Reading is believing…

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

(q-tip waxes philosophic, as lord of the tribe…)

[sample audio] — abbridged

What is a party if it doesn’t really rock?
What is a poet? All balls, no cock.
What is a war if it doesn’t have a general?
What’s Channel Nine if it doesn’t have Arsenio?
What is life if you don’t have fun?
What is a “what?” if you ain’t got a gun?
What is a quest if the players ain’t willing?
What is a pence if you don’t have a shilling?
What’s a fat man without food in his gut?
What’s a child birth, without the umbilical?
What’s United Parcel, without…

(Few have understood the Middle East and it’s people like Lebanese-born poet and scholar, Khalil Gibran. In this, my favourite of his smaller works, Gibran explores the concept of cultural integration and social identity, relevant now more than ever in the land he once called home)

Chapter One: How I Became a Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen — the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives — I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran…

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things…”
- Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and The Carpenter, 1872

That Charles L. Dodgson was considered by many to be a serial pedophile had little to do with his celebrated creative legacy. After all, he was a distinguished Anglican clergyman, a pioneer in early photography, a gifted mathematician, and above all, a writer of great fictional prose. As he wandered through the English language over a hundred years ago, his literary and personal idiosyncrasies led him from subject to subject and metaphor to metaphor, spawning works that have continued to delight his readers ever since.

But perhaps his most enduring legacy comes from the lines of a little…

(the following prose figures prominantly at the end of every nortel press release. caveat investor…)

Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the outcome of regulatory and criminal investigations and civil litigation actions related to Nortel’s restatements and the impact any resulting legal judgments, settlements, penalties and expenses could have on Nortel’s results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and any related potential dilution of Nortel’s common shares; the findings of Nortel’s independent review…

(“Everything stinks till it’s finished,” Dr. Seuss once said, long before the enlightened age of ‘Sesame Street’ and the meteoric rise of ‘Blue’s Clues’. Developmental education has certainly come a long way since the early days of green eggs and ham, but I still can’t help but marvel at his strangely provocative style, given that my own first read was the ever-popular “Cat in the Hat Comes Back” just weeks after my fourth birthday. Consequently, I thought it only fitting to share with the readership this great New Yorker piece about the science of rhyme and reason, and the man who first brought it to the world…)

CAT PEOPLE
What Dr. Seuss really taught us.
by LOUIS MENAND
…

“How much?”

“A lot,” she replies.

“Generic answer” he says, as he heads down the stairs.

The guy has a natural fascination for numbers and quantity. He’s expecting an impressive response. But how much is a lot? And a lot more than what?

Just then, a book drops down on the table in front of her. To put this in context, a lot of books have dropped on the table in front of her these past few months. Well…maybe not dropped, but definitely placed with loving intention.

This time, it’s “A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable”.

So that’s…

one word: distraction.
three times a second.
everywhere.
and all of them, in some way, important.
it seems impossible sometimes.
making time to capture your thoughts.
what a simple pleasure that is:
having the freedom to write.
whenever you feel the need
to put down, on paper,
for decades and centuries to come,
the precise constitution of your mind
at a specific point in time,
at some a specific place,
in some specific way.
sometimes it’s a power cord.
sometimes, a cellphone.
sometimes, even an in-law.
whichever leash you’re wearing,
be sure it isn’t strong enough
to hold you back.
because the writer’s struggle isn’t one of words;
it’s one of ideas.

Park Avenue, the Champs d’Elysee, Memory Lane. No matter the urban moniker, the basic premise is always the same: someone or something had such an impact on a specific area that all future reference to that particular spot would carry their memory for years and decades to come. But how do these “Main” streets earn their namesake in the first place? The “Champs d’Elysee”, for instance, literally translates into the “Elysian Fields“, that mythical resting place for the souls of the heroic virtuous. Berlin’s “Unter der Linden Strasse” literally tells the tale of a leisurely stroll under the street’s “Linden trees”. In Madrid, “Avenida Jose Antonio” takes its eponymous moniker from a charismatic Spanish hero.…

One day, many years after the rise of modern man, life suddenly decided that it wanted “love” to be written down, once and for all. “But,” said life, “a writer needs great inspiration to create something so beautiful; and inspiration equally needs a writer’s gentle touch to bring its own subtle poetry into being.”

So life conspired to bring both of these elements into the world, in the hopes that they might someday meet, and together, explore the true meaning of the word “love” for one final time.

Whether and when they would meet was in no way certain. In fact, it was distinctly uncertain. But life wanted “love” to inspire, and “love” only inspires when it’s shared.

