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, October 31, 2018

Just sayin'

If you steal the ball and run away with it, you're no longer playing ball, you're playing catch-me-if-you-can. If you cheat to win, you can't win the game because you've changed it to another game, and sooner or later, you are going to lose that one, too. Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, October 15, 2018

Suppression

In North Carolina, the Secretary of State, who happens to be running for Governor, has purged 53,000 potential voters from the registration rolls. Most of them, 70%, are black. In North Dakota, a law now requires that you provide a street address in order to register to vote. The Post Office has, for years, only assigned PO Boxes to Native Americans who live on reservations, so this new requirement disenfranchises voters in an election in which a Native American woman is running for high office.... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Living in the jungle

A few years ago I had the opportunity to hang out for a while in a tropical jungle. It was so lush and lovely, filled with fresh new greens unfolding, brilliant flowers like gems... and everywhere, also, the dead and dying leaves, the old flowers faded and blown... I realized, a real live jungle has a constant current of life unfolding, stretching, being grand, then aging towards the inevitable decay and return to the soil. No one comes along to dead-head the fading blooms, no one clips away the... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Waking...

From the earlist days of humanity rising above the level of instinct and impulse to embrace intellect and personal responsibility, females have been susceptible to males who chose not to be more than animals who follow their physical urges. It is a choice to this day, to be more human or more beast. It's about time the whole human race looked this in the face, and realized what it means in this world, what it has always meant to be born a girl-child. Sign in to see full entry.

It won't end with confirmation.

Will Kavanaugh be confirmed? Probably. Will doubts about his fitness go away? Never. But the Republicans and their monied backers need Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court to protect their interests and cover their asses. He is their best bet for continuing their slow run to the moment they can truly take over America with no effective obstacle like law or due process. (If you don't see the coup in the works, you have not been paying attention. You have not been keeping track of where the money comes... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Hey, Republican Congressman!

Honestly, Republican Congressman, can you really possibly believe that the current administration's and the Republicans' agenda is good for America, for all or even most of Americans? Can you truly actually believe that it is good for your particular constituency, whom you are sworn to represent? And if that is not your goal, what in God's name are you doing in this job? Where is your common sense, your common decency, your patriotic duty to America? Is this how you want to be remembered in... Sign in to see full entry.

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.

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