"Pollock"

Today, I watched part of the movie called "Pollock," a film about the abstract artist. Ed Harris, an actor
whose silences are often credible on screen, starred. I like Ed Harris. The movie was -- you guessed it -- all about Jackson Pollock.

I like people who are willing to lay down their chips for creativity. When it comes to the art work, this doesn't mean I like the outcome. It's the willingness to throw down.

The movie, after a while, presumed a bit too much for me. I kept wondering why I should care about this guy. It was the same feeling I would get when reading books about Pablo Picasso -- why should I like this man I don't much care for. With Pollock I was vaguely interested. With Picasso, the ego had miles too much volume and I disliked his distaste for women.

Why should I care about artists? I do care to look at the art. I'm not especially interested and do not like being arm-wrestled into pretending there is something important at hand. Does the art love me? Do I love the art?

Nuff said. You want your cock stroked, go somewhere else.

China takes on global posture

The latest U.S. budget allocates 54% of a $1.1 trillion kitty to the military. Even the Jesuits might have a hard time suggesting the military spending would create peaceful pastimes.

Meanwhile,

Chinese president Xi Jinping has kicked off a two-day showcase of what some call the most ambitious development project ever by comparing his country to a peace-loving explorer set on transforming the world with treasure-laden galleys not warships, guns or swords.
Speaking at the start of a high-profile summit about China’s “Belt and Road initiative”, Xi hailed his multi-billion dollar infrastructure crusade as a means of building a modern-day version of the ancient Silk Road and a new “golden age” of globalisation.

Even supposing that Xi Jinping is doing little more than a semi-camouflaged capitalist two-step, at least his bling has the look of something positive and creative and not just the U.S. posing once more for the most-like-North-Korea military posters.

China has been in a number of places (too lazy to look up) when the spotlight was not there. Africa comes to mind and the goal seemed to be to set up trading partners for the future. Will they gouge the customers? I imagine so -- that's money. But will they gouge the customer worse than its current masters? I sort of imagine not -- the Chinese want income and stability, not a bunch of raped girls and machetes flashing in the sunlight as arms fall away.

When, of late, did the United States initiate even the most egregious capitalist construction project or bit of international cooperation?

Donald Trump doesn't seem capable of creating anything. The only thing he can do is make a deal on someone else's back.

Israel's latest weekend scalp

Ramallah, West Bank

A Palestinian protester uses a sling to hurl stones towards Israeli troops during clashes at a protest in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

Photograph: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Another example, I suppose, of a guy with a rock taking on guys with loaded weapons.

Smells vaguely like:  

A Jordanian citizen stabbed and wounded an Israeli police officer who then shot him dead in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday, Israeli police said, the latest in a string of street attacks....

Police spokeswoman Luba Simri said the officer was walking down a street when he was attacked by a 57-year-old Jordanian who had arrived in Israel for a visit a few days earlier.

"The terrorist rushed toward him, whipped out a knife that he had in his possession, stormed him and began stabbing him. The police officer responded with determination and in a professional manner, managed to activate his weapon and neutralized him," Simri said.

Let that line sink in: "The police officer responded with determination and in a professional manner, managed to activate his weapon and neutralized him," I thought only George Orwell talked like that ... or maybe Joseph Goebbels.

Beleaguered and pummeled little Israel ... oh, and did anyone say "nuclear armed?" Am I wrong or is the weekend the preferred time for Israel to kill off yet another knife-wielding ... ummm.... "terrrorist" who is waving a knife in the face of loaded weapons? I honestly don't think anyone's blameless in this Israeli  apartheid campaign, but the arrogance  and the willingness of allies to lie down and spread their legs so that the stronger adversary can wreak his or her righteous havoc.....
The batting average of late:

Thirty-seven Israelis, two American tourists and a British student have been killed in the street attacks which have slowed in recent months, though not stopped.
At least 244 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began. Israel says at least 164 of them were carrying out stabbings, shootings or car ramming attacks. Others died during clashes and protests.

Whenever I read about another of Israel's venomous (but badly armed) foes dealt with in mortal fashion, and then read the batting average, I tend to think that for every one of Israel's soldiers or civilians under attack (sometimes, but rarely fatally) I automatically figure that for every Israeli or Israeli ally, three of Israel's under-armed opponents are likely to be dead.

