Saturday, August 13, 2011

Allen Ginsberg: ‘Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness’

 

image source

In America we ALL have the right to pursue the religion of our choice without being proscuted

I received this email recently and am sharing it with you because it contains an important message. Muslims in America are treated harshly. It’s not easy staying true to their faith surrounded by a generally hostile public.

While I don’t belong to any organized religion, I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to pursue God in their own fashion. Or not to. I recommend taking a 2-minute break and listening to this video. It’s well done, and reminds us we are all neighbors.

Thanks for the reminder Elizabeth!

“Hello Dave,
My Fellow American is a film project in the United States devoted to recognizing that Muslims are our neighbors. I am reaching out to you because you addressed the recent events in Oslo, Norway, in As It Stands and I am hoping you will share this message of tolerance with your readers. We’ve put together a 2 minute film that I believe you will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us

I would love it if you could post or tweet about this and share the video. If you can, please let me know. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.”

Elizabeth Potter
Unity Productions Foundation
myfellowamerican.us
facebook.com/MyFellowAmericanProject
@usmuslimstories

Watch out for ‘Grease devils’, spoilers don’t ruin films or stories, and crazed D.C. art critic strikes again at museum

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s that time again, when we tilt our cups of coffee and cruise through world of headlines. What a wacky world we live in. Watch out that a “grease devil” doesn’t get you!

"Grease Devil" panic grips rural Sri Lanka

Panic over nighttime assaults blamed on "grease devils" has struck across rural Sri Lanka, leading to the deaths of at least three people this week, prompting women to stay indoors and men to arm themselves, police and local media said. Historically, a "grease devil" was a thief who wore only underwear and covered his body in grease to make himself difficult to grab if chased. But lately, the "grease devil" has become a nighttime prowler who frightens and attacks women.   photo

Spoilers don't ruin stories or films?

If you are angry that someone spoiled the plot of a movie or revealed the ending of a book, don't be.

A new study by researchers from the University of California at San Diego shows spoilers may enhance enjoyment, even for suspense-driven story lines and film plots.

 

Crazed D.C. Art Critic Strikes Museum Again

Four months after she was arrested for trying to tear an $80 million Paul Gauguin painting off the wall of the National Gallery of Art, a Virginia woman returned to the museum last week and attacked a Henry Matisse oil, slamming it against the wall three times and damaging the 1919 work’s antique original frame, The Smoking Gun has learned.

According to police, Susan Burns, 53, last Friday afternoon entered the National Gallery and walked over to “The Plumed Hat,” a Matisse oil painting “valued at 2.5 million dollars.” She then “grabbed both sides of the frame holding said painting,” which measures 18 ¾" x 15".

She claimed in court, “I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you.”

Time to walk on down the road…

Friday, August 12, 2011

Fighting gloomy times – economy in chaos and an old friend stricken with leukemia

Let’s give credit, where credit is due. Let’s see what the Tea Party will do for you!

I had to drive to Sacramento yesterday to take my wife to the airport. When I drove back home today, I left the radio off.

I took that opportunity to reflect on the last couple of weeks. Our country has been battered by dueling ideologies, and we’ve witnessed how a minority can control the majority.

So, it’s no wonder that Surveys show sharp rise in pessimism as lawmakers grapple with debt, economy .

On the personal side, I just found out yesterday that one of my oldest and dearest friends, Tom Holloway, has leukemia. He’s also my wife’s brother. I met Tom in my freshman year at Azusa College in 1964. I hardly knew he had a sister in those days. It wasn’t until years later, and after I got out of the Army, that the love bug bit Shirley and I. Tom lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Right now, he’s in a VA hospital in Washington D.C. getting chemo treatments 24 hours after he was diagnosed. His little sister, and my wife, Shirley has gone to be at his side.

Tom has other challenging physical ailments that complicate things. He’s 61 years-old, and nine months older than I am. Much to young for this to happen. Amid all the gloom and doom out there in the media, there was one ray of light…actually it was like a beacon to me.. researchers have found a way to cure leukemia by taking a person’s white blood cells and mixing them with a safe form of the HIV virus and infusing them back into the person! That was announced yesterday.

