I looked up Uncle Ken's art show. I think I've seen them all before, but it was nice to see them all together. I don't know what it takes to market stuff like that. I wouldn't buy one, but that's just me. I mean they're pretty, but I'm not a great collector of art. I bought an oil painting of a naked lady in Old Town once, just after I got out of the army, but that was a gift for a friend, and I knew that he liked that particular artist. I also have a limited edition print of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a Great Lakes freighter that sank in a storm back in the 70s. Other than that, it's just dime store and garage sale stuff. As the old saying goes, "I don't know nothing about art, but I know what I like." There are art and craft shows all over Michigan in the summer. Maybe Uncle Ken should take his show on the road.
I first heard of those indictments on the NBC evening news on Friday, but they hadn't released the names yet. Then on Monday they told the names and gave a brief overview of the charges. That Manafort guy must have been the one that allegedly did all that stuff years ago. I seem to remember that the other guy, whose name I don't know, was charged with lying under oath or something like that. I don't know what Papadopoulos did, but I understand that he pled guilty to it. The news guy said that none of this has anything to do with Trump, at least not yet. What I'd like to know is, if Manafort has been doing this stuff for decades, why is he just now being charged?
Then there's this movie guy, Weinstein I believe, who has allegedly been assaulting women for decades, it was well known all over Hollywood, and he's also just now being charged. Then all the "me too" girls came out of the woodwork. Why didn't they say something before now?
It's like all those auto recalls. It's seldom for a new car, it's usually for a model that's been on the road for years, and they just now discovered that the brakes are prone to failure or the air bag can kill you. It seem like something that serious would have been noticed a long time ago.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Faith in numbers
As I read Uncle Ken's expansive discourse on numbers it occurred to me that mathematics comes perilously close to becoming a sort of a religion. How else to describe something that embraces the real, the natural, the irrational, the imaginary, and the infinite? The mind boggles.
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That Mueller fellow is very cagey and seems to be building on a firm foundation. I took a quick glance at the complete indictment of Manafort and it's a doozy, like the guy is wizard of criminal finance and money laundering on an international scale. The scope of his past operations are what I can only call staggering, which raises another question. If he did all that stuff before becoming involved in Trump's campaign, how is it possible that they took him on board? There must have been some kind of interview that would have revealed what he had been doing for the last few years, and his involvement with all those Russians should have raised some red flags. I wonder what kind of qualifications for campaign manager they were really looking for. Maybe all they asked him was "Do you know any rich guys?"
But the real gem isn't the indictments but the guilty plea by Papadopoulos, who has been cooperating with the investigation. He's going to get off easy and I bet that a lot of White House staffers are starting to sweat. That guy may have been a minor player but he could have been privy to a lot of inside info. It will be interesting to see what the next round of indictments will bring, and there will be a next round, you can bet on it. I think loyalty and solidarity will only go so far; folks will try to cut some deals and will start to sing like birdies. It's still a tangled web but it is starting to unravel.
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Only one sale.
That's sad but not unexpected. Folks still piss away their dough on all sorts of silly shit and wouldn't know really good stuff if it kicked them in the keister. If you could figure out a way to put those paintings in a phone app you could be onto something. People love buying phone apps, and wouldn't a slide show of watercolors be a nice thing, a respite from the chaos of daily life?
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That Mueller fellow is very cagey and seems to be building on a firm foundation. I took a quick glance at the complete indictment of Manafort and it's a doozy, like the guy is wizard of criminal finance and money laundering on an international scale. The scope of his past operations are what I can only call staggering, which raises another question. If he did all that stuff before becoming involved in Trump's campaign, how is it possible that they took him on board? There must have been some kind of interview that would have revealed what he had been doing for the last few years, and his involvement with all those Russians should have raised some red flags. I wonder what kind of qualifications for campaign manager they were really looking for. Maybe all they asked him was "Do you know any rich guys?"
But the real gem isn't the indictments but the guilty plea by Papadopoulos, who has been cooperating with the investigation. He's going to get off easy and I bet that a lot of White House staffers are starting to sweat. That guy may have been a minor player but he could have been privy to a lot of inside info. It will be interesting to see what the next round of indictments will bring, and there will be a next round, you can bet on it. I think loyalty and solidarity will only go so far; folks will try to cut some deals and will start to sing like birdies. It's still a tangled web but it is starting to unravel.
-----
Only one sale.
That's sad but not unexpected. Folks still piss away their dough on all sorts of silly shit and wouldn't know really good stuff if it kicked them in the keister. If you could figure out a way to put those paintings in a phone app you could be onto something. People love buying phone apps, and wouldn't a slide show of watercolors be a nice thing, a respite from the chaos of daily life?
the reals and the imaginaries
I'm sorry that our seminar got invaded by cronies too. Not that it was unpleasant to talk to our cronies, but we still had stuff on our agenda that we didn't get to.
That CO thing. Maybe a month or two after I was granted my CO the draft board sent me a letter listing three locations. the nut house in Elgin, Herrin, and I forget what the third place was. I'd been through Herrin once hitchhiking down to Carbondale and it seemed exotic. I don't know how I determined the date, but I rented an apartment down there and moved all my stuff down and showed up at the hospital I think the first Monday in September and said, Ken Schadt reporting for duty.
And they were like What, who are you? Well they had had a CO before me who had just left, they supposed they could use another, what kind of job did I want. I guessed an orderly because isn't that what people do in a hospital, but I balked when they mentioned giving enemas, and they said they could always use janitors and I said I was their man. There must have been some communication going on between the hospital and my draft board. Shortly before my time was up my draft board sent me a letter telling me that my time was up. But other than that I was just like all the other janitors.
Here is a link to the Cats and Corn show: http://www.bckat.net/KenSchadt/2017show/index.htm Taking it down Nov 12. Only one sale. What is wrong with people when they will spend a thousand bucks on the latest phone gizmo that will be out of date in a couple years when they could spend a fifth of that and get an art work which will be eternal, or at any rate, last as long as they will?
So now we've examined the operations of addition and multiplication and their troublemaking inverses and we have the set of rational numbers: positive and negative and zero, and all those numbers that can be expressed in the form a/b, where a and b are integers. How about the special case of multiplication that we call exponentiation, where we multiply a number by itself as many times as we like, aXaXaXa... till the cows come home. Doesn't seem like any trouble with this one, but when we do the inverse, trying to find the root, we stumble right at the beginning with the square root of two. If we try to express it as a/b we soon discover that that can't be done.
https://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/proof_square_root_2_irrational.php
Well, we all know, at any rate all of us who believe in infinity, that the set of all the integers is infinite, as is the set of just the positive integers, and the even integers and the integers divisible by a million. And between any two rational numbers there are an infinite number of other rational numbers. But now with the discovery of what we are pleased to call the irrational numbers, which caused considerable turmoil in the Greeks, caused them to turn from arithmetic to geometry, we know that there are an infinite number of irrational numbers (think numbers that go on to infinity after their decimal points with no regularly repeating patterns), between every rational number of which there are an infinity, so they are infinitely more irrational numbers than rational numbers, and here my head is spinning, so I will pause/
But anyway, you can't do math without the square root of two and its infinity of infinities relatives, so after the Greeks we welcomed them into the family and called the resultant number system, the somewhat defensive name of, the real numbers.
But then a problem arose in quadratic equations, which must have two solutions. x squared = 4 is solvable with 2 or -2. But what of x squared = -2? The two solutions for this are - the square root of -2, or + the square root of -2. The square root of-2? How do you deal with that? What we do is we isolate the square root of -1 to get the number i. Then the answer is the more manageable iX(the square root of two) . And now we have a whole new infinity of numbers: bXi, where b is any real number called the (get this) imaginary numbers, and in fact all numbers have the form a + bi, and are called the complex numbers, the only difference between them and the real numbers is that the real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers where b = 0.
Then there are vectors and other odd things, but I am stopping here.
The ape swinging the bone didn't know anything about mathematical principles. I guess he knew heavier and swinging harder, but until he sat down with Galileo and did the numbers he didn't know how much heavier and how speed related to that.
Mathematics isn't a language. All God's chillens speak different languages but there is only one mathematics between them. But it's an interesting idea. Clearly without language we could never have understood mathematics.
I have had several people try to explain musical notation to me and I have pissed them all off by asking stupid questions so I am not going to weigh in on that here. There is a lot of math in music, though I don't quite understand that either.
Mueller's indictments are not for activities long before the Trump campaign, and they are not a third rate burglary. I declare I do not know where Beagles gets his news. Sarah Huckabee?
That CO thing. Maybe a month or two after I was granted my CO the draft board sent me a letter listing three locations. the nut house in Elgin, Herrin, and I forget what the third place was. I'd been through Herrin once hitchhiking down to Carbondale and it seemed exotic. I don't know how I determined the date, but I rented an apartment down there and moved all my stuff down and showed up at the hospital I think the first Monday in September and said, Ken Schadt reporting for duty.
And they were like What, who are you? Well they had had a CO before me who had just left, they supposed they could use another, what kind of job did I want. I guessed an orderly because isn't that what people do in a hospital, but I balked when they mentioned giving enemas, and they said they could always use janitors and I said I was their man. There must have been some communication going on between the hospital and my draft board. Shortly before my time was up my draft board sent me a letter telling me that my time was up. But other than that I was just like all the other janitors.
Here is a link to the Cats and Corn show: http://www.bckat.net/KenSchadt/2017show/index.htm Taking it down Nov 12. Only one sale. What is wrong with people when they will spend a thousand bucks on the latest phone gizmo that will be out of date in a couple years when they could spend a fifth of that and get an art work which will be eternal, or at any rate, last as long as they will?
So now we've examined the operations of addition and multiplication and their troublemaking inverses and we have the set of rational numbers: positive and negative and zero, and all those numbers that can be expressed in the form a/b, where a and b are integers. How about the special case of multiplication that we call exponentiation, where we multiply a number by itself as many times as we like, aXaXaXa... till the cows come home. Doesn't seem like any trouble with this one, but when we do the inverse, trying to find the root, we stumble right at the beginning with the square root of two. If we try to express it as a/b we soon discover that that can't be done.
https://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/proof_square_root_2_irrational.php
Well, we all know, at any rate all of us who believe in infinity, that the set of all the integers is infinite, as is the set of just the positive integers, and the even integers and the integers divisible by a million. And between any two rational numbers there are an infinite number of other rational numbers. But now with the discovery of what we are pleased to call the irrational numbers, which caused considerable turmoil in the Greeks, caused them to turn from arithmetic to geometry, we know that there are an infinite number of irrational numbers (think numbers that go on to infinity after their decimal points with no regularly repeating patterns), between every rational number of which there are an infinity, so they are infinitely more irrational numbers than rational numbers, and here my head is spinning, so I will pause/
But anyway, you can't do math without the square root of two and its infinity of infinities relatives, so after the Greeks we welcomed them into the family and called the resultant number system, the somewhat defensive name of, the real numbers.
But then a problem arose in quadratic equations, which must have two solutions. x squared = 4 is solvable with 2 or -2. But what of x squared = -2? The two solutions for this are - the square root of -2, or + the square root of -2. The square root of-2? How do you deal with that? What we do is we isolate the square root of -1 to get the number i. Then the answer is the more manageable iX(the square root of two) . And now we have a whole new infinity of numbers: bXi, where b is any real number called the (get this) imaginary numbers, and in fact all numbers have the form a + bi, and are called the complex numbers, the only difference between them and the real numbers is that the real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers where b = 0.
Then there are vectors and other odd things, but I am stopping here.
The ape swinging the bone didn't know anything about mathematical principles. I guess he knew heavier and swinging harder, but until he sat down with Galileo and did the numbers he didn't know how much heavier and how speed related to that.
Mathematics isn't a language. All God's chillens speak different languages but there is only one mathematics between them. But it's an interesting idea. Clearly without language we could never have understood mathematics.
I have had several people try to explain musical notation to me and I have pissed them all off by asking stupid questions so I am not going to weigh in on that here. There is a lot of math in music, though I don't quite understand that either.
Mueller's indictments are not for activities long before the Trump campaign, and they are not a third rate burglary. I declare I do not know where Beagles gets his news. Sarah Huckabee?
Monday, October 30, 2017
Bones and Stones
When the ape in that movie used a bone as a weapon, he was employing mathematical principles, he just didn't know it. By trial and error, with a little help from those mysterious extraterrestrials, he learned that he could multiply the force of his arm by making it longer and harder. He didn't know why it worked, but he knew that it worked. In those days, he couldn't tell his buddies about his amazing discovery because language hadn't been invented yet, but he could show them, and that also worked. Once they had mastered that skill, they were able to able to drive those annoying others from the waterhole. What the movie didn't show was the others coming back later with bones of their own, but I'm pretty sure that happened. After that, it was just a matter of progression from bones to stones to nuclear missiles. I skipped some steps, but you get the idea. Somewhere between the stones and the missiles, those apes must have developed language, which greatly facilitated the process. Isn't that what mathematics is after all, a language?
Music is like that too. the system of music notation is nothing but a language that enables musicians to communicate with each other. You don't need the language to make music, or to inspire others to make music, as long as you can interact with them personally, but you do need it to mail a copy of your new song to your publisher in New York. Humans probably learned to make music by trial and error, just like they learned to use tools and weapons. The publisher in New York became a part of the process somewhat later.
I get to see most of Uncle Ken's paintings when he posts them on Face Book, which I usually visit on Saturday evenings. I do remember going to a link to see all the paintings that were in his show at the Ten Cat, but that was a previous show, not the current one.
I see that Mueller's investigation finally indicted two people, but that was for something that happened years ago, long before they were involved in the Trump campaign. Oh well, I suppose it's a start.
Music is like that too. the system of music notation is nothing but a language that enables musicians to communicate with each other. You don't need the language to make music, or to inspire others to make music, as long as you can interact with them personally, but you do need it to mail a copy of your new song to your publisher in New York. Humans probably learned to make music by trial and error, just like they learned to use tools and weapons. The publisher in New York became a part of the process somewhat later.
I get to see most of Uncle Ken's paintings when he posts them on Face Book, which I usually visit on Saturday evenings. I do remember going to a link to see all the paintings that were in his show at the Ten Cat, but that was a previous show, not the current one.
I see that Mueller's investigation finally indicted two people, but that was for something that happened years ago, long before they were involved in the Trump campaign. Oh well, I suppose it's a start.
A musing
But do numbers exist, in the way that a cannonball exists?
A cannonball exists in the physical realm and numbers do not. A number by itself means nothing, it's like an adjective. But never mind, please continue your discourse; you're in the groove.
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People tend to think of math as a human invention, but I think the math was already there and the humans just figured out a way to make it work for them.
We can split hairs on this one. I think math is a human invention, a kind of mental language to help understand things that exist in nature. Once we learned how to count and measure things we became able to understand the natural world and how things related to each other. This is becoming a deep topic and requires more thinking on my part. And I keep thinking of the opening sequence in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes started using the bone as a tool/weapon but that had nothing to do with math.
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It was good to attend last Friday's seminar after a long absence but I was wasn't able to catch up with Uncle Ken as much as I had hoped. Halfway through a couple of old cronies of our acquaintance showed up and the conversation diverged. Uncle Ken was speaking with one and I was stuck listening to the other, which was okay but there were some things I meant to ask Uncle Ken.
Such as, how did it work when he became a CO? Did they assign him the job at the hospital or did he have a choice of places to go? He mentioned that the job had to be low paying, but I wonder if that meant he never got any raises or promotions like you do in regular military service. Maybe a vow of poverty was part of the deal (my take home pay more than tripled in the less than three years I was in). I also wondered about housing and if it was provided, like in a barracks, or if he had to take meals in a mess hall.
Uncle Ken should provide a link so Mr. Beagles can view his latest work as shown at the Tencat. Although he is continuing his Cats and Corn theme, there were a couple of works that I thought were simply outstanding. Must be that new brush he's been using.
