messiestobjects

Philosophy Needs Science The Way That Blogs Need Pictures

    It's been a slow end-of-year for work... nothing since Portland. I'm in Dallas Texas right now, but trust me, there won't be any exciting photos from here. I'm stuck right next to 6 Flags. What a horrible place. So I'm going to intersperse some really old photos I took while living in Europe, and have never posted. Hover over them for a brief description and as always, if you click on them you can see a larger version for all those little details.

    I have a ton of old photojunk like that, so I figure I ought to use them for these wordy posts... and this is going to be a wordy post because: I'm finished with another semester, hoo-rah! And I've got more accolades under my belt. My Philosophy professor loved my final paper. So guess what? Here it is. We had to make up our own topic, based on what we got out of the material we covered in class, and so mine was "Why Philosophy needs science." There's a little bit of bullshit in there—I have trouble both getting started and wrapping things up in my writing—and by the time I got to the end, I realized that this subject is much bigger than an 8 page assignment.

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From Philosophy To Philoscientia: Escape From Aether Mountain

    Though the literal definition of Philosophy is ‘the love of wisdom,’ that is no longer what Philosophy represents to people. It has come to signify man’s search for meaning in the Universe, which is not always the same thing as wisdom. It is a discipline of thought where the natures of things are pondered, values are ascribed to ideas, and those ideas are then used to ask bigger questions. In this historical hunt for truth and meaning, there is often an essential component missing; the critical evaluation of evidence. Assuredly, the great philosophers do not usually ignore evidence—and here I will use bow hunting as an analogy—but in the pursuit of knowledge, it has not always been deemed necessary for them to be one hundred percent sure of their footing or the current wind speed before aiming at a truth. When Aristotle posited the existence of a fifth element, which he named the aether, the only evidence he had to back up his claim was a personal conviction that there needed to be a substance which made possible the movement of atoms in a void, otherwise nature would have made no sense to him. The aether became a part of man’s understanding of nature for two thousand years and became the root of all manner of chicanery from alchemy to all-purpose elixirs. As Professor Smoot of UC Berkeley puts it:

Although there was some degree of experience and observation in the physics of Aristotle, at its heart was a philosophical approach to science where the laws of nature are constructed to conform to a particular philosophical outlook. This basis for the investigation of nature led to some strange statements by Aristotle - for instance, that women have fewer teeth than men. Either Aristotle was not a very accurate observer, he couldn't count, or he had odd taste in women.  (Smoot, 1996) 

So if Philosophy is the bow hunt, then Science is the act of observing the arrow. If your shots are missing the target, figure out why, adjust your aim, and shoot again. Philosophy needs Science.   

    In a very real sense, Philosophy is the evolutionary forerunner of Science. “The word ‘Physics’ derives from the Greek word for natural philosophy, physikos, and the early physicists were, in fact, often called natural philosophers” (The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science, p. 14). According to Reference.com, “natural philosophy (from Latin philosophia naturalis) is a term applied to the objective study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. It is considered to be the precursor of natural sciences such as physics.” Additionally, “the word ‘science’ comes from the Latin scientia, meaning knowledge” (The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science, p. 8) .

    Therefore it seems that the definition and purpose of Philosophy had evolved, from the mere asking of rational questions about the nature of the world, into the collection of knowledge gained from testing the validity of such questions through physical experimentation. In other words, the early philosophers were simply scientists who hadn’t yet figured out scientific principles. Once those were better understood—for example that in order to propose an explanation for a natural phenomenon (make a hypothesis), you had to fully understand your starting assumptions and whether they were valid—the discipline of Science split off from Philosophy and became something new and more powerful. Philosophy, for better or worse, was left behind.

    So now it would seem that Philosophy, in the minds of most people, is something completely other than what it was when it began. Statements that begin “My own philosophy is…” indicate that in common usage, a philosophy is a personal belief system. Even in modern Philosophy classes, students discuss different philosophical ideas as though they are a matter of opinion, or personal taste. But this forgets the fact that as a branch of study, Philosophy originated as a search for truth, a method of rational investigation for understanding the Universe and one’s place in it. When people became so good at it that they were using it to invent telescopes and predict natural events such as eclipses, they had to rename it and relegate philosophical query to strictly humanistic concerns. Is life a dream? What happens after death? What is the meaning of life? And other objectively unanswerable questions. But it shares deep roots with the scientific method, and perhaps the most important aspect of Philosophy is that it is all about asking questions.

    The Greek Philosopher Thales made a claim that exemplifies both the strongest and weakest aspects of Philosophy and in the process invented Natural Philosophy:

Thales believed that the Earth floats on water and all things come to be from water. For him the Earth was a flat disc floating on an infinite ocean. It has also been claimed that Thales explained earthquakes from the fact that the Earth floats on water. Again the importance of Thales' idea is that he is the first recorded person who tried to explain such phenomena by rational rather than by supernatural means. (O'Connor & Robertson, 1999)

The weakest part of his earthquake explanation is of course that he is dead wrong. It illustrates the dangers of stating a philosophical belief without having any evidence for it other than some sort of idea arrived at by rationalizing a limited amount of knowledge. The relative strength of it, however, is as O’Connor & Robertson state; he tried to provide a rational, natural explanation rather than an irrational superstitious one. Moreover, his hypothesis is testable, in principle—sail out into the ocean and see if it is infinite, dig down deep enough and find out what is holding us up—but simply claiming that the Gods cause earthquakes is not.

    So, in asking a testable question about the nature of earthquakes, Thales provided humanity with a framework for investigating the world. In asking the question, he provided the groundwork for finding the answer. This is the strength of Philosophy, and its most important function, even in the modern world. It is important to note that not all philosophical questions are equal. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I will claim that the question “Is there a God or Gods?” is among the most useless. There is simply no way to ever answer that question. “Is there a teapot orbiting the smallest star in the Andromeda galaxy? Do leprechauns, unicorns, and angels exist? How deep is the well of human gullibility, anyway?” These are the equivalents of mental masturbation in that they are not testable, and serve no greater purpose than to distract the masses from questions of greater import.

    Some might argue that this is exactly why people find Philosophy so fascinating, that it is in the very discussion or argument of such questions that truths can be found, even if rational explanations cannot. To this I would reply with another query; of what use are such truths? When two people disagree about the nature of something that has no basis in verifiable evidence—for instance when Muslims and Christians discuss their differing views of God—isn’t that the same as two people disagreeing about the color of the teapot in Andromeda? I cannot prove that the teapot, or God for that matter, don’t exist (let alone what color they are or what type of sexual behavior they condone), but do I really need to? There are an infinite amount of things which may exist, and disproving any one of them is not simply a waste of time, it is an infinite waste of time.

    The human imagination can come up with any number of monsters, fairies, gods, teapots, or endless other scenarios, and thus rational inquiry must restrict itself to that which has measure. This is why Philosophy needs Science. Science is a natural extension of Philosophy which demands critical thought and verifiable facts from any statements that its progenitor may make, from which it learned how to use them in the first place. Philosophy is the train and Science is the track. Philosophy, as I have shown, tends to go off the rails when it ignores such Natural Philosophical strictures.

    The Age of Enlightenment is significant in regards to two of my purposes in writing this paper. One—it is when Science finally reached its age of majority. Thanks to Isaac Newton’s classical mechanics, a new world of thought became available to mankind and it definitively demonstrated the most accurate system for understanding and explaining how the Universe operates: Aristotle’s physics were replaced with non-teleological explanations discerned using the Scientific Method. Two—a most interesting correlation occurred in the remaining branches of Philosophy. In the period known as Early Modern Philosophy, philosophers began to abandon traditional authorities:

During the Middle Ages, philosophizing took place in the arts faculties […] and in the theological faculties of the universities. It thus came under the direct and censorious scrutiny of the Church. By the seventeenth century, however, [...] it had become more common to find original philosophical minds working outside the strictures of the university—i.e., ecclesiastic—framework. [...] by the end of the eighteenth century, [philosophy] was a secular enterprise. (Nadler, 2002, pp. 1-2)

    When philosophers emancipated themselves from the yoke of authoritarian “thought,” they ceased looking for truths and causes that had their basis in religious or Aristotelian assumptions, and began focusing their attention towards more humanistic concerns such as the nature of the mind, free will, and secular morality. I believe that these two intertwined occurrences—the parting of ways between science and philosophy, and the more deterministic direction which philosophy itself then took—illustrate the power of philosophical inquiry and its dependence upon testable facts—i.e. the Scientific Method.

    As I asserted earlier, the most vital aspect of philosophy lies in asking questions. That is its ultimate strength, and when philosophical questions are asked properly they can lead to astounding discoveries. What causes Earthquakes? Gods? No! Water? No! Tectonic plates bumping into each other and generally sliding around like a bunch of drunken Greeks? Yes! Next Question! The fact that asking simple questions led to finding the method for asking better questions, and in turn led to finding the ways to then answer those questions is perhaps the most dramatic quest in the history of humanity. In other words, if Philosophy is the question—How do I find answers to my questions and know that I’ve found a truthful answer?—then Science is the How. Ask a testable question, experiment, revise your assumptions and make a prediction, experiment again. Revise again. Ask again. Philosophy is thus most successful when Science can prove that it has asked a good question.

    The danger of Philosophy then is of course when you ask a question that you are certain that you already know the answer to, based especially on feelings of how the world “ought” to be. Socrates was the earliest recorded human to realize this and he made it his life’s work to instill in his students, and thus in humanity, the humility of never assuming too much self-certitude. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates says:

I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either. (Plato, p. 21d)

    What he was communicating is that it is folly to claim knowledge that is unearned; if you assume that you know something without having subjected it to rational dissection first, then further questions that you may ask based on this assumed knowledge will be faulty. His famous technique of questioning his opponents has come to be called the Socratic Method, but with a little age and maturity the Socratic Method begins to look quite a lot like the Scientific Method. When Aristotle assumed that there must be something like aether holding up the heavenly bodies, every question that future Western philosophers asked about the nature of the Universe afterwards was supposed on the basis of this false knowledge. Two-thousand years were wasted trying to find a way to turn lead into gold using Aristotelian principles. It is a shame for humanity that Aristotle didn’t heed his grand-master’s teaching more closely.

    Another example of reading your own presuppositions into philosophy and the danger this can lead to are the Nazi interpretations of Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s philosophy seems diabolical and radical when taken at face value, and his harsh German writing style doesn’t help. But he was anti-Judaist, not anti-Semitic or in other words, he was anti-religious and anti-authoritarian, not racist. His idea of the coming master race did not involve singling out any particular race, Aryan or otherwise, for the honor. Instead, it involved the eventual evolution of all mankind in a similar manner as when Homo Erectus evolved into Homo Sapiens. However, he envisioned the Übermensch as the end result of a more spiritual or mental evolution, perhaps even as a goal which humanity can set for itself purposefully.

    Unfortunately, Nietzsche’s sister Elisabeth was anti-Semitic, and she had total control over all of his manuscripts for many years. It is well documented how she used and changed them to her own purposes. Thanks to her meddling, “Nietzsche's philosophy had been made ambiguous and incoherent, allowing loose interpretation. This ambiguity prompted Nazi interpreters to choose a context that supported Nazi literature and prophesy” (Kalish, 2004). When you think you know the truth, you will go looking for something to support it even if what you find must be altered—or conflicting evidence ignored—in order to do so. This is called confirmation bias and needs to be just as assiduously avoided in Philosophy as it is in Science.

    Therefore in order to avoid the appearance of confirmation bias myself, I wish to make one final point whose distinction I may not have made clear until now. When I say that there is danger in philosophizing without a scientific license, so to speak, I am not mainly talking about philosophical speculation. Although any philosophical speculation can be strengthened with a more firmly logical, scientific footing, there is no harm in sitting around the dorm room and wondering if the Universe is an atom in a giant cheese pizza. Nor is there any harm in writing a philosophical paper, treatise, or novel based around uncertain principles—whether by a stoned college undergrad or a tenured Ivy League professor—so long as it’s speculative nature is made unequivocally clear. As a matter of fact, such speculation is the cornerstone of much progress in all of the Arts and Humanities. If you are too afraid to ask absurd questions, you will never learn how to ask the good ones and in any case, the truth is often found out to be more absurd than could have been believed in the first place.

    No, I am mostly talking about making policy based on such speculative philosophies. As in the case of the Nazis who based many of their actions on a misunderstood reading of Nietzsche, there is danger in claiming that you have found a woman’s,  Jew’s, or homosexual’s place in society, or the meaning of life, or the one true God, all based on a logically flawed philosophy. It is mostly a given among scientists and philosophers nowadays that you must be certain of your footing before you aim for exciting new questions, but it is almost never a given among the less educated. Philosophy in the hands of a politician is often a tool for suppression. If people demanded that the philosophies of the powerful lived up to well understood facts and not to simple ideology, it would be infinitely more difficult for the atrocities of population marginalization and genocide to occur.

    If Philosophy then is the love of wisdom, and Science is knowledge, it must be understood that there can be no wisdom without the love of knowledge. It is far easier to convince an ignorant population to commit atrocities in the name of an ideology or a deity than it is to convince an educated one that recognizes the difference between a well-reasoned position and a scatterbrained dogma. If a philosophy is to do no harm, it must be understood in its entirety by an educated population before decisions of policy are based on it.

    Conversely, in an age of nuclear and biological weapons proliferation, it would seem that knowledge is also in dire need of some wisdom. How do you then gain the wisdom to use knowledge? It is not so much a chicken and egg situation, but a male and female one. So, while my main assertion is that Philosophy needs scientific back-up in order to be valid, the reverse is also necessary. The two must be learned hand-in-hand; they each need the validation of the other in order to survive.

 

 

Works Cited

Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. (1998). The Ultimate Visual Dictionary of Science. New York: DK Publishing.

Kalish, M. (2004, June). Friedrich Nietzsche's Influence on Hitler's Mein Kampf. Retrieved December 07, 2012, from UCSB Department of History: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133p/133p04papers/MKalishNietzNazi046.htm

Nadler, S. (2002). A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Blackwell Publishers.

O'Connor, J. J., & Robertson, E. F. (1999, January). Thales of Miletus. Retrieved December 03, 2012, from School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland: http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Thales.html

Plato. (n.d.). Apology. http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekTexts&query=Pl.%20Ap.%2022a&getid=1.

