Oh By the Way, Just Riding the Gravy Train!

Pink Floyd (official homepage, wikipedia entry) is my all-time favorite rock band. But I was quite disappointed to learn a few weeks ago that they are issuing yet another box set. This one is called "Oh By The Way", a lame but seemingly appropriate name for a box set that is nothing but a re-release of 14 major albums. While the box material itself looks interesting, there is no way I'm buying this for a huge chunk of money, since being a pretty big fan I naturally already have all of their CDs already.

Why can't they fix up some concert recordings from the 1970s, and put those out in a boxed set? That would be awesome, fans would drool over it, and they'd likely sell far more. At the very least, they wouldn't be open to the criticism that they are, uh... how shall I say it... "riding the gravy train"!

The Big Questions

Recently I've noticed some advertisements from the John Templeton Foundation in The Economist and The Chronicle for Higher Education. These ask a "big question", and then give snippets of responses from various academics or others. See their archive.

The one I've seen in ads lately is "Does the universe have a purpose?". The answers provided are of course varied, and are summed up as Yes, No, Unlikely, Perhaps, "I hope so", and so on. Read them all to get several perspectives.

Astrophysicists Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss make some interesting points, but in the end are not confident enough (or don't understand proper epistemology well enough) to assert certainty.

The two that most align with my own views are from biochemist Christian de Duve and professor of chemistry Peter William Atkins. Mr de Duve is a little all over the place in his essay, but finally raises a core issue at the end:

It will be noted that there is no logical need for a creator in this view. By definition, a creator must himself be uncreated, unless he is part of an endless, Russian-doll succession of creators within creators. But then, why start the succession at all? Why not have the universe itself uncreated, an actual manifestation of Ultimate Reality, rather than the work of an uncreated creator? The question is worth asking.

Indeed it is! This is a basic question of metaphysics: does existence simply exist, or did someone or something create it? I would argue it doesn't even make sense to ask that question, and even if you do ask it, you immediately have an immediate regress. The only proper position is to simply start with the given: the world we perceive and live in, which includes both material objects and consciousness (lest you think I am crude materialist).

But I actually like Atkins' essay better. Here it is in full:

In the absence of evidence, the only reason to suppose that it does is sentimental wishful thinking and sentimental wishful thinking, which underlies all religion, is an unreliable tool for the discovery of truth of any kind.

The extension of analogies is another tool that accompanies wishful thinking in the toolboxes of the credulous. That an intricate mechanism, such as an engine or even a spoon, is commonly associated with a purpose cannot be taken to be evidence that the universe as a whole is associated with a purpose, any more than the existence of a cheetah implies that it has been designed with a purpose in mind. Cheetahs have evolved by the bloody, directionless, unguided processes of evolution: they have not been provided for the purpose of killing antelopes. Similarly, the universe has evolved over its 14 billion years of current existence by the directionless, unguided processes that are manifestations of the working out of physical laws: it has not been made for the purpose of providing platforms to enable cheetahs to stalk their prey or humans to generate great art or to entertain delusions. That we do not yet understand anything about the inception of the universe should not mean that we need to ascribe to its inception a supernatural cause, a creator, and therefore to associate with that creator's inscrutable mind a purpose, whether it be divine, malign, or even whimsically capricious.

Theologians typically focus on questions that they have invented for their own puzzlement. Some theologians are perplexed by the nature of life after death, a notion they have invented without a scrap of evidence.

Some are mystified by the existence of evil in a world created by an infinitely loving God, another notion that theologians have invented but which dissolves into nothing once it is realized that there is no God. The question of cosmic purpose is likewise an invented notion, wholly without evidential foundation, and equally dismissible as patently absurd. We should not regard as great the questions that have been invented solely for the sake of eliciting puzzlement.

I regard the existence of this extraordinary universe as having a wonderful, awesome grandeur. It hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless. To project onto it our human-inspired notion of purpose would, to my mind, sully and diminish it.

I love the analogy with cheetahs here! And I very much like this point (italics mine above) about the very question itself being dismissable, as being a category mistake in essence.

