Harcourt, would you please stand up.”
Harcourt (not his real name) was probably eating his lunch, looking out the window or grab-assing with someone around him.

“Tell me Mr. Harcourt, what do you intend to be when you grow up?”

“I’m goin’ to be an engineer, Bruddah”

“Really? I don’t really think so, Harcourt. Engineers have to know a lot of math. Are you good at math, Harcourt?”

“Not very, Bruddah. But why do you have to know a lot of math to drive a train? All you have to do is follow the tracks.”

“Oh, you what to be that kind of an engineer. And you have the boots for it don’t you?”

“Yes Bruddah, I got these engineer boots for Christmas.”

“How nice. And you feel that you can drive a train by just following the tracks. I suppose that is how you get to school each day. You are from up the river aren’t you?”

“I live in Haverhill, Bruddah. But I don’t follow the railroad tracks to get to school. I take the bus.”

“Well, since you ride on a bus everyday to get to school, why don’t you want to become a bus driver?”

“Bus drivers don’t have no tracks to follow, Bruddah. I figure driving a train should be easier and I think it pays more money.”

“Harcourt, you must know by now that you are never going to graduate from this school or go to college. Here it is only January. Do you realize that if you quit school right now and beat the June rush, you could get in line ahead of all the other kids over at the mill employment office and maybe get a job?”

“I want to drive a train. I don’t want to work at a mill.”

“Okay, okay, quit now and get your fanny down to a train station. If you wait until June, there will probably be a whole bunch of your fellow classmates ahead of you down at the train station. If you quit right now the line will be a lot shorter.”

“I’m goin’ to go to college, Bruddah.”

“You are? And what college is that, may I ask?”

“Harvard.”

“Harvard? That is a very good choice. Why did you pick Harvard?”

“Because there is a train from Haverhill that goes right to Harvard Square.”

“Oh yes, I forgot. You like trains.”

This comedy routine sometimes went on for the whole period. It depended on Harcourt’s answers. If Harcourt’s answers were creative enough, Brother Conrad couldn’t resist asking more silly questions.

Our entire class flunked the World History exam. For some reason Brother Conrad just couldn’t believe it. When he asked for an explanation, Harcourt raised his hand.
“Yes, Mr. Harcourt. You have an explanation of why this entire class flunked their World History exam?”

“I think so, Bruddah.”

“Well, by all means share your insight with me because I am at a total loss.”

“Well Bruddah, there wasn’t one question on that exam about the canals, the Merrimack River, the water works, Lawrence, or even Mayor Buckley.”

Old Is Where It’s At

But It Takes Getting Used To

By Richard E. Noble

All of the music that I listen to, I started collecting from the Columbia Record Club back up in Lawrence in the 50’s. It was written, sung and played by dead people - Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Erroll Garner, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Doris Day, etc., and now even Ray Charles. All of these people are now dead.

All the books that I read were written by dead people, and most of them died a long, long, time ago. Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Tolstoy, Plato, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Aristotle, Mark Twain, O’Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith, Upton Sinclair, Henry S. Comminger, Thomas Jefferson; they’re all dead. Just about every book on my bookshelf or on my up-and-coming reading list was written by a person who is now dead. William Manchester was one of the few who I have been reading who was still alive, but now, he is dead also.

My very life and experiences are now the subject matter of history books. My books are in the history section at the Lawrence Library. Some of them are at the Heritage History Museum even.

Now most of my big decisions are concerned with pain and longevity. Should I bend or should I squat? Should I risk buying bananas that are still green? Yes, I know it is cancer but how long will it take to develop and mature? If it takes more 15 or 20 years to get serious, leave it there. Who cares? So what if I don’t get my cataracts removed and I will be blind in the year 2063. I ain’t going to be here anyway. Go right ahead and dissolve Medicare by 2050. See if I care.

Everywhere I go today the world seems to be filled with people, who, like myself, are very old or almost dead.

The grocery store, even, is being staffed by people who are almost dead. I think that all the young people today are either so whacked-out on drugs that they can’t pass a pee test or they are off in some foreign country fighting for somebody’s freedom and are now unable to deliver my newspaper or ring up my groceries at Demoulas’ Market or Butcher Boy’s.

The guy checking out my groceries at the store the other day, along with the bagboy, were both older than me. Now that’s scary.

