Remember the Global Financial Crisis?  Think it is all now a distant memory?  Well think again, my friends because we are in for some rocky times up ahead.  Rocky, as in Sylvester Stallone raw egg smoothie drinking Rocky.  But here’s a tip: good property is good property.  No matter how far the economy falls, sipping your pina colada, looking out over the sea from your mansion in the hills is going to be good.  As long as you don’t mind the fact that the rum in your pina colada was fermented in a bucket and due to the shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables, has cordial instead of pineapple and milk instead of coconut cream.  Breast milk.  Which you stole from your own child’s helpless hands.

Yes, things are going to take a turn for the worst I’m afraid.  I’d say buy gold, but that was so 2006, at which point you probably would have ridiculed me for being so unhip.  Now that gold has almost tripled in price since then, I’ll expect all of your written apologies.  Write them on a dollar bill.  It’ll be cheaper than the paper it’s printed on soon enough anyway.

Not that I want to alarm you.  Look at it this way – you’ve got your house and everything is nice and orderly now.  Here’s how you prepare for the turmoil ahead: go to the supermarket and buy a few dozen cans of Spam, baked beans, rice and other shit that doesn’t go bad fast.  Now (and this is key) secretly store your supplies away in a place that no-one else knows about.  When the food runs out and everyone is going nuts, you’ll have a 400% greater chance of survival.  Now that’s just good old fashioned common sense!

Of course, you won’t be able to buy anything because your paper money will be worthless.  But just before the invading hoardes arrive and buy up your hungry neighbors’ houses, you can take the opportunity to trade food for their luxury items.  Those flat screen TVs and home theater systems will seem like a small price to pay when bartered for some chunky chicken soup in a can and a few handfuls of rice.  Trust me, starving people will agree to anything.  Just make sure that the food gives them only enough energy to survive, but not enough to come and steal your supplies.  Don’t worry, when the Chinese move in they’ll fix up the place and you’ll be able to sell for a song!

Of course, this is the Internet and a post about the rapidly-approaching Apocalypse would not be complete without some kind of conspiracy bullshit thrown in.  So here goes.  See, everyone is going nuts over how America is bailing everyone out and spreading their money about.  But this is actually a secret plot to put the world on the dollar.  Hey, the world has to have some kind of world currency one day doesn’t it?  Why not just make it the dollar?  Slowly, all the other currencies will collapse as the US financial market encourages easy credit so that countries spend and spend themselves into oblivion, like Greece and Spain have been doing.  I don’t have to tell you.  You know what’s going on.

Mind you, it might just be a case of trimming the budget.  You know, like not going out so much, eating in, shining your own shoes, cancelling your subscription to Hot Jugs Monthly.  You’re damn right it’s going to be hard.  You may have to spend less on electricity too, forcing you to spend time interacting with other people and making human connections as opposed to cyber ones.  We’ll all get through it somehow.  God knows how.

This stuff makes my head hurt, but it would be remiss of me not to say at least something.  I may be wrong.  It may just be a light shower.  But if I’m right and that financial storm that’s brewing on the horizon unleashes a torrent of hellfire upon us all, don’t even think of trying to find my secret box of Spam.  I will be armed.

There will be nothing great about this depression, mark my words.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go and lie down.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy is often cited as a major turning point of American politics.  His death was tragic and left a great scar across the political face of the country, leaving it in a state of shock. Whoever was running on the Republican ticket was certain to have a tough time arguing against the policies of a dead man. Yet, Lyndon Baines Johnson’s resounding victory over Barry Goldwater in the election of 1964 was a turning point in itself, and not necessarily a good one.

“Barry Goldwater?  Ain’t he the warmongering racist who opposed the Civil Rights Act?”

Indeed he was, if you believe his detractors.  Though Kennedy’s assassination shadowed his candidacy from the start, his opposition to the Civil Rights Act would doom him to the popularity of a fringe candidate.  Coupled with his consideration of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, he was easily painted as an extremist, out of touch with the mood of the day.

Yet, the resulting era of dirty politics and over-reaching federal powers still endures to this day.  Barry Goldwater may not have been a great alternative to LBJ, but even had he done what his critics threatened he would, he may still have been a better President than Johnson turned out to be.

Despite the claim, Goldwater didn’t actually oppose the Civil Rights Act because he was a racist.  To him, telling people who they could and couldn’t let onto their property wasn’t consistent with the principles of a free society.  The policy of segregation, of exclusion and public discrimination toward blacks was quite reprehensible, backward even for the 1950s.  Yet, like the 14^th and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution before them, Federal  statutes only forced compliance, but didn’t address the underlying problem of racism, especially in the South.   ”You cannot pass a law that will make me like you — or you like me,” Goldwater told one rally. “That is something that can only happen in our hearts.”  Goldwater’s downfall was opposing an Act that traded a principle of free speech and association, hateful as it was being employed by some, to treat the symptoms of racism, but not the cure.

