The international trade in weapons, whether it takes the form of an outright sale or whether it is disguised as some form of military aid, is as destructive and as immoral as the opium trade of the past, with which Britain paid for her imperial adventures in India.
We are deeply involved in the Capitalism of Violence, Wars, and Weaponry; we justify our involvement by saying that everyone is doing it, even our enemies, and we therefore must take part in a Mutually Assured Weaponry, in order to safeguard the precious ideals of our country.
--
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The Limits Of Reason
MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, is a strategic concept that came into being with the atomic bomb. The only way to control nuclear arms is all sides having enough weaponry to destroy everyone else many times over. It is a rational concept.
Yet, even given that MAD is a concept of strategy arrived at by strict application of rationality, it is still insane, is it not?
Furthermore, did not Adolf Eichmann administer the Holocaust in a most rational manner, with extensive planning and record keeping?
Reason has its limits.
--
Yet, even given that MAD is a concept of strategy arrived at by strict application of rationality, it is still insane, is it not?
Furthermore, did not Adolf Eichmann administer the Holocaust in a most rational manner, with extensive planning and record keeping?
Reason has its limits.
--
Friday, June 14, 2013
Syria And The Future
I have to meditate on our involvement in Syria. I have found it most disturbing.
More wealth and money is spent on establishing ongoing spots of discord, and the goals are nebulous. I do not think that the objectives of our leadership would stand up under the light of day. Ask them, President Obama and Senator McCain: "What are your goals?"
Human rights?
By what imperative do we go around forcing our view of rights down peoples' throats? Did George Washington counsel us to do so?
No, I fear our purported interest in other peoples' freedoms is nothing more than a desire to subject them to our views of freedom, and to control them with our system of "Freedom under Surveillance".
But these are all political statements.
Now I seek the spiritual. The answer is there, staring us in the face, but we can't recognize it yet.
I have to meditate on it now, because I have a very distinct unsettling feeling that we are entering a the End-Game of the Chess Game with Death we have been playing for a century or more.
--
More wealth and money is spent on establishing ongoing spots of discord, and the goals are nebulous. I do not think that the objectives of our leadership would stand up under the light of day. Ask them, President Obama and Senator McCain: "What are your goals?"
Human rights?
By what imperative do we go around forcing our view of rights down peoples' throats? Did George Washington counsel us to do so?
No, I fear our purported interest in other peoples' freedoms is nothing more than a desire to subject them to our views of freedom, and to control them with our system of "Freedom under Surveillance".
But these are all political statements.
Now I seek the spiritual. The answer is there, staring us in the face, but we can't recognize it yet.
I have to meditate on it now, because I have a very distinct unsettling feeling that we are entering a the End-Game of the Chess Game with Death we have been playing for a century or more.
--
Freeport High School, Illinois
I have come into possession of a silver water pitcher awarded to my great-grandparents, David and Sophronia Parsons, from the students of the Freeport, Illinois, High School in 1867.
I suppose it was due to their being outstanding teachers. My grandmother was a teacher, also, before she married... played ladies basketball at Ypsilanti Normal School, too.
David and Sophronia were the parents of William T. Parsons, who married Anna Owen from New York, and they two were the parents of my grandmother, Myra. William T. also had two sisters, Lorena and Lulubell.
What was the mascot for the Fighting Freeport Illini ?
--
photo: Robert Bike, http://www.robertbike.com/
--
Democracy vs. Surveillance 1
1.0
Democracy and Surveillance are at odds.
1.1
Democracy seeks to have a society with fulfilled and integral individuals.
1.2
Surveillance society practices alienation.
1.3
In the present situation, the Surveillance hierarchy seeks to alienate an Individual from that Individual's Communication; i.e., to make the Expression of the individual mind a commodity which is open to scrutiny at any time.
1.4
In its essence, Surveillance creates a prison of the Inquisition, similar to Poe's The Pit and The Pendulum, wherein it is not the individual's body that is imprisoned and subject to torturous scrutiny, but the expressions and communications of the individual which are imprisoned and subject to inquisition.
1.5
Since one can never be sure whether one is under surveillance, it is safest to always "toe the line".
(Note to section 1
For most of history, human society's creativity has been bipolar, incorporating creative impulses in pairs: a thesis and its antithesis.
In this time of history, we see the unparalleled growth of Surveillance, which works to create a docility based on the possibility of always being under observation, and we see the growth of its antithesis, which is a great burst of creative individuality often fed by a desire to separate the creative artist from the drabness of docile sameness.)
Democracy and Surveillance are at odds.
1.1
Democracy seeks to have a society with fulfilled and integral individuals.
1.2
Surveillance society practices alienation.
1.3
In the present situation, the Surveillance hierarchy seeks to alienate an Individual from that Individual's Communication; i.e., to make the Expression of the individual mind a commodity which is open to scrutiny at any time.
1.4
In its essence, Surveillance creates a prison of the Inquisition, similar to Poe's The Pit and The Pendulum, wherein it is not the individual's body that is imprisoned and subject to torturous scrutiny, but the expressions and communications of the individual which are imprisoned and subject to inquisition.
1.5
Since one can never be sure whether one is under surveillance, it is safest to always "toe the line".
(Note to section 1
For most of history, human society's creativity has been bipolar, incorporating creative impulses in pairs: a thesis and its antithesis.
In this time of history, we see the unparalleled growth of Surveillance, which works to create a docility based on the possibility of always being under observation, and we see the growth of its antithesis, which is a great burst of creative individuality often fed by a desire to separate the creative artist from the drabness of docile sameness.)
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Syria Is A Symbol For Failure
In a civil war between brothers in religion, Syria is a symbol and an actuality of the failure of the modern theology and modern politics of present day Arab culture.
Religion has been turned into hatred, and politics into confusion.
Will this failure be reversed?
--
Religion has been turned into hatred, and politics into confusion.
Will this failure be reversed?
--
Lies My Government Told Me
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-130613.html
... In March, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper flatly denied the NSA collects "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans". That was a flat out lie. And Senator Dianne Feinstein let it pass.
We expect better lies from our government, don't we?
Anyway, just as we invented drones and use them to kill the top dogs of Al Qaida... and whatever civilians may be standing around, and thereby invite further hatred and further violence against the US population, so also we invented the internet, use it to eavesdrop and hack foreign governments - who return the favor and we loudly cry "Foul!" - and guarantee that we ourselves will be the targets of foreign tech attacks.
The government does not tell us that, because it ain't a lie.
--
Is Philosophy Dead?
Analytic philosophy is, certainly.
But is all philosophy dead, its functions usurped by science?
Consider the paradigmatic atom bomb.
Headed by Niels Bohr, science took the lead in trying to stave off an arms race and atomic war. Still the bombs were made and used and they multiplied until there were enough bombs to destroy the earth over and over again.
Consider the internet.
Another scientific advance being used to free people subtly being diverted into ways to oppress them.
Scientists do not have control over their creations.
The job of Philosophy is to advance the cause of freedom and equality, to be the mujahideen for the democracy which governments wish to water down and control.
Philosophy lives, and its greatest battles are ahead of us!
--
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The Problem With Snooping
As I see it, the problem with the enormous domestic intelligence gathering program lies in our human nature.
Just as we see human difficulties in these systems now, the potential for future abuse, break-downs, and outright criminal activity is brought back to us, reminding us that everything devised by man will sooner or later be degraded into a scam.
Whether future politicians will abscond with our liberties, or future IT specialists will come up with schemes that mirror a Die Hard film, any such outcomes are of high probability; the probability of long term good shepherding of personal data and honor and rectitude are very small: one reason being that the standards of what is "correct" and "good" by NSA dictate are already breached.
Therefore, the probability of abuse is extremely high, in my opinion.
--
Just as we see human difficulties in these systems now, the potential for future abuse, break-downs, and outright criminal activity is brought back to us, reminding us that everything devised by man will sooner or later be degraded into a scam.
Whether future politicians will abscond with our liberties, or future IT specialists will come up with schemes that mirror a Die Hard film, any such outcomes are of high probability; the probability of long term good shepherding of personal data and honor and rectitude are very small: one reason being that the standards of what is "correct" and "good" by NSA dictate are already breached.
Therefore, the probability of abuse is extremely high, in my opinion.
--
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
The Permafrost Carbon
Terra Daily:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Is_a_Sleeping_Climate_Giant_Stirring_in_the_Arctic_999.html
Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 11, 2013
Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons).Even our politicians might be able to get together and seriously address things like this that are going to figure in that "grand scheme of things".
