Lyrics to Eagles' Last Resort

She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang heavy in the air.
She packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee,
Just as her father came across the sea.

She heard about a place people were smilin',
They spoke about the red man's way, how they loved the land.
And they came from everywhere to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand or a place to hide.

Down in the crowded bars out for a good time,
Can't wait to tell you all what it's like up there.
And they called it paradise, I don't know why.
Somebody laid the mountains low while the town got high.

Then the chilly winds blew down across the desert,
Through the canyons of the coast to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play hungry for power
To light their neon way and give them things to do.

Some rich man came and raped the land, nobody caught 'em,
Put up a bunch of earthly boxes and Jesus People bought 'em
And they called it paradise, the place to be,
They watched the hazy sun sinking in the sea.

You can leave it all behind and sail to Lahaina
Just like the missionaries did so many years ago.
They even brought a neon sign 'Jesus is Coming',
Brought the white man's burden down, brought the white man's reign.

Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine?
Cause there is no more new frontier, we have got to make it here.
We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God.

And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it's like up there.
They called it paradise, I don't know why.
You call some place paradise, kissing it goodbye. 

Interpretation:
It is an important and elegiac song, being the last song on the album Hotel California and effectively the last statement by the band and reflects on the end of the American dream of the frontier. Critic William Ruhlmann said of it that it "sketches a broad, pessimistic history of America that borders on nihilism."^[1] Author James Perone says that it ties "all the previous songs [from Hotel California] together in this final reflection of the dark side of California Life."^[2] He notes, for example, how the song lyrics contrast the beauty of the California desert with ugly suburban houses and ultimately progresses to criticize the concept of manifest destiny, on which American expansion to California was partially based.^[2] He regards the key lyric to be the line "They call it paradise; I don't know why," noting the emphasis given to it by the resignation of Henley's voice and by the falling melody.^[2] Perone does criticize the use of synthesizer on the song instead of actual string instruments, which he feels sounds artificial.^[2] To Eagles' biographer Marc Eliot, "The Last Resort" tells "the story of a nation's self-destruction and physical decay told as metaphor for personal creative burnout."^[3]
(source: Wikipedia)

Come gather 'round friends...(Bob Dylan)

Admiring these great lyrical verses:

North Country Blues

Hank Marvin plays Beatles

Hank Marvin Plays Beatles

Johnny B. Goode

Members of Moody Blues, Yes, The Who, Hank Marvin Performing Johnny B. goode

Spriritual Retreats at St. Vincent's Archabbey

Yesterday I returned from my self-guided silent retreat at ST. Vincent's---what a rich experience I had! The retreat was 'silent' but I must admit I did not do well with silence---and was talking up a storm. I am reflecting upon this wondrous mystical experience and the profundity of the Benedictine community, their intensity and earnestness in seeking God, and the excellent direction I received. Thanks to Brother Hugh Lester, retreatmaster, Fr. Robert, spiritual director and all of the fellow retreatants who contributed to this much needed time to get away from the day to day workings of the world and to chant with the monks and enter into the mystical, sacramental life of the church! Thanks be to God!

Summer Retreats at St. Vincent's

Cool Jam Session

Cool Jam Session

New Kid in Town: Eagles

Two Great Versions of New Kid in Town: Eagles 1977

New Kid in Town JD Souther

New Minilop Bunnies for Pet Adoption!

Please CONTACT Peter  for serious inquiries.
pmw117@psu.edu

Click Here for TIPTOPLOPS Rabbitry

Sherpa, at His Desk

Click here for TIPTOPLOPS

AND Rabbit Acquisition

Classic 70s Live: 3 Dog Night

Momma Told Me Not to Come

Kaligon the Dragon (Dennis Blalock, painter)

"Damn it Pete, Your God is too SMALL" (Dennis Blalock, April 2004)

The Dimensionless Challenge!


How big is Your God---so big that the bigness empties into tinyness? I say, it's not big enough. How about tinier than peering into a Higgs-Boson field and seeing the dimmest visible flickering of energy or light? My friend, I say, that is not small enough!

Bob (Robert Archer Smith) solves this challenge with a wave of the hand: "The universe is dimensionless."

"Dimensionless?" I ask.

"Yes, as the apostle Paul tells us:
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. St. Paul to Romans 8:36-37

"He's so far out the only way out is in..." (Paul McCartney, "The Man on the Flaming Pie")

Father Barron on Dylan

Fr. Robert Barron Comments on Bob Dylan

In my mind, one of the best!

