Category Archives: Politics & Religion

Brain food

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Growing up, I heard the term “brain food” bandied about as if to say certain foods would improve cognitive function and make me smarter. Somewhere along the way, popcorn was believed to be a brain food. Whether or not popcorn is biochemically beneficial for thinking ability isn’t really the subject of my post today (though I would argue that dousing it in butter and salt then setting mindlessly in front of a movie isn’t exactly intellectual stimulation). In fact, what we call brain food is really just what we need to perform up to par rather than excel. For the past ten days off from this blog I’ve been engaging in real brain food- writing a daily letter to my wife back home, journaling, and reading lots of books.

Daily writing has proven to be good exercise not just for my penmanship, but my imagination. One hopes love letters never get stale, but there’s still the motivation to try and keep each letter unique and interesting; it becomes an exercise in creativity to constantly come up with a new idea or angle on “I love you” to write home. Some days I resort to using the letter as a journal about the day’s events. [I've also finally begun to write in my actual journal about my thoughts and observations here in Afghanistan. Alas, these have a slim chance of ever being published on the blog due to OPSEC. Nothing classified gets written down, it's just... personal.] But other days, the Groundhog Days, a little more creativity is required. [Sweetheart, quit reading the rest of this paragraph unless you want mild spoilers about letters still winging their way home to you in the mail.] Some of my proudest ideas and missives home have come from defying convention of the letter home and penning my own poem to her about our life and courtship, or deciding to poorly illustrate a story using stick figures and overt comedy. These breaks from the typical letter are remarkably refreshing as the author because they remind me that the only limitations being imposed are that of the paper’s dimensions and my own imagination. The sky isn’t the limit when you’re writing- you can sail right past atmospheric limitations. What goes down on the paper is a new world to be crafted with no rules but those set by its creator.

Which brings me in an unexpected fashion to discussing one of the books I’m reading, actually. Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, basis of the Coen brothers’ 2007 film of the same name, is like nothing I’ve ever read before. In some ways I’m glad I saw the movie first because the book is so unlike any other leisure reading that I could imagine having trouble constructing its tone in my mind. Having Tommy Lee Jones’ voice in my head for Sheriff Bell’s narration doesn’t hurt, either. But another startling realization for me is that whether by McCarthy’s artistic choice or a product of poor e-book transcribing there are no quotation marks signifying any of the dialog. Conversations still happen, but there are no defining queues establishing its rhythm. There’s very little in the way of punctuation at all, actually. The language is steeped in ruralization or capturing the dialect of the region and time, much like reading Mark Twain. And there are run-on sentences galore as McCarthy describes the actions of Llewelyn Moss, using “and” four or five times to stretch small actions into one longer process. I haven’t noticed this in the passages describing Anton Chigurh and I can only assume McCarthy does this as if writing in deference to the character. It’s fascinating and effective at making me pay much closer attention the words used in deducing the action, rather than “coasting” through with punctuation as my guide.

I accidentally left my kindle [left lowercase a la the logo] back in the tent tonight, and I can’t recall an exhaustive list of everything I’ve read from memory. Among them was The 4-Hour Body (interesting, scientifically based, and fun to read), Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness (just scratched the surface so far, since philosophy truly requires study to absorb), Rich Dad, Poor Dad (which has me thinking about saving and investing in a whole new light), and finally what I think might be the most interesting book of them all, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? by John Fea.

Fea does something really interesting in this book: he actually looks for the answer to the question and even questions the question itself, rather than cherry-picking examples of text to support his own predetermined conclusion. The result is one that Daniel Walker Howe was quite right in describing as “a scrupulous presentation of evidence that may surprise people on both sides of this hot topic.” Fea truly comes across as having no agenda at all, but simply presenting the evidence of both arguments and, as such, much more honestly than so many other voices in the debate. I’ve only read the preface, introduction and Chapter 1 so far, but already it is like a breath of fresh air without any axe to grind or “fisking” and skewering of others’ work (though that may come later). The narrative is clear and easy reading, with the establishment of the time and cultural climate done well. Expect more updates on this book.

