Sunday, February 04, 2007

A Rambling Post From Nowhere to Nothing

Back to those next two questions, "Does anybody else actually exist or am I just a waking dreamer, dreaming the world and all of its inhabitants into existence in order to actualize my fractured consciousness?," and "For that matter, do I even exist or am I just a scripted player in a wider dream?"

As to the first question, it is one of those many questions that are obvious to the intellect but which cannot be proven by philosophy. For example, there are many philosophers who absurdly affirm that free will does not exist, when nothing could be more self-evident to the awakened intellect than the existence of our objective and transcendent will. Without freedom, we could not know truth, and therefore, we could make no truthful statements at all, so denying free will is logically self-refuting. Nor could virtue exist, for our choice between good and evil would be an illusion. At once we would have to abolish our legal system, since it would be founded on the illusion that people are free to choose between obeying the law or breaking it.

It is possible to "prove" many sophistries with philosophy, which is why so many minds can end up shipwrecked there in a no-mind's land between the macro world of theology and the micro world of empiricism. It's not so much what you can prove with philosophy, but what you cannot disprove. For example, you cannot disprove that free will is an illusion, that other minds don't exist, or that natural selection fully accounts for human consciousness, because philosophy is not equipped to deal with things that form its basis and possibility: truth, free will, other minds, and non-genetic meaning, among others.

So there are naturally philosophers who have made the sillypsistic argument that only their own mind narcissarily exists and that the world is its dream. This represents a half-correct perversion of the true state of affairs, which is captured in the following quote by Frithjof Schuon:

"The truth of the Cartesian cogito ergo sum is, not that it presents thought as the proof of being, but simply that it enunciates the primacy of thought -- hence of consciousness or intelligence -- in relation to the material world which surrounds us." Now read carefully, Coons: "Certainly, it is not our personal thought which preceded the world, but it was -- or is -- absolute Consciousness, of which our thought is precisely a distant reflection; our thought which reminds us -- and proves to us -- that in the beginning was the Spirit."

There is a sizeable area where "bad philosophy" meets with the leftist impulse to deny human nature in order to create their notmore utopia, because all leftist ideas originally hatched from the unfertile egghead of some cracked philosopher. But the yolk is always on us, because teaching people that free will is an illusion is a sure way to lay more beastly bad eggs on the public. In short, if you argue that humans are less than human -- or set up a system of disincentives toward becoming human -- pretty soon you will have a world of infrahumans.

A fine example is the so-called "Palestinans." Now, a normal person would naturally ask the question: what must a people do to prove to the world that they are not deserving of a state, unless that state is called "Subhumanistan?" (Pronounced Sub-huMANistan.) For fifty years liberals have excused these Arabs of the obligation to elevate themselves to the human plane, which is precisely why they have created such a comprehensively infrahuman hell on earth.

If I were president, I would simply say: "you are beasts -- which is to say humans reduced to a state of nature -- so the best we can offer you at this time is a cage. However, should your population begin to show rudimentary signs of humanness, then we might talk about a state. But monsters are not 'given' a state. They are given Nobel Prizes. Monsters only take states, and this is something we cannot allow you to do, any more than we intend to solve our crime problem by turning San Quentin prison into the 51st state of the union."

There would be no reason to waste a single moment arguing with someone over the question of free will, because freedom is lived, not arrived at inductively or deductively. All serious spiritual seekers understand the meaning of the phrase, individuality is freedom lived.

Now, the fact that most people squander their freedom and live their lives as if they were a machine or computer does not detract from the reality of the situation. I was thinking about this the other day, with regard to something as mundane as my Blogger profile. There I have a partial list of my biggest influences, my favorite music, etc. You may click any of them and discover who else in the Blogger world shares your interests.

Here, let's give it a try. Let's start with the enigmatic Scott Walker, who is little known to the public but has an intense cult following based mainly upon four brilliantly eccentric albums he made between 1967 and 1970. I see that quite a few fellow bloggers are members of the cult. A lot of weirdos, I might add.

