The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[lkwdblds]

Hubbard's Real Game vs His Stated Game

I was thinking about Hubbardism and Scientology for most of last night. In an effort to simplify, I came up with some basic statements made by Hubbard.

Hubbard stated that Scientology was an aim at a total "know".
Hubbard stated that Scientology was a workable system, not necessarily a perfect system.
Hubbard stated that the goal of Scientology was a betterment of mankind, A World without war where the able could prosper and rise to greater heights, etc.
Hubbard stated that Scientology was the only game in the Universe where everyone would win.

His goal as stated was not actually practiced in earnest in CoS, in fact something almost diametrically opposed to that was and is actually practiced.

I believe that the real goal of Scientology was first and foremost to aggrandise Hubbard himself and smash his name into the history books for all time. He stated that as his goal early on.

His dilemma was then to gain a large following through offering various inducements, making it appear that he was interested in the betterment of mankind but really only promoting his own self aggrandisement as his primary goal. Thus Hubbard set up the game called Scientology and Dianetics. In so doing, he set up challenges for himself along the lines of how it could look as if he was pursuing the betterment of all mankind when in actuality, he was promoting a narcissistic goal of self aggrandisement.

In the early days of his movement, after a somewhat rough start, he was able to be pretty upbeat and chipper in pursuing his true goal. I believe he looked at what he was doing as a game. When he used the approach of playing a game, he tended to be more happy and successful.

THE ROLE OF OTHER PEOPLE IN HUBBARD'S GAME:
Hubbard was a narcissist and did not really see much value in other people. They were around, they were needed to do his bidding and help him achieve his goals but they weren't looked at as being very important but instead he regarded them as quite expendable. It is very eye opening to realize how easily Hubbard would get rid of his top people. No matter how well someone performed in backing up Hubbard, at the slightest pretext, real or imagined, it was easy for him to get rid of anyone if they got him upset.

When he felt he was playing a game, duping his followers but making them think that he was helping them, he was most effective. The things that tended to bring him down were when groups such as governments, the medical field and psychiatry produced bigger effects in the world than he was producing.

In an overall assessment, he did pretty well for himself for quite some time. After Operation Snow White, he had to go into hiding and he was pretty much finished. His physical and mental health started to wane, life was no longer a game for him and he faded out. The legacy he hoped for has never materialized and his public PR perception continues to sink. Starting out as he did with those principles I state at the beginning of this post, he had a pretty good run for a while but like a tired race horse, he faded badly in the home stretch.
Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The banality of evil

as Voltaire said:

“If you want to converse with me, first define your terms.”

But the trick Hubbard used was to define terms for a person (before the person did without agreement, but got him to agree, or otherwise known as assigning the significance before the person does), ie the tech dictionary and specialized terms in scientology lingo. (subtle communication)

One of the first tricks was to define the word "clear". A pure evaluation of what to think. Of what might be possible. And Hubbard sure talked a lot about how this state was possible by using logos, ethos and pathos.

But isn't this an evaluation?

And, people discussing significance is not allowed in scientology, ie KSW.

I began to reply to this, and lost it all. Sigh. I'll try again later.

 

[SPsince83]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

A lot of people seem to believe that we never landed on the Moon. I don't know why that is, there are always a lot of conspiracy theory advocates. For me, I don't believe for one minute that Oswald killed President Kennedy on his own. That one is pretty obvious to see through.

On the Moon shot, I know that we did enough work and had enough brain power and financial clout in the program to get the job done. Werner von Braun, ex Nazi, was both a genius and a guy who could meet deadlines and get things done ih almost impossible circumstances and he was running our Moon program. We had an excellent chance at succeeding at the Moon landing and the odds are extremely high that we did just that.

One thing working on the Space program. both at JPL Labs in Pasadena and at NASA near Houston, Texas, I got to work with some really top mathematicians and physicists. I am pretty good at math but several of the men I worked with were off the charts, Cal Tech and MIT grads, guys of that nature. What I found there were some really exceptionally nice guys and yes, there were a few women math geniuses working there with us as well!

I found all of these people to be extremely nice and they did not have big egos. Nevertheless, they were for the most part not well rounded people, rather they were a bit eccentric. They could apply their intelligence to a few things besides math and science. For example, some of them would recommend good books for me to read. One PHD recommended a book called the Passover Plot, about the life of Jesus, which I bought, read twice and still own. Also, you could talk about the symphony orchestras, operas and such with some while others prefered jazz or folk music or even the hard rock of the day. One common trait was that their dress was never the latest style, nor were their haircuts. Their clothing was usually a bit frumpy. A few had interesting hobbies such as river rafting or maybe piloting a small plane. Nice guys? Yes, very much so, easy to make the acquaintance of but much tougher to actually be friends with.

As smart as they were, they would not be able to do what I did and put their equations into FORTRAN code or work out the bugs and make test runs on the computer. Before the finished product existed and after it existed and trial runs were being made, they were brilliant. Writing the code so the computer could read in their equations, that was not something they could do. I was the young guy with the bachelor's degree and I did that earning maybe the equivalent of $100k ti $120k a year in today's money. They had PHD's and as theorists, they were earning about double what I earned. That was the pecking order. Knowing several of these guys and working with them was one of the highlights of my life. As I said above, these guy had the brains to get us to the Moon and I believe that is exactly what they did!
Lakey

My uncle, who was a brilliant man, took a physics class from Einstein at Princeton. He could barely keep up with general relativity and said that outside of physics and music, Einstein was rather pedestrian. Great geniuses can be very susceptible to all manner of illogics as illogical as that sounds. Also curious is that it seems to be limited to science geeks. Geniuses in history or art for example tend to be more integrated, van Gogh notwithstanding.

Technical writers are a necessity. Integrated hemispheres are foreign to a left-brain wizard. Right brain wizards have the opposite problem but it is still lack of cranial cohesiveness. The generalist then steps in and translates left to right. You would seem to fit in that category.

The math of the moonshot seemed huge at the time but essentially it is a logistics problem with distances that are really only a single order of magnitude greater than the circumference of the earth. The equations, regardless of how complex the set of variables, were only 3 dimensional after all. Ballistics and life support. When you are the FIRST one there, it is tremendously difficult to breach a gap. Once it's done it seems to others that it should have been easy. They don't recognize that they already have the answers that weren't there at the time of original solution. You see it in musical development when a student of written music finds it easy to play a melody they already know while "reading it" on a lead sheet. Put an unfamiliar melody in front of him and watch him all of a sudden be illiterate.

