Short exposition on the decline of society in the US

With the latest school shooting in Connecticut, I've decided to cast my lens of knowledge upon just what the heck is wrong with the US as I see it. Oh good, here comes a nutjob rant. But not really.

Factor one is the news media. Here they are only willing to report on sensationalized "news", stuff that can be quickly spoon fed to the viewing audience and then discarded. The news is becoming 140 words, stuttering for sake of reporting. Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other as Israel continues to be an army of occupation. Bahrain is detaining and executing its own citizens who are trying to effect change. Yet this real news is just passing thought in the US news media. In their estimation, most Americans do not care what happens elsewhere in the world and would in fact prefer to hear the latest "news" about D-List celebrities. 

Factor two are social websites. Oh the horror of calling them out. As the world "shrinks" due to technological advances, people are becoming more isolated even though they are becoming more "social" online. What things like Facebook and the ilk offer are places for like-minded individuals to come together, and that is not a wrong thing. But, to borrow from Rorty's private language schema, groups who maintain a public facade are able to find other private-minded individuals who share their same beliefs. And that is where the true danger starts. While I am not calling for censorship, I am making clear that social media is a contributor to violence. Undeniably. 

Factor three is what I call the electronic babysitter. Twenty years ago it was just the television (and cable tv). Here in our present though it is the Wii, xbox, Netflix, Ninjafruit, iPads, ... The job of parenting has been outsourced to bits and bytes. While a child learns that an M-16 is an effective weapon against zombies, they are not learning the importance of eating vegetables, or why REM sleep is necessary for proper brain function. 

Factor four are the reality shows. But of course they do not involve any true form of reality. But what they do is implant the idea that no matter how screwed up a person is, or lazy, or conniving,  there is a good chance someone will pay them money to film it. Reality tv is like passing an accident on the freeway. You do not want to look but feel compelled. But that is where the similarity ends. Reality tv feeds entitlement. And that leads us to my final factor.

Five - 'merica. We laugh at sites like "People of Walmart" and others such as that. We spend hours adding captions to cat pictures. We expect our government to give us stuff, no matter the political leaning. In 'merica stuff just comes to us because we deserve it and if we don't get it we are pissed off. We are seeing a decline in life expectancy, a decline in worldwide educational standing, and yet we argue whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to use the word "marriage" to describe their coupling. 

Add any combination of the five factors together and it is not hard to see why children are grabbing guns and killing other children. Why men alone in cabins are gathering fertilizer and explosives together and driving them to federal buildings. Why there is a general malaise in this country in regards to virtually every topic that was once vitally important.

We, as Americans, are failing each other and ourselves. We have lost our integrity.

Does sex just feel good or is it objectification of others?

Without a doubt, sex is a physical act, one acted upon every second of each day by a myriad of creatures. Being human, we feel this "necessity" to pare it down to some sort of Davidsonian act, an act that needs the subconscious motivations explained. But do we?

In its simplest form, two (or more) beings engage in coitus. The base desire is procreation. It is something that is encoded in all known dna from elephants to amoebas. We couple with another, and not necessarily with a differing sex, because our genetics tell us we need to do so. Even Spock had to (Star Trek bonus points).

Being advanced creatures with few peers, or so we think, should we be above base instincts? Should we deny the animal within? And if we do not, why do we not?

Kant had the idea that sex was a degradation of human nature, a "necessary evil" almost. We participated because it was our nature to do so. To follow that line, one that could avoid having sex would be a more enlightened being. Hence chastity amongst religious sectors. In a nutshell, we have sex because we can't avoid it.

Davidson would argue (and Haack as well) that our need for sexual coupling may have nothing to do at all with fulfilling sexual need, but emotional ones or even naricissistic ones. We have sex because it appeases something other than a base instinct, from boredom to dominance of another.

Person 'A' finds person 'B' attractive. A's hormones begin to work against him/her and compel one to approach B for the sole intent of coupling. B accepts because of the same hormone reaction. What follows afterwards is not part of the sexual experience. It is the act itself that matters, the one that is in question.

In its simplest form, sexual congress is the conjoining of at least 2 individuals/creatures for the sole purpose of attempting to procreate. Whether that happens or not is moot. It is the act itself that matters. And it is in that act that Davidsonian/Pessimistic arguments fall to the wayside. Procreation overrules all other base desires.

