Jesus Camp - we don't need to think

Tonight, I watched the movie "Jesus Camp" for the first time. I've seen pieces of it on YouTube. I've heard and read many others' opinions about it. I had no doubt that I would be opposed to the ideas presented. However, I expected to find something redeeming, too. Jesus's sermons are mostly lessons of peace and understanding. But there was nothing good to find.

I've now seen the face of the forces that are working to turn back the clock for the human race. They are, without doubt, committed to seeing the progress of the world, made mostly through reason and openness, undone so that the twisted view of the bible they have adopted can be made real. They see no sense in any ecological thinking because the world is given wholly to the people of the garden of eden. For them there is no question that united states was founded as a christian nation and that president GW Bush was the best chance we had for revival. War is sanctioned by Paul the apostle. Faith is most genuine in children and should be reinforced in them with no question. Public schools are godless and therefore evil. Most of all, without having their exact view on all thing to do with Jesus, you will surely burn in hellfire.

For me, the most shocking thing was near the start when the woman preacher, who is in much of the film, was talking about how "Muslim kids" are trained to use rifles and grenades from the age of 5. This absolutely does happen, just as militias in the mountains of the US do the same. But what shocked me was the obvious passion and zest she had saying that her kids for Christ should have the same kind of lust for giving their lives for god as do those kids. She wants warriors. She wants blood. She sees no conflict in loving kids and wanting them to die. Why should she? Clearly they don't go to 72 virgins, but they go to a better place for sure.

"We don't need to think about what we believe about homosexual activities, it's written in the bible." says Ted Haggard. Ironies of hindsight of that man saying it aside, the message is clear: "we don't need to think". I can't come up with a more insidious thing to tell a child.

What I'm left wondering is this: is it too late? What can one do against such willful ignorance?

The Rally for Sanity: Really?

Unless you've been willfully ignoring mass media, you've heard about Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity". I went. I never do such things. I've been to some political events before, but all when I was in college and all when I stumbled on things going on in NYC. Mostly they turned me off. Rallying never seemed to make much of a difference. So I'm going to attempt to explain a bit about why I did go to this, and give some impressions of what I saw.

When I told people I was going, I was asked a number of questions about the motives of the rally: "Isn't it just a concert and a show?" "Isn't it just the same old liberal media/MSM folks doing something to copy Glen Beck?" "Isn't this just to make Jon Stewart richer?" "Isn't this just a proxy rally for the Democrats?" "Isn't this just a big reaction to the tea party?" "Isn't this just an anti-fox news rally?" The answer to all of these is the same. Maybe so. There's no way for me to know what the real motivations are. But I didn't go for any of those reasons, though some of them are appealing and others are quite unappealing to me. I went for one simple reason. The political discourse in this country is broken. There is no real dialogue. There is a series of monologues. Even if it was only on the surface, the stated reason for this event was to try and counter that with some sanity, reason and thoughtfulness. And if it was going to be just a bit like that, it seemed worth supporting. Throw in that my wife really wanted to go, too, and that we have friends in the DC area we could hook up with, and we had enough motivation to make it.

There were some other questions I was commonly asked: "Isn't this rally every bit as extreme but on the other side [than the tea party]?" "You always complain about big money interfering in politics, and isn't this just that and not even trying to hide it?" "You say you're an independent, but you're going to a democratic rally - why?" "What good is it to gather around paid celebrities when it comes to politics?" How extreme, how democratic (versus independent) and how celebrity focused the rally was were things I didn't think I could judge without seeing it. And, even if it turned out to be all three, that idea of a calmer kind of discourse was appealing enough for me to get over it. And I liked that they were not trying to hide who was sponsoring the event, why and with what biases. I wish every political event was so obvious about where the money comes from. I'm for transparency above all things. Comedy Central simply must be shocked at how much success they've gotten from Jon Stewart. It's not like he had such a stellar track record previous to The Daily Show. It's my opinion that the content really does come from him and his crew if only because his success was his own formula and no executive would ever mess with a cash cow once it started delivering the milk.

The stuff on stage was OK. Not incredibly inspiring and not all that political - at least not directly. Having the Mythbuster guys was a nod to science, I'd guess. A bit of a lame one, but I'll take it. Stewart and Colbert were very funny, as they usually are. But if you've seen their act before it was nothing shocking. Stewart did his best to be heartfelt and did better than usual at it, but kept it brief and mercifully un-hokey. The one thing that really did it for me was Tony Bennett singing America the Beautiful. That was awesome. And I have to say that it was nice that it ended promptly as promised.

The interesting bits for me were in the crowd. First of all, everyone was so polite. There were a LOT of people there. And I saw nor heard any squabbling or mean words. Maybe every rally of like minded people is like that. But I've been to other big events (concerts, etc.) and never seen a crowd behave so well. Of course there were signs. Most were about issues, and most of those simply urged people to participate in politics and remain civil. The second highest concentration went for comedy. Some were more directly political. Of the political ones, most were anti tea party pundit. I say tea party pundit and not tea party because most were concerned with Palin, O'Donnell and other tea party celebrities. I saw only one sign that mentioned the tea party without pointing directly at those personalities. The only other political signs were supporting Obama and most of those were the ones with the Obama campaign image and the byline "probably not trying to destroy America". Overall, I thought the crowd was living up to the billing. Everyone was being engaged, topical yet civil. There was no one I saw that seemed to be "extreme" in any way save perhaps their willingness to go the extra mile for a cool Halloween costume - there were quite a few very realistic zombies roaming the crowd.

I was disappointed not to see any right leaning or conservative voices being overtly represented. There were some signs pointing out overspending and one saying that "to reduce spending one ought to look at the biggest parts of the budgets". That was about as conservative as it got. I knew it would be a socially liberal crowd, which is fine with me. And I was handed and subsequently wore a Panned Parenthood sticker supporting better access to birth control. And there were other represenatives of various social causes roaming the crowds to hand out materials. But I had hoped there would be more at least overtly centerist participation. But maybe that's a symptom of people like myself with a libertarian streak also not being the type to carry signs. Judging by the number of folks who were my age and older, which while not the majority were absolutely 40% of the people I saw by my reckoning, there may have been a lot of people thinking the same things. But there's no way to tell.

