HDTV

I have a little list of pet peeves like...

* No one ever taught me the secret language of love
* The CW's Smallville isn't on iTunes (yet).
* Fox's House isn't on iTunes (yet).
* Even though I wish there could be only Peace, I still think sometimes war is necessary
* Hamas won't acknowledge Israel and give up on their stupid evil desire to murder their neighbors
* Ipods Don't have a removeable battery
* and other important peeves like....HDTVs that are displaying stretched regular TV content

Let me just address that last one.

HDTV comprises such a complex field of products, specifications and numbers that I will just try to keep this simple.

HDTV displays and signals accomodate a wide screen. It is not quite twice as wide as it is tall. The typical ratio as I understand it is 16:9 where regular TV is 4 x 3.

So...if your screen is a regular TV that is 480 pixels tall it will be 640 wide. (480/3) * 4.

If your screen is an HDTV that is 720 pixels tall it will be 1280 wide. (720/9) * 16.

All over this damn crazy modern transitional world I see wide screen (16:9) screens with 4:3 content that has been stretched to fit!!! OMG this drives me crazy.

See, content meant for a certain screen is said to be 1:1...the proportions are true to reality. A circle will look round, a human head will be correctly proportioned and real looking.

Stretched content is not true to reality and thus distorts the way people look. It's an abuse of the technology. Regular screen content should leave blank spaces on the sides of an HDTV screen, so that it stays correctly proportioned. Only HDTV content should span the screen. I hate this trade off. It's so lame to make people and objects stretch to look unnatural just to spare the screen or use the full screen.

Here, I will visually demonstrate with this example from House (Fox) character Dr. Allison Cameron played by the lovely Jennifer Morrison...who is married...wait I have another pet peeve:

* Jennifer Morrison taken

Here she is in HDTV...



Here she is in a regular TV form factor...



Here she is in "faked HD" which is a regular TV signal stretched to fill an HDTV screen. It is Pure Visual Heresy and leaves the actor out of proportion from her usual attractive, natural human form. Yes, I am thinking about it too much.



I always say "stretched" as I walk by a TV in that mode. Not everyone notices, I have discovered, but to me it is obvious.

Imposed Culture

I know how the French feel now.

When Americans visit France, sometimes there is a cultural tension that results from the presumption of some American visitors that everyone should be able to speak English while providing any service. French people get very irritated at this because they have establsihed a wonderful French cultured whose fine lifestyle and values are closely intertwined with the French language to amount to "Frenchness". Something that is often envied and used in marketing around the world. The French are often the example to the world of a "good life" kind of society.

This is all wonderful, having a cultural identity. Things get uncomfortable for the French when immigrants don't want to assimilate to "Frenchness" and live the good life. Also, when foreign visitors presume there should be some accomodation made by the French to a foreign (to France) language or culture. The French feel "we are the source of high society and good living, you should adapt to be more like us, not the other way around".

I can see their point. We do like to use the French-mystique to our advantage when trying to portray something as exclusive or wonderful in some way. This is still true even given the disagreements between the French and Americans over Iraq policy.

Unless the world is supposed to homogenize to a bland averageness, local culture should be valued. This idea of culture will have some unfortunate ethnic and racial overtones at times. Simply having a unique culture means "We are We and Thou art Thee" and that means people will try to find characteristics they can use to sort out who's whom. Sometimes this will be language or perhaps a general "look". This is all quaint until it gets ugly.

When I visit another country, though I want some benefit of the doubt for simply not knowing everything, my cognitive position is that I am an outsider and should respect and adapt to local customs and laws. If local customs are so out of harmony with my beliefs and values that they are offensive to me, it is probably my responsibility not to visit that country or to keep my dissatisfaction to myself while I am there.

Now to my point. If I were to illegally immigrate into another country I would not presume having any rights or any privelage to ignore bothering to learn the local language. I know that when enough people who only speak Mexican Spanish arrive in my neighborhood that they will be able to run their own economy and culture never needing to learn English. Many of them will have immigrated legally, but many others will be here illegally AND make their own subculture. This might be organic, human and part of the process of change. I find it personally irritating and an affront to the law abiding, legal immigrants and citizens of the country.

