by Katheryn Rivas
It begins as a small plastic slide. The feeling, when you were a kid, of sitting on top of that backyard play toy (if you were lucky enough to have a back yard or miniature recess equipment) and looking down, with someone assuredly ready to catch you at the bottom. The feeling of pushing yourself off and sliding down, and, afterward, realizing that the journey was not really that long or grueling, so you may as well go again when prompted.
This is the feeling of being in Kindergarten. You’re not sure exactly what to do or why you’re there, but you know what’s expected of you. And, even though there seems to be someone else in control, the entire thing seems a bit unnatural until you do it, only to find it, after all, completely innocuous.
The modern school system is built as a form of prodding and pushing. There is no choice but to follow orders, and there is no choice for parents but to keep their children in school or at least following some form of state-approved education curriculum at home.
It feels strange at first in those early years. But, the slide is made especially low to the ground, and, once you’ve given in a few times, it feels normal.
Then comes the rest of grade school, the horror that is middle school, and the social experiment that is high school. By the time we have reached the end of our thirteen-plus years in the education system, we are numb to it. We are also numb to what we have learned, despite the quiet murmurs of what’s left of our innate interests.
Some of us hold those interests intact and carry them into the rest of our lives, eventually discovering on our own what we think. Many of us lose them forever and fall in line, doing what seems best, easiest or most productive.
Either way, this image of the tight grip, knot in the stomach, let-go-and-slide-down method to education is just not natural.
Human beings learn in a pattern of growth and exploration. The human brain does not need to wait to be fed information to memorize. The brain can learn much more quickly by following its own unique hardwiring. Tampering with this system only dampens the way we learn best.
That is what’s so intriguing about the possibilities of online education, at least to me.
Many schools today are already experimenting with a model of learning that allows children to go at their own pace and to follow the things that most interest them. This may mean that their thirst for math leads them to jump levels beyond what would normally be taught in their grade levels, while they may need more time in English or writing.
This is something that is barely possible within the education system as we know it today. Much of this is due to simple logistics. It is difficult to track the progress of millions of students on a grand scale and make sure they are getting the education they need. With the advent of technology in the education system, however, these problems can be side-stepped.
Computer systems and the use of the internet may introduce methods of education that are better equipped to prepare our children for the realities of the modern world. They may be able to allow more flexibility and provide more stimulation so children can discover their talents and interests from an early age. Cultivating talents, instead of repressing them, could do so much for any society that the possibilities are impossible to quantify.
This is simply an opinion piece, but I thought it appropriate for the readers of this blog.
Sharing the potential of online education is important. Even though most online programs follow the same structure as most traditional school systems, the possibilities are exciting. I am thoroughly intrigued and hope others feel the same.
________________
Katheryn Rivas is a blogger for Onlineuniversities.com. She is passionate about distance learning, global education and the psychology behind learning styles. She is currently a full-time writer and contributes to many online publications. Please feel free to leave comments for Katheryn below!
November 7th, 2012 at 7:57 am
Nice critique of the one-size-fits-none institution of education, Katheryn.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:15 am
Katheryn, I agree that pursuing learning opportunities online is largely a good thing. And I agree that the fall-in-line, follow-orders model of traditional schooling is harmful to the learning process.
there is no choice for parents but to keep their children in school or at least following some form of state-approved education curriculum at home.
Well, no. We are homeschoolers in Massachusetts, and we’re not required to follow a state-approved education curriculum at home. There are some differences between states in the U.S. in terms of requirements, but I can’t think of any that expressly dictate curriculum (unless I’m wrong about that; maybe other homeschoolers can enlighten me). We will have to submit an education plan to our local superintendent next year when my daughter is six, but the state laws here don’t allow the rejection of that plan on the basis of state standards. Unschooling, a type of independent learning that is not curriculum-tied, is legal and it’s happening.
Computer systems and the use of the internet may introduce methods of education that are better equipped to prepare our children for the realities of the modern world. They may be able to allow more flexibility and provide more stimulation so children can discover their talents and interests from an early age.
I’ve gotten tremendous benefit from exploring education methods and content with resources and people I’ve found online. However, I’m also preparing for the day when the internet will not be available. I’m trying to balance taking advantage of all that the internet has to offer with not becoming overly dependent on it (although I grant you that I’m already addicted, as are most people I know). I still believe strongly in the value of establishing physical collections of resources, at home, in libraries of all types, in as distributed and decentralized a way as possible. This doesn’t mean turning off the internet, but creating redundancies where we can.
I also think that most of us need to step away from the screen periodically and immerse ourselves in the physical world. There can be a judicious use of time in front of a computer for young children, I think, but mostly they need to play, touch things, interact with people face-to-face, etc. Adults need those things too. I don’t think you’re arguing against that, but I just wanted to point it out.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:26 am
.
In keeping with intellectual honesty and the discussion from the previous threads about meaninglessness and moral imperatives when confronted with the prospect of extinction, I wonder if anyone will have anything to say if they apply those notions to Katheryn’s post.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:39 am
“Human beings learn in a pattern of growth and exploration. The human brain does not need to wait to be fed information to memorize. The brain can learn much more quickly by following its own unique hardwiring. Tampering with this system only dampens the way we learn best. ”
Katheryn, I’d go so far as to say that the system actually discourages children from wanting to learn because it is not an enjoyable experienc. I think that this is much of the reason for low test scores and eventual high drop-out rates. However, I, too, worry about the day when the internet is no longer available to us.
So, Jennifer, I applaud you for pointing out that we need to retain hard copies of our resources at home, in libraries, and other secure places so that they are not lost in the future. Many people ask why I have such an extensive library in my home and it is for that exact reason. When the lights go out, I’ll have the books about resilient living as well as books to entertain the mind (extremely necessary).
Cathy (she who reads too much and it has made her crazy)
November 7th, 2012 at 9:10 am
.
So, Jennifer, I applaud you for pointing out that we need to retain hard copies of our resources at home, in libraries, and other secure places so that they are not lost in the future.
What future? Jennifer, you now believe there is a future? Ben, is this cognitive dissonance on full display? I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and call it cognitive dissonance, but the smugness exhibited by many on the previous threads as it relates to their certainty that it’s all over indicates that it’s not cognitive dissonance. If your views are not in line with the alleged consensus in the comments section, then if you want to be intellectually honest, and just honest in general, you should make those views particularly clear rather than allowing the impression that you agree with the pretense of consensus.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:37 am
To take this deeper, readers might look into Joseph Chilton Pierce’s books (The Magical Child and others). He consolidates some very interesting and shocking information about brain development and the stages we all go through and how that potential is lost. Our potential is tremendous if early development were better understood. For a parallel further exploration of consciousness and perception see David Bohm’s work (was contemporary with Einstein and suggested solutions to the field equations which he briefly considered). Current educational methods are mostly still quite ignorant, as pointed out in this article above. Consider, also, that ‘source light’ from computers and TV screens is NOT the evolutionary ‘reflected light’ the brain is used to. Comprehension tests have borne this out. So, what children need is tactile interaction in early grades (along with music,story telling, etc.). Reading is forced too early which may actually be partially responsible for early onset of puberty believe it or not (along with meat harmones, and so forth). The Waldorf schools use these principles.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:44 am
TED Talks:
Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education
November 7th, 2012 at 9:53 am
.
Commentarian,
Those are insightful comments, but you said this:
Current educational methods are mostly still quite ignorant
Montessori is not ignorant of what you have mentioned. In fact, it addressed these very same issues starting 100 years prior.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:56 am
.
he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.
Bullshit. The Web is not the answer. I’m sure this fella would profit handsomely if it was, though. Everyone’s looking to be the next Google or Facebook, and this raises Red Flags precisely because of that.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 10:02 am
we need to retain hard copies of our resources at home, in libraries, and other secure places so that they are not lost in the future.
Acid-free paper
November 7th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Several issues raise questions here. If we are at Peak Oil and it is all downhill then at some point the grid fails and education by internet is impossible and in fact the education that will be needed (how to grow food, run a blacksmith etc) will have to be taught one person to another. However when the grid fails whichever of the 400+ nuclear power plants have not been decommissioned will go Fukushima and the whole world will be irradiated. Of course that becomes irrelevant if the predictions from Arctic News are correct and we only have 18 years until extinction.
Thus if these assumptions are correct, homeschooling with an emphasis on skills that might help in the early part of collapse and an emphasis on enjoying what we have of the good life, of a beautiful world, and the love of one’s family is the only option that makes sense.
IMHO of course
November 7th, 2012 at 10:10 am
Kathy: Yes.
==
Re OP: Online forums like this educate with not only cognitive information, but also the emotional support to integrate it.
==
Morocco Bama Says:
What future? Jennifer, you now believe there is a future? Ben, is this cognitive dissonance on full display?
MB, a number of times at LATOC I only posted short diagnostic responses to posts, e.g., “Kubler-Ross Stage 3 Bargaining.” (What a dick!). Yes, it’s all analyzable, but interpretations bring considerations like assimilating insight without becoming overwhelmed, and, like, oh, take, say, your example: that there is no future!
November 7th, 2012 at 10:12 am
thing fucked up above
November 7th, 2012 at 10:15 am
However, I’m also preparing for the day when the internet will not be available.
