An interesting illusion is discussed in the context of the left/right brain dichotomy.

If you see the dancer spinning clockwise, the story goes, you are using more of your right brain, and if you see it moving counterclockwise, you are more of a left-brained person. The typical characteristics of each hemisphere are:

Left Brain

Right Brain

I found it interesting that I saw the girl twirling counter-clockwise as the page loaded and up until I started to read the text of the article. Then, immediately my peripheral vision caught her change directions after reading only the first half of the first sentence. As I then resumed focus on the image, her rotation shifted back to counter-clockwise. As quickly as I can focus on her, or process the text, she’ll rotate accordingly.

For many years I’ve been charged by friends/family/coworkers that I’m neither wholly left or right brained, maybe this supports that concept.

I’ve determined that I really like to spend one-on-one time with Sam first thing in the morning. He’s shows a voracious appetite for stimulation and learning after a good night’s rest. Other than times where he’s very hungry or tired, he’s most always in a pleasant mood, but in the morning he’s happy and intuitive. This morning he found quite a bit of amusement from me simply holding and dropping three plastic balls as he sat in front of me. My goal was to help him integrate the concept of objects falling when unsupported - an integration that will come with many bumps and bruises I’m sure.

He’s very close to crawling. He has the arm, leg and torso strength, but can’t coordinate the effort quite yet. It’ll be within a week or so I’m betting. He’s also assembled many of the pieces to the walking puzzle too. With a little more balance, he could actually walk before he crawls. In his current state, he’s definitely showing signs of frustration as he can’t achieve the motion he clearly desires. I already see a strong sense of determination, which I find very encouraging.

Spending time with Sam highlights the importance of a hierarchy of knowledge, which we all accept implicitly, but often do not explicitly identify. In witnessing the progress of a new mind, I’m reminded that adherence to a hierarchy is the only key to progress. Any attempt to shortcut or neglect a step is a waste of time. He cannot even be in the position to crawl until he has the strength to raise his head, arch his back, extend his arms in front of him spaced appropriately to distribute his weight, open his hands to distribute the weight amongst all fingers, bend forward at his waist, and bend his knees and pull his legs up under his torso - all of which require many underlying coordinated movements. And there are only a few sequential combinations of these steps that will achieve his goal without gravity causing him to start from scratch. This is an enormous undertaking for a mind that was blank and a body with virtually no strength only six months ago. So much of our physical and mental aptitude are easily overlooked until you work with a child who’s yet to master basic coordination. To reconsider all the little things required for a task as simple as standing up, tasks that are automated and subconsciously executed, is an inspiring tribute to the human unification of matter and consciousness.

This interview with Lisa Van Damme is a must read for parents who value their children’s education.

UNC-Charlotte, Appalachian State, and UNC-Chapel Hill joined several schools in protesting the “gun-free” nature of state college campuses. We should hope the idiots that support these delusionary laws will feel at least uncomfortable, if not intimidated, noticing all those who take their life, and the right to defend it seriously. Honestly, I’d like to see (and partake in) the same type of statement explicitly made in “safe-zone” restaurants, where the attribute “safe” applies only to thugs who disregard laws.

It takes a flimsy intellect to evade the non sequitur common to all concealed carry laws, that only law abiding individuals grant them any respect. Instead of protecting rights, they prescribe an environment where individuals are handicapped in their ability to defend themselves from those who’d assault them.

Yet we don’t hear the “price-gouging”, “greedy-executive” monkeys screaming about Apple’s financial numbers.

Why is that? Could it be that a computer is a trendy luxury item who’s value is more emotionally appealing than the gas we pump into our cars? Where evasive perception and consensus trump the fact that both offer immeasurable value to our lives. Or, could it be simply a symptom of altruism’s decay on our culture - one’s need of a product invoking a sense of entitlement which results in many emotional manifestations voicing that irrational claim. People don’t want, they need gas more than computers.

Interesting to note also that the computer industry is one that is virtually unregulated in comparison to the energy market, which becomes obvious when you consider the rate of innovation and increase in value that freer market has displayed. I mention this in context of the cyclical nature of irrationality it illustrates. Entitlement inspires envy and hatred. The market is demonized, regulated, tweaked - all which drive up the price, which ignites more emotional chaos, which incites more do-gooding regulation. The cycle goes on. If only big-oil could market itself as trendy and hip! On the flip side, with some variance in degree due to more emotionally fulfilling aspects of computers, that industry is doomed to the same dichotomy of an existence subject to interference in direct proportion to the value it adds. I contend that as soon as computers are “needed”, the pioneers of the field will be clubbed just as oil execs.

I’m speaking to those of you with little ones - those who’ve felt the overwhelming boil of instantaneous love for a newborn - those of you who’ve awakened and stared at them for minutes just to confirm their breath - you who’ve had the burden of sleepless nights erased by the joyous first rays of morning light across their face. I’m writing to you.

I’m writing to you regarding a subject of unparalleled importance, your children - the ones that have your undivided attention - the ones that have your ears, your spouses eyes, and your fathers dimples - the ones that you’ve re-prioritized your entire life around - the ones you think about just before bed and when you first rise - the ones you can’t seem to take enough pictures or videos of - the ones you hope you’ll always vividly remember how it felt to hold, the sound of their breath, the magic of their laugh, the life in their smile.

Unfortunately, I write to warn you.

