Bayesian probability

It's [Bayesian probability] an engine for evidence. It is fed a probabilistic description of the domain and, when new evidence arrives, the system just shuffles things around and gives you your revised belief in all the propositions, revised to reflect the new evidence.* 

I have offered a Christmas poem or other short writing to family, friends, and close-ish others for many years. This year I think it is my last, for the reason given above. To wit, mostly I get no acknowledgement or other response. I have a few faithful readers. I take that back. I have one, and she is a treasure--my cousin in Carson City, Nevada, and this year her dear partner along life's circuitous byways. And then sometimes, more often than I care to count, I get, "Huh?!" Or worse, "Why did you ask me to read your incoherent missive?"

Which this year has led to these two of six New Year's resolutions that seem probable.

• Send no unsolicited writing anymore, ever, to anyone--to no one! except to my cousin and one or two other people.
• Respond to--don't initiate--conversations, but once invited, help the conversation go somewhere, especially by raising questions, not by sharing my knowledge, opinions, or observations.

Here is this year's unsolicited offer/offending piece, called Exhibit One.

I have had a relationship with the Czech Republic. It has been off and on since 1994, although one of my earliest memories of Czechoslovakia as someplace fascinating and far, far away--I would never visit--was a hockey game played in the early 50s that I watched on our first TV set, black and white.

The relationship is back on, and I have returned to where it began for real for me in 1994, Prague. On, by the way, means I am here and not there (elsewhere) and enjoying it this time, having put some unpleasant learning experiences associated with Czechs and the developing country in my past.

Two of my delights are Christmas postcards, especially those of Josef Lada and vánoční koleda (Christmas carols), especially as sung by children's choirs. Although the Czech Republic, I have maintained, is a godless place, especially here in Bohemia, there is saving grace when viewing these postcards and listening to Czech koleda at least once a year.

In the past I have shared with family and friends both the postcards and the carols, but I think it was more for my pleasure than theirs. For the last several years, I have again carried around a batch of these postcards promising myself I would send them out this year in time for Christmas. I failed, again.

However, here is my excuse and a fulfillment of my promise to myself, realized this time of course in my own way. I have turned 71, and although I deny that aging is setting in and have stories for why I don't get done in a day what I used to be able to accomplish, I, like an annoying and insistent child, send at least the Christmas cards plus bonus, a bit of background for them and the artist ( http://praguemylove.blogspot.cz/2010/12/happy-birthday-josef-lada.html ).

Perhaps you will have a look and a read and find something? a bit of your own childhood perhaps, a remembrance of simpler, more innocent times? Wouldn't that be nice gift to yourself. Are these times gone forever? Not if you click on each image and put yourself inside for a moment to see, reflect, and try to decode what these Czechs, and we, are about other than hubris and hedonism, and not just at this time of year.

Oh, as for the music. I have not fundamentally changed about that either. I have no love of music except for Czech Christmas songs and American folk music. Kind of figures, doesn't it? But I won't inflict any of that on you this year--there is always next, we trust.

Exhibit Two. One person wrote me back asking why should she read my holiday message? She really did not have me or my message on her list of priorities and in her busy schedule, which she outlined for me. She objected to my appreciation for a part of the country-culture Czech. I had not expressed the same for Italy and Italians.

I'm sorry. She didn't read my Benano Blog carefully enough, for one. And for the record, each country-culture has its delights and downers; and gosh, my own country of birth has a culture today I can hardly recognize or accept, although there are still things to love about it. Two, how can I be responsible for interfering with her choices of what to attend to and what not?

However, just like the downsides of Italy and Italians, or the Czech Republic, or anywhere else, there is a brighter one. My now former correspondent has a point. Why should anyone read unsolicited material? from a friend? during the holidays? or at anytime? trying to share something about another art and a small corner in the world of music? (Thus the above listed, no longer proposed, resolution.)

Salvation is always loving support for one's efforts, efforts born of good intentions and feelings of affection for the health and well being of others. If this indeed shows through what one does, receiving back in like kind gives one the strength to carry on, regardless of the fool one makes of oneself from time to time.

This year I got several returns like that from the holiday message, and although in all probability based on evidence counted and weighed over the years, I will cease and desist the annual, no doubt selfish, ritual, I take heart and would like to return service with a delight that will be easy to field and redemptive.

A bitter-sweet Czech/Moravian love song, "Teče, voda, Teče," sung by one of the Petits chanteurs a la Croix de Bois. Not exactly Christmas music, but you'll get the idea, er feeling, and will fall in love too, just as with a closer look, I believe, at the Czech Christmas cards I promoted in my holiday message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-7aoeozyE

Careful. The song and singer might just break your heart, as in part the message of the lyrics will, but you don't need to know what is being said. You don't need words with art or music. One- and two-way conversations don't always need words.

