Update on "The Vile, Sinister, and Most Utterly Diabolical Account of Latrina Emerson"

Well, someone besides me bought a copy so I'm taking that as a good sign.  Plus, it's the Christmas season, everyone is busy, and I suppose I'll have to be patient.  Right now, I've been trying to come up with way to promote myself via the Internet and my brain is so fried from trying to come up with clever and/or amusing thing to say to convince people to buy my novel; that I am now unable to recall my name, address, and closest friends and relatives.  I do, however, have this pretty button from Lulu.com.  I have been assured that it won't bite if you click on it gently enough.

Introducing: The Vile, Sinister, and Most Utterly Diabolical Account of Latrina Emerson

Okay, here it is.

The Vile, Sinister, and Most Utterly Diabolical Account of Latrina Emerson

Volume 1 of a tale I put a large chunk of my life into. 

SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED A HELPING HAND

All right, so my blog haven't been up to snuff lately.  Much of my creative energy has been devoted to working out some kind of campaign promotion for my novel.  This morning over at Jonathan Medina's blog, however, I turned what was supposed to have been a simple comment into one of my usual bouts of prattling.  Those of you prefer me when I'm all long-winded should follow this link or paste this URL.

http://sprsncyth.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/sex-addiction-pornography-and-the-modern-man/#comments

And while you're there, show Mr. Medina some love too by checking out his other blogs as well.

UPDATE

Okay, there's a glitch with the link but here's how to get past it.  When you that "404 Page not found message", click on the banner "Supersonic Youth" and it will take you to Jonathan's blog.  Go to the blog titled "Sex Addiction, Pornography, and the Modern Man", read the blog, and then find my comment which should be the eleventh one down.

 

MEDITATIVE STATES

This is based on a blog I previously posted on MySpace Feb 23, 2009.  This form is slightly different as I've been able to get around some technical issues that plagued the original.   The result is something a little closer to my original intent.  I also did a little more research on the history of the Alaskan Flag design since I first posted it and edited a change in the first paragraph.

Some time ago, I was watching this show on the History Channel about the 50 states.  Some of the things I found interesting were some of the state flags.  Instead of just slapping the state seal on a plain background and letting it go at that, some designers decided to make things a little interesting to say the least.
First off, there's Sarah Palin's old stomping grounds ....Alaska.....  In 1927, then 13-year old Benny Benson won the contest to determine the design of the state flag.  Personally, I give kudos for the minimalist effect. 



Then there's New Mexico, a state to which I've been briefly, of which I've always enjoyed the scenery.  Even if I never move there permanently, I think I'd like to have this flag around when I'm trying to relax.



Now the above two states have a lot of open space, the kind of thing that sort of gets me in a meditative mood anyway.  So in my mind their flags are sort of appropriate.  The state whose flag surprised me and has become my favorite, though, was that of ....Maryland.....



And my first reaction was..."Dude."
I thought something was wrong with the television, so I went and looked it up.



Nope, that's actually the state flag.  DUDE. 

Now, the New Mexico flag I'd probably save for meditation but if I ever try acid I have GOT to go with the one for the (appropriately enough) Free State hanging on the walls of my "mellow out" room.  Yes.
Seriously, though, the flag is based on British heraldy which in of itself distinguishes it from the other 49.  Now I'm not much up on British heraldy and I can respect the history, but...



Oh, Duuuuuuude, the colors.  THE COLORS!
Okay, sorry, I need to stop that.

This blog is dedicated to my old friend "R", a Baltimore native and fellow Obie at the time I attended Oberlin College.  Wherever you are now, R, I wish you more happiness than is neurologically possible for me to imagine.

  

DEBRE DAMO

Previously posted on MySpace April 2, 2008

 

As I was doing research for a novel, I ran across a reference to a 6th Century monastery atop Debre Damo in Northern Ethiopia. Debre Damo is a flat-topped mountain called an amba.

It’s a four hour drive from Axum until you get to a place where the road stops.  From there, you’d have to hike up a hill for around two hours.  And, finally the only way you can reach the monastery is via a 25-meter climb up a sheer cliff.  In short, you better be pretty serious about visiting this place.

Drawing some of the heartier tourists, scholars, and believers, the monastery at Debre Damo is built around Ethiopia’s oldest church with its intricate carvings on the beams and ceiling. The monastery is also known for its collections of ancient manuscripts and paintings. Now, a lot of this info can be gleaned from the Wikipedia entry, so I’ll just stop blathering for now and let the pictures speak for awhile.



In addition to Wikipedia, I also derived my information from this Naty Tours description and from Dinknesh Tours.

Maybe I’ll get there myself one day.  I just thought one or two people might be interested.

THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WAR

There's really not much I can say about the Shirley Sherrod situation that hasn't already been said or couldn't be predicted from what I've written in earlier blogs.  So anything I'm saying here amounts to little more than a typing exercise.

If tolerating race-baiting idiots in the ranks of the Tea Party weren't enough, Biggovernment.com (not FOX news, by the way) flushes more credibility down the toilet by editing that video of Sherrod's speech to leave out any parts that undermined their point.  One would think that an organization with ".com" in its name would remember that there's this thing called "the Internet" and that people would actually use it to do a little research and FIND THE UNEDITED VERSION OF THAT VIDEO.  Yeah, some people jumped to conclusion without checking all the facts, but not everyone is that gullible.  Allowing for the stupidity of some people in your strategy can sometimes be a good idea; counting on everyone to be stupid doesn't seem to me to make much tactical sense.

Speaking of idiots jumping to conclusions, the Government and the NAACP shouldn't get off the hook too easily either.  Their whines about being misled impress me not one bit.  Again, the relevant people involved in these groups should have followed the leads of some of more ethical people and done a little more damn research before rushing to cover their political asses.  I couldn't blame Sherrod for being ambivalent about getting her job back.

Most annoying of all to me are people who continue to ignore all the inconvenient details of this story and bash the "other" side while playing down or completely ignoring how much "their" side screwed up as well.  Apparently, Sherrod was one of the few people who had stopped to take a look at her own worldview and same something akin to "Oh, my ideas are the ones that need fixing here."  Alas, that seems to be the main thing too many people are intent on not hearing.

SOME THOUGHTS ON ALBERT HOFFMAN (1906-2008)

Previously posted on MySpace April 30, 2008

Yesterday, I found out from Disinformation that Albert Hoffman, first to synthesize lysergic acid diethalymide (a. k. a. LSD) had passed.

Now, I'm not saying we should all drop a tab of LSD in memoriam (but I'm not about to shrilly rant AGAINST doing so either). Everybody's body different and what substances you put (or refrain from putting) into it should general be up to the individual. I've never tried LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and anything really psychotropic. But if I were going to take someone else's advice about such things, I'd be a little more confident in someone knowledgeable of pharmacuticals than I would be of someone's who's training was in politics or law enforcement. (Nothing against police in this particular statement, folks, but come on: if someone stole your car, would your first choice to go after the culprit be your doctor or pharmacist?)

But I'm straying from the subject here, which is that a major part of the foundation of what we think of as the counterculture (whether he really intended to be or not) has moved on. Psychedelic art may not be your thing, but I think it beats crack and meth's contributions to our culture hands down.

According to everything I've read about him, he dropped acid at least once a year and lived to be 102. It makes me think that Timothy Leary was right when he said "Just say KNOW." Maybe Dr. Hoffman knew something the DEA would prefer the rest of us didn't.

Fare thee well on your next great trip, Dr. Hoffman. And thank you.

ANOTHER REASON CHILDHOOD WAS OFTEN THE PITS

Apparently, you just can't win for losing.  Back when people were just starting to worry about the hole in the ozone layer, there was this big push to wean everybody off chlorofluorocarbons, or CFC's.  The stuff was commonly used for coolants and propellants, which probably explains a ritual I sometimes dreaded when I was a kid (you know, back in the day when pointless torture of youth was looked upon as the Universe's way of building character). 
I speak of the ritual of the dreaded deodorant spray, which we applied somewhat faithfully because my peers and I were all just hitting puberty and had enough whiffs of those who skimped a little too much on the Right Guard [1].
However, this was back in the day when pointless torture of youth was looked upon as a legitimate way of building character.  Just what kind of twisted character you were supposed to become as a result of this was something the adults of the time didn't seem interested in being clear on.
The torture I speak of came in the practical application of the product.  I had always wondered why even though we kept the cans at room temperature, it always felt as we had been blasting Freon into our armpits.  It turns out we might have been doing that literally for all we knew at the time.
So when we started hearing all the horror stories about how our spray can were turning the ozone layer to Swiss cheese, I had no problem switching to roll-ons and creams.
Then this morning, I came across this article.Sometimes, you just can't win for losing, huh?  Oh well, I'm still not going back to spray deodorants, but does this mean I can go back to using cheese spray?

[1] The horrors of Brut constituted a problem from the other end of this olfactory spectrum.  Unlike other manufacture scents that tried to trick you into thinking they were natural, this cloying stuff fooled no one.  The stuff made you smelled like air freshener sprayed inside a chemistry lab.  To be fair, this problem was probably due to its overuse; but in my mind nothing more says to your potential date "not only broke but tacky and delusional about my chances of getting laid" quite like something out of one of those Brut gift packs my peers and I always ended up getting each other for Christmas because the stores were closing up on the 24th and we were all out of ideas again.