Likewise, I am gratified to see that many Bloggers apparently understand that Buck Owens was hardly the grinning doofus of Hee Haw fame, but one of the great innovators of country music, especially between 1960 and 1966, when he single-handedly defied the bland Nashville conventions and forged the magnificent twin-telecaster, locomotive Bakersfield sound.

But I'll but you a dollar that if you go through all the names, there is not a single overlap between the Scott Walker people and the Buck Owens people. That alone makes me an individual as unique as my DNA. Or take the handful of philosophical, psychological, and theological influences. Only three people come up for Melanie Klein, one other person for Allan Schore, none at all for Matte Blanco or Whitehead. Add all my influences together, and the chance of someone sharing the same ones would be billions to one. Someone once referred to reading as "the mystery school of individuation." How much more is this true of the internet, which allows us to "fine Coon" our individuality in ways never before possible?

In short, whether for good or for ill, there is no question that I am alarmingly "unique," in a strictly value-free sense of the term (I am not making any special claim for myself, as this is probably true of all Coons -- the only "species" that consists of unique individuals as opposed to a "type"). And as a matter of fact, I am quite aware of this uniqueness. When I was a young kit -- especially because the uniqueness existed in potential but was not actualized -- it was a source of pain, because naturally I wanted to be like "the others."

Even now, when people meet me, there is good chance that they will walk away from the encounter mumbling to themselves, "Hmm. Never met anyone like that before." For some -- for Coons -- hanging with Dear Leader would be a positive experience. But for the non-coon world, there is no question that contact with me would be an irritant or a puzzle, unless I specifically rein it in -- as all Coons must do in order to make their way through the sub-Coon world.

Now, the other day I mentioned the "celestialization," or vertical globalization, that will have to accompany horizontal globalization. I am going to talk about this despite the odious Mr. Pibb's request that I do so. In the absence of this vertical globalization, I see no hope for man -- or at least no hope that human beings will achieve their potential and become who they were meant to be. As you can see from my own little example of myself, no government or collective could possibly confer my uniqueness upon me. Rather, they can only limit it or take it away entirely, which is precisely the problem in what Barnett calls the "non-integrating gap" of the world, including Islam.

As Barnett explains, once your nation connects to the functioning core of the world, you no longer have control of the "content flow" into your country, and this is a big problem for the infrahuman who is only prevented from acting out by strict top-down control of information content. In America, we are so accustomed to having total access to all information, that most of us can handle the content flow that comes with globalization.

But not everyone. There is a reason why access to porn remains the primary use of Al Gore's magnificent invention. In other words, if there are literally millions of Americans who cannot handle the information flow of globalization without being sucked into a world of infrahuman compulsion, imagine the catastrophic effect on a culture that thinks a two-piece bathing suit consists of a burqa and a snorkel? Frankly, if the internet were available when I was a young punk (which in Joey's case was a term of endearment, BTW), I do wonder what the effect would have been on my soul.

Nevertheless, as a result of globalization, never before have human beings had more of an opportunity to realize their unique potential and become who they are. But how many people take advantage of this? Relative to the total, I would say very few. But in my spiritual system, an absolute prerequisite of real spiritual growth is to first become who you are, otherwise, ipso facto, you are someone else. And the entire Islamic world is invested in preventing people from becoming who they are, which is why freedom must be rejected at all costs.

The only world-historical purpose of our liberation of Iraq can be the vertical liberation of a small part of the Islamic world, so that they might have the intoxicating experience of living their individuality. Once this happens, it cannot be put back in the bottle -- as in the case of Gorbachev's attempts to save the communist system through Glasnost, or "openness." Openness is incompatible with any form of leftist (or religious) mind control, so the whole system rapidly collapsed.

This is why economic liberty is far more important than political liberty to vertical globalization. This is obvious if you consider your own life, in which your liberty is "lived" on a moment-by-moment basis in the free market, what with the countless little decisions you make every day. Meaningful political liberty arises not through abstract ideas, but through the experience of living one's economic freedom.

