(I would like to say that on 9/11/01 I was working from the home office of a friend in Wisconsin. I spent the entire day sitting in front of the television watching in mute horror. The worst part wasn't the fact that I was 1000 miles from my family, it was the fact that I was helpless. I have always been a rather patriotic individual and spent my time "on the wall" in the navy. Anything in the article below that could be construed as critical is only present as a part of an objective view of the reality of the world in which we live. I wrote this prior to 9/11/02 and didn't publish it here out of respect to the memory of those were lost in the tragedy.)

The Winchester Star-Washington Post Writer Praises Clarke Schools

Mount Olympus Syndrome

For the last several weeks I've been drawn to the time period from 1945 to 1965. This has been the case often in my life but never with such personal content. I recently viewed several hours of an 8 part special on the history of New York. The segments that I viewed covered that time period (anachronistically) and the single most central theme was the life and work of Robert Morris. I recently wrote this piece (unpublished):

Robert Morris's New York

For over twenty years Robert Morris built New York. He built roads, bridges, parks, public housing and a pretty much everything else. He was the Pharonic Architect to the empire of New York. His vision was of a clean, sterile concrete edifice rising up to meet the sun between two rivers. It was founded on the needs of the automobile and the society that it promised to produce, the world of commuters and superhighways. People lived in the suburbs and drove to work in the morning. In the evening they either stayed in town to have fun, shop or enjoy cultural events or they drove home. People did not live in the city. Robert Morris regularly proved this by referring to people as 'animals' (reported in a personal conversation during the "history of New York" special) in context to their objection to being 'bulldozed' out of the way, like just another component of the debris pile, to make room for his highways. He was a part of the generation that believed in the power of the vision of the 1939 world's fair. That being the vision of tomorrow, the infinite and mechanistic city. Adolf Hitler was driven by the same vision and his architect, Albert Speer, painted the portrait in his design for the new Berlin. They saw Rome. Rome of imperial glory, Rome of smooth white marble and wide boulevards, sterile, frozen, inorganic Rome. They where all driven by the same vision that being a world free of the onus of people, the masses. populated by the elite only so that all of the social ills of civilization were cured by the simple act of exterminating, either directly or by ignoring them, the greater mass of humanity that is the source of the disease. Beyond this negative aspect, the sheer size of the vision and its expression in a growing, powerful, wealthy society was a effective combination. By the time of the construction of the United Nations building it was understood (in America at least) that New York was the world capital city and america was the first nation. We had become the most powerful nation militarily, the wealthiest nation economical and the most advanced nation politically. This vision was clear to us. It was not so clear to the rest of the world. From 1950 to the end of the century the world fought a desperate battle to hold out against the tide of American globalism and the new imperialism, the new world order, the new world empire. While we may be of the highest intention and seek the liberation of the people of the world from the prison of the past, poverty and political domination, we see only ourselves and our vision and expect others to join us. The vision of a global society is, however, a compelling one and truly global in scope. Perhaps not America's particular flavor but the same vision. The conflict between our (America's) dominance and the majority of the world population's differing views on the vision of the One World have lead to the conflicts of global terrorism and the increasing divide between the west and the east. This conflict culminated with the attack on the very symbol of, and birthplace of, the vision. New York. The capital of the world. This attack took the form of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the needless deaths of thousands. The falling of the towers was perhaps, the most powerful symbolic vision of all. It may be that this is the last gasp of the resistance as American globalism sweeps across the rest of the globe. Or it may be that this is the opening shot in a global conflict, a kind of amageddon . One way or the other, we are entering the 21st century. This will be the century of globalism and the beginnings of the world culture, the war will be over who's culture and where the capital city is.

'When great bulls fight, only the blades of grass are hurt'

When I wrote the article above I was over-whelmed by the unanimity and solidarity of the visions of these diverse men. The title of this article is "Mount Olympus Syndrome". It seems a fitting diagnosis of the nature of that vision as those who suffer from it often seem to alienate and devalue "the masses", those who in the great pyramid of humanity and human society occupy the bottom 1/3. What a perfected and serene place the earth would be if only the unwashed and impoverished "bottom 1/3" would go away. This would leave the middle 1/3 to carry out the necessary tasks of society, such as, engineering, accounting, road-building and the like leaving the top 1/3 to carry on the real work of the human race. personal achievement. Learning. Conquest. Me. Me. Me.

I therefor, and in consideration to my personal lack of education, declare myself to be a "bottom 1/3'er". I would like to also announce the discovery of a group-mind psychosis. Mount Olympus Syndrome" a mildly schizophrenic condition marked by a belief in the existence of sterile and timeless realm that the patient is compelled to build in which the individuals own personal flaws are mitigated by the exclusion of the most visibly damaged individuals, the "bottom 1/3'ers". This syndrome has cost the lives of 10's of millions of people since the beginning of the 20th century. Treatment is highly advised

I watched a movie last night with my son. It was a rather realistic portrayal of one of the first battles of the Vietnam war ("We Were Solders") I was struck by the effect of seeing reality on television. The mythologist, James Campbell, likened the television to "the new campfire of the technological age". We receive the vast majority of our knowledge and awareness of the world through it. Our children are educated by it. Even in tribal Africa villages often have at least one working television. The universe has become an image on a box. After the movie was over the sci-fi classic "Running Man" came on. The prophetic, dystopian quality of watching that movie in the year 2002 was pointed and stilling. Reality television has become the fastest growing class of "entertainment" around the world. The few who, being in "Hollywood" and "Madison Ave.", are given the job of broadcasting to us are the priests of the truth and we are their acolytes. With the coming of the internet and the growth of high speed access we are moving into an even greater age of communication. One in which all will broadcast to all and the mysteries of chaos theory and neural networking will create a De Facto Group-mind. We are far past the point where we can speculate as to whether the human mind is an isolated phenomenon. Whether or not the capacity to communicate from mind to mind directly, or asynchronously, or to draw from a pool of common thought ever existed, it does now.