Casting Stones?

Are There Unforgivable Sins?

When does the, “seventy times seventy” rule apply?

“... cast the first stone”?

Is the new archeology of digging up stones from the past helpful?

Wouldn’t FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Clinton be disqualified with this archeology?

Can stones be thrown without ricocheting back?

What are the unintended consequence of a stone throwing contest?

The intended consequences?

How accurate and fossilized does memory become over time?

Are there valid reasons for statutes of limitations?

Are there different standards of behavior?

Is there no redemption for the Ebenezer Scrooge’s among us?

Does both repentance and forgiveness improve character?

Don’t forget: “Judge not...”?

Hummmmm!?

Is it just politics?

Carpe Diem,

Carl Rich

Hubris

The Unforgivable Crime in Ancient Greece

Hubris was a social, moral and civic offense, an insult to the gods; the central theme of the plays, comic and tragic of the Greek playwrights. 

“Hubris is extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately brings about his downfall. Hubris is a typical flaw in the personality of a character who enjoys a powerful position; as a result of which, he overestimates his capabilities to such an extent that he loses contact with reality.”

Or,

One who because of their physical, economic, social, intellectual, civil, real, or supposed superiority over another believe they have license. They can do what they will because of who they are—an act of dominance.

In other words—

A bully.

The bottom Round of the lowest Circle in Dante’s Hell is for “Betrayal” (Treachery). When one uses their power to dominate, belittle, take advantage of another verbally, physically, psychology for their pleasure, gratification or benefit; it is a betrayal of trust — not only to the person abused, but also to coworkers, the organization and the public. 

Perks come with talent, personal achievement, advancement and luck; along with these benefits also come higher standards of behavior and responsibility. There is an expectation of example and trust. 

Every individual has a right to their personal dignity to be respected for who and what they are, a right to their personal space, to their moral code, privacy, to be safe. A violation of this right cannot be tolerated by anyone above, below or around the pecking order of the person abused. It is what makes us human — civilized — exceptional. 

Beware Dante’s Hell!

“If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives... too big powers to too small a soul — the result is bound to be a complete upset... the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds.”

- Plato

Carpe Diem,

Carl Rich

“California Here I Come...”

It’s not the Garden of Eden

Most of California is uninhabitable. I have flown across California numerous times, for some reason that occurred to me this time as I looked down out the plane window at the Serra Mountains raising up from the desert. (You want to see desert. Drive in a car from San Diego to El Centro.)

There is the Central Valley, the coast, and strings and patches of habitation scattered here and there, that’s about it.

It’s not Virginia. 

Later, flying up the coast from LA, I see homes desperately clinging to the slide prone earth

THE CHOW LINE

Again this year, I stood in the “Chow Line” at the annual Golden Corral free veterans dinner with men and women from all five branches of military service, many wearing baseball caps denoting where they served.

Many years ago I stood next to a sailor who was on the USS Indianapolis and survived being torpedoed and attacked by sharks as they bobbed for days in the water. 

A female Army nurse from the Golf War, a helicopter door gunner from “Nam”, a sailor on the USS Enterprise in the Second World War, a Korean War Air Force fighter pilot, a female radio operator from the Coast Guard, a former POW, a Army MP on the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, a Marine Iwo Jima veteran, a Pearl Harbor survivor, many “GI Joe’s” from the Second World War and Cold War Warriors like me: these are a few of the veterans I chatted with over the years standing in the “Chow Line”. 

A veteran sat down next to me as I ate. 

“What branch were you in?” I asked. 

“Army.”

“Infantry?”

“No, Engineers.”

“Combat or Construction?” 

“Combat.”

“Did you train at Ft. Leonard Wood?”

“Yes.”

“I did too, Combat Engineer, in 1956.”

“You were there before me. I was there in 1961.”

“In the old WWII “temporary” barracks?” 

“Yes, I thought I was going to freeze-to-death in those damm rickety dinosaurs.”

And, we reminisced about: waking-up to ice in the red “butt cans”, cold “C Rations”....

And so it went, all around us as we ate, veterans and families remembering, laughter breaking out here and there. A happy fraternity overshadowing the universal individual losses and sacrifice paid by all.

A common experience and understanding of service, a piece of identity, that gives meaning and purpose to who and what each of us are — a “Band of Brothers” — male and female. 

Carpe Diem 

Carl Rich

Beware...?

I just finished reading Homer’s, The Iliad and started reading The Odyssey. I read both in college. 

Why?

To get what I didn’t get the first time I read it. What did I get? 

To quote Homer: “Beware the toils of War.” The physical and highborn Hubris of Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector and Paris that offended the Olympian gods and soaked the plains of Troy red with blood. Depicted in “R” rated violent vividness by Homer.  

Beware Hubris!

Today, the smug moral superior hubris of those telling us how to think, behave and speak, offending our common sense, heritage and customs, soaking away at the foundations of Western Civilization. 

Carpe Diem,

Carl

Veterans Day 2017

My earliest memories are of War...

...surviving in a cold basement apartment with two younger brothers and just enough food to eat, carefully scraped, by my mother, shuffling pennies and ration stamps, while my father was “overseas”.

Whenever I was downtown in my hometown of Logan, Utah, I watched young men from nearby Bushnell Army Hospital struggle to get off the army bus, with missing arms and legs. 

My Uncle Grant was a radio operator on a half-track in the second wave at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. He survived, returned home, but was plagued with malaria the rest of his life.

My Uncle Don fought across France and into Germany, with Patton’s Third Army, received a Battlefield Commission, returned home with a chest full of medals and what we now call PTSD. 

The day I was married September 18, 1961 my unit, 889th QM CO, was activated during the Berlin Crisis. Three members of my Company were killed in an accident and I returned with a  permanent hearing loss that I live with every day. 

My cousin, Ray G. Jenkins, who I grew up with, was killed February 28, 1968, Ba Xugen Province, South Vietnam as he ran to his helicopter durning a rocket attack. His name is on “The Wall”. 

I currently have a grandson, Ian Hardy, on standby in the National Guard. 

This is just a minuscule piece of the horrendous sacrifices made to keep—

“...our flag...still there.”

When a man with no military service and in the top one-percent in income kneels during the

National Anthem in violation of NFL rules (Sports is about Rules) which he agreed to, and the NFL sits on its hands, I’m no longer a NFL - 49er fan. 

And, I will never attend, or watch on TV, an NFL game again, collage football yes, NFL NO!

“... long may it wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! ”

Carpe Diem,

Carl Rich