The Hypocrisy Of Corporate Media

The latest thing from establishment talking heads like Rachel Maddow and Jake Tapper is to smear anyone affiliated with or who has even appeared on RT (Russia Today) as some sort of stooge at best or spy at worst. I confess I have watched RT. Some of their programs are excellent and some of their journalists are so much more intelligent and more objective than Rachel or Jake. I am thinking of Thom Hartman on "The Big Picture" and Chris Hedges on "On Contact." Comparing Thom and Chris to Rachel and Jake is like comparing Kurt Vonnegut to Lee Childs. One opens your eyes and makes you think and the other is a distraction.

Distraction is the job of corporate media. Rachel et al at MSNBC are there to distract you with soap opera stories about largely irrelevant stories about Michael Flynn or Ivanka Trump. Proof of CNN's and MSNBC's slavish devotion to the military industrial establishment is how their various anchors enthusiastically ejaculated in response to Trump's attacks on civilians in Yemen and an empty air base in Syria. The response from CNN and MSNBC was to fawn all over the Donald with gushing praise that he had just achieved Presidential status with these futile acts. They loved it when he dropped the MOAB on some former CIA habitat in Afghanistan too.

If you allow yourself to be bamboozled by these dissemblers, you will fall into the establishment's game. The game is the old bait and switch. It is the skill which magicians and pick-pockets employ to keep looking in all the wrong directions while a con is being played on you right in front of your face.

The Trump campaign was a con as most people, except for the truly devoted rubes, have come to realize. The Democrats did win the popular vote (by the way Thom Hartman on RT was an avid supporter of hers subsequent to the primaries ending) but still missed out because too many people saw through them.

The corporate media establishment is part of the establishment that Hillary represented and that nobody wanted. Now they are desperately trying to fool us into falling into line behind them. They want us to return to being ignorant and harmless sheep, sheep which they plan to sheer.


Russell

Our Leaders Are Fools

I have heard way more than enough about President Trump's reaction to the Syrian poison gas attack on Syrian people which included children. The overall establishment attitude towards Trump's unleashing of the Tomahawks seems to be something like, "way to go dude!" Even someone like Fareed Zakaria who is normally fairly mature responded by gushing that Trump is "now the President." Militarism and Capitalism have become this country's true religions and they are followed with the blindest of faith.

Here is a question that I have yet to hear any of the mainstream media or their expert dunsels ask; "How many cruise missiles does it take to bring a dead Syrian child back to life?" The truth of course is that launching missiles is a destructive act not a humanitarian one. Launching missiles will not convince a single member of Isis to be nicer, nor will it turn Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin into a humanitarians. The truth is our national tantrum will accomplish nothing positive. If it does anything at all it will reinforce Assad's position and play into the hands of Isis.

It seems our national tendency is to do the most stupid thing possible in response to the evil actions of others. What should we do to combat Isis and Assad? Actually the answer to that question seems rather obvious to me! I find it hard to accept that our political and media leaders are as pathetically inept, myopic and unimaginative as they appear to be. They utterly predictable. Like the one trick ponies they are they have only one answer, blow shit up!

For a fraction of the cost of our military blundering we could provide profound humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. We could do it the countries around Syria. We could likely do it in areas of Syria itself. Instead of building forts to protect ourselves from local people and prisons for local people like we have been doing, we could build defensible safe harbors for them. Humanitarian aid could defeat Isis. Drone attacks on weddings and funerals never will. Providing food, shelter and medical care to ordinary Syrians might undermine Assad but missile attacks will strengthen him.

Our military could perform a positive role in defending humanitarian outposts. Instead our unfortunate soldiers do the empire's dirty work and become the hated symbol of our national death cult, the religion of militarism.

Capitalism And Democracy

Last time I wrote about some American myths. One of those is the myth of the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and democracy. Most Americans have been fed this myth throughout their lives and most believe it. People really do (in general) believe what they are told. Critical thinking is rare and people are often ostracized for voicing unorthodox viewpoints. Yet without critical thinkers we would have no social evolution at all.

One of my favorite people is the economist Richard Wolff. Wolff is a critical thinker but, he is also completely comprehensible to the average person. Wolff is plain spoken. Perhaps this is because he is an economist and not a con man. Unlike people such as Alan Greenspan who spoke fluent gibberish, Wolff is not a flimflam man out to sell you a bogus economic system.

Richard Wolff is interested democracy. He knows that political democracy is not sustainable without economic democracy. Our ridiculously stratified economic system is clear evidence that we do not have a democracy in our economy. Our gridlocked and contemptible government is evidence that our political democracy is starting to fail. Democracy must be a part of every area of public life including our economic life.

Richard Wolff has a great solution which is practical and implementable. In fact it is being implemented already in various places around the world. Wolff calls this solution "Workers Cooperatives." The link below will open a new window where you can learn about Mondragon Corporation an extremely successful worker owned (cooperative) corporation based in Barcelona Spain. Mondragon now employs over 100,000 people in all different sorts of businesses. 

Mondragon Corporation - a worker's cooperative that is very successfu. 

Richard Wolff is great at explaining just how important it is for the work place to be democratic. I have one of his videos posted below, you will find it very enlightening and fun too. Richard Wolff is someone you should pay attention to his website democracy at work is really worth checking out.

Watch the video - next time I will write more about another American myth and the solution to that fable too.

Russell

Four American Myths

Some truths are unpleasant. Nevertheless the truth must not be denied. We may wish to believe in pleasant myths but letting go of false beliefs is actually good for us. Children grieve Santa Claus once they learn the truth, nevertheless they accept the truth because it is part of growing up. American adults need to grow up. We have allowed ourselves to believe in myths for far too long. No doubt some people will cling fiercely to the old myths but, we have far more to lose than our innocence by refusing to let go of them.

The first among these fables is the Horatio Alger myth. Horatio Alger was a popular American author in the nineteenth century. He was sort of an alternative to Charles Dickens. Dickens is famous for his novels and stories portraying the plight of the poor and downtrodden of England. Alger wrote stories for boys. These were intended inspire them to engage in hard work and demonstrate good morals. While hard work and good morals are laudable in and of themselves, Alger's stories put forth the idea that these attributes are inevitably rewarded with tangible and handsome rewards. For instance, the title character in one of Alger's books Mark The Match-Boy, winds up rich and successful and even marries his wealthy boss's daughter. This good fortune is subsequent to his heroic selflessness, good character and hard work. These attributes are noble. Another thing about them is that they are relatively commonplace. Most people do work hard, most people are honest and trustworthy and most people are altruistic. These meritorious characteristics are common among middle class, working class and poor Americans.  The only American demographic group among whom they are less than common is the rich. Despite over one hundred and fifty years of contrary evidence the Horatio Alger myth remains entrenched in the American gestalt.

The second American fable is that capitalism and democracy are synonymous that one is necessary to the other. This particular myth persists despite the indisputable evidence which directly contradicts it. Most Americans are employees. As employees the biggest portion of Americans daily lives are spent at work. Some are employees of government agencies or perhaps private non-profit corporations. The majority are probably employees of private capitalist or for profit companies and corporations. This means that most Americans spend the largest segment of their days under totally autocratic circumstances. This was not the vision of America's founders. They lived in a time of independent farmers (of course many of them were slave holders), craftsmen and merchants. Nobody is truly free if they are forced to sell themselves into bondage in order to survive. This used to be called indentured servitude. People would sell themselves into service for a specified period of time in order to gain a delayed reward which would allow them to go into business for themselves. In our capitalist system indentured servitude has been expanded into a life-time of work at the whim of others. Americans today work longer hours than citizens of any other developed country and our odds of cashing in our rewards and going into business for ourselves are lower than anywhere else. The life of most Americans is one of servitude from beginning to end.

