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Lost and found pilots of an underground generation
Breaking the silence with their voice above the crowd protesting
We came to live, we came to be, but we were caged and drained
Kept alive just enough to give what helped the few survive
Hear me nation, be strong. Do not lose hope and dream
Because one day we'll wake up to a beautiful thing
Banish the sorrow, hate, manipulation and greed
Soon comes tomorrow, when dreams become reality
Now come machines to beat us down into submission
To fight with fire will mean that we will only become them
To win this fight we must find another way to battle
Peaceful warriors combating evil one more time
So come one come all you soldiers of light
Over the hills pouring down on the countryside
On these grounds is where we will stage our one last stand
This time it's pivotal. This is our one last chance.
It's for the people, for all of those who cannot fight
For those pushed under, and those who do not have the might
It's for the children of the up and coming generation
Let's come together and shine before the population
I say again bring it to them who are a tyranny
It is what makes us whole and defines humanity
It's in our blood, our minds, our souls, it's the reason we breath
This is a war cry, a call to find a way to be free.
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In reading my values reflection, it is clear that I am someone who feels they have much to say, and who rarely has an audience willing to listen. My own father told me once, that people may not appreciate what I write until long after my death. In spite of this, I keep trying, because I know that much of my discontent is a result of skills I lack or have yet to practice enough. To become the person I want to be, will require a broad array of skills that are very diverse. Like the tennis player in the video on early and late-specializers, I feel it is clear I am the latter. My self-portrait reveals that I am not ashamed of my way of life, or the experiences I’ve had. Quite the opposite, I consider the dynamic nature of my experiences and skills to reflect the wicked learning environment that I was born and raised in- the same war of all-versus-all that many are keen to deny exists in every inch of this universe. The portrait is also a reflection of my values, because it highlights the types of statements that are like ethical codes of conduct to live by. Some pictures also reflect my stance on what I consider higher truths. In fact, central to the picture is the notion that I value truth above justice, and justice above peace. To be clear, I do not value in this order, but I consider this to represent reality and the way life is. This is my way of being flexible in a world where new truths are constantly being revealed, like layers of an onion being removed. The Odyssey Plan I worked on included immersing myself in the natural world alone. I made being alone a high priority, and was unsatisfied with the experience of seeming to not be able to ‘get far enough away’ from civilization. In the future I should try to look at the odd human or car around, the same way as I look at a bird flying overhead. It would be a mistake to have an expectation of a world that does not exist. Still, I do aspire to find a place that I can be alone, and I remember now that this has been a big part of my life. As a young boy I enjoyed climbing a large tree in the back corner of the yard. I thought myself clever when my grandmother would walk right underneath me without noticing my presence. I have felt my best when biking down a hill fast, by myself. I enjoy breaking away from the normal places I find myself, and when my mind wanders, I tend to find resolve in the calm thoughts I have as a result. Perhaps this is what I feel I need, but wise men say, ‘there are many ways to skin a cat’. I am learning in Computer Science class about the handling of exceptions, and learning about the way computers do this has helped me understand certain issues plaguing humans. In Computer Science, the method that causes the exception to happen must either deal with it, or throw it back to the method that called it, and the one before that, and so on until the final main method must deal with it or the program will crash. Different methods have different ways of handling exceptions, and if one’s method doesn’t work another might succeed, but in the process a lot of data can get lost. I believe humans do this also, and focusing on forming proper methods for handling exceptions would help. Methods can also neglect to handle exceptions, which may result in errors but generally the program keeps running anyways. I know a person who I think tends to ignore exceptions that occur. This causes me to reflect on myself also, and the ways I handle exceptions. This is important, because in life as in Computer Science, all normal operation ceases until exceptions are handled. The way we handle exceptions determine our success as agents of change in the universe. The only way to truly have success is to properly handle all exceptions where they occur. Failing to do this will always result in some error or loss of data or functionality in a program, and I believe this happens in life as well. While I’ve always been a person chasing the chance to take a moment to self-reflect, times in my life that were painful, were times that I did not have such a moment. There have even been many times, when my chasing of an escape, as a precondition to calm thought, was in neglect of something else I should have been thinking about. Again, the more I think the better my life is. The less I think, the more pain I have suffered, and caused to exist. At the beginning of this semester, I spent a lot of time distracting myself and procrastinating. I have also been overwhelmed by many tasks, but as I have knocked many tasks off my list and focused my life to a smaller set of activities, I have found that my desire to procrastinate has decreased. My desire to wait for the next grueling task, as if it were, has decreased, because I am doing more of the things I want to actually do. I tend to look forward to each day, with the knowledge that the work I am doing might have a positive effect on my world and the people in it. I refuse to quit on my goals of exploring and reporting on the truth, and through persistence I have found I’m more able to paint a larger and clearer picture than I have before. Through advancing my education I have found a greater ability to communicate, which has positively impacted my life in every way. I believe many of the issues people face socially, are caused by a lack of proper communication. Still, often it seems that even communication cannot motivate people to do things they were not prepared to do already. Regardless, what I can do about that is ensure I am not the one making such a mistake. Being flexible and adaptable to new experiences is one of my greatest strengths. At the beginning of the semester I planned to work on my propensity to act with purpose, learn deeply, and to communicate empathetically. In many ways I failed, in rhetoric debates I avoided and in frustrated moments. Yet through those moments, in my persistence I found a way to finish strong with my rhetoric presentation ( https://youtu.be/wL5PMRJ4wss), and to forgive frustrations as commonplace. I cannot claim to be perfect, but the practice of trying is always beneficial overall it seems. I believe I have learned quite deeply in many ways, this semester. I have even tackled several large writing assignments that were purely extra-curricular. Most of all, I have proven to myself just how much work I am capable of in a single day. I am really expanding my willpower to accept into my life the things I want that I may not have always felt entitled to or deserving of. So many people reach for the nearest good in life, but I want what is most good, which I have always known is the beauty of diversity in life. A lot of wild environmental factors have presented themselves over the last semester, and these have taken much of my time away from focusing solely on my studies. In spite of this, I have cared for my sick girlfriend, coddled a drunk brother, been the officer of 2 clubs in school and 2 outside of school, tackled monumental extracurricular research and writing assignments, and still maintained an average of above 90% in all of my classes. I tend to perform best when I am under a lot of pressure, which perhaps is why I’m so comfortable with living the standard life of a writer. I both need deadlines, and always meet them, and am never prepared for them either. That is just what writers do. It is how our brains work, because we are taking the path that might look like backtracking or “meandering” as the video says. When we are finally done putting together the pieces of the puzzle, we create Great Works, and turn writing into art. I can only hope I do this more than a few times in my life, but if I never do, I will still be very proud of the few of my works which I hold in such high esteem. Amazingly, all of these works I regard so highly, were extracurricular works from the last semester or two. I am overall very satisfied with the progress of my education, and the way it has positively impacted my life in many ways. Many years ago I wrote that conflict gets in the way of conversations, and that when conflict occurs everything must stop until conflict is resolved. As I progress in my education, and my social life, the one thing that can get in the way of my continued progress is the potential of global conflict so disastrous, that every human is forced to participate or to work tirelessly to avoid. The likelihood of such conflict seems to be always elevating and yet never occurring. I have moved many miles to find an environment where I could be free from conflict, but it has followed me here as well, like a destiny waiting to unfold that can only be put off but cannot be avoided. In order to foster the creation of an environment without such conflict, I have focused much of my energy on finding and reporting on the truth of reality. I believe that when people learn the truth, they will resolve the conflict that is driven by lies and confusion. In adhering oneself to the natural truth of reality, I might find my way to find personal and true happiness.
