tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77450248137964418382024-02-06T18:16:45.643-08:00Bandersnatchi's TropeBandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.comBlogger99125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-52559994762996363072018-12-06T12:05:00.002-08:002018-12-06T12:07:56.921-08:00Science, not Superstition<h2>Harrison Ford made an impassioned plea in a speech recently, that we should stop electing people to power who do not believe in science.
</h2>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4sA_EwNPmY
<p>I sympathize with Ford's frustration. Part of the challenge we face, we scientists, is the language we have to use to discuss the problem. Ford asks us not to give power to those who don't "believe" in science, but science is the antithesis of "belief."
<p>The value of science is that it works whether you believe in it or not. That's because it is a method rather than received wisdom as religions are. The law of gravity or the theory of evolution are not received wisdom handed down by elders, they are simply observations of how things around us seem to work. I have never seen a dropped pencil not fall to the floor. I see a food source, say nuts, cease to grow on an island (think Galapagos) and the critters who ate them die out and I think, "that's how it goes."
<p>It's not about believing in science, it's about having a method of understanding the world around us that is based on evidence not superstition. Ford should rather have said, stop electing people who "believe" in superstition, eg. Reagan and his astrology, or wishful thinking, eg. Trump's meteorological scheme, or the preaching's of scam artists, eg. Mormon Mitt Romney who believes the Book of Mormon presumably, else he's also a hypocrite.
<p>Bertrand Russell, (1872-1970) Professor of philosophy, Cambridge U. wrote, "we ought not to believe in that for which there is no evidence.".Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-12973482329731210932015-01-03T06:27:00.005-08:002015-01-03T06:29:44.029-08:00Night Ride Backwards in Time
<p>Fifty years ago tonight I was riding my bicycle through the darkened streets of Bournemouth from my boarding school proper, to the dormitory where I slept. It was damp as it always was in January in coastal towns in England. I sometimes detoured down Durley Chine and over to Alum Chine to delay arriving at the dorm where only bedtime awaited me, and to experience the rush of careening through the shadows between street lights exhilarated by the speed and the fear of crashing into someone walking his dog or slipping on damp leaves and falling into the chasm that ran down the centre of what was really a drainage ditch down which storm waters raged occasionally to the sea. It was the cold, damp sea air blowing up those darkened pathways that came rushing back to me. Those were vivid memories, brought back suddenly to me tonight at 63 years of age halfway around the world from England, yet it seemed like I had been transported across time and space to that earlier time in another place.
<p>It was damp this evening in Longtan Township, Taiwan, forty kilometres south of Taipei, 74% humidity in fact, according to the weathernetwork.com. I was riding my bicycle through the darkened streets, keeping a lookout for stray dogs that lurked along this road just as I had as a schoolboy long ago in England. I felt the chill from the damp air as I passed the itinerant gardens of locals that filled the green spaces between blocks of apartments spaced at half kilometre intervals along Meilong Road, on the way to my residence. I lived in teacher’s rooms at the dormitory of one of Taiwan’s best boarding schools, where I was a schoolmaster. The eerie similarity struck me with some force as I unzipped my jacket and felt the cool, moist air hit my chest and neck. Was I stuck in some half century long rut of life in a boarding school environment, forever living in rooms, eating at the cafeteria, as if never growing up or adopting a regular life like other folks?
<p>The resemblances were striking, it was not just a metaphor, the bike riding – I have been doing that all my life, then as a commuting vehicle to school, now because triathlon is my hobby, my passion, the dormitory then because I was a boarder, now because I am here alone and the dorm room is free, which saves a lot of money, when you add in meals, the damp air, the night ride, it was uncanny how history, my story, repeats itself.
<p>Then, I was learning, never suspecting I might become a schoolteacher myself. Now, I was enjoying the interaction with the students, a great bunch of kids 15 to 17 years of age from well-off families in Taiwan, feeling that maybe I was making a positive contribution to their lives. I certainly never hoped that any of them would end up as a teacher, perhaps living in a boarding school in England. That would be too ironic.
Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-65695664387557099012013-10-29T12:26:00.000-07:002013-10-29T12:26:00.421-07:00Why do some kids hate math?
Just as a thought experiment, if I surveyed all secondary school students, asking them what subject they would most like to cut if given a free pass, what would it be? I am guessing the majority would choose Math. I wonder, does this concern all secondary math teachers?
I don't mean to dump on these fine professionals. They love kids, love teaching and are highly skilled at what they do. But the fact remains. What can be done? The fact that most kids find math to be an unattractive subject suggests to me that the environment is at fault. Jerry Mortensen used to make the point that kids learn a foreign language by the age of three without the aid of a university-trained tutor or any formal instruction, why? because they lived in a language-rich environment - adults talking, TV, songs with lyrics, Alphagetti.
Can we create a math-rich environment? What would that look like? Posters on the walls of Einstein, Archimedes, Pythagoras, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Noether">Emma Noether,</a> Ramanujan perhaps. Mobiles of geodesics & other polyhedrons, colourful manipulatives available to play with & build stuff. Math cookies? Skip-counting songs - rap, lullabies, fugues - if you use 'em as teaching tools? People learn using all their senses. What environment would a truly great math teacher create for her students? What would you say if the kids told you they didn't want to go out for recess, they wanted to stay in and play some more math? It happens, guess where.
More at:
http://www.geoffwhite.ws/math-rich.htmlBandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-3972477182433182992013-04-04T13:00:00.003-07:002013-08-13T19:03:47.139-07:00Memorization Cannot Lead to Understanding<br>Memorization and Understanding in Mathematics
<p>by Geoff White, B.Ed. (Southampton, UK)
<p>* Available for seminars / workshops / Pro-D days
<p>In this article I argue that mere memorization of symbols cannot logically lead to understanding, with reference to the thought experiment: John Searle's Chinese room
<p>To begin, here is a synopsis of the Chinese Room argument by John Searle:
<p>from Wikipedia article:
<p>"The Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980.[1] It addresses the question: if a machine can convincingly simulate an intelligent conversation, does it necessarily understand? In the experiment, Searle imagines himself in a room acting as a computer by manually executing a program that convincingly simulates the behavior of a native Chinese speaker. People outside the room slide Chinese characters under the door and Searle, to whom "Chinese writing is just so many meaningless squiggles",[1] is able to create sensible replies, in Chinese, by following the instructions of the program; that is, by moving papers around. The question arises whether Searle can be said to understand Chinese..?" ..Searle's Chinese Room Argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.
<p>He concludes that "I can have any formal program you like, ..but I still understand nothing."
<p>The Chinese room is ..Searle's argument .. directed against functionalism and computationalism (philosophical positions inspired by AI), rather than the goals of applied AI research itself. [5] The argument leaves aside the question of creating an artificial mind by methods other than symbol manipulation."