Michelle Obama kicks some ass

Former first lady attacks president’s reversal of regulations to help improve school lunches: ‘Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap’

She may be making a packet of money like all the rest of them, but anyone would sound good next to Donald Trump's fork-tongued, parsimony in which every statement has to be interpreted either by staff members or by members of the press pretending to know what he actually said..

net neutrality

Received in email:

John Oliver just made it easier to contact the FCC about net neutrality

absolution

As a teenager in the late 1950's, I partook of the same pimples others my age did and succumbed to the typical teen-aged pastime of gradually uncovering the hypocrisies of my elders. What a bunch of fork-tongued chieftains they turned out to be, right? We, by contrast, had the ascending bright lights of the Beat Generation and other beacons of truth.

It was in that time that one of my best high school friends confided to me that he had bitten the bullet with his parents and declared he would no longer attend the Roman Catholic church that was a family habit. I watched his face as he retailed the story. I could see it was not without anguish. The church might be a lot of malarkey, but, but, but ... but the habit was long and not without comfort.

I'm not sure what prompted me, but when he had finished his tale, I asked, "Is there anything you will miss?" The grimness that had hidden on his face grew, if anything, grimmer.

"Absolution" was his one-word response. And the answer shot through me like a hot knife through butter. What a daring, naked response. What a piece of honesty from someone questioning the dishonesty of the world. "Absolution." It was, in its way, a cri de coeur for hypocrites and non-hypocrites alike. It was humanity in my ear and I was gob-smacked.

To believe you might do something in the present that would credibly forgive something in the past. Talk about a blessing ... talk about a binkie of gigantic proportions ... never mind the truth, never mind the hypocrisy ... mind the utter humanity of the wish and the blessing of its fulfillment. Not to put too much of a point on it, JEEEEEE-SUS!!!!!!

Ego te absolvo.... and suddenly sins of omission and sins of commission are dissolved like salt in sea water. Imagine imagining that something or someone could transmit such mana. Never mind whatever hypocrisies are woven within ... shit, just imagine it!

the rise of uselessness

Oh lord -- you might have known it ... a TED talk bushwacks my interest... passed along in email...

As technology renders jobs obsolete, what will keep us busy? Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari examines ‘the useless class’ and a new quest for purpose....
The same technology that renders humans useless might also make it feasible to feed and support the unemployable masses through some scheme of universal basic income. The real problem will then be to keep the masses occupied and content. People must engage in purposeful activities, or they go crazy. So what will the useless class do all day?
One answer might be computer games. Economically redundant people might spend increasing amounts of time within 3D virtual reality worlds, which would provide them with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the “real world” outside. This, in fact, is a very old solution. For thousands of years, billions of people have found meaning in playing virtual reality games. In the past, we have called these virtual reality games “religions”.
What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together? Religions such as Islam and Christianity invent imaginary laws, such as “don’t eat pork”, “repeat the same prayers a set number of times each day”, “don’t have sex with somebody from your own gender” and so forth. These laws exist only in the human imagination. No natural law requires the repetition of magical formulas, and no natural law forbids homosexuality or eating pork. Muslims and Christians go through life trying to gain points in their favorite virtual reality game. If you pray every day, you get points. If you forget to pray, you lose points. If by the end of your life you gain enough points, then after you die you go to the next level of the game (aka heaven).

My guess is that if this scenario is, as it seems, credible, the wealthy had better get creative with their shenanigans if they don't want to be murdered in their beds.

"Impeachara"

Passed along in email:

Step 1: Watch the commercial for Impeachara®.
Step 2: Talk to your doctor to see if this medicine may help with your symptoms of T.I.A.D.
Step 3: Buy Impeachara® online.

Amazon undercuts Buddhist funeral costs

Passed along in email today, this year-old story of the drip-drip dwindling of Buddhist fealty in Japan: 

Buddhist monks on demand: Amazon Japan allows customers to order rituals online at far cheaper rates than temples expect to be paid. 

Monk delivery services have emerged as many of Japan’s 75,000 temples are losing offerings and business within their communities, which traditionally have been the main source of financial support.

son's body fed, in the end, to pigs

This is a story I found so utterly depraved that I cannot sidestep it. But that doesn't mean anyone else needs to... The boy was seven.

