What has Become of Us?

There has been a lot of complaining from the right and left, the religious and non-religious, the this or that, and all of them are complaining about what the world has become. The conservative right does like what influence the liberal left has had on the world, and vice-versa. The same can be said for the religious, the social, globalization, community, et cetera. It is as if none of us saw this coming. It's as if none of the sides had enough foresight (or hindsight) to see the world come this "ruinous" state it is quickly approaching.

It's both foresight and hindsight. We all have heard the old saying by Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Could it be that this downfall of society is history repeating itself? Could this be little more than A happening to B, which results in C?


Let me explain. Consider Nostradamus, that supposed profit of all our troubles here in the 21st Century. His strangely coded writings, which have been interpreted as prophecies of things like WWII, 9-11, the coming apocalypse, and similar nonsense, are really just metaphors / analogies. His works have long been regarded as coded analogies of things going on in his time, much like John's Book of Revelations, which is a coding of the fall of the Roman Empire. Considering we can read so much in Nostradamus' works that reflect things going on in our time, couldn't Nostradamus' writings be regarded as a scholar (which he was one, along with alchemist and doctor) establishing historical archetypes; a Carl Jung of history. Couldn't we read Nostradamus' works as "If event A happens to people B, then the result will be C?"

History typically repeats itself, and I think this might have been what Nostradamus was getting at. With a keen knowledge of the patterns of the past will give foresight to patterns that arise in the future. It's not prophetic. It's just understanding patterns. Is this true? Certainly. Just look at how often people see a movie that came out a decade or so ago and see something that speaks to today. I saw recently on Reddit someone who posted Morpheus from the Matrix saying: "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." (Which is pointed toward the conservative right's reaction to OWS). Is it prophecy or a patterned structure of the human psyche and how it will react to change? As a fairly rational human-being, I lean more toward the latter.

It is the nature of time, which is often cyclical. Sure, events happen in a linear fashion. The Fall of the Roman Empire doesn't keep occurring every 700 years. But empires always rise and fall. Always. The Holocaust during WWII doesn't reoccur ever 60 years, but the Jews have long been persecuted over and over. These events occur linearly, but individual events occurring over the course of history eventually develop patterns.

The Egyptians had two words to describe time: neheh, which describes cyclical time, and djet, which is non-cyclical time (this doesn't not necessarily mean linear, but simply suspension of time). The former I would like to focus on more, because the Egyptian concept of neheh is similar to Thomas Mann's analogy of repetitious history: "...by its very nature the past is not a straight line, but a sphere. ... The sphere rolls; that is the nature of the sphere. In an instant the top is bottom and bottom is top in such a case. ... But thanks to spherical rotation the heavenly also turns into earthly, the earthly into the heavenly." It is like the ancient saying, "That which is above, so like that which is below." Mann goes to show that this why in Genesis and Exodus there are numerous stories that are retelling of the same story. They are archetypal events that reoccur within the repeating course of history.

Are we not repeating ourselves? Isn't history repeating itself? America has come into a decline. Whether we are in the final downfall of the American Empire, or if we will recover, this much is true: America will fall. We cannot escape that. But certainly all the signs America currently exhibits are symptoms of the End of Empire.

But Santayana said if we know the past we won't repeat it. Right? I don't think so. Santayana is only saying that if we don't know the past we will inevitably repeat it. It don't think it works the other way. History will repeat itself. We are not outside the laws of nature, and it seems only natural that if A happens to B, then C will follow. It might have been better if Santayana had said, "It doesn't matter what we know about the past, we are going to repeat it. Shit happens." It might as well be the greatest human achievement for us to break the cycles of the past, but given our history, I don't hold out too much hope. But, I'm an optimist hiding under a deep mask of pessimism. But, since not once in human history have we ever completely wiped ourselves out by our own hands (and I mean the whole human race), since we're still here, I don't think we're going blow ourselves up. But I don't hold much hope for the ending of all wars.

So what has become of us? Exactly what is supposed to happen to us. And so the calendar keeps spinning.

Beautifying the Illusory Boundaries

When one considers what architecture really is, at its very core, as both an art and an entity, it is little more than a boundary, and an illusory one at that. We fabricate these arbitrary notions such as "inside" and "outside," "my house" and "your house," "public" and "private," and so forth, and then we create some boundaries to tell the difference between the two.

Is there such a thing as "inside" and "outside"? Can the two exist before we starting throwing up some walls? Clearly not. The inside does not exist until the walls are built. So what is "out"-side if there is no inside? Aren't the two mutually inclusive of each other? Does not one's existence depend on the other's existence? Certainly the same can be said for public-private, my house-your house. We simply fabricate these interrelations that depend on one another. We create the opposites via our own constructions. We literally construct the delineation of these opposites.

Architecture clearly depends on constructing the division between "inside" and "outside", two things that never existed until we built them. What is amazing about architecture is, in all its simplicity as the creator of divisions, it is merely beautifying those boundaries. All the history books, all the theory books, all the technical, philosophical, and whatnot books on architecture are little more than how to deal with this boundary. The whole essence of architectural theory is how to work with these boundaries (illusory boundaries, because the opposites didn't exist until we fabricated the walls that divide them, and don't exist without those walls), whether it be: dressing the wall up this way, or stylize that hole in the wall (call it a "window" if you will) in this manner, or don't design the door in the wall that way, et cetera.

The same can be said for anything we fabricate, and religion is not exception. There is this arbitrary division between what is human and what is divine, and we imagine there being a division between the two. All the religions of the world are little more than how the walls between the divine and the secular are to be dressed up. The Christians certainly dressed up their illusory boundaries between the divine and the human than the Hindus did, or the Mayan to the Chaldean, the Inuits to the Taoists.

The concept of culture can be viewed in much the same light: how such-and-such a culture dressed up their boundaries between what is acceptable and unacceptable, which is different from a completely different culture.

And certainly the same can be said for the arbitrary division between science and religion. Science has a certain way of dressing up the division between truth and falsehood, and religion has another. Both are in search of truth, whatever that truth may be and for whatever reason (what is "truth" without it having a wall thrown up between it and falsehood?), though their means of finding truth are different (i.e. how they dress up the boundaries).

This is getting tedious. But the point of it is: what is this or that without the boundaries we, human beings - with our "rational" and "intelligent" minds - have created to divide things that didn't seem all that bothered being mingled together in the chaos of pre-creation? Whatever this or that is, the entire fabric of our reality is merely a product of our making. And because different cultures made things differently, the only difference between Muslims and Christians, Americans and Chinese, Moses and Barack Obama is how these illusory edges have been stylized.

Suddenly, all our differences seem really superficial, and that's because they are.

Burden of Proof

So I was surfing Reddit, because that's what I do during finals, and I was reading some stuff on /r/atheism. I found several times fallacies by both Christians and atheists on the burden of proof when it comes to God's existence. The usual argument goes a little something like this:

Christian: You can't proof God doesn't exist.
Atheist: Since you're the one arguing for God's existence, then the burden of proof is on you, not us.

Somewhere in there is the Martian teapot fallacy and the trump card of "faith," but most of the arguments are the same: where does the burden of proof lie? So to avoid finishing studying I'm going to write about this.

There is no burden of proof. There can't even be one. It is both fallacious and paradoxical. This I think is best summed up in Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy concerning the babel fish.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.

Well said, Doug. I used to think this quote was just poking fun at God, but the paradox is blatantly obvious. Faith can simply be defined as "believing in and asserting anything at truth without evidence." So if the existence of Deity only works on the premise of faith, then there wouldn't be any proof of God's existence. But, if there is proof, then God cannot exist, because the faith fallacy would not allow Deity to exist with proof of existence. It's a bit like Gödel's Incomplete Theorem: you cannot have truth and proof of truth simultaneously; or, put another way, if there's proof of truth, then that truth doesn't exist, and if there is truth, then you cannot prove it.