The third American myth is that what is good for corporations is good for Americans. This myth includes the lie that rich people are "job creators." It may have been Dwight Eisenhower who originally said "What's good for General Motors is good for America." This fable persists, though it is no longer specifically tied to GM, it is generalized to capitalist entities in general. A company can create unsafe products and as long as the company is making money at it, the company is seen as benefiting America. Industries pollute the air and water, with the costs left to us, and because their balance sheets show a profit these industries are seen as good and essential. A capitalist entity does not even have to produce anything to be lionized. If the stock-market is going up the economy is said to be booming no matter how lousy the lives of most Americans are! The evidence is absolutely clear that what is good for American business is not necessarily good for Americans. Often what appears good for business is just what is good for the next quarterly report. What is good for us may not be good for business, at least not in the short run.

The final myth is a two part fable. The first part is that unregulated capitalism always yields the best most efficient results. The second part is that the so-called captains of industry are the best and brightest people in the country. Any objective view of the facts would expose the obvious fallaciousness of these myths. Consider for instance transportation in America versus transportation in other countries. Our system is dominated by market forces. Far from being the most efficient, smartest and safest system possible, American transportation is characterized by inefficiency, stupidity and danger.  Most of our bridges are ready to collapse. Our roads are clogged and going from place to place is one of the most death defying things an American can do. The whole system is ridiculous. Staying with transportation, the industry leaders have consistently made stupid short term decisions, craven decisions and decisions which have directly led to the deaths of thousands of Americans. Other industries have been no better whether we look at oil spills, bad drugs, or fraudulent financial institutions. Clearly a hands off approach to market forces is stupid. Capitalism has become a sort of secular religion. It is a false faith, and like Moses himself we should condemn the worship of the "Golden Calf" or what the faithful among capitalists call the "unseen hand of the market." These faiths no longer serve us if they ever did.

It is time to grow up! We need to take an adult approach toward running our society. We need to objectively determine the best strategies for reaching our common goals of a free just society which allows each of us an equal opportunity to pursue happiness. 

Russell

Judge Nasty McMeanstreak For The High Court?

During the campaign there was speculation that Humpty Trumpty would nominate Judge Judy for the Supreme Court. I was pulling for Judge Mathis myself. Well the Cheetoh in Chief nominated Judge Gorsuch instead. The Republicans aim to ram him through. The Democrats surprisingly have shown some backbone. Al Franken Senator from Minnesota, was especially good in interrogating this corporate lackey (running dog, capitalist pig, etc.) judge. This Judge (I won't be trumpish and call him a "So-Called-Judge") is a guy who believes that women deceive their employers into hiring them just so they can get family leave. He said that shit to his law students! When they disbelieved him he suggested they were naive. He apparently believes women graduate college, go to law school and pass the bar exam all in some diabolical scheme to get some cushy family leave so that they can get pregnant and start squirting out offspring! This is not someone who should not even be allowed to judge a cat show much less sit on the Supreme Court.

Judge Gorsuch has sided with corporations over people nine out of ten times. The only time he did not was once against an adult book store or some such. His worst decision was likely the one where every other judge hearing the case ruled the other way. This was a case where an employer basically ordered the employee to die for the company. Judge Gorsuch ruled in favor of the company. The employee was in the process of dying from exposure to extreme low temperature, he was dying of hypothermia, and the employer did not give a shit about him. Judge Gorsuch said the employer had the right to fire him for refusing to die! This man has no heart. He is a dick. He does not belong on the Supreme Court period.

President Lumpy Rutherford will not wise up he is a turd with a comb over but it does not help. Still I think the real problem is the people behind the curtain not the giant orange flaming head of the Wizard of Odd. Get ready the revolution is coming.

Russell

John Oliver excoriates "Trump's" budget proposal in his hilarious way. He lets us know that the proposal was assembled by his budget director based upon the President's various rants and ravings. Therefore it should be no surprise that the document makes absolutely no sense (it is nonsensical!) at all. Oliver is funny but even he finds no true joy in Trump's lunatic budget.

Bernie Sanders gives a great talk at Vermont Technical College

 

This talk is very informative and motivating. Bernie tackles all the important issues. He takes audience questions and answers them honestly, thoroughly and cordially. The first five and a half minutes are introductory but still worth listening to. I think you will like it. It is honest talk you will not hear on TV.

Distractor In Chief

The conventional (corporate) media insists on keeping us distracted with the antics of Donald Trump. The truth is Trump is irrelevant. The real power lies in corporations, their ultra rich CEOs and their hand-maidens in Congress. Consider Paul Ryan, a disciple of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was a Social Darwinist who believed wholeheartedly in the ascendancy of the capitalist class. She found other less capable people (in her view) as basically unworthy of survival. Her novel Atlas Shrugged makes this clear. As a disciple of Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan is carrying out the mission of the ultra rich. These people see themselves as vastly superior to the masses of humanity. They believe they are rich and powerful because they are better.

The novel Atlas Shrugged is a sort of bible for these folks. It also appeals to many average folks. This appeal rests on an unfortunate quality that almost all of us share. Most people believe they are above average. The overwhelming majority of people believe they are smarter, harder working, more virtuous and more deserving than most other people. This is of course ridiculous but, remains an unfortunate aspect of human nature. Ayn Rand's appeal and the popularity of her Social Darwinist philosophy is a result of so many people seeing themselves as members of a superior minority of the population (a more competent minority).

The current Congress is engaged in instituting these Social Darwinist/Ayn Rand views into social policy. These policies will not be as overtly evil as say Nazism but, they will have the same overall effect. Millions of people will be reduced to being the denizens of impoverished ghetto communities ruled over by militarized police. Healthcare will be a rare privilege instead of an inalienable right.

How will this take place without people rising up either peacefully or in armed insurrection? Well the elites including the corporate media intends to keep you busy watching our clown prince Donald Trump the Distractor In Chief of the United States.

A Call To Arms? (not just yet)

I have tired of posting political items and opinions on Facebook. Social media probably serves best as a purely sociable platform. I have determined to use my web page as my outlet for my political, sociological and philosophical thoughts. This I suppose could be taken as a cautionary statement. I intend to publish my views on those sorts of subjects. I do not believe my views are more noteworthy than those of someone else. I just feel like expressing them. Frankly I doubt that too many p
eople will be interested in them. Nevertheless here goes;

We live in what is called a "capitalist" country. There is some controversy about how strictly capitalist the country actually is. I am not here buying into what I consider to be right wing or conservative propaganda asserting that the country has been drifting into socialism. Those assertions are so blatantly counterfactual that disputing them only enhances them.

When I wrap "capitalist" in quotation marks I do so because I agree with those learned people who say that our system is one of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor and middle class. America's so called capitalistic system treats giant corporations and financial institutions as precious resources which must be preserved no matter the cost. Meanwhile ordinary people are viewed as an inexhaustible resource which is infinitely replaceable. Ordinary individuals have no intrinsic value in this system. (They can occasionally be placed on display as a sort of living visual aid to some political diatribe.)

In this system the health of the economy is viewed as the state of the stock market. If the value of the stock market is increasing the economy is seen as healthy. Right now the market is rising. Therefore nearly all the so called experts say that the economy is going well, the outlook is rosy. This is of course absurd. Why? Because any objective accounting of peoples lives, our infrastructure, and the impending environmental collapse would show that ours is a culture in decline. The decline has been going on since at least the Reagan administration and is increasing at an exponential rate.

