William Quincy Belle

I'm sure such a title could make somebody think this is another weepy personal story about a person trying to come to grips with their mortality and obsessing about the end of it all. Life is what it is, and death is an integral part of the human experience. There's nothing we can do about it; our only choice is to accept it. So, what else is there to say?

First off, I'm not obsessing about this. I recognise it is there, but I'm certainly not spending every day fretting over my demise. However, once in a while, I do take a moment to consider the inevitable.

About twenty years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with terrible cramps. It felt like I had to defecate. I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The next thing I knew, I was laid out on the floor. I had fainted and fallen off the seat. Fortunately, I had not hurt myself like whacking my head against the wall. I subsequently did some research and discovered this was not an unknown phenomenon. It had never happened to me before, but it has never happened again, so this was a strange one-off, not a sign of some underlying condition requiring medical attention.

I remembered sitting on the toilet. After that, nothing. It was a complete blank.

That's how I imagine death.

Over the years, I've liked to say I'm agnostic: I neither believe in God nor don't believe in God. I'm sitting in the middle; I suppose trying to leave all my options open. I've noted that many philosophers, theologians, and writers have tried to grapple with the question of our mortality. People like Blaise Pascal (Pascal's Wager) have argued there are more benefits to believing in God than not believing in Him. Who's right? Obviously, we have no way of knowing, so debating the issue will never conclusively prove things one way or another. And so, we should talk about the benefits of the here and now; the benefits while we are alive.


I've never read Mr. De Vries' book but was stunned by the implications of this quote. God isn't an entity; God is an idea. And it comes back to the benefits of God while we're alive.

I've thought long and hard about fainting. Suddenly, I stopped thinking. Suddenly, I ceased to exist as a conscious human being. I can't help feeling dying is going to be the same thing. I will stop thinking. The neurons will stop firing and the synapses which define my personality, my thinking, my logic, etc. will cease to exist. I will become nothing.

Here's where we run into God, Heaven, the afterlife. How can anybody conceive of nothing? How can the lack of anything be defined as something? From what I understand, some early cultures had no concept of zero and had no symbol to write that particular idea. Thinking of the De Vries quotation above, would anyone invent God out of an inability to imagine nothing? We must think of something. I'm discussing fainting in terms of having regained consciousness and being able to think about it. What if I had not regained consciousness?

Science explains that our body's cells are replaced. The person we are today is not the person we were yesterday, or last week, or when we were two years old. Fat cells are replaced every ten years, but the cells of the inner lining of the small intestine are replaced every week. The lining of the stomach changes every five days and red blood cells change every 120 days. The neurons of our brains do not divide, so this is more complicated. They may die off, but under certain circumstances, other brain cells will become neurons. The point is that we exist independent of our physical self.

Science fiction has presented us with the concept of teleportation. Our atoms are disassembled in one place and reassembled in another. Those atoms are not the same. The cells are not the same. However, the configuration of the neurons and the synapses are the same, and consequently, our consciousness is the same. SciFi is echoing the real-world situation of our current cell replacement by saying we exist independently of our physical self.

But I have a curious observation. I have a reading light beside my desk. It casts light across the desk and the entire room. Periodically, the bulb burns out. I click the switch, nothing happens, and I have to replace the bulb. The light bulb still exists, the glass, the filament, etc., it just no longer lights up. I throw it out, get a new one, and life goes on. The concept of light continues to exist even though the physical part of light - the blub - changes.

Regrets I have a few
This is where I burst into song à la Sinatra. I've been given to understand that older people tend to reminisce, reflecting on their lives, and assessing what they've done. I have regrets. But I also have things I'm embarrassed about. Stupid is as stupid does. Hold my drink. Fortunately, some things get buried in the past, fade with time, and memories forget. We are not forgiven; we are forgotten. Any 12-step program would advise to make amends, but sometimes the circumstances never present themselves, and it ends up not being a question of making amends with somebody you've wronged but somehow forgiving yourself and moving on. We carry our baggage around with us for the rest of our lives, and it can be a heavy load.

I'm tired.
Uncle Bill lived until he was 101 years old. Quite a feat. However, he said to me on more than one occasion to not live beyond 85. A curious statement. But when I thought about it, 85 was when his physical problems started becoming overwhelming. Incontinence, macular degeneration in his left eye, inoperable cataract in the right eye leaving him with 50% vision, slow developing cancer in his right hip causing chronic pain, overall weakness of mobility requiring a motorized scooter. If you have quality of life, quantity of life can be a good thing. But when quality of life goes down, quantity then becomes more a question of stamina than enjoyment. If you remain healthy, why not continue? But if you're not healthy, you don't want to continue.

I've heard of the idea of being spiritually tired, lacking a will to live. I'm sure our physical condition plays a part in this, but I can also see us being unable to see how to navigate life. I've come to realise there's a part of me that thinks, "I'm looking forward to this being over." I'm not suggesting anything as dramatic as being suicidal, it's more a question of lifting a weight.

In 20 days, I will be celebrating seven years of retirement. - Congratulations to me. - Two weeks ago, I had lunch with an old colleague from work. We talked about the company, the current status of work, and the trials and tribulations of the business. I'm glad I'm out. The pressure never stops. Just as soon as you complete one thing, something else pops up. It never ends. At one point in my life, it seemed like a challenge. Now, it seems like an overwhelming burden. There seems to be no sense of achievement, for a new mountain to climb is just around the next corner. It never stops.

We become our parents; I'm turning into Uncle Bill. I have health issues at the age of 72. What am I going to be like when I'm 82? Heck, what am I going to be like when I'm 73? I've had some unpleasant surprises in the past ten years which now make me worry about every ache and pain. Is this a sign of some bigger issue?

Politics worries me, angers me, and exhausts me. I should stop paying attention. I should stop writing about it. I should give up and be ready to blithely say "Que sera sera" when they blow up the world. I sit here shaking my head; I can't believe what's going on. We are the authors of our own fate. I mention this because I feel powerless. We're all in the same boat, and I worry those people over there are going to sink the boat and take me with them. Kill yourself if you want, but I would suggest - no, I will demand you don't kill me too. Unfortunately, I'm powerless and can't do anything about any of this. I can only try to stay out of the line of fire.


I had lunch with a friend a while back, celebrating our mutual milestone of 72 years of age. We joked that we were getting out just in time, that is, our lives were ending before they inadvertently, or should I say stupidly, take the Earth out in one final blaze of glory. Or is it gory? The next generation is in for a ride.

Final Word
I'm agnostic. I can't say with 100% that God exists or doesn't exist. But I have suspicions, and I suspect there's nothing. Never mind nothing being inconceivable, nothing also seems pointless. What is the purpose of the whole thing if in the end there's nothing? It doesn't seem like we've achieved anything, and that doesn't seem satisfying. Do I invent the afterlife because I'm dissatisfied with nothing?

I've jokingly said that when the end comes, I'm going to be on my knees, weeping for forgiveness, just like anybody else. I can write these words on a calm afternoon, sitting at my desk while sipping a comforting cup of coffee, but that doesn't mean anything I say now is going to provide whatever psychological or spiritual support I'll need when I take my final breath. Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. Pshaw. In the grand scheme of things, I am more insignificant than a grain of sand on the beach.

The bulb burns out. Throw it in the trash (recycling) and replace it. And replace it with something better: LED for incandescent.