It is quite a paradox to prove God exist, because that would mean Deity clearly doesn't exist. (That or the faith fallacy is complete bullshit). But I think this is what Stephen Hawking was getting at when he said (and I paraphrase), "It's not that science says, 'God doesn't exist.' It's that we don't need God for the equations to work. The universe doesn't need God in order to work." So where does the burden of proof lie? Nowhere. You can't prove it, and proof is a paradox. There is no burden, at least with the faith fallacy. The burden is a vagary of certainty.

So, does God exist? That's a loaded question, at least if the faith fallacy holds true. If faith is not a factor in God's existence, then we must ask ourselves: either, can God exist without evidence? Or can there be evidence of God's existence?

The latter is the more serious of the two (as in it can actually be taken seriously), at least in our age of scientific reasoning. With or without faith, the question of truth of Deity is a vagary of logic. Logic is, quite simply, a chain of arbitrarily sufficient pieces of evidence, proofs, and/or reasoning of causal relationships. Put it simply, logic is an arbitrary linkage of ideas that would supposedly prove truth. But logic is merely a human fabrication. God, in typical ideology of Deity, is higher than humans, and clearly exists beyond our petty logic. Proof of truth exists beyond our comprehension, because our lesser minds cannot comprehend God. This is what H.P. Lovecraft was getting at when he said (and I paraphrase), "To truly comprehend God would lead to insanity." To go beyond the forms of logic the human brain has fabricated would lead the mind to higher thinking, or, at least, outside standard human reasoning. That's a sufficient way to define insanity.

If there is proof at all, then that proof is either the Martian teapot or it is ubiquitous. Either the only proof of God's existence is meeting him/her in person, and that is the only proof. Like the Martian teapot, if it exists, then we simply have to find it floating somewhere around Mars' orbit. If we could simply fly out on a spaceship and meet up with God for lunch, then clearly he doesn't exist higher than humans, and is little more than another creature in the realm of creation. I think that destroys the concept of what it is to be God. If the proof is ubiquitous, which it clearly is not, then we would find it everywhere, which we have not. If creation itself is the proof, then that is fallacious by our own scientific logic, since Hawking says that the equations don't need God in order to work.

The other option, can God exist without proof, is the more dangerous of the two. How can it be taken seriously? Doesn't this reinstate the faith fallacy? In a sense, yes, but in another sense, no. This, I think, is the mess we have with our religions and science. It is both yes and no because it makes faith both bullshit and quite acceptable. Both faith and disbelief become legitimate ideologies, and that would be the root of the (supposed) war between science and religion.

So which is it? Is faith the paradox of proof? Is faith legitimate? Or is disbelieve legit? Is it the Martian teapot? I cannot really answer this, because clearly our logical constructions of understanding these esoteric matters are far too inferior to really comprehend the essence and existence of Deity, if comprehension is possible at all. In all instances the conclusion is insufficient. It always diverts back to admitting that we have no idea.

"WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE"
~God's last remark on creation, Hitchhiker's Guide

The Enactment of Culture in Contemporary America

I have been giving a lot of criticism and grief to the religious right wing lately, particularly on its nutty propositions on abortion, wealth, and gay rights. But one thing has greatly bothered me on this subject that I have yet to address, nor have I been able to completely understand why there has been such an uproar from the religious right. I believe I have finally been clued in on why this occurrence has been so strong. It has all been the enacting of culture.

What is culture? It really is easy to define culture. What the term "culture" implies (etymologically "to cultivate") is far different from the function of culture. Culture functions as the institution that resists change, and maintains established norms and customs. Every culture, be it Christian, Tasmanian, architectural, legal, Hindu, Native American, goth, Roman, or whatever is endowed with myths. These myths may be the founding of a nation, the mysteries and rites of a secret society, the doctrines and dogmas of a religion, et cetera. Joseph Campbell establishes that there are four primary functions of myth, which are to put the individual in accord with him or herself, with society, with nature, and, ultimately, with the cosmos. But there is a much deeper layer to the myths, an overarching function that covers these four mythic functions. The higher function of myth is to serve as the means by which culture can maintain and preserve its customs and norms. In other words, myth is the mechanism by which culture resists change.

Given all that, the "sacred" is little more than those principles and norms that a given culture has established as eternal truth. They are supposedly absolute, and cannot be challenged, nor argued with.

So what happens when change is being imposed upon a culture? The culture will then resist it with the only thing culture has to use in order to resist change: it calls forth the myths. American, and, in fact, the whole globe, is enduring a great deal of change currently, with the strive for gay rights, equality for women, the rise of secularism, Occupy Wall Street, ethnic diversity, economic equality, et cetera. All these things challenge the current customs and norms of America, and calls for a different social structure.

In the face of change in the political, social, economic, and religious structures of contemporary America, it seems to be no marvel at all that conservative culture would start to resort to the Bible (the sacred and the myths) as justification for why gays shouldn't be allowed to marry, abortion should be illegal, "In God We Trust" should remain the motto of America, and atheists should be burned at the stake. I feel I have spoken a bit harshly by calling the religious right "nut cases". They're not really "nuts," it's just the function of culture manifesting itself. None of this dismisses the fact that if change is necessary, then the struggle for it must persist.

Likewise, I should apologize for the hastiness of my conclusions of Southern culture in my post Southern Nice. I did receive some criticism and grief from some fellow Southerns, so let me clarify and restate my position. I had said that the Southern Culture is filled with hate. This is not entirely accurate, and a rather hasty conclusion. If I may quote Yoda, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate." So when culture is challenged, naturally fear arises - the fear that the culture is wrong, or inferior - which leaves one in question about their "naturalized history." Doubt is the critical issue here, because doubt of the sacred principles one thought was eternally true inevitably leads to fear. This fear would cause one to become angry towards anyone who has challenged their culture, and ending in hate toward that person or persons.

Now, this does not mean every culture will end in hate toward those who want change. All three levels resulting from doubt will be present. So Southern culture is not all animosity, but a fine mix of fear, anger and hatred on a number of conditions, differing from person to person.

But there is a resistance in that resistance to change, for a culture should not stagnate. If water sits for too long it will eventually stagnate. So it is necessary for culture to change, progress, and move forward if it doesn't want to be corrupt and stagnant. As Yoda next says, "Hate leads to suffering." This is quite a paradox, for culture has to change, and will eventually change (lest it dies out), even though the very function of culture is not to change.

Ultimately, the resistance we get from the conservative, religious right is not as simple as "they're just a bunch of nutty crackpots." It is simply the normal thing for a given culture to do in the face of change. The only question at hand is: where change is necessary, how can it be made in the wake of resistance? Do we accommodate the change? Or let the culture stagnate and suffer?

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and daughters are beyond your command. You're old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand for the times they are a-changin'."
~Bob Dylan

Diabiblical

I haven't posted in a while due to midterms, but during that time, and some time before, there has been something contradicting and repulsive I have noticed in contemporary politics and religion. It doesn't make sense to me, and probably doesn't make sense to numerous other people in the general population. And how could it make sense? What am I talking about? The blatant contradiction and misuse of biblical scriptures to justify and argue for or against anything, no matter if there is an actual problem or not.

I have talked about this in other posts, and usually pointing out where scripture and policies and beliefs differ. For instance, the protests that women should be murdered for having an abortion. Or again, that socialism is "bad" when Jesus was a socialist. Why is there a contradiction between belief and the actual Bible? What is this dissonance between what is said and what the Bible has to say? And with complete contradiction to the Word of God, why do Christians still rally behind the Bible?

I can't exactly explain this phenomenon at this time, but I have given it a name. I call it diabiblical. I have given this word several layers (as any coined word should have). It is partly a contraction of diabolic (meaning "devilish") and biblical. It is also a contraction of dia (meaning "two") and biblical, insinuating that there are two Bibles that is being rallied behind. And with these two main layers of meaning, there are a few other layers that I will leave others to subjectively interpret as they wish, because it's more fun that way. That's not a cop-out, but if I enframe the sub-layers further, then I will tarnish personal subjective meaning that others would create from their own experience. I'd rather people think for themselves (as they should).

I believe that this diabiblical response to nearly everything spawns from several different origins, but one of the main ones is likely to be that many Christians have never read the Bible, except the few passages they had to read in Sunday school. Most Christians I have met have never read the Bible (I do know many who have, but most have not). I have met many Atheists who denounced their faith after reading the Bible. Funny thing is, most people that I know who have read the Bible are actually Atheist. I can't blame them, because the Bible is one terrific book (I use terrific in the double sense of "excellent" and "amazing", but also as "terror" and "horrible").

One of my cousins wrote on his Facebook: "It's a good thing that the Bible doesn't say to kill people, or there would be a lot of dead people around." I pointed out to him that the Bible is filled with "thou shalt utterly destroy" these people or that people, and then questioned if he had ever read the Bible. I occasionally like to say that I want to go read something brutally violent, destructive, horrible, and unjust, and then clarify that I'm going to go read the Bible. (A friend of mine jokingly responded to that once by saying, "That's why it's called the Good Book").

So what's going on here? I think Christianity today has skewed whatever the idea of God is in the wrong direction, and then spoon feeds this diabiblical nonsense to the masses. Could it be that there is new God in town? That suddenly the devil is masquerading as an Angel of Light? (I.e. Lucifer, "the morning light" or "star"). Suddenly to kill and to hate and divide is the work of God, while to unite and love each other (the message of Christ) is the work of the Devil. It's as if Christians want to bring back the God of the Old Testament. The best way to sum up the God of the Old Testament was made by Richard Dawkins, so I will quote it:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguable the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infacy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror."

The God of the Old Testament sounds an awful (no pun intended) lot like the God of Westboro Baptist Church (God hates fags!), the Tea Party (miscarriage is murder!), the entire Bible Belt (let's have ourselves a lynchin'!), and so forth. Jesus was such a breath of fresh air after reading the Old Testament. Suddenly there is a character who preaches love, care for the sick and poor, piousness, and more love, and then some more love. Now the God of the Old Testament is being revived. I liked Jesus more than his father.

There is a Christian Gnostic belief that the Old Testament God was actually Satan masquerading as God. I can see that. Especially since I think Christians went back to the Old Testament God, then there must be some sort of return of Satan. So diabolic is the message of the Bible.

"And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light!"
~II Corinthians 11: 14

"And There Will be a Sign on the Other Side that Will Say: IT CAN KILL YOU"

There has been a bunch of hype these days about "alternative" treatments (usually meaning "unproven" to be effective), such as acupuncture, yoga, spiritual cleansing, vegan diets, herbal remedies, et cetera. For some reason the past several decades of medical advancements are now being demonized, because they're not "natural" (whatever that means).

I just read an article that may shed some light on the untimely death of Steve Jobs: he delayed cancer treatment for herbal remedies and other alternative treatments. Link via MSNBC. Is anyone else scratching their chin right now?

Seriously, it's absolutely fine to seek alternative treatments if you have problems with acne or warts (sometimes I like to cut a potato in half, rub it on a wart, and bury the potato under a full moon... doesn't mean it will work), or even insomnia (I like to chew on Valerian roots in case of insomnia, and grow my own Valerian).  But with something as serious as cancer, which will kill you, no one should really take chances.

The book delves into Jobs' decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumor — a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.

Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, the book says, before finally having surgery in July 2004. 

He found these online. If there is one thing a doctor hates more than anything, it is probably the internet (just like the one thing architects hate most is HGTV). And he consulted a psychic. Usually the first people anyone should take serious when they find out they have cancer should be their doctor. But somehow a psychic sounds like more of an expert than someone who has a license as a medical doctor. Once again, I do not mourn the loss of Jobs, but now I have a new reason: he was a moron.

But the current trend these days is go for things that are more "natural". What is "natural" anyway? Everyone argues for "natural", but the point we all tend to disagree on is to exactly what nature is. Italian Renaissance architects would argue that architecture should follow nature, as did the Gothic architects of Medieval France. The reason why their architecture differs greatly is that their interpretation of nature differ. So this term "natural" we like to toss around, like it justifies something, is absolutely contrived and arbitrary.

Doctors have spent centuries trying to cure and treat ailments, and only in the last hundred years have doctors started to finally get things right. In fact, doctors have discovered many amazing groundbreaking treatments. Disregarding all of that is fine. Go ahead and take herbal remedies you were recommended to take from some New Age website. Go ahead and take them if you're healthy. If you're not healthy (i.e. dying of cancer), then you need to consider that the advice of a psychic and taking herbal supplements might actually kill you.

All alternative treatments should come with a warning : If you are not healthy: THIS CAN KILL YOU!

The GOP Rock n' Roll Star

This Tuesday in Las Vegas the GOP held a debate. Off course, the usual people were there: the candidates, the press, Republican supporters, et cetera. What was different was the way Michele Bachmann was dressed (no this will not be a fashion statement). She was wearing a white military jacket, sort of like a pea coat, with gold buttons (they were actual gold, and apparently the jacket runs four about $500... and now Google thinks I'm a right-winger with a love for fashion, because I wanted to get my facts straight before I write about them).

So I must ask, is she trying to demonstrate that she is a strong women (which gets overlooked in a political media of a lot of men)? That she can take the Presidency serious, and still be tough? Or is she going to be a dictator? Considering she's batshit crazy, I lean more towards the latter.

In all seriousness, dictators have an immense love for garnishing themselves in military garb. Hitler did it. Mussolini did it. Stalin did it. Gaddafi did it (yesterday I would have said "does it", but he got pulled out of a sewer drain earlier today, made a mockery of, and then shot in the head). The Pope does it... well, eh... hmm. Okay, the point I'm getting at here is that where there is an immense amount of power resting on one person, or within a small group of despots, they tend to dress in a way that expresses their power.

Like a rock n' roll star, where there is attention, there isn't just a need to look presentable; there is a NEED to dress like you can waste money on ridiculous outfits. Many of these dictators didn't even have military experience, at least none that is credible military experience, before they came to power. There is something to the Will to Power which manifests itself in the appearance of the powerful.

Bachmann is certainly not in power, and probably won't be president (in fact, she's not really even relevant any; so why I am talking about her, I don't know). But she must be on a power trip. I would hesitate to actually say she's going to be a dictator. That said, she sure as hell is the GOP's rock n' roll star. Or at least she's trying to fill the roll. And maybe that's all the Tea Party is, just an art project (as Scott Sworts calls it in refering to Heidegger). Certainly the Tea Party is not the majority, considering the number of people participating in OWS. So, what is all this?

It's a masquerade. This is all one big joke. Forget what the Bible says, people would rather rally behind the Word of God, instead of actually reading it (much less follow it). Forget the American Way, people would rather call it "American", instead of actually embracing American ideology. Forget architecture, architects would rather make up a bunch of BS and call it "Architecture" (with a capital A). Whatever ideals we had for this thing or that thing, it is no more. We rally behind the name and forget whatever it meant.

So what was Bachmann doing in Vegas? She was being a bit too literal on the drag show that has become the way of a schizophrenic age.

Am I framing this too well in order make her look evil?

       

Americans Can Still do Awesome Things for the World

It seems to be the consensus that America has little left to do in its future before its inevitable demise. While America may not be able to do much more for the world, Americans still can.

Forget America. Whatever America was, it is dead. But Americans still exist. By "American" I mean those who still have a glimmer of hope, as well as a vague recollection of whatever this idea of America was. Those who still hold on to a dream that all people are equal, and that we all can have the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those who still think they can bring a child into this world, and there still be a world left for those children who will inherit this world from us. Those people are Americans, and they still live strong. They are the 99% (the 99ers, if you will). America is dead. Americans live.

Americans can still do absolutely awesome things for the world... STILL! What have Americans done lately to deserve this utmost respect from me? They have inspired the world. They have given the world a voice again. We have once again stood on the side of the oppressed, the sick, the poor, the hungry, the tired, and the weak. And the world has joined Americans in a global (and unprecedented) uprising to express how we all feel, not as nations, but as the people of a tiny blue planet spiraling about a small, insignificant, yellow star amongst billions in a secluded corner of a galaxy (which we so happen to call "home").

