Hey...did you get a book rack for your treadmill? 

So THAT's what that plastic shield thingy is!  I have learned something over the past two days.  Reading and treadmilling are mutually exclusive activities.  I like to read a sentence, stop and think about it, maybe make a note in the margin.  This definitely throws off the rhythm of the walking. 

Another thing I've realized.  I need new music.  The CD's in my zipper pouch of favorites include Air Supply, Gordon Lightfoot, and Leonard Cohen.  Not good exercise music.  Of course, the very phrase "exercise music" conjures images of Richard Simmons' frenetic exhortations from late night infommercials.  <shudder>

What's a woman to do?  Today I drug out my Harry Belafonte disc, and that was better.  It took fifteen minutes to get to the first really slow song and since I'm supposed to be doing a 15 minute workout this first week, I just slowed the belt a bit and walked through "Skin to Skin" for my cool-down.  That was a challenge of a different sort, because slow or not, that song usually gets me hot.

And that brings me to another quest.  Does anyone know a good online outlet for used CD's?  I had a copy of Belafonte's Paradise in Gazankulu on cassette.  (Note to all people thinking they can have cassette tapes and kids in the same house, fuggeta bout it.)  Now I'd really really really like to have that music, but apparently they aren't producing that album in any shape form or fashion these days.  (0_o)  The song I mentioned above has been my absolute favorite since the first time I heard it shortly after Tim and I were married.  There is a version of it on the album recorded from his PBS special, but its a duet and the woman singing on that second cover just isn't as good as Jennifer Warnes.  (Did I spell that right?)  I'd make a whole set of potholders for anyone who could help me get a CD of Paradise.

So in the absence of reading material, what did I think about this morning while I was treading the mill?  I indulged my love of Tolkien this weekend.  Do you know that between the extended version of The Fellowship, the National Geographic Special and the features that came on the theater version of the film, you can watch over 11 hours of information on Tolkien, the making of the film and interivews with cast and crew before you even get to the film? 

In the past, I have moaned and griped about the amount of money it costs to indulge my pleasures.  I hate to pay more than $10-15 for a book (but I will if I must).  I hate to pay more that $20 for a DVD, or $25 if they throw in a bonus disc.  But the $30 some odd I spent for the Fellowship of the Ring extended version was a bargain.  Fellow Tolkien fans, if you haven't seen this cut, you owe it to yourself to see it.  They put in several scenes that were most conspicuous in their absence. 

I first read LOTR when I was in Junior High School.  And I've wanted to be an elf ever since.  Unfortunately, I more closely resemble a hobbit in stature, but in my soul, I live in Lothlorien.  Now I have this fantasy of incorporating elvish architecture into the landscaping plan for Spring.  Oh, I know I won't get very far on my budget, but I would LOVE to start making a few changes here and there and eventually have an elvish retreat on the hill.  Wouldn't that be cool? 

I Feel Faint

Okay, I did it.  I spent an ungodly amount of money.  (I HATE when things cost ungodly amounts of money.)  I paid cash, so at least I don't have interest charges but, OUCH!  Okay, I'd be saying the same thing if I'd gotten it for 1/5 it's price because I'm not really a tightwad, but I HATE to spend large amounts of money.

I've learned over the past several years that it does no good whatsoever for me to pay for a membership at the gym.  I can't take the kids with me during the day, and in the evening I'm beat.  But, lets face it.  I'm not getting any younger and if I want the next years of my life to be enjoyable, I HAVE to take seriously my need for regular exercise.  Soooooo, I bought a treadmill.  I have used a treadmill in the past when I was in physical therapy for a back injury.  (How was I supposed to know that being on bedrest would so weaken my back muscles that just getting up and walking around could cause injury?!) 

Now I have it all set up - next to my reading corner.  It took all day long for me and Tim to put it together.  (Hey I was NOT going to pay some teenager $120 to come to my house and do it for me, that's just -- pass the smelling salts, please.) 

Absolutely, Positively

Dang it, if I'm going to leave a blog length comment in my OWN comments section it might as well be a blog, don't cha think?

For those of you who stay up late nights reading symbolic logic, there has been a discussion going on in my comments section that you're gonna love.  I'm not going to replay it all here, but the pertinent parts to catch you up to what's happening this evening are:

dread: “No amount of reasoning ever produces a new truth, it merely tests a new truth claim against established criteria.” I would say that the use of the two words “No amount” is the stumbling block for me...I would argue that the words “No amount” equate to an absolute...So the only falsity I would argue is the use of the absolute"

Q: (in dread's comment section) No absolutes?  Are you absolutely certain of that?

dread: Enlighten me on the absolutes that exist Q.

I have so many "favorite" philosophers that I'm almost embarrassed to name another one.  I really like Bertrand Russell.  What's not to like about a genius who would devote over a year of his life to the exhaustive proof that 1+1=2?  

Russell collected paradoxes.   One of my favorite of Russell's paradoxes concerns a village barber.  See in this particular village, the barber shaves every man who does not shave himself.  Do you see the paradox?  Who shaves the barber?  If the barber shaves himself then he doesn't, and if he doesn't shave himself, he must.  On the surface the statement seems to make sense, but the application of logic reveals it to be a paradox, it's nonsense. 

Philosophers like to say things that sound profound, and on an intuitive level, they kind of make sense to us.  But, then you apply a bit of logic to the statement and you realize that in fact, it's nonsense. 

David Hume has an oft quoted passage that illustrates this point vividly.  In discussing statements of metaphysics and religion he gives the following test for determining whether a statement is meaningful.  Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?  No  Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?  No  Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

That's a rousing statement.  It seems to be the ultimate expression of logic.  But, take a second look.  Hume's grand statement is neither mathematical nor scientific.  If in order to be meaningful, a statement must be either mathematically sustained or experimentally verifiable, then Hume's statement itself is meaningless.  I like Ravi Zacharias' wry observation, "It is a philosophical solvent that dissolves itself."

I'm sure you have guessed where I'm headed with this line of reasoning.  The statement "There are no absolutes" is the one absolute that is taught absolutely in the halls of American academia.  It is imparted in solemn tones to students as though it is the holy grail of intellectual acheivement.  It is learned absolutely, and it is utter nonsense.  The statement is an absolute.  If there are no absolutes then the statement is false, it is its own denial.

dread asks me to give examples of absolutes and says that he can't find a single absolute in his life.  How about this one?  When the temperature falls below 32 degrees Farenheit, or 0 Celsius water freezes.  The scientific process demands absolutes by focusing on the publicly repeatable experiment as the preferred source of data.  Science relies upon controlled conditions to absolutely reproduce the same experiment over and over and over and over and over and over and ... you get the picture. 

Once you step outside the dogma, and think about it.  You'll realize that this isn't the only statement we've been taught that's nonsense.  But, don't feel bad, it took me almost 35 years before I figured out I'd been had.