It's in Review of a few Views Thing

Dear America,

"After centuries of extensive research, biologists admit that they still don't have any good explanation for how brains produce consciousness.  Physicists admit that they don't know what caused the Big Bang, or how to reconcile quantum mechanics with the theory of general relativity,"  (just part of page 252, of the book this girl is struggling to read, Sapiens... by Yuval Noah Harari)

as it turns out, as the pages have turned, I have lost count on the number of times the words 'we don't know,' or some variation thereof, have surfaced.

AND, as it may turn out, there is a God, Yuval;  God, that very THING who thought about making a universe and then some.  But whatever, let's agree to disagree and move on dot org.

Thing is, Yuval is just a guy; and the absolute truth is, he is limited just as all the rest of us are limited, as  people, you know -- to know everything.   Newsflash:  We will never have all the answers to all the questions of all the curiosities and imaginations and wondering our human consciousness produces, nor to all the problems we Sapiens face on planet earth.   That's what makes life so fun, right?

But what has become quite striking in the last few weeks -- in correlation to just yesterday's blog -- is the number of times climate change of thousands of years ago is referenced; it's as if the current climate and conversation on climate change has totally forgotten, if not blatantly dismissed and erased from memory, all of the periods of climate change (warm and cold) that has come before us.  And why?  To satisfy an agenda, pure and simple.  

Among this and other man-made myths, Yuval's book is rooted in bias, growing stronger and stronger as the pages turn.

And the irony is hard to ignore, given his in-depth study, the plethora of imagined absolutes in which mankind have fallen to, substantiating his history of humankind and all the while declaring just how much our Homo Sapien ignorance is based upon myth, imagined by the very limitations of our own small minds (and much smaller than our predecessors, mind you).    But I will keep reading your propaganda anyway, only another hundred pages or so to go.

This is interesting, from the chapter suitably titled The Flood --  "[A]t first, glaciers blocked the way from Alaska to the rest of America...around 12,000 BC global warming melted the ice and opened an easier passage."

And yet, according to mainstream media and leftists and elitists today, climate change is a direct result from the horrors of mankind TODAY, and from just yesterday, and the day before that, and forewarn that we have only twelve years to live before we meet our demise.  

While just before the chapter comes to a close, Yuval adds this observation:  "Don't believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature.  Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo Sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions.  We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology."

The contradictions that all of us current day Sapiens are surrounded with, leveled by hypocrites, are weighing on me.  

I do applaud Yuval's efforts to effect change, I do.  He sees areas where humans can be better humans, indeed.  So true, so true.  I choose to buy cage free eggs; I love free range chicken and prefer to purchase Open Nature brand beef from my local Vons, alongside a bushel of organic kale that my family eats like it is candy.

Yuval, personally, tells us that he avoids association with the meat and dairy and egg industries, and as a matter of record, and what, quite possibly, precipitated his life's mission, he's hellbent on not getting "bogged down with mundane things," you know, things centered around money, career or mortgages (like most of us little people); he wants to tackle things falling under the uber-caption of what is commonly called the big picture -- because clearly, Yuval feels well equipped to educate us on such.  All of this precious incite, by the way, to the man, Yuval,  is found openly and purposely, in Sapien's final pages, as if he, himself, is an open book.  (yes, I jumped ahead to the Q&A at the back.  shoot me)

Yuval is anti-capitalist, anti-American, and anti-carnivore, to name a few.  

What Yuval is missing, among probably a few things, is a true understanding of what made America truly different (yet not perfect) from the start.  America was the exception, separated and standing alone from all other forms of government found round the world to date (you need to refresh your context page, Yuval).   We the People had more say, more control, more independence, more freedom to create a life of hard work and happiness than at any other time in the history of humankind.

Hence, the creation of a middle class heard round the world, and growing; hence, the creation of more millionaire millennials than ever before; hence, the movement of more women in business for themselves than at any other time in history.  

Hey, and just this week, my latest issue of Shape includes a spread titled, "WOMEN RUN THE WORLD."  Yes; it is nice to be recognized.  Finally. teehee

And yet, as expected, the list highlights 15 women (of which three work together, being founders of Her Campus Media, a leading college marketing and media firm) seems a wee bit one sided, to say the least.  Four out of the fifteen happen to be actors turned advocates of one thing or another; while the remaining eight are found on the cutting edge of a mission of their own, from fighting hunger to fighting for equality in fields of sport, investment, medicine and wellness.   Not sure if any of these fifteen movers and shakers happen to vote conservative, it doesn't appear so (but that could be a totally invalid assumption, right); be that as it may, the article prompted me to do a quick search on the stats of women in business today -- since everything evolves, and all.

And the latest stats are quite encouraging.  Four out of ten businesses are owned by someone who calls herself a female; this reveals a growth of 58% since 2007, generating 3.1 Trillion in revenue.  

