Competition within a couple’s decision making generates incompatibile emotions. It worsens like an untreated infection and stirs his dominant nature. Competition stimulates thoughts about her as dispensable.

Cooperation breeds compatibility and demonstrates to him that he’s indispensable. As men become more indispensable, they grow in steadfastness and devotion to whatever they are doing. Cooperation works more like exercise than apathy.

She determines whether competition or cooperation prevails in their home. By competing less and cooperating more, she capitalizes on their opposing natures.  This improves her chances of moving him toward indispensability and keeperhood.

It sounds lop-sided. One option works against her. The other favors him. It may be why God designed her and Nature endowed her with so much expertise for managing her relationships.

Here are 5 almost spoiler free reasons why you should watch it.

1. As much as it has been over publicised, and as much as people are saying it's 'Oscar Winning' - Heath Ledger as The Joker is brilliant. He has this deranged manic zest; and every moment he's on screen, it's impossible to take your eyes off his panda-eyed anarchically fueled sadistic spirit. He scares you, but you don't want him to leave.
2. The violence in the film is not hyper-stylized or reliant on wires and it's more or less CGI free (my pet hate) – instead it's crunchingly naturalistic. The violence matches the film's entirely 'dark' aura.
3. The performances in the film are fantastic all around. Christian Bale has matured this time around as Batman, and his Batman is very much a mortal, with real feelings and reactions we might not be used to seeing from some of our squeaky clean 'superheroes'. Oh and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes is a vast improvement from unsatisfactory 'Batman Begins' star, Katie Holmes. Now on to the interesting stuff...
4. The film sheds some light on the logic of our human nature. We are able to shed some light and ask questions like, what do people do when they are put in the worst of situations? What would you do if you were given the ultimate power over someone else? I think the film is seeking to say that humans can’t handle power responsibly - agreed. But it goes on to say that maybe, in our shared humanity, there is still hope for compassion - to an extent I think this can be true, yet ultimately are only hope of any compassion comes from God.
5. I think I found a picture of Redemption lying beneath it all, if you look hard enough, it can be found. *SPOILER WARNING* By the end of the film, Batman is hated, considered a murderer and a criminal himself, Jesus is not too far away from this as a metaphor. Jesus was rejected by the ones he had created and the ones he came to redeem. Jesus' arms are open, yet we all (by nature) reject him. Batman does not cease to do what he needs to do, in order to help the people of Gotham, even though they all want to kill him.

I know that last point was quite a long shot, but I think it was a fair one.

Since I may not have time to get to a properly written post today, I am resurrecting it as a "Greatest Hits" sort of entry. 

It happened. I cannot believe that it happened but it did. No sooner had I vented regarding super-delicious Irish Red's metro entry than it happened.

I was in a public men's room with a row of urinals. It was empty and some sad sack pervert came and used the urinal next to me. Not only did he have bad hygiene but he broke the cardinal rule of the can (see below).

Now, first and foremost I am a bit obsessive when it comes to the use of public restrooms. I don't know if it is the OCD I inherited from my mother who would handle us wearing a hazmat suit until we passed through the sequential airlocks and sterilizers or the fact that the boys' restroom in elementary school is the seventh plane of hell when you are anyone except the bully. Truth be told, in my mind, I have the facilities ranked in my head in my workplace. I know the locations of the "safe" restrooms. These typically tend to be off the beaten path, hence, their relative privacy and cleanliness. Ladies, I can't speak to what goes on in your restrooms but men's rooms are an adventure...especially when my son's bladder has introduced me to every public restroom along every major travel corridor and in every major sporting arena (ugh) that we've ever attended. When you open the door to a stall, any semblance of abomination may await you as some inconsiderate bastard may have detonated his colon into, on and/or around the toilet. (Good luck)

You heard it here gentlemen. Here are the rules:

• When walking into a men's room and the row of urinals is completely vacant, you are to proceed to the farthest urinal from the door. Do not use the one that is low set (leave this one for little boys) unless God has been as good to you as he has been to me and you need the extra clearance
• When a row of urinals is occupied by one person...do not...I repeat do NOT take a urinal to either side of that individual when it is physically possible to take a different one
• When multiple men are at urinals you should split the difference taking one in the middle being equidistant from those immediately adjacent to you
• Do not take a standup piss using a toilet in a stall if urinals are available. If you're enough of a girl to need a whole toilet in a public restroom then by all means, sit the hell down and close the door.
• If you're in the toilet stall and you're giving rise to a whole new master race...by all means...a "mercy flush" is in order to protect the rest of us. Do us the favor.
• If you've incapacitated the toilet and done cosmetic damage...cleaning it is up to you, asshole. Use the whole roll of TP, I don't care but clean it up taking care NOT to clog up the toilet (It's called sequential flushing. Industrial toilets such as those found in public restrooms can handle multiple flushes much better than a plug of TP).
• Hand-washing.....remember that?
• You are free to continue conversations in the men's room that began outside of the men's room, however, no new conversations are to be struck within the men's room especially with anyone that you don't already know.
• Absolutely no eye-contact, ever.

