New Orleans

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May 23, 2009

Typical building style

I arrived in New Orleans in the late afternoon of Friday, May 22 and took a taxi to the downtown Hilton near the French quarter. I had come to New Orleans to perform a wedding, and in my mind was prepared to see a poverty stricken and backwaters area of the country, which had been devastated by hurricane Katrina. My ride from the airport only confirmed my expectations: I witnessed endless rows of trashy wooden housing, window bars, graffiti, broken pavement and titled utility polls. “Just get me safely to my hotel; I will hold up there, get the wedding done, and then get out of this wasteland.” These were my thoughts.

Mardi Gras

When I arrived downtown everything was changed. It looked like a typical city-center where I could at least walk about during the day, but once in the hotel, I was told that I could walk safely anytime of the day and that I was only minutes from the Mississippi River and the French quarter. ”This city is open 24 hours a day. Enjoy yourself!” This was the advice of my concierge. So I unpacked, showered, orientated myself and set out for a walk as “le flaneur de la ville” (the city stroller, with nowhere in particular to go). Once on the streets I found that New Orleans was anything but dead or depressed. In fact it was teeming with life and activities. There were hordes of tourists, street bands, minims, sidewalk venders, and cafes all open for my pleasure and business. Jazz music and dance were everywhere. I began my exploration with a walk along the Mississippi, up the river towards the French district. It was wonderful to see the paddle wheelers and steam boats crisscrossing the river. I was reminded of Huckleberry Fin. The river was calm and serene, and very wide. My first stop was at the Café du Monde for some famous french donuts (beignet) and coffee. Just on the street close to where I was sitting I was serenaded by a musician playing an electric saxophone. I ended up purchasing her CD.

New Orleans is filled with french names and french culture, but nobody speaks French! What a shame. I was reminded of the Quebecois who mandated French inside the province of Quebec in Canada, and while at the time, I thought this was heresy verging on insubordination, I now know that without legislation there would be no french spoken in North American today. I am glad French has been preserved at least in one place. Having been to Europe I am not intimidated by multiple languages. French speaking Canada is an asset to North America. I wished it was still spoken here.

Bourbon Street: What I found on this Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend was an absolute melee of drunkenness and debauchery mixed with ecstatic song and dance. There is a reason it is called Bourbon Street! How can I forget the procession of the naked lady throned upon a steer being paraded down the street followed by a convoy of garbage trucks to the accompaniment reveling singers? Bourbon street extends for miles with street bands, bars, strip clubs, and parades hosted by intoxicated celebrants and onlookers. The upper floor of the buildings that line the street have balconies that are also filled with reveling party goers, who rain down feathers, glass beads and beer on the scene below. You do not walk down Bourbon Street, you are pushed down Bourbon Street by the crowd, and as you pass each den of iniquity you are greeted by a cadre of sound, color, smoke and nakedness. I cannot imagine Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. How is “more” possible? Once darkness falls on the French quarter of New Orleans excess rules the night.

Boardwalk along the Mississippi

On Saturday afternoon I returned and found a more sedate scene. This time it was tourists and their families. Every street corner had a jazz band with drums, brass interments and horns. It was wonderful and the music was not simply good, it was outstanding! This was the birth place of American Jazz and it manifests everywhere! It is not possible to compare this scene with the revelry of the previous night. The “steer” parade had vanished and bars just looked like normal bars. The stripper polls were no longer embellished. What I did not notice night before were the huge number of voodoo shops. Before coming to New Orleans I had never seen a voodoo shop, but here, they are everywhere. Indeed, I learned that voodoo lies at the foundations of the local culture. The feathers, the beads and the masks all come from voodoo, and somehow I was not shocked to see Hindu images of Ganesha and Durga alongside dolls with shrunken heads, skeletons hanging on Gothic crucifixes and even ghoulish faces painted on tiny figurines. I could see no rhythm or reason behind any of this, yet it all seemed to fit. There are no contradictions New Orleans because there are no rules here.

Signs of Voodoo

New Orleans is a subterranean world–it is literally below sea level–it is also in the grip of terrible devastation and poverty and yet it is struggling to return to former glory. There is a tremendous vibrancy here. New Orleans reminded me of Calcutta and like Calcutta it lies at the delta of a majestic river that runs through the heartland of the country. It struck me that this is where the sludge and debris of America is captured, processed and transformed by the mysterious culture of this place. It is said that jazz is the original musical art form of America and so I wonder if the unique culture of this place is not the magic crucible that has created this art form.

Later that day after the wedding, I spent the evening strolling along the board walk of the Mississippi in the dark and quiet away from the crowds and the unending party. Old man river, what a peaceful and tranquil beast you are. With sullen eyes you peer up from the water and glance back upon the city that is your creation. I sat for a while, then walked a little and then sat some more, and in the distance I could see the ferry boats silently move up and down the river slipping through the darkness. It was peaceful. I want to return to this place.

What is Beauty?

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“Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle
between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.” *

February 12, 2009

Chaitanya with Pratap Rudra, Vishnu Das

Some years ago I commissioned my first work of art. I had found a small black and white sketch of the 15th century Bengali saint, Chaitanya, that was apparently made during his lifetime. I found this while I was visiting Vrindavan, near Delhi. To this day I have never seen the original, nor do I even know where it is, but I brought this sketch back to Canada and had it painted by an ISKCON artist. You may not know, but ISKCON has an incredible tradition of art, particularly in oils. My artist, Vishnu Das, made a color painting of this black and white print, which I am proud to have hanging in my home even today. I consider it a rare and valuable work and since that time I have commissioned other paintings in a similar manner.

This was my first plunge into the world of art. At the time I “knew” the paintings were good because they were religious works. After all, the subject matter was spiritual and they were made by devotees. In those days my appreciation of art was primarily based on subject matter, realism, and who the artist was. In other words, if the subject matter was religious and the figures were realistic it was good art. My taste in art was mainly informed by my religious perspective. In truth I had no developed idea what constituted good art, and only now am I attempting formulate my opinions.