People just assumed he was a racist because he opposed the Civil Rights Act.

Barry Goldwater also predicted the current form of the Republican Party.  In an interview with the Washington Post in 1994, the then-retired Arizona senator said

When you say “radical right” today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.

I think we all know how that turned out.

Though Goldwater had alienated many in his own party with his offhand, often reckless remarks, gone against the Civil Rights Act, which on the surface seemed like a positive step for a divided country, it was LBJ’s “Daisy” campaign which sealed the election and led to the biggest victory by a presidential candidate in the 20^th century.

“Daisy” was a commercial that ran briefly, featuring a little girl counting to ten, then having that count reversed by a baritone voice down to zero, at which point a nuclear bomb exploded.  Johnson successfully depicted Goldwater as a warmonger who would resort to a nuclear attack on Vietnam.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was true, Goldwater had openly said that small nuclear bombs could be used to destroy the foliage in the jungles, reducing the Vietcong’s cover, which was the cornerstone of their  military strategy.  What he had said made a little sense from a military perspective and perhaps even from a human perspective. He didn’t appear to want to direct the bombs at population centers, but rather at forests, which may have reduced human casualties.  It’s not a great argument, but I suppose an argument could be made. However, in the context of political debate and without acknowledging the gravity of using nuclear devices as weapons in war it was a careless and costly remark.  Goldwater had hereby supplied his opponents with enough fuel for him to be burned as a warmongering psychopath who would love to drop the a-bomb on Vietnam.

Yet, once Johnson was elected, he quickly reversed his rhetoric and hurriedly drew up plans to escalate the Vietnam War, fabricating the Gulf of Tonkin incident to drum up support for full-scale war.  Agent Orange, a chemical agent, was used on the jungles of Vietnam to defoliate them, resulting in 400,000 deaths and 500,000 children born with birth defects.  The war was undeclared by the Congress, unconstitutionally expanded the power of the Executive branch, took over ten years and resulted in the deaths of over four million Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian men, women and children.  Who was the extreme warmongering psychopath again?

At least Goldwater wanted to get in and leave quickly or get out altogether.

An interesting article in Reason discusses the Goldwater movement and how, after the political beating he got in the election, a joke about the election went:

They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we’d have a war in Southeast Asia, civil and racial unrest, and a ruined economy. I went ahead and voted for him anyway, and it turned out they were absolutely right.

At the time of the campaign, Vice-President Johnson was telling the public, “We are not going to send American boys nine or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Meanwhile, his advisors were drawing up plans to put 200,000 troops in Vietnam within a year.  His “Daisy” commercial made Goldwater seem like the warmonger that Johnson himself actually turned out to be.

The use of military force without a declaration, in direct violation of the Constitution; the expansion of Presidential powers beyond their constitutional limits;  these were the results of Johnson’s election.  “Daisy” ushered in a new age of dirty politics, giving rise to creeps like Richard Nixon and the religious Right’s brand of morality.

Goldwater wasn’t a racist, but he came across as one because he had no idea about how his views could so easily be misconstrued or even just misinterpreted.  When you stand against something, you’d better propose a better alternative and market it well or someone else will define your stance for you.  Once Goldwater stood against the Civil Rights Act on the grounds that it overstepped the bounds of a constitutional Federal government, he needed to propose a better solution for curing the social ills of racism and segregation.  Instead, he became a magnet for the KKK and a whole manner of other segregationists who assumed he just hated the darkies as much as they did.

Such is the destiny of the politician who means well, but is not aware enough of the game to play it effectively.

Showing sympathy for Goldwater and his politically incorrect opinions may not win me any friends.  It may even make me some enemies.  But I liken his stance to that famous phrase attributed to Voltaire:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

If freedom is only reserved for the prevailing attitudes of the day, and all other views are punished, then there will surely come a day when the prevailing attitudes are usurped to enforce one group’s notion of freedom at the expense of other groups or individuals.  When freedom is supported in principle, it must be supported for all.

Wars of ideology need to be fought with ideas.  Freedom is not a state which can be granted by the government.  It is the inherent state of human beings.  Governments  have trampled on more rights through over-reaching regulations and unnecessary wars than have racists who refuse service to blacks.

Goldwater lost because the public could not see the distinction between not supporting the Act and not supporting that particular cure for racism. Currently, as we continue to fight two wars in the Middle East, have our freedoms usurped through wiretapping and dismissal of the right of habeus corpus, as we relinquish more and more of our freedoms, even the freedom whether or not to buy health insurance, it seems that the public today are even less capable of making that distinction as they were in 1964.

