Thursday, April 15, 2004
America Is A Collective Hallucination.
America is a collective hallucination. Abandon the notion of nation. I don’t care what your race, religion, creed, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation is, everyone has a right to live anywhere they want on this planet. Only a childish and primitive mind would subscribe to the belief that the ground of being ever was, or still is, a real estate broker. The planet earth, every inch of it, belongs to all of us. That goes for Mecca as well as Jerusalem, Washington as well as Beijing. Every one has the right to live any where on earth they want. Every one has the right to move to another place on earth if they want. Prudhomme said property is theft. He is right, but people build more prosperous societies when parcels of real estate are recorded, individual ownership is recognized, and can be transferred. But there is a difference between a system of individual ownership of real estate and civil authorities enforcing exclusion polices based on their own prior occupation. It doesn’t matter if you were there, or here, first. That is the argument of a child. I know my big sister used to use it all the time. It’s not a matter of coming first, second, or last. It’s a matter of the equal rights of all people to live where ever they choose.
Nations are recent constructs that can be deconstructed if we so choose. Nations and states aren’t actual objects, they are abstractions, they are lies. They are symbolic categories. They are marks drawn on pieces of paper. They are brain washed loyalties, they are cultural prejudice. Their only reality is in our belief in them. Ask any animal that lives on any national border. Nations are all in OUR heads. It’s a collective hallucination that nations exist. We can abandon this hallucination for the reality of a single interconnected planet.
We do need a system of civilian organization that respond to people’s needs. Centralized structures are by nature unresponsive to local conditions. But the need for local civil authority and governance does not mean that coordination on common matters should be abandoned. Local management can coexist and be coordinate with regional and global civilian management. The regions would reflect the realities of common interests, particularly in relation to ecological, economic and cultural systems and should not be based on historical accidents of power. We need to make up new categories of regional organization. Face it, Northern California has more common ecological interests with Oregon, and Southern California has more common ecological interests with Northern Mexico. This is the kind of global reorganization that needs to be done. Abandon the outmoded and counter productive idea of the U.S. Abandon the idea of Mexico. Abandon the idea of nations. Think in terms of one people on one planet, Earth. Reorganize civilian authorities along lines of common interest rather than the accidents of history.
Nations are recent constructs that can be deconstructed if we so choose. Nations and states aren’t actual objects, they are abstractions, they are lies. They are symbolic categories. They are marks drawn on pieces of paper. They are brain washed loyalties, they are cultural prejudice. Their only reality is in our belief in them. Ask any animal that lives on any national border. Nations are all in OUR heads. It’s a collective hallucination that nations exist. We can abandon this hallucination for the reality of a single interconnected planet.
We do need a system of civilian organization that respond to people’s needs. Centralized structures are by nature unresponsive to local conditions. But the need for local civil authority and governance does not mean that coordination on common matters should be abandoned. Local management can coexist and be coordinate with regional and global civilian management. The regions would reflect the realities of common interests, particularly in relation to ecological, economic and cultural systems and should not be based on historical accidents of power. We need to make up new categories of regional organization. Face it, Northern California has more common ecological interests with Oregon, and Southern California has more common ecological interests with Northern Mexico. This is the kind of global reorganization that needs to be done. Abandon the outmoded and counter productive idea of the U.S. Abandon the idea of Mexico. Abandon the idea of nations. Think in terms of one people on one planet, Earth. Reorganize civilian authorities along lines of common interest rather than the accidents of history.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Who Stopped Thinking At Jet Dry?
Who stopped thinking at Jet Dry? Who decided to court disaster with their Jet Dry TV ad in which a cartoon dishwasher says yum, yum, yum and glub glub glub as it “drinks” with an unmistakable “mouth” opening the Jet Dry liquid. What planet are these people living on? Don’t they know blue drinks are all the rage with youngsters. This is an tragic accident inducing advertisement if there ever was one. Toddler watches TV. Toddler given blue drinks by Mom. Toddler watches cartoon mouth drink Jet Dry blue drink. Toddler sees Jet Dry under sink. Toddler drinks Jet Dry. Toddler gets horribly ill. How long do you think it will take for this scenario to be realized. You know food is color coded for a reason. It is so youngsters, oldsters and midsters can easily discern what’s eatable and what’s not. I think the color fluorescent blue should NOT be used in eatable products and be reserved for the chemical industry. Do our kids a favor instead of sucking them for every penny you can extort from their parents, ban fluorescent blue food.
