Saturday, March 31, 2012

Sleep Walking

The problem with election years is that the biggest issues facing the country are covered in the pink slime of the emotion, obfuscation, avoidance and cynicism of the competing campaigns. "Issues" are brought into the focus of the public by the media professionals hired by the campaigns. They are designed to bridge a way of avoidance around problems that hover like a sword of damocles over the vitals of the nation.

15 trillion dollars of debt, unsustainable military commitments in almost every part of the globe, and an economy only barely able to sustain a trickle of economic growth even with reckless, bordering on insane, fiscal and monetary policies promulgated by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are the issues facing the country. This is the case if by issues you mean parts of reality that literally threaten the system of markets that facilitates the movement of goods that ensures the survival and protection from starvation of 310 million people, the very unity of the country, and its protection from its enemies.

If by issues you mean distortions of reality designed to "outrage", titillate, and tranquilize the voters just enough to turn off their minds but get their butts to the polls on election day, then we are engaged in the greatest debate in the history of the country, one that will uplift it and shower it with the honor of future generations as they contemplate our devotion to their future. Then our future well-being depends upon whether we are frightened by hooded african american males, believe that birth control for women is a threat to their eternal souls,and lights must be turned off and our cities descended into the voluntary darkness of our barbaric pre-technological past in order to "save the planet." If these are the issues then rest assured we can be sure the American People will make the right decision come November.

We wallow in the trivialities and passions of the momentary present while the near-future hurtles toward us like a brick wall.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Hamilton's Contributions to the New Nation

Alexander Hamilton's contribution to the early Republic was that of ordering the nation's finances so that it's debts could be regularly and orderly funded.

First, he used the prosperity, or potential prosperity, of the new nation to sell bonds backed by gold. Next Hamilton advocated a tax on imports to gain revenue for the federal government. Third, Hamilton advocated subsuming the debts of the states into that of the federal government. This was achieved by political compromise with Jefferson and Madison to move the new federal capital to the south. Last, Hamilton instituted a program to refund the federal dollars in circulation at only 1% using a central bank established in 1791.

Hamilton's policies allowed the new nation huge new sources of income through an increase in tarriff revenue. This was especially true after Jay's Treaty in 1794. This treaty removed British forts from American territory and opened the Ohio Valley to settlement. Also Pinkney's Treaty with Spain in 1795 opened the port of New Orleans to American exports thus allowing the trade of 3/8 of the new nation to flow freely south down "the father of waters" to all parts of the world. Devasting inflation that ravaged the new nations of Latin America in this period was avoided by the funding of the debt.

So we see how political compromise, sound diplomacy, and stable economics put the early Republic back on a path to economic prosperity after the dislocations and devastations of the Revolutionary War. It was no accident. It was about the decisions made, the compromises reached, and the unshakable belief in the unbounded potential of the country and using that potential as leverage to fund debts, and play off the great powers of Europe against one another in a bid for our attentions and favors.

Memories of a "Friend"

This song has been a guilty pleasure of mine for a few weeks now...it is best played at HIGH volume and right before going into a stressful situation where you need to kick some friggin ass verbally or intellectually. The lyrics are BRUTAL so leave your sensitivities in a deep grave :)

This song brings to mind an incident a "friend" :) related to me. Making love to a beautiful woman, in the after glow hearing the front door slam shut, angry, loveless boyfriend tramping down toward the bedroom yelling incomprehensible rantings. She is crazy and laughing saying "I will call later!!" Pulling up, zipping up, OUT the sliding glass door of the bedroom into the backyard and VAULTING over the back gate into the front yard!! almost breaking a leg, FLYING into the car parked on the street, START THE MOTOR GO!! :) AWAY!! This song blaring on the radio racing down the street. Yelling, laughing, pounding a fist into the car ceiling :) She calls later laughing her ass off at the incident :( you are NUTS girl!!

