Different rules?
On April 10 the Record Bee printed Stacey’s Letter to the Editor in which she posted the ten commandments found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible along with a very condensed version of the Communist Manifesto. She appears to have brought these two “rules” together to support a 17th century claim by a Quaker that people not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.
Being the curious type I wondered if the Muslim religion had anything like the ten commandments in their sacred book called the Koran or to give it’s strict transliteration, the Qur’an. Both the Bible and Koran claim to have the revealed word of God between their covers and none could doubt that both books have contained some of the most important influential messages to mankind with the Koran becoming more influential as Islam spreads.
So let’s see, in RSV Exodus 20:3 we find: “You shall have no other gods before me” and in the Koran 17:23 we find: “The Lord hath ordained that ye worship none but him” and in Exodus 20:7 we find: “Honor your father and mother” and in the Koran 20: 17 we find: “Kindness to your parents” and “speak to them both with respectful speech.” The remaining eight commandments in the Bible have corresponding passages in the Koran; there is no doubt about the similarities in both of these influential books.
The Communist Manifesto, which Stacey alludes to, is considered by many to be the world’s most influential political manuscript. We can debate forever whether the United States is headed for the communist side with our governmental actions. The Communist Manifesto concludes with a discussion about the role of Communists in seeking to make society equal for everyone; Marx wrote: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”
Finally Marx wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Greg Blinn, Kelseyville
A healthy life
The most dangerous drug in America is food. It causes 800,000 heart attacks a year, most of them a function of our high fat diet which leads to clogged arteries. When those arteries clog, blood flow to the heart constricts, and eventually closes completely, and when that occurs, all, or part of the heart muscle is starved of oxygen, and succumbs. Sadly, unlike other drugs, quitting altogether will kill you as well.
Everyone knows this by now, but when there is a showdown between reason and a cheeseburger, the lure of greasy bites flooding the taste centers somehow trumps the will to survive.
It gets worse: There is a new documentary out, called, “Cowspiracy.” It turns out that our lust for meat has led to the demand for billions of cows. Those cows produce more greenhouse gas (methane) than all the cars burning fossil fuel! Not only that, but every second an acre of rain forest is cleared for growing crops to feed the cows.
And cows need water. They need a lot of water. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to bring a thousand pound steer to market, and two gallons to grow a potato. Interestingly, a rational man could conclude that cows are killing us, killing the planet, and slurping up our dangerously diminishing water supply.
But, even more galling to me, is fat children. I have witnessed a young child walking to school with a bag of chips. And, I have seen that child and others walk the “fat person walk,” padding and wadding about, with their pants bulging. This is a form of child abuse. However, there is a caveat: Parents should not make a “big deal” out of their children’s weight; this will only create everlasting misery. Parents should keep their mouths shut and just put out healthy food to eat for their children.
Some parents with fat kids have no shame. A few months ago I was in the doughnut shop in Lakeport (yes, I occasionally sin) and I saw a fleshy, portly man with a pistol strapped on. Across the table was his pre-teenage son, showing clear signs of following in his father’s path to portliness. If you choose to be overweight, do so, but don’t drag you innocent children along with you. (God forbid that man had to chase a suspect on foot. Even if he caught the guy, I doubt if he would have enough breath left to read him his Miranda rights).
It is great fun to judge other people, but maybe talking about “fat” merely begs the question: Why are people so miserable and unhappy that they behave so self-destructively? We, in America, have so much food and so much material wealth. If we act like we can’t get enough, perhaps all that “stuff” is not what we really need.
Nelson Strasser, Lakeport