If I had to give the rally a grade based on it's stated purposes, it would be a B+. The crowd may get an A. But the content gets a B-. I give the crowd a bit more weight because a rally really ought to be about what happens in the crowd as near as I can tell. I would have liked to see more intellectual meat on the stage, and less clips from news media. I was happy I went. Partially because it was a good time all in, including seeing friends, getting time with the wife away from home and taking advantage of rewards programs I fatten through so much travel for work. But it was also good to have gone to see that there are many people who seem to want to take the volume level in politics down a few notches. And it was very heartening that so many seemed to support a scientific worldview - I wore a tee shirt with Einstein on it in a faux Che silhouette and the byline "viva la relativity" and it got a huge number of positive comments and thumbs up from the crowd. So while I didn't get anything but good entertainment from what was on stage, I did feel I got something worthwhile from the other people there.

three little words

Perhaps the simplest and most profound statement of my understanding of Nietzsche's contribution to human thought is expressed in a letter to his sister in 1865. Nietzsche writes "Every true faith accomplishes what the person who has the faith hopes to find in it; but faith does not offer the least support for a proof of objective truth." In this quote, there is the nature of faith, its relation to truth and the relationship of humanity, faith and truth; all three cast in Nietzsche's unique viewpoint. Faith finds its origins in humanity's desires. The truth, something external to humanity, is unaffected by the faiths of people. And though it is in the individual and collective minds of thinkers that these things reside, they are affected by the concepts as much as the concepts are affected by them.

The first notion, that faith is a purely human thing, may be the most revolutionary idea of the three. That truth was out of human hands may have been easily accepted by many in Nietzsche's day, just as many think truth is out of human hands today. That is what the rising tide of religious fervor would have you believe - all liberal and conservative, extremist and moderate forms of it. Truth is divine only, the swallow would fall from the sky were it not for the will of god. Or in the more moderate form: only god knows for sure. But faith is always portrayed as a gift. We are granted faith from above. This gift is one of a benevolent abundance of gifts in the religious view. It is faith that allows us to know god; it is requirement to know god. Faith is also seen as a gift bestowed from father to son, mother to daughter, generation to generation. The faith and ways of our forebears being part of the pantheon of tradition that we are all to revere without question. So for Nietzsche to say that faith is something wholly of the mind, something that is sourced from the individual, is very revolutionary. Of course, here in this quote, he only speaks of "true faith". That is a real living idea which animates people's actions; it is not the stories and ideas of a culture as "a faith" is sometimes used to name. We can take this "true faith" to mean something like the opposite of Sartre's "bad faith". For Nietzsche, a "true faith", faith that would motivate people to believe and act in some specific way, is always personal - even if it is appropriated from one's father. It takes a great act of personal will to have this kind of faith. People would be presented opportunities to break their faith daily, and so there is immense effort required to preserve faith. Even stranger, many do break their faith regularly and then twist their minds, even their memories, to somehow bring the world, their memory of the world and their faith into alignment again. So much energy is spent defending this faith, faith battered on by the world like cliffs of salt battered by ocean waves.

What are these waves? They are the ever present pressures of the senses telling us what the world around has to offer. And this stream of data, this font of potential in-formation, is the only source, the only possible root from which one can grow, objective truth. I think in this day anyone who utters "objective truth" gets a chill. It seems like a shadow or a myth. Postmodernism has banished it. "You can't know anything, knowledge is merely opinion" quips Tim Minchin via his characiture of our silly age, who labels herself Storm. And there is this feeling among people that all perspectives are of equal weight. That one idea is just as good as another. Worst of all, there is this notion that science and philosophy support this multi-truthed view. The notion is this: truth is dead. Its death contributes to the resurrection of god, the latest religious revivals. After all, if there is no truth to be had in science, if the efforts of math and physics have ended with a thud, if no answers are coming; why not turn to god and religion where all answers are right there for you on the page? But there are those nagging waves. The senses and their evidence. The data of what happens around us. There is the ever present reality we all share and the rules we know to govern it. The persistence of the light lit from electricity generated kilometers away, made to work by applying principles that work every time. And as long as religious fanatics broadcast themselves on youtube, they will reveal the deep irony of living in a world where our knowledge of our shared reality, our access to objective truth, will always mock their faiths in things we cannot see and cannot burn for fuel and cannot use to make light to read by or videos in which to opine.

Finally, there is the notion of how interconnected are truth, faith and humanity. Humanity needs truth. Humanity needs faith. It may be found that these things, our symbolic representations of our world and our fidelity to them, are our defining traits. It is already known that we are distinguished from other primates by our ability to learn what we are shown as we are shown. Even if something odd or off is completely evident in the things we are shown, we will take them in as given. And it is thought this is an adaptation to allow us to receive wisdom without having to fully grasp it. How can you tell the 3 year old that stepping on the green rocks is bad because the moss is slippery and you will fall? Instead the three year olds that have survived have been those who simply do not step on the rocks that grandma does not step on - simply because grandma did not do it and for no other reason. And that unquestioning acceptance is amazingly efficient at transmitting crucial information about how to traverse rivers. It is shockingly bad at allowing us to learn truth in a world that changes so fast that the generation born today will hardly have any experience in common with the generation born just 10 years before them - and so on into the future unless we commit some horrible act of war that resets the pace of change. If we cannot learn to reject the faith of our upbringing as new data demands it, if we cannot learn to change our thoughts about the world as it's presented to us as we find ever more clever ways to see, then we are advancing without hope and developing skills no one will wield. So where can we place faith, faith we so desperately need to have, such that it does not destroy our ability to see? From what kind of source can we extract truth that would not be corrupted by the instrument we use to learn it? How can we live, in faith, and with truth, as humanity? Of course, Nietzsche would say we must overcome our humanity. For now, I am too timid to guess what that may mean.

the USA a christian nation? quote questions

i was reading about some quotes from obama about the relationship of christianity to the USA's founding. this is always a topic that irks me. the idea that the USA was founded on christian principles is a new revisionist one. it suits the agendas of people today more than anything else. but the reaction of the far left and secularists is also troublesome. to state that christianity, the single most influential force in western culture, had no hand in the ideas that founded the US, even in a negative light if you wish, is absurd.

i was reading the comments on the article when i came across one that pulled out many of the alleged quotes from founding fathers (and Lincoln of course) that dispute the US christian connection. so i decided to look them up, something i had not done before.

first there was the quote: "The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion", which was attributed to George Washington & John Adams. this one appears legit and is sourced from article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli. but it's not that black and white. first, the treaty was specifically aimed at appeasing muslims in tripoli. so one could immediately wonder if this wasn't political styling versus the whole truth. but then, there is also dispute over whether the quote even made it to the arabic version. and really this is only a restatement of the establishment clause of the first amendment of the US constitution. so there is nothing radical or new here.

second there is: "This would be the best of all possible worlds,
if there were no religion in it.", which is attributed to John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. again, this is legitimate, but is taken far out of context. the whole quote is:

"Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell."

so clearly this is not any indication of atheism or even rejection of chritianity on Adams' part. it's a man struggling with religion on a personal level.

third we have a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." i could not even find a satisfactory source for this one, but there are many instances of it being attributed in many places. and it is consistent with things Lincoln is known to have said about religion and christianity. again, though, all this does is portray a man struggling with religion. well that he should in the face of a horrible war, a mentally ill wife, the death of his children and dealing with slavery.

lastly there is the lion of the secular quotes in US history, Thomas Jefferson: "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." what's funny is that the one they pick here seems to be disputed. again, though, Jefferson proves a man of his times that struggled with religion and faith:

"Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. ... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision."

