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You are welcome

Mysteria, the video I emailed you is the most incredible gun-camera footage I have ever seen. For others who may read this, it is video of a 500-pound laser-guided bomb sending a group of 48 terrorist fighters to Allah in Fallujah recently. One moment they were running down a street to join in a fight to slaughter our Marines, the next moment they vanished in the blast of the direct hit. It was amazing. I wanted to post it on my "Armed Citizen" blog, but I would have had to pay a fee every time someone looked at it.

Mysteria, I am not as "vulcanized" as I used to be, and a lot of that was just my dreadful lack of a sense of humor. I was never super-smart, but I did greatly value reason and logic, and avoided excess in all things, even when I was very young. Maybe that approach misses out on a lot of pleasurable experience, but it also avoids making a lot of mistakes. For example, in racing dirt bikes from age 17 to 50, I never broke a bone or had a bad wreck. Almost all my friends did. And I still accumulated a nice shelf full of trophies. I think my stoicism and intellectual discipline made the difference. I wasn't racing for a living, and I knew the line between fast and reckless.

I am glad you have an ATV. Ride it as often as you can. I would love to ride at Glamis, I have seen videos of professional motocross riders jumping the dunes there. There is one race course I rode several times near Houston that had sand dunes. There was one huge dune with a 45% slope like you say. Sand is hard to ride on a motorcycle. You have to give it full throttle and shift your weight backward or you sink in. Your front wheel is skittering side to side, but you just let it float. Once I really aced it and flew up that dune and launched 10 feet into the air at the top. What a feeling!

As to your nagging void, I have one too. I think everyone has one. Nothing can completely fill it. Mostly, I try to ignore it. The more attention you pay to it, the more it grows. I put my attention on other things and stay busy. There is so much to learn, so much to do in life, I will not allow that void to nag me for long.

posted by GoldenMean on December 8, 2004 at 10:03 PM | link to this | reply

GoldenMean

Hey, thanks for the video.  My dad will love that one.  Racing motorcycles. umm I mean riding motorcycles?  Very Cool!  I am sure that brings out plenty of emotion and passion.  Sorry the rain got you.  I am sitting in the rain myself.  It has been unseasonably wet 'round hear.  More like unusually wet.  I believe  there is a weak El Nino roaming around prying and jimmying.  I happen to love the rain due to the novel factor in these parts.

So, you're like Mr. Spock... It does not surprise me.  I have a thing for that kind of person.  I think what I mean is I like super-smart, logical types.  And perhaps I see the stoic as a challenge:)  I have this one friend that claims to be *Vulcanized*.  He really is a hard nut to crack.  I have neen trying to get close to him for like 5 years now.  We learn so much from each other.  Very symbiotic friendship.  He has helped me find light when I knew that no such thing existed.

 You seem to have a very full life, I wonder, when one has achieved what you have, does it make that nagging void go away?  I have this nagging void.  Perhaps what I sense as something missing is really just a sense of ambition.  Hey, did I just say that?

Oh! BTW, I have a motorcycle too !  It is an ATV called a Yamaha Warrior.  It is a 350, with electric start and reverse and of course four wheels.  I ride it at a BLM park called Imperial Sand Dunes in theCity of Glamis California.  OMG!  If you want to see the heights of capitalism, this is the place!  It is a huge stretch of mountainous sand dunes.  Just as mysterious and lovely as you can imagine.  There are machines that people have created specifically for taming these dunes.  Imagine, racing up a 45% dune and having the front axle come up off the ground.  They do it going downhill too!  Amazing horse power, engineering, thought, and execution go into these sandrails.

Last time I was there I was thinking about the middle-eastern desert and the dwellers there.  The contrast was unbelievable in a zillion ways.  Living there and adapting as opposed to visiting and conquering.

Sheesh what a blabber-keyboard.  I'll save you some space :)

Best to you always, I am off to visit Rove... mysteria

posted by mysteria on December 8, 2004 at 8:04 AM | link to this | reply

It rained on my parade

Alas, rain kept me from enjoying a ride. Instead, I enjoyed going back to bed. I could have gone anyway and ridden in the mud, but I long ago stopped enjoying mud rides. And I never enjoyed cleaning the mud off of everything!

posted by GoldenMean on December 8, 2004 at 3:56 AM | link to this | reply

Mysteria, my dear

I am so glad you are happier lately! Glad you enjoying a good day in San Diego. I knew that you could rise out of the dark pit you were in a couple of weeks ago. And I am sure that even happier days are ahead for you. Just keep honoring and pursuing the triad of Goodness:

Knowledge, Love and Justice.
That is what does it for me. In these three things are rooted all the virtue and goodness in the world. And a lot of hard work that keeps me out of mischief. But tomorrow I am going to ride my dirt bike at the local dirt bike club's Christmas Party. It's been months since I swung a leg over my KTM 200 race bike. I used to race, until I turned 50, then my wife and mother pressured me to quit racing. But I will never quit riding. And tomorrow I will have perhaps an unofficial "race" or two with the guys I used to race with! Just don't tell my wife.

Funny you should mention Vulcans. In college, I had a girlfriend who said I reminded her of Mr. Spock in many ways. She said it was a challenge to bring out the emotion and passion in me, but she managed to a small degree. However, it turned out that she was in a coven of Satan worshippers, which horrified me and made me very sad for her. I tried to talk her out of this mistake, but she would not listen. She became addicted to cocaine through the coven, which is one of their control methods. Last I heard from her, she married one of the men in the coven who had a job with an oil company, and they moved to Iran. They planned to get involved in the drug trade there. That was just before the revolution in Iran. I often wonder what happened to her. If the Ayatollah discovered Satan worshippers in Iran, I am sure she met a very unpleasant end.

Enough of my ramblings about my dim past.

Rovesciato is still active on Blogit, but I don't run into him as often as I would like. He maintains a delightful blog, "With Respect to an Inferior Lexicographer," crafting clever definitions of words. Rovesciato is as sharp as a tack and seems to have read more philosophy than I have, and can hold his own in discussions of any subject. He packs so many ideas into a post or comment, I have to read it several times before I understand his points. But he seems to have considerable personal challenges which take his genius away from us for periods of time. I hope you are doing well, Rovesciato.

posted by GoldenMean on December 4, 2004 at 9:58 PM | link to this | reply

Goldenmean

wOw...I absolutely fully fell  head over heels into the comments section of this blog.  Is Rove still around I wonder rhetorically as I can easily go and see for myself. 

I wish I could do a Vulcan mind melt with large fries and a Coke with you :)

You are totally the Mac dude!  And I am not just kiddin' either!

You have my mind pointing in fabulous directions.  This is one of the greatest things that a person can give to another.  You indeed contribute to humanity on a global scale.  This is one of my goals.  You make a super good example.

I don't mean to be a flatter-bug.  I guess I just feel inadequate in my attempts to relay my adoration of your mind set, your approach to life. 

You know me, I am full of self doubt and often feel inadequate. 

Today I am having a good day though.  It is a beautiful rainy day in San Diego.  I woke up on a happy side of my multi-faceted bed.  I am feeling mellow and lucid and relaxed in a new way that is strange but welcome.

Ur In My  Goldenmean   Moochies!

 

posted by mysteria on December 4, 2004 at 11:57 AM | link to this | reply

Hey this is really cool

Ladies and gentlemen, I just learned how to link stuff. OK, most of you probably already know how, so I am just coming out of computer kindergarten. But this method really works, and Crabby's instructions were worthless, causing me a session of considerable frustration. So if anyone wants to learn a new trick, just say so here. Ask, and ye shall receive.

And now, the drum roll please, lets see if this really works.....

I am astonished to find that, out of all my blogs, THIS one where I started out digging for dirt on an unfortunate fellow blogger who was banished, IS THE ONE THAT IS THE MOST POPULAR! But it seems to me that this is more a reflection upon the READERS of this blog, than upon its AUTHOR....... so, if any of you are now shamed into wanting to appear more respectable, let me take you to the most respectable blog on the network, The Golden Rule Needs Some Iron

posted by GoldenMean on November 8, 2003 at 9:27 AM | link to this | reply

Rovesciato, now see what you have done? I never would have discovered this Brent guy if you had not put me on to him.