A cannonball exists in the physical realm and numbers do not. A number by itself means nothing, it's like an adjective. But never mind, please continue your discourse; you're in the groove.
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People tend to think of math as a human invention, but I think the math was already there and the humans just figured out a way to make it work for them.
We can split hairs on this one. I think math is a human invention, a kind of mental language to help understand things that exist in nature. Once we learned how to count and measure things we became able to understand the natural world and how things related to each other. This is becoming a deep topic and requires more thinking on my part. And I keep thinking of the opening sequence in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes started using the bone as a tool/weapon but that had nothing to do with math.
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It was good to attend last Friday's seminar after a long absence but I was wasn't able to catch up with Uncle Ken as much as I had hoped. Halfway through a couple of old cronies of our acquaintance showed up and the conversation diverged. Uncle Ken was speaking with one and I was stuck listening to the other, which was okay but there were some things I meant to ask Uncle Ken.
Such as, how did it work when he became a CO? Did they assign him the job at the hospital or did he have a choice of places to go? He mentioned that the job had to be low paying, but I wonder if that meant he never got any raises or promotions like you do in regular military service. Maybe a vow of poverty was part of the deal (my take home pay more than tripled in the less than three years I was in). I also wondered about housing and if it was provided, like in a barracks, or if he had to take meals in a mess hall.
Uncle Ken should provide a link so Mr. Beagles can view his latest work as shown at the Tencat. Although he is continuing his Cats and Corn theme, there were a couple of works that I thought were simply outstanding. Must be that new brush he's been using.
naturals, integers, and rationals
There is quite a difference between math and science. If you had time enough, and were smart enough, and probably you would need a pencil and paper, you could sit in a room and replicate all of mathematics. But in order to replicate science you would have to go out into the world and measure stuff and do experiments. A lot of nature is just arbitrary. Why do subatomic particles have the mass and the charge that they do? Nobody knows. Before Galileo nobody knew that when you dropped a cannonball off a tower it accelerated at a regular rate that could be measured. Once they discovered that you could describe things with an equation, things took off. Subatomic particles can not be described as like anything in the world we know, they are just equations.
But do numbers exist, in the way that a cannonball exists? We can imagine a universe where the subatomic particles have different masses and charges, but not a universe where two plus two sometimes equals four and sometimes equals three, There is a whole world of mathematical philosophy with varying schools, and one school believes they exist like Plato said, and another that thinks it is just a way we do things, something we invented. Some schools embrace infinity and others eschew it.
Well you know you start with the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3. and so on. You take the operations addition and multiplication and every time you add or multiply them you get another natural. All is peaceful in the kingdom. But then you take up subtraction, seems simple enough, just the opposite of addition, a little odd because whereas 3 + 5 equals 5 + 3, 5 - 3 does not equal 3 - 5. And now we have what are called the integers, a whole mirror image of the naturals only negative, but they seem well behaved enough. It's odd how when we multiply two negative numbers we get a positive number, but it sort of makes sense, the way a double negative is logically a positive statement.
But in addition to the negative numbers we now also have zero, which doesn't seem all that odd, after all we all know that sometimes we have some candy bars and sometimes we have none.
But now let's add division to our operations, the opposite of multiplication, kind of like subtraction in that 7x8 equals 8x7, but 8/7 does not equal 7/8. And how about that 7/8? Hardly an integer, an arrested development, we put a 8 under the 7, and that's all we can do. When we add all those fractions we get the rational numbers. And suddenly that affable, but mysterious, zero is giving us a big headache when we try to divide anything by it . Some say that gives you infinity, and others say there is no such thing as infinity, just that no matter what number you think of there is always one bigger than that, and bigger than that one, and scooby dooby do on, which sounds a lot like infinity to me, but they claim it isn't, and they simply say you just can't divide anything by zero, and don't even think about it either.
There are more surprises in the kingdom of numbers, namely the reals and complex numbers. I'll get around to them tomorrow,
But do numbers exist, in the way that a cannonball exists? We can imagine a universe where the subatomic particles have different masses and charges, but not a universe where two plus two sometimes equals four and sometimes equals three, There is a whole world of mathematical philosophy with varying schools, and one school believes they exist like Plato said, and another that thinks it is just a way we do things, something we invented. Some schools embrace infinity and others eschew it.
Well you know you start with the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3. and so on. You take the operations addition and multiplication and every time you add or multiply them you get another natural. All is peaceful in the kingdom. But then you take up subtraction, seems simple enough, just the opposite of addition, a little odd because whereas 3 + 5 equals 5 + 3, 5 - 3 does not equal 3 - 5. And now we have what are called the integers, a whole mirror image of the naturals only negative, but they seem well behaved enough. It's odd how when we multiply two negative numbers we get a positive number, but it sort of makes sense, the way a double negative is logically a positive statement.
But in addition to the negative numbers we now also have zero, which doesn't seem all that odd, after all we all know that sometimes we have some candy bars and sometimes we have none.
But now let's add division to our operations, the opposite of multiplication, kind of like subtraction in that 7x8 equals 8x7, but 8/7 does not equal 7/8. And how about that 7/8? Hardly an integer, an arrested development, we put a 8 under the 7, and that's all we can do. When we add all those fractions we get the rational numbers. And suddenly that affable, but mysterious, zero is giving us a big headache when we try to divide anything by it . Some say that gives you infinity, and others say there is no such thing as infinity, just that no matter what number you think of there is always one bigger than that, and bigger than that one, and scooby dooby do on, which sounds a lot like infinity to me, but they claim it isn't, and they simply say you just can't divide anything by zero, and don't even think about it either.
There are more surprises in the kingdom of numbers, namely the reals and complex numbers. I'll get around to them tomorrow,
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Same Difference
Well, I would have said that the laws of math are controlled by the laws of Nature instead of the other way around. Then again, isn't math part of Nature? People tend to think of math as a human invention, but I think the math was already there and the humans just figured out a way to make it work for them. Same thing with fire and music, but I'm not so sure about the wheel and axle. Anything that's round might be considered a wheel, but it isn't much good to us without the axle, and I'm pretty sure that's a human invention.
We get "The Good Place" on NBC, Thursday at 8:30 PM. With the time difference, I suppose that you guys get it a 7:30.
We get "The Good Place" on NBC, Thursday at 8:30 PM. With the time difference, I suppose that you guys get it a 7:30.
Friday, October 27, 2017
okey dokey or hokey pokey
I simplified the math on that wildlife thing, and I'm not sure I understand it all, but the main point is that sometimes math, to use a technical term, acts crazy, and thus the forces of nature that obey the laws of math act crazy too.
I did have sort of a Ted Nugent moment on the bus to Chicago to take my physical. I had taken some speed and drank a lot of beer, the train left Champaign at 2AM, and by the time I got on the bus i had to piss like a racehorse. There was no john on the bus, and it occurred to me that I could just piss in my pants, surely the army would take a dim view of that and likely decide that I was not fighting material, but when I thought of that pool of pee sloshing across the floor, to the back of the bus when we accelerated, and towards the front when we broke, lapping at the shoes of my fellow potential draftees I just couldn't do it.
It's hard to be against all wars. What do you do when they invade your country? What do you do, as the draft boards were reported to be fond of asking, if they are raping your granny? My draft board didn't ask me that and I didn't bring it up.
Is The Good Place on tv again? I could look it up, but as long as I am here in The Institute (we do wear black robes and powdered wigs don't we? (how did that powdered wig thing become de rigor for judges anyway? A question for another day.)), maybe one of the dawgs could tell me what night it is on and on what channel.
Chaos is a pretty good book, explains the whole thing very well, which is something I'm sure I didn't do very well (note my confusion between forces and laws, in that first paragraph. I read a couple other books by Gleick after that, one on Isaac Newton, and one called Faster, and neither of them were so hot, I guess it was the subject matter and not the author. I may reread it myself now that it is off the shelf, some of the stuff I took away from it, I am a little fuzzy about anymore. Strange Attractors, I could use a little reading up on that.
Plenty of weird stuff going on with the Saudis, our bedrock allies in the middle east. How about that war they are waging with Yemen that nobody outside the area cares much about it? But our leader has nimbly done the sword dance with those guys - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/may/21/trump-joins-ceremonial-sword-dance-in-saudi-arabia-video - so probably everything is okey dokey, or maybe hokey pokey, I forget the difference.
I did have sort of a Ted Nugent moment on the bus to Chicago to take my physical. I had taken some speed and drank a lot of beer, the train left Champaign at 2AM, and by the time I got on the bus i had to piss like a racehorse. There was no john on the bus, and it occurred to me that I could just piss in my pants, surely the army would take a dim view of that and likely decide that I was not fighting material, but when I thought of that pool of pee sloshing across the floor, to the back of the bus when we accelerated, and towards the front when we broke, lapping at the shoes of my fellow potential draftees I just couldn't do it.
It's hard to be against all wars. What do you do when they invade your country? What do you do, as the draft boards were reported to be fond of asking, if they are raping your granny? My draft board didn't ask me that and I didn't bring it up.
Is The Good Place on tv again? I could look it up, but as long as I am here in The Institute (we do wear black robes and powdered wigs don't we? (how did that powdered wig thing become de rigor for judges anyway? A question for another day.)), maybe one of the dawgs could tell me what night it is on and on what channel.
Chaos is a pretty good book, explains the whole thing very well, which is something I'm sure I didn't do very well (note my confusion between forces and laws, in that first paragraph. I read a couple other books by Gleick after that, one on Isaac Newton, and one called Faster, and neither of them were so hot, I guess it was the subject matter and not the author. I may reread it myself now that it is off the shelf, some of the stuff I took away from it, I am a little fuzzy about anymore. Strange Attractors, I could use a little reading up on that.
Plenty of weird stuff going on with the Saudis, our bedrock allies in the middle east. How about that war they are waging with Yemen that nobody outside the area cares much about it? But our leader has nimbly done the sword dance with those guys - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/may/21/trump-joins-ceremonial-sword-dance-in-saudi-arabia-video - so probably everything is okey dokey, or maybe hokey pokey, I forget the difference.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Wildlife Doesn't Care About Math
Of course I am interested in the fluctuations of wildlife populations. Although math is my weak subject, I almost understand Uncle Ken's equation, but I don't understand why "x" is always less than "1". Where did that number come from?
Be that as it may, the equation seems to overlook one important factor. In addition to the rate of reproduction, we must also consider how many wildlife babies live long enough to reproduce themselves. Most birds and small mammals can reproduce when they are a year old, with deer it takes a year and a half, and I'm not sure about bears and lions. Generally, the more babies an animal has at once, the fewer of those babies survive to breeding age. Take the ruffed grouse for example. Mama grouse nests in the spring and has about a dozen babies a year. About half of those babies don't survive till fall, and about half of the remainder don't make it through the winter. That leaves three new grouse to reproduce, in addition to the two parents if they're still alive by spring. Grouse populations tend to increase for about five years and then decline for about five years.
Rabbits and hares do something similar, although their boom and bust cycles tend to be more dramatic. The snowshoe hare population in Beaglesonia reached its peak in the early 1990s, then crashed, and hasn't recovered yet. I have read that most of the Northern Lower Peninsula has experienced the same thing but, last I heard, the Upper Peninsula has not. If global warming was the cause, cottontail rabbits should have filled the void left by the vanishing snowshoe hares, but I have not heard of that happening.
I read someplace once that whitetail deer have their ability to double their population every year, but those were city deer living in unnatural conditions. (I seem to remember it was Ann Arbor.) While the average mature doe has two fawns a year, first time mothers commonly lose them both, and even experienced mothers have a hard time raising both of their fawns to breeding age.
I saw Chapter 20 of The Good Place this evening. Starting next week there will be a conflict with another show that my hypothetical wife prefers, so I will be watching it online. I saved that Couch Tuner link to my favorites list, but I haven't tried to use it yet.
Be that as it may, the equation seems to overlook one important factor. In addition to the rate of reproduction, we must also consider how many wildlife babies live long enough to reproduce themselves. Most birds and small mammals can reproduce when they are a year old, with deer it takes a year and a half, and I'm not sure about bears and lions. Generally, the more babies an animal has at once, the fewer of those babies survive to breeding age. Take the ruffed grouse for example. Mama grouse nests in the spring and has about a dozen babies a year. About half of those babies don't survive till fall, and about half of the remainder don't make it through the winter. That leaves three new grouse to reproduce, in addition to the two parents if they're still alive by spring. Grouse populations tend to increase for about five years and then decline for about five years.
Rabbits and hares do something similar, although their boom and bust cycles tend to be more dramatic. The snowshoe hare population in Beaglesonia reached its peak in the early 1990s, then crashed, and hasn't recovered yet. I have read that most of the Northern Lower Peninsula has experienced the same thing but, last I heard, the Upper Peninsula has not. If global warming was the cause, cottontail rabbits should have filled the void left by the vanishing snowshoe hares, but I have not heard of that happening.
I read someplace once that whitetail deer have their ability to double their population every year, but those were city deer living in unnatural conditions. (I seem to remember it was Ann Arbor.) While the average mature doe has two fawns a year, first time mothers commonly lose them both, and even experienced mothers have a hard time raising both of their fawns to breeding age.
I saw Chapter 20 of The Good Place this evening. Starting next week there will be a conflict with another show that my hypothetical wife prefers, so I will be watching it online. I saved that Couch Tuner link to my favorites list, but I haven't tried to use it yet.
Small potatoes
I don't know if I served the nation by mopping the floors of Herrin Hospital.
Well, I say you did. You got drafted and played by the rules and didn't try to game the system, like acting crazy or pretending to be gay. I read that Ted Nugent, a rock & roll right-wing nutball, crapped his pants during his physical and was rejected. You accepted the responsibility and Nugent shit himself; I have no doubt which was the more honorable act.
A little bit past halfway in my junior year of college I was burnt out and decided not to come back for the senior year and graduation. The draft was in full swing and I knew I would get nailed, this was before the lottery and 50,000 guys my age were getting called up and I didn't want to go. I gave a lot of thought to becoming a conscientious objector, even spending a lot of time getting counseling with the campus chaplain, who was quite supportive. Most of the literature came from the Quakers as I recall, but deep down I knew I didn't oppose all war so I took a different tack and enlisted, picking a school that would be unlikely to land me in a combat zone. And the plan worked, so that was that. But did I already tell that story?
It's funny that Uncle Ken mentioned the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War). I was on their mailing list while I was overseas and this one particular sergeant would nearly blow a gasket during mail call and told me not to read it while on duty. I subscribed to a couple of comic books and Art Forum magazine, too, but he had no problems with me reading those on the job. Good times.
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Mr. Beagles and I have already discussed The Good Place and I'm slowly catching up but I don't know if Uncle Ken has given it a peek yet. Critical response is great but the ratings are still so-so. Since I watch it online I don't see the commercials and I wonder who the sponsors are and what demographic the program is aimed at. For a comedy, I think it must have a very niche audience. Consider these lines of dialogue from a recent episode where the characters were going to attend a party:
Parties are mere distractions from the relentlessness of entropy. We're all just corpses who haven't yet begun to decay.
Not what I would call a knee-slapper, but in the context of the scene it was funny. Another line from the same episode gave me a chuckle while the characters were discussing life and death:
Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide.
That's what I call comedy!
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No need to lend me your copy of Chaos, Uncle Ken. I didn't plan on reading it again, and it may still be hidden in my archives, possibly in the basement storeroom. I've forgotten what I have down there besides a lot of obsolete crap and floppy disks but I'm not in a big hurry to go digging through it. Another possibility is that I loaned my copy out at some time in the distant past and forgot about it. Once I loan out a book I don't expect to see it again and hope that it stays in circulation and gets passed along.
George Carlin once did a bit on "Stuff" and I have way to much of it and sometimes I wish it would all just go away. I delude myself in thinking that I'll ever find use for all my crap but you never know, do you? I always seem to need something about two months after I get rid of it and then have to get another copy of whatever I tossed. The Universe is fickle.
