I knew that Trump had been to Europe. I just wasn't aware that people were making such a big deal out of it. Presidents go to foreign countries all the time, and their people come over here all the time. So what? Well, I just did some looking up on the subject, and now I think I know what you guys have been talking about.
Don't get me wrong, I still don't like Trump's personality, but I do agree with some of what he says. For instance, I think it is about time that our allies start paying for more of their own defense. World War II has been over for more than 70 years, and all those economies should have recovered by now. NATO was originally founded to protect all of us against Russia, and I always thought it should have been disbanded once the Cold War was over. Now I'm not so sure about that, since Russia started rattling its saber again, but that doesn't mean we have to pay for everything. The US might still be the richest country in the world, although Red China is on track to surpass us if it hasn't already, but I doubt that we are as rich as all the rest of the world put together.
I thought Trump was exaggerating when he said on TV that he had just negotiated the biggest arms deal in history with Saudi Arabia. Well, according to the Washington Post, it's true. That's the trouble with people who lie a lot, the one time they tell the truth, nobody believes them. I'm not so sure that selling all those weapons to the Saudis was a good idea. How do we know that some of those guns won't end up in the hands of terrorists? I know that Saudi Arabia is supposed to be our ally, but it is an Islamic country after all, and you never know what those people will do. Come to think of it, you never know what Trump will do either. Maybe that's why he got along so well over there.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
sword dancing
Old Dog complains about media speculation and then he goes on to speculate himself. Is the Beaglestonian the media? CNN does a lot of speculating, they have whole panels of speculators that they move on and off the screen. I'm fascinated with the subject so I don't mind, but I can see where a person who was interested in something else might be miffed.
That was some photo of Tiger Woods. Turns out now that he hadn't been drinking but had been popping a lot of pills. I don't care much about celeb news. I guess if it had been Jared Kushner or Michael Flynn I would be more interested. What's with golf anyway? I suppose it is mildly interesting to play the game, but who would want to watch it on tv? The only thing more boring is NASCAR.
I don't see where Tricky Dick showed a sense of honor by resigning, His fate was sealed and he was going down no matter what he only saved himself some embarrassment. Trump, on the other hand, is incapable of embarrassment, they will probably have to pry his tiny fingers from the woodwork.
What had Beagles been doing that he didn't know that Trump was in Europe? I think it was last Friday night that I came home after a few at the Ten Cat and catching up on the news I saw Trump and his entourage doing the sword dance. I thought maybe I had had a couple too many, but then I remembered it was Trump. He loved the Saudis because he loves dictators. He didn't like those European democrats and they certainly didn't like him.
The Noble Peace Prize is kind of a scam. Henry Kissinger got one for Chrissake. Generally they give it to a world leader to makes a move towards peace to encourage him and then when things don't work out they can't take it back.
Those Texans, crazy fuckers. I remember when I was there and Reagan was the prez and he made some belligerent international move and it was widely decried by the dems as cowboy diplomacy the Texans were all like, cowboy diplomacy, how could that ever be wrong?
Six thirty in the morning, about time for the tweets.
That was some photo of Tiger Woods. Turns out now that he hadn't been drinking but had been popping a lot of pills. I don't care much about celeb news. I guess if it had been Jared Kushner or Michael Flynn I would be more interested. What's with golf anyway? I suppose it is mildly interesting to play the game, but who would want to watch it on tv? The only thing more boring is NASCAR.
I don't see where Tricky Dick showed a sense of honor by resigning, His fate was sealed and he was going down no matter what he only saved himself some embarrassment. Trump, on the other hand, is incapable of embarrassment, they will probably have to pry his tiny fingers from the woodwork.
What had Beagles been doing that he didn't know that Trump was in Europe? I think it was last Friday night that I came home after a few at the Ten Cat and catching up on the news I saw Trump and his entourage doing the sword dance. I thought maybe I had had a couple too many, but then I remembered it was Trump. He loved the Saudis because he loves dictators. He didn't like those European democrats and they certainly didn't like him.
The Noble Peace Prize is kind of a scam. Henry Kissinger got one for Chrissake. Generally they give it to a world leader to makes a move towards peace to encourage him and then when things don't work out they can't take it back.
Those Texans, crazy fuckers. I remember when I was there and Reagan was the prez and he made some belligerent international move and it was widely decried by the dems as cowboy diplomacy the Texans were all like, cowboy diplomacy, how could that ever be wrong?
Six thirty in the morning, about time for the tweets.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
A Definite Maybe
So the Russians try to influence other countries' elections by planting fake news on the internet. Well, lots of people do that but, of course, that doesn't make it right. Trump is notorious for spewing out fake news on his own, so I can see why some people might believe that he and the Russians are in it together. Whether or not any of these allegations can be proven remains to be seen.
I heard that Trump just came back from a trip to Europe, but I didn't know that he pissed everybody off over there. Before that he went to Saudi Arabia where they awarded him some kind of medal, so I guess they liked him in that country. I seem to remember that Obama made a favorable impression when he went to the Mideast early in his presidency, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of it. There is still no peace in the Mideast eight years later, so maybe the prize was a little premature.
I saw on the news this evening that there was a big uproar in the Texas state legislature today. They had just passed a bill requiring all Texas law enforcement personnel to cooperate with federal immigration officials when they come looking for illegal immigrants. There were a bunch of illegal immigrants loudly protesting in the visitors' gallery, so one of the legislators called ICE and told them that he knew where they could find some illegals right now. This pissed off a couple of other legislators who had Mexican sounding names. A shouting and shoving match then ensued, among the legislators not the protesters, and there was even some talk of a gun duel in the parking lot. Meanwhile, the visitors gallery was cleared by local law enforcement, but I don't know if ICE got involved or not.
Yesterday they did a story about how a lot of farmers are concerned that they won't be able to find enough cheap labor once the illegals are evicted from the country. Surprisingly, most of those same farmers claim to have voted for Trump and say that they still support him. Go figure!
Those DNA people have been running ads in National Geographic for some time. For a new reduced price of $149 (regular price $199) they promise to tell you what percentage of your DNA comes from various regions of the world. To find out more, visit http://ShopNatGeo.com/DNA.
I heard that Trump just came back from a trip to Europe, but I didn't know that he pissed everybody off over there. Before that he went to Saudi Arabia where they awarded him some kind of medal, so I guess they liked him in that country. I seem to remember that Obama made a favorable impression when he went to the Mideast early in his presidency, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of it. There is still no peace in the Mideast eight years later, so maybe the prize was a little premature.
I saw on the news this evening that there was a big uproar in the Texas state legislature today. They had just passed a bill requiring all Texas law enforcement personnel to cooperate with federal immigration officials when they come looking for illegal immigrants. There were a bunch of illegal immigrants loudly protesting in the visitors' gallery, so one of the legislators called ICE and told them that he knew where they could find some illegals right now. This pissed off a couple of other legislators who had Mexican sounding names. A shouting and shoving match then ensued, among the legislators not the protesters, and there was even some talk of a gun duel in the parking lot. Meanwhile, the visitors gallery was cleared by local law enforcement, but I don't know if ICE got involved or not.
Yesterday they did a story about how a lot of farmers are concerned that they won't be able to find enough cheap labor once the illegals are evicted from the country. Surprisingly, most of those same farmers claim to have voted for Trump and say that they still support him. Go figure!
Those DNA people have been running ads in National Geographic for some time. For a new reduced price of $149 (regular price $199) they promise to tell you what percentage of your DNA comes from various regions of the world. To find out more, visit http://ShopNatGeo.com/DNA.
Not news
There are a lot of layers to any Russian/Trump connections, but I wish that the many news sources would quit speculating and let the investigations run their course. You see the word "if" mentioned a lot, but it means nothing until all the facts are in; makes me wonder if there isn't something to the "fake news" accusations after all. Not fake in the sense that the stories are based on lies but fake meaning it is not real but based on conjecture, and mountains are being made out of molehills.
For example, look at the arrest of Tiger Woods for suspicion of DUI. Maybe he had a reaction to medications, maybe he drunk out of his mind, but so what? It is hardly worth all the news coverage it has received. Media continues to blur the line between news and gossip.
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One facet of Russian involvement may have to do with Trump's finances. My understanding is that New York banks were unwilling to have any further involvement with Trump and the only lender he could find was Deutschebank, but they had troubles of their own and he had to look elsewhere. Enter the Russians; Donald Jr. once stated how much money was coming in from Russia, so maybe the Trump financial house of cards is on the hook to the Russkies, bigly.
That possibility handily explains why Jared Kushner was trying to establish back channels with the Russians, using Russian networks. It would keep their financial entanglements from the prying eyes of US government regulators, and it's simply a business arrangement with nothing to do with politics.
Which hearkens back to one of the purported reasons why Trump sought the presidency. It was not to lead the free world but a means to enhance his "brand" and expand his business opportunities. An old adage of criminal investigations is "follow the money" and we have yet to learn where it will lead, but I suspect we will witness a scandal of epic proportion.
So far, the only result I've seen of this nonsense is the growing strength and influence of the European Union. Trump's recent visit has galvanized them into solidarity and they are ready to assume the leadership of the free world, a position long held by the US. It could be worse, I suppose, Maybe they can keep the Russians honest.
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It's hard to believe that Trump has been in office less than five months, it seems like years. Has so much news coverage been given to anyone who has accomplished so little? It's funny how often Trump is being compared to Nixon. Say what you will about Tricky Dick, at least he had a sense of honor. He resigned.
For example, look at the arrest of Tiger Woods for suspicion of DUI. Maybe he had a reaction to medications, maybe he drunk out of his mind, but so what? It is hardly worth all the news coverage it has received. Media continues to blur the line between news and gossip.
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One facet of Russian involvement may have to do with Trump's finances. My understanding is that New York banks were unwilling to have any further involvement with Trump and the only lender he could find was Deutschebank, but they had troubles of their own and he had to look elsewhere. Enter the Russians; Donald Jr. once stated how much money was coming in from Russia, so maybe the Trump financial house of cards is on the hook to the Russkies, bigly.
That possibility handily explains why Jared Kushner was trying to establish back channels with the Russians, using Russian networks. It would keep their financial entanglements from the prying eyes of US government regulators, and it's simply a business arrangement with nothing to do with politics.
Which hearkens back to one of the purported reasons why Trump sought the presidency. It was not to lead the free world but a means to enhance his "brand" and expand his business opportunities. An old adage of criminal investigations is "follow the money" and we have yet to learn where it will lead, but I suspect we will witness a scandal of epic proportion.
So far, the only result I've seen of this nonsense is the growing strength and influence of the European Union. Trump's recent visit has galvanized them into solidarity and they are ready to assume the leadership of the free world, a position long held by the US. It could be worse, I suppose, Maybe they can keep the Russians honest.
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It's hard to believe that Trump has been in office less than five months, it seems like years. Has so much news coverage been given to anyone who has accomplished so little? It's funny how often Trump is being compared to Nixon. Say what you will about Tricky Dick, at least he had a sense of honor. He resigned.
down on the server farm
I think there is some kind of quantum thing where that uncertainty thing inhabits the spaces between those positive and negative charges (or is it positive or negative and neutral) between the bytes where over time the info (ones and zeros) on our magnetic media will inevitably go bad after awhile. I remember coming across corrupted files pretty often maybe twenty years ago, but not so much anymore. Have they done something since then to make electronic data more stable?
How stable is the internet? Seems pretty stable now. Maybe every other month mine goes out for like fifteen minutes and of course I am all upset, because, because I can't even get on the internet to find out what the problem might be. The main thing about the internet is that almost everybody is on it. What kind of infrastructure does that take? There are all these server farms (Boy I would love to tour a server farm, probably nothing to see except rows and columns of machines in a dark and cold room, hopefully a lot of blinking lights, likely the soft thrum of all those server heads tracing ghostly paths among the grooves (are they grooves or do the ones and zeros (Did you know it's zeros when we are talking about two or more zeros, but zeroes when we are using it as a verb as in the American jet zeroes in on the commie Mig. I learned this on the internet just now) sitting flat on a plate of, of whatever) of the disks.). But somehow all those ones and zeros must go into some machine that drills them down into cables and up into the airwaves, Hard to believe that the whole thing works isn't it?
That DNA thing sounds like a bunch of hooey. I imagine what they do is get some kind of average of the DNAs of all the countries in the world and give you the one which one you most resemble. But surely there are all different kinds of DNAs in different parts of the country and parts that were parts of other countries previously and parts that now belong to different countries, and then there is Sandy sneaking down the backstairs. I think one of those guys on the commercials thought he was Italian but then it turned out he was central European. No wonder his lasagna tasted so crappy,
The main thing they are investigating is all those connections between the Russkies and Trumpworld, and why Trumpworld consistently lied about it, and won't tell what they were talking to the Russkies about, and generally stymie the investigation at every turn.
It's accepted by both sides that the Russkies were trying to interfere with our election, so doesn't the fact that Trumpworld was playing footsie on the sly with the Russkies make for a whole lot of smoke and the distinct possibility of fire?
The Trumpists claim that there is no evidence of fraud at the polls (well there are those five million illegal votes by illegals, but I think he has dropped that (correction, just hasn't tweeted lately about it, he might start on it again tomorrow if the mood strikes him).). See this is a typical Trumpist dodge. Nobody is accusing the Russkies of interfering with the polls. The Trumpist ignore the charges against them and deny something else that they are not accused of.
The investigation is into all those communications between the Turmpists and all those Russian shenanigans, and could they have been colluding in some way.
Of course nobody listens to the Russian media, but the Russkies make up stories and get them planted in the internet where they sprout on places like Brietbart (that big girl pizzeria pederasty ring) and look like American stories.
I think the Republicans kind of knew that Nixon was kind of a crook, but they liked him because he was there nominee and won the election (sound familiar?). When they found out how big a crook it was more than they could take. That was then. So far in Trump's term they refuse to acknowledge what a buffoon he is. It's yet to be seen if they ever will.
That chess game thing, it would be so cool, think of the money we would save on armies. But I've been thinking about it and I can't see how it cold possibly ever come to pass.
How stable is the internet? Seems pretty stable now. Maybe every other month mine goes out for like fifteen minutes and of course I am all upset, because, because I can't even get on the internet to find out what the problem might be. The main thing about the internet is that almost everybody is on it. What kind of infrastructure does that take? There are all these server farms (Boy I would love to tour a server farm, probably nothing to see except rows and columns of machines in a dark and cold room, hopefully a lot of blinking lights, likely the soft thrum of all those server heads tracing ghostly paths among the grooves (are they grooves or do the ones and zeros (Did you know it's zeros when we are talking about two or more zeros, but zeroes when we are using it as a verb as in the American jet zeroes in on the commie Mig. I learned this on the internet just now) sitting flat on a plate of, of whatever) of the disks.). But somehow all those ones and zeros must go into some machine that drills them down into cables and up into the airwaves, Hard to believe that the whole thing works isn't it?
That DNA thing sounds like a bunch of hooey. I imagine what they do is get some kind of average of the DNAs of all the countries in the world and give you the one which one you most resemble. But surely there are all different kinds of DNAs in different parts of the country and parts that were parts of other countries previously and parts that now belong to different countries, and then there is Sandy sneaking down the backstairs. I think one of those guys on the commercials thought he was Italian but then it turned out he was central European. No wonder his lasagna tasted so crappy,
The main thing they are investigating is all those connections between the Russkies and Trumpworld, and why Trumpworld consistently lied about it, and won't tell what they were talking to the Russkies about, and generally stymie the investigation at every turn.
