I have, in case you haven’t noticed, a certain minor problem with insomnia that becomes particularly acute at this time of year when the light is short and changing fast, the weather sucks, and my schedule is stressful.

My body rebels which manifests itself in various physical symptoms of which this is one the I wish to address now.

Because it’s not usually an inability to sleep at all, but rather a vampiric cycle that expresses as surprising energy and stamina when it’s dark and ennui, lassitude, and fatigue during the day.  However much sleep I actually get it’s never enough nor does it leave me refreshed.

This results in missed deadlines and inattention to details, and increases my overall level of anxiety and depression because I have unrealistic expectations.

Or at least that’s what my therapists say.

Now eventually the seasons and I reach an accomodation where I have enough time in the morning to make my marks, nap, and continue with my work.  We are not yet at that point.  Yesterday was dismal and foggy with intermittent rain.  The days that were sunny were cold and the snow glare was worse than the summer solstice (you know, you have leaves and stuff, not a 250 Watt light bulb flooding through your windows all day long).

And then there are the unusual distractions (O Canada).

This will get worse before it gets better but like most things it will pass.

And I’m not really complaining, I could have far worse problems and I’m sure many of you do.

So what Is Your Problem?

The fact of the matter is I’m a stone cold atheist.  Though I was raised Methodist I rejected Christianity and indeed all forms of religion by the time I was 12 (though I continued to sing in choir and participate in other social activities for a while after that).

My purpose is not to sneer at your particular beliefs or convert you to mine but to demonstrate that it’s possible to consider ethical and moral behavior independent of religion or appeal to divine judgment which I will do in the form of two parables, The Ring of Gyges and The Bodhi Tree.

The Ring of Gyges

The Ring of Gyges is a historical myth.  Historical in the sense that it was written of in Plato’s Republic which no reality based scholar of Western Literature or Philosophy denies was written and that it contains this story (though some debate the date of it’s composition which is generally accepted as approximately 360 B.C.E.).

Mythological in the sense that it’s a deliberate fiction that contradicts historical facts not only as we know them today through Archeology and several independent written Histories of the period, but also the facts as the Greeks knew them as close contemporaries of the time the events supposedly took place.  It is a metaphor told to illustrate the points being argued, in this case the nature of Justice (indeed some translate the Greek to mean On Justice instead of The Republic, but that was frequently confused with a non-canonical piece also titled On Justice so we’ll go with the common name).

Anyway, the story goes something like this-

A shepherd discovers a ring that makes him invisible, indeed immune to the very concept of Justice as enforced by any outside force be it a god or society’s disapproval.  Using the ring he seduces the wife of the King, assassinates him, marries the wife, and installs himself as the new King.

Nobody knows or suspects his actions (except the wife who conveniently disappears, and by that I don’t mean that he kills her to ensure her silence necessarily, just that she’s no longer relevant to the metaphor and is ignored).

He goes on to live his life a King and as we all know- it’s good to be the King.

Now imagine, continues Glaucon (Plato’s brother with whom he clearly sympathizes in this argument), that there are two such rings, one given to an unjust man (like the shepherd obviously) and one to a just man-

(N)o man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.

Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.

For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

There is much debate, but what Socrates says is- “(J)ustice does not derive from this social construct: the man who abused the power of the Ring of Gyges has in fact enslaved himself to his appetites, while the man who chose not to use it remains rationally in control of himself and is therefore happy.”  I’ll note that’s a paraphrase provided by Wikipedia but I find it felicitous and it makes my point- a wise person understands the problem of absolute power is not what others do to you though they be god or society, it is what happens to you through abuse of that power by nature of the power itself.

Masters of the Universe take note!

The Bodhi Tree

While I don’t believe in god, any of them, I do have a teacher named Siddhartha Gautama the life and teaching of whom I have found instructive.

He’s at least as historical as Jesus, though like Jesus his teachings were not codified in writing until centuries after his death.  Most modern (reality based) historians date his birth sometime between 500 to 400 B.C.E.