 

[SPsince83]

Re: Hubbard's Real Game vs His Stated Game

I was thinking about Hubbardism and Scientology for most of last night. In an effort to simplify, I came up with some basic statements made by Hubbard.

Hubbard stated that Scientology was an aim at a total "know".
Hubbard stated that Scientology was a workable system, not necessarily a perfect system.
Hubbard stated that the goal of Scientology was a betterment of mankind, A World without war where the able could prosper and rise to greater heights, etc.
Hubbard stated that Scientology was the only game in the Universe where everyone would win.

His goal as stated was not actually practiced in earnest in CoS, in fact something almost diametrically opposed to that was and is actually practiced.

I believe that the real goal of Scientology was first and foremost to aggrandise Hubbard himself and smash his name into the history books for all time. He stated that as his goal early on.

His dilemma was then to gain a large following through offering various inducements, making it appear that he was interested in the betterment of mankind but really only promoting his own self aggrandisement as his primary goal. Thus Hubbard set up the game called Scientology and Dianetics. In so doing, he set up challenges for himself along the lines of how it could look as if he was pursuing the betterment of all mankind when in actuality, he was promoting a narcissistic goal of self aggrandisement.

In the early days of his movement, after a somewhat rough start, he was able to be pretty upbeat and chipper in pursuing his true goal. I believe he looked at what he was doing as a game. When he used the approach of playing a game, he tended to be more happy and successful.

THE ROLE OF OTHER PEOPLE IN HUBBARD'S GAME:
Hubbard was a narcissist and did not really see much value in other people. They were around, they were needed to do his bidding and help him achieve his goals but they weren't looked at as being very important but instead he regarded them as quite expendable. It is very eye opening to realize how easily Hubbard would get rid of his top people. No matter how well someone performed in backing up Hubbard, at the slightest pretext, real of imagined, it was easy for him to get rid of anyone if they got him upset.

When he felt he was playing a game, duping his followers but making them think that he was helping them, he was most effective. The things that tended to bring him down were when groups such as governments, the medical field and psychiatry produced bigger effects in the world than he was producing.

In an overall assessment, he did pretty well for himself for quite some time. After Operation Snow White, he had to go into hiding and he was pretty much finished. His physical and mental health started to wane, life was no longer a game for him and he faded out. The legacy he hoped for has never materialized and his public PR perception continues to sink. Starting out as he did with those principles I state at the beginning of this post, he had a pretty good run for a while but like a tired race horse, he faded badly in the home stretch.
Lakey

It has been noted that Thelemites frequently come to bad ends. They love that do what thou wilt shit and it NEVER works out. Hubbard is typical rather than exceptional in this.

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: Hubbard's Real Game vs His Stated Game

It has been noted that Thelemites frequently come to bad ends. They love that do what thou wilt shit and it NEVER works out. Hubbard is typical rather than exceptional in this.

And never mind that the thelemite pantheon could care less if its 'creatures' come to good or bad ends....the gods were/are always entirely capricious in dispensing justice. LOLOL.

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Hubbard's Real Game vs His Stated Game

It has been noted that Thelemites frequently come to bad ends. They love that do what thou wilt shit and it NEVER works out. Hubbard is typical rather than exceptional in this.

Okay, I got what you said! What is your assessment of DM in this regard. His Idea Org game is not typical, I don't think a large mass swindle such as that has ever succeeded in the past. We'll maybe Bernie Madoff's Pyramid Scheme might be of equal or greater magnitude but what Madoff did is illegal and he got caught and was sent to prison. In DM's case, he has done nothing illegal and can never be prosecuted for anything so his achievement is far more clever.

You have to appreciate what DM is getting his parishioners to do. In it's initial state, an org is paying rent on some so-so building and is conducting its auditing and its courses there and typically is just struggling to survive. DM then get's on their lines and asks them for perhaps $7 million dollars. The parishioners actually raise this money by mortgaging their homes, cashing in their children's college funds and maxing their credit out. The $7 million is raised in a few years. Only at that point are the parishioners notified that an initial $5 million is needed for the design and furnishing phase of the building. The $5 million is harder to raise because the local parishioners have already been squeezed dry. Management encourages parishioners from around the world to chip in and share these costs with the local parishioners. If there is any equity in the org's previous building, CoS sells that building and pockets all of that money for itself. Finally, the new redesigned and refurnished Ideal Org is scheduled to open.

DM makes an appearance but since there are now so few active Scientologists, money has to be spent to hire actors to make the audience for the event look large. Even then, maybe only 2,000 people can be mobilized. The new Ideal Org opens. Instead of the promised new flow of people into the building, after opening day, almost no one comes to the building. The old org no longer has a real academy and only offers intro Div 6 courses. In fact the local org only operates a small portion of the building. Most of the building is used for other CoS entities as office space.

Well, you would think that at least the local Org doesn't have to pay rent any more because they built the new building and they now hold title to this large asset. Wrong again, C of S Int holds title to the building and the local parishioners fees are used in part by the Org to pay CofS rent on the new building.

Building donations are considered religious contributions and none of those who contributed money can ever ask for a refund. It is a beautifully thought out system to enrich CoS int at the expense of the local parishioners. CoS Int ends up with a real estate asset worth $15 million or so without having to pay anything for it. Everything is done legally. The Parishioners have been swindled literally but not in the eyes of the law. SPs, do you consider this set up to be normal?
Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: Hubbard's Real Game vs His Stated Game

Okay, I got what you said! What is your assessment of DM in this regard. His Idea Org game is not typical, I don't think a large mass swindle such as that has ever succeeded in the past. We'll maybe Bernie Madoff's Pyramid Scheme might be of equal or greater magnitude but what Madoff did is illegal and he got caught and was sent to prison. In DM's case, he has done nothing illegal and can never be prosecuted for anything so his achievement is far more clever.