This is also why leftism is always against the Cosmic Law, because it always limits our ability to discover and live the unique idiom of our freedom in the open system of natural liberty. And this is why leftism always arrives gland-in-hand with totalitarianism, whether in its "hard" form or in "flaccid" forms such as political correctness, campus speech codes, the education system in general, and the stupifying worlds of the MSM and a so-called "entertainment" industry which mainly functions to magnify ugliness and depravity, disregard beauty and virtue, and eclipse any dimensions beyond the animal-human lowbrid. One way or the other, you must always bend over forwards to accomodate leftism.

Well, I had better sign off. As part of my Total Slack Retrieval System™, I actually work seven days a week. That is, instead of doing a lot of work five days, I do a little every day, and then knock off early. That way my Sabbath arrives every afternoon and I don't really require vacations because I make sure to rejewvenate every day.

72 comments:

robinstarfish said...

bears v horseshoe heads
peyton overthrows all men
good rex is enthroned

Anonymous said...

So much rich ore today...

"The only world-historical purpose of our liberation of Iraq can be the vertical liberation of a small part of the Islamic world, so that they might have the intoxicating experience of living their individuality. Once this happens, it cannot be put back in the bottle -- as in the case of Gorbachev's attempts to save the communist system through Glasnost, or "openness." Openness is incompatible with any form of leftist (or religious) mind control, so the whole system rapidly collapsed."

This is precisely what gives me hope for Iraq in spite of the constant MSM dirge of 'catastrophe', and 'failed policies'. Our new emerging leadership may well succeed in pulling the plug and ending whatever good we are doing over there, but the mustard seeds have been planted and the roots will eventually crack the foundation. For all the hidebound imams, there are as many underground free thinkers spreading the vertical gospel. In ten or twenty years they may have enough voice to bring about "sudden" change. It's not a matter of if but when. And who do you suppose will take the credit when it happens (rhetorical question)?

Meanwhile, our own country seems hell-bent to embrace leftism and may need rescue from the young democracies of the middle east. Could be an interesting century.

Anonymous said...

five-armed sea-bird woe
fresh equines declaw ursa-
minor midway men

ouch, that's bad

Anonymous said...

Florida Grad rules
a new constellation birthed
Year of The Gator

As above, so below.

Anonymous said...

It's downright amazing how consistently good, thought provoking and deep your bloggings are. I like especially your giving the "O" its due credit. Thanks for writing such good stuff, Bob.

Anonymous said...

Bloodthirsty imams
Religion of mouthpieces
For a monster god

Anonymous said...

Monster gods. So many countries are full of gods that glare and stick their tongues out at you, or have you kill yourself or your children for them.

The Aztecs are extinct and I'm not crying over it. Folks want to resurrect Aztec morals like scientist did the smallpox virus. As a "cultural" experience. Yeesh.

Some cultures fester in their own petri dish, and nothing good can come from injecting that sort of diversity into the mainstream of life.

Anonymous said...

Superbowl Sunday
Hordes drawn to the spectacle
Wreck it for sports fans

Gagdad Bob said...

Cool. I hope it finds distribution in the US or comes out on DVD. He's one strange dude.

Anonymous said...

Merrily, Merrily, Life Is But a Dream

Anonymous said...

Joan of Argghh said: Some cultures fester in their own petri dish, and nothing good can come from injecting that sort of diversity into the mainstream of life.


If you put a cup of wine into a barrel of sewage, you have a barrel of sewage. If you put a cup of sewage into a barrel of wine, you have a barrel of sewage.

JWM

Gagdad Bob said...

NIce little trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBMJ79ly3B4

Van Harvey said...

Consciousness as prime
Substitutes my I for God
Narciscistic rhyme

Anonymous said...

Blogger is just hopeless. Looks like I'm stuck with the the cat nic. And there must be some malign spirit generating these damn word verification codes Let's see...