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In Tyler Doggett’s Recent Work on the Ethics of Self-Defense, he introduces the position that murder is permissible for those who are being unjustly murdered. He overviews three major conditions for the permissibility of murder, using first a RIGHTS-based approach, in the context of “one vs. one cases involving no emergency,” The first condition involves a “Threat from Projectile,” wherein a person is threatened by another person launched towards them, and to kill in this case is described as ethical. The second condition involves the use of a third person as a shield, which kills them. Doggett interprets this case to be unethical, because the person used as a shield has a right to not be killed unjustly. The third condition involves a “Tactical Bombing,” scenario, which involves collateral damage, reprisal, and continued aggression. In this complex scenario, both sides in the fight are described as retaining their right to life, and as being ethical murderers. Doggett’s next section reviews the writings of McMahan and Otsuka, which, “maintain…it is wrong to kill Projectile.” Section 3 relays that since Projectile lacks responsibility for their actions, it is wrong to kill them. Section 4 overviews the subject of “JUSTICE,” which is a debate that has proponents on both sides. To some, murder is acceptable even if the person threatening you has no “culpability,” but to others this is the major factor in the decision. Those who believe murder is justified even without culpability seem to be taking a Consequentialist tone, whereas their opponents seem concerned with the intent of the actor. Doggett then turns to the writings of Quong, who states the reason it is right to kill Projectile, is merely because they are a threat, and he states that Projectile equally has a right to kill you for trying to kill him or her. Quong bases this on the notion of, “cost,” and says it is right to kill when you will otherwise bear the unjust cost of death. Quong also claims it is wrong to kill a bystander, because to do so would be to “use,” them. Section 8 reviews the debate on why it is wrong for a Bomber to murder civilians, and why it may be wrong to kill a sleeping Bomber before they can act. In section 9, Duggett points to the writings of McMahan’s Bystander Argument, in asking the question of why it may be ethical to kill a Bystander to save yourself from a Projectile. Section 10 discusses the types of situations in which some believe, it may be permissible to kill an innocent Bystander.
According to Brandeis University, the Trolley Problem is meant ask the question of why we allow death, and why at times we may kill. “The “trolley problem” is generally believed to have been invented by an English philosopher by the name of Philippa Foot. She was born in 1920 and taught for many years at Oxford. The trolley problem was further developed and made popular by another woman philosopher, Judith Jarvis Thomson, who teaches at M. I. T.” ( http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Trolley_Problem-PHIL_1A.pdf)
In the Trolley Problem, a person is forced to decide whether to act to save 5 people by killing 1. This situation is classically described as one wherein a random bystander happens to see a train heading towards 5 people who cannot escape. The random observer sees a lever which will allow them to change the track’s position so that the train kills 1 other person instead.
In the show The Good Place, season 2, episode 5, one character exclaims that, “there is no right answer,” to the Trolley Problem. The scene that ensues seems to insinuate that it is at least, not unethical, to fail to act in saving 5 people, when you find yourself lost as to how to act. However, to answer the question of when it actually is ethical to kill, another scene from this episode may assist. After exhausting 7 versions of the Trolley Problem involving tracks and a train, the show plays out the scenario of a doctor choosing between saving one patient over others, but they concluded that playing out the scenario was itself unethical and a form of torture. I can see many students of ethics feeling this way, and the show does not end up showing a scenarios which may at last enable us to answer this question objectively. If I had to choose a situation where it is permissible to kill, it would be to save someone from being harmed, including oneself. The basic premise of protecting oneself, even from harm not intended, is ethical in my opinion.
One version of the Trolley Problem might include a Gardener and their garden. In this garden there happen to be 5 daisies and 1 rose. The Gardener prefers roses, and yet the rose will be outcompeted for space and die, if left alone. To save the rose, the Gardener would have to kill the 5 daisies. This alternate version of the Trolley Problem switches which people die first, and include a preference by the Gardener. Still, the situation is similar enough to be congruent with the Trolley Problem, I believe. Some may contend this is a different situation, because the Gardener owns the garden and all in it, but some would say such ownership does not in fact exist. I am willing to hear arguments from either side, but am personally in the latter camp, because the flowers in the garden are living beings and are not means to an end, but ends unto themselves.
Take2
...If people knew that they could be killed for hurting another person, they'd be quite likely not to harm others. Conversely, if people know harming others will at worst, result in a free place to stay, food and drinks and the safety of friends in the criminal world, they will harm indiscriminately. Many people harm indiscriminately, and pay money to ensure the system is constructed in a way that allows them to pay to play. Big business pollutes waters, while paying fines less than the cost of safely exposing of chemicals. Billionaires push money into safe havens overseas and avoid paying taxes, which is a federal crime, and they ensure capital gains are never taxed, so they can be rich forever and this is to the detriment of the world's poor. The military kills innocent men, women and children in the millions in places like Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and has waged wars with impunity for centuries and millenia. So why should any person alive submit to being perfectly non-violent? To do so is simply a willingness to allow another person to win- a will to die a peasant's death. I don't think such a thing is ethical, and in the case of the world's poor, I do not see it as unethical to riot uncontrollably until every single one of the machinations of neo-colonialism are brought to ashes. I mean if we're being honest.