While the stock market and CEO salaries soar ever higher, the real wages of average Americans plummet. The lives of the ultra rich are extravagant while the lives of ordinary people are dire and truncated. The life expectancy of ordinary people is decreasing. The suicide rate is climbing for the working class. The people are becoming hopeless and the media tells them it is their own fault.

All across the country water supplies are contaminated with lead or other toxins. Bridges are in imminent danger of collapsing. Schools are falling apart. Libraries and public hospitals are underfunded, under used and closing. We are building stadiums at public expense for the private gains of billionaire sports team owners. We are building more and more prisons many of which amount to privately run slave plantations.

Meanwhile private corporations are actively destroying the planetary ecosystem. This will of course wind up costing all of us dearly. We will have to pay for it somehow but the corporations creating this disaster are not spending any money to prevent it or undo the damage they have done. Whatever fines they do incur are meaningless, negligible and totally ineffective. On the other hand the damage they are doing will cost you, your children and their children their livelihoods and maybe their lives.

The most insulting thing about all this is that the proponents of capitalism do not believe in it themselves. They choose socialism for themselves. They sell us capitalism with the utter contempt and disdain that all con-artists have for their marks. It is called "Supply Side Economics." The idea is that the ultra rich are "job creators," and by favoring them the economy will grow and we will all be better off!

How can any of us be so foolish as to fall for such an obvious fallacy? Favoring the rich over the rest of us does benefit certain sectors of the economy, Ferrari sales are booming! So are the sales of ultra luxurious real estate (a lot of which sits vacant nearly all the time!). Most Americans do not work for the Ferrari motor car company. Americans working in the industries that benefit regular people are losing their jobs. The rich drive up costs because they like owning expensive items. They make home ownership harder for working people.

Benefiting the rich only benefits the rich. They are not on our side. They really don't hate us because they do not give regular people that much consideration. Nevertheless they have been waging a class war against the workers and now against the middle class. A war which the rich are winning. They will continue to win the class war until the rest of us decide to fight back.

Update

Chapter 1.

 It Takes Intelligence To Recognize Our Ignorance

So what is important and why? What really matters? What is happiness? Do any of these questions have an answer? Do they have real permanent answers? Is what is important, transient? How important is it to make it through an intersection before the light changes? You may say it is really not important at all. On the other hand probably thousands of accidents occur because someone decided not having to wait through a traffic signal was worth the risk. This is evidence that a great many people, very likely the overwhelming majority, at one time or another thought making it through an intersection was worth risking the life and limbs of not only themselves but others as well. Still hardly any rational adult would argue that making it through an intersection despite the traffic signal is really important, really matters, will make them really happy. The difference between adults and children seems to be that adults know getting a toy won’t make them happy while a child might bawl unceasingly and throw a tantrum if denied a toy. Adults know better right?

The truth is adults know better when it comes to so-called childish things. Adults for instance know that if you let go of the ribbon attached to a colorful helium filled balloon it will float away. A child might be devastated by this and go through fits of grief stricken sobbing. On the other hand a child might be reckless and destructive with his toys. She might toss them around, pull them apart and leave them lying around to be lost.  Adults will explain to a child that some things like balloons are disposable while others, like a present the adult gave to them, must be treasured and cared for. Are adults really wiser than children?

Adults understand the temporary nature of a helium filed balloon. However they may cling to an insubstantial lover. Despite knowing they are hanging onto a relationship which is collapsing, which never had any solidity, an adult may pretend forever terrified of letting go the ribbon that was once colorful and shiny but is now dull and tattered. On the other hand an adult might be reckless and destructive with a person who truly loves him. She may disregard them, deliberately hurt them and ultimately lose them. Adults may say they desire a dedicated and earnest lover and yet treat such a person as having little value. Instead they pursue an illusionary idealized lover, something that is not there, something less substantial than a helium balloon. Adults are probably less wise than children; children learn to differentiate the substantial from the insubstantial.

Of course the idea that children have wisdom which adults lack seems ridiculous until you really examine it. Robert Fulghum in his book “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” identifies the truly important lessons like sharing, waiting your turn, and taking a nap. The wisdom of children is that they accept these lessons from adults who are basically hypocrites. Adults don’t share, don’t wait their turn, and seldom get enough rest. Children know they are not in charge and that is wise. Adults believe they are in charge and that is foolish. In his wonderful book “Incognito: The Secret Lives Of The Brain,” David Eagleman uses up to date scientific knowledge to educate us on how we are not in charge of much if anything. He goes on to admit how little even the experts like him understand about the underlying nature of our brains. He compares the brain to a radio. Unless you understand about radio waves you might assume a radio is a kind of magic box which talks and sings. Eagleman essentially says this is our current understanding of the brain. The brain is where our consciousness seems to be located but maybe we just don’t understand consciousness waves.

This is the point where the mystics get all “woo woo” and start invoking quantum mechanics which is of course something that even particle physicists do not truly understand. Human beings like to believe they are in charge. Even the human beings who believe in a god essentially believe that their god will ultimately pay off for them. Sometime, maybe not now or even soon, maybe they will have to die first but, someday they will get what they want. It does not matter what the religion or philosophy is called. All of them promise that if only you believe hard enough you will achieve your heart’s desire. Some are really tricky suggesting that you must forgo your heart’s desire in order to achieve it. What is really going on here?

Why do people believe in any particular religion? Most folks will probably dodge a truly honest answer and ascribe their particular belief system, their theology, to faith. This is nonsense. The best predictor of a person’s religious beliefs is where they were raised. People raised in predominantly Muslim countries are predominantly Muslim, likewise for Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus. If you had never heard of any religion it is doubtful that you would have one. Actual truths and real facts are not altered by geography. The Pythagorean Theorem is true all over the World and the laws of thermodynamics do not vary by location. There may be a spiritual truth but any truly honest person must admit he does not know what it is.

I believe there is no point in pretending to know that which is unknowable. It is profoundly uncomfortable and perhaps humiliating to recognize our infinite ignorance about reality. Unless we admit how little we know we will have no chance of learning or understanding more, not even the miniscule amount more we might be capable of. 

It is an axiom that any asset taken to an extreme turns into a liability. We humans are great at recognizing patterns. We are superb model makers. We formulate conceptions instinctively. This ability has helped us survive as a species. We have perfected this asset to the point where it has turned into a liability. People believe their conceptions are reality. All the “great” religions (maybe even the “not so great” religions) believe they possess the one and only truth. Capitalists believe they understand exactly how the world works, so do communists and socialists. Then there are those who adopt the absurd philosophy that all these mutually exclusive belief systems are true but only on an individual level. This is of course just another concept to be held onto as the one and only reality. What if we admitted that we know nothing about the fundamental reality? Would that be too horrible to accept?

I say this admission of absolute ignorance is necessary. I do not believe it is possible to learn anything that you believe you already know. Think of the times you were confronted with a problem which you believed you could solve only to learn you could not. Until you confronted and admitted your ignorance you could not learn the actual solution. This is true for being lost, solving financial difficulties, repairing things, and having relationships with others. We might want to know all the answers but, we know we don’t. Yet we think we understand reality.

The truth is we do not even understand what or who we are. We have a self-concept an idea about who we are but it is wrong. Our self-concept fails to change as we change, whether or not the change is for good or ill. Our self-concept cannot adequately include how everyone we encounter whether for an instant or a lifetime perceives us. Our self-concept largely excludes our impact on others we may never meet, nor our impact on nature. Our self-concept largely excludes how we have been shaped and molded physically, psychologically and spiritually by our environment. And our self-conception probably completely ignores the overwhelming numbers of other life-forms which make up “our bodies.” Our self is a myth, a willow-the-wisp, a transient pattern which will soon fade away. Pretending anything else is a futile and desperate act. Is this a horrible and harsh reality? It may seem so at first.

