Fatblueman

FATBLUEMAN Sayonara

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:40:00 +0000

Sad to say it, but it looks like this incarnation of Fatblueman is coming to an end. All the band members are going in different directions next year, but we are planning one last gig at the Hard Rock Cafe Nagoya on December 22nd. It was way fun and waaaay too short, but we had a great time giving it the shot we did. Any of you who might be close to Nagoya, come down on the 22nd for one last go (actually, the Hard Rock is closing too at the end of December, so its the end of that era too!).

Writing Random Things 5

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 04:06:00 +0000

People are still checking out and joining this blog, even after I abandon it almost completely. So I guess I'll start cross-posting with my Tumblr blog since some seem to prefer this one. Starting now.

This is installment 5 of entries I do when I've got nothing else to say. The rest are over at Tumblr.

Apparently Wikileaks is leaking diplomatic discussions about a reunited Korea, and how that would all work. I wonder to what degree, if any, the recent conflict with the DPRK is being manipulated by our side. Hmmmm....

The Roughriders lost the Grey Cup by a field goal. 18 times to the championship in 100 years, 3 wins to show for it. Hehehehehehe.

Any non-Canadian will have no idea what that last one was about.

I lost my wedding ring. My wife, who is in to symbols, won't like the symbolism of that. I'll see if she reads this blog by not telling her directly that I lost it.

From the start, I didn't really like the idea of wedding rings. I don't like that some big corporation tells you that you need to spend three months salary on their product to show your love. Conflict of interest. And you can take a ring off. If it's a promise of commitment, a tattoo would makes more sense. ON YOUR FACE!

I'm not saying I lost my ring on purpose.

Lady Gaga’s music is like Coke - so universal in western pop culture that even if you don’t want to like it, resistance is futile. And it’s fizzy and tasty and not really very good for you.

I’ve had Pokerface going through my head all day. But I like Cartman on Southpark’s version better than the real one.

House concert

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 04:58:00 +0000

We did a house concert with Kat McDowell on Saturday night. it's just my favorite sort of gig. Great acoustic sounds in a big wooden house with perfect acoustics and people who are interested and listening. So far from the world of bar gigs.

Anyway, Kat helped us with this new song we are working on. Give it a listen here.

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:14:00 +0000

Here's a video we made with the students while we were there. Joni Mitchell could have written Big Yellow Taxi especially for Davao. The difference in beauty between the natural and the urban there is really something.

Esther

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:19:00 +0000

Altogether there are about 90 students at the university. All of them are there on full scholarships provided by various donor orgs from all over the world. Without the full scholarships, almost none of them would have any other shot at university education. We visited one of the student’s villages and it is of the no-electricity, sleep-and-wake-with-the-sun, when-theres-no-food-we-eat-only-bananas-for-weeks-on-end variety.

Of course the amount of time we spent on campus led to lots of down time with students which led to lots of stories heard. And wow, some of the stories! Esther sticks out, because hers was probably the scariest. She is a Muslim girl from a part of Mindanao that I would never be allowed to go. There are extremist rebels everywhere in those parts who see foreigners as dollar signs, in the form of ransom payments. Even being connected to wealth can land you in trouble - basically any way they can get to extract a ransom is ok by them. Well, two of them caught Esther as she was travelling to her second semester of university. They were about to do all kinds of terrible things to her when a third rebel intervened and made them leave her alone. When they realized she was not rich enough to get any ransom, they said they would kill her the following day. Altogether she was there without food for four days, but escaped when she awoke in the morning to find the door left unlocked.

The police only caught one of the kidnappers - ironically, the one who had stopped the others from hurting her, and he’s in prison now. She said she still felt kinda bad about that.

Home from the Philippines

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:04:00 +0000

Just came back from Mindanao in the southern Philippines where I spent two weeks at a university that was founded 5 years ago to try and help lift some people out of poverty. The focus is on the indigenous people groups of the Philippines, who have been pushed to the margins for hundreds of years, and now live in some of the ugliest circumstances of poverty.

