As long as mind-numbing ignorance is preached by organized religions, there will be few who dare learn about the astonishing achievements possible by human beings applying their focused intelligence.
"As long as mind-numbing ignorance is preached by organized religions, there will be few who dare learn about the astonishing achievements possible by human beings applying their focused intelligence.: ~WORD~
And it is not a coincidence that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts continues to be the most educated of all the states, and is the hub of education for the nation and the world. The hub's spokes extend beyond greater Boston and Massachusetts into the other New England states. It's no coincidence that New England is the most secular region in the nation.
That combination affirms knowledge is [the true] freedom and myths are birthed in ignorance.
As a product of the Boston area I heartily agree, though there are certainly other (mostly secular) pockets of open mindedness and learning around the country. There are reputedly (I’ve never counted) about 20-25 colleges and universities in the eastern Mass./greater Boston area, including the Big Six (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, BU, BC, and Northeastern). I was lucky enough to attend the oldest one on that list. My class of 1,222 (entering) and about 1,350 (graduating) came from all over the USA and the world, and a small percentage stayed and lived and worked in eastern Mass. My theory is that from every class, at all of those schools, particularly the Big Six, a small number “sloughs off” and stays, thereby contributing to an ever-growing (and mostly liberal) pool of brainy talent from elsewhere, including a few smart local kids. Boston is geographically small but it’s a hotbed of innovation and brains. As someone said, it punches above its weight. Forgive the hubris!
Well, that's one way to look at it. Reading or rereading Halberstam's _Best and the Brightest_ is a good start on the other way. My father, who was indeed a Harvard guy, credited his WW2 service as a noncom with balancing out his class upbringing and education. (He served in North Africa and Italy; we bonded over Joseph Heller's _Catch-22_.) He introduced me to the axiom "You can always tell a Harvard man -- but you can't tell him much." Even more important, he introduced me to Tom Lehrer, another Harvard guy, about 3/4 of whose songs I still know by heart. When it came time for me to apply to colleges, getting out of New England was a top priority. I did eventually move back to Massachusetts, but by then I knew that Cambridge wasn't the center of the universe and that a lot of stupid people graduated from Harvard.
I certainly don’t mean that Boston-Cambridge is the center of the universe, nor that it is the only bastion of braininess from smart kids who stay on after college. I live in Vermont now but still feel hugely energized any time I go to Boston or Cambridge. Matter of taste and preference, I guess. As for your last sentence, “don’t get me started,” as they say. My class had a small share of jocks and very ordinary men … I wouldn’t say “stupid people” but certainly people of very average interests and intelligence (in my humble opinion). That was far truer of the (numerically much larger) male side of the class than of the Radcliffe (female) side of the class. As to that old saying, most Harvard grads I know are actually quite modest and even reluctant to say (admit?) where they matriculated, for fear of dropping the “H” bomb. That can bring out a funny reaction in many people, who often make the inference that you’re rich, brilliant, or a snob—- any combination of those. I am none of the above, and most of the roughly 50-70 male students I knew there were just ordinary guys. Hard workers, decent students, nothing truly out of the ordinary. One guy from Wisconsin had a dirt bike in his room. Another kid, a very skinny, shy fellow from Salem, Mass., was a virtual encyclopedia of musical knowledge who helped me get through Music I, which is NOT just a happy glide through great music, as I found out (and I’m fairly musical). The great great grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson was a classmate— a lovely, hearty, outgoing guy who brought out the best in people. Built like a brick ____house, strong as an ox, but he was a true gentle giant. I could go on and on. There were all kinds there. I’ve long said, half in jest, that I could guide virtually any average or better high school graduate from anywhere in the USA through Harvard, provided he or she (I will not use “they”) will (a) work hard and (b) take the courses I select for them. Course selection is hugely important.
OK, I’ve taken up a lot of space on Lucian’s comments page, so I’ll ring off now. Glad to talk more on this on email if you wish—- aenorton@aol.com.
The Power of Myth is a book based on the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.[1] *******
(The series was broadcast on television the year following his death.) In these discussions Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces[2]
Documentary series
The documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth was broadcast in six parts:
Episode 1: The Hero's Adventure (first broadcast June 21, 1988 on PBS)
About Campbell, hero types, hero deeds, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, movie heroes, Star Wars as a metaphor, an Iroquois story: the refusal of suitors, dragons, dreams and Jungian psychology, “follow your bliss,” consciousness in plants, Gaia, Chartres cathedral, spirituality vs. economics, emerging myths, “Earthrise” as a symbol.
Episode 2: The Message of the Myth (first broadcast June 22, 1988 on PBS)
Creation myths, transcending duality, pairs of opposites, God vs. Nature, sin, morality, participation in sorrow, the Gospel of Thomas, Old Time Religion, computers, religion as “software,” the story of Indra: “What a great boy am I!,” participation in society.
Episode 3: The First Storytellers (first broadcast June 23, 1988 on PBS)
Animal memories, harmonization with body and life-cycle, consciousness vs. its vehicle, killing for food, story: “The Buffalo's Wife,” buffalo massacre, initiation ritual, rituals diminishing, crime increasing, artists, the Shaman, the center of the world.
Episode 4: Sacrifice and Bliss (first broadcast June 24, 1988 on PBS)
Chief Seattle, the sacred Earth, agricultural renewal, human sacrifice, sacrifice of the Mass, transcendence of death, story: “The Green Knight,” societal dictates vs. following bliss, “hidden hands” guiding life's work.
