Proof In Protesting

Protesting with high volume and extreme attitude often adds to the proof of the thing being protested.

Endorphins And Danger

When a creature interprets its current state as one of imminent doom, endorphins may be released to stop pain from being experienced in the process of dying. If the dying doesn't end up happening, what is the result on the mind and future behavior from the endorphin release? Plus, if this happens too often, will the body stop releasing endorphins when danger is sensed because of too many false alarms?

Rudely Picky

It seems that being super picky means being rude about it. Is there a deep connection between being extremely picking and being rude?

Comedic Weight

Comedy can provide a wonderful view of truth but, unfortunately, rarely delivers its corresponding weight.

The Complimentary Insult

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" is often used as an insult meant to highlight failure. The ability to teach, however, is a skill to be admired. Anyone who has this phrase thrown at them disparagingly should take it as a compliment and respond with thanks. “How nice of you to acknowledge and take notice of my work!” should continue the response. “I’ve worked hard to be an effective teacher and it has paid off. It’s nice to be appreciated. Thank you so much.”

Belief Not Rocket Science

Believing in a god is not rocket science, although many who do pretend it to be the case.

We All Deserve An Apology

If it turns out that there is some sort of being running the universe that we all get to meet after we die, I want an apology from this creature. I want to hear "I'm sorry."

With feeling.

Any intelligent entity would not have come up with the conditions under which humanity has to live. For example:

- Constant need to eat
- Need for sleep (and daily, at that)
- Hiding
- Disease
- Religion
- Pain
- Greed
- Carnivores
- All evidence pointing to being's non-existence
- "Natural" disasters
- [Continue on your own from here. The list is endless]

These are not signs of intelligence. These are signs of a work in progress, a random set of conditions under which some life forms can exist if they try hard enough.

I want an apology if it's anything else. We all deserve it. Compensation can be in the form each person desires. An eternity separated from religious nut balls, lawyers, career politicians, greed-driven business people, and people who, in general, don't think would be a place to start.

National Shell Game Debt

The ongoing debate about the causes of our national debt is not based on a basic reality: It’s all an accounting shell game.

The U.S. government "borrows" from itself by taking money in the SS Trust Fund (and other supposedly separate funds) to pay today's bills and sells Treasury Bonds to make up the rest. We are only pretending these trust funds are separate entities. On paper, yes. In reality, no. It's all the U.S. government in the end, run by the same elected officials who can vote any moment to do whatever they want with the money (or debt). To pretend otherwise is to fool ourselves.

It doesn't really matter which government spending program ends up with the money in the trust funds--Medicare, Medicaid, military, interest on the debt, or new toilets for the Capitol building. We, as a country, still have the same total number of dollars missing. Missing in the sense that we spent money we don't have. Borrowing it from trust funds or through Treasury Bonds sales to foreign countries or individuals produces largely the same result--debt, and lots of it. If we raise income taxes, capital gains, FICA or any other tax doesn't mean that the money stays separated.

Think for a minute about the other taxes we often get approved this way. We approve a lottery easily if the money goes to "schools" or "education," for example. "Sure," we collectively say, with little argument. "If it goes to schools, then it's okay." What we don't realize is that the extra money is not added to the current school budget, it replaces what's already there, freeing more money to be used from the general fund for other things. This doesn't happen at first because it would be too obvious. But over a short number of years the school system's budget simply gets replaced by the lottery money, not augmented by it. Gas taxes for roads, cigarette taxes for health care, hotel taxes for infrastructure...it doesn't matter. It's all the same lie.

This idea of "targeted" taxes for certain programs is never what it seems.

We need to stop even thinking that one program or another is really separate from others or is "the" financial problem. Accountants may try and keep it all separate, but it's a false distinction at the most basic level. (Remember that silly "lock box" debate during Al Gore's presidential run? Everyone knew it was all crap.)

The idea for a commission to present a solution in an "all or nothing" fashion is a bad idea. It doesn't actually remove politics from the process as is claimed. It only allows the politics to be hidden from public view, which is what many people actually want. Private backroom deals will be the only forum.

