Sunday, November 1, 2009

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Saturday, August 22, 2009

Abortion; Lifestyle Orientation

 By Dint:

Child support for zygotes, morulas and blastocysts, embryos and fetuses, where defined as "children"
If a state defines a cell cluster as a human being, a child, then the woman carrying it should get child support. Amend the statutes.

Strict Constructionism and Abortion, Orientation: The Conservative Dilemma
Texts accepted into the Canon in the earliest days do not mention this abortion issue, from early days of the Church. All are silent. With good reason. The wisdom of the oldies. Strict construction of the canon. When early religious texts are silent on specific directives, watch institutions extrapolate later as their own agendas direct.  Why accept what some institution extrapolate later on its own. Look at the effect. This is the recourse of cultures shaping and controlling the behavior of a sub-group."Inspiration?" Tell that to the dissenters.

Male Performance Enhancers Treated as Abortion Matters: No Abortion for her?  No Viagra for him
Fair and balanced. If a state declares that a woman must carry a cluster of cells, even if raped or the victim of incest, then that state shall prohibit the sale of Viagra and its equivalents. And no going over state lines to get it.  A woman having choice in how to proceed: why is the presumption that she will not be as moral as a man or disinterested woman in making it? Morality of the decider: between her and whatever she worships, if anything, and that also is her choice.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Military Strategy; Figureheads; Battlefields; Codes, Memorabilia

By Dint:

Hatpins Collection, Military Buttons, Insignias
Battle Memorabilia - Battalions on Hats.  Souvenirs, mementos, carry the memory with you, on your head. Find history in the long Edwardian hatpins.


JPMorganChase and Code of the Hand.
Military: uses codes to get messages out and past the enemy.  So does the corporate world.  See JP Morgan Chase and its code.  The intended audience gets it. Corporation codes. Believe. Its own form of military.

Torture
Sassafras and Guantanamo: Getting At the Truth:
Military strategy to get information from enemies also included matters that Geneva Conventions and others consider torture. A former president went along. Should he be prosecuted for war crimes? Amnesty International says so. Try another route: to get information from enemies.  Explore the relaxer approach, truth serum idea with sassafras, encourage changes of heart and mind. Not torture.  We have lots of sassafras in this country. Get busy, labs. Sassafras for truth.

Strategy
Genghis Khan, a model for Planning, Timing, and Follow-Up  The virtue of strategic withdrawal when outnumbered. Conquer when ready. See also Liddell Hart: The most effective approach may be the indirect.

Sulking as strategy
Politics of Sulk.  When the loser can't think of what to do next, sulk.

Warrior Qualities
Women in War See the warriors of the past. Talent in many forms.
Moscow's BlackWidows, Chechen suicide bombers.   Origins of women in warrior roles, the Caucasus and its Amazon traditions.
Warriorism; Warrior Skills; Training  Does practicing the skills of war deter, or set the stage for, use. Warrior skills as confidence-builders, psychological crutch.

Auxiliary Troops
Hero Roles:  Messenger. Including Carrier Pigeons American Signal Corps and "Cher Ami" who brought news.


Need to Preserve Memory - Keepers of the Artifacts
Curator, Andrew Gregory, Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal.  Those who house our memories. Meet this overseer of a Montreal learner-friendly military museum. Learn tactics, history, weapons, equipment, strategies of wars. Andrew Gregory: curator,offers personalized interest at the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Museum, Montreal.

Persuasion Techniques:  Teach to Kill
Crusades:  License to Kill Evildoers.  Battles mobilized on faith; demonize the enemy.  Use of code words to justify killing, suggest religious approval, even mandate.

Tools of Persuasion
Propaganda:  The Firing of the First Shots. Verbal. Then the War.  The role of propaganda in warming up the populace to support what is to come.

PRE-WORLD WAR I

Specific Battles

Agincourt, in the Somme Area

1389 Battle of Kosovo  Ottoman Empire advances;  Serbia loses its "heart" - Kosovo.

Myth, and Indigenous Wars Against Incursion.  King Philip, Native American; and His War Against Colonists  Our history's self-serving myths of glory; and the shabby reality. How we got our foothold. New England's battleground, indigenous tribes against settlers. King Philip, local chief.

American Revolution, Fort Ticonderoga, NY


American Revolution, Saratoga.  This is where Benedict Arnold lost his boot.  His case is not a simple one.  Turncoat, yes, but with reason.

Ireland.  Battle of the Boyne Protestant v. Catholic

Austerlitz, The Three Emperors.  Find Napoleon here; the Battle of Slavkov.  You will not see "Austerlitz" on the map, perhaps.  See also Austerlitz and Carl Sandburg's poem, Grass.  It covers all.

WORLD WAR I

Vimy Ridge, France, World War I

Citizen Poets While Fodder in the Trenches, Ypres, Ieper, Belgium  See Canadian War Memorial here.  The Christmas Truce. Poetry.

Vimy Ridge, France; Pegs in the Night.  Soldiers told of pound in painted pegs along the German side, if you could.  Then, later, if a solder passed in front of it, you could see, and the sniper could shoot.  

Flanders Fields, Where Poppies Blow  Belgium, France.

Argonne Forest, World War I, France. The Forgotten Cemetery.  Overshadowed by Verdun, off the beaten track, near Belleau Wood, also forlorn.  Go anyway.  They need you.

Soldiers' Mutiny, Verdun, France WWI,  Issues, Negotiating During Slaughter Poem.  Anthem for Doomed Youth.  Soldiers, passing officers, and saying, "Baaah" like sheep, knowing what was coming.

Verdun, France, WWI, Soldiers' Mutiny Worked  See original postcards of area at end of the war, fort areas, memorials.


WORLD WAR II

The Netherlands, Arnhem, A Bridge Too Far, British Soldier, John Frost

Normandy, Pointe du Hoc, Arromanches, Rangers.  The Rangers scaled these cliffs, but nothing was there of importance.

Unlikely Hartford and Colt Armaments.  World War II,  Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, Prague, by Czech Resistance, a Colt used among their weapons.  See film, "Operation Daybreak".

Vietnam Battlefields; US Failure to Encrypt. Inexcusable blunders in war, the conceit, the flawed sense of superiority of the American command, costing thousands of lives. Not even coding messages.The gooks can't read English.  Imagine. The gall of it.

Berlin Wall, Germany  When problems cannot be resolved, wall them away. Then kill whoever tries to pass over.



IDEOLOGICAL BATTLEFIELDS

Ideological Battleground:  Sistine Chapel

Argonne Forest, France, World War I

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Aging Issues: Value of a life, Advance End of Life Directives,

By Dint:

A view on aging.

Bremen Town Musicians, Euthanasia for Nonprofitability  The Reality Tale. Think Bremen. Poor, old Ass. Getting too old to be useful. Can't work for his keep any more.  Get rid of him, thinks the farmer. What do to but pack a hasty exit for the poor, old Ass. So he clip-clops down the road. Then, with others deemed equally useless, he indeed manages to be very useful, in his way. Useful after all. Thoughts:  How to define value of a life.  Is profit the only measure of a life? Wrong, farmer; wrong. Apply anew:  Need for transparency, not hyperbole in discussion. There never were "death panels" anyway.  Just people telling tales, hoping others would believe. It's end-of-life directives, not ending life directives, Sarah.

Self-disposition. Lay out directives

Resolution Enacting Federal Healthcare Decisions Day.  To promote laying out one's own directives in advance of The Need.  If we don't make our own plans, someone else will do it for us.

Complexities of Stereotype in Cultural Tales: Black not always a pejorative

By Dint:

Three Little Pigs. Blackie, Brownie, Whitie. England 1890's est   In this English version from about the 1890's, the Black Pig is the hero, the handsome one.  The Brown pig is the messy one and the White Pig is the greedy one.

White Bride and Black One; Racism Amok
This is a Grimm Tale:  The Brothers Grimm. It is not the color that ends up important, however, although the story started out that way.  The "black" is highly symbolic; it is the doing of good or evil. We think we know the ending: that the black one was bad, ended up miserable.  Is that so? Read the story. Who ends up happy in the tale? Black was not always a pejorative. We added that, to a large degree.

Eve's Various Children: Each to His Place
Handsomes get to idle at the top; the uglies get to work at the bottom. Plus ca change?  That stereotype holds true.  Pretty children earn more, get hired faster, is that so?

The Jew Among the Thorns
Anti-semitism has long been in the tales.  Consider how concepts get transmitted.

Social and Economic Theory: In Cultures and the Kitchen

By Dint:

Who Will Bell the Cat? "Piers Plowman" and 14th Century Social and Economic Theory.
William Langland, 1332-1400. Poem: Langland adds to Aesop's Fable about belling the cat. The plan failed because noone would do it. What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled. Far worse for the community. Find out why.

Rumpelstiltskin 
Thinks one: When you don't know the answer, sneak around and cheat. Finds out the other: ha! Bartering with the Mannikin? Never a good idea, but here it leads to a Bad End for the Mannikin.

Sassafras:  Industry Opportunity; Social and Economic Uses
Explore sassafras to improve the economic position of some.

Sassafras - Industry Pressure to Call Safrole, a Food Component, an Additive?. Put sassafras back in the kitchen. Re-establishing safrole as useful when used with ordinary care in foods could open up economic benefits, as well as health. Is that so? The FDA exerts jurisdiction over safrole merely because of a label it gives to it, as an "additive." How can something that is itself a food, be an additive?  The carcinogenicity of safrole in sassafras is no greater than the the safrole in your spice or herb shelf.  Test that. Is that so?

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Pruderies, Energy and Piety. Cultural filters. Reinstate the Original.

By Dint:

Lange Wapper at Antwerp.
By Steen Castle, Antwerp, Belgium.  A natural appendage removed so the good fathers would not be embarrassed; and its use as a bestower of wishes could end. Did it? 

Red Riding Hood; and Cake, Wine, Vivisection
Read the original. Little Red and Grandma. Be all that you can be. Red Riding Hood can get in the blood and guts as good as the next guy.

Rapunzel. Pssst. She Had Twins.
Honest. Why is this filtered out?  She fared fine, even in the wilderness with them. Tale as old as time and also with a beauty.

Sassafras, Less Carcinogenic than Beer Beer.
And other anomalies of a ban, placed on a food component, because FDA labeled it an "additive".  We consume beer, but prevent anybody from using sassafras in the same way.  Ban on the buzz.

Religion's Ambiguities. Method of Execution. Why Not Accept the Ambiguity?
Making something nicer by pretending there is no other explanation than the one that is nicer, is a nice way of saying we can't handle reality.  Death is death, of course, but why sound so certain about how it was done. Do the requirements of art supersede fact?  Crucifixion, impalement, both done commonly at the time, word means either. Art won out. Should it?  Vatican, open your libraries.  You could tell us.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Cultural : Creation Accounts. Imposing ideology.

By Dint:


Bellwether Haiku. Parthenos, Parthenogenesis, Genesis North
Persuasion of the Swedes: role of myth, meet The Gylfaginning. Norse beginnings Big Innings: and the Deception of Gylfi, who went to the gods to find out how Sigge Fridulfson could be so successful. Was he really a god, Odin?  Whose view survives.  Other beginnings in myth: concept of parthenogenesis.

Dominion: The Worst Concept in the World. The Wolf Mentality
Translations, transliteration, cultural spin. Scripture interpretations can be helpful, but not in the hands of the Wolf Pack. The idea of "dominion" is a far reach by Jerome, a distortion of meaning of the Hebrew by use of "dominamini" where the original concept seems to be a swaying,a taming, a leading towards, gently; and even that sway was only offered by the deity in the context of the first given creation tale, where both M+F were created simultaneously and equally.  It has no place in the second, where something sequential is to have happened. has been distorted. Is this an example of another concept in spirituality: that humans are like or take on attributes of a guide animal, here the Wolf -- also showing itself in group behaviors in politics, as well as in institutional religion. Offering a sway. Or down your throat, buster. The Wolf, in politics and other institutions, knows what it will do. And it does.


The Big Birds: The Phoenix, the Turul
Russian, Chinese, Japanese, North American, Egyptian, forms of the Phoenix in all. Magyar and the Turul.  The idea of a big bird recurs.

Genesis Before Genesis: Transliteration of Genesis 1-4. Surprise
Read a transliteration of the familiar story. Now read your favorite Bible.  How have the interpretations, grammar impositions, dogma and ideologies changed what is there. How does imposing a narrative, an ideology, change original, word-by-word mechanical meaning. Is the slant of the narrative justified? Does it distort? This excerpt from Genesis from Scripture4All, a favorite transliteration site. Moral. Any ideology is a creation in itself.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Themes, Cultural Tales: Repetition and addiction, living with death-dealers, mistranslations

By Dint:

Ma Liang and his Magic Brush; and The Red Shoes
Forced repetition of the desired action: it becomes a punishment for the self-centered person who has the desire. But the West adds darkness to it. A simple, logical and straightforward moral consequence to the East, becomes sin to the West.

Who Will Bell the Cat - Piers Plowman.
Ask a question beyond Aesop's tale, where no mouse is man enough to bell the cat. In 1377, William Langtrey's council mouse takes the story beyond that silly later ending. The original council mouse suggests that this inability to carry out the plan to bell the cat -- too dangerous-- may be just as well. What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled.... as the mice first wanted. Go read. Watch what you wish for.

Grimm: The Peasant in Heaven.
Texts and mistranslations.  The theme of the perils of riches. Eye of needle, rich man, cultures repeat. But find here that the "needle" is a mistranslation It should read "rope". In this case, the point of the story remains. Where else, however, does a mistranslation skew the result?

The Bawdy vs. Religion. Lange Wapper, Flanders, Antwerp
Fear of sexuality. Fear of functions. Lop it off. There. That's better, isn't it?

Fitcher's Bird. Grimm Tale. The Clever Girls. Water down the strong girls.  Quick. Water them down. They are far too capable.....

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Horsemen, Invaders. bup-Bup, bup-Bup, buppity-Bup, Bup-BUP

By Dint:

Sinj, Croatia: The Six Hundred Horsemen 
Sinj and the Six Hundred. They rode out and defeated the Ottomans at that battle. 

Hussars, Winged Cavalry, old Poland, Hungary, other Eastern Europe 
A/k/a Husaria, Husarz. Peak 17th-18th Centuries. Hussars saved Vienna from the Ottomans. The frames on the shoulders and backs were lined with feathers that made a hmmmmwhrrr sound as they rode. The sound preceded the sight.

Khazars, Hazars, Huns (Attila), Magyars, Ottoman -  Tracking migrations, conquests, cultures
Follow these horsemen over the plains.

Genghis Khan, on Planning, Timing, and Follow-Up  
Mongols. See also Liddell Hart: the most effective approach may be the indirect.

Women and History; including Warfare

By Dint:

Protest Within Convention: Victorian Marriage. Mary H. Seymour, story in Peterson's Ladies National Magazine 1865.

Germaine Tillion: Nazi Resistor, France WWII No gender gap in courage.
Domination by Diminution:  Women Shunted Out of the Loop. Civil War Diminishing roles in order to minimize abilities.  Shunt women aside, impose powerlessness.
Moscow's Black Widows, The Tradition of Warrior Women in the Caucasus  Warrior traditions among women of the Caucasus.  Chechnya.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Individuals - 20th Century to Present. Modern people of distinction. A Little Hall of Unexpected Fame

By Dint:

Bronislawa Wajs, Romani poet, singer, inspiration
See the novel, "Zoli" for a fictionalized but roughly close (we understand) rendition of the life of Bronislawa Wajs. Gypsy (Roma) traditions.