I realize that it’ll take a while to get on the market and to be available to someone like Tom. I like to think he will fight this disease off with what methods are currently available. Who knows? Maybe in several years he will get that magic infusion in the nick of time. Meanwhile my heart is heavy, but I intend to stay positive about Tom’s new battle.

Life is too short. I’m choosing not to let this lousy economy get me down. I’m also choosing to be positive about how things will turn out for Tom. It only makes sense. The alternative is to be bummed out, and to start thinking about Tom in the past tense. He deserves more than that from his old friend.

There’s not a thing I can do about the economy, or Tom’s situation. Once, that might have overwhelmed me. Now, I take life day-by-day with no expectations of a tomorrow. I’m learning how to make every hour count. I’m also making sure that all my friends and family know that I love them.

As It Stands, onward and upward…

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Statue of Liberty closed for a year, Gay caveman discovered, and man in carrot costume proposes marriage

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you here. Pull up a chair and have a cup of fresh brewed coffee with me. As usual, the world is full of interesting tidbits that pass for news. Let’s take a look at these three items. 

Statue of Liberty to close for yearlong repairs

The Statue of Liberty will close for a year at the end of October as it undergoes a $27.25 million renovation that will make the interior safer and more accessible, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Wednesday.

Researchers believe a burial outside Prague from the Copper Age represents a different sexual orientation.

Researchers Unearth 'First Gay Caveman'

The first known "gay caveman" has been unearthed in a dig outside Prague, researchers believe. Archeological team members based their conclusion on the fact that the male body was interred in a ritualistic way reserved for females. "We know people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake," said the lead archaeologist. "Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation—homosexual or transsexual," she added. The body dates to as long ago as 2900 BC, reports the Telegraph, and was buried with the head pointing east and surrounded by domestic jugs. Men at the time were buried facing west and surrounded by weapons and tools.

The reports say the proposal took him three weeks to plan and cost $15,000

Dressed as one of 48 dancing carrots, he proposes

If your girlfriend's favorite color is orange and you want to propose, maybe dressing yourself and 48 friends as giant carrots is the best way to get her to say yes.

According to Chinese news reports and photos posted online, that is what one love struck Chinese man did recently for China's Valentine's Day in the center of the eastern city of Qingdao.

Time to walk on down the road…

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

‘Have-nots’ worldwide are rebeling against governments

It’s happened throughout history. The masses rise up and destroy oppressive governments.

Remember the so-called “Arab Spring” this year when the common people rose up against dictators throughout the Middle East?

The common man revolted against decades of tyranny. What they’ve done has galvanized the rest of the watching world. Cries for freedom continue in countries like Syria and Libya. The Have’s and the Have-not’s reached critical mass and change is happening there.

It’s not pretty. It’s bloody in most cases. Sometimes peaceful protests work, and sometimes they don’t. The growing gap between the world’s wealthy minority and the increasingly disenfranchised citizens can be seen not just in the Middle East, but throughout Europe and the United States.

Now, we’re in the “Summer of Discontent” for the West.

As riots continued for a fourth day around the U.K., supporters of the controversial far-right group English Defense League (EDL) asked followers to stay away from alcohol when forming neighborhood watches.The irony is the EDL (who have caused cops plenty of grief in the past) want the rioting to stop and are ready to defend neighborhoods under assault from the radical element riding the riots.

Even the EDL realizes that what’s happening is hurting their economy more. For every person protesting the economy peacefully, five are taking advantage of the current unstable situation and are looting stores and burning cars and buildings. I suspect there’s a combination of those who are “have-not’s” and are sick and tired of going without everything from food to medical care, to just plain criminals.

It took the shooting of a man by the police to ignite the riots, now going into their fourth day. Behind that rage, citizens are scared as they see what’s happening to their crippled economy. Fear stalks their stock markets and the streets, as the desperate need for jobs increases.