It's accepted by both sides that the Russkies were trying to interfere with our election, so doesn't the fact that Trumpworld was playing footsie on the sly with the Russkies make for a whole lot of smoke and the distinct possibility of fire?
The Trumpists claim that there is no evidence of fraud at the polls (well there are those five million illegal votes by illegals, but I think he has dropped that (correction, just hasn't tweeted lately about it, he might start on it again tomorrow if the mood strikes him).). See this is a typical Trumpist dodge. Nobody is accusing the Russkies of interfering with the polls. The Trumpist ignore the charges against them and deny something else that they are not accused of.
The investigation is into all those communications between the Turmpists and all those Russian shenanigans, and could they have been colluding in some way.
Of course nobody listens to the Russian media, but the Russkies make up stories and get them planted in the internet where they sprout on places like Brietbart (that big girl pizzeria pederasty ring) and look like American stories.
I think the Republicans kind of knew that Nixon was kind of a crook, but they liked him because he was there nominee and won the election (sound familiar?). When they found out how big a crook it was more than they could take. That was then. So far in Trump's term they refuse to acknowledge what a buffoon he is. It's yet to be seen if they ever will.
That chess game thing, it would be so cool, think of the money we would save on armies. But I've been thinking about it and I can't see how it cold possibly ever come to pass.
Monday, May 29, 2017
Those Pesky Russians!
Silly me, when the Russians renounced Communism way back in 1990 I figured that they would become good guys. They were quickly replaced in the bad guy role by the Islamic extremists anyway. Looking back on it, the Islamic extremists had always been there, but nobody noticed them until the Russians got out of the way. Now it seems like the Russians are trying to weasel their way back into the picture. How many bad guys do we need anyway?
I haven't been following the investigation of the Trump-Russian connection. Exactly what are they investigating? Something about interfering with our election, but how can that be? I seem to remember hearing multiple times that we don't need to require picture IDs for voting because there is absolutely no evidence of election fraud in the United States. I saw on the TV news this evening that the "Russian media" are alleged to have interfered with the latest French election. How many French people pay attention to the Russian media? I understand that, in our case, Trump and Putin allegedly got together and hatched some kind of plot, but I don't know what they were allegedly plotting to do. Did Putin offer to send a bunch of his people over here disguised as Mexicans so they could vote illegally? What did Trump offer to do in return? I suppose I could look it up, but I would rather get my news from a trustworthy source.
Everybody must not have hated Nixon, because he won re-election by a landslide. It was only after the Watergate scandal broke that people began to deny that that they had voted for him. Truth be known, the majority had voted for Nixon, and now that same majority was calling for his head. This led one of my paper mill colleagues to coin the phrase, "The trouble with majority rule is that the majority is stupid."
I don't think war as chess game, or any other kind of non-lethal game, would work. Whichever side lost would likely claim that the other side had cheated, overturn the game table, and go for their guns.
I've heard of that DNA tracing thing. At first they were paying people to participate, and now they want people to pay them to participate, so it must have become popular. I seem to remember that, when they did it in Europe, they found that almost everybody had a little Attila The Hun in them. Reminds me of one of our local legends. One of the early White settlers in our area was a popular fur trader named Sanderson, or something like that. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and everybody called him "Sandy". The Indians liked him because he always paid them a fair price for their furs, and maybe for some other reasons as well. To this day, whenever a blond haired blue eyed Indian is born, people snicker and say. "One of Sandy's children."
I haven't been following the investigation of the Trump-Russian connection. Exactly what are they investigating? Something about interfering with our election, but how can that be? I seem to remember hearing multiple times that we don't need to require picture IDs for voting because there is absolutely no evidence of election fraud in the United States. I saw on the TV news this evening that the "Russian media" are alleged to have interfered with the latest French election. How many French people pay attention to the Russian media? I understand that, in our case, Trump and Putin allegedly got together and hatched some kind of plot, but I don't know what they were allegedly plotting to do. Did Putin offer to send a bunch of his people over here disguised as Mexicans so they could vote illegally? What did Trump offer to do in return? I suppose I could look it up, but I would rather get my news from a trustworthy source.
Everybody must not have hated Nixon, because he won re-election by a landslide. It was only after the Watergate scandal broke that people began to deny that that they had voted for him. Truth be known, the majority had voted for Nixon, and now that same majority was calling for his head. This led one of my paper mill colleagues to coin the phrase, "The trouble with majority rule is that the majority is stupid."
I don't think war as chess game, or any other kind of non-lethal game, would work. Whichever side lost would likely claim that the other side had cheated, overturn the game table, and go for their guns.
I've heard of that DNA tracing thing. At first they were paying people to participate, and now they want people to pay them to participate, so it must have become popular. I seem to remember that, when they did it in Europe, they found that almost everybody had a little Attila The Hun in them. Reminds me of one of our local legends. One of the early White settlers in our area was a popular fur trader named Sanderson, or something like that. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and everybody called him "Sandy". The Indians liked him because he always paid them a fair price for their furs, and maybe for some other reasons as well. To this day, whenever a blond haired blue eyed Indian is born, people snicker and say. "One of Sandy's children."
Medium, not rare or well done
It may surprise some people that the mission of the U.S. Infantry is not to kill people...
That salient fact completely slipped my mind. The only infantry training I experienced was half-assed, at best, during my first few months at Ft. Polk. I remember they always referred to a non-specific "enemy" and not any specific group but once in a while they'd mention "Charlie."
Uncle Ken may not make a distinction between different types of killing but the law sure does; big difference between murder and involuntary manslaughter. In both cases a life is lost but the penalties differ dramatically, which is small comfort to the family of the deceased.
Since much of the moral code of western civilization is derived from scripture I think the God of the Old Testament couldn't make up its mind. On the one hand the life of Cain was spared after the murder of Abel but there was no problem commanding the chosen people to slay their enemies. But this topic has already been chewed on, hasn't it?
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I agree that the media generally give us what we want.
They also give us what they think we want. If they see an uptick in circulation because of a frog story you can bet that there will be more frog stories until public interest wanes. I don't think they really know what will sell and they are willing to try anything as long as the sponsors and advertisers aren't offended. Controversy always sells, as long as it doesn't go too far, and the public is fickle.
I wish I still had my copy of Marshall McLuhan's book Understanding Media. The phrase "the medium is the message" is eerily prescient and I wonder what he would have thought of today's social media and the evolution of traditional mass media. Could he have foreseen something like The Drudge Report, or the abundance of content posted to YouTube? Everybody and anybody can be a content creator and grab millions of eyeballs and shape public opinion, for better or worse.
But a lot of the content is ephemeral and has no lasting impact; attention spans have gotten significantly shorter. Last month's big story is already forgotten; eclipsed by today's big story. This is what bothers me so much about stuff being in "the cloud." They say that once something is posted online it never disappears, but I'm not sure about that. Magnetic media (of any type) is not archival; if you really want to keep something for the long term you had best produce a physical copy. Paper still works very well and has stood the test of time but I don't know how long the inks in today's inkjet printers will last; some dyes aren't too stable and are only guaranteed for 100 years (according to what I learned while working at Kinko's).
I used to print out an awful lot of stuff, mostly reference and technical stuff, but not any longer. While going through some of my piles of stuff I realized that once an item was printed it was put aside, usually never to be read again. The info is still good, if a little dated, but my interests have changed over the years and those printed pages are no longer relevant except as curiosities.
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There are a lot of commercials that allow you (for a fee) to track your DNA and I wonder what you guys think of that. I remember one where this guy thought he was German and discovered that his lineage is mostly from Scotland. Suppose his siblings were also tested and they found out they were mostly Greek; that would make for some interesting family discussions, good fodder for an appearance on Maury.
That salient fact completely slipped my mind. The only infantry training I experienced was half-assed, at best, during my first few months at Ft. Polk. I remember they always referred to a non-specific "enemy" and not any specific group but once in a while they'd mention "Charlie."
Uncle Ken may not make a distinction between different types of killing but the law sure does; big difference between murder and involuntary manslaughter. In both cases a life is lost but the penalties differ dramatically, which is small comfort to the family of the deceased.
Since much of the moral code of western civilization is derived from scripture I think the God of the Old Testament couldn't make up its mind. On the one hand the life of Cain was spared after the murder of Abel but there was no problem commanding the chosen people to slay their enemies. But this topic has already been chewed on, hasn't it?
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I agree that the media generally give us what we want.
They also give us what they think we want. If they see an uptick in circulation because of a frog story you can bet that there will be more frog stories until public interest wanes. I don't think they really know what will sell and they are willing to try anything as long as the sponsors and advertisers aren't offended. Controversy always sells, as long as it doesn't go too far, and the public is fickle.
I wish I still had my copy of Marshall McLuhan's book Understanding Media. The phrase "the medium is the message" is eerily prescient and I wonder what he would have thought of today's social media and the evolution of traditional mass media. Could he have foreseen something like The Drudge Report, or the abundance of content posted to YouTube? Everybody and anybody can be a content creator and grab millions of eyeballs and shape public opinion, for better or worse.
But a lot of the content is ephemeral and has no lasting impact; attention spans have gotten significantly shorter. Last month's big story is already forgotten; eclipsed by today's big story. This is what bothers me so much about stuff being in "the cloud." They say that once something is posted online it never disappears, but I'm not sure about that. Magnetic media (of any type) is not archival; if you really want to keep something for the long term you had best produce a physical copy. Paper still works very well and has stood the test of time but I don't know how long the inks in today's inkjet printers will last; some dyes aren't too stable and are only guaranteed for 100 years (according to what I learned while working at Kinko's).
I used to print out an awful lot of stuff, mostly reference and technical stuff, but not any longer. While going through some of my piles of stuff I realized that once an item was printed it was put aside, usually never to be read again. The info is still good, if a little dated, but my interests have changed over the years and those printed pages are no longer relevant except as curiosities.
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There are a lot of commercials that allow you (for a fee) to track your DNA and I wonder what you guys think of that. I remember one where this guy thought he was German and discovered that his lineage is mostly from Scotland. Suppose his siblings were also tested and they found out they were mostly Greek; that would make for some interesting family discussions, good fodder for an appearance on Maury.
war on a chessboard
I guess you can define war however you like, I tend to include chimp skirmishes because I think whatever is causing that is not too far from the motivations of like WW II.
I recall the Mouse that Roared, it was kind of a big deal when it came out, Not every war ends up with a Marshall plan, which I think was instituted mainly to keep the vanquished nations from the soviet orbit. Some time ago I read a fascinating book about dividing the spoils of WW I. The victors were marching across this big map of Europe adjusting this border this way, that one that way. The victors made out pretty well and there was no Marshall plan for the defeated.
Rules of warfare are an interesting idea. Remember how our bold forefathers defeated the red coats (they were wearing red coats for chrissake) by hiding behind trees and shooting at them, a sharp break with the Marquis of Queensbury of the day, and yet centuries later we are pretty smug about it. It would be nice if instead of actual armies we could each have a champion or a chess team and they could fight and that would decide the winner of the war, So many fewer dead people so much money not lost. And you could set the terms you were disputing, It would be like which river is the proper border, and once that was determined the contest would be solely about that unlike conventional war which happens over some piddly issue and ends with one country overrunning another and slaughtering the civilians. It would be kind of boring though. I am not sure that people would go for it,
Yeah those war on poverty things are pretty stupid. How about tsars, remember how we would name people drug tsars and energy tsars?. Tsars, why did we pick that Russian nomenclature.
I agree that the media generally give us what we want. They are businesses and they want to sell advertising and the advertisers want ratings,and I love a good scandal as much as the next guy. Celebrity scandals are kind of ho hum, but political ones have a tang. Possibly because pols are always dressing themselves up in hubris and gravitas so that when the pie hits them in the face it is just more comical.
I hardly think that the alleged collusion of Trump and the Russkies has come to a dead end,. I don't know what this Bryon York is smoking.
But he is right that it is the coverup that often does the politician in. All Bill would have had to do was cry some crocodile tears and promise to never do it again. But he was such a magnificent liar that he couldn't help himself. I'm not so sure about Nixon. Most people hated Nixon and those who didn't hate him weren't crazy about him. The anti Big Girl army was so virulent, so full of passionate intensity, that it didn't matter whether she confessed or told the truth.
I fail to see the distinction between killing people and killing people only if they get in the way of what you are trying to do.
I recall the Mouse that Roared, it was kind of a big deal when it came out, Not every war ends up with a Marshall plan, which I think was instituted mainly to keep the vanquished nations from the soviet orbit. Some time ago I read a fascinating book about dividing the spoils of WW I. The victors were marching across this big map of Europe adjusting this border this way, that one that way. The victors made out pretty well and there was no Marshall plan for the defeated.
Rules of warfare are an interesting idea. Remember how our bold forefathers defeated the red coats (they were wearing red coats for chrissake) by hiding behind trees and shooting at them, a sharp break with the Marquis of Queensbury of the day, and yet centuries later we are pretty smug about it. It would be nice if instead of actual armies we could each have a champion or a chess team and they could fight and that would decide the winner of the war, So many fewer dead people so much money not lost. And you could set the terms you were disputing, It would be like which river is the proper border, and once that was determined the contest would be solely about that unlike conventional war which happens over some piddly issue and ends with one country overrunning another and slaughtering the civilians. It would be kind of boring though. I am not sure that people would go for it,
Yeah those war on poverty things are pretty stupid. How about tsars, remember how we would name people drug tsars and energy tsars?. Tsars, why did we pick that Russian nomenclature.
I agree that the media generally give us what we want. They are businesses and they want to sell advertising and the advertisers want ratings,and I love a good scandal as much as the next guy. Celebrity scandals are kind of ho hum, but political ones have a tang. Possibly because pols are always dressing themselves up in hubris and gravitas so that when the pie hits them in the face it is just more comical.
I hardly think that the alleged collusion of Trump and the Russkies has come to a dead end,. I don't know what this Bryon York is smoking.
But he is right that it is the coverup that often does the politician in. All Bill would have had to do was cry some crocodile tears and promise to never do it again. But he was such a magnificent liar that he couldn't help himself. I'm not so sure about Nixon. Most people hated Nixon and those who didn't hate him weren't crazy about him. The anti Big Girl army was so virulent, so full of passionate intensity, that it didn't matter whether she confessed or told the truth.
I fail to see the distinction between killing people and killing people only if they get in the way of what you are trying to do.
Friday, May 26, 2017
The Scandal Mongers
I looked up that Larry Craig story. What is it about politicians and other celebrities that make them so vulnerable to scandal mongering? It has become fashionable in some circles to blame the media for it, but I think the media just feeds the public what they want to hear. If nobody paid attention to this crap, the media would stop dishing it out. Maybe people wouldn't be so fascinated by this stuff if they had real lives of their own. Come to think of it, it's been awhile since I've heard that old put down, "Get a life!", but then I don't get around much anymore.
I read in Byron York's column in our local paper today that the investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with the Russians has come to a dead end, but now they are investigating whether Trump tried to cover up this alleged crime that probably never happened. I suppose that's no different than when Martha Stewart was convicted of perjury for lying about something she had done which turned out to not even be illegal. Then there was Watergate. Everybody knew about it before the election, but they voted for Nixon anyway. Six months later some reporters uncovered the subsequent cover up and the public began calling for Nixon's head. If they weren't mad at him for doing it in the first place, why were they so mad at him for covering it up? And what about that thing with Hillary's emails? It wasn't illegal when she did it, that law was passed later. Hillary admitted that she had made a mistake, but they just kept hounding her about it. I understand that Hillary has been investigated multiple times over the years, but none of the allegations were ever proven. So why do they keep trying? Don't they have anything better to do?
