The Perils and Promise of Cyber Love?

A friend of mine seems to be madly in "love" with a woman from a very different culture and many years his junior whom he's never even met, although he did see her once from afar but exchanged no words with her at the time, and with whom he's communicated only by text, voice messages, and, for the first time last night, an extended voice chat on Facebook Messenger.

It remains to be seen whether the feeling, or anything even remotely approximating it, is mutual, although there's some suggestion that there's at least deepening disclosure and, perhaps, affection coming from the other side.

I place quotation marks around "love" above because I seriously wonder if it's possible to love somebody under the limited circumstances I've described, and if it's wise to think that, just from this kind of circumscribed interaction alone, one has probably met the person of one's romantic dreams and that they should get married.

I have severe doubts, even though I've arguably played a major role in bringing this developing situation into fruition and now feel more than a twinge of regret ambivalently mixed with hope that things will end up for the good of all concerned.

A case could be made, I suppose, that people can get to know one another surprisingly well from a distance through the technological miracle of modern electronics, perhaps even better in vital ways than they likely could under intimate pressure to put their best face forward in close physical proximity with the desired other.

That is, maybe the two parties involved have revealed more about themselves to each other much more quickly this way than they would have over a much longer period were they spending time with each other in person, and that whatever they're coming to feel for one another is realistically based on deeper knowledge and understanding of each other through this modern means.

But then again, there are things about a person and our compatibility with them that we can only really know by spending time with them in person, whether in or out of bed, and these things, although perhaps not all-important, may be important enough that we shouldn't rush headlong into feelings of "love," much less thoughts of marriage, without them. Yet, how can we deny the heart what it's bent on feeling, and to what extent should we even try?

In saying these things, I probably sound like the naive, wishy washy, and abysmally socially inept person I unquestionably am. I've been around a comparatively long time, but my wisdom and commonsense fall woefully short of my longevity, and, as paradoxical as it may sound, the longer I live, the more uncertain I seem to become about virtually everything involving human relationships and almost everything else.

So, I guess the best I can do is sit back and watch the unfolding melodrama with as much empathy and caring as I can for my friend and the other person, whom I know very casually, and, if asked, offer the best advice, however inept it might be, that I can and hope that all concerned live happily ever after together if possible and separately if need be.

White Supremacists Attacked in Sacramento

Things got violent and bloody in downtown Sacramento this afternoon not more than five miles away from my house. A white supremacist group assembled in front of the state capitol building to demonstrate white power or some such idea, and they were met by a large group of protesters who physically clashed with them.

I don't know all the details, but as of this writing, I understand that at least five people were transported to the hospital with stab wounds and/or other injuries, and two of the victims were said to be in serious if not critical condition. I've also read unconfirmed reports that the victims in question were all protesters stabbed and/or clubbed by the white supremacist demonstrators in self-defense.

In any case, the video I've seen shows quite the melee. It took state police on horses and city police to break it up. And in one video, I saw a young Asian woman representing the protesters triumphantly saying words to the effect that white supremacists aren't welcome to march in Sacramento and that if they do, they'll be turned away forcefully if need be.

As you might expect, Facebook abounded with a spectrum of opinion about the confrontation. Some blamed Donald Trump for creating a climate of anger and hatred. Others said the dastardly supremacists got what they deserved, with one of my "friends" calling the female Asian protester a "heroine" and saying, "To arms if necessary." Others said that while they detested the white supremacist message, they believed that everyone has a right to nonviolently express their opinion without being physically attacked. And then there were those who went further and excoriated the evil liberals who think only they have a right to free speech and that everyone who disagrees with them should be silenced in any and every way necessary. Before you knew it, the commenters were busy insulting each other. Suffice it to say that these kinds of discussions seldom bring out the best in humankind, and this was no exception.

I agree with those who said that the skinhead supremacists had a right to march nonviolently without being assaulted and battered. But I can also empathize with those who say that some views are so repulsive and provocative that they shouldn't be tolerated. I admit that a part of me felt a hint of glee that those odious supremacists were attacked. For not only were some of them injured, but the police prevented them from marching and dispersed them after the violence broke out. But another part of me felt saddened that people were seriously hurt by the violence and that human beings can't disagree with one another without turning physically and verbally violent about it.

Next time, if there is a next time, let the white supremacists march, and either just ignore them or hand them flowers and figuratively shower them with love bombs. But don't give them any grounds for legitimizing their derogation of non-whites and their liberal supporters.

But what if they were the local pastor and his congregation at a gay parade shouting and waving signs to the effect that all gays should be rounded up by the federal government and shot by firing squad? Or what if they were NAMBLA members demonstrating for the right of men to have legal sex with young boys? Or what if it was a group of white skinheads in Ferguson, Missouri marching down the street yelling "Ni**ers" when race relations there were already running very hot?

I guess a principled person would say that they should have that right no matter how provocative their demonstration happens to be, but one would nevertheless be hard-pressed to blame protesters for posing very vociferous if not physically violent opposition to them.

I just hope that if this sort of thing has to happen somewhere else, it doesn't happen anymore in my fair city.

Preliminary Thoughts on Brexit

Brexit seems to be the world's biggest story at the moment. The British people have voted in a referendum to exit from the European Union, and in the immediate aftermath of this momentous decision, ripples of uncertainty and chaos are coursing through the economies and politics of many nations.

