tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60437622024-03-13T11:29:17.813-07:00Mind ShadowsAdept meditator interested in aspects of consciousness, brain science, and philosophy, to include what is called free will. Also: people who led unusual lives, or those forgotten by history.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comBlogger582125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-80969622238104141312021-10-31T12:07:00.001-07:002021-10-31T12:12:27.466-07:00Richard Halliburton Lived Several Lives in One<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWGwTo6NgT7i5QNeCPhFD38dSpHqvs5mSa7h_0nlfuhPEGO7sUniWj4-XsXY_WsZjSbvrFwK2vnmpyTPs8CyHN4c2PrVhqq55ordrXrovVnr-tU3uKKF-rxo3NEQ3jaR9LCqa/s499/DontDieInBedCover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSWGwTo6NgT7i5QNeCPhFD38dSpHqvs5mSa7h_0nlfuhPEGO7sUniWj4-XsXY_WsZjSbvrFwK2vnmpyTPs8CyHN4c2PrVhqq55ordrXrovVnr-tU3uKKF-rxo3NEQ3jaR9LCqa/s320/DontDieInBedCover.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br /> This art-deco image of a pilot, scarf flying over a vintage biplane, evokes for me an entire era, and one man helps capture that era. A while back I found a book in a used book store. It was about Richard Halliburton, written by his father, Wesley. I bought it and set it aside for reading on some day when I had both free time and the inclination. When I did read it I was hooked. I learned Richard Halliburton was a travel-adventure writer and wrote many books. I bought them all and read them all. I could go on but that would not compare to the life I read about. Instead, I provide a summary from my book.<p></p><p>Richard Halliburton was a misfit, a rebel, in an America coming of age in the world. In the 1920s and 1930s he was one of the most famous persons in America, even more than Amelia Earhart, and today he is forgotten. He knew many people who would not fit in the handy boxes society offered them. Paul Mooney sailed across the Pacific with him in a Chinese junk. Moye Stephens flew as a stunt pilot in Howard Hughes' silent movies. Elly Beinhorn was Germany's Amelia Earhart. Pancho Barnes founded the Happy Bottom Riding Club. Halliburton met history makers like Lenin's widow and the man who shot the Czar. He chatted with Herbert Hoover, was friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald. </p><p>He was a maverick and couldn't see himself fitting into the America of his youth, although he was very much its product with his can-do attitude and things-will-get better belief. For all that, he was a round peg with nothing but square holes awaiting him as he reached adulthood. He could not see things the way most people saw them. His parents wanted him to play by the rules, to live an even tenor, and he scorned the rules, especially the phrase "even tenor." He said no to their even tenor and in doing so he turned his back on an America that held those values. Despite having little respect for rules, he became wildly successful because his life was wildly improbable as a travel-adventure writer. Because he dared, he became an icon of his era, more famous in his day than Amelia Earhart, with farmers' wives in Topeka, factory workers in Detroit, and newspaper boys in Cleveland buying his books. </p><p>Available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble or other book stores. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Die-Bed-Intense-Halliburton-ebook/dp/B00KWA38PW/ref=sr_1_22?dchild=1&keywords=richard+halliburton&qid=1635705861&qsid=130-5144513-8760604&sr=8-22&sres=1635617103%2C1626197202%2CB08YT82QL4%2C0648035638%2C064803562X%2C1635610508%2C1848859147%2CB07RZVZJFZ%2C1848857713%2CB0861W8DNR%2CB07PZX8SNJ%2C1613731590%2C1780761384%2C1621905764%2CB0007EGFUS%2CB004V97L58%2CB07TSQQK5T%2CB002GMLT0U%2CB08235MXBW%2CB0011V1YMA&srpt=ABIS_BOOK" target="_blank"><b>Click</b></a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-76323953618449331742021-08-27T21:49:00.000-07:002021-08-28T12:03:27.068-07:00Pain & Pleasure: The Lobster Reconsidered & David Foster Wallace<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJ85VKDY14GpMYftzpoiM_IM_ZKpdgFfNjozw8BJL8Pzz24myNVK3Gv0HRtDMhNNogVEFQn4BVUW546LcjnVklOOJ4vZetREcoPhB67a3bAev98uKw354a8Bw02NQHcB9aiMt/s1600-h/lobster01.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="Lobster Reconsidered David Foster Wallace" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290579180049616162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJ85VKDY14GpMYftzpoiM_IM_ZKpdgFfNjozw8BJL8Pzz24myNVK3Gv0HRtDMhNNogVEFQn4BVUW546LcjnVklOOJ4vZetREcoPhB67a3bAev98uKw354a8Bw02NQHcB9aiMt/s320/lobster01.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 221px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 307px;" /></a><br />
A few years back I read about George, a 140 year-old lobster that did not wind up on somebody's dinner plate. Instead, he was returned to the ocean at Kennebunkport, Maine. Lobster age is calculated by weight and this one weighed 20 pounds. George would have provided a dinner at over $100 in a good restaurant. Because of his age, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked the restaurant, City Crab and Seafood, that the lobster be returned to the ocean. After holding George in a tank for ten days, restaurant management released him to the animal-humane organization.<br />
<br />
Then I read about this more recently: Fish "sensors flare when . . . a hook rips through their scales and into their flesh. In the lab, when trout lips are injected with acid, the fish do not merely respond at the site. They rock their entire bodies back and forth, hyperventilating, rubbing their mouths against their tanks’ sides or gravel bottoms. These behaviors cease when the fish are given morphine. Such actions call the ethics of the research itself into question. But the experiences of lab fish are nothing compared with those endured by the trillions of aquatic animals that humans yank, unceremoniously, out of oceans and rivers and lakes every year. Some fish are still alive, hours later, when they’re shoveled into the sickly lit, refrigerated intake tubes of the global seafood supply chain."<br />
<br />
Those items item led me to some thoughts about pleasure and pain.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
René Descartes is called the Father of Modern Philosophy and is also known for his Cartesian Coordinates. In his <em>Meditations</em>, Descartes argued that animals can't feel pain. Nor can they reason, think,or suffer. They are pure physical entities rather like an animated banana. They have no mental or spiritual substance. Pure matter, they are. In his separation of consciousness, the "I" from the body, Descartes also split animals into the physical. They are machines. Burn a dog in a fire, and its howls are merely responses from the mechanism. A dead canine is like the ashes of a banana.<br />
<br />
Though few human beings agree with Descartes about animals and pain, all of us have a remarkable capacity to inflict pain on others. In famous experiments, Stanley Milgram argued that there is a torturer in everybody. (See my <a href="http://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2004/05/homethe-fate-of-earth-ii-genetic.html">The Genetic Predisposition to Violence</a>.) As authority figures in scientists' white lab coats, Milgram and others pretended to conduct experiments on the effects of electrical shock. Actually, the experiments were about the volunteers who did the shocking. Under instruction of people in white coats, volunteers repeatedly turned up the voltage to shock others (actually actors feigning pain). So long as the man in the white coat said a higher shock was necessary for the "experiment" the volunteer complied, although with frequent protests ("can't you see he's in great pain?). Few simply got up and walked out. Sympathy for the supposed pain of another was tuned down because the volunteer deferred to the authority of the person in the white coat. Often, if the scientist accepted full responsibility, the volunteer continued turning up the "voltage."<br />
<br />
We have problems with pain, not our own but others'. The problems are that pain and morality get mixed up, so we don't always get clear-cut answers as to right behavior. In Milgram's experiments the volunteer could cede responsibility to the authority figure.<br />
<br />
In our cerebral cortex we have mirror neurons, which do not simply copy what another does, but also "mirror" the feelings of the other, be they pain or pleasure. These neurons help make us human. Over-ridden by selfish impulse, they do not prevent us from evil. Fortunately, we also have the ability to reason, which can take a moral shape. This is where we encounter the problem of no clear-cut answers.<br />
<br />
Morality also helps make us human, but we draw lines in the sand for our moral behavior. As a boy spending summers on an Iowa farm, I took chickens out to the tree stump and chopped their heads off. I didn't like doing it, but on the farm I learned that food does not come in clean containers as it does in tidy grocery stores. If we were transported back in a time machine to their day, our hunter-gatherer forbears would laugh at any one of us so-called modern men and women. We would starve unless they showed us how to cope. We would learn to kill in order to have food for the fire. Morality draws the line at survival.<br />
<br />
I thought about George the lobster and fish because people draw the line at what they eat. <span style="font-style: italic;">If we do know how it's done, we simply don't want to think about how an animal is killed or prepared for a meal. We don't want to think about the suffering and pain an animal endures in order to satisfy our hunger.</span> We thus keep intact our sense of ourselves as moral beings.<br />
<br />
Moral thoughts spoil our appetite.<br />
<br />
If you have thought about it, if you have investigated, you found that, for example, cows are expedited humanely, with a pneumatic pellet shot into the brain. But what about their fear and cramped, inhumane conditions before they are killed? On the other hand, maybe you became a vegetarian knowing that. As for lobsters? Boiled to death.<br />
<br />
Do lobsters feel pain or don't they? They can't talk or communicate to us, so the humane, the moral, thing would be to come down on the side of affirmation. Yes, they do feel pain, probably extreme.<br />
<br />
There are scientific studies that suggest as much. Lobsters and other decapod crustaceans react to injury when painkillers such as morphine are applied. Their systems as well as their behavior reflect stressed response to noxious (painful) stimuli. Sensing pain is crucial to the survival of human beings and all animals. You yank your finger back from a fire immediately. Drop a lobster into a boiling pot and it will scramble, apparently frantically, to get out.<br />
<br />
As to pleasure and pain, then, (re)consider the lobster. I refer you to a celebrated piece about the Maine Lobster Festival done by one of our finest writers, David Foster Wallace, (<span style="font-style: italic;">Infinite Jest</span>, among other novels) for <span style="font-style: italic;">Gourmet</span>. The title of his article is "Consider The Lobster."<br />
<br />
Here is an excerpt from Wallace's piece, particularly about the pleasure/pain issue, and with a link to the full article. Bold face emphases are mine:<br />
-----<br />
"Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge that the questions of whether and how different kinds of animals feel pain, and of <span style="font-weight: bold;">whether and why it might be justifiable to inflict pain on them</span> in order to eat them, turn out to be extremely complex and difficult. And comparative neuroanatomy is only part of the problem. Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience, we do not have direct access to anyone or anything’s pain but our own; and even just the principles by which we can infer that others experience pain and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain involve hard-core philosophy—metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics. The fact that even the most highly evolved nonhuman mammals can’t use language to communicate with us about their subjective mental experience is only the first layer of additional complication in trying to extend our reasoning about pain and morality to animals. And everything gets progressively more abstract and convolved as we move farther and farther out from the higher-type mammals into cattle and swine and dogs and cats and rodents, and then birds and fish, and finally invertebrates like lobsters."<br />
<br />
"<span style="font-weight: bold;">The more important point here, though, is that the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable.</span> It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. <span style="font-weight: bold;">As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing.</span> I should add that it appears to me unlikely that many readers of gourmet wish to think hard about it, either, or to be queried about the morality of their eating habits in the pages of a culinary monthly. Since, however, the assigned subject of this article is what it was like to attend the 2003 MLF, and thus to spend several days in the midst of a great mass of Americans all eating lobster, and thus to be more or less impelled to think hard about lobster and the experience of buying and eating lobster, it turns out that there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions."<br />
<br />
"There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself—or at least it’s done specifically for you, on-site. As mentioned, the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, which is highlighted as an attraction in the Festival’s program, is right out there on the MLF’s north grounds for everyone to see. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something—there’s no way</span>."<br />
<br />
"<span style="font-weight: bold;">However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof.</span> And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming). A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.<br />
<br />
"There happen to be two main criteria that most ethicists agree on for determining whether a living creature has the capacity to suffer and so has genuine interests that it may or may not be our moral duty to consider. <span style="font-weight: bold;">One is how much of the neurological hardware required for pain-experience the animal comes equipped with—nociceptors, prostaglandins, neuronal opioid receptors, etc. The other criterion is whether the animal demonstrates behavior associated with pain.</span> And it takes a lot of intellectual gymnastics and behaviorist hairsplitting not to see struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering as just such pain-behavior. According to marine zoologists, it usually takes lobsters between 35 and 45 seconds to die in boiling water. (No source I could find talked about how long it takes them to die in superheated steam; one rather hopes it’s faster.)" <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/books/chapters/consider-the-lobster.html" style="font-weight: bold;">The New York Times</a><br />
<br />
The article on fish and pain can be found in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/what-the-crow-knows/580726/">The Atlantic</a>. (Do Animals Have Feelings?)Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-82546212072616621242021-08-09T13:42:00.000-07:002021-08-09T13:42:19.681-07:00Mercedes de Acosta Met Ramana Maharshi: Here Lies The Heart<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtFE8vBESmdg2dSsK1tyXZBlvUiLbKnmrRMXRN9oLq6CBo6n4l0GCp4WTuxK3krkW3BFNJ-3lrVd6TmbLU-6whFrb2YR65sd7AxU2z8Snwv7XScoFM9VvbuoAjgPoBj_oLSpy2/s1600/mdeacosta.0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtFE8vBESmdg2dSsK1tyXZBlvUiLbKnmrRMXRN9oLq6CBo6n4l0GCp4WTuxK3krkW3BFNJ-3lrVd6TmbLU-6whFrb2YR65sd7AxU2z8Snwv7XScoFM9VvbuoAjgPoBj_oLSpy2/s320/mdeacosta.0.jpg" width="156" /></a>Descended from the legendary Dukes of Alba, daughter in a wealthy Cuban family, Mercedes de Acosta was born in 1893 in New York, raised near Fifth Avenue, and had a beautiful sister Rita de Acosta who was <br />
a model for artists John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini. Married to painter Abram Poole, Mercedes was socialite, poet, playwright, Hollywood set and costume designer as well as script writer. She knew many of the greats of her day: Bessie Marbury, Rodin, Edith Wharton, Stravinsky, Sarah Bernhardt, Elenora Duse, Picasso, Cecil Beaton, Elsa Maxwell, and Krishnamurti. Near the end of her life, she met and befriended Andy Warhol, and introduced him to many of the people who would count in his career.<br />
<br />
Consuelo (Hatmaker) Sides, whose husband had been the World War I French flying ace Charles Nungesser, accompanied Mercedes on her passage to India. After arriving, de Acosta met former President Woodrow Wilson's daughter, Margaret, a devotee at Sri Aurobindo's ashram.<br />
<br />
In 1960, she published an autobiography, Here Lies The Heart, dedicated to Maharshi, in which she wrote, To Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, the only completely egoless, world-detached, and pure being I have ever known. She spent three days with him and remembered them as the most significant of her life.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
At a dinner party she became interested in Maharshi after she met Paul Brunton, an Englishman who had spent time with the sage, and had published A Search in Secret India, chronicling his transformative experiences at Arunachala.<br />
<br />
She later read Brunton's book and of it, she wrote that it "had a profound effect on me. . . . It was as though some emanation of this saint was projected out of the book to me. . . . Nothing could distract me from the idea that I must go and meet this saint. . . . . I felt I would meet the Maharshi and that this meeting would be the greatest experience of my life."<br />
<br />
As the car neared Maharshi's home she says,"the driver explained he could take me no farther. I turned toward the hill of Arunachala and hurried in the hot sun along the dust-covered road to the abode about two miles from town where the Sage dwelt. As I ran those two miles, deeply within myself I knew that I was running toward the greatest experience of my life."<br />
<br />
"When, dazed and filled with emotion, I first entered the hall, I did not quite know what to do. Coming from strong sunlight into the somewhat darkened hall, it was, at first, difficult to see; nevertheless, I perceived Bhagavan at once, sitting in the Buddha posture on his couch in the corner. At the same moment I felt overcome by some strong power in the hall, as if an invisible wind was pushing violently against me. For a moment I felt dizzy."<br />
<br />
"Then I recovered myself. To my great surprise I suddenly heard an American voice calling out to me, 'Hello, come in.' It was the voice of an American named Guy Hague*, who originally came from Long Beach, California. . . . " [*Some say Guy Hague is Somerset Maugham's Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge. <a href="http://the-wanderling.com/profile.html">The Wanderling</a> says his mentor was Maugham's inspiration.]<br />
<br />
After I had been sitting several hours in the hall listening to the mantras of the Indians and the incessant droning of flies, and lost in a sort of inner world, Guy Hague suggested that I go and sit near the Maharshi. . . . I moved near Bhagavan, sitting at his feet and facing him. . . ."<br />
<br />
"He moved his head and looked directly down at me, his eyes looking into mine. It would be impossible to describe this moment and I am not going to attempt it. I can only say that at this second I felt my inner being raised to a new level-as if, suddenly, my state of consciousness was lifted to a much higher degree. . . ."<br />
<br />
"[I asked Maharshi,] tell me, whom shall I follow--what shall I follow? I have been trying to find this out for years by seeking in religions, in philosophies, in teachings."<br />
<br />
"Again there was silence. After a few minutes, which seemed to me a long time, he spoke. 'You are not telling the truth. You are just using words--just talking. You know perfectly well whom to follow. Why do you need me to confirm it?' "<br />
<br />
"You mean I should follow my inner self?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"I don't know anything about your inner self. You should follow the Self. There is nothing or no one else to follow."<br />
<br />
I asked again, "What about religions, teachers, gurus?"<br />
<br />
"If they can help in the quest of the Self. But can they help? Can religion, which teaches you to look outside yourself, which promises a heaven and a reward outside yourself, can this help you? It is only by diving deep into the spiritual Heart that one can find the Self."<br />
<br />
"He placed his right hand on his right breast and continued,<br />
<br />
Here lies the Heart, the dynamic, spiritual Heart. It is called Hridaya and is located on the right side of the chest and is clearly visible to the inner eye of an adept on the spiritual path. Through meditation you can learn to find the Self in the cave of this Heart. . . ."<br />
<br />
"Bhagavan pointed out to me that the real Self is timeless. 'But,' he said, 'in spite of ignorance, no man takes seriously the fact of death. He may see death around him, but he still does not believe that he will die. . . .' "<br />
<br />
"To write of this experience with Bhagavan, to recapture and record all that he said, or all that his silences implied, is like trying to put the infinite into an egg cup. . . . On me he had, and still has, a profound influence. . . .I definitely saw life differently after I had been in his presence, a presence that just by merely 'being' was sufficient spiritual nourishment for a lifetime. . . ."<br />
<br />
"I sat in the hall with Bhagavan three days and three nights. . . . I wanted to stay on there with him but finally he told me that I should go back to America. He said, 'There will be what will be called a "war," but which, in reality, will be a great world revolution. Every country and every person will be touched by it.' You must return to America. Your destiny is not in India at this time.' . . . ."<br />
<br />
"Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi died on April 14,1950. He had said, 'I am going away? Where could I go? I am here.' By the word 'here' he did not imply any limitation. He meant rather, that the Self 'is.' There is no going, or coming, or changing in that which is changeless and Universal. . . . millions in India mourned the Maharshi. A long article about his death in the New York Times ended with, 'Here in India, where thousands of so-called holy men claim close tune with the infinite, it is said that the most remarkable thing about Ramana Maharshi was that he never claimed anything remarkable for himself, yet became one of the most loved and respected of all'."<br />
<br />
Her meeting with Maharshi was perhaps most remarkable in view of her life that preceded it. Alice B. Toklas once said of her, "you can't dispose of Mercedes lightly, she had the two most important women in US., Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich." Other lovers of Mercedes included the great actresses Alla Nazimova and Eva Le Gallienne and the legendary innovator of dance, Isadora Duncan. "I can get any woman away from any man," she liked to tell her friends. But what de Acosta eventually wanted more than anything was the 1938 interview with Ramana Maharshi. A woman of great appetites, she sought somebody who taught the quenching of appetites.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNtXIbuhQ2d7jjYonvn6g7UFB3VYNjpqQWF3BkaI5Mn-bzRpP9t5EKLt5PD3NDy4CWv7Ht85SfKC8YtthLMPTl4zsfBxCwgX5S6N8cBCX7qiIobfJyYgElbPsRtcZn10nBxCcQ/s1600/RitaDAcosta-Boldini.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNtXIbuhQ2d7jjYonvn6g7UFB3VYNjpqQWF3BkaI5Mn-bzRpP9t5EKLt5PD3NDy4CWv7Ht85SfKC8YtthLMPTl4zsfBxCwgX5S6N8cBCX7qiIobfJyYgElbPsRtcZn10nBxCcQ/s1600/RitaDAcosta-Boldini.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirZ2FlEMkq2IgHclfX4lOFyBS3ril75EroSIuW0BjGSUVOcOxgOSkd_zn1Ygu4s73DtWE3gTj7x97dalpO1mmvaALYbi9fjtwrvefx9XQZWO3amfG-OzpQ1Ir72ivgrEpChPli/s1600/MerecedesDAcosta.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="155" data-original-width="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirZ2FlEMkq2IgHclfX4lOFyBS3ril75EroSIuW0BjGSUVOcOxgOSkd_zn1Ygu4s73DtWE3gTj7x97dalpO1mmvaALYbi9fjtwrvefx9XQZWO3amfG-OzpQ1Ir72ivgrEpChPli/s1600/MerecedesDAcosta.jpeg" /></a>Mercedes de Acosta moved to a 68th Avenue apartment and died in relative poverty in 1968. In her autobiography she had revealed too many secrets about her friends, who then cut her out of their circles.<br />
<br />
Her book is Here Lies The Heart.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-76187624339846133762021-04-05T01:15:00.000-07:002021-04-05T17:43:07.230-07:00The Revolt of Pancho Barnes<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="65" /></a>
<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!--Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a><br />
<!--Feedburner-->
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mJJbgnSN-Iq8Dd0WO2_SlaMVtZkccRRQHZr3j-Qa1NQ9kDPdi1ZPSHuF9mqz_03rUQAAYFPTsi8S2fhgij2BrKRd8assceXbQPrbBrIjzTRyE1bm_OTPnIBr3x-r3f42aBr4/s400/Pancho_TravelAir_propeller-color.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mJJbgnSN-Iq8Dd0WO2_SlaMVtZkccRRQHZr3j-Qa1NQ9kDPdi1ZPSHuF9mqz_03rUQAAYFPTsi8S2fhgij2BrKRd8assceXbQPrbBrIjzTRyE1bm_OTPnIBr3x-r3f42aBr4/s320/Pancho_TravelAir_propeller-color.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Born to immense wealth, Pancho had an arranged marriage to a minister. Newspapers proclaimed the marriage of a socialite to a pastor. Tired of the marriage, she couldn't get a divorce so each Sunday morning she climbed into her biplane and dove down over the steeple, buzzing his church during his sermons, drowning out the service.
