"She would hold him in her hands and sing to him."

There was once a songbird who, when young, had a strong voice and bright plumage but who now was old and feeble with a trembling voice and faded and tattered feathers.  He knew his time on Earth was fast ending so he called his four sons to him, “I was a songbird and I sang beautiful songs; you also shall sing beautiful songs.”

After the old songbird’s funeral, the oldest son spoke to his brothers saying,  “My father was a songbird who grew old singing.  He lost his voice and his plumage and now he is dead.  Why should I loose my voice and my plumage?”  With this he flew to the ground with his back to the cat.  He sang beautifully and loudly and the cat swallowed him whole.

The next brother said, “My brother was a fool but I will do better!  My end is coming sure enough; I will live my life while I have it!”  He flew to the highest branch in the tree and sang loudly and beautifully.  The hens flocked to him and the other songbirds envied him.  He sang all the more and his fame spread though out the neighborhood.  But after a time, he realized that he was not happy.  “I have all that this life could offer and I am not satisfied, will you eat me?” he asked the cat.  “With pleasure!” said the cat, and swallowed him up!

The next brother said, “Both my brothers were fools, for the one did not live and the other lived only for himself but, he was only a songbird so what was that worth?  I will live for the other songbirds!”  He flew to a branch in the middle of the tree to be among the other birds and sang beautiful and sweet songs and he took requests.  The hens all wanted their daughters to mary him, “he sings as sweetly as his brother but his brother was proud and arrogant!”  Soon however, he realized that he was not happy, “I have lived for other songbirds but they are only songbirds and what is that worth? Will you eat me?”  “With pleasure!” said the cat, and gulped him down!

The last brother saw a little girl through a window and he thought she was beautiful.  He thought, “I am a songbird, what can I do for her but sing?”  So, he landed on the windowsill and began to sing.  The little girl thought his song was beautiful and she called in her brothers and sisters to hear him.  The little girl brought seed to the windowsill for the songbird to eat and gave him a name.  When the cat tried to catch him the little girl herself came outside and chased the cat away and she made the dog sit on the porch to guard the songbird.  After a while the little girl became a young lady and she took photographs of the songbird and recorded his songs and would bring her friends to the window to listen to the songbird sing and to admire his beautiful plumage. Soon though, his plumage began to fade and his voice began to get week but the young lady would still come to hear him and bring him seed.  When the songbird was too weak to fly, the young lady brought him inside and would hold him in her hands and she would sing to him and he was happy.

A shirt by Threadless. Look em up!

Liberal and conservative economic models share a common flaw.  For the most part Democrats and Republicans are synonymous with liberals and conservatives but not quite.  The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans take a compromised position on economic policy.  They lean liberal or lean conservative but are unwilling to commit fully.  This is symptomatic of one or more of the following, intellectual laxity, a lack of commitment or belief in the cause, or pandering to voters which in turn shows  a lack of moral character and fortitude.  Socialists and Libertarians tend to be much more consistent in their economic policy views and carry liberal and conservative philosophy much closer to their respective logical conclusions than most members of the two major parties do.  For the sake of this article the terms “liberal” and “conservative” will refer more to the ideals of those philosophies rather than to the mostly inconsistent members of any particular party.

The thing that liberals and conservatives mutually miss or mess up in economic policy is love.  Yes that’s right, love.  I’ll start with the liberals.

Liberals tend to be concerned with the well being of the poor, which is good and loving.  So they begin on the right track but, they forget about love, and so go about it all wrong.  Liberal economic policy in a simplified form is like Robin Hood, take from the rich and give to the poor.  Because the money was not given freely, but rather forced by law, it is not charity. The rich, some of whom are very charitable, resent their money being voted out of their hands and given to the voters.  They feel that the masses have risen up and stolen from them like a pitchfork mob storming the castle.  Because it was not charity (that is, a gift), the poor begin to feel they have a right to it and thus that the rich have stolen from them.  The poor then come to resent the rich.  So liberal economic policy leads to greater mutual class resentment and less love.

