Making San Jose the Capital of Silicon Valley

     "I'm convinced that we would have been better off rebuilding this city from a million small decisions made by tens of thousands of individual citizens and business owners than by a gang of bureaucrats with no stake in our success beyond their own resume padding.

     "We may have gained a couple of extra high rises and a few more public buildings...but the cost was too great. We sucked the soul and culture out of old downtown San Jose and replaced it with a comparatively sterile and empty metropolitan center that constantly has to dangle expensive bait to lure in young people and wealthy suburbanites.

     "It will take at least another generation to bring back the random juxtapositions of shops and businesses, the welcome and well-worn seediness and the population of hungry young urbanites that make up a healthy city center - and that were so thoughtlessly torn down or driven away back in the '80s and '90s...

     "Where was all of that Redevelopment money coming from?

     "The typical answer I got at the time was either a shrug or that it was a kind of magical 'free' money that would have absolutely no effect upon the overall finances of the city.

     "Well, we now know that was utter bullshit. A city is an ecosystem. You can't segment off one corner of it, rewrite its financial underpinnings and expect it to operate in a vacuum. No matter how you try to firewall it off, inevitably everyone is affected. And now we can see what that means - a shiny and empty downtown, the loss of numerous small downtown businesses (many of them a century old) that gave San Jose its character and culture - an aging infrastructure in the other, outlying districts, public buildings that have become financial sinkholes, a city budget too strained to pursue major new initiatives, a rising crime rate and a declining quality of life...

     "[I]f you are going to build a prosperous future, a city that will come roaring out of this recession into a new era of prosperity, then you don't try to pick winners - especially [in some] industry like clean tech - and you don't help mature, and likely doomed, tech companies build nice high-rise headquarters, and you don't burden struggling start-ups with endless regulations, taxes and fees, and the latest social engineering boondoggle.

     "And most of all, you don't leave it up to a committee of bureaucrats to guess which companies will succeed and which won't.

     "Instead, you give the start-ups cheap office space, tax breaks and the fastest broadband you can deliver. Then you get the hell out of way and trust them to do the rest. Ninety percent of them will fail, but the last 10 percent will change the world - and the fortunes of the city of San Jose...."

     - Malone, Michael S. "Dreams of Instant City/The Blue Sky Days." *Metro Silicon Valley* [San Jose] 5 September 2012: 16+ (http://issuu.com/metrosiliconvalley/docs/1236_mt).

A Conversation About Alawites Involving Alawites

Here's a link to a Christian webpage on the Alawite sect of Shia Islam.

http://www.30-days.net/muslims/muslims-in/mid-near-east/syria-alawites/

Though it's a Christian site dedicated to disseminating information that could help in Christian missionary efforts, this page has attracted Sunnis and Alawites who want to debate on whether Alawism is actually a Muslim denomination.

Two things to note:
(1) One non-Alawite Muslim here claimed that Alawites "were patronized by French colonialists just like the Qadiyanis were patronized by Britsh in India."
(2) All Alawites here claim to be just as Muslim as the guy next door, and deny any and all heresy they are alleged to flirt with. One thing none of them mention is that many of their teachings are secret. Maybe they don't know that. Maybe the majority of them honestly believe that they really are just a moderate sect of Shi'ites.

Probably the most you'll learn online about the heterodoxies of Alawites is at these two Sunni fundamentalist websites, here and here, and this evangelical Christian website.

You should be mindful of 3 things when you study a small, mysterious denomination like Alawite Shi'ism:
(1) Hostile sources could be flat-out lying about the denomination, or sincerely believing and propagating lies about the denomination.
(2) Sources who belong to the minority denomination could be overstating their commonality with the mainstream, and understating their differences with it, for practical and political reasons.
(3) The denomination actually could change over time. This can get really interesting when, as is alleged about Alawites, many of the group's beliefs and practices are secret.

The two biggest Alawite Facebook pages are I'm Alawite, with 1,858 likes, and Muslim-Alawite, with 985 likes. Muslim-Alawite is obviously very pro-Assad; I can't tell with the bigger group I'm Alawite, mostly because there aren't any Assad posters and pretty much all the posts are in Arabic. Below is a picture at I'm Alawite, which I found pretty interesting.