While a school girl she led her horse into her dorm. Called on the carpet, she "sweetly" explained to the headmistress she thought the animal was lonely. In the depth of the Great Depression she spent the last of her money to help fellow aviators but, broke, became a capable business woman, building The Happy Bottom Riding Club and Rancho Oro Verde Dude Ranch in the Mojave Desert and was a surrogate mother to test pilot Chuck Yeager. Years later, using her usual colorful language she told off the commanding officer of Edwards Air Force Base and he got back by trying to bulldoze her Happy Bottom Riding Club.<div><br />
Pancho Barnes is included in <i>Don't Die in Bed: The Brief, Intense Life of Richard Halliburton</i>.<br />
She grew up on South Garfield Avenue in San Marino, California in a three-story thirty-five room mansion with eighteen foot ceilings, wood-paneled walls with hand-carved moldings ,and a massive crystal chandelier hanging from one ceiling. A harpsichord chime summoned the family to dinner.<br />
Silver spigots serviced upstairs baths of marble. Water lilies decorated a large patio pool. Guests ambled to tennis courts for a few sets or to the stables, where they rode a mile course. In Laguna Beach stood another fine mansion on the cliffs above Emerald Bay. Next it she had a landing strip for her airplane. <br />
<br />
Born In 1901, Florence Leontine Lowe was supposed to have grown into a debutante whose coming-out would be into the best Southern California society. But Pancho was born to rebel while her mother wanted a young lady who conformed to social expectations. Pancho loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian but her mother thought that too common. Pancho took after her grandfather and father, both of whom doted on her.<br />
<br />
Her grandfather was Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, photographed from below by Matthew Brady as Lowe floated in a balloon at a Civil War battle. He spied on Confederate troop movements while Union soldiers held ropes to keep the balloon from drifting over Johnny Reb’s ranks.<br />
<br />
Abraham Lincoln appointed Lowe Chief Aeronaut of the Balloon Corps and Pancho claimed this made him founder of the US Air Force because he was de facto pioneer of American military aviation. In his balloon he became a favorite target of Rebel sharpshooters but fate favored him to grow old and become rich.<br />
<br />
Around 1918, Florence attended the Bishop School in La Jolla, her fourth school in eight years. She roomed with Ursula Greenshaw (Mandel), who wrote an autobiography, <i>I Live My Life</i>, saying that life with “Florence was “never DULL!” “One night when I entered our room, I stumbled against a body. I switched on the light and there lay Florence on the floor in a pool of blood. Pinned to her chest with a dagger was a note saying that she had decided to end it all. I soon discovered the blood was red ink and the dagger wound faked.”<br />
<br />
Florence was called on the carpet at the principal’s office one day because she led her horse, Dobbins, inside her building and up the stairs. The principal demanded to know the reason for the outrage. “She feigned innocent surprise and soon was expressing deep sympathy for the horse.” She sweetly said, “He must have been so lonesome that he even came upstairs to look for me.”<br />
<br />
Florence continued to rebel but for a while, at least, her mother had the upper hand and decided that an arranged marriage would cool her daughter’s spirit. In 1921, Pancho wed Episcopalian Reverend C. Rankin Barnes of Pasadena and ten years older. The newspapers announced that a society aviatrix married a Pasadena reverend.<br />
<br />
Three nights after the marriage, they finally slept together and begot a son. After that night they slept apart. William Emmert was born nine months later and grew up close to his mother, dying in 1981 when his WWII fighter, a P-51 Mustang, crashed.<br />
<br />
Theirs was not a match made in heaven.<br />
<br />
In her unpublished autobiography Pancho wrote, “I had married a clergyman and that was to be my life.” She tried to make it work. “I taught Sunday school. I had a class of boys about nine years old. I bribed them with jackknives to learn the catechism.” But Pancho after all was Pancho, not Florence. She wrote that “More and more I spent time with my horses.”
She wanted a divorce but he did not want the scandal.<br />
<br />
She tried provoking him into it. After she learned to fly, on Sundays she swooped her biplane low over her husband’s church and buzzed it, drowning out the choir and his sermon. He still refused. But no proper minister could remain married to a woman who publicly said “Flying is like being a sex maniac in a whore house,” one of Pancho’s celebrated quips.
Years later, in 1941, he did grant a divorce.<br />
<br />
Florence became Pancho in an adventure wholly typical of her. When friends decided to hire on as seamen on a banana boat, Pancho, the only woman, decided to join them. She cut her hair short, donned baggy pants, and signed on a tramp freighter as an ordinary seaman, Jacob Crane. There she met Roger Chute. She cussed and played poker with the crew but Chute, a Stanford-educated fisheries expert, saw through her disguise. They became alarmed when at sea. The captain hoisted the Panamanian flag—they discovered the ship ran guns to Mexican revolutionaries. At San Blas, she and Chute jumped ship before it became caught between revolutionary forces and sunk.<br />
<br />
Deep in Mexico riding horses, Chute on a white steed, she said he reminded her of Don Quixote. He said she looked like Pancho, Don Quixote’s squire. No, she said, you mean Sancho Panza, but she liked the name and kept it because there was nothing dignified about it and because it gave the raspberry to her mother’s proper lady.<br />
<br />
The Depression was not good to Pancho. With only a Hollywood apartment left, in 1935 she sold it and bought eighty acres in the Mojave Desert. Almost out of money and flying her Lockheed Vega, one day she looked down on the land below and saw a lush, green alfalfa field and thought it would be a good place to raise her son Billy. March Army Air Base was there and next it was Muroc Field.<br />
<br />
She bought a struggling alfalfa ranch and transformed it, having also bought out a dairy called Adair. She sold milk and eggs to the base. She grew alfalfa, had a dairy herd of cows and goats, farmed pigs, raised chickens, grew corn. She had a sweet deal with her garbage business, feeding her hogs on trash the base paid her to haul away and then selling pork back to it.
She was an able businesswoman and with profits from her ranch she bought more land.<br />
<br />
Near her ranch she built the Happy Bottom Riding Club, because General Jimmy Doolittle once told her he had a happy bottom. It was also known as Rancho Oro Verde Fly Inn Dude Ranch, where she eventually built a dance hall with glamorous hostesses, a gambling casino, a swimming pool, horse stables, and a championship rodeo stadium.<br />
<br />
Fellow aviator Moye Stephens recalled that among aviators she commanded respect as an able pilot, and she flew as a test pilot for Lockheed. She, in turn, respected other pilots and gravitated to them.<br />
<br />
Pilots went to Pancho’s where she could talk airplanes with them. She was queen of her bar, and the fly boys came to have fun and kid with her. She said she hosted the fastest and bravest men on earth. Pancho did not charge military test pilots for their drinks but triple-charged the civilian test pilots because of their fat salaries.<br />
<br />
A 1948 Time magazine article described her place: “Pancho’s Fly-Inn (or the Happy Bottom Riding Club)” has its own airport, lighted at night, “so that guests, friends and airborne wayfarers can fly in at all hours. . . . Chuck Yeager has roared low over the ranch in every sort of airplane, including the fastest jets. When he buzzes the place in a jet plane, the slap from the zipping wing jounces the bar.” The Time cover shows Yeager in his test pilot’s helmet as the man who broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.<br />
<br />
Pancho married again. And again. Three months after divorcing the Reverend she married Robert Nichols, Jr. It lasted a few weeks. He was in his twenties, about the same age as her son, Billy; she was approaching 40. After that marriage, she waited a bit longer and in 1945, she wed Don Jose Shalita, a handsome performance dancer. He left after four months. In 1953, she married her ranch foreman, Mac McKendry, thirty-two to her fifty-one. Her good friend Air Force base General Al Boyd flew cross-country in a B-47 for the wedding. He gave the bride away in the ceremony. Bell X-1 test pilot Chuck Yeager was her best man. Indian Chief Lucky blessed the union. Six hundred fifty people attended for a fifty-eight second wedding. Age slowed her down. It took fourteen years for her to divorce McKendry.<br />
<br />
Al Boyd, the previous commander, had been an old school aviator, and had even given Pancho away in her wedding to McKendry but in the 1950s the new Edwards Air Force Base commander took an immediate dislike to Pancho and she was not about to change. With her what you saw was what you got.<br />
<br />
Brigadier General J. Stanley Holtoner felt she and her place were unfit moral examples for his young airmen and called her a madam, her Happy Bottom Riding Club a cat house, and he placed it off limits. This hurt. The pilots and air crews had been her boys. She had taken them under her wing, cared for them. The general also decided to expand the Base to make room for a new runway, which conveniently meant condemning Pancho’s land by right of eminent domain. The General low-balled an offer for her 380 acres. <br />
<br />
No, said Pancho. Her land had not figured in any previous Edwards expansion plans. Besides, with her businesses the real estate was worth far more than the offer. “They picked the wrong gal to push around!," she said. <br />
<br />
She was David against Goliath, and Goliath had an unending supply of lawyers on its payrolls. Years could pass under judicial review and during those years a David could go bankrupt while Goliath played golf on Sundays and had well-paid lawyers. That may have discouraged and defeated others but not her. She was joined at the hip to the Air Force for, as she would argue in court, her grandfather founded the United States Air Force. She went to a law library to study books and legal briefs. There, she met Shirley Hufstedler, an attorney who was impressed by Pancho’s generous spirit and real grit. Shirley, her husband, and a friend, both also attorneys, took on the case.<br />
<br />
Her case became a <i>cause célèbre</i> with the press following Pancho’s every comment. Everybody favored underdog Pancho. The news spread around the world as “The War of the Mojave.” The courtroom was packed with people who came to attend the trial, spectators, reporters, military personnel. When both sides had rested their arguments, the jury retired to deliberate, and the courtroom atmosphere was tense as people waited for the jury, and waited, and still waited. After several hours, the jury returned with their verdict. <br />
They filed back into the courtroom, and everybody stood for them. Honorable US District Court Judge Gilbert Jertberg asked them, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you finally reached a unanimous decision?” “Yes we have your honor,” came the chairman’s reply. <br />
<br />
They found against the United States Air Force and The United States government. They found for Florence Leontine "Pancho" Barnes. Cheers filled the courtroom. Judge Jertberg stated that Pancho was a courageous, forthright individual. In her compassion and concern for her military customers she had shown herself a friend of the Air Force. He awarded her a settlement of $414,500, much more than the $185,000 offered by the Air Force.<br />
<br />
Today, little remains of The Happy Bottom Riding Club.<br />
<br />
While Pancho was away shopping a fire mysteriously started, destroying it. Just before the end of the trial, on November 13, 1953, it burned down. The fire marshal believed it a case of arson, but could not locate a proximate cause. The general had told Pancho that if she didn’t sell he could have her ranch “napalm bombed off the desert.” <br />
<br />
After the hullabaloo faded the Air Force took over her land for a runway. The Happy Bottom ruins are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. <br />
<br />
She died in 1975, age 74. Scheduled to be keynote speaker at the annual Barnstormer’s Reunion of the Antelope Valley Aero Museum, she could not be reached when a friend called her. Pancho’s son, Bill, stopped by her little rock house in Boron, California to investigate and found her dead. The coroner concluded that she had died several days earlier of a heart attack. She had requested that her body be cremated, the ashes strewn from an airplane over the 380 acres of her Happy Bottom ranch.<br />
<br />
To this day Edwards Air Force Base celebrates an annual Pancho Barnes Day. <br />
<br />
She said “We had more fun in a week than most of the weenies in the world have in a lifetime.” Perhaps most notable, she should be remembered for this: “If you have a choice, choose happy.” She took a very large bite out of life. <br />
<br />
Leader of the B-25 raid on Tokyo, General Jimmy Doolittle learned that Pancho had died and thus would not appear as keynote speaker for the Barnstormers Reunion. He prepared a testimonial to her life. So many there, so many of her friends, from Hollywood to aviation. Susan Oliver, Richard Arlen, Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin. General Doolittle said this: <br />
<br />
“Good Evening. Ladies and gentlemen, we have recently lost a true friend. In this day and age, real friends you can depend on in a pinch are rare indeed. Florence Lowe Barnes left us late last month. She was an expert pilot and a good organizer. She had a fine mind, and was intensely loyal. When the going was rough, you knew that she would always offer a willing hand. There was no extent to which she would not go to help a friend who was in need . . . In a few words, she put great store by courage, honor and integrity. She despised dishonesty and cowardice. She was straight forward and couldn't abide dissimulation, abhorred sham. She was outspoken, and she said exactly what she thought and believed. You know, I can just see her up there at this very minute. In her inimitable way, with a wry smile, she is probably remarking to some old and dear friend who preceded her, 'I wondered what the little old bald-headed bastard was going to say.'<br />
<br />
God love her. And may I now propose a toast: Ladies and gentlemen, to Pancho Barnes. Pancho Barnes!”<br />
<br />
The Air Force has never built its runway on Pancho’s land. The dairy barn below is among the ruins that remain.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDg9_kSUWETztnYCsf7bEga_CzvGIrBqTJhGzNpQGQ-xZbQFuPLeY3ZNp1C8jD41tIqNKt2YW69lnQ0AQkU8c0dG3OUU7R_Z8O51SI4SF_V2ta7RGSdr9QWQodogMkwHqbj44/s650/dairybarn+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivDg9_kSUWETztnYCsf7bEga_CzvGIrBqTJhGzNpQGQ-xZbQFuPLeY3ZNp1C8jD41tIqNKt2YW69lnQ0AQkU8c0dG3OUU7R_Z8O51SI4SF_V2ta7RGSdr9QWQodogMkwHqbj44/s320/dairybarn+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-78669737405775730522021-03-11T08:20:00.014-08:002021-04-05T17:44:02.073-07:00Don't Forget This: The Triumphal Parade of Ancient Rome<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!--Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a><br />
<!--Feedburner-->
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_cTgj9TjVCKTTgvMzBafgSnIyeLApG5RGFZsaGAyGhwFvB3m31ORHVgBM9d_2I8UjaD72ZR3tN5jGabV6B0fr7UK6NvASHqUABF1PeMfZwucS_itu8nwYTsgE7t28IdNk6Np/s1600/Capture.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_cTgj9TjVCKTTgvMzBafgSnIyeLApG5RGFZsaGAyGhwFvB3m31ORHVgBM9d_2I8UjaD72ZR3tN5jGabV6B0fr7UK6NvASHqUABF1PeMfZwucS_itu8nwYTsgE7t28IdNk6Np/s200/Capture.JPG" width="153" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In ancient Rome, a general, many to become emperors, presided over The Triumph (Triumphus), a victory parade through the streets of the city with throngs watching him pass by. In a chariot he lead the parade, and heard the ovations of the masses. He wore a purple tunic, for purple was a rare dye only the nobility and powerful could afford. Behind him walked all his army, his men and women captives, soon to become slaves, followed by his other spoils of war. A slave held his golden crown, but the main role of the slave was to occasionally whisper in his ear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Memento mori, memento mori.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Translated it means, Remember, you will die.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I dedicate this story to all politicians of power and high station.</span>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-43379021108055317772021-02-24T12:52:00.002-08:002021-04-04T09:25:21.101-07:00Meditation, The Narrator, and Self-Therapy<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a><br />
<!-- Feedburner-->
<p>The years have piled up on me and through them I have at times been happy, have been sad, have suffered, have been calm. Over the years and as a lesson hard-won, looking at mind with its ups and downs, I find one thing stands out. If mind identifies with a narrator, somebody who tells his or her story, then dukkha, suffering, is greater. The narrator is a voice, a series of thoughts, or images, that seems to have continuity, but in fact it comes and goes. I also found that a narrator impartially takes credit for bad feelings as well as good ones when in fact either kind of feeling doesn't depend on a narrator. They just happen. They arise and fall away, just as the narrator arises and falls away. There is no continuous stream. The continuity is ego's necessary fiction. Yes, in life we have a story-line. We were born at a certain place. Went to school somewhere. Married. Etc.</p><p>But all that is in what we call the past. The narrator needs the past (and the future) to maintain itself. We have only now as our thoughts and feelings arise and pass away. We can add something to them or just watch them happen. The narrator thinks they're you but in a moment they disappear as it does also.</p><p>We can't get rid of the narrator but we can see through it. Seeing through it helps relieve us from suffering. ( I distinguish suffering (mental) from pain (physical).) </p><p>We can see through it by noting when we feel good. The feeling doesn't need a narrator to increase it. It's just there, sometimes with a narrator. When we feel bad, the feeling doesn't need a narrator. Indeed, when a narrator is added the bad feeling worsens. ("Nobody understands me." "It's all hopeless." "This is the story of my life." These are just examples. Each of us can choose our own favorite story line.)</p><p>I don't know much about Taoism but a phrase resonates. The Tao that can be seen is not the true Tao. What you are is what mind cannot grasp. Maybe you want to save that for later in your investigations, though. I'll just ask you to think about this: Are you your brain? If so, where does the "me" thought come from? Can you find it? Are you in your body? Etc. The point here is that whatever you can identify is itself another object, physical or mental. Are you an object? Or are you that which sees objects? Similarly you see objects in space but not space itself.</p><p>A few people grasp all that without ever meditating. I am not one of them. It took many years of meditation for me. So that's my advice. In the beginning five minutes of meditation daily can help. Over time the five can be extended to ten, the ten to twenty, etc. Whenever it is neglected the mind wants to take over, get itself back in control with thoughts such as "I have no time for this," or "This is a waste of time," or "It just isn't my cup of tea," etc. Notice that the ego is involved in each denial. Meditation, as it deepens, reveals the folly of clinging to egoic assertions.</p>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-73339426945732339292020-06-23T14:35:00.014-07:002021-03-19T16:55:58.312-07:00Buddha & Absolutes: Hindu Thought & The View from Nowhere<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!--Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!--Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type=""><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type=""></a><br />
<img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1100" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGwZVUenLUe_TaCyj-et9dXavNSKLPIu_uizyJkw0HYE5R5hiYs7TAes_BM4_Rleb4KjXAHQStGNzKlS7MkYrp32f4f6jYrPnGSNiIB1jVe9M9jzwR8ZFSYWk_ttxBHXgjytdN/w157-h200/Ernst+Mach.png" title=""Self" portrait by Ernst Mach, after whom the speed of sound, Mach 1, is named. Physicist, philosopher, and physiological psychologist as well as forerunner of Einsteinian relativity." width="157" /><br />I found an interesting article at the <a href="https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/the-view-from-nowhere-or-somewhere/">Skeptic</a> site, called The View from Nowhere or Somewhere? Maja Caron reviews a novel by Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for The Existence of God. ( I read her book Plato at The Googleplex, and it is a tour de force.) In the review Caron brings up Thomas Nagel's classic work, The View from Nowhere, discussing Nagel in terms of the views of Cass Seltzer, Goldstein's protagonist.<div><br />
Somewhere in her very interesting and good article Caron says this: </div><div><br />
"If the universe is both personal and universal, as both Seltzer and Nagel suggest, and it’s not possible for an individual to wrap his/her logical thinking process around the notion, one should neither assign mystical significance to this nothing, nor should it seek to empirically dissect it as a 'thing in itself'."<br />
<br />
I have this to say about that. Of course. The central tenet of many of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and Buddhism is that the universe is both personal and universal. But. The difference between Hindu teachings and Buddhism--as I understand them--is that India goes metaphysical with Brahman while Buddhism does not go there with anatta, or no-self. India took the next step. Buddha, a son of India, did not delve into metaphysics.<br />
<br />
Both Hinduism and Buddhism argue that the universal/personal cannot be understood by mind. But Advaita--to use an example teaching--took a leap of faith while Buddhism--in its non-dogmatic teachings--says you are that, you are both personal and universal, but it's only part of your experience and to be realized empirically.* What lies "beyond" your experience cannot be known by the human mind and there is no point in taking a leap of faith because any statement of faith is only an assumption. *(Realized in human experience that is not claimed as metaphysical revelation and as stated in The Heart Sutra: "Form is emptiness; emptiness form.")<br />
<br />
