How Dumb are We?

I have become quite unsettled by the destruction of a deep sea oil rig off the Louisiana coast and the resulting catastrophic oil leak that is occurring as I am writing this. Thousands upon thousands of barrels of oil are pouring into the ocean from the bottom up fouling the habitat of so many marvelous creatures with no apparent end in sight. It seems that this rig and others were built with no allowance made for a catastrophe such as this one. We are more than foolish to expect that corporate policy – dedicated to the accruing of endless streams of profit – is going to accommodate the interests of humanity in its calculations.

Are we as a species really that monumentally stupid and short-sighted? Are we that intent upon destroying the natural environment on which we depend? It’s not like we live on a disposable planet and when we use up all its resources and begin to reap the reward of our own imbecility we can merely pack our bags and move to another heavenly body and ravage it in due course.

Do we really intend to continue to allow petty and narrow corporate interests to determine public policy? Oil seems to be more important than our long term survival; than the well being of the marvelous creatures that live right along with us. Our incessant need for stuff made of plastic, for cheap travel, for convenience, for personal self indulgence seems to trump intelligence, thoughtfulness and reason. This, in my mind, makes us dumber than dumb. Dumbness as a concept needs to be redefined in light of human behavior.

Some of us are quite convinced that we are all doomed; because, our fate has been determined for us. Those who passionately profess such a mindset are eagerly expecting some white-frocked messiah to descend upon us, blow his whistle like an irate football empire, cry foul and stop the show. In this way we will be saved from ourselves. It seems that the excesses of the industrial age are converging upon us, and we are faced with some difficult choices. An insistence of maintaining the status quo is no solution at all.

We have pulled the cork out of the genie’s bottle; the wishes that have come true are literally killing us. It is time to engage reason and actually begin to apply the knowledge that has already been gained from science and truly join the twenty-first century.

Love Sweet Love

The Waking Dream

You are what you think...

think good things.

You create your own reality...

what will you create?

You are completely responsible...

for every person on the planet.

There are no victims...

there are no excuses.

Heaven And Earth

(photograph by Oberon)

May day

May 1st 2009
Los Angeles, CA

An immigration rally began peacefully. The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution. When police in riot gear arrived and attempted to deny people that right, some took a stand to protect their rights. Then it turned less peaceful ..giving police the authority to forcefully disperse people.

Macarthur Park, Los Angeles, May 1st 2009

A police helicopter hovers above ..a voice over the loudspeaker gives the order to ‘disperse or be arrested’. Police in riot gear charge ..unarmed citizens flee ..some are trampled and beaten ..a peaceful assembly turns into chaos ..bullets fly. This was the scene at Macarthur Park in Los Angeles May 1st 2009 ..but my mind is also receiving images from 1969 ~ People’s Park, Berkeley ..and they don’t look much different. Furthermore, I’m experiencing the same feelings of revulsion that I felt then ..and I'm not the only one ..those early images were burned into the psyche of nearly all the school-age children of my generation. It occurs to me that the ‘class of 2010 is graduating next month ..after attending all four years of high school ..during wartime. Experiencing a culture at war, at this age ..is something you never forget. It becomes part of you ..like the Vietnam War is part of me. I have a built-in mistrust of government ..ongoing problems with authority ..and an uncertain career in ‘conspiracy theory’. History repeats itself, not only when government leaders ignore it ..but also when their minds become so scripted by it ..they can’t do anything different.

People’s Park, Berkeley ~ 1969

Paranoid visions

Undocumented, as in undocumented immigrant, means unknown. Unknown is scary. So we react out of fear of the unknown by building walls, discriminating and incarcerating undocumented immigrants. In other words, criminalizing what we don’t know. I believe that, what we don’t know, or can’t see ..we fill in with our worst nightmares dreams. Pretty soon we’re seeing illegals everywhere .. suffocating us ..overrunning our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods. So, we start encoding these paranoid visions into law. My question is, if undocumented workers are so productive, don’t they deserve some of the same benefits as working citizens ..? Instead of wasting so much energy battling the unknown, I say we get informed. I suggest that we actually document them at the workplace, kind of like an information-only social security number, then start collecting statistics. I’m not talking about legitimizing or prosecuting anyone, I'm talking about getting informed and seeing if it's really as bad as we fear. I suspect not. But I also suspect this may not be so easy to do ..they are just as afraid of us as we are of them.

perfectly rational

"To my mathematical brain,
the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational"
...Stephen Hawking...

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist, whose scientific career spans over forty years. His books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity and he is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation).

Hawking has a neuro-muscular dystrophy that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.
(read more)

together

"religion" divides us...

spirituality brings us together...

god is not "religion"

...Oberon...

Free And Easy

X-37B OTV-1

X-37B during encapsulation ahead of the OTV-1 launch

X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) or USA-212 is the first flight of the Boeing X-37B, an American unmanned robotic spacecraft. It was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on 22 April 2010, and is currently operating in low Earth orbit.

The spacecraft is operated by the United States Air Force, which has not revealed what the spaceship's specific payload is, stating only that it will "demonstrate various experiments and allow satellite sensors, subsystems, components, and associated technology to be transported into space and back."

Most of the mission parameters for the OTV-1 flight have not been disclosed. The vehicle is capable of being on-orbit for up to 270 days. The Air Force stated the mission time will depend on progress of the craft's experiments during orbit. Mission control is handled by the 3d Space Experimentation Squadron, 21st Space Wing, of the Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs.

