BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Frenzies, possessions, mania, melancholy, nerves, tics, passionate loves and hates, melancholy, nerves, delusions, aberrant acts, dramatic tics, visual and auditory hallucinations, fears, phobias, and fantasies, disturbances of sleep, disassociations, communion with spirits and imaginary friends, addictions, self-harm, self-starvation an depression.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe
The American people have a capacity for great things. We must once again set ourselves on a course to achieve them—based on those values that have sustained America throughout the centuries:
- Justice. In a just America, money should not determine the limits of any American’s future, or deny any American the medical advancements that can save and sustain life. Health insurance, prescription drugs and higher education can be accessible and affordable for everyone.
- Fairness. Our tax burden today falls most heavily on hard work, while wealth is taxed less. We subsidize corporations that are polluting our environment or sending jobs overseas. But we can restore fairness to our tax code—rewarding hard work, ensuring that wealth pays its fair share, and penalizing waste.
Fairness also demands that we address the disparity between the incomes of women and the incomes of men. Closing the wage gap will benefit all Americans.
- Progress. Today, technologies exist that can form the foundation of our economy for the next century. We should invest aggressively in them, just as when our nation invested in railroads, rural electrification, and in public highways.
We can create a new energy economy, relying on sources that will never run out, including solar power, wind power, ethanol and biomass. Doing so will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create new jobs for decades to come.
- Moral Leadership in the World. Harry S. Truman said, “The only expansion we are interested in is the expansion of human freedom and the wider enjoyment of the good things of the earth in all countries. The only prize we covet is the respect and good will of our fellow members of the family of nations. The only realm in which we aspire to eminence exists in the minds of men, where authority is exercised through the qualities of sincerity, compassion and right conduct.” That is the American role in the world that we can restore.
- Self-Government. We can reform our republic—restoring a democracy in which every person has a voice and our government works for the benefit of all the people.
- Community. We have an obligation to one another as Americans and as human beings. America will be stronger when we recognize that we are dependent on each other, responsible for each other, and connected to each other.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
We all face ethical choices and pressures daily: give the money back to the cashier who gave too much change or keep it? Cheat on an exam or take it honestly? Fudge an expense report or tax return or file it truthfully? Keep our word or break a promise? "Every time you make a choice," wrote C.S. Lewis, "you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than it was before."
The foundation of our character is laid brick by brick, decision by decision, in how we choose to live our lives.
We all face ethical choices and pressures daily: give the money back to the cashier who gave too much change or keep it? Cheat on an exam or take it honestly? Fudge an expense report or tax return or file it truthfully? Keep our word or break a promise? "Every time you make a choice," wrote C.S. Lewis, "you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than it was before."
The foundation of our character is laid brick by brick, decision by decision, in how we choose to live our lives.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life...Attitude, to me, is more important, than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people say or think or do. I it is more important than appearance, gifted-ness or skill. It will make or break a person, a marriage, a company, a church, or a home. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am now convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
Charles Swindoll
The longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life...Attitude, to me, is more important, than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people say or think or do. I it is more important than appearance, gifted-ness or skill. It will make or break a person, a marriage, a company, a church, or a home. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am now convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
Charles Swindoll
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
Reinhold Niebuhr
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:
The Photograph.
"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever
at the man who looks back
knowing he never will outlast the child..." and
"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."
and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:
"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."
He wrote that in 1971.
Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" , mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)
From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:
The Photograph.
"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever
at the man who looks back
knowing he never will outlast the child..." and
"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."
and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:
"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."
He wrote that in 1971.
Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" , mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:
The Photograph.
"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever at the man who looks backknowing he never will outlast the child..." and
"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."
and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:
"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."
He wrote that in 1971.
Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" let's look it up: mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)
From a poet named Harold Norse: a few lines out of a longer poem:
The Photograph.
"...Herein the fantoccini stare, the waxen childlooks out forever at the man who looks backknowing he never will outlast the child..." and
"This little square of time, this rectanglewhose right angles measure not space but time..."
and here is part of another, very appropriate today considering our governors gone wild:
"Let the dogs hump in the streets
I'd do the same if they'd let me
those guardians of public morals
who fear the horrors of pleasure
more than the horrors of war."
He wrote that in 1971.
