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Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it

“Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.”

Don't matter how much money you got, there's only two kinds of people: there's saved people and there's lost people.
~ BoB DylaN

Have you forsaken the possibility of transcendence and settled for a life of safety and predictability? Take everything from MEdia Dragon with a fistful of salt or Blame Shakespeare and Freud...  Morava River  »


Ludmila Ulitskaya’s familiar portrait of the Soviet intelligentsia The Big Green Tent and the Subversive Power of Books

Lord’s Prayer advert banned before ‘Star Wars’…In a snub to the Church of England, an advert that was planned to coincide with the new film “The Force Awakens,” has been rejected by most UK cinemas due to fears it could be offensive

Czech out the psychology of why time slows down when we’re afraid and speeds up as we age and Thomas Mann on time and the soul of existence, then revisit Eliot’s readings of his delightful 1947 poem “The Ad-Dressing of Cats” and his beloved classic “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”


Russia has never fully reckoned with Stalin’s atrocities. Now a grass-roots effort is memorializing victims, plaque by plaque Remembering the Soviet Union’s Disappeared

How a con-artist father and treason in MI6 created the bard of the Cold War The Double Life of John le Carré
animals-ScarletIbis-slide3-web 

Pompey crushed Julius Caesar during Rome’s civil war, forcing him to retreat. But Pompey failed to follow through. Caesar became Caesar, changing the course of history. Thanks to social media’s ability to make politicians seem small and petty, none may ever measure up. Power, fame, mystery. Caesar still has it all. Plus a salad and a casino.

Being on tour is like being in limbo. It's like going from nowhere to nowhere.
-BoB DylaN

The urge to criminalize the other guy’s politics and advocacy seems to berunning especially strong these days. If you doubt it, here’s another data point: a Latino advocacy group called Presente.org, following Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial comments critical of immigration, called for arresting Trump. Not only did this not stir any great outcry, but rival Democratic presidential candidate Bernard Sanders has now hired Presente.org’s executive director to lead his Latino outreach.
One reason our elections and public debates are intensely fought is that they carry high stakes. Their stakes will be higher yet if the price of coming out on the losing side in an election or debate is to face potential prosecution.

The main point of contention, which wasn’t even part of the original hearing, turned out to be whether Sheriff Arpaio was investigating Judge Snow in order to get dirt on him that might force the judge to recuse himself from the case. This so-called “Seattle Operation” reads like a “Get Smart” episode. 
Short version: Arpaio was contacted by a knowncon artist in Seattle named Dennis Montgomery, who earlier had bilked the government of millions by fraudulently claiming he could decipher secret messages in Al Jazeera broadcasts. A computer guru, Montgomery told the sheriff he had evidence that Judge Snow was part of a conspiracy to bring down Arpaio. Supposedly, the Phoenix News Times revealed in 2014, the plot also included AG Eric Holder, former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, and other Arpaio enemies. He couldn’t resist. The sheriff’s office sent deputies to Seattle to work with Montgomery, paying him $100,000 to $250,000 to turn over evidence that Arpaio’s team later called “junk.” There was no plot; it was just another scam, this one playing on the sheriff’s paranoia.
Sherif: This could never happen in the city of Randwick

A Muslim man on trial in Sydney for attempted murder donned a mask at a public debate on sharia law to threaten that “mujahideen” will one day bring jihad to Australia, reports The Daily Telegraph.

It is very hard to model ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, whatever you wish to call it (the most thoughtful approach I have seen is from Shadi Hamid).  Maybe the group is one fraction crazies, one fraction semi-rational power brokers, and one fraction “momentum traders” who wanted higher status for their local terrorizing and never expected it to get this far and simply could not climb off and stop.  It is hard for groups to back out of strategies which have delivered consistent institutional growth.  In any case, I don’t think of the group as having transitive preferences, even in the intra-profile sense, much less the Arrovian inter-profile sense.

Stay here–through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here: See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

“Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality.”
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.