They Do Exist!

They Do Exist!

Let me tell you a story about when I was a kid
See, I was confused and here's what I did.
I said "irrational number, what’s that supposed to mean?
Infinite decimal, no pattern? Nah, can't be what it seems."
So I dismissed them and called the teacher wrong.
Said they can't exist, so let’s move along.
The sad thing is that nobody seemed to mind.
Or maybe they thought showing me was a waste of time.

Then one teacher said "I can prove they exist to you.
Let me tell you about my friend, the square root of two."
I figured it'd be the same ol' same ol', so I said,
"Trying to show me infinity is like making gold from lead"
So he replies, "Suppose you're right, what would that imply?"
And immediately I thought of calling all my teachers lies.
"What if it can be written in lowest terms, say p over q.
Then if we square both sides we get a fraction for two."

He did a little math and showed that p must be even.
Then he asked, "if q is even, will you start believing?"
I stood, amazed by what he was about to do.
But I responded, "but we don't know anything about q"
He says, "but we do know that p squared is a factor of 4.
And that is equal to 2 q squared, like we said before."
Then he divided by two and suddenly we knew something about q.
He had just shown that q must be even too.

Knowing now that the fraction couldn't be in lowest terms
a rational expression for this number cannot be confirmed.
So I shook his hand and called him a good man.
Because for once I could finally understand
a concept that I had denied all my life,
a concept that had caused me such strife.
And as I walked away from the teacher's midst,
Excited, I called him an alchemist and exhaled "THEY DO EXIST!"

My Thoughts on the Rally to Restore Sanity

I've seen a lot of people thinking this rally was just a bunch of young folk with nothing better to do gathering together to watch a funny-man perform a skit with some musical interludes. Just because it wasn't a rally against the war, or in favor of LGBT rights, or workers rights, or some other specific cause doesn't make it a rally about nothing.

Jon summed it up in his closing speech. Jon speaks about it on TDS every night. Every skit and all the songs performed addressed it in one way or another. The media has a role in a functioning democracy. And when all the media does is point fingers and preach fear, the media is not doing that job.

There's a quote by Carter G. Woodson from "The Mis-education of the Negro", "When you control a man's mind, you need not worry what he'll do". This addresses a line of thinking that was prevalent in his time that the educated Blacks didn't have a responsibility to give back to their communities. That same quote applies today.

What Jon Stewart's rally was about isn't just one particular issue. It isn't about GOTV, or endorsing the democratic party or progressive issues. IMO, its bigger than all that. Because if we're not thinking, if we're just going to repeat what we've heard, and if the media both promotes and encourages this type of action, then the very foundation of our democracy is questionable.

If, instead of enlightening people's viewpoints on interactions between Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Buddhists, all the media does is say that each group should just fear the others, then it makes it very hard for any agreement to be reached.

If instead of discussing gender equality issues, homosexuality issues, workers rights issues, etc., the media is just a source of propaganda, then the truth has little chance of seeing the light.

In my opinion, the rally was all about this message. And it was delivered to a smart crowd who understands whats at stake, not just in the election, but with the corporations getting rulings like the recent supreme court ruling that they can buy all the ad time they want, or with corporations finding ways to ship jobs overseas, or with wall street finding ways to take greater gambles with their money, all that and more.

To sum this up as a rally to promote couch potato do nothingism sponsored by a corporate giant with a friendly face plastered on front is a very narrow an IMO naive viewpoint.

The Black Church

I've been calling for a reevaluation of the impact of the church on Black America for a while. I think there are a lot of good messages out there that talk about being sheep vs actually willing to challenge the principles of your religion and say "I disagree with the Bible" - shocking, I know. But if we accept what Jesus says that the only way NOT to get into heaven is to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, then that may be saying that what we really need to do is what Jesus did and start going into temples and knocking over tables and challenging preachers.

I read King's autobiography and Phillip Gulley's book, "If God is Love", which both really challenged some of the principles I was taught growing up (a main one being that Gandhi went to hell). So much of the church "conversation" is really repeating a few select scriptures (John 3:16), but rarely do I hear people even willing to talk about what they should do when two verses seem to conflict one another (ex, Jesus saying that anyone who follows his command will be called a follower of Christ vs Paul defining Christians to be those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ).

Starting a new religion is kinda pointless to me, but I'd love for the church not to try to appoint people (pastors/bishops/popes/priests/etc) as God's "chosen people" as if their word comes straight from God with an ultimate understanding that we mere peasants couldn't think to understand, so we should just accept it.