Mental Vitamins and 2 cent Philosophies

49 years

2006-10-04T00:54:00.000-04:00

As I write this, we are a few minutes away from the 49th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik and the dawn of the Space Age. The dreams of a million visionaries burst forth into the outer atmosphere that day, and the futurists predicted great things.
The military, meanwhile, gnashed their teeth at the Russian achievement. Their own satellite exploded on the launch pad a few days later. It wasn't until the Moon landing, over a decade later, that their egos finally settled down.

And now, here we are, sending aging shuttles into orbit to build a space station, the purpose for which they haven't even decided. Moribund, blind, and crippled, the Space Age totters on.

More than a few look upon this fact with satisfaction. Space is a waste of money, they cry. Funny, I've never heard that argument applied to the billion dollar media empires whose sole purpose in life is to keep the American people informed as to who Brad Pitt is dating this week.
The public will grab up every copy of a book on crop circles, the Holy Grail, or Alien visitations, yet cannot be bothered seeing what the two Mars rovers are doing.
(Did you even know they were still running and sending back data?)

I've heard endless examples of the technological benefits created by and for NASA; the current microprocessor industry is just one that would not exist except for a billion dollar government program that needed very small computers.
Less well publicized, but just as important, was the spiritual benefit. APOLLO was about hope. Hope for the future. It was the great adventure, the great task. It brought us together, inspired us. We felt we could do anything. We felt we could change the world.

We need that feeling back. In this day and age, when all we feel is fear of foreigners, hatred of political opponents, and, above all, apathy and disgust at the world as it is, . . . we need that burst of enthusiasm again.

It's time we did something about it. Virgin's commercial spaceships are just a start - we need to do more than send tourists up there. We need to retake the high ground with a project worthy of the Human Race.

The 50th anniversary would be the perfect time to unveil it. Let's get started.

God help us all.

2005-11-19T00:12:00.000-05:00

Next time you meet a proponent of Intelligent Design, ask him to prove Allah is not the designer. Non-religious, huh?

The Intelligent Design eople really need to rethink their "faith".
Science is about proof. It is a mental exercise where we look at the evidence of our senses and try to categorize what we perceive.
God is not about proof. Far from it. He could provide us with all the proof that we could ever want - birthmarks in the shape of "God Lives"; a visible heaven, or angels walking visibly beside us. He doesn't.
He wants us to act ethicly and morally WITHOUT proof of rewards.
And, for that matter, without proof of punishment.

Fundamentalists - and these people are fundamentalists - believe that God is going to punish any and all non-fundamentalists. They are absolutely convinced that an omnibenevolent God, whose mercy is neverending, whose forgiveness is infinite and eternal, is still going to throw souls into a firey furness unless they believe a narrow doctrine - one that does not match the teachings of either the Old Testament God or the New Testament Christ, but which does incorporate pagan, Eurocentric, and Reformation ideas. Moreover, they also believe in the damnation of those who believe what they believe, but HAVE NOT JOINED THEIR FELLOWSHIP. In other words, being one of them is not just about your religion.
The Intelligent Design movement is, in part, their attempt to save everybody. They cannot and will not believe that anyone can be saved unless they become a fundamentalist - and you can't do that by learning about the scientific method.
They are trying to save us all.
God help them.
God help us.

When Alexander the Great passed through Turkey to fight the Persians, he stopped at the site of Troy. On the Plains of Illium, Alexander stripped naked in front of his men and ran around a mound called the "Kesik Tepe", where Achilles and his friend Patroclus are supposed to be buried. This was to pay his respects. Other generals have also done this.

I highly recommend this book: http://www.StellaAwards.com/book.html

I also recommend this website: http://jeremystoll.typepad.com/weblog/

Multiculturalism. And comics.

2005-11-17T03:31:00.000-05:00

I'm about to start adding a comic strip to this title - if I can get Blogger to accept the downloads.
Bear with me for a while.