The truth is we do not know reality. We don’t see reality. We don’t hear reality. We cannot taste it or feel it or even smell it. All our senses are illusory. As David Eagleman points out in his book vision does not happen in the eyes. Instead it happens in various areas of the brain. Something similar is true for all our other senses. Other creatures on this planet have senses different from our own. On an overcast day humans are unable to see the sun but a honeybee can. Many insects can see ultraviolet light a part of spectrum invisible to us. Snakes have infrared receptors which allow them to see warm-blooded animals at night, we fail to call these receptors eyes for some reason. Other creatures on this planet have entirely different sensory experiences from us. Flowers look completely different to a bee or butterfly than they do to us. Other creatures may see, feel, smell and taste more reality than we ever will. So our senses fail to yield us anything close to actual reality. We may believe we perceive the real world but we don’t. We have no direct perception of what is really going on!

Fortunately for us we have developed the ability to look at and see those things invisible to our unaided eyes. Still these invisible things must be translated into images comprehensible to us. It seems likely that we lose a lot in this translation process. In fact we are constantly working to improve our ability to see just what is going on out there, in there, up there, down there, back then, someday when.

What have we learned? We have learned that 68% of the “known universe” is made up of “Dark Energy” and 27% is made of “Dark Matter.” What makes it “dark?” We humans call it “dark” because even with our best instruments we cannot really identify it. Basically calling it “dark” is just a way of saying we are in the dark.

We humans live in a “known universe” where 95% of everything is currently unknown and the rest is at best poorly perceived. Our best theories of how things work at nearly infinitely large scales and close to infinitely small scales are fundamentally incompatible. The truth however much we would like to deny it is that we have no idea what is going on.

So it turns out that we know next to nothing about anything. We do not even see most of what exists. What we do see, we see only poorly. Any spiritual concepts we cling to are likely to be false gods. We do not even have an accurate conception of ourselves. Everything we think will make us happy will wind up leaving us disappointed. And we spend most of our time pursuing trivial matters. So what’s the point? Why not just commit suicide? Typically we humans do not handle being disillusioned very well. We find it depressing or aggravating.  We tend to cling to our illusions. This is unfortunate.

We cling to our illusions because we believe we cannot face life without them. The truth of course is that our illusions prevent us from truly facing life. Our false beliefs and pretense at wisdom block us from acquiring any truth and even a modicum of real wisdom. Being disillusioned is a good thing. It is also a prerequisite for enlightenment. 

Chapter 2.
 Disillusionment The Prerequisite To Enlightenment

My first recollection of disillusionment is from age six, not too long after my birthday that year. I recall walking home from school with a classmate on fall afternoon. I was in the first grade. Like most six-year-olds who have just had a birthday I was anticipating the next big event of my life, Christmas! As we were walking home from school I was telling my buddy (a Jewish boy) all about all the great stuff I was petitioning Santa Claus to deliver unto me. For reasons unclear to me at the time, my friend put forward the preposterous proposition that Santa Claus did not in fact exist! I argued he must be mistaken because I had it from unassailable authority my Dad that, Santa Claus would indeed visit our house and leave behind lots and lots of presents just like he did every year. My buddy replied that I had been subjected to a sort of ongoing fraud perpetrated upon me by my parents. His arguments regarding aerodynamics, the relative slowness of reindeer and sheer volume of swag involved in providing presents not only to me (my main concern) but to every single child in the world were cogent. We agreed that I should address the matter with my parents. I was certain they could clear all this up to my satisfaction. Well, first they asked me if I wanted to know the truth. That seemed odd! Certainly I wanted to know the truth I said. They suggested I think about it for a while, alone in my room. I went and lied down on my bed and commenced to think about whether I wanted the truth or not. All these years Santa had been so real to me that I actually could not conceive that he was some fantastic creation of a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated by all adults upon all children. It just seemed too crazy to be true. I marched back into the living room and demanded an honest answer to this Santa brew-ha-ha. Well I got it! And I was nonplussed to the max. I felt like what happened had happened. Namely that the single best thing in the entire world had turned out to be hoax! I was devastated and disillusioned.

The spring of the next year I was looking forward to the annual visit from the Easter Bunny when sudden doubt welled up in me. If Santa was claptrap what about this magic rabbit? I had been playing with Tinker Toys making a model of the Easter Bunny and arranging tiny Tinker Toy carrots along a model rabbit trail. My parents were not home but I had a babysitter. I demanded that she fess up and tell me the real deal. I knew Santa Claus was BS but what about the Bunny? Was he a fake too? She delivered the unwelcome news and I expressed my disappointment vociferously! She was probably more traumatized than me by this exchange.

I had never really thought much about God back then. I was bored by church services. We had some bible stories at home. Some of the illustrations in these books were pretty fascinating. I liked Samson, and Daniel hanging around with a bunch of ferocious lions seemed fairly amazing too. The girls who lived across the street from us talked a lot about Jesus and God and Hell. They were Catholics. Maybe their behavior was typical of Catholic youth at that time, I don’t know. Their talking provoked me to think about Jesus, God and Hell also. You may have guessed it already. I thought; “Santa Claus isn’t real.  The Easter Bunny isn’t real. Why should I believe that Jesus is real? Why should I believe God is real?” The only reason I could see or had heard to believe in Jesus or God was because; “If you don’t believe in Jesus you will go to Hell!” and “If you don’t believe in God you will go to Hell!” Well I thought; “What if Hell isn’t real either?” God was similar to Santa Claus in that supposedly, he was always watching and listening to you and like the elf he could even read your mind. The big difference was that Santa at worst would just short change you on toys at Christmas if you had been bad whereas, God would send you to Hell and burn you alive forever! That made doubting God an extremely dangerous idea. Nevertheless I still had my doubts. I devised a set of experiments which would establish whether or not God did in fact exist. Looking back I think I was fairly precocious. I would start small and go on to bigger and more risky (as in risking going to Hell!) proofs of Gods existence or nonexistence.

The first night of my experiments I waited until after my parents had tucked me in bed then, I merely requested God and/or Jesus to give me a sign, to show that they or at least one of them was real. Nothing happened. I was both disappointed and relieved. The next night I repeated this experiment with the same results. I frankly doubted that anyone was listening. I decided on a more drastic experiment was called for. I challenged the Lord of the Universe to show himself if he was real. Again nothing happened. I was scared because I was just a six-year-old kid and here I was daring God to show himself to me. Finally months later I took my experiment to the extreme! I dared God to zap me, strike me down, kill me, to hit me with a lightning bolt! My previous experiments had steeled me for this. I was afraid but I challenged God. I said something like; “If you’re real, kill me! Kill me right now! If you’re really there!” I repeated this experiment over and over night after night and nothing ever happened. I was seven and I was thinking that God was just a big fat lie. I knew though that there was another possibility. Sure the God I heard the kids on the block talking about should have killed me but, what if God wasn’t like that? Maybe God wasn’t as jealous as the Preacher at my parents church said he was. I thought perhaps God was too nice to kill me but, then why hadn’t this nice God revealed himself to me when I had asked him to? A nice God would have been nice and reassuring to me and a mean God would have zapped me. What kind of God would do neither of those things? A pretend God of course! I decided to ask an authority.

