INTELLECTUALISM: “Your Mind is an Excellent Servant, but a Terrible Master” / David Foster Wallace ☮

David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and university professor in the disciplines of English and creative writing. This speech is from his graduation address at Kenyon College in 2005.

The most profound ideas are the most difficult to articulate because they express thoughts that transcend words. Many of us struggle through life because we are stuck in our “default setting”, where we unconsciously see ourselves as the absolute center of the universe. David Foster Wallace presents an alternative way to see the world in this timeless speech.

APHORISM: “On Ash Wednesday and Ass Rape” / Madison S. Hughes ☮

By Madison S. Hughes (02.22.2012)

Today the world’s oldest international organized crime syndicate, currently leading the world in its child-raping ring, the Roman Catholic Church, celebrates Ash Wednesday.

Today the willfully ignorant literalists, and child rapists, symbolically show their repentance before their imaginary celestial dictator. The willfully ignorant literalists will obediently follow each other to their tax-exempt child rape houses of worship. There, the socially accepted, admired, and tolerated child raping Priests will place ceremonial ashes in the shape of a torture symbol, known as a crucifix, on their non-thinking, credulous followers heads.

As the carnival season ceases, and this first day of Lent launches, another countdown commences to Zombie Jebus day some fortyish days henceforth. In the meantime, while those of the limited and literal mind show-off their piousness to the many, and willful ignorance to few, let those few with the advanced ironic and inquiring minds, engage in some very basic mathematics:

Given:

– Number of Days in Lent = 40 (rounded for easy numbers)
– Number of Priests on Earth = 500,000 (rounded for easy numbers)

Assumption:

– The leading child-rape ring, the Roman Catholic Church, and its Priests have never been brought to justice for the atrocities of their past child-raping behavior; therefore, the child-raping behavior of Catholic Priest will remain constant for the next forty days.

Find:

1. How many innocent children will be raped by Catholic Priests between Ass Wednesday and Zombie Jebus Day?

2. Of those innocent children that will be raped by Catholic Priests, what percentage of their willfully ignorant literalist parents will continue to defend the world’s oldest international organized crime syndicate, and their child-raping Priest?

3. Why are those of us with the audacity to trumpet this considered the assholes, while those that are actually violating children’s assholes considered righteous?

4. Why do you keep calling me Pollyanna?

PSYCHOLOGY – ANALYTICAL: “Carl Jung’s Theory on Introverts, Extraverts, and Ambiverts” / Sprouts ☮

Introversion and extraversion are terms first coined by psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland of the 1920’s. According to Jung, an extravert seeks intensive contact with the outside world. An introvert instead turns the psychic energy inwards. Jung believed that no one is 100% extravert or 100% introvert instead we carry both traits. However most minds tend lean either on one side or the other. If both characteristics are equally present, we can speak of someone who has has an ambivert personality.

HAPPY HITCH DAY! “The Hitch” / Documentary / Christopher Hitchens ☮

WHITE EVANGELICAL CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN CULT: “Is the Trump Presidency a Religious Cult? / Reza Aslan” ☮

Are fundamentalist Christians a dangerous religious cult? Possibly. The controversial author and religious scholar Reza Aslan posits that President Donald Trump has much of his evangelical fan-base believing that he’s somehow been anointed by God to become President. Nevermind the Russian election scandal, his affairs with porn stars and unwarranted sexual acts towards women, or his inability to remember even a single Bible verse when asked. Evangelical Christians are abandoning their core moral beliefs to follow, as Reza suggests, someone who exhibits every trademark of a cult leader.

INTELLECTUALISM: “Why Populism is the Greatest Con in America” / Martin Amis / MUST WATCH ☮

here is no substitute for thinking—although modern-day America may have you believing otherwise. Novelist Martin Amis attributes the recent surge in anti-intellectualism to the populist politics sweeping the United States. “Populism relies on a sentimental and, in fact, very old-fashioned view that the uneducated population knows better in its instincts than the over-refined elite. That leads to anti-intellectualism, which is self-destructive for everyone.” The rejection of rationality and analysis is something politicians can easily capitalize on, and Amis refers to President Trump as a plutocrat in populist’s clothing. “It’s profoundly hypocritical because his policies do not favor the working man… It’s an act, populism. Always an act.” Are the American people being conned, and is a return to elitism the answer? Martin Amis is the author of The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Essays and Reportage, 1994-2017.