By Noel Carroll
Do you ever wonder in what part of the human body the immortal soul spends its time? I mean, it has to be in there somewhere; everyone says it leaves "the body" when you die. But where is it exactly? Is a foot important enough to house a soul (Is that where the word came from?)? How about an ear (a smaller soul, of course)?
I’ve heard it said that the elusive little devil is everywhere in the body, that it permeates each and every atom of each and every human being. Sounds nice, but "nice" has little to do with fact. "Nice" leaves you with questions, like what happens when some of those atoms get lost, in the amputation of a limb, for example. If the soul impregnates every atom, loosing a leg would mean a piece of your soul takes off for Heaven (or wherever), there to wait for the rest of you to catch up--this assumes, of course, that someone does the right thing for the poor leg, gives it a decent burial, that is. Now it might be a little hard for the average guy to swallow, but part of this idea I like. I mean, since the soul already has a foothold in that holiest of holy places, it would give the remainder of you a leg up.
Okay, so maybe it doesn’t change anything if an arm or a leg is lost. Maybe the soul makes do with whatever atoms are left, hopefully without making a fuss about being squeezed into lesser quarters. But when I carry the loss of body parts a step further, then a step beyond that, I get to really worrying……
To read further, visit "The Vault" of STEEL CAVES, a U.K. Webzine
Return to top of Home Page
EDITORIALS
=====================
News-speak
on oil drilling
There is so much deceit coming out of the Bush
administration that it brings one to wonder two things: how this administration
can toss out obvious fiction and think the public will fall into lock step
behind it and how anyone can fail to realize that he is being conned.
Bush is now pretending that he has been
fighting Democrats all along to lift the ban on coastal drilling. It was Reagan
(a Republican), however, who introduced the ban, and it was vigorously upheld
by George H.W. Bush as president and Jeb Bush as
governor of
We cannot use the inconvenience of $4 gasoline
to justify stealing our children's future. Yet in insisting on short-term
solutions to a long-term problem, we do exactly that; we sacrifice morality in
the name of momentary gratification. We caused this problem by our inept
management of energy and by failing to recognize 35 years ago that this day
would come. And having caused it, we should solve it; i.e., it is we who should
be inconvenienced not our children. Bad enough that we are living on money we
have no intention of paying back. Bad enough that our children's rite of
passage to maturity will include being greeted with a dept so huge that there
is little hope they will be able to handle it.
Bush is questionable, but Sen. John McCain is
smart enough to know that offshore or Alaskan drilling is at best window dressing.
But then, McCain is running for president, and that has corrupted the morals of
many a person.
NOEL MUNSON, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Negotiating,
Bush style
President Bush stated recently in a speech in
front of the Israeli Knesset (and thus the entire world) that we should not
abide "appeasers," expanding the definition of this to mean those who
would hold talks with their enemies. To clarify, he added, "As if some
ingenious argument will persuade them they had been wrong all along."
This explains quite a bit about the lack of
success the Bush administration has had in negotiating with foreign powers.
Bush apparently considers success in negotiating to be an all-or-nothing
proposition, that the goal should be not to work toward an agreement both sides
can live with, but to insist that those on the other side admit that "they
had been wrong all along."
That he believes this can be seen in his
constant assurances that he is ready to work with both sides of the isle in
Congress. He merely neglects to add, "as long as the Democrats admit that
they have been wrong all along."
NOEL MUNSON, Ponce Inlet
=====================
What
price denial?
Sen. John McCain has commented on the
"stain on our character" that would come from a "reckless,
irresponsible and premature" withdrawal from
How long before our arms tire? How much damage
will we bring to our national body while we await the inevitable, for surely we
cannot continue as is, hoping to convince our critics that a temporary
lessening of violence in
Wiser is to let go of the tiger and do the best
we can to escape the anger we provoked by our earlier foolishness. We have given
the warring factions of
Their bad is if their
country suffers as a result of what we will some day come to realize is
irrepressible intractability among its citizens. Our bad is if we fail to
realize that this intractability is 1,000 years in the making and will continue
regardless of what a naive superpower might choose to do in defense of what it
regards as its honor.