It may surprise some people that the mission of the U.S. Infantry is not to kill people, I know it surprised me when I learned about it in my infantry training. The mission of the infantry is to take and hold ground by means of fire and close combat, or words to that effect. They really don't care how many people you kill as long as you take possession of their real estate and prevent them from taking it back. George Washington did something like that, I seem to remember it was called the Battle of Trenton. I may have the name of the town wrong, but let's call it Trenton so I can go on with the story.
The British and the Americans were fighting over Trenton and, as was the custom in those days, they shut down operations and made camp at nightfall. Washington had his people build a string of campfires across his front line, preventing the British from seeing what he was up to. At the dawn's early light, it became evident to the British that the Americans had evacuated their positions in the night. They didn't know where they had gone until a messenger came running back telling them that Washington had captured the next town down the road, then abandoned it and headed for the next town down the road. The British commander concluded that it was this third town that Washington was really after, so he sent all his people there, leaving Trenton unguarded. The Americans then circled around on back roads and took Trenton without firing a shot. It's a good thing, too, otherwise we all might be speaking English today.
I read in Byron York's column in our local paper today that the investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with the Russians has come to a dead end, but now they are investigating whether Trump tried to cover up this alleged crime that probably never happened. I suppose that's no different than when Martha Stewart was convicted of perjury for lying about something she had done which turned out to not even be illegal. Then there was Watergate. Everybody knew about it before the election, but they voted for Nixon anyway. Six months later some reporters uncovered the subsequent cover up and the public began calling for Nixon's head. If they weren't mad at him for doing it in the first place, why were they so mad at him for covering it up? And what about that thing with Hillary's emails? It wasn't illegal when she did it, that law was passed later. Hillary admitted that she had made a mistake, but they just kept hounding her about it. I understand that Hillary has been investigated multiple times over the years, but none of the allegations were ever proven. So why do they keep trying? Don't they have anything better to do?
It may surprise some people that the mission of the U.S. Infantry is not to kill people, I know it surprised me when I learned about it in my infantry training. The mission of the infantry is to take and hold ground by means of fire and close combat, or words to that effect. They really don't care how many people you kill as long as you take possession of their real estate and prevent them from taking it back. George Washington did something like that, I seem to remember it was called the Battle of Trenton. I may have the name of the town wrong, but let's call it Trenton so I can go on with the story.
The British and the Americans were fighting over Trenton and, as was the custom in those days, they shut down operations and made camp at nightfall. Washington had his people build a string of campfires across his front line, preventing the British from seeing what he was up to. At the dawn's early light, it became evident to the British that the Americans had evacuated their positions in the night. They didn't know where they had gone until a messenger came running back telling them that Washington had captured the next town down the road, then abandoned it and headed for the next town down the road. The British commander concluded that it was this third town that Washington was really after, so he sent all his people there, leaving Trenton unguarded. The Americans then circled around on back roads and took Trenton without firing a shot. It's a good thing, too, otherwise we all might be speaking English today.
What is it good for?
As I follow the recent discussions, I'm not convinced that animals engage in what we refer to as "war." They may fight but I think that war is more than a battle or two; it's a prolonged sequence of engagements directed at specific goals, and as such, is a uniquely human endeavor. There is a tendency for some people to ascribe human qualities to animals where no such quality exists. As for a "war gene," I doubt it. Human aggression can escalate to a state of war but it doesn't always.
Which got me thinking about North Korea, their state of mind, and that maybe the chubby little guy is a big fan of the Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared. Do you guys remember it? When the Grand Duchy of Fenwick was in dire straits, they decided to wage war with the US, knowing they will lose and will become the beneficiaries of the largesse that the US has shown to it's former foes. Germany and Japan made out pretty well, why not the Grand Duchy of Fenwick? The plan went awry, of course, due to the Q Bomb as I recall, and the US surrendered. Maybe I should watch that movie again to make sure I got the story straight.
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Are you guys familiar with Joseph Medicine Crow, the last war chief of the Crow tribe? There are four tasks to become a war chief (from Wikipedia): touching an enemy without killing him (counting coup), taking an enemy's weapon, leading a successful war party, and stealing an enemy's horse. He did all four against the Germans in WWII; a great story.
Take note of the task of counting coup. Not being injured while doing so held a higher honor than being hurt; simply touching the enemy was a kind of victory in itself and you didn't have to kill the guy. Tag, you're it!
As a side note, despite the horrors of modern warfare, there are still rules of engagement and proscribed weapons, at least among the "civilized" nations. No chemical or biological weapons, and no exploding bullets for example. I don't know how much weight the Geneva Convention really holds, but it's something at least, and it lends a sense of honor to the proceedings. I don't think opposing combatants really hate the other guys, but it's their job to kill them, nothing personal, but if they could beat them without killing them that would fine, too. I'm a terrible military strategist.
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I acknowledge that my view of war is simplistic in that it deals mostly with armed conflict, but that's how I see it. Other reputed wars (war on obesity, war of drugs, et al.) are marketing ploys designed to give greater significance to issues that could better be described in other terms. Instead of "war" I'd like to see something that describes a plan to achieve the intended goals, i.e., a Plan Against Poverty, a Plan Against Terror, a Plan Against Cancer. It seems to me that a lot of wars have been waged without any plan or clear goals, but the great deciders have to do something, and that's the best they can do: start a war. End of rant.
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Want to see a French beaver?
https://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/animals/after-4-years-trying-beaver-lover-photographer-gets-his-shot/
Which got me thinking about North Korea, their state of mind, and that maybe the chubby little guy is a big fan of the Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared. Do you guys remember it? When the Grand Duchy of Fenwick was in dire straits, they decided to wage war with the US, knowing they will lose and will become the beneficiaries of the largesse that the US has shown to it's former foes. Germany and Japan made out pretty well, why not the Grand Duchy of Fenwick? The plan went awry, of course, due to the Q Bomb as I recall, and the US surrendered. Maybe I should watch that movie again to make sure I got the story straight.
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Are you guys familiar with Joseph Medicine Crow, the last war chief of the Crow tribe? There are four tasks to become a war chief (from Wikipedia): touching an enemy without killing him (counting coup), taking an enemy's weapon, leading a successful war party, and stealing an enemy's horse. He did all four against the Germans in WWII; a great story.
Take note of the task of counting coup. Not being injured while doing so held a higher honor than being hurt; simply touching the enemy was a kind of victory in itself and you didn't have to kill the guy. Tag, you're it!
As a side note, despite the horrors of modern warfare, there are still rules of engagement and proscribed weapons, at least among the "civilized" nations. No chemical or biological weapons, and no exploding bullets for example. I don't know how much weight the Geneva Convention really holds, but it's something at least, and it lends a sense of honor to the proceedings. I don't think opposing combatants really hate the other guys, but it's their job to kill them, nothing personal, but if they could beat them without killing them that would fine, too. I'm a terrible military strategist.
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I acknowledge that my view of war is simplistic in that it deals mostly with armed conflict, but that's how I see it. Other reputed wars (war on obesity, war of drugs, et al.) are marketing ploys designed to give greater significance to issues that could better be described in other terms. Instead of "war" I'd like to see something that describes a plan to achieve the intended goals, i.e., a Plan Against Poverty, a Plan Against Terror, a Plan Against Cancer. It seems to me that a lot of wars have been waged without any plan or clear goals, but the great deciders have to do something, and that's the best they can do: start a war. End of rant.
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Want to see a French beaver?
https://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/animals/after-4-years-trying-beaver-lover-photographer-gets-his-shot/
big trouble in big sky country
The bonobos were known as the hippies of the great ape world. They do indeed engage in sex all the time, but it's not for dominance it is to defuse confrontations so that nobody gets beat up. What a more pleasant place our battlefields would be if we had gone down the path of the bonobos.
How differently things might have gone down in Montana if we were like the bonobos though it makes me a bit squeamish to think of that. Does remind me of that other guy, the wide stance man from big sky country, had to look him up and found him, Larry Craig, by googling wide stance senator. Actually all I had to google was side stance and google supplied the senator. It was actually Idaho, but Idaho, Montana, potato, potana. I hear if you go to the Minneapolis airport a little nosing around can find you the exact restroom, and sure enough cyber sleuthing reveals that there is a fb page dedicated to the Larry Craig Memorial Restroom.
Meanwhile back in Montana I wake up to find out that Gianforte had won the election even after body slamming that reporter. Well if you listen to the tape you'll hear the reporter complain that Gianforte had broken his glasses.
Hey you broke my glasses. Isn't that the whine of weenies everywhere? Remember fights?
There were the schoolyard fights, sometimes you just started swatting each other, but generally it was a more formal affair with a circle of fans surrounding you and shouting encouragement, and as a I recall defeat meant that you had to eat grass, Things were still more formal in high school, taking on almost the trappings of a duel, with each side attending to their champion,and maybe some rules like no hitting below the belt, and no biting being decided on.
Things became more formal still after high school when typically the challenge was issued by an invitation to step outside, typically of a bar. I remember once following two guys out of a bar in an attempt to be a peacemaker and the next thing you know one guy was handing me his coat, and then the other guy handed me his coat, and there I am standing holding their coats while they are still jawing at each other and my girl friend passed by and looked at me disgusted and walked on. I had some 'splaining to do. And then the two guys never did throw a punch. Actually that was the way the adult fights most often ended up, some nasty words, some face to face jawing and then a gradual withdrawal, and nobody's coat got dirty and nobody's glasses got broken. Well I guess that is more civilized, and probably better even than the bonobo way, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Anyway it turns out that Gianforte won, 51 percent to 44 percent, not a wide margin for a ruby red state, but a win nonetheless. Last night I saw them interviewing a couple cowpokes and the one guy said the body slam made him like slammer more and the other guy said that he didn't trust anything he heard from the media. This morning I heard that the victor's crowd was disappointed when he apologized for the body slam.
How differently things might have gone down in Montana if we were like the bonobos though it makes me a bit squeamish to think of that. Does remind me of that other guy, the wide stance man from big sky country, had to look him up and found him, Larry Craig, by googling wide stance senator. Actually all I had to google was side stance and google supplied the senator. It was actually Idaho, but Idaho, Montana, potato, potana. I hear if you go to the Minneapolis airport a little nosing around can find you the exact restroom, and sure enough cyber sleuthing reveals that there is a fb page dedicated to the Larry Craig Memorial Restroom.
Meanwhile back in Montana I wake up to find out that Gianforte had won the election even after body slamming that reporter. Well if you listen to the tape you'll hear the reporter complain that Gianforte had broken his glasses.
Hey you broke my glasses. Isn't that the whine of weenies everywhere? Remember fights?
There were the schoolyard fights, sometimes you just started swatting each other, but generally it was a more formal affair with a circle of fans surrounding you and shouting encouragement, and as a I recall defeat meant that you had to eat grass, Things were still more formal in high school, taking on almost the trappings of a duel, with each side attending to their champion,and maybe some rules like no hitting below the belt, and no biting being decided on.
Things became more formal still after high school when typically the challenge was issued by an invitation to step outside, typically of a bar. I remember once following two guys out of a bar in an attempt to be a peacemaker and the next thing you know one guy was handing me his coat, and then the other guy handed me his coat, and there I am standing holding their coats while they are still jawing at each other and my girl friend passed by and looked at me disgusted and walked on. I had some 'splaining to do. And then the two guys never did throw a punch. Actually that was the way the adult fights most often ended up, some nasty words, some face to face jawing and then a gradual withdrawal, and nobody's coat got dirty and nobody's glasses got broken. Well I guess that is more civilized, and probably better even than the bonobo way, not that there is anything wrong with that.
Anyway it turns out that Gianforte won, 51 percent to 44 percent, not a wide margin for a ruby red state, but a win nonetheless. Last night I saw them interviewing a couple cowpokes and the one guy said the body slam made him like slammer more and the other guy said that he didn't trust anything he heard from the media. This morning I heard that the victor's crowd was disappointed when he apologized for the body slam.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Chimps and Chumps
I had forgotten about the chimps waging war, but they do indeed. Then there is a subspecies of chimps called "bonobos" or something like that. They don't fight much, but they do try to fuck each other to death. Well, maybe not to death, but to the point where one gives up and accepts the dominance of the other. They don't seem to distinguish between males and females either, anybody is fair game for their game. I suppose that makes the bonobos either more enlightened or more depraved than the chimps, depending on your point of view. "Make love not war" sounds like a good idea, but I suppose, like a lot of other things, it can be carried to extremes. Male lions do something like war, actually more like a gang fight. Several males will join together to overthrow a dominant breeding male, who might also have a couple of allies. Turkeys too, but they seldom fight to the death like lions frequently do. Grazing animals probably don't wage war because they're too busy eating. Grass and weeds have less nutritional value than meat, so they have to eat almost constantly to stay alive.
I have read some about the Indian Removal Act of 1830, but I didn't know that Jefferson had anything to do with it. Sounds like he was ambivalent about the Indians like he was about the Blacks. On one hand he admired them but, on the other hand, he believed they should be kept in their place. U.S. Indian policy has been criticized for being inconsistent, but I think that's just because politicians and bureaucrats come and go, and frequently overturn the policies of their predecessors. The reason the White Man speaks with forked tongue is that it's not just one White man speaking.
People tend to think of Indian chiefs as executive rulers, but they usually were more like a board of commissioners. They mostly sat around the fire debating what the tribe or band was going to do next. They would, however, appoint a war chief in times of crisis. This guy was the supreme authority for the duration of the war but, once it was over, he would return to his place in the fire circle. I think that Indian wars were pretty low key affairs before the White Man came along, giving them guns and paying them a bounty for French or English scalps. I have always wondered how whoever paid the bounty could tell if the scalp was French or English. Maybe they just took the Indian's word for it, for the Red Man never spoke with forked tongue until the White Man taught him how to lie. Damn meddlesome White Man!
I have read some about the Indian Removal Act of 1830, but I didn't know that Jefferson had anything to do with it. Sounds like he was ambivalent about the Indians like he was about the Blacks. On one hand he admired them but, on the other hand, he believed they should be kept in their place. U.S. Indian policy has been criticized for being inconsistent, but I think that's just because politicians and bureaucrats come and go, and frequently overturn the policies of their predecessors. The reason the White Man speaks with forked tongue is that it's not just one White man speaking.
People tend to think of Indian chiefs as executive rulers, but they usually were more like a board of commissioners. They mostly sat around the fire debating what the tribe or band was going to do next. They would, however, appoint a war chief in times of crisis. This guy was the supreme authority for the duration of the war but, once it was over, he would return to his place in the fire circle. I think that Indian wars were pretty low key affairs before the White Man came along, giving them guns and paying them a bounty for French or English scalps. I have always wondered how whoever paid the bounty could tell if the scalp was French or English. Maybe they just took the Indian's word for it, for the Red Man never spoke with forked tongue until the White Man taught him how to lie. Damn meddlesome White Man!
war among the animals
If war just comes naturally to us therefore it is in our genes. There may have been some confusion with the term war gene, making it sound like there is a particular gene like those pea genes that Mendel studied. A warlike tendency is something more complicated than that, probably several genes working together.
I had never heard of wolves going to war, but then they have one thing you need to go to war which is a pack mentality. You never see cats of any kind going to war. I guess bison have a pack mentality but you never see them going to war, so probably there is something more to that.
I believe there is a set of genes which cause aggression, seems like aggression can be measured and is found to oh, run in families, so it is likely to be genetically inherited. That doesn't mean the inheritor will be signing up for the army, maybe he will just hang out in bars and get in fights, or maybe he will make a million bucks with ruthless business tactics.