Some of what chapter one makes stand out in my mind is that the United States were not formed as a Christian nation as a de jure standard (not du jour), but as a de facto existence owing to the overwhelmingly Christian population. Christ and Christianity are mentioned precisely nowhere in any of our government’s founding documents, and yet plentifully abound culturally at the time in personal correspondence and around our framing documents. Most interesting is the example of the American Civil War, where both sides firmly believed they were on the side of angels while the other was atheistic and hell-bound. (The Confederate states even had God directly written into their constitution.) Looking at it from a historical point of view, one can even see the origins or similarities to today’s “Bible belt” South and New England liberal elitist stereotypes. What seems very clear already is that the question and the answer are much more complicated than the simple black/white answers sought or used for political posturing.

Both the North and the South interpreted the Bible and their view of history to how they saw fit in order to compliment their lives. This is probably not so different than what people have always done, or what happens today (on both sides of the issue). The truth is, we’re discussing real people who lived back then and had stories to tell, circumstances to live through, and events shape their lives. How accurate would it be for somebody else to tell your story after you’re dead and gone and simply peg you as “this” or “that” with no further dimension to who you are? This is what Fea avoids, because hinging the argument of America’s founding as a Christian nation is too deep a subject to simply declare that “the documents prove we’re secular” or “the culture proves we’re Christian” and never the twain shall meet. The truth, and the story, is nuanced just like the people who wove it.

One of my favorite podcasts is Hardcore History by Dan Carlin, and one of the things he says is that you can predictably see a trend in historians’ accounting of an event over time. First there will be an overwhelming trend to portray the event or time period in a certain light, and this can be either positive or negative. But as time passes, it becomes more fashionable for the historians to become contrarian to the previously established history and begin to portray the event in a completely different light which, relative to my last sentence, would now be either negative or positive, respectively. Eventually, as enough time passes, cooler heads (perhaps further removed from the circumstances) begin to discern the truth that lies somewhere in the middle as they empathize with both sides while taking neither. So far, it seems like this is what Fea has done, and I can’t wait to read more. It’s early in the book for me to be recommending it, I know, but it seems like something both the pious and the secular need to read for a little bit better understanding.

Like I said earlier, expect an update as I read more. At only 246 pages (excluding notes and references), it should be a quick read.

Liberal Logic

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Rachel Maddow is talking with somebody about the upcoming ban on abortion in Mississippi who says, “It’s unconstitutional and you can’t do through the back door what you can’t do through the front.”

I wonder how many liberals would agree with that statement and/or see it so clearly when applied to the Second Amendment.

The truth doesn’t fit the narrative

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This is an excerpt of an older article by Ann Coulter about the Trayvon Martin case, which I discovered by following Joe Huffman’s excellent blog. Copied and pasted from Joe, whom you should be reading.

… Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery.

Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.

After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted “Black Codes,” denying black Americans the right of citizenship — such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms — while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan.

For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.

Ann Coulter, 23 April 2012

1,000 words a day

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In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King advocates any writer to discipline themselves and jot down at least that much daily. When I look at the infrequency with which I’ve been posting lately, I think it’s clear that I don’t self-identify as a writer. However, some of my friends consider me to be one, and part of me wants to buy an iPad based almost exclusively on the Writer app. Whether that’s my desire to communicate ideas through the written word or my appreciation for good design, I’m not sure.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with being a writer, but my goal has always been more that of a raconteur. Like Garrison Keillor or Kinky Friedman or possibly the greatest of them all, the little-known Sam Clemens. I like to entertain. I like to educate, or at the very least stimulate some thought or discussion. I have no desire to publish a novel, as I don’t really have any stories of that length to tell. Publishing a coffee table or waiting room book, with a new short and clever thought on each page would fine by me. And I very much love talking about really big, heated topics like politics and religion in frank but good-natured way.

There was a time where I would have considered myself as right-wing as could be. I still lean heavily to the political right, but I consider my positions more carefully and with reason now. And it largely happened because through circumstance I found myself on a date with a woman that was reasonable, politically liberal, and a brilliant conversationalist. Oh, and the circumstance was that she was gorgeous and I was a young man with all the motivations that accompany youth.

