william.scherk

Thanks for the recommendation -- I put it on hold at my library. Wright also wrote one of the most important books concerning the recovered memory movement, specifically the self-deception and outright lies and manipulation of that cult's prime movers and bad actors. That book is "Remembering Satan: A Tragic Case of Recovered Memory"** (Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Satan-Tragic-Recovered-Memory/dp/0679755829). I agree with that thought. It may never reach again the heights of influence, and it may be damaged by the last five years of high-level insider 'defection,' but the church will be a long time dying. I sometimes think that no religions or cults have been known to die, but that is not true: the Shakers are no more. The People's Temple died in Jonestown. The Church Universal and Triumphant (of Elizabeth Claire Prophet) is anything but, as their last creepy insiders begin to die off. Yes .... this is the age-old story. With so much invested mentally and socially in a 'community of faith,' the price to pay for defection or apostasy is huge. The tribal patterns of behaviour are reinforced, it seems, by criticism. Read, for example, the diehard Scientology nutters trying to dis down Wright ... Wright has also garnered some criticism of the book from anti-cult honcho Steve Hassan. See this odd little story: "Lawrence Wright’s Scientology Book Gets Some Thrashing from Cult Expert Steven Hassan" (http://tonyortega.org/2013/01/28/lawrence-wrights-scientology-book-gets-some-thrashing-from-cult-expert-steven-hassan/) It seems you have nothing to say about Myers and Pharyngula other than invective. So you can fuck yourself off, KC. Clown. Hey, Sweet William!I am not so hairy anymore. I got to shave off the nine-year playoff beard. I disbelieve you, Carol. I think there is more to the story of the Hairy Things. ___________________________________ ** from the blurb: Release date: April 25, 1995In 1988 Ericka and Julie Ingram began making a series of accusations of sexual abuse against their father, Paul Ingram, who was a respected deputy sheriff in Olympia, Washington. At first the accusations were confined to molestations in their childhood, but they grew to include torture and rape as recently as the month before. At a time when reported incidents of "recovered memories" had become widespread, these accusations were not unusual. What captured national attention in this case is that, under questioning, Ingram appeared to remember participating in bizarre satanic rites involving his whole family and other members of the sheriff's department.Remembering Satan is a lucid, measured, yet absolutely riveting inquest into a case that destroyed a family, engulfed a small town, and captivated an America obsessed by rumors of a satanic underground. As it follows the increasingly bizarre accusations and confessions, the claims and counterclaims of police, FBI investigators, and mental health professionals. Remembering Satan gives us what is at once a psychological detective story and a domestic tragedy about what happens when modern science is subsumed by our most archaic fears.

On the cousinly subject of Scary Hairy Things, I will defer to Carol herself, but we may have to wait. In the meantime, meet the Sarcastic Fringehead ... hat-tip to Pharyngula, natcherly. Yikes. Mouth wrestling. Kinda sounds like a twilight zone internet radio show starring Dr Mrs Dr Hsieh and the Arch-Fiend himself, Peikoff, both with remarkable sets of choppers. *********************************************** Now, maestro, I await your skillful rearming of this thread, to nail that dang topic or at least the neighbourhood. Despite my effusions. In righteous rejection of my effusions even. While waiting, I will hypmotize myself into subjection, by staring at this picture of Peikoff and fledglings, all on one foot, each. The all-seeing eye of ObjectivismARIstyle.

Er, maybe no more scary than other spirit entities said to infest humans. I mean only that I can think of no slimier contemporary cult. But. And. Whether pixie, brownie, sprite, nymph or demonic succubus, it is all Tinkerbell meets Yahweh meets Thor meets Beelzebub to me. Bumf. The alacrity of Elron is remarkable in terms of borrowing and regurgitating other people's interesting inventions, but not genius, and not particularly impressive in terms of knock-on, of 'testing' the zany doctrine ... the Elron style of megalomania had no 'experimental kitchen' in which his nitwit notions could be checked for bogosity and so on. To my eyes, DianeticsScientologyChurchBusinessPrisonCamp botched just about everything it borrowed, and so did they botch the borrowing of engram. By reifying the notion, the church gets it wrong wrong wrong, bad science fiction wrong. And, as with the hairy little suckers of his illustrated tone scale, the internal logic is missing, yet the machinery still pumps. To my eyes, all is a bizarre fictional as-if set of regulations and signifiers, overburdened with the evidence of Elron's madnesses. But that's just me. How did we get to Scientology on One Foot, though?

So they say. They (the Wikipedia them) also say this ...

Scope is a lovely, encompassing term. That door (to discovery/discussion) is wide open and inviting. I will think for a while on something like, "The issue of 'scope' in officialized Objectivism." After doing a thorough googl on scope as it appears under your name. THX, as the kids say. Michael, I kinda sorta almost hoped for a 1,2,3 bif bam boom on one foot discursion, but your extreme pith above killed that hope dead. Beyond laconic into 'engram' territory. I like it.