Episode 5: Love and the Goddess (first broadcast June 25, 1988 on PBS)
The Troubadours, Eros, romantic love, Tristan, libido vs. credo, separation from love, Satan, loving your enemy, the Crucifixion as atonement, virgin birth, the story of Isis, Osiris and Horus, the Madonna, the Big Bang, the correlation between the earth or mother Goddess and images of fertility (the sacred feminine).
Episode 6: Masks of Eternity (first broadcast June 26, 1988 on PBS)
Identifying with the infinite, the circle as a symbol, clowns and masks, epiphanies and James Joyce, artistic arrest, the monstrous as sublime, the dance of Shiva, that which is beyond words.
I agree with you. Allow me to clarify: the myths the religious institutions promote, first that there is only one path to the consciousness many call ‘God’, then the myth that those who to not accept their dogma are damned, then the myth that any being is made to serve another (women to men, one race to another, one class to another). That other than the punishment we self inflict, getting struck by lightning, dying young, disease - these are not punishments doled out by a being who either loves or hates the otherwise innocent. There are more.
Yet I love myth as those stories that prompt us to examine ourselves as human beings within communities, that lead some to sacrifice, that confirm human beings can rise above the least situation to flourish.
Yeah and Patris I think Campbell might have suggested having, at some point, and maybe in multiple forms, that kind of realization is one key component of the "hero or heroine's journey"!
Going beyond the superficial to something deeper, whether it's in the case of a Trump / deranged authority figure identified by a child in the crowd as "The Emperor has no clothes!" or discovering something greatly valuable in a struggle.
Opinion: Navalny’s stand shows Putin a new generation of freedom seekers are no longer prepared to flee
Opinion by Evan Mawarire
5 minute read
Published 8:40 AM EST, Tue February 9, 2021
Detained Russian protesters describe abuse at hands of police
03:09 - Source: CNN
Editor’s Note: Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean pastor and founder of the #ThisFlag movement, which challenged corruption and bad governance in Zimbabwe. For his work, Mawarire was charged with treason and faced 80 years in prison under former President Robert Mugabe’s regime and under the new President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He is a 2018 fellow of Stanford University’s Centre for Democracy Development and was selected as a Yale World Fellow in 2020.
The opinions in this commentary are solely his.
CNN
—
Ever since news broke of Alexey Navalny’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment by the Russian government, one question I have heard frequently was, “Why did he go back?”
Navalny had previously survived an assassination attempt by poisoning from the Russian government which it denies, and then recovered in a safe foreign country, so why would he go back to Russia?
For many observers, there was just no logic to him going back to the country on January 17 to face almost inevitable arrest.
However, what they may not understand is what happens inside the mind of a person like Navalny who decides to speak truth to power.
Like Navalny, I, too, returned home to Zimbabwe in February 2017, after six months in exile in the United States.
Evan Mawarire
Evan Mawarire Henry O Hakulandaba/This Flag Documentary
Robert Mugabe, the brutal dictator in Zimbabwe, had threatened, jailed, and banished me from my homeland.
For months, I had inspired, via social media, one of the largest citizen-driven non-violent protest campaigns against corruption, injustice, and poverty in 20 years.
#ThisFlag citizen’s movement had shut down the entire country by simply inviting ordinary people who were rightfully scared to protest on the street, to instead stay at home and boycott work and school for just one day.
Mugabe was shaken by the success of the campaign. His response - hunt down and silence us. I was subsequently arrested and charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
No doubt I think courage and actions like Nevalny’s would fit into the pattern of the hero’s journey. That he was willing to persist despite attack, in effect sacrificing himself fits Campbell’s model of hero.
I am still reacting in awe and respect for his choice to go all in, I suppose after some twenty years leading up to his return he was becoming more and more convinced only some examples like that would be enough to arouse the level of resistance required to lead to Putin's ouster AND someone and some system much more egalitarian and accountable.
Whenever I see a slice of this time I am surprised at how white and male the world of accomplishment was. Simply taken for granted that these are the smartest people who could possibly be in this room.
Without taking anything away from their achievements, I always wonder what we would have accomplished, and what other philosophical perspectives might have been brought to bear had the rest of us gotten the education and opportunity to fully participate.
Sex and race discrimination comes down hardest on the most competent -- they're the ones who are the most threatening to the white patriarchal powers, and the ones who are the hardest to discourage.
My uncle was a radar engineer with Raytheon in the Boston area from the mid 50's until his planned retirement in the fall of 1990. Gulf I postponed his retirement for 18 months as he was the project leader for the radar tracking system we all know of as the Patriot missile system and they had 50% more firings on night one of Gulf 1 then in the previous 8-10 years of PAC-1 development and testing.
In ~1963, the beginning of the space race, he came to visit one weekend and brought me some gifts - I still have them somewhere - they were printed circuit boards about 3" x 6" with things hand soldered to them. Each board was a single logic device - .and. gate .or.gate .nor. gate .... these were the functional units to make a single digital 1 or 0 for calculations. These boards were the early ('58-'62) disposable 'hardwire component' concept prototypes of some of the IC's - the Integrated Circuits - that became the AGC and all that followed. Well before the Patriot he was the project manager for the radar that helped set the LEM down on the moon in 1969, feeding data to the AGC's on the Orbiter and the LEM. As he put it often "Our job is to think and do better each day."
I was hooked. NASA and transistors.... I periodically find the box of 'cards' and think about their impact.
Just to put this in reference, the MacBook Pro M3 max I am typing on has ~92 billion transistors - which can be considered 92 billion logic devices. The Apollo spacecraft had less than the equivalent of 50,000 transistors...
