Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

Recent photo effort: Tulips currently sitting on my table.

Why I ride a BMW motorcycle with custom Corbin seat: "Permanent erection lawsuit against BMW thrown out"...and why my wife is glad that I do....

Either California in general or LA in particular passed a law that not only allows but encourages "lane splitting" by motorcyclists as a supposed means of helping heavy traffic flow more quickly. How allowing a few motorcycles to weave through six lanes of stopped traffic makes any difference is beyond me, but that was the logic. Unfortunately, much like when "right turn on red" was initiated, this law seems to have spawned much unwelcome spin-off behavior. That said, I don't know any motorcyclists (I hope) who would split lanes of "slow-moving" 70 mph traffic.

Another thought for the day: "Coincidences Reflect a Rational Mind." Excerpt:

Although experiencing frequent coincidences isn’t restricted to any particular group, the extent to which a person sees meaning in such events does vary by education level. For instance...people who tend to hold strong beliefs in the paranormal also tend not to be good at tests of probabilistic reasoning, or generating and spotting randomness in series of numbers. And...people who hold strong beliefs in conspiracy theories tend to make more errors in understanding statistical concepts.
    These individuals are thus more likely to see meaning in quirky rare events, because they do not realize that the laws of mathematics could predict their occurrence. Such evaluations of coincidences are therefore often considered irrational, a view advanced by mathematician David Hand in his book The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles and Rare Events Happen Every Day (Macmillan, February 2014).
    But are they really irrational?...coincidences reveal fundamental aspects about the way in which we look for causality in the world.
    When we recognize a pattern of events, particularly if it is rare, we tend to think, “huh, what caused that?”....
    ...When we can’t think of anything more plausible to account for the pattern other than chance, then we class it as a coincidence.

Third Republican governor kicks Tesla out of state: "Free-Market Cheerleader Chris Christie Blocks Tesla Sales in New Jersey." Excerpt:

Like a lot of Republicans, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie likes to talk about how the government should get out of the way of the free market. In a speech last week in Washington, D.C., he railed against President Obama’s economic interventions. “We don’t have an income inequality problem, we have an opportunity problem in this country because government's trying to control the free market," he said. And he urged his fellow conservatives to shout their opposition to government regulations from the rooftops. “We need to talk about the fact that we’re for a free-market society that allows your effort and your ingenuity to determine your success, not the cold, hard hand of government determining winners and losers.”
    Then Christie came back to New Jersey and signed off on a cold, hard government regulation that blocks Tesla from selling its cars in the state.

The "good old days"? "Homework’s Emotional Toll on Students and Families" Excerpt:

Denise Clark Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, suggests asking teachers and schools to provide homework packets that a student can spread out over a week, rather than springing large assignments due tomorrow that can derail family plans. Schools and teachers can also help by building in time for students to get started on homework and ask any questions they might have.
    Looking at the larger picture, she said, things are changing. “These students are already averaging an hour more than what’s thought to be useful,” she said, and teachers, schools and parents are beginning to think harder about what kinds of homework, and how much of it, enhance learning and motivation without becoming all-consuming.
    It might be easier than you think to start the conversation at your student’s school. “Load doesn’t equal rigor,” Ms. Pope said. “There are other developmental things students need to be doing after school, and other things they need to be learning.”

More about creativity: "18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently." Excerpt:

While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here is one of 18 things they do differently.
    They observe everything.
    The world is a creative person's oyster – they see possibilities everywhere and are constantly taking in information that becomes fodder for creative expression. As Henry James is widely quoted, a writer is someone on whom "nothing is lost."
    The writer Joan Didion kept a notebook with her at all times, and said that she wrote down observations about people and events as, ultimately, a way to better understand the complexities and contradictions of her own mind:
    "However dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable 'I,'" Didion wrote in her essay On Keeping a Notebook. "We are talking about something private, about bits of the mind’s string too short to use, an indiscriminate and erratic assemblage with meaning only for its marker."

That ole time religion: "The destructive myth about religion that Americans disproportionately believe." Extract:

...Pew Research Center...survey....
    Interestingly, clear majorities in all highly developed countries do not think belief in god to be necessary for morality, with one exception only: the USA.
    Only 15 percent of the French population answered in the affirmative. Spain: 19 percent. Australia: 23 percent. Britain: 20 percent. Italy: 27 percent. Canada: 31 percent. Germany 33 percent. Israel: 37 percent.
    So what of the U.S.? A comparatively eye-popping 53 percent of Americans essentially believe atheists and agnostics are living in sin. Despite the fact that a research analyst at the Federal Bureau of Prisons determined that atheists are thoroughly underrepresented in the places where rapists, thieves, and murderers invariably end up: prisons. While atheists make upward of 15 percent of the U.S. population, they only make up 0.2 percent of the prison population.
    With the exception of the U.S. and China, the survey finds that those “in richer nations tend to place less emphasis on the need to believe in God to have good values than people in poorer countries do.”
    .... Led by Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, nine of the top 10 most religious states were Southern. Oklahoma ruined the South’s clean sweep by sneaking in at No. 7.
    Not coincidentally, led again by Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, nine of the top 10 poorest states are also found in the South, while Northern and Pacific states such as Wisconsin, Washington, California, New York, New Hampshire and Vermont are among the least religious and the most economically prosperous.

The year was 1955:
    "It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."

Know Yourself and Be Free, Raleigh Spring Retreat, Durant Nature Park, May 9-1, 2014

    The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost, only its limitations are lost. It is transfigured and becomes the real Self, the sadguru, the eternal friend and guide. -Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
    This Spring Retreat will focus on the process of letting go—surrendering into pure being. We will take the journey described in these words of Nisargadatta—a journey rooted in inclusion and acceptance—to know yourself and be free. Bart and Deborah teach and facilitate a way—an inner path of discovery—that for many has led to Self-Realization.
    The retreat will be held in the serene natural grounds of Durant Nature Park in Raleigh, NC. All meals and simple lodging are included, as well as camping for those who wish to enjoy the outdoors in solitude.
    Please join us for a 3-day journey into that which you truly are.

A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says: “Five beers, please.”

Did you hear about the man who got cooled to absolute zero? He’s 0K now.

Amazing origami:

Limerick of the Week:

Four-flush comes from poker, but you can bluff
anywhere, even in verse, though it's rough
    to lay down a route
    and not follow suit
by showing the anticipated rhyme.

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Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean

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