The point is this: over a few Coronas and the largest plate of nachos Maricopa county has to offer, people can come to common understandings if they’ll talk things out and quit calling each other names. The single biggest reason I want to punch Bob Beckel in the mouth has nothing to do with his political beliefs, but because he’s a snide, smarmy son of a bitch. But if we could get away from the bullet points, bumper sticker arguments about issues, and time constraints of a spot on a television news show… If all the name-calling were to be dropped, or if people could set aside their passions for just a short while and talk through why they were insulted and come to a common understanding of terminology… If Bob and I could have a few Coronas and a massive plate of nachos, I’d like to think we could both leave that table with his teeth still intact.

Now, this is just in relation to American politics. And there are two truths that simply have to be lived with. The first is that you can’t negotiate with everybody all the time. The second is that American television is all politically slanted and I believe the public is manipulated into passionate fighting over red herrings.

You can’t negotiate with everybody all the time. I’m going to start a fight here, but I don’t care. People who believe unequivocally that all problems can always be discussed into resolution are, in the medical sense, idiots. While well-intentioned, they forget that real discussion requires both parties be rational and willing. This is the all-too-common of projection; thinking, “I can discuss this calmly, so they must be able to as well.” This is what leads to political correctness, and bumper stickers that tell us to “coexist” in a stylized fashion. Because it’s a religion of peace that flies planes into buildings and saws off the heads of innocent civilians. Because it’s a benevolent government that would imprison it’s own population. There is such a thing as evil in the world, and no amount of rational talk will keep it at bay. Monsters must be fought and defeated, or they will surely consume us all.

We’re manipulated into believing who is or isn’t a monster. Even Michael Moore can be correct from time to time. In Bowling for Columbine he comments on the news media in America and the constant fear-mongering. “Coming up after the commercial break: what you don’t know just might kill you!!!” The hype machine we live with as Americans is ridiculous and ever-present. Constantly telling us that this is a threat, or that isn’t, and by all that is Holy the future of mankind hinges on the upcoming issue. Because we’ve seen monsters in the past. We know they’re real. Now we just have to figure out if we’re really being told about a monster, or if it’s tales about the boogeyman to frighten us into acting like the storyteller desires.

How many on the left truly believe the Tea Party movement is nothing but a bunch of racists that hate Obama? How many on the right believe that Occupy is nothing but a bunch of homeless hippies demanding Socialism and freebies from the government? (For the record, I do think most Occupiers are Socialist idiots despite it’s repeated historical failures but I also agree that CEO bonus packages in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown and US Gov’t bailouts were criminal.)

And maybe this is the best example. Here we have two distinct camps, both making news, and roughly over the same issue: money. Tea Partiers really just believe that a person is entitled to what they earn. While the Occupy message may have started out with good intent, it’s now seen believing they’re entitled to what somebody else earns (which is theft). Occupy lost me because of the 99 vs 1 percent argument, and truly devolved into drum circles and hippies. If they’d have stayed on-message about theft and crooked dealing of specific CEOs and companies, they’d have won a lot more people over. But instead it became Beckelesque bomb throwing about “evil corporations” and “we are the 99%”. It’s a clever bit of marketing, succinct and memorable. The problem is it fundamentally strips away the idea of being able to elevate oneself through hard work to a better financial standing, and instead comes across as Winston Churchill’s view of Socialism: a philosophy of failure, gospel of envy, and equal sharing of misery. Occupiers message becomes one of preferring to tear down the successful. In contrast, the Tea Partiers want less government intrusion and state-sponsored theft in the form of income taxation. (Right now I lose 35-40% of my paycheck to taxes.) This is on top of the taxes we all pay for property, telephone bills, taxes included in the price of gasoline, tobacco and alcohol, your vehicle registration… The list goes on and on. Services like roads, sewage and electricity are services we already pay for: they are NOT provided for by income taxes as Tea Party detractors would have you believe. But the Tea Party had the unfortunate timing of forming after the election of America’s first, and long-overdue, non-caucasian President when their message was just as applicable decades earlier.

I know my summary of the two camps wasn’t equitable, but this is my blog, my lens, and my point remains this: Both of these ideologically opposed groups fundamentally want the same goal, which is a little bit more money in the hands of the everyday Joe. The problem lies in the methods and words used, and the retelling of the story by the news media. I wonder what would happen if we could get both sides to calm down, talk rationally instead of emotionally, and share some beer and nachos.