Good point. Here are some insightful ideas, albeit from a very different perspective:
The Long Now Foundation
Clay Shifky: Making Digital Durable
November 7th, 2012 at 11:16 am
I don’t think the prediction of the world getting inhospitable for humans by 2031 is accurate, but I have to agree with Morocco Bama that if it is, education is probably the last thing people should be worried about. Someone born this year couldn’t complete your redesigned course of education in that time.
Now if climate change produces human extinction, but at a later date, say between 2050-2100, then there will be at least one more generation to educate, though you have to worry about what age to break it to them that they live on a dying planet.
Like in other things, I don’t think online instruction really substitutes for face-to-face instruction, but it will almost certainly be used more often if only as a cost-cutting measure. In the US, the costs of face to face education have really bubbled.
November 7th, 2012 at 11:24 am
If one accepts ideas such as the dying sun incinerating the earth a few billion years hence, the heat death of the universe or the decay of the proton, any and every course of action is pointless. The same is true in the world-view of Cosmic Dissolution (as in the non-theistic traditions).
Yet such views do not do not generate any cognitive dissonance. The extremity is at a sufficient remove that it is entirely ignored.
The impression of vicarious survival through others makes some courses of action appear worthwhile. If one groks that all matter must perish, and with it the body-mind, one can then educate oneself on alternate attitudes to approaching action and work. (The mind here being categorized as a subtle entity belonging to the material realm of space-time-matter-energy).
November 7th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Daniel said some profound things in the previous thread, including:
Unable to emotionally accept what is unfolding, yet can’t intellectually deny it either.
and:
The “act of anticipation” could easily be a surrogate for the meaning of life in our culture.
==
Future
One reason to not put off fun
Till a future when work is all done:
It will mess with your mind
As soon as you find
That we’re not going to be having one.
November 7th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Jennifer, you now believe there is a future?
I think there is probably a short-term future. We’re not dead yet. That could change at any moment, obviously. I don’t presume to predict what constitutes “short-term.”
As for the long-term, no, I don’t think there is a future.
November 7th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Salvation will come ballistic,
A rubbing-of-the-lamp heuristic.
“Genies of death, patiently awaiting the rubbing of the lamp.“ ~Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan discusses nuclear self-destruction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyxd9BJ9_5E
November 7th, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Necessary Education:
“Terror prevents the mind from evaluating dangers and thinking logically. It develops in two stages, which have been described by Dr. Walo von Gregerz, a physician with much war experience, in his book Psychology of Survival. The first stage is apathy…
“Dr. von Gregerz has described terror as being ‘explosively contagious’.”
excerpt from:
Ch. 3: Psychological Preparations
Nuclear War Survival Skills
http://www.oism.org/nwss/
November 7th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Jennifer Hartley : As for the long-term, no, I don’t think there is a future.
Neither do I.
“This study quantifies the impact on Earth’s two most important chemical cycles, carbon and nitrogen, from thawing of permafrost under future climate warming scenarios,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “While the permafrost of the polar latitudes may seem distant and disconnected from the daily activities of most of us, its potential to alter the planet’s habitability when destabilized is very real.”
As much as 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 billion tons of carbon could be released into the environment as the region begins to thaw over the next century. This nitrogen and carbon are likely to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, and water resources including rivers and lakes. For context, this is roughly the amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere today.”
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/11/04/global-warming-usgs-researchers-quantify-potential-greenhouse-gas-releases-from-melting-arctic-permafrost/
November 7th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Morocco Bama continually asserts there is some consensus at NBL on the near term extinction of humans, and many other life forms.
That is an attempt to silence and censor alternative POVs on this issue.
What a tosser viewpoint.
How would anyone ‘KNOW’?
Many areas of evidence put forward by Guy, and many others, point strongly towards this outcome, the actual timing is very uncertain, many admit.
However, Morocco Bama attempts to argue with the ordinary contradictions when posters use speech that contains traditional forms that include ‘a future’.
Good point Morocco Bama!!
In fact bloody good point!!
So ‘my’ point is don’t assume a consensus, and allow others to be syntactically inconsistant, because the problems of synatx will be all done and dusted when the (to many here) ‘obvious’ climate problems manifest in harsher terms in the near term, for all around the world to see; then the speech will adjust, and you wont need to continually point out syntactical inconsistancies.
The conclusion Morocco Bama is ‘sliding’ discussion toward at NBL IMO,
i.e. if extinction is agreed upon in the near term, then do nothing different and keep it BAU because what is the point in ANY alternative strategy?,
sounds logical, and is, but also:
JUST COINCEDENTLY HAPPENS TO BE WHAT THE POWERS THAT BE, AND CONSERVATIVE BUSINESS LOBBIES, WOULD LIKE US ALL TO DO.
We had a piece of graffiti on a railway wall in inner Sydney from the 1970′s only removed abour 4 years ago due to some replacemnt work. It was the best piece of commuter advertising I have seen anywhere.
It read:
CONSUME
BE SILENT
DIE.
This is not inconsistant with the views put forward by the logical outcome of Morocco Bama’s aforsaid rational as to extinction.
I ask in who’s inerest is it for populations to do nothing different?
If one truely looks at this question,
Morocco Bama’s position aids and abets TPTB.
Does anyone disagree with my reasoning or proposition?
————————
Regarding the essay-
The internet is undoubetly a great connector of people, institutions and resources, previously only available by meeting, conversations on the phone, and in libraries and books,(as well as fax and telegram).
But at what cost to the Biosphere? How long more can that cost be maintained?
‘Education’ will never be outmoded by a future local cooperative necessity, because all will need to adapt to whatever habitat exists, and some will teach the skills to survive, others will learn them. It wil pehaps be an exchange.
Maybe it will truely be a ’round table’ then.
November 7th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Hadley Center For Meteorological Research Technical Note 91
August, 2012
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/i/HCTN_91.pdf
“Claims of a seasonally ice-free Arctic by 2013, based on extrapolating model output, have to be viewed with scepticism.”
Does not include summer, 2012 ice measurements.
November 7th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Got a warm coat?
“A regional nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, for example, in which each used 50 such weapons is estimated to produce !6.6 Tg of black carbon. Robock et al. used these smoke estimates in a
state-of-the-art general circulation model to produce the first
predictions of the climatic effects of a regional nuclear exchange.
Their calculations suggest aerosols would be lofted within days
to the upper stratosphere. The absorption of sunlight by the
stratospheric soot produces a global average surface cooling of
1.25°C persisting for several years…”
Mills, Michael J., Owen B. Toon, Richard P. Turco, Douglas E. Kinnison, Rolando R. Garcia (2008). “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict”. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105 (14): 5307–12.
November 7th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
My 13-year-old son started homeschooling this year (8th grade) doing almost everything online. Unfortunately he is just as motivated with the online assignments as he was with the in-school work he didn’t want to do last year. Our state (NY) has specific guidelines regarding subjects taught and number of hours, very little freedom of choice. A few weeks after starting the homeschooling, I read Guy’s book Walking Away From Empire, and as part of the schoolwork we compiled a project about edible weeds — found about a dozen just within a few feet of our little trailer here out in the boondocks. I also told my son about Peak Oil, and I think it not only scared him but it also made him even less motivated to follow the assigned curriculum. As a result, I’m having a rough time trying to do the homeschooling properly. He prefers to play online games Skyping with friends all over the world, and I don’t have much energy to fight him about it. First, I don’t know how much longer he’ll have the luxury to do that; second, I don’t know what skills he’s gaining from it, but what skills currently required by the system will actually be useful if the economy does collapse? There is a lot to consider, and it’s quite confusing.
November 7th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Ooooh, “global average surface cooling of 1.25°C persisting for several years.” That’ll take us all the way down to 1.15°C increase since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Yawn.
November 7th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
.
Morocco Bama continually asserts there is some consensus at NBL on the near term extinction of humans, and many other life forms.
Not true. I have merely contended that there is no consensus, and that any feigning at a consensus is pretense. Everything else you mentioned was based off the above false accusation, so it is by logic, false as well.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
The regional conflict example in the study would likely escalate.
1. Hindu and Muslim rioting or conflicts in Kashmir escalate into preemptive nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan.
2. A rogue Indian general strikes China which massively retaliates.
3. Russian communications knocked out by electromagnetic pulses hit 4 4. Europe and China with limited number of missiles.
5. U.S. retaliates against Russia and attacks China to destroy its nuclear stocks.
6. Russia retaliates against the U.S. and hits U.S. ally Israel.
7. Israel initiates revenge attacks against Arab and Muslim capitals.
Then we’re talking a 150 Tg scenario, in which they determined that:
A global average surface cooling of –7°C to –8°C persists for years, and after a decade the cooling is still –4°C. Considering that the global average cooling at the depth of the last ice age 18,000 yr ago was about –5°C, this would be a climate change unprecedented in speed and amplitude in the history of the human race. The temperature changes are largest over land … Cooling of more than –20°C occurs over large areas of North America and of more than –30°C over much of Eurasia, including all agricultural regions.
Robock, A., Luke, O., Stenchikov, G. (2007) “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences”. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D13107, 14 PP.
*shiver*
November 7th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Dr. McPherson, I don’t disagree with the science of global warming or your concerns, but global warming is a socio-political phenomenon, and socio-political trends are difficult to extrapolate.