These are the students that HOPE sponsors at Pamulaan, where I was for the last two weeks. I had to interview each one of them about their lives growing up and their current family situations. At Pamulaan the music and the smiles are constant. This could be considered odd because when you start hearing about the situations that the students come from - even the ones that their families are living in - you uncover some depressingly bleak living conditions. I’ll tell some of their stories in the posts to follow.

Wait a second now....

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:51:00 +0000

Now that I'm getting all excited about blogging again on Tumblr, I see that Blogger is also making design much more interesting and accessible. What to do? It's like being caught between to lovers.... Stay tuned, maybe I will nice it up around here a little.

Changes?

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:58:00 +0000

Hey there,

In keeping with my tradition of being completely fickle and undedicated when it comes to blogging, I want to try out Tumbler for a while. I am not saying that I will shut this one down and stay over there, but maybe I will. Really, who can say. If you want to come over a see how pretty Tumblr is, I'll be here http://fatblueman.tumblr.com/

I think i will keep using this one for the long heady posts from whatever reading I am doing. So if you interested in such things....

Whoah, Bjork might actually have been right: everything IS music! Whoda thunk it...

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:42:00 +0000

I really don't have time to be, but I am hooked on reading these quantum-science-for-dummies type books again. I'll post the best quotes from the two I'm in now eventually, but something I read today reminded me of this quote from the Michio Kaku one I read some time ago.

It deals with how string theory contends that everything exists because of vibrations in the strings that are akin to musical notes - a particularly romantic notion for artists and musicians if I do say so...

If string theory is correct, we now see that the Mind of God represents cosmic music resonating through ten-dimensional hyperspace. As Gottfried Leibniz once said, “Music is the hidden arithmetic exercise of a soul unconscious that it is calculating.” Historically, the link between music and science was forged as early as the fifth century b.c., when the Greek Pythagoreans discovered the laws of harmony and reduced them to mathematics. They found that the tone of a plucked lyre string corresponded to its length. If one doubled the length of a lyre string, then the note went down by a full octave. If the length of a string was reduced by two-thirds, then the tone changed by a fifth. Hence, the laws of music and harmony could be reduced to precise relations between numbers. Not surprisingly, the Pythagoreans’ motto was “All things are numbers.” Originally, they were so pleased with this result that they dared to apply these laws of harmony to the entire universe. Their effort failed because of the enormous complexity of matter. However, in some sense, with string theory, physicists are going back to the Pythagorean dream. Commenting on this historic link, Jamie James once said, “Music and science were [once] identified so profoundly that anyone who suggested that there was any essential difference between them would have been considered an ignoramus, [but now] someone proposing that they have anything in common runs the risk of being labeled a philistine by one group and a dilettante by the other—and, most damning of all, a popularizer by both.

- Michi Kaku in Parallel Worlds

Going to Philippines and eating Duck Embryos

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:34:00 +0000

So I spent a week in the Philippines and there is lots to talk about so I am feeling the need to sit down and explain some of the trip here. I am also feeling the need to make a video from all the footage I took, but that will have to wait until next week, as I am waiting for a new computer and English keyboards are not in until then.

I was sent to the Philippines last week by HOPE Japan, the organization that I have been volunteering with (do we say volunteering in English? I am losing the feel for what is standard!) for quite a few years, and they have a sister organization in Manila with whom they want to increase connection.

The Manila org's president is a guy with a very interesting story. For years he was an unknown activist toiling in the mountainous areas of Mindoro (an island just south of Manila). There he built a high school for the indigenous peoples of the islands, because often in the IP (the word they were all using) villages people don't have even close to enough money to go to school, and there are no good public ones. As you can guess, this lack of education leads to a cycle of poverty.

So Ben made a high school that IP's could attend for free and worked at that for 9 years. His work was noticed by an organization that gives out a big peace award that is often referred to as the Nobel Peace Prize of Asia. Well about 5 years ago they gave the award to him and , as he told me, in one day he went from obscure activist working in the mountains to sought after speaker and widely known development worker. The award came with a significant cash component which he used to start a university for IP's in Davao (city in Mindanao, the big southern island), a sort of continuation of what he was doing in Mindoro.

