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Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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Have you listened to Scott Adams’ rants over the last few days? You should.
https://www.scottadamssays.com/
I have my coffee with Scott everyday.
Good summary ‘toon.
I fukt up badly today! I commented on a Tweet! The Tweeter was a Seattle cop, who also is an NG brigadier general. He was explaining why he “took a knee.” I commented how that symbolizes an affront to the flag and that his cohort should go back to policing.
You cannot appease these fux. Nike appeased BLM and look who got looted first.
Back in my day, “take a knee” had a riot baton related meaning to it.
Adams supported reparations? He can go horse fuck.
What’s wrong with reparations? Be serious.
[In 1936 Dunne, with agreement of others in the government, proposed that northwest European governments make a proposal to Hitler: Germany would give German Jews a ‘homestead payment’ and expel them to another nation. The other governments would pay Germany’s administrative costs and the emigration fee. The government never approved the idea.]
So back to reparations, a one-time, refundable* payment. Maybe 40 acres and a tractor ($100,000+$50,000), maybe a cash payment, maybe free passage and a homestead in an America-African community. That nobody today is encumbered by past laws, slavery or black-code, is a diversion. The US has a recurrent problem and reparations may be a way out of it. Why not?
*refundable on a naturalization oath of allegiance. Expired time and per year limits apply, etc etc.
I think De Blasio genuinely believes he’s a hero. Like Roy Munson in Kingpin
Chamberlain, er, I mean Hoooda, I’m not in the mood to argue this morning but there is a chasm and deep abyss between what Hitler did to Jews and others during his reign and what occurred with blacks back in the days before the US was even a nation and slavery was legal and used by a VERY SMALL MINORITY of planters or farmers, in states that did not even exist as part of any confederation of states during that era.
Reparations…..? BS, over 760,000 Americans died during the civil war and the South was practically destroyed by MFers like W.T. Sherman, and well after the slaves were technically freed (1861) by Lincoln. And keep in mind that emancipation was not granted by Lincoln out of a love or concern for blacks but by pressure from abolitionists and ostensibly, by his good sense to do the right thing.
The recurrent problem with blacks in America has a foundation of pure hatred of white people. These GGGGGgrandchildren of slaves are given everything from free food the moment they’re born to free college educations or no interest loans that they typically do not repay and tossing more money at them, or giving them this or that of whatever value will not change anything about them and most of them, when they’ve pissed away their sacred reparations, “the money” that you propose to give them…not from your pocket but from the already horribly burdened tax payor who has no skin whatsoever in their game….they are going to tell you that your are just trying to buy them off, that your piss poor little payoff wasn’t enough and that you’re a racist and bigot for not giving them more and then, if you refuse or try to reason with them, all hell will break loose and you’ll be sitting there with a “WTF Happened?” look on your face, probably trying to come up with another way to make an incurably toxic culture, a so-called “proud people” come to terms with being a gd human being and wondering “why don’t he learn sump’ins”.
What you might consider is that black and white cultures are diametrically opposite and that our federal government, in an effort to drag these people, screaming and yelling into a better life that would include prosperity, education and social skills among other things, FORCED….with Federal troops, the rest of the nation to embrace them as all manner of special privilege was granted. Some have taken advantage of those things but the majority prefers to sit back on the well fed and coddled behinds and scream “racism” and “black lives matter” any time one of their color gets hurt or killed by a white cop or whenever any of them are bested by a white. Except maybe in basketball. Simply put, they admit they cannot do anything wrong….they’re perfect….and the rest of the world should just accept it and pay homage or else there is hell to pay.
I think you should consider reconsidering reparations. Why over pay for the hatred you’re going to receive for free anyway?
Reparations for the families Union dead of the Civil War. Then, we can begin talking about other reparations.
Scott Adams takes up a lot of odd ideas as fodder for possible solutions. In the case of reparations, he thought perhaps some sort of college scholarship program would be appropriate. What he doesn’t know is that any talented black student can get pretty much a free ride at many schools. The really talented can watch top schools fight over them.
He’s also got some touchpoints: fentanyl from China, which killed his stepson, 4th generation nuclear power, and what seems to be a persistent belief in the basic good intentions of people.
Jack and Casey, I hear you. But I don’t hear a resolution, you make a good case for ‘h*ll no!’. But that doesn’t solve or even mollify what you know is a very old and longstanding problem. Detroit was a great vibrant industrial city in, was destroyed by rioting, and has never recovered. It’s population today is half what it was in 67.
Adams says to think in terms of systems, not goals. In this case what would be a realistic and permanent fix? What I proposed would be about as permanent as permanence is. Maybe expensive, but compared to what the nation pays now and how much damage is presently happening, maybe a great deal to make.
But what I’m not hearing is realistic ideas to solve a realistic problem.