Oh, yes, "Fantoccini" let's look it up: mechanically worked puppets, a marionette show. (Oxford Shorter)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
I believe in apology and almost always accept one when it is offered.
In my book, anything from slights, intentional or not, even theft and battery or infidelity is subject to apology and forgiveness.
Mankind is only human and we would be less so if we could not forgive others for being ordinary members of the human race.
I believe in apology and almost always accept one when it is offered.
In my book, anything from slights, intentional or not, even theft and battery or infidelity is subject to apology and forgiveness.
Mankind is only human and we would be less so if we could not forgive others for being ordinary members of the human race.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Harlem? When?
In the fifties it was exciting, there were still plenty of jazz places--I remember Smalls Paradise, Jimmies, Diamonds, and I forgot the names of a dozen more. I was a white teen-ager lost in the music and found it very safe and very friendly. One of the bartenders at Smalls recognized me and I became a fixture...the only problem was my Mother & Dad who were jealous and wanted to go with me. I took them once--but they cramped my style. But music? Nothing like it since. There's nothing like live jazz in a small club or bar. Nothing! I heard Nat King Cole sit with a trio in a dingy bar on 118th st, I saw Louis Armstrong several times also sitting in (and he could play very mellow when he wanted to, Dinah Washington made even a teen-ager cry and I learned more about life from listening to her than I did in the next ten years. I saw Errol Garner at an outdoor concert one afternoon, Nina Simone visited a few places but she didn't ever sit in while I was there--she is one of my favorite singers anyway--The Hawk -Coleman Hawkins was always somewhere--wow, what days...
Besides jazz there was gospel--and once in a while a friend and I would put on our suits and go to church just to hear the music. Bring back those days.
But after the riots Harlem became a little touchy. I had to stay on 125th St and there was only the Apollo and I really never felt comfortable there- plus the seats were very tight.
Now, it's boring, gentrifying faster than you can say Jackie Robinson.
Harlem? When?
In the fifties it was exciting, there were still plenty of jazz places--I remember Smalls Paradise, Jimmies, Diamonds, and I forgot the names of a dozen more. I was a white teen-ager lost in the music and found it very safe and very friendly. One of the bartenders at Smalls recognized me and I became a fixture...the only problem was my Mother & Dad who were jealous and wanted to go with me. I took them once--but they cramped my style. But music? Nothing like it since. There's nothing like live jazz in a small club or bar. Nothing! I heard Nat King Cole sit with a trio in a dingy bar on 118th st, I saw Louis Armstrong several times also sitting in (and he could play very mellow when he wanted to, Dinah Washington made even a teen-ager cry and I learned more about life from listening to her than I did in the next ten years. I saw Errol Garner at an outdoor concert one afternoon, Nina Simone visited a few places but she didn't ever sit in while I was there--she is one of my favorite singers anyway--The Hawk -Coleman Hawkins was always somewhere--wow, what days...
Besides jazz there was gospel--and once in a while a friend and I would put on our suits and go to church just to hear the music. Bring back those days.
But after the riots Harlem became a little touchy. I had to stay on 125th St and there was only the Apollo and I really never felt comfortable there- plus the seats were very tight.
Now, it's boring, gentrifying faster than you can say Jackie Robinson.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From the Cavafy Notebook 1905
A young poet visited me," he wrote. "He was very poor, lived by his literary work, and it seemed to me that he was grieved to see the good house I was living in, my servant who brought him a nicely served tea, my clothes made by a good tailor. He said: what a horrible thing it is to have to struggle for a livelihood, to hunt subscribers your periodical, and purchasers for your book.
I didn't want to leave him in his delusion, so I said a few words, more or less as follows. His position is difficult and disagreeable-- but how much my little luxuries cost me. In order to obtain them I departed from my natural course and became a government servant (how absurd!) and I spend and lose all those precious hours a day-- to which must be added the hours of weariness and sluggishness that follow-- what a loss, and what a betrayal! While this poor fellow doesn't waste a single hour; he's always faithful to his duty as a child of Art.
How often during my work a fine idea comes to me, a rare image, and sudden ready-formed lines, and I'm obliged to leave them, because work can't be put off. Then when I go home and recover a bit, I try to remember them, but they're gone. And it's quite right. It's as if Art said to me: 'I'm not a servant, for you to turn me out when I come, and to come when you want. I'm the greatest lady in the world. And if you deny me-- miserable traitor-- for your wretched "nice house," and your wretched good clothes and your wretched social position, be content with that (but how can you?) and for the moments when I come and it happens that you're ready to receive me, come outside your door to wait for me, as you ought to every day.'