I dare you not to be touched regardless of other worldly priorities/schedule. Take three minutes. It is my last unsolicited message, which is now a challenge, in all probability.
___
* https://www.edge.org/conversation/judea_pearl-engines-of-evidence

That which commends itself

. . . as evident.

Consider

1. Truth is the most definitive knowledge about and understanding of something that we can have at a given time.

[We employ curiosity, assumptionless observations, and reason to organize evidence and posit truths.]

2. Beauty is the strongest sense we have of the truth of something, and it creates a desire to have more, or even better, endlessly.

[Intuition, conviction, and creativity stimulate and inform our sense of what is beautiful.]

3. Goodness is totally, defensibly the best truth that we can contemplate, embrace, and act upon.

[Truth is beauty. Beauty is truth. In combination these constitute the good.

Faith, belief, and hope are feelings directed toward a something deemed true, beautiful, and good; such feelings transcend our current ability to understand what is, or to accept whatever as it is.

Missing from this big-three constellation of primary and ultimate human pursuits, other than any and every act to negate or contradict their primacy and universal importance, are these.]

4. Being (not doing) and compassion complete the human enterprise.

[In being, one does not act to advance but to gather oneself unto the self and bask in the experience of oneness, of unity.

A healthy self love looks inward but also has the capacity and maturity to extend outward and participate in the being and pursuits of others.]

The challenge

Tests of these "universals" are in specific examples of human endeavor, not excluding those which would seem to belie their applicability and comprehensiveness.

Your turn.

My point

Claims without specifics or citations of studies "proving that something or other does thus and so" are in the category of made-up beliefs and anecdotal notions, not to be taken seriously.

Not here, not anywhere.

Illustration, as sent to me by a relative, who has a certificate of mental disability from the Czech government. But one doesn't need a certificate to claim off-the-wall "facts" . . . as we can observe all across the great country (USA), and elsewhere.

[begin quote]

"Dr. Liu Yiping , encouraged each person receiving this newsletter to  forward it to another ten people, certainly at least one life will be saved ... I've done my part, I hope you can help do your part. thanks!

Drinking hot lemon water can prevent cancer. Don't add sugar. Hot lemon water is more beneficial than cold lemon water.
Both yellow n purple sweet potato have good cancer prevention properties.
01. Often taking late night supper can increase the chance of stomach cancer
02. Never take more than 4 eggs per week
03. Eating pope's nose (chicken backside) can cause stomach cancer
04. Never eat fruits after meal. Fruits should be eaten before meals
05. Don't take tea during menstruation period.
06. Take less soy milk, no adding sugar or egg to soy milk
07. Don't eat tomato with empty stomach
08. Drink a glass of plain water every morning before food to prevent gall bladder stones
09. No food 3 hrs before bed time
10. Drink less Teh Tarik, no nutritional properties but can cause diabetes and hypertension
11. Do not eat toast bread when it is hot from oven or toaster
12. Do not charge your handphone or any device next to you when you are sleeping
13. Drink 10 glasses of water a day to prevent bladder cancer
14. Drink more water in the day time, less at night
15. Don't drink more than 2 cups of coffee a day, may cause insomnia and gastric
16. Eat less oily food. It takes 5-7 hrs to digest them, makes you feel tired
17. After 5pm, eat less
18. Six types of food that makes you happy: banana, grapefruit, whole meal bread, spinach, pumpkin, peach.
19. Sleeping less than 8 hrs a day may deteriorate our brain function. Taking Afternoon naps may keep our youthful look.
Cooked tomato has better healing properties than the raw tomato.
Hot lemon water can sustain your health and make you live longer!
Hot lemon water kills cancer cells
Add hot water to 2-3 slices of lemon. Make it a daily drink
The bitterness in hot lemon water is the best substance to kill cancer cells.
Cold lemon water only has vitamin C, no cancer prevention.

Hot lemon water can control cancer tumor growth.
Clinical tests have proven hot lemon water works.
This type of Lemon extract treatment will only destroy the malignant cells, it does not affect healthy cells.
Next... citric acid and lemon polyphenol in side lemon juice, can help reduce high blood pressure, effective prevention of deep vein thrombosis, improve blood circulation, and reduce blood clots.

[end quote]

___
Suggest one could start here, if interested in pursuing this lemon-water business, especially as observed with mice, the experimental subjects.

Up 'nd go*

Got dead things in your pool?

Want a meal makes you drool?

Call the cook and pool boy--

here to aid ya--though one's goy!

Sick of dead lines you must fix?

Set 'em 'side and have some kicks.

Alone is not lonely, this we know,

but work no play? Up, let's go!

___
* A friend was editing her book and working toward a deadline. She was holed up in her house. The poem was a neighborly, textured offer to give her a break and some assistance as well as food and diversion.

Stupid space cadet

Comments and questions related to posts here have again demonstrated that close reading, including the exercise of basic skills for understanding text, are wanting. Or I am failing miserably to communicate clearly. This is clearly a possibility.