I put my groceries on the automatic sliding shelf and the old man starts running them across the magic price reading thing-a-ma-gig. Everything is going fine until this chicken won’t beep. He swishes it across the magic window three of four more times at varying rates of speed – but not a beep out of the chicken. He shakes the chicken two or three times, as if there must be something wrong with whatever is inside of the chicken that makes the beeper beep – but, no response from the chicken. He then presses the chicken into the magic window and puts his body weight on top of it to try and get it closer to the magic window reading whosey that is inside somewhere. (Personally I think there is an illegal alien in there with a key pad.) Nothing happens. The gray haired, partially bald clerk holds the chicken up in front of him and shakes his head negatively. “What is wrong with this chicken?” he mumbles. “I guess that I will have to ring it up by the code numbers.”

He stretches his arms out in front of him as far as they will extend; he tilts his head up, squints a little and makes an attempt to read the code numbers on the price tag of the chicken through one of the sections on his trifocals. “My god” he says. “Ted Williams, who could see the threads on a curve ball coming at him at one hundred and ten miles an hour, couldn’t read this damn thing.”

He lowers the chicken down towards his waist, turns his head slightly to one side and tries to read the numbers from out the corner of his glasses. No luck. He holds the chicken in one hand and then tries to adjust his glasses on his face, up and down, with his other hand. No go. He takes his glasses off, momentarily and tries to scan the chicken bare-eyed – no help. He raises and lowers the chicken – still at arms length – while he nods his head up and down in an opposite sequence from the movement of the chicken. It could be a focusing problem. Doesn’t work.

He takes his glasses off his head and runs them back and forth between his eyes and the chicken – nothing. Finally he lays the chicken down on the counter and attempts to read the code numbers by placing his glasses down on top of the price tag on the chicken, as if his trifocals are a magnifying glass. This doesn’t work.

“Let me see that chicken; maybe I can read it,” After examining the chicken closely, I say, “I think that it is three dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“I know that,” he says, with a frustrated sarcasm. “It is not the price I need. I need all of them little numbers there on the bottom of the price tag, next to all those squiggly lines.”

“Oh, here you mean ... okay, let’s see – four, six, nine, seven, seven, three, one, two, eight, eight, eight, four, one, two, three, eight, nine, one, two, one. That’s it. Wouldn’t it be easier to just ring up the price?”

“Oh god! Don’t even talk about that. That’s a book in itself. So, is that it?”

“No. I don’t think that you got my tomato there.”

“Okay, that will be $149.52.”

“Did you get my tomato?”

The man doesn’t look at me and repeats the total bill once again. I notice that he has a buzzer in his ear. My wife has a buzzer for each ear.

When you see a person with a buzzer in their ear that means that they only read lips. The buzzer in a person’s ear doesn’t really do anything. It is, more or less, a symbol or a sign of deafness. It is only there to let other people know that this person can’t hear a damn thing. It is like a pair of sunglasses on a blind person. But because I have experience living with a person with buzzers in her ears, I know how to handle this situation. I tap the clerk on the shoulder – when he turns and looks at me, I say very slowly and in a loud voice; “Did ... you ... get ... my ... tomato?”

“You got a potato?”

“No, did ... you ... get ... my ... tomato?”

“You don’t have to yell at me, I ain’t deaf for god’s sake.”

“I’m sorry.” I reach down and pick up the tomato that is lying on the conveyor belt. I hold it up and roll it around in front of the man’s face.

“That is not a potato,” he criticizes.

“I know. It’s a tomato. Did you ring it up?”

“Is it yours?”

“Not yet, but I would like it to be one day.”

“You want me to ring that up?”

“Would you please?”

“No problem.”

The man puts the tomato on a special scale. The computer identifies the tomato as a tomato and suggests a starting price or bid. The optimum possible price appears on the price screen after a series of bids from e-bay have been calculated into the final quote.

“How much is that tomato?”

“Twelve dollars and nineteen cents.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, that’s what the machine says. I think that they had a blizzard in Paraguay this month or something. All the tomatoes got killed.”

“All except that one.”

“I guess. You want it or not?”

“Yeah, I’ve been planning on having a tomato all this year. I already bought some bacon, white bread, mayonnaise and lettuce. It wouldn’t really be a BLT without the tomato.”

“Okay ... got the tomato; now where are those potatoes that you said you had?”

