Loosely Speaking

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Saturday, September 8, 2018

Savagery vs Civilization

Tribal is not the opposite of civilized. You can have tribal communities within a civil nation, within a city that raises up all its citizenry, embraces and does not fear differences. The opposite of civilization is savagery. Tolerance is the keystone of civil behavior. Patience is how a mature and civilized adult responds to those who are frightened, filled with resentment and indignation, even vengeful inclinations--tribal attitudes--and willingness to teach and accept, to answer those fears... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Values and Inevitability

The idea that companies exist solely to serve the interests of shareholders—rather than also to serve workers, customers, and the larger community—has been dominant in the business world in the past thirty years. Sheelah Kolhatkar Seems to me, this current business mindset has placed the value of big, big money over all other values, such as considerations of humanity, of effictively benefitting the community. Buying into this distortion of value has propelled us into the current state of... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, August 25, 2018

This is kind of terrifying

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one... especially if anyone you care about lives in the Pacific NW of the US. Living in an earthquake-vulnerable zone, or any natural hazard zone, we are so ready to ignore and deny the risk, to optimistically assume it will never happen in my lifetime... Or to shrug it off fatalistically because it takes so much effort and commitment to actually prepare or plan for something that might NOT happen. Or to assume, if it does, it will be... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Lessons from binge-watching AMAZING RACE

Tonality sinks more ships than flapping lips, and triggers more reactive explosions than the thing said. History, geography, and basic manners are neglected studies these days. Judging people by superficials--their accents, background, nationality, religion, physical attractiveness, or skin tone--is always going to be mistaken. When there are no rules, sometimes people still choose to play fair. Travel agents sometimes make mistakes: Best deals you find yourself on the Internet. White-,... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Amazing... !

I am currently catching up old episodes of THE AMAZING RACE. It has always been one of the best of the 'reality' shows, with great scenery. Every now and then they go someplace I have been, sometimes even pretty specifically, like the corner of Penang Road and Orchard Road which is very near where my daughter and her husband and family of cats and dog lived in Singapore. The couples in each Race are quite a range of personalities, come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Ages range from young to... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Why are we so afraid?

Fear is behind all the hatred, all the defensiveness, all the resentment, all the turning away, running away... What makes some white people so afraid of black skin, brown skin, yellow skin, red skin that they will call the cops to protect them from a black woman eating a sandwich, a brown family seeking asylum? That they will inflict the most heinous injustice on whole communities, like the Japanese internment camps in WWII, and the abduction of American tribal children to be re-programmed away... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, July 23, 2018

The thing about bubbles...

They think they're building a monolith, but it is nothing but a huge, toxic bubble composed of lies and selfishness, filled with immorality, treason and hot air. The pretty sheen they admire on its outside is the same as that on an oil slick. It gets bigger and bigger... and so does the shiny pin being constructed by Mueller and sharpened by indignation, outrage, and desperation of the people whose lives and world are being destroyed. Reality itself is pretty sharp, too. Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

Not too hard to imagine...

So, here's a scenario... Trump and Putin, a few years ago: T: I really have to admire how you are so incredibly rich and powerful! You can have anything you want. You can do anything you want. How do you do it? P: I have a system. I don't let anything or anyone get in the way. T: Sure, that works when you are the head of the country. Not the US, though--Too many regulations and laws there. Sad. P: Well, if you were head of the US, you could change a few things... In fact, I would really like it... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, July 14, 2018

About Heroes

Heroes... perched on pedastols, enthroned, enshrined... And suddenly one day they come toppling down, to be charged with heinous behaviors, to be run out of town on a rail in a suit of feathers and tar... Or we just tear them down on principle, for daring to rise above the ordinary, pitching stones at anyone someone else has elevated to the Hero's height. I have a theory about Heroes. First, they don't make themselves. I have heard of many a celebrated hero who didn't want to hear it, who denied... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Thoughts inspired by a post on Facebook

Western Civilization is like the pavements it lays over the earth: it is thin and fragile compared to what it thinks to control and subdue. The power of the people who have lived with the Earth instead of despite it is rooted deeper and will outlast the crust of cleverness of Western Civilization. Indegenous peoples worldwide are unifying in acknowledgement of one another, and when the forces of the European colonial dominance have been dissipated by their seed-energies of greed and power, they... Sign in to see full entry.

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