Mindful Agnosia

"Agnosia, from the Greek "not knowing," describes a collection of disorders where the ability to recognize objects or sounds or retrieve information about them is impaired, in the absence of other perceptual difficulties, including memory, intellectual capabilities, and the capacity for communication."

Encyclopedia of Neurological Disorders. Ed. Stacey L. Chamberlin and Brigham Narins. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 25 Nov, 2009 <http://www.enotes.com/neurological-disorders-encyclopedia/
agnosia>

For many years I've been struggling with what on the surface is a simple question: Do I believe in god?

The problem of God is manifold. "God" is one of the most overloaded words in the English language and, even if one limits oneself to the proper noun, it's not much clearer. I certainly do not believe in the god portrayed in the Bible, mostly because the New and Old testament gods seem to be very different things, and even if one limits one's definition to one or the other testament, that god seems to suffer from something of an identity crisis. Many will disagree with this and point to any one of a number of ways to rationalize the inconsistencies in the portrayal of God in the Bible. In the end, however, each of those portrayals-- however consistent-- are demonstrably false.

That doesn't mean I feel the Bible doesn't have glimpses of wisdom about the nature of what one might call God, or that there is no validity in anything the Bible has to say. I simply assert that, as far as God goes, the authors of the books that eventually came to be known as our Bible did not have in mind one, singular vision of what God was; and any attempt to twist everything to fit one self-consistent vision is futile at best.

However, atheism isn't really a good word for what I believe either. I classify atheists as two kinds: religious and non-religious. Religious atheists insist that there is no God at all and to believe otherwise is foolish. I can only see their point if one limits oneself to the aforementioned Biblical God-- one trap that most atheists of this sort. Religious atheists believe there is no God with what can only be described as religious fervor. Perhaps not ironically, religious atheists hate the insinuation that theirs is a religion; a position that only makes sense if you exempt their way of belief from being called a religion despite meeting all of the necessary criteria to be defined as such. Religious atheists are generally the worst in discussions because their philosophy is one of opposition to someone else's idea rather than an original position. Religious atheists are fond of pointing out the atrocities perpetrated in the name of God while seemingly forgetting the atrocities done against the name of God (Stalin, anyone?).

Non-religious atheists may not believe in God (or a god or gods), but they don't much mind if people do. The question of the existence or non-existence of God (or god, or gods) does not affect their philosophical view. Recently many of these types have been referred to (and refer to themselves as) agnostics. I find that term inaccurate, for the agnostic admits to not knowing, whereas an atheist (religious or not) feels s/he knows the answer is no. For the non-religious atheist, God doesn't exist. For the religious atheist, God must not exist.

I was thinking of calling myself agnostic, but there is an ambiguity in the language here. Agnostic means someone who does not know; but does that imply not knowing whether or not God exists, or the nature of that god (or god, gods, etc.) Miriam-Webster defines agnostic as "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god." Even with that dual meaning, agnostic is not word I like.

I believe that everything is knowable-- even if it is not knowable at the present time. We don't have all the pieces of the puzzle, and even if we did we might not be able to put them together within a lifetime, but that doesn't mean it can't be done (or shouldn't be tried). Atheists of all stripes, agnostics, and especially conservative Christians want to lock God down to either champion him, limit him, or deny him. In the end, though, it's all the same ego-centric game of trying to understand all of existence simply in terms of our extremely limited perspective. We're like the blind men and the elephant in the famous parable-- except we are acutely unaware of our own blindness and are therefore totally unmotivated to do anything about it or even admit that there is something to be done differently.

That's how I decided to use the term religious agnosia. We're part of this whole living universe, and yet we believe that it is not alive. Some even are so self-centered as to believe that a god who created the universe created it for us and only us. There was recently a conference at the Vatican where the possibility of alien life was discussed and one of the topics was if Jesus died for alien races' sins too. There isn't a facepalm in the universe big enough to cover the unimaginable egotism that produced such a train of thought.

I believe there is an intelligence to existence itself. Matter is not dumb and inert without minds or egos to order it about (human or divine). It has consciousness, but not what we would call intelligence such as creationists would like to believe. We are part of it, but we have no more idea of the whole of it than a tea leaf knows the history of the East Inda Company (to borrow a prase from the late Douglas Adams). We need to know that we don't know a millionth of a percent about anything-- whether that's science or religion or God or whatever. As soon as we believe we an understand everything n it's entirety, we start to lose our focus and stop exploring.

The name of my blog is also the name of my studio under which I'm doing most of my creative work these days.  Back when my son Marcus was living with us we thought it might be nice for he and I to collaborate on some music.  Since Emerson lived nearby, we thought it'd be cool for her to get involved as well.  I came up with the idea of calling the group "Broken Home" because of my divorce from Marcus' and Emerson's mother.  I then registered the domain ourbrokenhome.com because it was the only permutation of the name that was available that I liked.

Well, MArcus proved to be something of a lost cause and was eventually sent packing to the North Carolina Institute for the Perpetually Inebriated (a/k/a his grandmother's house), after which I decided that it was a great name for my studio, and kept it.

Add "update web page" to my growing list of things I haven't done yet.

Spending way too much time not really writing but posting the tweet-like statuses (statii?) FB uses, so I've decided to use this journal to muse aloud on my latest creative projects.

Currently, I'm working on music/soundscape work for a new version of The Bacchae-- the ancient Greek play by Euripides.  The director/adapter is Ted Guhl-- one of the founders of the Hole in the Wall Theater and simply one of the most interesting cats I've ever met.  His resumé includes things like working on films in places like Syria and stuff.

This project comes on after I worked with Ted on a play he directed by Jenny Lecce (Heaven).  I wrote a "soundscape" for that and I guess he liked it.  This is going to be something else though.  He wants music throughout and wants it very reminiscent of ancient music and also have the air of a relious/spiritual ritual.

I can do this...

I'm going to try and compose the whole piece through, as if it were an opera or an oratorio.  I've never put together a piece of that scale before; but I think even if I fall short of my ultimate goal I'll have enough music for Ted to use,  Also, he has two or three other writers working on the music so he can pick and choose if he wants.

In researching this project I ran across a wonderful site about a conference on ancient Greek music hosted by the Austrian Academy of Science.  I was so impressed, I bought the book and accompanying CD.  I hate these exchange rates!

Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So much has been written about this book by so many brilliant writers that my saying anything about it would be completely useless.

Read it, enjoy it (you will) and then reflect that it was 1925 when this was written and how many of what have become the tropes of fantasy are contained in this easy-to-read, thoroughly entertaining book.

Oh-- don't buy the crappy 2005 Quality Books version. It's terribly edited with a lot of obvious mistakes. Go for the 2007 Wildside Press version instead.

View all my reviews >>

Watchmen by Alan Moore

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
With all the hype around this legendary comic book, I was fully prepared to be wowed.

Color me disappointed.

Okay, it wasn't all bad. It did a very nice job of saying what it wanted to say-- that if comic book heroes were more fallible, it would truly suck. The trouble is that observation was obvious to anyone. The whole point of comic book heroes (indeed, of heroes of any kind) isn't that they have super-powers, but that their human frailties get in the way, no matter how many tall buildings they leap in a single bound.

What made these heroes compelling was that they rose above their baser instincts. In Watchmen, the message seems to be that no-one can overcome their human nature (which is understood a priori to be selfish and cruel) unless one gives up all human values altogether. It's a sophomoric view held by many an embittered liberal arts major and was all in vogue during the time Watchmen was written.

And therein lies the trouble with this book: It's an artifact. It's a good artifact, but an artifact nonetheless. It is an artifact of all of the worst excesses of left-wing paranoia at the height of the Regan years. Unfortunately the events of the late 20th to the beginnings of the 21st century have made those threats seem quaint in the aftermath of the Cheney administration.