Maybe we should look at everything from scratch. We can't keep going like we are. As our national debt goes up, our worldwide clout goes down. Eventually we won't have any leverage at all; someone in deep debt never does. We will be the ones with restrictions placed on our behavior, the same way we've done for years to the rest of the world. When that happens it won't matter what promises or plans we've made for ourselves. We will have sold our right to make our own decisions in order to keep the richest in this country rich just a little longer.

Oath Of Separation

Instead of adding "so help me god" to our oaths for public office, we instead should add "I will work to maintain the separation of church and state."

A pipe dream, I know. But, it would be a nice movement to initiate to see what the reaction would be.

Living With How We Will Die

How much time and effort do we assign to picking and planning the method of our own death by trying to eliminate or reduce the chances of some causes of death, narrowing the modes down to a limited few we can live with?

Failed Toughness On Crime

Use of DNA to overturn decades-old convictions provide strong anecdotal evidence as to why harsh sentences need to be abolished. They show the system to be anything but fair, reducing confidence in it and causing it to lose credence. A system of justice not seen as fair and balanced is never respected. Without respect resistance will always be high, greatly diminishing deterrence value.

Because prosecutors and police have an agenda to convict that very often overrides the search for truth, safeguards for the system's victims need to be enforced. Everyone can then take pride in a system that produces results that make sense and the victims of crime can also have some confidence is a more just outcome for everyone.

Contractual Seduction

Imagine a company that has an expensive contract with a celebrity spokesperson suddenly finding itself in a financially challenging position. The only way for them to get out from under the contract is through a "morality" clause being breached. Now imagine that company hiring someone to seduce the celebrity into cheating on their spouse and arranging for that information to get out.

Real Training

Way too many people mistake demonstration and observation with training.

We All Like Exceptions

All of us want to be the exception to the rule--and be admired for it.

Spin Is Everywhere

Be careful of the claims of capitalism's prosperity. Those who make the claim typically only include figures from the U.S. or some other Western nation. What is conveniently avoided is the effect of capitalism on the rest of the world. Many of this planet’s poorest and underdeveloped countries supply the West with its capitalist-based goods. By this arrangement we separate and try to hide the negative side of capitalism then don’t look at it in order to make positive claims.

We also do this with religion. Those who wish to support one religion or another rarely put front and center the evil caused by their own religious belief and dogma. The purely evil edicts of another’s religion will be readily pointed out, but not those of one’s own.

Spin is not purely a political phenomenon.

Running Interference

Society is built on the concept of middlemen. The people at the privileged end of any spectrum (religious, wealth, power, prestige, celebrity, military, political, etc.) all hire people for the task of dealing with those at the opposite end. Separation supports society’s structure with middlemen convinced their role is also privileged. “The people” don’t have any influence because of the middlemen hired as interference block the attempt. All social structures are the byproduct of the sad human trait of consolidation of power in a few, supported by a few more hired to keep the masses away from them.

A Free Standing Army

A powerful nation would never need to protect itself with an army if it acted benevolently, rationally, and fairly. Everyone would be a standing army by default, happy to defend and protect it with pride. Only a greedy, selfish, and unreasonable nation needs to hire an army to protect it. No one would do it without being paid.

Merchants Movin' On Up

As our ancestors have tried on various belief systems and philosophies throughout human history, the merchant class was never seen as at the top of society’s social structure. They were a necessary class, placed above peasants and entertainers, but below the classes of soldiers, nobles, priests and royalty. It was well understood that the greed driving a merchant is not to be left unchecked.


Today, however, the merchants have moved up, now called capitalists. The old systems keeping this class in check had some serious failings of their own. But the replacement structure we currently employ, based on praise of greed, has caused a great deal of pain and fixed little in return.

There might be some more movement of people, giving the illusion of a system that’s increased “fairness” for everyone. Wealth, however, is still highly concentrated among a small pocket of people. The large numbers of poor remain, too. Only the names have changed and the point of view slightly altered along the way.

We may think we’ve changed a great deal when all we’ve really done is re-title the groups, leaving their concentrations the same.

