In my previous (non-picture) post I made a reference to fundamental changes in thinking and intelligence that may be brought about by the emergence and pervasiveness of the Internet.
Intelligence itself, or at least the measure of it, was in the news recently when the results of a British study revealed that on average the IQs of men are five points higher than the IQs of women.
I haven’t actually read anything more than a summary of the study, so I don’t know much about the specifics, but from what I’ve seen, the significance of the study’s findings are ambiguous at best.
Personally, I’m not certain how relevant IQ scores are in the real world or how well they reflect actual intelligence.
That being said, however, it is interesting to note that in the study’s findings it’s revealed that until the age of 14 there is parity between the sexes.
This strikes me as being significant considering what typically happens to young women at the age of 14.
To put it bluntly, it’s my theory that getting boobs makes girls dumb.
Okay, I’m mostly kidding with that remark, but think about it for a second (Or slightly longer than a second if you’re a woman – kidding!).
Considering how much more power a nice set of boobs can give a girl than a high IQ, it makes sense to me that there would be a drop-off in intellectual development. What do you need brains for if you have boobs? Hell, if you just “accidentally” brush them up against some brainiac boy, he’ll do your homework for you (and probably carry your books for you and buy you things).
Just a thought.
In slightly more serious terms, though, I think that the real issue is that women, in general, tend not to collect abstract information, or trivia, the way that men do, which is representative of the many differences in how men and women think.
As I was saying in my previous post, retaining information may eventually become a less valuable skill, replaced instead by the ability to seek out and gather information.
Further, I believe that the methodology for testing intelligence is skewed more towards the way that men process and organize information.
When I mentioned that the way we think will be fundamentally changed by the Internet, my characteristically flippant comments about becoming dumber and lazier aside, I should have also pointed out that the way we think about how we think will need to change as well. Will we be able to continue to define intelligence the way we have?
Further, how valid was our definition of intelligence in the first place?
Naturally there will be those who latch on to the study to prove that men are “superior” to women (Though to be honest, it goes back to boobs again. Men don’t have them, or at least they don’t have them the way I like them, so they will always be inferior as far as I’m concerned.), and I think that would be foolish.
My contention is that men and women think differently, and that IQ tests don’t account for that.
Of course, in a society of “equality” different often equates with “worse” in the minds of both sexes, and the belief persists that the same standards need to be applied across the board. I just don’t think that’s a logical approach, as the fact that there are obvious differences will lead inevitably to these perceived inequalities.
Different doesn’t have to equal worse.
Hell, men and women pee differently from each other. Does that mean that one method of peeing is superior to the other, or does it simply mean that there are biological differences that have no intrinsic value? Could it be that the differences simply are?
Putting aside environmental differences, there are obvious biological differences between men and women that would lead to different methods of thinking.
Again, different, not worse.
Anyway, all boob jokes aside, that’s my take on the whole thing.
In a recent conversation with my mother she made the observation that Threshold “doesn’t get a lot of comments.”
Thanks for pointing out that my blog sucks and that no one reads it, mom!
I’m kidding of course, but my defensiveness on the subject stems from the fact that this is a subject that I often think about.
Sometimes when I’m bored I will click the “Next Blog” link at the top of the page, which randomly directs me to another blog on Blogger.
Frequently I find myself suffering from “comment envy,” as these other blogs will have entries that are overflowing with comments.
The bastards! Those comments should be mine!
Of course, this can lead me to checking my inbox (I get an e-mail whenever anyone posts a comment) in the vain hope that someone will have posted a comment.
Specifically, I look for comments from people I don’t know.
That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate the comments from people I do know, but when it’s a stranger, that means that other people are visiting Threshold and find it thought-provoking enough to post a comment.
Still, more comments in general would be appreciated, and I often find myself thinking about why I don’t get very many comments.
My initial response is to rest the blame squarely on you, the Threshold reader. You lazy slackers!
After that I calm down a bit, stop yelling at my monitor and shaking my fist at my empty inbox, and realize that if people aren’t commenting it’s because I’m not saying anything worthy of comment.
Sure, that Threshold readers are lazy is the easier option (and is probably true), but the fact of the matter is that if I want to get comments from you I’m going to have to say things that are worth commenting on.
Then again, the odds are that any comments I do get will be of the “whiny pathetic buttwad” (or, more recently, the “go fuck a goat”) variety, so maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
After all, the goal is to get comments that will feed my ego, not make me want to cry (You big meanies!).
Of course, I also don’t want to get a bunch of “pity comments” from people who feel as though I’m trying to guilt them into posting their thoughts.
Ultimately, because I don’t really know what I could do differently to encourage provoke more comments (and would likely be too lazy to do anything differently even if I did know), I don’t want to have to put up with a bunch of insults, and I don’t want charity, I guess I’ll just have to learn to accept things the way they are. Let other blogs have comments; I’ll just settle for not being called a whiny pathetic buttwad all the time…
There’s a certain irony to be found, I think, in the fact that though I’ve let loose with a little spiel about wanting (or possibly not wanting) to receive more comments I’ve recently made it a little more difficult for those of you who are so inclined to actually post them.
All two of you who have posted comments recently have no doubt noticed that you have to take an additional step by typing the letters displayed in an image into a “validation” box.
I added this feature because a. I’d gotten some spam posted in the comments recently and b. Blogger had just made it available as a means of preventing spam from getting through via bots.
I hope the extra step isn’t too much of a hassle for those of you who do post comments, and if it makes you feel any better, even I have to go through the validation when I post comments.
Of course, the odds are that if people don’t like it I won’t hear about it anyway. Not in the comments, at least…
Today has been largely uneventful. I had left one of the thin steaks I’d used for dinner last night uncooked, as I thought it would be suitable to have as part of a steak and eggs breakfast this morning.
So I made breakfast before going for my walk, which is unusual (as is having something other than a protein shake for breakfast).
On my walk I noticed that the gas station I buy water from actually had gas for less than $3 a gallon, so I resolved to head back there to fill up after my walk (which I did).
When I was leaving the gas station I took notice of a woman yakking away on her cell while gassing up. I only noticed her because she was so loud (she was unattractive and pregnant, so it wasn’t like I noticed her because she was hot), and, I think, because she was flagrantly ignoring the signs by the pumps that say no cell phones (even though “Mythbusters” proved that there’s no danger of cell phones causing an explosion).
In any case, when I got home some time later that same woman was actually parked in front of my building, sitting in her car and still yakking away on her cell.
It was just sort of odd to see her here after seeing her there. She could very well be one of my neighbors without me recognizing her, as there are maybe three people living in this complex that I would recognize, and pretty much exactly none that I’ve ever spoken to.
Apart from talking to my mother, who won $1,000 in some kind of drawing at the casino last night, I didn’t do much.
Well, I did laundry, but that’s not interesting.
In any case, there’s another picture I’d like to some work on, so I think that will do it for this week. Happy Labor Day to all of you laborers out there.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Noir
Here's a new picture I cranked out today.
It's meant to be a sort of "noir" image of my character Fontaine. The style is meant to be reminiscent of the use of spot color in the "Sin City" movie.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
No, But I Do Know Where "Google Maps" Is
Yesterday morning when I got up I opted to make use of the fact that after more than two years I had finally bothered to get the code for getting into my apartment complex’s gym after hours a month ago and went in to get a quick workout.
It had been my intention to have this mark the start of two changes in my current workout routine.
The first change would be that I would be adding a third full-body workout to my schedule.
The second would be changing the days on which I engaged in full-body workouts, switching from Friday and Sunday to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, putting in morning walks during the rest of the week and changing my Friday and Sundays to either “sleeping in” until five and skipping the workout entirely, or, more likely, doubling up my current Saturday interval workout to fill the gap.
Of course, there are two problems with that.
The first is that the gym at my apartment complex just doesn’t have the necessary equipment for me to get in my full-body workout.
The second, and most insurmountable problem, is a lack of motivation.
I don’t know how I manage to get myself motivated to get up early and go in to workout twice on the weekend, but whatever the case, it’s all but impossible for me to motivate myself to work out once during the week.
Twice? I don’t think so.
So I’m pretty much going to follow the existing schedule and just try really, really hard to motivate myself to add a third workout during the week, albeit one that is a little less intense than the other two, thanks to a lack of equipment (and lower maximum weights on the equipment that is there) in the gym here.
Ah well, it’s not like I’m in training for anything, or am really expecting to get into any sort of phenomenal shape. Basically, I’m really just trying to hold steady and not get any fatter.
The one thing that would really help me out, though, is if I could stop my constant candy machine raids at work. My eating habits are so much healthier (and less voracious) during the week, but as soon as I get to work I’m hungry all frickin’ day, and knowing that those machines are in easy walking distance just makes matters that much worse.
That I no longer have the option of going outside and smoking a cigarette doesn’t help matters either.
In any case, after the workout yesterday I made myself a protein shake breakfast and went for a walk.
Apart from writing my lengthy rant about teaching “Intelligent Design,” there wasn’t much more to my day.
Today was more eventful only because I went in to work for a departmental training. That killed a couple of hours.
Hmm…speaking of yesterday’s rant, I may just have to reconsider my stance on joining organized religions based on this quote from a “Wired” article about Raelians:
"There are a lot of people (at these seminars) who believe in aliens, and all these beautiful women who will have sex with you even though you're a dork," he said. "And that's why most people were there."
I’m a dork, and if it’ll get me some play, I’m perfectly willing to believe in aliens.
At the very least, it beats getting a copy of the “Watch Tower” or the “Book of Mormon,” or even a Jack T. Chick Tract.
Honestly, a while back a bunch of Raelian chicks posed for “Playboy,” and I have to say that they were a lot hotter than, for example, most of the Presbyterians I’ve ever seen.
Of course, Raelism, or whatever you’d call it, is a cult, not a religion.
At least, that’s what all of the other cults…I mean, religions will tell you. After all, they must be a cult because they have weird beliefs that are impossible to prove and they try to bilk people out of money and… well, the reasons why they’re a cult and not a religion aren’t important.
Once I got home from today’s training I resolved to finally watch “Kill Bill Vol. 2.” Meh. I wasn’t that impressed by “Vol. 1,” so no surprises in my reaction. It was okay, just nothing special. The only reason I ever bought the first one is that Video Warehouse sells previously-viewed DVDs for $12.99 or two for $19.99. The “twofer” deal is a hard one to pass up, so when I was buying some other movie (don’t remember which), I grabbed “Vol. 1” to make it two. So, since I had that, I eventually bought “Vol. 2.”
Yesterday morning when I was walking I went past an area where all of the landscaping guys who keep Ashburn looking so green and pretty had sort of a “staging area” on side of the road. A woman pulled up alongside the supervisor who had just pulled up in his truck and asked him if he knew where Trailside Park was.
He didn’t (nor did I, though she didn’t ask me), and she was forced to try to find it on her own.
I couldn’t help but think that in the age of Mapqquest and Google Maps there’s no reason to have to resort to asking random people for directions.(FYI: I just found Trailside Park. That took like a minute.)
There is a school of thought that suggests that the Internet is fundamentally changing the way people think.
Committing information to memory, for example, is not nearly as important as knowing how to search for information. After all, why bother memorizing things when you can just Google it when you need to know it?
I think, as evidenced by the woman finding directions the old-fashioned way, that it will take some time for some of these fundamental changes to take place, but I think that there are definite signs of it happening.
What it probably all boils down to, though, is people just getting dumber and lazier.
Won’t that be fun?
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. I may be back later.
It had been my intention to have this mark the start of two changes in my current workout routine.
The first change would be that I would be adding a third full-body workout to my schedule.
The second would be changing the days on which I engaged in full-body workouts, switching from Friday and Sunday to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, putting in morning walks during the rest of the week and changing my Friday and Sundays to either “sleeping in” until five and skipping the workout entirely, or, more likely, doubling up my current Saturday interval workout to fill the gap.
Of course, there are two problems with that.
The first is that the gym at my apartment complex just doesn’t have the necessary equipment for me to get in my full-body workout.
The second, and most insurmountable problem, is a lack of motivation.
I don’t know how I manage to get myself motivated to get up early and go in to workout twice on the weekend, but whatever the case, it’s all but impossible for me to motivate myself to work out once during the week.
Twice? I don’t think so.
So I’m pretty much going to follow the existing schedule and just try really, really hard to motivate myself to add a third workout during the week, albeit one that is a little less intense than the other two, thanks to a lack of equipment (and lower maximum weights on the equipment that is there) in the gym here.
Ah well, it’s not like I’m in training for anything, or am really expecting to get into any sort of phenomenal shape. Basically, I’m really just trying to hold steady and not get any fatter.