Furthermore, I wish the choosy mothers who choose Jif Peanut Butter would get even more choosy. I’m speaking first about the ad where a little girl offers a peanut butter sandwich to her uneasy friend on their first sleep over. They are both already in pajamas ready for bed. No child should be eating in their bedroom just before bedtime. Why? First, because a tolerance of eating anywhere anytime promotes the epidemic of obesity that is plaguing our youngsters. Secondly, this is the worse kind of lesson to teach, food as emotional comfort. That is exactly the problem that overeaters have. Food is a part of reassuring community rituals, but it should not be promoted as an aid to allay individual emotional distress, this is the way to obesity as so many women will tell you. If the visitor is uncomfortable, the mother, the presumable adult in this scenario, should be in there reading them a story, not expecting her tiny daughter to herself be “mother”. Choosy mothers should be choosing to be more involved in their children's lives rather abandoning them to their own inadequate devices. If you want to HAVE children, forget it. We have more then enough people already. If you want to RAISE children, then go ahead. Be choosy, choose to know your own limits.
Fathers should get more choosy too. Making a sandwich in the family room is a bad example for eating too. It sends the same message that eating anywhere any time is ok. It’s not. This is the path to obesity. People wonder why they are overweight. The first rule of losing weight is eat less. (The second is exercise more.) Eating less doesn’t mean changing your diet. It means eating less of what you eat already, smaller portions. But the first eating less you can do is not to eat in between meals. Both these Jif Ads promote in between meal snacking by children in an obese population. Be choosy, choose to eat less, and not at all between meals.
Grammar Note on “No child should be eating in their bedroom just before bedtime. ” I’m changing the grammar rules in the interest of a constructing a more gender neutral language. Singular subjects can take plural possessive adjectives. It sounds okay to me, and it’s a matter of cultural policy to change the language rules, which people are making up anyway. I’m changing it. Don’t complain to me. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But I am going to.
Furthermore, I wish the choosy mothers who choose Jif Peanut Butter would get even more choosy. I’m speaking first about the ad where a little girl offers a peanut butter sandwich to her uneasy friend on their first sleep over. They are both already in pajamas ready for bed. No child should be eating in their bedroom just before bedtime. Why? First, because a tolerance of eating anywhere anytime promotes the epidemic of obesity that is plaguing our youngsters. Secondly, this is the worse kind of lesson to teach, food as emotional comfort. That is exactly the problem that overeaters have. Food is a part of reassuring community rituals, but it should not be promoted as an aid to allay individual emotional distress, this is the way to obesity as so many women will tell you. If the visitor is uncomfortable, the mother, the presumable adult in this scenario, should be in there reading them a story, not expecting her tiny daughter to herself be “mother”. Choosy mothers should be choosing to be more involved in their children's lives rather abandoning them to their own inadequate devices. If you want to HAVE children, forget it. We have more then enough people already. If you want to RAISE children, then go ahead. Be choosy, choose to know your own limits.
Fathers should get more choosy too. Making a sandwich in the family room is a bad example for eating too. It sends the same message that eating anywhere any time is ok. It’s not. This is the path to obesity. People wonder why they are overweight. The first rule of losing weight is eat less. (The second is exercise more.) Eating less doesn’t mean changing your diet. It means eating less of what you eat already, smaller portions. But the first eating less you can do is not to eat in between meals. Both these Jif Ads promote in between meal snacking by children in an obese population. Be choosy, choose to eat less, and not at all between meals.
Grammar Note on “No child should be eating in their bedroom just before bedtime. ” I’m changing the grammar rules in the interest of a constructing a more gender neutral language. Singular subjects can take plural possessive adjectives. It sounds okay to me, and it’s a matter of cultural policy to change the language rules, which people are making up anyway. I’m changing it. Don’t complain to me. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But I am going to.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Wireless Is Wonderful.
