Great Explanation for TV Series - LOST

Found this in: http://www.lostaddictsblog.com/ written by Steve.
to Steve: you're a genius.

UPDATE: Now that the series has ended, here is The Idiot's Guide to Lost.

Let's go back to shortly after the turn of the Twentieth century, the days of Einstein and other early theoretical physicists. This was the dawn of the age of quantum mechanics, which provided new understanding and insight into physics at the sub-atomic level. New mathematics described the behavior of the tiny particles that make up all of matter in the universe. The math was clearly described in terms of numbers, symbols, formulas... however the application to nature as we know it was strange, weird, bizarre.

It was very difficult to wrap the human brain around many of the concepts of quantum mechanics, and the math alone was inadequate to explain the problems. Thus, physicists and mathematicians turned to "Gedanken Experiments," German for Thought Experiments. Applying the known concepts of quantum mechanics to situations in the "real world" allowed a conversation to take place in a way most anybody could (sort of) understand.

Before I lose you, here is an example. In the mathematics of quantum physics, time travel is THEORETICALLY possible. One of the most famous Gedanken Experiments is the Grandfather Paradox. If you could travel back in time, could you kill your grandfather? Logic tells you that no, you could not, for if you did, you would not exist. (Pause here and consider why Locke insists that "he can't" kill his father, he needs somebody else to do it.) The beautiful thing about Gedanken Experiments is that they are both scientific and philosophical, perfect fodder for a creative writer. In the case of the Grandfather Paradox, while they logic is clear, the actual experience of it is a mystery. Imagine actually standing there in the past, holding a loaded gun to the head of your grandfather... what would actually prevent you? "Something" would, some unknown mechanism of physics... and that is where the writers of "Lost" imagine for us.

"Lost" is a grand Gedanken Experiment, a test of science and philosophy. It asks the question, What if time travel were not only possible, but real, with technology developed in a manner as realistic and consistent with known theoretical physics as possible? And to make it even more dramatic, What if you could travel back in time, AND NOT KNOW IT? The passengers of Flight 815 have done exactly that, and the writers have made the audience go along with them, sharing the same sense of confusion and mystery.

Let's talk about what we know about time travel today. We are not talking about cheesy movies of the past, where one can travel back to the age of dinosaurs or the middle ages. In fact, in the "real" science of time travel, a few things are known by the constraints of physics and quantum mechanics.

There is a conceptual model of a real time machine, and it works something like this: A time machine must have two parts, essentially two portals, connected by a wormhole (or black hole or whatever you want to call it). Door #1 is built alongside Door #2. Door #1 is allowed to continue along the "present" timeline, while Door #2 is encapsulated in a bubble within space-time, thus separated from the present timeline. This would require a great amount of energy and technology obviously unknown today... but thanks to the writers of "Lost," it has been solved by Dharma Industries. The amount of separation would be only slight to begin with... say, 108 minutes. Since Door #1 exists in the present timeline, it can safely be located anywhere (Dharma headquarters?). Door #2, now operating in a different place in space-time, in the past, must be safely located in a remote location, for any type of interaction with it from the outside could be catastrophic.

There is a very important concept in time travel here, which is that you can NEVER travel back further in time than the creation of your time machine; Hence the impossibility of visiting the dinosaurs, etc. Now, if the two doors of your time machine were separated by only 108 minutes at the initial "event", but then allowed to just sit there, then both timelines would progress at the same pace, forever separated by only 108 minutes. Traveling to the past, but only by 108 minutes, would not be very interesting. Much more exciting would be to keep Door #2 back at the original time of its inception, while Door #1 continues to move forward in time. You could do this by continually "resetting" the clock on Door #2. Over time, the separation between the two doors would grow and grow, from minutes, to hours, to days, to years.

If you actually had the technology to achieve time travel in this manner, there are MANY profound questions you would have to test and answer in order to be confident that you could safely operate the time machine without catastrophically altering the future. The Grandfather Paradox is the most obvious, but actually only one of many questions.

ANSWER #1: What is the Dharma Initiative? It is the building and testing of a time machine, as described above. Door #1 is at the Dharma Headquarters, Door #2 is on the Island in the remote South Pacific.

The question isn't, Where is the Island? The question is, When is the Island? The answer to that depends on how long ago, in the present timeline, the time machine was created... approximately 14 years ago, I believe.

ANSWER #2: Why must the button be pushed every 108 minutes? This "resets"
the clock of Door #2 of the time machine, essentially holding it at the time of its inception in the relative past. If allowed to pass 108 minutes on the clock, then the time machine will lose the ability to reset itself. Why, then, must it be pressed by a person, and not just programmed to reset itself? This is because the controllers at Door #1 do not have control over Door #2 in the past, and should disaster strike, and nobody is left alive in the past at Door #2, it should be allowed to pass 108 minutes and no longer reset.

ANSWER #3: What happened when the clock was allowed to pass 108 minutes? Door #2 of the time machine lost the ability to reset, and will now continue to progress along a timeline into the future, locked at approximately 14 years separation from Door #1.

What are some of the other critical questions, like the Grandfather Paradox, that must be answered when considering time travel? Here is a great one:

What if a childless woman travels back in time and conceives a child?

ANSWER #4: A childless woman cannot travel to the past and conceive a child, because if she did, she would not have been a childless woman. In "Lost", both mother and child die before the birth, thus preserving the timeline and laws of nature. Perhaps the Others do not fully understand this, and brought in fertility doctor Juliet to see if they can overcome this obstacle.

