SAD - social anxiety disorder

It seems all my life I have battled with a behavior which has come to be known as social anxiety disorder (SAD). It's never been very intense but has nevertheless frequently guided my actions or in-actions when dealing with other people. Throughout my daily life and work, I find that I will do everything I can on my own before reaching out to other people for assistance - especially those that don't know me very well. Calling someone on the phone is something I prefer to avoid. Although cordial, I subconsciously wish for the conversation to end. Sending e-mail is much, much easier and I have no problem with that type of communication - most of the time. When people reach out to me, I'm fine. But I hesitate when it is my job to reach out to someone else. Needless to say, this has held me back in my career. A manager or teacher I am not.

One recent episode involved car-pooling with the husband of my wife's aunt (which we socialize with several times a year). I came up with the idea to share a ride out to a nearby town for a photography class - something we're both interested in. My wife arranged the communication and I was to pick him up on my way. For reasons I don't understand, I had convinced myself that I did not need to stop at his house, but that he would provide his own transportation. I had to apologize to everyone involved for that mess up.

I have always hoped that this type of behavior would eventually stop and my human interactions would be less avoidable. Most of the time I'm OK but occasionally I slip back into that insecurity. The battle, apparently, is not over yet.

Government Health Care and Food Subsidies

"If the government were paying for our health care, the government would have a very strong interest in changing the way people eat." - Michael Pollan

So if the government was subsidizing your health care, they would probably become more interested in healthy food habits and promoting healthy food production rather than subsidizing the corn and cattle industries.
I know, how about making bad food expensive and healthy food inexpensive, instead of the other way around. It's just an idea.

The Center of Black Holes

data:
Approaching the event horizon of a black hole, time slows down.
Upon reaching the event horizon, time stops.
In black holes, matter has collapsed to a zero point; the matter is gone, but the gravitational effect remains.

suppose:
Going beyond the event horizon, time goes backward.
The farther in, the farther back in time you go.
The center of the black hole is the beginning of time: the big bang.
The center of all black holes is the beginning of this universe, or another universe.
What happens to the light that turns back on itself?
Since the gravitational effect of hyper-compressed matter remains in our space, how can the attributes of this mass exist in more than one physical state? Is it 'waiting' to be 'born' as part of a big bang in another universe?
And what about the slow, gradual dissipation of a black hole's mass? How does that effect these ideas?

And by the way, is the gravitational constant really constant? Or does it change over time? Same goes for the speed of light; has it changed since we first measured it?

The One True Twinkie

No twinkie but Twinkie. The Holy Hostess is the One True Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling.  Blessed are the cake-makers, for their cakes shall be filled. I'm going on a pilgrimage to Schiller Park, Illinois where the Twinkie was born four score and two years ago. Dolly Madison Zingers are not the one true cream-filled cake. They shall be cast out of my snack drawer. Oh! I long to be filled with the cream of the Holy Hostess.

Believolution

Nearly all knowledge is partially an act of faith. When we read something or listen to someone speak, we take their words as truth depending on our set credibility of that person and their sources. But true knowledge is cumulative and self-reinforcing. Known facts and concepts about the world are continually revisited and improved over time.
Generally then, today's picture of our world and the universe we live in is an improved view of what we had fifty years ago. When I was a child, pictures of galaxies and comets were in black and white and without much detail. There were race riots, segregation and bigotry. There was unbridled pollution and exploitation of natural resources - like the supply was endless, and the Earth would take our abuse without consequence. How wrong, or at the very least, how incomplete our knowledge was.
It was generally accepted that most people went to church every Sunday, and that this Christian nation had God on our side; that Jesus is the true Son of God; that He would return someday soon; and that all other religions were sadly in error in their doctrine.
Knowledge in these areas has increased; even in the areas of how we might regard religious belief, superstition, the occult, the supernatural, spirituality. We are now more aware of how the mind creates, reinforces, and distributes conflicting belief systems. The preacher's words are just another voice in the cacophony of information we sift through every day.
We cannot go back to the 1950's. Too much has changed. Too many real answers have been found. Too many more questions have been asked. It is literally a different world than that of my childhood. There's no going back.
I was taught that all languages came about because the Babylonians tried to build a tower up to heaven and God caused the builders to all speak different languages so they couldn't complete the project. Each language-speaking group moved away to their own country so they could all speak their own language together. The Italian-speakers moved to Italy, the Chinese speakers moved all the way to China, etc.(Genesis 11:6-9)
It has taken a long time, but I have begun to replace my childhoon learning with evidence-based knowledge. I have faith that evidence and reason will point the way toward better and truer truths.

Not Being Alive

Not being alive sucks! There's nothing to do; no body to do it with; no brain to think with; nothing. It's very quiet, I'm sure - no consciousness. I'm not really looking forward to being dead, but that outcome is inevitable within the next sixty years or so. Impermanence. Before I was born, I was nothing. For me, time and space didn't exist in a similar way that time itself (for our universe) didn't exist before the Big Bang.

The fact that I WAS born is amazing unto itself. Adding this beautiful planet and surrounding universe is incredible! And the best of all, our species now has the capability of measuring the scope and essence of it all - while still refining our knowledge. The more we learn about how it all works, the less we are inclined to ascribe supernatural explanations to stuff we don't understand yet.

I think I'll take good care of my body from now on, expand my knowledge, and love my family to the utmost. Life is too precious and wonderful to do otherwise.

Headline News

21 dead in gunfire skirmishes along the Washington/Oregon border as Oregonian troops, aided by Iranian allied forces attempted to reclaim Hayden Island from the 'Washers'. Disputes over settlement rights to the island, located near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, have been going on for decades while ideological differences between the two states has escalated in recent years, requiring the military aid of middle-eastern countries.
Washington State has a high percentage of Presbyterians while Oregon is primarily Lutheran. Recent fighting between the two denominations has stalled talks of peace and prompted the leader of the Oregon Coalition to make this statement, "Washington has always been more Presbyterian than Oregon, and that's damn close to Episcopalian in my book. The Episcopalian sect, as everyone knows, is as near to being Catholic as you can get without actually being Catholic. And there's the problem. Hayden Island is ours by divine right and we'll use any means necessary to secure our god-given heritage." The mayor of Vancouver had no comment, but Facebook indicates that a military build-up, possibly with the aid of Canadians, may be assembling at an undisclosed location near Chehalis in response to the Oregon threat.