I wish more things were like the Apple iPhone Application Store.  I just downloaded a little program called Sleep Cycle.  It sits on my bed as I sleep, monitors when I’m dreaming or in deep sleep and adjusts my alarm clock automatically (within a 30 minute window) to wake me when I reach a light sleep stage.  I know!

Don’t even get me started about the WC Finder or OneTap movie finder.  Or Runkeeper, the program that tracks me via GPS as I run, recording my runs in an online database and connecting me to other runners in my area.  Or Stanza, the simple ebook reader that can have me downloading all the classics in a couple of seconds.  I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo on it right now.

The human entrepeneurial spirit is a remarkable one.  The American version a particularly remarkable one.  When people are shown the carrot, they will formulate the most amazing devices and plans to get it.  When used correctly, the entrepeneurs are the engines that drive our economy and standard of living higher.

Why can’t we make medicine like that?

But David, if we do that, there will be some people who get sick from bad doctors who are just out to make money!

Good point.  Let’s look at how the app store and almost every other internet business solves this problem.  Did they get government?  No.  Did they propose legislation?  No.  Did they use a feedback mechanism which built a company’s reputation?  You bet your ass they did.

Bad news travels faster than good news for a reason.  You can have a system where half the people can’t get good care because there are a thousand laws in between a med graduate and a practicing doctor.  Or where people fork over a large portion of their wealth to buy into a bloated, astronomically expensive and wasteful government-endorsed system.  Or you can accept some element of risk, do your research from other customers and go with the specific solution the market has dreamt up.

There is yet an iPhone application that can scan my brainwaves to determine, diagnose and treat my ailments.  But you can bet that when such a House MD app exists it will be the result of some person’s dream of making themself rich.

Left and Right should not fight,
They should instead combine their might,
For nurture plays its vital role,
So society needs its Liberal,
But Liberty is a delicate flower,
Easily trampled by runaway power.
To ensure that freedom ever lives,
Society needs its Conservative.
The Founders knew these facts of course,
For they were intellectuals,
Learned men of poise and grace,
Who wanted to put government in its place,
To ensure the freedom that all desire,
While raising the standard of living higher.
They were a part of the Enlightenment,
Weary of the heavy hand of Government,
Where whim rules the fates of all,
Corruption breeds and freedoms fall.
They chose another road instead,
Leaving Kings and Queens for dead,
They founded a nation of Common Law,
With the pursuit of happiness at its core.
For happiness is not a guarantee,
Just a right to keep your property,
If some person has not enough,
You can’t just steal someone else’s stuff,
For if you did, then what would be,
The proper role of charity?
Plus how could such a thing be right,
To forcibly take through government might?
The founders knew that some need care,
That community support should always be there,
But not by chopping down the law,
And the freedom they fought the British for.

~

Adam Smith had demonstrated,
And with economic model calculated,
A notion new and elegantly grand,
That the market had an invisible hand.
As free people traded at a rapid rate,
The hand stepped in to regulate,
When businessmen lied and stole,
Their supply of wealth soon went cold,
For fickle is the buyers’ taste,
When competition rules the marketplace.
Without the use of government favor,
Business could only grow through labor,
By being better than all the rest,
Not buying favor through lobbyists.
So thus it went and all was well,
Until an idea began to dwell,
As the Founders’ time had come and gone,
Had they been right all along?
Or could the balance be tweaked a bit,
To make society give a shit,
About the poor, the sick, the needy,
“Ah ha!” they cried. “Let’s tax the greedy!”
And thus the guilt trip foiled the plan,
To have freedom rule the land,
For how can one be truly free,
When others may claim your property?
But once that principle was signed away,
The poor they grew, day-by-day,
A new currency had shown its creed:
The currency of necessity.

