randomthoughts

Meetcha at the Beach

2012-02-08T18:03:00.000-05:00

dark offing

color outside the lines

flow

OK Cowboy

2012-01-27T19:15:00.001-05:00

mist and ice
last of the light
night in the trees
with a horizontal roll
and the sounds
of flying geese and floating ducks
relections on the allure of the deep

High

2012-01-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

Reminds me of Lake of the Clouds, Porcupine Mts.

found on goog reader from: this isn't happiness
tracked back to where credit it due:
http://www.vice.com/read/deep-in-the-woods-335-v17n2

British Columbia, near Alaska

January Ice and a Feather

2012-01-05T15:10:00.002-05:00

what's holding that up?

the other side

Yo Ho Ho

2011-12-14T18:15:00.003-05:00

Most of us see a lot of strange pics on teh innerwebz.

This might be one of the strangest.

Yo Yo Ma and a wombat on what appears to be a public restroom floor

found at: http://afternoonsnoozebutton.com/post/14210025138/yo-yo-ma-on-the-bathroom-floor-with-a-wombat

Almost Christmas-y

2011-12-12T23:13:00.000-05:00

cold as ice

hawk alert

To Serve and Protect

2011-11-21T09:33:00.001-05:00

big money

just ask Lt.John Pike

This n That

2011-11-18T22:26:00.001-05:00

Yesterday i read about the NYPD using LRAD, long range acoustic device, or sound cannon, against the protesters. An 83 year old woman was tear gassed, a NYC councilman was among those arrested, and the media was denied access to several areas. What country do i live in again? In the two months i've been following the protests, it seems that there is much more violence from the militarized police than the protesters. I'd like to say i can't believe it, but i lived through the Civil Rights protests and the Vietnam War protests; at least we're not at the Kent State nadir, yet.

And where's Obomba during all this turmoil at home? Oh he's over in Australia courting Julia, probably so she'll turn over Julian. After all, this can all be tracked back to him and that Bradley, those damnable truth tellers, one fighting rendition extradition, the other mouldering away for something like 600 days now.

Normally the last thing i would post would be an ad. But this ad pissed off the Pope _and_ the White House. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahah

Cuz kissing men is sooo offensive or what? Now if we showed them bombing the hell out of someplace or abusing young children that would be more like the truth or something? But unhate? You mean like love? and peace? Why, those are just dirty hippie kinda things. Thought to leave it here for posterity, expect the ads to disappear soon

read this meme and scrolled right on by it

Global Revolution

2011-11-01T23:18:00.002-04:00

...for the first time, people around the world are not identifying and organising themselves along national or religious lines, but rather in terms of a global consciousness and demands for a peaceful life, a sustainable future, economic justice and basic democracy. Their enemy is a global "corporatocracy" that has purchased governments and legislatures, created its own armed enforcers, engaged in systemic economic fraud, and plundered treasuries and ecosystems.

http://www.alternet.org/vision/152932/we_may_be_witnessing_the_first_large_global_conflict_where_people_are_aligned_by_consciousness_and_not_nation_state_or_religion

Destino

2011-09-17T21:48:00.000-04:00

Dali and Disney

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destino

Cultural Icon

2011-09-16T00:42:00.002-04:00

comes to life

Wednesday night i watched the 1977 movie Star Wars, on Thursday NASA announced that their Kepler mission found a planet with two suns. They should have named the planet Tatooine.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/15sep_doublesuns/

There Was a Tailor Had a Mouse

2011-08-24T02:43:00.000-04:00

hi diddle unkum feedle

Don't know why this popped into my head or why i googled it, but i don't think i've ever had __only five google hits on anything else__, or such disparity in the words in the listed links. Blogged for posterity.

Fact Theory and I Don't Know

2011-08-18T19:20:00.000-04:00

Quotes and links to two very good articles i read today

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
-- Stephen Jay Gould

full article: http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-is-fact-and-theory.html

What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist -- I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe. I don't know exactly how we got here, and I don't think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we'll get more, but I'm not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I'm not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I'll wait for real evidence and then I'll believe.

And I don't think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don't even know what's best for me. Take my uncertainty about what's best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

-- Penn, of Penn and Teller

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/jillette.atheist.libertarian/index.html

Ministry of Truth

2011-08-15T11:16:00.001-04:00

Wikileaks: █████ ████ everything ███ █████ is█████ ████ fine ████ ███ ██████ love █████ █ your █ ████ government

An Atheist Manifesto

2011-08-11T21:41:00.001-04:00

1954 Joseph Lewis: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33825/33825-h/33825-h.htm

2005 Sam Harris: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Sam_Harris/Atheist_Manifesto.html

Gray Matter

2011-08-10T01:37:00.000-04:00

In teh netz delightful webby way, i came across this site today:

In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.

anterior cingylate cortex -- a gray matter of the brain associated with understanding complexity

right amygdala -- an almond-shaped area that is associated with fear and anxiety

Enlightenment

2011-07-27T01:11:00.000-04:00

vid found at this excellent site at which you very well may while away many hours:
http://www.openculture.com/2011/07/50_famous_academics_talk_about_god.html

Imagine Whirled Peas

2011-07-20T15:34:00.000-04:00

says Happy Birthday to ...

which is a heck of a lot better than these loonies

great lake

2011-07-18T18:57:00.000-04:00

hot n hazy

feelin' kinda lazy

on this dog day afternoon

tutu day

2011-07-13T15:14:00.002-04:00

the air was crisp and clear

cool shade hot sun

berry berry nice

Great Lakes Freighter

2011-07-12T17:19:00.000-04:00

holland kollen park, after a delivery, heading back to open seas

And our choices are

2011-06-27T19:47:00.002-04:00

conservative Rethugs who are privatizing schools and entire cities by appointing fiscal managers; continuing to decimate bargaining rights in favor of slave labor; eliminating human rights, especially of the poor and women

a current conservative Demoncrat regime that continues and escalates the Bush Doctrines of war, torture, secrecy, and lies on top of lies.

Is there anyone worth voting for in the upcoming presidential election? Is there anyone out there that tells the truth?

Well, well, it appears someone told the truth.

Michele Bachmann: "Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too," she told Fox News prior to the official announcement of her candidacy in Waterloo.

That's the spirit, Michele. You and John Wayne... ... ...Gacy.

help

VIPR

2011-06-20T12:09:00.000-04:00

Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (program)

The VIPR swarm by Homeland Security's TSA at a Tampa bus station last Wednesday was just one of over 8,000 (in addition to airports) security patdowns and searches of US citizens going about their own business within their own country.

And more than 300 law enforcement and military personnel swept through a 100-mile stretch of the Ohio Valley examining the area’s industrial infrastructure, the Charleston Gazette reported.
Federal air marshals, the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security and two dozen other federal, state and local agencies teamed up to scour the state’s roads, bridges, water supply and transit centers under the TSA’s leadership.

Is this the formation of the “civilian national security force” President O called for on the campaign trail “that is just as powerful, just as strong and just as well funded” as the military?

Shades of jack-booted Nazis, will we continue to quietly submit?

2011-06-17T00:16:00.001-04:00

Like the Difference

2011-06-04T00:14:00.006-04:00

between Day

and Night

Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan

2011-05-24T00:30:00.000-04:00

Which Bob Dylan song are you?Tangled Up In Blue

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

May -- National Bike Month

2011-05-21T17:25:00.043-04:00

We're out there balancing on two wheels and a triangle; if you're in a car watch out for bicyclists, please.

One may go many places by bike

or maybe by boat

One could stop by the river

and see a swan

or an authentic Dutch windmill

or two.

One could bike to Lake Michigan and walk the pier.

Now, that's the knd of Rapture one can believe in.

Myth Taken

2011-05-17T00:11:00.011-04:00

"Live a good life. If there are g0ds and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are g0ds, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no g0ds, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
-- Marcus Aurelius

"There is no g0d, and heaven is a fairy tale for those afraid of death."
--Stephen Hawking

"No gods, no masters. "
--Margaret Sanger

Must be Monsanto r/BST r/BGH Cows

2011-05-10T20:00:00.014-04:00

Banned from use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, and the UK, bovine growth hormones are AOK in the USA. Wassa matter? Why u no like pus in your milk?

http://biggovernment.com/lrlee/2011/05/09/tea-party-and-hippies-unite-food-safety-and-the-presidents-food-safety-czar/

Tulip Time

2011-05-08T15:39:00.016-04:00

First two pics are from yesterday, the 7th, same shots as the first two pics posted May 5.

Below at Centennial Park, tweaked for artsy effect.

Obama/Osama

2011-05-06T15:15:00.057-04:00

No matter how you look at it, we bin had.

Didn't Bush justify war in Iraq because Bush officials legally swore Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11? We do know that Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction was not proven by the facts. When and how did 9/11 get pinned on Osama? Benazir Bhutto said Osama died in 2001, and without any facts to the contrary, that's what i tend to believe.

I wonder if some Pakistanis would consider the actions of the Obama US government to be that of terrorists? I'm thinking of our use of drones that have been reported to have killed innocent men, women, and children; our "diplomat" who gunned a man down in the back, who was later proved to be a Blackwater contractor with ties to the CIA.

I would be amused at all of the conflicting "facts" from our government officials on the Osama raid, if i were not so sad. My hope was that this mission would result in the withdrawal of US troops from at least Afghanistan and Pakistan, we sure could use some of those billions of war dollars here at home. And, that all the infringements of our rights and freedoms by Homeland Security would ease up. Well, the latest reports are that the drone attacks have resumed, and information was found that Al Queda was planning attacks on our rail system. So of course we will need more unhealthy porno-scanners and pat-downs almost anywhere crowds might go. How much longer until our freedom of speech is gone? Watcha gonna do?

War and Torture, when i so prefer Peace n Love.

