It's been pointed out to me that I have not posted on here in the last year or so, but, since you're reading this site right now- and you can assuredly assume you are reading a post- I think we can put that falsehood to rest ;-)
Perhaps you of the Facebook crowd are complaining because I haven't posted a FULL (whatever that means) "article" recently. Well, excuse me for not wanting to bore you with the exceedingly dull intricacies of my daily life! I dislike picking over the daily detritus I inevitably leave behind, and I anticipate you'll find it just as silly as I do to make pronouncements of an insignificant nature that are longer than the average Tweet- especially since you who know me well already get that information first hand!
I do anticipate that some of you reality television watchers will appreciate the monotony- interrupted by irrational conflicts- that characterizes my daily routine, even if that's not what this blog is about.
And it's certainly not the case that my existence is really so boring as I'm describing. It's just that, as you might imagine, I have no time to write about all of the work that I'm doing while doing the work that I need to do. Plus, little of said work is of interest to you.
Nonetheless, this blog still lives, and more updates will continue to pour forth once I go on a little academic "sabbatical" prior to grad school picking up again in the fall quarter. So, be aware that this blog is aware of your needs, your desires, and your fantasies, but its Creator simply hasn't given it the will to care very much about meeting them. Blame Important Things for taking up so much of his precious time.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Flukes and Aberrations of the Human Body: a Chronological Misadventure
“Another Mikey took a knife
While arguing in traffic
Flipper died a natural death
He caught a nasty virus.”
Ah, the “wonders of the human body”! What manner of extramundane miracles emanate forth from its carbon-based quintessence! What thoughts, ideas, desires! What dexterous fingers and brilliant inventions, running speed, feats of strength, balance, heating, cooling! What….
What a load of crap.
The human body, as it is not a “product” resulting from a fabrication process, is nonetheless more machine than we may actually realize, mostly owing to the predictable molecular mechanisms underlying evolution and ontogeny.
It’s unlikely, however, that such a flawed “miraculous” entity would even make it past brainstorming, let alone quality control, in a major corporation. In fact, one could arguably make the case that the body’s current form is something of a temporary solution to a never-ending problem spanning more than 4 billion years on our planet: adaptation.
Disease resistance is just one of the aspects of human adaptation which has revealing flaws, particularly flaws that demonstrate just how much of life depends on the body’s own self-preservation mechanisms. Once you have kids, it’s not long before your “warranty is up”; your body stops compensating and every minor change presents bigger and bigger difficulties. The brain shrinks as unnecessary connections are not maintained (I won’t even go into the many problems that result from long term bipedal movement, which is inherently inefficient). You have programmed obsolescence.
Why do we age in the first place, one may very well ask?
After all, doesn’t the very existence of aging, explained as a way to avoid cancer (at least partially) mean that there was a flaw in the system in the first place? Not only is the answer “yes”, but one also can easily make cells immortal by adding excessive telomerase, which itself may be viral in evolutionary origin! This excited researchers at first, until they realized that unbounded cell division is an important first step in the development of cancer! Aging, on the other hand, is related to decreasing telomere length, thus halting cancer in its tracks (theoretically, but there are other, mutation-related, factors at play here).
Our understanding of death, mainly, may very well be important in understanding this issue properly. As the lyrics in the song suggest, does being killed by a virus constitute a natural death? When does one “die”? To answer this, we look to the brain, generally, but part of the answer to "how" may be found in the relationship that humans and viruses share; we saw the first clue above, where telomerase may have descended from a mammalian-integrated retrovirus.
The entire functional framework of our bodies depends on the correct translation of proteins from DNA molecules, an interaction mediated by RNA in various forms. Very few flaws in this system are required to confer either huge benefits, which slowly accrue in the long-run in the confines of a given ecosystem, or a sharp decline in functional protein product (misfolding), caused by mutations resulting from a number of sources; therefore, the body spends a large amount of time, using relatively precise transcriptional machinery, checking and rechecking to make sure that mutations are minimized.