And even more interesting to me is the happiness factor.  On a scale of 1 to 10, those women considered to be in the Boomer category (+50) are found to be 69%  at an 8 or higher;  millenials  are found to be 68% happy, being of an 8 or higher;  and generation x (those 40-49), are at a whopping 73% happy, measuring on the scale at an 8 or higher.   Stats courtesy of Guidant Financial. xx  

Now is this information reflected and discussed anywhere other than on this website?  Where is the media and the headlines?  Is there a reason that this solid majority of happy women are being overlooked, only to be outnumbered by the mass hashtags of the moment, like #metoo?  Or the popular narrative of the day... that the white man sucks, bigly.

And this just in --  heterosexuality is just not working.
thank you, Marcie Bianco; are you and Yuval in cahoots with one another?

brilliant.
um.  Without the heterosexual homo sapiens doing their thing, there are no sapiens.  Um "compulsory heterosexuality?"  Being a girl attracted to men all my life, how can you dismiss the majority of women in this country, and reduce our life, our natural inclinations and choices in lifestyle, to something equal to oppression, smacked with unhappiness, and a host of other woes? How intolerant and ignorant of you.

Patriarchy is at its most potent when oppression doesn’t feel like oppression, or when it is packaged in terms of biology, religion or basic social needs like security comfort, acceptance and success. Heterosexuality offers women all these things as selling points to their consensual subjection.

wow.

I'm all in for women -- of all walks of life; but I sure am sick and tired of feminists speaking for me.

anywho,  what a view, what a view.

as the world turns into a mosh pit echoing the wrongs, the inequalities, the inequities, the injustices, of the whole of mankind against the plants and animals, of male over female, maybe the lesson falls back to the essential liberties of the individual.

America is rooted in  individual rights and duties; our prosperity and societal order requires each of us to find our way, be self-reliant, and be responsible for our own sound, principled and decent self-government.   This is the very foundation that gives empowerment to people, all people, to speak, advocate, promote, and write whatever they wish.

From Benjamin Franklin, in a snippet from The Way to Wealth:  "But without industry we must likewise be steady, settled, and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, and not trust too much to others...Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin for many; for In the affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it;...


oooh this girl loves a real, learned man...

Make it a Good Day, G

It's to the Provocateur in Question Thing

Dear America,

happy August.

it's been a

busy

adventurous

squirrelly

and, mostly happy, couple of weeks, close to a month, since my last post.

alas, here I am...having returned from Big Pine, the Bristlecone Pine Forest, Yosemite, and breathing in a giant sequoia named Grizzly.

here's an interesting bit of knowledge and perspective -- you know, given the latest climate on climate change at the hand of mankind....

"California's western Sierra Nevada had more frequent fires between 800 and 1300 than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a 2009 study based upon tree-ring research. Scientists reconstructed the history of fire during this droughty period by dating the years in which fire scars were found in ancient giant sequoia trees in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. The result: These 500 years, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had the most frequent fires in the 3,000 years studied. During this period extensive fires burned through parts of the Giant Forest at intervals of about 3 to 10 years. Any individual tree was probably in a fire about every 10 to 15 years."

what?
you mean all that happened, fires burning "more frequently" and at intervals of "3 to 10 years"  coming at the same time of what has been named  the "Medieval Warm Period"....a droughty period, with a long list of fire scars to prove it?  Fires happening MORE frequently than at any other time in the past 3000 years?

like, seriously?

How thought provoking.

and not to leave the Bristlecone Pine out of the conversation:

"This bristlecone pine chronology, developed here in the White Mountains by University of Arizona researchers and Dr. Henry Michael of the University of Pennsylvania is the longest in the world and provides an unequaled look into past climatic and environmental conditions. 

For many years now, scientists, archeologists, and historians have relied on a dating system known as radiocarbon dating. It was discovered back in the 1960s that this process was flawed and needed to be calibrated. The wood from bristlecone pines helped correct this process by providing samples that could be precisely dated. Scientists dated these samples by counting their growth rings; they then measured the amount of carbon-14 (C-14) in those same samples. They discovered that the radiocarbon dating process was providing dates that were "too young" and established a calibration factor to correct the dating process. 

Faulty C-14 data obtained before the bristlecone pine calibration was then re-examined and corrected. Archeologists found that some artifacts discovered in Europe were actually 1000 years or older than previously thought. This revision of archeological site dates led historians to a reinterpretation of cultural diffusion throughout the Mediterranean and European areas. Because the bristlecone pines of this grove provided the wood to recalibrate the radiocarbon dating method, they have become known as the trees that rewrote history."

And yet, more thought provoking things.

And before I go on, just as a matter of record, my thanks to the National Park Service and to the United States Department of Agriculture/Forest Service....for the quick links to this history and information.  If you are keeping track, the U.S. Department of Agriculture manages the US Forest Service which manages the National Park Service...can't help but notice that there are almost as many layers of management as there are rings in the trees in them parts; what else is new, right?

But check that out -- that bit about the Bristlecone getting the credit for re-calibrating the dating methods and being recognized as THE tree that "rewrote history."  I just love that; we humans don't know everything, even when we think we do.