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The Saudis are up to something with their new young Crown Prince. First, they're allowing women to drive. Then they have some kind of trillion-dollar megacity planned that will be adjacent to both Egypt and Jordan, covering hundreds of square miles. Finally, there is talk of having an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Aramco, their state-controlled oil company, and putting it into a stock market. They value the company at over two trillion dollars, which isn't small potatoes at all. Maybe they've been reading Daniel Burnham. Make no small plans...
Well, I say you did. You got drafted and played by the rules and didn't try to game the system, like acting crazy or pretending to be gay. I read that Ted Nugent, a rock & roll right-wing nutball, crapped his pants during his physical and was rejected. You accepted the responsibility and Nugent shit himself; I have no doubt which was the more honorable act.
A little bit past halfway in my junior year of college I was burnt out and decided not to come back for the senior year and graduation. The draft was in full swing and I knew I would get nailed, this was before the lottery and 50,000 guys my age were getting called up and I didn't want to go. I gave a lot of thought to becoming a conscientious objector, even spending a lot of time getting counseling with the campus chaplain, who was quite supportive. Most of the literature came from the Quakers as I recall, but deep down I knew I didn't oppose all war so I took a different tack and enlisted, picking a school that would be unlikely to land me in a combat zone. And the plan worked, so that was that. But did I already tell that story?
It's funny that Uncle Ken mentioned the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War). I was on their mailing list while I was overseas and this one particular sergeant would nearly blow a gasket during mail call and told me not to read it while on duty. I subscribed to a couple of comic books and Art Forum magazine, too, but he had no problems with me reading those on the job. Good times.
-----
Mr. Beagles and I have already discussed The Good Place and I'm slowly catching up but I don't know if Uncle Ken has given it a peek yet. Critical response is great but the ratings are still so-so. Since I watch it online I don't see the commercials and I wonder who the sponsors are and what demographic the program is aimed at. For a comedy, I think it must have a very niche audience. Consider these lines of dialogue from a recent episode where the characters were going to attend a party:
Parties are mere distractions from the relentlessness of entropy. We're all just corpses who haven't yet begun to decay.
Not what I would call a knee-slapper, but in the context of the scene it was funny. Another line from the same episode gave me a chuckle while the characters were discussing life and death:
Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide.
That's what I call comedy!
-----
No need to lend me your copy of Chaos, Uncle Ken. I didn't plan on reading it again, and it may still be hidden in my archives, possibly in the basement storeroom. I've forgotten what I have down there besides a lot of obsolete crap and floppy disks but I'm not in a big hurry to go digging through it. Another possibility is that I loaned my copy out at some time in the distant past and forgot about it. Once I loan out a book I don't expect to see it again and hope that it stays in circulation and gets passed along.
George Carlin once did a bit on "Stuff" and I have way to much of it and sometimes I wish it would all just go away. I delude myself in thinking that I'll ever find use for all my crap but you never know, do you? I always seem to need something about two months after I get rid of it and then have to get another copy of whatever I tossed. The Universe is fickle.
-----
The Saudis are up to something with their new young Crown Prince. First, they're allowing women to drive. Then they have some kind of trillion-dollar megacity planned that will be adjacent to both Egypt and Jordan, covering hundreds of square miles. Finally, there is talk of having an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Aramco, their state-controlled oil company, and putting it into a stock market. They value the company at over two trillion dollars, which isn't small potatoes at all. Maybe they've been reading Daniel Burnham. Make no small plans...
fluctuating populations
Beagles has the butterfly effect down correctly. We only measure conditions at certain points so we don't know what the conditions are between them, which are not all that different, but any difference makes a big difference further down in time. The only way we could have perfectly accurate predictions is if we knew what the starting conditions were everywhere. And then we would have to be able to measure them with a precision that we will probably never have.
Another chapter in the book was about measuring animal populations. Generally animal populations hold steady because too many in one year leads to less food for them which leads to less animals the next year which leads to more food which leads to more animals after that, so it goes up and down a little but sticks close to some number. There are other factors like disease or more predators, but after an initial increase or decrease things settle once again around some certain population.
But not always, sometimes the population just fluctuates randomly and never settles into any groove. The scientists thought well something else must be going on that they were missing.
They came up with an equation: population = rx(1-x), where x (always less than 1) represented the previous population. They would plug in the resulting value of population into x and solve the equation again and eventually they would reach a number that didn't change and that would be the next year's population. The r was the rate of reproduction. Different animals have different rates of reproduction and that has an effect on next year's population.
This equation was a pretty nifty thing and they played around with it a little, varying the value of r. Suddenly when r equaled 2.683, the population didn't settle into one value, but half the time it would settle into one number half the time another, at a slightly higher value there would be four solutions, then eight, and then at some point it would not settle into any number but just fluctuate willy-nilly, just as the populations of some animals do, not because crazy things are happening among them, but because the laws of math, which rule the laws of nature, were crazy and so decreed.
How about this bill that the reps, except for McCain and Lindsay Graham (sometimes he seems like the sanest rep in the senate, and other times he wants to blow up all our enemies), just passed with the help of the White Shadow, where if your bank fucks you over you can't file a class action suit against them, but have to submit it to an arbitrator of the bank's choice? Outrageous. How about that two man operation from the secretary of the interior's home town getting a contract to rewire all of Puerto Rico? Also outrageous. While the prez treats gold star mothers shamelessly, his gang of thieves rip off the country. And nothing can be done about it because that mob of yokels still love the cheeto.
A ritual is fine. I'm not so hot on an organized religion or national symbols but they are okay too for those who want them, but making them compulsory for everybody, like saluting the flag or enacting religious dogma into law, is not fine.
Another chapter in the book was about measuring animal populations. Generally animal populations hold steady because too many in one year leads to less food for them which leads to less animals the next year which leads to more food which leads to more animals after that, so it goes up and down a little but sticks close to some number. There are other factors like disease or more predators, but after an initial increase or decrease things settle once again around some certain population.
But not always, sometimes the population just fluctuates randomly and never settles into any groove. The scientists thought well something else must be going on that they were missing.
They came up with an equation: population = rx(1-x), where x (always less than 1) represented the previous population. They would plug in the resulting value of population into x and solve the equation again and eventually they would reach a number that didn't change and that would be the next year's population. The r was the rate of reproduction. Different animals have different rates of reproduction and that has an effect on next year's population.
This equation was a pretty nifty thing and they played around with it a little, varying the value of r. Suddenly when r equaled 2.683, the population didn't settle into one value, but half the time it would settle into one number half the time another, at a slightly higher value there would be four solutions, then eight, and then at some point it would not settle into any number but just fluctuate willy-nilly, just as the populations of some animals do, not because crazy things are happening among them, but because the laws of math, which rule the laws of nature, were crazy and so decreed.
How about this bill that the reps, except for McCain and Lindsay Graham (sometimes he seems like the sanest rep in the senate, and other times he wants to blow up all our enemies), just passed with the help of the White Shadow, where if your bank fucks you over you can't file a class action suit against them, but have to submit it to an arbitrator of the bank's choice? Outrageous. How about that two man operation from the secretary of the interior's home town getting a contract to rewire all of Puerto Rico? Also outrageous. While the prez treats gold star mothers shamelessly, his gang of thieves rip off the country. And nothing can be done about it because that mob of yokels still love the cheeto.
A ritual is fine. I'm not so hot on an organized religion or national symbols but they are okay too for those who want them, but making them compulsory for everybody, like saluting the flag or enacting religious dogma into law, is not fine.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Don't Blame the Butterfly
Instead or posting last night, I used up my computer time looking up the Butterfly Effect and some related topics. The math is incomprehensible to me, but I think I've got a better grasp of the general principle than I did before. First of all, it's not about a real butterfly, it's hypothetical like Schrodinger's Cat. It's not just one butterfly either, it's all the butterflies in the world, and birds too, flapping away like there's no tomorrow. Then there's the Jet Stream, the Coriolis Effect, and all the other stuff that affects the weather.
Old Dog's original question was about the economy, and I compared that to the weather, which is not the same thing except that both of them are affected by a multitude of factors. As I thought about it later, I concluded that I shouldn't have said that the experts who predict the weather are only right half the time. Weather prediction is way more accurate today than it was when we were kids. The only part of it that has a 50% accuracy record is the long range forecasts, maybe a month or more, and that's probably due to way the Butterfly Effect starts out small and increases over time. It's like if the scope on my deer rifle is off an inch at 50 yards, it will be off by more than that at 100 yards, and even more than that at 200 yards. The angle between the line of sight and the bullet's trajectory keeps getting wider the farther out you go.
Getting back to the economy: Although people tend to blame the president for the economy, he doesn't really have all that much to do with it, that's the job of the Federal Reserve Board. When the economy is lagging, they pump more money into it and, if they think the economy is overheating, they pull some money out of it. Some of my ilk believe that we would be better of without a Federal Reserve Board and a national banking system, but I don't think so. Before they went to the present system, circa 1913, the economy used to go up and down like a yo-yo. Every few years there would be a "panic", which is what they used to call a recession. Banks would fold, with the depositors losing all their money, and unemployment would go through the roof. Of course we still have similar events today, but not as often and not as severe. The Great Depression was the exception that proved the rule. Some people still believe they did that on purpose, but it also might be attributed to their lack of experience. A crash of that magnitude had not occurred since the 1890s, which is why they created the Federal Reserve in the first place. While government action certainly can influence the economy, it is only one of many other factors that play into it. If we had no government at all, we would still have an economy, and it still would rise and fall like the ocean tides.
The reason I brought up that tobacco thing was to explain that rituals like that are not magic, they are just tools to help people understand and remember stuff. Some people probably never get it, they think that the ceremony itself somehow purifies them.
Old Dog's original question was about the economy, and I compared that to the weather, which is not the same thing except that both of them are affected by a multitude of factors. As I thought about it later, I concluded that I shouldn't have said that the experts who predict the weather are only right half the time. Weather prediction is way more accurate today than it was when we were kids. The only part of it that has a 50% accuracy record is the long range forecasts, maybe a month or more, and that's probably due to way the Butterfly Effect starts out small and increases over time. It's like if the scope on my deer rifle is off an inch at 50 yards, it will be off by more than that at 100 yards, and even more than that at 200 yards. The angle between the line of sight and the bullet's trajectory keeps getting wider the farther out you go.
Getting back to the economy: Although people tend to blame the president for the economy, he doesn't really have all that much to do with it, that's the job of the Federal Reserve Board. When the economy is lagging, they pump more money into it and, if they think the economy is overheating, they pull some money out of it. Some of my ilk believe that we would be better of without a Federal Reserve Board and a national banking system, but I don't think so. Before they went to the present system, circa 1913, the economy used to go up and down like a yo-yo. Every few years there would be a "panic", which is what they used to call a recession. Banks would fold, with the depositors losing all their money, and unemployment would go through the roof. Of course we still have similar events today, but not as often and not as severe. The Great Depression was the exception that proved the rule. Some people still believe they did that on purpose, but it also might be attributed to their lack of experience. A crash of that magnitude had not occurred since the 1890s, which is why they created the Federal Reserve in the first place. While government action certainly can influence the economy, it is only one of many other factors that play into it. If we had no government at all, we would still have an economy, and it still would rise and fall like the ocean tides.
The reason I brought up that tobacco thing was to explain that rituals like that are not magic, they are just tools to help people understand and remember stuff. Some people probably never get it, they think that the ceremony itself somehow purifies them.
the flapping of the butterfly and of the great flapper himself
That spreading tobacco thing, it sounds like an offering. I suppose you could say that there is no idol right there in front of you, but that concept of Nature sounds kind of oh, spiritual, which is a close cousin to religion. You're not expecting that it will move the spirits to bring more deer into the swamp, but then the Romans, well some Romans, weren't expecting anything from their spirits either it was just a show of respect for the empire, and it pissed them off that the Christians wouldn't do it.
I guess there is a difference, Beagles isn't expecting everybody else to spread a little tobacco, or a drop of wine or Colt 45. If you want to stand for the pledge or the flag that's fine, but when you want everybody else to do it, well I think that is asking too much.
I don't know if I served the nation by mopping the floors of Herrin Hospital. The idea was that it had to be something vaguely connected to national service and it had to be somewhere other than where you lived and be low paying so that it was something of a sacrifice. If I could have gotten out of it with a note from a doctor, and I tried, I wouldn't have done it.
Chaos is a great book. I have a weathered copy of it, and if Old Dog plans to attend a seminar, which he hasn't for some time, I would be glad to bring it to the Ten Cat so that he could take it home and reread it. The thing that struck me about it was that we normally think of math as being so staid, after all it is just an extension of boring old logic, but when you get into it, even just a little, all kinds of crazy things become apparent. It was discovered when scientists would do some experiments that came out with crazy results, and they kept thinking they were doing things wrong, but when they studied the math behind it they discovered that the craziness was in the math itself.
This guy, I think it was Lorenz, was doing research in weather. He used some complicated equations to forecast it from some starting conditions and ran them on a computer, but because computer time was hard to come by in those days he could only run it for so long. He started it again using the numbers it gave before he was thrown off the computer and he got completely different results. How could that be he wondered and then he realized that the computer was good for only so many decimal points and when he reentered the numbers he could only use so many decimal points. It was like eight decimal points so he figured it wouldn't make any difference, but it made a big difference, and that's when he realized that even a small difference in starting conditions can make a big difference down the line and hence that flapping butterfly in South America can, down the line, be responsible for a tornado in Texas a few years hence.
This whole flap over the calls to the gold star mothers may now be moving into the background with the Flake and Corker speeches. So much flapping, so little time. That taking the knee thing is fading now, though the big flapper may decide to reawaken it again this very morning, the tweets that keep the nation boiling have yet to come over the transom this morning.
I guess there is a difference, Beagles isn't expecting everybody else to spread a little tobacco, or a drop of wine or Colt 45. If you want to stand for the pledge or the flag that's fine, but when you want everybody else to do it, well I think that is asking too much.
I don't know if I served the nation by mopping the floors of Herrin Hospital. The idea was that it had to be something vaguely connected to national service and it had to be somewhere other than where you lived and be low paying so that it was something of a sacrifice. If I could have gotten out of it with a note from a doctor, and I tried, I wouldn't have done it.
Chaos is a great book. I have a weathered copy of it, and if Old Dog plans to attend a seminar, which he hasn't for some time, I would be glad to bring it to the Ten Cat so that he could take it home and reread it. The thing that struck me about it was that we normally think of math as being so staid, after all it is just an extension of boring old logic, but when you get into it, even just a little, all kinds of crazy things become apparent. It was discovered when scientists would do some experiments that came out with crazy results, and they kept thinking they were doing things wrong, but when they studied the math behind it they discovered that the craziness was in the math itself.
This guy, I think it was Lorenz, was doing research in weather. He used some complicated equations to forecast it from some starting conditions and ran them on a computer, but because computer time was hard to come by in those days he could only run it for so long. He started it again using the numbers it gave before he was thrown off the computer and he got completely different results. How could that be he wondered and then he realized that the computer was good for only so many decimal points and when he reentered the numbers he could only use so many decimal points. It was like eight decimal points so he figured it wouldn't make any difference, but it made a big difference, and that's when he realized that even a small difference in starting conditions can make a big difference down the line and hence that flapping butterfly in South America can, down the line, be responsible for a tornado in Texas a few years hence.
This whole flap over the calls to the gold star mothers may now be moving into the background with the Flake and Corker speeches. So much flapping, so little time. That taking the knee thing is fading now, though the big flapper may decide to reawaken it again this very morning, the tweets that keep the nation boiling have yet to come over the transom this morning.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Lost and not found
It's been a long time since I've read about the Butterfly Effect, maybe 25 years ago. It was in a book by James Gleick titled Chaos: Making a New Science. I used to buy a lot of books about that kind of stuff; chaos, fractals, and the like. There is a certain beauty that presents itself in those forms and a mathematical underpinning that I find pleasing. I've given up my search for the book because the books I look for seem to have disappeared. I know I bought and read it and stuck it on a shelf but I just can't find it. I've moved four times since I bought the book so it may have gotten lost in the shuffle, which is vexing. Damn, I was hoping to impress Mr. Beagles with a few pithy insights.
