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, October 28, 2011

The Decision That Makes a Hero

When a soldier enlists and goes to fight, that soldier lays his or her life on the line. Not just the fact of life, accepting the risk of death, but the whole of a life. War may not accept the whole offering, but it will surely take some great portion of it. Lives are changed irrevocably, and all the lives connected to that single life, are likewise changed, shaped forever around War's particular imprint. Of course, all actions, all decisions that move us through a lifetime, do this, but few... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Are you an AARP member?

If you are, then you probably got the same email I did about supercommittees deciding measures to cut America's financial deficit in closed-door sessions. The AARP email invites us to fire off a note to the 'deciders.' Sure, why not? They said personalize it, though providing their own copy. in case the member isnt' sure what to say. Well, I erased theirs and said what's on my own mind. It is perhaps a little exaggerated in places, to get the message across... certainly no more than the average... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Did you like Postum...?

...before Kraft, without warning to those of us who might have wanted to stock up, discontinued making it? Nor do they appear to be willing to sell the rights to anyone else who might want to make it. I went looking for Postum online and found an 8-oz jar offered on ebay for $54. I saw two more offered by another link that appears to be Kraft's own, for $150 for each of 2 jars. Now I am pissed. I am not buying any Kraft products... not one! until Postum reappears at a reasonable price in the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Why I Unfriended FaceBook

This was excerpted from a recent conversation I had with someone who wondered why I dropped my FaceBook account a few months ago, besides agreeing with Betty White's assessment, that it is simply "a colossal waste of time!" FaceBook. I dropped it because it smacks more and more of a kind of Big Brotherness which I find disturbing. It was not worth worrying over that while not actually making much real use of it, as I wasn't. The deciding factor was getting a notice there about an old friend... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Good Gravy!

HOW MUMBO JUMBO CONQUERED THE WORLD is Francis Wheen's wryly smiling polemic against modern-day irrationality and popular delusion. Wheen is a latterday champion of Reason. Anything in this world that is not firmly grounded in Reason, is grist for his calmly relentless mill. He grinds happily and thoroughly the popular icons and delusions of our times, and reads as delusion anything not Reasonable. He is certainly refreshing and amusing, while grinding out the nonsense of political fantasies... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Stupid Politicians

Once again, the noisy ignoramuses overpower quiet sense, common sense, compassionate sense. The rich and powerful remain smugly comfy. The less comfy grow even less comfy. For now. I have this feeling about our President. That he is a man who sees a bigger picture, and makes his moves according to that. It may look like he lost something here. The impatient and emotional-reactors won't understand that just maybe he has gained something more important than he has given up. That what he does is... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Me vs We

The have/give continuum: at one end, the material glory of Having It All! At the other... the sublime spiritual victory of Giving It All Away: Accumulate vs Distribute. As in everything, the point of balance is somewhere between. I don't disbelieve in personal wealth, in being able to wallow a bit in having, nor do I glorify self-martyrdom: It is a matter of finding a place between the ends that supports both one's comfort and self-respect. It's to do with drawing one's own lines, defining one's... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

speaking of patriots again...

How about those mega-millionaires who have made their fortunes in this country, and who, just like the people who actually can't afford new taxes, resist the concept of taxation? Heya, Deep Pockets! Why don't you dig down and make a contribution against the national deficit? Why wait to be taxed? Why not give back, just... give? To make your country stronger--to save the need for cuts to children and elders? To put the greedy bastards to shame...? Drop in the bucket..? BS... it is a drop out of... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

This is a different mythology, the story of Beren's finding of Tinuviel, my interpretation of a myth of Middle-earth created by JRR Tolkien Oh, the world is grey, a bitter place of ash of waste of effort come to naught... So long I've wandered lost in such a fog of useless striving of anguish unassuaged... Then suddenly A light! And color nearly blinding to my life-starved eye! The heavens, purest deepest blue, and laced with beams of star and moonlight! The richest greens the shades of depths... Sign in to see full entry.

On Patriotism

Patriots aren't what they used to be. Well, probably they are, but they aren't how we remember them. Patriots used to be those who strove with might and mind for the good of their nation, so we recall in the idealistic glow of looking-back on a Golden Age that probably consisted of a lot of people just like us, griping over the present, and looking further back for their own ideals realized in yet a more distant Golden Age. That's memory, for you. Nostalgia: the elder version of adolescent... Sign in to see full entry.

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