So that was 5 years ago, and HOPE has been a supporter of that university. All the students attend on a full scholarship so HOPE sponsored a bunch of students in the second year of the program. I went down to attend the first ever commencement ceremony as a representative of HOPE. I took a whole bunch of pictures and video, but we'll start with this one, as we enjoyed making this one the most.

In Japan there are lots of foods that shock you when you first come. It's funny because I remember being blown away by foods that now don't even make me blink. Octopus for example, was something that I thought I would never eat. Most raw things were in that category for me. Now however, I will steal away and seek out a sushi shop by myself if too many weeks pass without a raw fix.

I don't know that if I lived in the Philippines I would ever feel that way about this food, but who knows...

The Age of Clouds

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Here is the children's story that I mentioned in the previous post. If you read it you'll see that it is obviously a parable. Eventually I'd like to experiment with making it in to a video with artwork that we'll put on the Youtube channel. Here it is:

The Age of Clouds

I want to tell you a love story. I once heard a man say that true love is hard compared to love in dreams. I think he meant that people who step out in love often find that it’s not all hugs and kisses, like in Hollywood movie. Sometimes love is a hard climb. Love asks you to do all kinds of things you wouldn’t normally do, like giving away your favorite things, or being good to someone who you’ve never liked. It can be hard to believe that Love is of any use at all when you are not sure where you are going, and your legs hurt from the journey. But it’s the journey that changes you, and makes you stronger. And eventually, Love clears all the clouds away.

Once upon a time there was a land that was completely covered with a thick layer of cloud. It had always been so. However, the people of the land, who were known as feebles, knew of the sun, because there was a mountain whose summit reached beyond the cloud cover. In fact, the feebles were drawn to climb the mountain, to struggle through the fog to the sun-drenched peak, because of a peculiar characteristic of their bodies. For you see, in the place where a human heart would be, the people of this land had a light, placed there by their Creator millennia before. Exposure to the sun at the top of the mountain would cause their lights to shine brighter within them. However the unfortunate thing was that, just like the sky above them, their bodies were cloudy. This meant that though the light in them might grow brighter with every trip to the mountaintop, others around them couldn't necessarily see that light shining brightly through. The degree to which a body emitted light varied from feeble to feeble. So even though one feeble might have a very bright light at the core, if they were cursed with a murky, dull body, not much of the light within them could be seen.

The odd result of having bodies like this was that no one could tell just by looking who went often up the mountain, and who did not. Every feeble knew that the best thing for them was to go regularly up the mountain to get some sun. The Creator had made them as people with light at their very center, and everyone knew that without a visit to the source of that light, their own spark would grow a little dimmer. But the thing about going to the mountaintop was that it wasn't easy work. The journey up the mountain was long and steep. And if you want to know the real truth, there were even some feebles who wanted to climb the mountain for the wrong reasons!

Some were mainly interested in how they looked to other feebles. These ones hoped that by going up the mountain, they would shine so brightly that everyone would know that they were full of light. But feeble bodies just didn't work that way, because as I said, not all Feeble bodies were equally clear. The only people who really knew if you had been to the mountaintop were those who knew you well, the ones who could see that you were a little brighter after the journey than you were before. And frankly, feebles who climbed for the wrong reasons often gave up before reaching the top, exhausted by the climb. The good thing is that the pure-hearted among them didn't care one way or another how they appeared to others. For these ones, happiness came simply from knowing that the light in them was stronger.

Some feebles were blessed with almost perfectly transparent bodies, clear as the water in a mountain river. Within these ones even just a little light would shine brightly for all to see. Unfortunately, because their light appeared brighter, these ones would often come to consider themselves experts, and would start lecturing others and making rules on "how to keep your light bright". The sad truth was that often the light within these ones was not very bright at all - it was just easy to see - and if they had spent half as much time on the mountain as they said they did, all Feebledom would have been a considerably brighter place.