Philosophy… from a video game?

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Disclaimer: Somebody, somewhere is going to accuse this post of being juvenile or childish because it was a line of dialogue from a game that inspired me. Someone else will think it’s racist. Honestly, it’s just me working out my thoughts on the topic, free-form as I go. I said I needed to think this through and go through several drafts before publishing, but using the typing of this post seems to be helping my thought process.

All scientific advancement due to intelligence overcoming, compensating for limitation. Can’t carry a load, so invent wheel. Can’t catch food, so invent spear. Limitations. No limitations, no advancement. No advancement, culture stagnates. Works other way, too. Advancement before culture is ready. Disastrous.
-Mordin Solus
Mass Effect 2

Sometimes you already have a thought or idea in mind. Maybe you don’t quite know how to adequately express it, but it’s like this fundamental truth that you understand. Then, somebody or something re-words it just slightly or puts into context, a whole new light gets shone on it, and you have this revelation of why you knew this thing to be true. That’s what this conversation in a video game did for me.

This really got me thinking, maybe because I’m deployed on the east coast of Africa and trying to wrap my head around why they do things the way they do here. The culture is so different, and it’s manifest in such strange ways. It’s little details like a luxury home not having any kind of gasket on the (massive) doors or frames, so every time they close they sound like a giant drum as the huge plank of wood that is the door vibrates as one tremendous membrane. Or that they use trash cans, but no trash bags or liners, so the bins get disgusting and caked with dried layers of liquid waste. The bathroom in a building smelling worse that outhouses I’ve used, as if to prove that construction is no guarantee of better sanitation than a hole in the ground.

I watched an interview on BBC in March 2003 of a man on the streets of Baghdad talking about why they’ll conquer the infidel in battle. To prove his might or manliness he whipped out his AK47 and just started firing on full auto up into the air, with no concept or thought as to where those rounds might eventually land.

Mark Bowden quoted somebody (and I paraphrase, for recollection’s sake) on the DVD special features of Black Hawk Down as saying, “Everything possible that can be accomplished with guns has been accomplished in Mogadishu.” Except that’s typical, liberal bull**** and untrue. That’s somebody who doesn’t like guns and projecting his opinion on the situation as if the firearm itself has a causative nature. It completely ignores the provision of food, justified self-defense or defense of family by an otherwise peaceful person, or even just friendly and polite competition. It’s a problem of culture, and I think it’s way past time that we started admitting it.

I use firearms, and construction, and cleanliness, and driving as my examples for this cultural divide because it’s what I’m exposed to and what I can see. I see the everyday norm and typical culture as I shop in grocery stores and try to find Listerine over here. And in my everyday observations, from the bizarre routes people walk in the streets to the way they’ll literally just type anything into the grocery store register with no accounting for stock, my pervading thought is, “What in the hell are these people doing/thinking?”

Now, if this were really a racist diatribe, it would be easy to write them all off as morons or any number of more detestable insults (which I find offensive and won’t repeat). But that kind of thinking is short-sighted and stupid on it’s own. Unless there’s an environmental effect causing mass brain damage to an entire population, it’s ridiculous to think “they’re all stupid”. Brain power and intelligence have nothing to do with it, because any individual can be taught or educated. What it comes down to (and this crosses ALL national and racial lines) is culture. I don’t care if you’re American or Chinese, white or a beautiful shade of brown: Your capacity for excellence stems from your individual drive, and that’s largely contributed to by the culture you’re raised in.

I’m getting dangerously close to slipping to the “Thoughts on Excellence” essay I plan to write.

So let’s get back to the cultural thing. I think it should be universally agreed that slavery is an awful thing and one of the worst crimes man can commit upon his fellow man. But slavery has been abolished in the US for a long time (even longer in the UK) and the civil rights movement has basically equalized the races in the States (despite what race-baiters like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton say, because they ignore the cultural aspect of success). But I don’t know that the effects of slavery are still really being felt today other than causing racial diversity in regions of the globe. I’m coming to believe one of the most “damaging” things white Europeans actually did was interrupt other culture’s sociological evolution.

