Deadpool-Wolverine was abysmal. Wish I could unsee it. Horrible gratuitous violence. Some humorous moments which didn’t come close to redeeming it.

True enough… the trick is to get sufficient numbers to adopt this approach…

The way to stop the war is to stop hating the enemy. It starts with seeing our opinions of ourselves and of others as simply our take on reality and not making them a reason to increase the negativity on the planet. (Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart)

I have finally moved on to third volume of this book… i think i have been reading it for two years now…

And then there is the third point, that quantity in and of itself changes quality. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Sitting in movie theater waiting to watch Deadpool-Wolverine… i wasn’t sure i wanted to see a movie advertised as bloody and violent… but then our yoga teacher said she saw it and loved it… i gave in at that point…

Loving justice for themselves and others enables men to break the chokehold of patriarchal masculinity. (bell hooks, All About Love)

When we begin to experience the sacred in our everyday lives we bring to mundane tasks a quality of concentration and engagement that lifts the spirit. We recognize divine spirit everywhere. (bell hooks, All About Love)

August 16, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

I believe in free speech, but telling flat out lies that harm people’s ability to choose knowledgeably ought to have serious consequences…

You could see that demonization of immigrants today in Vance’s straight-up lie that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to give $25,000 to illegal aliens to buy American homes.” In fact, Harris today called for Congress to expand plans already in place in the Biden administration, and none of those plans call for giving money to undocumented migrants.

August 14, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

On Tuesday the United Auto Workers union filed charges against Trump and Musk with the National Labor Relations Board for threatening and intimidating workers. “When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said UAW president Shawn Fain.

August 14, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Trump continues to insist that Biden’s replacement at the top of the Democratic ticket was a “coup,” partly because he wants to face off against Biden, rather than Harris. But he also is priming his supporters to believe that those Americans who want the government to work for them rather than the very wealthy are illegitimate.

There is among many of the public, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out, ‘a religious belief in the unconditional power of organised science, one that has replaced unconditional religious belief in organised religion …We have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever can masquerade as science.’ (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want it to be. (bell hooks, All About Love)

From this morning…

Arched entry to old bank building. Vintage black and white filter applied.

American Spirit cigarette pack on asphalt pavement. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Driftwood sculpture of a moose. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Quinn’s Restaurant sign and storefront. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Female mannequin with shorts and short sleeve top in shop window. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Shirts hanging in shop window. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Refrigerated drinks case in shop. Vintage black and white filter applied.

From today…

Utility pole, wires, buildings. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Top of the entry corner of a new brick building with clear sky beyond. Nostalgic black and white filter.

Chrome rear view mirror closeup. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Vine growing across wires from mid right edge of frame to 3/4 left edge of frame. Nostalgic black and white filter.

Empty Marlboro cigarette pack on asphalt.

Toy rabbit and tree on floor boards painted white. Board joints run from upper left to lower right.

… why should we be surprised about the Trumps and Musks and Thiels or our world?… of the Putins for that matter… until there is a sea change in cultural attitude away from capitalism and patriarchy, it will be this way…

The very concept of “being a man” and a “real man” has always implied that when necessary men can take action that breaks the rules, that is above the law. Patriarchy tells us daily through movies, television, and magazines that men of power can do whatever they want, that it’s this freedom that makes them men. (bell hooks, All About Love)

A culture that is dead to love can only be resurrected by spiritual awakening. (bell hooks, All About Love)

From today…

Streetscape with black umbrella dominating the lower right corner and a row of three story buildings on the left receding into the distance. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Weed vines covering a brick wall. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Mannequin in shop window with outdoorsy hat, button up shirt and t-shirt. T-shirt says Beacon and has a graphic of mountains above the word Beacon. Vintage lamp in foreground lower light, vintage mirror and frame in background. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Aloe plant in shop window. Closeup. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Mannequin bust hanging in the midst of reflected tree branches and leaves in a shop window. Bust has a leopard print blouse. Vintage black and white filter applied.

From yesterday…

Steel metal storage cabinet on wheels in the corner of a room with white walls and tiled floor. Vintage black and white filter applied.

White plastic construction barrier with construction fencing visible behind. Arranged artistically in a vertically oriented rectangular frame. The overall effect with light and shadows is an abstract composition. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Slice of pizza on a paper plate on a table with checkered floor visible in distance in upper right corner. Vintage black and white filter applied.

… tomorrow i am looking forward to ordering my new MacBook Pro Max… i expect it to solve the worlds political problems… cure cancer… stop climate change… you know, it’s gonna be a God machine!… all right, all right, i will accept blazing fast at doing what i want it to do…

Self portrait…

Head shot portrait of androgynous person in nostalgic black and white. Person is wearing black headband, black shirt dress and thick rimmed tinted crystal framed glasses.

From today…

Lush garden with pride flag dropping in from upper left corner and vintage house in distance, upper right corner. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Two wilted sunflowers leaning up against a brick wall. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Table and chairs viewed through shop front window. Table has a red checkered table cloth. Reflected street scene is overlaid. Vintage black and white filter is applied.

Fast food type tables and booth seating in a Chinese restaurant. Vintage black and white filter applied.

Snake plant in a shop window with whicker basket concealing pot. Vintage black and white filter applied.

From a few days ago…📷

Trees and weeds through the windshield of a car. Dashboard is at bottom of vertical rectangular frame. A hole in the vegetation at the top lets sunlight into the scene. A vintage black and white filter has been applied.

Back of a rear view mirror on a vintage car in the upper half of the rectangular frame. A vintage black and white filter has been applied.

Neon sign in a shop window saying “Yes! WE ARE OPEN. A vintage black and white filter has been applied.

A lacy lingerie jock strap on a mannequin in a shop window. A vintage black and white filter has been applied.

A landscape with mountains in the distance, a road heading towards the mountains from the lower left corner of the frame, utility poles, wires and railroad crossing signs arrayed from near to far, left to right. A vintage black and white filter has been applied.

The other consequence of the atomistic, serial, linear approach is a futile search for what causes what. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

If we are in a linear search for “what causes what,” we miss that there is not truly isolatable original cause and effect, and consequently no origin point on the line. And to be stuck on the line is to be severely limited in our ability to appreciate our interconnectedness with the whole. Meaning, if we find it, will be deeply rooted in the whole of everything. It can only be apprehended by letting go of the line.

It is inconceivable that humankind could exist without work. The new ethic of work starts out in the first place with the idea that work is a necessity for the human personality. (bell hooks, Feminist Theory)

This is in striking alignment with E. F. Schumacher’s Buddhist Economics. BE is a work of it’s time, and is sexist in it’s attitude that women are bound for nurturing children, but the basic ideas about work are very much in harmony with hooks here.

The linear path is seductive to the left hemisphere’s mindset in its directness and simplicity. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Our difficulty in finding meaning in our lives, can, I suspect, be attributed to a linear way of looking at the world around us. It is a failure to appreciate the interconnectedness of all of it; that a spherical way of embracing the world and our relationship to it is more meaningful; that collective tending of what we are enmeshed in is the most meaningful response to it; that perpetual linear growth is not the way the universe works.

The left hemisphere regards words as tokens that can be manipulated to mean what we like, not living, embodied signs, with a history. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

McGilchrist’s main thesis is that we, western civilization and, I would guess, any civilization emulating it, live entirely too much in the left brain way of processing and looking at things… this release of words from their ties to an embodied cultural history is what has given rise to a situation where it is possible to say, “facts don’t matter, what people believe, matters”…