Click, clack, click clack; oh, the incessant tapping of high-heeled ladies strutting across an expansive granite floor. Women of all shapes and sizes; but mostly well dressed; smart, business women.
Attend my surreal education about high heels and those who wear them.
This is big - really big.
Click, clack, click, clack…
I noticed that women wearing high heels have a certain gait. They don’t exactly walk the same way as those in flat shoes; somehow they stand straighter, their backs thrown further back, their fronts thrust more forward… And from my perspective, it didn’t look comfortable or natural.
My wife Gail and I were at the Boston South Station Train Terminal. We sat near one of those coffee kiosks; big cups of coffee; luggage sprawled upon two chairs. And at regular intervals, doors opened, and in poured a cacophony of urgent humanity; each seemingly intent on a destination, deep in private thoughts, they whisked by us - clearly wanting to be elsewhere as soon as possible.
We were wanting to be elsewhere too - hence our present location at the train station.
Humanity spends lots of time wanting to be elsewhere.
Oh yeah, high heels.
Click, clack, click clack…
I mentioned to Gail that wearing high heels seemed like a lot of fuss just to look taller. Why do women wear such uncomfortable contrivances as High Heels! It just didn’t make sense, that’s all.
Luckily Gail was able to disabuse my notions about high heels rather quickly.
Gail screwed her face in one of those, its all your fault expressions and explained, “high heels are a man’s invention, created solely to make women’s legs look more shapely and her gait more alluring” (Or words to that affect).
Hmmm. My fault.
“You see, when stepping on tippy-toes, the calf muscle bunches up in a more shapely, feminine way. The posture is forced back too.”
Got it.
But it seems rather cruel. And to think men did this to women. And by association - me too!
Just thinking of all those pathetic waifs in uncomfortable high heeled shoes, their calf muscles painfully all bunched up, and all just for me. I was justifiably wracked with tears of shame and guilt.
But at the same time, dutifully allured.
Oh, look, the truth will set us free! Wikipedia says differently… Apparently French men invented high heels to keep their feet from slipping too far forward in the stirrups while riding their horses.
Women apparently found other uses for the high-heeled French hiding boots. And so, not men, but women! Women did it to themselves, they bunched up their own calf muscles without men asking them to!
I couldn’t wait to tell Gail and extricate men-kind from our sullied, guilty association with high heels.
Here’s a video about how women should walk in high heels. As you might have surmised, its an art form. As long as your being miserable, may as well make it count. May as well display those bunched up calf muscles to best advantage.
Click, clack, click, clack…
Comes a tall woman in gray slacks; high-heels clacking on the polished stone floor; her otherwise quite-alluring bunched-up calf muscles unseen, indeed hidden from view on purpose!
Too bad. Her sacrifice and suffering pointless; at least to me.
Washington Post had an interesting piece on the damaging affects of wearing high heels… Two ladies I know required surgery due to leg damage from high heels. Years and years of displaying bunched up calf muscles caused the muscles in front of the leg to become damaged from excessive stretching. Still another elderly lady I know is incapable of walking in flat shoes anymore due to her damaged leg muscles.
Well, time to hop on the train and head home. Click, clack, click clack, Gail’s high heels tap importantly upon the hard, stone floor. Just think of it… Calf muscles bunching up at this very minute.
I had much to learn.
No, perhaps not about high heels, this whole thing was bigger than all that - it spoke to me about humanity’s customs. They seem so ingrained, so formidable, so unstoppable. And each of us seems so helpless against their immovable authority. Yes, custom is the name we give things that are so stupid, so arcane, that they defy explanation. We’ll call it custom, the inconceivable, the inexplicable, the impractical and uncomfortable.
Ahh, the questions, whizzing about… Why do married middle-aged women go to church wearing high heels? An elderly woman waddles painfully up the street in high heels - what for? And lo, even my lovely wife Gail, uncomfortably climbing the steel steps into the train car, wobbling on precariously narrow heels.
Questions.
Sometimes I simply wonder of it all - how such things got started and how they are perpetuated from generation to generation. Sometimes I wonder why we can’t so easily change our paths when irrefutable proof of such a need besets us.
But alas, we are who we are.
Oh… Almost forgot: How could I part without this quintessential image: "Sport calf-muscle bunching!"