Every once in a while, a lucky example of happenstance chromosomal fusing (or a possible beneficial mutation) demonstrates even more clearly the fact that accidents resulting in benefits do not an engineering marvel make. (I may discuss the RNA world hypothesis in another blog, as abiogenesis doesn't fit within the scope of this topic: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TCY-3WS6210-16&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c9f64ba4908d1f76b491a31dfd466256)
Humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than other great apes, with the, now confirmed, implication that fusion took place between two ape chromosomes in some common ancestor to form what now constitutes human chromosome 2 (http://www.citeulike.org/user/tkandell/article/456391).
Human mental decline also has potentially important evolutionary implications, and we’ve likely exacerbated the problem by lengthening our own life-spans considerably over the past century. One answer, suggested within the last couple of decades by scientists working on NMDA receptor function in rats, is that decreases in memory with age also decrease the ability of post-mating organisms to compete with younger ones for food sources.
Another possibility is simply that the preservation mechanisms needed to maintain proper mental function, i.e. avoiding the accumulation of harmful plaque-forming proteins and de-myelination, are only needed until such a time as offspring are conceived, cared for, and social obligations toward the larger group are met.
Returning to the definition of “death” issue, a basic examination of “brain death”, a look into case histories of those who have had hemispherectomies, as well as the strange post-ablation histories of HM, Phineas Gage, and other neural patients, reveals an unsettling breakdown in the very definition of “self” on which our species prides itself. Gage + 1 pipe through the frontal lobe= 1 shiny new personality, HM + surgical removal of the hippocampus = severe anterograde amnesia.
That is, when a part of the brain is removed, not surprisingly, a function is removed; that which confers our thought is divisible, and there is no “homunculus” residing in the brain that could be said to constitute “you”, despite the desire of Descartes for the soul to rest in the pineal gland.
Of course, thought experiments revealing the conflict between our understanding of the brain and body and “the self” can be easily tracked back to the time of Immanuel Kant (Descartes, Hume, Malebranche, Berkeley, and many others also dealt with this issue); the ever-changing nature of the physical body caused Kant to posit a “noumenal” soul unaffected by physicality. (Hilariously, this is a little self-defeating as, by definition, the noumenal soul cannot interact with the material world, meaning that whether it has any relation, even assuming it exists, to what we think of as “ourselves”, is doubtful.)
Such contradictions, though, are eliminated entirely when the mind is defined as “the activity of the brain”. However, this also has unfortunate implications for what “brain death” would, ultimately, mean to a species which prides itself in being worthy enough to survive the death of its corporeal components…
Given the human proclivity for consuming resources, our lack of predators, and the fever we’ve given our planet, a viral death like the one in the song underscores our close relationship with, and inherent susceptibility to, these protein-nucleic acid particles that have sunk their teeth directly into our DNA, forming a modern human identity closely tied to ancient weakness.
Given all of that, here's what I say:
If you’re going to be as incurable as the rest of us, why not try being an incurable optimist? I am, and I know one thing that improves one’s outlook on the previous, admittedly disheartening points: they underscore not our improvement, but our change- evolution ensures relevance, and we haven’t stopped doing that. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925421.300-are-we-still-evolving.html) You never know what primate dope will stab you while arguing in traffic...
Next week: Healthcare in America: We’re number 37! We’re number 37! Take that Slovenia!
While arguing in traffic
Flipper died a natural death
He caught a nasty virus.”
Ah, the “wonders of the human body”! What manner of extramundane miracles emanate forth from its carbon-based quintessence! What thoughts, ideas, desires! What dexterous fingers and brilliant inventions, running speed, feats of strength, balance, heating, cooling! What….
What a load of crap.
The human body, as it is not a “product” resulting from a fabrication process, is nonetheless more machine than we may actually realize, mostly owing to the predictable molecular mechanisms underlying evolution and ontogeny.
It’s unlikely, however, that such a flawed “miraculous” entity would even make it past brainstorming, let alone quality control, in a major corporation. In fact, one could arguably make the case that the body’s current form is something of a temporary solution to a never-ending problem spanning more than 4 billion years on our planet: adaptation.
Disease resistance is just one of the aspects of human adaptation which has revealing flaws, particularly flaws that demonstrate just how much of life depends on the body’s own self-preservation mechanisms. Once you have kids, it’s not long before your “warranty is up”; your body stops compensating and every minor change presents bigger and bigger difficulties. The brain shrinks as unnecessary connections are not maintained (I won’t even go into the many problems that result from long term bipedal movement, which is inherently inefficient). You have programmed obsolescence.
Why do we age in the first place, one may very well ask?
After all, doesn’t the very existence of aging, explained as a way to avoid cancer (at least partially) mean that there was a flaw in the system in the first place? Not only is the answer “yes”, but one also can easily make cells immortal by adding excessive telomerase, which itself may be viral in evolutionary origin! This excited researchers at first, until they realized that unbounded cell division is an important first step in the development of cancer! Aging, on the other hand, is related to decreasing telomere length, thus halting cancer in its tracks (theoretically, but there are other, mutation-related, factors at play here).
Our understanding of death, mainly, may very well be important in understanding this issue properly. As the lyrics in the song suggest, does being killed by a virus constitute a natural death? When does one “die”? To answer this, we look to the brain, generally, but part of the answer to "how" may be found in the relationship that humans and viruses share; we saw the first clue above, where telomerase may have descended from a mammalian-integrated retrovirus.
The entire functional framework of our bodies depends on the correct translation of proteins from DNA molecules, an interaction mediated by RNA in various forms. Very few flaws in this system are required to confer either huge benefits, which slowly accrue in the long-run in the confines of a given ecosystem, or a sharp decline in functional protein product (misfolding), caused by mutations resulting from a number of sources; therefore, the body spends a large amount of time, using relatively precise transcriptional machinery, checking and rechecking to make sure that mutations are minimized.
Every once in a while, a lucky example of happenstance chromosomal fusing (or a possible beneficial mutation) demonstrates even more clearly the fact that accidents resulting in benefits do not an engineering marvel make. (I may discuss the RNA world hypothesis in another blog, as abiogenesis doesn't fit within the scope of this topic: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TCY-3WS6210-16&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c9f64ba4908d1f76b491a31dfd466256)
Humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than other great apes, with the, now confirmed, implication that fusion took place between two ape chromosomes in some common ancestor to form what now constitutes human chromosome 2 (http://www.citeulike.org/user/tkandell/article/456391).
Human mental decline also has potentially important evolutionary implications, and we’ve likely exacerbated the problem by lengthening our own life-spans considerably over the past century. One answer, suggested within the last couple of decades by scientists working on NMDA receptor function in rats, is that decreases in memory with age also decrease the ability of post-mating organisms to compete with younger ones for food sources.
Another possibility is simply that the preservation mechanisms needed to maintain proper mental function, i.e. avoiding the accumulation of harmful plaque-forming proteins and de-myelination, are only needed until such a time as offspring are conceived, cared for, and social obligations toward the larger group are met.
Returning to the definition of “death” issue, a basic examination of “brain death”, a look into case histories of those who have had hemispherectomies, as well as the strange post-ablation histories of HM, Phineas Gage, and other neural patients, reveals an unsettling breakdown in the very definition of “self” on which our species prides itself. Gage + 1 pipe through the frontal lobe= 1 shiny new personality, HM + surgical removal of the hippocampus = severe anterograde amnesia.
That is, when a part of the brain is removed, not surprisingly, a function is removed; that which confers our thought is divisible, and there is no “homunculus” residing in the brain that could be said to constitute “you”, despite the desire of Descartes for the soul to rest in the pineal gland.