this is from a letter to a friend. Jefferson's work provides much evidence that he was likely a deist and rejected all organized religion in his own life, but he also saw value to religion in the fabric of a society. perhaps the most revealing quote from Jefferson is this simple wisdom: "He who steadily observes the moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ." this is taken from another letter.

in the end, the silliness of chasing quotes from men long dead who themselves saw many sides to these issues should be plain. the US is not explicitly a christian nation, and it says as much in the constitution. the US was founded by men who, for the most part, believed in some form of a god and were profoundly influenced by christianity, one way or another. and, in a move more profound than they could have known, those men left room for future generations to define things for themselves. and this should be the real arena of concern. what we say today, what we do today, what we allow people to define this nation as today is the real issue. let's be sure we leave room for everything we are.

happy new year all.

moral revolution

When is the last time the west had a moral revolution? Civil rights in
the US? Suffragettes in England? No. Both were just the logical
extension the west's prevailing moral attitudes. They were changes in
social, civil attitudes. As was said "men, their rights and no more;
women, their rights and no less." Those rights, their moral
entitlements, were long established. Similar with the civil rights
movement. There was no question what MLK jr meant when he said he had a
dream. That dream was well lodged in the collective consciousness.

To find the last moral revolution, you need to go very far back,
indeed. Though it pains me to credit him for anything, you need to
look to Descartes' era of thought. The idea that was so morally
revolutionary was the sovereignty of the individual. The idea that
each person had in them a universe to be reckoned with and that such a
reckoning had consequence for all. It was the codifying of the
assumption of our whole US culture and the force in the "me" of the
"me generation". That the world could not ignore any one person for
fear of violating a vast realm of ideas, this was a revolutionary
moral notion. And the apparent fact that this only applied to
european, caucasian males was only a vestigial, social, political
notion - one being shaken off over time.

In the last 10 years in the US, especially with the rise of the new
left, there seems to be a backlash forming against this "me" focus.
People at least pay lip service to living with others in mind, others
around us and those in far corners of the world. But it hardly seems
to dent the way any of us live. Are we too far wedged into the gears
of the machine? Is this not the harbinger of a new moral view and just
a slight pang of guilt - soon to be cleared up when "the next big
thing" hits? It seems all the discussions in politics have become
decidedly moral in tone. Not the usual sanctimonious politician
feigning righteousness for efficacy, but a real, gut reaction to right
and wrong in the eye of these beholders. If anything, the simplicity
demanded from politicians today, in word, deed and mind, seems to
smell of the return of the US mind to moral thoughts. Moral thoughts
always must seem simple.

having faith like a professional

The word faith is much abused. Faith makes many think of something very specific. It is a word the conjures religion. "You must have Faith, my son." "Faith is your only weapon in the fight to save the world!" But faith has a much less grandiose meaning here. Faith is a belief without proof. A belief is an idea we would attest to being true (True in some way. Gödel spoils truth with a big "t", but truth will serve as a word still, for now.). An idea is a thought we can express to some satisfaction in communication. And a thought is just a species of meme. What a meme is is best explained by others. I have understood a meme to be data capable of causing in-formation, where in-formation is a verb that is a process leading to information the noun. I struggle with whether the capability to inform is required for a meme, but the informing meme, even if there are other types, is the only type of meme that is interesting here. It is from this simple origin in a meme that an idea forms we feel is true so strongly that even in the absence of any evidence we will attest its truth. That attestation is the act of faith.

The more common forms of faith - faith in gods and supernatural occurrences - are indeed forms of the faith considered here. But faith in the supernatural is not the only form of faith. One may have faith in almost anything, though many things do not compel faith. Some would say it requires faith to believe that the sun will rise each day. The deep skepticism and cynicism required to doubt the inferential arguments of eons of daily sunrises coupled with science's demonstrations of the mechanics of the solar system is not common though. To rule out a lifetime of seeing the sun rise each day as evidence is, to me, excessive. That is not to say it cannot be done. One may have faith that the earth will not be hit by an earth destroying object from space today. The inferential evidence here is, of course, weaker. It is only negative evidence one can offer - so far this has failed to happen every day we have recorded history. There is also less evidence from science about what is out in space potentially ready to hit the earth. Again, it comes down to a question of the line drawn for evidence. How one considers evidence is core to how one draws up articles of faith and belief. What is considered good evidence for a belief? That is the question. For that which we feel is true but cannot rely on evidence, we have only faith as an option. Failing to have faith in the absence of evidence means giving up a belief and resigning the idea to being untrue.

Clearly, this is all very formal. The abuse of faith is abuse in the public square. The arguments offered in the informal world of everyday communication do not have such strict definitions of concepts like faith, belief, evidence, ideas, etc. And thus the abuse is in the eye of the beholder - the eye of the stricter practitioner of reason. Much in the same way a professional driver must shiver every trip through the streets of his home town watching how other people drive, much like a celebrated chef must get chills each time they stand in the kitchen at a friend's home watching them prepare a meal, the philosopher will be disturbed by how people argue their points in the public square. The lack of formality, the gross abuse of terms, the misuse of evidence, the offering of eons old fallacies as good bits of argument, all these things are like the grating sounds of fingernails on chalkboards. But, without any doubt, the reason someone pays the professional driver to drive is because they are so much better than average. Is it a good thing to wish everyone to be an expert? The world would benefit little if everyone was as adept at driving as professionals. But wouldn't the world benefit greatly if everyone could reason as well as the philosophers? Wouldn't it be good if simple words like faith were understood and not abused?

Faith is the bridge to all knowledge

Faith is the bridge to all knowledge. Any person who would make a case, who would prove their point, who would plea for truth in their notions will come to rely on faith in some form. It is the necessity of every syllogism. It is the animus of every argument - even the argument that there is no "faith" to be had. It is here that we find the dark specter of the Aristotelian error. Strip away the world, peel back each action and they say you find some thing a priori. But the matter which comes first is stripping and peeling the ideas of the world. And at the base of every idea you will find that thing one will not be denied. That thing one may not even be aware of - or able to express. This is the idea prima facie. This is the axiom to which all other ideas are like dew clinging in the morning. Under the light of the mind the dew will be gone, but the faith in one's axiom remains.

Whence come these axioms? How are they formed? Where do they find ground to grow and nourishment to thrive in one's mind? Does all that beg the question of mind? What is mind that it should bring forth axioms and the dewy notions that cling to them? The philosopher can not hope to hold sway over these answers any more. Science is the source from which all ontology must flow or be considered nonsense. We question the dew in the morning, but we can only do so by acknowledging the sun, the grass, the day, the earth and all that which common sense codified in process and method shows us. We live on a planet named Earth. The stars are distant beyond imagining and burn like a fire larger and hotter than anything we will ever truly know. The moon circles round the Earth, but the Sun stays fixed relatively at the center of our little part of the universe. Any first world child can tell you all these things, yet they were beyond the reach of all but the greatest minds for most of humanity's existence. All this science has laid bare. What we take from this - and all the other sundry input the world offers us - that is where the axioms we have come from.

We put a stake in the ground and take the moisture clinging to it in the morning light as nourishment. We ponder, or not, and we reach a place where we feel we understand what is going on - how ill fated a thought to have, but we all succumb to it. And it all starts with the morning of our minds, stirred by the rising of a fixed sun and aware of the fading, changing moon; when we look around at all that is plain to see and choose to think something of it. Our will binds us to an idea so real that the dew finds it solid enough to cling to. From there, we make the world's image.

the meaning of life (a modest post)

Today I found out that a friend died. He was not someone I was very close with, but he is the first person my age and connected to many people I know that has passed away. I recently started to re-read all of Nietzsche's works. As best as I can tell, I'm doing this to seek meaning. Of course, that's nothing new. I do that all the time - to a noticeable fault. Perhaps it's the convergence of Nietzsche and this untimely death, but I find myself feeling very lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to be sitting high up the mountain. Lucky to be able to say these things at all.

Long ago I decided I was not smart enough to defy history. George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." My modification is that those who are aware of history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it. I have made many of the choices in my life with this in mind. I've pursued the things that the vast majority of people, philosophers, moralists and writers have said yield fulfillment and happiness. And it seems I've gotten most of them - along with most of the attendant happiness.

But what is a person's responsibility to the world? A poet friend told me raising a strong family is the most noble thing one can do in the face of a world determined to destroy the family for capitalist advancement. But is doing something noble enough? Am I just really early for the mid life freak out?

US Christians make move to take Canada

BUFFALO, Ny., Nov. 16, 2008 - In a surprise move, the majority of the self identified "Conservative Christians" in the United States began a mass exodus to Canada today. Numbering about 23 million at last report, people coordinated through their Sunday services began a journey to Canada. At the time of this report, many had already crossed the border and were starting to cause a stir on the Canadian side. Crossing the border at open points far from typical crossings, they were simply walking in droves or driving in caravans.

One report filed by a local reporter near Niagara Falls quotes a Christian migrant saying "We are just trying to find a way to protect our faith and values". Most of the people asked would not say much more.

One very notable figure in this exodus is none other than Governor Sarah Palin, former candidate for the Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket. When asked about her motivations, she commented at length for CNN. "Me and the family are just thrilled to be blazing new trails for our Lord and Savior," said Palin. "I would have loved to help save the United States, but it's just clear that that is not going to happen. It was pretty hard for me to keep the cat in the bag, but when Pat Robertson asked me to endorse and participate in his Mission Canada I couldn't resist." Pat Robertson and his organization were unavailable for comment at the time of this release. When asked for details about "Mission Canada", Governor Palin was sparse on details, "I don't think I know all the parts. At leats [sic], I haven't been told if I do. I know it will take some of those poor people in Texas a long time to join us up here in the new promise land. And I know that the Catholics and Mormons aren't welcome."

Simon Coakeley, Executive Director of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, was reached for comment in his home just outside Ottawa. "I have no idea what makes these people feel they can just walk into this country, but I'm afraid they're going to find it's not that simple. We welcome people of all faiths, races and creeds, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about joining the great Canadian family" said Director Coakeley.

It is widely being commented in various news channels that the loss of Senator McCain and Governor Palin in the 2008 Presidential campaign is to blame for the migration. One sound bite that is being circulated is a comment by Franklin Graham, son of Pastor Billy Graham. In the audio only clip, Franklin Graham is asked by a reporter what he thinks about the then falling numbers for McCain's presidential bid and he responds "These United States won't know what happened when all the good Christians they are slighting simply stop participating in the nation all together." The comment is now thought to be foreshadowing this exodus. Governor Palin also had a comment about the overall motives, "I sure did learn a lot in the recent campaign. I was shocked when I found out the the constitution really didn't say anything about Christianity at all and that all the references to God on US money and in pledges was [sic] put there in the 1950s. So that made it much easier for me to think about leaving to try again."

According to data collected in July 2007, the entire population of Canada is 33,390,141 persons. The vast majority of those concentrated in areas along the Canada's border with the United States. With the current known number of Christians leaving the United States in this "mission", it will be very interesting to see how it all plays out.

the anti-cave

It's been a long time since a post, but I'll still be brief as I'm doing this waiting for other things to finish. I feel compelled to write a little bit because of watching THX 1138, the science fiction movie by george lucas that preceded his star wars fame. The movie is long and complex, but the important part for us, dear reader, is the very end. At the end, a man who has spent his life embedded in a strange, cavernous, underground city doing odd and seemingly empty tasks coordinated by a huge, faceless bureaucracy emerges into the sunlight of the surface world. This immediately evoked Plato's Allegory of the Cave for me. In brief, Plato's story is about people in a cave looking at shadows on the walls they are completely convinced are the whole world. The story tells us about one brave enough to break with the peer pressure and emerge from her cave and see the daylight and the real objects the shadows on the wall pretended to be. The similarity of Lucas's movie to Plato's Cave is striking, and I'm sure it's no accident either.

However, it seems to me that there is a huge shift in perspective between the two stories. Plato's point is that what we see in the cave is like what we see every day. The real world of our every day experiences is Plato's cave - according to Plato. The sunlight that we would emerge to see is the world of "forms". These are the universal truths that underly our universe. Almost all modern science descends from the basic principle Plato lays out here: the world is illusory but there are eternal truths to be discovered for those who seek them in the right way.

Not that I would put Lucas on the same plane as Plato, but it's interesting to me how his movie contrasts this. In THX 1138, the world is the city man has made and that is driven by all his inventions. These inventions, of course, are the products of scientific pursuits. Everything in this city is essentially the embodiment of an idea. Safe to say that it's an attempt to build a world more closely modeled after the universal forms Plato gives to the scientists. This world, based on the ideas of man and built by the engineers who make those ideas come to life, is so horrifying, so bleak that all the hero of the movie can do is contemplate getting out of it.

Is it just a sign of the times? Or are we damned if we do (go out into Plato's sunlight) or damned if don't (escape Plato's sunlight in favor of the actual Sun in Lucas's movie)?

Ask a hardened scientist and you'll likely get blame pointed at the engineers of the city for building it all wrong. The engineers will blame the scientists for not designing it correctly. Everyone will blame the philosophers for setting the bar too high - asking for the impossible. Almost no one will blame themselves. Yet another herd of oxen running full bore across the plains without any idea where it's going - just hoping they are following the right trail.

who cares how ignorant bliss is?

