I address you on this Independence Day weekend with a short, hopefully painless expression of my delight at being an American. I'm a citizen of the United States of America, not through an accident of birth, but through my own efforts and desires. This country accepted me as one of their own when I managed to convince them that I'm a person who values such a distinction and would probably be a respectable member of the community. I trust I've not betrayed their decision. The moment that I received my Certificate of Naturalization, standing among a couple hundred other teary-eyed new citizens, is a time I will never forget.

I was given a flag at that moment — Old Glory — a simple piece of red, white, and blue cloth that I cherish for what it represents, a country that has given me opportunities that I might not have had otherwise, and though this land is imperfect in some respects, it is still the most glorious expression of our species' struggle toward better and grander accomplishments than have ever before been attempted.

When 9/11 happened, I grieved along with millions of others. When the fireworks blossomed on the 4th, I smiled and cheered as well. I'm a damn proud American, and that's one reason that I'm here at this Foundation trying to make my mark, getting people to think seriously about reality and rationality. Reality is where we actually live, and rationality is how we try to understand it.

We Americans, along with every other human being on this planet, need to get our act together. We're here, willy-nilly, on the cosmic stage. Our audience is vast — all the generations who will succeed us — and the overture has been played, the curtains have opened. We must deliver our lines correctly, stand facing the customers, and exchange the dialogue that makes up history. No, we'll be gone long before the applause starts; that's far away in the future. Most of us are only bit players, minor characters, in the play, but what we do now, how we do it, and what love and dedication we put into it, will be experienced for a long, long time. Let us, as actors, put all we have into it, give a good performance, and know that we've contributed to this exciting drama.

Oh, excuse me. That's my cue.....

So the new Houdini postage stamp will be available across the USA today, July 5th! It has been illustrated on many sites as a 34-cent item, but costs 37 cents, which just shows you the power of a magician who's been dead for 76 years! I bought one, shown here, that provides even more proof....!

A few weeks ago on our Internet Webcast, I mentioned the valedictorian speech delivered by Lindell Lucy on Friday, May 24th, 2002, at Corning High School in Arkansas. Lindell is a young man I met following my lecture last year at the Arkansas Governor's School — remember that exciting group that I mentioned here just recently? Apparently I'd made quite an impression on him, and we stayed in touch, as I've done with a few others from the AGS, over the years. It was Lindell's feeling at my lecture that I'd been speaking directly to him and addressing some of his problems and doubts.

This guy is exceptional in so many ways. Just being accepted by the AGS shows that he's special, but he was also on the 2002 Arkansas Times' Academic All-Star Team, a program now in its eighth year, recognizing scholastic excellence in Arkansas. He's a basketball star, too, who scored a career-high 49 points in a triple-overtime game recently. At 6-foot-1, Lindell was the tallest player and the captain of a sophomore-dominated team.

He was president of the Corning High School's National Honor Society, he has run in the Boston Marathon, and perhaps inspired by the velocities he's achieved, he intends to study particle physics in college. He's been accepted at Stanford and I think they're lucky to have him. Wherever he ends up, Lindell says, he also wants to play college basketball.

This is a speech with which I have a few minor differences, but the reason that I publish it here, is because it's an original, it came right from the heart, it's daring, it's honest, and at first it looked as if it might never be delivered. Remember that Corning, Arkansas, population about 3,000, is a very religious town. Lindell's school administrators, reading over his intended speech as he'd submitted it to them, were a bit concerned, and expressed their opinion that it might be offensive to some listeners. Lindell asked my opinion on the matter, and I suggested that he insist on giving it just as it was — with only two small changes. Well, he won that confrontation, and stood before his classmates as valedictorian. Here's what they heard from him....

This is it. We're finally graduating. For most of us, this day marks the biggest change in our lives. It's the end of everything we've ever known, and it's the beginning of everything we've ever wanted. We're all about to go our separate ways, about to leave each other and our families; we're all about to grow up, about to become individuals, about to pursue our dreams. We have numerous decisions to make, and we have so many opportunities. The world is changing fast, and we're changing even faster. Ten years from now, there's no telling what we'll each have made of ourselves. The possibilities are endless.