Smoot, P. G. (1996, December 21). Professor Smoot Courses' Page . Retrieved December 03, 2012, from CMB Astrophysics Research Program : http://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p10/aristotle-physics.html

Atheism: Cure For the Common Brainwash

    I got an A on a paper on atheism for my English final, and my professor said it was the best paper he'd read in 15 years of teaching English. Granted, I'm a little old to be in English 101 and therefore ahead of the curve, but still. Swelling with pride over here.

    At any rate, I thought I'd post it. I have heavily edited two paragraphs because as part of the assignment I had to interview a friend who is a Christian and then incorporate part of the interview into my paper. I thought it unfair to leave it in publicly because it was an interview and essay which I got to dictate the track of, not a debate; I tear his position apart in it without fear that he would have the honest chance to defend himself.

    Please keep in mind while reading that it was not the main goal of my paper to disprove the existence of God (nor in fact is that the goal of any atheist) or the veracity of any religious claim, which is why I don't go into any specifics regarding Biblical contradictions. Instead it was my aim to describe how and why atheism is important to me. As a point of interest, the friend I speak of in paragraph 7 is Gary Drechsel, he of the now defunct GoDrex blog.

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    I began my life as an atheist because as Richard Dawkins puts it, “There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents… children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics.” (Dawkins 18 & 25) Despite this fact, at around age five I became sufficiently programmed by my parents’ religion to believe that I understood enough to become a Christian. This is the natural progression of the religiously indoctrinated, because a child understands nothing of the convoluted concepts of the Holy Trinity, Original Sin, or the Immaculate Conception. He must be taught these concurrently over a debilitating fear of Hell, allowing him to don a shroud of anxious belief.

    Atheism is a concept that stirs much controversy and before going any further, I must define it in terms of what it means to me: It is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. “Lack of belief” is an important qualification, and not mere semantics. It means that one has no belief regarding the validity of Theistic claims. It doesn’t mean that I will categorically state that “There is no God!” which would qualify as a belief. Rather, what it does mean is that given the complete lack of evidence that the universe was created, there is an extremely low probability that some sort of Supreme Being or Beings exists. Therefore, the question of God’s existence is about as important to an atheist as the supposition of the existence of a purple dog that can survive in space and is even now chasing a polka-dotted space cat around the star Sirius. Without evidence (Holy Books do not count as evidence, as for instance the Bible is proof of God the way a comic book is proof of Spiderman), one is as likely as the other, and anyone who claims to have some sort of special knowledge which is not available to the rest of humanity about the existence of such is either honestly mistaken, lying, insane, or brainwashed. If it turned out that there actually was a God sending private messages to certain select individuals, then this God is both useless and impotent since personal internal experience is unverifiable and does no one else any good, and even in their circumstance “good” is a debatable adjective.

    In my case, I was brainwashed. Christian brainwashing is a deceptively simple procedure. All of the sermons about faith and love, all of the Bible stories about Moses and Abraham and Jesus and his followers are pretty much beside the point. The key to turning a healthy 5-year-old boy into a blubbering convert is to let him know about Hell. You don’t even have to be all that scary about it. In a sweet voice just tell him what it’s (supposedly) like, that it’s a real place, and that all he has to do to avoid experiencing such horrific eternal torment is to cast aside his reason in favor of a nebulous concept called faith. He will swallow it as truth wholesale, because children with underdeveloped minds and overactive imaginations will believe any information that any adult they trust imparts. “Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival… But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility… An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad.” (Dawkins 205)

    My climb out of that pit was long and difficult, and while I haven’t the time here to relate every step of the ascent, I will recount two experiences of particular importance. The first was at a Christian rock concert I attended in my early teens with my church youth group. Carmen was a performer whose music I liked, and towards the end of the show, after a rousing version of his hit song, he asked the audience a question: "I can feel the spirit of Jesus here with us tonight! Can you feel the Holy Spirit in the room? He's speaking to all of us, can you feel His love, right here right now!!?" I was about to raise my fist and join the crowd response ("Yes! I feel him! I feel Jesus!"), when I had an odd thought. “Jesus? Huh. Actually, what I'm feeling is admiration for the rock star who just lip synched that awesome song and got my fist pumping and adrenaline rushing, and has even made me feel good about being a Christian since I'm in a large group of people who feel the same way and we're all cheering for Jesus, but I don’t sense any specific Jesusy presence. It actually feels a lot like that time I got excited when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star. That made me SO happy, and that's the kind of elation I'm feeling right now.”

    On that night I took an important breath of rationality above the noxious gases of what I now recognize were crowd control and mob psychology. Afterwards I began to notice other conflicts. The second experience I want to describe was another such moment of clarity which at 19 years old finally broke the camel’s back. It happened during a church sermon, ironically. The pastor happened to address an issue which had been on my mind lately. He said that "…some people say that the Bible contradicts itself. They say that the Bible was written by men, and is not the true word of God.” (And here I was thinking, well that’s true, people do say that and I’ve worried about the implications! I perked right up, interested in how he would handle this troubling conundrum.) “Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that those people have been misled by Satan, and that they are liars! The Bible does not contradict itself! It is God's word, handed down to us by his prophets, and it is the truth!"

    I waited for him to make his case, but that was the end of his rebuttal; a bald statement containing bold word stresses. His point began and ended with an exhortation to believe that the Bible is the literal truth and word of God, because pastor says so, AND so does the Bible itself. It was the first time I understood clearly that this Christian “argument from authority” was in fact a Mobius strip leading nowhere other than back to its own say-so, and that there was no basis in reality for any of its claims. That was the end of organized religion for me, if not yet the end of the road of some sort of belief in some sort of God possibility.

    My final deconversion occurred only relatively recently; it followed a conversation with an atheist friend who pointed out to me that atheism wasn’t a claim of definite knowledge about God’s non-existence, as is widely misconceived. It is more the claim that any evidence which any religion claims as proof of their respective version of God is in fact so far nonexistent, and that “the burden of proof rests with the believers, not the non-believers.” (Dawkins 76) It is not up to atheists to prove the non-existence of God any more than we have to go around disproving purple dogs in space or any other ridiculous fantasy that the human imagination can come up with.  I realized then that I was effectively already an atheist.

    My childhood was a relatively happy one. My parents were kind people who believed they were saving my soul by raising me to accept their religion as truth. On the surface, you couldn’t say that I was in any way abused. Yet government guidelines regarding child abuse include emotional maltreatment as part of their definitions of abuse or neglect, and define emotional abuse as “injury to the psychological capacity or emotional stability of the child as evidenced by an observable or substantial change in behavior, emotional response, or cognition.” (Child Welfare Information Gateway 3) In this sense, I will make the case for religion as child abuse. I can make a strong illustration regarding the change in cognition that I experienced thanks to childhood religious indoctrination.

    Religion used my own natural capacity for reason against me and therefore undermined my ability to think critically throughout my adolescence, until I was later able to shed my religious upbringing. Ever since then, I have been rediscovering that I am a rational person with a naturally curious and logical mind. Perhaps for people with less rational needs, being indoctrinated with religion and then carrying on with their otherwise normal lives isn’t a problem. But as a young child with an underdeveloped mind, religion had a disastrous effect when it did battle with my native logic circuits. In order to make sense of what I had been told was the nature of reality — that Heaven and Hell were real places where you would spend an eternity depending upon your spiritual behavior on Earth— I decided early on that nothing in this life actually mattered other than believing in Jesus, being a good person, and trying to convert other people (thankfully, I was never very good at that part of it). If that was the situation, what was the point of working hard on my education, or at anything else if it was all only prelude to hopeful, eternal happiness? The concerns of this world didn’t matter. This was the only logical conclusion I could come to. In this way I became an indifferent student, smug in the belief that I was “saved” and that God had a plan for my life.

    The mental gymnastics required in order to hold on to a belief for which there is no evidence, indeed for which evidence suggests is irrational, creates an unfortunate mental condition called cognitive dissonance. According to Simply Psychology: “Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to ‘put it down to experience’, committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).” (McLeod)

    This behavior was also observed on the national stage only last year as Harold Camping predicted the Rapture would happen on May 21^st, 2011, and some of his followers spent their life savings to help spread the word. When the day came and went, Camping quickly changed his story to say that it had been only a spiritual judgment day and that the real end would come later, on October 21, 2011. Please take note of today’s date, and then also notice that we’re all still here.

    Most Christians choose to ignore the voluminous and weighty evidence found by Biblical scholars that “the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different [games of telephone] by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agendas.” (Dawkins 118)

    Additionally, Christians ascribe a particular weightiness to the red words of the Bible, when in fact Jesus says very little throughout the Gospels that has not been said in various ways by many other so-called wise or spiritual men throughout history. If this is their case for God, they use thin reeds and ignore any contradictory evidence indeed, not least of which can be found in the wild contradictions between the accounts of the four Gospels themselves.

    It is my contention that this cognitive dissonance is a major side effect of religious upbringing and that every person on Earth who is a religious believer has learned to employ certain mental tricks in order to remain true to their faith. It has an extraordinarily corrosive effect on critical thinking abilities, this facility for denying facts and holding beliefs that are provably false. It is also my contention that this is a disastrous state of affairs which has a similar effect on the mind as driving into a wall has on your car; you may or may not ever be able to get it working again, but even if you do, it will never again run as well as before the accident. People accustomed to living in this inferior mental state have had their ability to think rationally severely compromised and are easily manipulated into positions that are contrary to their own well-being. For example when they accept the rhetoric that a public health care option is going to result in death panels yet at the same time demand the government keep their hands off of their Medicare, a government run public health care program, and are meanwhile tricked into voting against it; or when they are convinced that by flying a plane into a building, murdering thousands, they have earned rewards in the afterlife.

    The fact that religious beliefs are instilled in children before they are capable of reasoning out the implications of reality on their own damages their ability later in life to evaluate evidence in a reasonable manner, and therefore constitutes cognitive damage as stipulated by government guidelines set in place by experts in child psychology. Most people have no problem with the fact that children raised in dangerous cults (i.e., religions with which they disagree) are considered victims of emotional abuse, but as of yet society at large has not made the next logical step forward that there is no evidence that Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other extant religion, no matter how many followers line up behind them, are any different from dangerous cults.

    We are a world of walking wounded, with the majority of humanity mentally disarmed by the emotional damage inflicted upon us in our youth. You might not think that someone who has written this startlingly eloquent argument against religion is exhibiting any signs of permanent psychological damage, but you’d be wrong. The fact that I feel so strongly about it at all is one sign of the damage: We first generation atheists tend to be an angry, surly lot when it comes to religion which is hardly the mark of a completely healthy mind. After all, if I were constantly belligerent towards writers of science fiction, you’d think I was in need of anger management. Second generation atheists however, of whom I’ve met a few, tend to become bemused when confronted with a first generationer’s anti-religious tirade; since they were raised by atheists and were therefore taught how to think rather than what to think, they lack the religious damage and therefore the anger which can sometimes seem crippling to others.

    Another, more important sign of damage is that I am 39 years old, and in my first successful year of college. I was so ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of learning that I failed my first semester of college miserably after barely scraping through high school. I had always assumed that there was something wrong with me such as a learning disability or low intelligence, but the fact that at my age I can become an Honor Student gives the lie to that fear. As I stated before, not everyone is affected in this way by religion, but that is how it affected me.

    I in no way wish to imply that I was a victim of intentional abuse by my family. The sad truth is that they are every bit the victim of brainwashing that I was, as were their parents and grandparents and so on. Religion has been described as the worst virus to ever assail mankind, and if religion is a virus then it is a hereditary one and more trenchant than AIDS. In truth I feel extremely fortunate to have been naturally gifted with the necessary tools to eventually fight off the disease. However, I believe that the tools are now becoming available to everyone. Every day the internet is opening up pockets of isolation around the world to instantaneous participation in the battlefield of ideas. With these millions of voices participating in the discussion, it is getting more difficult for individuals to ignore extremely important scientific concepts which push the religious need for the existence of God further and further into irrelevance, namely Evolution and possibly String Theory or a future equivalent. One day perhaps, history will look back on us as being in the final death throes of the dark age of superstition.

    It is for these reasons that being an atheist is important to me, and not only simply to be one, but to be outspoken about it. When patients praise God for healing them rather than the doctor who studied medicine and actually prescribed the drugs or performed the surgery, or when the theologian wonders at the amazing complexity and beauty of the universe as illuminated by Einstein’s theories or Hubble’s telescope and sanctimoniously takes the credit for his pet supernatural being while undervaluing the hard work of the scientists who made the discoveries, they are displaying a shocking inability to deal with the world as it is and a willingness to behave in irrational ways which in every other case we would label as delusional. Religion damages the mind, and damaged minds in turn damage society. It is time to put an end to this wretched state of affairs.

 

 

Works Cited

Child Welfare Information Gateway. "www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.cfm." 11 July 2011. Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect. Document. 6 August 2012.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Drawing of Bibleheads. Source Unknown.

McLeod, Saul. Cognitive Dissonance. 2008. Web Article. 10 August 2012. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html>.

 

"I Don’t Know Why People Are So Keen To Put The Details Of Their Private Life In Public. They Forget That Invisibility Is A Superpower." - Banksy.

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head" - Banksy

"The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires..." - Banksy

After checking out the aspens, I drove down into Park City, Utah. I almost decided not to even stop in town because from the road it sort of looked like a typical cutesy American main street chock-a-block full of quaint shops, which depresses me. So many American towns sell themselves as Historic or as a good tourist destination when in reality all that they have to offer is a short stroll past shop windows and Galleries full of crap. However, the Sundance Film Festival is held in Park City every year, so I figured there might be something worth seeing. I parked on a hill, walked down some steps that led to an alley which exited out onto Main Street Park City. And just as I was getting to the end of the alley, before I even really caught a glimpse of the town, I did a double, triple, quadruple take at the above work of graffiti on the wall. I recognized it immediately as a Banksy! Well, and not just because the locals framed it with a big BANKSY nameplate, neither.

"The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse. What we need in this race is a lot more streakers." - Banksy

Needless to say, I stood around that corner for about a half hour taking shots, not even really noticing that my assessment of Park City as yet another whimsical trade street was otherwise entirely correct in my desire to use it as background.