The title is a line from "How Little It Matters, How Little We Know" (Words & Music by Carolyn Leigh & Phillip Springer; Recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1956). The song talks about chemistry - the lab coat and bubbling liquids kind - right alongside romance. People didn't seem to think that was odd. Most people know the song "Swinging on a Star" (Words & Music by Jimmy Van Heusen; recorded by Bing Crosby in 1944, but I like Tony Bennet's version best). The song admonishes that if you don't like to go to school you may grow up to be a mule, apparently a rebuke to a whining child at the Crosby dinner table - which of course has it's own oddities to imagine now. Swinging on a Star also talks about bringing back moonbeams in a jar, a reference to the space program and the possibility of being an astronaut if you live right and make good choices. These songs, and many from this generation of songwriters and "crooners" were considered very challenging to societal norms for presenting their ideas in such a casual way. That little element of romance and that suave attitude of being upward moving in society were enough to make them seem slightly irksome to many. But they were not telling people to screw their friends, go for the bucks any way they could or live for today and nothing else.

Am I not in touch with new music enough to find more mindful thoughts in today's music? I hear way too much of the Disney output thanks to having an adolescent daughter. There is surely no good advice being doled out there. It's harmless in part, irreverent in the bad, directionless way for some parts and generally mindless for the vast part. I know pop music isn't talking about living a good life and thinking about your future mindfully. I still listen to a lot of the music of my college days. There is some intelligence in it to be sure. But it all seems soured, cynical. Any talk about the future is negative and there is no room for advice other than "get yours". That sounded more genuine at some point. But now it seems like a cop out. There are problems. There always will be. Shouldn't some portion of art discuss how to get on with life, how to live as best as one may?

Music, literature and poetry in the West has always been an odd thing. Chaucer and Shakespeare wrote to the common people of their times. Chaucer was practically a comic book writer. But they always told well rounded stories and had things to say about all aspects of life. Of course, we only know they existed because their work happened to survive. Were the "indy" playwrights, authors and musicians with this same cutting edge we'll never know? Without knowing, can we say that its more cynical now than it was before? It seems at least the most popular and enduring tales were at least well rounded. Future generations will have to puzzle over us. It seems that everything from our time and many years before will all endure. Everything has been recorded, cataloged, indexed and stored for what will be tantamount to forever compared to things prior to 1950 or so.

Of course, it's hard to ignore the role of religion in art through the ages. If all I wanted to find was some kind of advice in art, then the Christian industry in the US today could provide that by the bucketful. It was just the other day, right here in NJ not even an hour from my house, that I saw a car with so many Christian rock bumper stickers that it barely showed the brake lights. And walking from the PATH train yesterday I saw three different Christian books being advertised in the heart of midtown. And one need only visit the Met or listen to Bach to see how much religion has been in the mind of the artist since the start of recorded history in the West. But I'm looking for something else. I'm not seeking preaching. Shakespeare advising other people of his day is more on the mark. One person to another with no presumption of divine force.

What is the function of art? Does that question even make sense? If art serves nothing, then is it worthwhile? Or is art like so much else and simply needs balance to be in harmony with the world? Should there always be room for Frank Sinatra and Kurt Colbain? Has the passing of shared mores resulted in the passing of art treading on that ground as well? If it's all relative, does that mean artists can't grasp on well enough to depict any of it? I'm left feeling like it's just me - but I don't have evidence for that either. Does this amount to yelling at the wind saying "it was better in my day!" But it didn't really seem better in my day. I had more bliss, but I didn't realize what was making me happy. Youth is an elixir, to be sure. And since it's colorless, tasteless and odorless one doesn't even realize how quickly and deeply it's being drunk. It makes the cynicism seem wise and the mundane seem cool. It may also make the mindful seem boring or long-winded. C'est la art? Maybe I should ask a poet to re-write this.

But if you want money for people with minds that hate; all I can tell you is brother try Wal*Mart aisle 8.

Politics is everywhere today. And in the chats about this party or that, this policy or that, the same ideas float by in many different forms over and over again. This is, among many other places, where I see the stunning lack of and lack of interest in the idea of a well rounded education. So few people, even those with the opportunity to have done so, benefited from a well rounded education. There is a basic lack of connecting ideas to history and history to ideology. This comes up most when people choose sides without any real knowledge of the true differences on the two or more sides in the debate they are entering.

One of the fun things in the news today is the Olympics and all the controversy about China's role as host. One of the things that people always fail to mention is that China had to fight hard to get this role. They didn't just invite the world in, they begged, cajoled and likely even bribed their way into getting people's nose into their nation. Why would they do this? There is no way they could not have predicted the strong and visceral reactions some would have. And by "they" I mean the government officials that would have petitioned the Olympic committees. The people may have been quite unaware in many cases. So if they knew the reaction, why do it?

One sub-topic for this is Tibet. I have always had many issues with the "free Tibet" clan. I do not deny that there has been wrong done by the China regime over many decades. But the story is not as simple as big bad China and little red Dali-Lama-hood. How many people know the role Xinjiang, Quinhai, Islam, Turkey and other influences in the region have played? I don't claim to understand it all, but I do know enough to say I'm not going to make simple sweeping statements because Richard Gere goes on CNN and does his holier than thou act. When looking for materials for this post I stumbled on a very interesting blog that talks a lot about these issues.

Of course, the US itself is tied to China in any number of odd and sundry ways which makes so much of this reaction so terribly absurd. China is to the US what the US is to itself 40-50 years ago. Large, polluting, self-aggrandizing, self-driven, world weary and ultimately tied to the idea that it's "their turn". But ignore the historical comparison and you have the intimate industrial and commercial bond we have. No China, no Wal*Mart. I would love to go around these protests checking tags on clothing to determine the number of people that would be naked without Chinese labor.

I'm not surprised by any of this. When you follow the connections of history and look at the ideologies driving these reactions and factions, it all fits into place. The West, which the US is likely at the forefront of these days, is driven by extreme ideas. It has been for ages. Christianity is a great example. Some people honestly seem to think that there was no religion in Europe before Christ. Or they think the religion was simply some stone age grunting around camp fires. The truth is there was rich and complex and diverse religion. But the West loves a rock star and when a good enough one comes along, they toss over everything that came before in his name. The history of the West can be partially understood as the perfection of this process through technology driving ever faster communication. Christ could never have gone platinum without Roman roads. Luther would never have been such a smash without the printing press. JFK would never have beaten "the man" without TV. Witness the pinnacle of all this: our current consumer culture. We have a new rock star being born, getting crucified and falling dead (and maybe risen on reality and late night TV) at the pace it takes the E! network to put on each night's show. Consumerism is the economic and sociological expression of a revolution addiction. Thank the Hippies (turned Regan Democrats) and their blue jeans for that. They taught the man how to sell their revolution back to them as fast as they could make it up.