That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850. Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface...
--
Monday, June 10, 2013
Atomic Age Mythology
Excellent article in Foreign Policy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii?page=0,0
The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan... Stalin Did
Have 70 years of nuclear policy been based on a lie?
BY WARD WILSON | MAY 29, 2013
I approached it very skeptically, ready to argue every point, but the author did a fine job. It is a piece well worth reading, if not for History, then for getting a sense of how Mythology rules our lives.
--
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii?page=0,0
The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan... Stalin Did
Have 70 years of nuclear policy been based on a lie?
BY WARD WILSON | MAY 29, 2013
I approached it very skeptically, ready to argue every point, but the author did a fine job. It is a piece well worth reading, if not for History, then for getting a sense of how Mythology rules our lives.
--
A Basic Contradiction Of Secret Operations
Who can evaluate secret ops, when all the pertinent information is secret?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/09/edward_snowden_why_did_the_nsa_whistleblower_have_access_to_prism_and_other.html?wpisrc=most_viral
If the NSA Trusted Edward Snowden With Our Data, Why Should We Trust the NSA?
By Farhad Manjoo
Posted Sunday, June 9, 2013, at 7:44 PM
Edward Snowden sounds like a thoughtful, patriotic young man, and I’m sure glad he blew the whistle on the NSA’s surveillance programs. But the more I learned about him this afternoon, the angrier I became. Wait, him? The NSA trusted its most sensitive documents to this guy? And now, after it has just proven itself so inept at handling its own information, the agency still wants us to believe that it can securely hold on to all of our data? Oy vey!
--
The Fatal Cup Of Coffee
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/201369175918244221.html
Syrian rebels 'execute teenager' in Aleppo
Fighters reportedly shot dead a boy they accused of committing blasphemy in the northern city of Aleppo.
Last Modified: 09 Jun 2013 18:45
Rebels fighting the Syrian regime have shot dead a 15-year-old boy in front of his parents and siblings after accusing him of blasphemy, an activist group said.
Al Jazeera was told that the boy, a street vendor selling coffee, was from the Shaar neighbourhood of the northern city of Aleppo. He has been named locally as Mohammad Kattaa.
Reports indicated that he was arguing with another boy on Saturday and used the name of Prophet Muhammad in a common phrase used by Syrians at which point he was picked up by fighters, beaten, and then shot.
"An unidentified Islamist rebel group shot dead a 15-year-old child who worked as a coffee seller in Aleppo, after they accused him of blasphemy," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.
I can hardly wait for the Administration to arm "select" Syrian rebels, who will make a solemn promise not to let crazed, foreign mercenaries use their arms. Crazed, foreign mercenaries will undoubtedly respect their promise, too, so everyone will be safe.
--
ps.
The blasphemy was "Even if the Prophet Muhammad (saws) were to come, I would not sell him coffee on credit."
Essentially, no cash, no credit, no coffee, and expressed in an obviously very old emphatic and humorous form.
--
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Whose Nation Is It?
AP sources: US close to OK on arming Syrian rebels
Associated PressBy BRADLEY KLAPPER
| Associated Press – 1 hr 23 mins ago
I have been reading the comments. It seems that they are 100% against this madness of arming future terrorists, just like we armed bin Laden in Afghanistan against the USSR, and in the future he changed into our favorite terror.
100%.
But it is just like the Congress on background checks for guns: the majority of the people are by far and away in favor of a plan of action, and the Government, whether Congress of the President, deliberately ignore the wisdhes of the people, wishes that have been formed from pain and long suffering.
It's not our nation anymore.
--
O, Canada !
I attended University in Canada.
I was with Raoul Caouette in the early days ( "With" meaning I was fascinated by his politics, all of which was a by-product of my adoration of the Hon. Maurice DuPlessis of Quebec.)
I lived near the Hon. Paul Martin, and also had MacKenzie King as a hero.
I dated a daughter of one of the Canadian Supreme Court Justices.
Why don't I have any Canadian readers?
--
I was with Raoul Caouette in the early days ( "With" meaning I was fascinated by his politics, all of which was a by-product of my adoration of the Hon. Maurice DuPlessis of Quebec.)
I lived near the Hon. Paul Martin, and also had MacKenzie King as a hero.
I dated a daughter of one of the Canadian Supreme Court Justices.
Why don't I have any Canadian readers?
--
San Souci Doings
This was last year, 2012.
It was the first - and, I guess, the last - First Nations Festival to be held in San Souci, Harsens Island, Michigan.
There is no such First Nations Festival scheduled for this year. There is a Tashmoo Days on July 20, 2013.
It has not been well publicized, however, and I had to find reference to it in the Spoke 'N Word publication of the Downriver Cycling Club, Trenton, Michigan (www.facebook.com/DownriverCyclingClub).
According to the invite forwarded to the Downriver Cycling Club, Tashmoo Days on Harsens Island will feature:
o Live Music...all afternoon,
o First Nations singers, drummers, dancers and their Arts and Crafts.
o There will also be ‘lectures’, on the Tashmoo Park and Steamer,
o First Nation/Native American Museum Exhibit,
o Games for the Kids,
o Other Arts & Craft vendors,
o Trap Shooting and Gaming at the Lions Hall,
o A Square Dance in the street,
o Food, Beer Tent, Wine Tasting
So the First Nations are a subset of activities in the Tashmoo Days. This is the time when I am supposed to say that, having lived around here all my life, the lack of beer and wine last year at the First Nations Festival 2012 probably restricted the size of the crowds.
There is a Powwow at Bkejwanong, or Walpole Island Reserve, which is unceded territory occupied by the Walpole Island First Nation and is directly across the St. Clair River from Harsens Island:
However, the Walpole Island Powwow - a long tradition, by the way - has already taken place in May.
See Ya In San Souci ! Or in Bkejwanong!
--
Why I Stopped "Discussing" Guns
Patrick Henry in the House of Burgesses
This business of collecting millions and millions of phone calls and e-mails per day is the reason I shut up reasoning about guns.
I do not reason. I try to point out the implications of where we are and where we are going; I try to make us all realize that the choice to live in a weaponized society is ours and ours alone, just as the choice to live in a future totalitarianism where the government fully uses the Patriot Act and its crimes to destroy our liberties.
I do not discuss nor do I reason.
I do not think we can discuss or reason. Our society does not give reasons in the form of debate, rather, it assassinates the characters of the opponents.
I shut up because I suddenly saw the NRA, given its vision of a weaponized society, was quite correct.
And I had known for a long time that the Intel and Police function were being melded together with Weapons and War to create a future dictatorship of Constant War and the Policing and Intelligence Gathering that War necessitates.
Add to that the fact that habeas corpus has been suspended often during the course of wars, and we have the 1984 we thought we had left behind forever.
We are on the horns of a trilemma: we are between a Patriot Act which will enslave us, the weapons which will ensure constant war, and present and future government who will have at their fingertips powers to control our intimate lives far beyond anything imagined by the Founding Fathers.
--
There's A Little Bit Of Chemist In Each Of Us
According to the FBI, the toxic poison Ricin is easily available to Elvis impersonators and soap opera actresses.
In Wikipedia:
--
In Wikipedia:
Ricin is easily purified from castor oil manufacturing waste. The aqueous phase left over from the oil extraction process is called waste mash. It would contain about 5–10% ricin by weight, but heating during the oil extraction process denatures the protein, making the resultant seed cake safe for use as animal feed. Ricin can be isolated from fresh seed by chromatographic techniques similar to those routinely used for purification of many other plant proteins.It is those chromatographic techniques that make it so easy for the Elvis impersonators. The actresses tend to use the waste mash.
--
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Old Age
As I tip-toe down the foyer to senectitude, I find that age is not life attenuated, but filled up with a new wine - frothy and intoxicating and exotic - yet, alas, poured into old wineskins.
A patch here, a patch there, and the old wineskins will endure.
--
None Dare Call It Treason
“Congress has forgotten its role. They have the ability to decide what’s classified: They make the laws, they write the laws,” said Edwards, who’s the director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/07/193360/in-setting-limits-of-secrecy-congress.html#.UbM40dgQPnA
--
Dispatches From The Weaponized Society
Gun dudes and dudettes! It's time again to give Thumbs Up! to an acceptable statistic of a weaponized society, or a big Thumbs Down! to an act that is truly beyond the pale of weapon-mongery.
CNN
Saturday, June 8, 2013
The results are in. It's a big Thumbs Up!