At least that is the way "my friend" tells it :)

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Hatred

Another time was when we were told not to hate. The day was supposedly good, the night supposedly bad. The light and dark were opposites. But one day they began to blend, our eyes could not adjust to the odd light. We began to grow slowly blind. As we sit in this bland twilight of today our eyes deteriorate by the minute. Sight is a blur. What used to be well defined is almost now unknown to us. We stagger on, unable to see even the footprints we make in the shifting sands beneath our feet. Somewhere above we hear a whirlwind and a tempest brewing, increasing in sound and furry yet symbolizing nothing to us. Shiva begins to dance, we stand transfixed in fear and fascination. Our blindness increases till we are unable to look inward. We forget our souls, and come not to believe in them. They were only a child's dream, we convince ourselves. Now we require "proof" of their existence and our very blindness precludes us from it.

Blindness turns to blackness. We fall to our knees, gasping for breath. The whirlwind descends and the blackness turns to Hate. We devour our neighbors flesh with our teeth to gain strength from their agony. It is our last measure of sustenance. That is Hatred. That is the End.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Information and Ideas

This is an example of the kind of conversation that is absolutely urgent now in many aspects of our lives, it was urgent 20 years ago, it is perhaps now simply an anachronistic talk between two "old men who don't understand the new world" that some will simply dismiss as unimportant because it was conducted in 1988 which is before much of the technology that they think has shaped their ideas was invented.

But, as is a tendency of the mind, they confuse the result with the cause. Technology is a result of ideas and thought and the mind. It ultimately depends on it. Any system, be it philosophical or political or even scientific, whose premise is that it rests upon new technology is a system that will ultimately crumble to pieces. All "new" technology will be old very shortly. Those who build systems that posit some "new" way of thinking or living based on some supposedly "revolutionary" technology will ultimately be buffeted by intellectual chaos as the "new" technology they thought their culture was based on becomes obsolete. Or they will resort to the pseudo-progressive presentism that currently reigns among many "new atheists"(see between minutes 2:10 and 2:20) and they will elevate current scientific ideas and theories to the panacea of all human wisdom, never to be surpassed, thereby stultifying true scientific progress for future generations who must first smash the false idols of "high technology" before they can breakthrough and CREATE through ideas, the higher technology of the future that will dwarf anything that exists today.

True scientific progress depends not on the elevation of "science" and certainly not technology into a guiding beacon for every aspect of our culture from laws to art to education. Science depends upon human creation and creativity leading to ideas. To elevate CURRENT technology and science, which is by definition transitory and hypothetical, into a position of influence under which it was never designed to labor, is to ossify science into its current place and ultimately destroy it as if turning a roaring river into a stagnant, stinking, tepid pool of filth.

And here is the great Carlin seeming to argue with me and agree with all at once!! I love him for both errors :) and a collection of serious thinkers on the topic....

The beauty and ultimate reality of mind as opposed to brain is that it operates on so many different levels at once. It is true that physical stimulants directed at the brain cause physical reactions in the brain. But is this stimulus/response the end of the story? This is the data that we can measure and collect scientifically. But what occurs within the mind after the brain has collected the information and the physical response within the brain has been recorded?? If the brain is just like any other physical organ, like the liver say, why is it that brains react in such different ways to the same stimulus?? If the brain is simply a piece of matter whose reactions can be perfectly measured and predicted like any other bodily organ why is it that brains can resist impulses created by stimuli at all? Why is it that no two people, virtually, act the same way when they feel love, or hate, or pain, or hunger?? If it all was simply stimulus response then individual identity would be virtually non-existent. But we know empirically that individual identity exists.

