Protests a long time ago

Once upon a time some people in this country held protests. They weren't too much different from ones we have today ... except for the REAL protests. I'll give you examples from my past.
When I was still in school (I graduated in 1962), all starry eyed and sure to change the world I became involved in a few protests. I marched, for example, with the NAACP picketing of Fairyland Park, an amusement park in Kansas City, MO, and the Swope Park swimming pool, that was a large swimming pool complex. There were three pools: a small kiddie pool; a three board diving pool (two low and one "high;" and a city block sized pool of even depth of 4 feet for general fooling around. In the summer this pool complex was always jammed with hundreds of kids and their parents (a few). It was mostly for teenagers and was completely (trust me on this) white kids.
So, the decision was to try to integrate this unjust segregation. Oh, there weren't signs saying "Whites only," or "No blacks." It was just culturally understood. (I have learned, now that I am "old" that Fairyland Park was open one day a year to blacks and that there was an area called "Watermelon Hill" where blacks could picnic.) So we marched to protest injustice.
We were prepared with little signs, pins, and instructions not to damage anything, remain silent, and keep walking in a long back and forth in front of the main entrance. We didn't interfere with anybody, and no one brought sticks, knives, guns, baseball bats, etc. to the protest. After all, we weren't going to riot or anything like that! We were peacefully protesting. If others came and stood around watching us, or even talking or yelling at us, we were to ignore them and stick to protesting. Simple! And there were even a few policemen there to watch what was going on. I only remember a few, perhaps a dozen or so.
I remember being scared as we got on the buses, and I was pretty much surrounded by black people, but they didn't seem to mind my being there.
We walked, we protested, we got yelled at a little, and so it went. A few times like this and ... what do you know? The city and the people who ran Fairyland Park came to agree to allow anyone to use the park and the pool! We had succeeded without violence or getting our heads split open. I was pretty happy about that. (Actually, it took about two years.)
That summer, a neighbor of mine and I went to the Swope Park Pool. This large pool was always packed. But not then. For one thing, I think we were the only white persons there! And there were only a few small groups of blacks in the pool! The place was almost deserted. The same thing was happening at Fairyland, and the owners were struggling to keep the place open. By 1977 it was closed and gone. (You can check out what was lost by reading about Fairyland Park on Wikipedia.)
Some things aren't really meant to survive cultural change, although I suspect playground parks can if they start out right. Look at the Disney offerings, the Seven Flags, and local area parks like Hershey Park, etc. They seem to still be doing well ... and are integrated without making a fuss about it. (I'm not sure the gay community will agree from what I have read.) But our quiet protests (and some not quiet ones in the deep South) did work and result in a changing society. I would hope we are over the rough beginnings and into a new society.
But no, there are still "protests" where more than one side (sometimes a whole flock of them) are coming together, armed and spoiling for a fight. I don't think that's protest ... it's rioting. Can't our government units just admit this and work to stop rioting?
I want my peaceful protests back. Please?

Ah, History!

I remain amazed that people jump to express opinions founded on nothing but their emotions. Now it is okay for someone to express an opinion. That's truly a First Amendment right. But when it has no reality to back it up, it is just irresponsible and can be ignored ... or challenged and corrected. That's another person's right.
The current attack on a defenseless statue of Robert E. Lee is a case of this. It presumes to spring from the "knowledge" that Lee was BAD, but doesn't provide any sense in which that is truth.
Lee was an interesting person. He had pride in his home state (VA) and stood by it even when the people of the state were going in a direction he didn't approve of. The truth is that Lee had always held that slavery was a political and moral evil. He held that opinion for a long time. His wife (and I suppose with his approval) taught their slaves (and yes, they had them) to read and write and prepared them to assume their freedom (manumission) that the Lees assumed would come in the near future. Lee had said that freedom from slavery was a reasonable outcome and could not be "forced" at the barrel of a gun.
Lee was also against secession. But he did believe in states' rights. The general opinion on this was that the states freely chose to unite to form the Union, and should be allowed to freely chose to separate from the Union if they wanted. Of course the Union, led by the North, held that they didn't have that right ... therefore the conflict and resulting civil war.
When Lee surrendered to Grant (his West Point fellow graduate) they both emphasized that no rebellion against the outcome should be carried on. Neither Lee nor Grant denied that Virginia was to remain in the Union.
So why the displeasure (hatred?) of the statue of Lee? He was honorable to his duty and to his word. He went on to be a leader in the war with Mexico. His statue should remain standing and his history can be seen as the reasonable, honest, and open man that he was.
I object to mobs, gangs, and thugs making decisions based on false "history" for law abiding citizens.
And when politicians cave in to their bullying demands, I weep for my country.

