Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Tiger's Eye Ring

There are certain stones I prefer over others. One is the Tiger's Eye. A long time ago, a friend asked me to pick out a ring for her, and I chose the one with the Tiger's Eye.


#


In sixth grade, our homeroom teacher was a hip young lady, liberal enough to favor such things as field trips, unlike the old relics who never left their classrooms. She allowed us kids to go exploring by ourselves in the Epcot Center. Ever independent, Alice ventured off by herself. I was with my friends, David and Carol. They helped kill time and boredom. Together we acted like The Three Stooges. I played along with them for an hour, until I realized that I would much rather be alone with Alice than with my friends. However, she was nowhere to be seen. The building had several floors and was not exactly small. I looked within my heart. As sure as following a map, I walked up two flights of stairs, turned left, then right into another room, and found her.

She was alone, as expected and desired. When she saw me, she greeted me neutrally. She discussed the exhibits and the science behind them, which fascinated her. I recall nothing of what she said. She was simply thinking aloud. I liked watching her, being in her presence. Her mind was active and alive, never idle, and her store of knowledge was more than can be imagined for a girl of that age. She was full of contagious energy, eager to learn and discover. If there was anything she could not do, I was unaware of it. I was euphoric, feeding off of her energy.

She said, “Do you think we should go and find the others? The teachers may be wondering where we are. We shouldn’t make them worry.”

I shook my head. No! This was the last thing on earth I wanted to do! Rejoining the others would mean the end of our conversation. She would prefer the company of her friends, other girls. We went searching for the others, but I directed us to places where I felt the others would not be, until she gave up. My legs grew tired with the walking, but hers did not, and so we continued examining the exhibits. Eventually we came upon a gift shop, and Alice found it irresistible.

“Oh, do you want to go in?” she said.

“Not really. I have no money!”

“I do. My father gave me thirty dollars and told me to buy myself something nice.”

“Well, I’ll just wait outside.”

She was gone for about ten minutes. I remember wishing I had money and wondering whether it even mattered. She came out and asked if I would give her advice. I said yes, of course. She wanted to buy herself a ring, but couldn't decide which one to buy. She wanted my opinion. I had no clue about girls’ rings and said as much, but she insisted. I entered the store with her, took a careful look at all the rings, and chose the one with a tiger’s eye. She said she preferred another stone, a green one. I told her it was all right, and she should get the ring that she wants, not the one that I picked. I left the store and waited outside.

She emerged with a new ring on her finger. It was the tiger’s eye. She smiled, admiring her ring, and I smiled, very pleased.

Soon after that, we found the other students and the teachers. As expected, Alice deserted me to talk with her girlfriends. I rejoined my friends with regret. We walked around for an hour or so until it was time to head back to the bus.

All of us were waiting in line to go to our next destination, the airport. The bus was being refueled. Alice was in the middle of the line. My buddies and I were in the back. We were bored, standing around doing nothing, just waiting for the bus to arrive. David asked where I had been, because he had not seen much of me at the museum. I confided that Alice and I had gone off alone together, not realizing the implication. David’s eyes lit up in amusement. “You like Alice, don’t you?” I was startled into silence, and then denied it, too late. A grin spread across David's face. “Hey, Carol, guess what! He’s in love!”

They reacted as boys do at that age to the spectacle of love, giggling and doing their utmost to embarrass me. David began singing a silly rhyme:

Alice and Igor, sittin’ in a tree!
K – I – S – S – I – N – G !
First comes love, then comes marriage!
Then come Carol in a baby carriage!

This was a common schoolyard rhyme. The person in the baby carriage could be anybody at all, but using Carol was funnier than others, because he was a runt. A chorus developed. I did not participate. I was mortified. I told them to shut-up, but my threats were ineffectual, as I wasn’t any bigger than anybody else, except Carol, though Carol was strong and stocky and capable of defending himself against me. They started making comments about her breasts—far too small, in David’s opinion. So why did I like her? You can just imagine how Alice felt. She heard every word that was spoken. Noticing her deep scarlet blush, they laughed all the harder. I hated my so-called friends just then.

How to salvage the situation? I sensed that it was my duty to protect her. I approached her with arms outstretched and my palms raised, as if to say it’s not my fault. In retrospect, this was a stupid gesture, but I was young, and did not know what to do. I said, “Hey, Alice, I didn’t... I hope you don’t think that..."

Suspicion was written all over her face. Her face was livid, her eyes burning into mine like hot coals. She thought me the ringleader.

I said, “I’m sorry that they are acting this way, and...” I stopped. My words were not having any effect. She hated me for standing there, for drawing attention to us, because that was making things rather more embarrassing for her, not less.

Her anger I perceived as dark waves flowing from her body. I was startled by the thought of her as an enemy. She hissed, “Why don’t you just leave me alone! Go away!”

Our teacher seized me by the shoulder and snapped, “Get back in line, right this minute!” I was pushed back to my place in line, where I stood defeated. Alice smiled, saying, “Good!” Then she turned around and never looked at me again.

David said, “Look at him! He’s head over heels in love!” Carol made smooching noises. But seeing that I was in no mood for jest, and with the teacher now exercising new vigilance, the joke died away, though the damage was already done.

I foresaw that she would give the tiger’s eye ring away to one of her friends. She never wanted to see it again. In the days that followed, she was implacable. She avoided me. If I ever spoke to her, she ignored me.

After a few weeks, I conveyed a message seeking reconciliation through a mutual acquaintance, a girl named Shannon who had volunteered her services to me. This proved to be another indiscretion and resulted in a different girl’s feelings being hurt, though that was not my intention. I had failed to detect Shannon’s feelings for me, being focused upon Alice. If I had known that Shannon was interested in me, I certainly wouldn’t have agreed to her being our intermediary.

Alice responded with a written note dictating terms. I was to agree that we would only ever be friends, and I was never to mention the incident on the field trip again. I tried to see if there was any wiggle room, but her position was take it or leave it. I reasoned that friendship was better than nothing. I liked her company and hoped that she might come to appreciate me better in time.

A sad little sideshow then developed in the melodrama between Alice and me. Shannon sent another written message through David to me, but it was not from Alice, it was from her. She confessed that she liked me and gave me her phone number, asking me to please call. I was quite surprised, since I had not suspected this at all. I am sorry to say that I felt completely indifferent to Shannon. She was pleasant and polite, but unfairly treated by other boys owing to her proportions. Upon consideration, I borrowed Alice’s line (“friends only”). Unlike some boys, I have never been one to pretend just for the presumed prestige of having a girlfriend.

When I shared my opinions with David and asked what he thought, he agreed, and cruelly, without my permission, revealed my thoughts to Shannon, casting them in the crudest and most hurtful light. Weeping, she came to me and asked if it were true. I grit my teeth and lied as much as I could bear. I at first denied all that my insensitive friend David had said just to heal the hurt, but she became encouraged and pursued her cause, asking me whether I actually liked her. Alarmed, I felt compelled to concede that some parts of what David said had a small basis in truth. Shannon ended up by blaming David for his cruelty.

If I had been attracted to Shannon, we might have been happy together, because she was a decent person. Human beings are far too fussy about the physical appearance of their mates. I always have been, and the same can be said for Alice. Most people are judged unattractive due to weight, age, or facial bone structure. In truth, Alice’s rejection more likely finds its basis in my physical characteristics rather than any faux pas. Her boyfriends were not more refined than me. Brutes are forgiven a thousand slights, have they a handsome face. The best strategy for most people is to indulge the powerful passions of romantic love through movies and stories, rather than seeking it in reality. Experience the strong passions vicariously, if at all! This is my best advice.

A few weeks later, I spoke to Alice during recess, and she could not bring herself to snub me, since we had signed a peace treaty. Of necessity, I obeyed the ground rules she set down for our platonic friendship. I never spoke of the incident at the airport again, because it was forbidden to do so. She was firm and of an iron discipline, but hungry for conversation, so I endeavored not to bore her. She found in me a good listener, ready to absorb new ideas. Despite herself, she found my company agreeable.

She warmed up to me sufficiently to teach me the Basic version of Dungeons and Dragons during recess. She played the Dungeon Master, and I played a rather clueless fighter stumbling about her dungeon, slaying goblins only because Alice fudged dice rolls out of kindness to me. I was fascinated by the colorful, gem-like, nontraditional dice that she used: a four-sided, eight-sided, ten-sided, and even a twenty-sided die! It was because of Alice, and out of boredom with an easy academic curriculum, that all of my friends and me soon went deep into the world of role-playing games.

We were to all play D&D for the next three years, cycling through the Basic edition to the Expert edition and finally ending with the Advanced version, a complicated system at which I became the master, absorbing every one of the many rules.


[The End.]


#


Epilogue:

I submitted an earlier version of this story to an online writer's group for critique. One writer praised it with many reservations due to stylistic errors, which I felt was the most honest and helpful response. I have great difficulty with style issues, such as logical errors, redundancies, telling instead of showing, and stating the obvious. One writer praised it too much, and I felt she was just being kind, in hopes others would treat her stories with a similar kindness. One panned it, and made a snippy comment about writers like me jumping on the "Harry Potter" bandwagon, which was strange, because I've never read HP, and the first draft of this story was written before HP existed.

