I have already read about 15 of these short essays published by Edge.  It’s hard to stop, because the answers are especially thoughtful and well-articulated.

Daniel Dennett’s response is representative of the quality of these responses.  Here is an excerpt from Dennett’s response, entitled: “The Evaporation of the Powerful Mystique of Religion.”

I’m so optimistic that I expect to live to see the evaporation of the powerful mystique of religion. I think that in about twenty-five years almost all religions will have evolved into very different phenomena, so much so that in most quarters religion will no longer command the awe it does today.

Why am I confident that this will happen?  Mainly because of the asymmetry in the information explosion.  With the worldwide spread of information technology (not just the internet, but cell phones and portable radios and television), it is no longer feasible for guardians of religious traditions to protect their young from exposure to the kinds of facts (and, yes, of course, misinformation and junk of every genre) that gently, irresistibly undermine the mindsets requisite for religious fanaticism and intolerance. The religious fervor of today is a last, desperate attempt by our generation to block the eyes and ears of the coming generations, and it isn’t working. For every well-publicized victory–the inundation of the Bush administration with evangelicals, the growing number of home schoolers in the USA, the rise of radical Islam, the much exaggerated “rebound” of religion in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to take the most obvious cases–there are many less dramatic defeats, as young people quietly walk away from the faith of their parents and grandparents.  That trend will continue, especially when young people come to know how many of their peers are making this low-profile choice.  Around the world, the category of “not religious” is growing faster than the Mormons, faster than the evangelicals, faster even than Islam, whose growth is due almost entirely to fecundity, not conversion, and is bound to level off soon…

I think the main problem we face today is overreaction, making martyrs out of people who desperately want to become martyrs.  What it will take is patience, good information, and a steady demand for universal education about the world’s religions.  This will favor the evolution of avirulent forms of religion, which we can all welcome as continuing parts of our planet’s cultural heritage. 

“He who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, “Moral and Religious Aphorisms,” no. 25 (1825)

A friend of mine recently gave me a disturbing scenario:  what if Iraq has descended into civil war because Bush and his neo-con puppetmasters want it that way?  What if Bush’s repeated failures to end the violence aren’t failures at all, but rather the desired result?  Consider:  the continued violence keeps federal money pouring into the pockets of Bush’s neo-con and military contractor supporters, so they’re happy; the political situation is in chaos, so Iraqi oil remains in the hands of Bush’s oil pals, so they’re happy; Muslims are killing each other in large numbers, so Bush’s radical Christian supporters are happy; Bush’s elite-rich supporters don’t have sons or daughters dying to provide cheap gasoline for their SUVs, so they’re happy…so, who among Bush’s core supporters is bothered by a protracted war in Iraq?  What if they are perfectly happy with the way things are going and that’s the reason for Bush’s “stay the course” rhetoric in the face of an ongoing slaughter?

Remember:  they lied to get us into this mess, so why wouldn’t they lie to keep us there?

No, I’m not speaking metaphorically. See here.

Not after reading this article about pig-farming in Rolling Stone. This is the teaser at the top of the article:

America’s top pork producer churns out a sea of waste that has destroyed rivers, killed millions of fish and generated one of the largest fines in EPA history. Welcome to the dark side of the other white meat.

The pollution is only half of the problem.  The other half is the treatment of the pigs.  Here’s the bottom line:  pigs are at least as smart as dogs.  Would you eat dogs?  Would you treat dogs like this?

Smithfield’s [a large pig-farming enterprise] pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs — anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

But I can’t ignore the pollution either.  It’s a huge problem:

The drugs Smithfield administers to its pigs, of course, exit its hog houses in pig shit. Industrial pig waste also contains a host of other toxic substances: ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals. In addition, the waste nurses more than 100 microbial pathogens that can cause illness in humans, including salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and girardia. Each gram of hog shit can contain as much as 100 million fecal coliform bacteria.

Smithfield’s holding ponds — the company calls them lagoons — cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. . . . Major floods have transformed entire counties into pig-shit bayous. To alleviate swelling lagoons, workers sometimes pump the shit out of them and spray the waste on surrounding fields, which results in what the industry daintily refers to as “overapplication.” This can turn hundreds of acres — thousands of football fields — into shallow mud puddles of pig shit.

Like I said.  I love eating pork, but I wish I didn’t.  Not that I eat it very often–I eat pork about once per month.  But I think it’s time for me to stop.

According to this article about Saddam’s execution, “Iraq’s death penalty was suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter criminals.”

Deter criminals?  Since Iraq reinstated the death penalty in 2005, the murder rate in Baghdad has risen so high that the violence has been called a civil war.  Exactly who has the death penalty deterred from committing crimes?

This question is misleading.  In 2003, approximately 40% of us opposed the invasion.   But it felt like there were only a handful of us.

I was looking through my 2003 writings to recall my rational for opposing the Iraq invasion.  I don’t see that I wrote anything much about Iraq back then.  I do remember thinking the invasion was a big mistake.  I do remember thinking that Colin Powell was blowing smoke at the U.N. 