William, Using that standard, anything written by any author who is dead is "incapable of correction." I invoke the principle of charity, and invite you and Mr Pettifog to reconsider your dismissal. If the third objection does not make sense to you ... the principle of charity suggests "considering its best, strongest possible interpretation." Your remarks, Michael, do point to probable misunderstandings of the third objection, as paradox or conundrum or nonsense-- in any case, it carried an illogical and contradictory implication. Thanks for the quip/jibe/insight. Better to cut rather than add, I see. I reposition myself and my hobby horse behind the starting gate and try to think this through: If Objectivism as I see it is like Communism etcetera, then of course it is liable to correction by other than the folks (Marx and Engels) who penned the foundation documents (The Communist Manifesto and so on). William, [Y]our third objection, as you stated and qualified it with a definition, doesn't make any sense. MSK, I disagree. Once again, I think Darwin is a good analogy here. To this day, evolution is referred to as “Darwinism”, despite the fact that he never lived to know a fraction of the discoveries that have been made regarding evolution that we know of today. We still credit him with being the father of this science, because it was he who laid the foundation for these discoveries. He told us where the right place to look was. He pointed us in the right direction. The comparison to 'Darwinism' is cogent. The door opened by Darwin's milestone works on evolution has not closed. In the case of doctrinaire Objectivism (that body of work deemed canonical by the monks and nutters at ARI), each detail of the Randian system of thought is untouchable, inviolable, intrinsically true and without blemish. I had hoped in my One Foot objections to illustrate that a system of thought and behaviour limned by Rand is incomplete and in places wrong. What to do, if one objects to portions or details or knock-on effects of the ARI dogma and dicta? Cryptic phrases like 'the other end' and 'narrow approach' and 'hasn't been elsewhere' don't add up in my mind, yet. It would be interesting to read your standing-on-one-foot objections to Objectivism ... but that is not in the cards, is it? Well, this leaves me at sea. The fundamentals are superficially agreeable, as Rand stated, at least on broad strokes. I do not agree that 'Capitalism' ought be viewed as 'politics' ... and I do not agree that any ethics based on 'selfishness' can be part of a useful system for living (I mean useful to me). Metaphysics Objective Reality Epistemology Reason Ethics Self-interest Politics Capitalism Where I do appear to stand with objectivish/objectivist/Objectivist folks is with one and two; I do believe strongly that there stands a reality beyond me and the confines of my mind, a world untouched by spirits. I do also agree that the suite of actions labelled Reason (and, within reason, science)** is the best epistemological toolkit humans have devised can acquire. I think perhaps Brant, in his giddy one liner, is closest to the pith of my obections: that a birdbrain Objectivist is what I object to, that some self-styled big O Objectivists are dull to the bone, beyond the point of stupidity. Without coining a phrase, and without naming and shaming, some Objectivists are hardly distinguishable from cult members. I appreciate the commentary -- thanks to KC for the further footwork on my objections. Where we three argumentators may agree: the label 'Objectivist' is sometimes best reserved for the monks, canons and archdeacons of the ARI. That sorry tribe still manages to tar the Randian 'movement' with crankery, if not kookdom; poor Peikoff declaiming weekly to no one but the devotees or 'enlightened.' PS: looking at the related content suggested on this page, I recommend a two-footed dash through the short lively thread of discussion following "the Emotonomicon." Starring Carol as the canucki. __________________________ ** allusion to Susan Haack, my favourite philosopher of Reason and Logics, who penned the marvelously succinct and tough-minded "Defending Science - within Reason: Between Scientism And Cynicism," for perusal at Amazon ... Haack styles herself as a Critical Common-sensist and I kinda do too, mostadatime.

My ears have been burning the last couple of days, and sure enough, my name was invoked here in the garbage pile. Cause/effect? No. No, of course not. No, but hey -- I am the reigning fantasist here, and though only a pale simulacra of an Objective person, I have five times the gumption of Fakey McFrig and his retinue of defectives. First, I completely approve the double banning. I would also approve a massive fine for the defective no name pooch and pup. Secondly, and over the course of my editing "window," I intend to excoriate the pitiful losers who have been sent back to a lower level of stupid. The useless geese. I'm Serapis Bey and I approve this message. If this is your understanding of the natural leader, then I simply don't see how one can avoid separating 'natural leaders' from bullies. And, like you, I hate bullies. (PS: I can't believe it, I actually agree with We Erred Rand here... well, with WER's basic point, not with WER's uncivil rhetoric)We share 98 percent of our genetic structure with Chimpanzee who are not cute and comical like Tarzan's Cheetah, but are in fact killer apes. Chimps are nasty brutes and we have an embarassing resemblence to them. 1) There's no known causal link between the genome and the body-plan, or shape, of an organism. 2) There's no known causal link between the genome and behavior — at least, not human behavior. Correlations perhaps. But correlation is not causation. 3) The 99% genomic similarity between chimps and humans was at first downgraded to 95% similarity, and now there are calls to throw out the chimp genome mapping altogether as simply being a scientific embarrassment. First of all, the chimp map was purposely turned upside down (with the long arm of the map on top and the short arm on bottom, which is the opposite way in which these maps are normally oriented), and many of the blank, unmapped regions were simply deleted altogether. This was done for the express ideological (not scientific) purpose of making the chimp gene map line up with the human gene map. And that was done for the propagandistic purpose of declaring, "Look! Darwinian evolution must be true! Observe how close the human genome is to the chimp genome! That proves common descent!" Sure. If you fudge the data. I'm Serapis Bey and I approve this message. >>>Come on Weird Rand, I know you can do better than that. Maybe it was his genes that made him do it. Maybe it was the material particles comprising his consciousness (particles that simply obey deterministic physical laws) that made him do it. Maybe his otherwise vibrant imagination failed him, and he reached for an easy win. Quien sabe? I am Endymion* and I approve of Serapis Bey. *A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its lovliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. — "Endymion" by the great romantic poet, John Keats Lots of evidence. But if a priori you claim that anything explainable by means of purposive intelligent action is also just as easily explain (in principle) by means of physical matter, energy, and some combination of chance and deterministic law, then you are claiming that no argument for the existence of a Creator is even possible. You've simply closed yourself off to it. For the record, The biochemical evidence is overwhelming. The recently published results in the prestigious British journal Nature of the ENCODE project (which studied the functionality of the genome) shows that about 90% of DNA is functional, i.e., is transcribed onto RNA, and therefore has some kind of function within the cell. The researchers claimed that they expect 100% of DNA to be functional. It appears that only a small part of DNA actually codes for amino acids in the process of protein synthesis. The rest of the DNA strand does other stuff, apparently controlling much of the "formatting" (to use a term from desktop publishing) of the coding part. The significance of all this (aside from the fact that scientifically it's interesting in its own right) is that the notion of "junk DNA" — i.e., long, non-coding, NON-FUNCTIONAL, stretches of DNA apparently being preserved "errors" [the DNA equivalent of fossils] of random variation and natural selection over millions of years of genomic evolution — is out the window. None of it is junk. All of it is functional. It's quite funny to read many of the Darwinists backpeddle on this issue now: "Oh, we NEVER used the phrase 'junk DNA' in the first place! That was just the popular press exaggerating things!" Etc. Anyway, the ENCODE results have hammered the final nail in the coffin of junk DNA, an important element of the Darwinian scenario on evolution. Additionally, a company called "Agilent" has successfully used DNA as an actual storage medium for jpeg images and text (they encoded all of Shakespeare's sonnets and some images on a few grains of DNA). The DNA was flown to their sister office in the U.S., which successfully decoded the data and read it off with near 100% fidelity. Sorry, but the ability to use DNA for human data storage proves that the original molecule was already a kind of storage device, making use of a 4-symbol code (i.e., the nucleotide bases making up the rungs of the DNA helix) instead of a 2-symbol code like binary, which is what our man-made computers "understand." Hard-drives don't appear in nature by means of random processes and deterministic forces; they are the results of intention and purpose. Same with DNA, which is nothing but a very small hard-drive -- literally. By the way, the compression of DNA storage is fantastic, even given the rough state of today's technology: according to its inventors, 1 gram of DNA (about 1/3rd of a teaspoon) can easily store 1 petabyte of data. 1 petabyte is 1,000 terabytes. So envision 1,000 1-terabyte hard-drives stacked up in your office, completely filled with data. Then compare that to a teaspoon 1/3rd full of powdery specks of DNA. If the 1,000 hard-drives stacked up in your office couldn't appear by means of a Darwinian process, why would anyone choose to believe the teaspoon full of microscopic biochemical hard-drives were? And again: the only difference between DNA used to store information about JPEG images and text, and DNA actively functioning in your cells is the choice of data: the latter store data on amino acid selection, protein synthesis, and other cellular processes. Au contraire. Reason is a subcategory of faith. That's why Dante, in the "Purgatory", required the character of Virgil (the "shade" of the great Roman poet, who symbolically represented reason, and had acted as the benevolent guide for Dante while he was making his travels and discoveries in the "Inferno") to remain behind, unable to enter heaven with Dante as he made his final voyage in the "Paradiso". Since Virgil was a pre-Christian pagan, he could not have had the requisite faith to enter heaven with Dante and act as a guide. You should read Dante sometime. An infinite regress occurs with any kind of explanation whatsoever — spiritual or material — so long as the causal chain is constrained to "inside" the universe. Obviously, then, for the chain of causes-&-effects to begin, it had to do so from some place that is "outside" the universe, i.e., not part of the universe. That way, whether you posit a creator intelligence or a "big kahuna electron", you needn't explain that as an effect of any prior cause. Whatever it was, it was both a Cause and an Effect of its own existence. That was actually intuitively understood by Aristotle and those who elaborated his geocentric system of the universe: God, or simply the Prime Mover, was outside the universe, past a wall of "fire" separating him from the rest of the concentric spheres comprising the actual universe. The Prime Mover gave a slight "push" to the outer sphere, setting it in circular motion, which in turn, caused the next inner sphere to rotate, etc. The view here is that God, the Prime Mover, is outside the periphery of the universe, and not actually part of it. To answer in advance a possible objection: The reason that sort of explanation cannot be used for the material universe that we inhabit (i.e., Existence was its own cause and its own Effect), is because of our knowledge of things like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which all matter and energy obey. Things run down over time, and things like 4-symbol chemical codes — codes always being the product of intelligence, and an intelligence that can anticipate future uses for it (such anticipations being strictly verboten under Darwinist assumptions) — do not get built up over time by chance collisions and physical law. Face it. If your Western Digital 1-terabyte hard-drive — with a functioning operating system installed! — could not have been the product of a tornado throwing scrap-metal together in a junkyard, then neither could a DNA molecule (and, by extension, certainly not a complete living cell) have been the product of random processes. But the contrary is not true: that which is beyond imagination is not necessarily non-existent. Check your premises. That God, or a Prime Mover is beyond imagination does not, per se, indicate that he cannot, or does not, exist. I'm Serapis Bey and I approve this message. If you don't like the rules of this forum, there's a big Internet out there just waiting for you. Besides, you are neither Serapis Bey nor Peregrine777. Those are just names to hide behind. I grant you, you have owned up to this before, so you are at least more honest than the jerk you admire. Michael Whoever said I'm not already plying my trade in that big internet out there? I go where the Spirit moves me. Sometimes here, sometimes there...one must seize opportunity wherever it arises. SB, I'm not interested in the sockpuppet, and I was letting your first endorsement of what he said slide. But a second endorsement and all the bla bla bla really interests me. Let me get this straight. You believe: 1. It's OK to spit on the owner of the site you post on by changing his name to a synonym of drunk. 2. I, me, Michael Stuart Kelly, choose and prefer dumb contributors--or contributors who "dumb themselves down"--so I can protect my little ego and fragile self-esteem. 3. I am surrounded by regulars on the forum who also need to protect their little egos and fragile self-esteem, and I help them do that by getting contributors who like to play dumb, presumably as their form of sucking up to me. Do I understand that correctly? I ask because I want to make sure. If you truly believe that OL is a dumbed-down forum and nothing but an exercise in empty vanity and defensiveness, what the hell are you doing here? Michael