--
CNN
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Santa Monica, California (CNN) -- Rifle fire cracked through the air just before noon Friday in Santa Monica. Minutes later, when police responded, a house was ablaze.Remember that just as a society based on automobile transportation usually accepts a certain mortality level as an "acceptable statistic", so also must a truly weaponized society...
The gunman was gone.
By the time officers caught up with him, he had killed four people and wounded five more on a nearly mile-long shooting rampage, said Sgt. Richard Lewis, a spokesman for the Santa Monica police.
The results are in. It's a big Thumbs Up!
--
PRISM
The PRISM data collection run by the NSA and with full co-operation of the great majority of our elected Judases is not government "snooping", as it has been described by some.
It is a vicious violation and attack, and it was brought about by bullying the least competent and the weakest among us: our elected representatives in Washington D.C.
For Shame!
--
It is a vicious violation and attack, and it was brought about by bullying the least competent and the weakest among us: our elected representatives in Washington D.C.
For Shame!
--
Another Record To Break
We shall soon trample all over the target temperature increase due to Climate Change set at 2 degrees Celsius.
Victory blowout venues will be announced later. BYOI !
(Bring Your Own Ice)
--
Die "Neue Wand" in der Nähe von Bethlehem
The "New Wall" near Bethlehem; it is inscribed with Kennedy's quote "I am a citizen of Berlin", which is only a memory now.
source: lumabytes.com
--
Friday, June 07, 2013
It's The Enitre Washington Establishment
The Ministry of Intelligence
Eerie and Frightening
It is not the IRS alone, it is not the NSA alone, it is the entire Government and establishment in Washington D.C. that has decided to ignore the wishes of the people and to institute a authoritarian regime founded on Intelligence Gathering, a Weaponized Society, and Economic Inequality.
Every politician in Congress and the administration is part of this, all of them. Everyone who will be elected in the future will be inducted into this vast conspiracy, and they will blindly follow in the name of national security.
In 2004, Josh Benson wrote about how the Government ignores the express wishes of the people:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0404.benson.html
Born Again
Where government's unpopular programs go to live.
By Josh Benson / 2004
When officials at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--the Pentagon office that helped invent everything from the stealth bomber to the Internet--launched a "data mining" project to uncover terrorist plots, it was bound to cause consternation. It wasn't just the program's ominous name (Total Information Awareness), menacing logo (an all-seeing Masonic eye), or disreputable director (Iran-Contra conspirator John Poindexter). The proposed system would tap into commercial and government databases across the country, download every bit of personal information stored--credit card statements, medical records, travel plans, phone bills, grocery receipts--then scan through it all in search of "suspicious" activity. Designed to catch, say, someone flying from the Middle East to the Midwest and then buying a lot of fertilizer, it might finger a farmer vacationing in Jerusalem as easily as it did a terrorist building a truck bomb. Worse, the planned system would have virtually no oversight, no safeguards, and no privacy guidelines to protect the people being snooped on...
By February of last year, Congress had passed legislation reining in TIA. The administration, desperate to save the program, went into "high damage control," notes Dempsey. Pentagon officials formed showy "privacy advisory councils," testified before Congress extensively, changed the name of the program (to the more innocuous "Terrorism Information Awareness), and even fired Poindexter--but none of it ended the controversy. "No one wanted to defend what the Bush administration was doing," Dempsey says.
Last fall, Congress voted to close down the program for good; a House-Senate conference committee declared TIA "terminated." Privacy activists cheered, as did most Democrats and many Republicans. The New York Times announced, simply, "Surveillance Program Ends." Thus resolved, the issue disappeared.You cannot kill this monster.
But TIA did not. As Dempsey eventually learned, a program can survive even when the media, the public, and most of Congress wants it killed. It turns out that, while the language in the bill shutting down TIA was clear, a new line had been inserted during conference--no one knew by whom--allowing "certain processing, analysis, and collaboration tools" to continue. At the time, Dempsey didn't know what the new language meant.
But the intelligence establishment did. Thanks to the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, which had lobbied for the provision, TIA didn't die--it metastasized. As the AP reported in February, the new language simply outsourced many TIA programs to other intelligence offices and buried them in the so-called "black budget." What's more, today, several agencies are pursuing data mining projects independent of TIA, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the CIA, the Transportation Security Administration, and NASA. Airline passengers will soon get their first taste of the new technology once a system called CAPPS II goes online, which will sort through passengers' travel histories, rental car arrangements, methods of payment, and destinations to locate "high risk" flyers. And even with TIA ostensibly shut down, many of the private contractors who worked on the program can continue their research with few controls.
While we amuse ourselves with our electronic toys, those toys and devices track us and report on us to agencies that are outside the democratic state of this USA!
It is as if the Founding Fathers, after having fought the American Revolution, found that George III was elected the first president of the Union. Or the French found King Louis leading the Directorate.
We have as political parties Republicans and Democrats who are accomplices in the police state, and a Tea Party too compromised by racism and know-nothing-ism.
It is time for a new politics.
--
Weaponized Society
The NRA has a vision of a Weaponized Society. And they are perfectly correct in saying that in such a society, all teachers should be armed, for it is the only way to exist in a Weaponized Society.
There are many other visions of a society. Many who support gun controls do not have a vision of a weaponized society, and it is this divergence that makes conversation between them and the NRA im[possible, for it is a discussion about what kind of society does one want.
--
There are many other visions of a society. Many who support gun controls do not have a vision of a weaponized society, and it is this divergence that makes conversation between them and the NRA im[possible, for it is a discussion about what kind of society does one want.
--
Great Moments On Bravo
Script from some show on Bravo that deals with real estate types running around Manhattan. It is, from concept to execution, tedious and mundane, so this type of writing is needed to perk it up.
"You don't steal my customers!! I steal yours!!"
--
"You don't steal my customers!! I steal yours!!"
--
Hezbollah Don't Take No Mess!
Pepe Escobar has a good piece on Syria and the Battle of Qusayr. I like it because it gives a pretty good ironical look at the bizarro world of policy as an Al Qa'ida Terror Theme Park idea for Syria of Netanyahu and the EU and US policy: a weak Syria constantly prey to internal strife... just as Shia Iraq is now.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-060613.html
--
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-060613.html
--
Perfect Timing
Hanaan's Diner: Two Members Of The TYBALTs
Just before the news broke of The Guardian's exposure of the NSA telephone call grab, I was at Hanaan's Diner, spouting off about Syria and how ridiculous the US policy was, and - by the way - thank heavens Russia was serious about not allowing a terrorist theme park to be built right next door to the Chechen Republic.
I was being taken to task for my outspoken support of Russia, whom many in my circle, the TYBALTs - The Young Buck At Lunch Together, the opposition to our mortal enemies, the ROMEOs - Retired Old Men Eating Out - still see as some sort of commie threat.
Jakubowski said that Putin was restoring the police state, and yadda-yadda-yadda. Thank goodness he did not mention "Pussy Riot".
Then Levine looked up from his Tablet, smiled, and shoved the Tab over, and we saw Glenn Greenwald's exposure of the Verizon-NSA hookup.
"Where's the police state now?" I said.
Jakubowski said "I'll be damned!", and plucked his iPhone from his pocket, and threw it across the room.
--
Where Do They Come From?
People who work in medical offices?
My wife not only has a case of poison sumac on the arms, but was making ice tea Tuesday, pouring the hot water into the usual Pyrex glass pitcher, and the bottom blew out of the pitcher, and she received a burn on the leg.
(Note: this whole business of Pyrex needs everyone's attention, because Pyrex of the future - meaning now! 2013 - is not the same as the Pyrex of the past. Today's space age Pyrex is inferior. The cause? The usual suspects, mostly Modern Mega-Capitalism, which buys companies, and maintains or gooses profits by lowering the quality... check it out by reading about Pyrex on Google.)
Anyhow, she called her doctor and the office people said they were booked up and could not see her that day... nor in the near future.
She went to a New Baltimore (I purposefully include the location name) urgent care, waited 30 minutes for the girl in charge to end her chit-chat with friends before signing her in, waited 4 hours surrounded by New Baltimore types - one of which was a man in a wheel chair who got out of his wheel chair, pushed the chair around, bumping into things, cackling "I'm as blind 'z a bat!"
Apparently dementia is considered an emergency room situation in New Baltimore.
Everything we read about second-degree burns mentions that for people over 60, it should be under the treatment of a doctor, who can keep a weather eye on the situation, so she is going to call her doctor again.
"Everything we read...."!