Ants seem to be slaves of their genes. They don't have any schools, they don't grow up with a mom and pop that might put ideas into their heads, they seem to just work. You don't see the queen making deals with her cronies and taking lavish vacations to that ant spa on the other side of the sidewalk. She just lays eggs until she is plumb worn out and dies.
I've read that maybe ants are best considered as each colony is a single organism. You know like those cells on your foot don't get tired of being walked on and walk out and form their own foot cell colony.
Chimps make war. If you were to raise some chimps in the lab and take away their warlike genes and put them out in the wild they would get wiped out by the other chimps because they wouldn't fight back. Gorillas are huge and kind of scary, yet they don't make war. Why doesn't some tribe of gorillas mutate their own set of war genes and make war on the other gorillas until they wipe them out and then there are no more peaceful gorillas? I don't know, Gorillas are strictly vegetarian while chimps like a bit of meat every now and then. Wolves eat meat and bison don't, but I don't know how far that goes.
Thomas Jefferson had this idea of the Injuns being like regular citizens of the United States. All you have to do, he told them is stop having all those consarn wars which interfere with regular trade and industry. But, they told him, these wars are how we pick our chiefs. How will we know who to make chief if we don't test their valor in warfare? Jefferson moved onto other matters.
Well I read that in a book somewhere, but brief internet research fails to back it up so I don't know. I did come across this about Thomas Jefferson though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_Native_Americans
I've never been a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. I don't trust those whose words stir our souls. I think are souls are better off unstirred.
I had never heard of wolves going to war, but then they have one thing you need to go to war which is a pack mentality. You never see cats of any kind going to war. I guess bison have a pack mentality but you never see them going to war, so probably there is something more to that.
I believe there is a set of genes which cause aggression, seems like aggression can be measured and is found to oh, run in families, so it is likely to be genetically inherited. That doesn't mean the inheritor will be signing up for the army, maybe he will just hang out in bars and get in fights, or maybe he will make a million bucks with ruthless business tactics.
Ants seem to be slaves of their genes. They don't have any schools, they don't grow up with a mom and pop that might put ideas into their heads, they seem to just work. You don't see the queen making deals with her cronies and taking lavish vacations to that ant spa on the other side of the sidewalk. She just lays eggs until she is plumb worn out and dies.
I've read that maybe ants are best considered as each colony is a single organism. You know like those cells on your foot don't get tired of being walked on and walk out and form their own foot cell colony.
Chimps make war. If you were to raise some chimps in the lab and take away their warlike genes and put them out in the wild they would get wiped out by the other chimps because they wouldn't fight back. Gorillas are huge and kind of scary, yet they don't make war. Why doesn't some tribe of gorillas mutate their own set of war genes and make war on the other gorillas until they wipe them out and then there are no more peaceful gorillas? I don't know, Gorillas are strictly vegetarian while chimps like a bit of meat every now and then. Wolves eat meat and bison don't, but I don't know how far that goes.
Thomas Jefferson had this idea of the Injuns being like regular citizens of the United States. All you have to do, he told them is stop having all those consarn wars which interfere with regular trade and industry. But, they told him, these wars are how we pick our chiefs. How will we know who to make chief if we don't test their valor in warfare? Jefferson moved onto other matters.
Well I read that in a book somewhere, but brief internet research fails to back it up so I don't know. I did come across this about Thomas Jefferson though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_Native_Americans
I've never been a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. I don't trust those whose words stir our souls. I think are souls are better off unstirred.
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Is War Natural?
Old Dog may be right, people don't need a specific war gene, war just comes natural to the human species. What about peace, then, is that natural too? The farther you go back in history, the more war is accepted as a fact of life. Outside of few religious groups, the general public's interest in world peace seems to have originated after World War II. That was the most destructive war in history, and it caused a lot of people ponder that there must be a better way to run a world. Social animals fight among themselves a lot, but most of it is about personal dominance and, once the pecking order is established, the group settles down. I don't think that groups of animals routinely conduct organized warfare on other groups, but there are exceptions.
The wildlife management policy in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park is pretty much hands off and let Nature take its course. A couple decades ago the wolves had a population explosion, which threatened the moose population with extinction. If the moose had gone down, the wolves were sure to follow, but the park rangers did not intervene. The wolves resolved the problem themselves by the two largest packs waging a genocidal war on the smallest pack. I'm don't remember reading whether or not the two surviving packs turned on each other after the third pack had been exterminated but, last I heard, there was only one pack on the island, and they were in danger of dying out because of their lack of genetic diversity.
There is a seam in the concrete just outside our garage door that is usually inhabited by a colony of tiny red ants. They mostly stay outside and don't cause a problem, so I let them be. On at least two occasions in the past, I have witnessed the colony being over run by big black ants which, I assume, exterminated the red ants because I observed no ants coming and going for the rest of the summer. The black ants did not occupy the site, they just killed off the red ants and went on their way.
My hypothetical wife reports that, when she worked at the laundromat, people occasionally left their clothes in one of the machines, most likely by mistake. Sometimes the owners reclaimed their clothes in a day or two, and sometimes not. Any clothes that were not claimed after a year were donated to a local charity. Unclaimed dry cleaning was also kept for a year and then sold to the public for the price of the cleaning change.
I guess I was making a little joke with that self reliant thing. Although it's true that I have been pretty self reliant for as long as I can remember, and it's true that I took matters into my own hands at the age of 11, I have no evidence that the one thing led to the other. As we all know, correlation does not, in and of itself, establish cause and effect.
The wildlife management policy in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park is pretty much hands off and let Nature take its course. A couple decades ago the wolves had a population explosion, which threatened the moose population with extinction. If the moose had gone down, the wolves were sure to follow, but the park rangers did not intervene. The wolves resolved the problem themselves by the two largest packs waging a genocidal war on the smallest pack. I'm don't remember reading whether or not the two surviving packs turned on each other after the third pack had been exterminated but, last I heard, there was only one pack on the island, and they were in danger of dying out because of their lack of genetic diversity.
There is a seam in the concrete just outside our garage door that is usually inhabited by a colony of tiny red ants. They mostly stay outside and don't cause a problem, so I let them be. On at least two occasions in the past, I have witnessed the colony being over run by big black ants which, I assume, exterminated the red ants because I observed no ants coming and going for the rest of the summer. The black ants did not occupy the site, they just killed off the red ants and went on their way.
My hypothetical wife reports that, when she worked at the laundromat, people occasionally left their clothes in one of the machines, most likely by mistake. Sometimes the owners reclaimed their clothes in a day or two, and sometimes not. Any clothes that were not claimed after a year were donated to a local charity. Unclaimed dry cleaning was also kept for a year and then sold to the public for the price of the cleaning change.
I guess I was making a little joke with that self reliant thing. Although it's true that I have been pretty self reliant for as long as I can remember, and it's true that I took matters into my own hands at the age of 11, I have no evidence that the one thing led to the other. As we all know, correlation does not, in and of itself, establish cause and effect.
Fast, and half fast
Laundromats are a great equalizer; you can't act like a big shot while you're folding your old and faded clothes. Unattended loads don't seem be an issue at my local place because there is an attendant that keeps things moving smoothly. Machine ate your quarters? No problem, they take care of it.
Doing laundry has always been a bit of a pain in the ass but it's a good time to catch up on your reading and think great thoughts. Although I've seen some folks load up their machines and leave, I'm not that trusting. There was a rumor about Gypsies stealing clothes, but that was a long time ago, at a dinky laundromat that I used to go to. I like the place I go to now, plenty of flat screen TVs (not very loud, and they'll change channels on request), a soda machine, and a clean restroom. Lots of washers too (of varying capacities), plenty of dryers, and it's only about a five minute walk for me.
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The notion of a "war gene" strikes me as fanciful simply because it isn't necessary. Between the natural human characteristics of aggression and self preservation it is easy to arrive at a war mentality. Von Clausewitz said it well: "War is the continuation of politics by other means."
I was going to expound on my thoughts of war but then I started looking at the Wikipedia entries for War and the War on Terror and decided I need to give it more thought; maybe some other time. But you guys can go ahead.
Doing laundry has always been a bit of a pain in the ass but it's a good time to catch up on your reading and think great thoughts. Although I've seen some folks load up their machines and leave, I'm not that trusting. There was a rumor about Gypsies stealing clothes, but that was a long time ago, at a dinky laundromat that I used to go to. I like the place I go to now, plenty of flat screen TVs (not very loud, and they'll change channels on request), a soda machine, and a clean restroom. Lots of washers too (of varying capacities), plenty of dryers, and it's only about a five minute walk for me.
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The notion of a "war gene" strikes me as fanciful simply because it isn't necessary. Between the natural human characteristics of aggression and self preservation it is easy to arrive at a war mentality. Von Clausewitz said it well: "War is the continuation of politics by other means."
I was going to expound on my thoughts of war but then I started looking at the Wikipedia entries for War and the War on Terror and decided I need to give it more thought; maybe some other time. But you guys can go ahead.
bored with the board
I don't remember unattended loads being a problem in laundromats. There is more of an every man for himself atmosphere there than in apartment building laundry rooms where all the other users are your neighbors and don't want to risk passing you in the hallway wearing your shirt, I wonder if Beagles could ask his hypothetical wife if anybody ever outright abandoned their laundry. It's not that much trouble emptying a machine, I just wonder why people would leave their stuff there.
When I first moved in I wanted to be a good condo citizen and went to the first condo meeting that appeared on the calendar and was bored so shitless that I didn't attend another one for twenty years. Maybe five years ago we had this terrible woman who became president when her husband, who was a pretty nice guy, died. She had the board on her side and she was spending our money like water and there was nothing we could do about it. But then her term came to an end and we resoundingly voted her out and things are better. I sometimes go to board meetings now, but they are still pretty boring. There is a period of time early in the meetings when people can air their grievances. This is kind of amusing because most of them are crackpots, of course sometimes I am one of the crackpots.
Before our new regime there was a woman who had too many cats and there was an odor problem and she got kicked out. Then they wanted to institute a rule where you had to register your cats and pay like five bucks a year for the privilege. I was irate of course, but then the board, through a series of winks and nods communicated to me that they had no intention of enforcing this, they were just doing it to appease some crackpot I assume.
So Beagles fell under some bad influences at the cusp of puberty led astray by bad influences. Where would we be without bad influences? I pretty much welcomed them, and I suppose I have been them in some cases. I wonder if Beagles is intentionally making a joke in his last line about taking matters into his own hands.
When I first moved in I wanted to be a good condo citizen and went to the first condo meeting that appeared on the calendar and was bored so shitless that I didn't attend another one for twenty years. Maybe five years ago we had this terrible woman who became president when her husband, who was a pretty nice guy, died. She had the board on her side and she was spending our money like water and there was nothing we could do about it. But then her term came to an end and we resoundingly voted her out and things are better. I sometimes go to board meetings now, but they are still pretty boring. There is a period of time early in the meetings when people can air their grievances. This is kind of amusing because most of them are crackpots, of course sometimes I am one of the crackpots.
Before our new regime there was a woman who had too many cats and there was an odor problem and she got kicked out. Then they wanted to institute a rule where you had to register your cats and pay like five bucks a year for the privilege. I was irate of course, but then the board, through a series of winks and nods communicated to me that they had no intention of enforcing this, they were just doing it to appease some crackpot I assume.
So Beagles fell under some bad influences at the cusp of puberty led astray by bad influences. Where would we be without bad influences? I pretty much welcomed them, and I suppose I have been them in some cases. I wonder if Beagles is intentionally making a joke in his last line about taking matters into his own hands.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
War and Peace
Like Uncle Ken said, it depends on how you define war but, if you include things like tribal conflicts and feudalism, most of the human occupied world has been at war for most of recorded history. That doesn't mean that every village and hamlet was in the thick of it all the time. Decades or even centuries might go by between local battles, lulling the occupants of a particular settlement into a false sense of security but, sooner or later, somebody comes along and trashes the place. I looked up "the sack of Rome" once and found that Rome had been sacked multiple times in its history I forget how many times, but it was certainly more than once or twice. I read once in National Geographic that, when they dig down under Rome to install a pipeline or excavate the foundation for a large building, work frequently has to be halted so the archaeologists can come in and check out some ancient artifacts that have been long buried under war ruble that had been built over and forgotten. The city of Ur, in the Biblical land of the Chaldeans (now Iraq) has been thoroughly excavated and found to have been built over war ruins eight or nine times, maybe more. Last I heard they were still digging in expectation of finding more layers. Tel Aviv, the capitol of modern Israel, is like that too. There are lots of other places in Israel whose names begin with "Tel", which means a man-made mountain built from multiple layers of war ruble.
More primitive cultures in North America and on some tropical islands built with wood and animal hides instead of brick and stone, so there's no telling how many times their settlements have been destroyed by war or conflict. North American Indians were generally nomadic, so the survivors of a battle probably just moved on and started all over again rather than rebuilding on the same site. Some notable exceptions were the cliff dwellings that we talked about, and the impressive earthen mounds found in the southeastern U.S. In those cases, while the structures survived, their builders did not, and nobody knows what became of them.
I have never heard of people leaving their clothes in a laundromat overnight. My hypothetical wife was employed in one for a time, and she told me they had a posted rule that any load left unattended could be removed by anybody who was waiting to use the machine. I suppose the laundry facility is Uncle Ken's building is not exactly a laundromat because it's not open to the general public. Nevertheless, it might not be a bad idea to bring the issue up at a owner's/ tenant's meeting and see if it would be possible to institute a similar rule there.
I didn't exactly "dabble in sin" at the age of 11, I just went kind of goofy and did some stupid things. Looking back on it, the onset of puberty probably had something to do with it. I also fell into association with some other goofy people, one of which was my own cousin who, last I heard, was in some kind of prison or mental institution. Then there were those kids that showed up in Sawyer after being kicked out of St. Gall's Catholic School. Well, I don't know if they were kicked out, flunked out, or dropped out, but they landed in Sawyer and were a bad influence on our whole sixth grade class. I eventually learned to ignore such bad influences, resolved puberty by taking matters into my own hands, and have been self reliant ever since.
More primitive cultures in North America and on some tropical islands built with wood and animal hides instead of brick and stone, so there's no telling how many times their settlements have been destroyed by war or conflict. North American Indians were generally nomadic, so the survivors of a battle probably just moved on and started all over again rather than rebuilding on the same site. Some notable exceptions were the cliff dwellings that we talked about, and the impressive earthen mounds found in the southeastern U.S. In those cases, while the structures survived, their builders did not, and nobody knows what became of them.
I have never heard of people leaving their clothes in a laundromat overnight. My hypothetical wife was employed in one for a time, and she told me they had a posted rule that any load left unattended could be removed by anybody who was waiting to use the machine. I suppose the laundry facility is Uncle Ken's building is not exactly a laundromat because it's not open to the general public. Nevertheless, it might not be a bad idea to bring the issue up at a owner's/ tenant's meeting and see if it would be possible to institute a similar rule there.
I didn't exactly "dabble in sin" at the age of 11, I just went kind of goofy and did some stupid things. Looking back on it, the onset of puberty probably had something to do with it. I also fell into association with some other goofy people, one of which was my own cousin who, last I heard, was in some kind of prison or mental institution. Then there were those kids that showed up in Sawyer after being kicked out of St. Gall's Catholic School. Well, I don't know if they were kicked out, flunked out, or dropped out, but they landed in Sawyer and were a bad influence on our whole sixth grade class. I eventually learned to ignore such bad influences, resolved puberty by taking matters into my own hands, and have been self reliant ever since.
war and genes and the laundry room
My mistake on the Navajos, I guess I lump all those southwest Indians together.