Carol on the Streetcar yarned: -- yadda yadda "I don't eat Breakfast." Bill in Rainville yarned back: "Then drink it, honey. Don't bother me. One way. Or the other." Badabing. More seriously, heavensake girl, at Breakfast, you sing for your supper. At Supper, you chat up a dinner. At Dinner, you lay traps for nightcaps. If Nightcaps, well, you walk up a lot of steps or march around the block a bit. And then some. Or ... you could be the stern lady on a fast: glaring from the A/V booth (not because of the onerous duties, not the fast, not the folks in the bar, not because you got sussed as NOT-A/V competent and now you are butchering the internet feed, but because you: Forgot Your Glasses and Can't See Anybody. Hungry and Crabby. NO hockey in this gawdforsaken bar. Whiskey tango foxtrot. Carol, anybody justabouts would glare and frown, heavensake. I seriously think you should take breakfast. Like me and Hitch and that f***head not-yo-mater Teresa & nutz-ta-yer-fader Brant. Just knock one back. IF that doesn't do it, knock back two more. IF that was too much, see above, what to do at Breakfast if YOU are TOO hungover to eat and you skipped Dinner last night in favour of Frowning and Fasting. Seriously, you will be able to see everybody from the A/V booth, and you will be able to heckle them mercilessly via the A/V mic which blares out over the disco. Until shift change and George H Smith takes over. See, as Stephen Boydstun would say, a. Also as he would say, b.

The headline is irresistable, as is the subhead: Meet the Sun’s new neighbors Reading that and beyond, my fantasist wants to make the word "Parallax" a technical term when discussing thorny Objectivish things. The fantasist also wants to utter mock outrage on behalf of 'brown' minority collectivities and the 'little people' collectivities. Brown Dwarfs indeed! But frig the fantasist -- how to use parallax in an ordinary O-conversation, using it to stitch together disparate doctrine. Er, "'Parallax Lost: the story of Objectivism's encounter with objectivity.' A two-person duologue presented by Canadian 'friendlies' Daunce Lynam and William Scherk. Chigago OL Meetup, May 24th, 2014."? or, "'The Peikovian Doctrine of the Arbitrary Assertion: Asserting Parallax to crush your opponent in debate so badly that he or she will never interlocute again,' presented by Robert Campbell. [scheduled for 'Smokey's Piano Bar and Jazz Patio' on the patio if the weather is not dire. Free balloons for the kiddies. Red Rose for the first few (3) ladies. Discounted 'house special' for all attendees at PARALLAX: the Objective-ish Convergence."] or, "'George H Smith's Parallax Paradox: how to write 12,000 words of clean, crisp prose. Every week. For 51 weeks.'-- part of the Patio Series of 'speed-speaking': No speech shall last more than 240 seconds. Applause determines the winner. Winners pay the bar tab. Our speakers include: [by Skype+Smokey's Ultra Patio Sports Screen/avaiable for gifts and curses on thumbdrive ($12) or speech-to-text ($0.89): Hecklers given priority for 'ripostes' *(60 seconds, five drink minimum charge)] Etcetera,. "So, a couple of brown dwarfs wandered into a bar. The bartender said ... ____________" ___________________________________ More seriously, I have been having fits of Party Planning. Perhaps watching too much "Gypsy Weddings on Crack/Appalachia,"** but I am hoping we could, with the miracle of the internet and T1 backbones, six sturdy folks on a Planning Collective could probably organize a "OL Summit" that requires nothing from attendants but that they open to a LiveStream Channel on that particular fated day. To put my devalued currency where my mouth is, I am providing a subvention backstage to Kat and Michael this week. Seed money, so to speak. _________________________________ ** -- more seriously still, tomorrow I am attending 6 1/1 hours of lunacy as a 'friendly skeptic' at a conference (a 'Summit') in Vancouver (link to latest summit story in the shoppers press). Gawd help me, but I am. And I can't even get rid of my extra ticket. If I can maintain an internet connection in the Hallowed Halls (the summit is occuring on University Property, though not endorsed), I shall report "Live In Vancouver" to OLers who would like to be there with me -- biting lips bloody to not scream with laughter, getting personal with Wackaloons, etc.

