Too Many Puppies

Geez, I made too many and started so many projects over the years.

Really nuts going through this blog stuff. 

Easily my biggest post is Kira’s Kingdom.

Starting doing minor podcasting with a voice recorder and discovered a nice little resource for my fellow Web creators to brush up on:

Digital Media Law Project: Fair Use

(URL: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/fair-use)

Also have this always saved and ready to go now…

THIS PODCAST DOES NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF YOUTUBE, GOOGLE OR RESPECTIVE PARTNERSHIPS. THIS CONTENT IS USED IN THE FULL SPIRIT OF THE FAIR USE POLICIES AND PRACTICES.

 

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“Perhaps You Will Believe” (Mark Twain)

“Perhaps you will believe with me that civilizations are not realities, but only dreams.”          

                                                                             – Mark Twain

 

Arthur C. Clarke: A Tribute to Genius

Arthur C. Clarke was a genius science fiction author.

I am in love with a certain short story of his found squeezed next to one I am far less fond of, but is still an excellent read.

“The City and The Stars” & “The Sands of Mars” are two different short stories contained in one novel.

From FantasicFiction.com:

THE CITY AND THE STARS The 10-billion-year-old metropolis of Diaspar is humanity’s last home. Alone among immortals, the only man born in 10 million years desperately wants to find what lies beyond the City. His quest will uncover the destiny of a people…and a galaxy.

“Diaspar” is, in itself, a commentary on all society.

The entire body of this short story is like a large running commentary on the arrogance of humanity, and it’s immense value as well.

This place is like a real city in my mind.

One possible outcome of all human civilization. One of many possible worlds.

A place of stagnation via perfection. Tyranny via acceptance.

A world where truly original thoughts and adventuring spirits are not just silenced, but wholly absent.

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For those who dive deeply into his work, there is much to discover.

Not only did he accurately predict advances in science by means of science fiction, but I believe he held an insight to the greater elements at play in our world:

The Human Condition

The Foundations of Society

The Collective Self

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Video Links:

“Sir Arthur Clarke: 90th Birthday“

“Clarke’s Mysterious World (pt. 1)“

“Clarke’s Mysterious World (pt. 2)“

“Clarke’s Mysterious World (pt. 3)“

If Women Ruled the World…

“’Women’s Liberation’ Aims to Free Men, Too”

 Gloria Steinem, The Washington Post, June 7^th, 1970

“Simply Incorruptible”

“ONE FINAL myth that women are more moral than men. We are not more moral; we are only uncorrupted by power. But until the old generation of male chauvinists is out of office women in positions of power can increase our chances of peace a great deal.”

“I personally would rather have had Margaret Mead as President during the past six years of Vietnam than either Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. At least she wouldn’t have had her masculinity to prove. Much of the trouble this country is in has to do with the masculine mystique: The idea that manhood somehow depends on the subjugation of other people. It’s a bipartisan problem.”

***

I do not fully subscribe to Steinem’s logic that women are uncorrupted by power. I believe absolute power corrupts absolutely, with no exceptions. However, it may very well be true in the time the words were first spoken that if the so dubbed ‘masculine mystique’ were removed from the scenario that many atrocities committed in Vietnam might have been averted.

The greater issue, in my mind, is always resources and the means of production. Such matters supersede the confines of gender and gender roles. I am, however, quite willing to commit to the idea that if only women were allowed to hold administrative offices that there would indeed be far less warfare in the world as a whole.

Ultimately, there would be no end to wars and subjugation of one over the other. I envision a world of more practical wars and even more decisive moves than those we see in leaders both of the past and today. The War Machine would continue, but take a form it has known before. A much more humble machine.

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Gloria Steinem is a free-lance writer and a contributing editor of New York Magazine. The accompanying article [above quote] is excerpted from a commencement address at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Miss Steinem says that it “was prepared with great misgivings about it’s reception, and about the purpose of speaking at Vassar.”

 

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/aims/

YOU’RE A SMARTY-PANTS!

 

I am just that. A nerdy, geeky, smarty guy.

To look at me, I just walked out of the woods after a week, or just caught a groovy wave or some such.

I want to try to interject some amount of humor into this blog I have here.

It is a vital part of what I am as a person.

But I have this damn brain that won’t shut off. Let me tell you this:

I believe everyone is much more intelligent than they would ever really believe.

I think 99.99% of people, including myself, sells themselves short in terms of their own mental capacities.

I try not to boast but I try in the fields of English Literature, Social Science, Statistics, Psychology, Genetics, and modern-American Civics.

I find, personally, that I have a strong affinity toward “stupid” and that most likely influences me in every fashion, no matter how much science and mathematics I absorb.

My worst subject without question is mathematics. Math is raw and disciplined in a way that all other mentioned fields are not, as far I find it. I cannot “blur the line” or do a quick look at someone else’s work routine. I can grasp it in theory, in lecture, but it has always been another matter recreating these mental efforts after NOT DOING MY HOMEWORK.

I’ll write you an essay about why I didn’t do my math homework. And post it to every social networking site and blog search engine so you you do is type “Not Doing My Math Homework” into any useful search-agent. Viola!

I believe we all different capacities and abilities, many of which we are wholly unaware of. I’ve always said if you locked me in a room all I would do is write like a madman so it could be worse.

I have actually had long, personal conservations with convicted felons and I like to pause and say: 

Do everything you can to not get mixed up with the law, just follow the laws that keep you always from a life as any form of felony acts.

I’m a “vidiot” and an obsessive blogger. I can see all this.

Does anybody care to discuss Freudian vs. Jungian Psychology?

I’m a “Junganyte” … we all but one mind but reflecting into and upon one another. Your turn.

So I am a debater and a pusher of thoughts and opinions. When did this become anything but the very nature of the nation I was born to? The United States of America.

Not “The Divided States of America.”

That’s why I’m angry.

Angry at business leaders and a lack of massive resignations across the board in government as well.

This blog is, and always will be, just a format of voice–nothing more and nothing less.

So says the smarty-pants!

 

 

Eric Lightborn

http://americapress.wordpress.com

March 19th 2009