JWM

Van Harvey said...

Ok, word verif on my last comment was 'Janus', as in the two headed God - I knew that thing was a mouthpiece

robinstarfish said...

as mirrorcyclists
eggs and chickens get the joke
distant reflection

Anonymous said...

PlasticPalaceAlice,
Gurl, thats gotta be the coolist nick ever.

ergh... wordie thing sez, "szutbv" which must mean "sucks to be u" or something.

ximeze said...

Watched & listened, a short time ago, to 3hrs of Dinesh D'Souza on CSPAN Book TV.

He discussed, in part, his new book "The enemy at home : the cultural left and its responsibility for 9/11."

Have read his prior books, but in those days did not have the Coon Standard in place. Looking forward to reading this new one, now. Dinesh sure sounds like a Coon to me.

Left the tube-room for a few minutes & upon returning, found Sam Harris as part of a panel of "thinkers" of ostensibly opposing views in: "Debate on Religion & Reason."

What a difference!

Denish clearly HAS Coonvision, the second set DON'T.

Interesting displays for the purpose of comparison.

Dinesh replays tonight at midnight & Harris 10pm. Both times eastern.

Time for the VCR.

Anonymous said...

ximeze,

I saw the same program, and wrote almost the same post a while back. Deleted it, thinking it off-topic a bit. But, I had the same conclusion, that he was certainly a 'Coon.

He had the temerity to embrace the Portuguese Inquisition because of what it meant to him as a descendant of a family forced to convert to Christianity. He boldly asserted the benefits of England's colonization of India. He had the ability to earn and learn in India, but sought out the intellectual and personal freedom to be what he felt he should/could be in the U.S.

I didn't agree with some finer points about Islam, but he's talking in a way that sets him well apart from the wingnuts.

Anonymous said...

Haiku by Etheridge Knight (1931-1991)

1
Eastern guard tower
glints in sunset; convicts rest
like lizards on rocks.

2
The piano man
is stingy at 3 A.M.
his songs drop like plum.

3
Morning sun slants cell.
Drunks stagger like crippled flies
On jailhouse floor.

4
To write a blues song
is to regiment riots
and pluck gems from graves.

5
A bare pecan tree
slips a pencil shadow down
a moonlit snow slope.

6
The falling snow flakes
Cannot blunt the hard aches nor
Match the steel stillness.

7
Under moon shadows
A tall boy flashes knife and
Slices star bright ice.

8
In the August grass
Struck by the last rays of sun
The cracked teacup screams.

9
Making jazz swing in
Seventeen syllables AIN'T
No square poet's job.

robinstarfish said...

1 through 9 is sublime. Mmm-mmm.

Van Harvey said...

So far, Will's Cosmic booking agency is looking pretty good... Bearz!!!

Van Harvey said...

Ximeze & Joan of Argghh!,

I caught parts of both (tivoing the replays) and had about the same estimation.

Dinesh restated Aristotle's summation of Happiness in a way I hadn't heard before, that I quite liked; It's normally translated as 'Activity', but he used 'Movement' instead:"Happiness is the movement of the soul in accordance with Virtue."

I think that alone qualifies him for a couple rings upon his tail.

shoprat said...

Your initial comments about denial of freewill got me thinking.

I think, and I could be wrong, that the left abandoned Marx a long time ago and embraced BF Skinner as their #1 Guru. His writing made me shudder as I thought about some of the stuff my HS teachers tried to feed me.

It explains way too much.

Van Harvey said...

Shoprat said "...the left abandoned Marx a long time ago and embraced BF Skinner as their #1 Guru..."

Skinner just made explicit what was implicit in Marx & his prececessors.

Either variety is well worth shuddering over.

Anonymous said...

once flew over it
dropping cosmic freedom bombs
forever transformed








Hey, Shoppy, good to see ya man!

Van Harvey said...

(Bearz are at 14, which Joan of Argghh! might type as 41...)

Van Harvey said...

(...41 would be better now...)

Anonymous said...