Beware Of Experts

When exclusively observing or studying something long enough, anything at all can be gleaned from the subject. It is a dangerous assumption that someone who concentrates too much on one thing--becoming an “expert,”--can’t get tunnel vision and begin to make unreasonable claims. When a person’s identity becomes too wrapped up in a single subject or pursuit their metaphorical vision can become hallucinatory. Without a variety of interests and/or an opening that remains available for new information to be fairly considered and evaluated, a person’s mental output is in serious danger of becoming bizarre, even preposterous. Too much of one thing can result in ugliness.

Ex-Smokers' Ashtrays

When a ex-smoker finally removes the ashtrays from around the house, a new place must be designated as the depository for toenail clippings.

What's Really Out There?

(I am going to be mis-using the word 'self' on purpose for effect below.)

Your self is automatically removed from everything else by the nature of its existence. Because it is separate from everything it encounters, all information coming its way is a translation of the original--the medium of transmission necessarily alters the information being carried. The receiving self’s decoding methods will also necessarily alter the original independent of the transmission medium. You do not have a tree inside your brain through the act of seeing or touching one. You do not recreate a strip of bacon in your head when smelling one being cooked.

We can accurately say that everything is perception because even if there is a ‘real’ thing out there somewhere triggering our perception tools to fire and notice, our medium of existence does not have the ability to experience it or its effects directly--you can’t become or join something else in order to experience it as it is. You can’t integrate your self into a rock or become a tornado. You can’t even be sure that you see the same colors that I do, even when looking at the same source at the same time.

Sometimes we assign a label to a purely perceived object trying to make it real. Money is the perfect example. Its only value is whatever we all agree it is. It wouldn’t exist without humans around to give it value through our perception of it. I’m not addressing the bills or coins themselves. I’m addressing their meaning and value to our self--it is what we perceive it to be.

Similarly, think of Lagrange points. These are points out in space between bodies (stars, planets, moons) around which an object can orbit, just as if there was a ‘real’ body there. We have satellites out there right now orbiting nothing. The forces that keep an object there are a combination of the gravitational fields of nearby objects, making it seem like something is there, too. But there is nothing there.

If there is a ‘real’ object behind something our self perceives, then we can’t ever know what it is with certainty. Our attempts to find out can only produce a paraphrase of the original, an altered and inaccurate version of it. How do we know what it is we are perceiving is not the equivalent of a Lagrange point? We can’t.

Islam requires its followers to read the Qur’an in Arabic. They see the translation into other languages the same as an “explanation” of the original, a form of commentary. It’s not the original and can’t be understood as intended unless read in Arabic.

Even this attempt at conveying these points is not going to be perceived in the way I intend. I can’t even read this myself and get back the same information I started with. It is a second generation copy, degraded by the process.

So, everything may not be perception alone, but that’s all we get to work with. We can’t take off the glasses because without them we get nothing at all. We’ve got no choice but to live in a soup of personal existence (at least) once removed from all else, never knowing everything else as it really is, or if something’s even there at all.

Divine Wealth

There is no world philosophy or religion that looks highly upon the pursuit or possession of money. Yet, so many who have wealth claim a divine right or natural law as justification, never seriously challenged.

Shaded Memory

I don't always remember the trees when I remember the shade.

"Visions" of god

As I read a little of this and that I sometimes run across something that I find interesting and wonder why I never knew about it before because so many others seem to--and have been keeping it a secret from me! LOL

My latest "discovery" that so many others already know about is John Keel, the guy who wrote The Mothman Prophecies, which was used very loosely for the Richard Geere movie a few years back. What I didn't know was his investigations of UFOs (bare with me!), and other paranormal events, coining the term Fortean for the "discipline." He also is credited with the "Men In Black" phrase and accompanying description that spawned the movie of the same name. (His "men in black" were not quite like those portrayed in the movie, though.) He has written many other books and articles in his career investigating various odd phenomenon. He died in July of this year.

I read a reference to him in a Dave Barry book (of all places) I picked up last week. So, I looked up a few other references online. His ideas about where UFOs and extra-terrestrials come from is unique and "out there," if you'll pardon the bad pun, and not why I'm writing this. What caught my interest was his conclusions about why so many people think (or believe) they see UFOs and, in some cases, interact with them.