Which brings me to a crazy, provocative new book I just started reading:  Sapiens -- A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

Here's something interesting, from only the second chapter  --

"Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality.  On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations.  As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google."

try and tell that to the Bristlecone Pine, Yuval.

Wow, Yuval.  Thought provoking and hilarious. Can hardly wait til chapters nineteen and twenty. 

We get so full of ourselves sometimes (myself included).

No wonder Bill Gates is quoted on the front, while Barack Obama is quoted on the back.

Wait, don't walk, isn't that racist?  

And never you mind that in the first chapter, Yuval says this:  "Like it or not, we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes...Just six million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters.  One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother."  Moving forward with some modicum of caution, it might make sense to you that I had to take a break before venturing into the third chapter, when Yuval begins to examine the fictitious nature of Adam and Eve. oh joy to the world that will be...

The thing is, in this very moment, this girl is more captivated by the cover of the book -- all of a sudden, all I can do is gaze upon a single smudge of a thumb print, dotting the letter i of Sapiens...and given how this day all began, all I see is tree rings.

Yuval and the rings are making me dizzy.  so so dizzy in thought.

Yuval -- page 28 -- "Yet none of these things exist outside the stories that people invent and tell one another.  There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings."

Wow.  How so very absolute of him,  there are no gods in the universe, the little man said.

As if, Yuval.
How in tarnation do YOU really know that?

Like for real; how can this guy speak as if God is absolutely, without a doubt, totally fiction,  simply myth created by man to control man.  Sure, on one level I understand where he is coming from --  he's this  somewhat cynical, learned man questioning culture, questioning the little sheep following the Shepherd, questioning the very foundation of everything we believe, lambasting our ignorance and in proper turn, the unprecedented destruction upon the earth, of both resources and our fellow man.  We get it.

and on another level, something tells me that all of this is just part of the plan, and prophesied thousands of years ago, too.

Thing is, I question anyone who speaks in terms of proclaiming there is NO GOD unless imagined in our own small minds.

Oh, and yes, I will tell you what Obama said, quoting the quote from the back cover verbatim:

"Interesting and provocative...It gives you a sense of perspective on how briefly we've been on this earth, how short things like agriculture and science have been around, and why it makes sense for us to not take them for granted."

very nice Barack.  I love the use of the  dot dot dot; it gives us the sense that quite possibly more was said, and yet, I believe there wasn't.   It's an endearing flashback to that long pause, and that occasional stutter, as you reached out into the air to pluck each and every word off the tree like an apple.  It's stylistic,  smart -- allowing the reader to get a sense of just how deeply you think about things, because you do; because you care so much; because we've been brainwashed to believe you are really really super intelligent, the smartest president we've ever had. 

Just one more way this book reminds me just how much this world is run by narcissistic, haughty, intellectuals who just want to control the entire universe already; because they, truly, know what's best for all of us lame humanoids.

but my question is -- what is Barack talking about?  Who takes our science and agriculture for granted these days?   when all we really do is analyze how we Sapiens can be better caretakers of this world? 

Isn't it better, Yuval, that we Sapiens are not still running around being hunters and gatherers, or even all farmers and herders?  Looking at it logically, especially from a logistical standpoint, there just isn't enough real estate on God's great earth for all of us to farm and herd and hunt and gather our days away.

And what is with the inability to embrace human advancement, in areas of science and industry?  Since when did the evolution of humankind become such a dirty topic?  I sure as heck don't want to be living back in the dark ages, or even two hundred years ago!   I might go as far back as the early 1900's, just to take part in the suffragette movement --  and of course wear those clothes -- there is that.  But really, I kinda like where I am, I am.

I guess in some ways, this girl is looking forward to reading more about the history of Sapiens through the looking glass of a guy with a PhD from the University of Oxford -- even if it kills me.  Which it won't; just being a wee bit dramatic.  (Yuval started it.)

Ahhh looking back, I talked to a few trees in my journey of the last few weeks; and it was good.

TO smell them
TO touch them
To gaze all the way up and down their magnificent stature, and to hear the rustling of the leaves and needles, all under the backdrop of a glorious, big blue sky...God Is.  Indeed God Is.

Everything begins in thought.

We create and we destroy with first a thought to create or to destroy. (Which also supports the argument that it's not about more gun control; SAPIENS, very bad sapiens, are to blame, but I digress.)

Humankind is made in God's image because God made it so.

Even the Universe was created with a thought, a thought to create a universe.
And all the while, the Big Bang Theory is NOT settled science. Why?  Because NOBODY on this planet knows everything.

And the funny thing is, no PhD is needed to question the day's provocateur, Yuval.
And isn't that a good thing.

and on that note, this is the end.
Not THE end, but just the end.

thank you for listening...
and with a nod to the great outdoors, to the high Sierra, to the air, the stars, the energy, the quiet, a road trip come and gone, this girl is happy to be back in the saddle again.

Make it a Good Day, G