Conservative economic policy focuses on what is just.  It is unjust to take a man’s private property so conservatives push for fewer taxes and freer markets.  They count on the market growing when there are fewer restrictions and generally it does.  This they reason, should help the poor in a trickle down effect.  In this model, the poor are an afterthought, not very loving.  The poor resent being an afterthought and the rich assume that the poor are poor because they are either lazy or stupid.  This is not a good way to breed love.

Charity (that is, grace) is the action of love.  Charity and love are two sides of the same coin. Where there is no love, there can be no charity, this is the problem of conservative economics.  Where there is not charity, there can be no love, this is the problem of liberal economics.  So liberals and conservatives take different paths to smothering love as much as possible.  Call me crazy.

Jiminy is the manliest of bugs.

I have written several times before on truth, the lack of it, the abuse of it, and the blatant disregard of it.  USA Today published an article and an opinion piece that should be of interest to any of my fellow lover’s of truth out there.  This is just downright infuriating.  The articles are both on the lack of truth in the political TV ads from the McCain and Obama campaigns.

If you want my concise paraphrase of both articles here it is, “Neither of the United States presidential candidates seems to have scruples about completely  misleading the American people for their own political gain and McCain is the worse of the two.” There you go.

There is so much more I could say on this.  I believe this is the inevitable result manifest, of living in the postmodern era.

The fact checking websites,  FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com were heavily cited in both the article and the opinion.  The chart below helps to demonstate how widespread the problem is.

PolitiFact.com rates candidates’ statements on a six-category scale from “true” to “pants on fire” falsehoods.

Barely true

McCain 22

Obama 14

False

McCain 23

Obama 18

Pants on fire

McCain 6

Obama 1

Source: PolitiFact.com, a joint venture of the St. Petersburg Times and CQ.

This stuff makes me want to pull my hair out and start lighting things on fire!

This is from, Jihad Watch who in turn got it from, Infidel Bloggers Alliance. I never thought of the Fins as the type to back down from a fight. I always had this idea that they were rugged individualists who prided themselves on their independence. Through 700 years of foreign occupation, they were able to maintain their cultural identity and their language. Twice, they refused to back down to the Soviets and once to the Nazis. Yet today, I read that they have bent to the will of the Islamists. I don’t know what kind of rights are recognized by the Finnish government, but I had assumed that they were basic enough to include freedom of speech. I thought that was a given in the Western world. If it was, then it’s not anymore. The Islamists have accomplished what both the Red Army and the SS failed to do.

Finland sentenced blogger, Seppo Lehto to two years and seven months in prison. His crime? Defamation, inciting ethnic hatred, and inciting religious hatred. Lehto posted a video on YouTube in which he draws a pig named Mohamed popping a squat on the Koran. There is little doubt that Lehto is vile and hateful and I am not defending him, but this got him two years and seven months in a country where the maximum sentence for murder is twelve years! It appears clear to me, that Finland is afraid of the Islamists and is slowing surrendering. When will we see burqas and religious police in Helsinki?

Here is a link to the movie, you can watch it if you want to, but it is offensive. However, what he says about Mohamed being a pedophile is true, if you believe having sex with a nine year old is pedophilia. Citation from al-Hadith. I would love to get responses, especially from Fins, most especially from Muslim Fins.

I read the New York Times every day, and on the whole I find it to be a pretty good source of news.  Though the New York Times leans liberal as with most news agencies in the US, I do not buy into the right wing conspiracy theories that the New York Times exists as a propaganda wing of the DNC or anything like that.  However today there was an editorial that was so false and offensive, that I was compelled to respond.  The first thing that is offensive about it is that it was printed as an editorial, this means no one had to attach their name to it.  If you’re going to express your opinion, especially one so controversial, be vertebrate enough to attach your name to it. I have reprinted the article below in its entirety, it is of course copyright, the New York Times, 2008, and you can go to the original article by clicking on the title.  My responses are in italics.

June 7, 2008

Editorial

The Cons of Creationism

When it comes to science, creationists tend to struggle with reality. They believe, after all, that evolution by means of natural selection is false and that Earth is only a few thousand years old. They also believe that students who are taught a creationist view of biology — or who are taught to disregard the Darwinist view — are not being disadvantaged.

This first paragraph serves no purpose except to set up the enemies of the New York Times editorial board in a bad light by associating them with the name, creationist.  The New York Times has stooped the same level as drunk kids, who call the police, the Gestapo.  They are trying to generate negative sympathy by calling names.