Cavafy....June 1905."
From the Cavafy Notebook 1905
A young poet visited me," he wrote. "He was very poor, lived by his literary work, and it seemed to me that he was grieved to see the good house I was living in, my servant who brought him a nicely served tea, my clothes made by a good tailor. He said: what a horrible thing it is to have to struggle for a livelihood, to hunt subscribers your periodical, and purchasers for your book.
I didn't want to leave him in his delusion, so I said a few words, more or less as follows. His position is difficult and disagreeable-- but how much my little luxuries cost me. In order to obtain them I departed from my natural course and became a government servant (how absurd!) and I spend and lose all those precious hours a day-- to which must be added the hours of weariness and sluggishness that follow-- what a loss, and what a betrayal! While this poor fellow doesn't waste a single hour; he's always faithful to his duty as a child of Art.
How often during my work a fine idea comes to me, a rare image, and sudden ready-formed lines, and I'm obliged to leave them, because work can't be put off. Then when I go home and recover a bit, I try to remember them, but they're gone. And it's quite right. It's as if Art said to me: 'I'm not a servant, for you to turn me out when I come, and to come when you want. I'm the greatest lady in the world. And if you deny me-- miserable traitor-- for your wretched "nice house," and your wretched good clothes and your wretched social position, be content with that (but how can you?) and for the moments when I come and it happens that you're ready to receive me, come outside your door to wait for me, as you ought to every day.'
Cavafy....June 1905."
Thursday, January 03, 2008
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Well, thanks for looking at it. When it gets out of Beta I think it might good for us, because by that time we may be way past the Z in Alzheimer's and we might need the site as a daily reference marker to our being and proof that at one time we actually existed.
Well, thanks for looking at it. When it gets out of Beta I think it might good for us, because by that time we may be way past the Z in Alzheimer's and we might need the site as a daily reference marker to our being and proof that at one time we actually existed.
I would prefer, however, that time might work backward and that I could hold conversations with my great-grandfather and his son, my Grandpa, who died when I was a callow youth of sixteen and I didn't know the important questions that I would want answers to, some sixty years later.
I've been hoping for a meeting with my father at 50, and grandfather at 50, and great-grandfather at 50, and me at 50 ever since I was fifty but I don't think that is in the cards for me. I would have liked to be able to sit at the table with each of us the same age at the same time, knowing what we knew at that age and then being able to tell each other, although I would have been more interested in what they had to say about their lives and history and what it was like for them in Russia and then in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side and how my Great-grandfather felt when he realized that his son, my grandfather, was a rabble rousing non-believer socialist bum, and then that my father was a person with little interest in politics or religion but a guy who ran with rum-rummers and ran track in high school, and who later became a Beau Brummel in the nineteen-twenties, with a big car and drinking, and the horses, and somehow still running a drug store and recipes for making 'gin' and 'scotch', and 'rye', using as a base the alcohol that druggists could purchase "for medicinal purposes only," and then there were the gallons and gallons of Lydia Pinkams, a tonic for women's "ailments," also mostly alcohol, but then you probably know all about that too.
What must my grandfather and his father thought of Bernie then, who liked to say that in his high school class the kids either became gangsters or judges, there were few other choices.
And then there was my great-grandfather, Abraham, now buried in the Landsman Plot at Mt. Hebron, with twenty-five other Katz'. What must he have made of all these goings on? He was a religious man, who prayed at he eastern wall of the synagogue every day and who was one of the seven founders of the Hebrew Free Loan Society--how could he have an atheist, or, at best, an agnostic for a son, one who spoke at street corners, and went to meetings instead of schul.
O what went on in HIS head, poor Abraham, everything lost, everything going down hill, and Bernie marries a Shiksa, can you believe it? With a son no less. It was probably better in Svir, near Vilna where he could keep his family in their religion and there were no apostates, only the Polish Noble whose estate he managed while the nobleman drank, and raced horses, and screwed Jewish maidens, -- just like Bernie...
Life has stolen away youth.
