On Reason

Versus Religion

Me, Jordan Williams and Micheline at the Haymarket in 2005.

Regular readers know that while I strive to be a very spiritual person, I've never seen any human religion that any self-respecting deity would have anything to do with. While going through some ancient emails recently, I came across this interesting message from my friend Jordan Williams, referring to a piece I wrote about the dangers posed by those who replace reason with unproven religious dogma. Unfortunately, no complete version of my original essay is known to exist, although there is a long quote from it included in Williams' email. It also features a fascinating first hand account of a rock concert riot in downtown Springfield.



From: William, Jordan R jrwilli3@bechtel.com
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 10:11 PM

Hi Tom,

I must say I'm impressed by some of the great thoughts expressed in your most recent essay. As you so often do, you wrote about a difficult topic with great clarity. I especially appreciated the following passages:

"Anyone who abandons reason, whether it's the local Sunday school teacher or Osama Bin Ladin, is potentially dangerous. Bin Ladin is more aggressively dangerous because he has made his irrational religious beliefs central to his entire world view, while the Sunday school teacher is likely to be more harmless because she has compartmentalized her faith into a small activity.

"But history has shown that even a harmless Sunday school teacher can be transformed into an agent of evil quite quickly under the right circumstances. Observe any religious war or persecution you can think of and you can see that even the mildly religious can be inspired to engage in a whole host of bigoted, science defying and humanity crippling behavior when threatened in the right way or under the thrall of an evil religious leader. Once someone has abandoned reason and their own senses as their standard of judging reality, anything becomes possible, with the emphasis on those possibilities that are the most destructive.

"The wisest people try to accept the mysteries of creation without trying to make up or latch onto other people's explanations that are unprovable, no matter how uncomfortable those uncertainties may make us feel at times. It is often hard to accept things like death, our own and the death of those closest to us, without the comfort of imagining that we are somehow immortal, even though no evidence in the natural world supports that belief.

"It is hard to see terrible catastrophes and senseless tragedy, to see good people suffer and bad ones prosper, and accept that there is no one judging what is happening (except we humans) and that no cosmic justice rights such wrongs (that is our responsibility.)

"It is difficult to stand before the awesome majesty of the universe and confront the eternal questions, "What is it and what makes it go?" and to have the courage and the honesty to reply, "I don't know." In the meantime, I may not know what life is all about, but I'm gonna sure love living until I find out."

You are so right. You call to mind what people like Hitler and Mao and Stalin could accomplish when they controlled the major inputs to thought - and especially when they institutionalize such thought at a formative age. It is when reason is abandoned and the focus is on faith that Rwanda style slaughters become possible. Mass violence can be very exciting, as I learned once when I got caught up in a mob of concert goers in downtown Springfield.



It was around 1978 at a Jethro Tull concert at the Springfield Civic Center when several dozen of us guys, drunk and stoned, somehow mobbed up. I can't even tell you exactly what started it. I was not one of the ringleaders, but I have to admit that I was encouraging, even hoping for, more mayhem. We went rampaging through downtown, lighting fires, damaging cars and throwing bottles. It was VERY exciting! In all it probably lasted about 15 minutes, but it seemed much longer in our excited frenzy. I shudder to think of the carnage we would have been capable of as a group had it not been for the arrival of a baton swinging contingent of Springfield's finest. Once a few of us got hit by those nightsticks, we quickly reverted back to the generally well-behaved middle-class kids we were before the meelee broke out.

What's scary is that I honestly don't know who that person was, with my face and my name, in that mob. Thinking about it retrospectively, I'm frightened to think what it is like when evangelical fervor and/or racial/ethnic hatred is added to the mix. It isn't hard for me to imagine how mass murder could've seemed like great fun for we crazed youths.

Later,

-Jordan

P.S. I leave for Paris on Friday with "my aristocratic whore" Micheline (she likes the title) to watch the French Open, visit Versailles and stuff. We are also taking the TGV train (over 200 mph) to Brussels which should be a kick. I'll send a few pics when I return.

From Today's Wall Street Journal


"After a nearly century-long struggle we are on the cusp of making health-care reform a reality in the United States of America," Mr. Obama said on Saturday. He's forced to claim the mandate of "history" because he can't claim the mandate of voters. Some 51% of the public is now opposed, according to National Journal's composite of all health polling. The more people know about ObamaCare, the more unpopular it becomes....

Never in our memory has so unpopular a bill been on the verge of passing Congress, never has social and economic legislation of this magnitude been forced through on a purely partisan vote, and never has a party exhibited more sheer political willfulness that is reckless even for Washington, or had more warning about the consequences of its actions.

Paolo's World



We didn't get much snow here in the Valley this weekend, but in New York City it got so blizzardy that the people of New York City reacted with a big old fashioned snowball fight! Northampton to New York transplant Paolo Mastrangelo describes the scene in pictures and video on his blog.


Check out the action here.

XMass Stuff

Former Valley newsman Jim Polito seems to taking his Santa shtick a bit over the top.



Radio dude Monte Belmonte's Christmas video features cute kids and a touch of psychedelia.



Today's Music Video

People what have you done?

Springfield Starship

More Oldies

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (or at least the concert stages) I was a misbehaving teenager attending acid rock shows in the Springfield area armed with a beautiful topshelf Yashica camera I got for a pittance from a B&E artist I knew (as in Breaking and Entering). In a bit of karmic justice, the camera was eventually stolen from me. Anyway, in that distant era they would let you bring cameras into concerts, these being the days before every moment of a rock and roll show became a copyrighted experience that no one can capture in any form unless somebody is being paid a royalty.

click photo to enlarge

So I took a bunch of pictures at a lot of shows and put them in a photo album. Then in the course of relocating hither and yon somewhere along the way I thought I lost it. I always hoped it would turn up someday, but frankly I had no real expectation that it would. Then one day when I was going through some of the stuff in my late Mom's cellar, lo and behold there it was, the book of photos along with some other local music memoriabilia such as the Martian Highway flyer reproduced above. Leave it to dear old Mom to always save the stuff I was careless about. As for Martian Highway, it was a popular local party band fronted by a cool spade named Carl Mayfield.



