Apparently students are now being suspended and experiencing harsher punishments for improper paper-writing content, which is, of course, the classic American, idiotic attempt toward reform. This is what American’s do. They recognize a serious problem (like school shootings) and then, instead of observing, tapping into intention, listening into the feelings -- the essence of the problem, the ailment that needs to be nurtured -- they start punishing and prohibiting. Punishments and prohibitions dangerously glaze over a problem like school shootings, temporarily embalming it, only to have it resurrect itself with an even more uncontrollable ferocity. Are the people on school boards really this ignorant, naïve, and bloody stupid?! Do they really think that prohibiting a certain type of paper writing is an attempt towards a solution? This is a “sham resolution” – an attempt to remedy that APPEARS like a lot of action, but is actually all show. It’s useless, and it’s beyond infuriating and downright funny that they actually think they’re alleviating it.
If you read THIS, you’ll get some great insight into the origins of violence, and THIS paper offers another great insight.
After you read those quality pieces, you’ll quickly be able to assess that violence is schools is caused by improper upbringing, violence in the media and video games, and peer pressure for a reputation. Conclusively, the last thing you do is start scolding and slapping wrists (which is the first thing that American bureaucracy began doing) and you commence healing the home front, ensure family’s don’t infuse violence, change the exposure to violence in the media, and address social image concerns. ACTING like they have a solution, and knowing they really don’t is one thing, but the fact that bureaucracies may actually think that they’re solving a problem by actually altering paper writing topic structure is actually an asinine procedure quite typical of most bureaucracies.
Choosing to scold, “crack down”, and reprimand never solves anything. The solution is to nurture, cure, and empathically listen.
4.22.2007
Validating Earth Science
I've come to realize how truly insignificant -- because of their instability, tendency to produce conflict, and mercurial nature -- most of the religious, political, and social ballyhoo is, compared to the science of our planet, solar system, and galaxy. Squabbling over borders and domains truly is rubbish, when we glance at our global "home". And considering what "Wired" concluded, only about 24 humans have actually seen the entire earth from space with their own eyes, we could grow a lot by attuning ourselves to our spatial placement.
It's especially easy to be keen on global awareness on "earth day", but we should develop not just a year-long reverence for our planet, but a perpetual fascination with our entire placement in galactic space.
Expanding our conscious scope to understanding spiral galaxies, Alpha Centari, dark matter, and neutron stars is just so much more meaningful and enduring. That said, let's delve into a quick synopsis of our closest star cluster.
Although triple-star system Alpha Centari, aka Rigel (1) , at 4.4 light-years, is the closest star system (smaller than a star cluster galaxy, but still a fairly decent sized arrangement of stars) to our own solar system, it is actually bigger and brighter than our own sun. To get technical, only Alpha Centari A, the largest star of the triple-star Alpha Centari system, is brighter than our sun. Actually, to get hyper-technical at 4.2 light years away, Proxima Centari, the mini red dwarf (2) star of Alpha Centari is the closest star (3) (other than our sun) to earth. However, because of its proximity, almost all interstellar science fiction mentions the Centari star system as a travel waypoint of sorts. Furthermore, in actual space travel, the first inter-galactic checkpoint for robotic probes will most likely be Alpha Centari. Although this is just a single minute, iota of spatial knowledge, learning about Centari is most certaintly a vital point to validating the significance of our planet.
1. Breaking down the etymology, Alpha, in Alpha Centari is simply indicating it as the brightest star system in the southern-located Centarus constellation, while Rigel Kentarus, in Arabic refers to "foot of the centaur"
2. Regarding Proxima Centari's red dwarf size, a red dwarf fuses hydrogen to helium at a very slow rate, emitting very little light (about 1 ten thousandth of the sun). Being fully connective, red dwarfs make up for their size with longevity, and can burn trillions of years if their mass is small. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram classifies stars based on luminosity, color, and temperature. At the top of the charts are Supergiants, followed by Bright Giants, Giants, Main Sequenc (in which our sun is classified), White Dwarfs, and then red dwarfs.
3. In regards to proximity to earth, after the three Alpha Centari star, there is Barnard's Star, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, and then the A and B stars from the Sirius cluster.
It's especially easy to be keen on global awareness on "earth day", but we should develop not just a year-long reverence for our planet, but a perpetual fascination with our entire placement in galactic space.
Expanding our conscious scope to understanding spiral galaxies, Alpha Centari, dark matter, and neutron stars is just so much more meaningful and enduring. That said, let's delve into a quick synopsis of our closest star cluster.
Although triple-star system Alpha Centari, aka Rigel (1) , at 4.4 light-years, is the closest star system (smaller than a star cluster galaxy, but still a fairly decent sized arrangement of stars) to our own solar system, it is actually bigger and brighter than our own sun. To get technical, only Alpha Centari A, the largest star of the triple-star Alpha Centari system, is brighter than our sun. Actually, to get hyper-technical at 4.2 light years away, Proxima Centari, the mini red dwarf (2) star of Alpha Centari is the closest star (3) (other than our sun) to earth. However, because of its proximity, almost all interstellar science fiction mentions the Centari star system as a travel waypoint of sorts. Furthermore, in actual space travel, the first inter-galactic checkpoint for robotic probes will most likely be Alpha Centari. Although this is just a single minute, iota of spatial knowledge, learning about Centari is most certaintly a vital point to validating the significance of our planet.
1. Breaking down the etymology, Alpha, in Alpha Centari is simply indicating it as the brightest star system in the southern-located Centarus constellation, while Rigel Kentarus, in Arabic refers to "foot of the centaur"
2. Regarding Proxima Centari's red dwarf size, a red dwarf fuses hydrogen to helium at a very slow rate, emitting very little light (about 1 ten thousandth of the sun). Being fully connective, red dwarfs make up for their size with longevity, and can burn trillions of years if their mass is small. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram classifies stars based on luminosity, color, and temperature. At the top of the charts are Supergiants, followed by Bright Giants, Giants, Main Sequenc (in which our sun is classified), White Dwarfs, and then red dwarfs.
3. In regards to proximity to earth, after the three Alpha Centari star, there is Barnard's Star, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, and then the A and B stars from the Sirius cluster.
4.17.2007
Selective Sayings on Virgina Tech
What to say? What not to say? How can you address the three elements of grieving in regards to the Virgia Tech Shootings:
- Past -- Why did it happen? Why did Virigina Tech wait 2 hours before sending out an all-school email alert, and three hours before cancelling classes and taking drastic alert meaures? What compelled the shooter to act? Is it SES differences? Is it balancing out the academcic social scene or nurturing the emotional construct?
- Present -- What stage of grief is everyone at? How can we most effectively be not owned by, but manage our emotions effectively. Do we talk about suffering or perseverence and learning? How can we not talk about vengeane and talk about healing? Do we draw our attention elsewhere? How can we reach out to friends, family, those closer to the calamity?
- Future -- How can we What can we change to prevent this? How can we present non-violent forms of communication in additon to (of course) than reading my book, "Our Compassionate Reservoirs"? How can we focus not on what we want to expel, but what we want to include?
A Manual for Fortune-Telling
What follows are key essential pointers for integrating with future horizons. They are:
- Fortune-telling isn’t chance; to really predict the future you have to understand the interweaving nature of the past, present, and future.
- You predict the future by utilizing the fusion of imagination, logic, and induction.
- If you want to predict the future, study the past.
- Study all angles.
- Personal knowledge of history and future predictions of events are symmetrical.
- Your scope of the future is only as in-depth as your comprehension of the past.
- There is always this timely equilibrium between past and future.
- The man that constantly looks forward to the future is blind.
- You can’t predict the future of a dream, only of reality.
Again, you'll notice there are not the conventional 10, but 9 key pointers. After all, a list of 10 would be all too predictable, right!:)
Fortune-telling isn’t chance; to really predict the future you have to understand the interweaving nature of the past, present, and future. A friend of mine proposed that we learn what technologies the future will hold and then “invest in that”. This is a great plan, but to answer that question you should answer another question, first. Why wasn’t Nostradamus a great world leader? He, after all, could predict future wars, catastrophes and calamities and with that foreknowledge could prevent serious calamity. He almost suffered from the Cassandra Complex, and at the very least, couldn’t implement his knowledge.
