Religion and Suffering

Human suffering is the one area where I think religion has more interesting things to say than science. Religion salves the wounds from grief far more effectively than anything I know of in science. I was delighted to read in Mircea Eliade’s 1949 book “The Myth of Eternal Return” that the recognition of human misery as punishment from God may have been what allowed Judaism (and it’s children Christianity and Islam) to flourish while other Middle Eastern religions vanished.

Why aren't you a superhero?

{{< figure src=“http://gnumatt.org/images/kickass.jpg" title=”" class=“align-left” >}} As a kid I wanted my life to be different from the one I imagined ahead of me. I wanted to be a master jewel thief or president of a unified North and South America. As I got older the dreams got smaller. I wanted to monopolize America’s garbage collection industry. Now they’re more abstract. I wish I’d had a comic book like Kick-Ass to inspire me when I was younger.

Humankind's Manifesto

In All Star Superman #10 Superman creates an alternate Earth, Earth-Q, to see what humankind does without a Superman. On Earth-Q someone gives a speech that I think is a great manifesto for humankind.

Let us not yield sovereignty even to them, the highest of the angelic hierarchies! Become instead like them in all their glory and dignity. Imitation is man’s nature and if he but wills it, so shall he surpass even imagination’s greatest paragons.

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Under the Bus

“threw his grandmother under the bus”

here, here, here here here here here here here here

“Obama: You think Hillary’s Ruthless? Hell, I’ll Run Over My Own Grandmother to Get Elected!!” here

Peace for a Change

“Think peace and and you’ll get it. It’s up to the people…If we really wanna change it, we can change it.” -John Lennon

That quote is copied from the press kit for the Oscar nominated animated short film I Met the Walrus and hits upon a trifecta of my current interests.

The first being that reality is manufactured by the words in our pens and the thoughts in our head. Take responsibility.

Gifts and Social fabric

From Lewis Hyde in The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. [link goes to the free preview page that has the quote on Amazon]

Where someone manages to commercialize a tribe’s gift relationships the social fabric of the group is invariably destroyed.

I have yet to read Lewis Hyde’s book but I’m already hooked from the free pages on Amazon. He starts off illustrating one of the fundamental differences between the Native Americans and the Europeans that invaded: a gift culture. Native American tribes would exchange gifts of equal or greater value. The purpose being to continually gift the item to others. It created social bonds between tribes. Europeans followed a capitalist model where they warehoused those gifts and used them for production to enrich themselves.

Biblical Reality Hacking

I really enjoy reading Grant Morrison. I can think of few writers who really grok the power of storytelling to change our reality like he does. I’ve learned a lot about the power of the written word from reading his comic books. What surprises me is when I come across those ideas in much older works, like the Bible.

Numbers 5:12-31 is about how husbands can force their wives to submit to an abortion if they merely suspect their wife has cheated on them. They go before a priest goes who has God curse some water before the wife drinks it. The cursed water causes her to miscarry and renders her barren if she cheated on him.

Sponsorship and mediocrity

Why are TV shows, network TV shows in particular, so mediocre? I think I’ve come across the answer in Vance Packards 1957 book The Hidden Persuaders. It’s by design.

In 1955 I Love Lucy was the top-rated comedy show and Philip Morris was the money behind it. Philip Morris found their sales drop 17 percent and some believed a popular show doesn’t sell products.

“…Is an advertiser better off with a less than top-rated show in order to get commercials across?” That observation was made in early 1955. [..] Were some of the resolutely mediocre shows on television that way by design, to increase the impact of the commercials?

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Justice carries the day

I imagine Senator Dodd is feeling pretty great now. It’s rare that politics provides an opportunity for one man to stand up and fight for a just cause, and win. Senator Dodd was able to filibuster retroactive immunity for the phone companies.

Despite retroactive immunity appearing to be a violation of the ex post facto clause in Article I of our Constitution most of the Senate was ready to pass it. Thanks to Senator Dodd’s leadership on this we’ve won one battle in the war to preserve our nation’s Constitution.

Pursuits of youth

Something I regret not doing when I was younger is chasing after the things that I thought mattered. I either let my interest wane, or listened to the tut-tutting of others that said it was a waste of time.

I’m reading a book that examines the Interactive Fiction (IF) medium called Twisty Little Passages. Interactive Fiction is the dressed up word for text adventures. I feel as though hours of my youth spent playing these has been vindicated. I should have pushed for it to be considered Summer Reading.