Go team go!
And of course some appropriate music to set the introspective mood…
Tom
Picture from www.nothernsun.com
Guess what…
Steve Hawking does not believe there are advanced civilizations throughout the galaxy; nor does he believe we are being visited by extra-terrestrials.
Damn…
Indeed, Steve proclaims that people who report sightings, visitations and so on, are perhaps demented or mentally ill. This is based on Steve’s belief that we would have amassed irrefutable evidence by now - radio signals from their home planets, clear pictures or video of their spaceships, perhaps even DNA evidence. To say nothing about guided tours offered during special visits. Yes, how could human science be so ineffective in detecting alien life if there actually were such a thing!
And so in Steve’s opinion - there can’t be any!
Here’s the video link to Steve’s lecture on Ted Talks. Steve discusses humanity’s big questions, including the existence of alien life.
I’m a big fan of Steve by the way. He is absolutely brilliant… I’ve read his book, "A Brief History of Time", and his perceptions about physics and the Universe are crystal clear, well thought-out and superbly crafted.
Anyway.
I happen to disagree with Steve’s rationale about Space Aliens for no other reason than I perhaps watched too many Star Trek reruns in my youth. Steve, on the other hand, came to his conclusions by aggressively deploying the two quintessential dogmas of science - Scientific Method, which insists, "if you can’t prove it, it doesn’t exist", and the other, Occam’s Razor, which proffers, "the most simple solution is best."
Here’s a refresher course on Scientific Method:
Graphic from: http://www.eas.slu.edu
And here’s Occam’s Razor for folks in a hurry:
Graphic from: http://www.savagechickens.com
There you have it - science’s definitive answer on alien life: "Prove it! And all those who are witnesses ? You’re nuts."
Nuts - its really the simplest explanation. Your just pain nuts, nuts, nuts.
Nuts.
Ahh, but what’s most telling here is not Steve’s authoritative proclamation on alien life; nor his easy dismissal of eye-witness accounts to the contrary, but his disdain and intolerance for accepting as true, an unvetted, or at best, only partially vetted hypothesis. Honest. I have no idea whether space aliens are visiting us; or if the Loch Ness Monster lurks quietly in deep, murky waters in Scotland; I don’t know if sitting in a crystal pyramid atop Mount Shasta will make me leave my body and travel in the spirit world; and I certainly don’t know if the Bermuda Triangle is swallowing ships whole…
But I do know, that for good or ill, Science’s reflex is to fervently cling to these two processes: Scientific Method, and Occam’s Razor and attempt to slowly and inexorably eat away at the chaotic and ambiguous world around us, in pursuit of clarity, understanding and truth.
Got it? Science is supposed to be an immovable pillar of facts, proof, and repeatable observations. And against such unrelenting force, ambiguity is slowly dissected, scrutinized; its mystery chipped away.
That’s Science.
Picture from: http://www.uwm.edu
And now comes the most important scientific inquiry of our life time - Global Warming. Has that one made it to your living room television yet? Lets say it three times real fast together: "Global warming, "global warming, global warming"!
Now let’s pretend we’re parrots, and say it again: "Ark, Global Warming, ark!"
But this time, scientific rigor, which abhors ambiguity and mystery, has been steered into the fast lane by none other than that lovable Nobel Prize Winner, Al Gore. Here’s a video by Al Gore, the Father of Global Warming. Its on TED Talks (I like this site by the way).
Gore makes three key points in this short video:
- Global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate due in part to humanity’s production of CO2,
- Consequently, the Polar Ice cap is melting, jeopardizing climates world-wide,
-
And aggravating all this, huge swaths of CO2 gobbling rain forest are being chopped down everyday to make room for humanity’s sprawl.
Bleak is the word that comes to mind.
Bleak.
No, not because our planet seems utterly doomed, but because the same scientific rigor that denounces space aliens in sallies of laughter and guffaw, has embraced global warming with seemingly far less scrutiny. Indeed, we seem to have skipped most of the part where we attempt to prove the hypothesis that humanity is the culprit, and instead have bounded right into the conclusion and money-making solution phase, where we are bombarded with every notion of tree planting, fluorescent light bulbs, and other "green" things to do.