I'm sure whoever comes after me - sure? I hope whoever comes after me will not make my mistakes, will be more successful, and will achieve more. That won't be as big a deal as you may think. I'm just average. That's pretty easy to equal and not difficult to surpass. Old joke: If you get out of bed in the morning, you're ahead of half the world.

As I look back on it all, I can't help feeling I've really not done much. I was born, I've lived, and I will die. If I hadn't been born, it would have had no effect on the world at all. I think I've wasted my opportunity. In retrospect, I was pretentious. I thought I was destined for greatness while it's turned out I've been at best ordinary. No Nobel Prize, no Oscar, no Pulitzer. Heck, not even a Guinness, but so far, luckily, not a Darwin.

My father was a good man. I'm sure anyone would say he was an ordinary man, but he was a good man. I've come to realise being good is quite the accomplishment. I have not always been good. In these later years, I try to make up for it, but when I look back on my life, I see a wasted opportunity. I could have done a much better job and accomplished more. Oh, well. This is where I joke, "Next time!"

2025-01-13

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Never have so many knowing so little said so much.

At first glance, the cartoon by Shovel seems amusing. But the more I look at it, the more I see a strange transformation of the public dialog. Maybe it's always existed, but it seems more pronounced with electronic communications and the proliferation of social media. Years ago, your average nutjob stood at the corner on a soapbox with a megaphone, spouting whatever nonsense he wanted. Now, he's on Facebook or Twitter with a reach of millions, sometimes tens of millions if not more. Studies have revealed that rumors spread faster than the truth. It's almost as if the design of human communications is geared toward the bad, not the good.

How common is common knowledge? Two plus two equals four. The Earth is not flat. I've been struck over the past few years in this era of t****, MAGA, and Qanon conspiracists, that what I thought was common has turned out to be not so common. On top of it, the Dunning-Kruger Effect has proven that those with so-called uncommon knowledge are very much convinced they're right. Referring back to bad winning over good, people seem to be more accepting of rumored information than questioning anything. They make little effort to confirm what they hear as true or not. I make mention of Pizzagate: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee were running a child sex ring out of basement of a pizzeria in a suburb of Washington DC. I heard this and immediately dismissed it as false, however, one man, from North Carolina, loaded up his car with guns, drove to the pizzeria and shot a lock off a door, looking for the children. At his trial, he admitted he had been duped. Upon hearing all this, I was startled by this man's lack of critical thinking. There is bad in the world. Unfortunately, so many people are running around blaming all sorts of unrelated things. I think of Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that Jewish space lasers caused the wildfires in California. Or the supposed perversion of American children by drag queens. These people are lacking so much real-world knowledge, they lash out with wild, unfounded theories, trying to make sense of the world.

Jordan Peterson Full disclosure: I don't know Jordan Peterson. I've never read his books, attended his lectures, or looked at his YouTube videos. My acquaintance with this controversial Canadian comes from him popping up in newspaper articles about the umbrage over some public statement he's pronounced about the latest issue. I've been curious as to why he always seems to get himself into hot water but it seems evident to me now that his problem is that he's arrogant. He's so sure he's right, he can't see when he's wrong. That seems to pretty much sum up the attitude of the Right, including conservatives, Qanon conspiracy theorists, and MAGA followers.

Yumi Nu, cover model for Sports Illustrated
On May 16, 2022, Jordan Peterson declared a Sports Illustrated model "not beautiful" and sparked quite a backlash. (source, source, Peterson's tweet)


Sample responses:

Man: "Sheesh. Big fan here. I find my girlfriend with a body type like this quite beautiful. Dial it back a bit homie."

Woman: "Why do men feel it's their duty to publicly pronounce their view on the attractiveness of women? Couldn't you just keep it to yourself?"

Over the years, in this blog, I've discussed body image of both women and men. We live in a society very much affected by some sort of idealized body type published in various media. Women are supposed to look like a Victoria Secrets model; anything less is "not beautiful" as Peterson put it. But is that actually true?

Years ago, a fellow blogger Erica Jagger published a series of boudoir shoots of various women. I found each woman attractive in their own right. They weren't models per se, but they were attractive. How startling to read their struggles with self-image and the ensuing lack of confidence. I would have loved to have coffee with each one of them as yes, each one of them was attractive. Old saying: Confidence is the sexiest of all characteristics.

I'm fond of the saying: "Does a goldfish know its living in a fishbowl?" Do any of us fully understand the society we live in where we are bombarded with messages both overt and subliminal, inculcating us with a value system we have no say about and do not necessarily understand?

Peterson, in declaring himself the arbiter of female beauty, is oblivious to how his own tastes have been formulated by the traditions of Victoria Secrets. Like others on the right, he has a laser-like focus on this supposed evil of "wokeness". He's arguing against Sports Illustrated being woke by putting a plus-sized model on the cover, not realizing the magazine was only giving women other than Victoria Secrets models their due. Woke means being fair and inclusive but critics think that's a bad thing. Well, it's a bad thing until people are unfair or not inclusive to these critics. It amuses me how critics hate being criticized.

Elliot Page, transgender man
Page came out in December 2020. In June 2022, Peterson had his Twitter account suspended when he tweeted: "Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.” (source) Apparently, Peterson is "infamous for his anti-trans stance. He once claimed on Joe Rogan’s podcast that being transgender is a result of a 'contagion' and similar to 'satanic ritual abuse.'".

On July 12/2022, I wrote Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, and the Third Gender, a 3,125 words, 10-minute read examination of transgender. I discovered that transgender has existed for thousands of years and been readily accepted in other cultures. but which is, according to Wikipedia (referencing Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (2007) by Richard Warms, Richard L. Warms, R. Jon McGee), still somewhat new to mainstream western culture and conceptual thought. And what do we do when confronted with something new, outside our own experience? We don't believe it and we mock it. If you haven't personally experienced it, it can't be true.

Rowling has gotten herself into trouble by declaring there are only two sexes, the sex with which you are born. For her, there is no distinction between the physical and the psychological. In my analysis, I enumerate numerous examples I've encountered which led me to conclude that transgender is very real. Just because I'm not transgender doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Once again, Peterson hasn't done his homework, knowing nothing about history, knowing nothing outside the realm of his own life.

Canada's response to Covid
In an opinion piece (National Post, January 10, 2022), Peterson explained the inconveniences he’s had to suffer due to restrictions related to the responses of various governments to Covid. After a visit to Tennessee during which he enjoyed the openness of the Covid-related rules, he wondered why Canada couldn't open itself up like Tennessee or Florida. Fair enough. I compared the death rates from Covid of the two countries (my blog) and discovered that the United States and all of its individual states had death rates several times greater than Canada. In fact, I estimated that if the United States had responded to Covid the same way Canada had, over 600,000 Americans would have been alive, but they were dead from Covid. While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis loves to brag about how his state has handled the pandemic, I estimated than over 40,000 Floridians had needlessly died from Covid due to his lack of preventative measures. Peterson, in a fit of self-centeredness, paid no heed to the benefits of Canada's policies but only looked at his own inconvenience. The joke was that if Peterson had got his wish and Canada had opened up and consequently, more Canadians died, he didn't know he could have very well been one of those who died from the disease.

