I got my own Free MySpace Layouts from Pyzam.comthe world has lost touch with our favorite friend, the color gray. We've got lots of people out there wanting to argue black and white, standing on their pedestals, screaming out to the world about how right they are and how wrong you are. Compromise is a lost art and extremism is everywhere. What happened to that wonderful gray zone which really seems to be 99% of reality! Ever heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle people? Hello world, virtually nothing is absolute! Why is it that everyone has to be right all the time? The most disturbing trend in the disappearance of my favorite color is that intelligence is taking a backseat to singlemindedness. What do I mean by that? Well, let's take a look at 4 very intelligent men who've famously and dramatically changed their minds in the last 15 years. John McCain, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Stephen Hawking. The three politicians are all famous for having shifted stances on issues that meant a lot to them, and when they changed their minds, they were called wafflers. When a brilliant scientist like Stephen Hawking suddenly realizes that he's wrong about nothing exiting a black hole and hypothesizes and proves the existence of white holes, he's not a waffler, he's a genius. Einstein actually changed his mind about relativity countless times, and just before he died, he actually argued that he had been mistaken about his theories all along. He was never disparaged as being a waffler. So, how is it that in the political arena, when someone smart hears a good enough argument to change their mind, they are accused of being a waffler, when most smart people should know they cannot always be right and that better arguments or new theories or better data will almost always be right around the corner to change our minds??? I was a scientists before I was a lawyer, but both professions have one thing in common, you never assume you are right about anything. You most surely make conclusory statements, defend them, support them, research them, but you MUST always be ready to restate your position when new evidence comes to light that changes your mind. Absolutism is the scariest form of extremism on the planet because it leads to wars, hatred, bigotry, intolerance, racism, sexism, misogny, religious intolerance and a wide variety of other isms and ances that I would like to see expunged from the planet. Come back my friend gray, come back to the light, shake hands with black and white and make people think again! We live in a world that's far too rapidly defining itself by the extreme absolutes, but evil is never really evil, and good is rarely ever all good, and to quote one of my favorite comedians, how can you know what good is without evil, therefore isn't evil actually good?