The American Religion

The following is a comment thread that formed on a post by the woman here known as Post-Bush Neocon's Mom. The post was a pic of four white schoolchildren with their hands over their hearts, facing a flag which was being held by a fifth white schoolchild. The bottom of the pic had a caption which read:

"We no longer do this for... fear... of offending someone !!! Let's see how many Americans re-post this ." (all sic)

The first comment posted was mine.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Me: "From its inception, in 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering pulpit-pounding sermons on such topics as 'Jesus the Socialist.' Bellamy was devoted to the ideas of his more-famous cousin Edward Bellamy, author of the 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward. Looking Backward describes the future United States as a regimented worker's paradise where everyone has equal incomes, and men are drafted into the country's 'industrial army' at the age of 21, serving in the jobs assigned them by the state. Bellamy's novel was extremely popular, selling more copies than any other 19th century American novel except Uncle Tom's Cabin. Bellamy's book inspired a movement of 'Nationalist Clubs,' whose members campaigned for a government takeover of the economy. A few years before he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, Francis Bellamy became a founding member of Boston's first Nationalist Club...

"Why do so many conservatives who, by and large, exalt the individual and the family above the state, endorse this ceremony of subordination to the government? Why do Christian conservatives say it's important for schoolchildren to bow before a symbol of secular power? Indeed, why should conservatives support the Pledge at all, with or without 'under God'?"

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whats-conservative-about-pledge-allegiance.

DS: Prior to going back to work I would walk the path of the local park a couple of times each morning. The park is located adjacent to a middle school. Much to my surprise I heard the Pledge Of the Allegiance over the loud speaker...under God is still a part of it. The pledge is still being said.

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: Isaiah Sage I'm not ignoring your post. Actually, I needed to do a little research to see if what you've posted is 100% accurate. And while it is, it doesn't address the "spirit" in which this pledge was composed. Now I cannot expect either of us to go back into time and into the minds of the people living during this age; but it is safe to say that "war" to protect the freedoms the country offered (more than any other) was ongoing.

I know for me when the pledge was taught and introduced to us as children (1963 - when I entered school); it was from the "spirit" of pledging to uphold, fight and protect freedoms granted us by God in the good ol' United States of America.

If anything during my time (1960's) of entering school; slavery was a hot topic. The pledge, the constitution and the Bible was a weapon against the inequality of man; black and white. When I looked around my class room ALL races were reciting the same pledge, praying or having a "moment of silence" to their own God, in thankfulness for this great country.

So with all of your research and accuracy, what you have no window into is the hearts or attitude of those who recite this pledge. You have only the biography of the author.

And may I remind you of Balaam, even a donkey was used to bend the Will of God.

Me: I disagree. The biographical details of the Bellamy cousins, and the language of the pledge, are evidence of "the spirit" in which Francis wrote the pledge. And that spirit is one of complete subservience to the nation state.

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: Yes, Isaiah Sage I agree with you to a point; but you still do not know if his heart changed coming to this country. When you get to be my age; you look back and you see that all is not what it seemed. Hence, my reference to Balaam and his donkey. :-)
[Editor's Note: Both Francis Bellamy and Edward Bellamy were born in the U.S., but I let go her mistake about Francis immigrating.]

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: P.S., what I am saying is Mr. Bellamy is the donkey.

Michael KS: http://oswego.patch.com/blog_posts/why-i-love-the-pledge-of-allegiance

[Michael KS's comment included only the above url. The meat of the blog post is:

"...The more important thing to worry about is how does one person come to power who can remove the rights and wishes of the larger community? Some might say, it's just the Pledge....not a big deal. What difference does it make if you stand and honor a flag with a few simple words? Well, pose that question to the thousands of individuals, parents, spouses, loved ones and friends of troops who have gone to fight to defend that very symbol and what it stands for? Ask that question of a Gold Star parent whose child died to uphold that red, white and blue symbol of freedom and democracy around the world? Ask a veteran who put his life on hold while he went to serve his country. Ask a child who misses their parent because they're serving in some distant land. And, by all means, go and ask that of a hero who is missing an arm, a leg, their sight, or their sanity for that "not so important" symbol!

"And so, the next time you think that saying the Pledge of Allegiance means nothing, try to remember the price that has been paid for that flag....over and over again. Freedom isn't locked in a box, or a stagnant thing, but instead is a living, breathing, evolving entity that is the heartbeat of this beautiful country. Remember that for many of us we've never had to pay anything. It's been given to us as a gift by those who have sacrificed so much, and the very least we can do to say I'm proud and grateful for that gift is to stand, put our hand over our heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I always have...and by God, I always will. No one person will ever take that right from me. Rights can only be stolen by those who allow it...."]