Life has stolen away youth.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
And why did you leave out Bob Hood, or Don Ringinham, a pharmacist who worked for me and now is the owner of three drug stores, or Marva May K--r, another pharmacist who also managed one of my stores for me and now owns her own store, and will be retiring soon to live in Panama and New York. And at BST there were plenty of guys who made more of themselves than the corner idlers Cosby mentions.
And then there was Charlie E----N, a Jewish pharmacist, probably the best I ever had, fast and smart, who worked for me before opening his own store and is now in jail for Medicaid fraud. And what about Bob S---N, a Serbian pharmacist who kept pistols in his locker? . Or Barry S---o, another Jewish pharmacist who stole drugs from the store and resold them on the street.
I don't think race means anything. I suspect the culture and the family. Or lack thereof. And do you know who agreed with me? W.E.B.DuBois, that's who.You see, we knew all this stuff long ago. But we never act on it.
When in the seventh grade my son, Max, was asked to write a paper on Existentialism, and so he called on The Great Robert Earl Hood, and asked him for advice. Bob, who had studied in Switzerland with Karl Barth, told Max to tell his teacher that, "We settled all that stuff in the fifties."
That's how I feel about Cosby and his recent discovery that black children aren't paying attention in school, and are wearing their hats backwards. -- We knew all that stuff in the sixties.
The question is what can be done about it. I am quite pessimistic that any outside force can have any effect on what is happening. Outside forces include, the schools, the government, carrot-offering liberals, and even stick-wielding conservatives.
Once as Bob and I walked on Ninth Avenue, near General Seminary, where he taught philosophy I said to Bob:
"Bob, you are one of the most intelligent people I have ever known, do you really believe in God?" "
Yes," he answered, "with all my heart and soul, I believe that Jesus Christ is my ___ and savior, and that one day I will sit at his feet in heaven."
Bob Hood left a cushy job teaching at the graduate level at General Seminary in NYC, a job that included a fabulous salary and a three bedroom apartment in Manhattan, in order to found the African American Studies Department at Hofstra on Long Island, where he lived in an unheated room, up a narrow, winding, stone stairway in the tower of the Cathedral of the Incarnation. He gave up what would have rolled up into a large pension and took his chances with a project that might not have worked out.
He sold his beloved collection of English 18th Century furniture and a collection of English silver and contributed the proceeds to the African-American Study Center, when funding did not come as quickly as he had expected. Cosidering his age at the time, I would guess that the collection was accumulated over a twenty year period.
He was a radical activist who was a representative of Desmond Tutu. He believed in non-violence in the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Luther King.
Although he thought himself to be a liberation theologian, without violence, and argued that his people had suffered oppression at the hands of racist whites, Bob was able to divine the difference between innocuous, harmless whites like me, and bigot whites. Bob saw the world from the bottom up, through the eyes and feelings of the poor and oppressed.
Yes, he had a flaw, a flaw of which you may be aware, which was that, although he loved women, he did not think them suitable to the wearing of the cloth. He believed that God had another purpose for women.
But we each live with our contradictions, even me and probably every reader.
One of Bob's favorite Biblical Passages was the Magnificat, related in Luke; Bob had memorized it and when he recited it his voice, deep, baronial, would rise every time he came to the lines, "...He has taken princes from their thrones/and exalted the lowly."
He believed and certainly his world view was from the bottom.
And why did you leave out Bob Hood, or Don Ringinham, a pharmacist who worked for me and now is the owner of three drug stores, or Marva May K--r, another pharmacist who also managed one of my stores for me and now owns her own store, and will be retiring soon to live in Panama and New York. And at BST there were plenty of guys who made more of themselves than the corner idlers Cosby mentions.
And then there was Charlie E----N, a Jewish pharmacist, probably the best I ever had, fast and smart, who worked for me before opening his own store and is now in jail for Medicaid fraud. And what about Bob S---N, a Serbian pharmacist who kept pistols in his locker? . Or Barry S---o, another Jewish pharmacist who stole drugs from the store and resold them on the street.
I don't think race means anything. I suspect the culture and the family. Or lack thereof. And do you know who agreed with me? W.E.B.DuBois, that's who.You see, we knew all this stuff long ago. But we never act on it.
When in the seventh grade my son, Max, was asked to write a paper on Existentialism, and so he called on The Great Robert Earl Hood, and asked him for advice. Bob, who had studied in Switzerland with Karl Barth, told Max to tell his teacher that, "We settled all that stuff in the fifties."