Lido Shuffle 1977

"you gotta have a jones for this, a jones for that...
runnin' with the joneses just ain't where it's at."

Boz Scaggs live 2004

Two Tracks of the Rolling Stones Live

w/Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone

Really Good Version of Gimme Shelter

CIA Apparatchik Discredits a Founding Father

CIA Disclosure concerning Ben Franklin is a Good Example of Orwellian Purging of History

Nice job GUYS of throwing revisionary spin on a previously published scenario ! An "undisclosed" CIA insider analyst (unnamed) reveals a so-called document with no publication date and an "unrevealed author" which vilifies the Founding Father.  Was this article perhaps cobbled together by a comittee, or anonymous scriptor or is it a contemporary fabrication? All that is clear is that the so-called history is disclosed from a "black box" which ensures that it cannot be scrutinized by peer review.

 Directorate of Operations Doc. (b)3(c)
http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/DOC_0000872649.pdf

This communique coming from the agency whose modus operandi is to sacrifice liberty for security 24/7---has never grasped Franklin's famous adage: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security will have neither."

I would keep my bets on the man of integrity rather than the anonymous disclosure of this soviet-style directorate communique.
Franklin himself was aware of Izard and Lee's accusations and in regard to such dirt slinging calmly remarked: "...[S]pots of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain; I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were dry (Fisher 1898, p.298)."

It is not difficult to conclude that the direction of the spin reveals two tendencies: a)a tendency to discredit Franklin and b)a tendency to project a contemporary connotation of 'security' in a historical sense. The framing that this document reveals suggests the date of the document and the clue or give-away is the hyper-emphasis on projecting so-called "sloppy security epithet"  upon Franklin which indirectly legitimates the actual modus operandi of this so-called intelligence agency disclosure.  

Live Dylan Tribute

Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert (click here)

Hitler Reacts to Grateful Dead Shows Summer 2015

Click Here

Listening To Steely Dan's AJA LP Day Two

More adventures in memory:

"I got the News"---what a wild beat---every bit of it is shimmering perfection! How little of this could be grasped to my worried teen mind in 1977, yet I heard it all. My memory tells me so even as I hear it now. Where have all of these years flown? The late Soviet days, the 21st century grid being seeded in Washington, the super-city infancy, along route 70 to Dulles. Or Howard Johnson's fried clam dinners along the turnpike to the Schuylkill expressway and over the Walt Whitman bridge into Jersey. The 88 Olds' complimentary 8 track tape with "Ruby (don't take your love to town)" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson".

 

Home At Last (Steely Dan, 1977)

Listening to AJA on vinyl  --- 1977: the vibe was good, the feeling of being alive at the time. Listening to ‘Home at Last’ or any of the songs awakens my memory to that time and all that has since passed---what an amazingly rich thing it is! As though peering down a well lit corridor, unthinkably large and deep---my view of this phenomenon---what an amazing thing the warehouses of memory. I see it all not at once but each thing in its duly carved richness. Of course it is the music that ‘takes the memory sailing’ ---it connects all of this analogically! Yes I do recall this Eric Gale guitar line, even before I knew what guitar was, I knew this guitar line on Josie. It could be Becker, I don’t know [Larry Carlton, ed.]. 

Cast my memory back there, yes, what a rich and sumptuous feast. To be honest I was not a big fan of AJA at the time, my musical loves laid elsewhere, most likely Jethro Tull. 

Somehow this album marked it all for me, set a boundary. I can see past it to my boyhood (I turned 14 in march of ’77)---to a murky brew of adolescent self-awakening. The actual sense being that my memory of this sophisticated music reinforces the idea that I did not understand the music, nor indeed the world in which this music inhabited---the cultural world lives through my memory. in 1977 I did not understand my being-in-the-world but I was alive! Though seething in adolescent sneering and yearnings as large as Alaska, an indomitable thirst, a hunger for experience. Sumptuous, luxuriant desire. Desire after desire and above and below and behind desire, as I plotted my next raid upon flowering sense. And I can see and hear all of this in AJA!

