[date Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 9:34 PM]
PN:
The escape velocity required by a body at the surface of the earth is approximately 18,000 mph. That would launch you into space with no additional energy input required.
Retirement is akin to incremental velocity gain. I have threatened to go to metric just to keep up – you know, 36 hour dayez. Whatever did I do when I had a job?
The question be……… have I any hope of reaching escape velocity?
I laughed heartily (ho ho ho) this morning: looking around my house, around my yard, around my shop; there are a thousand chores and projects to complete, to revise, and to start. My internal voice (don’t give me that b.s. – you know you’ve got one) is scolding me. Get moving! Time is running away! Be productive! You will be sorry……….
I turn the music up louder. It is Sunday, after all.
I have been asking people one question for years – what do you consider your most valuable asset?
The proffered answers range prolific: all things physical and metaphysical, save one. I disagree with all but that specific metaphysic: time.
What possible benefit from education, or position, or monetary wealth, or family, or fame, or ??? can you reap if you run out of
The Church of Reason is my top chapeau of chapels. Here are principles with which most can agree:
http://www.churchofreason.org/pri.htm
Furthermore, the four corners of doctrine are –
I WILL SEEK TO KNOW;
Evasion is man’s worst enemy.
I AFFIRM THAT REASON IS THE ONLY MEANS TO KNOWLEDGE;
Faith, revelation and emotion are not tools of cognition.
I WILL ATTEMPT TO ACT ON THE BASIS OF KNOWLEDGE;
Action from ignorance forfeits control of life.
I WILL NOT INITIATE FORCE OR FRAUD;
My right to life depends on my recognition of the same right in others.Aren’t words the most precious construct ever ever? Amen.
One more pompous statement to make, this time about older times and the language that was used. I’m talking about the Queen’s English here, not those sing-song, guttural, or grunty-whistley-yodelly heathen languages…… If you are not familiar with “The Areopagitica”, it is one of the first and most famous defenses of free speech written in our language. John Milton wrote it to sway parliamentary opinion (apparently not public opinion) in the year 1644. Here is a link to the complete text:
http://www.bartleby.com/3/3/2.html
If you actually looked at the above web page, you will realize that John Milton had a lawyer’s mind (and a poet’s heart). Here is a link to a page which breaks down the Areopagitica so mere mortals can get a clue, too (sorta like Reader’s Digesting):
http://www.stlawrenceinstitute.org/vol14mit.html
Here’s a quote from the above –
On the importance of even wrong ideasGood and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil.
My question is, if John Milton played hockey, could anyone check his stick handling? Methinks nay nay.
On to more mundaine-ery…..
The weather is unseasonably warm(ish) and clear. Light breeze. Play outdoors would be healthy, but an expenditure of hard-earned energy (British thermal units, please). In opposition to my “World Dominance Stance”, whereby I take over the world one pound (kg.’s are for sissies) at a time. Let’s exercise my ultimate wealth – I’ll do what I damn well please today! Any suggestions?
Turning to the computer and the Internet seems a plausible partial solution. Electronic banking, shopping, studying, entertainment, saves the physical requirement to leave the house.
However, there are always unintended consequences to any action(s). Be fore-armed to deflect those unexpected outcomes is the foundation of today’s (Internet fed) rant. Some examples to type below –
An open letter apology to the “99%” by a fellow named John Cheese. Well worth the read:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/
I’m with Clint re: involuntary response to OWS provocation –
A flawed analysis by government of what defines poverty is the subject of the following article:
Although the article’s facts and figures are American statistics, my belief is that there are extremely strong parallels to Canadian culture, and statistics (if only they were commonly accessible). Here’s a poignant quote –
……”Yet an even greater issue contributing to poverty is the high rate of babies born to single mothers. The out-of-wedlock birthrate was below 10 percent in the 1960s, when the government’s War on Poverty began; today four out of ten births are to unmarried mothers.
Children born into single-mother homes are nearly six times as likely to be poor as those born into families with married parents. Fully 80 percent of all long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes.
Tragically, the Americans most likely to be poor already — those with a high-school diploma or less — are also most likely to have a child outside marriage. The soaring out-of-wedlock birthrate is creating a divided society, split down the lines of marriage and education.”……
Very sobering statements. Very sobering statistics. The cultural response is very un-sober, un-civilized, and un-educated. Did I mention un-moral? There you go…..
Too much Internet! Overload! Don’t try this at home….
And the ultimate Canadian misplaced sense of what is right and just –
Red sky again at sunset. Could there possibly be ANOTHER excellent weather day ahead?
Be still my beating heart…..
Count me in!
Joe (Barkis is Willin’) Mekanic
p.s. Ramirez excellence in every caricature! (Pardon any repeats)
