Ethos ( /ˈiːθɒs/ or /ˈiːθoʊs/) is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals.[1] Early Greek stories of Orpheus exhibit this idea in a compelling way. The word's use in rhetoric is closely based on the Greek terminology used by Aristotle in his concept of the three artistic proofs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos

I was struck by this definition of Ethos, because I had been taught by Cultural Anthropologists that the Greek word Ethos meant 'World View'.

It is interesting that another definition of Ethos involves music and emotions as well as behaviors and morals.

But the real reason for this rather long and most probably boring and unread analysis of our educational system was my reading of an article discussing the teaching of history in the UK:

As the novelist George Orwell observed, he who controls the past controls the future, so it is perhaps not surprising that Orwell’s home country is the latest setting for a battle over what history is and how it is taught. In recent weeks, two conferences here have seen the polite tones of academic debate shattered as historians traded accusations of racism, dumbing down and just plain ignorance …

David Starkey, the author of several books about Henry VIII and his wives and a frequent guest on British television programs, argued at a historians’ conference in London this month that schools ought to focus more on Britain’s “own culture.”

When another historian argued that contemporary Britain was “rather diverse,” Mr. Starkey replied: “No it’s not. Most of Britain is a mono-culture,” adding that large parts of the country were “unmitigatingly white.” Mr. Starkey made headlines last summer after claiming, in comments on several days of riots, that Britain’s poor whites had “become black; a particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion.”

Last week, David Cannadine, a professor of history at Princeton, told Mr. Gove that claims there is a crisis in the way students are taught history are based on the “myth of a golden age” when boys and girls could recite all the kings and queens of England. Speaking at a conference at the University of London to launch his new book, “The Right Kind of History,” which examines the way the subject has been taught for the past century, Mr. Cannadine said: “Complaints about the inadequacy of teaching history in English schools have been going on for as long as history has been taught in English schools."

We all are familiar with the wonderful metaphor put forth by Thoreau:

He marches to the beat of a different drummer.

It immediately reminds me of my bemusement with the String_theorists.

Greek philosophers would tell us, from one branch of these ancient mind benders, that everything boils down to one part that is indivisible: with no reference to liberty or justice, I might add.

All matter could be somehow defined by its smallest indivisible part.

And these fine thinkers who formed the basis of Western Thought (mostly through the vanquishing of other thoughts and ideas by folks like Alexander the Great and the Caesars) even thought that the smallest individual part or atom was the same with regard to any matter that mattered-so to speak.

And nowadays, physicists are telling us that this atomist view is not that simple. The more the scientists examine the smallest indivisible part of matter; the more particles they find in fact make up this 'smallest part'.

I was taught for a least a decade of my youth that one must walk in another's shoes before coming to some judgment concerning that individual's behavior or his opinions.

TRUTH

How can one really give a statement that is incontestable?

Quotations, at least in this day and age, provide the narrator with truths that would seem to be incontestable.

I have seen and will produce here, one of the most important video tapes of our century. It is a young century; that is for sure. But I think this tape will be examined by our children's children's children with much concern.

Now take the statement I just made.

That statement cannot be seen as a truth; because the future is the future and that means that my statement is simply a prediction. And within that prediction is a hope and a prayer really that our children's children's children will not be uneducated and uneducatable.

The video I am referring to? :

2007:

Four years later, Rick Perry thinks that Evolution should be taught along with 'Creationism'.

John Huntsman like McCain in 2008, believes in Evolution “call me crazy if you will."

"I support intelligent design," Bachmann told reporters in June. "What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of a scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt on both sides."

This is a woman who home schooled her children for Chrissakes!

And, although she was forced to send her foster children (foster children who provided she and her husband with a living for a decade or so through Governmental Socialistic Communistic and probably Islamic monetary aid) to public schools, her tutoring would have had an affect upon those foster children's future scholastic achievements.

Newt is probably the closest to some moderate view on the subject of Evolution although his statement goes back a few years and how the political winds now blow, I am sure he will blow it:

"I believe that creation as an act of faith is true, and I believe that science as a mechanical process is true," Gingrich told reporters in May. "Both can be true."

He expressed similar views in a 2006 interview with Discover, where he said evolution -- which "certainly seems to express the closest understanding we can now have [of how we came to be]" -- should be taught in schools as a science and intelligent design should be taught as a philosophy.

Mitt provides what I would call a symbolic ballet with these words:

Mitt Romney has said that while he believes God designed the universe, he also believes "evolution is most likely the process he used to create the human body." The former Massachusetts governor admitted that his beliefs are complex and was hesitant to explicitly support intelligent design.

"I'm not exactly sure what is meant by intelligent design," he said. "But I believe God is intelligent, and I believe he designed the creation. And I believe he used the process of evolution to create the human
body."

Santorum, of course is a jackass and I just cannot possibly walk three steps in his shoes without looking for a gun and putting it in my mouth and pulling the trigger:

Asked to define his own position on the issue, Santorum told the Philadelphia Inquirer in an email, "I believe in Genesis 1:1 -- God created the heavens and the earth. I don't know exactly how God did it or exactly how long it took him, but I do know that He did it. If Gov. Huntsman wants to believe that he is the descendant of a monkey, then he has the right to believe that -- but I disagree with him on this and the many other liberal beliefs he shares with Democrats. For John Huntsman to categorize anyone as 'anti-science' or 'extreme' because they believe in God is ridiculous."

Do I really have to go into the facts concerning Genesis and its four different sources with four different Gods described by four different tribes in four different songs that evolved from hundreds of other tribes at different times through their songs....

Has no one read the histories behind The Iliad and The Odyssey?

Oh forget it!

Santorum went to college and read books and if he really believes in this crap, he is in denial just like an alcoholic denies his addiction and a heroin addict denies her addiction and the fellow on the food channel who gulfs down acres of food in some contest denies his addictions.

Ron Paul aint any different from Santorum or Bachmann:

"I think there is a theory, a theory of evolution, and I don't accept it," Paul said.

Paul said he thought it was "very inappropriate" for presidential candidates to be judged on a matter of science. He also defended creationism while saying that all sides of the creation debate have an element of uncertainty.

"The creator that I know created us, each and every one of us and created the universe, and the precise time and manner," Paul said. "I just don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.

This libertarian crap promoted by this asshole just hides this jackass's true aims with regard to his vision of America and its educational promise.

Herman Cain is an idiot as well as a hypocrite and a liar. So we shall just skip him even though all repub leaders today are nothing but idiots as well as hypocrites and liars!

So there is only one repub who is honest here or at least not a full blown idiot. And that is Huntsman who would lead this nation into an abyss yet unknown or predicted. If you think an ultra conservative Morman from Idaho is going to save your ass; well there is nothing I can do for you; or anybody else for that matter.

So what is Truth?

The only truth I have demonstrated so far is that these jackasses said what they said. Here are the videos and the quotations.

One can argue context and other rhetorical spins, but I have only quoted their quotes.

I have not provided the definition of evolution; I have not proved the 'theory of evolution' and I could not do so if my life depended upon it without taking a few paragraphs from an encyclopedia.

There are biologists and chemical-biologists and a multitude of other brilliant and hard working men and women who have spent their entire lives analyzing billions of bits of information gathered over the millenia who know a great deal about this subject we call evolution.

There are educated and systematic geniuses who have dedicated their lives; their entire lives to the examination of butterflies and their nomadic paths together with their multitude of species.

There are educated and systematic geniuses who have dedicated their lives; their entire lives to the the examination of primates and their inter-relationships.

There are educated and systematic geniuses who have dedicated their lives; their entire lives to the examination of rivers and the changes in their courses over the millenia.

And these people have provided information that has led to great innovations in the creation of technology that would be viewed by our forefathers and foremothers over the mellenia with great awe.

And yet, when we are faced with the minute and not so minute differentiations between turtles in the different isles that make up the Galapagos Islands; we are forced to take Santorum's conclusions and Bachmann's conclusions and Paul's conclusions and Newt's conclusions and 60% of all repub's conclusions that there is only one conclusion that a thinking mammal can come to:

THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF4nwmqvuQI

ANOTHER KIND OF TRUTH

As I noted above, Michelle Bachmann stated that if she were President of the United States right now, she would close down our embassy in Tehran.

But we have no embassy in Tehran nor do we have any embassy on any other acreage located in Iran and we have not had any embassy there since the late 70's.

What this idiot is saying is that we have an embassy in Iran and that she would shut it down, somehow. And that the present Administration is in cahoots with our enemies or the present Administration is simply incompetent to deal with the dangers facing America today.

If we have no embassy there , what in the fuck is she going to shut down?

So who is it again that has demonstrated incompetence?

But her propaganda cleaners would tell us is that she is being quoted out of context.

So Michelle, my belle, is mistaken and her propagandists, paid by her organization are liars.

And she is a liar because she accedes to their statements.

And this woman home-schooled her own children.

ULTIMATE TRUTH

I think the Mass Media (meaning the rich media in my mind, the controlling media in my mind) or MSM if you will, feels much more confident that its members should simply quote our leaders because of the tech we now all experience. That is, the 'reporters' representing MSM should simply quote different powerful leaders and leave it at that.

LOOK, THIS IS WHAT THE SOB SAID. SEE!

That is easy.

That is what I call:

PHONE-IT-IN JOURNALISM.

Well this is what x said and if you don't believe me look at this video created from a ten-year-old's IPOD.

Here is the problem as I see it.

