flowperson

I would say that most of the acting was wooden, but I thoroughly enjoyed the series, especially Data and Q. The holodeck sequences were also pretty neat since alot of us are in alternative realities from time to time, or at least it seems that way to me. Worf was also a good character. Kinda like a warrior Wookie. flow....

YUP !!! flow....

I think it is a good indication of how humans have often seen themselves in relationship to animals: as above them. I don't think it is a truth per se, but rather human interpretation. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There is some scientific background here that was published in the late 80's as I recollect. It stemmed from research done by Archaeo-linguists that looked into the world-wide roots of languages. This was done before the era of genetic sequencing, especially the sequencing of mitochondrial DNA which is only passed on from mother to daughter in human lineage. The genetic research of the 90's tended to prove out the things that the archaeo-linguists first found in the 80's by moving backwards through time by tracing the etymology of certain key words in known languages to their roots. They found that the existing language still being used closest to the earliest language that they identified on the basis of a few hundred traced words, is the Xosha or Khosian language spoken by the fast-disappearing Kalahari Bushmen of South Africa and Angola. As I mentioned on another thread here this is the language that uses clicks and tongue noises to emphasize certain consonant sounds, and can be best experienced by renting and watching a copy of the 80's film, The Gods Must Be Crazy. The Archaeo-linguists concluded that this proto-root language of ALL subsequent languages in the world emerged in the S. Africa region 100,000 years ago or so. This then gave rise to a sort of proof of the "out of Africa" hypothesis that was first stated about that time, that modern humanity emerged in Africa and gradually migrated to the rest of the world over the past 100,000 years or so. In the 90's, mitochondrial DNA research found that the first mother of all modern humanity (she was of course instantly named by the media as Eve ) could be traced back into Africa to a time about 50,000 years earlier than the language study. The words used in the linguistic examination of proto humanity included two words that had multiple meanings. The words were, if I remember correctly, "weena" and "hwina" or something close to these. The two words could be used in place of each other or together and they meant "blood", "breath", and "life". flow....

I'll be listening for the music when I get there.... maybe I could find Jerry Garcia and join in? minsocal <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I thought about including a reference about the late Jerome Garcia and the influence of Blues upon the music of the Greatful Dead, but thought that might be superfluous. Besides Jerry's early grounding in music was while he was hanging out in Palo Alto passing the time giving lessons to aspiring guitar and banjo players in the back of a music store. At that time he was more into Bluegrass than Blues anyway. Thanks for the comeback and for caring about such an important part of my life. Here's an article regarding Mr. Pickett's passing that appeared on today's NY Times website flow.... http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/arts/music/20pickett.html

Frank: You will find that this place is a good place to "say what you mean, and mean what you say" as the nuns in grade school in my old home town used to say. I admire your fortitude in doing this, and I believe that if you scroll through some of the threads from at least the last year you will find that some of us hold certain things sacred and some do not. We are all seekers here, and in many ways , many of us have been damaged by the traditional institutions that have sought to bring the thoughts and wisdom of this individual to us all over the past 2,000 years or so. We are not so much against Christianity, per se, but against the things that fallable human beings have turned it into from time to time. We are believers, but we are also seekers after truths regarding Christ and his life that are not so self-evident, or at least we persist in questioning materials that are presented to us as such by traditional religious institutions. You are welcome here, and we look forward to your part in our discussions. Where in the east are you located ? flow....

YUP ! flow....

religiousdevotiontoscientificreductionism, religiousdevotiontoscientificreductionism, religiousdevotiontoscientificreductionism. I think there might be a code somewhere in this matrix. flow....