One writer had a violent reaction against my story, and I do not know why, other than it had stylistic errors, as he pointed out, which I already realized at the time. Maybe he found my story too sentimental. Perhaps it is or was at the time in its earlier incarnation. Maybe he was competing with the other reviewers in cutthroat fashion, trying to sound witty and original. He told me, in public, to shove a broken glass bottle up my ass. I was not interested in anything else anyone in that group had to say after reading that. I envenomed a dagger that would do the maximum damage possible to his public reputation, which I perceived he valued, as it was the only possible motive for his insult. I posted my sharp reply without any concern for what the moderators might say, as they had said nothing to the troll. How deeply my poison dagger penetrated his black heart, I cannot know, because I left soon after the stab. For a week later, in my email box, I received thirty replies from various writers, as well as the moderators, and they ranged the gamut, sympathetic, neutral, and skeptical, all of which I ignored, because I had concluded the writer's group was not for me. The troll, however, did not dare to write back, although I had planned to ignore him as well.

Many people have difficulty coping with online trolls. Here is my advice. Don't read their words. You are in control of your own internet browser. Not anyone else. You can control what and who you read. If you are curious and want to monitor what is said, but fear getting caught up in a flame war, wait a month, six months, or a year, then read. In this way, it is a simple matter to avoid involvement. But once you have identified an online personage as being a troll, is there any point in reading anything that they say? Would you pay the slightest attention to such a person in real life? In all probability, no. You would ignore such a twit in real life. It is ridiculous to give more attention to online twits than to real-world twits and even rather unfair to the real-world twits. Also, just because a message is in one's email box does not mean one must read it. Consider the source. As one would not read spam, one should not read scum. Kill filters are a perfect solution, deleting such emails based upon the sending address.

I don't know who my writing is for or what the purpose is. Publishers have never been the slightest bit interested in any of my material. I enjoy capturing certain experiences and imbuing them with a permanence beyond my own memory. Whether they are later ignored or lost is not in my power to foresee. Most writing is lost. All writing prior to a certain point in ancient history has been lost. Better writers than me have been silenced forever.

Some people say, "Why bother writing?" But if that is the attitude one takes, one could take it further: why do anything at all? One does what one knows, likes, or thinks is important. Money is not the sole motivation for doing things, or it shouldn't be.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Too True

Sixteen of the dumbest things Americans believe.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

How Many People Believe the Craziness?

How many Americans believe the distortions of FOX News and other rabid right-wing media pundits, who do nothing but lie all the time? Judging by the recent election, plenty. Here's an article in the Irish Times on the subject. I know why the right has gotten into the habit of calling liberals "Nazis." They misapply the term because they fear its being used, with better accuracy, upon themselves. They torture, start wars, discriminate against minorities, and spy upon their fellow citizens.

If the Right is again installed into power in Washington, D.C. in 2012, then the number of calamities the United States must face will multiply. I expect more war, more pollution, more negligence, and more corruption. The poor will get poorer, and the middle class will continue its vanishing act.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Friday, November 19, 2010

No Eval

Early in the semester, I was planning to give my conservative professor a bad evaluation, due to her habit of preaching on religious and political subjects unrelated to the subject of the course. I changed my mind. I have decided not to fill out any eval. Hear no evil, see no evil, fill out no eval.

Why the change of heart? She's got her flaw--the preaching--but her qualities compensate for the flaw. On a personal level, she has really won me over with her politeness and fairness. When someone is polite, that carries much weight with me. So maybe I'm a pushover. I don't care. The bottom line is that she's better than most of the other professors I've had.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Psychic Power?

I watched a documentary this evening on Robert Jahn, a Princeton scientist who researched psychokinesis. This led me to check out a web site where anyone can test themselves for psychokinetic ability. A javascript picks a number, either 0 or 1, hundreds of times, and the goal is for the user to influence the computer somehow to pick more of a certain result.

I performed seven tests, but the site informed me my results were statistically inconclusive. Nevertheless, each result slightly favored the digit that I wanted the computer to pick.

I decided to favor 0's.
0's: 526
1's: 498

I decided to favor 1's.
0's: 505
1's: 519

I decided to favor 1's.
0's: 498
1's: 526

I decided to favor 1's.
0's: 500
1's: 523

I decided to favor 0's.
0's: 525
1's: 499

I decided to favor 0's.
0's: 522
1's: 502

I decided to favor 0's.
0's: 539
1's: 485

Weird, huh? I tried to examine the javascript, but it is encrypted somehow. However, there is no way for the site to know which digit I preferred. Perhaps my results are just a coincidence. Also, as the site noted, my results are not statistically significant.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Evil is a Burden

Doing evil is a burden on the soul. Sometimes I hurt another unintentionally with careless words, spoken without thinking. My filter is not intact. Sometimes I blurt out what I am thinking, having calculated it is socially acceptable, without evaluating whether the words will hurt another person's feelings. Sometimes it is difficult to really know whether a remark will be taken in jest or taken ill. I think fatigue plays a role in this ethical lapse. My body may be taxed by a virus, and my mind exhausted by fatigue. I may have slept poorly the night before. I have many excuses, but nothing seems to ease the pain of knowing that one's words have done psychological harm to another, especially a person that one otherwise admires.

I am reminded of an ancient incident. Possibly no one remembers it now except for me. I learned certain lessons from the experience, but don't always practice what I know 100% of the time. To be sure, when I'm fully rested, my batteries fully charged, I usually conduct myself better.


#


In my tenth year, my friend Joe was out with a cold. For the first time that year, I sat alone in the school cafeteria at lunch. I was eating a dry and leathery soybean burger and washing it down with sips of chocolate milk, a nasty combination. I wasn’t in the best of spirits, and I felt it was just as well that Joe wasn’t at school today, because I might say the wrong thing and offend him.

The night before, I had played my mom and dad at Risk for three hours. The two of us eliminated Mom’s military forces in less than thirty minutes. The game changed into a battle between my father and me. The game was longer than most, spanning three hours, but in the end, I lost as my father invaded my stronghold in Australia and destroyed the last of my armies. I wept. My father shook his head in anger. He said, “Why are you crying? You’re taking all of the fun out of the game for me. Why are you taking it so seriously?”

I had cried because my dad wasn’t a great military genius. Losing to my dad meant that I wasn’t as clever as my idol, Napoleon. I was not born to dominate others, to conquer and to rule. My fate would be different. If I wasn’t borne to be a conqueror, then I must become one of the vanquished. This is why tears fell from my eyes. All I ever wished to do back then was be the last one standing in all the games I played.

#


From the corner of my eye, I saw Alice standing before me with her tray in her hands.

Alice said, “Is it okay if I sit here?”

My heart quickened with surprise. I looked away and waved my hand in the air. “I guess.”

She took a step toward me and then paused. “Sure you don’t mind?”

My voice softened. “Nah, make yourself at home.”

She laid her tray on the table and sat down. As she opened her chocolate milk carton, I said, “How come you’re not sitting with your friends?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They’re kind of boring sometimes.”

In a sarcastic tone, I said, “Well, I’ll try my best not to bore you, then.”

She laughed, as though I was just teasing her. Her eyes were gleaming with happiness. I couldn’t imagine the reason. She was insane. I took another bite of the bland soybean burger. She took my cue and started eating. After we had finished our food and were sitting idle, she said, “I was in gifted class all day yesterday. You might have missed me.”

The mention of this gifted class struck a bad chord in me, because I desperately wanted in. “Missed you?” I said coolly.

“Gifted class is so much fun!” She smiled.

I gripped the empty carton of chocolate milk until it crumpled in my fist.

"We did an experiment in gifted class yesterday. The teacher had us all bring old shoeboxes from home. We lined them with aluminum foil and placed them on windowsills where they caught the Sun. We did something else and then around lunchtime, we found that the hot dogs were cooked and ready to eat! It was a demonstration of solar power. Neat, huh?”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“I don’t care about your stupid hot dogs. That’s what.”

She stared at me with surprise and hurt written upon her face. “I thought you were interested.”

“I’m tired of hearing you brag about the stuff you do in gifted class. So you go to gifted class! Big deal! I heard from other people that you’re stuck-up, and I have to agree. You’re just a big fat snob!”

Two or three kids turned around and looked at her, with smiles written on their faces, pleased by the unfolding drama. Alice‘s face assumed a bright red hue. Alice was on the verge of tears when she said, in a quite reasonable tone, “W-Why are you saying these things? What have I ever done to offend you?”

“Alice, we all know you think you’re smarter than everyone else! But you’re not as smart as you think you are! So just buzz off with your solar-powered hot dogs!”

She cried. Right there in the cafeteria, in front of everyone. Those who take pleasure in the suffering of others grinned at the spectacle. There was one exception. A black girl with kind-looking eyes, Charlotte, appraised the situation at a glance. She scolded me for making Alice cry.

I opened my mouth to make a witty retort, but changed my mind. In a flash I had full awareness of what I had said. I felt diminished, much diminished. In a low voice, I said, “I’m sorry, Alice.” She would not look at me. With more urgency I said, “Please forgive me.” I tried to touch her hand, but she flinched away. Through her tears, she said, “Stay away from me!”

I learned on this day that there are words that cannot be taken back. If we could live our lives over again, how perfect we would be! Each vulnerable moment would be rehearsed. Forewarned, we would avoid many temptations.