From Mad Magazine to Oberlin College to Robert Anton Wilson

(Previously posted on MySpace May 20, 2008. I don't know about you, but it's one of my personal favorites.)

Some time ago †Ra's Al Ghul† asked me about how Robert Anton Wilson affected my life and thought. I'd never gotten around to answering it, so here's my first attempt at doing so.

First, an aside: Some psychologists seem to think that how we process the information we get from the world around us, how we determine what is and is not important, just how important is that information or experience, etc is a sort of flexible until we reach the age of ten. At that point, according to this idea, how someone learns something is then set for life. Note that the proponents of this idea aren't saying that we really stop learning new things at the age of ten, but that HOW we learn new things (and perhaps how enthusiastic we are about doing so) gets "hardwired" around that age.[1]

Anyway, when I was ten I spent the summer with my father in MA and was not looking forward to returning to live with my grandmother in MS during the school year. During one of my usual little ten-year old funks I came across Mad Magazine Super Special 25 lying around on my dad's coffee table. I'd always been curious about Mad Magazine as I passed it in the stands in the supermarket, so I had taken this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

It should be said at this point that this was in 1978, a summer that even a year later would stick in my mind as something quite pivotal in my life. MAD Magazine (supplemented by Saturday Night Live which I'd discover a short time later) was my introduction to political and social satire and the finger that pointed ten-year old me towards establishing an identity distinct from that of parents' generation. As a ten year old who had a large chunk of his childhood in the conformist south, MAD jammed a wedge into a door in my brain that life in the South just might have tricked me into closing for good. Before innocuously opening those pages—no before even setting my eyes on Don Martin's rock music cover, I had no idea just insipid advertising really was, how idiotic political leaders and other authority figures could be, and just how moronic (one of the many words I learned from MAD, thank you very much) popular culture often was when someone simply SAW it instead of just passively allowing it to enter your sensory organs and wash your brains out your ears. In short, it showed me just how much the things I'd previously been encouraged to accept as normal were actually stupid, bland, and/or (perhaps most importantly here) woefully unimaginative. And the artists and writers did it in a manner that made a ten-year old kid LAUGH, guaranteeing that those seeds of subversive thought would stay planted inside his head in a way that no amount of serious revolutionary pedagogy (this was still the seventies, after all) ever could and ever did since then.

It hit my brain like a drug. No, let's drop the metaphors; it WAS a drug. It did some real electrochemical rearranging in my head the way a drug would have done. There was no way I was going to go back to being normal, especially since my brain hit that ten-year mark I was telling you about earlier. Even though, I had made a half-hearted show of joining my grandmother's church when I was 11, organized religion never really had much of chance inside my skull. The conflict between questioning everything (often in a rather smart-alecky way) and the guilt-and-fear-driven brand of charismatic religion I encountered growing up caused too many internal conflicts for me. Guess which one got to keep the really cool penthouse studio loft in my head.

During that same year, I discovered "Saturday Night Live" and this was back when it still irked, shocked, and sometimes made a wee bit nervous the kind of people more sympathetic to authority and normalcy. I really dug it too, but SNL was a really good chocolate-loaded mocha latte with extra caffeine laced into the whip cream. A great stimulant, but that MAD Magazine Super Special 25 was my first acid trip.

Walking through that door in my head, going through that transition from non-awareness to less non-awareness, when I was 10 had become a major (if subconscious) motif of my life. Much of the type of writing I'd done and the things I'd say to people at time were done in the spirit of inducing just a little of that spirit in others. Those attempts were often clumsy and off-the-mark, as one could expect from a kid just beginning to learn about life and relating to people (as opposed to an adult just beginning to learn about life and relating to people).

But things changed. Maybe it was because I'd gotten older or maybe it was because certain other elements had gained control of MAD and SNL. Maybe it was simply the case that I had learned that certain something from them and it was time for me to move on to the next class. Whatever the reason, that body of work and I had amiably parted ways. After creatively and emotionally acknowledging the foundations laid, I set about slowly building the house that was my reality tunnel (a term that I really wouldn't learn until I was twenty, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Happily during the eighties (from junior high school to early college years in my life), newspaper funnies like Bloom County and the Far Side filled roles in my life almost isomorphic to MAD and SNL. By the time, I'd discovered Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker books, Heller's Catch-22, Richard Pryor concerts, and many of Vonnegut's works; MAD had already gotten me mentally ready for them.