What do the people in the doctors' office read? People Magazine, apparently. You would think that the medical establishment for which they work might have a rudimentary Power Point presentation for the staff, giving them some elementaries on Hippocratoc oaths and how to help people.
If you have a medical problem, demand that the office staff ask the doctor about whether you should be seen immediately or not. The doctor has to make the decision. If the medical professional declines timely help, then change your doctor, and do it now!
--
My wife not only has a case of poison sumac on the arms, but was making ice tea Tuesday, pouring the hot water into the usual Pyrex glass pitcher, and the bottom blew out of the pitcher, and she received a burn on the leg.
(Note: this whole business of Pyrex needs everyone's attention, because Pyrex of the future - meaning now! 2013 - is not the same as the Pyrex of the past. Today's space age Pyrex is inferior. The cause? The usual suspects, mostly Modern Mega-Capitalism, which buys companies, and maintains or gooses profits by lowering the quality... check it out by reading about Pyrex on Google.)
Anyhow, she called her doctor and the office people said they were booked up and could not see her that day... nor in the near future.
She went to a New Baltimore (I purposefully include the location name) urgent care, waited 30 minutes for the girl in charge to end her chit-chat with friends before signing her in, waited 4 hours surrounded by New Baltimore types - one of which was a man in a wheel chair who got out of his wheel chair, pushed the chair around, bumping into things, cackling "I'm as blind 'z a bat!"
Apparently dementia is considered an emergency room situation in New Baltimore.
Everything we read about second-degree burns mentions that for people over 60, it should be under the treatment of a doctor, who can keep a weather eye on the situation, so she is going to call her doctor again.
"Everything we read...."!
What do the people in the doctors' office read? People Magazine, apparently. You would think that the medical establishment for which they work might have a rudimentary Power Point presentation for the staff, giving them some elementaries on Hippocratoc oaths and how to help people.
If you have a medical problem, demand that the office staff ask the doctor about whether you should be seen immediately or not. The doctor has to make the decision. If the medical professional declines timely help, then change your doctor, and do it now!
--
Thursday, June 06, 2013
Thank Heavens For Russia!
Now that the Syrian civil war is finally being somewhat portrayed in the US media as the sectarian civil war that it really is - not some struggle of freedom fighters of sterling reps - I think the world owes a debt of gratitude to Russia, who refused to be swept up in to dim-witted foreign policy of "Arab Springtime for Everyone" that pretty much defined US policy hitherto.
Even the USA is not infallible ( Really! I know it's hard to believe!), and it is a good idea to have a good friend to keep one on an even keel... and vice-versa.
--
Verizon
Can you hear me now?
We ask the government, can you hear us now?
Verizon has been turning over millions of daily calls to the NSA. The administration defends it. It is all part and parcel of the Patriot Act and the destruction of our liberties.
If Mr. Obama cannot get back on a true course, he and his administration are going to be lame duck for 3 years.
--
Later:
Sorry, Mr. Obama. The Congress was the one who passed the Patriot Act, keeps on renewing it, and is right up to date on how our lives are invaded.
BBC:
Paul Adams BBC News, Washington
Congress, Ho!
--
We ask the government, can you hear us now?
Verizon has been turning over millions of daily calls to the NSA. The administration defends it. It is all part and parcel of the Patriot Act and the destruction of our liberties.
If Mr. Obama cannot get back on a true course, he and his administration are going to be lame duck for 3 years.
--
Later:
Sorry, Mr. Obama. The Congress was the one who passed the Patriot Act, keeps on renewing it, and is right up to date on how our lives are invaded.
BBC:
Paul Adams BBC News, Washington
After years of allegations, lawsuits and sporadic, vaguely-worded warnings from members of Congress, finally there is a piece of hard evidence, a window into the reality of post-9/11 intelligence surveillance.
The breadth of this dragnet is breathtaking. The thought that the phone records of millions, this reporter included, have been collected on an order of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a little creepy, to say the least.
Should we demand action to stop it? Some civil rights activists say absolutely.
Such behaviour, they argue, simply runs counter to the letter of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which says there has to be "probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized", before any of this can happen.
The reality is that since 9/11, the national security establishment and telecommunications firms, with the aid of Congress, have constructed a new surveillance environment.
We just haven't been told about it.
Congress, Ho!
--
Keystone Pipeline, Aquifers, and Long-Term Consequences
Risk.
The risk of a spill, and the aftermath.
Governments come and go, but the residents live with the long-term aftermath of the accidents left by governmental policies, such as the nuclear facility in Hanford, Washington, which has been a potential problem since 1943.
Read about long-term consequences, on the ground and below the ground where an aquifer would be, in a ral-life situation:
AGU Blogosphere
Terra Central
http://blogs.agu.org/terracentral/2013/03/21/epa-to-enbridge-dredge-more-submerged-oil-from-the-kalamazoo-river/
21 March 2013
EPA to Enbridge: Dredge More Submerged Oil from the Kalamazoo River
Posted by John Freeland
The EPA has ordered additional dredging at three locations shown in red (Source: USEPA)
On July 25 2010, the 30-inch diameter Enbridge 6B pipeline ruptured near Marshall, Michigan. Roughly 1 million gallons of diluted bitumen (DilBit) from Canadian oil sands spilled into Talmadge Creek, a tributary to the Kalamazoo River. Nearly three years later, the cleanup continues.
Last week, the U.S. EPA issued a final Administrative Order requiring Enbridge, the owner of the pipeline, to conduct additional dredging to remove submerged oil from three portions of the Kalamazoo river and from sediment traps installed after the spill. EPA’s Cover letter and supporting documents are available here.
Rationale for Additional Dredging
Briefly, the EPA’s rationale for more dredging comes from data collected after extensive and ongoing monitoring of oil sheen and sludge. Analytical chemistry has identified the ruptured Enbridge 6B pipeline as the source...
Results of the poling identified three areas of submerged oil accumulation, as shown on the above map... The three areas are located in segments of the river with relatively low flow velocities, consistent with a hydrodynamic model of the river’s variable current along its length. Sampling over the past year has shown that the oil is not stationary, however, but is slowly moving downstream and into portions of Morrow Lake.
Weak Natural Attenuation and Net Environmental Benefit Analysis
An EPA bench study found that potential biodegradation of the oil in the Kalamazoo River, under optimum conditions, is only about 25 percent. Cold, dark benthic conditions make for slow decomposition. This undoubtedly played a major part in the decision to order additional dredging. Most cleanup operations inflict some kind of negative impact on the environment...
Concerns over DilBit
Tar Sands Pipelines Safety Risks, a 2011 joint report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and the Pipeline Safety Trust, raises concerns over the chemical and physical properties of DilBit. The diluents added to reduce the viscosity of tar sand crude in pipelines contain benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Benzene is a carcinogen and levels found in the air following the Enbridge 6B discharge prompted a voluntary evacuation of nearby homes.
(note: emphases mine; :benthic" = deep earth)
--
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Monday, June 03, 2013
Turkish Life
To get an idea of conservative ways in Turkey, read some Turkish news, such as the following which is crazy enough to have occurred in Saudi Arabia:
Hurriyet Daily News
Why kissing is bad (but rape can be just fine)
BURAK BEKDÄ°L
--
Hurriyet Daily News
Why kissing is bad (but rape can be just fine)
BURAK BEKDÄ°L
Last week, when about 200 Turks held a mass kissing protest at an Ankara subway station in response to a public announcement at the same station that had requested passengers “to behave morally,” conservative religious groups attacked them with machetes, shouted religious slogans and injured some of the protestors. The metro incident in Ankara is merely a more violent repetition of the “sex bus affair” in Istanbul. Apparently, with the newfound state/police power they arrogantly rely on, the conservative Turks will never learn to mind their own business...It gets much worse than this. It makes one feel the terrible ambivalence about such matters.
--
Sunday, June 02, 2013
The Fate of the Krel
In Forbidden Planet, it was the fate of the Krel to achieve the ability to create objects with the force of mind alone, and thus to unleash their monsters from the unconscious onto their civilization, destroying it in one night of unimaginable madness.
It takes us a bit longer, but good things often do require more time.
From The Globalist:
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=9554
Limbaugh, Lipitor and the Incivility of American Political Life (Part I)
By Edward Bernton | Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Rush Limbaugh's rant about the purported sex life of a female law student may have been nothing more than a ploy to boost his radio show's ratings. But perhaps the angry rhetoric is emblematic of a larger issue affecting American civic life. As Edward Bernton points out, the rise of political incivility has coincided with the widespread use of drugs like Lipitor...