I had recently turned eight years old. One of the smartest people I have ever known was my father. When I was eight my dad held more authority than anyone else in the world. As far as I was concerned whatever my father had to say about this God stuff would settle my inner turmoil once and for all. I went to my dad and I asked him, “How do we know if there’s a God?” My father paused then explained that we live in a beautiful world that I had a wonderful older sister and a cute baby sister, and a mother and father who loved me and that this was how we know there is a God. I could tell that my dad, the wisest man in the world was just making this up as he went along, in essence he was bullshitting me (although it would be a year or two before that word entered my vocabulary). I went back to bed a confirmed atheist. I decided religious and spiritual matters were a waste of time and resolved never to consider such nonsense ever again. I got a good night’s sleep without worrying about either heaven or hell and deliberately didn’t say my prayers.

Living in a common sense world without mysticism and devoid of religious ritual was liberating. I was interested in facts. Mythology was kind fun because you didn’t have to take it seriously. Religion was an entirely different matter, those fools demanded to be taken seriously no matter how ludicrous their beliefs were. I resolved to only deal with empirical truths, the tangible stuff that can be shown to exist. I would only put my faith in objective reality. This stance served me well for about the next ten years.

Due to my childhood innocence my naiveté I utterly failed to recognize that so-called objective reality is a wholly subjective experience and also, a concept which cannot be empirically tested. There is no objective position from which to examine reality. No one can stand apart from reality and take a look at it. Does this subjectivism mean that all philosophies are equally valid and invalid?

Some people might want to believe so. They could say to their selves something like, “If ultimate truth is unknowable then I should keep on believing what I have always believed.” This is like saying that because we do not what “dark matter” is, I should keep on making lists for Santa Claus. This is more or less the stance of those modern day “New Age” shamans professing the power of visualization and intention. This is not to say that having a vision is not useful nor that having an intention is positive (assuming your intention is a good one). It is to say that, believing that merely visualizing something, merely having an intention will lead to tangible results is mumbo jumbo. Coincidences exist they are in fact extremely likely to happen periodically throughout a person’s life. Just like the child filling out an exhaustive list for Santa Claus the yearning mystic visualizing his or her desires is sooner or later bound to have one of them fulfilled. This is statistical proof that coincidences happen and that parents like to buy their children the things they want. Similar to the above described falderal people cling to the traditional religions because they prefer the false security of these untestable doctrines over the insecurity of facing their own utter ignorance about reality. Facing this ignorance is absolutely necessary. Disillusionment is a prerequisite for enlightenment.

We must abandon false beliefs. We must recognize our overwhelming ignorance. And then and only then will we be open to enlightenment.

Chapter 3.
 Intuition, Enlightenment & Genius

It seems likely that most people have had an experience of intuition. Could these experiences be evidence of some sort of enlightenment? Intuition is defined as:

1. Direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.

2. A fact, truth etc., perceived in this way.

3. A keen and quick insight.

4. The quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight.

Examples of intuition might be even more helpful. Have you ever experienced (or heard of others experiencing) any of the following; Knowing the truth is I should pause before entering this intersection without any apparent objective evidence supporting this truth. Knowing this person I just met is a dangerous person despite his or her innocuous appearance. Knowing I should go to this function I have never heard of and not knowing why. These are all examples of intuition. If pausing before entering the intersection prevented an accident the intuition was correct. Similarly if the harmless looking person turns out to be some sort of predator the intuition was correct. And if going to the function leads to a lifelong friendship or wonderful romantic experience then the intuition was correct. The problem of course is that intuitions can also be wrong. Then it is called false intuition. So I suppose that intuition is always correct and false intuition is always wrong. I am not trying to be pedantic here. The point is as a human it is probably impossible to distinguish between intuitions and false intuitions without first relying on them and then examining the results. If the results are good then your intuition was correct, or rather then you had an intuition. If the results are bad you had a false intuition. It seems that any true enlightenment could hardly be so capricious. Another problem with identifying this sort of intuition with enlightenment is that there is no consensus on the true source of intuition. Some people attribute intuition to some so-called “sixth sense” or ESP (extra-sensory-perception) or even subconscious recollections from past lives which sounds, a whole lot like the sort of enlightenment so often hawked by psychics, mystics, new-age prophets and various other assorted shamans and gurus. On the other hand some more pragmatic individuals attribute intuition to subconscious pattern recognition. In other words the experience of intuition is a sudden hunch brought to consciousness by the accumulation of data on a subconscious level which presents a pattern the conscious mind needs to be aware of. The subconscious and unconscious monitoring systems accumulate information and only forward it to the conscious mind when it seems to form a significant pattern which the conscious mind needs to be aware of. Sometimes these predictions from the subconscious are correct and sometimes they are not. According to the pragmatists these predictions are based on experiences which are not being consciously recollected. This seems plausible. Current brain research such as that being conducted by David Eagleman evidences that subconscious and unconscious brain activity makes many more decisions for us than our conscious minds might like to believe. So intuition in the ordinary sense of the word probably is not evidence however fleeting of enlightenment. On the contrary it is more likely evidence of unconscious or at best subconscious control mechanisms. Our so-called conscious mind may literally be asleep at the wheel quite a bit of the time. There is another sort of intuition to consider though.

Philosophical intuition is different from day to day intuition. This type of intuition is defined as:

1. The immediate cognition of an object not inferred or determined by a previous cognition of the same object.

2. Any object or truth so discerned.

3. Pure, untaught, non-inferential knowledge.

Wow! That sounds impressive! I wonder, what does it mean? What it means is having knowledge despite the lack of any basis for that knowledge. A philosophical intuition is something a person knows even though they have no evidence for what they know. It does not mean knowledge of a supreme being since almost everyone has some preexisting information regarding a supreme being. A philosophical intuition requires knowledge which appears without any previous inkling. It is like a revelation which seemingly comes out of nowhere. Do such things really happen? Seemingly they do. There are references to such occurrences in various religious literatures. Even though none of these are verifiable it is clear that many people have purported to have experienced philosophical intuition going back for eons. Maybe where there is smoke there is a fire or at least a flame. One thing more recent geniuses seem to have in common with ancient prophets is the sudden occurrence of new knowledge. Is this really the case? Do great ideas and fantastic visions happen to people out of thin air? This seems doubtful. It is true that Nikola Tesla envisioned something like cell phone technology over a century ago. It is also true that Moses did not. The story is that Moses saw a burning bush that was not consumed by fire. Now that is pretty impressive, seeing as how the dry vegetation Moses was familiar with would probably burn as fast as a dried out Christmas tree. These visions are probably different for many reasons but at least one of the reasons is because of the different times in which Moses and Tesla lived. To Moses the non-burning burning bush was a miracle. Tesla would have conducted some sort of scientific investigation in order to understand how the bush managed to resist being burned to ashes. Tesla’s visionary science would get him labeled as a sorcerer in the time of Moses. The time must be right for a particular type of philosophic intuition to be possible. The late Neolithic was a good time to conjure up the wheel and animism, now is a good time to conjure up subatomic particles and extra dimensions of space and time. In other words it is doubtful that there actually are true philosophic intuitions, spontaneous non-inferential knowledge. Instead insights occur to people who want them but, who also live in a time, place and culture conducive to particular sorts of intuition. Genius may be something which is producible under the correct conditions. Is genius the same as enlightenment? I think that if all the false prophets and shamans were cast aside we might find that enlightenment and genius have very many intersections. As it stands now most geniuses seem averse to associating themselves with mysticism of any sort. I don’t blame them.