<p>Let's take Searle's thought experiment a bit further to see what it may tell us about children learning mathematics.
<p>Suppose a dedicated human subject commits to translating Chinese into Russian in Cyrillic characters under the same conditions as John Searle in the above - she is a native speaker of English and knows nothing of either language She is given charts and manuals to assist her in producing the appropriate Russian response to given Chinese pictograms which she receives through a slot in the door. There are no pictures to aid her. She consults only with her books and charts and writes out the response on paper then slides it back out through the door. After a while she gets pretty good at this and has memorized certain combinations of Russian characters in response to Chinese pictograms that she has seen before. Later she is able to "translate" the Chinese symbols into Russian ones with only an occasional consultation with her Chinese - Russian dictionary and the grammar charts.
<p>Can we say that she understands either language?
<p>She still does not know what the Chinese pictograms mean in English, nor does she know the English equivalent of any Russian word. We might even provide her with tapes of how to pronounce each Chinese Pictogram and she can read the Chinese messages aloud so that a Chinese speaker could know what she is reading. Can she speak Chinese?
<p>Let's say she has been translating a cookbook, remember no pictures, no smells or tastes either. Some of the recipes are among her favorite dishes but she has no way of knowing that. Would her mouth water in reading about them in Chinese the way it might if she read an English cookbook?
<p>Serious contemplation of the experiment reveals that what is missing, what is so vital to our understanding of a language, even our own, is the relevant tactile motor kinaesthetic and other sensory experiences associated with each word or concept that denotes them. From birth we learn language cues in concert with the sight, feel, taste, smell or sound of an experience when the word is presented to us. The special case of Helen Keller is a vivid demonstration of how difficult learning language is without seeing, or hearing. Touch was the only major avenue for her to acquire language. Could she have achieved language at all if she also lacked hands? I argue, as does John Searle above, that meaning and understanding and the development of concepts are only possible with the relevant sensory experiences.
<p>Given a string of symbols then, say "abhor," a child could not possibly impute any meaning to it, thus understanding is impossible merely by repetition, by memorization. Consider the jabberwocky poem. You can memorize it but it is still meaningless. Let's go a step further.
<p>Given these symbols: x²±5=14 a child could not tell if it was truthful or meaningless. By extension, memorizing 4x3=12 until the response "12" can be given to the prompt "4x3?" cannot be said to demonstrate understanding of multiplication, nor of 12 or 4 or 3 or anything at all.
<p>Logically then, without the relevant sensory experiences, a child cannot come to understand multiplication or numbers merely by memorizing times tables.
<p>What might the relevant experiences be?
<p>For a young child, could having a plastic block named 3 in her hand and counting 4 of them, then counting the unit square markings on the blocks and arriving at 12, be a relevant experience that might lead to understanding?
<p>What use then is memorizing times tables?
<p>MORTENSON MORE THAN MATH employs manipulatives to enhance the child's ability to visualize math concepts, to decode the mathematical language into spatial reality.
<p>The best way I know to explain the Mortensen Math system is to talk about memory first. How good is your short-term memory? More importantly, how good is your short-term memory with numbers? Suppose I gave you 12 numbers, each of them seven digits long. Do you think you could remember them for an hour? Five minutes? Do you think you could remember them long enough to write them down, even right after I told you?
<p>Not likely. That's because you've been taught like everyone else to memorize the hard way. The hard way is how most students are taught math as well.
<p>The truth is, the entire math curriculum used in traditional teaching situations, employing textbooks, relies on memorizing nothing but FACTS, RULES, FORMULAE AND PROCESS!
<p>Our job as educators is to decode this mathematical language of symbols into a concrete reality. This is what the method does.
<p>see more at:
<p>www.geoffwhite.wsBandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-17831849195594908532012-09-23T11:14:00.002-07:002012-09-23T11:17:46.956-07:00Method is Everything in Teaching Math
<p>* Available for seminars / workshops / Pro-D days
<p>As Fall approaches, once again parents and teachers focus on how to achieve educational goals.
<p>"How to" are key words, and that points to method.
<p>It used to be said of teaching Physical Education that all you had to do was "roll out the balls" to get it done. Teaching math with manipulatives needs more than "rolling out the blocks" so to speak. If traditional math teaching was entirely memorizing facts, rules, formulae & process, which mystified math and put success out of reach for most, a better method is essential. Teaching math with manipulatives needs an organized approach, a method that employs principles of child-centred learning based on discovery and understanding.
<p>A method has several elements: key language technique, physical steps, sound principles and a means of assessment. We are people and we are all about the senses & the mind. It precedes the mind in pace of development. Our manual dexterity evolves more quickly than our mentality. Abstract concepts develop only at the onset of puberty (Piaget) Before that, the body rules. All learning must be sensorial to begin with (Montessori).
<p>Explore and Discover,is a major theme in Mortensen Math (MM). Originating in Maria Montessori's approach, MM creates opportunities for the child to explore & discover concepts in math by using hands-on activities to acquire experiences from which to build concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, factoring and problem solving.
<p>"How to" create learning situations is the challenge facing teachers & parents. merely putting the blocks down in front of the child isn't enough. The manipulatives are attractive, nice to touch, made in pretty colours but more is necessary. A child might wave a crayon around, smell it, eat it, scrawl on a wall, but will need direction if recognizable images are expected. Similarly, playing with the child helps to provoke curiousity and to fire the imagination. If you want rectangles built to facilitate rapid accurate counting, one of the principles of MM, you must first demonstrate building a rectangle.
<p>Play is a bonding experience for children. Showing a child something, then saying, "Show me.." is a great way to become involved for an educator. This is how to share experiences and build relationships with the child. Avoid saying "No" or "No, that's not the way to do it." Instead use phrases like, "That's nice, let's try it this way now" or "can we do it this way too?" The point is ALL experiences are learning experiences. "Getting it wrong" is impossible because mastering the world we live in requires that we discover what doesn't work too. Saying "No" in a directed play situation is counter productive. In addition, using the word "No" sparingly, reserves it's power for dangerous situations when immediate response is vital. Don't waste it on the trivial.
<p>Try this. Good! Now, do it again.
<p>Logically, if you ask a child to do something and he makes an attempt we should encourage them because at least he tried. If he hears "no" a lot, he isn't keen to try next time. Rather we should say, "Good. Now let's do it a different way and see how that works," until we get the desired result. Sure, it takes more patience, but the child is worth it. Encouragement results in children who will be eager to try something, rather than having to be coaxed into it every time. They don't want to hear the word no after making an attempt at it. Nobody likes disapproval. In the long run encouragement works.
<p>For a young child, could having a plastic block named 3 in her hand and counting 4 of them, then counting the unit square markings on the blocks and arriving at 12, be a relevant experience that might lead to understanding?
<p>What use then is memorizing times tables?
