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.

Dirty Laundry

Here's what gets me.

People have been upset with bearers of bad news at least as far back as the days of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, the writers of tragedies in which a messenger could be killed just for bringing the king some bad news.

Nowadays, we don't kill the journalists for giving us bad news; we seem to thrive on it and demand they give us more.

Oh, every decade or so there will be complaints that newspapers just report bad news and never good news, and some newspaper will be started that proudly proclaims it will print only good news. Then it will lose money and go out of business, because people are more interested in tragic events than in happy events ... unless, of course, the events happen to them.

Remember, the Greeks invented tragedies before they invented comedies. Bad news allows us to feel good about ourselves, to feel pity for the sufferers and fear that the events could happen to us and to achieve a catharsis of those emotions.

Comedies, however, make us laugh and allow us to feel smug about our happiness. Greek tragedies were about the nobility, but comedies were about common people. Then the moralists of the 16th and 17th centuries decided that the purpose of comedy was not only to amuse and entertain, but also to instruct.

So, what would you rather read about (or more likely these days, watch on TV), the latest scandals about Washington politicians, foreign nobility and Hollywood stars or the fact that the reported number of crimes went down last month?

Bad news doesn't usually come with the admonition that we shouldn't act this way, but have you noticed how popular TV sit-coms usually end with a moral?

When I was young, I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I was fascinated with the challenge of gathering all the facts about a story and then writing those facts according to journalistic formulas so that the least common denominator, Everyreader, could understand them without difficulty.

However, newspaper reporters didn't make very much money, Woodward and Bernstein hadn't made investigative journalism fashionable yet and the epitome of TV journalism was Edward R. Murrow, not some blow-dried performer who just reads the teleprompter.

Later, whenever any argument arose about journalism, I always defended the reporters. They were doing their job. Bad things happen. People would rather hear about bad news than good news.

And yet I have become extremely upset with TV reporters and their stupid questions.

Why ask an accused criminal "Did you do it?" Do you believe a criminal will suddenly confess on national TV instead of to the police? Does another denial give the audience any more insight about the story?

Why ask anyone "How do you feel?" How do you believe anybody feels after tragically losing a loved one, surviving an accident or winning the Super Bowl?

And why do journalists insist on inserting their own opinions? I have a rule of never answering a question beginning with a negative. "Don't you feel the proposed health plan will cost the taxpayers too much money?" is a weak way to ask for someone's opinion, because the reporter's opinion overshadows the question and any answer.

I have always wanted to be part of an important story, just so I could counter reporters' stupid questions.

"Did I do it? That's a stupid question."

"I feel like you have just asked another stupid question."

"Don't you feel that by asking your question that way, you are just giving your own opinion instead of asking for mine?"

And speaking of opinions, who cares what the public believes? Why do so many TV and radio shows keep asking for public opinions? A Denver morning TV "news" program once asked, "Does it seem like you have a lot of bad hair days?" Back then people actually paid money to call in their one little vote.

Why are there so many daytime talk shows? In 1961 Jackie Gleason probably started the first prime-time TV talk show when he sat down with just one guest and they simply talked. I believe Phil Donahue established the pattern of involving audiences, taking phone calls and having guests with unusual problems or stories.

Perhaps fascination with dirty laundry is nothing more than wanting to feel fear and pity for the catharsis, being able to feel smug at the absurdity of other people's lives and watching tragedies about the common folk for a change.

I rest my case.

No, Virginia, There Is No God

Here's what gets me.

Every December many newspapers resurrect an 1897 editorial from the old New York Sun in which Francis P. Church answered the famous question from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon.

Perhaps Virginia is grown up enough now to ask a larger, more serious question: "Please tell me the truth: Is there a God?"

Virginia, forgive us. When you were young, adults thought you needed to be protected from your fears, and we believed it would be better if you continued to believe in Santa Claus, when all reason and logic told you there was no jolly old elf.

Remember, we cannot prove a negative hypothesis. We cannot logically prove that something does not exist. So, just as we cannot prove that Santa Claus does not exist, we cannot prove that God does not exist. But just as Santa Claus is a myth created for the comfort and joy of little children to give them hope against a cold, dark Christmas night, perhaps God is another myth created for the comfort of little bands of people to give them courage against a cold, dark unknown world.

No, Virginia, all deductions and reason tell us there is no God. We have grown old and wise enough now that in our hearts we know we can no longer lay the world's blames on someone else. We can recognize the heartbreak and tragedy that occur when something horrible or absurd results from someone acting in the name of God. Let's face reality: Mankind created God in our own image to do our bidding, and surely the world has suffered enough from all the wars and atrocities that have occurred because people believed they alone knew the meaning of God.

Not believe in God? Yes, we do face the danger of losing a reason to be kind and do good without a belief in God. But we can rely on intelligence and common sense in order to be kind and do good, not some ancient commandment on a tablet handed down through a self-proclaimed intermediary. We are no longer frightened savages huddled in caves around a fire, we are no longer children afraid of growing up and needing the comfort of the belief in something larger than ourselves, smarter than ourselves, more grandiose than ourselves.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" makes good sense, no matter who tells us to do it. "Do unto others exactly as they did unto you" is only a short-term correction of bad activity, and it can lead to less intelligent people killing themselves all off so that we are again left with a small band of frightened savages huddled in a cave around a fire, instead of a globe-filled, worldwide band of humanity loving and helping each other for our humanity, still staring at the stars in wonder.

