If you turn on a media device, you may hear about a mentally handicapped Texan causing a stir in D.C. No, not that one, the other one (SO scary that there is more than one.....). Alberto Gonzales is the one I'm referring to this time, though the other one is certainly still of concern and should not be forgotten about.
And memory is precisely the issue here. Mr. Gonzales has displayed an impressive ability to "not recall" nearly all details concerning when or where various meetings and decisions took place, or if they took place at all. One may question whether his memory loss is a ploy, but I'm not so sure it is. It really seems that he doesn't remember these details, that they are gone from his mind, and it doesn't seem to bother him or the other mentally challenged Texan. They both seem quite content with the memory loss, which certainly speaks to it being a ploy, but I think instead they're just very used to it. It's normal in their lives, as it seems to be normal in the lives of many people.
Over the years, but most especially in very recent months, I've had the pleasure of running across people's memory lapses, and enjoying the problems those lapses then causes me. For instance; I just had my tonsils out, I can't really do much but watch TV, take pain meds, and type on the computer, teaching is certainly out of the picture. A parent brought her daughter to her piano lesson though, despite the e-mails, the hand outs, the face to face conversations stretching back for nearly 2 months telling her and her daughter that I would not be in to teach until the first week of May, because I have open wounds in my throat and am on narcotics. This is not her first memory laps of this kind, she does it constantly in fact, and the fun part is she then blames me. She even once personally offered to create and maintain a schedule for me, since it seemed I was having a terribly difficult time keeping my lessons straight on my own. I wanted to laugh loudly in her face and point out that I was doing just fine keeping 40 shifting and rearranging student schedules running smoothly, thank you, SHE was the one having the issue keeping her ONE child's schedule on track. Instead I of course thanked her and said I would get it put together, things were just busy and the weekend would allow me to catch up. I upped the number of correspondences about schedule changes with her in the hopes she could be helped, but I'm coming to realize that that is just not possible for some.
If you can't remember shit, you can't remember it, and no amount of reminding will help. Unfortunately our perception of reality is based in large part on our ability to remember events, and the ability to remember those events accurately. The more inaccuracy that seeps in, the more reality starts to loose all objectivity and becomes a huge subjective mess. This makes consensus amongst us humans fairly impossible. This, as one could imagine (if one remembers to do so) could cause problems.
I have a good memory. I actually always thought it was just pretty average at best; I can't do crazy things like remember a list of 100 items at a single glance, or recite poetry or song lyrics after only one listen, but I'm realizing these are really just freakish party tricks, useful though they could be. They should not be the bar by which one judges one's self, they are amazing abilities to be wondered at and perhaps pay admission to see. I cannot do these fun little tricks, but I remember pretty accurately the things that I do, things that I say, things that others do to me and things they say to me. I remember where I am all the time, I don't get lost, I remember what direction I'm going in. I remember facts that I hear and read to a pretty deep degree and can give you a good run down of those facts for a long time afterward. Give me time to study and I can go even farther. No, it's not reciting Pi to 10,000 digits, but it really does seem to be more useful. I do regret that I am terrible with names, but I try. I will remember the date I met you, what you were wearing, and any number of other interestingly useless facts about the time, but I'm sorry, I probably won't remember your name....
I'm finding others are not as capable. Facts twist, events fade from memory and are replaced by imaginary ones, conversations that did happen are forgotten and are replaced with ones that happened only in people's minds. Most of the time I can just shake my head, ignore the problem and move on, or perhaps remind the person how I recall the event, where they will often respond with "oh yeah, that's right.... I forgot." But lately I seem to instead be getting my ass munched because of things I did, things I didn't do, things I should have done, and/or things I could have done but didn't. But.... as I remember events I DIDN'T do that, I DID do that, I SHOULDN'T have done that, and what COULD have been done was.
Many times there's proof, but proof is not so welcome I think these days. Either it is repressed, as the Texans like to do, or it is dismissed as false, as the Religious Right likes to do (guess that includes the Texans too...), which is also the tactic the rest of the public seems to like. We're often quite fond of our own thoughts, and so our own recollection of events trumps the video footage, because... uh... video can be faked and our memories are more concrete? Yes, well our memories are our own, and no one else's, and you can't take that away from me, as the song goes. These days truth is always subjective, and we feel so much better about ourselves because of it.
Add to our love of our own memories this; if you're in a position of power you can force your memory of events to be taken as the "true" version, it's the privilege of that power position. The Texans love that fact, and take advantage of it ad nauseam (I've been so nauseamed for so long.... at least I'm loosing weight). The rest of us will use that power position as often as possible as well. We can't handle being wrong, to the point that we defend our positions to the death; the death of the other person of course.
I also hate being wrong, it's one of the things I honestly hate most in life. I LOVE being right. I love being right so much that if I find out I'm wrong, I CHANGE MY POSITION, right then and there, with gratitude to the person or entity that is right. I want to actually BE right, not just THINK I'm right though. To that end I work very hard to remember things as accurately as I possibly can, my own ego out of the picture, with merely my obsession with the truth driving me. It's sick really, but it's a sickness I'm pretty ok with.
I'm moving out of the country soon. Maybe across the pond truth still trumps ego, but in reality humans are humans are humans, and I don't have a lot of hope. I am much more leery these days, I think it's best to keep more proof on hand. After I move it will just have to be in multiple languages. It's the prudent thing to do I think, in case I get called in front of Congress and don't want to look like a moron, or I get accused of things in a more personal arena and don't want to be painted as a heartless fool again.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
"Maiu"
One day, a number of years ago, I think nearly 20 of them, I happen to mention something about evolution on the bus trip home from school. As I was in the company of my zealously religious friend Jerry, an argument ensued. At all of 9 or 10 years old, he already had the fully formed indignation of the Fundamentalist Right when it came to such matters as "evolution" (his quotes), so within a few short moments he was leaning over the bus seat with his fist cocked back, ready to ram it into my godless face, all in the loving name of Jesus. He was yelling at the time "I did not come from apes!!!!", which I found deeply ironic in the face of his behavior, which seemed proof enough that he was more closely related to a sulky African Silver-Back than he obviously thought.
Certainly we all like to think of ourselves as "human", as something opposed to "animal", but in the end this is really only our egos talking; we're animal, through and through, there's no escaping that fact.
But here's the question; what animal are we?
We're most closely related to chimps and apes, this we've all known for some time. I suspect even the religious types know this deep down, which would explain their constant anger over the subject. Kind of like how some of them are so stubbornly anti-gay, even while they're busy buying meth from gay prostitutes before having chem-fueled sodomy sessions with said prostitutes. Allegedly. Biologically our monkey friends are certainly our closest relatives on the planet, but there seems to be something else going on as well.
I think perhaps all people all tied, maybe from some previous life or something, to different animals, plants, bacteria or fungi, and those past incarnations manifest themselves in people in their human forms.
It's hardly a scientific theory, it would do little good to go looking for concrete proof, and in the end I doubt that that matters. Kind of like with astrology; it's quite ridiculous, but there seems to be something to it. Take it or leave it, I find it fun and interesting.
Next time you're people-watching, take a close look your fellow humans walk by. What animal do they remind you of? We've all seen portraits of people who look almost exactly like their dogs, and vice-versa, it's kind of like that. Only open it up to the entire spectrum of Earthly life, not just the K-9 variety. You may be shocked by what you see.
There are dog people (as the pictures have proven), the occasional hamster, fish are prevalent (I try to be all accepting, but I'm not proud to say fish people frankly give me the creeps...), reptiles here and there, the occasional plant (they're not called wall flowers for nothing) and even undulating, barely conscious amoeba-esk types. You can see it in the shapes of faces, eyes speak quite loudly of animal pasts, the way one moves, the set of the brow and jaw. Some crawl along like the proverbial karmicly-punished slug. Others have a distinct simian bend; further proof that some of us are still more monkey than man.
This line of thought certainly begs the question, "What animal am I?" I am subject to the same laws of this little game as all the others, what creature do I strike myself to have been? Oh, and if any who know me would like to weigh in on this, feel free, I'd be curious hehe :)
Speaking of curiosity, I think I'm mostly cat. I've thought this for a long time, and it's frankly only becoming more apparent as I get older. I've had an odd bond with cats all my life, with the distinct desire to have my belly scratched and my head petted. I'm a bit nervous, though I try my very best to play it cool when in front of the crowd. While I have never been caught licking my own ass in mixed company, I have been known to put my foot deeply in my mouth, completely without realizing it, and am surprised, a bit skittish, and not a little indignant when someone throws a shoe at me for it. I will rub up against you if you're nice to me and if I like you, and I prefer to keep myself well groomed, though every cat has the occasional day or two of mange.
