Images From The Crimea

 

A Weaver in Bakhchysarai, The Crimea

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An Adventure In Art (52)

Soho Florist

Patty Mollica

A Painting A Day By Patty Mollica

http://newyorkpainter.blogspot.com/

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An Adventure In Art (51)

 

Columbia River - Cape Disappointment

Kathryn Townsend

Kathryn Townsend Painting Studio

http://kathryntownsend.blogspot.com/

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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.)

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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.

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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!

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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!!!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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After The Ceremony

Leaving the Chapel of the Academy Of The Sacred Heart, Grosse Pointe.


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Wedding Rehearsal Dinner, Detroit

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The World Under The Snow

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Fences Of Belfast

Belfast, Northern Ireland
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Lake Simcoe Summer

The Wolverine and the Dude.

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Houses Of The Future

The architectural blog B.E.L.T.
View of the Maret House (?) from the back.

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Islands

 

Harsens Island, South Channel Drive and Monroe Street, Labor Day, 2010 or thereabouts.

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Winter Mystery

Amy Bennett

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The Revolt Of The Parking Lots 2014

An evil minion of the Parking Lots Dictatorship, seen at the Anime North Convention in Toronto, about 7 years ago.

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Stages Of Life

From the moribund Blog Himmel Uber Berlin.

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Ukrainian ObamaCare

 Crimean Tatar Family

By now most facts about the Ukraine have been set forth. That is, all those facts which seem to be important for readers of the present time: the Ukraine was taken from the Russian SSR in 1954 by Nikita Krushchev and assigned to the Ukraine, there are lots of ethnic Russian in the Crimea and the eastern parts, and the Crimean Tatars are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi type and distrust Russians.

I had not read that Krushchev was himself from the Ukraine, but he was, and I always thought that was part of the reason for what was done in 1954.

For the rest, we wait and see how it comes out. Threats have been made, soldiers called forth and then marched back; so far, all is fairly calm.

Here the Republicans and their running dogs have seen a connection to Neville Chamberlain and the Sudetenland Crisis of Nineteen-Thirty-whatsis, and of course, Hitler is hiding somewhere, ready to pop out. Some have suggested that by not bombing Syria's chemical weapons and thusly exposing thousands of Syrians to better-death-by-chemistry, President Obama was to blame... as he is to blame for most things that happen....
(Perhaps the Republican policy for the Crimea is bombing, too. Who knows?)

This has been, in other words, a real ObamaCare moment in the Crimean peninsula.

I believe Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin are intelligent and tough individuals. They will get things done here.

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The Sport Of Socialistic Capitalism

Badda-Bing!  Mike Ilitch

Detroit Scam City: How The Red Wings Took Hockeytown For All It Had

http://deadspin.com/detroit-scam-city-how-the-red-wings-took-hockeytown-fo-1534228789

...Mike Ilitch and his wife Marian bought the Red Wings for $8 million in 1982. Last November, Forbes ranked the team as the ninth-most valuable NHL franchise, at $470 million. The previous July, just a week after the Motor City declared for bankruptcy, it was announced the public would cover nearly 60 percent of the cost for the team's new $450 million, 18,000-seat arena.

The Wings have played at Joe Louis Arena, on the Detroit River, since 1979. What it lacks in modern amenities—a comically large jumbotron, cup holders, abundant restrooms, hand railings—it makes up for in charm. The Joe is a dump, diehard fans will tell you, but it's our dump. 

Now the storied franchise is headed due north, where it will set up shop between the downtown core and rapidly developing Midtown neighborhood in a roughly 45-block footprint unimaginatively billed as the "arena and entertainment district." The total price tag, including additional private investments in retail and housing, is an estimated $650 million, $284.5 million of which will come in the form of public investment.

No money will come directly from the city's general fund—something advocates of the deal are quick to point out—but instead the bulk of public funding will come by way of tax increment financing (TIF). Taxes captured in the 615-acre Downtown Development Authority (DDA) district will be poured into the project. The Michigan Strategic Fund, a state economic development agency, will issue 30-year tax-exempt bonds backed by three revenue streams: The aforementioned TIF capture, various other tax revenues from the DDA and Olympia Development, the Ilitch's $2 billion enterprise...

