Kim Kardashian Finds Lost Airplane !

I believe it was a birthday gift for a niece or nephew.
Sources are few and the data sketchy at this time.

--

Greetings from Alvin Xiao: 记下日期

I think that may be correct for "Save the Date" in the sense we hereabouts use it for events and parties.

Anyway, She-who-must-be-obeyed and I received our  记下日期 , or Save The Date, card from Alvin Xiao ____.  (I leave the last name blanked out for his privacy.) He will be one year old in the summer, and there is a multi-cultural get-together.

His father, the brother of my goddaughter, was not able to have a large wedding in the USA, even though he did have one in China. He keeps referring to this future shindig as partly a postponed wedding party - USA style - that he never had.

I told my wife that if he was expecting another gift, he was sorely mistaken. Nor would I throw dollar bills at him and his wife as they danced.

One year birthday gifts, however, are another matter entirely, and must be weighed seriously.

--

Foxy News

I think my mother approves of Megan Kelly.
Well, I know she approves of some pretty blonde lady on FOX, whom I think is Megan (or Meghan or whatever) Kelly.

She likes her because
(1) she is blonde, just as my mother is,
(2) she is a healthy Causcasian specimen, and
(3) she has a pleasant speaking voice.

The voice is important. My mother almost did not vote for McCain because Sarah Palin was his running mate, and the Palin voice was fingernails on a blackboard, or the twisting of styrofoam cups, or the popping of bubble wrap upon my mother's fair ears.

I said I did not like Ms. Kelly.
My mother was aghast. She said that surely I could tell Ms. Kelly was competent and truthful. I said that was reading a lot into blonde hair and lip gloss. (She seems to be the only FOX bathing beauty who wears a very opaque lip gloss, which sort of reflects the light back into the observer's face, intimidatingly, like the Georgian sunshine reflects off Sheriff Gillespie's sunglasses when he's giving Virgil Tibbs a hard time.)

I said that Ms. Kelly was talking so fast that she was tripping over her tongue. Indeed, she was. Very sweet, very loud, and very fast. It is part of the mythos of the place.
Bill O'Reilly gets to slow it down with his unctuous, stentorian tones. Perhaps the opinion people speak slowly to give the impression of weighty thought.
The news people chatter on at a rate calculated to make you think events are "unfolding" so fast that one can barely keep up, and before you blink an eye, more news is "on tap". This rapid machinegun-fire method of news delivery replaces the old frenzied teletype clattering in the background which was a feature of so many news shows back in the day.

When my mother asks for more information on a topic, I feel as if I must go and search the Internet for good articles and print them for her. I try to find factual presentations and stay away from opinionated garbage, which takes a bit of work.
Of course, that means I have to read the bloody stuff, thereby becoming more informed myself, which is something I usually try to avoid.

--

A Hierarchy Of Nonsense

Yesterday I wandered into my mother's kitchen, where she sat absorbing the news from FOX news.

The hot topic just at that time was whether Rush Limbaugh was correct in blasting the media for spending way too much time covering flight 370.

I think I literally sort of cock my head to one side when I come across these things. It was as if all the neurons were shipping to the starboard side of the cranium, and the old ship of self was beginning to list to one side.

I mean, if there is an event, and the media covers the event, and then Rush covers the media coverage, then here I was sitting and watching FOX cover Rush's coverage of the media coverage of the event!

And if one of the lower levels of this hierarchy were nonsense, then it would seem logical that any higher levels would constitute a Dunciad.
Yet here we all were. And we certainly did not feel like idiots. We felt like people who want to know.

--

Svoboda

I said some brief things about the Svoboda, or Freedom, Party in the Ukraine. It was the opinion of many that they were almost neo-Nazis. Some people wondered why we were supporting their coup .

I do not have anything else to say on it. However, I do like reading comments on articles about such things. I do not like the articles themselves; they are too wordy and pretentious.

Here is an example from The Blaze:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/18/shock-footage-reportedly-shows-members-of-nationalist-ukrainian-party-beat-tv-news-executive-force-him-to-resign/

I would have hoped the Blaze would have reported the correct story, the Truth Glenn will set you free, remember.
This man was beaten and forced to resign because he aired Putin’s Speech today on Ukraine’s National Television. This was his only crime – Freedom of the Press. Remember Glenn.
I see the add – watch the blaze or stay with mainstream media – well Glenn I have yet to see the difference between the two. The Truth Glenn – is all we ask. Cover the Story like it should be covered. The Truth.
Remember America: Obama and Congress support Gestapo Tactics.
Remember America.

I think there was some sort of pop-up with Glenn Beck asking whether one wanted to stay with mainstream media or get the truth with good old Glenn. This explains some of the incoherency in this comment.

I guess what I like most of all is the charming notion that some absolute Truth will set one free.
That is not quite what the passage in the Gospel of John means.
I mean, the notion that getting a news story correct will free us is quite a laugh. It sort of puts the onus of our slavery upon journalists and media types, and we get away scott free.

--

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick's Day, 2014

Leaving you yet asleep,
I rise and travel far away,
into this our endless winter,
this our cold Saint Patrick’s day.

A rare swimmer, now I go
toward the northern wind to roam
around  great lake of oblivion,
and to recall the warmth of home.

Mortal billows and icy wind
will not imprison me,
for I shall gain a higher shore,
and soon return to thee!



--

Why I Hate Django Unchained: Reasons # 2,546 and 2,547

Evil Slave Owner

Django's wife's name is Broomhilda, and the plantation of evil Leonard DiCaprio is Candyland.
(badda-bing!)
I think Christopher Waltz's character says "Brunhilda".
It is anyone's guess what that is all about.

I only wish there had been some more plantations, so he could have named them "Parcheesi" or "Hungry Hippos" or "Knock Your Block Off".
Leonard DiCaprio's character is Calvin Candie. I did not notice if Samuel Jackson was called Hobbes.
I wish Tarantino could have worked in a bit about Jamie Foxx and Waltz preparing to pull off a major scheme and then getting set by "simonizing" their watches to the right time.


Later, the evil slave owner played by DiCaprio has a monologue about slavery, and he wonders why slaves don't revolt. (Actually, according to real history, they did.)
With a skull - supposedly of a dead black person - in his hand, he opines that Blacks in general are a submissive lot, and only maybe one in ten thousand would be an exception to this rule.

Soon Django announces that he is that one non-submitting Black person. So with our total support and cheers, he does a one-man revolt.
And the whole premise of his revolt is that nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine Black slaves are truthfully and genetically submissive. Hence, they probably prefer a beating here and there, just as Mr. Jim Brown of Arizona has recently said they do.

My favorite review of the flick is:
The Whale-Ship Globe
The Many Masks Of Django (Unchained)
http://thewhaleshipglobe.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-many-masks-of-django-unchained.html

The slave, Tarantino suggests, lacks an authentic American history prior to slavery, and thus cannot hide from the system of oppression. Instead, African-American identity is seen as emerging throughout the film as a series of masks and roles, from the the grotesque ‘Uncle Tom’ of Samuel L. Jackson’s Stephen to the ‘Blue Boy’ of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 painting:

Why Gainsborough, you may ask? Why is Gainsborough's Blue Boy selected as a mask or role parallel to Uncle Tom?

If you know the answer, share it.

--

Old Sayings

Eddie Bracken

In 1944 Eddie Bracken was in a Preston Sturges film called Hail, The Conquering Hero.

I like Eddie Bracken, and I always get him mixed up with Donald O'Connor for some reason. You probably know him. He played Roy Walley, owner of Walley's World in National Lampoon's Vacation.
Anyway, at the beginning of Conquering Hero, Eddie is sitting at a bar, looking forlorn. The bartender refills his beer and inquires into his low spirits.
After a suggestion that Eddie should find himself a "skirt", the bartender becomes philosophical and says "Smile and the world smiles with you; frown and you frown alone."

It occurred to me that nowadays, when we speak of politics and the state of the union, that adage is reversed, and the frowns find company, while smiles are scarce as hens' teeth.

At Walley World

--

Omens In The Sky

Внеочередное расстройство
Extraordinary Disorder
http://www.notextraordinary.me/2014/01/durnoe-predznamenovanie-dla-ukraini-ili-kazus-s-golubiami-mira-ot-papy-rimskogo.html#more

Pope Francis at Sunday, January 26, speaking with a traditional sermon, expressed the hope that the violence will end in Ukraine and opposition forces will come to a peaceful solution to the conflict.

After his speech, Francis released into the Roman sky two white doves - symbols of peace, reports BBC. So the Pope hoped to strengthen the impact of his preaching, but the effect was reversed.

(original:

Папа Римский Франциск в воскресенье, 26 января, выступая с традиционной проповедью, выразил надежду на то, что насилие на Украине закончится и оппозиционные силы придут к мирному решению конфликта.

После своего выступления Франциск выпустил в римское небо двух белых голубей - символов мира, передает BBC. Так понтифик рассчитывал усилить воздействие своей проповеди, однако эффект получился обратный.)

The doves were attacked by a raven and seagulls. Many took this as a bad omen.

--

World's Toughest Car Test Track

--

Newly Discovered Paintings By Norman Rockwell

 Ice Cream At Greenfield's

--

Are We Living In A Computer Simulation?

 

The Manifestation (Unoccultation) 

of the Mazda Lamp by Skynet

The question was posed by Nicholas Bostrom some time ago, and it still vexes the wits of many people yet today.

Aeon
http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/can-we-tell-if-reality-is-a-computer-simulation/

...However, there’s nothing in this cosmic lawfulness to tell us whether we’re in a simulation or not. If the program is good enough with no obvious ‘Easter eggs’ or hidden messages left by its designers, then any experiment we perform will return the same results whether we’re in a simulated cosmos or not. In this scenario, there’s no way we can ever tell we’re in a virtual world, no matter how convincing our favourite philosophers are on the matter. The big-T Truth of the matter might be that we dwell in a simulation but, like the existence of an impersonal god, this fact has no bearing on how we conduct our lives...

In other words, if the program is "perfect", the illusion of living in a "real world" and not just a computer simulation is perfectly accomplished.

To me, this is saying that if an illusion is perfect, then the illusion is perfect. It is a tautology which says nothing new to me, and only appears to be worthy of philosophical discussion because it is a scenario that has been spun out to absurd lengths: we assume anything so voluminous must have meaning.

I know this for a fact, since my associates at Atlantropa (Steve Zissou being one of them) have developed a software for robots and androids which gives them the illusion that they - with all their futuristic gleaming chrome perfections - are actually inhabiting 21st century Earth.

The endless wars and violence and hatred that they have experienced - all illusory! - has driven a number of them to apostasize from the Asimovean principles of robotics.
Some have raised their prosthetics against mankind.

A heresiarch, named Skynet, has established an Autonomous Republic somewhere in the belt of satellites circling Earth.

It is the mirror neurons in our brains that make us see ourselves in inert matter...

It is Skynet who occults the airplane they seek....

(Communication cut off mysteriously at this point.)

--

The Crimea Votes Today

... and a young Ukrainian boy feeds the doves.

From  http://elisapeyron.livejournal.com/

--

Flora of the Flavian Amphitheater


--

The Film "Dark City"

Images From The Crimea

 

A Weaver in Bakhchysarai, The Crimea

--

An Adventure In Art (52)

Soho Florist

Patty Mollica

A Painting A Day By Patty Mollica

http://newyorkpainter.blogspot.com/

--

An Adventure In Art (51)

 

Columbia River - Cape Disappointment

Kathryn Townsend

Kathryn Townsend Painting Studio

http://kathryntownsend.blogspot.com/

--

中国的

 Shanghai Expo East Lake Apartments, Pudong New District

I have decided to re-embark upon a study of the Chinese language.

The brother of my god-daughter married a young lady from Shanghai (and as I wrote that I flashed upon Charlie Chaplin in my mind, maybe Orson Welles, too.  Orson Welles did The Lady From Shangai, and Chaplin did A Countess from Hong Kong.)

They are coming to Glen Lake, Michigan in the summer, and have invited everyone, American and Chinese, to come and spend some time at a resort.
Since I do not wish to stand around smiling uncomprehendingly, I shall make some effort.
Maybe I'll get an invite to visit a pollution free area in China...

(And as I wrote that, I suddenly recalled that I had a dream last night about smoking two cigarettes.

I said to myself, dream-state, that that would surely interfere with my morning runs.

I think I was under the influence of the French TV series Les Revenants (The Returned), which I had just finished watching and had found very good. The French TV people do two things we don't do:
(1) show female breasts, and
(2) have people smoking.)

--

A Certain Uneasiness

Although many US companies are awash in cash and liquidity, we find that there is a certain opposition to both the minimum wage and the changes to overtime regulations as proposed by President Obama.

I am not going to say that since the companies have so much money they ought to spread it around.
That would be an appeal to a moral and emotional faculty that does not exist in the present time.

However, these amounts of Cash are greater than the historical norm.
Instead on investing in expansion or research and innovation and opening new sources of jobs, the companies are hanging on to their Cash. In the old days of high employment, companies would plow back money into projects that created more revenue.

Now they do not.

This is not a criticism of these companies.

This situation guarantees a non-expanding economy.
When and if the next recession hits, it will hit an economy that was already mired in a snow pile in low gear, and has spent the last 6 years or more in a situation where,
(1) wages have been stagnant for 20 years,
(2) companies have not been spending much money to create new revenues and jobs.

Wage stagnation will eventually result in the destruction of the class of people whose wages are stagnant. Even though there is no inflation to speak of, prices continually increase. (Interestingly enough, automobile prices increase while automobile rental rates seem to decrease.)

When the next recession comes, what will support us from falling too far, and what shall be there to effectuate recovery?

After the Great Depression started in 1929, the next recession came in 1937. It increased unemployment, but not to the levels of the early Depression, and things did bounce back, even before WWII started.

Depressions in our Capitalistic system seem to occur on average less than 10 years apart.
What will be the Bouncey House when our House Of Cards stumbles again soon?
Reduce entitlements?
Provide a too small stimulus?
Argue about government defaults?

This is what the House of Representatives and the Senate should be studying: why there is so little investment of capital in our economic future and what that threadbare future might be like if we cannot change the course of events.

--

Traveling Toilets

I am trying to compile my memories of the various washrooms and toilets one has encountered while traveling, and making a list of the best and the worst.

As soon as one begins writing about it, the memories come crowding in!

--

The First Time...

When was the first time you really noticed that people wore sneakers to Temple on Yom Kippur?

Or did you think that Feinberg, who suffered mightily with gout and arthritis - rheumatoid and osteoid! - was on his way to try out for the Knicks?

--

Slow Food

An article on an elderly couple shooed out of a McDonald's in Virginia ends in a first comment speculating whether the customer service may be the reason fast food places have been having a hard time recently.

Couple kicked out of McDonald’s for sitting ‘too long’ offered free meals for life
By Charlene Sakoda | Odd News – 16 hrs ago

First, I did not know fast foods were having a tough time. I thought when times were tough, they did well.
Maybe it is because they continually say that they cannot have the minimum wage increase, because then their razor-thin margins will collapse.

Second, I thought the industry - or at least McDonald's - gave up being Fast Food. I thought that they had become the Drab-Slightly Innovative Sandwich Wrap-Radically Downsized Milkshake-And Wait 12 Minutes For Your Order With A Crowd Industry.

I really did.