Came on all triste, melancholy, elegiac thinking of heroes like Hitchens, so I sent a note backstage to one of my O-world online heroes. In case she doesn't open it first:

All I can come up with this week is sheer fantasy, and sure enough, a 'spirit' of Hitchens moved me to part of it. Here, I push back against the fantasy and try to give a plain, even stern report on my struggle or research or history of how to have heroes -- in re that debatable value, Richard Dawkins, whom I think could never be a hero to an Objectivist -- at least not up in the Pantheon with the troika and a few others. Dawkins alongside Hitchens is a hero to me for his reach, though, as well as his pith and his bitchiness about the torments religion has brought to humankind. I hope after his death, that he be a kind of spirit of the 20th century, a hard eagle eye of reason peering at biology over aeons, as a master geologist maps geology over those same aeons. And, of course, he is in that class of heroes who have written across the divide between science and me the dolt, that me who hated it in school (fool me) except for dissection (which I pretended to get faint about). In that class are really only about a dozen, and Hitchens certainly banged out a book. They all wrote a book, or several or many where at one point their message stopped being limited to the outskirts of their town**. They did not sell only an academic or monographic best-seller, which as Robert Campbell can attest, may only run to the high four figures. Each of my heroes did what everyone of a certain class** tried to do, hit a high and hard one out of the field, write a book in which they knew (deluded or not) that they had written a more than satisfactory thing. Aced it. Crushed it. What have you. Think of Dr Hawking when eight years later he gorped out the last sentence of his Crusher . They, all my heroes who wrote books, may have all also felt exhilaration if one of their own 'heroes' grunted approbation or backslapped or rang the bells whathaveyou, and perhaps that may have been all the bells that would ring. Sell ten thousand books on your ratty or wonderful or desperately obscure corner of inquiry, get a grunt or two, backslap, toll the bells -- and I think I would feel I had won hugely. (here I am thinking also now of Rand, when she put that pen down from that last correction or mad banging in the kitchen on the typewriter, when she knew she was done. Maybe that exhilaration was smaller than that which was to come with the Collective, and maybe she indeed was puzzled, hurt and angry about the (non-word-of-mouth) critical reception of a book later -- but I think still there would have been one or two incomparable moments alone when she knew she had succeeded on her terms, knocked it out of the park, Crushed it, etc) So, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins each wrote a similar but different kind of 'awesome world, awesome science' book, a book both narrow and wide, a book which in no way compared in splendour to the books of my primary hero Darwin, but which grasped the deep import of Darwin's opening of the door. As to many Objectivish folks Rand knocked on and down many doors ... so too I think we (here at OL) know when somebody appears to have smoked it right out of the park. More hits to come maybe, but nothing like that perfect universal drive of a great book. Beyond selling truly massive numbers of books on a briliant and illuminating set of topics, in a stroke of genius unifying and universalizing the deep story underlying (which as MSK so aptly reminds us, is Power), Dawkins and Darwin and Sagan and a few more pushed that door as wide and as deep as they could, to their limits. My heroes also amplified their appeal (by translation) to many languages, pushed back the darkness, door upon door. Another hero is a heroine, Susan Haack, who also helped push back my mental darkness, who will never be famous or sell grotesque numbers of books, except in proportion to academic excellence perhaps. She has, like the gentlemen above and like Rand, been translated widely and is as celebrated (in her teeny niche) in Beijing as she is in Sao Paulo and in the world-beat professoriate of philosophy. And none of these ladies and gentlemen do I consider my philosopher. I, who will sell likely zero books in my lifetime, may have overemphasized a sense of proportion, weight, reach and depth in my dry prose on heroics here among the writer class. There are smaller heroes too. And a hero or nine here on OL. I think any writer/person could potentially be my kind of hero, if that writer person exhilarates me, exhilarates my mind. Helps make my heart and mind sing the same tune, same beat, and so on. So, Back Off on Dawkins or I will go back to Fantasia, Hitchens, Mother Teresa that bitch, and gawds and death and approaching destruction. Thank you. I too was seduced by Bill Clinton.

IHOP, in my fantasies == International House of Pancakes. I used this acronym to stress the Chain aspect of the Senior Cargo Facilities Management Consortiums such as Our-Slogans-are-Shit Seniors Inc as in Bakersfield. And failed.