...shouldn't ethics be serving the person making the decision? Isn't the one making the decision the one we care most about in this situation? Otherwise it seems we'd ask the question from the point of view of another. So then, shouldn't the decision be weighted slightly in the favor of the person making the decision? If so, then it is always permissible to kill the Projectile, but not always the Bystander. Even if one were to weigh the decision in the favor of the defender, to kill a Bystander would set a bad precedent. After the incident, the defender would certainly at some point become a Bystander as well, and would be deserving of death at that time, because they killed a Bystander before. Nobody should make a decision that makes them deserving of death. On the other hand, we all die and therefor deserve to die. So is to kill ever wrong?
...it seems to me that it isn't really important whether there is intent to kill. All that is important is the consequence of death. A rock falling on a person has no intent to kill, and nobody would argue with vaporizing the rock. Of course a person is said to have more rights than a rock, but do they really? I know rocks with more rights than most humans, honestly. So it is hard to argue for the difference between man and the dirt he crawled out of, the dirt itself being constituents of man's composition, and the dirt itself coming from rock through worms.
What if humans have a purpose? I propose that purpose is to balance the planet and to keep it alive. Human's have railed against their purpose to such an opposite extreme, that we've all but killed the planet entirely. So what is the value of a man, who does not fulfill their purpose? People value themselves too much, and that's part of the problem. So the ethics of killing is to a man's benefit, to the detriment of other men and the planet. Otherwise it would not have been invented, in my opinion. Men in universities do not understand the purpose of the world they keep at bay beyond their walls and bayonettes. How could they? Take3 Both a Rights and Culpability-based view on the ethics of killing are reasonable by a logical and rational standard. Doggett examines both approaches, as instructed in the writings of Thomas and Uniacke, and McMahan, Atsuka and Zahar, respectively. Each view disagrees with the other, and while either seems reasonable, I propose that neither are perfect because of the flawed nature of one premise- that to kill is based on a right. This may be true in hindsight, as in the application of positive rights granted by governments, sorted out through judicial proceedings. However this would not be true of negative rights, which people merely have when they are at liberty to attain and to retain such. Therefor a philosophy that reflects the nature of reality must primarily be based on the notion of liberty. As Doggett explains, Thomas and Uniacke believe that a Projectile has no further right to life, since they indeliberately pose a threat to other people. As tempting as it is to suggest that society presents a situation other than a war of all versus all, it appears to merely replace the consequences of nature with new natural consequences of no lesser significance. Therefor, does one person not always pose a threat to every other person around them, at all times? If they do, then the rationale of Thomas and Uniacke would conclude that murder is always permissible in every case. This absurdity highlights the failure of Rights to offer meaningful insight to the ethics of killing a Projectile to save one's own life. If the ethics of defending one's life were based on a liberty, it might be a more clear philosophy. Since the Projectile threatens the life of the defender, and the defender can take a liberty to save themselves, they should. They should, because any given person would do the same thing in that situation, extremes aside. Doggett's reflection on the writings on McMahan, Atsuka and Zahar portray a judgement of the intention of the actor, in both the defender and the Projectile. While the defender's intentions are clear, the Instability Argument indicates that the Projectile has no ill-will towards the defender. This argument claims that to kill the Projectile would be unethical, since there is no ill-intent to kill. Doggett explains that over the 15 years prior to his writing, many have discarded the first, "true which-thesis," for the second, "true why-thesis," because it is more restrictive. Such restriction is attractive, assuredly, however it does not consider the value one must place on their own life, because any given person would do the same thing in the same situation. To be less restrictive, while maintaining a natural order, liberty must enter to provide clearer instruction on the ethics of killing. Clarity is far more important than the comfort of restrictions. In respect to liberty, and in acknowledgement of the reality of living in a sort of "zero-sum game," it really is not important who lives and dies, except that the human race progresses in its advancement of form. Finally, all this is possible, if it is true that all humans share one consciousness, and if there can be only one winner of the human race, in the end. Intentions are meaningless, and the end is all that matters.
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There are already studies which show efficacy of masks. My issue with them is they either answer very limited questions or aren't enough to make a determination.
Please remember, these studies are running on the implication that everyone should be treated as sick even when they are not. This is really one of the biggest issues I have. Your link explains wearing masks is to protect others, and others wearing masks protects you. So they are admitting masks dont protect the wearer, and they are claiming that if everyone wore masks it would be safer than not. Since many dont, or fail to wear them properly, I dont feel protected when I go out. My wearing a mask protects others (if I am sick which I am not), and yet I am unprotected.
Nobody seems to actually care about me, but many expect me to care about them, so this whole situation is unethical. It is still a dog eat dog world, and now it is being tyrannically controlled by the whims of scared people, which is no way to run a society, nor is it legal or constitutional.
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In Leviathan, chapter 13, Thomas Hobbes attempts to convey his perceptions of the nature of reality, and to cement his conviction that to avoid such a reality, mankind chooses to submit to authority, regardless of the drawbacks. He writes that natural laws include, “justice, equity, modesty,” and, “mercy,” but that people are not naturally inclined to follow such laws without brute force backing them up (Marino, Ethics, pp.144). Hobbes writes that he believes mankind would naturally keep such laws when they, “have the will to keep them, when (they) can do it safely,” (pp.145). He admits that such authority is not necessary, if mankind would respect natural law, in the absence of brute force should they not do so. However, he claims such a thing is impossible, and believes that mankind will always and every time, choose to harm one another in the absence of someone threatening their lives to not do so. The reward, he says, is ongoing “peace and common defense,” (pp.148). Though power can be gained by what Hobbes calls “acquisition,” where a powerful man simply takes control of others, he writes specifically about power gained through “institution,” where many people grant power to one through consent (pp.148). One strong media example of Ursula K. Le Guine’s “Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” is the movie Snowpiercer from 2013 (I haven’t seen the 2020 TV series). Like Le Guin’s story, Snowpiercer highlights the pain experienced by a single unique child, (spoiler alert), whose hands happen to be small enough to keep the engine at the front of the train operating, which in turn keeps everyone left on earth alive in its perpetual movement. The destructive nature of the train’s movement, and the way it’s movement became necessary for sustaining human life, mirrors the concept of society and its self-serving movements that can be destructive. Unlike Le Guin’s story, Snowpiercer is not a movie about people who are all aware of their situation. Rather, the conductor is the only person who knows, and the farther back the train one goes, the less people know, until finally not a single poor person is aware of the reason for their living conditions. To find out, the poor are led by one man to the head of the train, in an assault on all in between, and finally on the conductor himself. In the end, the main character finds out the conductor was at one time the boy who suffered, and so to exact revenge for the suffering of the boy or the rest of the train’s inhabitants, becomes unethical in the light of that truth. The fallout from the pursuit of truth ends up destroying the train, and the last few remaining people set out on foot without any idea of how to survive. As the film ends, it’s viewers are left to wonder if humankind met its final end after all. This movie does not make the decision to leave society as easy, as Le Guin’s story does. The very decision to leave society is almost completely not an option in Snowpiercer. In both stories, the concept of happiness seems to hinge on people being ignorant of their situation to some extent at least. To cast off fake unhappiness in search of something real, means to leave society and quite possibly, to simply perish in the harsh world outside. Hobbes seemed to approve of this outlook on life, in that he believed the conditions of society to be better than the alternative, regardless of how ugly society may be. What these stories reveal, and what Hobbes may not have been able to conceive of, is the reason why so many would prefer the likelihood of death to the mental and physical domination of all in society, for all but the leader themselves.