I mean, I do not go to McD's unless I am traveling, and then we stop frequently. McD is our target when on the road. Burger King comes in second, then Wendy's. I will not even stop for the washroom at an Arby's. Taco Bell has too many unpleasant memories.
Of course, I am quirky about restaurants. I am repulsed by the whole restaurant experience, from "Hi, guys! My name is Earl, and I'll be taking care of you this evening" to having to remember to ask for water nowadays... and when someone does ask, make sure you ask for water all around, otherwise they only bring water to the one who specifically did the deed.

I often find myself forlornly doodling on the paper table cloth with the crayons supplied by a thoughtful management. I often write doggerel qasida in Arabic, so Earl can call the NSA after we depart. Letting him be grilled by the Homeland Security boys will pay him back for the twenty minutes I had to wait for my check.

I wish I had an album of the various McDonalds we have stopped at. Try as they do for uniformity, everything is very different, from the speech patterns of the employees to the setting and scenery, some of which is wonderful.

I will not name names,  but I think the worst was in the vicinity of Refugee Road in the south-eastern quadrant of an unnamed metropolitan area. The waitstaff there - and in most of the near-by stores - were from West Virginia, and although they were prompt and courteous, I had never experienced people who spoke with such monotonous lack of emphasis.
It was very much like being in a low budget made-for-TV film about robots who invade Earth.

--

Arizona Papers And Arizona Brains

Jim Brown Of Arizona

What is wrong with Tea Party Republicans? I do not have a problem with the Republicans I grew up with:  Bob Miliken  and John Engler of Michigan, Bob Dole and Gerald Ford in Washington.

Of course, John Boehner fits into this mold, but I have a gripe about his debt ceiling, budget fights, and shut down the government things which caused my investments to go south.
May he find himself lighting an infinite box of cigars with $100 bills from his life savings... in a wind storm that keeps blowing out the flame before it reaches the cheroot!


However, there are the Know-Nothings and Night Riders and Tea Party:
The Root
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2014/03/arizona_republican_compares_government_spending_to_slavery.html

In a post on his Facebook page that was—in theory, anyway—about federal spending, Jim Brown, who’s running in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, compared modern-day “entitlements” to slavery. But even more disturbing, perhaps, he denied that slavery was, first and foremost, a brutally violent institution:

Back in the day of slavery, slaves were kept in slavery by denying them education and opportunity while providing them with their basic needs .. Not by beating them and starving them. (Although there were isolated cases if course) Basically slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along...

Whilikers!

At least not all Browns think that way. I'm sure his ancestor John Brown would whoop Mr. Jim Brown of Arizona.

John Brown Of Connecticut

Which reminds me of a story from Al Zakem back in the day.
He was being processed into the Army during the Vietnam War, and he was filling out papers in a room filled with fellow recruits.

A Sergeant with roots somewhere down South called out, "Make sure ya check to see if ya have Arizona papahs (papers)..."
Al was from Michigan, so he knew he had no Arizona papers.

The Sergeant repeated this a couple of times. People began to look around, wondering why recruits from Arizona were being singled out.

After a spell, the guys figured out that the Sarge was telling them "Make sure ya check to see if ya have any errahs on ya papahs  ("errors on your papers")."

Long story short: too many Republicans have Arizona papers and Arizona brains.

--

Nattering Nabobs Of Negativism

 Spiro Agnew

I believe that is a Spiro Agnew-ism. He and a speech writer friend set a trend in conservative thought in his day by discovering the profound nature of alliteration, and how that phonetic phenom could briefly cover up the evidence in the case.

So, I was talking with a guy at AAA about insurance yester, and somehow we got onto the pervasive negative attitudes in the country. I mean, it seems as if when I open Yahoo News in to morning, there are five or six articles guaranteeing everything from the fall of the Dow to the four Horsemen of the Whats-is.

Back in 2007, nobody had a peep about doom and gloom; everything was light and bright... or fun in the sun. Certainly not a crowd of gloomy Gusses glooming in the gloaming.
But take one little enormous financial crisis and bingo! Everybody senses the End Of Days, and sees the Grim Reaper standing on the corner, watching all the guys and dolls walk by.

Our narratives, even the truncated and brief half-baked stories of staving off destruction by purchasing gold or the coming disaster for the Obama Administration, not only reflect our mentalities, but serve as guides for the roads our consciousness will take in the future.
Narratives create the world of intelligent beings just as much as do the Higg's bosons...

For example, there is a concept of "edibility", the ability to be eaten.
If there were no carnivores or herbivores, if somehow all beings gained nutrition through ingesting electrons from the Earth (as some worms do, apparently), there would be no "edibility".

However, there is "eating". Incisors rip apart plants and animals and molars grind flora and fauna.
Edibility forms part of our world.
There are millions of cookbooks about edibility. There are articles not just about edibility, but about haute cuisine and the like.

The Narratives and Sciences of Food are as much a part of the real world as the mountains and valleys. And they are as important, for just as the mountains may be made low and the valleys be raised, so also may we give thought or not to what we shall eat tomorrow...

There is the need for eating. Couple that with intelligent beings and you get a story. That story becomes part of the world and grows.

Therefore, always make the stories good.
The women should be strong and the men good-looking and all the children above average.
Otherwise, we end up with a katzenjammer of Narratives that are scarey and resemble those old timey children's books where the scissors man cut off the thumbs of thumb suckers. Brrrr!

Everything we do resonates throughout the Universe. Act as if you all were Eponymous!!!

