"Fact" pertains to the "isness" of life, without regard to our interior world, such as feelings and ideas. It is that part of reality over which we have no control, such as to whom we were born, where we were born, and our individual genetic makeup.
"Acts" is behavior. Axiomatically, behavior drives thoughts. Reinforcing and promoting of good behavior leads to good thoughts. The converse-- that good thoughts leads to good behavior-- is a fool's errand. Thus, parents and teachers expend great effort trying to teach kids the Golden Rule in the hope that they won't bully their playmates. But what they really should be focusing on is learning moments that come out of their children's behavior-- either rewarding good behavior or punishing bad behavior. The last column is entitled "thought". This is both the most interesting and the least significant part of my view of life. It is the most interesting part because it embraces the greatest and most challenging ideas and ideals of humanity, including religion, politics, and art. It is the least significant because excessive rumination in distinction to acts leads to errors and evil.
I was watching a biography last night of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhold Heydrich. He was a Renaissance man-- a gifted musician, highly intelligent, a skilled sportman-- and also an architect of the holocaust. His genocidal impluses flowed out of his inner world informed as it was with anti-semitism and ambition, constrained only by his assassination in Prague. Heydrich's future would have been different if his behavior was shaped at an early age by more positive forces. This is an extreme example, but it is true also wiuth theists and atheists, liberals and conservative, Hindus and Catholics, Republicans and Democrats, Marxists and liberterians. These are but labels put on ideas that do not always flow out of behavior. Rather than debating the labels-- does God exist, for example-- it seems to me it would be much more worthwhile to focus on questions of behavior-- what does it mean to raise truthful children, for example.
Finally, around it all, I have a box, a metaphysical representation of God as the first principle and the ontological ground of all existence. What I haven't included, however, is the implication of two parallel worlds, such as secular and sacred or worldly and spiritual. I see little justification in such dichotomies. Also, there is no implication of a transcendent supreme force or being that orchestrates our behavior, a varient of fatalism that abdicates our role in intentionally molding ethical behavior.
Here is an interesting discussion on nano computers.
"First suggested by Richard Feynman in 1959, the idea of nanotechnology, constructing at the atomic level, is now a major research topic worldwide. Theoreticians have already come up with designs for simple mechanical structures like bearings, hinges, gears and pumps, each made from a few collections of atoms. These currently exist only as computer simulations, and the race is on to fabricate the designs and prove that they can work."
With a nod to today's calender, here is a silly rope jump song.
Three- Six-Nine The goose drank wine The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line The line broke, the monkey got choked And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat
The market continued to erode today on news of continuing weakening of bank stocks and the possibe collapse of GM. The paradox is that Obama's approval rating continues to be high-- more than 60 percent.
My interpretation is that the market continues to be skeptical of a recovery in key sectors of the economy-- especially thge efficacy of government intervention-- while the public generally recognizes that Obama's is doing the best he can to find a solution to inherited problems.
The stock market is the more accurate indicator than polls, as it recognizes the verdict of all players in the market-- and the verdict right now is a thumbs down. While I think it is a mistake to anthromorphize the market, I do believe that it tries to hurt or fool as many people as it can. Stocks will only recover when the floor is reached. The floor will be reached when if last bit of optimisim has been squeezed out of the market and a conensus has been reached that all is gloom and doom. We're not at the place yet.
"Short of giving the boys Action Man models of her own husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism, Mrs Obama’s gesture could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown."
I had no idea the Brits were so thin skinned. So much for the stiff upper lip. So much for the empire.
"I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one. Really tough one," I said, torn - as most of surely are - between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured."
If the universe was empty at the beginning, then how could something be created from nothing?
Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to define some terms.
Universe = all that there was and now is. Empty = nothingness, the absence of actuality or potentiality Beginning = the assumed alpha point on a single ribbon of time Created = formed, developed, transformed Something = that which is not nothing
The simplest answer is that all that now is once always existed in some prior form. Concepts such as "beginning" and "now" presuppose the existence of "time". Creation and destruction are nothing more than transformations of that which always has existed, which is energy.
I think your definitions aren't quite as clear-cut as might be imagined. What we usually call "the universe" might be only one of a large, perhaps infinite, number of self-contained universes that make up "the mulitiverse." "Empty" might be confused with "vacuum" which actually is anything but empty. Saying that "beginning" is a point on a single ribbon of time seems to imply that there might be more than one ribbon, which is true, i.e., there might be more than one ribbon. Each universe in a multiverse would have its own ribbon, which raises the question, "beginning of what?" "Created" means "originally formed," not just "formed." How "created" is connected to "transformed" seems less clear. I see no problem with "something." I might add that we are postulating that the multiverse is bounded space, i.e. that it is possible to surround the multiverse in a conceptual globe, donut, or whatever. Contrarywise, it could be that the multiverse is dimensionless and thus non-createable.
No comment yet on the universe definition. The definition of of empty is a little bit ambiguous, maybe we can add: Quote: Empty = nothingness, the absence of actuality or potentiality at least relative to a concerned thing or the thing in question. There can be emptiness in an ongoing actuality, that is the actuality of the observer.
"Beginning = the assumed alpha point on a single ribbon of time Created = formed, developed, transformed." No comment yet. Good points.
"Something = that which is not nothing." This is superficially clear, but internally ambiguous in my opinion. A question arising from this is that how can you tell there is nothing there? Then, what is the basis of that experience where in you concluded 'nothing'? It seems to me that nothingness is a process, and as a process, structurally it shares a common feature with everything. Nothing then is something. So then, there is an extension of something wherein nothing is included. If we consider something to include processes that we can observe, then something is and can only be contrasted to nothingness by its greater comprehension and extension.
With great sadness and emotion I regret to inform you that on March 3, 2009 David Stewart has left this world to join his creator and loving wife Fran Stewart. David passed away in the evening with his loving family Melody (daughter), Melissa, David, Ann (grandchildren) and Randy (nephew) at his side.
I am sure David's genuine grace and goodwill has touched all of you receiving this email, your thoughts and prayers will be heard through Gods power and wisdom in the coming days as we all remember the good man David was to all of us.
Details of the funeral services are underway and will be released via the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. http://www.argusleader.com/obits Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you during this sad time.
Sincerely yours,
Dave Roberts (grandson-in law)
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Sioux Falls - David W. Stewart, 80, of Sioux Falls, died Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at Dougherty Hospice House. David W. Stewart was born April 28, 1928 at Faulkton, South Dakota to Albert O. (A.O.) and Lillian (Wik) Stewart. He lived on the family farm and attended rural schools in the area. He graduated from Cresbard High School in 1946. Following high school, he entered military service in November of 1950, and served in the U.S. Navy. While in the Navy, David served as a Flight Engineer. He received his honorable discharge from the Navy in August of 1954 and returned to the family farm for a short time. He attended the Virginia Farrell School of Cosmetology in Michigan. It was there that he met Fran Attilio. They moved to Sioux Falls where they were married. He and his brother, Gordon Stewart started Stewart Enterprises. David won several awards in artistic hair design. He was also a cosmetology teacher, and spoke to many different organizations. His passions include personal flying for over 30 years, leather tooling, photography, chain saw sculpturing, metal engraving, gun finishing, golf, fishing, dirt biking and artistic woodturning. Above all else, his greatest passion was for his family. He was a devoted father to his daughter, Melody, and spent an inordinate amount of time and energy on the younger members of his family, starting with his nieces and nephews, and extending to all his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was lovingly called papa by all of his immediate family, including his three grandchildren, Melissa (Mike) McMunigal, David (Julie) Mickelberg, and Ann (Dave) Roberts; and to his seven great grandchildren, Maxwell, Dunnavin and Franne McMunigal, Zoe and Ben Roberts, and Margaret Ann and Peter Mickelberg. David was active in many different organizations including being a very active member of First Baptist Church. He served on the Board of Trustees at the church, of which he was a past chairman. He had also served on the board of the Girl Scouts, Sales and Marketing, South Dakota Cosmetology Association, and the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He was a member of the El Riad Shrine Temple where he served on the Divan and was in the Rickshaw Unit. David was part of the Cosmetology Crediting Inspection Team and the Governor's Education Oversight Committee. He was also a past member of the Optimist Club. Grateful for having shared his life are his daughter, Melody Mickelberg, of Sioux Falls, SD; his three grandchildren and seven great grandchildren; two brothers, Gordon (Dee) Stewart and Roger (Carol) Stewart, both of Sioux Falls; and two sisters, LaVonne Griffith of Sioux Falls, and Betty Fillbach, of Ipswich, SD. He was preceded in death by his parents; and his wife, Fran on September 15, 2008.Memorial services will begin at 2:00 pm Friday at First Baptist Church. Private interment will precede the memorial service at Hills of Rest Memorial Park. The family will be present to greet friends from 5:00 - 7:00 pm Thursday at Miller Funeral Home, Main Avenue location.
The family requests that memorials be directed to the El Riad Shrine Building Fund. For obituary and online registry, please visit www.millerfh.com.
Betty T. O'Shea, nee Caplis, of Chicago, beloved wife of the late James O'Shea, C.F.D.; loving mother of Bonnie Johnson, John, C.P.D./C.F.D. (Kristin), James, C.F.D. (Julia), Marilyn Libaris and Kevin O'Shea, C.F.D.; like a mother to John Murray, C.P.D.; proud Nana of Billy, Aimee, Erik, Michael, Erin, Jimmy, Katie, Michael, Timmy, Kevin, Grace, Patrick, Liam, Ryan and the late Kimberly; great-grandmother of Brendan; fond sister of the late Tom, C.F.D. (late Helen) and late John, C.F.D. (late Gen) Caplis; dear aunt of Mike, G.F.D. (Kathy), Tom, C.F.D. (Joan), Mary Caplis, Betty (Pete, C.F.D.) Lazzara and the late Johnny and Maureen Caplis; great-aunt of Tommy, Danny, Katie and Patrick. Betty is also survived by many cherished and beloved friends. Visitation Friday from 3 until 9 p.m. at The M.J. Suerth Funeral Home, 6754 N. Northwest Highway, Chicago. Funeral Saturday, family and friends meeting at Saint Eugene Church, 7930 W. Foster, Chicago, for Mass at 10 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorials to Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60601 appreciated. Interment All Saints Cemetery. For information, 773-631-1240, 847-823-6540 or www.suerth.com
Here is my contribution to Wikipedia's article on irrationality. It's the last paragraph on the discussion page on the supernatural section.
The section in this article where it says, "belief in the supernatural without evidence" could conflict with religious beliefs, and should either be removed, or reworded. (Not to say that I have any religious views, but others may find it offensive; I don't). Exothermic Reaction (talk) 22:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Now you're being irrational. If "belief in the supernatural without evidence" is irrational, then it should be listed, irrespective of whether it offends those who don't want to see anything that disagrees with their views. Would you say that belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a supernatural entity without evidence, is rational? Don't consider "religious" opinions to be any more sacred than philosophical or political opinions. --131.111.8.96 (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the phrase "belief in the supernatural without evidence" means. The "evidence" is presumably the believer's culture and traditions. "God" or "gods" is a conceptual bucket that contains those values, and if those values have utility to them as they inevitable do have, than I don't think we can call them-- belief in the supernatural-- irrational. They may seem irrational to us, but it doesn't follow that they are irrational to others. That is the problem with FSM-- it's a god-concept detached from culture, values, and tradition and thusly "evidence". It's for this reason I think discussion on the relationship of evidence to theisms is better suited for the atheism page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mymallandnews (talk • contribs) 04:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just finished reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather, about the violence-infested world of the Cosa Nostra in the late 1940s. Vito Corleone is the benevolent despot, a reasonable, responsible and prudent man, a quiet man who never threatens but unleashes waves of terror against those who stand in the way of The Corleone Family. The 1972 movie starring Marlon Brando and directed by Francis Ford Coppola was in my view of the the greatest moves I've seen. But it left some gaps that the book helped fill in, such as the motivation of Michael to return from Sicily after he shot the police capitain. (Someone who was about to be executed anyway took the blame.)
As I read the book, the incipient thought arose about the parallel between cults and amoral familialism. Wikipedia begins its examination of the cults, defining is as "a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream" having both positive ("the cult of beauty") and negative ("the Jim Jones cult") connotations. In relationship to a family and as a pathology, there are many families that are cult-like, in their rituals and traditions, their adoration of strong leaders (usually parents or grandparents), their political extremism, their subordination of individual thought to collective action, their narrowness of beliefs, and their emotional reinforcement of aberrant behaviors and ideas. Michael's sister Connie is portrayed in the movie as hysterical in her confrontation with with Michael's execution of her husband Carlo Rizzi. But, in the book, Connie apologizes to Michael a few days later, claiming she was mistaken and glad to be rid the abusive Carlo-- a good example of the power of the cult of amoral familialism.
Unlike most other cults, family cults come into existence as a function of marriage and birth. Thus, it is much more difficult for someone to leave such groups. And, like the Corleone Family, the nexus of evil grows out of extended family ties rather than the nuclear family, making it even more difficult to leave.
For those of you who do not know, on February 21st, the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association - the main professional body of American philosophers - hosted a kind of debate. I say "kind of debate" because one philosopher gave a paper, the other commented and the first philosopher replied and the floor opened for questions. But in fact the session was a debate.
The debate was between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett. Plantinga is one of the founders of the Society of Christian Philosophers and one of the fathers of the current desecularization of philosophy. He is widely regarded - even by his critics - as one of the finest epistemologists of the last fifty years and one of the finest philosophers of religion since the Medieval period. Daniel Dennett is one of the New Atheists and is a well-known proponent of atheistic Darwinism and critic of religion. He is widely regarded - even by his critics - as one of the most important early philosophers of mind that opened the field to cognitive science and evolutionary biology. He has contributed enormously to the serious study of the mind and its relationship to the brain. Both philosophers are over sixty and perhaps at the height of their philosophical powers. They have also faced off before but, as far as I know, not in person.
Plantinga was the presenter. The session asked the question of whether science and religion were compatible. Plantinga argues that they are and that in fact the scientific theory taken to be most incompatible with religion - evolutionary theory - is not only compatible with Christian theism (the religious view Plantinga defends) but is incompatible with Christian theism's most serious opponent in the scientific world - naturalism. Naturalism is the view that physics and the sciences can give a complete description of reality. Plantinga defines it as the view that there is no God or anything like God.
I was at the talk. It was packed with professional philosophers and graduate students in philosophy, most of whom sided with Dennett. I wrote live comments on the debate/session. I prefer to remain anonymous for various reasons, in particular because I am inclined towards Plantinga's position over Dennett's and were this to become well-known it could damage or destroy my career in analytic philosophy. This is something I prefer not to put my family through. I almost didn't publish these comments at all, but as far as I could tell, this would be the only public record of the discussion.
It is clear that most in the room are naturalists. But the questions were not acrimonious. Dennett was the only one who was mean. I don't know how most people reacted to it. I have to admit that I think Dennett behaved like a serious jerk. I am extremely disappointed in his reply to Plantinga. It is clear that this is a man with serious character defects.
