Prometheus 6

Wanted: Intelligent Aliens, for a Research Project

If there is anything living on Mars, it’s going to be weird bacteria or the like, not little green men. Which is a pity. Because what we humans really need is a group of friendly, intelligent aliens to study us, and give us a report on what they find.

The problem is, in many respects it’s difficult for us to study ourselves.

First, there are practical problems. It’s easier, for example, to study organisms with much shorter lives than our own: when organisms have short lives, we can accumulate lots of knowledge about them in a single human lifetime. Hence, we know far more about bacteria, fruit flies and mice than we do about elephants, giant tortoises or sequoia trees.

Another difficulty: it’s hard to do certain sorts of experiments. Many of the experiments we can do on fruit flies would be impractical or unethical to do on people.

Check this definition from Wiktionary.

agitator (plural agitators)

1. One who agitates; one who stirs up or excites others; as, political reformers and agitators.

I've been looking at the two possibilities politics has in store for us, thinking about complaints I've heard about Black folks, querying the model of our behavior I've developed for myself. I am concerned for the future of Black politics because it depends on agitation rather than structure.

Forgive me, this is one of those on-the-fly things.

I think that what it takes to get them is what it takes to keep them. I think if you have to excite people to get them involved, you have to excite them to keep them involved. I think, ideally, they should be involved when they are relaxed so that when something excites them they get really involved.

Apple removes $1,000 featureless iPhone application
4:41 PM, August 7, 2008

Eight iPhone owners have joined an elite clan: Their Apple gadget is running a program that cost nearly $1,000.

When the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price -- and signed the two-year AT&T contract -- owned a status symbol. A year later, we have the iPhone 3G, Apple's speedier, sleeker and, most important, less expensive smart phone, which introduced a section for downloading third-party applications. Now that the phone is affordable enough for a wider audience, a new status symbol has emerged: a seemingly useless application called I Am Rich.

I like that for obvious reasons. Case in point:

I don’t know what other people do and don’t care – I know what works best for me. I’m going to get on the soapbox for a minute.

What I’m going to say is something I realize was not taught to African-Americans - just do whatever. Just realize you will most likely f*ck up the first go around but keep it moving and just correct mistakes after each try. See, I notice some cats act like they got to be so damn perfect and ish, walk around with their chest sticking out and not admit they screwed up – pride ish. Then when I got into the global arena of development, people were screwing up all the time but it was alright because we supported each other to get better next time. That contrast of “showing pride” versus “we can get better” taught me a lot and why I’m not on some pride ish.

Inspired by this reconstructed conversation.

Solar Soul: There are a lot of young brothers and sisters who don't have the first clue about what happened to us here.

PTCruiser: I'm not trying to be funny or annoying but are you telling me that there are blacks in your generation who do not know that our ancestors were enslaved?

P6: I don't think so. I think he's saying they don't understand why 'freedom' hasn't worked for us. I think he's talking about the time between slavery and now.

Solar Soul: I'm saying that and more. Most young folks know that slavery once existed, but they don't know where it started, why it started, how long it lasted, how widespread it was, or how it was perpetuated, any more than most white people do. They certainly don't know what happened between "emancipation" and the civil rights movement, except that we were segregated, and they damn sure couldn't tell you how our recent past is related to our present condition.

P6: Most people know only what they remember of what they were taught. And they still teach elementary school kids that Lincoln freed the slaves because slavery was wrong.

Students are taught legends, and are left to fit history into it IF they go to college.

no1kstate: And because they don't really know the details of Jim Crow, including the North's racism and backlash to open housing, they can't quite get their hands around James Crowe, II.

Plus, what they're taught has a beginning and an end. CRM ended, its in the past, and the history book implies it got the job done and everything is alright.

Osiris_E and The Family Clone were in the mix, and I didn't quote everything but that's the juicy stuff.

Bloggingheads: Hip-Hop Morality

John McWhorter, left, author of “All About the Beat,” and Glenn Loury of Brown University debate the political value of hip-hop.

So two days ago I wrote a post about my reaction to Obama's Father's Day speech titled Part 1. Political, in which I wrote

There's a couple of issues that come up around this speech...political issues, sociological issues, hell, psychological issues...and they get kind of tangled in the discussion. So I want to comb through mine and lay it out for examination.

