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Opinion
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Written by Jan Sykes
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Wednesday, 25 August 2010 08:00 |
Regardless of how the dispute over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero ends, President Obama has blown his chance to cash in some political capital he’s invested over nearly two years to gain with Muslims.
Remember, he agreed to meet with the president of Iran unconditionally. He gave his first presidential interview to an Arab TV channel. He went on a U.S. apology tour. He bowed to every Arab leader he met. He refused to call the massacre at Fort Hood terrorism. He attended a Ramadan dinner.
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Opinion
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Wednesday, 11 August 2010 08:00 |
In the last few articles, we have spent considerable time discussing scientific thinking and the theories of evidence that are used to try to make sense out of what we discover. It is a slow process and seems to advance by fits and starts. There is no end to this search, and our desire for finality probably never will be fulfilled, at least on this earth.
The reason we have spent so much time with this subject derives from the fact that there is conflict between our two most important sources of ultimate information: the scientific method and religious belief. Much of that conflict derives from misunderstanding of the methods of the two ideas and how they try to resolve their respective problems. BECAUSE both sides are seeking truth, they are in agreement on goals, if not on methods.
Another aspect to this debate that we have not yet considered is the difference between philosophy and the other two approaches. First of all, philosophers are frequently agnostics, which means they do not feel that God can either be proven or disproven. This line of thought means that they deny any knowledge of God.
The group frequently does not grant to science its rather exalted status because it attributes scientific concepts to individuals who are not seeking truth, but rather greater power over others. Philosophers possessing this line of thought attribute their truth-finding powers to reason and their moral superiority to the fact that their point of view does not grant them power over others.
This approach is the latest viewpoint of philosophy and is called postmodernism. I must confess that when I first heard of this point of view, I was confused by the term postmodernism because I didn’t know what time period to which they were referring. I since have found that they consider the Renaissance to be the beginning of the modern era, whereas I automatically thought that the modern era began with World War I.
Thus, they have in mind 300 years, and I was thinking 90 years at the most. Philosophy can be very interesting, but final thoughts are hard to come by, and they have no scientific evidence. Most of what is gained is a detailed understanding of how other people think.
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Opinion
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Wednesday, 04 August 2010 08:00 |
Many may have forgotten that a few years back I ran for Governor. My platform was a twist on the 10th Amendment. Rather than promoting States’ rights, I promoted “Population Density” rights. America is now more divided by urban vs. rural sensibilities than by state lines. 
I wanted the urban areas to have the right to pass whatever law they wanted without infringing upon the rural areas, and vice versa. Therefore everyone’s values could be accommodated.
If, for example, the big cities wanted to legalize prostitution, hard drugs, or marrying several gay men to each other, while placing sin taxes on red meat and fuel to drive to work, so be it. If they thought it made sense to offer tax-paid abortions and euthanize the innocent infirm; but ban capital punishment, more power to them. If they also thought it made sense to defend the rights of terrorists while restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners, that is their business.
On the other hand, rural folks may think it makes sense to ban marriages of interracial couples, while allowing marriages of first cousins. They may decide to protect the life of all innocents but bring back public hangings for those who commit crimes of any kind — even those committed by children. Churches may suddenly need to double as classrooms when taxes are lowered so much no one can any longer finance schools. Evolution classes will most likely be replaced by gun slinging lessons. Public education would subsequently need to budget a gun for each student to bring to church — er, school.
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Opinion
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Wednesday, 28 July 2010 08:00 |
I grew up in a generation that has witnessed the greatest explosion of communications the world has ever known.
As a youngster, we had a large wooden telephone mounted on the wall with a receiver that hung on the side of the phone, and the speaker was fastened in the middle of the telephone. You cranked the ringer on the side several times in order to talk with a live operator who asked, “Number please?” You gave her the number, and in my small home town, numbers were easy to remember. Our home phone number was “41”. The operator would then ring the number you asked for, and if someone was at home, they picked up their receiver and the conversation could begin.
Some of us had party lines instead of private lines. The operator would ring your designated number of rings; like a long and one short or a short and two longs. Every phone on the party line would ring, and if you wanted to, you could pick up your receiver and listen to the conversation between your neighbors. If you wanted privacy, you had to verbally tell them “hang up” or “get off the line.”
I was always fascinated with the telephone office since two of my sisters worked as operators. They would occasionally let me watch them work, and it was amazing how they would connect the calling party to his requested number. They had to know every number in town and move up and down the old switch board.
When the old wooden phone came off the wall and was replaced by a black ceramic desk telephone that had speaker and receiver in one piece and rested in a cradle on top of the phone, we all thought technology had gone too far. You even had to dial a seven digit number, and no one but the operator could listen to your conversation. Those of us who lived during this time still use the term “dial a phone,” and no one dials a phone anymore.
I took typing in high school because someone said you will need this if you’re going to college. We learned on manual typewriters. That’s all we had back then. When you came to the end of the line you were typing, you threw your carriage to return to the specified line of type.
What a marvelous invention. Throwing carriages was one of the best times we boys had in typing class. I will never forget the last time I really threw a carriage in typing. A contest had broken out among us boys, and it was to see who could throw first and hardest. Augie Beckman won when he threw his typewriter off his desk and on to the floor.
I used a typewriter considerably in my early years as a teacher, and it wasn’t until I was a principal that computers came into existence. Little did I realize computers would become a communications tool. When we first started teaching computers, they were for businesses only, and the language the computer used was what the students learned, and they were more for reading punch cards than communicating. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be using a computer, and here I am using my typing skills to write this column, and I haven’t once thrown my carriage or machine on the floor.
I must say, however, that I have reached a saturation point with all this technology. The cell phone does far more than I want from a telephone. I will admit they are handy to have, and they eliminate the need to locate a telephone booth if you’re on the road. But I don’t need to have at my finger tips a set of encyclopedias, or an atlas, nor do I need to have at my disposal the entire Internet. I recently sat next to a lady on an airplane, and she had loaded on to her cell phone four movies. She proceeded to watch one using her cell phone, and she listened with ear phones. I just slept.
My grandchildren are encouraging me to sign up for Twitter and Facebook, so they can communicate more readily with me in the modern way. They have even scolded me because I don’t have texting capabilities on my cell phone. I enjoy talking verbally to a human being, not reading poorly spelled words on a micro screen.
I was considering a Facebook page, but when I realized having such a page meant hanging your face out there for every idiot in the world to send you a message, I suddenly decided I didn’t want my face on my computer. And as for twittering, that’s what birds do!
I really miss the old wooden telephone and a nice operator to talk to if you felt lonely and needed someone to listen. |
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