“I don’t have any potatoes. I can only afford so many vegetables in one year. This year it’s that tomato.”

“I get ya.”

“Would you like me to take this out to your car?” asked the bagboy who looked old enough to be Mark Twain’s grandfather. I watch the old man bagboy as he struggles to lift the bag off the counter and place it into my shopping cart. As he lowers the bag into the cart the upper half of his body follows the bag into the cart and his feet come off the ground behind him.

“Nuewww. I think I can handle that myself, but thank-you anyway, sonny,” I say.
As we exit the store, I say to my wife: “Did you see the price of that tomato?”

“We forgot to get a potato?”

“No," I said. "Did ... you ... see ... the ... price ... of ... that … tomato?”

She rushes her thumb up to her ear and begins spinning things around on her buzzer. “Holy Cow! What are you trying to do, blow my brains out! Just speak to me in a normal voice. Don’t yell!”

“Honey, I simply said, Did you see the price of that tomato? That’s all I said.”

“Okay! My goodness, you are such a baby. If you want potatoes, let’s just go back inside and get some.”

The Hobo Philosopher


Paganism

By Richard E Noble

Paganism, and its notion, that the universe and the affairs of mankind were controlled by a multitude of equally powerful and sometimes competitive Gods, was the curse of ignorant, superstitious primitive people, I was taught as a young boy. As I read history it seems, as usual, it is the exact opposite that is the truth. In the world of the polytheist just about anybody’s God was O.K. It is in the world of the monotheist that everybody else’s God becomes a problem.

It seems that the Jews were the first to present, in no uncertain terms, this horror story, that there is only one God. It is suspected that Moses picked up the idea while spending some time in Egypt. A guy named Akhenaton, here yesterday – gone today, was really the first serious monotheist. He created quite an uproar in Egypt. Contrary to common knowledge Abraham was not a monotheist. He is alleged to have proclaimed his God as above all other Gods but did not deny the validity of other Gods.

“There is only one true God and that God’s name is Yahweh,” the Jews proclaimed to all of their neighbors, and even to their Roman rulers. The Romans said, that’s fine, let’s put a statue of Yahweh in the Temple next to Jupiter. The Jews then flipped out. They told the Romans that one day a great Jewish general was coming, sent to them by Yahweh, and with this new General’s help they would not only whip Roman butt, but they would run them off the planet earth and into the fires of Hell. (You have to remember when you listen to talk like this, that the Jews, at their root, are really Arabs.)

The Jew spawned the Christians. The Christians had basically the same story as the Jews with a few variations and a couple of twists. The big difference sociologically speaking between the Jews and the Christians was that the Christians allowed even gentiles and even Romans to become Jews. (You have to remember that the Christians at their root are really Jews.) The Jews said that they were the chosen people and that nobody else could become a Jew and that a Jew shouldn’t even marry anyone who wasn’t already a Jew. But the Christian Jews said that anybody could become a Jew so long as they took the right attitude. So to make a long story short the international Christian Jews and their One God, eventually take over the whole Roman Empire, under Constantine (debatable). The Christians and their international One True God, Jewish idea end up murdering, torturing, and killing one another for the next thousand years in a manner that makes the Roman Tyrants look like pikers.
During this period the Christians spawn the Muslims. The Muslims have the same basic One God story, and the our god can beat up your god idea; but they change the One True God’s name from Yahweh to Allah. (You have got to remember that Muslims are, at their root, Arab Jews.)

So here we are today and all of the – there is only One True God and his name is whatever people – are still killing one another. They have been killing one another for about two thousand years now. This alone should be proof to any of us that there is not One True God no matter what name you give to him.

The Greeks and Romans were obviously closer to the truth and had a much better idea in a whole bunch of, take them or leave them, not entirely true and not entirely false, Gods. With their program you could just pick one that you liked or make one up on your own, and as long as you paid your taxes, bought your permits and licenses nobody knew who was going to Hell or who wasn’t. We could all have our suspicions, and make our guesses but only the Gods knew for sure.

Oh for the simple days of Polytheist Paganism where everybody could be loved by their own God and nobody had to petition for the affections of yours.

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

A Brief History of Time

By Stephen W. Hawking

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble



I read this book several years ago and since that time I have read it several more times. Since my first reading, I have not been able to get this book off my mind. On that account I should give it five stars. But the things that I can’t get off my mind are all negative criticisms. On that account I should give it one star.
My criticisms start before I even get to the author.

