My GoFundMe update report - November 10, 2024 - In Defense of Women (v.3)

Let us try to elevate this reproductive rights discussion beyond the same old cliches.

My GoFundMe update - November 10, 2024 

In Defense of Women (postcard activism)

 * I want to send my heart felt thanks and appreciation to GoFundMe, and staff, for allowing me this opportunity, and for allowing me to hang on despite so little support. I have the postcards ready to go, and there's a greater need than ever for these simple and constructive thoughts to be shared and discussed. If we aren't changing minds we are losing.

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November 10, 2024

Since my last update, my life has been tremendously crowded busy, with some civic work, travel and caretaking grandchildren, working around our cabin, and of course my Maddy dog and the many walks she expects and that keep me exercising. I'll admit, I was brought low by the lack of support and interest, topped off by another brush off from my friends within the Local Democratic Party when I personally reached out to them for a little help and support in reaching out with this postcard and some help with stamps. Seems they thought it was a mute issue, already won and not important just then - another belly punch that knocked the wind out of me and had me returning to other chores.

In Defense of Women. A postcard advocacy campaign. (v.3)

In defense of women.  

A postcard advocacy campaign.

I have a dream that someday our society can learn to recognize and acknowledge the woman, above all others, possesses the situational awareness, and the moral, ethical, and legal standing to decide the future of the growing life within herself.

I myself can never figure out how/why people can be so cold and ruthless as to deny a woman those fundamental dignities, though I’ve spent decades trying.  As a man with wife and children and grandchildren, including caretaking infants and toddlers, whom I get along with quite well I might add, it matters to me that there’s been so much manufactured misunderstanding.

That’s why I've taken the challenge to refine my personal argument “In Defense of Women”.

It took a while, you know how it goes, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, now after 250@v.1 (Nov 6, $109) and 1000@v.2 (Jan 24, $155).   I do believe v.3 finally says all I want to share, as concise and well as I can.  Last month I ordered up 2,000 postcards (at $220).  Postage Stamps $0.53@ to send.  Although they'll also make great handouts at certain events.  I make no claim on the text and welcome anyone to copy and reuse, or rework, as they see fit.

 

Now I’m hoping, I’m asking, I’ll even plead, for some help with purchasing postage stamps so I can broadcast these thoughts, by sending out these postcards in defense of a women's right to self defense and sovereignty over her own body.  

I’m starting to address the postcards, first to various woman’s organizations, followed by Democratic Party county offices in key states, various reporters and news agencies, among others, (Help with some stamps and I’ll send them to any addresses you may suggest.).  After the election I want to send one to all 119th Congressional US Senators and Representatives.  With a little luck, add some ammo to the coming debates.

I may be a man of big dreams, but also one of modest means.  Without help from some people who support these values I’m striving to share, the postcards will only be trickling out.  Please help me turn up the volume.

If we aren’t changing minds, we are losing.

Thank you, Peter Miesler

Email: Citizenschallenge at gmail

Please help at GoFundMe

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In Defense of Women, Postcard Activism - Can you help me? (v.2)

 Please

In Defense of Women, Postcard Activism

Can you help?

I believe there are too many misinformed individuals out there, and that Democrats need to work harder at gaining and sharing basic solid information and arguments.

It would help us to enable the choir to become more persuasive in our regular interactions and discussion with people, friends, & family.  After all, if we aren’t changing minds, we are losing.

I believe that the better we can verbalize the issues, the easier it is to engage and stand up for justice.  The better our chances to help evolve people’s thinking on issues that matter.

Diary Dec 31, 2023 - Reflections on this New Year's Eve.

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Saying good-bye to 2023.  

Here's a quick year end hello and a note that this blog, ain't dead yet.  Though it is mighty neglected.  

There is hope, this past May was the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation and escape from Burlingame.  Right now, this evening, 50 years ago, I was celebrating at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley, California and at the beginning of my fascinating long and strange and blessed trail of people and experiences.  Considering what a lone wolf character I started as, and what a network of families bind my heart these days it's mind boggling.  Given my crop of recent and (surprise!) future grandchildren, I feel a particular desire, perhaps even a challenge to write something different, and to share some memories with them, tell a few stories like only someone who was there can, before I'm gone. 

