As the great bard said so eloquently . . .
A quiver full of zingers
pressages a quick retreat.
Lest the round missive's return
strike the solid battlement,
the pate who dared fire first.
"Henry IX the Older," Act II, Sc. 3
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Letter to a friend
I will continue to dig further, but in general, what is being talked about is something at a level and complexity that I can do nothing about, except shoot my mouth off once I formulate a well reasoned and informed opinion. But even that is self serving. I am no world changer or idealist any longer, although at one time I thought, egoistically, I was.
All of the issues that Bollyn and others raise require cross-checking to a nit's ass degree before agreeing or disagreeing. Any one of his paragraphs could use a fact checker . . . an endless and in the end fruitless task.
No one changes their beliefs in the face of facts. And no one decides or concludes without emotions.
I am sorry to say this, because I thought differently for so many years, but the world is going to hell conspiracies or not.
Typical of the brouhaha in things like the Jewish Lobby, just to take one subject, here is an example of the endless go-rounds to interpret/understand what someone else has said/wrote that someone has taken issue with.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/20/the_israel_lobbys_role_in_american_politics
So what's one to do? Here are some conclusions I recently came up with.
+ Give everyone a gun in the US. Age to qualify, per recent experimental evidence, 4.5 years old, sized and juvenilized (sp?) for age-appropriate play. Stand back. Watch what happens. "Teach 'em early 'bout their rites!"
+ Stop with the shock seeing mothers breast-feed--anywhere. Leave mothers and their children out of your Puritan outrage. Go have a tantrum elsewhere.
+ God allowed humans to make up different religions and moral rules because s/he wanted to see how only the chosen ones worked it all out. So far, disappointment or marvelous diversity. Let's err on the positive side and celebrate and travel more.
+ Stop harassing whilstleblowers. Focus on the substance of those whose cover has been blown, and what they actually did or did not do.
+ Different people are different. Love them or leave them alone. At the very least they are as different as you are to them! Want them bothering you, or more? So, get along and get on with life.
One thing that seems to work always is to beat anyone's sorry ass who doesn't agree with you or do what you say.
Depending upon your reaction to my pithy conclusions just above, prepare your sorry ass for this terrorist (I know, this sentence will get picked up and maybe so will I . . . bring 'em on!)
Saturday, June 8, 2013
. . . in the wind?
Neil Kornze, Principal Deputy Director, BLM:
Attention: 1004-AE26*
I support the recommendations in the standard NRDC letter to you and your agency re proposed rules for regulating oil and gas fracking on our public lands. I assume you have received a number of these, and so you don't need another of the same to consider. However . . .
The NRDC letter in part reads as follows. "Those strict safeguards should . . . ensure that oil and gas companies are held accountable for contamination they cause. . . ."
Holding companies accountable has in the past seen decision makers in those companies and the regulatory agents they have worked with walk away from the messes they have had a direct hand in causing.
Consistent with the principle that corporations are people and that our government is made up of people who are conscious actors charged with protecting American land and the American people, the rules and regulations should provide for criminalizing contamination and other wrongdoing at least to the extent that real, named persons are tried in a court of law and if found responsible, they go to jail. If environmental damages are judged to take eons to neutralize or dissipate, prison terms as punishment should last as long.
Again, I support the recommendations in the NRDC letter. But in addition, please put some teeth into the bite of accountability. Leadership on the side of right and the justified takes us beyond our narrow roles in a daily work routine. Get out there and make something important happen, something that perhaps even goes beyond fracking and business (profit's) interests.
---
* See also http://www2.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing and
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2013/june/nr_06_07_2013.html and http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/EPA_ReportOnPavillion_Dec-8-2011.pdf .
Attention: 1004-AE26*
I support the recommendations in the standard NRDC letter to you and your agency re proposed rules for regulating oil and gas fracking on our public lands. I assume you have received a number of these, and so you don't need another of the same to consider. However . . .
The NRDC letter in part reads as follows. "Those strict safeguards should . . . ensure that oil and gas companies are held accountable for contamination they cause. . . ."
Holding companies accountable has in the past seen decision makers in those companies and the regulatory agents they have worked with walk away from the messes they have had a direct hand in causing.
Consistent with the principle that corporations are people and that our government is made up of people who are conscious actors charged with protecting American land and the American people, the rules and regulations should provide for criminalizing contamination and other wrongdoing at least to the extent that real, named persons are tried in a court of law and if found responsible, they go to jail. If environmental damages are judged to take eons to neutralize or dissipate, prison terms as punishment should last as long.
Again, I support the recommendations in the NRDC letter. But in addition, please put some teeth into the bite of accountability. Leadership on the side of right and the justified takes us beyond our narrow roles in a daily work routine. Get out there and make something important happen, something that perhaps even goes beyond fracking and business (profit's) interests.
---
* See also http://www2.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing and
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2013/june/nr_06_07_2013.html and http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/EPA_ReportOnPavillion_Dec-8-2011.pdf .
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Divines' devise*
"They are all one people with language one."
Oh, and "There's no limit if they purpose do."
(Did the Lord say this "behold" to his son?)
"What they will will be if begin they sue."
Gets me. And, "Let us go down and confound."
What mischief wrought that we'd not comprehend.
Lord, Lords, thou hast scattered us all around.
(Almighties err, thus up- their children end.)
Because of city and tower or Shem?
And giving this place a name? You surmised
we'd be gods, was that the Babylon sin?
You judge us 'fore our acts we realize.
And change the rules to turn a metaphor,
that belov'd Babel now's mere dust and lore.
---
* The source for this meditation is Genesis Chapter 11 (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0111.htm#1).
1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.'
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood.
Oh, and "There's no limit if they purpose do."
(Did the Lord say this "behold" to his son?)
"What they will will be if begin they sue."
Gets me. And, "Let us go down and confound."
What mischief wrought that we'd not comprehend.
Lord, Lords, thou hast scattered us all around.
(Almighties err, thus up- their children end.)
Because of city and tower or Shem?
And giving this place a name? You surmised
we'd be gods, was that the Babylon sin?
You judge us 'fore our acts we realize.
And change the rules to turn a metaphor,
that belov'd Babel now's mere dust and lore.
---
* The source for this meditation is Genesis Chapter 11 (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0111.htm#1).
1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.'
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)