Post-script: It has been about ten minutes since the session ended. I spoke to Peter Van Inwagen about the talk and he said it was an expected performance and that while it was a clash of worldviews, it was an interesting clash in two styles of doing philosophy. Initially, I thought to myself, "Yeah, Plantinga thinks philosophy is about arguments; Dennett thinks it is about stories." But on further reflection I realized that Van Inwagen had a point. Dennett believes that science can tell us many things about metaphysics and epistemology, that we work from science to these positions. Plantinga thinks of these matters rather differently.
On another note, I walked around and listened to various conversations (not eavesdropping really, just listening for loud reactions to the session). The Christian philosophers were particularly interesting. They were not upset, surprised or even moved. They were wholly unphased. They were so unphased that they weren't even discussing the session. I was floored at Dennett's behavior but they reacted as if Dennett's hateful, childish behavior was to be expected. I thought they would be upset, but from what I can tell they simply expected Dennett to compare theistic belief to holocaust denial and to advocate murdering the Almighty. I guess I was wrong to expect more from him. In my estimation, Plantinga won hands down because Dennett savagely mocked Plantinga rather than taking him seriously. Plantinga focused on the argument, and Dennett engaged in ridicule. It is safe to say that Dennett only made himself look bad along with those few nasty naturalists that were snickering at Plantinga. The Christians engaged in no analogous behavior. More engagements like this will only expand the ranks of Christian philosophers and increase the pace of academic philosophy's desecularization.
I ses the role of the parents to be much like an early warning system, our radars ceaselessly sweeping the horizon for incoming ballistic missiles that might knock our children off their feet. One such potent missile is that of drugs.
We attended a seminar today at church on drug trends in Arizona and got a lot of new information. I've included some of the old-school information that we have inculcated into our children from an early age. I was watching an 2001 video recently when our boys were five and three about whether they would take something "if it made them feel kooky" if there friends wanted to take it. No, they both said, but the youngest volunteered that he "liked salad."
Here are some of my notes from this seminar.
1. Heroin is interchangeable with over-the-counter drugs in effect and danger. Dextromethorphan (DXM) is a substance found in cough and cold medications. Slang: DXM, Robo-flipping, Skittles, Tussin, Dex, Red Devils. Side effects include brain damage or death.
2. Be a parent, not a best friend. Fight curiosity, peer pressure, and boredom with facts, understanding,observation, conversation, monitoring, fun, and a vision for their future.
3. Highs in the home include medicine cabinets, office supplies such as whiteout, markers, and Dust Off, the kitchen (air freshners, clearners, aerosols), and the garage (paints, cleaners.)
4. The three most prevalent drugs of abuse are alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. 47 percent of 12th graders have reported drinking in the last 30 days. 47% of Arizona adults think it's OK for youth to drink without parent supervision.
5. Alcohol companies are manufacturing their products to confuse their cans with energy drinks, i.e. Rock Star and Sparks versus Amp and Monster. They are also creating bottles the size of a bottle of nail polish, such as Spykes. Also: Pocket Shots-- plastic bags containing rum, whisky, vodka, tequila, or gin. They are all bad and sometimes deadly for your children.
6. Alcopops-- sweet, sugary alternatives to beer, i.e. Mike's Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice.
7. Tobacco is the number one killer of all drugs out there. It kills more people than AIDs, alcohool, murders, car crashes, fires, suicides, and all drugs combined. A new danger: Third hand smoke-- the residue of smoke in a room where someone once smoked.
8. Salvia-- a Mexican herb-- creates delusions and paranoia. ($10-$100/ounce.)
9. Inhalents are not drugs, but poisons. They kill more first time users than any other substance used as a drug.
10. Purple Drank-- recreational drug popular with the hip-hop culture.
11. Pharm Parties-- go to party and take various pills, usually with alcohol. Skittle parties. Club kids.
12. Morphone Suckers-- Fentanyl.
13. Diversions include hollowed out magic markets, reef flip flops, flasks, water drinks, Hershey mint packs, and magnets.
14. Sudafed is a Pseudoephedrine found in methamphetamine. "Strawberry Quick" and "Yaba"-- flavored meth.
15. PCP - Phenyclidine-- horse or elephant tranquilizer. "Sherms", "Wet".
16. Special K- Ketamine-- cat tranquilizer-- less potyent version of PCP.
17. Ecstasty (MDMA) - Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-- chemical cousin to meth.
18. Marijuana -- most commonly abused illegal drug by teens. More carcinogens than tobacco. "420"
19. Chemical depndency is primary, pervasive, progressive, 100% treatable, 100% fatal, 100% preventable.
Here are some excerpts from my e-bookAn Evening With Your Dad, where I discuss this and many other topics that may someday interest my chidlren.
Smoking Since middle school, I’ve had a strong aversion to tobacco—a well-earned reaction to traveling eight miles each day to Council Rock in a smoke-filled bus. Zach in Mrs. Fleming’s Third Grade class did a science project that asked “Is Smoking Good For You?” He found his answer when Zach determined that two packs of Marlboros each day over twenty years would cost him almost $60,000, excluding interest and health and insurance costs. Zach also found out that the chemicals in tobacco are the same as in rat poison (arsenic) and toilet cleaner (ammonia). Cigarettes, he concluded, is bad for your health and your wealth. When I started work in the early 1980s, co-workers would smoke in their cubicles. Today, your will see them outside the office building in the rain, cold, or the snow—huddled masses yearning to breath free.
Drugs Some conservative have made arguments why certain illegal drugs such as heroin and ecstasy should be made legal—to raise tax money, to reduce prison overcrowding, and to reduce the demand for drugs. On the other hand, countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have no qualms in hanging Americans or Australians who try to smuggle drugs into their country. But the legal aspect is beside the point. The real question is why do some people use drugs and booze to numb themselves? Why seek a false reality that can become your only reality? I don’t want to minimize the pressure of peers, but I know you will have the courage to rebuff them. You will see that friends who make you weaker and dumber are your enemies. College and career is hard enough, and a clear and healthy mind is the edge you need to compete and to excel.
Alcohol Alcohol, like tobacco, is a legal drug, and it’s a drug that can kill. When Zachary was a year old, three teenagers Christina Valzano, 15, Scott Gerfen, 18, and Kevin Eineke, 21, rammed a tree in a Pontiac Trans Am close to where we lived in Lake in the Hills. All were killed bringing tremendous grief to the community. Eineke, who was driving the car 70 miles per hour on a road with a 25 mile per hour limit, had a blood alcohol level at .188, almost double the legal limit.
I’ve never liked alcohol of any kind. During my twenties, alcohol lubricated social life, and people thought you were a blue nose if you didn’t drink. In more recent years, however, there has been a sea change in perception, largely due to the carnage on the roads. I no longer feel embarrassed when I decline a margarita and ask for lemonade. But is there any need to dwell on the toxic power of alcohol? In moderate doses, it disturbs appetite and murders sleep. It makes me think I’m charming when I’m an ass—thereby slandering the name of a perfectly fine animal. It excess, it makes me vomit and extinguishes that dim flicker of reason in my poor mind. Alcohol soon overcomes the strongest man and turns him into a bellowing beast that flails against imaginary enemies. It shipwrecks families and careers, and besots the brain and destroys the liver. I don’t drink for the same reason I don’t use cocaine. All that I have between me and abject failure is a basically average mind and body. And if abstaining from alcohol is one more thing that will keep me from failure, then abstain I will. I don’t view my rejection of alcohol as a moral choice, but as a matter of personal taste and, more importantly, a pragmatic decision that will give me that tiny edge over those with whom I compete.
You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot.
"The dirty little secret ... is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it," - Rush Limbaugh.
Here's David Frum's take on Limbaugh:
"And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.
But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s."
David Frum is a conservative writer and former special assistant to George W. Bush.
I need some help understanding Ludwig Wittgenstein. What is he trying to say?
Wittgenstein is one of the break-through philosophers of the 20th century. By putting moral issues on a linguistic plane, he seemed to eliminate entire classes of questions as undefinable and thus unsolvable.
He had a Nietsche-like aphoristic style of writing. From his 1914-1916 notebooks.
"Eine der schwersten Aufgaben des Philosophen ist zu finden, wo ihn der Schuh druckt. Man versucht oft, zu grosse Gedankenlufte zu uberspringen und fallt dann mitten hinen.
"One of the most difficult of the philosospher's tasks is to find out where the shoe pinches. One often tries to jump over too wide chasms of thought and then falls in."
Perhaps his most famous aphorism is: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" where "speaking" is the formulation of a moral claim and "silence" is the inability to intelligibly resolve that claim. Wittgenstein forced a precision with the use of language that heretofore didn't exist, for example, in the consideration of these two sentences: "What is time" and "What is the time?" It is an over-simplification that he demolished logical positivism. To the contrary, he complimented Russell's work, for example, in Russell's "Theory of Definitions" and in his application of modal logic.
Videos of discussions of Wittgenstein, his work, and his ideas.
Many years ago, we got Dr. Dobson's book Dare to Discipline. Dobson began to throw hiself into right-wing politics. I became so disgusted at his uncritical support of the serial lies of George Bush, I came to the conclusion that I can no longer trust the doctor on anything, including questions on faith, parenting, or child care. I tossed his book, and I will no longer listen to or read anything that he publishes.
Credability and character is everything. And I have concluded that Dobson has no credability and character on anything. Thus, his decision to resign as chairman seems like a good career move.
While I'll never darken the door of the Supreme Court, it's pure oxygen to try to puzzle through a constitutional issue.
On the face of it, the answer might be: why not? The people in DC pay federal taxes and are subject to federal laws. However, "no taxation without representation" isn't in the constitution.
The constitution puts up a few barriers, most particularly the district clause in Article 1, Section 8. "[The Congress shall have Power] To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States. "
The District is not a state, as stipulated under Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3. "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. " This was subsequently subseded by paragraph 2, article 14. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."
However, that objection can be overcome by annexing the district into a surrounding state, such as Maryland or Virginia, or by making the district a state in its own right, with one representative and two sentators. The later alternative is unlikely, as it would shift the balance of power towards the democrats, despite the awarding of an additional electoral vote to Utah.
Other solutions would be to give back to Maryland all of the District except the small area where the main government buildings are located, or count the residents of the District as Maryland residents in determining the number of representatives in the House.
So says psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi to mobster Tony Soprano in the HBO series "The Sopranos."
Good advice? Of course. But there are complications that come to light when we start asking a few questions.
What is the object of forgiveness? If it is someone else, do they need to in some manner recognize the basis the existence of the offense that requires forgiveness? My answer: It helps, but it isn't necessary. Even if it is someone else, do we need to at the same time forgive ourselves for nursing and rehursing those resentments? My answer: Yes, while at the same time not losing sight of the depth of real pain that we may be suffering. While the ethics of forgiveness is found in all religions, Buddhism offers an interesting insight into the dynamic of forgiveness. " In contemplating the law of karma, we realize that it is not a matter of seeking revenge but of practicing metta and forgiveness, for the victimizer is, truly, the most unfortunate of all." Buddhists also encourage the development of disciplines that prevent the need for forgiveness is the first place, with emphasis of metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), and upokkha (equanimity).
How do you forgive? My answer: In some cases, as in those who are victims to horrific crimes, forgiveness comes only with time and struggle-- or not at all. At the end of the day, it must be an act of the will-- a desire to arise above the phantoms of hate and history. The medical and spiritual benefits of forgiveness are beyond dispute. So perhaps the question needs to be asked: Why do we have difficulty forgiving? My answer: For some people, be they victim or victimizer, forgiveness is a trivial act-- mere words.
Forgiveness, by itself, is of little use, especially if forgiveness in some way reinforces the original evil, especially if that evil is a function of some kind of authoriterian structure-- a disfunctional parent or a tyrannical ruler. Some people also feel better when they will not forgive. I believe that forgiveness can only occur in the context of justice and the development of personal character that is sometimes needed to ward off future insults to the soul I console myself that there is always a balancing out in life, and Emerson's essay on compensation has much influenced my view on this.
Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.
It is good to forgive. "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you." But it is also hard to forgive. The imperative to forgive is the great challenge of our life.
I used to think that I was a very forgiving person, until I read a book about forgiveness - unfortunately I forget the name of the book - and realized that my forgiving someone was conditional on that person realizing that they had annoyed or upset or wronged me in some way and apologizing. Now I try to forgive unconditionally.
The denunciation of Palin took place 45 years after William F. Buckley Jr. wrote: “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
Buckley’s position, then, is not really populist. The ism of populism is the idea that the people are inherently more sound and virtuous than the elites. Buckley is saying, less categorically, that we live in an age when the people happen to possess better judgment than the professors. If the reverse were true, if the professors had more respect than the people for God’s laws and tradition’s wisdom, Buckley’s argument would have favored entrusting government pari passu (as he would have said) to scholars instead of citizens.
Professors are firstly people always and citizens generally. They are as qualified to serve on a jury as a plumber. Buckley wasn't deriding the ivory tower elites. To the contrary, his career was dedicated to the proposition that elites of which he was one have a significant and leading place in society. His conservatism stood in stark contrast to the know-nothing conservatism of the John Birch Society, for example. And Buckley influenced the creation of conservative thought tanks, journals, publishing houses, and university organizations. He wasn't claiming that Joe the Plumber had the same depth of wisdom as Justice Antonin Scalia. But he was affirming the core principle of democracy-- that decisions of American policy must represent the broadest range of the values of its citizens, and that without this kind of representation mistakes are more likely than not.
In the first year of Bush's second term, Bush went on a fifty city tour to press his Social Security plan. I noticed that without exception he excluded from these meetings dissenters. He did the same when he was deciding to invade Iraq. This kind of decision-making is a pervsion of what Buckley was suggesting and leads as sure as night follows day to bad decisions.
Barack Obama's degrees from Columbia and Harvard law school may be proof of intellectual agility, but they do not guarantee good sense.
True.
For this, as William Buckley suggested 45 years ago, we are better advised to rely on graduates of the University of Idaho, or even the opinions of stewardesses. But that doesn't follow at all. If this is what you believe, then you haven't read enough Buckley. No one was more democratic in his liking for the broadest range of people while subjecting himself to the highest levels of intellectual rigor from the best universities in the nation. The idea that Buckley would prefer to rely on a stewardess from Idaho than a professor from Yale on policy questions is strange, funny, and false.
I watched President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. I thought the speech, while light on substance and filled with factual errors, was a consequential speech, promising bold action and a clear vision while trying to articulate the anxieties of the times. His best line: "Education is not a pathway to success - it is a prerequisite."
Governor Bobby Jindal's banal, childish speech was another matter. At first, I thought it was a SNL skit-- Daddy Oliver Warbucks fetches the bus-boy to step-and-fetch his thoughts. It was the difference between Will Smith and Steve Urkel, Mozart and Salieri. Jindal is supposed to be a rising star of the Republican Party. But, like another governor from the Great State of Alaska, he offers nothing new or good. If that is the best that the Republican Party can offer, then they will be with good reason in the wilderness for years to come.
Governor Bobby Jindel Strikes a Pose
Despite Jindal's Rhodes Scholar-tempered mind, I heard only shallowness, refined by the echo chamber that is Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Here are a few examples.
