Internet Friends!
A Norwegian friend just posted this on a http://www.couchsurfing.com forum that made me laugh:
If the stone age son did what the stone age father told him to, we would still be in the stone age
And another couchsurfing forum member from Tashkent Uzbekistan who is developing innovative teaching aids to teach English posted this:
New York Times
The Summer That Ended All Summers
By JOSH WEIL
Published: August 21, 2010
Leverett, Mass.
No one — not the doctor in Cairo with his egret-feather hair and bad-news eyes; not the spinal surgeon, with his broad Egyptian shoulders and eagerness for the knife — knew how it happened. It might have started during Ramadan, out by the pyramids, on a spine-rattling, bareback gallop. It might have happened 13,000 feet up in the Alpine swamps between Uganda and Congo, as I leapt from tussock to tussock with 50 pounds of gear on my back.
But whatever caused the disc to burst and splatter against my spinal nerve, it brought the endless summer of heat and adventure that I had found while living in Northern Africa for a year suddenly, surely, to an end.
Ever since I was a kid, I’d lived for summer — and, until a few years ago, sharing it with my older brother was what brought summer to life. We used to crouch on the bank of the Deerfield River where it wound south of Vermont, taking turns blowing up our Kmart raft, bulge-cheeked and frog-eyed, our mouths on the inflation valves, dizzy and sputtering with laughter. We’d buckle on bike helmets, paddle into the rapids and spill.
If you’ve ever been hurled head-first into white water, you know the feeling: your world upturned, your hold on it spun loose, the current pitching you forward so fast you struggle to grasp what has happened to time. When you come up to breathe, the air is pure exhilaration.
I have begun asking myself, why is it so hard to put aside our assumptions that we have the corner on the truth and the other guy is dead wrong. (besides ego of course.)
I just read an essay in the NY Times by Erroll Morris, the filmmaker who made “Fog of War” (interview of Robert McNamara after the war in Viet Nam) and “The Thin Blue Line” and some other great films. His thoughts are precipitated by a ludicrously botched bank robbery where a thief was told by someone he believed that by rubbing lemon on his face it would be hidden by the video cameras. It leads to the question, “Can you be too incompetent to understand just how incompetent you are?”
From NY Times
By Erroll Morris
June 20, 2010, 9:00 pm
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)
Morris:
David Dunning, a Cornell professor of social psychology, was perusing the 1996 World Almanac. In a section called Offbeat News Stories he found a tantalizingly brief account of a series of bank robberies committed in Pittsburgh the previous year.
As Dunning read through the article, a thought washed over him, an epiphany. If Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.
Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence. Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research. Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999.[3]
Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine.”
It doesn’t speak to the healthy optimism that we are all familiar with but blind optimism (magical thinking?) When people are incompetent they may not know that they are incompetent.
In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 50
60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)
“As I grow in age, I value women over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 50 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What are you thinking?’ She doesn’t care what you think.
If a woman over 50 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting.
Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.
Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.
Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50.
Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.
Older women are forthright and honest.. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.
Yes, we praise women over 50 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 50, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize.
For all those men who say, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ Here’s an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!”
Andy Rooney is a really smart guy! But he should have also added that they make better lovers.
Early each quiet Sunday morning, sitting on my veranda, I watch a small group of people practicing their Tai Chi in the park below. This morning I ponder my birthday tomorrow. How did I get to be 66 already? Then I see the old blind homeless guy who sleeps in the park.
This cartoon originally appeared on womensEnews.org. Check out more of the New Yorker cartoonist’s work at lizadonnelly.com (“How I Do and Don’t want to be Helen Thomas.”) and on her Open Salon blog.
89 year old Helen Thomas, a virtual institution in the Washington Press Corp, when ambushed by a rabbi, growled that Israel should get the hell out of Palestine and and that the Israelis there could move to Poland, Germany and the U.S. Wow! Talk about speaking truth to power! It was too much for PC ears to take and she resigns her political column. The Washington press corps is pondering taking away her front row seat where she has needled presidents for generations. Hmmm.
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I have recently endured flights from Bangkok to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Oregon, Oregon to Las Vegas, Las Vegas back to Oaxaca where I live. Right now, I don’t care if I see another airport or security line as long as I live. You don’t think jet lag combined with culture shock doesn’t turn the world into more of a surreal event than it already is?