Though I didn’t find much in writing from 2003, I found this 2004 email I wrote to a friend who was very much in favor of the war:

I’ve been working a lot of hours lately, but I can’t help but feel deep gnawing need to pry myself away periodically to do my small part to stop this insane movement that goes in the name of “conservatism.”  Squandering the budget is only one part of it for me.  Every day, this lunatic’s rhetoric and actions are causing 100 talented young men from the Middle East to dedicate their entire lives to lighting a nuclear fire so as to melt New York.  I truly believe that the short term temporary good that Bush has accomplished in the Middle East is far outweighed, not only by the blood spilled to accomplish it, but by the horrors we will be facing 10 and 20 years from now.  This country would never have gone to war had Bush and his team not bald-faced lied about the alleged urgent need to start this war. 

And now, a year later, he has no exit plan, and Rumsfeld is currently on TV denying that the administration ever claimed that the threat from Iraq was imminent.   We’re pouring huge amounts of money into Iraq’s infrastructure, material goods that, a few years from now (if not sooner), will be controlled entirely by zealots congealed into dysfunctional action by their hatred of the United States. 

Bernard Lewis’ book “What Went Wrong” details the ancient history of the Middle East:  there never has been a distinction between politics and religion there (except for Turkey, for which Turkey has been despised by most other Middle Eastern countries).  The current administration, in deep denial of the obvious social history of the region, lashed out to change all that by imposing a paper constitution on those angry folks, along with dozens of billions of dollars.  I’ve read enough history to know that this approach is fruitless and destructive to our own efforts.  The money we’re spending could have done great things in this country.

Re-reading this letter made me wonder how much of the country was actually in favor of the war in the months preceding the war.   I discussed this question with two co-workers today.  I thought I had read that 40% of U.S. citizens were against the invasion, but that seemed too high to us, in retrospect.  Back in 2003, people against the war seemed to be a rarity.  Were we actually so rare?

Wikipedia has an article pertaining to the changing attitudes of the U.S. public from 2003 to the present, though the article lacks citations to some key statistics.

• According to Wikipedia, at about the time Bush gave his 2003 State of the Union address “Most polls showed that support for the invasion, depending on how the question is phrased, was at between 55-65% (58% according to CNN/USA Today, 57% according to the LA Times, and 67% according to Fox).” (more…)

According to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the U.S. National Park Service won’t admit the well-established age of the Grand Canyon. Why?  Because our National Park Service doesn’t want to offend young earth creationists. 

Here’s the well-established geological story:

The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin (of which the Grand Canyon is a part) has developed in the past 40 million years and that the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old (with most of the downcutting occurring in the last two million years). The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet.

The major geologic exposures in Grand Canyon range in age from the 2 billion year old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to the 230 million year old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim.

Here is what young earth creationists believe:

The belief that the Earth was created by God within the last ten thousand years, literally as described in Genesis, within the approximate timeframe of biblical genealogies (detailed for example in the Ussher chronology). (They may or may not believe that the Universe is the same age.) It rejects not only radiometric and isochron dating of the age of the Earth, arguing that they are based on debatable assumptions, but also approaches such as ice core dating and dendrochronology. Instead, it interprets the geologic record largely as a result of a global flood.

In a sane world, the books sold by the National Park Service would represent the prevailing scientific view.  Not so, according to PEER: 

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that there would be a high-level policy review of the issue. 

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

[Since we read this press release from PEER, it appears that the claim is inaccurate, perhaps deceptive.  See this follow-up article from Skeptic Magazine]

This age.  Bizarre.  Part of the bizarreness rests in how much we actually know about it.  We swim in a deepening sea of information.  How to cope? 

We compartmentalize.  So, though, do those providing us the information, and therein lies another problem, which is a question of integration.

Recently at a holiday gathering with my family we exercised what has become a ritual—complaing about the state of the world.  A comment that has been made often in the last couple of decades suddenly struck me with its self-evident, contradictory absurdity.

My father was going on about something he had learned regarding Israel, and ended with the oft-repeated question “How come our media doesn’t tell us that part?”  His meaning is clear enough—details of certain events are not presented to us on the nightly news.  Instead, something with a particular “spin” gets put on.  The nature of the spin depends as much on the program’s owners as it does the politics of the viewer.

But a larger question occurred to me.  So I asked it.  “If the media doesn’t tell us, how did you find out?”

“I saw it on Charlie Rose!”

And therein lies a wealth of assumptions which need examining.  Why isn’t—at least to people like my father—things like the Charlie Rose Show  The Media?

What is The Media?  This is an important question when we’re in hot debate with each other, because our sources of information dictate what we consider relevant.  They also dictate our attitude toward our culture, our civilization, our country, and our leaders.

