A Nipple Ring, A Pair of Pliers, and Emergent

This post is in honor of Tony Jones, for his birthday.

While preparing a delicious meal of spaghetti and meatballs for my wife and son, a national news story caught my attention.

A female Texan was passing through airport security and was setting off the airport metal detectors. When the offending metal was discovered to be in her chest area, she suggested to airport security that her nipple rings may be to blame. They told her that the aforementioned jewelry would have to be removed prior to entering the gateway. She was able to get one out without a problem, but the second was a bit trickier and required pliers. The television displayed a mannequin wearing a tastefully non-revealing brassiere at this stage in the report, complete with nipple ring, and showed someone removing said ring with pliers, just in case people were unclear about how it all went down in real life.

Of course, at the conclusion of the report, immediately I considered the obvious connection to Emergent.

There are more than a few out there who claim to “dabble” in emerging thought, but those who have dabbled with an open mind realize that one can dabble with emergent like one can get a little moistened by a plunge off the high dive. Or, by contrast and with respect to this news story, one can escape the implications of emergent like one can remove a nipple ring at the airport metal detector. It would take pliers and the severe need to reach a particular destination.

Neuroscientist Studies Her Own Stroke

This fascinating video from the TED convention features a neuroscientist recounting her own experience with a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain.  First the video, then some initial questions:

• As beautiful as this description is, how much of it is her left-hemisphere’s perceptions based on already held assumptions of reality? I kept getting reminded that somebody was around to narrate the entire event – her Ego.
• What does this dichotomy between possessing a sense of self and a sense of selflessness between the hemispheres reveal about the nature of reality, the role of the human mind in perceiving it, and the way we understand and relate to God?
• Weren’t those moments of Nirvana arguably lapses into a type of brain-deadness – not a freedom from stress, only the temporary inability to process it? While it is certainly valuable to re-center by giving the right brain some time to run the show, as she suggests, I would also suggest that it is equally important to give the left hemisphere equal credibility so as to manage life and reduce the actual stresses the right hemisphere so effortlessly releases. I can imagine letting the dishes pile up, leaving my child to fend for himself, never showing up to work or paying the bills because they’re all so connected to the illusion of reality .
• Is it possible, based on the premise of two minds/one brain, that one’s theological biases (liberal, conservative, fundamentalist, postmodern) are influenced more by brain behavior than an objective standard of truth?

All kidding and questioning aside, this is a fascinating piece of analysis that we all can find useful, if only to help us understand the importance of balancing the brain’s influences on our actual lives. That, and the human brain had to be the coolest stage prop I’ve seen in a long time.

‘Till Death, or Paralysis

The Supreme Court has placed an effective moratorium on the death penalty.  The high court is reviewing the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection, which is considered by conventional wisdom to be the most humane method of ending a convicted criminal’s life.  Many argue that it is actually cruel and unusual – being that part of the three-drug cocktail causes paralysis, so outside observers can’t really gage the level of pain being experienced by the recipient.  Veterinary medical professionals have already banned the procedure.  Better to be put down by a vet than the State, apparently.It seems like, throughout history, people have gradually lowered their tolerance of pain metered out in the process of offing others: once stoning was culturally acceptable.  So was firing squads, and burning at the stake, and covering people in raw meat and then throwing them to lions.  Now we’re fighting over drug combinations.  I predict that capital punishment will not long survive as a government practice, instead manifesting in its basest form: between individuals, and in cold blood.