Happy As Kings

Finding a blog subject in the era of direct social networking

I used to use this blog to share jokes, pictures I like, and interesting websites, as well as letting off steam.  Now, with Facebook (and potentially with Google+) I can 'talk' directly with people who are more likely to reply.  That kind of communication is more satisfying than random blogging.  Now I find blogging more suited to sharing impersonal information, which is at odds with my blog's name as those are things I'm seldom "happy" about.

I don't want to turn off my blog, but I'm having difficulty finding a use for it that is compatible with why I started it.

I could use it to give Snopes one more link.  (today's 'new knowledge' is how egg whites aren't miracle cures for burns)

Or I could use it for social awareness articles.  (unsafe abortions are on the rise because of cuts in funding for contraceptives)

Those uses make it a kind of inefficient Twitter.

Or I could put up more pictures.  I like that use.

Shadows at the zoo.  My daughter, my grandson and me.  I'm the one who looks like the fairy Merriweather in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Photoshopped propaganda

The last few days on Facebook, I've seen pictures people have either been acclaimed by the people who have shared them, or the person felt the picture to be an embarassment.  The thing I feel these pictures have in common, is that they were digitally manipulated.  Unfortunately, we have so many things to watch out for that closely examining images is just something else to put on the to-do list.

The giveaway in these pictures is the pixellation and differences in background shading.  Copy and paste the full-size images into a graphics program and increase the size of the image.  See the pixels?  D'you figure someone's playing you?

I find this one funny, but it's still been worked.

 

I find this annoying.  The intent of this image is that homeschooling parents and kids are numnutzes for not being able to spell their own 'name,' and the numnutzes are supporting Governor Perry.  I don't support Governor Perry in the least, but I find this connection to be offensive to both of us.

 

I hope this young man lived.  Whether he did or not, putting any tattoo on his body and using it for propaganda is disgusting.

 

This one puts out the vibe that the sign is hanging on a building or barracks in a combat zone -- it just has that look.  I seriously doubt (but could be wrong) that this sign would be allowed.  Officially proselytizing isn't condoned by the regs.

Air Force reviewing all ethics training,  14 Aug 2011, Air Force Times

The Air Force is reviewing all training materials related to ethics, core values and character development after more Christian-themed course work surfaced.

The problem isn't with the content, per se, it's with undue command influence on personal beliefs.  Servicemembers swear to protect and defend the Constitution, not a specific religious viewpoint.

 

Now if you think I've got hold of the wrong end of photo manipulation and am just annoyed at the messages in the above images, here's another example, one I hope makes readers laugh:

Click on the image, copy it, paste it into the graphics program and enlarge it.  See the pixels around the penguins and the cymbals?  Manipulation.

We all probably see images similar in tone to these images, and may nod in agreement with them, feel irritated, or laugh; that's normal.  But once you think about it, please, do take the time to see if someone's playing you and playing to your confirmation bias.

Remembers Benjamin Franklin's advice:  "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

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Note:  I found out that the photo of the injured soldier is authentic.  I'm assuming the pixellation of his tattoo came from whoever publicized the version of the photo that I saw, and that that image had the tatoo 'sharpened' for legibility.  I was relieved to read that the young man survived.

Voter ID: who is pro, and who is con depends on the politics of the day

2011:  Rolling Stone

• The GOP war on voting
  In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year ...

2010:  Infowars

• Biometric National ID Card Included In Democratic Immigration Bill
  The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID — which is dubbed a “biometric social security card.” Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.

Watching political ... -- "debate" is the wrong word ..., posturing? -- is like watching two pendulums swing in opposition to each other with each 'side' on a pendulum changing positions after they pass the midpoint of each swing.

Politifact comparisons on news reports about Voter ID.

Don't know much about history

At Boston.com, Jeff Jacoby writes about the National Assessment of Educational Progress's (NAEP) report that states, Less than one-quarter of students perform at or above the Proficient level [in history] in 2010. Some people may yawn at the idea of history, but without knowing where we've come from, we can't easily map a plan for where we're going, or know how to choose among the plans made for us by our elected officials.  I think it's cultural and educational neglect to ignore the wonderful stories, tales, reports and adventures of our forbears, ancestors and great-ancestors.

At the risk of being insensitive, and at the risk of leaving more children with poor instruction on the story of how we all got to where we are, we don't have to rely on schools.  Families: parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents, can do it themselves, even without homeschooling.  I'm not talking about drilling kids after school and killing even more initiative, just about spending our dollars where they'll do more good.  Historical fiction isn't "history," but it can encourage a love of where 'we' came from, and inspire our kids to know more.

• Instead of one Wii game, buy a biography:  for youger kids, one such as Abraham Lincoln by the d'Aulaires will do.  If you can afford an Xbox game, you can afford The Story of Mankind, the first Newbery Award winner.
• If straight-up history isn't your thing (at the moment), try fiction.  Rosemary Sutcliff's Dragon Slayer, among many others, is a retelling of the epic poem, Beowulf.  The imagination's dressing up of Grendel's attacks on the halls of Hroðgar, Grendel's mother's revenge for the death of her son, and Beowulf's final act as dragonslayer have as much adventure as repetitive video games. Ask the librarian for other good historical novels.
• If reading isn't your thing, try movies:  The Clan of the Cave Bear, Spartacus, Cleopatra, I Claudius, King Arthur, The Mists of Avalon, El Cid, Becket, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood (whether in tights or not), John Wycliffe, Joan of Arc, Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula, The Agony and the Ecstacy, A Man for all Seasons, La Reine Margot, The Three Musketeers, The Crucible, Rob Roy, Treasure Island, A Tale of Two Cities, Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Captain Horatio Hornblower, Shaka Zulu, The Alamo, Gone With the Wind, Young Winston, Wild Bill, The Last Samurai, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Battleship Potemkin, All Quiet on the Western Front, Schindler's List, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, Exodus, The Right Stuff, Che, Full Metal Jacket, Taxi Driver, Milk, All the President's Men, Frost/Nixon, Munich, Charlie Wilson's War, Black Hawk Down, The Queen, Flight 93, The Social Network.
• If being a sofa spud isn't your thing, try joining a Civil War reenactment group.
• If staying in one place isn't your thing, try audio books while driving in the car.
• Visit museums.
• Research your family's genealogy.

History is all around us. Don't shortchange your kids/grandkids/neices/nephews by staying in the thin edge of today.  We're more than the surface.

 

Quick list of resources from top search results from Google:

Authors

• Louisa May Alcott
• Scoular Anderson 
• Pearl S. Buck   
• Frances Hodgson Burnett  
• Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
• Esther Forbes
• Nathaniel Hawthorne 
• Washington Irving
• Scott O'Dell 
• Elizabeth George Speare 
• Gene Stratton-Porter
• Roberg Louis Stevenson 
• Rosemary Sutcliff
  
• Mildred Taylor 
  
• Geoffrey Trease 
• Barbara Tuchman 
  
• Laura Ingalls Wilder  
  
• Jane Yolen 
  

 

Outlets

• Barnes & Noble 
• Beautiful Feet Books 
• Bellerophon Books 
• Bluestocking Press 
• Dover Publications  
• Historical Paper Dolls   
• Horrible Histories 

 

 Overviews and lists

• About.com:  Children's Books -- Historical Fiction  
• Historical Fiction Network:  Favorite Historical Novels for Children 
• Library Booklists:  Historical Fiction for Children  
• Scholastic:  Why & How I Teach with Historical Fiction 

 

Feel free to add your own titles, authors, outlets and links in the comments section since this entry is only the work of a few hours and I know I've missed much.

American military as a socialist entity

The local headline of Nicholas Kristof's column today in the Kansas City Star, gave me a laugh:  The Socialist U.S. Military System Works -- Hoo-ah!  I came to the same conclusion decades ago, not that the realization was anything spectacular, or public, it was merely an ironic realization, before the collapse of communism, and in the kitchen of the government quarters where our family lived.  The microcosm in which I lived was, short of being Spartans or 1st century Christians, the epitome of what my husband was actively working against.  Given our social group, I didn't bring up this viewpoint much in polite company.  (and yes, I supported my husband in his work -- realizing an -ismic irony didn't negate the reality of the opposition's intent)

I don't know that the military model is one that 'society' should emulate as a way of sustaining us all, but invoking socialism and communism as dread -isms, in and of themselves, holds as much truth as saying that pure free-market capitalism, unconstrained by any liberal practices, is the way to go.

Rob Woodall and health care entitlement

In this video Congressman Rob Woodall (R-GA), first tells one woman, apparently retired from a company that doesn't provide health care benefits for retirees, that she shouldn't expect government health care because he needs to take care of himself. I'm guessing this is a reference to his tax rate. Minutes later, he tells another woman that he accepts the government health care benefits that come with his job because they're "free."

No, these programs are not "free."  Other people are picking up his tab -- taxpayers.

 

 

In questions asked by the media after the meeting, the Congressman said he chose the cheapest plan available to him, and that he supports members of Congress also participating in free-market health care programs. Apparently, just not now.

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?

 Last week, a Washington Times editorial, "Air Force witchcraft," tried denigrating adherents of earth-centered religions by referencing a timely quote from Julius Caesar.

The religions of the barbaric tribes of Europe faded away as the Roman conquest brought civilization to the region. ... "They have likenesses of immense size, the limbs of which are composed of wicker, that they fill with living men," wrote Julius Caesar, describing a Druid ceremony. "After these are set on fire, the men inside perish in the flames."

 This appeal to ancient authority prompts me to rhetorically ask whether adherents of Christianity ever committed atrocities -- perhaps inquisitions, or religious wars, or genocide of civilizations new-to-Europeans? (I suppose Jewish atrocities are the ones in the Tanakh/Old Testament in which the Israelites wiped out neighboring tribes) Some might say, "Those things happened long ago. They don't happen now."  Children in Nigeria disagree. 

Another inaccuracy in the Times editorial is the statement:

All of the actual Wiccans and Druids died out hundreds of years ago.

 The thrown-together thinking behind the "actual" sentence is shown by the anachronistic mixing of Druids and Wiccans.  Druids were iron-age Celts; Wicca is a modern development; witches in the popular conception -- since the word is one synonym for Wiccan -- are, to my mind, mythological along with sorceresses and wizards.  In the here and now, some people do call themselves Druids, but as these neo-Druids are building websites and sending out home study courses, they've hardly died out.

 Another indicator of sloppy thinking by the article's writer is by referring to "actual Wiccans and Druids."  What is an "actual" Wiccan, or an "actual" Druid?  Would an "actual" Druid's physical existence be biologically equivalent to the body of a believer of a mainstream religion, or is there a difference between "actual" people and those who merely believe?  To me, the labeling of Wiccans and Druids as "actual" indicates the writer thinks that genetic Harry Potteresque wizards exist(ed), which brings up a pretty theological question:  Since most religions gain members by thoughtful teaching/conversion, do "actual" members of a religious group have their religion in their DNA?  If that were true, wouldn't an identifiable DNA marker for a specific religion lend more legitimacy to the status of "actual" believers?  (possibly? [see final paragraph])

 Metaphysics aside, how are secular authorities supposed to treat religion?  Should only the adherents of large-group religions be respected?  If that is how things should be, should secular authorities ignore minority-religions, or perhaps ban them? What is an appropriate secular treatment of group members with religious beliefs?

 Again from the Times article:

This is a space cadets can use to perform rituals if they happen to be witches, warlocks and tree-worshipers. ...

The Air Force is not alone in pandering.

 I'll overlook the Freudian "space cadets," although it gave me a laugh, but "pandering" is impossible to misconstrue.  One definition of pander is to receive special treatment. In a modern, tolerant country is it "pandering" to allow people to worship as they choose? 

The Times writer continues with the special treatment theme:

These neo-Pagan worshippers now have a federally supplied space they can call their own in the hills of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Why not?  The famous Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel is also "federally supplied," so why can't the minority-belief worshippers have a space in the hills?  Who is injured by either facility?

In the United States, practicing your religion is not a privilege, it's a right.  Which brings me to USAF Academy grad, Mikey Weinstein:

Religious Civil Rights: Why Have the Washington Times and the Air Force Academy Savaged Them?, 9 May 2011, Truthout

Shame, shame, shame on the Times for failing to recognize that, while the First Commandment might indeed say that "you cannot have any other Gods but Me," the First Amendment's clarion call is quite simply, "Oh yes you can!"

 The "clarion call" is echoed in the booklet, "Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups" published by the U.S. Army.  (link to text: here)

 The United States is not a theocracy.  The Constitution (the one the cadets will swear to uphold when they become Air Force officers) says so.  What Julius Caesar thought, is of no civic consequence.

Spiritually speaking: Japan’s earthquake as a sign of Apocalypse Soon

Anyone can be 'published'

A Yahoo writer wrote that God means the earthquake-tsunami in Japan to be a sign about Jesus returning to earth.  The person used three disaster dates, allegedly with 11 in them (World Trade Center, Haiti and Japan), and a Bible verse numbered 11 that includes the word "earthquakes."  The writer got one of the dates wrong (the Haitian earthquake was on a 12th, which eliminates one of the 11s) and chose only a single '11-verse' out of 260 possible '11-verses' throughout the New Testament.

As disasters go, the writer failed to include the recent flooding in Australia (31 December), and the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand (22 February).

Stacking the Bible

Biblically, John is left out of the earthquake prediction business, but in the book of Luke, the earthquake verse is 11.  In the book of Matthew, it's number 7.  In Mark, the earth quakes verse 8. If sending coded messages by natural disaster is the way the Almighty communicates with people, does this mean that when the Holy Spirit was guiding the hands of those who divvied up the Greek writings into chapters and verses for Bibles that the Holy Spirit was hedging the Holy Spirit's bets for staging disasters?  [insert coy tone] "I'm coming!"

