Category Archives: Writing

Animals, Vignettes

Getting Boxed In – Pray for a Miracle While Plotting an Escape

Yesterday, one of my hens, Barbara Boxer, got trapped in one of those twelve inch plastic milk carton cubes that was sitting out.  You know, the ones you buy at Target for storage purposes.  Anyway, I discovered this in the afternoon when I went out in the humidity to check on the sweaty livestock.  I heard frantic cackling.  I saw curious interest.  My chicken killer puppy Sydnee probed that black plastic upside-down container.  Something moved inside the makeshift cage.  Chapter II of “Chickens knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it”.   Chapter LXVI of farmer playing god and reaching down from people heaven and lifting the cursed carton.  A seeming miracle to the Godless chickens.  A continuing wonder to the amused farmer.  A constant reminder that farmer incompetence trumps barnyard stupidity.  When will they learn.  When will they ever learn.

Don’t know much about how poor Barbara Boxer got boxed in.  Don’t know if that is the end of her woes, but probably not.  I do know that she is not unique among chickens or other life when it comes to getting boxed in by her own actions and needing a seeming miracle to get out.  I was there but if not, death was certain.  The actual box of chicken fiasco opened me up to the hypothetical box of human humility each of us has experienced, escaped, and then been re-trapped within.  Pick from life’s realities, any of life’s challenging realities, and you will be able to assemble a box from which you seemingly can not escape… without a miracle.  Even though you always do.  But one day your luck may run out.  Someday your wits won’t be enough.  Your family and friends may not be able to lift the increasingly heavier box off.  What should you be doing if you are now or have been trapped in a box consisting of a job too consuming, a partner too demanding, finances too over whelming?  I don’t know.  But do something to escape the “box-on-box-off” cycle.

Having been within the walls and ceiling of the job-marriage-employment box, I have been trapped in more than once.  I remember some one reaching down and saving me – once.  I remember reaching up and saving myself – once.  In both cases it was important for me to understand how I got boxed in.  It was important to accept that I had the biggest hand in building the box that so imprisoned me.  It was more important that I did not allow myself to let that same box to surround me again.  I think I have been successful but boxes come in a great many deceptive forms these days and there is no end to the creative ways in which the crafty human can construct his own prison.  Ok, so when one finally finds oneself trapped by the walls of self destruction, what are the steps to getting out?

First – what happened?  Finances, affiliations, frustration will weigh heavily but unless you understand your circumstances you may make things worse by choosing quick action or slow denial.  Find a sound sounding board.  Put your worries on the shelf until they can properly and orderly be consumed.  Maybe speculating the worst can help with putting your best foot forward.  Perhaps saying some things out loud can advise you on your necessities.  Never let a contrarian in the room – this brings doom.  Get yourself a straight shooter to keep you on the path.  Always put your concerns in an important/urgent grid which allows you to label each as important/urgent (!), important/not urgent, not important/not urgent, and NOT IMPORTANT/URGENT (!!!).

The blind pedestrian walks to work on the highway shoulder during rush hour because of the urgency of the job, not the importance his life.  The beleaguered parent watches the world series on a school night because of the importance of escape, not because of urgency.   The jobless breadwinner worries about the urgency of the family vacation, not the importance of getting a job.  Walls are built by current urgency.  They are knocked down with the acknowledgement and action on future importance.  Let go of the immediate curiosity and get a hold future reality.  Dream on but don’t fantasize.  Unless you are still a child, you should not look outside yourself for rescue.  Even though it can happen and inspire wonder, it should not be your fallback plan.  But what do you do if your best isn’t good enough?

Think!  You have to decide what you want before you can decide what you want to do.  Balance your life.  Be honest with yourself.  Shed the things that don’t do you no good.  Usually nagging thoughts should be addressed.  When your unconscious comes knocking, let her in.  She, your unconscious, will not harm you.  That’s a start.  You, your conscious you, has a bad reputation.  Like a manipulative friend, his inspirations go awry.  His motives are the kind that don’t do you no good.  Use evidence, reason, logic, self-preservation if necessary but get out of the box on your own power.  Get into the groove of self-reliance and intuition by acting responsibly, confidently, and slowly.  That’s the ticket.  Who will notice?

Everyone.  Once you can not be easily influenced, lots of people will go away.  Others will attack.  Some will come towards you.  Those are the ones you want in your inner circle.  Losing friends isn’t always a bad thing.  Being alone can sometimes be a good thing.  A dedicated relationship is better than Facebook full of Friends.  Unfriend those who have not proven to be friends.  Reach out to those who are worthy to be friends.  Never seek to go below or above the level of relationship that costs you self-esteem.  Empower yourself using the means that work for you.  Pray.  Read.  Converse.  Listen.  Meditate.  Cry.  Laugh.  Find out who you are on your terms without having those terms dictated to you.  So much of is out of power can be brought into your hands by simply reaching out.  Getting out.  Looking within.

Animals, Vignettes

A Killer Prowls My Land

Yesterday evening, Friday, we arrived back at Sawmyl Synders Farm and one dog greeted us, Syndee, the big Anatolian.  No Sydnee, little Akbash.  We unloaded the truck and entered the cabin I restrained Syndee from accosting my wife.  I looked around.  I called.  I listened.  It was dark.  There was no Sydnee.  I went back in and got one of my newly purchased mini-flashlights.  No need.  With the other lights that come on at night, easy to see a pure white puppy even on a perfectly black night.  The pup just out of sight back near the garden and the coops.  But she didn’t greet me.  Something was awry.  Something was dead.

Sydnee finally did it.  She let her instincts and nature take over.  And now the worst thing, the most nightmarish thing had happened.  Laying in the grass, lifeless, an animal killed by its protector.  An eight week old poulet in the jaws of a four month old guardian dog.  The little chick was too small to survive its first day outside, having escaped its protective coop.  The young puppy, too young to know the consequences of going too far with its animal antics.  The master of both too inept to secure the chicken run against the escape or anticipate the horror of a confrontation with his beloved charges.  The guilty must be dealt with.

A chicken killing dog must be stopped, no matter young or old, no matter if it is the first time.  But first, what happened?  I wanted to let my maturing poulets out of their 8X8 Coop III but the attached chicken run had unrepaired damage from the May floods and also the since departed billy goat.  I inspected the run closely two days ago and made the repairs yesterday.  The repairs consisted of holes torn in the chicken wire, separation of chicken wire from fence and fence panels, and movement of panels from their prior attached positions.  I spent an hour and thought I was thorough.  The poulets were released and reluctantly explored the outdoors, safely in the fully enclosed chicken run.  I checked on them several times that afternoon.  I put a waterer in the chicken yard to encourage their adventuring.  All was well, until the night.

Just when you turn your back.  Just when you let your guard down.  Just when you think it is safe.  The puppy is a guardian as much as it is predator.  A friend can be trusted but he also must be watched.  The needy must be given generosity but their desperation often exceeds their gratitude.  Just as I have faith that my dogs will do their duty, I must also remember their nature.  Just as I trust in my friends, I must remember that they are not family.  Just as I want to give to the needy, neither do I want to be taken.  Each encounter has a double edge.  Each edge has the ability to heal as well as cut.  Do not fall asleep expecting either health or harm.  Do wake up to the possibilities of both from those you choose to allow in your circle.

 

Animals, Vignettes

Tangled Up and Don’t Know What to Do About It

On Monday, I discovered one of my Cornish Rocks with a string wrapped around one leg.  That discarded eighteen inch piece of string belonged to a feed bag and attached to a length of wire which the unlucky chicken dragged around the otherwise sparsely furnished chicken coop.  This unfortunate circumstance happened several days earlier.  How do I know this?  My little chicken, now Chicken Little, grew half the size of the other thirteen coop-mates.  Chicken Little’s right legged extended straight out from her feathered frame due to dragging the mass.  Even though the leg could be flexed, after removing the drag, CL could still not walk properly.  The mishap injured her and crippled her.  I pray she recovers but I doubt she will.  So who is responsible for the crippled chicken?

In my earlier blogs I have besmirched poultry, really all birds, as “bird brains”.  Knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it.  Also, in another blog, I assumed that my chickens knew what they were doing when it came to birthing before finding a dead chick in the nest box.  Who is responsible for the chickens?  Who is responsible for the dangerous debris littering the coops and the grounds?  Who makes assumptions?  The chickens?  No.  Of course it is the clueless farmer.  Yeah, the one over there with the big brain and bushel of assumptions.  The one holding a crippled Cornish Rock in one hand and a dead Buff Orpington chick in the other.  The one making judgements about those under his care and now facing judgement for his lack of care.  Recommendation?  Cleanup, shut-up,  and be a farmer not a philosopher.

I stated last Sunday that I blogged for a hobby, blogged about how my farm animals knew how to get into trouble but never knew how to get out which closely paralleled my own conundrums.  This chick-caught-on-a-string-and-wire episode sits as a good example.  Months ago, I accepted an invitation to a gathering with pleasure.  Weeks ago, I realized the reason for the invitation with apprehension.  Days ago, I accepted my financial obligation with trepidation.  Now, I lay here along side my crippled chick, tangled up in a situation, dragging an unwanted responsibility, and fearing that I will never be quite the fully functioning believer that I was before I got entangled.

Just as I am responsible for removing the hazards to my farm animal and rescuing them when they get into trouble, so also am I responsible for removing hazards to myself and for extricating my limbs from the tangles of life and the people in my life.  Don’t say yes so easily to strangers, it is a steep slope.  Question the details of what you are getting into before getting into it.  If money or time is involved, gather enough information so that you can set a limit.  Even though charity should be unbound generosity, in reality it can become unbound avarice.  The meek can become predatory if you allow yourself to become prey.  Your donation can become robbery if you never stop and say nay.  It is better to stop giving in time than to stop giving altogether.

Writing

China’s One Child Policy – Consequences

From Wikipedia:

The one-child policy, a part of the family planning policy, was a population planning policy of China. It was introduced between 1978 and 1980 and began to be formally phased out in 2015. The policy allowed many exceptions and ethnic minorities were exempt. In 2007, 36% of China’s population was subject to a strict one-child restriction, with an additional 53% being allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl. Provincial governments imposed fines for violations, and the local and national governments created commissions to raise awareness and carry out registration and inspection work.

