The Name Game Redux

I'll tell you something.

How would you like to be stuck with a nickname all your life that really annoyed you?

Or, what's worse, how would you like to be labeled with a nickname that was cute and acceptable at first, but after you grew out of it, the nickname became silly? However, for some reason -- probably social -- it then became fashionable to make fun of all people with that nickname, and your annoyance turned to anger whenever you heard it?

Are you listening to me, Fatso?

Can you hear me out there, Four-Eyes?

How about you? Do you agree with me, Flatchested?

Now, a nickname is literally an additional name (AN EKENAME, from Middle English EKE addition + NAME), usually descriptive, according to the dictionary. Or, it can be CONTRAdescriptive, according to me. One of my cousins was the youngest and smallest of four boys, and his father always called him "Heavy" all his life. Cute joke at first, and then annoying, and finally, to a grown man, enough to make him angry.

So, what does all this have to do with Baby Boomers, the cute, then annoying and, finally anger-inducing nickname for a whole generation? Well, the first Baby Boomers were born in 1946. Do you think President Clinton, the first Baby Boomer president, enjoyed being called a Baby?

However, that generation born after World War II caused a powerful change in society. TIME magazine might have been a little bit sarcastic, as most publications are when they mention Baby Boomers, but it once said [Baby Boomers'] "wonder years were blithe and prosperous; they invented sex, discovered candor and stopped an immoral war."

Way to go, Boomers!

A generation is the average time between parents and children, usually considered to be 18 to 20 years. And there has to be tremendous overlap, especially when you consider that people born in 1964 can rightfully, cutely, annoyingly, or angrily be called Baby Boomers.

I want to change that, partly because the term Baby Boomer has always had such a negative connotation, and partly because a "generation" is so relative. (Pun intended)

If we need to have a name for an entire generation, and if a generation runs about 20 years, why don't we nail down exactly when every generation starts and ends, eliminate the pejorative names, and fix it by only when they were born every 20 years, century by century?

For example, the Baby Boomer generation would be rounded off to those people born between 1940 and 1959, in order to keep the numbers to five generations every century. So, what do we call them? Nothing relative, mind you, nothing physical, and definitely nothing pejorative. Something strictly numerical would be best and easiest.

Twenty years is also called a "score," made famous by Abe Lincoln, and those people born from 1900 to 1919 could be called "Firstscores," or "Firsters," for short. Those born from 1920 to 1939 would be "Twenty-scores," or "Twentiers." Those born from 1940 to 1959 (the Baby Boomers) would be "Fortyscores," or "Fortiers." Those born from 1960 to 1979 (the Generation X generation) would be "Sixty-scores," or "Sixtiers." And, finally, those born from 1980 to 1999 (Millennials) would be "Eightyscores," or "Eightiers."

Then, those people born from 2000 to 2019 would be "Firsters" again, and I doubt there will be any confusion between a Firster born in 1901 and a Firster born in 2001.

A name that can be used for a group as well as for an individual of that group is very convenient. The Beatles was a terrific name, because "a Beatle" was also convenient for Paul McCartney. The Who was not a terrific name, because you stumble when you try to say "Pete Townshend was a Who."

Likewise, Baby Boomers is somewhat good for a generation, although usually pejorative and ridiculously anachronistic, but Generation X is lousy. "She is an X" or "She is a Generation Xer" just doesn't make it.

But now we can say, "Sixtiers were jealous of all the attention and advantages that the Fortiers got, and they all wanted some, too." And we can also say, "Everybody likes to blame the Fortiers, the most powerful generation in history, for all the world's problems."

There. That's my present to you. "Happy New Year to all, and to all Firsters, Twentiers, Fortiers, Sixtiers, and Eightiers, good night."

And can't we stop the stereotypical name-calling, all you weasel politicians out there?

END

I Never Got to San Francisco

I'll tell you something.

In 1967, everybody was going to San Francisco for the Summer of Love. I wanted to go to San Francisco, I wanted to be a hippie, I wanted to wear flowers in my hair, but I couldn't. I was living in Boulder, CO, I was married, my wife had just given birth to our son, I was chasing flying saucers for a living, and I didn't know what kind of flowers you were supposed to wear.

You probably think that if I was on such good terms with flying saucers, I should have had no trouble getting a quick hop to San Francisco, taking my family with me, and even finding out which flowers I was supposed to wear.

Notice that I said I was "chasing" flying saucers. I never caught any, nor did anyone else on the University of Colorado Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, better known as the "Condon Project" after its director, Edward U. Condon. The U.S. Air Force had given C.U. $313,000 to study the UFO phenomenon so that the matter of little green men in their flying teacups and saucers would be laid to rest once and for all. A psychologist who was part of the study team hired me to be his research associate, because he had no knowledge whatsoever about green men or the kind of saucers that aren't content to stay put on your dining-room table, and I did.

I knew all about UFOs (or "oofoes," as Dr. Condon called them), because I had read everything I could about them, and the psychologist hadn't. So, I helped him prepare the questionnaire that we gave to people who had had sightings, I interviewed them, I wrote letters to people who claimed to have made contact or had close sightings (such as actor Stuart Whitman in the 1965 NYC blackout), one night I went up in the control tower at Denver Stapleton Airport to observe one land as was promised by a Mr. X from the Western Slope (It didn't.), I coded sightings for the computer study, and I flew to Harrisburg, PA, to investigate a flurry of sightings and to gather evidence. (We didn't see any flurries, and we brought back only a Super-8 film of a wiggly white light on a totally black background, a Super-8 film of two small silver lights in a blue sky, and a sample of fungus.)

Meanwhile, my family was growing. My wife and I didn't get any bigger, but my son was growing like a house afire. No, wait! A house afire doesn't grow at all. In fact, it gets smaller as the fire keeps going. So, to be more accurate (This is important, the part about being accurate.), my son was growing like a house abuilding or a-adding on. I realized that chasing flying saucers would probably not be a career to keep me in rocking chairs and dentures later in life, no matter how much money the Air Force would throw away at us, and I began to look around for another career.

This Search for Another Career was probably a Good Thing, because I was becoming an embarrassment to the Condon Team. Whenever visiting dignitaries, high-level Air Force officers, or internationally known scientists and flying-saucer experts arrived to see how well we were spending money, the protocol was first to establish everyone's credentials. No one questioned the Air Force guys, because we could see by their outfits that they were the ones paying our salaries. But when two un-uniformed people got together, the opening conversation usually went like this:

FIRST SCIENTIST: What's your field?

SECOND SCIENTIST: Astrophysics. (Sometimes, "Plasma Phenomena.")

FIRST SCIENTIST (turning toward me): And what's your field?

ME: English literature.

Therefore, rather than take the chance of getting flying-saucer burnout, I applied to IBM to be a technical writer. (Remember that part about being more accurate? That's important when you're a technical writer.)

I got the job, I didn't get flying-saucer burnout, I missed the investigation of Snippy the Horse, and my wife wasn't embarrassed when people asked her what I did for a living.

IBM sent me to Poughkeepsie, NY, for programming school, and every morning at breakfast I played Scott MacKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" over and over on the juke box the entire time I was in the dining room.

And that's the closest I got to San Francisco in the summer of 1967.

END

Prove Whether or Not God Exists

Here's what I believe.

Rationalists need a corollary to counter Pascal's Wager, which is "Either God exists or doesn't exist, but if so and I believe in God, I will go to Heaven after I die; if God doesn't exist, I have lost nothing."

By that reasoning, then follow the teachings of your chosen "God," "Allah" or Whomever. Otherwise, admit that your "God" is so weak as to be fooled by lip service and lets anyone into Heaven just for half-hearted belief, not for good deeds or true belief.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a brilliant scientist, mathematician and writer who also invented a calculating machine at 18. In 1654 he had a "mystical experience" and converted to Jansenism, a doctrine of the sect of Roman Catholics in opposition to the Jesuits.

In other words, Pascal himself had doubts about what he had been taught as a Roman Catholic, and if that isn't enough to make his so-called "wager" suspect, consider that he also wrote "Men blaspheme what they do not know" and "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction," both in his LETTRES PROVINCIALES [1656-1657].

So, for everyone who takes the easy way to "save your soul" or who cannot decide what to believe, here is Culberson's Challenge:

Assume there is no deity. Then, priests, Popes, preachers, ministers, imams and all other self-appointed spokespeople for "God" are either liars or deluded into ignoring the empirical evidence of science and mistakenly believing that "God" exists.

Now assume there is a deity who created us and all the reality around us: the planets, the solar system, the stars, the universe and the "world." Then we are merely figments of that deity’s imagination and therefore do not exist outside of that imagination.

However, if we are merely figments of Something’s imagination, if we are manufactured "real" creatures in Someone's own image or if we are truly independent sentient beings with or without free will, what would eternity in either Heaven or Hell mean? We would either eventually become used to our existence and bored in one or inured to the pain that supposedly awaits us in the other of those futures.

And name one other thing in nature that lasts forever without wearing out, running down, burning up or simply dying.

Thus, I challenge you either to give up your belief in a deity who supposedly created you and controls you and the world or else to continue your disbelief in such a mythology, because either way, you lose nothing.

Of course, there are some misguided fools who will not accept this challenge and say, "Better safe than sorry," which is merely religious belief by Pascal's Wager.

This thinking is the basis for all religious belief, and it is the most dangerous aspect of believing in a deity, because it leads to this sort of logic:

"There must be a God, because everybody says there is. Therefore, I can believe in God and do anything I want, because if I ever do anything that God doesn't want me to do, God will stop me. Therefore, I can do anything I want and ask forgiveness, and try to convince many more people that God exists, because the more people who believe in God increases the chances that God does exist."

However, If you accept my challenge to prove whether or not God, Allah or Whoever exists and take a poll documenting the results, then you will participate in proving whether or not "God" exists.

Choose a comfortable location, look skyward and say, "God, strike me dead if you exist!" Then take the poll located at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/allgods/messages/?msg=413.1 and document the results.

Either way, your life on earth will be much less complicated, frustrating and stressful, and it will be much more rewarding, enjoyable and definitely free of self-imposed religious pressure.

END

Culberson's God

Here's what I believe.

"Schrödinger's Cat" is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, illustrating what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that may be simultaneously both alive and dead, a state known as a quantum superposition, as a result of being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. The thought experiment is also often featured in theoretical discussions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger coined the term "Verschränkung" (entanglement) in the course of developing the thought experiment.

"Schrödinger's Cat" paradox consists of a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (for example, a Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (that is, a single atom decaying), then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

This complicated and detailed thought experiment is usually described in lay terms as that the cat inside the box is either alive or dead and that the act of opening the box and observing it either kills it or doesn't kill it, which itself is just a more complicated and detailed example of the 1882 short story, "The Lady or the Tiger," by Frank Stockton: A non-royal subject is accused of the crime of loving the king’s daughter, who also loves him. The accused youth stands before two closed doors, one of which hides a ferocious tiger that will emerge and kill whoever opens the door, and the other conceals a beautiful lady that the princess knows and hates, because she has observed her lover and the lady together and suspects that they, too, might be secret lovers, and if the youth opens her door, a priest will immediately marry the two of them together.

The princess discovers which door contains which, and she signals her lover to open a door with her right hand. However, the story ends before the youth opens the door, and the audience is left suspended and has to decide for themselves whether the beautiful damsel or the ferocious tiger is behind the door he opens.

I propose to use the Schrodinger's Cat example to prove whether or not God exists in a humblebrag thought experiment I call "Culberson's God." Religious believers always challenge atheists to prove that God does not exist, which is a logical impossibility, because it is logically impossible to prove a negative hypothesis, unless certain conditions are added.

I cannot prove that God does not exist, but if we agree on the definition of God, I can prove that God does not exist inside a box. If I open the box and God is not there, then I have proven that God does not exist inside that box.

However, someone who is religious believes that God exists, but either refuses to prove or cannot prove that God exists. Now, that person has the same opportunity to prove that God exists and is inside the box by opening the box.

However, a religious believer might insist that God is invisible to human eyes and actually is inside the box, but we cannot perceive God's existence. If that is the case, then I insist that Schrodinger's Cat is also invisible, and when we open the box, we cannot tell if the cat is either alive or dead.

As far as I know, a cat cannot choose to be visible or invisible, but an all-powerful, all-knowing God should have the ability to choose in order to prove existence. If there is a God, then why does God choose to avoid proof of existence, when doing so would settle the question once and forever and also recruit billions of new believers?

I will stake my life, my reputation, and everything I hold dear that God does not visibly exist inside that box, and I will prove it by opening the box and observing that God is not inside. Would a religious person do the same to prove that God exists and is inside the box?

I offer to go first.

END

An Open Letter to All Faith-Based Believers

I'll tell you something.

Don't be so smug as to believe that your own religious beliefs are different from those of the religious fanatics who destroyed the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

Assuming that those 19 suicide terrorists who succeeded in killing themselves and thousands of others for Allah were recruited and persuaded to destroy everyone and everything for religious reasons and not strictly for political reasons, something changed them from being benign believers in their god with a simple desire for a happy and peaceful afterlife in paradise to becoming a sacrificial ram doing the hellish work of a charismatic leader whose cause could be either religious, political, personal, or all three.

The same could happen to you if you persist in believing that you are the work of a supreme being who created the world and you, who cares about your personal well-being, and who is offended by anyone who doesn't believe the same way that you do.

All it takes is a charismatic leader, either dead or alive, a popular cause, and the promise that the rewards will be greater than the sacrifice, either here on earth or there elsewhere.

We are told that the Muslim terrorists were each promised a number of virgins in paradise to take care of their every desire, and although the number ranges from 42 to 72, why should that particular promise be so persuasive? Would the virgins remain virgins for eternity? If not, then would they each be replaced after their deflowering? And why would someone unskilled and inexperienced in sex be any inducement to begin with? Were the terrorists mostly interested in having sex with them, in teaching them the pleasures of sex, or in having them wait hand and foot on them, seeing to their every need?

Incidentally, where do the virgins come from? Are they manufactured as needed by Allah? Or are they kept supplied in paradise by the slaughter of new virgins every year here on earth? And what are their ages? A 16-year-old virgin is much more desirable to a lusty man than a 60-year-old virgin is.

However, I cannot believe that the promise of a supply of virgins in the afterlife is all that is necessary to convince a sane man to commit suicide and slaughter thousands of others with him, many of his own religious faith.

Come to think of it, what does a charismatic leader with a cause promise women who are willing to fight and die for that cause? Virgin men in the paradise afterlife to wait on them for sexual desires? Virgin boys? Or simply an endless supply of male servants to do their bidding?

Perhaps in a male-dominated faith-based cause, women are not wanted for anything other than the servicing of the men, and any suicidal female terrorists might wistfully find themselves magically transformed into virgins on their way to paradise, where once again, but for eternity this time, they must continue to pleasure the men.

At any rate, if you paid attention during the all-faiths memorial service after the September 11 destructions, you would have recognized the same fanaticism at work in every religion.

Yes, there was tolerance for the moment among the religions, but did you catch the statement from one religious leader that all the dead were much happier now in heaven and wouldn't change being there even if they could come back to earth?

All that was missing was the bald-faced statement that all the men had a large number of virgins around them up there.

In other words, according to some religions, existence in the never-proven afterlife is better and more desirable than any life on earth.

Now, if you can convince anyone who follows your cause and is willing to further your cause to the death, how difficult is it to convince that fanatic to commit an obscenely horrible act?

"My God is better than your god" just doesn't hack it anymore in religious arguments these days after the twin-towers tragedy. What little more does it take to proceed to "My God can kill more of your god's followers than your god can kill"?

And the analogy of the recent tragedy with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is incorrect. That was the beginning of a political war for the United States.

Check the history of your own religion. How many wars has your religion caused or started?

How many has it won?

With or without virgins?

Approved by your "god"?

STEM, SHTEM!

