Amnesiac America
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
What Are We Forgeting and What Do We See Via Media NOW
I don't remember how much gas I pumped in Aunt B's Chevy but I do know it only cost $35.00 to fill'er up. What are we forgetting and what is happening according to our media now? Gas is only about $1.77 per gallon where I live. (follow the analogy with me for a moment.) I know that and I know that I am only putting in as much gas as I can whenever I can to be sure I take advantage of the low price per gallon not seen since around 2006 or 7. We can't go back to the 50's when it was .15cents a gallon. Things are nothing like they were back then. But some things haven't changed at all. It is still best to spend wisely, Invest conservatively and thoughtfully. The media still puts out the message (and tampers with what we think should be important). We should try to manage our own house before we start advising and compelling others to think the way we do and do as we do. The unknown is still unknown. Not that we can't know more if we try to research and investigate. Schools still teach us how to learn rather than what we need learn according to a syllabus written by a disinterested bureaucrat removed from our kith, kin and starting point, we hope And although we shouldn't exclude any groups, we should neither push so violently against another's right to think and say whatever one would about those groups or for that matter any topic that anyone could think to put forward, no matter how complex or how simple, that one is able communicate. In this country, however, there are many who think their cause is of such incredible weight and need of concentrated effort that they will cast aside any other potentially clear headed approach other than the course they have constructed albeit with great diligence and sincerity. Thus they work too hard to wrest the reigns of power from all comers even if it means a complete abandonment of the principles that allowed them to have enough space to work in coming to their epiphany. Some of us are out their to seize the moment for themselves and many would do the seizing with balance and consideration and do as much good as they possibly can. We must remember that it is a rare breed who can do this in such a creative and novel way as to be what is the true mark of a revolutionary. Many however grasp with great ferocity but little ingenuity. Bringing nothing truly visionary they follow the paths already blazed using the apparatus of tradition reading from a script written before without the insight to see that they bring no new tool to a task before them because the world into which they were born had such bleak featureless and weak underpinnings that it could rarely foster someone who can see outside of the box. Just because we do not act in a violent manner does not mean that our behavior is not capable of achieving the complete shut down of another's right to have venue for their speech. At one time our free speech was easily noted as the right to say or publish what we wished as long as what we said did not infringe on the liberty of another's or likely, due to customs, family and cultural seclusion cause a person to be more than offended, but unhinged because of humiliation, extreme embarrassment, or given so little respect as a human being deserves they lose their innate capacity to defend themselves and their interests as well. These values are not difficult to understand but our idea of values has become a thing that hardly fit even the simplest of definitions. Unfortunately, I am guessing because of the emphasis on exclusively liberal ideology and freedoms to the point of derangement many have come to believe that values are only cultural, something only for the closed minded and worth having if they are only ideals that we move around in some ethereal before there was any need -for- values-land. Values still count. Why? Because as human beings whether we like it or not we are finite and none of us has a monopoly on knowledge or its use, and further we are moody, emotional at times, rational and logical at others. One of the most important things about us is that we can work together as groups. We can bring together forces of intelligent strategic and ever growing capacity, generative function, such as to convert ourselves into tools. For example, government apparatuses are made of people who follow specific roles. Combining these components allow the generation of civic institutions or branches of government. As we continue as a "short lived"species (homo sapiens sapiens has existed as a species for no more than 200,000 perhaps140,000 years). This is but a minuscule segment in the churning biological fervent that is earth. This flora and fauna is constantly manipulating and re-assorting its genetic plastic. We are by far the most intelligent, most violent, curious,verbal and self aware entity that has yet to appear on the face of the globe. We are capable of incredible self extension mechanistically and emotively. We are compassionate, but vindictive and blame casting. We hold great promise as well as potential for DEVALUING who and what we are. We deserve better than casting our prospective presidents as cliches. Those same candidates should care enough to speak beyond politics and find new speech that we can see ourselves becoming. Simple categorization is an insult to thought, to values and casting people who might hold the greatest office in the world as we know it as buzzwords like bigots, racists or liars is lazy living and if we don't get our brains out of the T.V. we will get one of those as president. Hold them to higher standards and just about anyone of them if we really value them can be a great president. Crazier things have happened.
Friday, March 18, 2016
Trump, Sanders, a new but Historical Perspective.