Eventually, I'd graduated high school and attended Mississippi College(owned by the Mississippi Baptist Convention). After two years there, I transferred to Oberlin College because of that aforementioned epiphany that I was never going to cut it in God's army (and MC at the time of my attendance was far less strict about things than, say, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, a big a contradiction in terms as I've ever heard).

At Oberlin, I lived most of the time at Lord-Saunders, a.k.a. the African Heritage House (or most affectionately, simply "The House"). It was here I managed the extremely difficult feat of somehow failing to get laid while being a student at Oberlin College (Trust me, if you're a twenty-year old male with normally functioning hormones and are not actually trying to maintain your virginity, accomplishing this requires that you be a TREMENDOUS loser. Here's a hint: hanging out Friday night alone in a booth at the Rat and hoping some female comes along and offers you a pity fuck does NOT work very reliably).

Another thing I learned is that I'd have made a very lousy revolutionary in the typical Black Power movement. For those of you who knew me way back then, please understand that I love (well, some of) you folks and I know much of my material hadn't been all that great at the time, but some of those so-called revolutionaries gave me the creeps. I got (and sometimes still have) the funny feeling that if the radical thinkers I'd come across in the House ever managed to get the world the way they'd wanted it, I'd be among the first people they'd want to be rid of. There was no way in hell I'd want to live in the world of their dreams. Took themselves WAY too seriously. Just thought I say.

Anyway, my life (good and bad) with the House, the campus political protest de jour (one wit there who wasn't me once quipped that holding protesting Reagan's Contra War on the steps of Wilder Hall [2] was like the Baptist Church sending missionaries to the Vatican), Spartacus Youth Club (supposedly a pro-socialist group that was so smug and obnoxious that student were sure was a front for the CIA), and certain other parts of being an Obie had pretty much ruined any chances the Left had of ever getting me to join the cause heart-and-soul. Likewise, my time at Mississippi College (which capped my earlier childhood growing up in the Bible Belt) had pretty much killed any chances of me ever aligning myself with the conservative crowd. Due to much of my experience had been sifted through the interpretation mechanism set up by the all the satire I'd absorbed into my head, it had become viscerally clear that there was something wrong with the whole left/right political dichotomy. It was too much of a Procrustean bed for my way of thinking. It seemed that other people around were feeling the same way but were succumbing to the drive to fit in [3]. This was my social and psychological world when I encountered Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus Trilogy.

This is the book that reminded me (without my realizing it until then) that I'd been wishing for another "aha" moment evocative of that mind-blowing one that MAD magazine had surprised me. Of course, my brain had soon accustomed itself to the experience and I'd long since accustomed myself to the fact that there'd be no way that I could replicate the frisson I'd gotten from the "newness" of the whole thing (I wonder if this was what McKenna meant by novelty).

It turned out I was wrong. This book not only served as the adult version of that experience, it set me on the road to learning how to use my brain to create my own (I really hadn't started to figure out that bit until my early thirties, but the book pointed me in the right direction). It was how I not only really began learning how to critical consider other people's ideas but how to catch myself when I'm full of shit. I don't mean an intellectual's type of humility. I mean the kind of self-examination that makes you want to sneak past mirrors without making eye contact.

While MAD and SNL showed me that the orderly and normal weren't necessarily always good, Wilson and Shea showed me that chaotic and unusual were not necessarily always bad. Again, I had known that kind of thing somewhat intellectually from before, but now I'd been shown how stream of consciousness, Burrough's cut-and-paste approach, and certain aspects of postmodernism could be beneficial if used conscientiously. Wilson's writings opened my head to subjects that I had passed .. such as the works of the aforementioned William Burroughs, Discordianism, the occult, cognitive psychology, history, ontology (the works of Wilson is where I first heard of the phrase "reality tunnel"), modern art…you can fill in the blanks here with whatever you choose.

A point I'd like to touch upon here is that I learned to use ideas instead of letting them use me. My own experience with postmodernism, for example, is that it's great for breaking up old thought patterns that simply don't serve much of a purpose for me any more. As someone with a little scientific background, I think rigor and structure in one's thinking is vitally important. But too many people's mindsets get so calcified that it constricts their thinking. Philosophical attacks on old ways of thinking can be great for breaking up and clearing out obsolete mental scaffolding. But the point of that is so that I can then build up a newer kind of internal structure that would work better for me. I don't stick with the same old worldview, no matter how obvious it's become useless; that seems to me to be letting the idea of traditionalism (or its worst exaggeration) use me. And I don't just demolish an old idea no matter how useful it is and claim that any world view is as good as another; that seems to me to be letting postmodernism (or its worst exaggeration) use me.

Anyway, that's one of the influences Wilson's works had had on my life. And he made me laugh while he did it.

