… one of my Favorite Things …

My favorite Valentine’s Day in seasons past was of the “Now Voyager” flavor:

Oh Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon … we have the stars!

I had been thinking about that movie and although at the time I had no lover I was still feeling the desire to celebrate Romance.

I had three male friends who were at odd ends that Valentine’s Day so I invited them over and rented “Now, Voyager.”

Each one ended up bringing me a present … and I also laid out a real Manhattan spread from Balducci’s for them.  I received flowers, chocolates and something else I forget.

I ended up having a very lovely Valentine’s Day and felt I had experienced a salutary amount of Romance!

Yes, it’s the substance that is important — love — but the form can be a blessing as well sometimes.

I like to reach into the Wisdom of the Past to try and illuminate the times in which we live.

This little clip illustrates, I believe, the psyche of the American voter in the New Millennium:

Or perhaps it’s just that I’ll use any excuse to post a video of The Producers.

Hee.

Just a little musical response to those who mistake malicious gossip for political analysis, judgment, and working towards serving the public good.

My mama didn’t raise me for a fool.

I rarely gossip publicly.  But as buhdy said in Happy Pony Joy Rainbows! and spies:

Wherein I simply cannot, in the face of THIS much stupidity, keep from lowering myself to personal attack. Mea culpa. Hopefully it will serve some higher purpose, But how can one NOT respond to this level of blatant hypocritical insanity, when one is one of the targets of it?

Ta, dahlings.

When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way …

This isn’t really about being a visionary, even though I am a visionary.  I’m not claiming to be an impressive or gifted visionary, just that I have visions.  Honest.  No bigee.

I’ve been both writing and talking about a level of politics I’ve never had the stomach for, power politics.  Well I don’t even know if that label is correct.

And this ties in somehow with jeffroby’s Full Court Press.

jeffroby has written several essays since coming to Docudharma that I think ought to have their own tag.  If what he’s writing about had its own unique tag, I’d tag this essay under it.  But I can’t even come up with a properly descriptive word so to hell with you all!  Stop nagging me!

Times have changed.  What worked back then won’t work now.  Or rather, anything at all will work if the ground we stand upon is firm.

I’ve seen that building a movement on quicksand isn’t a very good idea.  So no thank you to that!

See, I wish I could stand upon the lofty mountain of moral superiority and loftily challenge The Coalition of the Comfortable in a supremely lofty fashion.

Unfortunately, I am still in the process of extricating myself from that Coalition (thus the quicksand analogy), so my house is too glassy for that.

So much of my activism has been and no doubt will be, this process of extrication from the conditioning I have been unable to avoid but which I am now aware of and opposed to.

Buhdy’s essays on this ought to be under this unnamed tag as well, come to think of it, at least his “coalition” stuff.

Isn’t it an action to really dig deep to see what the ground is upon which you stand?

In the I-Ching there is the hexagram of “The Well.”  I could write books and books upon that one hexagram, but will limit myself to what I think is pertinent to this essay:

… there are … prerequisites for a satisfactory political or social organization of mankind.  We must go down to the very foundations of life.  For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made. …

Being comfortable also means not going “down to the very foundations of life” and thus will not withstand the strong forces one will encounter as an activist that work from the opposition to shatter our solidarity.

I guess I’m saying politely that I would need something really powerful and deep to hold to when I inevitably hate my closest allies because of my own vain, antisocial and thin-skinned nature.

So that’s my grail in a way — oh, I’m not asking for perfection in this quest, but something I can agree upon with my allies that will withstand any temporary disagreements or distrust.

I hate the word “tidbit.”  I don’t know why I used it in my title.  Must be going mad.

Most of you may not know I have been perusing the fashion blogs and am now hooked on their whimsical reportage.

I tend to go first to Blogdorf Goodman because I like both the blog and the blogroll.

Ended up at Kingdom of Style, where I found the perfect fashion statement for Docudharmaniacs.

Mystic Pony Boots!

Alas, this is the biggest pic I could make in photobucket, but if you hit this link, there’s a bigger picture.

The boots are $30.00 and can be found at The Sportsmans Guide.

From the outdoor experts come these puddle-jumping Misty Pony Rubber Boots. Get your wet, sloppy chores done in half the time and with a smile on your face! Make it easy, especially when you get your pair here for LESS!

Long-lasting Itasca quality:

   * Waterproof rubber uppers for durability

   * Rubber outsole for high-traction grip

   * Removable, polyester-lined EVA insole for comfort

   * Moisture-wicking polyester lining

   * Adjustable side strap. Approx. 13 1/4″h., 18 ozs. each.

Sadly, I do not see these gems in sizes for men.  Hopefully that will change one day.

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.

Happy festive day to one and all!.

Through the magic of technology I am auto-promoting this lovely fireplace scene here at Docudharma, for in reality I am offline for the next two days.

Fear not!

The kitchen is amply stocked with food and beverages, and a list of emergency numbers has been attached by magnet to the refrigerator.

This is an Open Thread

Markos can be a statesman:

Let me say up front that my disagreement with the “support the current bill” crowd is based on policy and political considerations, but I can see how reasonable people can come to the opposite conclusion. I don’t think supporters of this wreck of a bill are stupid or compromised or anything like that.

Classy.  Fair.  Ha ha ha ha ha.

All right, I’m a fool to be sarcastic.  Sorry.

Then he goes all weedy and deals with two prominent folks who have disagreed with him – Ezra Klein and Nate Silver.  Nate Silver’s “20 Questions for Bill Killers” really brings out the classic old-skool blogger in kos, the whole blockquote your opponent and then slam him in return comment.

Nothing new there, folks have been saying this for months and now events are giving “informed opinion” the resonance and weight of “fact.”

As to the ambiance of the blogosphere, I am not among those who feel this way:

Regardless, this is a fantastic debate. For critics who bemoaned the lack of policy discussed on blogs, this year has certainly proven that when we do have the opportunity to impact policy (i.e. a Democratic-run government), we certainly can get into the weeds on policy.

I don’t think this has been a “fantastic debate.”  And as immigration is just now beginning to come up as the topic du jour (am I spelling that right) for the intelligentsia to discuss, I am going to have a really really really hard time if the quality of “debate” is as “fantastic” as that of the one over HCR.