That's how I feel about Cosby and his recent discovery that black children aren't paying attention in school, and are wearing their hats backwards. -- We knew all that stuff in the sixties.
The question is what can be done about it. I am quite pessimistic that any outside force can have any effect on what is happening. Outside forces include, the schools, the government, carrot-offering liberals, and even stick-wielding conservatives.
Once as Bob and I walked on Ninth Avenue, near General Seminary, where he taught philosophy I said to Bob:
"Bob, you are one of the most intelligent people I have ever known, do you really believe in God?" "
Yes," he answered, "with all my heart and soul, I believe that Jesus Christ is my ___ and savior, and that one day I will sit at his feet in heaven."
Bob Hood left a cushy job teaching at the graduate level at General Seminary in NYC, a job that included a fabulous salary and a three bedroom apartment in Manhattan, in order to found the African American Studies Department at Hofstra on Long Island, where he lived in an unheated room, up a narrow, winding, stone stairway in the tower of the Cathedral of the Incarnation. He gave up what would have rolled up into a large pension and took his chances with a project that might not have worked out.
He sold his beloved collection of English 18th Century furniture and a collection of English silver and contributed the proceeds to the African-American Study Center, when funding did not come as quickly as he had expected. Cosidering his age at the time, I would guess that the collection was accumulated over a twenty year period.
He was a radical activist who was a representative of Desmond Tutu. He believed in non-violence in the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Luther King.
Although he thought himself to be a liberation theologian, without violence, and argued that his people had suffered oppression at the hands of racist whites, Bob was able to divine the difference between innocuous, harmless whites like me, and bigot whites. Bob saw the world from the bottom up, through the eyes and feelings of the poor and oppressed.
Yes, he had a flaw, a flaw of which you may be aware, which was that, although he loved women, he did not think them suitable to the wearing of the cloth. He believed that God had another purpose for women.
But we each live with our contradictions, even me and probably every reader.
One of Bob's favorite Biblical Passages was the Magnificat, related in Luke; Bob had memorized it and when he recited it his voice, deep, baronial, would rise every time he came to the lines, "...He has taken princes from their thrones/and exalted the lowly."
He believed and certainly his world view was from the bottom.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The Virtues:
Auctoritas: "Spiritual Authority" The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
Comitas: "Humor" Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Clementia: "Mercy" Mildness and gentleness.
Dignitas: "Dignity" A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
Firmitas: "Tenacity" Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
Frugalitas: "Frugalness" Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
Gravitas: "Gravity" A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
Honestas: "Respectibility" The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas: "Humanity" Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
Industria: "Industriousness" Hard work.
Pietas: "Dutifulness" More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
Prudentia: "Prudence" Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas: "Wholesomeness" Health and cleanliness.
Severitas: "Sternness" Gravity, self-control.
Veritas: "Truthfulness" Honesty in dealing with others.
The Virtues:
Auctoritas: "Spiritual Authority" The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.
Comitas: "Humor" Ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Clementia: "Mercy" Mildness and gentleness.
Dignitas: "Dignity" A sense of self-worth, personal pride.
Firmitas: "Tenacity" Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.
Frugalitas: "Frugalness" Economy and simplicity of style, without being miserly.
Gravitas: "Gravity" A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.
Honestas: "Respectibility" The image that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas: "Humanity" Refinement, civilization, learning, and being cultured.
Industria: "Industriousness" Hard work.
Pietas: "Dutifulness" More than religious piety; a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. Includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.
Prudentia: "Prudence" Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas: "Wholesomeness" Health and cleanliness.
Severitas: "Sternness" Gravity, self-control.
Veritas: "Truthfulness" Honesty in dealing with others.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From Robert Stone's essay on "The Father of All Things,"Tom Bissell, NY Review, 11-22-07:
"The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the whole army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained." Exodus. Nobody completely returns from a war, especially a lost one.
"A person who has lived through a great war is different from a person who never lived through any war. They are two different species of human beings. They will never find a common language, because you cannot really describe the war, you cannot share it, you cannot tell someone: Here take a little of my war." Ryszard Kapuscinski
"It was Heraclitus who told us that no man steps into the same river twice because it is never the same river and never the same man."