Hey, I'm kidding. I am having a blast with him. Thanks, buddy.

posted by GoldenMean on November 7, 2003 at 11:03 PM | link to this | reply

Thanks

Thank you for looking up "aristocracy" for me. I really appreciate it. I will add that to my list of references. Thanks also for putting me onto "Brents Polemics." It was just in the nick of time-- he is in sore need of a moral reminder. I was horrified at his latest blog about good and evil. Check out my comment over there. I will check out your abortion post when I get a chance.

posted by GoldenMean on November 7, 2003 at 4:39 AM | link to this | reply

i also posted a controversial blog today that will probably drag me into an abortion debate. My post was humorous (while also making a serious point) and not about abortion at all but i'm going to let myself be dragged in anyway. I just wanted you to let me know if in the midst of this i start to rub you the wrong way. You and BrWiSk are the two bloggers i'd like not to offend. You might like his blog Brent's Polemics. 

posted by rovesciato on November 6, 2003 at 4:16 PM | link to this | reply

My Oxford word histories says the word aristocracy came from the greek word aristokratikos, which is derived from the word aristos - best, and kratia - power. It meant government by the best citizens, an ideal in ancient greece. Our sense developed as the nation state replaced the nobility as the war machine. In the meadival ages the lords had a legitamate task in protecting their vassals, although half of the problem is that they were always trying to conquer each other. As they lost this role some other basis was needed to justify their position, which, of course, no one was about to give up. The aristocracy should be looked at as a mixed bag. There are many aristocrates who took thier role as governors of their principalities or estates as a duty to be seriously executed and there are those spoiled first sons who accepted the idea that they were untouchable and made merry for better or usually worse. The word history also says that the word aristocrat wasn't used until the French Revolution, obviously as a slur.

posted by rovesciato on November 6, 2003 at 1:05 PM | link to this | reply

Aristocracy related to Aristotle?

It is after 3 AM, I couldn't sleep, and I was just reading over your previous comments here. You were describing the progression of Aristotle's philosophy through the history of Europe. Then it hit me, the word "aristocracy" must have its root in the name or philosophy of Aristotle. There must be a story behind this. I don't understand how Aristotle's noble philosophy could have become the trademark of the corrupt rich and powerful. Can you shed any more light on this? Or should I get off my ass and do my own research.

posted by GoldenMean on November 6, 2003 at 2:16 AM | link to this | reply

I see. I never really considered that. I suppose I would have distinguished between different types of morality. I believe sociology calls your "morality" the mores of society. They are enforced by peer pressure, and can be incorporated into law. I can see how you would consider integrity to be superior to morality. But even when one considers integrity alone, there is vast disagreement. I hope you do get around to that blog. I look forward to reading it!

posted by GoldenMean on November 5, 2003 at 10:31 PM | link to this | reply

Just ot clairify what i mean by morality. Morality is an external standard enforced by you neighbors and leads to shame. Integrity is an internal standard enforced by conscious and leads to guilt. The two cross each other left and right but i think it is a real difference. Anyhow, if i get that blog done this is what it will be based on. But from now on i'll read morality as integrity in your blogs.

posted by rovesciato on November 5, 2003 at 3:35 PM | link to this | reply

I like Nietzsche too, and I just added a bit to my blurb on him in "The Agnostics Primer." I recently read his "Genealogy of Morals" and was very impressed. I did have one major objection, but I didn't write it down and I can't remember it right now.

Congratulations, you have morals (or ethics) and don't have to base them on any dogma. This is one of my basic premises. Most beings with intelligence and free will can "intuitively" sense those moral principles that result in the most goodness (happiness, prosperity, well-being, harmony). We can disagree on those moral principles, but THAT is the argument we all should be having, instead of the arguments between hundreds of different religious doctrines. That just confuses the issue of moral value.

I call it morality, you call it integrity. I think you are equating "morality" with traditional rigid moral principles, such as the Ten Commandments, which do not work in all situations. If you can make a case that "integrity" is superior to "morality," I will read it with relish. However, I think we are teetering on the brink of the bottomless pit of linguistic anaylsis. Philosophy already wasted decades on that. Let us agree on our labels, and get on with the real issues.

