Arthur C. Clarke once said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” An example of this came to me while watching Mission To Mars for the 3rd or 4th time the other day. Once again, I was struck by the awesomeness of it’s closing sequence.
I don’t care how “highly evolved” a person thinks he is, an encounter with beings that had supposedly caused our species to come into existence would have to be like encountering the Gods themselves. Talk about restoring your sense of humility!
While I haven’t exactly encountered any “Gods” lately, I have had a recent “humbling experience” that inspired me to write this article. I received an e-mail from a friend a while back describing an historic “close encounter” with the planet Mars that the Earth is supposedly about to have. I don’t recall what it was that reminded me of it, but I decided to look at it again so that I could mark my calendar. After all, who would want to miss such an historic event?
And that’s were I very nearly put my proverbial foot in my mouth – big time. I was so impressed with the images included in the e-mail, that it seemed as if I had found precisely the kind of “golden nugget” an astronomy geek “wannabe” like me should create a blog post around. So, with gleeful abandon, I rushed to get it published…
You know, I can’t really say what it was that inspired me to do the google search, although I tell myself it was to see if there were more interesting aspects to the story that I could have included. But the results of the search revealed “interesting aspects to the story” far beyond my expectations.
Apparently, this “hoax” e-mail gets updated and put back into circulation every year or so, just for the purpose of humiliating dumb-assed would be astronomy “know it alls” who fall for it. Imagine me screaming at my old hunk-o-junk to “Hurry up you slow piece of %&#$!” as I scrambled to delete the post from this blog.
I know my that friend had no knowledge of the illegitimate nature of the e-mail, but after all, the many “provocative” statements I’ve made here has already put my credibility on what some consider “shaky” ground.
While this forwarded e-mail contains some pretty good humor, the content demands that it be placed in my Heroes Hall of Fame. Amidst all of the turmoil in the struggle for liberty going on in Iran and other places around the world, this e-mail serves as a reminder that we still have many of our own people up to their necks in the struggle too – overseas and at home.
The people ahead of me in the chain included some nice quotes before sending it to the next link. I’ve added my own in last-comes-first order.
“He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.” – Thomas Paine
“Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” – Unknown
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby
“We cannot all do great things in life, but we can all do small things with great Love.” – Mother Teresa
WHEN A SOLDIER COMES HOME
This email is being circulated around the world – please keep it going.
When a soldier comes home, he finds it hard…
…to listen to his son whine about being bored.
…to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes.
…to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.
…to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night’s sleep.
…to be silent when people pray to God for a new car.
…to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.
…to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.
…to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they’re afraid to send their kids off to summer camp.
…to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.
…to control his frustration when a colleague gripes about his coffee being cold.
…to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.
…to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.
…to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.
…to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.
The only thing harder than being a Soldier…
…is loving and worrying about one.
I was asked to pass this on and I will gladly do so,
In today’s jargon, Thomas Paine would be called a right-wing hawk by those who disliked him for advocating revolution in France and later in America, and would be called a left-wing rabble-rouser by those who disliked his stances against slavery and organized religion, not to mention his advocacy of a social contract. Yet this country was founded upon the ideals of freedom from tyranny and oppression, and Thomas Paine was truly one of The United States Of America’s greatest founding fathers. It is an absolute travesty that we only hear about him these days when some politician borrows one of his powerful quotes to further his own political ambitions.
The intro on the Thomas Paine page of ushistory.org says:
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
This simple quotation from Founding Father Thomas Paine’s The Crisis not only describes the beginnings of the American Revolution, but also the life of Paine himself. Throughout most of his life, his writings inspired passion, but also brought him great criticism. He communicated the ideas of the Revolution to common farmers as easily as to intellectuals, creating prose that stirred the hearts of the fledgling United States. He had a grand vision for society: he was staunchly anti-slavery, and he was one of the first to advocate a world peace organization and social security for the poor and elderly. But his radical views on religion would destroy his success, and by the end of his life, only a handful of people attended his funeral.
By the time Paine came under the tutelage of Benjamin Franklin in 1774, he had failed at just about everything he tried, with the one exception being the publication of The Case of the Officers of Excise in 1772, where he wisely argued for a pay raise for tax collection officers. But with the publication of Common Sense in 1776, in which he made a most persuasive argument for American Independence from England, and then The Crisis series of pamphlets from 1776-1783 to help inspire the Army, Thomas Paine became one of the most important figures of his time. According to ushistory.org, The Crisis series “as a percentage of the population … was read by or read to more people than today watch the Super Bowl.”