You have to appreciate what DM is getting his parishioners to do. In it's initial state, an org is paying rent on some so-so building and is conducting its auditing and its courses there and typically is just struggling to survive. DM then get's on their lines and asks them for perhaps $7 million dollars. The parishioners actually raise this money by mortgaging their homes, cashing in their children's college funds and maxing their credit out. The $7 million is raised in a few years. Only at that point are the parishioners notified that an initial $5 million is needed for the design and furnishing phase of the building. The $5 million is harder to raise because the local parishioners have already been squeezed dry. Management encourages parishioners from around the world to chip in and share these costs with the local parishioners. If there is any equity in the org's previous building, CoS sells that building and pockets all of that money for itself. Finally, the new redesigned and refurnished Ideal Org is scheduled to open.

DM makes an appearance but since there are now so few active Scientologists, money has to be spent to hire actors to make the audience for the event look large. Even then, maybe only 2,000 people can be mobilized. The new Ideal Org opens. Instead of the promised new flow of people into the building, after opening day, almost no one comes to the building. The old org no longer has a real academy and only offers intro Div 6 courses. In fact the local org only operates a small portion of the building. Most of the building is used for other CoS entities as office space.

Well, you would think that at least the local Org doesn't have to pay rent any more because they built the new building and they now hold title to this large asset. Wrong again, C of S Int holds title to the building and the local parishioners fees are used in part by the Org to pay CofS rent on the new building.

Building donations are considered religious contributions and none of those who contributed money can ever ask for a refund. It is a beautifully thought out system to enrich CoS int at the expense of the local parishioners. Cos Int ends up with a real estate asset worth $15 million or so without having to pay anything for it. Everything is done legally. The Parishioners have been swindled literally but not in the eyes of the law. SPs, do you consider this set up to be normal?
Lakey

Well the sheep have been sheared so close that anymore shearing and they will bleed.

 

[Gib]

Re: The banality of evil

I began to reply to this, and lost it all. Sigh. I'll try again later.

yah, had that happen too.

BTW, what I meant by you being involved with David Mayo and having Ethos, character, plus your later years studying philosophy after COS,

gives you ethos, in that people will listen to what you have to say here on ESMB. I meant that in a good light, yah know.

My understanding of Rhetoric is superficial, and only based on this, for the most part:

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/12/21/classical-rhetoric-101-the-three-means-of-persuasion/

"Ethos: The Appeal to the Speaker’s or Writer’s Character or Reputation

If you wish to persuade, you need to establish credibility and authority with your audience. A man may have the most logical and well-thought-out argument, but if his audience doesn’t think he’s trustworthy or even worth listening to, all his reasoning will be for naught."

While I understand you are not trying to persuade, but you have Character and Reputation in the scientology world, so people will listen to you. That's all I'm say'in. And once again in a good light.

 

[lkwdblds]

Einstein

My uncle, who was a brilliant man, took a physics class from Einstein at Princeton. He could barely keep up with general relativity and said that outside of physics and music, Einstein was rather pedestrian. Great geniuses can be very susceptible to all manner of illogics as illogical as that sounds. Also curious is that it seems to be limited to science geeks. Geniuses in history or art for example tend to be more integrated, van Gogh notwithstanding.

Technical writers are a necessity. Integrated hemispheres are foreign to a left-brain wizard. Right brain wizards have the opposite problem but it is still lack of cranial cohesiveness. The generalist then steps in and translates left to right. You would seem to fit in that category.

The math of the moonshot seemed huge at the time but essentially it is a logistics problem with distances that are really only a single order of magnitude greater than the circumference of the earth. The equations, regardless of how complex the set of variables, were only 3 dimensional after all. Ballistics and life support. When you are the FIRST one there, it is tremendously difficult to breach a gap. Once it's done it seems to others that it should have been easy. They don't recognize that they already have the answers that weren't there at the time of original solution. You see it in musical development when a student of written music finds it easy to play a melody they already know while "reading it" on a lead sheet. Put an unfamiliar melody in front of him and watch him all of a sudden be illiterate.

Outside of Physics and Music, Einstein was rather pedestrian? I get your point but I am not so sure that it is true. First, both Physics and Music are two very large subjects in and of themselves. Besides being a genius in physics and having talent in music, Einstein was active in several other fields. He was by nature a pacifist and he was by birth a Jew. Both of those facts had a profound influence on his life. With Hitler and his Nazi's on a rampage to take over Europe first and then the World and by virtue of Hitler's goal of eradicating the Jewish people from the Earth, Einstein's beliefs on pacifism were challenged. Ultimately, Einstein was forced to give up on complete pacifism with no exceptions. He realized that extreme force was needed to stop Hitler. He had to concede that it was the proper thing to do for people to take up arms against Hitler and crush his third Reich with force. This was a huge decision for a pacifist to make but Einstein was able to make it even though doing that made him unpopular with many fellow pacifists. Towards the end of WWII, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, encouraging him to invest heavily in an atom bomb program, because he feared the Nazi's might get the bomb first and reverse the course of WWII. Einstein wrote that letter but later in life he came to regret doing that.

On the question of a homeland for the Jewish people, Einstein became a backer of the creation of the state of Israel. Initially, he was even offered the job of being its first Prime Minister, which he turned down. Einstein also involved himself with the question of whether or not there was a God, he saw order in the way the universe was constructed, far too much order for the universe to just be the result of random chance and he let his feelings be known to the public on the issue of God.

You have to realize that when Einstein was at his peak popularity, he was famous in the same way as a rock star is famous today. People sought out his opinions on the big issues of the day and they sought out his advice. He was the first great scientist who was readily recognizable by the general public. Besides his love for classical music, Einstein loved sailing his own sailboat. For a man who did not have a flamboyant and outgoing personality by nature, he participated in many fields of life. He even developed the wild hair style which he had, the long haired genius look. He didn't have to do that, it mad him stand out in a crowd and be readily identified and yet he chose to do it, i.e., the first scientist with the public recognition of a rock star!