posted by GoldenMean on November 4, 2003 at 9:55 PM | link to this | reply

now we're getting down to it. When you said agnostic i was thinking stoic and i admit i had to look it up to straighten myself out. I simply don't attach names to concepts very well and could perhaps be my agon with Aristotle (well, it doesn't bother me enough to be agon) since he defined his terms and Socrates, in the Laches and Lysis, lets his terms float; a sort of secular agnosticism, interestingly enough. I suppose i am an agnostic. I had been thinking of myself vaguely as a deist, something like Voltaire without the pouting. I something like a tenative desciple of Harold Bloom, who describes gnosticism as: "a knowledge that frees the creative mind from theology, from historicizing, and from any divinity that is totally distinct from what is most imaginative in the self." He also says "apprehension of genius." If this sounds a little like a tool of the weak against the strong it is because Bloom is an enthusiast of Nietzsche (along with a hord of others) (i read about half the agnostic primer then bounced over here since my most imaginative self is trying to tell me 'night-night'. I think i want to copy it and keep it as a reference, it is remarkably clear which is no small compliment. You did have a couple typos in the Hegel section, is written as if - things like that). Nietzsche seems in my opinion to be deadly accurat when reduced to short and direct statements disconnected from superman theory. In this guise he is much like an oscar wilde of philosophy. Basically I have a strong internal sense of authority against which i struggled since i was a teenager and which i have largely overcome but which remains the skeleton, meaning framework, of my personality. As far as God is concerned i would be at my most honest to say i did not believe in him, and i generally look at death without that comfort, but i will not do things precisely because it would be a sin. The most straight forward example came when a married girl fell in love with me and eventually brought me, through indirect means, to fall in love with her. The injunction, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife was essentially the touchstone against which all my other rationalizations were measured. Many other things worked to keep us at an Age of Innocence type distance, but that injuction was formost and the most insistent. I don't in the least take this as a proof of God. What i do have is an instinctive sense that I hold the Bible in greater respect than the vast majority of people who claim to live by it. This sense also applies to law and moral codes. I'm hardly a model for restrained action (i love the aggression in punk rock and i am certainly guilty of lascivious covet in the example above) but i do have a strong sense of the hollowness in morality. This seems like a topic we would prbably get a good debate going on. I have a lot of manuscripts to send out in November but after that i'd like to do a blog titled Morality is no Substitute for Integrity. The basic idea is that a moral is stricture is like a government intervention, however good its intention may be it ultimately provides the handhold necessary to get more fully around it. I'd be interested to hear your reaction to this baldly stated idea. But right now i really need to go to bed.

posted by rovesciato on November 4, 2003 at 12:18 AM | link to this | reply

Ah yes, the Hegelian dialectic

I had brain-fade, but of course you meant the dialectic dogma of Hegel, with his thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The compromise of opposites into a new synthesis of so-called truth, which may be even more screwed up than the original combative positions. This works sometimes, but it is not all it is cracked up to be. I didn't realize that Aristotle advocated this type of dialectic reasoning. I touch briefly on Hegel in my new blog, The Agnostics Primer.

posted by GoldenMean on November 3, 2003 at 1:56 AM | link to this | reply

WOW

Rove, you blow me away with your insights. Forget Crabby, who the hell was that? All she really cared about was ratings. She kept us all agitated, and burned herself out. You should spend more time on the BN, I think we would benefit from your wisdom. Stop being lazy! Your main message seems to be to think as hard as you can, but still keep an open mind. I heartily agree. Most people jump at the chance to argue and object; so they lose the chance to understand. We should look for similarities rather than differences with others. All good folk work together for the common good. But keep an open mind always. Understanding is a project under eternal construction; certainty is a prize that is very hard to win. You should check out my new blog, The Agnostics Primer, over in Religion and Spirituality. Agnosticism is the "religious" expression of an open mind. You sound like an agnostic to me, perhaps you can help me out over there with a comment or two.