~

When the needy get the greater claim,
It makes more sense to do the same,
So interest groups they grew like weeds,
To propagate their list of needs.
But soon the rich ran out of dough,
And saw the way they had to go,
They used the government to promote their cause,
By adding a clause into the Laws,
That helped their business thrive and grow,
By buying people in the know.
Enter the age of Corporatist glee,
From Goldman Sacks to AIG,
They cheat and steal and bribe and curse,
To get a piece of the public purse,
All this because we deemed it wise,
To use the government to equalize,
Just like Religion’s old advice,
That good will come from sacrifice,
We kept believing through and through,
That a little bit more would finally do,
Until we looked around and saw,
There was nothing left to give anymore.
And not just that (surprise, surprise)
The claims of need had all been lies.
By helping people out of poverty,
The people had lost their liberty,
The Corporations which had grown so great,
Against whom none could regulate,
Divided up the public spoils,
Plundered the workers of their toils,
And yet the Liberals cry and moan,
“Capitalism took my home!”
Conservatives, now bought and paid,
Looked for nations to invade,
All the while the Corporation grew,
(Thanks to Haliburton and Blackwater too!)
The people marched and demanded Change!,
So it bought a candidate, trademarked the name.
The people breathed a sigh of relief,
At having a fresh Commander in Chief.
And yet, though this one had a brain,
Things somehow remained the same,
Wars continued, defecits grew,
Pundits argued ’til they were blue,
But no-one seemed to really know,
“Just where did all the money go?”
In the South, they chanted and they screamed,
“Give me back my American Dream!
They marched and Teabagged avenues,
Attracting whackos and their crazy views,
While in the North the Federalists surged,
“Protect us from this awful scourge!
Give us what the Frenchies have,
Their way of life doesn’t seem so bad!”
Yet wanting to be just like the rest,
Ain’t what made America the best,
The source of greatness plain to see-
The U.S. was the champion of Liberty!

~

But that was quite some time ago,
Now Left and Right bicker to and fro,
Trying to gain the upper hand,
To spend their way to oblivion,
Ignoring the elephant in the room:
‘Round the corner bankruptcy looms!
Though money flows in the people’s name,
The politicians treat it like a game,
“The economy is about to tank,
Let’s print more from the Central Bank!”
They call Bernanke on the phone,
And arrange to secure another loan.
Crisp green bills like cannon fodder,
With the interest zero on the dollar,
The politicians can spend again,
And act as if they’re noblemen,
Passing bills on the Senate floor,
Then heading back to ask for more,
Never pausing to reflect,
On how they might pay back the debt.
Yet History makes its lesson plain,
That lack of money leads to pain,
Empires past should make us wary,
For their downfalls were always monetary.
So Left and Right, I’m here to say,
There truly is another way,
It’s time to let people be free,
To feed the tree of Liberty,
To end the Wars to End the Fed,
Before the Republic is truly dead.

Science has a simple answer too, but one which is barricaded by a lexicon of required knowledge. From ideas about atoms and mollecules to forces and the various laws of nature, the knowledge which a scientist may take for granted is the same knowledge that daunts the layperson from pursuing a scientific answer.

The journey to a more accurate truth about life is a long one.  If religion, with its simple comforts and basic comprehensibility, works just fine for the average believer, why would they turn to a more incomprehensible theory about atoms and mutations and fossil records?  Without a lot of further study, the layperson would have to accept many of the basics of science on faith alone.  What would be the benefit?  A lack of certainty about the ultimate meaning of it all?  Exclusion from the club to which the rest of his or her society belongs?  Is it really any wonder that most choose to go with the the social club and the guilt-cleansing service religion provides?

Many Atheists assume that there is some higher purpose to human consciousness other than its own indulgence.  Why the need to slave away at absolute truths when, from an evolutionary perspective, the genetic material passed on by both the religious fanatic and the Atheist are identical. Religions have reduced a complex universe down to simple terms which even a child may understand.  What benefit does one have from a more accurate truth, and does the potential benefit outweigh the cost of learning it?  When Science is able to reduce it’s theories down to simple allegories and fables which can be readily grasped by the young generation and those who use their brains more for looks than for mental function, then it will achieve a status as cherished as religion is for billions of people now. From there, it might inspire billions to seek more and more accurate truths once they realize that anyone can learn anything with discipline and patience.

Those scientists among us who see religion as a burden or blemish on humanity, should realize that they are the enlightened few who have traversed the heights of understanding and so it is they who must bridge the gap with those unable to do so themselves.  Far better to allow people to believe generalizations and simplifications about science than to allow the continuation of the God theory with the angels, devils and other superstitious ideas associated with it.

As an example: does a cat care about the truth of whether you have hostile intentions or not?  Oftentimes no.  It won’t waste time pondering the matter, it will simply run away when you approach.  The truth may be that you are friendly and can provide the cat with a good meal, but as a general rule, the cat has preserved the status quo of it’s species in running away from larger animals, avoiding any potential threat.

What Atheists are asking of the religious is to defy the very laws of evolution that the Atheist holds dear.  Thousands of years of history have shown both safety in numbers and that conservation of effort for the same reward is favored by evolution.  Any species which can achieve the same result (passing on of genetic material to offspring which in turn reaches sexual maturity) with the least amount of effort, will ultimately prosper.

Let me make it clearer:  Religion follows the same epistemological process as science on the most basic of levels.  A phenomena is observed (Life).  A reason is given (God).  If we imagine an island-dweller with no concept of the outside world or of scientific knowledge, the model of a God moving the celestial bodies about, providing rain and sunshine as needed, elegantly fits their basic understanding of the world.  It is a theory in the scientific sense.  With our modern knowledge, it is not difficult to poke holes in this theory or any other simple theory of existence, but usually the adoption of new theories are based on their utility, not their inherent truth.