"You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity." - Banksy

Although I love Banksy's work, embarrassingly it was a bit of time before I came down off of the high of discovery to actually think about the meaning of the piece very deeply. I mean, my initial assessment was that it was a sort of anti-film industry statement and I left it at that. Then when I'd gotten off a few shots and calmed down a bit, I started to feel a bit stupid as I began to suspect that the joke was on me and my need to photograph everything, and that's the type of mania that Banksy was lampooning. I got a little shy and surreptitiously looked around to make sure that the locals, who were probably in on the joke by now, weren't laughing at me. Nothing too overt, but a girl walked past and I swear that she snorked at me.

"We can’t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves." - Banksy

Then I decided that I had better study it more closely. I slowly began to realize that maybe it was more of a comment on places like Park City; People find a beautiful bit of nature and WHAM! Ruin it by plunking down a town full of boutique shopping, ski slopes, spas, gigantic resort hotels that resemble Hogwarts and a million vacation houses which, due to the non-stop real estate frenzy, wind up all facing and contemplating each other, thus destroying the open natural beauty that had made the area a popular destination in the first place.

"People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that’s only if it’s done properly." - Banksy

Feeling satisfied that Banksy wasn't necessarily having a laugh at my expense and being happy with my pictures, I wandered through town for a bit casting internal aspersions on the stupid snorking girl and continuing to contemplate the piece. One thing that Banksy is right about for sure; seeing a work of art in context is much more thought provoking than seeing it on a wall in a highly secured building, or in a book. I imagined that there was a reason he chose to paint that particular piece in a town where the rich and famous gather in obnoxious droves every year to celebrate themselves. I eventually decided that perhaps it was a comment on art and celebrity in the media, how in the race to put something under the microscope and on film for exploitative purposes, you destroy what may or may not make it valuable. Then I saw some photographs of aspens in the shop window of a gallery. I "ooohhhed" and "ahhhed" in the privacy of my hypocritical head, and went in to see. Inside is where I learned about aspens, and also that the reason that Banksy had been in town was for the opening of his film "Exit Through The Gift Shop". He street arted the place up, and then later on the locals framed it with pride for him. I'm not exactly sure what Banksy's current stance on permanently framing his work and hanging his name on it is, but I suspect he has complicated emotions about it. The gallery attendant told me of another small piece that Banksy had left behind (and also locally framed), and where to find it.

"I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said "that's a clever anagram of art" and I had to pretend I'd known that all along." - Banksy

He's famous for his rats. They're a bit of a trademark; better than a tag, really. At any rate, by the time that I left town, I'd decided that the main piece could probably mean any or none or all of the things that I went through thinking it might, which is the great thing about seeing it live. Though the Banksy book that Julie has will always be one of my most treasured rat books, isolated on the page I got much less highly dignified contemplation out of his hundreds of great pieces than I did from seeing that one where it was meant to be seen.

"Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie" - Banksy

The only other thing in town that tickled my fancy was an advert for a certain beer in a bar window. Normally I wouldn't have cared much, but being in Utah, with the Mormons and all, I was compelled.

"I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more." - Banksy

Get Back On That Rocket And Make Me Some Trinitite, Boy!

"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

-Omar Bradley

So on my second work trip to New Mexico, I wanted to hit the outdoor missile museum at the White Sands Missile Range again because I hadn't taken the shot I really wanted to get the first time. So on my way in to work I gave it another shot. It's really striking how appropriate it is that the base of a giant rocket testing facility is situated right in front of the Organ mountain range. The missile display rather mirrors the mountains, don't you think?

I'm guessing that was intentional, but who knows. At any rate, it struck me ominous every time I drove by the mountains. It's as though they've been waiting all of their geologic lives for someone to come test big pointy phallic payloads of destruction at their feet.

So I keep getting really stuck thinking about the duality of the space rocket/ death missile theme going on all over New Mexico. The technology is mostly the same, but the application is as different as annihilation and salvation. And the birth of both aspects of the technology happened right here. (Actually, most of the original work happened over at Fort Bliss, but it's practically the same base as White Sands; they're adjoining) I guess there's not much to say about it, I just keep coming back to that fact in my circular thoughts.

"Hey son, check out this big ass gun. We killed a buncha commie nazi jerk-offs with this bad boy!" "Wow, Dad! Nazi jerk-offs!"

To be fair, I have no idea if that was the actual conversation. I just think it's weird to bring your kid to a museum dedicated to high tech killing machines. Maybe, like me, he's troubled by this aspect of technology and wants his son to see the park in a philosophical sense. Forgive me if my expectations for the typical American family are rather low in this regard. At any rate, they also have an inside museum which I didn't get to the first time. This next batch of photos are probably tedious, but I'm just a bit riveted here and I think they're interesting.

I like the fact that the sound effects guy from the original Star Wars flick donated a Darth Vader helmet for letting him record some sound effects there. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but why not a light saber or a spaceship model? Was he subtly commenting on the evil of fetishising death machines? Actually a Death Star model may have been more appropriate in that case, but perhaps that would be too on-the-nosey. Or, most likely, it means nothing other than, "Hey, I got this extra helmet lying around. Here you go, thanks for helping me out." But I like the symbolism there whether it was intentional or not. I mean, look at this thing; it could be the model for a death star right?

That's a model of the original A-bomb tested at Trinity. Here's a closer up of the information on the wall above it.

Such a weird period in history. Did you know that the explosion of the Nuclear bomb created a new type of mineral? Trinitite. Hard to come by for your rock collection.

They also had this duck and cover display. I'm not sure if the museum was mocking its own historical propaganda here or if they're still trying to put a serious face on it, but I feel like mocking it. Mock mock mock.

And imagine being stuck in a bomb shelter for 20 years while waiting for the radiation levels go down to a safe level with these military provided sanitation kits. Bomb shelter crapping is a complicated business.

Well that's that for now. I did more stuff but once again I've taken so many photos that I'll save it for another post.

An Atheist Rant Which Those Whose Hands Are Over Their Ears May Wish To Avoid.

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."

-Doris Egan, House M.D., The Right Stuff, 2007

I haven't done a nice long insane rambly sea ranty in a while, and tonight I inexplicably find myself in the mood. Perhaps being stuck in Fort Bragg for three weeks in a row where there is nothing much to photograph has something to do with it, but perhaps also I can lay the cause on the doorstep of religion, my favorite whipping post.

For those of you who are facebook friends of mine, this is no surprise; other than my photo of the day, about all I've been doing over there is posting links to anti-religious videos, blogs, and news items. I've been feeling up for a fight lately. The problem is that my adversaries, those who put authoritarian belief in front of rational discourse ain't got much fight in 'em. You can't have a dialogue with those people because they haven't got a brain to stand on. Perhaps that is not fair; they do actually have brains but they've been quite thoroughly trained not to use them. I should know, I used to be a member.

In order to believe in the existence of God, any God, one must have faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence. Fine. When I wipe my bottom after disposing of bodily waste, I use the first knuckle method. Since you will never witness this yourself, you'll have to trust me that it's true. You might not even know what the first knuckle method is, but what's important here is that it exists. I know, because I made it up. BELIEVE me when I tell you, I've felt it's presence. So you see, I have belief in certain things which can only be witnessed by an individual on a personal basis. However, if you choose to ignore my account of my VERY personal ass-cleaning method, I'll completely understand. In fact, if you want to pretend I never said it, so much the better. That's exactly how I feel about your god damned religion.

So, by expressing a belief in God, for whom there is no evidence, you've put yourself in an awkward position. More awkward than the first knuckle method in fact, difficult as that may be to imagine (don't imagine it!). You've aligned yourself with those who wish not to believe in reason. Reason, of course, is the primary tool of the mind. But this is the nature of faith, the very definition of it. "Set aside your reason, saith the lord, and believeth in this shit in this book right here. And do this not by your own impulse, but because these dudes who got that book from some other dudes, who are now dead, tell you it's the truth." Can you feel the presence of the lord in that logic? Amen!

I must say that my own progress towards rationality has been long and hard. I believed, and the illogic of the Lord did not sustain me. I searched for the Lord, and did not find him. Instead I found some used book store philosophy which slaked my thirst better than vitamin water for a time, until that too became as coca cola. Then, after discovering Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell, I settled into a comfortable agnosticism where science was the only possible language of God, if he existed. I spent a while there, but all it took was a logical argument by a friend I've never met to convince me of the liberating joys of atheism.

If there is one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that one side will almost never convince the other. An atheist speaks the language of reasonable discourse and the religious speak the language of authoritarian "knowledge". An atheist can be convinced to change his mind on a subject through strongly reasoned logic and hard evidence, and a theist can be convinced by an impassioned emotional plea and hypnotic crowd techniques. Never the twain shall meet, as reason and faith go 'round and around and around.

One of the most overused and incorrect arguments against atheism is that one is simply switching a belief in God to a belief in no God. This is a false understanding of the situation. Atheism, in it's strongest sense, is a lack of belief. Were actual, hard evidence to come to light that God truly existed, atheists would still not become believers-in-God, they'd become knowers-of-God. In other words, we don't believe in an all-knowing deity for the same reasons we don't believe that thunder is really Thor going bowling. Because it's nonsense and there is far more evidence against religious dogma and a creator than there is evidence for it. In fact, there is NO evidence for it.

When I was a member of the Christian cult, there was a lot of talk about "knowing God" and "feeling his presence" and "answered prayers". I always wondered why, as fervently as I prayed to Jesus and as badly as I wanted to be on the side of Heaven, why did I never feel or sense those things? Why did Jesus talk to the crazy old cat lady, or the Pastor who had an affair with his daughter's best friend's Mom, or the self important and exceedingly boring old usher guy, but never to me? I was earnest, I was in need, ready to be called to battle in the old "Onward Christian Soldiers" sense.

Finally I figured it out, when I reached a certain age and began to fumblingly learn how to utilize the logical part of my brain. None of those people feel or sense those things. They want to, they try to, they convince themselves with certain self-hymnotic techniques that they do feel them, and then they go to church and Praise Jesus or Allah or David Koresh or Fred Phelps loudly in order to continue to convince themselves and those around them that they are one of God's chosen. It was the biggest scam in history, perpetuated mostly in ignorance by it's own victims; the true meaning behind my favorite fable, The Emperor's New Clothes.

"Astronomy Compels The [Mind] To Look Upwards And Leads Us From This World To Another"

Guess where I went again? And this time I brought my tripod. One aspect of my job that I very much appreciate (one aspect among many) is how I am able to return to the same place more than once. With some assignments it's not the greatest, but getting to return to Napa Valley, Death Valley or Kitt Peak on multiple occasions way more than makes up for multiple Nowhere, Indiana or the occasional Harrisburg, PA types of assignments. I like going some places many times because each time I go, I notice something different or have a new experience, and I get to know that place a bit better. Also, when I am somewhat familiar with where I'm going, I can make more adequate preparations.

Several things about my second visit to Kitt Peak totally ruled. As I said, a) this time I was prepared and brought my tripod, b) it was a much clearer night than on my previous visit, with no clouds or moon out, which makes the stars extremely bright and multitudinous and c) it was less windy and a bit warmer (though still quite desert-at-night chilly) and so they opened up a different telescope for us to use this time. So all around it was a totally different experience than before. The telescope we used this time was more or less the same as the other one (pictured above), except this one was housed a bit further up the hill in a flattop observatory rather than a domed one. The flattop style would have been quite dreadful on a windier night, open to the elements as it is, you see.

That flat part to the left, hanging over the red light, is the roof; it's been rolled back from the cylindrical observatory on the right. We got to see some really awesome stuff this time around. The middle star in Orion's sword stands out in my memory mainly because while it looks like a single star to the naked eye, it's actually four newborn stars surrounded by clouds of gas and dust cast off from their birth. It was quite lovely. You can see Orion in the next picture. That really bright star just above the roof-line of the Observatory is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and only 8 light years away, and Orion is just above it, the next brightest stars in the picture being his sword. It looks like I also caught a faint shooting star, between Sirius and the telescope. Or maybe that's an airplane, who knows. I bet Astronomers really hate airplanes.

Oop, there's another one. It's a meteorite, it's an airplane, no! It's a...! Well, no it's got to be one of those two things. You decide.

I also got to see something that is apparently very difficult to see in most places due to light pollution. Kitt Peak is far away and high enough from any major city that the night sky just pops, more so than I've ever seen but less so than people could see from anywhere only 100 years ago. I know that last picture rather looks light polluted from the ground, but that's mostly just a quirk of shutter exposure. At any rate, what we were able to see was the Zodiacal Plane. It's the plane in which all of the planets orbit the sun, and the reason it's see-able is that the millions of leftover particles and gases that are trapped in the same orbit from which all of the planets emerged reflect a faint light. The really bright star just above the robot-looking weather sensor thingy is actually Jupiter, and you can see how the sky is brighter just around it.

I also got to see the double star Almach, The Eskimo Nebula, the star cluster M44 with hundreds of tiny blue stars, the cigar galaxy M82, and our docent even showed us how to find the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. And of course, the only other thing which my camera is actually capable of taking a picture of, the Milky Way.

Although I did get this picture of Jupiter early on just around sunset. I was just playing with settings on my camera when I took it, and it's totally dull and would never make the cut in a million years except I just happened to shake my camera in just the right way to give the planet its self-referential initial.

Hee hee. Anyway, one thing I didn't mention in my first Kitt Peak post was that at the end of the evening, around 10pm, they have to lead us in a caravan down the mountain because you're not allowed to turn your headlights on as they would interfere with the Astronomers doing real work at the observatory. Parking and taillights are fine because they are not luminous enough to have an effect on the telescopes. So as they were gathering us up to go this time, I realized that I'd forgotten my tripod bag back in the flattop observatory. So while everybody else drove down the mountain, I got to wait behind for the docent to come back so he could let me in to get my bag. While I was waiting, I got a nice shot of the parking lot and everyone's taillights as they queued up and drove off. Now I'm not saying that I forgot my bag on purpose, I'm just saying that it worked out rather well for me.

So another awesome night at Kitt Peak all around. I really hope I get to go at least one more time because aside from all of the astronomical learning, I figured out a thing or two about taking night sky pictures which I didn't know before and I'd like the chance to try them out further. At any rate I'll leave you with my final picture of the night; when I got all the way down to the bottom of Kitt Peak I stopped to take a final shot which I thought was poetic, and sad.

"Officer! That Man Stole My Wallet!" "Don't Like It? Go Live In Cuba, Socialist!"

