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You don't need to read this. This is not the blog you are looking for. |
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Every now and then I have a "short" idea and put it here. I am an old man, and not just on the outside. Even my inner self has become bald, hunched, and wrinkled. So if you have even a smidgen of vitality flowing in your veins, you might find what I say to be insufferably archaic, old-fashioned, perhaps even antediluvian. I don't really expect anyone to read this blog. Except me, of course. But if you do happen to read it and like to argue, then please comment, because I will argue about almost anything. Entry with the most comments is "Invalid Entry" 
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| (Just notes for myself to clarify my thinking...) A story is a linear sequence of words. Not every linear sequence of words is a story, but every story is a linear sequence of words. Suppose the first word of the story is "the". Most likely the next word is a noun and there are many thousands of them to choose from. Let's choose "man", one of the more common nouns. The third word is probably a verb. Let's choose the most common of all and put it in past tense, so... "was". Now we have "The man was..." For the fourth word we can choose almost anything, but it's an important choice. Let's choose "dead". The man was dead. A four word sentence to begin the story which pretty much determines the genre - murder mystery - and primes readers for a certain kind of story. The important point is that each word in the linear sequence of a story has to be followed by another word of your choosing. Sometimes there are limitations on what the word can be and sometimes not. In our example we chose "the man was dead" - very common words - but still creating a sentence with impact because of the brevity - only four words - and the seriousness of the final word. Suppose the fourth word had been "laughing"? Or "rich"? Or "confused"? How a sequence begins is very important and deserves extra effort. |
| Will we breach the debt ceiling? Or will financial catastrophe be averted? *da da da DUMMMMM* Ho hum. Will John Boehner put the final Senate bill on the floor of the house for a vote today knowing that it might pass only because of the Democrats voting for it? Will that act jeopardize his position as Speaker of the House? Will he put the good of the country over his own career? Unless he is a liar, he will put it to a vote, because he promised there would be no breach of the debt ceiling. On the other hand, he is a politician, which is the occupation that comes closest to being a professional liar. Although lawyers give politicians good competition for that job description. "Hi! What do you do for a living?" "I tell lies! ... And get very rich doing it!" |
| Not to me... because I have a white skin. Probably most modern users of the word mean nothing racially offensive by it. HOWEVER, there is no doubt that the historical origin of the word is as a racial slur against Native Americans. So.. either you can say keep it since it is no longer used in a negative way or you can say abandon it because it was conceived in hate. Personally, I would put it to a vote among people of Native American heritage and see what THEY think.  |
| I am old enough to have been able to talk with the generations that did not have electronics. My grandmother was born at the turn of the century. She was quite the talker. What she had was good memory for names and faces and a huge stock of stories about people. Even though there were a lot of these stories, they still eventually got told and retold again and again. Everyone back then was like that and they had favorite stories. So someone would say, "Remember when Jessie fell asleep taking the wagon to town?" and people would laugh and retell the story. There were also long periods of time when nobody talked. People could sit on the porch together for hours without saying anything much. "There goes Darla Smith. It's a wonder she never married that salesman fellow." "Remember how Darla...?" and they would launch into another oft-told story. I'm not saying it was better or worse than modern chatting. It was more people-friendly in a way, but also more people-harmful because once you became the subject of an embarrassing story, you were stuck with hearing it over and over for the rest of your life.  Hmmm, on the other hand, today you can get stuck with someone's embarrassing FaceBook post about you and have to see it over and over! Things change... and they do not change!  |
| I think the whole idea of "friend" has gotten distorted by the internet. Now kids are expected to have hundreds of "friends". When I was a kid the idea that you could have hundreds of friends would seem ridiculous. You had one or two "good" friends. This was someone you could spend all day with and have a good time doing it. You also had many neighborhood friends. These were kids living nearby that you could play games with - kick the can, touch football - but you weren't so good a friend with any of them that you would spend an entire day alone with one of them. Then you had your school friends, which existed only there, of course, at school. In fact, all your friends were "situational". They existed only at certain places in certain situations. So you might have a "Sunday School" friend that you only saw every Sunday morning. But the internet has turned all that on it's head. So I imagine the concept of "friendship" is currently undergoing radical changes. |