In short, the blog posts here say what they say. Poorly or brilliantly they do so--seldom brilliantly--but it doesn't much matter, for this blog is more a storage place for a miscellany than a bunch of stuff intended for others to read and converse about. Writing for no audience is still my modus operandi and raison d'etre for web logging.

Note this blog is titled "Sort Me". That is to say, this is a place where a speaker-writer is expressing self-referential thoughts, confusions, complaints, observations, what-have-yous. It is by and about a me, this me. And it is for me, with perhaps your witnessing and noodling, should you care, to sort out, or sort through, whatever is here worthy of bother. "It is," in the catchphrase cliche of today, "all about me."

An aside here. The other reader (of only two, maybe three) of this blog took great offense a year or so ago at what he perceived was a personal attack against him. (Out of consideration for his blood pressure and mine, I have since deleted the post and his pornographic email messages.) Among his complaints in a vicious tirade--so vile I dare never quote him--was that bloggers, "he suspected," were "selfish bastards." Well, where has he been since writing was first invented? My blog even places that claimer right up front.

Idiot. Stupid idiot.

Attack the messenger, not the message? Holding things at arm's length is not one of the characteristics of good readers these days, or ever!

Textual. We are instructed from an early age to answer several questions about what we read. What is it about? is the first. The second is, what is the point or meaning? The first question is answered by the context for my post, but also by the text itself. The post I am referring to is about this writer's use of terms not used before but now does more so because their use brings him closer to describing the realities he encounters. "I didn't use these words before but now I do, because I see that they are apt in the world I experience and know something little about." (Writing about writing is always wordier and less elegant than the original.) And the particular words and phrase chosen for use stand out from a background formerly foreign to this same messenger. He must have heard or noticed them more as a result of a change in location or culture . . . than he did before some years ago, living in a different world, no doubt his own.

We learn early also that it is at the beginning of a piece of writing where we should be able to find what a writing is about and why it was written. (At least in the culture of writing in English.) From the title, this piece is advice to a reader and a writer that it is now acceptable to call a spade a spade, to tell it like it is, to not mince words, to speak one's mind, etc. And that might mean pointing out someone who I dare and deem to call an idiot, or stupid, or a stupid idiot--from now on. Like, for example,

Donald Trump is a stupid idiot.

From the first lines of the post, I "now" use these words and I have been sliding "into reality" by doing so. With these words, you thus have the makings of the thesis statement for the piece.

The question is not whether I used these words previously, or whether the expression "stupid idiot" was common somewhere, or used by others in my country speaking the same English, or so on. These are questions not addressed by this expository snippet. The only thing addressed is the thesis statement with the words and expression and the rules for usage that obtain, or seem to obtain--in my case.

One might well ask (me),

• Where have you been that you have not used such language till now? 
• Did you recently drop onto this planet from outer space?

And naturally, the argumentum ad hominem such questions actually reveal: "Stupid space cadet!"

I accept the judgment and sentence. I have just dropped from space and now find myself in a reality I previously didn't know about or acknowledge with words that others find all too familiar and useful. And because of that, I can be seen as an example of those words.

Nix useless occupation

Nix useless occupation

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By the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the autonomous and unaligned zone now known as Syriaq had received three areal treatments of Cue-tude (in the form of an atomized spray delivered at low-altitude) resulting in an estimated eighty-four percent immunization rate against socially disruptive, including violent, acts. The remaining sixteen percent of the population were identified, certified, culled, and then transported to PDI (Penal Detention Island) 42 on the Indian Ocean, eastern temperate sector. Both populations were provided with two-year supplies of organic E-level #01 cannabis to maintain tranquil but non-euphoric states, thus ensuring the health and safety of all and peace among those isolated or detained for that period, that is until the next humanistic innovation and intervention could be agreed.

Unfortunately, the residents of PDI 42 effected the unmooring of the colony from the satellite positioning and stationing system, and the whole C-Class AA (artificial atol) entered into the shipping lanes headed east. The northwest department of Australandia, on alert as to possible invasion of colony members, who found a way to trigger the release of lifeboats, thereby, gaining the capability of exit from 42 and landing on that administrative region's shores, armed its citizens; each was given a hunting license and a powder-cartridge gun in order to shoot on sight any foreign elements ("undocumented immigrants") arriving by sea.

The inevitable came to pass, and an Australandia governance estimate of infestation indicated that one or two escapees, likely an unsterilized male and a breeding female, both of comely age, made it to shore and escaped into the bush, having abandoned their survival packs and cannabis rations. All others were shot upon landing, or tracked and executed. Ten percent of the arms from Australandia's armories were not returned after the incident. The AA was damaged extensively when the colonists abandoned "ship" and tried to infect civilization; however, the disabled and unsinkable island was left to drift, the costs of repair, re-establishing control, or salvage "too much to contemplate", according to one source. It eventually lodged itself in the shallows off Melville Island, and there it remains.