After returning to Europe and pursuing other ventures, including work on a smokeless candle and an iron bridge, he wrote The Rights of Man in 1791 and 1792 in defense of the French Revolution. This caused him to become an outlaw in England and to flee to France to avoid arrest. He was then imprisoned in France by 1793 for speaking against the execution of Louis XVI. He used his time in prison (1794-1796) to write and distribute the first part of The Age of Reason, in which he railed against organized religion. He narrowly escaped execution and was freed in 1794 thanks to the efforts of U.S. Minister to France James Monroe. He returned to America on an invitation from Thomas Jefferson in 1802, only to discover that his contributions to the American Revolution had been all but dismissed because of his religious views.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right – Thomas Paine
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them – Thomas Paine
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion – Thomas Paine
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself – Thomas Paine
To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not – Thomas Paine
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one – Thomas Paine
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately – Thomas Paine
I have chosen to include Thomas Paine in my Heroes Hall of Fame because, of all the founding fathers, the views he expressed in his writing most closely resemble my own. I fear that we, as a nation, have forgotten him at our own peril.
As someone who has frequently railed against concepts like “God” in this blog, my choice of Joan of Arcadia for admission to my Heroes hall of fame will probably come as a surprise to many. Well, it’s like this: you don’t get to choose the source from which beautiful inspiration comes.
Like a powerfully deep and frequently humorous admixture of the mythology’s of Joan of Arc and Job, the character Joan Girardi suffers through more than the usual teenage high school misadventures while attempting to accomplish the missions she is sent on by a God that simply refuses to be ignored – and who just happens to appear to her in the guise of whatever incidental person she can be seen talking to without drawing the attention to her plight that she so desperately craves. All of the characters are soul-deep and brilliantly played.
And best of all, the fabulous assortment of God characters are stunning for both their “un-Godly” appearance and for their wonderfully insightful dialog. I tried, but was unable, to get an actual count of the many incarnations of God that appeared in the show. Trust me, there were quite a few!
When, in perhaps the most series-explanatory episode, Secret Service, principal Price discovers Joan holding an empty egg carton near his freshly egged car, he wrongly assumes she’s the culprit and punishes her with a weekend of community service. She can’t, of course, tell him that it was God as Goth Kid that suggested that she should help clean up to prevent anyone from getting hurt. With no more direction from God than to “rise above the injustice,” Joan tries to figure out if she’s meant to help a former girlfriend of her brother Kevin, a bitter former nun named Lilly who is overseeing the service project, or one of the social outcasts who are there serving as a result of their own offenses.
er reluctance to have sex with her boyfriend, Adam, is driving a wedge between them. Adam is afraid that his sexual interest in Joan has driven a wedge between himself and his art teacher, Joan’s mother. Joan’s mother is questioning her value as an art teacher after having had her department’s budget cut by the evil principal Price. Kevin, Joan’s wheelchair-bound bother, has withdrawn from any hope of a meaningful love-life after his breakup with the aforementioned Lilly. And Luke, Joan’s ultra-nerd brother, is devastated at not having won a much-coveted science geek award.
After all is said and done… Luke learns that the true reward for his efforts comes from the work itself when he meets another great but unrecognized mental giant while filling in for Joan at the bookstore. His girlfriend even takes him to the restaurant that he would have been taken to had he won the award. When Adam visits Joan at the community service center in an attempt to apologize for having lied to her in order to give himself space to think, he meets Bonnie, a troubled but talented young artist that helps to restore some meaning to both his and Joan’s mother’s life after he introduces the two and the girl is invited into their art class. And Kevin is reunited with Lilly when she runs into Kevin’s car while driving Joan home. Kevin’s brakes had failed because their father insisted that he could “fix” them, and Lilly broke the ice by wise-cracking “Whatcha bitchin’ about? You’re already crippled!”
Having no awareness of all the good that has resulted from her “weekend in purgatory” – or of the impending trouble caused by Adam taking a bite from the “apple” named Bonnie – Joan confronts God:
In the final two episodes, Common Thread and Something Wicked This Way Comes, God tells Joan that her last two years were just a kind of “boot camp” to prepare her for her greatest challenge, which is to go toe-to-toe with a man who also talks to God – and has a sinister agenda…
Ryan Hunter is mysterious, charming, wealthy and influential. The guy even saved Adam when he was lost in the woods during a storm. And he too talks to God. But the guy definitely has a dark side, along with a clear distaste for the almighty. And what’s up with the wind blowing whenever he’s around? And despite Joan’s stated misgivings about him, he somehow has managed to endear himself to those that she cares about – and without whom she feels helpless to fight back.
