Quantum Reflections

Google building huge, secret complex in The Dalles

2006-06-14T16:33:00.000-07:00

That's right: Google is building a computing center as big as two football fields, with cooling towers four stories high, in little old The Dalles, Oregon, population 12,000.

The design and nature of the complex are closely guarded corporate secrets, but the New York Times says the two buildings--and a third one that Google has a permit to build--will probably house tens of thousands of inexpensive processors and disks, held together with--get this--Velcro tape. Google claims Velcro makes it easy to swap components.

Local officials, who refer to the data center as Project 02, can't comment on the project because they signed confidentiality agreements with Google. "No one says the 'G' word," said Diane Sherwood, executive director of the Port of Klickitat, directly across the river from The Dalles. "It's a little bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter."

Google has an estimated 450,000 servers spread over 25 locations around the world, all connected by a high-capacity fiber-optic network. Why so many servers in so many places? Google has found that every millisecond longer it takes to give users their results leads to lower customer satisfaction. Did you get that? Every MILLISECOND. We want our instant gratification and we want it NOW!

Milo Medin, founder of @Home, says "Google is like the Borg. I know of no other carrier or enterprise that distributes applications on top of their computing resource as effectively as Google."

The Times says Google's new plant will employ between 60 and 200 Borgs--er, people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/technology/14search.html

Does Mind Leave Body When Asleep?

2006-05-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today felt like nothingness to me. It wasn't that the cold, gray weather was oppressive so much as a dull storm was happening inside myself. I am a storm of nowhere to go, no place to escape to, and wondering why I needed escaping at all. Sometimes my dreams are so vivid I can't shut them off while I'm awake. I'm 47 years old--weren't vivid dreams supposed to stop with adolescence? Those dreams call to me in my waking hours--"Here, feel this connection to some other unreal life." Or is it this life that is unreal? The storm inside links itself to other worlds, other times, other places. While I'm cleaning up some dishes and leaning over a multitude of bubble cluster, it comes to me clearly--but not so clearly at all. I can feel that place I was in last night--so real--still with me. But the heaviness of waking consciousness disallows my returning there--fully. So it is between these two worlds that I seem to linger, waiting, brewing--knowing more and being larger than just this life of mundane work before me.

And then there is the stranger who looks you right in the eye, and you know they have been there also. They are wider than just here. They seem to shapeshift, and their form warps outside of what is conventionally allowed by the eye. It is like a silent club of people coming together somehow in dreams and then bumping into each other in waking life. Not with much to share other than just a knowing--a weird feeling of familiarity that couldn't possibly exist. And what is the purpose? It is hard to say. Perhaps in another culture the experience would be validated and useful. In ours, it is only a curiosity. But that doesn't mean it isn't real.

Maintaining Ideological Integrity

2006-04-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

Comedy Central recently aired an episode of the popular show South Park that depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As many are aware, a Danish cartoon portraying this "holy" figure recently stirred an outrage in the Muslim community, resulting in several deaths. To avoid "being responsible" for further violence in the Middle East, Comedy Central gave in to terror and censored the image. I responded, they replied (with a blanket email), and I denounced their attempts to dodge responsibility. Here are (in order) the emails between us:

*Note: the premise of the South Park episode was about censorship and how it is our constitutional obligation to uphold freedom of expression.

Message: Did you not watch the South Park episode regarding free speech prior to airing it? Surely you realized the dilemma Comedy Central would be faced with--along with the bundles of protest letters. If the image of Muhammad was censored by South Park writers and blamed on your network then I apologize for this misplaced email. If, however, Comedy Central is responsible for the removal of the Islamic prophet, then allow me to convey my disbelief. You're COMEDY CENTRAL!! It is your job to push the limits of free speech. The constitutional law isn't there to protect the forms of expression receiving public approval, it serves to protect the expression people don't like. It exists to ensure the individuals of this nation enjoy a progressive culture of intellectual and creative freedom. The LAST intimidation the law (or its supporting citizens) should succumb to is the threat of physical violence, especially violence stemming from religious fundamentalism. The founding tenets of our planet's most popular religious groups are not based on verifiable properties of our physical universe. Therefore, any religious attempt to inhibit the free flow of ideas (well, those based in reality) should remain disregarded, despite threats of physical violence. Comedy Central will not be responsible for any illogical rampage by Islamic fundamentalists resulting from its depiction of the prophet Muhammad--the people blindly adopting an unquestionable and irreconciliable belief system will be to blame for their own ignorant behavior.

Comedy Central replied:

Dear Viewer,

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the "South Park" episodes entitled "Cartoon Wars." We appreciate your concerns about censorship and the destructive influence of outside groups on the media, entertainment industry and particularly Comedy Central.

To reiterate, as satirists, we believe that it is our First Amendment right to poke fun at any and all people, groups, organizations and religions and we will continue to defend that right. Our goal is to make people laugh and perhaps, if we're lucky, even make them think in the process.

Comedy Central's belief in the First Amendment has not wavered, despite our decision not to air an image of Muhammad. Our decision was made not to mute the voices of Trey and Matt or because we value one religion over any other. This decision was based solely on concern for public safety in light of recent world events.

With the power of freedom of speech and expression also comes the obligation to use that power in a responsible way. Much as we wish it weren't the case, times have changed and, as witnessed by the intense and deadly reaction to the publication of the Danish cartoons, decisions cannot be made in a vacuum without considering what impact they may have on innocent individuals around the globe.

It was with this in mind we decided not to air the image of Muhammad, a decision similar to that made by virtually every single media outlet across the country earlier this year when they each determined that it was not prudent or in the interest of safety to reproduce the controversial Danish cartoons. Injuries occurred and lives were lost in the riots set off by the original publication of these cartoons. The American media made a decision then, as we did now, not to put the safety and well being of the public at risk, here or abroad.

As a viewer of "South Park," you know that over the course of ten seasons and almost 150 episodes the series has addressed all types of sensitive, hot-button issues, religious and political, and has done so with Comedy Central's full support in every instance, including this one. "Cartoon Wars" contained a very important message, one that Trey and Matt felt strongly about, as did we at the network, which is why we gave them carte blanche in every facet but one: we would not broadcast a portrayal of Muhammad.

In that regard, did we censor the show? Yes, we did. But if you hold Comedy Central's 15-year track record up against any other network out there, you'll find that we afford our talent the most creative freedom and provide a nurturing atmosphere that challenges them to be bold and daring and places them in a position to constantly break barriers and push the envelope. The result has been some of the most provocative television ever produced.

We would like nothing more than to be able to look back at this in a few years and think that perhaps we overreacted. Unfortunately, to have made a different decision and to look back and see that we completely underestimated the damage that resulted was a risk we were not willing to take.

Our pledge to you, our loyal viewers, is that Comedy Central will continue to produce and provide the best comedy available and we will continue to push it right to the edge, using and defending the First Amendment in the most responsible way we know how.

Sincerely,
Comedy Central Viewer Services

I then sent my final response:

This is an unacceptable justification. Though probably sufficient for a wide demographic of your uneducated supporters, it still kneels to ignorance and the violence it threatens. Our species' refusal to sell our creative minds short to unfounded ideology will eventually bring about a universal examination of spirituality--the last sphere of human life consistently subservient to tradition, acting contrary to evolution.

Today, governments and legal systems (in the Middle East) are being established on discriminatory theology, advocating violent retribution for the inability to acknowledge and adhere to religious principles the faith professes. To counter further cohesion of unreasonable world views with the legal and political systems delegating the lives of human beings, we must bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on issues of spirituality, religious faith, and the demands which stem from them. Will this result in violence? Probably. Will Western power experience conflict with this region regardless of our actions? Eventually. Falling to Muslim demands now will only demonstrate (to citizens of the United States and Muslims) the weakness of our convictions. To what point will we sacrifice our values facilitative to intellectual prosperity before refusing Muslim demands backed by violence? Have you any idea how many things we do in our culture that are punishable by death in Islam? This was not the first instance a Western practice outraged this community, nor will it be the last. Until the Islamic faith learns the meaning of tolerance (unlikely) or we take the responsibility of condemning their unfounded responses to modernization, we will witness the sensless murder of innocents--sometimes blamed on us, sometimes not.

I no longer support your network and will take the time to explain to others why they too should oppose your decision. Given a tranparent choice, you came to the irresponsible conclusion. There is never a time to mute voices, which, despite your "intentions," is exactly what you did.

-Cy

Please write Comedy Central at: http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml

Let them know this behavior is unacceptable and extremely dangerous. Humanity can go bankrupt and lose structure, but only through the censorship of our ideas can we deny that which gives us purpose in our existence.

-C

Benton County Republican Party Is Not A Blog Identity

2006-04-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

How is it a whole political party can write a blog entry? Did they ask all the Republicans in Benton County if it was okay when signing in under the name "Benton County Republican Party"? And if you read the piece "Gazette-times editorial: Those in uniform walk narrower line", you sure hear a different story than how the Republicans treated old Bill Clinton when he got caught in his "scandal." The BCRParty says "those who delight in seeing a good person stumble may enjoy heaping on the criticism. We see the incident differently: This is a painful time for Thayer, his family, and the police department...” I saw a lot of heaped criticism when Bill Clinton got caught lying about being on the receiving end of an intern's mouth and I saw a lot of Republicans enjoying and delighting in that criticism. What a hypocritical, good-old-boys-club attitude. Maybe the BCRParty should find out if Thayer is a Democrat or Republican to decide if he deserves criticism or praise?

Jesus may have walked on ice, not water

2006-04-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

Sixteen years ago, when I was a student in a university theology class, I made the sacrilegious suggestion that Jesus may have walked on ice, not water. Everyone laughed. "It's too warm in the Middle East for ice to form," said the professor. I slumped in my chair.

Now a professor at Florida State University has vindicated me.

Doron Nof, a professor of oceanography at FSU, studied records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a freshwater lake now called Lake Kinneret. He found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have resulted in ice forming near the lake's western shore. Surrounded by water, a piece of floating ice might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see.

Nof published his study in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' alleged walk on water. "If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."

Fourteen years ago, Nof offered another theory that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea. Nof said he received some hate mail from that, and he's already receiving more hate mail for his new theory.

"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

That one is simple, too: Jesus never died on the cross. He simply lost consciousness.

This is all assuming Jesus ever lived in the first place, of course.

Ooh, now I'm going to be receiving hate mail...

--R

Source: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0002/20060405/0922892435.htm

It Puts The "Blah" Into Blogging When One Hits Their Own Post

2006-04-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

Okay you Oregon bloggers, I've had about enough of this same old people always being most popular. What the heck?? Let's make a rule you can't use software that lets you click your own post and see who really has a popular post. And can we please talk about something other than politics which really has very little to do with one's own life. The intellectual bantering around right and left is so boring, and not very creative. Let's say if you have an idea you have to present it in your own words as your own idea. Not someone elses words. It could be political but try to tone down any hate or right left bashing. Hey, did you notice...it's sunny outside. Now I'm putting this up on the ORBLOGS site and I'm not going to click on it and we will see where it goes. I won't Bragg...oops brag about it and it may not be very Large, but it was my idea. There is a lot going on outside of us but even more inside. Take a chance and write from the heart not the heat, eh??

The most quantum thing one can do

2006-03-25T18:20:00.000-08:00

Rather than tell you, I'll show you. Check out this video:

--R

Is your life a particle or a wave?

2006-03-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, a movie called "What the #$!%* Do We Know!?" became an underground new-age phenomenon, raking in $11 million and spawning an industry of books, tote bags, clothing, DVD's and "biofield" jewelry. An editorial in today's NY Times wonders whether we took the film too seriously.

