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SATURDAY JOURNAL

Published December 9, 2023 by Nan Mykel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THANKS TO NED HAMSON for his referral to yesterday’s best referral:
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HO HUM- The Texas Supreme Court put a hold  on a lower court order that had allowed an abortion for a woman’s fetus that has a fatal condition, in response to an appeal from Attorney General Ken Paxton….In two days Mr, Santos is making more money than he did when in Congress.  He has threatened to bring ethics charges against three New York Republican representatives. (TheWeek 12/15/23)
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MISCELLANEOUS – A Royal Academy of Arts-trained pianist from the U.K. has played about 150 piano concerts for elephants at a Thai animal rescue organization. (The Week 12/15/23)
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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:  It’s a hard nut to crack, and I doubt that I shall ever get into the real meaty part of it, but two opposing articles have come to my attention, and I just want to point that out, not to solve the problem.  The first is in Will Self’s December 2021 essay in Harper’s magazine, “A Posthumous Shock: How Everything Became Trauma,” and the second a Health and Science article in The Week of December 15, 2023, “Why Trauma Feels Current.”  Although Self’s lengthy essay is quite erudite and appears to address a misconception of some of the facts–{such as the separate but earlier belief that mothers were responsible for schizophrenia)–The Week article raises the question of the difference in brain storage of traumatic memories versus neutral and sad memories.  (The former memories are stored in the posterior singular cortex while the latter are stored in the hippocampus). 
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GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY
 
My thoughts are covered with moss
in words as old as myself.
Why in a blue moon should I
assign them all to the shelf?
 
They’re as real as jabber wock
and twice as long in the tooth.
Like, who’s your elder anyway?
Tell me that, young’un. Forsooth!
 
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QUOTATION OF THE DAY:   “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”   — Confucius, Chinese teacher and philosopher
 
 
 
          

TODAY’S JOURNAL….Friday

Published December 8, 2023 by Nan Mykel

 

 

 

 

 

I thought perhaps re=fashioning my post would better describe its current form.  Ergo: TODAY’S JOURNAL….Friday…

HO HUM…In France, teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his students to illustrate free speech.

Just completed an enjoyable detective novel with far too much sex in it but engrossing plot: A 2013 novel by Linda Howard. (The library’s serendipitous discards continue to entrap me).

Believe me, no matter how old, it’s Polar Express for the holidays.  It kept my spoon in the air for minutes while I watched, charmed.

I can’t understand why so many people are blase about A.I.: Altman and his prepper household with guns, water, food, etc. Duh, what does that suggest re A.I.’s safety?

Meghan Bobrowsky Thu, December 7, 2023 — The OpenAI Board Member Who Clashed With Sam Altman Shares Her Side
In an interview, Helen Toner, an AI academic from Australia, explains her posture in the power struggle at OpenAI.  I’ll just refer readers to her:

From <https://finance.yahoo.com/m/f9b17c5b-5700-37cd-9710-7a5ffc14d022/the-openai-board-member-who.html>

Texas Nationalist Movement:  BE WARM While you secede from the USA: “Allow yourself to be enveloped in comfort and style with the TNM Logo Hooded Sweatshirt. Made of a blend of 50% pre-shrunk cotton and 50% polyester, this hoodie provides both comfort and durability. Air-jet spun yarn gives this hoodie a soft feel and reduced pilling, while the double-lined hood with matching drawcord ensures a secure fit. The rib-knit cuffs and waistband with spandex, as well as the front pouch pocket, add optimal style and function. The double-needle-stitched collar, shoulders, armholes, cuffs, and hem ensure that this hoodie will stand the test of time. Get ready to stay warm and stylish in this TNM Logo Hooded Sweatshirt.”

LIFE METAPHOR
A.I. Oh my. I’ll cry!
We were gifted somehow
as caretakers of life
on Earth. Toss a penny:
Save or destroy was
the question.   What would
we do with all our power?:
Make or shake or desecrate?
We lost control and as the
nasty pus of greed triumphed,
now steaming toward 2050,
what will be will be.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: Advice for Transgenders? : Polonius’ advice is summed up with the lines: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’  (And advice for all)

 

 

 

Soft on the Animals

Published December 2, 2023 by Nan Mykel

Alongside some cutthroat actions by humans upon humans, it is refreshing to hear about kindness being given to guilt-free animals.  Two instances came across my desk recently: a vetrinarian caring for pets of the homeless  and, earlier, a behavoral scientist teaching a migration path to birds extinct in the wild.

