Don's Page
"Defender of The American Way and All That is Good..."
Junior High School's Most Valuable in Track Reunite:
Those Who Have Expressed it Better:
For those who have never read, heard, or seen a video of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”, you’re in for a treat with this video version (see also the accompanying text below):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
---------- Pale Blue Dot ----------
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. - Carl Sagan
The Will McAvoy character from The Newsroom (an HBO series created by Aaron Sorkin):
An excerpt in response to the question: "Why is America the greatest country in the world?":
"...There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about! Yosemite?
We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons, we passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn't belittle it; it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore..."
It comes across much more effectively in the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs
My Philosophy by Gary Berberet:
I'm Free Poem by Unknown Author:
An Interesting link (Did You Know?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEFjWbXog0 (Updated version)
These are some of my thoughts and ramblings on:
Encapsulation of Lessons I Have Learned (updated 7/20/20):
Prose and Poetry or Something Close to... (updated 6/26/18):
Planning for the Future (graphical depiction - updated 8/25/13):
Everything in a Nutshell (a theory that combines science and God - updated 5/16/15):
The Universe (an attempt to make sense of current observations known to me - updated 1/4/2016):
The Multiverse (an attempt to show that if a multiverse exists, it cannot exist as a "foam") - updated 6/13/17:
Time (an attempt to make sense of current observations known to me - updated 5/16/15):
Project Implementation:
Managing People:
Social Networks:
These are the types of things I work on to keep out of Bea's hair...plus it's kind-a nice to have a place to express my thoughts without having to get someone's approval.
I would appreciate hearing of any thoughts that may present a different view on any of the subjects identified above or any related subject.
Don :-)
Reminders:
