No More Talking Points

Death to "No More Talking Points" ?

2007-08-18T12:59:00.003-07:00

I think it may be time, as none of us have the time to post anymore, to put this one to sleep.

What say you?

Souled

2007-05-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Being a rambling dissertation on the co-existence of science and spirituality

"Within you is the whole universe. You are a microcosm of the macrocosm.”--Rabbi Shoni Labowitz

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
--T.S. Eliot

This month's issue of Discover magazine is an absolute goldmine. If you're me, at least. Reading about the cutting edge of science--articles such as "Soul Search", "Blowing In The Wind" and "In No Time"--my mind gorged itself on new information, evaluated, and found--pleasantly--that it all reinforced what I had believed already.
If you ask a scientist what time is, or what consciousness is--or even what an atom is--and she's feeling particularly honest, she'll respond "no idea. Next question."We fool ourselves into thinking we know how things work. The reality is we have not the slightest idea how things work.
Take time, for instance. Einstein was the first person to mess with our idea of time as a constant, inexorable process. Quantum mechanics further buggers things up--so much so that the only way science has been able to unify Einstein's theories with quantum mechanics is to discard the whole idea of time, as if it didn't exist.

To which there are a whole lot of people, following a great many spiritual and philosophical traditions, saying, "well, duh."

I've long known in my gut that there's such a thing as a soul, that all souls are one, and that time is an illusion. I can claim no scientific evidence for any of these assertions...yet. According to "Soul Search", the amount of evidence for a "soul" depends on what you'd call "evidence". [Ken intrudes: the same can be said about the existence of a god or gods, incidentally. Some people see evidence everywhere; others don't see a shred of evidence. That's not a coincidence, at least to me. In my system of belief, all souls are parts of God. If that word "God" offends your sensibilities, you're more than free to substitute "Life", or "the Universe".]
While there is no rigid scientific quantification of a soul, there is a growing body of circumstantial evidence that something exists within us besides our minds. Witness near death experiences: people categorized brain-dead and subsequently revived have reported a vast array of sensory and mental experiences, often life-changing. These go well beyond the famous "tunnel/white light" phenomena that could be explained as the effect of some final neurons firing. How is it so many people report observing their bodies from above, and being aware of events in the room--or even beyond--while they were supposedly "dead"? Why do so many people recognize their dead relatives, or experience a "life-review", a sort of visual riffling of experiential cards? Science suggests this sort of thing is clearly impossible. Yet it persists.

Many religions and philosophies incorporate the idea that all souls are one. Christianity indirectly expresses this in several places, most notably Matthew 25: 35-45. Buddhism is chock-a-block with proverbs suggesting we are all one. Wicca, too. Hinduism holds that all souls are partially or fully identical with the Brahma, the supreme soul which encompasses All That Is.
These are OLD thoughts. Hinduism in particular dates back well over five thousand years, and is probably compiled from even older beliefs. It seems odd, at first blush, that so many disparate and ancient traditions should be telling us much the same thing. Especially when that thing is so contrary to what is generally held as truth today.

When I don my New Age cloak--something I don't often do in polite company--I find myself thinking that the only problem in our world is that we have forgotten we're all one, with each other and with the universe. Not that I blame anyone, exactly. The illusions we live under--that we are separate, that Time governs our existence--are terribly pervasive. How do you ignore the evidence of your eyes, whose basic function is to tell you where you end and where the world begins?
I will never forget the first lecture I attended in, of all things, literary criticism. The professor ambled into the room, turned, stared at us defiantly, and sneered. "Everything you know is wrong", he intoned. Well, that got my attention. What ensued was a headache. The good prof started firing questions at us.
"Who was Adam's wife?"
Well, everybody knows this. "Eve", a dozen people shouted out.
"Was she his only wife?"
People were a little less certain on that, but only a little. "Yes", came the response.
"WRONG!" he shouted. "Lilith was Adam's wife. Also Cain's, and she had children by both. Don't believe me? Look it up."
At the time, Lilith Fair was popular, and that was the only connotation any of us could draw. I looked it up later that day, and couldn't believe what I found.
"When was the first computer built?"
I tackled that one, being something of a computer geek back then. "ENIAC, 1946", I called out, confidently.
"Not bad", he responded, "you're only off by a little over two thousand years."
I thought of calling him on that one, but decided there was no point. I'd just be proven wrong in front of the whole class...ugh. Later on, I looked that up, too..and just about shit myself.
The third inquiry, the one relevant to this post, came.
"What happens if you throw a ball against a brick wall?"
The entire class sat silent, trying to puzzle out the trap. Nobody could do it. Eventually somebody behind me muttered "it...bounces back...?"
"Well, most of the time, yes, you're right", the prof admitted. "But! If you throw the ball just right, it could go right...through...the wall! Or," he added as an afterthought, "it could get stuck halfway through."
Well now, that was patent bullshit. Several voices, mine included, were raised in protest. The prof didn't budge. "The ball and the wall are both made of atoms", he said. "What we think of as solid is in reality almost entirely empty space. If you throw that ball just so, the atoms of the ball and the wall will mesh. Oh, it's almost an infinite improbability"--I laughed here, thinking of Douglas Adams--but, at least in theory, it could happen."
If, as is now commonly known, so-called "solids" are mostly empty space...and if, as "Blowing In The Wind" asserts, you're currently inhaling part of what was, once, Caesar's (or Beethoven's, or Hitler's) last breath--not to mention submicrosopic bits of each of their bodies...notions of boundaries between the Self and the Universe tend to break down. It becomes possible to perceive the interconnectedness of all things...scientifically. Spirituality and science begin to converge. Indeed, at the quantum level they look a lot alike already.

Douglas Adams also wrote that "Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so." He was right with the first part, at least. "In No Time" (which seems to be available only in the print edition), is similar in bent to an article here. Basically, these articles argue that time is no more than a system of measurement devised by humans; that in ultimate reality we are all eternal and yet constantly changing (you can't even say 'instantaneously' since that would imply the existence of an instant). In other words, all times are one: everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, is happening now. As preposterous as that sounds, scientists such as Stephen Hawking take it very seriously. Read the article and prepare to have your mind bent.
Spiritualists, of course, have taken the nonexistence of Time seriously for, well, a long time now. This is but one more example of the eventual convergence of science and spirituality. At some point, we're all going to look at each other and realize we've been using different languages to describe exactly the same thing.

-----------------------------------
Addendum:I hated math in high school. Science too, to a lesser degree. In both those disciplines (see? they're called 'disciplines', no wonder I hated them!), the answer was either right or wrong, with no room for creative manipulation. Math, though--yecch! Endless, pointless quadratics, plottings on Cartesian graphs, word problems ("if train A left Pillow Station at half past bedtime, and Snoozer entered Dreamland half an hour later, how fast can you fall asleep?")
Nobody ever told me math was useful. Oh, teachers asserted it was, but gave really crappy examples. "Math will help you balance your checkbook." No, that's not math, that's arithmetic. Where after high school am I going to run into the square of the hypotenuse, hmm, Teach?
I'm only finding out now that mathematics has a purpose beyond the purely utilitarian. That level of math is so far beyond me I have to take anything it says on faith. But boy! I wish somebody had told me to stick with the math that tormented me, that it could ultimately explain, well, everything. I might have gone into physics. I would just love to take all that stuff I "know" in my gut...and prove it.

New Rules: France

2007-05-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Some of you may not know, but I am a first generation American. My Mother was born in Morocco (my Grandfather was in the French military stationed in Morocco) and my biological Father was of French Canadian decent. I spent several Summers in France visiting my family still in France as well as made many, many trips back to the homeland.

We here in America bag on the French quite a bit. Some of it warranted and some of it not warranted. Bill Maher this week did a piece on this very subject that I loved, here it is, thanks Bill.

And finally, New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time
they hear the word, "France." Like just calling something "French" is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully-conceived and brilliantly-executed war in Iraq?"

And, yet, an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement, "France has a better health care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. "John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him; he looked French." Yeah, as opposed to the other guy who just looked stupid.

Now, last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent of them turned out. You couldn't get 85% of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between "Tits" and "Bigger Tits," and they were handing out free samples!

Now, maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback.

The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with; nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Ségolène Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a Socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something!

Madame Royal's opponent is married, but they live apart and lead separate lives. And the people are okay with that for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches; because they're not a nation of six-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts!

They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even the mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multi-tasking."

Now, like any country, France has its faults, like all that ridiculous accordion music.
But, their health care is the best in the industrialized world. As is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid East oil. And they're the greenest country. And they're not fat. And they have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil!

They invented sex during the day, lingerie and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn something from them?

So, from now on, all you high-ranking Bush Administration officials, because the French are righter than you on most things, when France comes up in conversation, you are not allowed to roll your eyes. The only time you get to do that is when your
hooker from Ms. Julia is blowing you.
Cross posted at: http://www.rocketstarinmpls.blogspot.com/

Americans Feel the Pain of Others

2007-04-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

The recent tragedy at Virgina Tech was a horrible display of a human gone mad. A human that was lost, sick and mentally disturbed, for whatever reason. We all feel for those innocent people that lost their lives as well as their loved ones; it should not have happened.

Do Americans realize that this happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in Iraq to human beings that happen to live in Iraq? They are blown up daily by mad men and women who are mentally disturbed and believe that killing other innocent people serves some purpose.

Every time I see a headline like:

"More deadly blasts shatter Iraqi cities: Death toll for week passes 200 as dozens die in Mahmoudiya, Hillah"

or

"Bombs kill 46 in two Iraqi cities"

I think how would we react to seeing these same headlines EVERYDAY if they looked like this:

"More deadly blasts shatter U.S cities: Death toll for week passes 200 as dozens die in Atlanta, Seattle"

"Bombs kill 46 in two Tennessee cities"

These are innocent humans being killed for nothing, just like at Virginia Tech. I understand why we react as we do but it also reminds me of how we SHOULD be reacting to what is going on in Iraq, in Darfur, the countless African Genocides, etc...

In the end, shouldn't we be concerned with all humans, not just those that happen to live closest to us? When tragedy occurs in the U.S., I hate it just as much as anybody, but I also don't like the fact that our reaction is one of disbelief. "How can this happen?" "How can this happen to us?" "Why did this have to happen?"

Well, the Iraqi women below is asking herself that same question, only it happens EVERYDAY in Iraq, not once every few years.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

Virginia Tech - Why are we surprised?

2007-04-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

What happened at the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday was an awful thing - no human being, regardless of race, religion, or income level, deserves to die in such a violent and utterly terrifying way. I try to imagine the fear they must have felt as the shooter was walking down the halls firing at his victims knowing that they might be next. It is a horror beyond description.

I find it hard to believe that a person could do such a thing as this - how hopeless and angry does a person need to feel in order to undertake such hatred? In that person's mind they have concluded that taking loaded weapons to school and killing as many people as possible and then themselves is the best thing to do - who knows, maybe in some cases they feel that it is the only thing for them to do. They hate themselves and life so much that not only do they want to take their own life but the lives of as many strangers possible as well. It is a level of dysfunction that few of us could ever imagine - but given the way things are going, it is probably going to be a mindframe that we all become much more familiar with.

When rampage killings such as this occur at places like Virgina Tech, Columbine, and Ecole Polytechnique, most people express horror and outrage. How could this happen? How do we make sense of all this? I can understand those emotions because it is hard for semi-functional people to understand the actions of highly dysfunctional individuals such as Eric Harris and Cho Seung-hui – it is hard to put yourself in that place, to walk in their shoes so to speak, because these people are so far gone. The reaction that perplexes me most however, is when people express surprise that these things happen. As sad as it is, these things are now commonplace within our society – Canada and the U.S. are good for three or four a year now.

I am not surprised that these things happen. Just as I’m not surprised that people in Iraq are dying violently on a daily basis or that people in the Sudan are starving to death. I am not surprised that people kill taxi drivers for a few dollars or that women serving in the U.S. Armed Forces get raped by their fellow soldiers at unbelievably high rates. Yes, those things are all sad, but I am not surprised. We live in a violent society – we glorify it in movies and TV. Our history is littered with violence and wars, some just and others not, during which heroes are made and held up to be the best of the best that society can offer. We are also a society of winners and losers – it is not shocking to find that in each of these incidents, those doing the shooting were all described as loners or outcasts – they are the losers and I am sure they were made to feel as such. In a society where violence is not as glorified maybe those that felt like losers, and were treated as such, wouldn’t resort to it in order to make one final lasting point. But that is exactly what we are – a violent society with the means for people to fulfill every single violent fantasy, no matter how perverse.

The sad part is that these things will continue happening and people will continue to lose their lives to fucked up people like Cho Seung-hui. While the debate will predictably be centered on gun control, the real debate should focus on how do we stop people from wanting to pick up a gun in the first place and kill random strangers before offing themselves. No gun law is going to stop someone like this from laying waste to his or her fellow human beings, just like no drug law will stop an addict from getting high. After Columbine occurred, some members of the community adopted the slogan “We are all Columbine” to signify that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did not grow up in a bubble – they were influenced by a culture and a community – while ultimately Klebold and Harris were responsible for their own actions, others contributed to their dysfunction in the first place. They are products of their environment. If we want to make sure that these things don’t happen anymore, we must change the environment we live in. We must stop glorifying violence. We must stop making people feel as though their lives don’t matter because they don’t fit in with the cool crowd. We have to stop people from feeling like losers. If we don’t, they will just continue to exact revenge the only way they have been taught. It is the law of consequence.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Apple Inc. and my consumer dilemma

2007-04-09T19:48:00.000-07:00

For most of my computer-using life I have been a PC guy. My first computer was a Dell Desktop system that served me well throughout my University years. But like all computers, as it got older, it got more and more problems. An upgrade to the memory seemed to help for a bit but then it became clear that my PC was on its last legs. Now I was an oddity amongst most of my friends because I was a PC user - the majority of them were all Mac users, so when it came time for me to invest in a new system I was inundated with pleas to join the darkside. My good friend Cletus finally tipped the scales in favor of a Mac when he introduced me to the Mac Mini, a system that is the size of 6 CD cases stacked on top of each other, has no fan (and as a result, doesn't make that annoying whirring sound that emanates from a PC), and was compatible with all my existing peripherals (monitor, mouse, speakers etc...). And at under $600 it seemed like a great deal so I bought one and I can now safely say that I understand what all my Mac friends have been saying to me all along - Mac's are just a better, more user-friendly system. They don't crash for no reason and in terms of desktop features, they are years ahead of Windows (the new Vista has features that have been standard on Mac's desktop system for a couple years now). In the world of computers, where each camp is religious-like in its following of their company of choice I am now a complete and total Mac convert. But last week a report was released by Greenpeace that is testing that loyalty and as a result, putting my beliefs to the test.

The report in question that was released by Greenpeace last week is titled A Guide to Greener Electronics and is the third undertaken by the organization. The report is an analysis of twelve computer and cell phone company and is based on two different criteria. Greenpeace rates each company by how they:

clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;
takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.

The two issues are connected. The use of harmful chemicals in electronics prevents their safe recycling when the products are discarded (source).

Ranking first in the report was a Chinese company Lenovo, who were ranked last in the first report of August 2006. Who came in last place this time around you ask? Why Apple Inc. of course, the maker of my beloved Mac Mini. The reasons? According to Greenpeace,

Right now, poison Apples full of chemicals (like toxic flame retardants, and polyvinyl chloride) are being sold worldwide. When they're tossed, they usually end up at the fingertips of children in China, India and other developing-world countries. They dismantle them for parts, and are exposed to a dangerous toxic cocktail that threatens their health and the environment (source).

Not only are Apple products being made with the use of dangerous toxins, unlike other companies they haven't set a date for phasing these poisons out of their products. To make matters worse, Apple has one of the worst "take-back" policies in the world.

Apple does have some take back programs. In Europe and Japan, it must offer this service by law. Under pressure from the computertakeback campaign in the U.S., Apple has recently made some piecemeal concessions on its take-back policy. But these only apply in the U.S. and fall far short of a comprehensive global take back policy (source).

So what is a good consumer like me supposed to do? Ultimately, the responsibility lies with us as consumers to ensure that we buy products that aren't harmful to the environment or the people who make them (and why I am a huge supporter of Fair Trade Coffee and Chocolate). When companies we support do irresponsible things we can either continue to support them and turn a blind eye to what they do or we can decide to no longer buy products from them. My moral dilemma is whether or not I continue to support Apple Inc. The product itself is fantastic, but given their irresponsible production of their products and the effects it has on people and the planet worldwide I know that if I want to practice what I preach I can't continue to support a company that does harm with their products. I figure my Mini has a good two or three years left in it so all I can do is hope that within that time frame Apple steps up to the plate and starts to take their responsibility more seriously. If they don't? I guess my next purchase will be a, ugh, PC and I can look forward to another few years of unexplained random crashes.

If you want to join the movement to green Apple, you can sign up here.

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

This Movie Has Not Yet Been Rated

2007-04-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

This Movie Has Not Yet Been Rated is a very good documentary that shows the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for what it is, a gistapo like secret organization that unequally marks films (NC-17, R, PG-13, PG, G) and cowtows to the major movie studio's all in the "service" of the American family.

One of the subjects the movie takes on is this insane notion that this:

Lie With Me

is more offensive and harmful to the American citizens than this:

Chainsaw Massacre

Why is the United States so ANTI SEX but PRO VIOLENCE? Why do we allow our children to view violence without second thought but sex, something that every human being must do naturally, is seen as harmful and offensive.

It is a great documentary.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

What Has News Become?

2007-03-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

Whenever I hear people bash TV like it was some kind of Cro-Magnum cow shit throwing entertainment vehicle, I remind them of what AWESOME programming there is on TV, like Frontline on PBS. Frontline creates some awesome news/reporting programming. Much like 60 minutes but devoting a full hour or miniseries to a topic.

Frontline is currently running an excellent series called News War. They are currently on the fourth episode but you can watch them online.

In the first two hours of the series, "Secrets, Sources & Spin," Bergman talks to the major players in the debates over the role of media in U.S. society. He examines the relationship between the Bush administration and the press, the use of anonymous sources, and the consequences of the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

In part three of "News War," entitled "What's Happening to the News,"FRONTLINE examines the mounting pressure for profits faced by America's network news divisions and daily newspapers, as well as growing challenges from cable television and the Internet.

The fourth hour of "News War" is called "Stories from a Small Planet" and is produced by FRONTLINE/World. It looks at media around the globe to reveal the international forces that influence journalism and politics in the United States.

What I found fascinating is how the information that we all covet and hear/read/see is beginning to lose it's integrity because most of the news is just merely regurgitated. The population of people that actually read newspapers to get their news/information is quickly dwindling. Most people now get their news/information from the world wide web, not from TV or print media. There are web sites siting web sites that site web sites and on... There is the Blogesphere (myself included) that almost always just regurgitates news stories adding one's own spin. Even blogs are beginning to be cited as sources, both in print media and TV media.

What it is ALWAYS going to come back to, is beat reporters (mostly newsprint reporters) walking the streets to talk to the witnesses, people, visit the paces etc... to truly find out what happened. They are the ones that will ask the tough questions, ensure that sources are valid, ensure that people's stories are true.

The media at one point was the big "Media Watch Dog" that helped keep our government honest. In the last few years, they have failed themselves as well as us. They obviously do not hold all of the blame as the current administration has PLENTY of blood on their shoes . This administration provided a stream of misinformation regarding the "evidence to go to war" to those beat reporters, they pressured these beat reporters when they tried to ask the next question, to investigate the information further, but in the end, the media failed us by not putting their necks on the line for the good of the country.

Welcome to wag the dog people, we need to wake up, the world is not as we see/read/hear it.

"...William Safire, author and former New York Times political columnist, fears that hostilities between the administration and the press could threaten the media's ability to hold government accountable. "The great check and balance that was built into the Constitution is under challenge," he says. "You've got to have a relationship between the government and the press that's adversarial, but not an enemy."
Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

A Simple Experiment

2007-03-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

(30% of your final grade)
Step one: Google the words "Mars warming", "Jupiter warming", "Triton [a moon of Neptune] warming", and "Pluto warming".
Step two: Carefully study the results.
Step three: Bearing in mind that there are no SUVs on any of these cosmic bodies, compare and contrast your search results with the phenomenon, discussed here on Earth ad infinitum, of "global warming".

For once in my life, I'm happy to have an allergy

2007-03-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the people of our civilization have transformed the world like no other species can. We have knocked down forests to build cities and plant food. We have dammed rivers to make power. And we have detrimentally changed the composition of the air we breathe and the water we drink. In the process, we have made numerous species extinct, as well as some cultures, and continue to threaten the survival of countless more. But while we do our damnedest to wipe out every last species on earth (including ourselves), our polluting ways may actually end up saving the lives of some marine life that many of us, although not me, find very tasty.

Last week, The Madison Declaration on Mercury Pollution was published in the Swedish journal Ambio. The Declaration was put together by many of the world's leading scientists who study mercury and they concluded that methylmercury levels in many fish are high enough that a worldwide warning that people eat less fish should be issued. The scientists state that we have three times as much mercury "falling from the sky today than before the Industrial Revolution" (source) resulting in the contamination of our waterways and the fish that live in them, especially the larger predator fish (fish that eat other fish) like shark and tuna. The warning is especially for young children and expectant mothers, as mercury can do some nasty things to developing childen, namely fetuses. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns:

[m]ethylmercury exposure in the womb, which can result from a mother's consumption of fish and shellfish that contain methylmercury, can adversely affect a baby's growing brain and nervous system. Impacts on cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills have been seen in children exposed to methylmercury in the womb (source).

We are seeing such elevated mercury levels in our oceans primarily because it is emitted by coal fired power plants (source). While most industrial countries now limit the amount of mercury these plants can emit, developing industrial nations don't, off-setting the cuts that we have managed to make. Mercury pollution also comes from old gold mines as well as from the flooding that occurs when rivers are dammed. My uncle, a biologist who studies fish species, wrote me the following:

One other point to consider; mercury occurs naturally in soil. But when that soil is flooded, it can be methylated and released into the water column where it is amplified through the food chain and may persist for decades in fish and their predators. That's exactly what happens every time a river is dammed and a reservoir created.

So what is the result of all this? Well first off, I am sure that people will eat less fish, especially shark, swordfish and tuna. Some will just stop all together and add it to the list of growing things that are "bad for us." Others will keep on eating it, but increasingly turn to the less vulnerable species like salmon (because, you know, there is an endless amount of salmon in the water). And while we humans may suffer because fish is so good for us (although not me, it kills me), the fish, in the end, may actually benefit from us making them inedible. As my Uncle explains:

When considering toxic contamination, there is one point that is often forgotten. As an example, the human population has never been so big, human life expectancy so long but, at the same time, so contaminated by all kinds of gross toxins. Contamination may have specific nasty effects, but living organisms are quite capable of dealing with toxins at sub-lethal levels. Humans have been doing so for centuries. So fish populations will persist and may even increase but they will be less healthy than uncontaminated populations (just like the human example). Actually one bonus fish reap from being contaminated is that eating mercury-contaminated fish is so dangerous for human health that human populations generally stop exploiting contaminated fish populations. Its a trade-off, increased contamination levels lead to decreased exploitation rates. The fish kind of win in a way. It reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where the crew visits a beautiful planet where life forms flourish but nothing can be eaten by humans because everything is poisonous.

So there we go - humanity, increasing the mercury in every fishes body, making them unsafe for us to eat and ultimatley, saving them from extinction. If only the Atlantic Cod had been so lucky.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Capitalism and the Next Step in Human Evolution

2007-03-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

Now let me first say that this idea is a young one and still needs some work.

For those of you who are not fully up to speed on what Evolution IS .... Evolution is in a nut shell:

"In biology, evolution is the change in a population's inherited
characteristics, or traits, from generation to generation. These traits are
encoded as genes that are copied and passed on to offspring during reproduction. Random changes in these genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in differences between organisms. Under natural selection, organisms with traits that help them to survive and reproduce tend to have more offspring. In doing so, they will pass more copies of inheritable beneficial traits on to the next generation. This leads to advantageous traits becoming more common in each generation, while disadvantageous traits become rarer.[1][2][3] Over time, this process can result in varied adaptations to changing environmental conditions"

The current state of human evolution is one in which our DNA has now conquered our environment. We have humans living in the desert, people living in the rain forest, on the poles and in the most inhospitable locations on the planet. For our DNA, the environment is no longer an issue for its continued survival. Let's not get into the future possibilities that may lie before us in regards to Global Warming, sever weather, "Ebola" type viruses etc... because even if these become severe, there will still be people on this planet able to adapt. So an assumption here is that the human being as an organism has now morphed into an entity that can live in its current environment.

