2007 - Welcome to TIVOland

2007 – Welcome to TIVOland

Now I understand. For many years I thought our American popular culture suffered from historical amnesia. Mistakenly this was attributed to condition to an excessive desire for material consumption coupled with a decline in reading skills. Then I discovered TIVO, and it all became clear.

The TIVO technology illustrates the subjectivity of time, if not space. We can now so manipulate (rewind and/or) the “live” images on TV that “real time” is all but lost, or just a reference point, if that. TIVO has become the lived metaphor in which we live.

Perhaps this explains how the architects of the Iraq War have kept alive the projection of “victory.” By constantly replaying 9-11 it has become a perpetual present. The “real time” present can be bypassed by just never advancing TIVO far enough. Denial of the real present is a major benefit of those who live in TIVOland. Happiness can be found in just replaying carefully selected images (photo opportunities like “Mission Accomplished” of the past.

We need tot fear the reality of 2007. In TIVOland we can just keep adjusting the image. Now I understand why G.W. believes that doing more of the same is the best new strategy for “victory” in Iraq.

Happy New Year and write to your Senators and members of congress to help us accept the reality of 2007!

Cheers,

Merle

A Fitting Holiday

These “Holiday” times are rich with religious and cultural metaphors – birth and new beginnings, festivals of lights, celebrations of the earth and sky, but what does it all mean? Our present is an “in between” time.

We are caught with one foot in the pre-modern world of religious story and myth. It is a world of cosmological metaphysics, laced with magic and childish wishful thinking. In that world of supernatural revelations and ritual we are given hope and meaning. Yet our other foot is firmly planted and direction set in a post-modern world. There we are free from the baggage of superstitions, but also alone. Our freedom has come at a price. Our cosmology is now an expanding universe of infinite galaxies and dark matter. And our human time and place in this scale of things is so infinitely recent and small.

So in this schizophrenic age we can begin to create new metaphors that speak the truth. Perhaps if we acknowledge our fragility in this universe and leave behind the religious dogmas and metaphysics that separate us, we can find ways to bond with others. Ironically, it is perhaps only by moving beyond religion that we can find the peace that religions always sought, but never realized. Our salvation is in our humanity, not in religion.

So let Christians celebrate the prince-of-peace within each of us and Jews find the light within our humanity and the rest of us express the joy of giving. That would be a fitting Holiday.

Cheers,

Merle