Of course, thought experiments revealing the conflict between our understanding of the brain and body and “the self” can be easily tracked back to the time of Immanuel Kant (Descartes, Hume, Malebranche, Berkeley, and many others also dealt with this issue); the ever-changing nature of the physical body caused Kant to posit a “noumenal” soul unaffected by physicality. (Hilariously, this is a little self-defeating as, by definition, the noumenal soul cannot interact with the material world, meaning that whether it has any relation, even assuming it exists, to what we think of as “ourselves”, is doubtful.)
Such contradictions, though, are eliminated entirely when the mind is defined as “the activity of the brain”. However, this also has unfortunate implications for what “brain death” would, ultimately, mean to a species which prides itself in being worthy enough to survive the death of its corporeal components…
Given the human proclivity for consuming resources, our lack of predators, and the fever we’ve given our planet, a viral death like the one in the song underscores our close relationship with, and inherent susceptibility to, these protein-nucleic acid particles that have sunk their teeth directly into our DNA, forming a modern human identity closely tied to ancient weakness.
Given all of that, here's what I say:
If you’re going to be as incurable as the rest of us, why not try being an incurable optimist? I am, and I know one thing that improves one’s outlook on the previous, admittedly disheartening points: they underscore not our improvement, but our change- evolution ensures relevance, and we haven’t stopped doing that. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925421.300-are-we-still-evolving.html) You never know what primate dope will stab you while arguing in traffic...
Next week: Healthcare in America: We’re number 37! We’re number 37! Take that Slovenia!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
What’s the matter, Cheney? Information as a Weapon
We all know the tales of “the decider” and his apparently magical ability to just “make” decisions that “felt right”. He was a super hero. Nigh on par with the ancient ninjas in his subtlety, he marched to the beat of his own drum.
What’s a little more unfamiliar to most however, is his alter-ego “the Discloser”. The Discloser takes many forms in many cultures, with those in Zoroastrianism calling him “Ahriman”, the destructive spirit, while the Turkish know him as "Kazıklı Bey", which means "Impaler Prince”. In America, he is called by his ancient moniker, “Cheney”, which means “one who is a douche, like, really, REALLY a lot” (you can go look that up later).
Recent events, however, have turned the Dark Prince into a symbol of hope and prosperity for millions of disenfranchised sadists.
Turning to his Machiavellian prayer book, Cheney mentioned that the success of the effort to thwart terrorist attacks was the metric that should be used to decide whether torture was or is acceptable, rather than whether it is allowed by the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution, or supported by the American people.
So, Cheney currently wants the release of the “outcomes” of the “enhanced techniques” used on those apparently unworthy of due process. This seems, if done correctly that is, like it would be a good academic counter to the voices of pragmatism, such as retired generals and expert analysts from the CIA calling the Bush Administration's attempts gain information ineffective; it could also assuage the concerns of those whose consciences contraindicate such treatment, in the light of America’s status as a supposed beacon in the world.
I’ll bet that you can guess what’s coming next.
Congressional figures such as John Boehner (pronounced "Baner") from Ohio decided that releasing documents that went against the “Jack Bauer” theme of imminent threats that justify drastic action was unacceptable. In doing so, they vehemently agreed with Cheney and his arguably cherry-picking attitude.
Case in point: the 2004 IG Report by the CIA inspector general purportedly shows no evidence that “…waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks…” Furthermore, the report alleges that people were tortured even though it was unknown whether they were in a position to know anything (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html).
More detailed information is not known, because Senate Republicans, along with the now powerless Cheney, aren't interested in removing its "classified" distinction. Oops.
Then there’s that little tidbit from Robert Mueller, Director at the FBI, who said in December that there was no evidence of any attacks having been thwarted by the use of such methods. Oops again.
Steven G. Bradbury, former Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general, insists that the techniques were effective, and his 2005 report is one of those that Cheney wants released. Cheney has been outspoken in his support for "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Fortunately, despite his mastery of political headbutting, we all know that Cheney himself is harmless- wouldn’t hurt a fly, in fact.
