News item on the Yahoo home page 2:29 a.m., June 30, 2009:
"AP - Honduras' ousted president said he will return to his country in two days and reclaim control from coup leaders, urging soldiers to go back to their baracks and stop cracking down on thousands of his supporters who have protested his overthrow."
Was that a freudian slip? Do the Honduran soldiers each have their own personal Barack or must they share him with others?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Politcs + Power = Predictable result
It's said that we get what we pay for. With politicians, that certainly seems to be the case. Pseudo-religion and political chicanery have produced a batch of legislators who grasp for our wallets all the while professing noble intent. Believing that sexual misconduct wouldn't be involved within this atmosphere of power and greed requires tremendous naivete.
The recent spate of those who've dallied with women not their wives remind us of the importance not of faithfulness, but why so many insist that monogamy is some sort of virtue that the rest of us should aspire to.
Sociobiologists have long questioned whether some men are simply programmed for dalliance, whether the genetically implanted need to further improve the species though diversity of mating trumps the religiously enforced rule to remain faithful. That the futility of such sexual repression makes a liar out of so many, brings the very rule into question: Is it realistic to require marriages to remain forever exclusive?
Dan Umanoff, a doctor whose prolific postings about addictions are so often at odds with the medical community's treatment of the subject, postulates that some evolutionary need is being fulfilled here, that without these perjoratively labeled "addicts", mankind would be hopelessly stuck in a reactionary, conservative past of the nature religion reinforces. Umanoff coins the term "hypoism" to collect all whose addictions, may include drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, business workaholicism, OCB, or simply ADD, under a roof of excess, suggesting that the allele labeled the "hunter" gene is also found in so many whose contributions to society we so much admire, yet with personal lives so prone to tragedy.
Micahel Jackson is certainly among those whose eccentricities has evolved music beyond those he once emulated, but whose personal peccadilloes left him the subject of an endless barrage of bad jokes. Whether we can have one without the other seems to be the unanswerable question; can someone whose gone through extraordinary lengths to build a career through personal obsession suddenly relinquish that quest once the "goal" has been attained? How long can Michael Phelps stay out of the water before he turns into just another fast swimmer?
Many atrocities have been committed in efforts to keep the hypotic "hungry", therefore retaining the desire to achieve even through artificial means. Saltieri's deceit of Mozart gave us some of the best music this world has ever seen, yet likely contributed to his early demise.
Today, we have a couple of million inmates in American prisons, some guilty of no more than adherence to their biological urges, yet we construct complex systems whereby these hypoism victims can be judged and set aside from society despite increasing evidence that such behavior can be re-directed constructively. But then, perhaps those in a position to extend forgiveness and progressive treatment have a vested interest in status quo, in bringing everyone down to their level instead of up to the levels of society's mavericks.
We're not paying our politicians enough to promote progress, and we clamor for non-reform. Every neoconservative position taken, every fanatically religious position adopted, every anti-evolutionary position voiced, is yet another impediment from the duplicitous exhortation for us to be what we want to be.
The recent spate of those who've dallied with women not their wives remind us of the importance not of faithfulness, but why so many insist that monogamy is some sort of virtue that the rest of us should aspire to.
Sociobiologists have long questioned whether some men are simply programmed for dalliance, whether the genetically implanted need to further improve the species though diversity of mating trumps the religiously enforced rule to remain faithful. That the futility of such sexual repression makes a liar out of so many, brings the very rule into question: Is it realistic to require marriages to remain forever exclusive?
Dan Umanoff, a doctor whose prolific postings about addictions are so often at odds with the medical community's treatment of the subject, postulates that some evolutionary need is being fulfilled here, that without these perjoratively labeled "addicts", mankind would be hopelessly stuck in a reactionary, conservative past of the nature religion reinforces. Umanoff coins the term "hypoism" to collect all whose addictions, may include drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, business workaholicism, OCB, or simply ADD, under a roof of excess, suggesting that the allele labeled the "hunter" gene is also found in so many whose contributions to society we so much admire, yet with personal lives so prone to tragedy.