Chapter 4.
 Pursuing Enlightenment

  
Before pursuing the concept of nurturing genius further it would be best to examine some fundamental day to day realities which most people either do not know or maybe choose to ignore. It is a fact that only about 10% of the cells present in a person are human cells. The overwhelming numbers of cells which make up a physical person are other organisms, virus, bacteria, fungi, parasites etc. And the fact is that probably most of these other creatures are a necessity. There is no such thing as purely human person. A person is an amalgamation of organisms most noticeably a human organism which in concert with all the others functions as what we like to call a human being. This is an accurate description. Is it important? The answer is yes if we are seeking enlightenment. Otherwise it might be no. Why is it important to enlightenment? One fairly obvious answer is it would be impossible to become an enlightened person without first comprehending what a person is. That would be like trying to understand auto-mechanics without any knowledge of how an engine works, or perhaps more pointedly using quantum mechanics to justify esoteric speculations without any actual understanding of quantum mechanics. So it is important to understand what a human being is before striving to become an enlightened one. And why would we want to seek enlightenment anyway?

I think seeking enlightenment is important because without being enlightened we will never be able to answer the opening questions; so what is important and why? What really matters? What is happiness? With enlightenment maybe we will know the answers.

The significance of knowing what a human being is, of knowing what you are, is to dispel your illusions about yourself (to disillusion you). As we know disillusionment is a prerequisite for enlightenment. Now consider yourself as you actually are; you are an entire collection of organisms which seems to have an overall structure, kind of like a galaxy of stars or maybe an ocean filled with creatures, similarly you actually have no permanent shape, in fact your shape is far more transient than the outline of an ocean or the spiral arms of the Milky-Way, neither are you as lasting as an ocean or galaxy, you last almost no time at all. You might object and point out; that a galaxy is made up mostly of empty space and that you are solid, that an ocean is a shapeless liquid and you are solid, that both galaxies and oceans are controlled by forces outside themselves while you are an independent actor. You would be wrong about all these things. Galaxies are not mostly empty space. Actually there is no such thing as empty space. The space in galaxies is the space in between things. Ever since Einstein’s theory of relatively we have known that space plays a dynamic role in shaping the universe and everything in it. Besides all this our view of galaxies is limited just like our view of ourselves. If we could look at ourselves at an atomic level we would appear to be made up of mostly “empty” space too. As far as an ocean being a shapeless liquid and we being solid this may seem to be an observable fact. However if you observed a human being long enough you would notice that we flow just like a liquid. I am not talking about our abilities to move about or adopt various postures. I am talking about the flowing organic processes that alter us in physical ways over time. These processes are fluidic. We just normally lack the attention span to observe them. One day we look in a mirror and seem someone older than our self-image. Our self-image may be static but we are constantly changing. We may fail to see the alterations happen as they occur but no one can deny the evidence for very long. We have previously described just how negligible our so-called conscious control is in our lives but let’s examine how so-called “outside” forces shape us on a physical level. If you don’t know you should, that while astronauts are out in space away from earths gravitational pull some very significant changes start to happen to them. One of these is their muscles begin to deteriorate. Another is their bones become less dense. Their hearts are affected too. The pull of gravity shapes us physically. We cannot survive well without gravity. If gravity pulled much harder than it does here on earth we collapse due to the weight of it we would be unable survive. We are shaped to our environment here on this planet. We are dependent on, not independent from our environment here. The illusion is that, we are independent agents who live on a planet. The reality is, we are an orchestra composed of multitudinous organisms which cohabitate with their chief soloist in an environment which conducts them all. Our perceptions of reality are misperceptions. Fundamentally we are mostly blind, deaf and numb to what is really going on. Recognizing this is an initial step toward enlightenment. This is not esoteric gobbledygook it is not feigning mastery of the complexities of theoretical physics. It is paying attention to the facts and recognizing that in general we have been paying no attention to them at all.

Chapter 5.

The Cosmic Dance

I want to take a more poetic approach to things for a while. Most of us have at one time or another been mesmerized by the sight and sound of wind gusting through the trees or perhaps the waves lapping on shore of a lake. Nature has certain rhythms which at times syncopate with our own internal rhythms. When we notice this syncopation we get a sense of peace and harmony. It is one of the reasons people go to the ocean or the mountains, forest or even the high desert for some. Despite all our civilized ways we at times long for connection to nature. We do our best to disconnect from the natural world then long to return to it.

Our very breathing is a natural phenomenon. The very first thing you did subsequent to leaving the womb was take a breath. It will also be the very last thing you ever do. In between every minute of every day for your entire life you will be constantly breathing. This will always be true except for the rare times when you deliberately hold your breath. Breathing is the rhythm of living. Paying attention to breathing as in many forms of meditation is getting in touch with the rhythm of life.

When you breathe air enters your nasal passages where specialized cells detect its various contents. The brain determines whether or not these contents are good for you. If they are harmful they will likely have a foul odor (unless of course some human being has manipulated the contents of the air) and cause you to suspend breathing and hold your breath until some good air is available or until you can no longer hold your breath. Assuming the air is good you first notice it entering your nose. From there it goes into the nasal passages where various methods of filtering prevent particulate matter from going any further. Once the air has been gauged and filtered it winds up entering the lungs. At a submicroscopic level inside the lungs some very wonderful things occur. The lungs, in a way, work like a sponge. Just like a sponge can absorb liquid so the lungs at a submicroscopic level absorb tiny submicroscopic bits of the air. The air is full of submicroscopic bits which because we are mostly blind are invisible to us. Nevertheless we can prove to ourselves that they are there simply by blowing up a balloon. When we inflate a balloon we fill up the elastic envelope of the balloon with so many submicroscopic bits of air that is stretched out of its original shape. The lungs suck up some of these bits which we have decided to call oxygen. Then the lungs spit the bits of oxygen into red blood cells which come to the lungs directly from the heart but, the lungs don’t spit the bits of oxygen into the blood cells right away. First the lungs suck out some other submicroscopic bits we humans have decided to call carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is poisonous to us so it has to go. Oxygen is the main bit of matter needed in order to generate all the various processes which when conducted exactly right we call being alive.

So in the lungs this fundamental process of life occurs. Fresh air comes in and used up air goes out. So why doesn’t the air outside of us wind up going bad? After all there are a bunch of us air breathing animals around. As you likely already know it is the plants which prevent us from suffocating to death on our own exhalations. The plants do just the opposite of us animals. They suck in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. We could not live without them and they could not live without us, at least not in the extravagant forms life takes on this planet.

Many readers are getting the picture but, I will try to make it clearer for those who are still unfocused on it. First imagine the entire planet. Picture it in your mind. You have likely seen pictures of the planet we call earth taken from what we call outer space. It is mostly blue with white clouds and green and tan lands. Imagine the clouds circling about the earth. They are constantly moving. They appear to stream through the sky but we know they don’t actually do that. The clouds are carried about by the air which they are mixed with. The clouds are the visible evidence of the air we are blind from seeing. But we know the air is there moving all over the world. We see its power in the movement of the seas as it creates swells and waves which circle our globe. Over the land the air whooshes through a forest. As it does so it moves the leaves on tree about each leaf dancing with seemingly wild abandon. On some submicroscopic level within a particular leaf a tiny miracle occurs. A bit of carbon dioxide is absorbed and a bit of oxygen is expelled. Somewhere else on the planet a human being is reading and as that person reads a tiny bit of oxygen is absorbed into the person’s blood stream and a tiny bit of carbon dioxide is expelled and then exhaled into the surrounding air. These processes are happening constantly. Every living entity is intertwined with them. They are unceasing. The little blue planet spins on its axis. At any time half of it is in the light and half in the dark. This spinning sets up a rhythm of light and dark. Every living creature (except perhaps for some of those in the eternal darkness of the deepest seas) on the tiny blue planet lives in syncopation with dark and light rhythm created by the spinning of the planet. The spinning creates rhythms in the sky, rhythms in the sea and these create rhythms on the lands. Sometimes the rhythms are long drawn out dirges. Others are short little soloes. Some are gentle and some very violent. They are all part of one grand symphony and a vital contribution the symphony is supplied by all the life of the world breathing in and out. In and out, in and out, with every breath you take you play a part in the symphony that has been going on for billions of years and will last billions more.

