Starving children in Yemen

The likely American response:

Clean your plate, Jimmy.  There are children starving in Yemen.

Trump's base and backers willingly admit who they are

Disgusting.   I bet we can find a clip of these asswipes saying, "All lives matter!"

And...if the people of Idaho or Texas have dark skin, they're surely next.

At least they'll recognize who to blame

Unbelievable.

How soon can we look forward to seeing this type of image on billboards across the country?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The answer is obviously "no"

This is now clearly a war on all immigration, legal and otherwise. The history of this country would be immeasurably different—and immeasurably worse—if you eliminated from it all those people who came here fleeing violence and oppression. In fact, if you did that, you wouldn’t have a country here at all. Maybe we don’t any more.

  Charles P Pierce

By all means, punish the life savers

Make America Germany Again

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Grandest Potemkin Village of All

In 1977, scientists sent a record into space intended to show extraterrestrials what life is like on Earth.   They sent a player and instructions, but it was a big assumption that ETs would have the necessary physical attributes (eyes, ears, hands) to get the message.   But that's not the most troubling aspect of the exercise.  

Here are some of the pictures sent.  They're all beautiful, of course. And here is the full list:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record.

It's interesting to note that not one of the 116 photos included depicts war or anything military.  That seems to me to be an incredibly dishonest record.  Either they were in denial about human nature, or they were trying to fool extraterrestrials.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

RIP Marvin Minsky

Marvin Minsky  Turing Award winner, Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Inventor, Philosopher, Radical Thinker, Musician, Mathematician, Intellectual, Author, Theorist, Professor, Father

Staggering Indeed

The number of people who have been forced to flee their homes has reached a staggering level, with 2015 on track to break previous records, according to a United Nations report released Friday.

People who have been forcibly displaced — including those who fled domestically as well as international refugees and asylum-seekers — has likely "far surpassed 60 million" for the first time, reads the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees report. Last year, 59.5 million had been displaced.

"In a global context, that means that one person in every 122 has been forced to flee their home," the agency said in a statement.

  WaPo

Mirrors

Speaking of violent eruptions...Momotombo blew a couple of days ago for the first time in 110 years, and Mt. Etna blew yesteray.

Momotombo

Etna

Thinking about extreme weather patterns we see in recent years, coinciding with increased violence worldwide as it is, we could ask: Are humans being affected by extreme weather, or is extreme weather possibly effected by human consciousness? Or are they both manifestations of the same activity? It would be nice to think that as things continue to heat up, like sublimating matter, the earth and all her inhabitants will ascend to a new higher (sublime) level.

Okay. That's what I'm going to believe is happening.  It'll take some very rosy glasses.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/6/15:

Calbuco in Chile erupted in April 2015 after 42 years of silence.

It's Sunday

Saturday morning I heard an NPR segment with a female conductor regarding a Leonard Bernstein symphony she is now presenting. Her essay on it is at NPR here, as well as the NPR audio segment, which offers more revelation about the work.

I sometimes think there is no way in which I have not approached religion and belief in God (and found it wanting 9 times out of 10), but there was a surprise in this piece for me. And that in itself is surprising, because it is so simple (and probably most of you have already thought of it). In this work, judgment day becomes man's judgment on God, not the other way round. (For a wonderful piece treating judgment day as man's judgment on himself – individually – turn to Red Dwarf, the excellent 1980s British comedy science fiction TV series, episode: The Inquisitor.)

My immediate reaction to Bernstein's idea is that, indeed, if it turned out there truly was a God at the end of it all whom we all meet, it is he who will need to ask for my forgiveness. And then, of course, the question would be, “Can I forgive him?”

All this is a lot of psychological jumbo, but not mumbo. After all, our whole existence is really about our psychology. Everything we do is a result of our psychology. Further in the Bernstein work, God and man are interconnected so that one cannot not exist without the other, which clearly, on a psychological level, makes one a reflection of the other, and to argue which is “real” and which a “reflection” would only be splitting hairs. They're the same. And then the question becomes, “Can I forgive myself?”

This is a masterful piece of work from Bernstein, who belongs with the great writers of symphonies whose works have lasted centuries. If you're inclined to give any consideration to human psychology, peace, war, love and forgiveness, check out the NPR segment and the essay.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Inner Space