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
-William H. Borah

It's a lie, you know. Airport security. A shameless, bald-faced ridiculous lie. (What does it mean to say someone is a bald-faced liar? Does that phrase express a distrust of the beardless?) I travel a lot for work, as you may have noticed, and I've actually gotten to the point where I often momentarily forget what city I just arrived from when checking the baggage claim board. "Did I just come from Cleveland, or Los Angeles? Oh yeah, no, San Francisco, it was a direct flight this time."

My point only being that I'm pretty slow in the head when traveling, and it's taken me this long to catch on to the scam; I woke up thinking about it this morning. Part of my travel preparation ritual includes a few things, including wearing slip-on shoes, a plastic belt buckle, and bringing four packed bags; unfortunately I travel heavy due to all of the work items I have to bring, as well as a backpack for my camera and lenses... and my big tripod. I check two bags (don't worry, I'm a Silver Elite flier, no charge for check-ins) and carry on my camera bag and a small book bag with books to read, my mp3 player, my netbook, and sundry other items to keep myself occupied during the endless travel time. SO, my point being, I carry my camera bag on the plane with me, which has a large metal tri-pointy-ended-pod strapped to it, and the TSA security agents DON'T BAT AN EYE.

I've often wondered why that is, exactly. Especially considering that items you are not allowed to bring include, well, water. And you can bring liquids, but they have to be in 3oz bottles AND sealed up in a ziplock baggie. Why? What the hell difference does it make to ziplock them? If you are sneaking acid on a plane to dash in the face of an airline attendant, what the hell difference, security-wise, does it make to have to zip your liquids up in a baggie? A terrorist can train to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, but somehow a ziplocked baggie that he packed himself is going to give him trouble?

And then I realized; it's a smokescreen, a ziplockscreen. (I've often thought about how 90% of all security is mostly for appearance, especially after living in the IZ in Baghdad, to make you scared first and then to feel like you're being kept safe, not to actually make you safer) Anyway, in the aftermath of new and ridiculous airport "security" rules, they banned water. Water. To include all liquids, to make it look good. Then, when they realized that travelers were getting pissed because this meant they could no longer bring their toilet kits on board, especially now that they're charging all you non-elite fliers for baggage check in, they had to backtrack a little and allow toiletries with a few completely nonsensical security precautions, designed solely to save a little face and perpetuate the no water policy; I mean, you can bring 3oz of water on board, but that's not enough for a thirsty traveler. It's all about the water.

Because once I clear security, the first thing I do is head to a kiosk and buy a large bottle of water for my flight. For like $3.00 to $5.00. Because arriving for flights two hours early, layovers, and flight times can take all day, and you've got to have water. AND, airport water fountains are few and far between, and anyway the water always tastes rather rancid. And once you're on the plane, the flight attendants come by once, maybe twice if you're lucky or on a longer flight, with tiny little cups of water. Not enough. I wonder how much the rise in bottled water sales in airports has been since the implementation of, um, dangerous water rules at TSA checkpoints. I also wonder who is the biggest supplier of bottled water to airports across the country. I suspect Halliburton. But then, I suspect them for a lot of things, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, have you noticed lately how much tiny little travel bottles of liquid products cost lately? Sometimes, almost as much as the regular sized ones.

It seems unlikely, I know, to the untrained eye that TSA security is designed mostly to pick your pocket at the airport, especially when they're nominally there to protect you from terrorists. But little things like heavy pointed metal tripods Vs. bottles of water, the nectar of life, something everybody now has to BUY, make me suspicious. That, and everything in the news now is about the fight against greed in the health care industry. The more I read, the more obvious it is that corporate America is out there finding new and improved ways to pay off the US Government to legalize creative pickpocketing by targeting products which a human body can not live without. The fact that water and health care are now considered products is a God Damned tragedy, and disgusting. I honestly don't know which side Obama is really on, but in reality, it doesn't matter. Whether or not he wants to help, the cards are stacked against him, and he seems unable to break down the drug company lobbyists. Especially since, you know, he's dealing with them as though they were a legitimate part of the Government, and not tossing them out like the shills they are.

Now It's MY Turn To Indulge A Little, Pope Craphead!

"Repentance alone is of no help; grace cannot be bought with repentance; it cannot in any way be bought."

"If His churches and priests were like Christ Himself, there would be no need of poets."
-Hermann Hesse

So speaking of religion, here's a fascinating little fact that just came across my desk. Ever hear of indulgences, or Johann Tetzel? Well, in point of fact, Johann was a German Dominican preacher who in the year of our lordy lord lord 1517 was trying to raise money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica; Yes that's correct, an integral part of that huge, garish, ostentatious monument to man's power and greed known as the Vatican.

 

In order to fund this little project, Johann travelled around to towns and villages. Rather than to say to them, "Hey poor people, we're trying to build this monstrous church in Rome that will display Catholic power to the world, how about giving us your milk money to, you know, help a Friar out?", he instead went around singing a little ditty that is now known (by me, anyway) as the Indulgence Rag. It goes: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs." Yes, in point of fact, he created one of Satan's moste potente minde controlle gimmicks, the very first Advertisement Jingle.

Basically the premise is that, if you've been less than good but not quite bad enough to go to hell, you can buy your way out of Purgatory, because the Pope had the authority to tell God who deserves to go to Heaven, and God had to listen. And the Pope would perform this small task for even the poorest meanest villiager out of the kindness of his cold black heart, and for a small, meaningless fee, of course. And not to forget, he would not have even offered the poor people this kindly ease of mind had he not needed cash to build his big crappity church. So there's Papal altruism for you.

I feel that there is something extremely poetic about the world's first ad jingle being composed and utilized by a Catholic priest trying to scam poor people into giving him their last copper in order to build the most gaudy, useless building in the world. On the one side, it's poetic because essentially, advertising in that respect hasn't changed; advertisers would love for people to still believe that buying stuff will save your soul, and in a sense they've continued to create this sense in people. The feeling that buying those shoes or my new Canon Xsi will make us happy, complete in some way. It's a gaping hole in every shoppers chest that can never be filled, and the only thing I'm not entirely sure of is how exactly it got there. My bet is that the Church created this need in people by selling them indulgences, and has continued to exploit it ever since, but even if it's always been there, an integral part of Man's nature, there is no denying that the Church first learned of it and exploited it through Johann Tetzel.

On the other side it's also poetic, because it helps to bathe the Pope and the Catholic Church in it's own ugly light. The questions that weren't thought about in 1517 by dirty uneducated villagers can be easily asked now. So, why does God, whose Son supposedly upended all of the money changer's tables in front of the Temple, give a rat's ass about 2 copper bits when it comes to men's souls? Of course he doesn't. This episode in the Church's history clearly shows what a corrupt, scamming pile of God Turd the Catholic Church really is. They thought they could get away with this because people were stupid and uneducated, but history didn't forget, and now we may still be stupid, but at least we're educated enough to recognize a hustle when we see one. This is what organized religion is really all about; Getting butts in seats by using the fear of eternal hell or purgatory and offering salvation through the application of a little magical formula, and don't forget to tithe on the way out, y'all.

Anyway, the wikipedia page on Johann Tetzel is here, and the article which turned me on to this very illuminating tidbit is here. I'm going to leave this rant with another picture I took during my visit to the Vatican a few years back. It's a shot of the escalator leading up to the Vatican Museum entrance, and it sure looks a lot like many Christain fantasist's idea of the stairway to heaven to me... wonder if that's what the Catholic church was going for? A little not-so-subliminal advertising? What do you think?

 

 

A Perfect New York Day, Gabba Gabba Hey.

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years”
- Thomas Wolfe

I live about one hour to the west of NYC, and I haven't been there in like fifteen years. I've still never even been up to see the Statue of Liberty except one time when I was too young to remember; apparently my Pop Pop, who used to work in the City, took me there once. It's one of those traveling oddities. Germans that I knew from Bavaria had never been to Italy, which is only a few hours away by train, yet had been to the Statue of Liberty. I've been to Venice, Baghdad, and Moscow even, but it's been fifteen years since I spent any time in the greatest city in the world. I'd seen online that one of my favorite bands was playing the final show on their tour there on Saturday night, so Miss Luongo and I drove over there yesterday to have a perfect New York day.

Miss Luongo doesn't particularly enjoy concerts, so in order to bribe her into attending one with me, I had to promise that we'd see a Broadway show which is one of her favorite things to do in the City. We hit TKTS which sells discounted day-of-show tickets, and scored a sweet deal on Equus. I'd never seen it before, but it's one of Miss Luongo's favorite plays and she credits it with being an important force in her decision to become a writer. And, to top it all off, the cast consisted of Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon Dursley), and Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager)! I really enjoyed it. It's a very 70's sort of sexual psychodrama, but it holds up and I think having British leads really helped make it work. If you've ever seen it or heard about it, you know that the role of the boy calls for some nudity, so yes, we got to see Harry Potter's penis. But other than that tense moment it was quite enjoyable and it's nice to see a child actor grow up into a good actor and not yet another screwed up tabloid case. I was able to sneak a blurry picture of the set before the show got started, which I was reprimanded for. Sometimes getting in trouble for pictures is worth it, but on this one I'll have to say, eh. Those silver things are the horse heads which were donned by actors portraying some scary-ass horses during the show.

After the play we hit Little Italy for the street festival of San Genaro and got some awsome Italian food and Pinkberry, which is some sort of Asian frozen yogurt and awesome. Then we hit the Angelika, an independent movie theater and saw some wacky Woody Allen movie about love and it's myriad disappointments. And threesomes. Vicki Christina Barcelona. Go see it. Or not. Afterwards it was time to hit the concert at the Zipper Factory on 37th and 9th.

It was Dean & Britta again, and Spectrum opened for them. Spectrum is a band formed by Sonic Boom, singer from another legendary band that I love, Spacemen 3. My friend Scott turned me on to them a ways back and he used to say that they don't play their instruments better than anyone. This was definitely the case last night... Sonic Boom does this sort of trance-rock thing and he opened with a Spacemen 3 bit called 'Transparent Radiation' which made me very happy. Then he did a bunch of loud sonic-y things which weren't really songs and got progressively weirder until the final number which prompted Miss Luongo to uncork her ears long enough to tell me angrily that she thought he was basically saying "screw you" to the audience because nobody was even playing instruments by this point, he was just utilizing foot pedals and amps to produce massive amounts of feedback. Again, Spacemen 3 used to do this better than anybody, and Sonic Boom was in top form. I guess you have to know what you're getting into here otherwise it pretty much is just noise, but I really enjoyed it.

Dean & Britta were of course awesome. I don't need to go into how awesome they are all over again... I saw them in DC not too long ago and you can go read that one again if you want to know how awesome they still are. I did grab a copy of Dean Wareham's book after the show and had him autograph it. My friend Steph had originally wanted to join us to go see the show, but she had already read Dean's book and said that it sort of disappointed her to see what one of her favorite musicians was really like. She still might have gone, but she'd have had to take off work and her heart wasn't in it. I can't wait to read it. It sounds like it's going to be honest.

I got a nice shot of Britta grinning at me. We had the best seats! It was a terraced u-shaped theater going up, and the seats were all old discarded minivan seats. A very nice and comfortable way to enjoy New York shoegazer Rock.

And here they are, singing 'You Turn My Head Around' again. I love taking pictures of them during that song.

Here's four shots of their shoes that I cobbled together.

So yes, it was a perfect New York day. A broadway show, an Italian streetfest, a Woody Allen film, and quintessential New York shoegazer icons. Some things are just worth saving up for. We didn't make it to the Statue of Liberty, but that's really ok. I'll make it there one day and then I'll be like, "Huh. I wonder what the people who declared that this gift of friendship to us from the French should symbolize Liberty and Freedom would think of how far we've come from those heady days of hope."

And Along Came A Transrealist

I picked up this book relatively randomly a few weeks ago. Stuff of this nature always piques my curiosity because I like both science fiction and popular science. (Also, I saw it sitting next to a new book of transcripts from some lectures that Carl Sagan gave in Scotland in 1985 which has recently been published by his wife, which is what originally caught my eye.) It's a book of essays by various pundits about what humanity could possibly look like if we were still around in, well, Year Million.

It's not overall a great book; I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed it but it's a bit stale in many ways. Naturally, it's difficult for anyone to guess what even the very near future is going to look like. For instance, go into a Starbucks on lunch hour in any major city, listen to a conversation that the nerdy computer types are having about the drudgery of their IT jobs, and try to imagine what that conversation would have sounded like to you back in say, 1985. I'm sure even Carl Sagan would have been like, "What the crap are you maniacs talking about?" Words that mean one thing back then have taken on whole new meanings in light of technological advances, so to a 1985er, the words might even sound familiar, but the ways in which they were being put together might remind him of a conversation in a particularly dire lunatic asylum. For instance: "I was trying to download some music files onto my cellphone, but Apple's damn proprietary iTunes system keeps messing me up. I've got to figure out a way to hack that shit." Think about what that sentence could possibly mean in a pre-home computing world. It's English, but it's nonsense.

Stanislaw Lem actually wrote a really excellent book on that subject called "Return From The Stars", which in a nutshell is about a Spaceman who returns to Earth after a 100 year mission only to find that he doesn't understand anything that is going on. Looking at the problem in reverse, I just re-watched that fabulous David Mamet movie, Glengarry Glen Ross, which is about the cutthroat business of real estate sales in, I assume, the late 80's early 90's. These salesmen kept having to make telephone calls to potential sales leads via pay phone, and in one Scene Jack Lemmon is calling his family and telling them he won't be able to be reached later and I kept thinking, what? Why are they bothering with pay phones? Can't he be reached by his cell? Major plot hole. It's amazing to me how anachronistic those pay phones seemed, and that it took me a beat or two to catch on to the time frame. I think it was the combination of familiarity and a decade of perspective... I've seen that movie before and all the actors in it are pertinent to my adolescent movie experience, yet give it ten years and whammo, weirdness.