A little online digging helped refresh my memory, and Mr. Beagles is close to the mark. Simply stated, the Butterfly Effect describes how the flapping of a butterfly in South America affects the path of a tornado in Texas. The term was created by Edward Norton Lorenz, an American mathematician and pioneer of chaos theory. He was also a meteorologist, which I guess is a weatherman who knows what he is talking about and not just a pretty face in front of a green screen on TV. Wikipedia has a lot of good info on the Butterfly Effect, Chaos theory, and fractals which I find to be fun reading but you guys may not like it. Geeking out on math and geometry is another in a long list of my guilty pleasures.
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Sticking with guilty pleasures for a bit, I usually enjoy watching the reruns of the Law & Order franchise of police procedurals, especially the original version with the cops in the first half and the prosecutors in the second half. Later versions have gotten away with that pattern and emphasize the cops' part of the story which I don't find as interesting and some of the programs, like the Special Victim's Unit one, are getting too creepy for me.
I thought I knew about all of the different Law & Order programs but a new one has gotten my attention: Law & Order:UK which takes place across the pond. Same basic premise, and it's interesting to compare and contrast the differences between our legal systems. They have Crown Prosecutors instead of District Attorneys and police interrogation methods seem very different in that they have more restrictions than the police do in the US but they also have a lot more CCTV cameras at their disposal. Maybe it's bullshit and artistic license on the part of the program producers. The little wigs the barristers wear in court are still a source of amusement for me, as is the very formal language they use; no 'your honor' nonsense in referring to the judges. It's M'Lord and M'Lady, and sometimes there are more than one of them on the bench. Also, both prosecutors and defense sometimes talk at the same time, which you don't see on Perry Mason unless one of them is raising an objection.
A little detail of English as it spoken in the UK, at least in the programs I've been watching, is the frequent use of the word reckon. It sounds strange to my ear because in the US we usually only hear it from cowboys or other rustic types. Reckon it will rain today, Cletus? It's a word I associate with John Wayne or Gary Cooper and not some guy in a robe and a little white wig.
A little online digging helped refresh my memory, and Mr. Beagles is close to the mark. Simply stated, the Butterfly Effect describes how the flapping of a butterfly in South America affects the path of a tornado in Texas. The term was created by Edward Norton Lorenz, an American mathematician and pioneer of chaos theory. He was also a meteorologist, which I guess is a weatherman who knows what he is talking about and not just a pretty face in front of a green screen on TV. Wikipedia has a lot of good info on the Butterfly Effect, Chaos theory, and fractals which I find to be fun reading but you guys may not like it. Geeking out on math and geometry is another in a long list of my guilty pleasures.
-----
Sticking with guilty pleasures for a bit, I usually enjoy watching the reruns of the Law & Order franchise of police procedurals, especially the original version with the cops in the first half and the prosecutors in the second half. Later versions have gotten away with that pattern and emphasize the cops' part of the story which I don't find as interesting and some of the programs, like the Special Victim's Unit one, are getting too creepy for me.
I thought I knew about all of the different Law & Order programs but a new one has gotten my attention: Law & Order:UK which takes place across the pond. Same basic premise, and it's interesting to compare and contrast the differences between our legal systems. They have Crown Prosecutors instead of District Attorneys and police interrogation methods seem very different in that they have more restrictions than the police do in the US but they also have a lot more CCTV cameras at their disposal. Maybe it's bullshit and artistic license on the part of the program producers. The little wigs the barristers wear in court are still a source of amusement for me, as is the very formal language they use; no 'your honor' nonsense in referring to the judges. It's M'Lord and M'Lady, and sometimes there are more than one of them on the bench. Also, both prosecutors and defense sometimes talk at the same time, which you don't see on Perry Mason unless one of them is raising an objection.
A little detail of English as it spoken in the UK, at least in the programs I've been watching, is the frequent use of the word reckon. It sounds strange to my ear because in the US we usually only hear it from cowboys or other rustic types. Reckon it will rain today, Cletus? It's a word I associate with John Wayne or Gary Cooper and not some guy in a robe and a little white wig.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Blame the Butterfly
The economy, like the weather, is influenced by a multitude of factors. Experts in both fields expend a lot of energy trying to predict them, and they're only right about half the time. Well, some of them are right more often than that, but others are right less often than that, so it averages out, but none of them are right all the time. I have read some about the Theory of Chaos, which I believe was founded by an ex weatherman, but I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. As I understand it, it basically says that everything effects everything else. There is something about a butterfly in South America that flaps its wings to get everything started, and it just spirals out of control after that.
I seem to remember that President Obama sent a small number of troops to some African country a few years ago. They were only supposed to serve as advisors to the local military but, of course, that's how the American involvement in Vietnam got started. The president doesn't need congressional approval for such small military actions, but he is supposed to inform congress when he does something like that.
The tobacco ritual requires that you use fresh tobacco, throwing spent cigarette butts on the ground certainly does not count. The tobacco should be sprinkled slowly and reverently. If you are in too much of a hurry to do it properly, then you shouldn't do it at all. Sometimes, if I'm tempted to rush it, I conclude that I'm not in the right frame of mind, so I wait and do it later. Tobacco is sacred to the Native Americans, but so is everything else. Their religious traditions make no distinction between the sacred and the secular. The whole world and everything in it was created by the Great Spirit for our use so, in a manner of speaking, we should always act like we are in church.
I seem to remember that President Obama sent a small number of troops to some African country a few years ago. They were only supposed to serve as advisors to the local military but, of course, that's how the American involvement in Vietnam got started. The president doesn't need congressional approval for such small military actions, but he is supposed to inform congress when he does something like that.
The tobacco ritual requires that you use fresh tobacco, throwing spent cigarette butts on the ground certainly does not count. The tobacco should be sprinkled slowly and reverently. If you are in too much of a hurry to do it properly, then you shouldn't do it at all. Sometimes, if I'm tempted to rush it, I conclude that I'm not in the right frame of mind, so I wait and do it later. Tobacco is sacred to the Native Americans, but so is everything else. Their religious traditions make no distinction between the sacred and the secular. The whole world and everything in it was created by the Great Spirit for our use so, in a manner of speaking, we should always act like we are in church.
Sorrow
The news has been off my radar recently, and although I check out headlines once in a while it's more out of curiosity than anything else. I have a good seat in the peanut gallery to observe the clowns' latest performances, and I'll leave it at that despite the decreasing entertainment value of the current social and political trainwrecks.
One thing I can't figure out, though, is if things are so screwed up in these United States, why is Wall Street booming? It's like there are games within games and some smart cookies are making a lot of dough before the bubbles burst. It may also be possible that, deep down, common sense is prevailing in the business sectors despite what may simply be distractions. The show must go on.
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Service to one's country is kind of, sort of, back in the news especially when it is at the cost of one's life. That business in Niger with the four dead GIs is disturbing, as is the fact that there are about a thousand US troops deployed there, allegedly, and nobody in Congress seems to know what they are doing there. Isn't Niger where Saddam Hussein was supposed to be scoring his yellowcake uranium? An interesting tale should be unfolding soon.
Anyhow, it occurred to me that during the Vietnam war Uncle Ken served his nation proudly. I never looked at it that way before, but when Uncle Sam called, he answered in the affirmative and didn't get a note from his doctor to weasel out of his obligations. It's easy to forget that COs also served their country and never received the respect they deserve. This is a minor point but I wanted to put it in the record.
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I never knew about the Native American tradition of sprinkling tobacco to show respect, and the dark side of my brain immediately thought of all the cigarette butts strewn across the land. Mr. Beagles tells a good tale, and I was enjoying it until he dropped the bomb of his grandson's fate and my heart froze. I haven't been the same since reading that and words fail me.
One thing I can't figure out, though, is if things are so screwed up in these United States, why is Wall Street booming? It's like there are games within games and some smart cookies are making a lot of dough before the bubbles burst. It may also be possible that, deep down, common sense is prevailing in the business sectors despite what may simply be distractions. The show must go on.
-----
Service to one's country is kind of, sort of, back in the news especially when it is at the cost of one's life. That business in Niger with the four dead GIs is disturbing, as is the fact that there are about a thousand US troops deployed there, allegedly, and nobody in Congress seems to know what they are doing there. Isn't Niger where Saddam Hussein was supposed to be scoring his yellowcake uranium? An interesting tale should be unfolding soon.
Anyhow, it occurred to me that during the Vietnam war Uncle Ken served his nation proudly. I never looked at it that way before, but when Uncle Sam called, he answered in the affirmative and didn't get a note from his doctor to weasel out of his obligations. It's easy to forget that COs also served their country and never received the respect they deserve. This is a minor point but I wanted to put it in the record.
-----
I never knew about the Native American tradition of sprinkling tobacco to show respect, and the dark side of my brain immediately thought of all the cigarette butts strewn across the land. Mr. Beagles tells a good tale, and I was enjoying it until he dropped the bomb of his grandson's fate and my heart froze. I haven't been the same since reading that and words fail me.
Friday, October 20, 2017
Respect
It's not supposed to be about idolatry, it's supposed to be about respect, but people often confuse the two. I understand that's why the statues of saints in Catholic churches are placed on high pedestals. They used to be placed at floor level until some priest noticed that his parishioners were in the habit of touching them as they walked past. The purpose of those statues is not to serve as good luck charms, or even objects of worship, they are there to remind people of the sacrifices made by the saints which made possible the spreading of Christianity around the world...or something like that. So now the statues are placed out of reach, but still in clear view, where they can serve as sources of inspiration, which is all they were ever intended to be.
My grandson was about five years old when he taught me about a custom that he had picked up from his Native American friends. Whenever you take something from Nature, you should sprinkle a small amount of tobacco on the ground or water to thank the spirits. Serious believers still carry a pouch of tobacco for this purpose, but we didn't have one at the time, so I asked my grandson if the tobacco from one of my cigarettes would suffice, and if the spirits would mind that it was menthol. He explained that the spirits didn't really care about the tobacco, all they want is for us to respect them and be thankful for all the things they provide for us. The tobacco ritual is something that people adopted to help them remember this. My grandson died in 2005 at he age of 15, but I still sprinkle tobacco when I take something from Nature, or sometimes when I'm just thankful to be out there. I don't exactly believe in spirits, I mostly do it in remembrance of my grandson.
My grandson was about five years old when he taught me about a custom that he had picked up from his Native American friends. Whenever you take something from Nature, you should sprinkle a small amount of tobacco on the ground or water to thank the spirits. Serious believers still carry a pouch of tobacco for this purpose, but we didn't have one at the time, so I asked my grandson if the tobacco from one of my cigarettes would suffice, and if the spirits would mind that it was menthol. He explained that the spirits didn't really care about the tobacco, all they want is for us to respect them and be thankful for all the things they provide for us. The tobacco ritual is something that people adopted to help them remember this. My grandson died in 2005 at he age of 15, but I still sprinkle tobacco when I take something from Nature, or sometimes when I'm just thankful to be out there. I don't exactly believe in spirits, I mostly do it in remembrance of my grandson.
idolatry
The idea that anybody can be president, means that you can be born poor and become president. It doesn't mean that you can stay poor and become president. Then there is the difference between rich and well-off, Obama, Clinton, Reagan, LBJ, and Nixon were all born rather poor. I think Reagan and Nixon were relatively well off by the time they began their political careers, but they were not as rich as what we consider the rich today, only the super rich are considered rich anymore. And anymore being rich is a big help in getting into politics. You can pay your own expenses and the party loves that. Right now in Illinois we have a Richie rich as governor and two Richie riches are vying for the democratic party nomination to run against him.
I hate idolatry. The flag is just a piece of cloth, the star spangled banner is just a compilation of notes, the constitution is just something a bunch of guys knocked out over a couple weeks of a hot summer in Philadelphia. If one of the guys hadn't showed up, or if another guy had dropped by, or if they had written it a week later, or if the summer hadn't been so hot, we would've had a different document. It is the work of mortals who are prone to errors, not God, who word on the street is He created us, and look how that turned out.
There was some talk among us Conscientious Objectors, about how what we were doing was not so morally pure, in that the war would go on without us just fine. Our place would be taken by some other guy, most likely some working class guy who didn't have access to anti-draft counsellors in the room off the student union. So weren't we just condemning some poor schlub to get shot at in the jungle while we mopped floors in a peaceful hospital?
Well yeah, but on the other hand did that mean that I should take up a rifle and shoot at guys who I thought were the good guys in a war? Because at the time I did think they were the good guys, they were fighting a war of liberation against a colonial power. Which they were but, in retrospect, that doesn't necessarily make them good guys. They committed their fair share of atrocities. Anymore I guess I think they were a bunch of guys, neither one all that good, fighting a war that meant something to them, but not much to us, so what were we doing there? Anymore it seems like a stupid war.
To be a Conscientious Objector you had to technically be against all wars. Well that was tough in the shadow of WW II, mostly we just finessed that and nobody pushed it. It does seem like there are just wars, like when the enemy is attacking you and planning to kill you, so then we need an army, and can we have guys in the army, even if they are right, deciding which war is just and which is not?
There has been much talk about Vietnam veterans being spit at and called baby killers when they returned. No spitting is documented and I never heard anybody called a baby killer. We anti-war guys were glad to have them. Vietnam Veterans Against the War was our best protest groups.
Al Gore, being the son of a prominent pol, and thinking of a political career himself, went to war, even though he said he was against it, because he thought serving his country was a higher cause. (Bill and W, both draft dodgers became president and Al never did). I used to think that reasoning was specious. How can it be right to fight in a war you don't believe in?
Anyway these guys go to war, and maybe they are in it because it pays better than McDonald's, or maybe they are making a career move, but some of them are in it because they believe in their country and even those other guys who are in for different reasons, might also believe in their country.
And like I said earlier, a phone call won't bring them back from the dead, so I guess it is some kind of idolatry. But if you are going to get all worked up by the idolatry of the flag and the song at the beginning of a football game, couldn't you honor the latter?
Did you guys catch Kelly at the press conference. Weird. He talked so solemnly and authoritatively yet he didn't make any sense. Still, the reporters gave him some space because dignity is such a rare commodity these days.
My singular mass hysteria is over, but i will be making my fall trip to Indianapolis Monday and Tuesday so I won't be posting again until Wednesday.
I hate idolatry. The flag is just a piece of cloth, the star spangled banner is just a compilation of notes, the constitution is just something a bunch of guys knocked out over a couple weeks of a hot summer in Philadelphia. If one of the guys hadn't showed up, or if another guy had dropped by, or if they had written it a week later, or if the summer hadn't been so hot, we would've had a different document. It is the work of mortals who are prone to errors, not God, who word on the street is He created us, and look how that turned out.
There was some talk among us Conscientious Objectors, about how what we were doing was not so morally pure, in that the war would go on without us just fine. Our place would be taken by some other guy, most likely some working class guy who didn't have access to anti-draft counsellors in the room off the student union. So weren't we just condemning some poor schlub to get shot at in the jungle while we mopped floors in a peaceful hospital?
Well yeah, but on the other hand did that mean that I should take up a rifle and shoot at guys who I thought were the good guys in a war? Because at the time I did think they were the good guys, they were fighting a war of liberation against a colonial power. Which they were but, in retrospect, that doesn't necessarily make them good guys. They committed their fair share of atrocities. Anymore I guess I think they were a bunch of guys, neither one all that good, fighting a war that meant something to them, but not much to us, so what were we doing there? Anymore it seems like a stupid war.
To be a Conscientious Objector you had to technically be against all wars. Well that was tough in the shadow of WW II, mostly we just finessed that and nobody pushed it. It does seem like there are just wars, like when the enemy is attacking you and planning to kill you, so then we need an army, and can we have guys in the army, even if they are right, deciding which war is just and which is not?