There are theories and then there are things that work.  What scientists must do better is educate an ignorant populace about the wonders of scientific knowledge.  They must do this not in an arrogant way, but in a sympathetic way.  They must be the translators of knowledge into simple terms, which reveal the real-life practicality of these theories.

The basics of evolution: A bird has three children, all of whom are slightly different to one another. Two of those birds happen to be better at flying away from predators than the other one. The poor flier is eaten and doesn’t have children. The other two have two children. Now we have two separate family tree branches: light feathered and dark feathered offspring. The light-feathered offspring are easily seen by predators and they are eaten before they can reproduce, leaving only dark-feathered birds. This is the process of natural selection, whereby small variances in the children influence their survival and hence their ability to pass on their genetic code. Over millions of years, this results in major changes in life forms, as some variations are better than others at surviving in their environment.

For the religious, knowing the workings of natural processes via science should bring them closer to God, for these are the universal processes by which He operates.  The study of science IS the study of God’s laws!  In my religion, Etheism, knowing science is being closer to knowing the true nature of God.

A while ago, I decided to consider alternatives to Atheism.  I wound up creating my own religion.  I didn’t do it for the chicks, for the fame or for the chance to be crucified.  Nor did I do it because I have grown disillusioned by science.  Science does a great job of explaining the world, our history, the laws of Nature, and even what our near future might look like.  It is essential to our survival and it must continue unhindered, with the full support of humanity.  But what of the big questions that science still cannot answer?  Are we not allowed to wonder why we are here and what our struggle through life is for?  It is for this reason I developed Etheism.

Throughout history, philosophers and preachers have searched for a meaning, some clue as to what it’s all about.  To know this is to know God.  Well, are we getting closer to knowing God yet?

Etheism holds that God is energy.  Using this simple substitution, I dare you to read the ancient biblical texts and see if they don’t make more sense.  What was always most imbecillic about mainstream religion was its view that God was some kind of father figure sitting up in the clouds, listening to what humans do, meddling in their affairs.  Unless you are a young child or a complete and utter moron, this will obviously be insulting to your intelligence.  Defining God as energy allows us to clearly define Him by the natural laws we have for how energy functions in the Universe.  There is still much to learn if we are to become fully enlightened, but at least we are on the way.  As we come to expand our view of the Universe, so too will we expand our definition of God, from petty father figure, to omniscient deity, to Universal constant.

But why define God at all?  There has been, thus far, no evidence to support any theory of a higher consciousness having created any of the phenomena we see around us.  Existence is not evidence of creation.  Even if there had been creation, it must’ve occurred billions of years ago, as our most advanced techniques for dating the age of the earth and of the living creatures who have lived on it indicate.  The absurd idea that the world is but a few thousand years old and that woman was created from man with one of his ribs is childish nonsense which ignores so many facts about the world we have come know.

If you really are religious and are still reading, consider:  God gave you a brain, so why don’t you use it?  You have been given the amazing gift of volition, of choice, of understanding and knowledge.  You are conscious, self-aware and capable of understanding the mysteries of the universe.  You can know why the sun and moon appear to move across the sky, or how people came to look different from each other, some with dark hair and black eyes, others (like me) with fair hair and a fragile relationship with the sun.  God, if He exists, surely doesn’t want you to treat your brain poorly by ignoring the voluminous amounts of evidence supporting the theory of evolution on the one hand, with a book authored by God-knows who, compiled by a bloodthirsty dictator about a prophet none of the authors ever met.

Let me put it another way.  I’m sure that if I put a bag over my head, I could eventually learn how to get on with my life.  But for God’s sake, why not just take off the bag?

Yet, in spite of the horrors committed in its name, religion has been the greatest cause of human population growth in the history of humanity.  The prescription religion has dispensed throughout the Ages has been to “go forth and multiply” and the multitude has obeyed.  Where poverty and religion have combined, the effects have been especially pronounced, generating generation after generation, perpetuating paternalism, all the while passing religion on.  We have assumed that religion was indoctrinated into children early enough that they weren’t able to rationally comprehend it, thereby accepting it as a part of their lives.  But what if it wasn’t just nurture that helped religion to grow and flourish?  What if there was a genetic factor involved?  If there was a genetic link between genes and suceptability to religion, then the religious may well give birth to naturally religious children.  As those who are most religious would quite possibly pass on their genetic material with a greater urgency, the numbers of the religious would be increasing compared to the non-religious.