Buddhist teachings go on to say that the so-called awakening experience, because it is not metaphysical and only a non-conventional possibility of experience, should not be exceptioned as beatitude. It should not be regarded as special because it is only another experience. It is liberating but not magical, not other-worldly religious, and certainly not revelation from God. Buddhism is agnostic about any absolute. "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him; if you meet a ghost kill the ghost," goes an old Zen koan. (Attributed to Zen Master Linji, founder of the Rinzai sect.) In short, don't follow mind in its old tricks about absolute/not-absolute. The ultimate trickster is mind and its musings that keep ego involved in trying to find a "groundless ground."<br />
<br />
Yeats said it well: "Like a long-legged fly upon the water his mind moves on silence." With its attendant experiences the silence is as far as we can go.</div>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-50787960496287644972020-01-12T17:30:00.001-08:002021-04-04T09:13:42.349-07:00What Is Time? Julian Barbour's Answer<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!--Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!--Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!--Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a><br />
<!--Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjYzvzYB_me1JmFNc6X3EIfa4F7YFdtAkgdEw4tOstAxRuA1SgttZfWJ_pt7LElmsX0-SxHeX3PVso-psTX34wDbfhi_rlE09kjX2k2v0qZX_XIgfBeLL0WyFzRJRaTVPc5m1/s1600/TimeFuturePast.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjYzvzYB_me1JmFNc6X3EIfa4F7YFdtAkgdEw4tOstAxRuA1SgttZfWJ_pt7LElmsX0-SxHeX3PVso-psTX34wDbfhi_rlE09kjX2k2v0qZX_XIgfBeLL0WyFzRJRaTVPc5m1/s1600/TimeFuturePast.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Tell me what time is. You cannot. The future does not exist, nor does the past. Nor the present. You cannot live in the present. Snap your fingers and it is gone. By the time you say "now" it is already past. You cannot apprehend any part of time you talk about. All you have are words to explain something that eludes you and the words only confuse you all the more.</b><br />
<br />
In 1908 John McTaggart wrote The Unreality of Time, and using his A and B series of time he argued that our perception of time is an illusion. Of the A series, he argues this:<br />
<br />
"If time exists it must be explained by the A series, which is how we normally think about time. This is a tensed series, as in past, present, and future. A cup of coffee was hot in the past, is lukewarm in the present, and cold in the future. The United States was created in the past, exists in the present, and will no longer exist in the future. In this series are three distinct instances."<br />
<br />
McTaggart juxtaposes a B series against the A series. This series is relational, or durational. One way to think of it is as events before the now and after the now. A cup of coffee had hot temperature, is colder temperature in the present, and colder after the present. Put in another way to think about it, the United States was founded in the past, exists after its founding, and will no longer exist after its founding. From both perspectives the instances are not distinct, but relational, enduring from one into another. The B series can be likened to space. The wall is there, and a window elsewhere. They are spatially related. The B series as relational is not inherently separate (distinct) from other time-moments, just as space has no difference in it. As the wall is there, the window elsewhere, so events in the B series can be located as before and after.<br />
<br />
Many rich and profound complications arise from thinking about the two series but the central point is that they are contradictory. One is tensed, the other tenseless. The A series depends on personal experience and perspective. "I am drinking hot coffee today." The B series does not. The experience and perspective are not there. "I recall drinking hot coffee today."<br />
<br />
Because they are contradictory, McTaggart says time is not real. His legacy is that he left A theorists and B theorists debating which kind of time is true, continuing a discussion traced back to Parmenides (reality is timeless, unchanging) and Heraclitus ("You can't step into the same river twice").<br />
<br />
So what is time? If nobody asks, I know. If they ask and I try to explain, I do not know. (St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430.)<br />
<br />
In his book, <i>The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics</i>, Julian "Barbour asserts that time simply doesn't exist." Barbour starts with the notion that time is just a way of describing change. He means that to measure time you have to have something that moves. How long does it take to get from point A to Point B?<br />
<br />
~ "There's only change, not time. Things move around; time may just be a way of noting that. But Barbour goes further. He says there's no such thing as motion either. Instead, Barbour sees a universe filled with static instants -- instants that contain 'records' that fool any conscious beings who happen to find themselves encased in one into believing that things have moved and time has passed."<br />
<br />
~"This common-sense view was one of many forever altered by Einstein's theories. We see time this way, he made clear, only because we move so slowly. If you could peddle your bicycle at something almost in the neighborhood of the speed of light, relative to an observer, your watch and your aging process would appear -- to that observer -- to slow. (From your own perspective, time, unfortunately, would still keep chugging along at its usual dispiriting pace, which makes it unlikely that anyone will figure out how to turn this phenomenon into a wrinkle cream.)"<br />
<br />
~"Relativity found time a home as one of the four dimensions in something called spacetime. But it hardly settled the question of what time is. And the idea that time slows down in certain circumstances made it easier to imagine that time was just a construct of us observers, not itself a fact of nature."<br />
<br />
~"What if, Barbour wonders, we just imagine a kingfisher to be flying? After all, it isn't exactly the same bird at perch A and perch B: Its molecules constantly change; its atoms constantly change. What if our brain has captured a few snapshots of kingfisher-in-flight that it plays -- movie-like -- in such a way that we think we see continuous motion?"<br />
<br />
~"What if the instants we inhabit somehow happen to be filled with 'records' -- images of kingfishers with their wings spread, tread marks, 'memories,' fossils -- that manage to delude us into thinking that birds fly, cars lurch, species become extinct; 'records' that manage to delude us into thinking that we are scurrying along some sort of path from the past to the future? Isn't it true that all we know now about the past or the future comes from thoughts or objects we experience now -- in the present?"<br />
<br />
~"What if, Barbour then asks, we're always trapped in one moment or another and everything else -- your sense, for example that X number of minutes ago you moved your hand and clicked on FEED -- is a kind of illusion, somehow evoked by the structure of this particular, all-encompassing moment? What if, in other words, our whole sense that things move is an illusion, as -- in another context -- our sense that the earth does not move proved to be an illusion."<br />
<br />
~"This is, if it helps any, quite similar to the view of time presented in Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel <i>Slaughterhouse Five</i>, which Barbour has not yet read. ('I know,' he says. 'People keep telling me I should look at it.') Vonnegut describes most earthlings as trapped in moments like 'bugs in amber.' Billy Pilgrim, the book's main character, however, repeatedly comes 'unstuck in time': He jumps, in no particular order (though in accordance with the needs of Vonnegut's narrative), from one point in his life to another. Moreover, on the planet Tralfamadore, which Pilgrim visits, 'all time' is visible at once, as we 'might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. It does not change. It simply is.' That Rocky Mountain-like view of all time is remarkably similar to Barbour's Platonia."<br />
<br />
The above comments are excerpts from a review of his book published in the now defunct Feed Magazine on July 14, 2000 by Mitchell Stephens. I wanted to link you to the review but the link is dead. More of the review is below. Or <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-019-0748-5.epdf?shared_access_token=71zaGih4MnLKKDFKEJz789RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MyEA7MVSStu02B3uws8l9iT2bw5w6CPloIY0IpOnHcfItofjFjw7TIV_MU1Hmd0ddxLD-i5bMifICXwNGHS5PBRQuh5ZZNlvD--DkK4kIfeQ%3D%3D">click her for a Nature article on why time is an illusion</a> according to classical physics.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
The Question of Time<br />
<br />
Barbour's theory meets one test of important new ways of looking at the universe: It doesn't, on the face of it, make a lot of sense. That puts it right up there with relativity (Space is curved?), quantum mechanics (Particles are waves?) and Copernicus's ideas (The earth, despite all indications to the contrary, moves?). In fact, Barbour's assertion that the instants we experience do not follow each other in a temporal sequence seems as likely to elicit a "Go on!" as any theory physicists have dreamt up in the past half millennium. The question is whether his theory meets the other test of important new ways of looking at the universe: Is it, in other words, remotely possible that he is right?<br />
<br />
There are two ways of determining that, given the absence, to date, of experimental evidence: first, by grappling with the theory itself or, second, by figuring out whether this guy seems worth trusting. Neither, in this case, is easy. Barbour's thinking is complex and his credentials eccentric.<br />
<br />
Just what time is has always been difficult to figure. "Time is the biggest mystery," states the physicist Brian Greene, who leads an accessible and fascinating expedition through contemporary physics in his recent book, The Elegant Universe. Our sense -- and this might be called the Newtonian view -- is that a kind of perfect, invisible celestial clock, invariable and indefatigable, is ticking away somewhere out there. Sundials, Swatch watches, and the human aging process each, in its less-than-perfect way, reflects this absolute time. It seems as inescapable and inevitable as death -- its enforcer.<br />
<br />
This common-sense view was one of many forever altered by Einstein's theories. We see time this way, he made clear, only because we move so slowly. If you could peddle your bicycle at something almost in the neighborhood of the speed of light, relative to an observer, your watch and your aging process would appear -- to that observer -- to slow. (From your own perspective, time, unfortunately, would still keep chugging along at its usual dispiriting pace, which makes it unlikely that anyone will figure out how to turn this phenomenon into a wrinkle cream.)<br />
<br />
BARBOUR, who lives near Oxford in England, is one of the only living physicists you will read, or read about, nowadays who is not in the employ of a college or university. In fact, Barbour, while he does have a Ph.D. in physics (earned in Cologne), has never taught physics. He calls himself "an independent." Barbour supported his family for decades by translating Russian scientific publications. His physics was done in his free time, at his own pace. Since Barbour's ideas have not been blessed by a tenure committee, and are radical, "people might naturally question," as one physicist puts it, "whether he is a crackpot."<br />
<br />
There is considerable evidence to the contrary. Barbour's book, to begin with, is published by Oxford University Press. (As an Oxford author myself, I see this as clear proof of the book's merit.) Barbour has published, sometimes in collaboration with a genuine academic, some influential papers. He gets invited to important conferences. The back of his book is graced by an impressive collection of blurbs, including one from John A. Wheeler, one of the most accomplished physicists of the second half of the twentieth century. And then there is the enthusiastic (if difficult to follow) review his book received in the New York Times ("a masterpiece"), not to mention the designation bestowed upon it in one of many respectful articles in the London broadsheets: "much talked about."<br />
<br />
The book itself describes a personal, spirited, sometimes stubborn, and mostly lonely intellectual quest. This gives it a slightly moist feel, as if we'd been invited directly into one man's cerebral cortex. But Barbour fulfills his main task -- explaining -- with industry and cleverness.<br />
<br />
Not many physicists, including Barbour's respectful blurb writers, seem convinced that he is right about time. "Julian and I are very happy to disagree," is how the matter is worded, with respect and affection, by Fay Dowker, a physicist at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Still, most who are familiar with his work believe, as that physicist who mentioned the term certainly does, that, very far from being a "crackpot," Barbour is "an interesting, delightfully unusual, guy," who gets his math right and understands the equations in question. "Although his work is not widely known by the high-energy community in general," Dowker explains, "among a small, diverse group of physicists it is seen as challenging and interesting."<br />
<br />
And these physicists are hesitant to simply dismiss his radical ideas. After all, physics was transformed early in the twentieth century by a set of radical ideas emanating from a fellow who also was not employed, during many of his most productive years, by a university.<br />
<br />
BARBOUR STARTS WITH THE NOTION that time is just a way of describing change. "If you try to measure time," he told me in a recent telephone interview, "you have to have something that moves. It is remarkable how many people haven't considered this, including even Einstein, who never thought seriously about what a clock is." (Artie will enjoy learning that he may have been a step ahead of Einstein on this one.)<br />
<br />
Without clock hands moving (or digital numbers flashing), without any motion, Barbour is convinced, there would be no time. Then he tries to prove -- more tentatively -- that there is no such thing as motion.<br />
<br />
What if, Barbour wonders, we just imagine a kingfisher to be flying? After all, it isn't exactly the same bird at perch A and perch B: Its molecules constantly change; its atoms constantly change. What if our brain has captured a few snapshots of kingfisher-in-flight that it plays -- movie-like -- in such a way that we think we see continuous motion? What if the instants we inhabit somehow happen to be filled with "records" -- images of kingfishers with their wings spread, tread marks, "memories," fossils -- that manage to delude us into thinking that birds fly, cars lurch, species become extinct; "records" that manage to delude us into thinking that we are scurrying along some sort of path from the past to the future? Isn't it true that all we know now about the past or the future comes from thoughts or objects we experience now -- in the present?<br />
<br />
For Barbour, what exists is not a universe moving through time; what exists is an endless, timeless series of possible configurations of everything in the universe -- each just an instant wide. There are configurations in which we each are born, presumably configurations in which we each die, and configurations in which we read articles about weird new theories. All these many, many possible instants are sitting in a "configuration space," which Barbour dubs (with a nod to another fellow who thought we were often deluded by appearances) "Platonia." These instants -- these "nows" -- are all there, like words in a book, at once. We experience many, many such instants -- and not necessarily in chronological order.<br />
<br />
"I'm not a solipsist," Barbour insists, reassuringly. "I'm convinced that you're there. Equally I conclude that something I can call 'myself' is in other instants of time -- all the ones I remember from my past." Nevertheless, for Barbour possible instants -- a huge number of them, some containing him or us, some not -- are collected like cards in a deck. And it is not clear what instant might be dealt next (though the word "dealt" is probably too active and "next" too time-dependent for Barbour's theory).<br />
<br />
If there is no time, though, how come we, unlike [Kurt Vonnegut's] Tralfamadorians, believe that we are moving continuously and chronologically through it? Vonnegut has an extraterrestrial character suggest that the human perspective is akin to looking at a mountain range from a railroad car through a tiny hole: We glimpse only a narrow stream of events, not the whole, timeless vista. Barbour's answer is more complex.<br />
<br />
It is based on the (difficult-to-get-your-mind-around) notion in quantum mechanics that, until we actually observe them, particles have no definite location. All we can do is determine, through probabilities, where they are most likely to be. Hanging over Platonia, Barbour suggests, is a "blue mist" of similar probabilities. Barbour surmises that the mist must be thickest, the probabilities highest, over those configurations of the universe that are good at deluding us into thinking time flows and things move. Those are the instants in which we are most likely to find ourselves suspended. According to his theory, there presumably was a high probability that you would find yourself in this particular instant -- an instant in which you are reading this article and believing (I assume) that a series of movements led up to your reading this article.<br />
<br />
IT'S AMAZING how badly all this stuff goes over at dinner parties.<br />
<br />
Most of the time you don't even get a respectful "Hmm" or a "Really?" Just a curt, "Oh, come on!" before everybody gets back to grumbling about the presidential campaign. Sure, we've all experienced some situations -- while watching Eyes Wide Shut, for example -- where time seems to slow, if not stop completely. Still, Barbour's idea that time always stands still, that nothing really moves, is, shall we say, counterintuitive, the evidence for motion in this world being rather compelling. It's not just kingfishers flying. Consider SUVs muscling down a highway, or Hillary Clinton perambulating through upstate New York. In describing the world, we feel the need to have recourse to verbs. Barbour's all-noun theory is awfully hard to accept.<br />
<br />
For Theodore Jacobson, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, the rub is the flow of time: We feel it. Barbour's theory denies it. Bugs trapped in amber don't flow. "Still," Jacobson cautions, "you have to be careful about being too dogmatic in dismissing Barbour's idea. It's a creative idea. I'd hate to be objecting to it because I wasn't imaginative enough to see how it could be right. Besides, from one point of view, this is what quantum gravity suggests."<br />
<br />
That's right: quantum gravity. Barbour's "timeless" theory, like most truly ambitious physics theories these days, has a go at reconciling those two great, well-tested, but on some level incompatible twentieth-century formulations: relativity and quantum mechanics. The key seems to be coming up with a quantum description of the main player in Einstein's general relativity: gravity. (The current favorite for accomplishing this is "string theory," but Barbour hasn't yet focused much on that.)<br />
<br />
Physicists have gotten themselves into tangles, Barbour suggests, by trying to thread time through their equations on quantum gravity. His solution? Cut the thread! "Maybe," Barbour says, "the fundamental equations of the universe don't contain time at all." (The actual equations -- the sort we general readers are known to find off-putting -- are not included in his book, but Barbour does make an earnest and enterprising effort to explain their significance.) He maintains that, when time is subtracted from some of those crucial equations, quantum gravity begins to make a kind of timeless sense.<br />
<br />
"People working in this field have known for decades that there is a major problem with time," Barbour states. "Why am I the first to write about the possibility that time does not exist? The answer may be that I'm an independent."<br />
<br />
There's more. Barbour argues that the best attempt to produce a quantum equation that might apply to the whole universe, an effort generally credited to John A. Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt, works best when the universe is seen as being in a stationary, i.e., timeless, state. "The Wheeler-DeWitt equation tells us," Barbour writes, "that the universe in its entirety is like some huge molecule in a stationary state and that the different possible configurations of this 'monster molecule' are the instants of time."<br />
<br />
I haven't seen any evidence that physicists are dismissing Barbour's interpretation of these equations as obviously wrong. Although he has not read Barbour's book, Edward Witten, of the Institute for Advanced Studies, another of our most accomplished physicists, acknowledges in an e-mail exchange that in at least one set of fundamental equations "Time does not appear explicitly in the equations in the same sense that space does." And Witten, whose work has been crucial to string theory, also notes, intriguingly, that string-theory "processes with strong time dependence" have proved "perplexingly difficult to understand." Witten's conclusion? "I suspect that there is a secret hidden here, but, of course, I don't know what it is." But Barbour thinks he knows. Cut the thread!<br />
<br />
NEVERTHELESS, even Barbour admits that his "timeless" interpretation of crucial physics equations may prove wrong. This is one point upon which there is agreement. "It might be that when we get to a new level of fundamental ideas we will see space but absolutely no glimmer of time," suggests Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia. "That's possible, but that isn't my gut feeling on how it will turn out." (Greene imagines a different, though also radical, solution: "My own feeling is that 'space' and 'time' are the wrong language to be using to begin with and that we will find some new ideas. And we will see that space and time are just approximations of these new fundamental ideas.")<br />
<br />