<p>MORTENSON MORE THAN MATH employs manipulatives to enhance the child's ability to visualize math concepts, to decode the mathematical language into spatial reality.
<p>The best way I know to explain the Mortensen Math system is to talk about memory first. How good is your short-term memory? More importantly, how good is your short-term memory with numbers? Suppose I gave you 12 numbers, each of them seven digits long. Do you think you could remember them for an hour? Five minutes? Do you think you could remember them long enough to write them down, even right after I told you?
<p>Not likely. That's because you've been taught like everyone else to memorize the hard way. The hard way is how most students are taught math as well.
<p>The truth is the entire math curriculum used in traditional teaching situations, employing textbooks, relies on memorizing nothing but FACTS, RULES, FORMULAE AND PROCESS!
<p>Our job as educators is to decode this mathematical language of symbols into a concrete reality. This is what the method does.
<a href="http://www.geoffwhite.ws">More Articles about Teaching Math</a>Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-1263116311314993312012-08-20T11:25:00.000-07:002013-08-13T19:05:02.311-07:00<h1>Mortensen Math vs. Traditional Teaching</h1>
<h2>The Difference is Important to Your Child's Success</h2>
<p>Parents educated by traditional math teaching, based on memorizing facts, rules, formulae and process, often do not recognize that MM is dramatically different and pass on by, overlooking the tremendous benefits to a method that is based on
imagination, visualization and sets nothing less than understanding as its goal.
<p>Our first job as MM educators is to decode this mathematical language into a spatial reality; take for example 4x3=12
<p>All we do in math is count.
<p>See all numbers as rectangles.
<p>Know what one is.
<p>From the above example, picture a rectangle that is four "over" and 3 "up," count the total unit squares. <p>See 12.
<p>It's that simple.
<p>This: 1, is not one. It is only the name of one written in arabic numerals.
<p>What does one look like?
<p><img src="http://www.geoffwhite.ws/images/unit.jpg">
<p>therefore 4x3=12 looks like this:
<p><img src="http://www.geoffwhite.ws/images/4x3=12.jpg">
<p>more at:
<p><a href="http://www.geoffwhite.ws/principles.html">Principles</a>Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-84246090851676511612012-08-18T09:10:00.000-07:002014-12-01T18:10:29.449-08:00<h2>The additivity of small numbers.</h2>
<p> I consider myself liberal-minded when it comes to tolerating the opinions of others. I would rather try gently to persuade them to re-think a problem about which I think they are mistaken than to ban them from expressing their erroneous thinking out loud, after all, I too have been wrong on occasion.
<p>However, I am losing patience with those who claim climate-change theory is a fraud, perpetrated by scientists who have a personal agenda less than scrupulous. In particular I am disturbed by those who deny the notion that human industry has had an impact on climate and will continue to do so. The nay-sayers will nit-pick about any data error and then demand that the entire enterprise be abandoned, presumably because they see nothing amiss in the world that might be prevented from worsening by doing something like say, burning less coal, or turning off unnecessary lighting.
<p>Even those who claim to know some math have said, and are saying, that human activity is not affecting the natural cycle of climate. To them I say, there is something called the law of additivity of small numbers which goes roughly like this: no matter how large a number is, there will always be enough small numbers that, if added together, will exceed it.
<p>What I am driving at is this, maybe one farmer cutting down a forest and planting a single crop for enough years to exhaust the field leaving it unable to absorb C02, or perhaps one coal-fired electricity generator, will not produce orchids in Greenland, but I maintain that if enough of them exist it may happen. By the way, orchids are nice but where does all the ice go?
<p>A mere 7 Billion people burning fossil fuels, destroying forests, creating deserts, clogging rivers and harbours and fish habitat, poisoning lakes with phosphate fertilizer run-off, massacreing sharks for their fins, slaughtering lions and rhinos for aphrodisiacs, etc. may not destroy the planet today. But by 2050 there will be 9 Billion. By 3000 who knows. If you think 7 billion won't kill the planet or alter the climate, you surely must concede that there is SOME number of people who could. It took a huge number of Chinese with buckets to move a mountain to build the 3 Rivers dam, but they did it.
<p>There used to be forests in Sudan, now there is only desert. When only a few bedouin took trees for firewood the sands were held at bay, but when millions burnt wood for cooking, and heat the desert took over. Man destroyed the local climate and he didn't need bulldozers and dynamite. They did it with their bare hands, one twig at a time. Just like the Chinese built the dam.
<p>Kill one coyote, no problem; kill enough of them and the jackrabbits will eat the entire grazing lands leaving no food for cattle. One grasshopper, no problem; a million locusts and you have famine, it's about the additivity of small numbers.
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Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-82654028098597098232012-06-13T19:41:00.000-07:002012-06-13T19:53:57.491-07:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuseXwQeWyKplWSsyhwMXy2thxY25ZFw-2xcKGBralGg-bI5_n1wRIgHGO7MALd7IsXEEFtoUSYjgKZoVG8o7_RmOT_w_4VhzkhRcYJQtHjRc-U1Uyt-aCDzAH0e-VUseQDG5YqTZMGX7/s1600/Winter2012+087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuseXwQeWyKplWSsyhwMXy2thxY25ZFw-2xcKGBralGg-bI5_n1wRIgHGO7MALd7IsXEEFtoUSYjgKZoVG8o7_RmOT_w_4VhzkhRcYJQtHjRc-U1Uyt-aCDzAH0e-VUseQDG5YqTZMGX7/s320/Winter2012+087.jpg" /></a>
R.I.P. Needy Cat
It had rained during the night. I had awakened several times disturbed by the memories of images from yesterday and I heard the downpour. It roared on the roof of the house and water cascaded from the gazebo in the backyard. I stood at the backdoor staring out at the rain through the screen door and my heart was broken. The willow dripped. It was weeping too.
Yesterday morning, the twelfth of June, was bright and sunny. The first day of summer was nigh. I had walked to the car and glanced to the end of the driveway where I saw our tuxedo cat lying on the hot pavement like an old hound dog. Her back was towards me and her legs stretched out as if she had just rolled over to scratch her back and was resting. It was quiet on the street where children often rode their bikes laughing and ringing bells and mothers chatted pushing strollers as they exercised. Then a magpie landed just a few feet from her with a flap of the wings and a squawk. That was when I knew something was wrong. The sun glistened on the bird's black shiny feathers, its white shoulders were bright in the sunshine. It looked at me and took a tentative step towards the resting cat, but the cat did not move.
I hurried to her, shooing the bird away. It would not have been so brave if things were right and normal in the world.