So now what? As we run around on this little blue dot in the middle of the universe, WHAT and HOW is our DNA attempting to better its place in the Universe? What is the next step for our DNA in its pursuit to be the best organism it can create?

The next step is an obvious one, it is genetic engineering. Over the millions of years of evolution our DNA has created an organism that can now look into itself in attempts to "reverse engineer" itself, in a sense. Parents are beginning to choose the hair color, eye color, height, weight of their children. Biotechnology will continue to figure out what causes aging, diseases etc... in order to create a longer living stronger human being. A longer life will be necessary in order for DNA to continue to search for its purpose in the universe. It takes approximately 3 months to get to Mars with current technology. It would take hundreds of thousands of years to reach another arm of our Milky Way galaxy. So at this point, our DNA is concentrating on lengthening human life and even trying to stop aging all together in order to explore the universe. Of course it will also work on our durability along the way.

So how does this come back to Capitalism you ask. Well, biotechnology consumes a huge amount of resources $$$$. In order to facilitate such an endeavor, we need enough pooled resources to cover the opportunity cost of exploring/using biotechnology. Capitalism is similar to Evolution in that it is game of competitive advantage. Capitalism is the "survival of the fittest" in the modern age. We no longer fight for survival against the environment and other humans, it's just against other humans at this point. It creates those that have a lot at the expense of others. In the end, Capitalism is going to enable and speed up our pursuit and use of biotechnology by allowing some to obtain the amount of resources necessary. Some humans will and have begun to engineer their offspring and without hordes of money, that would not be possible.

Now there are of course Communist nations like China beginning to perform human engineering (and at a much faster pace than the U.S. due to our Stem Cell debate), but I would argue that free market Capitalism is a much better and more efficient method of fueling progress in biotechnology or any field than state sponsored endeavours. So although Capitalism is not 100% necessary for this next step, it is and will continue to speed up the process of human engineering.

In the end the only REAL purpose of our DNA is to propagate the universe in order to discover our true purpose? In order to do so, human engineering is a requirement. Yes, it always comes back to the Universe, the answer must be out there, right?

Unfortunately I will only be able to partake in this endeavour by passing my genes into the future, which I have already done. I guess my work is done here.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

The Rise of Narcissism

2007-03-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

In psychological parlance, narcissism describes people who cover an inner feeling of emptiness and questionable self-worth with a grandiose exterior baggage that brags of self-importance. Narcissists are typically vain, expect special treatment and admiration from others and can be manipulative and hostile towards others - Tim Kasser in The High Price of Materialism (12)

It points, says the study's author, to a generations lack of empathy, is inability to form relationships - and worse..."Research shows [narcissists] are aggressive when they have been insulted or threatened...They tend to have problems with impulse control, so that means they're more likely to, for example, be pathological gamblers [or] commit white-collar crimes" - The Washington Post

According to a new study, "students NPI [Narcissistic Personality Inventory] scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982. By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982" (source). The reason? The authors believe that Gen Y'ers are too full of self-esteem after being told too often that they are special (and not just by their parents, but also by teachers and most importantly, advertisers). Kids have become the center of the universe and this creates within them a sense of entitlement beyond the norm and the belief that they are better than others. No matter how you spin it, a world full of people who lack empathy, are bad at building relationships, and think that they are better than you and everyone else is not a good thing.

The interesting part of this study is that while the authors, and by extension the media who are covering this story, believe that the problem is too much self-esteem, Kasser believes that narcissism is born of not having enough. In his book, he says that "[a]ccording to these theorists, narcissists attempt to cover their feelings of inadequacy by going to the opposite extreme, hiding behind a false sense of worth that is typically dependent on external accomplishments" (50). So while this generation is being told ad nauseum by a multitude of people that they are special, in the end they don't really believe it. If Kasser and others are right in believing that narcissists are covering up a low self-esteem, then the message that parents and others are telling them, that they are special, isn't getting through. These people feel bad about themselves and need external rewards (material or praise) in order to feel as though they have some worth - they need others to feel that they are special in comparison to others in order to feel it themselves.

So why is that message failing? Why is a generation that has been the product of a sustained "self-esteem" movement not feel so good about themselves? Why do they cover it up with this false front of greatness and superiority? Is it because the ways in which they are taught to feel good about themselves is superficial and external? Is it because kids are taught to look to external rewards (praise and material things) to feel special, and because these things do little to actually make us feel good about themselves, that these Gen Y'ers feel so shitty? Whatever the case, the end result, being narcissistic, is not a good thing. We need people who feel more empathy, not less. We also need people who are less focused on themselves and more on the world around them. The scary thing is when you realize that while Gen Y may be the most narcissistic, considering the bombardment of ads aimed at kids today telling them are special, and even more parenting and schooling cenetred around making kids "feel special," the law of consequence (thanks Cletus) would suggest that Gen Z will be even more narcissistic. Fanastic!

Update - As a counterpoint to the narcissicsm study, here is an op-ed piece in the LA Times forwarded to me by Cletus by the authors of the book, Generations - its called, Will the real Gen Y please stand up?
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To lighten the mood, here is a good read from the great George Lakoff (who Bill O'Reilly called the brains behind the insidious left wing secular-progressive movement - if this isn't a big enough endorsment to read him, well, I don't know what to day) - the article's called The Words None Dare Say - Nuclear War

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

Oh the Mammories...

2007-02-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

Why do males covet them so? Why is bigger better? It's just two round, plump, soft pieces of tissue. What's the big deal?

Me, they are not my priority, as I admire other parts of the female anatomy To others they are like a beacon of light in a dangerous fog. Why? Is it nurture? Is it culture?

Or is it that subconsciously males "see" the larger breasts as more likely to produce milk, or food for their offspring?

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

We are Nothing

2007-02-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

TURN UP YOUR VOLUME, FEEL THE POWER!!!!

The pure power of Mother Nature is insane. We are but a gnat buzzing around its head. We are nothing.

In some sick and twisted way, I actually want global warming to get worse. Maybe it is THE wake up call this planet needs. Of course I will do what it takes to NOT make it worse, but I secretly hope that it is out of our hands.

Does that make sense?

Justify this

2007-02-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

When Christopher Columbus left Europe in 1492 to sail the ocean blue, he was looking for an alternate western route to the Indies, which was rich in silk and spices, after the land route east had been cut-off by the evil Muslims. After years of trying to get backing for his trip, the Spanish King and Queen decided to back his endeavor, giving him generous terms believing that that he would fail in his quest. As he crossed the Atlantic, Columbus proved his doubters wrong and sighted land, but it was not the Indies that he ran into – instead it turned out to be an island that made up a chain that today we call the Bahamas. With this discovery, as well as that of other islands like Cuba and Hispaniola, which today is split into the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Columbus set off an age of exploration that would have such an impact on the world, that few geological or human events would ever match it.

In what the Europeans would come to call the New World, Columbus had stumbled upon a land that was rich in resources, especially in gold and other valuable items like fur, timber, and fertile soil. These riches brought European nations wealth with which to build bigger armies that they would then use to conquer even more lands across the world in order to make even more money and gain even more power. The only thing that stood in the way of the Europeans and the resources was the fact that there were a large number of people living on the lands that they coveted. Albeit they were darker people living a different way than they did, and whom had different beliefs about the world, the supernatural, and their place in all of it – but they were people nonetheless and they were living there, and at the start, there were a lot more of them than their were Europeans. Estimates for the population of the Americas at the time of contact are anywhere from between 8 and 120 million, with many different cultural groups making up what Europeans would later call “Indians.” Theories abound about how long they had lived in the Americas for before the white man came - traditional Aboriginal peoples believe that they have lived there since the beginning of time, while others believed they immigrated from Asia over the Bering Strait land bridge 12,000 years ago (source). Regardless of how many there were or how long they had been there, Europeans were presented with a challenge - how do you justify dispossessing a large group of people of their land, liberty, and ultimately, their way of life?

Colonization was nothing new for the people living the “one right way” – it has been something we had been doing since the beginning of our revolution 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. But questions were raised over whether the people who possessed these lands in the New World had any right to it? They were humans, but were they that human? Did their needs usurp our own, or did ours come first? In the end, it didn’t matter what rights the Indians had or didn’t have, what was important was that their land and its resources could make European nations rich and powerful, like it did the Spanish, who got off to the best start in the colonization game, conquering much of South America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and parts of North America, and in the process toppled the mighty Aztec and Incan empires. As a result of these actions, gold funneled into the Spanish monarchs coffers and fuelled their Empire that led to them being the 16th and 17th C superpower. In the end, that was what was important to the Spanish – to be rich, to be powerful, and be better at both of those things than all the other European nations. Ultimately, it didn’t matter to them what it would take to achieve those ends - the end always justified the means.

In order to undertake the actions, namely killing, stealing, lying, cheating, and sometimes even raping, they needed to see the results they desired Europeans had to legitimize their actions – in a sense, make it seem as though what they were doing was the right thing to do. Being good, civilized people who were better than the heathen savages they encountered, Europeans had an image to maintain, and that meant saying anything they could to make sure they kept the moral upper hand. In her article, Old World Law and New World Political Realities, historian Olive Patricia Dickason argues,

…European monarchs continued to act on the assumption, as they had done during the days of the Crusades, that they were within their rights if they wished to claim lands not under the control of a Christian prince. If they encountered resistance, they assumed the right, particularly if they had papal sanction to evangelize, to attack, and to conquer.

It was a good thing for the Europeans, then, that the vast majority of Indians they found weren’t Christian, because now they had all the justification they needed to slaughter whoever they encountered in order to gain access to the land their resources. What luck for them. In order to prove the savagery of the Indians, and further cement in the minds of the people that what they were doing was the right thing, priests and others would send home reports to the people of Europe to tell them how grotesque the customs of the Indians were, including such un-Christian and un-godly things as eating each other’s flesh raw, despite the fact that the accounts were, for the most part, fabrications (for a great example of missionary fabrication check out the book The Jesuit Relations). Dickason claims that even some people living during this time period dismissed the savage image as “being wildly exaggerated.” But as most people know, the first rule of war is to always dehumanize your enemy, and everyone from Hitler to the Israeli’s and Palestinians has tried to make their enemies out to be inhuman, unworthy, value-less creatures, making them easier to kill and get what they want – land, money, and ultimately, power.

Europeans convinced themselves that the world was full of heathen savages, everyone other than them in fact, and this made it easy to take what we wanted from them, whether it was the land itself, their gold, or their children. The truth, however, was that the people the Europeans encountered were actually pretty nice and accommodating. They had different spiritual beliefs, and lived communally, but generally they were good-natured humans and in many cases did what they could to help us survive in the New World when we first arrived. True, they fought back when we tried to push our limits in their land, but hey, I’m sure we can understand that – I mean most people do push back when someone tries to take something from them. This doesn't make someone a savage.

In case the Europeans weren’t totally convinced that it was OK to take people’s land by force because they didn't believe in the Christian God, Europeans also decided to redefine what it meant to “occupy” land in legal terms. This justification was probably for some of the more intellectual Europeans as it was a less crude justification than they are heathens, do what you want to them. So the monarchs, clergymen and scholars if Europe got together and said, well, yeah those people are living on the land, but they aren’t really using the land in the way that’s intended. Civilized people built settlements, planted food in the ground, had cattle and other livestock, chopped down forests in the name of progress, and tried to grow as big as they could. The Indians of the Americas weren’t doing that, well, except for the Inca and the Aztec whose settlements were bigger than most in Europe, but we’re not talking about those people – we’re talking about the hunter/gatherers who live in small tribes – those guys weren’t using the land right and it was an affront to nature and God’s plan that people used it in that way. So since they weren’t using the land the way it was meant to be used, it was terres nullus, or empty land, and everybody has the right to take empty land, by force if you have too. It was just what had to be done – it’s the natural order and all those things.

Soon it was accepted that what was being done in the New World was a good and moral thing – Europeans were getting rich and powerful and we were helping the poor savages at the same time. Everybody wins, well, except the Indians who were dying at genocidal rates, but they were heathens so, what the hey. It all worked out in the end.

I think that today, many of us like to believe that we were destined to become the dominant peoples of the world. Some like to believe that God allowed us to dominate the world, while others think that it was just hard work, skill, determination, and the superiority of our culture. There is no doubt that our ancestors worked hard to conquer and then develop the lands of the Americas and turn them into the economic powerhouse that they are. But as Jared Diamond points out in his book, Guns, Germs and Steel, we were also really fucking lucky - including the little fact that Indians had no immunity to small pox and other diseases, killing much of the population (estimates range up to about 90% of the original indigenous population of the Americas) and greatly weakening the communities, which made it easier to conquer them. Diamond also argues that geographically we lucked out, because there are only a small number of animals in the world that can be domesticated, and Europe happened to be home to the majority of them. In short, sure we worked hard, but we also got lucky with our environment.

While some may believe that we were either pre-destined to conquer the world, we worked hard at it, or that we just got lucky, I like to believe the biggest reason we conquered the world is because we have an unbelievable ability, and still do, to justify unbelievably bad behaviour, including invoking our favorite deity, as long as we make money out of the endeavor. In our path, we left a wake of destruction, from which most of the world’s population is still struggling to recover from, but we justified it all because it resulted in us benefiting economically from those actions. Today we continue to justify idiotic actions, whether it is destroying the rain forests, over-fishing the oceans, damaging ecosystems, wiping out species at historical rates, and polluting the biosphere all in the name of profit. We even justify not doing things, such as taking action against climate change, because we feel it will cost too much money. At the end of the day, we can justify any action. Pedophiles justify their actions by saying that children are more sexual than we give them credit for and need/want an older person to show them the way. Slave traders justified their actions by saying that blacks were inferior and in some cases, more like wild animals than humans. People even justified the burning of innocent women because they thought them to be witches. I once justified cheating on a girl by saying that "she wasn't nice enough to me." At some point, we need to stop justifying our actions and realize that not all actions can be justified - some actions are just wrong no matter how hard we try to make them out to be right. Making money and furthering progress are no longer good enough reasons to do things that are harmful not only to the environment, but other humans, both those in the present and in the future. If we don't, we might just end up justifying ourselves all the way into extinction.

Cross-Posted at Dodosville.

Did I just read that? Holy sweet zombie, I did.

2007-02-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm reading Hansard -- something I'll do every once in a while. I won't watch Question Period on CPAC, ever, mostly because I'd have to throw a brick through the television and my wife would then pick up the brick and throw it at me. And probably hit me and make me even more "special" than I already am. But in text, the petty panderings, platitudes, and pantomimes of Parliament seem ever so slighly less asinine, somehow. Maybe it's because Hansard omits all the stomping and screaming that goes on in the background all through Question Period. Personally, I'd use duct tape.
There's a real brouhaha brewing over Stephen Harper's proposed method of appointing judges, to wit: he wants police input. For this, Harper has been attacked at every turn, just as he is every time he tries to get tough on crime in any meaningful way. .Harper is right to be suspicious of judges. I'm sure many Canadians share his suspicions. The Liberal Party, though, has suspicions of its own, as shown by this exchange between Harper and Michael Ignatieff on Valentine's Day:

Harper: "We want to make sure we're bringing forward the laws to make sure we crack down on crime, that we make our streets and communities safer. We want to make sure our selection of judges is in correspondence with those objectives."
Ignatieff: "Mr. Speaker, this has just confirmed our worst suspicions."

Rarely do you see such candour in politics. Ignatieff, and by extension his party, doesn't want a crackdown on crime, doesn't want safer streets, and doesn't want judges who want those things for Canadians. We've long known that, of course, though I don't think it's ever been admitted so succintly. It was Liberals who gave prisoners the right to vote, knowing that only the insane ones would vote anything other than Liberal. It was Liberals who stacked the court with judges disguised as cuddly teddy bear social worker types (it's only partisan when Conservatives do it; when it's done by Liberals it's done according to "Canadian values".) It is Liberals (and their NDP and Bloc colleagues) who are against any bill that might possibly get tough on crime.
What we don't know, what's missing, is why. Why do Liberals care more for the criminal than his victim? Why do they suggest that police officers are not capable of selecting judges--only lawyers (who have a vested interest in seeing the same criminals over and over and over again) can do that? Why do they see no problem with a "justice" system in which house arrest is a perfectly acceptable sentence for murder?
Perhaps Mr. Ignatieff will deign to tell us. I'd really like to understand. This whole soft-on-crime business is the biggest reason I can't bring myself to vote Liberal (well, that and the fact they're not sorry for the whole sponsorship scandal, only sorry they were caught).
But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an answer from Ignatieff or anyone else. One piece of candour is enough for this year.

I am a failure

2007-02-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

In the past, I've written a lot about the expectations that society places on us such in terms of having a certain standard of living, owning certain technologies, and looking a certain way. These things, ultimately, are culturally based and have been determined for us by advertisers and marketers who want us to feel as though we are lacking something and as a result, need their products to be whole (living up the Jonses/Oprah and all that jazz). In our society, how much money we make determines our status and value within society - the more the better. How much we measure up to the cultural ideal of beauty determines our value to prospective mates and society at large. The reality is, however, that few of us match up to the expectations commercials, TV shows, movies, and other media place on us. We don't fit the mold. We are, in short, failures of the modern materialistic society.

In a show on CBC Newsworld last night called Naked on the Inside, they told the story of a woman, amongst others, who was, well, fat. Over time, she had come to embrace her figure, despite the entire world telling her that she should be skinnier. At one point, she described that as a young girl not only was she large, but bossy. Her parents tried hard not only to get her to lose weight, but to reign in her "take charge" behaviour. She said (and I'm paraphrasing here):

I've always been large, despite always being active, and it was always my first instinct to take charge. It was hard for me because these two dominant aspects of who I was, being fat and bossy, were seen by others as something I should change. Who I was wasn't good enough, in fact, it was wrong. That was very hard for me to deal with.

For many years now I have done presentations for businesses, schools, and community organizations on the history of treaties in Saskatchewan. In the period after the treaties were negotiated, First Nations were subject to a governmental program of assimilation (which was contrary to the promises of cultural non-interference made in the treaties). One of the primary vehicles for the assimilation program was residential schools, which were setup to segregate children, sometimes for long periods of time, from their families and their culture, with the goal of making them into good little white children (albeit, with brown skin). Kids weren't allowed to have their hair long, wear traditional clothing, or speak their native language - brothers and sisters were sometimes even separated from each other within the same school. Missionaries and nuns then attempted to indoctrinate the children into European culture - its language, customs and religion. When I try to get people to understand the effect this had on the children psychologically (and I am not even talking about the effects of the physical and sexual abuse that was common place in the schools), I get people to imagine being told on a daily basis (both directly and indirectly) that everything you are, your parents are, your grandparents are, and your entire people are is wrong. Your beliefs, your customs, and absolutely everything that makes you and your people unique, including the color of your skin and the god you pray too, is wrong. It always has been. To Europeans, First Nations were failures - they didn't know how to live and had to be taught. It would have been a devastating message to hear and it was one that left many people confused and ashamed of who they and their families were - the result was a shattered people who fell into dysfunction to help them cope with the psychological anguish they were going through.

From the time that we are born in this world, we are exposed to the expectations society has for us and the reality is that few of us match up to what we see on TV - few of us are rich enough or good looking enough - very few are both. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out why so many people nowadays struggle with their self-image and self-esteem. Why so many people starve themselves to death or gorge on food to make themselves feel better. I don't think it's a mystery why so many people turn to drugs and alcohol, to gambling, TV, sports, movies and video games. Too many of us simply don't feel good about who we are because we feel like failures - we feel like who we are is wrong - we don't measure up.

The truth is that for many years now, I have struggled with what is expected of me by our civilization. The reality is that I don’t have a "real job", I’m not married (I have been with the same woman for 7 years – we are not married, but have lived together for 6 and a half years – we may not be married in the accepted sense, but she is my partner and I her’s), I don’t have kids, and I don’t own my own home. Last year I made roughly $15,000. I am balding, I don’t have a six pack, my TV is only 27 inches and isn’t HD, my basketball skills are deteriorating (I am probably shooting about 38% from the field this year - if that) and the truth is that I’m not very good at poker (even though I love it). And despite my best intentions, I have never written a real book – I have never been able to get over that last hump needed in order to publish something that will help me "make something of myself." In many ways I feel like I am a failure – in fact, in the most cultural interpretation of the word, there is little doubt that I am a failure. I am not what people at 32 years of age are supposed to be in the modern world. Some days, I am perfectly OK with this – I take a certain amount of pride in my way of life. While I don’t have a lot of money, I have a lot more leisure time than most. I spend more time than anyone I know (other than my retired parents and my nieces and nephews too young to go to school) engaging in what most of us would see as leisure activities – sleep, spending time at my local coffee shop reading, walking my dog, and reading and commenting on blogs. But some days mother culture yells in my ear “your friends all own houses, have children, and are vacationing in the Dominican” and all those years of cultural indoctrination I had come to the foreground and I too feel like who I am is wrong. But instead of missionaries telling me, it's Donald Trump.

The good news is that as I grow older, and hopefully wiser, mother culture becomes quieter and slowly, but surely, I am replacing her expectations with my own. Like the large lady in the documentary, I am starting to embrace who I am and what I have made my life into. I no longer expect myself to make a tonne of money, become famous, change the world, or even own a house - those things would require me to work 40 hours a week and well, I just can't do that at this point and time. Instead, I just expect myself to continue trying to understand what the fuck is going on in this world and inside of me. I do not think that I am special in anyway, nobody is. I just wish that instead of us all sitting around feeling as though we aren't good enough because our lives aren't as fun as those on TV, and our bodies (determined by genetics and our environment) don't match those who starve themselves for a living and model god-awful clothes. In a way, perhaps being a failure as determined by our culture is what we all need to strive for - I'm in no way suggesting that everyone live like me, shit, it barely works for me. I'm just saying that instead of following the well worn path forced upon us, we need to find our own - create our own ideals and expectations. We all may end up happier. Or not. But it can't get much worse than this, can it?

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Intelligent Design?

2007-02-09T05:41:00.000-08:00

Let's take a look at this Intelligent Design (ID) theory, is it just bullocks? To think that the universe and human beings were created via an intelligent design seems a bit far fetched. Let's take a look at just a few examples of why that appears to not be true.

Universe/Solar System
Most orbits are unstable
Almost all places in the universe will kill life
Most of the matter in the universe is made up of mostly Black Holes
The Milky Way will collide with the Andromeda Galaxy
Our galaxy's orbit will pass near a Supernova

Earth
Volcanoes, Hurricanes, tsunami's, a fragile atmosphere etc...
99% of life that ever existed is extinct
Can't live on 2/3 of it's surface
Our inner solar system is a shooting galary
It took 3.5 billion years to make multi-cellular life

Humans
Birth Defects, Leukemia, hemophilia, MS, sickle cell anemia, Parkinson's, ALS etc...
Our eyes (always touted to be so incredible) really only see a small narrow view of the electromagnetic spectrum
We exhale most Oxygen we inhale
We have to eat constantly to stay alive, Crocodiles eat once a week.
We must sleep 8 hours a day spending 1/3 of our lives comatosed.
We eat and breathe out of one hole in our bodies thus ensuring that some will die every year of choking. Dolphins have two different holes to perform these two functions.
And the number one reason why ID is bullocks....

Who puts a playground (human genitalia) right next to a sewage system ?

Thanks to Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts On Life

G-g-g-lobal warming.

2007-02-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

Boy, it's a good thing global warming is now an undisputed reality. Otherwise I'd be a Kensicle right about now.
Temperature: -17, a shade above zero on the old scale. Windchill is currently -27 and it'll get colder overnight.
For you Nunavutians and Saskatoonies this sort of thing is referred to as "balmy". Here in Southern Ontario, not so much. There are blizzard warnings a couple of hours north of us, snowsquall warnings all around us, but we just have this wind chill warning. For once, Environment Canada's warnings are justified: the news tells me snowplows have been taken off the road up north on account of their operators can't even see their own plow blades.
A watermain on our street broke today...the second time in about eight weeks. Along came a plow and sloshed all that water into the snow at the bottom of our driveway. I was out there almost immediately to shovel, but almost immediately was far too late: by some weird alchemy the snow had turned to something approaching the hardness of the concrete beneath it. The best I was able to do was to level out the driveway somewhat. Sigh.
So: global warming. Or more properly, given the frigidity gripping much of the second-largest country on the planet, "climate change". According to the report issued in Paris last week, it's real, we're responsible...and most alarmingly, it's unstoppable. We're past the pivot point: no matter what we do now, temperatures will continue to increase for centuries.
Nice to know they can predict climate over centuries and still can't even guess what next month's weather has in store.
Oh, I'm not disputing their conclusions. I'd still like to think that most scientists are objective and impartial enough to have arrived at the correct proofs without concern for such things as funding. But I do object to the sudden politimedihysteria, not least because problems "solved" hysterically never remain solved for long. It calls to mind a song by the Canadian group the Arrogant Worms:

Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw
Malcolm soves his problems with a chainsaw
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw
And he never has the same problem twice.

