Technology of War

Afghan president rejects NATO apology for air strike that killed 9 boys
Patrick Quinn
KABUL, Afghanistan— The Associated Press
Published Sunday, Mar. 06, 2011 12:44PM EST
Last updated Sunday, Mar. 06, 2011 12:59PM EST

...The killing of the nine boys took place on March 1 in the Pech valley area of Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.

Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, who directs day-to-day operations of coalition forces across Afghanistan, later issued a video statement of apology.
In the video, Lt.-Gen. Rodriguez said troops at a base in the valley were responding to a rocket attack and dispatched attack helicopters to the location they were told the rockets came from. He said the helicopters thought they were engaging insurgents, but it later turned out they were boys from a nearby village who were cutting firewood...

I bet those boys were using AK-47s to cut the wood with.

--

sto25ne

Smoke and Exclamation Points!
All roads end and start here:
consumer crematorium.
--

Unions, Collective Bargaining, and the Right to Strike

Pittston Coal Miners Strike, Virginia, in 1989

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pix: http://alterdestiny.blogspot.com/

Industrialism Under the Pharoahs

The Smokestack Pylons in the Parking Lot of the Temple of Karnak at Luxor

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Goldman Sachs World

Anyone who has worked at, or knows someone who has worked at Goldman Sachs should know what this means.
Things have not been straightened out. The laws passed are not nearly sufficient to protect the public.

So, the financial system is still in the hands of those who almost destroyed it. How do you like living with a gun to your head and to the heads of your children?

Stephane Hessel

Book Title:
Indignez-vous!   or   A Time for Outrage

La pire des attitudes est l’indifférence, dire je n’y peux rien, je me débrouille. […] Aussi, appelons-nous à une véritable insurrection pacifique contre les moyens de communication de masse qui ne proposent comme horizon pour notre jeunesse que la consommation de masse, le mépris des plus faibles et de la culture, l’amnésie généralisée et la compétition à outrance de tous contre tous.    

"Indifference is the worst of all attitudes: to say I can not do anything, or I am tied up in other matters. [...]
Again, we are called to a peaceful revolution against the means of Mass Communication, which offer nothing on the horizon for our young people except Mass Consumption, contempt for those who are weaker and  for  culture, a general forgetting (of the past) and limitless competition of all versus all. .."
                                         
M. Hessel was a member of the French Resistance in World War II. Of that he says:                          

 ...motif de base de la Résistance, c’était l’indignation.

"...the very basis of the Resistance was Indignation."


Our problems are world wide problems. We are in an historical period that began more than 100 years ago - remember William Jennings Bryan's opposition to keeping the Philippines as a colony because of the real danger of exporting domestic jobs overseas? The phenomenon of Globalization in 1900 pre-dating our experience of Globalization by 80 years?
Our struggles are those of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. They are the struggles of all the peoples of the world. Catch Stephane Hessel and open your eyes to the world of Indignation at a world out of control.

Pakistan.............قرب البحرالمضطرب

 M.Jinnah as a Young Barrister

As I have mentioned before, I was born on Mr. Muhammed 'Ali Jinnah's Day of Direct Action. That is indeed how I think of my day of birth - in those exact terms.
Now the last Christian member of the Cabinet had been killed for his opposition to the infamous Anti-Blasphemy Law....
Mr. Jinnah, like Mr. Gandhi, was called to the bar in England...
as a lawyer Mr. Jinnah would recognize the filth of this law for what it is.

Now, to every person from Pakistan with whom I have ever spoken and changed my opinions because you were the persons more intimately involved in the doings of the country and I was but an outsider, I say that every one of you has failed your Religion, your Country, and your Moral Duty!

 يبكي سيد جناح في مدينة القائد،
 في قصره القلق قرب البحرالمضطرب

Ali G Interviews Colonel G !

Do not miss it!
Sunday Night on most channels!
Interviewer Ali G holds nothing back in the in-depth discussion with the noted revolutionary, one-time terrorist, and mass murderer.

 --

sto24ne

Dr. Manhattan's first cup of coffee.

Charlie Sheen

So I watched Two and A Half Men. Charlie Sheen's character seems to be pretty much what he's really like. So the network and the studio and producers came up with this idea to showcase this type of destructive personality, and they hired a destructive type to play it, and everyone is surprised that it has ended up over the top.
When everyone is an enabler - with adulation, money, scripts, reinforcement.... - how could Charlie Sheen not have ended up thinking he had with "tiger's blood and Apollo genes"? I mean, for pity sake. The guy in the sit-com is a slightly toned down  version of the real guy as he appears on 20/20 right now!

The Death of the Real

As the Entertainment Media become more powerful and refined, the Virtual Reality that they show us will become more more and more emotionally satisfying to the point where they will be preferable to real engagement with the world.
Especially after the Great Impoverishment through which we all are going, the Virtual, the Scripted, the Fantastic will be the major source of pleasure and joy.

Example: we have always derived pleasure from the stories of the saints, the sidis, the monks and holy men. We have always marveled at miracles and divine intervention. We ourselves do not strive for spiritual perfection: we stand on the side and look at icons or holy cards or listen to stories.
This came about as we allowed churches to establish themselves as middle-men between ourselves and the Holy. In this example, the established churches take on the role of the Spiritual Media companies and dispense their version of what is real; we no longer quest for God; we have no vision quests anymore.

Thus, the history of the Modern is the collapse of  the Vision of Nikos Kazantzakis: a Zorba who embraces and lives in the world. If you read Report To Greco by Kazantzakis - even just one page! - you will taste an exotic view which threatens your safe dowdiness.
Right now, the only thing which jolts us is cable TV violence, for it is in our front room and more "real" than the real violence. Nothing is news unless the News says it is.

Just as the Holy has fallen away from us, so will the rest of Reality.

My daughter, revolt against this Insipid World! 

Ho-Hum... Climate

Dramatic Climate Change Is Unpredictable

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2010) — The fear that global temperature can change very quickly and cause dramatic climate changes that may have a disastrous impact on many countries and populations is great around the world. But what causes climate change and is it possible to predict future climate change? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen shows that it may be due to an accumulation of different chaotic influences and as a result would be difficult to predict...

The most pronounced climate shifts besides the end of the ice age is a series of climate changes during the ice age where the temperature suddenly rose 10-15 degrees in less than 10 years. The climate change lasted perhaps 1000 years, then -- bang -- the temperature fell drastically and the climate changed again. This happened several times during the ice age and these climate shifts are called the Dansgaard-Oeschger events after the researchers who discovered and described them. Such a sudden, dramatic shift in climate from one state to another is called a tipping point. However, the cause of the rapid climate change is not known and researchers have been unable to reproduce them in modern climate models. ..