Dr. Kwane Stewart’s outreach on the streets started more than a decade ago as a personal mission that he kept to himself.  “It was my way to heal,” said Stewart, a veterinarian whose nonprofit, Project Street Vet, provides medical care to the pets of people experiencing homelessness. “Maybe some of it was guilt. Maybe some of it was I just wanted my own little crusade.”https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/us/california-street-veterinary-medicine-pets-cnnheroes/index.html>

          Separately, Johhannes Fritz, a behavioral scientist, built an aircraft and learned to fly in order to teach the bald Ibis, a bird extinct in the wild for 300 years, how to fly a 3-week migration path  south from Germany through the alps by following his ultra light aircraft.   Fritz founded the Waldrapp team to better understand the Ibis’s requirements, and began a bond with these species, which turned into a passion to save them.  Granted, this was in  2001, but the team Fritz initiated appears to still be operative.   https://www.waldrappteam.eu/en/

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THANKS!

Many thanks to friend Sallie for directing me to the following related to Christians for Judaism, discussed in my  Nov. 30 post.  You can check it out, but here ‘s part of it, from Wikipedia via Google:

Christian Zionism is an ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Likewise, it holds that the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with Bible prophecy: that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant — the eschatological “Gathering of Israel” — is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[1][2] The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.[3][4]

Advocacy on the part of Christians for a Jewish restoration grew after the Reformation, and is rooted in 17th-century England.[1] Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that England’s Zionist evangelical Christians “passed this notion on to Jewish circles” around the 1840s,[5] while Jewish nationalism in the early 19th century was largely met with hostility from British Jews.[6]

Christian pro-Zionist ideals have generally been common among Protestants since the Reformation. While supporting a mass Jewish return to the Land of Israel, Christian Zionism asserts a parallel idea that the returnees ought to be encouraged to reject Judaism and adopt Christianity as a means of fulfilling biblical prophecies.[7][8][9][10] Polling has suggested a trend of widespread distrust among Jews towards the motives of evangelical Christians.[11]

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GRIM

“My favorite ‘Twilight Zone’episode is the one where aliens land and, in a sign of their peaceful intentions, give world leaders a book. Government cryptographers work to translate the alien language. They decipher the title — ‘To Serve Man’ — and that’s reassuring, so interplanetary shuttles are set up.

“But as the cryptographers proceed, they realize — too late — that it’s a cookbook.

“That, dear reader, is the story of OpenAI.”…. much more

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SOMETIMES

I wonder, did I write my life?

If so, I was clever and did

A good job. So many dear things

Were included. Best of all was a

Sterling sense of humor. I laugh

At myself for spilling my soup

Or getting into the wrong car

(That was a hoot) or taking a

Year of French but not learning the

Word for potty when needed in

Calais. The black and yellow writing

Spiders at the farm, the fig tree,

Even the scupernong arbor, too.

Red tomatoes warm from the sun–

Patrol girl in the sixth grade and

Best of all, a grandmother with

a soft lap and dimpled elbows.

A Near Miss and a Recommendation

Published December 2, 2023 by Nan Mykel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A questionable serendipity at the library brought me in contact with Naomi Wolf’s first big seller, but just to be sure I Googled her and had to back off.  (Maybe I’ve learned my lesson? About time!)

What I did stumble across possibly makes a lot of sense. Read this and tell me what you think:

The reason the Hamas-Israel war can be hard for outsiders to understand is that three wars are going on at the same time: a war between Israeli Jews and the Palestinians exacerbated by a terrorist group, a war within Israeli and Palestinian societies over the future and a war between Iran and its proxies and America and its allies.

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Very accidentally I came across a post that said climate change will wipe us out and nothing can help, so we’d best give up our efforts.  I surmise that that: 1.the author is sadistic  2.the author is backed by the fossil fuel industry  3.the author is dangerously depressed or 4.the author is correct.  At any rate, I’m not referring him to you.

A New Day

Published November 30, 2023 by Nan Mykel

Deep breath.  Tryin’ to do better.

Frustrated that some of the Times’ columns are off limits to non-subscribers.  I’ll test the waters for education’s sake:

“In 2024, it’s not the economy. It’s the democracy. It’s the decency. It’s the truth.

I’m not talking about what will influence voters most. I’m talking about what should.”

From Frank Bruni’s opinion column in the New York Times today.

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I’m still trying to find out why George W. Bush signed into law a bill requiring the State Department to monitor global anti-Semitism and rate countries annually on their treatment of Jews, over the US State Department’s opposition, saying it was unnecessary as the department already compiles such information in its annual reports on human rights and religious freedom.  True, Bush announced this when he addressed  a crowd in the battleground state of Florida, which has the world’s largest Jewish population in the world after Israel and New York, [Rense.com] so maybe it was just to get the Jewish vote.  The rapidity with which we backed the current Israeli war made me wonder some more.  Was it oil?  A friend suggested it was due to guilt, because the U.S. had turned away a boatload of refugees from Hitler times, but I read up on that and that situation was unclear.

