Why is it called Latin music when all it is, really, is Spanish music? Or South American music since there's a category for Brazilian music in the Latin Grammies. Why isn't French music considered Latin music? Why isn't Italian? Or Romanian? Why isn't Gregorian chant considered Latin music when in fact it's sung in Latin? They really ought to change the name of the genre. Spanish-Portuguese music? Or Music-Performed-By-Latin-Americans-and-Iberians?
Monday, January 16, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
Obits and pieces
Solomon said some pretty strange things.
Solomon. The ultimate party animal. Celebrated ladies’ man. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines and said whatever his eyes desired, he did not keep from them. Erich Von Daniken even said he probably owned a flying machine and he showed the Queen of Sheba around in it. The wisest man on earth wrote some of the most depressing things in all of literature. Probably not a coincidence.
He thought about death a lot. Probably because he had such a full life. He thought about death because he’s seen it all. We, on the other hand, don't think about death that much because we aren’t through with life yet. Solomon thought about life, and his grand conclusion? It’s all pointless. Like Paul Weller said, “Oh heavenly thing won’t you cleanse my soul. I’ve seen all on offer and I’m not impressed at all.”
An entry on the Twisted blog is about the death of the writer Bienvenido Santos. A funny piece on an impromptu send-off given to him by his friends and fans. This got me looking for more obituaries. The New York Times obit section has some fine ones. They give a summary of the person’s life and achievements and when applicable, mention the… survivors?
I don't know, but I dont want to see that in my obituary. (Assuming, of course, I’m not really dead but still alive somewhere and conscious and watching over you. Solomon didn't believe in that stuff, by the way.) I mean, ‘survived’… that’s a word I always associated with someone who has gone through a harrowing ordeal and made it out alive. “The earthquake struck and the roof came down on me and I was trapped in the rubble and I had to drink my own pee and eat cockroaches for three days before the rescuers came and found me. It was rough. But I… survived.”
"He is survived by his wife, his children, Eanie, Meanie, Miney, and Mo, and his pet duck Maurice." What, was living with him such an ordeal, such a struggle for survival?
Those at my funeral after reading the obituary, would ask those I left behind, "Oh my God, are you allright? How did you survive him?"
A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
--------------------------------------------------Ecclesiastes 7:1-4
Solomon. The ultimate party animal. Celebrated ladies’ man. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines and said whatever his eyes desired, he did not keep from them. Erich Von Daniken even said he probably owned a flying machine and he showed the Queen of Sheba around in it. The wisest man on earth wrote some of the most depressing things in all of literature. Probably not a coincidence.
He thought about death a lot. Probably because he had such a full life. He thought about death because he’s seen it all. We, on the other hand, don't think about death that much because we aren’t through with life yet. Solomon thought about life, and his grand conclusion? It’s all pointless. Like Paul Weller said, “Oh heavenly thing won’t you cleanse my soul. I’ve seen all on offer and I’m not impressed at all.”
An entry on the Twisted blog is about the death of the writer Bienvenido Santos. A funny piece on an impromptu send-off given to him by his friends and fans. This got me looking for more obituaries. The New York Times obit section has some fine ones. They give a summary of the person’s life and achievements and when applicable, mention the… survivors?
Mr. Schoemaker is survived by his wife of nine years, Anne Faulkner Schoemaker; three daughters, Maureen, Katherine and Anne; and one son, Matthew, all of the Philadelphia area; his parents, Paul and Betty Schoemaker; three sisters, all of whom live in the Netherlands; and one brother, Paul, who lives in the Philadelphia area.
He is also survived by a son, Reed, and by his fiancée, Janet Davis, both of Skillman.
He is survived by his wife, Virginia, a researcher at the Investor Responsibility Research Center and the author of several books on corporate governance; a daughter, Dorothy, of Bethesda, Md.; a son, Daniel, of Washington; a brother, Marcus, of Washington, a senior editor at National Public Radio; and two grandchildren.
I don't know, but I dont want to see that in my obituary. (Assuming, of course, I’m not really dead but still alive somewhere and conscious and watching over you. Solomon didn't believe in that stuff, by the way.) I mean, ‘survived’… that’s a word I always associated with someone who has gone through a harrowing ordeal and made it out alive. “The earthquake struck and the roof came down on me and I was trapped in the rubble and I had to drink my own pee and eat cockroaches for three days before the rescuers came and found me. It was rough. But I… survived.”
