Stephen Hawking

Papa Legba

Wanted

Stephen Hawking is looking for a research assistant - must have a caring nature and understand string theory.
In the farthest polar extremity of the brain from string theory, lives one of the most revered of the Vodou deities - Papa Legba. He is characterized as a sweet, crippled old man who walks with a stick. Behind this modest exterior, however, is a powerful force that facilitates and interprets communication between the spirits and the flesh - a pitiful appearance that conceals great strength and power.
I doubt that Professor Hawking practices Vodou. If he did, however, I would put significant probability on his met-tete (patron saint) being Papa Legba, and that his gros bon-ange (essence of his spirit) would unite with Papa when he falls into the arms of his ancestors.
I wish I understood string theory.

Critical Thinking

Cranky, Short Limey
With an Insincere Grin
In an Ill-Fitting Suit
With Cheesy Chest Hair

Critical Thinking vs. Critical Thinking

No part of my education was more significant to my development than the critical thinking I learned in a class titled Symbolic Logic. This, with Quantitative Analysis, taught me to differentiate communication from bullshit. Serendipity brought Nixon as president when I took the course, and his speeches, our examples for analysis. Never say an unkind word about him - his words taught me more than nearly any other person's.
Harry Frankfurt, a retired Princeton philosophy professor, recently published a brilliant little book titled "On Bullshit." In it, he differentiates, by definition and example, bullshit from lying. Among the differences, he says, bullshit is an art.
That was the one statement in this otherwise stunning little treatise that really irked me. An art? How can he call THAT an art? There have been no more exasperating, fist clenching, mouth pursing, hyperventilating, eye glaring worse examples of me wanting to bash someone over the head with my superior knowledge, than to those who have bullshot me.
It makes me a little angry just thinking about it.
And just now, it makes sense. Lying is more of a simple thing: Yes it did, No it didn't; Black, White; Uh-huh, Uh-uh; Did SO, Talk to the hand, girlfriend.
Bullshit is more complex. Some lie, some exaggeration, some truth, some charm - all mixed together in a fast-talking soupy screen that allows, well, it may be possible. After all, there's SOME truth in it. Only after removing the rosy benefit-of-the-doubt glasses, does one see it for what it is.
Maddening.
Bullshit, opined Frankfurt, is on the rise. With that I agree heartily, and wonder whether now, when we need it most, its nemesis - critical thinking - will be a casualty to the other more pervasive type of critical thinking, I'll call critizing thinking.
The king of critizing thinking is that mean little Brit on American Idol. The standard for knowing whether you are engaging in it, is whether you are belittling the other person or thing at the time. If so, you are.
Critizing thinking is to lying, what critical thinking is to bullshit. Note that for your next SAT exam.
Critizers are simple, like liars. They are judgmental, less the mental.
Critical thinkers are complex. They test theories using premises that must follow each other using strict rules. Conclusions must be proven using well tested constructs. It's laborious, slow, contentious and difficult. But, it's our only defense against bullshit, and it is this - not the War on Terror - that I believe is the cause of this generation.
To further the cause of critical thinking, by the way, I've applied for the position of Media Whore for The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please send letters of recommendation to their website at bobby.henderson@gmail.com with the words "Help" and "Media Whore", or "Media Analyst" if you prefer.
I'd appreciate it.
That's no bullshit.

Stupid Girls

For Clarisa

For my niece Clarisa, just twelve years old, some tips I found useful in my teen years, in no particular order.