Kind of like the Prime Directive in Star Trek. Or a spoiled kid that gets given everything and never learns the need or value of working and earning for themselves (in a microcosm).

Discovery Channel here keeps playing commercials for “Marley Africa Road Trip”, and through this I learned about Bob Marley’s dream of a united Africa. Frankly, this is such a resource rich continent that it could be a global powerhouse. But it’s not. Forget uniting the continent, there are still tribes in individual countries butchering each other. Rwanda, anyone? Sierra Leone? Darfur? I can’t help but wonder if situations like these weren’t facilitated, not “because of guns”, but because guns were introduced to a culture before diplomacy.

Maybe tribes in Africa or some Native Americans would have stayed tribal so much longer because their environments didn’t require what other climates did. I don’t believe the Industrial Revolution came about because white people are smarter, but because of their culture, and possibly environment. This is something I really want to study now, and delve into the history of to discover more.

I still don’t have all my thoughts or conclusions together on the topic- which at the moment for me is, “Why do they do such slipshod work around here?” I can’t figure out what would possess somebody to cross traffic twice at a roundabout (walking through it length-wise) rather than simply cross a street once. Why doesn’t a grocery store care about inventory and stock monitoring? Why is everything so dirty? Why is it acceptable to simply stop in the middle of the road and hold up all the traffic behind you?

I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Blood Diamond, simply saying “This is Africa” in a tone that implies it’s ok to give up hope. And I don’t have any silly notions of initiating some kind of cultural renaissance where suddenly people care about education and doing their best work and critical thought. But there are just times I can’t turn my brain off and I have to wonder just what went wrong and Mordin’s statement makes as much sense as any.

Why I don’t believe in evolution

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I’m not a very good Christian. I don’t take the Bible (at least Genesis or Revelation) literally. I avoid drunkeness, but I like beer and that’s problematic for some believers. I won’t badger somebody about accepting Christ as their savior, because I feel like it needs to be their decision or it’s not genuine. And I don’t believe in Creation because of my faith.

I believe in intelligent design because evolution is an even sillier notion.

Let’s just get the Flying Spaghetti Monster and this out of the way:
Christanity mocking

I laughed at both, and see what they’re saying. But they also both take a distinctly mocking, derisive tone rather than debating anything on it’s merits and come across as @$$holes in the process. These are just attempts to mock and discredit the entire system of belief, I believe to excuse themselves from any moral accountability or authority, and ignore all the good done by religious charity, people like Mother Teresa, or even just Terri Gauger, the mom of one of my childhood friends.

None of this argues intelligent design over creation, of course. I’m just setting the stage so you know where I’m coming from. I was raised in a church with a distinct “Catholocism is bad” overtone, that I don’t believe at all because I know too many Catholics that are way better people than congregation members I sat next to. I’ve had to do my own thinking on a lot of this, because I think so many systems of belief (both secular and Christian denominations) overlook such obvious stuff and come to bad conclusions out of stupidity. And I’m not even going to argue for intelligent design over evolution. I’m not out to convince you my faith or belief system is correct. Like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m just going to point out the sheer lunacy of evolution- but without the mockery.

First, I find it curious that there are so many myths about creation, and so many “this is how the world ends” stories. It’s like there’s something innate in humans to wonder where we come from, and some belief that the entire planet/civilization will die simply because we as a single unit are mortal. Maybe it is a soul, giving some faint glimmer of insight to the eternal like a dream you know you had but simply can’t recall. Or maybe it’s hubris stating that because we die, everything must die eventually- even a macrocosm like society made up of many of us, or the planet itself. But wondering about our origins? I think that’s perfectly natural. As I get older, I take more interest in history- and I think as a general principle that’s probably common. As we get closer to our own end, we become increasingly curious about those who came before, whether it’s in history books or our own genealogy. And of course, it must eventually lead to questioning the origin of the species, as it were.

Ok, so the Big Bang makes about as much sense and requires about as big a leap of faith as saying God just spoke things into existence over the course of a week. I don’t really care and they can be the same thing as far as I’m concerned. What bugs me is the theory of a random spark of life and macro-evolution of species into other species. Or the “incontrovertible evidence” of common descent. (Link points an obviously pro-evolution, anti-creation website. Not that I care, just FYI.)