Another one of my heroes passed away today in Virginia at the age of 64. It's seems to have been a bad year for my heroes. In this case we should all acknowledge that Mr. Pickett was not a good boy as far as the law was concerned. Like his co-conspirator in the Blues, James Brown, he had numerous run-ins with the police and spent an amount of time in prison for his sins. But that seems to make him a typical black male of his and my generation He left behind a great legacy of landmark recorded songs, among them; Land of a Thousand Dances, In the Midnight Hour, Funky Broadway, and Mustang Sally. The Blues, and more specifically Rhythm and Blues, grew out of a musical tradition that was born among the enslaved field workers of the Mississippi delta region, along the great river, just below Memphis. The cotton field workers would chant and sing folk songs to ease the pain and burden of their endless and unsatisfying work, and their uncertain and painful lives. Later their progeny, such as Robert Johnson and Leadbelly picked up the thread started in the fields and sang on street corners and in juke joints of endless work, love lost, and simple hope. These people and others popularized the music when they made some of the first recordings of the Blues that is so much about sad things, but makes the listener feel better just by listening to it. Mr. Pickett was in the vanguard of these people who carried on this musical tradition in the years after WWII. From the Blues came Rock & Roll and the rest is, as they say, history. But this is a history that is not about whichever white guy wins the argument. It was and is a history of bringing people together, all sorts of people, rich-middleclass-poor, to listen to the sad songs that make them feel better somehow. When the Rolling Stones wanted to know more about this magical music they came to the south side of Chicago in the sixties and jammed with the masters of the art form such as Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon. I believe that's what has made their career so enduring to this day. There's a reason for my signature on the board being what it is. In this particular song you have both a black man and a white man who have both been successful at their chosen art form, and who both have endured measures of tragedy in their lives, in my opinion. simply because they are/were so good at what they do. And, they make us feel so good just by listening to what they do. Let's just hope that G-d gives Wilson an extra big cloud to jam on with Brother Ray, Brother Muddy, and the rest of the masters that have gone on to their rest. Contrary to popular belief, I'll bet G-d and Jesus dig the blues. And I definitely plan to "get down" and do some dancin' myself when I get there. flow....

Hmmmm! Did these blondes per chance work at "area 51" ? Date : 2086 ad Place : Gus Grissom Memorial Way Station, in synchronus orbit 2,400 miles above Houston One Texas businessman talking to another Texas businessman about their recent visit to The Rutan Convention Center on the moon. "Well did you eat out with your clients while you were there ?" "Yeah, we found a small French restaurant with sidewalk seating. The food was good, but there was no atmosphere." flow....

Today is also my Mom's 89th birthday, and my 1st ex-wife's birthday, but I forget which one. And isn't it also MLK's real b'day ? flow....

Gee Fred, How thoroughly radical and Eastern. I Love it !! flow....

Did you hear the one about the blonde that stared at a frozen orange juice can for 30 minutes because it said "concentrate" on it ? flow....

For some odd reason I keep coming up with an explanation that things like this seem to happen on the Eurasian land mass because these people drink an alcholic beverage that is distilled from potatoes. But maybe I'm mistaken. flow....

MT Why do I like the word "subversive" so much ? I believe that it's because it stands for those who are for change, and change usually means progress over the long run. People don't ask me very often "what" I am, or what I believe in. But when they do I simply tell them my belief that Jesus was a rebel and the ultimate anti-establishment advocate of all time. So in that vein, I then tell them that I have worked thirty years, and continue to work, in small ways, towards the gradual, non-violent, yet certain, undermining of the existing social order simply because it demonstrably doesn't seem to be working very well anymore. That usually shuts them up and they often don't ask me anything else about my beliefs after that. The point here is that peoples' beliefs are a very personal matter. When and if someone asks you about them I believe that you are entitled to challenge them in the same manner that you have been challenged. Chances are that you were asked about your beliefs because the asker is a judgemental personality. I choose to go over the top with my answer so that their unwelcome curiosity is fully satisfied and shocked into quietude. flow....

After beating my head against the wall all day at work, it is so good to come home, log on, and find wonderful things like this thread to inspire me. Life is good ! G-d is good ! Thank you Cynthia !!! flow....

I've used this on the board before, but it was some time ago. While having a philosophical discussion with his disciples, the Buddha was asked by them " What he was". Not " Who he was, but What he was". The Buddha replied, "I am awake." flow....

I saw this on a tee shirt once and I've never forgotten it: Q Why does all of the corn in Illinois grow bending towards the East ? A Because Indiana sucks and Iowa blows ! flow....