The College of Psychologists of Ontario
In November 2022, the College ordered Peterson to undergo a coaching program on professionalism in public statements after the College received a number of complaints about Peterson's online comments about the above issues. (source) There was a hue and a cry, especially from Peterson about his freedom of speech, but the CBC as of August 2023 reports an Ontario court upheld the ruling against Peterson. Was his freedom of speech infringed? Does he have the right to say what he said?

Protecting the Brand
Back in the early 2000s, the company I worked for decided to put in place a social media policy. I conducted part of the preliminary investigation and discovered the following. A company or an organisation has the right to protect itself, its brand or its reputation. The most obvious case I ran across had Company X firing employee Y after it discovered Y was running a neo-Nazi website. A subsequent court battle saw the firing upheld after it determined that Company X had the right to distance itself from Nazism as it would threaten its sales since the vast majority of the population were against Nazism.

If I take that and apply it to The College of Psychologists, the College has the right to protect its brand or its credibility in the eyes of the public. I suppose Peterson has the right to say what he wants to say but the public also has the right to voice their opinion and criticize Peterson for his, well, unorthodox views. Anybody has the right to say two plus two equals five but everybody else has the right to disagree. And like Company X, the public can decide to shop elsewhere where Nazism is not promoted.

Freedom of Speech
Do any of us have the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater? (Wikipedia) The part of the debate which seems to be always missing is whether or not what somebody says is causing harm. If the two of us are sitting in a bar on a Saturday night, you can say anything you want. Who are you going to harm? It's only the two of us. But what if you're a public figure with an audience of millions of viewers? Your word is influential, and the question of your freedom of speech and even offhanded comments must include whether or not you're doing good or causing harm.

The president of the United States has to one of, if not the most influential person on the planet. When the president speaks, people listen.

Donald J. t**** took every opportunity to downplay the pandemic, to call it a hoax, to convince people not to take preventative measures, not to wear masks, not social distance, not get vaccinated, not follow vaccine mandates, and not get boosted. I believe t**** should be held criminally negligent for the needless deaths of over 600,000 Americans. Unlike you or me, the president has the ear of all Americans with the power to influence them in their daily lives. What he says counts.

I would add that anybody who's in the public eye, Jordan Peterson, others like Joe Rogan, Fox News and its minions, etc. do not have so-called freedom of speech, they can't say what they think; they can't just give their opinion. They have a responsibility to research their ideas because of the influential power over their audience. t**** asked if disinfectants could be used against Covid. Reports then popped up about people poisoning themselves trying to self-medicate with bleach. Sure, you can easily dismiss these people as stupid but let me repeat: The president of the United States suggested it; it's got to be true!

Peterson like many confuse the issue of the freedom of speech, their freedom, with their responsibility as a public figure. Even an offhanded comment may be taken as the gospel, and some people could follow through with the idea. Joe Rogan, professional comic and podcaster, was a strong proponent of ivermectin as a means to fight Covid. (my blog) This was disproven but Joe ignored the science, along with many others including t****. The Washington Poison Center, Seattle, Washington, reported a five-fold increase in calls regarding ivermectin. People look at those in the public eye with trust and will follow their recommendations even if those recommendations are pure, unadulterated bullsh*t.

Am I being fair in my criticism of Peterson?
Just now, I re-read the following Wikipedia articles: Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. I note the following:

Believing Peterson to be famous for his personality rather than his "bonkers" philosophy, [James Marriott of The Times] said that Peterson "may have mistaken his personality for a philosophical system".

I can't help feeling there's something wrong here. The very fact he wrote 12 Rules for Life then 12 More Rules smacks of a certain pretentiousness. He does have his fans but I have no intention of rushing out to buy his books or start watching his YouTube channel.

I see that Peterson has used the term "woke". I'm sorry, once I hear somebody use this term I know they are not objectively looking at the world. They are closed-minded with an ideological slant on life. During a court case between Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney where DeSantis accused Disney of being woke, the judge asked for a definition of the word, and an attorney for DeSantis said that it referred to being aware of social injustices. I don't understand. Why is being aware of social injustices a bad thing? How did this term become a catch-all for everything The Right supposedly hates? And I have to ask: What's the opposite of woke? Asleep? Unconscious? Dead? I'd rather be woke than any of those things.

I stand by my comments on the above issues. Peterson was wrong. He should not have said what he said. And The College is right to demand he take remedial training.

Final Word
I'm fond of the line attributed to Socrates: "I know nothing". I'm also fond of the aphorism: "The more I know the less I know." However, in this era of t**** and MAGA, I've been surprised, shocked, and sometimes appalled at those clearly demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They couldn't possibly know the right answer and yet, they are so very convinced they do. They're missing pieces of the puzzle; they're not asking the right questions; and they're ignoring holes in their argumentation. It is far more important to these people to win the debate than to be right. In fact, finding "the truth" in quotation marks is of no importance. Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.

In my piece on Cancel Culture (2,600 words, 10-minute read), I discovered that those who scream about the injustice of being so-called cancelled, have opened their mouths and let fly with racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, along with lies, misinformation, distortion of the facts, conspiracy theories and outright stupidity, coupled with an attitude of anti-education, anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-government, and anti-authority goddamnit, nobody's gonna tell me what to do! In other words, they deserved to be slapped silly. It's freedom of speech; it's not freedom to be stupid.

Peterson's stance against transgender shows he knows nothing about history. His take on Covid ignores science and statistics. And his comment about the Sports Illustrated model is just mean. Like so many today on the Right, he's arrogant, so convinced he's right, he can't see when he's wrong. He's supposedly going to take whatever remedial course was prescribed by the College, but I feel certain he's not going to "get it". He feels he has the right to say what he wants to say because of freedom of speech not realising that his opinion is not "The Truth".

I said I don't know Peterson and don't follow him other than the stories which pop up in my news feed. However, my interest right now is how Peterson is representative of everything wrong with today's modern world: "I believe therefore it's true." We all want to understand. We all want a comforting explanation of what's going on in the world, but we must be cautious. In desiring that comforting explanation, we can jump to conclusions rather than making the effort to uncover "The Truth". I ran across a meme which humorously explains it all:




Update: 2025-01-10
Jordan Peterson interviewed Canadian conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. I didn't watch the interview but saw clips as reported by Rachel Gilmore. Jan 3/2025 (YouTube 9:15)

At the 7:50 mark, Peterson say, "When I moved to Toronto, it ws as race-blind as any country, as any city could be... and it's flipped. It's flipped because of that obsessive concern with race.... we imported and invented racism in Canada."

Now, let me get this straight. A white man living in a predominatly white city in a predominantly white culture tells me there was no racism. This is the moment I furrow my brow, perplexed once again by a Peterson edict. How could a white man have any idea of the black experience? How could he possibly have any idea of racism? No mention of history, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, just the narrow view of the world that if I didn't see it, it doesn't exist.

Peterson seems to be relatively smart, at least tries to come across as so, but it is growingly obvious he's not smart enough. John Cleese amusingly pointed out that you have to have a certain degree of smarts to understand you're dumb, and that truly stupid people have no idea they are, in fact, stupid. (YouTube, Apr 11/2014, 0:58) I cannot take Jordan Peterson seriously. In this article I have pointed out so many mistakes, it is clear he is incapable to viewing the world through a lens of logic and objectivity. He has become the personaification of right-wing extremism. He has no self-awareness, no humility, and no empathy.



