Quotable Quote

Asking for logic in an era of illogic is as futile as trying to get Donald Trump not to punch back. — Anon.

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Things Disappear

There are a number of things that are disappearing from our social landscape ... some good, some bad:

- Cash transactions

- Truant officers (*)

- Land-line phones

- Christianity (*)

- Personal privacy (*)

- Aptitude tests (*)

- Civility (*)

- Nuclear power plants (*)

- TV sitcoms

- Big families (*)

- Cigarette smoking

- Logical thinking (*)

- Many chronic diseases

- Smog and other air pollutants

However, it would be nice if a few of these negatives (*) were reversed or replaced with positives ...

Opprobium

When one has a visceral dislike for someone else ... be it a politician, a celebrity or even a neighbor ... then, depending on degree of emotion, one will often amass a parcel of reasons to justify this opprobrium ... many having nothing to do with the original aversion. 

And the same layering of rationales occurs in reverse ... as a result of an infatuation. This suggests that our emotions too often have a leash on our logic ... and this is a flaw that keeps pulling mankind down.

Dichotomy

President Trump decides with logic and sells with emotion. -- Anon.

Obvious Truth #4

Because faith trumps logic, religion is more easily corrupted than other social institution. -- Anon.

Heart vs. Head

Call me hard hearted, but I am increasingly annoyed by those using emotional images and sounds to get me to do or not do something. Many, many years ago when I was riding the New York  subway, we riders were confronted by a crying baby. I saw myself and others getting increasingly agitated and tried to understand why. I concluded that this angst has been built into our genes from a long time past. When humans were clans living in caves, children were the future of the clan .... meaning it was to every one's long-term survival interest to be concerned if a child was distressed ... so the whole clan responded.

This tropism is clearly used by opinion shapers in our current media. Today I saw a political ad against Trump's immigration policies which included message text and no sound but a crying baby. In the above context, this sappy appeal didn't get my sympathy, it only pissed me off. Just as other heart-strung strumming ads that show shivering (in the winter) or sweltering (in the summer) dogs ... asking for ASPCA donations ... or "starving" holocaust survivors ...  or crippled children ... or etc. piss me off  ... not that these sufferings don't exist ... . but that they are being exploited for gain to others than these sufferers. (The ASPCA had to put that dog out in the freezing cold in order to get it to shiver.)

I guess Democrats really are a party of the heart and Republicans, of the head. All I ask from the phony lefties  and charities is to stop using emotional images and sounds to  get what they want. Appeal to my logic for a change. It is clearly less exploitative.

Pointy Heads

Zippy

As we often do, my wife and I were observing the loopy state of the world this morning and we stumbled upon anther paradox which needs to be dissected. There are two major motivators in society -- logic and emotion. The left tends to behave more out of emotion and the right, leaning on logic. Now our university elites, one would assume, are, or should be, grounded in logical thought growing out of their study of the great thinkers of history. Therefore, again one would assume, these  pedagogues would resist the soppy reasoning associated with progressive activism (while privilege, safe spaces, virtue signaling, etc.).

But no! The right-reasoning process seems mostly dead on our college campuses ... and emotion rules our ivory towers. Cold, hard logic is too often eschewed and is replaced by slogans and mindless chants. Why this has occurred is beyond the understanding of this observer ... and, apparently, also is not up for discussion in the classrooms of many of our pointy-headed professors.

Afterthought:Perhaps our prejudice against the state of higher education comes from the growth of hyphenized "studies"courses relative to the classics. This lopsided expansion of "soft" vs. tradotional studies is, in our opinion, rotting out o our educational foundation ... which should concern everyone.

Thought for Today

Life surely exists and has existed elsewhere in the Universe, but our connecting with it is a monument to hope over logic.

For you doubters, see: Sapient Window (Update).

Prescience

"Logic is logic, that's all I say." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Earthquakes that are associated with the pull of the sun's and moon's gravity have made a lot of sense to me in the past. If these orbs can affect the rise and fall of water ... the ocean tides ... why can't they affect the Earth's crust in a similar way? I have speculated on this in the past ... particularly during supermoons ... see: Supermoon. Now, it appears that I was onto something. This phenomenon apparently has been repeatedly detected in the San Andreas fault in California ... see: LA Times Story.

It would seem to me that those living in earthquake zones should pay close attention to the relative positions of the Earth, the sun and the moon. Just a thought ...

Fortune Cookie Politics

A long time ago I got a fortune cookie which had the following message: "If your head and your heart agree, you are seldom wrong."  Interestingly, I have had this adage proven correct many times since.  My last post here discussed the Paul Ryan pick for the V.P. slot on the Republican ticket and concluded that it was a decision of the head and not of the heart ... as a Marco Rubio selection would have been.  To me, this had clearly diminished Mitt Romney's chances of being elected President.

The reason that I had thought this is that I believe that the American people too often vote using their emotions and not their logic.  However, seeing the enthusiasm at some of the Romney/Ryan rallies over the weekend, has moved the needle somewhat away from my initial conclusion.  Also, some of the talking heads on television have pointed out that, recently both in liberal New Jersey and Wisconsin, voters have responded to cerebral arguments about the economic futures of their states.  There, they have elected fiscally conservative politicians who have treated them like adults ... and leveled with them about what would happen if meaningful austerity measures were not enacted.  And so, although I still believe that the upcoming campaigns will be over-loaded with emotional vitriol, I now believe that the Republicans may still have an outside chance of prevailing.

Incidentally, the last fortune cookie I broke open said, "If all you do is hope, change is dangerous."

Mr. Cool

The then Senator Obama once told Harry Reid that his "gift" was being able to read from a teleprompter so easily.  That certainly is true, but he has a much larger asset ... and that is his "coolness".  Marshall McLuhan once prophetically observed that television is a cool medium.  And President Obama fits this medium like a chamois glove.  He even strides "cool."  I seldom can watch him perform on television without singing to myself that old 1959 Coasters' song Charlie Brown:

Who walks in the classroom, cool and slow
Who calls the English teacher, Daddy-O      (see: All Lyrics)

So, in the upcoming Presidential election, Obama (I like to call him The Barry to reprise that other cool media character, The Donald), has the natural advantage in the upcoming debates.  Neither Rick Santorum nor Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich are particularly cool personalities ... Romney is cooler than the other two, but still boiling hot compared to The Barry.  What does this suggest?  To me, it implies that, if the election is determined on emotion (as it was in 2008), Obama will win in a walk.  However, if the U.S. electorate chooses to view things this fall with a preponderance of logic, then Obama will loose in a landslide.  It should turn out to be a classic battle between the head and the heart.

And what will determine the mood of electorate then?  My guess would be the degree of angst (created by the world situation) that is roiling the voters ... the hotter things are, the less well "coolness" will play.