An apology only ever works in part, not in whole. The wound remains. Sometimes apologies are not accepted. People clutch the evil words that others have said to them, but dismiss praise as false or worthless, even when the praise carried more sincerity than the rash criticism spoken in haste. The analytical mind is implicated in this, because it is hungry for knowledge. There is more information contained in the exception than the norm. The analytical mind focuses upon exceptions--bad things--to satisfy its craving for answers, which may lead to a distorted perception of the overall reality. People think things are worse than they really are. In this way, they place limits upon their powers of perception. They see part, but the totality escapes them.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Complete Body Scanners at Airports

Here's a news report on the man who is being paid to promote full-body scanners at airports.

According to the mainstream media, we are now willing to let the Man look at us naked if he wants. People don't care if some stranger touches their genitals and peeks at what they have beneath their underwear. All in the name of the war against terrorism? I think that the terrorists have already won. This is a major victory all by itself, leading to the further regimentation and dehumanization of American society. We are just numbers, not people. Nothing remains private. Nothing remains personal. We're livestock, the property of the U.S. government and large multinational corporations.

This is just another consequence of permitting corporations and the government to demand urine samples from their workers. It's a consequence of the insipid war on drugs and all the sacrifices that people have made to let the government spy on them.

What's coming next is the complete elimination of the search warrant requirement. Police will simply enter any house for any reason, arrest anyone for any reason and keep them in prison for as long as they feel like it, with or without a trial. They can always make the case that this will improve security and fight terrorism.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Impermanence

I don't know which will break down first--my car, which despite being eighteen is far past its prime, or my body. Yesterday in class, I felt a numbness in the tips of my left fingers. I don't know what could have caused it, other than eating too much candy in the morning. Maybe I'm getting close to a diagnosis of diabetes. I usually avoid sugary treats on general principles. But my body may have developed insulin resistance anyway due to my habit of sweetening tea and coffee.

Add that complaint to chronic lower back pain that never seems to go away, and arthritic pain in various joints, and not the fun kind of joints either. I'm reminded of a meeting at my previous job when the middle-aged managers and senior programmers sat around bitching about their "failing body parts" for the better part of an hour. Now I'm at the stage where I can do that too. It makes one aware of death, first of all, that the end is in sight, at least, no longer hidden behind the horizon. And it makes one worry about the future, about becoming incapacitated in some way or losing functionality for good.

My response is stoicism, because there's not much I can do besides diet and exercise, which only help so much. I know all of the good things that one can do to fend off ailments. I try to sunbathe whenever conditions are favorable in order to absorb valuable vitamin D. I go for walks on a regular basis, although probably not as often as I should. I avoid the desserts that all my other friends crave.

The thought of death does not really bother me as much as it seems to bother other people. I like living, of course. But if I'm dead, well then, there's nothing to worry about. The main thing is to take each day as it comes and do the best that one can, so as to make a good impression on others and set a good example for others. To be well-liked and well-thought of supplies motivation for most people. One exists because one loves the world and the people, animals and things that are in it. One wants what is best for them.

I really wish that more people would move past the God nonsense when discussing life, death and the human existence. People say, "God wants me to do this," or "God will take care of things." Both sentiments seem dangerous to me. People are placing the label "God" upon their own impulses. God stops all discussion. It's just a big elephant trampling upon philosophy, science, and psychology. Suddenly there's God, and that explains everything.

My professor makes the case that one should believe in God for health reasons. She claims that faith makes people healthier and happier. She didn't make the claim, "wiser," which I think is more important, but probably would have, if she had only thought about it longer. History does not support her hypothesis, and she probably knows that, but she claims science does. "There's been research." I'm sure.

How does one measure happiness, anyway? That is no small problem. Health is easy enough to measure. I suppose a group of clean-living church goers who don't drink or smoke stacks up well against the general population with its array of addictions. But in that case she is comparing against gen-pop, not atheists, who form a smaller subset. Even among atheists, there are a hundred different varieties: the moral and philosophic, the immoral, and shades in between. Some dabble in mysticism. Some attend church for the social benefits or at the urging of their spouse. Let me pick my group of atheists and compare them against a church of her choosing for health and happiness, and we will see which group is ahead.

As for theists, some are Pagan, worshiping Set, Zeus or Apollo--does she endorse that? To be consistent, she must. Perhaps if she felt at liberty to elaborate upon her beliefs, she would claim Christianity is superior to paganism or, for that matter, any other version of theism. It is one thing in our society to offend atheists. She can probably get away with that. It is quite another to offend theists. She has cunning. She knows which groups she can give offense and which groups she must avoid offending. Although staking a claim to morality, in truth she is nothing but a common bully looking for easy targets, minorities over which she can claim superiority. "Look at me, I am a believer in God like 80+% of Americans, and what is more, a heterosexual. Also, I'm healthy and happy, pure and good, and destined for Heaven. Aren't I something? Aren't I really, really something?" Yes: unoriginal, unenlightened and unpersuasive. Brag about something other than the way you were born or the beliefs that you accepted without examining them. As long as believers display arrogance, there will be new atheists created in churches and classrooms around the world.

I do not believe that atheism is lacking in resources as suggested by the oft-repeated canard, "there are no atheists in foxholes." The idea that humans are wimps that grovel back to God is preposterous. God doesn't help, anyway. My worse moment came when I suffered spinal disc herniation. My lower back sent waves of agonizing pain on a regular basis, every two to twenty minutes, for forty-eight hours or longer. It was like being tortured by an indefatigable torturer. I was immobilized and could do nothing but suffer. Sleeping was little help, because no sooner would I fall asleep than the pain would wake me up and force me to change position. If God had offered pain relief, I would have accepted it and offered my allegiance to him thereafter. Although I did not find God, I did find Ibuprofen, and my allegiance to that entity can be appreciated on various posts throughout this blog.

My professor expresses the insulting assumption that atheists are immoral, which is a common belief among theists. She will gain no converts from the atheist camp with that tactic. I say let her continue to insult, to display arrogance. I would not give her advice. She would not have any of it, anyway.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

There is a Publisher

Some writers are told "No" so often that they give up writing and are effectively silenced forever. I am here to spread the light of hope and joy. Yes, there is a publisher that seeks good writers. This publisher is rather unusual in that it does not trot out imitations of bestsellers, but looks for original content. To submit your manuscript, build a spaceship and travel millions of light-years. I'm not sure which direction to go or how far to go. It may be necessary to hire a translator. But the odds are in favor of the determined writer.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Sigel

After everyone had gone to sleep, I walked into the dark woods. A fell voice that I recognized called unto me, saying, “Pray, what do you desire? Is it power? Power over men, power over nature, power over life and death. Surely you want power, mortal.”

"Everyone wants power, that much is true, but I already have what is needed.”

There was a long pause as the Shadow weighed my words. Then the voice spoke again. “If not power, then knowledge. Would you learn the secrets of the world? I see much of what was, what is, and what is yet to pass.”

“So you have said, but you lied to me about the Morning Star. It is not accursed, but brings light to the hidden things of darkness.”

The Shadow said, “You should not speak this way to me, because I can destroy you.”

In my left hand was the Sigel. This I revealed, and light surrounded me. "Can you destroy the light? The light spans alpha and omega and all the points in between, and I am joined into the light. There is no end to me and no beginning. Come to me, you will be my servant now.”

And so the darkness joined into the light, and the light shone ever brighter and stronger than before.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

An Old Friend Doesn't Say Hello

An old friend of mine from the eighties friended me several months ago, and I accepted his request. I shot him a brief email asking him how he was doing. No reply. Two weeks later, I observed on his Facebook page that he had logged in a couple of times and presumably checked his emails already. I don't like being ignored, and it creeps me out that somebody friends me after thirty years but refuses to communicate, so I unfriended him. I've been wondering at his motives since. Why friend somebody if you don't want to communicate with them?

I have to leave the familiar settings of my own style of thinking and enter into the Repitilian mind, which is cold and motivated by fear and greed. It is easy to divine the motivations of the Reptilian mind. I think the motive has to do with cultivating an impression of popularity through a lengthy friends list and attracting a captive audience for Facebook postings. In other cases, "friends" from the past are interested in whether any of their former acquaintances have become successful, and if so, whether they could be useful. Networking.

I've considered more unlikely motivations, as well, that border on the territory of paranoia, such as "a mutual friend (or not such a friend) of ours asked him to friend me to check up on me and see how I was doing," but decided that I really don't care. If someone chooses to go the stealth route to obtain information about me that I would freely offer if simply asked, that reflects poorly upon them and amuses me. I say let them spin their wheels.

What amuses me further about this old friend of mine is the memory I have of our last contact, long ago when we were in middle school. He was fonder of me than I was of him, because I think that he had a crush on me. But he was too small, frail and not my type. I remember his mother used to call him "Peepee." He moved to Florida. As promised, he wrote to me--in those days, that would mean a handwritten letter--and I did not write back for several months or possibly even a year. That meant the score was 1-0 in my favor, because I had ignored one of his letters and he hadn't ignored any of mine.

Later I reconsidered, because I am always impressed by people that like me, whether I like them back or not. Sometimes I fear I must be mistaken about people, that they are better than I think they are, if they show any appreciation of me. I wrote him a letter, but perhaps I did not strike just the right note. To my surprise, he ignored my letter and never wrote back. That evened the score to 1-1, and I thought that was the end of the matter, and we could call a tie to the competition, until he friended me three decades later. Perhaps he friended me just to ignore another one of my letters, to make the score 2-1, meaning he wins and I lose. Oh well. I'm a good sport. I find it rather amusing. I wonder if he still holds a smoldering flame for me, after all these years. That would also explain why he could not manage to compose a simple email reply.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Always Love

I love the song by Nada Surf, "Always Love."

