On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.
I have always felt that James Lovelock was on to something with his Gaia theory of Earth, which as The Daily Galaxy states, “the Earth is essentially a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism.
But, in this case, I hope that he is wrong. According to his latest thoughts on global warming, it is really too late to do anything about it, and the “affluenza” that Thomas Friedman emphasizes in his book, ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded‘ has taken over the developing world is starting to affect the planet.
Here is the kicker, not only is it too late to do anything about it, according to Lovelock, doing too much to fix it might actually make it worse. Essentially, he says we should be more responsible for the sake of it and just learn how to adapt to what is about to happen to us as a race of people.
It also brings to mind a comedy sketch I saw by George Carlin when he said something like:
“The planet has been through a lot worse than us.
Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through
earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar
flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the
poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and
asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires,
erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic
bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The
planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!”Here is the whole thing, but in typical Carlin fashion, it includes a lot of profanity.
It’s a horrible catch 22 situation that leaves only a very small gap for any joy at all. If we continue to do nothing (note the use of the word continue), then we will doom ourselves. If we do do something, like a massive cut back in the emission of carbon in to our atmosphere, Lovelock believes that we would further damage Earth.
“Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating,” Lovelock will say, in a lecture to the Royal Society today. “If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler. We live in a fool’s climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly.”
I have been told many times in my life that I am a dork, but I think I have finally proven it. I sat here and watched Mythbusters Co-Host Adam Savage talk for almost sixteen minutes about his obsession with sculpting an exact replica of the Maltese Falcon. I really didn’t even know what it was about or why I was watching, but when it was finished, I was happy I did.
So, hold that thought for a moment and consider this other piece of dork-hood.
The day after Christmas, I read ‘The Giving Tree‘ by Shel Silverstein to my sons, which I was not previously familiar with. In fact, when I bought the book, I thought it was another compilation of poetry. It was a memorable moment in the sense that we really did not sit down to read it. Instead, both of my youngest sons were running about the house playing with their new Christmas toys, and I just stood and spontaneously began to read the story out loud. I became so engrossed in the story and its beautiful simplicity, that either my kids thought I was finally losing my mind, or they were as inspired as I was, stopping in their tracks and giving ‘The Giving Tree’ their full attention.
I could not help but think that this was exactly the type of emotion Silverstein hoped to pull from his readers - and here we were, the anonymous family from St. Louis, nine years after his death, having a memorable moment because of his storytelling genius. My wife, who was apparently listening while putting on her makeup in the bathroom, came out wiping tears from her eyes, and said, “That was sad.” She then turned back around to go and fix the mascara job that Silverstein had just wrecked.
Later that day, we were at my father-in-law’s house and I was telling him the story of our memorable moment from the morning and he said, “I have that book!” Sure enough, within a few seconds, he had pulled it from his library in the den and began to pass it around the room for others to read, and it became a good memory for even more of us.
A little later, my father-in-law grabbed yet another Silverstein book, titled, ‘The Missing Piece.’ Being a big fan of Silverstein’s poetry as a child, and now as a father, I was pleasantly surprised that I was going to read two of his books that only hours before I did not even know existed. He whispered, “Here. This one is just as good, but a little weirder.”
So, I read it and liked it, but I did not really understand it. The story was about an almost complete circle that had a missing piece, which it searches for and later finds. (I hope I didn’t ruin it for you.) But, the story ends without the circle being very happy with its newly found piece, and the two parts eventually go on their own way.
To many, the moral of the story was really pretty obvious, but it was not so for me…at least, not until I saw the following, seemingly unrelated, video lecture from Adam Savage: (If you plan on watching the video, now is the time to do it before reading further.)
The point that Adam Savage makes in the story about his journey to develop an exact replica of the Maltese Falcon was that in the end, it was not about the end product all, but the journey that he would take to get him there. It was the journey that contained all of the fun, as was the case for Silverstein’s circle with a missing piece. It turned out for the circle that it was not finding the missing piece that brought it the most joy. It was simply the journey, or the many experiences it had along the way that brought it the most happiness.
But that is not the end of this story, because it was not until the circle found its missing piece that it realized what really made it happy was playing with the butterflies and rolling in the tall grass. Fortunately, for the circle, it had realized early enough in its ‘existence’ that it still had time to go back out and experience more of what really made it happy before it was too late.
Of course, if the circle did not have the goal of finding its missing piece to begin with, and if Adam Savage did not have the goal of replicating the Maltese Falcon, they would not have had the journey that helped them identify the source of their happiness to begin with. So, perhaps the real moral to the two stories should be that while it is not the attainment of goals that ultimately leads to happiness, the journey would not happen without them. Or, at the very least, knowing that in the end, all that is left of us is our legacy, or our journey, we should spend more time evaluating our goals in life with the an emphasis on the journey that we will take to get there.
And finally, in the case of Shel Silverstein and his gift of ‘The Giving Tree,’ we know that some journeys never end at all. As long as there are new people to read and listen to ‘The Giving Tree’ for the first time, Silverstein’s various adventures, cunning insights, and quest for meaning will continue to stand the test of time.
What’s Little Brother about?
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.
But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.
When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.
I am not sure how I feel about this. Bioethics professor, John Harris, really does make some good points in this synopsis, but I think I am going to have to read the book (Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People) to get a better feel for it. I hope he delves in to the possible consequences of what he is proposing and what societies can do to prevent some of the worst.