So you can see, the idea of trying to look a million years into the future seems at first glance a bit useless. One major technological advance and wham, everything changes. But in a weird sort of way, looking a million years into the future might actually be easier than looking a decade into the future. You have to ask larger, less precise questions such as, Will we have colonized other planets, or entire galaxies by then? Will our energy source be entire suns, entire star clusters, or dark energy itself? Will we be human, something more evolved, or will our personalities be downloaded into huge programs in which our thought processes will be in effect immortal, and capable of computations greater than our current meat-brains can presently conceive? Well, all of these possibilities are addressed, of course. Some of the essays are more successful at getting the points across than others. But here's the reason I really loved this book:

There are about 14 essays in this book, and the first 10 are all asking questions along these lines. Futures are spun out for us that to a Borg seem like heaven. We have deconstructed entire planetary systems and turned them into so-called Dyson Spheres: technological monstrosities made of "computronium" which would make the Death Star run away with its tiny little tail between its legs. We turn ourselves into gigantic computer minds, more capable of exploring the infinite Universe than in our present, limited meat bodies of mortality. All of which are not necessarily impossible ideas, they just seem to us now as that airplane seemed to those people from the last of the uncontacted tribes in South America. Or perhaps they are impossible; it's a book of speculation, after all. But then, along comes chapter 11. And who is it written by? Why, none other than the greatest speculative mind of our time, Rudy Rucker. I haven't said it enough lately; I love that guy. He is the great-great-great-grandson of the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. Not that that matters; his own body of work is genius. He's a well respected mathematician and philosopher in his own right. But I've written enough about him in the past, so I'll spare you.

Except that, his essay in this book is why I love the book and why I think he's the greatest, in a nutshell. All these impressive, impossible to fully comprehend, yet fundamentally bleak views of the future of humanity, and along comes a transrealist. His essay is about how all of that mechanical technology is a real downer and totally beak. It's a great book because it shows the real value of genius, standing him up next to the more mainstream and dull views of the status quo. I'm going to quote him now:

 "Ultrageek advocates of the computronium Dyson-shell scenario like to claim that nothing need be lost when Earth [or any other structure] is pulped into computer chips. Supposedly the resulting computronium can run a VR (virtual reality) simulation that's a perfect match for the old Earth. Call the new one Vearth. It's worth taking a moment to explain the problems with trying to replace real reality with virtual reality. We know that our present-day videogames and digital movies don't fully match the richness of the real world. What's not so well known is that no feasible VR can ever match nature, because there are no shortcuts for nature's computations. Due to a property of the natural world that I call the "principle of natural unpredictability," fully simulating a bunch of particles for a certain period of time requires using a system using about the same number of particles for about the same length of time. Naturally occurring systems don't allow for drastic shortcuts."
Natural unpredictability means that if you build a computer-simulated world that's smaller than the physical world, the simulation cuts corners and makes compromises, such as using bitmapped wood-grain, linearized fluid dynamics, or cartoon-style repeating backgrounds. Smallish simulated worlds are doomed to be dippy Las Vegas/ Disneyland environments populated by simulated people as dull and predictable as characters in bad novels."

So basically what he's saying is, the physical matter of the Universe is already the most complicated calculation there is, and that any desire on our part to harness it for our own small needs is rather ugly and in the long run diminishing. Not that he doesn't predict amazing possibilities for our future. Due to the high calculation potential of every bit of matter, he predicts something he calls Hylozoism, from the Greek, hyle, matter, and zoe, life. He believes that, given a million years, we'll find a way to wake matter up. As in, making it conscious. So that we can communicate with it. You'll actually be able to talk to walls, and it will be more productive than talking to politicians. He even has a plan for it, involving bending certain spatial topologies utilizing the extra dimensions of space. The benefits of waking matter up are enormous, and too much to go into, but they involve the possibility of teleportation, matter duplication, etc. This is a book report, not the Cliff's Notes. Suffice it to say, Rudy paints a much more incredible, surreal, no, transreal, view of the future, and on top of it, shows how it's just as conceivably possible as the deader versions of the typical futurist. If I could buy stock in Rudy Rucker, I'd grab every share I could, because I have a feeling that his ideas are going to be around for a long long time.

"Lately I've been working to convince myself that everything is a computation."

"It's tedious to watch something very obvious being worked out, like a movie that's not particularly good and after about half an hour you know how it's going to end."

"It's soothing to realize that my mind's processes are inherently uncontrollable."

"If you think of your life as a kind of computation, it's quite abundantly clear that there's not going to be a final answer and there won't be anything particularly wonderful about having the computation halt!"

"Computations are everywhere, once you begin to look at things in a certain way."

"Unfortunately our nation, nay, our world, is run by evil morons."

  -Rudy Rucker

Doctor, Will You Tell These Fools? I'm Not Crazy. Make Them Listen To Me Before It's Too Late!

Ambulance Driver: We had to dig him out from under the most peculiar things I ever saw.

Dr. Hill: What things?

Ambulance Driver: Well, I don't know what they are, I never saw them before. They looked like great big seed pods.

Dr. Hill: Where was the truck coming from?

Ambulance Driver: [King George, VA].

Dr. Hill: Get on your radios and sound an all points alarm. Block all highways, stop all traffic, and call every law enforcement agency in the state. [on phone] Operator, get me the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, it's an emergency!

             -Invasion of the Body Snatchers

So I just got back from an overnight job down in Virginia. It was a job from hell too... definitely payback for all those more exotic locales where I usually get to play in for a week or two. I left on Thursday morning at around 9, drove for five hours and then went right to work when I got there. It turned out to be one of those times where Murphy's Law was pumping iron and needed the good steroids. So what should have been two, maybe three hours worth of work setting up the next day's exam turned into ten. I didn't get to my hotel room until 12 pm, and I still had my administrative duties to attend, so I didn't get to bed until around 3 am. I of course had to wake up three and a half hours later to go back in to work to administer the exam. I got done with that, packed up all the equipment and got on the road by 2:00pm, hitting Philadelphia rush hour on the turnpike right around 5pm. Meanwhile, it was 90 degrees outside and my car's A/C was broke.

Despite all of this travail, I have made it home to report that I don't believe that Virginia really exists. I don't mean that there is not a US State that goes by the name of Virginia; What I mean is that it's a made up place. Like that playground in the first X-Files movie; the one that the secret shadowy people put up really fast in order to cover their tracks and make the site of their latest machinations look like it was an ordinary place. I've been down there a couple of times now, and that's always my impression of it. As you first enter Virginia via route 301, you immediately pass a Naval Warfare base. Everything is covered by trees, even scrapyards and auto places. In fact, all you really see are signs for scrap yards and auto places, and dirt roads leading to these supposed places of business

And the people... I almost didn't notice it at first, as I'm somewhat dismissive of the general human populace, but especially the American human populace. However I had to deal with some of the locals, and they had this peculiar trait of being curious about people from other places, as though there were any difference between a Virginian and a Pennsylvanian general populatory. (I think I just made that word up, by the way. It's supposed to connotate a member of the general populace, leaving out any indicator of an individual nature) But when some of the people found out I wasn't from the area, they'd get all questiony, rather like drunk college girls do to young men with British or Italian accents. It was strange and unsettling and brought home to me the fact that Americans in general don't get out enough. Also, they all work for the Government in one capacity or another down there. My job, in fact, was at a government contractor's site; one of those civilian weapon systems designer companies. They all have Secret or Top Secret clearance, and they tend to walk around with shrewd looks in their eyes, whether or not any of them have any call to look that way. People who think they're shrewd tend to don that glance, (like that stupid woman in that commercial who suggests going to Chili's for lunch as though it were an idea on par with the Grand Unified Field Theory) and people who are tend to hide it. Also, a large percentage of them are overweight in that way that only "poor" Americans can pull off. On the whole, it's a very unsettling package.

So due to all of this, my gut feeling is that Virginia is a place where the government hides it's pod people, poorly disguised as typical Americans, and that if there are any Virginians who are not pod people they just don't notice it because they're used to it and are in fact becoming assimilated. I see this as the future for the rest of America. I mean, obviously it's a national trend that's well under way, but I think it's something that as a social construct which covers an entire area, it's actually already complete down there. Freaky.

Seattle; City Of Science Fiction And Improper Diction

"When I die, I'm donating my body to science fiction."
-Steven Wright

"The future isn't what it used to be."
-Arthur C. Clarke

It's my 200th post! So in honor of this rather meaningless milestone, I traveled all the way out to Washington state just to get this photo of the Space Needle. Well ok, I was forced to be in Seattle for work, but I made the best of a bad situation and toured around the city a bit, and spent some time with Jordan and Alison, friends of mine who live in the area whom I'd known from Germany. Jordan is famous for his dance moves at the Bavarian Biker Fest (and has the neck-scars to prove it!) and Alison is famous for her drunken instigation of little Danish hot dog fights. Also I got to see Emily, another friend from Germany, who was in the area on rather suspicious business one afternoon and who is famous for breaking T-bars over fellow snowboarder's heads in fits of amazing pique. Ah good times, good times.

Anyway, Seattle is a very cool city, although I must say that I'm very disappointed to not have seen one single flannel the entire time I was there! Very sad. It's almost as if, collectively, it is a city ashamed of it's grungy flash in the pan. The absolute COOLEST part of the city, without a doubt, and I'm sure you already know what I'm going to say because it's the coolest thing in the universe (that we know of) and it's in Seattle so of course you know where I'm going; is the Science Fiction Museum.

I was soooooo happy when I realized this place existed, and that I was in Seattle to experience it. This museum kicked so much butt. You weren't allowed to take photos inside, which really really frustrated me. Here I was, in the coolest museum I'd ever been in... and I was impotent. The no photo rule didn't stop me from trying to be all surreptitious of course, but the few shots I managed to sneak wound up coming out rather blurry and not worth keeping, because I was too busy looking around for the mean kling-on security guard. I did keep one or two photos, blurry and badly composed as they are. But I'll get to those in a minute. They had a ton of first edition science fiction classics in there that I would steal in a second. (Uh, if I did that sort of thing, which I don't.) By authors I had been sure that only I knew about. James Blish. Fritz Leiber. Theodore Sturgeon. Stanislaw Lem. Pierre Boulle, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick. And... they were in places of honor. It was like heaven. They even had Iain M. Banks and Vernor Vinge, two of my more modern favorites, along with of course all the big easy ones. Asimov. Clarke. Niven. Anderson. A first edition of Childhood's End, (by Clarke) the first sci-fi novel to blow my mind and which made me ravenous for more. No Rudy Rucker though that I saw... a major oversight.

They had displays of movie items too, of course. Props from famous sci-fi movies and franchises; the dress that Sean Young wore in Blade Runner, a Storm Trooper armor suit, the original model of the Death Star used in Star Wars, (Where the no photo rule would have literally had me pulling out my hair, if I had any. As it was, I was in agony. The security ape would not leave! I think he was on to me.) the little talking bear from A.I., the Terminator robot, Robby the Robot. (Robby the freaking Robot!) Captain Kirk's command chair. Anybody recognize this?

Yes, that's right! It's the Pit Bull. Griff Tannen's anti-gravity skateboard from Back To The Future II. Totally. Sweet.

My favorite thing about the Sci-Fi Museum though is that, you know how in normal like, arty-farty museums, you'll see collections of snooty arty-farty junk, with little plaques next to them that say snooty stuff like "Kindly donated from the prestigious collection of Snooty McVandersnot"? Well, it's only at the Sci-Fi Museum that you'll find Star Wars action figures donated from the collection of Gus Lopez!

Yeah, it says "From the collection of Gus Lopez"... kind of hard to read, I know. But I had Had HAD to get this picture, and I was very nervous that that security clown was going to come around the corner before I got the chance. Plus the light was all dark and science fictiony. Oh well.

After the titillating thrill of the Science Fiction museum, the rest of Seattle rather paled. I re-visited Pike Place (I'd been there about 12 years ago on my way back from Alaska) and had a coffee at the original Starbuck's. I don't like Starbuck's coffee... too acidy. I like my coffee stronger and with the coffee machines having been cleaned out every once in a while. BUT, it's the very first Starbuck's coffee shop ever, it's a great success story, it was right there, and I am a traveling glory-hound, after all.

Oh sure, I did other stuff. I went up the Space Needle, rode a ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle, saw the world famous Giant Shoe Museum. Hell I even worked a little. But none of it is really as exciting as, well you know. That awesome genius science fiction museum, of course.

Jordan was kind enough to let me crash at his parent's house (they were on vacation) with him and Alison for a few nights, which saved me a few bucks on a hotel room. Very cool. Good to see them. When old Chiemseers get together, many tales of German hilarity along with German beer will inevitably flow. I flew out of Seattle on the 12th straight down to Fort Lauderdale Florida, where I am at the moment. Again for work. It's rather a hum-drum area... I've been here before, back in January. I just think it's neat I went from one corner of the continental US to the other. What a great job.

Oh, just in case not everybody has noticed, something else happened this past week which made me extreeeeemely happy: The military officer who arrested me in Iraq for being snotty to him found and commented on my blog! Specifically on the original post where I told that story. Nothing has made me that kind of happy for a really long time. You can read the post, his comment, and my response in the original spot, here. I really hope he comes back... unless he's going to arrest me for being snotty to him again of course. I won't be needing any more of that.

Shoes of Mystery? Sheesh.

Addendum: He Who Has Ears, Let Him Hear

"The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and beliefs."
-pres George W. Bush

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
-PRESIDENT George Washington

"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
-PRESIDENT Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
-PRESIDENT Abraham Lincoln

"A just government has no need for the clergy or the church."
-PRESIDENT James Madison

"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."
-PRESIDENT John F. Kennedy

"I don’t know that atheists should be considered patriots, nor should they be considered citizens".
-pres George "Daddy" Bush

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side."
-Aristotle

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-Seneca

"We admit of no government by divine right....The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed"

-William Henry Harrison

"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum"
-Havelock Ellis

"Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest"
-Emile Zola

"Nature and nature’s laws lay hid by night

God said "let there be Newton and all was light"

-Alexander Pope

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not Omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"

AND
"Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.

Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man."

-Epicurus

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the reasoning of a single individual"
AND
"To command their professors of astronomy [or even, gasp, evolution] to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand."
-Galileo Galilei

"All the religions are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent."
-Tennessee Williams

"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not."
-Eric Hoffer

"Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works."
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself."
AND
"Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws."
-Sir Richard Francis Burton

"To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself."
-Sophy Burnham

"What about the statue in California currently said to be crying bloody tears? Why worry about the alleged weeping of a plaster effigy when so many actual human beings have reason to cry?"
-Anna Quindlen

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
-Steven Weinberg

"A cult is a religion with no political power."
-Tom Wolfe

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
-Chuck Palahniuk

I Bring You The TEN [CRASH!] Um, FIFTEEN Commandments!

