BELIEFS CAN HAVE TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES
The following passage is taken from this week's Newsweek magazine, page 16. The article is called "The Working-Class Smoker" by Jerry Adler. Thank you, Jerry. It has to do with education and how superstition can affect the way one lives and dies. Being a blue collar machinist myself, but also having a college education and also having toyed with being powerless (i.e. a fatalist) in my drinking daze, I understand the following passage. Of course, another correlation occurs between those who are believers and their lack of education. I interpret both correlations to show that if you are a believer, you are likely to have little education and to also be one who quietly and without noticing it yourself is killing oneself, either by smoking or by failing to wear your seat belt. That doesn't speak too well for religious belief, does it?
PS: While entering this, I've also been watching a piece of superstitious nonsense called, "Constantine" on the FX channel. Of course, it's inspired by a comic book. Just about the level of your average believer's emotional and intellectual life. Notice I don't use the word "intelligence". I do believe that a believer can be intellectual though not intelligent. Intelligence is the realm of reason and rationality, but a believer can be emotionally stunted even while being able to employ massive intellectual sophistication in debate. C.S. Lewis comes to mind, a great intellectual twister but really lost in his faith from reality. I also realize I have been less than generous in my judgments. I try but I fail—somewhat like Paul himself.
[SNIP]
But there's also evidence that attending college by itself encourages healthy behavior; when community colleges open in rural areas, enrolling local youths who otherwise would have gone into the work force, smoking goes down.
Perhaps there's a clue in a bit of unpublished research by Cutler on a related question: why does seat-belt use go up with education? Anyone can understand the danger of flying through the windshield in a collision. But some data suggest that the less education you have, the likelier you are to agree with the statement "It doesn't matter if I wear a seat belt, because if it's my time to die, I'll die."
So for anyone reading this who never got beyond high school, here's a bit of free advice: it does matter. Life is uncertain, but that's no reason to surrender to fate. You don't need a Harvard M.B.A. to understand that.
[PASTE]
Monday, March 24, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
READ BELOW AND ASK YOURSELF
The following is an excerpt from an interview. As you read the answer to the question posed, ask yourself who is answering. Answer is below the response. An upside down picture.
Question: You've done more than one life's worth of work. Why go do this at this point?
Well, you're asking a personal question. So I’ll give you an unusual personal answer. I have a very deep well of empathy, and I take my motivation from what I see around the country. And I’ll give it to you just briefly, statistically: 47 million people who make less than $10.50 an hour—six and a half, seven, eight dollars an hour before deductions; 45 million people with out health care, 18,000 of whom die every year, according to the National Academy of Sciences, because they can't afford health care; 13 million children who go to bed hungry every night; 45 million people in dire poverty; 58,000 people who die from workplace-connected diseases and trauma every year, according to [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration]; 65,000 people who can't breathe, and die because of air pollution. I mean, do I have to go on? I mean, just what more evidence is needed that each and every one of us who has an ability to improve his or her country has got to do what they have to do within the confines of the Constitution and rule of law and freedom of speech?
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The following is an excerpt from an interview. As you read the answer to the question posed, ask yourself who is answering. Answer is below the response. An upside down picture.
Question: You've done more than one life's worth of work. Why go do this at this point?
Well, you're asking a personal question. So I’ll give you an unusual personal answer. I have a very deep well of empathy, and I take my motivation from what I see around the country. And I’ll give it to you just briefly, statistically: 47 million people who make less than $10.50 an hour—six and a half, seven, eight dollars an hour before deductions; 45 million people with out health care, 18,000 of whom die every year, according to the National Academy of Sciences, because they can't afford health care; 13 million children who go to bed hungry every night; 45 million people in dire poverty; 58,000 people who die from workplace-connected diseases and trauma every year, according to [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration]; 65,000 people who can't breathe, and die because of air pollution. I mean, do I have to go on? I mean, just what more evidence is needed that each and every one of us who has an ability to improve his or her country has got to do what they have to do within the confines of the Constitution and rule of law and freedom of speech?
