Good use of a Fillibuster!

State Senator Wendy Davis of Fort-Worth, Texas, was able to stop an abortion banning bill by a long-winded Filibuster just about now. Quite an impressive display of fortitude for her cause and helping our little country from slipping further into the dark ages of misogyny and self-administered 'family planning tactics'...

And Proposition 8 is failing again.

These stories are going to come faster and faster. At least I hope my generation has some wisdom lying around inside their heads. Though... the sodomy acts in Colorado give me a little pause, it seems obvious that, soon, gender identity issues will fade. Maybe it's just because everyone I know doesn't care what gender anyone IDs as.

But I think gay and lesbian (at least) are beginning to be aided by, ironically, a behavior which has damaged them in the past: people think about relationships a lot. They love it. Gay and Lesbian relationships just give match-makers one more thing to oohhh over, and we all like that.

Supercomputing a Paradigm Shift?

Recently the Chinese built the world's fastest supercomputer.

In the United States, we turned green with envy and purple with fear and red-faced with embarrassment. Isn't the United States duty to remain the greatest innovator and power house in computers? We have Google! No! It is the United State's duty to remain the greatest innovator, thinker, and holder of all the worlds greatest assets! If we don't, it's a matter of National Security.

Even though there are between 193 and 250 countries in the world and it's not a 'National Security' issue for all of 'em.

This computer could, apparently, do some pretty cool things. Like track all of it's citizens.... or collect terabytes of data. Help soldiers in the field and evaluate trends. It shows us what the consumer will be able to buy for their home computer in 2078.

But no one has mentioned helping a paradigm shift. So it's probably not all that useful. That's what we really need. Part of that Paradigm shift is probably realizing that a 33.860 petaflops computer is not quite so useful to the self-sustenance of a society as a hectare of local vegetables and fruits grown with a mind toward soil perseverance.

National Security? The issues are at home.

What to do...

How to make the world a better place. Step one:

Do it.

Plan, of course, but do it. Gardening, local food, self-sustenance is what could lead to our future salvation. Or, if nothing else, our immediate happiness.

Realize that not all jobs are really necessary. I applaud people for wanting a job. Most people want to give their society something. Otherwise we just all feel like a mooch. A laze. A bum. No one wants to feel like that. Some people get used to it, some people can't seem to get away from it. But no sane person wants to be a bum.

So we get jobs. But not all of them are actually needed. Some of them un-needed, but we are still convinced they should be there. Jobs such as mining (sorry miners), and a good half of our construction projects. Some jobs exist for no other reason than to fight with someone else, like marketers. Fighting fist over fist for whatever scraps they can find for their company and so, in an ever deeper trench, they dig for the same gold they once had for little work. Once, I lived in a city where we had 3 phone books. Three. Tres. Trois. Now what's the point of that? Competition? How about they all co-operate and make one bad-ass phone book rather than spending all the resources to print three copies of the same thing and deliver them (...for free...) to everyone in town. A phone book is paid for by ads. So everyone in the entire town needs to pay three times over for the same advertisement value.

Where's the sense in this? Is this a functioning market? It's asinine and a waste of human work.

I may sound bitter, but I don't want to be. This is an educational opportunity. Let's think of what could be done better. Where could all this work and time go instead?

If we shared and re-distributed our resources a little more efficiently, perhaps everyone could work for the one phone-book manufacturer. And work a third as much. Leaving so much time for doing whatever else their hearts desired. Think about who needs a job and why? Activity does not mean stability. Sometimes, it means the opposite, but sometimes it is appropriate. Yet, if one has all they need, why would they need more?

Why re-buy an iPhone just because it's there? The newest car model? Is it really that necessary?

Why use Skype or Google Hangouts or FaceTime when we all can have one universal phone numbering system. Which of these are more efficient. Call anyone, or "Oh, I don't have FaceTime. Guess I can't call you." Which makes me wonder why there are three proprietary networks. Wouldn't it be nicer if they worked together? When the telephone network was first put up, there were many companies providing phones that could use it. Now, computers can call and chat to each other and they have the ability to use the phone system. It is just not supported, and so we are not allowed.

Buddah preached peace in the moment. Even still, we are talking about the Power of Now.

And yet... Eckhart Tolle still sells his book for the root of all evil: money. The man must keep himself alive, I suppose.

What is Confucianism? Trying to Understand

The Religions of Man, by Houston Smith, is a remarkable book. I recommend it to everyone. It is filled with the wisdom of ancient Hinduism, the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus, the Jews... China, Japan, the Middle East, and India. All of it has a purpose and a point. None of it is vain, idle thought. There are lessons in here we could all listen to more often.