You predict the future by utilizing the fusion of imagination, logic, and induction. First, imagination creates the capacity of visualization. You can know where we’re headed and what technologies will be present in the future from logic and induction, but imagination paints that picture. The second tool for predicting future events is logic. You can do all the imagination-visualization but without logic and the predictable calculations from events in the past, the future imagination will never hold water. Logic creates the reliability of the imagination painting of the future. Finally, there’s induction. Induction opens the door of all types of possibilities of inference by expanding the association between cause and effect, action and reaction, event and consequence. Know this simple truism: all future events sequentially follow the events from the past and the immediate present.
If you want to predict the future, study the past. In the 1950s, large (500+ employees) corporate companies housed over 38% of the work force. This led to the decrease in individuality and the increase of conformity, resulting in the loss of identity. One’s loss of identity consequently produced increased dosages of TV and book reading self-medication. A surge in religious faith – 15% increase from less than half to 65% church membership – indicates the presence of soul-searching for the lost identity created by the corporate, mass-produced societies.
Look at the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928. Couldn’t the historian who saw Germany’s economy plummet into inflammation; the French, British, and American war economies get dumped on a well as a result of World War 1 logically infer that war was globally undesirable. Through the inductive analysis of the past disdain for the economically, militaristically, and societally destructive nature of war, the consequence would be some kind of anti-war treaty.
Study all angles. Who knew that World War 2 would challenge the nature of sanity and insanity, individual versus society, and the role of rules, specifically how externally-created rules – rules created by bureaucracy, friends families, governments – form an absurd life of their own, trivializing important things like life and death, while emphasizing clerical, unimportant things. Surviving this insane system, according to Heller, is about being insane. This type of writing could be predicted with historical study of the deranged and twisted events of World War 2; it was the only natural consequence.
In the early 1900s, American society experienced a huge surge in the purchasing of so-called “big ticket” items, such as cars, refrigerators, homes, electronics, with emergence of widespread consumer credit. Let’s apply all three ingredients of fortune-telling. With induction the drastic consequence of an increase in spending would lead to a distraught, possibly strained economy. Logically, fluctuations in consumer spending result in the presence of new types of merchandise. Where is this input coming from? Well, in the past it had been purely domestic, so logically, this could create an out-of-balance, overly domesticated economy with not enough imports. Now, just throw in the side tidbit that a lot of stock market investors had been excessively relying on margin trading. Utilize imagination to visualize this 1920s landscape:
Excessive reliance on American products, not enough imports
Excessive – almost 90% -- of trades bought on margin
Recently fluctuated economy with consumer credit
The only thing you need here is a match – the 1929 Stock Market Crash, and you’ve got depression. It’s important to note that there was a 2nd major crash, a 1929 version 2.0, if you will, that occurred in 1987 – almost identical to the 1929 crash, but it was those major precedents in the 1920s that resulted in the subsequent economic depression.
Personal knowledge of history and future predictions of events are symmetrical. William Levitt started housing projects that led to mass-produced communities of suburbia. The conformity led to loneliness with company – an anomie – depicted by The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman, The Organization Man, William Whyte, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Sloan Wilson. The content of those authors could easily have been induced by studying the increase in corporate involvement, causing the consequence of decrease in identity, causing the consequence of increase in literature about identity. Ask yourself, what are we experiencing today, that will depict the literature of tomorrow.
Apply this utilization of symmetrical past-future events with the anti-segregation laws emerging in the mid 1950s in a little town of Arkansas, where Little Rock got a little rocky. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, challenged the Plessey v. Ferguson, 1896 trial, claiming that separate schools does not equal “separate but equal” racial interaction. Bring in the old friends of induction and logic and you can infer, after lynchings, hundreds of years of slavery, and an entire civil war fought over the rights of African Americans that there was going to be some tension when 9 black students began to “legally” attend an all-white school in Arkansas. Eisenhower foresaw this and pos a squadron of 10,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 paratroopers to protect the students. The future tension was predicted by the past so the correct actions could be taken to pave a secure integration.
Your scope of the future is only as in-depth as your comprehension of the past. The Beats were the poets who basically felt, lived, and wrote about the brunt this alienation, identityless, conformity of the late post-war era 1950s. They were vagabond poets lived a life full of jazz, drinking, Buddhism and wrote about their feelings. Most notable beats were On the Road, Kerouac and Howl, Ginsberg. Looking at the 68% rise in church-goers and the self-medication from an increase books and TV, this identityless genre can be logical inferred and imagined. Ask yourself what qualities of life have dramatically increased or decreased; those are the real shapeshifters of the future landscape.