I know a family of serious art collectors. They have hundreds of paintings including Monets, Renoirs and even Picassos. Whenever I visit their home I take time to admire their collection and learn as much as I can. They are gracious and take pains to tell me the story behind each painting in their collection that interests me, who the painter was, what the subject matter is, some of the painting’s unique features, and so forth. They have taught me the value of art and encouraged me to look at art beyond my religious world. Partly through their encouragement, I have been inspired to travel to museums around

Prabhupada,Vishnu Dasa

the world and see a few famous paintings. I am even interested to purchase some paintings of my own. I have talked to my friends about buying art, and apart from the logistics of purchasing it, buying through dealers or directly from the artist, their advise essentially comes down to “buy what you like.” This, of course, makes obvious sense, but what do I like? Should subject matter, realism and artist alone form the basis of my appreciation of art? Can my “tastes” in art even be trusted? As a child, I would make terrible combinations of flavor, a sandwich of peanut better and ketchup, and yet I thought it was a wonderful creation. Now, I would never consider such a combination of flavors. I have grown and my tastes have changed. So what constitutes good art? Is it beauty? Is art even supposed to be beautiful? What is beauty? Is there an objective basis for beauty or is it simply in the eye of the beholder?

As I read some of the literature on aesthetics I find that even this topic is filled with many of those unanswerable, impossible, “Is there a God?” questions that I no longer even try to answer. Attempting to address these kinds of questions in an absolute way was the endeavor of my youth. Instead, let me simply express my personal opinion on the subject matter of aesthetics.

I have resigned myself to the fact, I can never escape my religious view of life. As it is impossible to stop a dog from wagging its tail, my views on art and beauty must be consigned to my religious perspective. The Taittiriya Upanishad best captures my thoughts on aesthetics: “Beauty, verily, lies at the foundation of existence and having once experienced this, one becomes joyful.” (raso vai sah, rasam hyevayam labdhvanandi bhavati. 2.7.1) In crafting my translation, I need to explain the word “rasa.” Literally, “rasa” means water, juice, something that flows, and by extension, taste, charm and even beauty. Rasa is the taste in food as well as the enjoyment that comes through love and other personal relationships. Thus we can talk of the “taste” or pleasure that friends experience as a kind of rasa, or how a mother feels when she holds her child and sees its smile as a kind of rasa, or the enjoyment that two lovers feel towards each other another kind of rasa or “taste.” Rasa is aesthetic experience. So when the Upanishad says “raso vai sah” it is saying that aesthetic experience––enjoyment, taste and even beauty––lies at the foundation of existence.

This concept relates to another religious idea, which affects my world-view, namely, lila (divine play.) We hear of Rama lila and Krishna lila as the play of God in this world. Rama and Krishna are divine avataras, who descend into this earthly realm in order to “play” or enact pastimes of joy. Their activities in this world are called lilas. And they say this happens because God likes to play; that the desire for pleasure and enjoyment resides within Divinity as much as it resides within ourselves. In fact, we learn that the reason we have these tendencies is because God has them. We are “parts” of the whole and so we have the same qualities as the whole. But the concept is taken even further: not only do human beings have the desire to play and enjoy, all of life has this tendency as well. We, therefore, assert that life is nothing less than the search for pleasure and “play,” and, at the basic “animal” level, pleasure is sought in terms of food, sex, sleep, shelter, and so on. A plant moves towards the sun out of a desire to capture nourishment. This is pleasure. An animal eats and has sex. This is pleasure. In the beginning our desire for rasa manifests in terms of physical pleasures, but gradually with the increase of consciousness, along with learning and culture, this desire manifests in more subtle forms, in intellectual, emotional artistic and even spiritual ways. The world is full of sports heros and their spectators.

A reader of literature enjoys a drama. A scientist revels in solving a deep mystery. A connoisseur of art enjoys a painting. These are pleasure driven pursuits that are born from our very being. In fact, the Upanishad says, if pleasure did not exist, who would bother to breath and who would even want to live? The whole world is driven to maximize pleasure. There is even an orthodox Christian saying: Ultimately beauty will overcome the world. This is rasa and these are the ideas that lie at the foundation of my perspective, not only of art and beauty, but of life.

La Promenade, Renoir

So what is the best art? For me, years ago, I was solely interested in Vaishnava art. I was pursuing devotional “tastes” (bhakti-rasa) but now, while my appreciation still moves in that direction, I have expanded my interests and I am now open to accepting other kinds of art, other kinds of rasas. My conclusion is simple: the best art is that which produces the greatest aesthetic response in the viewer. In other words, even if at some ultimate level, art and beauty are objective, that God’s standard of aesthetics is the test, beauty for all practical purposes is and always will be necessarily subjective. Every individual is his own judge of what is beautiful and what is pleasurable, and it is always according to consciousness, environment, training and other personal factors. I am, therefore, back to the opinion of my art collecting friends, “Buy what you like.” Only I would add, “And what you can afford,” for refined beauty comes at a price.

*Magdalena Abakanowicz

The Last Helicopter Out

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Thursday, December 7, 2006 9:21:02 PM

Growing up as a teenager I watched the Vietnam War on television. Night after night I witnessed the carnage of our American brothers. In those days I lived in Canada, so I was in no danger of being drafted and neither did I know anyone who went to Vietnam. It was not my war. In spite of my aloofness, this war weighed heavily on my mind. What was United States doing in South East Asia? We were told that America was protecting Canada and the rest of the world from the “communist menace.” We were also told that if America lost this fight, Communism would dominate the world. America lost, but communism did not dominate the world. I learned an important lesson.

These days I feel similar about the Iraq war. This war weighs heavily on my mind, only now I live in America. This time it is my war. In the beginning we were told that the war was about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The Secretary of State stood before the world at the United Nations and showed detailed photos and diagrams of these WMDs and their delivery systems in Iraq. He made a compelling case to go to Iraq, so we went to war and I reluctantly agreed as did most of the country. But not a single WMD was found and we are still in Iraq. Now we are told that we are fighting the global war on terrorism and that if we do not fight the war in Iraq we will fight the war in the streets of America.

In fact, the average person has no way of knowing what is true and what is false when a government wants a war. WMDs, global terrorism, or communism can all be made to sound like good reasons by a determined government. Day after day a government and its supporters pound the country with propaganda about why a war is necessary. Opponents fight back with counter propaganda, but the average person is always at a loss to know the truth of the matter. Without facts no informed decision can be made and so the average citizen is forced to trust the intentions of his government. This is how I felt as this country made its decision to enter Iraq over weapons of mass destruction. It was a decision made on very specific conditions: that there were weapons of mass destruction. But there were none. Now, we are told a completely different reason for our continued presence in Iraq. We are fighting the war on global terrorism and spreading democracy in the Middle East. This sounds like an argument for the Vietnam War.

This week a light appeared in the night. A panel of senior bipartisan government leaders issued a report on the Iraq war along with their recommendations how the US should proceed. What a breath of fresh air! For the first time we are hearing some intelligent assessment from a group of mature individuals representing both sides of the political spectrum. And what are they telling us? “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved…” In short the report tells us that the situation is a no win situation, but that if we follow certain recommendations we can minimize our losses and withdrawal from Iraq in a respectable way. In other words, this panel recognizes that we went to Iraq for a specific purpose and now that that purpose is no longer valid we should leave. Under the weight of government propaganda the Vietnam War dragged on for years more than it should have, costing the lives and energies of people on both sides of the conflict. I hope this intelligent informed and mature report will prevent our government from repeating this mistake in Iraq. It is time to get out and if we fail to do so in an intelligent and deliberate manner we will again watch with horror and humiliation as the last helicopter leaves Bagdad like it did years ago with the fall of Saigon. I ask our president to listen to the wisdom of his elders on both sides of the floor.

 

Image Sources: http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/vietnam-war/

http://www.operationgranby.com/p1_background.php

My Shack

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November 9, 2008

Did I tell you that I live in a wonderful “shack” hidden amongst the hills of Riverside? My door opens towards the mountains of Box Springs Regional Park. This is a wilderness preserve on the border of Riverside and Moreno Valley. One of the landmarks of Riverside is the “BIG C” situated at the top of Box Springs Mountain near the University of California. Years ago someone painted a large letter C on the rocks at the top of this mountain. This letter can be seen for miles. My shack faces the Big C just across the valley. I am tucked behind a hill and I am thoroughly camouflaged by orange trees and bogonvilla. A large carob tree rises up just beside my kitchen and shades the entire area. My shack is hidden from the surrounding neighborhood, and at night it is dark and peaceful. In spite of being within the city limits, I can hear no sounds. Anytime I wish I can walk through my gate and take a stroll in the wilderness. Late at night I hear the howls of coyotes running in packs through the hills and fields. In the months of May and June a nightingale always visits me. Each year without fail the same bird returns at the stroke of midnight and sings me to sleep during these months. His song is happy and cheerful. There are old twisting stairs that lead down to my shack from the house above, and from these stairs I have a unique view of the canyon where a set of train tracks snake their way along the base of the mountains. Twice a day, at 8 in the morning and at 11 each night, a train comes chugging down this canyon. At night it is a magical sight to see it slowly make its way towards my shack. The distant headlight of this train glances on my shack for just a moment before the train veers to the right and heads into Riverside. I love my shack.

My Vote ’08 Why I am voting for Barack Obama

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Four years ago I wrote my pre election installment, “Why I am not voting for George W Bush.” This time I have entitled my pre election installment,”Why I am voting for Barack Obama.” The shift from negative to positive is significant. My first pre election installment was based on a negative premise because the democrats at the time were in disarray and were only reacting to the Republican position. The GOP position, on the other hand, put forward platform positions that I profoundly disagreed with. This time the Republicans are in disarray and the democrats under Barack Obama are proposing many platform positions that I can whole heartedly support. Here are my reasons why I am supporting the Obama/Biden ticket this year.

Obama has stated that he will get this country out of the Iraq war. This is a war that we were drawn into on false pretenses and it needs to be ended as quickly as is responsibly possible. I have written at length about this. Obama’s voting record shows that he has been against the war from the outset and that he will responsibly take this country out of Iraq. This country sorely needs a different approach to foreign policy and as I have suggested in my installment, “Russia in Georgia and America in Iraq,” Obama is the only candidate who will do this.

America desperately needs radical change to its health care system and Obama and the Democrats are the only party that may be able to make these changes. I know many people who are hard workers and yet they have no access to respectable health care. Sure, they can stand in ‘welfare’ lines for medical help, but the care is substandard and the process is degrading. Why should they have to be treated this way? Why can’t the ‘richest country in the world’ not look after its citizens in a respectable manner? The Republicans under McCain will never deliver the necessary changes to health care in this country. They are strictly status quo.

I travel abroad regularly and I know that people throughout the world universally admire America, what it stands for, and yet they cannot understand the policies of the Bush administration. As a result the world-standing of this country is abysmal. Somehow, in the eyes of the world, Barack Obama represents what is best about America. Throughout Europe, from my personal experience, I have seen this to be true. Obama was in Europe when I was in there this summer and I spoke to many people about him in four countries. The view was the same. Contrary to what many people think in this country, how we are perceived in the world is extremely important. Again this goes back to my ideas about the Russian incursion into Georgia. It is not in America’s interest or even in the world’s interest for this country to unilaterally “rule” using brutish tactics. Diplomacy is the mature way, but diplomacy cannot work without moral authority, good relations and cooperation amongst countries. The Republicans under John McCain are simply a further extension of the old unilateral strong arm approach of the Bush administration. America needs a new face and Barack Obama can provide it.

Pursuant to this view, Obama is African American and has Islamic roots. It is the American Dream that anyone, if they work hard can get ahead and even become president. What an amazing thing that an African American may actually become president of the United States! This fulfills the American Dream in the eyes of the world. First, we saw Colin Powell and then Condoleezza Rice in high office, but now to see a black man in the Oval Office, the highest office will be utterly astounding and will greatly enhance the world respect for America. That Obama’s father was from Africa also means that most of Africa sees him as one of theirs. And even more, that Obama has Muslim roots, because his father was Muslin and his name is Muslim means that the Islamic world also sees him as one of theirs. He is not Islamic, of course, but he is perceived by the Islamic world as being “muslim-ish” which is close enough. If this country elects a “muslim” it will be a huge statement about America to the Islamic world that I think will undercut the moral authority of Islamic terrorism. The positive public relations that a personality like Barack Obama can bring to this country, after the abysmal face the Bush administration has put before the world, is enormous.

The Republican administration has had eight long years to elect conservative justices to sit on the Supreme Court. Another four years would be devastating for this country. It is critical that the Supreme Court reflect both conservative and liberal positions. Therefore it is extremely important that another four years not be given to the republicans to nominate more conservative judges.

Sara Palin may be a distinguished and wonderful person, but she is not qualified to be president of the United States. She lacks experience, knowledge and depth of character. The whole state of Alaska is not nearly as big as even the City of Los Angeles. On that basis the mayor of Los Angeles is more qualified to be president than the governor of Alaska. Joe Biden, on the other hand, is qualified to become president if need be. He was 35 years of senatorial experience and he is known to be a foreign policy expert. Barack Obama has displayed excellent judgement in choosing Biden, while McCain has demonstrated recklessness in choosing Sarah Palin. This country will be the laughing stock of the world if we position such an inexperienced and insubstantial person as Sarah Palin to such high office.