Even if Barbour's approach and his eviction of time from those fundamental equations were confirmed, he would have a long way to go before he could produce a science powerful enough to explain the huge role this supposedly nonexistent time appears to play in the universe. Motion in time, for example, seems to provide a reasonably efficient explanation for how kingfishers (or their molecules or atoms) get from here to there and the universe expands. Barbour's probability "mists" in Platonia would represent just a first step toward an alternative explanation.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, the mystery remains. What is this "dimension" of "spacetime" that, unlike the other dimensions, has the obnoxious quality of only permitting travel in one direction? Why does it appear to have such a firm grip on the world, on the universe, and on us mortals? If Barbour accomplishes nothing else, he has at least challenged other physicists to work harder to explain what it means to say that time or motion do, in fact, exist.<br />
<br />
For us non-physicists, Barbour's radically counterintuitive speculations may be just plausible enough to warrant trying to get our minds around. After all, the wonderful thing about physics -- not counting all the practical stuff, like figuring out how to make hydrogen bombs -- is the opportunity it affords us to stretch our minds. Julian Barbour might not be Copernicus, or Einstein. He may very well turn out to be as wrong as he seems to be. But he does get you thinking.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Articles%20page.htm">Here is a link to Mitchell Stephens works.</a>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comSan Francisco, California22.231127888267672 -50.986956310437051-5.5889421117323295 -110.75258131043705 50.051197888267673 8.7786686895629487tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-87716910002256721722019-12-07T19:56:00.000-08:002020-01-14T11:44:47.187-08:00Ota Benga: Man in A Zoo Cage<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a><br />
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBFZskVtWXbXMDIUkFvJ5Soaq7VL4cifcf6Kg7HX7EztVDu_U44CnsEsTlsREu5nU0Qv99bEe8M47ochH9y5YYw2B9CDFwEsKci-9VQFtAUxeyeGcPJTessHrnDOQp0ESws-LA/s1600/Ota_Benga_at_Bronx_Zoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBFZskVtWXbXMDIUkFvJ5Soaq7VL4cifcf6Kg7HX7EztVDu_U44CnsEsTlsREu5nU0Qv99bEe8M47ochH9y5YYw2B9CDFwEsKci-9VQFtAUxeyeGcPJTessHrnDOQp0ESws-LA/s320/Ota_Benga_at_Bronx_Zoo.jpg" width="165" /></a></div>
In September 1906 a caged human being was put on display in the Bronx Zoo. A sign on the cage read:<br />
<br />
The African Pygmy, "Ota Benga."<br />
Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.<br />
Weight, 103 pounds. Brought from the<br />
Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Central Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner.<br />
<br />
Benga was exhibited in the afternoons during September. Zoo officials clothed him in animal skins for viewers to gawk In youth his teeth had been filed to sharp points as was the custom of his people. Many New Yorkers thought they were for eating human flesh and called him a cannibal. Chimpanzees were put in the cage to suggest a comparison between him and them. Nearly a quarter million people saw him--fathers holding children high to see over the shoulders of those in front, women standing in front of the cage so a picture could be taken of them with Ota Benga safely behind the background bars. Zoo attendance in September doubled over the previous year. "Bushman Shares a Cage with Bronx Park Apes," read a New York Times headline, which declared that "the human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale."<br />
<br />
The boyish-looking Benga sat on a stool in silence. In the first week Benga seemed resigned to his fate. The next week he kicked, bit, or hit attendants as they tried to put him in the cage. By Sunday September 16th, Benga was allowed to roam the park while watched by park rangers. 40,000 people visited the zoo that day. Hordes followed him. The rowdies chased him. They cornered him, poking him in the ribs or tripping him. Others laughed at his fright. He struck back at them. But he wouldn't go back to the monkey house. Three rangers had to force him back.<br />
.<br />
Zoo director William Temple Hornaday wrote to the man who brought him, Samuel P. Verner, on Monday September 17th: “I regret to say that Ota Benga has become quite unmanageable.” Hornady lamented that “He has been so fully exploited in the newspapers, and so much in the public eye, it is quite inadvisable for us to punish him; for should we do so, we would immediately be accused of cruelty, coercion, etc., etc. I am sure you will appreciate this point.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNXCFGK4Y7nzKHvz0LkqToSELI_fCV7Kdp_ePY8J3nIgqEvtoKURkf1pwX3lt8X2qwMTlJE16LtZREqct9URZq8bxPOK0oFgtmXnTrvxG8lA635AgKbGtVK0lzE_DJBPqbQOs/s1600/Rev+James+Gordon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlNXCFGK4Y7nzKHvz0LkqToSELI_fCV7Kdp_ePY8J3nIgqEvtoKURkf1pwX3lt8X2qwMTlJE16LtZREqct9URZq8bxPOK0oFgtmXnTrvxG8lA635AgKbGtVK0lzE_DJBPqbQOs/s320/Rev+James+Gordon.JPG" width="250" /></a></div>
Eventually he was released from the zoo. African-American clergymen had protested the exhibit. One Monday afternoon in September the Reverend James H Gordon, known as “one of the most eloquent Negroes in the country,” led a small group of ministers to see the exhibit. They got off the train at the zoological gardens and at the primate house, they watched Ota Benga in a cage with Dohang, the orangutan.<br />
<br />
James H. Gordon went home to write, "Our race, we think, is depressed enough, without exhibiting one of us with the apes." Other clergymen backed him.<br />
<br />
Ota Benga became caged in the zoo because of a series of events beginning with history and imperialism. As a member of the Mbuti people he lived in equatorial forests of Congo Free State. Thereby hangs a tale. (Congo Free State was captured as metaphor in Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.) The Congo was by no means free. It was created by Belgian King Leopold II in order to plunder it, principally for rubber and ivory. British consul Roger Casement brought home from the Congo confirmation of mass atrocities under Leopold’s rule. Men had come to Casement with missing hands. Casement said the rampant practice of mutilation “is amply proved by the Kodak.” Photographs showed at least two dozen mutilated victims. Congolese were chained by their necks and forced to work for the "free" State. Leopold created the Force Publique in order to enslave and control the people. Benga's people were attacked by the Force. Ota returned from a hunting expedition to find his wife and two children murdered. Later he was captured by slave traders.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs35SLG29HmQkxT2nhLgUZTath79g7MXW8uBPOAPQe6Qv6IJFfF8WxsiuWjaA7mxyf0XREYRXMLTNE82uxrGa5bV8kuZuvhBVl5V_UvoIpwebJGGbL76XOvGTQHO7hO6hR9I60/s1600/Samuel+P+Verner.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="281" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs35SLG29HmQkxT2nhLgUZTath79g7MXW8uBPOAPQe6Qv6IJFfF8WxsiuWjaA7mxyf0XREYRXMLTNE82uxrGa5bV8kuZuvhBVl5V_UvoIpwebJGGbL76XOvGTQHO7hO6hR9I60/s320/Samuel+P+Verner.JPG" width="236" /></a></div>
In 1904 Samuel Phillips Verner found Ota Benga among the traders and claimed to have bought his release for a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth. Verner was under contract from The Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St Louis World's Fair) to return with an assortment of natives for the exhibition. W.J. McGee wanted an exhibit to represent "all the world's people . . . from smallest pygmies to the most gigantic . . . from the darkest blacks to the dominant whites." In this new age of Darwinism he sought them to demonstrate a cultural evolution. In short, ranging from inferior to superior cultures.<br />
<br />
As Verner tells it, Benga agreed to return to America with him and encouraged a group of Batwa tribesmen to accompany them. They did not trust Verner, a white man, because of atrocities committed by King Leopold's Force Publique. Benga told them Verner had saved his life and that they had developed a bond. Four Batwa males as well as other Africans accompanied them to St Louis.<br />
<br />
At the World Fair, Apache chief Geronimo, on exhibit also, came to admire Benga and gave him an arrowhead.<br />
<br />
Verner returned Benga and the other Africans to the Congo, where Benga married a Batwa woman who died of snakebite. Without his Mbuti people, Benga did not feel he belonged with the Batwa and returned with Verner to the states.<br />
<br />
While tending other business, Verner negotiated with curator Henry Bumpus for Benga to stay at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Benga was given a linen suit to wear but became homesick for his own culture. He was inside all the time, when outside he was in a big city. The museum itself was silent with hard, barren surfaces. Outside was concrete without birds, breeze, anything to hunt. He was presented as a savage. The museum was a prison. Guards kept him inside and he tried to slip past them in the large crowds at the entrance. Once he was asked to seat a wealthy donor's wife. He pretended to misunderstand and threw a chair, barely missing her head. One can only imagine him thinking, "So here's the savage you want." Verner found him another home.<br />
<br />
It was the Bronx Zoo, where this story began. William Hornaday, zoo director, had Benga help maintain animal habitats. But people noticed Benga more than they did the animals. Hornaday eventually featured Benga in an exhibition. We know how that ended.<br />
<br />
The African-American clergyman who protested the treatment of Benga re-enters this narrative here. James H. Gordon put Benga in the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, a church-sponsored orphanage in Brooklyn, which Gordon supervised. At the Orphan Asylum 1906 wore into 1910 and the press was relentless in pestering Benga and Gordon for stories about the pygmy.<br />
<br />
Gordon arranged with the McCray family in Lynchburg, Virginia, for Benga to move there. He bought him American clothes and had Benga's filed teeth capped so that he could better fit in. Anne Spencer, a poet of the Harlem Renaissance, tutored him in English. He attended elementary school at the Baptist Seminary in Lynchburg.<br />
<br />
At the time Lynchburg was a city of nearly 30,000 people. Benga would have ridden on its electric street cars, at the back of course, and traveled its cobbled streets. He lived with Mary Hayes Allen and her seven children in a yellow house across the road from the seminary. Allen was widow of the Seminar seminary's former president.<br />
<br />
Benga found the forest near the house as something reminiscent of home. In it he taught neighborhood boys how to make bows from vines, how to hunt wild turkeys and squirrels. He told of his days hunting elephants.<br />
<br />
He went to work at a tobacco factory. For a sandwich and root beer he told people his life story. The sandwich, the root beer, and the life story suggests he might have become settled by then and leads to the question, Was he happy by then? Had he adjusted to a way of life far from the forest, the animals, the people, and the culture he grew up in?<br />
<br />
As he grew older he lost interest in teaching neighborhood boys the ways of a hunter. He wanted to go back to Africa.<br />
<br />
He would have gone too, except for the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Serbia, which would grind up men as cannon fodder. In !914 World War I began and Germany launched submarine warfare. Passenger ship were only one more target for torpedoes.<br />
<br />
A largely European war kept an African man from his native equatorial forests<br />
<br />
Old men recalled those war years and themselves as boys listening to Benga sing a song he learned at the Theological Seminary, “I believe I’ll go home / Lordy, won’t you help me."<br />
<br />
<div>
<div>
The old men remembered the late afternoon of 19 March 1916, as they watched Benga gather wood to build a fire in the field. They watched him dance around the fire. He chanted and moaned. It was about a world he lost, they knew that, but he had done it before.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They went to sleep. In the still night with cicadas chirping, Ota Benga crept into a shed near the yellow house. Before daybreak they heard a loud shot. He had hidden a gun there and fired one bullet through his heart.</div>
</div>
<br />
Ota Benga, 1883-1916Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-61869580342543703252019-06-11T20:26:00.000-07:002019-06-11T20:26:06.538-07:00Belief Shapes Behavior, Free Will or Not<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>Whether You Think Free Will or Determinism, Belief Shapes Behavior</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4gwTvLNdjCUSiKYi4XEqlEfFEiOp3zmEC8Umg0tsd1zkwwG0Af4PVyffmDKJgKM835cjaKYwsAenI_pZCqHAGayVkCUe9GGcDty6_RJ5zLvqKI8A1OV-6jC29QnK2c2rLS7xG/s1600/Free+Will+or+Determinism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4gwTvLNdjCUSiKYi4XEqlEfFEiOp3zmEC8Umg0tsd1zkwwG0Af4PVyffmDKJgKM835cjaKYwsAenI_pZCqHAGayVkCUe9GGcDty6_RJ5zLvqKI8A1OV-6jC29QnK2c2rLS7xG/s1600/Free+Will+or+Determinism.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Popular wisdom has it that everybody will do right or wrong based on moral choice, and that moral choice is just―well, just a personal thing. One person can be as moral as another despite any difference in underlying beliefs about the world. Maybe, but <b>Kathleen Vohs' and Jonathan Schooler's</b> <b>experiment</b> gives us pause to think about the questions. <b>What are the implications for society if people come to believe they have no free will? No moral responsibility?</b><br />
<br />
They had some students read passages from <b>Francis Crick's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Astonishing Hypothesis</span>--a very deterministic view of the universe </b>and the human place in it. We are creatures without God and without free will. The students read this: <b>" ‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.”</b><br />
<br />
<b>They had other students read inspirational books on how we make our own decisions and forge our own paths in life</b><br />
<br />
They then let each group play a video game in which the groups were allowed to cheat. The students were told to do 20 arithmetic problems and to press the space bar when a question appeared, otherwise the answer would also pop up because of a computer glitch. The students were told that no one would know when the space bar was pushed. Still, the students were asked not to cheat.<br />
<br />
<b>So guess who cheated?</b><br />
<br />
The group that read Crick's words.<br />
<br />
What are the implications of this? We hold ourselves responsible when we think we choose our actions.<br />
___________________<br />
An interesting commentary on the experiment can be found at <a href="http://mindfulhack.blogspot.com/2008/08/free-will-can-you-believe-in-it-as.html">Mindful Hack</a>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-1140741336546784022019-05-06T16:25:00.000-07:002019-05-06T19:52:39.578-07:00Evolution Didn't Design You To Be Happy<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<b>Happiness and Evolution</b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuRF4ZdFn-2StpBwfVQx4jmZw6yMCljXvbGABHaXkiN6E-LKNS7_l2-k996NQJEkWOS4kubWUJHDkUZ9CRqTsf0wJFyMjy4ObRdNBUAiHHHPTNPW89jeiIa1JD5b0BIEy7ZNW/s1600/RatRace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuRF4ZdFn-2StpBwfVQx4jmZw6yMCljXvbGABHaXkiN6E-LKNS7_l2-k996NQJEkWOS4kubWUJHDkUZ9CRqTsf0wJFyMjy4ObRdNBUAiHHHPTNPW89jeiIa1JD5b0BIEy7ZNW/s1600/RatRace.jpg" /></a>When people are asked what they really want out of life most respond that they want to be happy. They <br />
may think more money, a better job, improved status, social recognition will make them happy. Or they may think of all that as superficial and that they want inner happiness. Whichever, people regard happiness as a good unto itself.<br />
<br />
This is what Aristotle said. He held happiness as the central purpose of human life and an end in itself. It has no goal beyond it. To be happy is to arrive.<br />
<br />
But happiness by itself does not propagate genes. It has no survival value. <b>In terms of natural selection, we are not programmed to be happy. It's in our DNA.</b><br />
<br />
Psychologist at University of Pennsylvania, <b>Martin Seligman</b> noted the bias in his field toward mental illness in the basic psychiatric reference work <b>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</b> from psychosis to schizoaffective disorder. He found no comparable manual for minds that worked well. He set out to correct this view in, among other books, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743222989/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-0750153-5534548?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;amp;v=glance&n=283155">Authentic Happiness</a></em> and has a <a href="http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/">web site</a>, complete with surveys, explaining his approach.<br />
<br />
<b>Maybe, though, the notion that shit happens is rooted in our natures.</b> Maybe we are more inclined to worry and anxiety <b>because of their survival value</b>. Think about the word <em>happy</em>. It derives from the same root as our modern <em>happens</em>. In Middle English, <em>happ</em> applied to chance, fortune, accident. We have the application in the modern word <em>happenstance</em>. Given the Middle English root, if you are happy you are lucky. If shit does not happen to you, then you are happy. Happiness, then, carries a tragic view of life. Things occur that are out of your control. You may be happy today and struck down by a car tomorrow.<br />
<br />
So what about the survival value of worry and anxiety?<br />
<br />
"It is the year 100,000 B.C., and two hunter-gatherers are out hunter-gathering. Let’s call them Ig and Og. Ig comes across a new kind of bush, with bright-red berries. He is hungry, as most hunter-gatherers are most of the time, and the berries look pretty, so he pops a handful in his mouth. Og merely puts some berries in his goatskin bag. A little later, they come to a cave. It looks spooky and Og doesn’t want to go in, but Ig pushes on ahead and has a look around. There’s nothing there except a few bones. On the way home, an unfamiliar rustling in the undergrowth puts Og in a panic, and he freezes, but Ig figures that whatever is rustling probably isn’t any bigger and uglier than he is, so he blunders on, and whatever was doing the rustling scuttles off into the undergrowth. The next morning, Og finally tries the berries, and they do indeed taste O.K. He decides to go back and collect some more.<br />
<br />
Now, Ig is clearly a lot more fun than Og. But Og is much more likely to pass on his genes to the next generation of hunter-gatherers. The downside to Ig’s fearlessness is the risk of sudden death. One day, the berries will be poisonous, the bear that lives in the cave will be at home, and the rustling will be a snake or a tiger or some other vertebrate whose bite can turn septic." <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/27/pursuing-happiness">New Yorker</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDAEIy0HYXkJ-VwaGy9Yh6503BY02I4XOKwB_gaWVBgplX30e5JbsmZWLbNdG_ZWwXT3mPzFgf-iMoA27bdEXrfLie99RtP9vJxytsxGVrqXR2dVY_oef95b8lQ1dMjhR9Lht/s1600/NietzscheEvolHappiness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="122" data-original-width="290" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDAEIy0HYXkJ-VwaGy9Yh6503BY02I4XOKwB_gaWVBgplX30e5JbsmZWLbNdG_ZWwXT3mPzFgf-iMoA27bdEXrfLie99RtP9vJxytsxGVrqXR2dVY_oef95b8lQ1dMjhR9Lht/s400/NietzscheEvolHappiness.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-53170953786428094092019-04-21T01:15:00.000-07:002019-04-21T08:45:24.766-07:00Ben Underwood Clicks His Tongue To See<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJKNGYRsYNXkQMwrZ9YZ6dnoEag4Qq2ACQ4Mw9mpv1Zfx0P98hkW4FGCCrlsGMiqVs2rLRjw5RO2xH_quushPOy8H4Xn2GocwK-qAf-pacEhBUplFegJAdu7PRsiubJfUwYs7/s1600/BenUnderwood.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJKNGYRsYNXkQMwrZ9YZ6dnoEag4Qq2ACQ4Mw9mpv1Zfx0P98hkW4FGCCrlsGMiqVs2rLRjw5RO2xH_quushPOy8H4Xn2GocwK-qAf-pacEhBUplFegJAdu7PRsiubJfUwYs7/s1600/BenUnderwood.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
"To society he's blind," said Ben's mother, "but that doesn't make him handicapped. He just can't see."<br />
<br />
She also said, "One thing that I truly get back from Ben being blind is that he truly sees people from within.<br />
<br />
When he hears someone say that someone else is ugly, or anything negative towards someone else. He says, 'That's whats wrong with sighted people, you all look at one another and judge what you look like,' I see that statement being so true. "<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
His eyes removed because of cancer, Ben grew up without sight, but at age five learned to click with his tongue about every half second—to <b>echolocate—</b>to ride his bike, shoot hoops, play video games, and throw pillows at his sisters. Echoes informed Ben as to the position of objects, how big they were, their general shape, and how solid they were. Ben recognized a pole as tall and narrow, a building as tall and very broad. A pillow was soft and not dense.<br />
<br />
I am left with mystery. Watching the boy in action left me scratching my head in amazement. Take a look for yourself:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="460" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XUXh-X1iveU" width="375"></iframe><br />
<br />
Sadly, just shy of his 17th birthday this amazing and inspiring boy died of another cancer after the one that took his eyes. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhtMXpNW1zc">The obit video can be watched here</a>. Also read another Mind Shadows post on<a href="http://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2007/10/home-echolocation-bats-dolphins-and-ben.html"> echolocation, bats, dolphins, and Ben Underwood</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
By clicking, Ben avoided curbs while riding his bicycle in his <st1:place><st1:city>Sacramento</st1:city>, <st1:state>California</st1:state></st1:place> neighborhood. Even though he couldn't see the hoop, <b>he could sink a basketball through the basket</b>. He played video games by distinguishing sounds. He wrote a novel, <b>typing it at 60 words per minute</b> on a standard keyboard. "<b>I can hear that wall</b> behind you over there. I can hear right there--the radio, and the fan," Ben told one reporter.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ben was not the only blind person who developed echolocation. Others are <b>Daniel Kish</b>, 40, of Long Beach, California, who leads other blind people on hikes in the wilderness or in mountain biking. "I have mental images that are very rich, very complex,” says <st1:city><st1:place>Kish</st1:place></st1:city>. <b>James Holman</b> (1786-1857) used the sound of his tapping cane to travel alone around the world.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
See the piece on <a href="http://spiritrambler5.blogspot.com/2004/06/homeblindsight-graham-young-is-blind.html">Graham Young, a man who is blind but somehow can see</a>. Young can sense moving objects but doesn't know how he does it. In that article<b> V.S. Ramachandran</b>, a neuroscientist, explained Young's ability.<br />