If God does exist, why are there so many different religions and versions of God like so many Santa Clauses at every public mall? Would God be so vain, so human, to watch such widespread pain and suffering that occurs in the name of religion?

Why do some believe only they have the authority to speak for God? Be suspicious of anyone claiming to speak on behalf of God, because that means we are again being treated like children. But we are grown up now, and our parents are dead.

Yes, what about Heaven? Of course death is frightening. After the joy of life, the idea of absolute, spine-chilling, subzero nothing is frightening to us all. But a false hope of an afterlife is as perverse as the false hope of a jolly little man squeezing down our chimneys with good cheer and presents for us all.

And what about angels and that tunnel of light at death? Well, we know how powerful our own imaginations can be, we know how "real" our dreams can be. Perhaps our minds make us dream at the moment of death to help us through that last experience of all, and just as we sometimes dream about something we heard about, read about or actually experienced, our interrupted last dream could be as common as dreams of flying or being naked in a crowd.

No God! Yes, the idea is frightening. It means we are finally responsible for our own actions, our own destiny. But it also means we have that much more responsibility to be kind and to do good while we are here.

I rest my case.

Culberson's Challenge

Here's what gets me.

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

That's not believing; that's just saying you believe.

By that reasoning, then you might as well follow the teachings of your chosen "God." Otherwise, you are admitting that your "God" is so weak as to be fooled by lip-service believers and lets anyone into Heaven just for half-hearted belief, not for good deeds. That's not a God. That's a bored security guard.

Blaise Pascal lived from 1623 to 1662 in France and 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 all you people with such weak religious belief that you take the easy way out to literally "save your soul" or with such weak intelligence that you cannot decide for yourselves what to believe, here is Culberson's Challenge:

Assume there is no "God." Then, priests, cardinals, the Pope, preachers, ministers, 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.

Either way, they are not to be trusted, and as the growing evidence of widespread sexual misconduct mounts, that would seem to be the case.

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

However, if we are figments of God's imagination, if we are manufactured "real" creatures in God'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 eventually become used to our existence in either one and inured to the pain that supposedly awaits us in the one and bored 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.

Therefore, I propose that neither future of "eternity" is anything to aspire to, and consequently believing in the existence of "God" is of no benefit whatsoever while we are alive, just as not believing in Santa Claus when we were children didn't change whether we got Christmas presents from our parents.

Thus, I challenge you either to give up your belief in a supreme being 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 slogans and sayings.

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

"There must be a God, because everybody says there is. Therefore, I can lead my life believing in God and do anything I want to, 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 until God stops me, including trying to convince as many other people I can that God exists, because there is 'strength in numbers,' and the more people who believe in God increases the chances that God does exist."

If you accept my challenge and choose to live without a belief in God, your life on earth will be much less complicated and frustrating and stressful, and it will be much more rewarding, enjoyable, and definitely free of self-imposed religious pressure.

"God" loses. You win.

I rest my case.

Another Modest Proposal

Here's what gets me.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this abortion problem is a nasty business. Tempers have flared, curses have been shouted and people killed, not to mention both innocent and guilty bystanders swept by their emotions to commit unnatural acts in the name of decency and the "right thing to do"--and I'm just talking about outside the clinics.

Ever since Jan. 23, 1973, and the sexual peak of Baby Boomers everywhere, no solution proposed so far is going to satisfy everyone, because both sides currently have valid arguments. The pro-choice proponents believe that a woman has the right to do what she wants to her body and she can choose to prevent an unwanted child just as readily as she can choose to prevent an unwanted tumor, although certainly with more emotional involvement.

The pro-life proponents (or, by extension, the anti-choice people) believe that the "state," the government, society, other people or even God has the right if not the duty to do what it wants in order to prevent people from living a life of free will.

Hasn't anyone else recognized that this argument was angrily conducted centuries ago with great acrimony, hard feelings and probably lost lives and that therefore society is moving backwards?

Well, Ladies, Gentlemen and Others, I have a solution to the problem as plain as your own backyard or living-room easy chair: namely, our pets.

The idea came to me when I acquired a kitten from the Humane Society and afterwards watched a disgusting, predestination-disguised, anti-choice commercial that was crude in its production values, but just as slick in its manipulative techniques as any Madison Avenue, truth-mangling, morality-bending, self-aggrandizing advertisement.

When I bought the kitten, I was pressured into having it neutered. I was amazed that both the Humane Society and my veterinarian were so cavalier about a practice that is nothing more than a subversive act that eventually should put them both out of work.

Of course! Neither the Humane Society nor veterinarians would be so naive as to work toward putting themselves out of business, so something noble must be behind their desire to have a world full of aging, non-procreating pets.

And therein lies the solution to the problem of pro-choice, pro-life, anti-choice, anti-life, free-will, predestination, pro-abortion, anti-abortion dilemma: Whenever a child is born or whenever a child is adopted, neuter it. Snip-snip.

Only then can we cease this senseless anger, fighting, demonstrating and killing that is pitting sister against sister, brother against brother and family against family over a matter that should be between a woman and her conscience.

"What?" you say? "That would be silly!" you say? "Not to mention stupid and inhuman!" you say?

Not if we call it "humane." The time-honored tradition of society and Madison Avenue is to use language to sway thinking. Therefore, we simply call the act of desexing all children at birth and adoption the "Humane Solution," and all our worries about unwanted children, the agonizing of abortion and the morality of the way we live others' lives is over. Snip-snip.