She had appeared wide eyed and desperate in our garden eighteen months ago, looking lean and frightened. Her expression prompted Eileen to name her Needy Cat. She was black with a white chest and belly and four white feet, a spiffy tuxedo cat. Her tail was long and expressive, a lovely animal. No collar, no tattoo that I could see. She was about a year old and let me pick her up without complaining. When she hadn't gone away after a day or two I put down a dish for her. We had had a beloved outside cat who had died a year before Needy came to us, a ginger named Bailey. I put kibble out on the stoop where previously I had placed food for Bailey. Sometimes life seems so circular. There was a large metal bowl under the outside tap at the rear of the house to catch drips. Sometimes it harboured a frog. Needy Cat found a safe place to sleep among some boxes in the carport and before long I had put out a basket for her with an old blanket. The nights grew shorter and though we didn't let her inside - we had an older, inside cat named Ellie, she hadn't left. Then I put her basket into a large cardboard box on top of the others where she could have a good view of things, maintaining the high ground, and I draped a blanket partly over the front to keep out the draft. When the snows came I put a small lamp with a 25 watt bulb into the box. She had passed two winters that way and on a summer's day she would rest in my lap purring Now, she was gone.
I knelt beside her on the edge of the roadway. She hadn't even managed to make it to the safety of the driveway after being struck, so it must have been instantaneous. She was still warm and soft when I got to her. I had still hoped she would get up when I stroked her, and follow me into the house, but her eyes were lifeless and she was not breathing. I picked her up and carried her to the carport. The magpie lurked. I told Eileen that Needy Cat had been hit by a car and had died. She was horrified.
"No! It can't be,” she protested. “I was just petting her ten minutes ago!"
I put my arms around her, and we consoled each other. I had played with Needy myself half an hour before as I did every morning when I put out her kitty kibble. She showed me the bright wide-eyed look that had earned her her name, then she was face down in her breakfast. The suddenness of it was what shocked me. One minute a loved pet, part of the household plans when booking a trip, an undeniable element of our daily lives, was there, a complex life with moods and attitudes, an object of adoration, then, abruptly, she was absent without warning, never to return. We held each other, knowing in some part of our hearts, that we were just as vulnerable.
I tried to sleep last night but the images of her, lying in the road as the magpie arrived remorselessly, dispassionately, to peck at her, her limp body slumped in my hands, the trickle of blood falling from her mouth, disturbed my dreams. The rain I saw at 5am, bouncing off the metal roof of the shed in the gray of pre-dawn, completed my misery. I wanted to tell someone what a rotten cat she had been, all the nuisance she had caused, about the scratches, the expense, the trouble I had gone to, in making a bed for her, heat lamp and all, to make me miss her less. I started writing it down, and here at the keyboard, was where Eileen found me this morning, tears dripping onto my fingers.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXrOgYuuegn6TqBxZrAAdy6qPJwx7idAlDl2lyppRy6lET32n1fyV485YT0FVBzZiZ4KFr35FCFu8rS4h7pF8qbRY_tSJo8yo7s1Zj7sAYiCg_vXNeMcfZ3Yo0RAd-J3fNcVOBhIpWc_M/s1600/Winter2012+193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXrOgYuuegn6TqBxZrAAdy6qPJwx7idAlDl2lyppRy6lET32n1fyV485YT0FVBzZiZ4KFr35FCFu8rS4h7pF8qbRY_tSJo8yo7s1Zj7sAYiCg_vXNeMcfZ3Yo0RAd-J3fNcVOBhIpWc_M/s320/Winter2012+193.jpg" /></a>Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-83483154014693343412012-02-13T12:40:00.000-08:002012-02-13T12:40:37.844-08:00Long Distance and the Meaning of LifeI have just finished reading Bill McKibben's book, "Long Distance" the story of a year in his life training to be the best skinny-skier he could be, with a coach and everything, during which his father came to the end of his life. The latter was unplanned, and unexpected as his siblings and father had lived to their nineties but he had succumbed to brain cancer at 68.<br />
<br />
In the book Bill seeks the meaning of life among other things - like the right wax for his skis at zero degrees Celsius. He ends with completing the metaphor of life as an endurance race. Much of what he wrote stimulated my thoughts and I want to explore them in writing.<br />
<br />
The meaning of life is the substance of every book I've ever read implicitly, if not explicitly. Just as life's experience is the mother of metaphor, It is also the fodder of all writing, pun intended.<br />
<br />
The daily routine is the core of identity, not singular achievements or unique experiences. Identity is founded in the quotidian, not the rare. Mantras, endlessly repeated, rituals performed until they are rote and literally taken for granted - exactly as they are intended to be, things done without thinking, more define the individual than stunning achievements, like finishing an Ironman, say, or writing a novel, or winning an award, say who we are. One can wear the t-shirt proclaiming the achievement but as days pass it loses its lustre and fades as does the memory of the achievement. It is merely what we once did not who we are, despite Mike or Steve's voice ringing in our ears, Daily workouts, oft=repeated doses of kilometres run, or biked, the constant association of ourselves with the omnipresent bag of workout gear, the bike on the rack behind the car, declare our identity, state unambiguously who we are. As Sartre said, it is what we do that makes us who we are.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-44204253160413381452012-02-13T11:55:00.000-08:002012-02-13T11:55:30.050-08:00Scotia Bank wants dumb customers,.. they are more profitable.<br />
March 1st Scotiabank puts up chequing account and other fees. The simplest account – a personal chequing account, used by millions of Canadians, goes up to $5.95 from $3.95. Two bucks. That’s 33% increase in fees on your personal chequing account.<br />
Suppose Scotiabnk has 10 million customers across Canada. They ask for $2 more from each person and they get $20 million per month, or $240,000,000 per year – a quarter of a Billion dollars just added to their bottom line. They didn’t have to do a thing to earn it. They aren’t giving any new services for that. They just asked every personal account customer for another $2. It’s that simple.<br />
<br />
Now, you can imagine some people may move their accounts to another institution, one that offers no-fee chequing say. Those will be the smart people, who read the notice included in their statement, who realize they just got dinged another $24 per year for nothing. Does the bank care? No. Those smart people were probably their most troublesome customers anyway. If they were also valuable customers, with large debts (interest paying, say) then the bank would probably waive their personal chequing account fees if they asked. If they weren’t profitable customers, then good riddance to them. This is called culling the herd. Raise the fees, get rid of the smart, troublesome customers. Keep the dumb profitable ones.<br />
<br />
Scotiabank wants dumb, profitable customers. They want people who don’t make demands, ask awkward questions, like “Why should I pay an additional $24 per year for my personal chequing account anyway? I put my paycheques into it, you don’t give me any interest on that money, yet you get to use it to loan to other people and earn interest, but I don’t get any of that. I just pay fees. Why is that anyway?”<br />
<br />
“Good-bye, nice knowing you,” is the bank’s unspoken response. “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”<br />
<br />
Also, the fee for using your debit card more than the allowed number of times each month goes up from $0.65 to $1 – that’s right 35%. Of course, you don’t get any additional services for that; it is just profit added to the bank’s bottom line. Thanks, sucker.<br />
<br />
Insidiously, Scotiabank has waived debit fees for students under 19 years of age. Why is that I wonder? Could it be to train the youngsters into exclusive use of their debit cards so that when they hit adulthood, they will choose a monthly fee plan instead of cutting back on the use of the debit card?<br />
<br />