It's almost like people from other countries don't "feel" that the American laws apply to them and they feel that the English speaking American culture is foreign to them and they don't see the hypocrisy I see in having migrated contrary to our laws. They are, after all, not "their laws".

Sometimes people display the flag of a foreign country on TV or in their vehicles. I saw a large Mexican flag being waved about live on camera on one of the 2006 New Years Eve specials.

This is America, it should be ok to speak freely or appreciate other cultures or display a flag from whereever you choose. I have always been an American patriot, even though I was born in Canada, because my mother is a patriotic American and taught me to love her home country. I have displayed French flags while learning French, just to appreciate the culture. I had a large Belgian flag in my room at one point. Lots of people display the Union Jack (British Flag) for fun or style cause it's a cool symbol. I am ok with similar displays of other flags, such as those from immigrant's home countries.

There is something different, though, when an ethnic group disregards our country's laws, immigrates en masse and doesn't even bother to learn the language or participate in the system of government much less the culture. Then I start to feel like the French. I feel more of an "us vs. them" mentality. I feel that this is my country and people came here to be in it, they should respect it and adopt it or go home. An illegal immigrant waving a flag is not simply showing pride in a culture, it starts to look like a cultural invasion.

I was trying to order a sandwhich at the local blimpie inside a BP gas station near my home. BP is already a foreign company, but the sandwhich counter rep. could not speak word one of English. It was as if...this is a place for spanish speakers only and that I was somehow out of place. I found this to be incredibly irritating. I have nothing against Mexican people or cultures. I think Spanish is a fine European colonial language just like English is such. However, I am an American. I speak English and I am here in America expecting those who come from other countries, like I did, to respect and adopt the American culture. I know they will add to it, but I simply do not accept that they should disrespect it and ignore our laws and culture. They don't have to come here to live if they don't want to.

My view is not oversimplistic, I am in favor of legal migraton and integration. I use a lot of new words that come from there being many Spanish speaking immigrants around. I welcome that. I eat Mexican Food with pleasure. Though I hold the line that illegal immigration is not tolerable. After that, even legally immigrating people need to understand they are becoming part of a vast and diverse American culture that is necessarily not going to be Mexican, if it is going to be a new and different life. Someone who doesn't see the importance of speaking my language in my country will not get my business.

What makes it so? All the little wars, skirmishes and social battles won in the past brought us to where we are. I want a United States type of America. There is a reason there is not a movement to become part of Mexico. We think we have something that cannot be had in the Mexican system and so do 12 million illegal immigrants from Mexico. The question is, can they flout the law and ignore the local culture and expect something better than the corrupt society they left behind?

The same goes for North Africans in France, West Africans in Spain and all the other migration around the world.
=sw

Walkie Talkie

I often hear the chirp of the Nextel/Sprint and other walkie-talkie cell services around the office. It's almost like a status symbol to say ..."I have this cool phone with this cool technology."

I think it should not be a status symbol. Think of it...someone else who has the ability to chirp into your phone and say whatever they please on a speaker phone at any time owns you. (for my geekier readers I am saying you are pwned)

I could never allow especially a best friend to have push button access to my personal audio earshot without a filter.
=sw

Talking to Women

Most people who get a chance to feel comfortable talking to me at all seem to share everything. It is remarkable the things people tell me. Especially women. I like talking to women preferentially when I am out at a bar. I don't shun social conversation with men or anything, I am just single and available so I happen to get into a lot of discussions with women.

Sometimes it's even awkward when some designated driver guy's girlfriend is trashed and starts saying "you're cute...I like you...you have good taste in music....you're funny." I am just left to say "thanks, you're too nice...etc." and make a "sorry man" face at her boyfriend. Inevitably he'll take a break and she'll say things like "he's cheated on me a couple of times, but I forgave him...maybe I shouldn't have." It's like I want to say "you're hot and all, but are you trying to get me into a fight?"

