Infrequently Answered Questions
6/29/10 What? What.
Infrequently Answered Question #48: Are any of the questions in I.A.Q. for real?
A: The questions in I.A.Q. are indeed infrequently answered. They're also infrequently asked. Though if the question is, have other people actually written in and asked these questions, I confess the answer is no.
All the same the questions are real, they take the proper form of questions as they contain the who, what, when, where, how and/or why as per usual in questions. They also end in a question mark which makes any statement a question. That makes them questions? That makes them questions. See? Si.
Anyway, if they weren't real they wouldn't show up on screen when you go to terrycolon.com. You'd have to be dreaming or hallucinating. How real are dreams and hallucinations? They're real dreams and hallucinations.
But now I'm talking in circles and parsing the meaning of is and getting into the pointless topic of is reality real. You know, like wondering if we are all nothing but brains in vats experiencing the world only in the mind. Which I say is pointless because even if we were brains in vats the world that exists in our minds works just the same as if it were a physical reality. So it's a difference which makes no difference which is no real difference.
6/1/10 Elemental States
Infrequently Answered Question #47: What's with the medieval belief in four elements? How could they think fire was an element?
A: There is a tendency amongst some to be a bit smug toward past thoughts and ideas. You know, we're modern and scientific and the ancients believed so much superstition, they just didn't understand like we clever folks do today. But what if the misunderstanding is on our part? We don't understand what they understood because ideas and meanings were lost in transmission and translation over time.
Let's examine the old idea of the four elements, the cosmos consisting of earth, water, air and fire. How silly, we think. Was it? Instead of the word 'element' what if we substitute the phrase 'state of matter' in its place. Now the ancient's thinking aligns with current thinking of four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.
Now then, let's replace the four old elements with an obviously corresponding state of matter. Earth is solid, water is liquid, air is gas, fire is plasma. In this case the ancient concepts are the same as the modern concept. And they beat us to the punch by 2,500 years without any modern instruments.
Who looks like the clever ones now?
The ancients had the insight that fire and lightning represent an essentially different regime of matter than ordinary air. Furthermore, the great electrical pioneer Michael Faraday was aware the ancients were aware. As he said, "It was what the ancients believed, and it may be what a future race will realise."
5/6/10 Who’s on First?
Infrequently Answered Question #46: Is prostitution really the world's oldest profession? What's second?
A: Hard to say. Is prostitution a profession or a trade? Or is it just a job? If prostitution is trading sex for money we'd need to go back to when money was invented. What's the first money and what did it buy? Was money invented to pay for sex? Do any of these questions make sense?
If you care for hearsay, I seem to remember reading somewhere that male chimps will trade food for sex. Or you could say female chimps trade sex for food since we're talking about hookers here and not johns. At any rate of bananas or dollars it takes two to tango because as somebody-or-other said, "dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal situation." If you ever saw real Argentine cabaret tango, perhaps the original dirty dancing, you'd know that's the case.
Which might well mean prostitution is, if not the oldest, certainly one of the oldest professions. The second oldest profession is the punch line of jokes. This can be lawyers, politicians, priests, witch doctors, mercenaries, or whomever you'd like to insinuate is a whore.
Then again, perhaps tool-making was the first profession. Or spear making was the first and arms dealer was second. Or maybe farming, tanning, weaving, potting, or basketry. I mean, all those ancient johns had to make money somehow or other to pay the ancient hookers, right?
4/7/10 Thrifty Shrift
Infrequently Answered Question #45: I've heard of giving short shrift, is there long shrift? What is shrift anyway?
A: Shrift is the act of confession. Also called shriving, though not by many people that I've ever heard. Then again I'm not Catholic, maybe it's used in those circles.
Now then, if a father confessor is lax, inattentive, or generally lazy and not performing his full duty of hearing confessions, that's giving short shrift. If the confessor tells the parishioner, "Can you wrap it up? I've got a tee time in an hour." that's giving short shrift. If a parishioner hears "Leave your confession at the sound of the beep." that's giving short shrift.
I could explain more fully, but that'll have to suffice. That's right, I'm giving short shrift.
3/23/10 Nothing for Nothing
Infrequently Answered Question #44: What causes poverty?
A: Nothing causes poverty. Or rather doing nothing.
You might as well ask what causes virginity. Or what causes chastity, or non-pregnancy. It's not what is done, it's what is not done that matters. Not having sex causes them. Put another way, everything else besides having sex causes virginity.
If all this sex talk makes you uncomfortable, you might ask what causes no bullet train from New York to Chicago. Because one was never built.
