The speed of time

"As you get older, time just goes by faster."

I've heard some variation of that very statement many, many times in my life. So has everyone else probably. But until late, I never put much thought into it; I just blew it off like every other snippet of profound prophecy my elders attempted to impart upon me. Because, really, the statement makes no sense. Time cannot go by faster. There will always be 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute. 86,400 seconds in a day. That doesn't change. Period.

But something, somewhere, somehow, does change with a person's age...or at least with my age anyway. Obviously it's not time that changes - it's a person's perception of that time that changes. Why that perception changes, I don't know. If did, I would maybe then be able to reverse the progression of that perception change. Then again, if I could do that, I'd probably not only win a Nobel Prize, but I'd take away that little aspect of clarvoyance which elders currenly posess.

It's cliche to say I know, but not that many years ago, the days seemed almost endless. I would do so much in one day that I'd eventually lack for things to do, at which time I would succumb to boredom or relaxation, much to my chagrin at the time. But what I wouldn't give now to have the ability to exclaim, "I'm bored" or to be able to feel at ease and accomplished enough to fully relax - to just sit back knowing full well that I don't need to do a damn thing.

Those not-so-distant days lent themselves to seasons that seemed to last for eons. Oh how many things I could do in one summer! Weekend tubing trips down the river were commonplace, as were long days on the island, or whatever else that suited my fancy at the time - I had time to do it. And if I couldn't do it one day, I could do it the next, or on any of the long days to come. If I felt social, two phone calls would rustle up any number of friends I felt like hanging out with. If I felt reclusive, I had more than plenty of time to find a secluded campsite somewhere and just escape everything.

But it's not that way now. I have to schedule tubing trips weeks and months in advance and build my busy schedule around that. I take time off work to work on something else. The days pass by faster and faster and before I know it, summer fades into fall, then winter, then spring and the cycle repeats itself with only the occasional realization that the weather has changed and the supposed season of "fun in the sun" has not only arrived but has snuck half past me without my even taking the plastic off the windows. And all of a sudden I'm struck with the harsh realization that I've spent more time on the toilet in the past year than I have on any floating apparatus, plastic or metal. "Fun" must now be planned, scheduled, prepared for, and had within a set timeframe that never seems long enough and all the while, the things that I "should be doing instead" are screaming at me from the back of my mind guilting me into not fully enjoying my time off. Impulsiveness is no longer genius, it's now irresponsible and cumbersome. And given the challenge, I would have to think long and hard about which two phone calls to make to round up a group of friends - and those calls would likely lead to one voicemail and one raincheck.

What happened? When did life get so hectic, so full of trivial crap that won't mean mean anything in five years, which will seemingly pass by in the time it took to tube down the river five summers ago. When did I choose to take on so many activities that I no longer have the luxury of saying, "let's float down the river today" and instantly have a dozen people in river garb holding rubber tubes and a case of beer standing in my driveway. And if this is just the natural progression of life, how do I buck the trend? Because in the back of my mind, the river calls for me, but I find it perpetually harder to hear over the screaming honey-do list.

I'd search for the answers to these questions myself, but I have to paint the kitchen cabinets tonight.

There is no such thing as clean coal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdHuB7Ovl2o

No, really, there is no such thing as "Clean Coal." The technology, otherwise known as carbon capture and storage (CCS) has NEVER been done on an industrial scale and would take many years to develop and implement...assuming it's even possible. It's ridiculous to think clean coal technology is even a remotely feasible solution to our energy and global warming problems when we have far better choices available for implementation now such as wind, solar, geothermal, etc.

Get off the clean coal bandwagon for pete's sake. Give it up. Seriously.

/rant

Aw, Crap! Not again!

Well it looks like Sarah Palin is getting smacked with ethics violation charges again.

What?! You mean charging the taxpayers to fly your kids around with you on "official business" to places they've not been invited or even have any business being at is wrong? Gee, I never would have guessed.

Seriously? If she can't keep from abusing her power as Governor, how does anyone expect her to not abuse her power at VP of the United States?

Something...else

When do things cease to be what they are?

When does something cease to be that particular something and become something else?

For instance, when does Sammy, the cat in this blog, cease to be Sammy? Obviously, earlier in the day when Sammy was rubbing up on its family's ankles, possibly lapping up some left-over cereal-milk, Sammy was what the family knew as "Sammy." But after Sammy got squashed by Strangeloop's car, was it still "Sammy"? Strangeloop states that "the cat was pretty tore up and it was quite the ugly sight." But does is the cat still a cat, albeit lacking the life-energy that constituted the cat being alive and making up the "personality" that family had come to use to distinguish "Sammy" from other cats, even if they were identical in appearance.

I suppose this begs two distinct questions, both of which merit further examination. 1. What exactly constitutes the cat being "Sammy"? And 2. What exactly constitutes the cat being "a cat"?