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Monday, March 17, 2008
PDX or PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Caught this one late morning from across the Columbia on the Vancouver side. I was taking my morning constitutional when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature roof top but no tiny reindeer. Lovely glittering sight though, eh?
Speaking of reindeer, I came across an old Harry Truman story in a book about language by Steven Pinker called The Stuff Of Thought. Or it should be a Bess Truman story. People asked her if she please couldn't get Harry to use the term fertilizer instead of referring to it as manure. She replied that she didn't know how she could do that. After all, she'd just finally gotten him to call the stuff manure.
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Caught this one late morning from across the Columbia on the Vancouver side. I was taking my morning constitutional when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature roof top but no tiny reindeer. Lovely glittering sight though, eh?
Speaking of reindeer, I came across an old Harry Truman story in a book about language by Steven Pinker called The Stuff Of Thought. Or it should be a Bess Truman story. People asked her if she please couldn't get Harry to use the term fertilizer instead of referring to it as manure. She replied that she didn't know how she could do that. After all, she'd just finally gotten him to call the stuff manure.
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
HERE’S MY SCIENCE HAIKU FOR THE DAY
Following, you’ll find a hiaku, seventeen syllables, but broken into the two contrasting thoughts or images. Then comes a quote from a current book I’m reading. It’s my fourth Steven Pinker book and he’s always as interesting as hell:
computational neuroscience:
Tinkertoy chickens cross the road
“The idea that shapes can be cognitively melted down into schematic blobs—skewered on axes originally came from a theory of shape recognition by the computational neuroscientist David Marr. Marr noted how easily people recognize stick figures and animals made from pipe cleaners or twisted balloons, despite their dissimilarity from real objects in their arrangement of pixels. He proposed that we actually represent shapes in the mind in blob-and-axis models rather than in raw images, because such a model is stable as the object moves relative to the viewer, while the pixels in the image are all over the place…. Not only do nouns for shapes (like ribbon, layer, crust, hunk, and groove) get their definitions from this world of pipe cleaners, cutouts, and balloons, but we seem to conceive of the objects around us in these terms. Few people think of a wire as a very very skinny cylinder and of a CD as a very short one, though technically that’s what they are. We conceive of them as having only one or two primary dimensions, respectively. Nor do we ordinarily imagine a lake as a translucent chunk with a flat top, sharp edges, and numerous bulges molded to the shape of the lake bottom. We think of it as a 2-D[imensional] surface.” Steven Pinker, The Stuff Of Thought, (pp. 181-82)
Following, you’ll find a hiaku, seventeen syllables, but broken into the two contrasting thoughts or images. Then comes a quote from a current book I’m reading. It’s my fourth Steven Pinker book and he’s always as interesting as hell:
computational neuroscience:
Tinkertoy chickens cross the road
“The idea that shapes can be cognitively melted down into schematic blobs—skewered on axes originally came from a theory of shape recognition by the computational neuroscientist David Marr. Marr noted how easily people recognize stick figures and animals made from pipe cleaners or twisted balloons, despite their dissimilarity from real objects in their arrangement of pixels. He proposed that we actually represent shapes in the mind in blob-and-axis models rather than in raw images, because such a model is stable as the object moves relative to the viewer, while the pixels in the image are all over the place…. Not only do nouns for shapes (like ribbon, layer, crust, hunk, and groove) get their definitions from this world of pipe cleaners, cutouts, and balloons, but we seem to conceive of the objects around us in these terms. Few people think of a wire as a very very skinny cylinder and of a CD as a very short one, though technically that’s what they are. We conceive of them as having only one or two primary dimensions, respectively. Nor do we ordinarily imagine a lake as a translucent chunk with a flat top, sharp edges, and numerous bulges molded to the shape of the lake bottom. We think of it as a 2-D[imensional] surface.” Steven Pinker, The Stuff Of Thought, (pp. 181-82)
Monday, March 03, 2008
PRAYING NO MORE THAN PREYING ON THE FOOLS
The following passages are from Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (p. 63). After debating with agnostics, I find that they are dead set against accepting that the existence or non-existence of the god hypothesis is capable of proof. So let us just say that the following prayer experiment is an attempt to discover if the Universe contains any wonder-working magic in it that the act of praying can elicit from hiding. If we can design enough real experiments that test if there are wonder working marvels in the Universe, then we may not be able to prove whether or not the hypothesis of god is provable, but we can slowly whittle away at the hypothetical wonder worker's powers. We can limit its reach, whatever it is, so to speak. Anyhow, here's a report that shows the severe limitations of prayer.
