Beyond the Numbers
A few weeks ago, I wrote that, no matter what we may think of its government's actions, Israel is a fairly healthy democracy--healthier, in fact, than ours is now. And here's further proof.
Next week, I'm going to take the wraps off some psychological research I've been doing into the leader of the free world. This is the kind of thing I have in mind. However, in case you haven't noticed, he's got plenty of company in the lunacy department: check out this nut and his baseball-is-like-Iraq rant. Do you think Jon Stewart is paying these people to feed him fresh material, right over C-Span?
I paid $25 to help get this ad about the Bush veto on the air; you may wish to have a look at it and decide for yourself.
Small money, indeed, but that's all I'm worth for now. But enough of all that, then. Here's a little piece about big money and statistics.
What can money not buy? It can buy the media; it can buy opinion or reputation; it can purchase a gleaming image, or a floating corporate island green in the middle of Rockefeller Center.
But it cannot buy sanity. In fact, when it comes to that, the more you use money, the further do you tend to drift from sanity. The more you rely on money to open doors around you, the further do you become unhinged within. The greater your dependence on purchase, the higher the cost to your true self. The slavish pursuit and use of money will inevitably trap you within a cage, whose four walls are conflict, conformity, estrangement, and cynicism.
Any one amid 300 million can be an American; any one among tens of thousands can become a representative of a great multi-national corporation; any one of about 2.5 million can be a millionaire; any one of billions can be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or a Buddhist. But to become your true self, to fully actualize the destiny that was born within you--that takes more than numbers. And less.
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Tomorrow: Harry Potter and the State
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