Our rage has finally been tapped. The American people have finally had it with the political inaction, and therefore we all will pay the consequences when election time arrives. To give an example that many have not been perceptive enough for or given themselves time for it to filter through all of the noise; the democratic party although more certainty distinct this time from the platforms of the republican candidates they suffer from the same wildly different platforms even within their on party, just as do the republicans. Why is this so? Because all Americans republican and democrat alike are feed up with the status quo. It is tantamount to the Isrealites begging god for a king. The frustration is so intense that we had rather have a dictator or a communist for a leader than have what we have now. In less exaggerated terms we had rather have a Trump or a Sanders than a Clinton or a Cruz. Again why? The two things that these two different new comers to have in common is that for the right, Trump, like his name, gives obvious overtones of power to rattle loose the gridlock and demand the "right" (think hard working meritocratic and wanting their values to be enshrined so that when they have a good hand, and they can, like Trump, "trump" and win the jackpot) accountability for what they see as a betrayal of their government to fight for them and their needs rather than those of the rich, the "not American" (think outside our borders and the threats perceived coming through them). On the Democratic side we have a far left candidate who wants to sweep away a tax code that Americans see as full of holes whereby lawyers for the rich can sit and analyze ways to subvert and maneuver ways to get by even the most clear cut standards for paying tax, and take full advantage of the subtleties in the language cleverly constructed by their Washington buddies (Think Exxon a few years ago) all the while the little man finds fewer and fewer paths to social mobility and ultimately a decent standard of living. He will get them free education post secondary school and free healthcare for all and "for all a good night"! (Think Santa Clause). Maybe they can't produce these results but hey anything but the status quo! Yes Sanders is a senator but he like Trump gives an air of running roughshod over the power structure in place. Think of Theodore Roosevelt who Left the Grand Ole Party (GOP) to found, the progressives (The Bull Moose) after his dissatisfaction with Taft and Republicans. He was a "trust buster" (Think ghost-buster who will assuage our fear of having that ghost of corrupted power). This plan backfired a situation I would hope would be avoided in the future. We formed this nation with that very idea in mind. And yes it was revolutionary and was created especially to check any abuse of power should it rear its ugly head. And ultimately that is what Americans are demanding to check the abuses of the wealthy and those corrupted by the power of their positions as a politician, The job of a politician, such as it is, has become, if you can get there, a very cushy, plush place where everyone wants to buy you lunch and whisper words of power to power. So here is where we are ladies and gentlemen. So vote carefully. I am certain more us will,.... than in a long long time.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Need to start posting: Times they are a changin'
I am 54 years of age and I can not remember presidential race as unusual and filled with emotive content. The voters are begging for something, if not demanding it. Maybe its the anger over what America seems incapable of addressing much less fixing. To start much of the electorate like it or not is the product of our media as much as it chooses the media that says what it wants to hear. You media outlets big and small, in what ever ratio the above denotes, in what ever combination, have with virtually no fresh commentary about the how or why and if an answer exists for the the above mentioned crisis are as guilty as any for bringing us to this point. The media bares its share of blame in bringing us to a breaking point, as it were, forming the stark realization that what we once had and were, is no longer true. We have awakened from a nightmare only to realize we already live in one. In a society that has been demanding greater and greater safety in exchange for freedoms, Here we sit locked in a very roomy but no safer nation. Our power truncated in measure with much of the liberty we have traded in on a promise of a life secure from external and internal threats all the while drugs of every kind and those that are illegal are redesigned expanding the range of intoxicants or entheogens if you may. There is strife being wrought among many category headings above long lists of grievances most of them valid. Unfortunately the level of education that involve the areas of any you pick are woefully inadequate. This is not solely a condemnation of our educational system. ( It angers us too) We have ourselves to blame for allowing a vast federal government that is bloated beyond comprehension to squander our money, money for the most part we still owe (a pile of dollars when put in numbers the string of zeros alone is so staggering as to beggar belief). And we do not know how to fix it. This lack of knowledge is partly the fault of our elected leaders who offer us no explanation of what is going on in Washington. Or since it is unlikely any of us have time for investigative research ( many of us having 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. in a job market where minimum wages have fallen so far behind inflation parity that many weren't born when it lost its con-currency). Let us first address the issue of knowledge of what our role government plays in our lives. It touches on almost all aspects of the way we live travel raise our children pay taxes what kind of health care we have, Our rights as business owners, what intoxicants we may