As example, one finds another attractive. A to B. A has a subconscious reaction that causes A to desire to procreate, subconscious or not. What follows has nothing to do with the act itself. A may rape B or go home an masturbate or even have sex with C while thinking of B. In the end, the desire to attempt to procreate is satisfied.

In the end, as long as the desire to procreate is satisfied objectification of others and such is an extension of that desire and one that can be parsed from it. It is a perversion or sexual diet that while dependent upon procreation, uses it only as its initial source motivation. We have initially have sex because we want to create children. What follows once the clothes are removed can be entirely different.

Politics: duty, religion, and/or the masses?

A minister friend of mine was asked about the recent US election and the disappointment voiced by those who put their faith in their version of a god and saw their candidate lose. He was asked how people in this situation should react. It got me thinking about the political process and the philosophical implications behind it.

The two predominant philosophies are either a) do what is best for the most (Bentham, Mill) or b) do what is best for duty to the most (Hegel, Kant). Very similar and the subtle differences is where the argument begins. Neither assumes any religiosity but I will attempt to interject that position as well (to satisfy the above).

In the first case, the argument is that politics should reflect what is the best for the most people possible. Some would argue that this is a derivation of Socialism, and without minutiae it is. But this in no way suggests that the result of an election represent this in any way. Popular vote does not equal beneficial for the most. What would would be a person elected who has the primary task of determining what the largest group needs and then providing it. In no way does this reflect the idea that the will of the people does the most good.

What is lost here is the subtle implications of what "beneficial to most" really means. In Nazi Germany it meant what benefitted the Aryan people the most. Under the Holy Roman Empire, Catholics (the minority) were those who benefited the most. Both cases the true meaning of "most" is lost. In this case is where religion intercedes and determines not only who the "most" is, but how they would best be benefited. In short, it is a facade concealing a dictatorship.

The second case seems the most obvious, until one argues what a duty is. Kant wrote his magnum opus on just that question, as did Kant. And yet to this day the argument of what is "duty" is still unanswered. To use the Holy Roman Empire example, the duty of a person was to attend mass, tithe, and follow the edicts of the Church. This duty was one proscribed by "god". But while the Empire was in command of vast areas, those who were Catholic were in the actual minority. What then of the veracity of duty?

To borrow from Rorty's public/private language construct, if a group of serial killers and a group of suicidal people were to form their own country, then the duty would be clearly defined as the killers would kill those who wished to die. Of course this is a ludicrous example, but it does serve to illustrate the ambiguity of the concept of "duty".

How then to resolve? If one discounts duty as being illogical and best for all as impossible, then the only solution is to follow Nietzsche's solution to eternal recurrence: to do whatever one wishes that is outside what is expected. To be who one wishes to be without law or deference to others. It is the base concept behind his Zarathustra.

The argument goes that religion and duty only serve to shackle a person and since one is bound to live the same life for eternity, in order to not be a slave, one must cast the shackles off at every opportunity. Proto-anarchy. It is not pure anarchy, which is completely lawless. One still follows the laws that are beneficial to oneself, ones that would benefit all lifetimes for eternity. In this regard one incurs Existential angst, but the benefit outweighs the cost.

Wisdom gleaned from a kitten

If you are not comfortable enough with a person to sleep on them, question your need for them.

Focus on nothing; be aware of everything.

Never deny a nap.

If it looks impossible, try it anyways. You may succeed.

There is always something new to try.

Love just is.

If you are cold, seek heat.

Question's unasked shouldn't be.

There is no definitive bedtime. Tired, sleep.

Personality melts the iciest of hearts.

No matter how large the opponent, a well-placed strike will win the day.

Dogs are smelly...

Right and Wrong as language constructs

Earlier today I made the claim on my Twitter (@anthalus) that without religion there would be no such thing as evil. Of course that brought about a lively debate and many attempts to tell me I am wrong. And of course it lead here.

To put a sharp edge on the discussion, my position is this: that without the burden of religion good and evil simply would not exist. They can be viewed as a non-cognitive extension of right and wrong, which are cognitive (Hume, Moore). Yes, this is meta-ethics. Normative ethics are simply flavors that compose meta-ethics, much like the differing branches of religion are just different sects of Judaism.

So, that out of the way, on to the fun. A Biblical claim is that it is evil to covet a neighbor's wife, to lust for her. Now let's toss away the concept of evil. If one does covet one's neighbor's wife, what is the meta-ethical stance? How do we define "covet"? Is it wrong?

To covet one, we must desire one. That one "belongs" to another does not mean we can not covet this one. Our need to procreate is ingrained into our own RNA. By denying our desire we desire our own genetic drive. We do wrong by our own selves. From an Existential standpoint we deny our own genuineness.

A more extreme take could be that of killing another. Again it is an evil in religion. In some instances it is a forfeiture of one's mortal soul. But is killing another, taking a life, always evil, wrong? If it isn't then religion exists only at a normative ethical level.

So is it possible to kill someone and have it be right? The death penalty itself supports this position. So does vigilantivism. Is it more wrong, evil, to allow a serial killer to operate outside the law, or to find this one and take one's life? Or is it right?

The major difference between religious good/evil and meta-ethical right/wrong is the interpretation of the actions. Theoretically, in religion there is no interpretation. One does good or evil based on one's wants/needs. As is the case of non-cognitive ethics. But my argument is such: the actions of one is soley owned by the one, makes one genuine, and what one does is not subjective. The action itself draws the label. The reasoning/desire behind it are arbitrary.

We do what we do. It is either right or wrong. But it is always both good and evil because religion is ambiguous.

A Slave Unto Oneself

As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. MARTIN LUTHER KING, speech, Aug. 16, 1967 

The enslaving of the mind is akin to physical slavery and in fact, is a necessary step to enslave one. A body, a physicality, can not function outside the control of the mind. Hegel has argued that  if a man be a slave, then it is done through his own free will, and not that of the enslaver.

There are many forms of slavery, some literal and many less so. Are there any cases of slavery where one is not responsible for being the slave? Where one is enslaved entirely against one's will? Is Hegel wrong?

First off I need to address the question of non-possession, a principle of satyagraha. Basically it is the belief that one does not possess anything nor is possessed by anything. It is a circular argument much in the same way as arguing whether a person with a starving family who steals food to feed them is doing the moral/immoral thing. I will address non-possession in a future post. So I shall set it aside for now.

To narrow the scope of my argument, I will focus something Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables. Hugo claimed that slavery only applies to women and it is the case of prostitution.

There are obvious cases of women who choose to be prostitutes, and by extension adult film actresses. These women are not slaves as the are maintaining their commitment to their own absolute freedom. They choose to sell their bodies for sexual gratification in exchange for money or other arrangement. They are not slaves, but utilizing their free will.

Next are those that come to the profession through drugs/necessity. Both of these cases involve the women surrendering themselves to slavery with their full acknowledgment. They choose to take the drugs and lie that it is the addiction that makes them do so. Addiction is merely a state of being where one surrenders one's freedom to the affect of a drug. Combined with prostitution and it becomes a sort of double-slavery. Or they mount their bills to the point where all they see is the "quick money" of being a prostitute. They lie to themselves and say that they will only do it to pay off whatever they have to and then stop. If they were truly able to do that, they would not be slaves. But how few actually accomplish that?

Lastly are those that are stolen in the night and forced to become prostitutes through intimidation, violence, and addiction. In this last case is there an argument against them being slaves of their own will? For one to be abducted, one has to allow it to happen. A person who ultimately desires to maintain their absolute freedom would never allow oneself to be taken. All that follows the abduction are means to maintain control over one's desire for freedom. But it is the one who allows one's freedom to be usurped. Death, to paraphrase Hegel, is the ultimate expression of absolute freedom.

So aside from actively choosing prostitution, all other examples lead to slavery through one's own free choice. One surrenders their commitment to absolute freedom, exercises free will and  becomes a slave by choice.

Davidsonian Primary Reason vs Kant's Moralism as applied to love

Donald Davidson's idea of a Primary Reason can be summed as a reason causes an action. The prototypical example is you want light so you turn a light on. And sure it can be pared down to multiple reasons, such as being afraid of the dark or staying in a place that you can't navigate in the dark. But even then, Occam-wise you turn the light on because you want light.

Kant believed that for a thing to be moral (action), one must not benefit from it because that destroys its value. Giving a beggar money then is not moral because one could benefit from it because one feels better about one's own condition. Basically altruism does not exist, as argued earlier (http://thewhyquestion.blogspot.com/2011/03/altruism-aka-lie-we-tell-ourselves.html).

Love is defined as having affection and personal attachment for something. We can love bacon (reason) so we cook and eat it as often as possible (action). But we benefit from it because it fulfills our need to satiate our need to eat the bacon.

So how does this apply to what is considered a love between two persons?

Let's assume that love between two humans follows the standard definition. Person 1 and 2 love each other because each provides affection and a feeling of personal attachment for the other. They can be considered "in love". Love then is the action.

From the Davidsonian standpoint, what are the reasons for love? If we desire affection and personal attachment, then love is a Davidsonian "thing". What we do gets us what we want. There is no Existential angst involved.

But as far as Kant's morality goes, if we desire love and affection, love is not moral because we benefit from it. Our reasons cause an action that gives us what we desire and is therefore immoral. We must love without expectation of any kind to satisfy Kant.

And that brings us back to Davidson. Can we love without any expectations?

There are no instances of love that do not invoke actions. We can not love for the sake of love because even then the action of love is caused by the action of loving. And because we benefit from this it is not Kantian moral.

The conclusion then is that love is both Davidsonian and Kantian. Love is not moral and benefits us. Love is never altruistic and always beneficial. Love is simply something that benefits us.

Dictum on Human Consciousness

[NOTE: This is a post of mine from sometime around 2006 on a    philosophy forum. Figured it should come home here.]

I tend to have little faith in civilization building, because the only definition we have is a human one. Therefore I discount and do not acknowledge its role in defining superior consciousness. To go the anthropomorphic route, one could easily argue that ants build civilizations. They create buildings, which are quite complex, have a hierarchy with an executive and judicial branch, and have clearly defined jobs.

To use an entirely humanistic perspective, how much have we really evolved in the last 3000 years? 300? The Sear’s tower is little different than the pyramids at Giza, aside from the material differences. The Mayans had a technological level that to this day we can not understand. They were a group of people who had no metal weapons and were limited to obsidian ones, yet created buildings with such precision that the stones are still perfectly fitted together. With the industrial use of lasers, we have only just begun to replicate this feat. The ancient Sumerians were claimed to have sailed around the world, in the years of 2100 bce, 3500 years prior to Columbus. In our pompousness we attributed the tale to myth. In the 1980s, a replication of a Sumerian-style boat was built and was sailed from the Mediterranean to the East coast of South America, proving that the Sumerian tale could be correct.

If anything, we have regressed. Our knowledge of the stars is just now beginning to rival the Mayans, the Dogan tribe has worshipped a star for over 5000 years, and in the 80's we finally found that star. DaVinci's sketches in the late 1400s-early 1500s, of the workings of a human heart have just been validated within the last 5 years. We have launched satellites into orbit, yet the Chinese were capable of this close to 3000 years ago, and Newton proved the possibility of this in the 1600’s. DaVinci in the 1500s created drafts of such an object. On the DaVinci front, he drew a flying machine that had been discounted as impossible to take air, even though there are folk tales of a gigantic bird flying through the air during the time of his experiments. In the beginning of this century/millennia, his drawings were built and his flying machine was proved to be theoretically correct and possibly viable. He may have been the first human to fly, beating the Wright brothers by over 400 years.

I do not think at all that language is a measure of consciousness, for the simple reason that as humans we have a clear identification of language. We have no proof that "lower" life forms do not effectively communicate with the ability that we do. We simply have no understanding of their system. Ants and bees are able to communicate a great deal of information through scents, and dolphins and whales achieve the same thing through sonic and subsonic waves. It is our arrogance as humans that brings us down. Yes, language is a capacity shared by high intelligence creatures, but again, language can never be based on our human beliefs.

We have spent centuries espousing apes and monkeys as being our progenitors, based on genetic similarities, and because of this we have ignored other creatures along the way. Darwin (1800s) studied worms and found that they were capable of adaptation and discriminatory abilities which are usually reserved for more highly intelligent and supposedly more conscious creatures. In the last decade we have found that crows are capable of fashioning tools. Birds, in general, are capable of amazing feats (to humans) of geo-location. The lowly octopods, with brains that are very dissimilar to ours, are capable of complex problem-solving that human infants could never hope to achieve.

