personal update

I have a lot of catching up to do. I've not been able to blog regularly these last couple of months, and I've missed it.
I read a heated debate regarding the Christmas tradition on Q's 'other' blog, Ragged Glory. Q has closed the discussion to further comments, but I want to add seven words: "A Festivus for the Rest of Us!"
Life has not been without its pressures lately. The few of you who read regularly know that Michelle and I, and our daughters Simcha and Havilah, are living with Michelle's parents since late-October. I was unemployed until a week ago, and I have had strong feelings of guilt and shame for not being able to contribute to household expenses since we've moved.
The house seemed huge when we first arrived. Michelle's sister and neice also live in the house though, so there has not been a lot of room. Everyone has been great, but we have all gotten on each others' nerves at times. Sometimes we have felt like invaders in the house. My in-laws are not accustomed to living with small children, and I don't think they knew what they were in for when they agreed to let us stay. It makes me wonder how they managed when Michelle and her siblings were growing up. We have made frequent trips to visit my parents, to give everyone a break. The sooner I get a good-paying job and we can move into our own place, the better.
The job I started Monday is terrific. I feel that I'm learning quickly. I have met a lot of people, and they're all friendly, patient, respectful and professional. No one is distant or unfriendly. I think the average age of my co-workers is around 55, excluding one student intern who is around twenty. Several people have told me that it's a great place to work. I stay busy, time passes quickly, and I do not feel completely drained when it's time to go home. My only regret is that they cannot pay me enough. I will have to keep looking.
And now for the biggest news of all: Michelle is pregnant again. She's about two months along. She told me Wednesday night. I have experienced a wide range of feelings. With embarrasment, I must report that foremost among these has been fear and anger. Why should this happen now? I thought we were being careful! This birth control method SUCKS!!
I'm over all that now, and I'm feeling more and more happy and excited. I really love children. I hope it's a boy this time. We have two names picked out already:
David Adrian - if it's a boy, and
Saadiah Kathleen - if it's a girl.
Either way, I'm getting a vasectomy!!!!

The City of Dis is my destiny!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
Thanks to Q for referring his readers to this fun diversion.

Started my new job today. Hooray! I'm gainfully employed!

Thanks to all who offered encouragement during this dry spell. It's been a rough month-and-a-half and we're not 'in the clear' yet - but we're not going to go bankrupt this week, either.

The hours are terrific and the environment is great. I must have met about twenty people in the office and they all seemed happy to be there. Several of them told me that it was a great place to work, even though they work hard. The only downside is that it doesn't pay anything close to what I was aiming for.

I won't say much about the job at this time, except that it is at the University of Delaware and that it is accounting work. I don't want to divulge information that could, for all I know, be priviledged. I may reveal more at a later time.

Oh, and another drawback is that I am not employed directly by the university at this time. Rather, I am working through a staffing service. With luck, I will get hired on quickly and get a pay raise, but I'm not going to assume that will happen. So, I will still be sending resumes out, albeit a little more selectively because of the new time constraints.

In other news, Simcha fell off a chair yesterday and injured her face quite badly on the cheek. We almost took her to the hospital. There were no symptoms of bone damage however, and after some time she was eating and talking as normal, so we chose to just monitor her closely. (If we had insurance, there would have been no decision to make - I would have taken her to the ER in a heartbeat.) Anyway, her cheek is still swollen today, and turning all sorts of Christmassy colors.

new pictures

I posted some new photos on Snaars In Pictures (the link is in the sidebar). I don't know why I wasn't able to do it before. I didn't do anything different this time. Enjoy!

Settled. Not!

Quite unsettled, actually. It's been the awfulest move ever. I would like to tell you a cheery tale of sunshine and roses, but I have committed myself to remaining true to you, my faithful readers. I know that Snaars fans are happy, well-adjusted folk, who would never want to read about such unpleasant things as tearful goodbyes, a brake pedal held up by a bungee cord, interminable car rides, belongings that smell of gasoline, unemployment, officious bank tellers, and mounting bills.

So I'll skip all that and tell you how we're doing now.

I and Michelle and our two darlings live in a room in the home of Michelle's parents. Most of our things are in storage.

I was hoping to have a job about two weeks after moving in. We passed the two-week mark Friday night and I have no job, despite having disseminated dozens of resumees. ('Disseminated' here means I gave the resumes out to prospective employers.) Our money is quickly running out and I wonder how I am going to pay bills at the end of the month. *

I did have a job interview with a temporary agency. They specialize in finance and accounting. I have very little experience in that area but I passed some testing with flying colors. I was told that there is a place for me within their organization, but it might be two to three weeks.

Our families have been utterly fantastic. My parents flew down and helped us pack the truck and drive up north. And they paid for everything.

Michelle's family has made us feel perfectly at home. Their house is quite large enough for everyone (there are eight of us altogether). I just don't like being dependant.

My spirits are high. I breathe easier here. I had forgotten what it felt like to be able to breathe through my nose all night long. In Louisiana my allergies caused me to be stuffed up all the time. I still have allergies here, but it just makes my eyes water a bit.

We're planning to visit my parents sometime this week, and I hope to make it to New York City this weekend to visit Da- er, Arglor and Mayfly.

I haven't been happier in years. Look to my photoblog soon for some pics I took at a park today.

* P.S. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what book series I recently began reading.

Countdown

Well friends (if anyone's still reading),

I wish I had found more time to write lately. There's been no shortage of things to write about; i just haven't had the time.

I'm packing up the computer and I don't know when I'll be able to resume blogging. There's just so much to do.

What we've done, basically, is tear down our lives in order to build new ones in Delaware - or wherever we end up ... could be Maryland or Pennsylvania.

I'm currently unemployed. They had a great going-away party for me at work. That was touching. I'll have no shortage of good references, anyway.

My parents are arriving at the Lafayette airport around 4 this afternoon. Tomorrow we pick up the moving truck and load it. Wednesday morning we start driving. We will arrive Friday afternoon at the home of my in-laws, which will be our home until we can make better arrangements.

It's all about family and the ones we love. Life is good. Fresh starts are good. We'll miss the ones we leave behind.

Wish us luck, friends. We'll "see" you after we get settled.

we're alive!

Hello everyone. We're fine after hurricane Rita. I would've checked in sooner but we evacuated to Alabama and didn't have any internet. We almost advanced our moving plans! We have returned and the house took no damage.

It was an interesting trip. Sorry I don't have much time to write. I'm afraid blogging has taken a back seat to the rest of my life until further notice. Until we get settled in Delaware it'll just be bits and pieces.

Driving along interstate 59 we saw hundreds of downed trees, from when Katrina passed through. The "love bugs" were doing their semi-annual spawning on the way back, and the car is smothered in bug guts. For those of you who are unfamiliar, these little bugs appear out of nowhere twice a year. They seem to live for two goals in their lives, which last only a few days: 1) breed, and 2) splatter themselves on fast-moving vehicles. In other words, they live to annoy.

Seriously, they have no natural predators - birds, lizards, frogs, and other predators don't eat them. They are attracted to carbon monoxide and dioxide (car exhaust), and heat and dark colors (asphalt). They float lazily in the air a few inches or a few feet from the ground, in pairs (Did I mention they breed a lot?) The air gets thick with them and they pitter-patter on the windshield like rain. Disgusting!

More on the trip later - mainly want to let readers know we're okay.

here we go again ... Rita

Just a quick note - Rita will pass to the west of us, and there's a small chance she will be right on top of us. In either case, we will have severe weather and possible flooding. The east side of a hurricane is where the worst weather is.

It's time to batten down the hatches. We are getting some things together just in case we need to evacuate. I will write again - in a day or two or three - and let everyone know how we're faring.

what-less?

Hi snaars fans! Doing a lot of work, getting ready for the Big Move. It's been a dry spell as far as blogging, but I have a few minutes to relate an amusing anecdote. Another conversation with Havilah:

H: I have another new classmate in school. His name is Duck-less.
me: What?
H: Duck-less.
me: His name is Duckless.
(slight pause)
H: Dickless?
me (trying not to laugh): You mean Douglas?
H: Oh no no, he said he doesn't like to be called that.

Hmmmm ... methinks my daughter is confused.

Katrina causata

It's hard to describe how Lafayette has changed since Katrina. I don't think anyone can really understand the immensity of the exodus that has taken place out of the New Orleans area. Lafayette was a city of about a hundred thousand, maybe a hundred and twenty thousand. Now we are housing tens of thousands of homeless. There are regular evacuees too, most of whom are here to stay. How many people is that, in total? Thirty thousand? Forty? Fifty? More? The traffic we have now is insane.