What a waste of money NASA and the space race was. It cost the USA a fortune to get a few men - Americans that is, into space. And all we got back was the BIC pen that could write upside down and some transistor radios ...
Back in the day, when I was invited to join the hip music crowd in Laurel Canyon smoking weed a lot better than my freelance writer, L.A. Basin seeds and stems, someone would say something that sounded reasonably earth-shaking and someone else would always say, without irony, "That's deep."
Thank you for reminding us that the "state" is designed to be beneficially "deep." Take something far more prosaic than memory modules. Without the Palm Beach County Water Utility Division to carry away his giant bowel movements at Mar-el-Lego (multiply those self-confessed 10 low-flow flushes per dump times a minimum 350 grams of solid waste removed each flush and you get a total of about 7 and three-quarters pounds of "stuff" each visit), Deranged Convicted Rapist and current Defendant Trump would truly be in deep shit.
"Deep state" or "shallow thinking." Now that's *heavy.*
Agree, and like it or not, our very imperfect species continues to seek and probe and explore. It’s in our DNA. The NASA program was NOT a waste of money and time, in my opinion. It was there to be taken on, and we took it on. The technological spin-offs from it, and from many other “deep state” programs, are legion. Fat, greasy-haired Steve Bannon and his arrogant, reactionary minions who rail about the “deep state” that gave them their laptops and cellphones may as well rail about the earth’s orbit around the sun.
Since you mentioned his name, I urge you to read the book "War for Eternity," which tracks down Bannon's belief in four continuing, repeating stages of human existence, and that to get to the next (and only) wonderful stage, we have to go through a horrific period...which Bannon is trying to engineer, along with Russian mystic Aleksandr Dugin.
OK. Tks . I’m curious about it. Does he (Bannon) think that stage four (if that is the proper nomenclature) is some sort of Nirvana, like “The Rapture,” which we should all wait for?
Yeah…nothing remotely interests me about Bannon except if he is ever arrested and does time. If the Supreme Court happens to side with the rest of us, I would vote to rescind all of Trump’s pardons should Biden win.
Interesting stuff there you dug up! Remember when we were told astronauts would just take a pill and put in on a plate and then in something called a microwave? Voila! Instant meal!
There's a wonderful series of 3-6 minute "STEMonstration" videos from NASA with astronauts living on the space station talking about specific aspects of how they live, work, eat, bathe, wash hair, exercise, sleep.... My favorite is how they ensure that they have sufficient water to sustain life - *everything* is repurified including sweat, tears, respiration, urination.... Never had given thought before about the impossibility of sending enough water to the station for a whole group of astronauts living aboard for months and even a full year. "Surface Tension" is pretty cool, too. https://plus.nasa.gov/series/stemonstrations/
The thought that the government is the problem was planted by Reagan, and so many people have forgotten how much the government contributes to our health, well being and safety
The standard right wing bilge on government expenditures seems to treat almost all of them as if the funds are gleefully sequestered in a rat hole and then set on fire, while the government-paid arsonists of mountains of monies celebrate ripping off the long suffering taxpayers and then adjourn to a tropical island resort for a booze fueled party, also paid for by the taxpayers!
You must be my other sibling! I heard this from my own brother, whose source is constant Fix Noise immersion, peppered by a glance at the NY Post. Spare us!
LOL, while there were always people so gullible and / or opportunistic with respect to using exaggerations to garner and maintain power - it took our modern era of the internet / online communications to make something like "Poe's Law" inevitable, for better or worse.
"For better or worse," because so much more exploration of paralogical thinking is available both online and in traditional academic settings devoted to exactly that, as part of wider research into the nature of reality. So it's a mistake to think understanding the basics of Poe's Law is enough to get at the heart of what the hell generates people and thought patterns that are directly implicated as examples of the "law."
“”Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.
It is an observation that it's difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between parodies of fundamentalism and other absurd beliefs, as well as their genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to have been so over-the-top that they argue he was a "deep cover liberal" trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes. This conspiracy theory of sorts is either supported or refuted (depending on your point of view) by the fact that he ran for office in five Kansas Democratic primary elections, none of which he won.[2]
Poe's law applies not only to the absurdity of beliefs, but also to the absurdity of the arguments that are used on behalf of those beliefs. Arguments on behalf of young-Earth creationism and theodicy are especially known for their absurdity. The quintessential Poe's law argument is one on behalf of theodicy, which states: "Who are we/you [mere humans] to question the motives of the almighty?" The absurd, simple and obvious non-sequitur and circular logic therein (that God is good because he is the god) gives one the impression that that argument is intended as a humorous parody of Christians, but it was in fact an argument made by a few actual insane Christians.
It's important to note that linking a claim to Poe's Law is not the same as suggesting that said claim is actually any type of parody at all. On the contrary, linking to Poe's Law just means that you could not tell if said claim was parody or indeed sincerely held crankiness — assuming the original claimant didn't provide a clear indication of their intent. When one is presented with a claim so over-the-top as to either be a brilliant parody or reflect a genuinely outrageous extremist belief, Poe's Law has been invoked. Rule of thumb is that the more controversial the topic is, the more likely what someone is saying is a Poe.
******* The rest of the article is worth reading as well.
Part of the story of the American century: we were a nation, a government, that invested in technology, infrastructure and its people. The expanded safety net, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, is only part of the story. From public parks and libraries to the highway system and our great state and city university systems, government investment helped fuel our economic growth and dominant position in the world. It ended when Reagan convinced the American people that government is the problem; the solution was to cut taxes for the rich so the benefits would "trickle down". The results are in front of us, a declining nation with an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, crumbling infrastructure and increasingly ignorant populace. Capitalism generates wealth but only the power of government can put it to use to build a strong nation.
