Sorry, but what exactly do most of these careers have to do with being creative? Even the ones that seem to require creativity such as inventors and authors don't have to (think product upgrades, textbooks, etc.). You might as well call it persistance.
Based on the intelligence and lucidity of the article, I am going to assume that the authors were no dummies. With this kind of writing, one is generally summarizing a larger and more complex tract of text which I am also assuming explained the methodology of the tests and accounted for the vagaries you are complaining about. I may be wrong, but I've read enough white papers now to know how they are usually structured.
For very interesting definitions of creative. And three times what, exactly? The problem with the entire article is that it doesn't provide numbers. Maybe none of this is even relevant. If IQ scores are rising every decade, then maybe the IQ test isn't very useful and implying your test is three times "better" doesn't say much.
Cognitive tests of this sort have been subject to massive scrutiny by the sharpest minds in the cognitive fields, and your questions have been asked and answered. Overwhelming consensus seems to have settled on the legitimacy of such tests and the complaints against it which I skimmed through don't seem terribly indicting. As much as I like to question everything, especially orthodox beliefs, this one doesn't seem particularly broken to me.
I would suggest reviewing the test itself and see what you think afterward, because right now you seem to be criticizing something sight unseen, which is never favorable to forming an informed opinion. If you do find something which seems really dumb, then I'd love to hear about it. But as I've said, for now I'm inclined to accept this one.
The first few installments of that series are quite eye-opening. Media plays the same games today, but does so differently. It's all about population control. In the Stones' case, it was about the secret services handling the creation and distribution of counter-culture thinking, corrupting it and keeping it powerless when it could instead have been a danger to the establishment.
so I just care about the quality of the end product - so yes, I probably am in the dark but then don't see a reason to be more informed, if I'm honest.
My thinking is that learning is fun and ignorance can kill you, so I see zero drawback, but whether or not to learn remains one of the most critically defining choices humans ever make in their lives.
Sorry, can you define what you mean by "corporate music"?
Good question. I mean music manufactured by a team of profiteers well practiced in the game of mind-control. Think, "Hanna Montanna". Think, "Brittney Spears". Heck, I would argue that most new bands which get top billing these days have been manufactured from the ground up. Read some of the accounts of how the music industry works, and you'll be quite disgusted. Music carries a message, even if it doesn't have words, it affects your brain; it alters the essence of who you are. Do you want a team of profiteers well practiced in mind-control doing this to you, or do you want it to come from an artist who is genuinely offering real insights through music?
Corporate music is essentially advertising. And advertising is evil; Study that as well, and you'll come across some very disturbing thinking which is practiced invisibly on the populace every day.
Besides which, if a local independent band is able to survive by doing live gigs and selling CDs at those gigs, that's absolutely fantastic and exactly how good musicians should enter the music business - but what about people across the other side of the planet who may want to hear their music? If they sell their music on their web site, who's going to point me in their direction as maybe a band I would like? And what's to stop me going to one of the countless other bands doing the same thing?
I don't understand the question, and that last line seems really weird to me. It's like you WANT a corporate advertising entity to do your thinking for you. I find exploring to be half the fun. I HATE being told what I am supposed to like and consume. It's offensive to me because I don't want to be treated like a lab rat or a farm animal.
But guess what? I don't give a shit. As far as I'm aware, no children are exploited
I know you mean this turn of phrase in jest, but dude! I think you need to revisit, "Jagged Little Pill". And Alanis Morissette was by no means an isolated case of industry abuse of a child performer.
You sound pretty much in the dark overall. And there's nothing wrong with that; it means there are a lot of cool and interesting ideas you get to explore. Have fun!
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that all brains work the same way.
It has been soundly demonstrated that certain types of kid excel using one method of learning while other types excel with another, and that the two learning approaches are pretty much incompatible. This is a scientifically solid stone cold fact with fucktonne of data to back it up.
What I find ASTONISHING is that educators and society in general fails to recognize this incredibly useful bit of knowledge and insist that one size MUST fit all. It's like arguing with creationists.
Nobody would argue that Torrance's tasks, which have become the gold standard in creativity assessment, measure creativity perfectly. What's shocking is how incredibly well Torrance's creativity index predicted those kids' creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance's tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance's data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
The quality of programming really is just a small part of it. It's the staring at a flickering box which sends ALL viewers within two minutes of sitting down into an induced hypnotic state as measured by EEG. -It's the effects on physiology, (decreased metabolism, serotonin production, etc.) and wastes hours which might be spent doing ANYTHING else. Staring at a flickering light isn't how the human body is designed to learn and grow strong, and it shows.
The sad part is that schools can do a lot to improve themselves at low/no cost.
One of my favorite parts of the article. ..
Along the way, kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they'd unwittingly mastered Ohio's required fifth-grade curriculum--from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. "You never see our kids saying, 'I'll never use this so I don't need to learn it,' " says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. "Instead, kids ask, 'Do we have to leave school now?' " Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state's achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.
One of the exercises they put the kids through was this: "Hey. The library has a lot of noise pollution from the parking lot outside. You kids need to come up with a fix for this. Present your solutions in three weeks."
Awesome!
This is actually one of the better articles I've read in the last week. It wasn't a truncated piece of pandering nonsense designed for the ADD types. It felt like a story written twenty years ago. And from Newsweek? I'm kinda shocked by that.
Although, sorry, I definitely think that video games contribute to the dumbing down of kids. Not by themselves. I think it's more about the technology (TV, Computers, Cell phones) and the behavior sets they encourage. (It's the medium, not the message). Playing outside as a kid without a lot of authority oversight automatically stresses the developing brain in really fun and beneficial ways. Technology toys are a major distraction from real play during those limited and precious formative years.
The system has changed and the concentrations of wealth have certainly decayed. I have no problem with that. Corporate music is trash, and I wish it would go away, but it won't.
But production costs have fallen through the floor. You can now produce and press an entire album for only three or four thousand dollars. The result is that a lot more independent acts now have CDs to sell at their gigs; CDs they never would have been able to afford to produce, and were they signed, they'd not have made much (if any) money on anyway because the old system would have eaten the profits up. Many musicians were billed for the production costs when on a major label.
I know a lot of musicians. None of them are rich, and not all of them are geniuses, but they keep on playing, and the ones people like sell enough CDs and sell enough tickets to keep at it. The really good acts are consistently able to spin whole careers out of their work. I've seen that happen several times as well.
What's really happened is that recorded music distribution has been made accessible to many, many more artists, so the pie is being shared among more people. I've bought CDs from people because I want to support their efforts, and I know a lot of people who are like me in this regard. There is money flowing, but it makes more sense and a much larger percentage of it is flowing to the artists.
They may not get on television or give flashy, stadium-sized concerts, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Leave that shit for the big corporate productions. They always owned it anyway.
It's been done, but I've never seen any such studies get much traction in the media. Along with awareness of these things comes an understanding that a lot of this reality is based on a deliberate choice by much of the planet's population to forget. Many experiences can only come about when certain levels of ignorance are firmly in place. A cat would be a failure at being a cat if it were hampered with a human level of awareness, for example. It would be hard to experience intimacy with your wife if you remembered that person being your father or mother in a previous circumstance, (as another for instance). -One of the problems is that as certain properties of reality become evident, by extension other things logically become inescapable as well which would make many people's lives cease to function. People only know when they are ready to know, and they subconsciously resist that which would screw them up. That's my theory, anyway.
Another interesting thing about energy, is that it is manipulated via conscious intention, and intention only works if you believe something is there. But science only works properly when belief of any kind is suspended. So it becomes a tricky question, (which is probably by design).
But if one is ready, then there are endless opportunities and a great deal of collected knowledge sitting about. It's an individual journey, and in that respect, understanding scientific methods is certainly helpful. But the whole of society won't ever be included in the benefits, I don't think. It's not a selfish attitude so much as self-evident when you get there. Everybody must make an individual effort and respect those who want/need to continue working with a more limited set of rules.
We are all limited; even much more advanced beings struggle with the same things, just on a larger scale.
Meditating means meditating. My method is basically to go through a series visualizing exercises leading to a calm and open state, and then to quiet the mind. If anything comes up, then I might explore it. It's a way of staying grounded and mentally strong, but it also tends to open up my awareness from the narrow focus which can easily befall people. You know how you begin to not see the features of your own home after a while? Same thing, but extend that to human behavior and beyond.
"Energy Work" is just the term sometimes used for the spiritual/chi side of Kung Fu. Basically, you become aware of and learn to manipulate the energetic realm around you; it's pretty thick with stuff; people's beings extend quite far beyond their bodies in many cases. I've trained with guys who can fight and catch random objects thrown at them while blind folded, or knock you down without touching you. Neat stuff like that.
I suspect having Iron in your body has something to do with it.
I was walking through a mall and was nearly knocked on my arse once by a weird field I entered. It felt a bit like bringing two magnets close together N to N. My girlfriend felt it too and we both reeled back a step and looked at each other.
Turns out, there was a giant old black and white TV screen from the seventies hanging overhead and displaying video from some security feed. It was cool, because we could walk in and out of the field and really feel it strongly each time. I was so intrigued that I wanted to call people over to check it out, but I was also feeling really woozy and the only people around were old ladies and other K Mart Shopper types who wouldn't have understood the significance.
I don't react that way most of the time, but I'd been meditating and doing lots of energy work that month. My perceptions were pretty raw and being in a mall was quite overwhelming. I ended up sitting outside to breathe it off. That's the downside to opening yourself up; the sickness of society can really burn you out. I think most people just have strong blocks in place so that they don't notice this stuff normally, like being around a bad smell for a long time makes it sort of fade in the perceptions.
I'm sorry, but did you miss the last seventy days of oil disaster thanks to a profound lack of regulatory oversight?