[SNIP]
Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it. The comparison between Groups 1 and 2 tests for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Group 3 tests for possible psychosomatic effects of knowing that one is being prayed for.
Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase ‘for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications’.
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing a bit of smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr. Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' In today's litigious society, is it too much to hope that those patients suffering heart complications, as a consequence of knowing they were receiving experimental prayers, might put together a class action lawsuit against the Templeton Foundation?
It will be no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians….
[PASTIE]
And why do you suppose theologians opposed the experiment? Couldn't be because they know what nonsense their profession preaches and can't bear the thought of suffering loss of status—one of the traits left over from their evolutionary pasts?
The following passages are from Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion (p. 63). After debating with agnostics, I find that they are dead set against accepting that the existence or non-existence of the god hypothesis is capable of proof. So let us just say that the following prayer experiment is an attempt to discover if the Universe contains any wonder-working magic in it that the act of praying can elicit from hiding. If we can design enough real experiments that test if there are wonder working marvels in the Universe, then we may not be able to prove whether or not the hypothesis of god is provable, but we can slowly whittle away at the hypothetical wonder worker's powers. We can limit its reach, whatever it is, so to speak. Anyhow, here's a report that shows the severe limitations of prayer.
[SNIP]
Dr. Benson and his team monitored 1,802 patients at six hospitals, all of whom received coronary bypass surgery. The patients were divided into three groups. Group 1 received prayers and didn't know it. Group 2 (the control group) received no prayers and didn't know it. Group 3 received prayers and did know it. The comparison between Groups 1 and 2 tests for the efficacy of intercessory prayer. Group 3 tests for possible psychosomatic effects of knowing that one is being prayed for.
Prayers were delivered by the congregations of three churches, one in Minnesota, one in Massachusetts and one in Missouri, all distant from the three hospitals. The praying individuals, as explained, were given only the first name and initial letter of the surname of each patient for whom they were to pray. It is good experimental practice to standardize as far as possible, and they were all, accordingly, told to include in their prayers the phrase ‘for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications’.
The results, reported in the American Heart Journal of April 2006, were clear-cut. There was no difference between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not. What a surprise. There was a difference between those who knew they had been prayed for and those who did not know one way or the other; but it went in the wrong direction. Those who knew they had been the beneficiaries of prayer suffered significantly more complications than those who did not. Was God doing a bit of smiting, to show his disapproval of the whole barmy enterprise? It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr. Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?' In today's litigious society, is it too much to hope that those patients suffering heart complications, as a consequence of knowing they were receiving experimental prayers, might put together a class action lawsuit against the Templeton Foundation?
It will be no surprise that this study was opposed by theologians….
[PASTIE]
And why do you suppose theologians opposed the experiment? Couldn't be because they know what nonsense their profession preaches and can't bear the thought of suffering loss of status—one of the traits left over from their evolutionary pasts?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
YOU CAN KNOW A RELIGION BY ITS PRACTICIONERS
I know very little about Islam so I can only judge the religion by Muslims who I see around me and what kind of people they are. Do they act in a mature manner? Do they treat those around them with kindness and empathy? Would I like to invite them into my home? Would I fear them or be able to love and like them? How do they treat people who are not of their faith? Are they law-abiding citizens and do they respect the laws of their nation and faith? Are they peaceful and decent people? What kind of children do they raise? Do they raise up hoodlums or self-respecting, law-abiding children? One can tell a lot about a religion by the kind of young people it produces. Anyhow, using the yardstick I listed above, with all due respect and praise to Allah, I will not judge. I'll let the children of Allah speak for themselves. Far be it from me to judge them. Let them judge themselves by their actions. Praise be to Allah.
One thing I don't quite understand about the pictures. One of the marcher's signs shows a dislike of freedom. Why, then, do so many of them cover their faces? If they lived in a dictatorship, like they claim they want to live in, then that means they want to be beaten up and imprisoned for rioting in the streets. But they don't seem to want to be identified and maybe arrested or beaten up. How can they live in freedom and protest like free people do when they don't respect the laws and culture which has developed the ideas of freedom of speech and assembly? Something almost insane and irrational about their behavior. Ah, well—Allah be praised, these are His people and they represent His religion. They must judge for themselves what kind of people they are, what kind of people their religion has made them to be. We certainly can't judge them. It would be impolite to do so, eh?
I know very little about Islam so I can only judge the religion by Muslims who I see around me and what kind of people they are. Do they act in a mature manner? Do they treat those around them with kindness and empathy? Would I like to invite them into my home? Would I fear them or be able to love and like them? How do they treat people who are not of their faith? Are they law-abiding citizens and do they respect the laws of their nation and faith? Are they peaceful and decent people? What kind of children do they raise? Do they raise up hoodlums or self-respecting, law-abiding children? One can tell a lot about a religion by the kind of young people it produces. Anyhow, using the yardstick I listed above, with all due respect and praise to Allah, I will not judge. I'll let the children of Allah speak for themselves. Far be it from me to judge them. Let them judge themselves by their actions. Praise be to Allah.
One thing I don't quite understand about the pictures. One of the marcher's signs shows a dislike of freedom. Why, then, do so many of them cover their faces? If they lived in a dictatorship, like they claim they want to live in, then that means they want to be beaten up and imprisoned for rioting in the streets. But they don't seem to want to be identified and maybe arrested or beaten up. How can they live in freedom and protest like free people do when they don't respect the laws and culture which has developed the ideas of freedom of speech and assembly? Something almost insane and irrational about their behavior. Ah, well—Allah be praised, these are His people and they represent His religion. They must judge for themselves what kind of people they are, what kind of people their religion has made them to be. We certainly can't judge them. It would be impolite to do so, eh?
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Happy Belated New Year!!!!!!!!!! or RETURNING AFTER AWHILE
I finally finished The Singularity Is Near. If even one-hundredth-thousandth of what Kurzweil imagines happens, the future, not too distant, will be quite a place to live in for hundreds of years each.
I've begun reading, writing and having fun with haiku. I just hope I don't get too serious about it and ruin it for myself. My biggest mistake was going onto Craigslist and finding the forum, haiku hotel where people enter, read and judge each other's haiku (haiku is both singular and plural).
Here's a science haiku which few people appreciated at haiku hotel:
DNA computes
on off on off on off on
switch hitting the rose
These are two more normal ones:
for sale or for trade
one serviceable haiku—
missing a foot
snow turns to rain
my umbrella opens to
syncopated rhythms
My next science read is The Stuff Of Thought by Steven Pinker which I just shoved into my backpack to tote around Clark County with me. Today, I'll go over to the Luepke Center to play cribbage for a couple of hours. Also in my backpack is Walt Whitman's America, a book I've been carrying around for months, trying to finish. It's almost too intellectually detailed to be a fun read, but it was meant to be studied more than read for enjoyment. A man called Reynolds wrote it.
It's been awhile since I've made an entry here, but I'm not dead yet, so my mind keeps turning over these eternal [infernal] problems that mortal men have. Mark Twain knew well enough, as the following words show us.
A FEW INCONSISTENCIES
"...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!" —Mark Twain
I finally finished The Singularity Is Near. If even one-hundredth-thousandth of what Kurzweil imagines happens, the future, not too distant, will be quite a place to live in for hundreds of years each.
I've begun reading, writing and having fun with haiku. I just hope I don't get too serious about it and ruin it for myself. My biggest mistake was going onto Craigslist and finding the forum, haiku hotel where people enter, read and judge each other's haiku (haiku is both singular and plural).