Other times people tell me, in plain spoken detail, about their first sexual experience. This is every bit as uncomfortable for me as it should be, though I am kind of used to it. It's the curse of being a truly nice guy. I am not fault-free by any means, just sincere and I think I generally project what and who I really am.

One time a girl oversharing with me told me about how she was fucking three different guys and keeping that from all of them. I was thinking about how it was not her desire for lots of sex that I found objectionable, but her casual ability to deceive others....setting them up for emotional and health risks they did not choose themselves. That was the real immorality I saw. Every guy dreams of a woman with a lot of sexual energy, a great sexual attitude and eagerness.

Later that night, at a bar called DV8 in Salt Lake, (long ago), she actually validated me to another woman. That's an interesting phenomenon. The 3-boyfriend girl saw me flirting with another girl and said "hi ..." [calling me by name]. Even though the girl I was flirting with knew her, didn't like her, considered her a rival...this referral made the girl I was flirting with feel like I was a known and understood quantity. I was "safe". Which led to a lot of good times and a painful drawn out break up as well. It was better....I suppose...to have lived and loved rather than never to have loved.

Being "safe" is a fine thing to be if it gets me what I want, the affection, attention and progress to sexual intercourse with women. I am a person who errs on the side of less aggressive sometimes anyway, and I believe in fairness and equality, mutual respect.

The other day I had a monday off for President's Day. I decided to go out to a local bar/restaurant I have been visiting lately. I was already a little trashy (inebriated)? waiting for my food to show up and a nice kid came over and informed me it was gay night. He pegged me for straight and was very polite and nice.

A few minutes later the nearby tables began filling up with very well dressed men and women who were all gorgeous, beautiful people. These two girls kept making out...in an animated, exhibitionistic way. They writhed together long blonde hair flying with wreckless abandon. It was a funny, delightful and kinda hot sight.

I noticed and smiled at them. I had been staring into my Guinness searching for meaning...rationalizing not spiralling into depression, "like you do". Anyway, the moment they saw they had my attention they got up, left their gay-boy-friends and came over and sat right by me on a chair, with knees sidled up by mine, and made out somemore. They gently moved my hands onto their backs and the one girl said...."feel her breasts, aren't they wonderful?" They were. She was wearing an "anti-gravity" shirt with easy hand-slip access. She swooned dreamily....I think I did too, I said "sweet lovin' lord those are beautiful". You know what I did and I now call this night the soft silky "grapefruit" experience.

I still imagine a news headline "Local Tit-Grabber Increases Female Visits to Area Bars". Right.

They spent the whole evening hanging out with me...putting their hands on mine and casually touching and kissing me often and vice-versa.

Back to being "safe". One girl after kissing me a couple of times just might have noticed my enthusiasm and interest and asked..."so where's your boyfriend?". It kind of struck me...oooooh....I get it...I am allowed to casually touch because they presume it doesn't excite me because I am "safe". Since I was not going to stop this punani train, I just said "I'm single".

One of these girls was "bi" and the other was a broken hearted straight girl (girl as in...in her 20's) who was on the rebound from a break up.

It was fun. It was exactly how I want every night on the town to go. I yearn for the touch, affection, acceptance and intimacy with hot, sweet, nice women. It's why I go out, it's why I exist. I wish that I could go to a place where I can be seen for who I am and still be "safe" enough to be someone with whom attractive women can share affection. The only regret from the evening was the false pretense of being a man alone there on a monday that made them assume I was "safe". Apart from that, If I am getting something I want out of the experience I don't care how a woman defines herself socially.

Being a nice guy can be great at the right time. Much of the time I feel like I should watch the Godfather and Scarface a few times, man up, treat women obliviously so they will respect me (that's how it works right?). I have to admit I don't understand it all, but I want to very much. Of course I am supposed to just live well and not care...and all that without trying at all.

So yah, from now on I am too cool to care, and I am an aloof enigma who doesn't try too hard. I still hope all that gets me chicks....duh.