Finally, this country seems that it is about to make history by electing the first African American president. What a wonderful thing. I want to be a part of this historical moment. This, of course, is not a reason to vote for Obama, but it is a factor to be aware of.

But here is the bottom line: I would be prepared to throw away all of the above arguments if I could honestly say that this country was better off now than it was 8 years ago. Obviously this is not the case, and there is little doubt that a McCain/Palin ticket is simply going to be a continuation of the Bush administration regardless of what they say. Conservatism is conservatism and this country needs a new face and a new beginning. Barack Obama is young, intellectual and dynamic and can offer a new approach to how this country governs itself and treats the rest of the world. I am therefore voting for Barack Obama.

I agree with the words of Colin Powell when he recently spoke of John McCain, “As gifted as he is, he is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda, with a new face and a maverick approach to it … But I think we need a generational change.” What more can I say?

Image taken from: http://www.obama-biography.info/

 

Economic Collapse

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September 30, 2008

We, in America, are living in extraordinary times. President W. Bush appeared on television last night and plainly stated that our country was in grave danger because our banking system was about to collapse and we should all agree to a severe economic bail-out proposed by the government. Think about this: The president of the United States was publicly announcing that our way of life is about to come to an end. He even mentioned the ‘p’ word, panic, in referring to a run on the banks. This is Great Depression language. Where did this come from? We knew the real estate markets have been in trouble for the last year, but a few weeks ago we were told that the essentials of our economy were strong. We thought this was just another down-cycle like we have seen many times before. Now we were being told that our economy was on the brink of total destruction because the banking system was about to collapse. The president was asking the American tax payers to ‘bail out’ so many failing banks and other financial institutions. There is a lot of shock and anger in this country over why our leaders have failed to manage the economy and why the tax payers should bail out the rich financial sector. In fact, the bank that holds the mortgage to my house, just this evening collapsed, and so this problem has now even touched my life.

Naturally, I have been watching the news and studying this issue for the last few days because, honestly, after Iraq, I do not trust the Bush administration. I have friends who work in the mortgage and finance industry and it seems that it is true, the American banking system is indeed close to some degree of collapse. This is amazing. I thought this is what happens in countries like Russia or some third world country, certainly not in America, the seat of capitalism and world leader in financial security. Anna, the world of high finance is extremely complex, technical and certainly beyond my reach. There are also games being played that I can never be privy to, so it is hard to comment on the details of what is occurring, but in general terms here is what I have discovered and what I think about this current crisis.

As you know, this country and ultimately most of the world experienced a major economic depression starting in 1929 that lasted well into the 1930s and in some countries even into the 1940s. Today this is called the Great Depression. How did this come about? Many theories and details are there, but from my perspective the matter can be reduced to very simple terms. Human nature is essentially greedy and the competitive demands of life create a situation that, given no restrictions, human beings will hoard wealth, manipulate markets and put themselves into advantageous positions even to the detriment of others. This was the situation of the 1920s when the global financial system was still relatively young and there were few restrictions on the banking system by government. Collectively those in the financial and banking sectors took advantage of their positions and manipulated the markets until the whole system finally collapsed leaving the rest of the world to suffer and pick up the pieces. As a result, in 1933 the American government established a set of laws meant to curb human nature and protect the rest of the society from the greed of those working in the financial industry. This was the Glass-Steagall act (GSA) established during the Roosevelt administration that regulated the way banks could operate and how the stock market functioned. Today most people only know of this act through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. You can see the FDIC logo that is displayed at every bank in this country and which protects every bank account up to $100,000 in the event of a bank failure. But there was a lot more to this act than just the FDIC. The Glass-Steagall laws strictly controlled the flow of capital through the American banking, insurance and market systems. In effect these laws were restrictions on laissez-faire economics, a form of capitalism that says that government should stay out of the market and let the market place regulate itself. This idea is premised on the idea that natural market laws will self correct any imbalances or inequities that may occur. The Glass-Steagall act in effect said laissez-faire economics does not work and so the government must play a role in the market place to regulate and prevent exploitation by those in power.

For almost 60 years these laws functioned with general success, however, there has always been pressure to soften or even repeal this act as many felt it was an over reaction to the situation of the 1920s. In other words, the government was playing too great a role in the market place. During the 1980s when Ronald Reagan, who was a strong advocate of laissez-faire economics, became president he began to promote his brand of laisser-faire economics, now called “reaganomics.” The result was that under Reagan a general deregulation of government began which led to the softening and eventual repealing of the Glass-Steagall laws. It took over a decade, but eventually the GSA was terminated in 1999 when Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act or what is also know as the Financial Services Modernization Act. The net effect of this repealing of the Glass-Steagall act has been to return this country, more or less, to its pre 1929 laissez-faire economics, and now, just nine years later, it appears that we are again looking at a repeat of the crash of 1929.

In writing this I realize that I am ignoring a lot of history and perhaps overly simplifying things, however, I do feel that there is enough truth in what I am writing to let it stand. I have come to the conclusion that laissez-faire economics does not work and government does indeed have an essential role to play in the market place. What we are witnessing is not just a natural adjustment of the market place, but a structural failure of laissez-faire economics. It happened in 1929 and it is happening again in 2008, and in both cases it is largely the result of a lack of regulation and oversight by government. The market place does not always self regulate and correct itself.

Anna, I come from a country that has always had a relatively high amount of government involvement in the market place, or as one commentator has put it, I was raised on the mother’s milk of socialism. I am from Canada and socialism lays at the foundations of Canadian society. All Canadians have access to health care and higher education and a host of other ‘essential’ services. The down side, of course, is that Canadians pay a lot more in taxes and have to tolerate much more government involvement in their private and public affairs. Canada, as a society, is more like a Western European society than the United States, so I am tolerant of more governmental involvement in the market place than the average American. Coming to this country and finding just how much the individual is left on his own compared to what I was used to in Canada was a shock and it took me many years to understand the situation and to adjust to it. In this country money rules and if you do not have it, you are truly on your own. What passes for public welfare and healthcare in this country is demeaning. There is little in the way of a respectable social net to fall back on. There is no health care or higher education automatically provided for you in this country. You must create it for yourself. This is the essential difference between Canada and the United States, and without question my political opinions have been shaped by my socialistic Canadian upbringing. However, I have had one further experience that has had just as profound an influence on the shape of my political and economic views, and which also affects my perceptions of this current economic crisis: I have lived in a communist state.

I consider my life within ISKCON and in particular my years in New Vrindavan to have been a time lived under a form of communism, that I call spiritual communism, but communism none the less. This came about as a result of my desire and need to pursue a utopian philosophy during my youth. I have already described how I was affected by the utopian ideals of Thoreau’s, simple living and high thinking. The particular form of this utopianism that I followed was theocentric and it came under the motto of “just chant Hare Krishna and be happy.” Within ISKCON Krishna took the role of the State and was the owner all things and we, His devotees, were only the stewards of creation. What seemed like a peaceful and innocent philosophy when put into practice quickly takes on a marxist flavor. In a small city temple the application of this kind of thinking could only go so far, so it was hard to see the implications of such a philosophy, but in a relatively large and remote rural community, such as New Vrindavan, the actual practice of this theology could go a lot farther and I could see the end result. I quickly learned that God’s ownership, translated into community or state power. The Guru as God’s representative became the supreme ‘monarch’ and so I even began to see the divine right of kings begin to unfold. What began as a utopian philosophy of simple living and high thinking with God at the center soon began to manifest the political philosophies of theocracy, monarchy and communism all mixed within the same crucible. I have written about this in great detail elsewhere, but to summarize, I learned that however perfect you try to make it, when theological power and political power become intertwined you are on your way to creating a totalitarianism. This is what happened in New Vrindavan. My years within this community afforded me the unique opportunity to witness life at its most formative and basic levels. On a miniature scale I saw how monarchies are created, how controlling elites take power, how communism works and how totalitarianism forms.

Regardless of whether you call the supreme authority God or the State, when an outside power owns everything it really means no one owns anything and so everything becomes abused, stolen or lost. Society becomes massively inefficient. When no one has a right to the fruits of labor, in other words, when you do not get paid for work, individual initiative is destroyed. When the individual is subordinate to God or the State, individual human rights cease to exist. When people do not receive due compensation for their labor, secret economies develop, bribing and payoffs become common and corruption becomes rampant. I saw all of this first hand. My life in New Vrindavan, because it involved building a society from the ground up, taught me volumes about life. Even though it was on a small scale, I have participated in the formation of a political system, a legal system, an educational system, a health care system, and so on. So, when I finally left New Vrindavan, I had learned things that most people never get an opportunity to experience. I had had a belly full of marxism and I had become a passionate capitalist fully embracing the ideals of laisezz-faire economics. I had seen the evils of utopian philosophies and I even though I grew up under Canadian socialism and later touched the extreme left in the form of spiritual communism, I had rebounded to the right, to laissez-faire capitalism. Now in these days I as am seeing the collapse of American capitalism under Reaganomics, it brings me back to my centrist Canadian roots: Government does have an essential role to play in the market place.

As I write this final paragraph the United States congress has just passed a massive bailout bill which allows the government to buy up all of the so called ‘toxic’ loans related to the current financial crisis started in the real estate markets. Is this a good thing? I have no idea. We are told by the experts that it is necessary in order to prevent the US economy from total collapse. Only time will tell if this strategy works. At any rate, whether it works or not, what will happen over the next few months is that some form of 21st century Glass-Steagall laws will be enacted. Laissez-faire economics is dead for another two generations in this country, but I doubt this country will ever make it to the point of socialism like a European democracy in my life time. And honestly, I hope it never does. I am convinced that part of the greatness of this country lays in his wildness and inability to be tamed. But it all comes at a price.

The following is a paragraph clipped from the New York Times on October 27th 2008:

On Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The following announcement was just made by the incoming Obama administration concerning the reinstatement of financial regulations.

Sun Dec 7, 11:08 am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama said on Sunday he would put strong new financial regulation at the center of his economic recovery program to force more accountability on the banking industry.

Obama again warned that the U.S. economic crisis, which saw the country lose more than half a million jobs in November alone, would worsen before it gets better.

“As part of our economic recovery package what you will see coming out of my administration, right at the center, is a strong set of financial regulations,” Obama said in a taped appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television show.
“Banks, ratings agencies, mortgage brokers, a whole bunch of folks (will) start having to be much more accountable and behave much more responsibly.

“We’ve got to have transparency, openness, fair dealing in our financial markets and that’s an area where I think over the last eight years we’ve fallen short.”

Political Life in America

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September 4, 2008

In November of this year the United States will have a major election for president. Massive political campaigns are raging within this country to decide who will be the next president and which party will hold the reigns of power for the next four years. During the last two weeks I have watched both the Republican and the Democratic conventions as they each chose their representative candidate to be president. I have many thoughts running through my head as a result, but the one that comes most to my mind, which both fascinates and troubles me, is: What exactly is America? In spite of being here for years I am still trying to understand what this country truly is, so watching these conventions churns my political juices and raises this question. Coming from Canada, in many ways, I am still searching for my political identity. Am I a Republican, a Democrat, or something else? There are aspects of all parties that attract me and at this point, having watched both conventions, I am most comfortable with the Democrats. However, the America that I saw reflected through the Republican convention is an America that I find both mysterious and enticing and, yet ominous and frightening. Who are these people? Why all the cowboy hats, why all the reference to religion and family, and why the country music?

Anna, as you may be aware, there are two main political parties in this land, the Republicans and the Democrats, and in theory, at least, they represent different political philosophies. Often times you hear the terms, the political right and the political left. The Republican are on the right and the Democrats are on the left and in general you will also hear that capitalism is to the extreme right of the political spectrum and communism is to the extreme left and socialism is in the center. What these terms, capitalism, communism and socialism, and right and left, actually mean is the subject of political philosophy, which is something beyond what I want to discuss here.

In theory the Republican party embodies the essence of capitalism. The Democrats, although they are said to be towards the left in no way even begin to approach the true left, which is communism. In fact, the Democrats of this country hardly even approach the socialism of most Western European countries. American political life only exists to the far right of the true political spectrum.

In theory the Republicans stand for less government and more emphasis on individual enterprise. The role of government is to create a favorable environment for individual enterprise and then government should step out of the way. It is a “sink or swim” approach to life. If you are strong and intelligent you can create vast wealth through hard work and ingenuity. If you are weak and lack intelligence you will sink down on the social and economic order. Everyone finds their rightful place in the social and economic hierarchy. If you are on top it is due to your own efforts and if you are on the bottom that too is the result of your own efforts or lack thereof. It is a survival of the fittest approach to social and economic life. This, at least, is the theory. What goes on in practice is something much different.

The Democratic approach is still along these lines, but with the added difference that a certain amount of equalization needs to take place in order to balance or level out society and thereby make things more softened or “equal” for those on the lower end of the social and economic scale. It is the role for government to take a little off the top and middle in order to raise up the bottom and thus level out society, just a little. Countries like Canada and Australia, compared to the American model, take a more socialist’s approach, and use government to level out society even more than the United States. Many Western European countries, such as Britain, France and Germany employ this leveling function of government still more by attempting to eliminate the very top and bottom of the social economic scale and force everything towards the middle. The result of the leveling function of government is the creation of all kinds of social support systems, sometimes called “social nets,” which include varieties of governmental programs such as health care, unemployment insurance, subsidized education, social security, food stamps, welfare, and so on. This leveling process of government taken to the extreme, where government takes almost total control of the social and economic life of the country and disallows even private ownership of land and businesses and other areas of life that could be used by individuals to produce private wealth, is called communism. Countries like the former Soviet Union and current day Cuba follow this path. Today China is an example of a society that is communistic, but at the same time is trying to blend in a certain amount of capitalism.

As I had mentioned at the beginning we are in an election season and so I have been watching the American political process in action. Politics is very much like watching sports and although I have no desire to watch sports I do pay keen attention to politics. So how this theory works out in practice is quite interesting and even mysterious to me.

What a difference in the speeches of the Clintons, Biden and Obama at the Democratic convention compared to what I heard at the Republican convention from Giuliani, Palin and McCain! Listening to the former president, Bill Clinton speak was like listening to a breath of fresh air, not because what he had to say was so special, after all he was speaking at a political rally and he is a politician, but simply because his speech contained intellectual content, something I have never heard in speeches from our current president President, W. Bush, who is a republican. A few days later I heard Obama’s acceptance speech and again, I heard intellectual content. In fact it was a first class speech and an historic event, given that it was from the first black leader of a major political party and a man who may become president. I honestly did not hear a lot of intellectual content at the Republican convention. The Democratic ticket presented speeches that seemed fashioned in Harvard and Oxford. They were professional and polished whereas the Republican’s seemed to be made in the heartland of America. They were speeches of the people full of emotion and calls for patriotism. The young women, the governor of Alska, Sarah Palin, spoke with a fire in her belly and a twinkle in her eye. She is mother bear and she is going to be a real problem for the democrats. Gulinani spoke with the swagger of a New York talk radio host and McCain took a “touchy feelly” approach, reminiscing about his war record and patriotism. They were all emotional speeches and they lacked intellectual content. The Republicans presented themselves as the face of America’s heartland full of Christian values, rustic small town entrepreneurs and traditional values. By Contrast Democrats came across as urban, polished, upbeat and intellectual. Instead of country music the Democratic convention ended with the music of Bruce Springsteen, a rock singer.

As I witnessed these conventions I wondered how any of what I saw relates to the political theory held by each party. The Republicans are supposed to be the party of less government, and yet during Republican administrations we hardly see less government spending or the down sizing of government. In fact the greatest down sizing of a government social welfare programs took place under the Democrats with Bill Clinton about a decade ago. In fact these days the Republican party seems to be more of a religious party than a political entity. Evangelical Christianity appears to have “high jacked” the Republicans, and yet I remember when the Democrats were the party of the so called Christian right under Jimmy Charter. The truth is there is very little relationship between political philosophy and political practice and all of the cultural oddities that I saw at the conventions, country music verses rock music, rural versus urban, heartland versus “harvard land” have more to do with the ethnic idiosyncrasies of America than political philosophy.

About a month ago there was a television program that featured both McCain and Obama, the respective Republican and Democratic candidates, being interviewed at an evangelical Christian church in Orange County, not far from where I live. It was a revealing presentation because each candidate was asked the same questions from the same host, but supposedly neither could hear the answers of the other. Obama’s answers were good, they showed that he was thoughtful and thinking, very much in line with the intellectualized “Harvard” speech I heard at the convention, but there was a slight delay in some of his responses. He had to consider each answer carefully before he spoke. McCain’s answers were direct and immediate. He did not need any time to consider his reply. On the issue of abortion, for example, when he was asked when life began, McCain immediately answered, “at the moment of conception.” Obama’s response was drawn out: Well, from a scientific perspective…., and then again, from a theological perspective… . McCain clearly won the night. He had the answers quick and direct. My vote, however, goes to Obama because these are difficult issues and there are no easy answers. McCain was responding from a fixed ideological perspective steeped in evangelical Christianity. The Republicans have a set philosophical and theological perspective. They are ideologically driven and their answers can be derived from this perspective regardless of how complex the issue is. It seems like the Democrats approach their platform less from an ideological perspective and more by taking each issue as it comes and responding accordingly. This was reflected in Obama’s responses. He wanted to reflect on each question. Not good television, but certainly what is needed in dealing with complicated issues. So my conclusion is simple: I want a thinking person at the head of my country. I do not want a cowboy, or a talk radio host, or an emotional ideologue making the important decisions that affect my life. Life is not black and white and I want a person and a party that is willing to consider the shades of grey that life presents before important decisions are made.

But even more that all of this: if this country was doing better after 8 years of Republican rule than it was before republican rule, if the economy was booming, if the dollar was strong, if we were not fighting a war, if there was descent health care and education available to all, if our reputation abroad was good, then these differences between Republicans and Democrats, heartland or city, old boys or Harvard boys would not make a difference. I would vote for the status quo. I would vote republican. But the country is not doing better after eight years of republican rule. Governance by ideology does not work and neither does voting by ideology. Politically I am practical, as are most people.

John McCain was supposed to be the Republican nominee and yet we heard more about an obscure female nominee for vice president, who came out of nowhere, than McCain himself. Apparently the Christian evangelicals in this country, who form much of the Republican base, did not favor McCain; he was not Christian enough, so he had to choose an evangelical Christian, Sarah Palin, as his vice president running mate. You could not believe the buildup to her nomination. At first I failed to see why her family had to be paraded before the American public, including shots of her relatives at a sports bar in Anchorage Alaska. What did this have to do with the job of being vice president? The answer, of course, is that the Republicans had to show Christian family values as part of their platform, including her fifth child with Down Syndrome that she chose not to abort during her pregnancy. But that a virtual ‘nobody,’ a person with no long experience in high political office or foreign affairs, could be nominated to become Vice President and then potentially become President of the whole country for strictly ideological reasons, absolutely astounds me! Again, I am intrigued by this and yet I fear this. Only in America can a person rise from the most obscure levels of society to become president! Much more than the democrats, the republican party embodies an America that I just do not understand. Even the country music that was played at the end of the convention seemed foreign and out of place to me. Why all the “country” imagery? The convention that I saw struck me as a “cowboy’s” convention. It even had a streak of “red neck” flavor reflected in the speech of Palin when she asked, “What is the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? Lip stick”! Or as it was most succinctly put by one congresswoman speaker, “We are the party of the God fearing, gun “toten”, Bible thumping, flag waving, red blooded Americans of this country.” I could not say it any better myself.

