chuck kottke

:stunned:Yet another lurker from Oklahoma come out from behind the curtain of cyberspace!:curtain: :laugh3:Welcome Jenifer to the site for enthusiasts and fanatical fans of all types!:hat::jester::wacky:

:laugh3: I'm just being ridiculous, that's all.. How about (*thinks hard about Italian food*) umm.. pasta al fredo with asiago sauce?? Polenta? Chicken Catchatori? Italian pizza with sardines??

All this visual stuff takes away from imagination! Just look at music, for instance. Without the videos, the music conjures up grand images and feelings; but with the videos, and our imaginations get swept over by the motion picture images. Sometimes less really is more!:P

Can you make Asiago cheese??;) Extra Sharp Cheddar - good with a slice of apple!

How did James Burke make his way to fame and fortune? It's an amazing lot of things he goes and does - where does this guy come from, and how can he know so much??

Well, that's refreshing to hear!! I sure hope so - all this war business does is gets people killed - mostly the innocent ones. That's been Obama's main point during his campaign, but I often wonder if his cabinet will be willing to talk as well.. I just hope so! Mahmood strikes me as friendlier than he puts on, but who knows.. Still, better to have a policy of containment and encouragement than one of hostile war rhetoric and isolationism. The real power may be with the ruling council in Iran, but at least we'll be talking. And the only real changes can come from within, so I think some time in the future the Iranian people will make the change - it could even be through peaceful means (like Chile). Funny how Obama isn't President yet, and it seems like he is!:laugh3:

:laugh3: You know, that's so very true! Life is situational, and not all situations are by our own choosing good ones. Sometimes you have to turn tables on them, and get them to realize what it's like to be harassed. Tai Quan Do with the mind, sort-of. You have to understand them and how they think to be able to be the lion-tamer. (I know, easier said than done.. most trouble makers are just acting out their behavior learned at a very young age; we've just got to be one step ahead of them, and knowledgeable in handling their baser behaviors;)) Anyhow, in some ways, to know what it is to be hurt increases our ability to empathize and help those in need, so in a small way, maybe it's an inoculation by the "attenuated virus" of the bad sides of human nature that allows us to better understand and care enough to make the world a better place for those in real binds. (At least I can rationalize that it serves some purpose;)..)

Hmm - that's interesting! Well, he probably is homophobic, as well as antisemitic.. but as long as there's freedom of the press, speech, and expression, it seems alright to let him speak as long as others are given the chance to speak their piece as well. I suppose, a grand opportunity for the MP's to get attention:laugh3: - isn't much different here either. But the Pope probably has a bigger voting block, so politicians always like to steer clear of offending certain voting blocks. Lest that's how it works on this side of the Atlantic.. If a member of the naughty "axis of evil" says anything, well, one can be assured you can blast them. But if a Pope says it? Hmm.. Why do they waste their time on such picky subjects, and concentrate more on solving matters of global poverty, diseases, and injustice?? I mean, what would Jesus do??

..Not to get too deep into the strife of it all, but to do something about it. Too much empathy can leave one a bit too down, and it's important to keep a positive attitude on things! :)

Hello Nikki! Glad you could jump on board, and keep enjoying the tunes!! Maybe music is our savior after all - it brings home feelings that soften a hard world, and diffuse some of the intense rhetoric floating about in the waves being broadcast. Rob - on the matter of why people do what they do - it's conditions and circumstance, and an echo of behaviors past that leads to some of the behaviors in a given time & place. A revolutionary finds it hard to not be a revolutionary. A pattern of strong-men as the image of power to ascribe to is unfortunately a pattern as well. But when the eyes of the world fall upon these monsters, the attention once focused, causes those who understand and live by accepted civilized behavior and human rights to eventually put a stop to it. But sometimes, a successful culture sometimes gets hijacked by those who take advantage of the positions of power by using an emergency or horrifying event to persuade otherwise rational members of society into thinking irrationally and acting in accordance with their demands. So, to take away the arguments for hatred and war are the most powerful ways to prevent war; to support those who consider their thoughts carefully and rationally in every country and place. Poverty, disenfranchisement, occupation by another, and the radicalization it causes is one problem. Another is the patterns that exist, and the lost sense of dignity that leads some to the extreme, or tolerance of extremism. Ending poverty, respecting all human rights, and treating individual or group acts of violence within a region as criminal behaviors and criminal actions, rather than acts of war - this seems a key component we in the U.S., and Israel have missed. The natural reaction to a rocket attack is to retaliate, and with good reason! But to blow up whole buildings or sections of towns, or to mass arrest everyone is to miss the point of diffusing the underlying causes, and by retaliation of this nature, often escalation results, as a great many innocent citizens get hurt. It's partly the result of poverty that drives people to the extreme; partly the result of propaganda, but propaganda only works on weakened individuals. A sense of injustice and the sense of lost respect has a lot to do with why some individuals act the way they do. But once radicalized, it's hard for those few in the camps to return to normal.. A cool head is necessary to make progress and lasting peace, and there are many who want to prevent that as well, since they remain powerful individuals only if chaos prevails. It just seems to me that building less walls, and improving the lives of everyone makes so much more sense. So, I've come to realize the need (if not necessity) for honest, educated leaders in every nation on earth who operate by rules of fairness in their actions and have attained positions as representatives through honest means. Checks and Balances. Given the fact that there was little justice in the period of empire building, and WWI resulted from power-lust for greater empires; which led to one set of empires holding sway of the others, and an unfair agreement at the end of the war. Couple that with an unregulated market which invested wildly in overinflated stocks, an unpaid war debt foisted upon the loosing empires, and some disgruntled individuals who were ready to seize power if things fell apart and people, in their frustration and disillusionment, turned to those who offered a solution (sold with all the dreams people wanted to hear) - hence the rise of the extremists, and the awful things that took place. Fear, resentment, economic recovery, and diligence to one's duty (regardless of the task) had a big part to play in it. Anything to save one's livelihood, and those who took over used mass manipulation so skillfully, it's what can happen if we're not careful. Poverty is unnecessary. Some have argued that there just isn't enough to go around. Others say it's hopeless because the world's citizens will simply multiply out of control. But given the chance to govern themselves, a new start in life, human rights, and hope and opportunity, there's every chance in the world we're on the precipice of a new beginning! When women get their rights and have the opportunity to learn and grow, a sea of change begins to occur. We have the technological know-how and the materials to make the globe more productive in areas of poverty, and we can do this with the maximization of common earth elements (safer, ubiquitous materials), and the minimization of rare and risky elements. Why not desalinate water to irrigate the deserts near the coasts? Even inland - pump the water with wind or solar?? Given the chance, once people have boot straps, they pull themselves up - so it's only necessary to set the right conditions for improvement. I think it's all in the mix - what we do individually, we do collectively as well. Even for ideas to arise simultaneously tells us something - that there are so many common threads to our thoughts, and we often, through communications and interconnections, work on parallel planes of thought at times; and at others, it is necessary for individuals to break from the frameworks establish and think "outside the box" too. But it's often the interplay between people that creates the conditions for a set of thoughts to occur, so the two are inseparable. Balancing individual desires with common social concerns is where we need to go as well. True - too much individual "peacock" displaying leaves the whole group vulnerable to some disaster - I have to agree there! And to understand ourselves is to understand another human being, thousands of miles away.. How would any one of us react if let's say the economy were in shambles, we lived in a building damaged by bomb blasts, and there was no certainty of who was in charge, but there was less crime and chaos under a warlord than under an occupation.. All our leaders really need to do is to put themselves in the shoes of those in these places, and then humbled by the experience, go about creating policies that truly address the needs of those of us in these situations.

BTW, what was the Alternative Christmas message on Channel 4? I'm just curious what the Iranian Prime Minister had to say, and why he was on channel 4?? As for the Pope - well, more conservative than the last one, and drifting further away from progressivism in general. I think the main problem is using the term "marriage" for what really amounts to all sorts of partnerships in living arrangements - give everyone a tax break who's raising children, caring for one-another, and that could include an elderly couple, each having lost a spouse, and they now live together for companionship and mutual help, or any number of social arrangements that benefit society by increasing stability and harmony. So, I'm an advocate of getting government out of the business of defining arrangements, and leaving the term "marriage" up to the specific religious institution which have individuals interested in the ceremony and what it means in their lives. That might satisfy the Pope as well as those who wish to choose another path in life - it is a matter of individual liberty, which perhaps Benedict might disagree with, but, oh well oh, Othello! I'm not about to erase 5 centuries of progress in individual liberties to placate a Pope's desires and religious edicts.

The meeting of the anti-committee committee will now adjourn.:P All non-members, say "I"

:dozey:Perhaps I'm just operating on a different frequency here... anyhow, the committee debate! Given the nature of inertia, one wonders if a committee can get the ball rolling??

Charmed quarks, top quarks, strange quarks, colors and flavors of quarks - physics uses the colorful language, albeit a bit misleading in descriptions (outside of the strangeness of it all)..

Hath this Universe no greater depth than Star Trek:Deep Space 9?:laugh3: Oddities, as such - perhaps top quarks? Bosons? M or W theory, depending on which way you think is "up" (and who the mystery is named after..) All I know, is I still think it's bubbles and not strings, but perhaps they really are one in the same... Committees are what happens when gravity overcomes inertia.. ;.]

Physics is cool!:cool: It's really the foundation of all the sciences.... Simply a-ma-zing. Any questions about how the universe works that you need solved??

Damn Right!:cool: TNP is not Joe Satriani:laugh3:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ&feature=channel_page]:laugh3:[/ame]Because the committee with John Cleese at the helm couldn't act soon enough, this is what happened to poor Brian: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ&feature=channel_page]YouTube - Always Look On The Bright Side of Life[/ame]

:laugh3:At times, I would have to say the same of myself. As the old jingle goes, "some times you feel like a not, some times you don't.." And maybe you could learn something about the strange quarks of each?? (pun intended)

Well, in that case Dave, if self-discipline does not work, we may have to resort to Discipline! :wacko::whip: :lol:

Only if you halve a "split personality":dizzy::inquisitive::curtain:

Be Careful! Chocolate Fudge Brownie can lead to Chunky Monkey!:laugh3: I've figured out the answer - place the ice-cream shops far enough away, so everyone has to walk 3.5 miles to get a scoop.;) (plus it tastes better after a walk)

Hooray for YouToo, U2!;)

On a slightly related note, I remember in "Life Of Brian" (Monty Python, ca.= god only knows the year:laugh3:) Didn't they form a committee to save Brian, which finally made a decision to save Brian's life moments after Brian had been crucified? I recall that John Cleese was the head of the committee, and they argued over the 'what to do' about the situation for endless days - it was hilarious!:laugh3: If anyone has seen certain governmental bodies in action (maybe 'inaction' is the word), I'm sure you can relate to this.;) Word Origins: Com*mit*tea - from the Old English, "Come, sit a spell, put on your mitts, have some tea, and we'll have a jolly good time for hours on end, but probably solve absolutely nothing!":P

Just a Creative Thought - If the band were to put a small forge on-stage (with fire-proof curtain around the back, and fireproof base), and add a small blacksmith's anvil - get some iron orange hot, and pound it into the shape of some sort of thing to ring the bell? Just an idea - the hammering could keep the beat of the music, and as soon as the metal was quenched, it could then be used as a bell ringer.. :P(and no, I'm not crazy!)