The author of the editorial, Dennis Overbye, says he was initially excited about the film, but after watching it repeatedly and navigating its splashy Web site, his enthusiasm has been tempered. "These films and the quantum mysticism industry behind them," he says, "raise a disturbing question about the muddled intersection between science and culture. Do we have to indulge in bad physics to feel good?"

Bad physics? Overbye says that physicists have been trying for a long time to explain how "the fog of quantum possibilities prescribed by mathematical theory can condense into one concrete actuality, what physicists call 'collapsing the wavefunction.'" Fifty years ago, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner speculated that consciousness was the key to this mysterious process, thereby launching what Overbye calls "a thousand New Age dreams." He says books like "The Tao of Physics" and "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" have tried connecting quantum physics to Eastern mysticism, and that Deepak Chopra has founded a career on the idea of "quantum healing." In addition, a school of parapsychology has formed around the idea that phenomena such as telekinesis and telepathy are a result of "probing minds' manipulation of the formless quantum potential."

All of these, says Overbye, "promote the idea that, at some level, our minds are in control of reality. We are in charge of the holodeck.... And if it doesn't work for you, it's probably because you don't believe."

So what's wrong with that? "Physicists today," states Overbye, "say the waves that symbolize quantum possibilities are so fragile they collapse with the slightest encounter with their environment. Conscious observers are not needed. In other words, reality is out of our control. It's all atoms and the void, as Democritus said so long ago. Indeed, some physicists say the most essential and independent characteristic of reality, whatever that is, is randomness. It's a casino universe."

When it comes to physics, Overbye says, "people seem to need to kid themselves. There is a presumption...that if you look deeply enough you will find 'some reaffirmation of your own centrality to the world, a reaffirmation of your ability to take control of your own destiny.' We want to know that God loves us, that we are the pinnacle of evolution. But one of the most valuable aspects of science...is precisely the way it resists that temptation to find the answer we want. That is the test that quantum mysticism flunks, and on some level we all flunk."

So, according to Overbye, science is valid because it doesn't tell us what we want to hear, and quantum mysticism is invalid because it tells us what we want to hear. But I think Overbye feels that way because quantum mysticism tells him exactly what he doesn't want to hear: that he is responsible for his own happiness. He's holding out for a scientific explanation for his unhappiness, which will never come.

What do you think?

--R

Twilight's Last Gleaming by John Cory

2006-03-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

Twilight's Last Gleaming
By John Cory
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Sunday 05 March 2006

Who are these people? These people who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones? These gray men who lurk in shadows and kill the sunshine of democracy? These people who wear morality like a cheap suit pilfered from the collection plate of decency? Who are these people who have turned America into their own personal ATM machine? These are the people of the lie - Republicans.

Who are these people? These people who sit in spineless silence unable to speak in defense of America? These people who mime the words of our founders, afraid to act with independence? Who utter the words "We concede," instead of "We the People?" These are the people who lie down - Democrats.

Newspapers no longer serve the public, only their corporate masters. They have wedged themselves firmly between the cheeks of power, a tissue to sanitize the bullshit. The media has finally achieved the ultimate self-delusion; broadcasting sitcom politics, and talking points of the throne, it has become the court jester with tinkling bells and curly pointed shoes: useless, untrustworthy, and fused in falsehoods and facades.

This is twilight's last gleaming. Attention must be paid. Democracy is dying.

Bush and Company wants us to be afraid. Republicans sell us fear as they sell out America.

Democrats wait in the wings, picking up their pieces of silver to keep mum. Both political parties capitalize on all the fear.

Democrats think we will become so fearful of Republicans that we will have no other choice but to elect them. That is their incentive. Low profile, quiet acquiescence, and they think their silence will be rewarded.

This is not the time for silence. According to recent polls from Zogby, Fox News, Gallup and CNN, 72% of our troops believe the war in Iraq is a failure and we should withdraw. 64% of the public disapproves of Bush's handling of Iraq. 69% of Americans are against the Dubai Port deal. 52% do not find Bush "honest and trustworthy."

And yet Democrats can find no voice, no fight, no issue to unify them to protect "we the people." Major print and media outlets can find no reason to investigate Republican scandals, bribery and lies, no reason to question an administration that started a war with a lie and failed its own citizens when Katrina hit, by lying about what they did or did not know. Katrina, like 9/11, left the boy king wide-eyed and unprepared. Leader of the free world? Most Americans think not.

When it comes time for voting, here is what I will remember: the silence.

If there is a voice for America, let them speak now. Let them speak for the poor women who not only will find abortion illegal, but will not be allowed birth control and contraceptives. Let them speak for the old and infirm who will not be able to have healthcare and cost-effective drug prescriptions. Let them speak for true family values of providing for our veterans and protecting our troops with proper body armor and ending a false war so no more loved ones have to die for a lie.

But most of all, let them now speak up for the one precious gift that is America - Freedom. Freedom of speech - Freedom to dissent - Freedom from illegal domestic spying. Freedom, sweet freedom for which our fathers, brothers, and sisters have fought and died for over the past 230 years!

Hunter S. Thompson warned, "Big dark coming soon." Big dark is here.

Our Constitution hangs by a thread. Make no mistake, this is twilight's last gleaming. It's time to defend America, not sell it down the river of corporate greed. It is time to stand up, not slink away to fight another day, because there are no more days. The monarchs of mendacity under George Bush are dismantling democracy at every opportunity.

Democrats, you want my vote? Earn it! Get up off your ass and take a stand! Take back America. Stop whimpering. Throw out your Republican-lite Bush lickspittles and suit up for battle. We the people will support you if you speak up for the America we live in and want to preserve. You cannot claim victory simply because you kept the GOP from burying the Constitution while you let them drive it underground.

This is twilight's last gleaming. Who will speak up for America?

John Cory is a Vietnam veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device, 1969-1970.

Brokeback to the Future

2006-03-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

Watch the hilarious trailer for "Brokeback to the Future," the touching story of a love that could never be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ

Vibrate your way to better health

2006-02-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

It's probably just a coincidence that this story came out the same week as Valentine's Day and The Vagina Monologues. Researchers at Oregon State University have found that vibrating the body can improve strength, flexibility, and balance. But they're not talking a single, small part of the body; they're talking the WHOLE body.

You do your workout standing on a vibrating platform that looks like a huge bathroom scale with upraised handles. The vibrations are set at 30 cycles per second, which makes your muscles contract and relax 30 times per second. If you're afraid of falling over, they can strap you in.

Excited yet? Keep your pants on--there's more.

One of the researchers, Gianni Maddalozzo, said, "Whole-body vibration training has been promoted as an efficient, safe alternative for resistance training. Even if performed to exhaustion, the increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen uptake...are negligible."

Performed to exhaustion? Are we talking whole-body vibration addicts?

There's no need to overdo it. Maddalozzo says you can get the benefits of a 45- to 50-minute workout in about 20 minutes.

Wanna place bets on whether this will become the next NordicTrack or BowFlex? "Get your very own Whole Body Vibrator(TM) and vibrate your way to health in the privacy of your own home any time, day or night, for the incredible, low-low price of only $298.98. Per month for 12 months. Plus shipping and handling. Some assembly required. Batteries not included."

Wait--someone has already come out with it. I just did a Google search and found a whole-body vibrator ("for office, gym, or home") made in Singapore by a company called Smitech. A picture of it appears at the top of this page. Watch for it on the Home Shopping Network! And then change channels!

--R

How to cook an egg, using two cell phones and a radio

2006-02-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this actually works, but if it does, it might explain why people who have cell phones glued to their heads seem so...well, soft-boiled. If anyone is brave enough (and has enough spare time on their hands) to try this, I'd like to know the results.

To do this you will need two cell phones - they do not have to be on the same network, but you will need to know the number of one of them. The only other items you will need are:

--An egg cup, (make sure that the egg cup is made of an insulating material such as China, wood, or glass - plastic will do. DO NOT use stainless steel or other metal).

--A radio, AM or FM.

--A table or other flat surface on which to place the phones and egg cup. You can place the radio anywhere in the room, but you might as well put it on the table.

How to do it:

1. Take an egg from the fridge and place it in the egg cup in the center of the table.

2. Switch on the radio and turn it up to a comfortable volume.

3. Switch on phone A and place it on the table such that the antenna (the pokey thing at the top) is about half an inch from the egg (you may need to experiment to get the relative heights correct - paperbacks are good if you have any - if not, you may be able to get some wood off cuts from your local hardware shop).

4. Switch on phone B and ring phone A, then place phone B on the table in a similar but complementary position to phone A.

5. Answer phone A - you should be able to do this without removing it from the table. If not, don't panic, just return the phone to where you originally placed it on the table.

6. Phone A will now be talking to phone B, while phone B will be talking to phone A.

7. Cooking time: This very much depends on the power output of your cell phone. For instance, a pair of cells each with 2 watts of transmitter output will take three minutes to boil a large free-range egg. Check your user manual, and remember that cooking time will be proportional to the inverse square of the output power for a given distance from egg to phone.

8. Print out these instructions for future reference.

Author's note: We cooked our egg during the evening using free local calls; if you were to cook an egg for lunch it would cost $1.75 - not cheap, but you do have the convenience.

By Suzzanna Decantworthy, with additional research by Sean McCleanaugh,
http://www.wymsey.co.uk/wymchron/cooking.htm

(Thanks to Eric Dickey, www.ericdickey.com, for the scoop.)

--R

Courtney Love's mother lives in Corvallis?

2006-02-07T08:56:00.001-08:00

On a quiet cul-de-sac, near OSU? And she's a psychotherapist? And she's just written a book about being Courtney Love's mother?

Well, that's what the Eugene Register-Guard says. Here's what else they say:

"But Linda Carroll knows Love as the baby daughter who saw angels in the clouds, the 7-year-old who started a letter-writing campaign to free a bear from its too-small cage at the zoo, the sister who took her siblings by the hand and led them to a view of the ocean. Carroll knows, too, the Courtney who could turn unmanageable in a second, who wished for death when she was denied a Popsicle, who wandered into a neighbor's field at age 12 and cut her arms with sharp sticks, who declared emancipation from her family at 16 and was off like a shot.

"All of those Courtneys are on display in Carroll's new memoir, 'Her Mother's Daughter' (Doubleday, 320 pages, $24.95), which begins with Carroll's own childhood in San Francisco as the adopted daughter of a distant Catholic couple. The book ends with her later-in-life search for her birth mother, who turned out to be novelist and children's author Paula Fox.

"In between, though, there is Courtney. Carroll has led an adventurous life, rich in friends, full of husbands (four) and fat with children - she raised five in all. But the book's central struggle focuses on a searching young mother and her desperately difficult daughter. 'For the first time in my life, I had a blood relative,' Carroll writes of the day her eldest daughter was born. 'Even her smell felt familiar to me. I would pass some of myself on to Courtney, characteristics I would recognize as she grew.'

"Carroll, who has the same blond hair, water-blue eyes and wide smile as her famous daughter, lives quietly on a cul-de-sac in Corvallis, not far from Oregon State University, and works as a psychotherapist. Her cozily cluttered home is full of family pictures - the generations, arms locked, often photographed laughing. But for years, every so often, the phone would shatter the ordinary life in Corvallis and on the other end would be Love, or news of Love, Carroll said. She was in rehab.