The credentials was respecting something else you wrote about how many OLers were doctors, etc.? How many OLers are/were doctors? As far as I can tell, only two, Leonid and, if by a whisker, our new friend from Florida. If you suspect I added a bit of tongue-lash to my fantasia for those who presume to knowledge, yes. Medical advice to and on the subject of Lorraine Bayless is Five for a Penny when given by spectators like me. I have been cursing myself privately for so rawly saying so much, and so undressed. (to appeal to the greatest number of readers silent and readers who speak here, I have since my Objectivist Revelation been trying to appeal to reason. Even on some occasions to appeal to Reason. I try to mutually-grope my way to a well-fleshed and credible actuality. Facts. Alert to pretended knowledge and unreasonable suppositions. Fallacies. Unwarranted conclusions. Logics. Consistency. Yadda. Details. Blah. To appeal to the greatest number of people I try to reason first and reason second and reason my way to greater knowledge and understanding. Selfishly, I assume. Reason. It is what I think is the only thing I share with the thumping majority here who are in some way inspired, enlightened, guided or hogtied by Rand and her derivatives) I will appeal to your reason and your sense of fairness in two paragraphs, Brant, followed by three paragraphs of corrections and apologies and one paragraph of unanswered questions. Later. Most of these have already appeared. But first, I have to go look up the differences and connections between domineering and domineer and dominate and dominatrix and dominant. I don't know any of their names. I don't know where they live. I know nothing about their crime, or fraud or hair-colour or politics or lawyer. I don't know what they had for dinner last night in Vegas or LA, nor do I know who was fucking who and why and blah. I know they have asked for privacy -- in other words, they choose to say nothing more on the subject of Punish the Witch. Kardashians they are not. I get it. What a dope I have been. They only coughed up half of it. That's right. I not only have a right to shame the nameless public figures, but I have a right to the DNS. I subpoena their private medical file, and demand it be delivered to me up here in the grandstand --- on their knees, the lying bastard Baylesses. Yummy. I think I am going to like this. Reason, with a whip. Oh goodness, dear Brant. So much has (I think) hurt you and caused you to doubt yourself in the inner courtroom in and after those early years, as told, and now, with death. You do deserve to blast all and sundry for sins and tergiversations of your years pushed around. And for all the flab and lies and dullardly and herdish inhumanity instantiated by Toomey and Nurse Yup-I-fucked-up-or-Did-I (who will sue for 87 million dollars, as predicted by MSK, as amended by me). All that. As some drunken fantasy insisted upthread, the Tell-All book will come (as amended by MSK) by the Real Victim. I think the Baylesses will keep a dignified distance from America's new Death Debate. I think the shame should be reserved for the hypocrisy of Our Slogans Are Shit-IHOP. In my fantasy, which is coming on fast, all tinkles, we OLers will have continued our researches and arrived at some piercing truths. With respect, Brant, I hold my line that I/we simply cannot judge fairly without a full slate of evidence. Surely not enought to sleaze the Baylesses. And here too brother, it might be best for others to talk about their own deaths, as you and Carol and I have been forthright enough to do over the years. I respect you for the frank stories you tell, and do not doubt you Would Do the Right Thing in all circumstance. I have asked far too many questions and made far too many statements already. But this thread will resound with me and I will revisit. Till then, I wish that other bravefoolish OLers will take the time to tell tales of their deaths, theirs foreseen and planned for, their deaths witnessed and grieved. Take the spotlight off who have told our stories and sketched the contours of our own pain. I can't, Brant, fully obey you. Not until I am in your home with a glass of your fine spirits in front of me. Yours is the last word now that you know Lorraine Bayless's GP signed the death certificate and it has appeared just today in the news. She died of a stroke, he attested. ... To the dead, says Hitch. To the dead. Cheers, cheers all. To Death, may You take me unawares. To my lovely Friend Carol, whom I have never yet met, what a moving prose poem of your death, your mother as her eyes turned to glass. Brant, brother OLer, may we meet in actuality. I suggest rather fantastically that MSK decree an OL Conflab in Chi-town in 2014 or sooner or whenever -- a self-organizing social, a Ball of Reason, an Event. No papers delivered. No formal speeches, no icing on the cake. Just OLers being their passionately reasonable best. As good as if not better than the Kissimmee Konklave of long ago SOLO-RoR. We could loudly but reasonably finish this skirmish then, brother Brant? I do so want to meet a few lovely cronies like Carol and MSK and Kat and you before we become cargo ourselves.

Brant, I did not mean to get you riled, but none of us have the least fucking idea what went on in that family. And it is absolutely none of our business whether or whatever dodgem games the Baylesses have played. As for you (or me or any crabby autodidact) to say or imply a 'need to see the DNR' ... fiddlesticks. That said, you chewed off the face (metaphorically) of some DF here who claimed knowledge. I was returing the same bunt. I was not demanding credentials, just wondering what knowlege was assumed in re Lorraine's health and prognosis. As with me, I assumed you knew fuck all about that. We can now return to our regular programme: NON-stop Moralizing and Posturing. It's the Objectivish thing to do ...

Yes, and and yes. Having spernt a large part of my youth visiting Cargo Facilities, and hearing my youngish and then midde-aged and then old mother extolling the excellences of Lonicera Hall (assisted living) and Lincourt Manor (end of the line, run by her niece)I have always expected to end up in one and then the other, unless I just drop dead unexpectedly. They are both nice places and when I get there. really,what will be important to me?When you get there, really, what will be important to you? Hmmmm. Let me guess. Dinner Lunch Breakfast Snacks Pub Night Shuttlebus to Bingo Bingo Snacks Gossipy 'friends' Bitching about the food Hockey trumps all in the TV loungeMy numbering may be off, Carol. Me, I have standing orders to treat me like The Walking Dead. If rendered a Zombi by stroke or atherosclerosis or too much Silk n Silver for men: apply the proverbial bolt-gun.

Here's the full statement from the Bayless family:

Greatly entertaining debate between Dawkins and Lennox, if I am thinking of that which you reference (at Oxford, not at Birmingham). After three bouts with Lennox, it is said that Dawkins has 'given up' debating creationists ... Here is the last debate between the two men. Mike Eighty-Two Arp, is this the debate at Oxford the one you use with your students? I would love to see the syllabus! (here also a debate between Lennox and Hitchens:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p1mDPQw1Yk Dawkins and Lennox in Birmingham -- I have my Logical Fallacies open in tabs, and the Oxford debate open in Audacity. I am set to pounce on the poor Dawkins ... first sentences out of his mouth at 4:34. -- Dawkins introduces the Oxford debate with a few wry comments here.