All of this wouldn't be bad at all, had not Watchmen had the pretense of "serious literature" and called "the first graphic novel." No, it's a comic book, and there is no shame in liking comic books. Many comic book heroes were compellingly human characters. There's nothing compelling about the characters in Watchmen-- except perhaps how much they resemble reality show participants. I don't want to see what kind of heroes fucked up relatives and friends would have made. I want the ones who overcome their weaknesses-- not wallow in them.

If I want comic book heroes deconstructed, I'll read The Tick. It does at least as good a job with a lot more humor, and a hell of a lot more respect for its subject matter too.

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Rules: It's harder than it looks (no it isn't-- Beldon) ! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people (or not, as you see fit). Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real. . .nothing made up!

Continue Reading...

1. What is your name: Beldon

2. A four Letter Word: bomb

3. A boy's Name: Bart

4. A girl's Name: Barbara

5. An occupation: baker

6. A color: blue

7. Something you wear: bolo

8. A food: bread

9. Something found in the bathroom: bathtub

10. A place: Berlin

11. A reason for being late: bus late

12. Something you shout: Bastard!

13. A movie title: Benji

14. Something you drink: beer

15. A musical group: Beirut

16. An animal: bobcat

17. A street name: Broadway

18. A type of car: Buick

19. Something scary: Bubonic Plague

20. Ice cream flavor: blueberry

Awoke just now from a long and complex dream. One scene seemed particularly relevant.

I was in what I refer to as my "dream city". There is a large transportation hub in the center of the downtown area similar to Penn station in New York. I was going to take a train to one of the outlying areas. While I was walking toward the turnstiles, I started hearing some shouting. I'm thinking it's just another subway preacher, and as I get closer and am able to understand more of what he's shouting, I'm sure of it.

When I get to the turnstile area, I see it's got a bunch these large lit display marquees, all of which have the same posters in them. As I pause to read them I realize that they're all about President Obama's energy plan. Something about when he does whatever it is he's going to do to the grid will cause a shift in magnetic field which will cause avalanches at ski resorts, horrific highway pile-ups, and all manner of mayhem. As I'm reading I realize too that the crazy guy ranting is saying exactly what the posters are saying and that they are all based on his rantings alone. But a news outlet has set up the posters and is asking passersby what they think about the issue.

I think that scene nicely sums up a lot of what passes for news nowadays.

The Gnostic Mystery by Randy Davila

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book really tries to be two things. First and foremost, it tries to be a religious tractate. Second, and only secondarily, it tries to put these ideas into a dramatic format a la The daVinci Code.
First, as to the dramatic content-- it's just not there. The dialogue is stilted, relentlessly expository, and poorly organized. The general impression I got was that the author didn't really want to bother with it because he was more interested in getting his point across. The net effect is that the dramatic elements read like the filler between sex scenes in a porn story.
Despite its comparison (in a review on the back) it only hopes to be as intruguing as The daVinci Code. I did not think The daVinci Code was that well-written, but none thing it did well was it created real tension as to what the secret was that was being hidden. In this book, the game is given away at the very outset-- and the author's choice to keep skipping around in time only serves to jumble the exposition which is clearly the author's main objective.
As for the material presented itself, it's laughably misinformed. The author obviously favors Gnosticism over what he calls the "Literalism" (what we might call Orthodoxy), but his conception of Gnosticism is not historically accurate. This, in itself, is not a bad thing-- except for the fact that the book relies heavily on supposed historical information.
One of the reviews on the back cover says the bookm will "shake Western readers to their core." That would be true if the information presented had any historical validity; or if the information was well-presented instead of a brain-dump disguised as dialogue; or if The da Vinci Code hadn't already blazed the trail in the public's mind for wildly fantastical theories about early Christianity.
As it stands the only thing shaking is my head at the people who think any of this is original, insightful, enlightening, or even good writing.

View all my reviews.

I think the plot synopsis was very good and a very interesting way to allow the movie to deviate from the accepted canon. Great movie all-around.

A few character notes:

Kirk: Chris Pine took the character in a very different direction personality-wise, which worked wonderfully. Of all the characters, this is the none that would have been hardest to update. On the one hand-- regardless of what you think of Shatner's original portrayal of Kirk-- the character has become hackneyed and easily overdone. While that kind of over-dramatizing was popular in the '60s, it would never fly now except as parody. Pine does a nice job of balancing the essence of Kirk with more modern ideas of the successful maverick. I like that they emphasized his intelligence. I always thought that the original Kirk was played as too much of a chunk head.