Rabbi Shmuel ben David of "Isaac's Torah"
A friend of one also caught in changing times, including the Holocaust. Concept: the Idea, vs. the later System implementing it, and becoming more focused on its own (the System's) survival than the Idea.

Susan Boyle: A Voice for the Lyrics
The genius of this performer-come-lately is her choice of lyrics for her songs.  How she sings what she sings. The "first game" - mere competition. Easy.  More important: she epitomizes the course of the "second game" in which a woman competes.  The drive to derail her. Find a chink and wedge it open: judges, public, family.  Broaden our horizons despite them, Susan. Go ahead.

Wintley Phipps, Program on the Black American Slave
Baritone, story teller, historian.

Germaine Tillion: Nazi Resistor, France WWII
Political resource, intellectual.

Gene Amdahl, IBM's Propaganda Target.
See IBM's successful campaign to use Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) to keep consumers from trying the better product of Gene Amdahl.  Follow this use of FUD as a propaganda model, used against a competitor's excellent computer product. A victim of propaganda, Amdahl recently died, 2009 . FUD= this has been the rule for marketing and politics to defeat someone without providing a better alternative.

 Lack of distinction:
John McCain. Opinion Pap.  Overflow is not News.  
Opinion takes over the "news".  Even venerable politicians like McCain follow opinion polls, not own moorings.

Back to distinction:
Team Critic David Frum gets Fired Pointing Out Losing Coach Made Bad Calls 
Why fire the messenger telling truth, that coach blew it?

And, lack of distinction again:
Ahn Joseph Cao is Cowed.  Sole republican voter for healthcare reform bows to pressure.

Linguistics as clue to cultural origins

By Dint:

Vlachs (found in Roman old Romania area) speaking Romani.
Language roots as clue to cultural origins.  Here, the Vlach people, Romania and elsewhere, nomadic herders.  It is not clear if the Vlachs speak Romani, a language of the Roma or gypsies, suggesting a connection with them;  or a vernacular form of old Latin. Rome settled here in its glory days, and joined with the indigenous Dacians.  Could old Latin have seeped into Vlach culture, consider this and Other Roma customs.

Varieties: Healthcare, Remedies, FDA, Vision care, early Hero for Cretins

By Dint:

No Glasses Week. An Experiment in Viewpoints 
Vet the vision dependence industry. How much do you really need your glasses, or are they now so conditioned you can't do without them?  How about your kids? And appreciate, as you experiment, what it is like to be vision-impaired.

Sassafras: Seven Bedbugs in One Blow
Uses of sassafras wood: its rodent and insect repellent qualities. Sassafras repels bedbugs. Are you listening, NY? Investors?

Romani Medicine, Remedies, Healthcare.
How many of these cross borders into the Roma populations of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria.

Dr. Christianus Christian, caring for 19th C. Swiss cretins
Early hero to the different, the Swiss Cretins.

Sassafras and the American Slave Tradition: remedies, uses.
Wound healer, gumbo file thickener for stews, poultices, tonics.

Sassafras, Less Carcinogenic than Beer Beer.
And other anomalies of a ban, placed on a food component, because FDA labeled it an "additive".

Sassafras a Purifier, Say the Tales
Explore Cholesterol, Liver Remedy?

Sassafras and remedies: Dosage and Information, Not Ban ban

Sassafras pharmacology list
How it is and has been used, with benefit.


Vision Care

William Horatio Bates, Bane of Vision Industry.
1920's and later, opthalmologist, advocating and developing eye exercises instead of glasses. Died 1931. His work has been refined, new testing bunked some, kept some, but book worth reading. Relax the muscles, your eyes themselves may well be just fine.

FDA

FDA Reorganization Three Ways: PharmaJocks Panic at Accountability
Foodies Dept: inspections and Safety, Druggies Dept: New drugs, and now Woodsies: testing for natural-type ingredients - keep them honest. A Cabinet Secretary of Ingestibles and Digestibles, Overseeing and Providing for Testing of Natural Ingredients to Compete with the Druggies.

Health Reform
Aortic Pregnancy? No? Optimist waits for tests
Gratitude for coverage, appreciation for those without.

Cultures and Conflict: Minorities that Rule, and Those That Do Not. Absolutism.

By Dint:

Abraham and Anti-Absolutism for Dispute Resolution.
Absolutism drives divisions


Roma:  The Court (Kris), Expulsion, Shunning
Minority systems for continuity. Systems of law and cultural continuity in minority groups. Enforcement of norms, internal controls is extensive in the Roma culture. Now ask for next class: what role, if any, should Roma law have in a regular civil court? Persuasive? Irrelevant? Dispositive? If both agree? Is that why so few come to court?


"Heretics" - a maligned minority. Nothing to do with good faith and merit. Killed by agenda.  Who says who is a heretic other than the ones in power?  If so, why adopt so much of what they said? That is, after you killed them off. See cathars.org for a for-instance.

Cathars, Albigensians: Vet the So-Called Heretics.
The Cathars were killed off (so we are told) in the 14th Century.  Were their beliefs closer, in affinity, to the Christian Founder than the Roman Catholic church that killed them off?


JP Morgan Chase Says Follow the Hand. Code.
Culture of Profit v. Culture of Decent Life.  Codes in Cultural Warfare. Rule by code.  Minority -- see corporations as the minority as opposed to citizens -- but their cash and drive for the bottom line rules the roost by code and deception. Is that so? Does JPMorgan Chase mean any of what it thinks it says about putting anything above its own profit? Code of the Hand.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Holocaust: The Camps, Roma and Jewish Experience, Other "Defectives"

By Dint:

The Roma Experience


Gypsies, Roma: Romani and the Holocaust

Germany Road Ways, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
There was a special Gypsy Camp there, camp near Celle, near Hanover.  See memorial specifying Roma, Sinti, Zigeun.

The Jewish, but also Gypsy, Homosexual, "Defectives" experience

Czech Republic Road Ways, Theresienstadt (Terezin) Ghetto

Germany Road Ways, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp
A particular memorial notes not only Roma as victims, but also homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, others

Germany Road Ways, Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Poland Road Ways, Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Austria Road Ways, Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Germany Road Ways, Alfred Dube, Survivor
A tribute to a survivor of several camps, and his subsequent accomplishments.

Places of Petr Ginz
The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942, edited by his sister, Chava Pressburger, see ://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/bin/wc.dll?groveproc~genauth~5238~0/ 



Bogomilia: Rabbi Shmuel ben David of "Isaac's Torah"
Stories of the Holocaust. A friend of the main character in the book, "Isaac's Torah: The Memoirs of Jacob Blumenfeld," transmitter-editor-compiler, Angel Wagenstein; who is also caught in decades changing times, including the Holocaust. Discussions with the Rabbi - includes the Idea, vs. the later System implementing it, and becoming more focused on its own (the System's) survival than the Idea.

Petr Ginz site reference: The Seventh Well,
by Fred Wander. Stories of the Holocaust.  Accounts of life in various concentration camps, including Buchenwald, see ://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Hoffman-t.html


Surnames, Geneologies. Finding surnames, finding surprises.

By Dint:

Romney surname, English Gypsies

Romani literature, oral traditions A family with oral traditions to 15th Century

Pantera (Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), and Religious Tradition 
A persistent but speculative secular explanation for events many see as divine.  Keep an open mind, now. Often the simplest is so, rather than the convoluted compled; and need not affect other matters.

