Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
Oldest Son started dating a Chinese political refugee last year. The Chinese woman was kicked out of China for posting something critical of the government on the internet. They didn't exactly kick her out, but they are blocking her from being employed, rent an apartment, register a car ... they essentially blocked her from life.
Soooooo ... she lives with us now. And, yes, she is a fourth child to me. Although her English is very good, there remains somewhat of a language barrier. There are cultural differences. Oh, and don't get me started on China's One Child policy that has created a person who has no self-awareness because she was doted on by her parents and grandparents and never told to consider others. (Like chewing with the mouth closed. Like leaving some of the fun food things for others. Like not giggling loudly in the middle of the night when others are trying to sleep.)
Argh.
Well, she loves my son. Or she loves having a free place to live. I don't care. Even with all my above gripes, she is good company. She's easy going, funny, creative, and carries her own weight in the household. She has her own car and she's giving rides when the other cars are booked up.
And, and this is crucial, when I sit her down and explain life in a large~ish household, she immediately adapts and starts following the rules.
I like robots..but according to all the movies and books..they are going to be our downfall. They could really be a big help..but our government is going to turn them toward war etc.
Re #10: My first thought was of Data connecting with Locutus-Picard after he was rescued from the Borg. As for direct ad injection, of course it's going to happen, because it would be way better than subliminal advertising.
I have always hated being asked, "How are you?" Sadly, for most of my life, "Fine" would have been a lie.
I don't like to lie--even if it is to the checker at the grocery store who is routinely asking, "How are you?" to every customer.
Over the years, I have used various answers. One for a good day was "fair to middling". At other times, I have responded, "Crappy, but thanks for asking!" Cashiers usually don't know how to respond to that one.
A fella from church asked me, "How are you?" and I did my turn it around non-answer: "How are YOU?" to which he replied, "Short, fat, and ugly." That answer stopped me in my tracks.
Lately, I came up with an answer to "How are you?" that I love so much I tend to say it even when I'm feeling great: "I plead the fifth." Saying it always makes me smile--I think it is so clever!
Wow, this public comment could almost be a blog entry, eh? Unusual for me...
I've always liked the general idea of a "jury of your peers" giving you a fair trial. Then I served on a jury and it was honestly kind of scary how people have to leave their fate in the hands of twelve individuals that, in many cases, struggle with basic deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills.
"The jury is made up of citizens selected basically at random from public records, such as voter registration lists."
I think it's from DMV records, because I (not a citizen) get jury summons every few years. I check a box that says that I'm a foreigner and they back off for another couple of years.
"A lot of people complain about jury duty, and go to great lengths (including committing perjury) to get out of it."
I made sure to stay a foreigner. As a mother of three young boys who are capable of having me called away from whatever I am doing because they caused trouble at school, I didn't think I wanted to be involved in this judiciary process. Now that they are adults with their own jury summons, I can't become a citizen because the government has started snatching and arresting people on way to their swearing in ceremonies.
I've been on a jury once. The only female. It was interesting and i enjoyed the experience. The only thing that irked me was the men kept asking if I understood! Like being female meant I didn't have a brain!
I haven't been chosen since because I answer their questions honestly. Most folks involved in jury selection don't like honesty.
Anyway it's all been interesting and a little entertaining.
Yeh, I had to pretend to look like an ass so that I wasn't selected when I had jury duty last year. I mean, I wasn't really pretending.
Granted, they let me know at 6pm the night before and I was sick and there was no way to ask to be excused on that short of notice.
I'd like to do it for real one day, maybe. But also not. Maybe for an easy case. The case I would have been on was a murder case, and I'm not about that life.
I'm disappointed one of the answers wasn't "Nothing; it's the thought that counts." But as I've said, philosophers have no sense of humor. We have a different name for philosophers with a sense of humor: comedians.
But there was one answer that really got me thinking. I am sure it was meant as a joke, but you have to be careful joking with the philosophically minded. Because quite a few people said “purpose” or “meaning.”
Case in point. And yes, you do "have to be careful joking with the philosophically minded." Like little kids, they can be annoyingly literal. Source: me, who can be annoyingly literal.
In his book, Mortal Questions, [Thomas] Nagel has an entire essay devoted to the “absurd.” Absurdity — traditionally represented by Albert Camus — is the philosophical position that humans are caught in this dreadful existential disappointment: We are a meaning-seeking, meaning-needing species, and yet the Universe is meaningless. We’re wired to want a thing that the Universe cannot provide.
Which is not to say that this is right or wrong. Personally, I disagree with some of the premises there, but it's not about whether we agree or not.
Nagel, though, thinks that all this talk of “meaning” is a misguided fool’s errand. In his essay, Nagel argues that we can identify three different types of meaning-grasping angst in the philosophical literature, and all of them are logically flawed.
Kind of ironic, isn't it? To spend so much time arguing against something that, by your own definition, isn't meaningful? Sometimes I think the only true philosophers are the ones who don't find their meaning in publishing philosophical essays.
First, the Argument of Time
When we think “everything I’ve done will end in death” and “nothing will matter in a thousand years,” then it is enough to push you into an existential crisis.
Or, as I like to put it, "There's no such thing as a happy ending, only stories that end too early."
So, imagine that on Christmas Day, you open a box containing a magic amulet that gives you immortality... Is this any more meaningful a life than the one you have now?
I think it's already been pretty well established that death is part of what gives life what meaning it has.
Second, the Argument of Size
But I'm assured that size doesn't matter.
Now, imagine you open a present that contains an elixir that makes you the size of the Universe... Would you now have any more purpose to your existence?
Purpose? No. Something else to do? Sure.
Third, the Argument of Use
What is the point of anything at all? We waste our lives trudging to jobs we hate, to talk with people we don’t like, to live in a town we want to leave, and aspire to a future that was never what we wanted.
Need a blankie?
Nagel’s point to all of this is that when we talk about “meaning,” we often talk about it as a question without an answer.
And? Isn't that what Zen koans are, except the questions are at least more poetic in nature?
But while Nagel argues that Camus’s scorn and defiance are a little bit dramatic, he does agree that the best approach to “questions of meaning” is to live ironically.
Okay, I can get behind that.
We need to commit to life seriously while knowing that it has no “meaning” beyond what it is.
But I can't get behind that. At least, not for the standard definition of "seriously." I can fulfill my obligations as a human without being all serious about them. In fact, if it's not obvious, my personal philosophy is that everything is, or can be, funny, so a sense of humor is far more important to me than a sense of meaning.
As I like to say, if you want meaning, grab a dictionary.
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