Did you miss the economic meltdown which has shaken the globe due to a profound lack of regulatory oversight?
Every corporation, ever, which strained against regulations which prevent the spread of their irresponsible, psychopathic greed has done so by arguing that free market capitalism is being strangled, (with the implied notion that this is a grave offense against Darwin or some such nonsense.) The article you are quoting is EXACTLY the sort of crap a shill journalist would write.
After reading the article, the summary is sensationalistic egregious and erroneous sophomoric propaganda, complete with loaded language and inflammatory terms, as well as an over-the-top accusation of "shill" (once you look into the truth and facts of the situation).
Wow. Did we read the same article? The one I read, "Fussy Eaters" was a fear-mongering piece of sophomoric propaganda, spewed false logic and faulty premises complete with all the loaded language and inflammatory terms you accuse kdawson of using, when all HE was doing was pointing out the astonishing fact that it existed. The simple fact that the writer is in a conflict of interest with his journalistic duties via monetary connections to Monsanto is enough to validate the summary.
Kdawson nailed it.
You, however, are reacting in the manner of a frightened child-man who made the life-defining choice long ago that when faced with upsetting information you would hide from it rather than face it, explore it and learn from it.
You are a coward. You even seem think that hiding, (using filters to make the things you don't like go away) is a virtue of some sort. Whatever. But let me tell you this; the people who are brave enough to SEEK objective reality and pounce on it, are NOT going to go away just because you piss and moan about how upsetting they are to your make-believe world view.
And yet. . , deep down inside you know there's something to it otherwise there wouldn't be such a strong reaction.
It's not the same as promoting Christianity; (God arguments inspire the logical frustration response of, "Why can't they SEE? I must point out the truth!" And hence people dive into debate. But there is only quiet here.)
It's not the same as promoting a welfare state; ("Let's All Share" arguments inspire selfishness and rage at the idea of people taking without deserving, and again people dive into debate.)
It's not the same as taking a side in any of the boring contentious issues, like abortion, or partisan politics or what have you. It's not the same as any of those arguments or comments. It's rational, it makes sense, it's got plenty of solid information available to back it up for those willing to explore. So why the reactions?
Why? Because it's painful truth which if one looks at if full on would require a very difficult transition away from current behavior patterns. People love and rely on their cell phones and WiFi devices. They Love them! They identify with them! And any suggestion that their identity may be causing them harm evokes not a sense of fascination and curiosity, but only Ego-based fear and emotional rejection. "Nothing I have chosen to devote myself is allowed to be wrong. Anybody who offers evidence suggesting it is, must be destroyed, shut down, laughed at! DENIED!" That's the ego talking. That's the child inside taking control.
And what a great way to control an entire population. Children are easy to manipulate, after all.
Why do people assume that the only way cellular activity can be affected by EM radiation is through heat damage due to ionization?
That's almost exactly like saying arsenic in small quantities is safe because it takes more than ten pounds of any substance dropped from over ten feet to cause damage to one's internal organs.
Biological chemistry and electricity are enormously complex, and yet people routinely try to establish in black & white what safe and unsafe are based on the most cartoonish levels of understanding. (And those cartoonish concepts, it MUST be noted, were initially injected into the media from the P.R. wings of the U.S. military and the Telecos in attempting to avoid being prosecuted. But people now accept such common 'wisdom' as though it were some sort of cosmic law of reality when in fact its origin was a clever public relations tactic.)
There are several known mechanics through which low power (non-ionizing) radiation can affect living cells. I've outlined a few of them in the past, and every time I do, the emotional explosions it sets off in readers is astonishing, but whatever. Here we go again. . .
Remember the phenomenon of "sympathetic resonance" from science class? That's the one where when you strike a string on a guitar on one side of the room, the identically tuned guitar on the other side of the room will start to vibrate. This is how radios work.
Every object on the planet has a natural frequency at which it vibrates.
Okay. Now take 60 Hz wall socket power. The Lithium ion happens to resonate at 60 Hz. Combine that with the Earth's static magnetic field, and you get an interesting effect where Lithium ions energize and move on a vector. Sub-ionizing power levels of EM can cause Lithium ions in your blood stream to penetrate the blood/brain barrier and deliver a narcotic psycho-active effect with greater frequency than if they were not being energized from an outside EM broadcast frequency. This effect is called, "Cyclotronic Resonance" and it is just one of several mechanics known.
There are entire lists of frequencies and the various effects they have on cellular activity. These different frequencies can be used to modify moods and behavior sets in humans, and the cell phone system is an ideal method of delivery because the high-frequency carrier signals can be modulated down to mimic whatever frequency is desired.
In a rather elegant double-stroke of genius, the billion or so lithium cell-phone batteries which have made their way to landfills, and there leach into ground water, supply the biosphere with plenty of distributed lithium.
And yes, just to be clear, we're talking about global population mind-control.
-Another cartoon concept people have been effectively sold, (though I find it astonishing that people so easily fall for such a patently false premise), is that, "Conspiracies do not exist."