I’m not truly superstitious, but I used to buy books in thrift shops in order to open myself to serendipitous unread books.   Now my serendipity with books is limited to the overflow book shelves in the public library.  My last visit to the library matched me with Diane Ravitch’s 2020 Slaying Goliath (The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools)  and Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy 2006.  (I follow Ravitch’s blog but don’t reblog it ’cause I suspect she doesn’t like to be re-blogged.  (I love it!).

Re Phillips’ book, it made me wonder if our favoritism could be that “U.S. Protestant theology has now refocused itself on the  biblical holy lands as a battlefield is just another of the extraordinary transformations taking place on account of the influence of religion on American politics and war.”  Christian Nationalism sprang forth after the book was published, I figure, because it is not listed in his large Index.

Phillips writes that “many  in the Christian Right appear to have a larger purpose, perhaps related to preparation for the rapture, the tribulation, and Armageddon. Some 40 percent of Americans…believe that the antichrist is alive and already on the earth.”  He refers to Paul Boyer, who dates evangelical preoccupation with the Middle East back half a century, stirred by the creation of Israel in 1948, then by the expansion of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, all key end times signs.  “Islam’s evil role, says Boyer, is an ancient view in Christian eschatology.”

I’ve mentioned my lack of some important education in the past, and this is where I am ignorant, also.  I’m not sure how merging Christian Evangelism with the Jewish holy land go together.  If I’m missing something obvious, please tell me.

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ASHAMED….

to be an American?  I never thought I would be, but how else can I respond to the huge Republican push to re-elect such a man?  I have no words for any justification.  I won’t think further on it, but there it is.

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QUOTATION

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde via Google

Hornswoggled Again

Published November 29, 2023 by Nan Mykel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have I finally learned my lesson? What lesson?  If it looks pretty and smells nice, don’t believe it?

Sigh.  Yesterday I sang praises for Sikhism.  Today I learn that Sikh separatism has a bloody history, that Sikhs assassinated Indira Gandhi  in 1984 and in 1985 a Sikh terrorist blew up Air India Flight 182 from Montreal to London, killing 129 people.  The lesson, I guess: Don’t believe everything you read..including me, I guess.

Hey Look What I Found

Published November 28, 2023 by Nan Mykel

Christian Nationalism vs Sikhism?

Sikhism advocates equality, social justice, service to humanity, and tolerance for other religions. The essential message of Sikhism is spiritual devotion and reverence of God at all times while practicing the ideals of honesty, compassion, humility and generosity in everyday life.

The world’s faithful account for 83% of the global population; the great majority of these fall under twelve classical religions–Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.<https://www.google.com/search?q=World+religions&sca_

Sikhism is a South Asian religion, and is a philosophy, that originated in the Punjab region of South Asia, around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups and stands at fifth-largest worldwide, with about 25–30 million adherents. Wikipedia

Sikhism – Founded by the Guru Nanak (born 1469), Sikhism believes in a non-anthropomorphic, supreme, eternal, creator God; centering one’s devotion to God is seen as a means of escaping the cycle of rebirth. Sikhs follow the teachings of Nanak and nine subsequent gurus. Their scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib – also known as the Adi Granth – is considered the living Guru, or final authority of Sikh faith and theology. Sikhism emphasizes equality of humankind and disavows caste, class, or gender discrimination. From <https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/religions/>

“Beginning on some winter night the snow will fall steadily for a thousand years and hush in its falling the spore cities whose seed has flown. The delicate traceries of the frost will slowly dim the glass in observatories  and all will be as it has been before the virus wakened. The long trail of Halley’s comet. once more returning will pass like a ghostly matchflame over the unwatched grave of the cities. This has always been their end, whether in the snow or in the sand.”   —  Loren Eisley

LIFE METAPHOR

Published November 22, 2023 by Nan Mykel

 

 

 

 

A.I.  Oh my.  I’ll cry!

We were gifted somehow

As caretakers of life

On Earth.  Toss a penny.

Save or destroy was

The question–what would

We do with all our power:

Make or shake or desecrate.

We lost control and as the

nasty pus of greed triumphed

Now steaming toward 2050

What will be will be.                          Nan

 

SAY WHAT?!

Published November 20, 2023 by Nan Mykel

Since I’ve given up trying to attract more followers and am writing mainly for me, I may be posting info that’s passe to you, but that I enjoy.  As for followers, some of the problem is being ignorant of  what works technically  and  how, as well as being a shy introverted survivor. (There! Did any of my pity party work?)  Anyone who has ever stopped by, thanks.

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FOR ME:

  • The Union Army of 2,100,000 soldiers was nearly twice the size of the Confederate Army of 1,064,000.
  • It was the deadliest war in American history. There were around 210,000 soldiers killed in action and 625,000 total dead.
  • Thirty percent of all Southern white males between the ages of 18 and 40 died in the war.
  • Around 9 million people lived in the Southern states at the time of the Civil War.
    • Around 3.4m were slaves.
  • Sixty six percent of the deaths in the war were due to disease

It’s never too late to learn something.