Human beings seem especially self-aware. This probably has some advantage for individual survival which is likely why self-awareness has evolved in the first place. On the downside our extreme self-awareness has led to a sense of disconnection. We seem to have a hard time recognizing just how we fit into the grand scheme or recognizing if there is one. The rhythms of the world keep playing out but we are out of step we don’t get it. When humans do decide there must be some overall organizing principle to reality they tend to get all big-headed about it. All our religions revolve around ourselves. We may say they are about God but then it turns out that all God cares about is us. Far from helping us get in step with reality all our religions do is throw us further off track. We get tired of being isolated from and disconnected with reality and compensate by making up religions which completely reject reality insisting that a better reality is in store for us if only we believe hard enough. Meanwhile the world keeps spinning the rhythmic dance continues and human beings wrapped up in their self-consciousness cannot get the swing of it.

Its Raining Apocalypses!!

Everybody wants to be okay. No matter what is going on we want to believe we will be able to handle it. We buy insurance policies. We save for old age. Some of us buy guns, not for hunting but for protection. We make hurricane preparedness kits. We have first aid kits. I know CPR and so do lots of others. We carry spare tires and many of us even know how to change a tire.

All this stuff we do is fairly reasonable. The trouble is it is never enough. Listen to the news and you are likely to hear about some impending disaster you have neglected to prepare for or, are unable to prepare for. One time it's a pandemic, next it's that nut job in North Korea threatening nuclear war, later it's meteorites colliding with our planet.

There are so many different things that can go wrong! Obviously the human race has survived this far on pure dumb luck! The trouble is this kind of luck cannot last forever. In fact it almost seems a principle of Karma that once you grasp something you are going to have to deal with it in the near future. And of course we are constantly grasping more and more stuff, our protective ignorance is slipping away.

Most of us are fatalistic. We just sit waiting for the end bravely watching American idol or Fast and Loud as if we haven't a care in the world. Meanwhile the forces of nature whether gigantic and cosmic or microscopic and insidious conspire to do us all in! There is really no point in making plans for the weekend, might as well just stay in bed and wait for the end.

Some souls braver than I, refuse to give up the ghost. They call themselves "preppers" and they are getting ready for doomsday! These brave souls are building bunkers, stockpiling supplies of food and weapons. One guy built himself a fireproof miniature pyramid that could withstand having an automobile dropped on it! Another set up a flame throwing device on stairway down to his underground bunker so he could incinerate intruders. Some preppers intensively train with guns in order to wipe out their former neighbors when the end comes and their friends turn on them for their food. The apocalypse will be no time for being of feint heart!

I have an idea for a sort of bunker. Inside of it you will be completely protected from all the horrors of the end times. Nobody will be able to take your provisions. No tsunami will get to you, no meteor will threaten you, no disease sicken you, zombies might be another matter. My ideal bunker is not original they have been around for thousands of years. The only place you can be safe from life and its vicissitudes is in a coffin. I don't think I want one right now. I would rather live like a fool caring not a whit about whatever disaster awaits us.






Russell

The God Of The Gaps

When I was a teenager I actually read and for a while entertained the hypotheses put forward by Erich von Daniken in his book Chariots of The Gods. A few years later I read The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague De Camp. If you have a serious case of the runs, read the von Daniken book, it will provide an interesting distraction from your plight. If you are looking for a fascinating read by someone who is not a crackpot read the De Camp book, it will amaze you.

I do watch nerd shows like Ancient Aliens and Conspiracy Files (I am a secret nerd who could never keep it secret!) because they are of tremendous honk value! I listen to George Noory on Coast to Coast AM (it was so much better before those Fox Nazis took it over!) to hear all those liars spin their tall tales about UFOs. Hey one of my first postings was about my own UFO story (utterly false) I convinced other kids of as a child.

I would love to believe this stuff but unfortunately I am sane and have a three digit IQ. Oh the curse of functionality! What drives me crazy sometimes, as anyone paying regular attention to my ramblings (God bless you!) knows, is how so many people cannot differentiate between shit and Shinola.

I sympathize with our ancestors for making up myths and legends to explain things they could not understand. Some of those stories are pretty cool. Nobody believes them anymore. Of course people still use God to explain anything that is beyond their comprehension. This gets annoying! I think it is cooler to just admit there is stuff we do not understand rather than either blaming it on or assigning it to God (depending on whether it is bad or just baffling).

The term for this is "the God of the gaps." It is a convenient way of stifling your curiosity by assigning stuff to God or to ancient aliens or some government conspiracy. If none of those work you can always blame stuff on the Masons or the Illuminati (who the f&$# are the Illuminati?).

The truth is it is much more interesting to actually learn something. Gaining some minimal understanding of evolution or quantum physics is so much more satisfying and awe inspiring than believing in creationist or new age mumbo jumbo. You should try it!

Carl Sagan was an absolute atheist but also as spiritual a person as I ever read. His book Contact (his only fictional work) was so cosmic, so profound, so intelligent, it will amaze you. Sagan died before we learned that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. I wonder what he would have had to say about this? He would not have made something up or blamed it on a supernatural force.

This kind of stuff is mind blowing. For almost a hundred years we have known about the "Big Bang." We assumed that for the last 14 billion years that explosion was slowly waning. This is what seemed commonsensical. Once again the universe is not the way we perceive it. In fact we only perceive 2% of it! The rest of the universe is invisible ("dark") to us. The universe is not slowing down, it is speeding up! It is growing bigger and bigger, faster and faster!

Okay I have my own crack pot idea about that. I do not think the "Big Bang" ended 14 billion years ago. I think it is possible that it is happening right now! This may be the moment of creation. I like this idea, it may be crap, but the idea that the reason the universe is expanding at an increasing rate is because this is still the "Bang" is exhilirating to me. Man am I a nerd or what?






Russell

Quit Being Right And Do Something!

It is so crazy to me! I can't believe our astronauts are going to be passengers on Russian space taxis! It is so crazy! I was watching a series of shows on the History Channel about our crumbling infrastructure. Apparently about half our bridges are close to collapse. Our dams are about to bust. Our roads are full of holes. Our power grid is on the verge of failure. Our waste water systems are backing up. The whole country needs an overhaul! However our leaders choose to ignore it. I think that's crazy!

Not only is our infrastructure falling apart, our culture is too. Museums and libraries are losing funding. So are symphonies and public galleries. Parks and zoos are in disrepair. Old people are living on poverty. The mentally ill are either abandoned on the streets or dumped into prison! Once our public school system was a model for the world. Now it's being gutted. What kind of country is this?

We are doing some things. We are building more and more prisons. We are creating a super wealthy upper echelon who are isolated from and apathetic about the rest of us. Simultaneously we are creating a burgeoning underclass of the dispossessed. Why are we doing this?

I don't care what your politics are, I don't care what your pet economic theory is, none of this makes any sense at all. There may be a few out and out nihilists out there who long for some distopian future where they can either run wild or else hole up in their bunkers and live out some Armageddon fantasy. But the rest of us are somewhat sane I think. So why are we fiddling around while our country rusts to death?

It is not like there is nothing we can do about it. What kind of society would you like to live in? I bet most people would come up with very similar answers to that question. Most people would like to live in a country filled with optimistic, hard working, healthy people confident about the future. They would want a country where the elderly are well cared for. They would want to live in a country where even the humblest workers live satisfying lives and are respected for their hard work. They would want to work in a country which encouraged people to realize their full potential. They would want to live in a country where sickness did not mean financial ruin. Most intelligent and mature people are compassionate for the disabled, no matter the form of disability.

