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Henry Charles Lea's father, Isaac Lea (1792-1886) was a distinguished naturalist and member of the American Philosophical Society. Descended from a Philadelphia Quaker family, Isaac Lea was born in Wilmington, Delaware. From 1807 to 1814 he was a wholesale importer in Philadelphia in business with his brother John. Because of his military service in the War of 1812, Isaac Lea lost his birthright membership in the Society of Friends. On March 8, 1821, he married Frances Anne Carey (1799-1873), daughter of Mathew Carey, the Philadelphia publisher. Mathew Carey, born in Ireland in 1760, came to the United States in 1784, escaping prosecution by the British government for his outspoken criticism of Britain's Irish policy. During a period of exile in Paris, Carey had met Benjamin Franklin, for whose print shop he worked at Passy. When Carey arrived in Philadelphia, Lafayette provided him with financial assistance to publish a periodical, The Pennsylvania Evening Herald. From this beginning Carey went on to develop Philadelphia's most successful publishing house, which printed the works of Thomas Jefferson, Parson Weems, Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, and the first quarto Bible of American manufacture, in both the Douay version and the Authorized version. [See Rowe's study of Mathew Carey (1933) and Kaplan's study of Mathew's son Henry Charles Carey (1931); also Bradley's biography of Lea (1931), pp. 22-35.] Upon his marriage in 1821, Isaac Lea entered this firm, then called Mathew Carey and Sons. [The names and dates of this firm are: Carey, Stewart & Co., 1792-1817; M. Carey & Sons, 1817-1822; H. C. Carey & I. Lea, 1822-1827; Carey, Lea, & Carey, 1827-1833; Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833-1838; Lea & Blanchard, 1838-1850; Blanchard & Lea, 1851-1865; Henry C. Lea, 1865-1885; Lea Brothers & Co., 1885-1908; Lea & Febiger, 1908-1995.] Henry Charles Lea entered the firm in 1843 and became a partner in 1851. From 1865 to 1880 he carried on the business alone; he then retired to devote his time to academic studies, leaving the management of the firm to his sons.
Henry Charles Lea, the second surviving son of four children was born in Philadelphia on September 19, 1825, and was educated at home. [The first child, Matthew Carey Lea (1st) died in 1822, the year of his birth. The surviving children are Matthew Carey Lea (2nd) (1823-1897), Henry Charles Lea (1825-1909), and Frances Lea (1834-1894). See Bradley 1931, page 16.] His tutor was Eugenius Nulty, a native of Ireland, who taught Henry Lea and his older brother, Matthew Carey Lea (called Carey) lessons in Latin, Greek, the major European languages, mathematics, chemistry, botany, and celestial navigation. From the start Henry Charles Lea was encouraged to master much more difficult lessons than would be expected for a boy his age; he had a ready facility for languages and analytical thought (Bradley 1931, 42). Henry and Carey worked in the chemical laboratory of Booth & Boy'; this experience led to Henry's first published paper--at age 13--on the topic of the salts of manganese. Carey went on to pursue a career as a private researcher in chemistry, pioneering in the field of photographic chemistry. Henry followed his father's interest in natural history and wrote several papers on descriptive conchology. From his father Henry Charles Lea also learned to appreciate and collect art. During a trip to Italy in 1852, Isaac Lea acquired and brought back to the United States one of the finest collections of Italian art in America at that time. Henry had a talent for drawing. He illustrated his own early articles on the fossil shells that he had collected. His drawings were used for the engravings illustrating his father's revision of the Synopsis of the Naiades in 1838. Through his mother's influence, Henry Charles Lea developed an interest in poetry. He translated works from the Greek poets and composed verse himself. As he grew older, he delighted in writing satirical parodies of popular songs on political subjects.
In 1847, when he was twenty-two years old and had been working in the family publishing firm for four years, Lea suffered a nervous breakdown which caused him to abandon his intellectual and scientific work for some time (Bradley 1931, 77). During his period of convalescence Lea began reading French memoirs of the medieval period. They kindled his interest in medieval history and changed his career course from scientist to historian. Lea suffered from recurring bouts of nervous exhaustion throughout his life, often brought on by his tendency to overwork. In a letter to Dr. Edouard Montet, dated 22 December 1893, Lea describes his illness as neurasthenia and relates how he undertook sea voyages in his yacht Vega to aid in his recovery. He was treated by his friend Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, one of the country's most prominent doctors in the field of nervous disorders. Lea's highly disciplined habits of work enabled him to continue to write even as he suffered from headaches and problems with his eyes. He was extraordinarily productive during the final twenty-five years of his life.
On 27 May 1850, Henry Charles Lea married Anna Caroline Jaudon (1824-19?), his first cousin. Anna Jaudon's younger sister, Elizabeth Lea Jaudon, married Henry C. Lea's brother, Matthew Carey Lea, two years later. Henry Charles Lea's first child, Francis Henry Lea (1851-1902), was known as Frank. The second child was Charlie (Charles Matthew, 1853-1927). Anna Lea (1855-1927) was known as Nina, and the youngest child, Arthur Henry Lea (1859-1938), became his father's literary executor and literary heir: he is the Lea family member (besides Henry C. Lea) most often represented as a correspondent in these papers.
By the time of Arthur's birth the family had moved (in 1857) from 1427 Spruce Street in Philadelphia, where the three older children were born, to 3903 Spruce Street. In 1869 Lea moved to 2000 Walnut Street where he had built a large double house with a library for his growing acquisitions of books. Also in 1869 Henry Charles Lea built a home at 9 Grant Street in Cape May, New Jersey, where he then spent his summers writing. Towards the end of his life, he spent as much time as possible in Cape May, writing prolifically, and taking walks to collect and study botanical specimens--a pursuit that he began in childhood and enjoyed throughout his life.
The Civil War Years
During the American Civil War Lea was a member of the Union League of Philadelphia and head of its publication committee. He authored a number of the pamphlets published by the League. He founded the Union League of the Twenty-fourth Ward, where he lived in West Philadelphia, in order to ensure the home defense of his area of the city. In 1863 he was appointed one of the Bounty Commissioners under the Enrolment Act and served until 1865, working closely with Provost Marshal General James B. Fry (1827-1894) and members of his office with the accounting for the quotas of men from the city of Philadelphia. In this capacity he became involved with the efforts to recruit African American regiments to fight in the Union army. Lea compiled a number of scrapbooks to preserve clippings of maps of battles fought during the Civil War; he was particularly interested in the defense of harbors. During 1863 he sent his wife and family to New Hampshire for their safety and wrote frequent letters to his wife which describe the reports from the Battle of Gettysburg (copies of some of these letters are preserved in the collection).
Civic Affairs and Politics
Henry Charles Lea was outspoken on issues involving public projects and public health in Philadelphia. He vigorously opposed the building of City Hall at the Penn Square location at the intersection of Broad Street and Market Street (then known as High Street) where it now stands, preferring instead that it be built in Washington Square, near Independence Hall. The project cost too much, and Lea was angered by the political corruption involved in the contracts and building materials for the project. Lea planned and held a large public meeting at the Academy of Music to recruit support for his alternative to the Penn Square project. Along with other concerned citizens he filed a lawsuit in 1884 opposing the building of a large slaughterhouse on the Schuylkill River at Thirtieth and Spruce streets on land owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, citing the pollution of the river, the stench, and devaluation of properties near the plant. He opposed the construction of the Market Street elevated train, over properties he owned on Market Street. He also opposed building the "boulevard" from City Hall northwest to Fairmount Park, where the Philadelphia Museum of Art was later built.
In 1871 Lea became a founding member of the Citizens' Municipal Reform Association of Philadelphia, organized to oppose patronage, ballot fraud, and corruption in the city-owned Gas Works. Lea was chairman of the Executive Committee and served as vice-president and president. In 1872 Lea founded the Reform Club, a private club men of social standing who would act to effect political reform in the city. Lea served as president of the Reform Club and was honored at a special dinner at the Club in 1874.
Lea had a great sense of humor about politics, writing parodies of popular songs, such as this one on the subject of vote fraud in Philadelphia:
The Battle-Song of the Rounder
Come, all ye jolly
Come, all ye bummers bold;
For we have got a job to do,
As we have done of old.
Come, Gopher Bill, and Rummy Dick,
And Educated Hog,
Six months you've loafed at our expense--
You now must earn your grog.
Ten thousand bogus voters
Are registered all right,
And you must vote them every one
By six o'clock to-night.
Each captain take his gallant squad
And march them round the town.
Here are the names for every man--
Mistake not Smith for Brown!
from "Songs for the Politicians," 1872
These he printed up as pamphlets and published in a newspaper called The Right Way, printed by Lea in 1872 and illustrated with cartoons depicting the "Educated Hogs" and the bosses who were running Philadelphia's city government.
In 1873 Lea sailed to Europe on a voyage to benefit his health. Shortly after his arrival there he received news of the death of his mother and returned to the United States after only three days in London. He returned to England in 1879, again under doctor's orders to rest, particularly to rest his eyes, because his sight appeared to be failing. In the spring of 1880 Lea's "overworked nervous system" as he describes it in a letter to his friend W. E. H. Lecky (15 February 1882) again collapsed, just as Henry C. Lea was retiring from running the publishing business and anticipating devoting all his time to historical research and writing (Bradley 1931, 158-164). In December of 1880 he purchased the schooner Stephen D. Barnes and renamed her Vega, setting sail in January for Bermuda and the West Indies. Returning to Philadelphia in April, Lea spent the summer months cruising to Maine and to Halifax, Nova Scotia: both voyages greatly improved his health. The logbook of the Vega has been preserved in Lea's papers.
Historical Writing
From 1870 to 1873 Lea wrote scores of letters to archives and libraries in Europe to obtain documents or copies of documents related to the Inquisition. He established lasting relationships with many European scholars, corresponding with some of them up until the time of his death. For the revisions of his book, Superstition and Force (first published in 1866), Lea made extensive notes on the religious beliefs of peoples throughout the world, from Islam and Hinduism, Norse mythology, to classical Greek and Roman mythology. In the Inquisition documents that he was now receiving from Europe, he noted the persecution of Jews by Christians and made an in-depth study of the subject, as well writing extensive notes on the beliefs and ritual practices of Jews. This work earned Lea recognition in the Jewish scholarly community, evidenced in his correspondence with prominent Jewish historians including Cyrus Adler (1863-1940) of Johns Hopkins, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the Smithsonian; Elkan Nathan Adler (1861-1946) of London; Felix Adler (1851-1943) of Cornell University; Moses A. Dropsie (1821-1905); Max J. Kohler (1871-1934); and others.
Lea's health improved. He revised his Studies in Church History (1869) and in 1884 completed a revision of his An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy (1867), a book which brought Lea much attention from Protestant historians and from some Catholics who were struggling with Church law on the subject of celibacy. Lea began to write drafts for his three-volume work on A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, published in 1888. Lea's final drafts are dated, and it is clear that he worked steadily and with great energy to complete the book.
In 1886 Mandell Creighton, later Bishop of London and editor of the English Historical Review, initiated a correspondence with Lea and visited him in Philadelphia. Lea published a number of articles in the Review, and his association with Creighton and other scholars at Cambridge led to an invitation from Lord Acton asking Lea to write a chapter on the Eve of the Reformation for the Cambridge Modern History, a chapter which later evoked some controversy around the issue of Lea's anti-Catholic bias. This controversy was aired in a series of letters published in the English periodical, The Tablet, in 1906.
Lea became a member of the newly-formed American Historical Society and contributed a number of articles to its publication, American Historical Review. Lea was elected president of the American Historical Society in 1903. When the second annual meeting of the newly-formed American Folklore Society was held in Philadelphia in 1889, Lea met with some of the founders, sent an article for publication in the Society's journal, and became the first life-member of the organization. Lea was active in the American Society of Church History, which merged with the American Historical Society for a time and was a member of the American Oriental Society through his friendship with Morris Jastrow, librarian of the University of Pennsylvania. Among a number of other historical and scholarly organizations Lea was also a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society. Henry C. Lea was presented with honorary doctorates from Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Republican Party Politics
Lea also found renewed energy to continue his involvement in reform politics. He was especially interested in civil service reform as a way of ending patronage jobs and belonged to the National Civil Service Reform League from 1882 to 1908. In Philadelphia Lea maintained close relations with Herbert Welsh on the issue of civil service reform. Welsh also headed the Indian Rights Association in Philadelphia to which Lea made contributions. Lea's efforts to reform municipal government involved him in efforts to reform the Republican Party. Always independent in his political views, he sought to work with coalitions of other independent Republicans to fight corruption within the Party.
He was chosen president of the National Republican League in 1880 and was president of the Association of Republicans and Independents in 1885. In 1891 he helped found "The Reform Political League of Pennsylvania," with Herbert Welsh as president, Henry C. Lea and Justus C. Strawbridge as vice-presidents, and Charles E. Richardson, secretary.
Lea's opposition to Republican senator Matthew S. Quay of Pennsylvania in 1890 led him to be labeled a "mugwump Democrat" by the press. Lea's efforts to reform Republican politics and get rid of party bosses of whom Quay was seen as the leader (he was referred to as the "Beaver boss"), caused him not only to denounce Quay repeatedly in the press but also to denounce Quay's Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania in 1890, George Wallace Delamater. Pennsylvania's independent Republicans supported Robert E. Pattison for governor, whom Lea had persuaded to run. The successful campaign for Pattison was managed by Wharton Barker, who later made an independent run for President of the United States. Lea opposed President Benjamin Harrison's appointment of prominent Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker to the position of Postmaster General of the United States, because Wanamaker was another of "Quay's men." In an article for the Independent in 1892, Lea proudly defends his positions as an "original mugwump."
Through his connections with editors at the New York World and the New York Evening Post, Lea had considerable influence with the press. In Philadelphia George William Childs of the Public Ledger published Lea's letters and announcements. Lea and his political allies were opposed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, which kept up a stream of negative commentary on Lea during 1890, including a satirical piece suggesting a "Barkerite Torchlight Parade," referring to Lea's friend Wharton Barker. It reads in part:
We suggest that Mr. Barker hire the Academy of Music and give the parade on the stage. Mr. Barker might march ahead carrying a banner, inscribed:
The Barkerite, the Barkerite;
It barks and barks, but doesn't bite.
Mr. Mapes could follow, pulling one of L. Emery, Jr., & Co.'s toy wagons, bearing a representation of his Petrolia feed store,... Mr. Henry Charles Lea would follow with a large assortment of samples of instruments of torture used by the Spanish Inquisition. These would be intended to show without need of explanation their immediate bearing upon the present campaign.... The reporters of the New York World and Evening Post would, of course, be present as spectators.
By marching across the stage to dead march time and then running back behind the scenes the head of the parade could catch the tail before the latter had passed out of the New York reporters' sight,... It would not be expected of the Barkerites that they should keep step.
Philadelphia Inquirer, 17 September 1890
Lea's name was constantly in the press: his clippings files for the years 1890 and 1891 occupy the most space in the newspaper clippings series. He continued to fight against corruption in the Republican Party and in municipal politics, but after 1902 he began to turn down requests from political organizations and concentrated his remaining energy on the completion of his four-volume A History of the Inquisition of Spain.
Although he did not wish any publicity for the many philanthropic projects he supported, Henry Charles Lea was a major contributor to a number of Philadelphia institutions. Chief among these was the University of Pennsylvania. He contributed $50,000 to construct the building for the Institute of Hygiene, a laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania devoted to the developing study of bacteriology. At Lea's suggestion to Dr. William Pepper, Dr. John S. Billings was appointed dean of the new department, which was the first of its kind to award a degree in this specialty as part of the Medical School at Penn. Lea made a number of donations between 1900 and his death in 1909 to the University Library to acquire special collections as can be found in his correspondence with Morris Jastrow, Librarian. Lea also supported the work of the University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, donating funds to support both local excavations and the far-reaching Babylonian expedition to Iraq to unearth thousands of Sumerian clay tablets from the ancient city of Nippur.
Henry Charles Lea contributed to many local hospitals and health organizations, including the American Oncologic Hospital in Philadelphia, the Associate Society of the Red Cross, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Free Hospital for Poor Consumptives, and Pennsylvania Hospital. He made substantial donations to Jefferson Medical College through his friend Dr. H. A. Hare, who attended Lea on his deathbed, and to the Pennsylvania Epileptic Hospital and Colony Farm at the request of Dr. Wharton Sinkler.
Lea donated $50,000 in 1888 to the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin, for a new building in the hope that it would become Philadelphia's main library. Lea also contributed substantially to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, both for its building fund and for the Greenland Exploration fund for Lieutenant Peary.