Consider another:

What if a child travels back to a time before he or she was born? Perhaps nothing... but what if the child dies in the past, before being born? Again, impossible. ANSWER #5: The Others abduct children on the Island to protect them at all costs, for they cannot allow the catastrophic violation of the laws of nature of a child dying before being conceived.

And yet another:

If you travel to the past, will you be the "you" of the present timeline when you arrive, or the younger "you" of the past, or some combination of the two? I do not know, but I believe this offers insight into why John Locke can walk on the Island despite being paralyzed.

ANSWER #6: Locke can walk not because the Island has powers to cure, but because he has traveled back to a time BEFORE he was ever paralyzed. He is somehow a blend of the Locke of the present and the Locke of the past.

Who is Ben? I believe he is the creator of the time machine. The Others are his associates living in the time-space bubble around the Island and Door #2 of the time machine in the "past." They are managing it and testing the effects of time travel, and strictly controlling who exits this bubble into the outside world.

How does one arrive at the Island? There are two methods of traveling to the site (and time) of the Island. First is the controlled method via Door #1 at Dharma Headquarters. It is not via plane, submarine, or any other traditional method of transportation.

The other method is in the accidental collision with the time-space bubble that surrounds the Island, as happened with Oceanic Flight 815, the Portuguese woman's helicopter, etc. Despite the many theories that abound in online forums, the Others did not know that Flight 815 was coming or going to crash at the Island. It was a chance encounter. It was a disaster that created a paradox... what happens to a plane that crashes in the present, while entering the past? This leads to the question of whether the passengers are alive or dead, answered by talking about a cat.

Schrodinger's cat, to be specific. Again, quantum mechanics can be very strange. One of the strangest behaviors in particle physics is known as Superposition, which is the ability of a particle to occupy two different states simultaneously (like up and down, left and right, here and there, etc.). In the world we know, you cannot be both here and there, but in particle physics, a world of probability, chance, and duality, you can. How can one imagine this? Another great Gedanken Experiment was conceived, as follows:

Place a cat in a sealed, steel box, along with a bottle of poison. In addition, a radioactive element is placed within the steel box. The decay of this radioactive element triggers a hammer, which breaks the bottle, releasing the poison and killing the cat. For the observer, outside of the box, you do not know when this radioactive decay happens. Because of the laws of Superposition, the radioactive element can occupy both states simultaneously, for the briefest moment. For that blink in time, the bottle is both broken and intact... the cat is both dead and alive, at the same time. This is a puzzle of science, but more important perhaps is the philosophical question of what does it mean to be both dead and alive?

ANSWER #7: The passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 are dead at the bottom of the ocean. AND they are ALIVE on the Island. They are both dead and alive. I told you that you would love this one. Since they are alive in the "past" of the Island's timeline, can they return to the present in which they are dead? I guess that is the ultimate question that we will have to watch the show to find out.

A suggestion of an answer is found in Locke's/Sawyer's father. We were led to believe that he died in a car accident, and finds himself here on the Island. Of course he would think he's in hell! We believe that somehow Locke "willed" him here, but that was actually never said on the show. In fact, Ben said to Locke, "you brought him here." Perhaps what he means is this:

ANSWER #8: Locke's father did not die in the accident. I believe that we will find soon that Locke is going to leave the Island. The question that nobody asked Locke's father was when did the accident happen? See, Locke is going to return to the "present" timeline, and is going to pursue his father. He is going to find him, perhaps he is even going to cause his accident. He is going to drug and kidnap him, unable or unwilling to kill him by himself. He is somehow going to get him to Door #1 of the time machine and send him to the Island, where he already knows that Sawyer will kill him. Locke is going to "bring him here" to the Island... he just hasn't done it yet. When he is on the "outside" in the present, why is he going to do this? Because he has to, because it is destiny... for on the Island, it has already happened. You know Locke loves destiny.

I could go on and on. Why is there a zoo with polar bears?

ANSWER #9: The animals are on the Island for testing the effects of the various paradoxes associated with time travel. Perhaps another reason is that by keeping and preserving endangered animals, like polar bears, within this bubble in the past, there is a resource for their recovery should they become extinct in the future. Consider it a Noah's Ark.

How do the Others know so much about the passengers of Flight 815?

ANSWER#10: The Others have had perhaps years, with Dharma Industries in the present timeline at Door #1, to research each of the individuals, and transmit this information to the Island. To the audience and the survivors of 815, it seemed like the Others instantly knew about them. However, it likely required years of research to compile the files.

There are still mysteries that remain, and stories that we do not know how they will play out. With this explanation, though, the behavior of the Others is understood. They must protect the timeline AT ALL COSTS. That makes them seem evil to the survivors of 815, but in reality their intentions are to prevent catastrophe.

There are many other stories I haven't touched, but they are all consistent with this basic theory. This includes Desmond's apparent "time loop" he is experiencing, and many others.

So there it is. Or, I'm out of my mind. Time will tell.

Steve

i am

whet's fer ye..

132 This means ‘What's for you won’t go by you'. “It’s Scottish,” she explained. The picture captures the moment she was asked to imagine a big hairy Scotsman, in a kilt - a trick that worked so well, it has been repeated on other SOTMs. Taken in offices off Tottenham Court Road, London.

from: somoneoncetoldme.com

Absence

Until recently, one could actually achieve absence. One could go somewhere and be gone. The traveler would send postcards. The postcards would have pictures of beaches or statues. They would be eagerly awaited and gratefully received. Absence was simple. It was an absolute condition, soon relieved by presence. Presence was also an absolute condition.

