August 13, 2015

Hopefully it'll bring Lake Castaic back up. Frightening to see how low the water line has sunk

there.

Godzilla or no, DAYUM we need the rain out here. We need the rain and if it's winter, we need a winter cold enough that a lot of that rain will be snow on the mountaintops. Snow melt during the warmer months is a critically important element to bringing us water.

August 13, 2015

The word "Socialism" has been so poisoned for so long that it WILL be a factor.

And a problem. We've been trained and schooled and propagandized over several generations to equate socialism and Communism as terribly terribly bad things. The words "socialism" and "socialist" are going to be a big problem beyond two states in New England. It will take several generations to rehabilitate the whole concept - if indeed it's even possible in this capitalist society.

Look what's been done just to the word "liberal," if you don't believe this. The word "liberal" has been turned into a dirty word for 30+ years of relentless and highly-focused propagandizing from the so-called "right." It's ONLY NOW starting to be rehabilitated. Only now. And it's been a long, hard slog toward even the most minimal improvement for that one.

It will be a handicap for the Bernie Sanders campaign. A very serious one he's not likely to overcome, considering the long-embedded and fiercely propagandized efforts to demonize the whole concept in this country. The poisoning of the whole concept of "socialism" has been thorough, relentless, and tremendous effective - over generations. As with racism - which many of us assume will die out with the old whites mainly in the South - well, look how long THAT ONE is taking to "die out"! Sometimes I wonder if it will ever completely leach all the way out of our system. Seems so damned ingrained by now that I'm not sure when we're ever going to get beyond - and GET OVER - that one.

August 13, 2015

Thank you, MrScorpio!

Excellent post, excellent points made within it. A LOT to think about. It's always painful when dirty little secrets are opened up to the sunlight and fresh air. Even when some of those dirty little secrets are ours. I never thought racism would be something that ran under the surface of liberal or progressive communities. But it's quite clear that it does.

This is truly one of those circumstances that illustrates the metaphor of the pointing finger. One finger of the subject's hand points out. The other fingers curl back so they're pointing in at the subject him/herself.

August 13, 2015

"They're sick and tired of being shot at." And shat on, too.

Thom Hartmann gets it. I'm glad he said so. I just wish he had a broader audience. HE'S the one who should have the several-hundred radio stations broadcasting his show in drive time for maximum coverage. When then-KTLK here in L.A. ran Air America, and Thom Hartmann was on in the late mornings out here, I listened as often as I could. I felt like I was attending a master class - in whatever subject was the subject of the hour. It felt like going to grad school - how much one could learn from listening to this guy. LOVED his show.

And of course, it's long gone, as is KTLK. Now it's been given over to the Excrement in Broadcasting "network." And btw - their ratings are still in the basement. Switching to all-GOP smack-talk all the time didn't help them one bit.

August 11, 2015

Hey, THANKS ret5hd! I missed it, too!

August 9, 2015

Man, I don't know, PatrickforO.

You ask a very important question in that last paragraph. One for all of us to think on for a long and serious time.

It could be that the job ahead is just too big, because it does indeed require an entire change of mindset, a pulling away from the worship of capitalism which always seems to turn predatory at the drop of a hat and with the most meager of excuses. It requires an entire change of mindset AWAY from anti-intellectualism. That would also probably imply an entire change of mindset away from the tendency to cling to religion. Those who claim the most strident religiosity also tend to cling to the thinking and mindset that you find in the collected works of the recognized Bible - especially the Old Testament, which, to too many self-proclaimed followers of Christ, actually overrides and trumps the New Testament (which comprised the earthly "Chronicles of the Christ" as we know it). It's as though you can't believe in science and facts and discover if you believe in Christianity. It's either/or. There's no room for both.

And in the future we face, seems to me, there HAS TO BE room for both. Personally, I believe that we HAVE to revere and encourage and emphasize the sciences if we're to survive as a species. I further believe, personally, that the only real future the human race has, long-term, will HAVE TO involve leaving the planet. If we don't believe in population control (and we sure don't seem to!), the only answer to the epidemic of runaway overpopulation of this planet is to colonize elsewhere. We already have more people on this planet than the planet can handle, what with the hunger, the poverty, the waste, the over-exploitation and tragic squandering of our natural resources, the soil, the water, the air, the other lifeforms that we wantonly kill off - ALL OF THAT HAS TO CHANGE.

I fear we have fouled our own nest, already, past the breaking point. And okay, that's another reason why there MUST be a Democratic victory in 2016, and a Democrat in the Oval Office for the next two terms at least, because the other side offers us nothing but ignorant ostriches with their heads in the sand, denying climate change, denying any need for conservation or wiser custodianship of our Earth. All they offer in that other tribe is recklessness and short-sightedness, and the selfishness and pigheadedness of armies of adult-size three-year-olds. And they see no reason to change. They revere the Pope and cling to his every word until he starts talking about this and then all of a sudden he's the enemy. They laughed and scoffed at Al Gore (whose "Inconvenient Truths" turned out to be more right - in the truer sense of that word - than they can ever wrap their little afflicted truncated brains around).