The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread, not only throughout the States, but throughout the world. This is no longer a fringe movement. Far from it. This has sprung up in Tokyo, Italy, France, London, South Africa, Australia... you name it. The entire world is joining in on this movement against being oppressed by corruption of power and money. And Americans started it all! Albeit, I would like to give credit to the Arab Spring, which I think was the predecessor to Occupy Wall Street. At the very least, Americans only strengthened what the Arab Spring started, which became viral in the course of a month.

This isn't just about the amazing things Americans can still do. This is about the amazing things people of the world can do. And we, as a the inhabitants of this small rock we call Earth, our home, are freaking awesome! My hat is off to, not just Americans, but to the people of the world who have and are still standing against all those who oppress.

Remember Reagan's dream about aliens coming to Earth to destroy us? And then the people of the world unite to stand against extermination? Yes, like in the movie Independence Day. And, yes, Reagan actually talked about this. Well, this Occupy the World movement makes Reagan's dream look like some real wussy stuff. We don't need the treat of aliens from another planet to make us unite. We just need the threat of the despots and oligarchs amongst us to cause us to rise up.

I have said it before, and I will say it again : this is far from over.

"And at last the time has come, to unite again as one to the power of the Earth."
~Dream Theater

The spread of Occupy Protests across the globe (October 15th)

The Rule : There Will Always be an Exception

So I recently received some grief for my Southern Nice posting, because not everyone is like that. I am really only writing this to illustrate this point once and for all, so I don't have to reiterate this point on every post :

There will always be an exception to the rule.

That's the rule. Nothing goes faster than the speed of light, except neutrinos. Steve Jobs was an evil, greedy man who did absolutely no charity, except when he gave computers to schools (hardly charity work, considering it was a marketing campaign). Jesus was a great and moral teacher and human being, except in the Infancy Gospel. Christians are some of the most intolerable people I have ever met, with the exception of a few I have met in my life that I would actually call Christ-like. Southerns are racist, with the exception of a few (that exceptional few don't include people who like their drug dealer, who tends to be African American or Hispanic). Infinity will always be equal to infinity, except in Cantor Sets. Need I go further?

There will always be an exception. I am only writing this so I can paste a link of this into future blog postings so I never have to write this again.

My blogs end with a picture, except this one.

Self-Fulfilling Persecution

One pattern that keeps cropping up over and over again is the majority claiming they are being persecuted. That's cute. We see it with the top 1% and Wall Street screaming "Class warfare!" over the protests on Wall Street. That's so adorable. Or the Evangelical Christians claiming they are being persecuted in this country... also incredibly adorable. Or Apple users claiming they are misunderstood and everyone hates them because they use Apple products... you don't get anything cuter than that.

Take for instance the "class warfare" being committed the Occupy Wall Street protests. The wealthiest of all the wealthy hold the most money in this country, as well as the most political pull in Washington (giving them a lot of power), and yet claim class warfare is being committed upon them. I can't tell you how cute this is. If you hold all the money and all the power, you will be the ones committing class warfare. That's generally how class warfare works. Those with the power and money will keep everyone below a certain income level at the bottom, if not simply run them even further into the ground.

The problem is that the supposed "persecution" will inevitably become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There will come a point when the bottom of the economic barrel can no longer sustain their own existence, and with advertisements for iPads and Droid phones being shoved in their faces, without any means to get access to these products and goods (especially if welfare is cut), they will rise up. They will do exactly what Glenn Beck hysterically said they would do : drag you out of your homes and kill you in the street. And while Beck is a moron who is completely over exaggerating, albeit I do not ever think it will come to "dragging you out of your house and kill you in the street", if the masses are not provided for, then they will do exactly that. It's called "bread and circuses" : keep them fed and entertained and they will stay out of politics and not rise up. Too bad the Romans failed to do this for the tribes they conquered, which led to the demise of Rome.

Again, when the market is skewed, heaven forbid if a marketing target isn't the majority. Take for instance chocolate. I'm a guy and I love chocolate. I like Lindt and Dove and Ghiridelli and... and well almost any kind of chocolate (and I know plenty of other guys who do too). What is the target market for chocolate? Women. They forget that men like chocolate too! And heaven forbid if Dr. Pepper decides to market a low calorie soft drink for men! Some women think Dr. Pepper 10 is chauvinistic for not being marketed to women as well. Well, when everything gets marketed for women, and occasionally for men as well, because some women claim chauvinism on everything (I read an article once on how scientific writings are chauvinistic (sorry for the meta-parenthesis, but that article has some validity)). But their crusade, like any crusade, tends to put them in a bind. Sometimes things are for men. Sometimes things are for women. And sometimes they aren't chauvinistic. If I may quote Freud : sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But when a cigar is just a cigar and something else is imposed on the cigar, that's when trouble comes knocking.

Or again, Apple users claim they are misunderstood as creative artists. SO ADORABLE! I sit in Architecture In Theory class every Wednesday and see 7 of 18 people (including the instructor) using Apples, while only two use a Dell and an Acer, two people sleep, and the rest of us use an old fashion pen and paper. Funny thing is the Apple users all tend to sit on one side of the round table set up, so I always see seven Apple icons in a row. If you're the majority, how are you misunderstood? If anything, the people who get grief for using PCs are misunderstood, because not a lot of people understand them for using something that's not an Apple. If I may use Maddox's rhetoric : what's the only thing PC users can do that Mac users can't do? Shutting the hell up.

I could rag on Christians, Muslims, conservatives, Fox News, architects, liberals, Obama, Thomas Edison, et cetera, but that would be too easy. So I leave all of this with an example most of us have gone through : hating your parents. There comes a point when you think your parents hate you so much that eventually it becomes self-fulfilling. If you think your parents ground you because they hate you, they will just ground you for your rhetoric. I had a friend in high school who talked about how his dad used to hate him so much that his dad would beat him. It all ended when he got into an actual fight with his dad because he was taken home by the cops, and ended up killing his father. Prophecy fulfilled.

If you hoist yourself on your own cross to show you are being persecuted, then you are only persecuting yourself. So get down off your cross, use the wood to build a bridge and get over it.

Southern Nice

Recent I was recommended by a friend to read the mathematician Bertrand Russell's essay "Nice People", because he thought it was the closest anyone has written on what I call Southern Nice. Russell's essay didn't even come close.

So what is this thing I call Southern Nice? Some of us have heard of Minnesota Nice, which is demonstrated par excellence in the Cohen Brother's Fargo. Minnesota Nice, overall, is general politeness. Regardless of who you are talking to, you are just generally nice when you talk to them. You can hate the person, love them, never have met them, they could have slept with your spouse, it does not matter... in public you are nice to them. Southern Nice differs from this in many ways. The key thing to understanding Southern Nice is hate. Southerns hate everyone; even their family.

How can you spot Southern Nice?

For people who come from more tolerable cultures, Southern Nice is not easy to detect. You will tend to think that these people are friendly, or, at the very least, simply indifferent. It's as if the South is just radiating with a "charmingly friendly" culture. This is not the case at all. It is usually a mask of friendliness, but beneath that mask is animosity. When I was living in Boston my sister once asked me if people were actually mean up north. I told her : people in the South act nice to your face and talk shit behind your back, while in the North they just skip the niceness and talk shit to your face. That's about the only difference : one form of hatred comes raw, while the other comes with a pretty red bow and the scent of roses.

First, it has to be understood that the South is filled with a bunch of racists. Most Southerns will not admit to this, and usually have some pretty good rhetoric on how they aren't racist, even when they are. This is part of Southern Nice. Only the lowest of the low of Southerns actually proclaim to be racist. The rest wrap their racism in politeness and niceness. As long as a Southern is nice to an African American, they won't think their racist.