How or why? I cannot say: American-ness the quiddity. Apperceived “thematically”! In particular “home at last”  (see link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMjGaiIxtY

I could express this in terms of philosophy but I will avoid the temptation. Seventy-sevenness, Hollidaysburg, PA. Corney’s the Y, Pete the Greek, Blinky, Uncle Dunkle, Rack and Snack, Sugar Bear, The Jolly Green Giant, or more broadly---the Big Apple “...chinese music always sets me free and the banjo sounds good  to me. Aja, when all of my dime dancing is through, I come to you (Becker/Fagen 1977).” WFBG big John Riley, garibaldi, Donald Fagen singing, “...they call Alabama the Crimson Tide ... they call me Deacon Blues.” It broadcast a mercurial magic on the airwaves, 6th avenue BG in Altoona, Scott, pat and Kevin...Runes...Father O’Friel and scoops. 

Elvis bites it on August 16th, my first trip to Manhattan--- staying at the Pierre hotel I can still recall the canary yellow perfumed french soap. Dad driving the blue Olds ’98 through the hot august avenues getting lost driving up into Harlem! :) Buddy I was there up above 120th street, pretty scary. This gnarly street dude slams his fists onto the Olds' hood cover. Whoomphh. Mom was like: “Herb, we need to get back to the hotel!” And later at the Madison Square Garden dad tips this this older guy with a dime, and he says “shit, man, a dime?” and tosses it to the ground. 

+

Snowy Day: First Day of Spring 3-20-15

Classes cancelled on account of inclement weather. The view of the “great” gate at Penn State

http://www.statecollege.com/college-ave-cam/

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer Criticizes Hitler

Jimmy Page shares insights...

Jimmy Page talks about Stairway to Heaven

Poem: A Virtual Rose

Guardian Article

Dr. Zakir Naik Receives Saudi Arabian Award

Beautiful Guitar Song

Nicolo Renna

More Guitar!

Corporate Citizenship: Forbes Top 100

Ironically, the expression 'corporate citizen' is one of the most perfect examples of Orwellian newspeak currently being bandied about amongst so-called ethics intelligentsia. It ranks with Peacekeeper (i.e. soldier), virtual reality (which brazenly asserts that reality can, indeed, be virtual---yet, this is a clear contradictio in terminis as virtual means "what appears to be but is not in essence..." or what is "...almost so." Whereas, of course, 'reality (realitas) is the crucial term synonymous with truth, actuality, being and even God!

Do I have to explain that such wreckless misuse of language breeds bad morals? That while confusing the matter as in 'corporate personhood' effectively grants all of the rights and privileges of a person to a soulless corporate entity---this linguistic use, moreover, legitimates the corporation's ability to masquerade as an individual, living human soul. And in the case of 'corporate citizens', it legislates to corporations the very rights and privileges which are only afforded to flesh and blood individuals, that is the  american citizen?

Courageous individual citizens fought and died for the ideals of democracy which are imbedded in individual citizenry---may I ask how the corporate players intend to repay their civic inclusion and privilege? Will any of these spill their blood in order to protect the individual flesh and blood John Q. Public? The inaccurate usage of language reflects Orwell's prophetic 'newspeak'. Use an expression like 'corporate citizen' long enough and it eventually gains legitimacy, and even a legislative power which has no basis in constitutional authority or in the fundamental essential truth of democracy which resides only in en-souled, individually autonomous citizens such as you or me.

Click here for Forbes Top 100

New Post on Realist Psychology!

Truth and Beauty: The Manifesto

Cheer Down: George Harrison Live in Japan

Classic: George Harrison Live in Japan!

Video: The Examined Life

Cornell West

Revisiting 9/11: When the Walls were Down

NORAD Response on 9/11
Considering the events leading up to 9/11, the role of the US military defense and the events following this catastrophic failure there are many lessons to be learned. Ironically, the most salient factor of 9/11---in other words the ingredient of all ingredients that most of all contributed to the catastrophe---was lack of defense---yet this is rarely discussed.

US military might (at least in terms of defense) had been considered somewhat invincible prior to 9/11. Using a football analogy, no team had ever penetrated the end zone and scored a touchdown at a home game! Militarily, no enemy had ever scored a strike against the homeland---and one of the chief reasons for this invincibility was the trillion dollar budget military defense.

In terms of attacks from land, air or sea---it is the stated goal and mission of NORAD to defend US soil from attack. Here is the link:
NORAD link

The most relevant question on 9/11 and immediately following---whether you buy the official report or find more truth in a conspiratorial scenario---that is, in either case--the one crucial ingredient which of all others led to the success of this attack---was the failure in US military defense of 9/11. It alone can be said to be the chief cause of the catastrophic events of this "day of infamy". It is not as if there had not been previous attempts---yet these were unsuccessful thanks to military defense.

It becomes clearer looking back after the dust has cleared that on September 11, 2001 the US possessed no means of defending the homeland against an enemy attack (either from internal or external enemies)---there was no response from NORAD. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn's book The Nine Harbingers brought this clearly to my attention.

The key point is that no matter how nefarious the terrorist plot may have been---this attack could never have succeeded if the basic protocols of military defense had been followed on 9/11. In other words if NORAD had done the job which it and it alone was qualified to perform. Considered from an organizational point of view one must conclude that this should count as one of the greatest organizational and military failures in human history. By definition! It is comparable to playing a very important football game, and just as the opposing quarterback snaps--the entire United States defense flees the field and the other team runs the entire length of the field unchecked by any defensive measure to an easily scored touchdown.

The example of Troy and the Trojan Horse is very apt. As mentioned above the final precipitating cause---the cause which alone could have prevented the action of that day---was the failure of the US military to respond defensively to protect the homeland. The historical record clearly shows that there was NO defense, hence the success of the strike (and this the case whether you take the official report which many engineers, architects and physicists have very seriously questioned its integrity----or you take a conspiratorial view).

Ironic that the single precipitating cause of 9/11---and the greatest military failure since Egypt failed to defend itself from the Israeli airstrike in 1968 in the so-called seven day war (one of the most successful offensive attacks in military history). 9/11 would have been a non-event if NORAD had even adequately responded to offensive strike of 9/11. Not only was there no adequate response, there was NO response. A complete failure---let me put it this way: In order to grasp the magnitude of this failure let's draw some analogies and parallels:
*The failure of NORAD to do its basic job on 9/11 is like---
a football game where just as the play commences the home team runs off of the field allowing the opposing team to score effortlessly.
*It is also like a police officer selling crack to teens in a city park.
*It is like purchasing real estate in a swamp of quicksand.

It is, in short, a failure of the greatest magnitude. Not a simple failure but a failure so great that great effort seems to have been required to bring about the complete lack of adequate defensive response. This is a very provocative consideration! And yet, consult your own memory---there was no mention of the systematic US military failure to defend the homeland on 9/11---an undisputable fact! To think that millions of hours of effort to defend should lead to a complete zero performance of 9/11.

In corporate terms, if ever an individual or organization had so completely failed in its one basic job---that individual or organization would be fired----Yet there was not even a censure! Not a mention of apology---an admission of failure. Pondering this even further one wonders if the leaders of NORAD were promoted or praised after their greatest failure. One wonders whether or not certain things are built to fail. It may sound cynical, however, it is compelling. Perhaps the entire event of that catastrophic day can be better understood by grasping this thread alone and unravelling it to the very source and to find that the greatest key to understanding 9/11 is to focus on NORAD's absence on that fateful day!

Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan Live

Bob Dylan Live: Shelter From the Storm

A unique performance, what a band and it is interesting to see Bob Dylan play slide guitar on that amazing techno-guitar!

Bill Murray sings along w/Shelter from the Storm

Happy New Year 2015!

 It is a new year---this means nothing to rabbits or any other natural beings---it is another arbitrary human artifact, void on of any truth save the functional and cultural use!


Frosty survived long enough to raise her three kits (Daisy, Jack Frost and Sherpa). She did not live long enough to see this New Year and she is terribly missed.


At the time of this writing all is well in the rabbitry---all of the rabbits are healthy---Thank God!
I moved a young buck named Rocky Joe to the cellar as he seemed to have been quite weak with a loss of equilibrium---I feared the dreaded Head Tilt---fortunately the cause of the loss of balance seems to have its source elsewhere and in all other ways Rock Joe is thriving and growing daily.


ONE MORE NOTE:I moved another bunny kit into the cellar with Sherpa and Rocky Joe---this is Wilbury (Winterberry)---I will post a photo when I get the chance--this little guy is quite unique. First of all the coat appears to that of a wild rabbit (is it possible that one of the does who roamed free last Summer, became impregnated by a wild buck?) The other strange fact is that Wilbury does not seem to grow---looking for all practical reasons to be a wild dwarf!

The Soul: To Begin the Quest

We begin today's essay where we always begin...the question of how is that this day is before me--taken in the most basic and simple sense of 'being there'. Yes, the desk is before me. Yes, I am typing on a Microsoft keyboard. No, I don't like it, I much prefer writing with a pencil. Have you ever noticed how cheaply made pencils are today? No one uses them any way.

Back to the meditation of this day: before me as desk is before me and I type---see how the desk is not simply 'before' me or 'in front of me'' or even 'outside of me'. No. The reason is that the desk is also 'inside of me'!  I know what you are thinking---what kind of crack is this guy on?---But I can assure you that this is a reasonable claim. And if you the reader were to begin considering these matters and keep at it in serious philosophical meditation, in a matter of time, you too will come to see the nature of this paradox: inside-outside.

If meditated upon consistently for many days and years the nature of this paradox will become clearer. This is the path to "open up" the inquiry of the soul. Prior to the out being outside and in being inside---I have analyzed this in another blog---Scriptorjesus, Realistpsychology, or some other blog in the Scriptor domain.  At any rate I will rehearse again it here: there is my cup---it is whitespeckel'd dull blue campfire gear---it contains my morning tea---honey sweeten'd hazelnut strongbrew. The cup contains my morning tea (or what's left of it).

The cup contains my tea....'contains'? Pardon but what do you mean by 'to contain'? Oh, for something to be in inside of something else. And what do you mean by 'inside'? Oh, that one spatial reference contains another. And is the container contained by something else? Yes. and no!

Think harder. Well, yes the cup is on the desk and the desk is in the room. And isn't the room in the house? Well yes now that you say so, I can see this. So if one thing is on another and inside another and another---how far do you think this pattern goes on?

Can all be contained in one container--or can all be held in no container?

This is the basis for the question concerning the nature of the universe, is the universe inside of something or outside of something? What outside might there be? What if there were no outside? Either way it is paradoxical---the asymptotes and excesses of the debate concerning the meaning of 'inside' or 'outside' collapse at the extremes of the dialectic. Thought then to the very end, the inside-outside dichotomy collapses.

Now, believe it or not, we are on the trail of our inquiry---yes, to investigate the presence of this day, and give thanks accordingly for the gift, but also to realize that the ultimate telos of our inquiry into the being there of the teacupteamug also entails implicately the being there (in terms of inside-outside dichotomy) of all that is. It's not as if there is just the cup without its surrounding environing world, and this environing world does not hang suspended in the void either!

Best understood as womblike, the nascence of being, of my being present to the presence of this new day! Present to the presence as in the investigation of the blue teamug.

a)Yes, it is on the desk.
b)Yes I see it and that which I see is within my mind.

Both a) and b) propositions dissolve at the extreme of the dichotomy if extrapolated to the sense of 'all there is' or the 'universe'. That leaves us with the following question: How is this state of affairs to be considered?

In the investigation of the teamug, or anything else that is present before or around me, the harmony of the soul is already presupposed.

How so?

Because I began this day with a cup of tea. The idea of writing an essay came up, I came to my office to type this essay which is ostensibly about the mug (a)---but also requires my perceptual and hermeneutic appropriation of the mug (b). Yet, if I am honest, I will say there is no separation of these worlds---my investigation began with the true and complete synthesis of my life already given and from this plenitude I snatched the cup out of the room interrogatively. Even before I typed one word I was already HERE. Even before I typed one word, the desk is HERE. This pre-given harmony and truth is the life of my soul.

"God made the universe for us as if there were only one of us," I think St. Augustine said that.

"You can be in my world if I can be in yours," I said that.

"I'll let you be in my dream if you let me be in yours," Bob Dylan said that.

Human Person: The Integer of Truth

Pondering yesterday's essay it occurs to me how pernicious are the scientific dogmas which in some manner or other decompose the act of perception into so-called discrete wavelengths or any other discreta. This is not only bad poetry but it also vilifies the human bearer of truth.

I might have learned this from reading Dostoevsky. If the initial guarantor or evidence of truth is not the living contact and encounter that each person enjoys with reality, then it can never be  grasped ex post facto through facts, or evidence or any other sort of science!

What scientists of all stripes take for granted is that it the human eye or ear or perceptual act which guarantees whatever digital or discrete data may accrue. Yes, the Hubble telescope renders data in digital quanta---however, the telescope does not "see" anything if must be rendered to the biped mammal truth-bearer. This principle can be universalized---With regards to the material universe here can be no truth that is not ultimately verified by a human person.