In his introduction Carl Sagan speaks of “Einstein’s famous question about weather God had any choice in creating the universe.” Unfortunately Mr. Sagan paraphrases this one of Einstein’s many famous questions incorrectly, as my memory recalls.
If there were a God why would he not have a choice in creating the universe? This paraphrasing makes no sense.

Einstein’s question as I recall it was whether or not God had any choice in his own existence.

Now that is a big question to all us philosophy buffs. Mr. Sagan’s incorrect paraphrasing makes Einstein’s “famous question” no question at all.

Asking whether God had a choice in his own existence is a subtle way of stating the impossibility of the God concept.

If there is a God he could not have had the choice to exist or not to exist. He either was or he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, he could never have been because something can not come from “nothing.”

The answer to the rhetorical question is that he had no choice and therefore was lacking in freedom. God can not be God and be lacking in freedom. Therefore the concept of God is untenable.

The above is not my opinion; it is simple philosophic logic that can be found in any philosophy book debating the God concept.

This was really a rhetorical question in my opinion on the part of Einstein. He was expressing his dubiousness on this subject.

If there is a God whether or not to create the universe is no problem at all; God can do as he pleases. He can create it or not create it. Who or what is going to make him do it or not do it? What logic says he can’t do it? Sagan’s question makes no sense.

Now we come to Mr. Hawking and friends.

Unfortunately there is a lot of sloppy language going on in the scientific community. Mr. Hawking is just one of many who “slop” around terms to the point of meaninglessness. One such term is the word “universe.”

The universe is defined briefly as, “all that is.” I am sorry but there can not be two “all that is.” All that is covers everything. It follows then that there can be no multiple universes, parallel universes or competing universes. There can only be one universe.

Scientists are obviously using the word “universe” with a different understanding than “all that is.” Somebody should explain to readers how the scientific community is defining the word universe.

Other improperly used words are infinite and annihilate.

The universe can not be at the same time infinite and limited. An infinite universe can not expand. It is already infinite. It can’t get no bigger than that.

A particle can not be annihilated and at the same time transformed into something else. If a particle is annihilated it not only disappears, it ceases to exist. It doesn’t just disappear. As far as I know annihilation is impossible. Therefore if a particle turns into light and/or energy, then it hasn’t been annihilated. It has been transformed. It can only be annihilated if it has been turned into nothing – and this is an impossible theoretical state. A state of “nothing” does not exist.
Space is also something. Its influences may be so minimal that they are not necessary to mathematical equations but space is more than a state or condition fabricated by gravity and other magnetic forces. There are scientists who are presently working to discover exactly what space is and what its influences are on the universe.

Light travels in straight lines in all directions infinitely – but it also bends. This is impossible. It does one or the other. It either travels infinitely in straight lines or it bend and wiggles its way through space. If light bends and wiggles it way through space then it certainly can not be used as a measurement of the distance between planets or galaxies. Unless someone can measure the exact amount of wiggle at every distance in space – which I doubt very much is possible. What the heck are these scientists talking about?

An ellipse is an extended circle? Then I suppose a circle is a square with rounded sides. I know these guys are trying to dumb this stuff down for folks like me but if they dumb it down too much they are me and then we are all going nowhere.

I’m not a Big Bang guy and neither was Mr. Hubble. I have read that Mr. Hubble who established the notion of red shifts and blue shifts said that he in no way concluded from this observation that the universe is actually expanding or that any Big Bang was involved.

I think the Big Bang notion is comparable to “the world is flat” notion along with the Ptolemaic universe and phlogiston. It is being challenged by plasma theorists and others. The whole concept seems to be imploding in favor of an infinite, self-evolving universe.
I am reading a book at the moment by Eric J. Lerner “The Big Bang Never Happened.” It is making some sense to my way of thinking.

Question posed in Mr. Hawking book: What was God doing before he created the universe?

Answer provided in book by St. Augustine: Time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

So then where was God? He obviously did not exist before the universe either. Is God not a part of “all that is”? Does he exist? If so then he must have existed within the concept of “all that is” – the universe. No universe, no God.

And if the universe had no beginning – and the Big Bang can not be construed as the beginning of “all that is” – then St. Augustine may be right. Time began when the universe began; the universe always was and always will be (in one shape or another) therefore time always was and always will be.

