Lower and Upper Bounds
A. Minimum or Less
I freely admit that I take as a rule
That anyone dumber than me is a fool.
But alas! That implies what is quite plain to see;
That my wisdom, at best, is the least that can be.
B. Upper Bound
That anyone wiser than me is a sage
Is a thought I have sadly accepted with age.
There is one consolation I take from this rule;
At worst, I’m the wisest conceivable fool!
One of Mother Nature’s Little Jokes
Amongst humans, ‘race’ is an illusion. Except for obvious genes like skin color and bone structure, the genetic differences between the so-called races is less than the differences within the so-called races. Genetically, skin color is skin deep; it is not a good predictor of pretty much anything else.
This should not come as much of a surprise, given the evolutionary time-scale of skin color. It takes only a few thousand years for deep tan Asians to become pasty white Inuit; or for palefaced Central Asian horse raiders to become swarthy Indians. Basically what we call race is a genetic tan.
It’s not even a matter of color but of hue. As I noted in another essay (“Do White People Exist?”) the color of Caucasian skin is not even close to the color of clouds, paper, milk and cloth. A glass of milk the color of Patrick Buchanan would clearly be undrinkable. All humans, except possibly the rare albino, is in fact a shade of brown. To say one sees white people is to literally confess a hallucination.
So race is an illusion, both genetically, and if you inspect the visual evidence objectively. And yet even infants react differently to people of different skin hue. Babies are born racist!
Racism is genetic, even though race itself is not! Another one of Mother Nature’s little jokes.
Mome Declares Himself Fallible
Nome, Alaska - In a surprise announcement yesterday, J.R.”Bob” Dobbs, Mome of the Noman Particular Church, proclaimed the doctrine of Momal Fallibility.
“What, me infallible?” the Mome snarked. “Of course Momes can make mistakes. In fact we’ve made some big ones. Just judge for yourself.”
Sources high in the Noman Particular Church said that they adopted this doctrine because they needed more wiggle room. “We’ve painted ourselves into a corner. It’s high time we ‘fessed up,” said Ordinal Maustinger, the Mome’s most trusted advisor. “His Holiness has made a bad call lately, and he needs a face-saving way to back out of the mess.”
The ‘bad call’ referred to is the infamous Elvis Clone debacle. “His Holiness sure dropped the ball there,” Maustinger confided. “We never made sure that that hanky was really one of Elvis’s; or if the genetic material found there was his; or even how that genetic material got there in the first place. But ‘Bob’ insisted on cloning, so we went ahead; after all, he’s the Mome. And the result? Well, let’s just say that the clone we grew didn’t see things our way. Put it all together, and it spells M-I-S-T-A-K-E.”
“I am a man, mortal and therefore sinful,” the Mome confessed to the world. “I say I am fallible, and I say so ex cathedra. My judgement is not perfect; to claim otherwise is the sin of intellectual pride. Only God is free from all error – and sometimes I wonder about Him.”
The very model of a Bronze Age despot deity
To the tune of “A Modern Major-General”
He is the very model of a Bronze Age despot deity
With imprecations animal and rock and plant and air, you see
He is the king of kings and he provokes some fights historical
From Jericho to Meggido, by methods categorical;
He’s very well acquainted, too, with matters theological,
He understands poetics, both the sane and the illogical,
About how to be ethical he says you’ve got a lot to see,
(lot to see, lot to see, lot to see..? Aha!)
With many cheerful facts about the uses of hypocrisy.
He’s very good at unifying and divisive politics
He knows the thaumateurgic names of angels and their little tricks;
In short in matters animal and rock and plant and air, you see
He is the very model of a Bronze Age despot deity.
A Cup of the Same Wine
An Underfable, with Moral and Commentary
Once upon a time Confucius, the Buddha and Lao Tzu walked into a bar. The bartender served each a cup of the same wine.
Confucius said, “This wine is sour.”
The Buddha said, “This wine is bitter.”
Lao Tzu said, “This wine is sweet.”
And why? Because Confucius himself was sour about the immorality of the world; the Buddha was bitter about the sufferings of the world; and Lao Tzu was sweet about the harmony of the world.
Moral: Perception is relative.
Commentary: To me the wine is salty, but that’s only because I myself am salty about the absurdity of the world.
Looking-Glass Time
In Looking-Glass Land:
a second is 60 minutes long,
a minute is 60 hours long,
an hour is 24 days long,
a day is 365 years long,
but leap days are 366 years long.
So in Looking-Glass Land:
How many hours are in a second?
How many days are in a second?
How many years are in a second?
How many leap years are in a second?
How many days are in a minute?
How many years are in a minute?
How many leap years are in a minute?
How many years are in an hour?
How many leap years are in an hour?