Creation and the Big Bang: Religion vs Science (Part 3)

Okay, so here we go! The last question is: What is my relationship with God (shorthand for the creative force) and the stories I have heard about how God interacts with the physical world? I mean, basically, what is the efficacy of prayer?

Think about all the people praying (that is requesting a boon or intervention by God) in their daily physical lives. Does God “hear” the prayer. In a sense, since I think we are kept in a state of existence by God’s will for each physical thing to exist, we are actually doing what some physical things do, i.e. pray. Once we come to a personal (i.e. this one representation of the physical compound object I have referred to as a featherless biped) understanding of a sense of God being our sustainer, we might just jump to the thought that God is so intimately involved with each of us (and everything else) that God knows exactly everything about our functioning, including desires and actions. So, yes, God “hears” or “knows” our prayers.

But do we influence God to the point of our prayers changing the normal, ongoing, and interactional behavior of all the other physical stuff? Why would they? And what of two or more persons having opposing pray intentions? Do they cancel out? Does God cause both requests to be honored? Is this possible?

I have even ventured so far as to imagine that as each request or feeling is honored, a new parallel universe springs into existence going in a new interactional way. Billions of new universes coming into existence for each proceeding instant!! Wow!

And what about all those galaxies, clusters, and dark spaces we keep detecting? They have googles and googlepelexes or stars and planets with similar physical interactions that have been replicated on our planet. Is it possible in this mix that we are the only “sentient” beings in existence. This hardly seems possible. Some would say yes, on religious grounds that we had a Messiah who “saved” us from our impossible corrupted condition to one of total joy interaction with the God that created us. But couldn’t it be possible, then, that there have been /are/and will be billions and billions of Messiahs, each appropriate to the beings involved, to save many, many other sentient beings? Why not?

So, you see, I am more confused and puzzled than ever. Every time we get more data in while searching space we see thousands and thousands of additional galaxies we didn’t realize existed. All the permutations seem more and more likely.

I like best, at present, the idea that the function of prayer is to so incline the pray-er to become more accepting of whatever happens following it. And, of course, maintaining hope and faith in the construct he or she follows with regard to interaction to the God as the pray-er knows it.

That’s about as good as it gets for now.

And that’s the end of this series …. For now. I continue to ponder, wonder, and study. I’m not sure it’s worth anything, but I just feel compelled to do it right now.

Input requested: just no name-calling, just thoughtful comments. I can be convinced by logic and the experience of others. That’s MY faith.

Creation and the Big Bang: Religion vs Science (Part 2)

Consider Zen Buddhism. The meditation of ZEN (Zazen) calls for quieting the mind, so as to not think about any thing. Some people get it wrong and believe it calls for one to think about nothing.  But it really calls for one not to think. Actually, I think it is not truly possible for a human being to “not think,” unless one is in a coma (perhaps) or not functioning at all (dead?). As long as we are human, our brain, if you accept it as an organ of the thinking faculty, does what it does, i.e. it thinks. Zazen is to keep focusing on nothing, as if looking into a space that contains nothing and doesn’t think about it.

In any event, if one can consider the thought of a “no thought” and a thing of “no thing” you’ve got it made. We just cannot, however. So we are talking here about meta-thinking or “thinking about thought.” That’s a brick wall surrounding us humans and preventing knowing (using a faculty of the mind) nothingness. This is why I believe we physical creatures cannot know God, as this principle IS called. The best I have come up with to ease my dis-ease of not being able to stop doing what I am “built” to do is to go metaphysical to a concept of a creating force that “causes” everything to exist.

Before any thing existed, I envision or consider a possible existence of a “force” that simply exists. Now, force is a measurement we have as a concept that causes things to act, or move, or change from one “thing” to another. This is all nonsense, of course, but is our physical way to picture something that causes what we experience physically. It’s all we’ve got or least is the farthest we have gotten to relate to the universe as best we can. It’s a pretty good way to get by our physical systems to an unphysical one, I think. Check out my next leap … it’s one of faith, not science.