Like I said. Emotions run high on this subject. I wonder what causes that. . ?
I makes me wonder if the lady who published this article understands that light (from the sun, from the lights in the room where I'm typing this, from my computer monitors...) is *IS* electromagnetic radiation. Do you think she knows, or was grade 12 physics a course which she did not attend?
Anybody capable of making a functioning Faraday cage is probably not an ignoramus. Basically, the light from the sun is not modulated into coherent, low power (non-ionizing) signals in the low Hz range where cellular activities have been repeatedly observed to show effects. But you'd have to read a book or two beyond grade 12 physics to know that.
The maturity level around here is astonishing. People love their cell phones and their normal, comfortable patterns so much that they are emotionally incapable of allowing the possibility that anything *bad* might be associated with their established behaviors.
I was five or six when that show was airing, and through the eyes of a little kid, it was the coolest and most astonishing sci-fi epic series EVER!
(Special effects made everything look real, and since I was too young to know that adults weren't flawed, I also assumed that everything made sense but that I was just too young to get it. Everything seemed wonderful and exciting on the moon!)
Oh, but it was a dark, dark day when I hunted down a couple of episodes of the program and watched them in my quality-discerning adulthood. Hit like a brick in the gut. Not a good memory. No sir.
When many, many people spend an enormous percentage of their energies in paying down mortgages and similar, there is little time left over to work on the self.
This is a huge problem, and if the housing/energy problem can be effectively solved, then you are on your way to freedom. And there ARE solutions.
Buy cheap property and build on it. There are going to be massive regulations on house building; the government has a vested interest in preventing people from growing strong, so you'll have a million and one obstacles thrown in your way. I don't know what to suggest there except perhaps keep your head down and stay off the radar, or wade in and do the paper work. It depends on your personal strengths and personality type.
As for train cars. . . Why not an old school bus? Train cars are hard to move, but you can DRIVE an old bus to a location and it provides a similar kind of of weather-proof shell to work with.
Another idea is that a simple shelter of two by fours with a tarp on raised shipping pallets, along with a propane heater can get you through the winter if need be, and provide general shelter while you build your other projects.
I know one guy who did this, and ran 150 meters of power cable from his neighbor across the property and just paid him whatever the extra cost was on the meter. Eventually you can put up solar panels to service your basic needs.
There are lots and lots of ways to do this and hundreds of web sites which have info to help you out.
The main tricks, though, are getting property where you can drill a water well. If you can get some land near farmers, then you can learn how to feed yourself also. Not a bad idea considering the way the world is turning. Though, England is kinda screwed for weather. No matter what climate change does, England is pretty much fsked, so perhaps moving somewhere warmer is a good idea. . ?
Learn the patterns of manipulation and lying, and then you won't fall into the traps of manipulations and lies.
The price of this valuable lesson is whatever the last scam you fell for cost you, plus the time and energy required to keep your ears open and your brain turned on.
EVERYBODY gets scammed at least once in their lives. I've been burned several times, mostly during my childhood and teens when I was still learning the law of the jungle. If you only get taken for $100 or so, then you're doing really well.
Nowadays, it is much harder to catch me in a trick, and if you try there's a good chance you'll get hurt or severely inconvenienced in the process. Also, I consider most ad campaigns, political campaigns, religions and news agencies, universities, shopping malls and economic systems to be scams. I spend a lot of time walking around laughing in amazement at the crudity and callow nature of it all.
But the real skill is in being able to navigate the world effectively without getting bitter and angry; in recognizing that life is fun!
You should be feeling sorry for these kinds of people. Cop/mallcop big-man-small-dick syndrome should be classified as a disease, and its sufferers should be pitied rather than be despised.
Pity is fine when they don't hold offices or important stations in life. Or when they're not stealing your lunch money. And even when circumstances have simply placed a variation of the breed across from you in a conversation where they have to know the most, argue every point and socially orgasm when they hit on a subject you don't know much about and genuinely find interesting. . . Well, even then, pity isn't really the first thing on my mind. It's more, "Good lord, this guy isn't going to shut up until every atom of life energy has been sucked out of my being!"
Understanding is better. It helps you navigate the world and recognize the condition from a distance so you can avoid subjecting yourself to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. I'd not thought about it from that end of the class room.
Forcing anybody to function within a system which doesn't fit their temperament is asking for misery.
-FL
Sorry, but what exactly do most of these careers have to do with being creative? Even the ones that seem to require creativity such as inventors and authors don't have to (think product upgrades, textbooks, etc.). You might as well call it persistance.
Based on the intelligence and lucidity of the article, I am going to assume that the authors were no dummies. With this kind of writing, one is generally summarizing a larger and more complex tract of text which I am also assuming explained the methodology of the tests and accounted for the vagaries you are complaining about. I may be wrong, but I've read enough white papers now to know how they are usually structured.
For very interesting definitions of creative. And three times what, exactly? The problem with the entire article is that it doesn't provide numbers. Maybe none of this is even relevant. If IQ scores are rising every decade, then maybe the IQ test isn't very useful and implying your test is three times "better" doesn't say much.