Wireless is wonderful. With wireless technology we can live our lives outside again, instead of in a cage, rooms inevitably isolate us. Oh, for the outdoor life, for living wireless in a garden. I can easily envision the pleasures of writing in the inspiring solitude of the shade of a tree but connected to the whole world. We can be alone together.
Now the downside, and there is always a downside, or rather several downsides, but I’ll just look at one of the most obvious. We did not evolve in dense people-made fields of radio, or other frequencies, of electromagnetic radiation. There will be repercussions, we may not see them for generations, but there will be detrimental effects. We can be sure of that from Chaos Theory and the observation that small changes in initial conditions can have big effects, and these are NOT small changes in conditions. These are big changes because although they may be low level fields they extend over the life of the organism. It’s the fact of the long term exposure that will make the big difference.
No matter what we do, our choices will have long term detrimental effects. If we outlawed wireless there would be detriment effects. It is ridiculous to try to stem the tide of change. The point is to recognize every situation for what it always is, a two edge sword, and try to keep ourselves apprised of changing conditions. How can we do that here?
Well, first, stop thinking short term. We aren’t going to be able to foresee the long term consequences, ever. What we can do is start compiling that base of information that will allow our children, grand children or great grand children to see what the effects are. Not only for this change but for all the other interacting evolutionary changes that are going on as I write. Think evolution has stopped for us? Well give it another think. Wake up! We are just passing flotsam coursing along in the flood tide of evolution. We are evolving too.
What can we do now, that will have present, as well as future, value? We can start a government funded public health project that takes samples of every resident’s blood and saliva. The blood and saliva will be tested for present nutritional deficiencies and known disease markers. This information is returned to the donors giving then present value. The data is available to medical researchers now and in the future. Sample residue is stored for future researchers. How hard is this and how much will it cost? The biggest long term expense will be the storage of samples. The data storage is cheap and getting cheaper as I breathe. What about the analysis? The chip and sensor technology to do cheap salvia and blood analysis is in sight. We just have to stop spending money on things which sole purpose is to blow somebody up when they’re finished and start allocating money for the public good, like government is suppose to do.
We are on an evolutionary track now that we can’t see the direction of because we’re just too damn close to it, our field of visions is too myopic, we can never see all the factors affecting us. It will only be in hindsight that our future will know where we’ve been. We must give our future as much information as we can about the present so they can make more informed choices. We will need to collect not only an individual’s relatively static genetic data but also snapshots of actual physical conditions through current blood and saliva samples. It is only this way that we as a species will be able to detect the direction of our evolution. Wouldn’t it be great if a presidential candidate took up this cause and proposed a health initiative that will help us now, and every generation in the future. Support the For Our Grandchildren Public Health Initiative, Build a Bench Mark Database for Evolutionary Research.
Now the downside, and there is always a downside, or rather several downsides, but I’ll just look at one of the most obvious. We did not evolve in dense people-made fields of radio, or other frequencies, of electromagnetic radiation. There will be repercussions, we may not see them for generations, but there will be detrimental effects. We can be sure of that from Chaos Theory and the observation that small changes in initial conditions can have big effects, and these are NOT small changes in conditions. These are big changes because although they may be low level fields they extend over the life of the organism. It’s the fact of the long term exposure that will make the big difference.
No matter what we do, our choices will have long term detrimental effects. If we outlawed wireless there would be detriment effects. It is ridiculous to try to stem the tide of change. The point is to recognize every situation for what it always is, a two edge sword, and try to keep ourselves apprised of changing conditions. How can we do that here?
Well, first, stop thinking short term. We aren’t going to be able to foresee the long term consequences, ever. What we can do is start compiling that base of information that will allow our children, grand children or great grand children to see what the effects are. Not only for this change but for all the other interacting evolutionary changes that are going on as I write. Think evolution has stopped for us? Well give it another think. Wake up! We are just passing flotsam coursing along in the flood tide of evolution. We are evolving too.
What can we do now, that will have present, as well as future, value? We can start a government funded public health project that takes samples of every resident’s blood and saliva. The blood and saliva will be tested for present nutritional deficiencies and known disease markers. This information is returned to the donors giving then present value. The data is available to medical researchers now and in the future. Sample residue is stored for future researchers. How hard is this and how much will it cost? The biggest long term expense will be the storage of samples. The data storage is cheap and getting cheaper as I breathe. What about the analysis? The chip and sensor technology to do cheap salvia and blood analysis is in sight. We just have to stop spending money on things which sole purpose is to blow somebody up when they’re finished and start allocating money for the public good, like government is suppose to do.