Perhaps not coincidentally, these developments (like the phenomenon of road rage) parallel the unprecedented widespread use of potent new drugs by millions of men and women over the age of 40. These drugs are called statins, and include the commercial blockbusters Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor, which now account for over $30 billion a year in global pharmaceutical sales...
A large study by Bristol-Myers Squibb, known as PROSPER, showed that patients over age 70 who were at high risk but didn't yet have heart disease saw no cardiovascular benefit from taking statins, and had no decrease in mortality. Yet the immense yearly expenditures on marketing statins has assured that over the past decade most of the medically insured, over-50 population of the United States has been prescribed statins...
Overlooked in the developed world's rush to medicate cholesterol to lower and lower levels have been profound questions about the relationship between cholesterol and cognitive function, mood and behavior. The pre-statin scientific literature provided numerous hints of a link between low (or lowered) cholesterol and violent death, as well as aggression. Reducing cholesterol reduces levels of serotonin, a critical brain neurotransmitter, and low brain serotonin is well known to be linked to violence, impaired impulse control and aggression in both humans and animals..
Dr. Beatrice Golomb, lead researcher on the single U.S. study currently investigating the side effects of statins (including effects on cognition and behavior), published an alarming medical paper in 2004. This "case report" study documented personality changes involving extreme aggression and irritability (including road rage incidents and homicidal impulses), which occurred in six patients (four male and two female) on cholesterol-lowering drugs. The personality changes resolved when the patients stopped the drug. In four patients, they recurred when doctors assured the patients that the changes could not be statin side effects and restarted the drugs.
A study published in 2000 looked at the cholesterol measurements of 79,777 individuals and subsequent police records for violent crimes. The study found that violent criminals had significantly lower cholesterol than others identical in age, sex, alcohol indices and education...
These dramatic behavioral responses to statins may represent the tip of a much larger iceberg. While only a small percentage of patients may be unusually susceptible to the behavioral effects of lowered cholesterol, how likely are scientists and physicians (not to mention patients) to associate less pronounced increases in aggression and irritability with a medication their doctor prescribes for their heart?...
Read 'em and weep.
And so it goes...
--
King Stork
Qatar's Grand Mufti, Yusuf Al Qaradawi, Who Believes
Shiites and Alawites are worse than Christians and Jews
In the fable, the frog community had grown tired of their old King Log, who really did not do very much. Things pretty much stayed the same year after year, a little good, not too much; a little bad, not too much. Things were pretty ho-hum.
So some of them wanted things to change and formed a coalition to elect a new king. After some time, they managed to get Stork elected as the new king of the frogs. Things went OK for a brief period, until feeding time wandered into sight, and King Stork began to eat some juicy frogs.
Some of the frog community registered their complaints.
This is my fabulish view of Syria. I admit I am not as smart and educated as the leaders of the Western world, but I also do not have a resume of catastrophes trailing behind me.
In Syria, we are being asked to trade King Log for King Stork, evidenced as follows:
AhlulBayt News Agency
http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=425426
Date: 2013/06/02 - 12:19 source: News Agencies
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Qatari controversial grand Mufti, Yusuf al-Qaradawi has blamed himself for not taking a hostile stance against the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah before, in line with the Saudi Wahhabis.So we trade a dictatorship that allows the minorities to exist on its terms for a dictatorship that will "consume" them all. Nice trade-off.
Qaradawi who is seen as the religious and inspirational leader of the militants and terrorists fighting against the government of Syria, told attendants at the Friday Prayers in capital Doha that Alawites, particularly Shiites are even worse than Christians and Jews.
He called on all his supporters around the world to gather in Syria’s town of al-Qusayr and help the terrorists and fight along with them. He claimed that they would be facing with Lebanon’s Hezbollah in Qusayr.
Qaradawi further slammed those who supported the Syrian government, including Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s resistance and called them “parties of Satan”. ..
--
An Adventure In Art (30)
Tangerine With Leaves
Abbey Ryan
Ryan Studio: Paintings by Abbey Ryan
http://ryanstudio.blogspot.com/
--
Myths We Die By
King David Hotel, 1946, After Irgun Bombing
One of the most shockingly memorable experiences of an intelligent entity must be the realization that the myths we learned as children are mere fluffery... and often iniquitous, to boot.
In particular, myths about situations where at least two parties are in dispute, or what we may call the Bipolar Separation Myths, wherein one party is thoroughly good, the other thoroughly vile.
We spend much of our adult life learning that "it takes two to tango", and attempting to overcome our Edenic visions of hero myths about family, state, and nation.
There were myths of particular salvation; we learned that people of our faith would go to heaven, and people of other creeds were doomed.
We also learned that certain nations were saintly underdogs, veritable Davids fighting against villains that were the worst of Goliath and Saul.
Yet in our heroic myths of Israel, never once did the bombings of the King David Hotel enter in, a disaster where the Zionist terrorist group Irgun had planted bombs at the busy hotel and killed many people on July 22, 1946: 91 deaths and 46 injured.
Wikipedia: King David Hotel bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine and Transjordan.(the mention of "evacuation" refers to a part of the story that Irgun telephoned the British beforehand to alert them to the coming blast. Awfully sporting of Irgun, what?)
In July 2006, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center organized a conference to mark the 60th anniversary of the bombing. The conference was attended by past and future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former members of Irgun. A plaque commemorating the bombing was unveiled, stating "For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated."
The British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem protested, saying "We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated", and wrote to the Mayor of Jerusalem that such an act of terror could not be honoured, even if it was preceded by a warning. The British government also demanded the removal of the plaque, pointing out that the statement accusing the British of failing to evacuate the hotel was untrue and "did not absolve those who planted the bomb."
I never learned of the slaughtered British and Arabs in my myths, and I believed my heroes hands unsullied.
What do you say to such murderous nonsense? I made up a song in 2006:
Hello, Central, Irgun calling,
are the Britsh there?
Get them out - but leave the Arabs! -
down the old back stair.
It is hardly as thoughtless and nasty and 70 years of ongoing conflict in this Hundred Years War... and counting.
--
Milagros
I saw Moonrise Kingdom again.
It is rather like letting loose another miracle upon the world.
I promised to write of the novel Bel Canto.
I was enchanted and fully drawn into its world. What I liked most was the fact that it was a jewel set between two acts of violence, a kidnapping and a rescue, both stupid acts. However, we live our lives in an embrasure bookended by stupid acts of brutality, and we find therein jewels of love, friends, and family, do we not?--
Saturday, June 01, 2013
In The Catacombs of Disaster
Mass Palestinian grave found in Tel Aviv
Skeletal remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis during 1948 have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/20136104317486359.html
The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting during the war of 1948 which led to the creation of the state of Israel have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv's Jaffa district.There are terrorists on every side of every conflict.
An official at the Muslim cemetery there told AFP news agency that the grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons.
Jaffa fisherman Atar Zeinab, 80, says that as a teenager during the final months of fighting in 1948, he helped to collect the Arab dead in the area south of Jaffa and bring them for hasty burial in the cemetery, the area's main graveyard.
"I carried to the cemetery 60 bodies during a period of three or four months," he told AFP. "We used to find the people in the street and most of the time we didn't know who they were."
...
Jaffa was at the time a Palestinian town, but there was a forced exodus of most of its Arab population when it fell to the fledgling Israeli army and rightwing Jewish armed gangs.
This story is repeated for my Evangelical Christian friends who believe that the kingdom of Israel was restored in one day in 1948, even though they know that before the Lord a year is like a thousand, and a thousand years like a year.
Sometimes we worship Moloch... sometimes we don't.
--
Wrath Of God
On May 28:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/05/28/liberal-media-trying-to-exploit-tornado-oklahoma-senator/
The liberal media and Senate colleagues are “trying to exploit” Oklahoma’s deadly tornado to advance their “agenda” on climate change, according to Oklahoma’s Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, famous for describing human-caused global warming as a man-made “hoax.”
Inhofe was on climatologists’ case early this month when Oklahoma experienced below normal temperatures. “Global Warming Alarmists Should Send Some of their Hot Air to Warm Up Oklahoma,” Inhofe declared in a May 3 statement. But that was almost three weeks before a Level 5 tornado tore through Moore, Okla., killing 24 people.
But this week, Inhofe is reacting to speeches by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that climate change is a possible cause of such weather violence as late-season super hurricanes, mile-wide tornadoes and prolonged drought.But today his fellow Oklahomans were not seeking blame, merely seeking shelter:
The liberal media are “trying to exploit a tragedy and advance its (sic) own agenda, and believe me, the victims all know this,” Inhofe told the right-wing Newsmax website. “We were being hit by tornadoes long before anyone talked about climate change, and even before it was called ‘global cooling,’ before it became ‘global warming’ and then climate change.
