Wonder what Dr. Kevorkian Would Say

Apparently, people in vegetative states—people often taken off life support—can understand questions and can try to answer.

With one patient - a Belgian man injured in a traffic accident seven years ago - they asked a series of questions.

He was able to communicate "yes" and "no" using just his thoughts.

The team told him to use "motor" imagery like a tennis match to indicate "yes" and "spatial" imagery like thinking about roaming the streets for a "no".

The patient responded accurately to five out of six autobiographical questions posed by the scientists.

For example, he confirmed that his father's name was Alexander.

Fascinating.

from Vegetative state patients can respond to questions on the BBC

My Thoughts Exactly

Bruce Schneier on Aviation Security ★
"Bruce Schneier:
'Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we’re doing the terrorists’ job for them.'

My thoughts exactly."

from Daring Fireball

The Space: Get in it.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Viktor Frankl

This space is where we get to choose the action (the karma) that creates the experiences we will have in the future. Choose wisely.

(Thanks to Cory Booker for originally posting this quote on Facebook.)

ModKat

Makes me wish I had a cat.

from ModKat

It’s a Wonderful Bishop’s Wife

Christmas officially begins on Thanksgiving, shortly after the 2nd or 3rd dessert when someone brings up the Christmas orgy of presents and how we should “scale it back this year.”

Thanksgiving has been celebrated at my house for the last few years and it’s been a blessing and a real honor. (It’s also nice not having to travel.)

Julie and I hit the Christmas rhythm the same way every year: The Bishop’s Wife. Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, & Monty Woolley as The Professor. Great stuff.

It’s also important to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and start listening to Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack. I think it best, though, to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas as close to the 25th as possible, and definitely on Christmas Eve.

Oh yeah, we also pick out our tree on Thanksgiving weekend.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Charter for Compassion

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”

from Charter for Compassion

Sign up, why not? It can’t hurt.

One Soldier or Twenty Schools?

More Age of Absurdity news.

“In case you missed it, Nicholas Kristof had an interesting piece about Afghanistan late last week where he posits that instead of a doomed-to-fail attempt at counterinsurgency, we should spend the money on education instead. Why? Because ‘for the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.’ ”

from Schools not Troops? at Good

See also: Building Schools without involving the Pentagon.

The Age of Absurdity

Will and Ariel Durant’s book on the current era would definitely be titled: The Age of Absurdity.

“There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400....[T]he US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. [T]hat comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way.”

from The US as Failed State by Paul Craig Roberts