Parents and Children

An unfortunate habit I have noticed increasingly of late:

Parents "ordering" their children. "Do this! Do that!" And unfortunately less often "Don't do that!

And the fiat is accompanied (almost always) with a tone of voice that indicates "or else", with an implied threat of some sort of retribution. Of course on rare occasions, the threat is actually expressed verbally. And sometimes the threat is in the form of "or you won't get that" (ie deprivation of a toy, or treat, or whatever).

Then there is the dreaded "One....Two....Three." Followed by discipline in some fashion.

(Although this seems to be undertaken mostly by females, it may be that my observations are skewed.)

Coercion of children. Usually by the lower socio-economic classes. (I cannot think of a better descriptor at the moment)

I sometimes wonder how the adults engaging in this behavior would react if it was practiced on them, by other family members, at work, or even by outsiders. Rebellion? Violence?

Hmm.

A quote from Dawkins, R.

Natural selection weeds out the misfits, leaving, besides the fittest, a lot of mediocre individuals...these mediocre individuals put the populations of all species at some degree of risk.

I am currently pondering the evolutionary purpose of mediocrity.
Aside from adding quantity to the gene pool, with the increased probability of extraordinary ability in a random individual, I can see only one other purpose: to provide for the maintenance of the group so as to allow the extraordinary to be even more successful. But what mechanism can do this? (We must not ascribe intent.)

When an accident is waiting to happen, it eventually does.

OR another way of putting it, when ot comes to "moral hazard" and other risks:

...resembles a nap on a railway track. One afternoon, the surprise train will run you over."
(with credit to Taleb)

Quote from Steve Sondheim

"...mistake pretention for depth and incompetence for talent."

Oh, I love that. I have seen it so many times in "art galleries" in so many places. Fashion takes the place of style, and bafflegab in place of knowledge.
Of course art (to include music, of course) has "periods" and "styles" aka trends. But it is sadly true that these are often fueled by "artistes" (with a bow to my one-time teacher Fred Zimmerman) who now how to spin a yarn, but would not recognize true talent if it bit them. And of course, the cognoscenti swallow it all, as they should any good bit of marketing.
The most destructive aspect of this has to do with serial music, aka twelve-tone, aka serial dodecaphony. The promotion of this created the great divide of classical and pop music, to the detriment of both audiences.
This attitude still has currency, when classical critics decry the "sell-out" out artists to any element of popular taste.
What we need is the artistic equivalent of the reign of terror - eliminate all the snobs and elitists in one fell swoop, as it were.
And yes, I am aware that I have been referred to as an elitist.

Common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age 18.
(attributed to Albert Einstein)

Islamism as explained by ...

"The Koran and the Mussalman legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and thnography of the various people to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faithful and those of the Infidels.
Islamism proscribes the nation of the Infidels constituting a state of permanent hostility between the Mussalman and the Unbeliever.

This, from 1854; the author - Karl Marx!

More Aphorismatic contributions

Borrowed wisdom can be vicious.

It is foolish to think that someone irrational cannot become more irrational.

Richard Dawkins and Eddie Fisher

A concatenation, not a conflation.
On the sidebar, one may note that I just read the Dawkins book. Interesting. He finds a lot of inductive evidence concerning evolution. I find it a little tedious.
The evolution/creation argument aside, it is perhaps instructive that he points out that if the case were to be decided in a court of law, the decision could be easily made beyond any reasonable doubt. Interesting point.
In other news, Eddie Fisher is gone, deceased,extinct.
Too bad. A genuinely nice guy, and a decent singer too. Very easy to work with.
A little tale: when Eddie performed at the Top Hat Supper Club in Windsor Ontario Canada (I was the bandleader there at the time) he was in the habit of talking to the audience in the middle of the show - reminiscences and personal stories. I always thought it pleasant, and the audience seemed to like it. But the owner, Mike Drakich, would stand in the back of the room and half-grumble/half-yell "Don't talk Eddie; SING."

Ho Ho. Bah.

Well, the trees have started turning colors again "with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season".* That means winter is on the way, and the days are getting shorter. Rats. I still have a ton of work to do on the houise outside.
Ah well, next year.

Aphora 2

Faith without reason becomes bigotry.
Reason without faith becomes sterile.

Aphora

Intellectual contempt does not control personal envy.

And another - the hits keep coming.