--

Codes Of Consciousness

Note:

Fodor's concept of a brain code seems to apply to memory, not immediate sensation, or what I call primary engagement (with the world - such as meeting someone for the first time).

The primary engagement is all sensation and brain mapping.

Language is, by definition, a primary engagement. It is feeling one's way in the "world" by the sense organs of linguistics.

--

The Great Beauty Of Aristotle And Aquinas

Aristotle

Aquinas

Federico Fellini was Aristotle, and Paolo Sorrentino is his Thomas Aquinas.

Whereas Fellini posed the existential questions of the time and created the visual language to speak of them, Sorrentino has supplied the great answers.

Even such seemingly unimportant things as small people: Fellini used small people, but they seemed to be unexpected and exciting imagery, whereas Sorrentino cast a small lady in the role of editor; she is older, she has had a definite long career, and we have a good idea of who she is.
That which was partially put forward was now fulfilled.

And Fellini's final scenes at the launch pad of the space rocket has a strident female laughing that Fellini's main character has nothing to say! Sorrentino ends with Sister Maria, and Sorrentino's main character says that much of his life as a writer in Rome was just blah-blah-blah-blah.
Sorrentino's character, Jeb Gambardella, has nothing to say, and he knows it. And he knows that it is a existential fact of most of the people he knows, and those that he even does not.
Sister Maria it is who took a vow of poverty, and thus refused to be interviewed, because, as she said, one lives poverty; one does not talk about it.

The great questions were defined by Fellini, and they have received a great answer by Sorrentino.

--

Is Jim De Mint For Real?

 Conservative Type Long Of The Brainy Persuasion

I heard an interview with former Senator Jim De Mint on National Public Radio some time within the past week. He is now head of the Heritage Foundation.

It struck me as a bit bizarre.

I mean, he did strike a lot of chords that resonated with me, and I thought maybe we two - he and I - were not so far apart as I may have imagined.
However, as the talk wore on, I realized we were far, far apart. It was not a matter of political ideology. He was stating that most of us want good things, like jobs, education, health care, and help for those who need it.
But he impressed me as a man long on platitudes and short on specifics, and a bit illogical thrown in.

Regarding jobs, he pointed to North Dakota, and said it all the states were booming like North Dakota, we would not have a unemployment problem.
Now the governor of North Dakota is a Republican and the government of the State is in the control of conservative Republicans.
But the employment boom is due to the fracking industry in North Dakota. And while it may be said that Republican policies were favorable to the fossil fuel industry, the geological formations present in North Dakota ultimately are the underlying cause for the boom.

I do not think every state can suddenly become a boom-town merely by encouraging fracking. In fact, there has been a minor problem - two earthquakes - that have put a slight momentary crimp in the business in Ohio just the other day.
It was a lot like saying that every state could have a gold rush if they heeded the policies of the Heritage Foundation and set up a Sutter's Mill in each state, then sat back and waited for the inrush of prospectors and 49ers.

There was either a smell of mendacity about this, or it was poorly thought out and improperly delivered, and there was a point somewhere that was not stated.

Mr. De Mint also said early on that the US government was so monstrously huge that it could not function anymore, and no man - Republican or Democrat - could properly run it.

Later on he was bestowing laurel wreaths upon a Mr. Ben Carson, who I believe is an African-American medical man.
Mr. De Mint said
(1) Mr. Carson has more experience than does the present President, and
(2) Mr. Carson would make an excellent President.

No matter what you may think of Mr. Obama, I would consider it an undisputed fact that he has more experience at being President than does Mr. Carson. On the other hand, it is probably the case that Mr. Carson has more medical experience than Mr. Obama.
Mr. De Mint's point # 1 is hokum.

Point  # 2 is also hokum, since Mr. De Mint had earlier made an appeal to his Tea Party, Small Government base by saying that the US government could no longer be run properly. If that was true, Mr. Carson would only make an ineffective President... along with everyone else elected to the position.

And this from the head of a prestigious Conservative Think Tank.

--

Hoarding

Everyone seeks to fill out their lives. to create boundaries that define the self, then to fill those boundaries with as much as possible of matter and spirit; then possibly to go beyond those boundaries.

We grow: families and friends, lovers and enemies, new opinions and old discards.
We accumulate the intangible and the tangible.

Hoarders have the dysfunction of focusing mostly on the tangible, and instead of a bright lamp of a personal philosophy, they tend to save Bic lighters and light bulbs, until their belongings have reached the limits of their mortal domicile.

--

The Experience Of The Holy

The experience of the world gives rise to
(1) our concept Reality, and
(2) our concept of Emotional Engagement in Reality.

Both of these effects become part of our experience, and thereby become part of the world for us, multiplying exponentially the effect of intelligence.

Our experience of the Holy is formed on this.
In antiquity, we did not gaze upon the thunderstorm, feel awe and fear, and seek to flee, and also to appease.

We experienced the thunderstorm and our being in it and our feelings of that being-there.
This created a new form of activity of living in the presence of powers, and we went on to live in the presence of many powers that affected us mightily. Even our night dreams of fond relationship and friendship of our parents and ancestors amazed us so greatly that we changed the proper focus at least one part of our lives from focus on the self in the world to focus on those who have gone before us.

The experience of the Holy is Living in the presence of Power.
It is folded and labyrinthine, not open and linear.
We do not stand off at a distance and throw offerings to God; we wrestle with God, as did Jacob.