Cognitive tests of this sort have been subject to massive scrutiny by the sharpest minds in the cognitive fields, and your questions have been asked and answered. Overwhelming consensus seems to have settled on the legitimacy of such tests and the complaints against it which I skimmed through don't seem terribly indicting. As much as I like to question everything, especially orthodox beliefs, this one doesn't seem particularly broken to me.
I would suggest reviewing the test itself and see what you think afterward, because right now you seem to be criticizing something sight unseen, which is never favorable to forming an informed opinion. If you do find something which seems really dumb, then I'd love to hear about it. But as I've said, for now I'm inclined to accept this one.
-FL
Whether or not you like them, would you include The Rolling Stones in that description?
The Rolling Stones are from a different era, and different forces of control were in effect.
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr93.html
The first few installments of that series are quite eye-opening. Media plays the same games today, but does so differently. It's all about population control. In the Stones' case, it was about the secret services handling the creation and distribution of counter-culture thinking, corrupting it and keeping it powerless when it could instead have been a danger to the establishment.
so I just care about the quality of the end product - so yes, I probably am in the dark but then don't see a reason to be more informed, if I'm honest.
My thinking is that learning is fun and ignorance can kill you, so I see zero drawback, but whether or not to learn remains one of the most critically defining choices humans ever make in their lives.
-FL
Sorry, can you define what you mean by "corporate music"?
Good question. I mean music manufactured by a team of profiteers well practiced in the game of mind-control. Think, "Hanna Montanna". Think, "Brittney Spears". Heck, I would argue that most new bands which get top billing these days have been manufactured from the ground up. Read some of the accounts of how the music industry works, and you'll be quite disgusted. Music carries a message, even if it doesn't have words, it affects your brain; it alters the essence of who you are. Do you want a team of profiteers well practiced in mind-control doing this to you, or do you want it to come from an artist who is genuinely offering real insights through music?
Corporate music is essentially advertising. And advertising is evil; Study that as well, and you'll come across some very disturbing thinking which is practiced invisibly on the populace every day.
Besides which, if a local independent band is able to survive by doing live gigs and selling CDs at those gigs, that's absolutely fantastic and exactly how good musicians should enter the music business - but what about people across the other side of the planet who may want to hear their music? If they sell their music on their web site, who's going to point me in their direction as maybe a band I would like? And what's to stop me going to one of the countless other bands doing the same thing?
I don't understand the question, and that last line seems really weird to me. It's like you WANT a corporate advertising entity to do your thinking for you. I find exploring to be half the fun. I HATE being told what I am supposed to like and consume. It's offensive to me because I don't want to be treated like a lab rat or a farm animal.
But guess what? I don't give a shit. As far as I'm aware, no children are exploited
I know you mean this turn of phrase in jest, but dude! I think you need to revisit, "Jagged Little Pill". And Alanis Morissette was by no means an isolated case of industry abuse of a child performer.
You sound pretty much in the dark overall. And there's nothing wrong with that; it means there are a lot of cool and interesting ideas you get to explore. Have fun!
-FL
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that all brains work the same way.
It has been soundly demonstrated that certain types of kid excel using one method of learning while other types excel with another, and that the two learning approaches are pretty much incompatible. This is a scientifically solid stone cold fact with fucktonne of data to back it up.
What I find ASTONISHING is that educators and society in general fails to recognize this incredibly useful bit of knowledge and insist that one size MUST fit all. It's like arguing with creationists.
-FL
FTFA:
Nobody would argue that Torrance's tasks, which have become the gold standard in creativity assessment, measure creativity perfectly. What's shocking is how incredibly well Torrance's creativity index predicted those kids' creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance's tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance's data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
-FL
"It's the medium, not the message."
The quality of programming really is just a small part of it. It's the staring at a flickering box which sends ALL viewers within two minutes of sitting down into an induced hypnotic state as measured by EEG. -It's the effects on physiology, (decreased metabolism, serotonin production, etc.) and wastes hours which might be spent doing ANYTHING else. Staring at a flickering light isn't how the human body is designed to learn and grow strong, and it shows.
-FL
RTFA
-FL
The sad part is that schools can do a lot to improve themselves at low/no cost.
One of my favorite parts of the article. . .
Along the way, kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they'd unwittingly mastered Ohio's required fifth-grade curriculum--from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. "You never see our kids saying, 'I'll never use this so I don't need to learn it,' " says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. "Instead, kids ask, 'Do we have to leave school now?' " Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state's achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.
One of the exercises they put the kids through was this: "Hey. The library has a lot of noise pollution from the parking lot outside. You kids need to come up with a fix for this. Present your solutions in three weeks."
Awesome!
This is actually one of the better articles I've read in the last week. It wasn't a truncated piece of pandering nonsense designed for the ADD types. It felt like a story written twenty years ago. And from Newsweek? I'm kinda shocked by that.