Mr. Hawking, Mr. Sagan and others in the scientific community I don’t think are/were big on philosophy. They know their math but seem short on logic and semantics.
This book to me is pretty much an exercise in scientific madness (time going backwards, the universe collapsing, parallel universes, universes that are cone shaped, or infinite but finite and limited) but it is not just Mr. Hawking who has gone mad. He has a whole bunch lined up to jump off the edge of the universe and splatter on the nothingness below following eagerly behind him.

Read my review of Bruce Watson's great book about the Bread and Roses Strike and take a look at my book "America on Strike" while you are at it. Click on book cover at right on this page.

Bruce Watson

Mills, Migrants, and the American Dream

Bread and Roses - 1912

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

My discovery of the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 in Lawrence, Massachusetts has provided me with an extremely interesting source of intellectual and personal insight.

Although I was born in Baltimore, Maryland my life from a few months old to age 27 was spent in Lawrence, Mass. My father and my mother were ex-mill workers - as were their fathers and mothers. My father was from the established English heritage and my mother descended from the later Eastern European migration. She was Polish.
I only worked briefly as did my older brother in a reconstituted worked-over enterprise that rented old mill space after the mills were abandoned by their textile owners. But even though I never worked in a textile mill, those mills played an ominous and hauntingly important part in my life.

The original mills were the reason for being for the city of Lawrence. First God built the mills and then he sent the people to work them. The mills came first and the people came second - and that is the history of the mills of Lawrence - and maybe mill towns all over America. And it is always interesting to me that when it was all over what was left was row upon row of empty red brick pyramids and mile after mile of drained sapped people and landscape. It was like a war zone where the weapon of choice was not explosives but a psychological sort of Neutron bomb.
Fighting for the jobs and positions at the mills basically determined the social status of the populous. From the 1840s to the 1950s the mills were the heart and soul and supplied the bread and the few roses that might have been scattered here and there throughout the city.

From approximately the time of my birth forward the mills were on a steady decline and by the end of World War II the mills had for the most part abandoned Lawrence. Unemployment through the late forties and onward through the fifties rose to over forty percent. That was a number that I had been seeking for quite some time. The 1929 Depression was only 30% unemployment. I knew the situation was serious because my dad was one of that 40%, but as is always the case - even with 40% unemployed, 60%still had a job. That 60% living at the time knew only too well how lucky they were, but their descendents have long since forgotten – or were never even made aware of the hardship of their neighbors. I found that 40% figure in this book by Mr. Watson.
Another question that had perplexed me is why I had never heard of this strike; why I had never seen any monuments in the city parks; why my parents and relatives never spoke of it; why the Nuns in grade school never mentioned such an event even in passing; why the Brothers didn’t teach it in high school; and the bigger question why the history books ignored the American labor movement almost entirely.

I first got interested in this subject matter by discovering, quite by accident, the Bread and Roses Strike. Researching this strike then led me to the labor movement in the U.S. and then in the world.

For me making this discovery was like finding the missing link or the lost piece of the puzzle. I truly feel now that understanding labor history or the history of the labor movement is the Rosetta Stone for interpreting our modern civilization. This is where our modern history begins - and this period in man’s evolution has not come to an end yet. It is the latest episode in a long continuous battle for freedom, dignity and equality.

Mr. Watson explains in his Epilogue that the history of the Lawrence Bread and Roses Strike was suppressed in the area because it had been a brand of shame for the city as a whole throughout the entire U.S. and throughout the world. Lawrence became a poster child for how not to handle a mill strike and how not to treat new immigrants, working women and children in America. The City (establishment) of Lawrence had been disgraced and shamed and they then proceeded to propagandize a “cover” story or a rationalization to hide and cover over what they had done and what had actually happened. And it worked because all that remained for the rest of the century was their version of the event. It is only until recently that the whole truth of the matter has been seeping out.

It seems to me that this is basically the same story with regards to the American Labor Movement. And the truth about it is also beginning to seep out.
Just as the Germans have been the last to admit the horror of the holocaust and the Japanese the last to accept the Rape of Nanking and their other World War II atrocities, America will be the last to admit its persecution of the working class and the working poor. America hates poverty - and it hates to accept or admit the fact of it even more.

America is filled with poverty, slums and industrial blight and it seems that it always has been - but yet most Americans will deny its very existence - and so it goes on and on and on.