Everybody on Parliament Hill is trying to outgreen each other. Normally I'd suggest this is a good thing, as politicians rarely take any notice of anything environmental. But concentrating on greenhouse gas emissions, when Canada--globally speaking--provides a mere two percent of same and the country immediately to our south, which leads the world in emissions, has no intention of reducing theirs, makes little to no sense. And speak to me not of Kyoto, which Harper rightly called a socialist wealth redistribution scheme. What else can it be, since the developing world can utterly disregard it without penalty? And never mind the craziness of classifying China, on the verge of becoming the world's largest economy, as a "developing" nation.
If we're going to get serious about greenhouse gas emissions, we should all get serious, from America to Zimbabwe. Any development in the Third World should be as green as the First World can help make it. And while we're at it, we should substiantially green what used to be called the Second World--the countries that used to be under the Soviet sphere of influence (and will be again, the paranoid in me insists on adding).

But I remain firmly convinced that, while greenhouse gas emissions are indeed a problem, they aren't the chief environmental problem facing the world today--no matter how many headlines I read.
You don't see much about air pollution any more, do you? Or water pollution, or deforestation, or desertification, or soil erosion, or any other sort of pollution that isn't green house gas emission. What, did we clean all that up while I wasn't looking? Didn't think so. Is any of it somehow less of a problem? Don't think so. But the Kyoto Protocol doesn't even mention any of these used-to-be-pressing concerns. Why is that, I wonder?

Housing First: New Approach to Chronic Homelessness

2007-02-03T12:41:00.001-08:00

Link to Housing First!

I watched the latest episode of NOW,, a weekly Public Broadcasting Network "news story" show that this week featured a story on an ever growing program that uses an unconventional approach to help the chronically homeless.

Below is a quick description of the program which you can watch online HERE:

"What will most help homeless people reenter the fabric of society? Some say the answer is right there in the question: a home. This week, NOW investigates a program that secures apartments for the long-term homeless, even if they haven't kicked their bad habits. If you think that sounds crazy, think again. Advocates say this approach reduces costs, encourages self-help and counseling participation, and restores self-esteem."

I found it a very interesting concept. Most of the current homeless aid programs usually have many rules that must be met BEFORE they can enter the program, such as kicking any substance abuse problem they may have. It seems ridiculous to create a barrier for people in need that is the reason why they need help. Without the help itself, the problem will remind unresolved.

The homeless that take part in this program are given an apartment at virtually no cost for as long as they want it. They are given a place to call their own to get them off of the streets and begin to get a different look on life. It creates an environment where they can truly take that first step back into society. For those that can, they do pay a portion of the rent (very low) out of their government social security/disability monthly income.

"After settling into new apartments, clients are offered a wide range of support and clinical services that include psychiatric and substance abuse treatment, health care, vocational services, art and photography workshops, and family reconnection."

One of the great things about this program is it actually saves communities money. The many visits the chronically homeless make and are made to by Emergency Medical Technicians, ambulances and visits to the hospital each year can cost upwards of up to $100,000 per year per person.

"Not only does the program work, it is also one of the most cost-effective solutions. Pathways can provide individual apartments with extensive support services for an annual cost of $22,500 per client; a bed in a state psychiatric hospital costs $175,000 a year. "

You must help people to help themselves. Give them a start rather than forcing them to try to create the start themselves when they are incapable of doing so. Creating unattainable "criteria" for these people to enter "aid programs" just doesn't make any sense. Shelter is the first true need of any human being after food and water. A home provides these people with a sense of pride, a launching pad and the medical attention they need to re-enter society.

If the homeless are always worrying about being safe, finding a place to sleep, or something to eat, how are they ever going to have time to figure out how to re-enter society?

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts On Life

The Public Tipping Point

2007-01-29T13:15:00.000-08:00

Recent polling shows that more than ever, climate change is on our minds. A Globe and Mail article from the weekend stated:

…the environment was cited as the top issue by 26 per cent of respondents…The shift amounts to the equivalent of a public-opinion earthquake – last May the environment was on the minds of a mere 3 per cent of Canadians.

What is more, Canadians feel so passionately about the topic that they say they don’t want half-measures. The Globe’s polling has found support for an array of tough actions against global warming: 56 per cent even said that they would support rationing the amount of fossil fuels an individual can use each year (source).

The reason for this upswing in attention by the average Canadian? It is probably a mix of things from the box-office and critical success of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, to a winter full of odd and harsh weather here in Canada. Whatever the case, it is good to see that Canadians are waking up to the reality that is climate change. The result has been both the Liberal and Conservative parties wrapping themselves in green (literally – Stephane Dion wore a green scarf during the Liberal leadership convention), with the Conservatives, yes, the Conservatives, taking action to combat the amount of ghg’s we as Canadians produce through programs that will see an increase in the amount of money going to alternative fuels research. As well, the government is preparing to introduce new emissions targets after the disaster that was the Clean Air Act (source) - considering how the Conservatives started in regards to the environment, this are all huge steps forward. South of the border, politicians are similarly taking note with none other than the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, leading the way (even GWB got in the act last week with his plan to cut gas consumption in the U.S.). While we are certainly a long way off from what we need to do, it brings a smile to my face knowing that we are taking the first mandatory steps. And with climate scientists meeting this week in Paris and finalizing the latest report from the IPCC (which, by the sounds of it, will argue that they are 90% certain that it is humanity that is the cause of the warming), we can only expect the fervor with which people and politicians will tackle this problem to increase. I hope.

The question for me, however, is how far are we willing to go? Will Canadians really be willing to, as the G@M suggests, ration how much gas they use? Will they be willing to pay increased taxes on goods and services that create large amounts of ghg’s? Will they be willing to take the bus to work three days a week? Will they be willing to fly and travel less often? Will they be willing to pony up the money needed to retrofit homes to make them more energy and heat efficient? And finally, will the public support the government investing large amounts of money to help us do all these things? They are questions that at some point, we will all have to face.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, as the public begins to accept the likelihood that it is us doing this, the skeptics and deniers have ratcheted up their rhetoric and attacks. I’ve seen numerous posts from bloggers (who happen to be on the right – this does not mean that all right-wingers deny human influence in climate change, just that a rather noisy contingent does) trying to point the finger away from us. While skepticism is important to the scientific process, one has to wonder if these people are doing so in the name of science, or simply because they refuse to believe that a civilized people such as us could possibly do something so potentially devastating to ourselves. Last week, a story broke about a Washington state man named Frosty E. Hardison who was angry that his son’s science teacher was going to show Gore’s documentary. The reason?

No, you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation – the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet – for global warming (source).

In his books, author Daniel Quinn argues that one of the most pervasive and powerful myths in our society is that how we live is the “one right way.” Democracy. Christianity. Capitalism. Suburbia. Wal-Mart. T.V. All these institutions make up the one right way – it is the reason that the world was created, either by God or evolution. If we are warming the planet, what does this say about the “one right way?” If it truly was the one right way to live, how can we be warming the planet and as a result, doing so much potential harm to future generations? Frosty, who by the way, believes that the planet is being warmed to signal the return of Jesus H. Christ, cannot accept that America, the epitome of the one right way, could possibly share some of the blame for it (and considering that they produce 25% of humanities ghg, you could make a good argument that they are the planet’s #1 enemy) – if they do, it signals that in fact they don’t know how to live. It signals that they don’t have a fucking clue. You don’t befoul the nest you live in – it’s rule #1 and one that we’ve ignored for the last 10,000 years (since the beginning of modern civilization). From climate change to ecosystem destruction it is becoming more apparent that we don’t have a clue about the basics of living and our collective cultural ego has struggled with this for the last few years – some people more than others.

I have been accused on more than one occasion of being a civilization hater. A self-loathing westerner etc…. But the truth is that I love a lot of what civilization has to offer. I love my computer. I like my car. I love my freedom and opportunity. But I also loved to smoke and I ended up quitting because it was, in the end, going to kill me. Criticizing civilization and it’s faults has nothing to do with hating it per se, but more to do with realizing that how we are living is ultimately, bad for us. Emotionally, physically, and environmentally, the proof is mounting that how we live is having negative consequences for a majority of us both in the present and in the future. It’s great to see that people and politicians are waking up to the reality of climate change, but I am not at the tipping point yet in terms of my belief that we have what it takes to go the distance. Sure we seem willing to see our taxes go to alternative energy research, but do we have what it takes to change the very way that we live (which ultimatley, is the cause of our problems)? I fear that too many of us are like Frosty and in the end, will be unable to overcome their cultural training that this is how humans should live and as a result, will not be able to change the things we need too. It should be an interesting few years to say the least.
____________________________________________________________________

For a very balanced and interesting article on the science behind climate change and some of the challenges, both political and scientific, check this article by Kerry Emanuel out (thanks to Real Climate for bringing this article to everyone’s attention).

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

I Am Going to Die

2007-01-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Now before you get worried or I think I have gone insane, remember that you too are going to die. Most of us either have approximately 75 years for a male and 80 years for a female in the U.S. to live then it's all over. At that point you either become worm food or ashes, I prefer ashes.

We all start out as supple, innocent humans. That smooth soft skin that bounces back so easily slowly turns into the wrinkled cracked Sahara desert skin that slowly gets thinner and thinner.
Our hair follicles begin to die and release the lovely strands of hair that cover our melons.

The worst of it is our brain of course. The brain starts life out as this mold able insatiable engine that uses knowledge as it's gasoline. At some point it hits a peak and from then on it begins to lose it's sharpness, reaction time and capacity.

Then one of your vital organs will fail or you will wither away with some horrible disease and you will DIE.

I have recently thought a lot about death and its inevitability. I am going to die. There will be a day in the future when I no longer exist. I have of course thought about my death before, we all have. But it's different now that I am approaching the average half-life of a US male. I have always appreciated my time here on this little blue dot, but I don't think I appreciate it enough. ( No worries, Jesus has not spoken to me YET).

Check out the historical average age of humans throughout history. Can you imagine living in a time where most people lived to be in their 30's, let alone 20's!

Neanderthal = 20
Upper Paleolithic = 33
Neolithic =20
Bronze Age = 18
Classical Greece = 28
Classical Rome = 28
Medieval Britain =33
End of 19th Century Western Europe = 37
Current world average = 66
Present day "non-civilized"native groups = 34

I hope I go old and QUICK.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts On Life

Another Election, More $

2007-01-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

You can read the entire article here: Death Knell May Be Near for Public Election Funds

As the 2008 Presidential Election year arrives (yes, the madness now starts almost TWO YEARS before we actually vote) the open palms of the hopeful "bidders"s are asking their supporters to lay down the dollars. They will lay out A LOT of dollars, estimates have it at about $500,000,000 per party candidate. Each party will raise and spend approximately $500 MILLION in attempts to buy, I mean win the Presidential office.

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York became the first candidate since the program began in 1976 to forgo public financing for both the primary and the general election because of the spending limits that come with the federal money. By declaring her confidence that she could raise far more than the roughly $150 million the system would provide for the 2008 presidential primaries and general election, Mrs. Clinton makes it difficult for other serious candidates to participate in the system without putting themselves at a significant disadvantage."

“The 2008 race will be the longest and most expensive presidential election in American history,” said Michael E. Toner, chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “Top-tier candidates are going to have to raise $100 million by the end of 2007 to be a serious candidate.” He added: “We are looking at a $100 million entry fee.”

A $100 MILLION dollar entry fee. Do we really want to only allow rich Americans who have a lot of rich friends lead this country? "Including money raised by other primary candidates, the total spent on the presidential election could easily exceed $1,000,000,000." Is this the best way for us to spend 1 BILLION dollars? Do we really need to spend such a vast amount of resources to elect a President? It should be about a persons idea's/ideals/leadership/integrity etc... not about having enough money to create the best 2 year "infomercial".

"In 1986, a decade after the first publicly financed presidential election, a bipartisan commission headed by Robert Strauss, the former Democratic Party chief, and Melvin R. Laird, the secretary of defense under President Richard M. Nixon, concluded: “Public financing of presidential elections has clearly proved its worth in opening up the process, reducing the influence of individuals and groups, and virtually ending corruption in presidential election finance.”

"Candidates can raise twice as much from each individual donor: $2,100 for the primary and $2,100 for the general, for a total of $4,200. It also means that the presidential candidates will be more beholden than ever to the so-called bundlers, often lobbyists, who solicit donations to present to campaigns in a lump sum. In 2004, President Bush honored his biggest bundlers by calling them Pioneers and Rangers who raised $100,000 or $200,000, respectively."

Do people actually believe that these large donations do not create conflicts of interest? How many people in this country have enough money to hand over $4200 to a Presidential candidate? When are we, the American people going to start making this issue THE issue of our leaders until it is resolved?

Have we not learned enough of what money does to our political system from our friend Jack Abramoff ?

Isn't it time to try using Clean Elections (also called Clean Money) is a system of government financing of political campaigns) at the National level. Some say Clean Elections restrict "free speech" because donating your money is a form of speech but since when is free speech equal to how much money one has? So Upper Class Americans are entitled to more free speech than the rest of us? Bollocks.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

I Never Would Have Made It On THAT Jury...

2007-01-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

You're the father of a 16-year old daughter who is living with a 24-year-old convicted drug dealer. Your daughter is hooked on morphine, and you are afraid it's killing her. What do you do?
Kim Walker went to police and wrangled a warrant committing Jadah to hospital for 72 hours.
While she was committed, receiving treatment for her addiction, her father received what he believed to be threatening phone calls from her boyfriend.
Soon after Jadah's release, she ended up back at the boyfriend's house.
Now what?
Do you, a caring father, just give up and let your daughter walk her own self-destructive path?
Or do you try again?
And if you try again, given those threatening phone calls and the fact your daugher's boyfriend is a known felon, do you perhaps arm yourself, just in case?
Walker, as is known to all of Canada by now, did, in fact, try again. And he armed himself. And he discharged his weapon five times, killing the boyfriend.

You're on the jury. Given the facts above, do you convict Walker of first degree murder? Second degree? Manslaughter?

Whenever I look at a case like this, my prejudice acts as a partial blind. I can't seem to see past certain salient points. No matter how much testimony I hear from the boyfriend's family to the effect that the deceased was a nice friendly guy, all I really hear is drug dealer, drug dealer, drug dealer. It's like a buzzing in the brain that short-circuits my reasoning. Just as--maybe--it short-circuited Kim Walker's.

Or maybe Walker simply went, as the defense alleges, to the house to retrieve his daughter and when the inevitable confrontation got ugly, Walker used his gun in self-defense. The fact Mr. Nice-Friendly-Drug-Dealer was backshot once does tend to render this theory somewhat dubious. Perhaps it started as self-defense and Kim Walker's frustrations boiled over. This scenario, which I find more than plausible, wasn't even considered as an option by the judge in the case.

The jury came back with a second degree murder verdict to the first degree murder charge, in effect saying Mr. Walker fully intended to kill Hayward, but only for a very short period of time.

(I've never really understood the murder laws in this country. To me, it really shouldn't matter if you thought about killing somebody for years or only for a couple of seconds--thinking about killing somebody isn't a crime, after all. At most, you can argue circumstantially against an accused given proof that he had at some point considered the crime. Otherwise, legal system, get the hell out of our minds.)

The jury then recommended leniency in terms of parole, which means Walker will serve ten years.

Suppose Jadah Walker's addiction had killed her--an outcome she herself believes was only averted by her father's actions. What sort of sentence could Hayward have expected for that death?

Look, I'm not advocating vigilantism...at least here in print, where you can see me doing it. But given our weak excuse for a justice system, I can certainly understand the impulse. What father hasn't considered the circumstances and people he might kill in defense of his little girl? I know, I just said it myself: there's a huge difference between thinking about killing somebody and actually doing it. But when push comes to shove and daughter goes to drug dealer...

I can't help thinking that somehow, once again, our judiciary has come down firmly on the side of the criminals.

The Poker Analogy

2007-01-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

My poker hero, Phil Gordon.

Perhaps one of the greatest myths present in our society is the belief that if you work hard enough, you can make it in this world (especially here in the west). Anyone can be successful as long as they roll up their sleeves and use enough elbow grease. The other myth is that of equality - that everyone has an equal chance to make it in this world (namely, the west). Born rich or poor, white or black, each and every individual has an equal chance to make something of themselves, whether it is fame, fortune, or middle class suburbia.

The truth, however, is that while hard work plays a role in anyone's success, it is not the only, or even the most important, determinant of success. Undoubtedly, the family and environment you are born into plays the biggest part in determining how easy it will be for you to be successful (and I use the accepted standard here for success – money, the more the better). In Canada and the U.S., being born into an upper class family, as a white male, is a huge advantage in a system run and built by white men that bestows so much privilege and opportunity on people with money. As a rich kid you get access to better schools as your parents can afford to send you to private one's, where the education is usually better than at public schools. Being born into a family with money, the sometimes prohibitive cost of University isn't an issue, allowing you to gain an higher education if you so desire (and we all know that those with more education tend to make more money). As well, since your parents are rich and wealthy, their contacts in the business world are greater than that of a low-income family. I know that as an upper middle class kid, I got many opportunities to get good jobs because of who I know – the richer you are, the more, and better, people you know. Yes, white males from rich families must work hard in order to maintain the status and income level of their families, but the obstacles to them achieving this are usually very limited – if they fail it is not because they lacked opportunity. In the end, they start off with a much better hand with which to compete in the game of life - a hand that gives them more opportunities with which to gamble and achieve the success most people desire.

On the flip side, people born into dysfunctional, lower-income homes of minority groups (let's say an Inuit girl born into a home with an abusive father and alcoholic mother in Nunavut) have many more obstacles in their way that prevent them from achieving success. Generally, schools in Aboriginal communities are sub-par, especially when compared with schools in the south. Living in a dysfunctional environment can make it much easier for one becoming dysfunctional themselves (in the nature vs nurture debate, I tend to see nurture as the big winner). Going to University can sometimes be financially impossible (if one finishes high school at all, which Aboriginal people tend to do at much lower rates). And we cannot deny that racism still exists in our society – some people just don’t like them Indians and this can lead to some Aboriginal peoples living in uncomfortable and inhospitable environments. This is not to say that a young Inuit women from Nunavut from a dysfunctional home cannot become "successful," it's just that for them it takes more than hard work as the obstacles needed to overcome are far greater – they must overcome substandard education. A lack of money. Racism. And they must try to maintain some semblance of health in what have become quite dysfunctional communities. In short, the cards they get to start life off with are hard to make a hand with. It does happen, but not without a lot of luck.

Cletus first introduced me to the poker analogy to try and make people understand that modern society isn't fair - it is easier to achieve success in the game of life depending on the cards you're dealt. In No Limit Texas Hold 'Em, players start with two down cards which they use along with five community cards to make the best hand at the table. The two cards you are dealt always decide whether or not you move on with that hand - for example, if I am dealt pocket Aces (American Airlines), I know that my chances are better than 50% that I will end up winning that hand either because I will actually make the best five-card hand, or I will bet aggressively and win the pot because everyone else folds. For me personally, when I get pocket Aces I always act very aggressively - I usually make a strong bet pre-flop (the flop being the first three community cards) in order to make the point to other players that my hand is strong. If the flop is favorable (say, three low cards that provide neither a flush or straight draw), then I will bet strong again, knowing that usually my opponents will fold and I will win the pot. Sometimes people will slow play pocket Aces (slowplaying being the act of pretending you don't have anything to try and get your opponent to think they have the best hand and will, as such, bet big, when they are holding a loser) but you can get burned too easily that way. While pocket Aces are the best starting hand in Texas Hold 'Em, they can still be beaten by two pair. If you get too cocky about the strength of pocket Aces you can lose a lot of money.

In the game of life, someone born into a rich, white family is analogous to being dealt pocket Aces. If you play safe and smart and follow the rules, pocket Aces will win you money nearly every time you play them. While statistically, pocket Aces will lose out some of the time, more often than not the outcome will be beneficial to the person holding them. There is no other hand that a poker player would rather start with. If they say otherwise, they are an idiot. The same is not true of someone dealt a 2-7 off-suit. While statistically they will win some hands, the chances are minimal - the odds of winning with that hand are so low that few people will even play with them, folding the hand before the flop (unless you are in the Big Blind and everyone limps in and checks to you). The obstacles and odds are that low when being dealt what is commonly referred to as the worst starting hand in poker. In the real world, many people are dealt 2-7 offsuit. Imagine being born into a refugee camp in the Sudan or Sheshatshiu. True, you may get out of there, but chances are, you won’t. Does this mean that you haven’t worked hard enough? Maybe. But most likely it means that you have had few opportunities where hard work would make a difference (other than providing you with the basics of life). Me personally, I tend to think I was dealt pocket Jacks. A strong starting hand, but one that is dominated by pocket Q’s, K’s and Aces. I come from an upper middle class family that is well educated and while not stinking rich, we certainly never hurt for money. I have not lacked for opportunity and if I fail in life, it will be because I failed. Dealt a good starting hand, my struggles to make it in the modern world have been very limited. All I have had to do is follow the well-worn path laid out in front of me. Sure, I’ve had to work hard at times, but my obstacles have been self-imposed – society has been waving me in from the get-go.

I think that people like to believe in the “everyone is equal” and “hard work is all it takes” myths because it makes them feel good about what they have achieved. If you are a rich guy in today’s world, you have achieved the success that the vast majority of people strive for. You are probably the envy of others. If I were in that position, I would want to think that it is because of my hard work and ingenuity that I got there. But the truth is that you got there because where you started, the hand you were dealt, made it a whole lot easier. We like to think that the poor and dysfunctional are lazy and not personally responsible, but when dealt a crappy starting hand, it becomes that much harder to attain the skills required to make it in today’s world.

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

Catastrophuck

2007-01-13T20:17:00.003-08:00

The Iraq war has now been in progress longer than WWII and as Jon Stewart coined it, the Iraq war is a "Catastrophuck". The Bush administration has made many mistakes and told many half truths to possible out right lies to get us into this quagmire.

How We Got Here:

First, Bush told us that Saddam was an evil tyrant trying to acquire/make WMD's, including attempting to acquire nuclear material from an African Nation. False, the "evidence" turned out to be poor forgeries and bogus.

They then did not allow enough time for the WMD inspectionsto take their FULL course.
Then they tried to use 9/11 and tried to claim that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, not true.

Trying to find something true to say, he then adds that we are going to war because Saddam is an evil dictator that is massacring his own people. Although true, certainly not a valid reason for the US to invade Iraq as there are MANY evil dictators around the world doing the same thing. Is this our new foreign policy, attacking an evil dictator?

The Mistakes:

Foresight, George Bush Sr. also invaded Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait . This was a valid reason to go to war as we needed to protect Kuwait and stop Saddam’s plans to dominate the Middle East and possibly invade Saudi Arabia. But George Sr. and his staff stopped short of going into Baghdad because they knew that going into Baghdad was a very risky and difficult proposition.

WORLD support, not just the UK and Poland would have been nice. Attacking Iraq in the middle of the Middle East is nothing more than a war of attrition and we will never win a war of attrition in the middle of the Middle East.

George W. Bush and his staff created no real plan for a successful occupation. They said that the Iraqi people would greet us as liberators with open arms and we would all live happily ever after in FREEDOM. The fact that the Bush Administration did not perform the correct due diligence for an occupation is unforgivable and inexcusable.

Once we invaded Iraq, the Bush administration either miscalculated the ensuing influx of Iranian, Syrian, Saudi, Afghani, Pakistani fighters to help battle US Soldiers in Iraq or they were negligent in controlling Iraq's borders well enough to stop said influx. They also miscalculated the number so soldiers it would take in order maintain peace and rebuild Baghdad after we destroyed it.

Solutions (if they really exist):

The latest Bush strategy of adding 20,000 or so troops to Baghdad is going to bring the number of troops back up to what it was when we first invaded. Ummmmm, that didn't seem to do it the first time and back then the country was not in a civil war like it is today. Good luck with that one.

Make Iraq the 51st U.S. state. The only way we will ever “WIN” as Bush says, is to seriously occupy Iraq as if it was ours. Take that oil money, seal off all borders and then build many, many giant prisons.