Here's a science haiku which few people appreciated at haiku hotel:
DNA computes
on off on off on off on
switch hitting the rose
These are two more normal ones:
for sale or for trade
one serviceable haiku—
missing a foot
snow turns to rain
my umbrella opens to
syncopated rhythms
My next science read is The Stuff Of Thought by Steven Pinker which I just shoved into my backpack to tote around Clark County with me. Today, I'll go over to the Luepke Center to play cribbage for a couple of hours. Also in my backpack is Walt Whitman's America, a book I've been carrying around for months, trying to finish. It's almost too intellectually detailed to be a fun read, but it was meant to be studied more than read for enjoyment. A man called Reynolds wrote it.
It's been awhile since I've made an entry here, but I'm not dead yet, so my mind keeps turning over these eternal [infernal] problems that mortal men have. Mark Twain knew well enough, as the following words show us.
A FEW INCONSISTENCIES
"...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!" —Mark Twain
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
WHY YOUR JAW IS NARROWER, HOMO SAPIENS
I know. It's been awhile since last I entered here. And I was doing so good, but sitting in front of a computer is not my most pressing interest these days. Though I don't know what else is. You can find the whole article here.
[SNIP]
(AP) Science fiction writers have suggested a future Earth populated by a blend of all races into a common human form. In real life, the reverse seems to be happening.
People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say.
"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be true."
"Our species is not static," Harpending added in a telephone interview.
That doesn't mean we should expect major changes in a few generations, though, evolution occurs over thousands of years.
Harpending and colleagues looked at the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees, our closest relatives, they report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found.
[PASTE]
I know. It's been awhile since last I entered here. And I was doing so good, but sitting in front of a computer is not my most pressing interest these days. Though I don't know what else is. You can find the whole article here.
[SNIP]
(AP) Science fiction writers have suggested a future Earth populated by a blend of all races into a common human form. In real life, the reverse seems to be happening.
People are evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, with residents of various continents becoming increasingly different from one another, researchers say.
"I was raised with the belief that modern humans showed up 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and haven't changed," explained Henry C. Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. "The opposite seems to be true."
"Our species is not static," Harpending added in a telephone interview.
That doesn't mean we should expect major changes in a few generations, though, evolution occurs over thousands of years.
Harpending and colleagues looked at the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees, our closest relatives, they report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found.
[PASTE]
Friday, November 30, 2007
THE RICH GET RICHER AND…
The following, below, is from the London Telegraph. All I can see is that this proposed exclusive golf camp for millionaires just goes to demonstrate how, as they used to say, “filthy rich” the filthy rich are getting. This would be a place only the very very very, yes, very, rich could afford to go as they trot about the world, living high off the labor of the laboring folk. The laboring people of the world create all this wealth for these people whose only contribution is the capital. All the real creative work is done by the hourly wage earners. These displays of wealth are disgusting in a time when much of the world’s population lives in poverty, without potable water, in conditions unfitting for a pig. Read it and gnash your teeth!
[SNIP]
Donald Trump's Controversial $2.1B Scottish Golf Resort Proposal Is Rejected
London Telegraph | Auslan Cramb | November 29, 2007 11:17 PM
Donald Trump's controversial plans to build a £1billion golf resort along a stretch of unspoilt coastline have been dealt a fatal blow.
Councillors have rejected the proposals for two links courses, a five-star hotel, a golf academy, nearly 1,000 holiday homes and 500 private houses in one of the biggest single property developments seen in Scotland.
[PASTIE]
CURRENT READING
Nine Stories by Salinger, The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil, and some Marvin Bell poetry. It occurred to me recently that all I want to do in the near future is read popular science and the world's best literature while working algebra problems to exercise my logical brain. Keep my nose out of politics and pop culture. I'll bet my resolve lasts until, maybe, a minute from now.
SMIRKY AND SON
Doesn't that smirk just say it all. It says, I'm a rich, connected SOB, and you fools that support me as I grow rich at your expense are truly fools and idiots, and don't I know it. All the way to the bank, I laugh.