Hate Crimes; Persecutions; Genocide, Homosexuality;

By Dint:

Theology's Gender-Blending. Would Hate Crimes Diminish With New Information
Old representations of creation show blurred lines in gender attributes. Part of our culture's attack on homosexuality and lesbianism appears due to our own teaching -- erroneous teaching -- of what is and is not "theology".

Cathars, Albigensians: Vet the So-Called Heretics
Killing the "other" in order to entrench the "us"

Roma, History of Persecutions.
Includes concept of Rankism for social control.

Vlachs, Wallachian Gypsies?

"Facing History and Ourselves" - an Online Curriculum to Counter Hate.
Curriculum to focus on the hate crimes of the 20th-21st centuries, including wars, so our children can learn and avoid, we hope. How to apply to urban schools so focused on employment issues.

Bogomils, Deemed "Heretic" and Stamped Out by the Roman Branch of Christianity  But were they? Traces remain. Here, Bosnia, graveyard.

For Foodies: Travel's middle benefit

By Dint:

Haluski: Cabbage and Noodles, Roma

Sassafras elixir recipes;  tea from sassafras 
Sassafras tea! Now for the root beer....

Arts, Tales, Music, Authors. References. Minority Contributions; Individuals

By Dint:

Themes
1.  Ginkgo

The ginkgo and art nouveau forms
Ginkgo shapes as artistically favored

Goethe and the Ginkgo
Everybody loves the ginkgo, except those who get a female and the fruits-seeds are negatively aromatic. 
 

2. Minorities in theater, film, music
Gypsies: Contemporary performance heritage. Elvis, Charlie Chaplin, Yul Brynner, Michael Caine [ask Mitt - Romney?]

Tales, Song. Johnny Faa. Roma. Find Faa also in song (not do re me)
Ballad of the greatest gypsy of all, say some ladies.

3.  Minorities in Books
Gypsies, Roma, Contemporary Authors Also books about the groups, "Bury Me Standing" by Isabel Fonseca; "Zoli" by Colum McCann

4.  Jewish faith, authors, in books
James Joyce, Ulysses, On Bloomsday
Citizen Questioning Bloodshed:  Isaac Bashevis Singer

5.  Minorities in Music
Placeholders, Work in Progress, "Buika" and Fusion Music 
Roma composers

Gypsy Harps, group and street musicians also from the Zoli book, section "Slovakia 2003" there. The Roma  harps were huge - the Roma would bury them in the woods so they would not be confiscated.

6.  Roma in Film, Poetry
Roma, Romani in film Find talent in this persecuted minority.  Resilience.
Poetry;  Whole or Bits
Poetry, are these from Papusza or Zoli? Arts among the Roma.  Poem forms.

7.  Are soldiers a minority?  Yes. Read the WWI legacy in poetry.
 War Poets.  Poetry from the Trenches.  World War I.

8.  Elections redefine minorities.  
Haiku's Fifth Season: Election Season.  Time to update the seasons for "traditional" haiku theme.

9. Painting - an individual who strived
Artist, Hermann Dahl.  Odessa, DE. Multi-media.1960's-1980's

10.  When art is in code.
Ideological Battleground:  Sistine Chapel
What are Michelangelo's messages about literalism and scripture; why the anomalies, the insults up there.  In a monolithic religious system, how do other messages get out?

Black Madonnas; or Sara la Kali (Gdansk)

By Dint:

Black Madonnas: Possible Roma Origin for Some - or Sara La Kali
Patron saint of the Roma, Sara la Kali; or a black madonna. See legend, and painting in Gdansk, Poland, with symbolism

Slavery: Legacy of Slavery. Ubiquitous, Apparently; but resistance to slave recovery differs.

By Dint:

Enslavement in Romania, 400 years, Gypsy roots
Populations brought in, sold, remain.  Resistance to slave recovery.  Continuing stigma because of attributes of skin and heritage, not individual merit.

Wintley Phipps, Baritone and Storyteller, on the Black American Slave. Also a narrative and performance, "Amazing Grace" (context of slavery)

Uncle Remus Tales, Translations
Find surprising assertiveness, resistance to being diminished by a formal status, unyielding backbone in presenting the characters of the Briar Patch community. Compare Disney's pap. 

In process: checking our travel sites, see Europe Road Ways, Road Trips, for findings of slavery from Scotland and other enslavement of whites; how the legacy of 300 years of preventing an entire group from accumulating wealth from their own labor, from learning how to manage it, is reflected in our culture today.

When Profit Turns Malignant; Corporate Responsibility

By Dint:

Private Sector

Private Sector as Fiduciary to Taxpayers and Consumers.
Why should a nation or globe tolerate a system of bottom line profits to owners of stock, recipients of salaries; if the consumer is deceived, short-shrifted. Apply fiduciary law to dealings between corporations and people.

First Amendment

Pierce the Corporate Veil for Abuses of Free Speech; Impose Fiduciary Duty on Corporate Speakers

Pollution clean-up. Income deferral pending restitution.
Pierce the corporate veil to ensure all uses of corporate funds meet test of business judgment, and not personal goals of directors? For another day.

Debt for corporate pollution clean-up not dischargeable in bankruptcy
Pollution as non-dischargeable. Bankruptry should not discharge pollution clean-up costs.

Busted Pelican Law.  Income Deferral  During Industry Damage Events.
Income deferral until all pollution damages paid. 

Unified media ownership undermines democracy.

Unified Media, Newspaper, TV Ownership Taints Neutrality of News

Anti War-Profiteering Act, Blocked Once.
No war-profiteering. Time to resusicate, reshape its still-viable parts. Creative use of Disgorgement, Claw-Backs.

And its foil: When profit is not the focus, rewards come anyway.

The Elves and the Shoemaker, Grimm
The elves, newly rewarded with clothes for their work in finishing the shoes of the poor shoemaker, took off out the door and were not seen again. The shoemaker and his wife, who had clothed them in thanks, prospered anyway. Give, anyway.

Warfare - Plus ca change. Persuasion, Resistance, Special Forces. Architecture. Greed. Codes, Warriors.

By Dint:

Persuasion for the cause
War as a Big Game. Condition the Children. Or is it Necessary?
Personality types, hard-wiring, conditioning, how much is necessary to counter the pathological haters, and how much can be diminished as to conflict, by training.

War Promotion.  Fraud and Deception

Resistance
Czech paratroopers, other resistance, WWII Prague   Assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich.
First French Resistor

Special Forces
Hussars, Winged Cavalry, old Poland, other Eastern Europe  A/k/a Husaria, Husarz.  The frames on the shoulders and backs were lined with feathers that made a hmmmmwhrrr sound as they rode. The sound preceded the sight.

Architecture
Castles: Warfare Learning Tool. Strategy and Murder Holes  Any castle will do. Defense and offense. Try Blarney. Liddell Hart's WWI work (uses of indirection; upset the enemy's equilibrium); Bunratty's little staircases in reverse.

Role of Greed in Outcome
Otkell, Son of Skarf, Icelandic Saga.  From Burnt Njall's Saga, events 900 AD in Nordic-Viking Iceland, written perhaps 1100 AD.  A man whose greed was simply circumvented by the group's inspired leader, a tactic of indirection leading to a better result than confrontation

Warrior Types
Moscow's Black Widows:  Female Warrior Tradition, Caucasus.

Uses of Code to Rally Sympaticos
JPMorganChase and Code of the Hand.  Don't wage war without codes.  Where's the fun?

Politics: Accountability, Abuse of Conscience, Poll Abuse, Uses, Abuses, Courses of Change-Seeking, Change-Opposing

By Dint:

1. Political Accountability

Candidate Accountability Requirement: Show Up Unassisted for regularly scheduled News Conferences The Palin Plank.

Primacy of Law over Revelation. Religious revelation to some shall not ground laws for the public. Propose pragmatic secularism for interaction areas among humans and groups; religion and dogma fine for the individual's own life, if he or she chooses.