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  • CONFLICTING STORIES

    Lake City Ammo Plant Cancels All Commercial Contracts – Update

    Staple Defense October 14, 2023***MAJOR UPDATE*** 10/31/23: Lake City Ammo Plant has confirmed that they are NOT canceling commercial contracts, and they are not changing their commercial distribution policies.  I’m unsure where things stand now.  At one time President Biden was quoted as saying he was going to close the commercial contract, but then there was a mighty roar from the Republicans.  I’m unsure where things stand now.  The site owned by the U.S. Army  has  manufactured hundreds of millions of rounds for the commercial market every year since at least 2011

A NY Times photo  of six dead children on a Hamas hospital morgue floor  this week made me think about the commercial Lake City Ammo Plant owned by the US Army whose ammunition for AK-15s has been used in a number of mass shootings  in the US.  The Defense Department’s arrangement with the commercial ammo producer is intended to save taxpayers money, at the same time keeping it ready for speedy military use in case of a conflict.  One mass murderer is reported to have said that “the rounds made at Lake City were the best barrier penetration ammo I can get.”  (The plant owned by the Army has manufactured hundreds of millions of rounds for the commercial market since at least 2011.  Apparently the ammo shells carry a marker of origin.

So, the way our world has constructed itself, due to our drives for competition and power and resultant need for defense,  children are and still will be among the necessary but regretful victims of mankind’s way of doing things.  And the picture of the U.S. aiding one country and also having to aid its victims is putrid and  plain crazy, but real.   I’m not clear what power Israel has to receive so much U.S. allegiance, but apparently that’s another thing that I don’t know or understand.  (I’m still baffled by Bush’s signing  the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act, commiting the government to keep a record of ant-Semitic acts throughout the world, and also a record  of responses to those acts.  This task had essentially already been covered for all nations, and was an add-on. I may have mentioned this before, but am still curious what debt Bush felt motivated by, if there was one. Why?)

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If I have any blog reputation at all it may be for my double-talk about the exceedingly wealthy.  For example when I read a column (or story) in the NY Times today about the luxuries and private clubs enjoyed by the excessively wealthy, there was a little negativity in my heart.  Any suggestions as to how to accept negative (in my opinion) behaviors?  Or how to usefully respond to photos of dead children in Hamas/Israel?
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I searched for a quotation today but only found the following:
     Did your toes ever ache
     with a-wanting to kick
     but no one’s there but you”
                Burma Shave

WHO’S POLITICALLY CORRECT ANYWAY?

Published November 14, 2023 by Nan Mykel

 

 

Some conservative commentators in the West argue that “political correctness” and multiculturalism are part of a conspiracy with the ultimate goal of undermining Judeo-Christian values. This theory, which holds that political correctness originates from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as part of a conspiracy that its proponents call “Cultural Marxism”.[75][76] The theory originated with Michael Minnicino’s 1992 essay “New Dark Age: Frankfurt School and ‘Political Correctness'”, published in a Lyndon LaRouche movement journal.[77] In 2001, conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan wrote in The Death of the West that “political correctness is cultural Marxism”, and that “its trademark is intolerance”.[78  

WHAT?!

I took it at face value and if anything, thought it was a way kind people preferred to use so as not to offend disabled people, for instance.  When I read a list of 100 PC terms on Google I noticed some of them were funny  [“dead–Terminally unavailable”;  bald–follically challenged;  homeless–residentially flexible;  clumsy–uniquely coordinated;  boring–differently interesting;  short–vertically challenged;  prison cell–custody suite),  but but some of them were okay, and that I would never use any of most.  Have I been had?  Is that whole list a joke?

So I returned to Google and  found an apparently real definition: Politically correct language (known as PC language) consists of polite words and phrases that are used to replace potentially derogatory or insulting language, so that we can talk about something negative or controversial without causing offence.  Aug 1, 2020.  That’s probably enough for now.  Seems like maybe the conservatives started it, then the liberals took it as a good idea.  Now, as seen in the 100 list on Google, they may be all mixed up.  I certainly intend to say “deforestation” rather than “forest management!”  and  “to lie” rather than “to misspeak” or  “be economical with the truth.”!

If we back up a little to see the big picture:  has the “right” usurpred PC and exaggerated it now, claiming not to want to make children depressed by exposing them to the “Truth?”  And Ohio threatening to cut off funds to any of its sites of higher learning if they tolerate protests or exclusive (as in trans) support groups?  I’m at a point of being willing to hurt folks’ feelings in search of a better tomorrow.  Running from reality makes us crazy and dupes.

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