Yea, I know, not all the people. All American progress in the middle of the century was marred by racism and the people who were left out. But it didn't (and doesn't) have to be that way. The model of a strong and active government that invests in areas dog-eat-dog capitalism does not, is the right one, and something we've lost along the way.
I wish the Democratic party could find a compelling way to communicate this because it is the core belief that makes me a Democrat. Tax the rich, dammit, and rebuild our country.
thank you, LKTIV for posting this flash from the past.
and yes, im watching it on my cellphone. it humbles me to know im holding in my hand a device the size of a kelloggs poptart that has more computing power than all those refrigerator-sized banks of machines behind the men.
JFKs challenge to put a man on the moon fired up the immense creative and productive powers of deep thinkers and doers. yes, they were the Deep State. they dealt deep in realms that were incomprehensible to the common populace. they had to create solutions to problems that they had to predict and foresee in the future.
i think perhaps their most difficult task was to try to explain to purseholders why they needed huge expenditures to create those computing machines.
hmm
i think when that film (real celluloid film) was made, i was learning fortran, FORmula TRANslation computer programming and carrying in the crook of my arm a long flat box of IBM punchcards. the whole box probably only amounted to a single command such as "print number".
we are living thru interesting times.
and im not gonna go into the Deep State of these times of dark money and the political influence that money wields.
Where would we be without the Girls? As I recall, Margaret Hamilton was a Woman, correct? She was the human computer who directed the action for the Apollo Mission. An illuminating film of that time. The men seem so "authoratative", but they were ignorant of the Frequency Hopping Tecnology that was Hedy Lamar's wireles communication invention. That was what created Cellphones, in the 1930s. Engineers made circuitry smaller, but "the most beautiful woman in the world" invented the circuitry itself. Was she one of the "Girls"?
Agree. 1960s phraseology. “Girl”? Spoken in white-male innocence, the word in that context jarred me. How about, “ Grace here, one of our technical assistants, is doing…”etc etc.
https://plus.nasa.gov/video/space-for-women-2/ 10-31-2023 "This film contains interviews with women employed in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) space transportation program and shows the variety of positions held by women in the agency. The film, intended for use in career education and guidance classes, notes how the women obtained their training and qualified for their positions." 00:31:51
The Deep State also developed and built the Interstate Highway System, subsidized research and development on many of the drugs like the Polio vaccine and, yes, operates and coordinates they systems by which food stuffs are inspected and airliners operate without crashing into each other before you reach your destination point. (on that last one they might be open to their own time performance but not getting their safely!)
What far too many of us want to forget because it gets in the way of our own selfishness and Me, Me, Me fixation is we live in a nation with 325 million other souls and when you get that big you need to have systems and protocols to protect , yes, a public interest and , yes, often work at a lowest rather than highest common denominator simply to keep the wheels grinding along. Put another way, way too many of us want to forget for our own selfish reasons one of the bed rock principles upon which this nation was founded and, supposedly, has operated on since then. E PLURIBUS UNUM.
This nation has always been on a high wire to balance the needs of the group vs. the rights of the individual. In truth, our struggle to find that equilibrium has been both our genius and our fatal flaw. But, since the mid 19th century up to now we have been moving in a direction to keep the good from our system and wring out the bad. Now, IMHO we have reached a crossroads. Where a relatively small group has decided it is time to go another way. The way of division, separation and, yes, anarchy. If this new not so grand experiment does take hold in November with a Republican controlled Administration and Congress and a stacked Federalist Society Supreme Court there will be a new direction for the nation vs. our historic trend. And, the number which bothers me most should that happen is not the 325 million citizens who will be living in a not so new and improved US of A but the 350 million firearms residing in homes and offices. Light the spark of division in a gas filled room and you cannot predict the size and damage of the explosion you will get.
Alarmist you say? No, I am just being practical and following the reasoning of the man who would be more than happy to light this fuse. E PLURIBUS UNUM is for p-----s, right?
Without government investment, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, all of Silicon Valley would not exist, which has created today's billionaire class. Yet Republicans won't even consider taxing those billionaires to recoup some of our parents' and grandparents' tax dollars invested in the research that produced the billionaire's wealth. The same can be said about Big Pharma.
As long as mind-numbing ignorance is preached by organized religions, there will be few who dare learn about the astonishing achievements possible by human beings applying their focused intelligence.
Tell Mike Johnson about that. <jamesmichealjohnson983@gmail.com.> As Speaker of the House, he is one of the most mind-numbing ones.
There's the correction, sorry. 983 added.
"As long as mind-numbing ignorance is preached by organized religions, there will be few who dare learn about the astonishing achievements possible by human beings applying their focused intelligence.: ~WORD~
And it is not a coincidence that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts continues to be the most educated of all the states, and is the hub of education for the nation and the world. The hub's spokes extend beyond greater Boston and Massachusetts into the other New England states. It's no coincidence that New England is the most secular region in the nation.
That combination affirms knowledge is [the true] freedom and myths are birthed in ignorance.
As a product of the Boston area I heartily agree, though there are certainly other (mostly secular) pockets of open mindedness and learning around the country. There are reputedly (I’ve never counted) about 20-25 colleges and universities in the eastern Mass./greater Boston area, including the Big Six (Harvard, MIT, Tufts, BU, BC, and Northeastern). I was lucky enough to attend the oldest one on that list. My class of 1,222 (entering) and about 1,350 (graduating) came from all over the USA and the world, and a small percentage stayed and lived and worked in eastern Mass. My theory is that from every class, at all of those schools, particularly the Big Six, a small number “sloughs off” and stays, thereby contributing to an ever-growing (and mostly liberal) pool of brainy talent from elsewhere, including a few smart local kids. Boston is geographically small but it’s a hotbed of innovation and brains. As someone said, it punches above its weight. Forgive the hubris!
