[E]ven though people are spending as much time in their cars as they used to, consumers have been turning off music stations in droves. 27 per cent since 2001, I believe, about on par with the declines of CD sales. You would think this means people are just listening to…
This morning I tried to visit a site called OLGA (on-line guitar archive), a place where I had often gone in past years to check out chord progressions for pop/rock tunes. Many guitarists had worked out tunes as best they could, then posted them at this site. Over the years,…
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) [Thanks go to The Quotations Page for this one].
We can’t really act freely unless we can think freely, it seems. But none of us can really choose what we will think next. Thoughts occur to us. I’m not the guy who puts the records in my own jukebox; at best, I merely punch some buttons. But can I…
As a nation, we seem to be making one boneheaded decision after another.
Iraq has to be the top of that list. We attacked Iraq because we couldn’t let “them” get away with what “they” did on September 11. I have heard numerous seemingly intelligent people utter this other nonsense. The only way this justification works, however, is if all people living in the Middle East are the same. There’s no basis for believing that everyone in the Middle East is “the same,” yet this truly seems to be the foundation of the thought process of many people. Someone from the Middle East attacked us, therefore we must attack someone in the Middle East. And by someone they mean anyone.
By this same logic, when someone in my neighborhood steals my car, I am justified asking the police to throw anyone from my neighborhood in prison. Anyone at all! The important thing is that I am mad or frustrated or embarrassed and I want to cast judgment some more quickly and see something done.
It’s truly amazing that intelligent people can fall for this kind of thinking, but many of us do.
Perhaps it’s because we have trouble categorizing. Take, for instance, the category “the poor.” I know many right-leaning people who claim that all poor people are deservedly poor. And they are lazy, as well as immoral and stupid. This allows many social conservatives to justify social Darwinism at the highest levels of government.
On the other hand, I …