I actually had "Part 2. Sociological" and "3. Psychological" in mind. As I started Part 2 I got...stuck. I'm not sure "sociological" encapsulates what I had in mind as I wrote that. Parts of it is social, rather than sociological. Other part are collective in nature.

In a way I feel like there's very little left to say about it. But...

This weekend on ThisWeek, Jonathan Capehart put the thought in some folks' head that Black people waited for permission to vote for Obama.

You know, we were supposed to follow our elected representatives to Clinton. And we voted for The Black Guy, like we always do, right? You folks that have been pretty much devoted to Obama's campaign, you drank the kool-aid. And now we all waited for permission from white people to vote for Obama.

You know what all those narratives have in common?

We, Black folk, are passive. We don't think.

Like a life without music, art or literature, a life without science is bereft of something that gives experience a rich and otherwise inaccessible dimension.

Put a Little Science in Your Life
By BRIAN GREENE

A COUPLE of years ago I received a letter from an American soldier in Iraq. The letter began by saying that, as we’ve all become painfully aware, serving on the front lines is physically exhausting and emotionally debilitating. But the reason for his writing was to tell me that in that hostile and lonely environment, a book I’d written had become a kind of lifeline. As the book is about science — one that traces physicists’ search for nature’s deepest laws — the soldier’s letter might strike you as, well, odd.

But it’s not. Rather, it speaks to the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning. At the same time, the soldier’s letter emphasized something I’ve increasingly come to believe: our educational system fails to teach science in a way that allows students to integrate it into their lives.

Allow me a moment to explain.

Obviously there are cheaters in the system. But I sometimes wonder if people realize how many services they get from nonprofits right now.

Almost 88 percent of overall nonprofit revenues in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, came from fees for services, sales and sources other than charitable contributions, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Nonprofit health care providers, day care centers and retirement homes, among others, are often difficult to distinguish from their tax-paying competitors.

The fact that you need nonprofits is a sign you're dealing with a public good...a necessity (push come to shove you can leave your grandmother in the woods to be devoured by bears, so I'd be forced to agree if you argue these services aren't necessary).

And the fact that nonprofits are commerce-driven is a response to the current political and economic environment.

And, concerned about the way some churches are spending money, the Senate Finance Committee has asked for detailed financial information from six evangelical ministries asking them to justify their tax exemptions.

So when you see signs of abuse, fine, pursue the case. But when you question cases that show no sign of abuse and provide necessary services, I think you need to rethink your community's relationship with the nonprofit sector.

Tax Exemptions of Charities Face New Challenges
By STEPHANIE STROM

RED WING, Minn. — Authorities from the local tax assessor to members of Congress are increasingly challenging the tax-exempt status of nonprofit institutions — ranging from small group homes to wealthy universities — questioning whether they deserve special treatment.

One issue is the growing confusion over what constitutes a charity at a time when nonprofit groups look more like businesses, charging fees and selling products and services to raise money, and state and local governments are under financial pressure because of lower tax revenues.

Look what I saw in my RSS feed last night.

Dirty Jobs

There is a television show on Discovery called "Dirty Jobs." Right now, the host is helping people who suck semen out of gobblers to inseminate the hens. They have to do this because they breed the turkeys to produce big breasts. As such, they are physically incapable of mating.

That's right, they are bread for big breasts making it impossible for the turkeys to breed naturally. And, there are men who suck semen from the gobblers.

Not that I want the job but how do you get such a job? What does the want-ad read like?

I suspect there are people whose family never, ever know their father's job is to suck turkey dick. I'm willing to bet that finding out your spouse sucks turkey dick would be considered valid grounds for divorce.

Adam Wilson sent a message using the contact form at
http://www.prometheus6.org/contact.

Hey Prometheus,

Thanks for chatting today. I didn't realize you would end up being such a COWARD and run from the fight. I guess you can't handle the truth, which is why you blew up my final post. Also, it looks like you failed to meet my challenge. I don't blame you, though. There is no answer to my challenge, other than Ron Paul is NOT racist, and it would embarrass you greatly to leave that challenge on your website when you've been so strongly against him. So I don't blame you at all for censoring me. I would have done the same in your shoes. I do get a chuckle about the way you ran away, though, especially given how you call out Prof. Kennedy on your website, for failing to answer your response to his article. Guess the tables have turned, Earl.

