POLITICAL EXCERPT

Published January 14, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Daily Kos by Jen Hayden

[Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) issues statement re Inauguration]

“Inaugurations are celebratory events, a time to welcome the peaceful transition of power and honor the new administration. On January 20th, I will not be celebrating or honoring an incoming president who rode racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry to the White House.

“Donald Trump ran one of the most divisive and prejudiced campaigns in modern history. He began his campaign by insulting Mexican immigrants, pledging to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and then spent a year and a half denigrating communities of color and normalizing bigotry. He called women ‘pigs’, stoked Islamophobia, and attacked a Gold Star family. He mocked a disabled reporter and appealed to people’s worst instincts. I cannot in good conscience attend an inauguration that would celebrate this divisive approach to governance.

“After the election, many hoped the president-elect would turn toward unifying our country. Instead he has shown us that he will utilize the same tools of division he employed on the campaign trail as our nation’s Commander-in-Chief. We need look no further than the team he is assembling to find signals that the era of Trump will be one of chaos and devastation for our communities.

“The president-elect has named Steve Bannon, a white nationalist as his chief strategist. He has nominated Senator Jeff Sessions to the office of Attorney General, despite his long career of opposition to civil and human rights. And in perhaps the most damning sign of the chaos to come, the president-elect has expedited the process to repeal the Affordable Care Act and make America sick again.”

“To make matters worse, after the intelligence community reported Russian interference in our election, Donald Trump frequently and forcefully defended Vladimir Putin. He insulted senior intelligence officials in order to preserve his reputation and disguise the truth. The American people will never forget that when a foreign government violated our democracy, Donald Trump chose the interests of another nation over our own.

“Donald Trump has proven that his administration will normalize the most extreme fringes of the Republican Party. On Inauguration Day, I will not be celebrating. I will be organizing and preparing for resistance.”

From “The Star Thrower” — Pro and Con

Published January 13, 2017 by Nan Mykel

One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer, he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?” The young man paused, looked up and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I guess I should have asked, Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”

“The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don’t throw them in they’ll die.”

“But young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves.

“It made a difference for that one!”

From an adaptation of Loren Eisley’s work by Joseph Barker

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Nan loves the Starfish Story.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Justin doesn’t:

by Justin Minkel on Wednesday, 05/07/2014

Here’s why I hate the starfish parable.

First off, human interference with nature often ends badly for nature, even when the humans involved are well-meaning little Samaritans. Maybe some species of sea bird needed the starfish for food. Maybe the starfish population would skyrocket out of control, leading to starvation and ecological chaos, if a portion of their number didn’t die on the beach. Who does this kid think he is, Jacques Cousteau?

In fact, maybe the starfish just looked like they were dying, but were actually engaged in some obscure starfish ritual essential to their survival. That starfish he rescued probably said to itself,

“Damn. It took me months to get onto that beach.”

NUBIE NOLEGE – Kinda a verse

Published January 12, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Nothing new to say today seriousbabe

but I still want to play

blogger with you.

You paint my nails

and I’ll paint yours,

and we’ll eat pickled herring; eew!

Nothing new today you say?

What about Aleppo and Putin

and that red-headed man?

You can’t stop now!

Well, d’Verse’s Mr. Linky has expired.

I don’t know how to tell the world.

Did you ever read Loren Eisley’s

“The Star Thrower?” Read it.

HUBRIS

Published January 11, 2017 by Nan Mykel

HUBRIS

Our heads have grown so big that we

want to one-up nature by climbing

into the creator/evolution’s seat

ourselves. Half human/half robot?

Adding letters to our DNA?

Our scarlet petticoat is showing,

discounting and gambling our precious

humanity and creativity, our struggle

to actualize our love, and nurture that

with which we were uniquely born.

Oh power-hungry one in the lab, it

is our lives and our grandchildren’s

that you want to gamble with! Nurture

nature! Surely there are sufficient

challenges in our own back yard. Crossed

fingers may not work for you, taking all

that we hold dear with you.

Choices or Reactions?

Published January 10, 2017 by Nan Mykel

What’s the word for having trouble with perspective? I’m loosey goosey in firm-footed perspective on many (most? All?) things. As a result I tend to be too acquiescent.

Looking back on my life I see that I am a reactor, not an actor. I have gone with the flow until the flow ends me somewhere else. Now, at 81 (I know, elsewhere on this blog I have miscounted my own age), a decision to ACT is too vulnerable to being discounted as the loosening of my marbles.

Intellect, Instinct or Genes? Or Randomness? Or something else?

There are so many crossroads in life! I have been swept along, usually (always?) without a struggle. I can see every side of an argument (usually) and can justly be called wishy-washy. Anger is so far underground that it may have mouldered away. I suspect this is a woman issue. How else to explain away the women who have voted for a man who denigrates, insults and dismisses them so unashamedly?.

Tears come to my eyes when I think deeply about penguins, whose lives are entirely pre-scripted. Their lives follow a narrow red carpet laid out before them. Why do I feel sorry for the penguins but not the migratory birds? Come to think about of it, maybe humans?

I’ve also agreed with the wise ones who encourage us to “go with the flow.” Ira Progoff says that we’re born with the seed in us of what we have the potential to become, if that isn’t limited or interfered with in some way to prevent our blossoming/becoming.