Syllogism:

  • Major Premise (general statement): China’s one-child policy allowed for exceptions.
  • Minor Premise1 (specific statement): Ethnic minorities were exempt
  • Minor Premise2 (specific statement): 53% of population was allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl.
  • Conclusion: The majority of Chinese were not affected by the one-child policy.

From The Atlantic, : Six Consequences of One-Child Policy Reform (End of One-Child Policy)

China is finally dropping its one-child policy for around one-third of the population: couples that are urban and Han Chinese in which one parent is an only child. (Couples that are rural, non-Han, or where both parents were only children were already allowed to have two kids.) The policy will remain in force only for urban Han parents who were both the product of two-child homes—a fairly small proportion.

This 30-year-old social engineering experiment played an important, if contentious, role in China’s re-emergence as an economic powerhouse.  Here’s what the change might mean:

  1. A Larger Labor Force—Eventually The labor force is estimated to begin declining by as much as 10 million a year starting in 2025. Any population rebound will take decades.
  2. More Consumer Spending—At Least on Baby Formula Allowing more couples to have more children now should boost consumption almost right away for goods like infant formula, food and clothing, and education services.
  3. Happier People Perhaps the most important effect of changing the one-child policy is that it could end human-rights abuses like forced abortions and signal that the leadership is serious about reforms.
  4. A Smaller Gender Gap Removing the one-child policy won’t change the cultural preferences, but may ease the pressure on parents if their first child is a girl.
  5. A Healthier Housing Market—in Time The policy’s end should eventually forestall a housing market collapse trend—but it won’t come fully into effect for decades.
  6. Increased Strain on Natural Resources The extra 9.5 million people born each year will need food, water, and housing. That’s already a problem: per capita arable land in China is half of the global average and 40 percent of that  is considered “degraded,” meaning it is less economical or uneconomical to farm.

Syllogism:

  • Major Premise (general statement): Ending the one child policy impacts the future China greatly.
  • Minor Premise1 (specific statement): Happier Chinese because forced abortions will end.
  • Minor Premise2 (specific statement): Happier Chinese because less pressure on parents if their first child is a girl.
  • Conclusion: The end of the one child policy will make Chinese happier.

===

From Washington Times, November 2, 2015 : Birth of a catastrophe, China faces up to the consequences of its one couple, one child rule.

Introduced in 1979, this attempt to control population has prevented the birth of up to 400 million persons in the world’s most populous country.  A couple who has the forbidden second child must pay a fine of 40,000 yuan, the equivalent of $6,338.37, almost two-thirds of the average annual Chinese wage.  The government is dealing with the threat of rising social costs and a shrinking work force.  The upcoming census is expected to reveal a ratio of 122 boys born for every 100 girls, replacing the usual 106 boys for 100 girls.  It’s not clear whether the new regulations will cover so-called “illegal children,” those born in excess of one child per couple.  Untangling this Chinese puzzle would be a monumental task even if the 50 million bureaucrats — a bureaucrat for every 27 Chinese — wanted to untangle it.

Syllogism:

  • Major Premise (general statement): The goal of the Chinese one child policy has failed.
  • Minor Premise1 (specific statement): The population goal was not met.
  • Minor Premise2 (specific statement): The population now has illegal children.
  • Minor Premise3 (specific statement): The population now has too many boys, not enough girls.
  • Conclusion: Bureaucratic population control doesn’t work.

===

Writing

A Brief Guide to Writing Philosophical Questions

Each month I write the questions for Pub Theology.  Pub Theology promises important questions, good conversation, great beer.  It only guarantee’s great beer.  Without important questions the good conversation may go bad.

I want to improve my questions, even make them important.

I need to improve my questions, even make them understandable.

I must improve my questions, even make them philosophical.

I found an article on the net about philosophical writing and my review of summation of it follows.  I hope to extract the essentials for writing good philosophical questions.

The Harvard College Writing Center published a paper titled “A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper”.  This seven page document is structured into the following parts:

  • The Challenges of Philosophical Writing
  • Structuring a Philosophical Paper
    • Begin by formulating your precise thesis
    • Define technical or ambiguous terms used in your thesis or your argument.
    • If necessary, motivate your thesis (i.e. explain to your reader why they should care about it)
    • Explain briefly how you will argue in favor of your thesis.
    • If necessary, explain the argument you will be critiquing.
    • Make an argument to support your thesis.
    • In order to strengthen your argument, anticipate and answer objections to it.
    • Briefly conclude by explaining what you think your argument has established.
  • Evidence
    • Example of a Reductio
      • Premise 1
      • Premise 2
      • Premise 3
      • Conclusion (from 2 and 3)
    • Example of a Question Begging Argument
      • Premise 1
      • Premise 2
      • Conclusion
  • Sources
  • Conventions
    • Avoid direct quotes
    • Use first person personal pronouns and possessive pronouns freely; signpost.
    • Say exactly what you mean, and no more than you need to say.
    • Be careful with specialized language.

Above find the outline of this article.  Below find my interpretation and the key elements I will need to apply to my Pub Theology questions.

The Challenges of Philosophical Writing

You expressing your personal opinion on controversial topics is not philosophy.  A method of first attaining a clear and exact question, then provide answers supported by clear, logically structured arguments, that is philosophy.

An ideal argument should lead from obviously true premises to an unobvious true conclusion.  A successful negative argument refutes the theory.  Positive arguments usually end up discussing other questions.

Structuring a Philosophy Paper

Assignments ask you to a thesis, which is a claim that may be true or false.  Explain it, support it, objection to it, defend it, evaluate it, discuss consequences, etc.  Structure thesis as follows:

Begin by formulating your precise thesis

Example: State argument clear and concise, avoid ambiguity (uncertainty or inexactness of meaning in language.)

Define technical or ambiguous terms used in your thesis or your argument.

Think of an imaginary reader whenever you need to decide how much you need to say to set up a discussion, or to judge the overall clarity of your work.

If necessary, motivate your thesis (i.e. explain to your reader why they should care about it).

Explain briefly how you will argue in favor of your thesis.

Take care to clearly indicate when you are speaking in your own voice, and when you are explicating someone else’s argument or point of view but not yourself advocating it.

If necessary, explain the argument you will be critiquing.

Explain the argument in your own words.

POOR WRITING EXAMPLE: In order to prove or disprove a thesis, one must engage with it.  Explain and analyze the argument rather than just reporting on it (a book report).  Make your view clear, not ambiguous.

Make an argument to support your thesis. 

Use a single compelling argument as opposed to using multiple weaker arguments.

In order to strengthen your argument, anticipate and answer objections to it.

You must always present a reasons for thinking an objection is true.

You should always raise and reply to the strongest
objections you can think.
GOOD WRITING EXAMPLE: Do not let objections rest on logical fallacies or implausible premises.

Briefly conclude by explaining what you think your argument has established.

HOW TO GET IT DONE

Don’t try to write a from scratch, from beginning to end: leave plenty of time.  Topic, possible thesis, rough argument in your head, sketches on paper, then begin master outline: thesis, argument, maximal logical clarity, one line for each argument logical step, potential objections and replies.  Try explaining your argument to someone else.  Read your paper out loud or have a friend read it to work out which parts of your argument might confuse or fail to persuade the reader and need more work.

Evidence

Evidence for a claim generally provides a better argument.  Philosophers avoid  empirical data, and confine their investigations to their armchairs.  If you
do use such evidence from elsewhere…explain exactly why it is relevant and exactly what we can conclude from it.  Show how two or more views cannot be held consistently with each other, or show that although two views are consistent with one another, they together entail an implausible third claim, known as a reductio ad absurdum.

EXAMPLE OF A REDUCTIO

If the argument is logically valid, show that the three premises of the argument can all be true. A further argument would be needed to show which of the three premises ought to be rejected.

Philosophical arguments are not always in the form of a
reducti.  Basic premises should generally be claims that any reasonable reader can be expected to agree with, and they might be drawn from common experience, or from our stronger intuitions.  Avoid the fallacy of begging the question – which is to say, using any premises that one would reasonably doubt if not for one’s prior acceptance of the conclusion the argument attempts
to establish.

EXAMPLE OF A QUESTION – BEGGING ARGUMENT

If the writer defined argument argument terms more carefully, its weakness would be clear. Ambiguous terms in philosophical arguments are a common problem, and can mask other weaknesses.

Examples can also help clarify the intended meaning of terms. Philosophers make great use of hypothetical examples in particular.

A GOOD USE OF EXAMPLES

Foreknown side-effect and aims are important points in arguments which involve clear moral institutions.

Do not argue that a claim is true, or is likely to be true, just because someone of
great authority believed it.  Do not argue from what the dictionary says about something.

Sources

Explain other philosopher’s arguments in your own words.  Read philosophy articles slow and careful.  Understand the steps of the argument.  When using another philosopher’s argument, put it in your own words and in the logical form that seems clearest to you, add improvements, offer or modify reason, defense.

Conventions

Avoid direct quotes

When you paraphrase: explain any ambiguous terms or technical
terms in the source, and aim to show that you’ve understood.

Use first person personal pronouns and possessive pronouns freely; signpost.

Give your reader a clear sense of where your argument is going at all times (i.e. I will argue…, I will now show…, My second objection is…)

Say exactly what you mean, and no more than you need to say.

Use simple prose and short, simple sentences.  Establish a modest point as clearly, carefully, and concisely as possible.

Be careful with specialized language

Philosophy reserves certain terms and phrases for special, narrow meanings that are peculiar to the subject.These include deduction, begs the question, valid, invalid, sound, and unsound (used to describe arguments), and vague (used to describe terms or concepts). You should understand the word use in philosophy before the word use in any of your writing.