Well, that's one way to look at it. Reading or rereading Halberstam's _Best and the Brightest_ is a good start on the other way. My father, who was indeed a Harvard guy, credited his WW2 service as a noncom with balancing out his class upbringing and education. (He served in North Africa and Italy; we bonded over Joseph Heller's _Catch-22_.) He introduced me to the axiom "You can always tell a Harvard man -- but you can't tell him much." Even more important, he introduced me to Tom Lehrer, another Harvard guy, about 3/4 of whose songs I still know by heart. When it came time for me to apply to colleges, getting out of New England was a top priority. I did eventually move back to Massachusetts, but by then I knew that Cambridge wasn't the center of the universe and that a lot of stupid people graduated from Harvard.
I certainly don’t mean that Boston-Cambridge is the center of the universe, nor that it is the only bastion of braininess from smart kids who stay on after college. I live in Vermont now but still feel hugely energized any time I go to Boston or Cambridge. Matter of taste and preference, I guess. As for your last sentence, “don’t get me started,” as they say. My class had a small share of jocks and very ordinary men … I wouldn’t say “stupid people” but certainly people of very average interests and intelligence (in my humble opinion). That was far truer of the (numerically much larger) male side of the class than of the Radcliffe (female) side of the class. As to that old saying, most Harvard grads I know are actually quite modest and even reluctant to say (admit?) where they matriculated, for fear of dropping the “H” bomb. That can bring out a funny reaction in many people, who often make the inference that you’re rich, brilliant, or a snob—- any combination of those. I am none of the above, and most of the roughly 50-70 male students I knew there were just ordinary guys. Hard workers, decent students, nothing truly out of the ordinary. One guy from Wisconsin had a dirt bike in his room. Another kid, a very skinny, shy fellow from Salem, Mass., was a virtual encyclopedia of musical knowledge who helped me get through Music I, which is NOT just a happy glide through great music, as I found out (and I’m fairly musical). The great great grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson was a classmate— a lovely, hearty, outgoing guy who brought out the best in people. Built like a brick ____house, strong as an ox, but he was a true gentle giant. I could go on and on. There were all kinds there. I’ve long said, half in jest, that I could guide virtually any average or better high school graduate from anywhere in the USA through Harvard, provided he or she (I will not use “they”) will (a) work hard and (b) take the courses I select for them. Course selection is hugely important.
OK, I’ve taken up a lot of space on Lucian’s comments page, so I’ll ring off now. Glad to talk more on this on email if you wish—- aenorton@aol.com.
80 percent of humans believe in myths.
No coins left to me by the tooth fairy
Yeah but there are myths and then there are myths, Cal!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth
The Power of Myth is a book based on the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.[1] *******
(The series was broadcast on television the year following his death.) In these discussions Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces[2]
Documentary series
The documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth was broadcast in six parts:
Episode 1: The Hero's Adventure (first broadcast June 21, 1988 on PBS)
About Campbell, hero types, hero deeds, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, movie heroes, Star Wars as a metaphor, an Iroquois story: the refusal of suitors, dragons, dreams and Jungian psychology, “follow your bliss,” consciousness in plants, Gaia, Chartres cathedral, spirituality vs. economics, emerging myths, “Earthrise” as a symbol.
Episode 2: The Message of the Myth (first broadcast June 22, 1988 on PBS)
Creation myths, transcending duality, pairs of opposites, God vs. Nature, sin, morality, participation in sorrow, the Gospel of Thomas, Old Time Religion, computers, religion as “software,” the story of Indra: “What a great boy am I!,” participation in society.
Episode 3: The First Storytellers (first broadcast June 23, 1988 on PBS)
Animal memories, harmonization with body and life-cycle, consciousness vs. its vehicle, killing for food, story: “The Buffalo's Wife,” buffalo massacre, initiation ritual, rituals diminishing, crime increasing, artists, the Shaman, the center of the world.
Episode 4: Sacrifice and Bliss (first broadcast June 24, 1988 on PBS)
Chief Seattle, the sacred Earth, agricultural renewal, human sacrifice, sacrifice of the Mass, transcendence of death, story: “The Green Knight,” societal dictates vs. following bliss, “hidden hands” guiding life's work.
Episode 5: Love and the Goddess (first broadcast June 25, 1988 on PBS)
The Troubadours, Eros, romantic love, Tristan, libido vs. credo, separation from love, Satan, loving your enemy, the Crucifixion as atonement, virgin birth, the story of Isis, Osiris and Horus, the Madonna, the Big Bang, the correlation between the earth or mother Goddess and images of fertility (the sacred feminine).
Episode 6: Masks of Eternity (first broadcast June 26, 1988 on PBS)
Identifying with the infinite, the circle as a symbol, clowns and masks, epiphanies and James Joyce, artistic arrest, the monstrous as sublime, the dance of Shiva, that which is beyond words.
You can't miss with Joseph Campbell. One of the greatest, as well as overlooked, minds of our century.
Not overlooked in my world, but then, I've been hanging out with fantasy/science fiction types and goddess worshippers for decades.
Thank You, Richard.