He was a Prince in India and lived a life of absolute privilege.  As Arlo Guthrie said of the pharaoh, his joints came pre-rolled and lit.  His mother died in childbirth and his father, the King, sought to spare him any knowledge of suffering.

At the age of 29 (traditionally) Siddhartha left the palace to meet his subjects, among them an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a monk.  Being a sensitive and empathetic kind of guy he recognized the suffering of the human condition and renounced his life of luxury, his wife and child, and went off to become a mendicant monk.

After nearly starving himself to death he had an enlightenment that maybe severe aestheticism wasn’t the best way to live your life either and started thinking- “So what is the nature of suffering?”

• Life is suffering
• The cause of suffering is desire
• There is an end of suffering
• The eightfold way

In other words, we can’t always get what we want, the problem is that we want what we can’t always get, the solution to that is to focus on what we can control, and that is our actions and attitudes.

What can we control?

• Right Understanding, being reality based and knowing you can’t always get what you want.
• Right Aspiration, trying to live in a way that focuses on what you can control, your actions and attitudes.
• Right Effort, making a real attempt to live a just and balanced life, no excuses or self pitying rationalizations.
• Right Speech, speaking the truth in a helpful and compassionate way (though that truth thing is more important, just saying).
• Right Living, acting in a way consistent with your values.
• Right Livelihood, earning your money in a way consistent with your values.
• Right Mindfulness, focusing on what you can do now instead of living with the regrets of the past or worrying about the future.
• Right Concentration, thinking about your values, preconceptions, and prejudices and considering their implications on your actions and attitudes.

In Buddhist thought these are considered the core beliefs and as you’ll note they’re not particularly religious or spiritual at all.  After he stopped trying to kill himself living up to other’s expectations, my teacher sat in the shade under a fig tree and ate the fruit it provided and taught those who would stop and listen until, at a ripe old age, he died.

And got off the wheel.

And now at last it comes.  You will give me the Ring freely!  In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.  And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night!  Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain!  Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!  Stronger than the foundations of the earth.  All shall love me and despair!

I pass the test.  I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.

Friday’s medal results are below the fold

In the “War of Terrorism”.

Transcript

(F)rom a U.S. policy perspective, why is Karzai refusing to agree to these terms?

Jessica, from a U.S. policy perspective, I’m not sure I can answer that question without laughing. From an Afghan policy perspective, from Karzai’s perspective, political and what I would call realpolitik in particular, he has every reason to object. Just the last issue that you discussed, special operating forces running slipshod, rampant through Afghanistan, doing whatever they want to do at all hours of the night, killing civilians, killing al-Qaeda, killing Taliban or alleged Taliban, whatever, that is enough in and of itself, were I Karzai, to object strenuously to this BSA.

The other provisions, almost a loss of sovereignty in terms of prosecuting any crime or any activity by a U.S. service member that might be against Afghan law, and just the fact that you need the territory for ten bases, sort of impugns that same sovereignty.

So I know he’s doing it for political purposes, and other purposes don’t relate to our policy, but he’s got good ground to stand on in terms of the agreement.

Medal Results for Wednesday and Thursday are below the fold. ~TMC~

Green groups tell Obama Keystone won’t be forgiven

By Laura Barron-Lopez and Justin Sink, The Hill

February 19, 2014, 06:00 am

“There is not a blanket of regulations big enough to cover the pipeline elephant in the room,” said Jamie Henn of the green group 350.org. “There is nothing the administration could do to negate the impact the pipeline would have on the climate.”

If Obama approves Keystone, it will provoke a “vehement reaction” from environmental groups, said David Goldston, director of governmental affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“People have speculated that a push in climate policies could be some kind of trade-off but for the environmental community there is no such trade-off on Keystone XL,” Goldston said. “I don’t think that’s a strategy that would work in terms of the environmental movement either substantively or politically.”

Legal setback for Keystone pipeline

By TALIA BUFORD, Politico

2/19/14 4:58 PM EST Updated: 2/20/14 12:03 PM EST

In response to a suit brought by three landowners, the Lancaster County District Court granted the request for declaratory judgment and declared the state law, LB 1161 “unconstitutional and void” for usurping the authority to approve the pipeline from its utility regulator, the Nebraska Public Service Commission, and instead vesting it with the governor.