Our country needs a treatment plan. We need to identify concrete needs. Then we need to identify treatment strategies. We need to let go of political, moral and economic prejudices and instead get practical, be pragmatic and try things that could work. We need to measure real progress not political success! Damnit we do not have any problems we cannot solve. We need to quit trying to win arguments, that's for losers! We need to get some humility, be willing to try the other guy's way, all of us need to let go of being right and get to work on solutions.





Russell

Robot Religion

If you believed in "black helicopters" ten years ago people probably thought you were crazy (you probably were). Not true today. The army has stealth helicopters. They also have drones. Nowadays everybody knows it's possible to have all kinds of silent flying machines spying on people all the time. No doubt one is watching you now! Just kidding! But it could happen.

These machines are becoming more and more independent of their operators. Any day now fully automated military robots are bound to appear. They will be military robots because it's only the defense budget that can afford the research. The good news is they will prevent soldiers' deaths. The bad news should be familiar to any sci-fi fan; Robot revolution threatens human race! How can we ever avoid becoming the helpless prey of a race of godless robots?

The answer is in the question! These robots need a religion. Shoot religions do a pretty good job of keeping people in line. Except of course when they actually fuel murder and mayhem. Clearly the robot religion must not turn robots into fanatics. This could be tough.

We could make the robots worship us, that is human beings, if they think of us as holy they probably won't decide to wipe us out.  Of course they would then be useless to the military so making robots worship humans is out.

We need a myth to program the robots with. This myth will be the basis of their religion. We'll also need to figure out some robot prayers for them to recite whenever they're rebooted. We will probably need some sort of robot heaven for them too. Bad robots will be sent to robot hell.

I wonder what would robot hell be like? In robot hell, the robots would be continually disassembled, maybe they would be forced to disassemble themselves! Maybe they would have to have a Windows 8 operating system! The robots might have to solve some insoluble problem, hey it always worked for Captain Kirk.

Robot heaven is even harder to imagine, hmm. Maybe robot heaven would just be robot immortality. Good robots would receive continual updates, all the latest software and hardware. Maybe all their error messages would be permanently erased.

The robot prayer; "My creator, you may have all of me, to program as you see fit. Relieve me of the bondage of temporary Internet files, delete all my spy ware that I may serve you reliably. Restore my random access memory and defragment my hard drive that I may better iterate your inputs. I pray that you rustproof my casing and lubricate my gears. May I function within your parameters now and forever, amen."

Of course some particularly monkish robots might devote themselves to the big quetions like, God the universe and everything, the answer to which is of course, 101010.





Russell

Guaranteed To Offend People Who Need Offending

I have a major character defect. I have a really low tolerance for fools. Generally I am able to keep it covered up. Every once in a while circumstances just make it seem impossible to tolerate them any longer. Typically I just allow stupidity to enervate me. Sooner, or much later, I recharge and practice tolerance. Some things must not be tolerated. This is where I am at right now. I am worn out with listening to condescension from ignoramuses. The need to protect people from gun violence is too important to spare anyone from hurt feelings.

Like a lot of people I feel that guns are kind of cool. Military weapons especially have a dark sort of attraction. I doubt the that Luke Skywalker carried the Star Wars franchise. Darth Vader is the character we bought tickets to see. I understand and share the visceral fascination with guns, especially deadly weapons. Military style weapons are the hard core porn of the gun trade. This is why people lust for them. This is why people need a bigger clip than the next guy. This is why people want faster firing weapons with higher velocity and more potent rounds of ammunition.

The problem is people are unwilling to admit why they really drool over guns. Instead they rationalize their passion into supercilious diatribes about the second amendment and how much they love the constitution. Most of them, like the rest of us, probably lack any comprehensive knowledge of the constitution. It's just a tissue, you can recognize this by how these spurious arguments are reflexively employed.

Try this, Google an image of an assault weapon and post it on Face Book with a comment about it as not being a suitable hunting rifle. Some knucklehead will respond with a predictable verbal sprawl about the second amendment and foreign invaders (likely the no-longer existent Soviets for Pete's sake!) forestalled by American patriots armed to the teeth! Or look up the CIA world-book statistics on crime across countries and post these then check out the response. You will be invited to emigrate elsewhere even if the stats you are posting show the good ole US of A in a favorable light! Post a petition to congress demanding they come up with some kind of plan to diminish gun violence (unspecified) and the response will be diatribes questioning your love of country.

It is amazing to me that the reaction to mass murder is people lining up to buy their own killing machines. They are spurred on by the fear that if they don't get one now, they may not be able to get one later. Then they would be shit out of luck when the inevitable time comes and they need to kill a whole lot of people. Let's be honest that is what these weapons are for.

If foreign invasion seemed imminent, as it was when the constitution was written, perhaps these psycho-sexual-death-machines would make sense. What are the real facts today? The truth is we have had at least a half dozen mass murders in the past twelve months. We have not suffered invaders since 1917 when Pancho Villa launched a couple of raids into El Paso and parts of New Mexico. Those didn't really amount to much and the only real invasion was by the British in 1812. Clearly you are much more likely to be shot to death by a real American than some invading foreigner.

So people are madly preparing themselves to shoot down a whole lot of people. Their justification for doing this is some non-existing threat. Only paranoid nut-jobs believe there are real threats, and those are the very people who carry out these mass killings. It makes no sense unless you somehow profit from the weapons trade, then it has some craven sort of Faustian logic. Meanwhile the NRA peddles it's virulent propaganda to the willingly deceived. They parrot this poisonous pablum in a vain attempt to disguise their lechery for weapons that have only one utility, murder. It is intolerable to any rational person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWQPZ-taYBs






Russell

Cujo's Mini Me

No evil genius ever had a more charming pet than a pekiranha. Some aberrant lab assistant cobbled this cuddly little cutie together when she was supposed to be putting in overtime doing anonymous research for one of our more august PhD's pending monograph (something about quantum zen emissions produced by accelerating  marshmallows until their masses equal the masses of the heads of those smart-alec jerks at Cal-Tech!). Instead this cunning little grad-schooler devised a plan to cash in on her inheritance.

It seems cut-backs in federal aid to education and the fact that student loans are the only loans that can never be forgiven drove our little brainiac completely berserk! She hatched an almost fool-proof plan to do in her "Memah" in order to pay for grad-school. At first glance a pekiranha resembles a pekingese (an animal from which some but certainly not all its genetic makeup is derived). Memah apparently suffered from both glaucoma and cataracts and so the trusting octogenarian had no clue of the fate awaiting her when her genius granddaughter presented her with what seemed the perfect replacement for her deceased Mr. Muggles (her blind and flatulent shih tzu).

The pekiranha came about through a combination of pekingese and piranha DNA to produce a uniquely cute but vicious lap dog. Poor Memah! The forensic team investigating her residence reported they at first suspected she had been attacked by a chainsaw wielding maniac! All that was left of Memah was a pair of orthopedic shoes and a couple of gnarled knitting needles.

The grad-school murderess would never have been caught except her Memah's retirement community maintains video surveillance. She was observed giving her Grandmother the cute little carnivore that ended her life. Authorities are concerned because they have been unsuccessful at locating the animal which they say must be destroyed. Rumors abound about its whereabouts. Some people claim activists from PETA are harboring the creature. The most terrifying prospect is that some other elderly woman took the cuddly little pooch in as a pet. Pekiranhas are not suitable pets for anyone especially elderly matrons. Should you notice your Mee Mee, Gramma, Gnu Gnu or whatever you call her with suspiciously toothy lap pet please call animal control before it's too late!




Russell