Reflection on Good Friday

Has darkness triumph'd?
Why call we this Friday "good",
Yet mourn our dark deeds?

Before light, darkness.
Before resurrection, death.
Before joy, mourning.

The story ends not here!
The coming triumph of Light
Makes this Friday good.

And to you my friends,

Why call ye this Friday "good",

How understand you?

The Gods of The Copybook Headings

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, school children were given notebooks in which to practice their penmanship. The top of each page was imprinted with a short proverb or maxim. Children wrote these sayings over and over by hand down the page as they practiced forming their letters.

The Copybook Headings encapsulated old fashioned common sense. Henry Ford wrote "Most of the wisdom of the world was in the copy books. The lines we used to write over and over again, the homely old maxims on which we practiced to obtain legibility of our p's and q's, were the essence of human wisdom."  (Ford Ideals, 1922)

In 1919, a 53 year old Rudyard Kipling wrote of the timeless values expressed in copybooks in his poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings. In his poem, Kipling sets unchanging gods of the copybook headings against the temporary and mortal gods of the market place. The gods of the market place representing the gods of the here and now, the gods of temporary fads such as Dutch tulip bulbs, dot com stocks and mortgage backed securities. 

Kipling writes:

"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

What did you write over and over to practice your letters?

Did you have a copybook? 

What did the gods of the copybook headings say to you?

The Game Afoot!

It was late March. Naturally it was snowing. I stared out the window at the black and white world in front of 221B Baker Street, contemplating the swirling patterns as my friend read his newspaper.

I heard the paper rustle as it dropped to the floor.

The piercing eyes fixed on me.

"The game is afoot, Watson!" he said with excitement.

"Game, Holmes?" said I. "Of what game are you speaking? Surely you are not caught up in the March Madness."

"Not that game," said he. "I speak of the great game, the game of funding local government."

"But certainly, Holmes, our Board of Supervisors consider their annual funding exercise much too serious for it ever to be a game," said I.

"Nonetheless, Watson, it is a game." said he, "Regardless of the dedication of our esteemed Supervisors, establishing the annual spending plan and setting the tax rate is all one great game. There are rules and objectives, moves and counter moves, winners and losers."

I raised an eyebrow and was rewarded with a pained expression. An explanation would be given.

"The game is played are as follows:

County agencies submit funding requests based on what they spent last year plus reasonable growth. The objective of each agency is to maximize funding so their requests are always inflated but never so much as to be rejected out of hand."

"Staff consolidates, clarifies, and rationalizes the requests to produce a draft spending plan."

"The Board meets in a series of long, grueling and sometimes acrimonious working sessions to adjust the budget and establish the tax rate."

"Projected revenues seldom meet requested spending so the Board requests agencies trim their budgets to within some specified target."

"Then the fun begins. Agencies propose draconian cuts to popular programs and make bold appeals for public support to restore funding. Supervisors gravely warn of a crushing tax burden. Both then eagerly await the outcry of impassioned pleas from an outraged citizenry begging 'Please don't cut funding to my pet program,' and 'I will gladly pay higher taxes.'"

The Board smiles. They have achieved the victory they seek -- increased tax revenue under the political cover of an overwhelming volume of citizen requests."

"Agencies smile too. They have achieved their victory -- maximum funding with which to finance bureaucratic bloat."

"Only the taxpaying public loses."

"Egad, Holmes," said I, "That is positively sinister and cynical."

"Yes," said he. "Sinister and cynical though it be, that is how the game is played."

I looked at his paper. The headlines read. "Department of Public Education Proposes Closing Four Schools, Eliminating Freshman Sports, and Curtailing Fine Arts Programs. Appeals to Public for Support."

I was forced to agree. It's how the game is played.

How is the game played in your city, county or state?

What are the rules and objectives of the participants?

What is the sequence of moves?

Who wins and who loses?