Ch-ch-ch-changes!

You may have noticed a bit of a change in the look of the place. Starting with the name. You are now at "Phydeaux and Phriends". This is due to the fact that I am welcoming my (real world) phriend, Cunning Linguist, as a contributor at my humble interwebs home.

Mr. Linguist and I have been friends for a long time, and have often discussed all manner of topics, from how to curb Global Warming to the corruption in our political system to the relative airspeed velocities of African and European swallows.

Señor Linguist is an artist and artisan of great talent, and, if we're lucky, he may talk about those aspects of his life, in addition to his political and cultural posts. His is an intellect that I highly respect and I am "pleased as punch" to add his voice to my own, especially since he thinks differently from the way most of us do.

I hope you all will agree.

As he is a blog neophyte, I am putting his first post up for him:

What is Civilization?

What is civilization? It's a question that I find myself asking a lot these days. Is it filling your time with entertainment? Or the convenience of jumping in your car to buy something that you don't really need? OR IS IT SIMPLY BEING CIVIL TO EACH OTHER AND THE GUY DOWN THE ROAD?

I have a question that I've been meaning to ask;

In a class oriented society such as ours, how can we hope to overcome prejudice and segregation when class by definition is segregating?

Any candidate that can answer that can have my vote!

the nature of things

So we step away from nature for the sake of civilizing ourselves, thereby creating a void that we try to fill up with stuff, activities,entertainment, whatever, it doesn't really matter what we chose to fill it with, the fact that civilization as we practice it leaves us with a burning hole to fill is the point I'm trying to make. There are numerous case studies of indigenous peoples. These studies show that they do not experience such a void. In fact there are diseases found in civilized cultures that are not found in the natural environment, such as schizophrenia and bi-polarism. Einstein's theory of relativity, we've made monumental strides towards physical health issues but we're loosing our minds in the process. I just don't think we can change the nature of things.

- Cunning Linguist