Who’s Manning the Golden Gate?

Published May 27, 2024 by Nan Mykel

HOW MANY gateways are there to Heaven?

WHAT’S on the other side of each one?

WHO has the best chance of admittance?

CAN WE mingle there without threat?

WILL the jig saw pieces ever fit together?

WHAT’S the password(s) at the Gate?

WILL good atheists be admitted? And is there such a thing?

WILL the Happy Hunting Ground admit pit bulls?

CAN Grandfather God keep all the uncles together up there?

WHAT if we lie at the Golden Gate and make threats?

CAN we choose mid-terms instead of finals at the Golden Gate?

OLD NEWS

Published May 25, 2024 by Nan Mykel

A FAMILY MAN and…WHAT DOES HE THINK OF YOU?

What he thinks of us, from The Week via Google:

“It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” [2005]

“Look at her ass”

“26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military — only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” [May 7, 2013]

“You never get to the face because the body’s so good.” [Sept. 23, 2004]

_________________

I hate to discard tid bits that haven’t made it to my blog, and since I’ve been on an ignorance hiatus, I thought–lazily–that I’d just catch up a little:

_________________

(For years, studies have found that undocumented immigrants have much lower crime rates than citizens born in the United States and legal immigrants across a variety of offenses, including violent crimes, drug crimes and property crimes.)

______________________

On the other side of the chamber, Mr. Santos was greeted more warmly than he ever had been when he was a member of Congress, back when his colleagues wanted nothing to do with him. Before the speech, he sat and chuckled with Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida….. It was fair to say that Mr. Santos, who is scheduled to go on trial in September on federal fraud charges that include accusations of stealing money from campaign donors for personal expenses, was holding court. From <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/us/politics/biden-state-of-the-union-rowdy.html>

_____________

Energy: Companies like Shell are expanding offshore oil and gas drilling into deeper and deeper waters, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. What will it take?

_____________

May 1, 2024 — Starting today, the window in which a person can get an abortion in Florida was reduced from 15 weeks to six. Critics of the ban channeled their efforts into gathering petition signatures to put an amendment on the ballot that would directly ask Floridians if they wanted to expand abortion access, and bring it back up to about 24 weeks. They had begun that effort after the 15-week ban was enacted, but it really ramped up after the six-week ban was signed. They were successful, and that question will appear on the ballot in November. https://kffhealthnews.org › morning-breakout › floridas…

__________

AWAKENING FROM THE NIGHTMARE

Published May 8, 2024 by Nan Mykel

It couldn’t be real. Maybe it’s just a nightmare that’s lasted too long. Student protests indicate that the young are thinking, feeling and energized. I am encouraged by those who speak out in their local papers and radio for national sanity to return. I was especially encouraged by author Luman Slade’s letter in the local Athens News this week. Sorry, I believe I said I wouldn’t mention the T word any more, but hey, I’m just quoting someone else. What do you think?

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

To the Editor:

We Americans, probably due to our Christian upbringing, have been too polite and too tolerant when it somes to would-be-tyrants, such as Donald Trump. We have sat back and allowed him to remove civility from our discourse. We have allowed him to divide us and pit us, one against the other.

We have allowed him to set new standards as to the use of vulgar language, slander, insults, and lies. We have allowed him to upset customs and morality. We have allowed him to impede and threaten our judicial and legislative bodies. We have allowed him to weaken our honorable world standing. Finally, we have allowed him to misguide our children into believing that bullying is OK, that people who are different are inferior, and that cheating and lying are normal behavior.

Isn’t it about time to begin taking a stronger and more meaningful stand for what is true, what is right, and what is good? Isn’t it about time for us to become less compliant to the ugly messages of Trumpism? Isn’t it about time to begin using our voting rights and our voices to take this unscrupulous predator and false prophet out of the picture before he does unreparable damages?

_______________

My Smart Ass Petunias

Published May 6, 2024 by Nan Mykel

In 1900, ornithologist Thomas G. Gentry authored Intelligence in Plants and Animals which argued that plants have consciousness. Historian Ed Folsom described it as “an exhaustive investigation of how such animals as bees, ants, worms and buzzards, as well as all kinds of plants, display intelligence and thus have souls” OMG! In addition to the newly conceived foetus?

In the 1960s Cleve Backster, an interrogation specialist with the CIA, conducted research that led him to believe that plants can communicate with other lifeforms.

Studies on the vine Boquila trifoliata has raised questions on the mode by which they are able to perceive and mimic the shape of the leaves of the plant upon which they climb. Experiments have shown that they even mimic the shape of plastic leaves when trained on them.^[9] Suggestions have even been made that plants might have a form of vision.^[10]

Plants are considered carnivorous if they have these five traits:^[18]

capture prey in traps
kill the captured prey
digest the captured prey
absorb nutrients from the killed and digested prey
use those nutrients to grow and develop.

Other traits may include the attraction and retention of prey.^[18]

“I like being wealthy….Wealth is only a problem for those who don’t have it.” (Comment to Jill Dennison)

__________

DOOMED STRUGGLE

Some Republicans have struggled to defend the inconsistencies of calling for the prosecution of the college campus protesters while defending those accused of breaking the law on Jan. 6: ny times

____________

YIKES!

A study found that online trolls genuinely enjoy causing pain and distress. Their personality is an amalgamation of psychopathy and sadism. They aren’t the most empathetic people out there and don’t possess any understanding or caring for others. –Edge of Humanity Magazine

___________

GREEN THOUGHTS

How much do plants know? How much

do I? If all life shares a

microbe grandparent, then who

got what? Humans got the words.

What encompasses plant selfhood?

How does photosynthesis

feel? How do I? Hot and cold,

thirsty or frozen on the vine.

