Open Thread
January 2, 2010 archive
Jan 02 2010
At Least the Iraqi’s are Outraged
It seems that the people of Iraq are angered at the dismissal of all charges against the Blackwater security guards in a case that left 17 dead.
An Iraqi looks at a burned car in the days after the 2007 killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The dismissal of charges could fuel a fresh outcry. (Ali Yussef / AFP/Getty Images / September 24, 2007)
Now x-posted at WWL
Jan 02 2010
Random Japan
TRENDS
The Japan Communist Party’s official newspaper, the Akahata Shimbun, enjoyed an increase in circulation for the first time in 21 yearsBosozoku motorcycle gangs saw their numbers dwindle to 11,500, from a high of 42,500 in 1982
Local governments across the country are setting up miniature torii in places where illegal garbage disposal occurs in an effort to “appeal to the better nature of even the basest trash dumper”
Fashion-conscious but cash-strapped Japanese women are renting handbags for use on special occasions
Koban in Tokyo have begun installing women-only toilets and “nap rooms”
Seafood and produce falsely labeled as being of Japanese origin are “rampant” in Taiwan
At least one out-call sex service in Tokyo specializes in married women in their 40s and 50s
Jan 02 2010
Please, don’t take Obama seriously
Hannah Arendt argues that great evils in history are not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but by ordinary people who accept the premises of their time and believe their actions are normal.
Voltaire put it this way:
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities.
In other words, please don’t take Obama seriously when he does or says or generally promulgates patently absurd, stupid things, e.g.,
Overseas Contingency Operation on Underwear
Global War on Skivvies
Various Briefings and De-Briefings
Operation Butterballs
Going commando
Update
In a majority opinion written by Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court has now ruled that due to the ingenuity of the diaper bomb, upskirt photography has become a powerful tool in the global war on skivvies, and that there is no longer a reasonable expectation of privacy in these nether regions.
Jan 02 2010
Turning down my thermostat 20100101
Hello, all! The New Year has been good, and I have decided to reduce the heat in my house by a large amount. I have gotten used to 60 degrees F while active, but have now cut it to 52 degrees.
At night I used to live with 53, but now have decided that 48 is well enough. I want to save money, and reduce my carbon footprint. Here is what I am doing.
Jan 02 2010
18 years ago today.
Hatred is your name, O beast
Who pursues the quick-moving light in the night
Hatred drives you forth to consume
That which you could never control
Which brings hope and guidance to those below
Romance and magic, and tides, and life
You know you could never match the great honor
That Mani pays to his sister Sunna
He brings Her light to where She can not fare
You live only to slay Him for it
Hatred is all that you are, O beast
Slavering fangs at the heels of the Moon-god
An endless shadow to His guiding light
The thought floods your veins like the sweetest mead
All your seething envy could end this day
If you finally take the Moon-god’s life!
Obsessed with the chase, you near your prize
With a furious leap, you seize the rider
And those below watch in awe and fear
As Mani’s blood fills the sky
Hatred is your downfall, O beast
Now as the hot wolf-blood takes you
Into pride and a lust for destruction
Beserk rage and fury your only love,
Your howling sends ice down spines
Revel in the pain of your vanquished prey
Claim credit for all of His agony
Bay with insensate joy at your triumph
And bellow in bestial rage at the Gods,
That Ragnarok is soon come!
Hatred is all you have left, O beast
For you should have been using your mighty jaws
For something other than howling!
The ways of hatred are foolish at best
Love, light and truth long outlast the unworthy
Cool was His smile and unheard were His steps
As you robbed yourself of the killing blow,
For while you exulted in your hateful victory
The hard-won prize has escaped!
Wise, silent Mani has slipped away
And the Norns shall weave for another day…
Jan 02 2010
Book Report
I’m reading Art of War (among sci-f (Octavia Butler), horror (Poppy Brite) and romance (Maeve Binchy) novels) and I now see my proficiency in that kind of disciplined and strategic thinking is sorely lacking. So I get sarcastic which makes me embarrassed because I really feel serious about it but I’m not in much understanding about it so I cover that with sarcasm. And so on.
Enemies.
Opposition does not always result in enmity. But sometimes it does.
All I have to say about that is:
Nothing is permanent.
So all I got at this point is I’m nice.
Ok, see now I want to be sarcastic again but I’ll try to resist that impulse.
What I want for the New Year is to find a way to engage in opposition openly and honestly and a forum in which to do so.
Thus far Docudharma seems to fit the bill for me — though I make no predictions on if I am right or wrong about this.
Not that I feel I can be totally honest and open here. After all, in this new Millennium, we have no privacy. That inhibits me. I’d imagine the younger folks now aren’t as inhibited because they grew up with it and found new ways to gain privacy that I haven’t yet grokked from them.
Anyway.
Thus far my whole repertoire in fighting and opposition is impulse and emotion.
Now please don’t mistake me, impulse and emotion have gotten me far!
So the one thing reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War did for me was to reveal very plainly there are other ways to fight effectively, other resources I can develop within myself to either avoid enmity completely or, if that is impossible, to deal with it swiftly and not let it linger.
Not that I know how to do any of that.
But the book was good, I think, in illuminating that reality.
I didn’t read it in the usual way. First, I got an abridged version, translated by Thomas Cleary (not abridged Sun Tzu root text, but abridged commentary). I did not read it in consecutive pages but opened pages randomly in the form of an I-Ching coin toss.
Inevitably it would draw me in and I’d read a few pages.
In conclusion, I’d recommend reading this book and other ancient texts which have stood the test of time over the centuries — they’re so easily gotten from the intertron these days. Folks like Winter Rabbit, Robyn, Buhdydharma, Meteor Blades, and more have experienced and practiced some of these ancient techniques, adapting them to their own individuality and the times we are living in. So I recommend paying attention to that kind of writing when it appears as well.
Happy New Year.
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