Half the charm lies in the lyrics.

To make a mountain of your life
is just a choice.
But I never learned enough
to listen to the voice that told me,
"Always love.
Hate will get you every time.
Always love.
Don't wait til the finish line."

I cannot make out the rest, because the guitar swallows the words.

No one seems to know about Nada Surf.

They are just the best band ever.

There is great power in their music--transforming power.

Also listen to "Blonde on Blonde."

Cats and dogs are coming down.
Fourteenth street is gonna drown.
Everyone else rushing around.
I've got Blonde on Blonde
on my portable stereo.
It's a lullaby
from a giant golden radio.
I've got no time I want to lose
To people with something to prove.
What can you do but let them talk,
and make your way down the block.
I've got Blonde on Blonde
on my portable stereo.
It's a lullaby
from a giant golden radio.
I've got Blonde on Blonde
on my portable stereo.
It's a lullaby
from a giant golden radio.
I've got Blonde on Blonde
on my portable stereo.
It's a lullaby
from a giant golden radio.
It's a lullaby
from a giant golden radio.
It's a lullaby
from Wonder Woman's radio.
It's a lullaby
from Wonder Woman's radio.
It's a lullaby.
It's a lullaby.
It's a lullaby.
It's a lullaby.
It's a lullaby.
It's a lullaby.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

More than Sour Grapes

I read Aesop's fable about the fox and the grapevine when I was a child. The fox found a grapevine hanging along a tree loaded with grapes. He jumped, but just couldn't reach the fruit, at which point he said, "they're probably sour, anyway!"

I'm reminded of that fable as I reflect on some of the characters I fell in love with in my younger years. There were quite a few--I'd say a dozen, at least. Maybe two dozen. At the time, I thought they were possessed of sterling qualities through and through, which made it all the more unpleasant when they passed on my offer.

It is only in retrospect, decades later, that I can look back and realize that their chief virtue was their face. What was in their heart was not fully considered. I think that most of them lacked virtue. All that they had to boast about was beauty. They were doing me a favor by passing me by, although I didn't know it at the time. I think this is more than sour grapes, but whether it is or not, I believe it to be true. To be with a beautiful, but shallow person may be satisfying for an evening--and I have had several such evenings--but over time, there can be only discord. I remember the flame of passion, but then I reflect on the person that I used to love, and I realize that he or she was just another selfish bastard, no better than anyone else.

Love is certainly a species of delusion, possibly among the most dangerous kinds. I'm lucky I didn't suffer any terrible consequences. An acquaintance of mine was recently fleeced by a good-looking con artist that he fell in love with. He lost tens of thousands to an obvious lie. Such an excess of trust! We lock our doors and windows against the burglar, who never shows, but leave our hearts wide open for theft by the liar! I never lost money, at least. That is a consolation. I only lost my sense of peace, and only for a few months at the most. I have grown more resistant to the immoderate passion as I've grown older. Where I used to seek love, now I am content to appreciate what I already have and augment it.

I could wish that I had been more discriminating as a young man and reserved my affections for people that were really virtuous. But what young man ever does that?
I'm at least fortunate that I found a beautiful and virtuous partner in my late twenties, with the bloom of youth still upon me. I would not swap my partner for any of the selfish bastards that I knew before.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Monday, November 8, 2010

FOX News, Bastion of Ignorance

FOX News and the Republicans have taken Obama to task for visiting India. They complain that the visit costs too much. Such nit-picking, I can't understand. Hate the President at all costs, even to the detriment of the United States itself?

India is important. It holds a large chunk of the human population on the planet Earth. It is a growing power--growing in wealth as well as population. It also happens to be a republic, unlike some of our other "friends." I say visit India and reassure our friend that the U.S. remains a friend. It is worth doing at least once every Presidency. There are diplomatic motives, but an ever stronger incentive is the influence Obama will have upon young Indians. Obama's a charmer and plays well to public opinion everywhere he goes. It helps that he's not white and that he's from a different party than Bush. We need such a man traveling to countries around the world to heal some of the wounds sown by the previous Administration.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Pope and The Associated Press

The Pope has taken the opportunity to chide Spain for moving in the direction of greater individual liberty. Meanwhile, the mainstream media, as usual, has lavished praise upon the dictator of the Catholic Church.

"Pope defends family as Spanish gays hold 'kiss-in'" reads a headline by The Associated Press. This headline is misleading. It portrays the family as being under attack by Spanish gays. Oh dear! And only the poor old Pope is defending the family! Meanwhile, those bad Spanish gays are holding a mysterious 'kiss-in.'

What nonsense. The family is not under attack by anyone. Do not gays have families? Gays do not arrive from outer space on a UFO. At least I did not. I had a mother and father as well as siblings. I have a partner and two cats that I love very much. Will the Pope defend my family? Or is my family not worth anything to him?

A more accurate headline would read,

"Pope speaks in favor of oppressive laws against gays."

I don't know why the Pope speaks with ignorance, but perhaps his misspent boyhood among the Nazi Youth is to blame. The best that can be said about the present Pope is that he seems milder than his Nazi teachers, friends and mentors. He was able to overcome some, though not all, of their instructions.

As for the AP reporter that penned the headline, he should be asked why he is editorializing in what is supposed to be a factual report.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Saturday, November 6, 2010

A Specialized Batch File

This batch is of limited use, but I am archiving it here because there may be code snippets that may be cannibalized in the future for other batch files.

@echo off
cls
set error=0
cd\newdir
if exist parse.txt del parse.txt
dir "\newdir" /b /a-d > temp.txt
if not exist temp.txt echo No files found!
if not exist temp.txt pause
if not exist temp.txt exit
echo Temporary file has been created.

rem -----------------------------------------------------
rem The following FOR statement must be one line, not two
rem (Beware of Blogger's word wrap.)
rem -----------------------------------------------------
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=* delims=" %%a in (temp.txt) DO call :process "%%a"
rem -----------------------------------------------------
echo.
echo Alas, We Have Reached The End.
echo Errors: %error%
echo.
pause
exit

:process
rem echo 1 %1 2 %2 3 %3 4 %4 5 %5
rem pause

set VAR1=%1
rem Trim quotes
for /f "useback tokens=*" %%a in ('%VAR1%') do set VAR1=%%~a
rem echo VAR1=%VAR1%

rem determine length of filename. if less than five, skip.
set filename=%VAR1%
set #=%filename%
set length=0
:loop
if defined # set #=%#:~1%
if defined # set /A length += 1
if defined # goto loop
rem if %my-number% gtr 10
rem echo %filename% has a length of %length%
if %length% lss 5 echo skipping %filename%!
if %length% lss 5 goto :EOF

echo filename=%filename%
rem pause
if not exist "pictext\%filename%" echo ******************************************where is pictext\%filename% ?
if not exist "pictext\%filename%" set /A error+=1
if not exist "pictext\%filename%" echo %2,%3,%4
if not exist "pictext\%filename%" pause
if not exist "pictext\%filename%" goto :EOF

if not exist "trees\%filename%" echo %filename% not found in trees!
if not exist "trees\%filename%" pause
if not exist "trees\%filename%" goto :EOF

rem set caption=
rem FOR /F "usebackq tokens=* delims=" %%a in ("pictext\%filename%") do set caption=%%a
rem set /p caption=<"pictext\%filename%"
type "pictext\%filename%" >> parse.txt
rem echo %caption%@%filename%
echo @%filename%>>parse.txt
goto :EOF
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Thursday, November 4, 2010

On Being Liberal

I had attained a high level of competence in one profession, only to cede my status and position in order to try something new. Now I am at the bottom again, struggling upward. Humility is a new feeling. I think I like it. Pride is such a burden.

I've always liked a change in routine and detested monotonous routines. I like change more than most people. I think that's why I'm liberal. I see possibilities where other people might see insurmountable problems.

The recent election results hints at a conservative resurgence in the country. I have never seen so many signs for conservative Republican candidates. I don't know why so many people seem conservative in the U.S. I think it has to do with religion mostly, particularly the fact that minority Protestant denominations flocked to the new world in large numbers over the past four hundred years.

I also do not understand why these religious people seem to think the Republicans are on God's side. That seems naive to me. In reality, Republicans are on the side of big money all the time. They serve their rich masters with unwavering loyalty. I realize that the same can be said for some of the Democrats, but not all of the Democrats. Also, the Democrats are willing to listen to workers. They have to, in order to survive, because workers are their core constituency. Republicans do not listen to, and do not care about workers. They are completely at the bidding of the owners of capital. Does money equate to holiness nowadays? Some churches actually preach this. The more money you have, the closer you are to God. I wish Jesus would return, if only for the chance of a rebuttal!

I remember once a conservative fundamentalist contrasted the reproduction rates of conservatives with liberals. He noted that "my side" is being out-bred and will therefore become extinct. Well, that should have happened a long time ago. Besides, where did all the liberals come from in the first place? Is one to believe in spontaneous generation? Or did liberals derive from conservatives? Perhaps conservatives derived from liberals in some cases as well. This is all very confusing, and I haven't a shred of evidence either. Oh well, neither did he!

