Been a student. Been a clerk. Been a salesperson. Been a manager. Been a teacher. Been an expatriate. Am a husband, father, and chronicle.
Seven Seconds by Youssou N’dour and Neneh Cherry (French and English)
Sadeness by Enigma (Latin and French)
Miserere by Arvo Pärt (Latin)
The Expanse by Clinton Shorter (Old Norse?)
Disappointment by Moon (Russian?)
Also, I lived in Korea when Gangnam Style dropped. It was magical at the outset, but now… well, hyperexposure is a real thing. But, good on Psy for his work.
That’s an incredible quote. I still need to read more Douglass. Thank you!
Also, nice turn toward the positive there at the end.
Oh, it’s much, much, much less than that.
0.0000416%, 1/24 millionth of the sky.
Here, a .gif on Reddit
It confirmed the cosmic insignificance of Earth, the profound vastness of space and time, and — at the same time — the rarity, beauty, and fragility of life. Human perception, memory, and understanding is tiny. But, it reaches toward infinity.
this portrait of Frederick Douglass—an escaped slave who had become a lauded speaker, writer, and abolitionist agitator—is a striking exception. Northeastern Ohio was a center of abolitionism prior to the Civil War, and Douglass knew that this picture, one of an astonishing number that he commissioned or posed for, would be seen by ardent supporters of his campaign to end slavery. Douglass was an intelligent manager of his public image and likely guided Miller in projecting his intensity and sheer force of character. As a result, this portrait demonstrates that Douglass truly appeared “majestic in his wrath,” as the nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed.
Alex Jones
Steve Bannon
Stephen Miller
Reside: Auckland or Barcelona, as long as I can make a living there and be in solid with a like-minded group of locals.
Vacation: Lago Atitlán or Lombok & the Gilis. I’ve never been to an island in Oceania, so Indonesia is as close as I’ve experienced. Atitlán is tough to beat as it’s in reach to Xela, Chichi, and the much more touristy Antigua. Plus volcano hikes, kayaks, and lots of yoga spots. Good food, great people, and low cost. I wish only two things: more power to the Campesinos (particularly solar power and less cow dung heating), and fewer military-types on their gap-year.
Party: Seoul, as nostalgia. Or, if I had an unlimited budget, a Berlin, Amsterdam, Prague loop. I’m old. I deserve parties at whichever impact level I choose on that day.
I cannot understate how shit Luc Besson’s Jeanne d’Arc film was. At least, in my memory. I know, I know; everyone’s got an opinion. These are my two cents. This movie really let me down.
The first teaser, which gave absolutely nothing away, was excellent. The cast was solid. I thought, cool, Besson is doing a period piece.
Wow, it was dog shit. Dustin Hoffman’s role helped. But barely.
It was up for international awards. Milla Jovovich went for a Golden Raspberry.
Diplomacy.
After 9/11, when the world weighed an invasion of Afghanistan, America could have skipped the invasion, taken the Al Qaeda leadership the Taliban offered up, and continued to seek O/UBL. A forensic investigation and specific arrests, extradition, trials, and convictions would have been much better than a disastrous 20 year war that accomplished two things: enriching military contractors and the impoverishment of a central Asian nation.
Diplomacy.
Deposing Saddam Hussein with the same type of pressure that, later, led to the ousters of Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Bashar al Assad. Some might say that 2003 created the pretext for the Arab Spring. I’d counter that time and tide created the conditions. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a pipe dream and an extension on the GWoT piggy bank.
Diplomacy.
Building a better, more sustainable future demands a move away from fossil fuels. Making driving, urban sprawl, warfare, agribiz, and Amazon packages into a socially toxic soup of ideas would have done wonders for green initiatives. Instead a turn away from the largest industries of the time was — and still is — regarded as heresy.
Team efforts.
When people see one another’s skills and can come to have confidence in and rely on each other, that builds bonds. Creative exercises are good ways to achieve this. Co-producing a play or video, painting a room, or making a meal (while not hungry, of course) could be methods that help kids to practice this. We take our kids camping and there are lots of ways for kids to work together and rely on each other. Also, opportunities to exercise independent competence and to do tasks that help the family.
Trauma bonding is a dicier strategy. Could work out. Could end in tears. It all depends how many times you want to have them survive a winter plane crash on a mountainside. By the third time, they’d probably catch on.