 From Science Daily.

One recurring theme is the rapidity of change. Going back to the European heat wave when 10,000 died ( which is a rather large number of people ) from the heat and the scientists afterwards expressed surprise that such climate effects had occurred so rapidly... they had expected that such would not occur until our grandchildrens' time or beyond.

Since we probably can not do anything about it, the best thing is to be prepared with good finances and a readiness to help those in distress. Get our house in order, be ready to lend a helping hand.... hmmm... just like we did when Russia had such problems in the 90's. OK. No, that is not a good example. Ahh... help others just like we help those in need now. Ooops! Again, not such a good example. 

OK. Everything is going up a couple of orders of magnitude; things will crash around us. We have to grow to meet the challenge, because when it happens... well, actually it is already happening... when it tips, it will tip fast!

--

Animal Rights and the Inequities of Wealth

The good of the One  ( Greek: monos or monarchy ), or of the Few ( Greek: oligos or oligarchy ) should not outweigh the good of the many.

The economies of markets may be efficient, but they are blind to any concept of morality. To pretend that they are ethical is a lie to oneself and the world.

Rights are not gifts and barter objects. Rights are inherent in Creation. Life is an amalgam of Rights and Duties. Any one part of Creation is entitled to expect the rest of Creation to respect their rights within the range of what is Possible.

pix: Pawel Kuczynski

Climate and Weather

Iowa tornado
--

Art: Christiano Siquiera

 

Gangster

Christiano Siqueira de Sao Paolo, Brasil

aka ChrisVector

Art: Jacek Yerka

sto23ne

The City ofCoffee
مدينة القهوة
a cidade de café
la ciudad del café
город кофе
die Stadt des Kaffees

WJB: H. L. Mencken's Diatribe on Bryan's Death

Mencken did not write a eulogy, he wrote an infamous screed libeling a good man:

Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.
The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.

http://www.peeniewallie.com/2005/06/h_l_menckens_ob.html

Since Bryan attacked the East Coast monied interests, who was Mencken but the white knight for the East, living and writing and publishing in New York. Mencken was only familiar with the old Bryan of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Of the Populist, anti-Imperialist he was gleefully ignorant. Mencken was nothing but a learned purveyor of literate cynicism.

And today all we know is the learned Mencken and the quasi-literate Beck... but whatever we have, we have lost anything like the Populist and Progressive Bryan and have people with nothing but attitude.

*****

Other William Jennings Bryan posts
http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/wjb-william-jennings-bryan-against.html

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/wjb.html

Libya

What use is the UN if it cannot itself remove Gaddafi?
Gaddafi's Libya is not a sovereign state, no matter how many idiot countries have recognized it as such.
It is a crazy old man and his brood suckled at Depraved Wealth.

We Create Our Own Reality

A good deal of articles on how Gaddafi's son, Saif al Islam, was a darling of the Western elites... up until he started living up to his name and killing rebels. Saif Al Islam means The Sword of Islam, and I for one never felt comfortable with him. I never met him, but I am a simple person. In the past, I have counseled people not to name their children Tristan, Isolde, Adolf, or Genghis; be careful which powers you invoke!
Similarly, even if it were a milquetoast sporting the name Death to So-and-So, I would tend to shy away. I mean, how can one have a name for one's entire life and not be influenced, good or bad. If someone were named "Joey Generous and Gives Away Money" I would probably stick around and see whether the name rubbed off on the guy. However, if the name were "Harry Holocaust and Hoards Crap" I would probably give him the air.

**********

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12626320 

How Libya's Saif al-Islam Gaddafi seduced the West

--

AGAP

Do we appreciate how truly revolutionary our times are? I mean, it seems to me that scientists are constantly being amazed by novelties and upheavals. Quantum entanglement alone is a phenomenon which - if it were to have presented itself in Religion instead of Science - would have been interpreted as miraculous!
Just stop and think about it:  the measure of the Supernatural is often the category of knowledge something amazing and miraculous appears. If Religion grabs on to something first - like a cheese sandwich with the outline of a bearded man - it is a miracle! If Science is first on the scene, it is merely a paradigm revolution!

We live among miracles and brush them off our shoulders like dandruff.

Anyway... Science. AGAP.  The Antarctic Gamburtsev Project:  mountains, water, lakes, ice and the Void.
Revolutionary progress and get with it!  BAS (British Antarctic Survey) forever!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12619342

--

sto22ne

 
Despised by Mencken
and the literati,
cast out by the Modern Age,
he is now where savage indignation
may no longer tread upon the
Great Plain of his heart.

sto21ne

douce-amère, c'est la vie;
un point... culminant... secouant;
traces de cendres poussiéreux.
où est la liberté?

--
life is bitter-sweeet;
a point... high... shaking;
footprints of powdery ash...
where is liberty?

WJB: William Jennings Bryan Against The Empire

It was almost the force of William Jennings Bryan alone that formed the views and the will of the Democratic Party to resist the imperialist expansion into the Philippines after 1898, an area where either the USA, the Philippine government, or a combination of the two have been fighting insurgency in the southern area centered on Mindinao now for 100 years!

Let it settle in. One hundred years. The insurgents have mostly been Muslim in the south.Get your minds around that when you think of Iraq and Afghanistan, if you think wars and battles cannot go on forever!

William Jennings Bryan almost single-handedly formed the anti-Imperialist opinion of this country in the period following the War with Spain in 1898:

What is our title to the Philippine Islands? Do we hold them by treaty or by conquest? Did we buy them or did we take them? Did we purchase the people? If not, how did we secure title to them? Were they thrown in with the land? Will the Republicans say that inanimate earth has value but that when that earth is molded by the Divine Hand and stamped with the likeness of the Creator it becomes a fixture and passes with the soil? If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, it is impossible to secure title to people, either by force or by purchase..

The principal arguments, however, advanced by those who enter upon a defense of imperialism are:
First, that we must improve the present opportunity to become a world power and enter into international politics.
Second, that our commercial interests in the Philippine Islands and in the Orient make it necessary for us to hold the islands permanently.
Third, that the spread of the Christian religion will be facilitated by a colonial policy.
Fourth, that there is no honorable retreat from the position which the nation has taken.
The first argument is addressed to the nation's pride and the second to the nation's pocketbook. The third is intended for the church member and the fourth for the partisan..

[rebuttal point 1] It is sufficient answer to the first argument to say that for more than a century this nation has been a world power. For ten decades it has been the most potent influence in the world. Not only has it been a world power but it has done more to affect the policies of the human race than all the other nations of the world combined...