Writing

Coincidence – Food for Paranoia, Contentment, and Abandonment

We returned from a trip to the country side with a new puppy, only to find our older dog foaming at the mouth.  Since the older dog acted fine when we left the day before and she behaved, except for the excessive foam, I attributed the foamy anomaly to over excitement because of the new puppy.  The facts of the days ahead proved me wrong.  Two simultaneous events do not a correlation make.  Simple solutions to disturbing symptoms should first lead one to serious consideration and not quick dismissal.  So it goes with a dog foaming at the mouth upon the return from a trip away from the animal.  The decision to “blow it off” could have been tragic.

I drove away from the Ford dealership after getting service and my tire low pressure warning light came on.  Here we go again, bad service by a lazy technician, or worse, intentional tampering in order to get a stingy customer (me) to pay for additional service.  I checked the tires and they seemed fine. I felt pretty sure.  After a service station checked them I thought it almost positive.  When the light suddenly went off by itself I suspected a ploy by Ford.  Then, later on a trip, it came on again and I ignored it.  I would not let this warning taking anymore of my life time away.  I would have the gauge looked at when I got back from my trip.  A trip that would require me to drip many miles at high speed and (as I would discover) at great risk.  When you don’t trust someone (the Ford oil change specialist) you create your own reality and possible demise.

After the flood, I asked my farmer friends to take my surviving chickens to help me out and he never responded, never helped, never showed up.  I felt like my situation deserved more attention than any other priority.  The urgency of getting stranded animals back in a safe environment should have meant something to someone who understood the criticality of chickens unprotected in a predatory world.  But nobody came.  Nobody seemed to care.  Nobody remembered the I helped them when they were in need.  Maybe it’s time to get some new friends.  When you’re in the crisis of your lifetime and feel abandoned, never believe you are in more pain than the person next to you.  Don’t abandon those who seem to be abandoning you.

I complained about certain members of a weekly discussion group to a confidant and later found those who I complained about not speaking to me.  After about a month, after shunning the ones who upset me, I noticed they were shunning me.  Even the bar maid at the pub where we met seemed cool towards me.  I decided to stop attending.  If this had become an event where no one cared for its purpose and only showed up to engage in simple socializing with a narrow clique of friends, then it held no value for me.  This guy made a joke of it.  That guy made a joke of me.  The other gal ignored the importance of our gathering.  Pub Theology turned into something mundane and not worth my time.

Sometimes coincidence leads to unwarranted ease.  Other times coincidence incites suspicion and contempt.  Occasionally coincidence causes long and deep relationships to dissolve in short order for shallow reasons.  Too often coincidence makes enemies where none exist.  The events described are examples of such.  Coincidences brought about logical but inaccurate conclusions which caused undue calm, stress, paranoia, and loss.

The presence of the new puppy excited my old puppy, but not that excited.  In the next two days, the slobbering dog got worse…slobbering that is.  She remained the same happy fun neurotic dog we loved but she drooled.  What started on a Sunday, became worse on Monday.  By Tuesday, the left side of her face grew enlarged and drooped.  I felt a gland under her lower jaw the size of a tennis ball.  Oh, yeah, Houston, we have a problem.  I read about it on the internet.  I described it to the receptionist at my dog’s Vet.  I related it to the Vet who owns the bar that we meet for discussion.  DO SOMETHING!  Wednesday young Syndee looked better.  Thursday the lump disappeared.  Hallelujah!   Too much calm in the face of too little information could have been the end of a dog.  How bad do I feel now?

After the trip home on Saturday in the Ford with the low pressure warning light on, I continued to drive around.  But Thursday, since I visited the area, I stopped at the tire dealer where I bought the tires and discovered there existed a legitimate problem.  Low pressure in the rear passenger tire.  A drywall screw, laying in the drive since the summer flood repairs to the house, made it leak – slow.  With that repair making me safe, I drove on.  To ignore a warning because of coincidence which includes paranoia is to invite disaster.  This time calm caused an indirect product of paranoia about someone I didn’t trust.  The distrusted could not be blamed for the tragedy that my wife, my new puppy and myself could have suffered.  Warning are there to be looked at and resolved.  Not to be relegated to a priority less than the paranoia that bought them on.

The coincidence of one person’s worst tragedy meeting head on another person’s worst nightmare is rare but not impossible.  When my flood brought crisis to my flock, a good will gesture brought my friend’s flock close to demise.  He accepted new chickens from a stranger for free and the free birds were diseased.  His chickens started to die.  The loss made him determined not to get any more off site birds.  My flood feathers counted in that number.

The meeting group members I complained about are not holding a grudge and neither is the wait staff.  My fear of retaliation for my strong comments brought on paranoia and my talking to someone I trust alleviated my fear and paranoia.  I’m back at it with a different attitude.

 

Conspiracy

John Warnock Hinckley Jr. – Things You Already Should Know

John Hinckley will be released from a mental hospital August 5, 2016.  You know that he was sentenced to be held in that hospital as a result of someone attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.  You also know that Hinckley’s obsession with Jodie Foster was a basis for finding him not guilty by reason of insanity.  If you read Wikipedia, you also know that Hinckley is featured as a central character of Stephen Sonheim’s musical Assassins.  Additionally, you could find out that American new wave band Devo recorded a song “I Desire”…which brought the brought the band controversy because the lyrics were taken directly from a poem written by Hinckley.

Other things you should know – if you read beyond the headlines and Wikipedia.  The father, John Warnock Hinckley, Sr., was president of World Vision United States.  The gunman’s father was also a multi-millionaire Texas oilman and President and Chairman of the independent oil and gas exploration firm Vanderbilt Energy Corporation.  What was rarely if ever reported was that Hinckley Sr. was a major financial contributor to the failed 1980 Presidential campaign of the Vice President, George H.W. Bush. Hinckley’s older brother, Scott, had a dinner date scheduled at the home of Neil Bush, the Vice President’s son, the day after the assassination attempt on Reagan. A March 31, 1981 news headline by Associated Press confirmed this: Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting.  George H.W. Bush’s other son, George W. Bush, also admitted to journalists that he may have had dealings with Scott Hinckley who was Vice-President of Vanderbilt Energy, but could not remember either way.

Cui bono.

 

Rhetoric

Devices for Rationale When Your Emotions have Failed You

I was at a loss for words, words that perhaps would have gotten me into even more trouble.   I came, I saw, I kept my mouth shut.  If I’m not fired with enthusiasm, I will be fired, with enthusiasm.  I ask not what your company can do for me, but what your company can do for my wallet.  You said I was always late – true enough. You said I was not prepared – true enough. You said I did not defend your statements – true enough.  Is it too late for me to warn:  Judge not, lest ye be judged?  Or maybe: My heart is not judged by how much I despise, but by how much I despise you.  If you do me in today won’t you feel awful tomorrow when you hear,  “He’s passed on! This parasite is no more! He has ceased to be! He’s expired and gone to meet his maker!”  People who like this sort of thing (hating me) will find this the sort of thing they like.  Nothing is worse than doing nothing (but hate me).  I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, starting after you are deceased.  To my thick self, everyone is ‘boring, boring, boring!’  You heard it with our own floppy ears here first.  I try to forget (you’re a jerk), and in the forgetting, you are entirely forgotten. We all want this.  It’s accomplished, we succeeded, won, and walked away victorious. To think clearly and rationally should be a major goal for man (when thinking of you); but to think clearly and rationally is always the greatest difficulty faced by man (when thinking of you).

So, then I pulled out a claw hammer — are you still with me here?  After I did the deed, the car wouldn’t start this time, but at least it didn’t catch on fire (this time).  As I sat waiting for the PoPo, I thought: Many (police) are called, but few are chosen (for humanitarian awards).  As I lay prone on the gravel, they tell me once and I forget.  They beat me twice and I remember. They incarcerate me and I learn a new criminal skill.  No one would suggest that those who are brainless elected to be the class clown.  As the cop’s knee approached my face rapidly, I contemplated: Should I strike now, or bide my time? After that first knee, I began my attack of words:  If you do that one more time, I’m gonna –…  So, I ask you, dear reader, what would you have me do?  My detached self – reacted to my detached retina – it was disturbed — make that appalled — by the spectacle.  Observing my reflection in the pool of blood forming inches from my broken nose, I mused:  You are the fairest flower in this tenement — nay, in the entire barrio.  These dirty cops could do no more to me.  They cannot denigrate, they cannot deprecate, they cannot decry me further.  My fellow marginalized read and studied and wrote and passed and graduated. We fared no better here than those who laughed and played and talked and failed.  So that’s why I’ve prepared a special bullet for a special someone.  I made it nice and hot, just the way you like it.

You found my weakness. You are a hero, a prince, a god!  Coming of cerebral maturity in the year 2000, I am the very model of a mental modern millennial. I’m (bragging you know) uninformed in history, geography, and etiquette.  That’s us.  We not few, we happy but not few, we band of not few happy boorish bothers. As for you, Hero, I have three words for you mental pre-millennials: old, odd, odoriferous.  Going forward, what we will be seeking . . . will be large, stable communities of like-minded people, which is to say, redundantly, sarcastic millennials.  You’ve already seen it, a hundred head of millennials scattered throughout the coffee klatches or spinning their vino at an under-thirty wine bar.

Each word of sarcasm was dull wit from one half so. Frogy croaked – You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tuna fish. Unless of course, you play bass. – like he was Solomon and those words were being spoken for the first time. Don’t judge a fool by his foolishness (he deserves worse). After his laughter died (the extent of the wished for death here) he added – We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately(I’ll do the hangin’ around here, Baba Looey).  Listening to his drone set my blood boiling.  It was a cool 100 degrees in the shade (of my numb scull).  His was an intellect quickly surpassed.  It is a sad state but true. Sudden insecurity and confusion drove him to cliche.  Enter the obnoxious fake laugh primeval.