Hurdles for Bloggers from Cuba

Here is an interesting article about the hurdles that bloggers in Cuba face. And yet there are some in America who still praise the totalitarian Communist regime that causes so much misery in Cuba.

CHE Highlights

I've been getting caught up recently on The Chronicle of Higher Education from the past couple of months. Here are some items I found interesting for various reasons... worth a read if you have an interest in any of these topics (some require subscription to access directly at CHE's site, so I'll try to provide links to free versions online):

"Don't Require Colleges to Spend More of Their Endowments", an 11/9 opinion piece that responds to the 11/2 cover news story. Many good points are made about legal and other technical hurdles to government proposals to force Harvard or others with huge endowments to spend more of that money sooner. Nor is it likely that a group of government bureaucrats will know best how and when such funds should be spent. However, the biggest question isn't raised: why should government be telling colleges how to spend their endowments? This is not a proper use of government force! This essential moral point is, as usual in such situations, not brought up. Otherwise, this is a good opinion piece though.

"Are Sacred Texts Sacred? The Challenge for Atheists", a 9/21 piece by Carlin Romano. Lots interesting stuff here, including much that should give bible literalists pause to say the least. But I agree with the Letter to the Editor in the 10/12 edition, from John T. Goldthwait (Prof. Emeritus of philosophy at SUNY, Plattsburgh), that Romano "gets the rules of the debate wrong". Romano's conclusion and suggestion is that Atheists should be polite to believers, and that is fine as far as it goes -- but it doesn't go very far. No need for an atheist to go out of his way to cruelly attack believers and the texts they call sacred -- but that doesn't mean that critics (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) of religions and their texts can't go on the offensive in books or articles they write. Believers aren't forced to buy those books or read those articles if they will find them offensive. Here is part of Goldthwait's letter on this matter:

Romano writes, "That behooves atheists, then, to have a clear definition of the sacred... and also a clear definition of text or book." But it is not up to the atheist to supply those definitions. The believer is the one who has claimed that a text -- some version of either the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Koran -- is a sacred text and a source of revealed religion. That is what needs proving... Romano suggests characteristics for a sacred text. However, he assumes that there are such things as sacred texts... If there isn't any God, what becomes of a text whose alleged value is that it relates to God? The believer has the responsibility to establish the meaningfulness of his claim by establishing the existence of the referent of this explanatory term. If he cannot thus support his claims, we do not owe him our attention. Romano has not put before us a serious challenge, but merely a nice lesson in politeness.

Agreed. I look forward to writing some further thoughts on concepts like "sacred" in the future, but for now, I'll let this go.

The Intellectual Responsibility of Educators. In this brief "On the Contrary" piece, David Horowitz takes on the issue of indoctrination in the classroom, and is critical of the new report "Freedom in the Classroom" from American Association of University Professors.

Veiled Politics, by Joan Wallach Scott (11/23). Some interesting background on an issue (Islamic women, the veil, and rights) that is big in Europe, but that we don't hear as much about as a major political issue here in the USA.

The Two Faces of Al-Qaeda, by Raymond Ibrahim (9/21). The author makes clear the two types of messages that Al-Qaeda leaders send, and the importance of the message intended for their own followers and would-be recruits (the radical, theological message and the anti-Western civilization message) as opposed to what is intended for Western readers (criticism of USA foreign policy, etc.).

Rigid Scholarship on Male Sexuality, by Camille Paglia (9/21). Though I'm usually only in partial agreement with her views, Paglia is one of those authors that I always find interesting to read (like Christopher Hitchens). This review of three related books on male sexuality didn't disappoint. I haven't read any of these books, so I can't say whether her analysis of them is on-target or not. But I did like her taking one of them to task for postmodernist jargon, fashionable namedropping, and making leftist-academic assumptions common in so many social science and humanities departments these days -- I trust Paglia's opinions on that issue, bigtime.

The Choc Doc, by Piper Fogg (9/14, Academic Life). An interesting article about Patrick Fields, a professor who studies and teaches about the history and culture of chocolate. Fields treats chocolate as seriously as many people treat wine.

Saudi Arabia Puts Its Billions Behind Western-Style Higher Education, by Zvika Krieger (9/14). This article gives a lot of info on the increased funding of higher ed in Saudia Arabia, including the creation of the first co-ed institution in the country, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. While there are many good signs here, I consider the prospects for real success to be quite poor. The goal is to create a highly educated workforce, and more importantly, to create critical thinkers, creative thinkers, and entrepreneurs. That seems pretty unlikely, given the repressive and restrictive culture of Saudi Arabia (mostly because of its brand of Islam). Consider another university that is getting a lot of funding right now, in the hopes of reaching those goals:

Alfaisal [University] will also be coeducational, a big improvement for female
students, many of whom are taught by men through closed-circuit television at the country's women's colleges. Unlike at King Abdullah University, though, men and women will not be allowed to interact, in accordance with the country's legally mandated gender segregation. The university will have split-level classrooms, where women attend the same lectures as men but from balconies surrounded by one-way glass. An underground entrance for women — dropped off by their drivers — will lead directly to stairwells, elevators, and floors strictly segregated by gender. But since even those accommodations would raise many eyebrows in Saudi Arabia, Alfaisal is starting with male students only to gain social credibility first. "Philosophically, I would like to see women from Day 1, but the reality is difficult," Mr. Goodridge says. "We're probably a little ahead of where they're going."

Wow. They are going ridiculous lengths they are going to segregate the education of women from that of men. And that is just one example of why I just don't see how "throwing money at the problem" is really going to lead to major success. Consider this other blurb about Saudi Arabian culture:

But the country is a tough sell: Most public entertainment is prohibited (there are no movie theaters, for instance), alcohol is banned, and women must cover themselves almost completely in public and are not allowed to drive.

I have to agree with the Letter to the Editor from Ayesha Razzaque in the 10/12 issue -- it seems unlikely that we'll see major success in Saudi Arabia until significant cultural changes occur. A huge amount of educational content won't be taught, even at these new "liberal" schools, either because of outright bans or because of fear that the professor would get in trouble for even broaching the subject. How is free thought, critical thinking, creative thinking, and so on ever going to flourish in such a climate?

Religious Scholars and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

A recent CNN headline seemed like something from TheOnion: "Religious Scholars Mull Flying Spaghetti Monster." (For some background on FSM, see my April 2006 blog entry.) It seems there were several sessions that discussed the FSM phenomenon at a recent American Academy of Religion annual meeting. The CNN piece gives several of the lecture titles.

One thing I found annoying about this news article was the following at the end of it:

Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?

In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?

Joining them on the panel will be David Chidester, a prominent and controversial academic at the University of Cape Town in South Africa who is interested in precisely such questions. He has urged scholars looking for insights into the place of religion in culture and psychology to explore a wider range of human activities. Examples include cheering for sports teams, joining Tupperware groups and the growing phenomenon of Internet-based religions. His 2005 book "Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture," prompted wide debate about how far into popular culture religious studies scholars should venture.

Lucas Johnston, the third Florida student, argues the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism exhibits at least some of the traits of a traditional religion -- including, perhaps, that deep human need to feel like there's something bigger than oneself out there.

He recognized the point when his neighbor, a militant atheist who sports a pro-Darwin bumper sticker on her car, tried recently to start her car on a dying battery.

As she turned the key, she murmured under her breath: "Come on Spaghetti Monster!"

That is a funny anecdote -- I've never thought of substituting FSM for "God" when I blurt out "God damn it" or something similar. I think I'll start doing that, just for fun.

But it is ridiculous to even ask whether the group of people who "believe" in FSM are themselves a religion! This demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of concepts, essences, and proper definitions. While every complicated concept has its boundary and marginal cases, clearly FSM is not one for the concept of "religion". It is a joke. People don't actually believe in FSM -- putting forth the theory of FSM is a rhetorical device, a reductio style thought experiment by Atheists in their debate with believers in the supernatural. No one who talks approvingly of FSM does so out of a "deep human need to feel like there's something bigger than oneself out there". Give me a break.

True, people who gather at an FSM club might do so for some of the same reasons that some people join religions: for social reasons, for something to do on a regular basis (e.g., once a week at an appointed time). While that is an important aspect of why many people join religions, it is not an essential, definining characteristic of the concept of religion. For that you need something that involves metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Without going on at length about it now, I would consider a good definition of religious beliefs to involve at least the belief in one or more supernatural beings (metaphysics), a belief in at least some propositions on the grounds of faith alone (epistemology), and what the existence of the supernatural means for how one should act (ethics). These are the core characteristics of what make something a religion. FSMism puts forward beliefs that in each of these areas -- but only as a way of making fun of actual religions. FSM isn't actually a religion, and neither are people "cheering for sports teams, joining Tupperware groups" thereby members of a religion.

From MST3K to RiffTrax

I was pleased to learn (thanks Stu Bushman) that many of the people behind MST3K have returned to what made they successful in the 1990s: making funny comments during movies. I assume most readers of this blog will remember the wonderful TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (see wikipedia entry), which ran for many years on Comedy Central and then the Sci-Fi network, where a human and two robots appeared as wise-cracking sillohuettes overlayed on really bad movies mostly from the 1950s-1970s. It was one of my favorite shows during my college years in the early 90s, and I continued to enjoy it until it was finally cancelled in 1999.

Well, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbet and several others involved in the MST3K are now doing much the same thing with their RiffTrax service. Gone are the sillohuettes and robots, but the basic idea remains: funny commentary while you watch a movie, or now also some popular TV episodes too. One big difference is that rather than picking on easy targets like Ed Wood movies and other cinematic bombs, they are taking on some of the most popular films of all time. Take a look at their site for a sample of what they are riffing on these days.

Their work isn't free -- seems like it $3.99 per movie. I haven't bought any yet, as I'm too busy and have too much of a backlog of other entertainment to watch right now. But I liked the couple of samples I saw on their homepage (refresh the page to see a few of them)... so I'll probably buy a few rifftrax at some point, to see their comedic take on some of my favorite movies.

Who's On First and Star Wars

Even though I have it memorized by now, I still laugh when I hear Abbott and Costello's famous "Who's on first?" routine. But I was delighted to discover a version that merges the audio of this routine with video clip footage of Yoda and a lesser Star Wars character. Although its only a small part of the routine, its enough.

On Greg Maddux and 400 Wins

In June of 2006 I posted an item on the 300 Win Club in baseball. I wrote about how very few additional pitchers are likely to make it to 300, with Tom Glavine being the obvious one to predict at that time. He did in fact go beyond 300 in 2007, and the next in line, Randy Johnson, is at 284 wins after an injury-shortened 2007 campaign held him to a 4-3 record. Should he make it to 300, he could be the last. Mike Mussina could possibly do it, as he is at 250, but there is no way David Wells (239), Jamie Moyer (230), Curt Schilling (216), or Kenny Rogers (210) will get there. Pedro Martinez proved he can still pitch at age 35 by going 3-1 with a 2.57 ERA in September after rehabilitating most of the season. But with only 209 wins and history of being fragile, I wouldn't bet much on him getting to 300. As I said in that entry, "never again" is a strong claim to make, but it is a worthwhile question to raise at this point.

But a recent post to the SABR-L discussion list raised another interesting question along the same lines: could Greg Maddux reach 400 wins? I had never thought of that, but it seems at least reasonable to ask.

I'll begin by noting I don't see Roger Clemens getting to 400 wins. He has more than Maddux currently, as he ended the 2007 season with an outstanding lifetime 354-184 record. While he was dominating for the Astros in 2005 (13-8, 1.87 ERA in 32 starts) and 2006 (7-6, 2.30 ERA in 19 starts), his 2007 season back in the AL with the Yankees was a disappointment (6-6, 4.18 ERA in 17 starts). He turned 45 in August, so I consider it likely he either won't come back for another season, or if he does his performance will continue to decline. Getting 46 more wins would mean pitching until his 49th birthday at least -- and I don't even see the great Roger Clemens doing that.