There is always this timely equilibrium between past and future. This is what induction is all about. Take the 1950s ante-bellum (post world war 2) era. With all the model T fords, flappers, and the decade of the glorious, no one would expect that a mere 30 years later there would be an entire literary genre devoted to rebelling against the alienation produced by mass society. Before the 1950s hit, no one could predict an author like Salinger, who wrote with a stream of consciousness style, heeding the loss of innocence would become an important piece of literature reflecting that time period.
The man that constantly looks forward to the future is blind. He is facing a hurricane and will be blinded by the unfolding events. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike was a response to “On the Road” showing that families go through turmoil when a man goes on the road (Rabbit, the basketball player, in this case). Could this response to Kerouac’s works be expected to the predictor who only looks forward, who only faces the wind? No, the seasoned fortuneteller would look back and see an entire genre of anti-conformity writing had emerged from the murky depths of the anti-bellum era, whereas the person who only looked forward would only see one or two authors with this pattern and not an entire genre. The comprehensive predictor induces from a full-scale analysis of the past and consequently infers a full-scale imaginative visualization of the future.
You never want to have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. Such a Hobson’s choice arises by not examining the past patterns to prevent future Morton’s Forks.
You can’t predict the future of a dream, only of reality. Remember, reality implies the consequences of actions. In a dream, you can never predict the future because consequences have no bearing. With dreams, the action is severed from the reaction and the cause-and-effect sequence has no contingency. But with reality, action is tethered to consequence, creating a logical milieu, enabling the utilization of induction. In reality, induction and logic, along with imagination all have their say and all can be used to predict the future landscape.
So let's sum up this list of essential pointers for connecting with the future:
- Fortune-telling isn’t chance; to really predict the future you have to understand the interweaving nature of the past, present, and future.
- You predict the future by utilizing the fusion of imagination, logic, and induction.
- If you want to predict the future, study the past.
- Study all angles.
- Personal knowledge of history and future predictions of events are symmetrical.
- Your scope of the future is only as in-depth as your comprehension of the past.
- There is always this timely equilibrium between past and future.
- The man that constantly looks forward to the future is blind.
- You can’t predict the future of a dream, only of reality.
Again, you'll notice there are not the conventional 10, but 9, key pointers. After all, a list of 10 would be all too predictable, right!:)
About Changing Other People
I want to help other people -- -if they’re behind in IT, I want to give them a boost to becoming more internet savvy. If they want social, interpersonal change I provide the opportunity to flush out doubts and insecurities and heal old wounds. If they want motivation, I have got thousands of quotes and inspirational speeches and blurbs. However, I was trying to do ALL of that – techie savvyness, interpersonal change, and motivation to people who didn’t want that. For example, I believe psychological diagnoses are incriminating. If you watch Patch Addams, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and even Requiem for a Dream you can quickly see the powerfully destructive effects of medicinal and psychological intervention to a person’s growth. Now, I put a lot of time into trying to convince an actual psychologist of that. Like talking to a brick wall. “People always fear change,” says Bill Gates. He points out they feared electricity, coal, and gas-powered engines because those technologies meant change. Well, the emergence of a neglected inner vitality causes a lot of change, and like new technology, people are resistant and fear that as well.
Don’t put your energy into something without a welcoming, otherwise your efforts are not heard. As a result, I’m realizing 2 things 1) Don’t waste your time trying to upgrade, heal, or inspire when people don’t welcome it (and don’t feel guilty about not doing that; trying to do so is just banging your head against the wall) 2) Never judge the efficacy of your work from an interaction with a person who isn’t interested in that change; you’ll always paint a bad picture for yourself. Judge the efficacy of your work with people whom welcome your process and teaching. Then you’ll shine.
Don’t put your energy into something without a welcoming, otherwise your efforts are not heard. As a result, I’m realizing 2 things 1) Don’t waste your time trying to upgrade, heal, or inspire when people don’t welcome it (and don’t feel guilty about not doing that; trying to do so is just banging your head against the wall) 2) Never judge the efficacy of your work from an interaction with a person who isn’t interested in that change; you’ll always paint a bad picture for yourself. Judge the efficacy of your work with people whom welcome your process and teaching. Then you’ll shine.