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: Profound article. In the same Spirit of that which I wrote. :-)

Me: That blog post is off point. I do not say that the pledge means nothing. It means something very big. It means "We perform this ritual in which we apotheosize a group of people who hold a monopoly of power over others."

Michael KS: I don't know what "apotheosize" means.

Me: http://www.google.com/search?q=apotheosize&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-Address&ie&oe&rlz=1I7ADFA_en#hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&q=apotheosize&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=0igoUK6IC7DpiwKi3YG4CQ&ved=0CFEQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=2856fc618e8e7f94&biw=1000&bih=639.
Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: And how do you define Divinity, Isaiah Sage?

Me: A group of people who kills other people non-discriminately, and pretends to do so justly, pretends to have divinity or the stamp of it, regardless of what words they use.

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: So you are saying the Flag represents indiscriminate killing collectively justified through the misunderstanding that the pledge of allegiance is divine?

Me: What I am saying is that the pledge and the flag are aspects of a religion in which people prostrate themselves to the nation state, to the point that they are encouraged to willingly kill and die for "the country", where they uncritically embrace the mythic narrative of their nation state and describe it as if the history of their nation state is the history of Justice being made manifest among men, where they sing hymns ("Mine eyes have seen the glory..."), hear sermons ("There is nothing to fear but fear itself..."), read scripture ("Four score and seven years ago..."), and where they judge others by how enthusiastically they embrace the group narrative, get behind the group leaders or the leaders of their specific faction, and identify their leaders with the mythos of the group narrative.

Julie Altman: Sorry Isaiah, I think you're full of it. (respectfully).

Post-Bush Neocon's Mom: What I love about your thesis is the idea that you are attempting to find truth. Unfortunately, Isaiah, truth is relative based on the authority therein it lies. I find in your assessment a tremendous amount of shallow conclusions. While on the surface this appears to have been well thought out and articulate, in fact it lacks the benefit of the doubt or personal knowledge of the individuals motives that were involved.

Unfortunately, you have a book and I have an experience. The difference between us comes from the fact that I lived in an era where acts of patriotism were commonplace, saying the pledge was purehearted and people were and many still are ready to die for the country this flag represents.

Honestly, I find it most surprising that your assessment is most judgmental with no grace or room for error. I guess there are some things we learned where it is easier to switch gears and call it evolution.

Three Links on Happiness

Happiness and Freedom: http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8859/2000a-full.pdf. According to this study, though freedom does not always contribute to happiness, there is a net positive correlation between freedom and happiness, with economic freedom having a greater correlation with happiness than do personal and political freedom.

Religion and Happiness: (1) http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-13/news/sns-201204131141usnewsusnwr201204120412religionapr13_1_religious-groups-health-benefits-social-networking, (2) http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/16/jubilant-jews-study-finds-jewish-people-are-the-happiest-religious-group/

According to the last article, which is from last year, Jews are the happiest religious group, followed by atheists and agnostics, then by Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims. Protestants are the unhappiest religious group of them all. It strikes me that of the five happiest religious groupings, all the actually religious ones have ethnic or "ethnic" dimensions to them in America. I'm also reminded of a book by Durkheim I had to read about in college. And, finally, I'm reminded of some stats on divorce rates by religion.

Revelation through Prophets vs. Revelation through Intuition

Today I celebrated Eid among Ahmadiyya men at the mosque in Milpitas, CA (they made vegetable biryani just for me!). The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was founded in the late 1800's in colonial India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed that he was the Messiah promised by all the major world religions.

Ahmadis are derided as a few things by exclusivist non-Ahmadi muslim clerics, but this neat little video is the first interesting thing I've heard from non-Ahmadi muslims in their debate with Ahmadis.

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad once prophesied that rival Messiah claimant John Hugh Piggot will not withdraw his Messiah claim and will die in the lifetime of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and that that death will demonstrate the truth of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's claim and the falsity of John Hugh Piggot's claim. This death prophecy was published in the Ahmadiyya newspaper the Ahmadiyya Gazette. Contrary to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's death prophecy, John Hugh Piggot died nineteen years after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad died - demonstrating, according to the maker of the video, that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's claim to be a prophet was wrong.

It's things like this that make me think religions should rely more on revelation through intuition ("Inner Light", etc.) and less on revelation through prophets. Death prophecies are too easy to falsify, and dangerously so.

Workfare, WPA, etc.