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

The Athiest’s Commandments from ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. The first ten are from a website he found while researching his book, then XI through XIV are his own additions, and XV is mine, as well as the comments in brackets.

 I. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

 II. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

III. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

 IV. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

 V. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

 VI. Always seek to be learning something new.

 VII. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

 VIII. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. [But don’t let them get away with faulty reasoning without a fight. Besides, maybe they’ll prove you wrong and that’s good too.]

 IX. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

 X. Question everything.

 XI. Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.

 XII. Do not discriminate or oppress on the on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.

 XIII. Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

 XIV. Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.

 XV.  Patriotism is a lie. Religion is a lie. God is an unknown. [Patriotism and Religion are not even compatible, and yet most Patriotic Americans are Religious too. Here, I’ll prove it:

 a) Patriotism = My country is #1, above and beyond all others, right or wrong.

  b) My Country is run by old rich cowards who want our young idealistic men to kill for their comforts

c) Religion says thou shall not kill. [even if that commandment is the only part of the Old Testament which actually says that, because otherwise God sanctioned quite a lot of killin’ and rapin’ in those days.]

  d) Therefore, Patriotism & Religion can not go hand in hand. Yet somehow, when combined in the mind of deeply uncritical people, they do.

I’m not saying I'm an atheist. But I am saying that I share a lot more in common with an atheist than with religious thinkers these days. And here's the reason. One time in Church, I remember my pastor doing that whole thing where he says that a lot of people out there in the world will try to tell good Christians that the Bible is full of lies and contradictions. His response to the congregation? "Well I'm here to tell you that the Bible is NOT full of lies!" Brilliant, carry on, Pastor. What? That's all you got? Huh. Anyway I think I related this story in somewhat more detail once before, here.

But the realization that I eventually came to is that belief in God is fundamentally, in the mind of religion at any rate, an insidious and lazy way of avoiding the issue of Life, The Universe, and Everything. What I mean is, one thing that many religious types use to try to convince people that evolution is bunk is the idea that the world is too complicated, too amazing, too wonderful to have all just happened by random chance, it must have been created. (Here's a YouTube I will NEVER get tired of, which is a prime example of that sort of reasoning. If, of all horrors, you find the banana argument compelling, please watch this one also. Thanks again, GoDrex! )

First off, anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand evolution would never say that. Evolution is anything but random, which is part of its beauty and power. Secondly, all they've done by this argument is show a lack of logical thought. SO, you're saying that the Universe is too complicated and "well designed" to have just happened? So, there must be a Creator. Well then, logically, any possible Creator has to be larger and more well designed than the object of his creation. A hammer and anvil do not forge a blacksmith, for instance. Therefore essentially all that this argument has done is to push the question back a step and in reality, magnify it. Rather than believe in the apparent existence of a complicated and evolved Universe (based on verifiable fact), you'd rather believe in the apparent existence of an even larger and more complicated, magical Creator.

I'm not saying that definitively there's no God, which is why I'm not an atheist. (Although according to Dawkins' scale of atheism, I am a 5th or 6th degree atheist, with a 7th degree atheist believing absolutely %100 in the non-existence of God. I will always leave room for the possibility, if not the probability.) I'm just pointing out the weakness of logic in the Religious mind. And I AM saying that IF there's a God, he's not the God of that great work of fiction, the Bible. I think that IF there is a Creator, the only thing that he really gave us are our hearts and our minds, which are very effective tools when reason and logic are applied, and I think he'd be very disappointed in Religion.

For anybody who has read 'The God Delusion', it's apparent that I've used much of Dawkins' material here. In my own idiosyncratic way, of course. But I feel that it's a book which has provided me with a clear way of thinking about ideas which I've held for a while.

Basically what it all boils down to for me is this: Religious apologists have NEVER been able to prove the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible through either Science, logic, or reason. Which makes sense according to the Fundamental Religious version of "logic" anyway; it's all about faith, regardless of the facts. (Dinosaur bones were purposefully planted there to test our faith.) So why do they keep trying? Why do they want Creationism, sorry, Intelligent Design, taught in science classes? Science is about verifiable fact, religion is about faith. You don't see scientists banging on the doors of churches, trying to force Sunday school teachers to teach evolution. Although, the inevitable backlash has already begun with the likes of Dawkins. He's tired of Religion's interference in the world of reality, hence the book. It's time for the Religious to accept that faith is based on nothing verifiable, and that they are welcome to it. 

And his main points are good ones; You don't need Religion to be moral, brainwashing children with religion is immoral (Christians don't call it brainwashing when they do it, but what else would you call it when, in a different religion such as Islam for example, brainwashed children grow up to steer planes into buildings in the name of their faith?), and he (and I) would be the first one to believe in the existence of God should there ever be proof of his existence. In the meantime, people should stop fighting, brainwashing, and killing each other over minor differences in opinion as to his nature. Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity. Unless of course you're Jewish. The Old Testament God was an asshole.

On a final note, I want to reiterate what I believe to be Dawkins' most imperative point in his book: There is no such thing as a Christian child, a Muslim child, an atheist child, or a Buddhist child etc. There are only Children of Christian parents, Children of Muslim parents, Children of atheist parents, and Children of Buddhist parents etc. Until children are mature enough to have weighed all the facts and decide for themselves, they are only children. After all, no one says that their child is a Marxist, or a Democrat, or a Communist. It's ok to wait until the child is of age to decide for itself what its political leanings are, and the same needs to be true of religion.

Back To School: My Book Report & How I Spent Four Summers

Hey guess what? I'm having my Groundhog day. I'm in Virginia again, for the third week-long assignment in a row. Ick. If anybody ever wants to travel to Vienna, VA, I know all the good restaurants. I forgot my camera, so even if I wind up doing something interesting, I won't be able to share any images. I'm probably not going to do much though. I might go see another concert on Saturday; there's a band I really like named Louis XIV playing.

But I finally got around to reading a book which I'd touted here waaaay back in October aught 6. I'd been wanting to read it for a very long time, but I think I felt like I was still too close to my own experiences in Iraq, so I kept putting it off. I don't know exactly why I finally decided to pick it up, other than that I just needed something to bring to Virginia with me. At any rate, after I finished reading it, I went to the author's website and dropped him the following note:

I just finished your book... I lived in Baghdad (successively in a hotel in the Karradah district, the VVIP airport terminal, and in the Green Zone) for three years, from August 2003 through October 2006. Since I left, the level of both stupidity and insanity which I witnessed there slowly seeped away from my daily consciousness, until I was almost fit for normal human company again. Reading your book was an extremely engaging experience for me as it not only brought all of those old emotions back, but additionally shed some new light on the chaotic events that went on around me which I did not fully understand at the time.

Uh... thanks?

Which about sums it up. It's an excellent book in that I believe he really went out of his way to be as impartial and as nice as possible to the people he was writing about, which in the end only made their grand stupidities even more painful to read. Having lived there during the period about which he wrote, (The CPA's tenure in control of the reconstruction of Iraq led by Paul Bremer from 2003 to 2004) it added another layer of emotion which I find to be inexplicable. For instance, there was an incident near my company's compound in the Green Zone one time while I was covering for Rodney there while he was on his vacation. Rodney was the Irish scalawag friend of mine who'd had a friend working in Iraq who got us all jobs there in the first place back in August aught 3.

Anyway, one night the Green Zone incoming alarm went off, followed by a warning to all CPA employees to stay out of the streets of the Zone. Word came down to us that an American had been stabbed right out in the open inside the Green Zone and that the army was searching for the terrorist that had somehow snuck in and done it. We never heard anything else about it and, with so many other crazy things going on all the time, it was quickly forgotten about. Well, Rajiv wrote about that incident in his book. Apparently it had been quickly discovered that the stabbing was done by a fellow American; the two men had been having a drunken brawl or something. This news was hushed up, and that was that. It seems that the powers that be would rather have had us believe that an insurgent was loose in the Green Zone than admit the truth, and I'm not even really sure why. But I'll tell you one thing, when I read that, I laughed my ass off. I'd always kind of wondered about that stabbing, and it was an unexpected release of, something, when I read what had really happened, over four years later now.

That was one of just a few incidents that I was around for which he writes about from an insider's perspective. He wrote about the bombing of the United Nations building, which had happened just a week after my arrival in Baghdad. One funny incident that he wrote about was when the Iraqi Soccer team won an important match against Saudi Arabia. That night, the Americans inside the Green Zone freaked out when they heard an insane amount of gunfire coming from the city just outside their 12 foot high protective barriers; they all ran for bunkers and basements thinking that this was it, the Iraqis were storming the Green Zone. It was my second night in Baghdad and we were staying in a hotel downtown, NOT protected by the concrete blast walls of the Emerald City. We were inside, probably playing cards or eating strange and greasy local food or who knows what, when a CRAPLOAD of gunfire began right outside on our street. Dave, Scott and I were kind of like, aw hell, we're going to die on our second night here? Rip off. Ironically, my future boss-who-is-now-in-prison was there too; it's where I first met him. Dave tried to lock himself in the bathroom, Scott was standing in the hallway trying to figure out what good hiding was going to do, and I was under me bed. Phil (my future boss) was in his room, gesticulating at all of us urgently (and creepily) to come into his room while holding out a bottle of Jim Beam; I think that he was thinking that hell, if we're going to die we might as well party first. (That, incidentally, should have tipped me off about him right away.) We heard someone walking through the courtyard of our hotel, bullet shells dropping onto the tiles. Oh God oh God oh God, this is it. Phil's security guard walked in with a big grin, because he'd just been outside joining in with the celebratory gunfire over Iraq's victory in the soccer match. I wrote about that in less detail at the time here.

One that really got me was the bombing of the Green Zone Cafe and then the Market on October 14th 2004. I knew that date off the top of my head, and could have told anyone who asked when that happened without having to look it up. I'd quit my first job in Iraq and began working for Phil on October 12th, 2004. Rajiv called the market and cafe bombings the beginning of the end of the CPA staff's illusions in the Green Zone (I'm paraphrasing). I'd been to the cafe with Scott a few times, and we'd frequented the market during that summer. I think I also wrote about that in a mass email at the time, here. (This other page that I keep linking to by the way is a companion blogpage where I posted a bunch of mass emails I'd sent to friends and family from my early days in Iraq, before I had a blog) I was two blocks away from the market when a suicide bomber blew himself up, along with one of my favorite shops there; A tent where a nice old Iraqi man and a young Iraqi John Lennon lookalike sold songbirds and various other bric-a-brac.

It was a sobering omen of what was to come, and it certainly saddened me in ways that few other bombings which I was around for did. For the remaining two years that I was there, every time I drove by the area where the market used to be, I shook my head like an old man, and even indulged in a tut-tut occasionally.

But these are some of the moments I felt while reading his book because of how I experienced them, not what the book is really about. It's really about how the Bush Administration not only did NOT have a real plan for Iraq after his wrong-headed war, but how even more egregiously they sent people over to fix the country they'd just demolished who were chosen for their jobs because of their affiliation and loyalty to the Republican party. People who actually understood Iraq and what needed to be done were short-shrifted, shunted aside, even fired and removed in favor of Bush loyalists, most notably Jay Garner for Paul Bremer but also hundreds of others. Quoting from the book jacket:

...the case of the 24 year old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad's stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe [other] Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons specialists from defecting to Iran! (that's my favorite one, by the way); Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe vs. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer's ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.

Of course I wasn't even close to being directly involved in any of that stuff, but I was around for it and witnessed a lot of the side effects. I heard all the talk... the Green Zone was a small community in those days. I highly recommend 'Imperial Life In The Emerald City'  by Rajiv Chandrasekaran as a clear minded journal of one of the most embarrassing moments in American history. And yes, I was a part of it in my own small way. Yay.

On a final note, I want to say that one of my proudest moments in Iraq was when I got to be rude to Paul Bremer. Dave, George, Scott and I were eating dinner in the CPA building when who should walk right by our table, but Paul Bremer and Dan Rather, followed by a gaggle of reporters and suck-ups on their way to a quiet corner of the Republican Palace for an interview. As I saw him coming, I loudly whistled Darth Vader's theme. For my trouble I was rewarded with a sharp look from Bremer and some very frightening glares from his body guards. In retrospect, especially after reading this book, I realize that he was not so much a Dark Lord as an opportunistic incompetent, and it would have been more apropos to whistle the Animaniacs' theme.

Am I Alone In My Visceral Reaction To Bush's Monkeyface?

"Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there’s less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what’s the fun in eating anything you want to?"
-Tom Hanks

I've recently lost about ten pounds. I've been going to the gym since September, not exactly regularly due to work travel, but whenever I'm home at least every other day if not every day. The first three months or so were kind of slow going... my stamina on the treadmill got incrementally better, but I maybe lost a pound or three during that time. Then, in the last month and a half or so, it began to drop rapidly. One time I weighed myself, right before I went to Fort Lauderdale, and I was at 204 lbs. When I got back from being down there for a week and not getting any real exercise, after my first workout I weighed myself again, and I was at 198. Then, once more due to work and other unforeseen drama in my life, it was two weeks before I was able to hit the gym again. So this past Monday I weighed myself and I was still at 198, and yesterday at 197 & ¾! It seems as though I've hit a certain mark in my exercise where my body has finally started to believe that I'm really serious about the whole thing, and has decided to pay attention. Sweet!

My diet probably also has something to do with it. I've been %90 faithful to my 2007 New Year's resolution to give up fast food, and I buy lots of whole wheat products and vegetables at the grocery nowadays. I still indulge in the occasional pizza of course, but I never buy chips or other junk food any more except for Tostitos (which they now have a whole wheat variety of!) and salsa. I use Olivio instead of butter, and buy organic milk. I've cut waaay back on my cheese intake also, mostly because I was paranoid about my cholesterol levels. I haven't eaten more than a pint or two of ice cream in the last six months. I take a bevy of vitamins in the morning and I drink Metamucil with dinner every night. And then I take some more vitamins.

This probably sounds annoying to you. I sincerely apologize. Before I got all health conscious, I hated people that exhibited this sort of behavior and then that's all they would talk about. But what I want to say about it is that I've learned some extremely valuable things by doing the gym thing, and they're not even all fitness related. But this first one is: Exercise and diet are mutually reinforcing.