The only reason I mention the nuclear winter scenarios is to counter the bleak fatalism imbued by a belief that modern socio-political trends stable, (such as is suggested in the IEA’s 6°C scenario.)
We’re on the edge of any number of black swans that could easily end civilization and global warming:
1. Deliberate EMP attack
2. Biological warfare
3. Natural global epidemic
4. Global thermonuclear war (the scenario which I’ve chosen because it has climate studies associated with it)
5. ?
So there is some hope that there will be an intact biosphere in 200 years. A nuclear winter will be as grim as the Toba supereruption extinction event for surviving humans, but planet Earth won’t be a Venus.
November 7th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Morocco Bama
You wrote:
“Not true. I have merely contended that there is no consensus, and that any feigning at a consensus is pretense. Everything else you mentioned was based off the above false accusation, so it is by logic, false as well.”
Very shifty ….
What you are doing is the semblence of what you say here. Because to a new reader to NBL your comments are seen as claiming a consensus, which you here claim to be criticising, but in fact you are supporting, by claiming the consensus, then sarcastically challenging or pointing out its syntactical illogicality, and THEREBY sliding the issue into dismissing that prospect or view of near term extinction altogether.
Very clever ‘tuning’ on your part Morocco Bama, and you get points for cleverness,(note to your supervisor- 2 points to Morocco Bama), but in your own view, if you don’t believe in near term extinction of humans, then your family developing a Montesouri school is consistant with that, but pointing out syntactical ilogicalities in others’ statments, with derision, is not clarifying your own view, merely adding to the impression you think the near term extinction debate is ‘doomer’ oriented, and therefore, somehow totalitarian, heirarchical, oppressive and irrational.
If near term extinction were claimed to be 100% certain, here, then I would share your reluctance to jump on the Titanic, but it is not. How about giving up on overstating other’s views, then slamming them for universally decreeing points. They are just opinions, no matter how strongly held.
When the fat lady sings we kow it is curtains sometime soon.
She may or may not be singing right now, depending on who is giving the account.
A vast majority of scientists around the world agree she is likely to be singing now, but how loudly they disagree on.
The IPCC was convened to report on just how loudly she might be singing if she is, and how far down the track can her singing be statistically attenuated so it mens nothing to everyday folk.
I hear her, Kathy C hears her, and Guy hears her, Jennifer Hartley hears her, and many more also claim to hear her too.
Some claim to hear her, just to be percieved as an insider, then begin to raise doubts and slide the issues in inflamatory and socially dividing rhetorical terms, shifting the debate to emotive moralism, rather than ‘facts’ of scientific measurable reporting.
Notwithstanding Sciences drawbacks, in terms of measurement, it is pretty good at its job.
When the fat lady STOPS singing, then we are sure… OK?
Untill then, I proceed on the basis that it is in the interest of the common good to prepare for a local economy, the gift community reestablishing its utility, and learning how to grow food, and process clean water. Shelter will not be a problem after many homes become vacant due to abandonment, or communal resoursing divides up the productive land and people commune in central domicles, albeit augmented in size for security of habitation and raring of existing, or new young.
We are going to need that mMontesouri school of yours Morocco Bama, good luck with the preparations there.
November 7th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Sciences…measurement
So are you good with the above mentioned peer-reviewed global cooling studies on the event of the civilized hairless great apes lobbing the worst that they can at each other, like they’ve been doing with tireless regularity and utmost efficiency for the whole Anthropocene?
November 7th, 2012 at 6:35 pm
Ivy Mike
You wrote:
“… but global warming is a socio-political phenomenon….”
A bullshit point of view.
Pure bullshit.
A gigantic pilland if others swallow this they will accept all the bullshit coming from this paid for troller that comes later.
Global Warming is a Biosphere phenomenon.
YOUR EMPLOYER wants it to be perceived as a ‘socio-political phenomenon’, so it can be ‘spun’, disagreed with, and ‘framed’ as a moral or emotive issue.
How much are you being payed for this bullshit viewpoint here at NBL?
November 7th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
OzMan, AGW means Anthropogenic, or man-made, or as I said, socio-politial.
So you’re denying now that Global Warming is Anthropogenic?
You couldn’t think yourself out of a wet paper bag, KOCHsucker.
November 7th, 2012 at 6:51 pm
The consequences of global warming on humans is in part a physical issue, and in part a ‘socio-political phenomenon’, but the truth of GHG increases, global temperature rise, sea ice melting, large amounts of methane release, ocean acidification, and more frequent destructive local weather events needs to be discussed concerning the evidence.
The ‘socio-political’ consequences and what is colectively done in response to Global Warming rests on public perceptions of the reality of Global Warming, and that is where YOUR JOB OF MANIPULATING DOUBT AND CREATING DIVISION on discussion forums like NBL comes in.
How much money do you get paid for your views put up here at NBL, Ivy Mike?
November 7th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Katheryn, after the first 3 paragraphs of your essay u had my rapt attention. i have a couple remarks. (haven’t read other comments yet, so apologies for any repetitiveness here):
are u aware that american public schools are modeled after a prussian system designed to produce economically useful sheeple, compliant to ‘authority’, conditioned to obey and believe. it’s more indoctrination than education. it’s more about dumbing down than wising up. a former honored new york state public school teacher got fed up, quit, and wrote a couple of eye opening books on this matter. insightful and informative. john taylor gatto is his name. others have made similar cases.
‘free and compulsory’ ‘public’ schooling is crucial to the process of domesticating people imo, turning us into sheeple, shorn of much individuality/spirit/freedom. i don’t support formal education or artificial hierarchy. without these abominations in obama nation, education could revert to natural forms, involving the whole community, not a small number of ‘professionals’ under the thumb of tptb. then it would truly be public, free, not compulsory. not indoctrination. wising up, instead of dumbing down.
November 7th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Ivy Mike
Now you are getting personal, calling me names, when I only criticise your payed for posted viewpoint.
Human activity is no differnt to the activity of any other lifeform, it is just convenient for you to use terms like ‘socio-politial’, which implies it is moderated by ideas, and morality.
We are simply very successful at modifying our environment to suit our desires.
I wont even answer your last question because you are just ranting now….because you have been nailed as a payed for poster of Climate Change denial.
Who is paying you exactly?
November 7th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
False accusations you make, OzMan, without a single shred of evidence.
That makes you a bald-faced liar. Or maybe just drunk, from the quality of your writing skills.
And as intimidated as a poodle meeting a wolf; keep up your yipping, it’s pathetic.
November 7th, 2012 at 7:08 pm
OzMan
For there to be even a slight chance of my believing your claim that MB, IM or any others are paid to disrupt this blog you’d first have to convince me that NBL is a threat to TPTB. I simply can’t see this.
How long as NBL been going now? Over 5 years. I can’t remember Guy’s recent figures on how many hits NBL gets per day (1800?), but I do remember being astounded at how low the figure is. Given these figures if anyone really believes NBL is a threat to TPTB they are seriously deluded.
Even Guy has admitted that he has failed, although I’m not even sure what his aim is or was. If his aim was to end industrial civilization there is no disgrace in that failure. If all that NBL is achieving is to convince a few people to quit their jobs and start farming a bit of land organically then I would have thought TPTB would positively want to encourage this: it’ll give them some productive land to take over come the collapse.
November 7th, 2012 at 7:50 pm
Thanks BC Nurse for the Hadley link
I think this report underscores what a few of us have been discussing in regards to what does and doesn’t constitute reliable research in the face of exponential rates of change.
For starters, as you mentioned their report doesn’t include 2012′s record sea ice loss, however their report came out within weeks of this new record being set, which would have significantly challenged their reports conclusion, yet, they went ahead and released it anyways.
Their quote:
“…..Climate models simulate low ice events (such as occurred in 2007) in simulations with prescribed historical climate forcing factors. However, low ice events of similar magnitude are unusual in the models occurring only once in every 100 years. The modelled mechanisms for these events are plausible but they may not be the same as in specific observed events such as 2007.”
Sure they don’t!
As well, one would think that with the title of their paper being “Assessment of possibility and impact of rapid climate change in the Arctic”, they would thoroughly explore all things methane. However, methane is barely mentioned, in fact the word methane, is only inconsequentially mentioned once in passing.
Odd indeed….
November 7th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Susan- are you connected with other homeschoolers in New York State? Maybe it would help to be in contact with others who are approaching homeschooling in various ways under the regulations that exist there, so that you can get ideas about how to help guide your son. Here’s a link to homeschool groups and lists in NYS: http://unschoolers.com/newyork.html (Not just unschoolers, by the way– but I find it encouraging that there appears to be various unschooling communities in New York, which means that they are probably creatively addressing the issues of how to list subjects on ed plans and how to manage assessments. It does look like a boatload of regulation.)
The phenomenon of “deschooling” is well-noted among homeschoolers- that is, the period of time when a formerly-schooled child begins homeschooling and adjusts to the different context. It’s a kind of unlearning, decompression time that can seem like nothing much is being accomplished. From what I hear, it can last months. There’s a lot of advice out there about how to manage the deschooling process.
