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Explore life through time.

Frans Lanting "LIFE: A Journey Through Time"

Skip the intro if you're in a hurry, but do not miss the slideshow! It is a Web of Art. By comparison, the stuff on YouTube comprises a Web oF arts.

Mistakes; not what they used to be

Back in the day, people made mistakes now and then. Remember 'To err is human'? But these days people make mistakes all the time. That's the bad news. The good news is, no one commits crimes anymore, there is no rudeness, and nobody is a babbling idiot. There are only people who make mistakes.

When even the best legal minds that money can buy are not up to the task of extricating someone against whom there is overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing or mindlessness, the last resort is the inevitable plaint: "I just made a mistake, man. What is your problem?"

My problem is etymological in nature. I seem to have missed the memo that defined a new catchall "mistake" that subsumed the definitions for acts of criminality, stupidity, ignorance, and all manner of bad behavior. Don't get me wrong, however; I like what such creative euphemism has accomplished. It has broadened the scope of socially acceptable behavior, bringing in from the cold the formerly sociopathic, narcissistic, and perpetually perplexed. Nobody has to suffer the humiliation of wrongdoing anymore, and that is a good thing.

Before "making mistakes" became de rigueur, people had to make an effort to maintain a semblance of good citizenship. Mistakes were held to a strict constructionist view by the community, and that made felonious behavior (including criminality, ignorance, and stupidity) something to be avoided. Some people would resort to gallows humor so as to appear infallible (i.e., "I was wrong once. Back in '76 I thought I had made a mistake.") But now, who cares anymore? No need to get worked up about anything. 'Mistakes are where it's at, dude', to use a mixed decade expression.

But, I could be wrong. I was once.

MSM: Not only moronic, but also oxymoronic

As neatly summarized by Oliver Kamm,

[L]iberalism as a modern political movement - in which I include parties of the social democratic left, which long ago acknowledged the failure of socialism - has certain consistent traits. Its central principle is that, while we may belong to groups, our primary identity is as citizens who are equal under law. Many characteristics of the liberal outlook, as we now understand it, follow from a common citizenship: the rule of law exercised disinterestedly; the promotion of human rights internationally; separation of civil and religious authority; rights to freedom of expression and association; a measure of economic redistribution that enables citizens to exercise autonomous choices; sexual equality; reproductive freedom; the right of same-sex couples to marry and inherit.

But the liberalism of today's mainstream media (MSM) is a perversion of its traditional traits. Instead of championing the rule of law exercised disinterestedly, the MSM revels in the circus antics of mob mentality. Instead of championing the promotion of human rights internationally, the MSM seeks justification for the homicidal destruction of civilians. Instead of championing the separation of civil and religious authority, the MSM formulates apologia for theocratic fanaticism. Instead of championing the rights to freedom of expression and association, the MSM now champions the consensus of vociferous crowds.

In effect traditional, that is "mainstream liberalism" is not the "liberalism of the mainstream media". The latter is an oxymoron.

ipso facto rotflmao: Do not confuse these products

Caution advisable for concurrent use of these products:

Urinozinc formula capsules and Uranus Inc hemorrhoid suppositories.

Unpleasant side effects if carelessly administered. You've been warned.

If your mind makes no sense, change it

That's what Big Al would have done. That is in fact what he did do when Newton's theory of gravity, a product of one of the greatest minds of all time, did not quite compute for him. Which led to a product of another one of the greatest minds of all time, Einstein's general relativity. It makes sense to me that one can do worse than be guided by great minds in our mortal everyday efforts to make sense of the mostly irrational world around us.

In reading today's normblog profile of Peter Ryley, I was particularly gratified by his response to the standard question 'Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind?'

I have changed my mind on most things, but the most important one is on international affairs. I used to have a fairly orthodox, anti-American, leftist viewpoint. To my horror, I used to read Chomsky approvingly. However, I had doubts that I kept pushing to the back of my mind. I came to a slow realization that the reason for my misgivings was a simple one. The position I held was wrong. Reading Nick Cohen's journalism was important in confirming my revised views, as were the books he recommended in his columns. Then I discovered the blogosphere when Steve Davies, my PhD supervisor, recommended normblog after I had commented adversely on 19th Century anarchists' apologist attitudes to terrorism. It was with huge relief that I found solidarity in blogs.