---

Yesterday the company I work for made a delivery, and I went along to help because we needed extra manpower for the job, which was to install a fountain in the courtyard of an apartment complex. As we worked, I saw a mother with two young boys sitting in an open doorway, the apartment behind them empty. She looked lost. My boss gave them a hearty Cajun welcome and asked if they were in the process of moving in. She nodded, and he inquired where they were from. "New Orleans," she replied, with a catch in her voice. Only, it was obvious that they had nothing to "move in" but themselves.

I wondered what their lives have been like the last few days. Here they had nothing, but moving into a completely bare apartment was a step up. They were freshly bathed, and probably relieved to be clean. Before we left, her husband returned bearing three small shopping bags. My boss asked if he had a job, and he did, so they are better off than a lot of the other refugees (or, as the press has been calling them the last few days, "evacuees"). The boys were named Walker and John. They didn't seem to have a care in the world - they were having a good ol' time playing catch with a tennis ball. All in this family of four were exceptionally thin.

---

A couple of nights ago I was tucking Havilah into bed and she started telling me about school. (She refuses to talk about it most of the time. She's crafty - she knows I want to know, so she saves everything until bedtime so I'll stay up with her just a little longer. Of course, I let her get away with it every time!) Anyway, she informed me that she has a new classmate.

"Her name is Kazsawon," she said. (I'm guessing at the spelling. It sounded like 'Ka-zsa-one'. 'Zsa' like Zsa Zsa Gabor, and 'one' like the number.)

"That's a beautiful name," I said, and she nodded. "Do you like her?" She nodded emphatically.

"I think her real name is Kazsa, and the 'won' is because she's the only ONE with that name. Because I think that my teacher said she's never heard that name before and it's a lovely name she said, so I think that's really her name is Kazsa, for Kazsawon because she's the only ONE with that name," she explained. Isn't she cute when she's stalling? (I thought, "Huh. Maybe they should call her 'Havilah-one' at school") She really does enjoy herself at school. When she finally spills the beans, she's so enthusiastic.

Havilah's elementary school has taken on forty extra students since the disaster.

---

Don't worry, snaars fans, the slow posting is temporary. I'm working on several more. No promises, but check here again Sunday evening.

Katrina devastates New Orleans, Biloxi

80% of New Orleans is under water ... bodies floating in the streets ... levees breached, a 200 ft. breach at one point ... Slidell doesn't exist as it used to ...

There are 25,000 people now housed in NO's Superdome (total seating capacity is 72,000), Superdome officials say conditions are filthy, and they are just trying to make people comfortable. A million(?) homes may be out of power, might not get it back for weeks.

on the radio they are telling evacuees and everyone, DO NOT COME BACK. Professionals are doing everything possible, and anyone else will just get in the way, and endanger themselves.

A local church here in Lafayette is housing 2,000 refugees. My boss brought some hot food there last night, and his kids brought some old toys. The people look dejected.

One man was heard to say he was holding his wife's hand and the water swept her away. He heard her say, "Take care of the kids and the grandparents."(I'm not sure this is true, but it may as well be) My boss said hearing this story, it reminded him of the movie Titanic. Seeing the refugees reminded him of Tsunami footage.

Baton Rouge had a lot of wind damage, but nothing like New Orleans devastation. Here in Lafayette we got nothing at all, not even rain.

Update 8/31/05: Rescue efforts continue for the tens of thousands of New Orleans residents who did not evacuate before Katrina hit. The entire city is uninhabitable right now. Five hundred thousand people have been displaced. Tens of thousands are homeless. Please consider giving a donation to The American Red Cross or Mercy Corps. Even a few dollars can make a difference.

Xeno's Doughnut

Xeno's Doughnut*

I was going to write a little article about Xeno (sometimes spelled Zeno), but then I decided to simply include this link to a fun little page. On that page there are links to other articles about Xeno's paradoxes.

* Dilbert comic by Scott Adams, printed 08/15/05. I hope I don't get in trouble for this ...

K5

This morning Havilah took her first innocent steps, alone, out of the comfort and nurturing sphere of the Snaars den and into the grimy and grubby, foul and feral world of public school kindergarten.

We've been preparing for this for a couple of weeks. We registered her and brought her in for an assessment. We bought supplies - crayons, markers, folders, scissors, modeling clay, nap mat, book bag. We're completely and totally prepared for this - all of us, the whole family. Evil, evil, stupid elementary school!

Tuesday afternoon we got to meet her teacher. She was organized, patient, warm, kindly. She gave us a folder of information and answered all our questions. Her name is Ms. Wiltz and she has 27 years' experience. Evil, evil Ms. Wiltz!

I have noticed so many changes in Havilah this month. She's gotten taller again. Her face has thinned some more. Her vocabulary is ever-increasing, and her thoughts become more and more complex.

This morning, for the first time ever, she allowed Michelle to gather all her hair back in a pony-tail, and she didn't pull it out. She looked just like a little five-year-old grown-up!

Simcha, too, is adjusting, and growing. These two sisters are very attached to one another. Michelle didn't want Simcha to see her Mommy crying as she left one of her two children behind. In the car, Simcha asked Michelle, "We get her later Mommy? We come back later for Havilah?" Not too long ago, she couldn't say her sister's name. She would say "Ha-lala".

I've been rebuking myself all day for not going with them. I should have just come in late to work so I could be with them.

I will still see my daughter for the same amount of time. She will be home before I get home from work every day. So, it's a bigger change for the rest of the family. Still, I can't stop thinking about Havilah in school, and Simcha and Michelle at home. This is a good change. This is a good change. This is a good change. (Sigh.)

aliases

Bill and others pointed out that my last "light post" hardly lived up to expectations - at the last count, there were 49 comments (a record on this blog)!

To make up for it, this post is for pure fun. I stole the idea from The Wicked Truth.

What alternative names can you invent using the following formulii? (I wrote "formulii: rather than "formulas" just to be snooty.)

1. YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (Name of first pet / Street you live on):
   Buttons Longfellow
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (Name of your favorite snack food / Grandfather's first name):
   Pret Zeladrian (pretzel/Adrian - clever, huh?)
3. YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME: (First word you see on your left / Favorite restaurant):
   Centre Robbins
4. EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS: (Favorite Spice / Foreign Vacation Spot):
   Fennel Peru (never been there)
5. SOCIALITE ALIAS: (Silliest Childhood Nickname / Town Where You First Partied):
   Snarfy Philadelphia
6. "FLY GIRL/BOY" ALIAS (a la J. Lo): (First Initial / First Two or Three Letters of your Middle or Last Name):
   M. Dav
7. DETECTIVE ALIAS: (Favorite Baby Animal / Where You Went to High School):
   Chick Willingboro
8. BARFLY ALIAS: (Last Snack Food You Ate / Your Favorite Alcoholic Drink):
   Twizzler Kamikaze
9. SOAP OPERA ALIAS: (Middle Name / Street Where You First Lived):
   David Parish Lane
10. ROCK STAR ALIAS: (Favorite Candy / Last Name Of Favorite Musician):
    Crackerjack Johnson
11. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: ( First 2 letters of your first name and the first 3 Letters from your last name makes your first name. Take the first 2 letters of your mother's maiden name and the first 3 letters of the city you were born in):
    Miars Spphi
12. PIRATE NAME: First, pick one of the following words: long, short, big, little, mean, dread, blue, or black. The next will be the first object you see to your right. The last part will be the first word in the name of a company you have worked for.
    Long Blind Donnelley (I really like this one!)

Got any names you care to share?

March of the Penguins

I took the Michelle and the kidlets to see March of the Penguins Tuesday night. Great film! I had seen it already when D- came to visit, and it was worth watching twice.

The only down side was the previews, which I had forgotten about. Why, in the name of, er, Goodness - (that's an "in" joke, keep up with me here) - why on earth do they show previews that are rated PG before a movie rated G?

"G" means "suitable for 'General' audiences, meaning anyone. "PG" means 'Parental Guidance' is suggested, meaning some parents might not want their kids to see it. Some of this PG stuff is really creepy and scary, for a five-year-old! (Three-year-old Simcha - pronounced Sim-ka - probably wouldn't have cared, had she not snoozed 'til halfway through the film.)