| I know two people who met online here. One is now no longer a member because of it and the other is still here but not very often. I suppose it's very tempting to believe meeting someone on the internet will work out better than real life, but logically the opposite should be true. Why? Because in real life you have multiple clues about a person's nature. You don't just read what they say, you hear it, you see their face, you see how they dress and how they act. In real life you get the info you need to make an informed judgement. On the internet you do not. |
| How to live to be over a hundred... Simple formula for your weight in pounds: keep your weight less than 200 - your age. At 20 you can weigh up to 180lbs. At 50, up to 150lbs. By age 100 you should be at 100lbs. Don't even dream of being a heavy person who lives to be a hundred. Heavy people die much quicker than lightweight people. How many people in USA reach 100? For every 100,000 of population, 17 of them are 100 or older. So your chance of becoming 100 years old is essentially zero. |
| Isn't the range of bells astounding? From tiny little tinkle tinkle all the way up to almighty everlasting giant bronze gong! And in between your kid plays Mary Had A Little Lamb on her toy xylophone. |
| I don't think anyone has more than a few deja vu moments in their life. I've heard of a couple of theories about it. One is that there is a circuit in the brain that recognizes when something has happened before and occasionally it misfires. I don't like that theory because the deja vu feeling is rare and specific. Obviously we don't feel it every time we do something we have done before. Another theory is that for a moment the mind loops back on itself, follows it's own tail, so to speak, so that we experience something twice. It happens so quickly that we have no idea WHEN we experienced the same thing before. In reality it was a fraction of a second. I like that theory because I have no idea how the mind really works so it seems like a perfectly plausible theory to me.  |
| To enhance your dreaming and make them more memorable, there is a simple technique you can use... just sleep in a slightly uncomfortable place. I like to take a nap on my balcony and the combination of too much light and too much noise triggers some amazing dreams. The fact that it's shallow sleeping let's me often become aware of the dream while I am still dreaming it and wake up with it fresh in my mind. Often dreams are related to uncomfortable sleeping conditions. If you are too cold you will get different dreams than if you are too hot. If you eat pepperoni pizza at bedtime you will get different dreams than if you drink a cup of chamomile tea. Sleeping in a moving car, at an airport terminal, in a classroom, at work, on a bus, plane, or train all produce more vivid dreams than a good night's sleep in a dark room in a comfortable bed. |
| Nothing wrong with being antiwar. President Obama is also antiwar. Unfortunately, Assad and friends are not antiwar. If you say you are not going to stop a bully because it's none of your business, then what do you do when the bully comes after you? Have you ever heard of intercontinental missiles? Nuclear weapons? Iran has the first and wants the second. Within ten years it will be possible for Iran to launch nuclear strikes against American cities. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? If you don't stop Syria from using WMDs, then what lesson does Iran learn? Does Iran become less likely or more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon? The president is absolutely right about this issue of Syrian gas. He sees the long range strategic effects of failing to act to discourage Syria from using it. Good speech! |
| Not everybody does. There are quite a few people who believe that there is the "right" view and the "wrong" view of an issue. Naturally, they hold the "right" view. So why argue? I am with the people who understand that because there are two ways of looking at something, it does not mean that one way is "right" and one way is "wrong". People like me love to argue, to see the two views debated. Nature agrees with us. Is the photon a particle or a wave? Nature prefers to argue about it. Is matter an illusion in the mind? Or is mind a byproduct of matter? Nature will gladly argue. What about you? Do you have a fixed unshakeable view of reality? Is reality a mountain? Or is reality a flowing stream of change? |
| Prompted Blogs ... Are they done with crayons? Prompted blogs are to real blogs as coloring books are to real art.  Really? A blog where someone else tells you what to write? And you call it YOUR blog? Show me a prompted blogger and I'll show you someone who would have had an excuse for being a guard in a Nazi death camp. "I was just following orders." |
| More poppycock about Syria from the anti-Obama people! Their argument goes: You should not do anything if it is not enough to do everything. Well. gee, I don't know... So if you are starving and someone offers you a crust of bread you should refuse it because what you really need is a five course meal? If you are naked and someone offers you a towel to cover yourself you should refuse it because what you really want is a full suit of clothes? If someone is dying and you don't have the medicine to cure them you should not stay by their bed and hold their hand because that's not enough to make them well? Anti-Obama people, your stupidity about so many things annoys me! |