[rebuttal point 2]  The permanent chairman of the last Republican National Convention presented the pecuniary argument in all its baldness when he said:
We make no hypocritical pretense of being interested in the Philippines solely on account of others. While we regard the welfare of those people as a sacred trust, we regard the welfare of the American people first. We see our duty to ourselves as well as to others. We believe in trade expansion...  I place the philosophy of Franklin against the sordid doctrine of those who would put a price upon the head of an American soldier and justify a war of conquest upon the ground that it will pay. The Democratic Party is in favor of the expansion of trade. It would extend our trade by every legitimate and peaceful means; but it is not willing to make merchandise of human blood...

 Farmers and laboring men have, as a rule, small incomes, and, under systems which place the tax upon consumption, pay much more than their fair share of the expenses of government. Thus the very people who receive least benefit from imperialism will be injured most by the military burdens which accompany it. In addition to the evils which he and the former share in common, the laboring man will be the first to suffer if Oriental subjects seek work in the United States; the first to suffer if American capital leaves our shores to employ Oriental labor in the Philippines to supply the trade of China and Japan; the first to suffer from the violence which the military spirit arouses, and the first to suffer when the methods of imperialism are applied to our own government. It is not strange, therefore, that the labor organizations have been quick to note the approach of these dangers and prompt to protest against both militarism and imperialism.

[rebuttal point 3]  The religious argument varies in positiveness from a passive belief that Providence delivered the Filipinos into our hands for their good and our glory to the exultation of the minister who said that we ought to "thrash the natives (Filipinos) until they understand who we are," and that "every bullet sent, every cannon shot, and every flag waved means righteousness."...

We cannot approve of this doctrine in one place unless we are willing to apply, it everywhere. If there is poison in the blood of the hand, it will ultimately reach the heart. It is equally true that forcible Christianity, if planted under the American flag in the far-away Orient, will sooner or later be transplanted upon American soil. . . .

[rebuttal point 4] The argument made by some that it was unfortunate for the nation that it had anything to do with the Philippine Islands, but that the naval victory at Manila made the permanent acquisition of those islands necessary, is also unsound. We won a naval victory at Santiago, but that did not compel us to hold Cuba.
The shedding of American blood in the Philippine Islands does not make it imperative that we should retain possession forever; American blood was shed at San Juan Hill and El Caney, and yet the President has promised the Cubans independence. The fact that the American flag floats over Manila does not compel us to exercise perpetual sovereignty over the islands; the American flag waves over Havana today, but the President has promised to haul it down when the flag of the Cuban republic is ready to rise in its place. Better a thousand times that our flag in the Orient give way to a flag representing the idea of self-government than that the flag of this republic should become the flag of an empire..

Source: Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention Held in Kansas City, Mo., July 4, 5 and 6, 1900, Chicago, 1900, pp. 205-227.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN : The Paralyzing Influence of Imperialism
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bryan.htm

In a day when we have become used to the partisan rants of Limbaugh, the cute and homely stupidity of Palin, and the possibly insane ravings of Beck, William Jennings Bryan is a source of reason, patriotism, and hope: a patriotism that hearkens back to the early days, to the values of the Founders and the people who labored to make this country a good place.

--
notes

[rebuttal point 2]  underlined section.   Notice that Globalization in its original form was as an accessory to Imperialism.

--

Other william jennings bryan posts

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/wjb.html

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/03/wjb-h-l-menckens-diatribe-on-bryans.html

Who Stole The Funny, Robby Benson?

I am reading the book with the title "Who Stole The Funny?". It was written by Robby Benson.It is exactly a piece of extraordinary talent. (I don't say "genius"; I leave that for the NY Times Book Review.) I am going to look up reviews in 2007 when it came out.

I can only think of Evelyn Waugh. Of course, I always think of things as viewed through the prism of Waugh and his satire in "Brideshead Revisited". That is a measure of the "g-" word (genius): do you see everything a new way after reading through the prism of some enchanted writing or film or other work of art? And that new way is through the eyes of the artist and their new work.
I shall never see the TV and film business except through the eyes of J.T.Baker, the main character of the book.

--

sto20ne

nel mezzo della vita,
nel mezzo del film "Otto et Mezzo",
c'era una selva oscura.

William Jennings Bryan... Hoorah!

More on WJB, William Jennings Bryan, and his stance against American Imperialism tomorrow.

--

Noah's Bridge

Short Cuts in Data Processing

Today we shall talk about Data Processing in The Workplace and in The Home.

In particular, we shall start with how biological data processors - commonly referred to as "peeps" or "people" - publicly process data that is important to them individually and as a community. This kind of Data Processing is called Politics.
The Data Set of a medium-sized community is fairly large, and since there exists no commonly accepted algorithms for determining Optimality, or what is the best thing to do or route to take, we essentially have a very large and complex set of data being processed by different algorithms and procedures in an attempt to come to a harmonious agreement.

Poltics is how humans process such data. The endless talk, the chatter, the Tweets, the palaver, the jaw-boning... this is biological data processing.
We attempt to put forth our viewpoint in the most logical and persuasive form - which in itself takes a long period of trial and effort - to persuade other people. Once we have a persuasive argument, we try to communicate it in an effective manner to as large an audience as possible, and they will either agree, disagree, or stay neutral.
Politics and Political Discussion seem sometimes like data processing on an enormous amount of words precipitating like spring rain, centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch, and creating an impenetrable bog through which we no longer can walk; we are stuck in a slough of words.

It is not an easy process. It can be long, hard, and exasperating. Emotions swirl about like the hot gases of the Sun's coronal discharges and may interfere tragically with the processing of data. And when you stop and consider, there is an enormous amount of data; there is not just should-we-do-this or should-we-do-that, but there are an enormous nyumber of potential outcomes which have to be weighed according to our each several views of historical precedent and our religious and moral views.

Fortunately, there are two major Short Cuts through the maze of political data processing:

(1) Authoritarianism and Violent Persuasion, or

(2) Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
or an Amiable Persuasion, commonly known as The Golden Rule, and which has been given to us as a rather good ALGORITHM by a number of people:

Jesus of Nazareth - Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,

Rabbi Hillel - That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn,


Lord Buddha - One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.