There is also a double standard to Southern Nice. While a Southern may be being "nice" to another fellow Southern, Southerns instinctively, and yet unconsciously, know when they're getting Southern Nice. It's as if they were unconsciously hearing an extra, hidden parameter to the speaker's voice that spewed animosity. So Southern Nice from one Southern to another is much more concealed. Someone not of Southern culture would not be able to hear it. Let me give an analogy : remember when you were about 11 or 12 and you saw two college kids on a date, and the guy seemed really into everything the girl was saying? As a kid you didn't know that he didn't really care about anything she was saying, he just wanted to slip his tube snake into her (sorry for the Full Metal Jacket reference). It isn't until you are out of college that you can spot this kind of hormone-induced niceness. You know now that beneath the horny sophomore's polite demeanor is pure animalistic instinct raging. Beneath Southern Nice is a throbbing urge to splash sulfuric acid in your face.

Why is there this layer of politeness over an entity of hate? It's quite simple to answer and understand : Southerns are primarily Christian. That should say everything, but I'll humor those who don't see the point. It's not Christian to be hateful, but it also is. Somehow Christians these days think God wants them to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them, and Satan is the one who wants us all to get along. This comes from the litany of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is suppose to unite the seven greatest nations and bring peace amongst the people of the world. Then the Antichrist is suppose to kill everyone and Jesus is going to come back and make all true Christians happy and stuff. And they cannot wait for this to happen. They pray for the coming of the Antichrist. Peace and death in one entity : that should sum up Southern Nice.

Because the Antichrist embodies this sort of duality, anyone who is generally nice is placed under suspicion. Anyone who is actually nice must be evil. And while Southerns may actually be some of the most vile and hateful people in the States, they shroud it with a veil of rainbows, sunshine, and tobacco enemas.

Paradoxically enough, anytime a Southern wants to actually be nice to another fellow Southern it is usually wrapped in malcontent or, at the least, ambivalence. This is done for a number of reasons in a number of different contexts. If parents are actually nice to their children, then the child is being spoiled. If an employee is actually nice to a superior, then he or she is kissing ass. If two guy friends are actually being nice to one another, then they come off as homophiles (heaven forbid there be homosexuals in the South!). If a white person is being nice to a black person, then the double standard kicks in : the white person is being a racist! The only way to not come off racist in the South is to ignore persons that are not white. Unless the black person is your drug dealer, in which case you are being "nice" for another reason.

Note : no Southern will admit to this. They won't admit to it simply because they don't know that they do it. The culture of Southern Niceness is naturalized into them. My maternal grandmother is one of the sweetest women I know, and I still see her pull Southern Nice on her neighbors, whom she cannot stand.

If only the veil of niceness could be lifted on Southerns, an apocalypse, if you will, then we would find some malicious demons walking amongst us in our own country. If I may borrow the term from Milton, a pandemonium in the South.

Hate thy neighbor... but be nice about it!

Where Evil Reigns

In recent news the world has had a number of notorious people die recently. Of them was Steve Jobs, who got all the attention. On the back burner of the news was some people that are far more influential than Jobs. Of them were :

Dennis Ritchie, who died this Wednesday the 12th. Ritchie developed the computer programming language C, as well as helped develop UNIX. Without Ritchie, Steve Jobs would be nothing. It's a lot like without your mother you would not be here.

Frank Kameny died this Tuesday the 11th. Kameny is responsible for the first gay rights lawsuit and for starting the gay rights movement. He served our Country in WWII, eventual graduated with a PhD from Harvard and joined the FBI. He was fired from the FBI for being a homosexual, and took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost. Then started the first gay rights group, which set up base in Washington DC, called the Mattachine Society. He was doing all of this a decade before Harvey Milk even moved to San Francisco.

Ralph Steinman died September 30th. He had done critical research on how the immune system worked, and discovered cells that were pertinent for the immune system to fight off pathogens. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology without their knowledge of his death, and was still given the award posthumously.

I'm sure there are more people who died recently that were far more important than Jobs. And, yet, who got all the media attention? Duh, Jobs. Personally, I do not mourn the loss of one of the most evil men in corporate America. Jobs contributed absolutely nothing to philanthropic work, non-profits, or charity. In fact, when Jobs came back to Apple he immediately ended all philanthropic work Apple worked on. When the iPhone was developed, Jobs had blocked all apps that would allow someone to donate to a charity. Yes, he went out of his way to stop charitable work. The only "charitable" thing Apple does is donate computers to schools. But note, this is not charity. It's a marketing scheme. They send computers to school with students who come from money (middle class and up). They do this with the intention of getting the students to go home and asking their parents for a Mac. Great marketing campaign, but it's absolutely greedy and selfish.

There is always the argument that goes a little something like this : but Jobs defined our computer culture, which means he defined our culture in general; without him you would not have your Droid, your Windows GUI, your iPod, or other amazing things he brought to our world. For one thing, my iPod broke, because Apple figured out how long they could make the iPod work before it broke, and the customers still have enough faith in the product to buy a new one... so I'm not getting a new one, because I don't have faith in the product. Second, if I may quote Maddox's Facebook :

"I am not defined by the products I buy. My computer is not a part of my identity. My computer is a tool. And like all tools, it's only useful if I make it useful. A brand is not a lifestyle. I don't owe gratitude to a billionaire I helped create. Steve Jobs was a business man who charges exorbitantly for his products. He didn't do us any favors. He didn't make us. We made him."

But of course, the media has to cry over the loss of Jobs (yes, that's a pun), and did not give two squats about about the loss of the man who started the gay rights movement, the developer of computation languages, and the scientist who discovered crucial aspects of how the immune system works (a development that may lead to the cure for HIV, the common cold, or autoimmune deficiencies).

But since the discourse lies in the wrong direction, and Minitruth controls the discourse in this Country, then it is fair to say evil reigns in the propaganda we stare at everyday on our telescreens. It's a sleight of hand to distract us from what were the actually important recent deaths by waving the avatar of evil in the faces of the public so they can mourn someone who was not that important. Is this evil's new agenda? If it is, we are doing a fine job of rising to that agenda.

Maybe I'm not getting at anything here. Maybe I'm just upset that three very important figures died recently and got cheated on the news coverage. In that case, then Palahnuik is right when he says, "The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is the press coverage." The only difference between being a demigod and being a dead nobody is the press coverage. I would just like to represent those who did far more for us than Steve Jobs could have ever done if he wasn't absolutely evil.

At least there isn't a street named after Jobs (that I know of).
R.I.P. Kameny, Steinman, and Ritchie.

Would Bringing Back Post-Natal Abortions Fit with Your Ideology?

Recently I found an image on Reddit of Pro-Lifers with signs that only confirm my deepest fears of how far right can the right wing nutcases go. They held signs that said : KILL WOMEN, NOT BABIES, and DEATH PENALTY 4 WOMAN WHO ABORT. I can only imagine this going one step further before the line is crossed, and I cannot imagine it going any further than this (and fear if it does) :

KILL INFANTS THE MOMENT THEY LEAVE THE WOMB, SO THEY CAN NEVER HAVE AN ABORTION.

Does that fit with the right wing ideology? Should we bring back the arts of abortion from the 13th Century? That is, bringing back post-natal abortions? It should fit with the right wing religious's ideology, since apparently the moment anything comes out of the vaginal canal, then it can just go die!

If life is sacred, then why is Capital Punishment still an option? Can we not think of the Death Penalty as a post-natal abortion? Essentially, we can think of Ted Bundy being aborted during the 176th trimester.

While all of this may seem satirical and humorous, it really shouldn't be funny, because this is how far right these religious conservatives are. I was recently informed of another thing about South Carolina, my home state, that makes me ashamed I am from there. In 1944, the State of South Caroline executed the youngest person ever executed in the United States. George Stinney (an African American) was 14 years old when he was convicted of murdering two white girls. He was executed 81 days following the murders. In fact, he was so small that he had to sit on phone books to have the electrode reach his head, and the adult-sized mask fell off during his convulsions, so the crowd had to watch the dying face of a 14 year old child being executed. He was aborted in his 66th trimester.

I can no longer defend the South. I'm embarrassed to say I was born there.