Yahoo News
Frightened Okla. residents opt to flee tornadoes
Associated PressBy SEAN MURPHY | Associated Press – 33 mins ago
I have lived through such things, in which our welfare is politicized by idiotic politicians.OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — It's a warning as familiar as a daily prayer for Tornado Alley residents: When a twister approaches, take shelter in a basement or low-level interior room or closet, away from windows and exterior walls.But with the powerful devastation from the May 20 twister that killed 24 and pummeled the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore still etched in their minds, many Oklahomans instead opted to flee Friday night when a violent tornado developed and headed toward the state's capital city.It was a dangerous decision to make.
Interstates and roadways already packed with rush-hour traffic quickly became parking lots as people tried to escape the oncoming storm. Motorists were trapped in their vehicles — a place emergency officials say is one of the worst to be in a tornado.
--
Science of Poetry: Trembling on the Edge of Meaning
Taquamenon Falls, Michigan
This week I wrote a poem about stuff, one stuff of which was Taquamenon Falls, and I finished with:
... every drop of falling water
is canonized ecology haunting to
our daedal palimpsest nostalgia!
and it was a bit of a tussle to write what I wanted to say.
"canonized" has hues of holiness,
"haunting" intimates spirit movement,
"daedal" is for intricate workmanship,
"palimpsest" means rewritten, reused, written over, and reeks of novelty over antiquity,
"nostalgia" literally mean homecoming + pain;
and the idea of a holy quest of return to well-constructed homes, which we miss greatly, and where we shall start things over anew.
I don't say this straight forward, but I do not try to obscure. Rather, I try to mix the meanings together and make a new whole which will carry the meaning in a new way.
I am not saying I succeeded in this, and that the poem is a great poem, but I did experience quite a feeling of sudden clarity. It was exactly the same feeling I get when I am reading or speaking a new language, and suddenly the sounds and movements of the speech muscles come together in a feeling of understanding that is deep and profound and seems to be like jumping into the world with a totally new seeing and breathing and smelling and touching.
I think that poetry is this trembling on the edge of meaning.
Meaning is in motion and it reminds me of Brownian motion, random flickering, until a quick collapse into a shining seeing when one says "aha!"
As in the poem for Mothers' Day day, there was "... so much all-utterly song" which is a English language novelty that requires not a piecemeal pecking at, but a meditative embrace that gathers in one all the meaning, feelings, and emotions of the expression.
The difference between Shelley and a limerick lay in the one is filled with potential to deeply understand reality and the other is rather straight forward and has little potential beyond what is immediate and obvious.
I think that if the phenomenon were to be studied in the lab, the areas of the brain engaged in reading good poetry would be the same as those used by learners of a new language, who are finding new things everywhere - like children just learning - and who have not yet fallen into the rut of everyday usage and the mundane chatter of media.
--
Every Child Left Behind
Indian Country:
Every Child Left Behind: Sequester Guts Indian Education, Part 2
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/05/31/every-child-left-behind-sequester-guts-indian-education-part-2-149592
Tanya Lee
May 31, 2013
The cuts to K-12 education funding because of the federal sequester will impact students and teachers across the country, but many say they will hurt American Indian elementary and secondary school students the most.
Tribal schools are funded through a number of mechanisms, among them the federal government (through per-student payments, grants and Title I, II and VII programs), tribes and sometimes states. A major source of funding comes from the Bureau of Indian Affair’s Bureau of Indian Education, which allocates ISEP (Indian School Equalization Program) funds on a per-capita basis.
A Government that indulges entirely in politics and thus finds itself incapable of creatively governing will end up destroying its peoples.
--
Monsters and Chalabis
Better known as the Syrian opposition, or the Syrian rebels.
Monsters of hatred or ineffectual Chalabis.
Remeber how Iraq was supposed to welcome us, and Mr. Chalabi, who had spent years in Washington D.C. lobbying the government, was supposed to take a prominent part in the new Iraq?
Washington dreams, and has nightmares from undigested Lobbyist Money.
--
Monsters of hatred or ineffectual Chalabis.
Remeber how Iraq was supposed to welcome us, and Mr. Chalabi, who had spent years in Washington D.C. lobbying the government, was supposed to take a prominent part in the new Iraq?
Washington dreams, and has nightmares from undigested Lobbyist Money.
--
Friday, May 31, 2013
A Possible Difference Between Women And Men
Women are the great communicators and facilitators of communication; they are much more so than men.
For example, if there is a new spot on the carpet, a man will secretly wander off the to pantry, grab a bottle of Spot-Shot or Rosenthal's or whatever spot remover, then hermetically treat the disfiguration, and return to whatever he was doing before.
A woman, on the other hand, will issue statements as to the existence of the spot, volubly wonder about its provenance, and loquaciously do a CSI (crime scene investogation), DA (district attorney) accusation, and render a Hon. She-who-must-be-obeyed, J (judge) guilty verdict.
--
For example, if there is a new spot on the carpet, a man will secretly wander off the to pantry, grab a bottle of Spot-Shot or Rosenthal's or whatever spot remover, then hermetically treat the disfiguration, and return to whatever he was doing before.
A woman, on the other hand, will issue statements as to the existence of the spot, volubly wonder about its provenance, and loquaciously do a CSI (crime scene investogation), DA (district attorney) accusation, and render a Hon. She-who-must-be-obeyed, J (judge) guilty verdict.
--
Experiments With The Good
Ignatius Loyola
We live in a great time of Science.
Great
We also live in a great poverty of moral goodness.
Take a page from science: conduct long experiments on being good. Then review the results. Get other people involved and purify the group morality of our age.
This does not involve reading; this involves living the moral goodness that is within us.
Fast, be humble, turn the other cheek.
Experiment with the ways of being good instead of setting things like "Turn the other cheek" up as some sort of paradigm, then ignoring it in practice.
See what happens. Discuss. Meditate.
Drop every notion that does not apply to godliness from your mind: all political views, all reasons for doing things, all excuses and alibis, all dislikes and hatreds. See what happens.
It is time for Goodness. I am going to set at least one day of each year as a day of fast and moral experiment and meditation (remember that meditation is not "mulling over").
All this has been attempted in the past, however. I think of the Practices of St. Ignatius Loyola as more of a "experimental" regimen of the spirit, rather than the usual and customary description of "spiritual exercises".
So let's update the spiritual exercises and attain the progress that has been made in material regimes!
--
Microbiomes
I predict that within 7 years an analysis of each individual's microbiome population will become a standard part of our basic medical procedures, perhaps part of the yearly doctor's visit.
The bacteria and fungal populations of the skin and the gut will begin to be tested and stored for future reference. Soon after birth, babies' microbiomes will be censused and the information stored. Every few years, the process should be repeated.
The effects of the microbiome range from controlling diarrhea to:
Neuroscience News:
http://neurosciencenews.com/gut-bacteria-regulate-happiness-hippocampus-serotonin/
Gut Bacteria Regulate Happiness
Posted on June 12, 2012 By Neuroscience News Featured, Psychology
I have been fascinated by this subject ever since my dentist told me that dental plaque was a "biofilm". I studied biofilms, and that study lead immediately to the microbiome, and it lead me to simple medications for homely problems, such as using Pyrithione Zinc as a treatments for summer rash and dry spots on the elbows...
It is an inexpensive medicine, because it is the active ingredient in "Head and Shoulders" shampoo. I find most folks are befuddled at the notion of using a shampoo for anything except shampoo, but dandruff - the condition for which Heads and Shoulders is designed - is a skin condition of the scalp. A simple Google on "pyrithione zinc" returns all the info needed. (Although, such situations may not be a problem with the microbiome at all. It served to focus attention on realistic alternatives to expensive medications. And dry skin or eczema is being studied now as a microbiome problem.)
Even more interesting, recent research on teenage acne has found that all individuals tested, who had no or little acne, all had the same bacteria present in their microbiome, and those with more severe acne did not possess the bacterium.
--
The bacteria and fungal populations of the skin and the gut will begin to be tested and stored for future reference. Soon after birth, babies' microbiomes will be censused and the information stored. Every few years, the process should be repeated.