The Cardinal Rule of The Men's Room: Under absolutely NO circumstance should your gaze break the "American Standard" line. This imaginary line is at the level of the top of the urinal. The gaze should not angle down below this nor should it deviate more than fifteen degrees off the vertical to either side. If you drop your keys you are to immediately take one step back, look at the ceiling, squat down and feel for them like a blind man unless you can look directly down without any deviation to either side to locate and retrieve them in less than one second. Under NO circumstance are you to ask the guy next to you for help.

Just started reading 'The Book of Lost Things' by Joseph Connelly. I love his style of writing so far...it should be a good one.

Other random notes; I'm off to see 'The Dark Knight' tomorrow though with a twinge of sadness in my heart. 

Oh yes, officially I have begun the frenzy of pre-production for my next short, 'Summer In The Shade' a sort of German Expressionist inspired ode to Wednesday Addams. Expect more stylizations and heavy production design. It'll be a three day shoot my longest thus far and there are far more locations than the previous 'Forgive Me My Sins' but I'm really looking forward to it. It's more akin to myself and far more light hearted. Hopefully I'll come out of this with a new perspective that doesn't involve any of the selfish, self-destructive behaviour I've been bingeing on so far this year.

While I write this, I have to confess I'm actually peeking over the top of my laptop to 'Unfaithful' which I think is woefully underrated...or maybe that's jut because of Olivier Martinez (hunk of burning love). Diane Lane is also wonderful and come on, all hail to Adrian Lyne; Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal, Unfaithful (All 80's-early 90's romantic thrillers that scared both men and women witless)...I actually brought this DVD twice...sometimes I actually want to buy a film twice to affirm how great I think it is, a nod of my adoration to the filmmaker if you will. That didn't happen with this, I just forgot I had it...trust me, if you saw my collection you wouldn't blame...but nevertheless, I've now doubled up on Beetlejuice and Unfaithful. Am I rambling? Yes I think I am. Maybe I'm lonely.

On a total Kaufman binge right now. I can't get enough of the guy. I've just brought Human Nature...I have to say it's probably one of the strangest films I've seen and that is an accolade. Kaufman is actually teaching me about non-linear storytelling though, I mean this is something you learn about in film school but you don't really learn it for yourself if you know what I mean...anyway, I think his influence as my latest muse will help me get some of my scripts back in the running.

Good night, sleep tight. I'll be back with a Dark Knight review. I also apologize for the probability of incessant spelling mistakes but it's relatively late and I can't be bothered to check.

Having finished Mom's purchase, we were headed to the exit when I heard someone say "hello [LS]..". I turned to see my elementary school principal smiling at me. She was a big boned (not obese) woman who I remember wore her hair in the short, Liza Minelli style and wore too much lipstick. She was meaner than hell and had a Polish or Slavic sounding name that contained the word "jerk" in it and, hence, she had an instant nickname amongst the third graders. I remember the blood rushing out of my face; The bladder threatening to lose control and, of course, the room spinning as I looked at her.

"What's this about?", I thought.  "She can't possibly be nice to me, can she?". 

I felt like turning around and running as far and as fast as my little legs could take me.  I couldn't.  My parents had boxed me in and my little brother would have only served as a speed bump.  Of course, the way I ran back then I would have probably fallen flat on my face anyway.

"Aren't you going to say "hello" to your principal?"

"Um...let's see....NO?" I thought.  It was that way when you saw a principal or teacher in public wasn't it?  It wasn't so much the person as it was the context.  They were out of context, dammit!  How dare they!

I read an interesting post today on Nandango about seeing people in public that you know and know you but that you either have never talked to or have lost contact (or context) with.  While I certainly can relate to this as I once ran into a guy that I went to junior high with overseas in the library at my large state university years later...the situation was likened by one of bluesuit's readers to seeing your doctor in public.  It got me to thinking that this is an equally awkward but odd scenario.  From the doctor's perspective it can be even weirder.

The first time I remember seeing a patient in public was when I was a third-year medical student.  I was at K-Mart to buy something for my apartment and, as I was coming to the end of the aisle, a patient from my adolescent psychiatry rotation walked right past with some family member of hers.  She was a memorable patient because she had psychopathic thoughts and would tell me that the devil was telling her to kill me.   I decided that a b-line for the door was the best solution.  For the next five minutes, I did my best "Obi-Wan Kenobi-moving-through-the-shadows-to-disable-the-tractor-beam" impersonation as I made it to the door and then a full out sprint to my car. 

Seeing a patient out of context, however, is not always like that situation was.  While privacy laws do limit me from screaming "Hey Joe! How's the genital herpes going?!?!"...it's not always as awkward as it seems.  It depends greatly on the patient, as well. 

The bottom line for me is always the surrounding environment.  Are there other people present?  If so, do they know about the patient's medical issues and who I am?  I don't bring up the medical issues.  If someone might ask "who's that and how do you know him?" then I might only give the casual "hello" as I would to most people that make eye contact in public.  

On the other hand, the spouses can be worse.  I have one patient who married a Greek and, as a result, goes to my church.  I had to stop going to that church because after every service, the wife would come up to me and give me a report on how many pills he'd missed or how he ate something he wasn't supposed to.  She has a bit of a boundary issue herself and it was too nerve-wracking.  The problematic spouse in public tends to be the one who keeps a running tally of the patient's lack of adherence to the prescribed plan of care.  That's uncalled for.  I am not there to check up on anybody.  I am usually there for the same reason they are.  There are a few of my patients at my wife's church and usually it's a simple, casual greeting.

Knowing your patient's attitude towards their own privacy can be helpful too.  I do have one patient that I see very infrequently for a rare problem (on top of many other medical issues).  She's young and a bit neurotic.  She works in a law firm and when she filled out my intake paperwork, she marked up the privacy policy until it was almost unrecognizable.  She absolutely wanted no contact at her place of work.  It goes without saying that I would never jeopardize her privacy in her workplace but on one occasion I had been called to give a deposition at that firm as an expert witness.  I called her the day before and left a message forewarning her that I would be on premises and that I would act as though I'd never seen her before.  It was apologetic but also ass-covering.  I didn't see her but I think (and hope) she appreciated the move.

If a patient sees me in public and wants to acknowledge me, that's great.  Of course, it's usually family members as my patients tend to be older.  Usually, I ask how they are and let them decide if they want to chat about anything.

"I'm okay doc.  Gee, did you see the price of codfish lately?"

Seeing people in grocery stores is especially funny for me because they'll usually see me and squirm until they've had a chance to quick scan their cart for items they're not supposed to be eating. 

"Sorry pal, Fruit Loops soda isn't on your diet plan."

I can deal with most types of patient reaction to seeing me in public.  Some people are overly sweet to me and have no problem introducing me proudly to their companions as though I was their favorite fifth grade diorama.  Others are more reserved and shuffle along with nary a glance.  Both are okay. 

Thinking back, the only time that it's truly uncomfortable for me occurs when my children are present.  While I do share some of myself with my patients (part of being human), I do tend to keep my children isolated from the patients I see.  For me, it's a privacy issue.  We also have all sorts of psychos in the inner city...so one can't be too careful.  When I was a fellow and we lived in a small town where my wife worked, all of her patients knew my son (then a toddler) on sight.  I thought that the small town atmosphere would be comfortable but in that case, it was not.  I don't know if I am over-reacting or not but I just like my kids to be anonymous.

It's somewhat akin to seeing a teacher in public, I suppose, but I have more personal knowledge that has been entrusted to me.  I take that very seriously as all health care workers should...but sometimes the interactions are too damned funny.  You have to laugh.

a buried sun. Like a heart,
its power is warmth, not light.

With no requirement beyond being,
it aligns waves of magnetism

to dress the planet. The only instrument
to measure it truly is imagination,

and I picture it turning, newly sprung arms
of magma reaching in the dark

to embrace and absorb,
embrace and absorb in a perpetual hug.

And if hell is there, at least it is a place
protected from all of us.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was one of the clearest thinkers ever produced by humanity and perhaps his method of approaching problems might help us get a grip on how to cope with this modern problem of super weapons and humanity's current rush toward Doomsday.

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.

I hadn't remembered this Adam Smith statement until this search but it's apt and perfectly related to our Doomsday predicament because it shows clearly that if any idea no matter how momentous can not be made concrete and immediately applicable to a person's life they will either ignore it altogether or give it a sentimental lip service and go on about their trivial affairs. At another time Smith says:

Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so.

This of course is also true and therefore the problem of impending Doomsday must be made clear as applying to our common man personally. Of course nothing is more difficult to show to someone than something that has never happened before, not a single time in the entire history of humanity. Therefore, it is easy for a perfectly intelligent person to see all of the relevant facts and be shown the relationship of the facts to each other and have demonstrations of how similar facts and relationships have led to certain conclusions and yet remain unconvinced. Furthermore the Doomsday thing is so dreadful they that they choose to believe that neither would anyone ever start such a thing nor would God permit it. Perhaps I am more concerned with these issues than others because I have personally known people at every major step of the entire process and can see each of these decent and very sane people doing their part—which in combination will bring on these hideous events—in a wonderfully competent way. And then we come to this quote:

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. IV.ii.12

It seems that people can behave with perfect prudence and in every way be the most honorable and honored of human citizens and still bring on disaster. I have puzzled over this super weapons, exploding population, imploding resources problem all sorts of ways trying to get a workable handle on it and as unlikely as it seems the best solution so far is the Lifehaven Project followed up much later with the enactment of The Vital Laws of a high tech humanity.