But, let’s say for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that Cheney is more like a selective bullfrog, only interested in slurping the juiciest, most damaging, flies, while allowing other, smaller and less interesting, insects to escape.
This would certainly explain why he was willing to allow the much later 2005 report to slip, but not the 2004 IG report, despite the fact that the IG report was cited by Bradbury more than once. In fact, Bradbury admits, in a footnote in the report, that: “According to the IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information.” Triple oops.
It looks like the status of the former Penguin-in-Chief’s “if it works, then it’s not torture” argument is teetering in a precarious position at the moment, not to mention the obvious moral and legal considerations. It’s really too bad that he doesn’t share more characteristics with any of the animalistic epithets with which I’ve labeled him during the course of this blog post, because I hear that regular old mammals (even colder-blooded ones like Cheney) don’t respond quite so nicely to simulations of drowning.
What’s a little more unfamiliar to most however, is his alter-ego “the Discloser”. The Discloser takes many forms in many cultures, with those in Zoroastrianism calling him “Ahriman”, the destructive spirit, while the Turkish know him as "Kazıklı Bey", which means "Impaler Prince”. In America, he is called by his ancient moniker, “Cheney”, which means “one who is a douche, like, really, REALLY a lot” (you can go look that up later).
Recent events, however, have turned the Dark Prince into a symbol of hope and prosperity for millions of disenfranchised sadists.
Turning to his Machiavellian prayer book, Cheney mentioned that the success of the effort to thwart terrorist attacks was the metric that should be used to decide whether torture was or is acceptable, rather than whether it is allowed by the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution, or supported by the American people.
So, Cheney currently wants the release of the “outcomes” of the “enhanced techniques” used on those apparently unworthy of due process. This seems, if done correctly that is, like it would be a good academic counter to the voices of pragmatism, such as retired generals and expert analysts from the CIA calling the Bush Administration's attempts gain information ineffective; it could also assuage the concerns of those whose consciences contraindicate such treatment, in the light of America’s status as a supposed beacon in the world.
I’ll bet that you can guess what’s coming next.
Congressional figures such as John Boehner (pronounced "Baner") from Ohio decided that releasing documents that went against the “Jack Bauer” theme of imminent threats that justify drastic action was unacceptable. In doing so, they vehemently agreed with Cheney and his arguably cherry-picking attitude.
Case in point: the 2004 IG Report by the CIA inspector general purportedly shows no evidence that “…waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks…” Furthermore, the report alleges that people were tortured even though it was unknown whether they were in a position to know anything (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66895.html).
More detailed information is not known, because Senate Republicans, along with the now powerless Cheney, aren't interested in removing its "classified" distinction. Oops.
Then there’s that little tidbit from Robert Mueller, Director at the FBI, who said in December that there was no evidence of any attacks having been thwarted by the use of such methods. Oops again.
Steven G. Bradbury, former Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general, insists that the techniques were effective, and his 2005 report is one of those that Cheney wants released. Cheney has been outspoken in his support for "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Fortunately, despite his mastery of political headbutting, we all know that Cheney himself is harmless- wouldn’t hurt a fly, in fact.
But, let’s say for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that Cheney is more like a selective bullfrog, only interested in slurping the juiciest, most damaging, flies, while allowing other, smaller and less interesting, insects to escape.
This would certainly explain why he was willing to allow the much later 2005 report to slip, but not the 2004 IG report, despite the fact that the IG report was cited by Bradbury more than once. In fact, Bradbury admits, in a footnote in the report, that: “According to the IG Report, the CIA, at least initially, could not always distinguish detainees who had information but were successfully resisting interrogation from those who did not actually have information.” Triple oops.
It looks like the status of the former Penguin-in-Chief’s “if it works, then it’s not torture” argument is teetering in a precarious position at the moment, not to mention the obvious moral and legal considerations. It’s really too bad that he doesn’t share more characteristics with any of the animalistic epithets with which I’ve labeled him during the course of this blog post, because I hear that regular old mammals (even colder-blooded ones like Cheney) don’t respond quite so nicely to simulations of drowning.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Why things aren’t
Happy belated 4/20 everyone!