They showed a really scary Harry Potter preview, with very threateningly realistic fire-breathing dragons, magical light-shows, and an old man in robes speaking weighty words of dramatic import. Disorienting camera angles and zooming shots were, well, disorienting, especially given the dramatic music. Havilah had to close her eyes and cover her ears, poor thing. And that wasn't even the worst of it.

Next came a preview for the upcoming Tim Burton movie, "The Corpse Bride". This featured lots of undead - a number of skeletons and a pretty little zombie with a fat green maggot that keeps popping out her eyeball, which she pushes back in while looking around apologetically. She just wants to be loved, after all.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the film. It was Simcha's first. I though she might be frightened to wake up in a completely unfamiliar place, but she was delighted. At the grocery store afterward, we pretended to be penguins, to pass the time.

My atheist philosophy overview

This is a continuation of a conversation begun on Mayfly's blog. Click here. Mayfly began by asking if there was something inherent about matter that drives it toward life and complexity.

This post has been bubbling about in my little brain for two weeks now. Tonight everything is frothing forth.

Q,

Let me preface this by saying that I respect your right to believe what you wish concerning these matters. I know firsthand how difficult and depressing it can be to have your entire world-view turned upside down. Like you, and Mayfly, and Arglor, I take no pleasure in undermining anyone's beliefs.

I do take pleasure in intelligent discussion and debate, and I think you do the same. I think we both value truth, even though we disagree about what is true. So I appreciate the courage you exibit in just listening to what I and others have to say, and I hope you realize it takes courage for me to lay bare my beliefs and have them openly criticized. I think that you, I, Arglor, Mayfly, and everyone that has taken part in this discussion has shown that courage.

In short, I think we are all commendable for trying to understand one another. I firmly believe that understanding must come before constructive dialogue.

Now, on to the substance. I think I understand where the miscommunication is this time. I will strive to make my points with concrete examples from now on, wherever I am able. And I will avoid all talk of turtles. ;-)

Q wrote: God is perfectly sufficient to explain the existence of the kind of complexity we have been discussing since Mayfly's original post.

You are quite right, God is sufficient to explain all kinds of instances of complexity. God can string nucleotides together all millenium long without batting an eyelash, more easily than I can assemble a child's bicycle. In this sense, you are absolutely correct.

Consider the implications of what are we saying, however, when we assert that because we don't know how something has happened, God must be responsible for it. No one was there to see how the amino acids and nucleotides formed. I don't know and you don't know; we don't know if God did it or not. One day we may figure it out, or we may never know. It doesn't follow from our lack of understanding that God had to have done it.

Suppose we can be sure that supernatural forces caused the amino acids and nucleotides to come together a certain way. If the transcendant realm does not usually interact with ours, then how do these forces cross over from that transcendant realm into our material realm, in order to coerce or manipulate matter into forms it can't (by hypothesis) take on in nature? We could assume these forces are from God, but how do we know? Are there many such transcendant realms, with other transcendant entities (angels or demons perhaps)? How do they exist? Of what do they consist? Does the transcendant realm follow laws, as our material realm seems to do? In the material world, we have noticed a marked correspondence between brain activity and human thought; is there some kind of activity in the transcendant realm that corresponds to the thoughts of transcendant beings? Do such beings even have thoughts?

There's no end to the questions we can ask about such a transcendant realm and the transcendant being/s that occupy it, and how they supposedly interact with us in the material realm. Following this train of thought, you can see that we have to introduce a whole new order of complexity, in the form of a transcendant realm and transcedant being/s, to explain just one perplexing instance of complexity, namely the formation of nucleotides and amino acid chains. Moreover, we have no good evidence for such a realm, other than the fact that we have an unexplained problem in evolutionary biology/chemistry.

On the other hand, we can investigate other options - matter and forces, physics and chemistry, things we do have some hope of understanding, because they are made up of much the same stuff as we are. We already have evidence, in the form of hundreds of years of scientific observation, hypotheses, repeated testing, and valid predictions, supporting our notions that they exist.

Q wrote: I'm building a list of challenges to a purely materialistic view of the universe:
(1) Where did matter/energy come from; or, if it is supposed to be eternal, how does that correspond to what we can observe about the universe?
(2) How did inanimate matter become living matter?
(3) How did human beings make the leap to consciousness?
(4) How do atheists adequately account for meaning and morality?

To your point 1: my understanding is that energy and matter are interchangeable and indestructible, the 2nd law notwithstanding. The 2nd law indicates that eventually no energy will be usable for work. It looks bleak, depressing even - but that doesn't mean it's not true. If it helps, there is hope in a theory according to which, as the universe expands, the unusable heat energy rarifies to a certain point, stretching space itself to the tearing point, which somehow causes another big bang (I don't know how it supposedly works). But even if this is true, the human race as we know it will be long gone. The way I see it, humanity is ignorant of many things and the future of the universe is uncertain. Personally, I like to think that our universe is one of many, but I don't think anyone knows.

To your point 2: Following fundamental, universal laws governing matter and energy, matter was arranged in complex forms, eventually culminating in life. We can observe the same kinds of reactions going on today, as the Urey-Miller experiment and other experiments show. We don't have to know every single detail and step in the process to come to this conclusion.

point 3 - I believe that over millions of years life evolved to the point of consciousness. I observe behavior in humans and other animals that indicates consciousness not unlike my own, and generally speaking the more sophisticated an animal's nervous system, the more conscious they seem to me. A plant is not conscious at all, a worm reacts to stimulii, a dog can be friendly or mean. I believe that consciousness is the product of complex biochemical and bioelectrical activity, and I believe that consciousness stops when that activity stops.

point 4 - I think that there is a rational basis for morality. I think morality arises as a consequence of physical, conscious, rational (or at least semi-rational) agents being in relationship and being able to affect one another. I believe morality is objective, not subjective, because moral rules are independant of what any moral agent or group of moral agents think or believe (even the postulated entity known as God). Morality is a consequence of what and who we are; it is not a decision made by us, and it does not issue from a higher power or plane of existence.

I think ethics stems from human nature, not God's nature. I cannot emphasize enough that this does not mean that morality is arbitrary or subjective. It means that morality is dictated by states-of-affairs in the real, physical world, and as such is flexible. What I mean by this, by way of example, is that killing is wrong when it's murder, but it's all right in self-defense. If we humans had natural body armor, it might be morally acceptable to go around hitting each other hard with baseball bats, but we're not, so it's not. It is a real, objective fact that all of our actions have consequences, and some of the consequences are good and some of them bad. Good is to be embraced and encouraged, and bad or evil is to be avoided and discouraged.

Even if God exists, I would believe the same things about ethics. I think God would abide by moral rules for the same reasons that we human beings should abide by them - because they are good. I believe that goodness is it's own reward, I don't believe that we should be threatened or cajoled by false promises into doing it.

Goodness is not God. Goodness is an abstraction, no matter how it exists, not a person. Good is good because it is beneficial to someone. Evil is evil because it harms someone, not because God arbitrarily dictates certain activities off-limits.

We all have a choice to live selfishly or to live selflessly. Most people strike a balance between the two, and I think that's good and appropriate.

Q wrote: I understand your position to be, "human existence is meaningful because humans exist."

I don't think mere existence is enough to create meaning. I think that we are able to assign meanings to things, like this string of letters that you are reading, because of our intellectual capacity to reflect on ideas and communicate. Not unlike morality, "meanings" come about by virtue of the relationships between things. Our ancestors survived by seeing relationships between things, and we instinctively look for new ways of understanding, new relationships.

Whereas I am saying that God, who transcends the material universe, and who is the source of human beings and everything else that exists — that this God validates human existence. Why doesn't God need another [validation of] her existence? Because God is existence. Whereas this material universe cannot be equated with existence. Once, it did not exist. Eventually it will once again cease to exist; or at least, all living beings will cease to exist.

In my view, validation is completely irrelevant. I know I exist - I have no good evidence that God exists, but I do have evidence that God does not exist. My own existence is a brute fact, one I cannot ignore. To me, the evidence is quite clear. I am a highly complex being, made up of constituent parts. The universe operates according to laws that humans are able to discover, and my existence is in virtue of these things that make up my body, which is me. When my body is gone, I will be gone too.

When you say that God is existence, then I must reply that when you assert that God exists, it seems to me that you are saying Existence exists. Being the totality of all that exists, God must include evil and tragedy and pain just as much as it includes good and hope and all things pleasant.

Just a few of the many reasons that people will not want to accept what I have outlined here are: 1) it means we are mortal, 2) it means our loved ones who have passed away are truly gone, 3) it means that our actions have real, irrevocable consequences 4) it means that humans are animals.

I am under no illusions that anyone will be convinced by this - I fully expect disagreement. It is my hope that by posting this I will further understanding and dialogue, and foster tolerance.

I hope this clears the air somewhat. No longer can I be accused of merely hinting around at my philosophical position. There is material here (no pun intended) for many a lengthy dialogue to come. Or, it could be the case that my theistic friends will avoid discussing these things with me from now on. If so, I understand and respect that, too.

memes and a breather

This is meant to be a "light" post - a break from the fairly serious and lengthy discussions instigated by the previous two.

First, a personal note: the last couple of posts led to discussions which were strangely intense for me, so I have taken a break from blogging the last few days.

After a lifetime of searching and countless hours in and out of the classroom studying philosophy and religion, I thought myself capable of a little more detachment than I demonstrated in the last thread. I've become acutely conscious of some insecurities I have regarding my atheism. Now that I have learned a lesson in self-control, I am eager to continue the discourse and work through these things. I think and hope that others have also found the conversation fruitful, in different ways.

I would like to thank everyone for keeping the discussion polite and reasoned and, more importantly, for showing concern for each other. I am proud to find myself among upstanding people and I'm sure we will have more to talk about soon. There were a lot of subjects raised, and I have yet to decide how best to follow up.

In the meantime - so as not to break from the subject of religion, but not to get too entrenched in formal argumentation just now, either - I want opinions on a new belief system I discovered on the web today called The Church of Virus.

This belief system is self-described as an "atheistic religion," which to me sounds like a self-contradiction. They believe in memetics* (although I don't know whether they represent it accurately), and that their belief system leads to a meaningful life and immortality, among other things.

I am extremely skeptical of memetics, and I am even more skeptical of this new religion. What do you guys think?

* Memetics is the study of memes and their social effects. A meme is a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Memes purportedly "compete" for survival in the environment of minds and cultures just as organisms "compete" for survival in the physical environment of the world.

Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Argument

I promised to do a post on the Euthyphro Argument, and here it is. I know it's been a long time coming. I had to postpone it a little bit on account of a Major Event (ME). I will post about ME soon. As usual, all polite, thoughtful comments are welcome. Enjoy!

Portions of the material I am using here are taken from my notes from a lecture given in 2002 by Dr. Keith Allen Korcz at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for a philosophy course entitled 'Contemporary Moral Dilemmas.' Korcz has a talent for presenting arguments so simply, even I can understand them. This argument is widely known to theologians and philosophers of religion. You read the argument and judge whether it makes sense to you.

Divine Command Theory, or DC, is one way to see a relationship between ethics and religion. There are many varieties of DC, which claims that:

1. What makes an action morally right, wrong, or neutral is God's command; and
2. In order to determine what is right/wrong/neutral, we must determine what it is that God has commanded.

Different versions of DC can be formulated by substituting different definitions of God and selecting different means by which God makes commands known. According to classical theism, God is a supreme being who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibeneficent; and God's commands are revealed through select spokespersons and writings.

Notice that in order to determine what is right, wrong, or neutral, we must determine what God has commanded.

Notice also that any DC assumes the existence of God. This is not an argument about the existence of God, but about a relationship that is said to exist between God and morality.

Keeping that in mind, an argument for claim 1 above is:

3. God exists
4. If God exists, then he created morality.
5. If God created morality, then God's commands made actions morally right, wrong, or neutral.
6. Conclusion: God's commands made actions morally right, wrong, or neutral.

If we assume that 3, 4, and 5 are true, then 6 must be true. 3, although it is the subject of controversy, is assumed for the sake of the argument. 5 seems uncontroversial. It's not so clear that 4 is true. If 4 should turn out to be false, then the argument would be unsound.

The Euthyphro argument is aimed at premise 4.

THE EUTHYPHRO ARGUMENT: What does it mean to say that God's commands are good?

The Euthyphro argument is named after Plato's Euthyphro, in which Socrates poses the question, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved?" (10a). The Euthyphro Argument rests on a modernized version of the same question: "Does God command certain actions because he knows what makes actions morally right, wrong, or neutral; or, are actions morally right, wrong, or neutral because God commands them?

If the former case is correct, and God knows/sees/understands that certain actions have moral status (examples - killing is bad, stealing is bad, giving to worthwhile charities is good) then those acts have that moral status regardless of what God commands. Then divine command theory would be wrong because morality would not depend on God's commands.

If the latter case is correct, and God creates morality by commanding things, then anything he could command would be as good as anything else. There would be no moral reason to command one thing rather than another; morality would be arbitrary.

The problem for proponents of DC is that morality does not seem to be arbitrary. If actions were morally good because God commanded them, then God could have commanded that we hate our neighbor, and that we kill innocent people; and those actions would then be morally obligatory. But it seems as though killing innocent people would be wrong, even if God commanded it.

Moreover, it would trivialize the idea of God's goodness. Believers want to say that God's goodness is part of what makes God worthy of worship. If actions are good by virtue of God's will, then "God wills what is good" is equivalent to "God wills what God wills," and the latter statement doesn't seem to make God worthy of worship.

When I saw this argument for the first time as a sophomore in college, I was stunned. I had been firmly of the belief that morality did depend on God's commands! Eventually I accepted the point of the argument.

minority me

Found some cartoons today:

(That's the problem, sir ...)

(I want to join this guy's church!)



This last cartoon offends me.

Most of my life I have not been an atheist.

Although I no longer hold any scripture divinely inspired, my love for many writings remains undiminished. I recognize that holy scriptures represent some of the best and noblest characteristics possessed by human beings. Here is an excerpt from Ecclesiastes, chapter nine, which I find to be particularly wise and poignant.

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope,
for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

For the living know they shall die,
but the dead know not any thing,
neither have they any more a reward,
for the memory of them is forgotten.
Also their love,
and their hatred,
and their envy,
is now perished;
neither have they any more a portion for ever
in any thing that is done under the sun.

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy,
and drink thy wine with a merry heart;
for God now accepteth thy works.
Let thy garments be always white,
and let thy head lack no ointment,
Live joyfully with the wife whom whou lovest
all the days of the life of thy vanity,
which he hath given thee under the sun,
all the days of thy vanity;
for that is thy portion of this life,
and in thy labour
which thou takest under the sun.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,
do it with thy might;
for there is no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom,
in the grave, whither thou goest.

I returned, and saw under the sun
that the race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise,
nor yet riches to men of understanding,
not yet favour to men of skill;
but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Not the best translation, I'm sure, but there's none so poetic as the King James.

This passage is one of many that are particularly prescious to me. Were I to live a million years, I would never want to destroy the Bible (or any other scripture).

We have a winner!

The blog naming competition is over.

"Snaarsissism" wins! (Congratulations, Ron. Your prize is getting to see the title you invented on the one and only genuine snaars site.)

Thank you everyone for your imaginative responses.

$6 million ... er ... $65 thousand man

We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic man.
Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before.
Better . . . stronger . . . faster.

Look out, Lee Majors!

Five Fond Memories

I've been "tagged" to write about five things I miss from childhood. I found this to be a difficult assignment. At first, I could think of nothing. Then, memories came back one by one; then each memory led to another and another and three more.... Some of the memories were good and some not-so-good. Many of my memories made me sad, not because they were bad memories, but because of the feelings of longing they evoked. I had trouble narrowing this list down to only five things.

1. Each summer, my sister JoAnne and I would spend two weeks with grandparents - the first week with one set of grandparents, and the second week with the other set. I have so many memories from these vacations, I can't possible count them all. I remember Grandpop (my dad's father), and how JoAnne and I would "steal his spot" by sitting in his favorite chair. We would laugh gleefully as he dragged us off and tickled us mercilessly. It took him a long time to get his spot back, because as soon as he dragged one of us off, the other sat down, and we would take turns like that. Every evening after dinner, we would sit there and taunt him: "Grandpop, we're sitting in your spo-ot!"
   
   My grandmom (my dad's mom) would cook these enormous dinners. She taught us to say "when" when she had put enough food on our plate. But we would say "when," and then she would put one or two or three more spoonfulls on the plate of whatever it was she was serving. If we complained, she would explain that she didn't want any leftovers in the fridge. I don't know why it didn't occur to her to cook less food than she did. It was no use to say "when" right away; she always just put these huge mounds on the plate. Then she tried to make us feel guilty if we didn't eat everything. I hated wasting the food - it was usually delicious - but I just couldn't eat it all! I was a small kid.
   