As time went on, there were some feebles who decided that the journey up the mountain was just too much work, and they stopped going altogether. These ones were relieved to find that when the light dimmed and eventually went out, they didn't die as they feared they might. But though they were able to keep on living, they were darkened now, and lack of light in them caused them to prefer the darkness. Some would even seek out the darkest corners of Feebledom to live in, celebrate the clouds, and mock the feebles who continued to climb the mountain. "You don't need light to live!" they would say. "Why do you waste your time and energy on that mountain!?" Other darkened ones weren't as noisy. In fact, because of the general dullness of feeble bodies, bright ones and dark ones often lived side by side, with little idea of what each other really looked like on the inside.

But that wasn't to remain a mystery forever. One day in Feebledom there was a crack of thunder and the brightest flash of lightning you ever saw. And everyone knew what it meant. The Creator had come back. In one breath the Creator brought an end to the Age of Clouds and commenced the Age of Light. For the breath of the Creator cleared every cloud from the sky and for the first time the full radiance of the sun shone throughout the land. And not only that, with a word the Creator caused the feeble bodies to drop away, leaving only the light at the heart of each feeble. Instead of those gloomy old containers, there were new bodies for everyone. Do you wonder what the new bodies were like? They were clear as crystal but even better than that, they were embedded with millions of tiny prisms that caused the light within to spread into a rainbow of colors, colors that filled the new world with beauty.

When the feebles were given their new bodies, suddenly it was plain to see what had been on the inside of every one. Indeed there were some huge surprises. Some feebles who had struggled their whole lives in the dullest, murkiest bodies were revealed to be saturated with light - like water in sponge - and in their new bodies, dazzled the others with the colors that radiated from them. Wherever one looked feebles were gleaming with color, generating a brilliant psychedelic shine that put all of our rainbows and auroras to shame. It's true that the ones with only a little light produced only a little color, but there was good news for them as well. For it was clear for all to see that with the clouds cleared away, the direct access to the light of the Creator was causing even the tiniest of lights to grow steadily larger.

You might think that it must have been a hard adjustment, living in such a bright place after having known only dimness for so long. However, exactly the opposite was true. For the feebles, life under the light of the sun felt just right, the way things should have been all along. Exactly how long this new age went on for I don't really know, but I know that it went on for so long, that eventually the Age of Clouds became little more than a vague memory.

Been a month....

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:52:00 +0000

Whoah, more than a month since I have posted anything here, and yet the number on feedburner just keeps going up. I am breaking all the rules of good blogging, but people are still coming around for some reason, so thank you. Truth be told, writing on this blog is getting sqeezed out because recently I have been trying to develop two new habits. One is private writing, writing just for me so that I can develop thoughts without an audience. The other is Lang8, which is a website where you blog in Japanese and then Japanese people correct what you have written. That is proving extremely useful for study, and it also locks you in well because if you don't post for a few days you get messages from friends asking what's going on.

Last year I tried, for the very first time, to write a short story. I went with a children's parable because all my study has been focused on C.S. Lewis, and I have three young boys so it seemed like a natural starting place. I don't think I ever posted it here so I will in the next post. Now in the private writing times I am trying my hand at another short story, but this time it is much more adult. I am finding stories are a really good genre for a guy like me who is not too sure what he thinks a lot of the time. In a story you can try on a lot of different ideas and viewpoints without really committing to them, instead making them a part of a given character. It is a much freer way to write than say an essay, where you have to lay down a solid opinion.

Ok, I should post another of the quotes from recent reading, but I'll do it in another post. Coming up.....

The weird world(s) of quantum mechanics

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:00:00 +0000

So that deluge of quotes I promised is emerging as more of a trickle, but those of you who are familiar with my blogging habits probably called my bluff as soon as I said it. Anyway, today I reviewing some more quotes from Kaku's book, Parallel Worlds,on the very weirdness of quantum mechanics. For example:

I sometimes ask our Ph.D. students at the university simpler questions, such as, calculate the probability that they will suddenly dissolve and rematerialize on the other side of a brick wall. According to the quantum theory, there is a small but calculable probability that this could take place. Or, for that matter, that we will dissolve in our living room and wind up on Mars. According to the quantum theory, one could in principle suddenly rematerialize on the red planet. Of course, the probability is so small that we would have to wait longer than the lifetime of the universe.