Plants favor siblings when they

share water supplies. How do

they know who’s who? What level

of comprehension exists?

Plants know when they are touched,

they say, and dogs dream, wordless.

I probably already

know the day that I shall die.

Admitting My Envy

Published May 4, 2024 by Nan Mykel

I’ve been reading Who Dies, by Stephen and Ondrea Levine (for a second or third time), and am reminded “to become wholly born, whole beings, we must stop postponing life….There is much of ourselves we wish not to experience…” So alright, I’ll admit being envious of, a little mad at, and if truth be told, enraged at the bloggers I ran into who have the costly super duper blogs with out-of-sight images.

(IS IT ME OR A.I., BUT IT TAKES A SECOND OR TWO NOW BETWEEN TYPED LETTERS on my computer. IT’S FIXED NOW– SOMEONE OR SOMETHING MUST HAVE READ ME.)

“There is so much of ourselves we wish not to experience. So much fear, guilt, anger, confusion and self-pity. So much self-doubt, so many weak excuses. Is it any wonder, considering the bizare insistence of our conditionin–the conflict of one value system with another in the mind–that we feel so incomplete. One moment the mind is saying, “Take a big piece,” and then the next it says, “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you.” p. 9

___________

Energy: Companies like Shell are expanding offshore oil and gas drilling into deeper and deeper waters, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. What will it take?

___________

In 2022, DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion ban at a big church near Orlando. But when he signed the six-week ban, he did it behind closed doors. That signaled, I think, that he knew it was going pretty far for a state where public opinion polls still suggested most Floridians wanted legal abortion far beyond six weeks.

Critics of the ban channeled their efforts into gathering petition signatures to put an amendment on the ballot that would directly ask Floridians if they wanted to expand abortion access, and bring it back up to about 24 weeks. They had begun that effort after the 15-week ban was enacted, but it really ramped up after the six-week ban was signed. They were successful, and that question will appear on the ballot in November.

___________

BIRTH RATE DOWN? I SAY GOOD

There’s too many people in the world without a home, a house or a country. The more the merrier? I think not. Some say we need more people [whites] to save our “civilization,” at the same time cutting learning about it in college [humanities cuts]. The marriage rate is down, too. Are the abortion ban simply a way to increase our population, in addition to waging war on women?

____________

CAN YOU RECITE:

Hickory Dickory Dock? I learned it as Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, the mouse ran down. Hickory Dickory dock.

I think I have learned that the original was not taught to children because it is ungrammatical [to me, at least]:

Hickory Dickory Dock the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one and down he run. Hickory Dickory Dock.

Some parent or teacher must have thought to “correct.”

The truth could have been a learning tool but so much, the truth is expendable. Oh horrors there I go sounding like an octogenarian again!

_____________

UNMENTIONABLE

Published May 1, 2024 by Nan Mykel

HAVE YOU WONDERED ABOUT THE BOOK MARKET RECENTLY?

I’m not privy to the entire story, only my part. There must be several different things going on. I can talk about what I know. Bookstores are happy to publish news stories on self-published books because it’s good for their business; because the local library refuses to add them to their collecttion.

I can empathize with the flood of local authors’ donations (much of it admitted crap) and their (our) expectations for sharing with the public via our local library. When I donated my book Fallout, A Survivor talks to Incest Offenders to a library staff member she said thank you and I discovered it went directly into our Saturday Library Sale. Thinking that I had not made myself clear, I submitted another copy for the library stacks to another library staff member. I never checked into it further, believing it had been made available in the stacks.

Later I discovered that Picking Fleas, Writers Grooming Writers, a 299-page book by the library’s writing group in 2002 and whose proceeds went to Friends of the Library itself, was not available in the stacks. When I asked, first it was that books without flat bindings carrying title and author info could not easily be displayed. Over the years (since at least 20 years ago), self-published books are assumed to be inferior.

I think I understand the problem. Local “authors” of self-published books include some doozies that would diminish respect for the library’s holdings. So a broad spectrum of the public might be alienated, while a much smaller untamed slice of self-published authors might be gratified. Drawing up guidelines for what’s acceptable would be setting such a big fracas in the face of the world’s other causes so as not to be worth it.

So why did I happen to blab about it here? Because I’m a stickler for hidden truth, I guess.

___________________

After decades of efforts to change a provision of state law shielding people who rape their spouses from prosecution, the Ohio Senate has voted unanimously to remove that loophole. Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Hilliard) said the gap in the law has suggested that either spousal rape isn’t taken as seriously as other sexual violence or that it doesn’t ever happen. “This is especially concerning, as a spouse should be the most trusted person in a marriage,” Kunze said on the Senate floor. “And it is even more egregious to think that in our state in 2024, it is lawful to to rape your spouse.” The only “no” vote was from Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia). https://www.statenews.org/people/karen-kasler.

According to Google, Dean is married.

_________________

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH REVERSES BAN ON GAY CLERGY

In a meeting on Wednesday, church leaders also voted to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings. __n.y.times

___________________________________

Quote for the Day:

As Robert Morgenthau, a former Manhattan district attorney, liked to say, “You cannot prosecute crime in the streets

without prosecuting crime in the suites.”

________________

REFLECTIONS

Inside, nestled into a corner of the brain, lies a chapel tucked away just in case we need it. Tear ducts have been installed for weeping. We have fingers for painting and sometimes pointing. When ecstasy or glee overtakes us, we are provided outlets for dancing or singing. On those long dark days of need, there is our inner chapel, the God gene. “You wish!”

________________

SERENDIPITY AND SYNCHRONICITY

Since I was alerted to something by Word Press (Maybe my pages were all going Private), I read through to see what we would be missing, and was reminded of my first recorded: