POLITICS

Politics: from the Greek politika 1a: the art or science of government b: the art or science of influencing or guiding governmental policy c: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government. 2: Political actions, practices or policies. 3a: political affairs or business; especially competiton between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership in a government or other group b: political life esp. as a principal activity or profession c: political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices 4: the political opinions or sympathies of a person 5: the total complex or relations between people in society.

 

From Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

 

I’ve been feeling a little guilty about neglecting what I saw as the political side of my journal. After all “politics” is part of the title. But, I’m slowly realizing that maybe I was defining politics a little narrowly. That I needed to look at politics as a totality.

 

At a time when the radical members of religions we consider patriarchal seem hell bent on pulling the framework of civilization down on our heads in the name of protecting it; learning to walk with the feminine side of Creation can be considered a political, even a radical action.

 

When drug company profits and advertising are at an all time high, learning more about herbal supports for health could be seen as political. The drugs that are marketed with claims of helping us often turn out to be worse than the diseases they treat. The latest one to hit the headlines is a common drug used to treat ADHD.

 

As our global food supply becomes more precarious, especially when you consider the contamination of what we feed the animals and the diseases they carry, buying locally and eating more non-meat products is pretty political.  

 

Those astronomy photos I’ve been including are not only beautiful, they’re a little subversive. The just fired PR guy for NASA tried to tell agency scientists to always refer to the Big Bang as a “theory” to leave room for Intelligent Design. Actually he resigned when his claims that he had a journalism degree turned out to be false. When a little surfing will turn up websites that support the “young universe” theory, highlighting pictures made with light that started our way at least 100 million years ago could be considered “political.”

 

I guess these folks never heard of Occam’s razor. The simplest definition of it is that “the simplest explanation, even if it seems unlikely, that fits the facts is probably the truth.” When I read the material on some of these sites my jaw just hangs open. Some of these writers are so determined to prove that the events of the Bible-say Noah’s flood- are true that they hang every principle of physics, geology, and biology out to dry.

 

And I just ran across a variation some folks call Heinlein’s razor after science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. Heinlein basically said “don’t attribute to malice what can be adequately blamed on stupidity.”

 

I guess the theme of this wandering entry is that I’ve been keeping to the political part of the journal, just putting a slightly different face on it. And I have to admit that when I’m feeling really crappy about what’s been going on here and overseas these astronomy photos help me keep my balance and perspective.