Consciousness has been argued as being either physical or non-physical, yet few have argued the possibility of both. With the invention of MRI and FLAIR and PET, as a species we have come closer to knowing where consciousness lies. Neuroscience has recently supported the view that glia are not “stuffing” in the brain, but complex neurotransmitters. Recently, scientists have learned that what was believed to be a hormone, estrogen, is actually a neurotransmitter. It is my belief that we are no closer to understanding the nature of human consciousness than Descartes.

Can computers attain consciousness? Yes, I believe so. But I do not think that it is possible in the least for computers to mimic a human's thought patterns. The “Chinese Room” could easily be solved by a computer running the index of coincidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_coincidence)

Would solving the “Chinese Room” measure anything viable or valid? Doubtful. A contention of mine is that no test developed by humans could ever successfully determine consciousness by the simple fact that we define it by our own beliefs.

Super String theory has stated that 13 dimensions are believed to be possible. Again our failing is humanity. Who are we to say that one of those dimensions is not one where computers are conscious? Philosophers like Dennet and Searle, and yes they are nothing more than philosophers (not a bad thing though) are human, and hence fallible. We can not be presumptuous enough to believe that our theories, based on human experience, can define a universal thing like consciousness. The best we can hope for is to define our particular brand.

Shelley's Frankenstein as an allegory for Socialism

There are many ways to critique a novel. Sadly the current vogue is to read it and offer what the reader thinks is prescient commentary. For those that majored in creative writing, English, they know that there are much better tools at hand.

Some would look at novels and analyze them from a religious or a feminist perspective. But the one that always appealed to me is the Marxist one. It is conjoined with my love of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy. In that vein, here is my take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (http://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Mary-Shelley/dp/0553212478) .

Initially one would assume that the novel is about how Victor Frankenstein plays "god" and creates another life and then is revolted by it. And that is one interpretation of it. Sure it works. One could argue that Victor was feeling Existential angst over the creation of, for lack of a better word, Adam.

But take into account Mary Shelley and the historical period she lived in. She was the daughter of William Godwin (political philosophy) and Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist philosophy). She had first-hand knowledge of the French and American Revolutions. She even at one point lived with William Baxter (a dissenter).

And yet, none of what she wrote in Frankenstein reflects her personal beliefs and life experiences.

Victor Frankenstein is clearly representative of the monarchy. He is all powerful and creates life from death, as any monarch could do with a simple writ. Move the serfs to a certain area and they either live or die. And with the English revolution of 1640 being represented, Victor's decision to kill the "monster" is what should have happened during the revolution, that the king should have destroyed all opposition and maintained absolute power.

And that is where the "monster" comes in. Because he was pieced together from many parts of many different people, he represents the idea that all the parts should contribute to the whole, a classless society or true Socialism. The "monster" represents not only the forces that won the English revolution but also the French one as well.

The "monster" appeals to Victor to create a mate for it and it promises to go away. And as Victor does so, he kills it. He does so in an attempt to save the monarchy and prevent the spread of Socialism throughout the world, because that would be the effect of the "monster" and the female procreating.

That Victor tries to kill his "monster" and is unsuccessful is a nod towards the belief that a classless society will always overcome a caste system with an absolute ruler at the top. Yes, the "monster" dies alone with Victor on the ice (after the monarchy he represents tries to conquer the world aka the British Empire), but it is not a hopeless death but one of a loving mentor, one knowing that the monarchy is dying but that Socialism will never really die.

Fate

In a recent conversation I told a friend that Fate was the same thing as Luck.The Lorenz attractor justifies this belief.

Luck is something that can be defined as something beneficial that happens to us that is not in our  direct control. Sort of like walking down the street and finding a $20 bill. The bill was lying there randomly and we were randomly walking there and found it. But it was all math.

Fate is something that pushes us towards a "thing". We choose to ride a bus and when we get off we walk into a person. That person is attractive to us and we exchange numbers. A year later we marry that person. That is Fate. And that is still math.

			(1)

The above is the math for the Lorenz attractor aka the Butterfly Effect. Basically, whatever we send out influences things and those things influence what we have to work with. This is what people who cite "yin yang" mistakenly identify with.