You can wake up now, Ra's. I'm finished for the day.

[1] This idea seems related (but certainly not the same as) the idea suggested by a scientific study that after the age of ten a child's peers have more influence on a child's personality than the parents. Some of you may have heard of it. I noticed that the Common Senseless Brigade got all up in arms about this (I'm not trying to mock people who actually use common sense; I'm talking about the more benighted among us who confuse common sense with a lack of patience for nuance, thinking beyond the superficial and the extremely obvious, or just plain PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT OTHERS ARE ACTUALLY SAYING RATHER THAN SOME MORE EASILY DISPUTED DISTORTION OF IT). Building up their usual straw man of the stereotypical scientist with no grip on "reality", this CSB got the story all twisted, claiming that these psychologists were saying that parents had no influence at all. I've lost track of how many times I had to remind some of the people around me that "No, no, no. They didn't say that. Listen carefully." In fact, the study seems to me to suggest that parents have a lot of influence on their kids BEFORE they reach the age of ten." And in this matter, I really ought to defer to the opinion of my readers who are actually raising children. But I'm taking a wild guess that if someone had neglected his or her child for the first ten years of life, it's probably going to be very difficult (at best) to talk them out of taking that starring role on the next episode of Cops or America's Most Wanted.

[2] Oberlin College's Student Union

[3]This was 1988, an election year. It was the Democrats' chance to put someone in the White House to undo all the Reagan years. And except for around the seven openly Republican students, Reagan was Anathema Personified among the Oberlin College student body. Lenora Felani, an African-American woman had managed to pique a little interest among the more really radical students here with her presidential campaign, but the social pressure was on to hold one's nose and vote for Dukakis. Even before that photo tanked Dukakis's election chances and he subsequently got his ass kicked in the election, a lot of the leftists and progressives around Oberlin when I had been attending had seemed like such a cheerless and humorless bunch (and being humorless is NOT the same thing as being serious.)

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

Whatever Happened to the Days When Only the Cool People Knew about the Internet?

(Previously posted on MySpace September 12, 2008)

I've long ago accepted the fact that my blog has yet to reach the stratospheric popularity of a Jonas Brothers or a Tila Tequila. I suspected that sort of thing would be the case before I even first signed onto MySpace. I wouldn't mind a higher level of popularity (especially since I hope to write for a living someday), but I've no interest in essentially changing what I'm doing just to become Internet Flavor of the Month. So for now, I'm content to sit here in my little Blogosphere niche and offer my little contribution to people seeking something a little different.
Yes, I know. You've heard this kind of thing before. We no doubt have read (or written) diatribes about the sorry state of affairs in blogging, popular music, movies, TV, news, politics, people, and all the other offerings of the Normals, the Pinks, the Mehumes, or whatever you want to call them. In fact, there was this "Death to Bad Blogs" mini-movement that went on at one time. I don't intend this blog to be either a continuation of a rant against the Philistines and Visogoths that have taken over the Blogosphere or some sort of apology for them. (Though I admit that due to the often rambling nature of my blogs it might veer into one or the other--fair warning). I simply want to present some ideas I've run across that may pertain to this issue.
In an interview with Reason Magazine (October 2008, page 15), Emory University English professor Mark Bauerelein (who, by the way, is a regular contributor to said magazine) talks about his latest book "The Dumbest Generation". This blog isn't a review of that book. I haven't read it yet and I don't think writing book reviews is one of my strengths, anyway. The interview is simply the jump-off point for this blog. Mainly Bauerlein's argument that "the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future."
In all honesty, I'm used to hearing one generation referring to another as a bunch of idiots. I've heard it said about mine. I've caught myself thinking it about others on occasions. I have my doubts that this kind of vitriol is productive. I only say that before anyone start rushing to defend or attack Bauerlein (or anyone else), hear the guy out first. And while the more intelligent members of the younger generation get ready to surprise the hell of their naysayers (and the dumber ones exchange jpegs of their privates with their phone cameras), I'll go on.
One of the things Bauerlein points out in his interview is a Nielsen Media survey that showed that when teenagers get on the Internet, their choice of website seem to be some sort of social network: Facebook, MySpace, on so on. Nine hours per week social networking. Less than one hour per week reading and studying for class. Leisure reading, visits to museums, and visits to libraries (other than to use the public computers to get onto the Internet) is down according to Bauerlein in his interview. I haven't really researched any of this for myself; so I can only go on anecdotal evidence.
Baudelein seems concerned that teenagers are more interested in other teenagers on the Net rather than using this relatively new information medium to broaden their mental vistas. Is this technology's doing?
Hmm, I took a look at what some other folks had to say about other forms of communication.
Robin Dunbar, British anthropologist, evolutionary biologist, and source of the Dunbar Number[1] had this idea that gossip evolved out of social bonding needs. And then I recalled watching a Science Channel program discussing Dunbar's idea and one scientist postulated that one of the first uses of language was probably gossip, particularly about people's sex lives.
Later on, I read Eleanor Herman's "Sex With Kings" and came across this interesting little passage:

"The invention of the printing press triggered an explosion of literacy among the nobility. Letter writing became a favorite pastime for courtiers eager to indulge rustic relatives with juicy gossip."