At this point, seriously, why don’t we just allow the civil war take it's course. In the end, it will take place anyway as religious fundamentalism does not allow for any other outcome. Does the U.S. really have the fortitude to stay on this LOOOONG and BLOODY course?

The idea that "winning" the war in Iraq militarily is the ONE and ONLY solution is just ludicrous. But coming from a fundamentalist, it all makes sense I guess.

Even scarier, is what has been happening in the Congressional hearings and what Bush said in his speech to the nation. Is War with Iran and Syria next?

Crossposted at Rocketstar’s Thoughts on Life

Selfishness

2007-01-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

For a lot of my adult life I have struggled with my own selfishness. At times, it is hard for me to be selfless – to think of others needs before my own, because for the most part I believe that my own interests are paramount. This has turned me into a very stubborn person – if I don’t want to do something, I usually will not do it. If I have made up my mind about whether or not to do an activity, rarely will someone be able to change my mind. My decision over whether or not to do something is based primarily on my own interest – I ask myself how I will benefit from doing said thing - will I have fun or will it be interesting, and if the answer is no, I won’t do it. In the end, it doesn’t matter if someone else wants me to do it because his or her needs and interests come second to my own. Someone else wanting me to do something isn’t a good enough reason for me to do something – I have to want to do it. Shallow I know, but truthful nonetheless (I should say that I do do things for other people, and at times can be quite generous, it’s just that I know that I could do a lot more if I weren’t so selfish).

I do not think that I am alone in my attitude – there are a great many selfish and shallow people in our society. In fact, as a society as a whole we are extremely selfish – the economic and material needs of our civilization come before all other’s interests and they always have. It’s why we kidnapped Africans and turned them into slaves. It’s why we conquered the Indians and took their land. It’s why we continue to warm up the atmosphere. It’s why so many of our ecosystems are under attack and in danger of being destroyed. And finally, it’s why we are in the middle of the 6th Great Extinction, a period named as such because the rate of extinction of species in the world today is on par with other rapid depletions, including when the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth. Now, I do not say this to excuse my own selfishness because it is, at times, inexcusable. But there has to be a reason why I and so many others can be so selfish – why today we have what can only be viewed as an epidemic of selfishness. Some will say that selfishness and greed are human traits, but I believe them to be learned traits – we are taught these things, they are not inherent within us. If we were inherently selfish how could we have ever survived through the long period of our development when the primary form of living was tribal or communal? Tribes were based on mutual need and doing things that were in the best interest of the community as a whole – that’s how you survived – by placing the needs of the community first because without a strong community, individuals were doomed to fail. If we were inherently selfish – if being selfish were just part of who we were, how would we have made it this far in our evolution and existence? Wouldn’t we have killed off everything by now, including each other?

Growing up, all around us we see people acting in their own self-interest. Watch five minutes of TV and you will be sold countless things that will make you better looking or you're life better. Rarely are we sold things that will make the community at large a better place to live. To be fair, selfishness is the basis of our economic system – capitalist theory states that by pursuing our own economic interests that it will benefit the whole of society. This is why we view rich people as “good,” or the "best," people – they are the one’s who are doing the best job acting in their own self-interest, which in turn, is having the most positive effect on the economy as a whole. It’s why when we talk about how people contribute to society; invariably we mean that in a purely economic sense. In short, it is our duty to be selfish – to want as much as we can dream of because that’s how you grow an economy, which is the most important thing in our society. The health of a nation has nothing to do with things like our emotional, physical, or spiritual health as individuals, but our economic. Acting in our own economic self-interest is why people like Ken Lay do what they do. It’s why men rape and people steal. It’s why I buy clothes from the GAP - it is more important that I get nice looking clothes at cheap prices than someone in China getting paid a fair wage. It is also why we continue to spew greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – we just aren’t willing to take an economic hit, any sort of hit, in order to secure future generations a climate that has been so pivotal in our success as a species. Short-term needs are much more important than long-term considerations. This is me we are talking about and I get what I want. Right now.

In order to believe in the primacy of your own interests, you have to believe that you are better than everyone else (and yes, I struggle with that too). On a global scale, humans believe that they are better than animals, plants and microbes, hence why our perceived interests take priority over there’s (I used the word perceived here because while we believe that our immediate, material interests are primary, by destroying the diversity of life we are in fact, irreparably harming ourselves in the long run). On a cultural level, when our forefathers conquered the world and all the people in it they were able to do so because they believed that their culture was better and as a result, our interests more important than the savage’s. Today, people in the west believe that the way that they live is the best (the one right way to live), and act as such our interests come before all others, whether they be Muslim, South American or Asian because we live better. The United States, the epicenter of the modern materialistic world, is the most arrogant, brazen, and proudest nation on the planet, and one which acts in their own interest more than any because they believe that they have the right too – they live better than any.

As I have grown older I have tried to put aside my selfishness – I try to do things for other people just for the sake of doing them. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I succeed. As a civilization we do not have such luxuries. If we continue to live as if our needs are the most important we will continue to be plagued with problems that have the ability to threaten our society whether they be environmental or political. The question is - how do you teach a people to be selfless when they watch so much TV – a place where selfishness is not only promoted, but also celebrated? How do you change a selfish society that requires immediate gratification into one that looks at the bigger picture and becomes concerned about long-term implications? How do you teach people who believe they are better than other’s, whose entire belief structure is based on the fact that they know how to live better than everyone else, that they are in fact, wrong? How do you get people who believe that an omnipotent power has chosen them to be special to believe that they are no more important than anyone or anything else?

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

What if God was...all of us?

2007-01-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

I promised an entry on the 'seven deadly sins' early in the new year and now find myself asking, 'is March still considered early in the new year'? For life has taken a turn for the harried lately, sleep is hard to come by, and the topic, now that I get a look at it from this side of a blank screen, is daunting, to say the least.
Before I even begin to express my thoughts on those seven deadlies, I must first attempt some definition of 'sin'. And before I can do that, since the concept of sin is so intertwined with the concept of 'god', it seems I must attempt to define 'god'--something I find difficult to do using mere words.
Oh, I can tell you what god is not, at least not to me. God is not some heavenly Father sitting on a cloud someplace, listening to an endless litany of prayers and saying 'yes' to some, 'no' to others, and 'maybe, but not yet' to still others. In short, god is most definitely not a celestial Magic 8-ball. To illustrate why, imagine two opposing basketball teams about to take the court, each praying for a victory. Both teams are convinced 'God' is listening, and both teams fervently believe 'God' is on their side. Yet only one team will emerge victorious. Is that a function of faith? How can it be, if both sides believe equally?
If you find the above illustration silly, change the basketball teams into armies. You might still find the whole thing rather a joke, but rest assured a great many real-life armies do not. There exists an army of born-again Christians who assume they are God's Chosen; there exists an army of Muslims who have a different name for God, but are absolutely convinced they are on a divine mission.
The god I believe in, as I have alluded time and time again in this blog over the years, does not judge anyone, ever. There are two reasons for this. One, he/she/it (pick your pronoun: it really makes no difference) loves unconditionally, which makes the entire idea of 'judgment' a contradiction in terms. More importantly, though, there is nothing to judge.
There is nothing to judge. How can there be? For a judgment to be necessary, a crime must have occurred. Damage must have been done, somehow. And how, pray tell (pun intended) would one go about damaging something as big, as all-encompassing, as god? We damage each other, of course, and commit crimes large and small, but we never do it without what we think of as a damned good reason. We humans never get out of bed in the morning and say to ourselves, 'I'm going to be as evil as possible today'. No, whatever 'evil' we do is usually motivated by misguided self-interest. It feels good, or it gets me something I want, and so on.Okay, I hear somebody saying, but God sees our crimes against others, and punishes us for them.Really? Using what standard? Which Holy Scripture? The Koran commands believers to murder unbelievers. So is murder okay if a devout Muslim commits it?
It's time we humans face facts. We're in control here. Us. Not some fairytale Our-Father-Who-Art-In-Heaven. We're all making it up as we go along. This is a scary thought for many, if not most, people on this planet. They want desperately to know what to think, what to believe, what to have faith in. Couple that with a crushing sense of inferiority felt by most of us...an almost total inability to think for ourselves, believe in ourselves, and have faith in each other, and it becomes easy to understand why the world is in the state it's in.
So does that mean there is no god? Yes...and no. There is no god as many of us have imagined 'Him'. That God is far too limited in scope, far too petty, far too...human.
I believe, though, that there is a god, a god that doesn't give two shits whether you believe in god or not. You could use other words instead, with no loss of meaning. Nature. The Universe. Love. Joy. Freedom.
You.
That's right: thou art God. While you're trying to wrap your head around that, take great pains not to single yourself out, because the girl down the street from you is also God, and so is that mother-in-law you can't stand. That 'stranger on the bus' is God. So's your lover, your boss, your worst enemy.
We all of us--every last one--are God-bits. We have within us the ability to create, which is the defining characteristic of a creator. Do we not create our experience here on Earth, individually and collectively? Can we not create matter--by which I mean, does not what we create matter? We're all making it up as we go along.
We have the ability to love unconditionally, though many of us have forgotten just how that's done. There's nothing we can't do if we put our minds, hearts, and spirits into it. Umm, Ken, this is all very esoteric and all that, but we can hurt each other. If we're all this big God-thing, how is that possible?It isn't.We can choose to experience hurt, but it is not necessary. It is possible--easy, with practice--to choose to be happy in the face of what some would consider monstrous. We're all making it up as we go along.
MORE TO BE MADE UP SOON....

W(h)ither the world, 2007?

2006-12-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

I still don't do New Year's resolutions. For the same reasons I gave last year: nothing in my life needs to be solved (let alone "re-solved"); and if it did, I could just as easily change course sometime next week or next month.
I also don't like to look ahead too far. One day at a time, that's my motto. Trying to discern the details of a 365-day journey from the vantage point of December 31 is just silly when neither your eyesight nor your foresight are up to scratch, and your insight is occasionally spotty to boot.
Nevertheless, because I've never been ashamed of making a fool out of myself, here are various and sundry predictions for the year 2007.

(1) ELECTION FEVER WILL DESCEND UPON US AGAIN. REPEATEDLY.
First will come a federal election, probably launched in February over Afghanistan and the environment. The Green Party will--very grudgingly--be allowed a little more media coverage, though it probably won't be featured in the debates. Nevertheless, it will win at least one seat in a parliament with a very slim Liberal minority.Then we'll see a Quebec provincial election and the end of Jean Charest.And finally an election in Ontario, which until just recently I would have said would be a cakewalk for Tory's Tories. Now that Tory's shot himself in the foot by supporting McFibber's motion of an immediate 25% raise for MPPs (!?!?!?!), I'm no longer so sure we won't see another four years of Premier Norman Bates.

(2) BOTH AMERICA AND BRITAIN WILL FACE ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK. It won't be on the scale of a 9/11. The jihadists got shit-lucky with that one, and at least some of us are awake, now. But I've been mentally predicting small-scale attacks ever since 9/11, things like suicide bombings at Starbucks outlets (at least one bleeding patron will express his sense of 'hurt and betrayal' at the actions of 'freedom fighters'.) These small-scale attacks would cripple the American economy far worse than one or two gaudy explosions, and surely the terrorists realize that?

(3) CLIMATE CHANGE WILL KEEP ACCELERATING.
Related: the bickering match over whether or not it's actually happening, whether or not any given event can be linked to it, whether or not we have anything to do with it, whether or not there's anything we can do to stop it, all of that will get louder and louder and louder. Which is really sad, because the answers are staring us right in the face: yes, it's happening; yes, many events can be linked to it, although Britney's lack of panties probably isn't one of them; well, put it this way, we certainly aren't helping the situation; there may be something we can do to stop it and they may not be at this point, but, um...DON'T YOU THINK WE'D BETTER AT LEAST TRY? We're kind of adaptable, this species called human. Maybe we'd better start adapting.
(4) GOOGLE WILL BUY SOMETHING ELSE.
eBay? Amazon? The Vatican? Who knows? But the possibilities are endless. A footwear chain (Shoogle). Anheuser-Busch (renamed Broogle). A brass band, complete with flooglehorns. The novel I'm writing in dribs and, occasionally, drabs sees Google owning everything. That won't happen...this year.(Aside: I still haven't figured out how they make money, let alone the shitloads they're making. Do THAT many people actually click on ads I've seen so many times I don't even see them anymore?)
(5) THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS, everywhere you looked in 2006, will still be everywhere you look in 2007, only more so. The schizoid nature of the United Hedonistic States of Jesus, long evident to the rest of the world, will remain largely invisible inside that once-great country. Look for an expansion on this topic from me early in the New Year.

(6) THE WORLDWIDE ECONOMY'S IN FOR A WILD RIDE. The stock market run of 2006 can not be sustained much longer. Nor can the red-hot housing market, the comparatively low price of oil, or the consumer confidence index. Sorry to be a gloomy Gus, but I really do believe the good times aren't here to last.

(7) NO PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST THIS YEAR. This might be the easiest prediction of all.

Daddy's Medicine, Happy New Year!!

2006-12-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

OK, I think I owe a light post, so here you go, I think I and we need one.

The team of analysts I lead at work bought me a great Solstice present, a bottle of Level Vodka. The higher end Absolut, kind of like how Acura is Honda's higher end. My team knows me too well and it was a perfect gift

I usually do not endorse products, but I feel that it is warranted in this case. Level is far and away many "levels" up in quality and price from the vodka I usually consume. It is oh so very smoooooth and delightful. I would highly recommend Level vodka if you are in the spending mood.

So I would like to thank my great team for a perfect gift.

The following is the recipe for Daddy's Medicine as I jokingly call it.

A any BIG tall glass
About 1/4 to a 1/3 (depending on the day) of Vodka ( I wish I had more Level)
A shot of OJ

Diet Mountain Dew:

Happy New Year everyone!

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

Why is the Truth the Bane of My Existence?

2006-12-27T11:47:00.000-08:00

Why do I care so? Really, what is the big fuck'in deal? Who gives a shit. Does it really matter? Live your life and shut up. Don't think beyond your reality. Blindly follow the GODamned current theories and sew your pipe hole shut. Why can't you just let it go a bit (which I think I need to do)?

Well, I will tell you why...

I care because the TRUTH (knowledge not belief) is what is important. The truth is what we should base our behavior on, not conjecture. I truly care to KNOW what the truth is. Why are we here on this little blue dot in this massive universe? A universe that in size and scope is beyond our comprehension. It is unfathomable. Why are we not continuing to search for the truth to the creation of the Universe?

Why are we not allowing our cosmic thinking to evolve; or are we and it is just moving way too slow for me. After all, evolution is definitely speeding up exponentially. Is our cosmic thinking just lagging behind?

Each Winter morning it is dark out when I leave for work. On many of those mornings I am lucky enough to look up to a clear sky and see the beautiful shimmering stars looking down upon this lost organism. I stop for a moment, look up to the sky and ask myself...

"Where is everyone?"

Crossposted at Rocketstar's Thought's on Life

In the News - Pre-Marital Sex, Fox News, and all that Holiday Stress

2006-12-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

Sorry to usurp Ken's latest post, but I just wanted to pass on a couple of interesting news items from the past week before we leave on our Christmas excursion.

First off, a study released this weeks claims that more than 9 out of 10 Americans had sex before marriage. Just thought it was interesting in a nation that is about 80% Christian, almost 95% of the population has had sex before taking their vows. I am not a biblical scholar, but isn't one of the "rules" to not engage in pre-marital sex? What does this say about a group of people who sometimes try to take the moral high road by invoking their Christian status and whom tsk-tsk our sexualized society and those who dare "hump" outside of wedlock?

Secondly, to add a little more fuel to David Cross' belief that we are wasting our freedom, comes the story of Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss Nevada, Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell. To be honest, it is as dumb a story as I have ever seen. Apparently Miss Teen USA was caught drinking underage, Miss USA likes to party (shocking considering she is 21), Miss Nevada had some raunchy photos taken of her when she was 17, and all three are all being scolded in public and being dropped by organizations that are tied to them. Donald Trump, who I guess runs these competitions, allowed Miss USA to retain her crown, but fired Miss Nevada, and was later chastised by Rosie O'Donnell for some reason, and then fired back at Rosie. To make matters worse, this story has been headline news on FoxNews.com for the past few days. I know, if I believed in conspiracy theories I would say that they are just distracting the right from the tie game in Iraq, but I just think it goes to show that some people just care about stupid shit and Fox News watchers are some of the dumbest (I mean, most of them still think that Iraq had wmd's right?). Who gives a shit about any of this?

Finally, stress has been the in the news lately and it isn't good news. A study released this week found that "seventy-six per cent of Canadian respondents said they feel stress in their daily lives frequently or sometimes." So that means that everyday, three quarters of us feel stressed to some extent. How fun. Why? Well for starters, rising debt, people are getting less sleep, taking less holidays, and working more. And we wonder why depression rates are rising (being that stress is a major trigger for depressive episodes). In even happier news, the holiday season is the cause of increased stress for half of all American women, leading to over-eating and drinking. I have never understood this - aren't the holidays supposed to be fun? Why are so many people stressed out about it? Could it be, as Charlie Brown says, that we have forgotten the meaning of Christmas? That it has become far too commercial? Hmmmm....

Happy Holidays!

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

Apropos of Nothing At All...

2006-12-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

...seems an odd time of year for the topic, but there you go.
A friend of mine at work lent me a burned DVD of "Loose Change", the controversial 9/11 conspiracy film. I guess he thought he'd gift me with The Truth (tm) this Christmas.
On my way home from work, I tripped (as I am wont to do) and the DVD skittered out of my coat pocket somehow, popped out of its case, and skidded across concrete. Roundly cursing everything in sight, I tried to pick the DVD up, and it only scratched across more concrete. Great, I thought. Now I have to burn him a new DVD. I've got the capability to do that, but I never have.
So: on to one of those fileshare sites which are, technically, legal here in Canada. "Loose Change" was very easy to locate, and took seemingly no time at all to download. I watched Part I while Part II collected itself, and then tried to burn both onto a DVD. No dice...I couldn't even find the file. One program showed it in my library; three others asserted it wasn't on my computer anywhere.
Must be a conspiracy.
So thinking, I attempted my tried-and-true method of rendering scratched CDs playable, to wit: douse disc in cold running water and gently wipe outwards from the center with very soft cloth. I don't know if this is recommended or not, but it certainly works for me. And it did this time.
Into the DVD player it went, and I was quickly confronted with different footage than I'd downloaded.
Shit. Is there more than one of these things floating around?
I watched a little more. Yup. "2nd edition", it said on the screen.
Off to the wonderful world of Wikipedia, where I was informed that the folks behind Loose Change had indeed released a second edition (and have a third in the works) to "correct inaccuracies" from the first time out.
Oops. Y'know, when you're trying to get The Truth out there, you really ought to avoid those.

Okay, I admit it: I'm skeptical of any 9/11 conspiracy right off the bat. Like one of my idols, Spider Robinson, I'm deeply skeptical of any conspiracy with more than three living principals. The chances of your little conspiracy balloon being deflated by the Pinprick Of Reality actually exceed a hundred percent when there are thousands of people involved: eyewitnesses, perpetrators, bystanders...

But I had resolved to at least give this thing a hearing with a mind as open as I could make it. So I soldiered on. And I have to give Dylan Avery and his crew a lot of credit: they do a fantastic job of pulling wool over the eyes of sheep. If you're only paying reasonably close attention, you'll probably come away transformed into a Believer.
If, however, you pay really close attention...and if you're willing (unlike so very many) to search out the rebuttals of those who have paid attention to every last detail, you'll realize the 9/11 Truth Movement is just that. A movement. A big, smelly movement.

According to the site Wikipedia so helpfully directed my inquiring mind to, there are 81 errors of fact and 345 instances of conjecture not supported by evidence/logical fallacies in the space of 100 minutes. And many of them are quite lovingly detailed. Come away from this site, having watched the video and read the minute-by-minute controlled demolition, and you'll feel ashamed of yourself for even thinking the Loose Change people were on to something.

I often wonder what it is that prompts people to see conspiracies where none exist...was 9/11 insufficiently horrible? Was that it? I for one hope not.

Happy Solstice !!!

2006-12-16T12:35:00.000-08:00

I say "Happy Solstice" in gest of course as most of you out there do not celebrate the Winter Solstice or Summer Solstice. What is the The Solstice ? In short, it is that time in our trek around the Sun each year when the tilt of the Earth causes either the Northern or Southern hemisphere to tilt farthest away from the Sun, on 12/21-22 and 6/21-22 each year. Quick Time Movie of Earth's Tilted Rotation

Some call the Winter Solstice "the shortest day of the year". Well all days are 24 hours long; what they really mean is that the amount of daylight is the smallest on the Winter Solstice.

As agnostics, we have chosen to celebrate the Winter Solstice as our year end celebration. A celebration of the dynamic dance the Earth and Sun perform through this little piece of the Universe we just so happen to exist in. A time to think about the year past, the year forward and to celebrate life and those around us.

The official "White Paper" has not been created. We have thrown around some ideas. Between the Winter Solstice and January 1st, there may be:

12/21-22 Celebrate the Winter Solstice

A Day of Family

A Day of Fun

A Day of Community Awareness

A Day of the Individual

A Day of Giving and Receiving

1/1 New Year Celebration

As we plan our yearly celebration, the chants and CONSTANT salutations of "Merry Christmas" is a constant reminder that we live in a Christian nation. Why do people just assume that I am a Christian? I am kind of getting tired of it. I have been told by my dentist, several greeters at stores, work people, bell ringers etc... Hey people, just because I am white does not mean I am a Christian. I am not a Christian. I am one that celebrates that which we know and those we love.

I hope that one day people remove the importance of the public displays of religiosity or I may have to begin to shout back....

"Happy Solstice"

Cross Posted at http://rocketstarinmpls.blogspot.com/

Freedom - That's all we've done with it?

2006-12-14T20:52:00.000-08:00

Warning: This post has crass language. If you get offended by swear words, please do not read the italicized words. Skip them and move on to the main post. I do not want anyone not getting into heaven because of me.

So here’s the second part to that story about seeing the electric scissors ad. I saw this ad for electric scissors during an episode of a Simple Life. Which is a show that glorifies these two rich, giggling cunts who have no respect for anybody, just vile people, awful human beings and who get away with everything because their rich, you know, and the blond one will blow you apparently. But here’s the thing, I saw that ad for electric scissors during one of the highest rated shows in America about these two rich fucking mean, pieces of shit and I vowed that I’m going to retain that image every time I hear George Bush go ‘the terrorists hate our freedom.’ You know what? I hate our freedom. Me, little ‘ol me, I’m an American, I fucking hate it. That’s all we’ve done with it? We’re fucking assholes man. We are awful.

- Comedian David Cross on his album "It's Not Funny."

Whenever I see something on TV or in the media that makes me shake my head, Cross’ words come into my head – this is all we’ve done with our freedom? Hey, I love freedom. I love not worrying about dying by violent means unless some deranged goth-mailman becomes disgruntled and shoots up the coffee shop I frequent. I love being able to express myself freely, with swears if needed. I love that I can have a disagreement with someone I have never met on the internet and go to bed knowing that he won’t come after me with some blood vendetta. But at what point do we look around and go, fuck, what have we created and when do we ask ourselves if we couldn’t have done better than this? To help highlight my point, I want to focus on two stories - the public decline of Britney Spears and the signing of Japanese star Daisuke Matsuzaka by the New York, I mean Boston Red Sox.

Spears, a multi-millionaire because as a 15 year old she wore skimpy clothes and parents allowed their underage daughters to buy her cheesy, over-produced music, is the darling of the tabloids and the public who buy their shit rags by the millions. In recent weeks she has filed for divorce from some dude who used to be a dancer, and who is now going to live off the alimony he will surely get from his wealthy soon to be ex-wife, and in an attempt to “get over it” has started to hang out with one of the two “giggling cunts” - Paris Hilton, a women who is famous because her father has a lot of money and because she is good at exploiting our hyper-materialistic and celebrity-obsessed society. So over the past couple of weeks, Hilton and Spears, along with another young starlet, Lindsay Lohan, have been see around town partying it up, and Spears has been photographed not once, but twice, without her panties on, exposing her vagina to the cameras of the paparrazi, and the entire world. Now some of you are probably wondering, why does Peter know all about Britney Spears vagina? To be honest, the first I heard of it was at FoxNews.com, on the front page in an article discussing whether or not her slips were planned or not. In the name of science, and in order to be fully informed of the subject, I searched the pictures out. As I was sitting there looking at Britney Spears vagina, I asked myself – is this what we have regressed too? A society that is so obsessed with celebrity, that a picture of one of their vagina’s gets more attention than issues that most sane people would agree are much more important, whether they be political, social, or environmental. When anthropologists look back at our society thousands of years from now, they will wonder why we were so obsessed with something that is in the end, so unimportant. Why do we care so much about the rich and famous? Why do women like Spears and Hilton get followed around by hundreds of photographers, who then sell their photos to the countless magazines, TV shows, and websites that obsess over the most mundane details of their daily lives? Couldn’t we be doing something more productive with our freedom?