Reading this book was more than a history lesson for me. Since I was raised in the area, every street name brought back an old memory; all the family names brought back friends and neighbors; and the stories brought back reason and insight into many personal mysteries.

I really enjoyed this book and I’m happy Mr. Watson wrote it. I will ad it to my collection of Lawrence memorabilia and labor union history.

I am left with the desire to read more about Lawrence and I know from other reading that there is a lot more to read. Every open door leads to another door yet to be opened.

Very surprising to me is the discovery that at Cornell University there is actually a school of Industrial and Labor Relations that offers a four year degree in labor studies. It was started in 1945 and is the only college in the United States offering such a degree. I intend to do a good deal of reading and learning at their web site. It should be fun.

Bread and Roses by Bruce Watson is a great read for anyone interested in history in general, and the Labor Movement in particular. This book should be required reading in every high school in the Greater Lawrence area - but I have no doubt that it is not and will not be in the future.

Fortress America - William Greider

Fortress America

By William Greider

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

Fortress America was published in 1998. At the time of the publishing of this book the Berlin Wall was gone and the U.S.S.R. had collapsed. With the disappearance of Russia as Public Enemy # 1 for the U.S., America was now in a quandary. The Cold War was over. What do we do about our massive military? Our Cold War enemy was gone. The Russian threat to our security was gone. Should we dismantle our military? Reorganize? Downsize? How do we do it?

Fortress America is a book that analyzed the problem in store for the U.S. in downsizing it military capacities.

I’m sure it was not Mr. Greider’s intention to present an apology on the impossibility of downsizing our military and the necessity for America to seek new enemies and unnecessary but available wars but this book, in my opinion, is a blueprint for just such a scenario.

Mr. Greider in his thought provoking manner, his exhaustive research and his presentation of the facts and figures, makes our present state of affairs obvious.
“If the world is at peace, why should America now have to remobilize? There are no persuasive answers at present.

“To justify the significant budget increases that might rescue the military from its dilemma of competing obligations, political leaders will first have to find convincing dangers – a rising threat of actual war, and on a very large scale. Until they can do so, military leaders must keep hacking away at their own institution … People in the armed services know this…
“The political base that always supported the Cold War defense structure endures, too, without a strategy for the future except to change as little as possible from the past.”

Mr. Greider goes on to talk about our “Military Socialism” and our basic socialized military industrial complex. He then explains the scope of this book.

“In short, our tour of Fortress America is about more than defense spending in an era of general peace. It’s about national vision and the limits of empire, about whether Americans really wish to govern the world with U.S. military power …
“This is a new world order that will require much more than the accumulation of weaponry, and it might even be subverted by a new global arms race.” (My italics)
Now let me point out, I haven’t left the introduction to this book yet; we have yet to hit page one.

The book begins with a tour of the massive weapons storage facilities at Fort Hood, Texas. Bradley fighting vehicles, Dragon missiles, M-1 Abrams main battle tanks, Humvees , HEMTTs, HETS, and more than two hundred Apache and Kiowa helicopters. There are forty eight separate equipment yards at Fort Hood – miles and miles of parking spaces with multimillion dollar units in every parking space.

“The Cold War is over, but not really, not yet …Too many tanks with nowhere to send them ... Defense spending, as one strategic analyst put it, has become ‘the new third rail of American politics.’ Most politicians are afraid to touch it.”

Then we come to the panic of peace.

“The Pentagon has been dumping old tanks like an army-navy surplus store conducting frantic ‘going out of business’ sales. Giving them away to friendly nations. Selling them at deep discounts. Offering them free to local museums. It dumped one hundred old Sherman M-60s into Mobile Bay off the Alabama coast to form artificial reefs for fish in the Gulf of Mexico. Several hundred more are being sunk along other coastlines for the same purpose. One year it gave forty-five tanks free to Bosnia and another fifty to Jordan. It shipped ninety-one tanks to Brazil under a no cost, five year lease, and thirty to Bahrain on the same terms. Another 160 were sold to Taiwan for $130,000 each, priced at ten cents on the dollar. Egypt got seven hundred free by picking up transportation costs … One way or another the Army has disposed of nearly six thousand older (1980 models) tanks during the last six years.”

