Category: Philosophy

A question was asked this morning.  “What am I reading?”  Because of my poor eyesight, the current answer is all too often, “Not much.”

But I’ve had a burr under my saddle for about 10 days and I decided to remedy that.

It all started with NLinStPaul‘s essay, Right Brain Consciousness about Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.   Well, I’m as much a brain geek as the next layperson, so I was interested.  I made the following comment last week:

What of someone who habitually combines what are traditionally thought of left-brain and right-brain activity?  And what of the place of cross-fertilization?

From wikipedia:

The corpus callosum is a structure of the mammalian brain in the longitudinal fissure that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres. It is the largest white matter structure in the brain, consisting of 200-250 million contralateral axonal projections. It is a wide, flat bundle of axons beneath the cortex. Much of the inter-hemispheric communication in the brain is conducted across the corpus callosum.

…

Of much more substantial popular impact was a 1982 Science article claiming to be the first report of a reliable sex difference in human brain morphology, and arguing for relevance to cognitive gender differences.

Oh, really?  My interest is piqued.

one thing. if you want to change, then you will.

no more “what we need to do.” i’m done with that… no more needing. no more shoulding. no more coulding. no more.

it’s this::: WE CAN. simple.

we can and we will make the world better. because we want to. because we can. because, for us, it’s what we choose.

I love campaigning. Love it. Knocking on doors, meeting strangers, … getting into political debate. I know, doesn’t sound like me, but…………………

I discovered this after finally finding a Democratic party in my township (no easy feat, I can tell you).  I was swept away, meeting people who cared about all the same issues and who put so much into making the township and, by extension, the country a better place. I became a county delegate the year that Jon Corazin and former Gov. Jim Florio were vying for a U.S. Senate seat.

Our country chair was an influential guy and A debate was arranged between Corazin and Florio staged a debate for our delegates, each wanting to win our endorsement and support.

And my passions (it was challenging both Jon Corazine and former Gov. Jim Florio somehow got me hooked into running for township committee in 1999. The one thing I didn’t quite feel comfortable with was asking for campaign donations.  

Quoting from my favorite Tarot site Aeclectic Tarot

The fool in colorful motley clothes, pack tied to a staff, a small dog, a cliff.

The Rider-Waite card.

Basic Tarot Story

With all his worldly possessions in one small pack, the Fool travels he knows not where. So filled with visions and daydreams is he, that he doesn’t see the cliff he is likely to fall over. At his heel, a small dog harries him (or tries to warn him of a possible mis-step).

Basic Tarot Meaning

At #0, the Fool is the card of infinite possibilities. The bag on the staff indicates that he has all he need to do or be anything he wants, he has only to stop and unpack. He is on his way to a brand new beginning. But the card carries a little bark of warning as well. Stop daydreaming and fantasising and watch your step, lest you fall and end up looking the fool.

I’m not in my happy place today.  At least so far.  I’m letting myself be drawn into discussions I’m better off avoiding, if only for my own sanity.  Lately I’ve been seeing signs of the same sort of thing that drove me from the other place…and I don’t see signs of anyone creating another place to escape to in the near future.

I don’t like putting up walls, really.  But when it becomes obvious that there is a central issue that I and someone else are never, ever going to agree on, I find I am much better off to not discuss anything like that issue with that person.  And sometimes it gets to the point that I am better off leaving.  I have a history of leaving, some might call it running away, just like I have a history of being told to get lost.

The former is always painful, but I have found that I can eventually get over it.  The latter is a thousand times more painful and one doesn’t get over it.  Ever.  At least this one doesn’t know how to do so.

But sometimes the former is necessary to do because one foresees the possibility of the latter.

Crossposted from The Wild Wild Left and to Station Charon and My Left Wing

You would have thought by now we may have figured out that Saturn’s strategy just might be a flawed one.

I guess it all depends on what one defines as their own.

A lifetime ago…

I had dreams from time to time about writing fiction.  If I could only capture my dreams, which I was sure were filled with interesting substance of grand consequence, I was sure there would be stories people would want to read.  As I grew older, though, the only part of the dreams I could remember was the part where my dreamself was searching for a functioning toilet…meaning it was imperative that I wake up soon.