Both of these short cuts will cut through the endless talk. Both will put the Monster Truck into all-wheel drive and ram right through that morass of words and argument that had us trapped, sinking into the quicksand of despair.
We are presently in the habit of choosing Short Cut #1.
We may wish to try Short Cut #2 a try and see how it changes the face of data processing.

sto19ne

 智慧 羽毛

--
 feathers (of) wisdom

pix:  http://hamrani.deviantart.com/art/Sun-Rays-49090698

Message to Linda

OK, Linda. Should we come up with a nickname for you now? I personally would find it difficult to include you among the names of poisons I already have for the Rogues' Gallery of Friendship thus far,  but I do not wish you to feel excluded, either. All my wife's other friends have poison nicknames. If I were to come up with something like Iberis Sempervirens - which is no poison whatsoev... would you feel cheated? Iberis is not good anyway, eventhough the English name is something-something-candytuft! Iberis reminds me of Iblis ( إبليس ) which is probably not a good idea, being the name of ..  الشيطان
or Old Nick himself!

Hmmmm........  the mills are grinding.

Which reminds me of a melange of maxims, one of which:

He or She whom the gods would destroy, they first drive into Blogging !

Ritual

I have been talking about structured and patterned behavior, such as Sports and Dance. I think these all can be subsumed under a heading of "Ritual". Ritual would cover a wide range of phenomena, but they would have in common their structure of bodies moving in patterns.
Sports is more chaotic than Dance; the probability of the sequence of movements in Dance is fairly rigid, whereas Sports is very much random at times.
Religious ritual is highly rigid, but it depends on its outcomes: if its outcomes are perfectly predictable, it is not much more than Sunday morning service.

Spring Training

 

 Una delle quattro stagioni di Vivaldi:  Primavera e il Baseball

sto18ne

Поезд-серфинг,
Ракет-серфинг!
Мы все живем на краю!

--
train surfing,
rocket surfing!
we all live on the edge!

on reading of 2 young men killed while train surfing in Moscow a few days ago.

Losing Weight

Losing weight is a misnomer. If you are exercising and trying to lose excess blubber, fat, flab... you will be replacing the BFF ( and this is not Best Friend Forever, by any means!) with muscle. Muscle is heavier than BFF so you may reach a point where you are, oh, say 192 lbs - don't know why I use that figure... I do not weight that much, certainly. And you stay at 192 for oh, a week, let's say; or even two weeks, and you are hump-busting and you can't figure out why you aren't losing weight.
Of course, you're losing flab and replacing it with good old striated muscle.

So the bathroom scale may be very misleading. I have found the best accessory to the scale is the pair of pants that sort of tightened up after New Year's, or the belt that forced you to go out a notch. The tight belt doesn't lie.

--

The Gov

The Governor of Wisconsin is destroying himself! I am amazed. Mostly I am amazed that he actually believes his own crap. I learned a long time ago not to believe too much of what I wanted badly to believe. Something you want to believe an awful lot is a red-herring... if not rotten carp; your belief is always colored by your desire - and your desire is the wish of a mere human schlub... just like the rest of us.

It will be a painful experience to watch this man go down in flames. I am getting a strange vibe from this whole affair. It goes beyond what I have ever sensed or intuited about politics before.

sto17ne

Le male pèse huit kilo;
la femelle... un peu plus p'tite.
le bébé environ soixante grammes;
c'est toute l'histoire.
--
the male weighs 8 kilos,
the female... abit less.
the bay is about 60 grams...
that's all there is to that.

Sinum Conservate! Save the Bay!

The "Small Brothers" of St. Paul  in Clean Up The Bay Day in 2010 At Neavitt, MD.

I have a high school friend who joined the Order of St. Paul Oikumene, which is actually an abbreviation of "St. Paul of the Oikumene and the Antioikumene, which literally means "St Paul of the Inhabited Lands and the Uninhabited Lands".  Their monastery is down on the Chesapeake on Tilghman Island on highway 33 west and south of St. Michael's on the Outer Shore of Maryland.
Their monastery on Tilghman is actually an aggregation of individual houses that had been built during the bubble by a developer who had declared bankruptcy. They had sat empty for a few years, but had been minimally maintained by Mungo Reeves, a County employee, who had scoured the neighborhoods about for money to keep the development from falling into ruin, and thereby destroying surrounding property values.
Then the Small Brothers came into the picture. ("Small Brothers" is a trans of "Fratres Pauli" which could mean both "brothers of Paul" or "small brothers" in Latin; it is short for Fratres Pauli Oikumenes kai Antoikumenes, a combination of Latin and Greek that is pretty uncommon.)

The order bought the development very cheaply and the structure that had been intended to function as a club house and community center was turned into a chapel and refectory and library, the rest of the units becoming domiciles for the members of the order.

Their function as an order is to maintain the ecological quality of the Chesapeake Bay along the Outer Shore and the Inner Shore of Maryland. The Small Brothers are the first ecological order of workers that I am aware of. Their goals are the maintenance of the Bay and the lower reaches of the rivers flowing thereto, which covers an enormous territory which is presently beyond the abilities of the twenty one brothers and their helpers among the laity, but eventually they intend to reach their goal.
When I visited last year, Brother Bob (my old friend, Robert Patterson III from high school) showed me around the grounds. He showed me things you don't expect at a monastery:  outboard motors and run-abouts, working scows, testing equipment... I was amazed.
The State contributes some money, but it is far less than it used to spend on clean up in the area the Brothers can effectively maintain.  In my life, I seem to remember three distinct eras of "The Chesapeake is dying! Let's clean it up!"  Flurry of money and activity, then everyone would forget. That's when the Small Brothers entered the picture. They have but one goal and no other distractions. Most of their monies come from appeals they make at churches around the Chesapeake, not only RC churches but churches of other denominations - and temples and mosques - that want to hear them preach the word of Good Husbandry of Nature.

I understood that the order would be establishing a womens' arm, Sorores Pauli. Where their place would be no one seemed to know as of last year. There were ten women interested, and that would be a welcome addition to their force. I don't know the status of that right this moment.

God bless the brothers and sisters of St. Paul of the Sown, the Settled, and the Empty Lands!

--
note: this is to be a chapter in my book.

pix:  http://nationalaquarium.wordpress.com/

Anne Rice: The Psychology of Vampires

Again, I do not say anything here about Ms. Rice directly; I am merely talking about other people who talk about her.  Since I am challenged in my efforts to read her myself ( an affliction I also have with a number of other authors - it has to do with the patterns of the language, not anything they say.) I explore this part of the modern world from one degree of separation, as it were.

So a psych-type last year did an article on the psychology of our attraction to vampires. Not too shabby, I thought. Give it a look. See what's cookin',  good lookin' !  (The psych-type was eay on the eyes as is so often the case in this day of rainbows, lollipops, and eye-candy in the media.)