=sw

Imagining the Future

I love to imagine the future. I think my real skill is just thinking about what is known to everyone and seeing some of the pieces fit together.

I make no claim to having a novel source of ideas. I am just a creative mind and a human pattern matcher, add heavy doses of slashdot, NPR, Discovery, BBC News and other a few other sources and mix it up with a little ingenuity and sometimes you get something useful.

Here are some short future comments. This is all freely available and many of you know much of this already, but in case you don't.

Someday there will be a superman musical. It will simply happen. I don't know when or who or how, but it is a sure thing.

Computer screens will increase dramatically in resolution and reduce steadily in price in the near future. Eventually, screens will be able to display a document as well as a color laser printer (or better) and in the same size space. The Apple Cinema Display is pretty awesome at 2560 x 1600 ( and it's already a couple years old) though some day screens will be more in the 6000 x3000 range and even sharper (or higher).

Batteries are doomed. They will all be replaced by capacitors. Nano-capacitors have been invented already and this technology will replace all need for batteries. These capacitors will charge quickly (unlike a battery) and drain slowly. They will never need to be replaced in the lifetime of any product they are in so they will just be built in.

Fuel will be solar, wind, bio sourced (like alcohol fuel or bio-diesel) and probably nuclear. These are as renewable as the sun is and won't emit CO2. Nuclear power has that pesky problem of waste, though we may some day figure out how to reduce the half-life of Nuclear waste. From what I understand, re-processing nuclear fuel from uranium reactors to plutonium reactors reduces waste, though requires excellent security as the plutonium may be "weapons-grade".

Humans may actually have to purposely emit CO2 someday to prevent global ice ages (I mean in 1000's of years). It's 12 deg F out right now so I am trying to still believe in global warming.

Fusion power will be made to work some day. So we will be able to tap into the same kind of energy the sun does. That will open many doors for us.

By 2040, prepetual life will start to become a possibility. It will probably be for the very rich and there will still be no guarantee you won't get hit by a bus or something. I just mean that we will have a very good understanding of how to maintain the body in good health and control the mechanisms of disease.

Companies are experimenting now with using inkjet printers to place bio-material in the pattern they desire. Using cells instead of ink, put simply. Someday they may even be able to print out 3d organs, 1 layer at a time, made from cells that are coaxed from stem cells into becoming the right kind of cell for say the heart, liver or other organs. Maybe these stem cells could even be "harvested" from the adult patients themselves so the 3d layer-created printed-out organs will actually be ready for the intended recipient, and not be rejected. Maybe we'll even understand enough about the chemistry and processes of life to replace any part of the body.

Now, in the more speculative areas, I believe that some day physics will acheive a grand theory of everything, explaining almost everything that is possible. We will understand the nature of the Universe. We will have an understanding of gravity that is as good or better than our understanding of other fundamental concepts like electromagnetism. Knowing all this will be like, as Carl Sagan said, "reading the mind of God". We will need to be prepared for the very possible circumstance that science reveals knowledge that supercedes long held traditions about the human condition and the nature or existence of the divine.

So that's about enough for a day. It's going to be a weird, wild, amazing future. I used to be taught that it all had to end and that it was SOON SOON SOON. I do not believe it all has to end. I think there is great promise in humanity's future.

=sw

Trolley Square

I heard online that there were shootings in my old home town at a mall near downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. ksl.com has the news, you can read about it there.

In light of the news from Salt Lake, where I used to live, I want to talk about Trolley Square.

I have been in every corner of that mall 100 times. I have taken an embarrassingly large number of dates to the same restaurants there, like the Desert Edge Brewery, Hard Rock, Rodizio Grill, Green Street and the Old Spaghetti Factory. I have gone to Sacred Roots for hair cuts many many times...even before they moved to the other side of the mall. I have holiday shopped there for every holiday...I have "back to school" shopped..."spend my bonus" shopped and every other kind of shopped there.

I have fed the fish, saw tons of bands play, gotten a "couples massage" there with my girlfriend at the time...so I have been naked in Trolley Square (back in the Message Therapy place and under a sheet, don't ya know).

