ah, a shave

 

Debunking Canadian health care myths - The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_12523427

visiting the smallest town in America

New York City, so many people, so many things to do, But when I'm there I really just want to hang out with these people.

Yes I did have the best Pizza on the planet, Sorry Italy, and the best cookies and saw an interesting play... but really when it is all said and done...

a robot

It's been asked before but never by me...

If you were a robot that was constructed to appear exactly like you, past memory's inserted in, feelings feed back systems constructed to make you feel that thoughts felt real and memories felt real... how would you know it was not real?

The Puppy Named Sparkles

dawn patrol
everything and nova bagel
long board race around Central Park
then a garden party in Warwick
later, Shakespeare in the park

Eva, who insists on being called "The Puppy Named Sparkles"
and Mara, who walked out this morning with pants on her arms, a shirt on her legs and underpants on her head...

Biblical Marriage explained

I wondered about all that

What?

My 6 year old niece who leaped at me with a hug when I arrived here in Massachusetts just asked me why I do not honor Heavenly Father by not watching TV on the sabbath... I'm so afraid for these kids in their home school bubble

up in the middle of the night

People do not know what is going on, but think they do.

The problem is that we trust what we think about the world. Each and every individual is inundated with too much information to process so their brains filter out information that is not useful for survival, sounds, lights, movements and all sorts of other input. but it gets formatted in such a way that it all makes sense.

We each think that our world view is the real world view

Basically I think the we are all always deceived in little and big ways but we do not notice it because our brain protects us from things that damage our world view.

By about age three or four children children lose the ability to hear and differentiate between sounds that their parents do not make, there is too much information that is not necessary for communication. We've all had the experience looking for things. This same kind of filtering takes place on many levels, combine that with the ability to hold give mutually exclusive ideas equal weight in the reasoning balance... can you see where this is going?

Just listen to someone with a different ideological stance then you have. And it becomes clear that they think their ideas are logical, even if they are clearly nuts (or so we think) and the opposite is true too.

A friend of mine takes the unorthodox position that every philosophical and religious position is equally correct because they each make internal sense... This seems true and silly... more later

Hubris

Death seems next, think I should be concerned, just want to leave what I have. mad ?

Standing on a roof

Standing on a roof, nail gun in my hand, fighting with incompetence, enjoying the day.

a peaceful man

8 years ago Daniel still had $50 in his back pocket... insurance... then he sent $25 to his sister and left the other $25 on a picnic table... and he was free.

I just spent two days with him, at his cave. He claims that he eats better now then he did while he had a full time job as a social worker. He does not get anything through any kind of exchange... I call him an urban hunter gatherer.

For dinner we had oranges, Juniper tea, wild onions, potato chips, mozzarella cheese, all provided culled from the planets plenty.

He is a college graduate, peace corp graduate... does not accept any form of government assistance, and is a productive member of society... giving more then he takes.

We took two hours of video, and plan on getting more

a happy man

In the tree house met a man:

Daniel stopped using any form of money 8 years ago. No cash, no barter, no overt exchange of value of any kind.

He lives in a cave. He loves his life. He is happy.

Breakfast

Not as warm as I wish,
but blood oranges wild from the neighbors yard
cinnamon toast
Black tea

but I want to swim in the ocean

I've got pie

Apple pie as I wait for my 11:45 flight I've never noticed it before but the restaurant here at the airport has a panoramic view of the mountains I think they want us all to miss this place.  But I'm turning right around and driving back with my new to me Sprinter home... 

I was afraid that I would not be able to catch a plane because I do not have valid ID,  but here I am waiting for my plane

the GPS doesn't know the truth

The sun poked up over the Book Cliffs and I didn't stop to watch,

 a 30 dollar a night motel with it non water conserving shower stall, no tub, old hard bed blank white wall and a TV.

$1.29 a gallon for Gas and the car gets 48 MPG

  dodging  slow moving Semis ,  passing one on its side, sometimes the wind in Wyoming wins

Money is a universally accepted fiction or 2+2= anything you want, if you can dictate the value of 2

Not believing in money confuses people, but I wonder how people believe. Yes it is clear that that we all have to use it but believe?

   See if two people can and do the same exact same work but receive different amounts of money, then work is not the key element.  And if two people can buy the same object for two different prices with the possibility of one of the prices being something other than money, then it clear that money is not the key to getting the object.  

Is money a surrogate for barter?  In a barter system the bargaining power of all the players is crucially important.  In 2006 a man traded a red paperclip for a fish shaped pen then thirteen trades later  for a house. a lot of value sure came from somewhere.

money is interesting and convenient but really nothing more than a way to turn bargaining skill into an easily transacted commodity.

In other words money is a representation of bargaining skill or power.  Work, skill, time, looks, things, even ideas can all be used as bargaining chits but really all of the value is determined by the people making the deals.  Nothing has any value except in relationship to something else.  That reckoning of value is controlled by the player with the most skill.  This applies to everything relating to money.

 

oatmeal

steam rising from oatmeal trailing my topless car, passing honda with ice on the inside. 

both sorry for the other and I have oatmeal to warm my hands and the world around me

more comfort

sitting in Village Inn not ordering cherry pie and coffee but turkey and gravy.  Bus Boy trying so hard but his 45 degree off center hat does not counter the message he is screaming, it would be easy to laugh, his posture says he is used to it, maybe not used to it.

Ok I'm ordering pie... for the cold... with cream

ln a cottonwood

Snow and ice on ladder steps is forcing me to the ground.  It's still not cold while sleeping thanks to Farmers sleeping bag.  

I met a man in New York who liked to sleep on construction site scaffolding, no one looked up, the cottonwood affords the same conspicuous hiding.

he had to get down before work crews arrived, I just like to avoid neighbors .

but what is better then getting above it all and sleeping.

The Drunken Monkey and the Inner Dog

If people are animals why are we so different? I mean really, we make airplanes and watches.  

Something happened long ago, we developed the ability to think separately from our instincts, we got really good at it and language which came along for the ride made it so we could easily keep our innovations generationally.  

But really we were still just animals that could do lots of tricks.  And one of the biggest tricks was to begin to set up systems, which some call culture,  and these systems sometimes made up rules that tried to take the place of instinct... the the silly part is that we still have the animal inside.

Humans aren't really all that fast on foot, and look at your hands and feet, lousy claws, and try to smell for the deer behind that tree, yea can't do it.  Now there are lots of things we do really well, but in order to be the predators that we became we needed help, cue mans best friend... yea dogs were right there from the start, great match synergy even.  But see we started to talk and then thought we were better and started thinking of dogs as pets rather than co-workers.

We started wearing fancy clothes and making fire, and forgetting that we were a lot like dogs and our dog nature got hidden inside and forgotten about.  But the inner dog didn't forget about us.  

Most of the time the inner dog runs the show, we just don't realize it.  It's hard, nearly impossible to see some things that are so close... strange.

The part of us that we can see, the language part, the part in our head that we can hear and communicate with, the trained monkey that does great tricks, really is just drunk with power, thinking that since it can talk and make wheels and fire, it thinks it is in control of what the rest of the animal does.

The inner dog, like all dogs just has a few needs, food sex and play.  It does everything to get those things.  The drunken monkey on the other hand thinks that it is rational and can control what it needs and wants, makes fake rules, comes up with strange excuses and explanations as to why why it does what it does.  But really often the inner dog just want to 

hump that girl or boy (inner) dog.  

The drunken monkey does have some control... but so does the inner dog