But what about Greg Maddux? At only age 41 he ended the 2007 season with a lifetime 347-214 record. He continues to start 30+ games a year -- in fact, he's done that every year since 1987 except the two strike-shortened seasons in the 1990s. And while he's far from his dominance of a decade ago, he continues to be a quality #2-4 guy in a rotation, posting records of 13-15, 15-14, and 14-11 the past three years. His ERA ihas been over 4.00 the past four seasons, but not far above and still around or slightly better than the league average.

So could he pitch four more seasons? Very possibly, since that would put him at age 45 for his last year in 2011. Could he average 13-14 wins a season for those years? That could be tough, as he'd have to not decline any from his recent levels. But if we won say, 14, 14, 13, and 13 that would give him 401 wins for his career. So would give seasons with win totals of 14, 13, 11, 9 and 7. Either of those scenarios seem at least possible. Of course, he could easily choose to retire before then, or finally get that bad injury that his excellent conditioning and high intelligence have allowed him to avoid his entire career. But neither of those events are at all predictable.

So what would joining the exclusive 400-win club mean exactly? Any serious baseball fan knows he'd be only the third major-league pitcher to reach that mark. The incomparable Cy Young of course tops the list with an insane 511 wins. Walter Johnson is second all-time with 417. After that are fellow old-timers Grovery Cleveland (Pete) Alexander and Christy Mathewson with 373

Most of the highest guys on this list are from baseball's earliest days, with only Warren Spahn (1942-1965) currently at 360 or more wins. He ended up with a 363-245 record, and was a model of consistency. He won 20+ games 13 times, but never won more than 23 in a season. In fact, starting in 1956 at the age of 35 he won 20+ games 7 out of 8 seasons. This culminated in his 23-7 and 2.60 ERA season in 1963, at the young age of 42. But then he went downhill fast, going 6-13 the next year and retiring after going 7-16 in 1965. An amazing career, and I bet people were asking about the possibility of 400 wins for Spahn after that 1963 season. But then it didn't happen, and didn't really come close to happening actually.

Next I'll discuss briefly the other recent players to top 300 wins (not including Tom Glavine), and how they did at the end of their careers:

• Steve Carlton ended up with a 329-244 record. He took home the Cy Young Award at age 37 in 1982, going 23-11 with a 3.10 ERA. But then he went 15-16 and 13-7, and ended with poor campaigns of 1-8, 9-14, and 6-14 (plus a brief 0-1 season at age 43 in 1988). He had great conditioning during his career, but clearly had lost it at the end and most would argue he held on too long.
• Nolan Ryan first made it to the bigs at the age of 19 in 1966, but that was a brief stint. He returned in 1968 but for three seasons he did mixed duty as a starter and relievers. He pitched for some bad teams, but I've seen some analyses that indicate that his wins total didn't actually suffer that much because of it. One season where it clearly did was 1987, when at the age of 40 he had a 2.76 ERA but managed only an 8-16 record. In the end he recorded a 324-292 lifetime record. He was still going strong in 1991 at age 44, when he posted a 12-6 record. But then his last two years he went only 5-9 and 5-5.
• Don Sutton only reached 20 wins in a season, going 21-10 in 1976. Still, he ended up with a 324-256 recor. He won 15 games in both 1985 and 1986, but then at age 42 he slipped to an 11-11 record and in 1988 at age 43 he went only 3-6 in 16 starts.
• Phil Niekro through a knuckler so he was able to hold on a long time, finally retiring at age 48 in 1987 with a 318-274 record. He had several fine seasons past the age of 40, but that last was weak (7-13 with a 6.30 ERA).
• Gaylord Perry took home Cy Young Award honors in 1978 at age 40 going 21-6 with a 2.73 ERA. But then had win totals of 12, 10, 8, 10, and 7, ending up with a lifetime 314-265 mark.
• Tom Seaver, arguably the best pitcher of this group, actually ended up with the fewest career wins. He was going strong in 1981 at age 36, but the strike messed up his season (14-2, 2.54 ERA). The next two seasons were disasters, as he went 5-13 and then 9-14. A move to the AL revived his career, as he went 15-11 in 1984 and 16-11 in 1985. But then at age 41 he went 7-13 and called it quits after that. His lifetime record of 311-205 gives him a .603 winning percentage, but obviously he was no threat to reach 400 wins.

So it is clear from these other greats that it is quite easy to reach the 300-330 win mark, be in your early 40s, and then decline rapidly. But none of these guys went past 330, let alone reached 347 wins by age 41. Mr. Maddux has a chance, but because so many things could happen, I'd put it at well below 50/50.

Photos of Africa, again

In a previous posting I noted some great photos that my friend and colleague Basia took during her recent trip to Africa. The ones linked in that posting were her "top 5" items. But in the weeks that followed she uploaded dozens of additional great photo-series covering all kinds of animals of Africa, and assorted other aspects of her trip. Her photos and descriptions have made for fascinating viewing and reading. Check out her dozens of blog postings from September and October for all of them, or if time is short, here are my four favorites (hard to choose):

• African Birds: Superb Starlings -- a very deep blue!
• African Birds: Secretary Bird -- possibly the strangest bird I've ever seen a photo of!
• African Birds: Kingfishers -- more bright colors!
• Africa: Primates -- the last two photos here are must see... classic!

Spinning the Un-Spinnable

This past Sunday's USA Weekend magazine had a pretty funny piece called "Bad rap? Hire a publicist!" It presents how a modern day publicist might try to put a good face on the behavior of Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, King Henry VIII, and John Wilkes Booth.

Greeks vs. Germans

Here is an all-time classic Monty-Python Bit, German Philosophers vs. Greek Philosophers in soccer/football. This one gets me laughing everytime, and there are so many great inside jokes, I catch something new each time I see it. This version is a bit longer than others I've seen in the past, so I'm glad to have found the link (thanks to Brandon Heffernan for that!).

Winter Is Coming

Winter is coming to Rochester. No snow yet, but I can feel the change in the air.

Hopefully we won't have problems like these folks had: see these incredible ice photos over at the Amazing Things blog.

Health Care and the Free Market

Two weeks ago the ARI put out a short opinion piece titled "Be Healthy or Else!". It nicely summarizes a free-market viewpoint rarely found anywhere else.

But even better, because it gives real-life examples, is John Stossel's recent "Medical Competition Works for Patients". In this column, Stossel gives numerous examples of areas of the health care world where free-market principles still thrive, where competition and pricing are not being altered by government regulation or even insurance company's policies. And the results? Quality in those areas continues to go up, and prices continue to go down. Quite the opposite of what we see across most of the health care world in recent years, eh? To get some great examples of the free-market at work in health care, this column is must reading!

And just as good is his previous column that details how Whole Foods ditched the traditional health insurance game in favor of HSAs -- Health Savings Accounts -- for its employees. The results, and Whole Food CEO John Mackie's understanding of the principles involved, are impressive and instructive. Also must reading!

Movies by the Numbers

Here is an interesting YouTube video (nearly 10 minutes) that has movie quotes from classic movies "by the numbers". You'll see what I mean...

TuneGlue AudioMaps

The October 16 issue of PC Magazine had a sidebar noting the site TuneGlue as a "Best of the Internet". I checked it out, and it is pretty slick. It is a flash-based site that takes the name of a music group or artist as input, and then lets you get back various bits of information about them. The most interesting aspect is the audio-map feature, accessible by clicking the artist's circle and then clicking Expand. This locates six-related artists, from which you could then repeat the procedure several times to develop a music-map to see the relationships between the artists.

I did several tests of this and found it to be fairly accurate. I started with Enya, and found that many of the artists it said were one or two-level relationships with Enya are exactly the same artists that Pandora selects for me based on my interest in Enya.