As for my Earth Centrism project, it is getting pretty near completion.  Been spending five years digesting the concept and the evidence behind it, I've written long articles and short bullet points, fielded some push and a lot of handwaving - there's only so many ways to refine something so fundamental and straightforward and that elusive final draft of my Earth Centrist perspective summary, is just around the corner, as they say.  

I have been taking the discussion online at CFI Forum (Center for Inquiry) a small discussion board and have been receiving interesting feedback and pushback.  I'm also participating in a college philosophy club.  Then, this past July I wrote up a dialogue with a short book, Buddha Science, by Daut.

It made for a nice contrast to dealing with Don Hoffman's ideas, in that I agree with much that Daut wrote, but I do come at it from a very different evolutionary biological bottom up perspective and I enjoyed this excuse to review and try to enunciate my Earth Centrist concept in a more constructive atmosphere.

Science has learned a great deal about Evolution, our animal biology, and also consciousness across the entire animal kingdom.  Philosophers and the general public would do good to lay to rest old brainteasers and to catch up on the significance of current scientific biological evolutionary breakthroughs.

This Earth Centrist writing project has been dedicated to people who appreciate nature and evolution and scientific understanding about how evolution weaves us together with all other living beings on this planet.  

Which includes a deep appreciation for how our body/brain produces consciousness, as in, the inside reflection of our body communicating with itself (see Dr.Solms) and realizing how that offers keys to better understanding our own endless flesh vs spirit conflicts.

I'm looking to connect with people for whom a notion such as "Appreciating the Human Mind ~ Physical Reality divide" makes sense and who are unfazed by recognizing themselves as evolved biological thinking creatures, products of Earth's processes. People, who glory in the Pageant of Evolution that created our body and love learning from serious scientific efforts.

These aren't irrelevant trifles, they are keys to a more straightforward understanding of those dogged questions: Who am I?  Why am I here?  Why doesn't my body do what I tell it to?

In Defense of Women

Please

In defense of women, postcard (activism)

I need a little help with postage.

I'm looking at this from 68 years old, having been blessed with all the stages of life starting as a son, brother, husband, father, step-father, uncle, grandfather, friend, with women being intimately interwoven into every phase of my life (and at every level) - I've lived life's personal dramas, loses and successes.  This is my distillation of this facet of my experience - A woman deserves the right to be the jury and judge of her own fate, which by nature includes her fetus.  

Respecting a woman's right to her own self-defense and sovereignty over her body seems to me the least repugnant of all options.  

I made an initial run of a 250 postcards and addressed them to women's rights organizations and key Washington Democrats.  I also starting a thread over at the CFI Forum in case anyone out there wants to join the discussion.  Now I printed another thousand and around 250 addressed and stamped, and it'll be a few weeks before being able to purchase another couple hundred dollars worth of postcard stamp at .53@.  That's why I've decided to see if anyone might be interested in helping with stamps.  Should it go well, I'd love to buy more postcards.  Can you help?

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January 22, 2024

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At CFI I received a good comment worth airing over here:

Lausten:  "Just a quick note, the most glaring; your language specifically weighs one life against another, putting the fully grown human first, the one who CAN make a choice. Their language states “all life is sacred” and claims to defend the thing that can’t defend itself. This hits an emotional note. 

It also avoids the discussion of the trade-off. They claim that most abortions are about a woman choosing to not be responsible, or not caring about the consequences of their actions. Truth is, almost all of them are medical decisions, made with a lot of thought, even prayers.

Even those that are for healthy fetuses, the decision is about how the future person can be cared for, or IF it can be cared for. If the same pro-life person was also taking actions to care for unwanted, unloved, undernourished children, I’d listen to them, but at the policy level, this isn’t happening. ..."

Definitely, perhaps the way to go is to point out this isn’t about the immorality or morality of abortion, nor what name one places on the act.  

This is about the morality of who is making the decision!

My insistence is that:

In the end, it’s the mother who possess the greatest moral "holding” in that fetus, and in the end it’s the mothers who carry the scars of a fetus's death.  Let it be, outsiders don't have a clue, they aren't God, if you believe in God, let God handle it and stay out of other's private lives, as you want them to stay out of your business.

