Masturbation And Insurgency

I haven’t seen The Da Vinci Code, and I haven’t read the book. I don’t intend to do either. I’m annoyed with Dan Brown’s outrageous success; alright, alright, already…envious of his success; I’m jealous! There, I said it. I do find it amusing, though—the uproar that the book and subsequent film have caused. Brown’s narrative has shaken and shocked Christians all over the globe.

I, myself, haven’t been sleeping lately; I spend most nights on the couch with the television making noise in the background. But trust; trust me when I tell you that my insomnia has nothing to do with Dan Brown, Da Vinci, Jesus, or even his apparently much-overlooked bride. This morning I awoke to—of all things—the 700 Club. Before I could find the damn remote to shut that crap down, I had suffered through the tail of one report and the beginning of another.

Evidently, prayer packages are absolutely essential for our troops in Iraq. But not to help the troops accept the horrors of war, but to keep their minds off infidelity. That’s right. The 700 Club has uncovered an insurgency that could very well undermine our peace effort in the Middle East. Flirting is forbidden. Troops are told to overt their eyes when encountering an attractive female. And, yes, masturbation is out of the question. It’s my understanding that many Christian troops use music and prayer to stay their adulterous tendencies. “I usually keep a Christian song bobbing around in my head so I don’t think about cheating” one soldier told a 700 Club correspondent. All I have to say is “Amen, brother! Could you pass the ammunition?”

The second 700 Club report I saw had to do with, of course, The Da Vinci Code. Is it really necessary for every Christian organization the world over, to shore up their congregations against Brown’s heresy? Are there really people out there, whose religious beliefs could possibly be called into question by Tom Hanks? I’m sorry, but I have to borrow a line from Oprah: “That’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Technorati tags: 700 Club, The Da Vinci Code, Masturbation, Iraq

What's The Big Idea?

Not long ago, I read a passage from Alexander Argyros’s A Blessed Rage for Order: Deconstruction, Evolution, and Chaos that has since interfered with my quiet times. Sometimes an idea is so "big" that I can't easily let it go.

In his discussion “Narrative and Chaos,” Argyros makes a number of startling statements:

I propose to claim that not only is narrative a stubbornly universal manifestation of human culture, but that it constitutes one of the most remarkable and desirable inventions of biological evolution.

Argyros’s claims are controversial:

I believe that a chaotic sociobiological view of human culture suggests that narrative is both a product of, and a selective pressure for, our evolution into Homo sapiens.

Argyros says that traditional narrative is “characterized by an overall causal frame, the general plot, which is itself composed of a frequently tangled hierarchy of nested plots and subplots”—a complex system. He says that humans require such a system, that “one way or another, any text will be made into narrative.” He says that the human concept of time has evolved in a manner that is “essentially futural.” He asks, “why else do our brains take up so much space for memory, if not to help us in the difficult work of choosing a future?”

So, we see that narrative is a dynamic system, operating in an aparently chaotic fashion, where input and output are continuously circulating and interacting. We see that humans appropriate vast arrays of information by encoding that data into narrative forms. We see humans operating in a temporal framework which is futural. With these presumptions in hand, Argyros looks further:

Our evolution into human beings undoubtedly entertained a feedback/feedforward relation to creation cosmologies and eschatologies. That is, the ability to imagine nonempirical first causes, infinite ends, and explanatory totalizing cosmologies—that is, grand narrative—requires an enormously intricate neocortex, whose gradual selection allows for even more complex cosmologies.

Those are some big ideas—definitely something to think about—and certainly the basis for a response the next time someone tells you, “Oh, I haven’t read a book since high school.”

Buy A Blessed Rage for Order: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472102214/qid=1148184426/sr=1-
2/ref=sr_1_2/104-8759922-8220731?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Technorati tags: Chaos Theory, Narrative, Systems Theory

So, There!

Why?

Because.

Prospero's Books

PROSPERO'S BOOKS

"Signs. Stories. Systems. Spirit."

http://www.prosperosbooks.net/

Technorati tags: James Joyce, Personal, Shakespeare, Systems

Akbar And Jeff's Guide To Life

Akbar and Jeff's Guide to Life
by Matt Groening

Buy Akbar and Jeff's Guide to Life:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679726802/sr=8-1/qid=1147690842/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8759922-8220731?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Technorati tags: Comics, Matt Groening

Three Cheers For Jim Martell

This bear should not be confused with the polar bear I “shot” with my camera at the Indianapolis Zoo (see below). This bear is a polar bear/grizzly bear hybrid. From what I understand, the hybrids have been suspected to exist in the wild for some time. Now it’s a fact! Idahoan, big-game hunter Jim Martell paid $45,000 U.S. for a license to kill a polar bear on Banks Island, Northwest Territory, Canada, and this is what he got. Wow, Jim, you’re my hero!