NOEL MUNSON, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Energy
'policy'
Whatever slithers into power next January,
Republican or Democrat, has to come up with a better
energy policy than we have at present. We have lost another eight years of
planning while at the same time let stand a situation whereby our rapidly
increasing energy dollars are not staying in the
Worse, this senseless war in
What possible twist of moral reasoning would
permit our oil-biased leaders to consider the current "policy" to be
in the best interests of their country?
NOEL MUNSON, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Beware
of sleeping giant
Our status of "superpower" no longer impresses.
We have demonstrated quite effectively, through our efforts in Iraq and through
careless disregard for foreign opinion in what we do and how we do it, that we
are vulnerable, that we can and do make mistakes, and that we are as
"human" as the rest of the world in our inability to instantly heal a
perceived wrong.
In so demonstrating, and in so encouraging the terrorists
that they have more of an opening than before, we must expect an escalation of
violence. Having revealed our limitations and our vulnerabilities, it is likely
that the terrorists view us as more of a "paper tiger" than a
"sleeping giant." It is also likely that many nations around the
globe (and many Americans) see us the same way.
But what they (and we) have to realize is that we truly are
a giant, and that we will be awakened should the din around us reach such a
level that we will finally say, "Enough." When that happens, the giant
will forget his manners; he will react in a way the fanatics did not expect. A
man being smothered beneath a pillow will use any means available to save his
life. Such will be the case with us.
When faced with no alternative other than surrender to a
dark and primitive force, the sleeping giant in us will fight back using
whatever is within our reach. Like a bear called out of hibernation early, the
dark side in us will emerge with terrible consequences both to the enemy and to
our conscience. This might well involve weapons that will live in infamy in our
hearts even as we feel relief that the action we took saved us from imminent
suffocation.
NOEL
JOHN MUNSON, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Religion
and stem-cell research
Re "Bush vetoes stem-cell research bill: President encourages 'ethically responsible' study," article, June 21:
I suppose our only hope is to require of a prospective president
that he show some willingness to represent all of us, that he not be so
intractable in his beliefs that he negatively affects his fellow Americans.
There is a real possibility of gain for humanity in stem-cell
research, and we have lost years of promise (thus far) because of one leader's
inability to separate his spiritual beliefs from his duty to his fellow
citizens.
Why isn't it equally as valid to assume, not that this stem-cell
breakthrough is some kind of test of our morals, but that it is a hint from God
that we should employ our (God-given) brain, our curiosity and a promising
opportunity to further the cause of his humanity?
When Ben Franklin went to
The point is, religious beliefs can vary
to the point of absurdity. Our founding fathers recognized the deep resentment
that could stem from one group's imposing the finer points of its spiritual
beliefs on those who did not share those beliefs. Best for the leader of a free
country such as ours that he or she moderate his or her thinking to the point
where it does not inadvertently become law imposed upon disbelieving others,
which this "reluctance" to conduct research on to-be-discarded
embryos has become in a de facto sense.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Err on which side?
I have spent years trying to
decide for myself what to believe and what to doubt about global warming (as
opposed to consulting the ideological bible of my party to see what is proper
to believe). I have expressed that ambivalence to my friends. Where I am now,
however, is doubting the doubters more than the
advocates, and as more and more evidence appears to slide to their side of the
equation, I become more and more concerned.
Not for me, since my years will
protect me from the worst of our environmental abuses, but for those I leave
behind. And I have increasingly fewer doubts that those left behind will
someday look back at us with "how could you" contempt.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
Convenient
reasoning and firings
The Democrats,
embarrassed at being caught conducting
In a perfect world
(which neither party seems anxious to achieve), this practice of trying to
shape law through manipulation of prosecutors would be regarded as
indefensible. This is but another example of convenient reasoning, where a
carefully coifed, perennially smiling politician waves the American banner of
freedom even while contemplating abridging that freedom however it best suits
his or her ideological purpose.
