Coincidences.

I visited the video store and examined the documentary aisle. I came across several that seemed interesting.

But how is it that I came to pick up two films (The Fog of War and A Brief History of Time) that would be directed by the same person (Errol Morris) and have the same music director (Philip Glass)?

The Fog of War is excellent, by the way, and A Brief History of Time is turning out quite nice as well.

(no subject)

The news is the past reaching us for the first time.

fragments, 5/13/04

12:15 a.m.

So the imagination is a force of nature [to quote Wallace Stevens].

How is the future predicated on this power?

The imagination is a possible future. Particle physics operates on possibility.

We live in the abstract world. Our bodies are on loan. Yet our brains, made of matter, power the imagination.

Brain power obviously affects the universe, but we're not yet sure how. How is it that the brain uses light, interprets light, thinks faster than light?

So how does the imagination power the future? [This must mean that I take on faith that imagination powers the future.]

But only the Now exists.

So what is this future?

It is a semi-plasma. It almost exists. Possibility exists. And the world is always becoming.

Somehow, I don't think this would fly in the United States.

Oral sex lessons to cut rates of teenage pregnancy

Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.

Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.

Britain's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe. In 2002 there were 39,286 teen pregnancies recorded. The government has spent more than £60 million to tackle the problem but so far failed to halt the rise.

A sex education course developed by Exeter University trains teachers to talk to teenagers about 'stopping points' before full sex.

Now an unpublished government-backed report reveals that a trial of the course has been a success. Schoolchildren, particularly girls, who received such training developed a 'more mature' response to sex.

This is quite the article.

Stop blaming your henchmen, Mr. President.