Multiculturalism is an oxymoron.
It is the belief that we should take all our cultures - our beliefs, our customs - and merge them into a single system. That single system, however, would be a single culture.
Some of us have different customs, and not all of them are equal. While respecting the rights of a person to live any lifestyle he or she chooses is correct, that right ends at the person's nose. Forcing another to live by your lifestyle, or inflicting pain/damage upon another because of your lifestyle's values - is wrong.

Unfortunately, many people see multiculturalism as relativism - or worse, as just allowing foreign restaurants to open up on main street. It isn't. Multiculturalism is "I live my way, you live yours, and we keep the fence up."
As for me, I like Italian cooking, Japanese art, Navaho jewelry - and freedom of expression.
What do you like?

Every Culture has a trickster figure. Anansi (africa), The Monkey King(china), Coyote(plains indians), Raven(west coast indians), Kokopelli, Maui(polynesia), Hermes(greece), Loki(norse).
Ours is Spider-Man.

Remember

2005-11-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

My father fought in the war.
He spent a year in hospital because of it. He nearly died.
He never regretted it.

Travel

2005-11-07T14:03:00.000-05:00

Today's trivia: A book called Stray Leaves from Japanese Papers consisted of 400 pieces of antiseptic toilet paper, for use in emergencies while travelling.

Travel broadens the mind.
Feel free to disagree with that statement.

Travel broadens the mind if you try to broaden it. If your idea of travel is to stay in a hotel from a US chain, eat in their restaurant, treat your surroundings as obstacles to the places you want to go, spend all your time shopping, and wish the locals could talk properly, then you might as well have stayed home. The most you got out of your holiday was warmer weather.
When you travel, go out. Learn a few words, and let the locals teach you how to say them properly. Tour the museums and the galleries. Try the local foods. Step a little ways away from the beaten track.
Is it dangerous? Probably. So's your home city. There's lots of safe places to travel to, where you can learn a little. Find one.

Science Lesson

2005-11-06T14:16:00.000-05:00

Today's trivia: pH is short for Potential of Hydrogen.

What we all want is to be rich.
Materially rich, first of all. We want to be able to sit around the pool all day, spending the interest our huge bank accounts earn. We also want to be rich in freedoms. We want to do what we want, when we want, and to not have anybody do anything to us.
Finally, we all want to be spiritually rich. We want to be free of guilt, free of worry about the future.
Most of the hate and fear in the world comes from poverty. The black kid on the corner talking about hating the white man, wouldn't give a damn about the white man if he made as much. Certainly the black lawyer don't feel quite as much hate. The hate he does feel is because he doesn't have the same level of freedom that his white colleagues have. If he was invited to the same parties, addressed with the same deference, he wouldn't care what whitey did.
On the other side, the KKK is mostly made up of poorer folk, who think that if blacks weren't taking all the jobs, then THEY would have a shot. Instead of having to live in a trailer park, stretching the welfare check to cover a luxury or two, they would live in a house, with a car and a suit and a proper paycheck.
There are two ways out of this.
First, make everyone richer. Science and The Enlightenment has been trying to do this for centuries. The guy in the trailer park would cringe if he saw how he would have lived four centuries ago - or even two. (Maybe they should make Charles Dickens required reading in public schools again - if only to show people how good they've got it now.)
The second way is to become satisfied with what you've got now. It is very hard to be satisfied with a crust when all around you have cake, but it has been done. You just have to be a saint.
It's easier to make everyone richer, than to make everyone contented. That's why we need more scientists in our society, and more science.

90% of all scientists in TV and movies are portrayed either as nerds or madmen.

Giles

2005-11-05T20:31:00.000-05:00

The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years - 1337 to 1453.