Image taken from: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/democrat-vs-republican

 

America in Iraq and Russia in Georgia

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August 22, 2008

I remember standing in a obscure village on the eastern coast of Italy by the Adriatic Sea waiting for an associate to arrive from Russia. Russians travel the way my parents used to travel a generation ago, using charter flights to save money. I was seeing flights arriving from all over the country to this tiny Italian town, which had been an old NATO airbase. What an irony! As I waited, over two hours passed,

Russia’s Prime Minister

and I watched an endless stream of Russians come through the arrival doors. I had never seen so many Russians in one place, at one time. I was seeing a cross section of middle class Russians. I was concerned whether I had missed my party or whether they had even gotten on the flight, so I was continually asking people if this was the flight from such and such a city. But not a soul would stop and even try to answer my question. They just filed by looking for their friends and relatives. I was ignored outright. When I asked the Russian tour operators, who did speak some English, I was similarly brushed aside. I thought the tour operators, at least, would be more open to helping a stranger, but no. On that evening I learned my first rule of Russian society: Russia is a closed society. I felt totally shut out, and this was not by just one group from one city, I experienced the same thing for over two hours from Russians arriving from all over the country. Russians hold a deep distrust of strangers. It is a closed and internalized culture.

I was recently in London. What a cosmopolitan place! I have never heard so many languages spoken in one place and I never seen such a mix of cultures in one place. It seems the whole world has come to the door of Britain. I had not been to London in many years and so I assumed it would be similar to Paris, an interesting, but old, quaint and historic place. What I found was a dynamic, modern, and clean city. I was astounded. I also found the people friendly, open and willing to talk even when I approached them in French! All the time I was in Britain, I kept wondering how such a tiny island had come to affect so much of the world? What was it about British culture that made it, and still makes it, the powerhouse of influence that it still is today. This tiny island, at the top of the world, has been at the center of world activities since the time of the Magna Carta (1215). The openness of British society was in stark contrast to the closed and cold nature of Russian society. I could not help thinking: if you are open to the world and the nations of the world are your friends, it is not likely that you are going to beat up on your friends. Countries that work together as trading and financial partners will hardly invade each other.

On August 2nd 2008 we witnessed the Russian invasion of the democratic state of Georgia that once belonged to the soviet empire. I found this to be a most disturbing event, not because it reminded me of the 1960s when the Soviets walked into Poland and old Ceckoslovakia, but because I saw our President Bush and Secretary of State Rice standing on the world stage condemning Russia for invading Georgia and telling the Russians that in the 21st century big powers do not beat up on little powers. Who do these people think they are telling Russia to get out of Georgia after what they have done in Iraq? I am sorry, but the moral authority of America has be squandered by the Bush administration. And having condemned Russia for their incursions, what are they going to do? America is so tied up and depleted by its Iraqi escapade that, not only does it lack moral authority, it also lacks diplomatic, political, and economic power, what to speak of the military might to do anything against Russian hegemony. The current administration has made a mockery of this country. And the brutish Russian state knows this. What Russia has done is no surprise. It is still full of old soviet ideas and cold war leaders. Its fledging democracy that so amazingly appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been slowly but surely shrinking in recent years, so how can we expect a country that cannot respect the democratic the rights of its own citizens respect the democratic rights of another country? But what the United States has done in Iraq is much worse. The United States purports to be a mature nation, a beacon of democracy for the world and a moral nation, and therefore it should know how to use its power without having to resort to brutish ways. By acting as it has in Iraq, the US has showed that it is still an adolescent country, full of brutish ways and with many lessons to learn. And the rest of the world, who looks to America for leadership, is left to weep, or even worse, to laugh at us.

Even though I felt our foray into Iraq was a mistake, when it happened I was happy to see that Britain supported us. We were not alone. If we had to do it, at least it was good to do it with a friend by our side. Having been to Britain and seen the cosmopolitan nature of British society and the depth of its democracy, I now feel that Britain made a grave mistake in following us into this war. While in Britain I had an interesting conversation with a police officer guarding the House of Commons about the state of world affairs. In the course of our conversation it came as a matter of some shock to hear this officer speak of the United States as still an adolescent country. He meant no disrespect, but compared to Britain, he was right. America is a young country. Britain is a mature nation by comparison and has democratic traditions that run centuries deep. One of the “shrines” I visited while in Britain was the Magna Carta at Salisbury, so now when I think how Britain participated in the same brutish action as the United States, I realize that Britain should have used its maturity to counsel the United States to avoid the use of military force in Iraq, to be patient and work through diplomacy and sanctions as it was doing. Britain would have been a better friend had it acted in this way.

In a family a parent always knows it has the option to employ physical punishment on a disobedient child. A husband knows he can use the same punishment on a wife. Older children can beat up on younger children. Those with greater physical power can dominate those with lesser physical power. This is what the United States and Russia have done in Iraq and Georgia. But in a mature and cultured family, parents do not beat children, husbands do not beat wives, and older brothers do not beat younger siblings. Similarly, in world affairs powerful and mature nations have an obligation to avoid brutish force by finding mature and sophisticated means to attain order and safety.

Now that I know the closed nature of Russian society, I am not surprised when I see it beating up on smaller nations even in the 21st century. If you are closed to the world and you distrust your friends and even your own citizens, it is easy to treat the world with contempt and defiance. I learned this in just a few hours watching Russians in Italy. Russia is on a different path than the democratic West and it still has a lot of evolution to pass through before it can truly take a seat alongside the mature nations of the world. As far as the United States is concerned its latest escapade into Iraq is going to come to an end soon and this country will hopefully have learned one more hard lesson about the use of brute force and its bold display of global defiance and arrogance that it exhibited when it invaded Iraq.

Central to this failure has been ignoring the inherent connection between internal freedom and external aggression. As democracy was rolled back within Russia, the world abandoned an approach that had been so effective during the later stages of the Cold War, when relations with the Kremlin were linked to the expansion of freedom inside the Soviet Union.