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Do Abortion Bans Violate Jews' Religious Rights?

Lisa Fishbayn Joffe  - June 16, 2022 (1200 words of lucid persuasion)

Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is the director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law which explores the tension between women’s equality claims and religious laws. Her research focuses on gender and multiculturalism in family law and on the intersection between secular and religious law. She is a co-founder of the Boston Agunah Task Force, devoted to research, education and advocacy for women under Jewish family law.

“… there is widespread agreement among scholars and rabbinical authorities that a complete prohibition on abortion is inconsistent with Jewish law and tradition. Under Jewish law, an abortion to save the life of the mother is permitted.

“For this reason, Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, the Shulamit Reinharz Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, argues that extreme anti-abortion laws risk infringing on Jews' religious freedoms. Earlier this week, a Florida synagogue made this argument in a suit filed in a state court against Florida's law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. …”

“Are Jews across denominations arguing that anti-abortion laws infringe on their religious freedoms?

“Yes. It's an argument being put forth by advocates like the National Council of Jewish Women. It holds that since Jewish law supports reproductive rights, abortion restrictions violate Jewish people's right to make choices about their lives in accordance with Jewish law.  This position has many strengths. …”

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The Case For Reality and Earth Centrism - Physical Reality~Mindscape divide

Moving on . . . {My "Hoffman playing basketball in zero gravity" project continues over at ConfrontingScience Contrarians.blogspot} now it's time for this site to start going its own way again.  I want to start by revisiting an essay I first wrote a couple years back and that offers the reasoning behind Earth Centrism and appreciating the Physical Reality~Mindscape divide. 

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This is written with engaged students in mind.  Especial those with writing projects related to defending the truths within Earth Sciences and physical reality.  Within these chapters you'll find a plethora of assorted references and links and context that will help inform, challenge and expand your own understanding and drive you to a better finished product.

Like most thinking people I've spent plenty of time wondering about the "body-mind problem."    

You know, that constant inner dialogue, the me, myself and I.  This body I inhabit and all those conflicts between good angels and bad angels, and willpower, and this body made me do it, and all the rest.  

As if that's not enough, there's that amazing incomprehensible world out there, outside of me.  What is it?  Can I believe what I see?  Who am I?  Why am I?  Does the world dissolve when I fall asleep.  What keeps it together when I’m not watching.  Where's the line between my mind and the world around me?  The questions can be endless and I've been playing with them since my earliest memories.  

Now at 65, I'm happy to report that the admonition 'seek and ye shall find,' is true.  Stay true to yourself, be honest to the facts, do your homework and you can have those questions resolved to your heart’s content.  It's an emergent thing, and the process requires a driving curiosity and a constant diet of information and learning about all aspects of our Earth and her history, along with our humanistic sphere, our lives, ways'n means, fears, gods and other beliefs.

I've come to learn that our deepest mysteries are simpler than people love making them out to be.  That's why I've kept working the problem and striving to do a better job of telling my story.  Then over the summer of 2018 it came together and I wrote my Hallelujah chorus, well the first draft.

I shared it with some friends and they did get caught up in the story and listened with interest, still when finished, it left them a bit perplexed rather than enlightened.  Okay? Fun interesting read, now what am I supposed to do with it?  What is it actually about?  And so on.  

‘it’s about perspectives and how we process the information that’s flowing through our senses.’  

Though, along with some suggestions, I was invited to enlarge it for a formal presentation to a small local skeptics group.  Working on it, it occurred to me the bio provided much needed context that helped the heart of my story make more sense to folks who had never considered such a perspective.  Then, the group dissolved and the talk never happened.  Now, I share it with you.

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Thinking on it some more I know that it's about much more than that.  

It's about grasping for an appreciation of DeepTime, Evolution, and the dance of life and geology that created this world we were born out of and will die back into.  Something that offers individuals a path to understanding their own place in time and the universe within a sane reality based over-arching perspective.

Something that offers peace in the face of our individual mortality and that eternal question of “Why?”.

Something that offers spiritual fulfillment through a visceral appreciation for how time and life on this Pale Blue Dot created us through this Earth that we inhabit today and that we will return to upon finishing our short dance across life’s stage.  Why isn't that cosmic gift enough?