Conceive of a force existing all alone, without any substance anywhere for it to act on. It is a force of some kind. We physical things have to have a concept of what kind of force it is and how it acts on us physical things, in fact, on all and any physical things. I suggest the way this force acts on physical things is to bring them into existence. This means, in a way, that the force doesn’t exist either unless it has physical things to act upon. But its action is to bring physical things into existence, … BOOM … there they are! They just come into existence at the “will” of this force.

And what “comes” into existence? The simple answer: everything. Physical things are not there and then … BANG … then they are. I think you will grant me that it is a pretty big bang in order for all the stuff we know about (and lots we don’t, I suppose) to exist at one moment in what we call “time.” And whatever  that stuff is made of is just basic stuff, created (BOOM) by the force that creates in the very first of moments (BANG). The entire part of that physical existence is created by that non-physical existence that “creates” stuff. And that leads to a rather complex system of any and all physical stuff interacting with all the physical stuff that coexists.

Small pieces of stuff smash into other small pieces of stuff; stuff pulls at stuff; stuff moves around, smashing, pulling, pushing, etc. and as it moves it defines the extent of “where” it exists. And every bit of it has, at its metaphysical core, the existence of that force that created it. The force, and the object it caused to be (its essence, or in Latin “esse”) are there as a unit. The physical doesn’t exist without the force creating it, and the force doesn’t exist without the stuff it creates.

If you can truly understand this bit, you’re not human. We only work with the physical and can only think physically. We only understand what we can sense with some instrument or other, and that leaves out forces. With forces we only understand by observing what the forces does to stuff. And then we have a belief (or “faith”) in that force --- that it exists in some way and that it causes the interactions we observe in some way.

So, we believe (without any real “proof”) that all those little pieces of stuff eventually became larger and larger pieces of more and more complicated stuff (stars, galaxies, planets, plants, animals, and us, with all the other stuff as well (air, water, heat, light, complex atoms, compounds, and on and on). We detect with our senses and instruments the motions and interactions between stuff #1 and stuff #2 and so on, and develop a theory to explain how stuff interacts with stuff, and then convince ourselves by repeated observations through experience or tests we devise that our explanations are “correct” and can be relied on. This is science. But our insistence that we got it right, and that it is just what we said, is faith. In this sense I think Chemistry is as much a religion as a science. And either one could be “right” or “wrong.” And they could both be “right” or “wrong” at the same time!

Now, I can decide to call that creative force that I am suggesting is as good an explanation as any, one (or more) of the following: God, Love, Prime Matter, sub-atomic particle energy levels, and so on, and come to the conclusion (we are so good at that!) that this creative force must be in/with/part of each piece of stuff. If it (the force) ceased to exist, so would the piece of stuff. It’s always there in everything we believe exists. So, to put it in the simplest terms: God is everywhere. (I define “everywhere” as “anywhere there is some stuff.”) Another simple term: God is Love. Hmmmm. Could that be right?

Is there a conflict between Religion and Science? Maybe not. It’s just two ways of looking at the same stuff. And the Universe? The sum total of all the stuff and the interactions between each piece of stuff and all the others. So how do we talk or think about the stuff we can detect? Well, science tells little stores about how specific groups or types of stuff interact with other stuff. Religion tells us little stories about how specific groups or types of stuff interact with other stuff. Science use mathematics, diagrams, tables, etc. to tell the stories. Religion uses parables, signs, symbols, and human interactions to tell the stories. Science mostly sticks to interactions between stuff as being “natural” or “required.” Religion mostly sticks to interactions between humans and “the creative force” or between humans and humans: these are morals and ethics. So far, so good.

Where problems develop is when science tries to make conclusions about morals and ethics, and religion tries to make conclusions about physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. You guessed it: conflict. Remember, science makes up its stories using its tools, and religion makes up its stories using its tools.

“Laws” of science? Miracles of religion? Is there any wonder there are conflicts? In this framework they have to happen.  More on this matter later.

Creation vs The Big Bang: Religion VS Science (Part 1)

For good historical reasons science and religion have clashed and struggled for “dominance.” While science continues to construct and test theories of various kinds and religions continue to develop dogma that must be accepted, there will always be conflicts between some of the two. The real surprise for me is that often they can both be “right” because they are talking about two different determinations of “truth.”