consume ( where and how ) our management of personal information, how we dispose of our wastes. How education is regulated. It also via the media promotes the tone and tenor of how we can and cannot treat each other in terms of race sex creed. How to manage external threats to our way of life and which threats we are to be most concerned with. Many more. The list is endless as the level of spending on programs that supposedly provide services so inefficiently that they tax our time and provide us no value. Judicial methods and practice are straight jacketed such that judges have minimal methods of despencing justice. Law inforcement in a time where crime is statistically less than at any time since the 1960's is built and funded in large part by its focus of drug laws that allow it to seize property to fund itself. This in a supposedly a free capitalistic country yet we have more of our populous inprisoned (per capita) than any county on earth There presence is unprecedented and or media has lead us to believe that they should be called to mediate the tiniest of disputes where we no longer believe we can manage our personal methods of resolving them and thereby give up our own capacity learn how to treat one another when we disagree or function as a private family units. These areas I have described are only crust of unending losses in personal liberties we have been duped into believing can be better administrated by a government that has so little forsight in managing foreign affairs that is chases false enemies, believes it can police the planet and has managed trade like a naive kindergartner who almost every day gets bullied into giving up his lunch. We feel hopless frustrated and angry because we have been betrayed. Our leaders pander to the rich and powerful special interest. Bloated appropriation bills that contain hundreds of little favors to big business. the pharmaceutical lobby and endless supply of lollypops to unknown entities that fund their campaign funds to maintain their continued congressional reelection; puppets to those hidden powers that leverage the public interest against the bottom 99 percent of tax paying citizens whose hollow promises that are almost always betrayed likely because the same bunch that developed trade agreements that have castrated us as a country from competing globally where the same group that counted those lolly pops and due either to their indesiciveness or blatant stupidity or even worse their callous disregard for the American people some how there were no lollypops left for the greatest majority of its citizens. If the above weren't enough to inflame our fury then I can elaborate on that above issue of our inability to understand what is happening to us. Should the Educational system be blamed? In part yes. But slowly we have come to see that the only time anybody has given us the courtesy of discussing anything the government is up to is at election time or after a momentous bill is past. . POST.
POST DUE TO NETWORK ISSUES THAT REQUIRE ATTENTION BY ME NOW WILL CONTINUE BY FEB.23
POST DUE TO NETWORK ISSUES THAT REQUIRE ATTENTION BY ME NOW WILL CONTINUE BY FEB.23
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Go here to find full listing of my blogs. some are of spurious and over spontaneous thought. But I have left them as they are.
https://www.blogger.com/profile/01011719426074300898 https://www.blogger.com/profile/01011719426074300898
Friday, December 12, 2014
Updating my own amnesiac state and pushing to reform my own knowledge has resulted in changes: To whit I will illucidate
I have left this blog in sort of disarray and hope to correct that. I have been lately in a state of depression and this has left deficits, and I am in the process of mental renovation. Here are a few topics that have attracted my interest.
In the world of academia and its processes that have resulted in a tradition that is fixed. Dispute and controversy go through channels. Scientific progress and the review of methodologies has its detractors and its defects that have been noted by some objective observers. Thomas S. Kuhn in his introduction of the very familiar (to many book), "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Said "History , if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. [The aim of text written by those in their time is persuasive and pedagogic ] a concept drawn from them is more likely to fit the enterprise that produced them than the image of a national culture drawn from a tourist brochure or a language text." (paraphrase here) 'The result has been an image of science with profound implications about its nature and development where in upon overturning some long accepted iconography often beggars belief in the mind of many how the previously accepted facts stood firmly as virtual fact in the face of the new paradigm.' To many, today it seems almost inconceivable that many of the theories, some relatively new, some now so long standing and well supported that it appears impossible that they could fall, ( for example darwinian natural selection ). But do not forget that newtonian mechanics held sway for 250 years until a man named Albert Einstein upset the apple cart. I concede that newton's prinkipia matematica still holds for much of the smaller range theater ( for example the forces played out in a football game need little refinement from general and special relativity.) But quantum mechanics was difficult for Einstein to accept. But egos grow large...(imagine 5 revolutionary papers in one year) 1. the photo-electric effect (noble prize) 2. Brownian motion and proof of the existence of atoms. 3. General Relativity. 4. Special Relativity. 5. Mass energy equivalence that included the E = m(c squared). So the pace of science and its acceptance is personal. That is, it has personal effects and responses. Also the scientific method has certain tenants that are considered a prerequisite for scientific research and progress to take place.