Read all about it: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/05/11/canada.hybrid.ap/index.html

Technorati tags: Animal Rights, Grizzly Bears, Hunting, Polar Bears

It's A Zoo Out There!

Rummaging through photographs, I found these shots of flora and fauna at the Indianapolis Zoo. The zoo is…well, it is what it is—nice on cool days. Last year we lost several animals to a rogue pack of wild, street dogs, but there’s plenty left to see. Frankly, I find the whole zoo thing a little depressing. Note to self: never write advertising copy.

Visit the Indianapolis Zoo online: http://www.indyzoo.com

Technorati tags: Animals, Zoos

Telling Your Secrets

POSTSECRET

"PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."

http://postsecret.blogspot.com

Technorati tags: Art, Secrets

The Art Of Laura Brink

“My work is the continuous path of my imagination, inspired by love and longing and placed upon a recognizable reality. Each painting is the product of aligning focus, will and intention which is everchanging. Through the people, objects, ideas and places that I have experienced and felt passionately about, I have and continue to develop my own visual language which transcends both the fantastic and realistic. With each painting I seek to provide the view with a vision of what I like to call a heightened reality.” (All artwork copyrighted and courtesy of the artist Laura Brink)

—Laura Brink


Corner of Water and Guadalupe*
Oil on canvas, 2005
20” x 30”
(Private collection of Pierr Johnson)
Children of the Sun*
Oil on canvas, 2005
40” x 20”
(Private collection of Carl Moore)
Release* (Mainline Series)
Oil on canvas, 2005
40” x 40”
Battlefield*
Oil on canvas, 2003
40” x 20”
(Private collection of Rebecca Carter)
Push* (Mainline Series)
Oil on canvas, 2005
40“ x 23“
Angel of Action*
Oil on canvas, 2005
40” x 27”
(Private collection of Angel Quest, Inc.)
Storm Chasers*
Oil on canvas, 2005
60“ x 40“
High Angel of Leadership*
Oil on canvas, 2005
40” x 27”
(Private collection of Angel Quest, Inc.)
Snowflowers*
Oil on canvas, 2005
60” x 50”
Enter the Windriders*
Oil on canvas, 2004
60” x 40”

View and purchase Laura Brink creations:
http://www.laurabrink.com/

Visit Laura Brink’s blog:
http://www.myspace.com/laurabrink

*All artwork copyrighted and courtesy of the artist Laura Brink

Technorati tags: Art

Toni Morrison

I belong to a considerable group of people that believes Toni Morrison is the greatest living writer. I will admit that it is a subjective platform, but one I could easily justify. Regardless of your level of affection for Toni Morrison, I encourage you to read and listen* to the lecture she delivered to the Swedish Academy as a Nobel Laureate. Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.



Read and listen to Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture: http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.html


*Requires RealPlayer. If you don’t have RealPlayer, it’s a free download: http://www.real.com/?lang=en&loc=us

Technorati tags: Literature, Toni Morrison

Blogs Of Note

PASSION OF THE DALE

“My ongoing bid to dissect and skewer all that needs it and some things I clearly haven't thought out.”

http://passionofthedale.blogspot.com/

ICON O GRAPHING JAMES JOYCE

“In-Di-Visual edge on James Joyce
fine art engraving and work on paper”

http://borisdimitrov.blogspot.com/

Technorati tags: Art, James Joyce , Personal, Rants

Break Out Of The Ordinary

Butterfingers*
by Maya Angelou
(aka David Alan Grier)

The wind. The rain. The fire.

The Butterfinger.

Did the Caveman know your delicious goodness?
Did the Mayan Priest exhalt in your buttery crunchiness?
Did the slothful Mastodon, upon his extinction, declare,
"Don't lay a finger on my Butterfinger?"

Oh, you finger of butter!
You proud confection!
Sugar brown roasted peanuts,
fructose, glucose, sucrose, lactose,
partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil.
Crispity, crunchity, peanut buttery--

I... give... myself... to... you.

Butterfinger.

Glad mantle of golden chocolatey hope upon my breast.


*Available at SNL Transcripts: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/96/96kangelou1.phtml

Technorati tags: Maya Angelou, Poetry, SNL