He attributes the "boom" in UFO sightings to one particular story from 1947 in magazine called Amazing Stories. The story was about evil aliens visiting earth and controlling people through "rays." The magazine's publisher began to get a huge number of letters from people claiming that the phenomenon was real because it had happened to them.

"[The magazine's editor Raymond] Palmer had accidentally tapped a huge, previously unrecognized audience," Keel wrote. "Nearly every community has at least one person who complains constantly to the local police that someone--usually a neighbor--is aiming a terrible ray gun at their house or apartment. This ray, they claim, in ruining their health, causing their plants to die, turning their bread moldy, making their hair and teeth fall out and broadcasting voices into their heads. Psychiatrists are very familiar with these 'ray' victims and relate the problem with paranoid schizophrenia. In earlier times, [these people] thought they were hearing the voice of God and/or the devil. Today they often blame the CIA or space being for their woes...Ray Palmer unintentionally gave thousands of these people focus for their lives." (Emphasis added.)

This caught my attention. What if this idea is even partially true? What if the people who wrote down and/or otherwise relayed the myths behind the world's religions were delusional, but only in one specific area? There are many cases of people who have claimed to see or interact with UFOs who are perfectly normal otherwise. We've all heard the stories of the sheriff, retired Air Force Colonel, etc. who report sightings but act no differently than anyone else in every other way, just waiting for the right conditions to tell their story and "give focus" to their lives.

As I hinted, Keel himself reached an odd conclusion about such sightings:

"I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs . . . I feel that the ultimate solution [to the UFO question] will involve a complicated system of new physics related to theories of the space-time continuum . . . The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs."  (emphasis added.)

Is it possible to take the conclusions here seriously (in bold), even if some of the stuff he writes otherwise is questionable and/or nuts?

Here's a piece of a description of Keel from ufomystic.com:

"Keel first challenged the extraterrestrial hypothesis with his idea of the 'superspectrum,' which theorized that UFOs were controlled by intelligences that moved freely between wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, appearing and disappearing from the infrared and the ultraviolet. Building on the ideas of little-known researchers like Meade Layne and Trevor Constable, he also proposed the theory (and provided ample evidence for this) that UFO entities were not from other planets, but were most likely native intelligences that had been involved with mankind throughout history and prehistory, and perhaps did not have our best interests in mind."

Crazy, right? I'm not trying to claim otherwise. I just find that sometimes the people on society's fringes are not excluded from getting an accurate insight in their view of things, overlooked by the rest of us because of so much other stuff from them that's not all that normal.

Maybe we all overlap in our views of human nature with the truth in that connected space. For some, that  makes up a huge part of who we are as individuals. For others, not so much. But that doesn't mean that a small part of them doesn't make that connection, too, and we can't learn a thing or two--about them, us, and everyone else.

The Destruction Of Lies

An hour of sincere lies can easily be undone with a good joke containing a single line of truth.

Scales Of Choice

When asked to choose a score among a specific set of points along a scale, how many people would think it more accurate and prefer to choose a score that falls somewhere between the available points? In contrast, if the scale is open with only end points as parameters, how many people would then rather wish for a restricted set of points from which to choose a score?

Brilliant Friendship

To have “learning” not always replace existing thoughts, but come to rest beside them and interact in friendship to let the truth win without bias is the essence of brilliance.

Reverberating Ripples Of History

The effects of past events—even very distant ones—have huge impacts on today's conditions. It is a common mistake to consider only recent events when looking at the causes of current conditions and change in general. Without taking all into account, the reasons we search for to explain the "whys" of life will not be answered.

The communist Chinese leader Chou En-Lai once said in the 1970s that it was still too early to determine the impact of the 1789 French Revolution. Lena Williams, in her book on race relations The Little Things, she makes the point that black people see what some people consider distant history (slavery and segregation) as relevant today while white people do not.

Impacts of events on society do not have a cutting off point; they fade but never completely. Time and space give distance, but never can entirely cut off the effects of the past. The fall of the Roman Empire or asteroids hitting the planet still reverberate. We need to pay attention to everything, not just the stuff that happened yesterday, last week or last year.

We also need to pay attention to distant history because everyone needs and seeks that connection to their past. It is a crime if it is artificially disturbed.