Combine this with two months of demonstrations with round-the-clock fireworks, rockets, petrol bombs and gunshots and then three days of riots where 30,000 tires turned Bangkok black and 25 buildings were burned down…one of them Asia’s second largest mall…more than 90 people killed and a couple thousand injured…over 400 arrested and 200 disappeared…a volcanic eruption in Iceland that brought air travel to a halt nearly the world over and almost detained my dentist for weeks, floods, earthquakes, tsunami warnings…an outrageous “oil spill” that is surreal in itself. Add to that bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan killing hundreds. A video released by Wikileaks.com shows a U.S. helicopter attack on a group of people in Baghdad (and also their good samaritan rescuers) in which they were all killed including two Reuters journalists. Looked like a surreal video game except that it was horrendously real. Then a vicious Israeli attack on a Turkish flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by taking in supplies to the Palestinians. Helen Thomas conveniently took that off the front pages. (News junkie that I am, it’s a good thing I don’t have TV.)
Then Las Vegas, surreal in itself, where my son spent a week telling me all about the coming world financial crisis…backing it up with all his audio tapes by “renowned economic experts.” Having read about the German bail-out of the Greeks and fear that Spain and Italy will follow, and with our debt in China’s hands it sounded rational to me. Buy gold and silver and get out of the market my son tells me. But…but…Come live with me in Oaxaca, I said, where people already live like people in the U.S will in the future. It’s called self-sufficiency.
Finally it feels weird to be back in a relatively tiny slow Oaxacan pueblo after six months in Bangkok and Hong Kong. 70,000 teachers are striking again and a caravan to a barricaded Trique village in the mountains suffered the shooting death of a Trique woman and a Finnish human rights worker by a rival Trique group aligned with the government. The weirder thing is that the demonstrators in Bangkok wore red T-shirts and the Triques wear red ethnic dress…at least the women.
A few days ago I took a nap about 3:30 in the afternoon. When I woke up, feeling quite refreshed, I went into the kitchen and checked the clock. 6:30, it said. Oh my gosh, I thought, I slept clear through the night…not an uncommon occurrence these days! So I made coffee, toasted a bagel, and went out onto the veranda to check my email.
As I was sitting there facing the park, I noticed the sky getting dark. Oh, a storm must be coming in, I thought. I went on checking email (most of which are Couchsurfing.com forum posts) and Twitter where I get the latest information on the political aftermath of the Red Shirt rally in Thailand. When I looked up again the sky was a little darker…but no wind was coming up as is usual just before a storm, which, btw, took down one of the huge trees in the Zocalo the other day…the crack of it sending people running every direction. Somebody should prune!
So onto my Facebook updates. By then the sky was really getting dark. I thought about that Mayan calendar that ends in 2012. I noticed that my friend Rico was on line on Facebook chat so I asked him, Why is the sky getting dark? He ignored me, however, and started describing all his latest. Damn. Typical Rico, I thought. But why is the sky getting dark! By this time, I was really getting freaked out. RICO! What is going on?!!! Dunno. Is a storm coming in? Don’t think so. It goes on like this.
Serious concern here. Finally I checked the date/time on my computer thinking maybe I didn’t change the time zone from Asia to Mexico…a 12 hour difference. No, it’s ok. Then I noticed the computer said it was Wednesday. It should have said Thursday. What day is it, Rico? Wednesday, why?
As is obvious by now to my dear readers, in all this time it never once occurred to me that it was 6:30 in the evening. Damn. Is this what I have to look forward to? Quit reading the news, I hear you telling me. But isn’t this what senility really is? Thoughts wondering aimlessly…alone…among their own disconnected damaged brain cells…oblivious to the world?
I take heart, though, from 89 year old Helen Thomas, who, btw, I think is sneaky sane. Me? Dunno. At 66 it doesn’t look good.
I think the folks that argue that the the government can’t do anything right should voluntarily give up all their tax supported services. I found this on a personal blog on the web:
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by The Municipal Water Utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, State, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the Public School.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I enjoy another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, and I am not electrocuted by my toaster thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I drive my NHTSA car back home on the Dept of Transportation roads, through stop lights federally, state or municipally funded to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local Building Codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local Police Department.
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and look up some information for my next summer vacation I am planning for my family in one of our National Parks.
And I’d like to add that every time I nearly kill myself on sidewalks when I travel in foreign countries…or hang myself on straggling electrical wires…I think of the Accident and Preventive Division of federally mandated state government regulations in the U.S.
While connected to the internet, I read the latest grants by the U.S. National Laboratories, where any scientist in the world can have his experiment done on U.S. government equipment, some of the most advanced and unique in the world, by U.S. government employed scientists, FOR FREE, for only the promise that whatever he/she publishes out of that work be published openly for the sake of international science.
Then I read on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM is BAD because the government can’t do anything right. So I look up SOCIALISM in Wikipedia to find out what it really means. Hmmmm.