Commencing Peace & Smiling More
The profoundly personally uplifting and extra-personally revitalizing effects of smiling are clear. We should be interested in authentically smiling more. It makes others feel happy, but essence of a good smiling exchange lies in the motive. The intention can’t be to smile for the other person because then you’re going to want to elicit a certain reaction and set yourself up for failure. When you demand a reaction from another person (ideally a positive one) your mood automatically gets transferred to the other party. If you smile for the other person and they frown or don’t smile back, or do something undesirable, it could cripple your mood. I am reluctant to smile for fear of that “encroaching smile” where someone is pushing all this energy on you and you feel obligated to reciprocate the smile. The encroaching smile is usually superficial. As Alfred Lord Tennyson put it: ”A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.” Such disingenuous smiles are precisely what we should fear and never engage, because to appear outwardly falsely benign, while being critical and loathing internally, really just tarnishes the unlimited uplifting possibility of a smile as a gift.
Unlike the Tennyson encroaching smile, a genuine truthful smile is a gift.
So smiling from within is actually rare because it’s almost “indifferent”. Smiling from within is when you’re smiling and just happen to be looking in someone’s direction, but it’s the best kind of smile because in addition to being genuine, it’s impenetrably strong, unwavering, and it’s very secure. It actually boils down to a fairly complicated process when you think about it. Mother Teresa writes:
“Peace begins with a smile. Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, beautiful thing.”
A smile means a lot. If you don’t do the encroaching smile, it sounds a little over-hyped, but if you’ve received an authentic beaming facial gesture, you can recollect its potency. Mother Teresa says the opposite of war -- peace – commences instantly with the presence of a smile. An authentic genuine smile means all that – peace, beauty, a gift – and more, but it’s difficult to create those sincere, authentic smiles. So there's the encroaching "Tennyson" smile and the truthful genuine smile; we want the latter. But with practice you can learn that impenetrably unwavering smile and it is fun to utilize and share because you aren’t trying to create a reaction, but you almost usually do.
Unlike the Tennyson encroaching smile, a genuine truthful smile is a gift.
So smiling from within is actually rare because it’s almost “indifferent”. Smiling from within is when you’re smiling and just happen to be looking in someone’s direction, but it’s the best kind of smile because in addition to being genuine, it’s impenetrably strong, unwavering, and it’s very secure. It actually boils down to a fairly complicated process when you think about it. Mother Teresa writes:
“Peace begins with a smile. Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, beautiful thing.”
A smile means a lot. If you don’t do the encroaching smile, it sounds a little over-hyped, but if you’ve received an authentic beaming facial gesture, you can recollect its potency. Mother Teresa says the opposite of war -- peace – commences instantly with the presence of a smile. An authentic genuine smile means all that – peace, beauty, a gift – and more, but it’s difficult to create those sincere, authentic smiles. So there's the encroaching "Tennyson" smile and the truthful genuine smile; we want the latter. But with practice you can learn that impenetrably unwavering smile and it is fun to utilize and share because you aren’t trying to create a reaction, but you almost usually do.
Seeing the Whole Pond
Everything is always, simultaneously a grand conclusion and beautiful beginning, if it is done properly – with tact, fullness, certainty, authentic conviction, and comprehensive personal integrity. Eric Eriksson talks about the stages of identity development which fall into four categories:
• Diffusion
• Foreclosure
• Moratorium
• Achievement
For a long time I felt like I’ve been in the moratorium phase of identity formation, where you are kind of wandering, fully committed to investigating your authentic interests and whatnot, but without finding closure. However, while stretching after a run, I overlooked and saw the lagoon pond near my house for the first time today in its entirety. Before I had seen it basically in bits and chunks and pieces or the same hackneyed spots I had always visited with parents and family, but I saw the whole pond just like some other pond that I would visit, implying that it’s something that I’m emerging out of and can fully see in its full scope and entity for the first time. This means 1) that I am creating some closure and simultaneously a new beginning, the best type of conclusion coda possible. IT also means that
• my eyes are opening up
• awareness is increasing
• doubts are fading
• happiness is emerging!