On the subject of getting to the moon, as you state, the distance is not enormous but don't forget that we weren't just going to the Moon, we needed to plan for getting our men safely back to Earth. The V2 rocket pioneered first by Von Braun and others such as Goodard in the USA, was taken over by Nazi Germany as a weapon of war. It had only one stage. When the trip to the Moon was contemplated, it would not be possible to have only a one stage rocket but yet an enormous of amount of fuel had to be on board at launch to escape the Earth's gravity. Thus the multi staged rocket had to be developed. That was a fairly large obstacle which was handled quite easily. Once the rocket ship escaped the Earth's gravitational field, the trip to the Moon was was pretty routine until it came time for the ship to land. Landing the rocketship became the next big obstacle to tackle. After that, there had to be fuel and a rocket booster to take off from the Moon. Since the Moon has only 1/6 the Earth's gravity, the rocket for the return trip could be much smaller than the rocket which took off from Earth. This fact was very helpful. Had we visited a place with the same or more of a gravitational field than Earth, we would probably still be trying to figure out how to design the return journey. Fortunately, that was not the case.

The next big obstacle was reentering the Earth's atmosphere. As a rocket approaches the Earth's atmosphere and begins to enter it, the rocket ship is subjected to enormous heat and there is also a threat that the rocketship will suffer impacts with chunks of matter. The heat shield problem during reentry was probably the biggest obstacle which had to be solved for the mission to succeed. Heat resistant tiles had to be attached to the hull of the rocket ship to survive all the heat and keep the ship and its occupants from burning up. It took a lot of engineering effort to overcome the problems associated with reentry.
Lakey

 

[SPsince83]

Re: Einstein

Outside of Physics and Music, Einstein was rather pedestrian? I get your point but I am not so sure that it is true. First, both Physics and Music are two very large subjects in and of themselves. Besides being a genius in physics and having talent in music, Einstein was active in several other fields. He was by nature a pacifist and he was by birth a Jew. Both of those facts had a profound influence on his life. With Hitler and his Nazi's on a rampage to take over Europe first and then the World and by virtue of Hitler's goal of eradicating the Jewish people from the Earth, Einstein's beliefs on pacifism were challenged. Ultimately, Einstein was forced to give up on complete pacifism with no exceptions. He realized that extreme force was needed to stop Hitler. He had to concede that it was the proper thing to do for people to take up arms against Hitler and crush his third Reich with force. This was a huge decision for a pacifist to make but Einstein was able to make it even though doing that made him unpopular with many fellow pacifists. Towards the end of WWII, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, encouraging him to invest heavily in an atom bomb program, because he feared the Nazi's might get the bomb first and reverse the course of WWII. Einstein wrote that letter but later in life he came to regret doing that.

On the question of a homeland for the Jewish people, Einstein became a backer of the creation of the state of Israel. Initially, he was even offered the job of being its first Prime Minister, which he turned down. Einstein also involved himself with the question of whether or not there was a God, he saw order in the way the universe was constructed, far too much order for the universe to just be the result of random chance and he let his feelings be known to the public on the issue of God.

You have to realize that when Einstein was at his peak popularity, he was famous in the same way as a rock star is famous today. People sought out his opinions on the big issues of the day and they sought out his advice. He was the first great scientist who was readily recognizable by the general public. Besides his love for classical music, Einstein loved sailing his own sailboat. For a man who did not have a flamboyant and outgoing personality by nature, he participated in many fields of life. He even developed the wild hair style which he had, the long haired genius look. He didn't have to do that, it mad him stand out in a crowd and be readily identified and yet he chose to do it, i.e., the first scientist with the public recognition of a rock star!

On the subject of getting to the moon, as you state, the distance is not enormous but don't forget that we weren't just going to the Moon, we needed to plan for getting our men safely back to Earth. The V2 rocket pioneered first by Von Braun and others such as Goodard in the USA, was taken over by Nazi Germany as a weapon of war. It had only one stage. When the trip to the Moon was contemplated, it would not be possible to have only a one stage rocket but yet an enormous of amount of fuel had to be on board at launch to escape the Earth's gravity. Thus the multi staged rocket had to be developed. That was a fairly large obstacle which was handled quite easily. Once the rocket ship escaped the Earth's gravitational field, the trip to the Moon was was pretty routine until it came time for the ship to land. Landing the rocketship became the next big obstacle to tackle. After that, there had to be fuel and a rocket booster to take off from the Moon. Since the Moon has only 1/6 the Earth's gravity, the rocket for the return trip could be much smaller than the rocket which took off from Earth. This fact was very helpful. Had we visited a place with the same or more of a gravitational field than Earth, we would probably still be trying to figure out how to design the return journey. Fortunately, that was not the case.

The next big obstacle was reentering the Earth's atmosphere. As a rocket approaches the Earth's atmosphere and begins to enter it, the rocket ship is subjected to enormous heat and there is also a threat that the rocketship will suffer impacts with chunks of matter. The heat shield problem during reentry was probably the biggest obstacle which had to be solved for the mission to succeed. Heat resistant tiles had to be attached to the hull of the rocket ship to survive all the heat and keep the ship and its occupants from burning up. It took a lot of engineering effort to overcome the problems associated with reentry.
Lakey

I guess I over generalized here. I was referring to Einstein's famous lack of care for everyday living. I know quite well how complex physics and music are. I was a music major before I was drafted, then did Nuclear Power School in the Navy. While I am hardly at the physics level of Einstein, I at least have physics beyond force-vector equations. I certainly have more physics than Elwrong. Probably the lower division requirements for the major. I have also on more than 3 occasions been paid to sing and play my guitar or bass.

 

[ILove2Lurk]

Re: The banality of evil

Seems that David Mayo is a bit of an existentialist too. neat.

Maria, you're so clever and smart about philosophy. Me, not so much. I love reading your posts when I have time. Getting a lot out of them.

I've always had trouble with the word "existentialist." It's bandied about a lot and seems like it means different things to different people. I can't get my wits around it cleanly.

Could you in a sentence or two or three tell me what you think it means? Or direct me with a link to a very simple discussion?

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Einstein

I guess I over generalized here. I was referring to Einstein's famous lack of care for everyday living. I know quite well how complex physics and music are. I was a music major before I was drafted, then did Nuclear Power School in the Navy. While I am hardly at the physics level of Einstein, I at least have physics beyond force-vector equations. I certainly have more physics than Elwrong. Probably the lower division requirements for the major. I have also on more than 3 occasions been paid to sing and play my guitar or bass.

