August 26, 2015

Palin will probably be his VP.

August 23, 2015

Seabeyond writes in the style of e. e. cummings, required reading in my grade school.

He began to write avant-garde poems in which conventional punctuation and syntax were ignored in favor of a dynamic use of language....

That is a complex matter; irregular spacing ... allows both amplification and retardation. Further, spacing of key words allows puns which would otherwise be impossible. Some devices, such as the use of lowercase letters at the beginnings of lines ... allow a kind of distortion that often re-enforces that of the syntax.... All these devices have the effect of jarring the reader, of forcing him to examine experience with fresh eyes."

S. I. Hayakawa also remarked on this quality in Cummings' poetry. "No modern poet to my knowledge," Hayakawa wrote in Poetry, "has such a clear, childlike perception as E. E. Cummings—a way of coming smack against things with unaffected delight and wonder. This candor ... results in breath-takingly clean vision."

Norman Friedman explained in his E. E. Cummings: The Growth of a Writer that Cummings' innovations "are best understood as various ways of stripping the film of familiarity from language in order to strip the film of familiarity from the world. Transform the word, he seems to have felt, and you are on the way to transforming the world..."

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e-e-cummings

I like to format my replies to emphasize and separate thoughts. Like Cummings, I enjoy creating formats as art on the page:

...Cummings also experimented with poems as visual objects on the page...

I've written novels and essays in the conventional style. But one of my largest works of fiction uses no capitalization. The journey is following the thoughts conveyed, not the format. No one has any difficulty with any of my works.

To read Seabeyond, a person must be willing to travel to where she is going and observe what she is pondering. She leaves much unfinished as she writes, not trying to sell anything. Her posts are mere explorations of the mind.

August 23, 2015

Not an option in El Salvador:

Pro-Life Nation

In this new movement toward criminalization, El Salvador is in the vanguard. The array of exceptions that tend to exist even in countries where abortion is circumscribed — rape, incest, fetal malformation, life of the mother — don't apply in El Salvador. They were rejected in the late 1990's, in a period after the country's long civil war ended. The country's penal system was revamped and its constitution was amended. Abortion is now absolutely forbidden in every possible circumstance. No exceptions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

El Salvador mulls freeing 17 women jailed for abortion crimes

Like much of Latin America, El Salvador is predominantly Catholic. The country’s influential Catholic Church, evangelical groups and conservative lawmakers argue that abortion infringes on the rights of an unborn child, which is enshrined in El Salvador’s constitution and should be protected by law at all costs.*

http://www.trust.org/item/20140515070722-xav1r/

to Judi Lynn:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014804287#op

The leftist president who was leaving office left the women in the article in prison. Haven't seen any updates on these women.

*This is the position of Rand Paul who wants to rewrite the 14th to read the same way. The GOP doesn't like the 14th Amendment, with its clauses covering birthright citizenship, due process and equal treatment under the law.

Most of what we know of as American law since that time came from the interpretation of the 14th such as abortion rights, marriage equality and others since the 4th was inadequate to protect the rights of the disadvantaged. It didn't when Dred Scott appealed his status under the 4th.

The most enlightening post is on Judi Lynn's thread about the 17 women:

MisterP (17,652 posts)

3. it's actually a rich and intriguing issue in Latin America

the Salvadoran students' union called it "preemptive genocide" (reducing the number of the poor--and preventing The Revolution from happening by reducing misery) and Honduras's 70s Communist Youth were the ones beating up any doctor who talked about contraception on the National University's campus and cancelling even demographics from the curriculum ("We've convinced them that to carry out such a program is to act against the nation. ... The Medical School will never allow a plan of North American penetration to be carried out in its name!&quot ; Salvadoran editors (pre-Humanæ Vitæ) opined that Central America "should think of birth control only after it has twice the population of England or France. At one point he speaks of Central America's resources being sufficient for a population ten times its present size" and the Hondurans' belief 1970 was "If we would have had more people, El Salvador would not have dared to invade us" 1969: 75% of intelligentsia and 60% of students in Honduras thought that a doubled or tripled population was needed to end poverty; Planned Parenthood's job was seen as "assuring the domination of western civilization" by keeping foreigners in control of the Third World: the First World feared "that their prestige and power positions might be threatened if our countries grow too fast"; one French-educated Honduran atheist said that "A situation now favorable to the U.S. will no longer be so once Latin America triples its present population," and leftists were likelier to oppose family planning if irreligious (39% right pro-planning vs. 29% left): 24% of the right denied that growth increased poverty, as opposed to 50% of the far left (Axel Mundigo); in the 80s it was the decidedly un-religious (but very male-dominated) human-rights orgs opposing legalizing abortion way more than the Archdiocese in the newspapers

