New Horizons by Max Roy

         ONE  View Of World History We know the Neanderthals were replaced by Homo sapiens. It is thought that one of the big differences between the two was the latter’s capacity to tell stories. With that comes the ability to elaborate larger regimes, many supporting the ideas of a leader to foster large projects like kingdoms. Archeologists tell us about the ancient regimes, in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In the latter we know about the Sumerian civilization leading to the Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) supremacy. The Pharaohs of Egypt ruled to the south. When the persecuted Jews bolted from Egypt, settling ultimately on both sides of the river Jordan, they persisted as a minor ethnic entity at the pleasure of the giant empires of the region. What distinguished them was their non-material monotheism in a pagan world. Akhenaton of Egypt offered the Sun God to the Egyptians during his reign, but this monotheism was buried at his death witho...

                      Can I Forget Thee? Jews are descendants of the Judeans who inhabited a scrap of Middle-eastern territory called Judaea for some two thousand years. They were a dispersed people whose members wandered the face of the earth, yet retained a cohesion in sufficient numbers to create a unique culture that marked them. During their passage, the message Jews shared with the peoples of the world has been adopted in various forms by billions on this planet, impacting their lives in important ways. Some 2000 years ago, a process of dispersion began when the Roman Empire, under whose rule they were at that time, tired of their rebelliousness. Over the next sixty years, much of the population that survived the continuous uprisings was sold off into slavery. Concentrations remained in the northern Galilee and Jerusalem. The model of community living that was established in J...

  Summing Up Finding a Heroic Purpose   Today, it was a beautiful day in Vancouver. As often as not, we have had sun here rather than rain. It was truly glorious.   I am hoping for more of the same this year. I am hoping for the same for the rest of my life. I have reached an age when I am counting my blessings. I am a happy man with my Bride by my side. My kids are flourishing and they even call me up to see how I am doing. If it rains too much I can pick up and move to a place where the sun shines. I can read about the storms and watch them on TV. I can even dial them on my Iphone. I can see the snow and ice without feeling their bite. I can watch the suffering of multitudes from the safety of my armchair. I am rubbing my tummy. Things are good, right? I left the workaday world almost twenty-five years ago. Is that what we are supposed to do then, we rest on our laurels? Do we creep off to some corner to quietly wait for an unheralded end? Is that what happens...

      Thinking About Liberation There’s nothing like a war of aggression to get us thinking about how great it makes us feel if we think we are free. That question makes me wonder whether feeling free is the same as actually being free, I wonder if Russians feel they are free when we believe they are living under a despotic regime with a government that lies to them about realities and physically suppresses opposition. What about countries that live under regimes that we know are despotic. What about revolutionary movements that seek to install their own form of despotism? Do we have to choose between them? Then I think about us, and how even democratic governments sometimes lie to the people who believe they live in a free country. Then I think about the U.S. and how so many of the states in America have gerrymandered districts to diminish the value of some people’s votes. How many states are passing legislation to make voting more difficult for some people. A...

              What have You Done For Us Lately? You may have noticed that there are more of us older folk surviving to an advanced age. Better care and medical advances are improving the chances of surviving the challenges we are likely to face with advancing age. Many have overcome earlier threats we have faced in our lives that have winnowed the ranks of our contemporaries. But age is taking its toll. We are losing some of them every day, witness the obituaries we get to read. When we read some of these obituaries we are astounded at the accomplishments that we did not know of. To most of us they were just old guys and gals that we had encountered in our community. What they did, what they were, however, has withered away to insignificance over the years. Their importance to us flowed only from what they meant to us in our day to day lives. It may have been so even for most of those who were very close to them. That seems to be the way ...

            What Do We Really Want? Where did that question come from? We’re going along happily enough, doing the humdrum routine that has its comforts. Then this nagging question comes along. And it does come along because there’s something nagging in our insides, something we haven’t totally digested. We don’t always do what we really want to because, one way or another, we believe, maybe, we know, the price will be too expensive, more than we are ready to have ourselves pay. There are so many kinds of costs, not only those involving money.   It may be self-esteem. Aren’t we all a fraid of looking like a fool in front of people we respect? Or we are in a committed relationship and yet we really feel like doing something that will put that relationship, and all the resources you have invested in it, in jeopardy?     So you just shrug your shoulders metaphorically and go on doing what you are doing. But you don’t forget...

           What About Lying? Some people have a thing about the truth. They believe we should always be honest, tell people the brutal truth about what you believe even if hurts people’s feelings, damages relationships, closes doors to collaboration that would be ultimately beneficial to all parties. The truth has to be that it’s complicated. I don’t like to lie and I dislike liars. At the same time I don’t like to be unkind in the face of ignorance. I think that one should be willing to admit when one does not know something rather than offer assurances regarding matters that one is not qualified on which to offer an opinion. It is much more honest to say that one is not qualified to offer an opinion rather than offering empty assurances just to make people feel a little better about a situation which is fraught with negative possibilities. I am excluding situations of outright efforts to deceive and people who lie like they breathe. W...