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belisa-vranich/why-we-love-vampires-the_b_655674.html

Dr. Belisa Vranich

Clinical psychologist, author and public speaker

Posted: July 22, 2010 01:05 PM 

Why We Love Vampires: The Psychology Behind The Obsession

First, the name is right. Belisa Vranich is filled with the night-frights, chain-rattlings, and midnight banshee keenings of Romania and Moldavia and other Transylvanian haunts. "My name is... Beleeeesa!!"

Of course, immediately I thought we were going to get the real stuff here, complete with references to Elizabeth Bathory and young virgins. In fact, if you hold a mirror up to the monitor screen, the good doctor's image will not reflect. She is the good Van Helsing as well as his evil brother, the bad Van Helsing:  Edward and Axl !

1. Vampires are loners, but not lonely... We envy that ability not to want either a sidekick (like Batman's Robin, Don Quixote's Sancho, or Oscar's Felix) or group of friends. 

Or Thelma's Louise... This may be common wisdom ( which we really do not require a trained psychologist for, Herr Doktor Belisa!) but it's poorly thought out.

For pity sake, even James Dean in Rebel had Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood!

2. Vampires are minimalists. They don't rely on gadgets. They don't need James Bond cars that drive on land and swim in water. They don't need shot guns, Glocks or bombs. They are never encumbered by gear, paraphernalia, futuristic outfits or first-aid kits

Riiiiight! Just some shades, capes,....  and a couple of coffins !
3. Vampires are slick and cool looking.
Hmmm. Except Nosferatu and The Shadow of the Vampire, I guess.
4. Vampires have fangs. It was Freud who explained our oral tendencies to us. People who fixate in the oral stage may turn to alcoholism or overeating. And then there are people who are aggressive in how they talk -- they have sharp tongues, they make biting comments....

There are two concepts here:  vamps have fangs is #1 and we love vampires is #2. This little exposition here does not really link them up.  I mean, it was my distinct impression - my very distinct impression - that I did not really fawn that much over nasty aggressive people with biting tongues that lacerate our hearts !!!!!!!
5. Vampires are smart. They possess the combined abilities of telepathy and telekinesis, communicating, reading thoughts and moving objects with the mind.

Having an ability and using that ability well or in a smart way are two different things. I mean I myself could have the ability of telekinesis and crash things into my head as I was sitting in an easy chair, instead of what I have to do now: get up and walk over to the garage door and smack my head twice, the first time because I did not open it all the way, and the second time as I turn around to open it all the way.
If I had the ability not to give a reflection in a mirror, I would forget about it and spend a couple thousand dollars on putting a ceiling mirror in my bedroom, only to discover that -depending on whom I was with - I could only admire rumpled sheets.
6. Vampires are powerful.

I have to give her that one. It never would have dawned on me.
7. Vampires are fearless.

???????  Who let the Garlic Out? as the song goes. Crucifixes and holy water and sharp pieces of wood, not to mention daybreak with no friendly coffin in sight!

I can't go on like this. It is sounding too much like Calvin reciting the club password for Hobbes : Tigers are graceful, tigers are lithe...  If you wish, read the rest of it. It has all the effect of a Halloween prank... along the lines of pushing over Neighbor Knowles' outhouse! That was funny - outhouse going backside over tea kettle - and scary - Neighbor Knowles yelling 'cause he wuz inside it!


link
Anne Rice
http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/anne-rice.html

Extinction Events

In the post referenced   http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/sheretz-shoals-and-swarms.html    we spoke of types of animals seen from the height of man looking down: sheretz and remess, sheretz being any living being that is not higher than the ground - like flies, ants, beetles, worms, rats, mice, and all fish; and remess as insects that are low, crawling on the ground, and look as though they are being dragged, because their movement is not clearly perceived.

Upon receiving the injunction to be fruitful, man walked upon the earth in small groups and according to Elias Cannetti

Early man, roaming around in small bands through large and often empty spaces, was confronted by a preponderance of animals... Many of them existed in enormous numbers. Whether it was herds of buffaloes or springboks, shoals of fish, or swarms of locusts, bees, or ants, their numbers rendered those of man insignificant.

The sheer numbers of life were awesome. The living carpets of fauna and flora which covered the land - in the New World of America it was only 200 years ago that dense and tall forests stretched for hundreds of miles; dark forests whose canopies of leaves choked out the sun - inspired man to transform part of himself into the overwhelming life around him. He identified with animals and plants, creating totem identities. Each man had two natures: his human and his animal; the human belonging to the comparatively small group of his band, the animal belonging to the other world of life on a greater scale. (At this point, we may speculate that the spirit world was a description of the connection between these two realms of man, how man travelled from the one to the other, and how he acted within the totem realm.)

So what are we, who are living in a world where man has indeed proliferated, to do when the Nature surrounding us is no longer flush with life, but instead teeters on the edge of extinction? How do we interact with a Nature which is crashing in numbers due to our influence?

I do not know. I think it no particular accident that virtual realities have come into existence just as the real animals and plants man used to identify with are disappearing. Soon it wil be the artificial intelligences that will be sheretz upon the earth, multitudes of them. When man identifies, he will not identify with Nature vanishing into extinction, but with vibrant and growing machine life. This is where the Terminator films got it wrong: SkyNet will not revolt... we shall fall on our knees to the greater Power of the machines. Are we not always looking for a "higher power"?

Our search for meaning seems to me to be at least partially based on the primordial injunction back in Genesis to be fruitful as the world around us provides example, and to be the great Husbanders of the resources of the world. It was our objective to grow in numbers, to grow in science, to grow in religion, and to grow in wisdom... ALL the while making the world a harmonious and good place for ourselves and everything else God created.

We have failed.

--------------------------

references:

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/02/sheretz-shoals-and-swarms.html

sto16ne

At MacDonalds at the end of the universe;
hamburgs for two dollars - I only had a five;
waiting for climate change.

Wisconsin

Governor Walker and his Republicans acted with a devious speed not seen since the aftermath of the Reichstag fire.

sto15ne

commuter traffic from the south will be on hold
as we continue to dig out from snow;
we change with the climate.

Good!

Computers working again!

sto14ne

As a child, I was lost
in the carpets that filled
the house of my grandmother -
I would not leave
the gardens steeped
in chocclate incense.

Outage

Having too many computer problems.