On August 16, 2016, I attended "CU Scoop: Featuring Patty Limerick and the Center of the American West," at which Prof. Limerick, the center's director and a C.U. professor of history who was named Colorado State Historian in January 2016 by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, explained how she had come to be picked by Governor Hickenlooper to become the state's first State Historian and what her new duties entailed since becoming Colorado State Historian.

Prof. Limerick is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes referred to as the "genius award," and during her talk she discussed the "highly regarded Center of the American West and its student-based initiatives." Prof. Limerick and the Center are noted for applying historical perspective to contemporary issues.

The program and Prof. Limerick's presentation were given in the auditorium of Old Main on the C.U. Campus, and it concluded with a special reception at Old Main in the C.U. Heritage Center, which features C.U. Boulder history exhibits.

In her talk, Prof. Limerick mentioned STEM, the acronym that refers to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which according to Wikipedia is "the term typically used when addressing education policy and curriculum choices in schools to improve competitiveness in science and technology development," and which also has implications for workforce development, national security concerns, and immigration policy.

Prof. Limerick said that she lamented the absence of the discipline of humanities studies when education policy and curriculum choices are discussed in terms of STEM disciplines and that when she has given her talk before, someone suggested that STEM be expanded to STEAM, with the addition of "Arts" courses to the usual disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

I suggested during the question-and-answer period following Prof. Limerick's presentation that instead of adding "Arts" to STEM to include humanities courses and expanding the acronym to STEAM, we should add the discipline of "Humanities" courses to the core disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematices, and we should use the tradition of Yiddish and Jewish jokes of saying a word, adding "SH" to that word for comic effect, and then concluding with the joke.

An example of such a joke is "Darwin-Shmarwin," which can be found on the Internet:

"Jennifer Finkel, a gansa 'Ivy' freshman, brought home equally pompous pals. She couldn’t wait to show off her new knowledge with her bubbe. Arguing with great intensity, the co-eds discussed Darwin and the revisionists’ attack on the theory of evolution.

"Finally, bubbe spoke up.

"'Oy vey. For dis mine son pays a fortune?! Feh! Narishkeit!'

"'No, gram,' protested Jen and her pals. 'It’s very complicated!'

"'Complicated-shmomplicated! Please. Even 60 years ago in Russia, we knew the answer, 1-2-3. If the baby looks like his father, that’s heredity. If he looks like the milkman, now that’s environment!'"

Now, whenever we hear someone mentioning STEM courses of discipline, we in the field of humanities can say:

STEM, SHTEM! Humanities should be included in those courses of discipline!

CITIZEN JAMES

"CITIZEN JAMES"
A Treatment of an Original Screenplay
By
Dan Culberson
FIFTH DRAFT
June 11, 1991





This film will be in black-and-white, about three-to-four minutes long, produced on a budget of about $5,000, and will be distributed to film festivals around the country, as well as distributed to various outlets for possible showings on national cable systems.

The film is a spoof of both CITIZEN KANE and the story of Jim Morrison and The Doors.

The film will look like this:

"ACT I"

 

As we FADE UP FROM BLACK, we hear ominous music reminiscent from CITIZEN KANE and see a blatant rip-off of the opening montage of slow fades from one shot to the next of a large mansion at night, one angle to another, but each shot has a light shining in the same bathroom window, and that LIGHT OCCUPIES THE SAME SPOT ON THE SCREEN FROM ONE SHOT TO THE NEXT.

 

After the last still shot, WE ENTER THE ILLUMINATED BATHROOM and WE HEAR ROCK MUSIC by The Windows PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND as the CAMERA RISES FROM THE FLOOR and PEDESTALS UP, showing an old bathtub. As the CAMERA RISES ABOVE THE RIM OF THE BATHTUB, WE SEE A YOUNG, BEARDED, CHUBBY MAN lying in the water, zonked out by either alcohol or drugs or both.

He is holding a rubber duck in his hand. WE SEE A CLOSEUP OF HIS MOUTH and his sensuous lips, and the young man whispers what appears to be "Rosebud ... "

WE SEE THE RUBBER DUCK FALL IN SLOW MOTION TO THE FLOOR of the bathroom, and FROM A LOW ANGLE WITH THE DUCK IN THE FOREGROUND WE SEE AN ATTRACTIVE YOUNG WOMAN ENTER the bathroom and STAND IN THE DOORWAY WITH THE LIGHT BEHIND HER.

She expresses shock and surprise at seeing the dead man.

PAMELA: "Jim? Did you say something? Jim? JIM!"

"ACT II"

CUT TO ROCUMENTARY on the life of JAMES RANDOLPH KANE, lead singer, poet, and founder of The Windows, one of the most influential rock bands of the Sixties. WE SEE FOOTAGE of Jim singing in concert, playing with other members of the band, flirting with women, threatening to expose himself, and being surly with his girlfriend and the CAMERA as WE HEAR VOICE-OVER NARRATION, such as we might hear on "Entertainment Tonight."

ANNOUNCER: "New evidence has just come to light on the death in 1971 of James Randolph Kane, who supposedly died of heart failure at the age of 27. Jim was the lead singer and founder of The Windows, the successful Sixties band with such hits as 'Look on Through,' 'People Are Weird,' and 'Walkers in the Rain.'

"PAMELA ANDERSON, Jim's common-law lover, found his body, which was flown to a mysterious location and buried before an autopsy could be performed. Naturally, this caused rumors that Jim was still alive and hiding out in Africa or Nashville to write poetry and collect royalties.

"Well, in a new book, MY LIFE AS A WINDOW WATCHER, Pamela has revealed that she heard Jim say 'Rosebud' just before he died, which is prompting new rumors about the death of the famous rock star."

CUT TO STUDIO as WE SEE a TELEVISION EXECUTIVE talking to a REPORTER after viewing the rocumentary.

TV EXECUTIVE: "This is great! This is CITIZEN KANE all over again. I want you to get out there and find out what Jim meant by 'Rosebud.' Talk to his family. Talk to the rest of The Windows. Talk to his friends, his enemies, his lovers. Talk to his other lovers. We'll make a million."

"ACT III"

WE SEE A SERIES OF INTERVIEWS with DIFFERENT PEOPLE, each one suggesting what Jim's final word meant, as they are identified for the camera.

"PAMELA ANDERSON, Jim's Common-Law Lover": "Well, you know, Jim was very much interested in Indians. I think he was referring to the Rosebud reservation, where Jim always wanted to live when he got out of the music business. But, I don't think it's true that he's still alive and living at Rosebud as an Indian. I'm sure he would have contacted me by now ... "

SHE STARTS TO CRY.

ANDERSON: "I'm sorry. I'm too broken up to talk anymore.

"RAY MANISCHEWITZ, Keyboardist for The Windows": "Jim and I met in film school, you know, and I'm convinced he was just referring to that great film, CITIZEN KANE, because Jim always wanted to make movies, himself. Also, you know, Jim was born and raised in Florida, and I'm sure he never even had a snow sled. Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give away the ending."

"ROSE KENNEALY, Jim's Mistress (Only One of Them)": "Jim didn't say 'Rosebud.' He said 'Rose's butt.' He always said that I had the nicest ass in the business. He was just thinking of me when he died, not that slut he was living with. I'm proud of that, and my new book, KISS MY ASS, is going to reveal everything."

"STANDING BEAR, Jim's Indian and Spritual Advisor": "I was with Jim in spirit when he went to the Happy Hunting Ground. You know that Jim was unhappy and had gained a lot of weight toward the end. Well, Jim was just thinking about dinner that night.  What he really said was 'roast duck.'" Here's the menu from his favorite restaurant to prove it."

"STEVE COPPEL, Video Store Manager": "I have no idea what it means, but, considering all the movies that have been made, I'll bet you could find the answer somewhere in here. Did I mention that we're running a sale today?"

CAMERA DOLLIES OUT and TRUCKS AIMLESSLY THROUGH RACKS OF TAPES UNTIL IT COMES TO THE "ADULT MOVIES" SECTION. It ZOOMS IN to a particular tape, and we see the cover, which says "ROSEBUD Does Deadwood/The Indian Maid Who Made Custer's Last Stand the Night before Custer's Last Stand!" and the CAMERA PANS DOWN the cover to the words "Introducing Jimmy Kane as the Horniest Brave with the Biggest Horn at the Little Big Horn!" as the CREDITS START TO ROLL, after which WE FADE TO BLACK.