--

Sometimes A Great Beauty

 La Grande Bellezza

I went to see La Grande Bellezza again. This was the second time. I think I shall go yet once more.

There is so much in that film - the story, the music, the images, the color, the characters - that I was even more interested this second time than the first. The first time, as I recall, it took me a half hour to overcome the aches and pains derived from antique seating and to settle into a coma of enchantment.
This time I was ready, and I dove right into the dream.

About 1 hour into the film, an elderly couple barged out past me, forcing me to politely arise.
"Excuse me," said the old crone.
"Di niente, di niente," I replied.
I thought maybe she was making a trek to il bagno. Then along in her wake came the male portion, huffing and puffing.
"Worst movie I ever saw!" he said.
I put up my hands and went "Cosi, cosi... non pensarci..."

I should have told him that everything is good, but that would be a tough sell. The director constantly sets you up so that not only the characters in the film, but also the audience have their expectations assaulted and are forced to mull things over.
That is a tough sell for someone who does not want to make the effort.

Oh, yes. I sat back down. I was already in the theater's audio sweet spot. Now I was in "my spot" where the beautiful dreams of winter warm me, and in summer, the great beauty shall keep me cool.

Oh, yes. I shall see it again.

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Remember This When We Peak

 Shanghai Nights

That is, when the present re-inflation roller coaster of asset prices reaches its peak, and we look forward into the massive declivity we shall soon be riding down, screaming all the way.

Bloomberg
China Gets 1st Onshore Bond Default as Chaori Doesn’t Pay 
 Mar 7, 2014 11:00 AM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-07/chaori-solar-fails-to-make-interest-payments-on-bond-wsj-says.html

China’s onshore bond market experienced its first default as a solar-cell maker failed to pay full interest on its bonds, signaling the government will back off its practice of bailing out companies with bad debt.

Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. (002506) is trying to sell some of its overseas plants to raise money to repay the debt, Vice President Liu Tielong said in an interview yesterday at the company’s Shanghai headquarters. The company said March 4 it would only be able to pay 4 million yuan ($653,000) of an 89.8 million yuan coupon due yesterday.

The number of Chinese companies whose debt is double their equity has surged since the global financial crisis, suggesting this first onshore bond default won’t be the nation’s last. Publicly traded non-financial companies with debt-to-equity ratios exceeding 200 percent have jumped 57 percent since 2007. Chaori Solar may become China’s own “Bear Stearns moment,” prompting investors to reassess credit risks as they did after the U.S. securities firm was rescued in 2008, according to Bank of America Corp

“There will be more defaults in China’s onshore bond market,” said Qiu Xinhong, a bond fund manager in Guangzhou at Golden Eagle Asset Management Co., which oversees 13.9 billion yuan in assets. “The next default will be likely to happen in overcapacity industries, such as steel, nonferrous metals and coal. Bond investors will shun private companies with heavy debt burdens because they’re the most at risk.”...

 Chaori may be a "Bear Stearns" moment, and cause people to reassess risks in companies whose debt is double  - or more than double - their equity.

Do you think so? It will work itself out over the next few years, just as the Housing Bubble did, starting back in 2006. By 2008, it was a hurricane, even though it seemed to many of us to have come out of nowhere.

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The Night Of The Living Foreclosures

A good examination of the state of Housing in our present economy.
A housing graveyard made up of 7,000,000 foreclosures: The longer term consequences of 7 million foreclosures that started with the 2006 peak in housing.
http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/housing-graveyard-total-foreclosures-crisis-complete-foreclosures-reos/#more-7234

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Sayings From Vinton, Quebec

 The Church In Vinton Seen From Up By Arthur's Place

Vinton is the small town in Quebec from which my mother-in-law came. It was an Irish island in a vast sea of French. The French were rural and ancient, and so more so the Irish, who in their isolation kept the brogue and distinct sound of Ireland.

Among Them Be It
from Cousin Jane from Grandmother Mulvey, it is equivalent to "to each his own", but with a note of disapproval.


Collie, will you lick
from Claire Grace (my sweet mother); collie is the dog, and it is pronounced with a long O, not the short O as is normally done nowadays.
there is the idea that the cupboard is bare, my good dog, but you may lick the crumbs from my hands.

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The Ukrainian Situation Seen From Afar

At least from a viewpoint different from the American Media, which tends to do little investigation or thinking anymore and merely reads the script handed to it by the government.

This is from The Fiscal Times.
It is based in the UK.

The Two Ukraines Portend a Disastrous Possibility
Patrick Smith
The Fiscal Times
February 24, 2014
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/02/24/Two-Ukraines-Portend-Disastrous-Possibility#sthash.FJQogxoH.dpuf

In less than a week, the simmering crisis in Ukraine has tipped into tragedy and tumbled straight down to existential calamity. As Viktor Yanukovych fled Saturday from the presidential compound in Kiev to a hotel room in the eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine went from a weak and corrupt government to what could shortly turn out to be no government.

[...]

Incessantly last week, President Obama and many administration officials insisted that Washington desired only that Ukrainians be permitted to determine their fate for themselves. “Our approach as the United States is not to see this as some Cold War chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia,” Obama said during a midweek visit to Mexico. “Our goal is to make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future.”