The one thing that would really help me out, though, is if I could stop my constant candy machine raids at work. My eating habits are so much healthier (and less voracious) during the week, but as soon as I get to work I’m hungry all frickin’ day, and knowing that those machines are in easy walking distance just makes matters that much worse.
That I no longer have the option of going outside and smoking a cigarette doesn’t help matters either.
In any case, after the workout yesterday I made myself a protein shake breakfast and went for a walk.
Apart from writing my lengthy rant about teaching “Intelligent Design,” there wasn’t much more to my day.
Today was more eventful only because I went in to work for a departmental training. That killed a couple of hours.
Hmm…speaking of yesterday’s rant, I may just have to reconsider my stance on joining organized religions based on this quote from a “Wired” article about Raelians:
"There are a lot of people (at these seminars) who believe in aliens, and all these beautiful women who will have sex with you even though you're a dork," he said. "And that's why most people were there."
I’m a dork, and if it’ll get me some play, I’m perfectly willing to believe in aliens.
At the very least, it beats getting a copy of the “Watch Tower” or the “Book of Mormon,” or even a Jack T. Chick Tract.
Honestly, a while back a bunch of Raelian chicks posed for “Playboy,” and I have to say that they were a lot hotter than, for example, most of the Presbyterians I’ve ever seen.
Of course, Raelism, or whatever you’d call it, is a cult, not a religion.
At least, that’s what all of the other cults…I mean, religions will tell you. After all, they must be a cult because they have weird beliefs that are impossible to prove and they try to bilk people out of money and… well, the reasons why they’re a cult and not a religion aren’t important.
Once I got home from today’s training I resolved to finally watch “Kill Bill Vol. 2.” Meh. I wasn’t that impressed by “Vol. 1,” so no surprises in my reaction. It was okay, just nothing special. The only reason I ever bought the first one is that Video Warehouse sells previously-viewed DVDs for $12.99 or two for $19.99. The “twofer” deal is a hard one to pass up, so when I was buying some other movie (don’t remember which), I grabbed “Vol. 1” to make it two. So, since I had that, I eventually bought “Vol. 2.”
Yesterday morning when I was walking I went past an area where all of the landscaping guys who keep Ashburn looking so green and pretty had sort of a “staging area” on side of the road. A woman pulled up alongside the supervisor who had just pulled up in his truck and asked him if he knew where Trailside Park was.
He didn’t (nor did I, though she didn’t ask me), and she was forced to try to find it on her own.
I couldn’t help but think that in the age of Mapqquest and Google Maps there’s no reason to have to resort to asking random people for directions.(FYI: I just found Trailside Park. That took like a minute.)
There is a school of thought that suggests that the Internet is fundamentally changing the way people think.
Committing information to memory, for example, is not nearly as important as knowing how to search for information. After all, why bother memorizing things when you can just Google it when you need to know it?
I think, as evidenced by the woman finding directions the old-fashioned way, that it will take some time for some of these fundamental changes to take place, but I think that there are definite signs of it happening.
What it probably all boils down to, though, is people just getting dumber and lazier.
Won’t that be fun?
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry. I may be back later.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
What Do They Call Those Buildings With The Crosses On Them?
This morning found me not being awoken by people raving about the cuteness of a new puppy outside my window, but even so, I was up a bit after eight.
The whole cute dog thing, though, did remind me of something I saw on CNN over the weekend: the world’s ugliest dog.
Damn, that thing is repulsive. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Like some kind of zombie dog.
Even so, I checked out the owner’s blog (there’s a link to it on the “Ugliest Dog” site), and apparently someone wrote that he hopes that the dog and the owner die a long, painful death? WTF is wrong with people? So just because the dog is ugly that means it should suffer? And the same goes for the owner just because she’s crazy enough to love the ugly thing?
People are fucking retards, particularly when you consider that the dog is purebred, which means that people actually made the damn thing look like that.
I swear, over the centuries people have done some seriously fucked up shit when it comes to dog-breeding. Much of it just seems like sheer cruelty.
Over the weekend at work we were all doing some reading on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).
Basically, in response to a Kansas School Board’s decision to teach the theory of “Intelligent Design” as a counterpoint to the theory of Evolution in schools, a young man wrote an open letter demanding that they give equal consideration to the theory that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe (starting off with trees, a mountain, and a midgit[sic]).
The whole point is to draw attention to just how ludicrous the whole “debate” actually is. No matter how you try to gussy it up with a fancy, scientific-sounding name, the belief that some sort of Supreme Being created the universe simply has no place in a science curriculum, and the idea that said Supreme Being is a Flying Spaghetti Monster is no less ludicrous, in that context, than the belief that it was Jehovah, or Allah, or any other deity.
Faith can’t be verified through testing or peer review. That’s what makes it faith, and not science.
There are so many things that irritate me about the way fundamentalist Christians are always trying to get religion into the public school system, not the least of which is that it is unconstitutional and therefore wholly un-American, despite their assertions that this is a “Christian” nation.
The main issue I have, though, is that it’s not as if it’s impossible for children to receive instruction in Christian belief systems. It seems to me that there are these things called churches which pretty much specialize in it. In fact, that’s pretty much all they do. It’s not like they also sell discount men’s watches. Christian belief systems and bingo; that’s basically it.
And they’re not that hard to find, either. Most of them have these big steeples and crosses that make them pretty easy to spot.
It seems to me that the real issue is that there’s yet another child-rearing responsibility that parents want to abdicate to someone else. You know, rather than devoting all of your time to protesting the removal of religion from our schools, why don’t you spend that time reading the bible to your kids or taking them to church? If it’s really that important to you, why do you want to leave it up to someone else? And if you can’t find a way to make the time to do so, maybe you should re-evaluate just how important this whole religion thing actually is to you. You might find that you just like having something to be angry about, and that the actual cause isn’t as important to you as simply having a cause.
But, if you do some soul-searching and you still find that you want someone else to teach your kids about something as complex as your beliefs about the meaning of life, the nature of the soul, and what happens to us after we die, wouldn’t you rather leave it up to the experts rather than the people who have trouble even teaching them the stuff that they supposedly specialize in, like math? I mean, next to the fundamental questions about our place in the universe, math should be a cakewalk, and yet, math scores among American high school students are abysmal. If schools can’t teach them how to add 2+1, how the hell are they going to teach them about something like the Holy Trinity?
Of course, the proponents of ID education are arguing that they simply wish to “teach the controversy,” to make students aware of the fact that there are people who are critical of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution and that some people belief that some form of intelligence created life, the universe, and everything.
They are deliberately vague about who that “intelligence” is, as they are willing to garner support from non-Christian religions which also believe in some kind of guiding intelligence. In that fashion they can make it palatable to bring religion in to public schools, as it’s an inoffensive and “generic” religion. Of course, once they establish a foothold you can bet that no public school will be teaching little Ravi about Brahma, but they might just teach him that he’s a filthy sinner who’s going to Hell for not believing in Jesus and that that whole “reincarnation” thing that his parents told him about has about as much validity as that “evolution” thing.
After all, despite their aversion to the notion as applied to human development, these are people who are willing to move slowly and institute evolutionary changes in policy.
But if we assume that the push to “teach the controversy” is not part of some larger goal, the question then becomes, what is there to teach?
I recall in high school that our science teacher said something along the lines of “some people have specific religious beliefs about how life came about, but this is the theory that we work with in science.”
It seems to me that was a sufficient acknowledgement of the fact that people have religions beliefs.
I mean, is there really anything else that needs to be said? Does ID actually have any sort of methodology that’s comparable to the Cartesian system used in mainstream science? Do they have theorems? Formulas?
Even if schools got into the specifics of a particular ID belief system, how long would that take?
“As an alternative to what we’ve been able to determine through careful observation, experimentation, and a specific process of critical thinking and peer review, there are some people who believe that we should instead focus on a book written thousands of years ago, which tells us that this old man living in the sky made the entire universe in six days.
“As a follow-up, He created a guy named Adam out of some dirt. Despite the fact that currently the region in which Adam lived is inhabited primarily by non-whites, Adam was a Caucasian who looked just like us….well, obviously not like you Sadir. Or you Leon. No, he didn’t look like you either Zhao. What? I don’t know, maybe it was white sand.
“Anyway, then God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman named Eve out of it. This is why woman are inferior to men. What? No, the basic human form is not female. I don’t care if the male S-E-X organs – and you’re getting detention for mentioning those words – are like external versions of their female counterparts. No, I don’t know why men have nipples. That’s not important!
“What is important is that a snake told Adam and Eve to eat a piece of fruit that God specifically told them not to – what? It doesn’t matter why God put it there if He didn’t want them to eat it. What? No, snakes most certainly did not lose their ability to speak as a result of evolution.
“So they ate the fruit and that’s why it’s bad to be naked. Then God kicked them out of paradise and they had two sons. One killed the other, and God marked him so that other people would know who he was – look, the book doesn’t say where the other people came from, all right? And even if they did engage in inbreeding it wasn’t bad then and it didn’t lead to birth defects and down syndrome because it didn’t, that’s why.
“And that is a perfectly valid and reasonable alternative theory to Evolution. No, it can’t be tested and is not subject to peer review because you’re not supposed to question it. You just read the book – or better yet, let someone smarter than you read it for you and explain it to you – and believe it. Period. Questions? Put your hands down; didn’t I just tell you not to ask questions?”
Notice that Jesus didn’t get brought up in that sample lecture. Along with the flood – which further winnowed down the gene pool amongst humans and animals – J.C. would belong in the advanced class, and the fact that he was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, non-Semitic looking Caucasian who lived among Semitic people would most definitely not be chalked up to mutation…
In any case, my point is that there really wouldn’t be all that much to teach. At most, I should think some kind of handout would take care of it (and personally, I think the copies of the handout should be made using a mimeograph machine, just for the nostalgic value of that unmistakable smell, which kids today just aren’t familiar with, which I think is more of a shame than them not being taught about ID).
Of course, if schools are going to teach ID, I do believe that they should also teach the theory of FSM. Everyone should have the chance to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
That’s the other point of bringing ID into the schools, though: evangelism. Apparently entire television networks, advertising, books, movies, the best efforts of Mel Gibson and churches alike, and the last two thousand years of history just aren’t managing to spread “The Word.” There are, apparently, hillbillies living in caves throughout America who have managed to go their whole lives without hearing about the whole “Christianity” thing.
Even though they live in caves, these reclusive creatures do still, evidently, attend public schools and would therefore be prime candidates for public school evangelism.
Never mind that in a pluralistic society such as America teaching one form of religion is exclusionary (and, as mentioned earlier, unconstitutional), the biggest problem is that there isn’t even one form of Christianity. Doctrinal differences can be incredibly minor among denominations, but in some cases they are so extreme that two denominations can hardly be said to share the same core beliefs. So which version will it be? Roman Catholic? Southern Baptist? Lutheran, and if so, which kind? ELCA? Missouri Synod?
Of course, I think the one thing that all denominations would agree upon is that it sure as hell wouldn’t be something weird like what the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe.
After all, those freaks go around bothering people and trying to insinuate their belief systems in places they don’t belong, and…umm...well, it’s a good thing that most fundamentalists don’t really understand the concept of irony.
Anyway, let’s say that there’s some kind of trivia contest or something to determine which version of Christianity is taught in schools. In a pluralistic society, that would require that FSM be let in…along with Scientology, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism….you know, maybe it would be easier if we just didn’t let religion in at all, huh?
No, no, no! Religion must be taught in schools. After all, it’s just like Jesus said: “Render onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render onto God that which is God’s.” Oh, wait, that one doesn’t quite work. Umm…well, odds are that Jesus said something apropos.
Basically, screw pluralism is the battle cry. Who cares what a bunch of heathens believe? They’re lucky we don’t go all Spanish Inquisition on their asses.
After all, nobody expects it…
Back to teaching FSM alongside other forms of ID, though. I do think that it would be a good alternative to not teaching ID at all (which would be the ideal).
However, I think there’s an even better option.
After all, the separation of Church and State doesn’t exist solely for the benefit of us heathens; it protects the Church, too.
So if we’re going to erode the separation and start having religion spilling into public education, why can’t public education start spilling into religion?
If fundamentalist Christians are so eager to “teach the controversy” in schools, why not do the same in churches? Instead of always reading from the Gospels, why not read from the Bhagavad Gita, or from “On The Origin of Species” or some other science text?
After all, it would only be fair. If religion can be used to attack science in school, science should be allowed to attack religion in church.
Just a thought.
For any of you out there who might be offended by this entry, which could be perceived as an attack on Christianity, all I can say is, “deal with it.”
It’s not like I’m throwing you to lions or anything, though honestly, Christians seem to only be happy when they’re being persecuted, so maybe you’d be happier if I were throwing you to the lions.
Regardless, my point in all of this is not that religion (even fundamentalist Christianity) is bad, just that it has no place in the teaching of science, especially since it already has its own place.
God doesn’t require that every aspect of life tied to religion and the church. He does make allowances for the existence of the secular (that whole “render onto Caesar” thing).
If you don’t feel like you’re getting enough church, though, go to church more often; don’t put it into the school.
Anyway, I’ve said more than enough (and more than I intended to) on the subject, and since I have said so much, I won’t subject you to more conventional Threshold fare right now, so, in a move that many conservative Christians could learn from, I’ll save the standard recap of my day for a more appropriate time.
The whole cute dog thing, though, did remind me of something I saw on CNN over the weekend: the world’s ugliest dog.
Damn, that thing is repulsive. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Like some kind of zombie dog.
Even so, I checked out the owner’s blog (there’s a link to it on the “Ugliest Dog” site), and apparently someone wrote that he hopes that the dog and the owner die a long, painful death? WTF is wrong with people? So just because the dog is ugly that means it should suffer? And the same goes for the owner just because she’s crazy enough to love the ugly thing?
People are fucking retards, particularly when you consider that the dog is purebred, which means that people actually made the damn thing look like that.
I swear, over the centuries people have done some seriously fucked up shit when it comes to dog-breeding. Much of it just seems like sheer cruelty.
Over the weekend at work we were all doing some reading on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).
Basically, in response to a Kansas School Board’s decision to teach the theory of “Intelligent Design” as a counterpoint to the theory of Evolution in schools, a young man wrote an open letter demanding that they give equal consideration to the theory that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe (starting off with trees, a mountain, and a midgit[sic]).
The whole point is to draw attention to just how ludicrous the whole “debate” actually is. No matter how you try to gussy it up with a fancy, scientific-sounding name, the belief that some sort of Supreme Being created the universe simply has no place in a science curriculum, and the idea that said Supreme Being is a Flying Spaghetti Monster is no less ludicrous, in that context, than the belief that it was Jehovah, or Allah, or any other deity.
Faith can’t be verified through testing or peer review. That’s what makes it faith, and not science.
There are so many things that irritate me about the way fundamentalist Christians are always trying to get religion into the public school system, not the least of which is that it is unconstitutional and therefore wholly un-American, despite their assertions that this is a “Christian” nation.
The main issue I have, though, is that it’s not as if it’s impossible for children to receive instruction in Christian belief systems. It seems to me that there are these things called churches which pretty much specialize in it. In fact, that’s pretty much all they do. It’s not like they also sell discount men’s watches. Christian belief systems and bingo; that’s basically it.
And they’re not that hard to find, either. Most of them have these big steeples and crosses that make them pretty easy to spot.
It seems to me that the real issue is that there’s yet another child-rearing responsibility that parents want to abdicate to someone else. You know, rather than devoting all of your time to protesting the removal of religion from our schools, why don’t you spend that time reading the bible to your kids or taking them to church? If it’s really that important to you, why do you want to leave it up to someone else? And if you can’t find a way to make the time to do so, maybe you should re-evaluate just how important this whole religion thing actually is to you. You might find that you just like having something to be angry about, and that the actual cause isn’t as important to you as simply having a cause.
But, if you do some soul-searching and you still find that you want someone else to teach your kids about something as complex as your beliefs about the meaning of life, the nature of the soul, and what happens to us after we die, wouldn’t you rather leave it up to the experts rather than the people who have trouble even teaching them the stuff that they supposedly specialize in, like math? I mean, next to the fundamental questions about our place in the universe, math should be a cakewalk, and yet, math scores among American high school students are abysmal. If schools can’t teach them how to add 2+1, how the hell are they going to teach them about something like the Holy Trinity?
Of course, the proponents of ID education are arguing that they simply wish to “teach the controversy,” to make students aware of the fact that there are people who are critical of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution and that some people belief that some form of intelligence created life, the universe, and everything.
They are deliberately vague about who that “intelligence” is, as they are willing to garner support from non-Christian religions which also believe in some kind of guiding intelligence. In that fashion they can make it palatable to bring religion in to public schools, as it’s an inoffensive and “generic” religion. Of course, once they establish a foothold you can bet that no public school will be teaching little Ravi about Brahma, but they might just teach him that he’s a filthy sinner who’s going to Hell for not believing in Jesus and that that whole “reincarnation” thing that his parents told him about has about as much validity as that “evolution” thing.
After all, despite their aversion to the notion as applied to human development, these are people who are willing to move slowly and institute evolutionary changes in policy.
But if we assume that the push to “teach the controversy” is not part of some larger goal, the question then becomes, what is there to teach?
I recall in high school that our science teacher said something along the lines of “some people have specific religious beliefs about how life came about, but this is the theory that we work with in science.”
It seems to me that was a sufficient acknowledgement of the fact that people have religions beliefs.
I mean, is there really anything else that needs to be said? Does ID actually have any sort of methodology that’s comparable to the Cartesian system used in mainstream science? Do they have theorems? Formulas?
Even if schools got into the specifics of a particular ID belief system, how long would that take?
“As an alternative to what we’ve been able to determine through careful observation, experimentation, and a specific process of critical thinking and peer review, there are some people who believe that we should instead focus on a book written thousands of years ago, which tells us that this old man living in the sky made the entire universe in six days.
“As a follow-up, He created a guy named Adam out of some dirt. Despite the fact that currently the region in which Adam lived is inhabited primarily by non-whites, Adam was a Caucasian who looked just like us….well, obviously not like you Sadir. Or you Leon. No, he didn’t look like you either Zhao. What? I don’t know, maybe it was white sand.
“Anyway, then God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman named Eve out of it. This is why woman are inferior to men. What? No, the basic human form is not female. I don’t care if the male S-E-X organs – and you’re getting detention for mentioning those words – are like external versions of their female counterparts. No, I don’t know why men have nipples. That’s not important!
“What is important is that a snake told Adam and Eve to eat a piece of fruit that God specifically told them not to – what? It doesn’t matter why God put it there if He didn’t want them to eat it. What? No, snakes most certainly did not lose their ability to speak as a result of evolution.