Oh, great SPs. I took Physics I and Physics II in high school I probably studied just about the same amount of physics as you did in college. I have kept up with physics and math quite a bit since I graduated college in the covered wagon days, well not quite that long ago but it was in 1962. I like math puzzle books and enjoy reading about number theory, prime numbers and weird stuff like that. In physics, my main concentration of reading in popular books for the general public has been reading up on Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. I have a reasonably good grasp of relativity basics and can think with them a little but I am no expert, not even close.

Well done SPs on your achievements in music, they sound very impressive! Do you know Richard Royce, an ex Scio was was there in 1969 for the opening of CCLA but didn't leave CoS until about 3 years ago. He lives up in Oregon and is a professional player of Flamenco guitar music. BTW, at the screening of "Going Clear" which I attended a couple of weeks ago in L.A., I ran into and ex CCLA guy from the early 70"s named Mike Mallen. As soon as he mentioned his name, I blurted out, "You used to play Classical Guitar at Poetry by Candlelight at the old CCLA!" He was blown over that I remembered that but he remembered that I had a brother on lines there and asked me if we were still in contact. Sadly, I had to tell him thAT we are no longer in contact, Anyway, do you know Mike Mallen?

Yes, I would agree with you that you have more physics then Elwrong. He took one course in Molecular phenomena, in 1931 I believe, but he failed that class and dropped out of college without finishing it. In all fairness, I am sure that he had the smarts to pass the course if he had applied himself but he chose not to do that. However, he sure played up the fact that he enrolled in that course. In my intro lecture given June 5, 1970. our lecturer, Seton Thomas, a really nice guy and very likeable, played it up even bigger. He said that Hubbard enrolled in the Very First class in Nuclear Physics given in the United States. He went even further, he stated flately and with certainty that all the other students took the course because they wanted to know how to make a nuclear bomb while Elwrong was the only student who studied it with the emphasis of using nuclear physics to better mankind. How the hell did Seton come up with that claim? I have never once heard on tape on read in a policy that Hubbard made that ridiculous claim.
Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: The banality of evil

Maria, you're so clever and smart about philosophy. Me, not so much. I love reading your posts when I have time. Getting a lot out of them.

I've always had trouble with the word "existentialist." It's bandied about a lot and seems like it means different things to different people. I can't get my wits around it cleanly.

Could you in a sentence or two or three tell me what you think it means? Or direct me with a link to a very simple discussion?

I found this:
"A practical philosophical tendency centered on the concrete realities of human life, rather than generalized abstractions." I would add that an existential philosophy focuses on each person's uniqueness and their life as a response to and expression of that uniqueness in experience.

Thank you. I think that authenticity and kindness always trump clever, and authenticity is an aspect of existential philosophy....and they might be harder to attain.....

 

[lkwdblds]

A Non Senior Moment!

I'm one of the few guys who still reads the morning newspaper. In today's Orange Country Register there was an article on the Pony Express, showing a map and the 1966 mile route it covered. The time it took was about 11 days which was lighting fast for those days. The Pony Express only lasted about 1 1/2 years from around March. 1860 to about Dec, 1861. At that point the railroad to California was completed and the Pony Express was no longer needed. The early railroad made the 1966 mile trek in about 5 days

Anyway, the article was talking about the history of the Pony Express. They mentioned its most famous rider and that was a gentleman by the name of "Pony Bob Haslam". I read that name and immediately bells and whistles went off in my head.

Return to 1948 and the 8 year old Lakey shared an old fashioned 78 rpm record player with his 5 year old brother, Clarence Rockaway. For my birthday or some other occasion, I was given a copy of a record featuring the oldtime famous Western Singer Tex Ritter, the father of the late actor, John Ritter. The record which I was given was entitled, Tex Ritter singing about the Pony Express. At one time, I played that record over and over and memorized the whole thing. I knew that the rider featured on Tex Ritter's record was named "Pony Bob" Haslam.

Just for the hell of it, I went to youtube and looked for that old record and sure enough they have it and here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STmPx04yo2k

Of course, Pony Bob Haslam is mentioned right at the beginning of the record and after that he is just referred to as Pony Bob. The story is pretty much a narrative with just a wee bit of music. 1948 was a wonderful time to be a kid, every day was an adventure, climbing trees, building forts out in a vacant lot, flying model airplanes with wind up rubber band controlled propellers and listening to all the kids radio shows when we got home from school.

Of course, neither we nor our neighbors locked our from doors during the day so my many friends in the neighborhood would often drop by and walk in to see me and I would return the favor. The one thing that was bad about that time period was that even in Los Angeles, bigotry was in full force. In our area in L.A., Jews were accepted in West L.A., partly because they were a huge percentage of the population, perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 the families were Jewish. The same can't be said for Blacks and also Latinos. My parents wouldn't even allow me or Clarence to play with them. It wasn't Jim Crow in L.A the way it was in the Southern states, but it was far, far more segregated and bigoted than it is today. When people tell people my age how bigoted this country is today, it goes in one ear and out the other as far as I am concerned. I grew up when it was REALLY bigoted and we have made so much progress since then that there are not words to express it. I agree that we have further to go, but compared to where we were in 1948, we have come so so far, that those of us who lived through that period just have to feel a lot of pride for all the progress which we have made.

With that preamble, I want to apologize for the way Indians are depicted on the Pony Express Record. That 1948 society looked at Indians as sort of the bad guys. Some times, in cowboys movies, the Indians were booed when they went on rampages. The Native Americans had a beautiful civilization and we Whites treated them like Savages. You know, the role of Tonto, in the Lone Rangers, first appearing in the early 1940's was actually the first thing I ever saw which depicted an Indian as a courageous and brave person, literally a Brave. Year after year, the Lone Ranger Show came on the radio 3 times a week. Over and over, Tonto and occasionally some other Indians were shone in a favorable light. As a result, all of us in my age group whom i knew began to think of Indians in a positive way. Not only that but in the Boy Scouts, a lot of Indian lore was learned and many Indian arts and crafts projects were done by many of us Scouts. My hat is off to the mass media of that day for presenting Native American Culture in a good light. All the people whom I knew or still know without exception have nothing but good to say about Native Americans and they recognize that our ancestors in America dealt with them very unfairly and dishonorably.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The banality of evil

I found this:
"A practical philosophical tendency centered on the concrete realities of human life, rather than generalized abstractions." I would add that an existential philosophy focuses on each person's uniqueness and their life as a response to and expression of that uniqueness in experience.

