“Peace Is a Resistance to the Terrible Satisfactions of War” – Judith Butler

On Sunday Morning the weekly CBC televsion newsmagazine, a Montreal actor and dubbing director, Michael Rudder, was interviewed from his hospital bed in Bombay.  He’d been shot at least four times last week in the Mumbai attacks.  He was shot in the arm, the leg, the buttocks and as of this writing, there is still a bullet lodged in his stomach.  Eating in the Oberoi hotel restaurant, he had heard shots and asked about them.  He was told by restaurant employees, that it was only gangsters.  A strange remark indeed.   (As strange as the remarks made during a Mexican murder aftermath in 2006.  Then, Mexican officials publically declared that an Italian couple killed in a resort near Playa del Carmen was the work of Canadian mobster hit women from Thunder Bay. That murder is another act of violence that outrages me.) Rudder doesn’t understand why, but assumed he and his party were not in danger.   Moments later he and the patrons found themselves in a hailstorm of bullets. He believes that extremism is on the rise. I think that this is nonsense. Extremism just is and sometimes it causes loss of life.

With innocence still and perhaps naivety Rudder continues in the interview, ” ...as long as people think that their hatred is more powerful than the wisdom that their mothers’ would have taught them…they will respond in such ways.“  This sentiment, of course, assumes that their mothers have a wisdom that prevents hatred. In my skepticism, I am not so sure that is true.   I could exercise a generosity of interpretation and suppose that “mothers’ wisdom” is a symbol for an attitude of peace, love and nuturance. In that case his statement is very much worth thinking about. But who is teaching the attitude?   I am not sure that human nature has changed in all of recorded history and I fear that the chance of that happening is very slim.  Every second a new baby on this planet is born, a stranger in a hostile land, a tabula rasa that his or her culture and economic position will imprint itself on, forever repeating the same patterns be they for good or ill.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That’s humanity.  That’s what we do generation after generation. We hate and fear the other and seeking vengence for real or perceived affronts is very human.   The philosopher, Judith Butler, discusses revenge in a 2003 interview in The Believer Magazine.  She says that when choosing non-retaliation: “Many people consider that refusing to strike back is a masochistic way of handling oneself when one is in a condition of injury, or that such a refusal is tantamount to political paralysis, but I actually think it is an adamant and vigilant stand, a difficult stand against violence itself.“  She reminds us that:

“War begets war. It produces outraged and humiliated and furious people…it is precisely because we’re constituted with aggression, it’s precisely because we are capable of waging war, and of striking back, and of doing massive injury, that peace becomes a necessity…[Peace] is a commitment to living with a certain kind of vulnerability to others and susceptibility to being wounded that actually gives our individual lives meaning. And I think this way of viewing things is a much harder place to go, so to speak. One can’t just do it alone, either. I think it needs to be institutionalized. It needs to be part of a community ethos. I think in fact it needs to be part of an entire foreign policy.“

I think these are the things we should be teaching our children.

Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 159 – Guillain-Barre Syndrome – Interview with Ed Nyman

Ed Nyman October 2008

Guillain-Barre is considered a rare syndrome that causes progressive muscle weakness and paralysis. It develops over a few days or up to about four weeks and lasts several weeks or even months. As a temporary inflammation of the nerves, it often follows recovery from a viral infection such as a cold or gastrointestinal infection.  In some cases it is seen after immunization for flu. It causes the immune system to attack the peripheral nervous system. The syndrome is an inflammation of the covering of the nerves, the myelin, the surrounds nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord. Also, the elongated portion of the nerve cell, the axon, can be damaged. The axon conveys electrical signals to distant areas of the muscles and from one nerve cell to another. This damage and inflammation cause muscle weakness, loss of sensation and paralysis because the nerves cannot transmit the required signals to the muscles. The individual can become dysautonomic, meaning he or she becomes unable to feel heat, cold, and pain.  Approximately 95% of people who develop the syndrome recover, most of these, fully.

There are three main courses of treatment for Guillain-Barre. One treatment is to let the syndrome run its course, since it normally is a temporary condition. Another treatment that is used is known as plasmaphoresis, or plasma exchange. Antibody laden blood plasma, which is the liquid portion of blood, is removed from the body. Red blood cells are separated and put back into the body with antibody free plasma. This treatment lessens the symptoms and hastens recovery time. A third treatment is the administration of intravenous immune globulin which also lessens the symptoms and hastens recovery time. Sometimes both of these last two are administered to the patient. Physical therapy and exercise is also usually part of the regime to full recovery.

