Moving along

I haven't been giving Uncle Ken enough credit lately.  It seems to me that he often pulls topics out of thin air but that is not the case.  He's either clairvoyant or amazingly in tune with the zeitgeist of modern life.  Case in point: his recent riff on gravity.  I had no idea how that topic originated, but three days after he first mentioned gravity and its mysteries there was an article on the wired.com website about gravity in outer space, along with some scientific explanations.  It could be a coincidence but I think I've see it before, when an Institute's topic of discussion appears a few days later on some website.  Spooky, I say.

Anyhow, the article helped explain a few things but did not answer my question about "why?"  This is what they said: In short, gravity is a fundamental interaction between objects with mass. Yes, any two objects that have mass will have a gravitational force pulling them together.  Some formulas to calculate the force but not one word about why the force exists in the first place.  Maybe you guys can get more out of the article than I did: https://www.wired.com/story/yes-there-is-gravity-in-space/

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Let me stick my neck out in stating that I think humanity, in general, is more moral now than it has been in ages past.  I don't know what the ideal state is but it seems like we are improving, slowly, as we are always halfway "there" and will never reach perfection.  I don't know about the rest of the primate world by I think humans are unique in their ability to think about the future and make long term plans, morality being part of that planning.  Does the young chimp think about finding a nice mate in a few years, settling down in that big tree by the stream, and raising a family?   Or is he thinking about splitting from his clan and setting out on his own to seek his chimp fortune?

There is a lot for me to read about "The Other" at Wikipedia and I'm sure there are solid connections to morality but it will take me some time to get through it.  Has our sense of The Other changed over the years as human cultures intermingle and communicate more openly?  It seems to me that The Other are becoming The Fewer in many cases.  We don't embrace The Other as kin but we are becoming more tolerant of them, as they are of us.  No worries, I'm not singing kumbaya yet.

And then I have to ask myself, are we inventing conflict because, deep down, we like it?  It gets the juices flowing, you know, and maybe it will help us achieve our goals, whatever they may be.  Look at a group of close friends; aren't they always giving each other a hard time, often jokingly but sometimes not?   Maybe it's a coping mechanism that keeps everybody honest, on their toes, and that's what friends are for.

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I'm looking forward to tonight's State of the Union address, all ready to whip up a batch of kettle corn.  Big drop in the stock market the past few days, so it should be interesting to see the spin that's put on it, if at all.  I've read that there are some reported no-shows for the address, but I wonder how many.  I hope Stormy Daniels can find a good seat up front.

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Hum does anybody see any parallel between Hitler coming to power by denigrating a group of outsiders and current conditions?

Surely, just a coincidence, and don't good fences (or walls) make good neighbors?  It isn't like anyone keeps repeating lies in the hope that they will eventually be accepted as truth.  The notion of "The Big Lie" is so 20th Century.  Next thing you'll be suggesting is that the free press is threatened or that the justice system is being compromised.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.