Something that can offer rationalists and atheists a sense of our own spiritual fulfillment - (in contrast to the faith-shackled's nonstop trumpeting about praising a God that in reality is merely a reflection of their own EGOs.)    

Something that offers us Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment the inner moral foundation and spiritual fortitude to step up and lovingly, constructively, challenge and confront those sad brainwashed souls eye to eye.  If we aren't changing minds, we are losing.

All of us have them in our lives, why not discover ways to ask them how they live with the cognitive dissonance inherent within their “my way only” religions and rejection of scientific facts? 

Before I get to the Earth Centrism, I think I need to look at some of the origins of my own individual perspective, in order to set stage for my story. 

Student Resource, physical origins of mind, Dr. Siegel, Allen Institute Brain Science, Tononi, Koch.

I was going to start the year with a review of the 21 Questions and Responses attached to Hoffman’s 2014 Frontiers of Psychology paper.  My intention was a summary, but it turned into a four part dissection peppered with links to authoritative resources that give substance to my assertions and the perspective I’m trying to convey.  While in the process of sorting through resources, I discovered Dr. Dan Siegel.  He inspired me to start the year with something a little more fun, interesting, and constructive. 

Dr. Siegel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA.  It’s a fun irony, for me, that he’s another* Californian, who at two years younger than Hoffman and myself has lived the same historical footprint.  I find it curious how Hoffman and Siegel were exposed to the same evidence, yet they achieved diametrically opposite conclusions, one confined to the realities we live within, the other a flight of fancy for fun and profit.  

Hoffman’s many references to advertising prowess indicates his affinity with Madison Avenue Ad-man priorities and perspective.  Creating a perfect vision is a serious goal and profits is the metric of success, regardless the negative fallout.  The amazing success of “The Case Against Reality, supports that notion.  

On the other hand, from reading Dr. Siegel's bio and listening to a half dozen recorded talks about his work, he seems to me a humanist focused on helping individuals with their actual lives.  It was refreshing never hearing the usual red flags of ‘disingenuous self-promotion’ and scientific misrepresentation that I’ve come to expect from Hoffman’s performances. 

I feel comfortable saying Siegel possesses “scientific realism”; along with an abiding respect for physical reality; a deep interest in people; a dose of humility; and a realistic perspective on limitations, while constantly pushing at the frontiers of understanding.

For me, Dr. Siegel is an example of “What A Scientist Sounds Like,” and a perfect bracer before re-entering the intellectual mine-field of Hoffman’s Case Against Reality.   

After reviewing Dr. Siegel’s videos I felt a need to add a little more physical reality, the biological meat and potatoes, so have added a few selections featuring Tononi and Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science, mind-blowing microscopy and more.

The Mind as a Complex Mathematical System with Emergent Properties Daniel Siegel

A Scientific Explanation of the Human Mind | Daniel Siegel

Dan Siegel: The Neurological Basis of Behavior, Mind, Brain and Human Relationships Part 1 to 3 

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Giulio Tononi on Consciousness

Consciousness: here, there and everywhere?  Giulio Tononi and Christof Koch

Video, Giulio Tononi on Consciousness

The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, Dr. Christof Koch,

Allen Institute for Brain Science

Allen Brain Observatory: Visualizing the brain in action

Allen Cell Types Database: Understanding the fundamental building blocks of the brain

Allen Institute for Brain Science,  Coding & Vision 101, 12-part undergraduate-level lecture series

Brain Expansion Microscopy, Harvard Medical School,

Lattice light-sheet microscopy

Gut bacteria and mind control: to fix your brain, fix your gut!

New center advances biomedical and brain imaging, University of Delaware,

Stunning Brain Map Reveals Tiny Communication Network

Brain Research: New Discoveries and Breakthroughs at UC Davis

Student Resource - Frontiers in Psychology - profits über alles? A closer look.

After skimming through Hoffman’s Frontiers in Psychology paper again, it occurred to me the 2014 paper laid the foundation for his claim to 'legitimacy' and ultimately helped thrust his 2019 book “The Case Against Reality - Why evolution hide the truth from our eyes” upon the public.  It also seems to me a revealing case study in scientific malpractice on various levels.