FWIW, I didn't lie about anything I posted. Regardless, I will continue to fight for freedom and liberty for all people, even you.

Oh. You DO want to be publicly humiliated. 

First of all Dick, I said my issue is Ron Paul does not support civil rights legislation. If you don't know what "civil rights" means to Black folks, you are too stupid to breathe. You never addressed that, instead trying to flip the discussion in a direction you are more comfortable with.

Go back and read, Dick. Find where I called Ron Paul a racist. Email me the quote and I'll post it, even though I don't have to.

So in accusing me a calling Paul a racist, you lied on me. So you're a liar on multiple levels, "strong black man."

The key to understanding E. coli’s fingerprints is to recognize that the bacteria are not simple machines. Unlike wires and transistors, E. coli’s molecules are floppy, twitchy and unpredictable. In an electronic device, like a computer or a radio, electrons stream in a steady flow through the machine’s circuits, but the molecules in E. coli jostle and wander. When E. coli begins using a gene to make a protein, it does not produce a smoothly increasing supply. It spurts out the proteins in fits and starts. One clone may produce half a dozen copies of a protein in an hour, while a clone right next to it produces none....

Identical genes can also behave differently in our cells because some of our DNA is capped by carbon and hydrogen atoms called methyl groups. Methyl groups can control whether genes make proteins or remain silent. In humans (as well as in other organisms like E. coli), methyl groups sometimes fall off of DNA or become attached to new spots. Pure chance may be responsible for changing some methyl groups; nutrients and toxins may change others.

Identical twins may have nearly identical genes, but their methyl groups are distinctive by the time they are born and become increasingly different as the years pass. As the patterns change, people become more or less vulnerable to cancer or other diseases. This experience may be the reason why identical twins often die many years apart. They are not identical at all.

Expressing Our Individuality, the Way E. Coli Do
By CARL ZIMMER

We humans differ from one another in too many ways to count. We are shy and bold, freckled and pale, truckers and hairdressers, Buddhists and Presbyterians. We get cancers in the third grade and live for a century. We have fingerprints.

Scientists have only a rough understanding of how this diversity arises. Some of it stems from the different experiences we have, from our time in the womb on through childhood and into our mature years. These molding influences include things like the books we read and the air we breathe. Our diversity also stems from our genes — the millions of typographical differences between one genome and another.

If you intend to annoy your 'opponent' you will lose you status around here faster than by saying something blatantly stupid. That is to say, arguing in a way designed to throw your 'opponent' off balance by pissing him or her off is, on Prometheus 6, the most blatantly stupid thing a person can do. I have obviously set out to run a different sort of site than that.

Oh, another most blatantly stupid thing would be to get hypersensitive in an attempt to prove me unfair. Because I AM unfair...absolutely biased. Get that out of the way... 

Notice the comments to this post are shut off. That's because I'm pulling rank...there is no disputing this because it's a decision I made before anyone knew P6 (me OR the site) existed. If questions or challenges on the issue are posted on any other thread I will delete the comment.

I uploaded this video and never got around to using it on this site...yet it got some views anyway. So as a goof I just posted a four second clip about a half hour ago with the description "That's what you get for peeking in my uploads!."

As of this writing it has 205 views and I don't know why. Here's the clip:

Thinking about it, it must be the keywords I used that got the attention: cartoon spank.

I go through my site logs and I am amazed at the randomness of the attempts to break into the joint.

This is not an ASP site. It's a LAMP arrangement. There are no URLs that will read a remote site and automatically post whatever it finds. It's not an ecommerce site, there are no pricing scripts. It is not a Wordpress site either. And I really don't see the point of just making up URLs, but then I don't spam for a living.

Your only real hope is to actually register...get and return the email with the password. Then you can post stuff until I find you, which ought to take no more than an hour after your first spam. There was one really determined sort that posted bullshit until all the links of threads with anti-Hillary comments fell off the Live Discussions list. That sort of thing is cleaned up with one bulk erase. Though I wrote a bit of code to keep that particular person from registering ever again.

You know, I understand the early onset of puberty and all is a serious issue. And I ain't got all the data, and I'll likely consider it later and find a better way to say it. But my immediate reaction is a blend of shock and anger.