The effects of the microbiome range from controlling diarrhea to:
Neuroscience News:
http://neurosciencenews.com/gut-bacteria-regulate-happiness-hippocampus-serotonin/
Gut Bacteria Regulate Happiness
Posted on June 12, 2012 By Neuroscience News Featured, Psychology
APC scientists have shown that brain levels of serotonin, the ‘happy hormone’ are regulated by the amount of bacteria in the gut during early life. Their research is being published today in the leading international psychiatry journal, Molecular Psychiatry.Perhaps we shall be able to help or cure certain types of depression by eating various probiotic yogurts.
I have been fascinated by this subject ever since my dentist told me that dental plaque was a "biofilm". I studied biofilms, and that study lead immediately to the microbiome, and it lead me to simple medications for homely problems, such as using Pyrithione Zinc as a treatments for summer rash and dry spots on the elbows...
It is an inexpensive medicine, because it is the active ingredient in "Head and Shoulders" shampoo. I find most folks are befuddled at the notion of using a shampoo for anything except shampoo, but dandruff - the condition for which Heads and Shoulders is designed - is a skin condition of the scalp. A simple Google on "pyrithione zinc" returns all the info needed. (Although, such situations may not be a problem with the microbiome at all. It served to focus attention on realistic alternatives to expensive medications. And dry skin or eczema is being studied now as a microbiome problem.)
Even more interesting, recent research on teenage acne has found that all individuals tested, who had no or little acne, all had the same bacteria present in their microbiome, and those with more severe acne did not possess the bacterium.
--
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Why I Write Poetry
I just finished my 6th year of writing a poem each week in my poetry blog ( http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ ).
Sometimes I wonder why I do it, since not very many people read poetry. I am glad that there are many who like it, but sometimes we always want more people to share our high opinions of ourselves.
Alas!
However, I do write poetry for myself. I write in this blog, also, for myself. I write to clarify my consciousness. There are a great many things we are aware of as intelligent beings, and many are very complex. I cannot deal with the complexity unless I try to set it out in writing: the bends and folds and complexes of love and hate, war and peace, hunger and satiety...
Give it word, give it image, icon, symbol, song!
--
Sometimes I wonder why I do it, since not very many people read poetry. I am glad that there are many who like it, but sometimes we always want more people to share our high opinions of ourselves.
Alas!
However, I do write poetry for myself. I write in this blog, also, for myself. I write to clarify my consciousness. There are a great many things we are aware of as intelligent beings, and many are very complex. I cannot deal with the complexity unless I try to set it out in writing: the bends and folds and complexes of love and hate, war and peace, hunger and satiety...
Give it word, give it image, icon, symbol, song!
--
Rooms Full Of Monkeys
If an infinite number of monkeys were in an infinite room and they were tapping away at an infinite number of computer keyboards, eventually they would write all the great works of literature, or so the story goes of Probability and limitless time available.
If this is even remotely true, it shows us why there is death in the world; if things did not die, there would be no end to evolution and change and we would probably not even exist as free peoples, rather we would be slaves to some super-intelligent strain of mammal that got on the fast track back around the Younger Dryas period.
--
The Trade Offs Of Certain Types Of Wealth Accumulation
We have bridges falling every few years as the infrastructure crumbles. To repair this requires a good deal of money.
We have more severe storms probably due to climate change, and to recover from these disasters takes a good deal of money.
Furthermore:
EPA Survey Finds More Than Half of the Nation’s River and Stream Miles in Poor Condition
Release Date: 03/26/2013
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/26A31559BB37A7D285257B3A00589DDF
(I won't even mention the possible need to scan the skies for comets and meteors, since the last good-sized impact occurred 12,900 years ago, or 10,900 years before Christ, or 9,900 years before Homer and Chephren... and 9,900 years is an enormous amount of time......)
All this takes money.
These things are what centralized governments were set up to do: address large issues and situations that affect all the people. Wealth cannot be allowed to accumulate in such a fashion that the central government is incapable of providing for the well-being of the people.
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We have more severe storms probably due to climate change, and to recover from these disasters takes a good deal of money.
Furthermore:
EPA Survey Finds More Than Half of the Nation’s River and Stream Miles in Poor Condition
Release Date: 03/26/2013
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/26A31559BB37A7D285257B3A00589DDF
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the results of the first comprehensive survey looking at the health of thousands of stream and river miles across the country, finding that more than half – 55 percent – are in poor condition for aquatic life.We have these bothersome environmental things to attend to.
“The health of our Nation’s rivers, lakes, bays and coastal waters depends on the vast network of streams where they begin, and this new science shows that America’s streams and rivers are under significant pressure,” said Office of Water Acting Assistant Administrator Nancy Stoner. “We must continue to invest in protecting and restoring our nation’s streams and rivers as they are vital sources of our drinking water, provide many recreational opportunities, and play a critical role in the economy.”
(I won't even mention the possible need to scan the skies for comets and meteors, since the last good-sized impact occurred 12,900 years ago, or 10,900 years before Christ, or 9,900 years before Homer and Chephren... and 9,900 years is an enormous amount of time......)
All this takes money.
These things are what centralized governments were set up to do: address large issues and situations that affect all the people. Wealth cannot be allowed to accumulate in such a fashion that the central government is incapable of providing for the well-being of the people.
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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Lord Buddha's Regrets
I have the deepest respect for the Lord Buddha.
However, Buddhists have had a free ride in our society. Most people think that all Buddhists are nice, meditative, and good fellows. Many of our atheistic members have laid aside their antipathy to religion and God-fearing types, and allowed themselves the pleasures of Zen knowledge and meditation...
Well, the "happy" Buddhists of Myanmar are rioting..
Al Jazeera:
Religious violence erupts in Myanmar
Curfew declared in town in Shan state following destruction of Muslim orphanage and mosque in latest outbreak of unrest.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/05/201352952410553862.html
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However, Buddhists have had a free ride in our society. Most people think that all Buddhists are nice, meditative, and good fellows. Many of our atheistic members have laid aside their antipathy to religion and God-fearing types, and allowed themselves the pleasures of Zen knowledge and meditation...
Well, the "happy" Buddhists of Myanmar are rioting..
Al Jazeera:
Religious violence erupts in Myanmar
Curfew declared in town in Shan state following destruction of Muslim orphanage and mosque in latest outbreak of unrest.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/05/201352952410553862.html
..."A mosque and a religious school and some houses were destroyed by the mob, but there were no deaths or injuries".and so it goes, Kurt Vonnegut observes, so it goes.
Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Yangon, said the situation in Lashio had already been brought under control by police.
He said he had received reports that some officials in Lashio, including the fire department, "did very little" to stop the Buddhist mob from attacking Muslim establishments.
Myanmar's recent sectarian violence has been partly blamed on the 969 movement, launched in February by an extremist monk in Mandalay named Wirathu, who encourages Buddhists to shun Muslim-owned shops.
There are less than 2,000 Myanmar Muslims living in Lashio, sources said, of the city's estimated population of about 130,000...
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The War of Eternal Dibs on The West Bank
Are we in a war?
What war? Does it have a name? Will Congress ever resume their role in declaring war?
Our entanglements in the Middle East are a slap in the face of George Washington.
Our support of Netanyahu and his "eternal dibs" on Palestinian territory is a contravention against the principles of the people who founded this country.
The Drang nach Osten of Netanyahu into lands east of Jerusalem will be our downfall.
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What war? Does it have a name? Will Congress ever resume their role in declaring war?
Our entanglements in the Middle East are a slap in the face of George Washington.
Our support of Netanyahu and his "eternal dibs" on Palestinian territory is a contravention against the principles of the people who founded this country.
The Drang nach Osten of Netanyahu into lands east of Jerusalem will be our downfall.
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Why I Write About Syria
... because I did not protest enough against the Iraq War.
We are destined to become all Ancient Mariners, driven by dreams, blood, and cynicism to live out the measure of our days by spilling our guilty guts!
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We are destined to become all Ancient Mariners, driven by dreams, blood, and cynicism to live out the measure of our days by spilling our guilty guts!
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Infighting in the Fighting
Bomb Site in Reyhanli
From The Asia Times:
A warning shot for Turkey-Qatar axis
By Alper Birdal and Yigit Gunay
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-290513.html
...Right from the start of the "Arab Spring", a great competition between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has raged, especially in Egypt. The domination of the Muslim Brotherhood in all the countries visited by the "Spring" troubled Saudi Arabia very deeply.A good read to get an idea of the intricacies of the intrigues of this Diplomacy of Death.
Of course, the problem was not about the "support of radical elements". In a sense, Saudi Arabia was supporting the Salafi groups that are more radical than Muslim Brotherhood. The real issue was to gain the upper hand in political influence.