2. Abuse of Conscience

Conscience vs. Constituency. Lieberman's Law. No legislator shall apply values of his or her own conscience in opposition to the desires of constituents absent full opportunity for discourse and vetting of such in his or her home state or district.


3. Politics and Poll abuse. Polling abuse.

Voter Alienation Syndrome: Discounting the Polls Polls only get the landlined, the willing to talk - small portion of total possible voters.

4. Propaganda techniques

Traditional Scapegoat Hunts - Economic Downturns Find the nearest minority, aim and fire.
New Political Parties

Qualities of Wisdom: Global Wisdom Party Global Wisdom Party. The Qualities of their candidate. There is indeed a collection of attributes that many cultures name as comprising a wise leader.

5. Special interests. Abuse by Cash. Money

The Piggle-Wiggle Congress Cure: Let Consequences Happen; Negotiated Agreements Not Always Best
Let the deal speak for itself, the person remain accountable for language, use of persuasion techniques needed where there is merit, because merit alone speaks softly.

Healthcare Legislative Recusal Time. Financial Interest? De-Weight the Vote
Reduce weight of the legislator's vote depending on what money he/she got from the interested parties. Dangers of secrecy.

Explore Election Finance: Humans Only. Qualified to Vote? You Can Contribute
No more corporate contributions, as "legal persons". For accountability, identification, individuals only. They may name the corporation's interest, but funds are out of individuals' pockets. Raise the issue again. Distinguish Citizens United. Keep at it.

6. Disruptions. Force as abuse of process
Political Disruptive Behavior Disorder Tantrums? Apply the DSM-IV conduct disorder diagnoses, usually applicable to children and teens, to adults.

7. Transparency
C Street. When Congressmen Combine to Espouse Secret Religious Allegiances Superseding the Constitution. Keeping real allegiances secret. Do our beloved politicians do that in order to get and stay elected? Do they? What recourse for voters? Ouster? Transparency alert.

8. Abuse by Privilege
Privilege maintainers vs. Risers up
Sotomajority - Escape from the SO Yessir Corral Privilege Maintainers vs. Secondary Others. Long-corralled Majority for Sotomayor leaps the fence. Reject the new PM pledge.

Table-turning
Spigots in Politics: Waterloos. When the Waterloo-er Predictor becomes the Waterloo-ed. Health reform. Obama as new lion of Waterloo. Heart vs. cold.
Can it last?

Arts - No politics here, just the higher calling of arts

By Dint:

Inner Dialogues Re-Joyce Externalized
Omphalos nought not won.

Individual Roma poets, composers, musicians

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Lifestyle; Societal Roles. Government impact on lifestyle.

By Dint:

Qualities of Wisdom: Global Wisdom Party
Superseding the independents in party identification, enter now the Global Wisdom Party
 

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Public Interest Battlegrounds: Combining Common Good with Property Rights.
Rights to preserve undeveloped spaces.

THE FEY - Societal roles include the fey. They are always with us.
The Fey. Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
Seers, prophets, sellers of the unbelievable, and people believe.

COMPASSION
Dr. Christianus Christian, caring for 19th C. Swiss cretins

ROMA, GYPSY, ROMANI
 Roma: Lifestyle defined by the surrounding State, Nation of others.
The role of the State. See life of the Roma under Communism, and, more positively, in Spain. Effect of halting the caravans.

Romani and Horses: An Ancient Tradition. Halting the caravans, taking away the horses. A lifestyle destroyed.

FINDING EVILDOERS

Same gender, cross-gender

Gender- non-specific lifestyles: marplots, alacrans. Who are the real evildoers
Finding fault. Self-definition, group identification as superior by finding fault with others. Who are the Evildoers. Homosexual, transgender, any value judgments arise in the eye of the beholder. Not the beholded.

Living with other truths subsumed
Livin' A Lie When Appearance is not the reality. Find Lawrence of Arabia.  Others with secrets. How they cope.

What is "ordained" or "revealed"; and what is culture. Especially, ordained vs. revealed.
God created independent contractors, not groups, not relationships.  Lifestyle as cultural, not necessarily "revealed".  Example - Eden:  no marriage, no vows, no worship, just folks deceiving each other as usual, taking advantage. Groups:  a descent down from original idea.

When "inheritance" and property rights define status:  the "illegitimate"

Cut out inheritance as entitlement. A budget saver.  Why should people get something for nothing?

Shadow Children: Unsung Backgrounds
Find a long list of those originating, as some say, on the wrong side of the sheets. Did it ultimately matter? No sheet?

Philosophies, Criticism Tools, Education Policy

By Dint:

Education Initiative Re Persuasion Techniques Each student to be instructed in propaganda technique, analysis and spotting.

Deconstruction: Finding Evil in Sassafras The process of carving away the extraneous, to test a truth. Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, to simpler applications.

Concisionism: Finding Evildoers  Beware the concision; the mutilating abbreviation of thought, the trawler category sweeping everything into its maw - note, this is not "circumcision" although the words have similarities

Find the Evildoer and All Will Be Well  Trace the preoccupation with and definitions of evildoing through the centuries , Oh, the marplots! They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Rankism; other human hard-wirings. Scapegoats, Targets, Outcastes, outcasting

By Dint

Rankism vs. quiet dignity of place, life with choices.

KNGDV: Woman as Guide in Front. Can or Does the Religious Establishment Re-Read Texts
Rankism and mis-translation.  Perpetuate a misconception of the original role of woman:  created as guide, in front of. Wolf Pack rules theology, see Dominion: Worst Concept in the World

GYPSIES, ROMA, ROMANI

Roma, Forced Settlement Laws halted the caravans, forced settlement, removed vocations, ghettoized.

Gypsies, Roma in Hungary: Still Targeted

Roma in Slovakia

Roma, History of Persecutions  Includes hate crimes, the why. The "justifications"

Poverty. Defenses of Any Underclass.  Here, Roma.  Extenuating circumstances, poverty, not recognized as a defense to crime. System imposing restrictions, fostering prejudice, will not see it. See parallel, American Blacks.

Contemporary Social, Economic Issues, Gypsies: "Bury Me Standing" "Bury me standing, I've spent my whole life on my knees." Book, Isabel Fonseca. Eastern Europe gypsy culture, experience; other references to culture elsewhere

Cycles of Abuse: Migrations of Roma to Ireland Gypsies, Travelers, Romani. Violence in Belfast against Romanian gypsies, or roma. How will traditional Irish Traveler groups respond to new migrations.

Gypsies, Roma: Literary references


JEWS

Games in Analysis

By Dint

Rock, scissors, paper  On terrorism and other issues. Boil down the news.

Tag
Can we monitor children and teach them, as grownups are supposed to, instead of banning their games?

Disclosure, Labeling, Transparency

By Dint:

Labeling, Food Industry, FDA KowTow

Funding Under The Table

By Dint:

Federalist Society Supports Free Legal Work for What Causes?.  Pro bono means legal work without charge for the good of the public. What "public" is the Federalist Society supporting in its alleged pro bono program?  Pro Bono Federalissimo Societassis?

Immigration, Migrations - United States Issues, Groups

By Dint:

Naming. Migration history in names - Romney, Rom'nie, Gypsy

Border Crossing Records Retained in Federal Registries. When does too much record-keeping threaten the individual. How much "record keeping" of past events is really needed for security. Open issue. United States.


Immigration: The Place of the Tishbite Among Us. As with Elijah, the original Tishbite, the foreigner has something of import to tell us. Add equity: other arguments that immigrants can use in favor of remaining, there has been detrimental reliance, where the State has delayed too long, etc.

Federalist Society Proposes Immigrant Testing on "Federalist Papers" Leave no propaganda opportunity unturned. Quick now. Who remembers what that is? Branding here?