The Texas State Board of Education is again considering a science curriculum that teaches the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, setting an example that several other states are likely to follow. This is code for teaching creationism.

Not only is this a lie, but it’s not a very good lie.  Any human who is not in a vegetative state, should be able to distinguish between teaching the strengths and weaknesses of one theory from teaching a totally different theory.  The New York Times has effectively said that, “teaching the advantages and disadvantages of freestyle swimming is the same thing as teaching the backstroke.” 

Any theory that is to be taught should be taught in its strengths and its weaknesses, to do otherwise would be to teach dogma, not science.  Education should be about teaching children how to think.  The New York Times seems to believe education is about teaching children to regurgitate facts given them by their betters.  In the pursuit of truth, all facts should be allowed to come to light.  If the New York Times is so confident in the theory of evolution than they certainly have nothing to fear from teaching its weaknesses.

It has the advantage of sounding more balanced than teaching “intelligent design,” which the courts have consistently banned from science classrooms. It has the disadvantage of being nonsense.

Because there cannot possibly be weakness in dogma.

The chairman of the Texas board, a dentist named Don McLeroy, advocates the “strengths and weaknesses” approach, as does a near majority of the board. The system accommodates what Dr. McLeroy calls two systems of science, creationist and “naturalist.”

The trouble is, a creationist system of science is not science at all. It is faith. All science is “naturalist” to the extent that it tries to understand the laws of nature and the character of the universe on their own terms, without reference to a divine creator. Every student who hopes to understand the scientific reality of life will sooner or later need to accept the elegant truth of evolution as it has itself evolved since it was first postulated by Darwin. If the creationist view prevails in Texas, students interested in learning how science really works and what scientists really understand about life will first have to overcome the handicap of their own education.

With this first statement, I completely agree.  The Genesis story is a story that must be taken on faith.  However, the New York Times is once again resorted to equating Darwinism’s weaknesses with creationism.  There is no reason whatsoever to reference any divine creator, when speaking of the weaknesses of a scientific theory. 

If evolution has evolved since the time of Darwin, then it must necessarily have had weaknesses.  If it had no weakness then it could not have evolved. 

Students will certainly be handicapped by not having the approved dogma drilled into their skulls.  After all, they are only deltas.  They are not capable of examining evidence without  the guidance of someone superior to themselves.  Instead, they will have a scientific theory that as the New York Times rightly points out is evolving, taught to them in its strengths and weaknesses.  Who knows what this could do to a Delta’s mind?  It is obviously in their own best interest of a shield them from this.

Scientists are always probing the strengths and weakness of their hypotheses. That is the very nature of the enterprise. But evolution is no longer a hypothesis. It is a theory rigorously supported by abundant evidence. The weaknesses that creationists hope to teach as a way of refuting evolution are themselves antiquated, long since filed away as solved. The religious faith underlying creationism has a place, in church and social studies courses. Science belongs in science classrooms.

Ahhh, I get it now.  Evolution is exempt from examination.

If the weaknesses are antiquated and long since solved, then teach that.  It is not too difficult to do, “this is a purported weakness, and this is how it has been purported to be solved.”

This last sentence is the most offensive of the entire article.  The condescension and patronization is blatant and disgusting.  They believe that people of faith are too stupid to see that this is mockery in the clothing of a concession.  The New York Times has spent several paragraphs, demonstrating that they believe creationism to be a fantasy.  Then they have the gall to elaborate on where it should be taught!  No I’m sorry, it is never appropriate to teach fantasies as realities.

The origins debate rarely rises above the level of a playground brawl on either side, and that is a shame.  However, the New York Times has brought it to a new low.  In the past people such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris have argued that religious faith was nothing more than fantasy, but they had the decency to state the obvious, that fantasy should not be taught anywhere.  They also had the decency to write their names on the front of their books.
                                                                                                                                     J. W. Kraft

ABC’s hit sci-fi mystery series LOST, has many characters who are named after famous philosophers and intellectuals of the past. There has been a lot of speculation about the meaning of the characters names and their relationships to their namesakes. I admit that I have done a good deal of speculation on this topic myself. This has also led to a great deal of interest in philosophies and philosophers who most people have never heard of. Always one to cash in on an opportunity to educate and talk philosophy, this has inspired me to write a series of articles on the philosophers of lost.