For non-reefer reasons, I have suddenly become motivated, whether out of sheer disrespect for the neurons of my potential audience, or out of basic boredom, to put forth an obviously specious theory concerning the non-existence of our material substratum.
That is, I’m going to disprove the existence of objects in the universe (objects, here, defined as rocks, tree, humans, etc….we’re not bringing dark matter, or any other such nonsense, into this).
Now, I’m not saying that there is NOTHING; there is, conceptually, “energy”, and this component is the key portion of the theory. Consider the following:
1) Matter is essentially just condensed energy; matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. When water molecules slow down in their movement, we call that ice, and when particles interact with the Higgs field they gain mass. E=mc^2
2) The mind (defined as the activity of the brain) contains concepts, including our understanding of energy. This understanding comes from the observation of coinciding events, leading to the creation of formulas for said events, which involve, as a mathematical necessity, a component called “energy”. This energy is inferred to be transferred in a variety of forms.
3) The definition of energy is generally something as follows (from Wikipedia): “In physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force.” Another definition: “The capacity of a physical system to do work.” (dictionary.com). In short, energy is an idea; a concept; a useful heuristic applied to repeated observations.
4) The concepts in the mind are loosely based on the world outside, but they are based only on regularity of events occurring, and the prototype images (ie, “car”, what is a “dog”, etc…); the mind cannot contain anything other than mere representations of matter.
∴ The mind probably exists (because “I think therefore, I am” is implied), but matter DOES NOT.
I have thus disproven the material world. Good day.
[response to Ernest]
Well...it DOES suggest that it isn't representative of an actual material entity....in the sense that frozen energy=matter, and that energy is not "material" in nature.
In fact, one could argue that we don't have ANY definition of matter at all. As you admitted before, the concepts of "work", used to define energy and "energy", simultaneously used to define work, create a chain of circular logic.
Therefore, either energy exists and material objects still don't, or energy itself doesn't exist, meaning that only our minds do. Essentially, our definition of "material objects" precludes them from existing in the strictest sense of the word.
For non-reefer reasons, I have suddenly become motivated, whether out of sheer disrespect for the neurons of my potential audience, or out of basic boredom, to put forth an obviously specious theory concerning the non-existence of our material substratum.
That is, I’m going to disprove the existence of objects in the universe (objects, here, defined as rocks, tree, humans, etc….we’re not bringing dark matter, or any other such nonsense, into this).
Now, I’m not saying that there is NOTHING; there is, conceptually, “energy”, and this component is the key portion of the theory. Consider the following:
1) Matter is essentially just condensed energy; matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. When water molecules slow down in their movement, we call that ice, and when particles interact with the Higgs field they gain mass. E=mc^2
2) The mind (defined as the activity of the brain) contains concepts, including our understanding of energy. This understanding comes from the observation of coinciding events, leading to the creation of formulas for said events, which involve, as a mathematical necessity, a component called “energy”. This energy is inferred to be transferred in a variety of forms.
3) The definition of energy is generally something as follows (from Wikipedia): “In physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force.” Another definition: “The capacity of a physical system to do work.” (dictionary.com). In short, energy is an idea; a concept; a useful heuristic applied to repeated observations.
4) The concepts in the mind are loosely based on the world outside, but they are based only on regularity of events occurring, and the prototype images (ie, “car”, what is a “dog”, etc…); the mind cannot contain anything other than mere representations of matter.
∴ The mind probably exists (because “I think therefore, I am” is implied), but matter DOES NOT.
I have thus disproven the material world. Good day.
[response to Ernest]
Well...it DOES suggest that it isn't representative of an actual material entity....in the sense that frozen energy=matter, and that energy is not "material" in nature.
In fact, one could argue that we don't have ANY definition of matter at all. As you admitted before, the concepts of "work", used to define energy and "energy", simultaneously used to define work, create a chain of circular logic.