I agree with you. Allow me to clarify: the myths the religious institutions promote, first that there is only one path to the consciousness many call ‘God’, then the myth that those who to not accept their dogma are damned, then the myth that any being is made to serve another (women to men, one race to another, one class to another). That other than the punishment we self inflict, getting struck by lightning, dying young, disease - these are not punishments doled out by a being who either loves or hates the otherwise innocent. There are more.
Yet I love myth as those stories that prompt us to examine ourselves as human beings within communities, that lead some to sacrifice, that confirm human beings can rise above the least situation to flourish.
Yeah and Patris I think Campbell might have suggested having, at some point, and maybe in multiple forms, that kind of realization is one key component of the "hero or heroine's journey"!
Going beyond the superficial to something deeper, whether it's in the case of a Trump / deranged authority figure identified by a child in the crowd as "The Emperor has no clothes!" or discovering something greatly valuable in a struggle.
www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/opinions/navalny-freedom-opinion-intl/index.html?emci=4fae7c64-f9cc-ee11-85f9-002248223794&emdi=55a02269-17cd-ee11-85f9-002248223794&ceid=24702415
Excerpt:
Opinion: Navalny’s stand shows Putin a new generation of freedom seekers are no longer prepared to flee
Opinion by Evan Mawarire
5 minute read
Published 8:40 AM EST, Tue February 9, 2021
Detained Russian protesters describe abuse at hands of police
03:09 - Source: CNN
Editor’s Note: Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean pastor and founder of the #ThisFlag movement, which challenged corruption and bad governance in Zimbabwe. For his work, Mawarire was charged with treason and faced 80 years in prison under former President Robert Mugabe’s regime and under the new President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He is a 2018 fellow of Stanford University’s Centre for Democracy Development and was selected as a Yale World Fellow in 2020.
The opinions in this commentary are solely his.
CNN
—
Ever since news broke of Alexey Navalny’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment by the Russian government, one question I have heard frequently was, “Why did he go back?”
Navalny had previously survived an assassination attempt by poisoning from the Russian government which it denies, and then recovered in a safe foreign country, so why would he go back to Russia?
For many observers, there was just no logic to him going back to the country on January 17 to face almost inevitable arrest.
However, what they may not understand is what happens inside the mind of a person like Navalny who decides to speak truth to power.
Like Navalny, I, too, returned home to Zimbabwe in February 2017, after six months in exile in the United States.
Evan Mawarire
Evan Mawarire Henry O Hakulandaba/This Flag Documentary
Robert Mugabe, the brutal dictator in Zimbabwe, had threatened, jailed, and banished me from my homeland.
For months, I had inspired, via social media, one of the largest citizen-driven non-violent protest campaigns against corruption, injustice, and poverty in 20 years.
#ThisFlag citizen’s movement had shut down the entire country by simply inviting ordinary people who were rightfully scared to protest on the street, to instead stay at home and boycott work and school for just one day.
Mugabe was shaken by the success of the campaign. His response - hunt down and silence us. I was subsequently arrested and charged with attempting to overthrow the government.
*******
No doubt I think courage and actions like Nevalny’s would fit into the pattern of the hero’s journey. That he was willing to persist despite attack, in effect sacrificing himself fits Campbell’s model of hero.
I am still reacting in awe and respect for his choice to go all in, I suppose after some twenty years leading up to his return he was becoming more and more convinced only some examples like that would be enough to arouse the level of resistance required to lead to Putin's ouster AND someone and some system much more egalitarian and accountable.
Whenever I see a slice of this time I am surprised at how white and male the world of accomplishment was. Simply taken for granted that these are the smartest people who could possibly be in this room.
Without taking anything away from their achievements, I always wonder what we would have accomplished, and what other philosophical perspectives might have been brought to bear had the rest of us gotten the education and opportunity to fully participate.
Did you see the movie (or read the book) HIDDEN FIGURES?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-black-women-mathematicians-who-helped-win-wars-and-send-astronauts-space-180960393/
Don't forget Grace Hopper.
Let us sing her praises. And. Even the indomitable Grace Hopper faced gender discrimination.
Tiny example: her navy commissioning doc couldn't even take her at face value -
"I do hereby appoint him a Lieutenant (junior grade) of the U.S. Naval Reserve.”
Sex and race discrimination comes down hardest on the most competent -- they're the ones who are the most threatening to the white patriarchal powers, and the ones who are the hardest to discourage.
i have watched this movie a half dozen times. ++++++++!
Until the book and movie, they were largely forgotten, struggles for inclusion and their accomplishments marginalized.
I heartily agree. The situation you describe is inexorably changing for the better, however. That is one of many phenomena upsetting the far right.
My uncle was a radar engineer with Raytheon in the Boston area from the mid 50's until his planned retirement in the fall of 1990. Gulf I postponed his retirement for 18 months as he was the project leader for the radar tracking system we all know of as the Patriot missile system and they had 50% more firings on night one of Gulf 1 then in the previous 8-10 years of PAC-1 development and testing.
In ~1963, the beginning of the space race, he came to visit one weekend and brought me some gifts - I still have them somewhere - they were printed circuit boards about 3" x 6" with things hand soldered to them. Each board was a single logic device - .and. gate .or.gate .nor. gate .... these were the functional units to make a single digital 1 or 0 for calculations. These boards were the early ('58-'62) disposable 'hardwire component' concept prototypes of some of the IC's - the Integrated Circuits - that became the AGC and all that followed. Well before the Patriot he was the project manager for the radar that helped set the LEM down on the moon in 1969, feeding data to the AGC's on the Orbiter and the LEM. As he put it often "Our job is to think and do better each day."
I was hooked. NASA and transistors.... I periodically find the box of 'cards' and think about their impact.