Final Years
Lea continued to work on his project of a history of witchcraft until a few days before his death on October 24, 1909. In the drafts of his later work, his distinctive handwriting is as firm and sure as it was when he was a young man. Lea contracted pneumonia and died at his home at 2000 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. He was attended by Dr. Hobart A. Hare, whose own father was dying in Atlantic City during the night that Lea died. Dr. Hare's loyalty to his long-time friend kept him from his father's bedside. The story of Lea's funeral and memorials are well-documented in the scrapbooks that contain his obituaries. His youngest son, Arthur H. Lea, was named Lea's literary executor, and Arthur supervised the completion of translations of many of Henry C. Lea's books into European languages, oversaw the transfer of his father's library to the University of Pennsylvania in 1925, and made sure that his father's work on a study of witchcraft was published.
A definitive biography of Henry Charles Lea reassessing his contributions to historical scholarship and nineteenth-century politics remains to be written. There are many materials in his papers of interest to historians of United States politics in the nineteenth century. Many of the issues in those political battles were grounded in beliefs and conflicts about religion. Lea shared in a widespread concern over the power and influence that the Roman Catholic Pope might wield in American politics as the populations of Philadelphia, New York, and other cities were swelled by hundreds of thousands of Irish, German, and Italian Catholics. Lea collected newspaper clippings about the Pope, and wrote about the separation of church and state and the issues of parochial versus public education in the United States.
Lea's personal beliefs regarding religion are difficult to discern beneath the objective scientific stance he assumed when writing his histories. He repeatedly claimed that he was impartial in dealing with religious issues "which for centuries have been the object of acrimonious debate," due to his strict adherence to facts and his reliance on primary (manuscript) sources rather than secondary sources of information. (See Lea's "Preliminary memoirs," Folder 2372.) He contributed financially to the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, and that church's emeritus pastor, Joseph May, officiated at Lea's funeral, which took place at his home, not in a church. Lea corresponded with many prominent Unitarians in New England, including Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909). Lea maintained close associations with Philadelphia Quaker businessmen and with members of the clergy from many Protestant denominations. In Lea's many contacts with Protestant organizations and individuals that were actively anti- Catholic, the researcher will find much material that undermines Lea's claims to objectivity. A number of letters and pamphlets in these papers show the polarization between Protestants and Catholics during the second half of the nineteenth century, including journals promoting Protestant "Americanizing" plans, and efforts to convert the immigrant Catholic population to Protestantism. There are letters to Lea from Catholics who converted, some at least partly in response to Lea's writings.
And yet, Lea's grandfather, Mathew Carey, and mother, Frances, were Roman Catholics. Mathew Carey was involved in a major dispute within his own parish in Philadelphia, St. Mary's, known as the "Hogan schism." Henry C. Lea witnessed the anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in 1844, when two churches and many Catholic businesses were burned to the ground. In one letter Lea describes taking part in the citizen groups who defended Catholic property during the tense weeks following the riots. He contributed small amounts of money to Catholic orphanages and missions, but made much larger contributions to Protestant organizations.
Henry Charles Lea's consuming interest in religion and belief, not only that of the Catholic Church but also the religions of cultures both ancient and modern, has its roots in the circumstances of his family history, both Catholic and Protestant. The value of his papers for researchers in religion and politics lies not only in the historical materials he collected, but also in his correspondence with major scholars, clerics, publishers, and political figures who shaped American attitudes toward religion in the last half of the nineteenth century.
The Henry C. Lea Library
Henry Charles Lea's library, donated to the University of Pennsylvania upon his death, was formally opened by the University on 28 May 1925. After several years of discussions--originally between Morris Jastrow, librarian of the University of Pennsylvania, and Arthur H. Lea--it was decided that Lea's library should be reproduced as far as possible within the University Library, and this wish was respected down to the minutest detail, complete with shelving and furnishings, in an addition to the Frank Furness-designed library building at Thirty-fourth and Walnut Streets. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur H. Lea and Miss Nina Lea donated funds to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania to make this transfer/re-creation possible. When the main University Library was moved in 1962 into a new building, the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, the Lea library was again moved intact to become part of the Department of Special Collections.
Speakers at the opening dedication in 1925 included Professor George Lincoln Burr of Cornell University, who worked to complete the manuscript of Lea's Materials for a Study of Witchcraft; Professor Dana C. Munro of Princeton University, vice president of the American Historical Association, who had used Lea's collections as a young scholar; and Hampton L. Carson, Philadelphia historian and former attorney general of Pennsylvania.
A list of Henry Charles Lea's published books appears on page xviii. The following is a list of published sources about Lea. Thanks to Professor Edward Peters for additions to this guide and bibliography.
Bradley, Edward Sculley. 1931. Henry Charles Lea. A Biography. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bussy, R. Kenneth. 1985. Two Hundred Years of Publishing: a history of the oldest publishing company in the United States, Lea & Febiger 1785-1985. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger.
Kaplan, A. D. H. 1931. Henry Charles Carey: A Study in American Economic Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
O'Brien, John M. 1967. "Henry Charles Lea: The Historian as Reformer." American Quarterly 19: 104-113.
Peters, Edward. 1987. "Henry Charles Lea and the `Abode of Monsters'." In The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind, edited by Angel Alcal , 577-608. Highland Lakes, N.J.: Atlantic Research Publications.
_____. 1995. "Henry Charles Lea (1825-1904)." In Medieval Scholarship, Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, edited by Helen Damico and Joseph B. Zavadil, 89-99. Volume 1. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
_____. forthcoming. "Ecclesiastical History in Nineteenth- Century Perspective: Henry Charles Lea's Studies in Church History." Introduction to reprint of Lea, Studies in Church History. New York: AMS.
Rowe, Kenneth Wyer. 1933. Mathew Carey: A Study in American Economic Development. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
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Bullying at the University of Newcastle (Australia)
We are working to highlight and stop academic workplace bullying at the University of Newcastle, Australia. We are a group of staff and students who have been bullied for speaking out about misconduct.
Help make a difference –
*answer our survey,
*contribute to the blog, or
*contact us.
This will help us gather as much information as possible so that we can put an end to this bullying with its' decades-long history.
"Systemic bullying, hazing and abuse generally are identified with poor, weak or toxic organizational cultures. Cultures that are toxic have stated ethical values that are espoused but not employed, and other non-ethical values which are operational, dominant, but unstated.
Such cultures thrive when good people are silent, silenced, or pushed out; when bad apples are vocal, retained, promoted, and empowered; and when the neutral majority remain silent in order to survive. Those who are most successful in such a toxic culture are those who have adapted to it, or adopted it as their own". (McKay, Arnold, Fratzl & Thomas, 2008)

subset: commoncrawl


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The Raiders don't resume practice until Monday. In the interim, here's the transcript from a 6 1/2-minute question-and-answer session with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Naturally, Goodell had some interesting things to say about the Raiders stadium issue. The Raiders current lease expires after the 2013 season. As of now, the most likely scenario involves the Raiders extending the lease while they continue to find a long-term solution.
Here's the entire transcript:
Q: What message does it send to rest of league that Alex Smith loses job after concussion?
Goodell: "That it's about safety first. Competitiveness is not going to be the number one driver. It's going to be safety. When someone gets injured those are medical decisions and those have to be made by the medical professionals. The football decisions are made later when a player is healthy. That's what the 49ers have done."
Q: Concerned player might hide concussion?
Goodell: "I hope not and I don't expect they will."
Q: Concerned player might hide concussion
Goodell: "That's always been a challenge for us making sure players self-report. It's not that simple. You have to have a good teammate next to him if he's not right. We have ATC spotters watching from upstairs who can spot when somebody has had an impact that made lead to a concussion so they can be evaluated. You want to make sure they are all evaluated properly and that the right decisions are made from a medical standpoint."
Q: Will competition committee look at replacing kickoffs with 4th and 15 from 30?
Goodell: "The competition committee will consider it. It was something (Buccaneers coach) Greg Schiano came up with when he was coach at Rutgers. I asked about it at a dinner we were having, had he had any ideas about the kickoff. That was something he had given a great deal of thought to. I thought it was an interesting idea. The committee will look at it."
Q: What do you like about that?
Goodell: "I think it is very interesting. I think it is worth considering."
Q: What is there that you and the league can do to help the Raiders work out something to where they're able to remain in Oakland? We talked to you a couple years ago, have they closed that gap? Seen any progress?
Goodell: "I think the first thing is, we now have a new collective bargaining agreement since we spoke, and I think that collective bargaining agreement in and of itself will be helpful because it does a great job of making sure the economics are balanced among all 32 teams and of course the players. And we also have got a new stadium funding mechanism in there that the league can provide up to $200 million of financing to a new stadium project. I think those are very significant changes and should be helpful, yes."