What is phenomenal is that application of the last 50 to 75 years of science has lead to an avalanche of dazzle among the public without a commiserate evaluation of the what best applications in a post 80's (no growth for middle to lower income persons) would have been best for investment if anyone had been analyzing the cornucopia of novel discoveries that should have delivered an at least notable improvement in living standards universally as well as taxable income if not for those on the lower rungs if we accept that the wealth went to to 20% peoples. (Why hasn't the deficit been eroded significantly during the period say 92- 2006?)
Lets add the fact that it takes no presupposition "personal dazzle in the form of incredulity" to reach such a conclusion ( by that I mean personal incredulity being subjective) economics 101 should bare this out.
We can see that also there was no palpable outrage at the obvious gain by the wealthy through their betting against a market that they obviously set up to fail and that this clear no brainer was made unnecessarily complex by the media as well as the congressional hearings. Ok maybe I have covered a little too much in this post. But there is more to say that does not fall in the category conspiracy theory. It is just corruption plain and clear. There are more, many more, topics to cover that question where, we as a nation, are being lead, and why no one seems to notice.
In the world of academia and its processes that have resulted in a tradition that is fixed. Dispute and controversy go through channels. Scientific progress and the review of methodologies has its detractors and its defects that have been noted by some objective observers. Thomas S. Kuhn in his introduction of the very familiar (to many book), "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" Said "History , if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. [The aim of text written by those in their time is persuasive and pedagogic ] a concept drawn from them is more likely to fit the enterprise that produced them than the image of a national culture drawn from a tourist brochure or a language text." (paraphrase here) 'The result has been an image of science with profound implications about its nature and development where in upon overturning some long accepted iconography often beggars belief in the mind of many how the previously accepted facts stood firmly as virtual fact in the face of the new paradigm.' To many, today it seems almost inconceivable that many of the theories, some relatively new, some now so long standing and well supported that it appears impossible that they could fall, ( for example darwinian natural selection ). But do not forget that newtonian mechanics held sway for 250 years until a man named Albert Einstein upset the apple cart. I concede that newton's prinkipia matematica still holds for much of the smaller range theater ( for example the forces played out in a football game need little refinement from general and special relativity.) But quantum mechanics was difficult for Einstein to accept. But egos grow large...(imagine 5 revolutionary papers in one year) 1. the photo-electric effect (noble prize) 2. Brownian motion and proof of the existence of atoms. 3. General Relativity. 4. Special Relativity. 5. Mass energy equivalence that included the E = m(c squared). So the pace of science and its acceptance is personal. That is, it has personal effects and responses. Also the scientific method has certain tenants that are considered a prerequisite for scientific research and progress to take place.
What is phenomenal is that application of the last 50 to 75 years of science has lead to an avalanche of dazzle among the public without a commiserate evaluation of the what best applications in a post 80's (no growth for middle to lower income persons) would have been best for investment if anyone had been analyzing the cornucopia of novel discoveries that should have delivered an at least notable improvement in living standards universally as well as taxable income if not for those on the lower rungs if we accept that the wealth went to to 20% peoples. (Why hasn't the deficit been eroded significantly during the period say 92- 2006?)
Lets add the fact that it takes no presupposition "personal dazzle in the form of incredulity" to reach such a conclusion ( by that I mean personal incredulity being subjective) economics 101 should bare this out.
We can see that also there was no palpable outrage at the obvious gain by the wealthy through their betting against a market that they obviously set up to fail and that this clear no brainer was made unnecessarily complex by the media as well as the congressional hearings. Ok maybe I have covered a little too much in this post. But there is more to say that does not fall in the category conspiracy theory. It is just corruption plain and clear. There are more, many more, topics to cover that question where, we as a nation, are being lead, and why no one seems to notice.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Our public schools, our curricula, and even our home-life (via generational exposure to the proto-curricula of the of the same sort of which I will explicate following) degenerates and has degenerated our capacity to remember. I taught middle school and high school Spanish and French beginning in 1985 through 1992. Significantly, I began to observe these deficits and subsequently I began to use my own form of curriculum unimpeded (due to an unusual freedom because of a principal who was very pro teacher, defending the good as well as the bad in some cases.) Almost immediately I began to see a prominent correlation between dramatic and novel presentations of new material and memory. For example I would try all sorts strange connections to other disciplines like biology history mathematics, and alphabetical comparisons to Greek Russian and Arabic. I started teaching entirely in Spanish and French after the first week i.e. before I was familiar with the names of the students, I spoke only in the language I was teaching.
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