More questions, more answers and less hype.

Hi Carolyn,


For startsies, I did a cart before the horse thing with your Thanksgiving last week. It's  later than I thought. 


 Regardless, I hope your  particular Thanksgiving situation went well..




 Other minutiae to pass along. Saw the first promo for the next part of the Hobbit series. Gosh awful clever of them to make all parts of the movie at once and then just let it out one year at a time, eh. And this Benedict Cumberbatch dude seems to be everywhere lately.

 Finally, with all of your references to the good Doctor,  I feel almost like I am out of the loop big time here but I have simply never seen a single episode of Dr. Who and I don't really even know the premise behind it. I totally couldn't miss your  all-encompassing enthusiasm, though.


 I hope the 50 year item doesn't disappoint.



 Okay, now for the second 10 of those questions and answers.



Which ideal should predominate within a community, personal freedom or selfless co-operation?



I'm going for selfless co-operation as the final yardstick but personal freedom as the immediate barometer. Boy, was that a political, offend nobody and everybody at the same time, answer or what? The bottom line depends on all those involved having a sense of community or the greater good and adjusting their personal feelings and demands accordingly.




If you were in charge of the whole place, what are two things that would be on your short list to change? (a thinly disguised " Pet Peeve " question.)

 Mine at the moment would be to change the whole scene about tobacco products. Cigar, cigarettes et al. should be way more expensive than the products out there to help people quit this powerful addiction. - Spoken like a former smoker.




Secondly, I would lose all of this " Black Friday " lunacy. In the last couple of years it has blossomed in blight-like fashion here in Canuckland, and we are now bombarded by commercials probably as much as you guys down there.  There simply isn't any level on which the kind of savage and frenzied behaviour it encourages can be justified. Call me Ebeneezer Scrooge but  overextended credit problems,  debt counselling and debt/bankruptcy occurrences would, no doubt, be significantly reduced if this holiday season didn't come with so much commercial hype. Black Friday seems to be the starting gun for a month long race of conspicuous consumerism.

 I believe this is the " baggage" attached to the yuletide season that you spoke of earlier, Carolyn.




Do you feel your privacy is in jeopardy?

Yes, but not to the extent that I'm gonna  hermitize myself or take my money and hide it in a sock under the bed. I don't spend extensive time out in the social media end of things, as a rule.  Actually, this blog is my main venture out there on a regular basis.  I have some friends who are prone to using social media as a secular confessional and I think they put their privacy up for grabs from the outset. They seem to like it that way, though.

" You get what you settle for." as Thelma said.









Is personal privacy more important than national security?

Yikes.  A rhetorical question if e're there was one.



What do you think the political landscape of the planet will be by 2113?



I think the Euro monetary unit will have disappeared just because  solvent countries in the EU like Germany will be unwilling to continue being monetarily tethered to their more economically shaky union neighbours. 

Worldwide, all those countries who have henceforth flourished monetarily will be flush with citizens lusting after Bimmers , Audis and Mercedes. Germany will still do just fine. Economically, the centre of power will have shifted almost completely to The Pacific Rim, I'm thinking.



When do the needs of the many not outweigh the needs of the few?


Whenever a society recognizes and values compassion.




Who let the dogs out?

Well, it wasn't me!



Is it ever acceptable to lie?

If there ever was a  super short word that has a  super long list of definitions its " lie" .

 It's acceptable to lie whenever the consequences of telling the truth are clearly and demonstrably more damaging than those of telling a suitable lie. Parents know it, teachers know it and Jack Nicholson knew it too. " You can't handle the truth" 



Are we alone in the universe ?


Like you said earlier, Carolyn, it would be terrible if nobody else was home in this unfathomably huge universe. I don't think we are, at all.

I sure hope I am still about when we find out!










Do you believe in true love ?

Yes. I believe in it more than I believe in just about anything else. I am more able now than I was in my 20's, 30's and 40's to see just how magical it is. Magical is a fairy tale word, I know, but its the  only word that fits here.  

 No wonder so much of art and music  is dedicated to or inspired by true love.



To the cave we now go. My last offering was actually public washrooms. I think yours, this time is a treadmill. Been thinking of getting one of those but I just can't find anywhere to put it. Here's my riddle for this week:

Round, sometimes square and occasionally oval

 

Welcomed when full and satisfied when empty.

Don



All images sourced from Google Images

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Fig. 7 - blo.knowyourmoney.co.uk
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Fig. 9 - izismile.com