I'm sure I've heard the story of Old Dog's second grade humiliation, and likely a few words into his narration I will smack my forehead and say, "Oh yeah that," Likewise Beagle's dabbling in sin at the age of eleven, but I just can't remember either at the moment, Have you ever noticed that your attention drops when the conversation turns to other people rather than yourself, or is that just me?
I've always heard that those ancient civilizations got too big for their britches and overgrew their environment, Makes you wonder what it takes for a civilization to stick. Seems like the Egyptians were always rising and declining and the Mesopotamians were always playing king of the mountain from whatever tribe happened to drop into the neighborhood. Alexander was kind of a flash in the pan,though I hear that he did spread the Greek civilization around, there was nothing in the way of an empire. I think maybe the Romans stuck. Well their empire fell, but then the church that they sort of copied from the desert people lived long and prospered and they came storming back into the mideast a little more than a half century later to grab the holy land, kill all the inhabitants, toy with it for a few hundred years and then drop it for lack of interest.
I don't think the mideast has been that warlike before the discovery of oil and the establishment of Israel. I mean not so much more than anybody else. Warlike is hard to define. I was unsure when I claimed that the US was the most warlike country so I did a little internet research and I came upon a website that claimed that we were at war 93 percent of our history, but when I took a look at their evidence a lot of it is Indian and banana wars and I don't see those as like real wars. What does make a real war? I don't know how you define a war anymore. Maybe there is the classic war where it is against a real country and both sides declare war, and the more common shit lately which is whenever your army goes somewhere and shoots at people.
I hadn't come across the term banana war before. It refers to all those ahem, expeditions into south and central America to adjust things there more to our liking. We don't remember them so well anymore. Or how about our occupation of the Philippines? That was a long bloody war that nobody speaks of anymore.
The Mongols and the Huns didn't come out of the Gobi desert, they came from north of there where it was maybe semi arid, but there was enough grass to feed their famed short horses.
I had to go back to my post to see what got me musing about war. Oh that's right genes. I was thinking that if you live in a rough neighborhood it's a good thing to have fighting genes, whereas if you live in a quiet neighborhood that kind of attitude will get you in trouble. I was trying to survey the family of nations to bear that out, but that just became too complicated.
So I am doing my laundry now, and there was this comforter kind of thing in the big dryer which is my favorite. It is now sitting on a table while my duds are enjoying the toasty twirls. But you know this happens all the time. I get down there around 5 and there are clothes just sitting in the washers and dryers obviously from last night, and I am wondering what the fuck, did all these people get drunk and not get around to taking their clothes out of the machines?
I used to drink a lot, and anymore I still drink a bit, and I have never, never, left my clothes in a machine overnight, so what kind of people are these? I expect the dawgs have had a little experience with laundry rooms and I wonder if they have any insights.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Nothing Lasts Forever
What Old Dog said about the Navahos and the Pueblos is consistent with what I remember reading over the years. The Anasazi were an ancient people who probably built the cliff dwellings and subsequently abandoned them long before the Pueblos arrived on the scene and reoccupied them. Although those dwellings are commonly called "pueblos", the folklore of the Pueblo people tells that they were built by the Anasazi, which means "ancient ones", or something like that, in their language.
The cliff dwellings were almost certainly built for defense, because there's nothing to eat up here except what people carried up on a series of portable ladders, which could be pulled up behind them. It is believed that the Anasazi had an extensive irrigation system that brought water down from the surrounding mountains. I don't remember if the Pueblos still do that but, if they do, it's probably on a reduced scale. I understand that, when modern canals were built to bring water to Phoenix, Arizona, they dug them where their engineers told them would be the best route to take. In the process of digging, evidence was uncovered that somebody had dug canals in the exact same place a long time ago. Those ancient canals had previously filled in with sand and dirt, and nobody knew they were there until the new canals were being dug.
I don't think anybody knows for sure what became of the Anasazi. Theories range from war to climate change to plague, or possibly all of the above. The same may be said about the Mayans of Central America. The descendants of the Mayans are still around, but the ancient cities of their ancestors lay in ruins, swallowed up by the jungle, until being rediscovered by modern archaeologists. Similarly, the civilizations of ancient Egypt rose and fell at least three times over a period of several thousand years. The famous Sphinx was buried in the sand until some modern explorer stubbed his toe on it and started digging.
Desert climates are generally not conducive to peaceful lifestyles, one look at the Middle East should tell you that. Both the Huns and the Mongols came from the Gobi Desert, and they were anything but peaceful. I suppose some desert dwellers have always been content to stay in the desert, but many others have longed for some decent waterfront property, and didn't mind kicking ass to get it.
Then there's the Eskimos, or Inuit if you prefer. They are generally considered to be peaceful, or even timid, compared to their Indian neighbors to the south. It's not clear whether they got that way from living in the frozen north, or if they live in the frozen north because they were too timid to fight the Indians for nicer real estate.
The cliff dwellings were almost certainly built for defense, because there's nothing to eat up here except what people carried up on a series of portable ladders, which could be pulled up behind them. It is believed that the Anasazi had an extensive irrigation system that brought water down from the surrounding mountains. I don't remember if the Pueblos still do that but, if they do, it's probably on a reduced scale. I understand that, when modern canals were built to bring water to Phoenix, Arizona, they dug them where their engineers told them would be the best route to take. In the process of digging, evidence was uncovered that somebody had dug canals in the exact same place a long time ago. Those ancient canals had previously filled in with sand and dirt, and nobody knew they were there until the new canals were being dug.
I don't think anybody knows for sure what became of the Anasazi. Theories range from war to climate change to plague, or possibly all of the above. The same may be said about the Mayans of Central America. The descendants of the Mayans are still around, but the ancient cities of their ancestors lay in ruins, swallowed up by the jungle, until being rediscovered by modern archaeologists. Similarly, the civilizations of ancient Egypt rose and fell at least three times over a period of several thousand years. The famous Sphinx was buried in the sand until some modern explorer stubbed his toe on it and started digging.
Desert climates are generally not conducive to peaceful lifestyles, one look at the Middle East should tell you that. Both the Huns and the Mongols came from the Gobi Desert, and they were anything but peaceful. I suppose some desert dwellers have always been content to stay in the desert, but many others have longed for some decent waterfront property, and didn't mind kicking ass to get it.
Then there's the Eskimos, or Inuit if you prefer. They are generally considered to be peaceful, or even timid, compared to their Indian neighbors to the south. It's not clear whether they got that way from living in the frozen north, or if they live in the frozen north because they were too timid to fight the Indians for nicer real estate.
Stepped on it again
I think the US is the most warlike country on Earth...
Can't argue with that thought, Uncle Ken. It seems that if we're not out there blowing shit up we are selling stuff so other folks can blow shit up, often on our behalf. If I recall correctly, the US is near the top of the weapons export trade. For a so-called world leader, the US doesn't lead in much besides military spending and, I think, percentage of population that is incarcerated. War is our business, and business is good; a sad thought as we approach Memorial Day and start the summer season of flag waving. There was a time in my youth when the sight of Old Glory would make my chest swell with pride, maybe it was in Boy Scouts or the army, but no longer.
I keep thinking of one of the old Sunday School lessons, where some guy gets all worked up about the mote in another guy's eye while ignoring the beam in his own eye, something like that. And that's where we are today, always messing with somebody else's business while our own house is in disorder. We are, in barracks parlance, stepping on our dicks.
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I suspect it was the Pueblo, not Navajo, Indians that made the cool buildings of Uncle Ken"s recollection. The traditional Navajo dwelling was the hogan, something I remembered from sixth grade, and it was a squat little thing. I always thought the dandiest place to live would be the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi people. No elevator, but who wouldn't want to live on a cliff side? If somebody unwanted tried to climb up you could pee on them and maybe they'd go away. but maybe not. Some of those southwestern tribes were pretty tough and a little piss wouldn't stop them.
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The story of the second grade humiliation will have to wait while I reframe it for the written word, if I get to it at all. But I distinctly remember relating the tale at a seminar within the past year. My, how time flies! Uncle Ken has forgotten it already.
Can't argue with that thought, Uncle Ken. It seems that if we're not out there blowing shit up we are selling stuff so other folks can blow shit up, often on our behalf. If I recall correctly, the US is near the top of the weapons export trade. For a so-called world leader, the US doesn't lead in much besides military spending and, I think, percentage of population that is incarcerated. War is our business, and business is good; a sad thought as we approach Memorial Day and start the summer season of flag waving. There was a time in my youth when the sight of Old Glory would make my chest swell with pride, maybe it was in Boy Scouts or the army, but no longer.
I keep thinking of one of the old Sunday School lessons, where some guy gets all worked up about the mote in another guy's eye while ignoring the beam in his own eye, something like that. And that's where we are today, always messing with somebody else's business while our own house is in disorder. We are, in barracks parlance, stepping on our dicks.
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I suspect it was the Pueblo, not Navajo, Indians that made the cool buildings of Uncle Ken"s recollection. The traditional Navajo dwelling was the hogan, something I remembered from sixth grade, and it was a squat little thing. I always thought the dandiest place to live would be the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi people. No elevator, but who wouldn't want to live on a cliff side? If somebody unwanted tried to climb up you could pee on them and maybe they'd go away. but maybe not. Some of those southwestern tribes were pretty tough and a little piss wouldn't stop them.
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The story of the second grade humiliation will have to wait while I reframe it for the written word, if I get to it at all. But I distinctly remember relating the tale at a seminar within the past year. My, how time flies! Uncle Ken has forgotten it already.
musing about war
I'm thinking about the Navahos. Maybe I was in eighth grade when I heard about them. They had these cool tall buildings, as a Chicagoan I admired tall buildings, so it seemed like they had an advanced civilization. And the thing that was stressed at the time was that they were not warlike. Unlike all the other Indians who lived in tents and even the Incas and Aztecs who had pretty advanced civilizations, they were peaceful, they didn't regularly attack their neighbors. I believe since then we have learned that they did have human sacrifices but hey, who doesn't?
I don't think they had that many other tribes around them so that might be one reason they were so peaceful, and they lived in a pretty hardscrabble neighborhood. Generally people who live in hardscrabble are less warlike than people who live in lands of plenty. Well there were the vikings but they were a bunch of nut jobs (I see the use of this phrase going way up now that our Dear Leader has put it into play, or more likely we will say Orekhovaya rabota once Russian becomes mandatory in our schools).
Anyway I was thinking maybe warlike genes were less useful in the desert southwest than in the woods teaming with game and other Indians, so that Indians with the warlike gene didn't do so well in the society and didn't have as many offspring so that the gene kind of faded out.
I think the US is the most warlike country on Earth if you count years of being at war as applied to years of not being at war the United States probably has the highest rating. I see two reasons for that, One as a people we are pretty aggressive, we are bred from people who left home as opposed to those who passively stayed home, and for the last hundred years we have been top dogs and there is this feeling among us that if something is going wrong in the rest of the world it is up to us to do something about it.
Maybe another reason is because we have never been invaded. Most other countries know that if their invasion goes badly the enemy will come storming right into their country. We didn't win in the far east, but the draw in Korea and the loss in Vietnam didn't result in the enemy coming across our borders. We spent a lot of ,money and we lost a lot of men, but back on the home front things didn't change much from wartime to peacetime.
Well I started out with genes and ended up with America at war, one of those musings that go on and on and one of the dawgs has complained about.
Speaking of the dawgs. I would like to hear the story of Old Dog's second grade setback. And I know of Beagles' Sawyer School Blue Jeans incident and of his later, sort of, loss of faith, but I don't recall the story of his dabbling in sin at the age of eleven,
I don't think they had that many other tribes around them so that might be one reason they were so peaceful, and they lived in a pretty hardscrabble neighborhood. Generally people who live in hardscrabble are less warlike than people who live in lands of plenty. Well there were the vikings but they were a bunch of nut jobs (I see the use of this phrase going way up now that our Dear Leader has put it into play, or more likely we will say Orekhovaya rabota once Russian becomes mandatory in our schools).
Anyway I was thinking maybe warlike genes were less useful in the desert southwest than in the woods teaming with game and other Indians, so that Indians with the warlike gene didn't do so well in the society and didn't have as many offspring so that the gene kind of faded out.
I think the US is the most warlike country on Earth if you count years of being at war as applied to years of not being at war the United States probably has the highest rating. I see two reasons for that, One as a people we are pretty aggressive, we are bred from people who left home as opposed to those who passively stayed home, and for the last hundred years we have been top dogs and there is this feeling among us that if something is going wrong in the rest of the world it is up to us to do something about it.
Maybe another reason is because we have never been invaded. Most other countries know that if their invasion goes badly the enemy will come storming right into their country. We didn't win in the far east, but the draw in Korea and the loss in Vietnam didn't result in the enemy coming across our borders. We spent a lot of ,money and we lost a lot of men, but back on the home front things didn't change much from wartime to peacetime.
Well I started out with genes and ended up with America at war, one of those musings that go on and on and one of the dawgs has complained about.
Speaking of the dawgs. I would like to hear the story of Old Dog's second grade setback. And I know of Beagles' Sawyer School Blue Jeans incident and of his later, sort of, loss of faith, but I don't recall the story of his dabbling in sin at the age of eleven,
Friday, May 19, 2017
Home in the Swamp
First of all, when we say "swamp" in Northern Michigan, we don't mean marshland, we mean thickly vegetated land with the water table at or near the surface. It's too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate. I can see evidence that somebody tried to drain our land for agriculture in the past, and my neighbor remembers that a former owner used to cut hay on parts of it, but it must have been more trouble than it was worth because the effort was abandoned a long time ago. We built our home on one of the higher parts, and we still needed to haul in three feet of sand fill in order to get percolation and insure that the crawl space under the house wouldn't have water in it in the spring.
Trespassing has never been an issue here, so we have never seen a need to fence or post signs on our borders. The only access for any kind of vehicle is the driveway that leads to the house. I have cut three trails that branch off from there, but none of them come back out to the public road. They are not usable by street legal vehicles, only small farm tractors, ATVs, and snowmobiles. Even then, you can easily get stuck back there in the spring and fall if you don't know what you're doing. The public road dead ends just past our driveway, and the other three sides of the property border on private tracts with similar characteristics.
After we first bought the place, back in 1986, but before we built our house in 2000, I would occasionally meet another hunter when I was out there hunting myself. They were all from the immediate neighborhood and had walked in from one of the surrounding parcels. I told them I didn't have a problem with that. Since we built the house, I can only remember one neighbor kid who asked permission. Judging from the tracks he left in the snow, he came in one time, looked around, and went back out. I think that's the only human trail I have crossed since then, and I spend a lot of time out there in the winter. I would be surprised if anybody considered it to be a good party site because of the difficulty of access. There's lots of mosquitoes too, but only in the summer.
The more I think about it, Uncle Ken might be onto something with his genetic theory of good and evil. All the rules and regulations formulated by cultures may be nothing more than their instinctive efforts to preserve themselves. The fact that even the best of cultures have a few bad apples in them might be attributed to the badness gene being recessive. Recessive traits are almost impossible to breed out of a population because everybody who carries the trait doesn't display it.
Trespassing has never been an issue here, so we have never seen a need to fence or post signs on our borders. The only access for any kind of vehicle is the driveway that leads to the house. I have cut three trails that branch off from there, but none of them come back out to the public road. They are not usable by street legal vehicles, only small farm tractors, ATVs, and snowmobiles. Even then, you can easily get stuck back there in the spring and fall if you don't know what you're doing. The public road dead ends just past our driveway, and the other three sides of the property border on private tracts with similar characteristics.