The Freedom Vagina

The second story is that of Daisuke Matsuzaka, a 26 year old pitcher from Japan who just signed with the Boston Red Sox for 52 million over 6 years (after the team paid 51 million to his Japanese team for his negotiating rights). Now I’m not here to talk about the ridiculous sums of money pro athletes get paid – in the market economy they get paid fair market value considering how much income they produce for the teams owners. What I want to talk about is the absolute obsession some of us freedom lovers have with a game. Now don’t get me wrong, I love sports. I am a huge basketball fan, both in terms of watching the game and playing it. But at the end of the day, I know it’s just a sport. If my favorite team wins, great, if they lose, I won’t lose any sleep over it. Watching the media frenzy over Matsuzaka, however, it is clear that not all of us feel the same way. There are far too many people out there who take sports too seriously, with some fans going to the length of tracking Matzuzaka’s plane when he was coming to Boston to announce the signing. Is that really what we need to be concerned about? In modern society, has our own entertainment taken precedence over everything else? In a world where we have so many problems, is sports and entertainment the realm we want to be concentrating on with the dwindling number of hours we have available to ourselves outside of work? I don’t mean to suggest that people should not be entertained, just that we need to find a little balance between it and the more important issues. I’ve often said that if we as North Americans we’re half as well informed on political issues as we were on issues relating to Britney Spears vagina, we would have the best democracy in the world – with more people paying attention, you would never see the scandals that plagued the Liberals in Canada and the Republicans in the U.S. – an informed and caring electorate, not to mention media, would never allow corruption to become that embedded in their government.

George Costanza in his puffy coat.

Again, don’t get me wrong, I believe that I am lucky to live where I do in this time, and I also believe that we have done a lot of good with our freedom (medical and scientific advances, as well as stronger strains of marijuana) but I also feel that unless our society changes our money and entertainment obsessed way of life, our time here may be up before we know it (you know, with things like climate change, ecosystem destruction, and increasing extinction rates, not to mention an out of control world’s population using and fighting over a finite, and shrinking, resource base). But I also know that nothing will ever change until we realize that while Britney Spears vagina is nice and all (well, not really actually) and that Daisuke Matsuzaka might very well be the next Pedro Martinez, in the end, it doesn’t fucking matter – at the very least, it shouldn’t matter as much as we make it out too. She’s just a crappy singer who happens to be pretty. He’s a guy who can throw a baseball in a way so that others can’t hit it very well. Next week there will be another story to turn our attention away from more important issues – in fact, there is an endless supply of entertainment and sports stories for us and the media to get obsessed over. I have to wonder though, why do we care so much? Is this really how we want to use our freedom?

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

It's the Iraqi's fault

2006-12-06T18:36:00.000-08:00

With Iraq in a full blown civil war and with the Iraq Study Group coming out with its report stating that George Bush's Stay the Course War in Iraq is failing, the right wing talking heads of Fox News are, instead of admitting the failure of their beloved President's battle plans, now pinning the failure of the war where it is deserved - on the Iraqi's themselves. Wait a second? This is the Iraqi's fault?

Says Bill O'Reilly:

The problem in Iraq is not American. The problem is the Iraqis themselves. They're not fighting for their freedom in a way that puts the bad keys on the defensive. (source)

Now before you ask, who are the bad keys, I think O'Reilly meant the bad guys. But seriously, what is wrong with these Iraqi's? Why aren't they stepping up and taking freedom by the reigns? I know, I know, they probably don't leave their house for the fear of dying, but come on guys, step up to the plate!

Says John "The 'do" Gibson:

Whose fault is the trouble in Iraq? Bush's fault? No. It's the Iraqis' fault. They are the ones who are committing sectarian violence, not American troops. They are the ones who are using their freedom from Saddam to kill their neighbors instead of trying to get the power running, or pump the oil, or pave the streets, or fix the schools and repair the hospitals. (source)

Now, you would think that most people would look at the situation and say, hmmm, what caused Iraq to be turned into a lawless state? What caused Iraq's schools, hospitals, and power lines to be destroyed? Did the Iraqi's ask for the Americans to come in, bomb the shit out of their infrastructure, not have enough troops to secure the country, and leave a huge power vacuum? Is that all really the Iraqi's fault? Are we to the point yet where we can reasonably say, maybe the Iraqi's were better off with Saddam?

Sure, there are some Iraqi's who are causing violence in Iraq, just as there are a tonne of foreign fighters who came in after Saddam was crushed who are causing violence. The situation is desperate. But instead of being grown ups, the American right is acting like a bunch of fucking babies, crying about how it isn't their fault - it is anyone but there's. It's the Iraqi's, it's the terrorists, it's the Democrats - when will they wake up and realize that they invaded a country that wasn't a threat to them, wasn't supporting terrorism, and then as a result of ridiculously bad post-war occupation plan, turned the country into the biggest hotbed of terrorism the world has ever seen. What we have in Iraq is a dramatic failure of American foreign policy, but you will never hear them utter that - it's the Iraqi's fault. If only they were more civilized right?

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

The United States, "THE" Place To Live

2006-11-30T19:17:00.000-08:00

I truly believe that this is the greatest country on this planet Earth (sorry my fellow Canadians but due to the temperature, you came in a close second ;o) ) I think that the US is overall the best spot on this little blue planet to live my 70-80 short years. I love it here, and apart from a little villa in the South of France to vacation to, it's all I need.

But I think that too many Americans hold a blind and un-examining perception that we are the best at everything, because we certainly are not. We have very far to go and we need to keep raising the bar we have so quickly raised. One thing we know we are the best at, is kicking ass. Using our military might to invade and attack other "evil" countries. Lest not we forget that many of those same countries will one day posses a nuclear weapon. The following is an email that Brianinmpls.blogspot.com sent me. Obviously take with a grain of salt, but you get the idea. I always wondered exactly what No Talking Points" meant, I hope I didn't violate that ideal.

MAHER: And finally, New Rule: America must stop bragging that it's the greatest country on earth and start acting like it. [applause] [cheers] Now, I know this is uncomfortable for the faith-over-facts crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured.

Here are some numbers:

Infant mortality rate, America ranks 48th in the world;
overall health 72nd;
freedom of the press, 44nd;
literacy, 55th.

Do you realize there are 12-year-old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with? [laughter] [applause]

Now, America, I will admit, has done many great things:

making the New World democratic comes to mind,
the Marshall Plan,
curing polio,
beating Hitler,
the deep-fried Twinkie. [laughter]

But what have we done for us lately? We are not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church, and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. [laughter] [applause]

And, sadly, we are no longer a country that can get things done, either. Not big things, like building a tunnel under Boston or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines. Couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting email!

Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, If Brazil can do it, America can, too. [laughter] [applause] Excuse me, since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil?! [laughter] We invented the airplane and the lightbulb. They invented the bikini wax, and now they are ahead?! [laughter] [applause]

In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care. And hardly anyone doubts evolution. And, yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't going to be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning!

Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. We are not on a bridge to the 21st century. We are on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

WHITMAN: Take those quarters to Atlantic City, yes.

MAHER: And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we are still number one in everything. We're not. And I take no glee in saying this, because I love my country, and I wish we were. But when you're number 55 in this category and number 92 in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "Number One" finger. [laughter]

As long as we believe being the greatest country in the world is a birthright, we

ll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations and we'll keep losing the moral high ground. Because we may not be the biggest or the healthiest or the best educated. But we always did have one thing no other place did. We knew soccer was bullshit. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

And we also had a little thing called the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorists hate us for our freedom. And he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem. [applause]

----From the Bill Maher HBO show.

I'm against crime. Why aren't judges?

2006-11-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from The Breadbin:

Some things about me have certainly changed over time. I've become a calmer person thanks largely to my wife. I've lost all my homophobia and most of my racism. I still have a materialistic streak, but it's much more easily held in check than it once was.

One place my attitudes have not changed, and likely will never change, is towards crime and punishment. I'm unabashedly right-wing in my theories on both, and nothing I've seen through my limited time on earth has done anything to shake my convictions in the slightest.

Eva's done wonders for my perceptions, broadening my mind in countless ways, admitting shades of gray into a black/white world. But my thoughts about crime and criminals long predate my wife. Liberal types would call them antediluvian; also, probably, barbaric. That's fine. Barbaric simply means 'strange, foreign', and it's been ages since I thought I was anything else.

Every time I hear people gibbering about the "root causes" of crime, I just want to reach out and shake them by their root causes.The "root causes" of crime are assumed to be poverty, an adverse social environment, and dysfunctional family conditions. It is my contention that all of these things, to varying degrees, are simply excuses, and not even good ones.

Poverty

We don't often see abject poverty here in Canada, whatever the NDP may believe. One place it does show up is in the homeless populations of our larger cities. This is a group of people who survive, by and large, on the handouts of strangers. But the vast majority of homeless people are not criminals. When's the last time you heard about some squeegee kid robbing a bank? Or stabbing a Bay St. businesswoman and making off with her purse? Those who are addicted to illicit substances do tend towards petty thievery in order to support their habit, but being poor in and of itself has almost nothing to do with being a criminal. To suggest otherwise is to impugn the vast majority of the poor, who are hard-working and law-abiding. In fact, most of the high-profile juvenile criminal cases over the past decade concern people who are at least middle class, if not higher.

An adverse social environment/dysfunctional family conditions

As a child, I watched a nasty divorce unfold around me. I was physically punished on innumerable occasions from age three to eight or so, something which is now considered child abuse. I'd forgive my mom for all of it...if there was anything to forgive. Fact is, the spanking stick was the only thing I listened to, most of the time, and I've never once laid blame at her or anyone else's feet.

I'm far from the only kid who grew up in less-than-ideal circumstances. Read any memoirs lately? The best one I've ever read is the trilogy by Frank McCourt that begins with Angela's Ashes. Now here is poverty on an elemental level. Also an alcoholic and abusive father, a ghetto which is an Irish version of inner-city Detroit (or Vancouver's Downtown Eastside), prejudice galore, and despair by the bucketful. My childhood was purest Elysian fields in comparison.

Far from evolving into a career criminal, McCourt became a teacher, a shaper of young minds, by all accounts a damned good one. And I'd argue his respectability is the rule, rather than the exception, for those who've been deprived. Because each act, including each criminal act, is a choice. By all means, you might be predisposed to criminality if, for example, your parents were felons and you never learned another way to live your life, or again if you were born without empathy, a true sociopath. But such people are (thankfully) rare.

By no means am I suggesting we should leave the poor be. There are many reasons to offer a hand up out of poverty that have nothing to do with a supposed inclination toward crime and everything to do with basic human dignity.

Ask your average juvenile deliquent about the root causes of his/her crime and you'll usually hear something like "because I felt like it, asshole!" That's it: no need to dig deeper.

So given my attitudes on crime, what do I think of Harper's "reverse onus" announcement?

For those who missed it, persons previously convicted of a gun crime, on arrest for another, will now have to prove why they should recieve bail. And I say, well, duh. Given the number of criminals charged with crimes committed while they're out on bail from commission of other crimes, this is a no-brainer. But it's only a tiny baby step towards a justice system in this country. In fact, it may be utterly meaningless.

It often seems like judges have been appointed based on how much they LOVE criminals. I literally get sick to my stomach every time I read about the drunk driver facing his 78th conviction, or the street thug smirking in court because he knows he'll be back running with his posse by supper. The headline in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record the other day piqued my interest: "Judge Explains Aversion to Prison". Finally, I thought. So I read the story. Guess what the explanation was? "An enlightened civilization should be moving away from imprisonment".

Yeah. Okay. An enlightened individual should be moving away from assaulting people and stealing their property, but you never hear a judge say anything like that, do you?

Following are some of my ideas towards the justice system we do not currently have in Canada. Some of them are a tad harsh--cruel and unusual punishment, you might say--but then, murdering people is cruel and unusual, by my lights.

1) BRING BACK CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. This would be for killers of the Paul Bernardo ilk, guilty to the nth degree, and proud of their crimes. Get rid of 'em. It costs the Canadian taxpayer millions to keep people like Bernardo and Clifford Olsen locked up. Besides, so long as they're alive, it's always possible some judge might think they deserve a second chance. That's not a chance I want to take.
There are two chief arguments against capital punishment: one, it's inhumane; two, it's not much of a deterrent. Inhumane, they say. Death by lethal injection is painless if it's done right...same with the electric chair. Compare that with the pain rapists and murderers have inflicted on their victims. Inhumane my ass.
As for deterrence, I'll grant you that the death penalty hasn't done much to lower the crime rate. There's an easy fix for that, though: one trial, one quick appeal (no more than a week apart), then, if guilty both times, immediate execution. None of this "fifteen years on death row" business.
Besides, while the death penalty may not deter crime, it does a bang-up job lowering the recidivism rate. Dead men don't re-offend. Simple as that.

2) MAKE LIFE MEAN LIFE. As in "the period before death." Corollary: insist that all convicted felons serve their full sentences. No more weekends counting for double time served. No more time off for good behaviour--if your behaviour was that good you wouldn't be in prison, now, would you? After your sentence has been served in full, you're free to go...but conditions will be placed on you and you'll be expected to obey them.
Ken, this would mean many new prisons and a huge cost! Perhaps, but there are ways around that, too:

3) There's a whole lot of frozen tundra wasteland up north where we could deposit people, hundreds of miles from nowhere. Prison Survivor! Best of luck to you, buddy. Think that's really nasty? So do I. Guess you should have thought about that before you offed your wife. Or

4) BRING BACK CHAIN GANGS. Driven our highways lately? The detritus of our throwaway society is everywhere, and unionized employees demand thirty bucks an hour to clean it up. I say prisoners should be doing this work, at a fraction of the cost.

5) THE END OF 'CLUB FED'. No pizza parties, no fashion shows. No television, unless it's tuned to the Disney channel or something like it. Libraries, certainly: in fact, I'd insist on an educational curriculum for all prisoners, based on their abilities. But for the love of Pete, NO INTERNET ACCESS. Two other ideas:

6) Get rid of "attempted murder" charges. You tried to kill somebody; you shouldn't be rewarded for having failed.

7) NO MORE PLEA BARGAINS. Full stop.

And that's all I have to say about that. You may pity the poor murderer in my world if you want. I don't.

Searching for Happiness in all the wrong places

2006-11-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

In his book, The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser argues that materialistic people tend to engage in activities, not because they are fun or challenging, but because they bring reward or praise - the focus on the activity is not the health benefit it brings you, whether it be mental or physical, but whether or not you will get paid for it or because someone will give you praise for doing it. For example, some people write to get acknowledged for their writing or because they can make money at it. Others do it simply because they enjoy writing, and get a sense of self-satisfaction from putting something to paper that they believe in.

In my life, I do both kinds of writing. In order to pay my rent, feed my body, and have enough left over for the occasional movie, bottle of wine, or road trip, I have to get someone to give me money. Since I am not mentally challenged, nor do I have any physical or social limitations, I cannot expect the government to support me, so I have to go out and sell a service to an individual or company who could use those services. And since I am not willing to sell my body, which wouldn't fetch much on the open market anyways, I write books and articles and anything else these people will pay me for. While I still enjoy doing these things, the process can be stressful and at the end of the day, what I write has to be acceptable to someone else - I have to write at a certain level and in a certain style. Although I have been lucky and have been able to write a couple of short books that had reasonably interesting topics (Treaties in Saskatchewan), I would not write these books unless I was paid for them. As a result, I do not always feel a great sense of satisfaction in the end product, at least not as much as I do when I write for the sake of writing, not worrying about whether or not people will like it, or it will be acceptable to those that are paying me.

I am currently taking some time off to write a book that no one is paying me for. In short, it is a look at the world from my perspective, and asks the question why are we so able to lie to ourselves about the unsustainability of our way of life, not only environmentally, but socially as well. Why do we in the west have such an ability to deny reality in order to continue the facade that civilization is the "one right way to live" (as Daniel Quinn noted), and that we are a noble and benevolent society, despite the fact that there is a lot of proof out there that our way of life is destructive to the environment, as well as to individual human beings. I have no idea if anyone will ever publish it, read it, or if they do, if they will like it, but I am writing it because it is something I enjoy doing and it is something that I believe in. I enjoy thinking, reading, and pontificating on things that I see in my world. To be honest, I still have a long way to go in order to complete the book, and I will have to go back to selling my services soon in order to keep paying my rent etc..., but I am happy to have the start that I have.

On the radio today a woman called in to talk about how some of her students had gone off to the Grey Cup Parade in Winnipeg to perform. They had spent months learning the steps and the songs and were excited as all hell to be in the parade. She said that the kids were all doing great and had lots of energy and then they passed the CBC cameras, and their energy level skyrocketed. But that enthusiasm was soon dampened, however, as the kids found out, via cell phone calls from their parents back home in Estevan, that CBC had cut away to a commercial as they were passing the cameras. When the feed returned, all that could be seen was the backs of the band and the commentator said "and there goes the Estevan band." The lady told the radio host how disappointed the kids were and how sad everyone was - they hadn't been on TV and their parents hadn't seen them. Now when they grew up, they wouldn't have that tape to show their kids. I feel bad for these kids, because in today's world, being on TV performing is more important than just performing. Sure, being in a marching band is cool, but being in a marching band on TV is that much more fun. I am sure that the kids were disappointed and sad, and for that I am sorry - I just wonder what messages we are teaching our kids when we show them that we should be doing things for recognition, rather than enjoyment.

Shouldn't the kids have had fun, and felt satisfied with their performance, regardless of who saw it? Shouldn't we do things simply because we like doing these things and not worry about whether or not we are rewarded or praised for doing said activity? Why is it that doing a performance on TV is not disappointing, but not doing it on TV is? Again, I understand that part of it, for these kids, was that their parents didn't get to see them. But let's be honest - most of them probably just wanted to be on TV. TV is cool. It's where famous people live. Canadians sit down in front of their TV's for an average of 20 plus hours a week for a reason - we love our TV's, the shows, and the stars that inhabit it. Average, everyday people want to be on TV and in many cases will do anything, including eating deer penis (Fear Factor anyone?) in order to be on TV. And we do this because we like the recognition that we get for it - we want our fifteen minutes of fame. For those kids, being on TV for the Grey Cup parade, they would get their 15 minutes of fame within their community. I was once in a high school improv tournament that aired on a local cable station for years - people recognized me and it made me feel good.

What are we missing out on, spending a large majority of our time doing things not because we enjoy them, but because we get praised or paid to do it? I do not believe that money buys happiness and believe that the rates of unhappiness, depression, and general dissatisfaction with peoples everyday lives is the result of trying to find happiness in money and praise, or external rewards (and Kasser would agree) - so why do we keep chasing the belief that money will someday buy us happiness, and that being on TV will make us feel important? If those kids had been taught from day one that being praised or put on TV was not the point of being in a band, but that doing it for the sake of its enjoyment was, it wouldn't have mattered one bit whether or not they got on TV. But that is what they expect and what they want because that is what they are taught, even though studies show that these kind of things bring only short-term happiness, and don't increase our satisfaction in life - but doing them for the sake of doing them does. Weird, isn't it?

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Three Political Ideas

2006-11-18T19:43:00.000-08:00

I was planning on doing a long, detailed post concerning my ideas on how to reform politics. But life keeps getting in the way, and besides, it'd be boring. So, without further ado, the three things I believe should be implemented to make politics slightly more appealing. Slightly.

(Note that these ideas come in a Canuck model and may require tweaking for other political systems)

1) MINISTERS SHOULD HAVE SOME IDEA WHAT THE HELL THEY'RE MINISTERING. It boggles my mind whenever there's a cabinet shuffle and Phil E. Buster is moved from Fisheries to Health, while Jeri Mander goes from Foreign Affairs to Finance. Bzzzt. Most everyone in the Ministry of Agriculture should have the better part of a life in farming under their belts, ideally having run a farm of some description at some point. While a high school dropout may have valuable input into how the educational system ought to be run, he shouldn't be the Minister of Education. And it goes without saying that Finance ought to be made up of chartered accountants. (In point of fact, at least one representative from the Ministry of Finance ought to be high in every other Ministry.)
2) THERE SHOULD BE A PLACE FOR JOE AND JILL CITIZEN IN EVERY MINISTRY. I visualize this as something remotely akin to jury duty--not something one could apply for, but something one could be named to...say for a one-year term. This would be a pool of ordinary people, selected at random. The only prerequisite would be citizenship and--perhaps--a high school diploma. Each citizen would be paid a more than decent salary. My thought is that this might keep the career politicians in line, and remind them who's boss.
3) Here's one: THE OPPOSITION PARTIES COULD HAVE CONTROL OF AT LEAST SOME MINISTRIES. How? By making elections a little more complex. Instead of voting for a party or a leader carte blanche, you would vote for a platform...or rather, planks of different platforms. Maybe you like the Liberals' view of health care, but prefer the Tories on justice and the Dippers on the environment. You could vote for both and get both. I realize this could lead to some nasty disputes as far as funding and priorities, but with a little co-operation, aided by ordinary people with a vested interest in seeing the government do something for a change, it might work.

Whaddaya think, folks?

A Point Well Made

2006-11-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

Filipino commercial

A couple of thoughts?
1. Why wouldn’t we see this commercial on North American Television?
2. Why don’t smokers get this message?

What a pitiful game...

2006-11-07T19:43:00.001-08:00

On this election day, I am happy but I am also very sad.

I am happy because this is when I have a voice, a valid voice in who our leaders will be, but unfortunately not a voice in what really happens. This is a time when we as a people can truly change the direction of our “Republic”, unfortunately we have only TWO directions.

I see this day as a chance for US to decide important issues. A day where I hope that the American people will come to their senses. But how much hope can I really have if after having SIX YEARS, we still can’t figure out how to vote.

I have seen the most vile ads from each political side this election year then ever before. It’s sad to watch the slandering, misrepresentation and ignorance in these attack ads. Our political system is BROKEN and it needs fixing. It needs fixing in several ways:

Remove the money from the system. Anyone who believes there is no truth to the saying, “ Money Talks” is insane.
Term Limits: We need to remove career politicians. They are there to serve and leave, serve and leave. This is a service to the American public, not a career.
Can we please have a representative from the middle of the road, where the majority of us reside. (See number 1 for why this doesn’t happen).

I truly love this day, I just wish it felt like more than just an exercise in futility. How awesome would it be to actually vote for someone you really believed in, rather than voting against the one you despise most.

Cross Posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

A Social Experiment

2006-11-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

Starting on Monday Nov. 6th at 12:01AM, I am going to deprive myself of the Internet and my TV for one full month. While there are many reasons why I am doing this, the most important for me is because I feel as though I need a change. I spend far too much time on the Internet and watching TV and need some time away to reflect on my usage of these things, not only for me personally but for us as a society. As a result, I will not be posting at either of the blogs I normally post at, but you will be able to keep up with what I am doing at a new blog that a friend of mine will maintain for me while I do this to myself. You can read about it here (the site also has a much better explanation as to why I am doing this):

http://disconnecteddodos.blogspot.com/

I hope you will all follow along and that I don't go crazy, but I'll miss reading your guys work here and wish you all the best over the next month.

Beauty ?

2006-11-01T18:40:00.000-08:00

The Evolution of Beauty Video approx 1 minute 15 seconds long

Never before has our image of beauty been shaped by our media than it is today, and will be tomorrow and the next day and the next day...

So as our media continues to portray an unrealistic image of what we should value as beauty, what would be a plausible catalyst to change that unrealistic image of beauty be? Now I am not speaking in the intrinsic sense because we do know WHAT beauty is: it's symmetry and health throughout all human societies on this planet. I mean unrealistic in the sense that the occurrence of symmetry and health is not the majority, but the minority.

Or should it change?

How much plastic surgery and young women and even men now with belimia and/or anorexia does it take to change our thoughts on what beauty is?

I realize that NOT everyone sees beauty in the same light; I am speaking of the vast majority here.

Censorship? Sure looks like it!