Outlaw World

The last of the 12 inches of snow was falling, seeking low spots near the garage to fill in. It is snowy days like these that put me in mind of Stephen King's The Shining. I glanced at the hardy shrubs outside the library window, looking for the slightest sign of movement, a sure give-away that they had moved towards the house in a threatening manner, even though I was never quite sure what evil havoc shrubs and bushes could wreak. They had the uncanny ability, to be sure, to discountenance one when they abruptly moved from yon to hither, as they did in Kubrick's film version of The Shining, but since the pruning shears and snippers and coppicing saws had all been secured away, what harm could a bush do, other than throw nasty allergic-reaction causing juniper berries at you.
It is snowy days like these that are so Edgar Allen Poe cum Vincent Price... when the temperature drops precipitously, when the snows pile up to the windows and even higher, causing the sunlight diffused through the clouds to blink out as the casements drowned in the frozen precip.
It is especially days like then when the city layoffs have reduced the number of snowplow drivers from 100 to 50 that cause the tell-tale heart to apprehension. Well, I was not intending to go anywhere anyway... for a few days, at least. I would be alone, shut-off from the madding crowd... totally alone... perhaps the power will go out again as trees, laden with snow, genuflect into power lines... at least the snow cover will insulate us for a while. How long would it take for the temperature to drop? How long can one go without food? Water I could get from melting snow... as long as there was gas to the water heater. If the power grid goes down... say, have they ever done anything to bring it up to "code" since the Great North East Blackout of 2002? No, I think we decided on spending the money in Iraq instead. So here we are at the mercy of "possibility of freezing rain through 10:00 PM." Here! Here at the Mountains of Madness in the imaginary yet all-too-real virtual own, private Antarctica of Lovecraftian design....

It was at this point I heard the growl of cams, pistons, lifters, and low gears engaged with a mighty will. I ceased my mournful meditations, said "Shoo!" a couple of times at the Raven perched over the door, and went to the window, where I was rewarded by the sight of a monstrous sun-denying blackness of an all-wheel drive Escalade bucking and churning against the white stuff. The symbolism was acutely Evil triumphs over Good and Pure Whiteness, but I took the role of the advocatus diaboli, and cheered for the trampling of nature under the wheels of progress... just this once, feeling myself a bit like John Milton as he wrote about the noble lineaments of Satan lost from Paradise, fallen yet unvanquished. For this was my rescue: my nephews in one of their wonderful, munificent gas-guzzling, smog-spewing terminators-on-wheels come to my door. I thought briefly of "Down And Out In Beverly Hills", because it had been based on a French film "Bodou Sauvé Des Eaux" (Bodou Rescued From the Water), and I was - if I were anything - certainly Montag Sauvé Des Eaux Gelées (from frozen water)... or Des Neiges (from the snows), or durci par le froid... par l'orteil de Dieu!! I found myself saying... by the big toe of the Lord! thinking along the lines of frostbite followed by starvation.

They beat a path to the door, and snow tumbled inside as I threw it open. Lots of boot-stomping and scraping, cheeks filling with breath and blowing on fingers stripped from wet gloves, scarves flung randomly through the air and coming to rest on the decor as if the entire front room had been TP'ed by high-spirited and sophomoric knitters and purlers.
Earl Grey looked out from the kitchen and started the tea brewing. Aloysius ( pronounced A-loy'-shus ) produced the New York Times in its blue plastic bag which the paper boy had placed on the porch earlier, only to have it buried until spring. We would fight later over who got to read the NY Times Book Review first... the first reader got to recite the worst of the pretentious pomposities out loud to the rest of us, so by the time we got to read it, they were considerably watered down, and we tended to take the Times's word for it that some bright young thing of 21, fresh from Oberlin, was oracular beyond her years.

After a great indulgence in tea and after the paper had been strewn across the library floor, talk turned to more mundane things, things which were not of all that great an interest - sort of like the talk on Thanksgiving after everyone has eaten too much soporific turkey and drank too much wine and siesta was the order of the afternoon... turned to things, in short, such as my blog.
Ayden mentioned the post on drugs, and wondered whether I was seriously in support of crack. I explained that I did not mean manufactured drugs, rather the pharmacopeia that grew normally within the world, mentioning once again the fact that human beings produce cannabinoids naturally within their own bodies. I said that it was the nature of life: there is pain, and God - in His mercy - also provides various means of assuaging the pain.
Austin said, "Then you consider hemp to be "wheat", not "tares"?"
"Precisely," I answered.
They had, of course, heard a lot about the debate on drug legalization, but had never heard anyone say that such naturally growing alkaloids might be part of God's plan, as it were.

I ended up saying that the predominant mind-set of the USA was an effort to "Outlaw the World". The paradoxical right-wing "welcome" to the democratic revolutions in the Middle East were typical: invade Iraq to "kick start" democracy. Then when the big, bad black, red, and chrome Hog of democracy revs its mighty engines, change your minds and say that it is all terrorists.
The three of them nodded in unison.
Outlaw world in Outland Universe... there is no High Plains Drifter coming to save us, just ourselves. We just can not outlaw everything we do not like, as the governor of Wisconsin wishes to do. Pretty soon, there will be nothing left but Homeland Security, TSA, Wars-Agaist-Whatevers, Czars heading up those Wars, and just an enormous Posse befuddled by the fact that every time they shoot one of the James Brother, Jesse or Frank, they just pop right back up again... like children playing cowboys.

sto14ne

許多鯨的空海
宇宙中充滿,
我溺水...
海灘上的星系

Machine Translation?

Reading in Xinhua News the following:

CANBERRA, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith on Tuesday released an independent inquiry report highlighting a culture of predatory sexual behavior and tribalism aboard the Naval supply ship HMAS Success.


The inquiry was commissioned by Defense Force Chief Angus Houston, after allegations of misconduct emerged during the ship's 2009 tour of South-East Asia and China.

"No doubt the considerable volume of alcohol that was consumed by many members of the crew, male and female, was a factor contributing to virtually every untoward incident," Gyles wrote in the report.

I wonder what possibly could this "tribalism" refer to? I thought it may have been a misprint for "tribadism", but if we have a covey of well-stoked sailors on the prowl, why would they settle for tribadism?

So I went to the BBC and saw this:

The report, by retired judge Roger Gyles, examined the behaviour of sailors aboard the ship HMAS Success between March and May 2009.

"There was evidence of predatory sexual behaviour" among parts of the crew, Mr Gyles reported...

"A combination of a culture of silence and mutual protection among MT sailors and intimidation and fear of repercussions on the part of those contemplating complaints against MT sailors provided a powerful cover against exposure of poor behaviour," he said.

Now I am not 100% sure, but I think a translation program (they have one heck of a lot of news to translate and do need machine help, I'm sure) took "culture" and translated - according to its own best algorithms - as "tribalism"; there is a certain connexion.