I never mastered the fiction thing.  When I start with a premise based in untruth, even the smallest change in the Herenow, my mind tends to follow too many paths arrived at because that untruth sparked too many consequences.  So mostly I read my books and thought about how those stories would have gone if I had been the author…a state which was surely never going to exist.

When I did start writing something besides mathematics, I stuck with my experiences, thoughts and feelings.  The only things approaching fiction were descriptions of the way I thought events should have…or could have…transpired.

Here in the Boston area it’s a legal holiday. It’s also a holiday in Cambridge and Somerville. Evacuation Day is one of only two celebrated in the U.S. The other is in New York.

On March 17, 1776 the 11-month siege of Boston ended when the Continental Army, under Washington, fortified Dorchester Heights with cannons captured at Ticonderoga, forcing General Howe’s garrison to attack or flee. To prevent what could have been a slaughter of his troops, Howe agreed to retreat to Nova Scotia via his ships without setting the city on fire as he left.

Both celebrate the departure of the forces of darkness of the time. The forces who sought to deprive the people of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

March 17th is also, and very obviously, a celebration of the Irish in America. I’m a full-blooded member of the Celtic tribe (pronounced keltik, from Greek (Keltoi)) and Boston born so it’s a double celebration day here. It is for a lot of Irish-Americans and has been since the original Evacuation Day.

Many of the soldiers who volunteered to serve under General George Washington to break the yoke of British colonialism were Irish Catholic. These soldiers and their families experienced first hand British occupation and suppression. Many of their sacrifices during the War of Independence were critical in bringing about the establishment of the United States of America. After a failed movement in 1876, the holiday was finally proclaimed on the 125th anniversary in 1901.

So a Happy March 17th to all of you and there’s more…

Note: Originally posted at DailyKos.

I’m not sure when I became aware of the idea.  It’s certainly not original.  And it is so simple.

Life is not about becoming what one is destined to be.  It’s not even really about becoming who one is destined to be.  It’s about becoming who one wishes to be.

Or rather about becoming who one wishes to be while one is becoming someone even better, because there is surely never going to be a time when one reaches attains this particular vision.  At least I can’t see how that could ever be the case.

I remember growing up and being asked or (more probably) encouraged to be something.  Be an athlete.  Be a scientist.  Be a good boy.  Be a man.

It troubled me that so often I didn’t know how to do those things…and wasn’t really interested in learning how to be any of those.

^{I am busy finalizing things for my move tomorrow. So I thought 73rd might get a kick out of the essay I wrote at dKos last April…}

The nephews are both on little league teams and their seasons opened today. This is the second time I’ve done the little league thing: about 15 years ago with stepchildren and now with my sister’s kids. and i swear to god, it was like I had stepped into a time warp, like I had left everything the way it was all those years ago.

This Spring Break has pretty much sucked.  My car bit the big one and we are donating it to get rid of it because it’s not worth putting any more money in it.  The insurance runs out this month, so it only made sense.

But getting in and out of Debbie’s Saturn and trying to drive it has done a number on my back.  There are more times than you might imagine when being tall sucks.  Over the course of a lifetime, one is asked numerous times to invoke one’s tallness to grasp something stored up high…something that should not be lifted in that body conformation.  Damage results…mostly minute.  But they accumulate over the years.

Playing sports didn’t help. I’m sure.  Back in the days before we had “sports medicine.”  Back in the days when treatment included the words, “suck it up.”

Neither did breaking my heel in basic training…and my leg in Tulsa at Christmas in 1995.  And the doctors I’ve seen don’t know why I have an unnaturally large gap in my spine.  Treatment was supposed to be to strengthen muscles that have never been strong in my existence, including some that were rearranged during my surgery.  Nor do they know why one of my hip ligaments is unnaturally short and tends to slide off where it is supposed to be.  Treatment for that is painfully trying to stretch the ligament.  I’m not fond of pain.  Sucks to be me, sometimes.

So sometimes my hips don’t feel like supporting my upper body and the best thing I can do for it is rest.  Sometimes it helps.  Being a teacher, often resting is not an option.  That causes more damage…and we have your classic Vicious Circle™.