When the charges were filed, Wyandotte County's district attorney at the time, Jerry Gorman, said it was one the worst cases investigators had seen. During Monday's hearing, a police investigator - Detective Stuart Littlefield - confirmed publicly for the first time that "what was left of (Adrian's body) was fed to his pigs." Often choking back tears, Littlefield asked for a 20-second moment of silence, reflecting the length of time Adrian at one point was shocked by a stun gun during his "tortured young life."

photos in The Guardian

Moscow, Russia 

Snow falls in a park. Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/EPA

Hebei, China

Nurses use chopsticks to practise smiling at a hospital in Handan

Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters

wish I could be wicked

Sometimes I think the spiritual way is not so much that people would like to be good as it is that they would love to be wicked but not be forced to take responsibility. When the desire is repeatedly thwarted, the path of goodness stands out as the last best option.

Ah, the fickle finger of fate....

what time is it in Spain? Ask the Nazis

So why are Spaniards living behind their geographic time zone?
In 1940, General Francisco Franco changed Spain’s time zone, moving the clocks one hour forward in solidarity with Nazi Germany.
For Spaniards, who at the time were utterly devastated by the Spanish Civil War, complaining about the change did not even cross their minds. They continued to eat at the same time, but because the clocks had changed, their 1pm lunches became 2pm lunches, and they were suddenly eating their 8pm dinners at 9pm.
After World War II ended, the clocks were never changed back.

blasphemy in Ireland

Police in Ireland are investigating a complaint of blasphemy regarding comments made by Stephen Fry on a television programme shown on Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTÉ.
Gardaí (police) in Dublin have contacted the man who reported the allegation following a broadcast in February 2015, and a full investigation is due to be carried out, the Irish Independent reported.
Under Ireland’s Defamation Act 2009 a person who publishes or utters blasphemous material “shall be guilty of an offence”. A conviction can lead to a fine of up to €25,000.

"Blasphemy."

How somehow quaint these days. Blasphemy requires hope. It requires trust. It requires broad-based social something-or-other.

Imagine that any more.

"Blasphemy."

Israel's wisdom reprised ... againandagainandagain

Israeli ministers have approved the wording of a new law that would downgrade Arabic as an official language and which states that the right to self-determination in Israel “is unique to the Jewish people”, despite the country’s sizeable non-Jewish minority.

There are an estimated 5.3 million Jews in the United States -- 2.2% of the population. The United States is where the money is. There are an estimated 6 million Jews in Israel, whose Arab population is estimated at 1.65 million or some 20%. There are 7.3 million Canadians (22% of the population) whose mother tongue is French.

Large minded-ness among the victors is not a common attribute. Look at the U.S. in Afghanistan where the Russians and the British had the good sense to skedaddle.

women's derring-do

Since 1999, the world's elite big-wave surfers have battled it out at an event known as the Mount Everest of surf competitions - at Mavericks in California. Until this year, female surfers were banned from taking part. But a small group of determined women have fought their way in.

When I was a kid, I went to a boarding grade school where boys and girls shared equally in the various fads that were bound to erupt among youngsters. When there was a jacks fad, boys and girls equally took up jacks. Girls carried sheath knives in much the same way boys did -- you needed a knife to cut the twine around hay bales destined to feed the horses and boys and girls both tended to the horses. When there was a knitting fad, I too took up knitting. And when it came to downhill and slalom ski racing, girls were sometimes slower by the nature of their musculature, not because of their sex ... and god knows some of them beat the shit out of me on skis.

I maintain to this day a distaste for distinctions made solely on the basis of sex. I can't carry a baby and I doubt that I can be as pretty, but that's the nature of the universe, not some god-given rule of division. Women aren't better because they have breasts or because they have been tamped down in the course of various cultural events. If they can do it, I am welcome to try too. If I can do it, they are welcome to try too. Why not? There are women klutzes and men klutzes, women experts and men experts ... it's the "klutz" or "expert" that counts. I know women who imagine they can write because they love the written word ... and couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. Men too. Get it straight: It's the humanity, not the sex.

As to women's derring-do in big-wave country ... go, get 'em, darling: I haven't got the balls for that.

unrasiert und fern der heimat

There are less direct, less indelicate translations available, but the 1960 Wildhagen German-English dictionary I have always made my heart soar with its translation of "unrasiert und fern der heimat." "Down on one's luck" or even the more literal "unshaven and far from home" simply could not hold a candle to the in-your-face "fucked and far from home."

Far from home without a handhold in sight. What a feeling. What a sorrow. In the fourth-and-a-half-grade, I was sent away to boarding school and on the first night away from home wept my eyes to their arid ends as I realized I had be shunted off by my mother. The house mother and father, who had probably seen it all before, sat in the darkness of night and consoled me until I ran out of steam.