Randall Robinson has compellingly explained that slaves and their descendents are disconnected from their past due to that institution. Slavery people off from their heritage. The ripples of history give people a needed connection to the source of those ripples. Everyone for whom those ripples are unavailable is unavoidably damaged. It is a type of injury that can’t be repaired, a crime against humanity. All that can be done is to try and rebuild a new source of ripples for future generations. But, even then, they will be false in some sense, an imitation of the real thing.

These imitation ripples still produce effects, though, and we need to consider them will equal consideration. They will be rippling through society just as strongly as the ones they replaced, moving societies in unforeseen directions, especially if we don’t pay attention to them.

In Tune With The Ether

Does all music already exist somewhere in the ether, in the universal soup in which we all exist? Do composers and performers simply know how to grab music from one of thethe shelves of existence and reproduce it for the rest of us? If so, the same may be true for authors and other artists. Mathematicians and other scientists may also tap into this all-pervasive pool of knowledge, able to pull out what they find and make sense of it. Those who are in sync with a particular pattern or two of the medium in which we live are the lucky ones.

Garden Of Eden And The Fertile Crescent

What role did tales of the Fertile Crescent play in the writing of the story in Genesis about the Garden of Eden?

This crescent-shaped land area that included a large part of ancient Mesopotamia contains the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the ones mentioned in the Garden of Eden story. It strikes me that this story is likely based in part on legends of this area--to the east, as described. There were likely stories told to the Hebrews and other about an area that must have seemed like paradise when described to desert dwellers.

The question had to have been asked--"If our god loves us and is powerful, why are we stuck in the desert?" If this is true, it's anyone's guess as to when this question was asked in relation to the other myths of Abraham's family religion. But, the answer that was given might have come in the form of the Garden of Eden story. They were in the garden at first, but an ancient ancestral couple blew it for everyone, getting them all banished. But if the garden still existed, as current travelers insisted, why couldn't they go back? Ah, cherubim are guarding the gate. We can't get in, so we shouldn't even try. The remaining contradictions can be sloughed off to fancy tales of lying travelers.

(An aside--there is at least one case of a Native American who was killed by his tribe after returning from a visit to Washington, D.C. because the descriptions  given of the city, its buildings, and its people were thought to be outrageous lies.)

The tale was born, and of course molded over time, as happens for all myths. Maybe the Hebrews' claim of a promised land in Palestine instead of Mesopotamia come from the existence of this story. If their origin was the Tigris and Euphrates region, why else would they not battle their way back there instead of Palestine?

Ancient Shorthand

As writing moved from stone and clay to papyrus, parchment, and paper, it also got simpler, less pictographic in some cultures. Is it possible that this happened at least partially because of the increased availability and reduced cost of the written medium, causing an increase in the quantity of written documents? With simplified symbols, documents (and copies of them) could be created much faster. A “shorthand” was developed and quickly replaced the original.

The First Human-Made Fire

How did the first person to make fire through friction with wooden sticks decide it would work? There appears to be nothing in nature to indicate success, other than observing that wood burns when struck by lightning.

Earning It

It’s an interesting contradiction that many who are against financial support for those who have not “earned” it are also not in favor of an inheritance or estate tax. The children of the rich are exempted from having to “earn” their money, but the poor are not given the exemption.

Obama's "Change" Disappears

This may not be fair, but a lot of us voted for Barack Obama in no small measure because he is black. We felt ready for a real change. We thought that a truly smart, non-radical black man could be that person: experienced to a degree (but not overly so), reasonable, level-headed, contemplative. And black. Support was not purely because of his race, but being black made him a "true" outsider in a sense that no other combination of characteristics can capture.

I think we’ve been hoodwinked. He’s a politician as much as any other and his descendency in the minds of the public is going to be a harder pill to swallow than almost anyone before him. He could actually be the cause of a huge collapse in public support in United States as a country, as well as the U.S. government in general and of the Democratic Party in particular.

If he’s not “change” then who is? There are not many options left for those who don't like the dragon that is the U.S. government, having grown with the nourishment supplied by every president and every Congress.