Therefore, either energy exists and material objects still don't, or energy itself doesn't exist, meaning that only our minds do. Essentially, our definition of "material objects" precludes them from existing in the strictest sense of the word.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
This is the way the world ends…not with a bang, but with a teabagging
History is nothing if not self-reflecting and repetitious, each new attempt to recapture an old event being an increasingly farcical version of the last. And, more importantly, history's repetitions become more “merchandisable” with each iteration, turning meaningful actions into trinkets in "idea markets" and the participants into hypocrites.
The Levees of Hypocrisy are, as it turns out, constructed entirely from heaps and heaps of teabags, dipped in irony, being lobbed by “protesters” all around the country, whose organizers have spent significant funds to rally against what they see as wasteful government usage of funds.
Some unlucky individual effectively became the first “teabag-tossing terrorist” (different than a "teabagging-terrorist tosser"), flinging a lovely, perfectly good, box of Earl Grey onto Obama’s front porch. Of course, while this doesn’t sound too threatening, this brainless act caused a facility-wide lock down as a bomb-sniffing robot inspected the strewn-about packets, which were filled with some sort of “powdery substance” (where have we heard that before?).
The logic in teabagging the President’s place, apparently, is that Obama will save $10 of taxpayer money now that he doesn’t have to buy his own tea. Actually, now that I think about it, while we’re at it, I’d say that the teabaggers might just have a point; maybe instead of wasting government funds on firetrucks and libraries we can just get off our asses and pay for them ourselves? Right?
I felt that I owed it to the radicals to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they claim to support the American people at large. Here is just some of what I uncovered:
The definition of “grassroots” doesn’t include lobbyists, so I was “shocked” and “appalled” when I learned from the website of the right wing organization "Freedom Works" (http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/tea-party-movement-explodes-across-the-country) that these rallies are being organized by such a large, lobbyist-friendly, group.
Furthermore, FreedomWorks is itself run by Dick Armey. A consummate lobbyist, Dick has attempted to marshal a veritable army of teabaggers (all puns assuredly intended). Dick was unable to massage his connections enough to create true grassroots, bottom-up, protests. What DID happen, however, was a fairly mediocre turnout in most instances (nationwide turnout was just shy of 112,000 people).
Conspicuously, each “tea party” hosted by Fox News anchors Greta VanSusteren, Neil Cavuto, and Glen Beck, showed a higher level of attendance than other such patriotic celebrations around the country. Fox News maintains that it is appropriate to spend time “promoting” these teabaggings, without actually “sponsoring” them. Of course, they are paying their people to organize parties, so you can judge for yourself where the sponsorship line is crossed.
I only feel bad that supporters of the “movement” (fad) will finally be forced to give up their picket signs once they realize that they’re “recycling” the imagery of the Boston Tea party, a quintessential American cliche. I don’t mean that it’s the lack of creativity they'll be worried about, but rather performing an action associated with saving the environment ;-)
The Levees of Hypocrisy are, as it turns out, constructed entirely from heaps and heaps of teabags, dipped in irony, being lobbed by “protesters” all around the country, whose organizers have spent significant funds to rally against what they see as wasteful government usage of funds.
Some unlucky individual effectively became the first “teabag-tossing terrorist” (different than a "teabagging-terrorist tosser"), flinging a lovely, perfectly good, box of Earl Grey onto Obama’s front porch. Of course, while this doesn’t sound too threatening, this brainless act caused a facility-wide lock down as a bomb-sniffing robot inspected the strewn-about packets, which were filled with some sort of “powdery substance” (where have we heard that before?).
The logic in teabagging the President’s place, apparently, is that Obama will save $10 of taxpayer money now that he doesn’t have to buy his own tea. Actually, now that I think about it, while we’re at it, I’d say that the teabaggers might just have a point; maybe instead of wasting government funds on firetrucks and libraries we can just get off our asses and pay for them ourselves? Right?