When I first started going to the gym, I didn't really care too much to change my eating habits. I just wanted to get on the treadmill and work off those extra calories I'd eat the night before. I mean, I cared a little, because I'd just been told that my cholesterol was too high, but overall I still ate what I wanted. But once I'd been doing it for a few weeks, I found that when I went to the store, I'd pay more attention to those food content labels. I found that I actually wanted, for the most part, to avoid junk and high fat foods that I loved, because I'd been so good about working out that I wanted to control my calorie count in order not to undervalue all that hard work. The diet thing actually came very naturally... at no time did I ever feel that I was giving up food that I couldn't bear to give up. I never had to plan to diet... it just happened rather organically. Except for my Fast Food resolution. But even that made sense at the time because I'd just come back to the States and was indulging in all the bad stuff I'd missed while I'd been away, and I knew that if I didn't put the kibosh on it quick I'd be looking like the inbred lovechild of Mayor McCheese and the Grimace in no time.

I've learned loads of other things at the gym, but I'm sure they're all clichéd... More energy, better moods, blah blah blah. I mean, it's all true, but everybody's heard all that before. The only surprises in the whole enterprise for me have been that whole unforced desire to diet thing I just said and also the fact that losing weight happens quicker and more abruptly than one might have thought. Granted, it took me five months to get to that point, but once I finally did, cool. But there's one more thing, fairly unrelated to health but very interesting.

My gym has about 12 big TVs up on the wall in front of the cardio machines so that you can walk, run, bike, or do your elliptics while watching whatever mind-numbing crap is on whichever TV station. Each of the machines has a little channel box which you can plug your headphones into so that you can listen to whichever one you choose. Anyway, I always listen to my mp3 player, but I'll watch the TVs without sound anyway as it helps to distract from the pain of jogging. But yesterday they had CNN, FOX, and MSNBC news on at the same time, and I noticed that all three of them were running the same story at the same time; the one about Bush's latest bribe to us. You remember; he bribed us with a tax rebate when he first got into office, in the hopes we'd like him and not make too much noise when he later unveiled his diabolical plans to destroy the world, and now he's doing it again in the hopes that we'll all go "Oh see? He's not so bad." Jerk-off.

Anyway, that's not my point. My point was that I was watching these three major news networks broadcasting this story simultaneously, and not only the same story, but the same news blurbs under the talking heads, the same exact camera angles, and the same commercial breaks. Different commercials, though. At first I was kind of not too freaked out by it, because it's a big enough story that sure, they're all going to be there at the same time. But I'm on the treadmill for 35 minutes, and the stories continued to triplet each other, even the less important ones. Some news from Iraq, the Roger Clemens on steroids thing. For my entire 35 minutes on the treadmill, all three of those news networks parroted each other exactly, I swear to God. It was very upsetting. It's like they are so confident in their ability to slop feed us whatever nonsense someone is telling them to without anybody noticing or caring that they weren't even attempting to keep up the appearance of being different news sources anymore. They were all using the same camera guy, for God's sake! The guy typing up the word blurbs at the bottom of the screen is working for all three major news networks! I wonder how long before they convince everybody that they may as well conglomerate into one big news agency since their news is identical in importance, content, and spin, anyway. And how long before it's just el Presidente giving us his daily benediction, because if he doesn't say it, it's not worth knowing.

I do have to say though that seeing Bush's monkey face on the TV while jogging is really good for the heart rate. I instantly get angry and that adrenaline rush of hate really gets me going.

Oh, Happy Valentines day! I love you.

My Scientist Could Kick Your Scientist's Ass

"Genius hath electric power which earth can never tame."
-Lydia M. Child

So I've been reading this biography on Nikola Tesla. Wowzers. This guy was insane, and there is quite a bit of misinformation out there about him and his inventions. For instance, Thomas Edison was a royal tool. Edison is credited with inventing electricity, but actually, Tesla invented alternating current, which is the form of electricity we use today. Edison was a proponent of DC, and had a whole bunch of money invested in patents for it. Tesla came along and dreamed up AC, and a battle ensued as to which form of current would be adopted. Much like the Betamax / VHS war, or the other, more recent Blew-Ray / HD DVD battle. Grrr. Argh.

Anyway, Edison resorted to some extremely dirty tactics. He kidnapped dogs and cats off of the streets, even people's pets, and electrocuted them to death with AC current in a barrage of propaganda stunts intended to scare people off of using it, saying that Alternating Current was far too dangerous to be used safely. He even apparently filmed the electrocution of an elephant with AC. Tesla won out though, because AC is superior and people realized it eventually. Unlike with HD DVD. Grrr. Argh.

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."
-Thomas A. Edison

"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search... I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."
-Nikola Tesla

Mark Twain was a close friend of Tesla's. Mark used to hang out in Tesla's lab, and one time Tesla was experimenting with electrical therapy, and Mark insisted on trying it out. So he got up on a special rubber platform and thoroughly enjoyed a sensation of electrical vibrations. When Tesla told him that it was time to stop, Mark refused, whooping, waving his arms, and saying that this was awesome, and he could take it! Tesla smiled and said that for Mark's own well-being, he really ought to let it go and get down; a person is only meant to take so much vibrating. Mark laughed and still refused, despite Tesla's repeated warnings. Suddenly, Mark got a look of consternation on his face and clenched a bit. He abruptly hobbled to the edge of the platform and begged Tesla for the direction to the bathroom, as Tesla and his assistant laughed uproariously, knowing full well the laxative effect of the electrical therapy.

"Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough."
-Mark Twain

"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more."
-Nikola Tesla

Tesla demonstrated publicly many amazing feats of electricity, some of which engineers are still baffled by today as to how he did them.

There are some extremely sobering, and frankly rather quite scary things which he claimed to have invented and tested, but which we know nothing of today. He claimed to have invented a device which could fit in his pocket, and could knock down a building simply by attaching it to a metal girder. It worked by resonating vibrations, and there is proof that his theory was sound. He'd been experimenting with it in his lab in New York City, and it caused great rumblings and broken glass 15 blocks away. He claims that later, he put such a device in his pocket, sauntered down to a building that was under construction, attached it, and waited until the entire structure began to vibrate alarmingly. It made an unbelievable sound, construction workers began running, and he surreptitiously stopped the device, put it back in his pocket, and strolled off unnoticed.

By the way, after he died, the US government confiscated all of his papers and personal notes, and they have still yet to see the light of public scrutiny. Nobody knows what was in them. For those of you who are conspiracy-minded, chew on that.

Tesla claimed that with that same device he could collapse the Brooklyn Bridge in minutes, and with appropriate timing and a large enough such device, he could split the Earth like an apple.

For further conspiracy theorizing, here's a paragraph from his Wikipedia entry:

Another of Tesla's theorized inventions is commonly referred to as Tesla's Flying Machine, which appears to resemble an ion-propelled aircraft. Tesla claimed that one of his life goals was to create a flying machine that would run without the use of an airplane engine, wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source. Initially, Tesla pondered about the idea of a flying craft that would fly using an electric motor powered by grounded base stations. As time progressed, Tesla suggested that perhaps such an aircraft could be run entirely electro-mechanically. The theorized appearance would typically take the form of a cigar or saucer.

Hmmm... Sound like any UFOs you've heard of?

He also demonstrated claims that he could transmit electricity wirelessly, and believed in the possibility of "Free Energy"; Do you have any idea what wireless power and free energy would mean to the world? Of course you do. But it has never been developed. He tried building a tower at Wardenclyffe designed to transmit power in just such a manner, but he ran out of funds, everybody thought he was a nutter, and the tower was destroyed for scrap.

He is actually the unsung inventor of Radio. Marconi was originally credited with inventing it, but all he did was steal an idea of Tesla's from a lecture, and patented it before Tesla had a chance to. In a nutshell. Tesla was eventually awarded the patent and credit for inventing Radio, but the Marconi misconception persists to this day. Tesla was cheated out of credit for many many things in this manner... he did patent quite a few inventions, but he is one of those historical geniuses that had more ideas in a day than I've had in ten lifetimes. He was so far ahead of his time that many of the things he accomplished have yet to be rediscovered, and he is uncredited for many of the ones that have been because at the time people thought his ideas were loony, and other people followed in the footsteps of Marconi with Tesla's "crazy" notions.

"The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
-Nikola Tesla

After reading this biography, I've had to rethink my opinion of The Prestige. I mean, I still think that it's a sloppy movie, and the denouement is still visible ten miles away, but part of what I thought was ridiculous about that movie was the portrayal of Tesla by David Bowie. I thought that the particular invention that he came up with in that film was utterly laughable, but now, I'm less sure. I mean, duplication of matter through the simple application of electricity is still extremely far fetched, but less so to me now that I've read about some of the things that he actually did experiment with.

 “Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.”
-Nikola Tesla

... But Resistance Is Character-Forming Might Be My Favorite Mind Name

"In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and in every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots."
-Iain M. Banks

It's time for an ode to another of my favorite Sci-fi authors, Iain M. Banks. The above quote is from one of his novels, Use Of Weapons. What's great about Iain is his use of politics and social structures in front of an unusually intriguing hard sci-fi backdrop. He believes that in space, a form of Anarchistic society is not only desirable, but inevitable and necessary for survival, and to that end he's created a series of novels about a Galactic humanoid race known as The Culture. Rather than boring you with any further descriptions of The Culture, I suggest you follow the link to read a fascinating biography on them, if you care about such things. It's long, but entertaining.

I first discovered him while living in Germany; He's a Scottish author and until recently, his books were relatively unavailable or at least unknown in the US, so I had been surprised to find such a well-regarded sci-fi author with such a large body of work that I hadn't yet heard of. I picked up a book called Excession in the Englischer Book Shop in Munich by the University, and proceeded to be blown away. The main characters are not so much the humans as the spaceships that carried them, which are equipped with Artificial Intelligences known as Minds and are vastly superior to the human minds in both intelligence and humor, with distinct personalities of their own and have names such as Fate Amenable To Change, It's Character Forming, Unacceptable Behaviour, Shoot Them Later, Just Another Victim Of The Ambient Morality, A Series Of Unlikely Explanations, Well I Was In The Neighbourhood, We Haven't Met But You're A Great Fan Of Mine, Inappropriate Response, Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, Lapsed Pacifist, You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here, Demented But Determined, Charming But Irrational, Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again, Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory, Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement, All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff, God Told Me To Do It, and many others of similar ilk. (Actually, some of those names are characters in other Culture books, but I love them.) The humans are essentially benignly looked upon by the ships that carry them in the same way as we look upon our blood cells; part of us and necessary, and we encourage them to be healthy and lead meaningful lives, but we don't let them tell us where to go or what to do, at least not without a vote... Ok there are subtle differences in the two relationships, but you get my meaning. The book was about the discovery of a Trillion-year-old Sun, in a 15 Billion-year-old Universe.

If you're intrigued enough to give him a try, you should start with Consider Phlebas however, which is the first in The Culture sequence and is equally astonishing. See that funnel-looking thing appearing to come off of the planet on the book cover? That's actually part of the planet. Strictly speaking, it's not a planet but a 'ringworld', which concept Iain freely admits to having lifted and adapted from Larry Niven, but it's the adaptation that makes all the difference.

For anyone who is into those 'Halo' video games, apparently it's fairly obvious that they in turn stole quite a few ideas from Iain's books and simply renamed them, without any real original adaptation, but whatever. I've never seen those games, myself, but I understand that they are essentially shoot-em-up games for people who enjoy blowing up aliens. And with that in mind, I'll close with another fabulous quote from Mr. Banks:

"To fully appreciate the beauty of a weapon was to admit to a kind of shortsightedness close to blindness, to confess to a sort of stupidity. The weapon was not itself; nothing was solely itself. The weapon, like anything else, could only finally be judged by the effect it had on others, by the consequences it produced in some outside context, by it's place in the rest of the universe. By this measure the love, or just the appreciation, of weapons was a kind of tragedy."
-from Excession by Iain M. Banks

I Know, There Are Bigger Problems Out There. It's Just One More Tiny Little Complaint.

"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."
-H.L. Mencken

So I just received my Christmas bonus from work, and I have to say that there is a good indication there of something deeply schizophrenic in the USA. Don't get me wrong, I think it's lovely that companies give their employees Christmas bonuses. It's certainly not something that they really owe their employees.

Winter is a hard time of the year for people: heating costs go up, (It costs $1,000 to fill my oil tank. 5 years ago it probably would've only cost like $300.) Christmas means buying presents for lots of people if you're, you know, Christian, our country's official religion. But the Christmas bonus is a traditional way for your employer, who is cold and heartless the other 364 days of the year, to show that they're not such bad people and that they want to help defray your higher Christmas time expenses, even if only a little. So in my mind, $50 or $1,000, it's not something to be complained about, because it's not a law that they have to give you a bonus. It's just nice, and even helps the company a little by generating some extra good will.

My Christmas bonus this year is $500. Nice, right?

But here's the problem. I received my Christmas bonus by company check, or in modern parlance, by Direct Deposit. Know what that means? Yeah you do. It got taxed. So $500 now becomes just under $350. Still not too bad, really, considering that it's $350 I didn't really earn. But what kills me is that I would think that my employer would ideally prefer that I got that $150 rather than the government, because instead of being entirely grateful that I got a nice Christmas bonus, I'm slightly bitter that I got robbed. Not necessarily towards my employer because, assuming that my previous statement is true, I have to believe that it is illegal for a company to pay an employee any money that doesn't get taxed, otherwise someone at the head office could just withdraw a bunch of cash and hand it out in envelopes at the party, right?

So what this means is that someone in the IRS, at some point in the past, actually made the decision to tax Christmas bonuses. "No toys for the children!", he cackled. And not only that, our freedom loving, commercially insatiable, (especially at Christmas time) consumer mad culture went along with it. We agreed that the government should have nearly a third of our Christmas bonuses instead of say, Sears, Toys-R-Us, or Penn Oil.

That's kind of schizophrenic, isn't it? You would think that someone in big business would lobby against taxing Christmas bonuses, so that not only could they generate that extra good will among their own employees, but then the average consumer would also have that much more to spend at their stores.

Conclusion? Well, I really don't know what to make of it. General all-purpose evil. That's all I can come up with.