The answer may lack strict definition. But we must say that the brain and the mind are not the same thing. The brain is the physical matter in your head in which physical reactions can be recorded. Mind is the process by which one assimilates all of those reactions into patterns corresponding to the needs and desires of the individual person. This process perhaps can be observed physically by observing reactions in the brain. But simply knowing the reactions of the physical brain does not tell you how the individual person will mentally assimilate and arrange all those reactions. It would be like recording the stone's impact on the pond but ignoring the ripples and movements of the water after its impact.Like the movements of water, the "knowing of thyself" cannot be measured because it is in continual movement. It is this movement of Mind, this pattern that is shapeless but directional that is the essence of your individual being

Sometimes the mind just needs to rest and let go....retreat and advance, retreat and advance,.....drift, drift drift, then imagine a pattern it wants to create and let 'er rip!! Wait, wait wait and then smash the paradigm and bring on a new one. I still love this song after alot of years. Life is about moments not events. Moments are internal, events are external. Moments are the mind's response to events.Rage, as long as it is controlled, is an underrated emotion.
watch me crash and burn in various ways on twitter as I systematically destroy what is left of my vocabulary in a sea of trite comments, irrelevant info, and silly acronyms, and loads and loads of the most mindless YET MODERN AND TRENDY bullshit :) @jhog667

There is no website more dedicated to the dissemination of useless, irrelevant information designed more to obfuscate the truth than reveal it. Other than perhaps this one :) It's amazing to me so many on there are the most literate intelligent people and they just bathe themselves in that trite, warm feeling of separation masquerading as togetherness and friendship. What porno is to sex twitter is to words. But I am a hypocrite so both have their uses :)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

To Begin With (I)

The universe began 13 billion years ago in the so-called "big bang." The event was less an explosion than an astronomically rapid expansion. The universe expanded from the size of an atom to the size of the present Milky Way in a fraction of a fraction of a second. If one had been looking at this atom from the outside and blinked one's eyes, a realm the size of a galaxy would have appeared before one's eyes.

After about 300,000 years the universe had cooled to the point where matter and energy separated. It was then therefore possible for solids (matter) and radiation (energy) to exist in separate and unitary forms. (free matter and free energy). It was not until about 1 billion years after the "big bang" that the first stars began to form.

The first, most simple, elements in the universe were hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen atoms made up about 74% of all atoms and helium the other 24% in the entire universe. The first stars were simple formations formed by hydrogen and helium matter collapsing in on itself. As the gravitational field of the matter pulled the hydrogen and helium together it created an explosion. In a sense, a star is simply a continuous controlled explosion with the explosion of the collision of the atoms being constantly acted upon by the opposite force of the gravitation pulling the atoms back in on themselves and continuing the controlled explosion outward.

The implosive force created by the gravitational fields of the atoms and the explosive force that created by the collision of the atoms created a chaotic yet stable balance in which a star was born sending out photons of potentially life-giving radiation in all directions.

We can thus perceive that the two basic interactive forces in the universe are the original explosive force of the "big bang" and the implosive forces of the gravitational fields of solid bodies of matter. In this way, the creation of one star is similar to the creation of the entire universe in microcosm. The same basic forces continue to operate to this very moment in the present.


Here......When the explosive forces of a star are just being born, it gives off debris matter which begin to form orbital patterns around the star. These pieces of matter begin to crash and coalesce into large chunks of rock. Some of these bodies generally, eventually become planets.

In the beginning of a planets life there is usually a large amount of gaseous matter forming the bulk of the planet. Young suns give off solar winds. These winds blow off the gassy excesses of the inner planets but those winds do not reach out to the outer planets. Therefore, the inner planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars became rocky. Gaseous atmospheres were blown away. The outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were too far out from the solar winds for their gaseous atmospheres to be blown away. So, they are now huge gas balls with a small, hard inner core. Pluto is a rocky planetoid (formerly considered a planet) In that far orbit out with Pluto there are thousands of planetoids that lazily orbit the sun, some of which are bigger than Pluto.
Getting now to Earth, the first life on Earth were called Prokaryotes. These were one-celled organisms with no nucleus that could hardly even move. They did not come into being until 3.8 billion years ago. That is roughly a billion years after the beginning of Earth.

More soon...........