No more.

Now absence and presence are contingent and variable, matters of degree and form. A person may cease responding to e-mail and achieve a sort of absence although he or she remains in place. Or a person may go to India and yet be as present as always.

A version of us is always present. We are over-connected. We spy on each other from afar.

The quality of our absence is thus degraded. Absenceness is a precious resource we are fast running out of. Soon there will be nothing but presence. We will wish we could go away but will not be able to. The pain of constant presence will be too much for some to bear; it will be a torture like that of sleep deprivation. There will be a rash of virtual suicides, in which people disconnect themselves and appear to be dead. We will have virtual funerals for them. This will all come in time.


- by Cary Tennis

No Matter How Lonely

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

For Those Who Feel Like Giving Up

Only after the last tree has been cut down

Only after the last river has been poisoned

Only after the last fish has been caught

Only then will you find
you cannot eat money.


- Cree prophecy

Orange Juice: Lies and Truth

Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice" is a forthcoming secret history of the orange nectar. For example, I didn't know that OJ's popularity was seeded by its use as a Vitamin C delivery system for World War II troops. Or that the whole Florida imagery surrounding the drink is mostly a myth these days and that the majority of it comes from Brazil. The Boston Globe interviewed the author, Alissa Hamilton (photo by Bart Nagel):

What isn't straightforward about orange juice?

HAMILTON: It's a heavily processed product. It's heavily engineered as well. In the process of pasteurizing, juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn't oxidize. Then it's put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year. It gets stripped of flavor-providing chemicals, which are volatile. When it's ready for packaging, companies such as Tropicana hire flavor companies such as Firmenich to engineer flavor packs to make it taste fresh. People think not-from-concentrate is a fresher product, but it also sits in storage for quite a long time...

So parse the carton for us. For example, what is the phrase "not from concentrate" really about?

HAMILTON: In the '80s, Tropicana had a hold on ready-to-serve orange juice with full-strength juice. Then this new product, reconstituted orange juice, started appearing in supermarkets. Tropicana had to make decisions. Storing concentrate is much cheaper than full-strength juice. The phrase "not from concentrate" was to try to make consumers pay more for the product because it's a more expensive product to manufacture. It didn't have to do with the product being fresher; the product didn't change, the name simply changed. Tropicana didn't want to have to switch to concentrate technology.

How it Is

Does God Hate Women?

By Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom

Reviewed by Johann Hari - 02 July 2009

Authors Benson and Stangroom dismantle the logic of those who cite religion to justify the perpetuation of misogynistic abuses around the globe

A directory of divine misogyny

After all the arguments for subordinating women have been shown to be self-serving lies, what are misogynists left with? They have only one feeble argument that is still deferred to and shown undeserving respect across the world, even by people who should know better: “God told me to. I have to treat women as lesser beings, because it is inscribed in my Holy Book.”

Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom are the editors of Butterflies and Wheels, the best atheist site on the web. In Does God Hate Women? they forensically dismantle the last respectable misogyny. They argue: “What would otherwise look like stark bullying is very often made respectable and holy by a putative religious law or aphorism or scriptural quotation . . . They worship a God who is a male who gangs up with other males against women. They worship a thug.”

Every major religion’s texts were written at a time when women were regarded as little better than talking cattle. Their words and commands reflect this, plainly and bluntly. This book starts with a panoramic sweep across the world, showing – with archetypal cases – how every religion has groups today thumping women down with its Holy Book.

In Zamfara State in northern Nigeria, a pregnant 13-year-old girl called Bariya Ibrahim received 180 lashes of the cane in 2001 after being pimped by her father. The state’s attorney general said: “It is the law of Allah, so we don’t have anything to worry about.” In Jerusalem, ultra-Orthodox Jews have set up “modesty police” who terrorise young women who talk to men or show ordinary parts of their bodies. They break into their homes if they are seen with men; they force them to sit at the back of the bus, away from the men; and they even, in one recent instance, sprayed acid in the face of a 14-year-old girl.

In the areas of India still dominated by orthodox Hinduism, a widow is still expected to commit suicide when her husband dies, or go into isolation in an ashram. One – a septuagenarian woman named Radha Rani Biswas – fled and now begs on the streets of Vrindavan. She said: “My son tells me: ‘You have grown old. Now who is going to feed you? Go away.’ What do I do? My pain has no limit.” And on the directory of divine misogyny goes, running through Catholicism, Mormonism and more. Benson and Stangroom note: “Religion doesn’t necessarily originate ideas about female subordination, but it lends them a penumbra of righteousness, and it makes them ‘sacred’ and thus a matter for outrage if anyone disputes them.”

Methodically, they go through the excuses offered for these raw abuses of human rights by the religious, and their apologists.

The first – especially beloved of the Vatican and Islamists – is that women are not being treated worse, just “differently”. They claim that it accords a woman special “dignity” to trap her in the home. But this is an abuse of language. As the authors note: “Permanent consignment to a limited and lesser role in the world is not what ‘dignity’ is generally understood to mean . . . The smallness and intimacy and relatedness of home are fine things, but not if one is confined to them permanently.”