The assassin was not unacquainted with doofus, you see.  Calling him an idiot would be an insult to stupid people. Are you always this stupid, or are you just making a special effort today?  I told him: Get out of my way, you mouth-breathing cretin.  He moved proudly.  Before he could retort I hit him with the nearest thing, a link sausage (lucky for me).  He shot back: It’s just a flesh wound!  Then fainted at the site of Dijon.  The clash and clang of another whipping sausage jarred him awake. Do not let a gift sausage in your mouth…he thought that was how the phrasing went.  His next salvo was: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you – and let fly his own sausage fusillade.  Seeing my enjoyment of his porcine screed, he screamed: You’re the most arrogant, selfish, self-absorbed, insufferable narcissist I’ve ever met!  Am I blushing?

House MD, The Deluge

What Did You Do? – The House of Emancipation, Emotion, and Empathy

This article is about the TV show House MD, Season 5, Episode 8 – Titled: Emancipation

This is my favorite episode of House MD for more reasons than I can count and for deeper reasons than I can understand.  Why would a minor seek emancipation (divorce from parents)?  What’s worse than rape?  Does being rational before emotional mean there is no emotion to process?  These are very specific topics but, with a step back, one can imagine related resolutions, traumas, and rational in their own life journey.  How about resolutions such as actual divorce or even unfriending?  What if there is extreme guilt over the terrible harm one has brought upon another?   How can anyone justify empathy for another person when they are blinded by their own despair?  What does Dr. House say?

Here is a partial plot summary from Wikipedia:

The team takes on the case of a 16-year-old factory manager who fell ill when her lungs suddenly filled with fluid while at work. The teenager informs House and the team that she is an emancipated minor living on her own and supporting herself, and has been doing so ever since her parents died. The team begins treatment for suspected heart problems, but Kutner chooses to sympathize with the patient rather than follow House’s directions and gives her steroids instead of beta-blockers. She has a psychotic break. An MRI shows that the patient lied about her parents’ deaths. She says that she had emancipated herself because her father raped her and mother pretended it didn’t happen.

The first thing I learned from this episode was that there is such a thing as Emancipation of a minor: divorce from parents.  I had heard of people wanting to “divorce” their parents but I didn’t know that it was an actual “thing”.  I can understand this desire in a fit of anger but going through with it would seem to be more trouble than it would be worth.  So, yeah, a teenager that goes through with emancipation is a seriously upset kiddo.

The second thing I learned from this episode was that there are somethings worse than rape.  When the girl says she was raped she figured she had sure buy in.  A rape accusation is an automatic pass to believing the victim.  Logic and scrutiny are usually put aside.  But why would someone lie about rape as part of a strategy of avoidance and put life at risk?  And how do you get beyond her deception and into the truth?  By pure logic and scrutiny.  Rules of thumb or thumb screws?  Truth serum or lye in the eye? Torture or torch her?  No.  It’s benevolence stupid.  Try to understand her as you understand anyone else.  The value in relations is benevolence.  To achieve benevolence one must comprehend human nature.  That is Dr. House’s greatest talent.

The third thing I learned from this episode was that decisions are always emotional before they are rational.  When someone comes to you with an airtight excuse, alibi, or explanation for their behavior, you should call bullshit.  The underlying motive and initial reason is emotional.  Everything else is window dressing.  As the explanation becomes more logical and even accusative of you, that person drifts into repetition and hyperbole.  This happens so often when friends don’t show.  They are trying to convince you of their lie.  Don’t buy it because, if you do, get ready for more of the same.  This type of behavior especially happens when you are in crisis and need them.  If you don’t buy their lie, they take the position that you are angry.  If, indeed, you are in a time of crisis, anger is a luxury you can’t afford in those times.  Cut them lose.  They are excess baggage.  They’ll get heavier with time.

Studies in English Literature

Of Friendship: A Look at Francis Bacon’s Essay in Context

Analysis of Bacon’s Essay “Of Friendship” by Kiran.A.K.L. (The 3 Fruits of Friendship)

Kiran first explains Baconian style as following the two fundamental Renaissance principles of:

  1. Search for Knowledge and
  2. The Art of Rhetoric

Each of these are presented in an aphoristic style.  But, according to the reviewer, the essay Of Friendship is different in that it contains passionate and flattering statements and profuse analogies with examples to support or explain his arguments.  I find Kiran’s finding puzzling.  All of Bacon’s essays contain passionate and flattering statements and profuse analogies with a plethora of examples to support and no shortage of explanations for his arguments.  And then some.  Kiran possibly used his prior finding as a segue to insert the fact that the essay was requested by a friend.  He then quotes Aristotle again: Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.  Dog or God.

Kirin then quotes Bacon’s essay, stating that friendship is necessary for maintaining good mental health by controlling and regulating the passions of the mind. Bacon speaks of the therapeutic use of friendship through which one can lighten the heart by revealing the pent-up feelings and emotions: sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, advice.  So, the first (1) and principal fruit of friendship is good mental health.

Note here that if Bacon’s assessment is taken as fact, then a relationship that degrades one’s mental health, disturbs the passions to extremes, heavies the heart, inflames feelings and emotions, is a litmus test which reveals what you all ready suspect – your companion is not a friend.

