Python Liberation Front

My Thoughts after Watching the Debates between John Kerry and George Bush, as modulated by hearing of the death of Jacques Derrida, R.I.P.:

By the Waters of Babylon...

I remembered, and I wept.

Full Moon rising tonight, I feel like a werewolf, lost in space...

Please! STOP! Listen, hear me out! I’ll be brief and to the point.

I remember Bob Dylan when he was young, singing beneath the starlight. I remember the Beatles, when they were young, I even remember the Rolling Stones. I remember when we all listened to the same songs, watched the same TV shows, dreamed the same dreams.

I remember running through the grass and trees on a summer night, laughing, playing, cousins all around. I remember green apples, I remember Grandma’s warnings, late night stories, crickets croaking. I remember picnic summers, softball outings, Friday night drive-ins.

I remember Willie Mays, center field grace, mothers’ faces, school kids knowing; the future was all before us. Men on the moon, the 60’s swoon.

I recall being alive, so much to strive for.

I remember Abraham Lincoln. Honor, honesty, destiny. Hard work, loyalty, failure, success, blood, guts, civil war. I remember his dilemma, his courage, but mostly I remember his long, lanky humor on backwoods lawyer trips, old Abe could make a day go by, and never miss a lick. He was ugly and homely and humble, and I miss old Abe.

For God’s sake, where did it all go, where did we go wrong? I’m going crazy here in the dark moonlight, screaming my brains out beneath the stars of fate. What in the hell is going on around here, anyway? When did we let the financial planners take over America, the stock selling shills on TV bombard our brains? When did money become the only savior, greed the only rule?

When did we decide to hate each other? Competition, hell, we got killing, you kill me or I’ll kill you, it’s not the law of the jungle, it’s worse than that, we got high tech tigers that kill for fun, or fear, or lust.

Where did our present generation of politician's come from? Where are we going?

Are we going to just rot away as if nothing matters?

I want to build something; something that lasts, something we all build, and grow , and sweat, and paint, and mend, and care for, and make, and stake our blood in the soil of America for future generations.

We got people dying all over the world, we got people hopeless, poor, powerless, children lost and hungry. Poisoned air and water, ruined lives.

Excuse me, but we got souls exploding in thin air; blood is flowing, and nobody gives a damn.

I want Abe Lincoln back. I want our future back. If we don’t have any money left after the crash, at least give us a future, a mission, a care, a matter , a soul to live for and die for. Give us back our heart and our country and our values and our spirit.

I remember how it was, the taste of life on our tongues. I want it back.

How does it feel, America, how does it feel?

This is an Omen of Millennium.

Lights in line down lane

Lights in line down lane
Stretching to infinity
With endless stories manifold
Caressing single homes.

Looking over lines of light
In night-time revery
Jealous of the over-ripe
Splendour of storied sleep.

Lights in line down lane
Patterened in a hopeless maze
Singly scattered helter-skelter
In exact displaced design.

Slovakia

I just got back from a business business trip to that took me to the Republic of Slovakia. Crossing the border from near Vienna, Austria to Bratislava Slovakia was quick and painless. Crossing back two days later took two hours. Although Slovakia recently joined the EU, there are still restrictions on Slovakian citizens moving to Austria, although not the other way around.

This corner of the world, where Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary all come together, also features Croat speaking villages from Medieval migrations.

I stayed in Piestany, Slovakia and it is a town of maybe 30,000 souls, and formerly home to a huge Tesla electronics factory employing thousands. Now closed, smaller entrepreneurial businesses have sprung up.

I enjoyed a chess cafe on the pedestrians-only main street, and excellent food featuring duck breast, potato pasta and these crepe -ike pancakes with fruit sauce for desert.

CGI, the Google api, pyGoogle, and askMerlin.py

Now that I have cgi working on my remote server, I am going to re-write my askMerlin online oracle using pyGoogle and the Google api. By end of December, I have set myself the goal of having a good version of this up and running, along with improved command line, and PythonCard versions of this same program.

My First Real, Working Python CGI Program

Well. Perseverence pays off. My problems had little to do with Python, and a lot to do with server settings, persmissions, and other minutia. But, at long last, I now have a crude, first working cgi program in my Python pages. It is a version of "Choose Your Own Programming Language", and while it is crude even by the standards of the Javascript online version I have of the same program, or by the Python command line version of it, or certainly by the PythonCard vesion of it, it is the harbinger of better things.

It can be accessed at Choose Your Programming Language.

Now, I have big plans for cgi programs of my own creation. Coming Real Soon Now, really!!! Stay tuned....

Metaphorical Certitude

People, as individuals and as societies, need a mental framework covering the important aspects of reality that are still unknown. Our minds are wired this way and so we create a Metaphor that represents our best case, inspired guess as to what the Big Picture is all about. It is only with reference to this Metaphor that we can make reasoned decisions, chart plans and set goals and directions.

Historically, these Metaphors have been provided by our religions. Early religions hypothesized spiritual powers and gods that held sway over the mysterious aspects of reality. Later, when these early religions were no longer credible and became inadequate to explain humanity's enhanced awareness of reality, the second level religions with more sophisticated metaphors were born, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Today, even these second order religions are no longer adequate to our increased scientific awareness. For some, science itself, especially quantum physics and modern cosmology, represent the new Metaphor. Still, even these scientific paradigms fail to offer answers to the biggest questions, those involving ultimate values, purpose and those questions beginning with the word "why".

So, we as individuals and especially as societies need a new Metaphor to provide common values, purpose, norms of behavior, and goals. Our scientific knowledge must be cherished and honored, and certainly not contradicted, but we still need to make that metaphorical leap that has always been provided by religion.

The Book of Certitude, written by Baha'u'llah in the nineteenth century creates just such a Metaphor, based on the best aspects of our second level religions, those religious aspects that do not contradict science and reason as we now understand them. I have accepted that Metaphor as the finest one available to us at this time, as embodied today in the Baha'i Faith.

Certitude is an abstract noun, which is appropriate as the Metaphorical Certitude that is the best available to us as humans is abstract, relative, partial, and temporary. Someday the state of human knowledge will increase to the point that a new, updated version of the Metaphor will become necessary.

Religious truth, the kind that underlies the Metaphor, is historically and sociologically determined. That is, there is no fail-proof logical test to determine whether one proposed metaphor is superior to another. We each as individuals must choose, once the need for a new metaphor is recognized, which one to follow. Only with the passing of generations does one particular religious truth emerge as historically approved and endorsed by the underlying society.

This is even more true in this day and age, since we live in a global society. But it was also true in the early days of the previous religions. When one became a follower of Christ, Muhammad or Buddha in their early days, one couldn't be sure, logically and rationally, whether one was following a Leader who would be subsequently recognized and endorsed by the broader society. It was an act of supreme Faith to follow such a new Leader.

This actually highlights the great honor and worth of those early followers of new religions who suffered and were martyred for the Cause. They took the supreme risk, for if they were wrong in their endorsement, they could have suffered and been martyred for a cause that was subsequently lost to history. How great a Faith it is to be martyred for a Metaphor.

But all religion is metaphor. Metaphor is not to be held in low esteem; the greatest causes, ideas, beliefs, and conceptions of the human race have always been metaphors. Metaphors contain more meaning than mere syllogisms; metaphors leap beyond mere logic and embody truth in a higher form than can be put into literal formulations. Inspiration, intuition, and symbolism allow metaphor to express what is otherwise inexpressible.