I could go on talking about our potential futures, but I think everybody knows what's ahead. So, instead of talking about possibilities, I'm going to talk about some things that will hopefully be much more important than that. I'm going to speak about the search for truth and about making the most out of life.

There are times when it's inappropriate to question things, but in general, never stop asking why. Also, don't rely on another person's word. Don't rely on a book. Double check everything. Find out first hand. If you want to know truth and if you want to know it with any amount of certainty, then you have to find it for yourself. It's not something that can be given to you. Always keep your mind open to new possibilities. But never let anyone scare you into believing anything, and don't pretend to believe. Don't be afraid to be different. If you know inside yourself that something's right, then stick to it, no matter if the whole world thinks differently. You'll never be happy trying to be someone you're not.

Realize that not everybody has the same beliefs, and respect that. You can never know exactly what another person has experienced. In our world, there's Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, Judaism, and about 10 other major world religions, and within these religious groups there are thousands of different divisions. Edward Bulwer-Lytton once said, "Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light; every eye, looking on, finds its own."

Meaning doesn't have to be found in ancient texts though. In fact, it doesn't have to be found at all. The physicist Richard Feynman, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics, put it like this:

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, but if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't have to... I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

Living a religious life is relatively easy. You already know what you're supposed to do. Your life purpose may be to please a certain god or gods here on Earth so that you may enter a place of eternal happiness after death, or it may be to break a cycle of reincarnation in order to "become one" with the universe. But whatever religion you may choose to accept, you will always have the comfort that what you're doing here on Earth isn't a waste of your brief and precious life.

But what do you do if you choose not to give your life to religion? What is your goal when you view the universe as meaningless and completely independent of some mysterious supernatural force? That's a good question; it's one that many people are afraid to answer, but it's one that I'll try to answer.

Accepting a reality without "meaning" can be extremely hard. It can make you feel insignificant, confused, lost, and alone. You have no books, no people, no gods to tell you what to do or how to live your life. All principles, decisions, and meaning must come from within yourself. It's very easy to get caught up in thinking about why things happen the way that they do and how meaningless it all is: laughing, crying, talking, loving, learning, experiencing, everything. You view all your own actions from an evolutionary standpoint, as mere behaviors that evolved because they benefitted the species. Sometimes you can get so caught up, dwelling on how pointless everything is, that you lose all motivation. Your thoughts can become your entire life. You may feel trapped by your own existence, and at times you may even believe that bringing death upon yourself is the only way out.

So how do you deal with that? Well, you don't deal with it. The universe is meaningless; you accept it, and you forget it. "So what" if we popped out of nothing, or if we're only one of an infinite number of universes or histories. There are psychological, evolutionary, theoretical, physical, chemical, natural explanations for everything. You can spend your whole life thinking about it, being an emotionless machine, being dead to the world, or you can live. You can feel. You can learn. You can meet new people, try new things, and see new places. The thrill of experiencing is what makes life worth living, and this world is plenty big enough, and complex enough, to keep you occupied for a human lifetime.

When a beautiful girl looks deep into your eyes and smiles, don't think about the chemical reasons behind your increased heart rate and quickened breathing; don't think about the evolutionary reasons behind your attraction to the girl. When a friend tells you a funny joke, don't think about the meaning of "funny" or the behavior that laughing evolved from. And if someone close to you dies, don't think about the reality of death or the reasons for crying. Just smile at the girl, just laugh at the joke, just cry over the loss, just appreciate the moment. Feeling happiness, and even pain, is much better than not feeling anything at all.

There are reasons for everything. Sometimes those reasons make you feel like you don't have control of yourself, but you do have control. You can keep yourself from laughing if you understand why you're laughing. You can keep yourself from crying. You can keep yourself from loving. But don't control it. Just accept that emotions are meaningless, and that everything is meaningless, and just feel. Don't fight nature. Go with your instincts. Don't try to be strong. Don't try to be too smart, too tough for nature. Sometimes it takes a stronger, wiser person to be weak. Life is love and hate, happiness and sadness. Life is emotions. Life is feeling. Without emotions, you might as well be a robot. You might as well be dead. So live. So feel. Don't think. Feel.