This may sound like the rantings of a maniac.  “Genetic link to religion?  Such a thing has never been proven!”  And it hasn’t.  But there is good evidence to suggest that there is something in human psychology that gives rise to belief.  You just have to look at it from another angle than religion.

Look at a group of people.  Tasked with a job to do, the group naturally falls into a team of leaders and followers, as each member finds its political place within the group.  We call this politics, but it is actually just an effective way to manage the group dynamic and achieve the result desired.  If a group has too many leaders, it’s focus is diluted and the group can splinter into factions.  Unless some members can switch to a follower mentality, allowing themselves to “follow the leader” as it were, the group will be unfocussed.  Unless other members can lead those other members, giving direction and balance to the group, the group will be doomed.  It seems that, like bees, a person can adopt either role in order to achieve the higher purpose of the group.  Throughout history, those who have been able to follow their leader precisely, by aligning their own goals, dreams and desires with the group have had an uncanny ability to win.  Independence of mind and spirit have traditionally worked well for the leaders of the world, but have fared poorly in group dynamics.  Hell, I have a hard enough time living with this kind of mindset in these supposedly independent and free times.  I would’ve probably been burned on the stake before my 15th birthday, had I been born a couple of thousand years prior.

I think it is not a coincidence that political fervour often mimics religious fervour.  Our tendency to follow has protected us in the past, allowed our groups to function more effectively (though quite often being murderously effective).  It gave humanity strength, yet it is at the same time its weakness.  In the evolution of human thought, it is natural that we would transition from a group to an individualistic mentality.  Trouble is, it seems we are going backwards.  Back in the 4th century BC, Aristotle and Socrates were chatting philosophy, trying to derive the nature of the universe.  Artistotle himself could be said to be the founding father of Science.  Yet, it took almost two thousand years for scientific thought to actually take hold.  Had we not been afflicted with the mind-stunting ignorance of religion for centuries, where might we be now.

I’m pretty sure we’d have flying cars.  Leonardo da Vinci would have invented them for sure.

I created Etheism in the hope of creating, not another closed dogmatic system of belief, but an evolving, inclusive vision of a universe which would one day welcome us into its arms.  As our technology and our knowledge increase, as we come to learn more and more secrets of this amazing universe, we may well give birth to creations which allow us to explore the cosmos (or at the very least fly to work).  Who knows what intelligence we may find, given the means of conducting a more thorough search.  But even if we remain alone in the universe, we will advance or die together.  Our own small roles in continuing the delicate spark of life will remain, even after the circumstances of our birth, death and all that happened in between fades into eternity.

Etheism is a celebration of Life.  A unifier, not a divider.  It is a religion which is pro-science, pro-life AND pro-choice, pro-rational individual and pro-understanding.  It is inclusive.  If you’re alive, you can join.  Those who we disagree with, we feel compassion toward, never hatred.  We feel connected to the universe and relish the joys of life.  We understand that God may fill our bodies and world around us, but this universe is a self-determined one.  We live and die by our own choices.  There is no supernatural force, guiding the outcome.  We are not disappointed by this, as we understand that the natural world is so full of wonderful and amazing things that there is simply no need for the supernatural.  As for the purpose of humankind, perhaps one day it will achieve harmony.  That is our goal.  When we learn to form a synnergy with our natural world, we might discover a higher form of existence, leading to still other higher and higher forms.

The answers to all of our questions are right there in the puzzle we call life.  It’s up to us to solve it.

I suppose to really appreciate something like the iPhone, you have to have a basis of comparison. I can’t imagine how this technology is blowing my parents’ minds, considering that when they were young, radio was a big deal. Old people must be really buzzed to be living in the future. I think that I’ll be buzzed when I get there too! But I feel like I already am there in a way. Walking around, reading articles off the internet, checking out rental properties, finding restaurants to eat at or the next train times, I rarely have to wait more than 20 seconds to get the information I need. All, just with my thumb. It’s friggin’ fantastic!

And so, I take another step toward Apple.

See, I wanted to be a PC guy. I believed in the open market of applications battling it out for supremacy. There is so much flexibility in a PC with customizations and options and profiles. Not only that, but you can build them yourself. It’s just like I used to do when I was a kid with building blocks, only now those blocks help me to get porn. PCs were a blank slate and you built from the ground up. That is, from Windows up. And that is the problem with PCs. Microsoft is a company built by nerds, who still make programs with the nerd mindset. The nerd mindset is the idea that more information and options are always better. What the nerd doesn’t see is that people usually tend to prefer to minimize options where possible so as to conserve energy. With Windows it has always been a case of figuring out verbose messages and having to learn about the nuts and bolts of the system. Geeks love to learn stuff, and they assume that everyone else wants to do that too.