"Or out again. She had lost custody of her daughter or was fighting to regain it. She was poised for a comeback or had made the worst-dressed list. Sometimes, too, came word that Love had lashed out against her mother on a national stage, telling journalists that she'd been forced to live in a chicken coop, or virtually abandoned at a young age. Carroll's husband, Tim Barraud, said it's been difficult watching his wife remain silent in the face of accusations. For him, the book - which is subtitled 'A Memoir of the Mother I Never Knew and of My Daughter, Courtney Love' - was a chance to set the record straight.

"Other family members were more wary about Carroll writing a book, not wanting to see her choices judged and found wanting. ''I know the power of hearing other people's stories,' she said. 'Stories are healing. And a lot of people have challenging relationships with the people they love.'"

Looks like this challenging relationship is one that will finally pay off - for Ms. Carroll, anyway.

- R

Digital Spirograph-creation tool

2006-02-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

Created by Anu Garg.

I had a Spirograph when I was a kid, and I thought it was a pretty fun toy. It had a lot of small pieces, though, and I was always losing them - or else my brother was stealing them. Now I don't have to worry about that, though, because I can make my own digital Spirograph drawings.

What's the math behind Spirograph? What are you, some kind of nerd? Okay, since you asked: a Spirograph is a curve formed by rolling a circle inside or outside of another circle. The pen is placed at any point on the rolling circle. If the radius of fixed circle is R, the radius of moving circle is r, and the offset of the pen point in the moving circle is O, then the equation of the resulting curve is defined by:

x = (R+r)*cos(t) - (r+O)*cos(((R+r)/r)*t)
y = (R+r)*sin(t) - (r+O)*sin(((R+r)/r)*t)

If you want to dispense with all this abstract digital nonsense, you can get hold of the real, analog version of Spirograph at Amazon.com.

Bigfoot sighted in Malaysia

2006-01-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Malaysian newspapers and the official Malaysian news agency are reporting sightings of a huge ape in the country's rainforests.

One man claimed he saw a 10-foot-tall ape standing on two legs beside a river in a rainforest. "He said it was hairy all over, like a gorilla," said Hashim Yusoff, director of Johor National Parks Corp. Yusoff said he is keeping a database on the sightings and wants to enlist scientists to determine whether the beast is real.

Yusoff denies he is staging a publicity stunt to lure more visitors to the area. "No way. If there's any suggestion that we are using this one to get publicity, it's not true."

Maybe. But even if the sightings are, in fact, authentic, why not exploit them for publicity? It would be a good way to help restore some of Malaysia's economy in the wake of the tsunami.

I don't doubt the existence of Bigfoot any more than I doubt the existence of aliens. The question is: Do they exist in the flesh, or do they exist only in our imaginations? Are they particles, or are they waves?

--R

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20060103%2F1237388352.htm&sc=reodd

Falling in love changes your body chemistry

2005-12-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

Researchers in Italy have discovered that falling madly in love significantly changes our body chemistry - but not for long. They studied a group of people who had fallen in mad, passionate love in the past six months, comparing them with people in longer-term relationships and with single people. The group consumed with passion had more of a stimulating protein called nerve growth factor in their blood. The more intense the feelings of infatuation, the more nerve growth factor there was. But when these same lovers were tested a year later, the levels had dropped back down to normal. (William Falk, NY Times)

This explains the otherwise inexplicable continuation of the human species - as well as overpopulation. It also explains why some people appear to be "love junkies," constantly in search of their next high in the form of a passionate relationship. Which is a real bummer for their victims.

Maybe the key to staying in love is to make sure it really is "more than a feeling," as the otherwise incoherent Boston song put it.

--R

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/opinion/30falk.html?th&emc=th

Don't you want this for Christmas?

2005-12-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

Remember the big scare about "terrorists" using powerful laser pointers to blind pilots? Well, now you can get one of those laser pointers for yourself - or someone very special on your holiday shopping list.

Bigha, an Oregon company best known for its high-end recumbent bicycles, is promoting the "Jasper Curve," a computer-controlled laser pointer with a range of up to 30,000 feet. They say it's "the most powerful legal laser pointer in the world."

Okay, I have a few questions for Bigha:

1. Why is a bike company selling laser pointers? Are there that many bicyclists who need to point at things while riding?

2. Why would anyone need a laser pointer that shoots a beam 30,000 feet? Are classrooms and auditoriums getting that big?

3. You say your laser pointer is "legal"; are there illegal ones? How far do they shoot - 5.68 miles? Oh wait, that is 30,000 feet!

4. If a laser beam is supposedly a highly focused, straight beam of light, why do you call it "Jasper Curve"?

5. Does it vibrate at all?

Well, maybe none of that matters. According to Bigha, the Jasper Curve is such a cool tool that Popular Science calls it a "must-have gadget for the holiday season!"

--R

"Human Trafficking" T.V. Show Exploits Painful Issue to Sexually Titillate

2005-12-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a show on the Lifetime channel because I was incredulous that someone was making a night time drama about a subject that should only be covered in a documentary. The kidnapping of women and holding them against their will while marketing them as sex slaves is not the material we need to "entertain" us. We have become a sick culture when we sit down to an evening of entertainment and enjoy filling our head with rape and female oppression before going to sleep. This makes our intimate, personal relationships vulnerable to scripting by dramas that make men uncaring, sexually driven idiots and women nothing more than a place for them to put their (undoubtedly enormous) dicks. Sick, sick, sick. I was saddened and today have cancelled my extended cable because I don't want to support this garbage in any way. Get out the old harmonica honey, we are going back to "real" entertainment.

2005-12-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

OK... here's my rambling on being a rock star or whatever:
There is something so exciting and blissful, nostalgic and perfect about being caught up in the energy of a huge crowd who is all there supporting something positive - cheering, clapping, dancing, singing along. How often do crowds of thousands gather to do that? Only sporadically, at concerts, football games, things like that. It's really uniting and defnitely good for the soul. Even if most of the people are drunk at the football games.

Second, how could you not want to play music for people! Come on!! Music is LIFE! And it's cool to be able to make a whole crowd feel a certain way or even to stir up all kinds of different emotions and memories in each person.

Third, OK, I'm sure it releases all KINDS of neurotransmitters, dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, whatever. It's a RUSH. At least it is when you're rocking out, putting on a really high energy performance, and the crowd is drawn up into that really high energy place with you, and everyone is just on the same page for once. It's total ecstacy. Even picturing it right now is causing a rush of chemicals in my brain. Hope it is for you all too.

--L

Suffering

2005-12-13T16:41:00.000-08:00

Recently an old high school friend called me to catch up on 25 years of lost time. We had played drums together in high school band, drove around drinking together in his 1964 Studebaker, and stayed in touch until we were in our early 20s. He was a much better drummer than I and went on to play in a semi-famous band at the Palomino Club in Los Angeles; I stayed in our home state and played with several bands that never made it big but helped pay the bills while I worked my miserable back-up job as a teacher. (My mother always told me I should have a career to fall back on in case music didn't work out, but she neglected to mention that I might need another back-up career in case the first one didn't work out.)

After I recovered from the shock of hearing from my old friend, I asked him what he's doing now. His response: "Suffering."

At first I thought he was joking. What could this person who had lived my dream have to be suffering about? Didn't he realize how fortunate he was to have been talented enough to make a living as a drummer?

"Suffering?" I laughed. "What are you suffering about?"

I wasn't prepared for his reply. "I'm on medication for depression, anxiety, and insomnia. I also have a condition that makes me hypersensitive to certain sounds, so instead of having a ringer on my phone I have a light that tells me when someone calls. I can't hold down a job because I'm always tired, so I'm on disability. I live alone, and pretty much all I have the energy to do is work on research for a book I'm writing. But I also have a vision disorder, so I write using an overhead projector to blow my writing up on the wall so I can see it."

"Wow," I said. "You ARE suffering. When did all this happen?"

"I don't know if you remember that when we were in high school I was always depressed?"

How could I have missed that? I remember that he often dressed in shabby clothes like he was poor, but a lot of kids did that just to be different. But he had a great sense of humor and we were always joking around together and laughing. Also, he was a talented drummer; how does a depressed person get that good at something so complex as drumming?

"No, I don't remember that, actually," I said. "I thought you were pretty funny, and I always envied your drumming abilities."

"Yeah, well, I was depressed pretty much the whole time I was growing up, and at the time I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just thought life was hard for everyone, because it was all I knew and no one ever told me otherwise. I think I inherited it from my dad. He was an alcoholic, you know, and the alcoholism was probably his way of self-medicating. He never did anything but sit around the house all day and drink. I almost went that route, too, but after my marriage ended in divorce I decided I didn't want to be like my dad anymore, and alcohol didn't make me feel better anyway."

I was a little stunned, and I have trouble talking even with "normal" people, so this was a bit beyond my range.

"Wow," I said again, lamely. "I'm sorry. Um, so, do you still play drums?"

"No, I sold my set years ago. I really don't do anything but eat, write, and try to sleep."

Our conversation lapsed into a superficial but comfortable rehash of people and times gone by, but while we were talking I kept wondering how I had missed that my friend was depressed all those years. Was he just a good actor, making everyone believe he was fine because he was somehow able to get up, get dressed, feed himself, come to school, and act reasonably normal every day, despite his unreasonable and abnormal home life? Did I just assume he was all right because he had a sense of humor and was a good drummer? Or did I miss his depression because I, myself, was depressed and just didn't know it?

Maybe all of the above are true, in varying degrees. I think my friend struggled valiantly, as most high school kids do, to be "normal"; I think he developed a sense of humor and drumming skills so that he had something he could call his own; and I know I was at least melancholy, if not depressed, during a good portion of my high school years.

So maybe it makes some sense that I missed it. Still, my friend was suffering then, and he's suffering now. What kind of friend was I to him then? What kind of friend can I be to him now? Is there anything I can do to help ease his suffering? His loneliness?

It's been six months since he called me. I'm going to call him back - and hope he's sitting near his telephone so he sees the light come on.

--R

Myspace: bad or good?

2005-12-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

ello!
A lot of kids/teens now use a program called myspace. And yes if you are wondering, I have it too. But I've always wondered, is it really safe? 13 year-olds putting up pictures of themselves all over this webpage, is that safe? Personally, I think the only way to be okay online is if you have the private setting where only your friends can look. On my myspace, I don't even have pictures. I also only have four friends. But that's beside the point. The point is that a lot of bad things have happened on myspace. Kidnappings, people disappearing. So what draws kids into this program? Pictures. It's the competing of pictures. Showing the world that you can take a good picture. And then after they post that picture, friends can comment on any picture. That gets to the kids too. Receiving opinion of people who go to your school of how your picture looks. I have friends who spend hours just trying to take the right picture to post and show off to everyone.
What I still don't understand is why people use it. And when I say people, I mean teen-agers. Sure, there's the pictures, but for most adults and people over sixteen, its a dating program. That's why you can post pictures. Or some people just like showing off their artwork. But I haven't seen a piece of art on any myspace accounts.
Also, kids give their names, numbers, where they live, what school they go to. Some, like me, make a fake profile. For example, if I were to make a profile and say my name was Fay Goshmonstifit, then I would make up a hometown. After that's complete, I would make up a totally different profile. Saying outrageous things like "I'm 8'9," stuff like that. But some other people seriously write down everything they know about themselves. One year, my friend got her account taken over by some guy who started posting things on there and pretending to be her. She immediately changed her account, but how come she didn't make a new fake one? Wasn't she worried that now that person who hacked in could find her? No. Because we can't all live in fear but we can try and live in safety. Most the time.

I guess I'm just pointing out to people what a dangerous myspace it is out there....