It is true that most liberals I know do not tend to have big families, but I also know many conservatives that have no children at all. I have not taken a census, but my guess would be that the rates of reproduction are approximately even. I may be mistaken, but I think most people these days, whatever their politics, have one or two kids. The reason they don't have more is that they just don't have the time and energy. Each parent tends to work a full-time job these days, and there's only so much time left for parenting.

Should liberals fear their side being outnumbered? That is a typical conservative right-wing way of thinking. Winning or losing. Winning or losing are not serious alternatives. I won't say it doesn't matter, only that the question does not rise to the philosophical or ethical level of discussion. So what if liberals dwindle in number? Then a section of the conservatives will become the new liberals. And so it will go, perhaps. There will always be political conflicts of some kind or another. Perhaps it is enough that both liberals and conservatives agree on democracy, and neither side seems to want a monarchy.

In Merry Olde Englande of the 1660's, the liberals were the religious zealots. The conservatives were the monarchists. Isn't that confusing? The liberals wanted more democracy. The conservatives, less. The liberals won, for a time, and then the conservatives regained some of their power. And so it went.

Some of the sillier issues that have arisen in politics concerned the squabbling between Catholics and Protestants in many different countries in Europe over the centuries. I am glad the two sides have learned to get along for the most part.

The liberal and conservative divide is misleading. In reality, most conservatives today would have been considered liberal half a century ago. Remember, racism was a core component of conservatism until recently. Homophobia went along for the ride. Women were supposed to stay in the kitchen and out of the workplace. Conservatives of the past were even opposed to magazines like Playboy. In Kentucky, a victorious conservative candidate (a man!) posed nude for Playgirl, or some such magazine (I forget which). One must take the "conservative" and "liberal" labels with a grain of salt. Liberals are ahead of their time. Conservatives haven't caught up yet.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

My Take on the 2010 Elections

Reason.tv said it best. 2010's election proves that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Reflections on Psychic Ability

I find myself thinking about a palm reading performed upon me long ago, in the early eighties. At the time, I thought the things that the girl was saying to me were nonsense. But as I have reflected upon it, there were startling insights. She saw specific details. I remember asking her for advice--she gave me some, but said that I would disregard it, and indeed I have. She seemed to have a fatalistic attitude toward destiny, as though humans could do little to change it. Some of the things she predicted have come to pass. I do not remember anything she said that was not true.

This was the only experience in my life that led me to wonder whether there was something to the paranormal. I believe she was able to give me an accurate reading because I was open to her, very receptive indeed. I didn't believe in her power, but I did believe in it, at the same time. Disbelief coexists with belief in a way that reminds me of quantum physics. My energy flowed into her, not because she took it, but because I permitted it, assisted it, because I knew that she wanted to be successful in her art. If she did not see what was in my eyes, then she could not have been any good at reading fortunes. Her affections were elsewhere, for Billy Idol on MTV and blond boys at our school that looked and acted like him, but such relationships were not of long duration.

I still cannot believe there is anything to palm-reading or to reading minds. If I had thought of a number, such as 7803313, she would not have guessed it, even if I had given her a hundred guesses. I believe that very intelligent people, that is, those with a high degree of social intelligence, are able to make astonishing predictions and insights into other people based upon body language and other subtle cues that are difficult for ordinary people like me to identify and interpret. I believe that she possessed this type of genius in addition to a high aptitude for academic subjects. She had a high degree of sensitivity, which seemed a liability in some instances, because she would burst into tears when people were critical of her, such as parents or teachers. Any harsh word would be amplified to the Nth degree by her extraordinary ability. I think her attraction for Billy Idol was based upon the "opposites attract" principle. She wanted to be more like him, bold and brave, and less the shrinking violet. She succeeded in her ambition. What once seemed a liability proved to be an incredible asset, as indeed it is, because the subtle cues that others miss are helpful in divining truth from lies.

I remember a dream that I had about her when I was young. It was a familiar dream, repeated on more than one night with occasional variations. I get on a school bus, and she is the only one there, or the only one I notice, and I sit beside her, and she seems ambivalent to that, but we talk. I don't remember what we talk about, but it must have been interesting if I was dreaming about it. She would tell me things that made me happy, gave me cause to worry, or sometimes confused me. I didn't always understand her or agree with her remarks, and we argued, but I never thought she was lying or being mean. We were usually polite to one another. In one dream, we might have held hands, but I'm not sure. It seems unlike her, and at any rate, holding hands with a reader is a bad idea, because one never knows what they will say. Sometimes the bus stops and she gets off, and I go home alone. Other times, we just ride the bus for hours talking. It was early evening in these dreams, with little light outside, just enough to see. In one dream, and it may have the last one, she told me that anything that happened in the dream was only intended for the dream-world and would not be repeated in the real world. She had only been experimenting with her power. She also said that our paths were separating, and we would not see each other again, not in the real world or even in the dream-world. That was almost accurate.

We had a chance encounter in the hallway in our sophomore year of high school. I saw her just about to open a door to a classroom and called out her name. We hadn't seen each other in years. She was much changed for the better, seeming stronger, more confident. We had a polite chat for two minutes and that was that. She had much to boast about, but I did not and was glad when the chat was over.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Monday, October 25, 2010

Malware Attack Site

I came across a malware attack site today at bigbestmovie [dot] com, namely i g o r.film.bigbestmovie [dot] com/i g o r gay/. The accursed thing took over my browser. A text query popped up ordering me to do an immediate "security scan". When I exited my browser and then reloaded my browser, the window popped up again, suggesting a malware infection.

I learned today that whenever you encounter a malware site, report it at
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/ , so that it can be removed from Google results.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Dead Things Become Living

Viruses are dead or perhaps at a junction between life and death. They have no method of independent propulsion and cannot reproduce on their own. They cannot produce energy. All that they have in common with living creatures is a token amount of DNA or RNA, and that is devoted mostly to instructions that guide reproduction.

When a virus gets into a cell (and the cell takes it in, like a butler), then the cell allows its "brain" or nucleus to be replaced in part by the virion's "brain". The cell then devotes its machinery to reproducing the virus.

Some viruses work in a different way, incorporating themselves into the cell's DNA and remaining more or less dormant for a period of time. I have at least three such viruses that I know of, warts on the face (HPV), probably from kissing, the chickenpox and a cold sore (herpes HSV Type 1) virus. Under stress, the viruses can sometimes manifest themselves at the original site of infection. In the case of the chickenpox, shingles arose on my back once during an arduous ocean voyage. In the case of the cold sore, it is to the right of my chin. It is likely that I was infected in high school, possibly on purpose, from an infected person. I do not remember the specific incident, but there were many bad things that happened in school, and anything is possible. When the sore arose, I had no idea what it was and just assumed it was acne, and no one told me differently. There is a great deal of ignorance about such matters and even those who know prefer to be silent due to the stigma attached to kissing or so-called sexually transmitted diseases. I seldom get the cold sore anymore, though it recurred often up to my thirties. I have not gotten any wart outbreaks in over ten years.

I can appreciate the wisdom of abstinence education, because in retrospect my early sexual and romantic experiences were devoid of any deep meaning, and I would have been better off without them. I fell in love with most of my early partners, but they were only interested in sex, which seemed strange to me both then and now. I could not understand the motive. Why not masturbate, if sex is all that one is after? I do not understand why one would go to the trouble of meeting someone, getting to know them, becoming their friend or at least pretending, and then risking all the STD's and other maladies in the world in order to do a sex act, typically in the dark or in a parked car somewhere and under the influence of alcohol, only to move on to someone else for the sake of variety. It seems like an awful lot of trouble, and in the end one is left with no true friends and a lot of people that know too much.

However wise abstinence may be, I still believe it is important to teach young people the methods of safer sex, because I remember how I felt in my younger days. Young people want to experience love, romance  and sex. Their entire biology is calculated to make them want to do it. In addition, all of our culture inspires them with the desire to experience these things. It is easy for old farts that never get any to sit back and say, "wait until marriage." For those that can manage to do that, the reward is, potentially, a life free from the annoyances of the HPV or HSV viruses and other maladies and the potential cancer risks arising from them. However, even in that scenario, there is no guarantee that one's marriage partner will be free of disease.

The ultimate solution is for mankind to develop vaccines and other cures for viruses and bacteria. This is a worthier goal than invading dunghills around the world and sorting out ignorant fanatics. If the West cures a disease, we do not necessarily have to go around sharing our medicine with fanatical enemies that want to kill us. I think the West could use a bit more discretion in choosing where to send aid and resources. Any aid to Uganda, for example, is an act of evil, because that nation has decided to emulate Nazi Germany.

Perhaps viruses operate in beneficial as well as harmful ways. We are aware of some of the harmful things that they do. For instance, it is now known that many viruses cause cancer by interfering with their host cell's DNA. Interfering with DNA can cause mutations, as well. Mutations are usually harmful, but every once in a while, there could be beneficial effects. Change is good, not usually on an individual scale, but on a species-wide scale.

Where do viruses originate from? My textbook does not have the answer to that, although it points out that viruses can exchange DNA with other viruses within a host cell and form different viruses. I think that the more that we learn about viruses, the more we will learn about the origins of life itself. There are many secrets remaining to be unraveled from viruses. It could be that the original life form on the planet earth was a virus that arrived from outer space on a meteorite. Viruses do not need food, and perhaps they could survive for millions of years on a galactic voyage. Of course, the endospores of bacteria do not require food either, nor the seeds of plants. Scientists have managed to cultivate colonies based upon bacterial endospores found in the intestinal gut of insects captured in amber twenty-five million years ago.

