Web Log Archive, August 20th to September 2nd, 2006

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006

An idle mind is the Devil's workshop...and idle hands are his tools!

Friday, September 1st, 2006

"Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?" Henry IV

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

Better to keep one's mouth shut and let people think you're stupid than to open it and remove all doubt!

Wednesday, August 30th, 2006

"Iraq, which was not a threat to America before we invaded, is now so dangerous that it’s front page news across America when an American child [Farris Hassan] visits Iraq and is not beheaded.
[Rumsfeld] criticizes the media for not reporting on all the positive news out of Iraq. Maybe that’s because there isn’t any! Maybe it is now too dangerous for a journalist in Iraq to leave [his] hotel."  Stephen Elliott

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Stop me if you've heard this one (courtesy of Skip):

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those clocks?" St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move." 
"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?" "That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie." 
"Incredible," said the man. "And whose clock is that one?" St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life." 
"Where's Bush's clock?" asked the man.
"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan."

Monday, August 28th, 2006

"Mr. Bush met on Wednesday with Rockey Vaccarella, a Katrina survivor who with much publicity drove a “replica” of a FEMA trailer from New Orleans to Washington to seek an audience with the president. No Cindy Sheehan bum’s rush for him. Mr. Bush granted his wish and paraded him before the press."   Frank Rich

Alfred:  I just had coffee with Rockey Vaccarella... He caught my attention because he decided to come up to Washington, D.C. and make it clear to me and others here in the government that there's people down there still hurting in south Louisiana, and along the Gulf Coast. And Rock is a plain-spoken guy. He's the kind of fellow I feel comfortable talking to. I told him that I understand that there's people down there that still need help. And I told him the federal government will work with the state and local authorities to get the help to them as quickly as possible.

Rock: That's right.

Alfred: I told Rockey the first obligation of the federal government is to write a check big enough to help the people down there And I told him that to the extent that there's still bureaucratic hurdles, and the need for the federal government to help eradicate those hurdles, we want to do that.

Rock: Thank you, Mr. President.

Alfred: It's an amazing country, isn't it, where --

Rock: It is. You know, it's really amazing when a small man like me from St. Bernard Parish can meet the President of the United States. The President is a people person. I knew that from the beginning. I was confident that I could meet President Bush. And my mission was very simple. I wanted to thank President Bush for the millions [well...maybe not quite that many] of FEMA trailers that were brought down there. They gave roofs over people's head. People had the chance to have baths, air condition. We have TV, we have toiletry, we have things that are necessities that we can live upon. I just wish the President could have another term in Washington. If we had this President for another four years, I think we'd be great.

Sunday, August 27th, 2006

It's easy to be nice to someone whom we like. The challenge is to be nice to someone whom we don't like.

Today's word (of Greek origin) is borborygmus, which is the rumbling sound made by the movement of gases in the stomach and intestine. 
Not surprisingly, then, borborygmi are the rumbling sounds made by the movement of gases in the stomach and intestine.

Saturday, August 26th, 2006

Ecce Homo (“Behold the man!”: the words with which Pilate presented Christ, crowned with thorns, to his accusers. John 19:5)

Every thing that is
our strength
is also our weakness
everything carries within itself
the stigma of its opposite sign
like a number tattooed on a prisoner's arm
like a letter sewn onto a deportee's coat

there's no escaping it

even if we were to walk at a certain pace
head held high
number and letter warn:
here is a victim of those clothed in wolves' skins
here branded by history
ecce homo

--Ryszard Kapuściński
(Translated from the Polish by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba)

From The New Yorker, 7/31/06

Friday, August 25th, 2006   "Hey! This place is emptier than a Scottish pay toilet! "    Homer Simpson

"Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people's weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there's no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap." Epictetus (55-135)

Thursday, August 24th, 2006

"...my work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof."  Antony van Leeuwenhoek, June 12, 1716

Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) is credited with the discovery of microbes (with his 'microscopes') but it was not until the 1870's that doctors (like Robert Koch) building on the work of scientists (like Louis Pasteur) were able to demonstrate that many common diseases (like gonorrhea and typhoid fever) were associated with the presence of certain microbes. Until only about one hundred-thirty years ago, people were unfettered by 'medical science' and so were at liberty to assign moral, ethical and religious causes to physical illness. Then, as the so-called 'germ theory' of disease gained stature, people were less likely to blame the patient for his illness...and were less likely to see the illness as an 'Act of God'. 
An analogous change has occurred in the last one hundred-thirty years in the study of mental illness. Before 'psychoanalysis', people were at liberty to assign moral, ethical and religious causes to mental illness. Then, by the acolytes of Freud, it was assumed that an individual might (somehow) be responsible for his or her own state of mind...that mental illness was an intellectual matter: the result of 'improper thinking' and that talking to a 'professional' might guide one's reason and lead to a 'cure'. But post-World War II advances in electronics (like the transistor) led to advances in laboratory chemical analysis (like chromatography, spectrography and tomography) and soon there was speculation that 'aberrant' brain chemistry (and not one's dysfunctional childhood home life) might be responsible for one's depression and anxiety. And so, here in the oughties, people are less likely than ever to hold someone responsible for his own mental disarray unless, of course, he has failed to avail himself of the proper pharmaceuticals with which to 'correct' his offending chemistry.

But it's not even that simple anymore!  Some geniuses at Harvard have set out to prove that having a shitty childhood can leave you with brain damage! Aye aye aye!

As referenced in yesterday's Blog, an increasing number of behaviors are now associated with the presence (or absence) of certain chemicals in our brains. And soon, I expect, a researcher will identify chemicals responsible for such things as humor, sorrow, laughter and tears. Nothing comes from nothing.

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006

In the last half-century, one after another behavioral 'issue' has been linked to physiology. That is, areas that are 'merely psychological' seem to be shrinking and psychiatry has increasingly become a profession devoted to mind-and-mood-altering drugs. Now, a study from Princeton University purports to document a chemical change in the brains of primate males who become fathers!

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006

Not to alarm you, but rumor has it that this be Doomsday!

On good authority, I have it that 500 million people in Mainland China have never brushed their teeth!

<<<click to enlarge

Monday, August 21st, 2006

In order to Transcend...in order to become Enlightened, the Seeker must learn to disregard his own Judgment. This is not a trivial step...nor does it mean that the Seeker must stop making choices. No...in fact, the Seeker must continue to make choices. All that is demanded, for now, is that the Seeker be aware of these choices...in the same way that he might be aware of choices made by a companion. Many (perhaps most...maybe all) early Seekers misunderstand this requirement.
Our Judgment evolved because it conferred a survival advantage upon our hunter-gatherer ancestors. It is not easy to imagine that early human strains of Discernment had any survival advantage that did not involve either the ability to detect and elude predators or the ability to detect and subdue prey. A proto-human who was 'nervous', fearful, decisive and ruthless probably had a better chance to survive (and to procreate) than one who was 'cool', inattentive, feckless and restrained. Fossil evidence suggests that agrarianism is fewer than ten thousand years old. Many traits that were indispensable to a life spent hunting and foraging came to be irrelevant (if not inimical) to a life spent domesticating and cultivating. Many mental states regarded, in 2006, as 'neurotic' (or 'paranoid') are the 'hard-wired' vestiges of mental states that, for our pre-historic ancestors, were indispensable for survival. ML 

Sunday, August 20th, 2006

Just posted a work-in-progress featuring RJ's lovely voice. I'll be working to enhance this track over the next few weeks. 

"Almost 75 years ago, the massive interest in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby created an atmosphere in which over 200 people confessed to the crime. The infamous Black Dahlia murder of the 1940s brought out at least 600 would-be confessors. That murder was never solved." ABC News

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