Oh and I really don't hate myspace, I just am saying that I think kids my age should be more careful about who they talk to.

$$H$$

The North Pole is shifting toward Siberia!

2005-12-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

If you've been feeling out of whack lately, this may be why. The Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting, and our planet's protective magnetic shield is becoming weaker.

What are the implications for life as we know it? What are the implications for Santa Claus?

Well, the North Pole could end up in Siberia in the next 50 years and Alaskans may not get to see northern lights anymore, but if you're worried that the Earth's magnetic field will collapse or that the poles will flip, relax. The last time the poles flipped was about 780,000 years ago.

Anyway, Joseph Stoner (don't laugh! this is serious!), a paleomagnetist at Oregon State University, says, "This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada."

Whew. Normal oscillation - that's good. Migrating back to Canada - also good. But I didn't even know there was such a thing as a paleomagnetist. Do you think Stoner played with Magnastix when he was a kid? What else do you think Stoner played with?

Stoner (stop laughing!) also says that the magnetic pole's movement has accelerated more over the past century than in the previous four centuries.

OK, now that's really not funny. On top of global warming, bird flu, Jennifer Aniston, and everything else we have to worry about, now we have to worry about the Earth's polarity shifting more rapidly than usual? Maybe Stoner is wrong; maybe the poles will flip. After all, it's been 780,000 years since the last flip, and the Earth is probably getting bored. Santa, too, is probably getting bored with living at the North Pole, and having to read all those "Gimme gimme" letters. At least the South Pole has emperor penguins to keep him amused.

Are we humans somehow causing this magnetic mayhem? And by "humans," I mean every other human but me? If so, could you please stop? I don't think I could stand being any more out of whack than I am...and I don't want my letter to Santa to get lost.

--R

(If you're a glutton for punishment and want to read more about this, go to http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/12/09/special_reports/science_technology/16_09_1612_8_05.txt)

Am I shy, or am I passive-aggressive?

2005-12-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

My mother was the first person I can remember calling me shy, and several other people since have levelled the same accusation. But knowing who I am and who I've been at various points in my life, I'm not sure whether I am actually shy. For example, I played Ringo in a Beatles lip-sync act in front of my third-grade class, played guitar and sang original compositions in front of my sixth-grade class, appeared as a contestant on a cable TV game show, dated liberally in college, and was a professional drummer for 20 years. One band I was in played on a daytime TV show broadcast to an audience of half a million people. Does that sound shy? OK, never mind that I sweat profusely whenever I'm under any kind of scrutiny - my alleged shyness has never been an effective deterrent against making a fool of myself.

Also, "shy" has numerous, disparate definitions, so when someone calls me "shy," do they mean that I'm timid, bashful, diffident, modest, circumspect, reserved, coy, secluded, short, or disreputable?

I think one of the reasons my mother called me shy is because (she says) I used to stand off in a corner by myself in Sunday school. I vaguely recall doing that, but I wonder if my self-exclusion in that case had more to do with the setting and the accompanying activities. Even as a five-year-old, I understood that Sunday school was primarily a babysitting service and secondarily a brainwashing program. And I wanted nothing to do with either objective, however practical or well meaning. Let me stay home with my Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, and let me build my own sense of spirituality from my own observations of life and the world around me. But my parents had a need to attend church, so they assumed I had a need to attend also. And attend is all I did.

Another example of my tendency toward shyness - or the perception thereof - is my reluctance to bother anyone about anything. This may have come from being the third of four children, and feeling like my parents had enough work on their hands without my adding to their burden. I was so dedicated to this particular cause that I learned to ignore my own very real needs, just to keep from asking anything of anyone. One time when I was in kindergarten, I peed in my pants rather than interrupt the teacher while she was trying to get us all lined up for dismissal to the bus. Besides being humiliating for me, my "selfless" act created even more work for the teacher because she then had to focus all her attention on me and cleaning up the mess I had made, while allowing the dismissal line to fall into utter confusion and disarray.

Was attention, in fact, the unconscious goal of my "shyness"? Is shyness, in fact, a clever, manipulative way of getting more attention? That might make sense, considering all the examples I cited above of ways in which I am not shy: as one of four needy children of emotionally challenged parents, I simply decided that I was not going to be ignored, even if I had to pretend to be shy to get people to notice me. If this is true, it's a phenomenon similar to passive-aggression, which is another topic I intend to address at some point. If it's okay with you...

--R

Middle School Grades

2005-12-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

Ello there!
As you all know, we all get graded. Even old people (no offense mom and dad.) So if we are all graded, where do all these grades go? How do they affect us? Do they go on our permanent records?
The answer to these is mostly unknown, seeing how I am but one person and do not know of others complaints. Some kids like getting grades. They like to challenge themselves to get that A or to up that F. Not me. I hate it. I really don't see why we have to be judged by a stupid little letter. I know some people out there are going: "Oh yeah yeah another teenager, dont you want to go to college? What about your job?" Well, what about my job? Currently, I don't have a job. But when I do get one, how do you know its going to contain who won the revolutionary war? Or who built ice houses in the 1950's? What if I become a famous artist, and get rich off of my art. Or what if I just become a minimum-wage worker as a waitress? None of this history stuff will matter. Non of this science stuff will matter. So why do they feed us such crap in Middle School? Personally, I beleive they're brainwashing us. We all used to be so creative and bright, and they turn us into drones and walking dead.
I really must go to my brainwashing building now, but just consider this:
If we all are given F's, what do we immedietly think of ourselves?
H

When They Kicked Kids Out Of Public Schools For ADD

2005-12-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

My little sister Amy had to be tied in her bed at night or else she would find a way out of our house and run out in the street. Her favorite trick was to take all her clothes off and go running out among the neighborhood naked. Being she was only three, people thought it was cute, but I didn’t. I remember singing to her at night and lightly scratching her back. My mom said I had the “magic touch” to get Amy to sleep. It would take hours but it was worth it to me when I saw how much relief it gave my mother. My mother took my little sister to every specialist on the face of California but to little avail. She was a non-stop moving, yelling, hurting herself machine. In desperation my mother started to medicate her. The doctors said she had a hyper-thyroid and put her on Ritalin, Melaryl, and Phenergan. Now I had a sister who was wild and who hallucinated. She would throw herself down on the floor in the backseat of the car yelling and crying and pleading with my mom to “make monsters go away.” This was not better but she did sleep at night. Amy didn’t talk until she was almost three. Rarely uttered a word until one night we were sitting around the dinner table and yes, my dad was there, and out of three years of virtually no talking came a whole song:

“Sideways walking, sideways walking.
Just like a giant, just like a giant,
Who lives in a cave, who lives in a cave!”

Everyone’s dinner fork froze mid way to mouth and all mouths froze in disbelief. Then we all started yelling “hurray, Amy! Good job, good job” and I remember we were all crying we were so happy. From that day forward my little sister never stopped talking. She was a 24/7 questioning wonder and if she wasn’t asking endless questions she was singing at the top of her lungs. We all tried to remember when she couldn’t talk but it got harder and harder and we found ourselves asking her to please “BE QUIET!”

Don't Do Everything the Boys Do

2005-12-02T15:04:00.000-08:00

When I was five years old I went to Mrs. Robinson’s kindergarten class. She was so pretty and I was so in love with my teacher--even though I was a girl. I never wanted to do anything that I wasn’t supposed to do, and to please her was to make myself happy. I thought Mrs. Robinson walked on water, the way her hair curled, the clothes she wore, her pretty, smiling face. When she sang with us she would laugh and look so wonderful. Yes, I was glad to have her as my teacher.

One day she hung a paper cat up from the ceiling right in the middle of the room. We had to walk under this cat in order to get to the front of the rug, where we congregated for our talks. The paper cat had a tail that spiraled down and around and was the most eye-catching, fun-swinging paper tail you ever did see. When Mrs. Robinson hung the cat, she said, “Now boys and girls, I don’t want anyone to touch this cat I’m hanging up for Halloween. Does everyone understand?” Yes, yes, yes, we all understood.

Days went by and I did the usual at recess, played on the stilts, swung on the swings, jumped rope. I was so happy in kindergarten--until one day.

Mrs. Robinson gathered us up, as usual, and made us get in our “file into the classroom line.” Three boys were ahead of me in line and they were passing something around and being very silly. I was watching them carefully and smiling when they’d look my way. I watched the way they walked and how they kept doing what the one in front of them was doing. Single-file, one by one, we walked into the classroom, and right underneath that cat with the wonderful, swirly tail. Each boy in front of me did a little hop and touched the end of that cat’s tail. Hop, smack, step step. Hop, smack, step step. Hop smack, step step.

When the last boy had done it, something inside me told me I had to continue this pattern, and so without further thought I hopped, smack--“Miss McGinnis!” came Mrs. Robinson’s voice. “I am very surprised to see you doing that! This is not like you at all. Please come talk to me at my desk.”

I remember the blood coming to my face and my stomach feeling like I was going to throw up. I was so upset. I hadn’t meant to hit the cat’s darn tail, it just happened. And to make things worse, Mrs. Robinson had not seen the three boys in front of me jump up and hit it, only me. The boys were all looking sheepish but were laughing with each other when no one was looking.

I walked over to Mrs. Robinson’s desk. “Judy,” she said, “is something wrong?” The three boys were watching me and I was determined to get through this and not cry. I would not let them see me cry.

“No,” I said.

“It's not like you to break the rules,” she said.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Robinson, I just forgot and his tail is so tempting hanging right where we walk, and I’m so sorry, I’ll never do it again, I promise.”

She smiled that wonderful smile and looked over at where the cat hung. “Perhaps you are right and I should move the cat,” she said.

The next time we came in from recess, the cat hung in a different place, to the side, not where we walked under it. The boys out at recess called to me and made faces, but I didn’t pay attention to them. And the next time when we did painting, instead of painting flowers and sky and butterflies like I usually painted, I painted a black cat hanging from a string and his tail was missing.

“I like your painting very much,” Mrs. Robinson said with a smile.

“Thanks,” I said, looking up at her. She touched the top of my head. She knew I was hurting, and all was forgiven.

I learned a very good lesson that day: When you’re following the boys, be very careful and don’t do everything the boys do. You might get into trouble.

Energy Involved in 9-11 Present Before It Happened

2005-11-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

I have a picture my daughter drew hanging in my yoga studio. To describe the picture is truly not doing it justice, but I will try.

There is a red building in the middle that looks like two buildings, because there is a line down the middle with the building slanting off to the left and right. Below there is a city, a big city, many buildings all around. There is a triangle below the red building pointing up to it. There is an angel on the side of the red building who is crying as she hoovers close by. There is smoke all around the blood-red building and the sky above it looks like it is broken.

Yes, it is a picture of 9-11, and she drew it when she was only four, which is in itself amazing, considering that we didn’t talk about the event around her and rarely had the TV on to see what had happened. It is amazing that although we tried to shield her, she still drew this picture.

But the truly amazing thing is she drew this picture on 9-9, two days before the incident happened. I remember putting the picture on the side of my refrigerator with one of my magnets. There it hung, just another amazing picture of many that she was always drawing. Then on September 11, that fateful morning, I turned on the TV to catch some “news” while I made smoothies for breakfast. The scene was of an airplane crashing into a very familiar-looking building, with people running and screaming and even jumping from the building. My eyes moved across my kitchen to the refrigerator and there hung the picture my daughter had drawn two days earlier, depicting this very scene with death, blood, despair, and angels all around.