Thank you. I think that authenticity and kindness always trump clever, and authenticity is an aspect of existential philosophy....and they might be harder to attain.....

Thanks for the definition of existentialism, I was also a bit uncertain about its definition as well. I like your two adjectives, authenticity and kindness! I have also used the word genuineness for authenticity. In the opening pages of the thread, I mentioned a high school buddy of mine, Ken R. who knew a guy named Rick Charleston. Rick described authenticity, kindness and being genuine as "being down to Earth". He was always trying to meet women who were down to Earth. Another term I have heard is "Good People" as in she's good People or He's good people. This seems to mean that they are kind and genuine and they are being themselves.

How many such people does one meet on a journey through life. I have not met very many. If I had to venture a guess, I would say at most 3%.

At the old CCLA, with about 150 staff, about 4 - 5 people would qualify. In the early part of this thread I mentioned one particular young women named Carol Ferguson as such a person. I think CO2 knew of her because I remember that he or perhaps someone else who lives in Northern California mentioned that she was still around up there back in 2010. Carol was the supervisor in CCLA's Staff Hatting College. She was about as decent a person as I have ever met!

Sometimes, you can recognize authenticity and kindness in some famous stars. The percentage among stars seems to be greater than among the general population. Probably one reason stars and celebrities become stars and celebrities is because they are authentic and kind. Take a guy like Johnny Carson, he seemed to be very genuine, ditto for Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Jimmy Stewart and for that matter, John Travolta. J.T. seems like a sweet and decent guy, not really hung up on himself because he has fame and money. Another candidate is Clint Eastwood, they don't get much more genuine than he is. I thought that the athletes Wilt Chamberlin and Mohammed Ali both were genuine.

My point of view is that when you meet such a person, you should attempt to make a connection with them. The reason has to do with something Yvonne Jentzsch said to we CCLA staff. She said to try and associate with and hang out with people who are at your own level and higher. She suggested that by hanging out with higher level people than yourself, they will pull you up towards their level. On the other hand, if you hang out with average or below average people, they tend to pull you down to their level.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: New post from Mama

Here is the latest from Mama, right on topic with some of our recent posts. It exhibits some very impressive continuity:

Lakey

I went to the sign store, today, where I bought the letters for this sign

http://www.forum.exscn.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=6220&d=1381816417

I made this sign in 69 or 70. The man, who sold me the letters, that I glued on the sign, is still in the sign business;I went to his business, and talked with him today. 45 years + later

continuity is a good thing

Lakey for Mama

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: A Non Senior Moment!

I'm one of the few guys who still reads the morning newspaper. In today's Orange Country Register there was an article on the Pony Express, showing a map and the 1966 mile route it covered. The time it took was about 11 days which was lighting fast for those days. The Pony Express only lasted about 1 1/2 years from around March. 1860 to about Dec, 1861. At that point the railroad to California was completed and the Pony Express was no longer needed. The early railroad made the 1966 mile trek in about 5 days

Anyway, the article was talking about the history of the Pony Express. They mentioned its most famous rider and that was a gentleman by the name of "Pony Bob Haslam". I read that name and immediately bells and whistles went off in my head.

Return to 1948 and the 8 year old Lakey shared an old fashioned 78 rpm record player with his 5 year old brother, Clarence Rockaway. For my birthday or some other occasion, I was given a copy of a record featuring the oldtime famous Western Singer Tex Ritter, the father of the late actor, John Ritter. The record which I was given was entitled, Tex Ritter singing about the Pony Express. At one time, I played that record over and over and memorized the whole thing. I knew that the rider featured on Tex Ritter's record was named "Pony Bob" Haslam.

Just for the hell of it, I went to youtube and looked for that old record and sure enough they have it and here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STmPx04yo2k

Of course, Pony Bob Haslam is mentioned right at the beginning of the record and after that he is just referred to as Pony Bob. The story is pretty much a narrative with just a wee bit of music. 1948 was a wonderful time to be a kid, every day was an adventure, climbing trees, building forts out in a vacant lot, flying model airplanes with wind up rubber band controlled propellers and listening to all the kids radio shows when we got home from school.

Of course, neither we nor our neighbors locked our from doors during the day so my many friends in the neighborhood would often drop by and walk in to see me and I would return the favor. The one thing that was bad about that time period was that even in Los Angeles, bigotry was in full force. In our area in L.A., Jews were accepted in West L.A., partly because they were a huge percentage of the population, perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 the families were Jewish. The same can't be said for Blacks and also Latinos. My parents wouldn't even allow me or Clarence to play with them. It wasn't Jim Crow in L.A the way it was in the Southern states, but it was far, far more segregated and bigoted than it is today. When people tell people my age how bigoted this country is today, it goes in one ear and out the other as far as I am concerned. I grew up when it was REALLY bigoted and we have made so much progress since then that there are not words to express it. I agree that we have further to go, but compared to where we were in 1948, we have come so so far, that those of us who lived through that period just have to feel a lot of pride for all the progress which we have made.

With that preamble, I want to apologize for the way Indians are depicted on the Pony Express Record. That 1948 society looked at Indians as sort of the bad guys. Some times, in cowboys movies, the Indians were booed when they went on rampages. The Native Americans had a beautiful civilization and we Whites treated them like Savages. You know, the role of Tonto, in the Lone Rangers, first appearing in the early 1940's was actually the first thing I ever saw which depicted an Indian as a courageous and brave person, literally a Brave. Year after year, the Lone Ranger Show came on the radio 3 times a week. Over and over, Tonto and occasionally some other Indians were shone in a favorable light. As a result, all of us in my age group whom i knew began to think of Indians in a positive way. Not only that but in the Boy Scouts, a lot of Indian lore was learned and many Indian arts and crafts projects were done by many of us Scouts. My hat is off to the mass media of that day for presenting Native American Culture in a good light. All the people whom I knew or still know without exception have nothing but good to say about Native Americans and they recognize that our ancestors in America dealt with them very unfairly and dishonorably.
Lakey

This is such a good post...I like reading about your childhood in the 40s.