The Optimist says this is the best of all possible worlds.
The Pessimist is afraid it's true.

Another aphorism (not amphora-ism)

This is one I have personally struggled with forever:

Logic and reason can win arguments and alienate multitudes.

Lots of Reading - some worthwhile.

As said, I have been reading too much.
Probably something to do with having low iron, low energy, and high interest and neural activity despite the aforementioned.

So I tend to "distill" little knowledge-bytes. Worthy of contemplation or remembrance.

Just a few for the nonce:

Wars fought in the name of absolute beliefs are hard to settle by negotiation.
We are never as wise as we should be, nor as wise as we could be.
Humanity cannot bear too much reality.

Rabbits - aggressive little suckers!

Well, on one of my early jaunts, I saw a rabbit. (actually several).
Much to ym suirprise, it was chasing a couple of blackbirds away. I don't know whether it was a feeding area, or something "rabbity" that I did not see, but this particular rabbit was very intent not ridding a 1-meter square patch of grass of these blackbirds!

Depth perception - hmphf.

It seems I have a slight scarring smakc in the middle of the visual field in my right eye.
Rats! Well, no, rats had nothing to do with it. In fact, I have no idea how it happened, and the opthalmologist was also unhelpful. Anyway...
The scarring means that my visual field is "bent" in the middle; my mind sees the scarring as a curvature in the actual visual field, and straight lines appear "humped" for about 10 degrees of angle right in the centre.
Cute.
Except that my left eye is fine, so there is a discrepancy. Very annoying.
And it has two interesting side effects: first, I am developing a tendency to more dominance in my left eye; second, my depth perception is affected.
And that is QUITE ANNOYING.
As an aside, I think it has actually helped my pistol shooting! Go figure!

Did I defeat Darwin?

Well, this morning, on my way to grab a coffee (yes, it's a ways off, and I walk), I encountered a turtle. Big son-of-a-gun, too. But the middle of the road is not a healthy place for turtles. Sooo, I scooped it up, and off we went to the Bay. After being a little hesitant, it paddled away into the shallow water and disappeared.
Did I just defeat the "fittest" concept by rescuing it from vehicular homicide?

BTW - saw a rather largish snake down by the water also, but it did NOT buzz at me, so I think I'm good.

Overheard:

"I got about halfway to halfway being there."

Susan Perch/Pertsch/Petsch/Persch - Beware!

If you have a small baby, be very careful. Do NOT put the child on a school bus and be an "absent" mother. I mean no disrespect, but the baby may not survive.
(From a dream, January 2010)

3 Kinds of People - or is it 4?

I have heard many times that there are three kinds of people - those that talk about people, those that talk about things, and those that talk about ideas.
A useful taxonomy, but it leaves out the lowest rung of the ladder:
Those who talk only about themselves!
I hear a lot of that here in Beeville.

The Canadian Arctic - Geo-political Strategy

The best short, concise statement about the issues is contained in pp. 75-86 in Cleo Paskal's book (listed at the left). (I find it interesting that Paskal is English, not Canadian.)
I would heartily suggest that ALL Canadian Politicians should read this

Books to read

The latest, and sometimes the best, explication of the geo-poltical aspects of global weather-change, and how it change things: Cleo Paskal's book has its excellent moments.
The section on the Arctic, especially related to Canadian concerns and strategy (or lack thereof) pp. 75-86 is especially distressing reading.
Do it.

An Irish curse...

Got this one via LAWDOG:

"May the cat eat you, and the devil eat the cat."

OHO - I like it!

Ides of March

Hah. Well, Caesar is dead; so is "Little Caesar". And guess what...

Spring must be here.

Thsi morning, I saw a motorcycle with a sidecar at Timmy's.
And down by the Bay, the blackbirds were buzzing and the geese were honking.
In fact, I saw 5 flights of geese myself in a little over 30 minutes. Two of these flights were at least 1/2 mile in length (judging from an estimate of the distance and the angle subtended). I hesitate to guess how many birds that represents, but it's a few. They were all headed ENE, generally following the North shore of Lake Ontario, and headed toward the Ottawa Valley, I presume.
I heard, but could not see, several other groups; too distant to tell how large, but if I heard them, they were BIG.

What does this portend?

Well, for starters, Bismuth shot and a goose-gun. Need to practice feeding the family.