"He also wrote that that a 'beast moves in response only to blows and, hauntingly, that the kingly power is like the power of a child.' Perhaps he meant that struggle is at once inevitable and ultimately ineffectual, a pessimism that we have all be admonished to resist."
"the largest house can be entered by its smallest door."
From Robert Stone's essay on "The Father of All Things,"Tom Bissell, NY Review, 11-22-07:
"The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the whole army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained." Exodus. Nobody completely returns from a war, especially a lost one.
"A person who has lived through a great war is different from a person who never lived through any war. They are two different species of human beings. They will never find a common language, because you cannot really describe the war, you cannot share it, you cannot tell someone: Here take a little of my war." Ryszard Kapuscinski
"It was Heraclitus who told us that no man steps into the same river twice because it is never the same river and never the same man."
"He also wrote that that a 'beast moves in response only to blows and, hauntingly, that the kingly power is like the power of a child.' Perhaps he meant that struggle is at once inevitable and ultimately ineffectual, a pessimism that we have all be admonished to resist."
"the largest house can be entered by its smallest door."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
"There comes a time when time passing becomes time remaining."
I had no idea what I said. Here's St Eve's first reply.
This is a complicated statement and requires some thought to unravel. The passage of time is a perception that depends upon cause and effect occurrence in the physical world and the apprehension of those causes followed by their associated effects. The batter hits the pitched ball. Then there is the memory of those relations and their order of occurrence. Sight of the ball and sound of the bat hitting the ball this becomes the sensed passage of time. So when the time remaining to our lives becomes the sensed moment of times' passage; it is the last moment-end time. Now some might accuse me of being philosophically narrow and bending the meaning to my own ends but if you think about what time perception is really all about then my conclusion seems unavoidable. If this is not clear I will gladly restate it.
Ss
Gross asked for a restatement. So here's St Eve's second reply or re-statement.
Inherent within the above statement, there is a structure to time. There is past, present and future time.
Time coming is its emergence out of the future to become the present moment. No matter how brief that moment is, it lapses and becomes the next moment. As it passes it becomes past time. Historical time and future time are infinites with present time sandwiched in between. Time passing from future to present to past is the accepted linear configuration in western society.
In the second part of the statement, “time remaining” has to be assumed to be a personal subset of future moments that constitutes the finite period of the person’s life that they have left to live.
So when that packet of future time, the remainder of one’s life’s moments becomes passing time, and entering the past then one's life is over the next instant. When the time remaining to one's life passes it is all over.
To restate the notions related to the perception of time embedded in the above statement is less . This perception is complex and comes from our senses which record in memory happenings sequentially with antecedent and subsequent events. They may be cause and effect but as Katz has pointed out may just be sequential.
The order of occurrence and their recording on RNA and reading that order may be how we know that events are past time and we are able to place them in their temporal order by their physical placement in the RNA molecule.
There are many exceptions to time perception which are intriguing.
Time passing fast, passing slowly: time standing still, athletes in “the zone “with altered time perception and increased performance abilities.
When my understanding improves with research I will pass it on.
ss
"There comes a time when time passing becomes time remaining."
I had no idea what I said. Here's St Eve's first reply.
This is a complicated statement and requires some thought to unravel. The passage of time is a perception that depends upon cause and effect occurrence in the physical world and the apprehension of those causes followed by their associated effects. The batter hits the pitched ball. Then there is the memory of those relations and their order of occurrence. Sight of the ball and sound of the bat hitting the ball this becomes the sensed passage of time. So when the time remaining to our lives becomes the sensed moment of times' passage; it is the last moment-end time. Now some might accuse me of being philosophically narrow and bending the meaning to my own ends but if you think about what time perception is really all about then my conclusion seems unavoidable. If this is not clear I will gladly restate it.
Ss
Gross asked for a restatement. So here's St Eve's second reply or re-statement.
Inherent within the above statement, there is a structure to time. There is past, present and future time.
Time coming is its emergence out of the future to become the present moment. No matter how brief that moment is, it lapses and becomes the next moment. As it passes it becomes past time. Historical time and future time are infinites with present time sandwiched in between. Time passing from future to present to past is the accepted linear configuration in western society.
In the second part of the statement, “time remaining” has to be assumed to be a personal subset of future moments that constitutes the finite period of the person’s life that they have left to live.
So when that packet of future time, the remainder of one’s life’s moments becomes passing time, and entering the past then one's life is over the next instant. When the time remaining to one's life passes it is all over.
