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26 Dec 2006I was thinking about a recent political squabble, and it was readily explainable if you followed the money. Of course, money influences everything, and almost any conflict can be analyzed in terms of greed. Going further, there are several universal motivators:
I wish I had this insight when younger: this would have been an easy way to come up with essay topics in high school or college: just fabricate a title "Y as the cause of X" where X is any current event, and Y is one of the root-causes listed above: "Money as the cause of the Iraq War"; "Evolution as the source of our Obesity Epidemic"; "Immortality as the root cause of High Medical costs". Even martyrs that die for religious causes could be categorized under the Immortality goal. 20 Dec 2006A few months ago, I called Bill O'Reilly a fascist. Someone asked what I meant by that, and I explained that he was fascist because he agreed 100% with everything the (conservative) government did, and he labeled any dissenters as un-patriotic. A total absence of tolerance. Yesterday I went on Wikipedia to see what the official definition is, and there is no agreed-upon definition (on Wikipedia at least; I'm sure a hardbound dictionary would have no such problem :-) In fact, the Wikipedia article is tagged as "disputed and perhaps not written from a neutral point of view". But they do cite a 1995 article by Umberto Eco (Italian author of The Name of the Rose) that lists 14 characteristics of a Fascist government:
I dont know how objective this is: Eco was raised in Italy during WW II and perhaps is not impartial enough. Some of his points are too specific to Mussolini (#6, #8). 16 Dec 2006Just read an article about Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was abducted by the CIA in New York a few years ago, and in an "extraordinary rendition" flown to Syria where he was kept in a dungeon and tortured for 10 months, before they discovered they had the wrong man.
See a pattern? 6 Dec 2006Jimmy Carter just published a book "Palestine: Peace or Apartheid?": He points out that it is political suicide for politicians to criticize Israel (similar to admitting they are atheists). He says that Israel practices Apartheid very similar to that in South Africa, but the motivation is very different: South Africa's was based on racism, whereas Israel's is based on land-grabbing. Okay, so I was wrong about no one speaking up about Israel. Just in the past year, Ralph Nader, Ted Turner, and Jimmy Carter have spoken up. Stumbled on a web site revealing the hypocrisy of Dr. Laura: I knew she was hypocritical about being a working mother (she is, but excoriates any working mother that calls her). More Dr. Laura facts:
23 Oct 2006Read an article in Wired about scientist Richard Dawkins, who has a new book "The God Delusion". He claims that atheists need to come out of the closet, like gays did. He says most smart people are atheists, but most (especially in public life, such as politicians) are afraid to admit it, because they wouldn't get elected. Dawkins encourages the use of a new term "bright", a noun invented by Paul Geissert (around 2000?): "The word bright was designed to be broader than the atheist movement; it is not merely God that is untenable, but superstition, credulity and magical thinking in general." The same article says ".... Sam Harris, who released a book two years ago called The End of Faith: Religion Terror, and the Future of Reason. Harris argues that, unless we renounce faith, religious violence will soon bring civilization to an end. Between 2004 and 2006, his book sold more than a quarter million copies." 2 Oct 2006Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin. 21 Sept 2006Comments by Ted Turner from an article in CNN: The U.S. invasion of Iraq has caused "incalculable damage" that will take 20 years to overcome "if we just act reasonably intelligently." "It will go down in history, it is already being seen in history, as one of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody. A couple of others that come to mind were the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the German invasion of Russia," Turner told the forum. "It literally broke my heart. You don't start wars just because you don't like somebody. ... I wouldn't even start a war with Rupert Murdoch," Turner said, referring to his onetime cable network rival. Often contrarian, Turner called it a "joke" that Bush demanded that Iran abandon any ambitions for nuclear weapons while at the same time hoping to ban all such bombs. "They're a sovereign state," Turner said of Iran. "We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel -- they've got 100 of them approximately -- or India or Pakistan or Russia. And really, nobody should have them. Ralph Nader is the only other guy I can think of that has the same honesty, or maybe Jimmy Carter. 16 Sept 2006Hollywood is still in a battle with DVD copiers: There are at least three commercially offered products to copy DVD movies, all sold by overseas companies:
Hollywood beat the music sharing companies: Napster, Sharebear, Kazaa are all gone now, but the movie copiers are not yet much of a threat: not many people have DVD burners, I guess. Also read that some DVD/CD manufacturer will start selling DVD/CDs that have RFID hardware embedded in the disk, so that DVD hardware can be produced that will only play the disk if the correct RFID is found. I've heard that bitTorrent technology is now the way that music (and even movies) is being shared ... but when I investigated, it looks like you have to be invited into a sharing ring in order to get access. 10 Sep 2006Watched The Fantasticks last night (2000). The reviews I read said that the stage musical was utterly captivating: but it is always played in an intimate theater, with no props or scenery. The movie was a disappointment to just about everyone, because it used full sets and even outdoor settings. The play will always be remembered as the source of the song Try To Remember (That kind of September). I cant say I really enjoyed the movie: The acting was poor, and the songs were ho-hum except for Try to Remember. 8 Sep 2006Read Look Homeward, America (2006, Bill Kaufman). He presents outlines of several Americans, that are neither liberal nor conservative, but instead are an unusual blend of left and right:
The profiles include Eugene McCarthy (senator), Dorothy Day (Catholic Worker movement), Grant Wood (artist), Wendell Berry (poet). Eugene McCarthy committed political suicide when he ran against fellow democrat LBJ, in response to LBJ's proclamation (made thru an undersecretary of state) about the Vietnam war: "a presidential declaration of war is out-moded in the international arena". McCarthy thought the US was being too arrogant, too ambitious, too mechanical. Dorothy Day was a "distributionist" which is another name for Jeffersonian democracy: de-centralized government, no bureaucracy, everyone owning their own land, farm, or business. She was distinguished from communists because distributionists do not believe in collective ownership. She hated demeaning assembly lines and promoted handicrafts. Wendell Berry was a poet who asked (during the Vietnam war) "Is there any right I have, any property or freedom, that I would want my son to die for? ... and the answer is no". The author has collected scores of intriguing and stimulating quotes and anecdotes, but he does a terrible job enunciating his unifying points, which are: (1) he is celebrating daily family life and asserts that our public policies should be based on that family life, and should not be decided by big business and soulless bureaucracies; (2) our federal government has strayed too far from the principles of the founding fathers. But, sure, schoolchildren and backyard gardens are sweet and noble, but the book fails to address the follow-on questions: If we were to adopt a decentralized, agrarian, home-centered government system, what would happen to mail delivery? To airline service? To health care? To the defense of our country if invaded? To consumer rights? To prices paid by consumers? When mad cow disease comes knocking, I'm glad the FDA is there to mount a nationwide campaign against it :-) Even though the book is a bit disjointed, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in public policy, because of the scores of thought-provoking quotes and anecdotes. One discouraging quote (A. Schlesinger?) is "From 1789 to 1972 we have progressed from George Washington to Richard Nixon, from John Adams to Spiro Agnew. How much more of this progress can we take?". The author has at least one good point: the federal government has strayed far from the constitution, as defined by the founding father's intentions. Especially with regard to declaring war, gun ownership, the first amendment (hate crime laws), search-and-seizure (warrantless wiretapping), right to trial (GTMO detainees, and state's rights. To be fair, I must admit we are doing a great job on some things (Miranda warnings, cruel and unusual punishment, right to free travel, etc). I suppose my 1998 discourse on the U. S. Constitution addresses some of these concerns. The author describes a family tradition he has: Every month they read a seasonal story or poem, and eat a seasonal dish. He lists some of them: June: Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury); July: Casey at the Bat; October: Poe and Hawthorne; December: A Christmas Memory (Capote), Christmas Jenny (Freeman), and Twas the Night before Christmas (Clement Moore). He says August has a real paucity of celebrations :-) Speaking of Christmas stories: the story by John Faulks is a real tear-jerker: I first heard it on PBS radio about 12 years ago while doing some wood-working in my garage. I was frozen in place while listening to it. It is online at: John Faulks Christmas Story
5 Sep 2006Broke my left wrist falling off a bicycle around May 15th. After a couple of months of denial, finally went to a doctor and got an X-ray. Had surgery 2 weeks ago to insert a screw and pin: 4 Aug 2006Saw Lord of War. Nice movie: A bit too pedantic for me (reminded me of Crash: one about gun-trading, one about racism). The reason Im even mentioning Lord of War is the fantastic opening credit sequence: The camera viewpoint is attached to a single bullet, and the camera follows the bullet, starting in a bullet factory, all thru production and shipment, to being inserted into a chamber, fired, and striking a target. (Similar reaction to Lemony Snicket: The movie was okay, but the closing credits - animated - were outstanding). Read an interesting review of Ayn Rand's books: http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/0101aynrand.html. He applauds much of Rand's ideas (thinking independently; having high standards; using reason over irrationality; don't be a lemming; question authority). But he points a significant logic flaw in her books: Her major protagonists, in their fields of business, claim to ignore their customers wishes and follow only their own self-interest. The critic points out that this contradicts Rands other theses: (1) Capitalism, which Rand supports, requires businesses to meet customer needs; (2) Any business person who followed only their own interest would soon be out of business; (3) Artists and intellectuals may be able to be self-indulgent, but anyone else must pay close attention to the wants of others. In summary, when it comes to business, the golden rule is paramount, and pure selfishness cannot work. 2 Aug 2006Today is a big day: My Animalia web page was referred to by another site (granted, just a forum): http://satyranny.forumwise.com/satyranny-post-197.html That web site is a site listing favorite artists (paintings). The names include: Michael Parkes, Jack Vettriano, John W. Watterhouse, Carol Grigg, Alphonse Maria Mucha, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, J.M.W. Turner, Graeme Base, and David Graux. This fellow has similar tastes as me: four of those are my favorites (Mucha, Watterhouse, Turner, Base). Experimenting with posting photos on Flickr: here is a shot by Richard Collier:
1 Aug 2006Read an interview in Time magazine with Katherine Schori, the new head of the US Episcopalian church. She had a good response when the interviewer asked if only Christians go to heaven: We who practice the Christian tradition understand [Jesus] as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box. That's a wonderful sentiment. But if she followed it to its conclusion, wouldn't it lead to Unitarianism or Bahai or one of those universal faiths? She also had some other neat quotes: There's much debate about whether science and religion can comfortably coexist. You're a scientist and a pastor. What do you think? Oh, they absolutely can. In the Middle Ages, theology was called the queen of the sciences. It asks a set of questions about human existence, about why we're here and how we should be in relationship with our neighbors and with the divine. And science, in this more traditional understanding, is about looking at creation and trying to understand how it functions. What is your view on intelligent design? I firmly believe that evolution ought to be taught in the schools as the best witness of what modern science has taught us. To try to read the Bible literalistically about such issues disinvites us from using the best of recent scholarship Do you have a favorite Bible verse? Chapter 61 of Isaiah is an icon for me of what Christian work should be about. That's what Jesus reads in his first public act. In Luke, he walks into the synagogue and reads from Isaiah. It talks about a vision of the reign of God where those who are mourning are comforted, where the hungry are fed, where the poor hear good news 27 July 2006I dont consider myself a liberal or conservative: more
middle-of-the road. But living in the inland northwest sure makes me feel
liberal. Sometimes I fantasize about debating issues with the local
conservatives. One argument Ive come up with: Do liberals win every debate, eventually? 26 July 2006Im often puzzled by the lack of objectivity displayed by the US media when it comes to Israel. Everything Israel does is correct, says our media. No sympathy is ever shown to the Palestinians. The apartheid system in Israel is ignored. I'm not saying the Palestinians are saints, but both sides share the blame. European newspapers (and Russian, and Asian, and ...) present both sides equitably. Why is the other viewpoint never presented in the US media? Here is an objective viewpoint from the UK newspaper The Independent: http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1197235.ece . Author is Oren Ben-Dor, title " Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?": As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. In deed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim. While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger. What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other. Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one. The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews. Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews. To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality. Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence. The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood. The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another. Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak. In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart. 23 July 2006Saw Leo Kottke last night live at local park: a free concert. Very few people in audience: maybe 300. The 100 degree temperature (tho it cooled off as the sun set) was a factor. Loved his encore "Ring, Ring" so much I just bought it on iTunes. He told little anecdotes while tuning his guitars between songs. One aphorism that really struck me: Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies
Learning about yoism religion (yoism.org) .. has a neat
quote: "My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety
towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to
be servants of their human interests." (Santayana) I also like their assertion that the delusional
belief in an afterlife causes people to not live life in a proper fashion. iTunes is a bit bothersome: Apple has Digital Rights Management (DRM) that encrypts the songs, and you can only play the songs on Apple iPod hardware (or on your computer, but only with the iTunes application). Granted, you can get the songs to play on other devices, but only if you degrade the audio quality from MP4 to MP3, and go thru lots of hoops. Consumers should revolt: if you buy a song you should be able to play it on any device you own. Apparently Apple uses DES to encrypt the MP4 files with a private key that is established by the iTunes software. Fortunately, volunteers on the web came up with Hymn and JHymn, programs to decrypt the MP4 files. But it is a cat-and-mouse game: Apple is well aware of JHymn, and the latest version of iTunes has extra logic that defeats JHymn. For now. The only reason I bought from iTunes is that I won 20 free songs in a contest, and so I bought some Leo Kottke, Cat Stevens (Yousef Islam), Vince Guarldi, and Van Morrison. 6 July 2006Watched a ballet piece (in DVD collection of ballet pieces I rented for S): one astounding piece was The Night of the Shades from the ballet La Bayadere. The choreography is by M. Petipo in 1877; music by Ludwig Minkus. The production was the Paris Opera Ballet in 1992. This piece is hypnotizing: 32 identical ballerinas doing arabesques, in sync, for 5 minutes. The web says this is a famous piece, for being representative of classical ballet taken to an extreme. One commentator says it is very stressful for the performers, because even the slightest error is noticeable from afar. 15 June 2006Read The Lost World (1912, A. Conan Doyle) a science fiction novel set in a hidden plateau in South America. Excellent work, and once again Im surprised at how great the old masters (Wells, Jules Verne) were before the "golden age" of science fiction (1930 - 1960). Read Conan the Warrior and Conan of Cimmeria, two collections of short stories by E. Robert Howard from the 1930s, originally published mostly in Weird Tales magazine. These were representative of a genre called Sword and Sandal, or Sword and Sorcery (now called Fantasy): wizards, dragons, dwarves, elves, warriors, fictional maps, in a dark-ages Nordic/Viking milieu. This genre is the precursor to the Lord of the Rings, which led to Dungeons and Dragons, and then to World of Warcraft and other role-playing games (RPGs). 13 April 2006I wrote my first entry for Wikipedia: on the children's book Animalia. I had a bit of a tiff with the wiki admins because Animalia also means "Animals: the animal kingdom", so I made the Animalia entry point to my book entry (which included a pointer to Animals). But the admins wanted it re-directed to the Animals entry. Granted, the Animals entry does begin with "For the book, go to ...". I had to give up, because if you argue too hard, they ban you from editing altogether (although I'm not sure how they ban edits from an anonymous person: banning the URL seems like it would catch too many people). I'm not too impressed with Wikipedia: The quality is pretty poor, and there is are several classes of muck mucks (Administrators, Bureaucrats, and Stewards) who can retaliate if they don't like your input. A lot of bias, conscious or unconscious, is present. But you cant deny its success: Encyclopedia Britannica and MS Encarta are not accessed as much. One bright side: it does make info more freely available. A good example is their page on the second law of thermodynamics, which is really haphazard and uneven. I made some small improvements to it, but who knows if they will be obliterated by some yahoo? Wiki has a pretty wide-open philosophy: three of their rules are (1) If a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, break the rule; (2) Rules can be changed at any time, if consensus is reached; and (3) Disputes are resolved case-by-case, not by precedent. These three rules are disliked by many admins who think these rules make it too hard to discipline cranks - there is a proposal afoot to change these rules. Wiki has tons of other rules, such as: All articles must be neutral (not biased); Can't dump tons of links to your personal sites; All statements must be verifiable (originated in a valid, trusted source); No articles about original research (aka views not yet established or accepted). They founder is a guy named Jimmy Wales, who still has ultimate dictator authority. He seems nice enough: He refuses to cooperate with China's censoring rules, and so Wikipedia is blocked from China. 3 March 2006Evolution is back in the headlines: Some Christian group suffered a legal setback in their attempt to get "Intelligent Design" into the classroom. The thing that is most puzzling about the anti-evolution forces is why they are so adamant about it. The Christian faith is not based on the minute details of the old testament. When Galileo and Copernicus showed that the earth revolves around the sun, they disproved the literal interpretation of the Bible (which says that Joshua temporarily stopped the sun from moving around the earth). Yet Christianity has thrived in the 500 years since then. Why are Christians panicking about whether the creation described in Genesis is contradicted by science? Do they think that finding factual errors in the Old Testament will cause people to turn away from the faith? Jews have more of a stake in the Old Testament than Christians, yet Jews understand that the bible is not to be taken that literally. (One humorous restriction is Deuteronomy 22:11 "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together."). Christianity will thrive long after evolution is proven to be true, just as it survived Galileo. 3 Jan 2006The United States government is behaving in an un-American way these days. I'm very much in favor of defending our country, and I believe in a strong military; but not at the expense of fundamental American principles. For instance:
Pseudo-patriots support all these measures. The ironic thing is, our founding fathers were strongly opposed to these sorts of activities, and explicitly outlawed most of them in the Constitution (Habeus Corpus; first amendment; 4th amendment; 8th amendment). When Americans brag about our country, we compare ourselves to "bad" regimes that had little liberty: Communist Russia, fascist Italy, the Nazis. We are superior to the tyrants, to the dictators. We do not have gulags, we don't torture, we give suspects a speedy, fair trial, the Gestapo cannot burst into our homes without a warrant, our leaders are subject to the rule of law, our leaders cannot violate the constitution. That is what makes America great. Have we become the enemy we are fighting? What really makes this bothersome is that there does not seem to be much of a threat. Sure, 9/11 was an immense tragedy, but let's put things in perspective: the number of deaths was far less than the number that die on our highways every year; the terrorists are a very disorganized lot; and we have not found any evidence of further terrorist plottings yet. I've lost track of the number of times that there is a news headline "Terrorist Plot Uncovered in Some City". And then, buried on the 11th page 2 months later: "Charges Dropped Against Suspects":
All of the above suspects were acquitted. If these are the only threats to the USA, then they clearly are not sufficient justification to abandon our constitutional protections. And these are just the cases I can cite from memory. In the 5 years since 9/11, I cannot recall a single terrorist arrested and convicted in USA. But the authorities have arrested, humiliated, and bankrupted dozens of muslim-americans who were later acquitted. The bottom line is that: for America to be great, to have liberties, we must pay the price with occasional tragedies. The only way to enjoy 100% security, is to live in a fascist state. But the American way is to endure an occasional tragedy, in order to ensure that everyone has freedom and liberty. (I didn't really like Kerry, but I recall he expressed a similar sentiment, and was excoriated). Let's say you had a choice: (a) everyone can drive 60 mph on the freeways, but 10,000 people a year will die; or (b) everyone can drive 30 mph on the freeways, and only 1,000 people a year will die. Which do you choose? That choice is not much different from: (a) The government cannot wiretap without warrant and torture prisoner, and we have a terrorist attack every 5 years; or (b) the government can torture and wiretap, and we have a terrorist attack every 20 years.
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