Gypsies, Roma, Blacks, "Moors", Whites, Native Americans - Melungeons
Melungeons as a diverse mix, Appalachia, Southern coastal areas

Immigrants Without Documents: Gypsifying. The New "Gypsy" Target Group America creates new group to treat as gypsies

Migrations, more distant past:
Magyars, Khazars (Central Asia Jewish cultures) Hazars - physical characteristic may include epicanthal fold in Norse blonde children, disappears about age 2, traces of past interminglings?

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Travels: Fruits and Follies

 By Dint: Countries in photos with comment

Europe Road Ways - Hub for trips, Dan and sidekick. Background to our ventures. Essentially, improvised on-the-cheap road trips, 14-17 days each, cross borders often, no reservations, just a rental car and two backpacks. And a few maps and guidebooks. No tours. Always a clean, safe place to stay.  Plan B:  If we get stuck at 8 at night and no place, we plan to go to the nearest police station, introduce ourselves, and ask if we can sleep in the parking lot, and do that.  Haven't had to yet, but everybody needs a Plan B. Dan has Down syndrome, is a fine, interesting and fun adult, an adventurous eater, and a great travel boss. When lost, he decides the direction. One parent, one child - try it. Egg each other on. Hope to resume depending on economies, budgets.

Europe Road Ways: Themes - Recurrent ideas and topics that cross boundaries - Black Madonnas, migrations, human coping, The Plague, decorative arts

Europe Road Ways - How We Do It  Travel overviews and tips, comprehensive listing of countries

Andorra Road Ways -  A side trip from Spain, in the Pyrenees, on the way to France.

Austria Road Ways - A sudden diversion at first, from Croatia heading for Slovakia, when we saw the overhead green highway sign for Vienna - 70 km.  Who can resist? Just go.  Then we went back, a later trip that also included Switzerland, Northern Italy.

Belgium Road Ways -  Here we saw Belgium as part of a larger venture that started in the Netherlands, then looped down into Belgium and Luxembourg, and back.

Bosnia Road Ways - Bosnia-Herzegovina - Driving in the Herzegovina section is dicey, such as in the return from Montenegro - the Cyrillic alphabet is a huge hurdle. Drive by ouija. It worked. Just took a little longer. In other words, aim for the road looking downhill when there is a choice, if you are heading generally back to Croatia and the coast.
 
Croatia Road Ways  We started at Zagreb, the capital, then went on a series of loops - 1) up to Istria and Trieste, then 2) down the Dalmatian Coast to Bosnia and Montenegro, and back, 3) with another loop to Slovenia, and 4) the west of Croatia and back to Zagreb.

Czech Republic Road Ways - A start at Prague, then south Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna and Budapest; then more Slovakia and Poland, and back to Czech Republic. We do keep moving here. Hit the bricks, as Dan says.

Denmark Road Ways  - Part of a regional trip including Sweden, Northern Germany.

England Road Ways - Part of larger trip including Wales. Follow King Arthur, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, King Harold, and castles, castles

France Road Ways - Northern half, Somme area, Normandy, Loire, down to Dijon or so, Paris.  Follow Joan of Arc.  We returned another year to the Languedoc, South of France, Provence, as part of a trip that also included Spain and the Pyrenees.

Hebrides Road Ways -  A ferry ride from Skye to Lewes and Harris, and ferry back farther north back to mainland Scotland.  There is a bridge now from Scotland to Skye.

Germany Road Ways
We aimed especially for what used to be East Germany - Wittenberg, Berlin, Dresden. Then looped south and back through Bavaria to Frankfurt.  Second trip:  Northern Germany, as part of Denmark-Sweden regional trip.

Greece Road Ways - Just keep the back of the guidebook open to the driving signs and you'll do fine. When in doubt, keep in the same direction. No fast turns to get what you see too late is your exit. Magnificent country. Menus: order the fourth thing down. In each category. All delicious. 

Hungary Road Ways - Mostly Budapest, So Far Suddenly, from Slovakia, the highway sign read, Budapest, 100 km. Who can resist? Just go. Notify your credit card peeps first so they will accept the bankomats.

Ireland Road Ways -  For a variety of reasons, this has been a return and then some. First, Dan and I doing our loop.  Then a family wedding in Wexford, and I took an extra 5 days; then my husband and I went.  See whatever you see on the way. Eat local. Fast food: fries, peas, gravy, in a paper cone.

Italy Road Ways -  This also took two trips.  It is a long, thin country, First route. Land at Venice, take train (get on and off) to Rome, then to Naples and pick up your rental car there. Then take ferry to Sicily, back to Naples and up the coast looping back to Rome. Second trip: northern Italy as part of regional visit including Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria.

Liechtenstein Road Ways - Visit as part of regional trip to Switzerland, Austria, Northern Italy

Luxembourg Road Ways - Get there from Belgium, from the Bulge area, for example. General Patton is buried here.

Montenegro Road Ways - Had been part of the former Yugoslavia, and then part of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, now independent. Mountains, skiing, fjords.

The Netherlands Road Ways Plan for tulips. Do a figure 8 - A Bridge Too Far area, then loop south (Belgium, Luxembourg if you have time) then bbe sure to go north across the Alfluitsdyke and back.

Orkney Road Ways - A convenient ferry ride from northeastern Scotland

Poland Road Ways - Part of our Czech Republic, Slovakia trip. We did a horseshoe, right side first going up, round north all the way to Malbork and Gdansk, on the Baltic Sea. The middle area will be a flat  "run" but a lovely drive. Back down the left side and cross into Poland near Zakopane from Levoca, Slovakia.. We re-entered the Czech Republic at Kudowa Zdroj.

Romania Road Ways II, Vlad Tepes  - This is one of two Romania sites.  This one focuses on the Vlad the Impaler sites in Romania.  Trip was a circle.

Romania Road Ways I -Distinct regions, as in many countries, so do go north east and northwest, Bucovina and Maramures areas. We did not go over the border to Ukraine. Carpathian Mountains - watch the weather, as the Transfagarasan Pass may be closed for snow, storms. Postings on signs before you get near the mountains.

Scotland  Road Ways - With those wonderful full Scots breakfasts (as in Ireland and England), why are people not obese like we are. Glasgow, Campbelltown then loop up and around with Hebrides, Highlands, and Orkey areas; and back to Glasgow. Circle trip. Nessie was to be there at 5 but was a no-show.

Sicily Road Ways  Easy to visit as part of a trip to Italy - take the ferry from Naples, for example, to Palermo. Greek temples at Agrigento. Stay at the top of Mt. Etna. Don't miss Erice, on a mountaintop near Trapani. Circle trip, but missed the eastern part. Have to go back. Loved the east-central-northeastern.

Slovakia Road Ways This once was part of the former Czechoslovakia.  Plan to see the festival at Bojnice Castle - theater by the young people every year for a week, great food. Go east to Banska Bistrica, Kosice, then loop up east to Spis and Levoca, then cross into Poland to Zakopane (beautiful ski area, year-round mountain hiking resort)

Also find the cities mentioned in the "Zoli" book, at Slovakia, Gypsies: "Zoli" (based on life of singer, Papusza)

Slovenia Road Ways This once was part of the former Yugoslavia.  Strong Austrian influence. Alpine looking homes, neat and tidy. Lake Bled. The Google changed its algorithm and decided this was repetitive (repetitive?? another country with links to our other trips where appropriate and themes appeared?) so we reproduced it at Wordpress.  Good idea.  Never believe a robot.

Spain Road Ways - And Gibraltar Gibraltar is British, but convenient to visit as part of a trip to Spain. Figure 8. Madrid to Pamplona for the bulls, then loop back through La Mancha and Estremadura, south and around to Seville, Ronda, Gibraltar, Cordoba, and up again to Madrid.