Benjamin Franklin,
when asked what will our new government be, a kingdom or a republic, answered,
"A republic, if you can keep it." Step by tiny step we are proving
ourselves incapable of doing so. Proving that even a nation "so conceived
and so dedicated" can be lost through cynicism and neglect.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce
Inlet
=====================
True
threat to way of life in
In 1973 we were
alerted to the fact that energy as we know it can no longer be regarded as
secure, that increasingly we must rely on uncertain others to satisfy our
energy needs.
Thirty-three years
later we express indignation over the suggestion that we should restrict our
enjoyment of energy-wasting SUVs. Or, for that matter, anything else that our
freedom-loving minds insist is a God-given right.
Even now, with our
energy lifeline increasingly in monstrous hands, we show little recognition of
the danger facing our nation. We speak of
NOEL CARROLL,
Ponce Inlet
=====================
Respect for
presidency but with eyes wide open
It has been suggested
that we should respect the office of the presidency. I agree. That office means
something to Americans and in a sense personifies us all. It has also been
suggested that we need to come together as one people with one voice while we
fight the war in
The problem,
though, is that the parts to these dogmas do not so easily fit. In Richard
Nixon's day, for example, should we have respected the office of the presidency
by lowering our eyes and our rhetoric when confronted with his excesses? And
should we now agree to further commit our nation's blood and resources solely
to present an illusion of unity?
Such are the
weighty matters that keep people of conscience up until the wee hours.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce
Inlet
=====================
Helping or
hurting?
We advocate staying
the course in Iraq in the name of necessity, the need to guard our flanks
against the growing threat of terrorism. But is there any chance that what we
are doing there will serve this purpose? Daily we discover that the opposite is
more likely, that by insisting on maintaining what was a poor approach from the
start, we weaken our ability to fight the real enemy, Islamic extremists.
If a large corporation
saw disaster where once it saw hope for a brighter corporate future, it would
not hesitate to cut its losses; to do otherwise would be to breach a fiduciary
responsibility to its stockholders. It would not try to hang in there simply to
con those stockholders into believing it had not made a mistake, that the
ongoing drain on company resources is necessary to keep competitors from moving
in. I had always thought Republicans were business-savvy.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce
Inlet
=====================
2 SIDES TO UNDERSTANDING
Regarding the Pope's
unfortunate reading of Islamic history, I have since seen Muslims rioting,
others burning Christian churches. Then I read about their vowing war against
"worshipers of the cross."
What in this
disproves the notion that Islam is a religion tainted by violence? What is the
logic of our calling for understanding of these fanatics while failing to
insist in an equally loud voice that they try to understand us?
JOHN BARR, Ponce Inlet
=====================
America losing
scientists
What wonders will
yet be denied our world through human minds bent by ideology?
In
With an expanding
global economy and with our immigration laws so weakened, a serious chewing gum
advocate could come to our country to escape the imposition of unreasoned
opinion upon his gum. And (as is happening) our most promising scientists can
abandon the United States for Singapore's more reasoned approach to stem cell
research. Problem solved!
The thing is,
though, that the immigrating chewing gum advocate might benefit our country,
whereas the vanishing scientists will definitely not. With them will go all the
benefits of their inventions. How many times in
history has progress been delayed because the human psyche is so fearful of
change? And so certain that the forces of nature and of nature's god will
strike them ill for considering it?
A solid example is
the history of smallpox vaccination (1700s). The scientist involved was
condemned by clerics as immoral and blasphemous. The concept of vaccination
usurped God's power to decide the beginning and end of life. Vaccination was a
tool of the devil. How many people died of smallpox as a direct result of such
narrow thinking? How many will either die or live less promising lives because
such minds still influence matters today?