In the old days, there were no such lavish government subsidies for sports teams. Teams had to make it on their own. If the owners threatened to leave, then the cities bid them farewell, for it was a time of growth when the attention of the populace was on real events that gave real value to their lives.

Very often now we fill out lives with the dregs of Entertainments... which surprisingly enough, we help fund, for what public money is not taken from us to finance wealthy sports owners, could have been spent on ways to benefit our lives - for it is public money!

We wander.

There is more:

... Orlando is set to get a Major League Soccer franchise, and when the owners lobbied for a new stadium last August, Orange County Commissioner Pete Clarke proposed a deal that echoed Kucinich's approach: In exchange for $20 million to fund your new soccer stadium, the taxpayers get a stake in the team...

Ah! The State will own (at least have a minority stake in) the means of entertainment production.
What would Marx think?

Tolle, lege, tunc illacrimate 
omnes pauperi in hoc saeculo 
proximo novi et infelices! 

Take up and read, then all of you weep
together, you newly poor and unhappy
people in this most recent time!

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Hiatus

I wrote a post on February 23, 2014 about Mary (or Miriam), the mother of Jesus, Then I wrote nothing until this morning.

Religious stuff exhausts me. It takes me up the mountain of bipolarity, then lets me slide down as if through some gauntlet-like Half Pipe.

So I clawed my way back to writing. I always said that I am only ME when I am writing. I hope that is true. The other side, the undiscovered side, the mute and blind "me" is not a pretty companion.

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Mary 2

I had a post on the Mother of Jesus, and I stated that I had not uttered a prayer which asked for anything for a long, long time. Well, that was a great exaggeration. I have done so more recently than 50 years ago.

In fact, I remember the time.
It was some years ago. There was a government agency (no names mentioned) which wanted a goodly amount of data about my financial affairs, and some token payments. I was thrown into a funk, despair, and a pit of fear. I prayed quite a bit for an end to this problem.
I finally got stuff together, copied and scanned everything, and mailed it off by certified mail on the last day allowed.

The next thing that happened is that the government agency sent me a bill for a large amount of cash not quite $50,000 for my ignoring their request.
Apparently they had lost the mail.
So I resent everything, including a full color scan of my certified mail receipt.

The next thing is a letter stating all is well and my payment returned... except for $350. That $350 they decided to keep. I thought there might be some small justification on their part, and I was exhilarated and released from the very pit of despair.

Now I was entirely satisfied at that time. I was happy to have an end of it, and I was no way going to argue further about the $350. I thought that maybe I had gone 24 hours over the roll-over date on an obscure amount of IRA money, so $350 was a bit hefty for the small amount, but OK. I was OK with it.

So I did some thank you prayers before going to sleep.
Then that "shining" type thing happened. As I dropped my head onto the pillow for the last 15 seconds of consciousness before I  normally escape into sleep, in my awareness was a very clear apprehension that (1) this $350 dollars business is not over, and (2) I would get it back!

Now, this is something I really dislike, because I usually interpret it as my conscious or subconscious self setting up a test for God. I am just like those in the Gospels who need a constant flow of miracles in order that they may believe.
It was like my bad nature saying that if the object of my prayers is so powerful, prove it and get my $350 back.
I mean, how do you handle it if you think you talk with God, and things do not turn out as you wanted or expected? That's a sticky situation. Reverend Harold Camping had it a number of times before he passed, and he kept thinking he was talking to God when he heard the magic date for the end of the world.
But he was only listening to a stage play in his own head, scripted with scraps and bits of Revelations and fed by a disgust of modernity and its sinful ways.

I did not like it, because I knew I was not getting the money back, and this nonsense business of setting up hoops for the deity to jump through would create an antagonism in my soul that would be bitter in the future. It messed with my mind. I convinced myself it was my base - yet loveable - acquisitive nature scrabbling for a few simoleons, and it would not be held against me on that Day.

Three months later, I got the money back with interest.

Witness.

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An Exhaustion Of Icons

12 Years A Slave won the Academy Award for best picture. I had gone to see the film just a week ago, and I have been struggling with my response to it since then.

I found it a very well done film, perfect in all its many facets, those areas of expertise that are connected with that long list of credits that rolls by at the end of a movie. Wonderfully done. I remembered Django Unchained, which had a number of grotesque turns, not the least of which was a story that seemed to go nowhere... or if it had a goal, it did not seem to care one way or the other.
Everything worked together in 12 Years A Slave. 

However, I found myself uninterested in the story. I found that the film did not compel my interest. The fact that it was a true depiction of the horror that was slavery did not deliver me to that realm of enchantment in which time flies without the viewer being aware of its passing.
I refused to go the film The Book Thief for the same feeling that I had: I had seen too much of the Holocaust already. There are only so many stories to be told... and the stories in their infinite detail are not exhausted, but what then is exhausted?

I find it hard to believe that Django Unchained could have destroyed my interest in an entire historical era. What happened is - I think - is that the genre has exhausted its creativeness, its ability to keep our attention as the stories unfolds, taking the usual routes that we have grown accustomed to in the telling of such stories.

There was a buzz for the film, It's Time! I do not know if this was supposed to mean an Oscar for a film by a black director about slavery or what it referred to, but I now suspect that it really means that it is time to do something else.

Fifty years after that watershed moment, Sunday's historic Best Picture win for "12 Years a Slave" was remarkable in that same unremarkable, quietly dignified way. A film about the singular journey of a black man — directed by a black man and starring a mostly black cast (both Best Picture firsts) — simply fulfilled its promise as a Very Important Film, The Oscar Favorite. "12 Years" was pegged as the top Academy Award contender from its debut at last September's Toronto International Film Festival 

A fine accomplishment, but I am not so sure that it is what this country really needs.
Indeed, what are all these artistic creations but an amusement? An entertainment?
How many times have I heard that perhaps at last the dialogue on race that this country needs will begin at such-and-such a time, inspired by some wonderful art - or by some ghastly crime?
We keep seeking some Great Act or some Great Genius who will inspire us, and neglect to bear the constant burden of virtue ourselves. We do not believe that Virtue is its own reward. We would like some coupons or frequent flier miles to go with each and every good act we commit.

I think it is time to do a different art, a different politics, a different vision.

In Yahoo News this morning:
http://music.yahoo.com/news/rap-disrespect-black-icons-raises-concerns-152951380.html

Malcolm X and rap music have always fit together like a needle in the groove, connected by struggle, strength and defiance. But three recent episodes involving the use or misuse of Malcolm and other black icons have raised the question: Has rap lost touch with black history?

Chart-topping rapstress Nicki Minaj provoked widespread outrage with an Instagram post featuring one of black history's most poignant images: Malcolm X peering out the window of his home, rifle in hand, trying to defend his wife and children from firebombs while under surveillance by federal agents. Superimposed on the photo: the title of Minaj's new song, which denigrates certain black men and repeats the N-word 42 times.

That came after Minaj's mentor Lil Wayne recorded a verse last year using the civil rights martyr Emmett Till in a sexual metaphor, and the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons posted a Harriet Tubman "sex tape" video on his comedy channel...

This is not the new art, but it is a sign that the old icons and the way we relate to them are salt that has lost its savor, and there is no "new and improved salt" in that exhausted pantry with which to restore saltiness to the old salt.

Perhaps it is time to move on beyond the area of icons and narratives and set up the stage in real life.

Connected to this idea of starting to do things in real life, I read a number of reviews of 12 Years A Slave whose authors  considered Brad Pitt to be miscast as a Canadian abolitionist, or who considered the character to be wooden and poorly rendered.
Of course, I disagree entirely with such comments, for I found his character to be well drawn (if brief) and well played. The character is a man who lives virtuously, not one who stage acts on virtuous beliefs.

In this age of Media and Entertainment, we all act. We all act too much and we all talk too much. We are like players in a production put on at Charenton Asylum, a Marat/Sade of multi-tasking that has little to show as the fruit of our labors.

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