I felt that I owed it to the radicals to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they claim to support the American people at large. Here is just some of what I uncovered:
The definition of “grassroots” doesn’t include lobbyists, so I was “shocked” and “appalled” when I learned from the website of the right wing organization "Freedom Works" (http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/tea-party-movement-explodes-across-the-country) that these rallies are being organized by such a large, lobbyist-friendly, group.
Furthermore, FreedomWorks is itself run by Dick Armey. A consummate lobbyist, Dick has attempted to marshal a veritable army of teabaggers (all puns assuredly intended). Dick was unable to massage his connections enough to create true grassroots, bottom-up, protests. What DID happen, however, was a fairly mediocre turnout in most instances (nationwide turnout was just shy of 112,000 people).
Conspicuously, each “tea party” hosted by Fox News anchors Greta VanSusteren, Neil Cavuto, and Glen Beck, showed a higher level of attendance than other such patriotic celebrations around the country. Fox News maintains that it is appropriate to spend time “promoting” these teabaggings, without actually “sponsoring” them. Of course, they are paying their people to organize parties, so you can judge for yourself where the sponsorship line is crossed.
I only feel bad that supporters of the “movement” (fad) will finally be forced to give up their picket signs once they realize that they’re “recycling” the imagery of the Boston Tea party, a quintessential American cliche. I don’t mean that it’s the lack of creativity they'll be worried about, but rather performing an action associated with saving the environment ;-)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Welcome: let's get started boys and girls!
As I wrote in a recent paper of mine on Faust, the construction of one's worldview inherently derives from where he or she believes that "meaning" ultimately has its source.
We see Faust struggling with the fact that the waves before him do not obey a logical set of rules oriented toward ameliorating human ills; instead they waste energy, performing the same cycle over the course of many repetitions. Any reclamation of this meaning necessarily involves harnessing this energy, both figuratively (through logic) and literally (through science and empiricism).
Once a meaning has been salvaged, though, it is an internal meaning, which is perhaps the closest man can now come to the fundamentally ordered "chain of creation" that existed before. Knowledge of the world has become synonymous with knowledge of the “Self” , and that self must define its world through a series of logical propositions.
What little (if anything) that can be known about the exterior world through such a worldview is also, therefore, clouded by an insurmountable barrier, a dense organizational fabric, formed during childhood, which refuses to rot away.
This meshwork is as arduous to cross through as the impenetrable, interlocking, and perfect, union of the spheres at one time appeared. In doing so, however, the weight of God is hefted in one hand, while, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, the other hand holds the essence of syllables used to capture sound from the noise of the air.
So, there you have it. Together with you (yes YOU), I hope to cross through this crosshatched facade of reality with absolutely no regard for its former arrangement; while you're here, you're Faust too. There's another world just on the other side of this door- let's go!
We see Faust struggling with the fact that the waves before him do not obey a logical set of rules oriented toward ameliorating human ills; instead they waste energy, performing the same cycle over the course of many repetitions. Any reclamation of this meaning necessarily involves harnessing this energy, both figuratively (through logic) and literally (through science and empiricism).
Once a meaning has been salvaged, though, it is an internal meaning, which is perhaps the closest man can now come to the fundamentally ordered "chain of creation" that existed before. Knowledge of the world has become synonymous with knowledge of the “Self” , and that self must define its world through a series of logical propositions.
What little (if anything) that can be known about the exterior world through such a worldview is also, therefore, clouded by an insurmountable barrier, a dense organizational fabric, formed during childhood, which refuses to rot away.
This meshwork is as arduous to cross through as the impenetrable, interlocking, and perfect, union of the spheres at one time appeared. In doing so, however, the weight of God is hefted in one hand, while, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, the other hand holds the essence of syllables used to capture sound from the noise of the air.
So, there you have it. Together with you (yes YOU), I hope to cross through this crosshatched facade of reality with absolutely no regard for its former arrangement; while you're here, you're Faust too. There's another world just on the other side of this door- let's go!
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