I've done some reading about what Brexit is and what it's likely to mean for the UK and the world, but I'd be the first to admit that I know very little of what there is to know about the whole thing. And it seems pretty clear to me that even those who know vastly more about it than I do don't begin to know for sure what's going to happen as a result of it.

Some on one far end are predicting enduring economic and political catastrophe. Some at the other far end are predicting economic and political nirvana for the UK and for other nations that extricate themselves from the centralized mismanagement and evil of globalization and open immigration.

As for me, I'm intellectually agnostic and taking a wait and see attitude about it. But emotionally I'm angry about Brexit, and I haven't been reticent to focus that anger on a Facebook friend of mine who voted for Brexit and is happy as hell that it passed.

I think what I'm so angry about is that I see the British vote as largely the result of a misguided populism fanned by power-hungry demagogues appealing to the deeply entrenched tribalism, racism, nativism, isolationism, and simplemindedness of large swaths of the population, much like Donald Trump is doing in this country, and I hate it, just hate it.

But then I think that, aside from momentary ill effects of Brexit on our own economy, I really don't have good reason to care all that much about what happens in the UK. It's their country and their decision to make, and I need to stop engaging in one of my most frustratingly ineffectual pastimes--trying to control what others think and do.

I admit that I do have concerns that what happened in the UK could presage a Donald Trump presidency. After all, just as pollsters here are predicting that Hillary Clinton will win November's election, I think pollsters in the UK were predicting that Brexit would not prevail there, and look what happened.

I read an article somewhere arguing that the two situations aren't equivalent because whereas Brexit is largely the result of activated racism on the part of many if not most of those who voted for it, Trump's largely racist message of blocking immigration and condemning radical Islam will not win enough hearts and minds of our much more racially and ethnically diverse electorate to get him elected. However, I'm not so sanguine about this.

But the bottom line, as I see it now, is that frustration, anger, and fear about what Brexit means for the UK, the world, and the USA won't help me or anyone else. So, it's time to bring my emotions in harmony with my intellect and go on about my business.

What Kinds of Guns and How Much Gun Control Do We Need?

In the wake of the recent, terrible massacre in Orlando, House Democrats and Republicans worked together to author and pass a bill that would have imposed modest restrictions on legal gun sales to certain people deemed a credible threat for gun violence. Presumably the passing of this measure would have prevented the Orlando mass-murderer from legally obtaining the weapons he used to kill 49 people and wound 53.

But the bipartisan supporters of this bill were unable to secure the number of votes necessary to overcome procedural blockage to bringing the bill before the entire House for a vote, and the subsequent 25-hour Democratic sit-in aimed at appealing to the public and the rest of Congress to have the bill brought up for a vote was eventually swept aside by Republican House Speaker Ryan, and the Republican controlled House of Representatives continued on with business as usual blocking all gun reform.

Discussions I've seen since then on Facebook and elsewhere continue to plow the same fruitless ground, and, frankly, I don't know what to think. What if any restrictions should be placed on gun ownership? Who should be allowed to own guns and related accessories, what kinds of guns and accessories should they be allowed to own, who decides, and who enforces the decisions? And would implementing stronger gun control measures on a state-by-state or federal scale significantly diminish gun deaths and violence in a country plagued with gun deaths and violence?

Both sides of the issue marshal statistics to support their cause, and, especially given my uneasy familiarity with such maxims as "Figures lie and liars figure," I don't know what to make of them. The "pro-gun" people cite figures that gun ownership stops more crime than it causes; their opponents argue the opposite with their own figures.

And then, of course, "pro-gun" people cite the Second Amendment as ironclad proof that virtually every American citizen has a right to own guns, despite the counterargument that the Second Amendment refers only to gun ownership in a "well-regulated militia" and was authored at a time when muzzle-loading muskets were the standard firearm and posed far, far less of a threat for mass-shootings than assault style semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines do today.

But the impression I get from discussing this issue at any length with ardent "pro-gun" people is that the real reason to make widespread gun ownership free and easy is not because of the Second Amendment or as a means of deterring or stopping crime, but as a way of deterring or stopping the federal government from tyrannizing the American people.

That's right, if Obama or some godless Democratic president ever gets it in his or her head that we should all be thrown into concentration camps or subjected to complete government oppression, we can grab our assault weapons and fight off the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, and Seal Team 6, and retain our freedoms as true-blue, flag-waving, apple pie devouring Americans.

In fact, one person on Facebook said, with less melodramatic elaboration, this very thing to me this morning. And I responded by asking him whether, in order to counteract the awesome weaponry of the U.S. military, private citizens should be allowed, if they can afford it, to possess the same weaponry as the U.S. military, including fully automatic weapons, flame throwers, tanks, cluster bombs, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and so forth. For if not, how credible a deterrent can the American people offer to a military takeover, and, if so, what danger would we be in from religious and political zealots and the mentally ill armed with military grade weapons of mass destruction?

I never got an answer from him. He just kept going back to the Second Amendment. I know the Supreme Court has traditionally interpreted the Second Amendment as granting private citizens outside "well-regulated militias" the right to "bear arms," but I guess I need to investigate the legal rationale for this as it seems to me very clear from reading the words alone that this right applies only to citizens manning said militias.

Aside from that, I'd like to see probing discussion in the media and elsewhere of the very issue I raise about which weapons private citizens should be allowed to own in order to deter or stop government tyranny, because I can't say that I've seen much or any such discussion.

I personally don't see compelling reason for why we shouldn't prohibit the sale and ownership of all assault style weaponry, high capacity magazines, and military type body armor, except, perhaps, with well-regulated exceptions, or why we shouldn't impose draconian sanctions on those who defy these prohibitions or, at least, who commit crimes using prohibited weaponry and accessories. People can still defend themselves with more modest weapons like conventional shotguns, hunting rifles, revolvers, and semi-automatic handguns, and they can still indulge their passion for recreational shooting or their need to hunt for food to put on the table without wielding AR-15's with 75-round drums.

These are just preliminary thoughts of mine about this perennial issue of gun control. Maybe I'll have more to say after I've investigated the matter further.

Are the Intellectually Mediocre Truly Oppressed?

I posted yesterday about an online magazine piece asserting that high intelligence is fetishized in this society while lack thereof is mocked and unfairly disadvantaged. And no sooner had I shared a link to that piece on Facebook than a thoughtful Facebook friend of mine largely disagreed with its thesis.

According to him, the media caters to stupid people with stupid "news" and entertainment content, politicians such as Donald Trump successfully appeal to the lowest common denominator in intelligence and thoughtfulness with the crassest and most simplistic political nonsense and manipulations, and stupid, thoughtless people show no shame in asserting their stupid, thoughtless opinions on Facebook and everywhere else. If anything, my friend opines, stupid, thoughtless people dominate political and other kinds of discourse in this country while intelligent, thoughtful people are given short shrift.

I concede that he may be right in some respects, but I think the article and my blogpost about it are also correct that people of average to below-average overall intelligence and/or academic achievement are looked down on and disadvantaged by a society that increasingly views high intelligence as the touchstone of human worth and which affords less and less opportunity to the intellectually and academically mediocre to earn a decent living and flourish.

Yes, the media and politicians will cater to and thereby reinforce mediocrity if there's money and power to be had from it, but this doesn't mean that those who control the media and society at large respect intellectually or academically mediocre individuals or that the mediocre consequently respect themselves and aren't filled with conscious to subliminal self-loathing, and it could and has been argued that strong support for the likes of Donald Trump and the ostentatious embrace of fundamentalist religion and racist, sexist, jingoistic, and simplistic conservative politics is at least partly the result of a backlash against feeling scorned and oppressed by the liberal intelligentsia.

In other words, I think both The Atlantic piece and my friend are right about what are two largely separate but concurrent phenomena.

We Can't All Be Smart

"As recently as the 1950s, possessing only middling intelligence was not likely to severely limit your life’s trajectory...The 2010s, in contrast, are a terrible time to not be brainy...We must stop glorifying intelligence and treating our society as a playground for the smart minority. We should instead begin shaping our economy, our schools, even our culture with an eye to the abilities and needs of the majority, and to the full range of human capacity...Smart people should feel entitled to make the most of their gift. But they should not be permitted to reshape society so as to instate giftedness as a universal yardstick of human worth."

I just read an outstanding piece in The Atlantic that addresses an issue that's concerned me for some time. It decries the glorification of smart people and the corresponding derogation of not-so-smart people in our increasingly meritocratic society.

It says that while having a high IQ and/or high academic performance indicators is increasingly the gateway to the better jobs, people with lower IQ's and/or academic achievement indicators are perfectly capable of doing some of those jobs as well as anybody, but not only do they not get the chance, but they're also looked down on and even made fun of with impunity.

The article also points out that not everybody has the innate ability to score well on standard IQ or SAT tests or to graduate with honors from high school and college, and that it isn't fair for a society to essentially determine a person's worth on the basis of these standards and to award all the spoils to those who excel in them.

Yes, great head start programs can help elevate socioeconomically disadvantaged kids to higher IQ scores and academic performance, but we don't spend enough and hire and train enough capable people to produce enough uniformly excellent programs of this type. And, yes, better programs to find gifted children in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and to provide them with educational enrichment to make the most of their superior potential can help them to do just that.

But none of this will help the lot of us who can't be molded into smart people by any special interventions. What's to become of us?

The article recommends that we should have more schools for solid vocational training. There are still plenty of fairly well-paying jobs for people with strong skills in non-academic areas that don't require conventionally high IQ's. However, one problem is that the few schools that now specialize in this kind of training still admit a disproportionate number of applicants on the basis of high academic performance.

And then there's the problem the article doesn't address of what to do with freaks like me. I've written ad nauseum in this blog about my learning challenges, so there's no need to elaborate here except to say that while my verbal IQ and fluency is relatively high, my overall cognitive functioning is severely compromised by my very low nonverbal ability, making me and people like me unfit for vocational training for most "skilled" jobs and hindered enough even in academic areas to be incapable of excelling there either.

I don't know what the answer is to the issues the article and I raise. All I know is that not all of us are or can be made smart enough to "make it" in a society that seems to be obsessed with high IQ's and academic performance and in which more and more of the jobs that remain after an increasing number of others are displaced by automation will undeniably require high IQ's. And I think we as a society need to find ways not only to make sure that those of us who aren't in the shrinking, privileged, intellectual minority can still survive and flourish economically, but that we are also not disparaged and excluded for being less than brilliant.

Human worth is or should be seen as a beautiful quality intrinsic to all persons, and everyone should be esteemed and treated accordingly. And to those who say, "In a perfect world, this might be possible, but in THIS world it is not," I would say, "Isn't part of the gift and purpose of humankind to dream things that never were and ask 'Why not?' and to work to make them so?"

No More Basketball in My Life

I used to watch a fair amount of NBA basketball and was a big Warriors and Lakers fan over most of that time. But I gradually lost most of my interest in NBA or any other level of basketball until the Warriors won the NBA championship last season and appeared to be on their way to winning another this season with the most exciting game and player in the game. 

They did set the all-time regular season record this season by winning 73 games and losing only 9, but toward the end of the regular season and then in the playoffs they began to falter.

I'm not sure why this happened. There are probably many interacting reasons: Other teams adjusted to what they were doing. Stephen Curry suffered some injuries that compromised his remarkable shooting and ball handling skills. They were physically and psychologically depleted after pursuing and setting the regular season record. They lacked the "length" and raw athleticism that tend to favor teams in very hard-fought NBA playoff games. Etc, etc.

The Warriors lost the seventh game in Oakland to the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James last night, and it and the whole series really pissed me off. They were up 3-1 in the series and allowed Cleveland to come back and beat them three games in a row. 

And it seems like they virtually handed some of those games to the Cavs with horrible passing, shot selection, and shot percentages. Curry made some particularly egregious plays in vital situations such as behind the back passes that went out of bounds or were easily stolen, and ridiculously long, forced shots at key times when there was plenty of time on the clock to set up better shots and it was so, so important that they score. 

Curry may well have had an injured shoulder, knee, and goodness knows what else that prevented him from working the miracles he did earlier in the season, but then he should have realized this and played within himself instead of making obscene mistakes when it mattered most. One of my Facebook friends said that Curry doesn't play smart basketball. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but he was right. Curry plays dumb basketball too much of the time on both offense and defense.

I'm very disappointed in Curry. But I think I can attribute this in no small part to doing what I said after the Ronda Rousey defeat that I wasn't going to keep doing--put people on a high pedestal that no human being, because we're all imperfect, warrants. So, maybe this time, I'll be able to follow through with my resolution.

In addition to this, I plan to stop watching NBA basketball or paying any attention to it. I find that when I do watch it or pay serious attention to it, it's because I've become so emotionally invested in a team that I get really agitated when they play poorly or lose, and I become very hostile to opposing players and fans. I don't need more of this in my life, nor do I need to keep wasting time watching basketball or reading about it when I could be doing so many other things that are more worthwhile.

Maybe over time I'll be able to enjoy watching basketball and even root for a team without getting emotionally bent out of shape over it the way I do now, but I don't think that will or should make a difference. Like I said, there's so much else I could and should be doing with the precious time left to me, and watching and following NBA or college basketball just doesn't rate on that rarefied list.

An Afterlife Under Any God?

A dear friend of mine is in hospice care with advanced Alzheimer's Disease. The decline has been shockingly rapid, and I don't fully understand why, although I think it's probably for the best for his family and friends that it's happening the way it is instead of being much more drawn out.

Anyway, I posted something to Facebook last night about my friend, and another friend of mine, Tom, who recently met the unfortunate victim of this terrible disease at my house, made a comment about his hopes for the afterlife, and I replied with my less sanguine thoughts about what any real afterlife would likely consist of.

Here is what he and I wrote:

Me: Sitting at the bedside of a good friend who seems, for reasons I don't fully understand, to be virtually comatose and close to death from cerebral hypoxia associated with an advanced stage of Alzheimer's. What an awful, cruel disease Alzheimer's is!

Tom: Terrible, terrible. While I have no faith in the Gods that write books, I do hope that there is some sort of "veil" we pass through after death where we get some sort of explanation what life, in general, and our life, in particular, was all about.

It's not that I think a life between just birth and death is meaningless. It is just that I think a reason and meaning for having been alive is due us. In Hamlet, the Bard talks about "defeated joy."

Me: Tom, if we die and that's the end of our personal existence and consciousness, it won't matter to us whether we find out why we were here or not. But if we go on to inhabit forever and ever some conscious afterlife, as much as I, like you, would love to believe that we would learn the answers to all our pressing questions and reap huge benefits from this, I'm more inclined to think that posthumously everlasting life could eternally make the trials and tribulations of this ephemeral lifetime seem like a joyous picnic by comparison.

In other words, if so much inequality, injustice, and suffering can dominate this life, what's to stop this from occurring on a far more iniquitous and torturous scale in any life to come? A supremely loving, just, and merciful God? What God is that? One of the "Gods that write books"? Any God that created and sustains THIS unholy vale of earthly tears?

What do you think about Tom's and my comments, and what do you think happens to us after we die, and why do you think it?

Mocking the Learning Disabled

Several times, I've seen a video on Facebook making fun of a female driver who repeatedly parks with the wrong side of her vehicle facing the gas pump until she finally gets it right. On YouTube, the video is titled "Stupid woman at gas station," and many comments on both YouTube and Facebook derisively echo the YouTube title.