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In the short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” a city of great and vibrant happiness is explored. At the height of the realization of such a happy place, the author cuts us short the illusion and begins to describe a very real and ugly reality. The author, Ursula K. Le Guin, explains that there exists a child, alone and in constant agony, that every person in the city knows exists. The child’s agony itself, is described as the very reason for the happiness of others. Le Guin goes over in detail the reasoning behind the decision that all people there made, to trade one person’s unhappiness for the happiness of all. Then as abruptly as the tale began, the story ends with a description of people who leave Omelas for a mysterious place in the distance, assumed to be a place of even greater happiness. As I read this short tale, I began to question why I was reading it. The scene of delight and happiness did not appeal to me, perhaps because I did not believe it, and when I read about the boy playing his flute I exclaimed aloud to myself, “Who cares about the boy!?” How ironic it was, that I no sooner exclaimed that, then I began to read of the despair of another boy, and my desire to jump up and go do some other activity was replaced with an amazing sense of intrigue. Before me in text form, was a description of the better part of my own life perhaps. Then I thought, how silly of me to presume that I myself might have suffered so fully and completely, when in fact I have had a mix of suffering and joy in my life. Still, I found myself identifying with the boy who was trapped, remembering the many times I had been wronged and found no justice, whereas should the crime had been committed against any of my peers, it seems at least, that they would have been swiftly carried by the multitude to safety, and the one responsible would have been hung out to dry for all the world to see, that no such crime may be committed in this society to any of our children. Because I have experienced a world more real than the perverse delusion the people of Omeras would call happiness, I would most certainly be someone who walks away from that place. I cannot begin to describe the many details of the reasons why I make the above statements, but in my life there have been several real times when the system should have protected me and failed. As a child my family suffered at the hands of the very people that were supposed to be caretakers, and though the truth was revealed not a single person lifted a finger to help my family, and in fact they ensured our suffering endured. Whenever there were a reason to protect an adult, to ensure they didn’t lose their career or their good name in society, the plight of we children was forgotten and discarded. Worse still, whenever it was necessary to protect a policeman or policeman’s friends or family from the wrong they committed, I and those in my family were criminalized and treated as the very wrong of the world and blamed with every one of society’s ills, paraded around as the ‘real problem’ to the rest of the citizens as a way of glossing over what transpired and bringing them all to submission by abusing anyone who dares to challenge the whim of the system’s controllers. My own life is quite similar to that of the child in the room, in this story, in spite of the many times I have also, perceivably enjoyed the supposed benefits of my place in society. Overall, it seems clear to me, that in the real world as well as the world of this short story, the joys brought by society are not as absolute as people claim. In fact there is a great sadness in society, seen everywhere by those with eyes to see it, and only briefly by all else, in the observance of those who leave it behind and the moments between vanity which only confuse most, leaving them to question why they might ever be unhappy to begin with due to their abject disconnection from reality. They wrongly presume that people who leave merely found an even greater happiness, and in assuming this they cement their own false reasons for keeping the status quo. John S. Mill might agree with the concept that overall, Omeras is a place of utility and ethical rightness, because Mill advocated for the happiness of society as a whole, but this is only true of Omeras on the surface. On the surface, if one were to consider the unhappy state of those who leave, by all the reasons given of the author, the remaining society would be happier without them. Therefor, the society itself remains happy due to one person’s unhappiness and the rest of peoples’ willingness to leave the moment they are dissatisfied. Hobbes seems content to agree that such a society is the best place to live, since Hobbes seems to believe that people will remain under less-than-satisfactory conditions, so long as they are compensated with what satiates their thirst of happiness, and only so long as they continue to be thirsty. Those content in such happiness might at times become full of it, and spend many hours, days, weeks or years, sitting to digest what they’ve consumed. They might call this period of time contentedness, and though it might witness unhappiness, the happiness within would be enough to keep such people content. So all of the happiness is then vanity, because it recognizes the existence of unhappiness and yet at the same time argues it does not in fact exist in any way that should be considered. I propose this occurs, because people who consume are content to be fed, and never really cared for the manner in which they have consumed or the consequences of that act. People who look to the world as a source of food, will claim to be happy and will claim the consequences are good, because the consequences they intend to measure are personal and limited. Such consumers care nothing, truly, for the overall state of happiness in the world that Mill really wrote about. In the end Mill would have condemned the society of Omelas, because of the many lies and self-deceits which fuel the inception of its memory. The happiness felt by the majority is skin deep and does not actually exist in more than the vain illusions clung to by those still on their way up the escalator to nowhere called progress.
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To a river, lakes are just "lazy rivers," that choose to live a sedentary life. Rivers gain energy from their movement, and so of course they would say that.
To a lake, rivers are "wasting their energy," because they go so fast they miss the moment. Lakes have gravitational potential energy, and so they would say that.
Both lakes and rivers have similar amounts of force, one being gravitational-potential and one being kinetic, but the force they have comes from entirely different behaviors.
