Stephen Mitchell's Tao te Ching Tranlation

 Tao te Ching

by Lao Tzu 

Translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988

Section: Tao

1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

2
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Transgenderism or Gender Dysphoria?

Here is a story from where I used to live, Fairfax County, Virginia, about parents who want to confront the school board there about sex education, including transgenderism, so called. The extremist school board decided to table that discussion until later in the summer, presumably when more concerned parents will be away on summer vacation. The story tends to support my theory that government schools are no place of children (see my political agenda here). The story provides an adequate jumping off point for me to pontificate on my views concerning gender dysphoria.

I prefer to use the term "extremist" above rather than "liberal" because that's what these people are, they're extreme. Normal, middle-of-the-road, middle-class people have ceded the language over to the extremists, which gives them a huge advantage in the war over social policy. They call themselves nice words like "liberal" and "progressive," while calling these middle-of-the-road people "conservative."

Same with "transgenderism." Such a newfangled term sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? It gives the whole thing an air of legitimacy. But what is it really? 

It's really a mental illness called "gender dysphoria."

My beef is not with people with gender dysphoria. These are people with a mental disorder who are due all the love and empathy that anyone else deserves. And it's a free country. People can do what they want with their lives. It's a crazy world out there and it's easy to get confused. People need to have the space to figure it out. Children are another matter, of course. Parents need to guide their children, not government school employees, and children need to wait until they're adults to make life-altering decisions like this.

Elon Musk Laments Low Birthrate: Letterman-style list to Solve the Problem

Elon Musk recently lamented the low birthrate in the industrialized world. Musk took Italy as an example, where the birthrate fell last year to its lowest level ever. There will be no Italians on the Italiian pennensula, Musk says, if things don't change. He also cited Japan declining population to make his point.

According to Musk, “Most people believe that we have too many people on the planet. This is an outdated view.” Convincing people otherwise seems to be his only solution to the perceived problem.

I would like to offer a few more. Regardless of their views on how more people might adversely affect the environment and other possible negative ramifications of population growth, people can't keep from having sex, and sex will lead to higher birthrates if left to its own devices. The problem is, it is not.

I'm tempted to arrange these items from last to first in the manner of David Letterman's old Top Ten List, but there are only four so it's not all that dramatic (or funny, except maybe the last one). Aw, heck, I'll do it that way anyway. Here goes. Top 4 ways to increase the birthrate: