Reality Testing: Notes from the Urban Underground

This is a poem a student shared with me last year. Be your own judge as to what this represents:

Bin laden didn’t blow up the projects it was you nigga tell the truth nigga.
I pledge no allegiance nigga fuck the presidents speeches I’m
Baptized by America n’ covered in leeches the dirty water that
Bleaches your soul n’ yo’ facial features drownin’ us in propaganda
That they spit from they speakers and if you speak about evil
That the government does the patriot act attract u to the type o’ yo’
Blood they try to frame you and try to say u as sellin drugs and
Throw a federal indictment on niggas that showed you love. Shit is run by
By fake Christians fake politicians look at their mansions and
Look at the conditions you live in, all they talk about is terrorism
On television they tell you to listen but they don’t tell you their mission,
they funded al Qaeda and now they blame the muslim religion
even though bin laden was a cia tactician they gave him billions of dollars
and they funded his purpose Fahrenheit 911 that’s just scratchin the surface

Bin laden didn’t blow up the projects it was you nigga tell the truth
Nigga, bush knocked down the towers, tell the truth nigga bush knocked down the towers
They say the rebels in Iraq still fight for Saddam but that’s bullshit
I’ll show you why its totally wrong cause if another country invaded
The hood tonight it’d be warfare through harlem and washington heights I would be fightin’ for bush or white america’s dream I’ll be fighting for my people survival and self-esteem, I wouldn’t be fightin for racist churches from the south my nigga I’d be fighting to keep the occupation out my nigga, you ever clock some1 who talked shit after Ronald reagan’s election mercenary contractors fightin a new era corporate military bankin on the war on terror
They controlin the ghetto with the fear of attack, tryin’ to distract
The fact they engineerin’ the crack so I’m trapped like lee malvo
Holdin a snipers rifle touch your kids and I don’t mean like micheal your body get sent to the morgue stripped down and innocent people get murdered in the struggle daily and poor people
Never get shit and struggle daily, this aint no alien conspiracy theory this shit is real written on the dollar underneath the Masonic seal

Em: I don’t rap for dead presidents, I’d rather see the president dead, its never been said, but I set precedents. Bin laden didn’t blow up the projects it was you nigga tell the truth nigga
Bush knocked down the towers

The Death of Shame

This past Sunday afternoon I went out for a bike ride on the rail trail that runs from my part of town into the next. It’s a 40 minute ride out and back again, and the selling point is that for the most part, one doesn’t have to compete with road traffic with the exception of several intersections between the trail and busy streets. I’ve actually taken video of most of this ride and posted it at the Youtube site linked at the right site of this blog, but that’s another story. One intersection between trail and road is so busy the town recently put up a set of lights so joggers and bicyclists could cross in better safety.

On Sunday, I stopped at this very intersection, pressed the button on the light to cross, and waited until it turned red and displayed the “walk” signal. When it did, I started to cross when out of nowhere came a speeding, Giganta-SUV that is forced to come to a screeching halt to avoid hitting me while he attempted to run the red light. He stops, stares at me and the situation that he just narrowly avoided.

Now one could imagine what he might say, if he felt compelled to say anything:

“Oh Jesus, sorry buddy, I was in a rush and didn’t see you or the light. Are you ok?”

Sure, I could accept that. Accidents happen. Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes. But what did he actually scream at the top of his lungs?

“Hey you ASSHOLE, thanks a lot!!!”

What??? Apparently, I’m an “asshole” because he runs a red light with his wife and kids in the vehicle and almost kills me in the process??? I’m thinking: great demonstration of character for the kids in the back seat; I’m sure they picked up some of the finer qualities of their Dad from this incident.

This is but one example of selfish behavior I see many commonly engaged in that puts other’s safety at risk without reason. Polls also reflect the awareness that American society is becoming more inconsiderate and uncivilized in its public interactions. I find this trend quite disturbing, but what I also find disturbing is the suggestion from some that I should just ignore it, or shrug it off.

What’s happened to people that instead of having at least some capacity to acknowledging their wrongs and errors, they respond with heated indignation against the very people they’ve trespassed against? I know it’s human to find it difficult to admit when wrong, but I speculate: does it have something to do with what the wider culture now teaches? Have the fields of psychology and sociology so explained away guilt as an unnecessary social “artifact” of tradition and religion that it becomes difficult for many people to aspire to humility and listen to their conscience? I get the sense that because science has defined away anything like a belief in a conscience, this destructive behavior is part of the resulting consequence.

Can anyone explain?

House of Salsa

For those that know me understand that I’ve been on a homemade salsa kick for at least several years now. Doesn’t this make you scream for some nacho chips?

Ingredients:

-One large Spanish onion, strained
-a bucketful of cilantro
-One can of organic, fire-roasted tomatoes, strained
-One very large farm-grown tomato, strained
-Jalapeno peppers
-1 large carrot
-Salt/pepper
-Fresh squeezed lime juice
-2-3 cloves of garlic
-Ground chipotle

Next salsa update: salsa made with either pineapple or mango or both.

