Loosely Speaking

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

Friday, April 20, 2018

"Aren't you too old to be so cynical?"

Deregulation of standards is not the same as telling us we have to go back to old practices and lack of standards. We have seen the difference some of these regulations made, so that's a reason people might have gotten smarter than when the regulations were first made. Besides, as a society, we ever so gradually do grow up. I look at some of the young people around today and they are a lot less bullshit-inclined or fo oled than other generations have been: Less trusting of authority, more... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Cultural Appropriati0n

It has become a thing. It is most particularly about someone appropriating the significant symbols of another culture to use them without respect for the value they hold for that other culture. Like dressing up models in Plains Indians' war bonnets, essentially trivializing them to achieve 'a look.' I heard about a taco food truck in Oregon that was shut down by public protest on the basis of 'cultural appropriation' because the vendors were not themselves Mexican. In fact, commerce between... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Value of Fantasy

We went to see the new movie, BLACK PANTHER, another in the lengthening series of Marvel super-hero comics based movies. If you follow this genre at all, you may no that Stan Lee, the father of the series, and now in his 90s, still produces the movies based on his work, and always has a cameo in them, like Hitchcock. Someone recently commented on facebook on the old geezer who keeps showing up apparently pointlessly in all the Marvel films. I commented that, yeah, there is this old guy who keeps... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

strip-searched on Facebook

Why do we put so much of ourselves on display online? I think it's because we so badly want to be known and recognized for who we are, in a world so busy and indifferent that we feel invisible as individuals, disregarded, unappreciated... If you are on Facebook, this might interest you: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2018/03/20/check-your-facebook-settings-now/ Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Walk out, walk away, walk towards...

If you walk out of school today, stay out until the Government does its job to make schools safe from random lunatics who think a school is an easy target. Gunmen, deVos, whoever... Students, you will need to shape your own education, find mentors and teachers who will help you, use the public libraries, form study-groups... Ask people who know about what you want to know about. Knowledge is power: the power to pursue your dreams and goals, your success, your opportunities throughout life. Those... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Glamourize Me!

Glamour-- Originally, the word meant the magic of illusion by which the Fae made themselves appear lovely and seductive, enticing humans into the world of Faerie to amuse the Fae. This was a night thing that fast evaporated in morning light, and revealed that what had seemed beautiful was actually quite plain and ordinary, or even grotesque. Extravagant makeup was developed to give faces dimension at distance on a stage, for instance, and in movies. The "Starlet Effect" got gals wearing intense... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, March 9, 2018

Corruption and Greed in Governments

There is a terrible disconnect between the people and the governments of more than one nation calling itself a democracy. The overwhelming numbers that reflect the will of the citizens somehow can't break through the walls of corruption and venality of the law-makers, or nations like Australia and the US would lead the world in compassionate stewardship. This disconnect has to be fixed! It isn't enough to simply encourage the majority to go vegan. The solution has to be an active one, not a... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Mima Mounds

There was a certain lovely glade in a park in the Olympia, WA area where mysterious mounds fill the otherwise flat landscape. There are foot-trails winding through and among the mounds and through the forest surrounding on the edges of this one particular area of several square miles. There came a time when the so-called managers of this site decided that the trees were making some of the mounds too hard to see, so they went in and cut down acres of trees, and my lovely glade was destroyed. They... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Messing with history in 'historical dramas'

If there is no effort to be historically accurate, a thing should not be billed as history. Historical speculation, maybe, or history-inspired fantasy. I hate when a certain physique is well-known, eg Henry VIII, and they cast a lean guy in the role, especially one who has none of his other known and recognizable attributes. I don't care how good an actor is, his or her appearance is relevant to an actual historic figure, because physical presence was part of who the person was, and affected... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, February 23, 2018

So proud...!

As ashamed as I have been in past months, even years, over how law-makers at state and national levels have failed to make adequate gun-control laws to safeguard America, I am that proud of the school kids who have had enough, who are walking out of school, marching on capitols, demonstrating in front of those same law-makers... Who have had enough of the body-counts, who refuse to accept the role of helpless victims or to believe no one can make a difference in this world where money seems to... Sign in to see full entry.

Headlines (What is this?)