Using volunteer despondents, V-vision Channel 395 made an experio-scape recording of the adventure available for three weeks around the globe in all three languages, and this morality play shot to the top of 2025's Pub-Gov media charts for best re-enactment of a well documented historical event. As to the escapees who made it into the bush, they have not been caught and no story in any form about what anyone thinks might have happened to them has been circulated. Objects of imagination, conjecture, and opinion continue prohibited to keep society safe from worries or occupation that lack evidence.

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Syriaq

The civil war in the former state of Syria and the Daesh confiscation of Iraqi territories and infrastructures resulted in the establishment of an autonomous and isolated area known as Syriaq. Syriaq is a huge fenced territory housing mostly the offspring of dangerous extremists and crusader-fanatics. Their effective incarceration and sedation continues controversial in some corners of the civilized world, for example Australandia.

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Cue-tude

Cue-tude (_quietudinus fermentis_, available under such brand names as Quietude Now) is a synthesized organic compound that when ingested or inhaled affects REM dreaming and limbic suppression such that the subject experiences mild euporia, often leading to mystical states (interpretations). The sense of an other or meaning beyond the self is frequently reported. A calm state, labeled "calmed demeanor", is always one result. If social scientists measure a reduction of non-violent acts and susceptibility to anti-social triggers above eighty percent, they deem these effects the desired outcome. Subjects demonstrating calmed demeanor are seen as "cute" while under the influence.

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Penal Detention Islands

PDIs are technologically controlled, self-sustaining, artificial environments suitable for isolating risky populations called colonies. "Live and let live but not anywhere near me!" is the political philosophy that justifies the existence and deployment of PDIs. Most are manufactured, ocean-going islands held in place by solar powered satellite and fixed positioning technologies. Colonists, once relocated to a PDI, have little chance of disrupting outside populations that have achieved peace without them, for they are provisioned with everything needed for survival). However, there are no frills, such as medical care services, or legal release routes available to them. How colonists cope with this humane yet some say harsh condition, no one much cares, for their deeds which condemned them cannot be paid for otherwise, or forgiven.

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E-level Substances

E-level # 1 in the case of cannabis is a mild mood mellowing substance that can be dosed remotely (e.g., by atomized air infusions), or it can be prescribed for self-administration. It is the lowest level mind-altering substance on the five-level MRS Johnson (mortality risk-safe) scale. The E stands for echo for that class of substances which turn one's attention inward and traps one in his or her own internal conversations. The outward sign of this phenomenon is talking to oneself out loud in private.

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Australandia

Australandia is one of five global governance regions. The core of its territory was formerly the country called Australia, although today the region is much larger than that. The complex subject of global governance regions is amply documented elsewhere.

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Humanistic innovations

Humanistic innovations are those developments in thought and technology, which, through a thorough process of proposal and vetting, are used to ensure the health and welfare of all peaceful citizens. Where they are applied seemingly to isolate or control populations or individuals, the rule of eighty percent applies, given that twenty percent of anything can be tolerated and rationalized for the common good.

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C-Class AAs

See Penal Detention Islands. C-Class AAs are doughnut shaped, and thus, with very tall sides, are difficult to board or disembark. See also the unclassified public documentation for and images of the different models of artificial atols.

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Colonies

Colonies are made up of socially undesirable people. Among any population you will find different skills and abilities as well as different degrees of positive and negative characteristics. For example, unmooring an AA from its positioning system would take electronic and software systems engineers. Unfortunately, such people can be found within different colonies, as can individuals who can learn from such people. Thus the need for redundant measures.

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Arms and Armories

Arms and armories are examples of redundant measures should colonists exit from their holding platforms or Penal Detention Islands and pose a threat to majority populations. Although controversial still, with just less than twenty percent of the population protesting deployment of citizens with guns against socially disruptive influences, most acknowledge the system is not perfect. "Violence breeds violence" is the argument against arming citizens under any circumstances, yet no other measures have proven effective against those who would harm us, or so goes the reasoning.

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Despondents

Despondents are you readers who have gotten this far and somehow thought it was going somewhere. It is just an exercise.

And all this time!

I have misspoken most of my life about this: Chuck Taylor All Stars shoes. I thought it was this Chuck Taylor, the Stanford football coach from 1951 to 1957.

My brother and I at football camp wearing Chuck Taylor "keds".

But NOOOOO!

Chuck Taylor was this guy. (If interested, check him out.) And this is what I am wearing in the picture . . . through high school basketball and beyond.

I apologize for the error. How was I to know before Wikipedia?

Here is redemption, and hell

Why would He, who wants for nothing and having been responsible for everything, enjoin humankind to love, honor, and obey Him? Doesn't make sense.

S/he always was and always will be and is totally sufficient unto its self. S/he created you and me and all others past, present, future. We live given this world's nature and conditions, which s/he set in motion and leaves "well enough" alone. But we in petitionary prayer and lamentations think we can move the all-powerful to intervene in any of this? Or we surrender to just what-is, end of story, no comment or questions. Doesn't make sense.