With earthquake verses having different numbers, did the Holy Spirit choose the 7th, 8th or 11th of … of what?  Wouldn't the likely dating be in Jewish months?  Since time-counting by lunar cycles does not synchronize with solar cycles - lunar calendars slip 'ahead' of the solar calendar we're accustomed to use - was the Holy Spirit thinking ahead?  Is this why the Holy Spirit went with synchronizing New Testament verses with dates using Western months long before people who would be Western needed months?  The Holy Spirit was also savvy about figuring in the calendrical changes convenient for catastrophes, such as the time the calendar "lost" eleven days.

Can't you just see the H.S. scratching His Head as he 'did the math' for that one so that after 2001, all natural catastrophes would fall on the 11th of each month?

I would think that in a court of law that these 11-connections wouldn't qualify even as circumstantial evidence.

 

Probability and science

That devastating events happen on similarly-numbered days is coincidence.  As a non-mathematician, non-statistician, non-probability figurer-outer (no clue as to what that person's job title is), I'm guessing the odds of events happening on similarly-numbered days is roughly 1-in-30.  Year after year, decade after decade, century after century we code events as happening on roughly one of more or less 30 days per month.

Over millennia, with 'stuff' happening all the time, it is likely that there will be significant events that fall on the 'same day,' but since 2001, if it has an 11 in it (instead of 10 for the hurricane of 1780, or 8 for the Chicago fire, or 31 for the Johnstown flood or the Galveston hurricane, or 18 for the San Francisco earthquake, or 25 for the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, or 1 for a Mississippi River flood and an Aleutian tsunami, or 3 for Hurricane Diane, or 9 for the Rapid Creek flood in South Dakota, or 17 for another San Francisco earthquake that people watching the World Series saw on television) we all see the numerical equivalent of Tarot's Death card.

 

Back to the Bible

Now even if you take these connections seriously, what is it that you're actually serious about?

• In Luke, since that was the Yahoo Writer's choice of verse, it appears to be the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.  We would file that under "old news." 
• In Mark, it's not so clear.  Could be the temple, could be Jesus' return. 
• Matthew is equally unclear.

What is clear, though, is who, in this cast of characters, is going to 'know.'

Go to Mark, chapter 13. Skip down from the earthquake verse, number eight, to verse 32.  We'll leave aside verses 30 and 31 about that generation not passing before all the earthquakes, wars and nations rising against each other, that was about 100 generations ago, and we're here, not them. Mark 13:32 states in English (depending on your translation), "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Only the Father, not Jesus the Son, not Luke the disciple, and definitely not the Yahoo Writer.  Since the Father apparently keeps his lip zipped, no HeaveniLeaks that I've noticed, can we stop with the scare stuff?

 

What's the point?

I can't tell what the Yahoo writer means by writing what s/he did.  Warning? Threat? What?  What's the point?  The Earth has been seismically active throughout its life.  It's going to stay that way because of plate tectonics and magma. Scientists have documented at least 27 earthquakes of the magnitude of the Japan catastrophe since the 'time of Jesus' (as that's when the destruction was first promised).

As people try to find some small comfort in which to wrap themselves against the effects of the power of nature, and our helplessness against much of it, this person seems to revel in the idea of divine global catastrophe. Isn't it enough for the Yahoo Writer that tens of thousands of people are dead, drowned in terror as the deep crashed over them, suffocating their screams as the fouled nightmare water rolled them like ants being washed away by a stream from a gardener's hose?

Not only do I not understand that way of looking at things, I don't want to understand it.

Egocentrism in newscasting

Because of the tragedy in Japan, I turned on television news tonight.  The comments of a reporter underscored for me why I rarely watch these programs.  "Is America in danger?"

Of, for the love of pete, can nothing happen without it being about "us?" 

Yes, I understand a little of the dynamics of underwater earthquakes and that the shock wave of any underseaquake, the tsunami, will travel through the water until it makes landfall. It's as if the earth roughly did a kind of underwater swimming pool cannonball but instead of the airborne splash from the shock of the sudden water displacement, the shock waves caused the 'ripple' to slosh up over the edges of any land surrounding the Pacific. Typical for water. But little happened here. California, Oregon and Washington are safe.  So is the rest of "America."  Until the shock wave sloshed on this side of the Pacific, concern was legitimate, but the wave had already passed by the time I heard the reporter late tonight.

Japan suffered devastation not seen outside of Hollywood apocalypse movies. The speeding water swept away livelihoods and lives. The tsunami destroyed people, fieldmice, cats, dogs, cars, trucks, boats, houses, fields, farms, roads and towns.  The six-miles-invading waves drowned the land.  And a reporter -- national level -- asks if "America" is in danger.

What a narcissistic reaction.

1969: Fred Rogers defends PBS to the Senate Subcommittee on Communications

Today, it is hard to imagine Mr. Rogers having to describe his program.

FLASHBACK: Mr. Rogers' Stirring 1969 Defense Of Public Broadcasting (VIDEO)