“So they ate the fruit and that’s why it’s bad to be naked. Then God kicked them out of paradise and they had two sons. One killed the other, and God marked him so that other people would know who he was – look, the book doesn’t say where the other people came from, all right? And even if they did engage in inbreeding it wasn’t bad then and it didn’t lead to birth defects and down syndrome because it didn’t, that’s why.
“And that is a perfectly valid and reasonable alternative theory to Evolution. No, it can’t be tested and is not subject to peer review because you’re not supposed to question it. You just read the book – or better yet, let someone smarter than you read it for you and explain it to you – and believe it. Period. Questions? Put your hands down; didn’t I just tell you not to ask questions?”
Notice that Jesus didn’t get brought up in that sample lecture. Along with the flood – which further winnowed down the gene pool amongst humans and animals – J.C. would belong in the advanced class, and the fact that he was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, non-Semitic looking Caucasian who lived among Semitic people would most definitely not be chalked up to mutation…
In any case, my point is that there really wouldn’t be all that much to teach. At most, I should think some kind of handout would take care of it (and personally, I think the copies of the handout should be made using a mimeograph machine, just for the nostalgic value of that unmistakable smell, which kids today just aren’t familiar with, which I think is more of a shame than them not being taught about ID).
Of course, if schools are going to teach ID, I do believe that they should also teach the theory of FSM. Everyone should have the chance to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
That’s the other point of bringing ID into the schools, though: evangelism. Apparently entire television networks, advertising, books, movies, the best efforts of Mel Gibson and churches alike, and the last two thousand years of history just aren’t managing to spread “The Word.” There are, apparently, hillbillies living in caves throughout America who have managed to go their whole lives without hearing about the whole “Christianity” thing.
Even though they live in caves, these reclusive creatures do still, evidently, attend public schools and would therefore be prime candidates for public school evangelism.
Never mind that in a pluralistic society such as America teaching one form of religion is exclusionary (and, as mentioned earlier, unconstitutional), the biggest problem is that there isn’t even one form of Christianity. Doctrinal differences can be incredibly minor among denominations, but in some cases they are so extreme that two denominations can hardly be said to share the same core beliefs. So which version will it be? Roman Catholic? Southern Baptist? Lutheran, and if so, which kind? ELCA? Missouri Synod?
Of course, I think the one thing that all denominations would agree upon is that it sure as hell wouldn’t be something weird like what the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe.
After all, those freaks go around bothering people and trying to insinuate their belief systems in places they don’t belong, and…umm...well, it’s a good thing that most fundamentalists don’t really understand the concept of irony.
Anyway, let’s say that there’s some kind of trivia contest or something to determine which version of Christianity is taught in schools. In a pluralistic society, that would require that FSM be let in…along with Scientology, Wicca, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism….you know, maybe it would be easier if we just didn’t let religion in at all, huh?
No, no, no! Religion must be taught in schools. After all, it’s just like Jesus said: “Render onto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render onto God that which is God’s.” Oh, wait, that one doesn’t quite work. Umm…well, odds are that Jesus said something apropos.
Basically, screw pluralism is the battle cry. Who cares what a bunch of heathens believe? They’re lucky we don’t go all Spanish Inquisition on their asses.
After all, nobody expects it…
Back to teaching FSM alongside other forms of ID, though. I do think that it would be a good alternative to not teaching ID at all (which would be the ideal).
However, I think there’s an even better option.
After all, the separation of Church and State doesn’t exist solely for the benefit of us heathens; it protects the Church, too.
So if we’re going to erode the separation and start having religion spilling into public education, why can’t public education start spilling into religion?
If fundamentalist Christians are so eager to “teach the controversy” in schools, why not do the same in churches? Instead of always reading from the Gospels, why not read from the Bhagavad Gita, or from “On The Origin of Species” or some other science text?
After all, it would only be fair. If religion can be used to attack science in school, science should be allowed to attack religion in church.
Just a thought.
For any of you out there who might be offended by this entry, which could be perceived as an attack on Christianity, all I can say is, “deal with it.”
It’s not like I’m throwing you to lions or anything, though honestly, Christians seem to only be happy when they’re being persecuted, so maybe you’d be happier if I were throwing you to the lions.
Regardless, my point in all of this is not that religion (even fundamentalist Christianity) is bad, just that it has no place in the teaching of science, especially since it already has its own place.
God doesn’t require that every aspect of life tied to religion and the church. He does make allowances for the existence of the secular (that whole “render onto Caesar” thing).
If you don’t feel like you’re getting enough church, though, go to church more often; don’t put it into the school.
Anyway, I’ve said more than enough (and more than I intended to) on the subject, and since I have said so much, I won’t subject you to more conventional Threshold fare right now, so, in a move that many conservative Christians could learn from, I’ll save the standard recap of my day for a more appropriate time.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The Threshold/Carla Gugino Anniversary/Birthday Extravaganza!
On this very day in 2004, Threshold was born.
I mentioned last week that there would be much hullabaloo and celebration today as part of the Threshold Anniversary Party.
…
Here’s the thing.
One of the few real goals I actually had when I first launched Threshold was to have a forum in which I could impart some of the lessons I’ve learned in life on to others.
A major lesson that I’ve learned (and re-learned on countless occasions) is that life is usually kind of disappointing.
So if you were actually expecting something special today, all I can say is “tough shit.”
Seriously, I got nothin’.
Today will be a day much like any other, with nothing special done to mark its passage.
Honestly, I think that’s really more in keeping with the spirit of Threshold anyway, particularly the laziness of the “spirit of Threshold.”
Still, I do thank all of you who have stopped by at least semi-regularly and helped make Threshold the….well, there’s really no way to measure success in this case, so I guess what I’m really saying is thanks for nothing.
I’m kidding, of course. I do appreciate the fact that there are at least a couple of people out there reading this, and I can’t help but admire your ability to stay awake while doing so.
After all, as boring as living my life is, reading about it must be a thousand times worse.
I liken it to golf. It’s boring to play, even more boring to watch, and yet, as I discovered while riding with Brian one day, there are actually XM Satellite Radio stations that air life broadcasts of golf matches. Golf on the radio! Nothing could possibly be more boring than that.
Except, or course, reading Threshold.
So, as I say, I admire your tenacity, or masochism, as the case may be.
Of course I do try to make my entries as entertaining as possible, drawing on the tragically comic moments of my banal existence to deliver up the yuks on an at least semi-consistent basis.
So here’s to one year of Threshold entries and to their continuation for…well, a while, anyway.