The world is as such that we act seemingly independently and together, and there is the illusion that things change and there is the promise they will get better. But we live and die without full realization or assurance of any of this, much less a deity's existence, whilst all is culturally specific. . . and therefore do in varying ways we revere. Why would we deem some entity thus deserving? or have any motives for us much less mandates? Doesn't make sense.

There is no evidence of goodness and protection when human pain and suffering we witness daily. It is impossible to love, honor, and obey such a god or ground of being. It is impossible to behave as if we can make any difference in what happens by pleading, or that we can do nothing because it is already all a fait accompli. It is impossible to discern any plan we are a part of or should follow. These things don't make sense--especially because there is no protection from or end in innocents suffering.

Hell? It is here and now. The promise of goodness and something better lie with us. What other conclusion can you deduce? without making up stories.

The only other question that remains is hearing incarnate voices, or some variation of same. Are one's personal experiences then sufficient to believe and act otherwise? If so, would it then be the start of the same stuff all over again?

Truth be told, aspect A

The best punishment for my naughty child is to be sent to my room.

In pre-school I ran down the grassy slope to inspect the chalky paint jars set on easel's ledge with large sheets of paper pinned and ready above. I touched the brush and moved it to see if it was real. I left no mark.

I registered myself for kindergarten, one child not holding his mom's hand. As I got out of the car, she said I knew where to go and what to do. I took my place in line and without fear stood independent in pride. I found I missed nothing in the act performed not as others had. I had no choice, nor did they, I suppose.

I took a test in elementary school. I had "analytical aptitude." I didn't know what that was good for, or what it was. My show-and-tell was confiscated by the teacher. After class I asked for it and got it back, her silence filled by my standing up before her in her habit.

Around eight, I wrote my first poem, something about happy alone. Be sure--not lonely.

In prep school, a visiting expert career counselor (former football great turned Jesuit) said I had better find a trade. I was not "college material," although I had been prepped. I surmised he had mixed the student folders. Who was in line before or behind me? I was the class president, wasn't I. But not been back since nor was I ever invited. They lost me or I lost them. Now they ask for money I don't have to spare. Mixed review on their teachings or what I learned.

For the life of me I could not master college survey courses as I blindly  aimed at a profession I never practiced full time and thus never  mastered. I'm now too ill and too old. Unseen connections put me with future college teachers at the time. I was stone silent and felt alone, intimidated by the loquacious ones. I told a professor of history in his office that there was no such thing as history, which I now realize is correct, the explanation too long for today's philosophy. He was too committed to listen to my mind.

 A big name in the subject of my dissertation refused to sit on my committee. I had "nothing to offer" him he said. He equated the physical with the metaphysical. Silly "prig" (his self-description for something he once did, and now my word for his arrogance and confusion). Faculty members dozed as they from lunch sated and sat to hear my master work's outline. Later one conducted my comprehensive examination by phone. He congratulated me without committee members gone missing, and without any questions. I am unsure I earned a Ph.D., but I no longer question, or much care.

I have circulated conundra like this to silent readers. I keep writing but now ignore the public(ation) of any sort. I will leave no mark. So consider this an exercise of a fearless child, happily playing in his room. He may or may not have been courageous or worthy in the face of odds and impediments. He has no money to spare, but he is a generous listener for those who need him. Matters metaphysical occupy his time as does history in the making. He works to know his self by talking to his Self, at times counter-productively in the third person.

Grace themselves

Not for me, not for you, not for the eye
that spied them first, our fancies thusly prompt.
There they hurry and stop for us to sigh.
Not cam'ra nor the -man for him they romped.

Three graces grace and give the static lie--
in a moment frozen. But more we'd see.
We would they'd greet us now approaching nigh,
to have 'nd hold they'd share with us their glee.

The trap for audience response now set.
Charm and mirth the scene--it is fertile green.
A font for creative words we must let,
gathered here then cut, crafted so, too lean.

This lyric is the most that we can get.
The graces were as they still there appear:
The only joy-create their own they met,
in freedom mindless of what man they sear.

Hell with Socrates

Humbly I till the garden of letters,
seeds and seeming fruit and flowers
ripe for picking or peering at.
For my own recreation and amusement,
they are my treasured memorials,
my rage against the dying of the light.

And if speech dialectic is not my call,
or house to house my words and private
wisdom and print for unnamed others?
I care only that I do not forget.

Thus I behold tender inclusion into ordered rows
their slow growth and interweaving and interleaving.
This is a past time where my days are spent.
If by chance my son or daughter stops by
to see and savor my works, know that my labors
were in truth not just mine and not just me.

They are treasures against forgetting who I am,
and who I was.

Harold Hoarder

Dearest Harold (the Hoarder),

Thank you for your message. I read it with compassion, but a pain in my heart. Compassion we need not dwell upon, mere sentimental and useless BS. But of pain must I speak, being a person of the cloth, your humble servant, bringing you ideas and words you, sadly, cast into the wasteland from which your materialism grows. My faith in your salvation continues, and so . . .

