Thursday, January 27, 2011

Splitting Wood and Arianna


A neighbor dropped by today with his gasoline powered wood splitter. I wasn't about to tell him not to split our wood (despite having romantic visions of splitting the wood myself with human power). I helped out for a bit before the pain from this healing-quite-slowly rib told me it was time to head inside and watch Chris Matthews. Priorities.

So, thanks to the kindness of a neighbor, we have more than enough wood split to last us through the winter. Not that we need it now. We've had about the nicest January that I can remember. Sunny and warm. T-shirt weather. Great to be outside.

And I finished Arianna Huffington's Third World America. When Arianna talks on the pundit shows on TV, I can never understand a word she says. She speaks with a thick Greek accent. Reading her, I can understand her points. As for the book? Lots of research from a Liberal perspective; fairly harsh on Obama (with justification). The book is about the decline of the middle class, a category we cling to up here at this mountain homestead. With success (so far).

I've never read a book by Arianna Huffington before. I've always been rather turned off by her involvement, chronicled in the Doonesbury cartoons, with a group called the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. Their leader is a guy by the name of John-Roger; a typical California New Age Woo Woo group with a charismatic leader who lives an extravagant lifestyle while his followers are encouraged to tithe to his church. However, they are mostly harmless, quite similar to Eckankar (John-Roger studied with Eckankar, and seems to have borrowed much of their cosmology).

My problem with all these New Agey, Astro-projection and other worldly spirituality is that it leads to neglecting this Earthly plane that really is our home. As Thoreau said: "One world at a time". Exactly.

I also have a hard time with a Guru who drives a Lexxus. I like my Gurus poor. Ordinary. Lower middle class. Nothing pisses me off more than a religious leader who has an investment portfolio the size of New Hampshire, a house larger than a State Park and a car that costs more than what the average RN earns in two years.

Back to the book. A good read. And I have more admiration for her Huffington Post, which seems to be increasing its influence.




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