Bacon justifies friendship by pointing out that royalty makes friends by “raising” persons fit for friendship.  I’m not sure exactly how this would work.  He tries to glorify friendship by translating a Roman term for friendship which means ‘sharers of their cares’.   Today we would say Care Bears.  He gives examples of deterioration of mental faculty because of loneliness.  That’s simply crazy.  Bacon asserts that friendship functions in a double manner: “…it doubles joys, and cuts griefs in half”.  Much like the Doublemint Twins of today who provide joyous chewing gum and grievous television commercials but also leave you something to stick under your desk at work for later.

Bacon’s second (2) fruit of friendship is clarity.  A friend clarifies confusions, his counsel is “drier and purer” than the counsel of one’s self, counsel out of self love.  With a friend there are two kinds of counsel: manners and business. Constructive criticism of behavior is better than that of a book of morality – but more boring than the Kama Sutra.  In business, a true friend’s advice helps one avert danger – usually taking you straight into poverty.

The third (3) fruit of friendship is help.  Bacon quotes “a friend is another self”, that friend can achieve unfulfilled desires and can talk to you on equal terms.  Kiran concludes that Bacon concludes that a man’s life is concluded if he does not have a friend.  If you have the usual procession of faux friends, the ones that never show-up when you need them, life with these “friends” is hell on earth and if this all you have then your life needs to be concluded or they need to be excluded from your life.

So, boys and girls, what have we learned from reviewing Kiran’s look at Bacon’s essay on Of Friendship?
One thing you should have noted, though unstated, is that this essay (and each of Bacon’s essays) is written by and for men and their manly friendships.  Women’s friendships weren’t important in 16th century Europe (for a good laugh read Bacon’s take on women in his essay Of Anger).  In any case the key take away is that Kiran see’s Bacon’s essay Of Friendship as consisting of 3 beneficial fruits:
  1. mental health: modulate passions, lighten the heart
  2. clarity: pure insight into the confusions of behavior and business
  3. help: fulfill needs, desires, and tasks while communicating without deference or condescension.

The benefits of friendship are:

  1. Does that other person (think contemporary here, you can include females) incite destructive passion and heavy your heart?
  2. Does that other person cause your behavior to be confused or even amoral and lead into business bungles?
  3. When you need help whether it be with future goals (like keeping my head above water) or present tribulations (like a farging flood where 90% of my possessions floated south to the Gulf of Mexico) or in analyzing past personal mysteries (like why some mental case didn’t show up for an emergency as promised), does this “friend” show up with straight talk and a helping hand or do that person stand on ceremony?

If you can’t enter yes to all three questions, it’s time to exit this one relationship.  There must be 50 ways.

OF FRIENDSHIP: analysis by paragraph with comments on style and other notes.

by Pat Der Sin

Friendship is the determinate as to whether a person is human or not.  If you have no friends you are either a wild beast or a god.  Take note all you workaholics and hustlers.  Now the friendless can be distinguished by their pursuits as to whether they are beast or god.  If solitude and aversion towards society is a product of higher conversion from heathen to hermit to holy father, you might be a god.  If you are a practicing beast, raise you paw or claw.  Without friends the world is wilderness.  In between friendships the world is a journey.  In found friendship, the world stops spinning out of control and waits to see how long your relations will last.  I like particularly, in this first paragraph, this series:

  • For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

This Bacon sizzles and entices the reader all the way to its period.  “No Love” is the object. But how did we get there?  Well, if there IS love then there must be company in that crowd, or feelings in those faces, or a resounding cymbal the spoken language.  Check your crowd, faces, and talk the next time you’re out and about.  Do you feel me?

Bacon’s principal fruit of friendship is analogized to the practice of medicine.  He lists the cures for physical ailments then imparts that friendship is the cure for mental and emotional ailments.  In today’s medical practice, my cardiologist doesn’t consider your problem her problem unless it involves making money.  That means expensive surgery or dangerous drugs are the only solution, even if there is no problem.  In other words, if she were your friend and you were bound and gagged and chained to a chair, she would recommend a stent and a statin which carries a number of warnings from the FDA and the dubious American Heart Association.  Surgery and prescriptions is the only stuff American health insurance pays for these days.  It’s not the doctor’s fault, they’re following protocol you know.

Bacon has two paragraphs on kings and princes and other Roman royalty which describes how important friends are and even how friends are raised, much like my deceased chickens.  The second paragraph details a rather dense review of how the Roman cow ate the romaine cabbage, which I find of little use in my exploration of friendship for application in today’s context.  Oh, if could only be 100 BC.

Bacon calls those who do not seek the counsel of friends “Cannibals of their own hearts”.  Pretty neat!  Lack of joy and preponderance of grief can be relieved by the joker you call friend and you can that hearty heart meal for later when you have run them off due to your own pretentiousness and condescension.

The second fruit of friendship is understanding.  A friend provides clarity, order, and wisdom.  Counsel that is considerate yet free of emotions comes from a friend whether it is on behavior or business.  One’s faults can be acknowledged when presented by a friend.  Errors and extremes can be avoided when another walks you through the perils of your personal purpose.

There are many things a man can’t do himself.  There are so many of those things that can be done with, by, and because of friend.  Without a friend, your life’s work is over when you die.  With a friend, your life continues and things continue to get done in your name.