Yes, yes, rigorous. . . I think there was a citation to authority in one of those. . . —ed.   

He gets it!
To the wise reader who pointed out that God works in scientifically verifiable ways ["Additional Loose ends," Issue 16 Letters]. HE GETS IT!  There is yet hope for the world!  Intellectual design is still dualistic and still puts us at mercy of the "Keepers of Truth."  The universe IS intelligence. All the rest is "Pop Ups" —Prof. Loose

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Dear jpt
At bottom left of the first page of "The Time of Attempted Wisdom" [Issue 16, Book of Wine & Seizures] is the option "off end of earth." I tried going there but the link did not work. —Jaxn

A: The hell it did not. We lost dozens of readers who strayed off that exit.  (On the other hand, we don't want just ANY old kind of reader. We want good readers.) —ed.

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To the editors of jpt:
Why is there always a "current issue" link on the home page of the current issue?  I clicked it and came back to exactly where I was.  Clicked again, same thing.  Are you trying to create a black hole by sending electrons around an endless loop?  Because this definitely does suck like one. —Art R.

A: This is our response from the cyber geeks, who are emotionless but somewhat technically functional: "This standard link to www.provincialthought.com is part of our Home Page template around which we construct each new issue, and it becomes useful when the issue is retired, substantially unmodified, to Archives.  We don't want to go in and insert such links into each archived issue because it's easier to have them there already built in.  Anyway, many readers of the current issue 'get off on' clicking again and again and again and again and again.  How now Artie, why poop the party, Artie?  Why poopala partiar, Artie R? There was a guy named Artie, Who rolled in off the track, He poopala poopa the party, And was not invited back."   

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Dear Editors,
I see that Issue 16 is the "Mid-Winter Merriment Issue," yet it didn't come out until March.  Are you running behind or pulling a scam? —Hatch

Ed. #1: Scam, definitely.
Ed. #2: Behind what?
Ed. #3: I'd say scam.
Ed. #4: No, we're running ahead, anticipating midwinters 2010-2011. We've made Journal of Provincial Thought a happening thing, and this is part of what's happening, and it's happening to YOU, Hatch.
Ed. #2: I thought Wired was the most happening publication.
Ed. #3 Wired used to have the goods.
Ed. #1: What happened to Wired?
Ed. #4: It happened. Happened happened happened, and now it ain't, 'cuz we are.
Ed. #1: Cool. Although we're not even in the same galaxy with a Wired.
Ed. #3: Well, no, we aren't.
Ed. #2: No.

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The Sound of Sound at jpt
Dear Journal,
The AudioPile is a lovely expansion of your publication. C . Adam Smith's "jpt Theme" creates such a classy atmosphere that your "out-of-the-way places" motif might be threatened by that big-time feel. Where did you find the outrageous Apollo Peckersun? He brings the pot & bongos right onto the desktop. "Grit, purpose and LSD" come to mind. Thank you for all the "economical but outstanding entertainment and 'education.'" It's quite unlike any other experience, I'm positive. —Blaine

These people, these. . . contributors you mention, they will be happy to hear you talk this way. —ed.

[no "Dear So-&-so" offered by reader]
This is great sh*t! —Brian

Indeed. —ed.

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Hi.
You seem to take on just about anything so I thought I'd tell you my complaint and see if you can come up with an explanation or a solution. Since graduating college and not landing a job I have burrowed into my old room at my parents' house, where I have been exploring unusual websites. No offense. Meanwhile extreme crap keeps happening to me with a frequency way beyond anything that happens to most people who are working and wouldn't have time to take care of all the problems. I wonder if the universe has to spread around a certain quantity of misery and also statistically a certain level of it has to be solved, so the universe picks people it thinks have time on their hands to deal with more than their random fair share? Do I have to take up the universal slack simply because I'm not otherwise occupied? It seems like it. This way, not only do I catch all the scorn and disrespect because of not working, but I don't get the benefits of my free time because there IS no free time, because it all gets chewed up by complicated tragedies. —"Aragorn" Baker