Although, sorry, I definitely think that video games contribute to the dumbing down of kids. Not by themselves. I think it's more about the technology (TV, Computers, Cell phones) and the behavior sets they encourage. (It's the medium, not the message). Playing outside as a kid without a lot of authority oversight automatically stresses the developing brain in really fun and beneficial ways. Technology toys are a major distraction from real play during those limited and precious formative years.
-FL
The system has changed and the concentrations of wealth have certainly decayed. I have no problem with that. Corporate music is trash, and I wish it would go away, but it won't.
But production costs have fallen through the floor. You can now produce and press an entire album for only three or four thousand dollars. The result is that a lot more independent acts now have CDs to sell at their gigs; CDs they never would have been able to afford to produce, and were they signed, they'd not have made much (if any) money on anyway because the old system would have eaten the profits up. Many musicians were billed for the production costs when on a major label.
I know a lot of musicians. None of them are rich, and not all of them are geniuses, but they keep on playing, and the ones people like sell enough CDs and sell enough tickets to keep at it. The really good acts are consistently able to spin whole careers out of their work. I've seen that happen several times as well.
What's really happened is that recorded music distribution has been made accessible to many, many more artists, so the pie is being shared among more people. I've bought CDs from people because I want to support their efforts, and I know a lot of people who are like me in this regard. There is money flowing, but it makes more sense and a much larger percentage of it is flowing to the artists.
They may not get on television or give flashy, stadium-sized concerts, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Leave that shit for the big corporate productions. They always owned it anyway.
-FL
Can this be verified experimentally?
It's been done, but I've never seen any such studies get much traction in the media. Along with awareness of these things comes an understanding that a lot of this reality is based on a deliberate choice by much of the planet's population to forget. Many experiences can only come about when certain levels of ignorance are firmly in place. A cat would be a failure at being a cat if it were hampered with a human level of awareness, for example. It would be hard to experience intimacy with your wife if you remembered that person being your father or mother in a previous circumstance, (as another for instance). -One of the problems is that as certain properties of reality become evident, by extension other things logically become inescapable as well which would make many people's lives cease to function. People only know when they are ready to know, and they subconsciously resist that which would screw them up. That's my theory, anyway.
Another interesting thing about energy, is that it is manipulated via conscious intention, and intention only works if you believe something is there. But science only works properly when belief of any kind is suspended. So it becomes a tricky question, (which is probably by design).
But if one is ready, then there are endless opportunities and a great deal of collected knowledge sitting about. It's an individual journey, and in that respect, understanding scientific methods is certainly helpful. But the whole of society won't ever be included in the benefits, I don't think. It's not a selfish attitude so much as self-evident when you get there. Everybody must make an individual effort and respect those who want/need to continue working with a more limited set of rules.
We are all limited; even much more advanced beings struggle with the same things, just on a larger scale.
-FL
What does that mean?
Meditating means meditating. My method is basically to go through a series visualizing exercises leading to a calm and open state, and then to quiet the mind. If anything comes up, then I might explore it. It's a way of staying grounded and mentally strong, but it also tends to open up my awareness from the narrow focus which can easily befall people. You know how you begin to not see the features of your own home after a while? Same thing, but extend that to human behavior and beyond.
"Energy Work" is just the term sometimes used for the spiritual/chi side of Kung Fu. Basically, you become aware of and learn to manipulate the energetic realm around you; it's pretty thick with stuff; people's beings extend quite far beyond their bodies in many cases. I've trained with guys who can fight and catch random objects thrown at them while blind folded, or knock you down without touching you. Neat stuff like that.
-FL
Somebody already made the joke in the article's comment section which I will paste here. . .
This is great! Now I can start building that Zerg colony I always wanted! Prepare to get zergling rushed, n00bz!
-FL
I suspect having Iron in your body has something to do with it.
I was walking through a mall and was nearly knocked on my arse once by a weird field I entered. It felt a bit like bringing two magnets close together N to N. My girlfriend felt it too and we both reeled back a step and looked at each other.
Turns out, there was a giant old black and white TV screen from the seventies hanging overhead and displaying video from some security feed. It was cool, because we could walk in and out of the field and really feel it strongly each time. I was so intrigued that I wanted to call people over to check it out, but I was also feeling really woozy and the only people around were old ladies and other K Mart Shopper types who wouldn't have understood the significance.
I don't react that way most of the time, but I'd been meditating and doing lots of energy work that month. My perceptions were pretty raw and being in a mall was quite overwhelming. I ended up sitting outside to breathe it off. That's the downside to opening yourself up; the sickness of society can really burn you out. I think most people just have strong blocks in place so that they don't notice this stuff normally, like being around a bad smell for a long time makes it sort of fade in the perceptions.
-FL
Are you insane?
I'm sorry, but did you miss the last seventy days of oil disaster thanks to a profound lack of regulatory oversight?
Did you miss the economic meltdown which has shaken the globe due to a profound lack of regulatory oversight?