"He is survived by his wife, his children, Eanie, Meanie, Miney, and Mo, and his pet duck Maurice." What, was living with him such an ordeal, such a struggle for survival?
Those at my funeral after reading the obituary, would ask those I left behind, "Oh my God, are you allright? How did you survive him?"
Thursday, January 12, 2006
I have an eating disorder
Now that Paula Abdul has admitted her eating disorder after a spate of revelations and interventions for other celebrities for their own eating disorders (Mary Kate Olsen, Lindsey Lohan), I decided to come clean with my own struggle with an eating disorder. And I enjoin others to do so as well. (I’m talking to you, Nicole Ritchie. And you, too, Lara Flynn Boyle.) It’s only after we admit we have a problem that we can begin to solve it.
It has been a long ordeal for me. Not only the eating disorder itself, but the act of hiding it from my friends and loved ones has made it doubly difficult. I can no longer do so. I can not lie to those who love me. And so I have taken this painful step that I hope would lead me to recovery. I’m counting on you, my friends, to help me in this, my most trying time.
I have a rare eating disorder called dyslexovora. I eat dessert first before the main course.
There, I said it. I feel relieved. Like a giant cactus has been pulled from my ass. I hope that I can inspire other celebrities to come forward. Together, we can fight this deadly scourge that’s afflicting both Hollywood and the world of haute couture.
It has been a long ordeal for me. Not only the eating disorder itself, but the act of hiding it from my friends and loved ones has made it doubly difficult. I can no longer do so. I can not lie to those who love me. And so I have taken this painful step that I hope would lead me to recovery. I’m counting on you, my friends, to help me in this, my most trying time.
I have a rare eating disorder called dyslexovora. I eat dessert first before the main course.
There, I said it. I feel relieved. Like a giant cactus has been pulled from my ass. I hope that I can inspire other celebrities to come forward. Together, we can fight this deadly scourge that’s afflicting both Hollywood and the world of haute couture.
She blinded me with Science, part 2
That a popular theory could be so wrong came to the fore once again when scientists in Germany discovered a significant amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, comes from trees. Trees! The Amazon forest produces tons of the stuff. What to do, what to do? The Kyoto protocols that seek to mobilize governments into fighting global warming has a ‘tree credit’ clause which allows countries a bit more leeway in their greenhouse gas emissions if they offset it with a reforestation program. Trees have been known to soak up carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas, and so cancels out the greenhouse gas emissions of industry. Or so they thought. The anti-global warming scientists probably are snickering at this development. No the ‘antis’ don’t deny global warming. They just deny that human activities have anything to do with climate change. They believe it is a natural cyclical process that has been going on even before we showed up and they decry the waste of money that’s being poured into measures to fight it. That greenhouse gases come from trees seem to bolster the theory that the earth will go through it’s warming-cooling cycles even without our help. But does this new finding slow down the ‘It’s-all-our-fault’ climate scientists? Not one bit. There is an entire industry that has been built on it already. Reputations, egos, and the research grant dollars are at stake. According to Nobel Prize winning chemist Kary Mullis, “Global warmers predict that global warming is coming, and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple.”
Falsifiability is one of the most popular criteria for determining if a theory is scientific. This is because absolute verifiability is impossible since there is an infinite number of possible hypotheses that can explain a particular phenomenon. A scientific theory can never be proven right. It can only be proven wrong. Scientists therefore are limited to investigating theories that they can falsify. Any scientist that seeks to espouse conclusions that science couldn’t bear out runs the risk of looking like a fool, or worse, a fanatic. But that’s just what Richard Dawkins did. In a 2-part TV show in the British Channel 4, Professor Dawkins stated that religion is akin to child abuse, and that the Judeo-Christian God “has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist.” Dawkins’s field is biology, specifically ethology or the study of animal behavior. One wonders what sort of scientific experiments the good professor ran to reach such a conclusion. Of course, Professor Dawkins, when he stated those things, wasn't making a scientific conclusion, but a philosophical or theological one, well outside his field of expertise, philosophy and theology being inherently unfalsifiable scientifically. His statements therefore can just as easily be dismissed as utter nonsense the way we can dismiss Pat Robertson’s opinion that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a punishment from God. (Although as a theologian, Dr. Robertson didn't stray far away from his field of expertise, the statement was nevertheless stupid. I mean have you seen Ariel Sharon? He’s old, overweight, and is the Prime Minister of one of the most troubled countries in the world. That spells stroke in any language.)
