Loosely Speaking

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

Monday, December 22, 2014

The Ideal and the Lie

Jeansaw wrote today of the children who won't get anything from Santa this year. This is on my mind, too. Walking around in stores, listening to the holly jolly songs that promise every girl and boy toys and goodies magically delivered on the approaching night, I think of the kids who will feel despised by Santa on the great morning. Despised, hated, or judged Bad. Or just forgotten. A community that can't take care of its children is too large. A community that forgets those kids is just wrong.... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, December 5, 2014

A successful launch, flight, and return

I remember in 4th grade, watching rocket launches on televisions rolled into our classrooms. The count-down was a special kind of suspense, a measured lead-in to the inevitable: I felt the wonder and awe, watching the Redstone, the Atlas, the Saturn rockets rise on their pillars of smoke and flame... roar with devastating sound into the sky, into space! Later on, we learned that things can go wrong on the launchpad and in the first moments of flight. We learned that our heros could die in this... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving thoughts

This season of thanks-giving used to be a simple fanciful memory of Pilgrims and Indians sharing a harvest feast together: disregarding differences, appreciating good things given and shared, appreciating that we none of us survive alone. We thank each other, we express gratitude to whatever Providence has looked after us, whether a European God or an American Great Spirit. It was all about a simple exhortation: “Count your blessings, and say thank you!” That’s the ideal presented: a wonderful... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Hijab and wrapped-up sweeties

The poem I posted here yesterday was inspired by a thing I read online, about Muslim men trying to influence women to behave like 'proper' women, to wrap up in the hijab in order to protect their modesty. Women were compared to lollipops that get all dirty and nasty if they are out in the dirty world without a wrapper. I found it so inflammatory that it haunted my dreams overnight and I woke with that poem forming itself in my consciousness. The culture of the hijab is superficially in respect... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

HAJIB

I am not a tootsie roll wrapped up to keep off lint and dirt. I am a human being. I have personhood and dreams ambitions, likes,desires, yearnings and creative fires... I have a life to live that is my own. I have just angers, I have boundaries, mine, not yours. How ignorant how arrogant how mean of you to think me nothing but your lollipop. Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Fed up with hype and bullshit

Don't tell me something is "priceless." Don't predict it will "blow my mind" or that I've "never seen anything like it." Never "uptalk" yourself or whatever thing you are trying to sell me. You will be wrong, and you will look stupid. This I posted on Facebook recently, one of the places where this kind of nonsense goes on. And when I am saying "nonsense" I am thinking of George Carlin. Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Just sayin'

It saddened me to discover recently that my toilet paper of choice is a product of one of the companies owned by the Koch brothers. It is my general policy not to encourage such people by buying their stuff. I am making an exception here, not only because it's a pretty good product, but also and mainly because I think about the Kochs every time I use it. Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, November 3, 2014

The Party Line

Repuplicans generally support matters of individual freedom, the freedom to ride the range unfenced-in by government regulations or community interests. What's community to the Marlboro Man? It's just him and his horse, and his right to smoke wherever he feels like lighting up. Democrats generally champion the community, protecting and promoting its interests and needs ahead of those of individuals who would put their interests ahead of the community. Republicans are telling the world that the... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, October 20, 2014

I'm not naming names...

Sometimes, 'shadenfreude' gets out of control: We want the disease to be a plague, a pandemic, for the storm to tear up landscape, homes and lives, for the freeway accident to involve 90 cars, and blood... We want to be the spectators of the biggest, most horrendous, awesome thing anyone could witness... and tell about to those who missed it. We don't want to be in it, we want to watch from a barely safe distance. That's how some politicians these days are reveling in ebola: the bigger the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Who besides human beings are persons?

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ny-court-will-decide-if-chimps-qualify-legal-personhood The article appeared on facebook, and attracted a great number of comments that swung from hearty approval, to disgust and disbelief that anyone would waste their time on such a pointless question. Mostly, the arguments run a course between emotion-based morality and intellectual debate: What humans feel, what humans think. Science and diligent, documented observation can present well-established... Sign in to see full entry.

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