tony.farruggio.org

The Watched Pot (Part 1)

Tony Farruggio — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:47:53 +0000

For any society that chooses to enslave its producers for the benefit of its parasites, there comes an unavoidable tipping point. Eventually, the reasonable demands of enlightened self-interest overcome the sentimental bonds of nationalist nostalgia, and disunion becomes inevitable. If there is one saving grace in the tactics of the first two years of the Obama regime, it is the breathtaking pace at which his followers have attempted to dismantle all of the institutional bulwarks established to protect individual liberties. The unrelenting, frenetic pace of this deconstruction may actually prove its undoing. Folklore suggests that a frog thrown into a pot of boiling water will reflexively leap to safety, while that same frog will sit in a pot of gradually warming water until it complacently boils to death. The Obama administration has had its radical agenda on a rolling boil since Inauguration Day. We may see the consequences of their impatience for change this coming November. Still, while impending elections may bring some modest relief in the pace of advancing fascist-totalitarianism, the past two years have already sown seeds of fundamental division that no single election cycle can readily heal. Already, we may be moving inexorably toward a Second American Civil War.

Unspirational Message of the Day

Tony Farruggio — Tue, 11 May 2010 03:47:18 +0000

Today is the first day of the end of your life. (or some such thing)

Sidewalk Non Sequitur

Tony Farruggio — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:26:06 +0000

One of the property managers in our office building was out on Madison Street today, rousting a homeless man who was sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. From a business standpoint, I can certainly understand his desire not to have indigents lying literally on his doorstep, but I heard him say something as I passed, which made me pause.

He said to the man looking up at him from the pavement, “You know, you shouldn’t be drinkin’ this time of day!”

Does he honestly believe that a man lying on a public walkway in the middle of a workday follows established protocols for when he chooses to imbibe? If so, what does he imagine this man’s official hours of abstinence to be, and why does 1:20 PM on a Wednesday strike him as particularly unconscionable?

I suppose the corollary question I could ask is, “What are the socially acceptable hours for enjoying a concrete nap?”. But then people might just think I was just looking for something to do this weekend.

Technology Does Not Trump Courtesy

Tony Farruggio — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:31:14 +0000

Lesson for the Socially Retarded: It’s okay for you to leave a phone message asking someone to call you back at THEIR convenience. It’s NOT okay for you to have an outgoing voice message saying you’ll call people back at … Continue reading →

Reality Check – Friendship

Tony Farruggio — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:19:11 +0000

Your clients are not your friends.
Your colleagues are not your friends.
The cast and crew are not your friends.
Your ex-lovers are not your friends.
Every one of these relationships is or was conditional.

Conditional relationships are not friendships.

If this leaves you with no friends, then go make some.

List five people you can categorically describe as friends. If you managed to do that, then you have enough friends. If you didn’t, then learn to be a better friend yourself.

The Trouble with Test Tubes

Tony Farruggio — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:00:06 +0000

A study released today indicates that IVF children are no less physically healthy than those naturally conceived. The study did, however, note increased incidence of anxiety, depression and related psychological disorders.

Hmmm…. As a matter of causality, would these increased psychological challenges be a matter of nature or nurture? As politically unpopular as it might be to issue a report suggesting that IVF parents are less effective nurturers than other parents, it would be scientifically indefensible to allow the general public to conclude that something about the IVF process itself produces adverse psychological consequences, without first evaluating whether those couples/women seeking IVF treatment are somehow statistically disposed to parent in a manner that is psychologically damaging. But that would be hurtful.

I am expressing neither support nor opposition to fertility treatments per se. I am just intrigued by examples of researchers who consciously avoid obvious avenues of scientific inquiry, out of deference to personal or public prejudice. Galileo deferred to the supremacy of Church doctrine. Today’s researchers defer to the supremacy of social convention. How far have we really come in the last four centuries?