In fact, it is not just that there are many possible worlds, Kaku says that, according to multiverse theory, every possible world exists:

The quantum theory is based on the idea that there is a probability that all possible events, no matter how fantastic or silly, might occur.

I blogged a few posts back about how there are two possible solutions to the big problems of quantum physics: the multi-verse, and the idea that a greater consciousness causes the collapse of the wave form, bringing things into existence. Now as a believer, if perhaps a somewhat unorthodox one, I must admit that the multiverse idea can make me think that some people will do just about anything in order to not believe in a God, even if that "God" is a nebulous sort of consciousness. People who are able to poke fun at belief in a greater consciousness while treating seriously the notion that somewhere there is a universe for absolutely anything you can imagine... well, let's just say that there's room for everyone to be humble and open when it comes to a subject like this.

There is a kind of romantic thought that occurs though. If M-theory were true, then the creative work of fiction writers wouldn't be creative at all. It would simply mean that the creative process is a means of channeling, or perhaps reporting, the events and personalities of other universes. Because if all possible things are realized somewhere, then somewhere, Narnia is playing out exactly as written, and so is the Lord of the Rings, and the Brave New World, and even (pray for these poor ones) 1984. Of course, there is also every possible variation, so somewhere Aslan is saving the Brave New World from Big Brother, Superman is the Queen of Antarctica, and (pray for these poor ones) Sarah Palin is President.

No wait!! The best one is this: somewhere the Old Testament of the Bible played out exactly as it was written. Ha! I need to point out to my atheist m-theory-believing friend that he is more of a biblical literalist than I am! What fun, this multi-verse.

Anyway, more from Kaku:

If this interpretation is correct, then at this very instant your body coexists with the wave functions of dinosaurs engaged in mortal combat. Coexisting in the room you are in is the wave function of a world where the Germans won World War II, where aliens from outer space roam, where you were never born. The worlds of The Man in the High Castle and The Twilight Zone are among the universes existing in your living room. The catch is that we can no longer interact with them, since they have decohered from us. As Alan Guth has said, “There is a universe where Elvis is still alive.”

Kaku points out that most quantum scientists don't focus too much on the wacky implications of their theories, focusing instead on trying to determine, through models and experimentation, just what exactly is going on. They leave the extrapolation to Hollywood and bored bloggers.

Most physicists shrug their shoulders and throw up their hands when confronted with the mind-bending paradoxes of quantum me- chanics. To most practicing scientists, quantum mechanics is a set of cookbook rules that yields the right probabilities with uncanny ac- curacy. As the physicist-turned-priest John Polkinghorne has said, “The average quantum mechanic is no more philosophical than the average motor mechanic.”

Today's thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:04:00 +0000

The wood on the way to the train station was completely cleared away today. Don’t know why, but when I saw it, it almost had me in tears. It’s like the last corner of mystery got cleared away with it. Once again everything is clear, defined, obvious, and dead.

The thought recurs to me about how strong a desire there is in every generation to heed the end of the world. We seem to want the end of the world - or at least we want to heed it. Because if this generation isn’t the last generation, then our lives are not quite as important, as climactic, as we had hoped. And we can’t bear the thought that this ride will just keep going on without us on it.

Keep studying and don't give advice. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:42:00 +0000

I did this about three months ago, but I still find myself giggling in foolish embarrassment, so I thought I'd tell the story. I am sure anyone who has tried to learn a new language has a ton of these kinds of stories. Books have been written on them...

Anyway, I was at a my friend's wedding and I was seated at a table at the reception across from a woman I had met one time before. She doesn't speak English so we were chatting in Japanese, and she mentioned that she had just gotten married a month before. She asked how long I had been married, and when I responded 13 years, she made some joke about getting advice on love and marriage from me. Of course I wanted to continue on with the light, jovial banter, but I need to learn that my Japanese is just not at a level yet where I can do that smoothly!!!