posted by GoldenMean on November 3, 2003 at 1:24 AM | link to this | reply

I have a lot of forming impression in my own head, including the impression that all forming impressions are probably at least partially correct so long as they are not hardened into a closed theory. My distaste for dialectic, meaning opposites and a continum between, stems from the importance of dialectic to logic and some reason and therefore rigid theory. I find that things that seem to incompatable on the basis of theory are entirely capable of coexistence when set free. Again, this is a forming impression, one among many, and to your forming impression i say - Form On! I think another of petty quarrals with Aristotle is the trend to downplay the Renaissance in Italy and move it back to a couple hundered years. Aristotle was the lynch pin of this earilier revival and that was when his fame as The philosopher began. I'm irritated because the trend seems to an elevation of scholarship and philosophy by scholors and philosophers, with the implication that the famous Renaissance was merely a superficial indulgence in building and painting and sculpture. The Renaissance was much broader and it saturated the lives of much of the upper class at the time, in many ways forming the aristocracy down to world war I. So some of my beef with Aristotle has nothing to do with Aristotle at all. I havn't gotten around to reading any of your other blogs yet, for a lazy reader they are intimadatingly long. I also have this loyalty thing where i feel if i've dropped personal comments in a blog in need to read it at least semi-regularly and so i always have a back log on BN. It's also interesting how you use the blog name for your title and then only make one post. I might start doing that since i havn't really done any true opinion style blogs since i'm somewhat daunted at the prospect of keeping it up. I absolute must escape politics with some freqency, it almost inevitably turns my head into a clod of dirt.

posted by rovesciato on November 3, 2003 at 12:23 AM | link to this | reply

No rumor-mongers here, I guess

Well, since no one will tell me the dirt on Crabby, I guess I will go back to my philosophical ramblings. Rove, you are just about the coolest blogger I have run into. Here I am digging for dirt in the dumpster, and you show up to remind me of what really counts. I enjoyed our discussion on Liberals and Conservatives. I will have to check out the rest of your blogs now, too.

I am not sure about Aristotle's position on the dialectic, I thought that was Plato's favorite method of teaching, depicting Socrates arguing endlessly with his friends. Perhaps my understanding of "dialectic" is faulty. I like Aristotle because of his moral teachings on virtue, his concept of the Golden Mean, and his amazing work in studying and categorizing animals. I think Aristotle may be the single most important philosopher in history. If Aristotle had not died early from a stomach problem, and he had a chance to better establish and spread his philosophy, Western civilization may not have had a "Dark Age," modern democracy may have formed earlier, and tyranny may have had much less success. I can't defend such a sweeping claim, it is just an impression that is forming in my silly head.

posted by GoldenMean on November 1, 2003 at 10:07 AM | link to this | reply

There you are!

As your what is a liberal and conservative bolgs slid down the opinion lists i lost track of you. since you only had one post on that blog i kind of thought you had asked your one question then lost interest, but i been going down your list and it turns out you're a power blogger, throwing it all down in one shot. I'm not sure if you left another comment to my last or not. I thought the 10, 000 angles on the head of a pin reference might have been oblique but you probably know more about it than i do. I also felt a little bad because in my lexicography blog i posted a definition for the Golden Mean, ridiculing it. This had nothing to do with out little debate and in fact i hadn't really paid much attention to your address name but simply looked for the blog title. I frankly have it somewhat in for Aristotle. I find that things made more rational sense when removed from dialectic and forging dialectic was one of Aristotle's ways of proving to himself that he was a more powerful mind than Plato, ie. agon with the fathers. I noticed you were writing about Socrates in one of your blogs. I havn't time to read it now but i'll check it out.

posted by rovesciato on October 30, 2003 at 12:46 PM | link to this | reply

GOLDEN MEAN...I LIKE YOUR WORK...KEEP IT UP

posted by jhershierra on October 29, 2003 at 7:34 AM | link to this | reply

Yes I do want to go there...

Don't you know people ALWAYS want to go where they are told not to? So why did Crabby get booted? It takes a lot to get kicked out of this den of iniquity! It's a big nest of strange birds.

posted by GoldenMean on October 29, 2003 at 7:30 AM | link to this | reply

you don't want to go there!

posted by homegirl on October 28, 2003 at 6:11 AM | link to this | reply

I missed it too...

... but I still have her comments as well.... its too bad... I truely hope it doesnt happen again to any of our best bloggers....de.

posted by Moonwind on October 25, 2003 at 11:44 AM | link to this | reply

Thanks Scoop

Now I'm sorry I don't check in more often. I missed the fight! I guess she had so many comments everywhere, the BN staff didn't find them all to delete. When EmpiricalPragmatics got booted, ALL his comments went with him.

posted by GoldenMean on October 25, 2003 at 8:11 AM | link to this | reply

Answers

yes, yes, no and she is no longer blogging.

posted by scoop on October 25, 2003 at 8:03 AM | link to this | reply