Loosing a Dog, Again

Once again I find myself facing the loss of a dear canine companion. His name was Tennessee.  He came to my son and me at  time when we needed him, and his stay was too brief. I have had many pets, and I don't think any loss of one has been any more sad.  Even Angel, who died in my arms after being hit by a car, was no more painful.  Angel was one of those rare dogs who could actually talk.  Lady was with me for 10 years.  I am sure they are waiting in heaven.  

Two More

       I am trying to use my new tablet and realize that I managed to post a draft of another article when last I wrote.  I will have to get back to that, but I was inspired tonight by learning a new word, schadenfreude, while discussing stuff on Facebook.  Schadenfreude means pleasure in the humiliation of another person.  It was in reference to the double whammy of the guilty verdict or plea from two of Trumps minions. 

       I am old enough to remember the Nixon debacle.  During the Nixon era I was in a position to know things that were never made public.  I was in Miami and was aware that Nixon had strong Mafia connections.  I was also aware that the joint chiefs of staff threatened to deliver him in chains to the floor of the Senate if  Nixon declared martial law to try and stop the impeachment process. 

        Now we have Trump  removing security clearances of people whom he considers political enemies. On Facebook I have discovered that many people just don't understand what a security clearance is.  Former government officials usually retain clearances so that current officials can consult with them.  

         As the current crisis evolves, I take no pleasure in seeing the reputation of America so soiled by the actions of the Whitehouse.  I take comfort in believing that the military and intelligence community will, in the end, side with the people of America and Congress and do the right thing when the time comes.  Be sure and vote.

       

Rats and Mice: Do We Love Them or Hate Them?

  I am sitting here in my temporary refuge, a low rent house that is home to a friend of my son. There is a problem with rats. These rats avoid rat traps, and don't seem to like rat poison. My Yorkie seems to frighten them, and my son and I are using blow guns with some success. I just realized that I
really don't like shooting those cute little critters.
 
   Think about how we treat rats and mice in fiction. Mickey Mouse and Mighty Mouse are beloved characters. Rats put bells on cats. And there is the mouse and elephant.  In fact, there are two different mouse and elephant stories, one from the Congo in which a mouse conquers an elephant, and one from India in which mice befriend elephants.
 
   So I will wage my little war with these wee sleekit mousies.

Blue Jay in Loquat Tree

I am sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree on a hot afternoon in Zephyrhills Florida. After breaking up a disagreement between my Yorkie mix and the neighbor's dogs, I witnessed a blue jay land in a Loquat tree. I'm positive that I have just experienced an existential moment. My pet existential dragon yawned but did not awaken.

Agnostic and Atheist are Mutually Exclusive Terms

  I  find myself perplexed that somehow some people who consider their selves to be atheists are actually agnostics who are enamored by the term atheist.  The situation is so bad that there actually exists an agnostic group devoted to trying to educate people to the fact that you can't be both. I have been known to speak of using "atheism" as a pick-up line.

    I first became aware of this when I wrote somewhere ( I suspect it was for a paid article) something about atheism vs. agnosticism.  I suspect that it was on my google plus account (as I think about it at the moment).  Perhaps the discussion came from my article about the end of the question of Rationalism vs. Empiricism in the 20th century due to the work of Einstien  (both  in quantum mechanics and General Relativity) and the work of Kurt Godel, especially the incompleteness proof . ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems)

    I have been looking back over my blog, trying to find the article on Rationalism vs. Empiricism, and it appears that I didn't quite write the article.  I wrote part of it but never got back to it. That was due to all the problems I had over the last year.

     Let me get back to that subject, as it is very similar and relevant to the Atheism vs Agnosticism argument.  Both topics suffer from Newspeak.  I may be stretching that term a bit, but it seems relevant to me.  The terms have ancient well defined meanings.  Some people try to change the terms to suit their sloppy thinking.

      Rationalism is a system of thought which is predicated on the belief that all Truth can be derived using logic from certain a priori facts aka  axioms. Further, such truth is considered to be only real Truth.
Most of you will be familiar with Rationalism in the form of Euclidean Geometry.  Euclidean geometry will work fine laying out a football field or building the next Hoover dam.  But it becomes evident that there is a problem with it when you start trying to calculate the orbit of the planet Mercury, or use satellites for precision surveying.  The reason so much effort and expense is spent on verifying The General Theory of Relativity * is that it settles the question, especially when  applied to "space". If you're trying to send a probe to Pluto. you'd better be able to predict the position of your probe and Pluto many years down the line.

     Empiricism says that any geometry used for real space must be derived from verifiable, measurable observations. General relativity postulates that gravity has the effect of CURVING space.  This effect can be measured accurately during total solar eclipses by measuring the apparent positions of stars close to the image of the sun. General relativity also accurately predicts the orbit of Mercury, and predicts that  atomic clocks in orbit around the earth will appear to run slowly.
    My experience with modern day atheists is that they are very inconsistent with their definition of atheism. They SAY that atheism is anything other than specific Christian beliefs, but in practice they mean the blind faith axiomatic belief in the absence of any type of consciousness not directly derived from life forms, whether human, other animals, or even plants. Rocks, for instance, are not considered to have awareness.
 
























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Difficult Times

Just wanted to comment that I (and my surviving son) , have been going through difficult circumstances recently after loosing our family home due to a sleazy mortgage company. No need to post details, we are surviving. I would appreciate any prayers (God knows His/Her name and hears all prayers).

Comment on Giles Goat Boy

   I just randomly thought about a book, Giles Goat Boy, which I read as a freshman at William and Mary in honors English. I looked it up on the internet and was surprised to see that it gets mixed reviews . Remember, this was in honors English at William and Mary. Need I say more?
  I am even more impressed with the book in retrospect.  I do have to admit that the one thing that most impressed me was that Barth spent over 💯 pages laying out the pun about George's gorge