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Debates on Religion

Penn...... and here is a short debate I had with an intelligent Atheist interlocutor on an atheist woman's youtube channel in the comments section....I'd say I got bettered, but not cuz I am wrong!! :) just dumb....but right lol.

and an unexpected yet quite moving and poignant video on the death of a mother and mental illness......

Hitchens v Hedges

A smashing good debate, Atheist v Theist. Anyone up against Hitchens in a debate is in trouble because of his ability to think on his feet and adjust his argument mid-stream. Hedges is diligent but not as quick.

The "Jupiter" Symphony Mozart

I haven't heard this in a couple of years. This first movement has the power of a freight train and the beauty of a meadow. It lights my mind on fire, rips my heart out and tosses it on the flames.

And there is something about music that evokes a certain resistance to suffering that I am still glad I don't completely understand (but I'll keep trying to) because it might not then have the same effect :) faith has been broken, tears must be cried, let's do some living after we've died.

It is why humans generally play music in preparation for an activity or event...weddings, wars, sporting events, just before a politician speaks(usually some twangy awful country thing, at least in the US, oh god!!) to drown out someone's annoying voice before you have to listen to it :) (did I equate weddings and wars??!!) uh oh hehe they have averted some wars in history....and started some....although Paris running off with Helen wasn't really marriage I guess....call it consensual coital bondage leading to carnage :) (good band name)

Saturday, March 17, 2012

YONK 1220-Taking The Gloves Off, Putting on the Brass Knuckles

The Kony 2012 video is the most ridiculous piece of government-media propaganda ever made. Its style is childish. While it purports to be so respectful of the "Milennial Generation" at whom it is targeted, it talks to them like they are 80 IQ sub-morons. The powers that be are counting on the ignorance of the younger generation to support every US military intervention anywhere using this cheap, silly propaganda piece that is produced like an episode of Sesame Street.

Now, the US intelligence-media complex is getting its ass handed to it by members of the Millenial Generation as they are proving themselves to be not as gullible, dumbed down and stupid as the Frat-boy and sorority girl cabal that runs the government thought they were.

Their "Manchurian Generation" of teen and twenty somethings that the public school system has been practically breeding from birth to be aliterate, good little global citizens who follow orders when they are texted and tweeted to do so is not proving as pliable and subservient as these rat fucking bastards thought they were going to be. Maybe there is hope for humanity after all.

This guy is abrasive as hell I know, if you can't deal with him skip ahead to the five minute mark as a Ugandan-American girl verbally kicks the ass of the corrupt intelligence-Africa Command propaganda purveyors.....

Friday, March 16, 2012

Vonnegut Interview 1991

book recommendations for Vonnegut, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" and "Mother Night", I just love this guy,believes in the power of words, iconoclastic and unpredictable, fearless, tells the world to stick it,....when warranted :) again don't agree with him on everything but.....it would be a strange world if artists all conformed to my personal opinions!!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Ideological Competition As A Source of National Progress

One of the paradoxes of American history is that the competing ideas of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson worked interdependently with and against one another as a stimulant to national power. New Yorker Hamilton's idea of the importance of industry and cities and Virginian Thomas Jefferson's vision of filling the continent with yeoman farmers, loyal Americans all, acted as a facilitating "hidden hand" guiding the nation toward a powerful and prosperous future.

If Hamilton's idea of teeming Eastern cities had fully prevailed in the 1790s it is likely that as Americans moved west they would have formed separate nations. A continental nation would have never come to fruition. If Jefferson's idea of a nation in constant revolution and mass numbers of yeoman farmers had prevailed, it is unlikely the U.S. would have ever developed the industrial base that ultimately provided the great markets for the farmers and led to industrial expansion and the global power of the United States. So the two founding philosophies of the nation,in many ways opposites of one another, in their competition advanced the interests of the nation and increased national power. Hamilton's ideas provided the markets and industrial muscle upon which the creation of wealth is based. Jefferson's ideas provided the raison d' etre for the nation and a source of its political stability. People WANT, DESIRE to be part of a nation where they are recognized as rightfully pursuing happiness. Such people had no reason to form new nations as they moved West. The stability and power reinforced one another as the decades passed.