...and my 'impression' of it:

Yes, it is not a 'perfect' copy, the colours are brighter (on purpose), the shapes are not the same - but this is simply my 'impression' of the 'promise of bright freedom' - only as an illusion, a projection on the wall of this dank, gray, cave of a dungeon... please put it down to 'artistic licence'!

Well, the funny thing is...the day before I wrote about the death-threat Mr. Levant had received, and the day of the benefit for a comic who is being dragged in front of the thought police for sayin 'unfunny jokes', my young son had drawn a series of cartoons, capturing an innocent 9-year-old's perceptions of our struggle for the freedom of speech! 

(Yes, the seating positions of Ezra and the Inquisitor (or, is it Inqisitrix?) are mirrored in the comic....please excuse that detail - but note that it has been carried throughout the comic strip.  Also, note the beautifully-rendered, iconographic painting on the wall, which clearly identifies the setting!)

[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="231" caption="Ezra Levant is being 'told off' by the HRC Inquisitor"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_188" align="aligncenter" width="232" caption="As Ezra frees himself, the hammer rebounds,  crashes through the wall behind the Inquisitor..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_209" align="aligncenter" width="232" caption="...mid-air collision between Ezra and the Inquisitor..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="231" caption="....the rough landing, as the neighbour grasps the hammer..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="234" caption="The angry neighbour throwns the hammer back, clever Ezra ducks!"][/caption]

And the moral of the story?

If you bring the hammer down on someone who does not deserve it, it might just rebound onto you!

I've been thinking recently about how materially gifted we are (those of us who can afford computers and the leisure time to read and post on blogs anyway). To an degree unprecedented in the history of the planet, even those in poverty are better off than ever before -- in purely material terms. It is natural though (if not morally uplifting or right), that our expectations for what constitutes “basic” living ratchet up continually without serious, objective challenge. (Studies show people are more happy when they’re keeping up with or beating the Joneses next door, regardless of their level of wealth in absolute terms.)

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy my modern conveniences as much as the next guy. But it's easy to get tangled up in a pervasive and seldom challenged set of Malthusian assumptions (especially popular in the academy and on the left) wherein the world is seen to be perpetually on the brink of running out of something or other, or collapsing due to some widespread or nigglingly personal catastrophe. (Remember Ebola? Alar in apples? mercury in dental fillings? global cooling and premature onset of the next ice age?).

Malthusians (a group so numerous that many who are may not even recognize the term) harbor a fear that we will become like deer without wolves — dumb, hungry, cold and dying in great numbers -- if something is not done... by someone... soon. They fear that the world just won't sustain us beyond... pick a number. They believe that governments and individuals are most responsible when they take measures to ensure there are no more humans around than are absolutely necessary. It is, by definition, a misanthropic impulse.

The fact that history has proven otherwise -- with repetitive and conclusive vengeance -- does little to damp the yelling-fire-in-a-crowded-theatre effect. E.g., the Malthus-inspired Club of Rome and with it doom-sayers like Paul Ehrlich have been shown to be dead wrong yet the doom industry is more robust than ever. A very wide range of natural resources have become more plentiful over time as reflected in their price. And that includes food and oil — the recent biofuels policy-induced foolishness and cartel/war-induced oil price hikes notwithstanding. (Economists call those things distortions... the wars and trade barriers and bone-headed know-better government policies that get in the way of people doing what they do best in a free society and moving those goods, services and opportunities around much more broadly than they are today... e.g., when nobody in their right mind would set up a factory in Sudan and create new jobs.)

This macro-historical curve of abundance amidst growing population is not just hard for some to accept. It is dramatically counter-intuitive. And yet it's correct. In the face of it, sadly, many choose to emote and to hold onto the elegant theory rather than look at empirical reality and ask: Why is this so? Here's an idea:

We are dear, not deer.

We (human beings) are made in the image of God. Among other things, that means we are blessed with the ability to reason and innovate our way out of all kinds of problems that at one time may have seemed insurmountable to our forbears. Our minds and lives are gifts meant to be used. Unlike deer, we do more than breed and eat.

What we take for granted today was once seen as impossible by someone. It might even have been unimaginable. By definition, innovation exists over the ridgeline of foresight. I.e., seeing it clearly is tantamount to doing it and therefore it cannot be forecast, only trusted... and trust is the sibling to faith.

It’s always tempting to think that everything that can be invented has been. In my work as a scenario planner I've collected countless quotes from brilliant men and women who were at one time certain that a particular problem would never be solved, that it would take X and so many years to do so, and/or that the potential limitations of an invention were such-and-such. (One of the more famous came, I believe, from Thomas Watson, who felt sure that the long-term global market for computers was... five. I can see that many from where I'm sitting and I'm only in my humble home office.)

That's all to say the assumption that a particular disaster will befall humanity is almost always wrong and, even when it's not, it is still rooted in the deepest of hubristic instincts, i.e., that the future is knowable by man. (Which is not to say that one particular disaster is very right, although its timing remains uncertain.)