it's not that new either: 20s France was the only European country to see its population fall, so abortionists were outlawed and called national traitors there, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014804287#post3

The same generation who did these things, is still around, and the OP's link says 10% of the people in El Salvador are involved in the gangs. The issue of how 'human rights' are enabling the gangs is also mentioned, and it also said that many support a very hard line against them. They are a very divided society, such as our is now turning into and it's brutal for women.

A read of the OP below will explain why this is happening around the world, and I believe it is for the purpose of making more cannon fodder and to enrich the 1%. There is more than one kind of army and I consider gangs part of the destabilization of society brought about indirectly by their actions. Chaos benefits the 1%:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110212801

August 23, 2015

The Republicans are taking the gloves off. Soon they will offer the fist in our faces. IMO,

this will be our last time to vote if the GOP gets in. They haven't been subtle about their views on who deserves to vote and have a say over our lives and our national course. Yes, please, vote!

Prescription for the 2016 election: read, and re-read this column, as needed, whenever you might feel disappointment about individual candidates, and especially when you find yourself falling into the meme-trap of "both parties are the same". Re-read, rinse and repeat... but the differences between the parties are so clear and dramatic that it’s hard to see how anyone who has been paying attention could be undecided even now, or be induced to change his or her mind between now and the election...

~ Paul Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/opinion/it-takes-a-party.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

to MBS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016119970

August 22, 2015

River Torridge - Fantasia on a Theme

Uploaded by Dierne on Jan 16, 2007

Breathtaking footage of the River Torridge in Devon and its wildlife throughout the seasons, set to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

Enjoy.

Note 1: Unfortunately resizing for YouTube has degraded the video quality quite considerably.

Note 2: I do not claim any credit for the footage. I merely edited it together from a one-off BBC programme and set it to music.

Sorry, it cuts off abruptly at the end. But put it on full screen to experience the marvel of that special place in time on the island that we call England.

August 22, 2015

This part at the link says it all for me:

Ted Cruz threw the word liberty around a lot during his speech, but it is clear that when he speaks about liberty he doesn’t mean freedom for all. Cruz like the rest of his Republican colleagues is most concerned about liberty for millionaires and corporations.

The Republican definition of liberty remains straight out of the show Mad Men. Rich white males have all the liberty, and the rest of the country is a blind spot to be ignored.

The whole GOP is Ron Paul:

August 21, 2015

Well, uh...

August 21, 2015

As far as the symbiotic argument is concerned, I realized there was something else going on.

For example people won't answer a post unless the title is oppositional. The point argued is irrelevant. The video is perfect.

I realized it is a game we are playing:



We are playing a game of intellect and emotion. If one steps outside the game for a moment, one sees there is a choice. Life on Earth is composed of such passions.

If we, as some believe, choose to be here, it is because we love it or have unfinished business. I've joked with people I've opposed that I'd be back in another life:

This. Is. Not. Over!

We seem to enjoy as opposites, love and hate, good and evil, and don't want to leave. It's said holding onto something painful, such as a death, we are holding on to the only thing we have left. So we continue to lick the wound and gnaw at it to feel it again. Gibran said:

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

It one leaves the game, it is an exercise. We will convince ourselves of the meaning. Our hearts pick which side we will be on.

But it is a choice for many although for some, the need to survive to keep playing some kind of game persists. We seem to be data collecting avatars at some times.