 

THE END

The History of Humanity

THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY
by Dan Culberson
(C) 1995

 



I'll tell you something.

Liberals are "not narrow in opinion or judgment." Conservatives are "disposed to maintain existing views, conditions or institutions."

Liberals were curious. Conservatives were not.

Liberals climbed down from the trees and ventured out onto the dangerous plains. Conservatives stayed in the forests where they were safe.

Liberals discovered how to cultivate crops for a steady supply of food. Conservatives tried to remain hunters and gatherers, which had worked in the past.

Liberals created stories and myths. Conservatives believed the myths were true.

Liberals saw the need for a set of rules so society could function. Conservatives saw rules as a way to get others to act like them.

Liberals ventured far from home to discover new worlds. Conservatives stayed home and managed their day-to-day affairs.

Liberals discovered new lands and civilizations. Conservatives followed to convert savages to Christianity.

Liberals settled the New World to begin a new life. Conservatives stayed in the Old World where they were comfortable.

Liberals had vision and dreams of what might be. Conservatives had memories and dreams of what had been.

Liberals dealt with ideas. Conservatives dealt with rules.

Liberals wanted to change society for the better. Conservatives wanted to keep the status quo at all costs.

Liberals became workers and Democrats. Conservatives became business owners and Republicans.

Liberals acquired knowledge. Conservatives acquired wealth.

Liberals went to war. Conservatives waged war.

Liberals asked questions. Conservatives gave answers.

Liberals fought for women to get the vote. Conservatives fought to keep women home, barefoot and pregnant.

Liberals made new discoveries in science and technology. Conservatives bought and sold products created from discoveries.

Liberals went to Hollywood and created the motion-picture industry. Conservatives stayed home, went to the movies and complained about Hollywood.

Liberals wrote ground-breaking erotic works of art. Conservatives banned them in Boston.

Liberals embraced the Theory of Evolution. Conservatives condemned it and created "monkey trials."

Liberals were open to other nations and cultures. Conservatives created isolationism.

Liberals encouraged sex education in schools. Conservatives forbade it.

Liberals believed in the equality of people. Conservatives created apartheid and "separate but equal" laws.

Liberals became newspaper reporters. Conservatives became newspaper publishers.

Liberals in the form of 60,000 authors, actors, painters and musicians emigrated from Germany. Conservatives stayed behind and sent over 6,000,000 people to concentration camps.

Liberals wrote books. Conservatives burned them.
\
Liberals developed the atomic bomb. Conservatives used it.

Liberals became beatniks. Conservatives ridiculed them.

Liberals created rock 'n' roll. Conservatives destroyed records.

Liberals became "freedom riders" and fought for civil rights. Conservatives supported the Ku Klux Klan and fought to preserve racism.

Liberals became hippies and questioned all authority and the Vietnam war. Conservatives derided hippies and supported all authority and the Vietnam war.

Liberals promoted peace and love. Conservatives promoted war and hate.

Liberals went to Woodstock for three days of fun and music. Conservatives tried to ban sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Liberals watched "Laugh-In" and "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." Conservatives watched "Marcus Welby, M.D." and kicked the Smothers Brothers off the air.

Liberals took to the streets and protested against the Vietnam war. Conservatives beat up the protesters and killed them at Kent State.

Liberals think young. Conservatives want everything to be like it was when they were young.

Liberals create fashion. Conservatives are slaves to fashion.

Liberals are concerned about content and form. Conservatives are afraid of content and embarrassed by form.

Liberals believe the means justify the end. Conservatives believe the end justifies the means.

Liberals believe everyone is equal. Conservatives believe they are better than others.

Liberals are open-minded about sexuality and erotica. Conservatives are close-minded and embarrassed by sexuality and erotica.

Liberals believe knowledge is power. Conservatives believe knowledge is dangerous.

Liberals are proud to be different. Conservatives are afraid to be different.

Liberals forgive. Conservatives forget.

Liberals want to create the future. Conservatives want to re-create the past.

Liberals talk about rights and wrongs. Conservatives talk about rights and lefts.

Liberals try to discover new ways to make things work. Conservatives keep trying to make the old ways work.

Liberals want people to think for themselves. Conservatives want people to think the way conservatives do.

Liberals mourn the loss of an idea. Conservatives mourn the loss of a privilege.

Liberals trust in people. Conservatives trust in God.

Liberals are brave, self-confident and willing to take chances. Conservatives are cowardly, insecure and afraid to take chances.

Liberals would rather change than die. Conservatives would rather die than change.

That's the history of humanity.

###

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Intelligent

Here's what gets me.

Full disclosure: I was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from college, where I took an IQ test for a psychology class and scored 160, which was classified as being "genius."

Consequently, I have usually been successful at what I did, not always at what I wanted to do. For example, although I decided at an early age that I wanted to be a writer and was writing stories even earlier, I was a reporter for my high-school weekly newspaper and co-editor-in-chief my senior year, I received a journalism scholarship to college, but then I changed my major from journalism to English literature because I decided that I wanted to be a famous novelist instead of a reporter or own a newspaper.

Eventually I did publish a novel, Plastic Man: A Novel of the Sixties.

Which brings me to television, and for those of you too young to know or too old to remember, the title of this piece is a play on the catchphrase for a Panteme commercial in the 1980s featuring Kelly LeBrock, a beautiful and famous woman at the time, which was "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

Speaking of old, I am old enough to remember when television became socially popular and pervasive and when TV executives and society in general debated whether television should give the audience what they wanted or give them what they needed. In other words, to use newspaper terminology, should network television be produced to appeal to the least common denominator of the viewing audience or should it be of higher quality and enrich and enlighten the audience.

There was even the notion that television was going to educate the masses either actively, for example, from "educational TV" or passively from just watching worlds and customs and countries different from our own.

Just look at your TV schedule today, and what do you see? So-called "reality-TV" shows, which are anything but, because they are cheap to produce and they are scripted to bring out the worst in its participants. Unfortunately, "give the producers what they want" won out, and the producers and network executives are greedy and want money.

Which brings me to politics.

I was very much interested in politics and believed that I could make a difference. I attended my first precinct caucus in 1976 for the Democratic party and was disillusioned when the candidate I supported didn't win and another attendee urged me to change my vote to the leading candidate and said, "It's a shame that you won't be represented at the state convention."

In other words, she believed that the best way I would be represented would be if I voted for a candidate I didn't support.

However, I did attend the state convention and became even more disillusioned when I saw most of the people there spending more time wheeling and dealing to be selected to attend the national convention than they did in conducting the business at hand.

Although I stopped participating actively in my party, I continued to vote in every election as I have done since I became eligible to vote, and except for 1976 I was disappointed in every national election for president.

Then came 1992, and I again attended my precinct caucus. Bill Clinton was the candidate I supported, and not only did he win the vote in my precinct, but because the precinct chairman was resigning after the caucus, I volunteered to be the precinct chairman, a position I held without any assistance until I became burned out in 2008 when Barack Obama was running, and I essentially retired from active politics.

I was still writing during that time, however, and wrote and published the newsletter for the county Democrat party.

Politics today is obscene when elected officials vote according to what their pockets and lobbyists tell them instead of what their constituents want.

Which finally brings me to religion. Although I was raised by my parents to be religious, I lost my religion when I thought about all the inconsistencies I was being taught as absolute truths, and I even published a book, An Atheist's Handbook, about my experience.

And to complete the trilogy, I also published The Searcher, my secular response to the hugely popular The Prophet.

I don't need or desire approval from other people to make me happy, and I don't care what other people think about me.

I don't use Facebook or Twitter. I am content being me.

I rest my case.

Equal Opportunity Filthiest Limerick

Here's what gets me.

I believe it is agreed that the filthiest and possibly most popular limerick ever written is the one about the man from Nantucket:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I would fuck it!"

Given that the women's liberation movement has been going on for decades, I am surprised that no one has written a similar limerick with a woman as the subject. I have corrected that oversight:

There once was a gal from Nantucket
Whose cunt was so sweet she would suck it.
She said with a grin
As she wiped off her chin,
"If that stick were a dick, I would fuck it!"

There is no need to thank me. Just reading it is reward enough.

I rest my case.

The Force That Changed America

Here's what gets me.

Star Wars was changed, as you know, and in 1997 could also have been changed to "Twenty years ago in a Hollywood universe far, far away a young man named Lucas fulfilled his vision and managed to make a sappy space opera filled with mythological overtones, innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques that were a throwback to Saturday matinee serials, and young Lucas was also farsighted enough to keep all the merchandising rights for his creation, which became so successful that it changed how we look at movies, how Hollywood makes movies and society itself, which became seduced by the Dark Side of merchandising and greed."

On May 25, 1977, Star Wars opened in a little over 30 theaters and went on to do blockbuster business, earn obscene amounts of money, spawn many equally successful sequels, make George Lucas a wealthy man and an unequaled force in the entertainment industry and perhaps "single-moviedly" create movie fan clubs and people obsessed with collecting every collectible associated with the movies they could get their hands on.

However, Star Wars is more than just a sappy space opera filled with mythological overtones, innovative special effects and filmmaking techniques that are throwbacks to Saturday matinee serials. It is also a transference of power and importance from one generation to the next, and it might not just be coincidence that the "special edition" came 20 years later, the time of one generation.

If you were one of the millions who stood in line at one of the 1800 theaters in which Star Wars (Special Edition) opened January 31, 1997, you might have noticed how it was not as interesting if you already knew everything that happens and what everything means. Wait! We already knew that from the many, many times we had already seen it, whether in theaters the first time around long, long ago or on TV from either broadcast showings, movie rentals or our own private collections.

We already know that Mark Hamill was a wooden actor, that the story is sappy at the beginning when Luke Skywalker is with his aunt and uncle and that scenes go on way, way too, too long to show us the razzle-dazzle of special effects rather than advancing the story. And we already knew that the superficial banter between Han Solo and Princess Leia is just a cover-up for their mutual attraction.

Yes, we knew how the movie begins, how it middles and how it ends. So, why were we so fascinated to want to see it again when it was already etched in our brains like a historical myth?

Well, that depends on who "we" is. Some of us were (ahem) old, old enough to have seen it the first time around, which means we were probably Baby Boomers and didn't want to grow any older and were reliving that experience again, which helped us to think we were still that age of 20 years earlier.

Some of us were just old enough to have children, and we probably wanted to see it again with our kids, sort of like passing a sacred totem on to the next generation.

And some of us were (ahem) young, young enough to have never seen it on a large screen, where Lucas maintained it was meant to be seen.

Lucas said he was only 50% to 60% happy with the film 20 years earlier and later he was 80% happy with it. He said, "The only thing I joke about now is it would be fun--and we can't do this for another 10 years or so--to go back and digitize the entire movie and clean it up."

May the Force help us!

Was this how we wanted Hollywood to treat our icons? Was this how we wanted movies made and remade as new technology allowed filmmakers to ignore the limitations of their raw material?

Think of Independence Day. Think of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Heck, think of Mars Needs Women.

Star Wars created Hollywood's obsession with the blockbuster, it created the phenomenon in which merchandising earns more than the box office and it probably has a direct influence on why magazines and newspapers contain more advertising than text over time, companies now sponsor sporting events and even uniforms, and athletes make more money from endorsements than they do from playing their sports.

Star Wars is the Force that changed Hollywood, and as Hollywood goes, so goes America.

I rest my case.

Stop Saying "Take a Look"!

Here's what gets me.

Take a look at this.

The three most overused and unnecessary words you ever hear on television are "Take a look."

Take a look at this.

First of all, except for blind people who only listen to the television set, we are already looking at it, and so people on television don't have to tell us to look at it!

Take a look at this.

And for all we know, blind people might get offended by being reminded all the time that they can't see anything whenever told to "take a look."

Take a look at this.

Second of all, what does saying "Take a look" add that a simple "Look" doesn't convey?

Take a look at this.

And third of all, the expression in either its shortest form of "Look," its longer form of "Take a look," or even its longer forms of "Take a look at this," "Take a live look," or "Taking a look at the temperatures" are all just a lazy way of introducing what the meteorologist, traffic reporter, or any other on-camera person wants to talk about next. Much worse is "take a listen."

Take a look at this.

I first became aware of this lazy crutch of an expression back in the past when I would attend a presentation by a programmer I worked with, and he would mangle it by saying "Take and look" instead of "Take a look."

Take a look at this.

For example, he would have a visual aid displayed before us and say something like, "If we take and look at the coding, we can see how the reverse Polish notation affects all the lines that follow."

Take a look at this.

Then I began noticing that the weather girl on the local news that I watch every morning was saying "Take a look" much too often and even more much too unnecessarily.

Take a look at this.

Then I began to notice that the traffic reporter who would follow her weather report was using "Take a look" in his reports, too, and sometimes even saying "Take a look" twice in the same sentence.

Take a look at this.

And then I began to notice that national reporters on television and hosts on national talk shows were being lazy and using the expression, which, when you think about it, doesn't add anything to the introduction of whatever follows that we are being told to look at.

Take a look at this.

Rather than saying "Take a look at these temperatures," the weather girl could simply tell us that the temperature in Denver is a pleasant 65 degrees, compared with the temperatures in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.

Take a look at this.

Rather than saying "Take a look at the traffic map," the traffic reporter could simply say "The traffic is heavy on the Interstate highway, so you might want to avoid it."

Take a look at this.

And rather than saying "Take a look" when a national reporter or a talk-show host wants to introduce a piece of video footage, a simple description of what is going to be shown would suffice or even a simple "Play it" when the person might not know what is about to be shown.

Take a look at this.

Now that I have made you aware of this excessive and unnecessary overused expression on television, start counting the number of times you hear it said, and if you use social media to follow either the person you hear say it too much or the program on which you heard it said or even the network on which the person or program appears, write using either of the more popular social-network tools directly to the person, program, or network and encourage them to stop using that now offensive, unnecessary and overused expression.

Take a look at this.

Unfortunately, this might turn out to be a lost cause. Emphasis on good language and effective communication might have been lost ever since the Baby Boomers became a major influence in society in the Sixties.

Take a look at this.

I don't watch religious shows on television, and so I don't know if televangelists use the expression in their sermons or requests for money, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did, because I am hearing the expression almost every time I turn on the television.

Take a look at this.

The same goes for politicians.

I rest my case.

My Cold, Dead Fingers

Here's what gets me.

Does it have to take an English major to explain the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution and put to rest this unjustifiable crutch of the right-wing, gun-toting fanatics and their conservative supporters?

For those of you who don't remember, Amendment II states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Even for those of you who do remember, Amendment II states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

That is what it says word for word, comma for comma, capitalization for capitalization. Notice that the subject is "Militia," the verb is "shall not be infringed," and the sentence becomes "A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed."

"What about the bits between commas?" you say? Those are two appositional phrases, and an apposition is "a grammatical construction in which a noun or pronoun is followed by another that explains it."

The subject, a noun (See how it works?), is followed by "being necessary to the security of a free State," and it is followed by "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" in order to explain "a well regulated Militia," the subject of the sentence.

The subject cannot be "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," because you cannot put a single comma between the subject and the verb of a sentence. You cannot write "The dog, ran around the yard." You can write "The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, ran around the yard," because now we have two commas separating the subject and the verb. You can also write "The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, the pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard."

That sentence is not "The pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard," because that would be ungrammatical, just as "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" is ungrammatical and therefore not the sentence of Amendment II.

"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms" is an apposition that explains the subject, "a well regulated Militia," just as the other apposition, "being necessary to the security of a free State," does. It is a "Militia" that is "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," which is necessary to the security of a free State and which shall not be infringed.

In other words, the citizens of the United States have the right to keep and bear Arms in "a well regulated Militia," not to stockpile weapons at home and to carry a gun around with them in some Old West mentality.