I am a big fan of the late British cartoonist Giles.
He contributed a cartoon to the London Daily Mirror nearly every week, starting just after WW2 and ending just before the millennium. Every year the Daily Mirror would publish that year's collection of cartoons in a softcover book, and they are still publishing "best of" collections yearly.
I am still missing several of the earliest books - I think my collection starts with #10 - and I still need a few of the later years. But I've got most of them.
It's not that the cartoons are funny - well, they are, although they are quasi-political cartoons, and cover many now-forgotten topics - but because of what is in the drawings.
The Giles collections are a week by week, year by year LOOK at England - the clothing, the cars, the attitudes, the home decor, the jargon, the customs, everything. I look through the books and see how Christmas shopping has changed over 50 years, how the store layouts have changed, how the products have changed. His cartoons are full of details, to the point that they are the best examination of British life that you could ask for. They should publish the entire set in one huge volume, called The Illustrated History of Britain 1945-2000.

Reading Material

2005-11-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

Today's fun fact: Piers the Plowman, by William Langland, is a 14th century spiritual allegory, similar to Pilgrim's Progress - and is significant in being the first work of fiction to mention the character of Robin Hood.

The Ten books I think everybody should read, which you have probably never heard of. (Don't stop with just ten, though.)

The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkein. So that you can see what imagination can do with words. Even without optical effects.

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Used as a guidebook for everything from business dealings to terrorist attacks, this book is best described as a strategy guide for everyday living. Especially if you are living in a war zone. Which, since 9/11, you are.

The Book of Style, by Strunk and White. If you cannot communicate, you are autistic, whether by congenital disease or by ignorance. This book contains the rules for communicating in the English language. Know them.

Journey to the West, by Wu Ch'eng-en. A serviceable translation is Monkey by Arthur Waley. This 16th Century story of the monk Tripitaka's travels to India and back, is one of the central pieces of Oriental fairy tales. Just as a Westerner knows Robin Hood and King Arthur, so Easterners know The Monkey King, Pigsy, and Sandy. To be fully conversant in world culture, you need this piece.

The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. Even more important than Cosmos, this book is Sagan's warning about the importance, the need, for science in our lives and education. And what will happen to us if we don't retain it.

The Prince, by Machiavelli. Agree with him or not, this is the book that explains how governments think and handle things. And how people are handling you.

Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku. Fifteen chapters, 334 pages. The best explanation of modern physics in writing, explained so simply that even I understand it. This is the 1994 edition of Reality's user guide.

Asimov's Guide to the Bible, by Isaac Asimov. A very thick book by one of humanity's most prolific and knowledgeable authors, explaining all those phrases in the Bible you didn't understand, (Who was Pul, King of Assyria, anyway?) or only thought you understood. (Belial is not a demon. It's a word meaning worthless) Memorize this book, then reread your Bible, and have it come to life again.

The Davis Drug Guide, by F.A. Davis. Written for nurses and medical personnel, you'll probably need to read a couple of textbooks in order to make out most of what this book tells you. What this book tells you is the name of (just about) every medication on the market, both prescription and over-the-counter, along with how it works, side effects to look for, dosages, contraindications (why you shouldn't use it), and what you should be eating and doing (or not doing) while taking the drug. With the doctor shortage, we are all essentially healing ourselves. Here's the take-charge book.

Chariots of the Gods, by Erich von Daniken. Hard to believe that this book, written in 1968, is still making the rounds. Or that von Daniken is still writing more books (his latest is called Eyes of the Sphynx). Read this classic meander of half-truths, leapt conclusions, and curios, and remind yourself how easy it can be for someone to fool the unschooled, the credulous, and the uncritical.

Have fun.

Capability

2005-11-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

On Savoy Street, in London, cars drive on the right, not the left.

Have you ever stopped and considered how much you are able to do?

You are literate in at least one language.
You can walk.
You can climb stairs, ladders, hills, and maybe even cliffs.
You can use at least 16 hand tools competently, from a claw hammer to a garden rake.
You can operate any number of devices, ranging from light switches to DVD players. You operate at least 20 every day.
You know where to find information, both at a library and on the internet.