Unreasonable Pride

Attacking the poor and the weak, blaming them for the ills of a system in which they have no power or control, seems to be the general principal under which modern Western nations are concocted. If only the powerless would stop, the sentiment goes, the remainder could live without trouble.

Why is it that governments continue to engage in policies making it nearly impossible to be proud of their country?

Mensa Insult

Possible fun insult: "I may not be smart enough to join Mensa, but you would need some serious assistance to send them a letter."

Connotation Or Definition?

It would be an interesting study to see what part(s) of the brain react when trying to decipher the difference between two similar terms.

For example, if asked to describe the difference between the words “average” and “normal” do people dig for the cold definition to do the comparison or tap connotations instead? Or a combination of the two?

What happens if an individual’s definition of a word or phrase is not clear to him- or her-self? Is the attempt to access it bypassed in favor of a connotation, which might be more easily retrieved? Or, if there’s trouble, is the definition of something else used, such as “common” or “familiar”?

Suicidal Plea

If a person pleads guilty to a crime they know will result in the death penalty, is that a suicidal act? If so, isn’t that illegal? Those who carry out the murder will then not only be committing murder, but assisting in a suicide, another illegal act.

Bible As Fairy Tale

To read the bible in the correct frame of mind, only one small change needs to be made.

A Mission's Context

It is an intriguing insight to realize that “mission” is most often used in the context of war and religion.

Broken Will Does Not Fix War

It is contended by some that a war is won when the enemy’s “will is broken.” This is a not an accurate assessment of a defeated party and, therefore, is a misguided goal.


The implication is that the loser will never wish to fight again if this mission is somehow achieved. This is only true if the losing side’s reasoning for war is undermined. They must see it as unfair or unreasonable in some fashion, independent of what the victor thinks or does. (For example, after WWII Japan’s attack on the U.S. and Germany’s Holocaust let the people of those countries easily drop their will to fight.)

In many cases the will to fight lives on, especially if the victor is seen as unfair or unreasonable in their actions--before, during or after the conflict. (The U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.) If they can’t fight directly they will fight indirectly, covertly, and continuously.

Getting a foe to drop their weapons--never to pick them up again--is not an aim accomplished through brute force, which actually serves to harden resolve.

Real peace comes when reasonable and understandable actions rule.

Are We Really Different Now?

Feeling Dirty After Justice

Until we can look at violent murders and not feel immediate blind rage with willingness to act on that rage we are stalling human progress. We all know this at some level due to the fact that we don't let victims or their families get involved in punishment decisions.

To clearly look at ourselves and find answers, we need to maintain a calm demeanor and not base our decisions on the low-level emotions used to commit heinous crimes. We can--and should--keep such people away from the rest of us. But to think a torch-and-pitchfork mob-rule attitude is useful does more harm than good. It creates nothing more than a government-approved lynching, elevating no one and dragging the rest of us down a notch or two, wondering why we feel dirty.

You Are Not Always Looking For Your Keys

When trying to find the truth behind human events, many mistakenly engage in the search in the same manner one looks for a missing object. In trying to locate a set of keys, for example, when the keys are located the search is concluded. The object was known at the start, with no debate necessary about the item being sought.

But with a search for facts behind human events, truth can’t be found with a pre-conceived formulation of the search’s conclusion. If a search is stopped at the moment an item that confirms or contradicts a pre-determined position is found, nothing has actually been accomplished.

If a person is looking for a conspiracy, for example, and stops at the first hint at one, nothing is gained but solidified ignorance. The search can’t stop there.

In some cases the search may never end.

Time Perception

In some circumstances do we alter time in order to accommodate how much information our brains can store? When under extreme stress or extreme fear time can sometimes appear to slow down, at the time of the event(s) and when recalled. If during these situations we automatically record more detailed long-term memories than usual, the amount of information could be too overwhelming to process, save and still record time at a normal rate, too. It might need to be stored in an artificially stretched time scale in order to fit it all in. The information is there, but distorted in time—it's just too much information to do it any other way. Airline delays might be a close analogy—time is extended when there are too many planes to fit in the available system.

Creating Good Music

We all want to make good music with wonderful harmonies and a lasting beat.

Piece Of The Action

People will do a surprising number of things for recognition alone. A piece of the action is worth more than money.