05/07 -- Our newest drone attack? It was to kill the American-born (New Mexico) cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. It was reported to have missed him, but killed three others. So now we're bombing in another country? And the prez is giving orders to assassinate our own citizens in foreign countries we're not even at war with? We don't believe in trials, or the justice system at all anymore? I want the old USA back, the one I could be proud of.

Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-05T13:56:00.034-04:00

today, and tulips getting ready forTulip Time this weekend.

early birds (dang, where's a seagull when ya need one)

calm before the noisy circus

much as i like my jeep, i'd pick the hot rod

wheeeee

colorful front view

obligatory fun house

getting dizzy already

To the Beach

2011-05-04T17:29:00.011-04:00

Waiting to turn left this view behind the storefronts always catches my eye.

Sunny but cold.

Spring Sprungs

2011-04-24T00:14:00.000-04:00

Skeptics

2011-04-23T18:13:00.000-04:00

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) is considered the Father of Modern Skepticism. Today, through the usual delightful interwebby way, i came across these quotes on wiki. Surprising, or not, how many i've heard paraphrased throughout my life.

"
I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.

If you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

The continuous work of our life is to build death.

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.

Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.

Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.

Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

No man is a hero to his own valet.

I believe it to be true that dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

Whether the events in our life are good or bad greatly depends on the way we perceive them.

The only thing certain is nothing is certain.

Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known."

Also caught in the web: http://www.economist.com/node/18584074?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/thegoodgodguide

First paragraph:

RELIGION is ubiquitous but it is not universal. That is a conundrum for people trying to explain it. Religious types, noting the ubiquity (though not everyone is religious, all human societies have religions), argue that this proves religion is a real reflection of the underlying nature of things. Sceptics wonder why, if that is the case, it comes in such a variety of flavours, from the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to the cargo cults of Papua New Guinea—each of which seems to find the explanations offered by the others anathema.

Follow the Money

2011-04-22T01:27:00.000-04:00

Dictatorship in Benton Harbor, Michigan, not too far south of me; wish i could believe it is unbelievable. The city's mayor, commissions, and fiscal rights? Gone. Voting Rights? Gone. Democracy? Going fast. Dictatorship Nationwide? Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Seems the city did not want to give up its public land on Lake Michigan. Seems a group known as Harbor Shores wanted the land for a golf course. Seems Whirlpool, which used to have a factory in Benton Harbor, but closed it to open a more profitable factory overseas, is a part of Harbor Shores. Seems State House Representative Fred Upton is a heir to Whirlpool.

Seems there will be a new golf course, and the annual pass to play there is expected to be be about half the average annual income of the typical Benton Harbor resident.

Something smells, fishier than a beach full of dead alewives, in the state of Michigan.

Or, Eostre

2011-04-19T16:20:00.003-04:00

"Ishtar", which is pronounced "Easter" was a day that commemorated the resurrection of one of the gods called "Tammuz", who was believed to be the only begotten son of the moon-goddess and the sun-god.
In those ancient times, there was a man named Nimrod, who was the grandson of one of Noah's son named Ham.
Ham had a son named Cush who married a woman named Semiramis.Cush and Semiramis then had a son named him "Nimrod."
After the death of his father, Nimrod married his own mother and became a powerful King.
The Bible tells of of this man, Nimrod, in Genesis 10:8-10 as follows: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,and Calneh, in the land of Shinar."
Nimrod became a god-man to the people and Semiramis, his wife and mother, became the powerful Queen of ancient Babylon.
Nimrod was eventually killed by an enemy, and his body was cut in pieces and sent to various parts of his kingdom.
Semiramis had all of the parts gathered, except for one part that could not be found.
That missing part was his reproductive organ. Semiramis claimed that Nimrod could not come back to life without it and told the people of Babylon that Nimrod had ascended to the sun and was now to be called "Baal", the sun god.

Queen Semiramis also proclaimed that Baal would be present on earth in the form of a flame, whether candle or lamp, when used in worship.
Semiramis was creating a mystery religion, and with the help of Satan, she set herself up as a goddess.
Semiramis claimed that she was immaculately conceived.
She taught that the moon was a goddess that went through a 28 day cycle and ovulated when full.
She further claimed that she came down from the moon in a giant moon egg that fell into the Euphrates River.
This was to have happened at the time of the first full moon after the spring equinox.
Semiramis became known as "Ishtar" which is pronounced "Easter", and her moon egg became known as "Ishtar's" egg."