<br />
Here is <a href="http://www.benunderwood.com/">a web site dedicated to Ben Underwood</a>. Here is <a href="http://www.benunderwood.com/aboutme.html">his mother's account of him in "Ben's Life."</a><br />
__________________<br />
<b>Bats</b> send sound signals in rapid bursts at high frequencies. Their sonar can bounce off flying mosquitoes, which the bats swoop on with open mouths.<b> Dolphins</b> find their meals in the same manner. Echolocation, uses sound to identify objects and their locations. As with vision, the brain processes energy reflected off an object—only as sound rather than light.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-1164209639020267032019-04-09T14:30:00.000-07:002019-04-16T16:49:18.182-07:00Jaron Lanier Disagrees with Dawkins' Memes and Kurzweil's Singularity<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mitifitKPZLfankJBSRdFD_y00DmEY4uJNrfZZQvvLu1xVUKRYgWFsMpGs4F66OuZ5BoBZsiv_RBFSnjqn8cbmysFn19EHqvPtsgUPY7nLem1EKqXYO8sHSpUvSuMVuaGxfb/s1600/Jaron-Lanier-2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="330" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mitifitKPZLfankJBSRdFD_y00DmEY4uJNrfZZQvvLu1xVUKRYgWFsMpGs4F66OuZ5BoBZsiv_RBFSnjqn8cbmysFn19EHqvPtsgUPY7nLem1EKqXYO8sHSpUvSuMVuaGxfb/s200/Jaron-Lanier-2006.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jaron Lanier Disagrees with Richard Dawkins' Meme Theory and Ray Kurzweil's Singularity</span></span><br />
<br />
<b>As a goat farmer, Jaron Lanier supported his way through college</b>. While growing up, he lived far from cities and near Mesilla, New Mexico, with his <b>father in tents until they built a house centered around a hippie-esque geodesic dome designed by Jaron.</b> (His father's Ukrainian family fled the pogroms for America. His mother, who survived an Austrian concentration camp, died in a car accident when he was nine.) As assistant to a midwife, he helped deliver a baby. The father gave him a car as a gift. <b>When he was 13 New Mexico State University let him enroll.</b> There he took graduate-level courses.<br />
<br />
The phrase <em style="font-weight: bold;">virtual reality</em><b> was coined by Lanier, to his eternal regret. </b>He recalls the early Utopian vision of his fellow youthful hackers and laments how quickly it was corporatised. A prodigy from the start, he helped create <b>Web 2.0, </b> <b>futurism</b>, <b>digital utopianism</b>, and their ideology, which he now calls “<b>digital Maoism</b>.” He accused giants <b>Facebook</b> and <b>Google</b> of being “spy agencies.”<b> </b> He believes the "hive mentality" destroys political discourse. It is the wisdom of the crowd, he says, and it cannot evolve upward but lead only downward. The mentality weakens economic stability. With its alienated processes the hive mentality can destroy our personhood in the sense of social and legal dignit<b>y</b>. He sees it all leading to “social catastrophe." He fears a cybernetic house of mirrors that could be manipulated by whoever is "the biggest asshole."<br />
<br />
Born in 1960, <b>Jaron Lanier</b> shuns career stovepipes and has taught computer science in various institutions, including <b>Dartmouth</b>, <b>Columbia</b>, and <b>Yale</b>. His books are <b>You Are Not a Gadget</b> (2010), <b>Who Owns the Future</b> (2013), and <b>Dawn of the New Everything</b> (2017). Lanier reacted against an acquaintance of <b>Timothy Leary</b> who once told him to surround himself with gorgeous young people and flatter them. He decided to never fool people and tell the truth, especially when it was unpleasant. He has never taken drugs. A polymath, he a <b>philosophy writer</b>, <b>computer scientist</b>, <b>visual artist</b>, <b>composer of classical music</b>, and <b>founding father of the field of virtual reality</b>. A <b>pianist</b>, he writes chamber and orchestral music. He is also a visual artist. In 2010, Lanier was nominated in the <b>Time 100 list of most influential people</b>. He is sought out as an important contributor to current discussions on matters such as the <b>philosophy of consciousness</b> and the findings of science. His interests are widely divergent, among them the interface between <b>artificial intelligence</b> and <b>biology</b> as well as <b>quantum physics</b>.<br />
<br />
In "One-Half a Manifesto", Lanier disagrees with <b>Ray Kurzweil</b>, Google’s Director of Engineering, and a well-known <b>futurist</b> who has scored well with accurate predictions. It is said that since the 1990s his 147 predictions turned out 86 percent accurate. He writes of the <b>Singularity</b> and predicted that by 2029 artificial intelligence (AI) "will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence" and has 2045 for the Singularity, when effective intelligence will be multiplied by "a billion fold by merging with the intelligence we have created." He finds abhorrent the belief that virtual worlds can be "on an equal footing" with reality.<br />
<br />
Lanier says humans are not to be considered to be biological computers. Humans will not be generally replaced by computers in a few decades, even economically. This is highly unlikely. He says "<b>Simply put, software just won't allow it. Code can't keep up with processing power now, and it never will."</b><br />
<br />
In an interview, he was asked about the <b>Meme Theory</b> of evolutionary biologist <b>Richard Dawkins</b>. In his classic book, <em><b>The Selfish Gene</b></em>, Dawkins explains memes thus:<br />
<br />
"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. . . . If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. `. . . memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. . . . When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. . . . 'belief in life after death' is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of individual men the world over."<br />
<br />
Here, then, is the question and <b>Lanier's answer</b>:<br />
<br />
"Q: Is culture as important as genes in shaping the future of our brains? I'm not talking about Richard Dawkins' idea of memes here, which I dislike anyway.<br />
<br />
A: <b>I think the meme idea is wrong for a variety of reasons</b>. First, there's an obvious sense in which <b>ideas are Lamarckian and genes are not</b>. <b>Memes promote the wrong idea about genes</b>. Richard's idea about genes is that there is a continuity of different creatures that come into being and evolution is walking through an infinite library where each space on the shelf is a slightly different creature. It's like <b>Borges' infinite library</b>, which contained every book that could be written. Every organism that could exist is in Richard's library, and there are two problems with this idea, both of which should kill this metaphor. The first problem is the size of the library. Let's suppose Borges' library was actually created and only held books up to 300 pages. Even in that case the library could not fit into our universe. Our civilization could not possibly survive long enough, even with the biggest starship we could build, to hold it. Just to get from one interesting book to the next would require more energy or space than our civilization has available to it. We're lucky enough to be next to one readable book and that's the only one we'll ever see. You could think of his library as the most efficient, definitely mathematical, perfect, conceivable form of procrastination ever invented.<br />
<br />
<b>The second problem is the difference between Borges' and Dawkins' infinite libraries.</b> In Borges' library all the books in between the readable books might not be sensible to us but at least they're printable. But in Dawkins' library, all the creatures between viable creatures are not sensible or even viable. They're just possible creatures. You can't take an arbitrary genetic sequence and have a creature come out." (The link for this no longer exists but you can read his opposition to Memes at <a href="https://www.edge.org/discourse/memes_thread.html">Edge, The Reality Club, The Value of Memes, A Powerful Paradigm or a Poor Metaphor?</a>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-1163631835816412472019-04-08T14:40:00.000-07:002019-04-08T17:43:51.553-07:00Polish Exchange Student's Host Parents from Hell<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Christian Fundamentalist Host Parents from Hell for Polish Exchange </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgExQCJyE4n6HZEFiSrouc2leJpo4D0AAGbN3m66Vy4Op_gko84caxrXp2vN4_fQVeUB815ZjKMQ4DP5VGWDIIE2g8WgLjkyLyc3DwTgKa532lasLN05cm3fL1ynUA_G0XItK9V/s1600/AmericaRepent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="124" data-original-width="116" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgExQCJyE4n6HZEFiSrouc2leJpo4D0AAGbN3m66Vy4Op_gko84caxrXp2vN4_fQVeUB815ZjKMQ4DP5VGWDIIE2g8WgLjkyLyc3DwTgKa532lasLN05cm3fL1ynUA_G0XItK9V/s200/AmericaRepent.jpg" width="186" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Student</span></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG6Jxzj24NPoPwKVHtBKw6Puvi3rOt7nKiLRIh-qsBmXZZkBnXsrly8C84iMsVi4GcnwoM11qU0zHxrhVYCAMs_yVs5bItPU3VB7QsnwAAraeJ5pyZ7Zqarcy5e_J8KIpi37t/s1600/Michael-Gromek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG6Jxzj24NPoPwKVHtBKw6Puvi3rOt7nKiLRIh-qsBmXZZkBnXsrly8C84iMsVi4GcnwoM11qU0zHxrhVYCAMs_yVs5bItPU3VB7QsnwAAraeJ5pyZ7Zqarcy5e_J8KIpi37t/s1600/Michael-Gromek.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Gromek</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Landing in Greensboro, North Carolina, <b>Michael Gromek</b>, 19, stepped off the plane from <b>Poland</b>. He had come as an <b>exchange student</b> and looked eagerly for his host family at the airport. When they found one another, he felt like running back toward the plane. <b>They met him holding a Bible, and saying,"Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us."</b> He spent four hellish months among Christian fundamentalists, with dawn church visits and sex education talks. His new family were bent on banishing Satan from his soul.<br />
<br />
Here's what he has to say. "Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents <b>hadn't had sex for the last 17 years</b> because--so they told me--they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart."<br />
<br />
"My host parents treated me like a five-year-old. They gave me lollipops. They woke me every Sunday morning at 6:15 a.m., saying 'Michael, it's <b>time to go to church</b>.' I hated that sentence. When I didn't want to go to church one morning, because I had hardly slept, they didn't allow me to have any coffee."<br />
<br />
One day I was talking to my host parents about my mother, who is separated from my father. They were appalled--my mother's heart was just as possessed by the devil as mine, they exclaimed. God wanted her to stay with her husband, they said.<br />
<br />
The exchange student eventually discovered that they had more than his soul in mind. In short, they had a reason for agreeing to host him.<b> Their generosity had not simply arisen out of the goodness of their hearts.</b> They needed his help to construct a Fundamentalist Baptist church in Poland.<br />
<br />
They thought it was God's will, something he could not avoid. He saw the matter otherwise. They had already begun construction in Krakow, and needed his help with translations and filling the church. For him, that was the last straw. His hosts could not understand his refusal, but refuse he did. They were appalled.<br />
<br />
I am reminded of the <b>Stockholm Syndrome</b>, in which victims come to identify with their captors. Michael says, "It was a weird situation. After all, these people were my only company at the time. If I hadn't kept in touch with home through e-mail, I might have been sucked into that world." Fortunately, he was sufficiently strong-minded and had access via email to those with perspective.<br />
<br />
At this point, four months into his stay, he asked to change his host family. Of his fundamentalist hosts, he explains that "they didn't understand--how could they? They had grown up with their faith and were convinced of it, and then suddenly I turned up and refused to fit in."<br />
<br />
He had to wait two months for a new family, two months of hell. "My host parents detested me."<br />
<br />
Finally, he went to live with his new family, young, "more friends than host parents," and he was happy.<br />
<br />
<b>Found at <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,448350,00.html">Spiegel</a>.</b>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-1158676636536671632019-04-01T07:32:00.000-07:002019-04-01T17:07:03.969-07:00George Berkeley: Rocks Are Not Physically Real<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYHed_Hy1UGsynI27iw5z9iwy3cUWycJ_LUSx-reoqnFSiRKUcXjsY-hC1SmD3lfYg9b1budai4w8rlKDHNqRszYliqFlQ6EZdQbQU2fGXHZFDUFkblN6ALYeIT9iZAXx2ZBw/s1600/Bishop_George_Berkeley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="669" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYHed_Hy1UGsynI27iw5z9iwy3cUWycJ_LUSx-reoqnFSiRKUcXjsY-hC1SmD3lfYg9b1budai4w8rlKDHNqRszYliqFlQ6EZdQbQU2fGXHZFDUFkblN6ALYeIT9iZAXx2ZBw/s320/Bishop_George_Berkeley.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bishop George Berkeley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>George Berkeley: A Rock Is A Mental Perception. There Is No Matter. Only Mind and Perceptions</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div>
<div>
<b>George Berkeley</b> (1685 –1753), known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Irish philosopher whose main theory he called "<b>immaterialism</b>" (later referred to as "<b>subjective idealism</b>" by others). This theory <b>denies the existence of material substance</b> and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are <b>only ideas in the minds of perceivers</b> and, as a result, cannot exist without being perceived. Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism. <b>His famous phrase is esse is percipi (to be is to be perceived). </b>In other words, we are our sensations, mental events, and the things perceived are not material, but <b>also a form of the mental</b>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because he said "Westward wends the course of empire," <b>t</b>he city of<b> Berkeley, California, </b>known for The University of California at Berkeley,<b> was named after him</b>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
He wrote <b>Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous</b>, which presented his argument. His views are represented by <b>Philonous</b> (Greek: "<b>lover of mind</b>"), while <b>Hylas</b> (Greek: "<b>matter</b>") embodies the Irish thinker's opponents, in particular <b>John Locke</b>. Berkeley argued against <b>Isaac Newton's</b> doctrine of absolute space, time and motion in <b>De Motu</b> (On Motion), which anticipated the views of <b>Mach</b> and <b>Einstein</b>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With his wife, <b>Anne Forster</b>, in 1728 he moved to America to live near Newport, Rhode Island, where he bought a plantation at Middletown, Whitehall. In 1732 he returned to London.<br />
<br />
Here is an excerpt from the <b>Three Dialogues</b>:</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<b>Hylas to Philonous</b>: You were represented, in last night's conversation, as one who maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of man, to wit, that there is no such thing as MATERIAL SUBSTANCE in the world.<br />
<br />
<b>Philonous</b>: That there is no such thing as what PHILOSOPHERS CALL MATERIAL SUBSTANCE, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anything absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.<br />
<br />
<b>Hylas</b>: . . . can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as MATTER?<br />
<br />
(First of <em>The Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists</em>.)<br />
<br />
When <b>James Boswell </b>told <b>Samuel Johnson</b> (1709-1784) about Berkeley's assertion that matter does not exist, Dr Johnson took offense and said, "<b>Sir, I refute it thus!</b>," kicking a rock away from him.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6W2svT_UIth0z1GpVmFB8rMP3Je4t30_6yiyRqu-5QBGiLYATNT3uLZXWVgDQdY0Jk7SM_F02AjEGvl7yYlnYHwK2x8bEM_p7GmWfZ4ZnjaRnCpEZ11XyiUADZeefYUl-brZ/s1600/Samuel-Johnson-Kicking-Rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="602" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6W2svT_UIth0z1GpVmFB8rMP3Je4t30_6yiyRqu-5QBGiLYATNT3uLZXWVgDQdY0Jk7SM_F02AjEGvl7yYlnYHwK2x8bEM_p7GmWfZ4ZnjaRnCpEZ11XyiUADZeefYUl-brZ/s320/Samuel-Johnson-Kicking-Rock.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Fawke Statue<br />
of Dr Johnson <br />
Kicking Stone</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Laurance R. Doyle</b>, SETI Institute, has this to say about the world as traditionally physical: ". . . the elementary particles making up the trees, people, and planets—what we see around us—are apparently just distributions of likelihood until they are measured (that is, measured or observed). <b>So much for the Victorian view of solid matter!</b>"<br />
<br />
<b>Ronald Knox</b>, English theologian, priest, and crime writer, wrote these limericks, with a mockery and a reply to the mocker of Berkeley:<br />
<div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div>
<b> Mocker:</b></div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
There was a young man who said "God</div>
<div>
Must find it exceedingly odd</div>
<div>
To think that the tree</div>
<div>
Should continue to be</div>
<div>
When there's no one about in the quad."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Reply</b>:</div>
<div>
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;</div>
<div>
I am always about in the quad.</div>
<div>
And that's why the tree</div>
<div>
Will continue to be</div>
<div>
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.</div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-84741754806816277452019-03-13T15:51:00.003-07:002019-03-13T22:48:47.437-07:00Happiness Readings and The Three Princes of Serendip<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBOO1mBlowUHas0iV87ffMW5mMsXFj1r0qDKc4zcoMC0z14mtvwXvSFmgtSVOfLgcLp0tskLeIF0wLo8vKlqpwLQoU2uGDq3qepHLCwCgP7iImudouXPYJ8tmb0kAQ7rR-5cR/s1600/3+Princes+of+Serendip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Happiness Buddhism Daniel Kahneman Daniel Gilbert" border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBOO1mBlowUHas0iV87ffMW5mMsXFj1r0qDKc4zcoMC0z14mtvwXvSFmgtSVOfLgcLp0tskLeIF0wLo8vKlqpwLQoU2uGDq3qepHLCwCgP7iImudouXPYJ8tmb0kAQ7rR-5cR/s1600/3+Princes+of+Serendip.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-GBINzJ9QYyFu8J5xaSHeHCbBJ0wXsn1ZwLAATc_goe6XKyuG9qjeYstQFnnyOdczYG7EOJ_6mpNwXVRxe-e0BQpWGsRt6R-7CVepM1hpbjW1Nn-1oCh3eMAukwVYInAnR7Q/s1600/Happy-Floating-Baloons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Happiness Buddhism Daniel Kahneman Daniel Gilbert" border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="330" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD-GBINzJ9QYyFu8J5xaSHeHCbBJ0wXsn1ZwLAATc_goe6XKyuG9qjeYstQFnnyOdczYG7EOJ_6mpNwXVRxe-e0BQpWGsRt6R-7CVepM1hpbjW1Nn-1oCh3eMAukwVYInAnR7Q/s320/Happy-Floating-Baloons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
In culling out old links, I isolated Mind Shadows posts on <b>happiness</b>. They are an eclectic lot, about aspects of the subject. What you will discover for yourself will be a case of <i><b>serendipity</b></i>, the term coined by Hugh Walpole about the story of the Three princes of Serendip, who discovered by accident. Enough of that. Enjoy the serendipity. Here are the Mind Shadow links:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2011/02/daniel-kahneman-nobel-prize-winner.html">Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner: Happiness Can Be Had With $60,000 Yearly Income</a>, 17 February 2011<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/01/mind-shadows-home-we-think-we-know-what.html">We Think We Know What Will Make Us Happy, But Are Bad Predictors of What Actually Will</a>, 19 January 2009<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2003/11/homehappiness-is-over-rated-says.html">Misconceptions About Happiness (Maybe You'd Really Rather Have A Candy Bar)</a><br />
<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2003/11/homehappiness-is-over-rated-says.html">Hire An Expert: People Aren't Too Good At Estimating Their Own Feelings</a>, 11 October 2007<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2005/07/homehappiness-year-later-figure.html">Happiness and Public Policy</a>, 20 July 2005<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/02/robert-h-frank-big-houses-happiness.html">Robert H. Frank, Big Houses, and Happiness</a>, 6 February 2009<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2007/10/home-eternal-sunshine-of-spotless-rind.html">Martin Seligman and Authentic Happiness Against Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Rind</a>, 17 October 2007<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2011/03/?m=0">Happiness Isn't What It Used To Be</a>, 29 March 2011<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2008/02/home-shift-demographics-inc.html">Shift Demographics, Inc. Send Right Away For Your Personal Happiness Kit</a>, 16 February 2008<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2013/02/matthieu-ricard-happiness-buddhist.html">Matthieu Ricard, Happiness, and Buddhist Meditation</a>, 7 February 2013<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2006/05/homejean-franois-revel-his-son-lotus.html">On Happiness: Jean François Revel, His Son Matthieu Ricard, and Their Exchange About Buddhism: 10 days in an Inn above Kathmandu</a>, 8 May 2006<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/01/home-positive-emotions-versus-life.html?m=0">Happiness: Positive Emotions Versus Life Meaning</a>, 6 January 2009<br />
<br />
😊<a href="http://spiritrambler3.blogspot.com/2005/07/homehappiness-anyone-in-devils.html">Happiness Anyone? Is It Good For Society, or Does Its Pursuit Harm Society? These and Other Views, Including Martin Seligman and a Psychological Science Article</a>, 1 July 2005<br />
<br />
😊Y<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-can-improve-your-life-and-thats-not.html">ou Can Improve Your Life (And That's Not A Platitude)</a>, 11 March 2009<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-spontaneity-promote-happiness.html">Does Spontaneity Promote Happiness?</a>, 22 October 2009<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2008/04/home-happiness-is-over-rated-happiness.html">Happiness is Over-Rated: I</a>, 6 April 2008<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2008_05_04_archive.html">Happiness Is Over-Rated: II</a>, 29 May 2008<br />
<br />
😊<a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2008/03/home-this-just-in-secret-to-happiness.html">From DNA and Consciousness to Snorts, Sighs, and Happiness</a>, 14 January 2010Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-48632412549120666402019-03-11T18:57:00.003-07:002019-03-13T11:13:12.975-07:00What Happened to The Women Involved?: Feminism and Abu Ghraib<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<strong>Feminism and Abu Ghraib Prison</strong><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihxrsYcodyL2BjyHS3TvS26BXByvZ_CBh-Z3tfhfpGQAe0g_0WmHTpcZnn7rOf1MPHdJxGLDNjAIgDus-TuQvPUspKh1mO8Nk9x2coGXqIvfvdKIu_2J6SKYQNp3Y8fUCHQNd1/s1600/L-England-C-Graner-Pile-Prisoners.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="350" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihxrsYcodyL2BjyHS3TvS26BXByvZ_CBh-Z3tfhfpGQAe0g_0WmHTpcZnn7rOf1MPHdJxGLDNjAIgDus-TuQvPUspKh1mO8Nk9x2coGXqIvfvdKIu_2J6SKYQNp3Y8fUCHQNd1/s320/L-England-C-Graner-Pile-Prisoners.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">England and Charles Graner<br />
Give Thumbs Up</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Of the seven U.S. soldiers charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three were women: Spc. <b>Megan Ambuhl</b>, Pfc. <b>Lynndie England</b> and Spc. <b>Sabrina Harman</b>.<br />
<br />
Abu Ghraib tells us that as Barbara Ehrenreich put it years back in the New York Times, "a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience."<br />
<br />
<b>Barbara Ehrenreich:</b><br />
<br />
"The photos did something else to me, as a feminist: They broke my heart. I had no illusions about the U.S. mission in Iraq — whatever exactly it is — but it turns out that I did have some illusions about women.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Of the seven U.S. soldiers now charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three are women [already named above]..<br />
<br />
It was Harman we saw smiling an impish little smile and giving the thumbs-up sign from behind a pile of hooded, naked Iraqi men — as if to say, “Hi Mom, here I am in Abu Ghraib!” It was England we saw with a naked Iraqi man on a leash. . . . ." Found at a 2004 <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2004/05/what_abu_ghraib_taught_me/"><b>Alternet</b></a> site.<br />
<br />
Barbara Ehrenreich reminds us of the experiments by <b>Stanley Milgram</b>. I am reminded of those by <b>Philip Zimbardo</b>, known as the<b> <a href="https://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2004/05/homezimbardos-stanford-prison.html">Stanford Prison Experiments</a></b>.<br />
<br />
<b>What Happened to Them? </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Lynndie England</b> remains unremorseful and believes the prisoners ended up better off than she is. Prisoners' "lives are better. They got the better end of the deal.” She was sentenced to three years in prison and was dishonorably discharged from the Army. <a href="http://www.newser.com/story/142231/abu-ghraib-ex-soldier-prisoners-got-better-end-of-deal.html"><b>From Newser 20 March 2012 on Lynndie England.</b></a>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBvuyo2y6gjlncfFJZ-3iEdfcZH3o5fCF0jOmGpKM0G9CaTMJW8uN8Rc_iILnNXf3kBr8EGMPJq-DC9zCEouHKVANZjpVNLBJNzuUCW3V6FXT2mJSETUNd3T2VVGPhtmpSUa_/s1600/Sabrina-Harman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sabrina Harman Abu Ghraib Manadel al-Jamadi feminism Barbara Ehrenreich" border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="300" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBvuyo2y6gjlncfFJZ-3iEdfcZH3o5fCF0jOmGpKM0G9CaTMJW8uN8Rc_iILnNXf3kBr8EGMPJq-DC9zCEouHKVANZjpVNLBJNzuUCW3V6FXT2mJSETUNd3T2VVGPhtmpSUa_/s200/Sabrina-Harman.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sabrina Harman pointing to body of Manadel al-Jamadi, <br />
Iraqi tortured to death at Abu Ghraib</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Sabrina Harman </b>wrote a letter home in which she said this: "The only reason I want to be there is to get the <br />
pictures and prove that the US is not what they think. But I don't know if I can take it mentally. What if that was me in their shoes. These people will be our future terrorist. Kelly, its awful and you know how fucked I am in the head. Both sides of me think its wrong. I thought I could handle anything. I was wrong." She served six months in prison, received reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdEFPChVvPdXU4rtxF-h8kWwuAQj7U8LG8feL-kzFSZbCkUPzB2a8bIAseI0rKGeGcjsLNwDm9c-EU0fzUl2MpvKT4OzVW4XWfFcRcxf-xeqheoryt0Bd-b64LcQIJw2KziG2Y/s1600/Meghan+Ambuhl+Abu+Ghraib.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Meghan Ambuhl Abu Ghraib Manadel al-Jamadi feminism Barbara Ehrenreich" border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="350" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdEFPChVvPdXU4rtxF-h8kWwuAQj7U8LG8feL-kzFSZbCkUPzB2a8bIAseI0rKGeGcjsLNwDm9c-EU0fzUl2MpvKT4OzVW4XWfFcRcxf-xeqheoryt0Bd-b64LcQIJw2KziG2Y/s320/Meghan+Ambuhl+Abu+Ghraib.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ambuhl observing England pull "Gus"<br />
from his cell by a leash.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Megan Ambuhl</b> was convicted by court-martial on October 30, 2004, for dereliction of duty. In punishment, she was demoted to Private, discharged from the Army, and docked half a month's pay. In 2005 <b>Ambuhl married</b> <b>Charles Graner,</b> who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, demotion to private, dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay and allowances. He was released after 6 and a half years. <b>Lynndie England during her trial was pregnant with Charles Graner's child.</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVAjhJePvByoLkh8nw83BUA8Ff3cP_E_YwQRMC66hjf-1MgbE4FyNznAO3yY3-c2S8O1gD4NG1xep5xZ_Wgepa5FDLizNsDzXL4Dgk4xcFCUKAPA3iKRB_hp3J8iqiavrsJrUg/s1600/AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ali al-Qaisi Standing on Box Abu Ghraib feminism Barbara Ehrenreich" border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="263" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVAjhJePvByoLkh8nw83BUA8Ff3cP_E_YwQRMC66hjf-1MgbE4FyNznAO3yY3-c2S8O1gD4NG1xep5xZ_Wgepa5FDLizNsDzXL4Dgk4xcFCUKAPA3iKRB_hp3J8iqiavrsJrUg/s320/AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-box.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Ali Shallal al-Qaisi</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Ali Shallal al-Qaisi. </b>The hooded man standing on the box<b>. </b>He has undergone six surgeries because of the torture.<b> </b>Al-Qaisi said: "I'm spending sleepless nights thinking about the agony I went through... I even have recurring nightmares that I'm in my cell at Abu Ghraib, cell 49 as they called it, being tortured at the hands of the people of a great nation that carries the torch of freedom and human rights." He owned a football pitch and US soldiers commandeered the pitch, using it to dump "severed body parts and left-over waste from fighting." Qaisi contacted the foreign media and broke the story to them. And that did it. "My picture was published in a news article with my complaints. The Americans then raided my home and arrested me," he said. "I wasn't a military commander or a government official. I was just a resident of Baghdad, where I grew up, and just like any other Iraqi I was against the US invasion and I spoke out against it," Qaisi said.<br />
<br />
Not a single commissioned officer was sentenced. Higher-echelon commissioned military personnel also got off Scot-free.<b> In short although those at the bottom of the pay grade scale were punished none of those supervising them were.</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2voNO6VoDHcO3nPujIliRSmCAzTU_ahptoGfXohyphenhyphenaoTHDeJMHnvuBqZzn3At08JrJpTEe9XUDViYjzzA_RRxMk5jkB7b7Z3veyZ2k-kzTXL1JvfyAV6xonOk6tx0MkOLScTSF/s1600/Lynndie-England-Justifies-Self.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="208" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2voNO6VoDHcO3nPujIliRSmCAzTU_ahptoGfXohyphenhyphenaoTHDeJMHnvuBqZzn3At08JrJpTEe9XUDViYjzzA_RRxMk5jkB7b7Z3veyZ2k-kzTXL1JvfyAV6xonOk6tx0MkOLScTSF/s400/Lynndie-England-Justifies-Self.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-75394245933547621472019-03-07T16:52:00.000-08:002019-03-13T11:15:31.347-07:00Lost at Sea: Richard Halliburton's Wildly Improbable Life and Some Who Knew Him<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMjDH2ZeNAEMFiW9d-MahESk1U6atPO_gG1Ym_QOMWO5y7Y7C7L_gutPTRPi4JyHnvykGSBZWCLC-W0tmcUC70oTf3-HF3mnWe5uQh4R4GlVP6CrR9Hym1KVmdiW6OYlupCiI/s1600/RH+Nerve+for+Oars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Richard Halliburton Wildly Improbable Life" border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="320" img="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMjDH2ZeNAEMFiW9d-MahESk1U6atPO_gG1Ym_QOMWO5y7Y7C7L_gutPTRPi4JyHnvykGSBZWCLC-W0tmcUC70oTf3-HF3mnWe5uQh4R4GlVP6CrR9Hym1KVmdiW6OYlupCiI/s1600/RH+Nerve+for+Oars.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Richard Halliburton's Wildly Improbable Life</b><br />
<br />
In the human scheme of things, some are born lucky, some less lucky, and some unlucky. None of us chose to be born nor did we choose the circumstances of our birth.<br />
<br />
By accident Richard was born with a predisposition he valued highly, knowing he was lucky. Of his "restless nature" he wrote, "I'm very grateful, because I wouldn't take $1,000,000 for it." It was precious to him because he had visions of the possible where others saw only walls.<br />
<br />
He was extraordinarily gifted in disposition—his life attests to that, as it is one that few are able to parallel. People could only read about all he did and saw because they were bound to the morning coffee and evening newspaper of their days. In Halliburton they found somebody who had slipped the bonds holding them and with sometimes wild energy delighted in a life that for them was not only improbable but impossible.<br />
<br />
In the 1920s and 1930s Richard Halliburton was one of the most famous persons in America, even more than Amelia Earhart, and today he is forgotten.
<br />
<a name='more'></a>He knew many people who would not fit in the handy boxes society offered them. He starred in a movie. He swam the entire length of the Panama Canal as the SS Halliburton. He climbed the Matterhorn in winter. He chatted with Herbert Hoover, was friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Halliburton met history makers like Lenin's widow and the man who shot the Czar. The man told him how the Romanov family was assassinated in a basement in Yekaterinburg. For years many believed Halliburton made up the story but he actually interviewed one of the assassins.<br />
<br />
In The Eagle, of Reading, Pennsylvania on January 27, 1935, writing a column titled, “As Seen by Her,” Lilly Marsh said Richard Halliburton “is very nice looking. He has all of his hair—a nice grade of wavy auburn—and his swimming and mountain climbing and what not have certainly not done his figure any harm. He speaks with a pleasant if unidentifiable accent, and has the kind of charm that mows down audiences all in a minute. In all honesty, it is only fair to admit, that he could probably speak on the dreariest, dullest subject in the world, and still hold the attention of his listeners. He is very attractive. He has a great deal of personality, and I suppose it would be asking a little too much to require of him a sense of humor, also. We can’t have supermen walking the earth.”<br />
<br />
Interviewed by Stan Welsh in 1994, John Booth, a retired Unitarian minister, tells the camera that the influence of Richard Halliburton on him was enormous. Booth traveled the world. He went to Rio de Janeiro, to the Rajong River in Sarawak. He lived in jungle long houses. He traveled in Indonesia. He met Anthony Brooke in Singapore in the late 1950s. Brooke’s uncle was the last reigning White Rajah of Sarawak, a country visited by Halliburton and his biplane pilot Moye Stephens in their round-the-world 1930s flight. During the visit they took the Rani Sylvia Brooke aloft. A Rani is rather like a queen. In those days, it was for her the thrill of a lifetime.<br />
<br />
John Booth met Richard when he was a student at Cleveland Heights High in Cleveland, Ohio. Halliburton was there for a lecture on The Royal Road to Romance. When Halliburton walked to the lectern, girls shrieked as they later did with Frank Sinatra. He had charisma, recalled Booth, and was an “extra handsome young man.” Richard was introduced by the school principal. Halliburton talked about climbing the Matterhorn.<br />
<br />
Born February 21, 1906, Richard's pilot Moye Stephens in his old age thought about how the course of his life changed by meeting Richard Halliburton. He thought back on those days with Richard, or as test pilot of the Flying Wing, or as a founder of Northrop Aviation. His life came close to many might-have-beens. He might not have given flying lessons to Howard Hughes. He might not have chummed with barnstormers and World War I aces such as Sandy Sandblom, Leo Nomis, Bud Creech, Eddie Bellande, Frank Clarke, Ross Hadley, and Pancho Barnes. He might not have known movie stars Richard Arlen, Ramón Novarro, Sue Carol, Reginald Denny, Wallace Beery, and Dolores Del Rio—or movie executives Cecil B. DeMille, Victor Fleming, Howard Hawks, and Howard Hughes.<br />
<br />
With his intense energy and insatiable zest for living, Richard Halliburton undertook his next adventure, a voyage in a Chinese junk, Sea Dragon, from Hong Kong to the San Francisco World's Fair in 1939.<br />
<br />
He and his crew were tossed in the junk by a fierce typhoon and were lost at sea.<br />
<br />
Lost at Sea, the headlines proclaimed. This was big news to the world. Another famous adventurer had disappeared. The year before, Amelia Earhart with her navigator Fred Noonan had ditched a Lockheed Vega somewhere in the Pacific and was lost to everything but history. Before Sea Dragon's disappearance, across the continent, San Francisco to New York, families had huddled in living rooms, bent to their radio sets to hear of the junk's nine thousand mile progress toward the San Francisco World's Fair, opening in spring of that year.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7djRzlVXl2zrFM_Z5GDtCe4v5Hy6XOOGtHosdvGWPISoiarGjLouZNj5sFF_DMXeF2ohw9MgMzeJK0uoXC4H6aXMo5fehJolcZ4W3gPTiV2CRONr0iztAEXnjaVWFbg9XhWK/s1600/Sea+Dragon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="236" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7djRzlVXl2zrFM_Z5GDtCe4v5Hy6XOOGtHosdvGWPISoiarGjLouZNj5sFF_DMXeF2ohw9MgMzeJK0uoXC4H6aXMo5fehJolcZ4W3gPTiV2CRONr0iztAEXnjaVWFbg9XhWK/s320/Sea+Dragon.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
On March 29, 1939, the Evening Independent of St Petersburg, Florida headlined a report from San Francisco, “Richard Halliburton Is Feared Lost at Sea.” The junk was two thousand four hundred miles from Hong Kong bound for Midway Island. The article explains, “The Sea Dragon was scheduled to reach Midway Island April 5.”<br />
<br />
Also on March 29th in Dubuque, Iowa, The Telegraph-Herald stated that the “75 foot craft, with its crew of ten Americans and four Chinese, was approximately one thousand miles west of Midway,” and that “all ships, meanwhile, have been asked to keep a watch for the craft.”<br />
<br />
The US Navy launched a search with float planes but neither survivors nor the Chinese junk were found. Richard Halliburton said early in life that he didn't want to die in bed. His life, he said would be active and vividly lived. He got his wish.<br />
<br />
Click to read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Die-Bed-Intense-Halliburton-ebook/dp/B00KWA38PW/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=dont+die+in+bed&qid=1552002402&s=gateway&sr=8-2">Don't Die in Bed: The Brief, Intense Life of Richard Halliburton</a>.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-90716839904641099302019-03-04T16:31:00.000-08:002019-03-11T20:28:55.980-07:00Pancho Barnes' Wildly Unusual Life, Her Battle With US Air Force, & Richard Halliburton<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhYz6Ce5hzQeGaNOrkQZZuqEDYybcHB_T-RDlky-dq_n3TkEadXpjD4VHKB_lRIzSrj1q4B63BSI4tg4uIt58SnZ2FALVLb1GFwtcuGFAhBLYkL0_RCQAldHWOeJGibdL5mQX/s1600/AngelHallibBarnesStephens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Pancho Barnes Richard Halliburton Moye Stephens Jimmy Angel" border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="700" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhYz6Ce5hzQeGaNOrkQZZuqEDYybcHB_T-RDlky-dq_n3TkEadXpjD4VHKB_lRIzSrj1q4B63BSI4tg4uIt58SnZ2FALVLb1GFwtcuGFAhBLYkL0_RCQAldHWOeJGibdL5mQX/s320/AngelHallibBarnesStephens.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
(Not to mention that she knew John Wayne, General Jimmy Doolittle, Test Pilot Chuck Yeager, Aimee Semple McPherson, and many movie stars.Read on.)<br />
<br />
The man who would pilot Richard’s biplane on their round-the-world flight, Moye Stephens brought Richard to Pancho Barnes' San Marino mansion. Stephens knew Pancho as a fellow pilot.<br />
<br />
In a Sunday, November 20, 1932 letter from Hollywood, Richard wrote his parents that on Saturday afternoon he went to visit Pancho Barnes, “the woman flyer I’m so fond of, and she took me to Ramon Novarro’s, a lot of drunk movie people were there, so we left early.” Such a good boy, he. The line was clearly for mom and dad.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5-gcKJJurFxIty46gq_WOEKyTJH8TWwi0XY34PqG0iDGKY5xBZ5ABJhJ7m97YgqdUiMztkfbkfnHGtpBfzNPH1ILK0Lo6U8L3aYffThszOEcty08NdQ-k6WTu1tT8F5SeHlq/s1600/RH%2526PB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Richard Halliburton Pancho Barnes" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="246" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb5-gcKJJurFxIty46gq_WOEKyTJH8TWwi0XY34PqG0iDGKY5xBZ5ABJhJ7m97YgqdUiMztkfbkfnHGtpBfzNPH1ILK0Lo6U8L3aYffThszOEcty08NdQ-k6WTu1tT8F5SeHlq/s320/RH%2526PB.jpg" width="196" /></a>Stephens was about to marry an Italian contessa. Richard added that on December 4th he would be taking her to Moye’s wedding, although he would miss it, “an especially fine one.”<br />
<br />
Richard had already met Hollywood’s Roman Novarro, who became another romantic interest in his life.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
On Thanksgiving he drove Pancho fifty miles “down the coast to her summer home, which was her Laguna Beach mansion overlooking the Pacific.” “We took off our clothes and pulled clams from the rocks, then put the clams in a big stew pan to steam, and had that for our thanksgiving dinner.” (Unpublished letters, Rhodes College archives.) One imagines his parents raising their eyebrows. Took off their clothes? What kind of woman is this? What had he become? Had the Southern California sun deranged him?<br />
<br />
On November 30th he told them that “Pancho and 4 of her friends are coming in for dinner . I just tell my perfectly marvelous cook [Pancho] and forget it. All the big time movie people I used to know I’ve not seen this time, much prefer to sit quiet and do my job. They can wait.” (Unpublished letters, Rhodes College archives.)<br />
<br />
Richard was smitten with Pancho. Nobody she met could be indifferent toward her. With thick neck and rounded face, she was not especially comely but she attracted admirers and lasting friendships wherever she went. Richard was one of them and we wonder what rousing stories he might have had about her if he lived to tell them.<br />
<br />
Among aviators, she commanded respect as an able pilot. Moye Stephens said of her that she also wrote scenarios for Erich Von Stroheim, a famed Austrian director and movie star of her era who last appeared in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard with William Holden and Gloria Swanson.<br />
<br />
She grew up on South Garfield Avenue in San Marino in a three-story thirty-five room mansion with eighteen foot ceilings. Its walls were paneled in wood with hand-carved moldings. From one ceiling a massive crystal chandelier hung. The family was summoned to dinner with a harpsichord chime. The upstairs baths were marble with spigots of silver. In the patio a large pool was decorated with water lilies. Guests could amble to the tennis courts for a few sets or to the stables, where they could ride around a mile course. The family also had a fine house on the cliffs above Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach. Next the Laguna Beach mansion she had a landing strip built for her biplane. In 1924 family friend Malcolm St. Clair directed The Lighthouse By The Sea in Laguna Beach, giving her a role as double for movie star Louise Fazenda.
She lived on her own terms. Born wealthy, going slowly broke, in 1930 Pancho entertained lavishly at her San Marino mansion where Richard met her.<br />
<br />
In his unpublished memoir, Moye Stephens wrote that he and his pals “would join the practically continual evening festivities at the San Marino home of Florence Lowe 'Pancho' Barnes.” Both the invited and uninvited had ready access to food, drinks, and fun. Hers was the high life, and the high life was Richard’s. They had things in common. At that period in her life, she and he had the same regard for money. They spent it. She wanted to live to the fullest. Richard felt the same. She and he both had a derring-do. Both were outgoing and charming when they wanted to be with the difference that she never suffered fools gladly.<br />
<br />
Moye Stephens recalled one bash she threw for him and his pilot friends. Everybody was having a high time when the door chime rang. Opening the door, they found Frank Bell, a bootlegger. Bloody from several bullet wounds, staggering on his feet, Bell reached to push the door button again, but they grabbed him and helped him to bed upstairs. Pancho called a doctor who would not report gunshot wounds. Patched up, somewhat recovered, Bell explained what happened. Returning from flying lessons in Long Beach, “business competitors” pulled alongside his car and opened fire with a Thompson submachine gun. Bell crouched down and fortunately no bullet penetrated his heart or lungs. Bell was finally strapped into an electric chair by the State of Illinois, and there was no crouching in that.<br />
<br />
Stephens said that “the lengths to which she went in protecting Frank Bell provided another demonstration of her big-heartedness. Her generosity extended to others, so long as they did not have big heads. One of her habitués was a strapping eighteen-year-old named Marion Michael Morrison who attended the University of Southern California on a football scholarship. Seeing that money was tight with him, Pancho helped him out. <br />
<br />
Fifty years later, she sat in the Universal Studios cafeteria eating lunch when a big man walked up to her table. He asked if she remembered him. Grey-haired, bent over her plate, she sat back and paused to look at him and slowly sized him up. Yes, she did. “You are Marion Morrison,” she said. Of course she recognized Wayne but her response deflated him.<br />
<br />
She was good friends with Aimee Semple McPherson, a media evangelist before Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Jerry Falwell, or Oral Roberts who told his audience that God would call him home if he didn’t raise $8 million in donations. Aimee was a national sensation, speaking on radio, featured in the news.