2006-10-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

I try to read stuff from all over the political spectrum. It's par for the course considering I can't be pigeonholed politically. Many have tried: I've been called a "neocon warmonger" and a "pinko pantywaist" for the same post. I like to read people who put forth their points persuasively and with wit. Michael Moore used to do this well on the left; he has since degenerated into diatribe. A few TorStar journalists cut the mustard, in my view, most notably Richard Gwyn and Michele Landsberg.
On the right, which is generally at least as strident, there are still some voices of (relative) reason. The best by far of these, I have found, is Mark Steyn. He makes no bones about his biases, but unlike many other pundits, he makes some effort at backing them up. And no matter the topic, he's funny.

He's written a book: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, a portion of which was excerpted in Macleans magazine recently. It made for a fascinating read. His basic argument is that Islam is in a militant expansionist phase and is, in the end, unstoppable. His reasons for asserting this are political, of course, but they are even more demographic. Again and again in the excerpt alone we are confronted with the reality of Muslim demographics as opposed to those in the West. Simply put, Muslims are having more babies. Many more. We whitebreads in the West are reproducing far below replacement rates. It's only a matter of time before balances begin to tip.

All of this is written with Steyn's trademark humour, but underneath it all he's deadly serious. The demographic perspective is one I had not considered and I felt merited further attention. I've been on holidays over the past two weeks and have had lots of time to read. Ergo, I thought I'd buy this book.
I tried Chapters. No dice: not available. Nor Coles. Nor Indigo. Nor Smithbooks. No wonder, really: they're all the same company, the biggest retailer in Canada, pretty much the only bookseller in urban and suburban areas, where most of us live. Odd that they wouldn't have a bestseller by a Canadian of note. I've tried each store repeatedly. You can check for yourself online: as of this writing, at least, the book is still unavailable.
Amazon.ca stocks the title, but can't keep it in stock. According to its fluctuating lists, America Alone and Dawkins' The God Delusion are duking it out for number one on Canadian bestseller charts. As of 4:47 p.m., Friday, October 27, America Alone stands alone at the top of the list.

Imagine my amusement when I opened this week's issue of Macleans to find Steyn laughingly mocking the fact he's written one of the top-selling books in Canada without the benefit of sales in Canadian bookstores. I'd love to tell Mark the conspiracy deepens: if you check Chapters/Indigo's list of Canadian bestsellers--which is the one most often reported in daily newspapers--you'll find no sign of America Alone in the top FIFTY. (You will find several left-
leaning lambastings of the Bush Administration.)

How is this possible? How can the same book be number one online and unheard of in Canada's bookopoly?

The only book, to my knowledge, that Heather Reisman has seen fit to ban from her book chains is Mein Kampf, by one Adolf Hitler. I don't recall too much of a foofarow at the time: surely, most Canadians argued, we don't need to read the spewings of such a vile monster. Had I a blog at the time, I would have railed against this act of censorship--partly, I'll admit, because I take a perverse satisfaction in rowing against currents, but mostly because I firmly believe the spewings of even the vilest of monsters should be public knowledge. The thing to do with a fool is to expose him and ridicule him. You can't do it if you aren't permitted to know how foolish he is.

Does Reisman accord Mark Steyn the status and motives of a Hitler? Boy, I for one hope not. But how else to interpret the facts? Is Chapters/Indigo content to let Amazon take their cut of the profits? Why?

We just bought a vacuum cleaner, something called the Dyson DC-14 Animal. It costs: the price is easily three times what you'd normally pay for an upright vacuum. But there's a reason: this vaccuum is good. I ran our old Dirt Devil over our living room carpet and filled the canister about a quarter of the way. I then let the Animal loose on the same carpet and had to dump its canister twice.
So I'm checking out Wikipedia on Dyson vaccuum cleaners and I discovered Hoover considered buying the patent to keep the technology off the market. Little wonder. This thing outperforms anything Hoover ever thought up.

I'm now bound and determined to get a copy of Mark Steyn's book, on the same principle. Somebody very influential has decided, by the evidence, that I shouldn't see it. No matter where you stand on Steyn or anything he writes about, this situation should scare you. It does me.

The Empty Promise of Materialism

2006-10-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a Dateline report on depression and how one particular type cannot be treated by medicine or an alternative therapy like shock treatment. For these people, science cannot provide a cure to what is seen as a problem of the brain – something is not working right up there and it is stopping them from being happy. During the show, they interviewed a lawyer from Toronto, a woman who they claimed “had it all” and whom had received something like forty-two separate shock treatments, who suffered from this incurable type of depression and who was going to undergo some new type of experimental procedure that would implant a device that would try to “wake up” the area of the brain that they believed was causing her to be perpetually depressed. In the end, after a few adjustments to this device in her brain (sorry, I don’t remember the name of it, or exactly what it did, but really, it isn’t important to this topic), she found that she was mildly happier, able to spend a little more time with her kids, and having fewer days where she spends all day sleeping in her bed. The researchers determined her a success because she had gotten slightly better, but in reality she was still depressed, just less so.

Depression is a serious issue in our society, as more and more people are becoming depressed everyday (source). In Canada, just over 5% of people will suffer a major depressive bout this year, a number similar to that in the U.S. (which seems to run between 5 and 7% a year) (source). In both our countries, between 15 and 20 percent of the population will suffer from a depressive disorder in their lifetime. In its extreme, depression, especially undiagnosed depression, can lead to suicide, which is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. (as of 2003 (source)).

The question is, what causes depression? In the Dateline piece, it was clear that the researchers, as well as the woman herself, believed that her depression was physical – a part of her brain wasn’t working. Others claim that it is a chemical imbalance. At several times in the documentary, there were comments made about how perplexing it was that someone in her position, with her money, and her lifestyle could possibly be depressed. It just didn’t make sense – she had achieved what we strive all for: money, power, a family (including two adopted daughters from China), a nice house, and fifty pairs of shoes (OK, I have no idea how many pairs of shoes she has). What I find interesting about all this is the assumption being made – that living the way we do, and achieving the material success we are told will make us happy, will actually result in us being happy. In his book, The High Price of Materialism, psychologist Tim Kasser examines if this is actually true – does having materialistic values as your primary goals, and achieving these goals, actually result in happiness? His answer – a definitive no. In fact, focusing on materialistic goals, things like money, the right look, as well as fame, actually undermines our well-being, both physically, emotionally, and mentally. His research, as well as others, concludes that the more materialistic you are, the better chance you have of being depressed. While I am sure that for some the cause is physical or chemical, and as a result requires a pill or medical device to help solve it, books like Kasser’s show that we also need to start understanding the negative effects that a highly consumer society like our own has on the people who live in it and changing our values to reflect what makes us healthy.

Before we move on, the first thing we should do is define what materialism is. In its loosest sense, materialism is the pursuit of “things,” whether it is a car, a purse, a Star Wars toy, or a CD. Materialism is not just limited to “things,” however, as it also encompasses having the right look (which is achieved, in part by having the right things), as well as fame and power. TV, and the media in general, is also a central component of materialism, as it is where we find out what the latest trends are and in many cases, those who are on TV are the idols of the consumer society – they are what we should all strive to be (wealthy, good-looking, and famous). When we talk about materialistic people, we are talking about people who value material things over all other things – to them, having stuff, power, and fame are the most important things in their lives. Other things are secondary.

In his book, Kasser, who presents his own research conducted over the years, as well as that of his colleagues in his field, claims that the more materialistic you are (meaning, the more you value material things) the more likely you are to have the following traits, experiences, or medical conditions:

• Have depression
• Higher levels of anxiety
• Physical symptoms such as headaches, backaches, sore muscles, and sore throats
• Drug and alcohol problems
• Low self-esteem
• To feel insecure and unsafe
• Shorter, less positive relationships
• Less involvement in the community
• Be Narcissistic (Vain people who believe they are better than others – psychologists, see this attitude as a cover for a low self-esteem)
• Be paranoid
• Be passive-aggressive
• Be dependent on others
• Be obsessive-compulsive
• Be possessive
• Be less generous
• Envious of others success
• Experience less happiness in their day to day lives
• Come from divorced families
• Come from poor families
• Feel more alienated from society
• Compare themselves negatively to people they see on TV
• Less concerned with benevolence (“preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent, personal contact, and includes valuing the characteristics of being loyal, responsible, honest, forgiving, and helping, and of desiring true friendship and mature love” (65))
• Less concerned with universalism (“understanding, appreciations, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature” (65)).
• Treat people like objects
• Care less about freedom, autonomy, and self-expression
• Watch TV more frequently
• Be more concerned with how others view you
• Do things out of pressure and coercion
• Be less concerned about the environment

Now, not all people who are highly materialistic are like this, Kasser is simply arguing that, based on his research and others, the more materialistic you are, the more likely you are to experience these things. The question is why – what is it about materialism that makes people less happy and healthy, and seemingly selfish, uncaring people? Here are some notes on why that might be (as well as some other ramblings to get us to the end).

• Kasser argues that one of the things that motivates materialistic people is previously unmet needs for security and safety. Children raised in environments that are not warm (in the emotional sense), or a divorced family, may feel insecure about themselves, as well as unsafe about life in general, and as a result, turn to material things to make themselves feel happy. Marketers tell us that their products will make us happy, and Kasser argues that insecure people are more susceptible to those messages. “Materialistic values are both a symptom of an underlying insecurity and a coping strategy taken on in an attempt to alleviate problems and satisfy needs” (42). The problem is that material goods, while making people feel secure in the short term, do not alleviate the underlying problem – it is a coping mechanism, much like drugs and alcohol. In short, you can never buy enough stuff to make yourself feel safe and secure.

• Since we are told that products or the right look will bring us happiness, many people focus much of their energy into attaining these things – but when we attain these things, whether it is a raise or praise from someone, the pay-off in terms of good-feeling is short-lived. Kasser presents several studies that show that people who achieve some material goal do not feel better about themselves, nor are they happier. Since they believe that money and stuff is what brings them happiness, instead of focusing on other needs, they simply raise the bar – if they get more stuff, more power, more fame, then maybe they will feel happy. But it usually never happens.

• “A person strongly oriented towards materialistic values might originally experience a “high” from a small purchase or paycheque, but will eventually require more and bigger possessions and sums before the equivalent positive feelings occur. People thus become obsessed with possessions and money, looking got the next new thing that will bring them the temporary fix they no longer can receive from their old things” (59). In fact, a new study reports that 5% of Americans are compulsive shoppers – people are literally addicted to shopping. I’m sure the rates in Canada are similar (source).

• People who are highly materialistic also tend to ignore their other needs, as they become solely focused on money and stuff (because they believe that this is what will bring them happiness). So instead of focusing on personal relationships or involvement in our communities, which psychologist’s state is inherent to our well being, materialists spend all their time working, shopping, and watching TV – the latter two in particular that bring us no benefit in terms of our well-being, and can do much to hurt our well-being (for example – excessive shopping can lead to debt, which is a huge stress in people’s lives – in the U.S., personal debt topped two billion dollars in 2003 (source).

• Kasser is unsure whether materialism breeds low self-esteem, or the other way around. Most materialistic people have what Kasser calls a “contingent” self-esteem, as it is contingent on external rewards (whether it be praise, a good grade, or getting a raise). The problem with this type of self-esteem is that how we feel about ourselves doesn’t matter – only what others feel about us. Who we are isn’t important, only what we have, and with a contingent self-esteem, if we fall short in terms of what is expected of someone in our consumer society, and others look down on us, our self-esteem will continue to take hits.

• Since materialistic people are more likely to view people as objects, they tend not to get that close to others, or care about their feelings or experiences. They use people for personal gain and as a result, don’t have long lasting, meaningful relationships. Highly materialistic people are also more likely to treat their spouses as objects and value them only for what they bring monetarily into the relationship. Not healthy.

• Kasser also argues that materialistic people care less about freedom, autonomy, and self-expression, and are more susceptible to coercion and pressure. The reason? Well, within consumer society, people are told what is cool and what isn’t, namely by marketers. Since marketers define cool, for the most part, most people end up buying all their stuff from the same places – as Kasser comments “profit margins rely on mass production and mass consumption” (73). While we all like to believe that we are individuals, and are told that if we buy certain things we will be, the truth is that we are just like everyone else. And since highly materialistic people care more about what others think, they become pressured to keep up with the latest trends in order to fit in and have the right look. Materialistic people end up doing things because they have too, in order to keep up with Oprah. These are not the traits of people who care about freedom, autonomy and self-expression – being a slave to consumerism has a way of crushing those things within us because we stop doing things because we want too.

• Materialistic people, since they are always trying to keep up with the latest trends, also tend to do things less often just for the “fun of it.” Materialistic people tend to engage in activities for rewards or praise, not because the activity is fun or because it is challenging. I don’t know about you, but doing things for the fun of it, is well, fun and healthy. Doing things solely because we expect praise or a reward gets tiring and certainly isn’t fulfilling – maybe to you, but not to me.

• As well, since materialistic people are more worried about how they look to others, when they do something they tend to be more conscious of others, and how they are being perceived, rather than simply “giving themselves over” to the activity. I know for one, that when I play basketball and someone I know comes to watch, I become more aware of my mistakes on the floor and many times, play worse and enjoy the experience less. The point is that materialistic people are rarely “in the moment” or what Kasser calls “the flow.” There is too much else for them to worry about to simply give in to the experience and enjoy it for the sake of it, regardless of the outcome.

One of the frightening things about Kasser’s analysis on the research into materialism, is the growing number of people “who believe that it is very important or essential to be ‘very well off financially’ has risen from just over 40 percent (in the 1960’s) to over 70 percent” (104). More and more people are valuing materialistic goals over all other things, and passing those values onto their children. As depression rates continue to increase, we look to pills and brain implants to help cure us, but we never seem to look at how we live – perhaps the promise of materialism is empty. Maybe we can never be happy striving for wealth, fame, and power, and in fact, maybe it only makes us feel worse about ourselves as we try and keep up with the ever-growing number of things we feel we need to be successful in the modern world. Yes, we all must consume to survive, but once our basic security needs are met, we need to find a more healthy balance – it is our priorities that are in need of a good re-shuffling. Now people will argue that the economy as is relies on massive consumption and they are probably right, but if the evidence suggests that our material ambitions are making us unhealthy, perhaps an economy that is a little less robust is a good thing. The less time we work and focus on buying things, the more time we have to spend time with our families and friends and doing things that we enjoy for no other reason than they are fun and challenging. Our health may depend on it.

Cross Posted at Dodosville.

Personal Freedom Takes a Hit

2006-10-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

Internet Gambling Dead? - article

President Bush on Friday signed into law yet another shot to our personal freedom. The government thinks they need to be my babysitter. There are several reasons why this really makes no sense.

1. First of all, adults are more than capable of taking care of themselves. We allow adults to do many things that may cause them harm:

Own a gun
Drive a car
Drink alcohol
Smoke Cigarettes
Vote
Have Children
AND THE WORST is the next reason…futility.

2. Second of all is futility. It is an impossible task. There is no way they will be able to enforce the law or stop workarounds.

"This is a smart industry, there'll be hundreds of workarounds," said Jay Bailey, director of development for the National Right To Online Gaming, a three-month-old entity representing 20,000 online gamblers.”

“One oft-cited workaround is for online gamblers to sign-up for credit cards with firms located outside North America, or establish bank accounts outside the U.S.”

Are you kidding me? In this day an age of technology you think that the Gambling industry WILL find a way around the law that will make it just as easy for me as it is today to fund an account? This is a 12 BILLION dollar industry.

3. The HYPOCRACY of the government is sickening. The government is a GAMBLING ESTABLISHMENT itself!!!! The government runs the Lottery, regulates Pull Tabs, Horse Racing, Bingo, Scratch Offs etc… If I am a problem gambler, I will find a way to gamble.

4. The sadness….. When will this country remember it’s beginnings and truly treasure personal freedom that does not harm others.

5. I CAN NO LONGER PLAY POKER ONLINE!!!!!!! Those BASTARDS!!! I like millions of others like to play online poker as responsible adults.

I keep waiting for the government to tell me I can’t receive or give oral pleasure? But you know what I won't have to wait for too long, Party Poker.com finding a way around this for US.

I wish people would wake up.

Cross posted at: http://rocketstarinmpls.blogspot.com/

On Giving Thanks

2006-10-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

It's like the first of January. Everybody and her pet Gila monster does a blog on the first of January detailing New Year's resolutions. I've always bucked that trend, on account of (a) not seeing anything in my life as a problem requiring a solution (or worse, a "re-solution"); (b) if such a problem really did exist, I could just as easily move to correct it in the middle of July, or on October 8, for that matter.
At this time of year--if you live north of 49--the obvious blog topic du jour is how thankful you are for the things you're thankful for, which things of course you are then required to detail.
I try to be thankful for everything that shows up in my life, because everything--even the really icky stuff, and sometimes especially the really icky stuff--offers an opportunity for self-evolution and self-expression. I don't always succeed at this. Sometimes I'm caught up in the illusion that shit just happens to happen: I can forget that on some level I'm the cause of all my own shit. But by and large my life is pretty stable and satisfying. I believe this is because I make an effort to be stable and satisfied.
The biggest lesson I have yet to teach myself is that I am not separate from the world, much as--most days--I really wish to be. My life may be a source of stability and satisfaction to me, but it's entirely too clear that most people out there are neither stable nor satisfied with either themselves or their surroundings.
I do my best to rub off at least a little on everyone I meet. That's something I learned from my dad, who does the same. But on those doubting depressed days when I question my place in the world, a host of objections can bubble up out of the mental muck. You can't meet everybody. Not everyone wants to be rubbed off upon. And while many people might benefit from a simple (but never easy) paradigm shift, many, many others need more than a redefinition of terms to ensure their stability and satisfaction. Things like nutritious food, clean drinking water, sturdy shelter, and at least as important, the self-assurance that comes with knowing you are the equal of any person you meet.
How the hell does one go about making that change, hmmm? How does one convince the women of Afghanistan that they have every right to go to school without being blown up? How does once convince the Taliban of the same?How do you tell the people starving and dying of AIDS in the sub-Sahara that you care about them, when most of your society so obviously does not? How can we, in our smug Canadian way, sit down to our turkey dinners and thank God that we are winners, when there are so many losers...some of whom live just down the lane?
There's this guy that shows up on TV every now and again for Christian Children's Fund, and he finds every guiltstring you've got and just yanks on those fuckers. I hate to admit this, but my guiltstrings are in serious danger of snapping, some days. I get cynical. I figure any money I give to Christian Children's Fund will be swallowed up by administration, or it'll end up in some warlord's pocket, or--at best--it'll elevate one kid's status from uncontemplatable to just pitiful for a little while. So I do nothing but jeer at Mr. Guilt when he makes an appearance--sorry, buddy, the twelfth of never was yesterday and you missed me. And damn it all, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty, if that makes any sense.
Sometimes I think we here in Canada--a land that has almost as much fresh water as the rest of the world put together, a land where the standard of living is comparatively stratospheric--have so forgotten adversity that we have no idea we've anything to give thanks for. Newspaper editors spill out all the things they're grateful for today, only the more perceptive of them remembering to include their gratitude that they can turn around and bitch about them tomorrow.
And this, too, is a well-trodden path. We are blessed, even if we don't always recognize it, and we all know it, don't we? So here are some things I'm grateful for that don't tend to make the list:
BOOKS. I feel badly for people with little food. I feel worse for people who are unable to read. Reading has made me forget my hunger for food; reading can teach people where to find food. A good novel can put you another person's head, which can rearrange your own, usually in beneficial ways. Basic literacy should be every person's birthright.
MUSIC. It may lack the practicality of books, but its importance to the human condition can't be understated. Music therapy shows us that song can heal. According to Congreve--often misquoted--"'music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." It functions as a window on a culture: even without lyrics one can discern a great deal about a people from their music. PETS. It has been said that you hate what you do not understand. One thing I have no least wish to understand is how people can abuse animals. My cats and dogs need merely look at me and any negative emotion I have melts away.
A FUNCTIONAL BRAIN. My wife knows--and now all of you do, too--that if my brain ever deteriorates to the point where I can not recognize her, I want out. There may be untold benefits to vegetation, but I don't want to know what they are.
DESPOTISM. Whaaa??? Yes, really. Following my philosophy stated above of being thankful even for distasteful things, I must express my gratitude to tyrants everywhere. They offer the world an opportunity to define itself, to sing out loud and clear, this we will not accept. This is something valuable. Now if only the world unerringly saw the opportunity, and acted on it.
THE WORKING WORLD. Think about it: you're being paid in the only currency the world accepts, to get out of bed and go be with friends for the day. If this doesn't describe your job, do whatever it takes and find a new job.
Finally, JOY. The capacity to feel joy (as far removed from simple happiness as love from like), now that is possibly the greatest reward there is to being human.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

2006-10-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

As the evidence for human induced climate change mounts, both Canada and the U.S. continue to drag their feet on implementing changes to limit the amount of greenhouse gases our nations produce. Canada, a signatory to the Kyoto Accord, has all but dropped out of the Accord with the election of a Conservative government (not that the Liberals were actually doing anything under Kyoto), while the U.S. government (with heavy ties to the oil industry) is still in denial that climate change is actually occurring, or that humans are the cause of it, so much so that they continue to censure reports about climate change. The good news is that while the U.S. government continues to believe that the earth is flat, states like California, are moving forward without their national government and implementing restrictions on car's Co2 emissions. If Arnie can see the light, why can't Bush Co.?

In the next week or so, Canada's Conservative government will release their green plan and one of the central features of it will be, much like California, to restrict the amount of Co2 emissions cars can produce. Needless to say, this has brought uproar from Ontario's auto industry, who claim that it will hurt the industry and cost jobs (source). It is a similar cry that we have heard from every industry, and even the U.S. government, when the issue of restricting Co2 emissions comes up - they will hurt the economy. So the question for me, as always, is what is the cost of not doing anything?

In Canada, we are currently under seige from something called the pine beetle. The pine beetle destroys trees and as a recent Globe and Mail article sited, the infestation has not been quelled because our last twelve winters have been so warm thanks to climate change and as a result, the pine beetle is not being killed in the winters. The result?

In her report, Ms. Gelinas said the pine beetle outbreak has affected more than 8.7 million hectares of B.C. forest and threatens the livelihood of 30 communities, or 25,000 families. (source)

Because of these devastating effects, the forest industry is adopting strict measures when it comes to Co2 emissions, using biomass to produce a large percentage of the energy needed. The cost of not combating climate change to the forest industry is much greater than if we do, and as time goes on, as our ecosystems change and the more negative effects of climate change rear their ugly head (Hurricane Katrina anyone?), we will start to see that the cost of doing nothing is so much more. How much did Katrina cost the U.S. government? Insurance companies? Individuals? And what happens when we factor in human life? What is that worth? Added all together, is that less than what it would cost to actually do something about the problem?

A recent BBC News article, echoed this sentiment:

British government official and former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern said pursuing alternative energy made economic and environmental sense...British Environment Secretary David Miliband quoted findings reached by Sir Nicholas in his report, which was commissioned by the UK government..."He shows that the longer action is delayed, the more expensive it is," Mr Miliband said..."What he says is that... it is imperative we take action to prevent further climate change because the economic costs - never mind the human costs and the costs to the environment - will far outweigh the costs of mitigation." (source)

At some point, people will have to realize that short-term gain comes at the cost of long-term interests. We cannot continue to act as though making a buck today is the most important thing. And the thing is that there are tremendous economic opportunities to be capitalized upon in the fight against climate change. Alternative energy products, as well as those that increase efficiency, will be a huge market as we move forward. Yes, people must have jobs and money, but we also need an environment to live in and as the earth gets warmer, our environment will become more hostile towards us. You cannot make much money if your home is buried underneath an ice sheet.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Anybody got twenty cents?

2006-09-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

(Or, In Search Of New Paradigms)

Please forgive me. Trekking through a life in this world can occasionally make me feel dirty, and when I do, I find there's nothing like a soapbox to clean me up. Accordingly, much of what I'm about to write I have written before- -though maybe not in this fashion.
Have you ever felt as though the unwritten laws that govern our modern society are in fact written down someplace...in Martian? Variants on this thought seem to cycle through my head with increasing frequency as I age. That might be the very definition of aging: the overwhelming feeling that society is leaving you behind, and good riddance. I often feel like screaming "But it's not supposed to be this way!"...even though I understand that my scream will be lost in the insidious whisper of what Daniel Quinn called 'Mother Culture', I must, however, scream.
Mother Culture...according to Quinn, she lays down the conventions by which we live, and harshly punishes those who choose to defy those conventions. Likely you've heard her whispering without realizing that's what you're hearing...it's as if her edicts have been ingrained in our very cells. Survival of the fittest. Your bank account balance determines what you're worth. Don't rock the boat. If you don't take advantage of the low interest rates and drive up your personal debt, the terrorists win. Of late I think Mother Culture's whisper has become a bit more shrill, and the things she's whispering increasingly make no sense at all to me. For what it's worth, I'm determined to set her straight. I'm looking for new paradigms that are really ancient, mostly forgotten paradigms. It seems to me as if the ones we've been using are not getting us where we want to go.