So let's understand the ultra-right wing's ideology : abortion is bad, but executions are cool. Then post-natal abortion is perfect! At least we won't have to bring back alleyway abortions and risk the lives of thousands of women with coat hangers again! The moment that baby's head starts poking out, just stab it in the head, just like we used to do Pre-Enlightenment. Returning to the good old days... ahh, yes, the Golden Days. The days when women were oppressed, daddy beat his kids and wife, black people were not considered actual people, animals had to stand trail, and we didn't have TV. Maybe we can bring back stoning people to death!

Women can still live and babies can still die! Hooray loopholes!

The Balancing of Evils : Occupy Wall Street

So the Occupy Wall Street protests are still going on. All I have to say is : good.

Here's the problem with the political spectrum today : the emergence of the Tea Party as a serious political party has moved the political spectrum so far to right that what is considered "moderate" is is now very liberal. Ronald Reagan, the god and savior of the Republicans is, by their current standards, a fairly liberal liberal (as opposed to a conservative or moderate liberal).

But these protests are so far to the left that they almost seems like they are on the right. As Scott Sworts pointed out to me when he went to New York last week, if you replaced the college kids, hippies, punks, hipsters, and the likes with balding, gray, white men over the age of 35, it would be a Tea Party rally. This is what we need : something so far to the left that it can balance out America's political spectrum.

Now, I must point out that I do not entirely agree with everything these far-left protesters are rallying behind. I don't believe in the end of Federal government, I think the bailouts for Wall Street were necessary to prevent the country from falling into an actual depression, and so forth. But are these protests necessary? Absolutely, and no question about it. The Tea Party has caused the political scales of America to tip so far to the right that the scales are about to fall off the table and crash to the floor. What we need is balance, and the means to create such a balance is necessary. It's not even a necessary evil, it's just plain necessary.

And what do these protests start to look like when one really analyzes them? They remind me of the birth of the Tea Party. Is it difficult to imagine an emergence of an ultra-left wing party? I think not. And I welcome it with open arms, for no other reason than to balance the scales again.

One reason I support these protests is that Anonymous is behind it (the infamous hacker group that embraces the ideology of V For Vendetta). Not that I agree with everything Anonymous does (or hardly anything), but they, I think, are a necessary evil. Their methods may be too radical for my tastes, and even their ideology is too left wing for me, but the potential outcome of their work I am hopeful for. Anonymous has no control over the outcome of what they are doing. What they are doing will either make the world a better place, or it will destroy everything. They can't control the outcome, they just have to keep doing what they are doing and hope that the outcome is positive. It's a bit like an anti-depressant, we have to hope that they make us better before we want to kill ourselves. But what better choice do we have? Let the Tea Party rape this country of everything worthwhile that it has and leave the rest of the country in a state of absolute destitution? I vote for the anti-depressant method if push comes to shove, and there are no other options. I vote for the better of the evils (whether that evil is greater or lesser, whatever gets things back into balance).

I don't want to be too assuring, but I feel these protests will escalate. The Occupy Wall Street protest is still growing, and smaller ones are spreading to other cities. But Mayor Bloomberg already plans on shutting down these protests on Wall Street in a few more days. Does anyone think everyone is going to go pack their bags, go home, and reminisce about their experience, like it was some sort of Widespread Panic concert? I doubt it. Let's just hope this doesn't end up with the US military being called in to remove the protesters, and we get a massacre like we did in the Detroit riots in the 1960s.

All it will take is one death for this whole situation to blow up out of control that even the President of the United States of freaking America could not touch it. The scales are so crooked that this could happen. One death and the war is lost. See why we need some balance?

Just vote for Cthulhu, because I'm sick of cheering for the lesser evils.

The Antichrist Is Such A Nice Guy

So yesterday in California Obama was called the Antichrist. Time for a brief history of religious, nutcase name calling :

Julius Caesar : ANTICHRIST (Really?)

Nero : ANTICHRIST (That's deserved)

Adolf Hitler : ANTICHRIST (That's deserved)

Benito Mussolini : ANTICHRIST (Maybe, not really)

Mikhail Gorbachev : ANTICHRIST (Hmm, I could see that)

Ronald Reagan : ANTICHRIST (Really? REALLY?)

Pope Benedict XVI : ANTICHRIST (Are they even trying anymore?)

And that is not all. In fact, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the name calling. The religious right-wing is desperate to find to Antichrist, and they are willing to start a lot of childish name calling games to figure it out, and have been for centuries past, and many more to come. Why? Beats me. My best guess is that they want to see the world burn. If humans are going to go extinct (which we will), I guess we want to see everything destroyed. This hypothesis I have addressed in other posts on the apocalypse and our sick need to watch things die.

So now Obama is the Antichrist. Let me say this : until the Rapture, there should be no more name calling. And if the Rapture did occur back in May (as predicted), then no one was saved. But since no one was saved, how do you know it happened? Hmm... Yep, let's just hold off on the name calling.

Plus, I don't think the Antichrist would care if you forgot your coat. That, or the Antichrist is the nicest guy I've known in a long time. He's sooooo Christ-like.

Video of Obama being called Antichrist

The Abyss Stares Into You : Where Evil Resides

I felt compelled to reuse Joe Juhasz's blog post title "Where Evil Resides" (blog no longer available) about the incident at Fort Hood two years ago. This weekend New York City experienced something that should remind us to remember atrocities are not something that take place in a foreign land, or something that happened a long time ago. Evil resides here in the US.

Since September 17th there has been a protest on Wall Street called "Occupy Wall Street", where thousands of protestors have flocked to sit, stand, lay down, whatever, and occupy Wall Street in protest of the bailouts and the irresponsibility of how federal funding is conducted in this nation. On Saturday, what started off as protests as usual, a so-called "riot" broke out. At least, this is what the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, and Fox News has called it.

I did not learn until this evening that this "riot" was actually several instances of police brutality. You read that correctly : police brutality. I actually didn't believe it at first and had to do some fact checking and watching the full videos myself. There are few cases where I personally cannot tell if the protestors provoked the NYPD to react as violently as they did. But there is a large number of incidents in those videos that clearly show that the police used physical force that was absolutely unprompted and uncalled for.

These protestors were not just a bunch of whack-jobs. They were, for many Americans, our children. They were college kids and young adults. And they peacefully protested, which is their Constitutional right to do, and had to endure brutality that can only remind us of Rodney King or the African American Rights Activists brutality. And what's more is that most of the unprovoked force was carried out by police in white uniforms, which indicates higher ranks, such as Lieutenant or Sergeant.

So what does all this mean? I have no clue. But it certainly gives us a clear picture of what power can do to police officers. Power can turn people evil, just as it did Lucifer. This is what Philip Zimbardo called the Lucifer Effect. Obviously the Rookies, who do not have a lot of power, did exactly as police officers should do during protests : protect citizens from protestors, and protect protestors from citizens, and to do it calmly and politely. But what do protestors do if the police, who are suppose to protect them, start to attack them?

Is all of this brutality suppose to scare Americans away from protesting? It shouldn't. Some people have commented that the US doesn't know how to protest, and that Greece, London, Egypt, and Syria know how to protest, and that Americans just hold signs. No, Americans protest in the best form of protests : peacefully. We protest in a way that has been shown to us since we were in grade school, the way Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us. Will Americans continue to protest? Or will we let fear grip us against expressing our Constitutional rights? Well, that's all up to Americans.

Some of these shocking videos can be accessed here :
"Is this what you're about?"
Use of Mace
Unsure if this was unprovoked
Unprovoked use of force

"He who fights with monsters [police] should might take care lest he thereby become a monster [criminal]. And if you gaze for long into the abyss [the law], the abyss gazes also into you."
~Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil : Aphorism 146

Then There Were Neutrinos... And God Said, "Let There Be Light!"

So yesterday CERN revealed that for the past few months they have been testing the speed of neutrinos, and their findings show that neutrinos apparently go faster than the speed of light.

Now before this goes any further, it must be absolutely understood that all the kinks of these experiments have not been worked out. This could just as easily turn into the situation CERN had with the Higgs boson particle a couple of months ago, in which they thought they found it, but it turned out to be little more than an error in their data. There are several areas for error in the data with neutrinos that need to be investigated and crosschecked. No one at CERN is saying with absolute certainty that neutrinos travel fast than light. That said, I digress.