I'll leave you with this thought: what if the person who was supposed to be born and grow up to solve a certain problem (bird flu? terrorism? climate change? the ten terabyte iPod?... take your pick) maybe wasn’t or won’t be because their mom and/or dad-to-be decided it would be inconvenient.  Because it was a whole lot easier to take that promotion and buy that new car and impress Mr. Jones than to take seriously one of God's very first commandments. It is just as terrible that that individual is lost to some evil nut-job who killed him or her in a concentration camp or carpet-bombing campaign, but that's another post.

Food for thought. (Don't worry, there's plenty more.)

I know that there is a whole preemie community online and I usually don't take part in it.  It can have its share of heated ethical discussions that I can't bear to listen to or read because of the visceral emotive response that it gets in me.  I refer to (but rarely describe) what preemie-hood left me with.  Most people who know me still can't tell at times because I have adapted and I don't usually advertise my physical issues.  I'm not even going to touch on emotional issues or socialization issues.  A friend once asked me if my "bad" leg hurt.  I told him that it usually doesn't.  I told him that it hurt me more emotionally sometimes when I try to push myself and the leg was just too tired.  Then again, my childhood neurologist knew exactly how and where to touch it to send lightning up my leg and arch my back.  The foot doesn't really want to cooperate sometimes, but it is only bad when I am really tired.  The hand on that side is not nearly as bad as it once was.  When I was a child, my grip was weak with it and I would drop things.  In my medical career, however, I think that hand is as good as my dominant one when I do procedures.

When I was a child, in addition to my own problems, there were the ones that people tried to "add on".  My fourth grade teacher kept trying to insist that I was learning disabled because I refused to do the busy work he'd give us.  Another neurologist told my parents I wouldn't live to adulthood.    Is it any wonder that when my surgery preceptor in med school unnecessarily emasculated me in front of my peers and called me a "piece of shit" which was preceded by what were about 10 cuss-words in adjectival form that I wasn't about to give in?  Is it any wonder that every time I was challenged in life I would do my best regardless of my odds for success?

Then we have my father.  This is a man who holds a PhD but that I can't understand for the life of me.  The man is exactly the opposite.  For him, skies are always grey.  His idea of success is getting it right the first time.  If not, he's not the type to fight it.  When his doctor told him he needed to exercise, he did so.  For six months.  When the follow up showed no real improvement or reversal of his heart problem it was as if he was saying "Ah well, **** it, we tried...".

It's frustrating to watch him slowly die without much fight in him.  I think that as the years have gone past, the people who used to tell me I was a "miracle baby" (for the late sixties) have all seemed to lose sight of what a special life this is.

"How do you do it?" is a common refrain when people observe my bedside manner or my level of patience with the medical system and patients.  It's just my calling, I suppose. We all can develop that toughness. You can DO IT! The fact is I have to do it.  I was born to do it.  That's why I'm here.

i miss you already.

but then again what does it matter. please be happy.

***

life has never been worse, really. and just when it should be getting better too. i feel like i've lost an arm and a leg. it feels funny knowing that i shouldn't call you to tell you where i am anymore. and that there shouldn't be any whining to each other about how bleak life is.

so let's put aside the pretenses for a minute, when i hug you for the last time the way i should have, and say that i still haven't stopped loving you.

i'm sorry.

***

the expiry date came too soon
unprepared, unwilling, don't speak
hold my hand and walk with me

so you think i've already gone
don't forget, don't regret, i'll listen
the words you never say, the unpredictable fusion

of what we always needed to feel was new
that destruction we were counting down to
spent every lingering moment on the things that didn't matter (but you said you'd never go)
the reasons we weren't supposed to have
the remnants of everything that was left
if only you'd say that it's still okay (but it's not today)

***

you wouldn't know, really.

*original

An emperor of Rome, indeed the leader of any country up to modern times, would need to be sanguine about the future because the chances of his having his head detached from the rest of his body before that body was worn out stood exceedingly high.

What about old Julius? He certainly couldn't have used all of his weapons of reason when he allowed his formerly trusted ally Brutus and his gang to slay him. Actually, he likely did. To the best of his ability.

Julius was a very ill man, suffering from a great deal of pain and loss of his abilities of perception due to disease at the time of his death. It's entirely possible that he did the equivalent of falling on his sword, just to put himself out of misery. He knew he was too sick to rule Rome, to give it his best. Yet his honour forbade him from committing suicide, even if it be for the good of Rome. It's highly likely that he knew what was about to happen when he met privately with his "enemies."

In other words, we now know that Julius Caesar likely used the best of his mental faculties to do what was best for both himself and for Rome. History hasn't recorded the event of his death that way, but history has a way of relating what its teller wants to the story to be.

Marcus Aurelius must also have used his abundant mental faculties during his almost two decades as emperor of Rome (actually king, as Rome did not call anyone an emperor). His reign was the ultimate example of Pax Romana and his death brought turmoil as to who should lead the greatest empire the world had known until then (later the British Empire was greatest in history, covering one-quarter of our planet's surface at one time).