References

Wikipedia: Jordan Peterson
Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. Often described as conservative, he began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist.

During the pandemic, outraged by the B.S. being passed around as scientific fact, I wrote a number of articles on various issues, carefully researching what I claimed as "fact" so as to be able to back up my so-called opinion with scientific evidence.

Ivermectin: I'm not taking medical advice from Joe Rogan. - Nov 9/2021
From the outset of the pandemic, the supposed antiviral properties of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin has been bandied about left, right, and center. Even if expert sources of information like the CDC and the FDA said not to use it, people, especially those on the right led by Fox News, kept pushing ivermectin “propaganda”. Has anybody read the science, and if they did, did they understand what they were looking at? The slightest hint of anything positive has turned into possibility and if it doesn’t kill you, what the heck, what harm could it do? Who knows? It may very well do something!

The problem isn’t so much what people say, it’s that we listen. - Feb 14/2022
I don’t listen to Joe Rogan. I never have listened to him, and I have no intention of doing so. Problem solved.

In fact, I don’t listen and never have listened to t****, Fox News, whether it be Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Jeannine Piro, Jesse Waters, et al., or any other source on the Right such as Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, formerly Rush Limbaugh, etc. Of course, clips crop up in newscasts, but I never tune into any of these people. Problem solved.

It occurs to me that the problem isn’t so much that any of these people are talking, it’s that we’re, I mean, you’re listening. Why are you listening?

Covid: What if the U.S. was like Canada? - Feb 3/2022
Comparing the death rate of Canada with the U.S. and its individual states as of February 3, 2022. I believe t**** and Ron DeSantis should be held criminally negligent for their handling of the Covid pandemic.



2023-10-20

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Vimeo: The Philosopher (uploaded by Abdulla Al Kaabi)
The Philosopher. (2010)
Directed by Abdulla Al Kaabi
Starring: Jean Reno and Cyrille Thouvenin
Scenario: Abdulla Alkaabi , adapted from Baggio's story by Charlie Fish

IMDb: The Philosopher (2010)
Budget: €100,000 (estimated)

Wikipédia: The Philosopher
The Philosopher est un court-métrage français réalisé par Abdulla Alkaabi et sorti en 2010. Première réalisation cinématographique d'Abdulla Alkaabi, alors âgé de 23 ans, ce court-métrage est une adaptation de la nouvelle homonyme de Charlie Fish : Jean Reno y incarne le premier rôle, accompagné de Cyrille Thouvenin dans le second rôle. Produit par Oursinfilms, société française également basée à Dubaï, le film a été tourné à Paris à la mi-septembre 2010. La première projection de The Philosopher a eu lieu au Festival international de Dubaï dans la section des sélections officielles, le 17 décembre 2010.


References

East of the Web Short Stories: Baggio's Story by Charlie Fish
I would like to be a philosopher. Well, anyone who has said the word 'Why' can argue that he is a philosopher, so I want to be more than that. I want to be remembered as a philosopher.

Charlie Fish: Biography
Charlie Fish is a popular short story writer and screenwriter. His short stories have been published in several countries and inspired dozens of short film adaptations. Since 1996, he has edited www.fictionontheweb.co.uk, the longest-running short story site on the web. He was born in Mount Kisco, New York in 1980; and now lives in south London with his wife and daughters.

Fiction on the Web by Charlie Fish
FICTION on the WEB is a labour of love. Every single story on here is hand-picked and carefully edited by me. I don’t have a staff, and I don’t make any money. I do this because I want to give authors a chance to get their work out there, and I love sharing great stories with the world. FICTION on the WEB has been online since 1996, which makes it the oldest short stories website on the Internet. Hundreds of stories have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers. This new incarnation of the site aims to take advantage of the latest trends in connectivity while keeping things nice and simple.

East of the Web Short Stories: Charlie Fish, author

2015-08-19

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Wikipedia: Yin and Yang
In Chinese philosophy, yin & yang, which are often shortened to "yin-yang" or "yin yang", describes how apparently opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, and male and female) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality of yin and yang.

Something to think about: apparently opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent.

2015-01-03

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2014-06-15

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Years ago, I was hired with the mandate to change the world. Okay, not eliminate hunger and bring about world peace, but change a smaller world, the world of my company. I discovered, believe it or not, that everybody does not necessarily see the need for world peace.

At the time, my arrival was heralded as the second coming. It was all quite amusing as I reminded people that the second coming ended with somebody being crucified. And like the second coming, I discovered that some people prefer the status quo over having their souls saved.

I went to my boss with a problem. I was having a difficult time getting other people to see the benefits of my work and as a consequence, they kept presenting roadblocks to my initiatives. Inertia is a powerful force. Does anybody really like change? My boss listened politely smiling at times during my story when I described a future of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows while my colleagues seemed determined to continue live in the Stone Age trying to create fire by rubbing two sticks together.

At the end of my story, my boss leaned back in his chair, paused a moment to look at me, then said, "So, what are you going to do about it?"

I looked at him perplexed. Me? I was expecting him to kick butt. I was expecting him to force the troglodytes to come out of their caves into the sunshine of the modern age. My boss had the power to tell people what to do; I could only try to persuade them. How do I carry out my mandate if other people want to remain in The Dark Ages and look at me as a blasphemous pain in the ass?

I went back to my desk to mull over a strategy. He who hesitates is lost. But good things come to those who wait. Eventually things did coalesce but in retrospect, this stemmed more from evolution by natural selection than from intelligent design. Sometimes I did manage to persuade but I wonder if more times I failed to do so. People ended up being fired. Departments were reorganised. What once was something of a physical impediment to change ceased to exist. The boulder blocking the entrance to the cave was removed and people came out into the sunlight; sometimes they were dragged but they were out nonetheless.

I've never forgotten the point of all this: What are you going to do about it?

Is life fair? I go through a number of pithy quotations and the consensus of opinion is more along the lines of, "Life is." Life exists; life just is. Life can be what we make it. And life isn't necessarily fair. So, what are you going to do about it?

"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
-Thucydides (460–395 BC), Greek historian, general (The Peloponnesian War)

I remember watching a video of the 2011 Japanese tsunami in which a couple pointed into a valley where their home used to be. Everything, absolutely everything in their life was gone, swept out to sea. Was it fair? Was it just? The man turned to the camera and said, "We are lucky to be alive."

What are you going to do about it? A tsunami washes away your life. "The weak suffer what they must." It would seem that all of us at one point or another are weak. Who can stand up to a tsunami or a tornado or lightning? But, of course, the point is to apply that concept to other issues such as employment, health, or divorce. Sometimes sh*t happens. There may not be one specific person who can be held accountable; issues can arise out of circumstances. And even if there is a specific person, that doesn't necessarily mean that person can or will be held accountable. It may very well be that they "should not" be held accountable. A tsunami "is". We can't stop it; we can't change its course; we can only try to stay out of its way. Afterwards, we must figure out what we're going to do about it.

The definition of "pithy" is concise and forcefully expressive. Years ago, my boss handed out this pithy statement as an aphorism about job assessment.

"How do you know you're doing a good job? You get to come back to work next Monday."