Thus the starting-point of science is the perceptual truth---now what must ensue in order that the human act of perception deliver truth? What must be the case, a priori, for there to be truth at all? The truth must be for a someone! A someone is a human person. What is the basis for this contact with truth? That the human person be capable of bearing truth and that things be true.  2 essential ingredients: the human person as integer of truth and the universe as truthful in its being.

Both of these poles must be held in tension for the phenomenon of truth to be possible. The 'bridge' is the soul. That God exists is self-evident. Above and beyond the two poles: the one for whom truth is and being as true, there is no other Thing! And yet, the way to truth disintegrates as the burden of proof for truth is placed upon either pole! Both fallacious ways are errors that science takes. Only a philosophy based upon psychological Realism such as I am describing can account for truth adequately.

Truth must be and it must be for someone! If this is not the case then the point of pursuing science is moot altogether! (There is a scenario where science proceeds altogether in violation of truth as portrayed in the Matrix or Plato's cave.) Science is pursued because of an attempt to secure a truthful account of things or being in some particular sense. A culture governed by a science devoid of truth such as Orwell depicts in 1984 may be possible but it is not desirable.

Evenso, if one assumes the current quantum mechanics interpretation of physical reality---the view that states that there are manifold levels of energy which cannot be detected in human perception and that of all of the possible truth to be conveyed by light, the human perceiver is only getting a sliver of nanometers---hence, by default there is an enormous amount of stuff out there that in principle cannot be known save for perfectible pursuit of scientific equipment which will render evermore of these myterious nanoworlds to the diligent scientist.

Here is the realist view: I look out the window, I see an Arbor Vita tree in my lawn---to see? Yes, to have seen and encountered the truth of the bush in the true perception of my visual act. And beyond this----? That's it folks!!!

Now I will concede reason wants to figure out this state of affairs as if it were some sort of puzzle. So in order to satisfy reason I allow my mind to proceed interrogatively. So, how is it that the Arbor Vita is there and how is it that I am here and how is it that both of these hang together? The first act of reason is philosophical and interrogative. The account which renders optimally the answer to this triad of questions is the best account.

The only account of reality which guarantees and "saves" truth for human persons in principle is the Gospel. It is the son of God which saves the truth for the integral human person and guarantees the human ability to bear truth. It is the truth of creation which guarantees the truth of the being of the universe.

Now it is clear why the reductive, and analytic 'scientific' account of human perception and action is flawed and pernicious. Each one of these violates the harmony of the person and the person's world which the soul alone bridges.

I look out the window and I see the bush. My act of seeing delivers truth, and I am in the truth insofar as I acknowledge this harmony, in other words to live in my soul. The contemporary undergraduate who studies perceptual psychology 101 gets this account instead:
a) the person may or may not exist, all we know for sure is that that perception is finite, can be measured and analyzed. b)the universe may or may not be true c)the soul has not been discussed in psychology (to quote the Eagles): "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969." and finally d). God may or may not exist.

Now taking such skepticism at face value I ask what guarantees truth? It is not the person rendered scientifically, it is not the universe, it is not the soul and it is not God. Truth may or may not exist in the scientific account, it is through and through skeptical!

But reality is not like this! Truth either is or is not. If it is then it is on account of the human truth bearer, and the ensemble of circumstances (true being, soul, and God) which particpate in its possibility. If it is not then science is futile, religion is futile, business and economy is futile. In short human existence is futile! This is the Underground Man's antheap---Harvard's professor EO Wilson beloved ants become the most successful species---not man!

That this is not the case is proved by the fact that you stop at the red light, that you continue to go on eating, that you do not strip naked and dive into the subfrost river!! You conduct yourself in a reasonable human manner because deep down you believe that human life is worth living. This spark of human truth drives you to go on existing. The only reason you dear reader are not in full possession of the truth is that you have parlayed your soul in an exchange for earthly comfort and ease which the scientific view provides. You are a comfortable citizen in this empire of scientific reason---after all, it gives one the chance to have regular check-ups at the doctor and to have your blood chemically analyzed. When the state gets better you will be able to have your blood analyzed for free thanks to the great economy! You will trust your Audi to deliver safety to your drive. Oh! the benefits of the scientific society are unending! Only one thing sears your conscience---that you had to deny your true soul and being in the truth to participate in this worldly kingdom and go along with the scientific dogmas. 