Every corporation, ever, which strained against regulations which prevent the spread of their irresponsible, psychopathic greed has done so by arguing that free market capitalism is being strangled, (with the implied notion that this is a grave offense against Darwin or some such nonsense.) The article you are quoting is EXACTLY the sort of crap a shill journalist would write.
Shake your head and try again.
Sheesh!
-FL
After reading the article, the summary is sensationalistic egregious and erroneous sophomoric propaganda, complete with loaded language and inflammatory terms, as well as an over-the-top accusation of "shill" (once you look into the truth and facts of the situation).
Wow. Did we read the same article? The one I read, "Fussy Eaters" was a fear-mongering piece of sophomoric propaganda, spewed false logic and faulty premises complete with all the loaded language and inflammatory terms you accuse kdawson of using, when all HE was doing was pointing out the astonishing fact that it existed. The simple fact that the writer is in a conflict of interest with his journalistic duties via monetary connections to Monsanto is enough to validate the summary.
Kdawson nailed it.
You, however, are reacting in the manner of a frightened child-man who made the life-defining choice long ago that when faced with upsetting information you would hide from it rather than face it, explore it and learn from it.
You are a coward. You even seem think that hiding, (using filters to make the things you don't like go away) is a virtue of some sort. Whatever. But let me tell you this; the people who are brave enough to SEEK objective reality and pounce on it, are NOT going to go away just because you piss and moan about how upsetting they are to your make-believe world view.
-FL
Hm.
Mods of Troll and Funny.
And yet. . , deep down inside you know there's something to it otherwise there wouldn't be such a strong reaction.
It's not the same as promoting Christianity; (God arguments inspire the logical frustration response of, "Why can't they SEE? I must point out the truth!" And hence people dive into debate. But there is only quiet here.)
It's not the same as promoting a welfare state; ("Let's All Share" arguments inspire selfishness and rage at the idea of people taking without deserving, and again people dive into debate.)
It's not the same as taking a side in any of the boring contentious issues, like abortion, or partisan politics or what have you. It's not the same as any of those arguments or comments. It's rational, it makes sense, it's got plenty of solid information available to back it up for those willing to explore. So why the reactions?
Why? Because it's painful truth which if one looks at if full on would require a very difficult transition away from current behavior patterns. People love and rely on their cell phones and WiFi devices. They Love them! They identify with them! And any suggestion that their identity may be causing them harm evokes not a sense of fascination and curiosity, but only Ego-based fear and emotional rejection. "Nothing I have chosen to devote myself is allowed to be wrong. Anybody who offers evidence suggesting it is, must be destroyed, shut down, laughed at! DENIED!" That's the ego talking. That's the child inside taking control.
And what a great way to control an entire population. Children are easy to manipulate, after all.
-FL
Why do people assume that the only way cellular activity can be affected by EM radiation is through heat damage due to ionization?
That's almost exactly like saying arsenic in small quantities is safe because it takes more than ten pounds of any substance dropped from over ten feet to cause damage to one's internal organs.
Biological chemistry and electricity are enormously complex, and yet people routinely try to establish in black & white what safe and unsafe are based on the most cartoonish levels of understanding. (And those cartoonish concepts, it MUST be noted, were initially injected into the media from the P.R. wings of the U.S. military and the Telecos in attempting to avoid being prosecuted. But people now accept such common 'wisdom' as though it were some sort of cosmic law of reality when in fact its origin was a clever public relations tactic.)
There are several known mechanics through which low power (non-ionizing) radiation can affect living cells. I've outlined a few of them in the past, and every time I do, the emotional explosions it sets off in readers is astonishing, but whatever. Here we go again. . .
Remember the phenomenon of "sympathetic resonance" from science class? That's the one where when you strike a string on a guitar on one side of the room, the identically tuned guitar on the other side of the room will start to vibrate. This is how radios work.
Every object on the planet has a natural frequency at which it vibrates.
Okay. Now take 60 Hz wall socket power. The Lithium ion happens to resonate at 60 Hz. Combine that with the Earth's static magnetic field, and you get an interesting effect where Lithium ions energize and move on a vector. Sub-ionizing power levels of EM can cause Lithium ions in your blood stream to penetrate the blood/brain barrier and deliver a narcotic psycho-active effect with greater frequency than if they were not being energized from an outside EM broadcast frequency. This effect is called, "Cyclotronic Resonance" and it is just one of several mechanics known.
There are entire lists of frequencies and the various effects they have on cellular activity. These different frequencies can be used to modify moods and behavior sets in humans, and the cell phone system is an ideal method of delivery because the high-frequency carrier signals can be modulated down to mimic whatever frequency is desired.
In a rather elegant double-stroke of genius, the billion or so lithium cell-phone batteries which have made their way to landfills, and there leach into ground water, supply the biosphere with plenty of distributed lithium.
And yes, just to be clear, we're talking about global population mind-control.
-Another cartoon concept people have been effectively sold, (though I find it astonishing that people so easily fall for such a patently false premise), is that, "Conspiracies do not exist."