Now the picture hangs in my yoga studio. You may think this is a queer place to put a picture about conflict, death, and destruction, but my reasoning on the matter is this. The sub-conscious world is so much more than we give credit or credence to. My daughter had dreamed of the twin towers’ destruction and had drawn that dream in a picture, obviously to loosen it from her head where it hung until she laid it down with crayon and paint. And yet we say, she couldn’t have known, it hadn’t happened yet. But she was four and did know. Her picture is a clear illustration that she knew somehow on some level.

How do I understand this? I put the picture in my yoga studio to contemplate and meditate on this aspect. I’ve decided this. All the emotional energy for the event to take place was present before it took place. Children somehow are so in touch with emotional energy, energy that exists in our subconscious minds. Her subconscious mind picked up that energy and put the pieces together to frame the picture of the event that was created from this energy.

That is one explanation I have come up with. There is another possible explanation. Everything that happens has happened before, perhaps many times. All of us have memory of these happenings, but because we create false beliefs as we age, many of us are unable to believe in these memories and to touch these happenings.

I also like the picture hanging in my studio to remind me that yoga is not the practice of living in ignorant bliss. Yoga is the practice of cultivating peace among conflict, among pain, among suffering. Spending many hours in yoga classes, I see people who mistakenly think yoga is the practice of ignoring conflict, suffering, and pain. Yoga is a practice that dares to cultivate peace in the face of conflict, suffering, and pain. One still feels pain and suffering and has conflict. This is necessary for one to truly create peace. Peace starts with one's knowledge of such things by experiencing them. Then it is created through the belief that it is what’s most needed to help the most people. The motivation is understanding the extent to which people suffer and are in pain.

That is why the picture hangs in my yoga studio--so I never forget why I strive to feel healthy and strong and at peace. It is all to bring to a world one less being caught in the hell humans create. Perhaps to bring to the world one more person who still believes peace exists, and to illustrate a cultivated peace in my living soul that exists amidst the conflict.

I am also reminded by the picture how truly amazing our child minds are and to appreciate the one inside me as well as the ones inside others. To appreciate children in general and to see their minds as amazingly close to God.

The Chirstian Club

2005-11-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

Just a few weeks ago I sat in my art class with another girl. Later that week, she moved to another table, leaving me alone. A few days after that, maybe a week, a different girl stands up in the middle of class and screams "I am a Christian!" The table next to her had the girl who had sat with me before and two other girls. After the Christian shreik the girl had made, the three at the other table turn to her and the girl who sat with me before speaks for all of them. "We're all Christians at this table."

I wanted to laugh. But I had to contain myself seeing how it was art class and having hysterical laughing fits isn't exactly exepted. None the less, I smirked. But just a lil smirk. ;-)

All this happening in the classroom made my mind go back to elementry school. In elementry school I had alot of friends. 98% of them were Christian. I had absolutley no problem with this, as long as we didn't talk about it, I didn't care. Sometimes I would have to be draggged along to church with them, but l still didn't say anything about it. I didn't poke fun or be diruptful. I sat and respected their decisions in their religion. But now looking back at that I think, what would have happened if I had brought them to a anti-church meeting? Or a Satan circle or something? Would they have sat back and respected my decisions in who or what I worship? No. They most certainly would not have. They would stand and call us all abominashens (scuse the spelling) of god. They would run away home and cry to their mommy and daddy about what a bad person I am. And if this truley did happen, I would be left with maybe three or four friends. So what was I too do? Sit back, keep my mouth shut, and hate the ride.

But I didn't keep my mouth shut. I spoke. Alot. I even got my friend and I in huge trouble because we were passing notes with these two guys sitting in the seat ahead of us at the church. She hated me. For a long time. So I went to find other friends.

In third grade I didn't know how to stand up for myself. How to make people who are trying to make you look dumb, look dumb. So instead I made jokes.

The game of tag occasionally consists of alot of children. When I was "it" I ran for a boy close to me to tag him. He began to scream! I really wasn't that scary, was I? I ran faster until he shouted at me "Don't touch me you non-Chirstian! You'll go to hell and take me too if you touch me! You can't play!" wtf was this kids problem? I got mad. He pissed me off bad. So, I did not run away. I did the spitting image of what they thought I was. I placed my hands behind my head, made horns, and shook my "tail." My only words, if I can remember right, were "I am satan!" Or something along the lines of that. Some of the kids laughed, some ran away. I laughed too. I actually scared that little jerk away with a satan act!

The point is, some of these kids actually think that if I tag them, they'll go to hell or limbo or whatever the heck they wanna call it. Third grade kids, already discriminitive towards someone of a different religion, or no religion at all in my case.

So I have astablished that the "Christian club" does in fact exists. It is a club. A clan. A bunch of people who think they've got the right mind and the others dont. but who doesn't? Politics do this too. One party thinks they've got it right, the other thinks they're just as right.

Well, I wish I had more time to type, but I have school to attend. I hope you all have a good day.

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

Junior High's Bottom Dog

2005-11-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

No one was popular in sixth grade, which was still elementary school where I lived. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen at junior high. Suddenly gods were made from people I had grown up with, playing kick ball. You know, everyone had them. They were the people who just exuded perfection, desire, confidence. Needless to say, I wasn’t one of these people. I wasn't a nobody, either. I had many friends who were popular, but they would only allow me in on the fringes of their lives. My best friends were the invisible type like myself. We ate lunch together, talked about clothes, boys, everything. We spent the night at each other’s houses and walked with each other to the bus stop. But we were just filler and not the popular people.

It is funny how as kids we are so aware of just who are the popular people and who are the ones who are just, well, there. I remember being so afraid of people hurting other people’s feelings. I hated it when kids put some kid down so much and so long that even the strongest of characters cracked.

I remember one such boy lived down the street from me. His name was Larry Kellogg. It was rumored he lived in a shack with dirt floors, but I’d never been in his house to see them. Kids said his “old man” sat on the front porch with a shotgun in his lap, letting people know that they had better not bother his house. If this was true, it didn’t help. Larry’s house was TP'd more than anyone’s house I knew. It was almost a weekly occurrence.

I remember Larry getting off at my bus stop. All the boys seemed to think it was OK to hit him while he walked down the bus aisle to get off the bus. I was always shocked that the bus driver never said anything. One day I got behind Larry and I could see the perspiration running down the side of his face as he beat his way through the crowd to the open door. I could smell what it was to be Larry and I could feel what it was to be Larry. Before I knew what I was doing I made a fatal junior high error. I stood up for Larry.

“Why do you guys feel you need to hassle him every day? Why don’t you just mind your own business?”

The bus was silent for a second, but then the boys all started saying I was in love with Larry. “Judy plus Larry, Judy plus Larry” they sang out. I was so embarrassed--my face was burning and I was perspiring just like Larry now. I managed to make it off the bus, but as the bus pulled away I could hear the chorus of boys' and girls' voices, “Judy plus Larry, Judy plus Larry.” One kid even poked his head out the window to make sure I heard it.

Larry had already started walking home and I stood there, alone. I thought about what had happened and I decided I was glad I had said something. I’d rather be Larry’s girlfriend than the girlfriend to any of his “acceptable” taunters.

It is hard to stand up for the bottom dog of life. I am proud of that young girl who hated seeing people torn apart by other people who were insecure and power hungry.

Being Flat Chested and Female in America

2005-11-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

I was very skinny growing up. Skinny and flat chested. My grandmother used to tell me that I’d get breasts after I had some children, but that seemed like the wrong time to get them. I wanted them now. Everyone else had breasts and I had none. Well actually, I had breast buds, but that was it. I wanted a bra so badly because everyone who was anyone had one. My mom said I didn’t need a bra because I was so flat chested. She might as well have just gone and stuck a dagger in my heart, because I didn’t want her telling me what I didn’t want to know.

My brother used to think it was so fun to rub this obviously sensitive issue in my face, and he took the most pleasure from this when other people were around, namely boys. One day at the bus stop, he started singing a song very loudly that mimicked a song that was on a TV commercial for a doll named “Flatsy.” She was a flat doll and you could bend her and shape her almost anyway you wanted to. “Flatsy, flatsy, she’s flat, that’s that.” He sang the song over and over and directed it at me as he walked by with all his most popular friends. I hated him. I just wanted to die and not be there at that moment. Everyone was laughing and I did my best to ignore them. My friends were very supportive and yelled back a few put downs to the group of boys that contained my brother. But putting down a popular person is like throwing pebbles at a dinosaur. They are so big that your put down is insignificant. My friends huddled around me and said to not listen to him. “I’m not,” I lied.

To this day, I still hear my brother singing that stupid song, and I’m still flat even though I’ve had two children, and breast fed them both. Grandma lied…

I have nothing to say.

2005-11-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

Ello!
I really don't have anything to write about and I feel pretty bad about it. Seriously, nothing happens at school at all. No major things at all! Well I hope something comes along so I can write about it. Wow, power rajor toys......wow. Anywhho, I'll write again soon!

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@#@!!

Being Mom

2005-11-28T12:03:00.000-08:00

It was wonderful having my children return home for Thanksgiving. To see them all grown and strong and beautiful. I was proud of them and yet it is their effort now, making them who they are. I wondered if they will ever know how much I love them, all 3 of them. Brave children I have, brave and strong. And I am lucky to see them grown, healthy and thriving. Many moms around the world have their babies die, their children sold, their love destroyed. I realize how fortunate I am when I look at my grown children and cry for these mothers, for all moms who have lost their babies and to whom the world turns a blind eye.

It is hard to have children these days. So much emphasis on things. Cost of living always going up. But as I sat and watched my grown children on Thanksgiving I realized this is my greatest accomplishment. That may seem vain since these humans had much to do with who they are, but there is nothing I've supported that can compare to the miracle that these grown consciousnesses bring to my life. I want them to know that they are my success.

I am truly thankful.

--J

Aliens in my bathtub!

2005-11-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

Haha, tricked you all with the title...

So I watched all of Michael Jackson HIStory over the past... some random amount of time... and had to say something about it.

First of all, the guy can DANCE!!! Yeah, I'm WAY behind the times on figuring that one out, I know - actually I knew it before but I had forgotten anything positive about Michael when all of his trial stuff was going on. And we have such a creepy still store of him, it's sad. I mean yeah he looks insane in reality right now, but this still was probably the worst picture ever taken. All I saw was some freak of nature and I completely forgot that he ever had redeeming qualities (and still does, I'm sure).

So, here's my list of cool things about Michael Jackson at a time when he's probably at the bottom of the list of people you'd admire....

He wrote most of his own lyrics and music.

He did a really wide range of styles, and did them all well. I don't just mean musical styles either. He played vastly different people in his music videos, and was always convincing. In a way this could be a bad thing, and I guess it probably goes with him being in show biz since childhood and probably not feeling like his self ever belonged to him.

But I'm still impressed that he can play badass, femmy boy, wholesome guy, monster, smooth guy in a suit, guy in tatters mourning for the earth, advocate for minorities, and never seem like a poser. He also seemed to present a whole character whether he was black or white, dressed in a suit or dressed in high heels and lots of makeup. He seemed comfortable with it all, and even seemed completely "himself" in every variation, though it seems like his self belongs to the public, not to him. So maybe I just feel like he played any image at all so well, that the public accepted them all as him, just like a character in a movie.

At the end of the movie, there was an epic montage of him performing, crowds going wild, fireworks, all the intense, high energy parts of performing, with crescendoing music over it. It was an adrenaline rush to watch, and made me want to be in a crowd or on stage playing music, but the montage left me feeling overwhelmed and like living in that chaos could destroy sanity. But I'm still drawn to performing - more on that later....