Here’s the thing: What are the mathematical odds of “life” just suddenly occurring, and why haven’t we seen it since? If a random conglomeration of atoms can form and get struck by lightning so a mad scientist yells “It’s alive!”, then why is common descent even necessary for evolution to be true? Why hasn’t life randomly sprung up a bunch of times? Aside from claiming that every living cell has a common ancestor and you’re related somehow to the asparagus you ate at dinner, what are the mathematical odds of one cell attaining such incredible bio-diversity that we see on this earth? If life could spontaneously occur and then flourish throughout volcanic, tectonic, and meteoric activity on the earth, why do environmentalists think the planet’s in danger and Ted Danson think the oceans should have died 10 years after 1989? When I look at the insane amount of bio-diversity in just my back yard, it becomes unfathomable that it could all form by chance into a balanced ecology- much less when you consider the vastly greater variety of life on the entire planet.

I’m not pimping creationism. I’m just saying evolution is equally silly a notion.

Aside from every human ancestor “missing link” having been discredited (and it strikes me as curious how desperately people want to deny a Creator by having us come from ape-like creatures), there are thousands of species on this earth and we don’t have a missing link in the fossil record for ANY of them. Now, let’s be fair and say the offspring of a minature poodle and rottweiler may be possible, or explainable… Is that a missing link? Is that a new species? I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s skeletal structure or fossil record would indicate because I’m not a geneticist and I don’t envy paleontologists. All I know is that geology and paleontology are both observational sciences, and applying what I learned about observation in college, I see problems.

A human eyeball is remarkably complex, with rods and cones allowing us to see either 10 million shades color or in low light, focusing lenses, the iris controlling light intake… We have two of them for depth perception and through a chemical and biological miracle the optic nerve tells our brain what we’re seeing. And we’re supposed to believe this complex neuro-muscular organ evolved from simple photo-reactive cells. I’m sorry, but the odds of that happening just don’t jive with me. How did, and in what order and why, each individual component of the eye form without a plan or goal for how it would all eventually work? The very notion is preposterous. (Growing spare non-functional parts… growing spare non-functional parts.. and BLAMMO! Son of a gun! I can see! LOL.)

What about sheep? If natural selection has any merit (and by GM’s survival we see it doesn’t in a corporate sense), than sheep should be an impossibility. A good friend of mine pointed out once that a sheep has not one survival positive characteristic, aside from maybe a thick coat for cold climates. The feral sheep of New Zealand were introduced to an island with no native wild land animals (or predators) in the late 1700′s. Otherwise, without a shepherd, sheep are basically just a food source for other animals but without the high birth rate of rabbits for sustainability. Since the Neolithic revolution (mankind becoming agrarian) only happened between 8,000-5,000 B.C., wouldn’t we have some kind of evidence of humans taming sheep? Something to show us they were the fittest and survived without man’s help?

I don’t know if the bumblebee is really “aerodynamically impossible” or if that’s just one of those things that gets repeated and nobody checks on snopes.com. But how did the hummingbird evolve? How does a bird go from soaring to hovering like a helicopter, and what’s the survival positive aspect of the awkward in between stage?

In closing, I don’t particularly care if somebody believes in evolution. And the irrational, intolerant hatred and/or condescension that spews forth from some people whenever Christianity or creation is brought up is a topic for another essay. This is simply my view on why evolution makes no sense to me. I’ve never observed any type of system simply come into being by chance- and it’s implied there’s a system at work in the very name “ecosystem”. Any functional system gets set into place by some form of intelligence, from business models right down to an ant colony and I fail to see how our ecosystem is any different. Fully aware that inductive reasoning can still lead to a false conclusion, what I can’t escape is this: The mathematical odds of life spontaneously happening, common descent of millions of diverse life forms, and the incredible complexity of individual organs (much less balanced rates of predators and prey) are literally astronomical and likely in the billions or trillions to one. Quite frankly, next to that math, I say evolutionists and atheists have a far deeper faith than I do, because a God who can’t be proven or disproven either simply exists or doesn’t. Those odds are 50/50. And that’s a lot more likely in my book, even if he’s a Flying Spaghetti Monster.