If either the Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian ideas had fully prevailed in the 1790s the nation would most likely have fragmented into separate nations. It was PRECISELY then the willingness to share power with others whom one might disagree with and the willingness to compromise and accept political defeat, that unified the nation. This willingness was fostered not by any benevolence toward one's political foes but by two uniquely(at the time) American political characteristics. Those were, first, the regularity of opportunities for political change in the form most notably of bi-annual congressional elections. Second, most importantly, the diffusion of political power in American life allowed for ambitious men and women to fulfill their political ambitions in others avenues besides the Federal way.States were recognized as having purview in some constitutionally stipulated jurisdictions which federal power had no, or little, authority.

Perhaps it is the increased centralization of federal power in American political life that has led to the greatly polarized and sclerotic American political universe. Politically ambitious elites are less willing to take their ideas and energies to the local or state level, knowing that there is an increasing irrelevancy to them as power and money is coagulated in the federal head.

Last, as a slight aside, it may be the case that the ultimate reason for the Civil War by 1861 was that Hamiltonian policies had almost completely prevailed in the north and Jeffersonian policies in the south. The two regions increasingly saw each other as separate nations that threatened one another.

No ideological victory by a party or faction will advance the interests of the nation. In a democratic republic all political victories must only be temporary and partial or the nation will cease to be a republic and the democratic faction that takes power will ultimately declare itself the majority and extinguish democracy as well. For political victories to remain temporary our elections must continue at short regular intervals AND they must be truly fair and not rigged. For political victories to remain partial, not total, the integrity, concurrent jurisdiction and shared sovereignty of the 50 states must be preserved. Competing jurisdictions are not important to satisfy the parochial concerns of some state's rights fanatics. They are essential to the maintenance of a pluralistic, ideologically diverse democratic republic because they allow for at least the partial fulfillment of the avarice for power so common, especially today, among political elites.

To try to promote an artificial harmony and concord of ideas in this country by legal coercion or social pressure is only to make the divisions in the country worse. The solution is not to limit or diminish the competing ideas but to increase the vehicles by which those competing ideas can not only be heard but can at least partially share in political power. Ideas like these will only come from our localities, up through the states and finally to the federal government. Any move in the opposite direction will only promote the idea that power must be grasped firmly and perpetually because the opportunity to wield it may never arise again. This is the way to friction, faction, and disaster. It is the way our founders warned us not to travel and then lit a constitutional path by which later generations could avoid this unhappy state.


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bees Do It, Fleas Do It??

Fly?, conjugate verbs??....this is my favorite version of this by Ella even better than the Cole Porter, in my opinion....

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Dangers of Using A Blog as a Bumper Sticker

For me, I choose to not use a blog as a pure representation of all my views. All I put up here, even some of the things I say verbally, are not necessarily my final thoughts on a topic. And often I will post something that I, to a small or large degree, disagree with because I find that I tend to strengthen my thinking and arguments by playing off their arguments. (And well, hell, sometimes I learn something or even change my opinion God Forbid!! :)

This is similar to judo in which you use the force of your opponent against him by constantly deflecting that force off of you and thereby wearing him down. This was also at the heart of Ghandi's Principle of Satyagraha or "truth force" usually called non-violence. One often can win an argument by simply allowing your opponent to speak. This, to my mind, is the best argument for free speech, from a utilitarian standpoint. (its as well why I don't understand the Left's giddiness about the supposed downfall of Limbaugh)

One defends his or her rights by exercising them and simply refusing to accept their curtailment. If silence satisfies our sensitivities that is all well, but it will only be a cacophony of voices rising in vociferous indignity and anger that will defend OUR liberties when WE are silenced. We depend on each other to defend each other rights, even those we disagree with. A nation of atomized individuals is an inert mass awaiting its enslavement.To betray one another to the highest bidder that promises the maintenance of order in exchange for the liberty of our political opponents will ultimately betray our own liberty. In the end that bidder will come for ours as well and then who will speak out for us?? We must have each others backs, as they say, even those we might detest.