So the news pumps out Richard Gere, people takes sides as they like and they get to feel smart. And then things move on to the next big flare up. People want it to move on. People want that next flare up. And now it goes so fast they only hang on for the rush. They are there in the square for the battle - and maybe some stay to declare victory. Most move to the next battle to scream and yell again, though. They are addicted to rebelling. They don't care if they see it through. Most don't even understand the forces driving it. They show up to protest for Tibet in Wal*Mart sandals. They drive 100 miles in their SUV to protest war in Iraq. They scream for abolishing government waste and control while they tap in their vote on Diebold machines. Maybe I'm silly, but I think if they had paid attention more in school, if they had learned to connect ideas together in long chains, they may see their own silliness. I don't hate them. I think they are very silly. I laugh at the absurd, not weep. Sic transit gloria mundi - but they would have had to pay attention in Latin to get that.

bliss by any other name

With the holidays comes a season of social interaction on a level I always face with fear. It's the worst kind of social interaction where norms are so strongly enforced and my paranoia of being truly and deeply offensive is at odds with my instinct to be nothing but open with my loved ones. As always, my fears far out pace reality and the season was a lot of fun. Not surprising to you, who are statistically likely to know me very, very well, my family is generally very intellectual and conversation is always interesting.

After a few whiskeys and a huge meal, I said to my godmother that I fear all who say they know anything. It was embedded in a conversation about religion which descended from a conversation about politics. It's a thought I have always and express seldom. Socrates was on the money as far as I am concerned. We know nothing. We have faith to form axioms and belief to give us the rest. The "knowledge" we have is highly contextualized. This belief of mine gives me a deep mistrust of those that say they know the origin, purpose and future of the universe without any doubt - from any source secular or divine.

We hosted yet another meal and a guest told me I know too much to be happy. We'd been discussing the fed and how the interest rates, tender and other financial aspects of the US government work. After I spent a while going on about it, apparently I'd proved I was too much in the know to qualify for any ignorance benefits. If knowledge is power and power grants right, I guess I have the right to be miserable. Of course, knowledge is only power when it's knowledge of the right kind. What kind of knowledge counts for power has changed over history. Knowledge of how our government's financing works is useful to a point. But what could I *do* with that? Could it give me power over something to know this?

Our ancestors knew the stars better than we do now. They made monuments to track them and to signify their impact in the world as they saw it. And they had great stories to pass this knowledge on. Why? I believe that knowledge was the power to farm, navigate and do many other things with great success through careful planning. Success begot growth, growth begot specialization, specialization begot civilization, civilization begot cities and cities begot good for nothing loafers who didn't need to navigate or farm. But they still knew the stories that came from the stars. In many cases, they used that knowledge to wield new power. The stories had power because they were revered, and they were revered because they have delivered the ability to do things so well in the past. These new keepers of the stories established their right to power by showing they "know" what the stories mean - never mind that the meaning lay back on the farm or out on the plains.

What is knowledge when it is only for the sake of knowing? What did all that knowing get us today? Power suddenly disconnected from its original right. Power used for other things. People who "know" the stories still hold the power. And so I fear them a little bit. Mostly because I believe they don't understand what they think they know. I fear those that follow them a lot more. Those who believe in those who think they know are very dangerous. Even if all they do is live in bliss.

Blink and you'll miss it

Someone from work was telling me about what makes a good camera good. Apparently it has to do with a lens having multiple points of focus. This allows there to be a very sharply defined section of a photo while the rest remains in the background out of focus. The example used was a bird perched on a tree in some jungle where the bird is in great relief and the rest is just a sea of green around it. There is an art, I'm told, to using a good camera like this. Just having one does not grant you a good shot. The skill is in seeing where the good subject is and more-so even being able to manipulate these points of focus to good effect. I immediately picture looking through the camera and pullout out and in as I turned the lens clock and counter. The image in my mind is when I use the zoom back and forth with my cam-corder. The key seems to be where to stop so the picture is just right.

The podcast I listened to on a plane to Rochester New York spoke about ants and the concept of emergence. Emergence is the idea, in this context, that order or intelligence seems to come out of chaos and disorder in some way that is not fully comprehended. It "emerges" from what seems to be nothing. The examples at work in the show were many, but it was the ants which caught me. Ants farm, have cattle, build bridges, dams and do other very human sounding things. I knew that. What I never thought much about was how they knew how to. Any given ant is dumb as a rock. This includes the queen. There also appears to be no means by which ants explicitly communicate. One ant does not tell another ant what it has learned, moreover it seems impossible that any ant learns anything at all. However, as a colony, they do all those human sounding things. How? Where does that knowledge and skill come from? Where does it emerge from? And, the question I have, where do you focus to see it? Is it the species? The colony? Some grouping or order of magnitude larger or smaller? All we know is that one ant can't, but the colony can. Where does the "can" come from?

Moments in history have a way of connecting to form chains. The expression "hind sight is 20/20" comes from the idea that the chains are easy to see when you have benefit of knowing the effects of the causes. Churchill has a Naval defeat in the Mediterranean, and decades later he shows an obvious prejudice that leads to Israel and Palestine being locked together for what seems like may be forever. Who could have said that it would be that way? Is there a hope that if there had been a dedicated and unblinking rational mind in the mix that they could have seen giving Churchill the kind of sway he had over the middle east was ill-advised? Ahmadinejad comes to Columbia and these learned folks forget the Persian traditions of hospitality. He walks away a winner where it counts in his Islamic world and we lose more points with the heats and minds we know we need to win.

Of course, there are other opinions here. Others think these events are very different. Even in hind sight, where does one focus? When does one break the chain of cause and effect to snap a photo? From what place does the meaning emerge to give history context and inform those who would not like to repeat it. That place of focus, that loci of wisdom is too fine for words to capture. Blink, and you will miss it.

To lament an old lament: even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

in it and of it

Had a conversation with a good friend about consciousness. I said something that, after I wrote it, I had to back and read several times. I don't know if I've thought it before, but it feels very right. Consciousness is how we feel time. You run your finger across your hair and you know how your hair feels. You hear the train rush by and you know how that sound feels. You walk out of a building into summer air in the city and you know how the street feels. I think that we feel time passing as what we call consciousness. The difference, I feel, is that the feeling we call consciousness is as if we were running our hand through hair that goes on for all our waking hours. That sort of extended feeling is usually ignored. Are you aware of the clothing touching your shoulder? Likely not (maybe now that I've made you focus there). But that feeling is there the whole time the clothing is there. Our brain ignores it for us. Consciousness is the draping of time over our being like cloth, but we do not ignore it. We feel it.

We are in the world and of the world. The fact is that we often talk about how things "feel right" and I think there is a lot to that. I do think we can feel the world. We feel it and we lose grasp of that feeling not because we fall short of it in our experience but rather because the words fail us. The definitions are never nimble or supple enough. We can never make a word bend as a reed does in the wind. And I don't mean that is some abstract poetic way at all. I'm being as literal as I possibly can be. The wind blows, the reed bends and the two play with each other to form the actual reality of the world, the actuality of the world. Our words can't bend in the wind our mind blows. Our words are stiff, or, if not, ineffectual. What is a word if it doesn't mean the same thing said twice? As always, the exception proves the rule. Look at the way a poet must break words to make them be art.