This type of full-circle realization occurs within all of us all the time. I’m mentioning this personal realization as an example of the full-circle completeness of growth that occurs within all of us. We need to take the time to truly experience them, cherish them, and even appreciate them because they allow us to fully recognize our personal evolution. Our experience in life is about zooming in and panning out and from that scope and, as T.S. Elliot wrote in Little Gidding:
Thus is the mantra of the true life explorer, and such an intrepid adventurer is what we should aspire to be.
• Diffusion
• Foreclosure
• Moratorium
• Achievement
For a long time I felt like I’ve been in the moratorium phase of identity formation, where you are kind of wandering, fully committed to investigating your authentic interests and whatnot, but without finding closure. However, while stretching after a run, I overlooked and saw the lagoon pond near my house for the first time today in its entirety. Before I had seen it basically in bits and chunks and pieces or the same hackneyed spots I had always visited with parents and family, but I saw the whole pond just like some other pond that I would visit, implying that it’s something that I’m emerging out of and can fully see in its full scope and entity for the first time. This means 1) that I am creating some closure and simultaneously a new beginning, the best type of conclusion coda possible. IT also means that
• my eyes are opening up
• awareness is increasing
• doubts are fading
• happiness is emerging!
This type of full-circle realization occurs within all of us all the time. I’m mentioning this personal realization as an example of the full-circle completeness of growth that occurs within all of us. We need to take the time to truly experience them, cherish them, and even appreciate them because they allow us to fully recognize our personal evolution. Our experience in life is about zooming in and panning out and from that scope and, as T.S. Elliot wrote in Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
Thus is the mantra of the true life explorer, and such an intrepid adventurer is what we should aspire to be.
4.15.2007
Tribute to Vonnegut
Immortal friends Vonnegut and Heller are no doubt enjoying the good life over a celestial pint, relishing each other’s rich company while examining the purview of the 20th century, absurdity and all. But I’m sure each of them gave more than a chuckle with the irony of opposition to “uncontrolled violence” on the battlefield, because so much of war is so organized in the first place!
That aside, it’s important to point out a number of heroes of war – namely women. In World War 2 a sick soviet sniper woman, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, took out 309 Germans. She then went on a 1942 publicity tour. Her “campaign slogan”? “Dead Germans are harmless”. How brutal is that? On the intolerably vile topic of fighting in war, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman wrote that a major problem with women on the battle scene is “the sight of a female soldier being killed or wounded seemed to trigger ‘uncontrolled violence’ among her male comrades” (Tribune Perspective 1). “Uncontrolled Violence”. Imagine violence, but violence that is not in the normal realm of “control” on the battle scene. Even more grotesque is there have not only been accounts of pregnant women fighting in battle, but data of military actually having maternity uniforms. What would you call that? A militaristically inclined abortion jump-suit? But enough on war, because too much disdain for any topic manufactures of a milieu of disdain, which is, ultimately undesirable and disruptive.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote about Slaughterhouse-Five, a satire of a single absurd war, had no idea that his work would be cross-referenced as commentary for another war. Herein lies the problem about focusing attention – any type of attention – towards undesirably topics – the law of attraction plays its part. Was Vonnegut criticizing, humiliating, and illuminating the absurdity in deplorable conditions and ramifications of war? Most definitely. But did his emphasis of war lead to further introspection of belligerent battles? In a way, yes. “You write about one hell, you’re automatically connected to a fresher one” (Keller, Tribune 1). It’s great to point out the horrors of war, but better solution is to point out the joys of peace. Because then you gravitate towards the eras of joy and are “automatically connected to a fresher” and more sincere bliss. Just goes to show, regardless of your eloquence, superb literary command, and remarkably clever voice, be careful of what you write about, and play it safe by always making sure cons of war are always being, at the least, one-upped by the joys of peace. This way your dialogue and thought collective embodies appreciation of harmony and will resonate with concordance.