Sweden Road Ways Sweden Road Ways as part of Scandinavian trip, Denmark and Northern Germany.

Trieste Road Ways - Italian since WWII  Straddles cultures, the Balkan - Slovenia - Croatia,  and Italy.  Convenient to visit as part of a trip to Croatia.  Kayaks downtown. Return through Slovenia.

Wales Road Ways
Castles, castles. Go from Cornwall, England, area, drive north and loop back to England at Manchester in time for the races. Do not mark your parking place by the half-timbered houses nearby.  The whole town is.

What War Wrought - Battles, Individuals Who Rise Above, Arts

 By Dint:

Citizen Questioning Bloodshed:  Isaac Bashevis Singer
The tale-teller. Read and reread. 

Government as Marketer, Taking Over Lilli Marleen.   World War I protest song, "Lilli Marleen", becomes German army marching song, World War II.

Verdun, France, WWI.  Trench of Bayonets.  Accidents, tragedies other than tactics, of history.  A trench collapsed, the line of French soldiers caught in line as they stood, so the story goes, bayonets facing the sky.  Still do.  Americans built memorial, an open-air structure, tips still show. 

Dresden, Germany, and Area Bombing.  Retribution, revenge fire-bombing of an entire city with no military significance.  Just kill and demoralize.  Signs there now:  "Dresden Lives."

Unlikely Hartford and Colt Armaments.  Recycling opportunity.  Old Colt arms factory, and possible reuse as arts colony, studios, residential apartments, other residences.  But its second floor faces the freeway....

Big Black Tatras; Official Cars.  The notoriety of the vehicles used by the oppressor, the secret police, the ones who carried the powerful, or came to take the less powerful away.  The Tatra. World War II. Slovakia. Elsewhere. The Commpany. .

War Poets.  Poetry from the Trenches.  World War I.  See also Ypres, Ieper, Belgium. Soldier poets.

The Enemy Becomes the Economic Desirable.  Boche to Bosche.  The hated soldier in death; to the newest in kitchen appliances.  Cultural short memories. We rely on that? 

Plus ca change: PTSD.  Post traumatic stress disorder.  PTSD.  Here, World War I.  Poem by Wilfred Gibson, with permission of site.  He lived 1872-1962. 

The Concept of Mutiny:  France, Verdun  And other instances, circumstances, surrounding mutiny; 

1915 Battle of Loos;  Missing.  Son of Rudyard Kipling  "*** Have you news of my boy, Jack?  Not this tide. When d'you think that he'll come back?   Not with this wind blowing, And this tide. *** "

Places of Petr Ginz: Lens and Legacy. Places of Petr Ginz from his diary written in Prague during WWII; until his transport to Theresienstadt (Terezin) and then his death at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Studying War. Hub: Origins of Conflict - Hub site for the concept. Nature and origins of warfare, other conflict. Roles, hardwired? Is it possible to tame demagoguery and violence, and survive, without becoming a demagogue and violent.

Studying Wars: Mindset, Place and Manner Specific battlegrounds, examples of patterns, aggression and agenda vs. common good, history's unfoldings, internal conflicts. Territory, culture, character.

Wars ongoing, conflict, marginalization

Warfare Against Children  What are the roots of such disregard.  How we transmit the "glory" of war.  
  • Update: Wars on children. See the sculpture grouping with blindfolded children reaching out while vile adults surround and lure, in Moscow. Mihail Chemiakin, Children are the Victims of Adult Vices. It includes Propaganda of Violence.
"Facing History and Ourselves" - an Online Curriculum to Counter Hate.  Curriculum to focus on the hate crimes of the 20th-21st centuries, including wars, so our children can learn and avoid, we hope. How to apply to urban schools so focused on employment issues.
.
Czechoslovakia in the 1930's - Roma. Through a Novel's Eyes ("Zoli") Picture the big black Tatras. This section refers to a portion of the book with this section heading: Czechoslovakia in the 1930's.

Roma: Czechoslovakia under Fascism; also part of the Zoli book section Czechoslovakia 1930's to 1949. The Hlinka Guards.

Mouquet Farm, Somme Area, France  Military as fodder, consumer humor - Mouquet Farm became Mucky Farm, the front barely moved for years, tunnels and tunnels. Australian troops.

Ironies; Government Branch Functioning, Rulings

By Dint:

Executive Branch

Failure to Vet an Appointee prior to proposed Appointment. This oversight shall be a Class A Felony; such that if embarrassing disclosures are made later, the Appointor goes directly to Jail; or pays a fine, whichever is loudest.

The Legislative Branch

The George Voinovich Unexcused Absence Counts as Pro Rule.  An unexcused absence from a roll call results in a Pro vote attributed.

Negotiations tips

Use of the Golden Mean and its Dragon clause in settlements.  Good negotiating leaves room for the dragon, and provides for what to do when or if it arrives.

The Judicial Branch

Federalist Society: Activist judges no; activist presidents, yes.  Activism by judges is verboten, but expected in the executive, so long as the executive is of a particular party.  See use of "white papers" (aptly named) generated to promote positions among the faithful but research-impaired, to provide immediate source material.  Why is this a tax-free group? White gets around anything.

Constructive use of judicial dicta

Federalist Society and Judicial Commentary - Garden Variety Dicta becomes Anathema.  Why condemn dicta. We expect judges to explain their views in non-binding ways.  How else do we move forward with the next case, unless the first is discussed more fully?

Change as part of Executive Branch history

Chester A. Arthur, a president who improved in office  Surprise. From patronage to reformer. He set aside his prior history of nepotism and did the right thing.

Molding: Organizations, Tales, Techniques. Cultures, Sub-Cultures, Shaping People

Uncle Remus Tales, Translations - Informal translations of the stories into more traditional spoken English, with references and footnotes. No substitute for dialect. Go back to it and read it aloud. Get the sound in your ear.

Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales - Stories change change over time, pulled by cultural values. Where did the strong little girls go, until Disneyed to death. Fairy tales, Faerie Tales. The Fey. Archetypes. Meet them again. Red Riding Hood the vivisectionist? Mostly secular, some religious stories.

Vetting Roots. By the Heater. Martin Luther's Stove. Find original texts in transliterations. Mythological roots. Or ambiguity, inconsistency. Close readings. Then see ideologies get to work: add this, omit that, downplay the other thing, change meaning. Ideas squashed by systems. Sausage into casings.

Heaters in Intellectual Life - Individuals and Groups, Some Forgotten

Bogomilia, Site for the Unsung  Because we forget.

Vetting Roots, By the Heater. Martin Luther's Stove  Early post look-ups about use of the heater, the stove, the fire pit, as references in religious and other stories.  Transmitting tales. Without a place for warm gathering, how could stories be passed on, memorized.  Did the Renaissance really bloom when it did, because somebody spread the idea of central heating?  Ducts, pipes, big tiled stoves in the rooms. How creative can you be when you are fed and warm?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Trompe News - DSM Diagnoses Aggression

By Dint:

DSM IV. Aggression as Mental Disorder
Fake news here. Duh. What would happen if the fabled, worshipped, also bunked Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders should includes Aggression as a mental illness.  Just think of the marketing opportunities for antidotes to aggression's behaviorally addictive qualities. Trompe news: think of all that air going 'round and 'round in the proverbially trumpet. More air.

Need to Know - Huswifery and Thanksgiving and Two Turkeys

By Dint:

How to Cook Two Turkeys in One Ordinary Oven.
This Thanksgiving is stacked. Pile two turkeys in one. It can be done.  Foodies.  Unite. Thanksgiving doup de familie.

Family Planning: Uses of Sassafras. Is that it?

By Dint:

How does evildoing figure with sassafras?.
Sassafras as a family planning tool. Nemenhah. Poem by Marge Piercy, a tribute.