I used to subscribe to the liberal viewpoint that was fashionable at Columbia University in the 1960's. Then, gradually, a pernicious form of insanity characterized by self loathing invaded this view, spearheaded by the likes of that besotted disgrace to the great liberal family tradition of Jack and Bobby. By now this onetime great liberal view has devolved to full-blown insanity, with celebrity status galore in HolySh*tWood, the current majority in Congress, and among many adherents of a philosophical stance that has become a self inflicted paraplegic.

What made sense to me in the 1960's still makes sense: democratic government is the best form this world has ever produced. Alas, the best of the liberal viewpoint has vanished from the earth.

Pardon my ignorance, but ...

A sampling of some of the reactions to President Bush's VFW speech today includes the following:

"Invoking the tragedy of Vietnam to defend the failed policy in Iraq is as irresponsible as it is ignorant of the realities of both of those wars," Senator Kerry said.

With all due respect to this United States Senator, which is much more than he seems willing to extend to the President and Commander in Chief of the United States, his remark has the odor of halitosis emanating from a mouth full of sour grapes chewed by someone greatly invested in the concept of losing.

Confessions of a Bladdict: #2

I can quit any time I want (as if you've never heard that one before). I hasten to add that there is a 48% probability that I really can. You see, according to the same bladdiction test that Norm took, I am only 52% addicted to blogging, whereas Norm is much more addicted at 75%.

If you take the ratio of Norm's degree of bladdiction to mine, you can see that Norm's exceeds mine by 44%. So if Norm can relax about his condition ("With plenty to spare"), surely I have nothing to worry about. That is why I have chosen to display proudly on this page my bladdiction badge (a "bladge" perhaps?), along with a couple of other bladges at the bottom of the sidebar.

A Modest Prescription For A Life That Is Good

As the saying goes, 'Life is just a bowl of cherries.' But what about those pits?

In any case, I want to discuss a prescription that is available to everyone, and sadly not everyone can have a bowl of cherries. Which immediately also eliminates from consideration fame, fortune, beauty, health, etc., which everyone may hope and wish for, but none of which is entirely within every person's control or reach.

How about a heroic death? That certainly qualifies for a death that is good, but not necessarily a life that is good.

What then would qualify for life that is good? A life of pleasure? Comfort? All such relative and variable conditions? Must one have access to them always? Clearly none of these are available to all. Not in this world.

Perhaps the qualification comprises an absence of a negative condition? Something everyone has a chance to avoid? At least a fighting chance? There are lots of things people can try to avoid, but can not always succeed in doing. Can't always avoid making a bad choice without hindsight.

Well then, what about regrets? Can one always avoid them? I suppose not. Sometimes, like bad choices, they are not avoidable, except in hindsight. But, I believe regrets can serve as guidance for the avoidance of bad choices and lamentable behavior. We can strive to avoid having regrets when all is said and done. And the ideal to strive for is to have no regrets at the end of a life that is good.

Which brings me to the prescription, presented to humanity by the great prophet Moses: Honor your father and your mother.

If you do not, you will have regrets.

Soft response; hard response to follow

OK Norm, now you've done it. You have managed to respond with equanimity to obnoxious irrationality. Bravo. But how do you do it so gracefully?

Perhaps I may be permitted to paraphrase, as best as I am able:

America is the land of the free, the home of the brave, and it beats the sh*t out of every other society on earth, in any category you may want to compare. Bar none.

If you (yes you) disagree with my assessment, what the f*ck is preventing you from festering where you are? And why the f*ck do you keep trying to convince yourself that you are sane? And why the f*ck do you call America for help every time the Hun comes crawling up your mass? And why the f*ck don't you just go f*ck yourself?

Strong letter to follow.

Have a nice day, y'all.

Let's cut to the chase ...

It pains me to pun about such an issue, but in a dispute about circumcision, a cutting remark may not be the unkindest cut of all. Once again, I refer to a post, with which I am in basic agreement, at my favorite normblog.

The legal dispute concerns a 12-year-old boy whose parents are divorced, and who are contesting the issue of circumcising their son, all the way to the state supreme court. If I am not mistaken, the tradition is to circumcise a healthy infant boy on his eighth day. Since this boy is 12 years old, he is way past the point of being not conscious of what such a procedure might entail in terms of physical and psychological effects.