Great and very moving post, Brant -- food for thought on many levels. It seems sad to me that there is no one to take care of you as you have taken care of your parents. That particular culture of in-family caring is a smaller one, I believe, than it once was. Why, when I was a boy, we .... The dead lady's family did not put her into Assisted Living, Brant. Wrong detail, anyway: this was Independent Living, which is not Assisted Living. Beyond that, young Arizonan, you do not know anything about who put whom where as it pertains to this family. It could be that Lorraine Bayless herself chose the facility. You gave a knuckle rap to another commentator for this very thing, assuming knowledge. It is hard to compress all the outrage in the world onto one pinhead, but I think we OLers have managed it in this thread. Regardless in some cases of facts, regardless of details of the family life that we are not privy to. I regret my initial mistakes in reporting, despite the corrections I appended. I realized my reaction was formed of part-prejudgment and part arrogance. These are dangerous to rational cognition, and I am as prone to them as anyone here. I think I need to tell Hitchens to fuck off out of my fantasies and give myself another reading of Carol Tavris's marvelous book, "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts." What I appreciated most about this book is that each illustrative example is taken from real-world events that we/I lived through. She shows the continuing danger of cognitive evasion of responsibility, of evasion of the facts of reality. This evasion suffuses politics like blood in a body, though. [extremely boring Canadian politics aside, social masochists eyes only: In BC today, the big scandal of the month is that the provincial government used government resources to pursue partisan electoral/political (party) goals. The premier, bless her soul, was quoted as saying 'Mistakes were made.' She accepted the resignation of her personal assistant of many long years (who may have been the originator and primary actor in the illicit campaign). She accepted the resignation of a cabinet minister who had Fuck All to do with the ethical void in the premier's office. She alluded under harsh questioning in the legislature to a situation that might require further resignations (which was tealeaf-read to suggest she might step down herself once the 'investigation' is completed). Which is all fine and dandy, for her government will be shown the door in May, and she is likely to lose her own seat. Pride, amour propre, political calculation, hiding under the covers so the monster can't get you, denial of responsibility. As if the lady had slept through the last three scandal+premier resignations in our history: Vanderzalm, Harcourt, Clark.) Sometimes, the expedient turns out to be fatal. But the crust of denial is still pulled into place as if a raincoat, while the Mistakes soak through to the bone.]

More from those principally involved. From a newish (by 2 hours) Gillian Mohney story at ABCNews. I have not seen the family statement in full if it is available. Takehome message from this cynic -- the first ass-covering fit of bafflegab 'policy' by Mr NoFace Toomey of SeniorIHOP was fudge. What was the Nixon White House term for that? 'Non-operative'? Gah, the ravages of age and hanging out with Fantasy Hitchens. Emphases added. Adam, was there a link missing in the big excerpt above at #27? Penuitimate question -- how many doctors/GPs/Geriatricians do we have here at OL? There have been a few confident statements about percentage chances (of recovery) and at least one confident statement that Lorraine Bayless would obviously have been saved from death by CPR. Has anyone a deep enough confidence in their percentages and medical knowledge to supply us with a link or warrant for such statements? I wish we had a straightforward Objectivish nutter like whatsisname in Florida who took deep and (insane?) aggressive umbrage at our MSK back in the day of Abandoned Baby In the Woods ... I will go re-read that thread and see if Hitchens is ready for another seminar with me. This is the TALK of the town at my Seniors Cargo Facility. No consensus but that all should Follow The Orders (of the individual patient/resident). General consensus also that nobody outside the privacy loop knows what was ailing Lorraine, and no one knows the date or circumstances of their own death but suicides. I am thinking of my mom's final moments in my arms. Should I have pulled her onto the floor and banged her about? No. This was death. Finally, has anyone here planned out their final days? Is anyone planning to be housed in an expensive campus like Glenwood Gardens? ________________ Added: "there was no crime committed" says the Bakersfield PD, who have finished their investigation, according to local news station KGET.

That would be Neil Bissoondath, in his book "Selling Illusions: the Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada" ... whose multicultural marriage includes hockey for the kids ...

Update and corrections. The latest reports (see here at ABC news) quote the poobahs of the Gardens as insisting that Bayless was a resident of 'Independent Living' quarters in their facility. This seems to me to be a dodge, but may well be true.** The same ABC story says that a police investigation has been launched. There are still discrepencies between reports. The ABC report says that Bayless "died later that day after being taken to a hospital by ambulance," while another story reports that Bayless had no pulse and was not breathing when paramedics arrived -- and that she was declared dead at the hospital. One puzzling bit of the ABC report: Glenwood Gardens is an "independent living facility"? Perhaps, but that is NOT how it is promoted. If anyone wants the links to the facility, say yeah. One of the folks consulted by the ABC team had this to say, to further muddy the thoroughly muddy creek: Hitchens is calling. I will be back tomorrow ... [Added -- the full seven-minute plus 911 tape: http://www.kget.com/media/lib/15/b/1/8/b18eb484-5198-4027-971d-271d26308006/Glenwood_Gardens_911_call.mp3 ] ______________ ** True. She was a resident of the separate Independent Living quarters on the Greenbrook 'campus.' Competing news organs have made a hash of the 'do not rescuscitate' order that was/was not on file, or was/was not given or displayed to the EMT personnell who arrived on scene. Adam, an EMT (fire department) representative -- battalion chief -- has been cited as saying she was not breathing and had no pulse when they began CPR upon arrival and checking the DNR status ...