Just to put this in reference, the MacBook Pro M3 max I am typing on has ~92 billion transistors - which can be considered 92 billion logic devices. The Apollo spacecraft had less than the equivalent of 50,000 transistors...
What a waste of money NASA and the space race was. It cost the USA a fortune to get a few men - Americans that is, into space. And all we got back was the BIC pen that could write upside down and some transistor radios ...
Yep, waste of time and money.....and apparently education.
Why didn't somebody tell me this?! You mean I didn't have to carry that fridge around all these years.
Thanks for this early laugh.
<dead>
Back in the day, when I was invited to join the hip music crowd in Laurel Canyon smoking weed a lot better than my freelance writer, L.A. Basin seeds and stems, someone would say something that sounded reasonably earth-shaking and someone else would always say, without irony, "That's deep."
Thank you for reminding us that the "state" is designed to be beneficially "deep." Take something far more prosaic than memory modules. Without the Palm Beach County Water Utility Division to carry away his giant bowel movements at Mar-el-Lego (multiply those self-confessed 10 low-flow flushes per dump times a minimum 350 grams of solid waste removed each flush and you get a total of about 7 and three-quarters pounds of "stuff" each visit), Deranged Convicted Rapist and current Defendant Trump would truly be in deep shit.
"Deep state" or "shallow thinking." Now that's *heavy.*
Agree, and like it or not, our very imperfect species continues to seek and probe and explore. It’s in our DNA. The NASA program was NOT a waste of money and time, in my opinion. It was there to be taken on, and we took it on. The technological spin-offs from it, and from many other “deep state” programs, are legion. Fat, greasy-haired Steve Bannon and his arrogant, reactionary minions who rail about the “deep state” that gave them their laptops and cellphones may as well rail about the earth’s orbit around the sun.
Since you mentioned his name, I urge you to read the book "War for Eternity," which tracks down Bannon's belief in four continuing, repeating stages of human existence, and that to get to the next (and only) wonderful stage, we have to go through a horrific period...which Bannon is trying to engineer, along with Russian mystic Aleksandr Dugin.
Thanks. Don’t want to put any $ in his pocket but will check local library.
Book is not *by* Bannon, but by a prof (who also managed to interview the elusive Bannon) and is *about* Bannon.
OK. Tks . I’m curious about it. Does he (Bannon) think that stage four (if that is the proper nomenclature) is some sort of Nirvana, like “The Rapture,” which we should all wait for?
Yeah…nothing remotely interests me about Bannon except if he is ever arrested and does time. If the Supreme Court happens to side with the rest of us, I would vote to rescind all of Trump’s pardons should Biden win.
Interesting stuff there you dug up! Remember when we were told astronauts would just take a pill and put in on a plate and then in something called a microwave? Voila! Instant meal!
There's a wonderful series of 3-6 minute "STEMonstration" videos from NASA with astronauts living on the space station talking about specific aspects of how they live, work, eat, bathe, wash hair, exercise, sleep.... My favorite is how they ensure that they have sufficient water to sustain life - *everything* is repurified including sweat, tears, respiration, urination.... Never had given thought before about the impossibility of sending enough water to the station for a whole group of astronauts living aboard for months and even a full year. "Surface Tension" is pretty cool, too. https://plus.nasa.gov/series/stemonstrations/
The fact is we are all dependent on each other in a million ways.
The thought that the government is the problem was planted by Reagan, and so many people have forgotten how much the government contributes to our health, well being and safety
The standard right wing bilge on government expenditures seems to treat almost all of them as if the funds are gleefully sequestered in a rat hole and then set on fire, while the government-paid arsonists of mountains of monies celebrate ripping off the long suffering taxpayers and then adjourn to a tropical island resort for a booze fueled party, also paid for by the taxpayers!
But that's true, right? I mean I heard...... I think it was my brother.....
You must be my other sibling! I heard this from my own brother, whose source is constant Fix Noise immersion, peppered by a glance at the NY Post. Spare us!
LOL, while there were always people so gullible and / or opportunistic with respect to using exaggerations to garner and maintain power - it took our modern era of the internet / online communications to make something like "Poe's Law" inevitable, for better or worse.
"For better or worse," because so much more exploration of paralogical thinking is available both online and in traditional academic settings devoted to exactly that, as part of wider research into the nature of reality. So it's a mistake to think understanding the basics of Poe's Law is enough to get at the heart of what the hell generates people and thought patterns that are directly implicated as examples of the "law."
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
Poe's Law states:[1]
“”Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.
It is an observation that it's difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between parodies of fundamentalism and other absurd beliefs, as well as their genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to have been so over-the-top that they argue he was a "deep cover liberal" trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes. This conspiracy theory of sorts is either supported or refuted (depending on your point of view) by the fact that he ran for office in five Kansas Democratic primary elections, none of which he won.[2]
Poe's law applies not only to the absurdity of beliefs, but also to the absurdity of the arguments that are used on behalf of those beliefs. Arguments on behalf of young-Earth creationism and theodicy are especially known for their absurdity. The quintessential Poe's law argument is one on behalf of theodicy, which states: "Who are we/you [mere humans] to question the motives of the almighty?" The absurd, simple and obvious non-sequitur and circular logic therein (that God is good because he is the god) gives one the impression that that argument is intended as a humorous parody of Christians, but it was in fact an argument made by a few actual insane Christians.