The Chronicles of Higher Education: Meet the Faculty

I start my new job on Wednesday, finally.

After my successful interview with the principal and relevant faculty over a week ago, the front office sent a packet of documents to the administration building for the final stamp of approval by the superintendent, something needed before I could officially be considered hired. Apparently, it was lost either in transit or by the admin secretary. The school didn't realize this until this past Friday, and they then re-sent everything over by fax to speed the process up. It turns out the admin. secretary is out until Wednesday, so it was never picked up.

“Long Distance Runaround.
Long time, waiting to hear the sound.”

In any event, the classroom indoctrinations begin mid-week. If anyone has an expertise in propaganda or historical revisionism, or simply enjoys deluding young minds, please contact me soon so I can fit you in as a guest speaker.

Concerning Liberty

Question, which would you rather be:

• Free but poor?
• Constrained, but materially secure?
  
  

Pope's speech at University of Regensburg

Has anyone read this? I printed it out wondering what all the latest “Muslim rage” was about, and walk away totally astounded at something unrelated: Ratzinger's command of theology and philosophy, and above all, his reverence for reason:

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=46474

I guess it's easy to sometimes fall into the trap of believing old, crotchety looking figures of the church are simplistic, defenders of church dogma, and not learned men, academics who wrestle with profound philosophical questions. In his lecture linked above, Ratzinger speaks of how reason and faith can coincide, and how reason must necessarily be extended to questions of faith and God if western culture and ethics are to avoid irreparable harm.

Wow. Maybe I need to get out more, but a reconciliation of reason and faith? Nobody it seems to me talks this way, or at least they haven’t since Isaac Newton's time. Reason and faith are two concepts commonly thought of as hopelessly irreconcilable, and should always be kept in separate corners of the ring. That really jostled me, reading that.

Also, I couldn’t help but think of Hadley Arkus and his thesis in “First Things”:

http://www.amazon.com/First-Things-Hadley-Arkes/dp/069102247X/sr=8-2/qid=1158483646/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-9934416-2102509?ie=UTF8&s=books

...and how Arkus’ rational-inquiry arguments for arriving at truths relate with the Pope’s dire observation that “reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.”

And I believe this is true: today when people speak of truth and what is right and wrong, there is usually a general appeal to consensus, convention, or what is “practical”. Mention morality or the thought of universals as accessible through a reasoned inquiry, and people almost automatically look at you as if you must be some kind of religious nut. Such appeals to morality are supposed to be regulated to subjective private belief or the religious "fundamentalist”, but certainly not arrived at through the methods of a scientist. Reason, properly understood, is a secular tool for the improvement of society solely through science, but is not considered applicable to anything immeasurable, to metaphysics, the superstition of faith, or to knowledge not arrived at through the senses. What a silly modern you would be to do this.

When this is the case, as the Pope points out, when scientific reason “attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution, or from psychology and sociology” it “ends up being simply inadequate.”

Actually, I think this is an understatement. If you’re skeptical, I say simply look at what low status the concept of freewill and self-responsibility are afforded in explaining human behavior and outcomes. The social sciences would convince you that you are awash in an ocean of political, social, and economic forces in which the agency of the individual has all but disappeared. Well, I’m reasonably assured that I’m still here. Are you? Or is this all a market campaign?

Maybe I’ll write more on this later tonight when I’m done watching TV (receiving my regular dose of propaganda from the media whose function it is to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate me with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will help integrate me into the institutional structures of the larger society of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest). Pardon the Chomsky imitation: I digress.

Back to the Pope: As I mentioned, his discussion, in part, is focused on how it is “reasonable to raise the question of God through reason” and warns that to cope with the dangers that arise with modernity --such as but not limited to the violence of religious extremists—we need to “overcome the self-imposed limitations of reason to the empirically verifiable.” In other words, spreading faith through violence is unreasonable, and to not act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.

This is obviously a direct challenge in these days of suicide belts and plots to explode planes into buildings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-MnAYiEWk&mode=related&search=

Similarly, “First Things” instructs about the possibility of necessary truths being established through reason, and illustrates how reason has come to be excluded from the inquiry into morality and law, and has instead been supplanted by a mindless relativism and legal positivism.

So why am I all excited by this you may well ask?

Whether in the evolving legislation of law and defining principles of justice, or religious law and an understanding of God, both authors have a genuine critique of the loss of the use of reason in establishing truth and understanding in either domain. That’s a specific conversation I find exceptionally relevant to the precarious state of western civilization today and well... I just get all hot and heavy under the collar when I come across someone of high profile stirring the pot, a pot of taboo discourse that needs to be stirred more frequently than it currently is.

Anyways, this was one of my “reads’ today and it had a profound impact on me. If you get the chance to digest it, tell me what you think and add some food for thought. Please contribute!

Entry Level

Topics forthcoming. Nothing selected yet. Say hi to the nice man from NASA as he floats by.