The religio-misogynists then claim that it is “racist” or “imperialist” to oppose such abuses. This merrily ignores how women within these cultures protest against their treatment – very loudly. They aren’t objecting to being imprisoned in their homes, or having their genitalia cut, or being stoned for having sex, because a white person told them to. Benson and Stangroom put it well: “Multiculturalism by definition makes a fetish of cultures, and it is almost impossible to do that without treating them as monolithic. As soon as you admit that all cultures have internal dissent and nonconformity, the whole idea of protecting or deferring to particular cultures breaks down into incoherence.”

Then the gentler, nicer apologists for religion arrive. They say that misogynists are simply misinterpreting the holy texts, which are in fact about love and compassion and kindness. But the authors point out this is certainly not the God of the texts who orders his followers to commit mass murder, including of women and children, and explicitly says women are inferior beings.

So, in order to defend their God, the apologists often have to lie about what He and His Prophets “say” in the texts. Cherie Blair, for example, claimed in a lecture: “It is not laid down in the Quran that women can be beaten by their husbands.” But it quite plainly is. The Quran says: “If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them [of the teachings of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them.”

Karen Armstrong – one of the most egregious defenders of superstition – repeatedly claims that Muhammad was an emancipator of women. Yet it is explained in the Hadith (the sayings and traditions of the Prophet) that he married a prepubescent child, and that when he was given two slave girls he gave the ugly one away to a friend and kept the beautiful one, Maryam, to use sexually. It is a strange model of female emancipation, to sleep with children and slaves.

There are people in all religions who have – through theological contortions – managed to leave behind literal readings of the text and invent a less foul God to believe in. It is not for atheists to say that one group of believers is right and the other is wrong, as we think they’re all wrong. We can note that the less literalist a believer is, the easier he is to live beside, but we will only discredit literalism and force reform if we are honest about the words of the texts, rather than trying to soft-soap believers.

By the end of this book-length blast, Benson and Stangroom have left religious hatred of women in rubble. Anybody not addled by superstition will have to conclude that such bigotry deserves neither respect nor deference. It does not deserve the taboos that today surround it. It deserves the opposite: contempt – and relentless, unyielding opposition.

Does God Hate Women?
Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom
Continuum, 208pp, £14.99

Failing and Flying

by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Stiglitz: America's double-standard on economic crises infuriates the poor world

Posted by Cory Doctorow, June 11, 2009 10:30 PM |

Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz contrasts the American response to its economic crisis with the measures it shoved down the throats of poor countries during their crises, and discusses why rich-world double-standards ("Buy American/European" provisions in bailouts that only discriminate against poor countries) contribute to a global disillusionment in the values that the rich world nominally espouses: democracy, transparency, and so on.

Among critics of American-style capitalism in the Third World, the way that America has responded to the current economic crisis has been the last straw. During the East Asia crisis, just a decade ago, America and the I.M.F. demanded that the affected countries cut their deficits by cutting back expenditures--even if, as in Thailand, this contributed to a resurgence of the aids epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving. America and the I.M.F. forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks--and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention in the Swiss-clock mechanisms of the free market.

The contrast between the handling of the East Asia crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, we are now witnessing massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates have been brought down to zero. Banks are being bailed out right and left. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asia crisis are now managing the response to the American crisis. Why, people in the Third World ask, is the United States administering different medicine to itself?

Many in the developing world still smart from the hectoring they received for so many years: they should adopt American institutions, follow our policies, engage in deregulation, open up their markets to American banks so they could learn "good" banking practices, and (not coincidentally) sell their firms and banks to Americans, especially at fire-sale prices during crises. Yes, Washington said, it will be painful, but in the end you will be better for it. America sent its Treasury secretaries (from both parties) around the planet to spread the word. In the eyes of many throughout the developing world, the revolving door, which allows American financial leaders to move seamlessly from Wall Street to Washington and back to Wall Street, gave them even more credibility; these men seemed to combine the power of money and the power of politics. American financial leaders were correct in believing that what was good for America or the world was good for financial markets, but they were incorrect in thinking the converse, that what was good for Wall Street was good for America and the world.

Wall Street's Toxic Message (via Memex 1.1)

How to Rescue the Mars Rover, by Julian, Age 7

Spirit, the Mars rover, got stuck on
May 9th around a low plateau with thick deposits of sandy soil. When the rover's wheels hit these patches of dirt, the wheel can't grip and just spins.

A 7-year-old kid named Julian suggested a way to get it unstuck, and the drivers were so impressed by it that they’re sending him a reward.

good morning world

Always Give 100% At Work

Depends on Where You're Sitting

Crippled by Indecision? The 10-10-10 Rule.

Making radically changing life decisions can often be a process that often leaves us doubting, sleepless and paralyzed to do anything else.

Should I get a divorce?
Should I quit my job?
Career or full-time motherhood?

In 10-10-10, the namesake book by Suzy Welch, the 10-10-10 rule is proposed to make the process more manageable. When facing to make a difficult choice, ask yourself these questions:

What will be the consequences in 10 minutes?
In 10 months?
In 10 years?

These questions not only reveal the immediate impact of the decision made, but also, if it matters and how it matters in the long term. Here is an except of the article:

Fifteen years ago, she was a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company. She loved the job, and the job loved her. The first in her family to attend college, she was looking forward to a long and successful corporate career. Then came marriage and two children.

My friend tried to keep working, but one day, when she returned from a week on the road, the nanny put her son in her arms, and he didn't recognize her. She quit, telling herself she would go back the minute she could.