I am not far away from celebrating my second decade. I have managed to avoid two attempts by other executives to have me fired. I have lost but survived three major confrontations over strategic issues with one manager and two vice-presidents. Despite an organisational realignment and technically a demotion, I have retained my position, but more importantly, my salary. While I have a highfalutin job title, I only have a diluted influence over the major decisions about strategic direction. Where we go and how we get there are now in the hands of my new boss and I do as I'm told. I do, however, get to go back to work next Monday.

I think of a tsunami or a tornado. The correct course of action is to get out of the way. I think about nearly getting fired and getting a divorce. Sometimes the correct course of action is to get out the way. And when the smoke clears, you come down from the hills or you come out of your bunker and you assess the damages. You're still alive. Even if you've lost everything, you can carry on. Now, the question is: What are you going to do about it?

2013-12-11

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Years ago I read an article about a politician who changed his ideological leanings later on in life, in his fifties I think. The journalist qualified this as remarkable by describing how almost all politicians remain entrenched in their position and do not change. A politician has his ideology and sticks with it for his entire life. It is rare that anybody jumps ship so to speak and walks across the aisle to the other side.

At the time I mulled over whether this idea was applicable to all of us. Do we change over time or are we formed in the first few decades of our lives and remain pretty much as is until we die? Religion, political leanings, ethics, social mores, etc., all of these ideas make up our character and remain as is all of our lives. Subsequent to this, I have heard the idea that regime change comes with a change of leadership. In other words, a regime doesn't change; truly change, until there is another human being with a fresh eye. And regime could mean any organisation whether a country or a company or a group of people.

This curious thought came to mind as I was reflecting on how to solve a problem at work, my relationship with my colleagues, and my interaction with the company in general. It dawned on me that I'm stuck. I have a way of looking at things and I'm not going to change. Sometimes it may be good but it's less than perfect and admittedly sometimes it's not so good but the point is that I'm not going to change. I'm not going to change the way I conduct my business or more accurately I can't change it. I can't necessarily change as what I do is the sum total of who I am: my personality, my experiences, my education, etc. We could debate if what I do is correct or not but I'm saying that regardless of whether I am right or wrong, from the view of the company, change, true change, will only come when I am replaced. Out with the old, in with the new.

But it's not just me. I see this elsewhere. I note that colleagues have their own approach to business, their own approach to life. Right? Wrong? Will they change? Can they change? After decades of dealing with these people, I would say the answer is no.

I read some writers on the Net. After two years now of blogging and following on a semi-regular basis others chronicling their lives, I see recurring themes about marriage, divorce, kids, jobs, and life in general. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good, these themes are repeating patterns of behaviour representing the author's way of dealing with something. Will we change? Can we change? After I read the same themes over and over again, I'm thinking the answer is no.

Physical Immortality
Others who have pondered this question have laid out three causes of death: aging, disease, and trauma. Aging we are all familiar with but even overcoming this obstacle in our quest to see the future leaves us exposed to the possibility of contracting a disease. I've heard it said that if we all live long enough, we will all die of cancer. As for trauma, sooner or later that bus with our name on it is going to drive by. That seems inevitable. So coming back to aging, even if we do achieve physical immortality there are two other reasons, diseases and trauma, which could extinguish our flame. Of course, if we overcome aging, who knows what we may have come up with to overcome disease and trauma?

Our Mental or Spiritual Limitations
I come back to the opening premise. Even if we could live forever, would we change mentally? Would we evolve spiritually? If the answer is yes, just how long would that take? I am certain there are more than enough examples from today where people spend their entire lifetime doing what many consider being less than exemplary. Addictions, addictive behaviour, personality disorders, the list could go on and on, and here I am talking about obvious defects of character. There are a host of behaviours classified as being off of centre which while not meriting being locked up in jail or deserving a 30 day stint in a psychiatric facility, continue to raise eyebrows for the duration of the person's life. Maybe this is a quirk rather than a character defect.

Even if we could live forever, do we have the capacity to change, to truly change? And here, let me bring up the dramatic. We get our arm caught in a wood chipper and have if amputated. Will we eventually accept? We get a divorce, the emotional equivalent of getting our heart and soul caught in a wood chipper. Will we ever get over it? Will we achieve that Zen-like acceptance that the sun is going to come up in the morning and there is nothing we can do about it other than accept it? Will we ever recite the Serenity Prayer and mean it?

Physical Limitations
Uncle Brady is 97 years old. He has had a slow-growing cancer for the past 7 years. The doctors are apparently surprised as his original diagnosis was six months to live but like the Energizer bunny, he just keeps going. He has confessed to me that he's tired. He knows his time is up and he'd like go. Physically he's quite limited and his quality of life has suffered. This is an important aspect of living a long life or living forever. If you don't have quality of life, who cares about quantity of life? Uncle Brady has chronic pain from his cancer. He has difficulty walking and ofttimes must use a scooter. He has macular degeneration in one eye and despite an operation, only has 50% vision in the other eye. Yes, he's alive but not in the best of circumstances. He wants to go. Continuing in these poor circumstances is more of a contest of endurance than a pleasurable experience. At some point, won't we all ask, "What's the point?"

Final Word
Our life is finite. Like Uncle Brady, we are physically going to run down. The body is just going to wear out; the quality of life will drop, and at some point we won't just shuffle off our mortal coil, we will want to shuffle it off. The party is over. It is time to go home.

But the other question is whether or not we are all meant to be here on a temporary basis. Staying around forever or even a longer than we currently do would not be good for us and would not be good for everybody else. The world needs a fresh eye. The world needs a change of leadership, and true change can only come about when the old guard takes its leave and the next generation steps up to the plate. It's interesting sometimes to completely clear off the table and lay out a brand new sheet of paper. Nothing has yet been done. There is nothing to correct, no smudges to wipe clean, and no mistakes to erase. Out with the old, in with the new.

This past weekend, I held my three month old nephew, Michael. He's a blank slate. He's a fresh start. He is unblemished by life and its many vicissitudes. He still has both arms having not yet encountered a woodchipper. Probably like all adults, hope springs eternal and I (and the rest of the family?) look upon him with the hope he will get it right.


References

Wikipedia: Requiem for Methuselah
"Requiem for Methuselah" is a third season episode of the original science fiction television series Star Trek, first broadcast on February 14, 1969.
...
Plot
Flint confesses that he is immortal, born on Earth in Mesopotamia in the year 3834 BC. He was a soldier, and after falling in battle and later recovering he discovered he could not die. As time went on, he lived several "lifetimes" under names that would become historically important, including Da Vinci, Brahms, Solomon, Alexander, Lazarus, Methuselah, Merlin, Abramson, and others.

Wikipedia: Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever, or eternal life. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering. Natural selection has developed potential biological immortality in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula.

Wikipedia: Turritopsis nutricula
Turritopsis nutricula, the immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature... effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal.

my blog: Steve Jobs (1955-2011): Our Time is Limited
Death is Life's change agent. At some point, I will die. And that's a good thing. It's an odd statement to make that me dying is a good thing but then again, maybe not. Those who come after me will do, will hopefully do, a better job than I did. And that would most certainly be a good thing.

my blog: Immortality: simply by doing one great thing
In 2006, Johnnie Walker produced a 60 second television commercial called "Human" which was a science fiction story from the future from the perspective of an android. The story reminds one of Isaac Asimov or the film "I, Robot" by Steven Spielberg based on Asimov's writings.