I pulled the Wildhagen off the shelf just now and found the beloved translation nestled among other definitions which also had gnat-sized print. I knew it would be there because "fucked and far from home"  brought me such delight when I first saw it in Berlin... and noted it was hosted in part by an English publisher.

My own youthful tears reiterated themselves today as my younger son got closer and closer to a commercial flight that would take him and his National Guard comrades "fern der heimat" in Egypt-- far from home in a way that most of them have probably never been. Does it matter if you're in the fourth grade or your middle twenties if the trek to "fern der heimat" gathers momentum? My son wasn't crying on Skype, but I could feel the tears ... family, girl friend, country ... soon enough the rug would be pulled out from under his feet. Such a trip is an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) for anyone's belief system. Talk about feeling fucked, even if it's not entirely clear how.

How will things be when the way that they were and the beliefs they supported are taken away in a trice? And yet without such an experience, how can anyone's beliefs and footing be anything more than shaky at best? Not least is the surprise at how resilient (or forgetful?) anyone might be. By the sixth grade, when my mother asked me if I'd prefer to live in New York with her, I said without a backward glance, "no." Perhaps it will be the same for my son -- gathering and donning new armor and capacities in a fern-der-heimat that is no longer so far and so homeless.

Listen to Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood: "Time passes. Listen! Time passes."

savvy from a wealthy world

Warren Buffett

Actually, the guy whose words struck a chord with me at the Berkshire Hathaway hoedown in Omaha this weekend was not so much Warren Buffett, 86, as it was the words of Charlie Munger, Buffet's 93-year-old confrere: 

CHARLIE MUNGER ON BERKSHIRE'S ADVANTAGE
"I think we have one big advantage. A lot of other people are trying to be brilliant, and we're just trying to stay rational." 
MUNGER ON BUFFETT
"You're a fatter version of Mahatma Gandhi.

Blowhards like Donald Trump could take a lesson from men who know how to laugh and know how to admit a mistake.

global warming, plague resurrected

Climate change is melting permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, and as the soils melt they are releasing ancient viruses and bacteria that, having lain dormant, are springing back to life....
People and animals have been buried in permafrost for centuries, so it is conceivable that other infectious agents could be unleashed. For instance, scientists have discovered intact 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in Alaska's tundra. Smallpox and the bubonic plague are also likely buried in Siberia....
Once they were revived, the viruses quickly became infectious.

Meanwhile in Hannover,

Around 50,000 people in Hannover will be evacuated from their homes on Sunday while experts defuse five World War Two bombs.

The operation is the second largest of its kind carried out in Germany, and will affect around a tenth of the city's population.

The past has reminders for the present.

Pete Seeger ... ahhh

Because it is what I am listening to:




AND THEN THE ODDBALL RARITY, "THE GOOFING OFF SUITE," .... TALK ABOUT AN ECLECTIC MIND AND A SENSE OF HUMOR       https://youtu.be/yiTBcD36_G4

what makes "it" so?

A Canadian activist who faced time behind bars for giving water to pigs has been found not guilty....
In his decision, Justice Harris noted that under Canadian law, pigs are property.
"Ms Krajnc and like-minded individuals may believe otherwise and they are fully entitled to that belief. That does not however make it so," he wrote.

What makes "it" so? Belief doesn't make it so.... ergo law makes it so? Who will take responsibility for a willingness (and even insistence) to make it so?

I am God ... and every time I look in the mirror I choose not to take that responsibility. If I am hungry, are you therefore forfeit? If so, wouldn't it be more accurate to own the accuracy? And if not, what does that say about my willingness/ability/inability to lead a life that is not premised on the agreement of others?

What does this say for the treatment of dandelions? 

war by any other name ....

Ahoy, mercenaries!

Ahoy, a government too clusterfucked to find honest and peaceful solutions!

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (AP) -- The U.S. Army is authorizing $5,000 bonuses to woo top-performing troops into a new training brigade as the service once famous for shouldering the burden of America's wars works to meet the growing demand for advisers in places ranging from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan and Africa.

The plan recognizes the new reality of America at war....