Technology, to me, makes the most sense when it augments my life, rather than disrupts it. The more I have to think about how to do something, the less I’m thinking about what I want to do. Technology is something which should work for me rather than the other way around. Apple seem to get this and create products that are intuitive and simple to use. They let your mind wander and not be tied down by process.

It’s almost like two personalities. On the one hand, I’m a bit of a geek myself and so I love to build and customize. I have dreams of creating a huge desktop PC with a RAID-5 disk array and a ridiculously large amount of memory. Then I use my iPhone again and dream of owning a machine that would just do the simple stuff without requiring a lot of brain effort. I don’t want to be searching through menus or understanding the concepts of Network management. I want to send my damn file from here to there, OK? Can’t a computer just do it without being told twice, thrice, having it’s firewall policies analyzed and it’s properties manipulated? So far, my impression of Apple is that things are simple and they just work first time. I can dig that, I really can.

Apple are in control of the whole experience. They sell the hardware and the software as an identity. Windows is just an operating system. It appears on many different devices and so it loses its identity. So many different machines leads to so many problems and issues due to the complexity of it all. Plus, their geeky ways are dull.

The beauty of the current level of technology is that I can have my cake and eat it too in this instance. Since Apple released Boot Camp whereby I can run Windows on a Mac, I can dual boot. Windows will be great in the corporate world as I take life very seriously as an office worker. Then, when I get home and fire up the Buddha, I can switch to the cool interface of my Mac, running OS Snow Leopard, with stuff just working all the time and requiring minimal effort from me.

I’ll be able to relax and spend more time enjoying the beauty of the world. So what I’m really trying to say is that I’m not a mac guy or a pc guy. I’m a technology guy who cares about form AND function. Right now, it just happens that the company with the best product just happens to be the most trendy.

Let’s just call that a perk.

Until a more awesome device than the iPhone comes put, I’ll be here tapping my blog out with my thumbs, while listening to Talib Kweli and waiting for my eBay order to arrive.

Yet, as that flower grew taller and taller, she found the thicket above her, pushing down on her, restricting her growth.  She struggled to push through, but each time, the thicket seemed just as dense as before, so that finally, after much effort, she gave up.  Her stem started to bend as she leaned forward to find another path to the rays of sunshine she so desperately needed to live.  Her lean diminished her beauty, but not enough to prevent her bloom showering the forest floor, giving her a child, which began its life nearby.  She accepted her place in life and tended to her child’s safety and nutrition.

One of these children blossomed into a strong, bright flower and outgrew all his siblings.  From time to time, his mother would remind him that he could not grow forever, that one day he would reach the thicket, upon which he would have to stop.  Here, she would indicate the stoop in her stem, the crinkle in her leaves.  He saw his mother from a different angle, though.  He saw that were she to push a little harder, she might break through the thicket branches, which were only a few inches thick.  With a few pushes in the right places, she might push them aside forever and grow to her full height.

But try as he might to encourage her, she had long ago believed it to be impossible and had grown forward too far.  And this was how she died in the end, bent over and crippled.  Her child vowed not to repeat her mistake – he would push through any branches to reach the sun that stood in his way.  Unknown to him, he grew under a large branch of a tree above.  As he grew taller and taller, he found the branch above him, pushing down on him, restricting his growth.  Though he pushed, the branch seemed impervious to all of his efforts against it.  He looks upon the wasting shell of his mother, curled over and hunched with new eyes.  He saw her struggle in his.

Yet in that recognition, he realized that in her struggle had been a solution, one which she had given up the search for.  Seeing how she died, he decided it would be better for him to struggle and try all his life, than be bent over and only live half a life.  So he pushes some more.  He meets a girl flower, who is swept up in his vision.  While all the flowers around her had accepted their limitations, he had shown a resolve she had never seen.  Together, they pushed against the heavy branch.  The days and weeks went by and each day they pushed harder.  Though lightning did strike other trees in the area, it had not struck this one.  Together, they looked at each other and realized they might spend their whole lives to no avail.

The girl was the first to break, weeping bitter tears of frustration.  The boy stopped pushing for a moment and grew that little bit closer to her, that he may lend her comfort.  She, feeling safer in his presence, grew that bit closer to him.  They put aside the branch and for the first time in so many days, enjoyed their time together.  They opened their petals to the light from the suns rays that little bit more, stretched their leaves and allowed the summer rains to wash them clean.  Bees danced in their blossom, sending messages back and forth between each other all day.  And together, they grew closer.

One day they were enjoying the gentle push of the breeze while soaking in the light when the girl flower looked over her head.  There was no branch!  She alerted the boy who looked up to see a radiant blue sky staring back at him.  As time had passed and their love had blossomed, they had grown closer to each other and away from the branch that had been above them.  They looked at each other and saw their bright future in the sun together.

A couple and their son happen by the flowers one day, and stop when the wife notices the two flowers which had so romantically grown around one another.
”Oh look at these flowers!” she remarked, clasping her hands to her face.  “They are in love, just like mommy and daddy.”

The child rolled his eyes and ran to the tree nearby to climb it.  He had gone no higher than the first branch, the branch that had troubled the flowers for so long, when his father instructed him to go no higher.  The boy was quick to complain.
”But Dad, I can climb to the top!”
”Those branches are not safe!” his father said.
”They are too!” replied the boy.
This exchange continued for a while until, after a spirited point, the boy’s weight broke the branch and both tumbled to the ground, missing the flowers by inches.  The father, feeling vindicated, repeated his point to the child and promptly comforted the boy, feeling the lesson had been learnt.  But as the boy nursed the pain in his backside, he felt the urge to right the wrong this tree had done him and to one day return to climb to the top.

The mother, on the other hand, had been greatly concerned as the branch narrowly missed the flowers she had been marveling at.  She threw a look of scorn toward him.
”You nearly damaged these beautiful flowers, please be more careful!”
The child shrugged, his face still creased in pain.
”They’re just flowers.”
”They’re not just flowers, they’re flowers in love,” she spoke to him slowly.  “And you must always protect true love.”
For the second time, the child rolled his eyes, while the father’s widened.  An idea had struck him.  After his wife walked the child ahead, he ripped up the entwined flowers from the ground and placed them in his coat.  As his wife seemed to love the flowers so much, she would surely appreciate being given them as a gift, he thought merrily as he returned to his family.  He was, then, quite surprised when his wife’s reaction was one of anger.  It seemed to him there was no pleasing some women.

And as the flowers felt their world uprooted and life slip slowly away from them, they stared at each other, remembering the life they had shared, hoping their children would find their own version of destiny and to not be defeated by the struggle.

And once again the wife was moved by the flowers’ gentle grace, even in death.  Seeing the love they shared reminded her of the love she and her husband had shared those many years.  She forgave him his transgression and smiled.  The husband, puzzling at the mysterious currents of his wife’s mood, was relieved to be back in the favor of such a beautiful, complex creature.  He stood slightly taller that day and all the days after that, and together, they grew closer.

Had I known that while making me feel perkier in the morning, you were elevating my cortisol levels I might not have let you into my life.  But there you were, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, wafting your delicious smell up my nostrils and all the while stimulating my adrenal gland, causing all kinds of havoc.

What’s that you say?  You were just messing around?  It was harmless?  Ha!  Stop lying to me.  I’m so tired of your seductive lies.  I know what you were up to now.  The wool has been pulled from my eyes and I’ll have no part of  your shenanigans any more!  Cortisol isn’t just some harmless fun.  Blood pressure, fertility issues, memory.  Oh you have some nasty friends, Coffee.

I knew something was wrong when I saw Fat.  At first, I didn’t really know why it had shown up.  I didn’t invite it to the party and quite frankly I usually don’t allow those types in.  I run, I swim, I keep fit.  But everywhere I went, there was Fat, still hanging around like it knew me.  I knew for sure that I hadn’t invited it myself, so I started asking around.  Had someone else let it in while I wasn’t looking?  I did a little further digging and it all became clear to me.  While my good friend Coffee was keeping me happy and distracted, a whole host of undesirable characters were slipping in the back door.

If not for the fat, I may not have noticed.  But it’s always sitting there on my stomach like an ugly fat blob, staring at me and grunting “What?”  When the two of you get together that fat bastard seems even more content, swelling up and jiggling all over the place.  If it was just you and me, I might be able to stomach the other issues, such decalcifying my bones, thinning my skin and toxifying my brain.  But you just had to fatten me up.  And if there’s one thing to spoil a good substance party, it’s a fat bastard at the center of it who JUST WON’T LEAVE.

So goodbye Coffee.  I’ll admit, it was fun while it lasted.  But now that I know what you’ve been up to, well, it just leaves a bitter taste.

Refs:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_9_19/ai_106652961/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol#Factors_affecting_cortisol_levels
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2249754/?tool=pmcentrez
Image: http://theobservationsubway.blogspot.com/2008/08/at-coffee-shop.html

Every artist must pass through both challenges. How accurate they can be at then displaying the result depends on their technical skills. But technical skills will not suffice unless the artist has revealed something of our human potential. Nobody would be pleased if, after all the buildup, the joke your friend has been telling you for the past hour has a lousy punchline. The artist must use their technical skills to reveal an unknown truth or to illuminate a known one. This is the artist’s struggle.