In the end, we're all going to die anyway; the outcome is inevitable. So, look at things like this: you're here, and you'll be gone soon. You may be gone tomorrow, and when you're gone, you'll be gone for good. So live right now, because you're never going to live again. It all comes down to the old saying, "Is the glass half empty, or half full?"

I could go on preaching to you, but I won't. I've got plans at the lake. I've got plans to feel the sand between my toes and to feel the warm sun on my back. So let's hurry up and graduate and get out of here. Thanks teachers, parents, and everybody else. Thanks for the great memories, class of '02, and good luck with the future!

Sounds a little grim, in some ways, perhaps. However, I know Lindell, and I've a lot of faith in him, and in his future.

I must tell you that Lindell reported to me the reaction from his listeners following his speech. Not one of the students came to him for the usual hugs, handshakes, and goodbyes that are expected. No academics from the school thanked him, nor approached him. I'm sure that hurt. But he was besieged by total strangers who had no fear of expressing their appreciation. Bottom line: Lindell Lucy said what he had to, in his own words, the way he wanted to. He's a winner. Remember that name. You'll be hearing about him....

NOTE: I will be in the UK from July 28th to August 2nd. If anything can be arranged in the way of a lecture, I’m listening. And, if friends over there would just like to get together, we can probably manage that, as well. Sorry for the short notice. Just got verification of this engagement, today.....

Reader "Gregory" writes:

Just had some thoughts about the incident with the cat and the TV remote control.

[This involved a cat operating a remote control, and the event being attributed to a poltergeist.]

It is amazing that people are comfortable with all the technological marvels that we enjoy today and at the same time, jump to the conclusion that some "spirit force" is changing the channel on the TV. Interesting that "spirits" had to await the advent of the marvelous remote control before they could do their thing — this wouldn't have happened with the old mechanical tuners!

I guess there's something wrong with me, a sort of geek and techie by nature. Whenever I hear a story like this, or about some miracle, I immediately assume there is a logical explanation for the incident. So far, I have never been disappointed or proven wrong.

Gregory, I'll add to that with an experience of my own. Years ago, when RCA came out with their first color sets and a remote control design, it was a unit that produced a sort of pinging noise on short metal bars inside the device. The frequency and the harmonics generated triggered a transducer in the receiver, and changed channels, adjusted the sound volume, and switched the receiver off or on. I had one of these setups, obtained by a rather unique process which we needn't get into here.....

I was living on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, New York City, at that time. To my surprise, I found that when it was raining outside, the sound volume on the receiver would tend to rise in what appeared to be a spontaneous manner. Now, I could have attributed this to the Rain God, or to a poltergeist. Instead, I looked into the matter carefully, and discovered that it was due to the sound of cars passing on Sixth Avenue, making a hissing sound when passing through puddles in the road! Intrigued by this phenomenon, I experimented further and found that jingling my key-chain changed channels, and dropping a quarter-dollar on a certain ceramic plate would activate the on/off switch! Miracles? Spirits? Supernatural? No, physics.

Well, modulated infra-red took over, and the only exciting thing I can tell you about that aspect, is that if you have a video camera that "sees" in the dark by emitting I-R and registering it, you can also "see" the TV remote control as a brilliant beacon in a dark room..... Ain't science just grand?

A strange but not very believable story has been making the rounds, and has been brought to my attention. Hot on the heels of other much more likely transgressions, the Vatican is being accused of concealing the existence of a time machine. It's called the "Chronovisor" and was built in the 1950s by a Benedictine monk named Father Pellegrino Marcello Ernetti. Though, unfortunately, no plans nor photographs of this machine exist, it's said that with it Ernetti filmed Christ's crucifixion, reconstructed acoustic events such as Quintus Ennius' tragedy Thyestes in the original Latin from a performance in 169 BPE, and recovered the original text of the Ten Commandments given to Moses, all for the edification of Vatican officials. My, my!

In 1956, the story goes, Father Ernetti began to investigate the possibility of reviewing the past with what was described as, "a television-like device." He died in 1997 without revealing the secret of the Chronovisor (drat!) but rumors are circulating that the Catholic Church is hiding a working model from the rest of the world, supposedly to keep it from falling into "evil hands." As proof, a Jesuit priest named Father Francois Brune believes the Chronovisor must exist because, he says, "Ernetti wouldn't lie about such things." Oh. Okay.

