The Muse Hears From a Truly Honorable Man

Yesterday, I spoke with a remarkable human being. No posing, no false fronts, none of that "say one thing, do another", that is so prevalent in our 21st Century society. I spoke with a man who has again taught me the meaning of honor in action.

He'd taught me that family is very important, but is not always biological, long ago. I'd long ago learned lessons from him on the meaning of duty, faithfulness, strength and courage. He is blessed with great capacity for discretion and huge intellect. He chooses his battles carefully and treats his friends as family should treat their own. I am privileged to call him my friend. I am honored he calls me his.

Yesterday, he taught me again the meaning of honor. Of living true to yourself. Of being absolutely honest to God, honest to God. Most importantly, his life is a lesson in living so that all that you meet, and call your friend, you treat as sisters and brothers should treat each other in a perfect world. He never takes the easy way when the way that is right is available, if difficult. No excuses, no aplogies. Just his personal yardstick of justice that is measured first by doing nothing that would harm others, innocents, when seeking justice. If his loss is great using that measure, so be it.

He will not cause harm to innocents when he can avoid it, no matter the financial cost or the discomfort it causes him personally. There is no price too great to avoid harming innocent people. None. Personal gain is not ever the measure of his actions, and he is the richer for it.

The details aren't important although our stories though have a common thread.

His family, in order to take money from him, lied about my friend. They lied boldly. Publicly. Their lying was calculated and huge. Not the little lie about who was where at a particular point in time.

Their lies, like those of my own family members, were of the type that deny the particular direction from which the sun rises. I learned this from my friend as I have also recently been on the receiving end of some ugly, blatantly false, rumours started by my own family. None of the details matter.

What counts is this. This is what he said. "The greatest harm was not to me, but to my children." Some would say the great financial loss was a huge harm to him. They would be wrong in is his estimation. Some would say retaliation would be justified. He does not, as collateral damage would also increase the harm done by the initial misdeeds.

And now, after thinking on it, I must agree with him. There were those in his family who didn't participate, and they would be harmed if he retaliated. His children would be harmed more if he retaliated also. Not financially, but in ways that tear the fabric of their view of family in ways that could not be mended for generations.

And so, no retaliation in the obvious ways, using courts, and laws and judges. No retaliatory rumours floating around either. Nor shall I engage in such rumours. We have the sort of friendship where secrets are told, and secrets kept, forever.

Now, that's a real hero. Not once as I was hearing his tale of familial scheming and dirty deeds that make Hamlet's clan look like pikers, did he mention the great pain his family had caused to him nor did he sound as if he were hanging onto that pain as if it were a life raft. He simply let it go. And he did what is just. And right. He did nothing that would further harm his own children or those that are nearest to him.

After all, those that know him best, know that no matter what is said about this giant of a man, know that whatever rumours flowed from his family's misdeeds, must be false. And we demand no proof. That is the legacy of honor.

He acted in the tradition of Saladin, whose own life provided the framework for the code of chivalry. Think Richard the Lionheart. Think of the best code of honor, not in aspirational form (evident in those same Crusades), but in real life form, made more vivid, and walking tall among us. That is my friend.

He is honorable not for merely religious reasons, but is honorable for his unbreakable personal code of honor. He is honorable because he believes justice is immutable, and not always for us mere humans to dole out in anger, hurt, frustration or revenge.

When your own flesh and blood conspire to harm one of their own, there is immediate pain and the sort of injury that can cripple and may never truly heal. But such injuries do not cripple this man, nor do they cause him to miss a step. He's seen it all. He understands that motives such as greed, envy, lack of moral compass and plain old nastiness, can make people do some pretty horrendous things. His family did pretty much the worst they could do to him. And he has risen above it all.

He has done, and will do, nothing to punish them although punishment would be an easy course and richly deserved. He could let a court sort it out. He let them get away with informing the world life was death, greed was good, false witness was no problem. That is for God to sort out.