That minute never came.

She has three children now, the youngest a baby. "The other day, I was cleaning the refrigerator and Sammy was crying his head off, and inside I was screaming, "What have I done?"

"10-10-10 reminded me." Both the 10-minute and 10-year scenarios made her shudder. "Short term, I'm looking at a lot of diapers and spit up," she said, "and long term, I'm seeing a big black hole. Kids gone, but so is my career."

image source, Link

Obama Admits US Involvement in 1953 Iran Coup

Summary:

For the first time, a President of the United States has admitted that Cold War policy was less about spreading freedom and more about protecting corporate hegenomy in the face of decolonization.

In an act of conciliation towards Iran, Obama acknowledged that the CIA engineered the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister after he ordered the expropriation of his nation’s oil fields from a British corporation. The United States then installed a brutal dictator who used violence and terror to keep Iran open for business.

Of course this is common knowledge. Obama smartly recognizes that such admissions may lesson the distrust most Iranians have of America.

At root, conciliation is simply another strategy to regain some control over Iran’s vast oil fields (the Iraq method won’t be viable for another decade or so). The minions of neo-liberalism are trying to get a foot in the door. Iran would do well to add another dead-bolt.

[Posted By STOPSTRIPMINING] Link

Do Parents Love Their Kids Equally?

We've often known as kids that our parents play favorites. And while they've constantly denied it, there's always that sibling who is more coddled and showered with fringe benefits.

According to the book No Two Alike, many parents admitted to favoritism:

"In two separate studies, British and American parents of two small children were asked whether they felt more affection for one than the other. More than 50% admitted that they did. The overwhelming majority of these parents - 87% of the mothers and 85% of the fathers in the American study - said they favored the younger child".

Link

Wow. Seventh Level.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Moderate
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

I Love The World

I Need A New Dream

March 13, 2008 | Dear Cary,

My husband and I have been happily married for 11 years. We learned some time ago that fertility might be a challenge, and it has been. We hoped to see our abiding love and commitment writ small in toes, sweet cheeks, milk burps. Instead, we've seen success turn into soul-crushing defeat over and over. Often there are no successes -- there is just more defeat. We are sad and tired.

I keep thinking that being infertile must be a little like being an addict. Early on, when everything still seemed possible, we said to ourselves, things might be bad but I'll never ... I'll never (lie, cheat, steal, turn tricks) have a screen name like "MOMMY2B," or mortgage the house, or ask strangers on the Internet for their interpretation of my menstrual period, or resent the effortlessly fertile, or measure my grief against another's, or buy Ancient Chinese Secrets, or name a baby whose heartbeat you never get to hear. You know, like these other poor bastards. But you go down the road and these are the things on the road. You do things that surprise you, good and bad. You let people down and hate yourself for it. You wonder if you should stop, but can't.

The meds and the tests and the advice and the waiting and the hope and the money slowly took over our life, until nothing else seemed that important. Our circle of friends changed. We become more isolated. People who don't know invariably ask when we're having kids (you guys love kids so much, you should have some!). People who do know look at us with pity. Sometimes they can't look at us at all. I think they fear having to see our naked and writhing heartbreak, or having to consider the many times they complained about their sleepless, colicky nights and envied our freedom.

Many couples like us choose adoption. We could love any child that entered our home. But we will not, cannot, get on a new merry-go-round of waiting and disappointment. We're out of resources in all the ways that matter. Many people won't understand that, given the strength of our desire for a family. But that decision is "right" for us given our circumstances. We made it together and we will live with it the best we can. So the end of the road could really be the end: childlessness.

Our grieving began some time ago. But I did not expect the overwhelming sense of purposelessness I get every time I think about being childless in the end. I believe we are here to live in service. Very few of us have the experience of a saint or a martyr, and give everything. Most of us are simply meant to strive to be vital, happy, grateful, respectful, generous, loving, kind, productive. To give as much as we can as often as we can, but to be basically just ... ordinary. I thought my contribution would be the quiet and humble goodness of that striving, and that we'd offer our community a family raised in that way.

I work hard and am successful professionally. I'm strong. I was lucky enough to have choices, and smart enough to make good ones. My husband and I have accomplished a lot together. We try to live consciously. This isn't about baby fever. We planned for and dreamed of a certain kind of life, knowing it would make us profoundly, contentedly happy -- but it will never happen. I can't think of anything to do next that would be as fulfilling as raising our family. Make more money for corporate America? Get a dog? Travel? Go back to school? That stuff seems reasonable, but only for the short-term. We are regular and enthusiastic volunteers, but sorting cans of food-bank green beans isn't deeply fulfilling compared to, say, the first day of school. Nothing I can think of gives me the peaceful contentment I felt imagining 20 years of family dinners followed by the chance to do it all again as a grandmother. I've come to a blank spot that I can't fill, and it stretches past the horizon.

I know many other people's problems are much worse than ours. We do try to be patient and grateful. Our love for one another has grown, a blessing and comfort. We didn't think we wanted a lot for ourselves, but I guess it was still too much. I don't know if I can get over it. When the life you wanted and sacrificed for is gone before it even starts, what do you do next?

Barren: adj., lacking inspiration or ideas -- Merriam-Webster

Dear Barren,

This is a very moving letter. You have poured your heart out. I feel as though there isn't much I could say that wouldn't sound trite. You have probably heard it all.

So let's say the simple, basic, true thing first: You are suffering.

You are suffering the loss of a dream.