So, according to my sources, for two different communication media (speech and writing), some form of porn became the one the most common uses when the general public first caught on. I think that's pretty interesting when you consider all the porn (pro and amateur) that became available when the Internet started becoming more accessible to the general public.
And complaining about how the general public use or misuse a new communication media has gone on long before Maxwell first wrote down those equations, never mind the advent of television or computers. According to Neil Postman, none other than Socrates himself objected to literacy in that "writing forces us to follow an argument rather than participate in it". Socrates was apparently concerned that people would stop relying on memory and stop thinking. In Socrates's view (and I'm sort of guessing from what I've read here), memory was the proof of wisdom in such that in a way, you really have to hold all the aspects of an idea in your head as best you can, rather than have a scroll handy to save you all that cognitive hassle. (In light of all the now obvious drawbacks to relying on memory alone, one can guess that I disagree with Socrates's assessment).

Socrates was apparently concerned that people would stop relying on memory and stop thinking? Hmm, sounds a lot like some technophobe's complaints about computers, doesn't it?
Now, to repeat myself, I'm not trying to defend the dumbocracy that seems to be plaguing Internet (and, by a vague extension, most modern) discourse. I'm simply wondering if what were seeing is just a normal human response to new communication media. I don't know about other people, but I think I'd like to know a little more about those responses and their importance (if any), rather than get too upset about what they choose to watch, listen to, talk about, blog about, or think about (if anything).
All that being said, I still wouldn't be too upset if MTV, Washington DC, Hollywood, and everyone of those useless high school and college student body governments suddenly disappear into a black hole one day and yank a hefty percentage of politics and pop culture in with them.

[1]I personally wish the Bernard-Kilworth number could get a little more press. I would be interested to hear what those of you into building intentional communities think about this.


© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

The Afflac Duck Peruses the Family Album

(Previously posted on MySpace July 17, 2009)

Check out this video: Disco Duck

One of the tricky things about good satire is that often people miss the point that its making FUN of the thing its portraying (just like, in my opinion, too many people miss the point that the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was a satire of the 1990s--and a damn good one[also in my opinion]) So its something of an irony that "Disco Duck" became a hit for Rick Dees and His Band of Idiots among lovers of Disco (the very thing the song of which the song is making fun) instead of among the (then) growing number of people who thought (and mostly still think) Disco sucked.

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

Pot Liquor and Southern Fried Shrooms

In 1969, Chess records thought it would be a brilliant idea to "modernize" Howlin' Wolf's sound psychedelic style. The result was dubbed simply "The Howlin' Wolf Album".

Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett thought it was shit.
My dad and uncle, getting a copy of this album some years later, were lukewarm about it at best and didn't seem to count it as among his best work.
The rest of the music world apparently didn't care much for it either.
I, by contrast, thought it was the bee's knees. Then again, I was one weird-ass kid.

But as children are wont to do, I would forget about it momentarily during my teen years. Once I remembered again in my early twenties, the album was long gone and no one seemed to miss it but me. Finding it again sort of became a mini-obsession with me over the interim. Every once in awhile I have this two to three hour period where I'd run around town and have record shop proprietors scratching their heads over my nutty request. Or I stalk the Internet (once it came my way) ignoring porn to an unhealthy extent for one so young. Still nothing. It was as if I had hallucinated the entire aural freak-out experience.

Until tonight. Tonight I finally stumbled upon my first clue that I was not (that much of) a delusional idiot: that aforementioned Wikipedia entry. Figuratively scrambling forward on my knees in what may have approached religious ecstasy, I entered the temple of the Amazon and found my heart's desire...for 85 bucks.

Oh, hell no. And even if I could spare $85, it's on vinyl and I don't have a turntable. And if an import CD ever become available Bill Gates would probably have a hard time scraping up the money for a copy. Luckily or not, someone posted a few tracks on YouTube. I haven't given it a listen yet and I'm expressing some doubts because memory is not exactly a reliable thing. The songs not be as great as I remember (that sort of thing's happened before). Here a link if any of you are interested.

...

Okay...I listened to it...man, I really WAS one weird ass kid.

