Several years ago I came across the book “Underworld”, by Graham Hancock.
For those of you not familiar with Hancock, he is a modern day “explorer” who has investigated and written about some very intriguing topics, from ancient astronomy to the Ark of the Covenant. What makes him interesting is that he takes a completely unbiased view of the things he researches and pushes no agenda in his conclusions, leaning neither toward science, religion, superstition, or conventional wisdom.
In the book “Underworld”, he explores some very interesting “ruins” in several parts of the globe that are located under approximately 100 feet of water. He posits that these may in fact not be “ruins” at all in the conventional sense, but that they may in fact be the remains of human architecture that was originally built above sea level, only to have since been covered with water.
(You can see a few of the startling photographs here; take a look and make your own determination)
What Graham suggests is that at one time, sea levels were around 100 feet lower than they are today, and that these human-made ruins were covered up as frozen water from the last ice age melted and joined the oceans around 20,000 years ago.
That’s kind of interesting. What was also very interesting to me is that, in the book, he had a map of the globe showing how the land masses of the earth would have looked if the oceans were 100 feet shallower than they are today.
One of the things that caught my eye was that in this scenario, the present day Persian Gulf would not have existed at all; the entire area currently covered by the waters of the Persian Gulf would have been dry land!
What was immediately intriguing to me about this is that both the Tigris & Euphrates rivers empty into the Persian Gulf. The Tigris & Euphrates are two of the four rivers that the Bible uses to mark the geographical location of the Garden of Eden. The locations of the other two rivers – the Pishon and Gihon – along with the Garden itself, are unknown.
I remember thinking at the time, “What if the Biblical Garden of Eden – along with the Pishon and Gihon rivers – are all actually located beneath the Persian Gulf?"
An exciting speculation? I thought so. True, the Biblical and scientific timelines don’t match up, but if you could account for that, it would certainly explain a lot.
Having that brief look into my “mental history”, you can understand why the following article caught my eye a couple of weeks ago:
Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf
The article is quoted:
Veiled beneath the Persian Gulf, a once-fertile landmass may have supported some of the earliest humans outside Africa some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, a new review of research suggests.
At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said.
How interesting is that? In addition to the fact that we now have Hancock’s speculation merging with current scientific research, we now have a scientific timeline (8,000 years) much, much closer to the Biblical flood account in Genesis.
That certainly doesn’t prove anything, and it still leaves a thousand questions unanswered, but it is interesting. And, it also raises – inadvertently – another question: If the Persian Gulf did indeed “swallow up” that land, where did the water come from? The last Ice Age, remember, was 20,000 years ago, not 8,000. Or was it?
Ahhhhh! Don’t you just love a good mystery!
But while we’re at it, why don’t we throw a little more wood on the fire? Here’s a couple of paragraphs from an article that started working it’s way around just yesterday (emphasis mine on bolded items):
A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old.
The accepted scientific theory is that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated out of the continent. Gopher said if the remains are definitively linked to modern human's ancestors, it could mean that modern man in fact originated in what is now Israel.
Source: Researchers: Ancient human remains found in Israel
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; the timelines aren’t even close. Still . . . very interesting to see “science” continuing to dovetail with myth, legend & religion despite it’s best efforts not to.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Ridiculous Island
I was going to start this off by saying that I’m not a big fan of Jules Verne’s writing, but I decided against it.
I mean really, who am I to criticize him? After all, Verne was – along with H.G. Wells – one of the Founding Fathers of Science Fiction, and he was an enormously successful author back in a day when books didn’t just roll off the presses like rain.
He brought us 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in 80 Days. His most successful titles are still widely read today, and his work has inspired dozens of movies either directly or indirectly.
But . . . ?
Yeah. But.
I don’t know how to explain it other than to guess that I’m just spoiled. I love his imagination; I’m just not a big fan of his writing. The best I can explain is that – in my mind at least – he doesn’t tell a story so much as he tells what happened.
And that in itself wouldn’t be so bad except that he doesn’t really even do a good job of making me believe “what happened”.
Well Blaine, it is science fiction after all . . .
No! See that’s just it. I can believe him when he tells me about the wild submarine, the expedition to the earth’s core, or the “bet” to circumnavigate the globe in two and a half months. He’s got me. I’m in.
