That's the pretty interesting, if simplistic, question posed by The Atlantic:

Not everyone is thrilled by the prospect of radical life extension. As funding for anti-aging research has exploded, bioethicists have expressed alarm, reasoning that extreme longevity could have disastrous social effects. Some argue that longer life spans will mean stiffer competition for resources, or a wider gap between rich and poor. Others insist that the aging process is important because it gives death a kind of time release effect, which eases us into accepting it. These concerns are well founded. Life spans of several hundred years are bound to be socially disruptive in one way or another; if we're headed in that direction, it's best to start teasing out the difficulties now.

I received a missive from a long-time friend this afternoon. I've known that she's moved toward the Republican side for some time, asked her not to send me stuff a while ago, so this was something of a surprise.

It was pretty much incoherent, although the outrage was clear. Something about a crotch salute, which (I googled) has to do with the position of President Obama's hands in military circumstances. By the standards of the Right, Presidents (particularly this President) must do certain things at certain times, particularly saluting the flag, whether it is by the hand over heart or the pseudo-military handflick from head that President Bush enjoyed. I'm recalling that Mitt Romney failed in this gesture at least once, but I'm not outraged enough to google that.

I also won't google something I saw recently that said that this saluting thing (along with the flag pin on lapel is fairly recent, particularly the pseudo-military variety, which seems to go back only two presidents or so.

But OUTRAGE! NOT AN AMERICAN! (caps from the source)

It's that outrage that I'm wondering about. What function does it serve?

The Lakota say, "Mitakuye Oyasin - we are all related".

A moment arrives tomorrow that is one of those markers in life that grabs your attention. My daughter graduates from college-- although she still needs a couple two credits-- and it makes all the difference.

I worry for her, as I worry for all young people of my acquaintance, from fellow bloggers to people at my gym and work, to her friends. I see trouble, deep deep trouble, ahead.

I guess if I could make a keynote at a graduation, I'd say something like this:

Today, you are glad to be finishing a stairway in your life. You've climbed to a landing, and can take a breath and look back down. Those steps, they looked so tall and steep as you walked up, but you made it. You perservered, and did what you had to and got through.

The results of this poll sort of reflect my own feelings and experiences with Facebook:

According to a new AP-CNBC poll, 57 percent of Facebook users say they never click ads or other sponsored content when they use the site, with another 26 percent saying they hardly ever engage in such activity.

While the company makes money, in part, simply by displaying sponsored content, user clicks are a critical part of an advertiser’s calculus when gauging how effective those ads are and how much they’re willing to pay for them. In the first quarter, Facebook generated 82 percent of its $1.06 billion in revenue from advertising sales. In the company’s online IPO pitch to retail investors, CFO David Ebersman says the company is working to make ads “more relevant, more social, and more engaging” as it looks to grow.

When I look at what's happening in this country today, I wonder if there isn't some sort of virus on the loose, causing people to go stark raving mad.
Politics? Culture? Economics? Environment? Wherever I look, things are falling apart.
Maybe this is what any empire feels like as it fades, rather like a city which decays from the inside out.

Archdruid John Michael Greer would probably say that the Social Narrative is breaking down.

If the entire population were considered as a single person, that person would be diagnosed psychotic and maybe psychopathic.

There's a PhD thesis there just in collecting the proof which is lying around in various books and essays and studies.

We all have factotums, signs and signals that mark events or the passage of time. For me, spring truly arrives not with the first push of a daffodil shoot from under the mulch or the first open window on a sunny afternoon, but the day I bring my bike to the shop.

There's a ritual involved. Barring some consequential damage, either to the bike or myself, I carefully twist the retaining bolts on my indoor trainer loose and slowly lift my bike, Saphira, out of the niches that her rear axle has sat in for months.

She's everything I'd want in a woman. She's mellow but not submissive, letting me know when she's uncomfortable with what I'm doing, even reminding me from time to time of my own limitations. She's supportive but never lets me forget that she's there.

Today is Leap Day, the quadrennial occasion when we give our employers a free day of work.

As the Empire drives full-speed-ahead toward the brick wall, many people are looking for a way out; a modern equivalent of the 1950's backyard bomb shelter.
There's a lot of talk about emulating the 1960s hippies back-to-the-land thing. However, from what I've seen, most of them settled for growing a few veggies and were nowhere near self-sufficient. Their boasts of self-sufficiency may make them feel warm and fuzzy, but they are deluding themselves. (That's one reason I follow a guy with a selfsufficientish mindset, who recognizes the unlikelihood of being 100% independent.)