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

Sex in Space

I have to wonder whether or not "The Universe" would be better suited for the Discovery Channel as opposed to the History Channel. But it's there and we might as well make the most of it. There were two episodes aired last night. One concerned parallel universes which although it showed a lot of material that I've read/seen before, it did organize various types of various universes (types 1 through 4) in a manner I found very helpful for me.

But judging by the title of this blog, parallel universes are NOT the subject of interest here.

The subject of interest is the episode airing afterward: Sex in Space. As one could guess from the blurb provided by the History Channel, this was actually a serious discussion about various physiological challenges people will have to face if they really want to live in space or another planet with gravity significantly different from ours on Earth. Four things, prompted by things mentioned toward the end of the episode, came to my mind.

1. I've always been ambivalent at best about space exploration especially as regards to the expenditure of resources it requires just to figure out how NOT to go about it, never mind surviving while trying to do so. But I heard one pro-exploration guy give what to me seems to be the best argument for coming up with a way to get off the planet. In short, if you consider that currently the most reliable scientific evidence seems to hint that dinosaurs ruled the planet for millions of years before being instantly wiped out by a sudden catastrophe (likely a large meteorite crashing to Earth); you'd really like some kind of backup plan in case something similarly goes wrong with our biosphere. Now whether moving out into space or underground or undersea domes would be the best response remains to be seen, but I'm willing to concede the speaker has a point worth considering.

2. Michio Kaku gave his take on why NASA doesn't even want to talk about how astronauts would get busy in space. I.E. NASA is a taxpayer-funded organization. Certain more puritanical taxpayers would have conniption fits if they found out if their tax dollars were used to study how people would get it on in microgravity (though some of them seem to have no qualms about nonbelievers having their tax dollars yanked out of their paychecks to support "faith-based" initiatives). Therefore, no one in NASA wants to talk about it.

3. This leads into the very unrealistic taboo of discussing sex still prevalent in many sections of American society. And this point was very ably discussed by all the various scientists, psychologists, and other people on the show (in particular one woman whose name I've sadly forgotten). Their point to the puritans was this: "Look, folks: professional or not, astronauts are human beings. Human beings need interaction to function properly and 'interaction' here means intellectually, emotionally, and--yes--physically, from simply handshakes and occasional pats on the shoulders to hugs and...well, sex. A trip to Mars (as Bush mentioned once very early on in his Presidential term) takes somewhere around two to three years with current technology. And you, Mr and Mrs. Prude are going to insists that people residing in spaces no bigger than the average living room for this period keep their hormones in check BECAUSE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROFESSIONALS? Hey, maybe Sarah Palin can recommend a good abstinence program for them." But look, all sarcasm and snickering aside, if the stiff-necks at NASA are in any way serious about people living in space or another planet; they're going to have to get over any personal discomfort about the subject matter (or that of certain politicians and pressure groups) and accept the fact that they are going to figure out how the hell there space colonists are going to produce the next generation. That includes applying their engineering-style logic to the question of sex.

4. If, however, NASA still fears the wrath of the Family Values crowd (it still amazes me how they--much like al Qaeda and the Taliban--can get all bent out of shape over the very thing that CREATES the family they claim to revere so much), then maybe they can just hand the matter over to the private sector such as Sir Richard Branson, Google Lunar X Prize, and other non-government organizations. Hell, right now, I wouldn't be too upset if the Federal Government just dropped subsidizing space exploration all together and let non-government resources handle it. That way, people who support space exploration can show their support with their own money and people who don't support it can no longer gripe about their tax dollars being taken from them and used for that purpose (Those same dollars can very well get snatched away and wasted for some other objectionable purpose, but that's beyond the purview of this essay).

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

To Review

This would have sent my day down the toilet if I had let it.

Those of you who've had your patience sorely tested by my rather lengthy ramblings over the years already know what how I'd answer the question posed in the article's title.  For those of you new here, I preface my explanation with a reference to another article I came across. (I had earlier posted Esperanto Grrl's blog as a MySpace bulletin, something I usually do when I want to draw attention to an article I find interesting but don't have enough commentary on it to make a blog of my own. And yes, I know some of my readers--I think there's one or two of you left--are busy themselves and don't have time to pan through who knows how many trivial bulletins to get the nuggets of stuff that might interest them.)

In short, Esperanto Grrl expressed the kind of ideas that I have heard from anthropology majors in my college days and discussed at even greater length and in greater detail by biologist Joseph L Graves.

"Well, yeah," some might say, "that might be true but try telling that to the next white supremacist gang looking to stomp your head in."