During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: "Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!" I asked him: "Sheriff, what's got you so mad?" He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go, when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, "Sheriff, that's ridiculous." And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!" Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.
But Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.
And here is the truth. And here is more wingnut silliness galore.
Especially rich is the comment about volcano monitoring-- and this from someone from a state that suffered from Katrina. Why not go one step further and get rid of the entire National Weather Service?
Slash taxes? Let's see how towns and cities pay for their policemen, schools, and hospitals. Actually, raising corporate taxes will have the effect of forcing firms to retain earnings for re-investment in their companies, thus expanding employment and prosperity.
Welfare reform? I'm all for it, so long as we start first with the sprawling red-state agribusinesses that have suckled on the teat of farming price supports for the last half century as well as those firms that have sent tens of thousands of jobs overseas.
The intellectual bankruptcy of this speech is to be expected, for it is the natural consequence of the Republican's mantra that goverment is the problem, not the solution. And, if the government is the problem, why should the Republicans want to be part of the problem, unless their goal is to spear the beast from inside-- bring our government to its knees by their naysaying incompetence?
It is perhaps fitting that Jindal is the hope du jour for conservatives. After all, what can be more conservative than a man who changed his country, changed his name, and changed his religion? All that remains for him to change now is his speech writer.
I've never read anything more clueless about economics and investing. Nobody will want to buy the stock of those companies if that occurs, causing them to have trouble finding investors. A freshman college accounting student would know better than what you said there in that part I quoted above. No one wants to buy the stock of companies that are re-investing their profits and are expanding? I think it was you who was asleep in freshman economics. There are Japanese and Scandinanivan corporation have have thriving investors bases despite high corporate tax rates because of this. Growth stocks by definition have little or no earnings or dividends. Their stocks grow because investors make the distinction between the potential for earnings with present earnings, which is powered by retained earnings and increasing market share. The only question is to what extent will the government be a partner in facilitating the retention of those earnings through tax and fiscal policy. Your implied theory beloved by conservative ideologues-- that reducing corporate rates will increase tax revenues-- has been throughly debunked by your econ 101 professors.
I don't see any reason in principle why subjective morals should be less binding than objective morals.
Correct. We bind ourselves to our own ethical system without regard to whether we can see if it has an objective foundation.
But Kant's meta-ethics derives from the premise that the categorical imperative is objective. That is to say, moral questions are determined without regard to the person asking them or the cultural or temporal context in which those questions are asked. I take this position as well, as I place all such questions as axiomatically derived from what humans demonstrably are-- rational, autonomous, sentient, self-conscious, intentional, with blood and bones, with parents and life spans, and as members of families and tribes. This is the objective foundation of Kant's principle in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" and "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end" and finally "Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."
These principles are of course the basis of the universalism that we see in the Declaration of Independence, the United Nations Charter and in genocide tribunals-- that right is not might and that right has an independent and transcending reality from any given individual but not from humanity generally.
The human brain is a muscle of sorts, so my question to inquiring minds would be; can the strength of the brain be increase through stressful situations. By applying pressure or stress on any other muscle in the body it would resolute in more strength, so why not the brain? I've been intrigued on the concepts of the brain and it's true power. So with that I will be conducting an experiment on myself and you are welcomed to join. The experiment involves one taking a basic test but one will undergo stressful situations while studying; for instances, their in a room with loud music and movement. I believe after the test is finsihed the person will pass with flying colors because the brain is stressed, so it will concentrate, focus harder, and become more alert. I can add the resolutes will be amazing. Can the brain grow? If one is not a believer I like to add that by reading more complex text, don't they become more mentally capable to read below their level.
Your post reminds me of the quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson: "The prospects of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully." While the brain isn't a muscle, it does benefits from active use and challenges. There are studies that suggest that keeping your mind stimulated can diminish the chance that you can become a victim to dementia or Alzheimers. Of course, the kind of stress that can make one person florish can make another person wilt.
I recently encountered a YouTube video of Chefoo School, the boarding school I attended between 1962 and 1964. I've included this in my account of my time at Chefoo. Read some more recollections here as well.
The next three grades were at Chefoo, a boarding school primarily for missionary kids in Cameroon Highlands, the central hills of Malaysia, about four hours drive from where Mom and Dad lived.
(Chefoo was named after a city of 100,000 on the coast of China where the boarding school was first established about 120 years ago. Dad accompanied 55 cows and other relief to China’s Chefoo in north Shantung in 1947 and reported that “it has an excellent harbor and the city nestles down along the sea coast. On the other side, there are hills that rise up to about 1,000 feet above sea level.”) Diesel yellow-roofed Mercedes Benz taxis would take us to the school but not before negotiating countless fantastic hairpin curves. The verse “I shall lift up my eyes until the hills” had a special poignancy to me, as Mom and Dad would give me a final hug and then leave around the playing field under the ridge to vanish. There was loneliness and homesickness. But the friendships would come and the adventures and the lasting memories. There were about 50 children at the school, between the ages of five and ten. Chefoo, patterned on the English boarding school system with its emphasis on reading, mathematics, and memorization, gave us strong academic skills. We liked being around kids our own age and background. My brother Tim’s favorite memory of Chefoo was Sports Day, where he jumped four feet on the high jump. “I jumped seven feet on the long jump,” Tim writes in 1967. “I rand in a race and won it.” Chefoo also left me with a life-long accent that can only be described as a hybrid of English, Australian, and South African. (The accent of mother and my relatives in Brisbane is more British than the classic Australian cockney accent that was derived from the early settlers, who were mostly convicts from London east-side.) On Sundays, we walked about a mile to All Souls, of the Church of England, where I came to appreciate a tradition that was different from my Low Baptist heritage. Slims, a nearby school for middle and high-school children of British military personnel, also provided worshipers to All Souls. (That school is today a training center for a Malaysian commando unit.) At an elevation of about 5,000 feet, the average temperature was a salubrious 70 degrees. Sometimes, misty clouds would sweep through the school. We felt none of the heat and humidity of the plains where my parents toiled.
Four-fifth of Malaysia, about the size of Florida, is covered by tropical forest covering mountains up to 7,000 feet high. This jungle is inhabited by tigers, elephants, bison, monkeys, gibbons, deer and bear, and is alive with all manner of insects, including malaria-bearing mosquitoes (we would always sleep under nets), bloodsucking leeches, pythons, and multi-colored birds, where orchids and rhododendron flourish. As a boy, I liked nothing better than to “jungle bash”—hike through these sometimes treacherous, always beautiful jungles. The hazards of jungle living was starkly demonstrated when a fellow student Peter Cox almost lost his life to a viper bite. Once, I threw a rock at a hornet’s nest. As I raced over the playing field followed by an angry swarm, I thought that might not have been the best idea. I went to bed that night with a throbbing head and new wisdom. While visiting my parents in Malaysia with sister Anne in the summer of 1972, I described the mountain jungle to Grandmother White. “What I enjoyed most about the Highlands is the landscape and the atmosphere,” I wrote. “Thick, indolent sunshine, a heavy gold light balancing the green and black jungle shadows—great lazy black butterflies and the scent of unseen flowers and a sweet afternoon languor.”
Chefoo exists now only in fond memories: our little gardens where we cultivated mainly mud; our go-cart, the Silver Streak; King, the Alsatian, who was eaten by a tiger (“Does anybody remember the tiger at the padang in Tanah Rata that a park ranger had shot?” Bill Hanna writes. “Its head was propped up on a chair, and all us kids were admiring it. Suddenly it rolled off the chair but looked like it was rolling over the get up. Scare the wits out of us!”) ; the bamboo strands and the Rajah Brooke butterflies; the jungle jim and sandpit; allowance day; marmite sandwiches and milk at “tea” time; building dams in the stream that wended through the property; sports day on the ridge (Leo forever!); looking for bullets in the Gurka military base near by (I once found a revolver that the teachers inexplicably confiscated).
And so the memories that bless and burn keep tumbling out.
I wrote to a Chefoo newsgroup that “my memories of Chefoo are positive, and I feel that I’ve lived a childhood of incredible adventure and privilege. But in these sunlit gardens of youth, there were snakes and shadows and sadness.” There was in my view an excess of collective punishment and sometimes cruel teachers. One such incident occurred perhaps around 1963. David Houliston, who is several grades ahead of me, picks up the story. “About that time, we visited the ridge with a lady teacher. We asked if we could go and explore—which we did. Only problem was that we got lost! I suggested we follow the sun and strike out due east—as that would bring us back down to the school. Which it did. Once back, there was a big hoo-hah. The smaller kids were queued up outside the headmaster’s door and whacked with a sneaker. We older boys were not beaten—this is where the psychological stuff comes in. We had to wait to be called to go to Fred Collard’s office. The first victim reported back that we would be reduced to tears—there was no possibility of holding out. Sure enough, we were shown in the Bible about how much God hates sin and that we should repent. We were then ordered to write “confessions” that would be sent to our parents (they never were)—which we did in our now blubbery state.” I was one of the little boys in that party, and so I was duly thrashed. With my over-active imagination, I wondered who would get us first—the tigers or the head hunters. I was also spanked for not eating rhubarb—and to this day I will not eat rhubarb. The punishment generally for talking after lights out was to stand outside the dorm memorizing a time tables. Needless to say, I had mastered the entire times table by fourth grade.
In April 2001, Dave and Fred again met in England, and this reunion perhaps is a fitting coda to our Chefoo experience. “The reason for our meeting is that I had written him a letter telling him about the hurt I felt he had caused me by wrongly punishing me at Chefoo School when I was 12 years old. I received a Zooty cartoon postcard from him saying that he apologized if he had misjudged me in the past and suggested we meet. He drives me to his house and after a cup of tea Fred and I set off for the pub for a lunch and a chat. Over the superb meal, we talk about Chefoo, about our families, and every now and then we touch on the more emotional issues that I had brought up in my letter. It is obviously not that easy for either of us—we both feel a bit nervous about it but at the same time don’t want to avoid it. He doesn’t remember the particular incident I was referring to although he does remember some of the incidents that happened around the same time. He say’s he’s glad I was open enough to write to him and was only sorry it had taken so long for us to come to talk about it. I begin to feel as if it was I who had misjudged. I also realize that he had not been at Chefoo very long when this happened. So what really happened to me emotionally when I was 12 years old? Time shifts things and makes a mystery of things.
“Strangely, I’m not surprised that Fred is so open to hearing the way I feel. That’s why I felt OK about writing to him. This is the intuition that I remember I had back in 1963. So the 12 year old me was right in that respect.
“Well, three cheers for Uncle Fred! Who else would have been so gracious? And three cheers for the 12 year old me! You did just great, kid!”
As a former lifelong Republican, son of a co-founder of the Religious Right; my late evangelical leader father, Francis Schaeffer, I'm in a unique position to tell you a few things about the Republicans from inside perspective. (As you know I left that movement in the mid 1980s.)
The lack of cooperation you're getting from the Republican Party will continue. You were right to indulge in a little bit of tokenism when you had to Pastor Rick Warren pray at your inauguration. But if you think that the Republicans in Congress and the Senate are going to do more than their utmost to obstruct everything you are and what you stand for you're dreaming.
As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.
The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.
There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail. The neoconservatives are gnashing their teeth and waiting for you to "sell out Israel" or "show weakness" in Afghanistan, whatever, so they can declare you a traitor.
The problem is that when you deal with the Republican Party you're talking to the polished characters in Washington. I wish you could see the hate e-mail's that I have received over the last two years because I supported you, letters calling for God to kill me, telling me that I hate God because I supported you and that I am "an abortionist" and worse a "fag lover" because I've written that I believe that you will be a great president.
What those senators and congressmen are telling you is not what their rabid core constituents are telling them. Their loyalty is to a fundamentalist Christian ideology on the one hand and American exceptionalism of perpetual warfare and hatred and fear of the "other" on the other hand. Between the neoconservatives and evangelical Religious Right Republicans you have no friends.
The good news is that most Americans support you. And if you will just get in the face of the Republican Party and call their bluff you'll be surprised how many individual ordinary Republicans will support you, not to mention the rest of us. America is sick of the Republicans. The Democratic Party won for a reason: the Republicans failed and have taken us all down with them! You're doing your presidency and America no favor by extending an open hand to the perpetually knotted fist of what has become the embittered lunatic fringe of our country. They would rather go down in flames than "compromise" their ideology.
As you showed us again at your press conference of Feb 9, you are a brilliant, articulate and decent man. Your Republican opponents are not decent people but ideologues bent on destroying you. To quote the biblical adage sir, don't cast your pearls before swine.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of /CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
"During the Senate debate, 36 of the Senate Republicans voted for an alternative that would have cut taxes over the next decade by $2.5 trillion, [and] reduced the top marginal race to 25 percent," said the Atlantic's Ron Brownstein on "Meet the Press." "For John McCain -- who voted for that alternative of a $2.5 trillion tax cut over the next decade -- to talk about generational theft, I mean, pot meet kettle."
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Here's a tongue-in-cheek heads-up on how this plan will work.
Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.
All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700." The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"
The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence." "Done!" replies the government official. And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.
While there is some truth to that, a few things need to be noted. The best deterrent to boondoggles is public embarassment. "If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money I will not hesitate to call them out on it and put a stop to it," Obama told mayors yesterday. The Fifth Estate-- the media-- also have it call out the Democratic administration if they waste our money.
Getting power is not the same as keeping power, and good governance and the delivery of results will determine to no small degree whether or not there is a second Obama administration or whether Democratic congressional seats are held or lost in 2010. Also, I don't think it is rude to note that this crisis has its roots in the incompetence the Republic administration-- money that was spent like a drunken sailor not just on the war but also on expanded entitlement programs. This recession (depresison, if you're unemployed!) is not because of fate or the alignment of the stars but because of specific decisions that men and women took in past years. And msot of these men and women who mad such catastrophic decisions were Republicans.
I've to realize that much of this world-wide crisis has its roots in a discredited economic ideology that was most forcefully trumpted by President Bush and his acolytes in the last eight years. The ideology in a nutshell is that you could throw away the rule book and the players in the game of business would act responsibily, ethically, in their best interest, in the best interest of their shareholders, and in the interest of America. On all counts, this turned out to be false, and there is no need to recount the mountain of evidence to support this conclusion.
While it is an overstatement to just blame George Bush on the recession, unemployment, the deficit,the stock market, gas prices, and home prices, his economic theory ignited this crisis and fanned its flames. Perhaps thsi self-knowledge that he is a historic failure is such that it wouldn't surprise me if the man who sat in the chair once occupied by George Washington and Abraham Lincolon is still in a fetal position surrounded by whisky bottles.
The stimulus bill passed, and it will be a test of Republican integrity as to whether they will accept the stimulus money. Of course they will. When it comes to towering hypocrisy, I can always count on the Republcians to deliver. During the Senate debate, 36 of the Senate Republicans voted for an alternative that would have cut taxes over the next decade by $2.5 trillion, [and] reduced the top marginal race to 25 percent," said the Atlantic's Ron Brownstein on "Meet the Press." "For John McCain -- who voted for that alternative of a $2.5 trillion tax cut over the next decade -- to talk about generational theft, I mean, pot meet kettle."