I recall you once threw a dildoe away. Blessings, my son, for therein is an evil material thing. Why, with dildoes, what woman has use of a man and his member? Is it not better to cast the thing from you and use your own, Gypsy-given tool to satisfy yourself and your woman? Besides, dildoes need batteries to work and they wear out and you have to buy more. With a dildoe you now have more things to worry about. You performed a good deed by casting that "thilthy"* thing aside.

I recall you once hoarded an empty box. Is it not so? Cast it also away. It is the occasion for sin, for you might put something in it and then where will you be? A man with a box now filled--you have two material things whereas before you had one. See how this error in your ways multiplies? And what if you put more than one thing in the box? You will forget all of what you have in there before nature takes your memory away from you naturally. What a tragedy! We need no stinking boxes.**

Does not the scripture say that to enter the kingdom of heaven you must pass through the eye of a needle? It indeed does. In the Holy Book of Gypsy it says that the damned will swim in their belongings on the lowest level of hell, for there is where all human waste and material objects sink and mire those who would not forsake and let go  their grubby little hands that which they could not part.

Ah, pain in my heart. Save thy self before it is too late. You don't wish after you part to be thrown into that infinite storage unit below with all that crap and all the crap that other hoarders and materialists have accumulated. Think of it. All that plastic and refuse and tools you can't use in the afterlife. You will be unable to grasp any of it with your immaterial hands. You will still, however, get a monthly bill for storage. Material hell is not a fair nor pleasant place.

Ponder and continue to pay until you are forced to yell, "Uncle!" or, "Pastor, help me. Help me. I'm drowning. I'm drowning."***

So ends this message from Word-of-the-Day Salvation and Redemption services, a non-profit church for the overly burdened souls of color on this earth. You being a whitie of some pinkish color, not politically of course.

I.M. Free

PS Where did you throw that dildoe? Is there any way of recovering that and having a quick sniff?****

___
* _Filthy_ pronounced thus for shock/amusement's sake.
** An allusion to a line from a movie, which was never, trivia buffs beware, phrased in this way in the original.
*** A reference to Harold' youth when he and a buddy rowed out a ways in the lake and called to the shore, thus bringing the Coast Guard and the county sheriff to the rescue.
**** Property of Diane Messchaert about whom another post will tell all sordid details.

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• Get some goats or sheep and make cheese--in-depth explorations in how the locals do it before you decide
• Preserve and conserve with all-natural ingredients--please your vegan and other friends with simple yet tasty delights
• Self-publish your ebook--everything you must do perfectly before marketing and selling

Each of the above is a two-and-a-half day workshop, which can be extended upon need or request. Short and to the point, including introduction, demonstrations, practice sessions, tools and techniques, supplies, on-site visits, Q and A, and what you need to have and do next to proceed and succeed.

Phaedr. Yes, this is the tree.

Myths and fancies I'll have none.
No such leisure for: They
undo us, then we're undone.
Know myself, Delphians say.

Other's curiosities?
Not worthy my one concern.
Out ridiculosities!
Such nothings I will not learn.

Except I a monster Typho,
or other simple loathsome--
replete with passions' typos.
Nature gave me gentle sum.

Loft or lesser race,
I ask you, friend. Have we not
time? Conduct me, to the place,
please to respite where we're wrought.

Where truth stories I would hear,
such that mirror stuff to sear
from that I am, from which I'm made.

[Original. Now I have no leisure for such enquiries; shall I tell you why? I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny? But let me ask you, friend: have we not reached the plane-tree to which you were conducting us?]

How it looks like?

Consider.

A. "What it looks like"
This is a pointer indicating equivalence or similarity between this what and another what (things you can look at/see).

B. "How it looks"
This is a pointer indicating equivalence or similarity between this what and another what (things you can look at/see).

C. "How it looks like"
This is a pointer indicating similarity between, as seeing in a similar way or manner.

The erratic history of C's usage would tend to reflect what our care for precision of expression looks like.

The erratic history of C's usage would tend to reflect how our care for precision of expression looks.

ngram

ngram

ngram

I submit C is an error. Stop it.

PS And now (17.07.16) I find this, to my dismay: 'Pokémon GO' Unofficial Demo Shows How It Could Look Like On Microsoft HoloLens

We don't need no stinking labels

In this protracted season of slinging, swearing, smudging, slaying, smearing, and separation--distancing--here is where I guess I am. You?

And will your score prevent us from talking and reaching agreements on proceeding some way somehow? that is, making progress?

Or will you refuse both yes and no and just sit there impervious, ignorant . . . stupid?

Vote the obstructionists out, I say. It's the left-leaning libertarian's way, if this label has not also lost its meaning in the needless frays.

Penetration revisited

No, this is not about that.

