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10 Myths About Secular Humanism

Excellent synopsis of what secular humanism is and is not. The descriptor must be one of the most-misused, misconstrued, poorly understood terms ever swung by the tail.

4. Secular humanism worships humankind.
The idea that “humanists replace God with Man” seems to arise from a tendency among many Christians to assume that other religions and worldviews have a structure and content that parallels Christianity. So, since “Christians” worship Christ, humanists must worship humans. But secular humanism is not a religion and humanists don’t worship anything. We are far too realistic to worship humanity. While we recognize that all human beings have the potential to do good, we also realize that the potential exists for acts of great evil. Humanity’s constant challenge is to understand itself and improve itself.

Music: The Fugs :: Kill For Peace
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Gross National Happiness

Bhutan, which is famous for, among other things, sheltering its people from TV (until 1999) is drafting its first constitution. For a country that has shunned most technology and been fairly repressive of free speech, it’s interesting to see that they’ve put their draft constitution online in PDF form, and are taking public comments.

The impression I got of Bhutan after watching a documentary a while ago was that the country was a paradox – repressive yes, but the people were happy in a way that the film makers described as untarnished — the Luddite approach had an Amish aspect, intended to keep life simple and pure. The government was repressive, but the documentarian commented repeatedly that the people seemed exceptionally joyous and warm (albeit hungry for information from the outside).

From Article 9, this makes me smile:

The State shall strive to promote those circumstances that will enable the successful pursuit of Gross National Happiness.

Orville Schell with more on the GNH and the introduction of technology to Bhutan.

Music: Holly Golightly :: Indeed You Do
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Orchestra Baobab

Palace of Fine Arts today with friends and kids to a matinee performance by Senegal’s inimitable Orchestra Baobab. The SF Jazz Festival this year is hosting a few daytime performances on the side to give families/children a chance to absorb high-frequency good vibrations — a brilliant idea, and Baobab was a perfect fit. Deeply grooving, musically accessible, culturally significant, and totally jamming. Amelia bum-rushed the stage with a hundred other tots and was clapping and dancing. Wonderful afternoon.

Senegal is a country with a rich musical heritage and one of the most vibrant pop music scenes on the african continent. Its music today is dominated by one main sound – the breathtaking rhythms of Mbalax, the music of the Wolof people in the north of the country. But it was not always so. In the 1970s the style that filled Senegal’s airwaves was a fusion of Afro-Cuban elements with various local sounds drawn from Senegal’s diverse cultural traditions. And the undisputed masters of this fusion were the legendary Orchestra Baobab.

Other noteworthy music stuff:

Tom Waits’ most cherished albums of all time. Waits on John Lurie:

Get the first record, The Lounge Lizards. You know, John’s one of those people, if you walk into a field with him, he’ll pick up an old pipe and start to play it, and get a really good sound out of it. He’s very musical, works with the best musicians, but never go fishing with him.

And run, don’t walk, to try and digest Unknown Hinson — the craziest side-burned, snaggletoothed s.o.b. ever to wield a country rock guitar and shoot a pistol at the same time. The videos left me breathless.

“Don’t bite the lips … that kiss you
I don’t want … to say it … again.”

Thanks Mal and Mike

Music: The Dells :: Give Your Baby A Standing Ovation
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Octopus Walk

They’ve probably been doing it for milennia, but the behavior was never documented until recently. Octopuses occasionally stroll around the ocean floor on two legs, tucking the other six up under them into a ball (videos at site). UC Berkeley researcher Chrissy Huffard: “This is the first underwater bipedal locomotion I know of, and the first example of hydrostatic bipedal movement.”

Music: James Chance & The Contortions :: Contort Youself
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Wreck-n-Roll

An El Cerrito neighbor builds basses and guitars from junkyard parts. “Cycle Pole” and “Venus de Moto” employ motorcycle gas tanks as bodies. “Flying VW” uses hubcaps as resonators, and incorporates the artist’s wisdom teeth as control knobs. “Frankenbass” incorporates a tailpipe as part of its design. Inspiring. Need to check these guys out one of these nights.

Music: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra :: Sister
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When Public Opinion Doesn’t Matter

The flood of media attention on the Schiavo case could leave you thinking America is deeply divided on the right-to-die issue, and on the question of whether government intervention is appropriate. But:

… a 2003 Fox News poll found just 2 percent of Americans think the government should decide this type of right-to-die issue … And in the past week, an overwhelming majority — 87 percent — of Americans polled by ABC News and the Washington Post said that if they were in the same state as Terri Schiavo, they too would want their feeding tube removed.

For a change, America is united, not divided. But you’d never guess that from watching the evening news.

Music: Illy B :: Violes
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The New Radicals

Via Liberaltopia, The New Radicals:

“Republicans and conservatives are no longer the fiscally conservative party they once were.”:

1789-1981 985 billion in cumulative debt
2004 – 985 billion in debt in one year alone.

Source in video

Of course that statistic doesn’t cover the whole picture, leaving out details for the years 1982-2003. For example, how did the national debt fare under Clinton?

Clinton stopped the bleeding in just three years and then dropped the debt from 67% to 57% in his last five years.

Music: Jimi Hendrix :: Pali Gap
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Destination Unknown

Playing soccer at the park with Miles, we stop to rest, lie on our backs looking at the sky. An airplane flies overhead.

“Where do you think that airplane is going, Miles?”

“To Habitot and Mocha, Daddy.”

Earlier in the day…

“What should we have for dinner?”
“Cookies.”
“Where did you get the idea that we have cookies?”
“From an old magazine.”

(This last was a reference to a line from one of his books, Wegman’s Surprise Party, in which dogs get party ideas by studying old magazines, but it knocked our socks off that he recalled and applied it.)

Music: Curtis Mayfield :: We’Ve Only Just Begun
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Caterpillar Fungus

On our occasional trips to the local Asian supermarket, I always enjoy discovering some new, hard-to-believe-it’s-real foodstuff to bring home. Last week I found Greenmax brand “Pai Ku Grain Powder,” which I thought would be a sort of tea, but is actually a sort of soupy, slightly chalky energy drink. The list of ingredients were too intriguing to pass up, including purple yam, ginseng, snow lotus, pearl (?), spinach, black sesame, seaweed, bitter melon, lily bulb, ginkgo nut, and… caterpillar fungus. There are actually about 50 ingredients total. Didn’t know whether the label was referring to a fungus that grows on caterpillars, or a variety of fungus nick-named “caterpillar.” Turns out:

Spores of Cordyceps sinensis grow inside the caterpillars filling the caterpillar with filaments (hyphae). When the caterpillar dies the fungus produces a stalked fruiting body that produces spores. The spores are spread in the wind to the next generation of caterpillars. Uninfected caterpillars pupate into relatively large primitive moths. Today the most common way to prepare the caterpillar fungus is to stuff a duck with the caterpillar fungus then after boiling the duck in hot water, patients drink the liquid. Some consider the benefits to be similar to those of another valuable Chinese tonic, ginseng.

There were dozens of brands of this stuff, so apparently it’s pretty popular. After an initial period of adjustment it’s actually not bad, and the energy/clarity it yields is noticeable. Not sure I’m ready to give up coffee for it just yet though.

Music: flying lizards :: walk on by
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Field Notes on Comment Registration

In order to respond to Birdhouse customers who want an answer to the question: “Why are you enforcing comment registration on Movable Type weblogs? Have you really exhausted all other options?,” I’ve put together this Brief History of Our Battle With Comment Spammers to summarize what we’ve done in the past, why it hasn’t worked, and why we think comment registration is our only remaining recourse.
Continue reading “Field Notes on Comment Registration”