Ishtar soon became pregnant and claimed that it was the rays of the sun-god Baal that caused her to conceive.
The son that she brought forth was named Tammuz.
Tammuz was noted to be especially fond of rabbits, and they became sacred in the ancient religion, because Tammuz was believed to be the son of the sun-god, Baal. Tammuz, like his supposed father, became a hunter.
The day came when Tammuz was killed by a wild pig.
Queen Ishtar told the people that Tammuz was now ascended to his father, Baal, and that the two of them would be with the worshippers in the sacred candle or lamp flame as Father, Son and Spirit.
Ishtar, who was now worshipped as the "Mother of God and Queen of Heaven", continued to build her mystery religion.
The queen told the worshippers that when Tammuz was killed by the wild pig, some of his blood fell on the stump of an evergreen tree, and the stump grew into a full new tree overnight. This made the evergreen tree sacred by the blood of Tammuz.
She also proclaimed a forty day period of time of sorrow each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz.
During this time, no meat was to be eaten.
Worshippers were to meditate upon the sacred mysteries of Baal and Tammuz, and to make the sign of the "T" in front of their hearts as they worshipped.
They also ate sacred cakes with the marking of a "T" or cross on the top.
Every year, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, a celebration was made.
It was Ishtar's Sunday and was celebrated with rabbits and eggs.

And that is how the bunny comes out of the tomb.

Hosanna Heysanna

2011-04-18T12:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my son got married

Today it snowed.

Sing Along

2011-04-11T23:18:00.002-04:00

http://www.myvoiceoverguy.com/voice-over/sarah-palin-michele-bachmann/

words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32EZgesi7b4&feature=player_embedded

Cage Match

2011-04-10T11:04:00.000-04:00

You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!"
- Jesse Ventura

When Right is Wrong

2011-04-05T10:50:00.000-04:00

The United States is only a small step away from some kind of dictatorship. This may sound like hyperbole to some, but the lack of a clear and strong opposition to military and intelligence community institutional pressures has driven the Obama administration to the right even of the Bush administration on matters of secrecy and executive power. Proposals for “terrorist courts” continue to be seriously considered, while the public uproar over the use of torture on prisoners has died down ever since Barack Obama told his Democratic Party followers not to “look back,” and made clear that accountability for war crimes would not happen on his watch. Meanwhile, tremendous inroads are made on privacy rights, while surveillance of private citizens, strip searches at airports, seizures of personal computers, and gathering of personal data from emails and phone calls are now everyday occurrences.

As a result, Obama has been the active creature of militarist forces within the government, and on point after point, has given way to lobbying by the military and intelligence establishments, themselves beholden to a power elite that holds the economic reins of the country, from oil to finance, in their hands. Obama’s role is most evident in his recent military actions against Libya.

http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2011/04/04/why-the-u-s-wants-military-commission-show-trials-for-911-suspects/

TIL

2011-03-31T21:48:00.000-04:00

The word "meme" is a shortening (modeled on "gene") of mimeme (from Ancientt Greek μίμημα mimēma, "something imitated", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos "mime") and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.

How to Build

2011-03-27T19:27:00.000-04:00

from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Heart Sutra

2011-03-12T11:28:00.000-05:00

Om Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom the Lovely, the Holy !

Avalokita, the Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond.

He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and He saw that in their own-being they were empty.

Here, O Sariputra,

form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form ;

emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form,

the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.

Here, O Sariputra,

all dharmas are marked with emptiness ;

they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

Therefore, O Sariputra,

in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness ;

No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind ; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind ; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to :

No mind-consciousness element ; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to : There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.

There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.

Therefore, O Sariputra,

it is because of his non-attainmentness that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble,

he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana.

All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.

Therefore one should know the prajnaparamita as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong ? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this :

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.

( Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail ! -- )

This completes the Heart of perfect Wisdom.

(Translated by E. Conze)

http://kr.buddhism.org/zen/sutras/conze.htm

http://dalailama.com/news/post/656-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-expresses-his-sadness-over-the-recent-earthquake-and-tsunami-in-japan

True

2011-03-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

Michael Moore made a statement this week in Wisconsin that that 400 Americans "have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."

"Four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals, 400 little Mubaraks -- most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of 2008 -- now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined."

PolitiFact found that to be true.
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/10/michael-moore/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/

Only 400 Americans have more wealth than half of of the 100 million households in the USA.

Only four years ago that was not true. Four years. wow

Now it Makes Sense

2011-03-06T18:51:00.000-05:00

Why we're in a budget crisis: seems some people are still short $2 billion dollars.

Anonymous Press Release

2011-02-27T10:49:00.001-05:00

Dear Citizens of the United States of America,

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker's union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch's have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state's power supplies.

The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating 'grassroots' organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America's broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers' political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.

Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse - is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.

U.S. Product Boycott List

•Vanity Fair

•Quilted Northern

•Angel Soft

•Sparkle

•Brawny

•Mardi Gras

•Dixie

European Product Boycott List

•Demak'Up

•Kitten Soft

•Lotus / Lotus Soft

•Tenderly

•Nouvelle Soft

•Okay Ktchen Towels

•Colhogar

•Delica

•Inversoft

•Tutto

To identify these brands, please look for the following logo anywhere on the packaging:

Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.

http://www.anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=585

Crazy and Crazier

2011-02-27T01:18:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wonder why Obama seems so slow to speak out about current issues in the Middle East, even though I think our government shouldn't meddle quite so much in other countries (we have more than enough problems to take care of right here at home). Why did it take until Friday for Obama to censure Gadhafi for murdering the citizens of Libya? Friday is when Americans were able to leave Libya by flight and ferry.