And to such a smart ass, I would say (after sighing heavily because I'm trying to figure out how to say what I'm going to say without going back over a whole lot of stuff I wrote way back at the beginning of 2007 ("The William Drayton" essays, coda, and "Two Points"), "No, I'm not trying to be a milquetoast pollyanna liberal. I am saying that just because some Dedicated Racist Idiot can't accept that race is nothing more than a social construct with little if any physical meaning, that doesn't mean I have to going along with his/her/its stupid idea to save my neck I just have to avoid getting my head kicked in."

That may mean working with allies to protect myself, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have to subsume my identity like some cell in a greater organism known as the group. To further explain my position, I'll add this quote from Herbert Spencer:

"Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society."

I'd apply Spencer's idea to just about any group, not just society. Groups, in my opinion, are individuals working together in what they each hope would be to their overall best interests, i.e. what one gains from being in the group outweighs what one loses. And what constitutes "gain" and "loss" for each individual ultimately has to be defined each individual, not the group's leader, president, "people's committee", round table of intelligentsia, or some nebulously defined "greater good" or what-not.
For readers who've heard all this before, I apologize for repeating myself. For the new folks, I'm talking about reification fallacy here.
So my answer to the question in the Disinformation article's title is--naturally enough--"Uh, yup. Next question please."

Coda:
For Tea Party members out there snickering at my response, let me ask you something while I have your attention--and please forgive me if you've heard this one before: I've repeatedly said that I don't like excessive government intrusion into our lives any more than you guys do. That being said, WHERE WERE YOU PEOPLE AND YOUR ANGER BACK WHEN THE NEOCONS HAD THEIR TURN NEEDLESSLY INTRUDING INTO PEOPLE'S PERSONAL LIVES (such as fighting gay marriage and this bullshit ) AND RUNNING ROUGHSHOD OVER THE CONSTITUTION (such as ramming through that other lengthy and Constitutionally questionable bill that Congress seemed unable to read before signing: the Patriot Act)?

To be fair, some of you may have been protesting back then as well, so please realize that I'm not talking about you. As for the others, Christopher Moore nailed it when he commented that for all the people angry with Bush awhile back, a whole lot of people sure did vote for him back in 2004.

Anyway, just asking. Don't mind me.

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson

The Lamarckian Buddy System

(Previously posted on MySpace May 13 2010)

As a preface to this essay, I'd like to clarify something I wrote in a previous one. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that E.O. Wilson thinks that evolution and genetics affected behavior. What he wrote was that how easily one learn certain behaviors as opposed to other seemed to have a lot to do with the epigenetics behind one's nervous system.

Epigenetics is concerned with how genes express themselves beyond what's written in the DNA. It goes into why although the DNA in every one of your cell has the entire "blueprint" for your entire body, you don't have eyeballs growing on your fingertips no matter how cool that would look. Or why you don't have a foot growing out of your mouth unless you're Joe Biden or Pat Robertson.

Anyway, what Wilson seemed to have been saying was that evolution might have had a hand in determine what behaviors one's brain would have an easier time learning, impulsiveness vs careful reflection for example. But he was very clear in "Consilience" that he was not advocating any kind of one-to-one deterministic relationship between neurons and behavior. Environment could still play a role in what behavior that particular person actually does choose to learn, although some behavioral choice may come more easily than others. Science doesn't seem to let us escape free will just yet.

So now on to the essay itself. Whereas the ideas of the "selfish gene" and the game theory work of von Neumann, Morgenstern, and Nash suggest a model of the world in which people act mostly in their own self-interest; there's a body of research that suggest that there may also be evolutionary benefits to altruism.
Here's an article about it. Google "altruism in animals" and you should find others.

Now this may conflict the libertarian spirit of some of my other writings, but as I've explained elsewhere, I adhere to Thomas Jefferson's idea of reason in service to the truth. I'm not about to ignore a possible truth just because it conflicts with my notion of reality. I've seen too many other people do that and I don't want to go down that road.

Moreover, there still plenty of debate about this idea among scientists, so everyone can just relax or not.

Anyway, what piqued my interest in this study was how some philosophers and theologians reacted to the study. Initially, I thought altruists would have been tickled pink to have science give their ideas some back up with this to poke to the eye of Ayn Rand enthusiasts. Instead, some of them seem to me to be WHINING.

What? They're whining because morality might get reduced to just another evolutionary tool and lose all its transcendental "specialness". Hell, if I were one of them, I'd be happy that the conscientious and logical search for truth gave at least a partial confirmation of my worldview rather than ultimately reduce my belief system to nonexistence. Me, I LIKE the idea of everything being eventually understood with enough study.

Guess there's just no pleasing some people.

© Copyright 2006-2010 Anthony Anderson