I don't know what it is with scientists and their egos. If you really look at it, scientists should be the most humble people on the planet. That’s because science recognizes that at any time, as new data come in, they could be wrong. It also recognizes that the things open to scientific investigation are very limited indeed. And yet, the image of the scientist in my mind is one of in-your-face chutzpah, thanks to people like Richard Dawkins.
Falsifiability is one of the most popular criteria for determining if a theory is scientific. This is because absolute verifiability is impossible since there is an infinite number of possible hypotheses that can explain a particular phenomenon. A scientific theory can never be proven right. It can only be proven wrong. Scientists therefore are limited to investigating theories that they can falsify. Any scientist that seeks to espouse conclusions that science couldn’t bear out runs the risk of looking like a fool, or worse, a fanatic. But that’s just what Richard Dawkins did. In a 2-part TV show in the British Channel 4, Professor Dawkins stated that religion is akin to child abuse, and that the Judeo-Christian God “has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist.” Dawkins’s field is biology, specifically ethology or the study of animal behavior. One wonders what sort of scientific experiments the good professor ran to reach such a conclusion. Of course, Professor Dawkins, when he stated those things, wasn't making a scientific conclusion, but a philosophical or theological one, well outside his field of expertise, philosophy and theology being inherently unfalsifiable scientifically. His statements therefore can just as easily be dismissed as utter nonsense the way we can dismiss Pat Robertson’s opinion that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a punishment from God. (Although as a theologian, Dr. Robertson didn't stray far away from his field of expertise, the statement was nevertheless stupid. I mean have you seen Ariel Sharon? He’s old, overweight, and is the Prime Minister of one of the most troubled countries in the world. That spells stroke in any language.)
I don't know what it is with scientists and their egos. If you really look at it, scientists should be the most humble people on the planet. That’s because science recognizes that at any time, as new data come in, they could be wrong. It also recognizes that the things open to scientific investigation are very limited indeed. And yet, the image of the scientist in my mind is one of in-your-face chutzpah, thanks to people like Richard Dawkins.
Tune in, turn on, get a facial
Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD, turned 100 yesterday. He reflects on his discovery here.
What LSD does to the human brain is to remove its built-in reducing valve function such that we experience our environment in all its raw, kinesthetic form, unprocessed and not pre-judged by our conscious self. Everything opens up; a truly mystical experience. In creative people (artists, poets, Hannibal Lecter), this non-judgemental way of getting data from the environment occurs naturally. In most of us, the reducing valve function works overtime. Our brain takes in information from the environment, filters them and determines which information are useful and relevant to our own daily lives, and discards the rest. The lack of the ability to filter this information is also a sign of mental illness.
The difference between the creative type and the crazy is this: the creative type knows what to do with the information. He uses them and channels them towards creative pursuits. The crazy is simply overwhelmed. Intelligence plays a good part in knowing what to do with the information. A study by Harvard University found that what differentiates a creative from a crazy is the former’s high IQ. That’s the only thing that’s keeping the creative from going bonkers, and sometimes he doesn’t succeed. Creative people can be nuts. Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear comes to mind. The stresses of daily life can overwhelm their already wide open brains such that it slips over into the twilight zone.
Knowing what LSD does, and probably knowing how many stupid people are out there, Dr. Hoffman says LSD should be a controlled substance. He called Timothy Leary’s popularization of LSD a crime. On the other hand, he is also frustrated by the chemical’s demonization all over the world, noting its success in the field of psychiatry.
Perhaps a way out of this could be a licensed “LSD parlor” where anyone who wants to alter their consciousness could go. It will be staffed by chemists and psychologists, and to qualify for the treatment, you have to pass an IQ test. A high-priced spa could offer it as one of their services along with the regular fare of Dead Sea salt scrubs and pure oxygen inhalation. Imagine the instant “Hip” factor it’ll give you in social circles. “You look great. Where’ve you been?” “Spent the weekend at my spa. You really should try their aromatherapy, kelp scrub, and LSD treatment.” You’ll not only be seen as rich, with-it, and upwardly mobile, people would know you also have a high IQ without having to tastelessly brag about it.
That’s hot.
What LSD does to the human brain is to remove its built-in reducing valve function such that we experience our environment in all its raw, kinesthetic form, unprocessed and not pre-judged by our conscious self. Everything opens up; a truly mystical experience. In creative people (artists, poets, Hannibal Lecter), this non-judgemental way of getting data from the environment occurs naturally. In most of us, the reducing valve function works overtime. Our brain takes in information from the environment, filters them and determines which information are useful and relevant to our own daily lives, and discards the rest. The lack of the ability to filter this information is also a sign of mental illness.