I opened my mouth again and things went downhill. I wanted to say that when you are newlyweds things are all "love-love" and sometimes things get tense, but you just have to learn to love each other week by week. That's what I wanted to say. But that's not what came out. What came out was something more along the lines of "Love is important. How many times a week is your husband giving you the "love-love"?

I say this to a stranger who I have met like once before.

Even as my words were stumbling forth like a friendly drunk, I could hear how what I was saying could be taken wrong. Never mind "could be"; the way I phrased it, you pretty much would have had to conclude that I was a dirty-minded freak who wanted the inside-scoop on the first month of bedroom life.

Well, I was so embarrassed that I clammed right up and said nothing more. Which made it worse. The thing is, when your language level is already mediocre, and then you get yourself into a pressure situation, what ability you may have had disappears completely. So I couldn't think of what to say to de-awkward the moment. In fact I was so embarrassed that I giggled, which made me look even more lecherous, I am sure. The newlywed just responded with a "nan no hanashi? kore?", which is like "What kind of question is that?" She wasn't mad, just kind of incredulous, and thankfully, we were saved by the "time to eat" announcement.

Mental note: keep studying and don't give advice. Ever.

Some PR for PR

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:19:00 +0000

Peter Rollins saying things I like and don't like again. It takes me back to when we were thinking hard about Christi-Anarchy: Jesus didn't come to start a new religion. The creeds contain not one jot of Christ's ethical teaching. Dostoevsky's Inquisitor. Relocation is incarnation. Preach the gospel and if necessary, use words. Power strives upward, Love strives downward. Gandhi.

All the big ideas that bug me as I live my very safe and comfortable, middle-class suburban life...

A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it. Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese would never take a risk. One day a philosopher goose came among them. He was a very good philosopher and every week they listened quietly and attentively to his learned discourses. 'My fellow travellers on the way of life,' he would say, 'can you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to existence?

'I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. For did they not stretch their wings and fly across the trackless wastes of desert and ocean, of green valley and wooded hill? But alas, here we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to puddle in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.

The geese thought this was very fine lecturing. 'How poetical,' they thought. 'How profoundly existential. What a flawless summary of the mystery of existence.' Often the philosopher spoke of the advantages of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. What were wings for, but to fly with? Often he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.

And every week the geese were uplifted, inspired, moved by the philosopher's message. They hung on his every word. They devoted hours, weeks, months to a thoroughgoing analysis and critical evaluation of his doctrines. They produced learned treatises on the ethical and spiritual implications of flight. All this they did. But one thing they never did. They did not fly! For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure!

Gandhi and curiosity gone Askew

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:33:00 +0000

When I got the new Kindle I was impressed by the "My Clippings" function, which allows me to blog my favorite quotes with ease. However, I didn't expect that I would end up reading this much, and therefore, compiling as many quotes as I have! So brace yourselves for a deluge of quotes with minimum commentary, because I have a backlog.

From a biography of Gandhi that has been making me feel guilty - seeing what humanity-done-well looks like:

Thought came to have no meaning for him unless it was lived out, and life was shallow unless it reflected a carefully thought-out vision of life. Every time Gandhi came across a new idea, he asked if it was worth living up to. If not, he took no further interest in it. But if the answer was in the affirmative, he integrated it into his way of life, ‘experimented’ with its ‘truth’, and explored its moral logic.

And a video that fits well with the quote:

'curiosity' from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

I think I love you Martha...

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:34:00 +0000

She described her upbringing as "East Coast WASP elite...very sterile, very preoccupied with money and status." She would later credit her impatience with "mandarin philosophers" as the "repudiation of my own aristocratic upbringing. I don't like anything that sets itself up as an in-group or an elite, whether it is the Bloomsbury Group or Derrida."

- Martha Nussbaum in Wikipedia

Hit me JP one more time...

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:10:00 +0000

And one more from Tim Stafford talking about John Polkinghorne:

Polkinghorne takes a very moderate middle ground: that the fine tuning of the universe for life is “a fact of interest calling for an explanation.”