The problem is when he tries to tell me about the things that I should have absolutely no trouble believing in at all – that’s where he loses me.
Here’s one glaring example of what I’m talking about that I ran into while reading “The Mysterious Island” a few weeks ago. (The “five brickmakers on Lincoln Island” refer to the castaways who have become stranded on the island. In this passage, they are building an oven so that they can begin forging metal from raw materials to make tools and weapons.):
Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himself with making them by hand. All that day and the day following were employed in this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet and hands of the manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal size. A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours; but in their two days work the five brickmakers on Lincoln Island had not made more than three thousand, which were ranged near each other, until the time when their complete desiccation would permit them to be used in building the oven, that is to say, in three or four days. - excerpt from “The Mysterious Island” (Chapter 13), by Jules Verne
Did you catch that? In case you missed it, here it is again in slow motion: “A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours”.
Okay. Now, let’s forget for a moment that, within just a few days of becoming stranded on the island the castaways have already learned how to make usable bows & arrows and have become proficient in hunting big game with them. Let’s push the “I Believe” button and submit that it is possible that one of the castaways could have knowledge & abilities eerily similar to the Professor from “Gilligan’s Island”.
So far, not so tough. I have a big imagination, and I want to believe.
But . . . A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours?
My imagination just broke. Why? Because that’s just not possible.
In case you don’t have a calculator, ten thousand bricks in twelve hours breaks down to about 833 bricks per hour, or 14 bricks per minute, or 1 brick every 4.3 seconds.
Non-stop.
For 12 hours straight.
Not possible.
By way of comparison, last week I had to mail out 81 letters. I timed myself on how long it would take me to affix address labels to them.
Bear in mind, I’m sitting in a comfortable chair at a clean desk with all my envelopes and labels ready to go right in front of me, and while I wasn’t trying to set a land speed record, neither was I sandbagging. Elapsed time: 9 min, 45 seconds. Or one envelope every 7.2 seconds.
So that’s what I mean when I say that Verne loses me on the things that he should have no trouble making me believe – ordinary, everyday, commonplace tasks.
The puzzling thing to me with this particular thing was, How could he have erred so badly?
Verne was an educated man who came from a privileged French family. His father was a successful lawyer and his family spent their summers at their country home on the Loire River. Verne studied law himself until he began writing.
Is it difficult to believe that Verne never made a brick in his life?
That perhaps he saw a “practiced workman” make a single brick in a matter of seconds at a country fair once and extrapolated his “ten thousand bricks in twelve hours” from that, never considering that it was simply impossible for any human being to maintain that kind of output for any sustainable length of time?
I don’t know. What I do know is that he apparently saw nothing unbelievable about it, which would suggest that even everyday tasks were science fiction to Verne.
So who cares right? Big deal.
Well, ask yourself this: Who is it that makes the decisions in our world on what is made, how much of it is made, and how fast it is made? Who decides how many animals a single man can slaughter in the course of a day, or how many brackets can be welded in an hour? Who makes decisions about what kind of food we should eat and how it should be produced?
Is it the people who actually know how to do these things, or is it, more possibly, people from privileged families who sit in Ivory Towers around lacquered mahogany boardroom tables? People who – like Verne – have only the merest suggestion about how to do any of the things that they have been charged to manage?
What if all of our important decisions regarding government, manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, etc., were being made by people just like that?
Yeah, maybe you’re right. It is just science fiction after all . . .
I mean really, who am I to criticize him? After all, Verne was – along with H.G. Wells – one of the Founding Fathers of Science Fiction, and he was an enormously successful author back in a day when books didn’t just roll off the presses like rain.
He brought us 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in 80 Days. His most successful titles are still widely read today, and his work has inspired dozens of movies either directly or indirectly.
But . . . ?
Yeah. But.
I don’t know how to explain it other than to guess that I’m just spoiled. I love his imagination; I’m just not a big fan of his writing. The best I can explain is that – in my mind at least – he doesn’t tell a story so much as he tells what happened.
And that in itself wouldn’t be so bad except that he doesn’t really even do a good job of making me believe “what happened”.
Well Blaine, it is science fiction after all . . .
No! See that’s just it. I can believe him when he tells me about the wild submarine, the expedition to the earth’s core, or the “bet” to circumnavigate the globe in two and a half months. He’s got me. I’m in.