Though Christians were still persecuted in his time in theory, in practice they seldom were. Rome (undoubtedly a brutal regime in many ways, though hardly the worst in history) really was fairly peaceful during Marcus's reign. It would have required considerable weapons of reason to make peace so effectively that the period was given its own name.

So we turn to ourselves. Every media outlet in the western world and most in other parts of the world report almost daily about how bad conditions are in the world. I have heard many young people from North America say that they don't plan to have children because the world is just getting worse and they couldn't in all good conscience bring children into such tragedy.

The world must be getting worse, just listen to our media tell us. But it's not so.

No point in history has ever been so peaceful, with such a great percentage of people living long lives, healthier than their ancestors, in human history. The media always tell us that the world is a terrible place and leave us to conclude that the future will surely be worse. Neither is true.

Even during the dreaded Holocaust, when millions of Jews, cripples, people with much lower than average intelligence and people who simply pissed off the Germans were being exterminated, good things were happening elsewhere in the world. In the west, women who worked necessary jobs in factories earned a decent living and started a movement for equal rights for women that is still going on today. The Jews that survived got a country of their own a few years after the war, something they had not been able to accomplish for themselves for the previous 3000 years. The powers of the world came together as never before to defeat evil.

Just as Marcus Aurelius said that we will face the future as it comes to us with the same weapons of reason that we use today, we must use the weapons of reason we have available to us today. Or we will make the world a worse place to live, unsafe, unhealthy, unlivable for our children and grandchildren.

Our weapons of reason that help us to cope with today must make us realize that good things are happening in the world each day, even we if don't read about them. We must reason that just because our media report almost exclusively bad news does not mean that the world itself is getting worse. They just report what many people want to hear. Paris Hilton makes the news when she sneezes (and maybe her dress has a "wardrobe malfunction"), but we hear nothing about the millions of good people around the world and in our own communities who are doing good deeds and making good things happen every day.

It's important that we heed Marcus Aurelius's advice about the future. It won't be as bad as the fear mongers want us to believe (they make their living scaring people, remember, rather than getting "real" jobs). And the present isn't as bad as almost every source of information we have make it out to be.

We need to use our weapons of reason every day of our life, not just about the future. The more we refuse to find out information about what is really going on in the world and decline to use our powers of reason when we learn it, the worse the world will become and the worse our own lives will become.

Not learning and not thinking is what will make the world really worse. Bad guys can easily manipulate the thinking and voting of people who are ignorant and who don't want to think for themselves, who depend on others to think and to tell them what to think and believe.

We have the power within us, even those of us with the poorest of education and the most dire of backgrounds. It doesn't cost a thing to use it. We just have to try.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can think for themselves about subjects other than the limited ones taught in schools.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

But you know what? I may regret it later, but so what? With my new job and all (not the job where I'd be working with children. Hell no!), I have reached a point where I can't hold back.

With that said, right now I am working on creating party menus. I never thought I would find myself pondering what would pair nicely with a glass butt plug.

There. I said it.

Their impossible standards wouldn’t bother me so much if I could call them stupid, but when I meet a poet who’s doing what I’m doing—only much better—it’s especially disconcerting.

I’ve been reading the work of Howard Nemerov these last few weeks.  Nemerov, the careful craftsman, could never accept “good enough” and salts every poem with apt description, tuned phrasing, and illuminating discoveries.  To demonstrate, here’s a short poem called “The Beautiful Lawn Sprinkler”:

What gives it power makes it change its mind
At each extreme, and lean its rising rain
Down low, first one and then the other way;
In which exchange humility and pride
Reverse, forgive, arise, and die again,
Wherefore it holds at both ends of the day
The rainbow in it scattering grains of spray.

Some poets reject Nemerov’s formality—his meter and rhyme, his “in whiches” and “wherefores,” his inversions and semi-colons.  As in much of his work, however, these elements fit and extend his observations, demonstrating his absolute and deliberate authority. The rigidity of this poem communicates the stiffness of the sprinkler as line breaks serve to move your eye back and forth, starting where they ought to end and ending where they start again.  And the poem isn’t just technically proficient either.  In something as simple—but mesmerizing—as the sprinkler, Nemerov finds familiarity, resonance, and surprise.  He describes the sprinkler vividly enough, but he also leads us to humility, pride, forgiveness, and rebirth.  He finishes with a grace note, the metaphor of water droplets as “grains of spray,” wet and dry all at once, both extremes embodied in a simultaneously novel and recognizable image.

Though “resourceful” is a word many contemporary poets might run from, Nemerov embraces it. If I could write one poem like the one above, I might be satisfied, but Nemerov holds to his standard.  Each poem is good for a few flashes of discovery: bones as “cantilevered,” wet grass beneath a removed storm window “like seaweed on the tide” or “blades of wheat,” and lobsters as “gigantic spiders that spin not.”  He revitalizes every ordinary.  The clouds are “bellied,” and the heart is a web where every vibration is a “signal to attend.”  Nemerov seems undaunted by his ambition to awe.  His faith seems unshakable—he will eventually find exactly the right answer.