Call it God’s plan, or fate, or whatever, the fact is that the breakup with Adam, and the seismic shift that has occurred within her little circle in the aftermath, all came about because of Joan’s willingness to carry out God’s little assignments while keeping them totally in the dark. No matter how you slice it, Joan has been set up for the battle of her life – perhaps for all our lives – at a time when her faith, in herself, in her companions, and in her God, is at an all time low.
But while Ryan Hunter apparently has the newspapers, the police, and even the school board, in his pocket – even as he acts to destroy everything Joan and her friends holds dear – Joan is not without her own inner arsenal which begins to reveal itself just when she needs it most. And she is most definitely not alone!
I know that I’m not alone in regretting CBS’s decision to cancel this series. Perhaps the producers couldn’t find a way to convince the network that there was an audience for an apocalyptic battle between the “Antichrist” and a teen aged girl. I don’t know. What I do know is that this series has provided me with more opportunities than I can count for deep reflection about the relationships between people and the powerful, if hard to see, impact that all our actions have.
I try very hard to remember these lessons whenever I see this blog’s sorry statistics.
As a follower of the Objectivist teachings of Ayn Rand, I naturally have an interest in what others are saying on the subject. And just as I have, there are many other voices pointing out how those teachings are more important now than they have ever been. That is because the Objectivist philosophy represents the only clear path to achieving a truly moral society, and I could not agree more with those other voices. However, those other voices also cry out for a strengthening and renewal of the so-called “Objectivist Movement.” On this point, unfortunately, I must beg to differ.
Just like every other attempt at “group-think” in history, the Objectivist movement is doomed to failure because, by definition, “group-think” is a collectivist endeavor. The real benefits to mankind from the Objectivist philosophy have come and will come in the form all such benefits have taken: as side effects of actions taken by individuals working for their own self interest. And while it may be comforting to have others with whom we can commiserate and share war stories, any attempt to forge a “union” from such a group of radical free thinkers is destined for a very embarrassing public failure.
One needs only to look at the current state of the Libertarian Party to see what I mean. I believe that the Libertarians are all good and well intentioned people, but an example of Objectivist thinkers working well together they most definitely are not. How does appearing to the world like a bunch of loonies help to promote the Objectivist philosophy? “Collective Individualism” is a contradiction in terms.
As has always been the case, it’s the “show me, don’t tell me” strategy that will get the job done. To emphasize this point, I submit the lyrics to Show Don’t Tell by Rush – one of the world’s foremost proponents of Ayn Rand’s teachings:
How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long Everyone knows everything And no one’s ever wrong Until later…
Who can you believe? It’s hard to play it safe But apart from a few good friends We don’t take anything on faith Until later…
Show…don’t tell…
(Show me, don’t tell me) … You’ve figured out the score (Show me, don’t tell me) … I’ve heard it all before (Show me, don’t tell me) … I don’t care what you say (Show me, don’t tell me)
You can twist perceptions Reality won’t budge You can raise objections I will be the judge (And the jury)
I’ll give it due reflection Watching from the fence Give the jury direction Based on the evidence I, the jury
Show…don’t tell…
(Show me, don’t tell me) … Hey, order in the court (Show me, don’t tell me) … Let’s try to keep it short (Show me, don’t tell me) … Enough of your demands (Show me, don’t tell me) … Witness take the stand (Show me, don’t tell me)
Show…don’t tell…
Show…don’t tell…
(Show me, don’t tell me) … Hey, order in the court (Show me, don’t tell me) … Let’s try to keep it short (Show me, don’t tell me) … I don’t care what you say (Show me, don’t tell me) … Let’s see exhibit A (Show me, don’t tell me) … You’ve figured out the score (Show me, don’t tell me) … I’ve heard it all before (Show me, don’t tell me) … Enough of your demands (Show me, don’t tell me) … Witness take the stand (Show me, don’t tell me)
This is a partial reconstruction of a dream I had one night.
“Well that was a bust, wasn’t it?” “You’re being too hard on yourself.” “Give yourself some time to recuperate.?” “And to reflect.” “You’ll feel better then.” “But I really thought that I’d get it right this time!” “Where have I heard that before?” “From me.” “And me.” “And me.” “And me as well.” “How do you keep going back, when it ends like this?” “Because every time through gets us a little closer.” “To becoming what we want to be.” “What we’re meant to be.” “You have to admit that you’ve advanced quite a lot.” “But I screwed up so much, and left so much undone.” “Well, considering the limited timespan…” “And with what little we carry forward…” “The steps are incremental by necessity.” “But worthwhile in the end.” “Well it’ll be a while before I try again.” “You’ll get bored soon enough.” “And filled with ideas on how to do better.” “You won’t be able to resist.” “We never can.”