Q: So, the fact that the 49ers …
Goodell: "And we're seeing it. We're seeing it with the 49ers, we're seeing it in Minnesota, Atlanta's making a lot of progress. I'd go back and tell you also the 10-year labor agreement. When you have that kind of certainty for 10 years it should be very helpful in getting these projects done."
Q: There's a lot of speculation about the Raiders possibly moving to Los Angeles. Where does the Los Angeles situation stand in terms of a team?
Goodell: "Basically where we've been. Unfortunately we're still looking to make sure we have a stadium solution. It all comes down to a stadium solution. And if we can find the right kind of stadium solution, we'll work on a team at that point."
Q: Why is a stadium most important to keeping the team here?
Goodell: "Because it's our stage. It's part of where we present our game. It's the biggest part. And it's also really important to the fan experience. Having full stadiums is critical for us. We want to have our fans in the stadium, we want to make sure they have the best facilities, we want to make sure the teams can generate enough revenue to be successful and competitive."
Q: When do you expect a ruling from former commissioner Paul Tagliabue on the bounty case?
Goodell: "That's up to him."
Q: In light of the Jovan Belcher situation, you mentioned there's a program in this area. What about for teams at their own facility to avoid a situation like Kansas City?
Goodell: "Sure, that's where the programs are really executed. We have player development directors on each team, they implement the programs that we do across all 32 teams, and we have to continue to look for new programs. I think this program we announced this summer on mental health will be a big help with that. Again it's about getting access for players with families to identify issues and make sure they're properly treated, and that can be a very positive change."
Q: See two teams in the 49ers stadium?
Goodell: "The priority is what the community and the team work out. I think it's a great benefit that there's a stadium across the bay that's going to be a state of the art facility. That's terrific. So that's an option if this community and the Raiders choose that. But that's a decision they have to make. We the league are prepared to help fund facilities. And we'll continue to do what we can to make sure our teams stay in their communities."
Q: Will the NFL be involved in determining who moves to Los Angeles?
Goodell: "Ultimately that's a league decision, takes 24 of the 32 teams to vote on any relocation."
Q: Would the NFL be open to providing financial assistance for a stadium twice in the same area?
Goodell: "What do you mean? In what sense?"
Q: Providing $200 million to the Raiders situation after doing so for the 49ers new stadium?
Goodell: "Yes, we would do that. That's not something that's prohibited in the policy. We wouldn't look at that as double dipping. We'd look at that as getting stages built in the community and we want to continue to do that."
Q: What's the problem in Oakland?
Goodell: "You all are closer to it than I am. I think people want to make sure the Raiders are here and want to make sure they do the right things, there are a lot of priorities in communities these days and those have to be balanced by the leadership both the public sector and the private sector. These are complicated issues and they have to be done intelligently so that they address community needs but they also work with the team long term."


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The Higgs boson explains why particles have mass -- and in turn why we exist. Without the boson, the universe would have no physical matter, only energy.
The cosmological implications are hotly debated. Can God fit in a scientific story of creation?
The answer is "no" for Lawrence M. Krauss, an Arizona State University theoretical physicist. He argued in Newsweek that the Higgs boson discovery "posits a new story of our creation" independent of religious belief.
"With enough data, physics would make God obsolete, he said. "If we can describe the laws of nature back to the beginning of time without any supernatural shenanigans, it becomes clear that you don't need God."
What will be enough evidence for science to prove that there is no god?.
I had stated in another conversation about this that no matter what science proves, the religious will just say that it is still some divine intervention. God allowed us to see this etc. etc. instead of simply showing himself. Groan!.
"Alternative medicine guru Deepak Chopra said in a YouTube video that the boson hints at a divine interconnectedness of all things.
"It only strengthens the notion that the universe comes out of a nothingness which is everything," he said."
At the end of the day, even a slap in the face does not wake people up. They ask us to prove the lack of existence of god, we give it to them in so many instances and yet they still choose to be delusional simply based on feelings rather than facts.
As usual with Huffington Post news stories, I always encourage you to read the comments as this is where most of the action happens.
Also: 9 Great Nonbelievers In U.S. History
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>> "God is cosmic music resonating in 10-dimensional hyperspace." - Michio Kaku
I am not a fan myself of any form of mysticism because it leads to realms of thought that cannot be objectively tested. Mystical statements like this one sound profound, but I am dubious that they have any meaning.
My philosophical outlook runs in an entirely different direction. While religion is—in my estimate—and should be viewed as a much-too-simple attempt to explain how the world works, the confusion it has brought along with that attempt has caused great difficulty and placed new obstacles in the path of understanding.
The natural tendency of the intellect is to invent where it does not yet understand. That tendency is responsible for wonderful works of art that decorate human history, but it also represents illusion that must be cleared away so that genuine understanding can take its place. It is a delicate process to separate reality from all the available versions.
Romain stated that the mystical experience itself is "empirical," but is only understood subjectively. In other words, it is a direct experience of whatever it is that "is," but when transcribed into language, subjectivity pours a hard filter upon this task.
In meditation, one is only concerned with "what is," nothing more, nothing less, so I don't really see it as invention where one does not yet understand, but as something that is transduced, usually into a symbolism. If you think about what science is, it's entirely this. It's a transcription of the universe, the scientific intellectual understanding is only a transcription of what is. In other words, the M-Theory that theoretical physics describes is only understood within the intellect through concepts, symbolisms such as the ones in mathematics, etc. But this experience that is induced through meditation is a direct experience of what M-theory is only attempting to transduce.
Angelica of the Rugrats said something once that I thought was interesting, she said, "If you have to ask, you'll never know." Alan Watts said it's like trying to bite your own teeth or touch the tip of your finger with the tip of your finger, you could never get to it as long as you're only intellectually attempting to understand, because your understanding will always be a concept, it will come from the illusion that you're separate from everything else, it will be based upon the ego.
I think that's why sunyata in Buddhism is described as a "void," but not void as in empty space or nothingness, but as a kind of ultimate consciousness or ultimate space in which everything can happen. Sort of like the universe in all of its infinite totality realizing for a brief moment what it is, but not through intellectual concepts or symbols, but through profound intuition which doesn't require intellectual probing. So, this type of knowingness doesn't have to explain how the world works in a complex intellectual manner, and I think that's why it's simple yet at the same time does represent the universe in all of its complexity.
Anyway, I'm not sure if any of that was understood, but here's an old video I found of Alan Watts on the topic of "The Void."
And concerning "objective tests," the work of Strassman seeks to have something like this on mystical states looking at brain activity, the function of DMT, its role in respect to consciousness, etc. but I have a whole other take on this that would take much more paragraphs, but for now, I'll just end this here. I wanted to elaborate on Michio Kaku's quote, because you mentioned that you're dubious about the semantics of the statement. Maybe on another post. Strassman's book, btw, is titled "DMT: The Spirit Molecule."
The religious always have a liberal understanding of "what is". Their faith extends what they believe to be empirical. Ask any God-believing man and they will never admit that they are merely imagining God, but that they are sensing him. In that respect, Buddhism is no different. The goal of meditation, then, is only empirical because the dogma at the core of Buddhism implies objectivity when there is no empirical proof that this is true.
In Buddhism, we are told that the material world is not "real" because of dependent origination, similar to the law of causality. We must then practice detachment in order to see the "truth", because in Buddhism, attachment is ignorance about the Noble Truths. Already, Buddhism differs from scientific atheism in that science studies the empirical -- the material world -- whereas Buddhism claims that the material world is false, and reality exists only in another dimension where all our minds reside.
I would call this cessation to detachment epistemological nihilism, but Buddhism would frame it differently, since they derive the "truth" from the 4 Noble Truths, and not everything else that people consider real. Ironically, by following this logic, the pursuit of science becomes ignorant, and the apathy of everything becomes wise -- the exact opposite of what most of us would consider.
But how did Buddha first learn of his 4 Noble Truths, if in fact everything we know are not real? We learn that he came up with these Truths as an ascetic. He claims he is only man, not God, and yet men cannot invent truth, so that makes him the sole recipient of these truths that he learned, not invented. We must take his word for it.
It's just like in the Bible. The prophet "discovers" objective knowledge in which we must accept, because anything we come up with on our own is surely not real. How did Jesus discover the 10 Commandments? How did Buddha discover the 4 Noble Truths? It's special pleading, as in: "It is impossible to know the truth, except as I have..."
It doesn't matter that Buddhism is internally consistent, if it even is; if we attack it at the foundation, the axioms in which all else must build on, we see through the illusion and mysticism in which they call religion.
1. Life is suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is possible.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering is... (leap of faith) Nirvana!
We can attack each one of these Noble Truths, or we can attack the proclaimed existence of an idealist dimension, reincarnation, and the existence of Nirvana. Buddhism may take less leaps than Christianity, but it still takes on the same patterns and forms of religion.
P.S. There is also no evidence that Jesus didn't know anything about Eastern religion, if he in fact existed. But Buddhism had spread through the Greek in Antiquity, when Alexander the Great made contact with India. Several Greek philosophies have seeming similarities with Buddhism, like Pyrrhonism.
When I say "what is," I mean literally what is intuitively felt rather than a Christian's hunch that he feels "God in his heart," as Matt Dillahunty often says, you don't want to metaphysicize heartburn.
Usually, when a Christian says it, he or she isn't under any kind of physical distress or experiencing some kind of blissful elation, they will usually blurt it out of nowhere, and I'm not sure what they're basing it on, a gut feeling, butterflies in the stomach, who knows?! But in eastern religion, this is very different. The objectivity that is involved in Buddhism isn't easily articulated nor facilely understood, especially if you're coming from a background of western religious thought.
Perhaps you're familiar with the term "nonduality" in eastern philosophy. You mentioned that Buddhism says the material world is "not real," but I felt that you may have interpreted that literally, because you attributed to a kind of nihilism. And it's easy to do that, as ideas in eastern philosophy such as "sunyata" are often translated in English to "void," but this is not a void of nothingness or unreality, that should be made clear. I'll try and elucidate that by attempting to define "nonduality."
Put simply, nonduality is the dissolving of the subject-object duality, the subject of experience and the object that is being experienced, i.e. the world, the universe, your life, essentially. The experience of nirvana, nirvana is often translated to 'blow out,' is the dissolution of this duality to what is a direct experience of what's often translated from Buddhism 'ultimate reality,' in Hinduism, this is ultimate reality is referred to as "Brahman." Brahman cannot be an object of its own knowledge since it is completely dissolved of all duality, so then it is something that is intuited rather than intellectually groped.
I want to take an excerpt from one of Alan Watts books that further describes this point, and I'll start below after the hyphens and end it with another set of hyphens:
The point is that the attempt to talk about, think about, or know about ultimate reality constitutes an impossible task. If epistemology is the attempt to know what knows, and ontology the attempt to define "is-ness," they are clearly circular and futile procedures, like trying to bite one's own teeth. In a commentary on the Kena Upanishad, Shankara says:
"Now a distinct and definite knowledge is possible in respect of everything capable of becoming an object of knowledge, but it is not possible in the case of That which cannot become such an object. That is Brahman, for It is the Knower, and the Knower can know other things, but cannot make Itself the object of its own knowledge, in the same way that fire can burn other things but cannot burn itself."
In the same way, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
"Thou couldst not see the seer of sight, thou couldst not hear the hearer of hearing, nor perceive the perceiver of perception, nor know the knower of knowledge."
Or in the words of a Chinese Buddhist poem:
"It is like a sword that wounds, but cannot wound itself; Like an eye that sees, but cannot see itself."
Here's the link to the entire excerpt: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/34810265/Alan-watts
The world is not false as unreal, so this is not a nihilistic doctrine, nor is it acosmist which is the opposite of nihilism. Buddhists call this falsity "maya," an illusion created by perception, but again, this is not an illusion as to mean "unreal," it's an illusion in the sense that it's a provisional perception created by the ego or consciousness.
You know, the paradox in eastern philosophy concerning the whole "seek and ye shall find" game is that reality or truth or the universe, whatever you'd like to call it, is already a given, we're embedded within it and are a part of it. And the illusion involved in this is that you're somehow separate from it, this is the illusion that consciousness can create or the "ego," so in a sense by this coming into conscious awareness or egoic realization, you deviate from the holistic. But since most of us live out our lives within the sense of this "ego," we have this illusion that we have to search for "truth," because through the assumption of the ego, we have started out from the very path of illusion.
Alan Watts - The Illusion of Ego
This is why there's a lot of rhetoric in eastern philosophy such as "the road to here" or "the eternal now." Duality is also emphasized through the yin-yang, which interdepend in such a way that you couldn't have one without the other, but represent all contrasts; black and white, light and dark, silence and sound, self and other, samsara and moksha, free will and no free will; as one.
Alan Watts - The Trap of Seeking
Also, you do not have to take Gautama's word for it. The entire point of the 4th Noble Truth is to follow the Eightfold Path, it was his own method or technique for inducing this phenomenon in consciousness which everyone has the potential for, so you ultimately do not have to take his word for it, and in fact, he often told people never to take his words too seriously or perhaps literally.
I tend to elaborate needlessly, if you haven't noticed, but the point I suppose is that in eastern philosophy, that there really is no seeker, there is nothing to discover, people create that illusion for themselves thinking they have to go out and discover or find "truth," when if they simply look inward or dissolve the ego, they'd find that they were truth all along. "Tat Tvam Asi" as they say, "Thou art that." Sri Ramana Maharshi once said, "Seek the seeker." The Diamond Sutra says "Buddha didn't attain anything," if you misunderstand that statement, it can lead to nihilism, indifference, and apathy, and "what's the point of it all?" kind of an attitude, but that's not what these sutras are trying to get at. Quite the opposite, but that's what makes this path a razor's edge, it's very easy to fall on one side or the other. The reason it's not an attainment is because liberation actually requires losing something. The problem is that we've already attained something too much, we've attained a false identity, a mask on top of the original true self. So, it's not that we have to get something, but we have to let go of something, and yet it's the thing that we're most proud of, this ego… and who can let go of that? So, behind that ego, of course, we're already liberated, we're already that we which we think we're seeking and yet also putting off.
I realize this post ran on a little long, but it's worth pointing out, I think, that there is vast misconception that surrounds all religion, especially eastern religion if you're a westerner. So, I'm not sure if this elucidated anything for you. You also mentioned that we don't know if Christ knew anything about eastern philosophy. That wasn't my comment, I was quoting Watts. I'm not sure what he was basing that on, but from my own experience in studying comparative religion, there is practically no concepts in the bible that I could attribute or relate intimately with eastern religion.
The entire point of the Eightfold Path is to help you understand the 4 Noble Truths and achieve the end result, which is the cessation of suffering. One could achieve understanding of the 4 Noble Truths without exactly following the Eightfold Path, but not the other way around. As I understand it, the 4 Noble Truths, and dependent origination are the only "truths" in Buddhist doctrine.
Buddhist non-dualism merely describes idealism, as in the mental perception of everything, including the physical world, is the only thing that is real. The exact concept of physical voidness is sophistry as far as the depths of this subject I'm willing to pursue. It could mean void as in everything or nothing, but regardless, attachment to it -- whatever it is -- makes one ignorant in Buddhist doctrine, and unable to achieve the ultimate goal of Nirvana. This is contrary to scientific fields, that spend considerable time testing and proving things about the empirical, physical world in an attempt to justify objectivity without subjectivity, whereas Buddhists are more interested in testing and proving the thought process that goes into, as you say, "intuitive" sensing of what, according to Buddhist doctrine, is the reality that encompass the physical world. This "intuition" that we surely do not naturally possess, despite what Buddhism says, is tantamount to the Christian intuition of God -- an unprovable concept that is sworn into reality by the axioms of the religion. The Buddhist concept that we are all born with the ability to perceive the "truth" is the logical equivalent to the Christian concept that we are all born from God. Either way, we have access to this "truth" whether we pursue it or not. The problem is that, when pressed, we could neither scientifically nor logically prove that idealism is true, in any form, therefore Buddhism cannot be shown to state objective truths (or rather, if it does, it does not hold under scrutiny).
Buddhists like to conflate all nihilistic concepts, or perhaps they like to consider the Nihilism philosophy without considering more generally accepted parts of Nihilism. Sub-concepts within Nihilism, such as epistemological nihilism, is then ironically also implicit within Buddhist writings stating, essentially, that one can never really know anything... besides the "truth", whether you call that Brahman or Nirvana. This is simply special pleading. One does not have to try hard to draw parallels of this and Christian Young-Earth Creationism stating that science is only a test presented by God, and that God is the only true knowledge.