Humans can be like water. Some move and some stay still, but they cannot remain constant and are always changing. Water in a lake will eventually become a river, and water in a river will eventually find the sea. Water in the sea will adhere to the hydrological cycle and it all starts over again.
Rather than defining themselves by the position they hope to retain, humans should realistically define themselves by their place in the process of life's cycle(s). Take a lesson from water. Be a lake when you are a lake, and a river when you are a river, and remember change is inevitable. We are like one drop in the hydrological cycle, where the ocean is but one of many moving peices.
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I do believe that self-governance is an act of true liberty, but it cannot be the only requisite for ethical actions. I believe Nietzsche would agree that to be free by itself cannot be the basis of ethical acts. Actually he might call the oppressors here "birds of prey" and the Haitian people "lambs." The lamb is one that believes weakness is a virtue, and strength an evil. Nietzsche makes no such mistake, and values the use of force and the virtue of strong actions. So just the same, Nietzsche would be proud for sure, that the Haitians used strength to gain their victory, and strength to retain it, not simply to be free, but to be strong people. If their freedom weakens them, such as in the consumption of constant pleasures, the Haitians would be their own oppressors, as many Americans are today, believing themselves to be free.
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Batman is filled with ethical dilemmas that have spoken to me on a personal level. I think, in creating the antidote to save Joker, Batman was also saving everyone else. He really wasn't given a choice in the matter, if he wants to save anyone at all. What's interesting, is that Batman has no incentive to kill the Joker at the end of each scenario. Only in hindsight later does the reality that he should have killed the Joker become clear, and by the end of that next scenario the incentive is erased again, just in time. Batman's opportunity to save the day exists at one part of a cycle, during his times of inaction, and his times of activity are all but frivolous. This self-defeating concept is the very madness played upon by the joker, and the philosophy of the clown is to laugh at the pitiful misery of people who do not understand themselves, and at times to be sad for them. People who fail to understand the reason clowns laugh and cry, are in fact the reason that clowns laugh and cry. In a way, the Joker is the real hero, for trying to save Batman from himself.
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Summary of Augustine’s City of God
• Eternal life is the supreme good
• Eternal death the supreme evil
• Actions leading to one to avoid the other mean living rightly
• Belief that good can be found in life is shallow and a rejection of God
• There is too much misery in life to base good on worldly happiness
• Thinking too much leads to self-corruption and vanity.
• Our senses can be tricked and use of reason is fallacious
• Temperance cannot be attained until after death, because only then can the flesh cease to “lust against the spirit”.
• Prudence cannot sort good from evil, because good is not known in life, and found only after death, in resurrection to eternal life.
• Neither temperance nor prudence can remove evil from the world or our own lives.
• If Fortitude were virtuous then people would not die, which means they sought to leave life (this is getting deluded)
• Stoics three virtues are flawed and cannot be virtuous
• Peripatetics, the Old Academy and Varro advocates are intelligent but wrong
• Fortitude leads to suicide, because it makes it a priority to survive or to commit to death if not (deluded again)
• Life which includes any ills or evils cannot be happy
• Virtues are the best possessions in life to have and lead to the supreme good of eternal life
• Virtues listed and including Justice are meaningless compared to the hope of eternal life through Piety and patience for death.
• The final happiness is the only true happiness, and belief in anything else is deceit and pride. Contrast between Augustine and Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics Aristotle’s version of temperance, prudence and fortitude meant using the golden mean to live between the two extremes of excess or deficiency. Aristotle’s virtue ethics meant assessing each situation as it came, and choosing the reasonable decision based on your ability. Aristotle seemed to teach that the faculty of human reason would lead to living a good life and being happy. In contrast, Augustine would oppose the use of reason as thoughts which lead to corruption, self-deceit and pride, and the pursuit of happiness or a good life as vanity. Augustine’s definition of “good” is starkly opposed to the definition of the Greek philosophers he sought to dethrone in the mind of society. Augustine opposes the pursuit of the “good” defined by others, but encourages that defined by himself, which he calls Piety. Their versions of "good" are starkly opposed. Augustine sees eternal life as "good" and any action leading to that as right. He sees eternal death as "evil" and any actions that lead to it or that fail to avoid it as wrong. What's interesting and ironic about all this, is that Augustine should have gone farther and undone his own position. According to Christian theology, only Jesus can rid man of sin and save them from evil, and no action we take could ever be pious enough to save ourselves. I wonder how many years after Augustine it would be, before the church began to equate salvation with an impossible-to-attain virtue. To Augustine, salvation was something that could be achieved by works. Augustine must have read the book of Hebrews, and yet he chose to take the position he did. How ironic! And now for something you'll really enjoy!