How does this marvel work? Well, Ernetti, who was a professor at the Venetian Benedetto Marcello Conservatory and Fondation Cini, as well as director of the Italian Conservatory of Religious Instruction for Men, said that he accomplished his research in collaboration with "twelve physicists." Again unfortunately, these scientists remain (double drat!) "anonymous." He claimed that he'd invented a method of recovering sound waves from the past and converting them into visual and acoustic reconstructions of history.

This is not at all a new concept in crackpottery. For decades there have been folks out there in Lalaland insisting that rocks can be split and the surface pulled under a pickup that will produce the sounds of dinosaurs, sounds trapped there when the rocks were forming. A hunk of cement similarly tested, however, does not give us traffic noises or conversations....

When we hear that Ernetti's work is favorably compared to the "Radionic Camera" developed in the 1950s by well-known quack George DeLaWarr, we can form a better estimate of the likelihood of its existence. The Radionic Camera was supposed to "image the past and the future," and DeLaWarr published photographs demonstrating the effect. The words "fuzzy" and "indeterminate" take on new and compelling meanings when used to describe these "photographs."

When we further learn that Ernetti claimed that his device detected and translated "waves that are inscribed on the astral sphere," we might have further insight into his thinking processes.

Jacob Spinney of Phoenix, Arizona, a young magician, sends us lots of good material for the Internet Webcast we do from the JREF every Thursday night at 9 Eastern Time. Hey, tune in just by clicking on the "Listen Live" button....!

Jacob tells us here of an experience that demonstrated just how uncritical people can be of evidence, when their need to believe is strong enough....

About a year ago, I was doing some card magic for a mother and her child. The kid loved the dexterity I showed him, and the mother requested me to show her a trick. So I started [a think-of-a-card trick, in which a card selection is cleverly forced upon the spectator] and the worst became apparent. I realized that she wasn't thinking of the card I attempted to force upon her.

I had no option but to make a 100% cold guess on what her card might be. My only hope was to use the process of elimination. "I believe your card is red?" "Yes!" (Most people prefer red over black.) "I believe your card is high?" She thought to herself for a moment, and just from common sense I could tell that she wasn't sure if her card would be classified as "high" or in the middle, so now I knew that her card was red and it was somewhere between 7 and 10. Now I actually had the ability to make an educated guess. "Eight of hearts?" (Most choose hearts over diamonds.) "Nope, seven of diamonds. How did you do that?" I was pretty dumbfounded that though I didn't even get her card right, she acted as if I were 100% on the mark!

Now I look at these "psychics" on TV and find that they're using the very same method I used to guess that spectator's card — the process of elimination! My mom always tells me, when watching someone like Sylvia Browne, "Well either she's psychic or she's guessing. But she can't be guessing all of those things that she tells them!" I then realized that it's true. It's not very likely for you to make a total guess that someone had a pink stuffed bunny with a missing left eye and drawings on its back, but if you start eliminating possibilities you'll start getting more and more clues to make a much better educated guess than if you were to start from scratch. The psychics never tell them anything very specific at first, but begin by eliminating the possibilities so that they can get more specific the further they get into the reading. And hey, even if the psychic gets it totally wrong, there's no problem! The spectators will just act like that mother did to me. The fact that the psychics are flat out wrong goes in one ear and right out the other.

Jacob, you're learning! The spectators need it to be true, and they'll bend reality and logic to make it true.

Old friend Mark Plummer writes from Australia about the "miracle town" in France, Lourdes, which he describes as, "a small town mostly living off the visitors by selling accommodation, meals and religious trinkets."

You know, I've never read about any deaths at Lourdes. When I went there I saw many very sick and elderly people visiting in the hope of a cure. Many were wheelchair-bound and some were on wheeled beds. Just how many of these people die during their visit? If they don't die, they can get sicker.

Consider: (1) Being sick and wheeled around in the cold open air. (2) Having a bath in "holy" water. Those baths didn't look too clean to me. Is the water changed and the bath sterilized after each sick person baths there? (3) Thousands of people, obviously many with infectious illnesses, kiss the same rock, in conformity with the tradition. There was no evidence that the rock was cleaned and sterilized between each "kiss." Instead, a thick white gooey mass was built up by the consecutive kissers. It would be interesting for a culture to be grown from the mass, and analyzed.

Meantime, kiss at your own risk.

There's a new version of the JREF Million-Dollar Challenge now up on this web site. I made small but important changes and additions, some of which were prompted by very wide — unfounded — criticism of the challenge. Here's a selection of some points that irked a chap who just doesn't want the challenge to exist, accompanied by my answers....

"Since claims vary greatly in character and scope, specific rules must be formulated for each applicant."

This means, quite reasonably, that the rules for any particular attempt cannot be finalized until a claimant steps forward and announces what he or she is going to do — bend spoons, read minds or walk on fire. But it also means that Randi will formulate the rules for each individual attempt at his challenge on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, the claimant has to agree to these ad hoc rules. If he or she does not agree, the contest will not take place at all.

Nonsense. I will not, and do not, "formulate" any rules without the cooperation and participation of the applicant. If there's any objection, we call in a person we both agree should be properly qualified to decide about the rules. It's always been this way, despite the statements — such as this one — made to the contrary.

"Tests will be designed in such a way that no 'judging' procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any observer, in accordance with the rules which will be agreed upon by all parties in advance of any formal testing procedure taking place."

This means, quite reasonably, that there will be no interminable arguments by "experts" over statistical measurements. Either the spoon bends or it doesn't: either the claimant reads minds or he doesn't. The written rules, agreed up front, will decide.

But it also means that there will be no objective, independent judging or adjudication, by scientific criteria, carried out by qualified professional scientists. Randi alone will say whether the terms of the challenge have been met — whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly reproduced. In the event that the claimant insists the written terms have been met, but Randi disagrees, then it will be Randi's decision that prevails.

More nonsense. This person has ignored the statements made, and the definitions in the rules. The statement, "no 'judging' procedure is required. Results will be self-evident to any observer," covers that in detail. When he mentions "whether the metal was bent psychically, or the electronic instrument deflected by mental power, or the remote image was correctly reproduced," he misses the whole situation. We don't give a damn how something happened, only whether it did happen, under careful observation. As for "whether . . . the remote image was correctly reproduced," there is absolutely no doubt about that, since a participant would be given a list of targets, and be required to choose which one was the intended one. That doesn't call for argument or a decision; it's either right or it's wrong. It's "yes" or "no."

Not only will Randi be the sole judge of whether the claimant is successful, but even if a claimant appeals on scientific grounds that he has met the agreed terms of the challenge, Randi will be the sole arbiter of any appeal as well. Randi says there will be "no judging." In reality, he is both judge and jury — not only of the claimant's cause but of his own cause as well.

Further nonsense. Again, there is no judging! By anyone! And all the "agreed terms" are clearly and definitively decided and agreed to beforehand, not after the test has taken place. There can be no appeal of whether the gold was found under the right cup, whether there were extraneous vibrations that threw the dowser off, or whether Jupiter was in the wrong sign. Go back to our encounter recently with the dowser right here at the JREF, and you'll see how a test is properly designed and carried out. We're not amateurs, though apparently you are.

It doesn't seem to have occurred to Randi that the thirty Ph.D.'s who attested to the new machine [a "free energy" device] might know a little more about physics than he does.

Randi is a non-scientist who has announced that — by some undisclosed but non-scientific means — he knows that such anomalous claims are farcical and "absurd'" and should be "tossed on the trash heap."

Let me reveal here what my "undisclosed" means consists of: I use top-notch scientists and other experts to advise me. You see, I don't fix my own teeth, I don't do my own plumbing, and I don't calculate needed statistics. I go to dentists, plumbers, and statisticians for those services. Didn't occur to you, huh? As for the "new machine," the physicists at the American Physical Society advised me that it was absurd, and that was a body of some 41,000 persons, not thirty, who provided that opinion. I think I'll go along with the majority.

And, in case you didn't know, if you look hard enough, you can always find 30 Phds who will make almost any statement you want them to. Having a Phd doesn't mean you're smart; it only means that you should be....

And who decided that PhDs are capable of detecting tricks better than magicians are?

It won't stop. At www.alternativescience.com there's a chap named Kolodzey who wants to apply for the JREF prize because he claims that he can survive on nothing but water. I gave this dumbo a short, sharp, answer long ago, but he's still carrying on about this nonsense. A critic writes to me:

Although I VERY MUCH DOUBT that he can do any such thing, I do not think that you did yourself any favors by, in effect, telling him to go jump in a lake. YOU are the guy who puts up the proud $1 Million challenge to all comers. Should have tested him out Randi.

I couldn't resist trying to explain a few basic facts to this man. I thought that perhaps I could introduce him to a factor that he may have heard of, but has never considered: reality. I listed for him a few claims, asking that he read and consider them carefully:

1. I can fly by flapping my arms, but not when anyone is looking or observing or recording with video.

2. I am God.

3. I can survive for weeks without any nourishment besides water.

4. I can soften stone just by looking at it.

5. I can cure any disease, without exception, just by knowing the name of the patient.

6. I can make a meteorite hit any spot on Earth, on demand.

7. I can make it rain anywhere in the world, at any given time and date.

I added this:

Okay? Do you seriously think that we at the JREF should or would spend our valuable time and facilities investigating ANY of these juvenile notions? These claims are made by people who need and crave attention; we have no time to feed their egos. Often, they are only looking for their names to appear somewhere, and have no intention of ever doing what they have claimed. And, they will not agree to just do the stunt; they insist upon press and publicity to be brought in to glorify them. For example, when he was asked to have a meteorite hit my backyard the following Sunday as a simple indication of his powers, the claimant for #6, above, wanted us to issue a press release in advance, and take an ad in the paper. We of course refused, and he went away.

We are often criticized for going after only the silly people, the "easy" targets: dowsers, homeopaths, "applied kinesiology" practitioners, magnet gurus, etc. But these claims cost lives and tax dollars, so must be dealt with. How much more would we be criticized for going after the seven claims listed above? Yes, we've had all of those claims made, some many times over. We must ignore them, because they're just so juvenile. Testing any of them would take much time and labor, and at the end, we have exactly what we knew all along: the claim is an empty one. There's no satisfaction or reward in doing this.

We're a serious organization, not a circus, and we won't be drawn into stupid confrontations. Let them go to Gary Schwartz, at the University of Arizona, who will undoubtedly find them to be the real thing no matter what their claim is, simply because he doesn't know how to design and conduct a test.

Following my account of my verbal duel with the young Bible-thumper at the AGS last month, I received a number of very abusive criticisms via e-mail, from three different posters. Interestingly enough, when I composed responses to these, and tried to send them, they bounced back as "undeliverable." These are the e-mail equivalents to anonymous poison-pen letters and phone hang-ups, people who object — unfairly — knowing that they'll remain unreachable by any means. They can criticize, but they can't take the responses, because Randi just might be right. And we don't want to know about that....

He's coming! Quick! Heads back into the sand!

Reader Lee Graham tells us:

In an article from CNN on the web discussing the recent ruling regarding the pledge of allegiance — the "under God" addition — I found the following: "Later, the House approved by a vote of 416-3 a resolution declaring that the ruling 'treats any religious reference as inherently evil.'" Of course it's as clear as day that the ruling neither says nor implies any such thing. Seems to me the House is full of people who are completely out of touch with the issue. The ruling, of course, treats any religious reference as neither good nor evil, simply not the business of the state. How can they not get it? It boggles the mind.

Lee, before I took my Oath of Allegiance during my citizenship ceremony, I informed the presiding judge that I could not accept the "under God" expression. He assured me that my objection was not uncommon, and that it was the practice to merely skip those words if they were against your beliefs. I did so, and took the opportunity of looking around me to see which others might have joined me. I noticed at least one, and we exchanged smiles.