The following are pictures of the Jefferson Starship at the Springfield Civic Center, exact date unknown, but it was sometime in the late 70's. The earliest incarnations of the Jefferson Starship were more in the style of the revolutionary Airplane than the commercialized Top 40 hit machine they later became. My main memory of this show is how about a week before the concert, the aforementioned madman Carl Mayfield had some weird LSD-induced vision that the phrase "Bloated Oat a Goat Will Float," whose specific meaning he was never quite able to explain, must somehow be spread to the multitudes assembled and particularly to the Starship itself.

So he went about making stickers, signs, balloons and anything else he could think of to disperse to the crowd which had that statement (among other things) written on them. I think all eight thousand people who attended that show encountered that phrase multiple times; at the very least they heard it once when Grace Slick picked up something with the phrase written on it that was thrown on stage and asked, "Bloated oat a goat will float? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Ah Grace, just another one of the cosmic mysteries that will never be solved!

Grace encountering a bloated oat.



Spacey Gracie the Acid Queen



The voice that launched a thousand trips.



Paul Kantner



Craig Chaquico and Kantner.



The late Pine Pointer "Fuji" Cardinal (center) and crew at the concert. His real first name was Dave, and he was best known as a Boston Road Cumberland Farms cashier who also sold weed that he kept hidden behind the counter. The place sold more lids than it did gallons of milk. He died in a highway accident about five years ago.



Boston Road Car Caper



Want even more Springfield oldies? Okay, here's a funny true life story my friend Jordan Williams (above right) sent me in an email years ago.

It all began when I stopped by that used car lot next to St. Michael's cemetary in Pine Point, Springfield:



At the time I was searching for a replacement for the RX-7. As I drove down Boston Road in Springfield at around 10 PM, I spotted a vehicle on the Pine Point lot that I thought might be the ticket. I pulled up onto the sidewalk in order to get out of the way of traffic and got out to check out the cars. I'm in the habit of leaving the car running for brief stops like this one for fear that the intermittent starting problem I've been having might arise once again. This despite having invested $542 during the prior week because of a bad door, a major tune-up and that starting situation.

A couple of minutes into the tire kicking, I noticed a guy walking down the street on the other side who seemed to be making an effort to get my attention. Waving his arms and yelling some sort of gibberish. I knew I didn't know him and just sort of waved him off. Well naturally he stumbled over to talk to me - in Spanish. I said "No espanol," and just hoped he would go away. He spoke English just fine though, and offering his hand in friendship his first sentence was this: "My name is Manuel, I am Puerto Rican, and I see, my friend, that you are looking for a car. This is a very good business - cars. It so happens that I will be receiving twenty three thousand dollars very soon because of this injury (points to unmarked portions of one arm and one leg) and I would like to invest in such a car business. Me and you can be partners. What do you think? Would you like to be with me in the car business?"

Hmm. I sized up my potential new business partner. On the plus side he appeared to be about 40, in good shape, bilingual and would soon have many thousands of dollars. On the minus he was shirtless, drunk, stoned, crazy and dirty. It was a close call and one that, sadly, went against poor Manuel. I said "Well, that is certainly something to think about." But I believe that I saw in Manuel's eyes a sadness. A sadness that said "I do not believe you want to be partners with Manuel."

He then informed me that he was late to work and asked if I would give him a ride. I declined. He then asked me for a dollar. "Sorry Manuel, all tapped out." "How about 50 cents?" "No can do." And the litany began again, starting with a ride, moving to a dollar and ending with 50 cents. No. No. No. And again. And again. He was also getting more belligerant. By now I was simply ignoring him and just looking at cars. He wouldn't leave though and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I drifted away in the opposite direction that he'd eventually leave. It worked. He finally walked away.

I was now about 50 yards from my car. Manny was gone. Wrong. A few minutes later I realized that Manuel had doubled back, screened from me by a house, and suddenly reemerged near my car. He screamed out the question "50 cents man?" It was all crystal clear now. I shook my pockets wishing I had a couple of quarters. Nothing. "No Manuel . . . NO!" I hollerd. But I watched in horror as he jumped into the Mazda and, as I screamed "No, Manny don't do it!" Manuel floored it, bouncing off the road as he left the sidewalk onto the pavement and laying a fair amount of rubber. The Mazda was gone.

Or was it? Coincidence, or perhaps destiny, can be a remarkable thing though and a Springfield police cruiser came around the corner just moments after Manuel's betrayal. I ran into the street arms flailing away. The cruiser swerved slightly to avoid me and though I noticed the lone officer looking curiously into the rear view mirror, there was no change in speed as he crested and then disappeared over the same hill as Manuel. Indeed - the Mazda was truly gone.

12 hours later I was on my way to the Poconos and wouldn't get a police update until the next night: "Mr. Williams…that car is still stolen."

Actually, I never saw it again.

Around Amherst

If you don't offer this you can't stay in business.



The Jolly Rogers atop a UMass partyhouse.



I stopped in at Amherst's historic West Cemetery.



I wanted to check in on Miss Emily.

Status Update: Still dead.

Some of the stones have been damaged by vandals.



If the vandals don't get you, time will.



Nothing lasts.

Today's Video

This was a monster hit in 1973.