Kate's Takes

3:59PM - Great minds and their messages

Here are three sites that generously are offering for free the presentations by the most brilliant, amazing, and passionate individuals, on topics of great importance to humanity and the world, in the present and the future. Originally attending in person cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Now they are available online for free. See them all and be prepared to be astonished, elated, informed, delighted, challenged.

• Chris Anderson's TED TALKS brings together once a year in California a remarkable group of people, all tops in their fields. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Hundreds of talks are now online. Awesome does not begin to describe them. http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/

• Mark Hurst's Good Experience Live (GEL) is held annually in New York, with live, interactive events that emphasize providing participants a good experience in the arts, science, commerce. Exciting speakers and urban happenings make this a unique series of experiences, and you can now partake retroactively of several seasons for free online. If you can, attend in person next year. http://gelconference.com/videos/

• Jacob Hornberger's Future of Freedom Foundation brings together once a year the greatest thinkers and speakers on Libertarianism, and the talks are now collected and available here for all who value our country's founding principles, individual rights and liberty. "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties." Join the dialogue, understand the issues. http://www.fff.org/classroom/intro.html/
  
  
  

10:43PM - Tell Barack Obama your vision for America

Here is an enlightened invitation from Barack Obama for us all to tell him our vision:

_______________________________________________________

An American Moment: Your Vision

Start right now. Share your vision for what America can be, where President-Elect Obama
should lead this country. Where should we start together?
______________________________________________________

Here's what I posted on their website, http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

 at 10:30PM, November 12, 2008:


Dear Barack Obama,

I was delighted to see you win the election, with your hope-building words and declaration of change. We do need change, and you have the moment now to change the whole world for humanity's betterment. This is the moment you can seize and turn everything around. Disown the Bush doctrine and all his actions. The world awaits a cleaning up.

I propose that as Commander in Chief, you immediately turn our armies of war into armies of peace. Turn the weapons into plowshares now. All our troops in Iraq and elsewhere can be put to work rebuilding what Bush destroyed. Iraq's homes, buildings and infrastructure desperately need repair and reconstruction. Put our guys to work clearing, cleaning and building. They'll come home with far fewer cases of mental illness. Offer the Iraqis all the support for building they need, and are willing to accept. If they don't want us to do it, pull the troops out.

And change all the uniforms from battle gear to uniforms in hopeful or healing colors, say blue, such as doctors and nurses wear. No more killing. Put everyone to work. You can do it. We can do it. Just have the courage to denounce and renounce your predecessor's deeds. Apologize to the whole world for what he did, and assure the world that a change has come.

You'll be amazed how other countries will flock to support and help in this rebuilding plan, where they only reluctantly went along with Bush's calls for personnel who kill.

We can never bring back the dead, but their blood is on Bush's hands, not yours. Don't let the establishment drag you into their morass. You don't have to join the dark side of that force. Be our shining hero who makes the difference.

Your name will live in history as the one who brought peace to the world. Call for volunteers to go and help rebuild. You'll get many! They voted for you because they believe you can end the war, not just in Iraq but everywhere that American bullyism has spread death and destruction. Close all the bases, close Guantanamo, close down the torture and unconstitutional treatment of human beings. This is true patriotism, for love of our country and its true founding principles which Bush has betrayed.

The hellish mess Bush has put us into is not what the Constitution says is the President's job. His first duty is to uphold the Constitution. Bush and his henchmen have assassinated it. I urge you to have the courage now, at this crossroads of history, to declare peace and to stand up for doing the right thing. Doing the right thing always leads to a better future. Certainly the housing industry will gain from so much construction to be done. Making the new peace uniforms will help the garment business. You'll create many, many jobs.

I, as an American, horrified by what the Bush administration was doing allegedly in our name and in our "interest", wept at the waste of lives and resources. A trillion-dollar war and no end in sight -- $700 billion wasted on the wrong people -- the downward spiral of our impoverishment at home and globally -- was it worth it? How much false pride can a country indulge before the fall?

Please be the change, make the change. Whatever it costs will be an asset, its value will increase. We, who were silent and helpless before the Bush juggernaut, or even approved, have to pay the dues. I will give zero for swords, but as much as possible for plowshares. The time has come, dear Barack, and our hearts and minds are with you, to take that brave step to redeeming America's reputation and rekindling Americans' love and respect for their country. Win the hearts and minds of other countries, and neither shall they make war any more.

We stand with you in this historic moment. Please let it be your first act in office: declare peace, and turn our warriors into an army of peace.  Please finish the job Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began. Yes, you can. Yes, we will. This is the moment.

Fervently, -- Kate Jones

11:12PM

The theme of this journal is "Ideas are the gameboard of the mind." Here is a place for trying out ideas, seeing how they play within the rules our minds may have put in place.

1) Are the rules inborn?
2) Do we arrive into the world with a toolkit full of how-to's and do-not's?
3) Is there an operating system implanted with our DNA that pulls in more and more files and tries to organize them coherently?
4) Do our ideas of right and wrong come with the kit, or do circumstances of existence and the influence of our environment program them in?
5) Are we capable of deleting bad files and reprogramming ourselves?
6) Is learning a kind of downloading and installing of plug-ins?
7) Is the ability to introspect learned or self-discovered?

8) How does the mind differentiate between knowledge and belief?
9) Between certainty and speculation?
10) Between the real and the simulated?
11) Can we look inside and check our source code to know why we hold certain values?
12) How we came to accept rules taught to us by parents, teachers, adults, authorities?
13) How do some humans become authorities over other humans?
14) Is our herd or tribal conditioning so strong that we accept rulers and submit to rules not of our making?

Scientists are making great progress in studying the physical structure of the brain, how neurons communicate, how thoughts literally flare up, how patterns are reinforced or allowed to atrophy.

15) At the quantum level, what is a thought?
16) How are concepts built up from their component elementary perceptions and sensory data?
17) How do emotions emerge and evolve?
18) Is there a parallel between the cognitive and the emotive?
19) Do emotions arise in reaction to encounters between what we want and what the environment provides?

Enough questions for now. These are the areas and ideas we will play with.

Oh, one more thing. We proceed from the premise that there is an objective reality "out there". It is the final measuring stick, the table on which our gameboard sits. Let's not ever forget it. ||| Your turn.