The line between living things and dead things becomes rather blurry and confused when one thinks about viruses, endospores, and seeds. Living or dead? Neither. An adjustment is required in the thinking of the student.

We are a bit of code that managed to get itself into a large apparatus, that is, our body. The code itself is nonliving--just a series of instructions, like a technical manual, without any philosophy or personality to speak of. Why did our DNA become us? What is the purpose? Perhaps looking for a purpose is a mistake. In the material world, things happen in accordance with the laws of physics. The Universe itself has a certain DNA about it, a series of unwritten rules similar to our DNA, which is a series of instructions for encoding proteins. Gravity happens because it has to happen. We happen because we have to happen. Perhaps the creative force of the Universe, God if you will, is simply an artist and a bit of a mad scientist.

Why do humans own pets? Perhaps the same reason that God chose to have bacteria, archae, plants, fungi, animals, and human beings develop on the planet Earth, and who knows what else develop elsewhere.

Maybe everything is an illusion, an imagined space in the mind of a being that is capable of creating a vast and highly detailed Universe.

I could go on. I get weary thinking about these matters. They are mind-blowing. Like most humans, I prefer to think of myself in more personal terms. Besides, I'm hungry, and my DNA has engineered me to eat when hungry.

I do feel strange writing about God, however. I am afraid that living in a community awash with religiosity and superstition has led to the insertion of memes into my consciousness. It is not possible to drive anywhere in my town without seeing signs and other manifestations of other people's religious beliefs. Also, some people of my acquaintance, including my professor, tend to talk about God.

Is there a God? I am an atheist in regard to the Christian faith, and moreover Islam and the other religions, but I do hold a possibility that there might be some kind of being beyond my capacity to understand that set all Creation into being. My opinions upon this are vague, and I intend for them to remain vague and amenable to adaptation as I reflect upon the question. I believe it is a grave error to hold fixed assumptions about the nature of God based upon ancient texts or the teachings of superstitious men that claim to know every whim and fancy of the one deity, as though they are holding his hand and have their fingers on his pulse. They know nothing. Charlatans. If I were god, I'd be angry at them. But perhaps god is amused by them and plays tricks on them.

There are many things I don't know and would like to know more about. Nothing interests me more than science, and I think that through science, mankind stands the best chance of learning the mind of God. That sentence sounds trite, and I'm a bit suspicious of it. Perhaps it is another meme from television or the internet.

God may not be such a great guy, after all. Perhaps we are more ethical than God is. God could even be a bastard. Perhaps he feels guilty for all of the bad tricks he has played on the human race and the animal kingdom. In that case, there is plenty of time for him to make amends. I could use a half-million dollars, myself. That would set me up for life.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Irony

At my previous job, there was a division within my department. About half the application programmers worked on web development. The other half, including yours truly, were consigned to maintenance of mainframe programs. For my part, I found mainframe development tedious. When I asked about the possibility of transferring to the web development team, I was told "No," to which I responded, "Goodbye."

On my own, in my spare time, I devoted countless hours to learning HTML, CSS, and even the rudiments of PHP. I love working on it, even without remuneration. I can work on it every day, all night long, neglecting food and sleep. In speaking with some of the web developers at my old company, it was apparent to me that they were only in it for the additional salary. (Web developers made about 10 - 25% more.) The company spent upwards of $80,000 sending them to classes! I have never been to a web development class in all my life and have never even owned a book. All I learned, I learned on my own or through research using Google as a starting point. I am reminded of this irony whenever I work on web-related code. The phrase "wasted potential" comes to mind.

I suppose in retrospect it does not matter. Everyone has wasted potential. There are countless potentialities that are never realized. Diamonds in the rough are tossed away and buried by debris or used as stones for slingshots. What system can be called efficient? I don't know of one. Perhaps efficiency is not even a worthwhile goal. The motives of some leaders are improper, and in those cases, it is better that their teams remain inefficient and plagued by waste, corruption and inefficiency, even as I have observed.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Friday, October 22, 2010

The Jackals

The jackals of the mainstream media are busy today patting themselves on the back. Their prolonged propaganda campaign against California's Proposition 19 appears to be paying dividends.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Monday, October 18, 2010

Thank You, Joycelyn Elders

The former surgeon general has said what needed to be said about Proposition 19. In fact, she made the same exact points I have been making about marijuana. However, while I have a readership consisting of zero, or possibly a few Dungeon Crawl players, she will reach millions through CNN and other news outlets. It is good to know that at least some former public officials have a sense of ethics.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

New CPR Guidelines

Here's a rarity--news we can use to save lives.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Loyalty

Is it any wonder that workers who were not born and raised in America do not feel the same kind of loyalty to this country and to their employers? This case underscores my point.

Throwing the American worker away in the name of cheaper labor from overseas makes sense to the bean-counters, but there will be many unforeseen consequences.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Pea-Brained Security Guards

Two pea-brained security guards in Raleigh, North Carolina ejected a lesbian couple in a shopping mall for kissing in public.

It's a shame that the names of the security guards were not released. There should be a public record stored on the Internet for perpetuity, in case another incident arises involving the same individuals, as I fully expect to happen. It is important to establish a history of abuses. If I were hiring security guards, I certainly wouldn't want to have anything to do with those two!

In a later development, the security guard was suspended, while the supervisor will receive sensitivity training. I suspect the supervisor was the one most to blame, though. It is usually the case that lower-ranked employees receive the brunt of correction, whether they were the ones ultimately responsible for a mishap or not.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The DEA and Terrorism

A man connected to the Mumbai terror attack was a long-time informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. His wife tried to warn U.S. officials ahead of time, but was rebuffed.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Opposition to Proposition 19

Our Attorney General, fed up with the democratic process, threatened California's voters the other day. Since he hates the people of California so much and doesn't believe their vote is worth anything, why doesn't he just move to Iran and serve their dictator? He should take the entire DEA with him. They could join the Basij, their brothers-in-spirit. As we all know, America is the Land of the Free, which apparently is anathema to the likes of him. Who cares about science? Not him. Who cares about the will of the people? Not him. Who cares what the Founding Fathers said and did? Not him. What's the perfect place for him? Iran. Don't worry, Mr. Attorney General. Be happy. Move to Iran.

It is amusing how Prop. 19 has really brought out of the woodwork ignoramuses from Los Angeles to New York, uttering their two cents in support of alcohol's preeminence over pot.

The sheriff of Los Angeles said he will defy the popular vote and act like a dictator, making up his own laws. Presumably, he knows how to read and write. That will be helpful in writing laws. Maybe he can delegate the actual lawmaking to a deputy.

Future generations will marvel that people could be so ignorant, when factual information is widely available and free of charge. All that is required to learn is a trip to the library at most. What keeps people wedded to lies is plain intellectual laziness. They simply haven't the gumption nor the curiosity to question what they have been told. In this way, some human beings behave in the same fashion as robots.

Individuals should not be elected into public office unless they have a decent education in history, science, and literature. Anyone with a sufficient background in those three areas would be capable of researching the history and science of cannabis. They would understand that the substance is less harmful than alcohol, that it is non-toxic to the human body, and that it cannot cause addiction.

There are far too many ignoramuses in government right now, and they have run the country into the ground. Their wrongheaded notions about the world are costing the taxpayers plenty.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Friday, October 15, 2010

Thank you, Joel Burns

Joel has said what many gay men have wanted to say for a long, long time. I only wish that an older and wiser gay man like him had told me these things when I was a severely depressed fifteen year-old living in a conservative, homophobic area. Nobody I knew was gay. I thought I was the only one in the entire world. I remember that I dog-eared the chapter on suicide in a book on psychology and read it often. My ambition was to gather enough courage to do the deed. I never came close, however. I never even progressed to cutting myself. But I thought about it often and took ridiculous chances that I should not have taken. High-risk behavior is a form of attempted suicide. Death seemed like a perfect answer to all my problems. Perhaps death is one kind of solution, but it is boring, and destroys the possibility of anything good happening. A suicide causes pain in the hearts of good people, even strangers that we do not know, who will observe the death with sorrow. It is strange to think, but true, that people that one does not know care about one's welfare. A suicide hands the ignorant, evil villains an easy victory. We must not give in to evil. And make no mistake, the bullies, the homophobes are the forces of darkness, akin to the Nazis.

by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Evil-Doers are Arrogant

I have yet to encounter a villain that was not sure of herself. Villains are arrogant. They simply do not reflect upon their actions.

I continually reflect upon my thoughts and deeds. This has the disadvantage of making me less confident. I'm seldom 100% certain that I am right about something. I accept a possibility that I might be mistaken. Evil-doers note my uncertainty and interpret it as a weakness. It is not. It is a strength. Their certainty leads them to certain failure. Whatever they undertake is bound to backfire. Their motives are improper. Their apparent achievements will cause harm to themselves and to others.

It is better to be uncertain and circumspect than arrogant. Let the villains crow. Let them carp. Let them jeer. They create cancers within their lives.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Magic Cat-Water

My partner fell asleep with his favorite cat ensconced by his feet. In his dream, he was thirsty. The cat said, "Here, have some of my magic cat-water!" A cup appeared next to him. He drank it, but it didn't satisfy his thirst. He scolded the cat for the ineffectual cat-water. He got up to fill his empty cup with real water, drank it, but was still thirsty. Then he realized he was asleep, and it was all just a dream. He woke up and got himself real water outside of the dream world.