To actually train men on all our fancy fighting equipment is too costly “It takes two thousand dollars an hour to operate a single M-12 tank in the field.” Instead we pay to build simulators. We have 25 million in video games sitting in one of our military video arcades.

Well, why don’t we mothball everything and then pull it out when we need it?
Unfortunately we can’t mothball very much in our new high-tech military. The electronics deteriorate; the crews take years to train, not weeks; things must be upgraded to stay on top or ahead of the competition. And in many cases we seem to be our own competition. Our independent “capitalist” arms merchants are selling to the highest bidder in the free market global arms race. Of course, we get dibs on the latest, most modern stuff – as long as we subsidize our arms manufactures with their storage costs, their labor costs and their research and development costs – cost plus contracts are nice too. And the fact that all American National arms merchants are basically one big interlocking network, doesn’t hurt the bottom line either.

The first time I read about this technique of selling to potential enemies was in The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester. When Adolf Hitler demanded the German arms manufacturer, Krupp, to stop selling arms to Germany’s enemies, Krupp threatened to take his whole operation, his knowledge and expertise, to Russia. Hitler and Mr. Krupp made a compromise. Krupp agreed to sell only last year’s models to Germany’s enemies. Hitler acquiesced.

They tried to dismantle Krupp industries after the war but found the task impossible. They denied Krupp the right to practice his “craft” in Germany. Kupp went to China and then to other international sites and became one of the richest men alive in his day.

“After the Cold War ended, the government added 2,662 Tomahawks and other missiles to its arsenal. It increased air power capabilities by modernizing 961 night-capable aircraft and 707 precision-guided munitions-capable aircraft.

“The Air Force has so many long range bombers – the old reliable B-52, the troubled B-1, the new stealthy B-2 that costs 2 billion apiece – that it cannot afford to keep them all in the air. Yet, if you can believe its plans, the Air Force intends to increase the operational bomber force 25 percent by 2001.”

But there is always hope Mr. Greider explains: “After all there is always the dim hope that somehow the circumstances will change. Maybe North Korea will invade South Korea. Maybe China will turn belligerent. The (our) nation’s political and military leaders seem to be searching forlornly for a “they” that can restore purpose to the country’s mighty armaments.”

If the reader hasn’t got the point yet, Mr. Greider takes us to a few more military bases and arms storage facilities. The costs are monumental.

Mr. Greider then takes us for a brief look at the investment side of Arms merchandising.

“A decade ago, fifteen leading contractors accounted for two-thirds of the Pentagon’s spending on weapons. By 1995 the list was down to eight. Now, (1998) there are three.”

“The companies can’t keep boosting stock prices by doing more takeovers since there’s nothing much to take over.”

“The point people miss,” Gansler says, “is not that the defense companies are making huge profits. It’s that they’re charging huge costs to government to pay for all of this excess capacity that they’ve got lying around. The government pays for all that. The problem is, if a company becomes a sole-source contractor and there is no competition, then they have no incentive to reduce costs.”

Now it is onto the Global market place.

“We’re serious about being a global company, and that means expanding our workforce outside the United States,” says Lockheed Martin.

“LockMartin itself combines seventeen different companies that have collectively eliminated more than one hundred thousand jobs.”

“The American motive for expanding NATO is selling weapons.” American arms producers are loaning new NATO countries the money to buy their weapons and then moving their factories to these countries.”

Now you know why Poland was upset with President Obama with the new Obama European defense strategy. We were rabidly approaching the boom days of the “Merchants of Death” back in the pre-World War I era – sell weapons to anybody, lie, cheat, steal but sell, sell, sell.

“Provoking inadvertent crisis may be profitable for weapons firms, but it does not seem to be in the national interest – or for that matter the world’s.”

I suggest that you all read Merchants of Death by Engelbrecht and Hanighen. You may have to hunt your library for it, but it will be worth your effort if your goal is to understand the present times. You can also read about the life and times of Sir Basil Zaharoff.

But what for the future? Can we bend the Iron Triangle (Pentagon, military, government). Can we design a meaner leaner military? Can we cut, lower costs, contain, or redesign our mammoth military complex?

“Even if futuristic ideas prove to be sound, the pentagon and the arms industry are still reluctant to give up what already exists – their vast arsenal of conventional overkill. They cannot have it both ways, one would think, but so far they are doing their best to accomplish just that, with very little resistance from the political system.”

In his conclusion Mr. Greider says that first the American people must “say no to empire.”