I've always been affronted by the "IN GOD WE TRUST" line on US currency. I see it as a contradiction of the principle of "separation of church and state," and an assumption that "god" means only the particular variety of Christian god that someone chooses it to be, to the exclusion of all other deities. I ask you to tell me if these versions of the back of a dollar bill offend you. If they do, why....?

Reader Blaise Di Pronio sent me an inquiry that I decided to put up here, along with my response, to answer many very similar inquiries I'm getting every week.

I wish to first of all express my gratitude to you for providing us with a source of clear, concise and ultimately rewarding understanding of the many interactions between the known and unknown. But it remains frustrating and infuriating to still watch the seemingly endless supply of gullibles keeping the charlatans busy and wealthy.

I agree, and I'm just as angry as you are at how little the victims understand the real world around them. The answer, I feel, is education — and that's what the JREF is involved in, every day. Blaise continues:

I have watched, heard and read of your many debunkings of these exploiters of the mentally frail and lazy. I am intrigued about how you really feel and react when they choose to ignore you and go back to further abuse. Personally, my furies are ultimately directed at the victim. I feel I should be slapping them in the back of the head, not the latest spoon bender/mind reader/dead talker. How do you maintain your enthusiasm and control as you watch these unctuous charmers fatten their wallets on prime time? I seethe in helpless frustration and can only shut them off.

I've often told my audiences that I, like them, would not fail to respond to a stranger who has been run down by a passing automobile. I would first remove the victim from the path of traffic, then call for medical help, of course, since my ability in that respect is minimal. However, while I'm on the phone summoning help, if the victim should decide to crawl back into the path of oncoming traffic, I might go to him once more and drag him to safety — but not the third time. My philosophy is that some folks want and need to be victimized, so I will not interfere with their right to be stupid.

On the subject of religious beliefs, I, like you, am [an atheist] of the second-kind. As a lawyer, I live or die on my evidence. What we do have in uncontraverted evidence, is the knowledge that this planet is destined for total obliteration into the void to be created by our dead sun's black hole. All we have and all we know will disappear as if it never existed.

Probably, Blaise. But we just might be able to get a data-base together and ship it off in all directions before we "go nova." I suspect that we'll feel the need to do just that, perhaps from ego, or from an altruistic drive that does seem to surface now and then. I, myself, would assuredly vote for doing that....

Faced with this certainty, many scientists and other learned persons have expressed dismay and disappointment and, in futility, have asked: "What's the point of it all?" coming up with no answer except for: "What a shame" if this is how it will all end. What are your thoughts and feelings on these perplexing but ultimately fatalistic outlooks and how can you not find yourself heading back to the religious and ecclesiastical safety nets.

Blaise might want to refer to Lindell Lucy's speech up above, for a rather good treatment of this question. As for myself, I don't find these to be "perplexing" matters at all. Yes, they make one think, and wonder, but I do both those things about newly-hatched blue jays as much as I do about the fact that the light that entered my eye from the Andromeda Nebula last night, left home some two million years ago.... I just don't have a problem with the bigger — and admittedly rather bleak — picture that you paint, and I content myself with trying to improve the tiny fraction of that time-span that I'm lucky enough to occupy. I hope that my influence just might extend into the lives of persons yet unborn. That's a heady thought.

I guess I'm easily satisfied, but I'm also exceedingly pragmatic. The IRS will never get my tax situation right, I'll always be sued by the grubbies out there, and I'm not going to get the 1970s Corvette. So, I live with those realities. No choice, I'm sure you'll agree.

I know the last topics above are heavy duty meanderings and I may be overtaxing your time and the purpose of JREF and for that I apologize — but I value your opinion and had to ask.

Not at all. The JREF was set up for the express purpose of responding to such inquiries. The day that such questions don't come in, we'll have to think about closing the doors. I don't anticipate that ever happening, Blaise. A black hole will come along long before that....

You probably heard that the principal of Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica, California, has banned the familiar game of "tag" during the lunch recess of their grade school, which houses kindergarten through fifth-grade students, because tag and similar games cause concussions, broken bones and numerous bumps. But these physical dangers were not the only harm cited. The principal wrote:

In this game, there is a "victim" or "It," which creates a self-esteem issue. The oldest or biggest child usually dominates . . .

Wow! Can't have that!