I agree with
whoever said the administration's policy on stem cell research will keep
American science locked in the past.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce
Inlet
=====================
Democracy at
work
Regarding the recent
congressional debate on the war, could it be the real concern of our
"leaders," on both the left and the right, is the image they present:
somber face, wrapped in a flag and waving a Bible, their most-favored profile
turned to the camera as they shoot visual darts at their misguided adversaries?
On one side, we have pathetic denial; on the other, a gleam in the advocate's
eyes that takes little stock of the lives and resources sacrificed on the path
to this brief political advantage.
Ain't democracy wonderful?
NOEL CARROLL,
Ponce Inlet
=====================
On Oct. 22, 1962,
President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation about the missile crisis in
The man currently
leading
It is time for
another Kennedyesque promise to an incautious enemy.
We should loudly proclaim to the population of Iran that, "it shall be the
policy of this nation to regard any nuclear material determined to originate in
Iran and delivered in any manner to the shores of the United States as an
attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory nuclear
response upon Iran."
I do not know the
extent to which we can identify the signature (fingerprint) of
NOEL CARROLL,
Ponce Inlet
=====================
In response to recent
scenes depicting Shiites bombing Sunnis in retaliation for Sunnis bombing
Shiites, my wife made the comment that the
I recall that
during the '60s and early '70s the often-repeated comment that we should
declare victory (in
This war will not
end well no matter what we do, and our inability to bring ourselves to admit this
(which is to admit failure) will only add to the final bill. Our leaders (and
some of us as well) made a colossal mistake, one that is costing us dearly in
resources, in lives and in hopes for a secure future.
We and much of the
civilized world, have for some time been suffering the wrath of illiterate and
intractable religious extremists, closed-minded people trained from birth to be
tolerant of no thoughts other than their own. Our poorly conceived and poorly
executed actions in
Trapped as we are
in
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
TIME TO CHECK, CHANGE
The
Democrats must wake to the need for both organization and change. They have to
get together and speak with one voice (or at least one theme), and they have to
drop the portion of their dogma that no longer sells. There has been an overt
shift to the right in this country, and failing to recognize this will doom the
Democrats to yet another failure at the polls and the country to a further
deterioration of what got us here.
The
electorate is fearful of U.S. Sen. Teddy Kennedy and anyone who looks or sounds
like him, as was proved last year when a fresh Democratic nominee could not
unseat a seriously weakened president.
Whatever
one's leanings, right or left, one cannot fail to understand and appreciate the
value of the middle class in this country. Its members are fading, and with
them will go their spending power and its positive effect upon our economy.
(That affects the more affluent as well. What value is there in owning stock if
fewer and fewer people can buy the company's products?)
Rather
than couple the loss of jobs with a rededication to education (which could
create higher-level jobs), we practice political correctness and lower the
educational expectations of those whose cultural and/or economic background
puts them at a disadvantage. We think it unfair to make them work harder, even
when not to do so practically guarantees them a lesser place in society.
Then
we top this all off by proclaiming our new world to be of one religion,
tolerant of all the lesser beliefs, to be sure, but worthy of our proclamation
because, in this country if not the world, "we" are in the majority.
(For the record: There are hundreds if not thousands of Christian groups in this
country with none holding a majority.)
This
new world we create in innocence and ignorance is in reality a speedy trip to
the past, to the time of the haves and have-nots, to larger and larger pockets
of ignorance and the desperate and often distorted ideas (and actions) that
stem from this ignorance. And to what has been throughout all of mankind's
recorded history, highly destructive and totally senseless battles for
supremacy, one religion vs. another.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
WEEPING MOM'S POTENT MESSAGE
The
loss of a son or daughter in combat strikes me as almost impossible for a
parent to bear. Surely more than one life is affected (if not destroyed) by not
only the fatality but the sense-lessness of the
event. What logic is there in one set of human beings trying so hard to
mortally reduce the numbers of an opposing set of human beings? What brass ring
of the moment justifies the proud waving of the winner's superior body count?
