Nassim Taleb in one of his sunniest moods

from OPACITY: WHAT WE DO NOT SEE

#111:  Some people think they attend opera for the story.

It is the same with language.  Language is largely made to show-off,  gossip, confuse people, delude them, charm them, seduce them, exploit them, etc.  And as a side effect, convey information.  Just a side effect, you fools.

Honeymoon's Over for Obama ( with more thanks to Taibbi)

Weird decisions from the get-go.  More Goldman Sachs thieves?  Talk about crooked cops!

Taleb's Ten Principles for a Black Swan free world

As I understand it a "black swan" is an odious random circumstance that affects history.  You could probably think of some.

Eric Cantor: Flunkie for Extortionist Thugs

Gosh I'd hate to see anything happen to your paycheck. How's the wife and kids?

One of the Heroes

Someone who reminds us that (abridging Frank Zappa) it's great to be alive.

Usury & foreclosures - not so much.

Larisa Alexandrovna on shabby reporting

At a recent John Edwards appearance at Brown.  Sad.

Anybody Want More War?

We got it!

Christopher Smart

18th century English poet.  From poets.org

My Love

My Love

I feel you

Like I felt you

Over time when I called you

And I searched for your face

In all of the small towns

And wondered what it would be like

If we passed each other on the street

I feel you now

Is it you? Is it?

My spine tingles

My sleep is fitful

As I reach for you, but you aren’t there

I wake smiling and the dream

Dances on through my day

Tide of Anger

Naomi Klein

Dharma

The way the dog runs out through the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a better example

of a life without encumbrance--

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she

would be

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

Billy Collins 1974

The Pope Knows

I haven't written and I feel sooo guilty! There is so much on my mind, I am glad that the election is over and I believe I may throw my hat in for my town Board. It's an actual paying job, which has been a problem in this last year. Not much to be made on unemployment after Cobra payments. What a world!

The most distressing situation has been the murder by shelling and dropping of white phosphorous and god knows what all else, on the innocent people of Gaza by Israel. There is no excuse, I feel it is outright genocide. Thank the stars for Jimmy Carter, and the others who took Israel to task and are now threatening war crimes charges.

"The New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC), based in Genoa, Italy, indicated that Israel was "experimenting with new non-conventional weapons on the civilian population in Gaza," similar to those Israel used during its 34-day war on Lebanon in 2006.

The committee, made up of independent scientists and doctors studying non-conventional weapons and their medium-term effects on people, said Israel was using "white phosphorous, dense inert metal explosive (DIME), thermobaric bomb, cluster bombs and uranium ammunitions, and experimented novel weapons and delivery modalities."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has concurred, saying that Israel was using white phosphorus, and that its own researchers observed multiple shell-bursts of the chemical material on Jan. 9 and 10 near Gaza City and Jabalya refugee camp. HRW urged Israel against using it in its operations in densely-populated areas.

The rights group said while Israel seemed to be using white phosphorous as an "obscurant," which is permitted in principle under international humanitarian law, it is a violation to be used in populated areas.

"White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," HRW senior military analyst Marc Garlasco said in a statement." (Middle East Times, Monday February 2, 2009 )

So back to the Pope, Ratzinger, who was busy forgiving a holocaust denier bishop, while claiming solidarity with Israel. What do you expect from a former Hitler Youth? See below:

"Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday expressed "solidarity" with the Jews and condemned denial of the Holocaust after lifting the excommunication of a bishop who claims the Nazis did not use gas chambers." (AFP news- Wednesday January 28, 2009)

Anyway, with all of this hypocrisy and lying, I will leave with this thought: Where is the benevolent god that religions supposedly seek? I guess the Pope knows..

Peace

Taibbi on Friedman

Hilarious.

Good News!

Obama Names Michael Copps Acting Head of FCC

After Winter Solstice at the Tropic of Cancer

Todos Santos

A cock crows at dawn.

And then the dog crows.

A few other dogs join in.

The human mutters, resettles

in the bed, and drifts back

toward that dreaming quest--

fitfully; Soon a pickup truck rumbles

up the battered dirtsand roadhills.  By and by

other trucks answer the cantor of the Holy

Muffler Choir.  The human's questing dreams

redirect toward potty and coffee.

A silence.

A distant cock crows.

The human restless resettles and listens

again for the song of Morpheus.  Gets

another burst from the pickup cantor instead.