Uploaded by thepabs06 on Oct 20, 2006
Johnnie Walker Android
I can achieve immortality by not wearing out. You can achieve immortality simply by doing one great thing.


2013-04-10

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I continue to present issues which divide us all. Are you for or against? Do you agree or disagree? Who does know the truth if the truth can be known at all?

Prohibition: get rid of whatever and your problem goes away
By outlawing pornography, all the sexual ills of society will be solved. We can reduce the rate of abortions to zero by making them illegal. Heck we can reduce the rate of abortion to zero by abstaining from sex. Keeping marijuana illegal stops people from smoking it. Keeping prostitution illegal stops it.

There is an interesting comparison to be made in all the above issues and prohibition, the outlawing of alcohol in the United States during the 1920s and elsewhere in the world.

After several years, prohibition became a failure in North America and elsewhere, as bootlegging (rum-running) became widespread and organized crime took control of the distribution of alcohol. (Wikipedia: Prohibition)

First and foremost, the outlawing of alcohol did not mean people stopped wanting to drink it. While removing "the thing" (I mean outlawing it) whether alcohol or anything else may seem like the logical step to removing a perceived problem, one doesn't in any way address that desire or need which drives people to seek out that thing. Prohibition didn't stop people from drinking. Outlawing abortions doesn't stop women from seeking them out. Marijuana is being smoked whether we know it or not.

But in using the word problem, there is the question of just what the heck is the problem and how widespread is it.

World Health Organisation: Global Status Report on Alcohol - 2004
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are about 2 billion people worldwide who consume alcoholic beverages and 76.3 million with diagnosable alcohol use disorders.

The current total world population (2010) is 6.8 billion but in 2004 it was around 6.4 billion. So, in 2004, 31% of all people consumed alcohol. 4% of the drinkers had a problem or 1% of the total.

Okay, if the problem isn't quite as grave as one would think, should we not reassess whether the "problem" is actually a problem? Yes there are people with a drinking problem. But the majority of people drink and do so responsibly. Anybody want to bring back prohibition? Anybody want to punish the many because of the problems of the few? Anybody can easily ask why the problem of somebody else ends up affecting their own rights and freedoms.

Obamacare: Everybody can take care of themselves
Fifty million people in the United States have no health insurance. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. If you can't afford it, work harder or work more so you can afford it. Capitalism at its finest.

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies - Jan 13/2004
Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations
Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage.

A citizen has certain rights: freedom and liberty come to mind. Does a citizen have the right to be healthy?

Obamacare: It will cost a fortune to insure everybody
Thanks to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986, anybody can walk into emergency at any hospital and get treatment even if they can't pay. This is called uncompensated care or charity care. Who's paying to treat those people? The "system". Hospitals write it off or get something from the government or pass on the costs to those who can afford to pay. Nevertheless it isn't so much a question of how much it is going to cost to insure people; it is that not insuring them isn't free. The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank estimates the future costs of uncompensated care for the period 2014 - 2019 to be $330 billion if the system is reformed, that is Obamacare comes into effect. If the system is not reformed, the cost of uncompensated care would be between $560 and $700 billion.

my blog: Obamacare: Congratulations on doing the right thing, America!
Obamacare is not perfect. But it is a step is the right direction. Socialism? Is helping your neighbour socialism? Is helping your country socialism? Is spending more on uncompensated charity care than on insuring people not very astute? Is spending more than any other country on health care but only ranking 72nd in the WHO's health assessment ranking something anybody would not want to turn around? Would you let 18,000 people die unnecessarily each year because they have no health insurance? You have a right to be free. You have the right to work, succeed, and travel. Shouldn't you have the right to be healthy?

Not everyone is paying taxes. It's not fair!
50% of Americans own 2.5% of the wealth in the U.S. or $1.45 trillion. These people are for the most part so poor, they pay no taxes because they earn nothing or next to nothing or they earn so little tax credits for the poor reduce their taxable income to nothing. The top 1% own 33% of the wealth.

my blog: All the rich are not billionaires
Notice how the conservative media use buzzwords like "class warfare" and "socialism". Notice how the conservative media focus on the idea that 50% of Americans pay no taxes. But, but, but the "no tax" refers to federal income tax and the statement in no way looks at what taxes anybody would be paying elsewhere at a state level or a municipal level. However the most important point left out of this rhetoric is that these 50% of Americans are the poorest in the country. The poorest!

Cutting taxes for the wealthy creates jobs
Trickledown economics? The experts, the true experts call this horse manure. FYI: The following two articles are well worth reading in their entirety. Even if you're Conservative and don't believe one word of it, I would say that both articles raise issues that are so important, everyone, Conservatives and Liberals would do well to immediately study this question scientifically without the bias of politics.

PoliticusUSA - Apr 29/2012
Paul Krugman Obliterates the Myth that Low Business Taxes Create Jobs by Jason Easley
Here is what the data really tells us. Since 1950 when taxes are lowered at the top, economic growth goes down. The notion that the US has the highest tax rate on business is another numbers manipulated canard put out there by there by the right in order to justify their policy of cutting taxes at the top while raising them for everyone else. It is true that the US corporate tax rate is 39.2%, but the effective tax rate, what businesses and corporations really pay, is 12.1%. After corporations take advantage of loopholes in the tax code, they actually pay less than a third of what they are supposed to. (General Electric apparently paid no taxes in 2010.)

Paul Krugman isn’t some academic. He is a Nobel Prize winning economist, who knows bullshit when he hears it. Carly Fiorina represents what happens when businesspeople try to enter into politics and fix the economy. Business people understand business, but business isn’t the same thing as running an economy. Due to the lack of a profit motive, the economy can’t be run like a business. George W. Bush has an MBA and his policies brought about the worst economy since the Great Depression. Mitt Romney was a successful businessman, but his record as Massachusetts governor suggests that he knows nothing about creating jobs.

The Straight Dope - Mar 23/2012
Does cutting taxes create jobs? by Cecil Adams
The con: A string of millionaire candidates for public office has duped a good chunk of the electorate into thinking the way to create jobs and otherwise solve the problems of the middle class is to cut the taxes of the wealthy. That's absurd. If the massive tax cuts of the Reagan era didn’t do the average worker much good, trimming another percent or two now sure won’t. What it will do is leave more money in the pockets of the comfortably affluent.

Terrorism is a huge threat to us all!
Are you afraid? But more importantly should you be afraid?

In the June 21, 2012 episode of The Colbert Report during the segment entitled "Threat Down", our humorous pundit declared the number one threat in America to be terrorist furniture. Referring to an article in The Atlantic which in turn refers to the recently published 2011 Report on Terrorism by The National Counterterrorism Center, Colbert notes that of the 13,288 people killed worldwide by terrorist attacks in 2011, seventeen were private U.S. citizens or 0.1%, one tenth of one percent of the total. The article, in referring to a 2011 consumer report, states that in 2010 (the last reported year) twenty-one people died from a falling television, piece of furniture or an appliance. (my blog: Stephen Colbert: And the #1 threat in America: terrorist furniture!)

Voter fraud is rampant in America
The news has been awash as of late of stories of how state after state is enacting all sorts of strict measures to combat a problem of such magnitude, it threatens the very bedrock of American democracy. One small wrinkle: the problem is so negligible it doesn't exist. As Stephen Colbert joked, "Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere."