To restate the notions related to the perception of time embedded in the above statement is less . This perception is complex and comes from our senses which record in memory happenings sequentially with antecedent and subsequent events. They may be cause and effect but as Katz has pointed out may just be sequential.
The order of occurrence and their recording on RNA and reading that order may be how we know that events are past time and we are able to place them in their temporal order by their physical placement in the RNA molecule.
There are many exceptions to time perception which are intriguing.
Time passing fast, passing slowly: time standing still, athletes in “the zone “with altered time perception and increased performance abilities.
When my understanding improves with research I will pass it on.
ss
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
I've been feeling sorry for myself for several years. I've thought that I didn't measure up to the successes of many of my friends. If you've been reading this blog you've noticed that I often write about my failure, my inability to help my children in the way that I see some of my friends doing, the fact that I can't travel in the "manner to which I am accustomed."
This whining must stop. It's really childlike, it's the cry of a spoiled child, or an old man who never grew up.
I look around myself every day, and see how well I am am living for God's sake. I live in a three bedroom beuatifully decorated apartment overlooking the ocean.
My children aren't starving. Yes, they're in a tougher place than I ever was, but so are many other people in their forties. It isn't as easy for my kids as it was for me. Did I make mistakes? Yes, you bet, in every way. But that's past, and I should be over it, and accept my life for the way it has turned out. I ended up with a great wife, I can still read, and the sun still rises and sets everyday. I see every sunrise. And that ain't so bad...
The paths we take don't always lead to our destination -- but this is where I am and where I belong.
I've been feeling sorry for myself for several years. I've thought that I didn't measure up to the successes of many of my friends. If you've been reading this blog you've noticed that I often write about my failure, my inability to help my children in the way that I see some of my friends doing, the fact that I can't travel in the "manner to which I am accustomed."
This whining must stop. It's really childlike, it's the cry of a spoiled child, or an old man who never grew up.
I look around myself every day, and see how well I am am living for God's sake. I live in a three bedroom beuatifully decorated apartment overlooking the ocean.
My children aren't starving. Yes, they're in a tougher place than I ever was, but so are many other people in their forties. It isn't as easy for my kids as it was for me. Did I make mistakes? Yes, you bet, in every way. But that's past, and I should be over it, and accept my life for the way it has turned out. I ended up with a great wife, I can still read, and the sun still rises and sets everyday. I see every sunrise. And that ain't so bad...
The paths we take don't always lead to our destination -- but this is where I am and where I belong.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
The screed is NOT the opinion of the writer. What follows is my reaction to it.
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK) I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them 'Putas' whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements? To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc.
For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes. We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about 'political correctness' that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know. CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase 'cheap labor' is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as 'cheap labor.' Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an 'earned income credit' of up to $3,200 free. He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps.He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his. The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up. Cheap labor?
YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE S FOR EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!' THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Here's my reply to my poor innocent sister.
Dear Sister:
Here is a poisonous, propagandistic screed probably written by Heinrich Himmler, reincarnated, sent to me by my dear and loving sister, an innocent who passes on more than she knows, and whom I am sure hasn't given much thought to the subject before passing it on. I recognize some of the names on the address list, they are all multi-millionaires, most of whom continued to build the empires started by their parents or grandparents.
They are rich and hard-working, and although each of them could stop working, they seem to have forgotten where they come from, and they forget what was once the rich Jewish tradition (and American, for that matter) of compassion and fighting for the underdog.
Somehow, although America welcome immigrants, we distrust them, fear them, it is the fear of the stranger, xenophobia over all.
America is of two minds when it comes to immigrantion-- on the one hand we open our arms in welcome, but on the other we distrust the strangers who come here in search of a better life, a roof over their heads, some food to put on the table. And when they look different or speak differently than we do, why then the fear turns into witch hunts, like "the yellow peril" of the late nineteenth century, the "red scare" and the Palmer raids after WWI, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW 2, McCarthyism of the fifties, and right at the conception of America, the actual witch hunts of Salem.
Here's your homework, get a DVD called Sacco & Vincetti, you can get it through Netflix or your library. And see if there is a DVD of the Maxwell Anderson play that was made into a film, called Winterset.