13 years old is such an intense age. I’m not surprised he wants to play games and skype with his friends. Maybe one of the biggest items to tackle with him is to emphasize that you are his ally, no matter what, even if he finds it hard to let it sink in. (I realize you may be doing that already.)
Morocco Bama- just wanted to also point out that in your comment, the fifth comment on this essay, you quoted Cathy’s remarks about “a future”, then seemingly ascribed these “future”-oriented thoughts to me. I didn’t bring up “the future” originally. In any case, I think you now know what I think about the future. You seem to have difficulty in reconciling my beliefs with my actions/suggestions; I’m remembering also your remark in a previous thread asking why I don’t just drown my child. Do you really think it’s inconsistent for me to believe there’s no long-term future, and still nurture my child, still pursue learning, still attempt to be as blazingly alive as possible while there’s still life to be lived? It makes perfect sense to me. But I suppose I baffle some people. Nonetheless, I’m reassured to know there are many who understand exactly where I’m coming from.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Yorchichan
All your pionts are noted, but what more proof do you need than the effect?
I think their strategy is keep the lid on. Not that there is such a big audience, yet. Cram the discussion archives with emotive jubberish and anyone tryiny to look back would have a negative impression.
It may be soon that a lot more people engage this kind of material, as Guy gets more speaking gigs.
It is hard to say.
Time will tell.
Ivy Mike
Accuse me of being drunk?
How could you ever know?
November 7th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
OzMan
Even if the readership were a billion, I don’t believe you can bring down industrial civilization with a blog (especially one advocating such a passive form of resistance). Most people don’t even want to give up their freedom (to travel) and toys. This applies to the NBL community too.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
.
just wanted to also point out that in your comment, the fifth comment on this essay, you quoted Cathy’s remarks about “a future”, then seemingly ascribed these “future”-oriented thoughts to me.
Not true. I asked you a question, and you’ve turned that around and said I’ve ascribed it to you. Reread it again. It’s a question. And you did answer it, thank you for that. What I wanted you to make clear was that Cathy’s implication that there was a future was not a belief you shared. You cleared that up for me with your response….or did you? See, that’s what I’m not sure about here. If there is no future, what’s the point of securing away books, like the monks did in the Middle Ages? Do you agree that is a significant inconsistency, and that it’s really not reconcilable…unless there is doubt about there being a future?
Also, the use of “short-term” and “long-term” are ambiguous descriptions considering Guy is quite specific about what he means by those terms. I feel you are hiding behind those terms so you can’t be cornered and called a doubter, especially when Robin in this very thread has established “long-term” to mean when the sun burns our planet up in a few billion years.
I’m not ashamed to be a doubter. I think what Guy postulates, with the exception of collapse by the end of this year, is not only plausible, but significantly probable. However, the unscientific probability I assign to it wavers depending on the hour, day, week or month…because of that doubt. I also believe it’s plausible and significantly probable that life, and specifically human life, can come through this seemingly imminent crucible, and perhaps a better world is possible on the other side. And that possible future, based on my unscientific intuition, is what allows me to move towards it, with the full understanding I may be wrong, and Guy may be right.
Finally, I fully understand this, but a couple of things must be noted, and my wish is that you will consider this and reflect upon it in earnest. You say:
and still nurture my child, still pursue learning, still attempt to be as blazingly alive as possible while there’s still life to be lived?
The part I find inconsistent, and even rather callous, is that you would call someone who is thinking about having a child and doing exactly what you have described here, immoral, yet it’s not immoral for you to do all these things, and yet, that’s exactly what you’re doing when you support Kathy C’s and Robin’s contention. Do you not see that? It’s alright for you to disagree with them.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
.
Ozzie,
Since you seem to know me so well, perhaps you can tell me and everyone else here who I voted for yesterday. Come on now, give it a shot…I know you’re up to the challenge.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
OzMan, how long will you dodge and weave around the peer reviewed, published science articles I posted? Do you just piss on science? Or can you actually address peer reviewed, published science articles?
Give us a demonstration of something other than your paranoia.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Even if the readership were a billion, I don’t believe you can bring down industrial civilization
Correct.
Blogs don’t “bring down” civilization. War does, all the time. This time too, and an analysis of history, psychology, and population pressures almost guarantees that the hairless monkeys will lob the worst that they can throw at each other, just have they’ve been doing the whole Anthropocene.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Dr. Mcpherson’s decision to allow posts on particular subjects in view of his prognostications about “the future” involves divergent expectations: it is his choice to allow such freedom of expression.
The behemoth of resource consumption and environmental degradation is composed of individual human beings held together by hierarchy (society) and controlled at least in part through culture and politics. All of these are constitutive aspects of human “civilisation” and necessary but not in themselves sufficient for the momentum of the behemoth.
Comments may reflect cognitive dissonance and/or attempts to resolve it. Recognition of the conflict is a part of the process. Dr. McPherson’s open forum offers the means to do so because he allows such free rein to the commenters.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Yorchichan
I don’t think it is possible either for one site to accomplish that ojective, but Guy is doing other things also, which extend the access of this site, and also it is one of many other ‘places’ to encounter critical discussion of Industrial Civilisation.
My point is that the intention of trollers here, and TPTB, is never to have these ideas circulate if possible.
I don’t overestimate NBLs significance, but I also don’t underestimate it down the near term track as somwhere that can be useful to many others.
The ‘radical’ idea that Guy is, (or was) positing is that climate change may be stopped by collapse due to peak oil, which may still happen.
That radical idea is not found in many places to clearly discuss, and IMO these trollers want keep it that way.
Some conflict in viewpoints is inevitable.
Tell me, is what I propose not possible and pertinent?
Keep the foot on the mushrooms, as well as the light off is their strategy.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
.
Ozzie,
You’ve presented a wonderful argument as to how what I’m doing, according to you of course, is in full support of Guy’s assessment on how to bring about collapse of industrial civilization sooner. In some convoluted way, you’ve concluded that my purpose is to get people to consume, and that’s precisely what Guy’s advocated…to consume more and more fuel in order to more quickly collapse this damn thing. It’s how he has justified and rationalized flying around.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Morocco Bama
You voted?
And I don’t read minds.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
.
You voted?
You tell me…since you’ve been telling me about myself since I first arrived here.
And I don’t read minds.
You could have fooled me….but you do read cards quite well, so I think you can figure this one out.
.
November 7th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Ivy Mike
What peer reviewed articles were they?
I looked at some you put up before, but having looked at them, I concluded that the timescales and other data was a bit much for my competence level, and I assumed that was the reason you posted them, because only a very few climate scientists with years of experience looking at charts could be able to make an assessment of that data.
Were the charts complete, or were they deliberately chopped to make the data look like a desired outcome?
I don’t know for sure.
Is there other data that make those presented obviously anomolous, and already accounted for?
Again I don’t know.
Do some evidence over long time periods work off susystems that are driven independently of larger factors, and thus give counter veiling evidence to the Global Warming thesis, but are not considdered by knowledgable scientist relevent because they describe a subsystem of evidence, and not the net effects on climate?
Again only a competent scientist with expertise could know.
BTW, reading the accompanying commentary with an article on the web, linking to a scientific paper is not completely free of bias or spin. Just to state the obvious.
However, I did look at it and leave it for others.
That will not satisfy you, who are indignant for others to answer you, whenever you post.
Put it up again and we could ask specifically any comments, and hope others with more scientific experience can comment.
That could help, OK?
November 7th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Morocco Bama-
If there is no future, what’s the point of securing away books, like the monks did in the Middle Ages? Do you agree that is a significant inconsistency, and that it’s really not reconcilable…unless there is doubt about there being a future?
For whatever time we have left, I want there to be books around. I don’t expect anyone will read them after we’re all dead.
Also, the use of “short-term” and “long-term” are ambiguous descriptions considering Guy is quite specific about what he means by those terms. I feel you are hiding behind those terms so you can’t be cornered and called a doubter, especially when Robin in this very thread has established “long-term” to mean when the sun burns our planet up in a few billion years.
I don’t think I’m trying to hide. I find it difficult to put a numeric value on the terms. Short-term is a moving target- I think everything could be FUBAR tomorrow, honestly, or it could drag on a few more years. When I refer to the long-term, I mean that I don’t expect we’ll last more than a few decades. Does that help? I don’t think there’s shame in doubting, either; I’m not worried about being called a “doubter” although my mind and heart seem very clear. I have no qualms with you doubting, or anyone else.
The part I find inconsistent, and even rather callous, is that you would call someone who is thinking about having a child and doing exactly what you have described here, immoral, yet it’s not immoral for you to do all these things, and yet, that’s exactly what you’re doing when you support Kathy C’s and Robin’s contention. Do you not see that?
I don’t believe I ever claimed that. I know many people who are having children or thinking about it and I don’t think they’re being immoral, because they are unaware. And I no longer see it as my job to make them aware. I don’t seek to control them. I think for those who are aware, who long to have a child, there is an ethical dilemma; still, I don’t think it’s up to me to advise them. They have their own hearts and minds to wrestle with. Not my job. I don’t think they need to come to NBL and read Kathy C’s comments to have a lot to think about already. I don’t think Kathy C and others are wrong in highlighting the ethical aspects, nor do I think they’re trying to impose their views on others.
Whether or not I’m moral or immoral by having a child, who knows. Maybe you have an opinion. I try my best to live with integrity.