There is a man out to get your children. His mission is to take that precious life you are emotionally and morally bound to protect, to teach, to lead. He only insists, with at first a smile, but if resisted, will take by force, at gunpoint if needed. His reason is that the precious life you’d give yours for is not really yours. The work, the planning, the long nights, the financial adjustment, the pain of labor, the trials of parenting, the genetic bond, the portion of your life dedicated to their existence - means nothing. His claim is that they are only partially yours, and your rights expire at his whim. Consensus has privileged him with the invasive power to take your child, by force, and at the age of five (if not sooner) he’s coming to assume the role of shaping their mind, regardless of your discretion.

He does not value your opinion on the matter. It’s not up for debate. Your morals do not matter. Your philosophy does not matter. Your view of existence, and its roots, its values, its hurdles, its caves, its perils - do not matter. His view, his priorities, his opinion of what is important, what is real - is all that matters.

His goal is to shape your loved one into the form of his vision, as an integral part of his master plan. To him, your child’s aspirations, their goals, their strengths, their weakness, their passions are irrelevant. Their function is to exist as the man sees fit, just as yours.

Not only does he proceed with ignoring our rights to raise our children as we see fit, the man’s additional offense is perpetuating a system rank with incompetency, one infested with economic ignorance, moral decay, gross mismanagement of resources, and in place of true education, a rash of irrational indoctrination. Instead of reading, writing, science and math as a primary tenets, they serve as mere tinsel on a grand decorative of social engineering.

The man operates as if he owns both you and your child. Despite the horrible results conspicuous to all reasonable minds, his grin is a peaceful insistence that despite any claim, his intentions are good, and are all that matter. He simply wants you to ignore the results, and only focus on his intent - for you to concede that the ends justify the means.

There are individuals in the system that are moral, competent and effective. However, even the most competent and able mind can be rendered impotent in a system designed to fail, and driven on immoral premises. We must consider that even if his intents were genuinely good, and his system flawlessly rendered the most intelligent students in the universe, it would still be one erected on the grounds that his wishes trump a parents rights, a premise that is morally wrong - therefore we must not condone it.

The man is Uncle Sam. His role of benevolence has turned on us all. As a young man he stood for freedom, and the sovereignty of the individual. Now he has sunk into the champion of submission in favor of the group. He churns through our youth like cattle being prepped for slaughter. They’re herded in, flushed through the system, sprayed with subjectivist, anti-man, anti-life venom, with only remnants of real knowledge flashed in glimpses before it’s bluntly drilled into their memory not as understanding, but through hours of busywork. They are systematically dumbed down and propped up according to the latest subjective funding metric. Teachers and therapists are consistently compelled, if not forced, to act against their own and students’ best interest, whether it be for lack of funding to provide adequate materials, absurdly tedious paperwork, unmanageable caseloads or class size, or any combination of these. The nature of our current system is a gross injustice - trampling rights, wasting money, and corrupting minds.

I urge any of you who know the explosive joy and emotion that sparked when your little one announced his existence to pause and take a moment, an hour, of genuine reflection on the grim reality we’ve created. As parents we have a moral obligation to prepare our children for a productive and virtuous existence. How they revere life, the degree of which they acknowledge reality, their code of values, their scorn of such that destroys life; all are encompassed by our philosophical imprint on our children. The imprint that is rightfully ours to leave. Guidance in such areas of life are the proper role of parents, not strangers, politicians, activists, counselors, or professors. Education is the exclusive privilege of a child’s legal guardians within objective legal guidelines precluding abuse or neglect.

As rational, moral and free individuals, we must reclaim our inalienable right to shape the minds of our children by abolishing our current compulsory system. Socialized education is immoral, impractical and unconstitutional. It must end if our children are to be appropriately revered as the priority which they are.

By Craig Biddle of The Objective Standard

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology—on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day.

Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.

Exploiting the Earth—using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes—is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

Environmentalism is not concerned with human health and wellbeing—neither ours nor that of generations to come. If it were, it would advocate the one social system that ensures that the Earth and its elements are used in the most productive, life-serving manner possible: capitalism.

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual’s right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

The basic principle of environmentalism is that nature (i.e., “the environment”) has intrinsic value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of the requirements of human life—and that this value must be protected from its only adversary: man. Rivers must be left free to flow unimpeded by human dams, which divert natural flows, alter natural landscapes, and disrupt wildlife habitats. Glaciers must be left free to grow or shrink according to natural causes, but any human activity that might affect their size must be prohibited. Naturally generated carbon dioxide (such as that emitted by oceans and volcanoes) and naturally generated methane (such as that emitted by swamps and termites) may contribute to the greenhouse effect, but such gasses must not be produced by man. The globe may warm or cool naturally (e.g., via increases or decreases in sunspot activity), but man must not do anything to affect its temperature. And so on.

In short, according to environmentalism, if nature affects nature, the effect is good; if man affects nature, the effect is evil.

Stating the essence of environmentalism in such stark terms raises some illuminating questions: If the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

It comes down to this: Each of us has a choice to make. Will I recognize that man’s life is the standard of moral value—that the good is that which sustains and furthers human life—and thus that people have a moral right to use the Earth and its elements for their life-serving needs? Or will I accept the notion that nature has “intrinsic” value—value in and of itself, value apart from and irrespective of human needs—and thus that people have no right to exist?

There is no middle ground here. Either human life is the standard of moral value, or it is not. Either nature has intrinsic value, or it does not.