The problem is when he tries to tell me about the things that I should have absolutely no trouble believing in at all – that’s where he loses me.
Here’s one glaring example of what I’m talking about that I ran into while reading “The Mysterious Island” a few weeks ago. (The “five brickmakers on Lincoln Island” refer to the castaways who have become stranded on the island. In this passage, they are building an oven so that they can begin forging metal from raw materials to make tools and weapons.):
Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himself with making them by hand. All that day and the day following were employed in this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet and hands of the manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal size. A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours; but in their two days work the five brickmakers on Lincoln Island had not made more than three thousand, which were ranged near each other, until the time when their complete desiccation would permit them to be used in building the oven, that is to say, in three or four days. - excerpt from “The Mysterious Island” (Chapter 13), by Jules Verne
Did you catch that? In case you missed it, here it is again in slow motion: “A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours”.
Okay. Now, let’s forget for a moment that, within just a few days of becoming stranded on the island the castaways have already learned how to make usable bows & arrows and have become proficient in hunting big game with them. Let’s push the “I Believe” button and submit that it is possible that one of the castaways could have knowledge & abilities eerily similar to the Professor from “Gilligan’s Island”.
So far, not so tough. I have a big imagination, and I want to believe.
But . . . A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten thousand bricks in twelve hours?
My imagination just broke. Why? Because that’s just not possible.
In case you don’t have a calculator, ten thousand bricks in twelve hours breaks down to about 833 bricks per hour, or 14 bricks per minute, or 1 brick every 4.3 seconds.
Non-stop.
For 12 hours straight.
Not possible.
By way of comparison, last week I had to mail out 81 letters. I timed myself on how long it would take me to affix address labels to them.
Bear in mind, I’m sitting in a comfortable chair at a clean desk with all my envelopes and labels ready to go right in front of me, and while I wasn’t trying to set a land speed record, neither was I sandbagging. Elapsed time: 9 min, 45 seconds. Or one envelope every 7.2 seconds.
So that’s what I mean when I say that Verne loses me on the things that he should have no trouble making me believe – ordinary, everyday, commonplace tasks.
The puzzling thing to me with this particular thing was, How could he have erred so badly?
Verne was an educated man who came from a privileged French family. His father was a successful lawyer and his family spent their summers at their country home on the Loire River. Verne studied law himself until he began writing.
Is it difficult to believe that Verne never made a brick in his life?
That perhaps he saw a “practiced workman” make a single brick in a matter of seconds at a country fair once and extrapolated his “ten thousand bricks in twelve hours” from that, never considering that it was simply impossible for any human being to maintain that kind of output for any sustainable length of time?
I don’t know. What I do know is that he apparently saw nothing unbelievable about it, which would suggest that even everyday tasks were science fiction to Verne.
So who cares right? Big deal.
Well, ask yourself this: Who is it that makes the decisions in our world on what is made, how much of it is made, and how fast it is made? Who decides how many animals a single man can slaughter in the course of a day, or how many brackets can be welded in an hour? Who makes decisions about what kind of food we should eat and how it should be produced?
Is it the people who actually know how to do these things, or is it, more possibly, people from privileged families who sit in Ivory Towers around lacquered mahogany boardroom tables? People who – like Verne – have only the merest suggestion about how to do any of the things that they have been charged to manage?
What if all of our important decisions regarding government, manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, etc., were being made by people just like that?
Yeah, maybe you’re right. It is just science fiction after all . . .
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Disappearing Into the FOG
I seem to have a knack for predicting the future, or, barring that, at least making pretty good educated guesses. I haven’t been keeping track, but since writing “What So Proudly We Hailed”, three years ago, I’ve seen roughly two dozen concepts from the book come to fruition in the real world, ranging from mandatory healthcare to RFID implants that can kill the wearer remotely.
Here’s another interesting news article I read today:
FTC proposes Do Not Track tool for Web marketing
Compare that with the below excerpt from “What So Proudly We Hailed” written in the summer of 2007:
FOGNet was the first company to take advantage of the situation. What FOGNet did was allow you to log into their system first, at which point you would receive a randomly generated IP address. From there you could then surf the web, visit chat rooms, send email – whatever you wanted – and no one could trace anything back to you. No “cookies”, no electronic trail; nothing. And no one could access FOGNet’s records either, because they didn’t have any. They didn’t have any storage at all. No disc, no tape; nothing at all. Everything just passed through and anything you did just vaporized in the next instant.