In the Indian tradition of Anekantavada, the doctrine of non-absolutism, there are three ways to have a dialogue : ‘vaad’ or a discussion, which seeks to understand the opponent’s point of view and explain one’s own in order to reach the truth; ‘vivaad’ or an argument, which seeks to impose one’s own point of view over that of the other; and the third, ‘vitandavaad’, which merely seeks to bulldoze the other person’s views, without really offering any alternative thought.
Truth is universal if not absolute. Aikido is a martial art founded in the early 1900’s by a Japanese man, Morihei Ueshiba, who wanted to teach a way for people to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. To control the aggression of an attacker with caring and without inflicting harm.
I am reminded that about 30 years ago, at a mind/body conference, I took part in an Aikido workshop led by George Leonard (for further study read “Education and Ecstasy, The Ultimate Athlete (which deals at length with aikido) and The Silent Pulse.) A 3rd dan Aikikai practitioner, Leonard was a particularly charismatic practitioner and my experience with him would have a profound effect on me for the rest of my life.
Wikipedia: <em>The word “aikido” is formed of three kanji:
* 合 – ai – joining, unifying, harmonizing
* 気 – ki – spirit, life energy
* 道 – dō – way, path
Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying (with) life energy”[1] or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.”[2]
Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical energy, as the aikidōka (aikido practitioner) “leads” the attacker’s momentum using entering and turning movements.</em>
and
<em>One applies aiki by understanding the rhythm and intent of the attacker to find the optimal position and timing to apply a counter-technique. Historically, aiki was mastered for the purpose of killing; however in aikido one seeks to control an aggressor without causing harm.[2] The founder of aikido declared: “To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.”[6] A number of aikido practitioners interpret aikido metaphorically, seeing parallels between aikido techniques and other methods for conflict resolution.</em>
Now I don’t propose we all become control freaks and walk around in a defensive posture (which sometimes invites attack) but there was something particularly powerful in being taught this “attitude” using both a mind and body analogy.
A friend posted this on a couchsurfing forum today.
Anekantavada, the doctrine of non-absolutism, a multi-dimensional approach is of paramount importance in today’s troubled times. Anekant is a basic principle of Jainism dealing with the multiple nature of reality. It deals with particular aspects, but does not deny the existence of other attributes or qualities.
Anekant means non-insistence on one’s view-point only. In the world of philosophy this doctrine adopts the policy of ‘coexistence,’The fundamental principle of Anekantvada is to tolerate others’ views or beliefs; one should not only try to discover the truth in one’s own views or beliefs, but also in other’s views and beliefs. Anekantvada establishes the truth not by rejecting the partial views about reality but by taking all of them into consideration.
Anekāntavāda also does not mean compromising or diluting ones own values and principles. On the contrary, it allows us to understand and be tolerant of conflicting and opposing views,while respectfully maintaining the validity of ones own view-point.
Lord Mahavir stressed freedom of expression through his unique doctrine of Anekantvad i.e. the “Principle of multiple views. It discards absolutism of thought. It propounds mutual understanding. Anekantvad teaches the lesson of religious tolerance, which is essential to remove the present air of hatred and conflict prevalent on the national and international arenas. Views are bound to differ, because we are guided by different conditions. Hence, it is wrong to think oneself absolutely right and all others absolutely wrong. Such an outlook is imperialism in thought.
The world is sharply divided into multiple opposite camps.There is an ‘either . . . or’ in world politics. Peace, therefore, demands a new logic, a new outlook. Had the world leaders adopted the philosophy of Anekantof Lord Mahavir to understand others’ points of view, the mental reservations, misunderstanding and clashes would have been banished and an era of global peace would have prevailed.
Non-absolutism is the ideology of a new civilization of peace and non-violence. The ‘all or none’ approach has brought us to the brink of total annihilation, hence the non-absolutist approach in thought, word and deed is the only way before us.
For more :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada
Anekanta is a Sanskrit word anekānta (manifoldness) and vāda (school of thought)
Peace for all
Disclaimer: The intent of post is not to propagate the Jain religion.
I am thankful that some of us, in a cynical time, can still be touched enough to shed tears for, not only a man, but for an entire very human family, and what it stood for. Years after the death of John and Bobby, I could not find a Black or Hispanic professional or political office anywhere that did not have pictures of them displayed prominently…embodying hope…and reminding us of what we were all working for.
But more than that he worked tirelessly for ALL Americans. I remember his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last summer, even when we knew he was dying of brain cancer.
For me this is a season of hope — new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few — new hope.And this is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.
After the death of John, when I was a little older and more politically aware, I, however, thinking we had a second chance, was personally most shattered and disappointed by the assassination of Bobby of whom Teddy said at his eulogy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York:
“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it,” Mr. Kennedy said, his voice faltering. “Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world.
”Teddy, perhaps, although not as mythically loved, was foreshadowing his own legacy.
R.I.P.
Laughingnomad 