Spock: Quinto does a great job of reproducing a character who already exists in a strong way and doesn't need to be messed with. He even has the dry sense of humor down very well which, more than anything else,, defines the character of Spock and distinguishes him from the other Vulcans.

McCoy: Whoa! Carl Urban's performance is perfect. He sounds and looks like a young DeForest Kelly, and he's got the character down pat-- even to the physical movements and vocal inflections. I also like that they made him more overtly Southern. My favorite character of the movie.

Uhura: Of all of the characters in the original series, Uhura always got short shrift due to the fact that she was female and black in a '60s show. The movies partially rectified this, but I always felt for Nichelle Nichols because her character was so revolutionary for its time, yet so meager compared to what it could have been. Zoe Seldana does a great job of correcting those errors of omission. Her character was written strongly and Zeldana plays it to the hilt. Sweet revenge for Uhura's character-- and a big "Fuck you" to '60s bigotry.

Sulu: I was excited to see John Cho in this role, but I didn't like him as much as I thought I would. He was pretty badass in the action sequences, but in his more routine dialog scenes, he seemed a bit smirky. I think the essence of Sulu is that he is sober and focused, even when he makes a mistake. Cho's Sulu breaks with that and it detracts from the character's nature somewhat.

Scotty: This is one of those times you worry that the actor is maybe too perfect for the role. Nonetheless, he's just perfect enough. Would like to have seen more of him, but what we have is damned good. Plus Simon is awesome in everything.

The only other comment is that I like how they made the Romulans a bit more grizzled. The first scene with Nero (Eric Bana) on the Romulan ship reminded me of what Deadliest Catch would look like in the future.

Overall, great movie experience with something for non-fans as well as us "veterans". See it. It's very watchable.

So I start my new job on Monday.  Ah, to be productive again!

What totally sucks is that I'm excited about this job not just because it's work and I have to pay the bills and all the obvious shit, but that there's no-one with whom to share the celebration outside of Nightwing who has probably heard enough of it by now.

Reason the first - Can't talk technical with most of the people I know.  Even those who are technical, on the whole, don't get off on this shit like I do.

Reason the second - A lot of my friends are in bad shape these days.  A few have lost their jobs and are still looking, of course, but the ones who still have jobs are (justifiably) concerned that they might not.  Trying to get them to be happy that I got a job seems selfish.  Even if it's like "Hey, if I can get a job, so can you!" 

Reason the third - That being said, I am aware that I have certain advantages in the job market and am beginning to suspect that I may actually be awesome which, if true, explains how the enthusiasm I wish to share with people could seem selfish, if not downright cruel.

Whiny, maybe.  Conceited?  Arrogant?  Nah.  The very fact of my employment says nothing of my moral fiber (or lack thereof).  I'm just feeling  thankful (though not sure to whom or what).  If I can somehow help those who have helped me along the way-- or maybe that I feel just need a break for whatever reason-- that may be thanks enough for the universe.

Yesterday Malory was admitted into the veterinary hospital. Seems his OCD has caused a ball of carpet fibers and other assorted gunk he's licked to form a ball taking up most of his stomach. He had surgery yesterday and it went well. He should be home later today. He will also probably start Prozac to treat the OCD.

On a more upbeat note, I accepted an offer with a new company. No start date yet as they have to complete a criminal background check, which will take a few days. After that I'll probably start the 6th or 14th of April. Very cool bunch of people. For the first time I feel like the people I'll be working with (and I met them all in a five-hour marathon interview process. It's a relatively small company (450+ employees) compared to the 10,000 - 100,000 employee companies I've worked with in the past.

They are based in Waltham, MA which means we will probably be relocating to the Boston metro area eventually. I don't even want to think about selling the house just now and we need to do a few repairs before we can honestly sell it. In the meantime, I'll be renting a room from the lovely fibro_witch who lives in the area. Sorta.