"Wait a minute!" you say? "If all children are prevented from having children of their own, then how does that affect future generations?" you say?

Now, I don't want to sound callous or unfeeling, but another time-honored tradition of society and government is to answer "That's their problem." I am sure that pro-choice advocates, pro-life advocates and busybodies everywhere are more concerned with the immediate problem: how to prevent unwanted children and how to prevent women from destroying society by doing what they want to their own bodies.

Otherwise, we need only look at our own backyards and living-room easy chairs again. The practice and pressure of neutering our pets certainly hasn't created a shortage of pets. The unnatural but humane act of forcing our will upon the nature of pet procreation hasn't caused us any sleepless nights, and those pets are coming from somewhere.

Perhaps it's as simple as "Nature always finds a way."

Now, to head off any accusations that I have a personal interest in my proposal, I have no other motive than the public good of society by relieving the suffering of women, satisfying the desires of the religious and giving some short-term business to doctors. I have no children by which I can get a single penny, the youngest being 42 years old, and I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV.

I rest my case.

You Are Woman, I Am Man

Here's what gets me.

It seems to me that whenever society identifies and labels a "problem," it is more concerned with identifying and blaming the "cause" of that problem, much less trying to solve the problem and even much less determining that a problem really exists.

I believe all problems can be blamed on stupidity (to put it harshly), lack of intelligence (to put it moderately) or lack of common sense (to put it mildly).

For example, take a problem that exists between men and women. Please!

Now, the common methodology of problem solving consists of (1) Identify the problem, (2) Imagine all possible solutions to the problem and (3) Select the best possible solution.

Have any of the disgruntled participants (that is, all men and women) bothered to identify the problem other than to make erroneous, inflammatory generalizations such as "All men are rapists," "All women are emasculators" or "All people are stupid"? (Okay, okay! That last generalization was mine.)

As I see it, the problem from women's point of view is women are jealous of men (to put it harshly), women are dissatisfied with their traditional roles in society (to put it moderately) or women think men are pigs (to put it mildly).

From the men's point of view, women are making a big deal over nothing (to put it harshly), women are dissatisfied with their traditional roles in society (moderately) or all men are pigs (etc.).

The only simple identification of the "problem" is "A problem exists between men and women."

Logically, that is no more helpful than the incomplete and asinine syllogism of "Pigs is pigs," "Business is business" or "Men are men and women are women."

Many people believe problems are solved by blaming the cause of the problem, changing that cause and voila! Problem solved.

Fine, but first you have to identify the problem, and so far all we have is "The problem is a problem."

Assuming that a problem exists (which is true, because some people are unhappy and everybody's desired state is happiness), what if we accepted the notion that not all "problems" can be solved? What if we decided (1) a problem exists between men and women, (2) problems have always existed between men and women and (3) how can we live with those problems as comfortably as possible?

Well, one way is to stop blaming men for the problem, stop blaming women and start blaming nature.

"What?" you say? "Blame nature?" you say? "That's stupid!" Right! If you would rather blame the cause of problems than solve them, blame stupidity, because if we were all smarter, we would prevent problems from ever occurring.

Stupidity is simply the quality or state of being very dull in mind.

Let's face it: According to the Bell Curve of Intelligence, some of us are very dull in mind. Nobody wants to be, but facts are facts. In fact, the majority of us are dull in mind.

Which brings me to the Embarrassing Sixties. I believe the "problem" between men and women gathered momentum during that silly decade.

Baby Boomers were protesting that everybody should be treated as equals. Men burned their draft cards to protest the war in Vietnam. ("Hell, no! We won't go!") Women burned their bras to protest the war of the sexes. ("Hell, no! Let 'em flow!")

Now, as a young man I was turned on by all the sudden influx of unfettered breasts, knowing the only thing separating my eyes from forbidden fruit was one thin layer of cloth, not cloth, latex and wire underpinnings.

And while nobody was watching, we all got stupider. We started to believe that everybody was equal, or else, they should be. We started to give every kid a colored ribbon in school races, because no one should have low self-esteem. We started to ignore rules of grammar in school compositions, because creativity should flow and not be stifled. And we started to believe that men and women should be equal, because ... fair is fair.

But Nobody said life is fair. Men and women are not created equal. Men have penises, testosterone and agressive upbringings. Women have vaginas, estrogen and passive upbringings. And those are just the majority of the people on the old Bell Curve of Sexuality.

Previously, men could get into trouble by repeating the lyrics "You are woman, I am man: Let's kiss."

Why can't we just accept the mantra, "We are all people: Let's lighten up"?

I rest my case.

Meet the World's Weirdest People--And Then Some

Here's what gets me.

This obsession some of us have--well, a number of us have--okay, okay!--a lot of us have to get our names in the newspaper and to be the best at something--anything!--has really gotten out of hand.

For example, some people's days aren't made until they can try to convince a whole community to change its collective mind about some very important matter (to them) just by getting one teensy editorially mangled letter-to-the editor printed in the newspaper of their community of choice.

Then, if they are lucky, that one-letter writing campaign will start a response from the other side of the very important matter (to someone else), and a true dialogue develops. (Except, of course nobody is doing any actual talking and the newspaper's editorial-page editor probably has a policy of no more than one letter per month published by the same letter writer.) Sometimes, these very important matters (to everybody) can range all the way from "Why isn't the sidewalk in front of my house fixed?" to "I think we all should worship the Rammalammadingdong god Ram Lam."