I got bets riding on the number 41.

I believe in the mysterious Will.

:)

Anonymous said...

"Happiness is the movement of the soul in accordance with Virtue."

Dinesh was asked what lasting influence his Mom has on him. That was his answer. Nothing like having a good mom.

Van Harvey said...

GagDad, Haiku, Racoons, D'Souza, Aristotle, Will's predictions and the Super Bowl - does it get better than this?

What we need now is a virtual living room...

Anonymous said...

Time for second half
'Scuse me while I kiss the sky
Beer o'clock is now!

Van Harvey said...

Please... someone take my attention off of Prince...

ugh....

Anonymous said...

Re: Dinesh D’Souza's new book

Keep those pocketbooks closed.

Not one coon dime should be spent on Dinesh D’Souza's new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.

At the very least, I urge you to read Robert Spencer's (The Truth about Muhammed) review of D'Souza's book at FrontPageMag.

Van Harvey said...

Beer O'Clock indeed... and me having to make do with Sam Adams & Fosters without a Guiness in sight... the horror....

Anonymous said...

Well, we could always play back Billy Joel's butchering of the National Anthem. That'll get Prince and the stupid man-kiss off your mind.

However, Joel gets props for doing the anthem by the spots. No flashy obigatos and caterwauling. Of course, no voice, either.

Anonymous said...

obligatos

Dyslexia and rum. Just say no.

Hmmm. "obigatos" sounds like some sort of Japanese cats in Spain. Or something.

Van Harvey said...

Odd, we used to cover Purple Rain in my band when it came out (20 something years ago?!) and NO one performed it better than Ray did, hearing Prince slay it, is like hearing the beatie boys play the Beatles.

Ok, so Sam Adams & Fosters are doint the trick... still ain't Guiness....

Van Harvey said...

No clear winner in the other big game today... commercials are all pretty lame.

Van Harvey said...

Will?

Anonymous said...

Just for fun, go to www.wunderground.com and type in Miami, FL. Then click on the radar screen, animate it and zoom in. It's almost a Cosmic Fate unleashing on Miami, and forming directly over the Super Bowl. Gonna rain for the rest of the night.

The Puppy Bowl is my pick, woof! now that the Bearz have melted in the rain.

Anonymous said...

Rex Grossman is an idiot. Sheesh.

Van Harvey said...

For a moment there I was thinking that 2 touchdowns would give 'em 41, but after that?!!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Bob.

;)

robinstarfish said...

peyton wrecks the night
prince of power of the air
stings like purple rain

Anonymous said...

Aww, Van:
I thought Prince was great.

JWM

ximeze said...

ms. e:
Thanks for the link to FrontPage.

Spence vs D'Souza: OUCH!!!

Will read it, but won't spend my dime, not directly anyway. I'm second in line for it from the Public Library.

Rarely buy books that I've not read or at least perused well.

Recent exceptions have been Fearless Leader's & Polanyi.

Anonymous said...

Damn.I can't get rid of the Booger the Cat nic. This has become a Kafka-esque nightmare.
Where are the beatniks now that we need them? Good thing I don't have anything serious to add to the conversation.

JWM

Stephen Macdonald said...

Van:

"hearing Prince slay it"

You are aware that Prince wrote and originally performed that song, right?

Today's Superbowl version was pretty thin, but the original was sublime pop music.

Anonymous said...

We'll never see Grossman again, I'd wager.

The commercials were more violent than the game. Seems like every other one was based on a blow to the head theme. What does that say about us? I mean them?

Prince did rock, though. Consumate showman.

Anonymous said...

The Australian ran this familiar story last Novemeber:

A MELBOURNE grandmother has accused Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Din el-Hilaly of inciting racial hatred and of sexual discrimination.

Elaine Davidson made her complaint against the "divisive" mufti to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission this week.

Mrs Davidson said she was deeply offended by el-Hilaly's reported comments in a service last month that claimed immodestly dressed women invited rape and were like "uncovered meat".