I have had similar dreams that attempt to satisfy bodily cravings, dreams in which I am drinking, eating, having sex, or more often, urinating. I've never woken up to a soggy bed, however, and I'm glad of that.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Importance of Friends

Sometimes talking to friends is the best medicine. For that reason, making friends may be the most important skill that a person can have. Avoid leeches who only take. Seek out those who are generous to others and polite to others, and be so in turn to them, and you will have good friends.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Intelligent Evil-Doers

The majority of evil-doers never experience any conflict with law enforcement and never see the inside of a prison. Rather than fight the system, they enter the system, becoming a part of it, and subvert it to their ends, like a virus. Incompetent college professors and corrupt college administrators are no different from the shoplifter or the con artist in terms of ethics. They are simply more cunning, hence more successful. Only stupid criminals bother with old-fashioned, out-and-out theft by taking. They must defeat security cameras, private investigators, law enforcement, and concerned citizens. Of course, the vast majority will not succeed in the long run. The odds are stacked against them. Law enforcement is efficient, organized, and well-trained, and more than a match for any individual who thinks he can break the law openly with impunity. Cunning criminals realize this early on. They conform to the letter of the law, at least when being watched, and subvert the intent. They neglect their duties and pursue personal and private agendas designed to satisfy their egos and reduce their work load. As is the case with old-fashioned crime, easy money is the name of the game.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Why I Disabled Anonymous Comments

I disabled anonymous comments on the blog because of an ignoramus that abused the privilege. He posted stupid insults in response to three of my blog posts that were picked at random.

To "An Exchange of Secrets," he wrote, "fudge packer". I don't know what bearing that has on my story. Maybe he didn't read it.

To "The Difficult Assignment," he wrote, "shoulda killed the bitch, faggot," suggesting that violence is his preferred solution to conflicts. Some people imagine they are the only ones in the world with a gun and the ability to use it. They find out, too late, that they are not. Violence is easy. Anyone can be violent. Refraining from violence is difficult. Perhaps he is in prison now, serving time for a pointless and stupid violent crime.

To "Meth or Math," he wrote, "some people can handle their dimethylalphaphenethylamine, you fucking fudge-packer faggot bitch." Not counting him, apparently. I am glad I had enough common sense to avoid hard drugs of addiction such as meth and crack cocaine.

He last posted on 5/31/2010 at 5:59 PM NAEST. Perhaps he is dead now of a drug overdose or facing life imprisonment for murder. It is of no concern to me. If he is still alive, and not comatose in the hospital from a gunshot wound or a drug overdose, perhaps he should read more of my posts and open his mind to learning, instead of hating. It would be a step in the right direction, away from the grave, where he seems headed.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Winning and Losing

The evil conservative Republican professor said this afternoon, "You can't win, you know. I've been doing this for years!" Then she cackled.

Winning and losing. Isn't that the conservative Republican philosophy about life in a nutshell?

I wasn't trying to win. I was trying to learn. I had missed two questions on a ten-question quiz, and I did not understand why one of my answers was incorrect. I was only asking for clarification on a single question. "Ha ha ha, we tricked you! We won again!" she added, in case I missed her point.

Right-wingers like her misinterpret any social interaction with another human being as a contest in which they must prevail. Domination means everything to them. In this manner, she places a cancer in all of her relations with other human beings. But that is her problem, not mine.

Such a cutthroat. I should like to have seen her try one of the medium-difficulty technical problems that I solved during my career. Not the hardest, no, not that. Just a plain, middle-of-the-road, average problem. Yes, that would be amusing, I think.

The crux of the question had to do with whether scientific names for bacteria are italicized or underlined. Her answer, relayed to me by her assistant, is that the genus and species can be either underlined or italicized, even within the same sentence. Consistency is irrelevant, at least according to that bozo. I suspect consistency does matter, because it matters in other branches of English grammar. But I have not yet found any authoritative answer in my online searching. I will remember that in case such a question shows up on a future exam. The question had asked which bacteria were used in a recent experiment. I picked an answer that listed the correct bacteria, but it was wrong, because one of the bacteria was neither italicized or underlined. The right answer had one italicized, and one underlined.

I never intended to challenge the question, anyway. I have no faith in her fairness, impartiality, or sense of right and wrong. I accept that her tests are unfair. Rather than look for correct answers, I intend to psychoanalyze her and choose the answer that best fits her understanding of grammar, science, and logic. I have also decided that a "B" in her class will be sufficient for my purposes and that striving for an "A" would be pointless. She might deduct points on a whim, for personal reasons, and I know very well there is no recourse available for students.

I have decided not to complain about her, even though she treats each class as an advertising medium for her political views and believes that evolution, the backbone of her subject, is a myth. I have already determined, through several experiences, that the college is completely unresponsive to students. I have no faith whatsoever in the administration. Complaints are ignored without any response. It is a hierarchical institution. Students have no voice and are not heeded in any circumstance. "Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Enter," should be engraved upon the entrance-way. My goal is to get what I need and forget I ever attended that little joke of a college. It is a small rural college in a backwards state. Corruption permeates the entire area, and it is only natural that it permeates the educational institutions as well.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

A Roman of the Late Empire

I used to wonder how a Roman of the Late Empire would feel about the decay and sense of loss all around him. I wonder no more. If the country is already in an economic quagmire, with two ongoing foreign wars and one domestic drug war, and the environment is showing signs of accelerating global warming, and the country, in its desperation, places conservative Republicans in charge, the authors of so many calamities, there does not seem much basis for hope.

Are we doomed as a world power? The thought would not disturb me if I thought China were a moral nation, but it has its own share of problems, which are greater than ours in many ways. It is possible, as some people have suggested to me, that the U.S. and China are headed for war at some future date, which would be catastrophic on many levels. China was once our ally.

I believe that FOX News is a danger to our country. That media source exaggerates and distorts with apparent impunity. There is a tribe of true believers that simply accept everything they hear. They are "Murdoch's Army." Although the lies are sometimes exposed on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," people just keep on watching. It is like an addiction. I wonder how long it will last.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Monday, October 11, 2010

Another Ethically Challenged Conservative Republican

When my parents taught, they avoided political subjects and references to controversial issues unrelated to the subject of the class. My conservative Republican professor has no such scruple. Every class period, she devotes several minutes to promoting her conservative, fundamentalist Christian, Republican point of view, although her opinions seldom have any relevance at all to the subject of the course.

Here are some of her viewpoints. Bear in mind that the course subject is science, not philosophy, religion, or politics.

  • Evolution is a myth. "You can't get a pig from a dog." I never expected to hear that old canard from someone with an advanced degree in science.
  • The homosexuals are responsible for the AIDS epidemic.
  • Teenagers should be taught abstinence, not about safer sex, because condoms don't work. (Certainly no one would want to use a condom with her, and trouble with a condom would be a great excuse for her partner, akin to "honey, not tonight, I've got a headache.").
  • "Middle school students are meeting in the restroom to have sex and use drugs." Perhaps they are in her imagination.
  • Internet pornography is turning everyone (presumably including herself) into sicko's. (I really don't know where this came from--she just blurted it out of the blue.)
  • You have to have faith in God to be healthy. "This has been scientifically proven," at least according to her satisfaction. Trust in God, she says, is required for a functioning immune system.
She preaches often about the importance of spirituality, but I feel a coldness about her, an evil that leads me to wonder about the nature of her deity. There is no love in her words nor compassion. She has a paranoid view of the world and seems motivated by hatred of others. I don't think that she loves anyone, even herself, because she has distorted herself so as to be unlovable. Some of the students try to win brownie points by agreeing with her, but other students fear her. She speaks with a manic intensity that is unnerving. It is a sickening display by a sick individual who has no business being in the classroom. In any well-run college, she would be shown the door the minute she began teaching that evolution was a myth. But the college I attend is not well-run. Based upon earlier experiences, I have no faith in the administration and am convinced that any complaints or negative evaluations are ignored.

I try to remind myself not to feel threatened by this professor. Sometimes I feel it is my duty to challenge her statements, but then I realize the contest is uneven, and I would likely lose something, either the respect of other students or my grade. By certain of her comments to me, she has revealed an awareness that I want to challenge her, but she is exultant over the security of her position. She crows and cackles like a Hollywood witch--"Eeee-heee-heee-heee!" Her unusual confidence is interesting in light of her general paranoia concerning reality. This leads me to another conclusion. I believe she has solid relations with her higher-ups and has been given encouragement. She is indeed powerful, at least to the limited extent possible within her position at a small college, as well as evil. To the evil person, power is everything, and she has it over her students.

However, there are many things that she does not know or understand. I will not share the things that I know with her, because I do not trust her either to be fair or to listen. I do not think that her strange opinions will gain much currency among the students, who are smarter than she gives them credit for.