It's overcoming THAT. It's overcoming ALL of THAT. And seriously, I don't know if we're up to the challenge. We need to be. We need to get to that point - pronto! And I don't know if we can, or we have the will, or the objectivity, or the realistic view of our world. OR the courage.

I happen to believe that the survival and salvation of humankind rests primarily in space. Leaving this planet and seeding colonies elsewhere, whether it's Earth's moon, perhaps a grand space station or orbital space city in the asteroid belt, or the colonization of Mars, or Titan, or some such other moon. Takes money and science and all the objective brainpower we've got. And as America dumbs down, I find myself losing hope. Maybe I've been watching too much "Star Trek," but I find myself hoping and praying that humankind reaches THAT point someday. Where money's not the thing. Where it doesn't matter what color of humanoid or type of alien species is sitting next to you in the interplanetary shuttle or on the transport pad. I dream of getting there. Don't know if it's possible, but it's certainly a dream I have.

Oddly enough, it takes me to the ONE point in which I wholeheartedly agree with ronald reagan. He once mused, aloud, about how the one way to get everybody on Earth together in total unity would be if there was some alien invasion from outer space. We'd ALL have a common enemy, and man-oh-man would that bond us together into one shoulder-to-shoulder human monolith. We have to start thinking of ourselves as One, Big, Giant, All-Encompassing COLLECTIVE. And that doesn't flow well with the "every man for himself," "sovereign citizen," "IGMFU" priorities that dominate the basic mentality of this country.

We don't think in terms of "WE." We think only in terms of "I, Me, and Mine." THAT is what has to change more than anything else about us as humans. And it's an awfully tall order to have to fill.

August 9, 2015

Oh MAN, Cha! Ouch, Ouch, Ouch, and OUCH!

"...when you whined and complained about Obama for six years not giving you your 'hope and change' cookies as you define them. You know why you don't get that cookie? Because nonwhite Americans saw your dreadful behavior toward Obama all these years..."

Holy Cannoli! It always has left me totally bewildered to see people on OUR side of the aisle, supposedly fellow Democrats, who just trashed our President from stem to stern, from limb to limb, up one side of the room and down the other - the kind of treatment one would expect him to get from the bad guys. So WHY must there be people on our side so eager to chew him up and spit him out. I guess that's why I still feel personally bruised by the nearly unforgivable SOB-used-car-salesman insult. CRIMINY, people! That kind of crap comes out of the yapper of limbaugh and alex jones and those jerks. That shit is NOT supposed to be coming from those of us supposedly on the same side as OUR President. Dear God! After eight long miserable years of bush/cheney, I would think finally getting a good one from OUR camp in there - for two terms - we'd have, and show, some appreciation.

Really makes me wonder - who-the-hell's side are we on, anyway? That shit that too many on OUR side spewed upon OUR President - Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The use of the terms "uncalled-for" or "ridiculously inappropriate" doesn't even begin to describe it. It just leaves me aghast.

No wonder the BLM camp feels the way it does. I know how I feel toward those who are supposedly on our side doing that to President Obama, and shit, I'm almost as white as the average commode!

August 9, 2015

Most of the "chattering class" seems to like marco rubio.

As to WHY, I have no idea. I kept looking at him and watching him and wondering if he'd even started shaving yet. NO gravitas. NOTHING Presidential. No heft. Nothing. Tremendously underwhelming. I cannot envision him on ANY kind of world stage. He reeks of rookie.

rand paul kept reminding me of this annoying little yappy and ill-tempered Chihuahua that one of the neighbors down the street owns. Whenever it gets out, it starts trying to corner you and bite you in the ankles. Nasty little rat dog! Yep, that pretty much sums up rand paul for me. Neither of them earned a slot in the "Not Ready for 'The Not Ready for Prime Time Players'."

August 9, 2015

Welcome to DU, msrizzo!

Haven't done that (welcoming anybody) in awhile, but then again, I'm not around much these days. Your point is a good one, though. One certainly wouldn't see an OP like this in many other places around DU, outside the Hillary Group. We are sorely outnumbered - at least here on this board.

I visited one thread today that was quite long and well-attended. And post after post after post after post had a Bernie-in-the-sig-line. And it wasn't even strictly speaking a thread about Bernie Sanders!

August 9, 2015

Art major here (college). This is hilarious!

We actually had a few gonzo people in the art department, and it was some of the silliest random fun I've ever had! Some of those crazies did stuff like this. Process pieces. That was all the rage! Back when we were young and foolish.



As far as religious art, I went to Catholic school, so we were steeped in it. I loved it all. Loved the cherubs and billowing fabric and gnarled fingers and toes and musculature and looks of rhapsodic adoration. There was always gore, whether it was the many different interpretations of Crucifixion scenes or portraits of the Martyrs. Maybe it was their version of horror movies. Still love that stuff. So compelling. Can't choose just one of these as the best.