Is Safrole Banned Because It Could Be Used as an Abortifacient?  Has been for centuries.

Religious Text Analysis, Tools

By Dint:

Creation

Creation: How did Evil originate? Not with Eve
A small play that Eden as spun did not see play, but you may.

Translation, Transliteration, what origins of what concepts, and were they agenda-driven? Silly question, Ben.

Context
Mithraism, Religion of Rome and Paul
And roots of the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity.

Characters: Tracing Fact from Elaboration
Sara la Kali, Sara the Black, Roma Saint

Explanations, file under Other

Pantera (Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), and Religious Tradition 
A persistent but speculative secular explanation for events many see as divine.  Keep an open mind, now. Often the simplest is so, rather than the convoluted compled; and need not affect other matters.

KNGDV. Tainted Founts

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Migrations, Immigration, Emigration, Exploration. Europe. Global issues, newcomers

By Dint:

Myth or real? Migration of Swedish forbears from Caucasus to Sweden, Sigge Fridulfson

Current issues, Migrations: Economic Conditions Follow gypsy migrations from the east to the British Isles, to the US and elsewhere; ongoing; reasons.

Roma groups in Europe: self-identifications, languages, subgroups, specific skill groups, niche

Sassafras in Georgia, Moravian, Jewish migrants Uses of and trade in sassafras. Dr. Samuel Nunez, 18th Century.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Governments; Governing; News Control, Transparency in Reporting

 By Dint:


Governing is like a bad divorce: both sides tilting Need for neutral fact-finding Install a neutral moderator in legislative committees (not at hearings) to facilitate discussion in partisan times, and ensure all positions are aired objectively at that stage.

Disclose nature of the reporting:  interest, bias, financial stake


Disclosure of Financial Stake by News Purveyor or Owner of Media as to Legislation Under Discussion.  Requirements for those reporting on governing.  The more financial interest the purveyor or owner of the media has in the law, the more the broadcast or other dissemination shall be labeled as propaganda, such rating to be displayed to the public simultaneously with the airing or waving.

The Truth in News Sources Act.
  Disclosure shall be required as to the source of news by name of overall owning conglomerate, not merely the name of the newspaper.  That is, the same conglomerate may send out its news to seven papers it owns, and people think that is original source. Not.

NATURE OF GOVERNMENTS

Similarity: Sassafras and Governments: Varied at the bottom, sameness at the top.
Those who rise to the top get to look alike. Like dog owners.

GOVERNING SKILLS 

Uses of Reverse. Can We Teach It?
Governing skills. People who govern need to know how to drive in reverse sometimes

Who Will Bell the Cat - Piers Plowman.  In the 1377 English poetry version by William Langtrey, the council mouse found that no mouse was man enough to bell the cat, as Aesop had originally told.  However, Piers goes further:  What would have happened if the cat indeed had been belled.... as the mice first wanted. Would it have been worse? Watch what you seek.



FOOLING THE PEOPLE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

Propaganda in governing: euphemism, unwarranted extrapolation

FOSTERING PATRIOTISM

Child's Tale: Pledge of Allegiance and the Common Good  We knew a piece had been left out.

NEED FOR SUNSET LAWS; ACCOUNTABILITY

Group formation; sunset laws, foundationalism
Political Parties: Who Needs Them After They Calcify.  Sunset out the names every 16 years. Everybody rethink who to vote for. Platforms may grab planks from prior party designation.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Justice; Law Enforcement; Civil Justice; Criminal Justice

By Dint:

Promoting decorum in debate
Debatus Interruptus, Khalid's Law. Guantamee's behavior at their trials, if disruptive, shall only be criticized by those who did not condone such behavior by our own Tea and other residents, reference Summer of 2009.

Religious views to be excluded from reasons for proposed legislation

JC (Jesus Christ for those who prefer full names) Tradition of Autonomy for All, Voluntary Compliance. Let Those leave who want to,  Peeps in Pulpit and Pew  Autonomy in personal life over rules, so long as the personal or property rights of individual other residents are not impinged.  Try pragmatic secularism in matters affecting others, the community.

Civil Justice and procedure

Parking Lot Attack Light Property Tax Abatement.
Public area design should not sabotage the ordinary user.  

Jurisprurience and Strip Searches of Girls
School days, school daze, fantasize with ghouls days.

No Senate Filibuster Unless Supreme Court Enacts Similar Provision for Its Proceedings
Criminal Justice and procedure

Police Reports: Criteria for Taint.  The Cambridge police arrest of the Harvard professor for in-home lippiness against the police officer.

Oaths. Worth Anything? What Else?

Religious and other oaths; Holocausts, Bad Actors. Oaths are a hoax. Do Oaths alter behavior; or does self-interest, institutional interest, prevail.

Leadership - Qualities. Go Ahead. Change your Mind. Things Change.

True leaders are flexible as contexts change.

State of the Union: Hamlet's Soliloquy on Burdens of Choice in Action.  The President's Speech. Follow President Obama's rehearsal in the Oval Office for the State of the Union Address, with his special Speech Coach.  Matters of pitch and moment.  King Claudius begins with the upper hand in persuasion; Hamlet believes he has the merit, but how to proceed. O, Fardels!

Uses of Reverse. How to Teach It. Can We?.
If you can't shift into reverse, don't drive. Productive uses of Reverse.

Chester A. Arthur, a president who improved in office
From patronage to reformer. He set aside his prior history of nepotism and did the right thing.

Nature. Defenses against encroachment. Sassafras, Ginkgo

By Dint:

Sassafras

Allelopathy as a Defense, and Offense.
Learn from sassafras: Some plants prevent others from thriving in their shadow; make potential diners on their root, bark, leaf, sicken. Allelopathy.

Why did the Sassafras Survive - usefulness, fits the food chain, venerated
Its allelopathy enabled it to survive, fill gaps in the food chain. Allelopathy prevents omni-greed; allelopathy is contained.

Ginkgo

Ginkgo in Japan and Korea.
The ginkgo survived at Hiroshima. See Ginkgo, Plant with History.   Is it resistant to radioactivity. Some say it speaks.

Ginkgo, Male or Female. Know Which.
Pick before you plant, lest the fruits overwhelm.
Medicinal uses of ginkgo, sources.

Cultures, Religions. Cross-Pollinating Spirituality.

By Dint:

NATIVE AMERICAN - I Sing a Song of Sitting Bull. Buffalo Totem.
Put essential points of the life of Sitting Bull, who defeated Custer at Little Big Horn, and in defense of lands granted to the Indians through the Treaty of Laramie.  Buffalo totem:  follow the footnote


NATIONAL

Afghanistan: How to Learn. Self-Help

ETHNIC

Andaman Water Gypsies "Sea gypsies", Myanmar

"Gyptians" as Gypsies, origins Historical and legendary John Faa, origin of Samoyed dog, migrating groups, steppes; cultural-ethnic mix with indo-gypsies? "Golden Compass" film cultural references, pop culture.

Magyars, Khazars (Central Asia Jewish cultures) Hazars - physical characteristic may include epicanthal fold in Norse blonde children, disappears about age 2, traces of past interminglings?


RELIGIOUS

PROTESTANT

EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN

JUDAISM


ISLAM - a best effort at learning more here. Did we get it right?

Historical Islam, Pre-Islam, Women and Roles Hind bint Rabi'a, others. The Historian vs. the Persuader.

DRUIDISM

Sassafras - Widespread Use, Veneration: Druids, Native Americans

GYPSY, ROMA, ROMANI

Roma, popular culture vs. cultural belief Find universal concepts such as shamans, daemons, other guides. Reference: Hollywood picks up some at "Golden Compass" film. This site also references Native American, Judeo-Christian, Greek and other demons ideas in other belief systems.

MITHRAISM
Mithraism, Religion of Rome and Paul