For another example, other people's weeks, months and, yes, sometimes years aren't made until they can get their names and records published in the official "book of weirdness," the Guinness Book of World Records, which really became famous during the Baby Boomers' best years: the Embarrassing Sixties.

Maybe you saw a story many years ago about a gathering of record holders at the Empire State Building. (This was ironic, because Fame, like all world records, is fleeting, and just as the Empire State Building used to be the world's tallest building, the gathering included the sometime-in-the-future former "most tattooed man," "longest grape catcher," "longest apple-peel peeler," "most basketballs dribbler," "most married couple" and--get this one--"most versatile human.")

Now, you are probably thinking, "How can they prove that guy's got the most tattoos, that guy caught a grape thrown from the greatest distance, that gal peeled the longest apple peel, that guy can dribble the most basketballs at once, that couple got married the most times and that guy--get this one--is the most versatile human? And just what does 'versatile' mean, anyway?"

Well, sorry to break their bubbles, but they can't! Those people just got their first! If you want to get there second, you can be a weird (Sorry!) world record holder, too!

Walter Stiglitz, the Tattoo Man of North Plainfield, NJ, admitted that even after 5,552 tattoos, he still had room for another small one "here and there," including his "privates," which, unfortunately, he should never have referred to as "small," regardless of its size.

Paul Tavilla, the Grapecatcher, caught a black Ribier (with seed) thrown 50 mph from 327 feet away for the ground record. That left open the record for other grapes thrown 51 mph from 328 feet and many more records at greater speeds from farther away with and without seeds.

Kathy Madison, the Apple Peeler from Wolcott, NY, peeled a 20-ounce cooking apple 2,068 inches in 11-1/2 hours on Oct. 16, 1976. That left the record book open for 21-ounce apples; 2,069 inches of peel and up; 11 hours, 29 minutes and down; and every day except October 16!

Bob Nickerson, the Dribbler from Gallitzin, PA, dribbled four basketballs in 13 maneuvers while telling bad jokes. What is open? Five basketballs, 14 maneuvers and up or--even better--good jokes!

Carol and Richard Roble, the Most Married Couple from Hempstead, NY, had been married in all 50 states and the District of Columbia--always on November 30. Mr. Roble said, "I don't know if we got sex in every state, but close to it." What is left for the record book? How many cities are there in the U.S.? How many countries in the world? And ... well, you can take it from there.

And Ashrita Furman, the Most Versatile Human--. Oh, forget it. He probably has that title locked up, anyway.

Now, if you wanted to start your own category, have you thought about the World's Most Prolific Letter-to-the-Editor Writer? Nah, who writes letters anymore?

Go for the most tattoos, especially including the small naughty bits.

I rest my case.

Admit Our Mistakes and Prepare for Houseguests

Here's what gets me.

We never seem to learn from our mistakes and always act like we're too proud to admit we made a mistake in the first place.

For example, Baby Boomers seem to get blamed for everything that happens, including botching up the way we treat animals on this planet we affectionately refer to as Mother Earth.

Now, I'll bet you doughnuts to dollars that every day you can find at least one story in your source of choice that reports another example of man's and woman's inhumanity to animal, blames something on Baby Boomers or both.

I know I did. In fact, I found two stories in two days in the same newspaper. (I don't mean I took two days to read the paper; I found one story in Tuesday's paper and another one in Wednesday's.)

Tuesday's story told how fish and other animals that live in North American waterways were disappearing much faster than land-based fauna. (As a trained journalist, I am bound by the Journalistic Oath to report exactly what I see and hear, and the original story used "fauna," not "animals" and not "flora.")

The frightening point about that statement is not that fish are disappearing, because there are a lot of fishermen and a modicum of fisherwomen around, but that land-based animals (that is, non-fish) are disappearing, too.

"Why are they disappearing?" you ask? And "Are Baby Boomers to blame?"

I don't know, but the very next day I found a possible answer to the first question in a story with the headline "First the bees, now killer crocs." The story said that the country that brought African killer bees to the Americas many years ago (namely, Brazil) had now imported African killer crocodiles.

Well, I don't have to tell you what that means. (No, those first killer bees aren't Baby Boomers--they died off years ago, as bees are wont to do.) According to a group of worried environmentalists and angry scientists, in just a matter of time the crocodiles would escape into the wild and work their way north just the way their Mother Earth brothers and sisters, the Killer Bees, did on "Saturday Night Live" back in the Seventies.

(By the way, is an environmentalist someone who makes a living by correctly guessing what card is going to be chosen and what someone is thinking, but works only out in the country?)

In fact, the bees are already here. They entered Texas in 1990 and were next found in New Mexico and Arizona. Experts predicted the first hives of Africanized bees would show up in California soon afterwards.

I can see it now. Comedy sketches on late-night weekend television with comedians dressed in big green lips and long floppy tails, speaking in phony Mexican accents to the guest host and causing gales of laughter in order to get our minds off the real-life danger of Killer Crocs working their way north, attacking groups of African women washing clothes in rivers and sometimes even boats and rafts.

They could already be here. Killer Crocs, which weigh as much as a ton and can grow 21 feet long, could be the reason for Tuesday's story about disappearing fish and other North American waterway animals. And I find it odd that the story didn't mention disappearing African women washing clothes, didn't mention disappearing boats and rafts and didn't blame Baby Boomers.