It's hard to remember a time when the word "patriotism" meant so little to so many. Raise the flag -- kill someone! Better yet, pay someone else to do it. Do it in the name of country while all the time doing it on behalf of re-election and income.

jounalistic gobblety-gook unraveled

A political-journalism explanation that, uhh, makes some sense ... passed along in email:

eastward, ho

Today, via my younger son's close-chum Brianna, I learned that he is "locked down" at Fort Bliss in Texas and will take off for first Dallas and then Sinai on Saturday. And so, if true, the yearlong clock starts ticking before he will be home again. There is a part of me that is OK -- glad that he will learn to stand in his own footprints -- and another part that is like some dumb-ass moth flitting around a flame and, to mix metaphors, wishing I could put the joey back in the kangaroo mom's warming folds.

economic optimism

And if you want some idea of where the next economic bubble-popping may occur, check out real estate not so much in Boston, Seattle, New York, San Francisco et al. Check out Australia, home to the homey kangaroo and a lot of fuck-you-all speculators with their gaggles of wannabes lined up around the block.

“I’m surprised there isn’t a lot more, not rioting in the streets, but close to it,” he says....
Figures prepared for Guardian Australia by BIS Oxford Economics show the Sydney housing market is as unaffordable as any time over the past 26 years. As of December 2016, 42% of the average disposable income of a New South Wales household was swallowed up by monthly mortgage payments on a median-priced house in the capital – after a 25% deposit.
It was the same in 2008, still the highwater mark of housing unaffordability in all but one Australian capital.

But not to worry. There is no linkage with declining U.S. auto sales:

US car sales from some of the industry’s largest producers declined faster than expected in April, underscoring fears over the speed of cooling in the market and the broader economic outlook for the US.[Financial Times].

As long as someone is making money, everything's OK, right? As long as those who never dripped a drop of sweat can bring home the bacon ... hey, the "economy" is OK, right? As long as someone -- but not me -- is getting fucked, things are OK, right?

Honest wisdom from Will Rogers

Passed along in email:

"Never Squat With Your Spurs On!"     

(Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash in Alaska with bush pilot, Wiley Post, was one of the greatest political/country/cowboy sages ever known.)

Some of his sayings:

1.   Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.

2.   Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

3.   There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.

4.   Never miss a good chance to shut up.

5.   Always drink upstream from the herd.

6.   If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

7.   The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.

8.   There are three kinds of men: 

          The ones that learn by reading.

          The few who learn by observation.

          The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

  9.  Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

10.  If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.

11.  Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n than puttin' it back in.

12.  After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring.  He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.

       The moral:  When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

ABOUT GROWING OLDER …

First ~      Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it. 

Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Third ~    Some people try to turn back their odometers.  Not me.  I want people to know 'why' I look this way.

                 I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.

Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your youth, think of algebra …

Fifth ~     You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

Sixth ~     I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top. 

Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it’s such a nice change from being young.

Eight ~     One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Ninth ~    Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable and relaxed.

Tenth ~    Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft.  Today it's called golf.

And, finally ~   If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.

Mr. Trash Wheel

Based on a quick skim/search, the costs seem to run around half a million dollars or more for the apparatus, but the cost efficiencies also seem to iron out in the long run:


Looks nifty to me and cleans up behind all the people making sure their innards are pure while their plastic water bottles trash the land.

sexting before the internet

Theatre  

'My body shall be all yours': the startling sex letters of Joyce, Kahlo and O'KeeffeAn eye-wateringly explicit new stage show celebrates erotic correspondence sent by famous figures through the ages

Heterosexual, homosexual ... the lushness of sex, mixed with its giggles and raunch and undying sense that whatever's happening has never happened before but is a rocketing uniqueness...

NOT.

dead at 146

A former farmer and fisherman, Mbah Ghoto said last year that he lived “a long life because I have people that love me looking after me”. He was a local hero and would recount stories of life under Japanese and Dutch colonisers.
“Life is only a matter of accepting your destiny wholeheartedly. I have wanted to die for a long time,” he told the Jakarta Post last year.

Donald Trump's bright future

It is hard to imagine that twenty years from now, Americans may look back on the presidency of Donald Trump and positively pine for the good old days. A man who doesn't know much about the presidency and knows little about U.S. history and imagines everything is the kind of deal he, as a slippery businessman, can make. The most daunting aspect is not so much that he gets things wrong as that he doesn't seem to care much that he does get it wrong. What the fuck -- it's only the United States; it's only facts.

The picture/caption passed along in email suggests Trump knows what he's talking about and chooses to bend the facts... typical political spin. But the more pungent fact seems to be that he doesn't know anything about the facts he blithely bends.

I keep thinking that a GoFundMe campaign might solicit a penny apiece from Americans who would use the money to send Trump to classes in American history....

And Trump is winning over the news media which seem now content to go beyond what Trump actually says to speculate on what he might mean.

Never mind. In 20 years, no doubt he will be a genius... and the U.S. will still be at war somewhere.