Since the initial Syrian crisis turned into a full-scale war through the provocation of foreign forces, in the polarization of these forces Turkey has openly sided with Qatar.
The forming of this two "block of alliances", one by Qatar and Turkey and the other by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and United Arab Emirates, has sharpened to such an extent that triggered various bloody operations - such as the mysterious suicide attack on a Qatari convoy in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, on May 5.
Remember: a good deal of this is being paid for by our tax money.
If the Tea Party were ever to develop a well-formed and credible policy and strategy, I might just join. I hate funding a foreign policy based on thoughtless and flippant wars and threats. And I hate paying for it. The time is coming when we, like Henry David Thoreau, will find ourselves in our own Walden jail cells, refusing to fund this cynical regime of violence, a regime which extends on both sides of the aisle, and has captured the hope of the future.
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A Dutchman's Pants
Clearing Skies?
My grandfather used to say that the skies would clear when there was visible blue sky and there was enough of such blue sky "to patch a Dutchman's pants."
I like the expression, and wonder if there is enough blue sky yet.
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Car Repairs and Syria
I stopped by to see Hafiz, the man to whom I entrust my cars. In between phone calls and customers, we did manage to string together a conversation covering events of the last few months: the deaths in my family, what the status of my retirement was, the health of his family, particularly Muhammed, his son, who is legally blind and has little skin pigmentation. He is well and enjoying high school, al hamdu li_llah.
His eldest son is in Turkey teaching, and I expressed the hope that he was not near the Syrian border. Hafiz said that he would be proud if he were involved, for men cannot live as slaves. Then he recounted the origins of the popular uprising, graffiti painted on walls and arrests and mistreatment of young men in prison.
He was, of course, correct. I was correct, also. He spoke of the corruption of the police and other institutions in an old dictatorship and I was speaking of foreign fighters and influences.
We agreed that thousands were dead and millions have lost their homes.
The Syria has changed from its nascent embryonic "Arab Spring" into a deadly Summer of pestilence.
The theory is to let both sides bleed themselves sufficiently until such time as the outsiders may impose their will upon them.
In the meantime, the disease spreads. Iraq's violence is increasing; the west of Iraq, Anbar Province, may very well seek independence as a Sunni majority state. Then there are the Kurds who continue to strain against their inclusion into the states of the region.
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Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Our Allies Who Lead Us To A Syrian Disaster
Zeev Elkin, Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel
Yahoo News this morning:
People like Mr. Elkin know what the deal is in the Middle East. Only our leaders pretend something different. We shall carry the burden for years for this Syrian mess.JERUSALEM (AP) — Zeev Elkin has faced a wave of criticism since he was made the de facto chief of Israel's Foreign Ministry two months ago: He isn't prepared for compromise with the Palestinians. He doesn't speak English well enough. He is a West Bank settler.But Israel's deputy foreign minister, who is the top official until a new foreign minister is named, makes no apologies for his ideology or background, and in fact thinks they are an advantage. Claiming to reflect the "real positions" of most Israelis, Elkin says the world should get used to dealing with Jewish settlers and right-wing Israeli politicians."It is a mistake to think the Foreign Ministry needs a person whose views the world would rather hear but do not reflect the government or the majority in Israel," Elkin said in an interview. "You cannot fool the world."Elkin, a rising star in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, was handed the No. 2 spot at the Foreign Ministry following parliamentary elections early this year...
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Our Security People
Yahoo News this morning:
These are the people who have astronomical budgets in the big business of defense and security.WASHINGTON/CANBERRA (Reuters) - Chinese hackers have gained access to designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, a U.S. report said on Monday, as Australian media said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia's new spy headquarters.Citing a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the Washington Post said the compromised U.S. designs included those for combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
I do not think this needs any further comment.
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More Headaches !
Eureka Alert:
Comprehensive analysis of impact spherules supports theory of cosmic impact 12,800 years ago
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/uoc--cao052113.php
(Santa Barbara, California) ––
About 12,800 years ago when the Earth was warming and emerging from the last ice age, a dramatic and anomalous event occurred that abruptly reversed climatic conditions back to near-glacial state. According to James Kennett, UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor in earth sciences, this climate switch fundamentally –– and remarkably –– occurred in only one year, heralding the onset of the Younger Dryas cool episode.12,800 years ago was not all that long past. The Clovis culture mentioned was a human culture in the Americas... they experienced meteoric climate change...
The cause of this cooling has been much debated, especially because it closely coincided with the abrupt extinction of the majority of the large animals then inhabiting the Americas, as well as the disappearance of the prehistoric Clovis culture, known for its big game hunting.
"What then did cause the extinction of most of these big animals, including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, American camel and horse, and saber- toothed cats?" asked Kennett, pointing to Charles Darwin's 1845 assessment of the significance of climate change. "Did these extinctions result from human overkill, climatic change or some catastrophic event?" The long debate that has followed, Kennett noted, has recently been stimulated by a growing body of evidence in support of a theory that a major cosmic impact event was involved, a theory proposed by the scientific team that includes Kennett himself.
Now, in one of the most comprehensive related investigations ever, the group has documented a wide distribution of microspherules widely distributed in a layer over 50 million square kilometers on four continents, including North America, including Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in the Channel Islands. This layer –– the Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) layer –– also contains peak abundances of other exotic materials, including nanodiamonds and other unusual forms of carbon such as fullerenes, as well as melt-glass and iridium. This new evidence in support of the cosmic impact theory appeared recently in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.
Could happen again... maybe?
What's our response as a common species? SSDD, as Stephen King writes in Dreamcatcher. SSDD... observation, adage, maxim... and epitaph.
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Fiddling As The World Wanes
I used to wonder what it was like to live in Imperial Rome; what was life like in a society that was on decline and falling - at least, declining as it seemed to my perspective, a point of view which was ready to see decline by years of reading Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
What was it like, I wondered, to maintain a steadfast resistance to the obvious truth of Christianity? And after Constantine, what was it like to devolve into chaos and strife?
I sort of guess that I know.
From Eureka Alert:
Even farm animal diversity is declining as accelerating species loss threatens humanity
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/ispo-efa052313.php
...Some scientists have termed this the "sixth great extinction episode" in Earth's history, according to Dr. Zakri, noting that the loss of biodiversity is happening faster and everywhere, even among farm animals.A changing world, a changing climate... and the problems mount.
He underlined findings by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that genetic diversity among livestock is declining.
"The good news is the rate of decline is dropping but the latest data classify 22% of domesticated breeds at risk of extinction," Dr. Zakri said.
Breeds become rare because their characteristics either don't suit contemporary demand or because differences in their qualities have not been recognised. When a breed population falls to about 1,000 animals, it is considered rare and endangered.
Causes of genetic erosion in domestic animals are the lack of appreciation of the value of indigenous breeds and their importance in niche adaptation, incentives to introduce exotic and more uniform breeds from industrialised countries, and product-focused selection.
Among crops, meanwhile, about 75 per cent of genetic diversity was lost in the last century as farmers worldwide switched to genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties and abandoned multiple local varieties. There are 30,000 edible plant species but only 30 crops account for 95% of human food energy, the bulk of which (60%) comes down to rice, wheat, maize, millet and sorghum.
"The decline in the diversity of crops and animals is occurring in tandem with the need to sharply increase world food production and as a changing environment makes it more important than ever to have a large genetic pool to enable organisms to withstand and adapt to new conditions," he said...
Scientists see the problems, and they try to evaluate them, and they warn us, but we find it hard to respond, and we wish to maintain our tender dance of weaving in and out between "tipping points" of no-return.
A senior US Senator visits Syrian rebels over the weekend.
What could be the purpose of that? Is there any conceivable purpose other than to maintain an area of conflict for years to come? The influence of radicals in the rebel groups has been demonstrated; our inability to control these groups has been shown over and over again; so why are Republicans and Democrats so insistent upon facilitating civil wars and disturbances of the peace?
The terrible "IFs" are accumulating.
Senator John McCain and his ilk are playing the fiddle while the world burns...
...for the contradictions will kill all of us. For instance, to ensure that nations do not produce their own arsenal of nuclear weapons, the USA must play a role of impartial arbiter between nations; this is a role that goes back to the end of World War II.
If the USA cannot perform this function, if it tilts aggressively to one side, then it cannot dissuade nuclear proliferation by moral persuasion. Instead, it must resort to Rome's favorite remedy of sending in the legions.
In an age that needs leaders, we have partisans.
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