We are on an evolutionary track now that we can’t see the direction of because we’re just too damn close to it, our field of visions is too myopic, we can never see all the factors affecting us. It will only be in hindsight that our future will know where we’ve been. We must give our future as much information as we can about the present so they can make more informed choices. We will need to collect not only an individual’s relatively static genetic data but also snapshots of actual physical conditions through current blood and saliva samples. It is only this way that we as a species will be able to detect the direction of our evolution. Wouldn’t it be great if a presidential candidate took up this cause and proposed a health initiative that will help us now, and every generation in the future. Support the For Our Grandchildren Public Health Initiative, Build a Bench Mark Database for Evolutionary Research.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Other Cultures Have Sexual Initiation Rituals, Why Don't We?
Other cultures have sexual initiation rituals, why don’t we? Prom Night just doesn’t cut it, never did. I think most of us can skip adopting or even adapting the custom of cutting penises up the back of the shaft from balls to tip. Sounds bloody painful to me, and likewise we can forget the cutting off of females clitorises, or the initiation where the community literally drops the log roof on the last young couple to have sex for the first time that year. Sounds pretty awful, two people who don’t know what they are doing, and then they die. Or does it sound all too familiar.
When constructing a sexual initiation program for our culture, I would like to see reviewed the informational traditions of previous cultures, things like Asian Pillow Books, Indian, Chinese and Japanese Illustrated Sexual Manuals, European Erotic, Asian Tantra, etc. Once we have digested the past we can get started on constructing our future. How lucky we are that we have moving pictures, instead of just static ones, sounds, instead of just words, and life like computer animation, instead of requiring real people to teach and have sex at the same time. We could devise instructional videos in which computer animated people discuss the what, where, why, how and pleasures--emotional, psychological and physical--of having sex while they are doing it. In fact with the wonders of computer animated graphics we could change the size and shape of bodies to suit people’s personal physiques. People could see the different problems and solutions for people of different sizes and capabilities.
Of course you’d want instructional tapes for homosexual, lesbian and heterosexual sex that every one watched. This would demystify sex for people of all persuasions and give each individual a chance to see what attracted them.
Remember these are instructional videos. People talking, explaining and warning as these go, including teaching people how to check their partners for signs of pleasure or discomfort. But not only how to periodically read responses but also how to ask directly how things are going. So each can give and get pleasure mutually. These are some things the videos could do. Instruction is the first step in any initiation and people interested in the advancement of sexual education should be able to make these kinds of videos now for adults, knowing that in the future the videos would be used for the initiation of adolescents.
When constructing a sexual initiation program for our culture, I would like to see reviewed the informational traditions of previous cultures, things like Asian Pillow Books, Indian, Chinese and Japanese Illustrated Sexual Manuals, European Erotic, Asian Tantra, etc. Once we have digested the past we can get started on constructing our future. How lucky we are that we have moving pictures, instead of just static ones, sounds, instead of just words, and life like computer animation, instead of requiring real people to teach and have sex at the same time. We could devise instructional videos in which computer animated people discuss the what, where, why, how and pleasures--emotional, psychological and physical--of having sex while they are doing it. In fact with the wonders of computer animated graphics we could change the size and shape of bodies to suit people’s personal physiques. People could see the different problems and solutions for people of different sizes and capabilities.
Of course you’d want instructional tapes for homosexual, lesbian and heterosexual sex that every one watched. This would demystify sex for people of all persuasions and give each individual a chance to see what attracted them.
Remember these are instructional videos. People talking, explaining and warning as these go, including teaching people how to check their partners for signs of pleasure or discomfort. But not only how to periodically read responses but also how to ask directly how things are going. So each can give and get pleasure mutually. These are some things the videos could do. Instruction is the first step in any initiation and people interested in the advancement of sexual education should be able to make these kinds of videos now for adults, knowing that in the future the videos would be used for the initiation of adolescents.