Let's just sit here with you a minute. We don't have answers. We are not gods. We can't change biology.

So what do you do?

I suggest that you grieve seriously and hard, that you dedicate yourself to your grieving and that you make of your grieving a project as robust as your quest for a child.

I suggest that you go on retreat somewhere alone. Take a week or two weeks alone somewhere, a spiritual retreat if you are spiritual or a secular retreat if you are secular, but a retreat that fosters quiet. Rest. Just rest. Rest and do not speak much. Sleep a lot. On the first couple of days just rest and sleep and walk and do not speak much. Eat and read and write in your journal and walk around and sleep and rest and do not watch TV. Do not talk on the telephone or use the Internet. Let your senses come back to you.

Avail yourself of massage and heat, water and sun, herbs and oils and meditation. Heal yourself. Be taken care of.

Take notice of the things around you and their beauty.

Let a new dream come to you.

You need a new dream. That's the thing. You had a dream and perhaps because it did not seem such an outlandish dream you invested everything you had in that dream. So now you're depleted. You're grieving the loss of this dream.

I know you will get through it. I know that. You would get through it regardless. But will you get through it in a gentle, strong and beautiful way, or will you get through it violently, by lashing out, by allowing your hurt to take shape as blame and resentment? That is why it would be a good idea to go away for a week or two and be taken care of.

You must grieve the loss of this dream and prepare for something new. You must find something to look forward to, some joy, some vision of life to sustain you.

A reader sent me a book a few weeks ago called "When Things Fall Apart," by Pema Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist.

Buddists talk about suffering. They say we struggle against the truth and in struggling against the truth we suffer.

The Buddhists say relax, slow down, take notice.

I like the Buddhists! I like their style!

You are facing the truth. You see it. It is right in front of you.

So what do you do? You grieve.

You feel this.

And you wait for a new dream to come to you. It will come. Don't worry. It will come.

By Cary Tennis Original Link HERE.

What Men Wish You Knew About Them -- The Heroes Inside Us by Walter Kirn

This is the great secret. This is the great truth.

We don't particularly value our own existences.

It starts around age 3 and never stops: the process of rehearsing all the ways in which we might gloriously die. We've barely been born when we start mock-perishing. The first time I bit the dues was in an ambush by three or four boys who'd armed themselves with sticks that were either machine guns or swords, I don't remember. Nor do I remember which force of evil I alone was resisting that fateful day when I first fell backward on the grass, clutched my heart, and let out the sight that tells a man's foes that they may have killed his body but they'll never vanquish his spirit. I was five years old, but the whole performance felt instinctive.

Women are enocuraged to give life. Men are encouraged to give it up. The basic scenario, ofcourse, involves standing up to the bad guys on behalf of some innocent person or high ideal. The other basic scenario involves being one of the bad guys - the baddest of all. Either way the ending is the same. We fall, we sight, there's a pause, we get back up, and then the next day we pretend to die again.

We don't always die in combat. That's just one way. Sometimes we die from exposure or starvation while exploring the arctic or trekking through the jungle. Sometimes our rocket ship crashes en route to Mars or our race car hits a wall during the last lap of the Daytona 500. Sometimes the smoke inside the burning house that we've rushed into to rescue the little girl's kitten is just too think and toxic to withstand. And sometimes we die from simple overwork while laboring selflessly to support our loved ones or save the ranch from bankruptcy.

What doesn't change is the satisfaction we take - in our fantasies, that is - at going down fighting with our boots on. What also doesn't change is our suspicion that we might not be mourned as deeply as we imagine or honored for as long as we might hope. That stirs a certain resentment in some men.

Since kindergarden we've been demonstrating our willingness to die at practically any moment for virtually any cause, and the women who will outlive us don't appreciate it. Yes, today we're grouching about the phone bill or failing once again to mow the lawn, but tomorrow we maybe out defending the homeland or pursuing an armed robber down a dark alley. Women shouldn't forget this. What looks like a husband napping on a sofa is really a hero of tomorrow dreaming his own selfless demise.

The least a women can do is let him sleep.

A Waltz for a Night

Top Ten Reasons Why Humans Have Sex

After asking nearly 2,000 people why they’d had sex, two psychologists Cindy Meston and David M. Buss (at University of Texas at Austin) have recently assembled and categorized a total of 237 reasons. Their list is a very thorough, interesting taxonomy of sexual motivations.

Below are the Top 10 :
1. I was “in the heat of the moment.”

2. It just happened.
3. I was bored.
4. It just seemed like “the thing to do.”
5. Someone dared me.
6. I desired emotional closeness (i.e., intimacy).
7. I wanted to feel closer to God.
8. I wanted to gain acceptance from friends.
9. It’s exciting, adventurous.
10. I wanted to make up after a fight.



I am glad to point out that "I wanted to have a child" is the reason No. 27.

Hmm..

Conversation With A Stone

- by Wislawa Szymborska

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you."

"Go away," says the stone.
"I'm shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we'll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won't let you in."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I've come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don't have much time.
My mortality should touch you."

"I'm made of stone," says the stone,
"and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don't have the muscles to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I hear you have great empty halls inside you,
unseen, their beauty in vain,
soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.
Admit you don't know them well yourself."

"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone,
"but there isn't any room.
Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste
of your poor senses.
You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through.
My whole surface is turned toward you,
all my insides turned away."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I don't seek refuge for eternity.
I'm not unhappy.
I'm not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe."