If the boy is not legally mature enough to be the arbiter of this dispute between his parents, he is certainly the person who must endure a preponderance of the consequences of its resolution. The only reasonable resolution, as is abundantly obvious to me, is to postpone the issue until such time that the boy is legally of age to make this decision without interference by either parent.

To the best of my knowledge, circumcision is an irreversible procedure. The father, who is in favor of the procedure for his son, is a convert. Many converts are highly susceptible to holier-than-thou syndrome. I say, if the father can't wait for his son to make this very personal and painful decision without any coercion from him or the courts, let the father undergo the procedure as proxy for his son, even if, nay especially if, he has undergone the procedure before. F*ck him if he can't take a joke.

ipso facto rotflmao: If it's sausage, you must be ...

A customer comes into a store, walks up to the counter, and orders a Polish sausage.

The man behind the counter says, "You must be Polish."

The customer becomes incensed. "This is an outrage! Just because I order a Polish sausage, you assume I'm Polish? If I had ordered an Italian sausage, would you assume I was Italian?"

The counter man responds, "Mister, this is a hardware store."

ipso facto brofo: It don't compute. Or does it?

Over at my favorite blog, Norm references an anomaly in sexual surveys: men report having many more sexual partners than women. According to the so-called High-School Prom Theorem, the totals of sexual partners for men and for women should be the same, with the implicit assumptions that any given survey population includes all of the putative sexual partners in that survey, all of whom are truthful. So why is the stud-to-slut ratio greater than 1.0 for most, if not all, surveys?

The most likely explanation is that: for men, stud is an honorific, whereas for women, slut is a reputation. The other explanation often suggested, that survey populations do not normally include all participants (such as prostitutes), is not likely to be a significant factor for large enough survey populations.

But there is another possibility, which is not mentioned in the referenced article. The Theorem does not apply to same-sex partners. There may be more of those among men, some of whom are likely to be bi-sexual, than among women, some of whom are also bi-sexual. Some of those surveyed, men and women, who have had partners of both sexes, may be reporting all their partners. Do the math, brofo.

ipso facto mofo: No muss; no fuss; no brains

We live in a modern apartment complex, with many conveniences and amenities. One such is the garbage disposal chute, conveniently located just a few steps down the corridor from the apartment. You open the chute door and the 21st century gravity-powered amenity disposes of your garbage. No muss; no fuss.

Unless some moron forces something, like a cardboard packing box, into the chute, thereby disabling it. Such stupidity will necessitate the use of the 20th century alternative convenience, namely taking your garbage via the elevator to the basement, and dropping it directly into the compactor. No muss; just a little fuss.

Unless the prescient management posts signs next to the chutes, requesting that residents refrain from using the chutes until the blockage has been rectified, so to speak. The posted signs state the obvious, but, seemingly, not obvious enough, because they omit mentioning what the imbecile residents are to do with their garbage in the interim.

Naturally, if imbeciles are required to engage brains they don't have, they will simply leave their garbage right in front of the chutes, piling up to the ceiling. No muss; no fuss; no brains. Do the math.

F*cking idiots!

Result of test poll "America's Top Priority?" is "Not perish from the earth"

Recently, Blogger in draft enabled the Create a poll Page Element. I decided to test this new Blogger function by embedding my America's Top Priority? test poll in the sidebar of my blog's main page. The results are in.

After an avalanche of voting over a few days' interval, I am satisfied that the Blogger poll functions as expected. As a side benefit, the results of my test poll also match my expectations.

The overwhelming majority (6/7 voters) selected the logical response, the precondition for all other priorities. Furthermore, I am pleased to discover that nobody chose to admit don't know, and that nobody chose don't care, which I euphemistically labeled not American. And, as I expected, nobody knowingly acknowledged don't think.

Nevertheless, as also anticipated, there was an outlier, a vote that unknowingly acknowledged don't think, which I euphemistically labeled other. This vote was cast by the Summa Cum Laude graduate of The School for the Perpetually Perplexed.