After we first bought the place, back in 1986, but before we built our house in 2000, I would occasionally meet another hunter when I was out there hunting myself. They were all from the immediate neighborhood and had walked in from one of the surrounding parcels. I told them I didn't have a problem with that. Since we built the house, I can only remember one neighbor kid who asked permission. Judging from the tracks he left in the snow, he came in one time, looked around, and went back out. I think that's the only human trail I have crossed since then, and I spend a lot of time out there in the winter. I would be surprised if anybody considered it to be a good party site because of the difficulty of access. There's lots of mosquitoes too, but only in the summer.
The more I think about it, Uncle Ken might be onto something with his genetic theory of good and evil. All the rules and regulations formulated by cultures may be nothing more than their instinctive efforts to preserve themselves. The fact that even the best of cultures have a few bad apples in them might be attributed to the badness gene being recessive. Recessive traits are almost impossible to breed out of a population because everybody who carries the trait doesn't display it.
Hit or myth
Don't we all know some guy who every now and then slips into remembrance of some perceived injustice he suffered years ago...
Ha, ha; who, me? I chuckled when I read that and recalled the time I vented my spleen to Uncle Ken about my second grade humiliation at the hands of Miss Rockwell. Although not worth retelling, it's interesting how a singular childhood event can shape a person's attitude. Well done.
The "little red hen" reference eluded me until I looked it up and, yeah, I recall it now; another childhood story. I didn't realize that it is likely of Russian origin, if that means anything at all these days. There is still a lot of wisdom in the old folk tales, myths, and fables but I wonder if they are still being read or told. I can't tell; maybe there are modern versions that have slipped my notice. Remakes are big these days.
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Although groan inducing, I didn't think the Esso Bee story was that bad; I kind of enjoyed it. It was well told and a welcome respite from recent musings that should have run their course by now. I'm not saying which ones, but you can get my drift.
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I keep thinking about those 88 acres of the Beaglesonian Freehold and how it is managed. Is it fenced in or otherwise delineated as private property? Can people come and go as they please or are trespassers shot on sight? I've read that some rural areas can become unwelcome dumping sites but maybe the folks in that neck of the woods are generally well mannered and considerate, respecting the property rights of others. But I know how far sound carries in isolated areas and it would creep me out, waking up to hear a party going on late at night, somewhere, out there.
Ha, ha; who, me? I chuckled when I read that and recalled the time I vented my spleen to Uncle Ken about my second grade humiliation at the hands of Miss Rockwell. Although not worth retelling, it's interesting how a singular childhood event can shape a person's attitude. Well done.
The "little red hen" reference eluded me until I looked it up and, yeah, I recall it now; another childhood story. I didn't realize that it is likely of Russian origin, if that means anything at all these days. There is still a lot of wisdom in the old folk tales, myths, and fables but I wonder if they are still being read or told. I can't tell; maybe there are modern versions that have slipped my notice. Remakes are big these days.
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Although groan inducing, I didn't think the Esso Bee story was that bad; I kind of enjoyed it. It was well told and a welcome respite from recent musings that should have run their course by now. I'm not saying which ones, but you can get my drift.
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I keep thinking about those 88 acres of the Beaglesonian Freehold and how it is managed. Is it fenced in or otherwise delineated as private property? Can people come and go as they please or are trespassers shot on sight? I've read that some rural areas can become unwelcome dumping sites but maybe the folks in that neck of the woods are generally well mannered and considerate, respecting the property rights of others. But I know how far sound carries in isolated areas and it would creep me out, waking up to hear a party going on late at night, somewhere, out there.
eating at the little red hen's table
Well there's a shaggy dog story to start the day, and then it ends with a pun. I hardly think this is good behavior in the univied halls, hence not the work of a good boy. What could have caused this bad behavior?
Why is there bad? In a world where everybody is good and everybody looks out for each other and would give each other the proverbial shirt off their back, why do some act badly, keep their shirts on their backs and indeed take yours when your head is turned, sit down at the little red hen's supper table and expect to get a fat slice of bread?
Because they can get away with it. Because everybody else is good (altruistic) and they expect everyone else to be good and they assume that the bad person must have found a shirt that looks just like the one that disappeared off your back, and must have done something to help make that bread that is being sliced.
Not the little red hen of course, and truth be told not hardly anybody else. Even kindly Uncle Ken can tell when a couple minutes of his morning routine are stolen by a shaggy dog story.
This is the selfish gene theory of good and evil and vengeance. First off we don't have one gene that says don't steal that shirt or one that says always help out the little red hen. We have a variety of genes and in various combinations they can give us a tendency towards certain behaviors. Every time the long tailed devil approaches Ms Egg with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers the genes are shaken up.
See if you're a bad guy (unaltruistic) among good people you can get away with murder you can steal, you can freeload, and your life is so free and easy that you have lots of offspring who carry on your evil ways and they have lots of offspring and pretty soon there is no little red hen for that table of freeloaders and the tribe starves to death.
But here's another tribe who are altruistic enough, but along with good in their genes they also have vengeance, something that causes them to be on the alert for being had and makes them want to punish thieves and freeloaders, and what the hell, folks who cross them. Thus the bad genes are held in check and the tribe thrives and becomes the human race that we know today.
So how about that White Shadow (Pence)? Did I not say that he had a lean and hungry look? Well maybe I didn't, but I meant to. Actually I kind of made up that lean and hungry look thing. He looks like a straight arrow, a boy scout, to me. But you know even the purest in heart among us (and I am thinking of you Beagles without sin) must sometimes kill the king to save the country.
Why is there bad? In a world where everybody is good and everybody looks out for each other and would give each other the proverbial shirt off their back, why do some act badly, keep their shirts on their backs and indeed take yours when your head is turned, sit down at the little red hen's supper table and expect to get a fat slice of bread?
Because they can get away with it. Because everybody else is good (altruistic) and they expect everyone else to be good and they assume that the bad person must have found a shirt that looks just like the one that disappeared off your back, and must have done something to help make that bread that is being sliced.
Not the little red hen of course, and truth be told not hardly anybody else. Even kindly Uncle Ken can tell when a couple minutes of his morning routine are stolen by a shaggy dog story.
This is the selfish gene theory of good and evil and vengeance. First off we don't have one gene that says don't steal that shirt or one that says always help out the little red hen. We have a variety of genes and in various combinations they can give us a tendency towards certain behaviors. Every time the long tailed devil approaches Ms Egg with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers the genes are shaken up.
See if you're a bad guy (unaltruistic) among good people you can get away with murder you can steal, you can freeload, and your life is so free and easy that you have lots of offspring who carry on your evil ways and they have lots of offspring and pretty soon there is no little red hen for that table of freeloaders and the tribe starves to death.
But here's another tribe who are altruistic enough, but along with good in their genes they also have vengeance, something that causes them to be on the alert for being had and makes them want to punish thieves and freeloaders, and what the hell, folks who cross them. Thus the bad genes are held in check and the tribe thrives and becomes the human race that we know today.
So how about that White Shadow (Pence)? Did I not say that he had a lean and hungry look? Well maybe I didn't, but I meant to. Actually I kind of made up that lean and hungry look thing. He looks like a straight arrow, a boy scout, to me. But you know even the purest in heart among us (and I am thinking of you Beagles without sin) must sometimes kill the king to save the country.
Thursday, May 18, 2017
There's One in Every Outfit
I think that forgiveness involves more than just not taking vengeance, it also means not holding a grudge. If a sin is forgiven, it's expunged from the record like it never happened.
Every culture has its rules, and most of its members abide by them most of the time, but there's always a significant number who don't. This reminds me of a story:
There was this brigade of bees that had always lived in Northern Michigan, which means they had to go dormant for about half the year. They woke up hungry every spring and had to spend most of the summer replenishing their store of honey so they could make it through the next winter. One day the queen bee decided that they would have a better life if they all moved down to Florida where it's warm all year. She called her four battalion commanders together and told them about her idea, and they all agreed.
Since it was going to be a long trip, the queen issued the following orders: "First Battalion will take the lead, Second Battalion will guard the left flank, Third Battalion will guard the right flank, and Fourth Battalion will bring up the rear. I will stay in the center or the formation where I can supervise the whole thing. Every evening, when it starts to get dark, the First Battalion will send out an advance party to look for a Shell gas station. They all have a big yellow lighted sign that can be seen for miles, so any stragglers will be able to find us in the dark. Everybody is to land on that Shell sign and stay there until the lights are turned off in the morning so we can all leave together. Is that clear?" "Yes Ma'am!" the battalion commanders shouted in unison, and the meeting was adjourned. Then the battalion commanders each called a meeting of their company commanders and made sure they all understood the queen's orders. The company commanders then met with their platoon leaders, the platoon leaders met with their squad leaders, the squad leaders met with their men, and so the orders were passed down the chain of command until everybody knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
All went as planned until the bees got down to Kentucky where, in those days, there was a brand of gasoline called "Esso". All the bees landed on a Shell sign as ordered, except for one bee that landed on the Esso sign across the street. When this was brought to the queen's attention, she called that bee's battalion commander on the carpet and read him the riot act. Similarly, the battalion commander chewed out the bee's company commander, who chewed out the platoon leader, who chewed out the squad leader. The squad leader then flew over to the Esso sign and lit into the deviant bee: "What the hell's the matter with you? Why aren't you on the Shell sign like everybody else? You got our battalion commander, our company commander, our platoon leader, and me all into trouble with the queen. What the hell were you thinking?" The errant bee replied laconically, "Well Sarge, you know there's always one Esso bee in every outfit."
Every culture has its rules, and most of its members abide by them most of the time, but there's always a significant number who don't. This reminds me of a story:
There was this brigade of bees that had always lived in Northern Michigan, which means they had to go dormant for about half the year. They woke up hungry every spring and had to spend most of the summer replenishing their store of honey so they could make it through the next winter. One day the queen bee decided that they would have a better life if they all moved down to Florida where it's warm all year. She called her four battalion commanders together and told them about her idea, and they all agreed.
Since it was going to be a long trip, the queen issued the following orders: "First Battalion will take the lead, Second Battalion will guard the left flank, Third Battalion will guard the right flank, and Fourth Battalion will bring up the rear. I will stay in the center or the formation where I can supervise the whole thing. Every evening, when it starts to get dark, the First Battalion will send out an advance party to look for a Shell gas station. They all have a big yellow lighted sign that can be seen for miles, so any stragglers will be able to find us in the dark. Everybody is to land on that Shell sign and stay there until the lights are turned off in the morning so we can all leave together. Is that clear?" "Yes Ma'am!" the battalion commanders shouted in unison, and the meeting was adjourned. Then the battalion commanders each called a meeting of their company commanders and made sure they all understood the queen's orders. The company commanders then met with their platoon leaders, the platoon leaders met with their squad leaders, the squad leaders met with their men, and so the orders were passed down the chain of command until everybody knew exactly what they were supposed to do.
All went as planned until the bees got down to Kentucky where, in those days, there was a brand of gasoline called "Esso". All the bees landed on a Shell sign as ordered, except for one bee that landed on the Esso sign across the street. When this was brought to the queen's attention, she called that bee's battalion commander on the carpet and read him the riot act. Similarly, the battalion commander chewed out the bee's company commander, who chewed out the platoon leader, who chewed out the squad leader. The squad leader then flew over to the Esso sign and lit into the deviant bee: "What the hell's the matter with you? Why aren't you on the Shell sign like everybody else? You got our battalion commander, our company commander, our platoon leader, and me all into trouble with the queen. What the hell were you thinking?" The errant bee replied laconically, "Well Sarge, you know there's always one Esso bee in every outfit."
whence vengeance
I don't think culture is inborn either. If babies are born switched at birth from Asia to Africa neither will reflect the culture from whence they were born. I had to look back two posts to find the quote. Ah there it is, I was making my distinction between society and culture. I can see now where I was being careless with my prepositions. I should have said born into instead of born with. I suppose we are born with some kind of basal human culture just from our genes, like the way dogs or cats removed at birth would each display a cat or dog set of behaviors, but maybe I am stretching things.
But maybe I could just say that I am a smart guy. I know this because some smart people told me I was smart and I know that they are smart because they could tell that I was smart. And since I am a smart person everything I say is smart, so probably there was some hidden truth in that comment about culture that people who weren't smart weren't able to get. Yeah, that's what it was.
I don't know about those hot pepper arms races. Probably somebody will have a hotter one next year, and so what, nobody eats the damn things, I can do jalapenos just fine, but I won't go near a habenero. My balcony was sealed from me at the beginning of April and has just been unsealed. I will have tomatoes, jalapenos, sunflowers, and maybe some mystery guest which I haven't chosen yet. And this year I will be adding some heavenly blues to my purple and pink strains of morning glories. Yes, those heavenly blues. I imbibed of them in my youth. We soaked them and then pureed them and held our noses and drank them and puked and then decided well maybe we were kind of high. Kind of a lot of effort compared to paying some stranger a few bucks and taking some oddly shaped pill of whatever and getting really high.
Old Dog speaks wisely when he speaks of not getting bogged down in the most trivial of slights and not moving on with your life. I might amend that to include less trivial slights, or indeed any slight that does not threaten the future. Don't we all know some guy who every now and then slips into remembrance of some perceived injustice he suffered years ago, but it is just as fresh in remembrance as it was when he first received it, and once he gets to the subject he goes on and on and on and you're all criminently give it a rest, but the poor sap just can't.
We all nod sagely when we hear that revenge is best served cold, but we know the joy it gives when served piping hot. Is forgiveness just the abeyance of taking vengeance?
But maybe I could just say that I am a smart guy. I know this because some smart people told me I was smart and I know that they are smart because they could tell that I was smart. And since I am a smart person everything I say is smart, so probably there was some hidden truth in that comment about culture that people who weren't smart weren't able to get. Yeah, that's what it was.
I don't know about those hot pepper arms races. Probably somebody will have a hotter one next year, and so what, nobody eats the damn things, I can do jalapenos just fine, but I won't go near a habenero. My balcony was sealed from me at the beginning of April and has just been unsealed. I will have tomatoes, jalapenos, sunflowers, and maybe some mystery guest which I haven't chosen yet. And this year I will be adding some heavenly blues to my purple and pink strains of morning glories. Yes, those heavenly blues. I imbibed of them in my youth. We soaked them and then pureed them and held our noses and drank them and puked and then decided well maybe we were kind of high. Kind of a lot of effort compared to paying some stranger a few bucks and taking some oddly shaped pill of whatever and getting really high.
Old Dog speaks wisely when he speaks of not getting bogged down in the most trivial of slights and not moving on with your life. I might amend that to include less trivial slights, or indeed any slight that does not threaten the future. Don't we all know some guy who every now and then slips into remembrance of some perceived injustice he suffered years ago, but it is just as fresh in remembrance as it was when he first received it, and once he gets to the subject he goes on and on and on and you're all criminently give it a rest, but the poor sap just can't.
We all nod sagely when we hear that revenge is best served cold, but we know the joy it gives when served piping hot. Is forgiveness just the abeyance of taking vengeance?
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
You Can Lead a Horticulture
I'm with Old Dog on this one, I don't think that culture is inborn. We are, however, born into a culture, and with the ability to learn from that culture. As we grow older, we are also influenced by other cultures, which may or may not inspire us to modify or abandon the culture into which we were born. Cultures represent the accumulated knowledge of their members that is passed down to each generation, which may add or subtract items over time. Historically, some cultures were more isolated than others, either by geography or by choice. Not so much anymore, the only one that immediately comes to mind is the Amish.