Today I'm going to visit with my brother, sister, and father in New Jersey. Report forthcoming.

I get a lot of e-mail responses to my resume when I post on Dice.com, and sometimes I get a flurry of them for the same positions. I have a system for prioritizing them, but I end up ignoring a lot of the e-mail I get for positions. One company constantly sends out shotgun email blasts that are obviously generated from a word search as even the most perfunctory reading of my resume would have shown that I wasn't right for the job. One company that's most guilty of this is Axelon (formerly Algomod). They annoy me constantly with ludicrously inappropriate positions. Further, when a position has come along that actually seems to fit, they have never returned my call. Tech job hunters beware.

I got one e-mail a few days ago that made me LOL. Here I will share some of the highlights, starting with the job description itself:
For those who don't know, the two technical skills listed are a highly unlikely combination to put together as primary duties.  It's like placing an ad for a bicycle repairman and diesel engine mechanic.  Sure some people have both, but they don't normally mix in any kind of elegant way.

Next are some of the requirements:

• Experience with SQL coding, MS/SQL Server Admin, ETL Process, Korn Shell Scripting, Unix Admin, Sybase Admin is a MUST
• Project Management (Project+, PMP, PMI, Microsoft Project, or equivalent).
• Network technologies and protocols. Sybase and SQL Server.
• Programming – Cobol, Perl, Pascal, C++, or Visual Basic.
• Relational database and data warehouse technologies, transaction processing, and procedures including advanced modeling and design tools.

So they basically want a one-person IT department: Someone who can administrate, code, manage projects and build and design major database implementations on Windows and UNIX database platforms.

Then came this requirement:

• Valid driver's license required.

WTF?  I figure this is a way to check the immigration and/or visa status of a candidate without raising any suspicion at the outset.

Then come the qualifications:

1. Certified Database Administrator (DBA).
2. Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) Certification.
3. Sybase Replication Server Certification.
4. SQL Server Enterprise Certification (SQL MCSA / MCSE).

Sometime I'd like to ask the hiring manager what a "Certified DBA" is as opposed to certified in the two platforms he mentions.  I'd also like to see what they were offering for an hourly rate.  $25?  $30?  Experience has taught me that the longer the list of duties and desired certifications a posting has, the lower the hourly rate usually is.

Well, I hope someone who reads this (if anyone) understood it enough to understand and be amused.

Here's hoping!

I'm not a huge fan of Manga, but these were just too good. I already own two of them: ( Nerdgasm alert! )

Idiot One

Hiring manager at a company I once worked for. Position open for six months. I am qualified on the product but not the platform. However, it's an entry-level position so I see it as a good way of working into the new platform which, anyway, I'm very interested in and have been for years. Three different recruiters present me for the position at different times. Although my old cohorts in the company remember me and recommend me for the position, the hiring manager still won't even interview me saying that I "wouldn't want the position."

Perhaps the reason the position has been open so long is that the hiring manager thinks no-one in their right mind would want it. I told the third recruiter to let me know when the hiring manager's position was open because they obviously needed someone who wasn't a complete moron. Mainframe's not going anywhere.

Lesson learned: Nothing has changed at my old place of employment, and management are pathetically out of touch with reality.

Idiot Two

Another hiring manager, this time at a major bank. Their HR department called me, which is pretty encouraging. I pass the interview with her and a screening interview with one of the team members. The next phase is an interview with three managers, including the hiring manager, one after the other, and then a group interview with the team. Then a technical assessment test. Finally, after about three weeks of scheduling one thing than another, the last interview is scheduled.

I drive out to Providence (hour and a half drive) to do the interview. All goes well, except one interviewer doesn't come prepared with a copy of my resumé. Still I do well in the interview and one of the team (a contractor, it turns out) walks me to the exit and fills me in on a little of the details of what's going on with the team. seems they're all rather young (I had noticed) except for him and very unambitious. No-one wants to do anything but pure database administration-- not even so much as learning scripting to do automation of the more tedious and repetitive tasks. I take it under advisement and say goodbye.