That got me to thinking about the scientific process and these philosophical musings that Hoffman sculpted into this paper that makes no scientific case against reality and “Physicalism” - instead, the authors simply dismiss realism out right, using rhetorical fancy dancing and mathematical sleight of hand to conjure all pervading “conscious agents” that apparently do all our perceiving and thinking for us.  

It begged the question, who would publish such self-absorbed philosophizing, dressed up in a cloak of math, as a scientific journal worthy paper?  

Then I remembered this was “Frontiers of Psychology.”  Okay, the study of the landscape of our minds, far removed from physics.  Psychology is fine and good for what it is.  But that’s not the point.  

The point is that it has little to do with the natural sciences and the physical reality we are embedded within, the one Hoffman dismisses with such alacrity.

Then I got to wondering about Frontiers in Psychology which is part of the Frontiers’ group of Open Access Publisher and Open Science Platform journals.  

Objects of Consciousness avoiding the mountain lion.

       

Doing some research it didn’t take long to realize they are another example of the devil being in the details of a superficially noble effort, when it’s run by folks who’s dedication to earning profits and bonuses blinds them to their organization’s stated mission.

Of course, there are two sides, the folks earning their paychecks and the bonuses from Frontier defend it vigorously, perhaps too vigorously, thus adding another layer of justification to the label “Predatory Journals.”  It also seemed like a natural post to squeeze into this project.

Students’ Homework Resources: Introduction to Predatory Scientific Journals

Predatory publications in evidence syntheses

J Med Libr Assoc. 2019 Jan; 107(1): 57–61.

How do journals in the Frontiers series have such a (relatively) high impact factor?   

@Reddit_U.Lamaksha

My collapse of confidence in Frontiers journals

Posted by deevybee , June 7, 2015

Why I do not trust Frontiers journals, especially not @FrontDigitalHum

July 21, 2015 ~ Melissa Terras

Is Frontiers a potential predatory publisher?

By Leonid Schneider  - October 28, 2015

Is Frontiers in Trouble?

January 15, 2016 MICAH

What I learned from predatory publishers

Jeffrey Beall - June 2017 - BiochemiaMedica

Frontiers: vanquishers of Beall, publishers of bunk

By Leonid Schneider, September 18, 2017

Why Beall’s blacklist of predatory journals died

Paul Basken, The Chronicle of Higher Education,  September 22, 2017

Is Frontiers Media a Predatory Publisher?

December 20, 2017 - DH Kaye - Flaky Academic Journals

Why Frontiers Should Retract Baumeister’s Critique of Carter’s Meta-Analysis

January 2, 2020 - ReplicationIndex.com

Stop Predatory Journals

https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/

BEALL'S LIST OF POTENTIAL PREDATORY JOURNALS AND PUBLISHERS

C-SPAN's Trump Impeachment Inquiry Collection - November 2019

Here's a collection of C-SPAN videos covering November's House Impeachment Inquiry Hearings.  I'm also including the time signature notes Make-Make has been posting as comments.  I think Make-Make has done a wonderful service worth sharing.  These notes can be helpful when trying to navigate the hours worth of questions, answers and GOP's rhetorical fancy dancing and diversions, (not to mention their god-awful normalization of out and out criminality and even treasonous behavior).  But I digress, this is about creating my own record of what was actually said. As a personal bonus, it would be cool if some others can find it helpful.  Feel free to copy and share.

Rev POLITICAL TRANSCRIPTS

https://www.rev.com/blog/category/political-transcripts

For Impeachment Hearing Transcripts link to: 

November 13: Bill Taylor, George Kent Testimony Transcript

November 15: Marie Yovanovitch Testimony Transcript

November 19 AM: Alexander Vindman, Jennifer Williams Testimony Transcript

November 19 PM: Kurt Volker, Tim Morrison Testimony Transcript

November 20: Gordon Sondland Testimony Trancript

November 21: Fiona Hill, David Holmes Testimony Transcript

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Streamed live on Nov 13, 2019, by C-SPAN

House Impeachment Inquiry, Hearing Day 1 - Taylor and Kent Testimony

Ambassador William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent testify on Impeach Inquiry before House Intelligence Committee. Go to 34:02 for gavel start of hearing. 

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

also notes from Matthew Caplan and Make-Make