November 7th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
I don’t think they’re being immoral, because they are unaware
Exactly. Assertions about morality or otherwise are intimately entwined with perceived circumstances. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
I don’t think it’s up to me to advise them.
Same here. To each their own.
Including, but not limited to, vasa deferentia.
November 7th, 2012 at 10:10 pm
Morocco Bama
I related the story of my reading a full deck of cards in Nepal in 1990 after 4 weeks of trekking, and asked anyone to help with calculating the ‘odds’ of getting the entire pack correct – guessing for red and black, a properly shuffled deck selected face down, and unseen untill all the deck was done..
I did that also to indicate how the presumption in ‘modern’ thinking is and has been that it was simply not possible for this to happen, even though there is a 1 in a very big number chance of it occurring randomly.
The fact that I chose all 52 card correctly, was lost on you and Ivy Mike, because niether of you have commented significantly on this and the real implications of it.
Why not?
That ‘reading’ was because I was in the moment for that time, and it was unpremeditated in the way the situation arose. I am happy with all of that, but it is not a skill I can call upon at will.
I think most people could have the same experience, excepting I have never had an underlying prejudice that it could not happen, and therefore may have been ‘freeer’ then to allow it to happen.
You miss the general import of my criticisms of your contributions here at NBL. How convenient. That silence is indicative of a well discerning political skill, one not needed here if you represent only your own views, but if your postings are supervised and you are payed according to they disruptive tennor, that skill is needed to not draw any fire, and give leverage to another you are engaging.
I am not going to spoon feed someone who is good at using the latest modern hand held search gadget, and therefore feels overconfident to criticise all views put up, no matter which way they tend, in order to engage them and then attack thier views so others can also follow, and see humiliating and intimidation tactics in action, and feel they don’t want it aimed at them, so they keep quiet, and don’t challenge you.
I am more concerned with helping others, you appear to want to contradict others, with a small amount of agreement to seem plausable, and wreck real dialogue.
Your attempts to recoup lost engagement by bringing in Ivy Mike as an ‘ally’ are so pathetic and see through I can’t bother to denigrate your lack of enginuity to save face there.
All these tactics amount to spoiling real discussion and exchange.
That’s either a pathology acting out, a imature but highly mobile and adaptable intellect, or payed for comment viewpiont you are posting in general.
No one is pretending complete agreement on anything. Everything is up for discussion. Why would you attempt to create a perception of a majority view, a consensus, when there is none?
So you can give that idea credability by challenging it, perhaps?
Your exchanges have led me to conclude the latter, but by all means help me and the general readership of NBL understand it is not so.
Put up or be irrelevent.
Give us a reason to believe you are genuine.
I will not hold my breath waiting…
November 7th, 2012 at 11:17 pm
I related the story of my reading a full deck of cards in Nepal in 1990 after 4 weeks of trekking
Ruminating on such phenomena is but one way to go astray. One intent upon hewing to the path must brush off all such occurrences with the same indifference as in flicking away a bit of dust.
Many such abilities will come uninvited as one progresses on the path: all are distractions, and potentially dangerous ones at that.
November 7th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Robin Datta
Well written, and this is good advice.
I am not attempting to define myself by this occurrence of the deck of cards.
Such ablities are human, and not indicative of any acrued sense of self importance etc.
However, I cannot attest to anything of this calibre without being there myself, now can I? and since I was there, firstly, I feel confident of the veracity of the claim, and secondly it contradicts the way most Westerners think, and is therefore a good example of the limitations and shostcomings of the said Western scientific attitude.
So I question this card reading as an attribute of me or mine, and acknowledge it is perhaps within everyones capacity in the right disposition.
I experienced it as a receptivity, of sorts, and that was aimple in itself.
I am not hanging on to this, just sharing it as an event to kee in mind when looking at the deficits of Western Scientism and how people erroneously apply i Science to a greater veracity than it has the capacity to explain and account for.
Intuition includes the possibility of knowing in advance, even though this is supposed to be not possible according to Science.
A lot of this has to do with the type of mental scaffolding an individual grows up with, and on topic here, the systemisation of education, which until recently did not acknowledge subjective experience as relating to truth or reality, narrows considderably the potential to harness latent talents in yung ones and foster their unique abilities. We may be beginning to accept ‘new’ ideas, but anyone who studies western history knows many of these ‘new’ ideas were once embeded in the culture and have hangovers in speech, myth and folklore.
The old stories about the four brothers and stupid Hans, is an example of the four functions and a moment when the dominant function, represented by the king or the eldest brother, is incapable of affording a rescue or completing a difficult task.
After the king or eldest brother is incapacitated of otherwise unable to do the task, it follows that the next eldest brother has an attempt biut fails. So too does the next brother, who also fails. In despair all cast about for a viable hero and all that is left is the Forrest Gump like ‘Stupid Hans’, who is a half-wit and tries to lick walls and such incomprehensible actions everyone ‘knows’ he is not capable.
But he has a go and succeeds.
This is an example of the inferior function being exactly the view or modality that is missing from the kingdom, and has the perspective to solve the problem, outwit the monster or do a difficult task with relative ease.
In our time we are slowly realising that Intuition and Feeling,. though aparently subjective deserve a greater place at the table, even as we will struggle to survive in the ‘near term’.
Use every tool in the tool box, IMO, and if your tool box is near bare, start trading for some useful tools.
BTW, has anyone heard the latest psychic joke?
November 8th, 2012 at 1:06 am
Here is one example of Stupid Hans.
The Griffin
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms125.html
This also shows how the dominant function often reneggs on a bargain with the inferior function and tries to make it fail.But if it persists eventually emerges as the stronger.
November 8th, 2012 at 3:28 am
A taste of the future for the children when all the nuclear plants go Fukushima – of course by then there will be no helpline and their parents will have to deal with their fear. I suppose by then the fear of others harming them along with fear of not getting fed will trump any fears of cancer.
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/child-helpline-of-fukushima-got-5000-calls-only-in-one-month/
Child helpline of Fukushima got 5000 calls only in one month
Posted by Mochizuki on November 6th, 2012
Late August, helpline for children was opened in Koriyama city for the first time in Fukushima prefecture.
On their press conference of 11/5/2012, they announced they received more than 5,000 phone calls in one month though they are open only from 16:00 to 21:00 of every Wednesday. Only 20% of the calls were responded.
All of the phone calls are from Fukushima prefecture, most of the cases are about the anxiety of radiation and inconvenient lives in temporary dwellings.
20 staff are working but there’s only one phone line. When the line is busy or out of business, the phone calls are transfered to 45 other call centers in Miyagi and all around in Japan. However they commented all of the call centers are always busy and they have numbers of phone calls from Fukushima prefecture. Measures must be taken.
November 8th, 2012 at 4:33 am
Off topic, for Robin, if you have not seen it. Israel Science Foundation, cosmological forests, descriptive catalogue of all known kabbalistic divinity maps.
http://ilanot.haifa.ac.il/Ilanot_Site/ilanot.html
November 8th, 2012 at 4:47 am
OzMan, I’m not going to double post. If you can’t find the two studies I posted (Mills, etal, 2008; Robock, etal, 2007); like I said before, you couldn’t think your way out of a wet paper sack.
Which is how “TPTB” want you to be—docile, stupid, unprotected, undefended and shopping; they hold their own domesticated populations hostage in MAD+NUTS.[1]
Of course, the Russians[2] and Chinese[3] aren’t quite as stupid. Both are digging for nuclear war.
Because they’re not as abjectly docile and stupid (both effects of domestication[4] on domesticated mammals) as the effete Leftist morons like you.
Never met a real life wolf before, have you, POODLE-BOI?
“The closest approximation to human morality we can find in nature is that of the gray wolf, Canis lupus.”[5]
_______________
[1] SM Keeny Jr, WKH Panofsky (1981) MAD Versus NUTS: Can Doctrine or Weaponry Remedy the Mutual Hostage Relationship of the Superpowers? Foreign Affairs. Vol. 60, No. 2., pp. 287-304
[2] “Nearly 5,000 new emergency bomb shelters will be built in Moscow by 2012…”
Moscow arms against nuclear attack | Russia Today | 12 July, 2010
[3] “Underground Great Wall” | Washington Post | November 29, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/georgetown-students-shed-light-on-chinas-tunnel-system-for-nuclear-weapons/2011/11/16/gIQA6AmKAO_story.html
[4] Peter J. Wilson (1991) “The Domestication of the Human Species.” Yale University Press.
[5] Wolfgang M. Schleidt and Michael D. Shalter (2003) “Co-evolution of Humans and Canids: An Alternative View of Dog Domestication,” Evolution and Cognition. Vol. 9, No. 1 [SOURCE]
November 8th, 2012 at 5:51 am
.