In her unpublished biography, Pancho wrote about The Ambassador Horse Shows where Aimee rode her horse to “parade around and talk to people.” Then she rode fast around the ring, but that was not Aimee. She rode her horse into a kind of tunnel where she and Pancho changed places, both identically dressed. It was Pancho who rode so fast, her head hunched, that the crowd couldn’t tell. Back in the tunnel, Pancho jumped off and Aimee remounted to cool the horse down by walking slowly around the ring. The crowd clapped, and the limelight was Aimee’s though she paid Pancho well for the ruse.<br />
<br />
Pancho recalled that McPherson asked the congregation “not to desecrate the Temple with the vulgar clinking of change” when the offering was passed. People meekly reached deeper and placed folded bills onto the plates.<br />
<br />
McPherson led a double life. “She drank and smoked with the best of them,” said Pancho. On May 18, 1926, she went for a swim near Venice Beach, California and did not reappear. Newspapers shouted her mysterious disappearance and the public bought copy after copy as day after day the police found no sign of her. Had she been murdered? Kidnapped? At a service in the Temple her mother gave a sermon and announced that “Sister is with Jesus.” Parishioners cried. The devoted held vigils at Venice Beach. One parishioner swam out to sea to look for her and drowned.<br />
<br />
Thirty five days later, on June 23, the press announced her found in Agua Prieta, Mexico, across the border from Douglas, Arizona. It had been horrible, Sister Aimee claimed. She had been kidnapped, drugged, and tortured. She had been imprisoned in a shack in Mexico, but she outfoxed her captors and escaped and walked thirteen hours across the desert to Agua Prieta.
Desert?, asked the press. Her shows were not dusty, not worn. They had grass stains. She disappeared wearing a bathing suit and re-emerged fully dressed. A grand jury investigated but without evidence or credible witnesses all charges were dropped. Her parishioners never doubted her. Those not her parishioners had other opinions.<br />
<br />
The most common was that she had slipped off with Joe Flores. Folk singer Pete Seeger wrote The Ballad of Aimee McPherson about her, singing “the dents in the mattress fit Aimee's caboose.”
Pancho said it was obvious, “It was pretty well understood thing around Flores' barn that when Aimee made her disappearance act, Joe went with her.”<br />
<br />
Pancho knew Howard Hughes. She taught corporation take-over tycoon Kirk Kerkorian to fly at her Happy Bottom ranch. In exchange for flying lessons, he herded her cows, milked and tended them. She was friends with philosophers and historians Will and Ariel Durant. Movie stars Susan Oliver and Richard Arlen became her friends. She knew Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Veronica Lake, Elizabeth Taylor, Roy Rogers, Buck Jones, Hopalong Cassidy (Bill Boyd) and Ronald Reagan. Silent film heart throb Ramon Novarro was a good friend. He and Richard Halliburton became the closest of friends, and through Pancho he met Richard.
<br />
<br />
Her grandfather was Thaddeus Lowe. Floating in the sky, visible to every Johnny Reb on the Confederate side her grandfather, Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, had his picture taken by Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. The picture showed him in a spotting balloon observing the Battle of Fair Oaks on the north side of the Chicahominy River in Virginia. He became a favorite target of their marksmen, but fate favored him. Below him several soldiers held ropes to steady the balloon and kept it from floating over Confederate lines.<br />
<br />
Professor Lowe became de facto pioneer of American military aviation. In a law suit against Edwards Air Force Base Pancho asserted that her grandfather founded the Air Force because Abraham Lincoln appointed him Chief Aeronaut of the Balloon Corps.<br />
<br />
Pancho was born in 1901 as Florence Leontine Lowe and was supposed to have grown into a debutante whose coming-out would be into the best Southern California society. She was supposed to have married well and become a society matron. Her husband would be a wealthy developer, investment banker, or attorney whose family was old money and who had the proper connections.<br />
<br />
Her children would play croquet on a great swath of San Marino estate during a lawn party while her servants walked about balancing silver platters with martinis, whiskeys, and gin as they paused politely before a guest, offering a drink. She would smile delicately at a gentleman describing his polo pony and while listening would raise her finger and give a slight nod to guests just arriving. She was supposed to have done all that but she did not.<br />
<br />
She and her mother did not get along. Pancho was born to rebel while her mother wanted a young lady who conformed to social expectations. Pancho loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian but her mother thought that too common.
The child was incorrigible. Some time around 1918 she attended the Bishop School in La Jolla, her fourth school in eight years. She roomed with Ursula Greenshaw (Mandel), who wrote an autobiography, I Live My Life, in which she said that life with “Florence was “never DULL!” “One night when I entered our room, I stumbled against a body. I switched on the light and there lay Florence on the floor in a pool of blood. Pinned to her chest with a dagger was a note saying that she had decided to end it all. I soon discovered the blood was red ink and the dagger wound faked.”<br />
<br />
Florence was called on the carpet at the principal’s office another time. She led her horse, Dobbins, inside her building and up the stairs. The principal demanded to know the reason for the outrage. “She feigned innocent surprise and soon was expressing deep sympathy for the horse...'he must have been so lonesome that he even came upstairs to look for me...'.”<br />
<br />
For a while, at least, her mother had the upper hand. But Frances disappointed her mother again when she married below her social station.
In 1921 Pancho wed Episcopalian Reverend C. Rankin Barnes of Pasadena and ten years older. Three nights after the marriage, they finally slept together and begot a son, named William Emmert after her brother who died young of leukemia. William Emmert was born nine months later. After that night they slept apart.
Her son grew up close to his mother.<br />
<br />
Known as Bill Barnes he too was a pilot and died in 1980 in a WWII fighter, a P-51 Mustang which crashed at Fox Field not far from his mother’s Happy Bottom Riding Club.<br />
<br />
The Reverend was of an academic bent and left his name on obscure books no longer available. One is A History of St. Paul's Church, San Diego. Another is Ethelbert Talbot, 1848-1928: Missionary Bishop, Diocesan Bishop, Presiding Bishop,. He also wrote The General Convention: Offices and officers, 1785-1950, as well as Practical Standards for Diocesan Social Service Departments.
Theirs was not a match made in heaven.<br />
<br />
In her unpublished autobiography Pancho wrote, “I had married a clergyman and that was to be my life.” She continues. “I taught Sunday school. I had a class of boys about nine years old. I bribed them with jackknives to learn the catechism.” She wrote that “in the meantime, I realized that the existence was almost intolerable. Every now and then I would get away and go over to my parent's house where my horses were and go for a ride. More and more I spent time with my horses.”
She wanted a divorce but he didn’t want the scandal. She tried provoking him into it.<br />
<br />
After she learned to fly, on Sundays she swooped her biplane low over her husband’s church and buzzed it, drowning out the choir and his sermon. He still refused. But no proper minister could remain married to a woman who publicly said “Flying is like being a sex maniac in a whore house,” one of Pancho’s celebrated quips. Years later, in 1941, he did grant a divorce.<br />
<br />
She became called Pancho because of a whim. During a party at her Laguna Beach mansion she and friends decided to drive to San Pedro to catch the next boat for South America. She cut her hair short, donned baggy pants, and signed on a tramp freighter as Ordinary Seaman, taking the name Jacob Crane. She cussed and played poker with the crew .
The crew was surprised when the captain raised a Panamanian flag when the ship was out at sea. They realized they were in for risky business. The ship would be running guns to Mexican revolutionaries.
She met Roger Chute, also along for a lark. A Stanford-educated fisheries expert, Chute saw through her disguise as a man.<br />
<br />
Neither wanted anything to do with gun-running so he proposed they jump ship and he would take her to visit the pyramids at Chichen Itza . At San Blas the ship dropped anchor and they slipped away. They bought a horse and a mule, Chute on the one, she on the other. The horse was white, which reminded her of the steed Rocinante in Miguel Cervantes' novel. She told Chute he looked like Don Quixote on it.
He said she looked like Pancho. No, she said, You mean Sancho Panza, Quixote’s squire. Chute shrugged. It was all the same to him.<br />
<br />
This, though, gave her the nickname. She liked it and kept it. It gave the raspberry to her mother.
Pancho married again. And again. Three months after divorcing the Reverend she married Robert Nichols, Jr. It lasted a few weeks. He was in his twenties, about the same age as her son, Billy; she was approaching 40. After that marriage, she waited a bit longer and in 1945, she wed Don Jose Shalita. He left after four months. In 1953 she married her ranch foreman, Mac McKendry.<br />
<br />
Her good friend Air Force base General Al Boyd flew cross-country in a B-47 for the wedding. He gave the bride away in the ceremony. Bell X-1 test pilot Chuck Yeager was her best man. Indian Chief Lucky blessed the union. Six hundred fifty people attended. Age slowed her down. It took fourteen years for her to divorce McKendry.<br />
<br />
The Depression was not good to her. With only a Hollywood apartment left, in 1935 she sold it and bought eighty acres in the Mojave Desert. Almost out of money and flying her Lockheed Vega, one day she looked down on the land below, familiar land where many air plane movies were staged. She saw a lush, green alfalfa field, and it would be a good place to raise her son Billy.<br />
<br />
March Army Air Base was there and next it was Muroc Field. She transformed a struggling alfalfa ranch, having bought out a dairy called Adair. She grew alfalfa, had a dairy herd of cows and goats, farmed pigs, raised chickens, grew corn, and even had a garbage business. She sold milk and eggs to the base and had a sweet deal. She fed her hogs on trash the base paid her to haul away and then sold pork back to it.<br />
<br />
There she built the Happy Bottom Riding Club, also known as Rancho Oro Verde Fly Inn Dude Ranch, where she eventually built a dance hall with glamorous hostesses, a gambling casino, a swimming pool, horse stables, a championship rodeo stadium. The Air Force base officer’s club was usually empty. They went to Pancho’s. She was queen of her bar, where the flyboys came to have fun and kid with her. She said she hosted the fastest and bravest men on earth.<br />
<br />
Pancho didn’t charge military test pilots for their drinks, but triple-charged the civilian test pilots because of their fat salaries.
A 1948 Time magazine article described her place: “Pancho's Fly-Inn (or the Happy Bottom Riding Club)” has its own airport, lighted at night, “so that guests, friends and airborne wayfarers can fly in at all hours. The Fly-Inn is a much-buzzed place. Standing alone on the flat desert with only a few low trees, it invites the dangerous prank that all young pilots play, no matter what the threats of flying field managers or military C.O.s. Chuck Yeager has roared low over the ranch in every sort of airplane, including the fastest jets. When he buzzes the place in a jet plane, the slap from the zipping wing jounces the bar.” On the cover of the Time issue is pictured Yeager in his test pilot’s helmet. The magazine article was made possible because the government had finally announced that he broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947. They wanted it trumpeted far and wide. It had been a military secret until then, at least supposedly. But everybody, including Pancho, knew about it. For the folks at the air base and the Happy Bottom Ranch it was hard to keep a sonic boom and rattling windows a secret.<br />
<br />
Al Boyd, the previous commander, had been an old school aviator, and had even given Pancho away in her wedding to McKendry but in the 1950s the new Edwards Air Force Base commander took an immediate dislike to Pancho and she was not about to change. With her what you saw was what you got. Brigadier General J. Stanley Holtoner felt she and her place were unfit moral examples for his young airmen and calling her a madam, her Happy Bottom Riding Club a cat house, and he placed it off limits.<br />
<br />
This hurt. The pilots and air crews had been her boys. She had taken them under her wing, cared for them. The general also decided to expand the Base to make room for a new runway, which conveniently meant condemning Pancho’s land by right of eminent domain. The General low-balled an offer for her 380 acres.<br />
<br />
No, said Pancho. Her land had not figured in any previous Edwards expansion plans. Besides, with her businesses the real estate was worth far more than the offer. “They picked the wrong gal to push around!, she said.
She was David against Goliath, and Goliath had an unending supply of lawyers on its payrolls. Years could pass under judicial review and during those years a David could go bankrupt while Goliath played golf on Sundays and had well-paid lawyers. That may have discouraged and defeated others but not her.<br />
<br />
She was joined at the hip to the Air Force for, as she would argue in court, her grandfather founded the United States Air Force. She went to a law library to study books and legal briefs. There, she met Shirley Hufstedler, an attorney who was impressed by Pancho’s generous spirit and real grit. Shirley, her husband, and a friend, both also attorneys, took on the case.
Her case became a cause célèbre with the press following Pancho’s every comment. Everybody favored underdog Pancho. The news spread around the world as “The War of the Mojave.”<br />
<br />
The courtroom was packed with people who came to attend the trial, spectators, reporters, military personnel. When both sides had rested their arguments, the jury retired to deliberate, and the courtroom atmosphere was tense as people waited for the jury, and waited, and still waited. After several hours, the jury returned with their verdict.
They filed back into the courtroom, and everybody stood for them. Honorable US District Court Judge Gilbert Jertberg asked them, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you finally reached a unanimous decision?” “Yes we have your honor,” came the chairman’s reply.
They found against the United States Air Force and The United States government. They found for Florence Leontine “Pancho Barnes. Cheers filled the courtroom. Judge Jertberg stated that Pancho was a courageous, forthright individual. In her compassion and concern for her military customers she had shown herself a friend of the Air Force. He awarded her a settlement of $414,500, much more than the $185,000 offered by the Air Force.<br />
<br />
Today, little remains of The Happy Bottom Riding Club. While Pancho was away shopping a fire mysteriously started, destroying it. Just before the end of the trial, on November 13, 1953, it burned down. The fire marshal believed it a case of arson, but could not locate a proximate cause. The general had told Pancho that if she didn’t sell he could have her ranch “napalm bombed off the desert.”
After the hullabaloo faded the Air Force took over her land for a runway.<br />
<br />
The Happy Bottom ruins are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.<br />
<br />
She died in 1975, age 74. Scheduled to be keynote speaker at the annual Barnstormer’s Reunion of the Antelope Valley Aero Museum, she could not be reached when a friend called her. Pancho’s son, Bill, stopped by her little rock house in Boron, California to investigate and found her dead. The coroner concluded that she had died several days earlier of a heart attack. She had requested that her body be cremated, the ashes strewn from an airplane over the 380 acres of her Happy Bottom ranch.<br />
<br />
To this day Edwards Air Force Base celebrates an annual Pancho Barnes Day.
She said “We had more fun in a week than most of the weenies in the world have in a lifetime.” Perhaps most notable, she should be remembered for this: “If you have a choice, choose happy.” She took a very large bite out of life.<br />
<br />
Leader of the B-25 raid on Tokyo, General Jimmy Doolittle learned that Pancho had died and thus would not appear as keynote speaker for the Barnstormers Reunion. He prepared a testimonial to her life. So many there, so many of her friends, from Hollywood to aviation. Susan Oliver, Richard Arlen, Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin.<br />
<br />
General Doolittle said this:
“Good Evening. Ladies and gentlemen, we have recently lost a true friend. In this day and age, real friends you can depend on in a pinch are rare indeed. Florence Lowe Barnes left us late last month. She was an expert pilot and a good organizer. She had a fine mind, and was intensely loyal. When the going was rough, you knew that she would always offer a willing hand. There was no extent to which she would not go to help a friend who was in need . . . In a few words, she put great store by courage, honor and integrity. She despised dishonesty and cowardice. She was straight forward and couldn't abide dissimulation, abhorred sham. She was outspoken, and she said exactly what she thought and believed. You know, I can just see her up there at this very minute. In her inimitable way, with a wry smile, she is probably remarking to some old and dear friend who preceded her, 'I wondered what the little old bald-headed bastard was going to say. '
God love her. And may I now propose a toast: Ladies and gentlemen, to Pancho Barnes. Pancho Barnes!”<br />
<br />
The Air Force has never built its runway on Pancho’s land.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-69392154501065297222019-03-04T10:43:00.000-08:002019-03-04T12:01:29.772-08:00Slum Golf<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2t_z1b9x-GY3ZtRoiq92wm-Vl7WkFyKKXkqauFNQWOTMC9OIkBGdJcFSoCw_GnK5g7VgWYzeyt_Z0s5W3BkOYQM71QTG9YLI0339pkEbTWb5uQBrnyvBgZYAYuxGKkxF-X-x/s1600/Slum+Golf1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2t_z1b9x-GY3ZtRoiq92wm-Vl7WkFyKKXkqauFNQWOTMC9OIkBGdJcFSoCw_GnK5g7VgWYzeyt_Z0s5W3BkOYQM71QTG9YLI0339pkEbTWb5uQBrnyvBgZYAYuxGKkxF-X-x/s1600/Slum+Golf1.jpg" alt="Slum Golf Mumbai"/></a></div>
"Anil Bajrang Mane grew up in a slum in Chembur, a suburb of Mumbai. His home – a single 10ft x 10ft room – was right over the wall from the 10th hole of the members-only Bombay Presidency Golf Club, which sprawls across 100 acres of land: prime real estate in a city where the average population density is 31,700 people per sq km.<br />
<div>
<br />
<div>
<div>
When Mane was just 14, he dropped out of school to become a caddie on the other side of the wall. But it wasn’t until three years later, when he was 17, that he took his first swing, when a club member handed him a 7 iron and told him to have a go. The 150-yard shot changed his life, he says: he realised golf was his shot at fame and glory, the chance of a better life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There was only one problem: the club didn’t allow caddies to play on the course, insisting it would detract from its “exclusivity”. Mane earned his livelihood in a world that wouldn’t allow him to participate. Every night, he would cross back from the verdant, genteel club into his own world of single-room tenements, corrugated tin rooftops and poverty.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
'My mother’s health was frail and my father had suffered burns when a kerosene stove burst in our kitchen,” he says. “I had no option but to give up school and take up work.' " <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/11/slum-golf-the-sport-that-stormed-the-streets-of-mumbai">The Guardian</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-47401215474178325322019-03-03T23:00:00.000-08:002019-03-04T11:57:48.197-08:00Jill Price: At What Cost Super-Memory?<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSWHPrcKrXQpASxEtlIFvwavuPUkaWHrIPT0X1SY15Kj91wmkBlMrP67G1NqYHGAqtBJfClhhJ6jzxZAnmtpKtn5T430x9ZP3vMcTZ5DK2IoaZ069lRJWaAMaKba5d_P_4hxz/s1600/Abbot%2526Costello.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="140" data-original-width="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRSWHPrcKrXQpASxEtlIFvwavuPUkaWHrIPT0X1SY15Kj91wmkBlMrP67G1NqYHGAqtBJfClhhJ6jzxZAnmtpKtn5T430x9ZP3vMcTZ5DK2IoaZ069lRJWaAMaKba5d_P_4hxz/s1600/Abbot%2526Costello.jpg" alt="Abbot & Costello" /></a>
In an old vaudeville routine, a straight man asks his partner, "Who was the lady <br />
you were with at 7:18 pm on the night of July 23, 1903?" to which the comic, scratches his head, looks puzzled at the audience, then answers, "That was no lady. That was my wife."<br />
<br />
The audience laughed partly because of the improbability of remembering specifics of an exact date and time, and partly because of the unexpected reply. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt-284D2ptHDpTr8S0SPvbsV6G3n7wEnzJMr8NEYtpXmtzi6YpgpxD7pliQG3o0DWgTKR37Z51-sOxuKljJrU2dnkenNCI27mQozLP7RwbLDhlPz0k8gyqS2vHtsfIWjHvdCqR/s1600/Jill+Price.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="203" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt-284D2ptHDpTr8S0SPvbsV6G3n7wEnzJMr8NEYtpXmtzi6YpgpxD7pliQG3o0DWgTKR37Z51-sOxuKljJrU2dnkenNCI27mQozLP7RwbLDhlPz0k8gyqS2vHtsfIWjHvdCqR/s200/Jill+Price.JPG" width="182" alt="Jill Price"/></a></div>
<br />
When Jill Price is asked such a question, unlike vaudeville audiences people don't laugh at all. They are astounded by her memory. She can recite details of the days of her life since she was fourteen years old, be they sad or happy. The details can be what she had for dinner or saw on the TV.<br />
<a name='more'></a>Examined by MRI, she was found to have areas of her brain three times larger than other women her age. There is a fancy name for her condition, <span style="font-style: italic;">hyperthymestic syndrome. </span>For her,<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>the continuous, automatic, autobiographical recall of every day of her life since she was fourteen. Another term for her situation is <span style="font-style: italic;">super-autobiographical memory</span>. Her memory can be a curse.<br />
<br />
She makes no effort to recall images. She cannot stop them and says they are like home movies "constantly playing in my head, flashing forward and backward through the years relentlessly, taking me to any given moment, entirely of their own volition." She hears a song on the radio and her mind flashes to the moment she first heard it. She writes that "the emotional stress of the rush of memories was compounded by the fact that my memory worked so differently than the norm, it was incredibly difficult to explain to anyone else what was going on in my mind."<br />
<br />
As an example, on July 18, 1984, she recalls that it was Wednesday, a quiet summer day. She picked up the book Helter Skelter and read it for the second time. She remembers that the final episode of MASH aired on February 28, 1983, a Monday and a rainy day. The next day the windshield wipers stopped working while she was driving her car. On April 26, 1986, the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl happened on a Saturday. She was visiting friends in Phoenix..<br />
