Strange how Eros moves us,

in paths bright and dark,

from ecstasy to despair.

At once soaring,

    wings lifting, graceful effort

    among the winds

And then, once again,

    folded under to plummet,

    as only a heart can fall,

    towards a frightening yet

    familar gloom.

In the atmosphere of desire

fly the raptors of love

sharpened talon and eye seeking

the vulnerable and careless heart.

Yet how often has this hungry hunter

become the prey, in turn, as the

surface of the mirror dissolves

and opens onto a different sky.

Obama's Campaign: An Emotional Escape Hatch from the Bush Era

Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com http://www.alternet.org/election08/77193/

and

Is a Liberal Renaissance in the Making?

By David Michael Green, AlterNet http://www.alternet.org/election08/77271/

--

As a young Cubs fan in 1969, I learned the hard way about leaning too hard into ones hopes and wishes.

Progressives are notoriously hard to placate, and even if Obama were to gain the White House, his time will be spent picking the incredible burden of ten thousand nits from the left along with the typical constant barrage of bullshit from the right.

Let's not burden our good fellow human with the curse of great expectations, but agree to first consider what we... I ... am willing to do to lighten his load when the time comes for leadership. When each and every citizen accepts the responsibility to lead by example and to help those in need, and to share the gifts of mind and nature for the greater good, we will deserve the boon of the finest leader the generation has to offer.

My darkest fear is that Obama will be too good for the country, the promise he offers becomes a sacrificial offering to the demons of selfishness.

On the flip side of all the optimism, I fear deeply for him and his family, including his Kenyan grandmother...

--

I find much of the commentary online to be miserably depressing. There are millions of people shooting from the hip, writing for the sheer idiocy of it.

In addition, while the supposed Hillary supporters bitch constantly about Obama, and how "the Obama groupies" are bad-mouthing Hillary, I have yet to find anywhere that this is actually happening.

I am extremely suspicious of anyone who posts ugly defamatory language about either Obama or Hillary. As a looong time internet user (since like 1984) it seems very likely to me that much of the vitriol is coming from 'agents provocateur' who are deliberately setting fires to start a flame war.

These people may very well be right-wing hacks deliberately fomenting antagonism in the Democratic camps.

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda. Education means teaaching people to see the reality around them, to undersand it for themselves. Propaganda is exactly the opposite. It tells the people, "You will think like this, as we want you to think!"

Education lifts the people up. It opens their hearts and develops their minds so that they can discover the truth and make it their own. Propaganda, on the other hand, closes their hearts and stunts their minds. It compels them to accept dogmas without asking themselves, "Is this true or not?"

The trouble is that this is not only a conflict of ideology. It is a conflict of tempo. The tempo of propaganda is feverish, nervous. It is the pace of television and radio. It is the pace of the newspaper headline, the cry of the vendor in the street. Whereas education goes at a slow pace. It is the pace of teachers talking with their students. It is the pace of a man reading by himself in a room. It cannot be hurried or speeded up and remain education."

This is my comment to this blog post: http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/men-and-women-different-but-equal-whats-the-problem

Culture, of course, is a product of the interaction of humans of all genders and all levels of intellectual capacity. It is also the social expression, at the most fundamental level, of primate behaviors which underlay 90% or more (has it been measured?) of human behavior.

It occurs, if one gains some distance from the idea of the implicit supremacy of the human animal, that male or female, humans operate pretty much just like other organisms, that is, they tend toward self-preservation, reproduction, and pecking order, in roughly that sequence.

Interestingly, the ancient Hindu thinkers describe exactly this, as these represent the first three "chakras" which are, in essence, those domains into which we channel our energies.

Of course, the next (fourth) chakra represents the network, the idea that what's good for the whole is good for me. This idea of transcendence, which is embodied in empathy and compassion-- the altruistic impulse-- also has biological roots, but in fact, can not be enjoyed without a certain loosening of the demands of the first, most primitive, and most divisive, focii.

Men and women, different? Not very much, in my view. Overly aggressive men are in large part a biological response to selection by women over tens of thousands of years.

Fortunately, men are beginning, at least in the West, to respond in kind to lower demands for physical strength, and more verbal skills. (Unfortunately, our worst are still as bad as ever)...

Give us a few generations, we're slow learners

:-)

From http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0881991.html:
""" """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ [quote]
The Nine Muses
The Nine Muses were Greek goddesses who ruled over the arts and sciences and offered inspiration in those subjects. They were the daughters of Zeus, lord of all gods, and Mnemosyne, who represented memory. Memory was important for the Muses because in ancient times, when there were no books, poets had to carry their work in their memories.


Calliope was the muse of epic poetry.
Clio was the muse of history.
Erato was the muse of love poetry.
Euterpe was the muse of music.
Melpomene was the muse of tragedy.
Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry.
Terpsichore was the muse of dance.
Thalia was the muse of comedy.
Urania was the muse of astronomy.

""" """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ [end of quote ]

Which brings to mind the words spoken to the Thrice Great Hermes (or Thoth to the Egyptians).
A comment about the effect of a new tool on knowledge, from the first chapter of my unpublished book on Typography for the Web (1997)

"This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the
learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they
will trust to the external written characters and not remember of
themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not
to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not
truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of
many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be
omniscient and will generally know nothing;"

--- Thamus speaking to Thoth, "Phaedrus", Socrates
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thoth was the Egyptian god of writing, and Thamus's complaint concerns the
invention of writing. Obviously, the world would now go to Hades in a
handbasket, and just as obviously, Socrates was right.

Although, as my very living has depended for decades on these very symbols, I can't say I regret the invention of writing ;-)

and on another track, this from AEsop, regarding my feelings about tolerance for the intolerant.

""" """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """
The Farmer and the Snake

ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. "Oh," cried the Farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel."

The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.

""" """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """ """

Or,

No good deed goes unpunished!

In good part, progressive humanists have seen our world view undercut by the ignorant ravings of flat-earth 'intelligent design' free-market enterprise-zone schemers exactly because we have allowed their self-serving cynical fascist framing of the common enterprise to go essentially unchallenged in the public sphere.

I for one am absolutely fed-up with the bullshit* passing as 'ideas' from the so-called right wing.

There is no legitimate philosophy which allows the selfish, the corrupt, the deranged and the evil full and free access to the public purse, and gives them overwhelming means, under the color of 'legitimate authority', of fatally striking any who oppose their schemes.


* as defined in "On Bullshit " by Harry G. Frankfurt, bullshit is distinct from the mere lie, as the liar has at least enough respect for the truth to attempt to deny it, while the bullshitter will say whatever it takes to gain their desired result. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit

(Times Select required to read the original,unfortunately)

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=50

The fact that the monothestic religions all purport to address 'doubt' (not atheism) in their dogma is not an argument which supports the treatise proposed (or implied) by Prof. Fish, which seems to be that atheism discounts the possible validity of religious writing by not crediting it with its own internal discussion. Perhaps a better analogy is that of the neurotic or schizoid personality who has to constantly argue with himself over whether to believe the voices in his head.

Man, if anything, is the only creature who assigns himself such self-importance in the universe so as to presume the ability to debate original causes.

Pure observation, as Lucretius wrote and Epicurus taught, dissolves the need or the desire for a single Author. The scientific method of reason and observation, although weakened by the often excessive egos of its apologists, is nonetheless that through which the most true expression of original cause may be eventually discerned.

All the rest is comfort against mortality... Pleasant enough, but fairy tales nonetheless. When these are magnified through the manipulations of alpha-male primate behavioral patterns into "Divine Writ", upon which all manner of evil may proceed unimpeded by love or reason -- THAT is the original sin.

http://www.fraterdeus.com/qmlqblog/archive/2007/05/12/a-short-visit-to-galway

A two hour train ride this noon down to Galway to see some water, then back to Tullamore on the 6:05

In four hours I met three memorable characters... the youngest perhaps about 60, by the name of Peter Mackew. I met him sitting along the quays drinking Guinness with his friend Santy, who is called Santy on account of his enormous white beard and mane....

They sat a ways up Mill Street looking over the old millstreams, where the flow of the River Corrib is divided with lichened granite, hewn stone walls covered with tiny flowers, ducks paddling, and the roar of the old spillway. I said, must be a good view from here, and sat down with them.

Peter said, with a wave of his hand, "Here's my garden... it is lovely isn't it" Santy sort of mumbled something... I learned that he doesn't speak at all, after a stroke, but nonetheless very communicative, offering observations (mummo mumo) with hand movements referring to the ducks, the rain, the people walking by.