And now, back to business as usual.
Having woken up sometime shortly after 8 this morning, thanks to some woman raving loudly, and at length, outside my window in an incredibly irritating “baby-talk” voice about the cuteness of some other woman’s new puppy,
Realizing that I would be unlikely to get back to sleep, I opted to get up and go for a walk.
Accomplishing that, I talked to my mother, showered, went grocery shopping, and came home in time to realize that, though it was only 12:30, my day was basically over.
I had done everything that I was going to do. Short of having to rush over to Safeway to pick up something that I may have neglected to get while shopping, I had no additional reason to leave my apartment, and I was unlikely to have any sort of interaction with another human being for the remainder of my waking hours, and likely until Wednesday, when I have to go in to work for a training session.
So, having nothing better to do with my time I sat down to watch some of the many hours of TV programming that’s been sitting unwatched on my DVR’s hard drive.
Feeling especially masochistic, I opted for “Catwoman.”
Even though I knew that I would hate it, I figured I should watch it.
I could go on at length about just how bad the movie was (and how much better it could have been if they would have attempted to just adapt some of the more recent “Catwoman” material to the big screen, particularly the story “Selina’s Big Score,” or really any aspect of what Ed Brubaker brought to the character during his run on the series), but suffice to say that they essentially took every post-Matrix action movie cliché, along with ever post-X-Men comic book movie cliché, and crammed them into one big steaming pile.
(I would use a “litter box” metaphor here, but the movie played out every feline pun and metaphor imaginable to such an extent that I can’t even bring myself to try.)
There was so much not to like about the movie. As sexy as Halle Berry is – and trust me, she’s plenty sexy – no woman can pull off purring without sounding like a complete moron. Maybe some people think that having a woman act like a cat is sexy, but I’m not one of them.
And the costume (Open-toed shoes? WTF?), revealing though it was, was just too stupid-looking to be sexy.
Okay, I said I wouldn’t go on at length, but I do need to mention that the people making the movie were so bereft of creativity (which was all the more reason for them to not try to come up with their own ideas and instead simply adapt “Selina’s Big Score” to the screen) that they cast the guy who played “The Merovingian” in the last two “Matrix” movies and basically had him play The Merovingian minus the French accent.
Maybe that’s a shortcoming on the part of the actor himself, but the similarities went beyond the way he talked and acted. He and Sharon Stone, who played his wife, had the exact same love/hate relationship that he had with his wife, played by Monica Belucci, in the “Matrix” movies.
Anyway, at least I got watching that out of the way. I still have several movies and a few TV shows to watch.
Speaking of which, this season it seems that my DVR will be getting a workout, as there are actually some new shows coming out that seem like they’re worth checking out.
One that I most look forward to is “My Name is Earl.” It looks to be very entertaining, and will be the first live-action sit-com to catch my attention in a long time.
Of course, the most noteworthy new series, from my perspective, looks to be one starring the lovely, talented, and oft-mentioned in these pages, Carla Gugino.
Her new series is a supernatural thriller in the vein of “The X-Files,” which in itself could make it appealing to me (though I was never really a big “X-Files” fan), particularly given that it features Ms. Gugino.
However, the real kicker is that the show is entitled…Threshold!
So it goes without saying that I’ll be sure to tune in (albeit via my DVR, as it will be on past my bedtime on Fridays) to check it out.
Perhaps it’s a sign of some cosmic connection between Carla and I (I can call you Carla, right?). After all, besides being involved in projects that share the same name, I just noticed on the main page at IMDb that today is her birthday!
So Carla and Threshold were born on the same day, and she’s starring in a show called “Threshold.” It’s spooky, and is, perhaps, some sort of supernatural occurrence that bears investigating (Please, Carla: come on over and “investigate.”).
Oh yeah, and besides Carla, Brent Spiner (aka Lt. Commander Data) is on the show, and who doesn’t like Data?
In any case, I would like to officially send out shared birthday greetings from Threshold to Carla. Happy Birthday!
Over the weekend I found a suitable (read: cheap) hard drive enclosure kit and placed an order for it. It wasn’t until after I’d placed the order that I noticed that the kit was on back order, and for “availability” it said, “Usually ships within 2-4 weeks.” D’oh!
A book I ordered a while ago did arrive today, with a loud bang that scared the crap out of me – the mailman apparently just hurled it at my door.
The book in question was Book Five of “Promethea” by Alan Moore, which wraps up the series. I’ll be sad to see the series end, but I’m glad that I’ve got the last book.
I mentioned last week that as of yesterday I’ve been sober for five years. I had been about halfway through the day before I even remembered. I didn’t do anything to really mark the occasion.
I suppose that I’m proud that I’ve made it this far, and that my life, such as it is, has improved as much as it has. I mean, yeah, I don’t go out and have fun very…ever, but I also don’t wake up in jail, and though I have a lot of them, I can actually manage to pay my bills. Also, the fact that I can’t remember the last time I had a blackout is a definite plus.
Get it? Can’t remember the last time I had a blackout? See, it’s funny because…never mind.
As for momentous occasions, today also marked my niece Jourdan’s first day of college. I hope that all went well for her and that she manages to keep her focus so that she can achieve her goals. I don’t want her to ever have to look back and realize that she not only hasn’t reached her goals, she’s totally lost sight of them and has all but forgotten what they were.
….ummm, not that I actually know anyone who’s experienced that or anything.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry, I think, before I start letting the occasion make me maudlin and trapped in self-reflection the way significant dates often can.
So once again, my thanks go out to my (extremely) small core of loyal Threshold readers. I hope to still see you around this time next year.
I mentioned last week that there would be much hullabaloo and celebration today as part of the Threshold Anniversary Party.
…
Here’s the thing.
One of the few real goals I actually had when I first launched Threshold was to have a forum in which I could impart some of the lessons I’ve learned in life on to others.
A major lesson that I’ve learned (and re-learned on countless occasions) is that life is usually kind of disappointing.
So if you were actually expecting something special today, all I can say is “tough shit.”
Seriously, I got nothin’.
Today will be a day much like any other, with nothing special done to mark its passage.
Honestly, I think that’s really more in keeping with the spirit of Threshold anyway, particularly the laziness of the “spirit of Threshold.”
Still, I do thank all of you who have stopped by at least semi-regularly and helped make Threshold the….well, there’s really no way to measure success in this case, so I guess what I’m really saying is thanks for nothing.