I had an opportunity to talk with Ed Nyman who got and recovered from the syndrome in April 2008.   And this show focuses on his experience.

Links : Toronto Star Article Guillain-Barre Syndrome – Answers Wiki Entry

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Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 158 – Steve Saylor, The Dude and The Closet Geek

Steve

That’s what we love about Scarborough Dude, the host of Dicks ‘n Janes podcast. He’ll raise the difficult questions and not let them go. I don’t want him to let them go, despite anyone’s opinion of them. He’s an activist that you’d rather have on your side than against you. Still he adamantly refuses to be on anyone’s but his own. I always listen to the dude, because he always has something to say to think about. This is part two of the geek fest held on October 18 at the Imperial Pub during which Scarborough Dude takes issue with us not wanting to talk about our day jobs. I spent some time talking with Steve Saylor. a writer who shares his superhero and adventure mystery novels on the internet. You can find the Black Shadow at http://stevesaylor.net/node/264 or http://feeds.feedburner.com/the12thdisciple. His newest effort is The 12^th Disciple at http://stevesaylor.net/node/301 or http://feeds.feedburner.com/the12thdisciple. We discuss his novels, his artistic process, copyright issues and finally the size of podcaster egos. Also featured is The Closet Geek of closetgeekshow.com If you listen carefully you can hear him eating popcorn in the background while barely concentrating on our conversation.

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In My Next Life I Hope I am a Hacker

From the website saveournet.ca

Put simply, net neutrality means non-discriminatory treatment of traffic. That is, outside of limited exceptions such as spam and known viruses, the companies that deliver information over the internet have treated all information the same, delivering each package of information as quickly and efficiently as possible (often referred to as the “best efforts” internet). Under this regime an internet user is free to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. Network neutrality means that the network provider’s only job is to move data – not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Legislation against net neutrality is not as simple as censorship if governments get their way.  Censorship is just an evil by-product.  It’s all about making a buck.  The less net neutrality we have, the more ways to charge me for use of the web.  But since there is more than one way to solve a problem, I shall just wait for the hackers to get around it.  And get around it they will.   In the meantime – please help save our net.

Neuro-Bio Gems from Jonah Lehrer

I give Proust was a Neuroscientist an 8 out of 10 for its ability to provoke thought in me and allow me to contemplate on my own assumptions about creativity, genius and the mind/body split.    If I ask you to visualize someone who is creative and/or brilliant what sort of person do you think about?  Special K thinks of Leonardo Da Vinci.   I think of some young mathematician.  Often I think of some young person who burns out his or her flame brilliantly and quickly – like Rimbaud, Michael Jackson, or Boy George.  Athletes often fall into this category.  Their talents are external.  They are so obviously dependent on the ability of their bodies to perform according to a range of activity that is almost never available to our aging shells.

In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks writes about a forty-two year old man who after he was struck by lightening, becomes a musical prodigy.  Sacks loves to write about people who, at various points in their lives, because of neurological changes, develop talents previously unknown to them.  In Proust was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer instead focuses on established artists who reveal neuroscience through their art.  He explores where the body ends and mind begins and vice versa.  He asks what it means to be aware and conscious as human beings.   Personally, I tend to think that we are just a random collection of protein.  And that there is no distinction between the mind and the body.  My mind is in my toes and heart as much as it is in my brain. My brain is simply where the electronics gather to interpret.    About our experience inside ourselves, Virgina Woolf said: “We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself “.   And in reponse to this process, Leher is comfortable asserting that “…only the artist [is] able to describe reality as it [is] actually experienced”. Here are some of the other ways that Lehrer describes that same experience:

…the mind is not a place: it’s a process.

The self is simply…the story we tell ourselves about our experiences.

Reality is not out there waiting to be witnessed; reality is made by the mind.

When it comes to the drama of feelings, our flesh is its stage.

Marcel Proust

Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 157 – Autumn GeekFest

On October 18, Toronto hosted another podcaster’s meetup.  Things got pretty meta with Omar Ha-Redeye (Law is Cool), Connie Crosby (Community Divas) and Shadow and James. Ninja is surrounded by lawyer types.  We talk about Omar’s voice, podcasting, podcamps, twitter and finally politics.

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