Because Jeremy Bentham is the newest philosopher to make an appearance on the show, I’ve decided to start with him. After Bentham, I plan to do. John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, CS Lewis, Michael Faraday, David Hume, and Edmund Burke. There have been a few other noted intellectuals whose names have made appearances in LOST but these are the primary ones. If your favorite lost illuminati did not make the list, leave me a comment and subscribe to the feed. I will try to include an article about them also.

In the last episode of LOST this season, we learn that the character, Locke (named for another philosopher whom I will be featuring next) has been going by the name of Jeremy Bentham. We also learn that he is dead, but that’s of little importance to this exercise. So who is, or rather was this Jeremy Bentham? Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher born in 1748, he died in 1832. Bentham was one of the true geniuses of history, he studied Latin at age 8 (according to some it was age 3). He entered college at a very early age, eventually becoming a lawyer, though he practiced law little if any at all during his life. Bentham was a wide thinker and was influential in many fields.

Bentham was well-known in his own day and had the ear of many world leaders. He proposed constitutions for countries across the globe. None of his constitutions were accepted, to my knowledge at least. He also levied unsuccessfully to have the colonial powers give up their colonies. In short, he was a major thorn in the side of Kings everywhere.

He was one of the first people to champion animal rights. Bentham argued that people had a moral responsibility to animals because animals have the ability to suffer. This is in contrast to many people, who argue that there is no moral responsibility to animals because they lack the ability to reason.

Bentham is credited as being the first person in the English world to argue that homosexuality should not be a criminal offense. He believed, and argued strongly that homosexual acts are immoral and detrimental to those who practice them. However, he did not believe that the government should be prosecuting homosexuals. In Bentham’s time, homosexuals were often executed so, his views were considered extremely radical. They were so radical, in fact, that they were not published until after his death.

Bentham was also one of the first to argue that education should be open to people of all classes, races, and religious persuasion. At this time, you had to be a member of the Church of England to be excepted to Oxford or Cambridge. Also, tuition was so high that only the upper class could afford to go. Bentham’s views on education, indirectly led to the founding of University College London.

All this is impressive enough, but what the history books remember Bentham for is his work in ethics. Bentham espoused an ethical theory known as utilitarianism. Utilitarianism belongs to a family of ethical theories known as consequentialist. This is because under utilitarianism, what makes an action morally right or wrong are the consequences of that action. Utilitarianism is also a form of hedonism, because the consequences of an action are judged by how much happiness they produce. Jeremy Bentham did not come up with a theory of utilitarianism, consequentialism, or hedonism; all of these go back to ancient Greek times. What Bentham did was move utilitarianism into the mainstream.

There are many forms of utilitarianism but, what they all share is the idea that an action is to be judged morally right if it produces more pleasure than pain (Bentham added, for more people). If it produces more pain than pleasure overall, than it is morally wrong. There are several problems with this, but one of the largest is how to measure pleasure and pain. Bentham believed they could in fact be measured.

Some people argue that pleasures can vary in their quality. For example, many people would say that the pleasure of going to a ballet is a higher-quality than the pleasure of smoking a cigarette, even if they can be said to be of the same quantity. Bentham rejected this. For him, the quality of a pleasure was of no consequence and probably did not exist at all. However, the quantity of pleasure and pain was of the utmost importance. Bentham invented the Hedonistic Calculus a.k.a. the Calculus of Felicity. using the Calculus of Felicity, Bentham rated the pleasure and pain of actions on a seven point sliding scale. He rated pleasure and pain on intensity, duration, certainty, proximity, fecundity, purity, and extent. I’ll save you the details of what all that means. Suffice it to say that, Bentham believed that his calculus of Felicity would eventually become second nature to most people. He expected people to be able to intuitively calculate the exact amount of pleasure and pain that their actions would produce.