Have you looked at the world lately? Are you happy with what you've seen? Surprisingly, most people are. That's why effecting meaningful change is such an uphill battle: we're fighting people who resist change, feeling that their lives work for them, and who cares about the rest of us. I'm firmly of the belief that changing hearts and minds is essential if we want to change the world. And so...

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT POWER

Contrary to what you might have heard, we don't live in an information society. We live in a bullshit society. Our world runs on bullshit: it fertilizes prejudice, ignorance, and muleheadedness, all prized qualities in today's society, often mistaken for power. While virtually every factoid there ever was is readily available with a few clicks of a mouse, there's nothing to suggest that any of it is true. A computer with umpty-terabytes of memory can be crammed with the sum total of all human knowledge and yet remain an inert pile of silicon.
I don't hear the word 'wisdom' often anymore...I think Mother Culture has done a remarkable job of suppressing that word, folding it into 'knowledge'. Knowledge is not wisdom. Sometimes knowledge is the very opposite of wisdom.
Knowledge confers the ability to tinker with the environment on a micro or a macro level. Wisdom may suggest that this is not advisable.
Knowledge gives us a momentary snapshot of current events. It may even be a very comprehensive snapshot, down to the last detail. Wisdom is only concerned with where we are insofar as it reflects on where we've been and where we're going. You can't 'know' the future, but sufficient wisdom can serve as a fairly reliable guide.
It is wisdom that reflects true power, not knowledge. Some of the wisest people I know have little formal schooling. They wouldn't know Plato from Play Dough and furthermore don't care. In my experience, these are the sorts of people who are intimately aware of 'the facts of life'...but also know when those facts can be safely set aside and ignored. Inner strength does not come from book larnin' and never did.

GOING FAST IS NOT THE SAME AS GETTING SOMEWHERE

We live in a wildly accelerated world: Mother Culture has been most strident on this point. I can't remember the last time a food product was marketed without mention of its timesaving quality, for instance--often ahead of whatever nutrition might be left after the chemists have finished molding it into something that will cook in seconds. Always we trend towards the quick: faster computers, speed dating, instant messaging, learn-to-read-in-the-womb (hey, if it's not out yet, just wait for it!) What this has led to, and I'm far from the first to say it, is an implacable demand among today's younger generation for immediate-if-not-sooner gratification. The notion that one might have to work at a task to succeed at it is all but lost on these folks. What looks like insolence and laziness is really just confusion: why haven't they promoted me yet? I have a degree! I fast-tracked it, too!

TOTAL CONNECTIVITY IS ACTUALLY TOTAL ISOLATION

A song from the musical Avenue Q claims "The Internet Is For Porn." Well, not every use of the Net is prurient, but most of them are intensely private. While it is true that, in short order, you can feel very close to somebody you've never actually met, in many cases it's a false closeness: witness the number of young girls e-lured into predators' lairs, all the while thinking they're chatting with somebody just like them. What with wireless technology, the Internet no longer confines you to your living room. But wherever you are on the globe, you're looking at a small screen: the online world of pure sight has largely displaced the outmoded 'real' world, which required the use of all five senses. To my mind, it's a poor trade.
I'm not sure what the answers are to these problems that most of the rest of the world doesn't recognize as problems. I do know, however, that the world as it is presently presented is a show I've lost all interest in. I prefer to live in my own reality, where life proceeds at a leisurely pace, I can step away from incessant demands on my time, and people have to work just a bit to reach me.

Cross-posted at The Breadbin.

The Commercialization of Childhood

2006-09-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

In her latest book, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, Juliet Schor looks at the effect of the dramatic increase in advertising aimed at children. In the last decade or so, advertisers have increased advertising aimed at the tween and teen market, and have benefited greatly. Kids today are bombarded with advertising, from TV, the Internet, and in many cases, their classrooms (in the U.S., just under 50% of school aged kids watch a daily "news show" called Channel One which contains two minutes of advertising that they must watch). There are not many areas that kids can escape too that are ad-free (even slumber parties are turning into marketing opportunities, as agencies hire kid "agents" to sell their products to kids). Marketers use various messages to sell fast food, junk food, toys, video games (many of them are violent), movies (ditto), clothes, drugs and alcohol (kids favorite advertiser is Budweiser), and anything else they can sell to kids telling them that they won't be cool if they don't own certain things, and relying on such things as the nag factor (ask your parents a million times before they give in). While my generation (I was born in the early 70's), was certainly targeted for consumption, kids today, with increased access to media, are being bombarded with the shit, and as a result, are becoming more materialistic. The question that Schor explores is what kind of effect does this consumer culture have on children, who at a young age can be easily swayed by advertising?

Schor's conclusion, based on the evidence of a study of 300 children in and around Boston, is that "high consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and psychosomatic complaints" (167). The more kids become involved in the consumer culture, the more likely they are to be unhappy. And the more one watches TV, the more likely kids are to become materialistic. As Schor argues, "Television induces discontent with what one has, it creates an orientation to possessions and money, and it causes to care more about brands, products, and consumer values" (169). The more one watches, the more you want, because the less happy you are with what you previously bought. Since TV is selling kids what is cool, and what is cool keeps changing, kids constantly need new things to keep up and it is literally making them sick with depression, stomachaches, and other ailments. To make matters worse, the more involved in commercial culture a kid is, the worse a relationship with their parents are. Parents, many of whom probably can't keep up with the financial demands of their children, are being pestered by their kids 24/7 to buy them new things, and many times, they just have to say no. Something advertisers encourage, kids pestering their parents, drives kids from their parents, who should be an important support system for them.

Of all the problems we face in this world, the first we must deal with is our cultural materialism. Too many of us believe that our worth is based on what we own and how we look, rather than what we do. Materialism distracts us from everything else in the world, because it teaches us that our immediate needs are more important than everything else - how else can you explain a society that destroys the natural world we need to live, in pursuit of wealth? Money is all that matters to us - I truly believe that. Putting aside the environmental consequences of materialism, which should be enough to prompt change in our societies, what about the emotional and health consequences of materialism? Here are some quotes from Schor

...found in an important study that people with higher financial aspirations scored lower on measures of self-actualization and vitality...Materialism is correlated with lower self-esteem. It is correlated with higher rates of depression and anxiety. Materialism is related to psychological distress and difficulty adapting to life. People who value money and conventional success are less likely to experience positive emotions, such as happiness and joy, and they are more likely to experience negative ones, such as anger and unhappiness. Materialism is also related to elevated levels of physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomachaches, backaches, sore muscles, and sore throats...The clear conclusion of all this work is that the more strongly a person subscribes to materialistic values, the poorer is his or her quality of life. (174)

What we espouse and strive for most, material success, helps to make us sick and increases the dysfunctions that we require more and more medicine to treat, yet our motto is to keep it going at all costs. This experiment must go on, regardless the consequences. So we inundate our kids with ads and tell them they aren't cool if they don't have the latest things, ensuring that they too will be materialistic, even more so than us. I don’t get it. Do you?

Cross-Posted at Dodosville.

A Coming Holy War?

2006-09-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

In today's Minneapolis Star and Tribune, I read the following article.

At 'Jesus Camp,' fired-up kids in combat gear prep for holy war

Jesuits say, "Give me your child for the first 7 years, and I will give you the man." Societies change through the children. Children are a blank slate. They are naturally programmed to believe to be true everything that their parents and other adult authorities figures tell them to. They blindly believe because they have no choice. They have yet to obtain the critical thinking skills that are required to truly question.

From the article: We get kids in combat fatigues, their faces painted in camouflage colors, who sob, speak in tongues and pray for Jesus to re-make America in his image. Or, more accurately, to re-make it according to the plan of the adults who are turning these children into good little Evangelical mujahaddin.

If you wonder why I am talking about a film about people in the Bible Belt, you haven't been paying attention. "Jesus Camp" (go to jesuscampthemovie.com [click on "videos", top right of page for trailer] to learn more) is about a North Dakota camp attended by kids from throughout the country.

We have already seen how the Muslim world is brain washing their children to hate non Muslim people, especially Jews. Teaching children to hate Teaching them that it is an honor to give your life to Allah as long as you kill Jews.

Pat Robertson who said earlier this week, Robertson: "[A] holy war between Islam and Christianity" is "going to come".

Then we get to Patrick Henry College - God's Next Army out of Washington D.C. Its mission is to train young fundamentalist Christians to become the next generation of America's cultural and political leaders. Though the separation of church and state is enshrined in the US Constitution, with financial backing from the evangelical community the college aims to 're-christianize' America; to 'preserve the world from the sinfulness of man'.

So as both sides continue to teach our children the us vs. them, the good vs evil ideology, continue to attempt to create Theocracies based on ancient religious dogma, are we headed for a Holy War?

Has the world not see what Theocracies lead to? How much murder, blood shed and death does the world need to understand that the separation of religion and political power is truly the key to the survival of civilization.

Why do you think they hate you?

2006-09-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today at the United Nations, the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, stood up and called the American President "the devil" several times in a speech that was less than, um, kind to the President and his so called "American empire." There is no doubt that he was cheered the world over for his comments. You can read them all here.

Anti-Americanism, as well as anti-westernism (?), is becoming more pronounced all over the world, and not just in the Middle East, but South America and parts of Africa and Asia as well. The question for my American friends is simple - why do you think so many nations and the people that inhabit those nations have such disdain for the country that is "the home of the brave and the land of the free?" Are people in third world countries just jealous, or is it something deeper than that? I don't do this as a way to bash America, but to honestly engage people in what is becoming a growing problem in the world - anti-Americanism, and with any problem we first must find the root of it.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Check this out you Monkeys

2006-09-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

A violent world

2006-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago in Montreal, a 25 year old entered Dawson College and opened fire killing one person and wounding 19 more. It was a tragic and sad event that once again brings to the forefront the issue of violence and what we are to do about it. Some will argue that guns are to blame and to a degree they have a point - guns are an easy, accessible way to kill and maim a large number of people in a short period of time. True, the vast majority of gun owners are responsible, but the question for me is do we need to allow people access to high-powered guns that are designed for one purpose - to kill? Is it really a restriction of people's rights to stop them from owning a semi-automatic weapon?

Others will blame violent video games, and while in the past I have been an opponent of this theory, I am starting to believe that perhaps the level of violence in games, as well as the realism portrayed in these games, and the young age at which people start to play them does play a role. If we didn't have violent, realistic video games, would people turn to such levels of violence?

Even more will blame the Goth culture, but to me this is a cop out. Disaffected youth seek out goth culure because they feel lost and beat up by the mainstream. Many have been bullied and once they adopt the culture, are most likely to already be very angry. Goth is, to me, a symptom of a bigger problem - kids and young adults who feel alienated from society, and sometimes even downright angry at it. Why is it that we have so many young people today who feel this way?

Finally, I think that the media also needs to share some blame. This individual, just like the Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, probably felt like a real nobody and knew that if undertook this rampage, he would be infamous - he would become a somebody. There is no difference today between fame and infamy. You could even argue that infamy leads to more headlines. OJ Simpson was a Heisman winning RB and Hall of Famer, but will forever be remembered as the man who got away with murder.

There is obviously no simple answer to this question of why individuals like this kill in order to extract revenge on society and I think that we need to face that our society produces some seriously dysfunctional people and we provide them with legal means by which to act out. Some will argue personal responsibility and say that he doesn't reflect society, but is an aberration - my question is, how many aberrations does it take to realize that these people are products of society and are becoming more common? We live in a violent world and at some point must take responsibility for it and the individuals it produces.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

The Middle, it's Delicious

2006-09-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Middle is something that American politics is sorely missing and very much needed. We are always told that too much of a good thing can be very harmful. Going to extremes is usually not a healthy practice . So why have we allowed our political system ( two major parties that control everything) slide to the two extremes? The Middle does not live on the extreme ends, makes up a larger “mass” than the other two, yet wields almost NO power.

It is time for a viable third, Middle party candidate to emerge. A candidate that DOES represent the Middle opinion on political issues. A Middle that believes in staying fully balanced and not tipped to either extreme. A Middle that can see both sides of tough issues. A Middle that understands that:

Schools should stick to teaching science in science class, not religion
Religion is a great thing as long as we do not allow it to control the government
Both tree huggers and Corporate huggers make some really great points
NOT all issues are black and white, but different shades of gray
Etc…

The Middle, the average Joe. The Middle doesn’t attend Greenpeace rallies. The Middle is not the religious fundamentalist . The Middle are those that understand that life is too complex and unknown at this point to reside on either extreme. The Middle is where true objective critical thinking occurs.

I fear that the Middle will never rear it’s beautiful head because Americans will never wake up and realize that until the MONEY is removed from our political system, we will forever be controlled by the two extremes. America is too interested in trying to figure out who celebrities are fucking than to actually think and examine those things that truly affect our lives.

The beautiful Middle may never have control again.

Cross posted at Rocketstar's Thoughts on Life

InSite Stats

2006-09-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

This information is taken from two studies, one published in the New England Journal of Medicine (go here to read the full text), the other in a publication called Drug and Alcohol Dependence (go here to read the full text).

Here is what the studies found:

The first study was done between December 1st 2003 and March 31st 2005. The study was designed to see if Insite decreases “the likelihood that injection-drug users will seek addiction-treatment services.” 1031 enrolled in the study and by the end of it 185 began detox programs – 18% of the group. The study found that using the site at least once a week and having contact with a counselor resulted in a more rapid entry into a detox program (meaning, you were twice as likely to enter a detox program). The first thing to mention is that detox is not rehab. Detox is designed to detoxify the body of the drug the person is addicted too, whether it be heroin, alcohol, or cocaine. My understanding is, however, that detox is the first step in rehab, but no stats were given on how many actually entered a rehab facility (my inclination is that if you enter detox it is for the purposes of entering a rehab facility afterwards).

The second study was more in depth in that it looked at all 4764 individuals who used Insite between March 2204 and April 2005. The study found that 2171 referrals were made to addictions counseling, 237 to a detox bed (11.7%), 52 to a recovery house (2.7%), and 84 to a methadone program (3.7%). In total, 18.1% of Insite users entered into some sort of program to get them off of drugs. One of the issues raised in the study was that in the downtown eastside, there simply wasn't enough beds to accommodate all those who wanted to get into one. It is also important to mention that nearly half the users who used Insite were referred to some sort of addictions counseling.

What I wasn’t able to find out is how many of these individuals actually stayed off of drugs. When talking to an addictions counselor, I was informed that some addicts go thru rehab between 5 and 7 times before they actually stay off drugs for good. She told me that the general rule of thumb is that 1/3rd of addicts who enter treatment stay sober after the first time thru, 1/3rd have to go thru rehab a few times before they stay clean and sober, while the last 1/3rd will never stop doing drugs. For those who take more than one attempt thru rehab to stay clean, each successive time usually results in a relapse period that is shorter and an abstinence period that is longer.

Russel’s standard for success for the site was that 10% of those who use the facility are clean and sober. While this number cannot be conclusively known at this point and time (especially considering that the site is relatively new), as there is no hard data on it, we can estimate that if 18% of the users who use Insite enter some sort of detox/rehab program, that 2/3rd of them will eventually stay clean, or about 11.9% of them.

This debate has been great for me, because it has forced me to delve deep into the issue and really see if Insite is “what works.” What we know is that using Insite and coming into contact with counselors and nurses results in a greater chance that an addict will enter into a detox program (the first study claimed that an individual was twice as likely). What does this mean? Well, of the 185 addicts in the first study who entered detox, they would have been half as likely to do so without Insite. To me, this is a positive step in the right direction. Add to that the decrease in needle sharing and the resulting decreasing of the spread of diseases like AIDS, and the 100% survival rate of overdoses within the site, and you have a program that is working (at least in my eyes). I look forward to the responses.

It keeps circulating because it's so TRUE!

2006-09-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this email, you probably don't have email...this is probably the tenth time it's come around since I became Net-connected.
All the same, it really does have some valid points.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking! As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and
NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-Ade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because...
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
And we were O.K.We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride downthe hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat rooms....... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.We r ode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

You know, I lived a VERY sheltered childhood...and yet even I could relate with more than three-quarters of the above. It is my considered opinion that in trying to make the world as safe as possible for our kids, we've actually made our kids vulnerable. They call this progress?

Why must one solution fit all?

2006-09-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

In my latest post, I argued that even though the safe injection site in Vancouver, B.C. was achieving positive results in the fight against drug addiction in the downtown eastside, Canadian PM, Stephen Harper, seemed to be letting his ideological viewpoint cloud his judgment over whether he should extend the mandate of the site. My argument was that Harper's ideological viewpoint led him to believe that the best way to fight drug addiction is to increase enforcement, a method I felt had already been tried in Canada and the U.S. and which did not have the desired effect. To me, this is the weakness of a fixed ideology - it does not allow you to see that our beliefs do not always translate into positive results and change as a result. This is why I am interested in what works - it allows us to be guided by actual, real-life results. To me it comes down to this - are we more worried about implementing our ideology or solving the problems we face? If we were worried about solving the drug problem of the downtown eastside, then keeping Insite open should be a no-brainer - it has a proven track record of success. Harper's ideology doesn't, but in my opinion, I didn't believe that this would make any difference to his decision.

One of the rebuttals of this argument has really perplexed me, as well as one other commentator, centers around the belief that the philosophy of the safe injection site, or those behind providing drugs to addicts in Toronto, must also apply to other social problems. Three separate individuals raised this argument in an attempt to disprove that Insite or the program in Toronto could actually work (despite evidence that it is working - one has to wonder if their ideology will not allow them to except the results of these studies because they counter their own prevailing beliefs of how to solve drug addiction). If the philosophical underpinnings of these programs could not be applied to terrorism, child porn, drunk driving, or sexual addiction then they weren't valid philosophies. Here are some quotes:

If a solution is good, it's template should have good results in other applicable domains. This solution does not pass that test. - Thomas Gagne

As to Tom's point, the template suggested by the "safe sites" is to give the offender what they're after and then they won't be such a bother. If we apply this thought process to other areas, say immigration, it becomes clear that appeasing the offender is a short term solution good only for pushing the problem under the rug. - Russel Trojan

Next, to truly defend safe injection sites, you MUST be able to defend it's extension (negative or otherwise) in other areas. It is a philosophical agreement that the extension of a good solution to other problems should work, or else be easily distiguished. - Joe Canada

My question is simple and yet none of these commentators have addressed it or attempted to answer it - why must a solution to a specific issue also work as a solution to different issues? Why must a solution to the drug problem plaguing the inner cities of Vancouver and Toronto also be applied to immigration? I don't bring this up to try and show up these other commentators - I love the debate that has gone on in here so far. I raise this issue because I am so confused by it - why does the philosophy designed to lessen drug addiction and the social problems that stem from these addictions need to also work to lessen terrorism in order to be valid? What do terrorism and drug addiction have in common that would result in them having a common solution? What about child porn and drug addiction?

I have come to believe that each problem we face is specific and as a result, we must address it specifically - the only other option is to abandon civilization all together and start over but we don't seem willing, or able to do that. If people are waiting for a one size fits all type of solution, then they will probably wait forever.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

On the Lighter Side.... One of My Favorite Python Scenes

2006-09-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Some political humor... This is from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Monty Python - Old Woman

The problem with ideology - a case study

2006-08-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today on my local talk radio station the topic du jour was the safe injection site located in Vancouver, B.C. and whether or not its mandate should be renewed. For those that don't know, Vancouver's safe injection site is a place where intravenous drug users can do to legally inject drugs under the supervision of a nurse. The goal of the place is harm reduction, namely to stop the spread of disease, as well as to put drug addicts into contact with health professionals who can help them get off drugs when they are ready. So far, the site has been a resounding success. Studies have shown an increase in the number of people entering treatment as a result of the site, a decrease in the number of people injecting on the street, as well as needles being found in public places, a decrease in needle-sharing, and most importantly, a decrease in the spreading of diseases like AIDS. Furthermore, the safe injection site has not led to more crime or trafficking in the area surrounding the site as many worried would happen and in fact, one study found that "rates of vehicle break-ins/theft declined significantly" (source) as a result of the site.

With their mandate expiring on September 12th, it is up to the Conservative government of Stephen Harper to decide whether or not to renew it. The problem, as I see it, is that Harper's ideology informs him that the way to deal with the drug problem is more police and jail time for addicts, but so far, this policy has failed dramatically in nearly every urban center with a drug problem in North America. While the safe injection site is not going to "solve" the drug problem, it is a giant positive step in the right direction. Many of Harper's supporters feel that the safe injection site promotes drug use and coddles addicts and want to see it closed down. Their moral outrage towards drugs as “bad” and their belief that people can change their actions “if they really want too” has blinded them from the complexity of the situation – there is no easy solution to this problem. As well, they believe that their tax dollars are better spent arresting addicts then maintaining a safe injection site, but I wonder whether they are actually interested in solving the problem as arresting people has done nothing in the past except cost the tax payers a huge amount of money (much more than the 2 million spent on the safe injection site the last 3 years) while not helping to solve the actual problem one bit.

The problems that we face in our society are deep and complex. There is no easy answer to any of our problems. I have said ad nauseum, that no one ideology will solve our problems and I believe that history backs me up on this point. If we are to ever to start solving the problems we face we must look to what works. The question is, are we willing and able to put aside our ideologies to realize that we don't have all the answers and embrace ideas that don't jive with our ideology? Everyone ns the know from the downtown eastside in Vancouver supports the safe injection site from the Vancouver City Police, to social workers, to criminologists, to the mayor (as well as three former mayors, including the now Premier of B.C.), and local MP's and MLA's. Yet I fear, that in the end, Harper's ideology will trump the good work the program is doing and their mandate will come to an end in September. The question for me is how can an individual turn down the knowledge of those who work intimately with these issues in favor of an ideology that has yet to deal with the drug problem in any sort of positive way? Why does everyone think that they are an expert?

When I called in to my local radio talk show today to put my 2 cents worth, I informed the host of all the positive things the site had achieved. He responded by saying, well couldn't they do a better job at getting people off of drugs? I responded by saying that the site was a step in the right direction in that it was getting more people off of drugs than the old strategy of "arrest them and lock 'em up" was. We can't expect to solve the problem all at once - it takes baby steps and this program was a step in the right direction. To end the program was to go backwards. In the end I was cut off, perhaps because I dared to make the point that this program was better than any other program ever tried, had the support of those in the know, and was showing that it could reduce the negative effects of drug addiction in an urban center. Silly me, I should have just said that people need to be more responsible and stop using drugs or face the consequences, then I'm sure I would have been able to talk for as long as I wanted too.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

String Theory 101

2006-08-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

String Theory

Please follow the link above if you really want more on the subject. I am not an expert on String Theory, far from it but I have read and watched quite a bit about it. So take this as a laymans version that may not be perfect.

String Theory is just that, a "theory". In attempts to create a "Unification Theory" that would unite Quantum Physics(QP), Electromagnetism (E) and General Relativity, String Theory was born. At this point, there is not enough empirical evidence to call it fact, but it does create some very interesting ideas and questions about this universe that we live in. There are many differing opinions on this NEW theory. We are still searching for concrete evidence of the String which is thought to be toooooo small to see with current technology. And they may have found it!

Strings are vibrating sub-atomic particles that are unlike other particles in that they are not "point like" which allow them to avoid certain properties of "point like" particles. Strings can be closed into a donut like shapes or remain string like.

Then we apply this to Quantum Physics which brings us the power that holds particles together and/or repels them. The force created by simply splitting an atom, as we have seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, isUNBELIEVABLEE. This force, as well as gravity and electromagnetism are said to be governed by these strings.

Gravity is the weakest force and like the others, has yet to be fully understood. One of the theories on why gravity is so weak, is that it is governed solely by closed strings. Closed strings by nature do not have end points and thus are not tied to our dimension like open strings. These closed strings are continuously escaping our dimension to other dimensions and thus not ÂpullingÂ as forcefully as QP and E.

So now add to this the theory that our universe is currently residing in one dimension, that consists of space time called a D-Brane. We can not see the other dimensions or D-Branes that may exist beyond our universe, not unlike how an ant doesn't know other dimensions exist because it is beyond it's dimensional view. It can not see or know it exists.

Then we pull in the Big Bang. It is thought that these D-Branes are like thick sheets of dimensions that are hanging side by side. The Big Bang was created when one of these D-Branes as it moved, collided with our D-Brane and sent matter hurling into action, thus the ever expanding universe as we know it.

Of course this is all ÂtheoryÂ, but before you go and wave this off as "what you are smoking man", think about the universe for a second. Check out my post here if you have not: Universe.

One example from it on the vastness of the universe that shows we not jack crap about it:

The Milky Way is moving at a speed of about 625 MILES per SECOND towards a region of space 150 million light years or 900,000 TRILLION MILES away called the Great Attractor.

Now again, this is all yet to be fully explained and/or proven, but isn't this the path of intellectual thought regarding the origins of man and the universe that we should be following ?

Expand a Bit More - How I See Naturalism

2006-08-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

What follows is an expansion of my previous expansion. So far, this adventure is not what I expected. I pretty much figured that Dodos would lead the way into some rousing conversations about what a good society would look like (after all, this was his idea). I certainly wasn't expecting the depth we've hit so far (not that that's a bad thing). Actually, I think it's good we hash out some of these things to clarify where we stand and have a better idea of the contexts we're working in.

So, let me expand a bit more.

As I understand it, Naturalism is a position that asserts that the idea of a non-physical existence is an invention of our own minds. All that exists is physical and everything can be explained through physical causes. While this may not be the official or technical definition, I'm pretty confident that this describes the most commonly held view.

Naturalism depends upon the validity of cause and effect as it's means of explanation. Cause and effect says that a specific event will always effect the same subsequent event in an identical context.

Science relies on the accuracy of this statement. If cause and effect is not absolute, then science can make no predictions and thus no reliable progress in our understanding of the world around us.

We need the reality of cause and effect in order to know anything. Cause and effect creates regularity and patterns that allows us to form expectations and identify differences. From what I've read, our understanding of cognition demands the validity of cause and effect.

The strength of cause and effect combined with the assertion of Naturalism reduces us to biological machines whose behavior is fully predictable, and by extension unavoidable. The fact that we do not fully know all the inputs, nor all the effects of all the causes does not affect the outcome.

In a purely natural environment, there is no random. There is no choice.

For something to be random, it must be totally unpredictable, totally without connection to any cause. If random exists, then something without cause exists. And, in a Naturalist context, something without a physical initiator; something non-physical does not exist. If something random exists, the foundation of Naturalism cracks and creates and entrance for the spiritual and supernatural. Naturalism cannot tolerate random.

Naturalism cannot allow true choice since that implies the possibility of multiple effects from the same cause. The consistency and reliability of the physical world requires that every cause have but one effect. True choice cannot exist in an environment of absolute cause and effect.

Naturalism cannot explain too many aspects of our existence. It fails to explain any beginnings and, to my way of thinking, a full acceptance of it leads to despair and hedonism as opposed to hope and altruism.

A Little Expansion

2006-08-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

It seemed better to post this rather than add it to the comments.

Russel said: "I am convinced that the existence of a supernatural being is a logical necessity. The mechanistic consequences of pure naturalism cannot account for many things we take for granted such as choice and creativity."

Dodos responds: "I'm not sure why the existence of a supernatural being is required for choice and creativity. Can you expand on this?"

Russel expands:

Pure Naturalism is Absolute Determinism. If there is no supernatural; nothing outside of nature, then nature, "The Natural" is all there is. Nature and our hope of actually knowing any of it depends on cause and effect. The assumption, belief, accepted dogma that a specific event will always effect the same subsequent event. Without this belief, we can know nothing.

Yet, if this is all there is, then we cannot know that we know anything. This is because all our thoughts become absolutely determined as results of the combination of events generated by the atoms that make us. We become organic machines that merely react to the predefined actions of our physiology, not unlike a computer program that will always generate the same output from the same input. And, like a program, we will have no knowledge of accuracy or relation to anything beyond our inputs. We will only know (and I use the term loosely) what is the result of our multitude of causes and effects.

Some might be tempted to suggest the "random" or unpredictable tenets of quantum physics. Personally, I'm not convinced of their true randomness or unpredictability. I am of the mind that these qualities are ascribed to the quantum world as a result of our ignorance. We simply do not know enough to know how it all works. Yet.

To say that it is a paradox of nature that predictable cause and effect arises from the unpredictability of the quantum world is, to my mind, an attempt to dress our ignorance as wisdom.

Now, if naturalism is true and all there is, then choice is reduced to illusion. There is no choice; only the following of the "program." Creativity, the ability to see other than what is, is also reduced to illusion. The ideas of morality become truly arbitrary since a cause/consequent relationship cannot be derived from a cause/effect relationship.

Only something "outside" the system can inject something new into the system. Only something "outside" the system can be a reference point for comparison within the system. Only a supernatural can account for the motive of the natural we exist in.

And the afterlife question:

Russel said: "I believe in an afterlife (we Christians are like that), because if my existence is limited to my time on earth, then why bother with anything beyond my own pleasure. To my mind, there is no motive to place value on posterity unless there is more than what is currently here."

Dodos asks: "So you feel no need to be a "good citizen" (or a good Christian) other than the fact that you will be rewarded in the afterlife? What about your children? ..."

A little more information:

I was not complete in my statement about the afterlife. I do not look to the afterlife, merely for reward. I look to the afterlife to continue to act (though not in the same way I do now).

As for my children and posterity in general, the afterlife provides motive for posterity not merely because I want something good for my children, but because I want something good for me. My understanding of the afterlife includes my presence, thus there is a certain amount of selfishness in my obligation to posterity.

The above is not to be considered exhaustive . . . yet should clarify things a bit.

Had to share, had to share...

2006-08-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

I ran across something today that struck me as quite profound:

"Objective reality is an oxymoron."
"Are you saying that nothing is as it appears?"
" I am saying just the opposite. Everything is as it appears. And appearances are based on perceptions, and perceptions are based on perspectives, and perspectives are not objective. They are subjective. They are not something that you experience, they are something that you choose."

--from Home With God, by Neale Donald Walsch

I've always believed this to be true, though I've never seen it expressed this way. This book--Home with God--has a thought like that on nearly every page. The best part is, you don't have to believe (you're encouraged not to believe!) it's a dialogue with God. Powerful stuff.

Thoughts?

If We Only Knew What We Didn't Know

2006-08-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one that is starting to question their memory more and more as I get older? I mean, how clearly do I really remember things? Memories are not very reliable. I'm not talking about, what happened last night after the 4 hour binge, but old memories of events, people... Anyway, here it is folks.

The reason I started bloggin was to meet people like the authors of this blog and engage in great conversation about tough issues that impact human beings on this little blue dot in the middle of the universe. This endeavor will surely help reach that goal.

Self:

I grew up a poor black boy, hold on, that's The Jerk not me. I grew up a poor white middle class suburban boy. My parents lived "above there means" geographically to provide us with a great education. (see my winning Big Black Bougie Writing Contest piece for a little creative non-fiction writing.) After living check to check as a child and occasionally getting the lights or telephone turned off on us for non-payment, I made a promise to myself that I would not live like that. Money was my goal, and "lots" of it. I wanted to be the brief case carrying, suit wearing 9 to5 "business man" that my parents were not. I wanted to be able to order a pizza and not have to worry about the cost.

After college, I did realize this goal, and soon found out that it was not all that I had envisioned.
As I grew older I realized that the goal is not money, it's happiness. It's about learning to be o.k. with who you are and content with that which you have, if you ever really want to be happy. I am currently leading a team of Business Technology Analysts supporting and developing software in the Secondary Mortgage Banking industry. Two kids, 1 and 2 1/2 years old, a wonderful wife of 4 years, and no pets.

Politically:
If forced to pick an established party, I am a Libertarian. Both major political parties make issues way too black and white when life is all shades of gray. I want the government to stay out of my pocket and out of my bedroom. Governments role is to support societies basic infrastructure. As all of you know, I also feel VERY STRONGLY about government staying out of the religious game. Freedom is the distance between Church and State. I am a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Libertarian.

Spiritually:
As many of the authors here, I was also brought up in a religious home, a Catholic for me. I attended services through most of my childhood years until given the power to decide for myself, I decided not to. As the years went by I began to hold my belief in God up to the same light as other things that I believed to be FACT. It didn't, and doesn't. I no longer believe in Santa Claus either. Science: Not Religion, Knowledge: Not Blind Faith. I am an agnostic. I would bet that there is "something else" beyond humans. I find it a rational conclusion that there most likely exists "something else". What that "something else" is, I nor anybody else has any clue. We do not label our children at birth as Democrats or Republicans. Why? Because they do not yet have the knowledge to decide such things for themselves. So why do we label them with our religious views?

I look forward to this experiment, it should be fun.

The Pseudonym That is Cletus Hookworm

2006-08-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, what can I say about me that hasn't been muttered or derisively stated before? In terms of ideology, I am loathe to place myself on the simple two-dimensional shorthand commonly used to dumb down debate. However, if faced with the choice between accepting a label and being confined to eternity with Yankees fans, I'd say I'm a left libertarian. Which is to say that I do see a role for government, but that it is limited to protecting certain common goods, such as roads, education, health, and the environment. It is not there to help to people find work or to promote trade for corporations or fund sport and the arts. Those are all areas well-suited for the private sector. Government certainly has no business legislating morality. I don't drink or use drugs (beyond mother/lover/saviour caffeine), but what I ingest in my own home is wholly my business. Government has no business delving into matters of faith. My representives are voted in to protect my rights, not make me or anyone else a better person. Okay, best to leave that brief and open as I'm sure I'll be coming back to that in the future.

Moreso than left libertarian, the one label I do feel comfortable wearing is agnostic. I am an agnostic in all matters—spiritual, economic, political, cultural, you name it. However, that does not mean that I do not hold any beliefs, or that I'm a fence-sitter (a common slur thrown at agnostics). I hold many opinions, positions, and values, and will argue from them with great force. However, agnosticism, to me, means that everything is still an open question. My doubt is that any subject is a closed topic. So, on a thorny question like the origins of the universe and life on earth, I definitely lean towards "science" rather than "religion" (as clumsy as both those terms have become) because I find the scientific explanation more compelling. However, I'm open to the possibility that it's completely wrong, and would be willing to change my opinion if a better argument with strong evidence were put forth. I'd rather be proven wrong than blissfully wander around the rest of my days refusing to acknowledge the possibility that I've been holding invalid beliefs.

Other fun facts:
• One wife, zero kids, two cats, one house, one car, one bike, two computers.
• I'm a diehard Boston Red Sox fan (and, more generally, a baseball fan) since 1985 and can argue baseball for hours at a time (ask Dodos). Indeed, baseball is the only sport I follow.
• I'm self-employed as an editor/layout/sometime writer.
• I've supported a winning candidate only once in my life (my first election, too).

Finally, the name Cletus Hookworm is in honour(?) of my time attending grad school in North Carolina. Anyt local who would piss me off was given the name Cletus Hookworm. Why I've adopted the name for myself is clearly evidence of a deep self-loathing and existential guilt.

In closing, I look forward to exchanging ideas and opinions with both the other members and participating guests. A good debate is worth more than money and trinkets, and if the experience of Dodosville is any indication, I plan on becoming quite rich.

Ken:

2006-08-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

You look at me, you think geek. Not geek as in "person who bites the heads off live chickens", either. (Only a geek would know the dictionary definition!) In many ways the perception is accurate. I'm pretty smart in some areas, woefully ignorant in others, and by and large pretty happy with my life.
When first set foot in the Breadbin almost two and a half years ago and made the place my own, I had three goals: to improve my writing in the hopes of eventually "getting somewhere" with it; to get my rather unorthodox opinions on a wide variety of issues out there; and most importantly, to keep myself centered.
That last is meant several ways.
POLITICALLY: I grew up in a staunchly Conservative household and was imprinted with rightist values from an early age. Vestiges of my upbringing have stuck with me, for good or ill, but I've rejected quite a bit as well, and am now complicated enough that I don't fit comfortably into any extant political party.
SPIRITUALLY: Like George Carlin, I used to be a Roman Catholic...then I settled down. Close examination of the tenets I was being asked to believe brought about a seismic shift in my thinking. I adopted atheism wholesale for a while in my teens, until I realized atheism was still "a theism": I had simply exchanged one god for another. Through a great deal of reading (which is how I resolve any niggling doubts in my life), I evolved again into something which defies definition: intensely spiritual, but disdainful of the sort of organized religion which insists on "one way" to God (all other ways, of course, leading straight to hell.) I feel exclusivity is a core value in organized religion, and I have no use for that attitude. I'm now of the opinion that God is much bigger than the Christian construct of him (for one thing, God isn't a him!). Perhaps the best way to summarize my beliefs in this area is to take the word "God" and substitute the word "Life"...or "Love"...or "The Universe"...all of them meaning exactly the same thing.
PERSONALLY: I'm married, coming up on six years now, to a most extraordinary woman named Eva. Ours is surely one of the Great Marriages, based on mutual respect, understanding, and constant communication. No kids (and there's a long story behind that), but a dog and two cats who act the part. I work as a department manager in a grocery store, which has its moments. As I mentioned, I read voraciously (though my wife reads more than I do). Whenever I've let stress get the better of me, the best antidote is to write it out. (If it's really bad, I'll go pound away at my piano, my first love.) Blogging has helped to expunge most frustration from my life.
Where to from here? Who knows? I'm thankful to Peter for including me on this adventure. Exposure to different points of view is intoxicating to me...even when I think somebody's full of it (and I do think that all too often, sad to say), I make every effort to remember: other people hold their opinions as closely as I do mine.
Jump in, folks, the think-pool's fine.

Who And Why I Am

2006-08-25T05:16:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly, I, Russel Trojan, have been included in this joint effort to make the world safe for democracy and small children. Okay, maybe not really democracy, since that could allow a thousand idiots to override the wisdom of the greatest mind. And, thinking a bit more, maybe not even small children since they can be annoying at times and they're really not capable of contributing to society in any significant way. Actually, safe may not even be the best adjective available. After all, assured safety can easily breed complacency which leads to neglect which eventually becomes dangerous.

So, maybe I'm just part of a joint effort to make the world (and I say that only half in jest). Regardless, I'm rather pleased to be included.

It has been suggested that introductions are in order, so what follows is a brief survey of who and why I am. I'd much rather respond to what Dodos has said because he brings up some of the things where he and I tend to differ. But, I'm sure those differences will become apparent over time and that is what makes this endeavor most interesting. Still, the topic at hand is ME. Yep, it's all about ME. I am the center of attention. I stand in the spotlight. I ... well, maybe it's best I just move on.

Some people are top/down kinda people and others are bottom/up. Unfortunately, most don't seem to even pay attention.

Top/down people are people who typically design a structure to accomplish a task and then look for the parts necessary to build the structure. From their perspective, it is the organization that will complete the task, and conforming to that organization is the most effective means of getting the job done. In my experience the folks who have this perspective are generally politically aware and often politically active.

Bottom/up people often appear disorganized and ineffective. This appearance is frequently accurate. Bottom/up folks tend to see things more organically than organizationally. From their perspective, changing the roots of the tree will more effectively change the fruit of the tree. From what I've seen, bottom/up folks often go unnoticed yet their effects are evident in phrases like, "Someone once said ..." or "There was this guy ..."

I am a bottom/up person. I believe in individuals. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no society. That's me in a nutshell.

But wait, there's more. Let's not forget my personal history.

I have formal training in music, computers and theology; and, I have made my living with each over the course of my life. Currently, I make my living writing computer programs and I make furniture on the side. I have two parents, four brothers (with associated sisters-in-law and offspring), one wife (which is plenty for any man), three children (with respective spouses) and four grandchildren (and counting). I have been married for 32 years and lived in the same house for 29 of those years. Yes, I guess you could say I'm a bit conservative.

I am a Theist. I am convinced that the existence of a supernatural being is a logical necessity. The mechanistic consequences of pure naturalism cannot account for many things we take for granted such as choice and creativity. As for evolution, while it is a good theory to guide research, it's lack of empirical evidence and the suppositional nature of it's interpretations make it less than factual and unreliable for any answers beyond simple mechanics.

I am a Christian because I have found Christianity to be the most consistent with real life. It is thick like a good soup not thin and transparent like water. When properly encountered, it does not give simplistic platitudes, but provides insights into motivations.

I believe in an afterlife (we Christians are like that), because if my existence is limited to my time on earth, then why bother with anything beyond my own pleasure. To my mind, there is no motive to place value on posterity unless there is more than what is currently here.

I do not believe that people are inherently good. History and current experience would seem to indicate that people are too often less than honorable. If people were inherently good, why must we spend so much time and effort telling them not to be bad? If people were inherently good but tainted by society, then how did this tainting society come to exist out of inherently good people? No, I'm pretty confident that people generally cannot see value beyond themselves without continuous education. Unfortunately, too many people are poor students.

I imagine that there is much more I could say, but I'm pretty sure much of it will come out over time. If anyone is interested, my profile will point you to things I said in the past. But for now, my goal here is to make everybody think and act like I do.

Another introduction of sorts

2006-08-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

With the creation of a new blog, one of the contributors, Ken, suggested that we all do an introduction of sorts, telling the others how we got to this point in our lifw. I have always believed that if we are too understand someone's beliefs, we have to understand who that person is and what their history is. People's ideas are shaped by their experiences and if we don't know what those are, then we can never truly appreciate, or understand their viewpoints. Needless to say, I was thrilled by Ken's suggestion (and I never turn down a chance to talk about myself).

When I first wrote my first post for Dodosville, I talked about how my life had progressed to take me to that moment and time. Essentially, I had gone from a person who had bought in part and parcel to the traditional lifestyle we are expected to have in modern society (that is "to contribute to society as a worker, a consumer, and as a parent to others who will eventually do the same thing") to someone who quit the "dream job" to go back to school and major in Native Studies. The change for me came after I witnessed an accident that took several lives, narrowly escaping with my own (as well as my friends). This incident allowed me to question, for the first time ever, what I was doing with my life. Up until that point there had really been no thought involved, other than what it was I wanted to do for money over the next 50 years.

Since that point and time I have sought the answer to many questions about how I am going about living my life, some of which have been answered, others which are still outstanding. While monetarily I am poor, and while I may struggle at times with my decisions in life and who I am, I take great comfort in knowing that my life is my own, one which I have shaped thru my personal discovery of what is important to me, not what I am told should be important to me. So what is it I believe then?

1) I am not special and neither are you. Far too many people think they are special and, as a result, expect to be treated as such. Part of our problem is that we all think we are special and are entitled to all the things "special" people should get. Most people get this idea that they are special because we as a society think that we are special because of what we have "achieved," others think they are special because they believe that a higher power created this them, as well as this world we live on. I think it's all a bunch of bullshit. We are extremely fortunate to be alive and live the type of lives we live, but we are not special. Our dominance as a species is the result of decisions made in the past (as well as a boat load of luck), some of which had horrific consequences for others, not because we were pre-destined for greatness. The minute people stop thinking they are special, is the moment we can all start being self-critical as a society and start to make some real, foundational changes with the way we live.

2) This is not the right way to live. If this were the right way to live, why are we killing ourselves thru environmental degradation, climate change, and war? If this were the right way to live, wouldn't things be better? I saw An Inconvenient Truth last night and it only further emboldened my belief that we don't have the first idea on how to live. People who know how to live don't change the chemistry of the atmosphere they rely on for survival to a point where it could literally kill them all. Do they? There is just too much evidence out there that we, the west, are the cause, or one of the causes, of nearly every single challenge we face in this world.

3) It is fucking hard to change what you believe and how you act. One of my worst character traits is that I am highly impatient and can, at times, go off the handle. Rarely does a week go by where I don't have some kind of minor flip-out (though to be fair, most of these occur either on the frisbee field or the basketball court). I am my worst critic and know well what my faults are, but that doesn't mean that it makes it easy to change those things. I struggle daily with the ideas that were implanted in me by society as I was growing up. In a Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's impressive visions of the future written in 1931, children undergo sleep therapy (what he calls hypnopaedia) that implants the morals of society into the child's brain until it becomes their truth. While our modern society is not as overt about implanting the morality of society into children, we still do it, aided heavily by television. If you were born in the U.S. or Canada in the last 50 years, you have spent your life being inundated with messages from TV telling you how you are supposed to live your life - it is very difficult to change the way you think when you have been told since the day you were born that this is how you are supposed to think. A change in attitude doesn't occur in one day, it takes time and above all, people need to want to change. Few do as they don't see the need.

4) If we are to survive as a species we have to drastically change the way we live. Maybe this should go with #2, but what the hell, it's my list. If we are too survive another two or three generations, we must change the way we live, and as a result, the values and beliefs of our society. Money can no longer be the central object of people's lives, nor can we continue to believe that we are separate from nature or that we can control it. Perpetual growth in a finite world is an impossibility. If we maintain the status quo, within 50 years there will be nearly 10 billion of us living on this planet, all striving to make as much money as they can at the expense of the earth and eventually, the earth will say "that's it, I have no more left to give." People can argue until they are blue in the face that our society is salvageable as is, but it would take some pretty extraordinary evidence to change my mind (just as it would take some pretty extraordinary evidence to prove to me that God exists). Our future depends on changing the very foundations of how we live and it will not be easy, but if we give two shits about anyone other than ourselves we will have to do it.

5) The TV has to get turned off. Make sure when you read this one, you keep in mind #3. I love TV. Really I do. Shit, I even watch Big Brother, that's how much I love TV. The problem with TV these days is that we simply watch too much of it. TV presents an image to people that is, for the most part, unattainable. We cannot all be Oprah, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Most people also get the majority of their information about the world from TV, taking the words of corporate controlled news agencies who want people to consume and go on with their lives as if everything is OK, as gospel. If we are to ever change the way we live, TV either needs to be seriously reformed (which some argue is impossible) into an engine of positive change, or people need to ditch it all together. TV holds far too much power over us, and our experiences with it have replaced experiences that we have with the real world. Knowledge is no longer experiential; it is taken vicariously from others who spin it any which way they please.

6) People are not inherently greedy. If people were inherently greedy, we would not be here. People survived for millions of years through difficult times because they banded together in order to do so. Now some may argue that people only banded together for selfish reasons – that joining with others was the only way they could survive, but this implies, to me, that surviving is a selfish action. People survive so that they can, in part, pass on to others what they experienced – that is how lucky we are to be able to live (and by living, I mean simply breathing and being alive). People in our culture are taught that by being selfish and getting as much as you can, you are in fact helping society. Many of us do this with great vigor, believing that it is their duty, sometimes god given. Yes it is easy to be selfish, but I chose to believe that people are so because they believe they have to be. When, and if, people start to understand that our selfish ways are in fact killing us that they will change. We talk so much about loving our kids and doing it all for the children. I chose to believe that it is not empty rhetoric because most people I know really do love their children and would do anything for them, including start being a little more selfless.

7) We are not alone. Our world emphasizes people doing this alone – you have to learn and stand on your own two feet. While being an individual and having your own thoughts and beliefs it great, it is much easier, as well as more fun, to try and accomplish things together. Part of the reason I suggested this blog was that I was looking for a way to build a community with common goals and so that we could all help each other realize those things. Life in the modern era is hard. Too hard sometimes. And I am sure that life in indigenous communities 1,000 years ago was hard as well, but it must have made it so much more bearable and tolerable going thru it together (not to mention less stressful). The point is that if we want to change things, it will be done communally, not in isolation. And the reality is that there are a lot of people who want to change things - we just need to find out how.

Cross-posted at Dodosville.

Our Mission Statement

2006-08-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

Blogs have become a widespread critical tool in the accumulation and dissemination of information, largely because anyone and their dog can publish one. While some blogs do a good job of providing accurate information and promoting open and honest debate, many have simply become an extension of particular ideologies and/or institutions, parroting prescribed talking points and stifling honest debate that challenges these simplistic analyses of our complicated world. These blogs, in our opinion, do more harm than good, for they claim to have all the answers and demonize those who dare to disagree. No one viewpoint or ideology can solve the significant problems that our civilization faces. If we are to ever achieve a more fair and just world, it will be done by working together, rather than merely slinging mud at each other, while glossing over the flaws and sins of their own ideological allies.

Our goal is to promote honest and open debate between individuals who do not always agree on every subject but nevertheless hope to reach some common understandings about significant problems our society faces, their sources, and potential solutions. We will not always agree on all things, but agreement isn't the point. Our goal to show others that we don't know everything and that we can keep our minds open to new ideas. Debate isn't about being right or winning, but about expanding what we know. Most of all, we need to show that being wrong is not a weakness; refusal to be self-critical, however, is.

This blog will not save the world—obviously—but it can become a positive place in the sea of negativity that is modern political debate. The rules here are simple: be open to change; be honest about your thoughts; back up what you say, and when you are wrong, don't be afraid to admit it. And no talking points.