For those of us glad to avoid further tragic and costly mistakes overseas, slow and careful is reassuring.

cartoon credit: http://www.politicsdaily.com/category/chaos-theory/

Of course some pit bull soccer moms would just post stuff all over their FB before Americans left Libya, cuz after all they're just t-bots programmed to do so by those big corporations.

India is holding its 10th Annual India Today Conclave, a high profile talk shop of “global thought leaders” next month. Can you guess which ~~pit bull~~ woman was invited to talk, and whose speech is tentatively titled `My Vision for America`” ? Dear People of India: I thought you said global _thought_ leaders. And, whatever she says, it's _not_ my vision of or for America, or any place else in the world.

Follow the Money

2011-02-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

It's not too hard to figure out what's going on in Wisconsin and 14 other states. Statutory minimum wage was first proposed during the time of 'sweat shops'. Corporations would hire women and children at substandard wages. I wonder if minimum wage will become more minimal if/when the unions are busted.

Last night I watched Wall Street (1987) and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) both directed by Oliver Stone. The movies are chock-full of not so subtle hints, truth well-blended with fiction.

the following cribbed from: http://www.alternet.org/economy/150010/us_uncut_--_a_grassroots_uprising_against_corporate_tax_deadbeats?page=entire

The IRS estimates that individuals and corporations currently hold $5 trillion in tax haven countries. Nearly two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes at all, and Goldman Sachs, which received $10 billion dollars in taxpayer money during the bailout, negotiated their tax rate down to one percent. The entire tax haven scam costs taxpayers as much as $100 billion per year.

Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, Chevron, Ford, ExxonMobil and Bank of America. The biggest dodger is General Electric (GE), which, during a time of national economic crisis, actually made money on their tax filing in 2010. Though the company generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, it recorded $1.1 billion in tax benefits. Forbes calls this GE's "uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the US and make lots of money overseas, where tax rates are lower."

Conservatives frequently cite the fact that America's corporate tax rate is 35 percent, which is higher than the average of other industrial countries, but that doesn't take into account tax evading practices. In fact, 115 companies on the S&P 500 pay less than 20 percent in taxes, and that doesn't take into account the 37 companies, such as Citigroup and American International Group (AIG), that receive more in credits than they ultimately pay out (companies that pay less than five percent in taxes include Boeing and Amazon).

In 2010, if you made between $34,001 and $82,400, your marginal tax rate was 25 percent.

Lemon or Sugar?

2011-02-21T15:03:00.001-05:00

The Koch brothers based Mad Hatter T-bagger bots present to the United (?) States: assaults on unions, public employees, women’s rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

The Koch brothers backed Wisconsin governor presents balancing the State budget based on breaking the working class, pitting the have-a-little against the have-a-little-less all for the glory of the have-a-lots.

The Military-Industrial Complex vs a developing economy, raising revenues, enforced fair tax rates for all.

The conservative traditional moral world view vs citizens caring for one another with social and personal responsibility.

Is America a republic based on democracy or are we becoming a

Rarities

2011-02-20T16:16:00.001-05:00

posted for sentimental value

America's Freedom of Expression

2011-02-17T14:03:00.004-05:00

Ray McGovern, 71 years old, an Army veteran, and former CIA analyst for 27 years, was present at Hillary Clinton's speech at George Washington University yesterday. Hillary spoke about the Middle East uprisings, and condemned governments that arrest protesters and don't allow free expression.

Mr McGovern, wearing a Veterans For Peace T-shirt, stood up, turned his back on Hillary, and did not say a word. He was dragged out of the meeting by police and a plainclothes person, he was bruised and bleeding, and thrown in jail.

Hillary didn't miss a beat. (pun intended)

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/02/16-3

Ana Somnia

2011-02-13T11:22:00.000-05:00

Turn off the light to begin. Sweet Dreams.

http://anasomnia.com/

Supreme

2011-01-04T23:14:00.001-05:00

Yeah yeah, I never thought the Supreme Court was Supreme, like, you know, Diana Ross.
When I first read about what Nino Scalia recently said I googled his name to find out more about him.
He seems to be (imo,un)fairly consistent in his interpretation of law.

Here's what he said that set me off:

"In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that."

Here's what the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

So I guess according to Supreme Court Justice Scalia's interpretation of law, only white heterosexual males qualify as citizens for protection under the law? He does believe that giant corporations, unlike women and gays, should be considered as people. It wasn't real clear to me on what in the Constitution he based that decision.

From what I read today, it did become more clear where his mind is going with this kind of talk. Michele Bachmann has asked him to preside over a Constitution class for tea party Congress people.

If you google 'scalia gesture', you don't need to be Italian to understand what he thinks of his critics.