And finally, I shall remind my dear sister that our grandfather was caught up in the Palmer raids, and might have been shipped back to Russia with the rest of the unmannered-filthy-Jew-immigrant-anarchist-radicals
The screed is NOT the opinion of the writer. What follows is my reaction to it.
Tomatoes and Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES?
This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of:I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower socioeconomic and income levels.
Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc., where these students are protesting, are also Title 1 schools. Title 1 schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I'm not talking a glass of milk and roll -- but a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays and trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more DO have cell phones. The school also provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids. (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK) I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America . (OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK)
I have had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less then 3 months who raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them 'Putas' whores and throwing things that the teachers were in tears.
Free medical, free education, free food, day care etc., etc, etc. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to not only be in this country but to demand rights, privileges and entitlements? To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they LIKE their gardener and housekeeper and they like to pay less for tomatoes: spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the TRUE costs. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding, new diseases etc., etc, etc.
For me, I'll pay more for tomatoes. We need to wake up. The guest worker program will be a disaster because we won't have the guts to enforce it. Does anyone in their right mind really think they will voluntarily leave and return? It does, however, have everything to do with culture: A third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15 and that refuses to assimilate, and an American culture that has become so weak and worried about 'political correctness' that we don't have the will to do anything about it.
If this makes your blood boil, as it did mine, forward this to everyone you know. CHEAP LABOR? Isn't that what the whole immigration issue is about?Business doesn't want to pay a decent wage. Consumers don't want expensive produce. Government will tell you Americans don't want the jobs.But the bottom line is cheap labor. The phrase 'cheap labor' is a myth, a farce, and a lie. There is no such thing as 'cheap labor.' Take, for example, an illegal alien with a wife and five children. He takes a job for $5.00 or 6.00/hour. At that wage, with six dependents, he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year, if he files an Income Tax Return, he gets an 'earned income credit' of up to $3,200 free. He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent. He qualifies for food stamps.He qualifies for free (no deductible, no co-pay) health care. His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.He requires bilingual teachers and books. He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.If they are or become, aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. Once qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicare. All of this is at (our) taxpayer's expense. He doesn't worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowners insurance.Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.He and his family receive the equivalent of $20.00 to $30.00/hour in benefits. Working Americans are lucky to have $5.00 or $6.00/hour left after paying their bills and his. The American taxpayers also pay for increased crime, graffiti and trash clean-up. Cheap labor?
YEAH RIGHT! Wake up people! THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ADDRESSING TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE S FOR EITHER PARTY. 'AND WHEN THEY LIE TO US AND DON'T DO AS THEY SAY, WE SHOULD REPLACE THEM AT ONCE!' THIS HAS GOT TO BE PASSED ALONG TO AS MANY AS POSSIBLE OR WE WILL ALL GO DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE A FEW DON'T CARE.
Here's my reply to my poor innocent sister.
Dear Sister:
Here is a poisonous, propagandistic screed probably written by Heinrich Himmler, reincarnated, sent to me by my dear and loving sister, an innocent who passes on more than she knows, and whom I am sure hasn't given much thought to the subject before passing it on. I recognize some of the names on the address list, they are all multi-millionaires, most of whom continued to build the empires started by their parents or grandparents.
They are rich and hard-working, and although each of them could stop working, they seem to have forgotten where they come from, and they forget what was once the rich Jewish tradition (and American, for that matter) of compassion and fighting for the underdog.
Somehow, although America welcome immigrants, we distrust them, fear them, it is the fear of the stranger, xenophobia over all.
America is of two minds when it comes to immigrantion-- on the one hand we open our arms in welcome, but on the other we distrust the strangers who come here in search of a better life, a roof over their heads, some food to put on the table. And when they look different or speak differently than we do, why then the fear turns into witch hunts, like "the yellow peril" of the late nineteenth century, the "red scare" and the Palmer raids after WWI, the internment of Japanese Americans during WW 2, McCarthyism of the fifties, and right at the conception of America, the actual witch hunts of Salem.
Here's your homework, get a DVD called Sacco & Vincetti, you can get it through Netflix or your library. And see if there is a DVD of the Maxwell Anderson play that was made into a film, called Winterset.
And finally, I shall remind my dear sister that our grandfather was caught up in the Palmer raids, and might have been shipped back to Russia with the rest of the unmannered-filthy-Jew-immigrant-anarchist-radicals
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