You see banks don’t want us to use cash. They charge current account holders for depositing cash. That’s right. If you are a business, say, a clothing store, or a photocopy shop, Scotiabank charges you a fee for depositing cash. They say it costs them to ship all that paper to the central clearing house. How troublesome it must be for them. They actually have to count the money people give them for safekeeping. It’s much cheaper to let the computer count the transactions. Better yet, if we can train people when they are young to use a debit card for everything, then when they grow up they won’t want cash anyway, spoils the line of your jeans you know. Then we can ding them a monthly fee to use that debit card and raise it every once in a while. In time we can bleed them dry and they won’t even notice. Remember that story about the frog in the pot of boiling water?Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-73208754649616386672011-10-08T07:56:00.000-07:002011-10-08T07:56:32.070-07:00How do you describe an Ironman to someone who doesn't know?"Describe an Ironman" could mean "a person who is an Ironman" as my learned colleagues above have done,<br />
or,<br />
it could mean "a test of endurance conducted from point A to point B covering 2.4miles of swimming followed by 112 miles of bicycling, followed immediately by 26.2 miles on foot, done in the fastest possible time usually involving at least 2,000 competitors."<br />
<br />
That may sound dull but it is the most economical and accurate definition I can compose.<br />
<br />
Libor calls it a "sufferfest."<br />
<br />
Metaphorically it might be something like this:<br />
<br />
<font color="blue">Ironman is a test of courage stressing the body and emotions to their limits by combining swimming, biking and running performed at optimum speed against, and with, about 2,000 like-minded souls. It requires commitment and fortitude, manifests a primitive need to push yourself as close to exhaustion as you dare in an exploration of your own character. It expresses the human need to stand on the edge of the deep and peer into the abyss just far enough that you can then draw back and scream defiance in the face of death, then to return, trembling, to the quotidian with renewed vigour and the confidence that comes from knowing that you can not only survive, but that you can prevail.<br />
</font>Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-31274267545672170782011-09-02T09:15:00.001-07:002011-09-02T09:16:16.868-07:00Organic vs. Vegetarian? Where's the beef?At the bottom, we want tasty, satisfying meals. If that means a nice chunk of BBQed mastodon, so be it! The leaf eaters can ruminate in their lotus position until they've extracted all the nutrition from their roots & greens, the world changers are going to toss the bones to the dogs and race off to the next adventure!<br />
<br />
The goal shouldn't be to max out the world population with everybody eating beans & rice. Let's raise the bar a little. Life is about change. You live, then you die, no matter what you do. Humans are inventive animals. They created wine, port, whisky, wrote 10,000 cookbooks and have tried every critter under the sun with gravy or soy sauce at one time or another. To paraphrase Socrates, the unexplored diet is not worth living!<br />
<br />
Perhaps when all countries provide free birth control, support abortion on demand, educate all their children, not just the boys, provide clean water and basic medical and dental care to their people, then you can go after food producers. The problem is at basis too many people not what they choose to eat. Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-45976719672588831382011-09-02T08:56:00.000-07:002011-09-02T08:56:08.526-07:00Should meat producers be banned to curb climate change?re: "<br />
Why Don’t More People Make the Link Between Animal Agriculture and Climate Change?"<br />
<br />
By Kamal Prasad and Marilyn Cornelius <br />
<br />
<br />
The assumption underlying the article: "that if only we will all live a simpler, less technologically enhanced life, everybody can live happily on this planet" is patently false.<br />
<br />
All people are in competition for resources. There are winners & losers. People die and that's a fact. <br />
<br />
We make choices. Some choose to live in flood prone areas and will watch their house flood and be washed away next year, if not, the year after. I'm not talking about Bangladesh, I'm talking about the banks of the Mississippi. <br />
<br />
We work hard to achieve a better lifestyle for our families. If that means emigrating to America, working six days a week at two jobs so your children can have an education, buy a house of their own (away from the Mississippi) one day in which to raise their family, have the independence of a car with a roof and a heater, and eat meat several times a week, then that's what we worked for, that's what we wanted and that's what we have earned. Life's a struggle. You make sacrifices, work hard, then, no matter what you do, you die.<br />
<br />
Now, ask the father of an immigrant family who has sweated blood for forty years hanging steel, if he will take that steak out of his children's mouths, and scrap his car, so that some Bangladeshi can re-build his stick and corrugated steel roof shack on the flood-prone banks of the monsoon zone property that got washed away for the tenth time in the last century. Go ahead. Ask him.<br />
<br />
Perhaps when all countries provide free birth control, support abortion on demand, educate all their children, not just the boys, provide clean water and basic medical and dental care to their people, then you can go after food producers. The problem is at basis too many people not what they choose to eat. The goal should be population management not to max out the population with everybody eating beans and rice. Let's raise the bar a little.<br />
<br />
Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-1535556866725413932011-06-16T13:40:00.001-07:002011-06-16T13:50:26.975-07:00Climate Change: these things can be done!Climate Change surfaced in my consciousness once again this morning. Perhaps it's because the NBA and NHL playoffs are over and the Tour de France and Wimbledon have yet to begin. Heh.<br />
<br />
I read an article by Professor Lovejoy of Geo. Mason U. in my e-mail. He suggests geo-engineering solutions in addition to emphasizing that we are approaching tipping-point deadlines.<br />
He points out the danger of delay and that people, and therefore their governments, are not likely to act until calamity occurs and probably only when it happens to <i>them.</i> Island peoples in the Indian Ocean losing their homes to ocean levels rising is not likely to move residents of Winnipeg who have just dealt with their own seasonal flooding from the Red River. Coral reefs dying don't concern folks in Edmonton, and so on.<br />
<br />
In an earlier blog, I have pointed out the potential loss of white sand beaches everywhere as a consequence of ignoring climate change because everybody has a dream of vacationing on a tropical beach someday. I hoped that they might act because it hurt them in their dreams, but not so far. Perhaps they are still in denial and listen to false opinions of climate change by naysayers.<br />
But perhaps the apathy is because the threat seems in need of a solution to focus on? Here, Professor Lovejoy has something to offer. He points to such familiar solutions as massive reforestation projects, restoration of grasslands and practicing agriculture that restores carbon to the soil, and then he points to more esoteric methods, <br />
<br />
"For example, Vinod Khosla¹s Calera experiment has demonstrated<br />
how to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by mixing it with<br />
seawater to produce cement."<br />
<br />
___________<br />
<br />
Obstacles to implementing these solutions include: <br />
<br />
- Doubt in the minds of ordinary people put there by industry lobbyists attempting to prevent any remedies that would cut into their profits, as well as the costs ofimplementing change. This could be changed by education but governments are listening to industry not educators. Lobbyists have bigger budgets and educators are too dependent on government grants to risk speaking out vehemently.<br />
- Urbanization: the shift of people from rural to city living, a movement that in the last hundred years has changed the per centage of labour working in agricukture from 97 per cent to 3 per cent, means thatAgri-business and therefore our food supply is highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy and fertilizer and isn't going to change back easily or quickly.<br />