But I don't feel like laughing. To me, the video appears to be a textbook depiction of nonverbal learning disorder, and this is a problem with which I have a frustrating lifetime of firsthand experience. Here is the comment I posted to Facebook and YouTube about it, and I hope some people take it to head and heart:

I don't laugh at videos like this, because I empathize with the driver. Like me, she may well have NLD--nonverbal learning disability--and, consequently, great difficulty seeing in her mind's eye how to get the proper side of her vehicle to face the gas pump. And the frustration she undoubtedly feels over her mistakes coupled with anxiety that people might be watching her struggle and laughing at her might well inhibit her reasoning faculties to the extent that she keeps impulsively repeating her mistakes instead of finding some way or other of collecting herself so that she can figure out how to do what she needs to do. She could be very intelligent in other ways. And even if she's not, I wish we would have more empathy and compassion for people who struggle to do things that we are fortunate not to struggle with.

My Friend is Married to the Shrew From Hell

A friend of mine has been living in a loveless marriage for years. But it's gotten even worse recently. His wife has long insisted that things be done her way with precise exactitude and that my friend jump to her every imperious command. But over the past couple of years, she's become the shrew from hell who not only stomps and yells like an insane person when she doesn't immediately get her way, but she even makes thinly veiled threats that if my friend doesn't do what she says, she'll kick him out of the house, and if he refuses to leave right then and there, she'll call the police and falsely accuse him of a serious crime, like the wife of someone I know may have done years ago when she accused him of molesting their young daughter, and he ended up going to prison and then being deported after he served his time.

I find it close to unfathomable that someone could treat her spouse or anyone else this way, no matter what the provocation. I find it even more so that my friend's wife could treat HIM that way. I've known my friend a long, long time, and he is the most mild-mannered and accommodating person I think I've ever known. He also doesn't lie and isn't prone to exaggeration, so I have no trace of belief that he's lying or exaggerating about his wife's behavior. If anything, he's probably understating just how bad it is!

I don't know how I would feel or what I would do if my wife treated me this way. I know that I'd get the hell away from her as soon as I could possibly manage it, because my vow to stay married "for better or worse" never extended THAT far. But I don't know how well I'd be able to hold my temper if she came at me with a hissy fit or with serious threats like my friend's wife does him. I'm not nearly as mild mannered or accommodating as he is. 

Thank God my wife is nothing like my friend's!

Doubts and Competing Interests

I am at something of a crossroads. I've spent most of my life arguing against Christianity online and off and wanting to write engaging books and articles sharing my counterapologetical efforts with the world. I used to think I could or, at least, might be able to do this by simply collecting all my best arguments and then presenting them as systematically and clearly as I could while finding some way to do it with a novel enough combination of comprehensiveness, clarity, eloquence, and idiosyncratic intimacy and charm that some nebulous albeit sizable segment of the public would go for it.

I say "nebulous" because I can't imagine that most fervent Christians would want to read anything I've written that argues against their beliefs, and I'm not sure that enough non-believers aren't already so saturated with counterapologetical arguments from existing sources or are interested enough in the subject to pursue it that there would be an appreciable market for my efforts no matter how good they might be.

But then there's also the question of how good my efforts could ever be for any audience. I am the veritable personification of the maxim that the more one learns, the more he realizes how ignorant he is. For not only have my fairly recent encounters with erudite and brilliant counterapologists such as William Lane Craig, J.P Moreland, and Peter Kreeft convinced me that I have so much more to learn and understand on a deeper level about Christian theology and apologetics than I've learned or understood so far or probably have enough time left in my life to learn and deeply understand, but I admit that I don't think I'm smart enough to learn it no matter how much time I might have left and no matter how hard I might try.

And then there's the even bigger and seemingly more insurmountable challenge of mastering counterarguments sufficiently powerful to rebut the most sophisticated apologetics. And let's face it. I don't want to bother arguing against the lowest common denominator of Christian beliefs and defenses of those beliefs, such as the biblical literalism of Noah's Ark or Jonah and the Whale. I want to be able to offer powerful arguments against the best apologetics of the leading figures I've already mentioned and more, and their apologetics go way beyond defending Noah's Ark. And these are just the evangelical theologians and apologists. What about the more liberal ones? How could I ever come to grips with and refute their apologetics? And really, when I come right down to it, why would I want to? If I think it's all nonsense to begin with, why spend time and energy trying like mad to refute it?

Not only this, but I'm interested in so many other things. I'm fascinated with the free will vs determinism issue. I'm increasingly interested in political philosophy and in developing a coherent view of the ideal society and type of government. I continue to be interested in spirituality, especially as viewed by Ken Wilber's integral model. I have an abiding fascination with the intersection of modernized stoicism and psychotherapy. I'm experiencing a revival of my interest in psychology and a growing one in neuroscience and cognitive science. I still want to learn more about the physical sciences, especially physics and cosmology. The list of my interests are proliferating like the weeds in my front and back lawns. And I feel myself pulled toward all of them, while, at the same time, I feel crushingly inadequate to even remotely satisfy any of them.

Part of me wants to drop counterapologetics and move on to my other interests which, despite the challenges they too pose, might be more accessible and fulfilling to me than further pursuit of evangelical Christian counterapologetics could ever be. Yet, I've acquired, at no small expense, so many books and other materials on Christianity, apologetics, and counterapologetics over the years, and have spent so much time and effort thinking about this stuff and discussing it that I feel like I can't just throw it all away.

I don't know what to do. But I need to figure something out. And, more importantly, I need to follow through with whatever decision I make, which is hard to do when you feel convinced that you can't succeed no matter what you decide.