In the section on Confucianism in this remarkable book, there is a little history about dark-age China. It started earlier than 500 BC, a time of mutual and long term warfare It ravaged the people, tore up the country, made a general nuisance of itself. The usual states of war. They probably manufactured toy weapons and games for children to get practice at a good, young age.

What created such a state of destruction and violence? Vile human nature? A breakdown of traditional wisdom? A flux in social order? Perhaps a ballooning of the population like today's world? Smith describes a time of rising individualism. Permeating the old social cohesion, filling in cracks and wedging it apart. Old traditions are analyzed by thousands of individual point of view who either accept or reject it. Their immediate ancestors didn't even think about asking questions. They simply accepted their fate.

Of course, this is a little simplified. Smith believes that the pull of tradition in some cultures is so pervasive that the alternative is unthinkable. It drives daily life. There is no theft (as an example) because from birth no one is given an example of theft. No one steals. It doesn't exist and so it continues to not exist. It is beyond the mindset of the people to comprehend, let alone commit. Yet... in reality, people are different. Surprisingly stupid for being so unbelievable intelligent. There are people in our culture, our 'traditionless culture', who listen to their parents; there are people who listen to no one. There are sociopaths born everywhere. There are people who obey laws; there are those who flaunt laws. Even in cultures heavily led by culture, there are going to be those individuals who think of other ways. Most of them will not follow other ways. Even sociopaths will follow the will of a society when they know the alternative is rather enjoyable. Small bands of people deal with sociopaths easily. There are no laws or anything, but everyone knows everyone else. If there is an asshole, they'll deal with you.

But when there are too many people to keep track of one's neighbors.... those who think, suddenly have avenues to act. The old system (know everyone so you know the assholes and can banish them from the land) ceases to work and something else must be discovered. What are the answers? What are the ways to keep people enjoying each others company?

We could just all love each other. That's a simple enough answer, preached by really every true religion. Then we will treat each other right. But... how do we get everyone to love each other? Pervasive tradition where the alternative never comes to mind? How about an extensive Draconian legal system? But... there are places even the most extensive legal system cannot reach. There are extenuating circumstance which will not be imagined by the writers of the code, no matter how creative they may be. And then, the code gets unmanageably huge and, eventually, the highly educated figure out ways to manipulate it to whatever design they want it to be. Like in America, where the legal code is for all purposes written in its own language and includes so many strange and hard to identify loopholes that it's hard for a sane person to decipher the intent. Or we could educate people to be rational.... but expecting a human being to be rational is just about the least rational expectation one could have.

I have this expectation. It's frustrating.

Confucius was a little like a blend of all these points of view. He proposed education and deliberate tradition infused into that educational system. He realized that loving thy neighbor was a little unrealistic to expect from a million individualized souls. But it would go a long way to covering the gaps left in a legal code. 

Human Nature - quick thought

I do not believe that people are inherently evil. Most of the time when someone cites 'human nature' as a reason for human behavior, I scoff it down a bit. What is human nature? To be social, sure. We tend to like each other even if we don't want to and even if we don't deserve it. We... walk upright. We... uh, hold things. We smile. We laugh. Outside of this, I am not sure. Are people mostly made of 'nurture', are our beings how we are raised and the societies influences? Or are we 'nature'? Ourselves? Individuals? Free Will... Sometimes I think it's 50/50; other times I am sure we are mostly nurture; sometimes I am sure we are more nature than anyone gives us credit for. But whatever that nature may be, it is almost impossible to distinguish from our nurturing. What goes into the recipe after it comes out of the oven.

American Traditions

Is America really devoid of tradition? Huston Smith thinks so.

Contemporary Western life has moved so far from the tradition-dominated life of early man as to make it difficult for us to imagine how completely it is possible for human life to be controlled by mores. In one area only does custom continue to reach into our lives to control the switches, the area of dress and attire. If in dressing a businessman were to overlook his tie he could not get through the day. The predicament has nothing to do with indecent exposure; it is purely a matter of convention.

Huston Smith, The Religions of Man, 1964. 

Granted, this was written in 1964. I doubt that it was ever true. The only arean? Smith is a very intelligent person, and was educated partially outside the western cultural system. Yet, these words ring with an emic perspective: Modern, western, Homo sapiens is different from other Homo sapiens; we are more rational, we are more wise, we are more educated. We are more evolved from Primitive people.

We are not. We are basically the same thing as we have always been, we just have a different culture. Culture controls a huge part of what a person is, but it is not everything. There are still smart people and stupid people, as there have always been; there are creative people and logical people; there are leaders and followers. Some people follow every tradition. Some fight back against tradition.

My perspective is that of one who has a hard time following the traditions of American life. I can attest that there are far more areas of tradition than just wearing a tie (a traditional habit that has largely disintegrated since 1964). The one that got me thinking about it is healthcare.

In the US, we have a public fire-department. Set up not for any one person's profit, not for one person's gain, but for the safety of the general public. Which, when we are talking about fire prevention, is important to people. This has existed for a while and, by tradition, is accepted. We also have a public police system, much the same way. It is not for someone's gain, but for all our gain. Our educational system strives for this; our postal system hopes to keep everyone informed and connected. Time and bloat have worked into each of them, and a certain amount of re-thinking is often a good idea, but they are here likely to stay for a while.

We do not have public health. If people get sick, that is an opportunity for the wealthy to get a little bit more wealthy. Wondering if this could be for the benefit of our population instead of the wealthy few creates aneurysms for a lot of people. Why? Well, they aren't used to the idea. It sounds like socialism.

Maybe it is a stretch to call this 'tradition', but in the minds of many people, it is. It isn't a tradition for everyone, but it is for someone. Tradition in America is splintered. Traditions in one family will seem odd to their next door neighbor. But they are in place. The traditions of one family will encourage conservatism, the traditions of another will encourage liberalism.

Many of our traditions -- our non-legal habits -- are what Smith would call 'deliberate'. They are taught in school, as Confucius would have done. They are taught through our media, sometimes on purpose. Sometimes by accident. Usually, without good foresight. Our advertising systems create a lot of tradition. Our movies and video games. Confucius understood that entertainment and media helped mould the mind, especially at a young age. They become vehicles of cultural tradition.

Other rather pervasive American traditions I can identify are:

• Worship a striped and starred flag, along with the words "United States of America".
• If it has touched the floor or ground, it is instantly rendered inedible.
• Hosts are positive that guests never do dishes; guests are sure that guests should. 
• Shower at least once a day, whether you need to or not.
• Cleaning with poison is the only way to make something truly clean.
• Without a thank you card, how would anyone know their gift was appreciated?
• Safety is more important than knowledge, freedom, or sanity.
• Television is an acceptable pastime, even if it's not productive; videogames are not.
• Chips are food.
• ....W.. W-walk? What's that mean?
• Texting is an equivalent to socializing.
• If you don't own a firearm, you obviously don't care about your family.
• Singing is for professionals only.
• Bicker! Especially if you can do so anonymously.
• Privacy is next to Divinity
• Math is hard.
• When you can't think of anything else to say, complain.
• It's not interesting if it's not negative.

I'll stop because I have become aware that I'm mostly following that last one, which I don't like so much. There are plenty more good traditions people follow unconsciously, I simply can't think of many.

Bing vs Google

I took Bing's little challenge: Bing It On. Where they attack Google, assuming that they have a better set up.

I did like Bing more when I searched for "Terantula", but the challenge didn't really answer the question I had. I use search engines as a spell check, for it is the best spell check I have ever seen. The challenge doesn't show that part: that would give it all away.

I appreciate the way the study was set up, attempting as well as it could to be non-biased. But I repeated the test afterward, searching for all the same things through each search engine and I discovered something:

It is impossible to be non-biased. An important detail is aesthetics and setup. Bing's results are fine. There are little differences, but for the most part the big searches give pretty comparable results. Trying each search on Bing proper and Google proper I much prefer the latter. Perhaps because it is what I am used to, but I didn't like the floating Facebook thing.

Biggest constructive criticism I have: image search. Bing's image search bothers the hell out of me. It's a general Microsoft like thing. Hover and some helpful thing pops up under your mouse. Spiffy idea, I suppose, but it is obnoxious. I am sure opinions differ, as this is a true opinion. But I do not like hovering little boxes showing a bigger version of the same picture. It's annoying and in the way. 

The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (2010)

Aimee likes geeks. Smart sciency types are definitely her type, between The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake and An Invisible Sign of My Own, I draw this conclusion. And so, if you like smart sciency types, you might really like this book. If you like Literature, as a genre, then you might like this book. If you like drama drama drama, angst angst angst, sadness sadness sadness! then you will probably like this book.