I figure I have about five more of these I'll have to write to cover my sports heroes.

It's hard to believe he was only four years older than I was. In point of fact, it's hard to believe he was older than I am.

Gary Carter, baseball Hall of Famer, perennial All-Star, and former New York Met, died last evening at age 57.

The one thing I remember most about his play and his attitude was, it transported me back to a time when ballplayers had to dig ditches in the offseason, when the game was fun and not dominated by money, when it was still viewed as a child's game. He got a hit, he smiled. Even when he lost a game, it might take him a while, but he could be counted on for a level-headed interview and a smile. It was as if he had been blessed to remain a kid all his life, and he knew it and appreciated every second of it.

...may not be exaggerated. But the acknowledgement may be delayed.
David Carter Found Dead In Foreclosed Home As Many As Four Years After Suicide (VIDEO) Huffington Post
By Henry Bradford Feb 6

"Abandoned homes have become an increasingly common sight amidst a national foreclosure crisis. Yet what may lurk forgotten behind closed doors may be much worse than nothing at all.

"A Milwaukee real estate agent entered one such house last month after it was repossessed due to tax foreclosure -- the government can foreclose on a home if taxes and subsequent fees are not paid off within a designated time period -- to find a sight he's not likely to forget soon. The body of the owner David Carter was found on the stairs in a "nearly skeletonized" state after being left there undiscovered for what investigators believe to be up to four years, The Daily Mail reports."

Bradford ties in another story and, in doing so, he creates a new genre, theater of the absurd vérité: "A Florida woman is currently suing her lender, JPMorgan Chase, after the bank mistakenly declared her deceased in 2010, which she claimed ruined her credit score." Seriously, why should there even be a law suit? What is so wrong with JPMorgan that they would not settle this right away. Never mind justice and common decency, this makes them look even worse than they already look.

So, I bid you all adieu. If you're so inclined I can be found here opining on things not political. And you can always find me updating my photos from some other strange out of the way place on the globe, or even just around Texas, at Flickr.

Until next we meet, with hope, as we trudge the road of happy destiny.

. . . this morning with a middle school Latin instructor. I asked him what textbook he used to teach Latin. "Oxford," he said.

"Why not Wheelock's?" I asked. I was taught Latin using Wheelock's and the methodology Wheelock uses in his book, in my opinion is the standard of excellence for teaching foreign languages.

"Can't use it any more. It was written at a time when students were expected to know grammar," he replied.

"Wait, what? They don't teach grammar in school any more?"

"Nope, it's too patriarchal," he said.

Western civilization is doomed.

In the year in 2000, the Elders of the Hopi Nation were asked for a prophecy, or advice, to mark the beginning of the new millenium.

This prophecy seems like it could be a good contemplation for the people in the Occupy Wall Street movement. And it also seems like a suitable way to mark the passing of the torch by SPK.

There are some slightly different versions of this prophecy on the internet. The version that follows is from the book “Perseverance”, by Margaret Wheatley.

ORAIBI, ARIZONA JUNE 8, 2000
TO MY FELLOW SWIMMERS:

From the Elders of the Hopi Nation ORAIBI, ARIZONA JUNE 8, 2000

. . . my Texas only bird count for 2012 is now up to 57!

. . . feelgood kinda stuff here. But this is just awesome. Love is goddamned awesome, you know?

. . . standardized tests at the college level are not going to teach people critical thinking skills. From the story:

After four years of college, more than a third of them showed no significant improvement on a test of critical thinking and reasoning.

It's the sort of thing employers have been complaining about for years.

First, I know for a fact that most employers do not want people with critical thinking skills. They want drones who will work themselves to death or yes men and women.

Second, the idea that standardized testing will somehow magical teach people critical thinking skills is laughable. Here's what will: compel students to take a full year of logic, a full year of Algebra, a full year of physics and two years of reading books from the canon^*, after they have take the math and logic.

Look, I hated algebra and higher math as much as anyone. (Logic was different: it was fun, but that was also due to the professor I had.) But I noticed a very real, perceptible leap in my critical thinking faculties after I finished college algebra--my GPA leaped upwards and my facility at dissecting historical and literary texts exegetically and critically grew.