And this is just the beginning.
Go back over your life. Look at your old Scout/Guide uniform, and see what badges you earned. All that information is still lurking in your brain somewhere. Look at your sports trophies and club memberships.

You are a lot more capable than you think. Our society tends to make cogs out of us, arranging for us to perform only a few functions, day in and day out. But we are capable of more than that. We have options we don't even recognise.
Don't sell yourself short.

Futurists

2005-11-01T21:56:00.000-05:00

Want to learn the future? The technique of divining the future by interpreting laughter is called Geloscopy, while divining by interpreting currents in water is called Bletonism.

We all engage in divination of one sort or another. We buy lottery tickets based on "lucky" numbers, we invest in stocks we think will rise due to the prediction of a stockbroker, we read the horoscopes.
None of these things work. We don't need research to prove this - we KNOW they don't work. So why do we keep buying lottery tickets and stocks?
We are, at heart, optimists, one and all. We all live with hope - hope that our number will be picked, that we'll find true love today, that the third time's the charm. We cannot live without it.

They say that a man with no water will survive, if he has hope, but a man without hope will die, even in a mansion. If you want to make a name for yourself, or do some good in this world, inspire some hope.

In ballet, a pas des deux is a dance for two people, and a pas de quatre is a dance for four. However, a dance for one is a variation.

Halloween's Over.

2005-11-01T01:33:00.000-05:00

. . . and not one kid came to the house.
Kids in the neighborhood don't trick or treat anymore.
They now only go to parties that are a) family or friends only, or b) at school.

It's apparently the only way to keep them safe. After 20 years of stories about drive-bys, apples with razor blades, serial killers, and kidnappers, there is no way that a sensible mother lets her kids out at night.

Halloween began as a way of warding off the Devil and his servants. How strange that we no longer fear the Devil, but are terrified of our neighbors.

Faith and Facts

2005-10-31T22:39:00.000-05:00

Fact of the day : The Grand Elected Knight Kadosh, Knight of the Black and White Eagle, is the official title of a 30th Degree Freemason.

Science is belief in the fact.
Faith is belief without facts.
Or is it?
Do any of us really have faith in God, without any sort of fact? Most of us point to the Bible. Isn't the existance of the Bible a fact, a piece of evidence, a proof?

No sane person has perfect faith. We'd end up believing in Dracula and moon men as well.
We aren't geared for perfect faith. We need a little proof.

Rosa Parks

2005-10-30T21:40:00.000-05:00

Remember this, children, if you remember nothing else.
Remember the lesson of Rosa Parks.

Honors have been heaped upon her, buildings and streets named for her. She changed America, and changed the fate of millions.

And all she ever did was refuse to give up her seat to a bully.

Courage. You don't need style, intelligence, money, or connections to change the world.
You just need to say no, when all the cowards are saying yes.

Role Model

2005-10-30T02:49:00.000-05:00

Trivia note: The oldest registered dot-com address is SYMBOLICS.COM, registered on 15 March, 1985.

Who's your role model?

Is it a rock diva, a person whose only claim to fame is that they can follow a tune and dance at the same time (although Jennifer Simpson even broke THAT necessity)? Do you look to them for opinions on everything from dating to wardrobe, even though they have their clothes chosen for them, and their relationships crash and burn more often than not?

Is your role model a politician, whose motto is "Stay in power, whatever the cost."? Do you form your opinions about the world based on what they say, even though their words are written for them by professional spin doctors bent on selling you ideologies?

Is your role model an actor, a professional player of make-believe, whose job it is to look and talk like whatever their boss needs them to look and talk like, right at that moment? Do you accept their word as gospel, even though they may not understand themselves what they are saying, having been paid to say those very things, and may very well say the exact opposite next week, depending on who is paying them now?

Is your role model an athlete, an individual whose job it is to play a game? A man expected to win at any cost to his body, mind, pride, or family? Do you strive to imitate a man whose career will end within 10 years due to burnout, leaving him another 40 to sell autographs and aftershave?