Their company slogan was “Disappear Into the FOG”, and that’s exactly what millions of people did.
The only problem was, you were still trusting someone else – yet another corporation – to provide your anonymity, and it wasn‘t long after FOGNet and a couple of other like startups hit the scene that the first scramblers entered the market. Scramblers did essentially the same thing – scrambled your IP address so you looked like a different user every time – but it was hardware that you could buy and own, and in doing so, not have to put your faith into a service provider like FOGNet, because, let’s face it, who really knew how benevolent they were either?
Huh. Pretty good shootin', don't you think?
Here’s another interesting news article I read today:
FTC proposes Do Not Track tool for Web marketing
Compare that with the below excerpt from “What So Proudly We Hailed” written in the summer of 2007:
FOGNet was the first company to take advantage of the situation. What FOGNet did was allow you to log into their system first, at which point you would receive a randomly generated IP address. From there you could then surf the web, visit chat rooms, send email – whatever you wanted – and no one could trace anything back to you. No “cookies”, no electronic trail; nothing. And no one could access FOGNet’s records either, because they didn’t have any. They didn’t have any storage at all. No disc, no tape; nothing at all. Everything just passed through and anything you did just vaporized in the next instant.
Their company slogan was “Disappear Into the FOG”, and that’s exactly what millions of people did.
The only problem was, you were still trusting someone else – yet another corporation – to provide your anonymity, and it wasn‘t long after FOGNet and a couple of other like startups hit the scene that the first scramblers entered the market. Scramblers did essentially the same thing – scrambled your IP address so you looked like a different user every time – but it was hardware that you could buy and own, and in doing so, not have to put your faith into a service provider like FOGNet, because, let’s face it, who really knew how benevolent they were either?
Huh. Pretty good shootin', don't you think?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
A Piece of the Action
This is Fiction:
Your entire life is now part of a central database, and all aspects of it are intricately woven together and can be used for individual study or in comparison to any other person or group to gather statistical information. Everything can be monitored, and of course, since it can be monitored, it is monitored.
Who used this information? Maybe a better question was, who didn’t?
Regardless of whatever else had changed, capitalism was still the shining star of America, and the huge corporations that owned and ran the economy still lived & died by one thing and one thing only: continuous year over year revenue growth.
Wall Street wanted results, and doing as well as you had the year before impressed no one. The stock market analysts and the brokers and the shareholders didn’t care how you increased revenue, they only cared that you did.
And what Wall Street wanted, Wall Street got.
Every publicly listed corporation wanted their hands on that information, and since almost every one of them was already tied to the database in some way because of the broad encompassing reach of the DHS who controlled it all, the vault was opened. And why not? They all put data into the system; it wouldn’t be fair if they weren’t allowed to take some out.
Things just began to happen.
(from the novel "What So Proudly We Hailed")
This isn’t:
"The age of the plain old credit score is gone, says a report at the Wall Street Journal, and it's been replaced by ever more intrusive efforts by banks and credit agencies to gauge exactly what you're worth, and what you can pay.
To that end, financial firms are now tracking their customers' bank deposits, rent payments or home values, and even utility bills to figure out who may soon become a financial risk, reports WSJ's Karen Blumenthal.
So, for example, if your employer pays you through direct deposits and those deposits stop, financial institutions can now have warning that your money situation is likely to tighten, and may deny you credit on that basis.
But the efforts don't end there. A new area of research, income estimation, "took off earlier this year," WSJ reports, and involves financial firms collecting information about mortgages, personal loans and credit history to determine how much an individual makes and how much credit they should be given.
In this new era of deep data-mining, even your utility bills and rent check aren't out of bounds."
(source: Banks spying on your bills, rent payments, paychecks: report)
I'm confused now; which one was fiction again?
Your entire life is now part of a central database, and all aspects of it are intricately woven together and can be used for individual study or in comparison to any other person or group to gather statistical information. Everything can be monitored, and of course, since it can be monitored, it is monitored.
Who used this information? Maybe a better question was, who didn’t?
Regardless of whatever else had changed, capitalism was still the shining star of America, and the huge corporations that owned and ran the economy still lived & died by one thing and one thing only: continuous year over year revenue growth.