To me, The Media is a fairly useless label.  We have television, print newspapers, radio, the internet, magazines, blogs, direct mail, town hall meetings, government newsletters, NGO newsletters, canvasers, missionaries, PACs…on television alone we have nightly news, morning news, news magazines (like 60 Minutes), talk shows, Special Reports, documentary programs (like NOVA).

My father seems to take as a given that if something doesn’t come over on the nightly news programs between five and seven (again at ten) then “our Media” isn’t telling us.  It is a prejudice many of his generation have, from the day when that was about it as far as news sources.  There was radio, of course, but that was tv without pictures, and newspapers, which went into greater depth.  The advent of the News Magazine Shows happened in the late 60s and for some people still may not be part of legitimate news sources.

My father is not connected to the internet.  He grew angry with me once for knowing more about something than he did, information I got off the Web.  Not personally angry, just–”Why should I have to pay $20 a month to get the information I need?  Why doesn’t my (free) television news give it to me?”

The answer—part of it, anyway—is simply that there is too damn much.

The other part of that is that television news programs are now part and parcel of the same ratings game as everything else on tv, and it is now entertainment more than education.

But that leads to the rest of the problem.  How many people assume there should be One information source and that it should provide everything?   And, consequently, all other sources are considered somehow illegitimate?

During the last two decades we have all heard certain people complain about the Liberal Media—yet it is a documented fact that over 70% of radio and print news sources are self-defined as conservative to right wing.  We can assume of the remaining 25-30% half can be considered neutral, which leaves 10 to 15 % as “left”.  Yet the overwhelming perception by a vocal segment of the population which assumes it is “the majority” is that most media is liberal-biased.

During that same period we have seen survey after survey showing a trend toward self-editing—we have so many news and information sources now that people can tailor their intake according to taste.  Which means that we do not, as a general rule, get a wide spectrum of information and opinion—rather we get self-reinforcing polemic.

The assumption is my father’s compaint is that there should be a single source of reliably neutral (by his standards) information.  If information shows up anywhere else, it must be suspect.  Yet trust in the veracity of those suspect sources is, paradoxically, rising.  They simply aren’t The Media.

While this may seem like a confusing set of compartmentalizations, it is also indicative of the susicious regard Americans have had toward anything purporting to be somehow cross culturally and nationally relevent—as if by the time a source actually becomes large and broad enough to cater to a majority it has lost its ability to be useful.

I am worried what this means for the public debate.  For instance, this past election saw the Republican Party lose its majority status in congress.  We are told that this was a referendum on the war.  Yet of the nearly thirty congressional seats that changed hands to become Democrat, two-thirds of the new representatives are vocally ProChoice.  To be told (by ommision) that this issue had nothing to do with the election is a curious consequence of the homogenization of The Media, if such a process is actually underway.  It is not, however, information that was censored.  I found out quite passively.  There were other left-right issues informing many of the contested seats and I am sure that the War, while significant, was insufficient to turn over that many seats.  But to find the other reasons, one needs look elsewhere than traditional network media sources.  One of the downsides of this is that those other reasons have not become part of the national quorum over electoral politics.

So it was an interesting holiday discussion.  Anything that prompts a question like this is worth the overeating, the unfortunate presents, the cold weather, and the crazy traffic. 

So tell me:  What do you consider The Media?

Oh, and have a good New Year.

We’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, right?  Our newly deceased former president, Gerald Ford, will now be turned into some kind of hero.  That’s the role of the media–to say happy things to put us in the mood to buy the products they advertise.  Therefore, the media is already busy touting Ford’s alleged role as a “healer” for his post Watergate service.

But now what have we here?   Today we learn that Ford sat on his hands while the current president lied us into war in Iraq.  It’s clear as day, according this article published by the Washington Post.  Here’s an excerpt:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. “I don’t think I would have gone to war,” he said a little more than a year after President Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford’s own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford “very strongly” disagreed with the current president’s justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney — Ford’s White House chief of staff — and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford’s chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

“Embargoed,” eh?  Isn’t that a euphemism for lacking the courage of one’s convictions?  A euphemism for cowardice?

The Ford interview — and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 — took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death.  

So congratulations, President Ford, for failing to speak up at a time when you could have helped to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  Instead, you sat on your hands so that you didn’t embarrass your fellow republicans.  You and hundreds of other people who could have made a difference.  But didn’t.  For no good reason.

That’s unpardonable.

Dragon, for those who are not seen it in action, is a speech recognition software. You talk into a microphone connected to your computer and the program transcribes your words into written text.  For those of you who haven’t seen the process of speech recognition before (or those who have only seen earlier versions of voice recognition software), the current version works like magic. 

Who could make good use of speech recognition software?  Anyone who writes.  That probably includes you.  All of you bloggers, take note.  Same for all of you professionals.  For instance, I work as a lawyer and I spend an hour or two each day using Dragon. 