Only a brief inquiry into why we should trust Jesus/Buddha is needed; Buddha admitting that we should perhaps not take him seriously is ironic: people tend more seriously any personality with perceived humility. This presents a paradox: On one hand, we could take him seriously, but if we take him seriously, we should also heed his warning not to take him seriously. The result is that Buddha gets away with a bunch of unfounded claims while denying responsibility for them all at the same time.
But, as I've stated before, one does not need to prove logical inconsistency within Buddhism to disprove Buddhism, one only needs to disprove its axioms. In the same sense, when we disprove Christianity, we do not have to disprove everything written in the Bible, we only have to disprove whether the Bible gives us insight to God. In Buddhism, the whole thing falls apart if we show that the 4 Noble Truths aren't so true after all. And indeed, the 4 Noble Truths is Buddhism's starting point to the is-ought problem (according to G.E. Moore, the naturalistic fallacy, stating that "the assumption that because some quality or combination of qualities invariably and necessarily accompanies the quality of goodness, or is invariably and necessarily accompanied by it, or both, this quality or combination of qualities is identical with goodness."). And so we begin:
1. Life is suffering. (note: suffering is a bad property)
2... 3...
4. Therefore, we should attain cessation of suffering by...
First, the characterization that life is suffering is debatable. Second, even if life is suffering, why is the cessation of suffering necessarily good? There's no evidence that this is true.
From another angle, we could argue that idealism (of all sorts) assumes that perception is reliable. The idea that the physical world exists due to the mind, or that the mind exists due to physical materialism, cannot be proven to be true either way. Idealism of the Buddhist sort makes all kinds of leaps regarding where the mind resides after death, and during reincarnation, and the hierarchy of animals you reincarnate into. There is also no evidence that Nirvana is the "truth" (Nirvana seems to have been invented to justify the 4 Noble Truths).
I'm not really interested in disproving Buddhism. I do not come from a Western religion perspective. I've known people who claim to be Buddhists. The annoying aspect of Buddhism, to me, is that their adherents claim it to be an atheistic, science-based, religion when it is far from the truth. There are figures who have achieved spiritual continuity and are referred to and respected in Buddhism, so it is hard to call it an atheistic religion -- if anything, Buddhism is deist. The spiritual element is hard to ignore. The ideas contained within are buried under 2000 years of sophistry. The point is that Eastern religion surely do differ vastly from Western religion, but in the end, Buddhism is still considered a religion.
Whether you look outward or inward to find God, you are still seeking. You could call the obstruction ego, or faith skepticism. I think they are similar in concept. The idea is that what is evident is not the truth, and so you need to be rid of so-and-so obstruction by taking so-and-so devoted action to discover so-and-so truth. We could substitute various terms within that sentence and it would describe Christianity or Buddhism depending on which terms we use.
I think you are right about the Four Noble Truths. Any step by step doctrine on "how to achieve enlightenment" feels like a square peg in a round hole. The Buddha's stuff is very reflective of his culture. The Indian texts (Dhammapada and such) have a lot of shoulds and shouldn'ts. They remind me too much of the Ten Commandments.
I think some of the later Zen and Taoist writers did a much better job of dealing with the existential dilemma, by zeroing in on the appreciation of pure experience (before it has been interpreted through the crude limits of language). Phrase like, "words are but a finger pointing at the moon," and stories such as The Tigers and the Strawberry (and hundreds of others) do a good job of illustrating the idea. My "Western mind" interpretation is that meaning is derived from a deep sense of appreciation for the full range of human experience (including those that we typically judge as negative or unpleasant, like boredom, fear, sadness...). I would add, likewise, an acknowledgement of all aspects of the self, including those we typically judge as negative traits.
You given me quite a lot to answer—more than a single post can cover so I'll focus on one point which Watts takes up at the beginning of his video, viz, that western philosophy and religion are intellectual while eastern philosophy and religion are experiential.
The implication of his talk, not wholly explicit, is that the latter is a far superior route to understanding reality and the one true key to enlightenment. It cannot be described in words and hence does not fall within the scope of logical analysis. It is safely sealed against rational refutation. Since experience makes no statements, it cannot be accused of fabricating falsehoods.
Such an irrefutable viewpoint is very tempting considering the errors into which reason falls from time to time, but it seems to deny the lessons of science. The contents of the intellect do not always coincide with the reality we experience. Trial and error is the proven method of correcting inaccuracies. We test our ideas against reality and revise them accordingly.
Experiential learning undergoes no such testing. The contemplative is free from all revisions and may continue to develop in any direction. Christian mystics, especially women, often experienced intense ecstatic union with Christ, which Saint Catherine of Siena described as mystical marriage. The psychological reality of the experience is not to be denied, but I am reluctant to call it a true experience of reality, accessible in no other way.
What we learn from science is to combine intellectual and experiential learning, using each to clarify the other. When experiments fail, theory is revised, and the new theory suggests new experimental tests. Both intellectual and experiential learning are valuable when harnessed together. Alone, either can run wild.
"The entire point of the Eightfold Path is to help you understand the 4 Noble Truths and achieve the end result, which is the cessation of suffering. One could achieve understanding of the 4 Noble Truths without exactly following the Eightfold Path, but not the other way around. As I understand it, the 4 Noble Truths, and dependent origination are the only "truths" in Buddhist doctrine."
I'm not sure if you've been following the previous posts on page 4 to this discussion, but I may end up repeating some of the stuff I've typed there. I mentioned Perennial Philosophy, and the point there is that this experience that is sought in Buddhism actually transcends the religion itself, that is because it is ultimately a phenomenon in consciousness, a colossal transformation of consciousness which I would not at all equate to when a Christian says, "I feel or sense God in my heart." For I wonder, if this person who considers himself/herself a Christian would call this sensation "God" if he/she didn't have the name in his/her background. In other words, if they had never encountered religion or the bible or religious concepts, would they attribute this "feeling" to God? I'd wager not. That's the difference. In eastern religion, it boils down to the recognition of this phenomenon, and Hindus and Buddhists don't really have a name for what it is that "is," but for the purposes of discussion and since most of the scripture of Hinduism and Buddhism is in dialectic form and dialogue, it is has come to be named "Brahman." As Edward Teach pointed out in the quote "words are but a finger pointing at the moon," this goes towards the point in my previous post where I tried to explain that this "Brahman" is never an object to its own knowledge, the words are not of the essence, they only refer and infer. Clark thought that since it is an experience, that this seals it away from rational refutation. But this is the point that I've obviously failed to make clear, that the rationalizing is the finger pointing to the moon. Watts said, "Since it is an experience, it is for this reason difficult to put into words." It may be described, but the description will never be of the essence nor pay justice to the experience.
"Buddhist non-dualism merely describes idealism, as in the mental perception of everything, including the physical world, is the only thing that is real. The exact concept of physical voidness is sophistry as far as the depths of this subject I'm willing to pursue."
Some theoretical physicists like Brian Greene and Michio Kaku have analogized "Brahman" or "non-dualism" to the 11-dimensional hyperspace of M-Theory. I'm not sure if you read up on that kind of stuff, but I believe void is probably best translated to how a physicist thinks of voidness which is a pure potentiality. I quoted Kaku earlier, but didn't really define the quote. Maybe I can try to define the quote to better elucidate non-dualism not as the idealism you're accusing of being, but rather as this pure potentiality. Kaku has been quoted saying, "God is cosmic music resonating through 11-dimensional hyperspace." This is a very vague quote, indeed, and the use of the word "God" should probably replaced with universe or multiverse, as Kaku makes sure to be quite clear as to what he means when he says "God." He does not mean an "all-powerful entity," the "God" of intervention and prayer, a "personal God," the God that George Carlin made fun of, he always makes sure to stress this point. He, of course, means God in the same sense that Einstein used it, the God of Spinoza, the God of elegance, order, harmony, and simplicity. I suppose you could relate it to a pantheism or more accurately a panentheism. I've even heard some atheists refer to themselves as "naturalistic pantheists." That could work, too, however I think "naturalistic panentheism" might be more accurate if we're going to relate it to String Theory, because then the "en" portion in "panentheism" could refer to the "hyperspace" that String Theory posits.