And what did the sheriff in the Old West do to maintain order? Do the words "Check your guns at the door" strike a familiar note? That didn't mean "Inspect your guns to ensure that they are in proper working order." That meant "Turn your guns in at the door. It's too dangerous for you to carry guns here."

Now, the possibility of everyone having a concealed weapon might deter a few criminal acts, but the probability that hotheads and teenagers carrying a weapon could use it in a moment of unbridled emotion is far greater.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-80), a British jurist and Oxford instructor who was the first at a British university to teach English law as opposed to Roman law (See how those appositions work?), wrote in his great work Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69), "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer."

I believe it is better that ten crimes be committed than one innocent victim be killed by a convenient handgun.

Luke Woodham, a teenager in Pearl, Mississippi, who is spending the rest of his life in prison for murdering his mother and two fellow students in October 1997 when he was 16, kept a map on his bedroom wall with the slogan "One Nation Under My Gun." Do we want our immature, impressionable children growing up and believing this heinous claim?

We used to see so-called Amendment II supporters brag "I'll give up my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

After a moment of rage, I don't want those cold, dead fingers to be mine.

I rest my case.

Trust in Santa Claus

Here's what gets me.

Trust in God is no more realistic and rewarding than trust in Santa Claus.

After all, the concept of God and believing in God's existence is merely childhood fantasy grown up, because God is nothing more than Santa Claus for adults.

Think about it. Occasionally, some very old people will be singled out on television, and many times one of them is likely to say, "I attribute my long life to clean living, good health and trust in God." If they are born-again Christians, they might say "trust in Jesus" instead, but think how substituting "Santa Claus" for either one makes absolutely no difference to the validity that the trust had anything to do with the person's longevity and absolutely nothing to the validity of the existence of any of those named individuals.

Look at the similarities: Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and all of Santa's elves live up at the North Pole, and their only reason for being is to reward good little boys and girls one night a year by giving them presents. And when does Santa do this? On Christ's birthday!

God, Jesus, the angels and every good person who has ever been rewarded with eternal life lives up in Heaven just waiting for new souls to come on up and live forever. And when does this happen? On each "saved" person's death!

Depending on the religion or denomination, people are rewarded with an all-expenses-paid, free trip to Heaven for their good deeds on earth, for "accepting Jesus Christ as their savior" or merely for believing that God exists.

Santa Claus keeps a list, checks it twice and knows who has been naughty or nice in the past year, which he uses to reward those who have been "good" with presents and to punish those who have been "bad" with either no presents or a lump of coal in some cultures. And what do we associate coal with? Hot burning fire!

Have you ever known anyone who actually did receive only a lump of coal for Christmas, or is that just an empty threat that parents use to try to keep their children in line?

Santa Claus has lots of impersonators during the Christmas season standing on corners ringing their bells and collecting money and sitting in malls in order to let little children sit on their laps and tell them what they want for Christmas.

God has lots of churches throughout the year on practically every corner collecting money every Sunday or whenever a service is held and plenty of representations of either Jesus nailed to a cross or the Virgin Mary, Christ's mother, God's concubine, to which people can pray and tell them what special favor they would like.

This is where the Santa Claus myth is lacking. Astute creators and perpetuators of the myth should have thought to have given Santa a son so that Santa Jr. and Mrs. Claus could stand on corners and sit in malls to relieve some of the burden during the holidays, which, of course, comes from "holy days."

Santa Claus uses the parents of the children to make them be good for their rewards, punish them as need be throughout the year, make empty promises about what they might get on Christmas morning and then make the actual purchases, hide them in closets, wrap them neatly and finally place them underneath the tree for the excited and eager children to find on Christmas morning.

God uses priests, preachers and other self-anointed representatives to "guide" the people, relay God's words and intentions to them throughout the year, convey special requests if need be back up to God, make empty promises about what they might expect upon their deaths and then finally perform the memorial services for those people when they do die.

Trust in Santa Claus is expedient for parents to encourage their young children, because the promise of presents for good behavior and threats of no presents or that lump of coal for bad behavior is another tool in the parents' bag of parenting tricks.

However, when children reach the age of about six, they should be clever enough to figure out on their own how all the contradictions and illogical details in the Santa Claus myth enable them to conclude that there is no Santa Claus and their parents have been misleading them all those years, even though their parents will claim that it was "for their own good."

I rest my case.

Amen.

Fear of Dying

Here's what gets me.

People who try to convert others to their religion are like those who recommend their dentist or eye doctor to people.

They have had satisfactory experiences with their dentist or eye doctor, and the more people who do likewise supports and legitimizes their own choices and beliefs. And as everyone knows who has ever attempted to persuade someone to believe what you believe, if you can demonstrate that your belief is supported in print, your position has more substantiation and more weight. In addition, if your medical recommendations have been in print for 2,000 years, then you have a lot of weight and persuasion on your side.

However, suppose that the dentist and the eye doctor receiving these recommendations are quacks. Suppose the dentist claims he has a better method of filling cavities and better suggestions for good dental hygiene than other dentists, but in fact he removes all his patients' gold fillings for his own profit and replaces them with a cheaper filling, one designed to wear out and ensure that his patients return for more dental work. And suppose that the dentist's "Ten Commandments of Doctor Gold's Good Dental Hygiene" begin with "Thou shalt go to no other dentist than Doctor Gold."

Now suppose that the eye doctor, who might even claim to be the son of Doctor Gold in order to acquire added prestige and pick up some easy patients, suppose that he, Doctor Christman, claims that all of his patients have special abilities as the result of his practice which enables them to have perfect vision without the need for eyeglasses or corrective lenses of any kind after they are dead.

That is correct. Ridiculous as it might seem, Doctor Christman, without any proof whatsoever, claims that if you patronize his practice, you will be given special powers that will enable you to continue living after you die, and you will be whisked away to some special, spiritual Haven for Doctor Christman's former patients, where everybody spends eternity with perfect eyesight and presumably continues extolling the wonders of Doctor Christman's special powers.

Now, remember those people who recommend the practices of Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman? Suppose they get a percentage, a finder's fee, a kickback for every patient who actually does go to those doctors. That would make their recommendations suspect, wouldn't it? Especially the ones who recommend that kook, Doctor Christman, who boldly claims with a straight face that if only you go to him for your eyesight needs, he will additionally reward you with life after death?

Why would any sane, intelligent person believe such nonsense?

Well, those few people who are blessed with perfect eyesight who can see clearly in all situations that require clear far vision and closeup vision don't, because they have no need to correct their eyesight and don't need an eye doctor in the first place. Nor do they need to follow the "Ten Commandments of Doctor Christman's Perfect Vision," which are suspiciously similar to Doctor Gold's Ten Commandments. They are mostly common sense and obvious suggestions, anyway.

However, there are some people, perhaps even a majority, who are afraid of dying. And if they persuade themselves, either on their own or because of the persuasive powers of those paid shills for Doctor Christman, that simply by patronizing Doctor Christman they will be given the additional magical blessing of life after death, they consider that they would be fools not to patronize Doctor Christman and anyone who knows about Doctor Christman and doesn't patronize him is just a fool.

In other words, their fear of dying has got the better of them and clouded their vision even more than their correctable myopia.

That is just plain silly. Those people are even bigger fools than the ones Doctor Christman's patients claim to be who aren't Doctor Christman's patients, because there is no evidence that life after death is even possible, much less with perfect eyesight.

What are Doctor Christman's patients afraid of? Why are they so egotistical as to believe that they are so special that they even need to have a life after death?

Where were they before they were born? Nowhere. What have they felt every night of their lives after they have been born? Nothing. They have been in a state of unconsciousness that people with perfect eyesight and those with corrected vision accept without fear of going to sleep.

Doctor Gold and Doctor Christman are quacks.

I rest my case.

How to Change Someone's Mind

Here's what gets me.

Throughout our lives, we encounter many situations in which we try to change someone's opinion to match our own.

As children, we tried to persuade our playmates to agree with us as to what to play, where to go, what to do.

Occasionally, we tried to persuade our parents to let us stay up later, buy us a particular toy, let us watch television.

As teenagers, we might have had younger siblings to convince to let us have our way, best friends to agree on which movie to see and sweethearts to persuade that we were being honest and true to them.