"Thus, in 1884, Pope Leo XIII again condemned Freemasonry and its association with the Kulturkampf in Humanum genus: "This twofold kingdom St. Augustine keenly discerned and described after the manner of two cities, contrary in their laws because striving for contrary objects; and with a subtle brevity he expressed the efficient cause of each in these words: "Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to the contempt of God, and the love of God, reaching to contempt of self, a heavenly one." At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other, with a variety and multiplicity of weapons and of warfare, although not always with equal ardour and assault. At this period, however, the partisans of evil seems to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly associated organization and widespread association called the Freemasons. No longer making any secret of their purpose, they are now boldly rising up against God himself." (Herbert, A Light in the Darkness, 2020)
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I cannot stop worrying about 2021! In Russia, people against vaccines were blamed in the news, by the government, for spreading “misinformation.” To make matters worse, that was alleged by the government, to be funded by foreign actors bent on taking down Russia from inside. I recalled my study of the Fetiales Ritual, and the way Augustus of Rome had conflated the Julian camp with a foreign actor, then justifying a brutal oppression of what were previously protected roman citizens. Then the news of Biden declaring white supremecy to be the greatest terror threat to America, with the news citing “experts” who have claimed this threat will last “10-20” years, and is being funded from foreign actors bent on taking down democracy of all western countries. Now…I was all on board with fearing Trump, who brazenly used Mussolini’s tagline of “drain the swamp”. I too wanted a return to normalcy. I even sympathized with antifa, was enamoured by black block tactics, and applauded the enthnocentrist africans who shouted “NATO Out of Africa Now!” I bobbed my head when I listened to my favorite hip hop song, called Hip Hop, wherein the rapper exclaims, “Im down for running up on them crackers in that city hall.” Yet now only a year or two later, as a Libertarian I am terrified that people and the government will mistake me for a white supremecist! I am still the same person I was before, but somehow now I have been grouped in with people who are being called white supremecists, and Leftists are starting to quiz people, and everyone who isnt a leftist is being considered hateful. So Biden who claims to want peace and unity, is dividing this country more than ever, and his promise to restore justice for all is absurd in light of the fact that he wrote the 1994 crime bill that has been blamed for mass incarceration long after crime declined post-90s. Biden will not benefit minorities. In fact he has told them to “be patient.” As drones and other AI replace Police and a new global Socialism has been called for, by the World Economic Forum and the Pope himself; yes the Jesuit Pope, whose Office of the Congregation of Doctrine of the Faith is in fact the only remaining unclosed Inquisition Office to exist, who has declared global “human fraternity” with the Sunni leader, and who plans to sign with the Iranian Shi’ite leader in Iraq on March 5th- the same Pope that has been telling every nation on earth, to copy China’s tyrannical response to the pandemic, and the same pope who leads a church which burned my Cathar ancestors alive, and enslaved my Frisian ancestors, who according to history had at one time the most egalitarian society to exist on earth. That same church, who thought it moral to castrate young boys so they may sing for more years, at high pitch for Papacy and Royalty alike, referring to them as the Castrado; that same church, which in the 80s hosted an orgy party of nuns and the pope themselves, in the holiest chambers; that church, which seeks to enslave everyone on earth by using the United Nations to force all nations, to use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently suspend their Constitution and to begin a war of domestic terrorism against their freest of citizens…after using Americas soldiers to develop weapons systems in the middle east and elsewhere, and after the CIA led drone assassination programs in over 22 countries, many of which were not legal to war in, amounting to war crimes…after all this, we are to trust our government and to submit to a supposedly moral authority that actually resembles tyranny?
Yeah to say the least, I could not bring myself to go to class. I may be dead before I graduate, because the one using rhetoric of peace has started a race war against people that are my color, and plans to use the state to enact this oppression, as if equality means taking turns abusing each other.
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The Vodun practices tell the stories of ancestors. To participate in the activities is to honor the dead, culture, history of your own people, and to participate in social life outside of work. The group of people dancing in the film Divine Horsemen remind me of any given dance club or house party. I noticed the people dancing were passing and drinking a bottle. I noticed guys playing it cool, and women acting out for attention. I noticed people looking to see if their antics were being noticed, but I also noticed many people excelled in pretending that was not their intention. After all, that ruins the game, and people love games especially unspoken ones. Humans are people detached from their very selves, that when they see their own reflection they describe it as god. It is related to the way the brain is wired. There is a part of our brain that takes what is currently believed to be true, and goes around changing everything else according to that. That's why people make up things as they go along and don't think of it as wrong. At some point there is an underlying assumption driving the process. The behavior of these people reflect their very own nature, and not something unnatural. This became clear to me when the film described that people who got into their dancing were evidence that the loa were around and at work. This reminds me of the way many Christians presume God is at work, when they leave 3 minutes before they planned to, avoiding an accident that may have occurred when they were traveling. Is every coincidence truly evidence of God, or is it just a coincidence? Humans sometimes attribute sudden emotions or changes in mental states to the presence of God, as if God is something which transforms us actively, when in my opinion we are just changing based on perceptions of experience. The most human part of this all is the sexuality. I found it particularly disturbing that the females would shake their private parts on the private parts of the priest. The priest was an attractive, young charismatic man. Women kissed his feet. Women danced, and their dancing was said to be spiritual the more lively it was. Men would drink and stand around watching a woman dance. In America, at dance clubs any man who stops a girl from dancing would be ostrasized by his peers who want to watch or to have sex with that woman. In America we do not call it spiritual, though it certainly invokes a sensation of being taken over. I feel this is a biochemical process, and the fact we don't understand it leads us to describe the process as spiritual. I experienced this at a Pentacostal church once, as a guest. The louder people sang, the more overwhelmed with emotion they became, the more part of the crowd they felt, the more they described that as the experience of closeness with god, or of being filled up with the spirit of God. My research on the fetiales ritual made me realize that the psychological impact of rituals on the ones involved is more powerful than any other type of manipulation or control, and many believers have been taken advantage of by those few who have perfected playing the game, as history has time and again shown. However, this control is only a part of the game. It is not the process. The process is driven by vibrations, which facilitate movement. The bodies of the people participating are exhibiting the phenomenon of entrainment. The movement of the sound becomes the movement of the body, and so too, the movement of the mind. It is clear from the line on page 253 where it is written, "At such moments one does not move to the sound, one is the movement of the sound, created and borne by it; hence, nothing is difficult." I believe this activity eventually causes a removal of the active thought process, due to the activity of the body and not of any spirit. The body has modes, and I believe it appears as if these ritualists have mistaken a mode of tranquility with an unnatural phenomenon. I believe it appears natural. It may seem hard to believe that something odd isn't happening, because of the strange behaviors of the people, but of course these are people who for their entire lives learned to prove to others they have loa, by acting in patterns that seem unnatural. It seems to me to be a socially motivated behavior. It seems to be heavily based on a person's own sense of identity of self. Participation in the event is characterized as bravery, the opposite as "cowardice." All of that said, the most interesting part of the ritual is the connection of the behavior to vast repositories of knowledge, about the history of the people and their way of life through reflection on death. This seems no different than the Egyptians and many tribal cultures perhaps. What is amazing to me is that the behavior itself, cultivates and stimulates the knowledge and leads to the people remembering it better. Their very neurons are grown due to their behaviors as a group, and their memories are shared through communication. So as an activity done by everyone in a vast area at the same place and time, it is profound to think it might have the effect of distributing knowledge around society itself, directly and physically cultivating the minds of each member. The knowledge itself is an accumulation of hundreds if not thousands of years of humans passing on their wisdom to their children, and in some way without being able to even say or imagine that knowledge, it is preserved by the very ritual itself. A culture and potentially a people's very DNA are affected by this ritual. Overall, this practice of possession is multi-faceted and filled with mystery and delight, which is precisely what people love to do on a Friday night all over the world. It is perhaps what bees are doing every day, and we look on bees like a lesser intelligence; ourselves as greater. What does that say about us? Perhaps we do not know ourselves. In knowing ourselves, do we not fit other patterns found in the natural world? The beauty of all of this is that it appears as evidence that humans and all life on earth exhibit similar patterns, and that's quite profound to me. It's ironic to think, that these people are quite in tune with their own nature, and yet describe that nature as something unnatural. The experience of life is a phenomenon that cannot adequately be described by the living. To describe the phenomenon of existence as anything but life, seems absurd. Yet somehow it may be the very strength of human society and the species itself to go along with the flow of practices enshrined in social behavior.
