Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Just consider...

You've also probably heard the question come up: What do you miss about the past? What habits, manners, and values do you feel have unfortunately been lost? I miss consideration. It seems that hardly anyone considers what other people might need or appreciate or maybe just have their day brightened a little. It's drivers who tailgate, who speed and play high-speed car-slalom on the highway. It's people who have a full cart and never think to offer the person behind them with a couple of items to... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, December 27, 2025

Worth watching

The Year Earth Changed... A 2021 documentary with David Attenborough that shows vividly and astonishingly how conditions changed on Earth during the covid lock-down. What strikes me most is how quickly the air cleared, and how well the planet and its other lives did when humans stayed home for a while. It suggests how just stopping our activities almost completely for a few days maybe a few times a year could help the Earth rebalance to everyone's benefit. The Year Earth Changed (TV Movie 2021)... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

I was listening to an NPR call-in show today about what experts and the public think about Artificial Intelligence. I was driving, so not in a position to call in, and I had to think further about what I'd want to know. This is where my thoughts led. Can the artificially programmed mind be flexible enough to be responsive to the human/social nuances of a problem? Can morality be programmed into an AI 'mind'? Can AI comprehend what 'right' vs 'wrong' means in the human context? Mature, reasonable... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Tides are turning...

For the first time in years I sat up and watched live coverage of election returns last night. It was encouraging to see sense, optimism, and practicality weigh in with most of the elections around the country. Locally, some things I voted for won, and a couple--school board positions--didn't quite make the numbers they needed. But households making over $300,000/year will be contributing to continuing the free healthy school lunches program. Our current school board has been led by a... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, November 3, 2025

Someone Else Will Do It!

Thinking about how other countries are solving social and environmental problems while the US, mentally and emotionally stuck in the rules and judgments and condemnations, the philosophical traps of centuries past, spends time arguing about who deserves or doesn't and who is worthy or not. Self-interests top the list of considerations of deciding when and who and where a solution might be implemented disturbing no one's comfort or convenience who matters. "Not in my backyard, and not out of my... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, November 1, 2025

Darkness...

I wrote this one in another season as autumn gave way to winter... In The Dark In the dark I think of you sometimes and remember laughter that delighted you though not enough it seems. I no longer seek to laugh or feel; or share; nor trust the promises I wanted once, embraced but finally found in my arms nothing. A time there was when hope of love of welcome of desire still glowed within me banked, and waiting for a breath, and it was yours that set the embers flickering and flaring finally into... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Seeing what's useful about the current chaos

The past decade has turned the ugly underbelly of the US up to the light. While it festers and stinks, we suffer from it, but it's the opening, the opportunity to clean it up: to own responsibility for past sins of ignorance, apathy, and acquiescence, and to make sure that what has been broken for so long is finally faced and fixed. I suggest that we begin with questioning the values inherited from colonial ancestors: The Western European Paradigm has overlaid the world as if it is the only... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Words, words, words...!

I saw a bit over in Facebook about how the Junior Oxford Dictionary has discarded many words once common: "For almost 20 years, editors of the Junior Oxford Dictionary have gradually removed from the book many words used to describe things found in nature (e.g., acorn, bluebell, ivy, fern, moss, blackberry, dandelion, lark, raven, heron, starling, hazel, heather, goldfinch, grey seal, otter and kingfisher) on the grounds that they are not of use to modern children." Vocabulary is lost when... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

The Seasons

My just-turned-six grandperson was asked if she knows the seasons. Of course she does! Summer, Winter, Halloween, and Easter! Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, October 9, 2025

Rally!

On Wednesday Oct 8 the local school district teachers held a one-day strike. Their demands are for smaller class sizes and better support for teachers and students, and of course, better pay. Behind it all is the battle between the school board and the schools. Currently the Board is composed of political and religious zealots who have the goal of shifting all curriculum towards their agendas. Their strategy included doing away with a contract with the teachers that has been in place 56 years... Sign in to see full entry.

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