It's important to note that linking a claim to Poe's Law is not the same as suggesting that said claim is actually any type of parody at all. On the contrary, linking to Poe's Law just means that you could not tell if said claim was parody or indeed sincerely held crankiness — assuming the original claimant didn't provide a clear indication of their intent. When one is presented with a claim so over-the-top as to either be a brilliant parody or reflect a genuinely outrageous extremist belief, Poe's Law has been invoked. Rule of thumb is that the more controversial the topic is, the more likely what someone is saying is a Poe.
******* The rest of the article is worth reading as well.
If you're interested, there's a book that some of us have appreciated titled "Digital Apollo," about what led to all of this and our cellphones, too.
If you're not feeling techie today, skip the video and the book. Appreciate what the Deep State could do, anyway.
Loved the crew-cut nerds in glasses speaking techie in passive-voice sentences. Classic.
Every “boy” I knew in high school and college wore glasses and had crew cuts.
Yeah, and the narrow neckties! Very mid-60s.
Part of the story of the American century: we were a nation, a government, that invested in technology, infrastructure and its people. The expanded safety net, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, is only part of the story. From public parks and libraries to the highway system and our great state and city university systems, government investment helped fuel our economic growth and dominant position in the world. It ended when Reagan convinced the American people that government is the problem; the solution was to cut taxes for the rich so the benefits would "trickle down". The results are in front of us, a declining nation with an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, crumbling infrastructure and increasingly ignorant populace. Capitalism generates wealth but only the power of government can put it to use to build a strong nation.
Yea, I know, not all the people. All American progress in the middle of the century was marred by racism and the people who were left out. But it didn't (and doesn't) have to be that way. The model of a strong and active government that invests in areas dog-eat-dog capitalism does not, is the right one, and something we've lost along the way.
I wish the Democratic party could find a compelling way to communicate this because it is the core belief that makes me a Democrat. Tax the rich, dammit, and rebuild our country.
Yes yes yes!!! Agree 1,000%.
haha
thank you, LKTIV for posting this flash from the past.
and yes, im watching it on my cellphone. it humbles me to know im holding in my hand a device the size of a kelloggs poptart that has more computing power than all those refrigerator-sized banks of machines behind the men.
JFKs challenge to put a man on the moon fired up the immense creative and productive powers of deep thinkers and doers. yes, they were the Deep State. they dealt deep in realms that were incomprehensible to the common populace. they had to create solutions to problems that they had to predict and foresee in the future.
i think perhaps their most difficult task was to try to explain to purseholders why they needed huge expenditures to create those computing machines.
hmm
i think when that film (real celluloid film) was made, i was learning fortran, FORmula TRANslation computer programming and carrying in the crook of my arm a long flat box of IBM punchcards. the whole box probably only amounted to a single command such as "print number".
we are living thru interesting times.
and im not gonna go into the Deep State of these times of dark money and the political influence that money wields.
Where would we be without the Girls? As I recall, Margaret Hamilton was a Woman, correct? She was the human computer who directed the action for the Apollo Mission. An illuminating film of that time. The men seem so "authoratative", but they were ignorant of the Frequency Hopping Tecnology that was Hedy Lamar's wireles communication invention. That was what created Cellphones, in the 1930s. Engineers made circuitry smaller, but "the most beautiful woman in the world" invented the circuitry itself. Was she one of the "Girls"?
Agree. 1960s phraseology. “Girl”? Spoken in white-male innocence, the word in that context jarred me. How about, “ Grace here, one of our technical assistants, is doing…”etc etc.
https://plus.nasa.gov/video/space-for-women-2/ 10-31-2023 "This film contains interviews with women employed in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) space transportation program and shows the variety of positions held by women in the agency. The film, intended for use in career education and guidance classes, notes how the women obtained their training and qualified for their positions." 00:31:51
I might have seen that one. I'll take a peek. Thank you.
Bravo!
The Deep State also developed and built the Interstate Highway System, subsidized research and development on many of the drugs like the Polio vaccine and, yes, operates and coordinates they systems by which food stuffs are inspected and airliners operate without crashing into each other before you reach your destination point. (on that last one they might be open to their own time performance but not getting their safely!)
What far too many of us want to forget because it gets in the way of our own selfishness and Me, Me, Me fixation is we live in a nation with 325 million other souls and when you get that big you need to have systems and protocols to protect , yes, a public interest and , yes, often work at a lowest rather than highest common denominator simply to keep the wheels grinding along. Put another way, way too many of us want to forget for our own selfish reasons one of the bed rock principles upon which this nation was founded and, supposedly, has operated on since then. E PLURIBUS UNUM.
This nation has always been on a high wire to balance the needs of the group vs. the rights of the individual. In truth, our struggle to find that equilibrium has been both our genius and our fatal flaw. But, since the mid 19th century up to now we have been moving in a direction to keep the good from our system and wring out the bad. Now, IMHO we have reached a crossroads. Where a relatively small group has decided it is time to go another way. The way of division, separation and, yes, anarchy. If this new not so grand experiment does take hold in November with a Republican controlled Administration and Congress and a stacked Federalist Society Supreme Court there will be a new direction for the nation vs. our historic trend. And, the number which bothers me most should that happen is not the 325 million citizens who will be living in a not so new and improved US of A but the 350 million firearms residing in homes and offices. Light the spark of division in a gas filled room and you cannot predict the size and damage of the explosion you will get.
Alarmist you say? No, I am just being practical and following the reasoning of the man who would be more than happy to light this fuse. E PLURIBUS UNUM is for p-----s, right?
Without government investment, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, all of Silicon Valley would not exist, which has created today's billionaire class. Yet Republicans won't even consider taxing those billionaires to recoup some of our parents' and grandparents' tax dollars invested in the research that produced the billionaire's wealth. The same can be said about Big Pharma.