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: A Non Senior Moment!

This is such a good post...I like reading about your childhood in the 40s.

Thanks, Maria but don't get me started because once I'm started, I tend not to stop. Born in the Silverlake district of L.A., we first lived on Coronado St but in the early 40's our house was removed because the Hollywood Freeway was scheduled to pass right over that site. My parents, then ages 24 and 26 looked for a new home. I remember us house hunting in Sunland which was near La Crescenta and La Canada. We also, we looked in Long Beach, Lakewood and Bellflower.

We ended up in a new housing tract in the city of L.A. on a funny little street named Boden St. I found out that Boden meant "floor" in German. My Dad purchased the house in Sept., 1944, when I was 4 years and 9 months old. The price of the house was only $5,950 and on a 20 year mortgage the payments were only $25 a month!

I had two brothers, Clarence and his twin brother, Bruce. both 2 months short of their 2nd birthday. They turned two on November 3 and only 6 days later, my brother Bruce went to bed that night just fine but woke up coughing very heavily. It was during WWII and our medical group was called at about midnight but could not send a doctor until 7:00 AM. Twenty minutes after the doctor arrived, my brother Brucey died from pneumonia. This was a very traumatic experience for Clarence. I believe that losing his twin brother at age 2 damaged his psyche to a significant extent.

I remember dreaming about Bruce for the first few months. We three brothers would meet in my dreams, all very happy and play. I don't remember crying or being sullen. I was a little sad but I was told that he went to Heaven and I accepted that. After a few months, Bruce stopped appearing in my dreams each night and only appeared sporadically after that.

I started kindergarten in Sept and liked it very much. When I got home, I would play with the neighborhood kids. Often we would play War, since WWII was still on. We actually dug a foxhole in the empty lot across from our house. The first thing in playing war was that both sides wanted to be "The Americans". We would flip a coin and one side would win and be the Americans while the other side had to play the "Japs" or the Germans. We had sticks which represented rifles and we would simulate shooting at each other. All the participants were boys. In those days the boys played cowboys and indians, war games and flew model airplanes, the girls played with dolls and miniature kitchens. Both sexes shared in riding bikes and skating on roller skates around the neighborhood.

Coming home from school from 1945 to 1948, there was a series of radio programs on from 4 to 6 in the afternoon. We had "Jack Armstrong, the all American Boy", sponsored by Wheaties, "Dick Tracy", sponsored by Karl's shoe stores, "Sky King" sponsored by Peter Pan Peanut Butter and the "Tom Mix Show", sponsored by Cream of Wheat. My Dad came home from work around 5:30 and Mom would be cooking dinner. They would listen to the news on radio and then we would eat dinner at 6:00.

After dinner a whole series of radio shows for kids would come on network radio between 6 and 8. We had 'The Lone Ranger', sponsored by Weber's bread and The Cisco Kid, another Western, 3 times a week. On the off days, there would be two other westerns, "Red Ryder", sponsored by Langendorf Bread and an Indian flavored Western called "Straight Arrow", sponsored by Nabisco. I remember it well, when trouble arose, a ranch hand by the name of Steve Adams went into a cave and changed into "Straight Arrow". There was a palomino horse living in the cave, Straight Arrow road out of the cave on this horse. Straight arrow had a sidekick by the name of Packy. He was an older guy similar to Roy Rogers sidekick, Gabby Hays. Nabisco conducted a national contest to name the horse. The name chosen was "Fury". By 8:00 PM, the kids programming would end and the adult programs would come on.

The adult radio shows were very good as well. They were mostly Detective stories or comedy shows. There were family shows such as "Ozzie and Harriet" which sprung the rock singing career of one of my favorites, "Rick Nelson". The Comedy shows featured such people as Judy Canova, Edgar Bergen with his puppets, Charley McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd as well as Red Skelton. Three of the crime and detective type shows were, "Gangbusters", "The Fat Man" a detective named Brad Runyan and "Let George Do It", George was another private eye and I think his show was just local in L.A. while the others were all network shows heard coast to coast.

Sunday radio was very, very special. There was a series of great shows all throughout Sunday afternoon, the most important show was the Jack Benny Show, which was a national feed from Hollywood. Amos and Andy was a national show from the East Coast. Jack Benny's main sponsor was Lucky Strike cigarettes, remember "L.S.M.F.T - Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" How times change, then cigarettes were wonderful and now they are a pariah.

Last but not least were the Sunday Morning Children's Shows. First the Comic sections from both the L.A.times and the L.A. Examiner, were read to kids, using radio sound effect machines. That was a local feed which was on from 8 to 9 in the morning, and that was followed by "Let's Pretend" - this was a national feed from the East Coast. Each week, Let's Pretend would present a different Fairy Tale. Their sponsor was Cream of Wheat cereal. Also on Sunday, for kids was Smiling Ed McConnel and his Buster Brown Gang, sponsored by the Buster Brown Shoe Company. This show featured "Froggy the Gremlin" and had interesting stories, often originating in the jungles of India.

1940's tech items were that every family had a car. We were mostly one car families. Everyone had a land line telephone in their house, We had radios. Higher tech was provided by portable radios and something called an Erector Set which came with an electric motor and little steel girders which enabled kids to build things such as ferris wheels. We had electric adding machines and we wrote with actual ink in our pens. TV and Ball Point pens came out around 1948. Almost all cars were stick shift, 3 speed column shifters. General Motors had the first Automatic Transmissions which came out in very small numbers before WWII in the Oldsmobile line. By 1948, most Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs had Hydramatic Drive. The conversation to automatic shifting was extremely rapid. By 1953, almost all cars, except for low price leader models, foreign cars and sports cars had automatic shift.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Perfection on a Small Scale

Mozart's Piano Concerto #8 is a small scale work written in Mozart's early years when he lived in Salzburg, Austria. It is an intimate work with limited dynamics but it is a perfect piece of music in the Classic late 18th century Austrian style. Christian Zacharias, as a young man is the solo pianist. IMO he does such a perfect job with this piece that Mozart himself could not have played it any better. Christian's embellishments and little ad libs are perfect. He seems to be in a state of unity with the music, his performance is effortless and yet perfect. The last movement starting at 15.00 is my favorite. Christian and the orchestra just totally nail the performace with a perfect 10 score or more like 10+.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3XJXIMBDiM

Lakey

 

[Maria Cuervo]

Re: A Non Senior Moment!