Wall Street wanted results, and doing as well as you had the year before impressed no one. The stock market analysts and the brokers and the shareholders didn’t care how you increased revenue, they only cared that you did.
And what Wall Street wanted, Wall Street got.
Every publicly listed corporation wanted their hands on that information, and since almost every one of them was already tied to the database in some way because of the broad encompassing reach of the DHS who controlled it all, the vault was opened. And why not? They all put data into the system; it wouldn’t be fair if they weren’t allowed to take some out.
Things just began to happen.
(from the novel "What So Proudly We Hailed")
This isn’t:
"The age of the plain old credit score is gone, says a report at the Wall Street Journal, and it's been replaced by ever more intrusive efforts by banks and credit agencies to gauge exactly what you're worth, and what you can pay.
To that end, financial firms are now tracking their customers' bank deposits, rent payments or home values, and even utility bills to figure out who may soon become a financial risk, reports WSJ's Karen Blumenthal.
So, for example, if your employer pays you through direct deposits and those deposits stop, financial institutions can now have warning that your money situation is likely to tighten, and may deny you credit on that basis.
But the efforts don't end there. A new area of research, income estimation, "took off earlier this year," WSJ reports, and involves financial firms collecting information about mortgages, personal loans and credit history to determine how much an individual makes and how much credit they should be given.
In this new era of deep data-mining, even your utility bills and rent check aren't out of bounds."
(source: Banks spying on your bills, rent payments, paychecks: report)
I'm confused now; which one was fiction again?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Money Well Spent
A fellow ponderer got me thinking about time the other day.
He was referring to all of the additional time that it now takes people to get through airport security, and how this is being done solely in the name of saving lives. The question then, was how many millions of additional hours has this now totaled the American people, and how many “man-lives” does it equal to?
That’s kind of an abstract concept. After all, even if hundreds or even thousands of additional “man-lives” have been “lost” at airport security, each individual passenger has only lost a few of those hours themselves. For most of us, if a concept doesn’t affect us personally, we either have a hard time grasping it or it simply doesn’t matter to us all.
Five years ago I left Orlando, FL and moved to a tiny little town called Liberty, KY. The change was dramatic; a population of half a million people to less than 2,000, a 6-figure paycheck to hovering around the poverty line, and, for this example, a 45 minute commute traded in for (quite literally) a drive of less than 2 minutes.
I should clarify to say that my 45 minute commute was one-way; I spent fully 1-1/2 hours in my car every day, 5 days a week, just going to and from work. By comparison, the 4 minutes I spend now isn’t even worth mentioning.
It was this 1-1/2 hours that I no longer spend each day that I started to think about in earnest. 90 minutes a day doesn’t necessarily sound like a lot until you consider that it equals over 16 days each year.
Think about that! I used to spend 16 days each year just sitting in my car.
Usually frustrated.
Usually stuck in traffic or sitting at a stoplight.
Talk about a waste of time!
To take it further, what that means is that in just the past 5 years I have gained almost 3 entire months of time – 3 entire months of my life – that I was able to use for anything I wanted!
How many times have you heard someone lament that they wish they could have had “just one more day” with a loved one? How would they react if they learned that they could have had days, weeks, months – even years – simply by getting rid of one or two of those things that we waste our time on every day?
Each of us has a finite amount of time on this earth, and yet so often we spend it without even thinking about it, as if there was an unlimited supply.
There’s not.
And the cruel twist is that none of us even knows how much time we have left on our own personal lunch ticket. In light of that, how could we ever waste it as if it means nothing?
To look at it from another perspective, if we could buy time, how much would we pay to get an additional 16 days of life each year? For that matter, what is a single day worth in monetary terms?
I would imagine that if you needed one bad enough, it would be priceless.
He was referring to all of the additional time that it now takes people to get through airport security, and how this is being done solely in the name of saving lives. The question then, was how many millions of additional hours has this now totaled the American people, and how many “man-lives” does it equal to?
That’s kind of an abstract concept. After all, even if hundreds or even thousands of additional “man-lives” have been “lost” at airport security, each individual passenger has only lost a few of those hours themselves. For most of us, if a concept doesn’t affect us personally, we either have a hard time grasping it or it simply doesn’t matter to us all.