Quarter of U.S. teen girls have sex-related disease
Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:26pm EDT
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than one in four U.S. teen girls is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease, and the rate is highest among blacks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

An estimated 3.2 million U.S. girls ages 14 and 19 -- about 26 percent of that age group -- have a sexually transmitted infection such as the human papillomavirus or HPV, chlamydia, genital herpes or trichomoniasis, the CDC said.

Forty-eight percent of black teen-age girls were infected, compared to 20 percent of whites and 20 percent of Mexican American girls. The report did not give data on the broader U.S. Hispanic population.

I raise this point within the context of BGLOs, but I think it has broader implications. For example, I just finished co-editing a book on the intersection of Critical Race Theory and psychology. My two co-editors (Shayne Jones and Jonathan Cardi) are White as are most of the contributing authors. With that said, what role is there for “others” within our struggle for justice and social equality?

Others.

Usually consideration of such roles focus on leadership positions. Black folks' hierarchies are plugged into the main hierarchy, and have no "head." I suspect that's part of the reason for our obsession with leaders.

dnA saw the Justice League movie already and says "A New Frontier" Doesn't Do The 50s Justice. I knew some stuff got clipped but I didn't know WHICH stuff.

In Darwin Cooke's graphic novel, a black hammer wielding superhero in the mold of John Henry, wearing a black hood and a noose around his neck (his origin story is that he has survived a lynching), terrorizes the Ku Klux Klan, much in the same way that Batman terrorizes criminals in Gotham.

In the film, this character is relegated to a televised obituary shown while one of the main characters sits in a bar.

I'm still going to get the movie, and I'm still going to enjoy it. You know why? Because I don't care. Seriously. I can't get stressed when my fantasy escapism turns out to be fantasy.

Obama is a world-class wooer. His white male wooing is made much easier by the fact that those who consider themselves his "sisters" and "brothers" demand nothing whatsoever from him. Just come home when you get ready, brother. Obama is free to concentrate his attentions on the hard-to-get demographics, especially white men with their peculiar notions of "change." No need for Obama to promise the hood a damn thing, except that he'll cut a dashing figure in the Oval Office and make the homefolks proud that he's there, symbolically representing them.

Republicans and GOP-leaning "independents" (meaning, deep-dyed whites) are crossing over in herds to vote for Obama. They've gotten the message: happy days are here again, when the darkies smiled and were careful not to hurt our feelings by telling the truth. That's the kind of "change" we've always "hoped" for, by golly!

If I didn't see so many Black folks NOT holding their tongues, I might be worried.

So why do wisecrackers keep their bons mots coming at the risk of alienating others? Though they may not be aware of it, sarcasm is their means of indirectly expressing aggression toward others and insecurity about themselves. Wrapping their thoughts in a joke shields them from the vulnerability that comes with directly putting one's opinions out there. "Sarcastic people protect themselves by only letting the world see a superficial part of who they are," says Steven Stosny, a Washington, D.C.-based therapist and anger specialist. "They're very into impression management."

Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters....

Ms. Jacoby, whose book came out on Tuesday, doesn’t zero in on a particular technology or emotion, but rather on what she feels is a generalized hostility to knowledge. She is well aware that some may tag her a crank. “I expect to get bashed,” said Ms. Jacoby, 62, either as an older person who upbraids the young for plummeting standards and values, or as a secularist whose defense of scientific rationalism is a way to disparage religion.

Bashed? I will defend your theory with my life.

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?
By PATRICIA COHEN

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the adorable platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked: “Budapest is the capital of what European country?”

Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

Such, uh, lack of global awareness is the kind of thing that drives Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason,” up a wall. Ms. Jacoby is one of a number of writers with new books that bemoan the state of American culture....

Bishop Glen A. Staples, pastor of the Temple of Praise Church in Southeast Washington, where former president Bill Clinton appeared yesterday, said Clinton and Obama differ little on the issues.

"Of course, a lot are going to Obama because they like that he's a black man. But a lot support Hillary because of past and present ties to" the Clintons, said Staples, who said he is undecided but will not reveal his choice publicly when he makes it.

See?

Nope, not going to jack him. He's having a hard enough time, as are most of her Black supporters.

In fact, here's your chance to ridicule me. You see, I'm going to agree with Marion Barry, who is one of those guys you're not supposed to agree with in public. 

D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) had been silent on the primary until last week, when the he endorsed Obama. He said he'd been torn between Obama and Clinton....

Here's the official job listing so nobody has to blow up Pam's mailbox.