Thanks, Maria but don't get me started because once I'm started, I tend not to stop. Born in the Silverlake district of L.A., we first lived on Coronado St but in the early 40's our house was removed because the Hollywood Freeway was scheduled to pass right over that site. My parents, then ages 24 and 26 looked for a new home. I remember us house hunting in Sunland which was near La Crescenta and La Canada. We also, we looked in Long Beach, Lakewood and Bellflower.

We ended up in a new housing tract in the city of L.A. on a funny little street named Boden St. I found out that Boden meant "floor" in German. My Dad purchased the house in Sept., 1944, when I was 4 years and 9 months old. The price of the house was only $5,950 and on a 20 year mortgage the payments were only $25 a month!

I had two brothers, Clarence and his twin brother, Bruce. both 2 months short of their 2nd birthday. They turned two on November 3 and only 6 days later, my brother Bruce went to bed that night just fine but woke up coughing very heavily. It was during WWII and our medical group was called at about midnight but could not send a doctor until 7:00 AM. Twenty minutes after the doctor arrived, my brother Brucey died from pneumonia. This was a very traumatic experience for Clarence. I believe that losing his twin brother at age 2 damaged his psyche to a significant extent.

I remember dreaming about Bruce for the first few months. We three brothers would meet in my dreams, all very happy and play. I don't remember crying or being sullen. I was a little sad but I was told that he went to Heaven and I accepted that. After a few months, Bruce stopped appearing in my dreams each night and only appeared sporadically after that.

I started kindergarten in Sept and liked it very much. When I got home, I would play with the neighborhood kids. Often we would play War, since WWII was still on. We actually dug a foxhole in the empty lot across from our house. The first thing in playing war was that both sides wanted to be "The Americans". We would flip a coin and one side would win and be the Americans while the other side had to play the "Japs" or the Germans. We had sticks which represented rifles and we would simulate shooting at each other. All the participants were boys. In those days the boys played cowboys and indians, war games and flew model airplanes, the girls played with dolls and miniature kitchens. Both sexes shared in riding bikes and skating on roller skates around the neighborhood.

Coming home from school from 1945 to 1948, there was a series of radio programs on from 4 to 6 in the afternoon. We had "Jack Armstrong, the all American Boy", sponsored by Wheaties, "Dick Tracy", sponsored by Karl's shoe stores, "Sky King" sponsored by Peter Pan Peanut Butter and the "Tom Mix Show", sponsored by Cream of Wheat. My Dad came home from work around 5:30 and Mom would be cooking dinner. They would listen to the news on radio and then we would eat dinner at 6:00.

After dinner a whole series of radio shows for kids would come on network radio between 6 and 8. We had 'The Lone Ranger', sponsored by Weber's bread and The Cisco Kid, another Western, 3 times a week. On the off days, there would be two other westerns, "Red Ryder", sponsored by Langendorf Bread and an Indian flavored Western called "Straight Arrow", sponsored by Nabisco. I remember it well, when trouble arose, a ranch hand by the name of Steve Adams went into a cave and changed into "Straight Arrow". There was a palomino horse living in the cave, Straight Arrow road out of the cave on this horse. Straight arrow had a sidekick by the name of Packy. He was an older guy similar to Roy Rogers sidekick, Gabby Hays. Nabisco conducted a national contest to name the horse. The name chosen was "Fury". By 8:00 PM, the kids programming would end and the adult programs would come on.

The adult radio shows were very good as well. They were mostly Detective stories or comedy shows. There were family shows such as "Ozzie and Harriet" which sprung the rock singing career of one of my favorites, "Rick Nelson". The Comedy shows featured such people as Judy Canova, Edgar Bergen with his puppets, Charley McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd as well as Red Skelton. Three of the crime and detective type shows were, "Gangbusters", "The Fat Man" a detective named Brad Runyan and "Let George Do It", George was another private eye and I think his show was just local in L.A. while the others were all network shows heard coast to coast.

Sunday radio was very, very special. There was a series of great shows all throughout Sunday afternoon, the most important show was the Jack Benny Show, which was a national feed from Hollywood. Amos and Andy was a national show from the East Coast. Jack Benny's main sponsor was Lucky Strike cigarettes, remember "L.S.M.F.T - Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" How times change, then cigarettes were wonderful and now they are a pariah.

Last but not least were the Sunday Morning Children's Shows. First the Comic sections from both the L.A.times and the L.A. Examiner, were read to kids, using radio sound effect machines. That was a local feed which was on from 8 to 9 in the morning, and that was followed by "Let's Pretend" - this was a national feed from the East Coast. Each week, Let's Pretend would present a different Fairy Tale. Their sponsor was Cream of Wheat cereal. Also on Sunday, for kids was Smiling Ed McConnel and his Buster Brown Gang, sponsored by the Buster Brown Shoe Company. This show featured "Froggy the Gremlin" and had interesting stories, often originating in the jungles of India.

1940's tech items were that every family had a car. We were mostly one car families. Everyone had a land line telephone in their house, We had radios. Higher tech was provided by portable radios and something called an Erector Set which came with an electric motor and little steel girders which enabled kids to build things such as ferris wheels. We had electric adding machines and we wrote with actual ink in our pens. TV and Ball Point pens came out around 1948. Almost all cars were stick shift, 3 speed column shifters. General Motors had the first Automatic Transmissions which came out in very small numbers before WWII in the Oldsmobile line. By 1948, most Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs had Hydramatic Drive. The conversation to automatic shifting was extremely rapid. By 1953, almost all cars, except for low price leader models, foreign cars and sports cars had automatic shift.
Lakey

I never played with dolls much....but played in the woods and liked to catch salamanders.

And I still prefer manual transmission.

If you like Spanish music of the 50s, this is something my parents used to play....Eydie Gorme.

I remember Buster Brown shoes.

If one can accept parallel or other universes or dimensions then that would be a way to understand heaven. Heaven is better than an ideal org. Since it is truly ideal then there is no need for ethics departments.....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aQCo3rczB-w