I’m kidding, of course. I do appreciate the fact that there are at least a couple of people out there reading this, and I can’t help but admire your ability to stay awake while doing so.
After all, as boring as living my life is, reading about it must be a thousand times worse.
I liken it to golf. It’s boring to play, even more boring to watch, and yet, as I discovered while riding with Brian one day, there are actually XM Satellite Radio stations that air life broadcasts of golf matches. Golf on the radio! Nothing could possibly be more boring than that.
Except, or course, reading Threshold.
So, as I say, I admire your tenacity, or masochism, as the case may be.
Of course I do try to make my entries as entertaining as possible, drawing on the tragically comic moments of my banal existence to deliver up the yuks on an at least semi-consistent basis.
So here’s to one year of Threshold entries and to their continuation for…well, a while, anyway.
And now, back to business as usual.
Having woken up sometime shortly after 8 this morning, thanks to some woman raving loudly, and at length, outside my window in an incredibly irritating “baby-talk” voice about the cuteness of some other woman’s new puppy,
Realizing that I would be unlikely to get back to sleep, I opted to get up and go for a walk.
Accomplishing that, I talked to my mother, showered, went grocery shopping, and came home in time to realize that, though it was only 12:30, my day was basically over.
I had done everything that I was going to do. Short of having to rush over to Safeway to pick up something that I may have neglected to get while shopping, I had no additional reason to leave my apartment, and I was unlikely to have any sort of interaction with another human being for the remainder of my waking hours, and likely until Wednesday, when I have to go in to work for a training session.
So, having nothing better to do with my time I sat down to watch some of the many hours of TV programming that’s been sitting unwatched on my DVR’s hard drive.
Feeling especially masochistic, I opted for “Catwoman.”
Even though I knew that I would hate it, I figured I should watch it.
I could go on at length about just how bad the movie was (and how much better it could have been if they would have attempted to just adapt some of the more recent “Catwoman” material to the big screen, particularly the story “Selina’s Big Score,” or really any aspect of what Ed Brubaker brought to the character during his run on the series), but suffice to say that they essentially took every post-Matrix action movie cliché, along with ever post-X-Men comic book movie cliché, and crammed them into one big steaming pile.
(I would use a “litter box” metaphor here, but the movie played out every feline pun and metaphor imaginable to such an extent that I can’t even bring myself to try.)
There was so much not to like about the movie. As sexy as Halle Berry is – and trust me, she’s plenty sexy – no woman can pull off purring without sounding like a complete moron. Maybe some people think that having a woman act like a cat is sexy, but I’m not one of them.
And the costume (Open-toed shoes? WTF?), revealing though it was, was just too stupid-looking to be sexy.
Okay, I said I wouldn’t go on at length, but I do need to mention that the people making the movie were so bereft of creativity (which was all the more reason for them to not try to come up with their own ideas and instead simply adapt “Selina’s Big Score” to the screen) that they cast the guy who played “The Merovingian” in the last two “Matrix” movies and basically had him play The Merovingian minus the French accent.
Maybe that’s a shortcoming on the part of the actor himself, but the similarities went beyond the way he talked and acted. He and Sharon Stone, who played his wife, had the exact same love/hate relationship that he had with his wife, played by Monica Belucci, in the “Matrix” movies.
Anyway, at least I got watching that out of the way. I still have several movies and a few TV shows to watch.
Speaking of which, this season it seems that my DVR will be getting a workout, as there are actually some new shows coming out that seem like they’re worth checking out.
One that I most look forward to is “My Name is Earl.” It looks to be very entertaining, and will be the first live-action sit-com to catch my attention in a long time.
Of course, the most noteworthy new series, from my perspective, looks to be one starring the lovely, talented, and oft-mentioned in these pages, Carla Gugino.
Her new series is a supernatural thriller in the vein of “The X-Files,” which in itself could make it appealing to me (though I was never really a big “X-Files” fan), particularly given that it features Ms. Gugino.
However, the real kicker is that the show is entitled…Threshold!
So it goes without saying that I’ll be sure to tune in (albeit via my DVR, as it will be on past my bedtime on Fridays) to check it out.
Perhaps it’s a sign of some cosmic connection between Carla and I (I can call you Carla, right?). After all, besides being involved in projects that share the same name, I just noticed on the main page at IMDb that today is her birthday!
So Carla and Threshold were born on the same day, and she’s starring in a show called “Threshold.” It’s spooky, and is, perhaps, some sort of supernatural occurrence that bears investigating (Please, Carla: come on over and “investigate.”).
Oh yeah, and besides Carla, Brent Spiner (aka Lt. Commander Data) is on the show, and who doesn’t like Data?
In any case, I would like to officially send out shared birthday greetings from Threshold to Carla. Happy Birthday!
Over the weekend I found a suitable (read: cheap) hard drive enclosure kit and placed an order for it. It wasn’t until after I’d placed the order that I noticed that the kit was on back order, and for “availability” it said, “Usually ships within 2-4 weeks.” D’oh!
A book I ordered a while ago did arrive today, with a loud bang that scared the crap out of me – the mailman apparently just hurled it at my door.
The book in question was Book Five of “Promethea” by Alan Moore, which wraps up the series. I’ll be sad to see the series end, but I’m glad that I’ve got the last book.
I mentioned last week that as of yesterday I’ve been sober for five years. I had been about halfway through the day before I even remembered. I didn’t do anything to really mark the occasion.
I suppose that I’m proud that I’ve made it this far, and that my life, such as it is, has improved as much as it has. I mean, yeah, I don’t go out and have fun very…ever, but I also don’t wake up in jail, and though I have a lot of them, I can actually manage to pay my bills. Also, the fact that I can’t remember the last time I had a blackout is a definite plus.
Get it? Can’t remember the last time I had a blackout? See, it’s funny because…never mind.
As for momentous occasions, today also marked my niece Jourdan’s first day of college. I hope that all went well for her and that she manages to keep her focus so that she can achieve her goals. I don’t want her to ever have to look back and realize that she not only hasn’t reached her goals, she’s totally lost sight of them and has all but forgotten what they were.
….ummm, not that I actually know anyone who’s experienced that or anything.
In any case, that’s going to do it for this entry, I think, before I start letting the occasion make me maudlin and trapped in self-reflection the way significant dates often can.
So once again, my thanks go out to my (extremely) small core of loyal Threshold readers. I hope to still see you around this time next year.
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