In the end, her kind will find the conflict they crave, the war that satisfies their blood-lust. I know that she seeks war, longs for it, thinks herself a hero, although she is not. She is a minor servant of darkness, nothing more and nothing less. I have had teachers like her before. She thinks young people turn atheist after listening to atheist teachers. The opposite is true. Rabid believers transformed me from a believer into an atheist during my teenage years. Listening to her makes me ever more sympathetic to atheism. Sometimes I feel sorry for God, that he is misrepresented by charlatans that know nothing about spirituality. Their sole concern is power in this world and dominance over others. The message of Jesus has been lost in the distant past. They would rather shout the name Jesus a thousand times rather than discuss the specifics of his message, which is inconvenient for their political agenda. I think this is what I felt as a boy of thirteen, that the church-goers were hypocrites, and that they had nothing to do with goodness.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Carl von Ossietzky

The popular interest in the life and times of Adolf Hitler represents a failure or a perversion of the human imagination. German Pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who opposed Hitler, was a better man and worthier of the numerous biographies, books, and films that have been made instead of worthless, evil scum like Hitler.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Death Penalty

A horrible crime made the headlines recently, and the death penalty has again come up as a topic of conversation. I have had different opinions on the issue in my lifetime. Up to the age of twenty-something, I supported the death penalty for murderers. Then I began to notice many problems related to the real-world implementation of the death penalty. The main problem is that murder suspects typically cannot afford adequate legal representation. The trial and sentencing tends to be a foregone conclusion. When rich men commit a crime, they often receive a lenient punishment, whether their crime was murder or not.

When I read the details about certain murders, my heart breaks, and my blood boils. I would be loathe to provide any assistance, legal or otherwise, to someone that committed a horribly violent crime against another person. That is why the death penalty is seldom discussed on my blog. I concede that the death penalty is not a perfect solution, but it may have a therapeutic effect upon surviving friends and family members. They at least will know that the murderer is not alive to boast about his deeds.

People think that the death penalty equates to being "tough on crime." However, in my estimation, life in prison is not more lenient than death. To never be free again, to never walk in the sunshine without being monitored, to be among other murderers and assorted scum--that seems to me a fate much worse than death. One positive aspect of the death penalty is that, in the United States at least, the implementation tends to be painless. Most of us can only hope for a painless death. Cancer or heart disease await, and they are not painless.

Like all things, the human implementation of the death penalty is not perfect. Mistakes happen. There are cases where an innocent man may be put to death for a crime he did not commit, although this is probably rare. An even more troubling scenario involves official corruption. Law enforcement officials may pervert the course of justice in order to cover up inconvenient details. Dead men tell no tales!

Perhaps the best answer lies in prevention, rather than punishment. If we can stop the birth of human beings that lack a conscience, then murder can be eliminated from the human family. If we can develop a social philosophy where each man respects the other like a brother, then violent crime can be eliminated. I believe it can happen, although we are far from achieving such a solution today. What is needed is more scientific knowledge about human growth and development.

I believe that much-maligned eugenics offers a potential solution to many ancient problems, such as crime, war, poverty, mental illness, and physical diseases. I do not know enough about science to describe the ways in which a successful eugenics program could be implemented, but I will say without hesitation that skin color is irrelevant. Eugenics received a setback from the racists of the 19th and 20th centuries, who made sweeping assumptions based upon pseudoscience. A new word needs to be coined in order to avoid comparisons to the horrible eugenics programs of the past. Right now, anyone speaking in favor of eugenics has to play defense, as I have, in order to avoid the charge of racism. Of course, any eugenics program would have to be voluntary, compassionate, and focused upon clear and certain advantages, and even so, it would not be without risk. Tampering with Nature is not without risk, as we have discovered from our use of pesticides. But taking a chance is preferable to accepting the status quo.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Monday, October 4, 2010

A Batch that Parses Filenames in a Directory

This batch file is deceptively simple. What does it do? Absolutely nothing. However, each filename within a directory is parsed and made available for use. A programmer may add commands to manipulate each file within the :process subroutine. I created this for my brother, who needed this particular capability. Many thanks to innumerable strangers on the Internet that have written guides and tutorials on Batch language, because I often forget the syntax of the FOR command, which must be the most complicated in Batch language. If it were not for Google, I would be tempted to abandon Batch altogether, as most programmers have. But there is something cool about running a program straight from Windows that doesn't require compilation or any additional interpreter.

---------

@echo off
cls

dir /b /a-d *.mp3 > temp.txt
if not exist temp.txt echo No Mp3 files found!
if not exist temp.txt pause
if not exist temp.txt exit
echo Temporary file has been created.
pause

rem -----------------------------------------------------
rem The following FOR statement must be one line, not two
rem (Beware of Blogger's word wrap.)
rem -----------------------------------------------------
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims=-" %%a in (temp.txt) DO call :process "%%a" "%%b"
rem -----------------------------------------------------
echo.
echo Alas, We Have Reached The End.
echo.
pause
exit

:process
set VAR1=%1
rem Trim quotes
for /f "useback tokens=*" %%a in ('%VAR1%') do set VAR1=%%~a
echo VAR1=%VAR1%

set VAR2=%2
rem Trim quotes
for /f "useback tokens=*" %%a in ('%VAR2%') do set VAR2=%%~a
echo VAR2=%VAR2%

set filename=%VAR1%- %VAR2%
echo %filename%
pause
goto :EOF

by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Social Darwinism

I emerged from an impromptu debate this morning with a conservative Republican more convinced than ever that social Darwinism is the belief underpinning many right-wing views.

It is easy to judge the poor and to assume that their failings are the result of inferior blood. I do not believe this is so, but it is a commonly held viewpoint. The homeless, in particular, are not easy on the eyes, in some cases, and they are visible, whereas rich business criminals are invisible, cloistered away upon private estates. The poor are tainted by the accusations of laziness, ignorance, and criminality. How do I explain to someone that a rich person is not necessarily superior in virtue and merit to a poor person? It seems like an uphill battle. Conservative Republicans are enraged by the thought that a poor black man may be sitting on his front porch all day long without working. The thought of a wealthy business criminal cheating the city out of millions of dollars inspires not the faintest annoyance--in fact, the behavior is defended in the name of freedom! I suspect that racism plays a role in the appeal of social Darwinism.

Many people say that they oppose Obama's health care plan because they do not want their tax money to be used to provide medical services to the poor. They would even prefer that the poor die, if it comes to that. In their view, the poor are poor because they are lazy or stupid. That is sometimes true, but not always. Should our society allow the lazy and the stupid to die? The Republican answer appears to be yes. In the name of evolution, or a stronger country at any rate, we should dispense with the weak, and favor the strong, or so it is thought.

I believe that the rich are often made so by their parents. They receive the right kind of encouragement and reinforcement and go on to be successful or at least inherit their parent's wealth and become adequate stewards of the savings bonds, real estate or other investments. Some people become rich through their own efforts. They may have been honest in doing so, although some are corrupt and become rich through dishonest schemes that harm the public.

The poor are often born into poverty or may have been disadvantaged in any number of ways. Why should we keep them alive? What benefit accrues to society when the poor are offered free medical care? That question, I cannot answer with statistics or sound bites, because I'm not a policy wonk. I don't know whether any practical benefit accrues to society by offering free medicine to a poor person. Perhaps there is no benefit at all. Even so, I would prefer to be in a society where we do not throw people away. It is an aesthetic choice, like my preference in art or music. I want a beautiful world, a compassionate world. I think it will be better and even stronger, but can I prove it? I cannot. Perhaps someone like Richard Dawkins could prove it--he has tried, at any rate. See "Nice Guys Finish First," his 1987 video on the practical benefits of cooperation.

If material success is, indeed, the end-all and be-all of a human being, then the obvious implications would come as a rude shock to many conservative Republicans that are far from wealthy. Those that society deems inferior are not necessarily so. Society has many delusions. Assumptions that are made in one generation can be turned upon their face in the next.

Once a human being is born into this world, he has become a member of our extended family, and his medical needs should be attended by the government. In our modern world, no one should have to face injury, cancer, or heart disease alone without any resources to assist them. If a man is troubled in his mind, then he should receive psychiatric care. If a man has a bodily ailment, he should receive the care of a physician or nurse. Lack of medical care assists the enemies of humankind, pathogenic bacteria and viruses, and it is not only the poor who will suffer, but those that they later infect. We are not isolated beings, but networked in a multitude of ways, and what afflicts one can afflict others. Lack of medical care results in more crime, more traffic accidents, more tragedy, and unintended consequences. Furthermore, when people find themselves in desperate situations, they sometimes lash out against society, with unpleasant consequences for everyone. I believe it is correct to avoid unpleasant circumstances or at least seek to mitigate them.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

Friday, October 1, 2010

What if I Lose My Two Pet Issues?

On this blog, it must be obvious that my two pet issues are gays, or at least gay rights, and marijuana prohibition, to which I am opposed.

Once pot becomes legal and regulated in a similar manner as alcohol, and gays achieve parity with straights, the question arises--what do I blog about next? I see victory on the horizon on both fronts, at least in the long-term. The facts are out there for people to access via the Internet, and I don't think the misinformation that was used in the past to block reform will be able to survive for much longer.

If homosexuality were no longer an issue, then I would be most concerned with issues that are held in common with many others. Primarily, the environment would be of concern to me. I am for government regulation and intervention in order to protect our shared heritage, the planet Earth, for future generations of human beings. Even though I won't be contributing any future generations myself, I still consider the human race my "family" and want what is best for them. I think that underneath the skin, we are pretty much the same, regardless of sexuality, race, and so on.

There are many other issues, of course, such as corruption in government, the electoral process, and immigration. However, the only issue that really seems of paramount importance is the environment. Global warming seems like a threat to our comfortable modern lifestyle, and I would be interested in seeing the problem addressed in an effective manner. At a minimum, our leaders should be discussing it in an informed and realistic manner.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments
techlorebyigor is my personal journal for ideas & opinions