Oh yeah, I forgot - after watching this and trying to go to sleep, I saw that flash thing again. Weird!
--L

I am so humbled

2005-11-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, someone will leave a comment on one of my blog posts that completely changes my perspective. This time, the writer made me see how my anti-war rants - and the angry responses they were provoking - were in essence propagating war. My negative energy was creating the very thing I claimed to disavow. It reminded me of a poster from the Vietnam era that said something like, "Fighting for peace is still fighting." I thought I was fighting for peace, but in reality I was just fighting. Which is something else the writer made me think about: Why am I fighting? What is behind my own anger, my own tendencies for making war? I'm still working on that one.

Here is what the writer said that put me in my place:

"No one likes war, of course. That is not the question we need to ask ourselves. The question is, 'do we cause war--or are we doing our part to see that war doesn't happen?' Liberal, conservative--those are just names that don't mean the same thing to anyone. Everyone feels slighted in life, or believes that government is wasteful. What a silly place to get hung up. I like it best when people comment without all the anger. What is underneath all that hate and anger? Do you do your part to see that war doesn't happen?"

Am I doing my part to see that war doesn't happen? How can I be more at peace myself, so I don't become the thing that upsets me?

I'll let you know when I have that one figured out.

--R

Wouldn't it be cool if...

2005-11-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

...someone could hear how a song sounds just from it being written about?

Favorite songs to just put on and completely get absorbed in?

For me, right now, I'd say the whole Momentary Lapse of Reason album. But it makes me want to watch the Live at Pompeii video too. Speaking of that, I have a cool reverse Dark-Side-of-the-Rainbow idea:

Make a music video that perfectly fits a song, let's just say "Time." Then write a song that also goes perfectly with the video you made. Get the music video out there (with your song in it) and then start anonymous rumors that this video goes perfectly with "Time." As the filmmaker, deny it all. Watch the rumors and speculation spread...

Here's something else weird. A friend of a friend, B, is giving up music entirely. He thinks that all of it is toxic or affects him negatively. It's an idea I've thought about before - I read a book called Sound Health, which said you should only let in positive sounds, but the guy on the back looked like a doofus so I thought maybe that's what happened when you did that. Well, really, I think I'm more aware of and annoyed with invasive sounds than I used to be, but I like to listen to songs that invoke all kinds of feelings, not just happy or neutral, which the Sound Health guy was recommending.

But as far as B's decision... wow, just can't imagine. I almost would think it relates to this funny term I heard today from the American Health Institute - I forget the term, but it was labeling people who won't eat anything but organic as having a disorder. I think it's funny that anyone concerned with health could call THAT a disorder, but maybe if taken to the extent of wanting to be free of music, it could be? I just can't see all music being harmful, and don't understand how he came to his decision, or how he will even be able to avoid music, but I haven't talked to the guy, so maybe if I ever do, I'll post about his point of view on it.

--L

Weird facts about turkeys

2005-11-24T16:09:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of some wild turkeys living in the suburbs of Corvallis, Oregon. Apparently Oregon is experiencing a wild turkey population explosion and they're causing a lot of problems. These turkeys grow to three feet tall and 25 pounds - big enough to menace children and small dogs. Also big enough to eat. Here are a few more interesting facts about turkeys in general and wild turkeys in particular. Happy Thanksgiving!

--R

• The Aztecs domesticated turkeys for centuries before Spaniards came across them in 1519 and brought them back to Europe.
• Ben Franklin wanted to make the turkey the national bird.
• President Lincoln created the official Thanksgiving holiday.
• The fleshy growth on the top of turkey heads is called a snood. The pouch-like area at the front of the throat is a wattle.
• Only male turkeys gobble.
• Wild turkeys became endangered in the early 1900s, when only 30,000 remained in America. Today, there are 6 million turkeys.
• In the 1970s, “turkey” became slang for someone considered stupid.
• The average American will eat 18 pounds of turkey in a year.
• About 46 million turkeys will be eaten on Thanksgiving and another 22 million at Christmas dinners in the U.S.
• In 2002 and 2003, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) received 284 turkey complaints throughout the state, with reported financial losses of nearly $26,000.
• Turkey hunting is the fastest-growing form of hunting and is now the second most practiced type of hunting in the United States, according to the Oregon turkey management plan. In 2003, with more than 14,000 hunters, the spring turkey season generated an estimated $11 million in Oregon. In 2005, 36,500 tags were sold.
• Oregon’s current turkey population is estimated at 25,000 to 30,000, according to ODFW. The birds aren’t a native species, although people have been trying to introduce them here since before 1900. The state of Oregon began importing wild turkeys in 1961, primarily for hunters.

http://www.gtconnect.com/articles/2005/11/24/news/top_story/thu01.txt

On the bus this morning

2005-11-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

I see a lot of weird stuff on the bus - people having intimate but embarrassingly loud cell phone conversations, people arguing with the voices inside their heads, neanderthals refusing to give up their seats for 160-year-old women - but this morning I saw something that really got me wondering. There was a blind man, complete with dark sunglasses and seeing-eye dog, holding a long, narrow box labeled "Transparent 3-Arm Protractor."

Why does a blind man need a protractor?

Okay, so maybe it wasn't his protractor - maybe he was just carrying it for someone else. Or maybe it was his protractor, and he just likes carrying it to keep the dream alive. Or maybe he actually uses it for something, like making straight lines for fun, or doing geometry for a college class, or drawing up architectural blueprints for that new 40-story building downtown (want to work in that building?).

Or maybe he just made a mistake - he thought he was buying a collapsible cane and instead wound up with a protractor. In which case, his dog is useless. Any seeing-eye dog worth his Milk Bones would have steered her master away from the architectural supply section and over to the blind persons' supplies (right next to the insensitive persons' supplies, where I do most of my shopping).

He should replace that dog with a collapsible cane.

But maybe a 3-arm protractor will work even better?

--R

New Harry Potter Movie

2005-11-22T07:53:00.000-08:00

Ello all!
Last night (Monday) I went and saw the new Harry Potter movie with some friends of mine. We all loooved it! I think it was the best movie i have seen this year. Certainly better than alot of other movies i've seen recently...Chiken Little cough cough. Anywho Harry Potter was sad and sometimes funny but mostley dramatic surprisingly. I think it was my favorite one out of the other ones. So if you have time you should go and see it, but be sure to show up at the theater early because when we went it was packed!

So thats my opinion. I hope you like it as much as I did!

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

Ruts vs. Paths

2005-11-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I've had a lot of thoughts on "being stuck in a rut." My yoga teacher says each moment is fresh. It is only we who fail to see this or we who mistakenly live with our minds in "past thinking," so we are not able to come fully into the fresh, new moment. I understand and I believe she is correct.

So what is the difference between a rut and a path? I feel I have a path in front of me. My path is to become enlightened about the truths in life that I fear to see. My path is set out by past experiences. I find the path useful because I am always finding myself walking into "nothingness"--another truth we fear to see. Why is a desire to become "enlightened" not a rut?

Sometimes it doesn't feel like free will that I have "chosen" this path. I have tried other paths and they became ruts. This path hasn't...yet...and I've been on it for a while. This path lets me look at all of myself--the "wanted" and "unwanted" parts--and it penetrates both. It takes what culture calls "negative" and allows for personal growth by making myself open to those oppressed parts. All my "ruts" have led me to this "path."

Asked what I would change in my past if I could, I'd have to say nothing--for it has led me here and I'm liking here. So perhaps the ruts were just branches into this path. Maybe there is only one path and all ruts lead to it? In fact, the more I look at it, I'm on the "pathless path." Does that make me lost?

--J

Here's something even less funny... :(

2005-11-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

I was scanning the health groups on MySpace and came across a bunch of "pro-ana and mia" groups - as in pro-anorexia and bulimia. I assume this has been around and been popular for ages, but I was pretty shocked. I looked at some of the groups, and a lot of the members had names that revolved around "ana," like "ana makes me beautiful" and "starvelous." Some of the groups looked at is as a lifestyle and some as a disease, but all of them had tips and support and "thinspiration" which all looked kind of scary. I couldn't understand if the people were being serious when they talked about wanting to see bones and thinking their skin itself was evil. Anyway, it's a whole subculture, I guess, and I would rather have not ever found out. It's been disturbing me for days. :( Apparently there are also anti-pro-ana sites, but I don't know if they're just talking amongst themselves about it or what; maybe they go on missions to infiltrate the other pages with healthy messages.

--L

Friday night madness

2005-11-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

Ello all!
Today is friday and I just wanted to wish you all a happy happy friday! Have a good weekend!

Byes!
!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

This isn't funny

2005-11-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

Smoked salmon soda? Turkey and gravy soda? Brussels sprouts, broccoli casserole, pumpkin pie soda? Why not just go for it and make raw sewage soda?

Believe it or not, the Jones Soda Company of Seattle is actually marketing all those flavors - except for the raw sewage. Why, you ask? Well, because they can - and because there's a huge market for gross-outs. Witness Jelly Belly vomit-flavored jelly beans. We hear they taste like chicken...once removed.

But what's scary about all this is not so much the stomach-turning flavors; it's what these sodas are made of. They're advertised as containing no fat, carbohydrates, or calories, which means they contain no actual food whatsoever. So what do they contain?

Raw sewage?

--R

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051117/od_afp/afplifestyleholidays_051117192211;_ylt=Ar.1jHCTSiQe1baR92e_nqCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-

Togetherness

2005-11-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

There was no reason for joy this morning, and yet it was joy I felt. The sky was big and promised more than my small life--and I followed it there. No me here. The joy became challenged as I drove you down into town--into work. No chance of discovery with friend right now. Again, I was on my own today--as truly, I always seem to be. You weren't in joy--but in thought. "Hello?" I smiled at you across the front seat. "Don't see me" your eyes smiled back. Your words were to cover up, not to let me in. "Stay back, stay away, don't touch!" So I was alone with you as we drove--I in joy and you in thought.

J

Wine Bottles' Reflections

2005-11-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$##@!

Do aliens exist only in our minds?

2005-11-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

Harvard psychologist Susan Clancy thinks alien sightings and abductions are just false memories, resulting from a combination of "fantasy proneness, memory distortion, culturally available scripts, sleep hallucinations and scientific illiteracy." In other words, aliens don't exist.

Clancy's new book about the subject, "Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens," is based on interviews with about 50 people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Clancy herself concluded that her subjects weren't crazy - in fact, many of them were "normal, articulate, and intelligent" - but, she says, "Arguing weird beliefs is a very normal thing. It's very human for us to believe in things for which there is no scientific evidence."

On the other side of the debate is David Jacobs, a professor of history at Temple University. Jacobs, who says he has interviewed more than 900 "alien abductees," calls Clancy's book a typical debunking book. "This is junk social science," he says, "and there is a certain condescending quality to it." He says that sleep paralysis, faulty hypnosis, and false memories "simply do not account for the convincing details" in abductees' stories. "All debunkers make one or more of the following mistakes: They ignore the data, they distort the data, or they don't know the data."

While we're arguing over who's right and who's wrong, Clancy is busy researching her next book - about the false memories of victims of sexual abuse...

--R

Synchronicity: Just a coincidence?

2005-11-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

Over the past several days, I've experienced at least six occurrences of synchronicity. My wife has experienced a similar number. What's going on here? Is it the full moon? The alignment of the planets? A wrinkle in time or space? A parallel universe coming into focus? Or are we just mislabeling coincidence?

Synchronicity is "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality..." (Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary).

So, according to this definition, synchronicity is not "just a coincidence" but a coincidental occurrence of psychic events - events that happen at the same time, randomly, with an apparently psychic connection.