Well, now, we have taken the informal pulse of the people all through the tower, and the concensus here seems to be that yes, this is how the universe maintains its keel. It's the dark side (counterbalance) of the principle that "opportunity favors the prepared." What's more, it is probably the universe that has kept you from finding work so that you would instead be free to experience these extraordinary trials (it would have been interesting to hear about them), and you would have the time on your hands to work through some of them—since, as you ably speculate, there must be a statistical resolution rate. You may well be screwed. However, theoretically, if you could somehow manage to replace someone presently in the work force and have them booted out into the ranks of those available for shouldering a few sacks of crap, there should be no net thermodynamic violation, or in other words, the universe might stay out of it. Then you should see improvement in your karma-life. All assuming no unknown factors such as the universe bearing you an active personal grudge. —ed.
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But we further digress
Dear Editor,
I became carried away in my reflections on Mr. Rice's road encounter with Iron Butt the Bicyclist in Idaho [Issue 16] and how miniscule the odds.  Considering the vast web of U.S. roads and highways, that motorcycling brothers Rice should happen upon (or be happened upon by) this particular individual at this particular layby blows the imagination.  What if Mr. Rice's plan as he sat there in Kentucky had been to strike out west, kick around and about, then intersect with Iron Butt at a specific layby at a specific time, without ever communicating with the Buttster beforehand?  Ridiculous plan. Magnitudes of improbability.  I suppose that Iron Butt might have been the only person at the time engaged in a 5,000-mile corner-to-corner bicycling trip across America.  But I wonder how many were simultaneously on some variety of long-distance bicycle trip.  Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?  The chance that some motorcyclist would meet one of them seems fair.  It's when you dial in specifics that the sheer improbabilities become staggering.  And yet that's the nature of life.  Presumably "chance" happenings seem at least as common as predictable ones.  —"Red" Herron

A: Did you notice all the gorgeous scenery that John & Jay shot? —ed.
Ed. #2: No, now, the reader makes some fascinating points, Maximilian. Perhaps it's correct to say that chance (or apparently chance) happenings are common.  Observation one: "Predictability" often carries a degree of ignorance of pertinent factors and can ignore the possibility of deliberate design/intervention (and indeed does ignore unforeseen interference from an inconceivable number of other possible occurrences, like a direct asteroid strike just before the flipped coin stops spinning).  Observation two: Something entirely unpredictable to Snuffy Smith might be more predictable to Tesla, and vice-versa.  Probability is subject to the principles of relativity.  Perhaps we should distinguish "applied" or "contextual" probability from theoretical and generally incalculable "absolute probability."  Observation three: The sum of all events that actually happen constitutes "reality," perhaps placing reality forever in the past (the relative past?) because uncertainty apparently attaches to that which might be about to happen.  ...Unless you want to call reality the Sum of All Possibilities.  That's not a definition that takes us anywhere.  Only that which does occur is "real."  (Some believe that all possibilities are played out interdimensionally.  Could be, I suppose, but still not useful in our own dimension, except possibly to the extent that by occurring elsewhere a given variant does not occur here.)  Observation four: It appears highly probable that there will be many, many "highly improbable" occurrences. It is highly unlikely that a given player will win the lottery, but quite likely that somebody eventually will.  Now, the lottery is but a single phenomenon or package of circumstances.  The world (or reality) features virtually limitless phenomena/packages containing their own lottery-scale probabilities and "improbable winners" thereof.  Therefore we will encounter a good number of these "winners" (improbable outcomes). It all-- the likely and the unlikely-- adds up to unity (one), actual reality.  (...Unless you consider 1 to be the set of all things that occur and COULD occur and/or COULD HAVE occurred, in which case our experienced reality is a subset or tiny fraction of 1...)
Ed. #1: Now when you say "good number" of winners, is that as opposed to an "evil number" . . .

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Note to Ellis53: "The Relatividy of Wisdom" [from "The Time of Attempted Wisdom" of The Book of Wine & Seizures] existed many years before the television program "Relativity," and therefore could only have stolen its title concept in some sort of weird universe where time runs backward. . . .Which, okay, maybe shouldn't be ruled out. But normally speaking, no.
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