   My Grandma (mom's mom) didn't try to force us to eat big meals; we always had healthy snacks around, and we could help ourselves whenever we wanted. There was always this HUGE yellow jar full of thick, hard, salty pretzels; and the most delicious fresh fruit, like white grapes, and peaches so ripe the juice would run down our chins. And we had a little bowl of ice cream or sherbet every night before bedtime.
   
   My Granddad (mom's dad) took us on long walks around town. We became very familiar with that neighborhood over the years; but our favorite walk was across the bridge. We would stare down at the water rushing far below, and when it was clear we could see the fish. Also, Granddad was one of the first drivers for Meals on Wheels - a program by which invalids and shut-ins had hot meals delivered to their homes - and my sister and I would go with him to see the "old people."
   
   Those summers were wonderful. We saw a lot of other relatives too - aunts, uncles, cousins. I could write for days. I think I've already fulfilled the requirements of this writing exercise, and then some; so I'll keep the rest short.


2. I miss the pets I had growing up: Max, our dog; and Shadow, Stripes, and Dancer, all cats.


3. Old friends. Holly, my very first friend and neighbor - the last time I saw her, I was four years old. I remember at that young age comprehending that I was never going to see her again. I tried to explain to her that my family was moving away, and she didn't understand. I don't know where any of my childhood friends are today. I know how to get in touch with only one of my high school classmates.


4. Gummy bears. Chewy, soft, flavorful. My sister and I would walk to our local drugstore and buy them by the half-pound. Then we would come home and "pig out." I liked to bite the head off of one, then bite the body off of another, and then stick the mis-matched bear parts together to make a kind of Frankenstein gummy bear. They were the original gummy candy. Today they're just not the same.


5. I miss the sidewalk in front of the house I lived in as a child in New Jersey. I knew every crevice, crack, and stone in that length of sidewalk. I learned to rollerskate, ride a bike, and wield the biggest magnifying glass to be found in the neighborhood, on that length of concrete. I knew every bit of ground for a mile around that house, and more, but I knew the sidewalk best. I was a lot closer to the ground then.

Here are the rules. PARTICIPATION IS VOLUNTARY. Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross-pollination effect.

1. Baby Lauren
2. Babbling Bente
3. Sharkey Malarkey
4. It's Not all Mary Poppins
5. snaars

I nominate the following people to participate (there's no obligation and I won't be offended if you choose not to do so):

Arglor

and

Arglor

and

Arglor.

(I would have nominated Mayfly, but I know she's been super-busy with serious writing lately. I would have nominated Q, but he's already been nominated by Mary P. I would have nominated Ron, but I know he has no time to write. I would have nominated Patrick, but I know his blog is pretty much a photo blog. Tag, Arglor - you're it.)

I am still accepting submissions for the Name My Blog competition - go ahead and add any more titles in the comments on the previous post.

naming competition and new photos

Thank you one and all for your contributions. The naming competition continues.

So far, the list of prospective titles* includes:

• The Magnificent Snaars
• Conceited Snaars
• Chippy Snaars
• ... I'll get back to you
• I'm thinking....
• Soar with Snaars
• Snore with Snaars
• ... I'll give it some more thought.
• Through the Third Wall with Snaars
• Omega Snaars Prime: More Than Meets the Eye
• Snaar Wars
• Snaars-issistic Sermons
• Snaarsissism
• Snaarsimus Prime
• Roll your Rs with Snaars
• Don't contract SARS; stay home and read Snaars
• Pungent Snaars
• Shtick with Snaars
• Minion Snaars
• Sentience Snaars
• Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Snaars
• Suave, Sophisticated Snaars
• The Inscrutable/Insightful/Insidious Snaars
• Semiotic Snaars
• Semiliterate Snaars
• Spastic Snaars
• Snaarsilicious
• Simply Snaars
• A Snaars by Any Other Name
• Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Snaars
• Snaars the Subversive
• definitive Snaaring
• Snaars: He's Almost As Cool As Mayfly
• enSNAARed
• Citizen Snaars

I'm gratified by the efforts to help me choose a name for the blog; however, some do not seem to be approaching the project with the proper spirit. I won't name names, but if one contributor had been born a Native American in Louisiana, (of the Kosati or Choctaw tribe, say) instead of in Canada, then he might be named "Snoring with Alligators."

While you all try to think up some REAL titles, feel free to view some recent pictures at my photoblog.

* Updated periodically as new suggestions come in.

Name the Snaars blog competition!!!

I kicked the google ads to the curb. They didn't contribute much to the site other than a little running joke*.

When I started this site, I thought it would be a place to do a little philosophy, and to keep in touch with family and friends. I have found myself reluctant to post anything seriously philosophical, mostly because it takes so much work. Also, there are plenty of good sites and discussion forums out there already.** Most of my family and friends have strictly avoided this blog.***

So the blog has not fulfilled its intended purposes. Nevertheless it has been fruitful. I have had the pleasure of "meeting" and interacting with some insightful and interesting and wonderful people. I have enjoyed taking the time to do a little creative writing, which is good for me.

The time has come for me to re-evaluate this endeavor. I would like to get some feedback because I enjoy writing for an audience.

The feedback I would like is in the following form. I would like everyone to suggest a new title for the blog. Titles should have the word "snaars" in them****. In a few sentences, explain and defend your suggestion. Why should I use your title?

The "winner" will get the satisfaction of seeing the name he or she chose adorning the top left-hand corner of the page whenever s/he visits!

* I'm so sorry, you pitiful simple-minded manic zombie clicking robot consumerist insomniac shop-a-holic. I'm closing up shop. Go get your google ad candy somewhere else! You disgust me.
** And these are generally eclipsed by the huge number of bad ones.
*** My Mom posted once. My wife has posted maybe three times. Arglor has posted, but he has his own blog, which I vist frequently. I think that's been it.
**** In a sense befitting the awe, veneration and sheer wonderment engendered by that name.

Delaware

I visited Delaware a few times when I lived in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of scenic places there. I've been to Rehoboth beach; it is a beautiful place. The more I think about it, the more I'm looking forward to moving.

We are going to try to save enough money to move in early October. After that and we risk really, really cold weather. Moving in the bitter cold is not fun. And, after 6.5 yrs living in south Louisiana, I'm acclimated to the heat and humidity. The temperature here rarely dips much below freezing in the winter.

I'm not sure where we will live exactly, but it will be near the northern tip, in the Wilmington/Newark area. The trip will be about 1300 miles. We will drive through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia (just a little), Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland on the way. The road time will be about 26 hours.

Twenty Delaware facts (now with BONUS editorial comments!)*:

• Henry Hudson sailed his storied ship, the Half Moon, up Delaware Bay in 1609, becoming the first European known to have visited the area.


• Dutch leader Peter Minuit, employed by Sweden, brought settlers in two ships to what is now Wilmington in 1638.


• Swedish settlers here introduced the log cabin to American shores. (Shores, this is a log cabin. Log cabin, shores.)


• In 1655, New Amsterdam Governor Peter Stuyvesant brought a large fleet to the area, captured all of New Sweden for the Dutch, and ended Swedish rule in America.


• Delaware was the only colony to have been claimed by Sweden, Holland, and England.


• When a ship carrying peas wrecked on a sandbar, the peas grew and collected so much sand that a new island formed, now Pea Patch Island.


• Johan Prinz, capable governor of New Sweden from 1643 to 1653, was the "greatest" of all colonial governors. He weighed 400 pounds and was called the "Big Tub."


• Named for Lord De La Warr, early governor of Virginia; the name was first applied to the river, then to the Indian tribe (Lenni-Lenape) and to the state.


• When Shadrach Cannon of Seaford was bitten by a rabid dog, some of the town's best citizens were selected to smother him to death between two feather beds, in an early mercy killing. (Gruesome! Asphyxiation is a "mercy" killing?)


• In 1776, although he was seriously ill, Caesar Rodney, a member of the Continental Congress, made a famous ride from Wilmington, Delaware, to Philadelphia in order to cast the deciding vote for the Declaration of Independence.


• Delaware is known as the "First State" to ratify the US constitution.


• A 1978 order of the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the busing of children from Wilmington to the suburbs to promote racial integration. The decision was a landmark for the establishment of this practice.


• Today, Delaware is both a farming and an industrial region and leads the nation in the production of chemicals. (Yummy! Chemicals!)


• More corporations are headquartered in Delaware than in any other state as a result of its corporate laws. (Sociopathic corporate-type ladder-climber that I am, this will be like heaven!)


• Delaware is the second smallest state in the US. (Rhode Island is the smallest. I've lived there too, by the way.)


• total area: 2,397 sq. mi. (6208 sq. km.)


• land area: 1,955 sq. mi. (5063 sq. km.)


• Length: 100 mi.; width: 30 mi. (length: 161 km.; width 48 km.) (I did all these conversions from miles to kilometers myself. You see, I care about all the snaars fans, not just the De La Warrians. Delaware-ites. Delawarese?)


• Population (2000 proj.): 763,000


• The lotus plants found here have led some specialists to believe that the region may have been visited by early Egyptian explorers.

* Bonus comments added 6/22/05. Most of the comments were there already. Sorry to get you excited.

It's decided ...

We will move north to Delaware. Lots to consider. Long-distance move. No money. No job when I get there. Still not sure what I'm qualified to do, outside of purchasing, which I don't like. Maybe I could get a master's degree in counseling and do that. What will I do to support the family in the meantime?

Have to contact the rest of the family, let them know, and see if I can get some advice.

Looks like we'll live with the in-laws for a while. What should we do with all our stuff? Bring it or sell it? My mind's still reeling.

Happy Father's Day

Some friends of ours threw a birthday party for their two-year-old last night. We made new acquaintances. I was relaxed and had good, if light, conversation, which does not always come easily for me. There were lots of kids there so my daughters had a blast.

It was after eight o'clock in the evening, past my daughters' bedtime, when we said our good-byes and headed home. Both Havilah and Simcha were dirty, sweaty, and quite happily exhausted after several hours' play. In the car they occupied themselves with discovering, comparing, and sorting various goodies and candy from their little gift bags, affording Michelle and me time to chat during the short ride home.

"Carlos offered me a cigar tonight," I say.

"I know, Michelle says. "I was afraid you would take it. I was glad to see you kept your promise."

There is a momentary pause. Then I say, "You know, a cigar's not the same thing as a cigarette."

This is the wrong thing to say. But, that's okay because I know that it is wrong. You see, there's a little game Michelle and I play sometimes. It's called Since Everything Is Going So Well And We Are Having Such A Nice Time And We Have A Moment Alone Let Us Now Try To Drive Each Other Insane With Annoyance. (SEIGSWAWAHSANTAWHAMALUNTTDEOIWA for short.) Well, I assume she knows that's the name of the game. We never really discussed it; but that's never stopped us from playing.

Michelle says, with an irritated tone, "Of course I know that."

Aha! I am winning the game! Already she is annoyed, AND she failed to come back with a clever quip to annoy me back. I wonder if she even realizes that we are playing! This gives me the tactical advantage.

I gather my thoughts for the next move. Then I say, in a tone and manner calculated to sound light and off-hand: "I should take up chewing tobacco. That's not smoking."

I can feel her gaze boring into me from the passenger's seat. "Don't you dare."

"Or snuff."

"Oh, please."

"You are not going to do any of those things," she adds.

"You are sssnot going to do sssnuff," she adds further. Now she is catching on!

"Or Cocaine."

"Brrrnt!" Havilah pipes in with her best game-show buzzer immitation. "Wrong answer, Daddy!"

"What did you say," I ask, astounded. She has never talked to me this way before.

"I said, 'Brrrnt! Wrong answer, Daddy!'," she repeats.

The sound of laughter explodes around me. Dammit! I lose. To a five-year-old!

I'm kidding really, I wasn't annoyed at all. I was laughing as hard or harder than everyone else.

What troubles me about the incident was that I said the word "cocaine" in front of my daughters, assuming that they wouldn't know what it was or remember the word afterward. I thought they were occupied with their gift bags and not paying attention to us.

I reason that Havilah said what she did because she's good at reading our non-verbal cues; she probably realized that I was joking, or that Michelle disapproved of what I was saying, or both. Still, I was surprised that she jumped into the conversation as if she knew what we were talking about.

Knowing children, she will reserve the word for a long time, then choose to repeat it at the most embarrasing possible moment.

---

My younger daughter, Simcha (have I mentioned this more than a hundred times yet?) is about three and a half. She is devilishly smart, but not very verbal. She has a great ability to concentrate; she uses this wonderful talent to focus on everything but what we are saying to her.

First thing this morning, Michelle tells the girls, "Today is Father's day. Wish your father a happy Father's Day - give him a big hug!"

I imagine Simcha heard something like this: "Blah blah father blah blah father. Give him a hug!"

So, she naturally assumed it was time for me to go to work. "Goodbye, Daddy. Goodbye, Daddy," she said sweetly, and gave me a hug.

I work too much.

Maybe one of my Canadian friends can tell me if Father's Day is celebrated there.

Happy Father's Day!

The Path of Philosophy

So, Grasshopper, you have chosen to walk the Path of Philosophy. You will find it here.

Good luck on your journey.

(This was so good, I had to post it here.)

The Man in the Glass

Michelle and I live in the house that my grandparents on my father's side lived in before they passed away. The six of us grandkids affectionately called my grandfather 'Grandpop'. The following poem was special to him. He had copies of it framed and hung about the house, and now several members of my family have adopted it as expressing words to live by. The language strikes me as being distinctly of the World War Two era. Grandpop was a veteran of that war and was a prisoner of the Germans in Stalag Luft 1 located in Barth, Germany. As was typical of the men who served at that time, he never spoke of his experiences. We didn't understand that phase of his life while he was with us. During these last few years, more and more has come to light. As that generation dwindles, I and others are becoming ever more appreciative of their contributions, and their sacrifices. This is for Grandpop:


The Man In The Glass.

When you get what you want in your struggles for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people might think you're a straight-shooting chum
And call you a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest
For he's with you clear to the end.
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.

Popular Adaptation of "The Guy In The Mirror"
by Dale Wimbrow


P.S. I apologize for not keeping up with e-mails and blogging. I want all the snaars fans out there to know that if I am slow to respond, don't think I'm ignoring you. (It could be the case that I'm ignoring you, actually, but just don't think that I am, okay? I'll feel better about myself if you continue to have faith that I'm an all-around fantastic and together dude.)

And don't forget to click on some google ads every time you visit, you drooling consumerist automotae!

Ungodly

Yesterday morning I organized and retrieved some financial documents. Then I and my family trekked on over to a bank that was recommended to me, so that we could apply for pre-approval on a home mortgage. "Mortgage" has an interesting etymology. It is compounded from the Middle English/Germanic "mort" and "gage". "Gage" signifies "something deposited as a pledge of performance." "Mort" of course, means "unto the death." Thus we see how bankers and other professionals disguise their true intentions by using old words in dead languages, the meanings of which everyone outside their profession has long since ceased to think about.

It also proves undeniably the truism that common sense is in shorter and shorter supply with each successive generation. It's patently obvious. I mean, look at these kids we have coming out of the the high schools today! None of these young cashiers know how to make change or speak proper American. Everything with the hizzle drizzle my bizzle? And they don't know fashion; the girls look like hobos and the boys look like prostitutes. All they do is play their - what is it - Atari Nintendo videos all day long. That or get themselves into trouble doing the crystal meth. And they act like idiots on the road, racing around with their car stereos thumpety-thump-thumping and their hands waving out all of the windows. Morons.

Anyway, I can just imagine the ghost of my great-great-great-something ancestor (let's call him Uncle Zebekiah) hovering over my shoulder in the bank office. "Stupid boy," he thunders. "What couldst thou be thinking? Thou wouldst do best to secret away thine earnings for the proper time. Why sellest thine family and thine self unto interminable servitude and death? Usury! Usurist," he accuses, pointing to the account representative. I don't think "usurist" is a real word, but you must forgive Uncle Zeb because he only had a third grade education. By the way, we couldn't hear him or see him because he's in the land of the undead and all. (I hope that goes without saying, but you never know with blog readers.)

Maria, the friendly account representative, asked us some questions. "What vehicles do you own? Do you currently own any real estate or other property, that could be used as collateral ...?"

("Harlot," screamed Uncle Zeb. "What manner of dress is this for a woman? Gods, where is thy husband?) We explained that we are first-time prospective home buyers.

"What are your other debts? Have you ever defaulted on a loan? Ever been convicted of a felony? Ever declared bankruptcy ..."

("Licensious unholy wench! Slanderer!) No, we have never done any of those things.