So are my wife and I - and everyone else who experiences synchronicity - psychic? Or are we just intermittently aware, for whatever reason, of synchronicity that's happening all the time, to everyone?

Or is synchronicity just an illusion, a hallucination the subconcious mind occasionally conjures up to distract or amuse us?

Perhaps synchronicity is all of the above - or none of the above. Perhaps it's both all and none of the above - like every other paradox in this holographic universe.

What do you think?

--R

That Which Underlies Physicality

2005-11-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

Capitalism has been around for a long time. It is the excess not paid to those who labor to create a product. It seeks to control body collectively in order to use it for production purposes. All jobs in the public and private sector are connected to capitalism. Often times, those individuals who are unable to be anything but a spiritual person cannot make it in this capitalistic "job" market. The lack of awareness around spirit and the complete focus on physical domination make the workplace one in which they feel "invisible." Many bosses rule with the belief that they must be oppressive or abusive toward those people they are in charge of. This domination, which goes back to the earliest times of civilization, exists in order to centralize power. The need to centralize power runs back as far as ancient Mesoamerican civilizations. The need for males to centralize and thus build power has always resulted in the control of women's labor, including reproduction. Controlling those who "create life" is essential in keeping women from seeking to spiritualize new "members" in a way that will make them non-productive to those powers that have centralized. Production outside of centralized power is a threat, and in all capatalistic societies, ours included, it is discouraged. That is why the arts are the first things to go in public schools and why the "humanities" are always underfunded at the university level. These practices teach us to look outside of the production/consumption cycle and are a threat to centralized power and capitalism.

Much has to be sacrificed to be successful in a spiritual pursuit. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. Working at any job that is connected into centralized power is working at a job that must dominate others and extract some of their labor without paying them for it. The more extracted, the higher the profit, the better job you are doing as a supervisor. This creates a trickling down of pressure in all hierarchies under capitalism wherein domination reigns supreme. One must extract her or his physical being from capitalism in order to possess a life free of domination. That is very hard to do in this culture. Usually those people attempting to do this fall short of disciplining their physicalness outside of domination.

In spiritual pursuits there is the tendency to want to believe the physical can be transcended indefinitely. But now is not the time or place to do such a thing. Life in the physical body is an opportunity. It is important that we don't confuse the discomfort of physicalness caused by domination with the experience of physicalness. One must pass through the physical in order to transcend and reveal that which underlies all that is manifested in the physical. Ignoring the physical is ignorance, and it creates suffering usually late in life. One must bring one's body along on one's spiritual journey. Our bodies are supposed to belong to our spirits, not to capitalistic domination. An ongoing relationship between spirit body and physical body is necessary for us to reach "enlightenment" around that which underlies the physical world. Working inside of a capitalistic society, one must be very careful about how much one allows one's physicalness to be dominated, and be aware of this domination. The capitalistic world is a great place to gain some insights and enlightenment on capitalism, but it usually squelches one's spiritual growth.

When I was a women studies major at a local university, I saw many women who wanted to make changes in the world at large, but did not want to make changes in their own lives to create strong, healthy bodies. We cannot leave the body behind if we want to create enlightenment as we create "world changes." The biggest world changes happen when we change small things about ourselves--how we think, what we believe, how we eat and consume, how we recycle, how we collect information. It is through our gift of physicalness that we can reach out untouched by those forces that try to dominate physicality. We can't leave the body behind, though, until we are done on this physical plane. It is so important to incorporate body in our quest for spirituality, and I hope that as you become more aware of how domination of your body makes it uncomfortable to inhabit, you will more easily be able to cut ties that dominate so you can take your body with you as you grow spiritually.

Namaste

--J

Meditation and the brain

2005-11-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

One of the papers presented at Saturday's conference of the Society for Neuroscience (at which the Dalai Lama spoke) claimed that regular meditation may produce structural changes in parts of the brain associated with attention and sensory processing. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital showed that particular areas of the cerebral cortex were thicker in people who meditate. One of the researchers, Sara Lazar, said, "Our results suggest that meditation can produce experience-based structural alterations in the brain. We also found evidence that mediation may slow down the aging-related atrophy of certain areas of the brain."

It isn't clear what advantage there might be in having a thicker cerebral cortex, but I'm all for avoiding atrophy of any part of my body. (I know, some of you think I'm too late.) Is it possible that meditation not only enhances my own sense of connectedness and well-being, but also enhances the physical health of my brain? Is my enhanced sense of connectedness and well-being, in fact, a product of my brain's enhanced physical health? Or am I, like perhaps the researchers who wrote this paper, simply hallucinating the results I'm looking for?

I think I'll meditate on that...

--R

One Intention

2005-11-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

If you were to bring all your thoughts, your actions, your behaviors into one intention--what would that be?

--J

Acceptable ignorance

2005-11-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

I read an editorial in the college newspaper today about the importance of politically liberal individuals establishing moral absolutes to underlie their positions as a backbone, rather than observing how everything is relative. The author went on to assert her belief in moral absolutes and supported the notion of inherently "right" or "wrong" actions. Ostensibly, she did this to justify her stance against some cultural traditions she experienced while visiting foreign nations. Psychologically, she did this to adopt a form of ignorance acceptable within society and excused herself from further analyzation of human interaction.

It's called hypothesizing the higher hypothesis--the optimal process by which human beings make discoveries. It applies to everything in everyone's life, should never be hindered, and must always be pursued (it's called human evolution). Whenever a statement is made there is an underlying mental process through which the statement was developed that can be further questioned. In all civilizations throughout human history there has been a generally acceptable point at which people stop questioning the mental processes of others. Thanks to the instant-gratification culture of today, we justify our willfull surrender to ignorance with, "Don't ask that! It will make them uncomfortable!" Oh, I didn't know that the comfort of others was more important than evolution of our species. Perhaps we should move to padded rooms and take ecstasy all day long.

I live my life under the philosophy that no question ever posed to me should make me uncomfortable. I should never have to fabricate any excuse for a condition of my existence. Until every human being accepts responsibility for their actions and the mental processes which underlie them, we will continue to endorse a level of acceptable ignorance within our culture that prevents people from pursuing the higher hypothesis and ensuring the propagation of evolution.

--C

Veterans Day Assembly

2005-11-10T19:13:00.000-08:00

Hey
Today we had a veterans day assembly. A veterans day assembly. Sitting in uncomfortable seats for twenty minutes while some old fart talks about how we should praise, worship, love the veterans for making us free. We can go to school thanks to them. Yeah, okay, whatever. Going over to japan to kill all thos people? How did that help? And then they go on about how all the soldiers in iraq are giving their lives to make our lives better. Excuse me, but nothing in my life has changed since the war in Iraq but my school can't pay for decent art supplies because we are spending our taxes on the war. We can't afford desks in the XLT rooms that dont ruin your paper because when you write or draw on them a dent appears on your work. Why? Because the school is too broke to get new desks without all the dents and scratches in them. I don't know what caused 9/11. I don't know why Bush randomly came out and said "Lets have a war." I'm only a teen. I don't hear as much news as older people do. But I do know that we are wasting our time and lives in that war. We will benefit nothing from it when it ends. All we have done is lost. We have lost lives. We have lost money. We have lost respect from other countries.

Once again, go to albinoblacksheep.com, click on flash movies on the right side of the page, scroll down a little and watch life as seen by cynical. And then watch elvis lives in flash, its so funny.

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

Otherwise known as.....
!~~~!
%~~~H~~~%
$~~~$

Four day weekened!

2005-11-10T16:42:00.000-08:00

Ello everyone!
This weekend, for me at least, is a four day weekend! HOOOOOOOORAAAAAAY!
My plans are to hang out with my friend and help her babysitt some kids. Then i'm gonna spend the night at her house! yippppeeeee!

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

or as some people say.....

H

Strange goings on

2005-11-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

The first time it happened, I had just watched this creepy movie, Urbania, which freaked JB and I out for days. After watching it in my living room, I was almost asleep when I heard a click like a digital camera and saw a bright flash. I thought maybe it was just a light burning out, but my lamp wasn't even plugged in. So I thought maybe the TV was doing something weird, but the flash was off to the side of the TV and anyway, the TV was off.

It happened again last night, after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose on my break and then watching the Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon at night. I had turned the movie off and was awake listening to Division Bell, feeling really weird about everything, when I heard the click and saw the flash again, from right by my closet. I woke JB up and he said it was the TV but he was probably talking in his sleep. Anyway it was nowhere near the TV and the TV was off. And I was wide awake this time and didn't just add some half-asleep hallucination to headlights in the window or something. And it was exactly the same as the first time.

SO WHAT IS IT??

S thinks it's either ghosts taking pictures, paparazzi, or telekinesis.

So if you happen to have had the same experience and figured out the very rational explanation for it all, please let me know!

Another kind of weird thing - I was smelling something burning at 3pm before I went to work. I checked everywhere but nothing was burning. Later, in the Emily Rose movie, that was the first thing that happened to her when her possession started - she woke up at 3am and smelled burning. Nothing was burning. I'm not saying I'm possessed - they said 3am is the devil's hour but 3pm is all good. ;)

--L

Trembling inside

2005-11-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

I'm still trembling inside from being verbally attacked by a reader of one of my blogs. Normally I'm not too shaken by people disagreeing with my written opinions, but in this case the person was quite abusive and threatening. After calling me names for having opinions that differed from his or hers, he/she demanded that I justify my views. When my reply apparently failed to satisfy his/her criteria for justification, he/she informed me that he/she owned several guns - and enjoyed shooting them.

My imagination started conjuring headlines: "Blogger Found Shot Dead for Failing to Justify Opinions"; "Blogger Dies Trying to Justify His Unjustifiable Beliefs"; "Idiot Blogger Takes on Idiot Gun Owner, Gets What He Deserves."

It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but no one ever said it's mightier than the gun. Even "Indiana Jones" pointed out how a guy with a gun can settle a dispute faster and more convincingly than a guy with a sword - let alone a pen.

Still, though I am on the verge of messing my pants, I am not deterred. I will continue to write in my blog and express my unjustifiable opinions, if only to find out what it feels like to stop trembling, permanently...

--R

Pledging Our Allegiance To a Flag

2005-11-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

Hello!
I was five years old when I learned the pledge of allegiance. Oh, and please excuse my spelling again, I am not the best. Anywho, I was five when I learned the pledge. I was taught that I had to stand from my seat, put my hand on my heart, and say "I pledge allegiance, to the flag...." every morning. This lasted until about second grade when I stopped. Many kids did not even notice I was only standing by my chair and not saying anything. But one person who did notice was the teacher. I was told that it was rude and disrespectful not to say the pledge. Being so young, I didn't understand something called "Standing up for myself" and so, I continued to say it.
By the next year, third grade, I stopped saying it again. My teacher was much nicer, and she didn't scold kids who didn't say it. My best friend and I were the only two kids in the classroom who would not say the pledge but would just stand by our seats.
I had that teacher in fourth grade too, because the class was a third/fourth split. I continued to not say a word when on came the voice on the morning anouncments "Please stand for the pledge."
In fifth grade we didn't say the pledge often because our teacher usually forgot. He was one of my favorite teachers. He explained our right to the class to not say the pledge. We had moved that year and this teacher was at my new school, so I no longer had my best friend to not pledge with me. Once again, I was the only one who did not speak during that morning time.
All through middle school right up to now I have not said the pledge. My reasoning is I find it silly, and stupid. People yell at me, saying how it's disrespecting the "war heroes." Excuse me, war heroes? War heroes you say? I'm sorry but when something involves war there is no hero. Just murderers. Some people in my own family have gone to war. I would rather go to jail and rot in a cell then go kill thousands of people. Really, think about it. It's such a silly thing! I mean c'mon people! We are not that stupid are we? Diminshing ourselves to the point where we must go and kill off families. Humans. They are all the same. To think that we are on so much of a higher level than someone else that we feel justified in killing them? Destroy everything they have worked for? Killing over land or worse, God.
Now a lot of people who beleive in "this great country" think, well it's a free country right? Well if that's what you think, then I have every right to not even stand while all of you pledge your allegiance to some peice of fabric with stripes and stars on it. It's a symbol. A symbol just like a cult. Something that blocks others out from each other. Recently, I was kicked at and sworn at from one of my best friends, because I did not say the pledge. Ripping us apart are some words that we mumble every monday morning and I bet most of us don't even know what half of it means! And so, in conclusion I quote Aliyaho Pearce:

"The love of one country leads to hatred of another."