"When did I do this?" you ask. To this I answer: "When first you denied your perception to your parents, schoolteachers and professors, and allowed them to teach you how to explain what you see! (Parallels to Serpent's promise in the Garden!)

Pondering Light: Impenetrable

Some random thoughts on the visible:
Vision, according to Aristotle is the 'highest' ---most spiritual sense. Attempts at explaining this sense, and its act are quite difficult for me to grasp. The viewpoint of Robt. Archer Smith is also very imponderable and yet vision provides me with no end of wonder and questionability!

What strikes me as ludicrous are contemporary psychological theories of light---the kind of thing I studied at university as an undergraduate. At the time I presumed to have learned something about the 'psychology of light' when I studied the textbook, and passed the exams. To be honest this kind of bookish learning has nothing to do with authentic understanding of the phenomenon. Never once did we experiment with the phenomenon or empirical fact of light---all was discussed hypothetically, speculatively. I can grasp now that such "learning" is a sleight of hand.

It has the wonderful effect of giving hundreds of thousands of educated people the sense that they have grasped something about light (the same goes for acoustics and motion). Such an effect has a beneficial quality for the government, giving the sense that there is an objective science  of vision and light---that such things are in principle graspable by at least the authors of the texts and the profs who lecture on these subjects. 

However, effect is all it is! When I honestly ponder the truth about light and vision, I must confess to ignorance and the difficulty of its grasp. Reading treatises are of no help whatsoever for the sleight of hand renders the wonderfully mysterious phenomenon (color-light) into pieces of a theory, each one finitely graspable. Now all of these added up are supposed to bring about an understanding of the phenomenon. The social-educative praxis based upon intellectual pride, social conformity and deceit (i.e. the American University education in toto.) confers degrees not for the amount of natural phenomena actually grasped and understood, i.e. truth, but for the effective handling of the text, lectures and exams in such a way that the proper GPA is achieved. Truth and actual understanding are bypassed entirely by sleight of hand.

Such a praxis is effective for governing and ruling over citizens who have been granted degrees for knowledge which they presume to possess. It produces a consistent theoretical framework in which to conduct science, industry, education and business. It is much more effective to operate upon a coherent, commonly held ignorance, than to admit that each individual faces imponderable mysteries such as light, color and vision which are experienced as true without the foggiest clue of how to explain the truth of these phenomena. And yet, each individual, if honest, would admit that his or her experience of light phenomena is indelibly true fact. But how rarely does this individual with their own personally held experiential truth muster the courage to join Socrates in declaring the wisdom of their ignorance (that is commonly held 'doxa' or culturally accepted "truths")? Without this commonly held ignorance it would not be easy to govern, in fact the nation-state would not survive. Ironically the natural state of human beings in ignorance without the pretension to learning is the best manner of government, which never rises to the behemoth scale of the nation-state, laden with its certain "scientific" dogma. Scale is preserved by the "learned ignorance" in other words, the perpetual sense of humility and intellectual humiliation in the face of wonder and the experience of truth. Such praxis of gigantism in economy and transport is only achievable upon a de facto achievement of institutional ignorance and dogma which the modern university effectively governs! What a paradox.   

More Mike Oldfield

Tubular Bells II Documentary

BBC Production:Story of Tubular Bells

Man on the Rocks by Mike Oldfield

Mike Oldfield's New Rock Album

Song of November

Let me sing a song of November

the chilly dream that Winter wakes

October's leafy pageant

the steely wind shakes

from the clattering sky

littering the brown field

when black birds solemnly fly.

The pastel flowers have floated down September's streams like prayer flags flying 

The triumphant cry of the year!

Against the western winds laying down their fair share of grief

before Winter steals the color of this dream/

Dusty pink petals swirl and rise never to fall or die.

Bronze bells clang harmony in the distance as if to amuse me

What angel hovers there?

What death dance keeps me turning 

What new melody am I learning?

Song of November arises in my mind

echoing ancient battles of yellows and greens

of Summer's grip and before it Spring’s.

I am the wind to tousle your hair

I am fire orange and billowing

I am water

I am the moon

I am the dream when the dreamer wakes

You cannot see me/cannot hear me.

I am the stone and soil

you kick me underfoot.

You never knew me/

never held me at all.