I have worked with Dragon ever since Version 6. It is now up to Version 9.  I use the “Preferred” version of Dragon 9, which costs about $160.  The software comes with a microphone in the box.  The software is loaded with a vast vocabulary of legal and medical terms, something to keep in mind for those of you who might otherwise be tempted to jump to the vastly more expensive Legal or Medical versions of Dragon. For most people, there’s no need to make that jump, in my opinion.

There are millions of people out there who could make good use of voice recognition software. Dragon allows you to give your hands a break, even if you are a proficient typist.  Dragon works so well that it seems like magic. No, I do not own any stock in Nuance (the company that sells Dragon Naturally Speaking). I’m simply an enthusiastic user trying to share the joy.  BTW, here’s Nuance’s information on Dragon 9 for some basic information on Dragon 9. 

The software packaging indicates that Version 9 is faster and more accurate than typing. This is an understatement, in my experience. According to tests described on the package, most people can dictate 140-160 words per minute. A 900-word document can thus be produced in six minutes. If that same document were typed at 40 words per minute, it would take 22 minutes to produce. In my experience, I suspect that Dragon allows me to cut my writing time in half when I am summarizing meetings and depositions.  There is no comparison between versions 6 and 9 in terms of accuracy.  If you haven’t tried Dragon since Version 6, take a serious look at Version 9.

I use Dragon to produce the initial drafts of most of the long documents I write. I find first drafts to be especially frustrating to key-in. When doing first drafts, one’s mind typically races ahead and sometimes morphs in midstream, leaving one’s semi–nimble fingers behind. It is truly a joy to turn one’s thoughts or scribbled notes into a highly accurate document painlessly filled with text. (more…)

The following is a drawing from a Christmas card I co-authored 16 years ago with a buddy, Mike Harty (Mike is the artist; I threw ideas and food at him).  In case you can’t make out the words on the image below, here is a larger image to download.  

The set-up, from the front cover of the card, is Santa explaining to some guy that there is no mistake–that he (He?) has checked his list even thrice.  Then the card opens to this:

The notion of Santa deciding who goes to hell and heaven (deciding who is naughty and nice) is certainly an obvious extension from Santa’s better-known job–lots of skill transfer here.  An obvious question is whether Santa and the judgmental God are coincidental similarities or whether they arise from a common Jungian archetype.  Are we tapping into something inexorable this idea of a powerful entity rendering judgment over us?

There are also differences, of course.  We don’t have ceremonies where we eat Santa.  Also, Santa serves as his own flesh and blood intermediary; he comes down to visit each year–there is no need for him to impregnate a Virgin.  There’s no denying the similarity that both God and Santa allegedly watch us closely (”he sees you when you’re sleeping”).   The elves would appear to be Santa’s version of angels.  Santa’s toys as grace??? 

This card, like many others Mike and I created for other Christmas seasons, certainly antagonized some recipients. This was probably the point of our endeavor, come to think of it. 

I was recently discussing the Iraq war with a political lobbyist friend of mine when he mentioned something I had not previously considered:  neocons and other law-and-order conservatives try to justify the Iraq invasion by saying that even though Saddam didn’t have WMDs, he was defying UN-mandated inspections of Iraqi facilities; therefore, Saddam was breaking the “law” and needed to be brought to account.  Then my friend challenged me:  “How would you answer that argument?” 

Here is my reply:

First, let’s remember that the UN-mandated inspections of Iraq’s facilities were based, as was Bush’s invasion, on lies and empty accusations that Saddam had WMDs.  The Bush Administration accused Saddam of having WMDs and then demanded that Saddam prove he didn’t have them.  Saddam didn’t have them, so what was he supposed to do?  He, in fact, allowed the inspections for a long time until, eventually, he became uncooperative.

Now, let’s think about his situation.  Imagine you are in your own home and the police come to your door one day insisting you have illegal weapons in your home and demanding to inspect your house.  The police were ordered there by the police chief, who happens to hate you because, ten years ago, you were in a fight with his father that contributed to his father losing his job, while you kept yours.  The police chief has held a grudge against you ever since.

You tell the police at your door that you have no illegal weapons in your house, but, of course, they have orders to inspect anyway.  So, you let the police do their inspection.  They find nothing and they leave.

A week later, the police show up again, with the exact same accusation and the exact same demand to inspect your house.  Again, you let them do their inspection, a bit annoyed this time because they were just there a week ago with the same phony accusation.  Again, they find nothing and, again, they leave.

A week later, they show up again.  This time, you are annoyed.  The police chief is obviously just harrassing you, and you don’t like it.  Nevertheless, you let the police do their inspection and, again, they find nothing and leave.

A week later, they show up again.  In fact, these pointless inspections go on for months until, finally, you get fed up with the police harrassment.  You refuse to allow the police to inspect your house anymore, because they are just wasting your time.  Immediately, the police chief declares, “Aha!  SEE!  He is refusing to allow inspections, because he must be hiding illegal weapons!”

When you continue to refuse the inspections, the police chief then screams, “SEE!  The inspections are NOT WORKING!  He MUST be hiding illegal weapons.  We must invade his house to disarm him!”