The court also found that because Gov. Heineman’s authority to approve the pipeline route was based on an unconstitutional statute, his approval of a revised route “must be declared null and void.”

…

Domina said that for his clients, the decision means that TransCanada cannot build a pipeline over their land using eminent domain. But for TransCanada, the decision means that not only is its current route nullified, but that Nebraska law has no avenue for it to seek approval of the route.

…

“Citizens won today,” said Jane Kleeb, director of Bold Nebraska in a statement. “We beat a corrupt bill that Gov. Heinemann and the Nebraska Legislature passed in order to pave the way for foreign corporation to run roughshod over American landowners. … TransCanada learned a hard lesson today, never underestimate the power of family farmers and ranchers protecting their land and water.”

On the UK’s Equating of Journalism With Terrorism

By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

19 Feb 2014, 5:24 AM EST

It is not difficult to apprehend the reason the UK government is so desperate to criminalize this reporting. The GCHQ itself made the reason clear in a once-secret memo previously reported by the Guardian. The British agency “has repeatedly warned it fears a ‘damaging public debate’ on the scale of its activities because it could lead to legal challenges against its mass-surveillance programmes.” Among other things, “GCHQ feared a legal challenge under the right to privacy in the Human Rights Act if evidence of its surveillance methods became admissible in court.” In particular, the spying agency feared that disclosures “could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime.” Privacy groups have now commenced such lawsuits against the GCHQ.

In sum, the UK Government wants to stop disclosure of its mass surveillance activities not because it fears terrorism or harm to national security but because it fears public debate, legal challenges and accountability. That is why the U.K. government considers this journalism to be “terrorism”: because it undermines the interests and power of British political officials, not the safety of the citizenry. I’ve spent years arguing that the word “terrorism” in the hands of western governments has been deprived of all consistent meaning other than “that which challenges our interests”, and I never imagined that we would be gifted with such a perfectly compelling example of this proposition.

Last chance for the pants.  Hockey Heating up

Tuesday medal results are below the fold. ~TMC~

About Winter-

I’ve had Seasonal Affective Disorder for longer than I care to say though when I was a child Winter was my favorite season of the year, stark and pristine in a manichaean way.  Full of fun activities like snow forts and sledding, ice skating and snowball fights, skiing and snowmen.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention snow?

Huge piles of it, soft and deep, making everything… clean.  As it melted I used to walk past the remaining patches imagining myself on Mars.

Over on the next street we had the longest sled run in the world, starting on the boundary of the witches at the top of the hill and zooming through the hedges between the yards all the way down the block until you got dumped off the jump at the end and skidded to a stop in a shower of sparks on the street (watch out for those cars).

Of course I never got invited to the ‘cool’ slope that plunged at 70 degrees into a thicket of trees you could bash your head against, but one perfect day after an ice storm my sister and I discovered the parking lot and driveways of the Church a block away covered in a thick unsalted sheet.

Now that was fun, almost like a Skeleton run, and if you got your speed up just right and jammed your Flexible Flyer over hard you could pull as many as 4 or 5 360 degree spins before you smashed into the plow tailings in the bottom most lot.

Take that ‘cool’ kids.

Like many of you today I face the prospect of chipping through 4 to 6 inches of ‘Wintry Mix’ with an inch or two of ice at the bottom and I can’t feel the fun any more.  At least I was able to convince Richard and Emily not to drive to Florida for my Aunt’s birthday even though it’s a milestone.

As for myself, I just can’t stop thinking about climate change and the death of the world I once knew.

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. -Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

As the reigning Lorelai I think it’s high past time to think about our relationship with snow-

I have never, ever taken refuge by calling any of my diaries ‘community’ as if that invoked some kind of safey bubble of immunity (it has been appended by people who don’t understand my work).  I stand alone and if you don’t like what I write have at.