Entranced

Last night, I enjoyed a free tuna sandwich at Subway®. Then, I tried another fruit yogurt bowl creation at Jamba Juice®. My goal is to modify my diet yet again to insure good nutrition, which is actually a fruitless endeavor for an old codger. Oh well.

This morning, I ran into my formerly-homeless buddy when I arrived in town on the bus. He invited again to join the homeless for free food at A'ala Park, courtesy the church group that he volunteers with. Then, I espied a certain fitness and training hottie at the gym. Baby was looking mighty fine. With her long hair down for the first time, I was even more entranced. Of course, baby has not come around yet. That is why my mention of her will be brief.

After my workout at the gym, I decided to ride the bus to A'ala Park. Upon arrival, I quickly located the church group that had set up a small stage for religious sermons and a serving table for free food. My formerly-homeless buddy was there to greet me. There were myriad homeless loitering everywhere in the park. Only a handful of them were in the seating area for the sermons. I declined to partake of the food, even though my formerly-homeless buddy had invited me. The ambient squalor and dereliction only served to remind me that I did not belong there, not yet anyway.

Finally, I was particularly struck by a recent commentary on the [deleted] site about the Rosetta mission and the landing of the Philae probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a small celestial body about 300 million miles from Earth. An excerpt:

The scientific achievement stands out all the more starkly against the disastrous trajectory that the ruling classes are plotting, which threatens to plunge the world into the abyss.

This weekend, the leaders of the G20 are gathering in Australia amidst a growing geopolitical crisis provoked by the increasingly aggressive warmongering of the major imperialist powers. In Europe, the crisis in Ukraine once again has the US and Western Europe at the throat of Russia. In the Pacific theater, Australia, Japan and a host of other countries are being arrayed by the US to contain China. In the Middle East, the Obama administration has launched and is rapidly expanding a new war in Iraq and Syria.

Vast sums are squandered on the means of death and destruction. The United States alone spends well over half a trillion a year to maintain its military and intelligence apparatus—compared to the $1.75 billion dedicated to the Rosetta mission. It has been estimated that the war in Iraq from 2003-2011 will end up costing upwards of $4 trillion.

Then there are the sums allocated to the financial aristocracy, the untold trillions handed out to the banks to prop up the stock markets and fuel the engorgement of the super-rich. Moreover, as they drive humanity toward a dead end, the ruling elites in every country are resurrecting, in political and ideological form, all that is backward, anti-scientific and reactionary.

Scientific achievements such as the comet landing are an important reminder that humanity is capable of great things, both within and outside the confines of the Earth’s atmosphere. They point to possibilities whose realization depends on the independent political mobilization of the working class, which must emerge as the defender of everything that is progressive.

That pretty much sums up my own conclusions about the sad state of humanity.