Jennifer,
Your response is distinct from Robin’s and Kathy C’s. I don’t put you in the same league, and you should not want to be in the same league. If anything, what’s been established in my time here is a simulation in Group Dynamics, and it’s not a pretty picture. I’ve challenged myself to feel the tide here and allow it to take me with the caveat that I remain firmly anchored with intellectual honesty….and so, I’ve been assigned the role of troll, infant, nine year old, intelligence agent, denier…..you name it, and this is because I refuse to be intellectually dishonest and submit to the group. It’s why I told Ozzie quite a while back now, that I don’t want to be his friend, that I don’t want any friends here, because to do so will compromise being intellectually honest, and it sets me up for being manipulated, and will compromise my integrity. That’s what I see happening with so many who post here. Because of the power of Group Dynamics and those who know that power well and abuse it for their advantage, people compromise their integrity and engage in intellectual dishonesty because the power of the group, and their position within it, means everything. Of course, you can read that and dismiss it, and that’s fine. Perhaps someone with intellectual honesty and integrity will see it has merit and reflect upon it in earnest. The bottom line for me is, if my reputation means so much that I’m willing to compromise my intellectual honesty and integrity to uphold my standing within a group, however insignificant that group may be, then it’s not worth it. Therefore, I choose no status within this group, and if what I say affects in a positive way only one or two people who will never acknowledge it, that’s good enough for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg
.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:30 am
.
Reconcile these two statements, Jennifer.
A taste of the future for the children when all the nuclear plants go Fukushima – of course by then there will be no helpline and their parents will have to deal with their fear. I suppose by then the fear of others harming them along with fear of not getting fed will trump any fears of cancer.
and what you said…
Do you really think it’s inconsistent for me to believe there’s no long-term future, and still nurture my child, still pursue learning, still attempt to be as blazingly alive as possible while there’s still life to be lived? It makes perfect sense to me. But I suppose I baffle some people. Nonetheless, I’m reassured to know there are many who understand exactly where I’m coming from.
I bolded the sentence above because it’s an appeal to the group, and the only way I can reconcile the two statements, and I have to assume at this point that you tacitly agree with the second statement and reject Ivy Mike’s excellent argument, is because this is now taking the shape of a religion, and the brethren here are standing in judgment.
You don’t baffle me, Jennifer. It’s becoming clearer. I have given you the benefit of the doubt up to this point, but as we drill deeper and clarify further, it’s not baffling. It’s predictable….and a shame. You’re intelligent and should know better. In fact, I think you do know better, and yet, you allow yourself to be compromised and used. It’s the same thing that happens in traditional education every day. I see it happening to my son and daughter, and I see it happening to you here, and what’s ironic, is your stance toward traditional education and your inability to see the same principle at play in another group context.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:37 am
.
Ozzie,
So many words, and yet you’ve said nothing. Either you know me, or you don’t, Ozzie. You act as if you do, and by now, you’ve written my biography, so don’t now pretend that you haven’t a clue. Who did I vote for, Ozzie? If you know me so well, if you know who and what I am, and apparently you do considering the words you’ve devoted to that effort, then this should be as easy as reading those cards. You have a gift…now use it and tell me for whom I voted in Tuesday’s election….or dodge and weave some more. Your call.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 9:08 am
You don’t baffle me, Jennifer. It’s becoming clearer. I have given you the benefit of the doubt up to this point, but as we drill deeper and clarify further, it’s not baffling. It’s predictable….and a shame. You’re intelligent and should know better. In fact, I think you do know better, and yet, you allow yourself to be compromised and used. It’s the same thing that happens in traditional education every day. I see it happening to my son and daughter, and I see it happening to you here, and what’s ironic, is your stance toward traditional education and your inability to see the same principle at play in another group context.
MB, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I don’t understand why you think I’ve done/believed/stated something shameful, or think I’m being compromised and used.
November 8th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Seems like Ran has figured out the same thing I have.
“Any movement that allows itself to be framed in terms of moral purity is doomed…If reversing climate change is about reducing personal consumption, then the end of that path is to kill yourself.”
~Ran Prieur
November 8, 2012
http://ranprieur.com/
November 8th, 2012 at 10:58 am
These private police are carrying guns and they are arresting and assaulting my friends but they are not allowing the press to document their police state and are handcuffing them immediately if they enter the site. Because they are no longer on taxpayer payroll, the actions of these officers are not accountable to the people of Texas. These privately-owned police are following a fat paycheck and are acting accordingly.
http://tarsandsblockade.org/from-the-trees-their-police-day-37/
November 8th, 2012 at 11:14 am
Jennifer, I’ve been ignoring the trolls for several days now. Gets easier after time, although they work hard to drag people back in. One trick is to purposely state that you hold a view you do not hold. It seems that you have to straighten them out but what they have done is hooked you into the argument that they will never let you win.
This reminds me of my brother who told me once that the wife he divorced was just like our Mom. He said “I married my mother”. I asked him why he did that. He said “I thought I could win with her”. Of course one of the main traits our mother exhibited was that she would NEVER let you win. I won however by leaving home and not returning. It was the only win I could ever have with her. Refusing to respond is the only way to win with the trolls. I don’t know if they are paid to disrupt the site or are managing to be so obnoxious all on their own, but it doesn’t matter.
Something to do while waiting for collapse – ignore the trolls and watch them sputter and spit as they desperately try to hook you in.
Join me in the fun.
November 8th, 2012 at 11:26 am
I’d like to go off topic and mention something about education and liberals.
It seems to me that the results of “education” have recently been put on display for anyone who cares to look. I’m referring to California Prop 37 on labeling GMO foods. During the 5 or so days prior to Tuesday’s election there was a swing of 25%, from approximately 67% in favor to only 42% in favor. It appears that a huge media buy is the only thing responsible for the change (and this on an issue that other polls suggest is supported by up to 90% of the people in the US). The opposition, by dumping huge amounts of money into the campaign ($45-48 million opposed vs $9 million in favor) were able to cloud the issue and cause such a huge percentage of people to vote against what they previously perceived to be in their own self interest.
So, what does this have to do with education? I think it has become abundantly clear that the people here in the US can be easily (if you have the money) manipulated into voting to support of anything TPTB want. The legacy of Joseph Goebbels is alive and well and living in the USA.
So, what does this have to do with liberals? Ivy Mike noted that “the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for POWER by imposing his solutions on society.” I’ll counter by noting that both in the AGW issue and in the GMO Prop 37 vote it is the self-styled conservatives who are choosing the path of species annihilation. They are the block who consistently identify with the Koch brothers and Monsanto, i.e. global warming is a myth and GMOs are good for you.
Michael Irving
November 8th, 2012 at 11:37 am
O.T. entirely. And then maybe not so. Point is “cluster headaches”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/how-psychedelic-drugs-can-help-patients-face-death.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Ah yes, maybe this. When the talk comes to “insurance companies and how they might be interested”, am utterly disgusted.
Peace
November 8th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Thanks for pointing to that, Bernhard, it’s fairly old news to me, I have plenty of psilocybin mushrooms freely available, but although they work for some people’s CH, they don’t work for mine. Seems like nothing else does either, since zolmitriptan stopped working, having now tried Prednisolone, Sodium Valproate, Carbamazapine, all useless. Zolmitriptans work again after a period, but I have not been off long enough to break the tolerance, so it soon returns and then they actually make the CH much worse
IMHO, everyone who wants to should try magic mushrooms anyway, dying or not, as a purely therapeutic means of ‘waking up’ to being alive, a lot more pleasant and a lot less dangerous than e.g. alcohol.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Daniel: Yes, there are problems and suspicions about the Hadley Centre report now. I wonder what they will report after this summer’s drastic melting.
I’m systematically going through the references for each prediction of X degree C warming by X year. Some are updated, some are not.
Kathy C: Yes, I’m not reading the trolls and not responding to them, as well. It works wonders. Takes a lot of psychic work in the beginning, but gets a lot easier. Nothing they post is the least bit interesting, anyway.
And speaking of education, Ivan Illich, “Deschooling Society” is an excellent book.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
@ Michael Irving, looked at from a European perspective, there’s no such thing in USA as ‘leftist’, there’s just extreme right and slightly less extreme right… yes, education would be good, but all too little and too late.
November 8th, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Kathy C has been bumptiously ignoring my critique of her anti-choice rhetoric that matches the extremism of the other anti-choice fundamentalists:
• CONFLATING REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE WITH COERCIVE CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR
(A) “the unborn…no choice…forced” ~Kathy C
(B) “the baby has no choice” ~jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Abortion%20is%20Murder/abortion_is_murder.htm
• DIFFERENT REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE IS IMMORAL
(A) “the only moral question left” ~Kathy C
(B) “…the Pre-eminent Moral Issue.” ~The National Catholic Register
• GROUP CONTROL OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
(A) “stick to abstinence…give up your biological imperative” ~Kathy C
(B) “Bristol Palin on Abstinence” ~christianitytoday.com
November 8th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
BC PROF: I’m not reading…
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” William Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act III, scene II)
Especially when they quote me later. Now thats Funny. Every. Day.
Anyway, keep developing that willful ignorance, “professor.” LOL!
Did you take your ignorance cues from the intelligent design creationist crowd? They don’t read either, and mighty proud of it!
November 8th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
education would be good
Need better compliance? Now that’s empire-think.
/wiki/Reeducation_camp
“Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management…”
~the extremist environmentalist
The Danger of Leftism
Industrial Society and Its Future
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fc-industrial-society-and-its-future
November 8th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Police State is redundant.
(Civilization) State Society always has police.