Not only have I brought a few dates there, I have eaten in every restaurant that ever was in Trolley Square at least once and some many many times. I have bought something in almost every store at some point.

My bank was there for many years. I used to imagine the place as a garage for the trolley trains of long ago, and marvelled at how the remodelling was done. I have gazed into the exposed brick and beams.

I have been drunk of my ass and sang Karaoke and had the time of my life flirting with a lot of different women there at Trolley Square. I have visited friends at work, saw many movies (is there still a theater IN the mall?) I have bought chocolates and earrings for girlfriends there.

I have performed 3 songs at Hard Rock Cafe during a musicians conference I attended. I have seen Alphaville do a concert outside the west entrance. You know, "Forever Young" and so forth.

I have met up with family members and friends I hadn't seen in years there. I have parked in a good number of the parking spaces at Trolley Square at one time or another.

I have had hot wings and beer under the Trolley Square water tower, by which you can tell the weather (did you know?).

I have fallen in and even out of love right there in Trolley Square.

Trolley Square has always been a place for pleasure, enjoyment, fulfillment, relationships, reunions, self-improvement, entertainment, drinking and dining.

I feel enormous sadness and shock at the senseless killing that was random and brutal that took place at the mall.
My heart goes out to the families of those who died and to all those who were injured and traumatized by these events.

I know it's early days and I am far away so that lessens the immediate impact for me, yet, I hope that the community can heal and that the actions of one criminal will not stop this place from being somewhere the community gathers and lives in peace and joy.

There are playgrounds and city parks in Belgium and France where war once came through, and violence once held sway.
Now these places are for people to relax, feel at peace, see the ducks and laugh, play sing, dance and be a community.

I think of Trolley Square as a kind of oasis of culture and life in Salt Lake and I hope it can remain that for many years to come.

=sw

Longevity

With medical advances arriving the promise of increased longevity is slowly arising. Increased human longevity could bring profound changes to society and the way things work. It is especially concerning that access to longevity itself may be based on economic status.

Suppose a drug dealer shoots and kills an innocent bystander who is a 40 year old man, effectively robbing him of perhaps half his life. Even if he were only to live only another year naturally, the crime is still every bit as punishable.

It does start to feel more serious, though, when the possibility of long life is available through medical science. Maybe this hypothetical situation could have happened in 2040 or later. Suppose the man was taking a "Methusala" pill daily and would have live for another 100, 150 years or even more. It may be perceived as even more egregious to rob someone of a much longer life. This is akin to the way we feel about the death of children or teenagers now. With so much ahead of them, the injustice stings our sensibilities more.

When we eventually, perhaps inevitably, are able to extend life, we may have to balance reproduction levels somehow. Maybe one will have to trade fertility for increased longevity. Perhaps the effects will be tied up together in the treatments. In the same pill so to speak. I am not sure it is necessary though.

Suppose, with extended life, human beings could travel to other star systems to search out new homes. Or we could live much longer in a hollowed out (hopefully also nicely appointed and well lit) asteroid far from the effects of any sun like Carl Sagan postulates in his book "Pale Blue Dot".

Maybe with incredibly long life, larger projects would become possible. Such as building elaborate homes in space by assembling materials over time. We already have the components of solar "push" technology which would use focused energy from the sun to adjust the position of objects. Another factor would be time...perhaps a lot of time, though we would also have time to develop new and better energy sources.

Could people, given 1000's upon 1000's of years, assemble planets...even stars? Ok this is getting highly speculative since we can only dream of slightly nudging a large asteroid enough that its eventual trajectory misses hitting the earth. Such an asteroid would be the about a kilometer in one or more of its dimensions. That is pretty tiny compared to a planet...even a small moon. Phobos, a moon of Mars, is 22.2 km in "diameter" (it is not at all round, more like a potato).

I digress. Human longevity will be a factor in the future, politically, scientifically and socially. I just hope it isn't another class-making factor. Class being the attempt to manufacture a privileged perspective, as an illusion, when none really exists.

=sw

Newspeak

New, funny words seem to get into our language sometimes. In the U.S. I have heard the term WONK for people who are so in the KNOW that they sound almost snooty for knowing. Maybe I am a WONK for knowing what a WONK is!?

Then there's Noopsie...from the Tivo show The O.C. (poor Mischa Barton, held responsible for single handedly killing a show though maybe saved herself from eternally playing one character) I finally think I have that word figured out. I think it's for those born with a silver spoon in their mouth. A kind of privelaged and entitled class that are so privelaged and entitled they hardly know that they are. You take silver SPOON and reverse SPOON to get NOOPS then diminutize it in a dismissive yet adoring way to NOOPSIE.

Even if I have these "wrong" there is really no absolute right or wrong in evolving language. I have spoken backwards for fun for much of my life so I sometimes catch on to these things.

Maybe I should invent my own words like as JetSet is to world travel maybe an ETSAT could be to someone with good taste. NAMUH's (Nah-moooz) could be atheists who still have morals. Maybe TRAMS are people that are so smart they believe in sustainable development and walkable communities.

EKUN, eco-friendly people who are OK with Nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon dioxide.

REDEEPS, those who buy hybrid cars just so they can accelerate faster at the same fuel consumption and carbon emission rate as their old car, which they sold to someone else anyway.

YAG's, men who like Cold Play AND sex with women.

What do you think? Any more newspeak words out there? I am still waiting for my Wall-Size T.V.

=sw

God is not a woman

Men who say God is a woman are smart, because it scores them points with women.

I think women who say God is a woman want to emphasize that their gender should be accepted and respected. To gain esteem of self and others why not co-brand with a concept widely revered by men and women? Naturally women do deserve equal treatment as human beings and should respect themselves and be accepted and respected by all humans.

Let me start here: anthropromorphizing the divine is vain (as in both self-serving and pointless) and exactly where we went wrong with religion in the first place. Male and female humans are so similar in the cosmic perspective that there is no reason in the idea of a God of a particular gender. One is as good as the other in this symbolism. I think elevating human characteristics to God-defining-level is of no particular interest to my view of things eternal, all powerful and omnipresent. People only do it to attach something about themselves to something powerful.

God is probably..."Gravity" or "Order" or some other concept. Saying "God is an American" makes about as much rational sense. It is the application of a lower order, limited concept upon a higher order limitless concept and it has no useful meaning at all, unless David Bowie says it.

I think there may not be a God of any kind we hope for. If there is such a God, even the definition we invented for Him or Her places this being well outside the limits that proscribe Human Beings. Women are born, live, bleed, feel pain, die. This is not a definition of God by anyone's standard. This is, however, an equally perfect definition of a man.

God is black, God is muslim, God is a jew, God is a mormon, God is Jesus, God has a beard, God has a womb, God is me. All these are the foolish self-serving imaginations of insecure humans seeking self-esteem, self importance...seeking a way to have it over on whomever they feel normally has it over on them.

Calling God a woman is the same idea as using God to support the Irish Republicans against the Unionists and vice versa. It's the same idea as using God to justify terror attacks.

The only reason to say it is to enhance one's own position in regard to other people. This God person gets used and abused for mutual repression and man or woman's inhumanity to man or woman. God gets exploited to push just about anything. Ultimately, God is a man-made concept. This does not preclude there being wonders and realities yet beyond our understanding, but this one is a rusty tired old dented hammer that has been used far to much by people to bludgeon one another.

I hope women will seek their self esteem and have the respect they deserve as human beings. Groping for God status is an act of desperation and corruption to which no man or woman aspires for any noble reason, but only to dominate and repress one another. After we are over the need to reach to the ultimate symbol, maybe it is finally time to look within for worth.

Yes, you guessed it, I am also contending that God is not a man.
=sw

Epicureanism

I am an Epicurean all the way. At first I thought it was just because I like wine and live for pleasure. Though now I understand the crossover of how this philosophy unites with other things I believe.