<br />
She sought help and finally found a specialist and his team. In her introductory letter to Doctor James McGaugh, University of California, Irvine, a leading memory scientist, she wrote she "can take a date between 1974 and today, and tell you what day it falls on, what I was doing that day, and if anything of great importance occurred on that day. Whenever I see a date flash on the television I automatically go back to that day and remember where I was and what I was doing. It is non-stop, uncontrollable, and totally exhausting." Research scientist Dr. Julia Simner, at the Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, has speculated that her abilities are intimately tied to her visualizations of time in space, a form of synesthesia. While synesthesia for some can be pleasant, such as seeing colors with music, for her it can be wearying.<br />
<br />
In her work with McGaugh and his team she learned the profound role memory plays in our identities. Our personal narrative imparts a sense of self and meaning in life. For most people, a memory is modified slightly, or largely, when revisited. "Selective remembering and an enormous amount of forgetting," as Jill phrases the memory operation of others. This allows people to reshape the narrative of their lives and is what some therapists counsel clients to do: Re-tell the story in a different way. Their re-shaped memories re-shape the sense of self to make them happier in life. For Jill, this can't happen. Because she can't forget and selectively remember. She is her memories.<br />
<br />
For those of us who regret our poor memories, we at least are not captive to continual replay. Our brains allow us to privilege some memories over others as they are somewhat modified with each recall. She enjoys no such privilege. She opens her book by writing "I know very well how tyrannical memory can be."<br />
<br />
Despite all that, Jill Price feels sorry for people can't remember what they were doing the day they fell in love. As girls she and a friend had a marvelous trip to Disneyland but the friend remembered none of it. She rightly observes that a fundamental principle of psychology is that forgotten memories have shaped us in profound ways. Of our behavior we say it's just how we are, and without knowing the underlying cause.<br />
<br />
She has an outstanding memory. Interestingly, her enlarged brain areas are also associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). She considers her condition both a curse and a blessing. She can recall the times when she was at forks in the road, and she can wish she had made another choice than the one she followed. Short of surgery, she says, nothing can be done about her brain.<br />
<br />
At the other end of the spectrum was H.M., as known in his life, and identified as Henry Molaison after death. After a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to control his epilepsy, he could not remember what he did five minutes before. Committed to clinical care, he could not remember a person who re-entered the room after leaving a few minutes before. He was friendly and exhibited normal intelligence. When given a task requiring motor skills, he saw it as a new task each day and yet he became increasingly more skilled at the task. His brain remembered while "he" did not.<br />
<br />
Jill's book is titled <i>The Woman who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science : a Memoir</i>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-19811997926488956462019-02-19T15:00:00.000-08:002019-03-06T15:39:56.531-08:00Marilyn Vos Savant, Ron Hoeflin, and High IQ<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0BQDiVKwVRktp3sczOwUSFXmlhfLmS933aWypgaheJSnTZgASVQ0qvXRq9uRKtLko1G3KJZ1LfYa1UVsQTdogr41XwxYwcWw-i-EYwPSohj2IoOR7_XqldktyTOOUlzBo-_T/s1600-h/savant.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352707460801825858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0BQDiVKwVRktp3sczOwUSFXmlhfLmS933aWypgaheJSnTZgASVQ0qvXRq9uRKtLko1G3KJZ1LfYa1UVsQTdogr41XwxYwcWw-i-EYwPSohj2IoOR7_XqldktyTOOUlzBo-_T/s320/savant.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 220px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 138px;"alt="Marilyn Vos Savant" alt="Marilyn Vos Savant"/></a><br />
Marilyn Vos Savant: "the surname is real, it was her mother’s maiden name – has had a unique claim to fame since the mid-1980s. It was then, almost 30 years after she took a test as a schoolgirl in downtown St Louis, Missouri, that her IQ came to light. In 1985, Guinness World Records accepted that she had answered every question correctly on an adult Stanford-Binet IQ test at the age of just 10, a result that gave her a corresponding mental age of 22 years and 11 months, and an unearthly IQ of 228.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The resulting publicity changed Savant’s life. She appeared on television and in the press, including on the cover of an in-flight magazine that [Robert] Jarvik chanced to pick up. He decided to track her down and ask her out. It also led to the role for which she remains best known in America, writing a question-and-answer column, 'Ask Marilyn', for Parade, a Sunday magazine syndicated to more than 400 regional newspapers. For the past 22 years, Savant has tended their ceaseless queries – 'How happy are larks, really?' 'My wife blow-dries her hair every day. Can the noise damage her hearing?' "<br />
<br />
Some question the importance of a very high IQ if it is used only for the rather dumbed-down Sunday Parade Magazine.<br />
<br />
"To her fans and other members of the world of high IQ, Savant is a prodigious, unusual talent who delights in solving problems. To her detractors, she is either trivial, someone who has squandered her gift, or proof, if they needed it, that IQ scores don’t add up to anything."<br />
<br />
The writer comments:<br />
<br />
"All of which only makes people wonder why Savant has found no higher purpose. In 1995, the issue became so bothersome to Herb Weiner, a software engineer in Portland, Oregon, that he set up a website called Marilyn is Wrong! Weiner says that he aims to redress errors in her column and ensure that Savant’s daunting IQ does not mean that she goes unquestioned. But what really seems to nag him is that she writes the column at all. “Look at Barack Obama, look at how he is applying his intelligence,” he told me. “It just sort of seems strange to me that instead of dealing with more complex problems, a lot of what she does is just answer riddles or simple research things, things that anybody could go to a library and look up the answer to."<br />
<br />
That raises a question about intelligence itself. Is intelligence multiple? What about motivation? Passion? What about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences?<br />
<br />
"For many people, the story of Savant and “Ask Marilyn” are just two more pieces of evidence in a larger, decades-long argument about the accuracy and objectivity of intelligence testing. Even Guinness has succumbed. In 1990, two years after inducting Savant into its Hall of Fame, the publisher, in its parlance, “rested” its high IQ category altogether, saying it was no longer satisfied that intelligence tests were either uniform or reliable enough to produce a single record holder. Depending on how you look at it, Savant will either never be beaten, or was not worth beating in the first place." (Sam Knight, <i>Financial Times</i>, online magazine section, April 10, 2009)<br />
<br />
Then there is Ron Hoeflin, IQ of 190 and like Vos Savant also from St Louis. He had an abusive father, and defended his brothers against the dad. Ridiculed by his father for his smarts, Ron has found his own kind of peace away from people and in the quiet of open country.<br />
<br />
"Hoeflin is two years older than Savant, also from St Louis, and also has a remarkable IQ score – 190 – yet has frustratingly little to show for it. He lives only a few blocks from Savant’s penthouse, above a café/Laundromat, and describes himself as self-employed. I met Hoeflin in the local Wendy’s, a hamburger place where he spends every afternoon working on the final volume of a self-published philosophical treatise called The Encyclopaedia of Categories: A Theory of Categories and Unifying Paradigm for Philosophy With Over 1,000 Examples." (Knight, <i>ibid</i>.)<br />
<br />
Also see Mind Shadows, William James Sidis, World's Smartest Person? <a href="http://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2003/11/homewilliam-james-sidis-smartest.html">Here</a> as well as <a href="http://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/07/william-james-sidis-myths-and.html">myths about him</a>. Notable is Chris Langan, who has an IQ off the charts. Then there is a Mind Shadows post, <a href="http://spiritrambler.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-smart-people-do-dumb-things.html">Dumb Things Smart People Do</a>.<br />
<br />
Like Howard Gardner I challenge the idea that intelligence is a single entity. I don't believe it results from a single factor, or that an IQ test measures all its dimensions.<br />
<br />
Finally, and as an aside, in my opinion and experience, Mensa, with its SIGs, or Special Interest Groups, is a rather dismal and boring failure. It is a frivolous organization bent on good times, socializing, and mutual admiration. That is largely its footprint. On the one hand, I commend its lack of social barriers, with the only requirement a verifiable score on a reputable form of intelligence test. On the other, its members seem to think belonging to it is a kind of surrogate accomplishment.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-73085827710796506472019-02-10T16:54:00.000-08:002019-03-06T15:14:53.382-08:00Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: Manipulating Data for Effect<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxXBwLJWFMPSe-4vLQC9W_ocz_BDl4LT1t3fA19ASwZk9Vpo2krHr0QEJWjWFxlnXykodFsftfC5VzOUa0CDHJ1Y4W-5UpDi2VxREUuTRb8ifICIbdxPYYOj0jbpXTws137sU/s1600/FeelingDown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="450" height="198" src= "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTxXBwLJWFMPSe-4vLQC9W_ocz_BDl4LT1t3fA19ASwZk9Vpo2krHr0QEJWjWFxlnXykodFsftfC5VzOUa0CDHJ1Y4W-5UpDi2VxREUuTRb8ifICIbdxPYYOj0jbpXTws137sU/s200/FeelingDown.JPG" width="200"alt="Steven Pinker" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAiXnM9D2dh-VFdTWqQgXTCKXloxKJkHYjfEHBHoDrELzDeED3Qne5aN2SCYSjLIf8aolpLy5aWL_oXo_MsWBVLt0sHwX8DgA_mVJyycmns_f7hCchYFODVD8wrJktW8njjJJ/s1600/StevenPinkerData.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="73" data-original-width="568" height="41" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkAiXnM9D2dh-VFdTWqQgXTCKXloxKJkHYjfEHBHoDrELzDeED3Qne5aN2SCYSjLIf8aolpLy5aWL_oXo_MsWBVLt0sHwX8DgA_mVJyycmns_f7hCchYFODVD8wrJktW8njjJJ/s320/StevenPinkerData.JPG" width="320"alt="Steven Pinker" /></a></div>
A critical review of his book, Enlightenment Now:<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
"[Unlike Pinker] the great writers of the Enlightenment, contrary to the way they are often caricatured, were mostly skeptics at heart. They had a taste for irony, an appreciation of paradox, and took delight in wit. They appreciated complexity, rarely shied away from difficulty, and generally had a deep respect for the learning of those who had preceded them. . . ."<br />
<br />
"It is not entirely clear what Pinker means by 'the Enlightenment.' At one point he calls it 'a cornucopia of ideas, some of them contradictory,' but at another a coherent 'project.' . . . . "<br />
<br />
"But he wraps his arguments up in such a thick layer of exaggeration and misinterpretation that the book does more harm than good. It makes use of selective data, dubious history, and, when all else fails, a contempt for 'intellectuals' . . . ."<br />
<br />
"Like a TED Talk, Enlightenment Now is easy to summarize." <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-for-steven-pinkers-enlightenment/">The Nation</a>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-70834986786512809882019-02-07T16:30:00.000-08:002019-05-23T17:18:11.352-07:00Coming Soon: McDonalds on Mt Everest<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMcKWeXaxEeD2H0PAttjsii_UdxQPm5swA0NfoBwi0nBvzhDpwSj6vLPi-gmOeSJnciszIPStDwS8bRsOYRQ0wV2bInCk0OOG5ZTaBERpvcr_Gm3Ngen1nuaYiEoJU0FvBIR7/s1600/McDEverest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="McDonalds on Everest" border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="200" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMMcKWeXaxEeD2H0PAttjsii_UdxQPm5swA0NfoBwi0nBvzhDpwSj6vLPi-gmOeSJnciszIPStDwS8bRsOYRQ0wV2bInCk0OOG5ZTaBERpvcr_Gm3Ngen1nuaYiEoJU0FvBIR7/s200/McDEverest.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-XolC4ug2mtxrQp4mESUKkPdqnxgea95hC_OzBrmVFIKAeV36at1ILb7gHb0epjZ6M4RYfCS2ETm_MSY81mahM14M7FhoavGs2MX39uCH7Kzgkx3Lp9zWoI7MMf_NyvoZ4z9/s1600/MtEverestTrafficJam.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="623" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-XolC4ug2mtxrQp4mESUKkPdqnxgea95hC_OzBrmVFIKAeV36at1ILb7gHb0epjZ6M4RYfCS2ETm_MSY81mahM14M7FhoavGs2MX39uCH7Kzgkx3Lp9zWoI7MMf_NyvoZ4z9/s320/MtEverestTrafficJam.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actual Traffic Jam on Everest</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Those who climb it nowadays have more luck than brains . . .<br />
<br />
In the evenings they watched films on a flat-screen TV in the cinema tent.<br />
One Russian expedition had liters of vodka on hand and a wireless Internet connection for which the expedition leader paid $5,000 a month.<br />
<br />
"Anyone looking for a mountain adventure shouldn't go for Everest," says Billi Bierling.<br />
<br />
"Without the Sherpas and infrastructure -- such as fixed ropes leading right up to the summit -- some 90 percent of climbers wouldn't even reach the top," she believes. . . .<br />
<br />
"Many don't know how to put on crampons or even how to hold an ice pick," Bierling says. She was even more astonished to find that she didn't need to use her own ice pick to reach the summit. . . .<br />
<br />
"They have more luck than brains. I feel sick when I see 20 trusting people all hanging onto a fixed rope at the same time. Before the big expeditions came, people still knew what they were doing. . . . "<br />
<br />
In base camp she met "a New Zealander who was cooking provided team members with <span style="font-style: italic;">mousse au chocolat</span> and fresh strawberries flown in from Katmandu by helicopter. In the evenings they watched films on a flat-screen TV in the cinema tent. One Russian expedition had liters of vodka on hand and a wireless Internet connection for which the expedition leader paid $5,000 a month. 'It was pretty crazy,' says Bierling." <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/mass-tourism-on-roof-of-the-world-if-you-want-a-mountain-adventure-don-t-climb-everest-a-636082.html">Spiegel</a><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6043762.post-26166300597339794472019-01-26T12:30:00.000-08:002019-03-06T15:17:05.817-08:00What Is It Like When You Don't Know That You Don't Know?<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<script src="https://cdn.socialtwist.com/2011061352477-1/script.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="st-taf" href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/" onclick="return false;" style="border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"><img 0="" alt="SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend" border="0" height="22" margin:="" onclick="STTAFFUNC.cw(this, {id:'2011061352477-1', link: window.location, title: document.title });" onmouseout="STTAFFUNC.hideHoverMap(this)" onmouseover="STTAFFUNC.showHoverMap(this, '2011061352477-1', window.location, document.title)" padding:="" src="https://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu190/altj1a/Share_zpsuo9ouifz.jpg" width="75" /></a>
<!-- Tell&Share Guinea Pig-->
<!-- Twitter-->
<a class="twitter-share-button" data-count="none" data-via="John0z0" href="http://twitter.com/share"><img src="https://sites.google.com/site/inveteratebystander/tweet.jpg" /></a><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Twitter</script>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="https://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MindShadows" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"></a>
<!-- Feedburner-->
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiY3OeEGBSYnHqLD7TtGYl3HczDOUt8nEAFZKrfIwEva6k7PN5lIBy86jZATcR1lsr0kirOtqKXCjP95Gm9QzPqKXL1tAsvI9QUj3yohOKFhzUQBjbs246vMXIRIueVg7dF2GG/s1600/Lemons.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="131" data-original-width="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiY3OeEGBSYnHqLD7TtGYl3HczDOUt8nEAFZKrfIwEva6k7PN5lIBy86jZATcR1lsr0kirOtqKXCjP95Gm9QzPqKXL1tAsvI9QUj3yohOKFhzUQBjbs246vMXIRIueVg7dF2GG/s1600/Lemons.jpeg"alt="Anosognosia McArthur Wheeler" /></a></div>
What if a thief believes he won't get caught because he thinks he is invisible? This really happened.<br />
<br />
First, some insight into how we tick. The anchoring effect. Human brains have built in thought-saving functions to enable action.<br />
<br />
In 2006 at MIT Dan Ariely, Drazen Prelec, and George Loewenstein asked students to bid on a bottle of wine. As a sales pitch, they described the great quality of the bottle. The anchoring effect occurred when each student had to write down the last two digits of his or her social security number as if it were the price of the item.
The anchoring effect influenced their judgement. Say the last two social security digits were 11, then the student bid $11 or a relatively lower offer. If 33. the bid was $33 or in that range. If, say, 55, the the bid was higher yet.
The outcome was that students with higher numbers paid up to 346 percent more than those with lower numbers.
The experiment demonstrates that people are tricked by inherent functions of their own brains, in this case something they saw before biased them to a judgement not based on rational processing.<br />
<br />
In the evolution of species we didn't have time to mull things over. It was act or die. Thus the anchoring effect.<br />
<br />
I am not saying the anchoring effect bears on the thief's situation. I am saying none of us uses reason as much as we believe we do. What follows is different. It shows self-delusion of a different kind. The thief's kind.<br />
<br />
Anosognosia is a term to describe a deficit of self-awareness. It describes a clinical condition in which a person with some disability seems unaware of its existence.<br />
<br />
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a term for a cognitive bias. (David Dunning, Justin Kruger.) The bias can occur in people of low ability. It imparts an illusory superiority in which they mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. As Errol Morris put it, "Our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence."<br />
<br />
This report of a crime suggests both.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDvYenMOB3Gx-PcPvBkzAAkyYsN6RLxcgBuQe-jZ-ahyphenhyphenmx59ADBtohs9EhfOo-pwwFDjuNBqmzEZAvr7Dlx2jEmTmqobKO9TIgC_MWsVdhuhY4evEjN8xnAQg8UQsOFhhrdu2/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="45" data-original-width="287" height="31" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbDvYenMOB3Gx-PcPvBkzAAkyYsN6RLxcgBuQe-jZ-ahyphenhyphenmx59ADBtohs9EhfOo-pwwFDjuNBqmzEZAvr7Dlx2jEmTmqobKO9TIgC_MWsVdhuhY4evEjN8xnAQg8UQsOFhhrdu2/s200/Capture.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
"At 5 feet 6 inches and about 270 pounds, bank robbery suspect McArthur Wheeler isn’t the type of person who fades into the woodwork. So it was no surprise that he was recognized by informants, who tipped detectives to his whereabouts after his picture was telecast " (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, article by Michael A. Fuoco, 1995, o/a January 13).<br />
<br />
Read on for what happened as well as the thief's response.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"At 12:10 a.m. yesterday, less than an hour after the broadcast, he was arrested at 202 S. Fairmont St., Lincoln-Lemington. Wheeler, 45, of Versailles Street, McKeesport, Pennsylvania was wanted in connection with bank robberies on Jan. 6, 1995 at the Fidelity Savings Bank in Brighton Heights and at the Mellon Bank in Swissvale. In both robberies, police said, Wheeler was accompanied by Clifton Earl Johnson, 43, who was arrested Jan. 12." (Michael A. Fuoco)<br />
<br />
Wheeler had walked into two Pittsburgh banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight. What made the case peculiar is that he made no visible attempt at disguise.
<br />
<br />
The surveillance tapes were key to his arrest. There he was with a gun, standing in front of a teller demanding money. Yet, when arrested, Wheeler was completely disbelieving.<br />
<br />
“But I wore the juice,” he said. Apparently, he was under the impression that rubbing one’s face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to video cameras.<br />
<br />
In a follow-up article, journalist Michael Fuoco spoke to several Pittsburgh police detectives who had been involved in Wheeler’s arrest. Commander Ronald Freeman assured Fuoco that Wheeler had not gone into “this thing” blindly but had performed a variety of tests prior to the robbery. Sergeant Wally Long provided additional details — “although Wheeler reported the lemon juice was burning his face and his eyes, and he was having trouble (seeing) and had to squint, he had tested the theory, and it seemed to work.” He had snapped a Polaroid picture of himself and wasn’t anywhere to be found in the image. It was like a version of Where’s Waldo with no Waldo. Long tried to come up with an explanation of why there was no image on the Polaroid photos when Wheeler looked at them. He came up with three possibilities:<br />
<br />
(a) the film was bad;<br />
<br />
(b) Wheeler hadn’t adjusted the camera correctly; or<br />
<br />
(c) Wheeler had pointed the camera away from his face at the critical moment when he snapped the photo.<br />
<br />
As psychologist David Dunning read through the article he thought that if Wheeler was too stupid to be a bank robber, perhaps he was also too stupid to know that he was too stupid to be a bank robber — that is, his stupidity protected him from an awareness of his own stupidity.<br />
<br />
In a New York Times interview with David Dunning, Errol Morris asked why if you're incompetent you don't know you're incompetent?<br />
<br />
Dunning replied that "If you knew it, you’d say, “Wait a minute. The decision I just made does not make much sense. I had better go and get some independent advice.” But when you’re incompetent, the skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is. In logical reasoning, in parenting, in management, problem solving, the skills you use to produce the right answer are exactly the same skills you use to evaluate the answer. And so we went on to see if this could possibly be true in many other areas. And to our astonishment, it was very, very true."<br />
<br />
People may get a chuckle out of this but they should remember one thing. The thief provides an exceptional instance of self-ignorance but anchoring bias as well as a host of other cognitive ignorances--confirmation bias, availability heuristic, backfire effect, etc.--reveal that we all fool ourselves in some way. Our evolved brains are those of higher-functioning primates, not the super-intelligent.<br />
<br />
Several psychological surveys revealed that most people regard themselves as above-average drivers and considered others as below average. a statistical impossibility. People fancy themselves similar to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com0