"I'm a white, Western woman of high morals and I was offended," she said, adding that she wants a personal apology and may take civil action against the mufti.

[...]

A reader at jihadWatch.org posted these salient observations:

This woman does not understand that political correctness only flows one way. Race and ethnicity always trump gender in the hierarchy of political correctness. Political correctness has a pecking order established by the left. If two protected groups clash, the one higher in the food chain wins. The other is eaten. It goes like this:

From top to bottom:

muslims/blacks- 
chinese/orientals/native indians-
hispanics-
other nonwhites-
Jews-
gays-
women-
the handicapped-
catholics-
barney the dinosaur-
the mentally retarded
veterans of popular wars-
white protestant males-

Of course within each group, there are subgroups. The nuances of which would extent the list exponentially. For example, a white buddhist woman would have preference over a white buddhist male. And so on. But Barney trumps both. But does a gay white protestant male trump a catholic? If you are a member of two disenfranchised groups, that may or may not up your seniority over another person who is a member of just one, albeit higher, disenfranchised groups. For example, if this woman was handicapped and gay, she would be given more weight. But enough to trump the racial and religious seniority of a this muslim? Probably not. If so, that is where a supercomputer is required to do the computation.

The Left has created a complex system for determining the relative equality of everyone in society according to the victimization quotient they have alloted them.

So for this woman, going up against this muslim, I'm afraid that her Christian whiteness put her claim at a disadvantage to his arabic muslim beardness. This is why a muslim who preached hatred and sexual violence, gets a pass from the Left, even if a woman, or a feminist, complains.

It vexes the Left to see this, it makes them squirm, but they have their hierarchy to follow. And they follow it just as Lenin followed the principles of Marxism. For them, it puts order in the universe.

Posted by: August22

(Bob, is your handle at JW August 22? If so, where have you been lately?)

Van Harvey said...

JWM said "I thought Prince was great."

Seriously? I thought he completely missed the core energy of the song, left me flat. Hmm. TomAAAtoe, Tomahhtoe perhaps. Or a lack of Guiness. Or I just remember how much better the song Could be. Or Sam Adams & Fosters & Glory Days....

Van Harvey said...

Smoov said "You are aware that Prince wrote and originally performed that song, right?"

Very much so, we listened to that over and over and over again getting it down to begin with, & played it more times than I can count.

Today's Superbowl version was pretty thin, but the original was sublime pop music.

I thought it was real thin, but then again, see previous response to JWM.

Anonymous said...

Skinner just made explicit what was implicit in Marx & his predecessors.

And constructivism has put it into practice! It has truly become a cult.

I though Prince was great. I guess I cut him slack when he has to do a medley (which doesn't do justice to each tune), and also because I suppose because it was great to see him more like his original rocker self than what he tried (and failed) to transform himself into. And as someone said - the stars were definitely the dancers - who kept their feet MUCH better than the big strong professional athlete types (with cleats?) did.

BTW, some of us goys definitely get the rejewvenation thing. Letting out one's inner oy vey on a daily basis does tend to settle the mind. :-)

Van Harvey said...

Goy said "I though Prince was great."

sigh.

Where's this monolithic one mind One Cosmos stuff when I need it? Figured if I slipped DuPree a few brew's, the fix would be in, but Nooooooo....

Van Harvey said...

I just backed up the Tivo & watched his purpleness again... still not seeing it, I thought he was flatamundo (Course the fact that I tivo's back to watch something I didn't like the first time to see if I'd like it the second time doesn't say much for my judgment at the moment).

Bugged me so much because we used to use Purple Rain as a closer for the night, garaunteed to bring the house down & encore calls.

"Glory days... in the wink of a young girl's eye Glory days, glory days ..."

Anonymous said...