Rob Bryanton of the 10thdim YouTube page had a metaphor that I think is useful in terms of attempting to grasp this stuff. He said, "Think of 11-dimensional hyperspace as a place where all possibilities are contained." In music, you do not play all the notes at once, but rather select notes, so in the analogy, the "cosmic music," what we perceive in our perception are the selected notes, and the entire spectrum of notes are all "already there" in this 11-dimensional hyperspace. The universe as we perceive it is a cross-sectioning of these unfolding possiblities that arise from this infinite plenum of permutations that, in a sense, all are "already there." This is precisely what the "Brahman" is in Hinduism. Brahman is described as being a timeless, unchanging, ultimate ground of being that lies behind the apparent multiplicity of the phenomenal world. Michael Talbot's book "The Holographic Universe" is excellent in describing this perspective of the universe.
I know that explanation will not be sufficient for some, but I'll give another that might be a little more clear... or not as it has to do with Philosophy of Mind. I'll quote Steven Pinker, the experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist. He had something really interesting to say about consciousness which I'll quote below.
"The way I think of mind is as a 4th dimensional organ of your body, you cannot see it, because it resides in a higher dimension, but your experience a sectioning of it within the phenomenon of consciousness, but that is only a partial sectioning of it in the same way a plane is a partial sectioning of a cone when it transects it."
I know that quote sounds like something Stuart Hameroff might suggest, but what's implicit here is that this emergent property of matter, what we call "consciousness" is somehow intertwined with what M-Theorists rave about, the "higher dimensions" which make up String Theory. For instance, to give an example of this "sectioning" in the quote, when you imagine, say, a tree in the daytime spring scenery, you can see it in your mind's eye quite vividly, you can make out brilliant colours and and even almost hear the wind as it brushes against its branches and leaves. But where is this tree, really? Where is it being projected? We can't make the analogy from the computer's output to a monitor, you see, because the tree isn't really anywhere in your mind. If we were going to take a look at the physical brain, we wouldn't find the tree, instead we may find certain electrical neural patterns, the breaking and forming of chemical bonds and various other fast chemistries, etc. But if we were going to use the computer analogy, then the monitor, where the image is being projected is in within this "sectioning" of hyperspace while the hardware is a direct correlate in the physical brain, they go together. So, what seems to be happening here is that the potentiality to imagine the tree was already there, and according to Hinduism perhaps had always been there. Graham Hancock had an interesting take on this issue, he said, "I don't believe that consciousness is generated in the brain any more than that television programs are made inside my tv." So, it may be that the brain is the dipstick into this field of potentiality, and can entertain a certain degree of this potentiality. The experience of "sunyata" is not simply the simple imagined tree, but the entire spectrum of possibilities which the tree was only one sub-set of possibilities from an array of infinite possibilities. The void is an experience of the entire array, that's why it is said to be a "ultimate state of consciousness." Terence McKenna once said of this experience that it seems to imply an "end state" in consciousness. Anyway, I'm sure that explanation may not be interpreted as I intended it to be construed, but nevertheless, I'll include it.
I believe that both of these concepts, in a sense, are one and the same thing, the M-Theory is an intellectual grasping of the unseen strings working behind the scenes of the universe while the "Brahman" or "sunyata" is a concept derived from "samadhi" or "nirvana" which would be a direct experience in which the very same thing is realized.
So, to say that this is the logical equivalent of the Christian concept we're all born from God would in itself be sophistry, because one thing I think Hindus and scientists could agree on is that this "hyperspace" originally never had a name, it is truly without name, and perhaps without beginning or end, too, but eastern religion has come to call it Brahman while science has labelled it "11-dimensional hyperspace." It is not a God as thought of traditionally in the west, but it does possess attributes that could be attributed to the God of the west, such as eternality, timelessness, absoluteness, etc. I think Lao-tzu said it best, "The tao that can be named is not the eternal tao."
All right, this is starting to run long again, so I'll respond to one more comment you made. You typed, "Whether you look outward or inward to find God, you are still seeking."
I'm not sure if you listened to that link I left on "the trap of seeking," but it may be worth mentioning something about meditation. I think this is better understood if you realize that what is going on here with meditation amongst Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. is that what they're attempting to induce is a transformation of consciousness in which this insight is distilled. So, words like "seeking" or "goal" are a little tricky here, because when thorougly understood, there really is nothing that is seeked nor any goal that is achieved. The so-and-so obstructions are merely distractions which may prevent this tranformation from occurring in meditation. Since it is an experiment in consciousness that is devoid of any concepts what-so-ever, there is really nothing that is "seeked," not God or soul, and it's from that stand-point which this insight occurs.
In meditation as practiced in Hinduism or Zen Buddhism is a form of quietism. It is the annihilation not only of will but of all effort or desire for effort or thought. Now, that may sound anti-intellectual, however if you were to attempt this, you'll find it's quite a difficult psychological endeavor. It's an experiment in consciousness. Hindus have likened consciousness to a pond of water. The ripples in the water represent your thoughts, the "goal" of meditation is to have the pond become completely serene, then the mind can reflect reality as it truly is. You cannot force your mind to be silent, this would be like trying to smooth the ripples in water with a flat iron. In other words, you cannot rid of your ego with your ego, because nothing strengthens the delusion that it exists more than that. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone. It is a phenomenon in consciousness in which this insight manifests. Some monks spend their entire lives practicing disciplines in order to attain this insight, and I'd even wager many have died without ever approaching it. I want to make this distinction quite clear, because if you have had this insight, then suddenly all the misconceptions surrounding religion become clearly transparent and therefore could be disregarded. So, in this sense, Buddhism isn't something that you pick up on by studying it or going to a guru, even, or listening to a talk on it, it is only understood through this experience, and while I realize many people call themselves "Buddhists," they may not be "buddhas," meaning that they may have not have had this enlightenment occur. So, it's not something you could simply disprove or dismiss based on its doctrine. Here's an excellent talk that goes over exactly this point here.
Well, something I've mentioned previously, but I don't think you had read the previous posts, but another reason I'd like to mention meditation is because you kept referring to nirvana as a "leap of faith" rather than a tried-and-true phenomenon that can, in fact, occur in potentially anyone's consciousness. If you want a neuroscientific explanation behind this as to why this is so, I'd suggest the work of Dr. Rick Strassman, particularly his book entitled "DMT: The Spirit Molecule." Strassman speculates that what the "satori" or "samadhi" experience of meditation may be is the natural induction of N,N-DMT. DMT is also has its highest concentration in the brain during the REM stage of sleep when the heavy dream state is taking place. And gurus have even said, "Sleep is unconscious meditation, meditation is conscious sleep." So, this is what we do, in fact, every night when we fall to sleep, except what happens is your subconscious thoughts take over, then that is cause for the dream. Now, the very opposite happens in meditation, you don't dream, but in a sense "wake up" and this "waking up" is an awakening from the illusion of separateness, the illusion that you're a bodily finite being separate from everything else, waking into an enlightenment of interconnectedness or "nonduality." So, it is in a way the "ultimate objectivity." Because in meditation one is concerned with "what is," nothing else. So, it is a kind of removal of the egoic chatter or noise that we experience as a kind of necessary accompaniment in our everyday waking consciousness.
I realize that you and I, Chang, disagree on what Buddhism is about, but if we agreed with each other, then it wouldn't be worth our reply since we'd only be preaching to the choir. I'll end off this post with one more quote...
As Alan Watts once said on the topic of meditation, "A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so this person loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions."
Some long answers here. Wasn't going to reply but oh hell - I agree with you Sandi. Whatever proof people get some of them will ignore it or incorporate it to agree with their worldview.
Deep Pick Chopwood is the biggest fraud who ever migrated West. He regurgitates Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, warps quantum theoretical speculations, and pop psychology to publish total nonsense that is fed to the gullible masses as some sort of special knowledge, glossing over the obvious: that where spirituality is concerned, Barnum was right: a sucker is born every minute. He even claimed a special relationship with the late Michael Jackson, who was just as loony, having once espoused the beliefs of the Ponzi-like Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Chopra Center in the La Costa Resort and Spa near where I live offers a ten-day "perfect health" program for $4975, including breakfast and lunch, but not including the room price at the resort. (Rooms go for $240 to $1200 a night. It's a beautiful place with a world class golf course.) I come to the reluctant conclusion that this is a money-making scheme presented as therapy, but then I am a skeptic and a cynic.
As a mathematician, I am particularly sensitive to misstatements about mathematics. Chopra did a review in which he made an absurd criticism of Hawking's book, The Grand Design:
They fail to address Gödel's incompleteness theorem that categorically implies that no mathematical model of cosmos can ever be complete.
I'm not a fan of that book, but this criticism is nonsense—should I say categorical nonsense. Gödel's incompleteness theorems say nothing of the sort. They are solely concerned with axiomatic mathematical systems and say nothing about mathematical models of the cosmos. That is sheer invention.