Yet
I am plagued with the thought of what we might have become had the parents of
World War II the same access to publicity as is available to the mother who was
protesting in Crawford, Texas. Four hundred thousand of our soldiers died
during that horrible conflict, exponentially more than we have lost in the
current madness in
Consider
what the course of events would have been had access to our homes and hearts
been so effortless during one of the worst crises we have ever faced. Absorbing
a daily dose of passion from 400,000 mothers in rightful anguish, would we have
done what was necessary to protect ourselves from the madmen we faced at the
time? Would we have thrown our young people into Tarawa, the
Will
we ever be able to face an enemy again, even a real one such as we faced then?
Will each set of weeping eyes weaken our resolve that much further? Along with
so much else that troubles our conscience these days, this is something we must
think about.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
THE KEY TO
KARL ROVE'S SUCCESS
Re presidential adviser Karl Rove: Ultimately, it is we the people who
must take responsibility for what our political leaders do or say. We are the
"Johns" seduced by what they are selling. (Or we are naive about the
ability of our democracy to endure complacency.)
Rove is an exceptionally gifted politician, and he is listened to by
many, in particular those who wish to stay in office and are not particularly
disturbed by what it takes to keep them there. By definition, though, Rove is
exceptionally gifted only when we are exceptionally responsive to his
persuasion. Or restated, when we are exceptionally slow in
recognizing devious rather than responsible argument.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
=====================
BLAME ON BOTH
SIDES
Is the other guy
blameless? Newsweek magazine made a mistake; no one argues with that. In
declaring this to be so, then exploiting it, social pundits argue
"responsibility" (or, in this case, lack thereof). They point to the
riots that ensued, the death and destruction that resulted from Newsweek's
error. No one can argue with this either.
But what logic
dictates that responsibility is one-sided? Why is there no outcry about the
uncivilized behavior of so many thousands (perhaps millions) of people so quick
to demonstrate the ease at which they can be inflamed? Why are their actions
overlooked, with the blame for the death and destruction they bring to their
own people passed on to Newsweek?
Why do we not share
with them our own outrage? Why do we not point out how hypocritical it is that
they insist on tolerance of their beliefs while seeing no need to be tolerant
of ours? Hypocritical that they view with indifference (or pleasure) the sawing
off of a Westerner's head, yet rise with an inflated sense of injustice when a
Westerner forces one of them to appear nude in a photograph? Beyond hypocrisy,
this demonstrates a set of values that, to our Western eyes, borders on
barbarity if not out-and-out evil. Certainly there is nothing there that will
aid our efforts to provoke a higher level of civility among the citizens of
this crowded world.
Responsibility is a
two-way street; the rioters in the Muslim world are responsible for what they
do, not Newsweek magazine. If advocates of Islam (or any of the world's many
religions) are so lacking in control of their emotions and so reluctant to
educate their people to other than their own point of view, then it is they who
must assume the lion's share of the blame. It appears at the moment that they
are getting a free ride, that those in the media are fearful of pointing even a
tiny finger of evenhandedness their way.
NOEL CARROLL,
Ponce Inlet
=====================
Community Voices
THE FAULT,
DEAR BRUTUS, LIES NOT IN THE STARS, BUT CLOSER TO HOME
By NOEL CARROLL
Federal budgets are
rocketing out of sight, with ramifications to our economy that are absolutely
frightening, for ourselves as well as for our posterity.
How is our government able to pursue policies that openly ignore this? Is it
possible that the "informed" electorate, from whom our government
receives all power, has its eye on the wrong ball?
The phrase
"weakening of our dollar" may sound esoteric and command little of
our thinking, but if this weakening happens too quickly, as now appears likely,
it will bring disruptions in jobs and prices throughout
The problem is that
we are asking foreign countries to buy more and more dollars to support our
debt, or restated, we are asking them to pick up the bill for the spending
excesses of Americans. Is it so surprising that they are, at long last,
beginning to say no? With our spending habits those of a college student
enjoying his first credit card, can you blame them?
How important is
this to the electorate? In the last election the weakening of the U.S. dollar
ranked well below the issue of same-sex marriage.
Interest rates are
poised to rise significantly, not only to combat inflation, as the Fed is
determined to do, but because of increased competition for dollars between
business and a government that needs more and more to cover its debt. Very few
of us will escape the results of this. Prices will rise, as will unemployment.
Jobs, those needed now and those needed as our children mature, will not be
created -- when money is tight and its cost is high, businesses do not invest
and jobs are not created.
How important is
this to the electorate? In the last election, keeping "under God" in
the Pledge of Allegiance was deemed more important.
We have a rapidly
growing fuel crisis in this country, and in ignoring it we feed the very people
who publicly vow to destroy us. Yet we, the electorate, dare any politician to
get in the way of enjoying our gas-guzzling SUVs or suggest higher gas taxes to
encourage conservation. Clever politicians, wishing to remain in office and
correctly measuring the mood of the people in this, smile obsequiously at our
excesses rather than employ the "bully pulpit" to gather us together
in a nation-saving cause.
How important is
this to the electorate? In elections since the crisis began in 1973, flag
burning was more of an issue.
An increasingly
favorite tactic among politicians is to seize upon issues that require little
thought but generate great emotions. The above suggests the electorate accepts
these lighter and more transient issues as reason enough for making a voting
decision. Such issues are easier to understand; they are promoted by important
faces, those of movie stars and rock singers. And who can vote down a person
who so strongly defends mother, apple pie and baseball?
There is a serious
stew of problems brewing in our country, and the electorate appears either not
to notice, or, if a tug of recognition has begun to leak through, not to
consider it their problem. They say, "That's what we hire politicians to
do! If they don't work out, we'll throw the bums out and get someone new,
someone young and exciting, someone who will tell us what we want to hear and
trouble our collective conscience no more!"
Aware, as a growing
number of people are, that there is a crisis that could threaten everything we
have managed to secure for ourselves in the 230 years of
Yet it is both
unfair and dishonest to blame the politicians. Politicians are prostitutes, they give their "customers" what they
want. Were we "customers" to revise our preference, the prostitutes
would assume a new position. We have the choice, we vote them in, we decide what is important, even if it is not.
Therefore the fault
for the mess we are in "lies not in the stars, but in ourselves."
Carroll,
an author, lives in Ponce Inlet.
=====================
CHURCH, STATE
SEPARATION
One of the wisest
things our founding fathers ever did was to recognize the destructive power in religion,
specifically the ready willingness of some to do harm to others (from subtle to
mortal) who do not share their opinion.
With thousands of
religions competing in today's world, all of them certain without a doubt that
they and only they hold the key to the truth, there exists a great potential
for conflict between individuals, between groups and between nations. Our
founding fathers, recognizing this, wisely elected to declare a separation
between that which we can handle and that which we clearly cannot, as history
to that point had proven. In a stroke, they removed the impediment for banding
together, none of us any longer having to resent his neighbor for being forced
to take note of a religious opinion not his own. Restated, we were able to advance
our country and the democratic concept without the constant drain of internal
turmoil.
To the extent we
forget the past (and indeed, the present, since much of the fighting around the
world reflects one religious belief battling another), we sow the seeds of our
own destruction. Countries come and go, and to keep ours going, we have to seek
the same penchant for wisdom as those who brought it into being. If we do not,
then we have only ourselves to blame if, step by tiny step, it begins to
crumble.
NOEL CARROLL, Ponce Inlet
Return to top of Home Page