And speaking of dreams, I’m reminded of I Dreamed Last Night by Justin Hayward & John Lodge from their Blue Jays album:
“Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing, hearing your voice And the things you said well they left me, left me no choice And you told me we had the power And you told me this was the hour That you don’t know how If I could show you now?
Well I dreamed last night you were calling, calling my name You were locked inside of your secrets, calling my name And you told me lost was the key And you told me how you long to be free That you don’t know how Oh let me show you now
Like a bird on a far distant mountain Like a ship on an uncharted sea You are lost in the arms that have found you Don’t be afraid Love’s plans are made Oh don’t be afraid
If there’s a time and a place to begin love It must be now Let it go Set it free
Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing, hearing your voice Why did you say those things that have left me, left me no choice? When you told me we had the power Why did you tell me now was the hour? But you don’t know how Oh let me show you now
Like a bird on a far distant mountain Like a ship on an uncharted sea You are lost in the arms that have found you Oh don’t be afraid Love’s plans are made Don’t be afraid
If there’s a time and a place to begin love It must be now Let it go Set it free
Oh I dreamed last night I was hearing, hearing your voice…”
Readers of this blog have heard me rail against organized religion and belief in the supernatural in general. You’ve also heard me preach about the benefits and necessity for rational thinking. But I hope that my strong belief in our potential - and my faith in our ability to live up to that potential - has been revealed as well. If this blog reveals nothing more about my character than this, then I will be satisfied.
All my life, I have searched for inspiration. From books like The Holy Bible, Atlas Shrugged, Time Enough For Love, and The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant. From movies like The Ten Commandments, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Day The Earth Stood Still. From TV shows like Gun Smoke, Law and Order, and Star Trek. And from the songs of groups like The Temptations, Pink Floyd, and Rush.
Another thing that should be clear from reading this blog is how I love to include the music and lyrics from songs that relate to what I’m talking about. The great thing about my favorite movies and TV shows is that they combine great visuals with great music. In this article, I will attempt to combine all three elements - the visual, the music, and the lyrics - from two of my all-time favorite TV shows: The Greatest American Hero and Star Trek: Enterprise.
I chose these shows because they represent my life-long desire to be, and to inspire others to be, a force for good in the world. The Greatest American Hero represents how being a hero is not always a matter of choice, and that mistakes can and will happen along the way. The entire Star Trek line-up represents what can happen when good people stand up and make the right choices. I’m hard pressed to find another SciFi collection that presents such a positive view of the future. Star Trek: Enterprise is the greatest of the line-up because it’s the closest in the time-line to where we are now, and therefore presents a more relevant look at the moral issues - both social and technological - that we face.
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The Greatest American Hero (Believe It Or Not by Mike Post and Stephen Geyer)
Look at what’s happened to me,I can’t believe it myself.Suddenly I’m up on top of the world,It should've been somebody else. Believe it or not,I’m walking on air.I never thought I could feel so free.Flying away on a wing and a prayer.Who could it be?Believe it or not it’s just me. It’s like a light of a new day,It came from out of the blue.Breaking me out of the spell I was in,Making all of my wishes come true. Believe it or not, I’m walking on air.I never thought I could feel so free-.Flying away on a wing and a prayer.Who could it be? Believe it or not it’s just me. -
Star Trek: Enterprise (derived from the song Faith Of the Heart written by Diane Warren and sung by British opera star Russell Watson. This song was first featured in the film Patch Adams, performed by Rod Stewart)
It’s been a long roadGetting from there to hereIt’s been a long timeBut my time is finally hereAnd I can see my dreams come alive at nightI can touch the skyAnd they’re not gonna hold me down no moreNo they’re not gonna change my mind(Chorus)’Cause I’ve got faith of the heartI’m going where my heart will take meI’ve got faith to believeI can do anythingI’ve got strength of the soulNo one’s going to bend nor break meI can reach any starI’ve got faithI’ve got faithFaith of the heart
Is a semi-serious window onto the influences & experiences that have led to my personal philosophy of life. From growing up a poor, mixed-race kid in the 50s, 60s & 70s, to living as a depressed urban hermit in recovery, this is a collection of my pleas for reason & rationality in this global asylum.
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