The event that has prompted this little foray into animal land is the fact that I'm in Berlin right now. Something else I recently learned about cats is that they hate it when you move furniture in their living space. The become a bit disturbed when you go shifting things out of their place, forcing them to have to figure out where stuff is again. Cats are wildly in-tuned (one could say obsessed, but that one would not be me; I owe that much to my brethren) to their surroundings, and changes throw them off balance, another trait cats possess in abundance.
But the worst stress in a cats life is when you make them move; EVERYTHING is different suddenly, and they become neurotic messes. If you've ever taken a cat into a new space, the first thing they do is explore the room, in Extreme-Caution-Mode, eyes wide, nose twitching, ready to spring out of the way of any new danger or rogue foot stool. First and foremost they must find out where everything is, where the paths of escape are, where the warm and comfortable spots to curl up are, where the entrances and exits are, where the food resides. Stress a cat out enough, either by moving things or by moving them, and they start peeing on stuff. They're pissed, so to speak.
While I have managed through the years to control my deep need to pee on things when I'm under this kind of stress, I have come to believe that I precede pretty much like any other cat would when stuff in my house gets moved around. Or, as I am currently experiencing, I get moved.
Berlin is amazing, I'm having a fantastic time, and I'm a bit skittish and my whiskers are twitching. I'm firmly in exploration mode right now, I have not actually stepped foot into a single museum, church, historical monument, or any other such tourist wonder of the world, of which there are TONS here. This most certainly is part of, as Eddie Izzard said of Europe, "the place where history comes from".
That being said, I'm not quite ready to go into any of these places just yet. I've found a few cozy places to curl up and some places that obviously need to be avoided. I've discovered what color of brick on the sidewalk denotes "bike lane; don't walk on me or old men will honk their silly bike horns at you." I've found the few places where it IS ok to pee (I'm a civilized cat, thank you), but I'm not ready to lay down just yet.
I give myself the rest of today to explore my surroundings, I've already put a multitude of miles under my paws this morning and afternoon. I'm feeling more at ease, less like I want to find a bed to hide under while I peer out at strangers' feet. I've started eating again (something else both cats and I stop doing when we're stressed), and perhaps I will socialize with some other furry animals soon. I have an affinity for others like me, though I don't mind at all crossing furry animal species lines. Just no fish please; they're for killing and eating, not conversing with.
Perhaps by the end of my week I will be completely at ease with my new surroundings and I will gladly and calmly glide from room to room, with the air of hard-fought-for easy-confidence, often mistaken for aloofness or superiority by those that don't understand the ways of the cat. In reality we just want to be scratched by cute people that we like, so we can purr and feel at home. We go through a silly amount of turmoil to get to the point of being able to relax, let our guard down and allow our purr to motor away, we like to enjoy it when we get there.
I'm close to being ready to relax. A good night's sleep and a bit to eat in the morning and I think I'll be ready to cavort with all my furry friends out there. Let's hope I can find one or two to scratch my ears :)
Certainly we all like to think of ourselves as "human", as something opposed to "animal", but in the end this is really only our egos talking; we're animal, through and through, there's no escaping that fact.
But here's the question; what animal are we?
We're most closely related to chimps and apes, this we've all known for some time. I suspect even the religious types know this deep down, which would explain their constant anger over the subject. Kind of like how some of them are so stubbornly anti-gay, even while they're busy buying meth from gay prostitutes before having chem-fueled sodomy sessions with said prostitutes. Allegedly. Biologically our monkey friends are certainly our closest relatives on the planet, but there seems to be something else going on as well.
I think perhaps all people all tied, maybe from some previous life or something, to different animals, plants, bacteria or fungi, and those past incarnations manifest themselves in people in their human forms.
It's hardly a scientific theory, it would do little good to go looking for concrete proof, and in the end I doubt that that matters. Kind of like with astrology; it's quite ridiculous, but there seems to be something to it. Take it or leave it, I find it fun and interesting.
Next time you're people-watching, take a close look your fellow humans walk by. What animal do they remind you of? We've all seen portraits of people who look almost exactly like their dogs, and vice-versa, it's kind of like that. Only open it up to the entire spectrum of Earthly life, not just the K-9 variety. You may be shocked by what you see.
There are dog people (as the pictures have proven), the occasional hamster, fish are prevalent (I try to be all accepting, but I'm not proud to say fish people frankly give me the creeps...), reptiles here and there, the occasional plant (they're not called wall flowers for nothing) and even undulating, barely conscious amoeba-esk types. You can see it in the shapes of faces, eyes speak quite loudly of animal pasts, the way one moves, the set of the brow and jaw. Some crawl along like the proverbial karmicly-punished slug. Others have a distinct simian bend; further proof that some of us are still more monkey than man.
This line of thought certainly begs the question, "What animal am I?" I am subject to the same laws of this little game as all the others, what creature do I strike myself to have been? Oh, and if any who know me would like to weigh in on this, feel free, I'd be curious hehe :)
Speaking of curiosity, I think I'm mostly cat. I've thought this for a long time, and it's frankly only becoming more apparent as I get older. I've had an odd bond with cats all my life, with the distinct desire to have my belly scratched and my head petted. I'm a bit nervous, though I try my very best to play it cool when in front of the crowd. While I have never been caught licking my own ass in mixed company, I have been known to put my foot deeply in my mouth, completely without realizing it, and am surprised, a bit skittish, and not a little indignant when someone throws a shoe at me for it. I will rub up against you if you're nice to me and if I like you, and I prefer to keep myself well groomed, though every cat has the occasional day or two of mange.
The event that has prompted this little foray into animal land is the fact that I'm in Berlin right now. Something else I recently learned about cats is that they hate it when you move furniture in their living space. The become a bit disturbed when you go shifting things out of their place, forcing them to have to figure out where stuff is again. Cats are wildly in-tuned (one could say obsessed, but that one would not be me; I owe that much to my brethren) to their surroundings, and changes throw them off balance, another trait cats possess in abundance.
But the worst stress in a cats life is when you make them move; EVERYTHING is different suddenly, and they become neurotic messes. If you've ever taken a cat into a new space, the first thing they do is explore the room, in Extreme-Caution-Mode, eyes wide, nose twitching, ready to spring out of the way of any new danger or rogue foot stool. First and foremost they must find out where everything is, where the paths of escape are, where the warm and comfortable spots to curl up are, where the entrances and exits are, where the food resides. Stress a cat out enough, either by moving things or by moving them, and they start peeing on stuff. They're pissed, so to speak.
While I have managed through the years to control my deep need to pee on things when I'm under this kind of stress, I have come to believe that I precede pretty much like any other cat would when stuff in my house gets moved around. Or, as I am currently experiencing, I get moved.
Berlin is amazing, I'm having a fantastic time, and I'm a bit skittish and my whiskers are twitching. I'm firmly in exploration mode right now, I have not actually stepped foot into a single museum, church, historical monument, or any other such tourist wonder of the world, of which there are TONS here. This most certainly is part of, as Eddie Izzard said of Europe, "the place where history comes from".
That being said, I'm not quite ready to go into any of these places just yet. I've found a few cozy places to curl up and some places that obviously need to be avoided. I've discovered what color of brick on the sidewalk denotes "bike lane; don't walk on me or old men will honk their silly bike horns at you." I've found the few places where it IS ok to pee (I'm a civilized cat, thank you), but I'm not ready to lay down just yet.
I give myself the rest of today to explore my surroundings, I've already put a multitude of miles under my paws this morning and afternoon. I'm feeling more at ease, less like I want to find a bed to hide under while I peer out at strangers' feet. I've started eating again (something else both cats and I stop doing when we're stressed), and perhaps I will socialize with some other furry animals soon. I have an affinity for others like me, though I don't mind at all crossing furry animal species lines. Just no fish please; they're for killing and eating, not conversing with.
Perhaps by the end of my week I will be completely at ease with my new surroundings and I will gladly and calmly glide from room to room, with the air of hard-fought-for easy-confidence, often mistaken for aloofness or superiority by those that don't understand the ways of the cat. In reality we just want to be scratched by cute people that we like, so we can purr and feel at home. We go through a silly amount of turmoil to get to the point of being able to relax, let our guard down and allow our purr to motor away, we like to enjoy it when we get there.