"You shall not enter," says the stone.
"You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.
Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be,
only its seed, imagination."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I haven't got two thousand centuries,
so let me come under your roof."

"If you don't believe me," says the stone,
"just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.
Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.
I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,
although I don't know how to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in."

"I don't have a door," says the stone.

Like this poem? Try Failing And Flying by Jack Gilbert

Internet Porn Statistics

Where All Street Signs Go To Rest

for jei who loves to take photos of them. ^_^
















Original link here.

Fantastic Tiger Diving Pics

Original Link here.

There Is NO Mystery to Happiness

There is NO mystery to happiness.

Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn – or worse, indifference – cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn’t look ahead. He lives in the present.

But there’s the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning – the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life – a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.

EXCERPT FROM: INTERPRETATION OF MURDER BY JED RUBENFELD

Father and Daughter

8 Rules For Writing A Short Story by Kurt Vonnegut

On pages 9 and 10 of his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading
   characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the
   reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as
   possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could
   finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

- By Lev Grossman, Original Article Here.

The proper length for an obituary for Kurt Vonnegut is three words: "So it goes." This one will do what Vonnegut never did, which is go on too long.

"So it goes" is a phrase from Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade. It's an expression the Tralfamadorians — a race of four-dimensional aliens — repeat whenever somebody or something dies. It expresses a certain airy resignation about the inevitability of death. Vonnegut — who died Wednesday night at the age of 84 from injuries suffered in a fall — had the Tralfamadorian attitude. "I've been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I was 12 or 14," he told Rolling Stone last year. "So I'm going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do you know why? Because I'm 83 years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me."

Vonnegut was born Indianapolis in 1922, the son of an architect. His early life shows the kind of aimless lateral peregrinations of someone who was in the process of inventing a kind of person that hadn't really existed before. He put in a mediocre stint at Cornell before enlisting in the army in 1942, in the teeth of World War II. Shortly afterward — and within a year of each other — two events occurred that would prove to be formative for Vonnegut. In 1944, on Mother's Day, he came home on leave to discover that his mother, an unsuccessful writer, had committed suicide with sleeping pills. In December of that same year Vonnegut was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and sent to Dresden as a prisoner of war. On February 13, 1945 Dresden was leveled in a massive Allied bombing assault so intense it created an enormously destructive firestorm. Well over 130,000 people died. Vonnegut survived by hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse.

Perhaps because he began his writing career fully disillusioned, Vonnegut's view of the world changed very little over his five decades as an author. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952 and set in a spiritually empty, hyper-mechanized future dystopia. (Vonnegut mixed literature with science fiction long before it was cool.) His most famous novel — his personal favorite, and the one that deals with most directly with the Dresden disaster — is Slaughterhouse-Five, the story of one Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes "unstuck in time": Billy experiences the events of his life in random order, including his own birth and his own death. Understandably, this imbues him with a weird, almost redemptive fatalism, which is echoed by the narrator, who is Vonnegut himself. "There would always be wars," he writes, "they were as easy to stop as glaciers... And even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death."

Vonnegut's sincerity, his willingness to scoff at received wisdom, is such that reading his work for the first time gives one the sense that everything else is rank hypocrisy. His opinion of human nature was low, and that low opinion applied to his heroes and his villains alike — he was endlessly disappointed in humanity and in himself, and he expressed that disappointment in a mixture of tar-black humor and deep despair. He could easily have become a crank, but he was too smart; he could have become a cynic, but there was something tender in his nature that he could never quite suppress; he could have become a bore, but even at his most despairing he had an endless willingness to entertain his readers: with drawings, jokes, sex, bizarre plot twists, science fiction, whatever it took.

Vonnegut struggled with silence and depression — including a suicide attempt in 1984 — but in all he managed to publish 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays and five works of non-fiction. His last book, Man Without a Country, a collection of essays published in 2005, was a surprise best-seller.

Although he died a literary celebrity, lionized by the culture of which he was so unsparing, Vonnegut was always drawn to outcasts and failures in his writing: criminals, the deformed, the exiled, the damaged, the insane, anyone who no longer had a stake in repeating society's familiar lies. The cast of Cat's Cradle includes one of those outcasts, a midget to whom Vonnegut gave the title speech:

"No wonder kids grow up crazy," the midget says. "A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."

"And?"

"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."

RAPISTS: Come and Get It.

Rape-Stopper's Razor-Sharp Bite

Scumbags of South Africa, you have been warned. Later this month, women there "will be able to arm their vaginas with the Rapex device, a product priced at 1 rand (around 14 cents) and sold over the counter," the Guardian reports. "Shaped like a female condom and worn internally, its hollow interior is lined with 25 razor-sharp teeth, which fasten on to an attacker's penis if he attempts penetration."

Some people - including women's campaigners - have criticised the device for being "vengeful". Well, as its inventor, Sonette Ehlers, has said, it's "a medieval device for a medieval deed". If any rapist finds himself hopping with pain as a result - as well as facing the fact that the only way to remove the device is said to be a highly awkward and incriminating hospital visit - that seems just fine to me. Yes, it's vengeful. Yes, it hurts rapists. Oh well.

The device is "inserted with an applicator like a tampon, and removed with the same applicator," according to the Rapex. It can stay in for up to 24 hours. And it will be "available in various sizes... small, medium and large."

When should it be worn? "If you have to travel long distances alone, on a train, working late, going out on a date with someone you don’t know too well, going to clubs, or in any situation that you might not feel comfortable or even just not sure."