What I learned in school was that truth is “that which corresponds to reality.” Two words here require some understanding: “ corresponds” and “reality.” The basic idea is to get to an understanding of what one means when two suggested “truths” correspond. Is it just when they agree completely and are identical? Can one be in terms of physical observation and the other the result of philosophical reasoning? Can one just be believed because of a majority of human common sense and experience and the other from isolated revelations? Does one believe in causative factors which are not fully understood and the other relies on innate belief?

Had enough trouble? Let’s look at “reality.” Is that the object of identical physiological reactions in a majority of people. C an they be measured with instruments that scan the electrical and chemical processes of human brains and nervous systems? Or is reality an approximate agreement, expressed with sounds and physical markings that we call “language” that seem to indicate two or more humans are having approximately the same “physical experience?” Or is an approximate emotional experience, also identified through language or perhaps based on the reaction of a number of people from exposure to the “reality?” Or is “reality” an interpretation (and perhaps unique to each individual) to sensory inputs to each person?

My answer: I don’t know.

Over the years, however, I have been struggling to understand, for myself, what this whole concept could mean. I can’t say with certainty (another slippery concept) that what I currently believe is IT, or if it will still be at the point where I die and cease to wonder ….. maybe!  But here I go.

Sometimes, I think, two things that appear to be in conflict don’t have to be, and perhaps are not. I’ll look at just one example. Christians, for the most part believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. [A huge aside: I believe this came to be stated as such through a mistranslation of a word in one of the Hebrew scriptures during the course of copying and translating the Hebrew writings to Aramaic and/or Greek by scribe after scribe into what would become a Christian Gospel . I also think the passage used was not prophetic in any way, but was a statement of a completed event, namely, the birth of a child from a young woman who had not had any children previously. Don’t quote me that mistranslation as “proof.”]

Science would tell us that a virgin cannot give birth. Birth requires development of a human being, or any animal that requires contribution of egg and sperm, from two different animals. How about religion? Christians will tell you that since God is the creator, and created the universe as a result of will, God can do anything in the universe, including causing an egg of an animal to be “impregnated” with a created sperm and become a decendent of that animal. In this case, a human son of a woman. And why not? With a basic belief that there was a creator of everything we can perceive or reason to, we can accept (and could even be right) that a woman can become pregnant with a “holy” operative development of a person. Here I use the term “holy” in its full sense of something that is separate from the non-holy; in this case it would be the spiritual from the physical.

This isn’t a completely unheard of idea. Many pagan religions tell stories of persons who were part human and part god-like through a human/god sexual joining; the Greeks and Romans accepted this as a legitimate concept and the stories become part of their scriptures, which we call “myth.”

So here science and religion co-exist as both being “true.” One is based strictly on human experience and the other is basic on faith and a logical requirement to other events and relationships that are known or also believed. My point here is that both can co-exist and be “true” in their own conceptual framework.

I remember my stumbling around in my own mind trying to understand my teacher telling me that one can say “two things plus two things are four things … unless you are talking about vectors.” Which, in that case of course, can be anything from minus four to plus four.

I will follow this ranting with the creation event of the Big Bang in the frameworks of science and religion with my own wrinkle that makes them compatible in my next post.

Two incorrect notions

Two incorrect notions

Lately there have been postings on news sites saying "Islam is a religion" and you bad people are "racists," during debates in comments sections. I would like to shout at them: "DEFINE YOUR TERMS!" Then I realize that I believe some things that I think people get all wrong because they don't bother to study them. Well, here's my comments in a nutshell. I can go into more details ... but it's taken me years of reading and discussion to come to these current ideas. I'm willing to change, but the discussion better be well-researched to convince me otherwise at this point. But it will have to be good. (Hint: no name calling. I know it's satisfying, but it doesn't change minds.)

The two incorrect notions: ISLAM is a religion. There are different RACES.

1.Islam is not a religion. It is a polity, and shows all the problems with a mixing of religion and government. This is the very thing the American experience is trying to separate. And, I think, has gone too far and overboard in trying to achieve. The first amendment forbids the government process from making laws that call for a specific, single religion to be “official” and allows citizens to practice the religion of their choice, unless one of these choices interferes with other citizens' guaranteed freedoms. For example: A religion demanding death to others who practice a different religion is a no-no. (Isn't it?)