Micahel Jackson is certainly among those whose eccentricities has evolved music beyond those he once emulated, but whose personal peccadilloes left him the subject of an endless barrage of bad jokes. Whether we can have one without the other seems to be the unanswerable question; can someone whose gone through extraordinary lengths to build a career through personal obsession suddenly relinquish that quest once the "goal" has been attained? How long can Michael Phelps stay out of the water before he turns into just another fast swimmer?
Many atrocities have been committed in efforts to keep the hypotic "hungry", therefore retaining the desire to achieve even through artificial means. Saltieri's deceit of Mozart gave us some of the best music this world has ever seen, yet likely contributed to his early demise.
Today, we have a couple of million inmates in American prisons, some guilty of no more than adherence to their biological urges, yet we construct complex systems whereby these hypoism victims can be judged and set aside from society despite increasing evidence that such behavior can be re-directed constructively. But then, perhaps those in a position to extend forgiveness and progressive treatment have a vested interest in status quo, in bringing everyone down to their level instead of up to the levels of society's mavericks.
We're not paying our politicians enough to promote progress, and we clamor for non-reform. Every neoconservative position taken, every fanatically religious position adopted, every anti-evolutionary position voiced, is yet another impediment from the duplicitous exhortation for us to be what we want to be.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Our friends, the Zionists?
When the United Nations agreement to wedge the terroristic Jewish state in Palestine received our backing (in an apparent betrayal to our oil buddies, the Saudis, to whom we had pledged our unwavering support) all watchers knew there would be trouble. Most figured the hostile surrounding Arabs would simply wipe them off the map, but their survival first amazed, then worried onlookers. Would Israel project the harsh treatment many had received at the hands of the Nazis onto their newly-subjugated Palestinian neighbors?
Certainly a case can be made that gestapo-like tactics have kept the Palestinians down, economically and politically. It's a mixed back certainly worthy of much more scrutiny than most Americans--whose tax dollars flow their at a rate of over $3 billion per year--are willing to give it. Our affluenza has made us more than willing to stave off our enemies by proxy, some religious nuts even prophesizing Armageddon using modern day Jews as a tool to bring it about.
President Obama's recent unequivocal speech makes their present denial of an Arab state untenable. The United Nations created this state; it should be their responsibility, not just ours, to ensure that the indigenous population of that area is not systematically oppressed.
More than a thousand words
A Palestinian boy reacts as youths frighten him by pointing their toy guns at him in an alley in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari in Ramallah. AP photo by Muhammed Muheisen
Obvious comment to be made after reading this:
When the United Nations agreement to wedge the terroristic Jewish state in Palestine received our backing (in an apparent betrayal to our oil buddies, the Saudis, to whom we had pledged our unwavering support) all watchers knew there would be trouble. Most figured the hostile surrounding Arabs would simply wipe them off the map, but their survival first amazed, then worried onlookers. Would Israel project the harsh treatment many had received at the hands of the Nazis onto their newly-subjugated Palestinian neighbors?
Certainly a case can be made that gestapo-like tactics have kept the Palestinians down, economically and politically. It's a mixed back certainly worthy of much more scrutiny than most Americans--whose tax dollars flow their at a rate of over $3 billion per year--are willing to give it. Our affluenza has made us more than willing to stave off our enemies by proxy, some religious nuts even prophesizing Armageddon using modern day Jews as a tool to bring it about.
President Obama's recent unequivocal speech makes their present denial of an Arab state untenable. The United Nations created this state; it should be their responsibility, not just ours, to ensure that the indigenous population of that area is not systematically oppressed.
More than a thousand words
A Palestinian boy reacts as youths frighten him by pointing their toy guns at him in an alley in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari in Ramallah. AP photo by Muhammed Muheisen
Obvious comment to be made after reading this:
"Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text during school! It pays off," 15-year-old Kate Moore said Tuesday after winning the LG U.S. National Texting Championship.Will that $50,ooo be enough to cover her phone bills thus far as she "practiced" for the competition?
After all, she said: "Your kid could win money and publicity and a phone."
For the Des Moines, Iowa, teenager, her 14,000 texts-per-month habit reaped its own rewards, landing her the competition prize of $50,000 just eight months after she got her first cell phone.
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