After a while I pulled out the whistle and played a little something, a cappella (so to speak), not really a tune, but just how I like to play in such a scene... Santy applauded, Peter says "good man"... and Santy, being Santy, of course, gave me a gift...

A lovely white marble pebble the size of a fig from Galway Bay, I presume. Worn and warmed for who knows how long in his rucksack. They noted that having sat on the rain wet ground, I would also be carrying some Galway mud back to Tullamore.

--You'll be needing to get back to the station, we're walking that way. Santy saw some friends across the way, Peter said, he'll catch up, he knows where I'm going...

We walked up to the far end of Eyre Square in front of the station, to Richardson's Pub [1] where it was indeed my honor to buy a round for my street wise friend. Peter and I sat for an hour talking about the state of the world... and how it got this way. After a long chat, we parted ways with an exchange of addresses, and I wandered toward the station.

With fifty minutes before the train, I had time for another Guinness, and turned the corner north of the station to see what options appeared. Murtagh Rabbitt's seemed a good spot to step out of what had become a steady soaking rain. Moments later I was talking to (or trying to understand the very softly spoken strongly Irish English of) an elderly fellow who looked at my beret and my fiddle case, and said, so you are against the nukes, eh? I display the traditional peace symbol on both, and of course, that "chicken foot" is originally the sign of the nuclear disarmament movement.

Eventually we talked about bees* (they are in the air, appropriately, Peter and I having covered this topic earlier), and oh, many topics, indeed. I, in turn, then had a pint of stout thanks to this old railway man, who worked for years on the London Underground. The bartender was French, young and beautiful, with her raspberry-fringed hair and strategically placed mole (how is it?). She reminded me that I've never seen Notre Dame. I've seen San Marco in Venice and the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, Notre Dame should be 'de rigeur'...

At five to six, your man and myself head for the platform, about four minutes away, only to find a long queue of day tourists waiting to get past the collectors. No panic... Made our way through the line, and onto the train, into the seats and within thirty seconds we're on our way...

P.J. (Patrick Joseph ) alighted in Athenry, with a sparkle in his eye...

*Bees, the wingéd one. Not a typo about beers.

[] http://www.galway.net/galwayguide/showyp.shtml?id=696 [2] http://www.athenry.net/history.html

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Peter Fraterdeus http://www.fraterdeus.com http://www.galenaphotos.com Galena, Illinois http://www.alphabets.com

Photography Irish Fiddle Political Observation Philosophy Fonts Lettering

Welcome to the first Parlortricks of 2007!

We pause to acknowledge the 3000 American service members killed in Iraq, ringing the toll at the end of a bloody year. And the six hundred thousand Iraqis killed one way or the other, and the death of the tyrant, conveniently no longer around to be asked embarrassing questions about his buddies in high places in the US government.

In response, we are hearing about a "surge" of additional troops to be sent to Baghdad. In a ploy with Rovian fingerprints all over it, the White House began planting "surge" stories in the national media with barely a pause to acknowledge the Fall of the Rummy after the Thumpin' (a reporter at the White House asked Bush, is that thumpin' without a 'g', or thumping with a 'g'?) in November.

It's a textbook case of media manipulation and contextual framing, using the innocuous word "surge" which has all kinds of positive connotations. Metaphor is the mechanism with which we understand the symbolic world around us. "Surge" is a metaphor which brings to mind images such as "cleansing", "oceanic", "powerful", "electric", "instantaneous", "momentary", and so forth. How convenient to be able to describe a major ESCALATION of a disastrous war as a "temporary, powerful, cleansing of the inSURGEnts" which will give the Iraqi 'government' the instant control over their streets, water and electricity which has thus far eluded them.

Will this ESCALATION be momentary? Cleansing? Instantaneous? Not at all. But in the world of metaphor, the ten second sound bite can utilize our fractional attention spans to plant a fuzzy feel-good image of a Clean, Sparkling, Effective, Powerful Spark which will vaporize the inconvenient truths that we, and the world, confront in Iraq.

Fortunately, there are powerful voices coming back to deny this image its power and to throw off the wizard's cloaking and show the 'magic' for what it is.

Barak Obama called this 'the McCain Strategy' -- a good pre-emptive strike against the supposed front-runner on the reborn right-wing side of the Repub party.