As a general rule the music I post(if not lyrically then melodically) and my personal writings are things that are genuinely part of my philosophic outlook.

It irritates me when people automatically assume that a blog is like a bumper sticker or a t-shirt in which every little item within it is a pure representation of the thoughts or views of the author. To me, that would be to imprison oneself in an iron casket impenetrable to the giving and living oxygen of others minds, hearts and thoughts.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Candidate

The scene from the film "The Candidate" of 1972 that still tells you so much about US politics....it is the vast and growing gap between the entertainment culture campaigns we have now in which the campaign tries to turn the candidate into the "trend choice", the guy "everyone is voting for", and the reality of governing a nation that is hurtling apart ideologically. We all say we object to these kind of campaigns, but in the end we all want them so we can be "entertained."

Its time to crush the culture of video vanity that has built up since the early part of the 20th century and replace it with more substance...it is poisoning politics (this coming from an extremely vain person :) But it won't change, the image culture is too seductive, too easy, and we all want to be seduced, or do the seducing.

Anyway, this scene says it and more. It was true in 1972, it is exponentially more true today. By the way, its the very last scene of the movie before the credits roll. Notice the fawning crowd, adoring their "new leader." or Senator in this case. Redford played a liberal senate candidate from California in the 1972 or perhaps 1970 elections, its not specified during the film.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Panetta Speaks to Military Props

My former Congressman from the Monterey Bay, California speaks to a group of rather skeptical looking soldiers almost certainly forced to stand there mute for the cameras. I disagree with the headline of disgracing the flag, I don't quite understand that one. However, Panetta does look rather ridiculous in a light blue Air Force Falcons football windbreaker, like he's attending a sports event.

More to the point, Panetta here speaks of "the international community" putting pressure on Iran. And today, in his congressional testimony Panetta asserted that the President already has the potential authority to use the military in Syria by the authority of potential UN resolutions, presumably under the erroneous argument that treaties, in this case the UN Charter, are "part of the Constitution" and are therefore obligatory in there function upon the actions of the US government. This is a false assertion. Treaties have never been judged to be "part of the Constitution" and therefore Constitutional Law. No, treaties are TREATY LAW, not Constitutional. Therefore, a UN resolution under the UN Charter does not negate the Constitutional obligation of Congress to approve of the force AND the funds to pay for it, that is clearly granted by the existing Constitution itself in Article I.

Treaties have been judged to supersede the authority of statute laws passed previously to the enactment of the treaty which interfere with the terms of the treaty. Treaties have never been judged to take away the power of Congress to enact statute law passed subsequently to the enactment of the treaty that is in pursuance of the Constitution.

The Constitution in Article VI states, "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...." This clearly separates out the three types of law; Constitutional, Statutory, and Treaty. It does not state that a treaty is Constitutional law but clearly puts it in a separate category. Is one to argue then that treaty law is obligatory over the Constitution itself when the clause clearly does not give treaty law this authority? It states that Congress has the right to make all laws IN PURSUANCE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Therefore it cannot sensibly be argued that a UN resolution, especially since it was not part of the original UN charter, removes the right of the Congress to pass and enforce laws that are in pursuance of the most fundamental powers that the Constitution grants it; that is the power to authorize force and the power to decide upon the funds for it. All of these powers are not simply Congressional powers. They are powers of the American People through their Representatives!! To say that a UN resolution can allow or worse FORCE!! a President to engage United States forces in war is a legal abomination and quite simply a denial of each American a representative voice in his or her government, thus violating a fundamental precept of Article I, the necessity of representation in Congress.