2.Race is a myth. It was a created notion that was meant to divide one group of persons from another based on some characteristic (or several). A characteristic is considered “superior” or “inferior” according to some measure (height, IQ, blood type, skin color, hair color, eye color, religion, food preference, etc.) and then allows the “stronger” to dominate the “weaker.” It’s all a fake idea. I prefer to treat humans the same way we treat birds: one species with many varieties of subtle differences (wing size, colors, flocking behaviors, etc.) called sub-species. These are usually naturally adapted from generation to generation to provide survival needs in changing environments. It would be better to describe humans as “featherless bipeds.”

But the whole idea of human “races” is a hoax.

So, now we can talk about our government, the laws we want or don't want, and how people can interact with one another. Let's leave out Islam and Race as concepts to guide our lawmaking. They only seem to help tyrants, dictators, idolized leaders, and fascists of all stripes. 

And I hate that.

TV Advertising

Advertising on television is a true mixture of good and bad. Kept in control by some federal bureaucracies that try to prevent it from being untruthful has pushed some advertisers to overload their presentation with a mass of truth that takes up 1/3 to ½ of a screen of teeny tiny type that you can’t read during the four seconds it’s on the screen.

Worse, though, is that it forces the advertisers (relying on their agencies) to present their message as quickly and forcefully as they can. That means trying to get and keep your attention and fascinate you into remembering what they are pushing … either product, service, or reputation.

Their problem is that once you have been exposed to a presentation technique that works, other advertisers start to use it. Then, once it becomes “standard” viewers become tired of seeing it and stop paying attention. Overuse destroys effectiveness.

Example: remember the “solarization” technique? A scene is presented, the audio begins, a phrase of two are uttered, and BANG!! The screen goes totally bright white, there is a whoosh or bang noise and a new scene appears. The narrative continues. A few phrases or scenic views and …. FLASH – BANG. Another solar experience. And so on through the ad until the required few seconds display (required by the bureau controlling TV ads) of the product or service name.

Before long, a gaggle of other ads use the technique. And viewers become used to it, ignore it, or turn away. It stops paying off as an effective technique.

Example: a new technique is created by some creative person(s). A speaker begins the presentation. A phrase or sentence is voiced. A sudden change of presenter is made, but the audio continues (in the current presenter’s voice) and the message continues without skipping a beat. SWITCH! A new presenter, for a continuous flow of message. SWITCH! Again! SWITCH! Again! This continues until the end of the message. “Tiring it is,” says Yoda. Effective? It does get your attention at least once. The presenters, and perhaps the order in which they are presented, are carefully chosen. A true cross section of our country. Men, women, different styles of dress, different races, different ages, etc.  Soon, the viewer sees this technique used in ad after ad, but after a couple of exposures to each of these, this also becomes boring and loses its effectiveness. Time to do something different again.

Now the agencies get onto a new track. The latest thing I’ve noticed now is “psychological” shock. And it seems to have landed on a scientific product presentation. Namely, Big Pharma. Yes, the pharmaceuticals have come up with their own “thing.” Product names! And their fascination seems to be with the letters “x,” “y,” and “z”. (Sounds a little like Sesame Street, no?) The “x” is usually used in it’s basic letter sense, pronounced as in “x-ray,” but some times is used as “z” as in “Xerxes.” The “y” gets used to replace “I,” and the “z” looks like it has replaced “s.” Remember when message boards and Usenet started doing this to be different (and perhaps lazy)? Warez and other terms, and shorthand “words” to cut down on typing (“ur nam soundz familure, bro”), or some such. Even the use of there/they’re/their gets changed to whatever you want to use for the sound, like “r u going to there sho?” really looks “kool,” doesn’t it? I guess Twitter is to blame for some of this stuff.

Back to pharm namez. Here are just a few of the ones I noted and jotted down as I was watching late-night programs. I guess they occur all day, but that’s when I watch TV mostly. The letter “v” and “w” creep in once in a while, but I don’t think they are being picked specifically. After all, there were older names like “Exlax” that fit the pattern. And one new one ends in “x” in the same “lax” context.

Here’s the list. Let me know what you think.

Xanax …. Lyrica …. Dulcolax …. Invocana …. Xeljanz …. Taltz …. Prodaxa …. Cosentyx …. Viberzi …. Xarelto …. Plavix …. Entyvio …. Zostavax …. Harvoni …. Linzess …Parodontax

And the new winner (get this!)  XYZAL.