- Costs in the form of lost profits. In the case of oil sands, reducing, or closing development there would decimate Canadian economy and have intolerable fallout politically with our biggest customer, the USA. therefore the cessation of oilsands production won't occur.<br />
The political consciousness of the Canadian adult is still focused on the needs of family, home, job and could be moved to action in the form of endorsing action, if that action made obvious sense, that is to say, without to much technical explanation. So what is needed is a selection of projects that are conceivable, believable and achievable.<br />
<br />
I propose the following:<br />
<br />
- end gas flaring in BC and around the world. As of 2008, enough natural gas is wastefully burned every year, at the wellhead to heat 300,000 homes. That's a BILLION cubic metres of gas annually, which puts 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.<br />
<br />
<br />
- end interference in a woman's choice to control her fertility by providing education about fertility, conception, access to medication, including abortion. Provide education to women everywhere, because it has been shown that educated women have fewer children. 7 billion people, no matter what they do, produce more greenhouse gases just by living than, say, 5 billion people do. Either we reduce our population intentionally or nature will do it for us by disasters - flood, famine, disease, starvation, violent weather events, etc.<br />
<br />
- reduce dependence on, and desire for gas-powered transport by all means: end NASCAR, and motor racing of all kinds, includng F1, Indycar, monster trucks, motorcycles, skidoos, hydroplanes, ocean racing, aeroplane racing, car shows, and end tax breaks for anything related to automobiles that does not reduce greenhouse gases. In June 2007, the Canadian Federal Conservatives sponsored a CASCAR racecar, the #29 car in the Canadian Tire Racing series. Can any government be taken seriously on environmental policy while they sponsor a gas-powered racecar?<br />
<br />
- co-ordinate trucking industry by developing a computer run clearing and dispatch system like taxis use. At the moment trucks run all over North America, back and forth hauling everything from logs to food, and the inefficiencies result in millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases being produced unnecessarily.<br />
<br />
- reduce regulation that works to prevent people from eating locally produced food, including meat. fruit, vegetables, grains. For instance, recent regulation required locally grown meat to be trucked away for slaughter and packing, doubling the cost in greenhouse gases, instead of permitting local packing by producers. It was a solution lacking a problem, and which only served to eliminate local producers and put profit in the pockets of corporate meat packing interests. Healthy food, eg. fruit cannot be produced locally at a profit because of useless regulation.<br />
<br />
Political values lie at the heart of these issues. The solutions require change but the cost of not changing is greater, economically, morally, and idealogically.<br />
Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-90506859010410710972011-05-03T11:50:00.000-07:002011-05-03T11:50:38.380-07:00NaPoWriMo is over!Okay, new month, National Poetry Writing Month is over at www.everypoet.org/pffa<br />
<br />
I wrote 30 poems in 30 days.<br />
My thread can be read here:<br />
<url="http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showpost.php?p=537461&postcount=1">Geffo's Venal Muse</url><br />
<br />
I am satisfied about a number of them, even written under pressure. I will add them to my anthology: A Leaf, Dead and Lately Fallen.<br />
<br />
Here's a sample:<br />
<br />
<b>26. a traversiamo</b><br />
<br />
The tenor rises <br />
from the restaurant on the street below<br />
and the shadow of the wrought iron foot board<br />
haunts my wall - a spider shadow cast by the streetlight;<br />
the red infusion that drenches the canvas<br />
is the hue of my Chianti broadcast<br />
by the flickering candle behind it.<br />
<br />
I am alone, but I am not lonely.<br />
At lunch the coloratura was lovely,<br />
more lovely than the spaghetti alla carbonara<br />
which was superb. For now it is dolce far niente<br />
Tomorrow will be Naples - and pizza! <br />
Somewhere my memory of Sophia<br />
lounges in black lace, curvy, warm, seductive<br />
a vision redolent of all that is good about Italy.<br />
<br />
<br />
-30-Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-77669643004500518192011-02-22T09:39:00.001-08:002011-02-22T09:39:25.272-08:00Romeo Must Die!World Population<br />
* 1 billion in 1804 * 2 billion in 1927 (123 years later) * 3 billion in 1960 (33 years later) * 4 billion in 1974 (14 years later) * 5 billion in 1987 (13 years later) <br />
<br />
Climate change causes notwithstanding, the human impact on the animal kingdom is indisputable.<br />
But know this, there is no going back.<br />
<br />
Concerns for the environment are not (just) about how pretty it is to look at, at the bottom it is about liveability - for humans.<br />
Sure we care about pristine mountain streams being good for fish to spawn in, but in reality the concern is that the fish will still be there for us to eat.<br />
<br />
We are pushing 7 billion people now. The environment supported lots of critters a hundred years ago when there were fewer than 2 billion people, but now we have five billion more! That's five BILLION more mouths to feed, butts to poop, and to house, warm, and entertain.<br />
The only way for us to return to a world of plenty is for 5 billion people to die.<br />
<br />
That isn't going to happen voluntarily, but it will happen, and it ain't gonna be pretty.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-90410305450350908912011-02-20T10:23:00.000-08:002011-02-20T10:27:32.861-08:00NASCAR is the canary in the coal mine."Two truths are told as prologues to the swelling acts to the Imperial theme:"<br />
<br />
- There is no stopping climate change - so get away from the coasts, sell off your shore front cottage.<br />
- Just because they speak English, there is no reason to think our politicians are any less corrupt than those of your average banana republic.<br />
<br />
Polluted water, air & soil will have increasing adverse effects on people as time passes because there are no new lands to conquer where unconflicted life is possible. <br />
It's going to be an increasingly more vigorous battle for life & liberty from now on. The salad days are over, mostly because the peoples that "we" European descendants enslaved, colonized and exploited, are now grown up and sitting at the table of the developed nations demanding a piece of the pie.<br />
The G8 has become the G20 and others are clamoring to be let in. <br />
I see world politics becoming more protectionist from now on, and energy-dense fossil fuels will be hoarded by the military to protect borders and resources.<br />
Because the only solution to this competition is massive reduction of the population, there is no political solution, only military ones.<br />
<br />
btw, I consider NASCAR to be a bellwether, a canary in the mine - as long as there is NASCAR, no government can be taken seriously about energy conservation and climate change.<br />
<br />
Sorry, Bubba.<br />
<br />
"Why [should] I yield to that suggestion <br />
Against the use of nature<br />
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair<br />
And make my seated heart knock against my ribs?"Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-55947291342253449842010-12-23T14:38:00.000-08:002010-12-23T14:38:24.242-08:00Winter Wonderland<object width="320" height="240" ><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/1741980477462" /><embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/1741980477462" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="240"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Can you say, White Christmas?<br />
<br />
I was gonna get out the bike, but..Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-2077404425443086752010-12-17T09:36:00.000-08:002010-12-17T09:39:18.394-08:00The Conspiracy of IgnoranceTo govern effectively the mass of people must be kept poor and ignorant - Bernard Mandeville, 1670-1733, paraphrased from The Worldly Philosophers, R. Heilbroner<br />
<br />
The dumbing down of America is evidence of cynical men in power conspiring to keep Americans poor and ignorant. The men in Washington don't want educated, intelligent, informed voters. They are too hard to manipulate by fear & greed.<br />
cf. Patriot Act - scare the voters into giving up rights & freedoms so we can make more money selling arms & supplies to the military.<br />
How many Senators & Congressmen send their kids to public schools? Why would they, unless they were trying to fund them, to improve them, to produce educated, intelligent citizens? They are not, so they don't.<br />
Simple really.<br />
Why is military spending so far ahead of education spending in the US? Could it be that there is profit in guns, but none in producing an aware citizenry that can't be fooled so easily into electing self-serving egoists like W?<br />
<br />
Every time a school board tries to deny access to ideas by banning ideas from the classroom and substituting propaganda - as when Texas replaced science with theology - we lose.<br />
<br />
I should have provided the reference to the Texas School Board: here it is:<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html<br />
<br />
"AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. "<br />
<br />
and,<br />
<br />
<br />
"In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state. <br />
<br />
Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school."<br />
<br />
<br />
It is done not by revolution, but by erosion. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-81846202386013435212010-12-03T09:56:00.000-08:002011-06-12T11:09:33.565-07:00Today's Care2 newsletter held a brief article by Deepak Chopra on the mind/body issue. My reaction is below. Here is his article:<br />
<br />
Quote:<br />
"<br />
<blockquote>The mind has remained a metaphysical riddle for centuries because it inhabits the physical world like a ghost. But that’s a Western perspective based on our bias for solid, tangible things. We insist that the brain must be the source of mind because the brain is a visible object, which is like saying that a radio must be the source of music because it is a visible object from which music emerges.<br />
<br />
The Vedic rishis adopted the opposite perspective, insisting that visible objects couldn’t be the source of mind since the physical plane is the least conscious of worlds.<br />
<br />
Our Western prejudice against the invisible isn’t easy to overcome. Mind will only be proved to exist outside the brain if it leaves some kind of footprint, a visible sign that is as convincing as the MRIs that provide concrete evidence of neural activity.<br />
<br />
Right now you are a bundle of information in mind and body. You have unique memories; your cells have undergone chemical changes shared by no one else in the world. When you die, none of this information will vanish, because it can’t. There is nowhere for plus and minus, positive and negative to go since the field contains nothing but information. Therefore their only alternative is to recombine.<br />
<br />
There is growing evidence that in fact we do share the same mind field. The brain belongs to “me,” but if ideas belong to “us,” then we are participating together in a field, sometimes quite mysteriously.<br />
<br />
Adapted from Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2006).<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/does-your-mind-control-your-brain.html#ixzz1P5PeAxdl"<br />
End Quote.<br />
<br />
Sloppy thinking, poor reasoning, unproved assumptions and ridiculous conclusions like these really get up my nose - especially when people get paid for it.<br />
<br />
Some points:<br />
"The mind .. because it inhabits physical world like a ghost" - This is called "begging the question" for it is the mind's existence that is at issue. Here Chopra casually assumes the thing which is to be proved.<br />
<br />
Western prejudice against the invisible is not prejudice at all. It is healthy skepticism of things for which there is little or no evidence.<br />
<br />
"When you die none of this information will vanish.."<br />
Really? What happens to the words on the Scrabble board when the game is over and the tiles are tipped back into the bag?<br />
<br />
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.."<br />
<br />
"There is growing evidence.." - really? Citations please.<br />
<br />
What is mysterious is how long charlatans have gotten away with garbage like this.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-83811884866596200572010-12-01T11:27:00.000-08:002010-12-01T11:40:18.212-08:00An Inconvenient Truth: FAILAl Gore made a film, established himself as an environmental activist, but in the end it only entertained the liberal-minded, middle-class who already accepted the climate change model he espoused.<br />
The movie was a decent first step but was ultimately useless because the only people who went to see it were already believers. It was preaching to the choir.<br />
<br />
I venture to say that no one who had already made up their mind that <br />
"climate is changing as a result of human activity" was bogus, was converted into accepting this as true.<br />
<br />
The only thing that will reduce harmful climate change is having fewer people. I see no political will to reduce population voluntarily, thus I suspect that nature will take care of the human over-population problem and it won't be pretty.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, converting to electric cars, recycling plastic bags, etc. doesn't mean a thing while Nigeria and Siberia continue flare off enough useable natural gas to power New York.<br />
<br />
At night Nigeria and Siberia are brighter than Paris, London, L.A. put together and there are no large cities in these places.<br />
<br />
Look it up:<br />
http://www.earthzine.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lights_at_night-2.jpg<br />
<a href="http://www.earthzine.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lights_at_night-2.jpg"><br />
<img width="600" src="http://www.earthzine.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lights_at_night-2.jpg"></a><br />
<br />
so, sadly, "every little bit" doesn't help because it lulls people into thinking it is all okay. It isn't<br />
<br />
Apart from the gas flaring in these places, on another front, China is building 2 coal-fired electricity generating plants EVERY WEEK<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_China"><br />
(reference:#22)</a> for the next several years. Don't bother with your personal re-cycling if you aren't going to change Washington's policies on trade with these nations, and know this, 25% of US oil will come from Nigeria by 2025. <br />
<br />
These three factors alone outweigh anything individual citizens can do to change matters. This problem was created at a national level and will only be solved at a national level.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-61712542368556452912010-11-24T13:51:00.000-08:002010-11-24T13:51:15.262-08:00Is veganism better for the planet vis-a-vis climate change?If the argument is about which is better for your health vegan or omnivore, that's one thing, but this thread is about whether producing meat is good for the planet, climate-wise.<br />
<br />
If food production produces 18% of the GG problem now - U.N.F.A.O., how much lower do you think it is possible to get it? It won't be zero.<br />
<br />
But this is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You have to solve the population problem first before you worry about how many cows there are. If the population gets to 9B by 2050 as the UN says it will, the question of meat vs. veggies will seem small potatoes, if you will pardon the pun.<br />
<br />
As for right now, reducing the number of cattle, pigs, etc. is of small concern while Nigeria and Siberia are lit up brighter than Paris or New York by gas flares you can see from space.<br />
They flare off more natural gas each year completely wasted, than most countries and many states consume.<br />
<br />
The GG thus produced make the cows issue trivial.<br />
<br />
Come on now, let's focus on the correct issues..Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-6842186662418583532010-11-22T23:21:00.000-08:002010-11-22T23:21:26.902-08:00Koko Classic TriathlonJust watched 5-0, they faked a triathlon as a backdrop to the drama.<br />
Bad Five-O! Dissing triathlon by stating that they were blood dopers!<br />