It is not all about sadness. Angst or drama; and it's not snooty. But sadness is in the title and features pretty prominently. If you are having trouble, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I found the second half of the book to be a lot more fun than the first. But it is a book that generates very mixed reviews. In my own immediate circle it scored a love, a like, an ok, a meh and a hate. I like that type of feedback. It suggests to me a level of quality even if I did not perceive it. It has an ability to mean very different things to very slightly different people; who knows what it could mean to you.

In other words, disregard the rest of this review. If ya wanna read it, the best thing to do is read it. Otherwise, don't.

I found the characters in the book to be a little flat and too adult. Eight year olds talk like they are 30. The world's people tend to be governed by one emotion: angry people are angry, annoyed people are annoyed, boring people boring, distant people distant. Everyone seems to have a communication problem, even the empathetic people (who are always perceptive)... and no one is happy. No one. In the entire world. None. Maybe because they don't know how to talk to each other. Only a little bit of an exaggeration. In the second half of the book, characters are revealed to have more depth than I first thought and it is revealed that, surprise!, there are some people who are fairly content and maybe even happy. There are some curious people. Some people who love. It takes some waiting to find these non-depressed folks.

The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake is nothing if not bizarre, for that is Aimye's aim. Her style of shooting. And the target she is aiming for is unutterable allegory. Like a Zen Buddhist, Aimee doesn't seem to have much faith that standard verbal fare can project her myriad messages to the audience. Nor does she seem to feel like a realistic story is her game. She goes for a fantastical reality which you must interpret for yourself. This is my favorite aspect of her story. But I don't know what messages Aimee is going for. I am certain that I didn't get them all. I see something about people choosing to become furniture in their own houses--becoming lost in their own private pursuits, not interested in living. I have met these people and I don't understand them in reality any more than in this story.

For me, this story feels very small. But it has a good chance to mean more to you. So disregard all of this drivel. Read a synopsis. If it sounds good, then try it for a while.

Scientific Analysis (spoilers comin'):

Nothing changes. No one communicates. They only commiserate inside themselves in a lonely monologue. Rose is 12 years old and can count 2 conversations with her father. There is no life outside this story besides what you read. The characters don't know each other any better than you do, despite living decades within the same household as each other. Every discovery she has about her father is told in a 200 page book. Likewise with her brother. And her mother. And George. Everything she knows, you have seen her discover. It is so small.

That is my main problem with it. It is too much just a story. It exists only within itself more dependently than epic fantasy. She can only taste emotions when it is palpable for the story. She doesn't taste her mother's affair until it starts. Why is there no lead up? Her mother is bringing snacks to some guy for years and it doesn't come off in her baking emotions? Why not?

I Pledge Allegiance to My Family

I wonder about people

People don't make a lot of sense. Expecting people to be rational is akin to expecting pigs to fly, expecting caterpillars to recite poetry. Yet still, I find myself expecting it. How can you happily spend $500 a month on marijuana and be upset that your grand-daughter likes it too? It doesn't make sense.

Yesterday I saw another sign declaring "More Freedom, Less Government." It is a nice sound-bite. More of one, means less of another. Simple relationship. Causational. Easy to understand. Straightforward. There are no other factors. Believe me! this sticker shouts. And many people obey. I encounter this attitude frequently. If we have less government, we become more free. Period. Exclamation Point.

At the same time, there is a ubiquitous attitude that the United States in God's design for human nations. ...which are governments... And usually when I encounter the former attitude, I find the latter in abundance as well. How can a person hate their government, and want it down played further and further and further; and yet love their country? Without realizing a government and a country are rather the same thing?

Then I started working in the public school system. Where we teach our children to recite a hollow rite beyond their vocabulary in front of a flag that they do not understand every morning. Despite a complete inability to understand what they are doing, or why, or even which hand is their right so they can place it over their "heart", which is invisibly located somewhere on their left breast.... this habit is instilled with greater rigor that any mathematical operation or grammatical nuance they may be learning.

I don't say the pledge every morning with the kids. I am not particularly patriotic. The idea of a 'nation' is too esoteric for me to pretend to pledge allegiance to. I don't see the point in trying to brainwash myself to it. Reality, as I understand, does not have borders. There are deserts in the mountains, and wetlands in the deserts, and oceans inland. The United States is a very loosely held together congregation of people who won't see eye-to-eye. We fight amongst ourselves, fight amongst our own states, and find as many little details to divide each other as we can. Denver isn't Colorado to the people who live in the mountains.

This is what I hear when the Pledge is recited:

I pledge allegiance

to some fabric

which represents America.

Not to the plutocracy

for which it stands

Fifty-some states,

fighting God,

heavily divided,

with liberty and justice

for celebrities. (and rich people)