Poverty isn't actually caused because it's not defined by what is, but what isn't. Not by what happened, but what did not happen. Poverty is a negative state like silence. Nothing causes silence, you get silence when nothing is making noise. Silence, like virginity or not having a bullet train, is the default setting. Same with poverty which is the default setting when nothing happens to create wealth.
As they say, you'll never get rich by digging a ditch. That depends on what you might dig up or what you do with said ditch that's a money-maker. More accurately, you'll never get rich by NOT digging a ditch. Unless the government starts a ditch program to pay folks for not digging ditches like farm programs that pay people for not farming.
Which sounds suspiciously like a protection racket where a business pays the mob for not burning down the store. Though the government does it ass-backwards where the government is the extorted. But since it's the taxpayer's money... you do the math.
3/7/10 Soup to Nuts
Infrequently Answered Question #43: What do squirrels eat when they can't find acorns?
A: Pizza. At least I saw a squirrel on top of the garage eating a slice of cold pizza the other day. They also eat corn. Well, they ate all the corn I tried to grow in the back garden. They like eating out of bird feeders, too. So they must eat what birds eat.
I don't know what the birds, mice, possums, and other suburban wildlife eat, but they get by as there's plenty of critters hereabouts. Still, when I look out at the yard I don't see much of anything I'd call food. But then, I'm not a squirrel and don't eat raw acorns, which I think are poisonous to people. Which might explain why there's no acorn granola. Maybe.
Of course, some wildlife eats our leftovers which we conveniently supply in easy-open plastic bags or garbage cans. Just the other night I surprised a possum having a snack in the garbage can. Or maybe it just surprised me. Hard to tell what a sluggish possum is feeling as they don't react much one way or another. This one just sat there, playing possum. Though being an actual possum it wasn't playing at it.
While I don't recall ever seeing it firsthand, I suppose squirrels eat our trash, too. How else to explain the cold pizza.
2/11/10 Keeps Growing and Growing...
Infrequently Answered Question #42: Why does my hair keep growing longer, but my dog's fur stays the same length all the time?
A: Continually growing hair is God's gift to barbers providing them with a job. Basically barber shops and hair salons are nature's stimulus projects. The punch line, God thinks he's Keynes.
OK, not really. Notice the hair on your arms and legs and nether regions doesn't keep growing and growing, only the hair on your head. See, human heads are special, they contain the human brain which is special. So human head hair is special and animal head fur isn't. Which makes as much sense as the Keynesian proposition, but is all I got.
Though it doesn't explain male pattern baldness, except that it's special, too. Since not everyone goes bald, bald people are more special than the hairy-headed who are just special. Then again, your average Chinese and Native American doesn't have much in the way of facial hair, beards, which might make them extra more special.
All the same, have you ever seen a Native American with male pattern baldness? I haven't. Which means that bearded bald guy at the powwow calling himself Laughing Eagle probably isn't special at all but is faking it. On the other hand, a bearded, bald, Native American woman would be very extra more special.
Thing is, if you visit Gallup, New Mexico you might discover Native Americans dress like cowboys rather than "Injuns" nowadays. What does all this have to do with hair and fur? Nothing. Which is about as much as I know about the difference between the two. Sorry.
1/24/10 Maybe May Be (Not)
Infrequently Answered Question #41: Do you believe in UFOs?
A: No and yes. Which is the answer of an open-minded skeptic or a weasel. I'll leave which for you to decide.
If the question is, do I think we are being visited by extraterrestrials from distant planets... seems highly unlikely considering the vast distances involved. Even at light speed the e.t.a. would give pause to the most intrepid explorer or avid tourist Marvin the Martian in a flying saucer.
Imagine a cross-Antarctica trip, only the road is straight and flat the whole way and you go at night so there's nothing to see along the way. Oh yes, and it takes 100 years. What with the lack of rest stops along the way you'd have to bring everything you'll need for the trek, gas, food, change of underwear and so on. That's one mighty big RV.
On the other hand, if you planned to explore a distant planet it might make sense to instead send an unmanned probe, a robot ship. Still, if you were on the other side of the galaxy how would you know Earth was a good place to eyeball up close and personal? Could you even detect an Earth-sized planet a hundred light-years away?
So from highly unlikely I go to no.
The yes part of the answer is a quibble. UFO means unidentified flying object. So then, whenever there's a flying object that goes unidentified, it's a UFO. I suppose this happens from time to time, and being unidentified it remains a UFO. Still, jumping from unknown thingy in the sky to alien spaceship is quite a leap.
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