"Now," said Maria, putting down her pen and smiling kindly. "I'll need to see your bank statements for the past two months, and copies of your tax returns and W2's for the past two years."

("Gossip! Pryer into others' affairs," spluttered Uncle Zeb.)

"I'll need to go make copies of these. I'll be a few minutes," said Maria. "Say, do your kids like to draw?" With a little twinkle, she presented two notepads and pens, which we accepted with great relief. Since we hurried in because of the rain, we forgot to bring toys, and the girls were driving us crazy.

("Oh, right! Wrangle thy way into the good graces of these innocents!") I won't bother with the rest of what good ol' Uncle Zeb said, because at this point all his speech degraded into incoherence; eventually he gave up and wandered off to sulk behind a potted plant.

While Maria was gone Michelle and I looked at one another. "Are you okay," I asked her, "You look nervous."

"Aren't you," she asked. "We've never done anything like this before."

I squeezed her hand and smiled reassuringly, but I too was nervous. I kept having this uneasy, irrational feeling that I was leading my family into ruin and ... damnation? Was that a hint of, of brimstone in the air?

"Dear," I said, "whatever happens, happens."

"Really," she asked. I melt when she looks at me like that.

"Of course!" I explained that really what I had just said was a tautology and logically true.

She got that distant look she gets when she is not a hundred percent certain she has understood what I have said, and furthermore, she suspects that if she did understand it, she wouldn't like it. She is unsure whether she should bother trying to figure it out, and instead wonders why I insist on doing this to her when all she really needs is a shred of a shadow of a hint that there is some purpose or intention behind all that we have been doing these eight years, two months, and two days since we were wed. She just wants some sense of security.

I relented as soon as I realized the gravity of her mood. "Darling, we will hear what they have to tell us, and then go from there. We're not committed to anything." We smile at one another.

I look at the clock on Maria's desk. It's one of those clocks that are given out at office parties in recognition of long-standing good service to the company. It's made of crystal or glass or acrylic, and silver, and there's a little engraved plaque on it.

I have a feeling in my bones as though I am disappointing someone, somewhere. I smell sweat and tears and smoke far off. I ask myself if I've done the best I could, and if I've made the best plans. I haven't, of course. No one does.

In the grand scheme each of our lives is insignificant. I know this. Not one thing we can ever hope to do will have any kind of lasting impact on this great spinning universe, with its huge whirling pinprick suns and its vast cosmic oceans of black twisted emptiness. Our lives will be short and our names will not be remembered. Governments and nations will be built and they will crumble, as will the entire planet one day. And it is unbelievably, profoundly important that we do our very best in everything we undertake.

As troubling as these moments are, they are what keep me alive and keen. Whatever comes, I know I must meet the challenge with my best. And I love those whom I love, and those who love me love me, regardless of whether I succeed or fail. And I try to feel everything, clinging to as many moments as I possibly can, sharing as much of myself as possible with those around me.

no watermelon for you!

I've been creating a resume and a strategy in preparation for my job search, so I haven't had much time for blogging recently. Does anyone know where employers are seeking philosophers with long-term experience as retail buyers, having strong writing, organizational, and computer skills, for positions that involve creativity, decision-making, working with others, excellent pay, continuing education, good hours, benefits including health coverage and vacation packages, in a friendly, professional environment?

What? That job's taken? Go figure ...

I'm really eager to engage everyone in some more philosophic discussion (pseudo-philosophic discussion rather, since the blogging venue is not really conducive to truly deep discussion; still, it's great for cross-pollenation of stimulating ideas).

The topics I have in mind require some time to prepare, which I haven't had recently. In the meantime, I will share some more about my other great passion: my family.

My wife works very hard. She is a childbirth educator, labor doula, and regional representative of a chilbirth professional association. She works out of our home and takes care of our two energetic young girls all day while I putter about at my place of work. In her spare time, she is studying for certification as a childbirth educator trainer - so she can help other women to do what she does. I help out somewhat when I get home, but she does the bulk of the housework. She's a human dynamo. Sometimes it takes a lot out of her. Yesterday was one of those days.

I got home and she was asleep. I think she caught a bug that's been going around. I told her to go back to bed. I made a light dinner for me and the kidlets: falafel (yum!) and a salad of fresh chopped tomatoes and cucumbers with Italian dressing. It may not seem like much, but I'm a vegetarian, and we eat five or six small meals a day. "If you eat some of your salad, then you can have watermelon for dessert," I told them.

This was my brilliant plan to get them to eat diced tomatoes and cucumbers, lightly coated with virgin olive oil and a hint of vinegar, delicately seasoned with aromatic Italian herbs; you know - that runny mixture of mushy red bits and slimy green ones, with seeds? I couldn't imagine they would say no if they knew there would be a sweet reward of watery-melon goodness at the end of it. I really expected both of them to eat some of their salad.

Usually, Simcha eats just about anything we put in front of her, if she's hungry. Havilah is the picky one. She'd rather starve than eat what suspiciously looks, smells, or has the texture of something nutritive and healthy. I was unprepared for what happened. Havilah wrinkled up her nose and ate much of her salad. Simcha didn't. That was just the beginning.

I tried to encourage Simcha to eat it. Our conversation went something like this:

ME: Simcha, do you want some watermelon?
S: Yeah, daddy. [I should add that she was very distracted by "The Incredibles", a dvd we purchased over the weekend. Great film!]
ME: Then eat some of your salad.
S: Um- [her eyes flickering briefly over to me, then back to the tv] No, daddy. I don wat salat.
ME: Well, no watermelon then.
[A few moments pass. I'm not at all sure she understands the import of what I am saying. So ...]
ME: Simcha, eat some of your salad. Then you can have some watermelon.
S: Uh no daddy. I don wat salat. I wanwatermelon.
ME: Then eat your salad. You can't have watermelon unless you eat - your - salad.
[Simcha looks at me. She looks at her salad. She looks at me again. She looks at the tv.]
S: Um. No, daddy. Thas not water melon. Thas salat.
Me: Simcha-
S: YOU are e-LAST-i-girl!!!! [arms upraised, doing her best Edna Mode impression]

I felt bad for her. She really wanted that watermelon. I didn't feel bad that I was using threats/bribes to get her to eat the salad; I felt bad because she didn't understand what the conditions were. No matter how i tried to explain, she just didn't get it, even after I had her full attention. She got SO excited when I was cutting it up, because she thought she was going to get some.

I think she understands the concept now.

Thirty-two today.

I've had a makeover. I feel like "The Swan". 
Happy Birthday to me. Happy birthday to me.
Hm hm hm hm
hm hm hm
Happy Birthday to me.

Store Wars

Click here to discover the ways of the farm!

You'll have to wait for it to load.

It's a kind of ... field! This is great!

Some pics of graduation and more ...

This post has been moved to my new pictures site. Enjoy!

"The Panther" by Rainer Maria Rilke

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

(trans. from German by Stephen Mitchell)

zoo trip pictures

This post has been moved to my new pictures site. Enjoy!

The Baton Rouge Zoo

Arglor wrote:

DUDE! BATON ROUGE ZOO! how was it?

First off, I have to say I was a little sad to see all those magnificent animals in cages. Mostly they kind of behaved as though they were a little depressed.

But we did see some really neat things. There's a white tiger and a bunch of other big cats. They have two elephants, Judy and Posie (not sure if the latter is correct). The trainers explained that one of them has a bad leg, so when they go out for daily exercise they do not walk around as much as they once did.

They have a grand assortment of very colorful birds. There's an aquarium. They have some primates. I think that's about all we saw. The girls were getting tired so we didn't see everything.

There were two highlights for me, other than watching the two smallest primates we brought with us. (I am speaking of my own progeny, of course.) I'll tell you about both things.

First, I was awed by the giraffes. There are three of them, and I got REALLY close to two of them. The first was the male. He had stretched his neck out as far as he was able, to nibble on some shrubs beyond his fence. Also he was rubbing his head against a tree. He was not rubbing his horns, so I think he either had an itch or he was marking his territory - but I don't know if they do that. Do they do that?

Anyway, he was leaning way out over the fence, just a few feet from me. A young couple came by and held out some grass, and he ate it from their hands. We struck up a conversation and they explained to me that they come to the zoo all the time, and that they have fed the female giraffes often, but that this was the first time that the male had taken anything from them. They moved on. I observed him for several more minutes. He was almost close enough that I could have pet him.