I suppose the first question has already been somewhat answered. Sammy had a personality that the family was intimately familiar with that made Sammy the family cat that they all loved. That personality would have helped the family distinguish that particular cat from other, visually identical cats. Certainly, that personality, at least to some degree, made Sammy well, "Sammy." But obviously that wasn't the only thing that made it "Sammy."

So that brings us to the point of the family discovering the cat laying where Strangeloop left it on the porch, "pretty tore up and quite the ugly sight." Whoever discovered it laying there would have recognized it visually as Sammy. But was it still "Sammy" since the life-energy and personality existed no longer? One could possibly make the claim that the cat was no longer "Sammy" and was instead a visually-recognizable conglomeration of flesh, fur, and biomass. What the family would mourn over would be the memory of Sammy's personality and the memories of the past interactions they had with the cat when it still possessed the life-energy. I would have to contend that post-death, the cat is would cease to be "Sammy" though that would certainly be of little consolation to the family.

So then when does the cat cease to be "a cat"? I would have to say that even a dead cat is still a cat. It still possesses all the necessary ingredients to be a cat - DNA, specialized cells, body structure, appearance. If some scientists were to extract some of the cat's DNA, even after death, they would be able to re-create a cat and nothing else.

So what has to happen for a cat to no longer be a cat? If you chopped it up into little pieces, it would still be "a cat," just in a whole bunch of little pieces, wouldn't it? Maybe not. It would definitely possess the DNA, and the cells, but not the right arrangement or appearance. The cells wouldn't even be in the correct juxtaposition to - say, after re-injecting it with the now-missing life energy - function the way they did before, making it a fully functioning cat. Granted, one could make the claim that a cat missing a leg or needing a pacemaker is still a cat so some function can be sacrificed and still maintain the actual organism. But at some point, enough functionality is lost to prevent the pile of pieces from being considered "a cat" though I don't know where that is.

What if you took the cat and put it in a chemical bath that broke down all the cell walls and dissolved the biomass into its molecular components. Say you were able to then completely extract the original chemical from the solution and be left with a pile of molecules or chemicals of some sort. I don't think anyone would say that what remains is in any way "a cat". They would call it something else - a pile of chemicals, a solution, whatever. But maybe the family would still consider it "Sammy" just like they would if Sammy were cremated and they possessed the ashes. However I would refer back to my discussion above and claim that they are not assuming the chemical pile or the ashes are actually "Sammy" but the memories they invoke are what they are clinging to. The other stuff is simply the physical reminder, much like a headstone would be at a loved one's cemetery sight.

Though this far from settles the issue - it may well actually only lead to further debate - it brings about a very interesting concept that may well close the debate. Something ceases to be "something" when it becomes something else. A cat is no longer a cat when it becomes a pile of ashes or a pile of chemicals. The actual existence of something may cease and its components may constitute something else from there after, but the memory of that particular thing will endure as long as there are those still available to remember it. That is what blurs the lines between something being one thing and being something else. If there are no anthropogenic attachments, there is little debate. That is precisely why humans have such a hard time with matters such as these. Only in the complete absence of emotion can one fully understand things.

Things that annoy me, Chapter 5

Plumbing. (yeah, yeah...insert "Joe Plumber" comment here. Anyone who willingly takes up that trade ought to have their head examined so I don't really give a shit what he thinks about anyone's tax plan...)

I hate plumbing. Mostly because I'm not good at it but also because the materials needed for it go against most of what I stand for. Not only is PVC worthless and seems to have a high affinity for shattering in places that are virtually impossible to access without tearing out floors and walls, but it is really nasty stuff from an environmental standpoint. And the chemicals used to clean and glue the fittings ought to be targeted by the ONDCP.

For the last two days I've been making regular trips into the crawlspace under my house trying to fix pipes that, despite my best efforts to drain them last year, apparently froze and broke. The process is agitating enough on account that I hate the materials in principal but it just adds salt to the wound everytime I think I've finally found and fixed all the leaks only to turn the water on and find water spraying from some new, practically-impossible-to-access-by-anyone-larger-than-a-six-year-old space under my house. I've even found shattered vertical pipes in this process. How in the hell a vertical pipe shatters after not having any water in it for a year is a mystery to me. My only assumption is that Karma is on the side of the propane company and is getting back at me for shutting the water off to the upstairs of my house so I didn't have to heat it last winter. Whatever the reason, I'm annoyed. I now have to commence wallowing in the muddy crawlspace looking for the next leak.

Falling off the wagon

"What the eff? Long time no post."

I know. I have been slacking on my blogging lately. I haven't really been putting thought to text at all as of late and I'll admit I am starting to fiend a little bit. So here's my weak attempt at a quick fix to tide me over until I finally just suck it up and spend some real time in front of this screen really dispensing my thoughts.