The difference between the creative type and the crazy is this: the creative type knows what to do with the information. He uses them and channels them towards creative pursuits. The crazy is simply overwhelmed. Intelligence plays a good part in knowing what to do with the information. A study by Harvard University found that what differentiates a creative from a crazy is the former’s high IQ. That’s the only thing that’s keeping the creative from going bonkers, and sometimes he doesn’t succeed. Creative people can be nuts. Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear comes to mind. The stresses of daily life can overwhelm their already wide open brains such that it slips over into the twilight zone.
Knowing what LSD does, and probably knowing how many stupid people are out there, Dr. Hoffman says LSD should be a controlled substance. He called Timothy Leary’s popularization of LSD a crime. On the other hand, he is also frustrated by the chemical’s demonization all over the world, noting its success in the field of psychiatry.
Perhaps a way out of this could be a licensed “LSD parlor” where anyone who wants to alter their consciousness could go. It will be staffed by chemists and psychologists, and to qualify for the treatment, you have to pass an IQ test. A high-priced spa could offer it as one of their services along with the regular fare of Dead Sea salt scrubs and pure oxygen inhalation. Imagine the instant “Hip” factor it’ll give you in social circles. “You look great. Where’ve you been?” “Spent the weekend at my spa. You really should try their aromatherapy, kelp scrub, and LSD treatment.” You’ll not only be seen as rich, with-it, and upwardly mobile, people would know you also have a high IQ without having to tastelessly brag about it.
That’s hot.
Monday, January 09, 2006
The coming Nematopia
Holy crap, we’re done for! NASA reports that nematode worms that were on the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle survived the crash. The researchers who recovered the nematodes state that the worms’ survival could offer us clues as to how simple life forms may have survived traumatic interplanetary journeys, bolstering the theory that ‘seed genes’ may have come from other parts of the universe aboard comets, landed in the earth’s primordial soup, and started the chain reaction that eventually resulted in creating we, the people. Right.
But these so-called researchers aren’t telling us everything. The nematodes were placed in coffee can sized containers and carted off to space to be experimented on. Does that tell you anything? You bet. They’re as mad as all heck. Imagine being taken from your swamp under false pretenses (or against your will), placed in a metal container with no windows, and eventually ending up in a lab 50 miles above the planet to be poked, prodded, pushed, sliced and diced to find out how we humans would fare in outer space. But in one experiment that showed an appalling lack of respect for the consequences, the worms were exposed to cosmic rays. That’s right. The same interstellar cosmic rays that the Fantastic 4 were exposed to. So are you still surprised that the nematodes survived the crash? They have superpowers! And they’re mad! NASA isn’t telling us everything to avoid a panic.
Right this very minute, those angry super-nematodes are multiplying. They already have a prodigious reproductive rate, but once again, the techno-folly of us humans is aiding this dangerous mutation inadvertently. Because of the communications explosion of recent years, there’s radiation everywhere. Especially microwave radiation from cell phone sites which have been shown to increase nematode fertility. I don't know what cell phone users are talking about these days, but it seems it turns the nematodes on and they burst in spontaneous bacchanalic reveling which always results in baby nematodes. Baby super-powered nematodes, who can create force fields at will, or burst into spontaneous combustion without harming themselves, or acquire an outer shell as tough as granite and the strength of 12 elephants, or acquire a super-intelligence of the malevolent kind.
NASA researchers have isolated the recovered canisters in vaults with walls made of 2 meters of steel in underground caves in the military base near Groom Lake in Nevada. There they are kept in suspended animation with liquid nitrogen. They have tried destroying them, but have not succeeded. The liquid nitrogen however, does slow them down. But that’s not the end of that. The Columbia debris is scattered over a very wide area and not all canisters with the mutant nematodes have been recovered. NASA fears that some of the canisters may not have survived the impact and that—Heaven help us— some of the nematodes have escaped, and are at this very minute, copulating with wild abandon, driven to heights of lust and debauchery by our text messages, Gud AM it.