“The global economic system, led by the United States, governs trade, financial markets, and the rights of capital by imposing complex rules but insists that fundamental human freedoms are not a legitimate basis for global regulation. Raising questions of environmental protection, labor rights, or social equity – not to mention the democratic principles of free speech and freedom of assembly – is described as an intrusion on the trading system, possibly even an impediment to the spread of prosperity. National sovereignty (including America’s) is told to yield to the efficiencies of the global enterprise.”

Mr. Greider goes on and on with one good suggestion after another on transitioning from a militarist nation to a less militarist nation, but that is now all behind us and this book falls into the category of wasted effort.

In retrospect we see that Mr. Greider had it right in his introduction. Finding new wars to fight and devising a new Cold War was easier and much less demanding than attempting to restructure the Iron Triangle and bring America back to a peace loving, cooperative nation.

So if you are wondering why we have two wars going and military spending through the roof, you might pick up Mr. Greider’s book Fortress America for a description of the details. But it appears clear to me – war is easier and more profitable than peace – especially when our system has been set up to deal with it for the last 100 years. We can’t afford peace we have too much investment in war. Sadly achieving peace is too costly and too complicated. If you are hoping for an end to this “bully-bully” warmongering mentality it is going to take a lot more than wishful thinking.

Agrarian Justice / Tom Paine


[The following is an organized series of excerpts from Tom Paine’s essay “Agrarian Justice”. A better understanding of his argument is gained from reading the essay in its entirety. I thought that this piece would be of special interest to those political Conservatives who have of late been claiming Tom Paine as one of their own.]

By Richard E. Noble

“It is wrong to say that God made rich and poor; he made only male and female; and he gave them the earth for their inheritance.”

Argument for improving the condition of the unpropertied

“To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy, at the same time, the evil it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the first objects of reformed legislation ... The most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.

“To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which property and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets of Europe. Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life ... Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated two ways, to make one part of society more affluent and the other part more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

“The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.

“Taking the matter then upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period. But the fact is that the condition of millions in every country ... is far worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America of the present day. I will show how this fact has happened.

“It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state, was and ever would have continued to be the common property of the human race ... And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land owes to the community a ground rent...

“... neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of the land. Their property consisted, as is always enumerated, in flocks and herds and they traveled with them from place to place.

“Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue ... when cultivation began, the idea of landed property began with it ... It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas of them …The additional value made by cultivation, after the system was submitted, became the property of those who did it, or who inherited from them, or who purchased it. I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the part which is his ... it is a right and not a charity that I am pleading for.

“To create a National fund out of which there shall be paid to every person, who arrived at the age of twenty-one, the sum of Fifteen Pounds sterling, as a compensation in part for the loss of his or her natural inheritance by the introduction of the system of landed property; and also the sum of Ten Pounds per Annum during life to every person now living of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

“The fault is in the system, and it had stolen imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the Agrarian law of the sword … It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be paid to every person, rich or poor such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the common fund.

“Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed ... it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it, which is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case the bequeather gives nothing; the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would wish it not to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

“It will always happen that the property thus revolving by death every year, part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum ... to more distant relations and part to strangers.

“It is not charity but a right - not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for ... though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches, because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, whilst so much misery is mingled in the scene.

“There are in every country some magnificent charities established by individuals ... It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed ... The plan here proposed ... (It) will immediately relieve and take out of view three classes of wretchedness: the blind, the lame, and the aged poor.

“When a young couple begin in the world, the difference is exceedingly great, whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be fed, they would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens.

“The great mass of the poor in all countries are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases in all the countries that are called civilized. More persons fall annually into it than get out of it.

“It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself ... War ... has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people ... than would annually pay all the sums proposed in this plan.

“Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society, and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without aid of society as it is for him to make land originally. Separate the individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he can not acquire personal property. He can not become rich ... All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands can produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came ... if we examine the case minutely, it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effects of paying too little for the labor that produced it.
“It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labor to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for injustice, that were a working man to receive an increase of wages daily, he would not save it against old age nor be much the better for it in the interim. Make then society the treasurer to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason that because he might not make a good use of it for himself, that another shall take it.

“When wealth and splendor, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security. When the more riches a man acquires, the better it will be for the general mass; it is then that the antipathies will cease and property be placed on the permanent basis of natural interest and protection.”