In Missouri in 2000 and 2002... We are aware of public sources substantiating only four cases (amounting to six votes within the state), yielding an overall documented fraud rate of 0.0003%.

In New Jersey in 2004... Even if all eight proved to reveal fraud, however, that would amount to an overall double voting rate of 0.0002%.

In New York in 2002 and 2004... We are aware of public sources substantiating only two cases, yielding an overall documented fraud rate of 0.000009%.

Brennan Center for Justice: The Truth About Voter Fraud

There is no documented wave or trend of individuals voting multiple times, voting as someone else, or voting despite knowing that they are ineligible. Evidence from the microscopically scrutinized 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington State actually reveals just the opposite: though voter fraud does happen, it happens approximately 0.0009% of the time. The similarly closely-analyzed 2004 election in Ohio revealed a voter fraud rate of 0.00004%. (Brennan Center for Justice)

Rolling Stone - Aug 30/2011
The GOP War on Voting By Ari Berman
As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.

My pet peeve: Boiling Spaghetti
I have been serving up spaghetti sinners for going on forty years and nobody has ever complained. But complain about what I hear you ask? I commit the gravest of all possible sins against traditional world class chefs: I do not put oil or salt in the boiling water. Personally I have found that there are many variations on any recipe and since all roads lead to Rome, I would think that at the end of the day the final results count, not necessarily how you got there.

However I have run into people who follow the instructions about oil and salt to the letter and any naysayer will be duly chastised. Ridiculous? Of course. I invite you over for dinner and you criticize my cooking? I am not going to grant you entrance to my kitchen and your critique of my cooking will consist of nothing more than the finished plate I serve you. Well, if you're not in the kitchen while I'm cooking you can't see me practising the five second rule. Ha ha.

To all who continue this practice, I would say c**p. Not true. Wife's tale. But you're not going to accept my opinion as what the hell do I know about cooking? I did look into this objectively and discovered none of the great chefs use oil and few use salt and consider it optional. Read all about my pet peeve in my blog: Boiling spaghetti: to salt or not to salt.


Final Word
I have found over and over again that people say things as though it's the gospel truth without having one shred of evidence to back up what they're saying. I keep running into misinformation, a distortion of the truth or even outright lies all designed to support a point of view which may in no way reflect the reality of the world. A politician may fool us into thinking two plus two is equal to five but sooner or later the truth comes out. Of course, many of the issues I've raised here don't necessarily fall in the category of two plus two meaning it may not be so easy to conclusively prove one thing or another. However, it turns out that many do not take the time to investigate and even the journalists, the pundits, and the politicians may not take the time and consequently contribute to the general cacophony of "fake facts" being passed around as the truth.



References

my blog: Is the right answer counterintuitive? Part 1

Wikipedia: Rubin vase
Rubin's vase (sometimes known as the Rubin face or the figure–ground vase) is a famous set of ambiguous or bi-stable (i.e., reversing) two-dimensional forms developed around 1915 by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin.

Psychology Today - Jul 27/2009
The Definition of Insanity is... by Ryan Howes, PhD
Where did this saying come from? It's attributed to Albert Einstein (probably not), Benjamin Franklin (probably not), Mark Twain (probably not) and mystery writer Rita Mae Brown (probably so) who used it in her novel Sudden Death.

my blog: What the @#$%^* do I know? 2012-01-03
When I first started to stick my nose where it didn't belong, those dark hidden recesses where the sun doesn't shine (I secretly wanted to be a proctologist?), I discovered things. (Okay, now is this where I insert something like I was looking for the scoop but found the poop?) When I first looked at the idea of blogging, I quickly realized that bloggers use their blogs to state their opinion. Nothing wrong with that but as time wore on, I began to find a number of people stating opinions which didn't match with reality or at least my impression of what reality is. (Okay, Mister Wiseguy, can you really prove that the world is not flat?) All of my entries now have a references section in which I put links to (I hope) reputable sources: newspapers, professional journals and experts (people a hell of a lot smarter than me), all of which supposedly supports the point I'm trying to make. Sometimes I discover that the point I'm trying to make is unfounded. Yes, sometimes even I am full of s**t manure.


Facts are not decided by how many people believe them. Truth is not determined by how loudly it is shouted.
- sign at the Rally to Restore Sanity, October 30, 2010, Washington DC

2012-08-24

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Two plus two equals four. There doesn't seem to be any room for debate about that one, does there? However there are many things in life which are open for debate. While some may be amusing, some have a big impact not just on our individual lives, but life in general, our collective life as a society. I am struck over and over again how we adamantly hold onto beliefs without any proof that said beliefs are in fact justified. This is the question I raised in the title of this article. Is our intuition really based on a set of unproven beliefs, superstitions if you will, which leads us to overlook the right answer, the true right answer? Are we repeating the same actions in the vague hope that things will eventually work out and we'll be vindicated?

America's Embargo of Cuba
Years ago one of the columnists in TIME magazine, Joel Stein I think, made a compelling argument for the United States to use the export of its own culture as a means of influencing and perhaps "taking over" in air quotes regimes it found unfavourable to its own view of the world. Rather than resort to sanctions, embargoes, even war, America should promote itself, its products and services, to the people in the streets, to develop in those people a taste for all things American including liberty, freedom of speech, and the right to vote. Falling back on the idea that it is more successful if you get somebody to want to do something as opposed to making them do something, the export of culture would develop a revolution from within. Don't force a regime to tow the line, get the people to rise up against the regime and kick it out of power.

All these years, just what has the embargo of Cuba achieved? The Soviet Union was the mother of all Communist evil and yet, because it was too big to ignore, the United States has always had a relationship with this country. Always. Right up to when it fell. And there is little old Cuba still going like the Energizer bunny. If the U.S. through the arms race or whatever takes some credit in changing the world political map, it is curious how it has failed to change one Caribbean island.

Wikipedia: United States embargo against Cuba
"Future students of American history will be scratching their heads about this case for decades to come. Our embargo and refusal to normalize diplomatic relations has nothing to do with communism. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, with China since Nixon, and with Vietnam despite our bitter war there. No, Cuba was pure politics. Though it started out to be a measure of an administration's resistance to Castro's politics, it very soon became a straight-jacket whereby first-generation Cuban-Americans wielded inordinate political power over both parties and constructed a veto over rational, mature diplomacy."
— Gary Hart, former U.S. Senator, March 2011

Get Rid Of Abortion
Notice that I didn't say outlaw it, I said get rid of it. An abortion represents an unwanted pregnancy. If all pregnancies happened when a woman wanted it to, when she was ready emotionally, financially, and spiritually (including maritally?), there would be no abortions. How much simpler can it be than that?

Unfortunately, the pro-life movement has completely focused on abortions instead of the idea of unwanted pregnancies and therein lies the problem. The pro-life movement believes that there is one and only one way to deal to avoid this issue and that is to abstain from sex. That's the theory. In practice, abstinence just isn't achieving the level of sex or non sex one would hope for. Why? Our sexual urges are not quite as controllable as we might think. When you look at the statistics, I'd say the world doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever seeing abstinence working. Just think about it. If I argue that if everybody used matches to start fires in a prudent manner following all practices for fire safety, we wouldn't need fire trucks because there would be no fires. Do I hear anybody voting to disband fire departments? I don't think so. We all know well enough that accidents will happen despite our best intentions and we better be prepared for them.

