I remember telling one of my physics classes about the advances made in my Father's lifetime. He was born in 1903 and died in 1976. During his years, transportation went from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon. He did not have a radio in his early life and saw television. Polio and scarlet fever - the flu epidemic of 1918 was the world's worst, all gone. So much, so fast. Too much to keep up with.

And things are moving still faster. I remember teaching a course on programming and having a difficult time with one particular task. An 8th grader merely glanced at it and showed me how it all went. Ditto with the TV and the VCR. Generation gap. The curve is exponential. Future shock is here.

Homo erectus on the other hand went for a million years and never got around to putting a handle on their rock tools.

My Dad might have predicted transportation advances but never could have even guessed at television. What will come too fast to comprehend and that we can not imagine? And will a future bunch of critters a level above us say "They went for a century and never got around to ......"

This Presidential campaign has brought up a bunch of issues. One is a topic that has been a pet peeve of mine, the separation of church and state. The First Amendment to our Consitutuion says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state): “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… The phrase building a wall of separation between church and state was written by Thomas Jefferson in a January 1, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.”

Certainly a cornerstone of American life. I would like to propose that this separation should go both ways. The government does not interere with churchs. Churchs do not interfere with government. France and Turkey both do this to some extent. It is called “laicite”.

By no means would or should it prevent a candidate or office-holder from bringing his/her religious beliefs with him. That is not church interfering with government. Church is a business organization, not a belief.

Washington said “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”

Candidates and governmental officials definitely need to bring strong religious beliefs and our American morality with them into their application of our laws and Constitution.

The situation in our current presidential campaign, and in our government, however, is the power of an organization to effect the everyday life of those who are not a part of that organization. We rant and rave about PAC's representing big business. Church is also a big business with lobbyists. The Islamic radicals are trying to force nonparticipants, majority or minority, to come under their power. Our churchs should be better than that.

Consider myself to be a Christian and more than averagely religious but not a church goer. Church is my backyard.

My thanks again to Bored Johnny (http://annoiato.blogstream.com/) for showing me how to use the neat stuff on the internet. In this case, the music on Imeem. Another treasure (see my 11 December entry).

I have a cabinet full of great old platters downstairs. But, alas, no player for them. Woe is me. What I really want is a way to put them onto a CD. Don't have a digital player yet but need to move up to the 21st Century, get one and put these onto it somehow.

One of the songs on one of those records is a classic. It is Louis Armstrong doing “My Bucket's Got a Hole In It”. He sings about his bucket and Trummy Young tells him it's past closing time and he can't buy no more beer.

There are two versions of that old classic. The Hank Williams version and the Louis version. Like both but Louis, the old blues version is the best.

Imeem did not have the Louis version. The Gremoli one on my Bucket list is close. All of these four versions are good and the differences are intersting. At any rate, here is a great old song, whether from Louis or Hank:

And again, the fates point three of their fatal fickle fingers. Fatal fickle finger #1. On this date in 1900, Giacomo Puccini had the first performance of Tosca. I cruised by some of the blogs I like and Fatal fickle finger #2. Hawk ( http://isntlifestrange.blogstream.com/) had some videos of his kind of music – heavy metal noise . Also Fatal fickle finger #3. Johnny (http://annoiato.blogstream.com/) with his - some good Zappa. So thought I ought to put up some of mine.

Puccini and Tosca. Great music and great characters. There is no villian as evil as Scarpia. Sacrifice for freedom from oppression. Sacrifice for love. What more can you ask.

There is a fascinating exchange of views on Whit's Whittlings (http://bushsyndrome.blogstream.com/) about Hillary's tears. The delightfully long series of comments hit on a bunch of points. One of them is spin and the honesty of candidates. And the question that crossed my fertile brain, is spin lying?

The honor code is important to me. (See my entries for 9 June, 2007, 10 May, 2007, 4 May, 2007, 3 October, 2006). “I will not lie not cheat nor steal nor tolerate those that do.”

What is a lie? A couple of relatives who are pharmacists recently were discussing some people who come to their pharmacy. These folks invariably say that their prescription is several pills short. Or falsify purchases so they can get discounts for how much they spend. The whole family does it, father, mother, grown children. Detestable lower than slime sort of folks. The financial gain to them is not worth much. But the “getting the better of” someone or some organization, power, is a strong drive. This is definitely dishonest.

How about leaving out some information? Is that lying? I am not going to admit how many times I went to the crapper yesterday. That is not lying by any defintion. If I sell the Grand Marquis, to a neighbor or a dealer, and forget to tell the that the old girl consumes as much oil as gasoline, that is different. Intent to deceive.

Now, where does “spin” fall in this spectrum? Spectrum? Lying is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. There should not be any degrees. Spin, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_%28public_relations%29) is “a pejorative term signifying a heavily biased portrayal in one's own favor of an event or situation. While traditional public relations may also rely on creative presentation of the facts, "spin" often, though not always, implies disingenuous, deceptive and/or highly manipulative tactics”. I definitely perceive an intent to deceive. I before e except in perceive and deceive.

Did Hillary intend to deceive with those tears. Could be but I doubt it. She was tired and under tremendous stress. She cries and I attack. But within a couple of seconds, she put the correct “spin” on it. As did the rest of the candidates.

Those old saws like “How do you know when a politician is lying? His mouth moves.” and Will Rogers' statement that Congress' greatest contirbution is that it gets the five hundred biggest liars in the country and puts them all in one place, are they exaggerations? In order to get elected in the U.S. of A. these days, the candidates have to have a “win at any cost” battle, often centered on money. “Win at any cost” sounds a lot like “the end jusitifes the means”. And I remember that one from back in the days when it was attributed to Adolph Hitler.

We breed sports figures to be violent and then wonder why they are. We breed politicians to lie and then wonder why they do.