I shudder just thinking about 21-feet-long, 2000-pound reptiles slowly waddling north, attacking washerwomen, boats and rafts and picking up a Mexican accent as they made their way to North American waterways.

Anyway, back to how we never seem to learn from our mistakes and don't even admit we made a mistake in the first place. Have you ever heard any Brazilians say, "Oops! Sorry about those Killer Bees"?

Have you ever heard anyone say, "Oops! Sorry about those Crocs"?

Now, did you happen to hear or read the story sometime back about the flock of black birds that took up residence in two California homes?

If we don't learn from our mistakes and if we don't admit our mistakes, then what is to stop Mother Earth from telling a gangle of Killer Crocodiles to take up residence in your house when they get here? Or would you prefer a blizzard of bees?

And how much longer after that before the Baby Boomers get blamed for all the Killer Crocs and Bees in our pantries?

I rest my case.

Pass the Paper--Hold the Popcorn

Here's what gets me.

Sometimes you might think all the world's problems can be solved by looking in your newspaper.

For example, once I was looking for the starting time of a movie when I stumbled across a story that said running beats swimming for weight loss. This came as both a head-whacker and a "Duh-h-h," because I remember back in the Embarrassing Sixties when the prevailing exercise advice was swimming and isometric exercises.

Swimming was best (so the theory went), because you are exercising all your muscles. Isometric exercises (where you just flex a few muscles against an immovable or counter-directional object) were good, because you could exercise specific muscles and not require a large area, such as a gymnasium.

As far as I know, no one ever recommended isometric swimming, probably because you can drown while forcing your arms or legs against the bottom, and using the side of the pool isn't really swimming.

Anyway, we all know how to lose weight: We just get rid of the pieces of our bodies we don't want, which usually comes in the form of ugly, disgusting, flapping in the breeze, bulging in the middle, protruding from the rear ... fat.

Unfortunately for Baby Boomers fast approaching, passing through or waving Bye-Bye to the Age of Weight Worries, you can't just take a knife and cut off the pieces you don't want. You have to improve your bodies on a slower basis by either eating less food, exercising more or preferably both.

And as we slowly lose the bloom of our youth and approach the lilacs of advancing age, we have to think more seriously about good health, proper diet and sensible exercise.

Because if it weren't for exercise, whenever we eat that Jumbo Supreme box of buttered popcorn at the movies, we tend to put on more weight than we normally take care of with our usual exercise, which for most of us consists of eating.

But the good news is that after that story I stumbled across another article that said other studies showed exercise is also a common way to shake the blues. The bad news is exercise improves your mood only if you're not used to exercising. You see, another article said if you do aerobic exercise daily, exercising has little effect on your mood.

Dr. Randy Larsen, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, said after research with Dr. Margaret Kasimatis at Hope College, "It's sedentary people who get the biggest boost in mood when they exercise."

Oh, great! So, we can either exercise daily and be thin, or we can exercise infrequently and be in a good mood. The question still flapping in the breeze with our unwanted body parts is "Which form of exercise, aside from eating, should I choose?"

Remember, everything we do is exercise. Sleeping is exercise (not a whole lot), walking is exercise, running is exercise (a whole lot), even thinking is exercise! (Which is why watching TV is not exercise.)

"Hey, wait a minute!" you say? "If everything I do is exercise, why am I sometimes in a good mood and sometimes in a bad mood?"

Good question, and the answer lies in "aerobic." Remember, the article said daily "aerobic" exercise has little effect on your mood, which could mean that if you start out exercising in a bad mood, you could also end up in a bad mood, especially if you were trying isometric swimming.

"Wait another minute!" you say? "'Aerobic' means 'living or active only in the presence of oxygen,' so if I breathe oxygen all the time and everything I do is exercise, why am I overweight?"

Another good question, and the answer is "I don't know."

However, I suspect that "exertion" and "heavy breathing" have something to do with what we normally call "aerobic exercise," as opposed to "watching TV." But don't try to fool Mother Nature by actively breathing heavily as you watch anything on television, thinking that will serve as your exercise for the day. The fat in our lungs is minimal.

So, we can't solve all our problems with a newspaper, especially weight problems. And naturally running beats swimming for weight loss. Running, your feet pound isometrically against the ground and your sweat flies off into the air.

Swimming, your arms and legs meet less resistance, your sweat mixes with the water and seeps right back into your body!

Duh-h-h. Now, pass the popcorn, please!

I rest my case.

Did You See What I Saw?

Here's what gets me.

Assuming that you attended school, do you remember taking an English or literature class in which you read and discussed some famous literary work?

This could have been in high school where the work could have been Silas Marner, the 1861 novel by George Eliot (actually Mary Ann Evans), Julius Caesar, the (about) 1599 play by William Shakespeare (at one time thought to be actually Christopher Marlowe or even Francis Bacon) or "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the 1798 poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (always thought to actually be himself, except when he was writing "Kubla Khan," his famous, unfinished poem composed in an opium-induced sleep).

If you got to college, this could have been any of the plays or poems by Shakespeare or something more contemporary, such as Moby-Dick, the 1851 novel by Herman Melville, any of the novels by Ernest Hemingway or possibly even "Howl," the 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg, which had obscenity charges brought against it.

My point is, the instructor gave you an assignment to read an agreed-upon published work, you and your classmates all read it (assuming that you did your homework and didn't try to cheat by just reading the Classic comic book or the Cliff's Notes instead) and you all discussed the work in class.