Abstract.

To see and understand a culture one must move below the surface of things from one's own perspective to the inside as seen and understood from the position of the other. Experience of and in a culture can aid this movement to the inside. Cultural informants, broadly defined, can help interpret things observed, and not observed . . . such that useful insights are confirmed or uncovered for the observer.

Over ten years ago, I proposed

a model for penetrating a culture beyond its surfaces and how it might be used to structure thinking and discussion in cultural studies. Steps involved in thinking and discussion are finding more precise language for phenomena (defining), discovering why people do what they do (explaining), and discerning what their behavior means for them (understanding). As observer-informant interchanges produce better stereotypes using these steps, new formulations may change the levels and types of generalization. The object of using models like the one proposed and the suggested inquiry procedure is to realize fresh interpretations of cultural phenomena in and beyond the classroom.

I wish to revisit this model.

Penetration into the culture is a function of the depth of information and insights the observer has access to. What may sometimes be tacit and difficult to articulate can be loosened from its embeddedness by more careful observation and persistent inquiry. Some of the most useful but most difficult roots of behavior lie at the core, in strata of bedrock as it were, not readily available even to the most astute observers and insiders. What is needed is more information and knowledge, or perhaps dramatic events, to shake loose the unconscious and inarticulate ground. With these, and perhaps in crisis times, what a person or a people characteristically does can be more easily seen, and why they do it may be more easily understood.

The above model assumes there are behaviors and products, or artifacts, of a people that we can observe and describe. Of these, there are some that we can readily explain; others can be explained with the help of those who are informed, or are themselves insiders. As a product of interaction, the meanings given by insiders in their words can help us understand why they do what they do.

There are, no doubt, behaviors and products we cannot see clearly, or do not see at all. Perhaps even resident natives cannot see some things about themselves clearly or at all. And there are interpretations that elude even the most able and embedded resident native, leaving the cultural observer with but surface observations, unmediated insights, and best conjectures.

Objections to the use of the word _penetration_ and the up-down, height-depth language/visualization aside, the model still works for me personally.

The article was written while residing outside my own country and culture, and for most of the past ten plus years, I have continued living abroad. I am a student of culture and cultures (my focus is ways of living versus the study of high culture, art, literature, etc.). Sometimes the insights I get are dramatic and at other times mundane. So be they.

More importantly today, the model suggests greater care should be taken in the current discourse about huge groups of people living their particular and unique mores seemingly in thorough opposition to our own (your _own_ being yours and not this writer's).

We need better ways of stereotyping* as we cope with violations of the "live, let live" injunction I recently wrote about.

---
* For a copy of the unpublished paper from which this statement and summary derive, please request.

Flash--Liberland, live

If there is no life (consciousness) after death, that's all she wrote for the atheist and the theist. Nothing there and no one to witness.

If there is an afterlife, the theist will have one belief confirmed and surely then know what injunctions for the good life were for and what they should be/have been. These will not necessarily be confirmations of known earthly devotions. But perhaps these won't be the concerns of the re-awakened. In the case of a waiting room for the next reincarnation, the concerns may involve what choices there are and pleas to the prime mover: "Oh, please not that." If there is a singular cause, one might be occupied with how to communicate news to the ones left in this vale of tears. No matter, in short, the theist will be in good shape. The great steamroller will have left all "arguments" smoothed into one in its infinite wake.*

The atheist will have at least reason to know one way or the other, if rational thought was incorrect and there is a someone/-thing to believe in, a then moot question because there he/she/it/they--that other--will be revealed right there, right? If the life after affords the atheist correction, fine, but the default choice will be not belief but knowledge certain for which the true atheist, and agnostic,** will be pleased because persistent curiosity is now satisfied.

Can the two, believer and nonbeliever, coexist in this life with the prospect of nothing or something after? The atheist _believes_ this is possible, even preferable, and does not need to proselytize that singular view. Same goes for the believer. We must assume here that this life now is intended for the believer and all others no matter how people are working through it in their own ways and traditions.

Thus, discord in this life over one view or the other stems from fervor and acts of moral superiority. Would that the proselytizers and doomsday accelerators just live and let live.

I wonder if the new state of Liberland can survive its state motto, because this too is a value, a stance, a belief above the fray, "To live and let live." History has not been kind to the kind and considerate, but both of these can be embraced in a time and a place and a society. Look carefully here and there. We have it, we have seen it, and some have experienced it and lived in the hope and trust that such a state is good for all regardless of differences.

Our condition, no matter persuasion, is secular. We are of this world. Given that same starting point and condition, we can shelter the family and persuasions of humankind. If there is something to spread the word about, it is that you can have what you want for you if you leave others alone and they leave you alone. Failures to do that are against the golden rule, a rule no one human or group, faith-based or rational, can lay exclusive claim to. It is for and of humanity which we have been thrown into this vale without our choice and without incontrovertible evidence as to which ways other than these--kindness, consideration, do-unto-others--are best. We know these work. We know them as good.

