Theseus and the Minotaur on 6th-century black-figure pottery F.decorate(_ge('photo_notes'),

History Channel has gone Greek today. Not in the sense of Gay Spartans, but from an ancient religious perspective.

You might recall that King Minos ruled Crete, the great island of the Mediterranean that kind of served as a mediator between ancient Egypt culture and the culture of ancient Greece.  We are talking about twelve or thirteen hundred BCE when we discuss these myths or religious mysteries.

Minos had Daedalus, the chief architect of the age, to build a great maze; a very confusing place much like our current Office of Management and Budget. And the mighty king put a Minotaur inside of the maze in order to eat people and wreck havoc and commit other unsavory acts. Theseus, the great Greek hero finds himself in the maze. His purpose is to slay the monster that is half human and half bull, kind of like what you might see on World Wrestling Tonight.

But the maze was soooooooooo confusing and all.  How did our hero ever find his way out once he completed his task?  Well Ariadne had a talk with Daedalus and he suggested she give Theseus a 'clue'. Clue was another word for string. As Hansel and Gretal find their way out of the spooky wood by dropping crumbs, Theseus would find his way out of the maze by tying a string to the point where he entered the maze and using the string to find his way back.

And string is better than crumbs. Unless birds suddenly become hungry for dried and processed hemp, I suppose.

See Theseus represents the new man, like Odysseus. He is not going to pray his way out of the maze although he might have uttered a few Hail Mary's on his way to do battle with the World Wrestling Champion. No. This new man has prepared himself for his journey without any aid from the gods.

Daedalus might have developed this 'string theory' but Theseus had to implement it. Incorporate the theory into his plan.

I am writing of this today because the story seems so compelling.

I mean seeing 'clue' as a string that will help us out of a maze is just awesome.

This really is the ultimate metaphor, or one of the first as a precursor to consciousness.

How much do you have to pay to keep from having to go through all these things twice?  Or how do we best keep from going over the same ground twice, or three times or ten times for that matter?

Well we need a clue. We need a ball of string. We need to follow the string back to the place from whence we entered the maze.  Assuming we tied the string properly to the place where we entered the maze.

We need to retrace our steps so to speak. Supposedly, that is why a good grasp of history is a good thing, like keeping a solid grasp upon the ball of string as we proceed through this maze.

Two or three thousand people showed up in DC to protest tea or taxes or taxes on tea and of course health care reform.

I could have set up a sidewalk sale in DC yesterday selling discounted Yankee T-Shirts and collected more than three thousand people.

God took the idiots including Bachman away from any coverage because some army shrink decided to kill twelve and wound another thirty.

These good people are attempting to find their way out of a maze.

The fascist from Iowa, Steve King tells us that 85% of all Americans are extremely happy about their health insurance coverage. 85%.  http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/patriot_games_gop_reps_pick_tea_party_rally_over_n.php?

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That is like saying that if we have 10% unemployment, then 90% of Americans are real happy with their jobs as well as their income. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/

This is the ultimate in deductive logic or dislogic I would suppose. If 45 million people have NO COVERAGE. Then we are to assume that 85% of Americans do have coverage because 45 million is fifteen percent of three hundred million.

Well how in the hell can 85% of Americans be happy about spending one thousand dollars a month  (on average) on a health insurance plan that cost five hundred dollars a month in 2000 and 250 dollars in 1990? How is that possible? Add to this problem the prediction that within seven or eight years that same American Family is going to have to come up with two thousand dollars a month for the same coverage.

And since the average income of an American Family of four is about 55 grand, well you do the math.

The fascist from Iowa would have us conclude that the 85% of the population who have some coverage, are extremely happy with that coverage. This is the same guy who voted against a minimum wage of seven bucks an hour for our workers.

 If you are making seven bucks an hour or three times that amount, you cannot afford one thousand dollars a month for health care. Hell you can barely afford that much for rent and utilities.

 Now what has this to do with the price of string?

 We need leaders with some clue as to how to lead us out of the maze(s).

 We are lost and we are aching and we cannot find our way home, we cannot find our way out of the mazes.

 Well there is some hope:

Palin has already launched the first scud missile in the coming conservative jihad, (naturally via Facebook): "To the tireless grass-roots patriots who worked so hard in that race and to future citizen-candidates like Doug," she wrote, "please remember Reagan's words of encouragement after his defeat in 1976: the cause goes on." What's more, South Carolina's Jim DeMint is signed up for the insurgency as well, promising to support the far right challenger in the race for California's Senate seat on the basis of her record of "rock solid conservatism" california-senate over former Hewlett-Packard chief executive and McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who was the leading candidate in that liberal state, despite her awful record both at HP and with McCain.

In all likelihood, the Democrats will lose a few more seats next year but will be poised to run in 2012 against a party that looks and sounds a lot like George W. Bush, and I'm guessing that "Not George Bush" is a slogan with at least as much staying power for Obama as "Blame Jimmy Carter" had for Ronald Reagan. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-05/why-democrats-are-smiling/2/

But do we have leaders who have a firm grasp of the ball of string? So I picked up this gem from Bill Maher today:

Logic tells me that really smart guys like Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they're doing than I do. They certainly know things I don't know. I think we have the same general goals and beliefs. And this is what they do for a living -- I wouldn't even try it. But I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog. It could have worked -- the country had given its endorsement to "...and now for something completely different." There might have been a way to knock the Republicans back on their heels right away, with the argument that "The American people demanded we make these changes, and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way."

We'll never know. Because that moment passed, and now it could follow the pattern of World War I and devolve into boring, static trench warfare where nothing really game changing happens while both sides slowly bleed to death.   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/is-this-as-good-as-it-get_b_343144.html&cp

Like Maher, I do not have access to the files. I have not been entrusted with the balls of string.

Hopefully some of our Democratic leaders do have a firm grasp of the tools necessary to help us find our way out of this maze.