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Millenia ago, Augustus Caesar conflated the Julians with a foreign actor and waged war against free citizens of Rome who were loyal to the past Emperor. Under Constantine, the Roman Catholic Church became the religion of the State and the State became the church's protector. I believe a new version of this is happening now, and I want to explain what evidence I've found very recently to suggest a Big Push occurring now. Yesterday I asked myself and a few others, how long it would take until anti-vaxxers are deemed terrorists. Today, the answer arrived. It took one day. In Russia, anti-vaxxers are being conflated with enemies of the state, and the idea is growing in popularity.
Quote: "Duma deputy Gennady Onishchenko, a former senior health official, says that the coronavirus is without doubt a natural phenomenon but that anti-vaxxer sentiment in Russia is not. Instead, he says, it is part of a hybrid war directed against Russia by its enemies."
As my Classical Argument essay proposes, the Nuremberg Code and Ethics agree that forced vaccinations are unethical and immoral and in fact illegal. Just recently, Biden authorized ~3800 federal troops to be stationed as 20 teams to vaccinate but also now contact trace the public. Biden wants 20,000 troops. The following article only mentions the original request, for 10,000 troops. While even 20,000 troops cannot force vaccines on an entire country, recent rhetoric has shown they intend to 'target' areas which have 'hesitancy' to vaccinate. By claiming 90% of the public must be vaccinated, it is only a matter of time before 'anti-vaxxers' are blamed for spreading 'misinformation' which will be blamed for the fact that people don't trust vaccines. The very opinions of those who resist vaccination will be found null and void due to being 'misinformed', and the government will seek the power to force them to decide on what is 'right', and a 'civic responsibility'. Such rhetoric is devoid of reason, and the conclusion does not follow from the evidence. Yet I predict this will occur and in rapid succession over the next 2 years. To clarify, the experimental vaccine made using a new method, is not peer reviewed, and all rhetoric pertaining to safety assures us essentially, that 'we will be studied to see if we have reactions'. VAERS has already received ~10,000 reports. At the same time, health administrators argue that VAERS is impossible to use to determine safety. They claim follow up studies are useful, but systematic reviews disagree and all that I've read claim more study is needed to understand causal mechanisms of adverse reactions to vaccines. The claim of vaccine safety is not established in my opinion, and the potential for real cases of harm to be swept under the rug is too great. Furthermore, the government should not be using our tax dollars to purchase medicine for us which many don't even want. Quote: "According to Shimabukuro, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has received a total of 9096 reports following COVID-19 vaccines, with 1786 responses for the Moderna vaccine and 7307 for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine." Link: https://www.drugtopics.com/view/acip-meeting-covid-19-vaccine-safety-updatesRecently, a decision has been made in the US to close schools in areas where the virus is "out of control" and those areas are described as ones with people who fail to wear masks. So for example the military could begin surrounding "zones of infection" and creating a barrier to free travel. That's just a start, and much worse could result from deploying men with guns to contain free citizens with-or-without a virus. Recently, Pope Francis, the world's first Jesuit Pope, revealed his true agenda, which is to use Coronavirus as a means to achieving world dominion and enacting globalist "socialism." Quote: "In layman’s, he’s calling for an end to capitalism and a worldwide implementation of socialism...He’s just picked up the World Economic Forum’s socialist-collectivist “Great Reset” playbook and moved it just a little bit more down the road." In what is the most obvious sign of globalist peace (world slavery), the Pope has already signed a deal with the Sunni Arab leader, enacted a now-1-year-old day for globalist peace called The International Day of Human Fraternity, which is code for everyone agreeing with one voice (the Pope through the UN to Nation States to all people on earth). In early March, the Pope is set to meet with the Shi'ite Muslim leader from Iran, al-Sistani, and it is hoped by the Pope that al-Sistani will sign the document for "human fraternity." I predict that if al-Sistani does not sign, WW3 would ensue. If al-Sistani does sign, I predict world slavery under globalism and socialism, with Capitalists becoming the new enemy of the state. Either way, this does not bode well for the little people of the world. The US Army is supposed to defend the Constitution first and foremost, and all service members and civilian DoD and public servants in all arenas swear to uphold and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. Now, the State has decided that people who support the Constitution are in fact, domestic enemies. That is literally impossible, since the State would have to have a differing view of the Constitution or be anti-Constitution itself. The Judicial Branch should be weighing in on civil rights, but for some reason are not taking the side of the public anymore. Executive power has brought Monarchy to America, as the early founders of the Federalists feared. I will work to establish the American Way of Life in my region, and to support secession from the State and the empowerment of local and regional authority, and a return to American Institutions which protect the liberty of its constituency. Neither the reds or the blues are responsible enough to remain in charge. That is why I support a 50+ year old third party, the only third party that can or will ever make America great again. I love you all, and hope this serves as a valuable warning about what is happening in the world, and what we can do about it. There is a great will to resist, and the worst thing we can do is accept that our fellow man is bad while our government is good. While quite often people can be bad, I don't believe a government in history has ever been what most can consider good. Please remember to love your fellow man (and woman), because without love the world will be overrun with fear.
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Situation 1) You really need to pass your Ethics course in order to graduate. The final exam is notoriously difficult. However, you realize that your professor left her copy of the exam answers on her desk. What do you do?