Sound familiar?  This is how George Bush (and Dick Cheney) sold Saddam up the river and sold America a costly, unnecessary war. 

Thus, to answer my friend’s question:  Saddam’s refusal to allow ongoing UN inspections did not justify America’s invasion, because the UN mandate was based on fraud and harrassment.  White House neo-cons wanted a fight, so they did what all smart bullies do:  when you want to start a fight and you want the other side to appear at fault, the best way to pick that fight is to annoy the other side until they get fed up and do something to provoke you, so you can then slug them and claim they started it.

I recommend that we give this atheist (Ebonmuse, at Daylight Atheism) a chance to give sermons church pulpits across the country.  Just be sure not to tell the congregations that he’s an atheist.  Instead, let them soak up his words.  He’ll have them weeping with inspiration.  He’ll rev them up to go out and actually do something to make the world a better place to live.  He inspired me.  Here’s a small sampling from his recent post, “A Freethinkers’ Yule Sermon“:

Even on this day, there are people suffering and in need. Let us not silently write them off, and let us not hide our faces in shame. Rather, let us reach out to them - not just on this day, but on all days. Let us make contact with a fellow human being, bridging the shallow divides of language, creed and culture to perceive the deep similarities we all have in common, and let us use that connection to shine our light into their lives and make them part of what we take joy in. Let us do what good we can for others and offer them what help we can, no matter how small and insufficient it may seem at times. For people in dire straits, even the smallest aid can mean a great deal.

The irony of it all is that congregations would assume that Ebonmuse was a Believer, as long as they were not told otherwise.  After hearing words like these, many Believers would walk out of their churches thinking “That preacher was terrific.  Now if only we could convert all of those immoral atheists.” 

The above ”sermon” is entirely consistent with the full name of the site: Daylight Atheism: Nighttime is for Dreaming.  Daylight is for Action. 

In the December 14, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone, Paul Krugman takes Bush to task regarding the “biggest untold economic story of our time.”  The article is titled, “The Great Wealth Transfer.” In sum, more and more of the wealth of this country is falling into fewer and fewer hands.  For most Americans, wages have failed to keep up with rising prices, causing workers to fall behind inflation.  Most Americans are “definitely worse off than they were in 2000.”

Back in 1969, the employees of General Motors averaged (in current dollars) more than $45,000 per year, with great benefits.  Compare that with today’s Wal-Mart nonsupervisory workers, who average $18,000 per year with lackluster benefits. 

Krugman’s article takes aim at three myths. 

Myth #1:  Inequality is mainly a problem of poverty.  This is incorrect, because middle income workers haven’t seen their wages grow.  “The real divergence in fortunes is between the great majority of Americans and a very small, extremely wealthy minority at the far right of the line.”

Myth #2: Inequality is mainly a problem of education.  Not true, says Krugman.  “Being highly educated won’t make you into a winner in today’s US economy.  At best, it makes you somewhat less of a loser.”

Myth #3: Equality doesn’t really matter.  Krugman argues that America now has significantly less social mobility than previously.  “It’s easier for a poor child to make it into the upper middle class in just about every other advanced country-including famously class-conscious Britain-than it is in the United States.”

What is the cause of this growing economic disparity?  The Bush administration has been engaging in union bashing, utilizing a variety of creative techniques described by Krugman.  Combine this with the polarizing effects of the Bush tax cuts.  Once the Bush tax cuts have taken full effect, “more than a third of the cash will go to people making more than $500,000 a year–a mere 0.8% of the population.”

The United States is now working on attaining the same sort of economic and social inequity attained by many Latin American countries.  More and more, we are starting to award community assets to people with the right connections.  In this situation, many talented people will never rise to the full potential “because they were born into the wrong class.” 

The factual background of this article leads to Krugman’s final question: “Will the United States go down the path that led America followed-one that leads to ever growing disparity in political power as well as an income?

“Name a person, living or dead, from the country India.”

If asked in the western world, the most common answer would be obvious: “Ghandi”.  It is another matter that his name is “Gandhi”, and not “Ghandi”, to which he is commonly referred in the west, but nevertheless, this individual seems to have wielded such influence that India almost seems to be known as “the land of Ghandi” in the west.  In India, he is also a well-known figure, often hailed as the “father of the nation.” It is unlikely that any individual living in India would not know of him. But whether most people from India know much beyond the name (for instance, that he was involved in India’s freedom struggle) is a matter of debate.  His brand of non-violence was unknown to most Indians until recently.

A few months ago, a Hindi movie titled “Lage Raho Munnabhai” (Carry on Munnabhai) was released in India. It went on to become   India’s biggest box office success in a long time. It tells the story of a gangster, named ‘Munnabhai’, who accidentally stumbles upon the work of Gandhi. Inspired by the writings, he begins practicing Gandhi’s tenets of non-violence and turns his life around.