Three days later I speak to the HR person. The guy with no copy of my resumé was the hiring manager and had obviously not looked at it before hand. He said I did well and have the experience and certifications he wants, but he wants someone with a Bachelor's degree. Why hadn't he said this before? His excuse was it was in the job req all along (it was but not in the "requirements" section). So, in the words of the HR person, this is the one reason he didn't want to hire me. Another position open for months because the manager feels people with a Bachelor's degree would be "more analytical." That and he had hired a person without a degree once before and he didn't work our and left shortly thereafter.

Lesson learned: Shitty managers like hiring the unmotivated and shy and are easily threatened.

Idiot Three

This time a recruiter. Set me up for an interview for a right to hire and then threatened me that if the company took me on full-time before 12 months had passed, he would sue me for $50,000. He actually used the line "I'd really hate for that to happen."

Lesson learned: Everyone in New York is a fucking jerk-off who thinks they can act like Tony Soprano and people will take them seriously.

( Video behind cut )

Wonderful little prank played by ZDnet Australia where two lads take a laptop with KDE4 loaded on it and tell people it's Windows 7 to get their reactions.

One of my friends (call her Cat) lost her father in 9/11. To her credit, she has made a real effort to understand the religion of Islam and not blame an entire religion for the acts of their lunatic fringe. Had her academic exploration resulted in true empathy and a larger understanding of the way religions and cultures have shaped our world-- for good or for ill-- I would still be saying god things about her.

Unfortunately, soon the signs of partisanism began to show. She recently posted graphic imaged of the dead and wounded (children mostly) on her blog to bring attention to the violence in Gaza. Fair enough-- except her call was an end to Israeli violence-- not violence in general. Okay, maybe that was an oversight.

It's never and oversight, and I should know that by now. Not with anything that big staring you in the face. Her partisanship within a few weeks has become obvious. Her most recent post as of this writing is simply a slavering paean to the Nation of Islam. When one of her friends commented on how the NOI has a less-than-stellar history of respecting other world-views (particularly Judaism), she took extreme umbrage and basically told the writer s/he did not know what they were talking about. She this writer challenged her again Cat told them to "You are judgmental and insulting. Please stop commenting here and remove me from your friends list. I have no desire to continue this discussion."

How can you even claim to want to increase dialog between religious groups when you yourself tolerate no dissent? How can you promote empathy when your own is so lacking?

Just to be clear about my position, I feel any religion (or sect of religion) which feels it has the right to persecute and kill people who don't bow down and worship their imaginary friend in whatever is the prescribed way is deserving of nothing but scorn. The practical upshot of this is that all religions (political philosophies, etc.) are to some measure both commendable and despicable, and any real dialogue needs to start from the knowledge of this fact on all sides. It takes nothing from my belief in something to say that some people take it too far and use it as an excuse for all kinds of atrocities. In fact, it re-affirms it in perhaps the strongest way. It's easy to die for what you believe in-- far more difficult to live as you believe.

All of this is rhetorical at this point. Cat may post something as a sort of Parthian shot. Or not. If she does, I won't delete it. What I do know is that hiding behind the guise of academia does not grant one the right to open one and only one set of books on the world while dismissing all others. I thought you were sincere in your attempts at understanding, but I can see you haven't changed fundamentally in the years since I knew you. You just want to be able to believe you have a leg up on the universe and will accept nothing but praise-- however empty-- for any of your actions.

Hey-- good luck with that.

I'll be featured on the show River Valley Rhythms on radio station WESU on Thursday January 15th at 4 PM. For my loyal listeners outside central Connecticut, you can listen to the live stream at http://www.wesufm.org/.

I'll be talking about writing the incidental music and "soundscape" for local playwright Jenny Lecce's play HeAVEN, which opens at Hole in the Wall Theatre this Friday. Also on the show is Matthew Pollack, one of the actors who is a classical guitarist and who worked with me on some of the recordings. We had never worked together before that one day in my studio, but it worked very well and we're both going to continue collaborating on other, to be announced projects.