In short, he makes me sick.  I’ve been collecting some of my poetry this summer and hoped to see variety and diverse subject matter.  Instead, I’ve found the same words cropping up everywhere, one soupy serious tone, and habits of composition that are much too obvious. More than that, I see the places where I needed something special and satisfied for something serviceable.

Howard Nemerov’s poem “Poetic” centers on an old joke—a housewife doing her wash decides to add the clothes she’s wearing, and, when a leaky pipe starts dripping on her head, she puts on her son’s football helmet.  When the meter reader arrives and sees her there, he says, “Lady, I sure hope your team wins.”  The story is a parable of Nemerov’s poetics and a window into his approach.  “A story many times told in many ways,” he says, is “a set of random accidents redeemed / by one more accident, as though chaos / were the order that was there before creation came.”  Reading his poems, you sense he played around and played around, encountering accident after accident, looking for the one discovery that would redeem all the fumbling and reveal the order in the chaos.

One of the ways children arrest their progress as artists is to rely on conventions that save them the tedium and trouble of finding a fresh way to render what’s there.  A bent “L” will make a nose, a line drawn between the legs of a stick figure creates a skirt.  In a similar sense, poets—myself included—fall into what has worked before instead of sorting through the endless possibilities and facing the bottomless contingencies of composition.  In contrast, “Poetics” describes a joke—and I think also a poem—as “A disappointment satisfied.”  A writer needs considerable tolerance for disappointment to reach satisfaction.

It takes infinite patience to fiddle with a stubborn key until you find just right pressure, position, and timing to start the engine.

I’ve traveled from disappointment to satisfaction a few times in my writing life, but not nearly as regularly as Nemerov. Writing reaches the standard of magic when it delivers you from labor.  A good poem never seems hard in retrospect—afterward, you seem to have been headed there all along—but it’s easy to fool yourself about your destination along the way.  Style, Nemerov said, “Is the fire that eats what it illuminates,” and pure style can become pure convention, not a sincere response to the difficulty of writing poetry but an antidote for it.  And nothing is more devastating than discovering your own style, the ways you abandoned your standards instead of riding the subject until it’s truly yours.

Nemerov’s secret was understanding process as the thing itself, a series of unforeseen events with their own logic and direction that mysteriously led to something much greater than the difficulties along the way.  He says it best himself—naturally—in a poem called “Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry”:

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

I may have to flap my wings furiously to soar as Nemerov did, but I still hope to fly.

In Darkest Night's recent post of anorexics and our stupid selves is very thought provoking. Our personal, psychological, social, and maybe even spiritual thoughts about or self-images and others images of themselves are at the heart of many of the "what-sorts" questions. The following You-Tube video is silly and may seem shallow, but it provides a good stimulus for thinking about some aspects of self image.

In case you are unfamiliar with Creature Comforts, Creature Comforts began in the U.K as a short animated film in 1989. It is currently a regular show on CBS. The voices are actually interviews conducted with members of American public and animation is created to go along with the interviews.

i think it's funny that all these new commercials for fast food joints are bragging that they're currently using "real beef" in their burgers, actual chicken in their chicken strips/fries/tenders/nuggets.  Well bully for them.

But what i need to know is what were they using before?

<3

i love watching shows in which "loved ones" have nominated another loved one for a makeover.  Because they love the loved one and want them to feel better about themselves.  If only she'd dress better she'd feel better, be better, be worthy of the eyes and love and notice of others.  It's not her compassion that should gain her notice, not her intelligence and kindness or wit that should draw the love and affection of others.  She needs blouses that camouflage her tummy bulge.  Wide legged trousers to streamline those womanly thighs.  A new hair color will make her a better human being.  Contacts!  A smoky eye!

If only she would try, look better, she could have the world eating out of her hand!  (Of course, the loved ones' disapproval had nothing to do with her desire to hide herself behind tacky polyester tent shirts, an eternal ponytail or acid washed jeans.) 

Then those who are in charge of the makeover rip the loved one to shreds, pick her out some clothes and pronounce her worthy. 

i love that.

<3

i love shit that showcases the worst of human behavior- young women trying to find out who their baby's father is.  "I know it's him.  He's the only one I've been with!" they scream and cry.

But he's never the one.

People talking trash about others they don't know.  Making fun of others.  Making themselves ridiculous.  Me, sitting around judging them.  i'm not like that...

Dreams crushed, spirits broken, hardships squeezed and wrung for all they're worth in ratings, brains and decency decayed to mush.

The world is a beautiful place.  And televised.

i love that.

<3

(copyright 2008 )  c A Hughes
08.20.08

We live in a world molded to a great extent by both science and economics. They don't control our moment to moment existence, but they form the framework around which we tend to build our belief system.

For example, science creates a drug and physicians (some of whom derive a commission by prescribing that drug) prescribe it, while the patients accept that taking the prescribed drug must be necessary as the only way to heal because a respected professional recommended it. We believe because we trust the source, or think we must.