And as for Hawking’s unwavering adherence to Scientific Method and Occam’s Razor? Alas, scientists quietly contend that funding, employment, indeed the warm coziness of academia is extended only to those who passionately embrace Al Gore’s world view of a scalding planet soon to be ravished by famine, war and flooded coastline cities. Alas, Science, with its otherwise unwavering discipline and deft scientific rigor seems unwilling or incapable of bringing us to cusp, in this, the greatest inquiry of our generation. So busy are they, with political correctness, career advancement and *sycophantia.
Bleak.
Like all of you, I wish I knew whether Global Warming was real, and if we are the cause. Is this as grave as they say? Or is it just another ploy to manipulate the mindless masses and market a new generation of guilt-free products.
I wish I knew.
I found this rather interesting graphic on the web - a layman like me.
Graphic from a study by Birgir V. Óskarsson entitled, Ice core evidence for past climates and glaciation
It seems global temperatures are cyclic - at least they’ve been for the 400,000 years that we’ve been able to measure them. And what’s more, we seem to be experiencing one of many temperature spikes right now. In eons past, the planet responded to such temperature spikes by self-correcting, causing temperatures to plummet dramatically. If such is the case, again, (and why wouldn’t it be) I’m glad Al Gore is getting us all to plant trees - we’re going to need lots more fire wood!
Picture from: http://www.brandchannel.com
And the founder of "Green Peace", Patrick Moore; a man committed to a better, cleaner Earth, an independent, hard thinker, disagrees humanity is causing Global Warming.
Global Warming- small amounts of truth, advanced not by scientific rigor, but by populist fervor. Gone seems the immovable pillar of science, supplanted by pettifoggers, self-serving politics and corporate interests. Oh, for the noble and uncompromising standards of the likes of Steve Hawkings’.
Lo.
Cling, clang, cling clang, a covered wagon rattles across a rutted, prairie trail, driven by an obscure man in dusty black coat and top hat, pulled by an old, tired horse. And brightly colored upon the wagons’ high wooden sides, "Doc Johnson’s Magical Cure All Elixir". Ahh, some things never change; the same-ole’ drive for the fast buck, and the same ole’ snake oil; but this time, a bold new look! Yes, re-invigorated and repackaged for humanity’s present ailments, and of course this time presented in modern, ergonomic, earth-conscious biodegradable bottles.
And so this plea, this hope: "Science - get it right! Cut through the hype, the drama, dare to disagree with self-serving politicians and career-clinging sycophants, and find humanity the truth!"
Tom
* Pettifogger: A lawyer who uses unethical methods in conducting trumped up cases..
*Sycophantia: Sucking-up risen to a mental disorder. I made the word up; but can you think of a word that wasn’t?
Copyright 2008, Ask permission before re-use
Remember that quip from Mr. Spock in one of the venerable Star Trek movies?
“Only Nixon could go to China.”
Now comes Oboma:
Brietbart ran a story about Obama entering into talks with Iran. I was struck with the parallels. Perhaps only Obama can go to Iran…
McCain won’t, he seems joined to the hip with Bush’s foreign policy.
Hillary shouldn’t. Just imagine her dishonesty and dirty tricks on a world scale; just imagine the havoc.
That leaves Obama.
And I wonder, is Iran the key to resolving Iraq, just as China was key to our leaving Vietnam? Perhaps. But unlike Vietnam, I think our troops deserve a better and more noble peace than Nixon wrought.
Tom
Life I mean.
According to this article in USA Today, scientists are busily altering life; indeed, creating life from inanimate matter.
Amazing, ain’t it?
And in their all important research, they apparently tell everyone that they are merely describing life and not defining it. Yes, they give wide berth to fundemental questions, such as, “what is the meaning of life;” and say it hushed tones: “Does God exist and would such a God approve of our work?”
And I can understand Science’s recalcatrance in skirting this aspect of their inquiries; what with all those zeaolous pulpit-pounders and of course, their ever-loyal and never introspective flock, hot on the trails of any would-be heretic…
Anyway, I just wanted to say, hey - relax. What matter if life is pro-created or just plain created. God, in his wisdom, gave us such a ability,and indeed, an inquisite nature to pursue it. Yeah, creators all - we should be about God’s work!
Creating.
Tom