What the World Needs Now

Wikipedia attributes this observation to Robert Kennedy, 'This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.' I am quite confident Bobby was right when he said it. It may even be an apt observation today. I believe, however, other "demands" may be more apropos, including a reassessment of Bobby's premise concerning the qualities he attributed to youth.

Today's youth is roughly two generations removed from the youth familiar to the rather youthful Bobby Kennedy and his clan. Having been a youth during Bobby's campaign for President (and enthusiastically planning to vote for him) I have the experience to make a comparison, albeit not an infallible one, between the youth of the '60s and today's youth. I readily admit that my memory is not as good as it used to be, however. And I am obliged to limit my unscientific and very broad-stroke comparison to middle class American youth.

I will, moreover, impose further limitation on the scope of my comparison, befitting a blog post analysis such as this, by acknowledging that 'a predominance of courage over timidity' and 'the appetite for adventure over the love of ease' remain enduring qualities of youth. Furthermore, the quality Bobby referred to as 'a temper of the will' is much too difficult to assess because it lends itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations. Thus, only 'a quality of imagination' remains, and that is where I do observe a noticeable difference.

I have the sense that in my day, we relied much more on our imaginations in dealings with the world around us. This was undoubtedly true in entertainment, from childhood to adulthood. Toys, games, sports, in fact all manner of play had imagination as its primary ingredient. Today's toys, games, sports, and all manner of play require first and foremost a goodly supply of extra batteries. And it is not much of a stretch to conclude that besides the so-called brain drain, there has been a significant concentration of the finite supply of human imagination into the electronics and computer technology industries.

Today's youth, it seems to me, requires imagination as much as any preceding generation did. The difference, as I see it, is that our generation's supply was largely self generated. Today's youth shops for theirs.

The Ace of Procrastination

A clever essay on procrastination by a Cornell blogger reminded me of my 4th year roommate at Cornell (mine was a 5-year undergraduate curriculum in Engineering Physics). My roommate John was a procrastinator extraordinaire. He was also the only personal acquaintance I have ever had with a math genius.

John's routine was to attend the first class of every lecture course, which for him was every course, since he had switched majors from physics to math to avoid having to register for lab courses. His sole purpose in attending the first class was to find a classmate who would inform him of an upcoming prelim (Cornell speak for "major exam"). I don't know if any money changed hands, but John's classmate also would agree to let John borrow his class notes when he had finished studying them. This usually happened past midnight the night before a prelim.

On one such occasion, the prelim was a midterm exam in one of John's math courses. He confidently returned home from his classmate's with the notebook he needed. As usual it was after midnight, but the prelim was scheduled for the morning. There simply wasn't enough time to wade through all the notes for half the semester.

Nevertheless, John aced the exam. In particular, he was the only one who managed a correct proof for one of the questions. The professor was impressed, but also somewhat perplexed. According to the professor's annotation in John's graded prelim booklet, John had used a proof the professor had never seen before. But the professor was confused why John avoided using the traditional proof they had covered in the course.

I am not sure if John ever revealed his reason for using his original proof, but he did assist the professor grading exams for the remainder of this course as well as for the other courses taught by this professor. John's monetary compensation was nominal. The real payoff for John was that his attendance in class was not required.

Re: Daily Dose of Wisdom #1

In reading one of Norm's posts today, concerning views on liberty, it occurred to me that liberty may be one of those concepts that lends itself to adjudication.

As a natural scientist by training, I favor adjudicating the laws of natural origin using the scientific method. If philosophical theories are to be adjudicated, however, alternative means must be employed. As a scholarly discipline, philosophy, in my layman's view, is more akin to jurisprudence than to physics. Perhaps liberty can be adjudicated as per the most famous opinion from Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), decided by the United States Supreme Court.

Liberty. I knew it when I saw it.

Only One Issue Matters

It is not surprising that the forest is obscured by the trees. The mediacrity, fueled by a blizzard of smoke, mirrors, and sundry bullsh*t emanating from every Tom, Dick, and Harry (mostly Dicks), diverts attention from the only issue that matters in national elections.

Health care? It's a tree, albeit a Redwood. Immigration? Tree. Crime? Tree. Education? Weeping Willow. Taxes? Money tree. Social Security and Medicare? Ditto. Iraq? Woodshed. Separation of Church and State? Burning bush. Supreme Court nominees? Tree of knowledge. Congress? Dogwood.