...suitcase of cash flying through the air ...find the 'induction' materials for potentional inmates at Glenwood Gardens ...discover the policy ...is Glenwood Gardens part of a chain ...enquire about any such 'policy' at the private facility where I volunteer. So, my first thought was way off. No suitcase of money flew through the air from Glenwood Gardens to Bayless's daughter. The 'induction materials' for Glenwood Gardens are standard, but standard for what is named 'assisted living.'** I looked over the offerings of Glenwood and discovered that it is almost exact kin to the 'assisted-living' wing of the facility I work at. Promotion materials offer a superb nomenclature, however: Brookdale-Glenwood Gardens is indeed part of an IHOP: the 'Brookdale' refers to the larger corporate entity that owns the block. Brookdale has facilities in 36 states. California itself has 17 'Brookdale' communities, almost all of which include 'assisted living.' What comprises Brookdale's distinction between 'independent living' and 'assisted living'? Briefly, a reserved seat in the dining room, and personal assistance (dressing, bathing, etc). An 'independent' senior does not expect much more of the facility beyond an apartment, concierge-ish services, and a certain amount of housekeeping assistance. Ultimately, this facility that will not provide CPR is not a 'nursing home,' nor a 'care home,' nor a 'continuing care' home. I suspect that one of the reason Bayless's daughter signaled her satisfaction is that she knows what contract she signed on behalf of her mother (or in concert with her mother). She likely knew exactly what would happen if mom dropped off in her mashed potatoes. Re my own local privately owned (meaning non-IHOP, owner-operated), the Assisted Living protocols are similar. What was impressed upon me by reality at the facility is the simplest. People die each week, in their beds and occasionally in their mashed potatoes. Many residents of the 'complex care' (which is different still from 'continuing care') are simply not expected to live very long or to be at risk of sudden death from multiple failures -- often unusual to my eyes (death from Alzheimer's). In the past several months I have lost six 'friends' from this cohort. Each death was sad for the care-givers, but like it or not, a part of the function of the place is dealing with the inevitable. That said, the full nursing staff in 'complex care' is the equivalent of paramedic plus. But some patients/residents have asked for 'no heroics' ... 'no rescuscitation' and so on. I feel a vague fantasy hangover today, and wonder what Hitch might say given the added context I dug up. Maybe that hangover is related to MSK's ribbling riposte to the deep cynicism in my previous post. I still vaguely expect The Lawyers to be circling, although this is probably fantasy hangover too. There seems to be no 'case,' no investigation by any civil or police authority, no law broken and no particular surprise among officialdom that an old lady died in this particular circumstance. Bearing in mind that we have zero information on the actual health of Lorraine Bayless (at 87 she may be presumed to have had at least one health condition that meant she needed assistance), and that we have no actual cause of death ... no report (yet) of a post-mortem (and likely none ordered or expected) -- is there enough information to justify our conclusions? I wrote earlier about the many future meetings of the Angry Seniors/Advocates ... I overstressed the 'angry' part. Such agencies as the AARP in the USA will no doubt have many other items on their discussion agendas. And among the 'community' of senior cargo facility providers, this well-publicized incident may or may not lead to changes in standard policies across the industry. There are a few questions I would ask of the daughter and of the hospital and of the paramedics. Does anyone else find a useful question that has not been posed or that they would like answered? Of course the daughter owes nothing to anyone by way of explanation of her stance, despite any wish to judge her as evul as the hands-off nurse. _____________________ ** I will let Brookdale itself tell us what Assisted Living means.

From the LA Times blog (re the now-dead 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless, who collapsed while dining, and died later in hospital): My first thought was of a suitcase of cash flying through the air. My second thought was to find the 'induction' materials for potentional inmates at Glenwood Gardens -- to discover the 'we will not touch your mom/dad/hated elder if he/she/they collapse' policy, as spelled out in online promotions. Third thought being 'is Glenwood Gardens part of a chain like IHOP?' followed quickly by wondering about the number of removals from the ElderParkingIHOP roster of 'waiting to die' residents lists in the near future ... and I haven't yet got to the next thought. The top comment at the original story as cited by MSK was "these people should be executed." In an Objectivist World, this would not/would happen, but the 'deal' between the waiting-to-die cargo and the cargo handlers would be much more explicit, I wager. In any case, The Lawyers are already on the case, no doubt. Later, the most-outraged of the Most Senior Cargo 'insiders' will I hope publish a tell-all, buttressed by a wave of research that show X percent of cargo facilities have the exact same policy. I also expect a few ruckuses at the next 90,000 meetings of various Angry (and or Concerned Seniors or their Advocates) Organizations. Private enterprise, 'policy,' and a deep disempathy for CPR. This does not seem a winning combo for Cargo Facility of the Year awards. I will enquire about any such 'policy' at the private cargo facility where I volunteer. _______________ Added: That final thought turned out to be fantasy, again, of course. Me and Christoper Hitchens, him quite dead, me not quite so, both jovial and both tanked. He, emanating a withering contempt oddly like a fresh breeze off the water, chuckles and rattles his ice, my signal. I frown, eyeball a plug of scotch, touch the soda button, and return to his thesis again. Okay, Hitch, you great dead fathead commie, you say that these bitches (not all women, them) who JQ Public says should be executed at Glastnost Garden Dump 'n' Die are no different than that other haggard and soulless monster 'Mother' Teresa. Ameyeright? He chuckles, tinkles, I eyeball and spritz, and what he next says spins it fine enough for me to gather his points into a coherent and painful whole. In the fantasy he paints a vivid picture of Mother Teresa 'lovingly' stroking the forehead of Lorraine as she dwindles away, after one of the Filipina care aides has first wiped away the mashed, gravy, and creamed corn from that same forehead. It is so refreshing to see some Real Outrage here at OL. In light of that, here is the most moving picture of my last couple of weeks. This may haunt me going forward just as much as Nasty Teresa helping poor Lorraine through that final door.

it would be easier to damn them if you could them apart When I was eighteen, I heard from a friend this following tale featuring his mother: 'My mom says, "I'm not prejudiced, but I don't like the Dutch. They are diry and bossy. I worked for a couple of them."' It stuck in my mind and I have repeated it hundreds of time, often with this fine-tuning: 'I am not prejudiced, but I don't like white people. They are dirty and bossy. I worked for a couple of them.'

The robot and I are going to have A Talk. Thanks for not mentioning the other infelicities of the robot. It is a great article, with a lot of bite.