When I first heard of the film’s plot, I winced. “Bollywood”, India’s equivalent of “Hollywood”, is obsessed with violence.  Surely, a Bollywood film about Gandhi, I imagined, would butcher his philosophy. Worse yet, the film is a sequel to a mediocre movie.  When I heard people saying that it changed their lives, I dismissed it as idiocy. After all, some people claim that the Matrix movies “changed their lives”.

Nevertheless, a few weeks ago, out of sheer morbid curiosity, I decided to check out the film. I was startled. The film is a typical ‘Bollywood’ film in that its plot is highly unrealistic. But the film presents Gandhi’s thoughts with such clarity and such passion that it is difficult not to be moved by it.

Gandhi is well-known for propagating the concept of non-violence. He believed that whenever one is being oppressed with violence, one must not use violence in return. Instead, he propagated the use of a unique concept known as ‘passive resistance’. “If someone slaps you on your cheek, show them the other cheek,” was his famous illustration of the concept.  He believed that acts of violence only beget more violence. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” is another of Gandhi’s famous quotes.

Gandhi saw it like this: If a person hits you, and you hit that person back, the same person would hit you back again, thus creating an endless chain of violence. By practicing non-violence, Gandhi believed that the hearts of even the cruelest and most violent individuals could be won. Even if the violent individuals could not be moved directly, it would move other parties, who would apply pressure on the violent individuals, and force them to eventually abandon their oppressive actions.

What I did not realize about Gandhi (until I watched this movie) was that his philosophy is much larger.  Non-violence constitutes only a small part of it. What Gandhi really propagated was a concept that is underappreciated today: integrity. Integrity does not mean merely living an “ethical” life, as in living a life without breaking the law. It means living a life without contradictions.

It does not take a lot of perspicacity to figure out that we live in an extremely schizophrenic world. Wars are fought in different parts of the world in the name of peace. Between their beauty regimens, pop stars travel in their limos and choppers to ‘Live 8′ concerts purporting to wipe out world hunger. The list goes on…

It seems to be acceptable today to a have one set of lifestyle standards for yourself and another set of standards for those for whom you show concern.  You may not be content unless you live in a luxury apartment, but it’s OK if someone you sponsor lives in a public shelter. (more…)

Their unnecessary, unjustified invasion of Iraq has now cost more American lives than did the (unrelated) 9/11 attack.  (See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq ).

You can read about it here.

An excerpt from the article:

More people in Britain think religion causes harm than believe it does good, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that an overwhelming majority see religion as a cause of division and tension - greatly outnumbering the smaller majority who also believe that it can be a force for good.

The poll also reveals that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one. It paints a picture of a sceptical nation with massive doubts about the effect religion has on society: 82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16% disagree.

I offer these statistics with a caveat.  These numbers appear to reflect British attitudes toward social organizations that are based on supernatural beliefs.   In other words, the poll dealt with social attitudes regarding “social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is sought.” [Daniel Dennett's definition from Breaking the Spell].  The study did not measure public attitudes regarding privately held supernatural beliefs.  There is a huge difference between the two. 

Beliefs that are private cannot cause the great mischief (nor the benefits) often caused by coordinated social groups. Privately held beliefs, not celebrated under the direction of institutions, don’t often threaten political liberties and lives.

We’re right in the middle of massively expensive Christmas displays. No, not just the light displays. I’m referring to the numerous expenditures of time, energy and money that, because they are expensive, serve as reliable messages to others that we are interested in bonding with them . . . or not. Christmas is as good a time as any to let the truth hang out.

These displays take many forms. To whom do we send Christmas cards (and from whom do we receive them?)? To whose parties will we be invited? Who are those select people with whom we will end up exchaning gifts? It doesn’t matter if we don’t really enjoy cards, parties and gifts. It doesn’t really matter whether we believe in virgin birth. It doesn’t matter whether there were three kings or whether there was an especially bright star. As with oh-so-many things, Christmas is really about relationships. At bottom, Christmas is about rubbing elbows and bonding, no matter what the conventional wisdom.

The conventional wisdom says that Christmas is about a particular set of alleged historical truths. We need to keep in mind, though, that there are many cultures that give no credibility to the Jesus story who engage in similar gatherings and similar gift exchanges based on their own lore, much of if as unlikely as the story of a virgin giving birth to a God. They have their own gift exchanges and parties and songs and decorations framed by lore that makes no sense to those raised in our culture. But all of this conduct, regardless of the frame, makes sense to evolutionists who carefully step back a few steps and ask some simple yet pointed questions about what is really being accomplished, no matter what the excuse is used for the holiday hoopla.

The alleged historical stories, whatever they might be, can be important even though not true. Those alleged stories frame the celebrations, giving the people all the excuse they need to bond with some people and to exclude all of the others. The alleged stories “work,” no matter how strained they are, no matter how much they violate the laws of physics, biology and common sense. From an evolutionist’s point of view, a fantastic story is a fantastic story. It might as well be a story about a flying octopus or the tales about Zukamono, who protects the Earth from giant invisible dragons. Or it could even be a story about a big fat elf named Santa. Any tale that invites celebrations, conversation and the rubbing of elbows works. At bottom, it’s all about relationships. That has never changed and it never will change.