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

Fame

2005-10-29T23:51:00.000-04:00

At one point in the mid-Sixties, The Dave Clark Five were bigger than the Beatles, and much bigger than their other rival, The Rolling Stones.

Next to money and power, fame is the thing we desire most. Fame is the name of the game, and many would put fame above the other two.
Why, then, do we treat fame so roughly. Fame lasts for a few years at most, and often no more than the proverbial 15 minutes. We all want to be members of the next N'Sync, and yet . . .
And yet we have already forgotten about the Bay City Rollers; Vanilla Ice is now a Surreal Life reality show joke; and we are already beginning to forget about the Spice Girls.
Why do we devote ourselves, our lives, and sometimes our health, for something that won't last past our thirties?

Santayana - "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Small World

2005-10-28T18:47:00.000-04:00

We all live in a small world of our own.
Even the world travellers among us don't truly see the scope of the world, or our effect upon it. We look outside, see the sun shining, the grass on the ground, and feel that the world is rolling along just fine. We cannot see what effect, good or bad, we are having.
You read the news and you don't comprehend what you read. You don't know the thousands who died in a disaster, so it doesn't strike you. You don't see the defaced landmark, or the burned forest, so it has no emotional effect.
The greatest mental quality that humans have is Judgement - the ability to determine true importance and true proportion despite the level of any emotional impact or personal interest, if any. A judge that passes a fair sentence, even if he personally thinks the guy should be burned at the stake, shows judgement.
More than ever today, we need to cultivate and value good judgement. We need to see the world as it is, not as we would have it, and act appropriately.

One of the myths of our age is that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space. Well, yes, if you use a telephoto lens and a spy satellite.

Men into Space

2005-10-26T22:18:00.000-04:00

Today's trivia fact:
The concept of the space elevator was invented in 1895 by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - a scientist who was later honored by Star Trek - The Next Generation with the name of a science ship. Full of crazy people.

NASA has announced a competition to design the first space elevator. Like the X-Prize, the competition is open to anyone who wants to try and build the thing.
The concept is simple. Take one really tough cable. Send one end into orbit. Attach the other end to the ground. Attach a cable car.
No rockets, no explosions. No G-force - the cable car can move at automobile speeds.

Hurry up, people. I want to get into space before I die, and my bones aren't getting any tougher, you know.

Thought for the day - What purpose does mankind have, other than to figure out what purpose mankind has?

Mr. God.

2005-10-25T22:14:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day:
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then is an empty desk?" Albert Einstein.

One of my favorite books, bar none, is a simple little paperback with the title "Mister God? It's me, Anna." It's the story of a pre-teen progidy in pre-war England, and if all the members of the Christian Right worldwide would only read this quiet little tale and take it to heart, their message, outlook, and maybe even their tactics would become a lot closer to what Jesus had in mind, I'm sure.

The soft drink Mountain Dew was originally created to be a chaser for Tennessee whiskey.

Ban the Pros

2005-10-24T21:42:00.000-04:00

Today's fun fact - always spit on a new baseball bat before using it, to make it lucky.

Why do we bother with professional sports?
We, as taxpayers, end up spending millions on stadiums for the right to host a team that goes 3-20 every year. We spend more on sports than on movies. Television spends more on sports than on the news.

And for what? College football is as exciting as pro ball, college basketball ditto - why wouldn't college baseball, hockey, soccer, etc. be as exciting?
We could spend that stadium money on colleges. Our admission fees would go to furthering education, rather than polishing some exec's learjet. Our outstanding running backs, knowing that there would not be any contracts after graduation, might actually work towards a degree and become a valuable member of society after his playing days are done, as opposed to guest starring on bad sitcoms during sweeps week, or giving color commentary.

Ban the pros. Go State!

School

2005-10-24T01:34:00.000-04:00

Today's fact: The Bible has about 500 verses on prayer, and almost 500 verses on faith, but over 2000 verses on posessions.

Should we have a school voucher system, allowing parents to decide where to send their kid to school?

The financial drawbacks are obvious. The people sending their kids to private school will want their school taxes to be spent on that school. As a result, the upper class schools will get the best equipment, books, and teachers, while the public schools will get diddly.
Scientists will come from the upper class schools - dishwashers from the public schools.
Or will they?
One of the reasons people are pushing for vouchers is because they don't like what's being taught in public schools. They want their own schools with their own curriculum. That's fine.
So the Wicca will have their own schools, the Scientologists will have their own schools - that's fine, too. Freedom is freedom.
But how do we judge what they've learned? What is the measure of a high school diploma if different things are taught?
What happens when you get five applications for medical school, from five different high schools, and find out they have five very different educations? What happens if some of those educations are a little, well . . .
"Drugs are a hoax. I learned that only meditation can cure the body."
"I can't read this text. It has pictures of undressed people in it, and I was taught never to look at such things."
"Sir, this text implies that blacks are equal to whites. In MY school, we learned . . ."
And so on.
Think it won't happen? Look at the fight over Intelligent Design. Imagine that kind of fight in EVERY subject.
"There is no such thing as insanity. It's the Thetan inside you."
"There are only two classifications of life - humans, and everything else."
"The Earth is only 4000 years old. Fossils are the remains of the great Flood."
"There are no atoms in the Bible."
"We can only know what we are meant to know. If the god has not revealed it to us, then we are not yet ready to learn it. Therefore research is useless."

A voucher system will divide us into a thousand separate societies, each with different beliefs.
Are you ready to live in such a country?

Vigilantes

2005-10-22T17:30:00.000-04:00

The phrase "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman!" did not come from the comics. It came from the Superman cartoons created by Max Fleischer during the Forties. The cartoons also originated the catch phrase starting with "Faster than a speeding bullet . . .".

American culture has contributed one unique character archetype to literature - the superhero. What separates this archetype from everything previous is not super powers - superhuman characters are as old as Gilgamesh - but the way they relate to society; a difference that says a lot about America. Whereas previous "inspirations" of the superhero - Robin Hood, Zorro - fought against cruel laws and evil rulers, the superhero fights FOR law and order - without joining the forces of law and order. A pro-order vigilante - practically an oxymoron.
The superhero is an extension of the cowboy hero. The cowboy works alone, and although he trusts the law, he doesn't trust authority. He will work as part of a group, but only in a group of his peers - the posse will consist of his friends; easterners and Indians are not invited.
The superhero is the same. Batman is not a policeman, although they can consult him by shining a searchlight into the clouds. He takes great pains to make sure the authorities cannot find out who he is, and therefore coerce him into working for them full time. He helps when it suits him.
Here is the American psyche in full bloom - fiercely independent, distrustful of Big Business and Big Government, confident in his ability to go it alone, no matter what the odds.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the ideal American. Uncle Sam wears a mask and cape.

Flap your arms

2005-10-21T18:45:00.000-04:00

"I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive." Mel Brooks.

So, what did YOU do today that was noisy and colorful?
Too often we allow our everyday lives to overwhelm us. We go to work, we come home, and when someone says "What happened at work/school today?", we usually say "Nothing."
Nothing. You spent a whole day of your far too fleeting life doing something you can't even remember.
Was it worth doing?
If it wasn't, isn't it time to do something else?

We Don't Read Enough

2005-10-20T23:34:00.000-04:00

As the most advanced culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth, replete with free public education, almost universal college diplomas and university degrees coming out our ears,
We are incredibly, criminally, ignorant.
We are as specialized as termites. We know chapter and verse about how to do our day to day jobs, both those related to our professions, and those related to our home lives.
And nothing else.

This blog exists to educate you.
It's obscure information that will not help you earn more, or speed up your chores, but it WILL make you think a little more about the world you're spending your mortal existence upon.
Perhaps making that existence a little more enjoyable, a little more interesting, and a little more productive to this great culture that has created you.