Just like here in the U.S. People need jobs. We need manufacturing. We can’t keep going on like this. When companies like GE don’t pay a cent in taxes and are showing profits while the rest of America suffers, there’s something wrong. Profitable oil companies getting outlandish tax breaks and federal money are pushing people’s patience to the brink.

I mentioned a study in my first post this morning - The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest that gives a chilling insight of what the majority of Americans are up against. Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich’s life experiences makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest." Can you say Tea Bagger? Is it any wonder that most Americans are angry that a richly-funded minority group has hijacked democracy at least once now (during the contrived debt ceiling crisis)?

The common man in America is watching helplessly as so-called “entitlements” get slashed and corporations become more influential. No surprise. Look at our current Supreme Corporate Court’s track record during the last few years. The common man is defenseless against the mega millions and power the wealthy wield to get their way.

There’s so many organizations packed with CEO’s and legislators I couldn’t list them all in a week. But I’ll give you a real good example this coming Sunday – “Meet ALEC: a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” in my As It Stands column in The Times-Standard. 

As It Stands, it took a revolution to establish our government for ALL OF THE PEOPLE. Let’s hope it won’t take another one to regain the rights we’ve all lost to the wealthy. 

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Japan tsunami broke huge chunks off an iceberg, halfway around the world

It's amazing that a tsunami could send a wave halfway around the world to tear off massive blocks of ice in Antarctica.

NASA says that the swells of water swarmed toward an ice shelf in Antarctica, 8,000 miles away. It took about 18 hours for the waves to reach Antarctica.

According to historical records, this particular piece of ice hadn't budged in at least 46 years before the tsunami came along. Photo - Chunks of ice - twice the surface area of Manhattan - break away from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf on March 16, 2011, following the Japan earthquake and resulting tsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011.                                                                         source

‘Haves’ show less empathy than ‘Have-nots’, bats on planes, and how music hijacked our brains

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Pull up a seat and have a cup of coffee, or tea, and check out what I have for you this morning. 

The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest

“Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest."

It's a bird ... no, it's a bat! On a plane!

Passengers on Atlanta-bound Delta flight 5121, operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, had to duck and cover when an unidentified creature started flying around the cabin about 15 minutes after take-off early Friday.

A video taken by a passenger and posted on CNN shows what looks to be a bat or a bird taking several passes over the heads of passengers.

How music hijacked our brains

If you think about, there's no escape, really. Music holds humanity in a vise grip. Every culture you can think of has it, hears it and taps their feet to it.

So how did music first take hold? A new analysis proposes that music hijacked our ancestors' ability to hear and interpret the movements of fellow human beings.

That claim is at the heart of “Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man,” a new book by neurobiologist Mark Changizi.

 

Time to walk on down the road…

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A Pox on both political parties in 2012 – clean sweep would be sweet

Politicians in Washington D.C. better get their acts together quickly. The American public has had enough of their infantile ideological posturing while the economy spirals down the drain. 

Members of Congress who face re-election in 2012 should be getting nervous. Very nervous. Just 24 percent of people in a new USA Today/Gallup poll said that most Members of Congress deserved to be re-elected while 67 percent said they did not.

That’s right. Among registered voters, the numbers were even worse. Just 21 percent said Members of Congress deserved re-election while 70 — yes, 70 — percent said they didn’t! There’s going to be a price to pay for holding the public hostage. I can’t wait to see the final result.      image

Drought stories in America: Imagine fighting a fire without water?

This drought America is suffering from, is causing chaos for people, animals, crops, and now even firemen.

Record-setting temperatures have been almost Biblical in the Midwest and eastern United States while the heat wave persists across the southern Plains and coastal Southeast, according to national forecasters.

Severe thunderstorms are expected to drench much of the Midwest and eastern United States today.

Shout Out To Ernie Branscomb: You’re a fireman Ernie. Can you imagine not having water to fight a fire? Has it ever happened to you?

Trump's Lowest Grift Ever Saved for Holy Week

This is a story about how the devil's puppet, aka Donald Trump, mocked Christianity by selling a book combining the Bible, the Constitu...