Newt can say that he was paid 1.6 or 1.8 million dollars to advise Freddie or Fannie on certain issues because he has a PhD awarded through his analysis of certain events taking place in Belgium from 1945 through 1960 visa vie its relationship with the Congo.

O'Reilly can say that he is a true historian with a BA from some college in history and eventually receiving an MA in broadcasting.

But we are to believe that Billo is an expert with regard to Lincoln and that we should all read his book because...

Just as an aside, I recall hearing that there have been more biographies written about Lincoln than any other human being who has ever walked the earth except—maybe—Jesus!

How many biographies of Lincoln as O'Reilly actually read? Was it five or ten? True biographers would have read hundreds of other biographies of the Great Emancipator and then reviewed thousands of primary sources prior to writing such a biography. That type of discipline takes time; it takes years.

Santorum can say that he is an expert with regard to Genesis because he knows and loves God. And yet he knows not one goddamn thing about how many quills touched the sacred document over the millenia; how many different tribes were involved in its creation; how many Jesuits alone have spent their entire lives researching the subject coming to conclusions that are much more rational than his could ever be nor how many linguists have simply analyzed the contexts of the words used throughout the separate chapters of a an extremely contradictory collage of stories.

Bachmann can claim she is some sort of expert historian and say that our Forefathers fought against slavery in this nation as hard as they could even though most of them were slave owners who never did one goddamn thing to free the slaves. After all she was summoned by God to explain the origins of this country after tossing a novel written by Gore Vidal.

And yet Bachmann would wish to accomplish what this British Twit desired--whom I have referenced above. That is, forget 'history'. History is all just propaganda anyway so forget true research altogether.

Herman Cain would take this country down a road paved by some computer game creators.

And he would cite the Bible as he takes us down the road to disaster.

CONCLUSION

We live in a world of specialization.

If you really wish to know something about butterflies you have to read everything available about butterflies and do field work for a decade before you can even begin to grasp what a butterfly really is, what a butterfly really does and why a butterfly so behaves.

If you really wish to understand what an atom is, you must dedicate your life to examining atoms. Years of reading the results of hard work by previous experts in physics and then years of field work.

And so on....

So that we are forced to go to the 'experts' who are sanctified by professional associations for our answers.

Life has become so damn complicated that, in my opinion, the age of the Universal or Renaissance Man is long gone.

But I feel it is incumbent upon parents to have their children instructed by a curriculum written by those who have dedicated their lives to the search for knowledge in a particular field of study.

Biologists and bio-chemists are paid by big corporations to discover cures for certain diseases and those corporations could care less of the researchers are good Christians or not good Christians.

But I cannot imagine that one of these big pharmaceutical corporations would actually hire a researcher who professes to deny 'evolution' as a viable discipline!

If you are going to be an expert in Wind Energy, you had better spend years researching the engineering aspect of turbines; attain a basic understanding of Newtonian physics; attain an understanding of meteorological aspects of the environmental context within which that turbine will perform its miracles; attain an understanding of all wildlife within the ambit of that environ, and understand the probable changes that that environ will undergo over the next decade and over many decades after that.

And if that wind turbine is to be placed in the ocean, you had better attain a working knowledge of the geology related to the off shore locus of that proposed turbine along with the meteorological affects upon that structure.....

What I perceive in the Religious Right is that their only solution to the real problems of mankind relate to some ridiculous belief that only through prayer could anyone get those off shore turbines to actually work!

He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good....

The reason I began this essay with the British discussion of history is that in our Orwellian world, history is just a tool to be used to keep the masses in their place.

And if that is the case, then we shall have the history of the first ten years of our millenia twisted in a manner that teaches us nothing about the potential economic collapse of of great banking oligarchies that are not properly regulated.

If Michelle would have us adore Calvin Coolidge, how might we prevent a Great Depression?

This rant is way too long and I apologize but I am having severe problems approaching the issues surrounding empathy in the political sphere today.

Willy Geist on the Morning Joe show noted that he does not really care about politics (including his wife as part of his partnership) but that he blames both parties for the inability of government to work.

“I don't care about the republicans who would refuse to sign on to a tax increase for the rich or the democrats who would refuse to sign on to a bill limiting Social Security or Medicare benefits.”

Willy is a liar.

The dems from their leaders in Congress or from the WH have come up with trillions of dollars of cuts in all social programs as long as there is some increase in taxes for the rich and the corporations.

To say otherwise is just one goddamn lie.

Methinks Willy is more interested in his career than a love for his country.

So those on the sidelines hold no empathy from me whatsoever and never will.

I could say the same for Dylan Ratigan.

But I am attempting to see how I could adopt, just for a few moments, the ethos of those I abhor in this country.

I just cannot; that is I am incapable of walking in the shoes of the likes of Paul, or Bachmann, or Santorum or Newt or Mitt or Cain or any of the repub candidates for the Presidency of these United States of America.

They are all either insane or just plain lying opportunists.

The end.