Bare

footsoles on cool stone clay tiles carry the waking

human another day.

Suspicious Plane Crash

From Larisa Alexandrovna

-This can be found at http://www.atlargely.com, or by clicking the title above.

  Jim gave up trying to eat his hot stew.  "How are we going to go about it, Mac? What do we do first?"

  Mac looked over at him and saw his excitement, and laughed.

"I don't know, Jim.  That's the trouble with reading, you see.  We just have to use any materials we can pick up.  That's why all the tactics in the world won't do it.  No two are exactly alike."  For a while he ate in silence, finished off his stew, and when he exhaled, steam came out of his mouth.  "Enough for another helping, Jim?  I'm hungry."

   Jim went to the kitchen and filled his bowl again.

   Mac said, "Here's the layout.  Torgas is a little valley, and it's mostly apple orchards.  Most of it's owned by a few men.  Of course there's some little places, but there's not very many of them.  Now when the apples are ripe the crop tramps come in and pick them.  And from there they go on over the ridge and south, and pick the cotton.  If we can start the fun in the apples, maybe it will just naturally spread over into the cotton.  Now these few guys that own most of the Torgas Valley waited until most of the crop tramps were already there.  They spent most of their money getting there, of course.  They always do.  And then the owners announced their price cut.  Suppose the tramps are mad?  What can they do?  They've got to work picking apples to get out even."

- John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle, Chapter 3

Crusades Vol. 2003

There died a myriad,

And the best among them,

For an old bitch gone in the teeth,

For a botched civilization.

- Ezra Pound (who lived conflict/crisis/fall and eventually remorse--sheepishly labeling his pro-Musollini-era anti-Semitism "suburban")

Horoscopes in Hell

6.  Opportunity is knocking again  A window of opportunity is right outside your door.  Here comes yet another shot, one more chance for you to jumpstart what's left of your bleak, grainy, black and white docudrama existence: a utilitarian contingency plan meant to ignite you out of the shadows of blue funk mediocrity and into a splash of daylight focused on the newest edition of yourself.

Right there, center stage, the latest re-invention of you, with your cerebral coagulation of half-baked life experiences that, with a little effort, could possibly be organized and edited into a seamless, low-grade masterpiece.

Even though you are much too far-gone to be famous, there's still time to make a minor miracle of yourself.

Opportunity comes a-knock, knock, knocking in the same deliberate cadence as all the other knocks that failed to make you pop the locks and open up and begin again, once again.

This time around you look surprisingly well-equipped.  You seem to be good and prepared for a change, sleeping there with your boots on.  Gung ho, primed for action and long-suffering, coiled and ready to strike at a moment's notice.  You could be a guerilla warrior.

But maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Because the  word on the street is that you are a brooding loner, an anti-social recluse, a sad, solitary individual who has been beaten down by a cruel society that refuses to let you anywhere near the borderline of your destiny, so that you find comfort in surrender and curling up and dying.

This is not the code of the guerilla warrior. It sounds like the behavior of a pathetic head case hiding in the dark, restrained by a jambalaya of mental dissonance.

Horoscopically speaking, there is help for you, provided you seize that unannounced golden opportunity, even if it turns out to be just a stainless steel opportunity.  You can't be too choosey.

And keep in mind that Neptune is overseeing your career and Jupiter is covering you love life.  Whatever that means.

How about just going outside and getting the benefit of some sunshine?  Not too much sun, though, or else you'll get arrested by Al Gore for being environmentally incorrect.

If the sky is partly cloudy, stare at the clouds and play Rorschach test.  It's usually good, clean fun until every cloud you see starts looking like erogenous zones of the human body.  Then again, your public display of perverse enjoyment at gazing at the sky might attract that certain someone who may prove to be the kindred spirit of your dreams.  Or it might be a plainclothes cop.  Or both.

Whatever it is, your next chance encounter with an interested member of mankind may be the last bit of opportunity that comes knocking at your lackluster station of life.

So, embrace the opportunity and don't be a jackass.

- Bob Balogh, Greater Backfish Journal (Denver: Outskirts Press, 2007) 87-89.

Power

"You know what they do, Sybil?

     She shook her head.

    "Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas.  They're very ordinary-looking fish when they swim in.  But once they get in, they behave like pigs.  Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas."  He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon.  "Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again.  Can't fit through the door."

- J.D. Salinger, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"