| Is it "strong" to stumble into misadventures on your own? Once again I let the Fox commentators get under my skin. This idea that a leader is "weaker" if he holds consultations is such ridiculous poppycock. There are plenty of examples of leaders who did not consult anyone - Hitler, Stalin, Caesar, etc - which raise the question: Is "strength" the most important characteristic of a leader? Why would we want to be led where one man wants to go when we can be led where a group of representative elders agrees we should go? I fail to see the benefits of one man rule. I thought in a democracy we sort of avoided that kind of thing whenever we could. Are today's citizens a bunch of sheep who would rather have a "strong" man tell them where they are going? Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I still admire a true democrat who sincerely wants to do what is best for everybody, not just his own ego. |
| Writers write. If you are a writer, then write something. But don't stumble around claiming you are a writer but you can't write "now" because you can't find your muse! Or that you are a writer but you are "blocked"! If you are a writer, then write something. If you cannot think of what to write, then you are not a writer. The job isn't about typing. The job is about thinking up what to write. If you can't think of anything to write, then you are not a writer. Are you a writer? |
| Back when no action was being taken on Syria they demanded action. When a small surgical strike is planned they say it's too small and will have no effect. If a large attack is planned they say oh no, you will drag us into another Iraq situation. When the attack on Syrian seemed close at hand they said Obama was moving too quickly and should be impeached because he was not getting congressional approval. When the attack is delayed a week to get congressional approval they say oh no, to delay is bad, it gives Assad time to hide his weapons. No matter what Obama does, they take a negative view of it. The commentators at the Fox Network are a bunch of hypocritical, mealy-mouthed, two-faced double talkers who are willing to completely contradict what they said the day before just so they can continue to insult the president. |
| The relationship of SELF to MIND is similar to the relationship of a factory owner to his factory with all its workers. He has a general idea of what they might be up to, but no knowledge of the details. However, he can be sure they are attentive to his needs. If he wants to review the blueprints for item X, then sooner or later the blueprints will appear on his desk If he wants to work all night, then everyone will work all night with him. Our SELF doesn't have a memory, doesn't know how to calculate numbers or interpret language or create art. It is only good at one thing, being the center of consciousness, being self aware, being the being. When we say "I" then it is our SELF we are referring to. Fortunately, if your SELF has a good MIND then you have lots of employees to interpret language, create art, calculate numbers, and rummage through your well-kept memory stacks to recall events from the past. Other selves see you as intelligent and good at what you do. But if your SELF has a poor MIND, with sloppy workers, then you make mistakes in calculations, your artwork is lacking, you have difficulty understanding language, and your memory can be very inaccurate. What's interesting is that one SELF can be stronger than another SELF, regardless of their respective MINDS. And that's why we have the phenomena of a dumb person controlling the lives of smart people. Current example: Assad in Syria. Not to say that all Syrians are smarter than Assad, but definitely saying Assad has a MIND that is inadequate for the political power that his SELF possesses. |
| We are often told that a story has to have a beginning, a middle, and an ending, but it can be mysterious how to achieve that. I have thought about it. Some ideas... Lose/recover ... begin with the loss of something, end with it recovered Lose/gain ... begin with a setback, end with a recovery and advancement Loss/acceptance ... begin with distress over loss of something or someone, end with acceptance of the loss Curiosity/knowledge ... begin with the desire to know something, end with knowledge of it. This particularly applies to detective stories, doesn't it? Arrival/departure ... Begin with the arrival at a place, end with leaving the place. The movie "Grand Hotel" made extensive use of this. And the TV series with the island and the midget saying "The plane! The plane!" Affront/revenge ... begin with a provocation, end with the provoker disposed of. Typical: Man's wife is murdered, man tracks down the killer and kills him. Leave/return ... begin with someone leaving their familiar surroundings, end with them returning to see things in a new light. "Wizard of Oz" anyone? Desire/satisfaction ... begin with someone wanting something, end with them getting it. See Romance, Erotica, and Pornography. Knowledge/uncertainty ... Begin with the hero rock solid secure that he knows what's what, end with the total fragmentation of his world view as he realizes it is based on biased assumptions, faulty reasoning, and distorted perceptions. Put more in the comments and I will add them to the list! |
| Yes. A limited strike that expresses our desire that chemical weapons not be used. Some people ask: Would a limited attack stop them from using chemical weapons again? Answer: Maybe, maybe not. To do nothing would not discourage their use. So there is no reason to choose doing nothing other than fear of the consequences. And if they use them again we can attack them again. Will there be consequences of an attack on Syria? Definitely. But one of the consequences will be that Syria and the world knows we disapprove of the use of chemical weapons. And one of the consequences will be that Iran knows we are serious when we tell them they cannot have nuclear weapons. |
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