Now alone you sing my song

and stand baffled by its sombre chords

though the words speak clearly

of this day and filter the sand into the hourglass.

Mountains rise and mountains fall

your mind gathers focus then crumbles to a stall

gazing into the mirror the mirror cannot lie

You see your original face without darkness

I am not lying.

Morning comes and morning goes as the broken leaves into the cold torrent's flow

you reach outside/feel the stinging breeze.

The wind tousles back your autumn hair

I come rushing into the air

you catch me in one powerful try

As I tumble into the corner of your eye.

Pale moon hides in her cloudy bed

and fire steals the night

My stream wends in fright an uneven way---

into the neverending poem at the heart of this day!

"All passes away yet God smiles and waves a banner of serenity---

Lord, You hold all of the cards we play

and yet I would beg you to play this hand in another way."

"god" particle-Higgs-Boson found to be " a little more complicated" than the physicists had originally imagined :)

Forbes Article on Higgs-Boson Particle

To those serious inquirers who would know the fundament of light and gravity please see:
Robert Archer Smith's Physics of Light

Photography: Link to Pennsylvania Landscapes

Link to Pennsylavania Landscapes

Beauty: The Realist Take

"In the psychology of the Victorines, the joy felt in experiencing sensuous harmony was a prolongation of physical pleasure [ital. mine]; it was rooted in the affective life and grounded in an ontologically real correspondence between the structure of the mind and the structure of matter." Umberto Eco Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages

Link to Zoosophy Blog

Link: Zoosophy

Link to 1000 Finger'd World

1000 Finger'd World

New Link at Teafroth

Link to Teafroth

New Post on Sovieta Blog

Link to Sovieta Blog

New Post on Beautiful Day Today

Link to Beautiful Day Today

Thomas Merton Blog: Father Louis

Father Louis (Thomas Merton Blog)

New Essay (click on link below)

How Did We Get Here From There?

What does it mean 'To Know'?

I have been thinking about what 'to know' really means---hence, what true knowledge consists in. To know ('oida': Gk) in Greek the term 'oida' is cognate with 'to see'. In shorthand to see is to know. In fact the vernacular use of seeing as knowing is quite commonly understood. Now imagine you come upon a tick sucking blood (as pictured below). One sees that the tick sucks blood it engorges but one does not know how the tick sucks blood. One knows that the tick sucks blood, in fact one knows how the tick sucks blood. 

But this is not how we teach our young scientists to proceed! We refer to a pentasyllabic word 'hematophagy' invented to describe the blood sucking mechanism. Or we turn to Wikipedia:
Wikipedia: Hematophagy

Presumably one gains a verbal access to explaining the phenomenon under discussion, presumably one better understands, even better 'knows' the phenomenon! This confused sense of knowledge and knowing, separate from seeing is what I deem as the greatest intellectual conundrums of our era.

Let us review the order of the phenomenon---one sees the tick exploded 10x its body size on the back of an innocent dog, in seeing the tick one knows that the tick sucks blood but presumes that one does not know how this little varmint does it! So one asks the question and then proceeds to use the cultural viable means of answering the question---one proceeds 'scientifically'. One refers to books, encyclopedia, Wikipedia, one asks an "expert". Like receiving a diagnosis for a mysterious symptom, the questioner is satisfied to learn that this an example of biological 'hematophagy'---the questioning mind is able to rest.

However, one should note that this is 'sleight of hand'---no understanding has been achieved in the acquisition of the pentasyllabic term! No new knowledge is obtained with the acquisition of this term. As a matter of fact, when one sees that the tick sucks blood, one knows how the tick sucks blood. In knowing that the tick sucks blood, one knows how the tick sucks blood. And this holds true with every other phenomenon!

In knowing that, one knows how. In seeing that such and such occurs, one knows how such and such occurs!

Therefore we must ask, since almost all of what we call knowing depends upon seeking expert diagnoses, and explanations, Wikipedia, and five-syllabled terms---which actually adds no new understanding to the phenomenon grasped, what is the status with regards to truth, concerning all of this so-called knowledge? One thing is for certain, the original grasp of the phenomenon which proceeds individually and by power of one's own eyesight, is routinely downgraded as a source of knowledge, whereas the move to downplay one's own true vision and knowledge is bypassed for a theory of knowledge which depends upon so-called "experts"---a kind of totalitarian-fascist way of knowing, if you ask me!