Almost every major newscast on radio and television includes a stock market report even though its content bears extremely little on everyone but a few who may be listening. However, many listeners will believe that the rise or fall of the share price for Microsoft or Exxon has some magical effect on something that influences their lives, somewhere.

Scientists and economists, indeed all people in the traditional professions, work with factors they can understand and manipulate (or could if they had the power). The scientific method (hypothesis, testing, conclusion) depends on the users having factors they understand and can work with ("massage" in the case of economists). What they don't understand, they can't manipulate, thus isn't important.

That extends to what isn't important to them--as they have so much influence on our lives--being considered as non-existent or unimportant to us. In fact, some people claim the inability to prove the existence of God using scientific method as evidence, even as proof, that God does not exist.

That thinking is an easy sell for people who believe that science has the answers (proofs) and for those who understand just how much fraud has been perpetrated on simple minded people over the past millennia of human history.

Just as the fact that because someone robbed a bank means that banks are unsafe places to save our money cannot be accepted as valid by most people, the perpetration of fraudulent "facts" and imagined history on people who will not take the trouble to investigate for themselves should not make anyone believe that God does not exist. Even if science searches for evidence of God, but in places where God has no interest, though people have made fantastic claims about God working in these ways, that does not prove that God does not exist.

The article is not about the existence of God, but about how easily people's minds and belief sets can be influenced by convincing arguments made by determined people.

If I were to tell you that our moon will appear as a square rather than as its usual disk on August 1, a considerable number of people would make a point of checking out the sky on that date. Because they believe the moon will appear square? No, because they believe me as someone with authority on one subject, so I might have expertise in another. How many predictions of Armageddon go unfulfilled each year around the world, despite the fact that many people prepared for the Final Event in each case?

In the investment business there is a saying that "If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is." That should apply to what we believe as well.

Asking followers to "just believe" or to "have faith" that something that sounds unbelievable is real or true should be a tipoff that a fraud is in progress. Or at least a distortion of reality. Though there are many examples of this in religions, more happen every day in television commercials, in unsolicited mail in our mail boxes and email inboxes, even in movie promos that precede the feature we went to watch.

Those who understand only what can be explained not only understand very little, as our Austrian writer stated, it's more important for us to know that they may not be capable of understanding more than they can manipulate in their minds. They form beliefs based on what they can and cannot manipulate with their minds.

Let's take a common example that has been foisted on us for decades. Science fiction movies have made us believe that if "aliens" came to earth from a distant planet, they would almost certainly want to harm us, to obliterate us. According to these movies, the only viable action we should take is to destroy them as soon and as completely as possible.

Other movies have humans travelling through space to other planets and approaching them in peace, with the objectives to make contact, to share and to help them if we can.

Apparently in the movie business only humans are civilized enough to travel with peaceful intentions. Peace, just like here on earth, right?

Those two possible scenarios have been repeated dozens of times in movies, even though together they are not just hypocritical, they are absurd. Yet one of our major forms of entertainment perpetrates this absurdity on us again and again. We go in peace, everyone else comes to destroy us. We find enemies not just on earth, but we invent them in space.

If Moses or Jesus of Nazareth or the great prophet of Islam were to return to earth today, how long would they last before they were killed in some manner or another? Half the people alive in the world today purport to believe in these people and to follow their ways and their words (which differ very little, except in ritual). You can be certain that one of the "believers" would be the murderer, not someone who doesn't believe in that person in the first place.

Do we really believe that peace is possible in the world? Our media don't present us that way. Should the real heroes not be those who can bring peace where none existed before, not those who can defeat one invented enemy after another? Which is the greater accomplishment, bringing peace or making war? Heroes should save lives, not destroy them.

If we will ever make sense of a world that is trying to twist our minds into knots, we need to teach children how to think critically and to not be bamboozled by frauds, charlatans and propagandists. We could never teach the older ones, the adults, because they already believe what they have been told to believe.

Beliefs are at the centre of the life of every human. Everyone accepts that we need to teach beliefs to children. I propose that we need to teach how to distinguish among that fraudulent claims made by many people and many sources about what we should believe. The only way that could succeed would be to teach children before their minds get tangled, twisted, molded.

That change would not be hard to enact. But we can't expect schools to change themselves because teachers get paid to teach what is on the curriculum and teachers rarely have the final say about what goes on the curriculum.

Talk about it.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can avoid becoming automatons, products of corporate interests.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

The next time I come in, I find that nothing of real importance came up in the meeting, and the subjects could have been summarized in a few lines and posted on the bulletin board.

this time of year. Nor an orchestra. Nothing is ordered
enough for music.  Some time ago some more attuned soul
knew these noises as ticks of another clock, but
the increments are too fine to be read from this distance

and our hands blur endlessly.  Soon stars will
look down, marvel how beings so deceived
persist, and wonder—who will survive to look up
and ask what name constellations give themselves?