Humans aren’t very impressive as individuals. Or, at least, their accomplishments are generally limited. They can accomplish super things as coordinated groups, however. Holidays present us with oppotunities to bond (or not). Bonding functions as the social glue that gets the job done. Bonding allows individuals to coordinate their activities; bonding allows us to become super-organisms that can accomplish things of which unbonded groups of individuals can only dream.

Somewhere along the way, however, many of us start to reify the myths that serve as opportunities for bonding.  We take such myths and lore as literally true for no good intellectual reason, but for a very important social reason.  Considering the myths to be literally true intensifies the bonding  process.  I don’t claim to understand the mechanism for this process, but it definitely happens.  Those people who are most into the social aspects of the Christmas season are the least comfortable questioning the myths and lore of Christmas.  

If you are invited to the homes of these people, don’t expect that your question whether Jesus really existed or whether he was really born on December 25 will be warmly greeted.  Critical thinking and skepticism, therefore, might  well be  the enemies of social cohesion.  Such questioning is likely a greater sin than being anti-social. The questioning of the literal truth of widespread Christmas myths will often be seen as immoral by those who seek to rally around these myths.  These myths thus serve the same function as flags.  It is not the intellectual content that is important (that content is quite often self-contradictory or nonsensical).  Rather the myth serves as a social rallying point.  Again, it can be important without being literally true.  I’ve written about this critical distinction previously.

As shown by Amotz Zahavi, animal signals must be expensive to be reliable. This is a universal rule throughout the animal kingdom.  Displays can be expensive in two ways.  We can present something of value to another person or we can incur a debt or burden on ourselves (in the latter case, the classic example is the peacock’s tail).  Many displays are expensive in both ways.

Simply uttering to someone that he or she is “valued” is just too easy for us human animals.  Words are cheap.

(more…)

As regular readers know, I take an interest not only in science, but in the evolution of science. Back before Newton proposed the bold theory that the force holding us to the ground was the same thing that guided the heavenly bodies, everyone knew that the grave matter of original sin was what kept man down from heaven. Look up the etymologies of “grave”, “engrave” and “gravity” for yourself. In brief, they all mean to push (or cut) down.

Theologically, up was toward sinlessness, and down toward maximum sin. Therefore heaven had to be up, and hell had to be down. In order for a man (like Jesus) to rise bodily toward heaven, he merely had to be completely without sin.

Angels are without sin, and therefore immune to this force.

Given this earlier definition of gravity, one can see that Saint Peter has a cushy post as a gatekeeper.  Anyone who died burdened with sin could not have reached his lofty post. The exception is Catholics who received last rites from an Earthly priest, and then had to be sorted out. Talk about passing the buck*!

* The buck in this phrase refers to the leadership token of a buck-knife, not a dollar!

“Build a Solar System” is a great site for helping to visualize the size of the solar System and (as the author writes) the “REAL definition of ’space.’”

You start by filling in the size of your sun (in inches or mm).   The site then calculates the relative sizes and distances of the various planets.  As helpful as these stats are, the site provides additional useful information, such as the speed of light in your universe (in inches per second or mm per second), the measurement of a light year and distances to distant stars and galaxies.

I decided to make my sun 100 inches in diameter.  The site then calculated for me that my earth would be .9 inches in diameter, orbiting 895 feet from my sun.  The speed of light in my universe would be 21 inches per second, a light year being 10,727 miles away my sun. 

This Solar System calculator is quite helpful for visualizing our “neighborhood,” along with lots of useful links.

I can’t reveal how I obtained a copy of the dramatic memo re-printed below.  It is important reading for anyone who might someday die.  It is a rare candid glimpse into the mind of the Creator of the Universe.

To: Heaven Admission Screeners
From: God
Date: December 23, 2006
Re: Criteria for Admittance to Heaven

As you all learned in your basic training, our screening program is simple.   After a person dies, he or she is brought to one of the numerous screening stations at the Pearly Gates (it’s a lot like airport customs down on Earth).  Each applicant is asked to succinctly describe what he or she has accomplished on earth that would justify admission into heaven.   We’ve heard lots of flimsy excuses over the eons, many of them falling into predicable categories.  I wrote this “refresher memo” to point out many of these commonly heard (deficient) accomplishments and to give you a few other pointers to assist you in your screening duties. 

First of all, keep the focus on the bottom line: exclude from heaven all of those people who haven’t shown any significant accomplishments while they lived on earth. Remember, our task is to give fair, expedient and professional resolutions of whether the applicant deserves admission to heaven.  Your job is not to chit-chat with the applicants, much less counsel those who you’ve just turned down.  Tell them that the rules are the rules, then loudly and resolutely state, “Next!”