If the Democrats and progressives can continue to quickly recognize and destroy the Rovian wolf-in-sheep metaphors, the public will help keep the media honest. But it takes constant vigilance to preserve the language, and protect our sacred honor.

/.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:.

OK, so NASA under the Bush regime is a cover for space wars, and money wasted on sending a guy to Mars (Why? so we can open opportunities for WalMart?)

But this is a great piece of astro-photography, from a master of the genre.

http://www.astrophoto.fr/iss_atlantis_transit.html Yummy telescope ;-)

/.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:./.:.

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Tidal wave? Well, maybe not, but I figure there had to be at least 10% better totals for the Dems, since Karl (Slither) Rove was so damned sure he had this one in the bag also. His vote stealers just couldn't keep up.

In an even race, the one who cheats better will win. Since Rove and his thugs have voter intimidation and electoral manipulation down to a science, the Democrats must have had a far more substantial victory than showed up at the polls.

Of course, having had their "God's Opportunist Party" majority thumped soundly and sent home with their tails between their legs (and in some cases their hands between the legs of teenaged congressional pages), the right-wing bloggers are kicking and screaming about the communist global jewish conspiracy, and generally showing exactly the type of psychopathic behavior we've come to expect from three year olds whose mommy spanks them and sends them to bed for kicking the dog, lying, screaming, and shitting all over the new Persian (or Iraqi) rug.

These pathological idiots are a threat to humanity, let alone the rest of the living creatures in the world, and the sooner they stamp themselves into a hole in the ground the better for all the rest of us.

As far as the up and coming Democrats, it seems to me that a Grandmother is the perfect one to put our national House in order. If you can raise five kids, and still have love in your heart and the desire to serve your nation, that's pretty damned impressive if you ask me.

A hip San Francisco Grandmother in the House and an Organic Wheat Farmer in the Senate. Yep, this ain't W's year, that's for sure.

One thing I absolutely expect of the Congress: that they hold the feet to the fire, and make sure somebody is held accountable for the absolute disasters and utter incompetence shown by the Bush cabal.

And I don't mean 'held accountable' like 'shown the door to go get a lobbying gig.' I want these bastards in prison for at least as long as the poor kid down the street who got busted passing a nickel-bag of pot at a party. In fact, they should make sure that kid gets out of jail, so there's plenty of room for these traitorous anti-american unconstitutional pirates.

Sorry, this is far more angry than most of my writing, but all this talk of becoming non-partisan and 'bi-partisanship' is making me nauseous. Let's not forget who we're dealing with here. The recently vanquished are NOT honorable, they are utterly dishonest, shameless, cold-blooded criminals. Karl Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all the rest should be in chains on their way to The Hauge for war crimes trial. If not, at the very least, let's not let them slither off without a public flogging, figuratively if not literally.

Hi all

Ms Manners here.

Please trim the quotes on your posts.

I know it's easy to neglect this simple kindness, as many modern email programs actually HIDE the excessive

"> > > >"

multiple copies of copies of the last fifteen messages.

However, when you hit send, they are faithfully sent AGAIN, to EVERYONE on the list ;-)

The last digest I received was at least 80% copies of copies...

Just one more way to waste resources.... The most important one, of course, being our attention.

Take a moment to edit your message before sending it.

Don't just add a couple of lines at the very top, and then send 21,000 (21K) more bytes out into the cyber-trash heap! I know, I can buy a 120,000,000,000 byte (120GB) hard disk for $120... but it's more about being conscious and deliberate in our public communications. Edit for clarity. What part of the message are you responding to? Snip, tuck, ... ... ...

Perhaps I'm old fashioned. Probably, having been reading email for over 20 years ;-) (I got my first Compuserve account in 1984 -- my email archive, a personal resource, includes over ten years worth of correspondence)

End of sermon! Please feel free to reuse if you are also feeling 'quote' challenged...but if you reply, please don't send the whole message back!

Cheers

Peter ARTQ: Help stop in-box bloat! Always Remember to Trim the Quote!

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http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101faessay85110/robert-m-sapolsky/a-natural-history-of-peace.html

  Robert M. Sapolsky is John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. His most recent book is "Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals."

An excerpt from page one of six follows. The entire article is at www.foreignaffairs.org (see link above)