I apologize for (see, there I go again!) entangling so many issues here, but the fact is that they’re already entangled. Oh, and I forgot, a second problem I struggle with is poor judgment. That’s much more noticeable to others. Maybe it’s just my ripe old age that lets me look back and notice the zig-zaggy path my life has taken. To tell the truth, I’d not be willing to have another chance to live this particular life because I’m almost certain I wouldn’t end as well as I have, despite all the detours, potholes and roadblocks. I’m remarkably content at 81, despite, or maybe because of, the narrow misses….

Excerpt from Resigning Teacher

Published January 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From catapult.co via Digg

…These were my stated reasons for leaving. What I never said was that I was having a hard time maintaining my optimism around children, that instead of feeling hope when looking into their eager faces, I felt despair at how much we’ve failed them and how little of everything we were leaving for them—how little of the earth, how little joy, how little justice, how little of the things I was telling them every day the world was about. Maybe because I didn’t have any young children of my own, my body rejected a biological imperative to believe in the inevitability of their survival….
surprise.jpgS

He says “I’m still alive,” in 2013

Published January 8, 2017 by Nan Mykel

From The Mental Chronicles:

just for the record. I’ve been gone from this site for quite a long while, and to be honest, I don’t know why. No excuse about being busy. There were some instances when I would have had the time to write.

To be honest, I’ve mostly been thinking. The end of the month I’ll go back to campus for another two semesters of classes, which I enjoy, but this was supposed to be a break and it has turned into me just feeling numb.

I wish I could just focus on things that are going right in my life, but I can’t. I quit going to my psychiatrist several months ago, and I got the letter fairly recently warning me to schedule an appointment or be discharged. Followed by the letter officially stating that I have been discharged from psychiatric care at this place. I had just held that letter and stared at it, and thought about how I had been doing well for a while after leaving. Then I thought about how I refuse to go back to medication because I never want to deal with side effects again.

I had thought studying psychology would be good for me. I thought maybe it would help me understand myself, and maybe people in general.

I’m beginning to think nothing can help me. A lot has to do with my understanding of the world. The world is a terrible place because of humans and humans are terrible because of human nature. There is no refuge in religion because I see through most established religions. Why would I believe there is a god when all I see in news is foreign genocides and political assassinations and six years old rape victims? Or, if there is a god, why would I want to worship something that could end misery but allows genocides and assassinations and the rape of six-year-olds?

Then I wonder if I am facing the true shape of things or if I am disillusioned. To be honest, I want so badly to be wrong. But I can’t make myself believe that it’s true.

The state of the world so deeply bothers me, and yet I feel there’s nothing I can do. No one can clean all the world’s filth, and if someone did, it would just re-accumulate–because that’s how people are.

I’ve heard often the counter-argument, of course, that if you can make a difference to even one person, that’s a huge deal in that person’s life and that’s one less person suffering. I just can’t see it that way. No, I do not just turn my head, I do try to help. But in my head, it makes no difference. Yes, I helped the homeless woman on the corner. But who is there to help the man being dismembered or the child soldier or the bullied student or the woman being brutally raped in some guy’s basement?

There is no one to help them, and they will suffer.

And there is no end and no cure because we would be our own shot at salvation but we are too busy being the devil to care.

I just find it difficult to deal with and I tend to think maybe, maybe it is a trend going downward and maybe someday our world will become too heavy from the weight of its crimes and it will all fall down and collapse in on itself, and maybe that is the outcome humanity deserves.

All of this is condensed in this frustrating nebula that lives in the back of my head and taints nearly everything I think and do with meaninglessness.

I apologize for my first recent entry being so rant-like and dark, it’s just that this is what I’ve been thinking about.

I just don’t know.

Stuck with a Pinched Nerve…

Published January 8, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Ray Villafane, http://villafanestudios.com/

so I have a little time for the blog. Let me introduce you to my pages:

RELIEF-REFRESHING is the most enjoyable.

I like SECRETS, but it needs updating. It’s a list of amazing things I did not know.

JOURNAL YOURSELF INTO BEING is written in hopes of introducing folks to the creative potential of keeping a journal over time, to include doodles, poetry, quotes from books, [noting author and page numbers makes later use much easier] , dreams, images, thoughts and whatever else emerges from your pen. The last half (approximately) of my book on incest is from my own journal. And sometimes I’m depressed, wih a sense of humor.

DREAM ON was started not only to share some concepts from dream experts, but to include some dreams. Unfortunately, bloggers who follow me don’t seem to be into sharing their dreams. I can still hope and one day soon will post something on puns in dreams.

SERENDIPITY AND SYNCHRONICITY is a place to share spooky coincidences. I’m trying so hard to record them, but they sift through my fingers usually. I’d welcome others sharing.

LIFE ISSUES is one of my favorites, because I have given myself permission to include any life issue here.

OUR SHADOW SELVES deals with trying to figure out what our dark side (usually Jungian) is all about. Still haven’t resolved that touchy question. Join in the discussion under Comments!

From NPR, re Downs Syndrome

Published January 8, 2017 by Nan Mykel

More than year ago, still true:

I have a son with Downs Syndrome. I know a lot of people with intellectual disabilities. Without exception, they love to work. Probably more so than the average person, because work can give them a sense of competence they can’t get elsewhere.

They all work in sheltered workshop settings. What I don’t understand is the dogma that this kind of work is unacceptable. This flies into the face of what I see nearly everyday. People who are very happy to work and proud of what they do.

I have seen the alternative, where the sheltered work programs are shut down. And people like my son are warehoused in programs that “include” people with intellectual disabilities by making them sit most of the day in a stuffy building playing with scraps pf paper and puzzles, and getting “included in the community” by a field trip to the Mall.

I wonder if the zealots who want to close down these kind of programs really work with the more disabled of the population ?