Granite monuments and religious fervor.

Doing some research recently on the Ten Commandments. And found a few interesting facts I thought I would share. First of course we have to define what the Ten Commandments are. The most common belief is that they are the commandments brought down from the mountain by Moses in the old testament. Of course there are different versions of what he brought down. The Catholics remove the graven images one. (Clearly as they have all those statues of Mary) The King James version differs from the Torah version. Mostly in small detail. But it's clear they are different. There are 613 laws in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are taken from these. In one version of the story Moses brings down 40 commandments, not just the 10 that most rabbinical or christian religions believe in. But what I wanted to know was where did all those granite monuments standing in front of public buildings in the United States come from? I discovered we have Cecil B. Demille to blame for that. Apparently as a publicity stunt for the release of his movie The Ten Commandments, he had a few built. And had the Fraternal Order of Eagles work to place them near government buildings. Yul Brynner attended one of the ceremonies. The F.O.E. continued to place another 2000 of them after Hollywood lost interest over the years. The Supreme Court was in two cases asked to reach a decision on whether they violated the constitution. In one case they said the monument was a violation of the constitution. (In Kentucky Mcreary vs ACLU of Kentucky) and had to be removed. (Which it was.) In another case they said that the monument could stay. (Van Orden vs Perry in Texas) But voiced some doubt in the statement by Justice Breyer that it served a "mixed but primarily non-reglious purpose." which he described as "borderline." So it behooves us to remember that when we see a Ten Commandment Monument in front of a public building. It was part of an advertising campaign in the late 50's for a hollywood movie.

And this is one of them. What a strange mixed up world we live in. Ciao for now.

The Winter of Eternal Suffering.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan it has snowed almost every day since April 1st. Nature has given us a clear April fools joke. We had a few weeks of good weather in March, the snow had almost all melted lulling us into believing spring had arrived. And then BAM! We are currently past record snowfall for April and it's only the 8th of the month. And we are expecting another 9 inches of snow by Monday. This writer loves the winter, and I find shoveling snow a peaceful and rewarding enterprise. But I have to say, enough with the snow already! I am looking out the front window and watching what would be light fluffy flakes floating down, turned into eye stinging chill producing arrows of crystal ice by the north wind. We live high up on a hill here in Ishpeming. And I swear nature says, "well they are closer to clouds, let's give them an extra deep dose of snow."   Still, it can be pretty. As this picture of our backyard shows.

During the month of March we watched the snow melt and thought, "hey lets use the nice weather to put that ramp on our front porch." Only to have a wet weekend of snow and rain mix. Looking at the snow now, I suspect we won't be doing that until May. Complaining about it is a pretty common thing to hear. Neighbors and strangers alike all talk about how they wish it would just end. All of my family and friends who are in the business of snow removal are simply overwhelmed. You can see them trudging to their trucks with scowls on their faces. Mumbling about "when is it ever going to" and "hell has got to be white." Don't get me wrong, I still like shoveling snow. I love the fact that you can see the results of your work instantly. And up here on the hill we get little traffic, so it's almost always a quiet job, filled with the "shush" sound of shovel and snow. But there are times.... after shoveling snow for 23 days straight for example. When the thought of a snowblower comes to mind. But then I just have to remind myself of how much time I spend sweating and swearing over a lawn mower that won't start and I think. "Hmmmnn... you know, shoveling isn't so bad." Anyway, my first full post to the blog since time, tide, and laziness has kept me from posting. Ciao for now.

We have been having a lot of discussion of religion on facebook recently. And thought that perhaps the blog would be a better place to discuss these ideas. As much as we love the public discourse it appears some of the things we say are found to be offensive. So perhaps here would be a better place to write such things. So I have reopened the crazy. And will begin posting at least weekly. If people are bored enough perhaps they will read it. Otherwise I'll just continue to post simply because of the cathartic effect. So coming soon. No... really this time. Ciao.

     We haven't posted here for a long long time, but thought with the recent news stories about Christian bakeries we should let our opinion be known. And of course since no one has probably read this in over a year we think we can print our opinion and nobody will comment. Cool huh! Ok, we've read the part in the Bible where it says that "Lying with mankind as with womankind is an abomination." and "of those that chew the cud or part the hoof you shall not eat of these." But we can't find the part where it says "Thou shalt not bake a cake for those that lie with mankind as womankind." We've done a pretty thorough search, can't find it anywhere. We also seem to remember something about not judging others. "There is only one law giver and judge." and "Who are you to judge your neighbor?" So it seems pretty clear to us. If you are religious, God want's you to leave the judging to him. If you believe that he is all knowing and all seeing then he pretty much should know what's in your heart. So go ahead and bake the cake. If there is any sin being done we doubt it falls on you for putting a couple of plastic guys (or women) holding hands on a cake. Just saying.

On freedom of speech and political correctness.

