Homophobia and Homosexuality

PaintingOnScars.com

Are Homophobic People Really Gay and Not Accepting It? (Psychology Today) reports on several well designed studies that say they are.

This pretty credible source substantiates the reports on the Harvard/MIT and other studies that show a strong correlation between homophobia and suppressed homosexual feelings.

As Freud found, and with it launched the discipline of psychology... it is the intense suppression of true feelings that causes harmfully abnormal stress and behavior; not the feelings themselves.

The whole process of growing up and "becoming civilized" is the process of learning to suppress true feelings when they are harmful to others. This is the mandatory requirement in order to have any kind of functional society.

However, looking deeper tells us that (like everything) there are limits.

Too much suppression, too intensely, for too long creates a fragile psyche that can collapse into harmful behavior when stressed.
 

Climate Change is a Huge Business Opportunity

Climate-change is the greatest business opportunity since the American westward expansion of the 1800s.

American unbridled imagination could lead the world in adapting to it.

That is, if government stopped coddling businesses already making more profits than they know what to do with on financially safe, but dirty and wasteful, old technologies.

As the seas rise and the weather worsens over the next few decades, millions of structures will be damaged and flooded. How are we going to preserve and protect them?

Weather is becoming more extreme. Tornadoes more frequent. Hurricanes farther north and earlier in the year. Unusually high winds. Dry thunderstorms igniting fires. Sudden snow storms out of season. How do we adapt to this new normal?

We need creative thinking. Roofing materials must be redesigned to withstand higher winds and bigger hail. Homes and high-rises must be reinforced. Building codes require massive overhaul to allow for the new approaches and new materials.

Established industries that refuse to adapt will fail. New business models will require a deferment of short-term profits. Owners and stock-holders must be willing to invest in risky new technologies that are not as profitable today but have the best chance to prevail in the future.

Solar panel technology is advancing almost as fast as computers. It will soon be cheaper to produce electricity at the point of use rather than a central location. Utility companies that embrace that fact will prosper by providing standardized, reliable point-of-use systems. Such systems could use of the existing transmission infrastructure for load-balancing and second-sourcing.

The most dramatic reduction in energy use and pollution may not even come from solar panels and electric cars, but instead from a better Internet.

Why do we consume vast amounts of energy and pour out tons of pollution to drive across town twice a day? Why do we leave one perfectly good building empty, only to occupy another? Most jobs today are information workers who could be located anywhere. Why not at home?

That means renovations to create better home-offices. Installation of higher speed Internet and faster computers. More sound-proofing. More ergonomic chairs.

It also means renovating office buildings into apartments. Maybe more two-car driveways to accommodate service vehicles parked at the technician's home while off-duty instead of in a big parking lot.

More extreme weather means more damaged roofs and broken windows. Flat video displays that use very little power are now common and rapidly getting cheaper and more efficient. Digital cameras likewise. For safety, energy conservation and your choice of views, why not "virtual-windows"?

The massive upheavals caused by climate change will create unprecedented economic opportunities... for those ready and willing to embrace it.

photo credit: Climate Indicators - Relative Sea Level Change Along U.S. Coasts via photopin (license)

Some Favorite Quotes

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
Albert Einstein

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
widely attributed to George Orwell
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell

"The price of freedom, is eternal vigilance."
Leonard H. Courtney, Thomas Jefferson, Jean-Luc Picard (fic.), et.al.

"A rising tide sinks all boats that are anchored to the bottom."
http://www.dailykos.com/user/Zwoo

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough."
Albert Einstein

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
Albert Einstein

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."
Albert Einstein

"Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
Albert Einstein

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
Albert Einstein

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
Albert Einstein

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."
Albert Einstein

"That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes."
Albert Einstein, 1915

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."
Albert Einstein

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."
Branch Cabell, author of satirical fantasy

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French writer (1900 - 1944)

Ayn Rand

Just watched Ayn Rand on Johnny Carson (1967)

This was not the usual late-night-talk-show guest interview. No jokes. Very serious. And went over into what was supposed to be another guest's time. (total of about 30mins)

If Ayn Rand were alive today and could speak for herself, I think she would vigorously denounce Rand Paul, Paul Ryan and the rest of her "neo-disciples"... and they would denounce her.

For example... In this interview, she very strongly asserts that no one has the right to another person's life. To that end, she clearly expresses her opposition to any draft for any reason. Only individuals have the right to decide to risk their lives.

Seems to me that the Republicans have hijacked some of her philosophies (primarily laissez-faire capitalism) to justify destroying the lives of others in furtherance of their own affluence.

This interview indicates that in her philosophy of Objectivism, she expected everyone to vigorously pursue their own self-interest. To me, the flaw in it was that she seemed to think everyone had roughly the same capacity to do that. We know that they don't. But at the time of the interview (1967), the divergence was far smaller than it is today.

I couldn't disagree more with today's Republican interpretation of Ayn Rand's philosophies. I could say the same about the Christian churches' interpretation of Jesus' philosophies. I think both have been used to further agendas that each would abhor were they alive.

Perhaps that's why these "reinterpretations" have only come about well after the icons were too dead to disagree.

Germany offers free college tuition to U.S. and international students

All German universities are now free to Americans and all other international students. The last German state to charge tuition at its universities struck down the fees this week.

The ramifications...

• Germany is about to be flooded with student visa applications.
• The cost of rent in Germany will skyrocket.
• The Germany economy is about to boom to far greater than that of the U.S. on a per-capita basis.
• German is about to become the hottest course in U.S. schools.
• U.S. student enrollment is about to plummet causing a short-term spike in tuition in a futile attempt to make up the difference. After a year or two, the U.S. will be forced to follow Germany's lead.
• A great many U.S. students that get into Germany will do their best to stay after graduation as European governments and societies share the beliefs and ideals of young people far better than the U.S.

Maybe there is hope...