Five years ago I left Orlando, FL and moved to a tiny little town called Liberty, KY. The change was dramatic; a population of half a million people to less than 2,000, a 6-figure paycheck to hovering around the poverty line, and, for this example, a 45 minute commute traded in for (quite literally) a drive of less than 2 minutes.
I should clarify to say that my 45 minute commute was one-way; I spent fully 1-1/2 hours in my car every day, 5 days a week, just going to and from work. By comparison, the 4 minutes I spend now isn’t even worth mentioning.
It was this 1-1/2 hours that I no longer spend each day that I started to think about in earnest. 90 minutes a day doesn’t necessarily sound like a lot until you consider that it equals over 16 days each year.
Think about that! I used to spend 16 days each year just sitting in my car.
Usually frustrated.
Usually stuck in traffic or sitting at a stoplight.
Talk about a waste of time!
To take it further, what that means is that in just the past 5 years I have gained almost 3 entire months of time – 3 entire months of my life – that I was able to use for anything I wanted!
How many times have you heard someone lament that they wish they could have had “just one more day” with a loved one? How would they react if they learned that they could have had days, weeks, months – even years – simply by getting rid of one or two of those things that we waste our time on every day?
Each of us has a finite amount of time on this earth, and yet so often we spend it without even thinking about it, as if there was an unlimited supply.
There’s not.
And the cruel twist is that none of us even knows how much time we have left on our own personal lunch ticket. In light of that, how could we ever waste it as if it means nothing?
To look at it from another perspective, if we could buy time, how much would we pay to get an additional 16 days of life each year? For that matter, what is a single day worth in monetary terms?
I would imagine that if you needed one bad enough, it would be priceless.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Money for Nothing
For various reasons - not the least of which is that they wanted to try it out - we decided to put our remaining two children in a local Christian Academy this year.
We’ve homeschooled since 2001, and we don’t subject our children to vaccines. People might say that’s not good parenting, but our kids aren’t plagued by the issues that affect so many other children these days so I would argue otherwise.
Our kids are healthy and have strong immune systems. They are not overweight, have no medical conditions, and take no prescriptions. They are like children used to be when I was growing up.
To enroll them in school, however, we needed to either get them caught up on their vaccinations or request a waiver from the health department. (The only way you can bypass vaccinations is with a “religious” exemption, even if it has nothing to do with your religious beliefs).
So I went to the health department, wrote out the statements for each child, and then had to wait 30 minutes to have a “state mandated counseling session”, which amounted to a nurse telling me for 3 minutes what a good idea it is to have my kids vaccinated. This undoubtedly has a high success rate for 19 year old mothers who are too shy to say “no”, but it doesn’t have much affect on a grizzled old cynic like me.
But okay. I’ll jump through the hoops. Dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”. So I did.
They charged me $48. Twenty-four for each kid, neither of which was even there.
How’s that for a deal? It cost fifty bucks to not have anything done. Is it just me, or is it a strange world we live in when we not only have to pay to get something, but we also have to pay to not get it.
The funny thing, though? I would bet that there is some state program that would have allowed me to have each child fully vaccinated at no absolutely no charge.
Go figure.
We’ve homeschooled since 2001, and we don’t subject our children to vaccines. People might say that’s not good parenting, but our kids aren’t plagued by the issues that affect so many other children these days so I would argue otherwise.
Our kids are healthy and have strong immune systems. They are not overweight, have no medical conditions, and take no prescriptions. They are like children used to be when I was growing up.
To enroll them in school, however, we needed to either get them caught up on their vaccinations or request a waiver from the health department. (The only way you can bypass vaccinations is with a “religious” exemption, even if it has nothing to do with your religious beliefs).
So I went to the health department, wrote out the statements for each child, and then had to wait 30 minutes to have a “state mandated counseling session”, which amounted to a nurse telling me for 3 minutes what a good idea it is to have my kids vaccinated. This undoubtedly has a high success rate for 19 year old mothers who are too shy to say “no”, but it doesn’t have much affect on a grizzled old cynic like me.
But okay. I’ll jump through the hoops. Dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”. So I did.
They charged me $48. Twenty-four for each kid, neither of which was even there.
How’s that for a deal? It cost fifty bucks to not have anything done. Is it just me, or is it a strange world we live in when we not only have to pay to get something, but we also have to pay to not get it.
The funny thing, though? I would bet that there is some state program that would have allowed me to have each child fully vaccinated at no absolutely no charge.
Go figure.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Moby Dick - Smash or Trash?
I enjoy reading classic literature and have finally gotten around to Moby Dick. It’s taking awhile to read, partly because I have to concentrate harder to comprehend the style of English used at the time of its writing, and partly just because it’s a very long book in its own right.
Moby Dick is, without a doubt, a classic piece of literature. But, 159 years after its original publication, I have to wonder how well Herman Melville’s story would be received had he written it today.
My honest guess? He would not even be able to get it published. Certainly, at least, not without massive amounts of editing.
As a case in point, consider the below passage taken from Chapter 42. It’s just one piece of a much longer explanation that Ishmael is giving about the color white; how, while it is usually associated with cleanliness, good, purity, etc., it can also have a much more sinister and ominuos connotation (such as the pale white of death):
From Moby Dick, Chapter 42 – “The Whiteness of the Whale”:
“Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”
Wow.
Other than the obvious changes in grammar & language that make it almost incomprehensible to today’s reading public, two things drew my attention to this particular passage.
For one, it is a single sentence, 467 words long. Do you think you could have gotten away with that had you turned it in to your English teacher in high school? That single sentence is 1/3 the length of my entire senior term paper!
Secondly, did you notice the whopper of a politically incorrect statement buried inside the text: “and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe”.
Whoa, Nellie! That dog ain’t gonna be hunting in 2010, now is it? In fact, “classic” though Moby Dick may be, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that particular statement didn’t one day make a quiet exit from the text entirely. (And maybe more telling is that I doubt anyone today would even notice if it did.)
Anyone who has ever attempted to put pen to paper with the intention of forming a novel can truly appreciate - and stand in awe - of the sheer craftsmanship that was required to carve out the 500 pages of Moby Dick. In today's world unfortunately, that, plus $1.50, will get you a cup of coffee at McDonald's.
Dear Mr. Melville,
I regret to inform you that your manuscript “Moby Dick” does not fit our needs at this time. The book is so endlessly complicated by details and reference information that the very action of the story becomes hopelessly bogged down, making the book, eventually, unreadable. It is so dry, airless, and lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have contained is entirely dissipated by what seems to be nothing more than an immense amount of extraneous material.
Yours sincerely,
21st Century Editor
Moby Dick is, without a doubt, a classic piece of literature. But, 159 years after its original publication, I have to wonder how well Herman Melville’s story would be received had he written it today.
My honest guess? He would not even be able to get it published. Certainly, at least, not without massive amounts of editing.
As a case in point, consider the below passage taken from Chapter 42. It’s just one piece of a much longer explanation that Ishmael is giving about the color white; how, while it is usually associated with cleanliness, good, purity, etc., it can also have a much more sinister and ominuos connotation (such as the pale white of death):
From Moby Dick, Chapter 42 – “The Whiteness of the Whale”:
“Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”
Wow.
Other than the obvious changes in grammar & language that make it almost incomprehensible to today’s reading public, two things drew my attention to this particular passage.
For one, it is a single sentence, 467 words long. Do you think you could have gotten away with that had you turned it in to your English teacher in high school? That single sentence is 1/3 the length of my entire senior term paper!
Secondly, did you notice the whopper of a politically incorrect statement buried inside the text: “and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe”.
Whoa, Nellie! That dog ain’t gonna be hunting in 2010, now is it? In fact, “classic” though Moby Dick may be, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that particular statement didn’t one day make a quiet exit from the text entirely. (And maybe more telling is that I doubt anyone today would even notice if it did.)
Anyone who has ever attempted to put pen to paper with the intention of forming a novel can truly appreciate - and stand in awe - of the sheer craftsmanship that was required to carve out the 500 pages of Moby Dick. In today's world unfortunately, that, plus $1.50, will get you a cup of coffee at McDonald's.
Dear Mr. Melville,
I regret to inform you that your manuscript “Moby Dick” does not fit our needs at this time. The book is so endlessly complicated by details and reference information that the very action of the story becomes hopelessly bogged down, making the book, eventually, unreadable. It is so dry, airless, and lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have contained is entirely dissipated by what seems to be nothing more than an immense amount of extraneous material.
Yours sincerely,
21st Century Editor
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