Folks, wake up. The Republcians were the problem. The Democrats are now trying to find a solution.
There are good arguments that this bill will fail to deliver as advertised. But I don't see how it can make things any worse, with the world having lost in the last six months thirty trillion dollars in wealth.
I think this economic pump priming will have a measurable psychological effect, although the effect won't be immediate. It appears so far the market palce has turned a thumbs down on it, so much more work needs to be done.
Politically, the plan will either be the Republican's Waterloo or the Democrat's Waterloo. It's a gamble, but I think the Republicans have hurt themselves more by almost without exception voting for the status quo as behooves the party of Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush. The situation we are currently in is, after all, largely the result of the discredited free market dogma espoused by the Republicans and many of the institutions that have failed were run by Republicans. They are, however, right to raise concerns about whether or not some of the spending can be justified. But the more important questions is whether or not massive spending will work.
When I was a child, I had a shoe-box of million mark notes from the Weimer Republic with face values in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. German's printing presses printed so much money, the value of the money eroded causing the middle-class to vanish. This was fertile ground for the rise of fascism. Today's Zimbabwe is also facing similar pressures, as its money has become almost worthless. On the other hand, spending that began under FDR's New Deal and reached its climax during World War II created the foundations for the prosperity of the 1950s and 60s. And that might indeed happen. But the journey might be intolerable for most Americans. The economy of World War II was one of regimentation, scarcity, and the subordination of individuality to the presumed greater good of the state.
What we have today is a pool filled with toxic sludge. The mechanisms that animates our economic system have shut down. Banks resist extending credit-- the water in the professor's analogy. They don't want to extend credit because they themselves don't want to take the risk that the credit they extend -- the water-- will intermingle with the sludge and turn to sludge further harming or killing their institution and companies that depdnd on that institutions.
This is the same kind of rational decision that we as individuals and families are doing now by belt-tightening. We are deferring the purchase of high-end consumer products on the assumption that prices will continue to fall or that we will lose our jobs. But collectively our decision not to buy this stuff is triggering layoffs and factory closures, which in turn puts a downward pressure on prices and hiring decisions. Increased savings-- normerly a good thing-- is actually a bad thing for our economy. The result is unemployment for large numbers of people, including perhaps ourselves.
So what is the answer? No one really knows for sure, but perhaps the best pattern is what happened between 1929 and 1945, between the start of the Great Depression and the end of WWII. In the absence of individual and corporate spending, the government spent massively-- four trillion dollars in today's terms. (To put that into perspective, world wide equities in the last six months have lost more than $30 trillion dollars!) Of course, there was boondoggles, corruption, inflation, and so on. But the state was doing that which free enterprise was not doing-- circulating capital. It wasn't relevant that factories were building tanks or that anyone would actually use those tanks. From the standpoint of the economy, those tanks could have been dropped into the middle of the Atlantic. The productivity wasn't the building of tanks-- it was the circulation of capital to build those tanks.
There is productivity so long as their is monetary velocity. Spending combined with rationing that brought pent-up demand for consumer goods I think was responsible for the prosperity of the 1950s and 60s, as eventually free market institutions such as banks regained their footing and credability.
The problem for America is whether or not we as a country are willing to tolerate this kind of collectivized economic decision-making that presupposes the subordination of the individual to the state. We have ample cause to be skeptical about the stimulus, but I'm not sure there are many workable alternatives to get money flowing again through the veins of our national economy.
Here is a solution to a minor programming problem I was working through last week.
The problem was to split up a large file consisting of many files of different lengths but with fixed columns and separate them by transaction code. There are a number of ways to do this with the magic of UNIX.
The UNIX utility csplit sometimes worked, but not always.
It is as hard to prove consciousness exists as it is to prove God exists.
The ongoing problem is not that we can image our non-existence- in the past or future. The problems is our trying to imagine our consciousness exists as or within being. We think of this before we say it relates to questions of fear of death for example that explain religion. The daemon of Descartes is not deceiving as to if Descartes is dreaming or awake, that he reacts to even illusive experiences but deceives him that he thinks he exists as something capable of experience.
We can imagine our bodies, and thus matter itself to be vaporous non-existence ultimately and we can imagine if matter in a sense is space as vacuum or its flux- then why not such structure imagined for our consciousness?
By doubting we exist- paradoxes aside encountered in the reasoning or other fallacies of thought, we give grounds for a view of the enduring reality of one side or the other of the dualism. Thus the method of modernity and science is balanced on the existence or not of the universe itself as a vital illusion.
Descartes made the assumption by appeal to mathematics as simplicity, that there was a non-mathematical and rational knowledge. One might therefore conclude a perfect God by ontology and Descartes goes back to the drawing board or square one with revolutionary appeal in his day and the centering of things for the philosophical or subject part as his questions centered in epistemology.
I question your premise, viz. "it is as hard to prove consciounsess exists as to prove that God exists."
I think it is a categorical error to conflate the metaphysical, unanswerable questions of theism with natural phenomena, namely, the fact of consciousness. God or gods is a conceptual bucket. We pour into that bucket whatever we want to, but and the end of the day any kind of proof amounts to talking in circles or appeals to faith including the faith that my definition of God must be the one and only true definition of God. Consciousness is a different matter as it is a label of a reality that provably exists.
"Consciousness may involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, dreams, and self-awareness. It has been defined from a biological and causal perspective as the act of autonomously modulating attentional and computational effort, usually with the goal of obtaining, retaining, or maximizing specific parameters, such as food, a safe environment, family, or mates."
We might ask, what constitutes sufficient proof? If you were walking past a boulder and there on the rock was "Jack Sprat could eat no fat/His wife could eat no lean" you would without much thought identify some kind predicating consciousness behind those symbols. And they don't even need to be symbols as in the Easter Island monoliths. As I walk home, I kick an ant nest, and the ants scatter. Do the ants have consciousness? Perhaps not, reacting as they are to instincts of self-preservation and nothing more. My cat ecsatically greets me knowing that I'm going to give Kitty kibble. Consciousness? Probably at a rudimentary interspecies level. I put cassarole in the microwave, and, lo, it cooks it just right. Consciousness? No, as there is no self-referral awareness-- no cogniito ergo sum. The same would be true with my computer or any computer or robot to date. I see no evidence of that changing any time soon. Later that evening I monkey with my ham radio, whereupon I get the following beeps from Alpha Centuri- 1 beep, 1 beep, 2 beeps, 3 beeps, 5 beeps, 8 beeps, 13 beeps-- the Finonacci Sequence. Predicating consciousness? Doubtful, as that is a pattern that is inertly replicated in nature. We would need much more than a mere pattern to demonstrate consciounsess from beyond. From a number of reasons that are off topic, I don't believe that can happen, SETI to the contrary.
Consciousness and cognition is not a particularly easy construct to define or model, but that is true with other scientific theories as well, such as time, viruses, evolution, and gravity. But the underlying reality is beyond dispute.
It may be helpful to state what consciousness is not. It is not a synonym for intelligence or meaning. I think these cloud the issue by letting us for example anthrmophize the computational power of IBM's Big Blue. It seems to me a model of higher or human-level consciousness must include that which in not on the face of it is neither meaningful nor intelligent, for example, feelings of dread, guilt, affection, greed, altruism, religious mysticism, and superstition.
I think you are right in that consciousness is a fact for me and there does not need to be much polemic. Now when you ask for objective proof it’s like asking a silly question because our notion of the veracity of an objective world is based on us all experiencing the world “consciously” and in close to the same “categories” of understanding. The public objective world can never be a superior truth to the truth of our individual conscious experiences. The objectivity of our “phenomenal” world is an assertion that assumes the commonality of our subjective conscious experience. Although we have to be careful here in that we are not saying we are all conscious of the same things at the same time but just that our different perspectives can be reconciled with a rationally constructed model of the world. There is no way for us to sit at a table and have the same content of consciousness and I think we can’t successfully divorce “content” from consciousness, even if consciousness itself is its content. You stated that "Consciousness... is a reality that provabl] exists.". I did not just arbitrarily request proof that consciousness exists, he stated that he knew of such proof. It is hardly unreasonable to ask what it is, is it?
As I said in earlier, a rock with a sentence would be proof of consciousness, but not necesserily meaning or intelligence. The a priori that we are in an existence of reality and not in a matrix reality or a dream reality doesn't negate that ther is some kind of consciousness. Is consciounsess an a priori or a fact? It is a fact in so far as it can be demonstrated external to our own feelings or impressions that is indeed a rock with a sentence on it. It is similar to the question: Is grass green? We have instruments that can show you and me that the color of my lawn (I live in Arizona!) is objectively between 430 and 540 nanometers on the visible spectrum. That I am color blind or that the instrument of measuring the color of grass is broken, say, is irrelevant. We have third party means of measuring this piece of reality.
The public objective world can never be a superior truth to the truth of our individual conscious experiences.
Are you sure about that? Is there only "your truth" and "my truth" but no "the truth"? If so, then I would suggest that communication and science has no meaning.
Well I would say that because we have a soul, we can most assuredly believe that we are conscious. The soul is proof of consciousness and a gorgeous credence to believe you are alive in the most eminent way.
Why do we have a soul?
It seems to me that you are on the brink of a whirlpool of circularity-- We have a soul because we have consciousness. We have consciousness because we have a soul.
A rock with intelligible symbols is evidence of another's consciouness. As long as you were sure that the symbols were outside of nature, that would be evidence (I don't use the word proof) of consciouness from another person. It seems to me you are struggling to make the case that this the rock with the sentence that both of us apprehend is something that neither of us can apprehend at all, a position that aligns with radical idealists who would deny the existence of that rock outisde of our minds that apprehends that rock.
When you are asleep, hypnotized or drunk, it is said that you are not conscious of certain stimuli. However, this presupposes the existence of mental occurences that we can or cannot recall. In the case of the rock with the sentnce on it, our consciousness is a relationship to an object-- a perception of a real thing. When we see a rock, it seems to me incorrect to assert we are really processing a motion in our brain. Thus, the object-- the rock-- is just as "mental" as the perceiving. William James in his 1904 essay "Does consciousness exist" made this very point-- that consciousness was a function rather than an entity, laying the foundations of what is called neutral monism.
Now, how can you be certain that these mental images are "real"? How do you know that you are knowing? And do we know our own thoughts better than anything else? The answer is: dialectically, through exposure to intentional actions and experiements outside of your own actions and experiments.
President Obama wants to cap salaries of senior executives at institutions getting significant government aid at a half-mil. And now comes the whine and cheese.
"That is pretty draconian -- $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus," said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. "And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend."
I think Mr. Reda and his fellow fat cats are going to lose this one. First, there is a crisis of confidence in just about everyone in those who have been running Wall Street. Most people including those who have seen their investment vanish and their houses foreclose cannot comprehend how firms that have lost billions of dollars deserve to be run by people getting millions of dollars. Secondly, I challenge the assumption that talent at the top of any pyramid is non-fugible. To the contrary, those who rise to the top of the bureaucracies manifestly do not do so because they have the interest of the shareholders or the public in mind but because they are trying to promote their interest through gamesmanship and risk taking. Perhaps these companies need to return to the ethic of the organization man-- not the financial rodeo clown.
During World War II, the top business leaders swung into action managing vast organizations, sometimes for a token one dollar a year. Perhaps it is that shift of incentive from greed to patriotism that may help restore confidence in our economy.
In my younger days, I preached from many a soap box that capitalism is the hope of the world. That has turned out to be a false faith. That doesn't mean that I embrace socialism or any other kind of economic faith. But no longer will I assume that the invisible hand is the most moral or even the most productive hand.
Mark Thompson has in two paragraphs articulated what I've been struggling to say for some time.
"Religion is not science, and in attempting to gain acceptance as a science, it allows itself to be treated on the same terms as science. In other words, it begs to be treated as if it were falsifiable, when the entire point in faith is that it is something that is unfalsifiable. Worse, it forces religion to get tied up in arguments that have precious little to do with the elements of faith that are so very important: things like morality, conscience, meaning, etc. And so it loses the forest for the trees, to use a cliche.
But similarly, science demeans itself when it used as a proof of the non-existence of god. Science is not meant to provide unfalsifiable answers, nor is it intended to answer questions that can only admit of unfalsifiable answers. To do so is to turn the scientific method on its head. And in so doing, science demeans itself because it loses part of its very essence."
Morality is subjective. Or at least most of us here think it is.
As for laws, laws at least in the western world do not have a basis on any sort of objective morality.
As for their application, when it comes to judgment, it's arbitrary.
blah, I'm speaking gibberish again.
I appreciate your admission that you're speaking gibberish.
You state as a principle that "morality is subjective". But it therefore follows that the principle you stated that is subjective must itself be subjective. That is enough to at least introduce a glimmer of skepticism in your assertion.
May I suggest an objective foundation to morality-- your existence and the existence of other humans. To quote Shakespere's Shylock: "I am a person, too. Hath I not eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as you are? If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, do I not die?" Thus, our reality as sentient beings gives us a commonality from which to derive ethics, and these ethics are consistent through time and in every culture. Through time and in every culture, there are applications that are different-- the tolerence of slavery and the subordination of women, for example. But foundational concepts of "right" and wrong" or "truth" and "falsehood" are not arbitrary at all, deriving as they do from objective concepts of pleasure, pain, individual, family, tribe, life, and death.
And nor do I accept your claim that law is arbitrary. Whether it is the law of Micronesia or the Supreme Court of the United States, it is anything but arbitrary as it flows out of precedence (or tradition) and competing arguments. No judge or tribal chief rolls a dice, for the moment they did that, they would cease to be a judge or a tribal chief. Jurisprudence is inherently rational and thusly a non-arbitrary and an objective process. We may not care for the rulings or the laws, but we are merely expressing our opinion in contrast to the weight of law that jurists have formulated over time.
Encourage your children to shun drinks such as Red Bull or Monster Energy, These highly-caffinated drinks are dangerous and addictive. Medical professionals now regard them as gateway drugs to more potent drinks-- and a gateway to a shorter lifespan.
Don't be fooled by their promotional tie-ins with sports or music events or endorsements from celebrites. It is similar to what cigarette companies did a generation ago. The physical destruction will be much the same-- not to your child's lungs but to her heart and liver. These drinks have all kinds of side effects ranging from decreased intellectual focus to death.
Former Bush chief of staff Andrew Card says that Obama's is disrespecting the office of the presidency by having casual Friday's.
Several decades ago when I started out as a programmer in a Chicago bank, I had to wear a three-piece suit to work. Now everyone from the president down wears dockers or levis. That's the way it should be. Mr. Card's wish is that America would continue to be suckers for style and personality. If so, the administration he presided over might have a shot at redemption, but that's not going to happen. As in almost all lines of work, competence and skill can be wrapped up in some strange wrappers. Thus, sometimes the most brilliant and productive people are sweaty slobs-- and perhaps they are brilliant and productive because they are sweaty slobs. As far as respcting the Oval Office is concerned, I think that has more to do with upholding the constitution than color-cordinating your tie. It is hard for me to feel respectful to President Bush when all I saw was a feckless clown.
Hal Lindsey said that Jesus would return to earth one generation or 40 years after the founding fo the State of Israel in 1949. 1989 came and gone so far as I remember.