The models in magazines are airbrushed, anorexic and look like less than 1% of the population. In short, they are freaks, while you are a normal person.
Give your parents the benefit of the doubt 51% of the time.
Don't get pregnant. Use protection every time.
People with college educations earn about $1 million more during their lifetime than people with high school educations. Go to college.
Listen twice as much as you talk.
Don't cut your hair when you're menstruating.
Be independent, and set high standards for yourself.
Wait as long as you can to have sex. When you do, don't get pregnant.
Respect yourself. Insist that everyone else treat you with respect, too.
The boy you have a crush on today will look like an idiot to you when you're 20.
Read everything. Find out what really interests you. Enjoy life.
Save 35 cents of every dollar.
Pay attention in math class.
Eat healthy food in moderation and exercise every day.
Don't get pregnant.
Take a basic automotive class.
What other people think of you means nothing. Ask some adults how many school friends they still see.
Self confidence is very attractive.
Don't try to save people. Listen to them, and encourage them to save themselves.
It gets easier.
Don't get pregnant.
People who drink too much look and act like morons.
How things are, is much more important than how things look.
People who are themselves are much more interesting than people who are trying to be someone else.
Wear sunscreen.
Have fun. Make lots of friends.
Use protection every time.

With love from Aunt Kitty and her smart girlfriends.

Intelligent Design

Hey Joe, Part Deux

Today I have left my faith.
Today, St. Joseph has officially turned his Patriarchal-Head-of-the-One-Holy-Catholic-and-Apolstolic-Church back on me by not helping me sell my house, even after I buried a statue of him in our yard by the 'For Sale' sign.
With sadness, I bid him farewell, with my pretty sincere apology for that inappropriate joke I made about Mary on August 5. He had a whole month to give me a miracle, and decided not to. Okay.
I am now a practicing member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Already - and I've only been a member for a few minutes - a miracle.
Because of my obvious absence of faith, I looked first for FSM Sightings. As my little hourglass thingy blinked....whoosh. I was transported to a page that read The Page Cannot Be Found.
THE PAGE CANNOT BE FOUND!!! Sightings, you see, must be found in your HEART. You cannot find the FSM with a link. Oh joy. At last, my very essence springs forth with happiness, with the deep pleasure of giving my soul to the one, true God. My hands waved up in the air, but I felt his/her voice inside of me say, "How can you spread my word while you are waving?" So, trembling with the spirit, I return to my keyboard.
I know, I know, you can't stand Jehovah's Witnesses, with their bla bla bla. Believe me, that is not what I'm doing. You know in your heart when something is true. And this is it.
Jehovah and Allah are angry Gods. You don't want them.
Buddha let himself be blown up by the Taliban, so he won't do you much good.
Our God is the newest God - younger, with more appendages. Our God can beat up their Gods.
As a matter of fact, all the other gods are now officially going to lower case 'g.' I'm the profit (prophet, in less noodly beliefs), so I can make rules.
The second rule is that all the little kids in Catholic Schools who write JMJ at the top of their papers (to dedicate their work to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you pagan) will now write FSM.
Okay, back to the faith.
The only thing we haven't covered is the money. You know it isn't a real Church unless they give you a miracle and ask for money. I gave you the miracle.
The money place is
http://www.venganza.org/help.htm
I have dibs on Media Whore, so don't start with me.
Now, let us pray.
Memorare to Flying Spaghetti Monster
Remember, O most illustrious Patriarch Flying Spaghetti Monster, on the testimony of St. Kitty, thy devoted servant, never hath it been heard that anyone who has invoked thy protection or sought thy mediation has not obtained relief. In this confidence, I come before thee, my loving protector, chaste spouse of Mrs. Flying Spaghetti Monster, foster father of the Saviour of men and dispenser of the treasures of His Sacred Sauce. Despise not my earnest prayer but graciously hear and obtain my petition.
Ramen.
Say this every day for a month, meaning every word, and my house will sell. If you don't, then FSM will smite you to an eternity of bad Thai food and other tortures too gruesome to mention in this happy time.
Go in peace, my al dente pastafarians.
Pray like we're out of Parmasan.

False Cause Association Maties

There is a statistically significant negative corollary between pirate population and global temperature.

Why Convert to FSM?

Flimsy moral standards.

Every Friday is a religious holiday. If your work/school objects to that, demand your religious beliefs be respected and threaten to call the ACLU.