The most expensive thing ever built and maintained is the International Space Station. At $160B over its lifetime, the ISS is a model for the excessively wealthy.
True, it is not primed for self-sustaining flight, and the quarters are very cramped, but a space-faring über-rich individual has to have a Plan B in case they’re not on the same continent as one of their “end of days” bunkers. Those start at $1 million and can run upwards of $300 million.
About the same time as the first private space station comes into service, we will also find that the rocket and tandem-independent space shuttle will also be feasible. Necessity is the mother of invention.
If I said yes, I’d caveat that by saying, “we’re not special.” There’s no interaction, quid pro quo or otherwise, with whatever presence, energy, or overmind that I would conceptualize as a deity.
Not an architect. Not a creator. Omnipotence and omniscience defy temporality. There are, similarly, no subdivisions of the deity; there are no places that it is present, and others that it is absent. No underboss gods, angels, demons, heavens, hells, or purgatories.
The deity, in my understanding, is simply a unity: An answer to paradoxes, a solution to the incomprehensible, a layer beneath and above all other measurements, concepts, and capacities. A holographic whole that encompasses and inhabits every possibility. It is older than the universe and beyond our feeble attempts to comprehend it, let alone write its character and tell its story.
A bearded white dude who impregnated a virgin, hates masturbation, holds vendettas, destroys cities, sends plagues, and permits humans to hide from “HIM” in the garden of good and evil… it is all just silly by comparison. At that’s just from the tradition I was raised in.
I mean, a burning bush? Or tests of faith?
We, people and all other organisms that are aware of one another, need to get on with finding ways to coexist. Biodiversity is the scorecard.
/rant
The metric is biodiversity.
How many kinds of life are there, and are they thriving? What are the bottlenecks and boundaries for species that slow or stop their progress?
Well, as a living, all-consuming, extinction-level event, I’d say we are making the experiment more impossible. We are a confounding factor, a bias most foul, and the primary flaw in the experimental design.
If only there was guidance in terms of balancing our biological impact and capacity for sustainable development. If only there were some models that have and had worked for millennia. If only there were living groups who could share their wisdom.
If only.
So, for now, plunderous expropriation rules: violent, resource-heavy, rational modern warfare; apathetic, resource-heavy, throwaway consumer culture; and ignorant, resource-heavy, industrial machinations.
What could go wrong?
Nice to meet you, too. Thanks to 세종대왕 (Sejong Dae Wang, King Sejong) for creating a Hangeul, a stronger phonetic system. I look forward to its use for a long time to come.
IIRC, the food, therefore the word, was introduced to Korea. It is a transliteration. Like “tae-kwon-do” is a transliteration from the Korean 태권도 (taegwondo).
Note: Korean is not my first language. It is first non-English script I’ve managed to learn to read and write and makes me happy every time I interact with it.
My read/spoken Korean is atrocious and barely functions.
치즈 (chi-jeu)
3D printed buildings and neighbourhoods.
The design implications are endless and including modular rough-ins for water, power, and HVAC, which would make design accessible to all. Get an AI engineer to test the design and a human engineer to double-check the results, and you can get printing.
Hopefully, the type of concrete is getting less specialized and more sustainable. If we can jazz up the exteriors, that would also help.
I’ve seen a bunch of those. Enough to know of his April 1st gags and to be able to shill for his website.
Which I won’t do here.
I’m more wondering about doing it as a career. What’s the annoyance/danger factor? How much work do you need to stay afloat? What do start-up costs look like? What would cause a locksmith to walk away and get into something else?
And so on.
Any insights about locksmithing? Aside, of course, from odd hours
I’d also like to hear about the journey toward being a master carpenter.
There are 101 years in your question. So, no year zero then?
Still fighting for command of this very small hill.
I think there was a POW scene in Magnum P.I. that was a lot for little me. Not sure episode/season.
Honestly, though, coming to the realization at abput 13 that the “General Lee” and the prominent placement for Confederate flags the Dukes of Hazzard represent an American South that promotes white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and segregation — all antithetical to my BIPOC existence.
The cognitive dissonance involved in the song, pre-programming me to lend them the excuse that they’re “just a good ol’ boys…” — yeah, my parents should’ve known better.
The thoughts I had for Daisy Duke would’ve had me lynched, like Emmitt Till, under that flag. Still might.