Reaching Out to a Fellow Blogger

I've been reading an outstanding blog by a very smart young man for several years. He majors in physics at a Midwestern university and is wrapping up his coursework there while hoping to be admitted for postgraduate work to a top tier school such as MIT to complete his PhD in theoretical physics with a specialization in cosmology.

But, over the years, he's blogged brilliantly not only about his intense interest in theoretical physics and cosmology but also about areas and issues in philosophy, politics, religion, economics, international news, society and culture, and so on in addition to addressing very personal issues concerning his recurring bouts of depression and enduring alienation from mainstream society.

In his most recent blogpost, he expresses extreme displeasure over having to take humanities courses he despises--because they focus on rote memorization of trivial names, places, dates, and research paper style formats--and needing to earn A's in them so that he can maintain his perfect 4.0 GPA in order to have any chance of being accepted by a school like MIT, and he worries that if he isn't admitted to one of these preeminent universities, his hopes and dreams of contributing something of scientific substance to the world will be all but dashed, and, as soon as he can earn enough money from a second-rate teaching job at a second-rate college, he'll just want to melt away into the wilderness and be a hermit for the rest of his miserable life.

I feel saddened by this bright young man's reclusiveness and depressive outlook and wish that there were something I could do to help him. But then I'm in no position to help anyone grappling with challenges not so dissimilar in some respects to ones that have plagued and seemingly gotten the best of me for most of my life. However, I couldn't read his blogpost without trying to do something, and so I wrote the following comment on his blog. I hope it helps at least in some small measure.

I am very concerned about your proneness to depression, your disdain for ordinary human interaction, and your belief that if you can’t make it into MIT or its lofty equivalent, you essentially have nothing left to live for except being a disillusioned drone eking out a living until you can retire as a hermit living aimlessly in the wilderness.
And I say this as someone who, although he lacks your obvious brilliance in math and science, has always felt at odds with society and uncomfortable with much of what passes for socialization.
But, in my case, I’ve long been interested in many disciplines and issues, aided and abetted by my increasing appreciation of the interconnectedness of all phenomena and of all disciplines that study these phenomena, so that I’ve come to regard almost no academic subject as boring or worthless, and almost all learning, whether curricular or extracurricular, as potentially illuminating and enriching.
I won’t deny that I share your aversion to grinding, rote memorization of dates and places, but I’m guessing that there are other aspects of your humanities courses that are or at least could be fascinating to an open and curious mind, and that gifted and accomplished theoretical physicists from Einstein and Oppenheimer in the past to Ed Witten today have opened their minds and interest to disciplines and subjects far outside their own discipline and have probably been the happier for it.
Moreover, while I too prefer to discuss subjects and issues that most people would probably prefer to pass up in favor of “small” talk about their jobs, their families, their favorite sports team, or the latest insult from some politician or gossip about some celebrity, I have learned to take more pleasure in the company of others by looking for and appreciating the beauty that lies in almost everyone whether they’re talking about the sacred or the profane, the profound or the mundane.
I hope you make it into MIT and get to do the kind of work there that you heart longs to do, but I also hope that, whether you do or don’t, you’ll find life to be richer and more fulfilling than you seem to now, and that other people from all walks of life and levels of intelligence will come to occupy a more vital and pleasurable part of your life than they seem to now.In the meantime, I hope you keep on blogging about yourself and your experiences inside and outside academia, because your blog has been one of my longtime favorites, and it’s been a real pleasure to get to know you as well as I’d like to think I’ve come to know you and your beautiful search for truth.

What would you say to this young man if you could?

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Lose

A dear friend of mine is sliding rapidly down the cognitive hill with diagnosed dementia. He used to fly airplanes, climb mountains, and study martial arts under a master who grew up with Bruce Lee and learned from Yip Man. Now he can't find his own way from the bathroom to the living room or make his way there without wobbling precariously. He used to speak intelligently and articulately about everything. Now his utterances are more like word salad. And he can scarcely dress himself or use the bathroom without help.

He's totally dependent on his dutiful wife to whom he clings like a drowning child to a lifeguard. About the only respite she gets from his near stranglehold is when I bring him here to the house to sit and talk and watch TV with me, when he's not napping, while she hangs out at the local Thai Buddhist temple with my wife and the other "temple ladies," as they call themselves.

Yet, he's not reached the point of being oblivious to his accelerating decline and dependency. In fact, he's acutely aware of them and magnifies this awful awareness with his predilection to ruminate interminably on his deterioration. His mind works like a needle on a beat up old phonograph record. The needle hops and skips all over the place producing scratchy, cacophonous noise or gets stuck in a deep groove repeating the same passage again and again until someone moves it. And there seems to be nothing anybody can do to reverse or even stall his precipitous descent into mental oblivion.

So what he tells me with increasing frequency that he wants to do about all this is to end his own life so that he won't continue to burden his wife or anyone else with his growing dependency and to wallow in a disintegrating, purposeless existence that brings him no pleasure much less joy. And I find myself unable to sincerely tell him anything that might reassure him or lift his spirits, because I can't think of anything reassuring and inspiring to say to him. And when I try to do it anyway, it comes out sounding pathetically awkward, hollow, and perfunctory and probably doesn't fool him, despite his compromised condition, any more than it does me.

The truth is, if I were in my friend's shoes, and someday I might very well be, I wouldn't want to go on either. So I can hardly blame him for feeling the way he does. Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't think he has the means to do anything about it except inexorably sink to his natural demise.