He uses a parable from philosopher John Leslie: if a bullet hits a single fly on a big blank wall, one seeks an explanation. Pure randomness of a single bullet cannot be ruled out, but two other explanations seem more likely: either a great number of bullets were fired, or a marksman took careful aim.

Peter Singer goes all the way...

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:02:00 +0000

I just can't stop reading about the technology vs. morals things these days. So here's another cuple of articles I wanted to save for later. Add 'em to the pile.

Peter Singer is a thinker who I've heard a few things from, all that I liked. This article changed that some, but as the author points out, the interesting thing is that he is being logically consistent. That tends to be admirable because it's rare.

Singer writes, "My colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggest that a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others." Singer argues that even pigs, chickens, and fish have more signs of consciousness and rationality—and, consequently, a greater claim to rights—than do fetuses, newborn infants, and people with mental disabilities. "Rats are indisputably more aware of their surroundings, and more able to respond in purposeful and complex ways to things they like or dislike, than a fetus at 10- or even 32-weeks gestation. … The calf, the pig, and the much-derided chicken come out well ahead of the fetus at any stage of pregnancy."

The rest of the article here.

John Polkinghorne

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:59:00 +0000

Tim Stafford writes on John Polkinghorne, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites:

Evolution suggests a God working less like an engineer, designing a blueprint of the giraffe’s neck from the beginning, than a creator using materials and processes that are naturally fruitful. He is more a gardener than an architect. He does sculpture with wind and water, rather than steel. God’s creation is dynamic. It tends, over vast stretches of time, to extend itself into ever-greater articulation, variety and beauty. Does this vision of God diminish his power and majesty? Not according to Polkinghorne.

Is Food the New Sex? Mary Eberstadt

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:15:00 +0000

And just when I get talking about technology and morals, I come across this article:

What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want?

Definite save-for-later.

Is weakness always something to be eliminated?

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:08:00 +0000

With Master's work almost half done I am starting to think ahead to stuff I might do towards a doctorate. The theme that interests me most is the influence that technology has on morals, so in the middle of reading all these books like The Singularity is Near and Kaku's books on how technology will transform human biology and bring about a new age of enhanced humanity, I picked up this book by Jean Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas, Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness. And I must admit that the juxtaposition of the two books is, as my English friends might say, doing my head in. A quote from the introduction:

If Vanier is correct that in France within the next few years there will be no children born with Down syndrome because they will all have been aborted, then something is deeply wrong with our society. As my friend John, who has Down syndrome, puts it, "That doesn't make us feel very welcome, does it?"'

How do "weakness" and "imperfection" fit into these times of rapid technological change? That's going to be something I'll be thinking about a lot, I suppose, if this is the direction I end up going in.

Take My Heart Japanese Romaji lyrics and translation

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:49:00 +0000

This is mostly just saving for later, but I thought I'd put it here in case anyone else is interested:

Take My Heart
(track 5, Still A Long Way Off)

Nagai aida machitsuzuketeita (For a long time, I've been waiting for you)
Kokoro hikare tsuiteiku (You have won my heart and I am following)
Anata wo machitsuzuketeita (I've been waiting for you)
Kono namida de nagasareta (By these tears my heart is softened)

And I'm waiting for you (2x)

Take my heart
kimi dake ni ageru (I give it only to you)
I was made for loving you
I will wait
Anata wo machituzukeru (I'll wait for you)
I was made for loving you

Anata ga ai shite kureta kara (Because you loved me)
Kono ai ni kotaetai (I must answer back)
Boku no kokoro torae (My heart has been taken)
Mitsumerareru, sore dake de (Just by one look from your eye)

Best of 2009: Music

noreply@blogger.com (JJ) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:56:00 +0000

I am home on holidays procrastinating homework so I suppose a blog post is as good a way to do that as any. I love the end of year and end of decade reviews, so here's me joining in.

First one: My favorite song of 2009. Foy Vance - Indiscriminate Act of Kindness

Close second: Michael Franti - Say Hey