It's no coincidence that the more complex society becomes the more rich our languages become. It's not just that you need new words to label new things, though of course that has a role. But there are also new modifiers, new tenses, new abstractions, new phrases and more. The words can not change. But the way we combine them, the new ones we make and the ways we find to contrast them gives huge leaps for the mind to take. And the space to jump from where we are to where we will be is why we need language to grow. We have learned to encounter and experience so much more. We have shifted and broken time, space, context and our bodies. Of course the old language would fail to meet the needs of the new reality. We feel new things and we need new words. We feel old things in the light of new things and we need new ways to use old words. How plastic is this lump of flesh in our skull? How much further can it leap and stretch? Will we know when we reach the precipice? Or will we think we're leaping long after we're left to stare over the edge wide eyed and dreaming of jumps we never really take?

This post was inspired by hearing Neruda's "Enigmas" quoted in the movie Mindwalk. Maybe I watch too many movies?

fluid thoughts

I've just been watching Akira because it happened to be on cable. For those who don't know and don't want to do any homework, the short story on Akira is that it's a movie dealing with the possibility humans may someday manipulate the most basic forces of the universe. Think of it as trying to be the ultimate "super hero" the hard way - by evolving into one.

The "ultimate" is what has me thinking now. What we consider ultimate at any time in history is so connected to where we are. If I appeared with my laptop or even a flashlight at the right time in human history I would be the world's most powerful wizard. Today, for those who stay tuned into what science is capable of delving into, it would take the power to move mountains to get noticed. One thing about the ultimate that has always been the same, though, is that people always advance their idea about what it is. It always leaps out ahead of us. We always imagine more with everything we learn and master. And as we advance and achieve the ultimate of the past we find it is vastly different in nature than our ideas and hardly as impressive.

In high school physics, I was taught that matter had four states and that the most energetic was a plasma. Fire is the image most draw on here when it comes to a plasma. Turns out current thinking is far beyond that four state idea. There are many states for matter and the continuum goes right on through energy and its forms. The ultimate state is no longer a plasma. The states used to progress nicely from more dense and less energetic to less dense and more energetic - fire is easier to pass through that wood, but passing through wood will not burn you. It is interesting that now the pattern does not hold. The highest energy states appear to be more like liquids and can be immensely dense and energetic at the same time. The stuff of the early universe was like a pool of water. It had flow like water.

No surprise that the highest energy states should be liquid like. Liquids are as flexible as anything can be and still very strong. Water is the creator and destroyer here on our planet - carving the Grand Canyon and cradling the very essence of life. Not too dense and not too energetic, water is the middle path. The middle path is closer to ultimate. Or so it seems for now.

Having just returned from a trip through the APAC region (stops in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne) I saw such a scale of ideas. People on the sides of the highway in Malaysia living on the little farms they have had for a very long time I imagine. A striking image of a teenage boy sitting in the mud next to a cow doing what appeared to be having a txt conversation on a little mobile phone that likely puts much of what we have in the US to shame. What would that boy think of as the ultimate? How different would it be from what I think? I wish I had had time to find out.

tibetan extremists should invade

From the borders of the USA, invaders start pouring in. Every one of them unarmed and marching quietly. They respond to no prompting. Eventually, one of them is shot for not responding. He does not even flinch. After his body jerks back with the force of the bullet in his shoulder, he rights himself and keeps marching. That image is played again and again on the news. Not one of his fellow marchers even looks his way. Our forces open fire and many of the invaders fall. Again, not one of those still moving even acknowledges the fallen or slow their pace. Those on the ground simply chant something unintelligible to those inspecting the fallen bodies. The tabloids rush to print that we've been invaded by zombies. The truth is we've been invaded by Buddhists. They are trying to live the words of their master. They don't come to convert. They are marching on Washington DC so they can sit on the lawns there and meditate. They will not leave until the USA has seen what the force of will set to peace can do.

The US rails on its news stations that it cannot allow them to simply march in like this. They will all be arrested. However, after dragging the 221st limp chanting body from the lawns of DC, the futility of putting them all in prison becomes clear. They go on chanting there and make the other inmates nervous. The President goes to the UN and demands sanctions against Tibet and other nations whose citizens have marched on US soil. The UN points out that they have done nothing but trespass and many US citizens have now joined them in their march and meditations.

The US economy kicks in and now the meditators are being marketed. With no response from any of them about what kind of cut they would need, many tour firms and television shows are simply pumping out images of the fields filled with people in simple seated posture over every medium they can. Now the fields are also filled with camera wielding vacationers. Fat children start throwing things at the seated people to see if they will move. It is reported that there have been sexual acts committed on some of the women late at night right in the open as they sit and do not move. Not missing a beat, MTV's punked producers get a show on the air where contestants try and get meditators to flinch using whatever means they can concoct. Shirts, mugs, hats, trays and everything else that can be silk screened appear all over with images of the meditators. Slogans of support, derision, confusion and stupidity are slapped over, under, next to and on top of the images. PBS and NPR start airing a documentary about them. Not to be out done, the Science Channel and Discovery Channel band together to air studies being done on the flocks of people.

One night, they all begin to leave. The press rabidly questions them as they go. People are followed home and harassed for weeks. Homeland security bars every person who participated from a foreign nation from entering the US again. The unanswered questions bubble over in the media. Larry King practically dies screaming at people on his live coverage of the exodus. Preachers in the evangelical heartlands preach a triumph of the Christian ideals of the US over the godless. And when there are no more of them on the lawns and the images disappear from the televisions people start to think - "about what, I have no idea!" to quote the late Mr. Dangerfield.

Defending Religion, again...

I was speaking with some folks about religion over dinner this week. We got to talking about how religion is useful to people - or not. One person made the point that religion's truth can be seen in its power to explain those things reason and science can not. There comes a point, he explained, where god is the only explanation left.

I did not protest. But I did smile. The irony was so thick. It is exactly the same impulse for reasons, explanation and understanding that founded science. To seek out where the truth is in something until you find it and never surrendering to ignorance is the best of science.

Of course, as I see it, to leave the explanation in god's hands seems a bit silly. Religion plays the role of bad science when cast in that part. "Well I've tried everything I can think of... Must be god." I would rather say we do not know yet. Which means I betray the spirit of science more than my religious friend.

I'll settle for ignorance in some cases because I just don't feel like everything is within our grasp right now. I know that I do not know.

And, again laden with irony, I think religion loses part of its power when it's used as explanatory. Religion is meant to uplift the spirit. To give guidance is the power of religious doctrine. It's exactly because it deals with that which one can't explain that it is derived from inspiration - a word that almost literally says "letting spirit in". To bend religion so that it now is taken from the high perch of spiritual matters and is made to explain the mundane phenomena of this world is a crime against that spirit that inspires - wherever or whatever you feel that spirit derives from.

Why do I always end up defending the very thing these people say they hold dear from their own impulses to destroy it? In this case, I wisely only put these thoughts here. I've had enough of this conversation in real life...