Canaries in a Coal Mine

2011-01-03T13:25:00.000-05:00

Originally reported to be 1000 red-winged blackbirds, now 3000, fall dead from the sky in Arkansas. Also, 100,000 fish dead and washed ashore on the Arkansas River.Bee die-offs since 2006.In 2007 more than one million bat deaths in upstate New York.Up to 80% of frogs die off in the UK in twelve years.Late 2008 and early 2009, more than 400 pelicans dead or dying on the West Coast.Before the BP oil spill, bottlenose dolphins dying at three times the normal rate in the Gulf.

Lemon or Sugar?

2011-01-01T18:44:00.000-05:00

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips comes up with the top five liberal hate groups of 2010. 1) The Southern Poverty Law Center (defends people against bigotry and hate crimes)2) The Department of Homeland Security(Bush II created the dept)3) The American Civil Liberties Union(advocates individual rights)4) The Service Employees International Union(an organization of more than 2.2 million members united by the belief in the dignity and worth of workers and the services they provide and dedicated to improving the lives of workers and their families and creating a more just and humane society5) The National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (civil rights for ethnic minorities) I guess Judson wanted to make it perfectly clear whose side the tea party is on.

How to Frame the Question

2011-01-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

Only one in five "likely voters" in America are for net neutrality, according to a new poll by Rasmussen. Fifty-four percent of respondents are outright opposed to regulation and 25 percent are not certain. ...the wording of the polling question querying these "likely voters" defines net neutrality in a very restricted way. The respondents were asked, "Should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet like it does radio and television?" With a topic as broad, and as complicated, as net neutrality, such a question addresses only one small part of the whole picture. For example, Rasmussen could just as legitimately have asked, "Should all internet users have the same access to the same Internet, regardless of how much they pay?" Or it might have asked, "Should broadband carriers have the ability to block or remove content based on their discretion alone?" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/us-voters-net-neutrality_n_802456.html

once upon a time

2010-06-30T19:17:00.002-04:00

in a galaxy not so far away

Hans Solo, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, R2D2

Chewy and Hans 30 years later

2010-05-31T16:50:00.000-04:00

I still wonder, what is it or what it is. Is it like a game of tag?

2010-05-23T22:39:00.000-04:00

I tried to convince myself of The Truth. I have only the beauty of the lie, spun finer than a silken web.

Ming

2010-01-24T02:20:00.001-05:00

the Merciless

Pathetic Earthlings! Hurling your bodies out into the void without the slighest inkling of who or what is out here. If you knew anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would have hidden from it in terror.

Yesterday

2010-01-17T20:33:00.000-05:00

The Beatles in 1957. George Harrison is 14, John Lennon is 16, and Paul McCartney is 15.
Anyone know who the 4th person is?

2009-11-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

An acre was the descriptive name given in about 1300 AD to the amount of land that one man with his oxen and plough could plough in one day. This amount tended to vary since some land is easier to plough than others but now, in the U.S., one acre is 4,840 square yards; 640 acres is one square mile.

Sound travels at different speeds through different media. Through dry air at sea level and at freezing point (0 degrees Centigrade/Celsius), sound travels at about 5 seconds per mile. Sound travels a bit faster as the temperature of the air rises above 0 degrees Celsius but never travels anywhere near as fast as light. Water is more dense than air but is more elastic and sound travels faster in water than in air. Sound cannot travel through a vacuum.

Light travels through the vacuum of space at 299,793 km per second (which is 1,079,252,960 km per hour); or 186,282 miles per second (which is 670,619,880 miles per hour). The speed of light is not constant; it travels about 3 percent more slowly through air and much more slowly through glass or water. In a thunder and lightning storm you see the lightning before you hear the rumble of the thunder unless the storm is right overhead. If you can count 5 seconds between the lightning and the thunder you will know that the storm is about a mile away.

A day is 86,400 seconds or 24 hours long which is the time it takes Earth to rotate once on its axis. This is measured by observing the movment of the Sun relative to a fixed point on Earth. Interestingly, when we measure the length of a day by observation of the movement of a star other than the Sun, we find that the time taken by a complete rotation of Earth is shorter. This shorter day is called a sidereal day.

A year is the length of time that it takes Earth to make a complete revolution around the Sun. Technically this is exactly 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45.51 seconds.

Because the measurement of the passage of time is important in the affairs of man, the period of time that we call a year has been recognized since the earliest times. At first it was probably divided up into useful chunks of time simply by noting the changing seasons. Much later, the first Roman calendar appears to have divided the year into ten months. An early Greek calendar organized the year into 12 months.

The mile was originally a Roman unit measurement of distance and was 1,000 double-paces; one Roman mile is generally considered to have been what we would now describe as 1,618 yards. However, in the modern world one (statute) mile is longer than that, it is 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet. While this is longer than the old Roman mile, it is shorter than the old Scottish or Irish miles.