"The myth of the vagina dentata - vagina with teeth - has proved strangely compelling down the centuries, " the Guardian adds, "but who would have thought it would become real?"

Source:  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/04/rapestoppers_ra/  

Audrey Kawazaki

Komorebi

Oil on wood 15x11
2007

More: Audrey Kawasaki

Calculus Batman

Anil Gupta Arm Tattoo

This is what I'm getting if I get the needle. The great Anil Gupta.

School Lawn

From a display at Reed College, Portland, OR. Each white flag
represents six dead Iraqis since the beginning of the war, and each red
flag represents a dead US serviceman. Statistics come from the Lancet
survey of Iraqi mortality since 2003, published October 2006

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell

- By Gwendolyn Brooks, 1945

I hold my honey and store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can give me word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

Clark Kent

I studied in a catholic school. As such we would have fridays when the teachers and nuns go off to a one-hour, half day or even one day retreat of prayer and communion depending on the time of day or which saint's canonization was to be celebrated.

I was never nominated before until one day, together with a fellow classmate, I was asked to mind a roomful of kindergarden kids for two hours or so. I was in grade six; I was age ten.

And so it went, the horrors of child rearing, in which were were given a glimpse of the martyrdom of motherhood. Exhausting. The fidgety were frisky, the drama queens were emoting, the action heroes went leaping amongst tables and chairs with the tarzans.

Except for this little boy who was doing his darnedest to be good. Sat on the chair: behaved when told, crayon-scrawled when papered, and gave me far too many glances of where-is-she? and am-i-doing-it-right?

This boy gave the impression of a young Clark Kent. Quite handsome, actually. Headful of black hair swept at the forehead, quite tall or, possibly, he just stood erect unlike his helplessly springy compatriots. His was quiet dignity amidst the exploding enthusiasm all around. And I surprised myself because he moved precisely - I half expected him to fumble and bump into things. He also had an innate sense to lead, he stood in front of the line when we finally had to corral the group to wash hands for snacktime.

Inevitably, our duty was done and my friend and I thankfully welcomed the end of our misadventure. As I was about to leave, Clark Kent ran up to me and frantically tugged my uniform skirt.

What's the matter? I said, kneeling to him at eye level. His face was just too serious.

I love you. He said.

I laughed and hugged him and said goodbye. I never saw him again.

Each Individual Counts

Rich and Poor

I got this over at EarPhone's site. It was too good to pass off.

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people can be. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"
"It was great, Dad."
"Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked.
"Oh Yeah" said the son.
"So what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.
The son answered, "I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."
With this the boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added, "Thanks dad for showing me how poor we are."

Moody Hanging On - Thank You People

Bunch of people came and went recently. Crashed in during the holidays and made it merry. Now I'm flopping around with a hole in my insides. I've hung "Gone Fishing" signs in my other sites and I'm a little strung out having to take it off. I'm verging on sappy but don't you worry - we've got that under control.

Paperlilies said a lot of things about being thankful for having an online community of friends. She probably will say it better in many ways than I ever could. She said it exactly as I've wanted to from 1:00 to about 3:00 minutes into her video clip.

If you never get around to watching it, the nutshell of it all is that: I really appreciate all the traffic and the people who've come around and hung around this site. There is a special thank you to people who matter more than expressed, and you guys know who you are. I've said it before and let me say it again:

Thanks for dropping by and giving me a read. It's really humbling that people give me notice. Google Analytics tell me I get about 200 pageviews and 80 visits a week - there are a lot of silent readers out there. I'm still trying to find my voice and couldn't make up my mind what sort of dignity or lack thereof should be presented. That said, your comments (even silent ones) are appreciated. Do come back soon. Have a great year ahead.

Thank You For the Warm Memories

Momofuku Ando died last January 6th. He was the inventor of the cup noodle and the founder of Nissin. If you don't know what I'm talking about, shame on you and I pity your probably stale gastronomic life.

Let me just say that his invention brought tremendous joy into my life. The Pure Magic in the styrofoam cup with a foil lid has been a permanent prop in the background (and sometimes foreground) of my life. There are only two warm things about me -- coffee, and this. The rest of me is made up of doritos. (Some people might claim motor oil and battery fluid better describes my composition and they maybe right).

Reading about Momofuku's life and longevity has also given me tremendous hope and courage. I have long been plagued by misguided detractors and miscreant spammers who do not believe monosodium glutamate is the ultimate super nutrient. IN YOUR FACE YOU FOOLS!

And so, Mr. Ando, thank you for making my life instant and beautiful. Rest in peace, O Great and Noble One.

New Year's Resolution

Out with the old my friends.

Happy Holidays and Please Grow A Brain

The Follow

An old favorite. Distance. Patterns. Anticipation.

Value of A Penny

There was a water fountain outside the dimsum joint. Out of amusement, I gave Dylan, my 3 year old, a penny. "Here. Go and make a wish." I said.

He took the penny and looked at me like Christmas day. His eyes were dancing with glee. His smile: pure happiness. He took his time staring

at all the pennies at the bottom of the pool while grasping the possibilities of his own. He even closed his eyes momentarily before throwing the penny with resolve and abandon.

Later in the car, I asked what he wished for. He screamed "A dinosaur!!" and laughed maniacally.

These days, he scouts for pennies around the house. When he does, he would holler "I found a wish! I found a wish!!"