Our heaven is WAY better...an onboard Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano for buccaneers, and lady pirates enjoy unlimited spa privileges AND can send their men to sea whenever they want!

Black Hole

Sucked In

I wandered too close
To a black hole
While I traveling on
A starry night path.
It hid behind radiant
Patterns of light.
Its pull was seductive -
Not too much at first -
Then, enveloped in black,
I could't escape. When
I stopped fighting, then
Splat. There I was,
Just where I'd been
Before I was drawn in.

Booker, Fess and Big Chief

James Booker

Fess

Big Chief

Gandolfo, Big Mac & Snug Harbor

Charles Gandolfo

Big Mac

Snug Harbor

I Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

James Booker, scratched from the race.
Out of his skull, yet the most far out, frantic, wailin', jumpin' keyboard player on this green sphere.
Professor Longhair, in his final sweet sod pad.
Rompin', trompin' New Orleans original.
Big Chief Bo Dalles, hung up by the big rain.
Beautiful boy diggin' the scene his daddy lay down.
Charles Gandolfo, swooped off the satellite Mardi Gras Day, 2001.
Sweet, charming, disarming Creole gentleman. My Vodou art inspiration.
Big Mac
The swingin' and swayin'est, jumpin' and leapin'est, riffin' and goofin'est piano man alive.
Snug Harbor
Beautiful, exotic Sylvia, Empresario Jason, Little sprout Theloneous Sebastian. Suite Jazz.

And, striking, fearless artist Sally Mae; the crawfish-praline-bourbon-urine-laced heavy air; the street hustlers; tap dancers; gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice; chickory coffee and beignets; hypnotic, soulful, breathtaking music; leering, fat, sweaty men in seeksucker suits; corrupt cops; hard drinkers; Fats, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown; boozy, older women, lipstick astew, shamelessly flirting with younger men; go cups; slow talkers; French Afro-Carribean sensuousness; the writers; the artists; the shabby gentility; the leisurely pace.

Our last tryst was too long ago.

Death to Talking Clothes

Still A Little Salty

In my continuing effort toward achieving sweetness, I find myself performing an exorcism, of sorts. Either I purge myself of the continual smart-ass rhetoric playing in my head, or keep it to myself.
My very favorite quote, for example, was Fran Liebowitz on the David Brenner show with my then current hearththrob, professional wrestler-turned-governor Jesse "the Body" Ventura.
That was while he was still a wrestler, by the way. I am a gifted seer of potential.
In a conversation about clothing (spurred by Jesse's over-the-knee-boots he swore were made of dog skin), Fran quipped about the current trend of cute little sayings written on clothes. "If I don't want to talk to you, what makes you think I want to read your clothes?"
The fact that an erudite New York journalist verbalized my nagging recurring thought on the Venice boardwalk, felt like the discovery that another of my species exists. And, Jesse's raucous laughter confirmed that the voices in my head engaged in witty repartee. But, with those witty voices in my head, do I have the capacity to become sweet?
I have been called "sweet," most recently by the owner of a venture capital firm in San Francisco. "Sweet?" I thought. Do I appear sweet when asking questions about a film company's acceptable internal rate of return? Is it my coquettish delivery, head acock and wide eyed with anticipation of a big check? Periodically, I have these seemingly out of body experiences, and always recoil in horror. Do you any ANY idea what I'm thinking? (Rhetorical quesion, of course, since, if he did, he would never ever ever call me sweet, unless it was some creepy cannibal reference.)
It is, then, not the appearance of sweetness I seek, but the reality - with internal voices aligned.
I long to be a people worshipper, like Lord Buckley gently persuaded in Religion (August 27 post), with his graceful acknowledgement of other beliefs, honest admission of his absence of faith, and examples of the beauty in his love of people.
And, to get it, I'm afraid there'll be need for countless trials and executions of inhabitants of my head.
Sadly, this Sunday, I find myself pro capital punishment.