I can't say my lack of posting is a product of being uninspired. Daily I have things happen or hear things that could potentially send me into a tirade of a six-part blog post. Lord knows that today's world doesn't lack for blogging topics. What I have been lacking is ambition. Historically, that's a common affliction with me this time of year. The days are getting perpetually more dreary and cold and most of the time I would rather just hide from it than take it head-on and keep functioning at near-peak performance. Unfortunately, obligations keep me from just hiding away so I often find myself just kind of coasting along, doing what I must but nothing more. For a while now, writing hasn't made it far enough up the perceived "must do" list to merit my dedicating oh-so-valuable do-nothing time to it. That's beginning to change.

Excuses, excuses I know. But were it not for excuses, I wouldn't be blogging while I should be working.

Here's what's on my mind for those of you who don't care but read blogs during your do-nothing time like I do:

1. I'll be glad when the election is over. All this incessant talk, much of which I participate in, is really hurting my head. And the chain email thing really is out of control but I still help to perpetuate it even though I have no idea why.
2. There are some bands out there that should have quit while they were ahead. I suppose when the only thing you've done for the last 20 years is make music, you don't know how to stop. AC/DC should not be producing new albums, neither should Metallica (though their new one is leaps and bounds better than the one that preceded it, it still blows) or Korn (especially now that they're missing half the original band members).
3. Hard rock bands should NOT cover hip-hop songs. The term "shorty" or some ebonicified version thereof should never be uttered over a shredding electric guitarist. Nor should the term "lovely lady lumps" ever be uttered, period.
4. Digital TV is still worthless where I live. It's like watching a scratched-to-hell DVD of network TV programming.
5. Free markets cannot exist in perpetuity. A free market system works only until the disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" becomes large enough for greed to dictate the use of the "haves'" power at the expense of the "have nots."
6. Sarah Palin not only epitomises hypocrisy, but also embodies the double standard that women are held to. Neither trait makes her qualified to be VP of the USA.
7. The only real beneficiaries of this campaign season are Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey.
8. Moving sucks.

I'll likely expand on some of the above thoughts sometime in the future. Not that any of them are really worth reading about but I don't necessarily write this blog to have it read. I write because I have to...for me. It's my drug and I need to fall off the wagon again.

Is misinformed better than completely ignorant? Part 1

There are several issues that are all over the media lately and will likely come up in tonight's third and (thankfully) final presidential debate. Top on the list is Barack Obama's supposed "association" with the "domestic terrorist" William Ayers.


I'm all for rooting out past corruption on any candidate. What I'm not for is the main stream media (MSM), or the other candidates' campaigns spinning these stories and making them national issues when they don't really merit being so, or vice versa.


I decided to try to find for myself what Obama's association was with Bill Ayers, and for that matter, who the hell this Bill Ayers guy was. Washington Post had a decent summary here. Apparently in the late '60s and early 70's, Bill Ayers was part of a radical group called Weather Underground which claimed responsibility for a dozen or so domestic bombings between 1970 and 1974. Bill Ayers was never convicted of any crime but told the New York Times in an article published in Sept. 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."


So the guy was obviously quite the radical in the early '70s. Now I wasn't alive then, but if I remember history and some stories I've heard from elders, that was a pretty tumultuous time. Does that excuse violence? No, of course not. But let's keep the era in mind here. Ayers is/was obviously big on politics, albeit maybe TOO big at times.


Now, what is the connection between Obama and this Ayers guy? These days, Bill Ayers is a well-respected professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and well established in the "intelligencia" community. Obama's only real ties to the man are that they live in the same general area of suburban Chicago and move within the same liberal-progressive circles. Early in Obama's political career, Ayers contributed....wait for it....a whopping $200 to his congressional re-election campaign. Aside from that, the only real "interaction" they seem to have had is that they both served on the board of a Chicago anti-poverty group called the Woods Fund of Chicago between 1999 and 2002.

So it seems to me that Obama's interaction with Bill Ayers doesn't merit being put on the national stage. Unfortunately, much of the media, and definitely a lot of the McCain campaign (ahem, Sarah Palin) is painting Obama as one who hangs out with terrorists. Yet, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that "Obama's Ayers connection never bugged anyone." Sometimes I wonder if complete ignorance on the issue isn't better than the misinformation and ridiculous spin being put on it because I can guarantee that few people will actually search out the truth. Obama didn't exactly 'pal around' with a 'terrorist' who was never actually convicted of anything and was part of an organization that operated when Obama was about six years old.

I'm all for people being well informed but I think people should be "well" informed. To be "well" informed, one's information should not come from stirring, fear-deriving, fanatical chain emails and half-stories in the all-to-often biased media.

Done ranting for now. See part two.