/wiki/Police#Ancient_world
Etymological Lesson of the Day:
POLIs = City-state
POLIce = City enforcement class
POLItics = business of the City
POLIcy = business of the City
November 8th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
“conservatives…Monsanto”
Another Leftard myth.
The Unholy Alliance: Monsanto, Dupont & Obama
Huffington Post
Obama appoints Monsanto shill Tom Vilsack to USDA chief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMWAzH9P728
Monsanto Contributions to Federal Candidates
House of Representatives (2010)
Total to Democrats: $108,499
Total to Republicans: $91,500
[Center for Responsive Politics]
November 8th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
Ivy.
What are you on about. Leftist or rightist or any thing somewhere else in between. Used to consider myself left, in my special way some long time ago.
Now I tell you it’s all bull, be it left or right or anything else in between. We are killing Pacha Mama and have no idea what we are doing and no way to change. That is what matters and nothing else.
Peace.
November 8th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
“I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. -Voltaire
“Even silence is an answer”
“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Saying nothing…sometimes says the most. ~ Emily Dickinson
November 8th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Ted K.’s critique of Leftism has helped me identify several Leftist behaviors—authoritarianism as strident as any conservitard’s—observed here that were previously baffling me.
So when I see a typical leftist control-freak behavior, I quote ol’ Ted’s take on it. He was an extremist environmentalist from leftist academia, so who better could critique leftists, and the material sources from Anarchist Library, so everything’s kosher.
I’m just lucky to have stumbled upon it, Bernhard.
Pertinent sections of his essay are as follows:
• The psychology of modern leftism
• Feelings of inferiority
• Oversocialization
• The danger of leftism
Industrial Society and Its Future
Ted Kaczynski (1995)
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fc-industrial-society-and-its-future
November 8th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Copy from:
One person – plagiarism
Ten persons – topical review
Hundred persons – synopsis
Thousand persons – literature review
And on the other hand:
The number of references proffered varies inversely with the depth of understanding.
November 8th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
“But he has nothing on at all,” said a little child at last. “Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But he has nothing on at all,” cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked WITH STILL GREATER DIGNITY, as if they carried the train which did not exist.
~Hans Christian Andersen
The Emperor’s New Suit (1837)
November 8th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Ivy
Think I’m beginning to understand. There’s no more bitter enemy towards a smoker than a used to be smoker. Some kind of self- reflection. Maybe?
Peace. And good night for now.
November 8th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Domesticated humans and domesticated dogs have worked together to kill-off wild humans and wolves.
Then a wild human shows up. The over-socialized poodles bark furiously, wetting their tails.
Homo Homini Lupus. I AM THE WOLF.
“The closest approximation to human morality we can find in nature is that of the gray wolf, Canis lupus.”
~Wolfgang M. Schleidt and Michael D. Shalter (2003) “Co-evolution of Humans and Canids: An Alternative View of Dog Domestication.” Evolution and Cognition. Vol. 9, No. 1 [SOURCE]
November 8th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Hyperactive kids = “good hunters.”
• Distractibility – their constant scanning would ensure they wouldn’t miss anything
• Impulsivity – their ability to make instant decisions and to act on them would guarantee they’d be able to react to high-stress and response-demanding situations
• Need for high levels of stimulation – their love of stimulation would cause them to enjoy the hunting world in the first place.
Very steady, stable, classroom-capable kids = “good farmers.”
♫ We don’t need no education.
We don’t need no school control.
Dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. ♪
November 8th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
.
MB, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I don’t understand why you think I’ve done/believed/stated something shameful, or think I’m being compromised and used.
Alright, fine, you don’t understand. I provided the water and you’re not drinking. That’s cool.
Let me ask you, though. Is your husband aware of your views as stated here? Was your husband part of your decision to not have another child? If your husband shares your views and was part of your decision to not have another child, why is he still employed as a professor of engineering? Are your so-called friends aware of your views as stated here? Are they aware of Kathy C’s harsh views indicated by her harsh rhetoric related to children and having children at this time? Do you live in separate worlds, and have you created a compartmentalized existence, whereby what you say here is very distinct from what you say in other parts of your off-line life? Are you aware of group dynamics when you read and post to this forum? Is it that you don’t understand, or does that response really mean you don’t want to understand? If you don’t want to understand, it’s alright, I understand that, and we can just let it go.
And finally, this is not an argument, Jennifer, despite what Kathy C says. I don’t want to win anything, I just want to think and discuss without having to abide the group, but if one of us is doing that, abiding the group, then it makes honest discussion impossible. Your next response, if there is one considering Kathy C’s latest admonition to you, will tell me if you’re willing to do that, or not.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should be not victory, but progress” – Joseph Joubert Pensées
November 8th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
.
“When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself”
Billy Graham
.
November 8th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Robin: aim of argument
Kathy C: ignore
BC “Prof”: I’m not reading
So what “argument” are you talking of, Robin? Shall we begin your version of “progress” again?
Or maybe trembling poodle domesticates with piss running down their legs are just sore losers.
Anyway, keep barking, Robin.
♪ Stalked in the forest, too close to hide
I’ll be upon you by the moonlight side
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
High blood drumming on your skin, it’s so tight
You feel my heat, I’m just a moment behind
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo
In touch with the ground
I’m on the hunt I’m after you
A scent and a sound, I’m lost and I’m found
And I’m hungry like the wolf ♫
Duran Duran – “Hungry Like the Wolf”
November 8th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Are George Thorogood and Billy Graham the same, MB? Woohoo!
♫ Jesus won’t you fucking whistle! Why can’t we not be sober? . ♪
“Very bright” British children grow up to consume alcohol nearly one full standard deviation more frequently than their “very dull” classmates.
~Why Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol | Psychology Today | October 10, 2010
November 8th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
.
Are George Thorogood and Billy Graham the same, MB? Woohoo!
That’s the answer I got when I consulted the kabbalistic divinity maps.
.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Al’lah and al’cohol are never far apart, sahibi. Thus the prohibitions.
“I guess it’s just God’s way of making me pay.” ~Smile Empty Soul – “Bottom Of The Bottle”
Billy’s alright, he’s a closet Universalist anyway, which has the Fundies’ panties in a bunch lately.
When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: “Those are decisions only the Lord will make. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”
~Newsweek Magazine, August 14, 2006
November 8th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
ulvfugl,
Re: no leftist in the USA–
Sad but true. Of course there are some but they are few and far between.
Michael Irving
November 8th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
@ Ivy Mike
Yes on Prop 37= $9,000,000
Monsanto–No on Prop 37 = $8,100,000
November 8th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
BTW, the Google Analytics on this page might not be correct. I’m sure many people have installed Ghostery and are not counted.
November 8th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
.
Billy’s alright, he’s a closet Universalist anyway, which has the Fundies’ panties in a bunch lately.
I almost put the Dalai Lama, and probably should have considering how much he’s adored by what passes for the “Left” in the U.S. This now deceased, highly intelligent British iconoclast and infamous lush (per the Psychology Today article) didn’t think too highly of Billy, and he also didn’t think too highly of Leftists and/or Liberals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubLu-9SicSM
.
November 8th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
“The leftist is oriented toward large scale collectivism.” ~the extremist environmentalist, The danger of leftism: Industrial Society and Its Future
Why would anybody be for large scale anything? Large scale is the whole problem.
To be for Leftist large scale collectivism is environmentally equivalent to being for Rightist large scale capitalism. The biosphere can’t tell the difference of how the ownership of the Hammer (industry) and Sickle (agriculture) is socially controlled.
November 8th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
.
Why would anybody be for large scale anything? Large scale is the whole problem.
To be for Leftist large scale collectivism is environmentally equivalent to being for Rightist large scale capitalism. The biosphere can’t tell the difference of how the ownership of the Hammer (industry) and Sickle (agriculture) is socially controlled.
Exactly. I have been saying this for many years now, and I’ve been viciously attacked for saying it. And, I arrived at this conclusion having not read Kaczynski.
By the way, Ivy Mike, have you seen the excellent German documentary about Kaczynski that I deposited here a couple of months prior? If not, I can find the link for you. Let me know.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Leftist collectivism is the opposite of individualistic and egalitarian (“all men are created equal”) Band/Tribal sociopolitical typology.
Band and Tribal individuals are like “Lone Wolves” (a completely unscientific derogatory term for individualists) who cooperate, just as wolves naturally do.
Service dispatches the false view of Marx about our “savage” (dwellers of the woods) forebearers.
“Historically, people in non-state [band/tribal] societies are relatively autonomous and sovereign. They generate their own subsistence with little or no assistance from outside sources. They bow to no external political leaders. Nor are they routinely exploited by outsiders.”
~Elman R. Service (1975), Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. New York: Norton.
“The closest approximation to human morality we can find in nature is that of the gray wolf, Canis lupus…Wolves’ ability to cooperate in a variety of situations, not only in well coordinated drives in the context of attacking prey, carrying items too heavy for any one individual, provisioning not only their own young but also other pack members, baby sitting, etc., is rivaled only by that of human societies.”
~Wolfgang M. Schleidt and Michael D. Shalter (2003) “Co-evolution of Humans and Canids: An Alternative View of Dog Domestication,” Evolution and Cognition. Vol. 9, No. 1
Leftist Collectivists are as much a problem as Capitalist agrandizers.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
MB, I’d appreciate the Ted K. documentary, if you can find it. In return I present you:
Ted The Savior. LOL!