But these so-called researchers aren’t telling us everything. The nematodes were placed in coffee can sized containers and carted off to space to be experimented on. Does that tell you anything? You bet. They’re as mad as all heck. Imagine being taken from your swamp under false pretenses (or against your will), placed in a metal container with no windows, and eventually ending up in a lab 50 miles above the planet to be poked, prodded, pushed, sliced and diced to find out how we humans would fare in outer space. But in one experiment that showed an appalling lack of respect for the consequences, the worms were exposed to cosmic rays. That’s right. The same interstellar cosmic rays that the Fantastic 4 were exposed to. So are you still surprised that the nematodes survived the crash? They have superpowers! And they’re mad! NASA isn’t telling us everything to avoid a panic.
Right this very minute, those angry super-nematodes are multiplying. They already have a prodigious reproductive rate, but once again, the techno-folly of us humans is aiding this dangerous mutation inadvertently. Because of the communications explosion of recent years, there’s radiation everywhere. Especially microwave radiation from cell phone sites which have been shown to increase nematode fertility. I don't know what cell phone users are talking about these days, but it seems it turns the nematodes on and they burst in spontaneous bacchanalic reveling which always results in baby nematodes. Baby super-powered nematodes, who can create force fields at will, or burst into spontaneous combustion without harming themselves, or acquire an outer shell as tough as granite and the strength of 12 elephants, or acquire a super-intelligence of the malevolent kind.
NASA researchers have isolated the recovered canisters in vaults with walls made of 2 meters of steel in underground caves in the military base near Groom Lake in Nevada. There they are kept in suspended animation with liquid nitrogen. They have tried destroying them, but have not succeeded. The liquid nitrogen however, does slow them down. But that’s not the end of that. The Columbia debris is scattered over a very wide area and not all canisters with the mutant nematodes have been recovered. NASA fears that some of the canisters may not have survived the impact and that—Heaven help us— some of the nematodes have escaped, and are at this very minute, copulating with wild abandon, driven to heights of lust and debauchery by our text messages, Gud AM it.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Primal scream
"We're super excited. We've been looking for such a number for a long time." So says Central Missouri State University associate dean and chemistry professor Steven Boone in announcing that after years of searching, programming 700 computers, several thousand man-hours of work, mostly by undergrads who won’t even be credited in the paper, and I-don't-know-how-many-megawatt hours of electricity, they have found the largest known prime number. And it isn’t just any prime number, oh no. It’s a Mersenne Prime Number. A Mersenne Prime is not just your average daily divisible-by-one-and-itself prime number. A Mersenne Prime is a prime number that is one less than a prime power of two.
Now, is it just me, or is everyone else going, “Uhhhh… So?” I just can’t share professor Boone’s super excitement. So they found the largest ever prime number, what are they going to do with it? You can’t print t-shirts with it and sell that. The number they found is 9.1 million digits long. Enough digits in 10-point Times New Roman to circle the earth 17 times. The printing costs alone would be exorbitant, pricing the t-shirt out of the general market. The market for the t-shirt would consist solely of Paris Hilton and you know she won’t be wearing it for long.
I say, now that you’ve found this number, for the love of all that’s holy, STOP! You know you won’t find the largest prime number. It’s impossible. Leave it be. Unplug those 700 computers and donate them to some third world country. The time, energy, and talent used in this endeavor should now be put to better use. Alternative and renewable sources of energy. Vaccines for killer diseases. Free internet that would reach the remotest barangays with computers that won’t cost you an arm, a leg, and your virgin daughter, and runs on kitchen waste. Better TV programming for GMA and ABS-CBN. (I just threw the last one in for laughs. We all know that’s impossible. But you get the point.)
Now, is it just me, or is everyone else going, “Uhhhh… So?” I just can’t share professor Boone’s super excitement. So they found the largest ever prime number, what are they going to do with it? You can’t print t-shirts with it and sell that. The number they found is 9.1 million digits long. Enough digits in 10-point Times New Roman to circle the earth 17 times. The printing costs alone would be exorbitant, pricing the t-shirt out of the general market. The market for the t-shirt would consist solely of Paris Hilton and you know she won’t be wearing it for long.
I say, now that you’ve found this number, for the love of all that’s holy, STOP! You know you won’t find the largest prime number. It’s impossible. Leave it be. Unplug those 700 computers and donate them to some third world country. The time, energy, and talent used in this endeavor should now be put to better use. Alternative and renewable sources of energy. Vaccines for killer diseases. Free internet that would reach the remotest barangays with computers that won’t cost you an arm, a leg, and your virgin daughter, and runs on kitchen waste. Better TV programming for GMA and ABS-CBN. (I just threw the last one in for laughs. We all know that’s impossible. But you get the point.)
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