I
I
I
I
I
The following, below, is from the London Telegraph. All I can see is that this proposed exclusive golf camp for millionaires just goes to demonstrate how, as they used to say, “filthy rich” the filthy rich are getting. This would be a place only the very very very, yes, very, rich could afford to go as they trot about the world, living high off the labor of the laboring folk. The laboring people of the world create all this wealth for these people whose only contribution is the capital. All the real creative work is done by the hourly wage earners. These displays of wealth are disgusting in a time when much of the world’s population lives in poverty, without potable water, in conditions unfitting for a pig. Read it and gnash your teeth!
[SNIP]
Donald Trump's Controversial $2.1B Scottish Golf Resort Proposal Is Rejected
London Telegraph | Auslan Cramb | November 29, 2007 11:17 PM
Donald Trump's controversial plans to build a £1billion golf resort along a stretch of unspoilt coastline have been dealt a fatal blow.
Councillors have rejected the proposals for two links courses, a five-star hotel, a golf academy, nearly 1,000 holiday homes and 500 private houses in one of the biggest single property developments seen in Scotland.
[PASTIE]
CURRENT READING
Nine Stories by Salinger, The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil, and some Marvin Bell poetry. It occurred to me recently that all I want to do in the near future is read popular science and the world's best literature while working algebra problems to exercise my logical brain. Keep my nose out of politics and pop culture. I'll bet my resolve lasts until, maybe, a minute from now.
SMIRKY AND SON
Doesn't that smirk just say it all. It says, I'm a rich, connected SOB, and you fools that support me as I grow rich at your expense are truly fools and idiots, and don't I know it. All the way to the bank, I laugh.
I
I
I
I
I
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
ART AS RELIGION
Hello readers! After a long silence, here I am again.
The following is what I thought art and literature were during most of my adult life, even though I was not always clear about their power in my life. Unfortunately, artists and creative persons who are ahead of their culture find that they are not drawn into the circle of society nor are others drawn into the creator’s circle. So what does Ms. Dissanayake make of the avant garde? I think she has confused popular dance, which is more universal in its appeal, with art and literature that challenges conventions.
“Art, she [Ms. Dissanayake] and others have proposed, did not arise to spotlight the few, but rather to summon the many to come join the parade—a proposal not surprisingly shared by our hora teacher, Steven Brown of Simon Fraser University. Through singing, dancing, painting, telling fables of neurotic mobsters who visit psychiatrists, and otherwise engaging in what calls ‘artifying,’ people can be quickly and ebulliently drawn together, and even strangers persuaded to treat one another as kin. Through the harmonic magic of art, the relative weakness of the individual can be traded up for the strength of the hive, cohered into a social unit ready to take on the world.
“As David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary theorist at Binghamton University, said, the only social elixir of comparable strength is religion, another impulse that spans cultures and time.”
Hello readers! After a long silence, here I am again.
The following is what I thought art and literature were during most of my adult life, even though I was not always clear about their power in my life. Unfortunately, artists and creative persons who are ahead of their culture find that they are not drawn into the circle of society nor are others drawn into the creator’s circle. So what does Ms. Dissanayake make of the avant garde? I think she has confused popular dance, which is more universal in its appeal, with art and literature that challenges conventions.
“Art, she [Ms. Dissanayake] and others have proposed, did not arise to spotlight the few, but rather to summon the many to come join the parade—a proposal not surprisingly shared by our hora teacher, Steven Brown of Simon Fraser University. Through singing, dancing, painting, telling fables of neurotic mobsters who visit psychiatrists, and otherwise engaging in what calls ‘artifying,’ people can be quickly and ebulliently drawn together, and even strangers persuaded to treat one another as kin. Through the harmonic magic of art, the relative weakness of the individual can be traded up for the strength of the hive, cohered into a social unit ready to take on the world.
“As David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary theorist at Binghamton University, said, the only social elixir of comparable strength is religion, another impulse that spans cultures and time.”
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