Assuming an empty room (without looking around), I would grab the required reading and flip to page 228 where my eyes would gloss over at the many words dedicated to describing, that opponents of Utilitarianism do not understand it. Having worked to the middle of page 229 and keeping an ear to the reapproach and reproach of my Teacher, I will have found the definition of the Greatest Happiness Principle, which states, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness." Feeling discontent on the use of the words, "reverse of happiness," and seeking to promote the happiness of my Rhetoric teacher Oren, I would read on, likely with sweat building as the intensity of the long silence continues. I would find that the author, this...John Stuart (the Comedian I assume), this author then defines his last statement by referring to something now magically called, "unhappiness," which he defines as, "pain, and deprivation of pleasure." With time being constrained, I would commit to making a decision based on the material I was able to glean. With it in mind that I should minimize (and not entirely nullify) pain, and deprivation of pleasure," I would first think of my classmates, and whether, if they were to be here, which I assume they are not...if they were to be here they would likely not experience any pain, were I to say, peruse the documents in question. I would think of my teacher, who barely grades our assignments properly and is constantly overworked and underpaid. While her administrator might have issue with regards to procedure and implementation, I would say to myself, because I like the idea and not because I believe it necessarily...that my teacher would not really suffer any pain at all either, or a deprivation of pleasure, since their day would go on just as it would had I not done a thing.
I would have to take a look at what I should maximize, which is described in the text again, as, "pleasure, and the absence of pain." Whereas I could find much pleasure in taking the test, as would my classmates, and as the teacher would have no displeasure, and whereas nobody would have any pain, technically my quick studies of Utilitarianism would cause me to realize that I in fact must take and copy the test very quickly. In my personal view, to pass the test I need to become a Utilitarian, and practice what a Utilitarian might do, and so I would decide that I absolutely must copy and disseminate the test to all of my peers. And, just in case one of them tells on me I will make my best attempt to write in sloppy cursive, and before copying the test I will write atop the first page, "To: Joshua, thanks for letting me take the pot in poker last Friday, -your school's Superintendent." That way, if the truth ever got out, it would be buried faster than a flapjack on Friday morning. Everyone would be happy, and nobody would care, because they all survived together, as a community, and that's all that matters (insidious laughter ensues).
Situation 2) Your best friend is cheating on their girlfriend. Do you tell the girlfriend?
I go home from school, having aced the test; a victimless crime. I find a diary my best friend left under their bed, in which this full grown man writes, "Dear diary, I told Jane that I would be true to her, but I just didn't feel like doing that so I had sex with Stacey. I also don't have the nerve to tell Jane, so I will commit to living a lie for the rest of my life, even to the detriment of my own happiness. I have no backbone and actually am a jellyfish who swam out of the sea, in search of love......" The odd Jellyfish reference, aside, I become enraged that a person I'm associated with could live such a double life. Lies cause pain and the deprivation of pleasure. Therefor I hastily act on feelings by deciding to believe that liars are unethical people (as if by nature), and it is justified to cause them pain if it is between them and one other person. By taking his own pleasure, he still holds his girlfriend to not having her own pleasure other than what he gives her, which is not all but only a part of his love. No matter what drugs my friend is on (Jellyfish?) he has no right by my new Utilitarian viewpoints, which I learned just today and have now full authority to execute Judge Dredd style everywhere I go....so I call up Jane and ask her to meet, and give her the diary in person while explaining how I found it, so as not to cause her more pain at the thought that I was involved somehow before and knowingly kept the information from her. I know she would want this, because every rational person from children to adults tend to want this, according to social science I just hastily generalized. I am a good person today, and cannot wait to beat more people over the head with my new powerful state of mind and philosophical theory, and maybe having sex with Jane will benefit the most people's happiness, and so I totally do that, in spite of her not having broken up with my friend yet. It's all about pleasure and happiness, I tell myself, because that's the Utilitarian way, I decide for no reason other than I've been told I am allowed to do this now. On the plus side, even though my friend's feelings don't count anymore as he is The Bad, I've increased my friends happiness in the long run, by his own admission that he lives a lie. I am a good person today, and I don't even have to be in any given scenario I fail to comprehend or consider.
Situation 3) You have the opportunity to redistribute all of the world’s wealth equally. What do you do?
That evening I answer a knock at the door, and I open it to see three cloaked figures with hoods. I cannot see their face, and they might be all in my imagination based on my desire, but I hear a voice saying that I am worthy of receiving the authority to redistribute all of the world's wealth. Also as if by magic, I am given to hold, a card with all the world's wealth on it, from the time I make the decision that I desire that power. Having finished my suite with U on chest, and cape and mask, I stand in awe of such honorable right people having the foresight to instill in me the authority they have, which represents the will of all or at least most on earth (or at least I assume by the fact they are offering it). I carefully consider what I've learned fundamentally. If I do redistribute wealth, I can do it in a way that maximizes pleasure and minimizes or eliminates pain, but I would be failing to understand whether the act of wealth redistribution itself is warranted by Utilitarianism. Not wanting to fail at my first day of being the best superhero to ever exist, obviously...I would carefully weigh the cost and benefit to all's happiness, and to all's pain, and to any event of the deprivation of pleasure, that the redistribution of wealth would cause to occur.
Wealth makes people happy, and I've heard it described as a storehouse of energy that we keep to spend when we deem it necessary. I would immediately consider that taking the wealth of all, to redistribute to any, would be to the deprivation of happiness and pleasure for all, for the sake of the any which inevitably would be fewer than the number that all represents. I would take that as one side of the argument, and of course would have to weigh it against all of the pain I could eliminate for so many, and the happiness that would bring. However, arbitrarily picking winners and losers in this case is impossible, because Utilitarianism says nothing about who deserves and who does not deserve to be helped. That aside, if I were to make my position based solely on the number of people helped versus the number of people that would be deprived, I could possibly live up to the responsibility that perhaps no person should ever have thrust on them, and of which no person or people could possibly have the right to thrust! Still I must, since I am UtilityMan!
So I do my responsible part, and reduce billions of lives of human beings, to mere numbers. I count them and assort them into categories, and I calculate their losses based only on economic losses, since there are no clear numbers for the countless other issues I could be evaluating. I then calculate gains based on projections handed to me by industry lobbyists and special interest groups that in and of themselves represent less than one percent of people on earth. I then use those figures to come to the conclusion that in fact, the end justifies the means, and I start by handing out money to all the people who have been wronged in the last 4 years only. Then I will withhold money to people who I refuse to recognize, have been wronged, until such a time as they can prove to me they have been wronged, which they won't be able to, because I have already decided what is right and wrong and have decreed based on that. No review of my decision will be allowed, as it would disrupt the umm...New Public Good I've created in the destruction of the old. I will use that money for the good people, until such a time as the bad people prove they are good, and make interest off it, if possible in the meantime. (Maniacal Laughter Ensues)
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05:10 pm August 25th, 2007