James Oberg speculates that the concurrent launch of Air Force's Hypersonic Technology Vehicle HTV-2 is related to the mission. Part of X-37B's mission profile might involve a simulated enemy attack, which X-37B should detect and autonomously react on it. HTV-2 was launched at 23:00 UTC on April 22, 2010, i.e., 52 min ahead of X-37B, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Some speculators believe it marks the beginning of military operations in space. In particular, William Scott, co-author of the techno-novel Counterspace: The Next Hours of World War III and former Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine believes that with OTV-1 the Air Force might test weapons delivery from a space plane in low Earth orbit. He mentions Rods from God as a possible scenario. (read more) (video clip)

prej-u-dice

Hair

"Long Beautiful Hair"

Coyote 13

Free Radical is the artist formerly known as Coyote 13

(your comment about Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax is below...
next to the video...)

The Age Of Aquarius

your'e such a joker Oberon

Comics from the 10s
Remember our days at university Martin?
When we played at changing the world?
That was so cool eh?
But if it wasn't a game, it would be illegal.

Facebook? hahahahaha :-)

be well.

Burning Up The World

Deepwater Nightmare

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion occurred on April 20, 2010 on the semi-submersible offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.

Survivors described the incident as a sudden explosion which gave them less than five minutes to escape as the alarm went off. After having been on fire for more than a day, Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, 2010 in 5,000 feet of water. 115 of the 126 member crew were recovered, and eleven remain missing.

Although initially the undersea wellhead appeared to be contained, on 24 April it was found that the wellhead was damaged and was leaking oil into the Gulf. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry described it as "a very serious spill, absolutely." BP plans to use remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to close the well at depth; up to 19,000 barrels of oil a day is estimated to be leaking from the wellhead. The valve closing procedure was estimated to take 24 to 36 hours as of April 25; oil cleanup was being hampered by high waves on April 24 and 25. By April 25, the oil spill covered 1500 square km, and was only 50 km from the Chandeleur Islands, ecologically sensitive barrier islands already damaged by Hurricane Katrina. (read more)

Stabbed Samaritan

I don't know if anyone did a story on this yet but, i am still going to do it, A women was being mugged in new york, and a good Samaritan, tried to stop it, the guy stabbed him, and took off, the good Samaritan ran after him for at least maybe 15 steps before he passed out, apparently 20 to 25 people passed by him, and no one helped, one guy actually stopped to take a picture, then walked on by, the guy died , how fucked up about our priorities are we that we can't AT LEAST CALL THE FUCKING COPS, it is not that fucking hard people it is called FUCKING morals and fucking consideration for your fellow man

You are "bystanders...onlookers"

...Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax...Rest In Peace...

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment."
Immanuel Kant

Great Minds

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

by Randall Jarrell

Take It To The Edge - Look Over - Don't Fall

"Conan the Destroyer"
Frank Frazetta


That which does not kill us

makes us stronger

Space...The Final Frontier

Google pays tribute to the 20th anniversary

of the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope.....

take a look at what's out there.....alien secrets.

Home

(watch full movie)

My Dream

I've been having the same dream over and over...

in my dream I seem to be eating snakes.

It was interpreted as wanting sexual intimacy...

go figure.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Truth

La Vérité ("Truth")
by Jules Joseph Lefebvre 1870

The ancient Greek origins of the words "true" and "truth" have some consistent definitions throughout great spans of history that were often associated with topics of logic, geometry, mathematics, deduction, induction, and natural philosophy.

Socrates', Plato's and Aristotle's ideas about truth are commonly seen as consistent with correspondence theory. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle stated:

To say of what is that it is not,

or of what is not that it is, is false,

while to say of what is that it is,

and of what is not that it is not, is true.

(read more)

In praise of the homemaker

“The triumph of man was due entirely to the female of our species.” ~ Harold Klawans MD

I wonder when ‘child rearing’ was relegated to a lesser role than tax-preparer. Maybe we need a new word for it. I’m proposing ‘director of development’ and I am putting it up there with medical doctor and other workers in the helping professions. I mean, the farther I went in life, the more I realized how essential motherhood is to the vitality and continuity of the human species. The mother’s heartbeat is the first language we learn. Outside the womb, the mother’s voice shapes the formation of language centers in the brain. Neuroscience informs us that the development of the brain takes place mostly outside the womb. The role of child rearing is to nurture this development. Messages conveyed by speech, touch and human interaction actually guide the growth of nerve-pathways to their destination. Without this, the human species would have become extinct a long time ago. We have to shake-off the stereotype that child rearing is somehow an unproductive activity .. little more than a burdensome ‘maternity leave’ in the workplace. Otherwise, we treat our own children like second-class citizens.

Today Is Earth Day: It's A Question of Survival

Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year.

John McConnell first introduced the idea of a global holiday called "Earth Day" at the 1969 UNESCO Conference on the Environment. The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto on March 21, 1970. Celebrations were held in various cities, such as San Francisco and in Davis, California with a multi-day street party. UN Secretary-General U Thant supported McConnell's global initiative to celebrate this annual event; and on February 26, 1971, he signed a proclamation to that effect, saying:

"May there be only peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life."

John McConnell's concern for the environment grew in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He became moved when he saw the first picture of the Earth printed in Life magazine. Later that picture became the symbol on the Earth Day flag in which he designed and created. The Earth Day Flag was featured in "Whole Earth Catalogue" and was used, here and there around the world, to show support of efforts to help people and planet. The Earth Day Flag is a symbol of Earth Day and is still part of the Earth Day Ceremony each year at the United Nations.

On 22 April 1970, Earth Day marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Approximately 20 million Americans participated. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, Freeway and expressway revolts, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

As Senator Nelson attests, the most impressive thing about this movement was how it had no central governing body and simply grew on its own:

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day...it organized itself." (read more)

John McConnell in front of his home in Denver, Colorado with the Earth Flag he designed.