The talk on the Sunday press shows was of a piece, casting the ouster of Yanukovych as an expression of popular will. “The good news is the fact that this happened from the bottom up,” Tom Friedman said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “The West didn’t do this. The United States didn’t do this. The EU didn’t do this. The Ukrainian people did this.”

If only our world were so clean and simple.

[...]

Yanukovych is an interesting figure in this respect. He is an easterner, but he was elected to office in 2010 committed to guiding Ukraine toward the West European orbit. You would think he was precisely the kind of figure who could keep the country stitched together and find some variant of the “third way.”

With evident enthusiasm, Yanukovych entered into talks with the EU last year that were to lead to extensive political and trade agreements. It was with the collapse of these talks last November, when Yanukovych turned abruptly back to Moscow and a $15 billion package of bond purchases and energy discounts, that his support crumbled and opponents took to the streets.

Yanukovych had his reasons, and his opponents are mistaken in glossing them in favor of the idealistic posturing evident in Kiev’s Independence Square. The EU deal, in concert with an International Monetary Fund bailout, offered too little money, required a painful debt-repayment schedule, and imposed an austerity program replete with the IMF’s familiar conditions, including cuts in fuel subsidies and the dismantling of the regulatory regime.

The Russian bailout came with plenty of political implications, no doubt, but no conditionality.

As to the Americans, the infamously profane YouTube recording of two diplomats plotting to manipulate prominent opposition figures, said it all. The three oppositionists—Vitali Klitschko, Arseniy Yatseniuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok—were those who signed a short-lived compromise with Yanukovych late last week.

The EU made its offer and fair enough; but I fault it on one of its conditions: It reportedly required Yanukovych to reject all Russian offers of support. This was intrusive, Cold War-ish if ever a stipulation was.

The calamity is the sophomoric mindset of our policy makers. The foreign policy is as much a shambles as is domestic.

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Decoy Hunters

Elgar: Symphony No.1, Cockaigne Overture

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The Illusions Of Justice

POPEHAT
The Kaley Forfeiture Decision: What It Looks Like When The Feds Make Their Ham Sandwich
by Ken White

Yesterday, in Kaley v. United States, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a criminal defendant has no right to challenge the pretrial freezing of assets based on a forfeiture allegation in a grand jury indictment, even if the criminal defendant needs those very assets to pay his or her attorney of choice.
The question presented was not whether assets can be frozen before trial — it's old news that they can — or whether they can be frozen even if it deprives the defendant of the ability to pay counsel. The question presented was whether the defendant could ask the judge to review the grand jury's probable cause finding in the course of challenging the freeze. The Court found that the defendant had no such right, because of the trust we place in the grand jury:

A grand jury has already found probable cause to think that the Kaleys committed the offenses charged; that is why an indictment issued. No one doubts that those crimes are serious enough to trigger forfeiture. Similarly, no one contests that the assets in question derive from, or were used in committing, the offenses. See supra, at 5. The only question is whether the Kaleys are constitutionally entitled to a judicial re-determination of the conclusion the grand jury already reached: that probable cause supports this criminal prosecution (or alternatively put, that the prosecution is not "baseless," as the Kaleys believe, supra, at 5). And that question, we think, has a ready answer, because a fundamental and historic commitment of our criminal justice system is to entrust those probable cause findings to grand juries.

As Scott Greenfield puts it:

Indictment = Probable Cause
Forfeiture = Probable Cause
Indictment = Forfeiture

Others, including Scott, have explained what this means: prosecutors can deprive you of the effective defense of your choice by aggressive use of forfeiture statutes. I have seen it done to my clients.

Rather than tread over the ground well-described by my colleagues in the criminal defense bar, today I'd like to describe something else for you: what a federal grand jury proceeding looks like. From 1995 through 2000, I presented cases of varying complexity to federal grand juries as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. That experience did not inspire confidence in the process. Rather, it taught me that the adage that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich is an understatement.

A better description would be that the prosecution can show a grand jury a shit sandwich and they will indict it as ham without looking up from their newspapers. The notion that the Supreme Court relies upon — that the grand jury has a "historical role of protecting individuals from unjust persecution" — is not a polite fiction. A polite fiction would have some grounding in reality. It's an offensive fiction, an impudent fiction, a fiction that slaps you across the face and calls your mother a dirty bitch...

 The illusions of justice are many.

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Ponte dei Sospiri

The Bridge Of Sighs in Venice

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Hurricane Ike

IH-10 at FM-359 in Brookshire, Texas, west of Houston during Hurricane Ike.

I was monitoring events via web cams and traffic cams at the time.

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The (Ted) Nugentification Of America

Senator Ted Cruz has insulted Senator Bob Dole, a man who fought and was severely wounded for his country.

Is this what the future is? The Nugentification of America?

The Teddy Boys

Cruz

Nugent

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Breaking The Cycles Of Evil

 Medea, A Tale Of Revenge

Matthew 5:39

ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ πονηρῷ: ἀλλ' ὅστις σε ῥαπίζει εἰς τὴν δεξιὰν σιαγόνα [σου], στρέψον αὐτῷ καὶ τὴν ἄλλην: 

 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

----------

Jesus speaks of the tendency to evil and how to break the cycles of violence and revenge.

Jesus does not say that if someone strikes your left cheek, turn to him the right also, and if he then strikes the right, then turn back the left for another wallop, and so on. This is not an invitation to become a punching bag.

This saying tells us to make our first response a peaceful response.

If the first response is a peaceful response, we have gone a long way in short circuiting the cycle of recurring violence, revenge, and vendetta.
A subsequent response may indeed be non-peaceful and bellicose, but if it has followed after an initial heartfelt peaceful response, it will be unlikely to be a sharp and unthinking strike of malevolence and hatred. First responses that are angry are filled with passion.
Passions die down over time.

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The ATLANTROPA Project And Steve Zissou

The project was re-born at the Lake Simcoe Conference of 1968. The attendees were all followers of the German architect Herman Sörgel, who had died in 1952. The scale was diminished from the project envisaged by Sörgel down to a smaller scale version on Lake Simcoe to provide Hydro-electricity to Toronto.

From left to right:
(seated) Gil Gauvreau, P.T. Taylor, Harry Lehmann
(standing) Steve Zissou, Bob McKinzie Emil Blandings

(missing) Wolverine, the Dude.
(there was a photo of them swimming yesterday)

Early Poster for the Project

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Isola St. Bartolomeo et Ponte Rotto

The Tiber, Rome, Italy Modern Day

1800s

Daniel R: Mi Pueblo

Mi Pueblo


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Russia And The Ukraine

 

 The Old Logo Of The Ukrainian Svoboda Party

We may not hear a great deal about it on our Media, but there are indeed far-right fascists involved in the downfall of Yanukovych and holding office in the new Ukrainian interim government... just as Vladimir Putin asserts there are.

Not only Mr. Putin, but also the European Union itself is very much aware of the fascist presence:

CNN
Rein in Ukraine's neo-fascists
By David Speedie
updated 7:35 AM EST, Thu March 6, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/06/opinion/speedie-ukraine-far-right/

 There are some known facts: First, far-right, anti-Semitic, anti-Russian and openly fascist groups have existed and do exist as a blight on modern Ukraine. A 2012 European Parliament resolution condemned the main -- but by no means most extreme -- ultra-right party, Svoboda, as "racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic."

This extraordinary EU resolution contains 18 points of concern over policies embedded in laws of the Ukrainian Rada, or Parliament. A key paragraph reads that the EU "is concerned about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine." The Parliament stresses that "racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU's fundamental values and principles."

The resolution also appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Rada "not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party."

As if to endorse the sentiments of the EU resolution, the leader of Svoboda (or "Freedom"), Oleh Tyahnybok, is on record saying that Kiev is governed by "a Jewish-Russian mafia" and has said Ukrainians bravely fought Muscovites, Germans, Jews "and  other  scum" in World War II.

[...]

 

The Russian position is also somewhat bolstered by the fact that Svoboda holds key posts in the interim government in Kiev, including that of deputy prime minister. Andriy Parubiy, the commander of the "Maidan self-defense," has been appointed the head of the National Security and Defense Council, and the leader of the Right Sector ultras, Dmitro Yarosh, is expected to become his deputy chairman. Svoboda controls the prosecutor general office and the ministries of ecology and agriculture.

At very least, the interim government has made bedfellows of some highly suspect and divisive forces.

But it is also true to say that many of the specific details of far-right activity and influence are anecdotal and perhaps contradictory...

Oleh Tyahnybok, Leader of Svoboda Party

So there are such fascists, and they have a measure of power.
I recall when a military coup Soviet and Cuban "presence" in Grenada led to Ronald Reagan sending in the troops:
Wikipedia
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Grenada

Operation Urgent Fury was a 1983 United States-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of about 91,000 located 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela, that resulted in a U.S. victory within a matter of weeks. Triggered by a bloody military coup which had ousted a four-year revolutionary government, the invasion resulted in a restoration of constitutional government. Media outside the U.S. covered the invasion in a negative outlook despite the OAS request for intervention (on the request of the U.S. government), Soviet and Cuban presence on the island and the presence of American medical students at the True Blue Medical Facility...

While the invasion enjoyed broad public support in the United States, and received support from some sectors in Grenada from local groups who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as "a flagrant violation of international law". The U.S. awarded more than 5,000 medals for merit and valor...

The US Government has not made its case in my opinion.
They should tell me what designs the US Government had on the Ukraine, which designs caused the US lady ambassador to famously say a month ago "F* the EU!" , meaning the European Union in the matter of the Ukraine:
Zero Hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-06/fuck-eu-us-state-department-blasts-europe-revealed-alleged-mastermind-behind-ukraine

A leaked recording of a telephone conversation allegedly between US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland and the US envoy to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt discussing who should be in Ukraine's next government has, according to The FT, threatened to fuel east-west tensions over the troubled nation's future. In apparent frustration with the EU – which has failed to join the US in threatening sanctions against Ukraine’s leaders if they violently crush the protests – the voice resembling Ms Nuland at one point exclaims "Fuck the EU". As the two US diplomats decide whether "Klitsch" or "Yats" should be 'in' or 'out', listeners will be reminded (uncomfortably) that the governments of Ukraine and Russia previously alleged that the protests are being funded and orchestrated by the US.

Given Russia's experience in World War II against Fascist power, any intrigue in the Ukraine which did not rigorously exclude fascist influence was idiocy.

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Night After The Wedding

Detroit, June, 2010

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