Crediting Wikipedia here:

Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (c. 340–c. 270 BC), founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention..[]..Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) as well as absence of bodily pain (aponia) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of our desires. The combination of these two states is supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form.

Democritus was the one who figured out that the world's seemingly random weather and events could very well be based on laws and predictable effects and consequences and not the will of "Gods" at all.

Epicurus was called an atomic materialist because this was the time when free thinkers in these city-states, not limited in their scientific explorations by powerful religions or kings, determined that all matter could be divided into indivisible building blocks called atoms. Ok so there is more to the story of atoms and elementary particles, but the kernal of the idea was a revolution. It meant that we might be physical beings only. The meaning of our lives and the consequences of our actions might be played out in patterns established by rules of nature...that we might call "Laws of Physics".

They discovered that the world may not be governed by magical omen or mysterious hands, but by predictable effects. Rather than diminishing the meaning of life, this seems to dramatically raise the stature of each moment to the "real deal" the experience we are having. We need not wait to have some other experience later...we don't need to be foolish, but don't need to be irrationally subservient to ultimate consequences that cannot be proved. This means every idea should be evaluated for its merits.

I heard about Kate Hudson carrying around Holy Water and thought that...if doing so makes her feel better and gives her personal peace and power and she is willing to accept that it makes her look a certain way to those who do not share her magical thinking, then I suppose no one should try to suggest she stop the practice. Though, I would not want the practice taught as curriculum without much more scrutiny, more evidence and reason. When I look at Kate Hudson, my evolved biology tells me to let her do whatever she pleases. I wish hotness weren't its own license, but I can't fight it.



In these days of hints of a universe that might be described as a grand illusion of energy states, it is never certain that we know everything. There is so much left to learn and explain. This is why critical thinking skills may be the best thing Honors English taught me.

I think that as a religious youth, I was taught or, at least believed, that without ultimate consequences nothing meant anything and that we would all spiral into immoral and destructive living.

Epicurus teaches me that the moments of our lives where our real choices, our tangible experiences, conversations, expressions and touches happen all have "Epic" meaning in the universe, in the story of man-kind. Even without a God, indeed especially without a God, everything has deeply intense meaning. We are stewards to existence and each other. This IS the big show. Rather than everything becoming meaningless without the eternal reward or punishment, How we treat life and each other is even more important if it is all there is.

I cannot prove or disprove God, and I know that I rehash this over and over. I feel the way Edgar Allen Poe described as published in the Broadway Journal, Oct. 4, 1845.

I will paraphrase. Poe, who had no trouble putting thoughts into words on paper, admitted to feeling or sensing ideas that were "a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language. I use the word fancies at random, and merely because I must use some word..." Poe goes on to describe:

...this ecstasy, in itself, is of a character supernal to the Human Nature–is a glimpse of the spirit's outer world; and I arrive at this conclusion–if this term is at all applicable to instantaneous intuition–by a perception that the delight experienced has, as its element, but the absoluteness of novelty. I say the absoluteness- for in the fancies–let me now term them psychal impressions–there is really nothing even approximate in character to impressions ordinarily received. It is as if the five senses were supplanted by five myriad others alien to mortality.

So, while I am an Epicurean that believes in a rational world, I have also felt these impressions of some "greater nature". Perhaps this is the experience religious people call "spirituality". Maybe between these feelings and other coping mechanisms, sentient life is made tolerable or perhaps these impressions hint at things we have yet to learn about our existence.

Certainly feeling a sense of ecstatic idealism seems to be compatible with a pleasure-seeking existence. Though, Epicureans are not hedonists, as you will read in the Wikipedia definition. Hedonism has pleasure as its highest ideal. Epicureans believe in the harmony of satisfaction through understanding the needs and limits of the natural world and living well in the "sweet spot" of harmony with them. At the core, it must be understood that rules govern the predictability of life. The way we can establish security and bliss is through knowledge of an indifferent, ultimately reliable universe.

If only "Secular Humanist Epicurean" didn't actually sound as comfortingly dull and easy going as it is meant to be.