Of course I am the ultimate judge of good and evil. The fact that nobody pays any attention to me is irrelevant. I know what's good because I am a good person. I think it all started when I was sick with rheumatic fever as a toddler, which was about the time people started telling me that I was a good boy. Maybe they were trying to make me feel better, or maybe I just didn't have enough energy to be bad. For whatever reason, I have been known as a good boy for as long as I can remember. Once you get something like that on your record, it will follow you all of your life and you will never live it down. That's probably why I failed in my brief attempt to be bad in my eleventh year. The bad kids must have gotten hold of my record and refused to accept me into their ranks because of it.
Speaking of horticulture, I haven't planted a garden for several years now. Time was I would finish putting up the next winter's supply of firewood by the end of May, plant my garden, and then I would go fishing. I would take a couple weeks off from fishing in August to do my annual mowing of the areas that I didn't want reverting to forest, and to replant the rye field in front of my deer blind. Some time in October, depending on weather, I would put the boat and fishing tackle away and start small game hunting, which would keep me occupied until the firearm deer season started on November 15. After deer season, it was time to start working on firewood again. Now I'm lucky if I get my firewood up in time to start my August mowing, which takes me well into October to finish, just in time for pre-deer season target practice. Gardening, fishing, and small game hunting have all gone by the board, and I fear that deer hunting will be the next to go. I intend to keep up my forestry efforts until the very end. When I can't do that anymore, I might as well sell Beaglesonia and move into a retirement home.
Of course I am the ultimate judge of good and evil. The fact that nobody pays any attention to me is irrelevant. I know what's good because I am a good person. I think it all started when I was sick with rheumatic fever as a toddler, which was about the time people started telling me that I was a good boy. Maybe they were trying to make me feel better, or maybe I just didn't have enough energy to be bad. For whatever reason, I have been known as a good boy for as long as I can remember. Once you get something like that on your record, it will follow you all of your life and you will never live it down. That's probably why I failed in my brief attempt to be bad in my eleventh year. The bad kids must have gotten hold of my record and refused to accept me into their ranks because of it.
Speaking of horticulture, I haven't planted a garden for several years now. Time was I would finish putting up the next winter's supply of firewood by the end of May, plant my garden, and then I would go fishing. I would take a couple weeks off from fishing in August to do my annual mowing of the areas that I didn't want reverting to forest, and to replant the rye field in front of my deer blind. Some time in October, depending on weather, I would put the boat and fishing tackle away and start small game hunting, which would keep me occupied until the firearm deer season started on November 15. After deer season, it was time to start working on firewood again. Now I'm lucky if I get my firewood up in time to start my August mowing, which takes me well into October to finish, just in time for pre-deer season target practice. Gardening, fishing, and small game hunting have all gone by the board, and I fear that deer hunting will be the next to go. I intend to keep up my forestry efforts until the very end. When I can't do that anymore, I might as well sell Beaglesonia and move into a retirement home.
Checking in, again
But I think of culture as more of a bottom up kind of thing, the kind of thing we are born with...
Born with culture? That's quite a stretch, even for you, Uncle Ken and I don't buy it. We become acculturated as we grow into adulthood; it depends on where and how we were raised. Mark Twain seems popular lately, and I think he covered some of the same issues in Pudd'nhead Wilson.
-----
I read somewhere that killing an opposing gang member was a requirement for full initiation into the gang, to "make your bones." Until then, you are nothing more than a hanger-on with no real investment or commitment. There is the advantage in that it ensures solidarity; you can't have a change of heart and rat out the killers if you are one yourself and betrayal of the gang carries a death penalty.
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Since some memories are long, it seems to me that the lack of a forgiving nature means that you can get bogged down in the most trivial of slights and never move on with your life. In order to move a ahead it's sometimes necessary to put certain things behind you; carrying excess baggage makes an unpleasant journey.
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So, what's going in the garden this year, Mr. Beagles, anything new or exotic? I read that this guy in Britain has developed the world's hottest chili pepper, with more than 2.5 million Scoville units. It's a little thing and potent enough to act as a local anesthetic. Perhaps the next global threat will be weapons grade food.
Born with culture? That's quite a stretch, even for you, Uncle Ken and I don't buy it. We become acculturated as we grow into adulthood; it depends on where and how we were raised. Mark Twain seems popular lately, and I think he covered some of the same issues in Pudd'nhead Wilson.
-----
I read somewhere that killing an opposing gang member was a requirement for full initiation into the gang, to "make your bones." Until then, you are nothing more than a hanger-on with no real investment or commitment. There is the advantage in that it ensures solidarity; you can't have a change of heart and rat out the killers if you are one yourself and betrayal of the gang carries a death penalty.
-----
Since some memories are long, it seems to me that the lack of a forgiving nature means that you can get bogged down in the most trivial of slights and never move on with your life. In order to move a ahead it's sometimes necessary to put certain things behind you; carrying excess baggage makes an unpleasant journey.
-----
So, what's going in the garden this year, Mr. Beagles, anything new or exotic? I read that this guy in Britain has developed the world's hottest chili pepper, with more than 2.5 million Scoville units. It's a little thing and potent enough to act as a local anesthetic. Perhaps the next global threat will be weapons grade food.
good and evil shmood and shmevil
Forgive others their trespasses against us, who the hell does that? You might as well tell us to turn the other cheek. Oh wait a minute the good book does tell us that. Crazy man crazy, who actually turns the other cheek when somebody smacks them? Who buys another tv for the thief who steals their first one? What hero in the fistfight in the abandoned warehouse down by the river ever stands there to give the villain another poke at him while the theater audience cheers? Who admires such a person? Good book my ass.
As you can tell I am no theologian, but I don't remember from my days of sitting on a hard pew in itchy clothes while outside the birds sang and mellow breezes wafted against the dusty stained glass, where forgiving others was something you had to do to get through the pearly gates. I think the only thing you had to do was love Jesus, wasn't that what the reformation was all about?
We can't discuss where good or bad behavior is inborn or acquired unless we define what we mean by good and bad. I have been trying to do that for the last four or five posts, and it hasn't been easy, and I don't know how good a job I have done. Let's say that I believe altruism and utilitarianism is good. I don't recall that Beagles has moved from his position that good is stuff he likes and bad is stuff he doesn't like. I assume then that it is thus for everybody and that everybody has different things that they like or don't like and so Beagles is a moral relativist.
We are born with inclinations for both altruism (good) and selfishmess (bad), and our experience after birth can likewise bend us in both ways.
The Crips and the Bloods believe they are doing the right thing. They may realize that others think what they are doing is evil, but they don't think it is evil. Does anybody believe that good or evil will triumph over the other in the sense that one will defeat the other for all and good?
So I have been following the recent daily routine of blockbuster (Wolf calls them blockbuster) revelations followed by somebody barking denials followed by tweets denying the denials, and all the while that 35 percent of Americans who proudly call. themselves Trumpists have wavered not at all. And the thing is, all other stuff aside, he is such a repellent guy. He's rude, he's vain, he boasts, lies, and insults. If they are looking for a savior why don't they latch onto a nice polite guy? But you know all the politicians pretend to be nice polite guys, so that becomes a kind of phoniness. So Dump being out there with his faults for all to see, well they know he's not phony. So maybe that's his strength.
But many of these Trumpists were also big fans of Obama, and he's a nice guy.
Well maybe they liked both of them because they looked like guys who were going to change things. But then don't all politicians say they are going to change things? So fuck, I don't know.
As you can tell I am no theologian, but I don't remember from my days of sitting on a hard pew in itchy clothes while outside the birds sang and mellow breezes wafted against the dusty stained glass, where forgiving others was something you had to do to get through the pearly gates. I think the only thing you had to do was love Jesus, wasn't that what the reformation was all about?
We can't discuss where good or bad behavior is inborn or acquired unless we define what we mean by good and bad. I have been trying to do that for the last four or five posts, and it hasn't been easy, and I don't know how good a job I have done. Let's say that I believe altruism and utilitarianism is good. I don't recall that Beagles has moved from his position that good is stuff he likes and bad is stuff he doesn't like. I assume then that it is thus for everybody and that everybody has different things that they like or don't like and so Beagles is a moral relativist.
We are born with inclinations for both altruism (good) and selfishmess (bad), and our experience after birth can likewise bend us in both ways.
The Crips and the Bloods believe they are doing the right thing. They may realize that others think what they are doing is evil, but they don't think it is evil. Does anybody believe that good or evil will triumph over the other in the sense that one will defeat the other for all and good?
So I have been following the recent daily routine of blockbuster (Wolf calls them blockbuster) revelations followed by somebody barking denials followed by tweets denying the denials, and all the while that 35 percent of Americans who proudly call. themselves Trumpists have wavered not at all. And the thing is, all other stuff aside, he is such a repellent guy. He's rude, he's vain, he boasts, lies, and insults. If they are looking for a savior why don't they latch onto a nice polite guy? But you know all the politicians pretend to be nice polite guys, so that becomes a kind of phoniness. So Dump being out there with his faults for all to see, well they know he's not phony. So maybe that's his strength.
But many of these Trumpists were also big fans of Obama, and he's a nice guy.
Well maybe they liked both of them because they looked like guys who were going to change things. But then don't all politicians say they are going to change things? So fuck, I don't know.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
"Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
The Catholics say "debts" instead of "trespasses", and I don't know why because it's not exactly the same thing. Why couldn't all the religions just call them "sins"? I believe the intent is that we can't expect God to forgive our sins if we don't forgive those who sin against us. I don't think it's important for other people to forgive us, it's important for us to forgive them. That cleans up our own Karma so that we can expect forgiveness from God. One thing that is often overlooked is that God's forgiveness is conditional upon repentance, you don't get forgiven until you are sorry for what you have done, so I don't see why human forgiveness should be any different. Of course a person could say they are sorry when they really aren't, just like a person could say they forgive someone when they really don't.
It turns out Old Dog was right, "world culture" was a typo. I don't know why I didn't catch that myself, maybe I was tired last night.
One thing that still confuses me is whether good or bad behavior is inborn or acquired. On one hand, Uncle Ken seems to be saying that we are born good and learn to be bad while, on the other hand he seems to be saying that we are born bad and learn to be good. I agree that the territorial conflicts between street gangs are a throwback to the Stone Age. We generally consider that to be a bad thing now, but our Stone Age ancestors probably accepted it as human nature. The behavior hasn't changed all that much, it's people's attitude towards the behavior that has changed. Well. maybe not all people. Do the gang members who are fighting those turf wars believe they are doing the right thing or not? I have heard those kinds of people brag about how bad they are, like it was a thing to be proud of. Do they believe that evil is superior to, and destined to eventually triumph over, good? That would make them bad guys in my book. I don't know what that would make me in their book, or if they even have a book.
It turns out Old Dog was right, "world culture" was a typo. I don't know why I didn't catch that myself, maybe I was tired last night.
One thing that still confuses me is whether good or bad behavior is inborn or acquired. On one hand, Uncle Ken seems to be saying that we are born good and learn to be bad while, on the other hand he seems to be saying that we are born bad and learn to be good. I agree that the territorial conflicts between street gangs are a throwback to the Stone Age. We generally consider that to be a bad thing now, but our Stone Age ancestors probably accepted it as human nature. The behavior hasn't changed all that much, it's people's attitude towards the behavior that has changed. Well. maybe not all people. Do the gang members who are fighting those turf wars believe they are doing the right thing or not? I have heard those kinds of people brag about how bad they are, like it was a thing to be proud of. Do they believe that evil is superior to, and destined to eventually triumph over, good? That would make them bad guys in my book. I don't know what that would make me in their book, or if they even have a book.
lord of the flies
I did indeed mean the word culture rather the world culture. I guess I meant yeasty stuff that rises up from below. Society seems sort of academic, a bunch of pinheads in some ivory tower debating mores over tea and some kind of crumpet I suppose. Like language where panels of experts make judgments on whether to allow some new word or whether or not to end sentences with prepositions and nobody listens to them while the man in the street makes up words and phrases and idioms that pass into the language and will be debated by future ivory tower pinheads.
I'm thinking West Side Story and Officer Krupke. Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick! That's kind of the way society was looked at in the 50s and 60s. It was kind of a top down thing, it decreed how people should behave. But I think of culture as more of a bottom up kind of thing, the kind of thing we are born with, and if we were abandoned on some desert island the kind of behavior we would revert to, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies.
I'm thinking West Side Story and Officer Krupke. Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick! That's kind of the way society was looked at in the 50s and 60s. It was kind of a top down thing, it decreed how people should behave. But I think of culture as more of a bottom up kind of thing, the kind of thing we are born with, and if we were abandoned on some desert island the kind of behavior we would revert to, Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies.
Like gangs, they seem so stupid, people killing each other without much reason. Oh some of the killing is for drug selling territory, which makes perfect sense because they are getting something out of it. But then there are the killings where a bunch of guys from one gang pile in a car and drive into another gang's territory to shoot members of the rival gang. See this is just the behavior from our hunter gatherer roots. This is the sort of behavior we observe in all primitive tribes. It's in our DNA, in our roots.
And that's what I was working towards with all this sin stuff. It obviously exists, we are talking about it, and we all sort of know what we are talking about it. If I have a position on it I guess I agree with Mark Twain, I am against it. Not so much the commission of it, but the idea of it. It doesn't make sense to me that some action should of itself be wrong regardless of the consequences because I am a utilitarian. And I think the concept of sin predates the Abrahamic religion, so religion doesn't necessarily have a place in the discussion.
I don't know where forgiveness comes into it. If you commit a bad deed against me, I guess I can forgive you or not. But as far as your knowledge that you have done wrong, who can forgive you for that? And what does it mean to forgive? How about when people say that they forgive but they don't forget? Isn't that the same as saying they forgive but not really? I'm all tuckered out from sin let the dawgs discuss forgiveness.
This morning the finger is pointing at the North Koreans for that cyber attack. It has all their characteristics of incompetence. How can you think straight when you head is squashed under one of those big hats? It did get me to back up my data, so I guess that's a good thing. I am still holding out from Windows Ten by rejecting updates, probably not a good thing.
But that's all old news now. I was coming back from the bathroom and there it was in that CNN underscore Trump blabs classified material to the Russkies. Seems like something like that happens every time I step out of the room, maybe it's all my fault/ I imagine the tweets will be coming in any minute now.
Monday, May 15, 2017
"I'm Against It"
That's what Mark Twain said when somebody asked him what his position was on sin. I think he was being a smart aleck. Religion was a bigger part of American culture in those days, and not many people were likely to publically proclaim that they were in favor of sin, so it was like, "Duh!". I'm not so sure about Uncle Ken. First he makes a big deal about defining sin, and then he refers to "superstitious things like sin". So let me ask him straight out: Uncle Ken, what is your position on sin, are you for it or against it? My definition of sin is, "the violation of a religious rule". If you are not a member of a particular religion, you are not bound by their rules. If you don't believe in God or any religion, then you are incapable of sinning. You can be a criminal, a scalawag, a scoundrel, or just a mean prick, but you can't be a sinner.
Forgiveness of sin is the very cornerstone of Christianity. With the Jews, not so much. They used to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins, but they haven't done that since the Romans demolished their temple in 70 AD. Moses had told them a long time previous that they were not to conduct their sacrifices in "the high places" like their pagan neighbors, but only in their temple in Jerusalem. Well, in the time of Moses, the Israelites were living on the road and their temple was a tent, but that was understood to be only temporary. In Christian theology, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, rendering animal sacrifices unnecessary.Forgiveness of sin became a free gift, if you repent and choose to accept it. This led to another definition of sin: "living apart from God". If you do that, you are a sinner, regardless of how many rules you do or do not violate.
I am also confused about Uncle Ken's reference to "world culture". We don't even have a national culture anymore, if indeed we ever did. So how can we have a world culture? I suppose we all have some things in common with the rest of the human race, but I doubt that it's enough to qualify as a world culture.
I'm not surprised to hear that the Red Chinese are investing in construction projects all over the world. They probably hold more U.S. money than we do by now, and they have to invest it somewhere.
I heard about that global cyber attack. I don't think it was political in nature, just a scam to extort money from people. Last I heard, it's been brought under control, but the perpetrators have not yet been identified.
Forgiveness of sin is the very cornerstone of Christianity. With the Jews, not so much. They used to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins, but they haven't done that since the Romans demolished their temple in 70 AD. Moses had told them a long time previous that they were not to conduct their sacrifices in "the high places" like their pagan neighbors, but only in their temple in Jerusalem. Well, in the time of Moses, the Israelites were living on the road and their temple was a tent, but that was understood to be only temporary. In Christian theology, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, rendering animal sacrifices unnecessary.Forgiveness of sin became a free gift, if you repent and choose to accept it. This led to another definition of sin: "living apart from God". If you do that, you are a sinner, regardless of how many rules you do or do not violate.
I am also confused about Uncle Ken's reference to "world culture". We don't even have a national culture anymore, if indeed we ever did. So how can we have a world culture? I suppose we all have some things in common with the rest of the human race, but I doubt that it's enough to qualify as a world culture.
I'm not surprised to hear that the Red Chinese are investing in construction projects all over the world. They probably hold more U.S. money than we do by now, and they have to invest it somewhere.
I heard about that global cyber attack. I don't think it was political in nature, just a scam to extort money from people. Last I heard, it's been brought under control, but the perpetrators have not yet been identified.
Checking in...
A certain amount of disconnected thinking is not uncommon among those of our age.
My thoughts exactly. One thing about the prolonged discussion about sin has got me wondering about the lack of any mention of forgiveness and absolution. Maybe I missed it.
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I prefer the world culture, it has an earthier tone...
Is that a typo, and Uncle Ken meant "word?" When I hear "culture" I immediately think of cheese, beer, sourdough bread, and other exemplars of yeasty goodness. Culture is ever growing, ever changing, not written in stone, and a good description of some aspects of the human condition.
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Did World War III already start and I didn't notice? I read about the recent global "cyber attack" and, frankly, it didn't have any impact on my day to day life. But it could have, had the attack affected our computer controlled infrastructure. It screwed up other countries, but I haven't read about any fatalities, so who knows? Maybe it's fake news; never can tell nowadays.
With all the talk about Russia vs. the US, a recent item about China caught my interest. The Chinese are investing very heavily in other countries building railroads, bridges, tunnels, power plants, and roads, all in an effort to enhance their economic growth and trade. It's been compared to the Marshall Plan after WWII, although some of the financing may be dicey. The Chinese are like that, they plan for the long term, don't mind assuming risk, and are very patient. Didn't they once say, "may you live in interesting times?" Indeed.
My thoughts exactly. One thing about the prolonged discussion about sin has got me wondering about the lack of any mention of forgiveness and absolution. Maybe I missed it.
-----
I prefer the world culture, it has an earthier tone...
Is that a typo, and Uncle Ken meant "word?" When I hear "culture" I immediately think of cheese, beer, sourdough bread, and other exemplars of yeasty goodness. Culture is ever growing, ever changing, not written in stone, and a good description of some aspects of the human condition.
-----
Did World War III already start and I didn't notice? I read about the recent global "cyber attack" and, frankly, it didn't have any impact on my day to day life. But it could have, had the attack affected our computer controlled infrastructure. It screwed up other countries, but I haven't read about any fatalities, so who knows? Maybe it's fake news; never can tell nowadays.
With all the talk about Russia vs. the US, a recent item about China caught my interest. The Chinese are investing very heavily in other countries building railroads, bridges, tunnels, power plants, and roads, all in an effort to enhance their economic growth and trade. It's been compared to the Marshall Plan after WWII, although some of the financing may be dicey. The Chinese are like that, they plan for the long term, don't mind assuming risk, and are very patient. Didn't they once say, "may you live in interesting times?" Indeed.
the heart of darkness
If you believe that killing is a sin than it doesn't matter who you kill, killing anybody is a sin. If you are a utilitarian who believes that acts are to be judged by their consequences it would seem like a wrong deed, I am using the term wrong deed because utilitarians don't believe in sin in the sense that a deed is right or wrong just because it is. But can the errant shooter get a pass because he meant to kill a bad guy? I think he can. The world is a busy place with all kinds of shit going on and you never know when somebody is going to jostle your shoulder just as you are pressing the trigger, We go through the world trying to do good, I think most people, make that almost everybody, thinks they are trying do do good.
Kind of makes you wonder why the world is a better place doesn't it? Well we have different ideas of what makes a better world/ Uncle Ken likes the worker's paradise and Beagles favors the land of the freeholders. Neither of us does much about it other than flapping our jaws in the univied halls and going out to the polls, but if we were more active, banging on doors, or doling out our hard-earned cash, I guess we would cancel each other out. And what exactly is a better world and how complicated to know how to pull it off? The utilitarian's world is full of doubt,.
But the world of the sinner is pretty simple, just don't sin. Additionally they can try to keep others from sinning by passing things like prohibition or blue laws. What makes a better world for them is simply enough, a world without sin.
I guess anybody can decide what is sin and what isn't. I think the state does, religions do, some philosophies do, We may not believe in them, but others do. I wonder about societies with upper and lower case S's. There used to be a lot of talk about society. Society does or says this or that, but as Beagles points out Society is not a monolith. Now that I think about it, it seems like when everybody was talking about society, it seemed like a bad thing, like society was making you do this or that or judging you, you got the picture of Society like in one of those science fiction depictions of the government of the future with these robed people with goofy hairdos and high foreheads passing down all these laws.
I prefer the world culture, it has an earthier tone, closer to the bone, closer to our DNA, instead of a top down thing like Society it is more or of a bottom up thing. I think that is where sin comes from, it's not from something we've learned, it's from something inside of us, like in the Heart of Darkness we are nicely-dressed and well-behaved but just beneath it we are savages believing superstitious things, like sin,
I may have gone off the rails again, like a couple weeks ago. What does Beagles say? A certain amount of disconnected thinking is not uncommon among those of our age.
Kind of makes you wonder why the world is a better place doesn't it? Well we have different ideas of what makes a better world/ Uncle Ken likes the worker's paradise and Beagles favors the land of the freeholders. Neither of us does much about it other than flapping our jaws in the univied halls and going out to the polls, but if we were more active, banging on doors, or doling out our hard-earned cash, I guess we would cancel each other out. And what exactly is a better world and how complicated to know how to pull it off? The utilitarian's world is full of doubt,.
But the world of the sinner is pretty simple, just don't sin. Additionally they can try to keep others from sinning by passing things like prohibition or blue laws. What makes a better world for them is simply enough, a world without sin.
I guess anybody can decide what is sin and what isn't. I think the state does, religions do, some philosophies do, We may not believe in them, but others do. I wonder about societies with upper and lower case S's. There used to be a lot of talk about society. Society does or says this or that, but as Beagles points out Society is not a monolith. Now that I think about it, it seems like when everybody was talking about society, it seemed like a bad thing, like society was making you do this or that or judging you, you got the picture of Society like in one of those science fiction depictions of the government of the future with these robed people with goofy hairdos and high foreheads passing down all these laws.
I prefer the world culture, it has an earthier tone, closer to the bone, closer to our DNA, instead of a top down thing like Society it is more or of a bottom up thing. I think that is where sin comes from, it's not from something we've learned, it's from something inside of us, like in the Heart of Darkness we are nicely-dressed and well-behaved but just beneath it we are savages believing superstitious things, like sin,
I may have gone off the rails again, like a couple weeks ago. What does Beagles say? A certain amount of disconnected thinking is not uncommon among those of our age.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Who Says?
Okay, so good and evil are human inventions, and a sin is an act that is wrong regardless of its consequences. What about intent? Is a sin also an act that is wrong regardless of the intent of the sinner? If I take a shot at a bad guy, he ducks, and I kill a good guy by mistake, is that a sin? If we take consequences and intent out of the equation, the only thing left is the act itself which, I believe, is what Uncle Ken is driving at.
So who gets to decide what acts are sins and what acts are not? It can't be the government because government laws generally take both consequences and intent into account. It can't be God because Uncle Ken does not believe in God. It can't be religion because Talks With Beagles doesn't believe in religion. It can't be Society, because there is no Society with a capital "S". There are lots of societies with a small "s", but nobody is a member of all of them. Can members of one society dictate right and wrong to members of a different society? Well, they can try to, and maybe that's why we have wars. If the victors write the history books, do they also get to write the rule books? That sounds like "might makes right". Surely we can come up with a better plan than that!
It has been my experience with this Blogger platform that, if my computer unexpectedly goes down on me while I am writing a post, everything I have written so far automatically gets saved as a draft. I think that's what happened the other day when one of my posts came out as a draft because I forgot to publish it. When I went back and clicked on "update", it came back as a regular published post.
So who gets to decide what acts are sins and what acts are not? It can't be the government because government laws generally take both consequences and intent into account. It can't be God because Uncle Ken does not believe in God. It can't be religion because Talks With Beagles doesn't believe in religion. It can't be Society, because there is no Society with a capital "S". There are lots of societies with a small "s", but nobody is a member of all of them. Can members of one society dictate right and wrong to members of a different society? Well, they can try to, and maybe that's why we have wars. If the victors write the history books, do they also get to write the rule books? That sounds like "might makes right". Surely we can come up with a better plan than that!
It has been my experience with this Blogger platform that, if my computer unexpectedly goes down on me while I am writing a post, everything I have written so far automatically gets saved as a draft. I think that's what happened the other day when one of my posts came out as a draft because I forgot to publish it. When I went back and clicked on "update", it came back as a regular published post.
TSX-0345 or Vengence is Mine
I don't know that sin is used almost exclusively in a religious context. That's like saying we atheists aren't aloud to say God Bless you (I prefer gesundheit, it sounds more continental), and when we sing it's a sin to tell a lie we are not saying the liar is going to hell.
I guess I am appropriating the word, but I don't think that is a sin. Well you know I don't believe good, bad, evil, and innocence exist in the same way that the law of gravity exists. I think they exist only in the hearts of men. They didn't exist before man and won't after man, and if some other intelligent being comes to the fore they likely will have a different idea of good and bad.
The way I am defining sin for the purpose of this discussion is an act that is wrong in itself regardless of the consequences. I bring it up because it comes up a lot in that a lot of people think just avoiding sin is enough to be a good person. There must be something in us that makes the idea of a simple act being a sin something that sticks with us, As I recall earlier I had defined sin for the sake of discussion as believing that something is wrong but doing it anyway. That is not the way I want to use the term in this discussion.
I'm a little surprised to see that doing good deeds gets so little attention in the old testament. Let's go to the ten commandments. The first three pertain to God, they don't call Him Jealous for no reason, and in fact He doesn't mind telling us that He is. The fourth is the sabbath, seems strange that such a trivial matter should find its way into the commandments, like having a constitutional amendment to outlaw burning the flag, but He is god. Honoring your mother and father sounds a little odd, What does honoring mean? Supporting them? Doing what they tell you to do? The next three seem pretty reasonable, no killing, hanky panky, or stealing. Next comes bearing false witness, or in other words it's a sin to tell a lie. And the last one is not coveting your neighbor's house, or his wife, or anything else, depending on who is interpreting. That always seemed a little odd to me. How can you tell somebody not to covet? It's like telling somebody to never get mad,
Wow all of a sudden this window went grey and a box opened warning about error TSX-0345, something like that, and my only option was to reload with no guarantee that my work would be saved. Shit fuck. I tried to copy my greyed text, but no dice, so I reloaded with fingers crossed and bam my work reappeared.
You know I had just been speaking rather mockingly of the Ten Commandments, and that Old Testament God can be pretty vengeful. But I rather think He would have just smote me than slam me with error TSX-0345 (thou shalt not be sarcastic or something)
Still makes me nervous about going on with this this morning. Maybe I'll return to the garden of good, bad, evil, and innocence if I sense any interest from the dawgs. Sometimes I go on and on and don't notice that nobody is listening anymore,
The briefest of internet research reveals that sologamy is some form of new age nonsense. Going on a honeymoon by yourself sound pretty nice though. It's only a matter of time before lawyers hang out their shingles for divorcing yourself and getting some healthy alimony to boot.
I reckon Cheboygan could attract some tourists to see other tourists hanging from the light posts next to the tastefully appointed flower baskets.
Oh and I want to thank Old Dog for confirming to me three times that he remembers that that bet was for a hundred bucks. Once over fried food at Snappy's and twice by telephone.
I guess I am appropriating the word, but I don't think that is a sin. Well you know I don't believe good, bad, evil, and innocence exist in the same way that the law of gravity exists. I think they exist only in the hearts of men. They didn't exist before man and won't after man, and if some other intelligent being comes to the fore they likely will have a different idea of good and bad.
The way I am defining sin for the purpose of this discussion is an act that is wrong in itself regardless of the consequences. I bring it up because it comes up a lot in that a lot of people think just avoiding sin is enough to be a good person. There must be something in us that makes the idea of a simple act being a sin something that sticks with us, As I recall earlier I had defined sin for the sake of discussion as believing that something is wrong but doing it anyway. That is not the way I want to use the term in this discussion.
I'm a little surprised to see that doing good deeds gets so little attention in the old testament. Let's go to the ten commandments. The first three pertain to God, they don't call Him Jealous for no reason, and in fact He doesn't mind telling us that He is. The fourth is the sabbath, seems strange that such a trivial matter should find its way into the commandments, like having a constitutional amendment to outlaw burning the flag, but He is god. Honoring your mother and father sounds a little odd, What does honoring mean? Supporting them? Doing what they tell you to do? The next three seem pretty reasonable, no killing, hanky panky, or stealing. Next comes bearing false witness, or in other words it's a sin to tell a lie. And the last one is not coveting your neighbor's house, or his wife, or anything else, depending on who is interpreting. That always seemed a little odd to me. How can you tell somebody not to covet? It's like telling somebody to never get mad,
Wow all of a sudden this window went grey and a box opened warning about error TSX-0345, something like that, and my only option was to reload with no guarantee that my work would be saved. Shit fuck. I tried to copy my greyed text, but no dice, so I reloaded with fingers crossed and bam my work reappeared.
You know I had just been speaking rather mockingly of the Ten Commandments, and that Old Testament God can be pretty vengeful. But I rather think He would have just smote me than slam me with error TSX-0345 (thou shalt not be sarcastic or something)
Still makes me nervous about going on with this this morning. Maybe I'll return to the garden of good, bad, evil, and innocence if I sense any interest from the dawgs. Sometimes I go on and on and don't notice that nobody is listening anymore,
The briefest of internet research reveals that sologamy is some form of new age nonsense. Going on a honeymoon by yourself sound pretty nice though. It's only a matter of time before lawyers hang out their shingles for divorcing yourself and getting some healthy alimony to boot.
I reckon Cheboygan could attract some tourists to see other tourists hanging from the light posts next to the tastefully appointed flower baskets.
Oh and I want to thank Old Dog for confirming to me three times that he remembers that that bet was for a hundred bucks. Once over fried food at Snappy's and twice by telephone.
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