Well, I think I've figured out what I am. (I'd call this realization a 'plus'.)
Trying to put a word on my early life was always difficult, but Bob managed it handily. Ever since my 'learning differences' came to light, I was kind of put in the closet by 'Progressive Education' (or 'Big Teacher') who put me on medication and, whether they intended it or not, proceeded to train me to avoid thinking or doing for myself. In other words, I was conditioned to be Infrahuman.
(This wouldn't have happened in a free-market education system, which would cheerfully set up seperate schools to meet the needs of 'unusual clients', but that's another post for another time).
Naturally, the Infrahuman condition didn't work for me. Why would it - I am, after all, Human, and so trying to cause me to be less than that would create a sensation of wrongness. This is a sensation that my day to day life -- hanging out with people who didn't really share my interests, playing video games that were for the most part efficient time-butchers but little more, listening to music that I didn't really like -- helped me to ignore for a while.
A few years ago, after some trials and turbulence, I stopped ignoring it. But I had no idea what to do with it. Then I made a string of discoveries, including Rush Limbaugh, C.S. Lewis, the American Thinker, which led to Dr. Sanity, which in turn led here, where I found the Racoon Way of Thinking Groovily.
And y'know what? I like this.
Part of what crystalized all this was today's post. The other, amusingly, was hearing 'He's Got High Hopes' on the radio earlier today, which got me thinking about the can-do thinking of yesteryear versus the beat-down cynicism of today.
What Bob said about the Left is spot-on; they don't want us to be people. People are hard to manage. They're hard to lump together and use. People don't work well with the one-size-fits-all liberal worldview of education, and if they can't be 'properly' educated, what good are they?
So now I seem to have figured out what happened. That's nice. It took me long enough; I'm 26 and currently majoring in Psychology after crashing out of college years ago and sinking into depression as a result. So my question now is, what do I do to continue moving forward? There's a mighty leftward bent in the college I'm attending, and on the one hand I don't want to get too uppity with my pleasantly brainwashed professors, but on the other hand I do not want to go back to where I was. I don't want to be an infrahuman again. And I don't know if my spirit has become strong enough and my mind keen enough to dig out all the liberal mistruths in the class material or to resist their effects on my mind. Part of me says that now that I've seen Big Teacher for what it is, I'll never go back, but another part points out that if seeing a problem fixed it, alcoholics would never go back to the bottle.
...so, yeah. That was a bit long, sorry.

Anonymous said...

Van, isn't that tune like 10 minutes long? I guess you gotta remember how long it takes to do it full justice, right? Would've taken up most of his show. The time constraints made for either a quick dip into each tune, for "old times' sake" (which people did seem to enjoy) or the full treatment of one, maybe two songs.

C'mon, admit it - you would love to have been up there doing that no matter how 'thin' some folks thought you sounded! :-)

Anonymous said...

In an exercise of free will, decided to get a few miles in starting right before the half. Heavenly Horizontal! Colder than a well diggers ass!


Uh, um, ah, well, I tagged Bird Dog #1 with Cordwainer Smith Jr.


This could be something BEAUTIFUL - Joan, dupree's little sister and me - making and selling clever vanity plates from the WoVeri!

Joan? <(0)> 'art ewe ;~)

Anonymous said...

Xivilai, you are experiencing what my wife (and I) experienced in academia just recently. She is also a psych major who just finished her BA (in Dec.) and is continuing on toward her PhD. She plans to counsel transgendered/transsexual individuals, their families, their health providers and so on, combining that area with gerontology.

On our first orientation visit to the school (she has MS so I have tended to accompany her to class, etc.) I was puzzled by the "I'm A Constructivist" poster her advisor had taped to her door - along with all the prerequisite Bush-bashing political cartoons and various propaganda one takes for granted at colleges these days. I got a real education (npi) about this constructivism stuff by being more than just vicariously involved in hers. It really is a cult movement, and it stinks to high heaven of collectivist, Marxist socialist ideology. This is THE "ism" governing education in most schools (at all levels) these days, and it's part of the reason, IMHO, for the lack of critical thinking ability to be generally found in the last couple generations' college grads.

