It makes you think! (or does it?)

The Internet threatens final confirmation of Adorno and Horkheimer’s dictum that the culture industry allows the “freedom to choose what is always the same.”

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/naysayers


 I may be turning into a grumpy old man, but sometimes I think all the cool gadgets (I admit I like gadgets) are ultimately not that special.

For instance, the more recent hype about the new iPhone. I mean I know it is more modern, has more stuff...but in a fundamental way it is still like my old Blackberry. Or even an older cell phone.

In fact the whole mobile gadget universe is from a human behavior level the same, in that the whole point is to make you NOT look around at the world you are actually living in. Instead, head bowed as in prayer, look not to the left or right or within yourself. But peer through this portable looking glass.

A twist on the Socratic dictum is "Distract Thyself"

. . . . . . . . . .

Oh for the days we it was cool to be able to quote from Freudian Marxists. 

The End Is Nigh, maybe

In case you didn't know, the world is supposed to end, or there will be a total economic collapse in two weeks.

There is a religious rumor and also a claim that there is a two mile comet that will collide with earth on the 23,

Anyway here is a site that has skeptically collected a list of different apocalyptic scenarios.


https://skeptoid.com/blog/2015/09/01/the-september-23rd-apocalypse/

From that blog we have...

Let’s start with what’s being predicted for September 23, 2015 – and for September 2015 in general. According to various conspiracy, prophecy, and prepping websites, the following things will happen on the date itself:

• Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

• President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at the White House. Of note is that Francis is the 266th Pope, September 23 is the 266th day of the year, and the average length of human gestation is 266 days.

• The Autumnal Equinox.

• The First day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, also known as “the Feast of the Sacrifice.”

If you add in days either just before or just after 9/23/15, you also get a number of apocalyptic events:

• A range of dates that Comet 67P is scheduled to make an extremely close passage of Earth, September 15-28.

• The September restart of the CERN Large Hadron Collider will open a portal to another dimension.

• The end of Jade Helm 15 on September 15.

• The September 25th launch of a new UN initiative, Agenda 2030, which signals the end stage of Agenda 21 implementation.

• The date of the last of the “Four Blood Moons” heralding the End Times, on September 28.

• The approximate date of predicted economic collapse.

• The end of a Shemitah year in the Jewish Calendar, the last year of the seven year agricultural cycle, that traditionally brings with it great tribulation.

All of these events have been prophesied to form a combination that will bring on the End Times. What are the sources of these predictions?

• The obvious confluence of the three major world religions on September 23.

• Biblical prophecy, specifically the “Four Blood Moons” prophecy.

• The End Times prophecy of Sir Isaac Newton.

• A dire warning from French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who claimed on May 13, 2014 that we have “500 days to avoid climate chaos.” 500 days after May 13, 2014 is September 24, 2015.

• Prophetic dreams and visions by people attuned to such things.

Isn't it odd that...

Isn't it odd that many of the same people who will not accept Global Warming as a danger, at the same time really believe the world as we know it will end with a rapture and tribulation with millions killed while the dead rise from the grave to preside over a 1,000 year rule with Jesus...

Anyway, it is odd what some minds find unreasonable and even stranger what those same minds find reasonable.

Remember this...

 Note to self:

Parker Palmer observed in his magnificent commencement address that

“violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering.”

Encounter a Poem

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

- Czeslaw Milosz

Brain Power

I started reading "Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change " which lead me to "Emotional Brain" where a reviewer on amazon listed these as similar and good books

1. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, by Antonio Damasio
2. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker
3. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee
4. Nature's Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language, and Intelligence, by Michael Gazzaniga
5. How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligences, Then & Now, by William H. Calvin

I just wanted to remember these titles

The Non-voting World

from Tomorrow's Song by Gary Snyder

The USA slowly lost its mandate
in the middle and later twentieth century
it never gave the mountains and rivers,
                   trees and animals,
                           a vote.
all the people turned away from it
myths die; even continents are impermanent

.....