The rocks by the shore

The rocks by the shore are safe, you pick your steps and progress comfortably. Rocks in my picture, are words. The water is what you suspect must be there, everybody has some sense of that reality surely. Don't look to the horizon, or even the shoreline. The water is closer. 

And furthermore

It could be words are floating leaves, falling on, following on, a sea of numbers. This is one picture of the relation of words and numbers, a relation, -- involving the question of the ontological status of mathematics --that no one claims to finally, clearly, incontrovertibly, understand. The interesting history of 20th century philosophy involves a strained focus on words. But if you don't understand numbers, how could you claim to know what words are?

About Nelson Mandela....

Listen and you can hear the uncomfortable shuffling of people in positions of power subsequent to the news of Mandela's death. 

And another thing to consider: The bravery and integrity of such a man --- not forgetting his fame reflects how rare that is -- is still a shadow of the silent stature of the real teachers in history -- those figures who point to an invisible border. 

Why are plane crashes newsworthy

We do hear about plane crashes in the news, and I have to assume most people do, since my locale is a backwater. Yet I hear about helicopter crashes, on up to jet liners. Big planes you can kind of understand because the potential death rate number could be quite high. Yet even then, the number would not be a tiny fraction of the population of the planet. Car crashes don't make the international news often, though they can be quite dreadful. 

The answer came to me, AN answer, shortly after the question. Planes make the planet smaller in a way which may reflect the dimensions of Humanity. The fact we are all, as people,  part of something larger grates on the nerves of some scholars, yet the fact peaks out (peeks out) when you look at the question I posed. The plane crashes are universal in a way, affecting perhaps a large portion of the planet. Plane make the planet smaller and larger at the same time. Smaller because people can arrive at far places quicker. Larger because Humanity becomes aware of itself when news items about crash events are broadcast. Aware of itself as a single unit, as Humanity. You are alert to news about aerial crashes because you, unwittingly often, are aware, it is news about yourself. 

Thorn gardens

Conspiracy theorists declare nothing except their unwitting belief in binary logic. Their assumption in fact is that reality can be swept up and recounted from tiny boxes. The whole billowing and irreducible human ignorance and majestic uncertainty that we know is a factor in everything cannot sway their need to assert. Not that the academics have therefore a compelling explanation -- that would be a binary conclusion. Theorist versus theoretician --- just another binary gap to raise suspicions. 

Theories about conspiracy theories

They all overestimate the realm and rigging of the human intellect, or to be more precise, the binary functioning of that human capacity. People say the odds of a loner carrying off the assassination of a leader of a free world are slim,and therefore is an argument for multiple conspirators. This argument betrays an assumption about the fitness of binary thinking to evaluate the world. In fact the plans of men are flimsy at the best. Darn dumb luck explains little except the liklihood of man's plans occasionally appearing efficacious.

My comments are meant to illuminate not the heroes or villains -- little difference from a certain perspective -- but how the logic of any theorist can go astray. I of course know nothing about what happened, but something about how people think and what they are loathe to investigate within themselves. 

You can only define the dead

This occurred to me while I was revising the book. Of course in the case of Jan Cox, his reach was so multi directional, that the normal idea of beginning and end is to drastically distort his life and effect. Still any definition only points to --- what is already moldering.