While a statute mile (on land) is 1,760 yards, a nautical (at sea) mile is approximately 2,028 yards by UK standards, and approximately 2,025 yards by US standards.

late september

2009-09-27T16:58:00.000-04:00

2009-09-23T17:45:00.000-04:00

2009-09-05T16:39:00.002-04:00

beautiful warm and shiny weekend to end the summer

2009-08-29T19:13:00.000-04:00

days bookended
by wind and waves
foamy sound surround
mixed between
flies circling
under cloudy grey skies
and desires sprinkled
with dead flower petals

and still i arise
every morning breathless
with surprise
that anything
anything at all
can be found
when time and space
keep moving around

irish quotes

2009-08-18T16:01:00.002-04:00

Imagination is a quality given a man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is. - Oscar Wilde

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. - Jonathan Swift

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer. - Brendan Behan

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. - Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

A lament in one ear, maybe, but always a song in the other. - Sean O'Casey

unh

2009-08-12T11:24:00.000-04:00

get your smokey on

2009-08-09T23:30:00.007-04:00

happy 65th birthday Smokey Bear

the 3rd coast

2009-08-03T18:13:00.003-04:00

the Lake Express approaches the Muskegon channel amidst 4-6 foot waves

she is the first catamaran-style ferry built in the US, travels 40 mph (34 knots), and makes the 68-mile trip to Milwaukee in 2 1/2 hours

orange water

2009-07-20T22:08:00.001-04:00

to soothe a fevered brow

delicate and strange

2009-06-28T15:04:00.002-04:00

sand water sky

2009-06-25T09:09:00.003-04:00

# 21
two miles from being my life-long ambition
a beach bum

mangelwurzel

2009-06-14T17:23:00.006-04:00

try yodeling that

"impressive rutabaga" is the subject line of a several days ongoing e-mail with my realtor, about ongoing problems as I am preparing to move into my 20th home. Moving is stressful anyway; just ask, I oughta know.

Today, the subject line of the e-mail struck me as hilarious. Hmm, ah dunno, maybe it's a case of hysteria.

Did you know:

- Frank Zappa performed a slow yodel of the word rutabaga in his 1967 song "Call Any Vegetable".

which logically led to the facts of mangelwurzel

- it has a history in England of being used for sport (mangold hurling), animal fodder, and the brewing of a potent alcoholic beverage.

- in the book Middle Earth, it is a staple diet of the trolls.

- ok, I'm a voracious reader, and one of the few books I've deemed worthy to read more than once is Animal Farm. But I did not remember reading the word mangelwurzel, how could one not remember that? It appears in the fourth stanza of the ballad "Beasts of England."

see what will turnip, can't beet that

mangelwurzelmangelwurzelmangelwurzelyodelaaayeeeehoooooo

please don't litter

2009-06-09T17:12:00.004-04:00

Authorities thought that they had found pieces from the recent deadly Air France flight 447 crash - what they found was a floating island of trash - mostly plastic. I've heard it's bigger than a continent. There is not a way to measure accurately, as pieces and masses are found floating in the Pacific from the US to China. Fish and birds stomachs have been found full of plastic bits, it's in our food chain. Plastic does not biodegrade; plastic is proven to contain toxins.

http://mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Brought to you as a public service announcement, by someone who cares, and thinks that she should do more to honor her mother, Earth.

sandpipers

2009-06-04T19:28:00.000-04:00

pale blue dot

2009-06-01T18:51:00.003-04:00

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan - Excerpted from a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996.

2009-05-17T14:05:00.005-04:00

an entire galaxy
full of cosmic rays
i too am caught
in the winds and waves
of galactic bow shock

cycles and millions
light years
pass on by
do i dare cause
a cosmic tryst

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/05/hubbles-secret.html

everwhen

2009-05-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

pensive limbo
under spring trees
with the wind sing
of summer
and all seasons follow

patient purgatory
middle land of sands
i know not well enough
to dream
perchance to live
out of time or of my mind

spring

2009-05-04T15:57:00.003-04:00

finally some green
to go with the sun and babbling stream
and bless all the noisy bikers too

curves

2009-04-18T21:54:00.003-04:00

strange attractors

winds that swirl in curves

quiet times and pyrite

starlight sun so bright

the dark side of the moon

sparkly water foamy waves

grey or turquoise blue skies

shadows more than two-dimensional

taking chances carefully

while a scream echoes in the woods

silently amidst the stardust

silver rain and the bullrushes

2009-04-14T16:07:00.002-04:00

tomorrow, pure gold

2009-04-08T23:14:00.002-04:00

i wonder if the earth's music is baroque

forecast

2009-04-03T10:55:00.000-04:00

clouds

and snow like six months of it isn't enough

which way to Florida ?