He never thought of doing evil to those that sought evil against him. Honis soit qui mal y pense. Shamed be he who thinks evil. The watchwords of the British Knights of the Order of the Garter. There is nothing in that admonition that requires armies or courts to impose any richly deserved punishment. He could have done much. He could have inflicted much pain on those that did him wrong. He'd be justified, but perhaps not as honorable in so doing.

His choice, let them live with guilt, their inner shame, their greed, lust and envy, took the kind of discipline that is the stuff of the truly heroic. And yes, this man has demonstrated repeatedly that he is a flesh and blood hero, in the obvious venues of military service, and fulfilling duty to his own family, humanity, his community and his country.

Perhaps he doesn't want to be dragged through the muck to right a wrong. Deeds as were done to him would involve much muck dragging to set things right. There would also be dishonor brought to his family name, which could be motive enough to do nothing. His choice though is not from any motivation involving cowardice when facing a fight. He doesn't want to merely collect a debt. He wants to let those doing evil to stew in it. Forever.

His decision is based on this. The punishment for breaking several of the Top Ten Suggestions as was done to him allows him to honor his parents by not seeking worldly punishment for the evil done to him. And, by walking away from this fight, he also kept his own honor. And preserved the honor of those in his family that have done nothing to him.

His own honor, much greater than that of his family's, allows this. He remains a man of highest principle. He will not harm those that did him no wrong, no matter what the cost to him, for innocents must never suffer to right a wrong. Ever. And innocent members of his family would suffer greatly if he sought the usual course of punishment for the misdeeds of a few. He's also counting on whatever shred of conscience in those that harmed him gnaw at those that did him wrong. That is a punishment on an eternal scale.

It is the path of honor. No matter what society might impose upon wrongdoers, the evil done to him will not be repeated against others in society, and so there is no need to punish anyone to prevent future harm. No price imposed by a court of law could ever truly right what was wrong, nor heal what has now irrevocably been broken.

And this is what I learned yesterday from a man who knows the real meaning of valor, honor and justice. The harm done to him was great. But to inflict harm on the innocent in order to right what was done to him, is not right, fitting or his duty. His duty is to choose the path where innocents are not harmed.

Whatever one can say about my friend, they must say this. He possesses honor others only dream of. He is a truly honorable man. I am honored he calls me friend.

Apologies Due

Sorry about this, but stuff as they say happens. And stuff is no excuse.

For reasons that are obvious to anyone with the sense God gave a grapefruit, I'm not going public with the 'stuff'. Suffice it to say the stuff has overwhelmed the reality I call life. As such, I've been buried. Under it. Smashed down, trodden over and frankly ready to hit the HELP button. I just can't find it.

Also, for some reason, comments that should have posted didn't. Posts that were written, edited, revised, spell checked, and had that nifty 'publish' button pushed, weren't.

Is it me, or is it another case of I hate (insert name of technological bugaboo here)?

Who knows. Anyway, when not dealing with the shoveling, etc., I'll be online with the lovely Blogger people. And my ISP (still more stuff there) and with the other pains in the collective, well, you know...

And searching for that Muse of Techno-speak. And the HELP button.

Oh, and if anyone is concerned, the cat is better but not yet well. He's losing ground in the house training department (more stuff) but is in fact showing evidence of great improvement. And poor guy, he's actually not failing to find the box. His body just doesn't give him enough time to get there.

Alas, back to the vet. Again. And if I don't get some sleep, I'll be at the vet myself. For myself. At least there, the fellow patients are all warm, furry (for the most part) and a joy to visit with as we all wait for that appointment with our caregiver. Perhaps the Boy Genius and I can get a group rate?

Is the Muse running on empty?

We're running out of gas, oil and stretching the limits of the Earth to support us. You may think of the Muse 'running on empty' being a matter of few ideas popping to the front of the queue. In truth, we are all running on empty, and a poverty of ideas and new technologies to allow us to go forward with less harm to our home, this wonderful planet, is what is bringing us to the brink.

Sure we have some sort of Dueling Muses now. Those that scoff "Global Warming" is a hoax, and those that say the science is solid. But in truth, the warming matter is only part of the problem.

We are growing exponentially, we humans. And if we want to avoid watching up to 80 percent of the current population dying off in the near future, we should pay ever greater heed to the need for a cleaner Earth with fewer impacts from population. Technology that lessens our reliance on carbon based fuels, including coal and oil is part of it. The other part is the opportunities these new technologies present.

New technologies mean new profit sources, and will result in less cost of clean-up of pollution, and greater good for all peoples. Nature, when overstressed, jettisons the organisms that cannot be supported through disease and death. Nature also doesn't seem to care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. Stress the ecosystem too much, and off the planet you shall go. That is, the collective 'you'.

Humans in ever growing numbers are having an ever greater impact on the Earth. Either we lessen that impact or the Earth shall no longer support our numbers.

Ask this question: If we reduce our pollution, how much more clean water, air and land will be available to support life? You may be surprised. It is not the "ecoradicals" against the "present greater good". It is profligacy leading to death caused by our pollution, versus life based on helping Ecosystem Earth to continue support for human life.

If we all agree that pollution is bad, then there should be no question that we ought to seek every opportunity to reduce pollution, whether or not the reduction is related to Global Warming. Carbon waste, heat, undrinkable water, resource depletion, and all the other stressors on the Earth can be remedied through conservation and finding better ways to avoid use of carbon based fuels.

We all agree that improved and new technology, will be necessary for the sustainability of industrialized societies, currently reliant upon the current relative abundance of a limited resource. But those carbon based fuels pollute, and we ought to plan for and act quickly to prevent crisis caused by scarcity of, or pollution from carbon based fuels from being our impetus to act.

Crisis is never a good state from which to make wise choices.

Much of our energy use can be obtained from renewable, and non-fuel based energy currently available to us.

The Sun can provide, on a given day, energy, to remove our need for much of the oil/gas/or carbon based fuels we use for heating, cooking, cooling, and much of the energy we waste.

Wind can provide much energy that we currently use carbon based fuels for today.

If we simply improved the technology and availability of those "free" energy sources, we would cut our impact upon the world, and increase the ability of human life to survive in increasing numbers on a somewhat small planet.

We humans forget we are biological creatures, animals with good, even designer clothes. We must very soon, lessen our impact upon the planet. Or, we shall find ourselves dying off as the ecosystem, our Mother Earth, can no longer support our profligate lifestyle. That result is the way to massive human deaths.

When the ecosystem, Earth, can't support a certain life form, that life form goes extinct.

For a culture of life, encouraging ways that make the Earth less able to support humans, is neither economically desirable nor is it wise.

Ignoring the economic opportunities in creating and implementing new technologies is also ignoring a massive opportunity that will, whether it affects Global Warming or not, will result in much new wealth in a world needing more fuel, food and energy to support our every growing numbers.

That is, we must impact the planet less if we value human life at all. Perhaps we don't need to fill that tank at all. Perhaps we need to cooperate with our Mother, and the Muse will no longer be gasping for air, starving, or choking on dirty water. To say nothing of a Muse no longer baking past well done in triple digit temperatures.

Did Anyone Notice?

We're finally getting the dribs and drabs that will gradually enlighten us, if we can stand the water torture of the MSM drip-drip-drip long enough.

One fact that hit me in the face like a cod on the way to the chippie is this: The alleged "bombers" in the UK were doctors.

Perhaps not great bombers, especially considering their devices were, in reality, more hope than heat generating mixtures, without the proper means to achieve the Thriller Flick Big Explosion effect.

They were doctors, not explosives experts.

They were people dedicated to the healing of others. And if, if they were in fact intent upon being bombers and taking a bunch of others along with them in their fiery demise, they must have reached a point where they had nothing else to do. They had reached the end of their rope and there was no knot in the end.

They, collectively or individually could see no way to get past the despair that makes suicide bombers. After all, they weren't hooligans seeking a moment of glory, drugged up madmen, or products of ghettoized despair.

They were doctors. They were, and remain at the end of the day, lousy terrorists. Ineffective. For all that learning, they didn't get it right. Except to make a statement. I heard.

They were doctors.

When the doctors start blowing themselves to Kingdom Come, there is waaaaaaay too much despair somewhere for life, wherever that despair lives, to go on.

They were doctors.

They'd worked all their lives to learn, treat, help, counsel, and make well that which is broken by disease or injury.

Most especially I noted the neurosurgeon/neurologist labels. When healers that treat the worst diseases and injuries of all, those that steal away the mind (and souls) of the ill, start to think immolation is the way out, there is more than trouble in River City. There's some serious healing needing to be done.

For the doctors.

For their patients.

For the place where there is no place to go, no hope of healing, nothing beyond despair.

It is despair for the most part that drives suicide bombers into crowds. Where there is nothing left to lose, there is nothing more to be done than making a spectacular statement.

"Look at this. Look at what I have done, what I am doing. There is nowhere else that I can go. I can only explode myself and hope the message of these flames are seared into the hearts of all that see this. And then, after the flames die out, those seared hearts must come together and do what no doctors, governments, armies or forces of society have yet done. There must be healing in the place where I can do no more. There must be healing in the place where I cannot any longer heal. I leave it to you. In flames and explosions and suffering, burns, injury and death."

Is that what the message from the doctors was to be?

We do not know.

But that is what I noticed. That is what my Muse has be screaming in my ear for days now.

Heal the Hell on earth that brought those flames to the UK, and an airport. Heal the hell that brought them to the place of a message writ large in fire.

That is what the doctors said to me.

I do not condone their actions, nor do I condone the actions of those that brought this Hell to those that concluded they had no other way out.

They were doctors.

It is on us to heal their pain. It is on us to heal that pain that made their message necessary and so compelling they would sacrifice their lives, and their life's work to make the message heard.

They were doctors.

And we must be doctors.

Now.

Let the healing begin. In Iraq. In the Middle East. In us. In the world.

And in our hearts.

They were doctors. Let the healing begin.

What if???

What if...

Two little words.

Questions that can rock your world or change who you become.

What if...

What if you lived in a nation where, after being placed in government or police custody, you were denied access to an attorney? Legally. Or, you could be held without charge for more than a week? A month? A year?

What if you lived in a nation where you had no expectation of privacy in your letters? What if those letters could be opened and read whether or not you were a suspect in a criminal action?

What if those letters could be opened and read without a warrant having been issued in the first instance, so there was no oversight of the police to determine if their actions in searching were lawful or not?

What if you lived in a nation where you could disappear on the word of the police? The military?

What if you lived in a nation where the military were legally permitted to act as the police or other civil law enforcement?

What if you lived in a society where you could not challenge your custody in jail? For a week? For a month? For a year?

What if you lived in a nation where you were not allowed to submit a petition to the government to correct a wrong, ranging from garbage pickup, to failing schools, to enforcement of health laws?

What if you lived in a nation where a single governmental officer could suspend laws and institute martial law on their own order, without review, consent of any other governmental officers or other governmental agency?

What if you lived in a nation where your every action was tracked by government, from the spending you do to the company you keep?

What if you lived in a society where every word you spoke, wrote or heard were regulated? Or even subject to monitoring?

What if you lived in a nation where you were certain that law enforcment was applied with favor to some? Where law enforcment was not applied evenly, regardless of your status in the community? Where civil and criminal penalties were determined by who you are rather than what you did, or were contemplating doing?

What if you lived in a nation where every book and magazine you read were monitored by government?

What if you lived in a nation where employment opportunities were limited according to your social associations, beliefs, opinions or economic status, and not on your ability?

I'm just asking.

Really.

Seriously.

We've just celebrated the Fourth of July, and these questions have been on my mind. They have been so much on my mind.

Would your answers matter to your Muse? To someone's Muse?

Does it matter that you ask?

Can your Muse help you find the answers?

Ask.

Think.

Listen.

Write it down.

And keep asking. And asking. And asking, eyes wide open. Ask with mind open, and heart open. When you ask, be willing to correct what needs correcting, so that you aren't uncomfortable in reality or in considering the questions.

It's Political Calculus, Baby

Not the math kind. This is the July Fourth of Political Calculus writ large, and writ more difficult to explain. Math isn't supposed to be affected by the timing of revelations.

Political math is all about timing. Or at least it is far too often in our calculating society -- the one that is headed by the "inside" the Beltway folks.

Then there are the rest of us.

We The People...

In order to live in a nation governed by the People, establish a society based upon the equal protection of the law, and the equal obligations of all persons under that law, form a more perfect Union, and establish, (for the first time in history), the right of people to pursue happiness, recognized one important principle.

All calculations in the maths that result in whatever is following the equal sign represents true equality did an amazing thing. We declared on July 2, 1776, (hard copy not fully inked until July 4, 1776) our Independence from a system of laws based upon the status of a person, and simply declared all people were equal.

We knew then, and we all know now, though some might not want to admit it, that Equality means that if you bend or break a law, you have to pay a debt to society. If the debt is neither identified, recognized nor paid, there is a group of people above the law. And "above the law" just ain't "equal" under the law.

Except when some are more equal than others.

Like now.

Like this July 4. Some are more equal than others.

Some, after misleading the nation, and lying to the enforcers of the nation's laws, are now able to walk free, unencumbered by the reality of a debt to be paid by serving time behind bars.

Others? Not so much.

Got clout?

Plug it into the Political Calculus-inator, and out comes a commutation.

Not exactly equality under the law.

Were we, members of the still far too silent majority, found guilty of lying to an extent that an entire criminal prosecution of the underlying crime of 'outing' a federal agent doesn't happen, we'd pay. If that outed agent was concerned with the detection of, and elimination of Weapons of Freaking Mass Destruction, we would be, ourselves, rotting in prison, effectively destroyed.

If our crime was committed in wartime, the legal penalty for outing a secret agent would be rightly identified as treason. And we would pay our debt, for that is the price of living in a society where all are equal under the law.

It's not the crime alone, it's the attempted (or successful) derailing the investigation with piles of stinking untruths, piled high, that is also a very big crime. And if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Unless the Presidential pen is loaded with ink designed to write you into freedom from debt to society for your crime.

In wartime, the 'debt' for outing that agent (undercover at the time), would be classified under "treason". That's a BIG crime, with a big debt. Not just a debt to she, whose job it was to keep us safe from Weapons of Mass Destruction. The "debt" for treason is the forfeiture of life itself by the builty.

That would mean our sentence could have been modified very little. Well, if we were ordinary, guilty, treasonous felons. We might entertain our choice of, "would that be a 9 mil to the heart, or would you prefer a '38 to the brain?" Beyond that, no chance for sentence modification, except perhaps a last minute adjustment to the dessert selection of our last meal.

What is appalling in all of this -- what is truly appalling, is this. The biggest talking points will be on the "lame duckness" effect of the commutation.

Words matter. Deeds matter. And in the end, the calculus that matters is not the effect on the White House Wannabes that will matter.

The worst effects that will matter for decades to come, shall be found in the hearts and minds of children seeing yet another privileged person of political persuasion walk free, with no duty to fulfill their obligations under the law, because of the stroke of a Presidential Pen.

Oh yes, the children are watching. And when the fireworks are over, the smell of gunpowder a memory, and the sunburn has faded, what shall we answer when some cherubic voice asks, "Why did that man who was found guilty by a Court, not go to jail?"

Just how does one explain the duty to "do the time if you do the crime", in these days of "renewed honor, honesty and duty", brought to this White House thanks to a compliant Supreme Court in 2000?

Would the next Isaac "Machiavelli" Newton of political calculus explain that one, please? Loudly? Publicly? With charts and graphs and citations?

I know, it's tough. Four years of advanced mathematics have left me scratching my head too.