Babylon Boomerang

This post is in commemoration of the annual Babylon Boomerang that begins every December 26^th. In some countries, it is called “Boxing Day” in accidental acknowledgement of all the gifts (unwanted, unneeded) that giftees box up to return to the “free” market for cash (or preferably credit from the POV of a bait and switch Babylon).

Of course, for most giftees, cash is the preferential return which, in this world, in large measure, is the compensation they really needed in the first place, as in:

◦ a good job (including self-employment);
◦ good wages and benefits;
◦ generous returns for labors performed;
◦ lower mortgage / loan / credit-card rates;
◦ reasonable health, food, shelter, utility, education, & legal costs;
◦ etc., etc.

Surely, in this day of our sophistication, we can figure out a better way to give gifts that are needed and wanted—not for the building-up of Babylon, but so people can refocus from possessing things to having sufficient resources so they can devote their labors to improving and sharing the gifts and talents given of God for the good of all mankind.

Perhaps a lesson or two in the economics of Jesus might be helpful in turning this boomerang around:-)

http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/12/economics-of-jesus.html

http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2013/12/gods-economy-christmas-perspective.html

The Spruce Budworm Syndrome?

"The eastern version of the Spruce Budworm is Choristoneura fumiferana, which is one of the most destructive native insects in the northern spruce and fir forests of the Eastern United States and Canada. ... The catastrophe theory of budworm outbreaks holds that particularly major infestations occur every 40–60 years, as the result of a cusp-catastrophe event, whereby populations jump suddenly from endemic to epidemic levels."¹ (Bold emphasis added.)

Wall Street ~ 1907 Panic
By Soerfm (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

If one takes a stroll down Wall Street (and Memory Lane²) one can perhaps see the syndrome in epidemic action, at this very hour, in the budworm nursery of downtown New York City.

Budworms do not seem to cogitate that at some point all the trees that sustain them will be destroyed, especially when the infestation cycle becomes a spiral instead of a cycle, which is precisely where we are at, is it not? (And does it help that the NY nursery has a brisk export business in this era of globalization?)

So, if you are a budworm or a budding-worm, there was some drastic / radical / offensive advice given about 2,000 years ago (in prescience and déjà vu of our day?) that may help if you are sick and tired of being caught up in the down-spiraling syndrome:

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Where their worm dieth not,^[*] and the fire is not quenched.
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (New Testament Mark 9:43-48)

[*] Yes, a kind of immortality! but why, in blazes, choose that kind?!

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Budworm (Section titled “Eastern Spruce Budworm”
2. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/04/growth-funds.html ; http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vast-fund-of-stupidity-recycling.html