Cultural deprivation

I'm constantly surprised that, the farther back in history my reading goes, the more I realize that humans have been fighting pretty much the same battles since we learned to talk.

My picture of history has been a gradual awakening of humanity from the darkness of superstition over centuries.  But one finds writers farther and farther back who championed reason over belief in the supernatural.

I have long known, in a vague way, of the Great Greek philosophers and ancient Greek science, but my picture of the world held on stubbornly.

Now I'm reading Lucretius, a poet who was born about 100 B.C., and he espoused some very advanced scientific and philosophical ideas, based on observation of nature.  He didn't get things exactly right, of course, but he did well for someone without even a telescope or a microscope.  He said, for example, that matter was made up of atoms, which were constantly in motion, and that "all objects are compounds of different kinds of atom."  He dismissed the notion of punishment after death.  He said nature was self-regulated and was not interfered with by the divine.

It dawned on me as I read On the Nature of the Universe, that my idea of the past as uniformly dark and superstitious was formed by the Bible.  My early life was steeped in religious teaching that substituted the Old Testament for a broader view of ancient history.  I missed the scientific and rational currents that existed in the ancient world--that must surely have existed in some minds since the beginning of humanity.

A note on the Second Amendment...

The text of the Second Amendment to the Constitution reads thus:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

What else does the Constitution say about this militia?

Article I, Section 8:  The Congress shall have the power (15.) to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; (16.) to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such a part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

And,

Article II, Section 2:  The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.

This militia, to which the Second Amendment is attached, is explicitly under the control of the Congress (while the states do select the officers and train the troops), and also under the command of the President in times when it is called to serve the nation.

Our Second Amendment absolutists, those dreamers, see the amendment as a protection against the tyranny of the Federal Government, but, aside from language that gives the states certain powers (and duties), the Congress and the President are in charge of this militia.

Again, can we please use common sense with regard to the Second Amendment?  My meaning is this:  The Second Amendment doesn't mean what you think it means; and your fears about what you think will happen if guns are controlled in any way are purely hypothetical.  What is happening right now with guns in the United States is anything but hypothetical.

 

Sweating the small stuff...

I don't know how to begin to explain the benefits of a single line to people who don't get the concept.  What I'm talking about is the situation where you've got more than one cashier, but they're all fed from one line of customers.  The beauty is, of course, that, unlike when there are multiple lines, you're never in the wrong line.  If one cashier turns out to be slow, you're not stuck with him or her.

Now, as long as McDonald's has been in business, they've never made a serious attempt to manage their customer flow.  There's a mosh pit in front of the counter, and the system is a fluid, uncertain one. The customers decide, on the fly, how many lines there are.  The single line system often breaks down when a manager calls out, "Come on, folks, there are two lines!"  Other times, there's a customer who doesn't understand why the people in front of the line don't pick a cashier, thereby making two lines.  That customer, like the woman behind me in line this morning, will say, "If nobody wants to go to that register that's almost empty, I will.  Then the people in front of the idiot have to pick a line quickly, or she'll just do it.

Anyhow, I've gone on too long about a small matter, but I'm a pedantic nerd about these things.

Join me next time when I explain why you should never send a companion to save a seat in a crowded restaurant while you're ordering.