First I Steal From GoDrex, And Then I Steal From Mr. Altemeyer. Huh. Knowledge IS Like A Virus!

"In my experience, the worst enemy and corrupter of man is the tendency - resulting from mental laziness and the desire for peace of mind - to join groups and organizations with set dogmas, be they religious or political."
- Hermann Hesse

GoDrex, in a recent post, linked to a very interesting online book about a human phenomenon as old as time: The Authoritarian Follower. In other words, a book about the sheep, the army ants, that infest humanity and allow incredibly evil things to happen through their passive/aggressive stupidity.

There is a section at the end of the third chapter in which he uses his theory to explain the inexplicable events surrounding our invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. I've copied and pasted it here, because it's the best rundown of the key events I've come across yet. 

A Little Application
That said, let’s take what we have learned in this chapter about how
authoritarian followers think and see if it explains what otherwise might seem quite baffling. Beginning in late 2001, the Bush administration stated that Saddam Hussein was a source of terrorist activities around the world, and frequently implied he was involved in the attacks of September 11th, even though nearly all the attackers had come from Saudi Arabia, and none had come from Iraq. The administration also said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, even though United Nations inspectors had never found any, so an invasion of Iraq was necessary. A choir of “theocons” seconded this “neocon” outlook with the argument, however implausible, that it was highly moral to start a war with Iraq. In fact, it was God’s will.

The polls showed most Americas supported the president, although a significant minority did not. Besides observing that no terrorist connections had been demonstrated, and no “WMDs” or facilities for making them had been discovered, critics said an invasion would make it easier for Muslim fanatics to launch suicide attacks on Americans, and would probably tie down America’s mobile armed forces for years to come because civil war was likely to develop after Saddam’s removal.

They also observed that the war would seem not only unjustified to most Muslims, but totally unfair given America’s greatly superior military forces. An American/British slam-dunk victory would probably create so much hatred for those countries in Islam that the number of zealots plotting terrorist attacks against them would probably increase rather than decrease as a result of the war. It would prove a monumental step in the war against terror--but backwards.

The critics were castigated by administration officials and their backers with a vehemence not seen since the anti-Vietnam war protests. Those who urged caution were denounced, even as late as the fall of 2006, as traitors, fools, and idiots by officials and supporters who will likely never admit that the critics were proved right. For after the successful military invasion of Iraq, no pre-existing ties to al-Qaida were discovered and no weapons of mass destruction were found. Some Americans then realized their country had invaded another country on false premises--which would seem to be very wrong morally, and which would have outraged many supporters of the war had certain other countries done such a thing. But several months after the administration itself conceded that no weapons of mass destruction had been discovered, pollsters found a lot of Americans believed such weapons had been found. And for these believers and others the new justification for the invasion, viz., to remove Saddam and bring freedom to Iraq, to make it a shining example in the Middle East of what democracy will bring, was good enough anyway.

But as American casualties steadily mounted after the war was declared over, and as chaos descended upon Iraq, and as the Bush administration had no response other than, “We know this is the right thing to do, no matter what,” and as the war helped drive the national debt to such unprecedented heights that the United States became the world’s largest debtor, most Americans finally saw the war had become a national disaster.

Still, nationwide polls for Newsweek, CNN, and USA Today revealed that in
October 2006, as the mid-term election drew near, 40 percent of the American people did not think the United States made a mistake in invading Iraq, 30 to 34 percent approved of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq, 30 percent said the administration did not misinterpret or misanalyze the intelligence reports they said indicated Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and 36 percent said the administration had not purposely misled the public about this evidence to build support for the war.

Thirty-seven percent even thought the U.S. military effort was going “well” (either “fairly” or “very”) And 35 to 37 percent approved of how Bush was doing his job in general, while 35 percent also were satisfied with the way things were going in the country. In all cases, the solid majority of Americans saw it otherwise. But you have to wonder, who were all those people who thought everything was fine?

Well, what’s not to understand, if that hard-core of supporters mainly consists of authoritarian followers, given what the experiments described in this chapter show us about them? The justification for the war in the first place was largely irrelevant to high RWAs. [Right Wing Authoritarians] They liked the conclusion; the reasoning didn’t matter. If the United Nations refused to sanction the war, so what? There’s no contradiction, in a highly compartmentalized mind, between believing that America stands for international cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflict on the one hand, while on the other hand insisting it has the “right” to attack whomever it wants, no matter how weak they are, whenever it wants for whatever reasons it decides are good enough. Those who protested were trouble-makers; everyone should support the government.

If no connections to al-Qaida and no weapons of mass destruction turned up after the invasion, just believe they had turned up. An aluminum tube that could have been designed to help enrich uranium was used to enrich uranium, proving Saddam was making atomic bombs! Trailers that could have been used to make biological weapons were used to make them. Besides, people whom the followers look to, such as the evangelist Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) said they still believed Saddam had such weapons, even if there was no evidence he had. And anyway, if the first reason for the war comes up lame, just invent a new one. Everybody knows Saddam is our biggest problem! And when later the president insisted he never said America would “stay the course” in Iraq, when actually he had said it over and over again, most people knew that was an outright, almost pathological lie. But it would not make much of a dent on an authoritarian follower’s mind, which is quite capable of believing white is black when his authority says so.

Authoritarian followers aren’t going to question, they’re going to parrot. After all, in the ethnocentric mind “We are the Good Guys and our opponents are abominations”--which is precisely the thinking of the Islamic authoritarian followers who become suicide bombers in Iraq. And if we turn out not to be such good guys, as news of massacres and the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, by the CIA, and by the arms-length “companies” set up to torture prisoners becomes known, authoritarian followers simply don’t want to know. It was just a few, lower level “bad apples.” Didn’t the president say he was sickened by the revelations of torture, and all American wrong-doers would be punished?

However the policy came from the top, and the administration scrambled to make sure it could not be punished. When the White House said it would veto a bill because it prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, you had to be nearly blind not to realize what was going on. When the White House also insisted, successfully, that Congress pass a bill allowing it to use torture, you had to be completely blind. But high RWAs are quite capable of such blindness.

And while most Americans came to realize what a mistake the war in Iraq has turned out to be, high RWAs lagged far behind. They listen to the news they want to hear. They surround themselves with people who think like they do. They believe the leaders who tell them what they want to be told. They make about as much effort to get both sides of an issue as the Bush administration does to foster different points of view within the White House. And if six high RWAs are sitting in a room talking about the war, and all six now have misgivings, it will still be hard for any of them to say so because the ethic of group solidarity is so strong in the authoritarian mind.

Is there any conceivable evidence or revelation that will lead them to admit the war was a mistake? I suspect some of them will eventually, begrudgingly reach that point, and others will rewrite their personal histories and say they had their doubts from the start. But others, petrified by their dogmatism, will never admit the undeniable. Did they ever about Viet-Nam? No. “We just didn’t use enough force!”-- which is exactly the argument those who proposed the invasion of Iraq are using now as they tried to shift the blame for the failure of their incredibly unsound policy.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the phenomenon, although I suspect that the people who need to read it the most, the authoritarian followers, will never even touch it and even if they do, they'll misinterpret it. It's a book that is preaching to the converted, for sure, but it's still eye-opening. It's called The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer. It's completely online, and completely free, and not even very long. So you have no excuse. Unless you're one of them, in which case I suggest you turn a blind eye, because we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself with self-recrimination, after all.

Some Awesome Quotes, Because I'm At Work And Bored

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.
J.K. Rowling

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

Adam was but human -This explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. 
Mark Twain

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
Socrates

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Hermann Hesse

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
Steven Wright

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.
Lemony Snicket

Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.
Hermann Hesse

History sighs, repeats itself.
The Onion

Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
Dylan Thomas

Either "Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road" Jokes Have Deep Philosophical Significance On The Importance Of The Wandering Life... Or I Just Made That Up.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. - Mark Twain

Incidentally, if I ever open a book store, I'm going to name it Two Fathoms Deep, in honor of 'ol Sam Clemens. Because that's what mark twain means, in Mississippi river-boat parlance. What that has to do with a bookshop or the possibility of me ever opening one, I'm not sure, but it sounds good and would make a great conversation piece for me to chat up the customers with.

I bet after one visit, people would stop coming into my bookshop.

Although... that guy at Carroll & Carroll still captivates his customers with tales of arcane Library of Congress numbers and 3rd edition imported copies of old British sci-fi for hours and hours, and hours, so who knows.

Well, apropos of the above quote, it's been a slow week, I know. I've been waiting to post because I've been waiting on some news about whether I got a certain job or not. And I've been vegetating in front of my TV and not really exercising my head, so, no good rants were coming to mind, either. That's just the way it goes, sometimes. Although I did just finish reading a book named 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting stuff, and one I recommend to people with poor decision-making skills. The stuff about mind-reading through facial expressions was particularly interesting. But I digress...

I got the job! They are currently doing a background check on me, which has me a little nervous. Not that I've got anything to worry about... that I can think of. That's the problem with people digging around in your past. You start convincing yourself that somehow you've forgotten about a murder you committed or that time you did for embezzlement, and the sweat, oh my the sweat.

So it doesn't pay a lot, but I'm really excited about it. I'll be working for a company that does one or two week intensive training camps, where corporations will send their employees to get certified/re-certified on computer programs such as any of the Microsoft docket, Java, databases, blah blah blah etc. etc. Their home office is not far from my house, and it's in a nice location out in the woods, free of distractions.

I won't, however, be working there. My job title is something ridiculous like Remote Site Administrator Guy. What they do is, they have these camps all over the country, in cities where their clients want to send their people for two weeks of intensive training. My job will be to fly to that city with all of the computer equipment, book the hotel rooms and conference rooms for the client, set up the equipment before the party starts, then hang back while someone else does the training! If I want, I can even sit in on the classes, so that's a total bonus. Maybe I can figure out how the hell Windows Vista works... it's stupid. I miss XP. Traveling and learning on the company's dime is SO what all that intense hard work in Baghdad has qualified me for. Actually, it's the logistics experience that attracted them to me, and the independence, because I'll be flying around on my own. I didn't mention to them that that's not exactly what 'Independent Contractor' means, but shhhh.

So yes I'm extremely impatient to start... I haven't actually been to too many places within the continental U.S., and they tell me that I will have ample opportunity to look around... So I get to travel again, and possibly have new subject material to blog about, something which is painfully obvious that I need here. It's a win-win. Hopefully, I'll also be learning stuff about the business/office world, such as what the hell phrases like "We quickly customize ethical paradigms and professionally fashion inexpensive content for 100% customer satisfaction", or "Our challenge is to interactively restore resource-leveling content to set us apart from the competition" mean. I'm sure it must mean something.

Genius Recipes For A Patriotic Day, Which Commemorates A Host Of America's Past Triumphs And Atrocities, Not Just The Independence Which In Fact No Longer Exists As It Was Meant To, Anyway

So I've discovered the best way to make coffee: Every time you make a pot, make just a little more than you actually need, and after you've poured your last cup, leave the warmer on for a couple of hours so that the bit that's left over evaporates down to about a tablespoon of rather thick coffee syrup. Then, the next time you make coffee, leave that syrup in the pot for a nice extra kick... of course there are people who like Turkish coffee, which is actually worse as they enjoy stirring tablespoons of coffee grounds in such coffee syrup and drinking, I mean chewing, that. But my way works a little better for me as I feel that I can do without the resulting Turkish heart-attack.
Anyway, I've received a couple of emails from friends and family who are worried about my spiritual well-being, due to my whole 'ashamed to be an American' thing a few posts back... they seem to think that because I said this, it means I am suffering from some sort of disillusioned stupor of the spirit... anyway it struck me as funny that anybody would think that, and it got me to thinking about it. I've never really strongly identified my sense of self with my country, so the idea that finding out about all sorts of really bad things we've done would affect me on a level where I'd feel personal shame or responsibility is ludicrous.  I don't believe in Patriotism... at least not in a way beyond waving flags about and letting off firecrackers on the 4th of July. (That's more all about firecrackers being neat-o.) I did not go to the moon, much as I'd like to, and I did not kill any American Indians in the 1800's. I am proud to be a part of the country that landed on the moon, and ashamed to be an heir to a bloody conquest, but I did not myself do those things. I am ashamed of my ignorance and naïvety, but that is true of all humans, or at least it should be. If that shame were to bruise or destroy me, I'd have needed a thicker skin before ever leaving the womb.
What I believe is that Patriotism without responsibility, without questions, without thought, is blind and stupid, and paradoxically, un-American. Or actually not so paradoxical... Patriotism without responsibility is un-American. I think it's only a paradox in the minds of Far Right Christian Conservative Republicans. Love of Country does not equal Love of Government. Love of Country, right or wrong, does not equal Loyalty, or Justice, or Honor, or even (gasp) apple pie. That would actually be closer to fascism, or Little Bo Peepism (You know, because of the sheep).  I tend to think that Jefferson, Lincoln, or Washington would be quite shocked at the state of modern American affairs. I'm not saying I'm some sort of genius political thinker, because any idiot can see that what is going on is insane, if they take the time to try. Anyway, here's one of my favorite Einstein quotes regarding patriotism to bolster my weak argument, and I think we can all agree that he was some kinda smart guy:

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

    -That's right, A. frikken Einstein said that.

Of course, he did write that whole letter to Teddy about using the bomb, so that's where overthinking yourself will get you.
Anyway, I'm not really trying to convince anybody that I'm right; people tend to hold on to their beliefs in such matters whatever cases are presented to them, and I am no great convincer. I just want people to stop worrying about me, and my supposed bruised and battered soul... these are my beliefs and I'm doing okay. Whatever I'm going through here is probably not as horrific as some imagine. Make that definately not. My few and recent soapboxy angst-ridden anti-occupation posts are just there so I can have something to write about... well, mostly. I do feel very strongly about this stuff, but I'm still sitting in my caravan, perusing the internet, eating and sleeping, and planning on having a grand old time in Thailand someday to shake the middle-east out of my skin.
Well, considering I've spent the last half-hour reading other Einstein quotes on the internet, I'm going to end with one which speaks very well about the current bloody mess in the middle east, from Iraq to Gaza, to many other parts of the world even, because the odious term 'Peacekeeping Force' has always simultaneously amused and enraged me:

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

-A. frikken Einstein

He who has ears, let him hear. He who has big monkey ears and is our President, let him remove his fingers from them, as well as from various other orifices in his body.