There has been much talk about Vietnam veterans being spit at and called baby killers when they returned. No spitting is documented and I never heard anybody called a baby killer. We anti-war guys were glad to have them. Vietnam Veterans Against the War was our best protest groups.
Al Gore, being the son of a prominent pol, and thinking of a political career himself, went to war, even though he said he was against it, because he thought serving his country was a higher cause. (Bill and W, both draft dodgers became president and Al never did). I used to think that reasoning was specious. How can it be right to fight in a war you don't believe in?
Anyway these guys go to war, and maybe they are in it because it pays better than McDonald's, or maybe they are making a career move, but some of them are in it because they believe in their country and even those other guys who are in for different reasons, might also believe in their country.
And like I said earlier, a phone call won't bring them back from the dead, so I guess it is some kind of idolatry. But if you are going to get all worked up by the idolatry of the flag and the song at the beginning of a football game, couldn't you honor the latter?
Did you guys catch Kelly at the press conference. Weird. He talked so solemnly and authoritatively yet he didn't make any sense. Still, the reporters gave him some space because dignity is such a rare commodity these days.
My singular mass hysteria is over, but i will be making my fall trip to Indianapolis Monday and Tuesday so I won't be posting again until Wednesday.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Anybody Can Become President
I seem to remember being told, probably in school, that anybody can become President of the United States. I think they told us that just to inspire us to work harder, and I don't think that any of us bought it. Now Donald Trump has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that anybody can become president. That's not the same, however, as proving that everybody can become president. The thing is, only one person can be president at a time, so that limits the number of available openings that will occur in your lifetime. Before you can fill one of those openings, you have to make a name for yourself, because nobody is going to vote for somebody they've never heard of. Traditionally, you do that by getting involved in politics at a young age and making lots of friends who will support you in your effort. Trump did it differently. First he inherited lots of money, made some more money, became famous, or notorious if you prefer, and then he got involved in politics. It just goes to show you that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
You don't have to be rich to become president, but it sure helps. Theoretically, a poor person could become president, but I don't think it has ever happened. Abraham Lincoln was born into modest circumstances, but he was a lawyer before he became president, and I have never heard of a poor lawyer. Of course other people might make donations to your campaign fund, but it helps to have some seed money of your own to get the ball rolling. Another thing you need, beside money, is lots of ambition and energy. Trump is about my age, and it makes me tired just watching him on television. I can't imagine having the energy to do all the stuff he must do on any given day. Ronald Reagan was more my style, taking naps in the afternoon, but they don't make presidents like that anymore.
In a manner of speaking, you could say that the system is rigged to favor the rich and well connected but, in another manner of speaking, you could say that, if it wasn't for the rich and well connected, there would be no system. Who else has the time, money, and energy to do all that crap?
You don't have to be rich to become president, but it sure helps. Theoretically, a poor person could become president, but I don't think it has ever happened. Abraham Lincoln was born into modest circumstances, but he was a lawyer before he became president, and I have never heard of a poor lawyer. Of course other people might make donations to your campaign fund, but it helps to have some seed money of your own to get the ball rolling. Another thing you need, beside money, is lots of ambition and energy. Trump is about my age, and it makes me tired just watching him on television. I can't imagine having the energy to do all the stuff he must do on any given day. Ronald Reagan was more my style, taking naps in the afternoon, but they don't make presidents like that anymore.
In a manner of speaking, you could say that the system is rigged to favor the rich and well connected but, in another manner of speaking, you could say that, if it wasn't for the rich and well connected, there would be no system. Who else has the time, money, and energy to do all that crap?
the hammer of hypotheticality
The Cubs survived to play one more game so my singular mass hysteria will continue for another night. It will be tougher because last night I knew only despair, and tonight I will have that pesky worm of hope slithering through my innards. But these games are slow, the pitchers take their good old sweet time between pitches and that prompts the batsman to step out of the batting box and make sure his batting gloves are properly aligned for the hundredth time, and towards the end there are pitching changes every other batter and conferences on the mound, and time just drags.
Which gave me an opportunity to peruse the oligarchy article. I don't know, I wasn't that impressed, doesn't everybody already know all this? One sentence in particular struck me and I had a hard time continuing after that. The challenge in seeing how oligarchy works, Winters says, is that we don’t normally think about the realms of politics and economics as fused together. I mean isn't that like the first rule of oligarchy? Don't rich and powerful go together like bread and butter? Who wouldn't use their power to get rich? What rich guy doesn't buy power?
I guess maybe the guy was thinking more of a closed system of oligarchy, which maybe we had in olden times and maybe even today in like those 'Stans south of Russia where no outsiders are allowed into the inner circle, but mostly anymore we have the warring oligarchs with some falling from their perch and others rising to take the perch away. And isn't this just another of those things, like the poor, that we will always have among us? If we knock them down, won't they just reform? Though I guess knocking them down gives the guys who knocked them down a chance to be the new oligarchs. Meet the new boss. Wasn't there a song about that?
I don't like those yes or no questions. They appear to give a decisive answer, black or white, but of course the world is grey and not always amenable to yes or no. If you ask the guy if he was at such and such a hotel at 6PM on October 17, 2014, that can be answered yes or no, but if you ask him if he hates his wife, that is more complicated. And another thing I hate is I don't answer hypotheticals, usually said a tone like, the guy is too pure to do that. Bullshit. We speak in hypothericals all the time. That response should not be allowed. How about the response, "If I were to produce a hammer and aim it at your knuckles, then would you be more inclined to speak in hypotheticals?" This would be a good place of a yes or no response.
Heard a lot of that from Jeff Sessions yesterday, what a dottering old fool, worse, a cagey dottering old fool, worse a dottering old fool who thinks he is cagey, but is just in a high place of power and can't be touched. Legally I think he was required to answer those questions about his conversations with Trump, but he just didn't, and there is nothing anybody can do about it because only the republicans can do anything about it and they are protecting their own, even if there own is a snake who would just as soon bite them as their enemy.
Yar, as soon as I heard Beagles speak of Plato's homosexuality, my fingers were itching to type out my disagreement. I guess you could call him bisexual but it was more complicated than that. They fucked boys, and were fucked when they were boys, but then they married women and fucked them too of course and had children, but they didn't think much of women as worthy companions, and were inclined to fall in love with each other, though not to fuck each other, maybe they fucked boys together. And the thing is, that's what everybody did.
But I don't know about Plato being a big suck. Certainly his hero Socrates was a radical.
I was going to expand on the following but the morning grows late. Whether those football players take the knee or not, it will not effect racial inequality or increase or decrease respect for, or the condition of the troops. Whether or not the prez calls a gold star mother her son will remain dead. But the dismay of fans tuning into the game on Sunday and seeing the players take the knee, seems a small thing in the face of a gold star mother waiting for a phone call that never comes.
Which gave me an opportunity to peruse the oligarchy article. I don't know, I wasn't that impressed, doesn't everybody already know all this? One sentence in particular struck me and I had a hard time continuing after that. The challenge in seeing how oligarchy works, Winters says, is that we don’t normally think about the realms of politics and economics as fused together. I mean isn't that like the first rule of oligarchy? Don't rich and powerful go together like bread and butter? Who wouldn't use their power to get rich? What rich guy doesn't buy power?
I guess maybe the guy was thinking more of a closed system of oligarchy, which maybe we had in olden times and maybe even today in like those 'Stans south of Russia where no outsiders are allowed into the inner circle, but mostly anymore we have the warring oligarchs with some falling from their perch and others rising to take the perch away. And isn't this just another of those things, like the poor, that we will always have among us? If we knock them down, won't they just reform? Though I guess knocking them down gives the guys who knocked them down a chance to be the new oligarchs. Meet the new boss. Wasn't there a song about that?
I don't like those yes or no questions. They appear to give a decisive answer, black or white, but of course the world is grey and not always amenable to yes or no. If you ask the guy if he was at such and such a hotel at 6PM on October 17, 2014, that can be answered yes or no, but if you ask him if he hates his wife, that is more complicated. And another thing I hate is I don't answer hypotheticals, usually said a tone like, the guy is too pure to do that. Bullshit. We speak in hypothericals all the time. That response should not be allowed. How about the response, "If I were to produce a hammer and aim it at your knuckles, then would you be more inclined to speak in hypotheticals?" This would be a good place of a yes or no response.
Heard a lot of that from Jeff Sessions yesterday, what a dottering old fool, worse, a cagey dottering old fool, worse a dottering old fool who thinks he is cagey, but is just in a high place of power and can't be touched. Legally I think he was required to answer those questions about his conversations with Trump, but he just didn't, and there is nothing anybody can do about it because only the republicans can do anything about it and they are protecting their own, even if there own is a snake who would just as soon bite them as their enemy.
Yar, as soon as I heard Beagles speak of Plato's homosexuality, my fingers were itching to type out my disagreement. I guess you could call him bisexual but it was more complicated than that. They fucked boys, and were fucked when they were boys, but then they married women and fucked them too of course and had children, but they didn't think much of women as worthy companions, and were inclined to fall in love with each other, though not to fuck each other, maybe they fucked boys together. And the thing is, that's what everybody did.
But I don't know about Plato being a big suck. Certainly his hero Socrates was a radical.
I was going to expand on the following but the morning grows late. Whether those football players take the knee or not, it will not effect racial inequality or increase or decrease respect for, or the condition of the troops. Whether or not the prez calls a gold star mother her son will remain dead. But the dismay of fans tuning into the game on Sunday and seeing the players take the knee, seems a small thing in the face of a gold star mother waiting for a phone call that never comes.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Still Translating After All These Years
I wondered why Old Dog was dissing the term "ruling elite", since it was used extensively in the article he recommended to us, so I went back to the article to make sure. Come to find out, it never did use the term "ruling elite", although it did mention the word "elite" a few times. The word in the article was actually "oligarchy", which I assumed meant the same thing. Before I went on the internet, most of the political discussions I had were with the guys at work, first the paper mill and then the bus garage. If I had dropped a word like "oligarchy" on that crowd, nobody would have known what it meant, so I would have had to explain it to them. By the time I had explained it to them, break time would have been over and we would have gone back to work. By the next break time, everybody would have forgotten what we had been talking about and went on to a different subject.
For the 23 years I worked the paper mill, I tried unsuccessfully to teach those guys the difference between a radical and a reactionary. To them, a radical was anybody who defied authority, and the opposite of a radical was a big suck. The word "reactionary" was just not in their vocabulary. Whenever I mentioned a word that was not in their vocabulary, they would admonish me to "stop using those big words", even though the word might not be all that big. What they meant by "big words" was "unfamiliar words". They may have heard the word before and known what it meant, but it was not a word that they or their friends normally used. Most of those guys went to school together and, if one of them had inadvertently used one of those "big words" in class, the teacher would have been impressed, but all of their friends would have branded them a "big suck". Once you get something like that on your record, you can never live it down, it will follow you all of your life. If those guys had attended Gage Park High with me, they would have known that the proper term for "big suck" is "brown nose", but they didn't, and I never tried to teach them because that would have given them another name to call me.
After awhile, I got so that I could speak to those guys in their native tongue. I translated instinctively, without thinking about it. I have been told that, when you live in a foreign country, like France for instance, you start out thinking in English and translating your thoughts into French before you say them. At some point, however, you start thinking in French. I remember one time in the bus garage, somebody who had been reading something, looked up and asked me if I knew what a "Platonic relationship" meant. Without thinking, I responded "no fucking". As soon as I said it, I thought that I should have explained to them that Plato was a homosexual, so any relationship he had with a woman would not have involved sex, and that's why such relationships are called "Platonic" even unto this day. By the time I had considered this, the subject of the conversation had been changed, and it was not worth the trouble to try to bring it back on topic.
At this point, Uncle Ken will feel constrained to point out the fact that Plato was not homosexual, he was bisexual. Big fucking deal! Either way, Plato was a big suck.
For the 23 years I worked the paper mill, I tried unsuccessfully to teach those guys the difference between a radical and a reactionary. To them, a radical was anybody who defied authority, and the opposite of a radical was a big suck. The word "reactionary" was just not in their vocabulary. Whenever I mentioned a word that was not in their vocabulary, they would admonish me to "stop using those big words", even though the word might not be all that big. What they meant by "big words" was "unfamiliar words". They may have heard the word before and known what it meant, but it was not a word that they or their friends normally used. Most of those guys went to school together and, if one of them had inadvertently used one of those "big words" in class, the teacher would have been impressed, but all of their friends would have branded them a "big suck". Once you get something like that on your record, you can never live it down, it will follow you all of your life. If those guys had attended Gage Park High with me, they would have known that the proper term for "big suck" is "brown nose", but they didn't, and I never tried to teach them because that would have given them another name to call me.
After awhile, I got so that I could speak to those guys in their native tongue. I translated instinctively, without thinking about it. I have been told that, when you live in a foreign country, like France for instance, you start out thinking in English and translating your thoughts into French before you say them. At some point, however, you start thinking in French. I remember one time in the bus garage, somebody who had been reading something, looked up and asked me if I knew what a "Platonic relationship" meant. Without thinking, I responded "no fucking". As soon as I said it, I thought that I should have explained to them that Plato was a homosexual, so any relationship he had with a woman would not have involved sex, and that's why such relationships are called "Platonic" even unto this day. By the time I had considered this, the subject of the conversation had been changed, and it was not worth the trouble to try to bring it back on topic.
At this point, Uncle Ken will feel constrained to point out the fact that Plato was not homosexual, he was bisexual. Big fucking deal! Either way, Plato was a big suck.
Unruly elite
I'm beginning to really dislike the term 'ruling elite,' it's a trigger word that can mean anything or nothing. Semantics is not my strong suit, but isn't anybody in a position of leadership or responsibility considered elite? Likewise, isn't the most popular kid in high school considered elite, as is the guy on the bowling team with the highest average?
And should there be a distinction between being 'ruled' as opposed to being 'governed?' I think usage of the term 'ruling elite' accomplishes little except to lead us to false arguments because the term itself carries emotional weight and is a distraction. I await the dispassionate logic of Uncle Ken on this one; my mind is open (and sometimes empty).
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An old topic, AI, is back in the news. Current research indicates that AI can be just as error prone as human intelligence, which is not promising. On the other hand, another group of researchers has found that an AI that teaches itself performs better than an AI that has had human programmers, at least in the case of the game of Go. This one AI, taught by humans, has beaten three of the world's top Go players. A later version of this AI, knowing nothing of the game, taught itself to play at such a level that it thrashed the older AI handily. Spooky.
But playing games is one thing, and decision making that involves human welfare is another thing entirely. I hope that none of the AIs develop a sense of curiosity and wonders what will happen if they shut off those pumps or decide to disconnect the power grid. A robust OFF switch should suffice for the time being.
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Uncle Ken, it sounds like you have been watching too much television, which can rot your mind.
I, too, am guilty of this. One thing I've noticed on the news channels is that there is a lot of talking and very little information. They bring in an 'expert' or two, blab with them a few minutes and then blather on for another twenty minutes and the audience learns little or nothing. I'd like to see a Q&A where the only answers allowed are 'yes' or 'no;' we shouldn't be getting more confused by the rambling answers of those being questioned.
This will require a more astute class of questioners but then we might get better answers and be able to decide on good courses of action. Otherwise the fog of misinformation will only get thicker.
And should there be a distinction between being 'ruled' as opposed to being 'governed?' I think usage of the term 'ruling elite' accomplishes little except to lead us to false arguments because the term itself carries emotional weight and is a distraction. I await the dispassionate logic of Uncle Ken on this one; my mind is open (and sometimes empty).
-----
An old topic, AI, is back in the news. Current research indicates that AI can be just as error prone as human intelligence, which is not promising. On the other hand, another group of researchers has found that an AI that teaches itself performs better than an AI that has had human programmers, at least in the case of the game of Go. This one AI, taught by humans, has beaten three of the world's top Go players. A later version of this AI, knowing nothing of the game, taught itself to play at such a level that it thrashed the older AI handily. Spooky.