As adults, we sometimes have a fellow juror or a spouse we try to persuade to agree with us, a co-worker we want to do things the way we want and our own children to persuade that what we want is best for them.

But have you ever examined the art and process of changing someone's mind? Have you ever thought about your successes and failures and drawn any conclusions about what works and what doesn't? Have you ever taken the time before an argument to determine what you want to achieve, what the best persuasive evidence is to present and what characteristics your adversary has that might help your cause?

Childhood arguments are simple. We either reach a mutual agreement about what we want to do or one of us walks away in hurt or anger. With our parents, if we don't have a convincing argument to prove our point, the larger, more powerful person wins.

Teenage disagreements are more complicated. We can usually win an argument with a younger sibling based on our broader knowledge and experience, but we have to be aware that an arbitrary, selfish decision might be used against us later in life. With best friends and sweethearts, we are on equal ground, and logic has to come into play along with our emotions.

Adult arguments are the most complicated of all, and yet society wants us to conduct them in the most logical, dispassionate manner possible, as adults, without violence.

So, what is the best way to change someone's mind, so that not only do you achieve the result you want, but all parties are also in nonresentful agreement afterwards?

The best approach is to use logic. For example: "If all A is B, and C is A, then C is also B."

Who can argue against that? If you don't agree that C is B, then you have to disprove either "all A is B" or "C is A."

"All politicians are crooks. Richard Nixon was a politician. Therefore, Nixon was a crook."

The problem with logic is that the opponents have to agree that the premises are true. ("Two neighbors were arguing over the backyard fence, but they couldn't reach an agreement, because they were arguing from different premises.")

Humor can be useful in arguments, because it can break the tension, put things in a different perspective and sometimes allow you to save face and agree to change your opinion in an argument that isn't really important.

However, unless the parties agree to the truth of the premises, no amount of logic is going to change anyone's mind.

Pro-life people believe "All abortion is killing. Killing is wrong. Therefore, all abortion is wrong."

Pro-choice people disagree with either "all abortion is killing" or "(all) killing is wrong," and therefore they will never agree with the conclusion "all abortion is wrong," unless they can agree to live with something they believe is wrong.

The pro-choice argument is "Women can do what they want with their bodies. Abortion is an act of doing what you want with your body. Therefore, women can have abortions."

The pro-life people disagree with "women can do what they want with their bodies." And until the two sides get in the same backyard and argue from the same premises, no amount of logic is going to change anyone's mind.

When logic fails, threats can sometimes work, followed by force or else sometimes just force without the threat.

"If you don't give me that ball, I'm going to punch you in the nose."

"If you don't go to bed right now, I'm going to give you a spanking."

Threats and force, however, don't change minds; they just achieve results in a childish fashion and always cause resentment.

Logic works better, as long as we're all playing in the same backyard.

I rest my case.

Go, Turkeys!

Here's what gets me.

Ex-Senator Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell was a dope.

For those of you unfamiliar with Colorado politics or the Washington Redskins controversy over trying to build a new football stadium, Campbell was the Colorado junior senator whose former claim to notoriety was that he is 1/8-1/2 Native American/North American Indian, he flaunted riding his motorcycle without a helmet and he was trying to force the Washington Redskins to change their team name.

He also claimed to be the only Native American/North American Indian then sitting in the U.S. Senate.

Remember when you could be classified a non-Native American Black/North American Negro if you had only 1/16 nNAB/NAN blood in you? It is time to get rid of, or at least ignore, race classifications. They serve no purpose other than to perpetuate prejudice.

I'll bet you beads to wampum that based on such a strict classification, Senator "Nighthorse" was NOT the only NA/NAI in the Senate. Do you know anything at all about your eight great-great grandfathers and grandmothers?

However, he was the first senator to make a national fool of himself over such a silly, misguided issue as sporting-team nicknames.

Consider the facts: Senator Ben said the word "redskin" is a racial slur and introduced a bill prohibiting a new stadium on land used by "any person or organization ... using nomenclature that includes a reference to real or alleged physical characteristics of Native American or other groups of human beings."

He also said, "Simply put, the name 'Redskin' is offensive to Indian people. Whether it is considered offensive by non-Indians is not the issue."

Well, if it is so "offensive to Indian people," why did an Indian high school on a reservation in Red Lake, Ariz., use "Redskins" for its team name?

People forget that mascot names are chosen for their anthropological totemism, not their condescending tokenism. The names are chosen with pride to strike fear in their opponents' hearts, not laughter and chuckles in their throats. No team is called the New York Ninnies, Dallas Dumbbells or San Francisco Sissies. Names of pride are chosen like Giants, Cowboys and 49ers.

As for a term being offensive, the offense comes from context, not from the term itself. No one should be able to take offense at "mother," right? Well, how about "That no-good mother went crazy and he shot 14 people"?

A word is only a symbol for something so that communication and understanding can occur. Otherwise, why would Senator Campbell take pride in calling himself a word also used to mean "beast," "gelding," "heroin," "large or coarse," "old-fashioned" and "nonsense" when used alone or with other words?

Would the senator have been offended if the Washington Redskins chose to call themselves the Washington Nighthorses? I think not. So, was he being selective in choosing what to take offense at? I think so.

Calling attention to a perceived racial slur only perpetuates racism, and the only race we should be concerned about is the human race--especially the finish of it. Back in the Embarrassing Sixties, we thought we could solve problems by drawing attention to them, bringing them out into the open and rubbing everybody's noses in them.

Maybe we were wrong. Maybe drawing attention to problems only perpetuates the problems, because people will be offended at anything if it suits them, whether the problem is solved or not.

Perhaps problems can best solve themselves. When humans try to solve problems, they create new problems, and I hate to think that the purpose of humanity is to solve problems. I choose to believe that the purpose of humanity--if we have a purpose--is to live and be happy. If we can help others be happy, too, then all the better.

So, why don't we all try to live with a philosophy of trying not to create any problems? If we don't have any problems, then we don't have to solve any problems.

If you are offended by a silly mascot name, then take pride in being unique. Ask yourself how many additional problems you would cause by broadcasting the fact you are offended. Ask yourself how many people are not offended. Forget the silly slogan of "If one person has a problem, then we all have a problem."

Remember that Ben "Founding Father" Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird instead of the eagle.

How would you feel today if your favorite team was the Philadelphia Turkeys?

I rest my case.

Cleaning Up the Dirty Words

Here's what gets me.

I'm going to write every filthy, disgusting, dirty word you have ever seen or heard right now: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

There. That wasn't so bad, was it?

"What?" you say? "That's just the alphabet," you say?

Correct, but it contains every dirty word ever written and every dirty word that ever will be written. You just have to string the improper letters together, assuming you didn't stop reading when I announced what I was going to do.

Now, what is it with so-called "dirty" words that causes such an uproar? We have all heard them, and many of us have used them. Then, why is it we make such a stink about them when we see them in print or hear them in movies, radio or television?

The reason is that somewhere along the line we made an unwritten agreement that certain words are "dirty" and out of place in "polite" society, and people who use them anyway can get into big trouble.

Lenny Bruce, the controversial comedian who died in 1966 at 40, got into big trouble for being "obscene" on stage. What did he do? He offended society.

Now, what is the problem with dirty words? Is it the content or the form that is offensive?

Well, it cannot be the content, because if one word for the human anatomy or a physical act is considered to be offensive, another word that means exactly the same thing is not. Why is that?

We won't allow the most common word for the act of love, but we will allow "sexual intercourse," "coitus," "copulation," "hiding the sausage" and "dancing the horizontal mambo," among many many others.

Why? Because the one word that is shortest of all and has no ambiguous meaning in that context has been banned by "polite" society.

Also, we don't allow certain slang words for various parts of the human anatomy, but "penis," "vagina," "breast" and "anus" are perfectly acceptable. Why?

Although "Saturday Night Live" once got into trouble for saying the word "penis" 23 times in one sketch, after Lorena Bobbitt sliced her husband's sausage and made all the newspapers, network news programs and late-night talk shows, using any other word would have made the speakers look prudish and foolish.

Wait a minute, however. It cannot be the form that is dirty, either. "Cock" is perfectly acceptable when it means a rooster. "Pussy" is perfectly acceptable when it means a cat. And "tit" is perfectly acceptable when it means in exchange for tat.

So, what's the big deal with dirty words if the offense is neither in the content nor in the form? Could it be the intent? Do we get offended by certain words only because we believe that the speaker or writer intended to offend us?

But that's not being fair, nor is it being logical. If we take offense by what we believe was someone's intent, then are we saying we have the power of knowing what people want to do before they do it? Is that what we are saying?

We are proud of the fact that our Constitution guarantees us the right of free speech. And yet we don't allow everyone to practice free speech. We censor free speech. Why?

Well, now you're going to say that something I might say might offend you. But, wait a minute. Something that might offend you will not offend somebody else.

Therefore, are you saying that you are better than those unoffended people and know more than they do? Is that what you are saying?

Hold onto your seats. I am going to offend you. I am going to write the common, four-letter word that means the supreme, gentle, tenderest, everynight act of love. Here it comes: f---. Were you offended?

You have seen that before, haven't you? People are offended when they see all the letters, but not when the newspaper substitutes hyphens for some of the letters.

What sense is that? You know what it means, I know what it means and the newspaper knows what it means. But somewhere along the line we agreed that we won't be offended when we see symbolic hyphens.

Why don't we just agree that we won't be offended by any word, no matter how s---- it is?

After all, a word is only another symbol for an object or an idea, and we all have the power to make a symbol mean anything we choose.

Now, isn't that silly?

I rest my case.

Proving a Negative: Superman, Flying Saucers and God Don't Exist

Here's what gets me.

One of the basic tenets of logic is "You cannot prove a negative."

For example, you cannot prove there is no God, flying saucers don't exist or Superman doesn't exist, according to the philosophers, psychologists and logicians.

Not so, say I!

Of course you can prove a negative, as long as you establish agreed-upon ground rules for the premises, the statements of facts or suppositions made or implied as a basis of argument. For example, "If A equals B, and C equals B, then C equals A."

If premises "(A equals B) and (C equals B)" are "true," then the conclusion "C equals A" is also true.

For example, "If (2 times 3) equals (6), and (3 times 2) equals (6), then (3 times 2) equals (2 times 3)."

"If Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, and if you were born in 1950, then you are a Baby Boomer."

Now, back to God, flying saucers and Superman.

Can we prove they exist? Sure. All we have to do is get God to appear before us and some corroborating witnesses, coax a flying saucer to land in our backyard and take an irrefutable photograph of it and make Superman take off his glasses and fly faster than a speeding bullet, do something more powerful than a locomotive and leap a tall building in a single bound.

Can we prove that they do not exist? Sure, too. All we have to do is agree to the premises and then prove it with logic.

Now, we know that in one sense all three do exist, because a great deal has been written about them and a lot of people believe in them. One even has his own sequence of films, a couple of television series and a comic book to proclaim his existence.

So, instead of proving they do not exist, we need to prove that they are not real and do not exist outside our imaginations.

Well, we know who created Superman, because they have admitted it, and we have even seen Superman die and be reborn at the whims of his current comic-book owners.

Rather than use a negative in our proof, we need to rephrase the premises and conclusion to allow a positive conclusion.

"If Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster admit they created Superman and everyone agrees Superman is imaginary, then Superman is imaginary." Conclusion? Superman does not exist, regardless of all the literature about him and all the children who believe in him.

Flying saucers are trickier. We know the date of the first, most famous sighting and who reported it (although some believers claim the Bible even has sightings recorded in it, such as Ezekiel's "wheel"), and there have been countless sightings since then, sometimes with physical "evidence" and many so-called "abductions." But we have no physical evidence that when examined by everyone is convincing enough for everyone to conclude "Flying saucers are real."

"If we admit that many people with vivid imaginations create stories about observed or unobserved phenomena for their personal or financial gain and no one has ever produced any physical evidence of flying saucers that has withstood repeated, scientific examination, then flying saucers are imaginary."

Conclusion? Flying saucers don't exist, regardless of all the literature about them and all the people who believe in them.

God is even trickier. We know that primitive societies create a supreme being to worship and shamans establish rules of conduct for society to follow and sometimes to provide for the shaman's personal or financial gain, we know that all the major religions cannot be worshipping the same God and we know that no one has ever produced any physical evidence of God that has withstood repeated, scientific examination.

"If we admit that anyone can create a story about 'God' based solely on belief for personal or financial gain and if everything that has happened in the past and is happening today makes more sense without a God than with one, then God is imaginary."

Conclusion? There is no God, regardless of all the literature, people who believe and atrocities created in God's name.

William of Occam, the great Franciscan scholastic philosopher, stated that all unnecessary facts in a subject being analyzed are to be eliminated. In other words, if there are more than one explanation for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is more likely.

Conclusion? Superman, flying saucers and God don't exist.

I rest my case.

Your Future, Your Choice!

Here's what gets me.

I believe a lot of time, effort, money and brainpower can be saved if you reevaluate your political-party affiliation and voting record in terms of your line of work, your personal philosophy and your de facto class in American society.

"What?" you say? "Class?" you say?

"Yes," I say. Contrary to what many Americans believe or would like to believe, there are three distinct classes in the United States and, perhaps, in every society for purposes of discussion: upper class, middle class and lower class. Now, the difference between the class society in the U.S. and the established class societies in, say, India and medieval societies is that Americans don't have to be forever restricted to the class into which they were born. All they need do is acquire a substantial amount of money, buy some new clothes and a flashy new car, move into a nicer community and perhaps get experience in the ways of the next higher class in order to become a BONA FIDE new member of that class.

American politics have pretty much become a two-party system, and for the most part people agree that Democrats are the liberal party that supports the common, everyday working-class people and Republicans are the conservative party that supports Big Business and the uncommon, country-club set of wealthy people. Which group describes you?

Common sense says that the majority of people are going to be in either the middle class or the lower class. Using the old "bell curve" of distribution, let us say that 25% of the people are upper class, 50% are middle class and 25% are lower class. Where are you?

Now, people tend to align themselves first with the political party that their parents support, the same as they do their parents' religion. That is why I voted for the Democratic candidate in my first presidential election back in the Sixties, even though I didn't much care for the man Lyndon B. Johnson or for his policies in Vietnam: both my career-soldier father and my salesclerk mother were Democrats. As I grew older, wiser and more experienced, I decided that I supported the liberal, pro-arts, anti-Big Business views of the Democrats more than I supported the conservative, anti-Big Government, pro-Big Business views of the Republicans, anyway.

Remember your schooling? "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Why doesn't "trickle-down economics" work? Because money is power, and the people with the money don't want to give it up, especially to the people without any money. However, they WILL give some of it to greedy politicians in an attempt to cause the politicians to pass laws that make life easier for the people with the money.

Where do you fit? People with money? People without any money? Or greedy politicians?

Let me make it easier for you. People with money tend to be Republicans. People without any money tend to be Democrats. Greedy politicians tend to drift to whichever party they believe will best support their greed.

"Wait a minute!" you say? "What about the Kennedys?" you say? "What about people without any money who vote Republican?" you say?

Well, people who are born with a lot of money can pretty much do what they want, and people who do not have any money would always like to have more. Some people are benevolent and like to help out their fellow human beings as much as possible. Other people are naturally mean and selfish and want to acquire as much money, power, more money and more power as they can.

So, forget the party of your parents. Forget the economic situation as a whole that the country is in and whom the politicians blame for it. Forget the personal life-styles of individual politicians in office.

Remember this: Republicans are conservative, tend to support people with money and try to find ways that those people can keep their money and acquire more money.

Remember this: Democrats are liberal, tend to support people without money and try to find ways that those people can live better lives and perhaps acquire a little more money.

Best of all, forget "politics" and remember that only about 30% of eligible voters can determine how your life is affected.

Are you in the 25% upper class, the 50% middle class or the 25% lower class? Did you vote in the last election? Do the politicians speak for you?

Your choice determines your own future.

I rest my case.