Here's the way I see this. I believe it boils down to the fact the we all, over the past fifty years or so, have been de-sensitized through our almost continuous immersion in technology. More and more, human to human contact and communication is not necessary to interact in our activities. This message board is a positive example of what can be done to utilize technology for positive purposes. However, having worked as a professional in the field of evaluating and commercializing new technologies, I can definitely state that ALL technologies can be used for good or ill, and not necessarily through intention. Now, most people would say that computerized video games are in the main innocuous because parents are still able to supervise their use and can augment the gaming activities of their children with moral instruction regarding what is right and wrong, and what is real and artificial. But there have been studies done that demonstrate that the more games are played and interacted with, the more the gamer tends to see all the rest of life as some sort of gaming activity. The armed services recruiting commercials we see everyday on TV are nearly all digitally generated video these days. These Pakistani civilians were killed by remote control. A pilotless drone was guided over the target and it fired a missle upon a human command that destroyed the target and the humans who were there. The remote control facility for these drones is in the Nevada desert west of Las Vegas, and is operated by the armed services, probably the Air Force, but probably intelligence agencies also. Chances are the buttons were pushed by an airman or airlady who had an extensive background in video gaming and simulated warfare scenarios training while in the service. I doubt whether the person sitting at the console in Nevada who pushed the button that fired the missle that killed the Pakistanis had any emotional attachment to what was about to happen in this village in Pakistan. All he/she or his/her commanding officer who directed the action knew about the situation was that a poobah in the Al Quaeda movement was supposed to be there for dinner. Kind of like when the intelligence agencies told our leaders that there were WMD's in Iraq which started all the crap there. The point is that technologies that simulate real things and are in turn used to create real effects in the real world are mostly operated by people who are conditioned over years and months of playing games to believe that it's all some sort of cartoon exercise and that none of it is really real. But of course it is and innocent people were killed in the process. But the media can get away with calling it all "pragmatic" because in most ways it isn't real to them either. They're only making big bucks commenting on it all for ussins. I'll bet the neighbors of those who were killed by the drone's missle in Pakistan would comment otherwise. Moral perspective and judgement is clouded each day by our inability to really reach out and touch each other. And it sometimes takes instances such as these to educate us regarding the fact that that there are prices to pay for detaching our lives from reality through the employment of complex technologies flow....

A termite walks into a bar and sits on a stool. He turns to the termite next to him and says, "is the bartender here?" flow....

OH, OH,... METAPHYSICAL MYTHOLOGIZING ? GRRRRRRRRRRRR ! Actually, I was just about to say that the symbolic existences of Satan and Lucifer are really trapped somewhere else in the fourth dimension, and that they can only assert their powers through illusion and the willful control of some humans who do their will in the present because they have made the mistake of following falsehood instead of true things. In other words, they chose badly, and they are programmed to act in very bad ways from time to time. I'm still trying to work out whether Lucifer and Satan are separated and trapped in the future or in the past, or if they are together in any sort of coordinated mindset and will at all. Maybe one is in the future and one is in the past and working towards the middle of humanity's timeline since it is my belief that G-d starts everything in the middle and works both ways. That's why it appears that G-d is simultaneously ever present and everywhere in the universe as we know it. If I were to make a guess I would say that Lucifer is in the past, and Satan is in the future, but both have the power to project their will to affect us all accordingly, but only in episodic and non-linear ways. Both are tricksters and have little or no consideration for life or its continuance. flow....

BTW brain tissue is not black and white, it is grey. Although one could say that the neurons are white since they transmit electrical impulses, and that the glial cells are black since they inhibit and mediate the neurons, as I said the overall appearance is grey, if one uses wholistic viewing and thinking. Of course the extremes of black and white never want to acknowledge the wholistic viewpoint because they fear that this compromise in philosophical approaches would rob them of their identities, perhaps the ultimate fear factor. Steal your face ? Wassuuup Yin-Yang Kid ? flow....

To refer to a previous contribution by MOW, we might think of faith as a form of "being in heaven", or to use the analogy of " floating on clouds". The advantage of this interpretation as opposed to "floating on the ocean" would be to provide an immensely wider array of "horizon" to examine and explore, that is if we weren't otherwise occupied playing our harps and recorders. or singing. flow....

Right on Dudettes !!! flow....

Everyday we create tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, until time runs out and our progeny have created all that is possible.This is the meaning of the part of G-d that is within each of us and has been there since the beginining of it all. And if we allow hate, violence, war, unjust separations from each other, and indifference towards each other to overcome that linear progression intended for us by G-d since the very beginning, then we are doing the work of the enemy. But the enemy is a liar. It will always pretend to be part of the progression of history and time, but all the while will be working through non-linear interventions to reverse the progression of human history. In a free society we should be free to point to specific instances in our culture that are impediments to the progression of G-d's human story, but these days if we attempt to do that in an active manner we are likely to be spied upon or worse. It begs the question of how free we really are in this great country. Any thoughts ? flow....

"...the sacrifice of a supernova in the creation of all matter." This also applies to the way in which black holes operate. As matter and light is sucked into it's massive gravitational swirls, never to escape in the same way again, it is annihilated and spewed back out in twin jets of radiation, gas, and ions at opposing 180 degree angles. This phenomenon has been observed over the past ten years or so, first through the use of radio then visual telescopes. And now it is widely believed that most, if not all, galaxies have massive black holes at their centers. Life, death, rebirth,... the universal cycle of sacrifice played out over light years and eons. And even the atoms of our bodies and brains came from that process originally. flow....