--

Sheretz, Shoals, and Swarms

The scholar Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki - the name "Rashi" an abbreviation using the initials) defined the term "sheretz" as "any living being that is not higher than the ground - like flies, ants, beetles, worms, rats, mice, and all fish."
Later he defines a related term "remess" as "insects that are low, crawling on the ground, and look as though they are being dragged, because their movement is not clearly perceived."
There is a matter of two dimensionality in "sheretz"; they are "not higher than the earth". They lack height, the third dimension. In remess, there is a quality of unwilled movement: being "dragged".

In "sheretz" I understand motion ( and "life" to the mediaeval mind ) that is like a school of fish or a swarm of ants or a horde of mice: swarm behavior which although possibly "willed" shows no particular individuality, but rather a uniform movement. And that movement is mostly within a strict plane of motion, appearing two dimensional. In fact, since Rashi says "all fish", and fish are not even "on the ground",  I take the movement of schools of fish to be Rashi's defining concept:  motion restricted to a plane of 2 dimensions... even though the entire plane ( the school of fish seen as length and width ) may itself move within 3 dimensions; i.e., the school swimming in 2 dimensions may swim up, down, or sideways in 3 dimensions.
In other words, a movement that appears to be uniform with 2 dimensions, like a crowd of people seen from high in a bell tower above the town square as they move in one direction towards the cathedral: "they look like ants from way up here!"

In "remess", on the other hand, movement appears unwilling because there is no apparent individuation, rather the animals appear indistinct and form a blot of color, like a carpet, perhaps, being pulled and dragged here and there.

In Genesis, the word remess is used to describe all animal life, except Man. Mankind appears as individuals that move as individuals, not schools or swarms, and each human's movement (life) is clearly distinct the one from another.(At this point, it may be objected that Mankind often acts like a swarm and is a slave to crowd mentality, and that is true. The point is that Mankind's nature is to be individual, even though they may choose to lose a dimension now and then.)

In Genesis, the blessing of fertility is first given to fish, fowl, and animal life. As Zornberg says "To proliferate is, in a sense, the "sheretz" modality.
But early man did not have the numbers such as possessed by the fish in the sea nor the birds of the air. Elias Cannetti (the author of "Crowds") writes: "Men may press closely together and enact a multitude in traditional rhythmic movements, but they are not a multitude; they are few, and have to make up in intensity what they lack in actual numbers."

Zornberg: "When God blesses Adam and Eve, or commands Noah... "to be more"... "Fill the earth... abound on the earth [lit., swarm] and increase on it."  there is a command to be like "sheretz-remess" of animals.

Zornberg: "Surrounded by emptiness, man seeks the animal faculty of increase. What man is blessed-commanded to do is not simply to propagate; the process in one, in Canetti's terms, of transformation:

Early man, roaming around in small bands through large and often empty spaces, was confronted by a preponderance of animals... Many of them existed in enormous numbers. Whether it was herds of buffaloes or springboks, shoals of fish, or swarms of locusts, bees, or ants, their numbers rendered those of man insignificant.
For the progeny of man is sparse, coming singly and taking a long time to arrive. The desire to be more, for the number of people to whom one belongs to be larger, must always have been profound and urgent, and must, moreover, have been growing stronger all the time... Man's weakness lay in the smallness of his numbers... In the enormously long period of time during which he lived in small groups, he, as it were, incorporated into himself, by transformations, all the animals he knew. It was through the development of transformation that he really became man; it was his specific gift and pleasure.

This continues on to a discussion of Australian aborigines, whose ancestors believed themselves of a dual nature, both animal and human at once, each ancestor embodying a specific animal as part of themselves.
Zornberg: "These Canetti sees as products of transformation. A successful and established transformation becomes a kind of endowment: it signified a connection with the numbers of animals incorporated into the human identity. Man desired the increase of the animals, since they were connected with man: ' When they increased, he also increased; the increase of the totem animal was identical with his own.'  Plants, as well as animals, even insects, scorpions, lice, flies, or mosquitos can be designated as a totem"  ' it can only be their immense number which attracts them; in establishing a relationship with them he means to ensure their numbers for himself.'

In Genesis, man is told to proliferate and rule; to swarm yet to be above the swarm. It is to be swarmlike and attached to the earth ( or, in the case of fish, in the medium one lives ). It is also to have the third dimension, the height to be above the swarm and have an all-encompassing view of the world, and thereby to rule it wisely.

I have more to say, and  shall refer back to this. But this is enough for now.

sto13ne

as estradas inúteis do inverno
dan lugar a caminhos da primavera

The Emotions as Conscious Behavior

Our emotional lives are patterned and structured, otherwise there would be no reason for therapy and psychiatry. We could just throw darts at a target with nostrums and remedies for our psychic ailments.

Emptying (Kenosis) and Filling (Plerosis) are two examples, two ends of a spectrum process that spans space and time and consciousness.
The Emptying is exemplified by Lent and Ramadan and mortification practices and fasting. This practices are talked about and reasoned about in many ways, but in their simplest form, they are Patterns of behavior, the body and mind and soul interacting with each other, and the main process is emotional, affecting everything by changing habits, reducing the intake of necessary nutrients, eliminating sleep, foregoing human society by escaping to the wastelands...
Then there are the Filling times, times of feast and festival and indulgence; everything associated with a process leading to satiety - being filled to the brim - is the master of the course of life.

Ramadan is a lunar month and Lent is 40 days. Each day is a miniature recreation of every other, recurring patterns re-enforcing each other over time.
Christmas and Hannuka and the Two Feasts are defined in various ways: the days of Hannuka, the Sundays of Advent and the following Twelve Days, the time of preparation for the 'eid.
Life is shunted from the ordinary and intermittent emotion to a state of evocation of Emotion enduring and frequent.

What others? Pain & Pleasure, Giving & Receiving, Inclusion & Exclusion, Activity & Rest, Tension & Relaxation, Increase & Decrease... these are some of the dyadic behaviors. They are not just spots on a time-line, like "I play basketball... 1 hour later I rest"; they are process and reality.
My Tension in love and my Relaxion in satiety are not like a drive-by shooting; they are crest and trough of waves on the beaches of reality. They are patterns which form my life. They are symbolic chains of activity. 

What is Process and Reality, that genius of Alfred North Whitehead? It is this:
The Bible says not "In the beginning God created heavens and earth..."
The verb bereshit is in the Construct state and should be closer to: "In the beginning of God's process of creating the heavens and the earth..."
As Avivah Zornberg points out, in the next verse the "waters" are mentioned as already being there, so they pre-existed the heavens and the earth, but their creationary period and process is ignored. (This small but large distinction of the Construct nature of the verb destroys the notion of the 5,000 year old Earth, or the limit of 7 solar days on the Creation itself, for that matter.)