But playing games is one thing, and decision making that involves human welfare is another thing entirely. I hope that none of the AIs develop a sense of curiosity and wonders what will happen if they shut off those pumps or decide to disconnect the power grid. A robust OFF switch should suffice for the time being.
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Uncle Ken, it sounds like you have been watching too much television, which can rot your mind.
I, too, am guilty of this. One thing I've noticed on the news channels is that there is a lot of talking and very little information. They bring in an 'expert' or two, blab with them a few minutes and then blather on for another twenty minutes and the audience learns little or nothing. I'd like to see a Q&A where the only answers allowed are 'yes' or 'no;' we shouldn't be getting more confused by the rambling answers of those being questioned.
This will require a more astute class of questioners but then we might get better answers and be able to decide on good courses of action. Otherwise the fog of misinformation will only get thicker.
and yet another morning wasted
Well shit, I was up late last night watching my team go down with a whimper and I didn't get a chance to read Old Dog's article. I don't know why, I certainly didn't spend much time standing up and cheering as out mighty batsmen bashed the ball and our speedy runners dashed across the basepaths scoring run after run. No, I certainly did not do that,
But I'm not going to read it now, because it's kind of long and I'm getting a late start. It seems interesting. I remember once reading a little Plato and he was talking about the different types of government available to humankind, and by gum he sounded right up to date to me. I will read it sometime today and cogitate a bit on it before tomorrow's post.
From Beagles's reaction it seems like it was some kind of commie screed, and a screeching one at that. These ruling elites which Beagles speaks of, do sound a lot like, as Old Dog points out, Them, except I think a big feature of Beagles' Them is that we can never know who They are, while the ruling elites stand out like a sore thumb.
I'll withhold further comments until I am better informed,.
I wasn't willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. I had my back up against him from the start, but I suppose I did think there was an outside chance, because he had formerly been nominally a liberal, that he might be all over the place, proposing lefty as well as righty things. That did not come to pass. My other thought was that he would be, as I colorfully phrased it, a giant jagged kidney stone in the urethra of the elephant, and he has certainly proved to be that. You know I wonder sometimes if he wasn't so thin-skinned, self-centered, erratic, could he accomplish a lot of stuff for the Republican party, or would being a more rational man dim his luster in the eyes of the yokels that he wouldn't be able to amass that hard thirty-five percent?
I don't know about any investigation bringing the downfall of Trump. He could be found to have shot a decorated war veteran on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and the republicans would not lift a finger against him lest they offend that hard thirty-five.
He seems to be getting some traction in the polls on that kneeling thing, the yokels love sanctimonious, but now with this thing about calls to fallen soldiers (Note that those letters he was going to send out to the families were going out tomorrow or the day after, giving him plenty of time to have some underling write them (because nobody could trust him to write them lest he throw in a couple references to Crooked Hilary)), he has tarnished the gold star mothers, and I'm guessing that won't hurt him at all with the yokels.
I probably shouldn't call them the yokels. If I was a big time columnist I wouldn't. But really, haven't his followers become as noxious as The Great Man Himself?
But I'm not going to read it now, because it's kind of long and I'm getting a late start. It seems interesting. I remember once reading a little Plato and he was talking about the different types of government available to humankind, and by gum he sounded right up to date to me. I will read it sometime today and cogitate a bit on it before tomorrow's post.
From Beagles's reaction it seems like it was some kind of commie screed, and a screeching one at that. These ruling elites which Beagles speaks of, do sound a lot like, as Old Dog points out, Them, except I think a big feature of Beagles' Them is that we can never know who They are, while the ruling elites stand out like a sore thumb.
I'll withhold further comments until I am better informed,.
I wasn't willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. I had my back up against him from the start, but I suppose I did think there was an outside chance, because he had formerly been nominally a liberal, that he might be all over the place, proposing lefty as well as righty things. That did not come to pass. My other thought was that he would be, as I colorfully phrased it, a giant jagged kidney stone in the urethra of the elephant, and he has certainly proved to be that. You know I wonder sometimes if he wasn't so thin-skinned, self-centered, erratic, could he accomplish a lot of stuff for the Republican party, or would being a more rational man dim his luster in the eyes of the yokels that he wouldn't be able to amass that hard thirty-five percent?
I don't know about any investigation bringing the downfall of Trump. He could be found to have shot a decorated war veteran on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and the republicans would not lift a finger against him lest they offend that hard thirty-five.
He seems to be getting some traction in the polls on that kneeling thing, the yokels love sanctimonious, but now with this thing about calls to fallen soldiers (Note that those letters he was going to send out to the families were going out tomorrow or the day after, giving him plenty of time to have some underling write them (because nobody could trust him to write them lest he throw in a couple references to Crooked Hilary)), he has tarnished the gold star mothers, and I'm guessing that won't hurt him at all with the yokels.
I probably shouldn't call them the yokels. If I was a big time columnist I wouldn't. But really, haven't his followers become as noxious as The Great Man Himself?
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
The Rich We Will Always Have With Us
While I was reading Old Dog's article, my monitor screen slanted so far to the left that I had to grab hold of it to keep it from sliding off the table. Okay I exaggerate, but not much.
When the author refers to the ruling elite, I suspect that he means the current ruling elite, not the ruling elite that has recently been voted out of power. Or is he saying that all those ruling elites are in it together? If that's the case, they must all have taken acting lessons because they are making a good show of criticizing and insulting each other. Do you suppose they buy each other drinks after work and share a laugh about the gullibility of the American people? I used to believe that, but now I'm not so sure. Be that as it may, what the author proposes is that "the people" overthrow these guys and seize all the wealth and power for themselves. It was an attractive idea when Karl Marx first proposed it in 1848, and it's still attractive to lots of people. The problem is that, as soon as "the people" seize all the wealth and power, they cease being the people and become the new ruling elites. Eventually another group of people will displace them in turn and become the new new ruling elites, and so it goes.
The author also seems to imply that the rule of law is a bad thing because it protects the property of the rich. Well, I don't consider myself to be rich, and the law protects my property as well. If the law seems preoccupied with the property of the rich, it's just because the rich have more property than I do. If I acquired more property, I'm sure law the would protect that as well as it does my current modest freehold. I can think of only two alternatives to the rule of law. One of them is anarchy, and the other is rule by the personal whim of the ruling elite. While the rule of law is not perfect, I think it's the best choice of the three.
Uncle Ken, it sounds like you have been watching too much television, which can rot your mind. You should turn the thing off and go outside and play while the weather is still nice.
When the author refers to the ruling elite, I suspect that he means the current ruling elite, not the ruling elite that has recently been voted out of power. Or is he saying that all those ruling elites are in it together? If that's the case, they must all have taken acting lessons because they are making a good show of criticizing and insulting each other. Do you suppose they buy each other drinks after work and share a laugh about the gullibility of the American people? I used to believe that, but now I'm not so sure. Be that as it may, what the author proposes is that "the people" overthrow these guys and seize all the wealth and power for themselves. It was an attractive idea when Karl Marx first proposed it in 1848, and it's still attractive to lots of people. The problem is that, as soon as "the people" seize all the wealth and power, they cease being the people and become the new ruling elites. Eventually another group of people will displace them in turn and become the new new ruling elites, and so it goes.
The author also seems to imply that the rule of law is a bad thing because it protects the property of the rich. Well, I don't consider myself to be rich, and the law protects my property as well. If the law seems preoccupied with the property of the rich, it's just because the rich have more property than I do. If I acquired more property, I'm sure law the would protect that as well as it does my current modest freehold. I can think of only two alternatives to the rule of law. One of them is anarchy, and the other is rule by the personal whim of the ruling elite. While the rule of law is not perfect, I think it's the best choice of the three.
Uncle Ken, it sounds like you have been watching too much television, which can rot your mind. You should turn the thing off and go outside and play while the weather is still nice.
The little things will get you
Well there I go, like Click and Clack, another morning wasted ranting about Trump.
Not wasted, Uncle Ken, but a sign of a healthy awareness of the perils of today. We three may not always be on the same page but at least we're all reading from the same book and we don't like where the story is going. There have been some bad presidents before but none which I would call as dangerous as the current resident of the White House and his ghostly underling. Objective Reality is on hiatus, replaced by lies, deception, ignorance, and greed. It's shameful that the biggest threat to the American Way of Life (TM) is not communism, terrorism, North Korea, the Middle East, or any of the other traditional 'bad guys' but our president himself.
As distasteful as it was, I think a lot of us were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, to give him a chance to prove himself capable. But in nine months time there is no longer any doubt, the guy is a loser and not worthy of the office. And soon we will start seeing how effective some of the checks and balances are; tomorrow there will be the opening oral arguments in the lawsuit against Trump for his emoluments shenanigans. It's a start.
Another lawsuit could be pending because of Trump's proclamation that athletes should be fired for kneeling during the National Anthem. Can't say stuff like that, according to 18 U.S. Code § 227:
Wrongfully influencing a private entity’s employment decisions by a Member of Congress or an officer or employee of the legislative or executive branch.
Pesky details such as these may bring him down. A future best seller on Amazon would be the bound copies of all of Trump's lawsuits and subpoenas over the years. Since there are thousands it may be a twenty volume set which only libraries and universities could afford, but that's okay. The Kindle version will be cheaper.
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How about Ophelia? Once tropical storms start hitting Ireland you know the weather has gotten weird. And next in the batting order we have Philippe, who may still be in the locker room getting warmed up. The game isn't over, folks.
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Backing up a bit, I read something recently that clarified the nature of Them a little, an article that describes how the ruling elite maintains power in a democracy. It's nothing new and it goes back to the ancient Greeks, who knew a thing or two about democracy: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/15/oligarchy-lessons-ancient-greece
The plate is starting to overflow with food for thought.
Not wasted, Uncle Ken, but a sign of a healthy awareness of the perils of today. We three may not always be on the same page but at least we're all reading from the same book and we don't like where the story is going. There have been some bad presidents before but none which I would call as dangerous as the current resident of the White House and his ghostly underling. Objective Reality is on hiatus, replaced by lies, deception, ignorance, and greed. It's shameful that the biggest threat to the American Way of Life (TM) is not communism, terrorism, North Korea, the Middle East, or any of the other traditional 'bad guys' but our president himself.
As distasteful as it was, I think a lot of us were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, to give him a chance to prove himself capable. But in nine months time there is no longer any doubt, the guy is a loser and not worthy of the office. And soon we will start seeing how effective some of the checks and balances are; tomorrow there will be the opening oral arguments in the lawsuit against Trump for his emoluments shenanigans. It's a start.
Another lawsuit could be pending because of Trump's proclamation that athletes should be fired for kneeling during the National Anthem. Can't say stuff like that, according to 18 U.S. Code § 227:
Wrongfully influencing a private entity’s employment decisions by a Member of Congress or an officer or employee of the legislative or executive branch.
Pesky details such as these may bring him down. A future best seller on Amazon would be the bound copies of all of Trump's lawsuits and subpoenas over the years. Since there are thousands it may be a twenty volume set which only libraries and universities could afford, but that's okay. The Kindle version will be cheaper.
-----
How about Ophelia? Once tropical storms start hitting Ireland you know the weather has gotten weird. And next in the batting order we have Philippe, who may still be in the locker room getting warmed up. The game isn't over, folks.
-----
Backing up a bit, I read something recently that clarified the nature of Them a little, an article that describes how the ruling elite maintains power in a democracy. It's nothing new and it goes back to the ancient Greeks, who knew a thing or two about democracy: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/15/oligarchy-lessons-ancient-greece
The plate is starting to overflow with food for thought.
another morning wasted
I guess Beagles is right, this country has been rent by plenty in the past. I'm not sure why the current rent seems so extreme to me. It may be my fault for watching it so closely, scanning the papers, checking my political websites every half hour or so, watching CNN from morning to night. I suppose if I were living in the freehold on the edge of Michigan I would feel differently. Bread would bake the same as it always has, the swamp would look the same as it did yesterday, the deer would seem as placid as ever.
Maybe it's because my rock, objective reality, is under fire. It used to be you could argue with the other side using facts you both agreed on. You could twist the truth (not that I ever did that) and you could slant things this way and that, but you both had to agree that a certain documented incident happened on the day it was reported to have happened.
It seemed more odd than sinister when early on Trump said Muslims had been cheering from the rooftops of NYC during 911, or that his inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama's. Well it was simply untrue, obviously, provably, untrue. Surely when they shoved the evidence in Trump's face he would have to harrumph, harrumph and say something like what he meant to say was, and if you interpreted what he said in the correct manner you would see that he had actually said suchandsuch. But no such thing happened, he stood by his lie like Martin Luther in front of those 95 thesis nailed to the door. It was a big deal at the time, but quickly faded in the rush of Trumpisms from which we (well those of us who scan the papers and the political websites and watch CNN all day) suffer to this very day. But it was a big deal to me. How can I argue with someone about the shade of green of the tree in my backyard if they maintain that there is no tree at all?
Who are these people?, Well I don't know. I never see them except on tv. In my watercolor class and my improv group, Trump jokes are made frequently, everybody laughs, nobody says now you guys shut up he is making America great again. Well my city comes under a pretty strong storm from Trump, being considered the home of Obama, and a sanctuary city, and with our frequent shootings (though per capita not the worst) a symbol of lawlessness,, and there is our fiscal mess which okay, is our fault.
Like I said I see the Trumpists on tv. They come in two varieties, the ones with suits, like almost everybody on Fox and CNN sometimes has one or two on their panels spouting alternative reality while the rest of the panel snickers. Then there are the guys in the focus groups or interviewed outside Trump rallies who seem incapable of putting two coherent sentences together.
Well there I go, like Click and Clack, another morning wasted ranting about Trump.
Maybe it's because my rock, objective reality, is under fire. It used to be you could argue with the other side using facts you both agreed on. You could twist the truth (not that I ever did that) and you could slant things this way and that, but you both had to agree that a certain documented incident happened on the day it was reported to have happened.
It seemed more odd than sinister when early on Trump said Muslims had been cheering from the rooftops of NYC during 911, or that his inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama's. Well it was simply untrue, obviously, provably, untrue. Surely when they shoved the evidence in Trump's face he would have to harrumph, harrumph and say something like what he meant to say was, and if you interpreted what he said in the correct manner you would see that he had actually said suchandsuch. But no such thing happened, he stood by his lie like Martin Luther in front of those 95 thesis nailed to the door. It was a big deal at the time, but quickly faded in the rush of Trumpisms from which we (well those of us who scan the papers and the political websites and watch CNN all day) suffer to this very day. But it was a big deal to me. How can I argue with someone about the shade of green of the tree in my backyard if they maintain that there is no tree at all?
Who are these people?, Well I don't know. I never see them except on tv. In my watercolor class and my improv group, Trump jokes are made frequently, everybody laughs, nobody says now you guys shut up he is making America great again. Well my city comes under a pretty strong storm from Trump, being considered the home of Obama, and a sanctuary city, and with our frequent shootings (though per capita not the worst) a symbol of lawlessness,, and there is our fiscal mess which okay, is our fault.
Like I said I see the Trumpists on tv. They come in two varieties, the ones with suits, like almost everybody on Fox and CNN sometimes has one or two on their panels spouting alternative reality while the rest of the panel snickers. Then there are the guys in the focus groups or interviewed outside Trump rallies who seem incapable of putting two coherent sentences together.
Well there I go, like Click and Clack, another morning wasted ranting about Trump.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Divided We Stand
I can't think of any time in history when the US wasn't a divided nation. The American Revolution only had the active support of a third of the populace. The main reason they prevailed is that they were better organized than the other two thirds. Then there was the Civil War. That only lasted four years, but the country had been leading up to it since forever and, by some accounts, they ain't over it yet. Between the Civil War and World War II, there were a number of ongoing internal conflicts. People argued, and sometimes fought, about the monetary system, the national banking system, the income tax, the organization of labor unions, property rights, water rights, voting rights, and the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. World War II briefly brought everybody together but, after that, it was back to business as usual, with the addition to the list of racial rights, gender rights, gay rights, abortion rights, student rights, gun rights, animal rights and, of course, the Vietnam War. Mark my words, sometime in the not too distant future, they will be arguing about the rights of intelligent machines. It's only a matter of time.
One reason that people tend to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket is that we know more about what's going on in the world now than ever before. In addition to our own local problems, we've got to worry about hurricanes in the East, wildfires in the West, melting ice caps in the North and South, earthquakes in various places, wars and rumors of wars all over the world, the unequal distribution of wealth, crumbling infrastructure, and now, mass murderers.
It just occurred to me that, while the rate of mass murders is rising, most of the other crime rates have been falling for some time. I wonder if there's a connection or it's just a coincidence. Somebody should do a study about that.
One reason that people tend to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket is that we know more about what's going on in the world now than ever before. In addition to our own local problems, we've got to worry about hurricanes in the East, wildfires in the West, melting ice caps in the North and South, earthquakes in various places, wars and rumors of wars all over the world, the unequal distribution of wealth, crumbling infrastructure, and now, mass murderers.
It just occurred to me that, while the rate of mass murders is rising, most of the other crime rates have been falling for some time. I wonder if there's a connection or it's just a coincidence. Somebody should do a study about that.
one nation, divided against itself
My mass hysteria has cooled a bit over the weekend. Playing the Nats was exciting, we won one, they won one, and then we won another and they won another, and then we won the last one and won all of that enchilada. But lately we have lost two to the LA Dodgers and have looked plumb pitiful doing it. Wind out of Ken's sails. Watching tonight's game is less like a treat and more like a duty.. The crowd can be dispersed by really good pitching.
I do believe there is sort of a culture of mass murder going on. I wonder how deep you can go into it on the web . Unlike bulemia or nazis where you can find people actually rooting for their cause I don't think anybody actually promotes mass murder, so I don't know if you can get very deep into it.
It seems like it is a relatively new thing, well since the internet, it has taken on a sort of form, it has to include superguns and some kind of planning, not just shooting out your window on a sunny afternoon. It seems like somebody should do some sort of researching on this, but if you did, and you published your findings wouldn't that just encourage it? And then maybe they are going to do that mass murder thing anyway and they are only watching this crap on the internet to kill time before they can get all the pieces assembled.
I do think the US has a unique national makeup. I'm not sure about that development thing, development seems to imply things working towards some final state, and I don't see any final state. I think nations, young and old, are always changing, but the changes are not towards any goal.
At the height of the cold war the two top dogs were unique among nations in that we were both ideologies. France, Germany, England, they were countries of French, Germans, and English. Whether they had a king or a congress, were currently lefty or righty, they were still the same country. But the Russians were commies and we were democrats. The Russkies have lost their communism, and their empire and are now back to being, well what, this rather unpleasant country on the edge of western civilization, pursuing, well I guess a warm water port which they have coveted since the Czars, and, speaking of Czars,. a Czar-like leader.
But we're still a democracy, as long as you mean majority rule measured by voting. But we're more divided than ever, moreso than in the sixties because once the unpopular war was over people went back more or less to getting along, as long as nobody mentioned Vietnam. But this division seems more basic. The Trumpists hate us liberals and moreso what they call the elites, people with any kind of education, in fact they hate education, and what is most important to them is fealty to our current leader. And we liberals, we elitists, we fear their nihilist ways and their busting up of all the china in the nation.
I do believe there is sort of a culture of mass murder going on. I wonder how deep you can go into it on the web . Unlike bulemia or nazis where you can find people actually rooting for their cause I don't think anybody actually promotes mass murder, so I don't know if you can get very deep into it.
It seems like it is a relatively new thing, well since the internet, it has taken on a sort of form, it has to include superguns and some kind of planning, not just shooting out your window on a sunny afternoon. It seems like somebody should do some sort of researching on this, but if you did, and you published your findings wouldn't that just encourage it? And then maybe they are going to do that mass murder thing anyway and they are only watching this crap on the internet to kill time before they can get all the pieces assembled.
I do think the US has a unique national makeup. I'm not sure about that development thing, development seems to imply things working towards some final state, and I don't see any final state. I think nations, young and old, are always changing, but the changes are not towards any goal.
At the height of the cold war the two top dogs were unique among nations in that we were both ideologies. France, Germany, England, they were countries of French, Germans, and English. Whether they had a king or a congress, were currently lefty or righty, they were still the same country. But the Russians were commies and we were democrats. The Russkies have lost their communism, and their empire and are now back to being, well what, this rather unpleasant country on the edge of western civilization, pursuing, well I guess a warm water port which they have coveted since the Czars, and, speaking of Czars,. a Czar-like leader.
But we're still a democracy, as long as you mean majority rule measured by voting. But we're more divided than ever, moreso than in the sixties because once the unpopular war was over people went back more or less to getting along, as long as nobody mentioned Vietnam. But this division seems more basic. The Trumpists hate us liberals and moreso what they call the elites, people with any kind of education, in fact they hate education, and what is most important to them is fealty to our current leader. And we liberals, we elitists, we fear their nihilist ways and their busting up of all the china in the nation.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Wordplay
Once again, my poor choice of terms gets a well deserved evisceration by Uncle Ken, in this case it was 'immature nation.' If I didn't also use the expression 'growing pains' I may have gotten away with stating that I meant immature in the sense of a wine or single malt whiskey. I'll take the hit on this one.
Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is that the US has a unique cultural identity, one that is still in development and is less cohesive than that of other nations such as France or Germany. I'm still working on this theory and a better way to describe it without resorting to hokum.
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Hokum is a great word and is one of those old timey words that should be in greater use today; it would look swell in a newspaper's page one headline. I like it better than 'fake news.' And how about that budding wordsmith, the Little Rocket Man himself, using the word 'dotard' to describe the Cheeto in Chief? I don't think I've ever heard that word before so I had to look it up and it is very apt but it could also describe myself at times. But I'm not president, so there isn't much risk to national security. There's another old word that I've seen more frequently lately, kakistocracy, which describes the Trump administration perfectly, especially some of those Cabinet appointees.
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Mr. Beagles mentioned 'flash mobs' and that he hasn't heard much about them lately. They're still around and are a popular way to rob stores, getting twenty or thirty kids to run in and strip the shelves. Maybe it's a city thing, but such criminal methods lack finesse and elegance. It's not like Cary Grant in It Takes a Thief. You might as well drive a stolen van through the front windows, which they also do. Since these dummies often brag on social media and post videos they are frequently apprehended, so there might be 'flash arrests,' too.
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First the idea, and then the behavior itself spreads from one to another like a virus or something.
Ah, Mr. Beagles is describing a 'meme,' a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins. It's not often that a new word gets invented and enters common usage, but meme is a nice one and not based on a product or acronym. I don't know what today's popular memes are, but I suspect they are mostly hokum.
Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is that the US has a unique cultural identity, one that is still in development and is less cohesive than that of other nations such as France or Germany. I'm still working on this theory and a better way to describe it without resorting to hokum.
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Hokum is a great word and is one of those old timey words that should be in greater use today; it would look swell in a newspaper's page one headline. I like it better than 'fake news.' And how about that budding wordsmith, the Little Rocket Man himself, using the word 'dotard' to describe the Cheeto in Chief? I don't think I've ever heard that word before so I had to look it up and it is very apt but it could also describe myself at times. But I'm not president, so there isn't much risk to national security. There's another old word that I've seen more frequently lately, kakistocracy, which describes the Trump administration perfectly, especially some of those Cabinet appointees.
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Mr. Beagles mentioned 'flash mobs' and that he hasn't heard much about them lately. They're still around and are a popular way to rob stores, getting twenty or thirty kids to run in and strip the shelves. Maybe it's a city thing, but such criminal methods lack finesse and elegance. It's not like Cary Grant in It Takes a Thief. You might as well drive a stolen van through the front windows, which they also do. Since these dummies often brag on social media and post videos they are frequently apprehended, so there might be 'flash arrests,' too.
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First the idea, and then the behavior itself spreads from one to another like a virus or something.
Ah, Mr. Beagles is describing a 'meme,' a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins. It's not often that a new word gets invented and enters common usage, but meme is a nice one and not based on a product or acronym. I don't know what today's popular memes are, but I suspect they are mostly hokum.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Remote Mass Hysteria
I don't think that one person can experience mass hysteria all by himself. He can be hysterical for sure, but mass hysteria requires a mass of people interacting with each other, which is why they call it mass hysteria. If you think about it, though, Uncle Ken was not watching that game all by himself. Thousands, maybe millions, of other people were watching it, just not from the same location. In the army they taught us that, if you can disperse the crowd, the riot is over. The crowd watching that game was already dispersed, but they were linked together through the magic of television. With the advent of the internet, the phenomenon of the remote interconnection of people was raised to a whole new level, and I'm sure that the smart phone raised it another notch or two.
I seem to remember that they had a problem in the UK a few years ago with kids raising a crowd with their phones in a matter of minutes, and then looting a store with it. They also used this technique to bring people together for more benign events, like a surprise birthday party. There was a name for this, I think it was "flash mob" or something like that. I haven't heard anything about that lately, I wonder whatever became of it.
What Uncle Ken said about the culture of mass murder was what I think I was driving at when I came up with my Blood Sacrifice Theory. The word "culture" didn't occur to me at the time, but the word "cult" did, which is pretty close. You have all these people believing in pretty much the same thing, that death is cool. They don't have to be in physical contact with each other anymore, or even mutually know each other, all they need to do is know about each other. First the idea, and then the behavior itself spreads from one to another like a virus or something. I don't suppose that everybody who has the idea moves on to the behavior but, as Uncle Ken says, we don't know which one will be the next one that does.
I seem to remember that they had a problem in the UK a few years ago with kids raising a crowd with their phones in a matter of minutes, and then looting a store with it. They also used this technique to bring people together for more benign events, like a surprise birthday party. There was a name for this, I think it was "flash mob" or something like that. I haven't heard anything about that lately, I wonder whatever became of it.
What Uncle Ken said about the culture of mass murder was what I think I was driving at when I came up with my Blood Sacrifice Theory. The word "culture" didn't occur to me at the time, but the word "cult" did, which is pretty close. You have all these people believing in pretty much the same thing, that death is cool. They don't have to be in physical contact with each other anymore, or even mutually know each other, all they need to do is know about each other. First the idea, and then the behavior itself spreads from one to another like a virus or something. I don't suppose that everybody who has the idea moves on to the behavior but, as Uncle Ken says, we don't know which one will be the next one that does.
Uncle Ken falls to mass hysteria
Oh I hardly think the Conquistadors are an improvement on the Aztecs. Their swords were hardly unbloody. And across the ocean where they came from those civilized Europeans, those Christians who had daintily eschewed sacrifice were killing each other with wild abandon in a little incident with the hopeful name of The Reformation.
And I have a problem with the immature nation idea, like a nation is like a human being who what, toddles and suckles, learns to walk and goes to school, goes off to college, gets a job, gets married, has kids, gets old and goofy? A nation is a bunch of people and the citizens of a new nation are about the same age as the citizens of an old nation. What, a new nation sows its wild oats and gets in some stupid war, that as a mature, responsible nation it wouldn't? Do mature nations behave better than adolescent nations? No. This whole idea of nations being like people and having to seek their destinies is pure hokum. People, as individuals don't behave all that well, but when they gather into nations and wave their flags and sing patriotic songs they behave worse than any tribe of trailer trash.
And I am not buying that these things happen in streaks, like on the playground for awhile we are all playing marbles, then yoyos, then kites, We are killing each other all the time for all sorts of reasons, the only new thing is the technology.
The new thing about mass murder, and I am talking specifically about that and not all sorts of political and religious and nutjob assasinations, is that it is a thing. It has a culture. These guys are aware of previous mass murders, the count, the methods, like following a baseball team. I thought that was the point of the article, that what is new is this culture where who knows how many are following it and we're just waiting for the tick that sets them off.
I guess I am being disagreeable this morning, which is hardly a new thing, because I was up three hours past my bedtime watching a Cub game. Well not just a Cub game, the rubber game in the NLCS series to decide which team would go to California for a chance to beat the Dodgers and go on to the World Serious. I know Beagles has no truck with sports, and I myself have said it a thousand times: sports is stupid. One team or the other will win, one guy can always run faster or snap up a grounder better than the other guy, if your team wins you are no smarter, better-looking, or richer, except for some small bet you may have made.
But, Beagles calls it mass hysteria, and I believe I have succumbed. The nine inning game, full of lead changes and bizarre happenings, went on for five hours. An hour into it, I broke out a red imperial IPA that was to be last year's celebratory beer, but I didn't get around to drinking it in my mass hysteria at the time. After I drank that I went to the downstairs bar and had a tall IPA. The crowd was small and too drunk to feed my hysteria so I went back upstairs and had another beer. By then it was way past my bedtime and I rested my eyes in the LaZy boy for a half inning that lasted about half an hour. Refreshed, I opened another beer and stared at the tv transfixed while the Cubs held onto a razor thin lead, and then we won. It was mass hysteria, only for one person, I don't know what to say.
And I have a problem with the immature nation idea, like a nation is like a human being who what, toddles and suckles, learns to walk and goes to school, goes off to college, gets a job, gets married, has kids, gets old and goofy? A nation is a bunch of people and the citizens of a new nation are about the same age as the citizens of an old nation. What, a new nation sows its wild oats and gets in some stupid war, that as a mature, responsible nation it wouldn't? Do mature nations behave better than adolescent nations? No. This whole idea of nations being like people and having to seek their destinies is pure hokum. People, as individuals don't behave all that well, but when they gather into nations and wave their flags and sing patriotic songs they behave worse than any tribe of trailer trash.
And I am not buying that these things happen in streaks, like on the playground for awhile we are all playing marbles, then yoyos, then kites, We are killing each other all the time for all sorts of reasons, the only new thing is the technology.
The new thing about mass murder, and I am talking specifically about that and not all sorts of political and religious and nutjob assasinations, is that it is a thing. It has a culture. These guys are aware of previous mass murders, the count, the methods, like following a baseball team. I thought that was the point of the article, that what is new is this culture where who knows how many are following it and we're just waiting for the tick that sets them off.
I guess I am being disagreeable this morning, which is hardly a new thing, because I was up three hours past my bedtime watching a Cub game. Well not just a Cub game, the rubber game in the NLCS series to decide which team would go to California for a chance to beat the Dodgers and go on to the World Serious. I know Beagles has no truck with sports, and I myself have said it a thousand times: sports is stupid. One team or the other will win, one guy can always run faster or snap up a grounder better than the other guy, if your team wins you are no smarter, better-looking, or richer, except for some small bet you may have made.
But, Beagles calls it mass hysteria, and I believe I have succumbed. The nine inning game, full of lead changes and bizarre happenings, went on for five hours. An hour into it, I broke out a red imperial IPA that was to be last year's celebratory beer, but I didn't get around to drinking it in my mass hysteria at the time. After I drank that I went to the downstairs bar and had a tall IPA. The crowd was small and too drunk to feed my hysteria so I went back upstairs and had another beer. By then it was way past my bedtime and I rested my eyes in the LaZy boy for a half inning that lasted about half an hour. Refreshed, I opened another beer and stared at the tv transfixed while the Cubs held onto a razor thin lead, and then we won. It was mass hysteria, only for one person, I don't know what to say.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
No Magic Bullet
These things do tend to occur in streaks, don't they. Before the mass murder era there was the assassination era, which overlapped the airplane hijacking era. Prior to 9-11 it seemed like the hijacking string had petered out, but then it came back like a bad dream. I believe that was the first time hijacking was used as a method of mass murder, before that it was mostly about threatening to kill a bunch of people if certain demands were not met. With 9-11, they skipped the demands and went right into the killing phase. There were a few airplane incidents after that, but they were not successful, and we don't hear about things like that anymore. Now it's all about mass shootings, with the occasional bombing thrown in for variety. If you think about it, there has always been things like that going on in one form or another.