One major criticism of utilitarianism as Bentham proposed it, is that in theory, an individual or a small minority could be subjected to persecution of some sort and if this would in some way bring more pleasure to the masses, it would be deemed morally good. Ursula K. Le Guin drove this point home in her short story, “Those Who Walked Away from Omelas.” Omelas is a utopian city, but it has a dark side. The utopian bliss is maintained at the expense of a child who has to be tortured in a dark cell. No explanation is given as to how this works, that’s not the point.

It is probably not fair to say that Bentham would have supported such a system, he is known to have supported the rule of law, and one can assume that he expected laws to prevent things that society as a whole took offense to, such as rape and torture. However, it is interesting to note that this is very similar to the way LOST’s Jeremy Bentham (a.k.a. John Locke) arranged for his father to be killed for the good of the Others. We also know that for some reason he dies, is it possible that he kills himself or allows himself to be killed for some utilitarian good?

Perhaps Bentham’s greatest influence came through the work of his pupil, John Stuart Mill. JS Mill was another super genius English philosopher and utilitarian. Though, Mill’s utilitarianism would go in a very different direction than Bentham’s. He was the son of Bentham’s good friend James Mill, and early in his life Bentham and Senior Mill recognized his potential and began an intensive education. John Stuart Mill was studying Greek at age 3!

On a final note, before he died, Jeremy Bentham arranged for the construction of what he called his auto icon. The auto icon is a wooden cabinet with a glass front. Bentham arranged for his body to be embalmed and placed in the auto icon, upright sitting in a chair. Today, Jeremy Bentham, in his auto icon sits on the board of University College London, and can be seen by visitors. How
‘s that for weird?

Stay tuned, John Locke is next.

Now is the time when people the world over reflect on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and a story on CNN caught my attention this morning.  Plans are under way to construct a massive memorial to Dr. King in Washington D.C.  The apex is to be a very large granit statue of MLK himself.  A black sculpture who has done many statues of MLK, was contacted for the project but he only works in bronze and so the commitee decided against him.  The commitee decided on a Chinese sculptor (who works in granite) for the project and this has caused quite a controversy.  Many Americans and blacks especially, have been upset by this.  This set me to thinking, are we judging men by the content of their character or by the color of their skin? 

I am generally a moral absolutist.  I believe that there is a right and wrong path to take on moral issues.  However I also believe that decisions must made completly on a case by case basis.  I believe that in the exact situation, defined by the exact parameters X, there is a right and a wrong.  X parameters will never exist again, so you cannot use X as an exact precedent for any future situations.  X can at best be an imperfect analogy to learn from. 

An interesting facet of this is that, two very similar situations in two different times or locations could have opposite correct answers.  This starts to sound allot like relativism but it is not.  I will use an example that most of us are familiar with, getting a job. 

1. You submit your CV to Mr. Z, HR manager for the company you want to work for.

2.  You make a follow up call to make sure Z got your CV, and he did.

3.  You hear nothing from Z.

4.  To get a job you will need to be persistent.

5. Calling again would mean that you believe that (A) Z is incompetent or that (B) he has rejected you and you don’t care.
           (A) is insulting
           (B) is dehumanizing

6.  There is a moral imperative to support yourself and your family.  Unless you have deep pockets or some other means of making a living that, means you need a job. 

In this case, I believe that (6) trumps (5) and you should be persistent.  However in a more Utopian world, where people have progressed mentally and ethically, there would be no (4) and so you should notcall again.  This is because the man on the street and Mr. Z alike, would both be aware of how rude it is to call someone after they have dealt you a de facto rejection.  We do not live in this world and so Mr. Z actually expects you to follow up several times if you really want the job. 

So in a more perfect world there are more exacting standards of right and wrong.  I do believe that society (or humanity) can progress to higher level, where the higher standards would apply.  I also believe that we can regress, and have been doing allot more of that lately.

So I believe there is an absolute right and wrong relative to the exact parameters of the situation.  If there were no absolutes, it would be an amoral world.  If there were absolutes irregardless of the parameters, legalism would determine right and wrong.  This is one reason why Christianity is the only major world religion that is plausibly right.  In Christianity there are absolutes but there is not legalism.  This is because Christianity is a relationship, Christians are to seek council from God on issues, rather than citing case law.

*I know Uniquanatismis not a word.  I also know that it does not mean anything.  The point is that there are absolutes and every situation is absolutely unique.