Nadya Suleman, the single mother who gave birth to octuplets last week , said she wants to go back to school to get a degree in counseling. Her couseling will no doubt boil down to the usual pro-life certitudes-- breed like a bunny without regard to consequences-- either to yourself, your finances, the finances of tax payers in the state, and the lives of her children. In the meantime, if she can cash in on her story, so much the better.
To make some sense out of this pro-life heroine, I turn to the insights of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). He acknowledged that love was the great mainspring of human existence: "One ought rather to be surprised that a thing [love] which plays throughout so important a part in human life has hitherto practically been disregarded by philosophers altogether, and lies before us as raw and untreated material." He anticipated the sociobiologists of the modern era by claiming that this force not only had precedence over reason but it was the apoetheosis of reason for all creatures-- to stay alive and reproduce at all costs. "The ultimate aim of all love affairs ... is more important than all other aims in man's life; and therefore it is quite worthy of the profound seriousness with which everyone pursues it. What is decided by it is nothing less than the composition of the next generation." Perhaps the problem Schopenhauer would see in Miss Suleman's bliss for procreation is that it circumvented the usual process of forming a new person, but I don't think he would be judgmental as the desire to compose that next generation stems from unconscious, unspoken yearnings. In this case, person-formation took place in a laboratory with a doctor, not in a candle-lit restaurant or a church social with a boyfriend. Just as we are unsettled by Victor Frankenstein's laboratory-created monster, so too are we unsettled by this astonishing manifestion of Wille zum Leben, the will to love, trumping prudence and common sense. But that is true with all romance. It is a temporary madness that seizes our mental processes so as to ensure "the composition of the next generation."
While the births appear to be irrational, selfish, and foolish and while it must be true that a uterus is not a clown car, I'm not sure it is right to demonize Miss Suleman, as she may not have had much choice in the matter. Her 14 children might be the inevitable consequence of the conditions that created her essence, the result of forces that neither she nor we can begin to comprehend. I am reminded of Melville's Captain Ahab. "But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand - a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders." Could it be that Miss Suleman is the Fate's lieutenant and that she is acting under orders?
During World War II, my father was a conscientious objector. He later served in China and then later in Malay as a missionary under the China Inland Mission. He was present at the creation of two nations-- the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and Malaysia in 1952. My parents finished their missionary service helping the Vietnamese “boat people” in 1982. My father refused to accept either combatant or non-combatant service in the military. Social ostracism was intense, universal, and unrelenting. “I had the opportunity to do some visiting with some army boys going back to the service,” Dad wrote to my aunt Elsie Wik Johnson 1941 from Dennison, Iowa. “They had been drinking and were feeling good and talkative. They wanted to know who I was and where I was going. When they found that I was a CO, we got into a little discussion that warmed up a bit. One of the boys led me to the back seat and gave me a lecture. We parted company without regrets.” And COs were not exempt from physical hazard. Among Dad’s letters is a 1943 publication by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors that mentions guinea pig experiments with COs, including the effects of starvation and malaria inoculations. In Dennison, Iowa, my father worked for four months at a Civilian Public Service Camp under Mennonite Central Committee direction. He then spent a year at a Wisconsin diary farm. The Mennonites accepted him for overseas relief work, but Congress passed legislation barring conscientious objectors from serving overseas. Dad was reassigned to camps in Indiana and also did fire prevention work in Santa Barbara, California. His next assignment was to work as a hospital attendant from three to eleven p.m. at the Philadelphia State Mental Hospital (Byberry), in the male incontinent building. The building was completely staffed by COs. On May 6, 1946, Life published an article by Albert Maisel titled, “Bedlam 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals are a Shame and a Disgrace” that referenced some of what my father witnessed.
Dr. Steven J. Taylor, Director of the Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University, is publishing Acts of Conscience this Spring touches on my father’s experiences during World War II. this Spring that will touch on my father’s experiences during World War II. Here is a description from the Spring 2009 catalog
In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.
In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities. Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. Prominent Americans, including Eleanor Roosevelt, ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, author Pearl S. Buck, actress Helen Hayes, and African-American activist Mary McLeod Bethune, supported the efforts of the young men.
These young men were among the 12,000 World War II conscientious objectors who chose to perform civilian public service as an alternative to fighting in what is widely regarded as America’s "good war." Three thousand of these men volunteered to work at state institutions, where they found conditions appalling. Acting on conscience a second time, they challenged America’s treatment of its citizens with severe disabilities. Acts of Conscience brings to light the extraordinary efforts of these courageous men, drawing upon extensive archival research, interviews, and personal correspondence.
The World War II conscientious objectors were not the first to expose public institutions, and they would not be the last. What distinguishes them from reformers of other eras is that their activities have faded from professional and popular memory. Steven J. Taylor’s moving account is an indispensable contribution to the historical record.
I think part of being a parent is being sensitive and observant of your child's gifts and limitations. It's not necessary that your child excels in all areas-- only that she finds her niche. For many people, such as me and dad, it took well into our second decade of life.
I have come to realize that the theory that if you put your child into a presumably wholesome cohort of children, they will be shielded from negative influences. For example, if you encourage them to go to Sunday school or if they are in the band, they will be surrounded by high aspiring other children and parents. This is dangerous nonsense. These are exactly the kind of kids that, for example, deal in and use drugs. That isn't the answer. Nor is religious indoctrination the answer-- lots of church, nightly family prayers, Bible memorization and the like-- and that can in fact contribute to a child's despair and bitterness if it isn't coupled with positive parenting that leads to a bright vision for the child's future. I think much of how happy, secure, and successful a child is comes out of that child's family dynamics, and I've observed that such children come out of poor families and rich families, religious families and irreligious families. But they all have the same thing in common-- parents who are committed to go to bat for their kids through thick and thin.
I think about how I was when I was a early teenager-- kind of a lost soul-- and academically mediocre to say the least. It helped however to find adults that took an interest in me and inspired me to transcend myself. It also helped that I came to the realization that I could do much better than I had done-- I made a choice to act smart until I became smart. In a hat trick of personal psychology, the act became the essence! It also helped to experience a few failures that allowed me to pick myself up. This realization that I could fail and then succeed-- if necessary a dozen times-- gave me great confidence to navigate through life no matter what life threw at me.
I think the most important thing you can do for a child is to be a parent. Listen to her, talk with (not to!) her, and spend quality time with her (more movie nights!). Try to find out what her vision is for her life beyond high school. Ask open ended questions. Let her talk, not just about facts but about feelings. Be empathetic.
As far as the tactics of doing well in school, it took me into my college years before I came to realize that doing well in tests and catching the eye of the teacher is a learned skill, like any other skill, such as playing the clarinet. I believe "intelligence" doesn't exist-- it has as much reality to me as the tooth fairy. What does exist are actions and words, and we have a lot of control over both our actions and words.
I reject the notion that nurturing is the role of the mother. A plane cannot fly with one wing. A son or daughter cannot be the person they are destined to be with one parent engaged and the other parent AWOL. It's hard, thankless work, but that's the way it is.
Friends are the spice of life, but they come and they go. Uncle Reyn wrote about the influence of his mother of her eleven children-- she saw them all go to college during the Great Depression. She was adament that they do so, saying that "a good education is one thing no one can ever take from you."
Ben, my seventh grader, wrote this poem for his writing class. It nicely captures some of his inner world. He is also large of heart.
I Am…
I am small in size, yet large in mind. I wonder about the mysteries of life. I hear endless question, and I want answers. I see all of the world’s problems that need to be solved. I want solutions to these dilemmas. I am small in size, yet large in mind.
I pretend to know when I am actually clueless. I feel a need to learn more. I touch the hearts of those who need help the most. I worry about important problems that go unsolved. I cry when I feel underestimated. I am small in size, yet large in mind.
I understand that not all questions can be answered. I say that we should try to answer as many of them as possible. I dream about a perfect world. I try to make a perfect world. I hope to make a perfect world. I am small in size, yet large in mind.
Another more enigmatic part of Ben's world.
Hi there Someone!
I'm just emailing to say that I had a great time in the NeoLodge, and now its time for me to check out and go back to Neopia!. Thanks for being the best owner ever, and I hope all the other Neopets are jealous :)
Just thought you should know. A very good friend was just broken into last week on San Felipe. They just crowbarred their way in and took quite a bit I believe. Making it look like they were yard people, a brown van was seen outside. No one heard anything!
So, bit close to home and according to the police this kind of crime is definately going up in view of the economic situation.
I sent the following email to my representative as the Arizona legislature is contemplating education cuts.
Here are the cuts that will impact the Scottsdale Unified School District.
* First and Second year teachers will be RIF * Blue Cross/Blue Shield will be the health insurance company. It will cost employees more money. * SIP will be decreased by 18% * Career Ladder will be phased out over 8 years * Copy machines may not be in schools * Assistant principals in elementary schools will become .5 FTE * Elementary Schools will start first with different start times to help with school bus schedules * Pay for sports * Library aides will be reduced. * Teachers will be locked out of schools during weekends and holidays. * Class sizes will be increased by 4 students. * The district will lose: 286 FTE administrators, 221 FTE certified teachers, 40 FTE classified * Flex accounts will go from $2000 to $1000 * Principals will decide which specials will be offered at schools. The school can only have 3 specials (PE. music, library, for example)
Co-Interim Superintendents Katy Cavanagh and Dr. David Peterson are seeking ideas and input from the greater SUSD community as the District faces budget cuts imposed by the State Legislature in the amount of $21 million dollars. The Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board will discuss its final budget decisions at the March 3, 2009 Governing Board meeting.
Carolyn S. Allen, District 8 Representative
Dear Ms. Allen:
We are writing to you as constituents and as a parents of two children that are in the Scottsdale Unified School District. More than eleven years ago, we moved from Chicago to Scottsdale, largely because we were so impressed with the record of excellence from the schools in this area.
It is true that Arizona is experiencing hard times. Because of this, there is ample temptation to slash funding for public education. However, we suggest that this may be the wrong thing to do. Well-funded schools are fundamental to restoring the value of our homes. Good schools foster increasing home property values. A good education with quality programs and competitive salaries for superior, caring teachers can help Arizona recover from this bad economy and position Arizona to be competitive. Finally, for our children, such an education reduces opportunities for more expensive social programs to combat juvenile delinquency and premarital pregnancies.
It is for these reasons that we ask you to consider supporting vibrant public education funding in Arizona.
Representative Allen's terse but wise response to us.
I voted NO on the education cuts in this "slop-dash" budget thrown together without enough careful drilling down into the potential damages. At the same time that information came out, we got another e-mail from teachers at one of the schools that has done so much to educate our children. This is just a quick note to let you know how well Ben is doing on our team this year. We conferred as a group, and we all agree that Ben excels both academically and personally in each of our classes. He is a joy in class and is a wonderful young man. We are proud of him and know you are too.
Thank you for all you do to support our efforts at school.
I found the link on the Amazon Science Forum site http://www.amazon.com/tag/scie.....tagsDetail I'm not too sure what to make of it. The variation in religiosity is more or less what I would have expected, although I was a bit surprised at the UK scoring so high. However, the variation of average IQ with country seems a bit odd. I wonder if it actually measuring educational levels, or average literacy?
(sigh) Here we go again.
From a person who consider herself intelligent, it astonishes me that you believe in something that doesn't objectively exist, namely, an "IQ". Do you also believe in the tooth fairy?
I can measure the temperature in my room and so can you and we can both agree that it is seventy degrees. I can cross check with another thermometer or a thousand themometers if necessary and so can you and a thousand other people. We can establish irrefutably the fact of the temperture in my room. And, if you could do the same, if you put that therometer in my mouth-- 98.6 degees F-- another objectively established irrefutable fact. But can the same be said for an "IQ" test?
What is an "IQ" test? Whether it is the Stanford Binet, a SAT, GRE, or any other variation, it all boils down the the same thing. It is an assessment of someone else's mental acuity. Sounds pretty straight forward, until you start asking some foundational questions. Why are they doing the assessing? Who is doing the assessing? Who is being assessed? How are the assessments constructed? And so on. With only a moment of reflection, it should be more than apparent that these tests are utiliterian and sometimes psychological projections of what testor deem should be tested. Thus, in Saudia Arabia, memorization and recitation of the Koran would mark you as intelligent. In Britain, your ability to solve the Pons Asinorum would mark you as intelligent. But both of these kind of questions no where come near to assessing "intelligence"-- an undefined quality, like love and faith. It is undefined as intelligence is a subjective behavorial manifestion, like laughter or grief, not an intrinsic quality like body heat. As filters and gateways into what a particular culture regards as important, these tests are not without their use. However, it is scientific fraud to extend these tests beyond their limited purposes to comparing "intelligences" between races, sexes, religions, to other nations, across time, and to historical figures.
As to your basic question, the answer is that such comparisons are nonsense. Never has the hypnothesis that intelligence is evenly distributed across all people be they backwoods Baptists or Church of England atheists refuted. (The same is true with African hottentots and Manhatten investment bankers-- as a group, their intelligence is identical because their fundamental biology is identical.) Well, how can you explain the SAT score between Catholics and Episcopalians? Could it be that the former doesn't have the cultural advantages-- prep schools, access to tutors, summer camps, legacy parents, etc-- that the latter have? Daring thought!
I really wish people-- especially psychologists-- would put their intelligence to better use instead of dabbling in the pseudo-science and fairy tales of comparative IQs.
A reader writes: I'm an avid reader who's never written you before, but as a philosophy major and not much else, this is probably the first time I've felt (vaguely) qualified. And the sudden phenomenon of assertive atheism has me concerned too. What the defenders of the Flying Spaghetti Monster thesis'commensurability with actual theism fail to recognize is that belief in God generally doesn't have anything so "concrete" as its substance. It's not the particulars of God -- the "invisible man in the sky" imagery andsuch -- that matter. In some sense these particulars aren't the content of theist belief at all; it's the "consequences" of God -- moral compunction, cultural taboo, social phenomena that amount to a de facto eschatology, etc. -- that actually constitute theism. And when measured by adherence to behaviors consistent with this belief, atheism suddenly appears much rarer. Nietzsche recognized this; it's the reason why an insistence on overcoming Judeo-Christian ethics comes right alongside his proclamation of the death of God. Another reader writes: Your philosophy student reader's email did a wonderful job of finding three ways to say the same simple point: Christianity is more than an infatuation with God as Deity. I think most atheists understand and accept this and a moment's time exploring the writings of even the spittle-flecked atheist agitators shows that they understand that life still presents significant questions, both moral and existential, that religions claim to answer. Your previous reader's letter raised a similar point concerning the seeming lack of positive propositions from atheist thinkers, but the philosophy student goes a step further and insinuates that perhaps "real atheism"is close to impossible unless one can otherwise justify all of one's existential beliefs without God. Both of these readers, I think, conflate atheism with too much else. Atheism is a simple proposition: Sufficient, convincing evidence for existence of the Supreme Being(s) is lacking and claims that rely onthe existence of God for their validity are therefore false. Atheism is not the idea that morality does not and cannot exist, it is simply the idea that God does not exist. To use your previous reader's metaphor: Atheists claim we all actually live in the same country, but that our country is not God's country even though most people believe that's where they live.