So one…

the rational post wants YOU! (insert uncle sam’s best conscription imagery HERE)

that’s right! you, MR. DYCK, JONATHAN, have been selected to represent the exceedingly prestigious and only recently world-renouned “rational post” as their senior NEW YORK correspondent.

your pen name: DYCKTATOR (or whatever creative handle you prefer!)

to qualify, simply send us a sample of your best journalistic material, specifically as it pertains to the production of feature-quality “rational” insight into the heart and soul of the real NEW YORK, as you, MR. DYCK, JONATHAN, might happen to see it.

write about the PERILOUS life of INVESTMENT BANKING. write about the DANGERS of GENERAL URBAN MISCHIEF. write about SEX in that UNREAL CITY.

what whatever you do, just write.…

(another piece of early creative writing, first conceived during the intensely productive summer of 1998. once again, please pardon any excessive “linguistic enthusiasm”…)

man’s great intention

is every man inclined to greatness?
what sets apart the icons of humanity from the masses?
who provides the “average”
against which the hero’s rank is so often compared?
why do some realize their inherent genius
while others fail to even search?
could every man be as great as the greatest?
and if so, what of those rare and precious few
who’ve been so commendably erected
to the dizzying heights of perpetual praise?

so lucky is the brave stranger who chances to seek
that…

(The following is an exerpt from a book I started to write in the summer of 1998 (at the age of 19). Having taken my first few courses in undergrad philosophy, I was overcome with a sense that traditional philosophical theory was far too exclusive. Convinced that there had to be a better way to share logic and reason with the world, I wrote a little something called “Modern Philosophy: A Comprehensive Study of Man and His Environment”, and this is how it all began…)

PREFACE:
ON THE ACCESSIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHY

Upon first seeing this book on the shelves of the local bookstore, you undoubtedly asked yourself, “Another book on Philosophy? Who keeps writing these things?!” The simple answer, in…

So another Friday the 13th has come and gone, and as the superstitious among us refrain from changing their beds and hold their collective breath in cautious anticipation of every possible incarnation of earthly misfortune, I thought it might be a good time to actually explore why the world has come to fear this ominous calendar date.

Several theories have been proposed for this almost pathological interest in a combination of day and number which, by all accounts, is no different from any other. They range from the historical to the supernatural, and have inspired entire phobias (see triskaidekaphobia and paraskevidekatriaphobia) that can paralyze and demoralize its sufferers for no apparent reason (aside, of course, from…

(the third in a series on the rights of the individual, this article examines the inherent legal and ethical challenges of granting a being “personhood“, also written during my first year in university)

Philosophy has long been concerned with the issue of personhood. In the world of Plato and Aristotle, simply being “human” was enough to qualify a creature as a person. Over time, however, numerous exceptions to that rule have been found, and other theories have quickly followed in this burgeoning field of philosophical study. This paper will focus on Frankfurt’s theory of personhood in particular, which despite its subtle imperfections gives us insight into what constitutes a person. His theory will then be…

(the second in a series of early university papers on ethics, this article once again explores the difficult task of finding any semblance of moral justification in the killing of an unborn child)

Abortion has been under intense moral scrutiny for quite some time. A number of philosophical theories have been presented to deal with this issue, each building upon the last in an effort to formulate a universal moral rule. Not surprisingly, all of these theories have come under some form of scrutiny, and the theory put forth by judith jarvis Thomson is no exception. Her paper entitled “a defense of abortion” is little more than an attempt to justify abortion in the cases of rape and self-defense.…

(the first in a series of early university papers on ethics, i originally wrote this article in the fall of 1997 to examine the basic morality of abortion)

Abortion is considered a proverbial “black hole” in today’s age of political correctness. politicians do not want to reveal their views on abortion for fear of voter reprisal, and consequently, lawmakers have avoided creating any new legislation regarding the legal status of the fetus. Philippa Foot alludes to this problem of fetal status in her landmark paper “abortion and the doctrine of double effect.” For foot, the bigger question is whether or not it is permissible to act in a particular fashion when the interests of persons are set against…

“universal darwinism” – life, evolved

“green eggs and ham” – dr. seuss, sesame street, and the first major revolution in child education

“petrosexuals” – the sexy side of oil

“shall we dance?” – interpersonal communication at its most basic

“mis-noam-er” – the truth about noam chomsky

“the value of value” – things are only worth what everyone says they’re worth

“schizengrűven” – my love hate relationship with volkswagen

“buyers and sellers” – two completely different species

“his story” – history is always written by the victorious. what ever happens to the other guy?

“channel surfing” – advertising as the driving force behind all conventional media content

“trading places” – the role of parents in today’s society as the single…

so here it is. my inaugural attempt at self-publishing. i’ve never much liked an audience, but having access to a great venue has always been nice!

with that in mind, i now begin what i hope will become a daily journey…away from all the partisan dribble of the second-hand news, and toward a more realistic picture of the world around us. a more rational picture. and i’m talking, of course, about life.

i’m talking about rising gas prices on a steamy summer weekend. i’m talking about nanotechnology and the age of spiritual machines. i’m talking about lawyers and…

Einstein described relativity this way: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Quando tu mueras, nadie te recordada por tus pensamientos. Di lo que piensas, en vida.

The most important task for philosophy in the modern world is to resurrect the human person, to rescue it from trivializing science, and to replace the sarcasm which knows that we are merely animals, with the irony which sees that we are not…