Recently we have all been victims of a social blitzkrieg. Every news channel is showing the
tale of Phil Robertson and the A&E Duck Dynasty media attack. We are being asked to choose
sides from a possibly homophobic religious rich man, to a freedom of speech hating   
corporation without a heart. In paraphrasing the bible Mr Robertson made it appear as if he
is comparing being gay with partaking of beastiality or perhaps being incredibly
promiscuous.  We suppose being brought up believing that homosexuality is a sin, could lead
one to assume that possibilty. On the other hand A&E is taking a clearly political stand and
putting Mr Robinson on "haitus." We have been perusing the message boards and chat rooms to
get a feel for what people are saying. First of all there seem to be a lot of angry people
out there. Discarding the nutcases.. (Of which there are plenty) we find that the majority
of rants were of a freedom of speech nature, (with a little dash of freedom of religion
thrown in for flavor). On the other side of the coin were people who were offended that
they could be lumped in with the rampant bestiality crowd. (Have you ever seen them, they
hang out at Walmart.) We could also understand why they could be a bit disconcerted. (Read
pissed off.) by this comparison. How do we feel about it. Mr Robertson may say whatever he
wishes and in a free country he has a right to his opinion. A&E, (a private company) has a
right to air whatever views they deem acceptable. It is not a free speech issue as the
religious right would have us belief. While Mr Robertson is entitled to his views, they are
based upon his own religious idea of right and wrong. And therefor not the law of the land.
Our personal feelings about homosexuality notwithstanding, we have no right to dictate to
other people what sort of relationships they have. It's none of our business. And our
opinion on the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality are meaningless.  However, recently
many states attempted to pass laws making it illegal for any one other than one man and one
woman to marry. These laws are based on their belief that it is a sin to commit such an act.
Based upon their religious ideals. These laws are wrong, we are not a theocracy, congress
can pass no laws establishing a religion. Therefore these laws are unconstitutional. Period.
Argument over. Oh we apologize for the quality of the paragraph and sentence structure of the blog, we copied it from notepad and things went haywire. And as we are running against the clock we had no time to correct it. Ciao for now.

Busy, Busy, Busy... and then some.

Well, Thanksgiving is over. Now the hectic run to Christmas begins. We have been very busy here at The Crazy. It's amazing how much stuff you can cram into one day if you stick at it hard enough and long enough.  Haven't had time to discuss philosophy, or read about recent N.A.S.A. achievements. Did read an article by some extremist conservative who was upset that Wal-mart was selling anti capitalist posters. I just have to shake my head at that. Isn't it the height of capitalism to sell an anti capitalist anything?  Some people are just idiots I guess. It amazes me how many people are down on Wal-mart. Saying they don't pay their employees enough. How much should you pay a stock boy? I have friends and relatives working there, and they seem to be making a fair wage. (They don't complain about it anyway.) This is just a quick note to let you know that we will be posting as we can this month. But I have to say we are VERY busy. Haven't had time to take a healthy crap. (Is it ok to discuss bowel movements on a private blog?) Does mentioning  the human bodily function lessen the gravitas of our posts? Anyway got to go. Driving through the (relatively mild) snowstorm for an appointment in Marquette. If we have time we will post about the horrors of Christmas shopping. After all we are going to WALMART. (Take that you conservative and liberal extremists!) Ciao for now.

The Double Slit Experiment and we need an aspirin.

Ok, we're about to get all scientific on your asses. Let's discuss the double slit experiment. You know the one we mean. Where scientists fire a laser or bright light at a flat surface with two slits cut into it. The resulting pattern on the sensor placed behind the flat slitted surface (try saying that fast five times) registers the light and shows either an interference pattern (light and dark bands) or a solid light pattern, depending on how the result is measured. Apparently when we are watching, the light behaves as waves causing interference (resulting in light and dark bands) however when we are measuring it with a particle detector the light shows a solid pattern and appears as if it went through one of the slots (italics mine) What does this mean. We can think of only three things. One that our observation of the experiment causes a change to the outcome simply by viewing it. Two, that light itself changes when it knows it's being observed or measured. Or Three, the particles interfere with themselves and pass through both slits simultaneously. So what can we learn from all of this? Sadly not a lot. It appears as if our simply observing or measuring the location of the photons (or electrons in some experiments) alters their reality. If unobserved they act in a wave pattern, if observed they act in a particle pattern. This experiment is further confused by the fact that detectors placed at the slits will not change the nature of the observed light pattern and will act as if the particle passed through both slits simultaneously. So even though the detectors say the light passed through say the left slit. The resulting pattern will show that it in fact passed through both. Which should be a physical impossibility. What does it all mean? Are multiple dimensions at work here? Are we observing quantum proof that the universe is subjective to how we view it? If such is the case, can we alter reality at will? That would be interesting wouldn't it? Of course could you imagine the chaos resulting from billions of individuals each altering reality to suit their own needs? Scary though isn't it? Excuse us, we need an aspirin and a nap. Here is a photographic representation of the double slit experiment. Make of it what you will. Ciao for now.