In the meantime, all I can do is hang in there with him and be the best friend to him I can be as his tragic dissolution continues unabated.

Savage Justice for Jared Fogle?

I just read that Jared Fogle, the former Subway pitchman recently sentenced to 16+ years in prison for possession of child pornography and paid sex with minors, has been having a difficult time behind bars. I posted about his sentencing immediately after it was imposed.

Well, to no one's surprise or, at least, not to mine, social media is aflame with posts from people who are thrilled over Mr. Fogle's prison tribulations and who are fervently hoping that he's being subjected to far worse than has been reported. You can well imagine what those fervent hopes entail.

So, in response to some of those comments, this is what I posted yesterday:

Maybe those of you who are so gleeful over the prospect of someone being relentlessly sexually abused might be a little less so if you were the victim or even the observer of such abuse. Of course, you'll reflexively counter that Fogle's getting back what he gave out. But even if that's true, and I'm not aware that we know that any of the children in the confiscated pornography or in his documented sexual encounters were endlessly, forcibly, and viciously sodomized, it doesn't legitimize the infliction of such grievous punitive abuse. What Fogle did was very wrong. And what you all are getting your jollies publicly fantasizing about is also very wrong. And just as a certain kind of sickness or defect undoubtedly causes people like Fogle to do what most of us never would because, thank goodness, we don't share that sickness or defect, so a certain kind of darkness lies at the heart of human nature that craves the kind of awful retribution we see condoned and celebrated here. We humans really are a sorry lot!

And in response to one particular person's comments urging that the same old same old be done to Mr. Fogle, I posted this:

no one deserves to be treated as a subhuman even if you, in your savage advocacy to the contrary, believe otherwise. Moreover, it could be argued that people such as yourself, in publicly urging that a fellow human being be essentially tortured to death, is guilty of worse than the person on whom he wants to see this torture inflicted. Yes, I would argue that all the people here, including yourself, who champion the "justice" of Mr. Fogle being raped and tortured for the rest of his days are more reprehensible in your conduct than Mr. Fogle was. And if I'm right, what do you advocates of savage justice suppose should be done to YOU?

Having written this, I realize that posting such comments won't change anyone's mind. If anything, it'll inflame those who disagree with them and further entrench them in their disagreement. So, I guess it's fair to say that I'm mostly just venting my frustration and disgust over human savagery, and it could be argued that this is, in its own right, a kind of savagery or, at least, verbal violence.

But I would also like to think that I'm publishing the truth, regardless of what effect the public conveyance of it has on those who read it. That is, wanting and publicly advocating that sick people be relentlessly sexually tortured and worse for their sick acts is horrendous and, arguably, worse than those sick acts themselves, and that such widespread embrace of this kind of "justice" speaks countless volumes for the essential and, perhaps, irremediable depravity of the human condition.

Sudden Death

I found out today that my wife's dentist "passed away" recently. That's how his receptionist phrased it in a manner that sounded distressed. I was very surprised by this. And saddened. He appeared to be no older than his late 30's or early 40's, and I got the impression that his death came about not by traumatic accident or protracted terminal illness but with unforeseen suddenness from "natural" causes.

Dr. Cheng seemed to be an excellent and dedicated dentist. He and his wife owned the practice and practiced together. They have or, rather, she has two kids. My heart goes out to her. She will now be my wife's dentist.

And I am left solemnly reflecting on the fact that if a guy that young can die out of the blue, a much older guy like me can too and that I need to get my act together while I still have the chance.

Did Jared Fogle Get What He Deserves?

Jared Fogle became the face of Subway after he reputedly lost an ungodly amount of weight on a Subway sandwich diet, and he was, for a time, arguably one of America's most beloved pitchmen. But now he's become America's boogeyman in the wake of a 15 years and 8 months prison sentence resulting from a plea deal for soliciting and paying to have sex with minors and for possessing and trading in child pornography.

As one might expect, people are alternately vilifying him and celebrating his judicial fate. But I take no more pleasure in Fogle's predicament than I do from contemplating the harm he's caused his family and the children he allegedly abused. For I believe that Fogle's actions were the result of a sickness he couldn't resist and that this makes him as much a victim of that sickness as are any of the children he may have molested.

Thus, I have grave misgivings about his harsh sentence if it was imposed for retributively punitive reasons, because it seems to me unfair and unjust to inflict retributive punishment on someone for doing something he couldn't help but do.

I also doubt that such a lengthy sentence is a significantly larger deterrent than a much lesser sentence would be. I wonder if any research has been done in the area of the comparative deterrent effect of various prison sentences for these kinds of crimes.

One thing that such a long sentence WILL accomplish is prevent Mr. Fogle from abusing any more children for the duration of his incarceration. But if it were possible to know with certainty that he wouldn't abuse more children after he got out, I'd support letting him out far sooner.

It's my understanding that federal sentences like this tend to be carried out to the full or nearly so, and, indeed, I've read that Fogle will have to serve a minimum of 13 years no matter how well he behaves himself behind bars. And then he may face an even sterner test upon release as he confronts extreme social ostracisim and feelings of profound shame as well as the severe residential restrictions, occupational limitations, and other monumental hardships that attend having to register as a sex offender for the rest of one's life.

So, I'm thinking that he has a tremendously difficult road ahead of him as a result of his sickness, and, again, I feel sorry for him as well as for the children he abused.