As you progressed through the hierarchy of education, your examination of literary art became more focused and more modern, at least in the survey courses. However, what happens when motion-picture art is added as a topic for literary education?

Many Baby Boomers thought they had an advantage when they "got lucky" enough to be able to see a film based on a work they were supposed to read. Nowadays, students can probably get a digital movie of whatever work they're supposed to be reading.

One problem for them, of course, is that oftentimes a finished film is vastly different from the script the writer wrote, much less the novel or play that might have inspired it.

A work of literature, such as a novel, short story or poem, is always kept intact, based on how it appeared as published after negotiations between author, editor and publisher. Film, however, is altered, changed, shortened, lengthened, made in more than one version or rereleased "with never before seen footage," all to suit the exigencies of its current "owner," whether that is the director, the editor, the producer, the studio, the distributor, the television network or station showing it between commercials with altered or silenced dialogue or even a commercial airliner that omits scenes thought to be disturbing.

This almost casual treatment of the most important art form of the present damages how society regards film, damages the permanence of film and damages the creative work of the artists who made the film.

Perhaps film should be thought about and regarded the way songs are. A song is written by a song writer. It is bought and then owned by a publisher. Then it is worked on by an arranger and recorded by an artist. However, even though a particular recording of a song by an extremely popular artist may be extremely popular and successful, that artist's recording of a song doesn't become the song. The "song" is always thought of as being separate from the recording.

Other artists sometimes "cover" a song and make equally successful recordings of it, sometimes mimicking the original arrangement, sometimes changing the arrangement drastically.

Of course, more than one version (or "arrangement") of films and sometimes even novels are made, but no recording of a song is hacked up and altered by a radio station when it is played the way a film is on its way to being distributed, except for shortened openings and endings to suit the available time.

Therefore, what constitutes a film? What should we regard as being the "artistic work" that exists in society's mind when we discuss a particular filmic piece of "literature"? The screenplay? The shooting script? The cut that the editor turns over to the studio? The version that is first released by the first distributor? The uncut, uncensored version that the director wanted, but couldn't control until the film was rereleased?

When you and I discuss the novel Moby-Dick, we compare the versions we each have in our minds based on what we read, which undoubtedly consisted of the same words.

When we discuss the movie Moby Dick, we're lucky if we both saw one same scene.

I rest my case.

The Age of Entertainment

Here's what gets me.

We sure do like to name things, which, some would argue, goes all the way back to Adam, assuming that an Adam ever existed, who all of a sudden opened his eyes one day with the full-blown gift of language and ability to talk. So, Adam looked around, found somebody to talk to and said:

"Madam, I'm Adam."

See? We've even named his first sentence: "palindrome," which is a word, verse or sentence that reads the same backward or forward.

However, even before Adam met his rib, he had to name things: "And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."

Even before Adam came on the scene, God was naming things: "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

Right. How else can you talk about something if you can't identify it by a symbol when one of them isn't around so you can point to it and say "that one there"?

Okay, let's say there was no "Adam" or that he himself is but a symbol for the early development of the human species known as homo sapiens or hominids. Once they learned to communicate with each other, they still had to have symbols with which to refer to something, because otherwise communication was just too slow and dangerous if someone had to drag someone else off to a lion's den just to say, "Beware that thing here."

So, now we have progressed to where we have named everything collectively ("universe," or "cosmos") and everything individually the minute, second or instant we discover it ("atom," not to be confused with Adam, "electron," "nucleus," "proton," "neutron" and so on down the line).

Of course, at that point, the line between concrete and abstract is so blurred as to be perhaps nonexistent, but we also feel the need to name abstract things the minute we think of them, from the small ("second") to the large ("century"). We even give a proper name to a whole century to suit our purposes, such as the Age of Enlightenment (sometimes known as the Age of Reason) for the 18th century of Western thought (that time from 1701 to 1800, or 1700 to 1799, depending on how much you subscribe to computer technology, lingo or thought).

The Age of Enlightenment (or Reason) was so-called, because its writers "applied reason to religion, politics, morality and social life," according to Benet's Readers Encyclopedia, which just about covered everything except for science, which has reason and enlightenment built in.

Now, if the 1700s were the Age of Enlightenment (etc.), what about the 1800s and the 1900s? What about the future? Why wait until something happens or is discovered before we name it? Why not name them now?

We like to talk. We need names for things when we talk about them, and we have to avoid that lion's den when we want to warn our friends about that particular beast.

So, for the purpose of discussion and to bring things up to date, let's call the 1800s the Age of Independence and the 1900s the Age of War. (The Age of Aquarius never really caught on.)

Personally, I want to call the 21st century the Age of Entertainment (although a good case could be made for the Age of Communication). We already jumped the gun in the 1900s, and even though we are a few years into the 2000s, yearly and century boundaries are just as arbitrary as names, and even though other nations, societies and worlds in the cosmos might be concerned with activities other than entertainment, we in the U.S. seem to be consumed and obsessed with amusement, distractions and divertissements.

Even TV Guide said "entertainment has become the primary force in American life and especially in our media" (July 30, 1994). Studies are conducted and stories written that conclude we increasingly value leisure, but increasingly fear we have less leisure time.

Now that television and computers have taken over the scene, the whole world can communicate at once with each other, can experience events at the same time and can discuss those events. And what do we discuss? Madonna, Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson.