I recall when that concept was put forward to me, it was an aggravating one. If we are tools of a universal computer, consciousness is trapped inside a game.

Another version is in the scriptures saying we are but clay on the divine potter's wheel, which he discards and reforms at his will, not ours. That is humbling, disabling.

To join the game, we may not give ourselves power to be in control. The most bizarre are the memes that take in thousands of years of history as a plot against humankind. These get complex and can be appealing and frightening. At times I think the ones selling them are the ones who're really part of that. In any case, they give energy and power to it.

Like this strange musical video that is the opposite of your rational video:

Anything to keep the game going. So just what are we, anyway? Does it matter in this brief time we have here?

Khalil Gibran also said, and those who are able to get close to nature should:

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

I'm speaking solely of the internet and not real life struggles offline, though. They are not a game. For they deal with the most valuable thing, life.

JMHO.

August 20, 2015

Learn something new daily at DU. No idea a person was carrying radiation after tests like these.

I've had thyroid nuking, dentist x-rays, spinal and head scans, even one for a vein that took about an hour. Not one warned of residual radiation.

Better check every place out for radiation, so that was a good thing there in the OP by security. A 'dirty bomb' comes to mind and is reportedly wanted by those who can't afford to create a thermonuclear device. But bombing a nuclear power plant or any source of radioactive material is also something low-tech that they would use. They don't care about half life or environmental or human costs from such destruction.

(It's the half life of nuclear waste that mattered to me and others resisting the building of nuclear power plants. Because when a substance is created that is dangerous for longer than most nation states have ever existed, even in the short terms, it would create a less democratic world. The necessary level of security would entail the enforcement of a police state. For a good reason, but in the end, it still would not be able to do enough. And the folly would last longer than our civilization. It is the reason for the WC and radiological treaties; they threaten future innocent generations and life sustaining ecosystems.)

There are radon detectors for homes to detect gases under the land of homes that harm families over the long term. Radiation is released from mining for uranium, nuke depots, plants, etc. They are said to have a short half life or not the kind of radiation that penetrates things well enough to be dangerous. It is troubling, although perhaps not to a scientist, who can rate dangers in radioactive material better.

Now a Canadian mining company is going to mine for uranium in the Grand Canyon that might pollute the underwater aquifers. As reported on DU. We would like to think that the best science is going to be observed by the companies involved to protect the environment. The record does not reflect that, it shows that they count on taking the money and running off when things go wrong.

There's always a natural dose of 'background radiation,' IIRC. Some have mentioned granite counter tops in homes are a source of radiation. And most igneous rocks and many plants contain some radiation naturally.

And thanks for posting this thought provoking OP.

August 20, 2015

Googling around, I found that Josh has 3 kids with another one the way. But looking for women on

Ashley Madison on two, count 'em, two accounts after reading it at DU.

I wanted to see his wife, to see was going on, if she looked as crazy as him. For all we know, she approved of the affairs?

Instead I found an elegant picture good enough for a movie, of Josh's sister, Jill Duggar, marrying a young man, Derick Dillard:



EXCLUSIVE: Jill Duggar wedding mystery solved: 'We thought it was odd - everyone in Josh's family served in some position in the wedding party but he was left out. Now it makes sense,' guest reveals

Josh Duggar, 27, has admitted to fondling five underage girls under the Duggar roof when he was 14

He was not asked to be a groomsman at his sister Jill's wedding to Derick Dillard

But Josh's wife Anna was a bridesmaid, niece Mackynzie a flower girl and nephew Michael the ring bearer

Jessa did not ask anyone in Josh's immediate family to be in her wedding party when she married Ben Seewald.

Yeah, I know, it's the Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3099475/Jill-Duggar-wedding-mystery-solved-thought-odd-Josh-s-family-served-position-wedding-party-left-makes-sense-guest-reveals.html

Always one of the first search results with all the pictures/stories 'fit to print' and a few you have to apply brain bleach for.

It appears there are some schisms in the family, but not enough to impoverish any of these characters. I wonder if Derick knows what he's getting into, even though doubtless he knows about the millions the family must have. Nice clothes, there.