If it is right to save life, Harris says, then it should also be right to postpone death by stemming the flow of diseases that carry us to the grave. And we should make any such technology available as soon as we can, even if it means there will be some “haves” and “have-nots”.
“Certainly, sometimes we want competitive advantage – but for the enhancements I talk about, the competitive advantage is not the prime motive. I didn’t give my son (Jacob, to whom the book is dedicated) a good diet in the hope that others eat a bad diet and die prematurely. I’m happy if everyone has a good diet. The moral imperative should be that enhancements are generally available because they are good for everyone.” The only other route to equality, he says, is to level down so that everyone is as uneducated, unhealthy and unenhanced as the lowest in society – which is unethical. Even though we can’t offer a liver transplant to all who need them, he says, we still carry them out for the lucky few. Much better to try to raise the baseline, even if some are left behind.”
Put this one down for more stupidity. I mean really, I think the best thing that could ever happen to a movie, or a magazine, or a book is to have a major national organization condemn, boycott, or burn it. I would have never heard of this edition of the magazine if the church had just ignored it and taken the high road. Every time a priest or church speaks out about it and calls it ‘blasphemous’ it just gets printed and displayed again.
Perhaps communications and public relations should be a part of theology training?
Case and point. My father-in-law is a Catholic deacon. He told me a few years back that some of the people of his parish approached him about condemning the movie Dogma with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. He politely let the lady know that if you would want the movie to be a hit, that is a sure way to make it so. Up until that point, he had not even heard of the movie. Now he has a little figurine of ‘Buddy Jesus’ on his desk.
I hope some church’s gather around and boycott DaddyHogwash.com. “Bring it on,” as my buddy George Bush likes to say.
(CNN) — Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Playboy issued an apology after outrage erupted over this cover of the magazine’s Mexican edition.
Playboy issued an apology after outrage erupted over this cover of the magazine’s Mexican edition.
Playboy Mexico has said the cover was not meant to portray the Virgin Mary, despite being printed just days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe — both Catholic holidays centering on the Virgin Mary.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez sat down with CNN Español’s Glenda Umana and Father Albert Cutie, a Radio La Paz host, to discuss the reaction among Mexicans and Catholics. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
I am just full of attacks on your ego today at DaddyHogwash.com. The following excerpt is from the book, ‘The Earth After Us; What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks,’ which I just added to my list of books to read or have read. The author is Jan Zalasiewicz.
Some of you may have seen the History Channel special called ‘Life after People‘ which covers a very similar topic. What made it interesting is that it worked on a time-line by showing what would the world be like the next day after people, 10 years after people, 100 years after people, etc. It followed this trend all the way until after there is essentially no trace left of human existence on Earth.
It is after all traces of human existence have disappeared that this book appears to pick up. I am looking forward to it. (Not the end of human existence. I mean the book.)
“The surface of the Earth is no place to preserve deep history. This is in spite of – and in large part because of – the many events that have taken place on it. The surface of the future Earth, one hundred million years now, will not have preserved evidence of contemporary human activity,” Zalasiewicz writes. “One can be quite categorical about this. Whatever arrangement of oceans and continents, or whatever state of cool or warmth will exist then, the Earth’s surface will have been wiped clean of human traces.”
I have added alist of books that I have either read, or hope to read soon. When you click on the books link on the top right, it will take you there.
You will notice that you can purchase the books there from Amazon. If you plan on making a purchase of one of these books, please do it from here and help me fund (justify ) my time on DaddyHogwash.com.
You would think that by now, you could feel relatively safe buying products in America. Upton Sinclair changed government regulation of private industry with his book “The Jungle” over 100 years ago. The Jungle was an exposé on the Chicago meatpacking industry that lead to major changes in food and drug legislation.
Regardless, somehow unsafe products and food still find ways to end up on our shelves. Here are sixteen toys being recalled due to unsafe levels of lead:
About 9,200 of the “Groovy Fashions” line of “Sassy Jammies” doll clothing has been recalled by the Manhattan Group of Minneapolis, Minn. because of excessive levels of lead in paint on the surface of the doll clothes.
Lead can cause permanent brain damage if ingested, and is particularly dangerous for children aged six years and under.
The recalled doll clothing set features a two-piece pajama set, eye mask and slippers. The pajama top is pink satin and the pants are dark brown with multiple-colored flowers printed on them. Made in Indonesia, the clothing was sold via mail order, on the Internet and at specialty gift stores nationwide from January 2008 through October 2008 for about $12.
Parents can claim a refund or store credit. Contact Manhattan Group at (800) 541-1345 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or visit www.manhattantoy.com.
I have always felt that ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5b1cfa30-40f2-4475-b765-e3f0212c263e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cfc0f301-f163-4861-8a73-558787060c03)
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(CNN) — Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
I am just full of attacks on your ego today at DaddyHogwash.com. The following excerpt is from the book, ‘The ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c3c10b28-fe7d-45c4-8231-3704d1725ebd)
) my time on DaddyHogwash.com.
You would think that by now, you could feel relatively safe buying products in America. Upton Sinclair changed government regulation of private industry with his book “The Jungle” over 100 years ago. The Jungle was an exposé on the Chicago meatpacking industry that lead to major changes in food and drug legislation. 
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