January 30, 2021

What Democrats should embrace in their soul.

Reading the Bhagavad Gita this morning, "A Walkthrough for Westerners" by Jack Hawley, i was struck by the following paragraph when Arjuna is dejected and does not wish to fight (his own family for that matter) and Krishna says to him...

"I know you are astounded at My lack of commiseration, but you must not yield to this feebleness! Truth and right can never be obtained by the weak. You are a great warrior, a proven winner. Cast off this faint-heartedness. Stand up, O scorcher of enemies!"

I do believe our President Joe Biden understands this and will go big without reservation. The time has passed for attempting unity with those whose actions do not match their words. The reThuglicans have lost all sense of decency and should not be considered as any type of rational or reasonable adult with whom we can find common ground. Just saying.

January 30, 2021

A Good Article in the New Yorker - What we should all be taught in history class.

The Pre-Civil War Fight Against White Supremacy
In a country riven by racial politics, three women strove for a just society.

By Dorothy Wickenden

January 18, 2021

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/the-pre-civil-war-fight-against-white-supremacy

The story is about Senator William H Seward and his wife Frances. She was an avid abolitionist and actually sold Hariett Tubmann a piece of property she owned...7 acres with a wood framed house where she settled her parents she rescued from slavery in the south on one of her many trips back after escaping for her own freedom. I found this portion especially troubling - difficult reading, but this history is something all Americans should have to know.

"But, as they travelled into Virginia, the roads became rougher and the farmhouses and towns fewer and farther between. The blight of slavery was pervasive. Virginia enslaved four hundred and seventy thousand people—almost half its population. Stopping at a tavern one day, the Sewards heard weeping and moaning, and saw ten naked boys tied together by their wrists, being driven forward by a white man bearing a whip. They watched with horror as he led them to a horse trough to drink, and then to a shed, where they lay down, sobbing themselves to sleep. The man had bought the children from several plantations, and was taking them to Richmond—a few of the tens of thousands of people Virginia supplied every year to the cotton and rice fields of the Deep South. Frances, unable to get the scene out of her mind, was struck by the emptiness of Thomas Jefferson’s promise of “equal and exact justice to all men.” She wrote in her journal, “Slavery—slavery the evil effects constantly coming before me and marring everything.”

"Frances was catalyzed most of all by a friend far removed from the reactionaries of Auburn and Washington: a freedom seeker from Maryland’s Eastern Shore who, at the age of twenty-seven, had walked out of slavery, leaving behind her parents and siblings and her free husband. Born Araminta Ross, she went by her mother’s first name, Harriet, and her husband’s surname, Tubman."

and it continues

"Frances shared Harriet’s love of family, and knew that her parents were unwell and unhappy. Harriet’s father had rheumatism; her mother blamed her for depositing them in a remote, frigid, foreign town, then rushing off with no guarantee that she would return. On her journeys, Harriet was hungry and exposed to the elements for weeks at a time. With the lives of her “passengers” utterly dependent on her decisions, she had to be constantly alert to the rustle of branches, the barking of bloodhounds, the muted exchanges among slave catchers on horseback. Auburn, midway across New York State, would be a far more convenient location for Harriet and her parents. One of the parcels of land that Frances had inherited was about a mile from her house on South Street. It included seven acres of farmland, a new frame house, a barn, and a few outbuildings. She decided that Harriet should have it."

I for one am looking forward to our new $20 bills.

January 6, 2021

How could we be caught so flat footed. Those in charge of security need to account.

We need to hold trials for treason, and all those individuals that are inside the capital doing damage and holding hostages of elected officials need to face the real rule of law.

September 19, 2020

A poem that I (re)found today - tis good to remember, especially in these times.

I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.


Juan Ramon Hernandez (1881-1958)
Spanish Poet

July 4, 2020

How we got here- wealth inequality.

A good article from the NYT's - "The Neoliberal Looting of America", and how disconnected our Main Street economy is from Wall Street.

“It’s hard to separate what’s good for the United States and what’s good for Bank of America,” said its former chief executive, Ken Lewis, in 2009. That was hardly true at the time, but the current crisis has revealed that the health of the finance industry and stock market are completely disconnected from the actual financial health of the American people. As inequality, unemployment and evictions climb, the Dow Jones surges right alongside them — one line compounding suffering, the other compounding returns for investors.

One reason is that an ideological coup quietly transformed our society over the last 50 years, raising the fortunes of the financial economy — and its agents like private equity firms — at the expense of the real economy experienced by most Americans.

The roots of this intellectual takeover can be traced to a backlash against socialism in Cold War Europe. Austrian School economist Friedrich A. Hayek was perhaps the most influential leader of that movement, decrying governments who chased “the mirage of social justice.” Only free markets can allocate resources fairly and reward individuals based on what they deserve, reasoned Hayek. The ideology — known as neoliberalism — was especially potent because it disguised itself as a neutral statement of economics rather than just another theory. Only unfettered markets, the theory argued, could ensure justice and freedom because only the profit motive could dispassionately pick winners and losers based on their contribution to the economy."


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/opinion/private-equity-inequality.html?referringSource=articleShare

May 10, 2020

Message to all MAGAT's who so want their freedom to go about daily life without a face mask.

True Freedom is Borne of Discipline. What is so hard about understanding that. You do not have the right to take my life or health away because your are mentally challenged.

May 9, 2020

A Good Question and Quote of the Day.

"How much 'ego' do you need? Just enough so that you don' step in front of a bus."
Shunryu Suzuki 1904-1971
Japanese Zen Monk

Added on edit - I have said of late that any person running for public office should be able to define the ego. If they cannot they are not eligible. i like Eckhardt Tolle's definition - the ego is that part of your mind that allows you to believe you are separate from others. Another good definition I have heard is that ego is the 'original sin.' Understanding this would allow for better relationships between people and as important our environment.

February 15, 2020

Good quote I read this morning.

"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” by the French philosopher Montesquieu 1748:

Where is the outrage. I met a contractor on a construction site Thursday and we spoke politics. He knows my stance and says I bring facts to the table. I told him we are loosing our democracy and becoming a fascist state. Not even a shrug with continued smile. He stated that Dems blew the impeachment. I asked how and he tells me by not allowing any reThugs in the room when witnesses were questioned. Whoa really. I tell him that is patently false, and where did he hear that - he say he watched the hearings. Unlikely I said. He accepts what I say but there is no concern at all. How true this is, multiplied by millions.

January 4, 2020

Is there a new format or am I noticing things?

Since about yesterday, I have noted a long Facebook 'like' tab at the bottom of each post.. Is this new, and if so, why should Facebook be given such attention?

In the scheme of things today this may be trivial, however I have never been a fan of facebook (or joined) and generally believe it has not been good for society, although I appreciate it has helped many people in small businesses and families stay in touch.

December 22, 2019

A concerning text I received from my gardener friend.

Found this on Twitter: Posted by a teacher in Paris named Ben See.
Source web site is ecological-emergency.org

1. Global crop failures hit at 1.5- 2°C.
2. Billions die at 3°C.
3. Most humans dead at 4°C.
4. Earth uninhabitable at 6°C.
5. We're heading for 1.5°C by 2025.
6. We're heading for 2°C by 2035.
7. We're heading for 4- 6°C by 2075.

And this morning in the Washington Post an article on whether the tipping point has been reached in the Amazon.

We humans may be an 'intelligent' species but we as a whole are a stupid lot at times. Where is our Leadership?

I posted this yesterday in the General Discussion Group and it was suggested I cross post here for checking. As a civil environmental engineer with an undergraduate degree in civil-environmental engineering and a masters degree in environmental engineering and decades of experience (many on the design and construction of municipal water pollution control plants or mathematical modelling of natural systems), I do find these numbers realistic and compelling. I do not know why they are not being shouted from the rooftops. Also, just personal observations of the changes in our environment over the last several decades give me pause. I made a point of visiting coral reefs in 2012 because I do believe no matter what we do at this point they will not be with us in 2050. Most just do not recognize what that loss will mean to the planet.