The results for Pink Floyd were not very enlightening, as they included some of the biggest groups from the 60s and 70s (Beatles, Doors, Led Zep, etc.). But then when I tried Jethro Tull, I was pleased to see Pink Floyd as one of the six bands directly related.

I tried several other artists, with mixed results in my opinion. Then again, perhaps what I consider to be closely related artists and what the rest of the world does are not in close alignment!

I'll also note that the database seems to be pretty deep, as I looked up Dargaard and they were included, as is Stan Rogers a favorite of Susan's.

Pretty nifty site, and a good way to research new artists that you might want to check out!

Few Things Annoy Me More Than Che T-Shirts

Not a lot of things really annoy or upset me in life. In fact, my personality is such that I often laugh at things that most others would never laugh at -- serious, horrible, bad things, which I agree are serious, horrible, and bad, but that are also so ludicrous that my initial reaction is just to scoff and laugh at them. I'm one of the few people I know who have that as a personality trait -- and for many people, it can confuse them at times.

But there are a few things that I don't react that way to, a few things that just immediately annoy, upset, or anger me. Any everyday object that has Che Guevara's image on it -- you know the one, the sillohuette-style image that is a modified version of Alberto Korda's famous photograph -- is one of these things for me. You see this image everywhere: most of all on T-Shirts and other clothing, but also on posters, coffee-mugs... just about common items that can have symbols or images applied to them.

When I see a young kid with a Che Guevara t-shirt, I just think: "You ignorant kid, don't you know what Che did, how many people he murdered and ordered to be murdered? Don't you realize what he truly stood for? Don't you realize the horrible, long-lasting, anti-democratic and anti-growth effect that the reverance for this man has had for the people of Latin America? Educate yourself and throw away that T-Shirt!"

For any adult of 30 years or older, especially anyone 50 years or older, that I see with Che-garb, the thoughts in my head are much stronger than just "you ignorant person". A couple of times I've almost struck up accusatory conversations with complete strangers over this issue -- something quite out of character for me.

What prompted this post today? Two short items in the October 13 issue of The Economist that I've finally gotten around to reading. First is the editorial "A Modern Saint and Sinner: Why the Che Myth is Bad for the Left" and then the short article about Venezuela's new education reforms that enforce socialist/communist ideological indoctrination (including a reverance for Che).

Unfortunate Web Domain Names

From the September 4, 2007 issue of PC Magazine we get a hilarious sidebar "The 6 Most Unfortunate Web Domain Names":

• Children's Wear = childrenswear.co.uk
• IHA Vegas = ihavegas.com
• ipAnywhere = ipanywhere.com
• Mole Station Nursery = molestationnursery.com
• Therapist Finder = therapistfinder.com
• ViaGrafix = viagrafix.com

A Test for Right Brain, Left Brain Dominance?

Here is something interesting... a personal test for right-brain vs left-brain dominance. (Thanks to Rational Jenn for the link.)

Susan saw this first, showed it to me, and asked if I saw the woman as spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise. When I said clockwise, she said "What!!? No way!". According to this test, that means I am right-brain dominant. Susan saw it the other way, so that means she is left-brain dominant.

While I question some of the distinctions listed on that page (uses logic vs. uses feeling -- I use logic heavily!), there is some similarity between myself and what this page indicates are right-brain attributes. Most notably accurate for me I think are: big-picture oriented, present and future, philosophy and religion (obviously philosophy for me), spatial perception, presents possibilities. Some of the items in the left-brain functions list are definitely stronger in Susan than I, and overall the "left" list is more accurate of Susan and the "right" list is more accurate of me I would say -- so that is at least in line with the results of this test. But it isn't dead-on of course -- since Susan is a philosophy professor (right-brain list item), and I am considered very logical and am a writer both at work and for pleasure (both left-brain list items).

Family Fun Movie: The Shining

My friend Steve Davala linked to a great fake-trailer for the classic horror movie, The Shining. Here it is at YouTube... hilarious.