That aside, it’s important to point out a number of heroes of war – namely women. In World War 2 a sick soviet sniper woman, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, took out 309 Germans. She then went on a 1942 publicity tour. Her “campaign slogan”? “Dead Germans are harmless”. How brutal is that? On the intolerably vile topic of fighting in war, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman wrote that a major problem with women on the battle scene is “the sight of a female soldier being killed or wounded seemed to trigger ‘uncontrolled violence’ among her male comrades” (Tribune Perspective 1). “Uncontrolled Violence”. Imagine violence, but violence that is not in the normal realm of “control” on the battle scene. Even more grotesque is there have not only been accounts of pregnant women fighting in battle, but data of military actually having maternity uniforms. What would you call that? A militaristically inclined abortion jump-suit? But enough on war, because too much disdain for any topic manufactures of a milieu of disdain, which is, ultimately undesirable and disruptive.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote about Slaughterhouse-Five, a satire of a single absurd war, had no idea that his work would be cross-referenced as commentary for another war. Herein lies the problem about focusing attention – any type of attention – towards undesirably topics – the law of attraction plays its part. Was Vonnegut criticizing, humiliating, and illuminating the absurdity in deplorable conditions and ramifications of war? Most definitely. But did his emphasis of war lead to further introspection of belligerent battles? In a way, yes. “You write about one hell, you’re automatically connected to a fresher one” (Keller, Tribune 1). It’s great to point out the horrors of war, but better solution is to point out the joys of peace. Because then you gravitate towards the eras of joy and are “automatically connected to a fresher” and more sincere bliss. Just goes to show, regardless of your eloquence, superb literary command, and remarkably clever voice, be careful of what you write about, and play it safe by always making sure cons of war are always being, at the least, one-upped by the joys of peace. This way your dialogue and thought collective embodies appreciation of harmony and will resonate with concordance.
4.11.2007
Bullard on Leadership
The president of the Sea Education Association and former Mayor of New Bedford was a great guide and teacher when I was studying oceanography, maritime studies, and nautical science in the class of 191 on the Sea Education Association. He has some wise words on global leadership today.
The best leaders distinguish between what is “urgent…and what is important”. He says global warming is the urgent thing and I agree. “Right now, human beings may be the only species whose elimination would benefit all other species” (SEA 9). This is frighteningly true. It is, as Bullard puts it, because of our “Hubris….arrogance, ignorance, and denial – a fatal combination” (SEA 9). The best leaders can “gauge the magnitude” between the urgency and importance of issues and act tactfully as a result. We really need to all start acting as leaders with these concepts of leadership in mind.
-- Following SEA; Winter/Spring 2007
The best leaders distinguish between what is “urgent…and what is important”. He says global warming is the urgent thing and I agree. “Right now, human beings may be the only species whose elimination would benefit all other species” (SEA 9). This is frighteningly true. It is, as Bullard puts it, because of our “Hubris….arrogance, ignorance, and denial – a fatal combination” (SEA 9). The best leaders can “gauge the magnitude” between the urgency and importance of issues and act tactfully as a result. We really need to all start acting as leaders with these concepts of leadership in mind.
-- Following SEA; Winter/Spring 2007
Worst Running Weather in the History of the World
Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but it was pretty insane.
First, all three types of precipitation – rain, hail, and snow. The only thing missing was cats and dogs.
Secondly, all of that lovely precipitation was blowing nearly completely horizontal with high wind gusts.
Thirdly, it was freezing, 5:30am, and the Lakefront was exploding up on shore a good 20 to 30 splash zones.
Finally, the range of sight in weather like this is already pretty obfuscated, but I ran with my specs on, so my glasses were fogged for almost the entire run making visibility almost 0%.
It was the craziest amounts of precipitation, the worst wind conditions, and the most horrendous horizontal blizzard situation I’ve ever encountered. Ah, you gotta love it though. I remember at Colorado College, some runners preferred the colder, icier weather because they didn’t over heat, so to most of the population this is atrocious, but the sparse few, it could be the best running weather.
First, all three types of precipitation – rain, hail, and snow. The only thing missing was cats and dogs.
Secondly, all of that lovely precipitation was blowing nearly completely horizontal with high wind gusts.
Thirdly, it was freezing, 5:30am, and the Lakefront was exploding up on shore a good 20 to 30 splash zones.
Finally, the range of sight in weather like this is already pretty obfuscated, but I ran with my specs on, so my glasses were fogged for almost the entire run making visibility almost 0%.
It was the craziest amounts of precipitation, the worst wind conditions, and the most horrendous horizontal blizzard situation I’ve ever encountered. Ah, you gotta love it though. I remember at Colorado College, some runners preferred the colder, icier weather because they didn’t over heat, so to most of the population this is atrocious, but the sparse few, it could be the best running weather.
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