!@#$%^&*()H()*&^%$#@! (Not cursing!)

By the way, if you want to see an excellent short film, go to www.albinoblacksheep.com, click on flash movies on the right, scroll down a little and watch Life As Seen By Cinical. I cried when I watched it. I dunno why, but it's just very touching.

--H

Some thoughts

2005-11-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

Recently my mother asked me what I believed God to be. Being that we had about 8 or 9 minutes of time to cover this subject, I gave her a very brief synopsis of my thoughts. It was interesting her repulsion and inability to accept my theories, because my theories play down human will and human ego. I believe the universe has been in infinite cycles of expansion and contraction. For how long, you ask? For as long as there are possibilities for dividing a second--which is to say it is outside our perceptions of time. Every time the universe contracts upon itself and resets, life begins anew. The planets all form, the moons, the suns, the stars. On Earth, life forms from the protein-rich soup into single-celled life, and then into more complex constructions, just as it had before, an infinite number of times. Dinosaurs happen, the ice age happens, continental drift happens, evolution from animal lines to apes to people happen, and eventually, consciousness happens in the "first man" and "first woman," or Adam and Eve, as one book likes to call them.

This consciousness is the division between their previous animal existence and their future human one, wherein they develop the concept of God outside of themselves. For me, our development of the God concept is what makes us human and not animals. When we created God, God came into existence. God doesn't exist outside of human consciousness. Animals do not create gods. With the creation of the God concept, we thereby placed God in existence "outside" of ourselves. When I do away with the God concept, God dwells constantly inside of me and I am aware of this. An outside God allows for me to believe there are parts of myself and others--and other life--that are not God.

So here is the part my mother had trouble with: Every time the universe comes back around into formation, our life energy that is now in this form runs through the exact same series of forms that it ran through the infinite number of times before, during universe creation. I was a rock, I was a river, I was a tree, I was a rock again, I was a dinosaur, I was a bee, I was a man, I was a cloud, I was dirt, I was a woman, I was a man, I was a woman, etc.…a constant recycling of my energy into different forms. And while those forms are held, they are constantly breaking down and changing into different forms. For instance, the rock diminishes, the river changes shape, the tree grows and dies and decomposes. It becomes the soil and the life of the bugs that feed on it. This recycling is always going on, infinitely, just like the expansion and contraction of the universe. My energy is forever being recycled into different forms. It really isn't "mine" at all but rather belongs to "Life" collectively. No matter how much I would like to believe that there is "free will," or that there is a "me," there is not. We repeat the exact same actions over and over and over--it is all set up right down to the scratching of an eyebrow, the picking of a nose, the leaping of a frog, the killing of a child… One can "decide" to make changes to "better" her life, but her perceived "success" or "failure" of any changes has already been decided.

Now I know what you are thinking. You're shaking your head, saying that is ridiculous, why would anyone even try to "better" her life if it is already "preordained"? Well actually, we don’t have a choice. It is ego that lets us think that we do have a choice, that we made the choice and that the choice came from us—or "is our choice." Every action, every cell division, every perception has already been put in place and is part of the ongoing expansion and contraction of "the system." The only power we have is the power of recognizing all of life in our present form and recognizing all our forms through the subconscious mind, where the memory of other forms taken sometimes dwells. When we look in and recognize all of life in our present form, we change what is "preordained" only through our awareness. We can go through the process aware or unaware--that is our choice. The rest of it is not our choice, and our awareness only changes the outcome--the continual playing out of the universe, when all life collectively gains this awareness of itself at the same time. We are always heading toward that happening. Every time the universe plays itself out, there are small, imperceptible changes that, over many times of being played out (beyond our comprehension), create real change in what is "preordained." This change takes place only by life recognizing itself. When individuals' "subconscious" minds become clear to them, then they have created a ripple. These ripples add up and cause other minds to become aware. It is an ongoing process of awareness development every time we come through. It is the only place where we have "choice." But then again, maybe that, too, is part of the process and is already set up as part of the universe's development and metamorphosis into something different. We don't know. Our egos want to have the power of "choice" more than anything. Awareness seems to be the closest we can come. Why is that?

You can't get rid of energy--it only changes into something else. The part of physics that is most interesting, the part they are just starting to explore, is the impossibility of both studying or observing something and being objective or not affecting the outcome of the study in any way. This is exactly the same phenomenon that occurs when we have awareness collectively. Only when we look everywhere but the space we inhabit can we change the space we inhabit. When we look at the space we inhabit, it cannot change, for we hold it in our perception and the mind keeps it the same. When no part of conscious "Life" form is outside of awareness, only then will we interrupt the universe's cycle to some extent. This interruption will play out in changes that determine our ability or inability to master every conscious-life form we inhabit, but no one gets to do this until all of conscious-life recognizes itself.

That is the best I can explain it, for it is also like the phenomenon of which I speak. The more I articulate it, the more it is not what I know to be true.

Namaste

--J

Halloween Party

2005-11-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Hey there! Last Saturday I went to a halloween party at my friend's house. First, I arrived at her house at twelve to help set up. We put streamers and balloons everywhere. Her brother moved out and went to college just this summer so we got to use his room which has a bathroom connection. We cleaned, vacummed, and decarated until 5:30! Thats five and a half hours of setting up! We also spent time at blockbuster getting mvoies such as Scream one and two and The Shining and Wax House which was the scariest werdest thing that I have ever seen and so we turned that off. We also got the scariest video game! It was called um uh hmm Fatal Frame! It was so scary! And we had all the kinds of chips you could think of! And the drinks were unlimated! It was so much fun. Oh and we watched Sleepy Hallow. Yeah it was a lot of fun. After we were sick of movies and video games we all just hung out and took random pictures. It was a hollaofalottafun. Oh yeah! And we had great ice-cream! Yeah yeah I kno, junk junk junk. But it was so much fun! Then on Monday, the real haloween, I went trick-or-treating with three of my friends around the friend who had the party neighborhood. It was fun. We stayed out until 8:30 and I got 170 peices of candy. I saved a few peices and gave the rest to my dad to take to his office. This halloween was great.

--H
Signing off!

!@#$%^&*()H)(*&^%$#@!

Waiting for a raise

2005-11-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

Last summer, I and everyone else at my place of employment (which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, at least until they're proven innocent) received an e-mail from the president informing us that, despite increased costs and the looming spectre of budget cuts, he was authorizing 2 percent raises for everyone. Please ignore the twisted logic for a moment and stay with me here. On top of the 2 percent across-the-board raise, the prez also authorized up to 4 percent merit raises, for people like me who had performed, according to my most recent evaluation, above and beyond expectations. (They don't expect much of me around here.) Considering that our salaries had been frozen for over two years, without even a cost-of-living adjustment, this was welcome news.

Today it's November 2, and I have yet to receive even the promised 2 percent - nor have I received word as to whether or when I will receive it.

Needless to say (so why am I saying it?), this has me bugged. Last May, my office received the highest commendation of all 30 offices in the organization for its exemplary and significant contributions to the betterment of humankind. Okay, I'm overstating our reach, but a panel of six experts said we do a damn fine job, and in my book that spells "m-e-r-i-t." As in merit salary increases.

So why, four months after being told we would receive raises, are we still waiting? And furthermore, why does it bug me so much? It'll come when it comes, for chrissakes. And when it does come, it'll be in a fat lump sum, compounded retroactively to July 1. It will be a very nice Xmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa present - if it arrives in time. (Easter, anyone?)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the boss has been busy taking care of other business, his wife's surgery, etc. etc. etc. yada yada yada. Meanwhile, food prices keep going up, gas prices keep going up, even the price of pricing things is going up (notice how much more time you're spending comparing prices lately? Well, time is money!)...we're hurting here, dude! You promised us raises, now hand 'em over already! What are you waiting for, Christmas? Easter? Some other idiotic holiday that the rich invented to further milk the poor?

My wife, J (not her real name), suggested that I e-mail my boss and tell him how the unfulfilled promise of a raise is affecting us all - financially and psychically. She thinks he would benefit from knowing, and might even be compelled to remedy the situation. But I'm not sure about that idea. First of all, this is my boss we're talking about, so anything I say or do can and will be used against me in the court of his own brain. Also, as an inveterate second-guesser, I can't help second-guessing my own irritation at this whole matter, wondering whether I have a legitimate gripe or if I'm just being silly. Not that I have an inherent aversion to being silly; just that I consider it inherently stupid to risk jeopardizing my job for the sake of silliness.

So where does that leave me? So where am I leaving me? Ah, that is the ultimate question, is it not? (Don't you hate the facile pretentiousness of "is it not?") (Don't you hate the facile pretentiousness of "facile"?) (At least I've managed to avoid saying "notwithstanding" or "irrespective" so far.) Notwithstanding the very real possibility that 1) my boss has legitimate reasons for delaying our raises, 2) the boss has simply forgotten all about the raises because he's been distracted with other, more important stuff, 3) everyone else has already received their raises and, due to a glitch in the system, mine was overlooked, or 4) I'm not getting a raise, because I spend too much time writing blog entries like this, the fact of the matter is that I haven't received a raise, and the reason it bugs me is not so much that I need it or feel I deserve it, but that NOBODY HAS COMMUNICATED WHAT'S GOING ON.

There. I said it. But I still haven't said it to the person who needs to hear it. Which makes me guilty of the same thing I'm ranting about: lack of communication. Which makes my wife right. Damn.

--R

Halloween

2005-10-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post about the start of the Halloween parties...

So I went to Miss C's party, of which the theme was "Dress like a character from your favorite news story." I went as Arson, which maybe isn't actually a character, but here's what a few other people were:
* Oregon gas prices - numbers like $2.59 9/10 written on paper towels and taped all over a bad suit, which was over an Oregon shirt
* EWEB (Eugene Water and Electric Board) rates - a husband and wife were wearing a giant plug and giant outlet, respectively
* Bill Clinton
* A cat with a tick
* A Springfield Royal Caribbean Call Center employee with a mullet
* A CIA leak - a diaper and two different masks

By the way, I'm not actually a big fan of arson stories, but I wanted to dress up as fire, and arson in easier to say than "The controlled burn that the firefighters did to teach new recruits." So... I cut out red, orange, yellow, and blue flames and glued them all over a dress, put on a red and silver sparkly wig, big glittery eyelashes, orange and black striped socks, 4" high boots, and covered the dress in glitter.

So this is my start to the blog. Nothing important but might as well start on a light note.

--L

To be or not to be

2005-10-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

That is only one of life's questions, and in your case, it's already been answered. You're here!

--R