Fate and Luck are nothing more than the forces of Nature being influenced in such a way that it affects outcomes in our own lives. They are not mystical things at all, but results from computations. We do something that reverberates and that reverberation rebounds upon itself.

To return to the examples, the $20 bill could have been lost by anyone and found by anyone. A cop driving down the road could have found it. It was not our luck. Most likely we were following that path to get to a destination and just happened upon it.

To run into a person and then marry them? This is less Fate than something random. Any person we run into could be a person that we end up with, but for the most part, the people we run into are just random ones. Some can contribute to our lives and others are just background noise.

Is this an example of the Matrix? Maybe. We can never know if that's the actual truth...unless mathematics says so. But until disproved, Fate and Luck do not exist.

Life Update

Away from my life as a philosopher, I am a software engineer, and recently the startup I am part of has received funding. So that is where my time has been spent. But I am kicking around ideas for a new post here soon.

Sorry about the lag.

To not play the game of life

To paraphrase a friend, "the real us is never shown as we embrace the illusion, the game." I have to ask whether this is actual truth. Do we show each potential mate/partner/friend the make believe version of ourselves? Do we play mental and emotional chess with them? Is there a dividend that we earn that makes the deception worthy?

Historically people have fallen into cliques. Whether it is man v. woman to ivy league educated male v. coal mine supervisor male, there are cliques and they are always in opposition to other ones. To break this idea down further, are we our own clique? Do we selectively allow others to see the more "real" us, as opposed to making others "earn" their way into our own clique?

From the earliest we are taught to protect ourselves against all others, whether it is the subconscious lessons we have learned from our parents to the outright lessons of childhood. We learn to hide within ourselves. We must not be different. We must be what society expects us to be. And this is bullshit.

We look within and know we are not the personae that we pretend to be. We are the source of our own existential angst. Society expects "x" and we deliver. This is why homosexuality is taboo and still kept "in the closest" in many societies. It is why the religious cling to outdated idealism like marriage being between man and woman.

Nietzsche brought the idea of the Superman forth with Zarathustra. It complete defiance of social "norms" of being what one is expected to be. Nietzsche reminds us that if we wish to be something/someone that is known for all time, to be something other than a sheep, that we need to abandon the preconceived notion of who society thinks we need to be. We will be as we will be. Fuck society.

So how do I answer the friend about hiding the real us as part of the game?

When we lower ourselves to play the game, to be who we are not, to leave vague clues for others to puzzle out, we cheapen who we really are because we allow ourselves to become common, to become sheep. When we are able to hold ourselves above all others, without excuse, we attract those who are our equals, those who understand that we must rise above the mundane and be true to our own spirit/will. To be Zarathustra.

Buddhist concept of mindfulness

There is a concept in Buddhism known as mindfulness (satipatthana). In it's simplest form it means to be in the moment at all times. A person should always "live in the moment" so to speak. Is this something that should be practiced? How is it beneficial and/or dangerous?

To be mindful, one has to have triggers to keep the mind in the moment. How many times have we just zoned out watching inane stuff on the television or while driving? Being mindful this does not happen. We have a predetermined trigger that reminds us of being in the moment, whether it is counting our breaths, an alarm, or something else, something that reminds us to be mindful. To be mindful we must see all around us, absorb and filter it, and gather wisdom instantly. This short-circuits reflecting upon past events. Not essentially a bad thing, but definitely an adjustment. The practice of being mindful requires constant vigilance. And that, to me, appears to go against what is the essence of Buddhism. How can one be mindful and be true to Buddhist principles?

Picture the scenario of living one's life in a potentially dangerous city. One is aware and aloof at once. Danger is all around, and the mind is prepared for it and scanning for it, but at the same time one is not concerned by it. One sees all and filters it into categories of normal, new, dangerous, and boring. The mind registers the prominent stuff. One is mindful.

Suggest a topic

If there is a topic that you'd like for me to write about, feel free to post it in the comments. My specialty is First School Critical Theorists, but I also love Theory of Mind, and Philosophy of Religion. But don't feel limited to those. I love a challenge.

For 2012 I plan on posting at least once a month (good plan). We shall see if that happens...