playground perspective

2009-04-02T01:19:00.001-04:00

i sense

2009-03-25T14:42:00.001-04:00

i hear echoes
spiraling in an empty valley
mixed with wind and dust

i see chaos down the ages
overlaid in optical delusions
with a kaleidoscopic twist

i smell your sweet body heat
shimmering in a mirage
on a bridge never crossed

i taste of madness
mourning dew drenched sadness
of time wasting away

i feel pain as desire
in pursuit of happiness
free to dream and live

changes

2009-03-14T22:01:00.000-04:00

10 days ago ^

today, at almost the same spot

Welcome to the Monkey House

2009-03-13T17:01:00.001-04:00

Methuselah

2009-03-06T14:55:00.000-05:00

The Earth's oldest living inhabitant, a bristlecone pine, said to be 4768 years old, looks something like this. Heck, it might even be this one, they're not saying which for its own protection.

http://flushrush.com/the-worlds-oldest-tree/

pics of old pics

2009-03-05T19:59:00.005-05:00

dad's mom and dad, Benedicta and Joseph 1934

1934 dad, g-ma, and uncle joe, g-pa's shadow

tony and trumpet 1934

dad and g-pa 1940

mom, aunt ruth, g-ma lottie and g-pa chase (guess - mid to late 40s)

19th st dreams

2009-02-26T17:17:00.004-05:00

a noisy helicopter

click to enlarge

Carmina Burana

2009-02-20T23:55:00.001-05:00

An ex-Latin scholar nods her head to the beat as the poetry and music flow...

comet Lulin

2009-02-19T21:45:00.004-05:00

Photo by amateur astronomer Jack Newton from his backyard observatory in Arizona, taken from a 14-inch telescope.

A comet with quite the story.

It came from the outskirts of the solar system, 18 trillion miles away, and once it's made the journey around the sun, Lulin will gain enough speed to escape the solar system.

While all the planets and most of the other objects in the solar system circle the sun counterclockwise, Lulin circles clockwise. Thanks to an optical illusion, from Earth it appears as if the comet's tail is in the front as the comet approaches Earth and the sun. It still has many of its original gases -- gases that are usually stripped away as comets near the sun.

In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.

And one day, he did.

Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on "sky patrol" at the Lulin Observatory. Ye's finger moved from point to point--and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first.

from NASA

Best chance to see it is with binoculars or telescope, away from City lights, on Monday, before dawn in the southern sky. But, if you just look up, you never know what you may see.

more on this beauty! apod link 02.21.09 http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

color of moods

2009-02-19T01:37:00.003-05:00

ColorForward 2010 identifies 20 colors – five colors for each of the four societal and lifestyle trends.

Some examples:

The color palette for Reinventing Happiness features a warm dark-chocolate brown called “Goldiva” and a rich, creamy raspberry red called “Satisfaction.” It also includes a soft greyish blue named “Balance,” a pearly champagne color called “Cashmere,” along with a light turquoise blue, dubbed “Spring Fling,” which is reminiscent of shallow Caribbean waters. People will respond to these colors, the Clariant team feels, because they express harmony and balance, combining a feeling of luxury with the warmth and safety of a cocoon.

The color choices for Age Shock, on the other hand, are bright and fresh, with a hip and trendy appeal. They break new ground even as they hark back to the tie-dyed fabrics of the 1960s. This palette includes an energetic fuchsia called “Transition,” as well as a softer red-shaded lilac called “Elixir.” “Forever Young” is a pink orange that expresses youthful vitality, while “Jeanealogy” blue connects to the jeans culture. “I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat” is a saturated yellow that is both bright and energetic and, at the same time, soft and childlike.

The color “Jungle Passion,” is a deep crimson red produced from natural pigments derived from plants., “Barefoot in the Park,” a relaxing, organic green.

(Text colors limited by my imagination and/or bloggers text colors.)

ban bans

2009-02-18T14:37:00.001-05:00

I read today that Arkansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas ban Atheists from serving in government. Apparently that includes serving on a jury, or any public service.

This is allegedly current despite a Supreme Court ruling from 1961 that it is illegal to do so. Not that something being illegal ever stopped anyone.

Tolerance, acceptance, detachment...I guess it's a learning process. How would I know?

brook zen

2009-02-17T22:27:00.000-05:00

allusion

2009-02-14T01:23:00.001-05:00

memories of summer days

thoughts of hope arise

without times' hazy glaze

as from a child's eyes

time so wondrous it will raise
a brow crinkled with surprise
i turn to share amazed

and find love is in disguise

(poem edit 04.23.07)

a hint of Spring

2009-02-10T22:37:00.003-05:00

60 degrees, in town - 46 at the beach

ice - an incredible blue

swans

like the tree shadow

Now

2009-02-07T20:53:00.002-05:00

Everything led up to this point.
There really didn't seem to be a plan,
one thing just led to another.
Or, when the plans were followed,
the desired results ended up being not so desirable.

Or the plan changed when real life happened.
Change is good to prevent boredom,
but can be upsetting to the comfort of routine,
even when the routines are not exactly comfortable.

What calls now?
The sea, desert, mountains, forests?
A tent, trailer, cottage, or a high-rise?
The Brothers Grimm, The Grim Reaper?
Death as a companion is a good teacher, a master.
How should matter and energy behave, indeed.