"Look, this is one of the worst bills in galactic history. It's not only on the timing of it-as we saw from the Congressional Budget Office, more than half of the infrastructure stuff with the bridges androads will not be spent until two years hence when the recession will belikely over or coming out of it, and it will only add to inflation, not jobs. And it's the content of this. We heard earlier in Major's report, a third of a billion for contraception, a billion to states tohelp them collect child support, nursing training-all this is worthy,but it ain't stimulus.
If you look at what was left behind after last year's stimulus, $160 billion, it didn't have any effect on the economy. It left nothing behind. This bill has a fifth of a billion for grass at the Jefferson Memorial. FDR left behind the Hoover dam and Eisenhower left behind the interstate highway system. We will leave behind, after spending $1trillion, a dog run in East Potomac Park."
"One of the most agonising and tragic aspects of the current global wave of Jew-hatred is the prominent part played in this by Jews.
Indeed, one of the most insufferable characteristics of these Jew-hating Jews is that they claim to represent authentic Jewish morality as opposed to the supposed corruption of those principles by Zionism and Israel. They do nothing of the kind. Their claim merely advertises their profound ignorance of Jewish ethics and history, which they so badly misrepresent."
Rain falls on both the rich and the poor. But it seems that the storms of today's economy has especially buffeted Donald Trump, who in the last six months is one billion dollars poorer . Trump personally guantaned a $40 million construction load from Deustche Bank for his 92-story Trump Tower in Chicago, but now wants to walk away from his obligations because of God. He wants to hide behind a"force majeure" clause, sometimes known as an Act of God. Usually, that would be invoked if there was riots, floods, and pesitilence, not a billionare's foolish gamble. He has countersued Deustche Bank for three billion. Trump has made his career on hustling banks and people. In his book Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life, he said he loved “to crush the other side and take the benefits” and mocked the banks that had lost money on loans made to him before another real estate downturn, in the 1990s. “I figured it was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?"
Perhaps Deustche Bank should counter-counter sue for six billion and take down this Nimrod with the squirrel hair once and for all.
On Thursday eveneing, Caroline Kennedy released a statement withdrawing her interest in replacing Hillary Clinton as a senator to New York. “I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate.”
What's going on? There are reports that Kennedy has a problem with unpaid taxes or illegal household help. Other reports suggest that she wanted to spend more time with her ailing uncle Ted Kennedy. I think all of these are at best half-truths.
The truth is that the New York politicos became unhinged at the prospect of selecting a Palin-- someone such as Sarah Palin who is hopelessly out of their depth-- a superfically attractive person without the substance and steel to prevail in the hothouse of New York politics. Like Ted Kennedy when he was running against Carter for the presidency, Caroline, although winsome, is flighty and inarticulate to the point of incoherance.
Americans are generally suspicious of nepotistic political dynasties. They believe that there must be more than mere name recognition. Governor David Paterson and his advisors must have concluded that Caroline would have made an embarassing replacement for Hillary.
... ever towards irrelevancy like lemmings to a chasm. In politics, as in war, those who control the high ground wins. As Obama puts it: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."
There's a lot of right-wing hoo-hah about the cost of Obama's inaugural, with claims that the inaugural cost four times the Bush inaugural of 2005. As usual, they've got the facts wrong. Bush's inaugural cost $157.8 million dollars. The $170 million for Obama's inaugural seems to be a tabloid-generated guesstimate. It also doesn't include the need for additional sharpshooters and the extra Porta-Potties for two million people. Nor does it subtract the voluntary contributions for the balls. It's all a tempest in a teapot and a small price to pay for marking the transition from the worst president ever to (I hope) the best president ever.
On his radio show, Lou Dobbs claimed that Obama's "inaugural celebration from start to finish will cost an estimated $170 million, and that dwarfs the $42 million spent on George Bush's inauguration just four years ago." Similarly, Brent Bozell wrote in a column: "For the record, the 'lavish' Bush inaugural cost $43 million. Final tallies are not complete, but according to some sources, like the Guardian newspaper, the Obama inaugural will cost more than $150 million." But the comparison is a false one, as the Bush figure excludes security, transportation, and other incidental costs. The closest the Daily News came to explaining the $160 million was its noting that the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland had submitted a $75 million request to the federal government to cover inauguration costs, including security and transportation. Bottom line: The Daily News provided no facts -- no evidence -- to support its what-if $160 million price tag for the inauguration, a price tag the newspaper declared as fact in its attention-grabbing headline. New York Times
In 2005, Mr. Bush raised $42.3 million from about 15,000 donors for festivities; the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers.
The president and first lady Laura Bush, and Cheney and his wife, Lynne, planned appearances at three candlelight dinners to thank those who contributed $100,000 or more to underwrite much of the $40 million cost of the inaugural celebration, which is expected to become the most expensive in history. The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.
I believe. However, I reserve to myself the right to define the terms of my belief as ultimately I must be responsible for my own choices. I accept foundationally sola scriptura, the corollary of which is a radical rejection of sacerdotalism-- the theory of a mediating priesthood (be they Catholic or Protestant) between me and God-- as well as all creeds and church membership (but not church attendance, which I value).
The divide as I see it is not between belief and unbelief (or theism and atheism), but between rational, informed, self-challenging belief and unbelief versus credulous, passive, dogmatic belief and unbelief. Faith is not the opposite of doubt. Fanaticism is.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
Here are a few observations.
1. It remains to be seen if the New Era becomes the same marker for the Obama administration as New Deal was for Franklin Roosevelt.
2. "These things are old." It's hard for me to see how conservatives can find fault with Obama's sentiments. Obama's beef is not with conservatism but with failure.
3. Expectations are sky high. But I've never know an administration that has not had scandal and tests from our enemies. Obama tried to level-set expectations for all the challenges that lie ahead. Few people expect a quick turn around in either foreign affairs or the economy.
4. The post-partisan era of good feeling won't last long. It never does. Obama's honeymoon with the media may last longer, but even that will expire-- probably by the time the dogwoods bloom in Washington. Much rests on the administration's ability to move beyond the symbolism of the moment and make substantive progress on the two key issues of our time-- the economy and the war. The prospects appear quite grim for both.
5. All that said, this is a great day for America!
It is a tradition of the president to leave a letter in the Oval office for his successor. Here is Bush's farewell.
To Mr Obamer;
I wunt ta cugrdulate yu and hop yah have a good tym lyke I did. Yah gitall kynds ov stuff wen yu are Prezidant. Yah get to play wit toyz andyah git to eet burgers wen evr yah want. Yah alsa git to tell themilitery to drop bums on any cuntry yah want. Dat is wy it is good to beprezidant.
I am struggling with my faith and struggling with anxiety. I am a 22 y/o married woman and I am pretty happy. Since I was around 15 I have been scared to die (I obsess over it) and have terrible anxiety and panic attacks regarding life,sickness and of course death. As a child I went to church ,had complete faith in where I was going when I died and never questioned god. As I am getting older I have so many more questions and don't have faith like a child anymore, I am confused with the meaning of life. I have been to a councellor about my anxiety, but I know the only thing that will help me is prayer and faith in the Lord. If anyone has advice on what I can do to help this fear of death/the unkown I would appreciate it so much.
The death of my mother last month has brought into focus some of your concerns. Your feelings are real, important, and universal. When I was about your age, I had a strange near death experience that left me with a utter fearlessness of death. (It didn't make me more religious-- just less anxious.) What you would have seen is someone in a pool of blood moving like a half squished beetle. What I felt was a floating sense of warmth, serenity, and calm, a bit like when you can sleep late on a Saturday morning knowing that you don't have a care in this world for the coming day. The jagged edge between extinction and life produces all kinds of emotions, from hysteria to prayer, and I'm sure those emotions were in full force last week when the US Airways jet ditched in the Hudson river last week. In thinking about my mother's death, I've come to a few conclusions, for what they are worth, about dying, death, and grief. First, there is nothing romantic or wonderful about dying. It's an ugly, grotesque process-- an ambush-- a nasty deal-- and strangely a mirror of birth with its humilations, sights, sounds, and smells. It is never fair and there are always loose ends. There aren’t always times to say good by. Unlike the movies, it is unlikely that you wil hear any last parting profound words. What I heard was almost too painful to recall-- barely audible grunts.
We are all looking into our grave. As Ryan White, the teenager who died of AIDs, said, “We are all dying.” In a movie, two honeymooners are standing at the rail of an ocean liner. “If I were to die tomorrow, the young women says to her husband, “I would feel that my life had been full because I have known your love.” They kiss and then move away revealing the name of the ship on the life preserver: Titanic. In my mother's case, she died of voluntary starvation in accordance with the terms of her living will, and yet, during the week or so that she lived, still retained some consciousness. It was hard for me to accept that, and as much as I honored my mother's desires, I resolved that should that ever happen to me, I want to be unconscious from the moment the living will is activated until my death.
At present US mortality rates, 25 percent of Americans die before they reach 65. The one certitude that theists and atheists accept is physical death. Man, as Shakespeare said, is the “quintessence of dust” and “men must endure their going forth even as their coming.” You are but 22 years of age, and your entire life stretches in front of you. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, it seems to me we can all agree that we can make the life we have matter by living as fully as we can each day that we have.
The question is whether death is extinction and annihilation of all that I am. Is death a pilgrimage or a destination? “Now I am about to take my last voyage—a great leap in the dark,” said the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. What will happen to you die? Nothing, the materialist says. What will it matter if famine unchain their wrath again you, while you lie comfortable in your grave consumed by honest worms, neither dreaming nor snoring. No regrets will linger in your tomb to mingle with the larvae that batten your melting flesh.
For the Christian, it is the death of the soul, not physical death that is our enemy. “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so.” John Donne wrote. “On short sleep past, we wake eternally/And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” To pass from life to death is not such a terrible thing. The experiment has been made countless times. We are all aware of the transitional nature of life and fame, that the seasons of life pass us by as relentlessly as autumn to winter.
Death, for all its ugliness, gives nobility and poignancy to life. When I look at a gravestone or a coffin, I sometimes think that “Therefore but for the grace of God, goes a better man than I.” Death bids us to slow down and wake up. A cabdriver pointed out to me it was a beautiful day, and indeed it was. I just hadn’t noticed it. I complain when it’s too hot or too cold, and don’t notice it when everything is perfect. For all of us, someday the electroencelogram’s sine will flatten. As the Tibetan author Sogyal Rinpoche says, “If you’re having problems with a friend, pretend he’s dying—you may even love him.” The columnist Joseph Sobran wrote that “When I consider that I am going to die someday, a thought that occurs to me more often now, I feel a sad affection for people who otherwise irritate me. I begin to appreciate them and to think of what I have in common with them. Sharp differences soften. Maybe we should begin our farewells a little earlier than we usually do.” H.L. Mencken, was perhaps unwittingly pious when he noted that “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have a thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”
The one thing my mother would not want me to be is to be morbid and gloomy, and she would want me and my kids to enjoy all that life as to offer-- dinners and concerts and fun with the children. And that is exactly how I plan to honor her.
"Even if I throw in my theoretical lot with agnosticism, I am nevertheless compelled in practice to choose between two alternatives: either to live as if God did not exist or else to live as if God did exist. If I act according to the first alternative, I have in practice adopted an atheistic position and have made a hypothesis (which may also be false) the basis of my entire life….
"Let us leave this question here: it is clear that the prestige enjoyed by the agnostic solution today does not stand up to closer examination. As a pure theory, it may seem exceedingly illuminating. But in its essence, agnosticism is much more than a theory: what is at stake here is the praxis of one’s life. When one attempts to “put it into practice” in one’s real field of action, agnosticism slips out of one’s hands like a soap bubble; it dissolves into thin air, because it is not possible to escape the very option it seeks to avoid. When faced with the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No—without ever avoiding all the consequences that derive from this choice even in the smallest details of life. Accordingly, we see that the question of God is ineluctable; one is not permitted to abstain from casting one’s vote."
This quote is from Pope Benedict's Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.
Happily married couples typically say their relationships work better when they can sit down and gab one-on-one, like thinking, feeling adults.
Daily Habit #2: Flirt
Most couples realize that getting intimate every night isn't possible, let alone a worthy goal. Indeed, a 1994 University of Chicago survey of Americans' physical intimacy habits found that only about a third of adults have physical intimacy more than once a week. That doesn't mean, though, that you can't at least talk sensually every day . . .
Daily Habit #3: Get Stupid Together Bob and Angie are ashamed to admit that the daily ritual that brings such joy to their 12-year marriage is none other than reality TV.
Daily Habit #4: Declare Your Independence
So hold on, then: Is domestic joy found in partners smothering each other in obsessive daily rituals? Hardly.
Daily Habit #5: Share a Spiritual Moment
In another University of Chicago survey, this one of married couples, 75 percent of the Americans who pray with their spouses reported that their marriages are "very happy" (compared to 57 percent of those who don't). Those who pray together are also more likely to say they respect each other and discuss their relationship together.
One cannot escape the conclusion that nothing is known with absolute certainty. To whatever extent we may claim that a belief is true, we must also admit, at the same time, that it is contingent upon experience and thus always subject to revision.
I can see that you are enjoying your sophomore year. Seriously, your contention that "nothing is known with absolute certainty" is provably false. Is there any doubt that the earth rotates around the sun, that blood circulates through your body, or that you will die if you ingest cyanide? On metaphysical or linguistic question, your epistomological agnosticism might have some warrent. But when applied to statements of emperical fact, your conclusion that no knowledge can be known with certainty is rubbish.
Just how do you prove what you said unless we use methods of statistics or uncertainty? On what grounds do you demonstrate that in particular- not just assert it is not the case? Sure, we seem to understand on one level that "nothing in itself" has a sort of certainty in the thinking processes. This is a consistent view- despite one can truly argue if the earth is a center of the universe of if blood circulates throughout the body (both major breakthrough discoveries of course) and there is a rumor that some taking cyanide have survived it by their strength of mind- who is to say that in some other matrix this pill could be the truth of things? I mean while we forbid division by zero it should be clear we cannot talk about such realms in a empirical or psychological manner. Or can we?
Argumentum ad matrix? Hmm. It seems to me that we live in a world where there are mirages, dreams, delusions, and madmen. But none of that negates the existence of reality separate from our impressions and emotions. That you are real-- that you are drinking soda rather than bleach-- that you will sleep tonight, perchance to dream, but wake up tomorrow in a world of real things-- is a common-sense given accepted by any creature with consciousness. Some things can be detected by external devices. This book weighs two pounds and not two tons, for example, and that weight has nothing to do with "my truth"-- a construct that doesn't exist in reality. It is what it is-- an absolute truth. And, as other people have mentioned, your theory collapses into incoherence. Is truth relative? Fine, then that statement "truth is relative" must also be relative and therefore not relative. Is truth verifiable? Fine, then verify that asssertion. Is truth falsifiable? Fine, then falsify the claim that truth is falsifiable. As alluring as your theory is, it ultimately is an intellectual dead end that puts into the same category of skepticism flat earth theorists and round earth theoritists. And also in that category is skepticism about even language itself including our ability to use symbols that each other can understand-- a claim that you implicitly reject by responding to these posts!
The bloody goo that results from a bird/plane collision.
Each day, the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory receives about a dozen packages from around the country, each containing tissue swabs of snarge for DNA analysis to identify the species of bird. The bird/plane collision data is used to improve aviation safety by having flight plans that are less likely to encounter birds and by engineering more bird-resistant planes. For example, jet engines must now be able to withstand the ingestion of an 8-pound waterfowl without failing (this is tested in the lab by firing a chicken from a cannon at point-blank range).
Tonight's date movie was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Kevin James is a Segeway-riding feckless policeman-wannerbee who thwarts a terrorist gang and gets the girl. It was Die Hard or Mission Impossible with ample slapstick.
It started slowly and the plot was as predictable as a ruler. But it was fun to watch and it had its moments.
The answer is invariant reinforcement. Some of the proceeding answers correctly point out to genetic (chemical/hormonal inbalances) or environmental (cultural, familial) predispositions to addiction. But the mechanism that causes people to be addicted is sporadic intervals of pleasure and pain. The key word is sporadic, as that set up the person for expectancy that overrides intentionality.
Now, apply that to real life situation, for example, spousal abuse. The same would be true with any kind of addiction.
Day #1: abuse-abuse-abuse-gift-abuse-abuse-love-abuse Day #2: love-love-love-abuse-abuse-abuse-gift-abuse-abuse
This is an extremely hard cycle to break. There are only two approaches that really work: #1. Don't enter the cycle in the first place-- don't marry the abuser, take that first drink, etc. as the first taste will always be pleasure; or #2. Stop cold turkey. Divorce the brute, toss the bottles, etc. I cannot think of any other way.
Andrew Wyeth, probably the most renowned painter in the United States, died Friday at his home in Chadds Ford, Pa. He was 91.
Last Saturday in Scottsdale, we saw a collection of Wyeth's works at a local gallery. The paintings sold for as high as $60,000. But there were pencil sketches that went for considerably less. With the exception of "Helga", all of Andrew's models have since died.
Having grown up in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, I experienced some of the same country life that Andrew illustrated at Chadds Fords. I admire his picture for his technical skill. I think Andrew superbly captures the mood of the Pennslvania country in many of his painting, with its frosty three in the afternoon late fall or early spring textures, lights, and colors. But his painting lack the humor and humanity that animates the illustrations of two of my other favorite Americans artists, Maxwell Parrish and Norman Rockwell.
A good example of Andrew's work is "Pennsylvania Landscape", painted in tempera on panel in 1942.
Due to challenges to our business and the continued bleak economic environment, Circuit City is going out of business and the company's assets will be liquidated to pay off creditors.
The process was extremely difficult and we were left with no other choice but to liquidate. Circuit City had a proud heritage of serving the public for 60 years and we deeply regret the impact this decision will have on our associates, our customers and the communities where we have operated stores and other facilities.
We had hoped to be able to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a stronger, more competitive company and we made significant progress during the reorganization to improve our business. Unfortunately, the economic climate is so poor that we have no choice other than liquidation.
Liquidators will start arriving in our 567 stores across the U.S. over the weekend, and closing sales will start as early as Saturday, January 17. Closing sales will run as long as it takes to sell existing inventory, but are expected to wrap up by the end of March. When the liquidation sales are completed, the stores will be closed.
At the company's corporate offices in Richmond, Virginia, a small staff will remain on duty during the completion of the liquidation process; most associates will be relieved of their duties immediately.
Consistent with federal labor laws, Circuit City associates are receiving 60-days notice of the termination of their employment. Those who stay on to help with the liquidation, of course, will receive pay and benefits. Those who are dismissed earlier will be receiving pay and benefits for the 60-day period beginning January 16, 2009.
Associates at our company headquarters will be asked to come back on Monday, January 19, to find out more about their status and to retrieve their personal belongings.
In my computer engineering work, I encounter looping failures. Sometimes, a program keeps iterating without processing anything. Sometimes, there are looping conflicts between data keys that prevent table inserts. The upshot in either case is inevitable: system failure.
I see the same thing happening in our thought processes. Our ability to recall is more sophisticated than any computer as we nurse and rehearse past grievances. And with that capacity comes the potential for psychological failure ranging from the unwillingness to trust and like ourselves and others to basket-case psychosis and collapse.
Memories of unpleasant events are real to us as we evoke those memories, and it is a flight from reality to discount or minimize those memories. But it seems to me that mental health depends on our ability to contain these phantoms sufficiently so that they don't disable our normal interactions with others. A computer system that cannot forget is worthless as eventually it runs out of memory. Our inability to forget can also disable us. So how do we allow ourselves to forget episodes in our distant past that by their nature have scarred us?
A few thoughts.
I think it takes firstly an act of will. I must decide that I cannot allow this or that event from the past to warp my happiness. It takes the realization that only I can be responsible for my happiness and who I am. I think it takes conversation and in some cases professional counseling. I think it takes faith as I cannot forget until I can forgive-- not just the people or the circumstances of my pain but myself for nurturing that pain against all reason. I think it takes self-reflection-- understanding of my strengths and limitations and the sources of my unhappiness.
The consequence of all this is to execute an effective plan to move beyond the bad memories into a more positive present. And I have found that often actions must be the horse that pulls the cart of attitudes-- that I must act before I can be-- that I must pretend to be courageous, loving, trusting, and likeable for me to be courageous, loving, trusting, and likeable.
"I too have tried out the beta of Windows Vista and although it is somewhat better than Vista - it still suffers from:
* Very high RAM usage (about 2/3 that of Vista)
* Heavy UI requirements (and no classic start bar now)
* Heavy handed usage of DRM
* Lack of device support (as bad as Vista)
* Unknown cost (although Microsoft need to support their staff with this)
* IE8 is an abysmal web browser
The bottom line is that Windows 7 is based on the Vista core (with slightly more polish) but is still horrendously memory hungry, GPU intensive, (probably) expensive and the same quality control that we have come to expect from Microsoft ;) Don't forget also that Microsoft is planning to move over to a software-as-a-subscription model (so you will have to PAY every year to keep your PC working). No thanks! Sadly people are so brainwashed these days that Windows (whether 95, 98, XP, Vista, Windows 7 etc) is the only choice but there really are other choices now. You don't have to pay the Microsoft (or Apple) tax any more - you really can have legal and quality software for free and more and more people are discovering this. No this won't kill Linux on the desktop and neither will it kill Apple OS/X either. Those people who are brand new to computing will probably still buy Vista/Windows 7 (although usage of Linux based netbooks is increasing).
Those of us who THINK and CARE about efficient/non-power-hungry hardware, freedom of use (and licensing), truly secure systems and open technologies will continue to use better software than Microsoft's. Pretending to be a *former* fan of something (e.g. Ubuntu) and then saying *but I found something better* is a well known trick of Microsoft followers. You may be completely genuine - in which case I fully support you right to CHOICE and hope you enjoy your copy of Windows 7. Me I also enjoy my right to choice and will be sticking with 64 bit Ubuntu thank you very much. " John Cockroft
"How old does a child have to be before he or she exhibits characteristics of giftedness? Many parents and teachers believe that a child is gifted when school tests say they are, and these tests aren't given until third or fourth grade, if at all. The truth is that gifted traits show up in toddlers. In fact, some of them can be seen even in infants!"
"Bush's Final Approval Rating: 22 Percent Jan. 16, 2009
(CBS) President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.
Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.
Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.
The rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to CBS News polling.
Recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than Mr. Bush. His father George H.W. Bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while Jimmy Carter's rating was 44 percent.
Harry Truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by Gallup."
Here are excerpts of an article in today's New York Times Magazine. It profiles "New Calvinist" Mark Driscoll, the "cussing pastor", who disdains "prohibitions of traditional evanglical Christianity. Taboos on alcohol, smoking, swearing and violent movies have done much to shape American Protestant culture-- a culture that he has called the domain of "chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists." Moreover, the Bible tells him that to seek salvation by self-righteous clean living is to behave like a Pharisee."
It appears that to Driscoll's way of thinking, it doesn't matter what you do, so long as you believe the right things. Among those right things is contempt for women and gays.
It wouldn't surprise me if Driscoll turns out to be flaming gay. It wouldn't be the first time that a fanatical authoritarian turns out to be a homosexual.
For all their cutting edge, I must say that their church has the ugliest splash page I've seen anywhere. Here is my advice on how to re-tool their site.
The Gordian knot refers metaphorically to a bold stroke that solves an intractable problem. In the last two weeks, almost 1,000 people have died in the war that Israel has waged on Hamas in response to terrorism. Most of those who have died were Palestinian and most of them civilians.
Is there anything that can cut the Gordian knot in the conflict in the Middle East? There was a time when most people assumed that the tensions in Ireland, South Africa, and in Viet Nam were problems without solutions. But all human problems have a life-span, although sometimes the time frame is generations. Eventually, institutions develop that mitigate the ancient furies and memories. But equally inevitably institutions fragment and collapse as identity politicans coalese around new grievances.
It seems to me a lasting solution will probably involve some of these elements.
1. A recognition that lex talonis -- tribalistic habits of revenge-- is no solution, where it be an eye for an eye or your family and all your relatives for an eye. This recognition has nothing to do with morality, despite the fact that the land of Israel was the greenhouse for three major religions. It will come out of necessity, a pragmatic recognition that there are limits to revenge, as they breed resentment and create the conditions for tougher opponents. This was one of the rueful epiphanies to the Nazi leadership as they conducted their Final Solution. In Israel's case, there is also the demographic inevitability and reality-- that Palestinians are having more children than Israelis.
2. A recognition that the West cannot be an honest broker in this dispute. Mediation will most likely have to come through nations that have no dog in the fight, such as the People's Republic of China or Africa. But why should such countries get involved? I don't have a good answer to that, other than eventually they may see it is in their national economic and security interest to get involved. The United States' unofficial alliance with Israel and boots on the ground in two Islamic countries takes away its credability to play a meaningful role in a resolution to this problem.
3. Resettlement, perhaps in the Middle East or perhaps even to Muslim South Asia. The Isreali state was founded by displaced persons from Europe fleeing the fascist persecution. I doubt that this solution is acceptable to anyone, but I include for consideration.
4. A one nation solution. A Palestiniean state. But I don't see how this will address the underlying tensions between two different cultures with such a legacy of hatred.
5. A two-nation solution. Gaza is one nation and the West Bank is another nation. Even more unlikely a solution. From the Palestinian's point of view, this would create a divide and conquer hegemony from Israel.
6. Integration with neigboring countries. Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan. Not a solution, in my view. Neither countries would like a radicalized, poor beachhead into their own country.
7. Federalism with Israel. Integration into Israel with allowance for the distinct culture represented by the Palestinians. Israel will reject this idea for the same reason that Jordan and Egypt would reject integration into their countries.
8. Modus vivendi in combination with a United Nations force with enough power to keep the peace while efforts are made to insitutionalize Israeli and Palistinean desires for security and peace. This gets into issues of Israeli sovereignty. However, I think this is probably the most workable solution, although it is far from a perfect one.
Your solutions are simplistic and wishy washy. Israel is an independent state.
Perhaps. But what is the alternative? A permanent state of war? A final solution? Without doubt, both options appeal to many people who will die in Israel in the coming days.
Even if this escalates into Armagedon, what then-- what about Armagedon plus one year?
As I mentioned in my post, Israel is on the wrong side of the demographic time bomb, and sooner or later there must be some kind of accomodation as new Islamist terrorists are getting born every day on Israel's soil, one of whom may someday acquire the means for Israel's destruction. And, the most realistic scenerio is an accomodation that eventually favors a radically anti-democratic, anti-secular, anti-Western Islamic state within the boundaries of Israel. That is the shape of things as they will be, if the present trends continue, I believe. As a Zionist, it isn't what I want. Bt it is what will be, unless there is some kind of a overaching, permanent solution.
As a tactical question, I'm willing to concede that Israel had no choice but to move against Hamas in Gaza. As a strategic question, this may indeed prove to be a pyrrhic victory for Israel. Israel may have just planted the seeds of its own destruction. I see no leaders with the stature to effect change between Israel and Hamas, and there is ample incentive by fanatics on both sides to keep the turmoil going indefinitely.
War in this case isn't the failure of Middle Eastern politics and dipomacy. It is the flower of Middle Eastern politics and diplomacy. But that is true only in the tactical sense, as war, like some kind of Frankenstein monster, eventually will turn on its master. It does so because war eventually weakens the state and erodes trends towards democracy and secularism. It also randomizes outcomes and misallocates and destroys resources, including, obviously, people. But, presently, the short-term view is that the rewards for war by both sides outweighs the costs of war. So war must continue.
What you are seeing right now in my opinion is the equivalent of the Tet offensive-- a military victory for Israel but also a propoganda defeat as well, which might be much more significant and a turning point in the history of the life of Israel as a sovereign nation.
Violence begets violence, and though the Middle East the violence that Israel is inflicting against school children in Gaza is beamed into the TV sets of countless living rooms radicalizing yet another generation. But few people-- including folks like you-- have the inclination, will, imagination, or authority to break the cycle of bloodshed that will cause yet more bloodshed to little Jewish boys and girls to the hundreth generation.
I believe that Isael is making two assumptions that predicates its belligerance. 1. The the United States will continue its de facto military alliance with Israel; and 2. The Israel can dominate with its military capability any combination of enemies that may align against it at any given time. As to point one I think the intention is there, but there are other forces that may prevent the United States from rescuing Israel in its moment of peril. As to point two, the increasing sophistication of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons will render that assumption invalid. I wouldn't bet the fate of Israel on either of those assumptions.
A solution will only reveal itself when the pain of not having a solution becomes too great for Zion. We're not at the point yet. But one day the Israelis will clamor that the rest of the world do something to preserve their existence and identity.
That time will come. Guaranteed.
A real middle east peace plan?
1) Israel takes over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
2) Egypt gives the Sinai Penisula to the UN. UN sets up Sinai Mandate to govern Sinai Penisula.
3) So-called "Palestinians" moved from West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip to Sinai.
4) Saudi Arabia pays $500 billion to turn Sinai into a productive area.
5) Israel builds a massive wall along their border with Sinai and Lebanon. Think "Great Wall of China".
6) On other side of wall into Sinai and Lebanon is a 2 mile wide DMZ patroled by a third party with no stake in what happens in the middle east. (Think Chinese troops)
7) Vatican takes control of Holy Places in Jerusalem with guarentee that all Holy Places with be open to all pilgrims regardless of religion.
8) Israel explicitly states they will try to acquire no more territory in the Middle East. This pledge is invalidated by any attack by the Arab Countries on Israel.
There you have it, Middle East Peace in 8 steps.
I like your plan. It makes sense when you look at the vastness of Saudi Arabia in comparison to the small area of land that people are fighting for. I could see a UN mandate carved out of the coast of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea many times larger than Gaza and the West Bank.
The way I would approach it as follows.
1. In for a dime, in for a dollar. If I were the Israelis, I would use this opportunity to eradicate root and branch all terrorists and supporting institutions throughout Gaza, Israel proper, and the West Bank, far more aggressively than they are doing now, irrespective of world public opinion, using basically the British suppression of the communists in Malaya in the early 1950s, followed by ...
2. Your plan, plus assurances of fair treatment and democratic representation to minority segments, with incentives for minorities to migrate.
But I see no leaders interesting in this kind of pragmatic thinking. They just want to keep waving the bloody flag while their kids die year after year forever.
"In places like Detroit and Cleveland, banks are unloading rundown homes for next to nothing. And they're tremendous bargains, even after factoring in renovation costs.
Buying homes like these is certainly a leap of faith; they're generally not in the best of neighborhoods and they're often surrounded by many other vacant and deteriorating homes. Still, some of these neighborhoods may turn around and provide residents with good, dirt-cheap housing."
"If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings."
"The problem is that some medical personnel wear the same unlaundered uniforms to work day after day. They start their shift already carrying germs such as C.diff, drug-resistant enterococcus or staphylococcus. Doctors' lab coats are probably the dirtiest. At the University of Maryland, 65% of medical personnel confess they change their lab coat less than once a week, though they know it's contaminated. Fifteen percent admit they change it less than once a month. Superbugs such as staph can live on these polyester coats for up to 56 days."
David Weidenmoyer passed from this life at his home on January 1, 2009.
Mr. Weidenmoyer was of the Protestant faith and was a Dialysis Technician with DaVita Dialysis Center of Ocala, FL. Mr. Weidenmoyer moved to Ocala from Berlin, NJ in 1991. He enjoyed Country music, Bob Dylan, and The Grateful Dead. He enjoyed playing guitar and singing Karaoke. He is survived by his mother Edith Weidenmoyer of Ocala, FL; sister Joyce Wik and husband Paul of Downingtown, PA.; sister Kathleen Bommer and husband Wayne of Laurel Springs, NJ; brother James Hamilton and wife Anna of Pine Hill, NJ; and sister Valerie Lindsay and husband Craig of Cedar Brook, NJ; and many nieces and nephews.
He was predeceased by his father, Roy Weidenmoyer in 2001.
Frances Marie Stewart died Monday, September 15, 2008 at her residence after a long illness. Public visitation begins at 2:00 PM Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at Miller Funeral Home, 13th & Main Ave. with the family present from 5-7. A private family committal will be at 12:00 Noon, Thursday at Hills of Rest Memorial Park with a public memorial service to follow at 2:00 PM at First Baptist Church. In lieu of flowers memorials may be directed to the Heartland House or the Shrine Transportation Fund.
Frances Marie Stewart was born April 29, 1923, in Beyer, PA, to parents who came from Italy through Ellis Island along with two brothers and a sister. Fran was the 8th of 11 children. Her family and she were very Mediterranean in their way of thinking, talking and doing for others. She always had a hug and kind word for everyone she encountered; be it family, friend, acquaintance or perfect stranger that she thought needed it. She will be remembered as full of love and concern for others. Her family traditions were extremely important to her….spaghetti at every birthday celebration.
Frances was united in marriage to David Stewart on October 18, 1957 in Sioux Falls. Fran was a loving homemaker and wife to David; a dedicated mother to Melody; grandmother to Melissa (Mike), David (Julie), and Ann (David); Nana to seven great grandchildren - Max, Dunnavin, Franne, Zoe, Ben, Margaret Ann, and Peter; and sister to surviving siblings Mary Deluca, Frank Attilio, Tony (Helen) Attilio, and Viola Gett.
Her parents, brother’s Floyd, Ernest, Peter and John and sister’s Jean and Pauline preceded her in death.
Is there no end to the madness? Those terrorists have gone too far. They have now spoken ill of Bush's cat.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Islamic militants posted sarcastic comments on an extremist Web site Tuesday ridiculing a recent announcement by First Lady Laura Bush that the family's cat had died.
But on Tuesday, one commentator, called Dark-Side, sarcastically urged followers to offer condolences for the cat.
"For God's sake, could someone tell us where the wake is to be held?" the online commentator wrote.
The first lady's office said Monday that the family's 18-year-old cat, named India, died Sunday at the White House.
Father Richard John Neuhaus, the editor in chief of First Things, authored the following reflections on dying and death eight years ago. Today, he is facing his own death. Here are some excerpts.
We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. Most of us are at ease in discussing what makes for a good life, but we typically become tongue-tied and nervous when the discussion turns to a good death. As children of a culture radically, even religiously, devoted to youth and health, many find it incomprehensible, indeed offensive, that the word "good" should in any way be associated with death. Death, it is thought, is an unmitigated evil, the very antithesis of all that is good.
Death is to be warded off by exercise, by healthy habits, by medical advances. What cannot be halted can be delayed, and what cannot forever be delayed can be denied. But all our progress and all our protest notwithstanding, the mortality rate holds steady at 100 percent. Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of people die every day, that thousands will die this day, although that too is true. Death is the warp and woof of existence in the ordinary, the quotidian, the way things are. It is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and the next morning we awake to find the horizon has drawn closer. From the twelfth-century Enchiridion Leonis comes the nighttime prayer of children of all ages: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take." Every going to sleep is a little death, a rehearsal for the real thing.
The worst thing is not the sorrow or the loss or the heartbreak. Worse is to be encountered by death and not to be changed by the encounter. There are pills we can take to get through the experience, but the danger is that we then do not go through the experience but around it. Traditions of wisdom encourage us to stay with death a while. Among observant Jews, for instance, those closest to the deceased observe shiva for seven days following the death. During shiva one does not work, bathe, put on shoes, engage in intercourse, read Torah, or have his hair cut. The mourners are to behave as though they themselves had died. The first response to death is to give inconsolable grief its due. Such grief is assimilated during the seven days of shiva, and then tempered by a month of more moderate mourning. After a year all mourning is set aside, except for the praying of kaddish, the prayer for the dead, on the anniversary of the death. In The Blood of the Lamb, Peter de Vries calls us to "the recognition of how long, how very long, is the mourners’ bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship-all of us, brief links ourselves, in the eternal pity." From the pity we may hope that wisdom has been distilled, a wisdom from which we can benefit when we take our place on the mourners’ bench. Philosophy means the love of wisdom, and so some may look to philosophers in their time of loss and aloneness. George Santayana wrote, "A good way of testing the caliber of a philosophy is to ask what it thinks of death." What does it tell us that modern philosophy has had relatively little to say about death? Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, "What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." There is undoubtedly wisdom in such reticence that stands in refreshing contrast to a popular culture sated by therapeutic chatter. But those who sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, cannot help but ask and wonder.
All philosophy begins in wonder, said the ancients. With exceptions, contemporary philosophy stops at wonder. We are told: don’t ask, don’t wonder, about what you cannot know for sure. But the most important things of everyday life we cannot know for sure. We cannot know them beyond all possibility of their turning out to be false. We order our loves and loyalties, we invest our years with meaning and our death with hope, not knowing for sure, beyond all reasonable doubt, whether we might not have gotten it wrong. What we need is a philosophy that enables us to speak truly, if not clearly, a wisdom that does not eliminate but comprehends our doubt.
There is nothing that remarkable in my story, except that we are all unique in our living and dying. Early on in my illness a friend gave me John Donne’s wondrous Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. The Devotions were written a year after Donne had almost died, and then lingered for months by death’s door. He writes, "Though I may have seniors, others may be elder than I, yet I have proceeded apace in a good university, and gone a great way in a little time, by the furtherance of a vehement fever." So I too have been to a good university, and what I have learned, what I have learned most importantly, is that, in living and in dying, everything is ready now.
From Father Neuhaus's final entry in "The Public Square" in the new (February 2009) issue of First Things that reached my mailbox on Friday, the day after his death.
As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.... I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven. Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse tolive. If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is much that I hope to do in th einterim.... Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, "When I am weak, then I am strong"? This is not a farewell. Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come. But maybe not. In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind. The entirety of our prayer is "Your will be done"-not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end, I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.
Many people like to stop and play with newborn babies, but now some adult women are playing house with fake babies. Some women are even going as far as taking day trips with the fake babies to the park, out to eat, and even hosting birthday parties for them. Forty-nine-year-old Linda is married with no children of her own. Now, she says she feels like a mother because she has Reborns -- dolls made to look and feel like the real thing.
"This is by way of a friendly response to the estimable Jay Nordlinger, Senior Editor at the likewise estimable National Review. Jay wrote a strong column yesterday openly saying what I’ve been hearing many conservatives express tacitly ever since the election. Reflecting on the media’s disgraceful distortion of the characters of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, he wrote: “It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.”
I’ve been hearing and reading prominent conservatives and Republicans say nearly as much on television, in print and in private conversation ever since the election. They say Sarah Palin can never make a comeback. They say the fight for small government has been lost. They say we can’t have immigration reform that protects our borders. They say we have to distance ourselves from “embarrassing” commentators like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.
No, no, no, no. What the right is experiencing at the moment is a phenomenon called “cultural para-stimuli.” You can read all about it in Tom Wolfe’s wonderful novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s sort of like peer pressure on steroids. It was discovered by Nobel Laureate Victor Ransome Starling, who found that when he surrounded normal cats with cats whose behavior had been bizarrely altered by brain surgery, the normal cats began acting like the crazy cats all around them.
That’s us–surrounded by the mainstream media. So steeped are we now in their lies about our representatives, their ridicule of our commentators, their demonizing dismissal of the causes we know are just, that we’ve begun to adopt their attitudes toward ourselves! And perhaps chief among the lies they’ve sold us is the lie that they’ve won, that the media are theirs for good and all, and that Americans are going to be hoodwinked and brainwashed by their constant barrage of misinformation forever.
Andrew Laven's analysis is nonsense.
He has been been bushwacked by his support for a president who talked conservative values but walked liberal values, even while sheep-like conservatives continued to support the president. So, by supporting the president, they ended supporting nation building, unfunded mandates, preemptive wars, torture, executive overreach, and massive budget deficits-- all of which has established a precedent of policy for Obama.
Don't blame the media. If you are looking for blame, look in the mirror, if you supported in any way this hapless simian of a president. Politico's Joel Kotkin said it well. "Over the past eight years, Bush has done more to undermine conservatism than all of the country's college faculties, elite media and Hollywood studios put together... Conservatism's core values rested on notions of a strong national defense and free market economics. Bush has punctured these ideas in a way that transcends the effects of historically anomalous scandals such as Watergate or Clinton's extramarital affairs. Bush has not only dinged the conservative car, he has totaled it."
Thanks to Bush and folks like Andrew, Rush, and Anne, the time of the conservative has come and gone. And so, for the next generation, Democrats have only to point to the Bush (along with Anne and Rush) as the very flower of conservatism and the Bush record on the economy and foreign relations as to what conservatives will do should they ever again get control of the levers of executive power.
Coulter is smarter than all you left wing retards combined. And that's why you hate her so much.
She is indeed smart. But you are so wrong that I hate Anne. She has smitten me for I attribute the Democratic victory in no small part to Anne, perhaps good for 50 electoral votes. I consider her the face of Republicanism. The first president I ever voted for was Ronald Reagan. I would vote for another Ronald Reagan. But so long as voters have the image of Bush, Hannity, Dobson, Palin, O'Reilly, Rove, and Coulter on their brainpain as an accurate representation of the world view of conservatism, the Democratic Part will prevail. Americans as a whole are moderate and pragmatic, and the extremism and ideology of the past eight years will suffice to keep the Democrats in power, no matter how incompetent or scandel-ridden the Democrats are or may be.
The left and the right appear to be receiving the Panetta appointment to the CIA with mild approval, not despite of his lack of intelligence credentials but because of his lack of intelligence credentials-- he is non-witty, to use CIA-speak.
The Daily Kos views it as an innoculation by someone not effected by the CIA culture of rendition and torture. The National Review views him as a political craftsmen who will respond to national policy rather than to aging insider spooks.
... my thoughts, both philosophical and quotidian, my hopes and despairs, the dramas and the preludes to dramas in the great play of life, with words that are as clear as a cat's cry on a midnight wind.
Screibt und fanscreibt-- write and record.
I shut my eyes to see, I close my ears to hear.
Three rules for keeping a journal-- a conversation and sometimes an argument with myself-- a mental playpen-- a book of days.
1. Never cross out. 2. Never tear out a page. 3. Date every page.
And, finally, one more important rule, for which you ancestors will thank you after they have finished giggling.
4. Always write down the good stuff!
My mother kept a diary for seventy years. I've been journaling now for twenty years. My scribblings may not be gems of the most sacred truth. But they are intoxicating to me. They also remind me of the transcience of most of my worries.
A journal gives me the last word on all things, a place to relate to myself without blushing, a repository of my dreams, delusions, and furies.
I also sketch a lot in my journal-- places, animals, and people-- usually while I'm waiting for the kids or sometimes when sermons start to drag. It helps me to really observe rather than merely record, as I would with a camera. That's why drawings are almost always more interesting than photographs. Later, I sometimes color them with colored pencils.
“Time catches up suddenly to us all,” the comedian Garrison Keillor writes. “One day you’re young and brilliant and sullen to your elders, and the next you’re getting junk mail from the American Association of Retired Persons and people your very own age are talking about pension plans and the prostrate. A sense of mortality should make us smarter. Life is short, so do your work. You spend more time attending to music and art and literature, less time arguing about politics. You plant trees. You cook spaghetti sauce. You talk to children. You don’t let your life be eaten by salesmen and evangelists and the circuses of the media.”
In that spirit, here are my resolutions for 2009. I will put first things last.
I will study a sunset.
I will discover a color.
I will memorize clouds.
I will be amphibious.
I will listen to my kids more and to politicans less.
I will ride into the high country.
I will savor.
I will enjoy.
I will hope.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter---and the Bird is on the Wing.
The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship.
Iraq burned, New Orleans flooded, and Bush remained oblivious to each and every pratfall on his watch. Americans essentially stopped listening to him after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn’t grasp the finality of their defection. Lately he’s promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he’s in retirement — as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas. The latest CNN poll finds that only one-third of his fellow citizens want him to play a post-presidency role in public life.
Another, far more elaborate example of legacy spin can be downloaded from the White House Web site: a booklet recounting “highlights” of the administration’s “accomplishments and results.” With big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled “Did You Know?” and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops, its 52 pages require a reading level closer to “My Pet Goat” than “The Stranger.”
This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).
With this level of self-regard, it’s no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff. The smugness is reinforced not just by his history as the entitled scion of one of America’s aristocratic dynasties but also by his conviction that his every action is blessed from on high. Asked last month by an interviewer what he has learned from his time in office, he replied: “I’ve learned that God is good. All the time.”
Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.
A feel-good chick flick. I recommend it. It's the haunting fantasy of a man who ages in reverse from about eighty to a newborn infant, set between 1918 and the Katrina hurricane.
My favorite line: "You need to let go when you're at the end."
arising from this is that how can you tell there is nothing there? Then, what is the basis of that experience where in you concluded 'nothing'? It seems to me that nothingness is a process, and as a process, structurally it shares a common feature with everything. Nothing then is something. So then, there is an extension of something wherein nothing is included. If we consider something to include processes that we can observe, then something is and can only be contrasted to nothingness by its greater comprehension and extension. 