Maybe some long distance triathletes have blood-doped but this fake Koko event was a sprint or Oly at most. There`s no benefit to doping for short distance events. The writers got it wrong. I suppose it was jus`t so they could `find` a fingerprint on the blood bag. AND they had the robbers posing as triathletes doing a hard workout the night before the race!<br />
Idiots.<br />
Anyway, a bunch of real triathletes got some on camera exposure as extras on a primetime show, and that has to be a good thing.<br />
<br />
3 inches of snow and minus 10C right now. Sucks.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-36034913217539977152010-11-18T15:46:00.000-08:002010-11-18T15:46:17.567-08:00Ten Rules for Modern LifeI received the following in an e-mail today and have seen it before attributed to someone else. Whoever wrote it has some wisdom.<br />
<br />
"Love him or hate him , he sure hits the nail on the head with this!<br />
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did<br />
not and will not learn in school..<br />
He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a<br />
generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them<br />
up for failure in the real world.<br />
<br />
Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!<br />
<br />
Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your<br />
self-esteem.. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you<br />
feel good about yourself.<br />
<br />
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You<br />
won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.<br />
<br />
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.<br />
<br />
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had<br />
a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.<br />
<br />
Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault , so don't whine about<br />
your mistakes, learn from them.<br />
<br />
Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are<br />
now... They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and<br />
listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you<br />
save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try<br />
delousing the closet in your own room.<br />
<br />
Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life<br />
HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll<br />
give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't<br />
bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.<br />
<br />
Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and<br />
very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on<br />
your own time.<br />
<br />
Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to<br />
leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.<br />
<br />
Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.""Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7745024813796441838.post-4842029845821237092010-11-17T12:33:00.000-08:002010-11-17T12:41:36.880-08:00Sexual Stupidity & the Afghan WarOne would have to admit surprise, initially, when reading of the stupid errors of judgment made by obviously smart men, and women, but we'll get to them later, in matters concerning sex.<br />
<br />
John Kerry, Elliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, John Profumo, Marv Albert and men who were perhaps less smart, Tiger Woods, Hugh Grant, Jimmy Swaggert, Edwin Mose, Charlie Sheen, Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson, Steve Garvey, hundreds of priests and other non-famous men. What is it? Hubris?<br />
<br />
Why would someone who has a great deal at stake, make such boneheaded errors in judgment? Maybe that should be boner-headed errors. Was it arrogance that made them think they could get away with it?<br />
<br />
It may be simply that in matters concerning sex humans universally act irrationally. There is arguably a disconnect between natural sexual urges and the convoluted, sophisticated, social arrangements we make to corral and direct the sexual urges humans universally feel.<br />
<br />
Consider a stark contrast, say, the gulf that exists between the adolescent male urge to mate with anything that will hold still long enough. Or the famously documented urges of Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Caligula, henry VIII, and so on. Given the power to obtain access to women, whether legally or illegally, powerful men will rack up as many partners as time permits.<br />
<br />
Even when social agreements like marriage, or informal relationships like living together are made moderns will stray. Notwithstanding whatever thrill may come from getting away with it, men will often not think twice when sex is made freely available. So what is this phenomenon? Is it perverse or noramal?<br />
<br />
Of course terms like normal and perverse are subjective. Yet, we act surprised when a prominent person is involved in a sex scandal. If we knew our history we ought not to be surprissed, we whould pay it no attention because we expected it. Yet we continue to promote lifetime commitments to fidelity and exclusiveness and enact punitive laws to enforce them. What's going on?<br />
<br />
Is it hypocrisy to take marriage vows? Or is it simply futile? When a man stands up in church and vows fidelity in front of God and his congregation is he lying, being self-deluded, simply stupid? Is the woman so desperate, self-deluded, dishonest that she goes through with it?<br />
<br />
In other cultures, say, Islam, where it is akin to taking a slave, marriage may be the only way a man can legally have a sex partner, the law exists to enforce the ritual and the institution.<br />
<br />
From an evolutionary perspective, it is a good male strategy to have as many breeding partners as possible. Since partnerships are problematical, promiscuity is a sound program to persue. It is in conflict with a female evolutionary perspective that must be centered around child-rearing to ensure projecting her genes into the future. This results in complex social arrangements, including invasion, raping and pillaging, sharia, marriage rituals such as seen in many of the world's religion. It may even be that the whole point of a religion is to regulate and give order to the natural mating urges of men and women.<br />
<br />
Organized religious authorities set themselves up in power by creating myths about sex, fertility, sin, and so on. If you want to wield power over the people you must control their natural urges. Create a concept of sin associated with sex, then show people how they can get to exercise their urges legally and without sin, and you have control over them is the strategy devised by the Catholic Church and is copied by others.<br />
<br />
But the urge can be stimulated to ennervate the individual to act in contrary manner to rational thought. Many examples exist of men who were seduced by a beautiful woman. Prostitutes are committed to tempting men toi have sex with them. Their task is easy because nothing could be more natural than to have sex with a willing partner. In the balance is loss of various degrees of prestige, moral propriety, and material wealth.<br />
<br />
We in the wealthy western world cannot imagine returning to a time when women do not have property rights and defence of law such that they cannot be taken sexually at the will of a more powerful man, as happened centuries ago and still happens in areas of the world where the law is absent such as the Congo where mass rape is common even today.<br />
<br />
Take the view of the Taliban in Afghanistan where the US and Foreign troops are regarded as threatening sharia law and the Afghanis rights to control their women. These Afghanis will fight to the death to prevent this. It is as simple as that. Under sharia law a man gets a woman and the right to control her sexually.<br />
<br />
"If you want to defend the rights of women in Afghanistan you have to defeat the Taliban, and you have to do it militarily." - Douglas Ross, Professor of Foreign Policy, Simon Fraser U.<br />
<br />
Young men & women are most susceptible to acting irrationally, that is to say, based on instinct rather than on reason, because between puberty and say, 40 yrs old, sex hormones are most plentiful in the body. <br />
<br />
Denying young men access to sex partners by ssimple admonition or proclamation is almost impossible and in western democracies has consequences of unwanted pregnancy or heartbreak, but in many areas of the world it results in men taking up arms and many deaths are the consequence.Bandersnatchihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10969846391208230082noreply@blogger.com0