Maybe the Day is over, Night is upon us and we are huddled around the campfire amusing ourselves with tales of amazement and wonder so we don't have to think about that nasty old lion in its den.

I rest my case.

The History of Humanity

Here's what gets me.

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 onto the dangerous plains. Conservatives stayed in the forests and remained safe.

Liberals discovered how to cultivate crops for steady supplies 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 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.

I rest my case.

The Dumbing of Society

Here's what gets me.

I believe that as a society we are becoming dumber, I believe we are either ignoring or disguising this fact so we can be proud of ourselves and I believe ultimately this is going to be bad for us.

First of all, you need to decide for yourself whether, forced to make a choice, you would choose to do what is best for humanity or what is best for yourself.

Of course, the optimal choice is something that is best for both humanity and yourself, but we don't always get such choices, and I believe if we tip the balance too often for our personal gain, we end up making society dumber.

In nature, some still subscribe to Darwin's theory of Survival of the Fittest, or Natural Selection. Those species and members of species who can best adapt to the environment survive and reproduce, those least fitted do not. Therefore, the best, the brightest, the fastest, the strongest and the smartest survive. The poorer, dimmer, slower, weaker and dumber lose.

It doesn't take an Einstein or a college graduate to figure out that in the game of Life there are more losers than winners. In most sporting competitions, which obviously model the game of Life, there are more losers than winners, except of course, when there are only two competitors, such as in boxing matches and tennis games.

Even so, we still seem to be fascinated with the idea of only one winner, and so we create the "world champion" and "the Number 1 seed" for competitions between two combatants.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a college graduate to figure out that in the bell curve of intelligence, if an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 100 represents "average," the top of the curve, there are many more people of average intelligence than of genius intelligence. And in a democracy, in which the slogan is "majority rules," by nature we are probably allowing ourselves to be ruled by people of average intelligence.

Perhaps the majority of the people--by nature, those with average intelligence--"wised up," and that is why we don't hear much about "IQ" anymore. Perhaps the Embarrassing Sixties, brought on by the enormous glut of maturing Baby Boomers, is the cause.

In the Olden Days of the Frigid Fifties, grades were awarded fairly and systematically according to the bell curve of A, B, C, D and F. Fifty percent of the students got a C, 20% got a D, another 20% a B, 5% an F and another 5% an A. There were clear winners, losers and also-rans.

However, the angry Baby Boomers who thought Life was unfair and took over administration buildings with sit-ins, be-ins and what's happenings wanted to shorten the odds on becoming "winners." In many cases they got the Administration to change the grading system to one of "Pass-Fail." No more first, second, third, fourth and fifth places. You either won or lost. You were either on the bus or off the bus.

Now, clearly the onslaught of computer technology with its binary numbering system has some connection, but we no longer seem to care for anything more than winners and losers. Remember when Avis was proud of being Number 2? No more. We even extended competitions in order to prevent ties in sporting events.

Except for the Olympics, nobody remembers who came in second. It is no longer honorable to be anything other than a winner. "We're Number 1!" And if the team I support is Number 1, that makes me Number 1, too!

However, if everybody wins, then nobody loses. And if nobody loses, then nobody wins.

Why did we make jokes about not being able to program a VCR? Because the majority of us are actually losers.

Remember when we used to say "May the best man win" even in two-people competitions? Don't dare say that around feminists.

It doesn't take a Rhodes scholar or a college graduate to figure out that everybody would like to be a winner, but not everybody can. Once everybody is equal in terms of speed, strength and dexterity, all races end in ties.

Therefore, we need to compromise. In order to allow the human race to end in a tie with as many people as possible becoming winners, we need to cooperate with one another. When we help each other, we help ourselves and eventually everyone.

The only way we can all be winners is to revere the few Einsteins, rocket scientists, Rhodes scholars and college graduates for their victories.

I rest my case.

Creatures Great and Small

Here's what gets me.

I live in Boulder, Colorado, sometimes derisively referred to as "the People's Republic of Boulder" and sometimes scornfully called "25 square miles of fantasy surrounded by reality," usually by people who live in nearby communities and are jealous of the residents who live in the city with one of the highest educated populations per capita in the country and one of the counties that continually votes Democratic in a Republican state.

Well, in the spirit of Chevy Chase on the first "Weekend Update" segments of "Saturday Night Live," I say to all those people, "I live here and you don't."

I say this with all due sympathy and respect, especially in light of all the constant hullabaloo (There's a word you don't see much of since the Sixties.) in Boulder civic circles about the town's needing more "affordable housing," because it is too expensive to live here for the people who work in the service industry, people like waitpersons and salesclerks and ticket takers and janitors.

(Question: Why is it quote: "politically incorrect" unquote: to call someone a "waiter" or a "waitress" and thus we use the artificially created word of "waitperson," but not quote: unquote: politically incorrect to call someone a "janitor," and so no one has created the artificial word of "janitperson" to refer to custodians of both sexes?)

Consequently, these so-called menial workers of undeterminable sex must live in nearby towns where jealousy is high and rents and costs of houses are lower, and they have to commute to Boulder to their jobs. Guess what the second most-pressing problem is in Boulder where the top problem is "affordable housing."

Right. Prairie dogs.

"What?" you say? "Prairie dogs?" you say? "How can burrowing rodents be a problem in a city?" you say?