Many applicants base their application primarily on their claims that they “love” Me (or Jesus or whoever), that they have “faith” in Me, or that they are willing to endlessly worship Me. These are not accomplishments.  This sycophantic behavior is time-consuming and pointless.  It isn’t worth a d–, you know I almost made a pun! It doesn’t justify admittance to heaven. We’re looking for real accomplishments.

We’re looking for people who engaged in thoughtful good-hearted activity aimed at caring for the people of the Earth, in communities both near and far from the applicant.  We’re looking for locally and globally minded people who have truly assisted a wide variety of other people to flourish.  There are many ways to do this.  One way is, while on Earth, to strive to provide decent food, shelter, medical care and education to all of the world’s people.  We’re also looking for people who sought to provoke others with intelligent thoughts or inspire others through art.  We give extra points to those who worked to preserve the planet’s resources for later generations.  Taking care of the people of the future is an important part of earning heaven.

We’re not looking for short-term bandaids, like those people who occasionally gave money to a beggar.   We’re not looking for people who worked long hours so that they could buy lots of things for themselves and their immediate families.  Really, ostentatious materialism is a big no-no.  We’re not looking for those who spent lots of passive time watching television, movies and sports events.  We’re not looking for solipsists of any stripe—those who closed themselves off from their community to collect stamps, become experts at computer games or gaze at their navels.  By the way, Adam did not have a navel (this topic was addressed on a rather clever blog)

Whenever you are screening an applicant who babbles on and on that they spent hours and hours “worshipping” Me or having faith in Me (or converting others to do the same), gently settle them down and give them one more chance to tell you how they helped all of the Earth’s communities to flourish.  If they repeat to you that their main accomplishment was worshiping Me or having faith in Me, pull lever and send them on down to hell.  Remember, most applicants have had an entire lifetime on earth to do something significant to justify admission to heaven.  They really can do better than praying or worshiping.  We have standards up here.

Over the past month, we have accumulated a list of the sorts of inadequate “reasons” we are commonly hearing from applicants these days.  Keep in mind that none of these “accomplishments” were sufficient to earn the applicant entry to heaven.  None of these were even close.  Yet we continue to hear these sorts of excuses on a regular basis.   I mean, what are these people thinking?  Don’t answer that. I already know the answer, given that I’m omniscient.   I’m asking it rhetorically.  What are they thinking, having a chance to live a long life on Earth, then coming up here and spouting all of this petty stuff as their raison d’être? 

We are distributing this memo to remind all of our screeners: Don’t let any of these people into heaven.  Be kind to them, but promptly tell them that you’ve made your decision then pull the lever to the trap door.  There is no need to engage in a lengthy dialogue.  Keep the lines moving.   Without further ado, here’s the list:

• I spent a lot of money to restore my 1972 Camaro to mint condition.
• I mostly got my gambling addiction under control.
• I worked hard to gather one of the most extensive baseball card collections ever.
• Many people told me that I was always cheerful.
• I worked hard and played hard all of my life.
• I memorized the plots to almost every episode of Everyone Loves Raymond.
• I once won a contest by eating 27 hot dogs. (more…)

Here is a short video of two of the actors doing about ten of the voices (on the Conan O’Brien Show). I hadn’t before seen their faces. Some good laughs to be had here.

This important thought occurred to me today as I walked safely through a park.  How different things would be if packs of squirrels suddenly attacked people and devoured them?  What if squirrels (rodents of the family Sciuridae) attacked humans with such vigor that they were known as the “piranhas of the woods?” 

A stroll in the park would no longer be a stroll in the park.  We’d have to dress up in armor to go out and get the newspaper.  Professional sports teams would proudly call themselves “The Squirrels.”  And to call someone “squirrelly” might be a compliment.  But what would we do with all those acorns? 

I consider the lack of each and every bad thing to be a good thing.  If any bad thing existed, but then someone fixed that problem, we’d all celebrate.  Every day that those bad things don’t exist is a great victory, then, and we should take a moment to be grateful for every bad thing that doesn’t actually exist.  Here are a few others:

• I’m thankful that it doesn’t cost money to poop. 
• I’m glad that light bulbs don’t need to be buried in little coffins when they burn out.
• I’m relieved that perspective doesn’t work in reverse, such that things looked bigger the further away they got. 
• I’m grateful that ears are not considered “private parts,” such that we felt compelled to cover them with muffs everywhere we went.
• And I’m thankful that sex is not spelled “sexoxlneycihweobkeiyusmsklucolehskyzsnxjkbwuhkpeiys,” which would make this fascinating topic much more difficult to talk about and write about.

That squirrels don’t actually prey on humans is an especially good thing.  There’s just too many of them out there.  It would be incredibly ugly if a pack of them decided to collaborate to clean you down to the bone. Think about it.

This concludes my appreciation therapy tonight.

I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes:

I guess we are making a few converts out there.