HAPPY NEW YEAR


    It's the New Year.  
    So, what's next for Humboldt County?
    I wrote about one possibility back on September 16, 2011 when I wrote a letter to the Times-Standard about building a university that most people probably didn't think could happen here on the North Coast.  
    I bet there were a lot of people who didn't think that it was possible for the most beautiful and the most intelligent university in the world to be built here on the North Coast.  
    But what if some people on the North Coast decided to create a website that out rightly invited and challenged the most intelligent people and the most intelligent philanthropists in the world to create the most intelligent and most beautiful university in the world?  And what if the people who put together this website challenged them to come up with a more intelligent plan than they have for creating a university that would be the most intelligent university in the world; and what if they challenged them to come up with any intelligent reasons why such a university should not be built and could not be built by the most intelligent people and the most intelligent philanthropists in the world (reasons that would have to be explained to future generations of intelligent people)?  
    I've come up with a basic plan for this university, and I challenge anybody in this world to come up with a better plan!  
    The university will be titled The International University of Religion, Empathy and Science.  And the university invites students and professors to study and research any combination of two of the three topics that make up the title of the university; or all three.  
    The university would have separately funded and separately founded colleges on campus including a College of Eastern Religions, a College of Western Religions, a College of Philosophy, Science and Critical Thinking, a College of Native Peoples and Cultures, and a College of Atheism and Agnosticism.  And the university would be open to any other colleges that any group of people would like to separately fund.  
    We would first create a website in which we would tell the whole world that we are searching for the most intelligent people in the world to help fund and build this university.  But everyone who wants to be part of it has to sign a declaration of commitment and purposes that would include the following.  
    We are committed to building a university that will have, without question, the best communication department of all universities in the world.  And the Department of Communication will be committed to leading the world in research on cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics, semantic anthropology, metacommunication, communication acquisition and meaning acquisition throughout childhood and adolescence; communication and lifespan development, etc.  
    Our university is committed to being the world leader in research on the study of prejudice and discrimination.  
    Our university is committed to being the world leader in research on stress and the way stress affects people, and the way stress can affect child development and lifespan development.  
    Our university is committed to having the best journalism department in the world when it comes to investigative journalism into social issues.  
    Our university is committed to being the world leaders in research on child development and lifespan development.  
    And we won't allow anybody, no matter how wealthy, to help fund our university and its separate colleges, unless they are willing to go all the way and do whatever it takes to fulfill the university's commitments.  
    We are committed to making the world a better place for everyone in the future.  And we believe that anyone who loves the world, loves children, love people of all ages, should honor our commitment and be a part of our journey in building this university.  
    And we believe that this university will represent the height of human intelligence.  We plant the seeds for the highest intelligence to grow in and to thrive in.  
    And we invite the world to break ground for this university in the same ground from which grows the highest living things in the world.  
    The beauty of the Pacific North Coast can be home to the most beautiful university in the world.  

Orion Palomar
Eureka, California 12/30/12