To say that a UN resolution obligates the US to use force or somehow "grants" the President the authority to use force is absurd on its face. Both choices are laughable and illegal. Under the former presumption our obligation to follow a UN resolution would require us to send US forces into war not only without the approval of Congress BUT ALSO even potentially without the approval of a President!! as the President is not allowed to violate the Constitution either. Under the latter presumption the President HAS THE OPTION to follow the treaty or not, clearly an absurdity. Thus we see the twin twisted arguments in their bald-faced lunacy:the first asserting the President is a Constitutional eunuch in the face of Treaty Law, the second asserting the President is a super-statutory potentate whose will can supersede the flaccid parchment of a mere treaty.

Beyond the legal arguments, to assert that a UN resolution, an organization set up to preserve peace, can oblige the American military to go to war is at best a dubious moral conundrum.

The Congress must regain its will to use the authority it Constitutionally possesses, not on behalf of a particular political party or even of itself; but on behalf of the People of the United States who are still the constitutional sovereign in this country. If not, if Congress continues to hide behind the curtain of the fiction that executive power is in all ways superior to it, then it deserves the unpopularity and increasing anonymity in which it wallows and whines.

Here is a portion of, in my opinion, nearly unbelievable testimony by Secretary Panetta to queries by Senator Sessions. To those of you on the Left, try to reverse the picture and have a liberal Democrat questioning a right-wing defense secretary backed by hawk-face generals. In other words, don't attack the man(Sessions) attack his argument if you like, but don't give me some line about "southern right-wingers" or whatever, that is not the issue here and I think you know it. Deal with the ISSUE not the personalities that you like or dislike.

Allen and Buckley

Liberals and Conservatives coming together :) Woody and W.F. Buckley in their prime....

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Whiskey, Cigs, and Jefferson

The old Trotskyite at his best; bloated, sloshed, unkempt....and brilliant as usual. May he rest in peace, and continue to think and write with passion, if not in the next world he did not believe in but through others in this one.

The Assassination of President Garfield; E-book Preservation

Candice Millard......

Lehigh Valley Tea Party Teach In

Professor Alan Charles Kors......

A Working Analysis of Fear As Hindrance and Facilitator of a Successful Life

"Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once."

unknown author aka Billy Shakespeare :)

"Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?" perhaps fear??

same author, "King Lear"

"we all have wings, but some of us don't know why." Michael Hutchence

Like so many other words "fear", the word not the thing, is a catch-all for a whole host of related yet different emotions. The key in life is not to do the impossible and banish fear from one's life. This is to become less than human, an automaton, it is to swallow pills to keep away the inner doubts that fear can bring during the paralysis it can cause.The key to a happier life is to find the aspects of fear that thrill you, exhilarate you, and motivate you and to banish those aspects of fear that enervate you, paralyze you, and cause you to see life as a frozen mountain to cower before instead of a sea of wonderment to cast off into.

This will be an ongoing attempt at an anatomy of fear. Ultimately it will be unsuccessful as are all attempts to put emotions into words. But words, as I often say, are still the best and most human way we have to deal with all aspects of our lives, from the sublime to the terrible. Every word one writes is an act of creation within oneself and in one's reader. It creates thousands of different thoughts and emotions in yourself and the reader. So combat fear, in the first instance, through acts of creation. Initially let words be your theorem, your poem, your sculpture, or your skyscraper. To not make the attempt simply because it will fail is perhaps my first example of a negative aspect of fear; its power to enervate. To combat that one must learn to love failure, to look at it from the outside in, to learn from it.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Discussing Iran In 2009: Zbig

Zbig usually gets it about right in my opinion. When an outcome in foreign affairs turns out to be in the US interest everyone says that US policy "worked." And vice versa. Everyone disregards the fact that there are thousands of factors that go into whether revolutions succeed or fail, mainly internal to the nation involved that have nothing to do with US policy. And here from 2008 in part discussing the man who just became Russia's new President......

Marshall Eakin on the Revolutions of Latin America

A brilliant teacher on a too much neglected topic

City of Angels

This song almost got me through my early 20s....almost :)

Monday, March 5, 2012