A Slight Departure

This morning I watched a bit of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (hhgttg) movie with my 8-year-old daughter. I was surprised to see how much of it she both understood and appreciated. It inspired me to make a slight departure from my typical science, math, politics and religion related invectives and talk about my most prized (non-animate) possession (discussion of possession of animate things for another time).

I came upon hhgttg in much the same way I came upon all things from the UK. In my youth my mother and I lived in a valley. That valley had little to no TV reception. Only two channels were watchable. One was channel 9 (WWOR for those in the NYC metro), and I was mostly not allowed to watch that outside my mother's presence due to it's content. So I had public television. And in the late hours when my mother was out working 3rd shift somewhere (after working 1st and 2nd in other places for sure), I would be treated to the finest out of date entertainment the BBC saw fit to give away. Monty Python, Faulty Towers and Dr. Who were my most steady friends. For a very brief window, they aired the Hitchhiker's TV series. But it was gone long before concluding the story. My mother, seeing how disappointed I was hunted and found the books. And a lifetime love was born.

I have been in love with the mind of Douglas Adams for as long as I can recall. From his typewriter (as he had stated his loathing of pens as instruments of serious writing) sprung gems that have both entertained my mind and educated me more than most serious tomes could ever hope to. From Mr. Adams I learned about human nature. He gave us the SEP Field (Somebody Else's Problem). You see scientists had found that when you surround anything with a force that gives an onlooker the impression that it is somebody else's problem they don't see it at all. I also learned about the questionably fruitful nature of human (and non-human) endeavors. In the first book pan-dimensional beings build a grand computer to calculate the secret (a question) to "life, the universe and everything" only to have it demolished to make way for a new hyper-space bypass moments before it would come to it's conclusions in an oversight of bureaucracy.

All this sets the stage for my mother's 18th birthday present to me. A leather-bound edition of the 4 book long "trilogy" of hhgttg called "The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide". I had already read all the books (though it contained a never before published short story I gobbled up before my party was through). The book came with me to Fordham and was there the day the 20 year old bull dyke, a friend of mine, came to me and said she was going downtown to have her new 5th book in the "trilogy" autographed (he always called it a trilogy regardless of the number of books he wrote - the 5th was the last). Now, I'm not one for autographs and hero-worship. However stories of Mr. Adams in person were the stuff of legend. He was just as cantankerous and obnoxious as one could imagine for a mind that birthed these books. So I decided I should see this for myself.

As if Mr. Adams had been briefed for what we were expecting, the spectacle of the day could not have been better. It was a particularly warm November day. The line to get into the B. Dalton's bookstore on West 8th was around the block. Being dressed for the cold and getting the hot we were all sweating in the sun and carrying heavy loads of discarded coats and gloves and such. So when I finally reached the doors of the store and entered I was very relieved to be immediately distracted from my misery by the play taking place before us all. The first thing I saw was a very irate man in a white shirt, little bow tie and glasses, wearing a B.Dalton's name tag. He was quietly but insistently pointing at something I could not see and trying to get past another man who was impeding him. "He can't do that in here. It's simply not allowed!" he whined. The man in his way was in a black blazer and looked less than entertained. Strangely, from his bearing, I could just tell he'd been through this before. "He's almost through. It's silly to stop it now." he said. Moments after hearing the the crowd parted just enough for me to see Douglas sitting at the table signing a book with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Now being able to see him I could finally make out what he'd been muttering the whole time as he signed, "If he wants me to step outside to fucking smoke, I'll step outside and give the fucking books away instead of letting people buy them. I don't give a shit..." He continued in this way the whole time the little man from the store was standing there. I, and everyone around me, laughed as mutedly as we could for fear of being kicked out before getting our turn.

When I did make it up to the table, I handed over my leather-bound edition without a word. I had no idea what to say. I had it open to chapter 29 of "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish", which is the fourth book. Chapter 29 is interesting for being only one paragraph long. It is a flight announcement. If I had any idea how much I would end up hearing these in my life to come I may not have made that choice. But being so short it provided quite a bit of blank space on the page and struck me as a good place for the book to be signed. The book was signed in a flash and then he slammed it shut - a bit hard for my tastes. But then he saw the cover and looked surprised. "What the bloody hell is this?" he asked aloud. The man in the black blazer, his manager I had surmised, turned instantly and said "Don't worry Doug, you got paid on it." "Oh, OK." Douglas answered calmly and then looked at the book more gently. "The More Than Complete," he read aloud. "Well that's not true now is it?" With that he opened to the title page and crossed out the word "more" to replace it with "less". I was stunned. Everyone around me glared. I'm sure they were very unhappy they hadn't thought to bring their own.

I adored that book. Too much, in fact. I was obsessed for a long time with it's care. The the universe interceded and it was lost from our move to our last home. I was devastated for along time. I searched everywhere I could. After a few years, I gave up. Then, long after I thought it was gone for good, my wife found it when unpacking from our recent move into our new home in a box that had been in the garage and never opened form the apartment. I'm very happy to have it back. I intend to be more careful to apply the lessons I learned from the stories on its pages this time and not hold it too dear. I also hope to get another generation hooked. Bu that will have to wait a few years. After all, I don't intend to explain to an 8 year old why it's so funny that there is a male character who is said to have at least two known heads above his shoulders and an unknown number below. That is something left behind the SEP field for at least half a dozen more years.

Good luck, and always make sure you know where your towel is.

Dynamite to cause avalanches on the slopes

watching the science channel last night, I saw a bit about some folks who cause avalanches for a living. They find likely spots where the terrible snow flows may occur and blast them so that they will give way and clear the danger while no one is in harm's way. I've been watching the news and I feel like some folks are doing the culturally equivalent thing. But I'm not so sure that their intent is as benign. I'm watching the slippery slopes be made much safer to ski by people causing huge calamities that no one seems to notice.

The first one that caught my eye was in Canada. Here a man unsuccessfully tried to get the high court to hear and appeal for the murder of his wife. His appeal was for a lesser charge based on the fact that she had insulted his honor. They refused. Happy ending you may think. But there is a devil in the details. They refused because of the fact that the man had had an affair and that having an affair was the very insult he claimed has sent him into the honor fueled rage. However, I see a great big hanging snow sheet there that's been cleared. Now what happens when a fiery and righteous man comes along with the same claim. Will he receive the lesser sentence? By their logic, he should.

The next one is in the UK. The odious member of the BNP was cleared of charges of race hate. Good guys lose, right? Well, not to their minds. They are considering changing the laws. I'm sure that the last time I read up on rule of law it was the exception that should repeal parts of the existing rules - not create new ones. The broader the reach of these laws that are on their very face based in subjective judgement, the scarier the power of the state becomes. Law should be as cold as possible. The fire belongs in the hearts of the juror and the minds of the trial lawyers. The people should bring the views to the laws. The laws are not the views of the people.

All around people react to extremism with more extremism. Too bad the moon isn't ready for tenants yet.