___
* A monochrome afterlife must be one about which we must inquire.
** Some decry the agnostic as a kind of cowardly lot. A defense of this position may be in the offing.

Takela, how the street got its name

How did Takela Drive in the City of South Lake Tahoe, California, get its name?

Entering Takela Drive from Lake Tahoe Blvd.

The answer is in the 11.02.16 issue of the Lake Tahoe News. Thanks to them for publishing this important piece of information (er, trivia?).

URL: http://www.laketahoenews.net/2016/02/takela-the-true-tale-of-a-name/

If for some reason, you cannot access this curiosity, or bit of fluff, contact me and I'll forward a copy.

Addendum

I admit there are probably people who remember the times I am talking about; however, I believe I am safe in asserting that the origin of the place name securely rests in the lives and memories of just three people. Now I believe there will be more.

I note with interest that the News has categorized my truth-telling as opinion. I would surely love to hear what other "opinions" there are that specifically address how the street got its name. But I suppose, people will believe what they want to believe, and they do, of course.

I have tried to ferret out records of my father's proposal to the planning commission. Perhaps there he had to explain the significance of the word Takela. As for whether or not the newly incorporated City of South Lake Tahoe got in on the action I can't say. I will leave that to those on the scene and who can get access to city records, microfilms at the local library, etc.

Not many street names that I suggested in the several subdivisions my father developed at (many say _in_) Tahoe remain under the same name. Or the streets have disappeared and subdivisions re-configured. Alas.

And finally an aside. I remember applying for a summer job with the local newspaper at the time. I wanted to be a writer and I wrote for my high school newspaper. I met two people at the newspaper office, and the guy in charge, once I told him my last name, went off on my father and that in no way would I have a summer job with his paper. The other guy witnessing the vehemence tried to calm the first guy down. Not entirely unconscious by then as a young person, I slinked off. No summer job that year, but yeah! more water skiing behind the boat christened, and that went by the name of, Takela.

This aside, a memory of something that happened a long time ago and was and is of no account really, led me to use the expression "damnable property developer" in the piece I contributed to the Lake Tahoe News.

Natural Bohemia

[Promotional copy for an incubating business.]

"Locally Produced and Handcrafted Natural Products"

XXXXX, Proprietress

Natural Bohemia offers handcrafted personal care and food products for local shoppers in Umbria and Bohemia. Through selected retail outlets, farmers' and festival markets, custom orders, and online shops, Natural Bohemia personally and proudly offers unique Italian and Czech specialty items.

Your Natural Bohemia product always comes from people who made it with their hands working with traditional tools in time-proven ways. The hunter-gatherer in you will find your needs fulfilled for living with nature. In addition to producing its own unique goods, Natural Bohemia has done the hunting and gathering for you.

See what's in the store: www.naturalbohemia.com

Follow Natural Bohemia on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalbohemia

Have you showered, shaved or shampooed with pure olive oil soap lightly scented with lavender picked from a wild Umbrian field? If not, your skin needs this care and treatment. Washing becomes less routine and more like a ritual to which nature invites you.

Have you tasted the olive oil from a neighbor's grove yet? The oil that comes from hand-picked olives rushed to the local press and lovingly packaged for you? Take a bite of plain white toast soaked in the stuff. Store-bought oil will never match this standard, or give as much pleasure.

Have you ever realized the health benefits of eating honey and using beeswax cosmetics from native woods and fields? Whether for sweet consumption, the soft glow from a naturally scented candle or body application and skin regeneration, these products make harmonious living intimate.

Natural Bohemia, the natural choice for Czech and Italian specialties.

It's the little things

Isn't it? Today it's the jam jar. Have a look.

Imagine my dismay as the product nears depletion; the container it came in prevents me from savoring the last berries and globules of nectar. No spoon or knife can get into the ridges at top and bottom of this jar, and the nub at the bottom obstructs any clean swipe with ordinary tools I can find in my kitchen. Alas.

If science and its handmaiden technology cannot by this point in history work together to make breakfast or tea time frustration-free zones in our otherwise trivia-filled lives, what's the hope? There is no progress in certain sectors of my world. Yours?

As I stretch my mouth around the jam jar's opening and stick my inadequately sized tongue in to lick the uppermost ridge of the jar while the beard on my chin acquires a new color and consistency, I must contradict Stewart Brand, who I otherwise almost always agree with when virtually having him join me for breakfast via The Edge:

When you scan through a newspaper or magazine, all the human interest stuff is the same old he-said-she-said, the politics and economics the same sorry cyclic dramas, the fashions a pathetic illusion of newness, and even the technology is predictable if you know the science. Human nature doesn't change much; science does, and the change accrues, altering the world irreversibly.

Scientists, engineers, designers (in this case German), people! Unite. We need a better jam jar. I await accrued changes to improve my world irreversibly, specifically with regard to this one, little thing.