Okay, okay! Not so much in the quote: unquote: "city" as in the surrounding open-space areas owned by Boulder County, which is an even nicer place to live than the City of Boulder, because you can still vote Democrat and be proud of it, you can still bask in the glow of pride of being associated with one of the unique and most desirable places to live in the country (all puns intended) and you don't have to put up with those clowns in City Hall.

You do, however (and by "you," I mean "me"), have to put up with those wildly clothed and gawkishly made-up jesters in County Hall.

(I kid the clowns in County Hall. I don't even know if they dress in gaudy clothing. I don't even know if there is such a thing as a "County Hall." I do, however, believe that some of them actually wear makeup, meaning those of the non-undetermined-sex types who are not ashamed to be known by words that identify them as being a member of the female sex, such as "county commissioner.")

(Hmmm, why is that not "county commissionperson," because sometimes there are two men and one woman serving in that office.)

Now, the reason for this mild outburst on my part is a local newspaper item I read once that began, "Boulder county open space managers are working against prairie dogs' instincts."

The story wasn't about how managepersons are trying to get the prairie dogs to stop building homes by digging burrows or to prevent them from having sex with other prairie dogs--. No! Wait! I take that back! It was about how they are trying to do that, but can't!

In other words, I guess you can quote: unquote: "fight County Hall."

You see, the people of Boulder are very environmentally conscious (no pun intended), and they manage to get laws passed that don't allow greedy land developers to build big old ugly houses on land where the prairie dogs have been living happily and peacefully for centuries (except for the occasional marauding eagle, hawk or coyote, of course), unless they arrange for the prairie dogs and their innocent prairie pups to be uprooted (pun intended) from their Burrow Sweet Burrows first and transplanted to another prairie dogless and burrowless open-space area.

However, those rascally prairie dogs aren't staying put, so to speak. They keep having sex and building new burrows on adjoining land where they aren't wanted.

So, here is an idea to solve all "affordable housing," "traffic" and "prairie dog instinct" problems: Train the prairie dogs to wait tables, sell merchandise, take tickets and be janitdogs.

They even come with their own affordable housing.

I rest my case.

15 Minutes or More of Fame

Here's what gets me.

Back in 1968, Andy Warhol wrote in the catalogue for a photography exhibition of his in Stockholm, Sweden, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes."

What he didn't add, however, is that everyone would want to be world-famous.

How about you? Would you like to be world-famous? Now, think long and hard before you answer. I'll wait....

Are you ready with your answer? Did you consider all the ramifications of just what "famous" means? According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

famous: 1: widely known 2: honored for achievement 3: excellent, first-rate syn renowned, celebrated, noted, notorious, distinguished, eminent, illustrious

Now, think of some world-famous people and consider if you would really want to live like them.

Movie stars? Unless you have the looks of Julia Roberts or the talent of Robert De Niro, you aren't going to be making $20 million a movie, but you will have to work really hard for long, demanding hours and you will still be pestered in public restrooms for your autograph and you still won't be able to go shopping by yourself.

And speaking of De Niro, he once starred in a movie that really was called 15 minutes, which is about this very topic, and he dies.

Oops! Sorry, if you haven't seen the movie. Disregard that last sentence. Maybe he doesn't die. Maybe he only pretends to be dead, but he has to fight a couple of bad guys while tied to a chair, and he has to drive really fast through Manhattan and run as hard as he can through the streets of New York City, and we all know how dangerous that can be.

So, my point is, if you don't have looks or talent, being world-famous as a movie star is going to get you diddly-squat.

Politicians? What, are you crazy? Why would anyone want to be world-famous as the leader of a country? Those guys and some gals work excruciatingly long hours, they are watched every minute by someone and some of them are even killed by their enemies!

Oh, sure, obviously some minutes, President Clinton wasn't watched, but is being constantly watched and hounded by the press now as a private citizen really worth a few moments of under-the-desk sexual pleasure that wasn't really sex?

Oh, sure, President Bush was world-famous once, but would you really want to be "under the gun" (so to speak) so that every little thing you said was made fun of the following weekend on "Saturday Night Live"? Would you really want to have numerous Internet Websites devoted to just the stupid things you said and the dumb-looking, chimp-like facial expressions you made? Would you really want every aspect of your wild youth and drug-history past investigated and brought out into the open so that you have to admit all accusations by refusing to comment on them?

(Note to audience: You don't have to wait for the answers to these questions.)

Now, the reason I bring up this subject of 15 minutes of being world-famous is a story in the newspaper I read about nine local residents having the opportunity in what was called "a truly avant-garde auction" one year at the Lakewood Country Club near Denver to have "some sudden name fame."

As part of the Jefferson County Library Foundation's "Rare & Novel Night," an annual auction that sells old books, seven authors, including Clive Cussler and Tony Hillerman, had agreed to include nine winning bidders' names in their forthcoming novels. (Hillerman agreed to put three local names in his next book, which accounts for the numerical discrepancy, but which also waters down the "fame" thing, don't you agree?)

What, are these people crazy? Sure, it is all for a good cause in that all proceeds will help the foundation pay for a "traveling library center" (sounds suspiciously like a "bookmobile," don't you think?), but pay to get your name in print? Five lucky "winners" names are hidden every month in my trash-bill literature. Spot your name and get a discount on your next month's bill.

So, here is what I am proposing if you want a piece of that 15-minute world-famous action: Add a comment here on this Website and then wait for others to comment on your comment if it's clever, and you can forever crow about having had your name in print.

For free! Without being pestered in public restrooms. Without having to work long hours or put up with public humiliation.

I rest my case.