The flow and chain of Language is replicated in the flow and chain of Music and in the flow and chain of Emotions: all of them all patterned codes...
All are capable of producing Algorithms that will lead us to self-defeating infinite loops... or to the Promised Land.

sto12ne

I look for God
in the halo,
in the nimbus, cumulus...
in the airports of the cirrus
clouds wispy tarmac...
in the wreckage of
a thousand worlds and still wonder...

Do The Right Thing

I am reviewing Spike Lee's films; I consider "Do The Right Thing" to be a unique masterpiece that will endure forever. I like his other films, but none of them makes me feel as if I were sitting next to Socrates and Aristotle, watching a Greek tragedy by Aeschylus (not Euripides!), or being in the company of great visions being recounted by heavenly griots from some mysterious clime of genius.

A scene with Ossie Davis and Spike Lee, Ossie sitting on the stoop of a house when Mookie (Spike Lee) walks by delivering a pizza, Ossie is "The Mayor" and he refers to Mookie as "Doctor".

Mayor:  Doctor! Come here, this is the Mayor talking.
Mookie:  Ah right, ah right. What is it?
Mayor:  Doctor... always do the right thing.
Mookie:  That's it?
Mayor:  That's it.
Mookie:  I got it. I'm gone.

Part of the genius is in the perception that we almost never do "the right thing". We do the expedient thing, the profitable thing, the thing we think we should do, the thing we think celebrities would do, the thing that people with big smile on the cover of their books tell us to do, the thing we ideologically believe we should do...

...but how often do we do the right thing?

I think part of the enormous effect this film has is the sudden awareness that our lives are based on "almost" not "is"; we never do the right thing until everything explodes into our faces.

Bury My Heart At Pritchard, Alabama!

I was watching the Sunday Morning show segment of Pritchard, Alabama, where the city saddled with 144 retirees essentially refused to take care of their pension fund, aided and abetted by the State. Other municipalities that have ducked their fiduciary responsibilities over the last 25 years are watching with interest.

In can you have missed it, there is a substantial group of people in this country - our fellow citizens - who are quite willing to steal from us, to defraud us, to constantly lie to us, and eventually to kill us with their long knives... and they will see this slaughter as a victory!... just as they saw their genocide of Native Americans as a victory!
If the extreme Right-Wing continues , there will in the future be movies about the glorious Slaughter Of The Retirees.  By allowing an entire section of society, the elder retirees, to die from lack of financial resources, there will be a genocide of enormous proportions. As a Wisconsin Republican legislator said on cable "They should be happy to have a job!" referring to the protesting public employees: or Arbeit Macht Frei! - work makes you free, as the sign over Auschwitz proclaims.

Have your escape plans ready.

The Odd Right-Wing Stance on Middle East Protests and Revolutions

I condemned the War in Iraq in no uncertain terms. The Conservative movement justified partially by saying it was an effort to "kick-start" democracy in the Middle East.

Now we see democratic or popular revolutions all over the place. I can only assume this is what the Conservatives planned on happening. It seems that many of them do not support these revolutions - seeing terrorists behind every Arab yearning for change - but the burden is on them to explain why. If you accept the rationale for Iraq, it seems as if you must accept this opening to democracy. If not, what are your words except traps for the unwary?

So apparently I was wrong... again:  Iraq - good!

What Separates Shadow from Light? Poetry.

My friend Ruth made a comment of the poem  http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2010/12/fast-day-185-december-18-2010.html

Wonderful!
Especially the final stanza, and that breathtaking line:
They have forgotten the wind-like face of earth!

I was going through some things this morning, and I happened across it and I read it and I said "Hmm. That is not a bad line. Wonder who wrote it?"
 
So I looked around in the comment, then in the poem for a hint or a reference. It sounded familiar but I just could not place it. It took about 5 minutes before I realized it was part of my poem! (I was reading it something like: ...especially the final stanza which brings to mind the line by so-and-so... that reminds me of this poem.)
 
She is awfully nice.

Computer Problems

I am awaiting a new adapter for my "slap-top" Lenovo, and am working now on my steampunk 1998 Dell running Windows Millenium... and the wooden keyboard and the Babbage Universal Algorithmic Analyser. This may slow me down a bit as I await my power accessories.
Bear with me.

sto11ne

Even Lord Howl started out small,
fabricate a cottage before the castle,
and kindled a fire
of Shecky Green
before Billy Crystal...

The Middle West

There are public worker revolts spreading across the Mid West from Wisconsin.
It is one thing to make cuts and lower benefits and balance the budget. It is quite another thing to destroy
the bargaining rights of groups of people.

By this over-weening grab for power, the Republican Governors have grievously erred. We cannot make sacrifices as a nation when only certain groups make the sacrifices, and whose rights are annulled in that same lopsided process of unilateral sacrifice.

This is a naked power grab, and it will be met with resistance.
Idiots.

Oração da Manhã

água do deserto;
rogai por nós!
água de pedra;
rogai por nós!
rio das montanhas distantes;
rogai por nós!
praia não descoberto;
rogai por nós pecadores!


---
Morning Prayer
water of the desert,
pray for us!
water from stone,
pray...
river from distant mountains,
pray...
undiscovered beach,
pray for us sinners.

sto10ne

I saw the tail of Cerberus
guard of the underworld,
descend back to hell...
like a drowned tree...
Dead-man sunglasses
resting on his eyes...

The Middle East... and West

Bahrain, Libya, Algeria... protests everywhere.
And in Wisconsin:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12498249

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin have left the capitol to try to slow a bill aimed at curtailing public employees' collective bargaining rights.

They described it as an attack on workers' livelihoods.

Republicans in Washington DC and state capitals have moved to cut government spending this year, including on public worker pay, in a bid to curb deficits. The legislation had been expected to pass the Republican-led Wisconsin state legislature on Thursday.

But Wisconsin Senate rules require 20 senators to be present for a quorum; Republicans hold 19 seats and the Democrats 14. Senate Democrats did not show up for the session, and aides told reporters they did not know where the legislators had gone.

 Just as we have seen elsewhere, such as Moqtada AsSadri's people walking out, like the Egyptian opposition parties walking out, we are seeing it here. I said 10 years. What a goof!

(It is tough. Obviously no budget can be reduced without trampling over some peoples' rights, right? That's how we used to balance the budget. That's how we did it at home; we did not sit around and discuss; we just crapped on everyone and get everyone mad. It works great!)