Sometimes these guys have an agenda, and sometimes not. The assassinations were mostly political, except for the guy who shot John Lennon. That time the guy said that he did it to impress Jodie Foster, a movie star who he had been obsessing about for some time. I don't think that Jodie was impressed, at least not favorably. I seem to remember that the guy who shot George Wallace said that he didn't have a political axe to grind, he just wanted to shoot somebody famous so that he would become famous himself. I guess Uncle Ken is right, it's hard to profile potential killers because there are so many variables in play.
The suicide component is kind of new, though. The anarchists used to blow themselves up on occasion, but I don't think that was on purpose. The Islamic terrorists frequently blow themselves up on purpose, but I think that's just because it's an effective way to deliver a bomb to a target without getting caught. These mass shooters seem to be a different breed of cat. Their whole operation is elaborately planned, and the suicide at the end seems to be an integral part of the plan. It's like they want to die and take a whole lot of people with them.
One thing for sure, there is no magic bullet that will cure this. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if we could round up all the homicidal and suicidal people once a year, put them together, give them guns, and let them kill each other off?
Sometimes these guys have an agenda, and sometimes not. The assassinations were mostly political, except for the guy who shot John Lennon. That time the guy said that he did it to impress Jodie Foster, a movie star who he had been obsessing about for some time. I don't think that Jodie was impressed, at least not favorably. I seem to remember that the guy who shot George Wallace said that he didn't have a political axe to grind, he just wanted to shoot somebody famous so that he would become famous himself. I guess Uncle Ken is right, it's hard to profile potential killers because there are so many variables in play.
The suicide component is kind of new, though. The anarchists used to blow themselves up on occasion, but I don't think that was on purpose. The Islamic terrorists frequently blow themselves up on purpose, but I think that's just because it's an effective way to deliver a bomb to a target without getting caught. These mass shooters seem to be a different breed of cat. Their whole operation is elaborately planned, and the suicide at the end seems to be an integral part of the plan. It's like they want to die and take a whole lot of people with them.
One thing for sure, there is no magic bullet that will cure this. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if we could round up all the homicidal and suicidal people once a year, put them together, give them guns, and let them kill each other off?
Theoretically speaking
The Blood Sacrifice Theory would be tough to prove but it isn't the most outlandish theory I've read lately. It's easy to forget how radically differently culture and norms developed in the New World as opposed to the traditions of Europe and Asia, where there was continuous growth and change for thousands of years. Look at how quickly a few East Coast colonies expanded to the Pacific Ocean, about one hundred years, comprised of settlers and immigrants of many different backgrounds with varying cultural traditions. We may be one nation but I don't think we're one culture, not yet. Things are still developing and changing and maybe mass shootings are an inevitable result, the growing pains of an immature nation. Theoretically, I think we'll move past this.
Uncle Ken mentioned depression and I thought of the great number of firearms deaths that are suicides, about two-thirds. There is form of suicide that is called 'death by cop,' where some poor soul, unable to do the deed himself, acts out in a way that is guaranteed to get him shot by the police. Waving a weapon and acting crazy is good way to get yourself killed, and maybe the mass shooters are a variation of this, thinking that murder is less shameful than suicide. It's a weak theory.
For good example of the Blood Sacrifice Theory consider the Aztecs. They had ceremonies where thousands of people would be sacrificed, the victims usually being captured enemies. The Spanish Conquistadors did us a favor, I think. If the Aztecs developed metallurgy and decided to expand their boundaries we would be living in a different world today. Maybe there's something about living in the New World that makes everyone crazy.
-----
Now the big flap in the news has been that Hollywood Sleazebag, Harvey Weinstein, with accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment, some going back many decades. I thought the 'casting couch' was a well known tradition in that part of show biz, but maybe those girls never heard of it. I expect more scandals with media outlets and the legal profession being the main beneficiaries and the public's appetite for schadenfreude to be temporarily sated. We love our dirt, it gives us something to talk about, and it's not our fault. By 'we' I mean the population in general and not the enlightened Beaglesonians, of course. We have better things to talk about.
Uncle Ken mentioned depression and I thought of the great number of firearms deaths that are suicides, about two-thirds. There is form of suicide that is called 'death by cop,' where some poor soul, unable to do the deed himself, acts out in a way that is guaranteed to get him shot by the police. Waving a weapon and acting crazy is good way to get yourself killed, and maybe the mass shooters are a variation of this, thinking that murder is less shameful than suicide. It's a weak theory.
For good example of the Blood Sacrifice Theory consider the Aztecs. They had ceremonies where thousands of people would be sacrificed, the victims usually being captured enemies. The Spanish Conquistadors did us a favor, I think. If the Aztecs developed metallurgy and decided to expand their boundaries we would be living in a different world today. Maybe there's something about living in the New World that makes everyone crazy.
-----
Now the big flap in the news has been that Hollywood Sleazebag, Harvey Weinstein, with accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment, some going back many decades. I thought the 'casting couch' was a well known tradition in that part of show biz, but maybe those girls never heard of it. I expect more scandals with media outlets and the legal profession being the main beneficiaries and the public's appetite for schadenfreude to be temporarily sated. We love our dirt, it gives us something to talk about, and it's not our fault. By 'we' I mean the population in general and not the enlightened Beaglesonians, of course. We have better things to talk about.
not our fault
Is there such a thing as mass murder, distinct from other human behaviors and having common characteristics? A lot of people are sad, but they are all sad in different degrees and for different reasons.
And then there is depression, which is sort of a medical condition. You have to be sad for long periods, and sad when there are no specific reasons for being so. There seems to be some genetic component, but complicated, not simple like blue eyes and brown eyes, and then you never know if having a depressed parent makes you depressed when you grow up just because of that environment. And one doctor may call you depressed and another think otherwise.
Then there is measles. It's easy to tell when someone has it, they all have pretty much the same symptoms that you don't see in other people who don't have measles, but even better than that all the doctor has to do is take a bit of blood and there is the measles virus, distinguishable from other viruses, and people who have the virus have measles and those who don't, don't.
That's what much of this mass murder discussion is all about. These are terrible events. Shouldn't we find the roots of it? Then we can pull it out right by the roots and be done with it. Just like the way we licked smallpox, but with smallpox we figured out what the virus was and then we figured out a way to defeat it.
But there is no specific marker for mass murderers, different people do it for different reasons. The brain is a complicated machine and sometimes it will go if its rails and end up aiming at a bunch of people in a parking lot, and there is nothing to be done about it. Well we could do a few things to decrease the number of victims, like the stuff we do to cut down on deaths from hurricanes, but that is not likely to happen. Even a little matter like bump stocks, I see where Ryan is trying to kick it to the ATF because nobody (some of my beloved dems included) wants to see a gun control measure loose in congress.
Anyway I read a thing lately where the Yellowstone caldera, a favorite of Old Dog I believe, is acting up again, and they thought they had some measure where they could tell when it was likely to blow so there would be some warning, not that there would be anything we could do about it, but now it turns out that that was false and it will just blow when it pleases, and it won't be the fault of mass murderers or not banning the bump stock or fucking the environment. It won't be our fault at all.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Gun Nuts and Death Nuts
Let me explain the line of reasoning that led me to formulate my Blood Sacrifice Theory. I have known a few gun nuts in my life, but none of them ended up becoming mass murderers. It takes something more than a fascination with firearms to do that. In addition to being gun nuts, these guys are also death nuts. They are obsessed with death the way some people are obsessed with religion. This led me to consider some of the goofy things people have done in the name of religion throughout history, and the first thing that came to mind was the blood sacrifice because it was ritual killing with no hard feelings against the victims. While the original intent might have been to placate the angry gods, it eventually evolved into the concept that shedding innocent blood somehow sanctified a person.
When Cain slew Able, it was because Cain was jealous that God rejected Cain's sacrifice of vegetables while accepting Able's animal sacrifice. Although the God we know today would never do something like that, this story probably originated in ancient Mesopotamia, so it was likely not the same god. The point is that the shedding of blood was an essential component of the blood sacrifice. Later, Moses told his people not to consume blood in any form, and to pour the blood of sacrificial animals and slaughtered livestock on the ground like it was sacred or something. Early Christian authors made frequent reference to "the sacred blood of the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world". Modern Christians say prayers and sing hymns containing words to that effect without batting an eye, probably because repetition has rendered the words harmless to their sensibilities.
When our proto human ancestors graduated from being scavengers to being predators they picked up a killer instinct, or maybe they already had the killer instinct, which was why they became predators. As the killer instinct became less advantageous for survival, most of them learned to suppress it or found harmless outlets for it, like watching gory movies. Females probably had less of it to start with, which is why they became the primary nurturers of the species. Maybe it isn't genetic, maybe it's cultural but, either way, I think the mass murderers of today represent some kind of throwback. Maybe we all have a little switch or filter in our brains that hold the killer instinct at bay until it's really needed, and these guys' filter or switch is defective. Somebody should do a study about that.
When Cain slew Able, it was because Cain was jealous that God rejected Cain's sacrifice of vegetables while accepting Able's animal sacrifice. Although the God we know today would never do something like that, this story probably originated in ancient Mesopotamia, so it was likely not the same god. The point is that the shedding of blood was an essential component of the blood sacrifice. Later, Moses told his people not to consume blood in any form, and to pour the blood of sacrificial animals and slaughtered livestock on the ground like it was sacred or something. Early Christian authors made frequent reference to "the sacred blood of the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world". Modern Christians say prayers and sing hymns containing words to that effect without batting an eye, probably because repetition has rendered the words harmless to their sensibilities.
When our proto human ancestors graduated from being scavengers to being predators they picked up a killer instinct, or maybe they already had the killer instinct, which was why they became predators. As the killer instinct became less advantageous for survival, most of them learned to suppress it or found harmless outlets for it, like watching gory movies. Females probably had less of it to start with, which is why they became the primary nurturers of the species. Maybe it isn't genetic, maybe it's cultural but, either way, I think the mass murderers of today represent some kind of throwback. Maybe we all have a little switch or filter in our brains that hold the killer instinct at bay until it's really needed, and these guys' filter or switch is defective. Somebody should do a study about that.
take that Black Bart
Oh cap guns, the guns of my youth. Those little red rolls with the black explosive dimple. Pow! Take that Black Bart. I don't remember exactly how they worked, seems like there was a chamber in the handle and then you thread it through something, and the trigger mechanism drew a new cap into position under the hammer, and the spent caps emerged from the top of the guns. There were even some guns with a barrel that turned and you inserted a six cap round into them, which was way cool, but you had to reload after every six shots.
As Old Dog points out. although getting shot was a form of losing. it was also an opportunity to develop your thespian talents, I like to think I put on a pretty good display. After a discreet amount of time for mourning, you were allowed to declare yourself a new man and rejoin the fray. We also had the concept of the dying breath, where, while knocking on heaven's door, you were allowed to do a few things, shoot a few people, run down a block, climb a fence, before the sweet breath of life left you.
One Christmas it seems the whole neighborhood got burp guns for Christmas. I think they were supposed to be automatic weapons, when you pulled the trigger a satisfying brrraap sound came out and maybe something lit up. We killed each other and were killed maybe hundred times before we came in to eat Christmas supper.
My hood was never very well armed explosive wise. There was talk of cherry bombs and M-80s but the only thing we ever actually had was ladyfingers. Ladyfingers. My face is red at how wimpy we were. We did have something of an missile force. If you loosely wrapped the head of a match in tin foil and heated it with another match the gasses would fly out the back and the missile would be propelled, oh about a foot.
Swamp donkey. I had to look that one up. When you ask Mr Google he supplies several of those urban dictionary sites where well, any asshole, I'm sorry, internet expert, can supply a definition and they vary accordingly, but the most common definition seemed to be some unattractive woman, who would take advantage of a guy when he was in his cups and soil his purity.. It made it seem like they were sort of evil, reaping their unwary prey. Like some guy would don his beer goggles and get lucky with some woman not up to his high standards and then blame it all on her. Made me a little embarrassed to be a guy. I think it also meant a boar in the south.
I agree with those reliable news sources. It would be interesting to know how they compiled the list. Did they take a poll, did they consult experts?. One way you can tell is that when one of them gets something wrong, it's a bit of a scandal, so they have reason to avoid that, whereas if Fox news gets something wrong it's a shrug of the shoulders and calling the exposer a liar, and no real reason to avoid that happening in the future.
I don't think genes are specific enough to have a gene that goes for blood sacrifice to some god and also for mass murder. It's not like you have a gene for mountain climbing, you have a gene for seeking excitement and that may lead you to climbing mountains or racing cars or writing cleverly worded posts to the Beaglestonian in the morning.
Sacrifices actually were pretty logical. You were surrounded by forces that you didn't understand, but maybe if you gave them something they would go easy on you or do you a favor. A big bribe. Certainly logical. How exactly this decapitated cow was going to please the god of harvests is a bit tricky, but maybe the god just saw that people were doing something for Him, even if the sacrifice didn't do Him any good in particular, it was a little show of respect, a kissing of the ass, which is always appreciated. Isn't that what's behind all the great cathedrals and all those psalms weighted down with praise?
As Old Dog points out. although getting shot was a form of losing. it was also an opportunity to develop your thespian talents, I like to think I put on a pretty good display. After a discreet amount of time for mourning, you were allowed to declare yourself a new man and rejoin the fray. We also had the concept of the dying breath, where, while knocking on heaven's door, you were allowed to do a few things, shoot a few people, run down a block, climb a fence, before the sweet breath of life left you.
One Christmas it seems the whole neighborhood got burp guns for Christmas. I think they were supposed to be automatic weapons, when you pulled the trigger a satisfying brrraap sound came out and maybe something lit up. We killed each other and were killed maybe hundred times before we came in to eat Christmas supper.
My hood was never very well armed explosive wise. There was talk of cherry bombs and M-80s but the only thing we ever actually had was ladyfingers. Ladyfingers. My face is red at how wimpy we were. We did have something of an missile force. If you loosely wrapped the head of a match in tin foil and heated it with another match the gasses would fly out the back and the missile would be propelled, oh about a foot.
Swamp donkey. I had to look that one up. When you ask Mr Google he supplies several of those urban dictionary sites where well, any asshole, I'm sorry, internet expert, can supply a definition and they vary accordingly, but the most common definition seemed to be some unattractive woman, who would take advantage of a guy when he was in his cups and soil his purity.. It made it seem like they were sort of evil, reaping their unwary prey. Like some guy would don his beer goggles and get lucky with some woman not up to his high standards and then blame it all on her. Made me a little embarrassed to be a guy. I think it also meant a boar in the south.
I agree with those reliable news sources. It would be interesting to know how they compiled the list. Did they take a poll, did they consult experts?. One way you can tell is that when one of them gets something wrong, it's a bit of a scandal, so they have reason to avoid that, whereas if Fox news gets something wrong it's a shrug of the shoulders and calling the exposer a liar, and no real reason to avoid that happening in the future.
I don't think genes are specific enough to have a gene that goes for blood sacrifice to some god and also for mass murder. It's not like you have a gene for mountain climbing, you have a gene for seeking excitement and that may lead you to climbing mountains or racing cars or writing cleverly worded posts to the Beaglestonian in the morning.
Sacrifices actually were pretty logical. You were surrounded by forces that you didn't understand, but maybe if you gave them something they would go easy on you or do you a favor. A big bribe. Certainly logical. How exactly this decapitated cow was going to please the god of harvests is a bit tricky, but maybe the god just saw that people were doing something for Him, even if the sacrifice didn't do Him any good in particular, it was a little show of respect, a kissing of the ass, which is always appreciated. Isn't that what's behind all the great cathedrals and all those psalms weighted down with praise?
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