Online comments like this reinforce my impression that the rugged individualism and relative economic conservatism of the everyday American is not in the least bit laissez-faire. What Americans dislike is not gov't involvement; what they dislike is gov't benefits for free. The saying I learned in Christian elementary school was "A man who does not work shall not eat." The saying was not "Tax dollars shall not be used to guarantee a minimum standard of living to anyone willing to work."

I use the phrase "Roosevelt Republican" to describe the political beliefs I had during highschool and the first half of college. I think my gf at the time might have been a Roosevelt Republican too, because she expressed resentment that so many people get money without working for it, and said that a New Deal-style jobs program would be a better kind of gov't assistance. A couple years after I graduated from college, a Facebook friend expressed a similar sentiment about the idea of bringing back the W.P.A. If anyone is to get assistance, he said, it should be for doing socially-productive things like building infrastructure.

I remember that back in the early days of the Tea Party, the San Jose Mercury reported that some of the Tea Party activists were older folks who were distraught with the poor quality of services they were getting from gov't assistance programs. In March of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported: "Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security 'unacceptable.'"

Today's conservatives are confirming the charicature of a Reagan clone who cuts schools, public sector jobs, library hours, collective bargaining privileges - everything except the military. And yet, I imagine that if a known and popular conservative had demanded a jobs program, a whole lot of red-blooded American men and women might have more than heartily jumped onto the bandwagon. And demanded that it be restricted to native-born U.S. citizens.

From a FB thread on Banning Circumcision

Dustin Gray: Calling it "genital mutilation" is incorrect. I suggest you look up the word "mutilation."

Me: I would ... like to hear a definition of mutilation that excludes cutting away pieces of someone else's flesh with neither their express nor implied consent.

Dustin Gray: ‎@ Isaiah Sage; Sure, will you accept one from wordnet?
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=mutilation

(n) mutilation (an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part); (n) defacement, disfigurement, disfiguration, mutilation (the act of damaging the appearance or surface of something) "the defacement of an Italian mosaic during the Turkish invasion"; "he objected to the dam's massive disfigurement of the landscape"

Again, I understand why the term "genital mutilation" better fits your narrative, but that does not make it an accurate or effective term. If you feel as though the facts of your argument are not persuasive enough, opting for more aggressive terminology does not strike me as a good way to go about improving it.

Instead of defending the use of an inaccurate (yet satisfying) term, why not approach it the problem reasonably: is it a beneficial medical procedure or is it pointless?

The consent issue confuses me and seems to be besides the point. Neonates are incapable of giving consent. Should we not perform and medical procedure that may result in the loss of some part of their body? What if the newborn REALLY wanted a lotus birth (where the umbillical cord is not cut off, and is allowed to fall off naturally)? By your own logic wouldn't that be belly button mutilation?

Me: The wordnet definition does not exclude removing the foreskin from a newborn boy. You're assuming that the foreskin is not an important part of the body, but it is. I treasure mine, and I empathize with men who resent having been deprived of theirs. http://www.youtube.com/user/TLCTugger#p/u/14/aZ2ZyxyZJrk.

Consent is very relevant here. Whether a procedure is a beneficial medical procedure is really only relevant when (as you point out about newborns) the patient is presently incapable of giving consent. If you are a libertarian, Dustin Gray (though I don't know if you are), you would oppose any medical treatment of an adult against his express denial of consent, even if it were beneficial to him. So (and again, this is assuming you're a libertarian) you wouldn't boil everything down to medical beneficience vs. pointlessness. The medical beneficience of a procedure on a baby is necessary because it establishes *implied* consent.

The benefit of a medical procedure has to be substantially high to form implied consent. It has to be necessary to address an immanent threat of death or serious bodily injury or disfigurment, or - if the threat is not immanent - it has to have serious numbers behind it, like the decreased infant mortality rates that result from the innoculation of infants. Claims about the medical benefits of circumcision are too dubious to establish implied consent.

Your example about belly button mutilation vs. lotus birth is clever and very worth considering, but cutting the umbelical cord is only a little analagous to infant male circumcision. When a baby boy is circumcized, he is more or less permanently deprived of something from which he could have derived much sensual pleasure as an older boy and as an adult. When a baby's umbelical cord is cut, he is deprived of something that would have fallen off two to three days after birth anyway. Yes, I do think a lotus birth is more in-line with libertarian principles; but "belly button mutilation", as you suggest I call it, is nowhere near as invasive and nowhere near as presumptuous as cutting off a baby boy's foreskin.