Last night, when the news about this came on CNN, I about cried at how little some of us care to understand about modern science. I don't know everything, nor do I care to be a physicist, but I do like to keep up with science. What floored me was the host on CNN said that E=MC² is wrong, and that all of Einstein's theories on Relativity are wrong. *Facepalm*

First of all, E=MC² may be wrong, but only slightly and some new equations are going to be needed to make it correct. Second, this does not mean Relativity is wrong (for the most part, since E=MC² was developed from Relativity). And even if Relativity ends up being wrong, many principles from it can still be used for application. Much of Newton's works were proved wrong, but it's applicable, even today. The only thing about Relativity that would have to be reworked is what makes it happen, not the mechanics of it (which is was the case with Newton). If a particle could go faster than light in the first place and it affected Relativity, then we would have known Relativity was really wrong many years ago. If that was a factor, then your GPS would be much farther off than it is now. And it's not that GPS systems are inaccurate, it's that the GPS you have in your car or phone is not the best we have, otherwise you would be paying about $1000 for a GPS. In fact, the GPS system they use at CERN is so accurate that they used it to test the speed of neutrinos. Fathom that.

E=MC² being incorrect (or needs slight altering) means we have to reconsider the difference between mass (M) and energy (E) and how it is effected by a constant cosmic speed (C, which is currently the speed of light).

My biggest concern about this matter at CERN is the reactions from people like CNN and the general public, in that they think science is some sort of religion. That scientists believe in their theories as much as Christians or Muslims believe in their holy books. Some people are thinking this means science is debunk, and Einstein, the prophet of science, was wrong. (By the way, there is already a book that has been in circulation for a few years called What Einstein Got Wrong, so it's not even that big of a deal he got some stuff wrong. In fact, he had to have known it was coming).

On Reddit someone posted : "They're scientists, not Creationists." And this is exactly the point. Science holds the theories that best explains data we currently have, and if a better theory comes along, then it is generally adopted. Global warming may not be the best theory, but it is the best we have now, and if something better comes along, then we will adopt it. It doesn't matter if Einstein was incorrect. He would be thrilled to find out something goes faster than light, and that we have data to prove it. That's how science works.

The problem isn't science or religion. The problem is the general public. There are a lot of interesting things going on in modern science on brain research, physics, biology, chemistry, geology, cosmology, parapsychology, and so forth, all of which will make your entire high school science education become a total lie. If only some of us would pick up Discover magazine or Scientific America, or just read the Science section of your newspaper. We don't even have to read it, just skim it and many of us will be updated on a good chunk of current knowledge.

Wired Science Link

It doesn't disprove science, it disproves Genesis 1 : 3. It need to be rewritten as : "Then there were neutrinos, and God said, 'Let there be light!'"

I Love This Country and I'm not a Republican

Why do Conservatives think they're the only ones who love this country? Why do they think they're the only ones who are actual Americans, and everyone else who is not a white, Christian, native born American can just go die (literally)? More interesting, the questions that should be asked reflect a sense of contradiction between the right-wing Americans and traditional American ideology.

American is one of (if not the only) country ever founded on reason. And as a basic right we were given, by governmental law, the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The only condition to this Constitutional right is that your pursuit of happiness cannot impede on anyone else's pursuit of happiness. That is a basic right, not privilege; a Constitutional right we were all given when we received our certificate of American citizenship. So if your pursuit of happiness entitled you to wear ass-less chaps in a gay pride parade, then that is your right. Now, does two men marrying, or two women marrying impede on anyone's pursuit of happiness? The only way gay marriage will impede on someone's pursuit of happiness is if they go out of their way to let it upset them.

There's too much liberal propaganda in circulation for me to make a real point here, so let me get a little bit dirty in getting this point across. Let's say the KKK wanted to hold a White Power rally on the Washington Mall. Does that impede on anyone's pursuit of happiness? Only if they let it. They don't have to go to the rally if they don't like racist propaganda. Just stay home and watch MSNBC like I would. If you go to the rally and become offend, then, well, that's your fault (unless you are there to pursue your happiness by protesting against them). Everyone is entitled to their beliefs and opinions in this country, no matter how hateful and discriminatory those beliefs are. You're entitled to rally your opinion of God, but you are not entitled to ring my doorbell at 7 AM to tell me about your idea of God.

But the right-wing Americans think that Atheists, homosexuals, immigrants, liberals, non-Caucasians, Muslims, et cetera somehow do not love this country. And to make a point of how much Conservatives love this country more than anyone else they parade a patriotic facade. They have to enforce and repetitively reenforce an image of what an American patriot is, so that that model fits them, and only them. Essentially, they are in patriotic drag.

I have to beg the question : are Republicans even American in their ideology? Are they even patriotic? Or are they just anti-Americans sporting in American drag? Are they just men in women's clothes?

Glen Beck went off on the new Levi commercial with its theme of revolution and to be "original" (whatever that means). He condemned it as anti-American. Is it? Scott Sworts, in his Cult of the Dead Birds blog, discusses how this country was founded on revolution. So is "revolution" anti-American? Or is revolution a thing of America's past? Neither is anti-American. If fact, it is absolutely American.

The Declaration of Independence says :

"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

By gods (I have to be fair to everyone's god), revolution is in the very foundation of American Independence. I'm sure if Thomas Jefferson were alive today (or any Found Father), he would just go crawl in a corner and cry about the absolutely unpatriotic, anti-American ideologies the GOP sports around as the only way to be American. I think I'm going to go crawl in a corner and cry.

And let's not forget how un-Christ-like these "patriots" are.

Choice : The New Best Thing

Many of us have noticed, and often feel a bit of disgust toward right-wing nutcases protesting abortion in front of schools and clinics. They boycott, pester, insult, assault, and act out violently towards clinics, women who have had abortions, and anyone who has had any association with abortions (even companies that deliver office supplies to clinics). It's really quite gut-wrenching to hear about these events and absolutely uncalled for actions. These protestors will go so far as to list names, phone numbers, and emails of individuals associated with abortion clinic in order to entice others to call and email these people to voice a complaint.

On the Rachael Maddow Show this evening a victim of these right-winged extremists was on the show with a bit on what he started to counteract these annoyances. Tom Stave is a business man who rents a property he owns to an abortion clinic, and had his name and number presented at a protest. Following numerous calls and emails he got a few friends to help him with a project. That project is called the Voice of Choice.

The Voice of Choice is a volunteer campaign that, so far, 5000 people globally have joined. These people exchange through their networks the names, numbers, and email addresses of any individuals who have called or emailed people, companies, clinics, communities, and families with an association to abortions. Then they call and email them constantly to voice their opinion about the option of choice (peacefully and politely).

This makes me so happy. Like, really happy. I can barely contain my excitement. Not so we can continue killing babies (let's admit it, we're killing babies), but because now we can start to have the choice again of having a child or not, without the fear of being victimized by these nutcases. It's okay for them to have the opinion of Pro-Life, but do they have to harass people for it? Do they really want women to bring back the coat hanger abortions? ("Alleyway" abortions were one of the highest causes of female deaths in the US before Roe vs. Wade). Many of these Pro-Lifers are asking to be taken off the call and email lists, but don't know that the list is viral and can't be stopped.

Not only that, but we can use their scare tactics against them. It's kind of like those Atheists who went around a predominantly Jehovah's Witness neighborhood at 7 AM to tell them about why there is no God. It's the Golden Rule turned on its head : do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Apparently Pro-Life activists follow that rule (which Jesus taught them), that is up until it is actually done back to them.

This is all really a matter of choice. It is something fundamental to the happiness we all search for in our lives. To have any choice taken from us is an impediment on our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is precisely why it is in our Constitution. (Of course, too many choices can impede our ability to make choices, but for that stuff you can just read Barry Schwartz's Paradox of Choice). Roe vs. Wade illustrated to us that it was absolutely inhumane to force a woman who cannot support herself, much less a child, and doesn't want a child, living in a poor, African American neighborhood surrounded by violence and drugs. Thus, abortion became legal (and consequently, 20 years later, crime levels plummeted; read Super Freakonomics).