And screw statistics: statistics is bullshit the way it is currently taught. All it teaches people to do, as currently taught, is manipulate and spin data.

^* And yes, the Western canon is critical to the way Westerners think and how our societies have evolved. There is a place for other great books not in the Western canon and they should be learned, but Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Cernvantes and Homer and Virgil are a fundamental starting point.

Read an old book, learn a new idea.

I'll not be watching the SOTU this evening, instead I will be watching episode two of season three of Justified. If you are not watching Justified you are simply missing out on the best television show right now. As a matter of fact, there are four excellent interviews by Terry Gross here and here and here and here. How can you go wrong with Elmore Leonard, dig?

Today the nation celebrates the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a day of service.

I can think of few more appropriate ways to honor a man who espoused non-violence and humility in the face of oppression and rage. Service to our community, service to our fellow men and women, even as small as buying a friend a sandwich for lunch or giving a quarter to the homeless guy who sleeps in the subway, sounds like small potatoes in the face of the service that Dr. King gave to this nation.

But it's a start. Obviously, the more you can give to your community, the more important your work can be.

An email from a friend in reaction to this tweet of mine:

Someone should compare the salaries of those charged with finding truth with those charged with obscuring it. If similar resources went into journalism as into PR...

It's hilarious to watch Republicans fall all over themselves bashing each other for speaking French in the case of Mitt Romney and Chinese in the case of John Huntsman. Of course, it's hard for me to get excited about a candidate that speaks a romance language. They are all pretty easy to master. I mean, we all know George W. Bush spoke "Mexican."

But Huntsman is a different case. He clearly speaks Chinese well and as president this would be a tremendous asset. Alas, the Republicans have attacked him for speaking the language. More is the pity. A man has a useful skill that could advance American interests and he's pilloried for it? Silly, I tell you, but that is modern America for you: anti-intellectual to the core.

James Fallows, in a recent post, on the issue, however, wrote something that I found even more fascinating:

why [is it] so much easier to understand other non-natives than people who grew up speaking the language?

I had this exact experience in the former Soviet Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan with regards to Russian, pretty much the only language (other than Spanish) I have any mastery of. Communicating in Russian to Georgians, Azeris, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz was simple. I could understand them and they could understand me. But the moment I got to Domodedevo Airport in Moscow I was simply bewildered. The Russians, obviously, spoke better Russian than any non-native speakers in the former republics, but it was also slangier, less academic. I think that's one of the keys: a non-native speaker will be much more grammatically formal (if incorrect) and won't use a great deal of confusing idioms. Their diction will usually be very precise and much slower than a native speaker. Seriously, try speaking to a surly, pissed-off Russian (which they are most of the time) who's speaking in rapid-fire blasts of 'Mat'--a kind of second Russian that is horribly filthy and hilarious. For example, the slang, 'Mat' term for "just hanging out and doing nothing" in Russian is: "khuem grushi okolachivat" -- translated as: knocking pears out of a tree with one’s dick.

So, the next time someone asks you, "Kak delya," you'll know how to reply.

. . . think I've gone a little bird crazy? Fine by me.

~by Phil Sloan

1. Dow Rallies to 13500 then collapses to 11000 and recovers back to 12500 at year end.
2. Interest rates on the 10 year US Treasury falls to 1.50% the 30 year Us Treasury falls to 2.75% on deflationary fears. They climb back to finish the year 2.50% on the 10 year and 3.75% on the 30 year.
3. Gold collapses to $1200 than rallies back to 1450 at year end.
4. Oil spikes to $200 as Iraq falls into civil war. Iran attempts to close the straits of Hormuz, but is thwarted by US Navy. Tensions remain high.
5. Scott Walker is recalled in Wisconsin.
6. Republicans go into the convention deadlocked. Establishment candidate emerges as victor. Tea party runs a third party candidate handing the election to Obama. Democrats gain 40 house seats and retain Senate.
7. Greece defaults and is forced to leave EU along with Portugal. Europe goes into deep recession.
8. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) revives in spring with a vengeance. Violence spreads throughout US.
9. Rhetoric escalates in Pacific between US and Chinese navies.
10. Argentina attempts blockade of Falkland Islands.

Any one else got predictions?