In the present environment resistance - for the average college freshman coming out of H.S. - truly is futile (partly because constructivism has already worked it's way into education at all levels). However, once you "get it", it's fairly easy to grin-and-bear-it to get the paper you need to meet your goals. Presently - unless you can find the rare school that hasn't been taken over by the neo-Marxists - this is pretty much the only option.

I could go on ad nauseam about the issues this "ism" has created, and will do so at length and in great detail once we physically possess her degree.

In the meantime, my advice to you is just to suggest that once the genie's out of the bottle - especially at the ripe young age of 26 (!!!) - you won't likely ever see la-la-land as a viable choice again. I encourage you to stick out the slings and errors of outrageous misinformation with whatever strength you can muster. Trust me - it will be an education all to itself. Once you go Racc, you can never go back.

Van Harvey said...

Goy said "...how long it takes to do it full justice, right? Would've taken up most of his show."

ya know what it reminded me of? A really good actor making a cameo appearance on a sitcom... their usually no "on", walk in, smile & walk off. That particular song, hooked right, even 30 seconds can put out enough electricity to light up Las Vegas (did I mention the sam adams & fosters?)... I didn't see it clicking.

Would I have liked to be up there with Ray playing it?(scuse me...ok, now that I've wrenched your rusty knife out of my soul) yep.
yep.

NoMo said...

heresy maybe
super bowl gone now for good
care less not I could


obiwanhaiku

Anonymous said...

Hmm, OK . . .

Goes to show that predictions can be made too early. Bearz were looking good until . . well, my theory is that Rex Grossman's friday whiny-ness obliterated his team's mojo.

This won't really impact on his consciousness until he's about . . oh, 41 years of age.

Anonymous said...

"And the entire Islamic world is invested in preventing people from becoming who they are, which is why freedom must be rejected at all costs."

Terrorists deny freedom
According to Left
Butchers are freedom fighters

Anonymous said...

Will-
Serendipity.
This was Superbowl 41.

Van Harvey said...

Uss Ben said "This was Superbowl 41."

41? I thought it was Superbowl XLI?

(!)

Anonymous said...

Well, Ben, that would account for why the number 41 was rolling around in my head . . .

doh . . .

Anonymous said...

while i float you sting
lo prediction did come true
colts win bears lose heh

commiserations
to all who pulled for da bears
better luck next time

Anonymous said...

I didn't see it clicking.
Hmmm... oh well. Maybe I'm easily entertained. Or maybe it just really needed a 50'' DLP and surround system to get the effect of being there. Then again... we played in a stadium once (nowhere near that big). So maybe it was just a positive neuro-association to the sitchee-a-shun and a gratefulness that he stuck mostly his "fun" (rather than his "poseur") persona. :-)

BTW, your profile gave me a chill. Mine would read something like: "In school, I was the quiet kid in the back, then I spent the '70's playing in a travelling Disco Band on the West Coast. Stopped that to get married and have a life; in the process I went from Sales, to Coding to Teaching."

Wondering how many former (and present) musical performers are wearing the coon mask... :-)

Anonymous said...

You do realize, of course, that if Chicago hadn't made the freak touchdown to start the game, and if the Colts had made a two point conversion instead of missing the one point try, the score would have been 31-10, or 41.

Van Harvey said...

Goy said "... it just really needed a 50'' DLP and surround system to get the effect of being there. "

Not to be picky, but I've got the surround sound & DLP, but with a 120" screen (ceiling mounted projector, the entire basement wall is the screen - truly rocks & for a fraction of the cost). Still didn't do it for me. Then again, I can't claim a stadium in my resume', a few 5,000 seater's were the closest we got... I think we've just got to chalk this one up to a matter of personal preference. Poor 'ol Prince is probably fighting against my memory enhanced recollections - sure to be an uphill battle no matter what.

There be many mucho " former (and present) musical performers are wearing the coon mask.", including our Richenbacher plucking Dear Leader himself... welcome!"

Anonymous said...

All the real humans have fled Palestine.

All that are left are the Orcs.

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