I'm close to being ready to relax. A good night's sleep and a bit to eat in the morning and I think I'll be ready to cavort with all my furry friends out there. Let's hope I can find one or two to scratch my ears :)
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Who gets to be a good American?
I recieved this e-mail forwarded to me today. I read it, and responded, both are posted here.
It's crap like this that makes me think humanity survives on borrowed time.
It's crap like this that makes me think humanity survives on borrowed time.
"Can a good Muslim be a good American?
I sent that question to a friend who worked in
The following is his reply:
Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of
Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except
Islam (Quran, 2:256)
Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam
and the Quran (Koran).
Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to
in prayer five times a day.
Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends
with Christians or Jews.
Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders),
who teach annihilation of
Satan.
Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and
scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran
Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American Constitution
since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be
corrupt.
Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow
freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist.
Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic
Spiritually - no. Because when we declare "one nation under God," the
Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as
heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent
names.
Therefore after much study and deliberation....perhaps we should be very
suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both
"good" Muslims and good Americans.
Call it what you wish....it's still the truth.
The war is bigger than we know or understand."
My reply
We've heard now whether Muslims can be "good Americans", now I ask this;
Can a Christian be a good American?
The following is my reply:
Theologically - no. Because his allegiance is to God and Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God
Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by his God except
his own (1st Commandment)
Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the Bible.
Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to after life and the Kingdom that will come, to which he alludes to in prayer more often than not.
Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Christianity forbids him to make friends
with Muslims or Jews, and even if he doesn't think he is forbidden from it, he looks down upon them, wishes them to "be saved" and will never accept them for who they are.
Politically - no. Because he must submit to the evangelicals (spiritual leaders),
who teach annihilation of secular democracy and all those that do not believe as they do, sending all of them to burn in the fires of Hell with Satan.
Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry only women and treat them as lesser beings than himself, raising his children to believe only as he does, and rejecting them if they do not comply.
Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept reason as a source of information, but believes that only through revelation can truth be known, and since the American Constitution
since it is based on REASONABLE principles he cannot accept it and wishes to amend it to mention God and Jesus, which it does not.
Philosophically - no. Because Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible do not allow
freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Christianity co-exist only because secular people and moderate religious people demand it, while every fundamentally Christian government is either dictatorial or autocratic.
Spiritually - no. Because God is vengeful and wrathful, and only in modern times has He become thought of as Love, since the vengefulness and wrath were too unpalatable to the growing secular movements. He will rain His wrath down up the Sinners, damning each of them to burn in hell, and calling on all His followers to deny Sinners in this corporeal world as well.
Therefore after much study and deliberation....perhaps we should be very
suspicious of ALL CHRISTIANS in this country. They obviously cannot be both
"good" Christians and good Americans.
Call it what you wish....it's still the truth.
The war is bigger than we know or understand, especially bigger than Christians understand. I'm so profoundly sick of hearing crap like this "Can a good Muslim be a good American?" list , and it's even more disturbing that it was sent out by a Reverend. Christians have no claim to ultimate morality, and any study of the Bible or history will prove that. The level of hypocrisy of even sending out that tripe about Muslims is nearly overwhelming, and would lead me to laugh if people didn't actually believe they were above the same failings attributed only to Muslims.
Listen, religions around the world hate other religions, and Christianity is HARDLY immune from that. What ever happened to " Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3) We are quick to blame others for what we see as their shortcomings, but are loath to look to ourselves. Christianity is just as insane as Islam is, and the Bible preaches death, destruction, and hate constantly itself. Most Christians prefer to overlook most of it, just as most Muslims prefer to overlook it in the Koran (though the fact that Christians love to cherry-pick passages about homosexuality these days goes only to prove my point, and prove Christians' intellectual laziness).
Religions breed irrationality, since they are based on faith and revelation, two fundamentally irrational concepts. The founders of this nation new that, that's why they used REASON as the basis of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and NOT the Bible (reasonable Biblical ideals are present, but they are there because of their REASONABLENESS). Even the founders of
If you want rationality in our world, get rid of all religions, not just Islam. Lack of understanding got us wrapped up in this mess, bigoted tripe like this " Can a good Muslim be a good American" only adds to that lack of understanding.
Sean Barker
You can direct your complaints back to me directly, thank you.
ace9415@gmail.com
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