What madness is this? Surely we will now ban hockey and football, because faster, stronger, more skilled players will win! Chess, too, has to go, unless only drawn games are allowed. Think of it: Parcheesi, poker, sack races, elections, how much of our lives will be altered here?

Well, it's not only in California, folks. It's gone as far as New York State. A reader writes:

Just yesterday I heard that the Elmira City School district may be looking to do away with declaring valedictorian and salutatorian honors at high school graduations and I think that is just absurd. The people that win those honors are a special breed. They bust their asses, they are goal-oriented, and they deserve recognition for their hard work. Sure there are more than just two students in every class that bust their asses and are goal oriented, and they may feel left out by not having these honors bestowed on them, but guess what? That's life. It's a dog-eat-dog world. If you want to be honored over someone else, that is more incentive for you to bust your ass. That's the problem with this world (and especially this town). People have grown to be so content with mediocrity that they actually strive for it. Not only that, the governing bodies want to reinforce it! By not recognizing the best and the brightest students, you are removing all motivation to be the best and brightest student.

What's next? Should we do away with the Emmys and the Oscars because they fail to honor every performer that gave a good performance? Maybe we should do away with the medal ceremonies at the Olympics, because we don't want to hurt the bronze medalist's feelings. Maybe we should not announce an MVP of the Super Bowl anymore because football is a team sport and every member of the team deserves credit. McDonald's should certainly do away with their employee-of-the-month system; it's unfair to those employees who are rude to the customers. Maybe we should do away with every single thing that gives recognition or status to individuals, because we don't want anyone to feel left out. Every employee of every company should be paid exactly the same, every sports contest should be declared a draw, and it should be illegal to consider one friend (of a group) to be your "best friend." Give me a break, people.

Sure, eliminating valedictorian and salutatorian status might sound like a good idea on the surface. It's certainly a way to eliminate some unnecessary competition, bring all children to a more even keel, and save some children's self-esteem. But this idea is nothing all that new or revolutionary at all. The basic concept of having a society where everyone is made to be exactly the same, and people aren't honored and rewarded for their hard work and their accomplishments has been around for ages. A man by the name of Marx wrote an entire book, and started an entire political system based solely on that premise way back in 1848. Maybe you've heard of it: the Communist Manifesto.

Re the Michael Lutin horoscope quiz last week, those three horoscopes were the first three right off Lutin's page in American Way Magazine. Yep, he wrote them all. I didn't select just especially silly ones, I took 'em as they were presented. How inane can he get....?

Reader Paul Schultz, MD, offered his observations on the "Why do we do moral things?" question, ending with this excellent (in my opinion) conclusion:

An amoral species would likely kill itself off; natural selection would favor, and has favored, societies/species that have what we tend to call morality.

On Thursday, June 20, 2002, the London Daily Mail printed a page of predictions by various seers predicting the outcome of the critical England vs. Brazil football match. Here's what they guessed:

Peter Watson, the Daily Mail's own astrologer, naming no actual score (chicken!)but perusing the skies, said that England would win by one goal.

Gillian Kemp, a UK "coffee reader," [?] said the result would be England 3, Brazil 2. (Using Brazilian coffee, no doubt?) Then Kemp, reading tea leaves this time, predicted it would be: England 2, Brazil 1. One can only wonder what corn flakes or pop corn might have revealed....

Nostradamus, it was said, had predicted the result would be: England 1, Brazil 0. Just what interest M. Nostradamus, in the sixteenth century, had in football, was not discussed.

Numerologist Soraya, juggling digits about but eschewing using any actual numbers, predicted, "England to win."

Aggy Akhtar, a Buddhist bowl-seer [?], clearly saw in his bowl: England 3, Brazil 2.

And a Brazilian soothsayer, Nelson Ty Olufiran, using unknown and secret means, declared: Brazil 2, England 1.

And the actual result? Brazil 2, England 1! Need we guess at the ensuing excitement? No one seemed to notice that everyone but the Brazilian was dead wrong, and I'm sure that he is now being pursued and over-booked as a result. Mind you, he may never get another guess right, but that won't make a bit of difference. When they win, they win; when they lose, they win.....