Yes, oddly enough, I agree with pro-lifers about the idea of having no abortions, but from there our ideas about how to achieve such a goal differs greatly. I am a firm believer in doing anything, yes, absolutely anything to eradicate unwanted pregnancies. This includes condoms, birth control, and for God's sake sex education. But what's the truly odd part of this story? By removing sex education and access to birth control, the rate of abortions goes up. Yep, the very policies put forward by the pro-lifers to stop abortions actually increase the number of abortions.

Guttmacher Institute - Feb 24/2009
1.94 Million Unintended pregnancies and 810,000 abortions are prevented each year
By providing millions of young and low-income women access to voluntary contraceptive services, the national family planning program prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies, each year. These pregnancies would result in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000 miscarriages, according to a new Guttmacher Institute report. Absent publicly funded family planning services, the U.S. abortion rate would be nearly two-thirds higher than it currently is, and nearly twice as high among poor women.

my blog: Abortion: My final word on unwanted pregnancy
The point to my articles is just this: If a woman didn't pregnant, she wouldn't need an abortion. Ah, but I should be more precise. If a woman "wanted" to be pregnant, she wouldn't want an abortion. Yes, abortion is an issue; I'll let everybody else waste their time and effort arguing their stance to the other camp until they're blue in the face. I want to move upstream and deal with the issue BEFORE the pregnancy occurs. I want to be preventative. Yes, curative is good; curative is important but what can we collectively do to prevent us from even getting to an abortion.

Fight drugs but have needle exchange programs
When I say drugs, I'm not talking about your weekend warrior enjoying a doobie at a rock concert. I'm talking about your addict for whom drugs has become the daily obsession. I'm sure we would all want to help but sometimes helping seems oddly supportive.

Needle exchange programmes have as an objective to reduce the harm suffered by injecting drug users (IDUs) in using unsterile or contaminated equipment. Think about this. Society would like addictive behaviour to stop. Society would like there to be no addicts. But it admits that such a goal is at least today unobtainable so the better social policy is to control the phenomenon and not exacerbate it. If an addict is kept healthy in the sense of not getting ill from unsterile needles or from contracting HIV from a fellow addict, they may someday shake off their addiction. Plus, society itself doesn't bear the burden of an ill addict or another HIV infected person. Yes, we want to get rid of addicts but we supply them with clean needles.

Wikipedia: Needle-exchange programme
A comprehensive study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2004 stated that there is a "compelling case that NSPs substantially and cost effectively reduce the spread of HIV among IDUs and do so without evidence of exacerbating injecting drug use at either the individual or societal level."

Erectile Dysfunction: all you need is Viagra
Not true. With or without ED, all you need is love. Right on the box it clearly states that the drug will help with blood flow but, and that's a big but, a man still needs to be sexually excited to get an erection.

my blog: Erectile dysfunction or just not sexually aroused
... while erectile dysfunction can be a physical condition... Stress or anxiety, low self-esteem, marital or relationship problems, performance anxiety and even an unsatisfactory sex life can have an impact on a man's performance, that is, can leave a man not "in the mood". Not being in the mood is not erectile dysfunction; it's just not being "in the mood". Gee, where have I heard this before? (hint: women not being "in the mood")

Men cheat because they're all a bunch of horny old toads
my blog: Sex: And the #1 reason why men cheat is...
All men are horny old toads. They can't keep it in their pants. Their wandering eye is without remorse. When the blood rushes from their head, their higher brain functions like morality, common sense and decency give way to unbridled lust, depravity and behaviour of the nefarious kind. Is it just something that is in our genes? This is where you chime in with, "Or is it just something that is in their jeans?"

A marriage counselor for over 20 years, rabbi and author Gary Neuman conducted a two-year study involving 200 men -- 100 who cheated and 100 who remained faithful. His findings form the basis of his 2008 book The Truth About Cheating: Why Men Stray and What You Can Do To Prevent It. What Neuman learned defies most commonly-held beliefs about why men cheat. Of the men surveyed:

* 92% say it's not just about sex
* 88% say the other woman isn't better looking or in better shape
* 55% don't tell their wives or deny cheating even when confronted with evidence
* 48% say cheating is about an emotional disconnection from their wives
* 12% would cheat no matter what

Divorce: your spouse has lost his (or her) mind
Not every person is the same. Not every couple is the same. Not every divorce is the same. Nevertheless for me there seems to a common thread to many if not all of the stories. You don't really know what's going on in the mind of your spouse. And it may very well be that he or she doesn't know either. After all, do any of us truly know what motivates us? Why does that person like chocolate ice cream but vanilla is my favourite? Although chocolate syrup can be good for a sundae and sometimes even for a Saturday. But I digress with a cheap thrill from a sexual innuendo.

In the 2010 book "This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness", author Laura Munson (my blog: Laura Munson: Save a marriage by doing nothing) recounts how her husband announced one day that he no longer loved her. Her response was that she didn't buy it. The truth seems to be that her husband was suffering a major personal life crisis brought on by a career failure, an excess of debt, and the fear of losing their farm. She gave him six months but he only took four to work things out and he came back a renewed man.

Some of the comments to a newspaper article about the book condemned Ms. Munson by saying she was a doormat and she should have booted him out from the beginning. Obviously if Ms. Munson had followed their counsel she would now be divorced and she wouldn't have a book. Nevertheless she fortunately took another approach based on a more correct assessment of the situation and her bet paid off.

The question here is whether anybody truly knows what's going on in the head of the other person. If a marriage heads south, what's the reason? The real reason?

Because he's a lying, two-faced sonofabitch. He can't keep it in his pants. He's a sex addict. He's a goddamn perverted deviant jackin' off to Internet porn. He's an ungrateful, unfaithful, untrustworthy, underhanded un-man with a tiny d**k. He's a selfish @#$%^* whore-chasing douchebag that deserves to be chemically castrated then banished to some far-flung South Sea island where he'll be forced to work on a chain gang for the rest of his rotten miserable life. (my blog: Why did that @#$%^* bastard divorce me?)

I would now refer back to Gary Neuman's 2008 book "The Truth About Cheating: Why Men Stray and What You Can Do To Prevent It" in which the author states that 92% of the men he surveyed said their cheating is not just about sex, 88% said the other woman wasn't better looking or in better shape and 48% said cheating was about an emotional disconnection from their wives. What? Just what the heck is really going on? Does anybody really know? After all, if you have no idea what the problem is how do you fix anything?

People seemingly go bats**t crazy and or become belligerent because they feel trapped. They see no way to escape. It doesn't matter whether this is true or false in your eyes, in their eyes it just feels that way. Obviously not every marriage can be saved but it's certain that if you can't identify it, you ain't gunna fix it.

my blog: Negotiating: Take what you want or get what you want
“The only people with whom you should try to get even with are those who have helped you.”
-John E. Southard


... continued in part deux


References

my blog: Is the right answer counterintuitive? (Part Deux)

Wikipedia: Blivet
A blivet, also known as a poiuyt, devil's fork or widget, is an undecipherable figure, an optical illusion and an impossible object. It appears to have three cylindrical prongs at one end which then mysteriously transform into two rectangular prongs at the other end.

2012-08-23

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