Why Don't More Christians Act Christian?

I have long maintained that the reason why so many champions of Christian teachings don't act nicely is that these teachings ring and very possibly are false and that there is probably no Holy Spirit to inspire the supposedly sanctified to exemplify the more salutary tenets of their faith.

That is, we're all only human, with very human urges to act badly at times, and there may well be no God within or without to help us override our human foibles.

Therefore, we might be well-advised to find the resources within ourselves and each other to override these foibles, and belief in highly dubious gods and religious worldviews might often be more of a hindrance than a help in this effort.

Ronda Rousey Is Human, and So Am I

Ronda Rousey finally lost. I didn't want her to. I'd hopped on her bandwagon a long time ago, and I wanted to hang on tight as I rode it all the way to her retirement from MMA as the undefeated champion she repeatedly boasted she would be.

Yet, poor Ronda not only lost, she was dominated, even more than I secretly feared she might be, in every way from the opening bell. Holly Holm made this heretofore MMA goddess and self-proclaimed and media-touted "greatest fighter in the world" look like a hapless novice. And just as Ronda took some concussive blows in the Octagon last Saturday night, so did my faith in idols.

I've had an almost lifelong tendency to single out certain athletes, musicians, intellectuals, and so forth and regard and revere them as idols who not only can do no wrong but are superhuman in their transcendent talents and skills.

I don't know why I've done this. Maybe I've just wanted the human equivalent of that "shining city on the hill" to serve as my glittering inspiration to aim higher, or to at least let me vicariously experience the glorious success and greatness I could never hope to achieve for myself but that the little boy inside me continued to crave.

But I may have difficulty doing this after what happened in Australia and what has happened on other fronts, and maybe it's for the best that I stop placing people on towering pedestals and start respecting myself as much as I do anybody and everybody else. Maybe when I stop worshiping other people as gods, I'll also stop feeling so feeble and inferior by comparison that I lack any motivation to cultivate my own talents, hone my own skills, and fulfill my own dreams.

I still like and respect Ronda Rousey, and I hope that she gets a rematch with Holly Holm and maybe even wins it. But I doubt that I'll ever see her or anyone else again the way I've seen her and other previous and recent idols of mine, and I think that's probably a good thing.

Yogi Berra and Me

I've been posting alleged quotes or "Yogi-isms" from Yogi Berra to Facebook every Thursday for months. But now I may stop, at least for awhile. Now that he's gone, my heart just isn't in it. I feel sad that he's gone, even though he played mostly before my time, I was never a Yankees fan, and I haven't cared much for baseball since I stopped being a kid.

It's just that there was something so endearing about the guy, even if a lot of what it was may have been modified, misattributed, or even fabricated. Beyond that, with each famous figure who dies old or young, I can't help but think more vividly than usual that my time, my mom's time, my wife's time, the times of all those who ever mattered or will matter to me will come.

Yet, a friend emailed me today about Yogi's passing, and I replied to his subject line "Bad News" that perhaps Mr. Berra was so old, frail, and sick that dying was the best thing that could happen to him. I read that his wife died fairly recently and that he'd been in an assisted living facility for several years. Was there anything left for him to live for?

I don't want to go on living when my quality of life is so irrevocably compromised that not only can I not enjoy it any longer but I require other people to attend to pretty much my every need. Unfortunately, for longer than I care to admit, I've done very little to compress my morbidity through the recommended means of good diet, exercise, sleep, socializing, spiritualizing, etc.

But I think this is about to change or is already changing as I write this. I'm watching a Great Course's series of lectures on "How to Stay Fit as You Age," and I'm really digging it. What's more, I'm really digging the way I feel when and after I take my walks and do my exercises that I've neglected for far too long.

If I follow the pretty professor's advice, I may just be able to significantly compress my own morbidity even at this relatively late date, and even if I'm very unlikely to live as long as Yogi, maybe I can live pretty well until whenever I draw my last breath.

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Cable!

When I canceled cable TV over two years ago, I was afraid I'd miss out on a lot. But it turns out that, with the help of my Roku boxes, I've watched more great TV series on streaming demand via Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu than I ever did or would have on cable, and I'm paying much, MUCH less for the privilege.

Here are some of the good to superlative series I've watched on my TVs in their entirety since cutting the cable: FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, BATTLESTAR GALACTACA (remake), CAPRICA, THE BOOTH AT THE END, SIX FEET UNDER, DEXTER, DEADWOOD, BREAKING BAD, THE SOPRANOS, THE WIRE, MAD MEN, THE BRIDGE, and SONS OF ANARCHY. And I've watched five seasons of THE GOOD WIFE and JUSTIFIED this way, along with four seasons of HELL ON WHEELS, three seasons of LONGMIRE, two seasons of FALLING SKIES and RECTIFY, and a season of MANHATTAN, BOSCH, and MOZART IN THE JUNGLE. And I just began watching FARGO, look forward to watching, among other series, THE AMERICANS, HOUSE OF CARDS, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, TRANSPARENT, THE WALKING DEAD, SENSE8, EXTANT, HANNIBAL, SEINFELD (never watched it on regular TV), and NARCOS, as well as to finishing the series I've already mentioned that haven't wrapped yet.

Who says you have to pay for expensive cable or satellite services or engage in illegal and cumbersome downloading to watch great television at relatively minimal expense and fuss?