If you're referring to some of the stuff I posted, I have to be honest in saying that I have never read any Deepak Chopra at all. A lot of the stuff I've been posting is actually a regurgitation of Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, Ramesh Balsekar, Terence McKenna, Rick Strassman and a few others which don't really emphasize much of Chopra's work.
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Emerging Issues in the Electric Power Industry: Challenges and Opportunities in Meeting Clean Energy
Meeting clean energy goals, complying with environmental standards, achieving state renewable portfolio standards (RPS), and maintaining grid reliability require enormous resource and capital investment throughout the energy industry. The recent Energy Bar Association (EBA) Spring Seminar and 66th Annual Meeting in Washington DC offered insight into numerous aspects of these important issues, including the effects of shale gas and new EPA regulations on coal-fired electric generating units (EGU), challenges facing the integration of renewable energy resources, and a discussion of recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders, including Order 1000. A summary of meeting highlights follows.
Coal Plant Economics
Rapid growth in shale gas production throughout the United States has led to the lowest natural gas prices in over a decade. Futures prices dipped below $2.00 per thousand cubic feet in April 2012 for the first time since September 2001, and the Energy Information Administration projects that low natural gas prices (in the $4- to $6-per-thousand-cubic-feet range) will continue for the foreseeable future. Low natural gas prices combined with increasingly stringent EPA regulations on power plant emissions have important implications for the electric power industry.
Kurt Bilas, Executive Director of Government Relations at the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO), noted that out of the approximately 70 gigawatts of coal-generation capacity in the MISO service territory, 60 GW will need to retrofit or retire as a result of EPA's Mercury Air Toxics Standard (MATS) and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR, which is currently under stay). Out of that 60 GW, approximately 12 GW (representing over 10 percent of MISO's total generation capacity) would have to retire.
With EPA's proposed greenhouse gas rule, the economics for coal fired EGUs – both existing and new – are becoming increasingly marginal in competitive wholesale electricity markets. Further complicating the issue, the decision to retrofit or replace these units must account for the possibility that a significant retrofit of a facility could trigger New Source Review (NSR) and compliance with New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) under the Clean Air Act. Many operators are looking for greater stability and certainty for the long term, and natural gas is quickly emerging as the fuel of choice for new electric power generation.
Infrastructure Limitations
Some regions of the country already rely heavily on natural-gas-fired generation. In 2010 natural gas supplied over 45 percent of the power produced in the ISO-New England service territory, up from just 6 percent in 1990. In other regions, natural gas represents the second largest portion of proposed new generation (second only to proposals for wind). However, switching from coal to gas generation is complicated: new facilities must be constructed and pipeline transportation infrastructure must be in place to deliver the fuel.
In fact, the pipeline infrastructure and nature of the natural gas delivery contracts represent some of the most significant barriers to the transition. In regions such as the Northeast, natural gas is also used as a heating fuel in the winter months. Because gas generators generally take natural gas delivery on an interruptible basis, other customers taking delivery on a firm contract basis – such as the home heating market – take precedent when demand is high and pipeline capacity is full. Expanding pipeline capacity is the logical solution to this problem; however, this takes years of planning, environmental review, siting, permitting, and construction.
Compounding the issue for coal plants is the EPA's 2015 compliance deadline for MATS (2016, if a state extension is granted). Many operators will choose to retire these old generators rather than upgrading them to meet the new standards. Without adequate replacement capacity in the system, a generation facility could be called upon to run for reliability reasons – putting it out of compliance with the law. The U.S. House of Representatives recently responded to this issue with the passage of H.R. 4273.
Liability Exemption?
H.R. 4273 would amend the Federal Power Act (FPA) to exempt a generator operating under an FPA Section 202(c) emergency order from liability if it were otherwise in violation of federal, state or local environmental laws. While the principles contained in the bill are sound – dispatching a generator for emergency reliability purposes should not subject that generator to liability for non-compliance with the law – it opens the door for generators to subvert environmental policy and extend the date of compliance.
Opponents of the legislation have argued the bill would effectively write a loophole into the FPA that would delay compliance with EPA regulation. Further, the EPA maintains that Section 202(c) orders are rare and the legislation is unnecessary, given the other tools that EPA has at its disposal. While the fate of HR 4273 may be a bellwether for how Congress ultimately responds to EPA regulation in the electric industry, the long-term generation resource portfolio that will replace retiring coal units largely will depend on economic, technological, and infrastructure constraints. Public policy, such as state RPS or EPA regulations like MATS, CSAPR, and the proposed greenhouse gas rule, must be considered in regional transmission planning processes pursuant to FERC Order 1000.
Transmission Planning
In July 2011 FERC issued Order 1000 in an attempt to address challenges associated with transmission planning and cost-allocation. At the EBA meeting, former FERC Commissioner Suedeen Kelley noted that the promotion of competition in regional transmission planning processes lies at the core of Order 1000. Requiring the incorporation of public policy into the planning process should stimulate a more holistic assessment of transmission needs, costs, and benefits for transmission infrastructure. This is particularly important for the integration of renewables – which has a sort of "chicken and egg" conundrum associated with it. Renewable developers won't build new wind turbines if there are no transmission lines to deliver the power to load, and transmission developers won't build new transmission in the hopes that a wind farm will go up and energize the line.
The Midwest has vast wind resource potential that could play an important role in the nation's energy portfolio over the long term. Texas, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Iowa have over 6,900 GW of combined wind generation potential. With only 46 GW of installed wind power capacity in the United States in 2011, wind has a long way to go to before it represents a significant portion of the nearly 1000 GW of the country's total installed capacity.
Balancing Short-Term Market Signals with Long-Term Energy Policy
FERC Order 1000 fosters greater competition and inter-ISO/RTO cooperation in transmission planning, requiring the incorporation of public policy goals in the transmission planning process. While this is a step in the right direction, comprehensive Congressional action is critical – but unlikely in the near term. That makes it all the more critical for states and regional entities to coordinate on clean energy goals and cost-effective solutions to meeting environmental standards while maintaining grid reliability.
Greater harmonization of state RPS, even if only among states within the same ISO/RTO service territories, could lead to more cost-effective renewable power integration and ease the transmission planning and cost-allocation process. While increased natural gas development will and must be part of our energy future, short-term market signals must be tempered by long-term energy policy goals, including increased federal attention to transmission and renewable energy development.
Beren Argetsinger is a joint-degree student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where he is pursuing a MEM with a concentration in energy systems and policy, and Pace Law School.


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Hi Folks,
I'm developing a remote support suite in C# that will hopefully be a one-stop support package.
I've got it talking to a TCP listener I developed on the client end that runs commands, displays messages, dialogs and even locks out local input if necessary.
I need to know, if UltraVNC can be embedded as a server in my agent, and as a viewer in my manager console, and if this will allow me to run file transfers or local input blocking while my manager console is connected?
If any of the above is possible, would anyone be kind enough to briefly explain how?
Many Thanks!


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Archive for the 'Massenet' Tag
Happy Birthday to Amadis Surflen born 1784
This is the first post of a series, where I introduce some of my past relatives on their birthdays.
Amadis Surflen was born on 13th October 1784, in Margate, Kent, the son of Edward Surflen (1752-1797) and Ann Humbel (c1758- after 1809).
I don't know anything else about Amadis Surflen – not even if he survived childhood. I have found references to an Amadis Surflen operating a bathing machine at Margate in The Times newspaper, but I think this probably refers to an Amadis born in 1746.
Amadis is clearly a family name. I have three records of the name across three generations: Amadis Surflen b1746; Amadis Surflen b1784; & Edward Amadis Nevill b1813 (son of Mary Ann Surflen).
So in the absence of any knowledge about the man Amadis Surflen, what about that name?
Starting simply, Amadis means 'love of God'.
Deeper than this, where did the name come from? The main reference I can find is to a wildly popular 14th/15th century portugese/spanish tale of a knight errant 'Amadis de Gaula'. This well-known tale of chivalric romance is apparantly referred to repeatedly in 'Don Quixote' by Cervantes, as "the character Don Quixote idolizes Amadís, and often compares his hero's adventures to his own" (quote from Wikipedia article on Amadis de Gaula).
Massenet wrote an opera 'Amadis' based on the story, and Goethe wrote a poem in 1775, 'The New Amadis'.
Picture me now, imagining a Surflen ancestor revelling in the romance and heroism of Amadis de Gaula and inspired to name a son… it's probably more prosaic than that, but I can dream 😉