Just when I decided, what the hell, I was going to try to feed the giraffe, a group of about six or eight teenage boys came along whooping loudly and hollering and gesticulating wildly and cursing and generally behaving in a way that made me ashamed to be of the human species. They made me feel insecure. I don't know about the giraffe, he seemed to remain placid, but I think he wasn't too sure of me after that and he soon moved away.

A little aside: some people who are highly critical of evolution theory claim that there is no link between earlier primates and human beings. I disagree. We are the missing link between other primates and human beings.

Anyway, later on we came that way again and one of the two females was at a different part of the fence, nibbling at the grass. (The way their area is arranged, they are lower than ground level, so they do not have to bend all the way down to reach the grass there.) This time my wife and daughters were with me (the first time they were in a kid's play area nearby). I looked around, saw a choice bit of grass where the giraffe couldn't reach, and held it up for her. She was a little distracted by my kids, but when she saw the grass, she didn't hesitate. She pivoted her neck like a crane until her head was a little bit away from my outstretched arm. Then her long tongue snaked out, curled around the little stalk of grass, and slurped it right up.

Michelle fed her also. Havilah was so impressed, she fought her fear and did it too. Simcha tried as well but lost her nerve. She shrieked and dropped her grass.

Yeah, the giraffes really impressed me. They are so powerful and so gentle. They move slowly and deliberately. I think they have a peaceful nature. I think I could have jumped over the fence and not been in any danger whatsoever (not that I will ever put that conviction to the test)!

The second thing that I will remember for a long time was that in one of the primate cages there was a little baby. (Sorry, I forgot to note which kind of primates they were. They were black and smaller than chimps.)

We didn't notice the little guy at first. What we saw is two females huddled up at the far side of the cage, with their backs to us. They kept looking over their shoulders at us, as if they wished we would just go away. Well one of them must have been the mom. I assumed it must be the one holding the baby. After a minute or two she moved and we caught a glimpse of the little baby monkey. I think the first thing I saw was his little outstretched hand. The other female followed her and again huddled up next to the mom so that we could not see anything. They kept looking at us, moving every once in a while.

After a few minutes we decided to go and give them some peace. At this point they seemed to change their minds for some reason. Maybe the little one was being too energetic. They decided to let him go for a little while. He couldn't have been very old at all, and yet he was able to climb the sides of the cage all on his own. The two females stayed close to him the whole time. For a while he clung to mommy while she swung around with him.

After the girls were good and tired, we took a train ride around the perimeter of the zoo. The little train was a novelty, but the ride was very disappointing, as mostly it just went through the woods and there was not much to see.

All in all it was a great time to spend with family. My parents gave us a zoo membership, which means we will be able to get in free for a year.

I've got some good pictures of the zoo trip, which I will post later.

The Darth Side

Hello snaars fans! (No cheering, please! Really, please, it's too much! Thank you, thank you! You're very kind, you all are the greatest ... okay, now ... what was that? Haha. Say again? ... Ha ha, no snickering either, that's not fair, haha. What? ... Well if that's the way you feel, I don't ... Now that's just totally unnecessary. I don't know if I should even go on if you're going to-- huh? ... Oh, that's just mean. You can say whatever you like, I'm just going to carry on if you don't mind. Huh, what now? That's it! Security! Security! Sorry about that, folks.)

I've been taking a few days' respite from blogging (and most everything else) while my family has been visiting from up north. Soon I will be catching up and posting like mad. I plan to put up a few pics from the commencement proceedings and the little party afterward.

Yesterday my kids' grandparents took us all to the Baton Rouge zoo. I will post some pics of that as well.

The last few days have been some of the best in my memory, and I look forward to expressing some of my feelings here in the blog.

I also see that I have left inchoate some of the philosophical ideas from previous posts on which I promised to elaborate.

Maybe I should start a second blog for the more philosophical stuff?

Nah, the world's not ready for double the snaars.

In the meantime, I found this hilarious blog, written by Darth Vader. I post this link in honor of Arglor and Trey and Amanda and whoever else going to see Episode III next week. Who knows when or if we'll see each other again after that?

Enjoy!

On the road to financial freedom with Google ads

Time to breathe a sigh of relief, kick back, put my feet up, and and take pleasure in the relaxing, secure feeling of being on the road to financial independance! Soon I'll be able to focus completely on all the things I dream of: spending time with family, taking long vacations, working when I want, doing what I want. I can enjoy exotic foods and fine wines. I can meet dynamic people, enjoy mind-opening conversation. I can catch up on my reading and writing.

I started those ads only about six weeks ago, and already I've earned $6.34. This is the life!

Death to all Users of the Wheel!

Keith, me, David, and Ronnie 

It was a good night. Ronnie gave me free beer and David endured some good-natured ribbing about some of the difficulties he had in his French class this semester. Keith opened his home and provided 'quality refreshments'.

The party included guitar-playing and a wide selection of 70's-era sci-fi. A bunch of us did the Mystery Science Theater thing and had a lot of fun. We watched a few episodes of a circa-1970 show whose name I already forget ('Aliens' maybe?). It involved a lot of jumpsuits, a car that looked like a really really souped up version of a Chevy Nova my dad had when I was a kid, and some ladies with metallic purple bobs and too much eyeshadow. Then we watched Charleton Heston in Omega Man. I really enjoyed myself.

I would have liked to have played pool with David and Ronnie afterwards but we had a time limit with the babysitter.

For posterity

I've been meaning to write about this for days, so I'm just going to get it out very quickly. (I'm at work.)

Simcha has been potty-trained for quite some time now, but we still have to be aware of when she is using the bathroom because she'll get herself into trouble sometimes.

The other day I realized she had been in there for a period of time that was longer than was usually necessary, so I looked in on her.

Picture this: she was standing facing the open-lidded toilet. Her bloomers were down around her ankles, her dress pulled up to her belly and tightly tucked under her left arm. She was looking down in the toilet. I startled her when I opened the door. She said, to her credit almost completely calmly, "No, Daddy, I'm na finish." At the same time - knowing full well that I would soon put her play to an end - she hastily grabbed for what she hoped would be one last bit of toilet paper.

This was comical because she had to hold the roll steady with her left hand, the one with her dress bunched up beneath it, without letting go of the dress. To do this she had to stand up on her tiptoes. Because she was in such a hurry, she only managed to get about half a square. Then she turned, threw the paper in the general direction of the bowl, and watched with intense concentration. The paper fluttered down, coming to rest in the bowl.

This took far less time than it takes to describe, and was accomplished by the time I took the two steps into the room to stand next to her.

Normally, a toilet bowl is filled with water. By this time, it was filled about half with (yellow) water and about half with wadded toilet paper sludge. Trying to keep from laughing, I surveyed the situation momentarily.

Not one to give up easily, my brave daughter asseted herself again. "No, Daddy, I na finish, Daddy." She turned to get some more paper.

"Oh, no you don't," I said, returning to my wits. "Finish up now. Did you wipe yourself?"

"Yeah. Daddy?"

"What is it, honey?"

She pointed into the water, again with her left hand, still holding up her dress. "Mine iss ornge, Daddy," she said proudly. "Mine iss ornge!"

More ethical nonsense.

I found another interesting ethical philosophy survey.

My Results:
1. Jean-Paul Sartre (100%)
2. John Stuart Mill (92%)
3. Ayn Rand (85%)
4. Nietzsche (83%)
5. Epicureans (80%)
6. Kant (80%)
7. Thomas Hobbes (80%)
8. Jeremy Bentham (79%)
9. David Hume (76%)
10. Cynics (67%)
11. Prescriptivism (67%)
12. Stoics (67%)
13. Nel Noddings (55%)
14. Aquinas (47%)
15. Spinoza (43%)
16. Ockham (41%)
17. Aristotle (40%)
18. Plato (32%)
19. St. Augustine (25%)

Totally wrong, but interesting ...

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Man is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility. Existentialist 63% Modernist 44% Postmodernist 44% Materialist 44% Cultural Creative 38% Romanticist 31% Fundamentalist 25% Idealist 25% What is Your World View? created with QuizFarm.com

Before ...

This is before the movie. You can tell I've been working out. *Sniff* Ayup! Michelle took the picture. She could barely keep her hands off me the whole time. I think those other folks just wanted to be seen with me. I let them stand there next to me there by the wall there. 

Seriously, that's me, David, Gradon (Graydon?), and Lydia. My dearest darling Michelle took the picture. (We really can't keep our hands off each other, though. That part is true.)