The name of the forest is Survival. And the only questions that need be answered by the electorate are, 'Which candidate for President of the United States understands that America must be protected from those determined to set the forest ablaze? And which candidate is capable of preventing such a forest fire?'

If the integrity of the forest is assured, the trees comprise the agenda, to be dealt with using all the wood chippers in place at the T[h]ree Branches. The Forest Ranger in Chief has a [wood] Cabinet to do the heavy lifting for the Executive wood chippers. Congress does whatever. And the Supreme Court resolves the hopelessly deadlocked issues. But nothing matters if Job One fails.

The greatest Ranger of all said it for all time: '[T]hat government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.' In national election campaigns, it's the forest, stupid.

They Did Survive

They were newlyweds when driven from their home by the plague. For two and a half years they struggled for more life. Their struggle bore fruit in an unexpected way, and became more difficult after their son was born. Youthful naiveté, nature's gift of optimism, gave them the will to follow the example of their ancient Patriarch. They struggled for more life.

Their struggle lasted a decade. Though the plague had been eradicated four years before, the last weeks of their struggle were particularly harsh. And now they knew their personal Diaspora would last forever. They were heading for a new home.

At last, a miraculous pill, a gift from one of the American ship's officers, lifted their queasiness. And as the morning mist lifted in empathy, their miraculous day continued. The ship steamed into the harbor, welcomed by the grandest lady of all. It was the first of fifty celebrations of their personal Day of Liberty: October 24, 1949.

{A personal remembrance dedicated to Mary}

Cocktail in a Styrofoam Cup

Over at my favorite normblog, Norm offers up a political cocktail with an irony twist. If, however, I had served Norm's cocktail in a Styrofoam cup, which Norm would never do, the not so subliminal message would have been: p*ssy sells.

My second favorite piece of political wisdom (the first is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) is Churchill's famous dictum: 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' Lincoln and Churchill were speaking about a form of government, and democratic government of the people, by the people, for the people beats the crap out of all the others, to put it less elegantly than those two of my favorite political heroes.

But elections, most especially American elections, are not a form of government. They are the quintessential form of selling. Each candidate for the Presidency will require about a 9-figure advertising budget! And all those candidates' debates are nothing more than a precisely orchestrated dog and pony shootout. If you really think anyone is ever saying anything other than what their campaign management team has determined will win, rather than lose potential votes, then I invite you to call me about some very reasonably priced beach front property in Arizona.

Ultimately, a thinking (as opposed to a shopping) American voter needs to divine what the principal (careful, NOT principled) candidates would do in a crisis. Would they act as Lincoln, Washington, Churchill, Truman, and George W. Bush had? Or do some other, lesser "leaders" come to mind? Good luck shopping for an answer to that question.

Confessions of a Bladdict: #1

Before you dismiss as a throwaway my 'Get a wife' response to Norm's 'What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger?' let me elaborate. Blogging is a self-feeding addiction. Without a caring wife to intervene, a bladdict will lose his sense of space and time; and everything else, including bladder contents, will fall through the cracks, so to speak.

A wife, if you are lucky, will drag you from your bit-induced stupor into the real world of atomic delights: eating, drinking, and merrymaking. Of course, sooner or later, the lesser delights of laundry, garbage disposal, and shopping will remind you of your other existence, which, as luck would have it, is but a desk chair away. Dude, man, it doesn't get much better.

ipso facto mofo: Lame ducks? Stupid f*cks? I'll take the former ...

Term limits are a good idea. Why? Because elected officials have just two items on their todo list:

1. get reelected
2. get the people's work done

Guess which one has top priority. The only effective means for getting the people's work done is to eliminate the top priority item from the todo list. The only way to do that, short of enduring a national catastrophe that gets the attention of even our Self-serving Branch of Government, is to impose term limits. That way, the people's servants can finally attend to the people's business when they have become lame ducks. Sort of like that very funny character in those TV ads, who comes to the rescue when disaster strikes.

While the President is not trying to get reelected so he can serve his people as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief, our Congress is serving itself by doing everything it can to check and balance sanity with its opposite. Meanwhile, the nation is threatened by mortal enemies, the infrastructure is falling apart, and the people are dying.

Time to amend the Constitution? Do the math.