Sadly, a clear sighted policy of linkage was transformed into a strategic and moral muddle that neither rewarded good behavior nor punished bad. Perhaps most egregiously, a regime that would have been willing to pay a high price to join the Group of Eight, let alone to host a summit of the leading democratic powers, was given these privileges for free. Did anyone even consider asking something of the Kremlin?
Now the free world stands at a dangerous crossroads. Restoring Georgian independence and the confidence of Russia’s other democratic neighbors is critical. But if the root of the problem is to be addressed strategically, the focus must return not to this or that specific foreign policy action by Russia but rather to the matter of democracy within Russia itself. This linkage must be broad and deep, and it must be reinforced by an international community willing to shine a light on Russia’s retreat from democracy.

The writer, a former Soviet dissident, is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and is the author most recently of the book “Defending Identity.”

Temple of Poseidon, Cape Sounion

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August 6, 2008

This afternoon I took a day trip out to the 5th century BCE temple of Poseidon about 75 kms east of Athens along the Greek coast. Poseidon was the Greek god of the seas comparable with Varuna in ancient India. It was therefore natural that a temple built to honor him should be found on the cliffs over looking the sea. As with the Acropolis in Athens, many details could be stated about the temple that are interesting, but my main comment has to do with the drive to the site than the site itself. If I did not know where in the world I was, it would be hard to tell if this was southern California or southern Greece.

What only gives it away is the writing script on the store and road signs, but other than this, it is typical beach country with expensive tourist hotels and luxury homes lining the drive along the coast. This is the same as the drive along the coast in Southern France from Nice to Monte Carlo. But the difference here, of course, is that suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, this massive temple looms up over the horizon as you approach.

My reaction was just like Stonehenge. Where did that come from, and who put it there? In other words, we, the little people, are just driving along enjoying the scenery, minding our own business, when suddenly we are confronted with something completely beyond our daily reality. And then, a few minutes later, you stand amidst these ruins and you are transported beyond time and space. This is the effect of Stonehenge and this is the effect of these ruins. That is why, for me at least, it is important to see these things, to actually visit. It puts a perspective on life that is impossible to gain in our daily routines.

In this regard I especially liked our tour guide’s instruction before we arrived at the site. In a serious tone she reminded us that we would soon be standing in a temple, on sacred ground, in a place where pilgrims had been coming for thousand of years to get just a little closer to God. This changed the mind set of everyone, and sacred indeed it was. Having come to place like this and seen the majesty of world class architecture and art it is hard want to fight over trivial things in one’s daily life.

By the way I also saw the one of the English languages most famous and respected poets was also a person who defaced sacred temples. I saw Byron’s name carved into the column of this sacred and ancient temple.

There must always be a story. So here is a quick note on the legend that surrounds the temple of Poseidon: Cape Sounion was the spot where Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt to his death from the cliffs near the temple, thus giving his name to the Aegean Sea. The story goes that when Aegeus anxiously looked out from Cape Sounion for his son to return from Crete, he despaired when he saw a black sail on his son’s ship instead of a white sail. This led him to believe that his son had been killed in his fight with the dreaded Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull that lived on the island of Crete. The Minotaur had been confined by its owner, King Minos of Crete, in a specially designed labyrinth at his palace, and every year the Athenians were forced to send 7 boys and 7 girls to Minos as a tribute. These youths were placed in the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. King Aegeus’s son, Theseus, had volunteered to be part of the third tribute and thereby attempt to slay the beast. He had agreed with his father that if he survived the contest, he would hoist a white sail on this ship as a sign of his success. In fact, Theseus had slain the Minotaur, but tragically had forgotten to hoist the white sail. Not seeing the white sail as Theseus’s fleet appeared Cape Sounion, the king in desperation jumped to his death on the rocks below the temple of Poseidon.

The Temple of Poseidon was built atop the ruins of a previous temple in the year 440 BC. The original temple was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. It is rumored that the architect who designed the Temple of Hephaistos near the ancient acropolis in Athens was the same one who designed the Temple of Poseidon here at Cape Sounion. While the Temple of Hephaistos is better preserved, the Temple of Poseidon still retains several standing columns and it is easily understood how impressive it must once have been. During its heyday, the Temple of Poseidon in ancient Greece would have had 42 Doric columns, of which only 16 remain today. The temple was made of marble found nearby and once housed a large statue of Poseidon in its main hall.

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The Acropolis

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This is a quick note that I wrote from the steps of the Acropolis in Athens after seeing the site. These are my on-the-spot reactions.

Many things can be said about this place and I will surely check the details later, but when you stand amongst these ruins you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the majesty and grandeur of this place and what it must have once been. Roman was good, but these ruins go far beyond. Roman was about imperial power, these ruins are about aesthetics. Who were the people who built this? Buildings such as these do not just appear. They are beautiful! They are stunning! Such beauty can only rise from the midst of a mature culture that includes all areas of human pursuits and not just from financial and military might. Of course, a lot is known about the ancient Greek world, but to actually see it, to feel it within your bones, to be here, is a very different thing than just reading about this place and seeing the photographs. That is the power of actually coming here. In contrast, when I walk in the streets of Athens I feel a huge disconnect between what is here now and what used to be here in these ruins. Are these the descendants of those who built these massive and beautiful structures? It seems impossible.

Greece compared to the rest of Europe is a poor country. She stands at the back of the line when it comes to the rest of Europe, and yet these ruins are here! What occurred here, thousands of years ago, formed the very foundations of the West, including Christianity and Islam. We are all, therefore, indebted to the people who built this place and who thought the thoughts that made this possible.

When I come here I lament that throughout the world, the vast majority of students dedicate themselves to technology and science, which is not bad per se, but having been to so many ancient sites like this, in Rome, Athens and throughout India, my head bows to those who take the time to learn the classics, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, hieroglyphics and Chinese and try to understand these great and ancient cultures of past humanity. Someone has to remember and keep the ideas that created these cultures alive. In a place such as this, you feel your humanity. I feel proud and humbled to be here.

From the pool floor of my hotel I have a fantastic view of the Acropolis about 15 kms away. The building is lighted at night so my view is even better then, but what an amazing sight at anytime, knowing the history and beauty of this monument. So much of the worlds architecture is modeled after the Pathenon and now I see the original one in the distance before me. Athens is not a city that I enjoy, it is hot, congested and dirty, but to be here in heart of the Mediterranean world is an experience of a lifetime. I do not think there is any necessity to describe the details of the Acropolis. It has been written about in thousands of books and web pages, suffice to say, I see it before me and it is humbling and awe inspiring. Travel to Athens if you can.

 

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