Like I said. Emotions run high on this subject. I wonder what causes that. . ?
-FL
I makes me wonder if the lady who published this article understands that light (from the sun, from the lights in the room where I'm typing this, from my computer monitors...) is *IS* electromagnetic radiation. Do you think she knows, or was grade 12 physics a course which she did not attend?
Anybody capable of making a functioning Faraday cage is probably not an ignoramus. Basically, the light from the sun is not modulated into coherent, low power (non-ionizing) signals in the low Hz range where cellular activities have been repeatedly observed to show effects. But you'd have to read a book or two beyond grade 12 physics to know that.
The maturity level around here is astonishing. People love their cell phones and their normal, comfortable patterns so much that they are emotionally incapable of allowing the possibility that anything *bad* might be associated with their established behaviors.
It's fucking pathetic.
-FL
That show is *nightmarishly bad*.
Nah, it's all about perspective!
I was five or six when that show was airing, and through the eyes of a little kid, it was the coolest and most astonishing sci-fi epic series EVER!
(Special effects made everything look real, and since I was too young to know that adults weren't flawed, I also assumed that everything made sense but that I was just too young to get it. Everything seemed wonderful and exciting on the moon!)
Oh, but it was a dark, dark day when I hunted down a couple of episodes of the program and watched them in my quality-discerning adulthood. Hit like a brick in the gut. Not a good memory. No sir.
It's true, what they say. You can never go home.
-FL
When many, many people spend an enormous percentage of their energies in paying down mortgages and similar, there is little time left over to work on the self.
This is a huge problem, and if the housing/energy problem can be effectively solved, then you are on your way to freedom. And there ARE solutions.
Buy cheap property and build on it. There are going to be massive regulations on house building; the government has a vested interest in preventing people from growing strong, so you'll have a million and one obstacles thrown in your way. I don't know what to suggest there except perhaps keep your head down and stay off the radar, or wade in and do the paper work. It depends on your personal strengths and personality type.
As for train cars. . . Why not an old school bus? Train cars are hard to move, but you can DRIVE an old bus to a location and it provides a similar kind of of weather-proof shell to work with.
Another idea is that a simple shelter of two by fours with a tarp on raised shipping pallets, along with a propane heater can get you through the winter if need be, and provide general shelter while you build your other projects.
I know one guy who did this, and ran 150 meters of power cable from his neighbor across the property and just paid him whatever the extra cost was on the meter. Eventually you can put up solar panels to service your basic needs.
There are lots and lots of ways to do this and hundreds of web sites which have info to help you out.
The main tricks, though, are getting property where you can drill a water well. If you can get some land near farmers, then you can learn how to feed yourself also. Not a bad idea considering the way the world is turning. Though, England is kinda screwed for weather. No matter what climate change does, England is pretty much fsked, so perhaps moving somewhere warmer is a good idea. . ?
Anyway, good luck and have fun! (And
-FL
Learn the patterns of manipulation and lying, and then you won't fall into the traps of manipulations and lies.
The price of this valuable lesson is whatever the last scam you fell for cost you, plus the time and energy required to keep your ears open and your brain turned on.
EVERYBODY gets scammed at least once in their lives. I've been burned several times, mostly during my childhood and teens when I was still learning the law of the jungle. If you only get taken for $100 or so, then you're doing really well.
Nowadays, it is much harder to catch me in a trick, and if you try there's a good chance you'll get hurt or severely inconvenienced in the process. Also, I consider most ad campaigns, political campaigns, religions and news agencies, universities, shopping malls and economic systems to be scams. I spend a lot of time walking around laughing in amazement at the crudity and callow nature of it all.
But the real skill is in being able to navigate the world effectively without getting bitter and angry; in recognizing that life is fun!
-FL
You should be feeling sorry for these kinds of people. Cop/mallcop big-man-small-dick syndrome should be classified as a disease, and its sufferers should be pitied rather than be despised.
Pity is fine when they don't hold offices or important stations in life. Or when they're not stealing your lunch money. And even when circumstances have simply placed a variation of the breed across from you in a conversation where they have to know the most, argue every point and socially orgasm when they hit on a subject you don't know much about and genuinely find interesting. . . Well, even then, pity isn't really the first thing on my mind. It's more, "Good lord, this guy isn't going to shut up until every atom of life energy has been sucked out of my being!"
Understanding is better. It helps you navigate the world and recognize the condition from a distance so you can avoid subjecting yourself to it.
-FL
Does anybody else find it a little unsettling that Wikileaks has been suffering from technical difficulties of late?
And hell Yes, I believe in conspiracies. (Not all of 'em, but bathwater and babies, right?)
Anybody who rejects that nobody ever plans in secret to manipulate the public for private gain are basically proof that advertising works.
-FL
Stupid people will make stupid decisions, but it's their choice and no one else's; hence their responsibility.
Exactly. Except the difference is that you are able to say it now without hate.
Feels better, doesn't it?
-FL