Now we just need to find a way to fight against the abolishment of Social Security, end wars, fight terrorism, and many other silly things using the same tactics they use, but against them. To fight fire with fire, because it seems to be working for Stave and the Voice of Choice.

Voice of Choice, can be accessed here :
http://www.vochoice.org/

Life is sacred, until that life exits the vaginal canal.

Congratulations! You're Born! Now You Can Die

I'm still reflecting on the 30 year old man who died at the GOP debates. I discussed this in my last post, but I want to explore the further implications of the right live and die in this country. Obviously, the Republicans feel that a 30 year old man of good health, should he come down with a life-threatening illness and has no health insurance, should die. Of course, if you don't have health insurance (regardless of your position in life), then you can just go die. You deserve it.

Hold it now, wait a minute... if you're not born yet, then you aren't allowed to die. The anti-abortion movement (largely represented by Conservatives) leans on the idea of "life is sacred", that is unless you have been born and don't have health insurance.

But wait! There's more! If you can't make a decision yourself to end your life, then you have to live. Consider Terri Schiavo, who was forced to be kept alive on feeding tubes with numerous, expensive, life-prolonging measures undertaken to keep her alive in a vegetative state. She had no conscious choice whether she wanted to live or die as a vegetable. In fact, a law was enacted to keep her alive, while the husband has to continue paying for expensive care and treatment for his brain-dead wife (her parents think she's conscious).

So, the lesson to be learned is : if you are a fetus or a vegetable, then you are forced to live. If you aren't a fetus or a vegetable, and don't have insurance, you are going to die whether you like it or not.

Why the contradiction on the proponents of life and death and the right to either? It doesn't seem to make any logical sense that you aren't allowed to die if you haven't exited the vaginal canal, because life is sacred; but you aren't allowed to live if you don't have insurance, because... well, I don't know why. I can't say I actually have an answer to this. Maybe it is just an example of how the Conservative mind works.

A recent study has shown (not exclusively, but has some strong evidence) that Conservatives have a more active amygdala (a part of the brain associated with emotions), while Liberals use more of their anterior cingulate cortex (which is associated with logic). Perhaps this can shed some light on the blatant contradictions of the Republican Party, and why they act the way they do (i.e. like a bunch of nutcases).

When does life begin :
Catholic : At the moment of conception.
Baptist : When one is baptized and born in the light of Jesus!
Jew : When the kids move out and the dog finally dies.

Jesus Was a Socialist

Conservatives in this nation have a really poor understanding of two things that they consider to the foundation of their views : Jesus and socialism. The former is a so-called "role model", and the latter is what they strive against as if it was the devil himself. The GOP is constantly asserting Obama is proposing and enacting (when he can) socialist policies, when, in fact, the GOP probably has a very limited understanding of what socialism is.

Take this example : about a year ago in an architecture discussion a fellow peer started the whole sustainable society advocacy (following the lines of James Kunstler's ideology). He claimed that we, as a society, need to be less concerned about ourselves, and more concerned about the community. While a great idea, I told him to pick up a copy of the Communist Manifesto, because he was advocating communism. He snapped back at me that it's not communism, because "communism is bad". Communism, which is derived from "commune" or "community" is an a social / political system that is driven towards the idea of equality amongst individuals and groups, where the community is stronger than the individual. It's not that he was stupid, which is not the case. The point is we are brought up in a society where certain things are "bad", and we don't question why they are "bad", regardless if they are bad or not. He didn't know he was advocating communism, and because of his ignorance to subject, all he knew about communism is that it is "bad".

The same goes for Conservatives and socialism. And while Jesus is their role model, they  most certainly are not Christ-like. Not just because they are some of the most hateful, spiteful, greedy, lustful (and all the seven deadly sins) people I have ever known, it's because they advocate capitalism and despise socialism. What they don't realize is that Jesus was a socialist. If we look at Jesus' message, we can gather this very quickly.

Towards the end of the GOP Candidatial Debate just a few days ago, there was a huge deal over healthcare in this nation (i.e Obamacare). When candidate Ron Paul was asked if a man didn't have health insurance and became ill, should the government help him? And what did the crowd of "Christians" do? They shouted NO! They would let him die (but of course all fetuses have to live!). So, now, I have to ask : what would Jesus do? Well, here is what Jesus did do :

That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
Mark 1 : 32 - 34

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make be clean."
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man, "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.
Luke 5 : 12 - 13

Now did any of these people have health insurance? Let me be as blunt as possible : fuck no. They were sick, poor, lonely beggars who were absolutely hopeless. Did Jesus ask for their insurance information? Did he ask them for money? Did he ask why he should even bother? No, because he was Jesus, and he was far better of a person than any Christian today, by a very long shot. (Let me point out that I do know a few actually good Christians, and I can count them all on one hand if I was missing two fingers and a thumb).

And if healthcare for everyone (regardless of who they are, regardless of age, race, gender, current health condition, et cetera) is socialist, then at the very least, it is Christ-like. I'm certain Jesus would cry in shame that his followers 2000 years after him have embraced the very antithesis of what he preached. And I cry in shame because of it as well.

And let's not even get started on welfare, corporation despotism, unregulated businesses, education, governance, and economics.

"I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
~Mahatma Gandhi

The Differences of Skin and Culture

I come from a part of the Country that is predominantly racist, that is the South. I grew up around a considerable amount of racism (implicit and explicit) for about 22 years of my life. I myself, for many years had racial tendencies which propagated inside of my being from living in such a culture for so long. It wasn't until I came to the realization that whites, blacks, yellows, reds, whatever... all of our blood is the same color, so why should we care if our skins are different colors? I literally had to take my Southern heritage into a darkened alley and stab it to death in order to save what is left of my soul, then flee to New England.

When I arrived in New England I expected to not have to deal with racism so badly. I figured it would exist in some ways, but nothing as overt as what exists in the South. I encountered something equally as bad : mentioning race is taboo. At one time I came home and mentioned to my roommates something an African American girl I worked with had done, in which I described her as "black". They gasped in horror and asked in a snarky manner, "What does being black have to do with it?" It's descriptive, not name calling. There's a difference. And the avoidance of racial descriptions are practically ubiquitous with most of my experience in New England, that is until a crime has been committed, and even then it is attempted to avoid.

Not wanting to mention race is equally as bad as unconditionally judging persons of another race. Not being allowed to even describe someone of as being "African American" or "Hispanic" makes the whole topic of racial issues in this country completely closed to discourse. How are we ever expected to overcome our racial, religious, political, social, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural differences if we can't even talk about it? (Thank goodness I moved to Colorado, where these discussions can actually occur and no one get upset, so long as one refrains from derogatory phrasing).

I think this is one of the primary problems with the GOP and the politics in America today. I'm convinced that most of the Republican Party hates Obama because he's a black man in the Oval Office. But, of course, they have to say, "I don't care if he's black. I just don't like his politics." Well then, what about his politics do you not like? Obamacare? Okay then, what about Obamacare don't you like? Still thinking? Do you even know enough about how it works in order to not like it?

If the GOP would just admit they don't like a black man in the office, then we could actually discuss the issues, rather than battling racial wars with American taxpayers' dollars via political issues. And while I'm on the level of controversy I am at right now, let me ask : does anyone else think that the only reason the GOP nominated Cain was so they won't look like a bunch of racists? Or is that just me?

Racial issues are one of those critical issues in America that needs to be talked about. We will never get past any of this unconditional hate of the Other unless we talk about it.

The critical thing here to learn about race is not about epidermal melatonin, but about culture. Latino is not a race. Latinos can be dark color of skin, mocha, tan, or full-out white. Latino is a culture. The same goes for African Americans, Asian American, Creole, Native American, et cetera. These issues should have absolutely nothing to do with skin color, but about the cultures that define these people. And because of our ignorance we either avoid the issue for seeming racist if we broach the problem, or we just be racist. And what a sad bifurcation that is.

"You belong to the people who taught you the world. And my heart, my heart is Mexican."
~A Day Without A Mexican