“It may yet turn out to be true that he was a prophet and potentially a kind of savior, of humanity and the planet.”
The Unabomber’s Pen Pal
The Chronicle of Higher Education | May 20, 2012
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Unabombers-Pen-Pal/131892/
November 8th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
.
Ivy Mike,
Here it is. It takes you deep into the rabbit hole. It took me so deep, I think a part of me is still stuck down there with Alice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSu3RZCgQpU
.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Natural humans (and wolves) are individuals who have the independent skills and confidence to, and often did, survive in the woods all by themselves; however, they do often cooperate, as it raises their chance of survival.
Leftists are “domesticated,”[1] “dumbed-down,”[2] docile poodles who wouldn’t last a month in the woods by themselves. They’re damn parasites; they NEED you.
And my critique goes for the capitalist owner class too; parasites all. Sorry, Ayn Rand, for taking your term and spanking you with it.
____________
[1] Peter J. Wilson (1991) “The Domestication of the Human Species.” Yale University Press.
[2] If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?
discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
P.S. Morocco Bama, I think I just described Leftist collectivists—and capitalists—better than ol’ Ted.
November 8th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Alice is hot, and I’m so venal,* so I don’t mind being stuck, MB.
Thanks for the link.
Etymological lesson #2 for the day:
Food and Sex are the two most important things to guys.
venery (L. veneri): “practice or sport of hunting, the chase”
venial, venus: chasing sex
venerate, venison: chasing food
November 8th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Morocco Bama, since you’re so keen on what my husband’s views are, why don’t you ask him? Your research should yield his email address easily. Although, really, I must chide you for sloppy research; he’s not a professor.
I have nothing to hide from those close to me.
You’ll note, also, that I use my full, real name when I write here or elsewhere. It’s not hard for friends or acquaintances to know my views. You like to talk a lot about “honesty.” That’s part of how I practice it. I don’t see you following suit.
November 8th, 2012 at 7:16 pm
.
Morocco Bama, since you’re so keen on what my husband’s views are, why don’t you ask him?
I’m not keen on his views. I merely asked if he was aware of your views and shared your views. I share my views with my wife, and for the most part, we are of one mind with some nuanced differences. And I discuss my views with my children, and my wife and I discuss what’s discussed on this blog…including the Group Dynamic of which I am speaking.
I have nothing to hide from those close to me.
So you tell them they are immoral to their faces?
You’ll note, also, that I use my full, real name when I write here or elsewhere. It’s not hard for friends or acquaintances to know my views.
Are we speaking of the friends who are in the process of forming their families or planning to have children who are not aware? That’s a get out of jail free card for your friends so they can have their children and not be labeled immoral, if you ask me. If they’re your friends and you have nothing to hide, then they have to be aware, and by virtue of that, and by virtue of your tacit approval of Kathy C’s reprobative chastisement of all those who conceive a child that are aware of the prospect of extinction, they are therefore immoral and should be brought before the council here and denounced as evil before having their procreative organs mutilated. I think you’re hiding that from them.
You like to talk a lot about “honesty.” That’s part of how I practice it. I don’t see you following suit.
By what logic is giving my full name honest, or dishonest? Using that logic, Barack Obama, or any politician for that matter, is honest because they give their full name. Sorry, doesn’t hold. I am my words and actions. You are your words and actions. Names are irrelevant, and in fact, a case can be made that it’s not honesty that prompts you to use your full name, but rather vanity that does. But just to be honest with you, since now you believe I am not, the main reason I don’t use my name is paranoia, founded or unfounded.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
You seem to be ignoring the fact that I’m not labeling anyone as immoral for having children.
Providing one’s full name is honest because it puts your real, live reputation on the line. Since when is it vanity to use one’s real name attached to one’s words? Do you think it’s glory I seek by posting here? How about everyone else here who uses their real name– is that driven by vanity? when a majority of those in the public consensus trance only view the discussions here as unfettered insanity?
You are free to be paranoid. No doubt there’s plenty of reason to be. I won’t begrudge you your paranoia.
November 8th, 2012 at 8:27 pm
.
Since when is it vanity to use one’s real name attached to one’s words?
Seriously? You’re serious with this question? We live in a System where writers strive to make a name for themselves…..gain a reputation, so they can make lots of dough and buy lots of nice things and have status and popularity. That’s when.
You are free to be paranoid. No doubt there’s plenty of reason to be. I won’t begrudge you your paranoia.
How about a third child? Will you begrudge me that if my wife and I chose to have one?
Providing one’s full name is honest because it puts your real, live reputation on the line.
And now you’re proving my earlier point about reputation, what it means in this System, and how it can compromise intellectual honesty and free discussion. Your real name in this context is a ball and chain preventing you from being free and open…because you’ll be guarding your reputation. I believe that, in theory and in practice, but I also believe that most of the people you know IRL won’t visit this faraway place in the corner of cyberspace, so even if you do use your full name here, it will go unnoticed. Considering that, it’s not about honesty or dishonesty, but I’ll take you at your word that it isn’t your intent to be about vanity, but if you consider what I just mentioned, in effect, it is.
You are free to be paranoid.
Thanks. Is this a permanent freedom I’m being granted, or is it just a furlough?
.
November 8th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Morocco Bama
the main reason I don’t use my name is paranoia, founded or unfounded
Could I ask what you are paranoid about?
November 8th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Morocco Bama and Ivy Mike, I haven’t been able to check in much over the last three days and now I finally get a chance and OMG! 50% of the posts are from you two! If we all just say “you’re right about absolutely everything, no matter what it is!”, will you just both shut the fuck up or will you simply argue with us about that too!!? If you’re so incredibly vain that you think everyone wants to read your contrary opinions about absolutely every other comment made here, why don’t you set up your own blog and see how many people flock to it. Maybe then you’ll discover just how many people are actually interested in what you have to say.
I’ll give you both credit for one thing: you’ve certainly made this blog about you and pretty much nothing else.
Sheesh!!
November 8th, 2012 at 8:49 pm
.
Could I ask what you are paranoid about?
I see you’re not using your full name either, so perhaps you can tell me. I think it’s obvious what one could be paranoid about by using their real name on the internet when they’re provocative and discussing controversial topics. Why take that risk at all when it’s really not necessary. Why is my real name important to you, or to Jennifer, or to anyone else here. How would it change your perspective of me, or what I say? Now, if you were a psycho freak, and wanted to track me down and do some form of harem to me and/or my family because I pissed you off with something I said on the internet, then wanting to know my name makes all the sense in the world.
.
November 8th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
FAKE feels intimidated and pulls a Linkin Park:
♫ SHUT UP WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU! ♪
It’s funny when a foo-foo poodle can’t run with the big dogs. Oh, they can get pretty nasty sounding. But it’s still just so damn funny.
“When you select against aggression, you get some surprising traits.”
~If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?
Discover Magazine | September 2010 issue
November 8th, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Sheesh!!
- The REAL Dr. House
Thanks. Context, content and concision count.
November 8th, 2012 at 10:16 pm
TRDH:
No Olfactory fatigue yet?
November 8th, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Robin Datta, No Olfactory fatigue yet?
You know, that’s the thing with olfactory fatigue – when you get a fresh whiff of something strong, it perks your nose right up.
November 8th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Morocco Bama
‘Intelectual honesty’….?
From behind an electronic curtain….?
Year what a load of crikey-that’s-a-full-of-fruit-dog-biscuit-shamefaced-bullfrog-arse-shutterbug-behive-self-talkin-half-hearted-down-in-the-pantry-rock-biter-silly-way-of-carping-on-about-a-sceance-smoke-filled-hamster-arse-filled-with-gerbals-waste-of-neurone-synapse-chemicals, don’t you know.
Such a waste of your talents….
What intellectual honesty?
And your little justification to Jenifer Hartley about how you are so credulous to yourself, well great, be credulous to yourself, and debate you intelectual integrity with yourself all you like, but when peers…eh..hem….sorry, you are in a class of your own…I mean other posters come to conclude you are a spoiler with little intelectual honesty, then call yourelf a king in a nutshell for all it is worth.
So serious about your integrity, when you have lost your humanity, at least as an anonymous discussion forum contributor that is.
Trolls and Shills are encouraged by their supervisors to be honest about their views, just not all their views and identity. That way they can freely trash others with ‘intelectual honesty’, self defined of course, and feel OK about it. It is just that it is all ‘on mission’.
I will tell you why I don’t put up my real name here. It is because I plan a series of political and civil disobedience acts, nothing illegal to be clear, and I want to protect my family from any recriminations.
Those acts involve the common good, and I have some chance of them being construed by TPTB as a challenge, and that could get tricky.
It is still unkown how it will pan out.
I am willing to risk my safety, public reputation, and life if comes to that. Posting here, and dealing with the well organised disruption to this discussion forum, or comments pages, is good background for me as to how to deal with such menacing possibilities in the future.
And for the record, just because I can see the pattern of your posts, their combative and selective aggression, their outright dismissal of others greater personalities and talents and worth, just from comments that are later given by you extended extreme meanings of which the poster never intended, then that does not mean I care what level of intellectual integrity anyone has here. I’m interested in what the problems in the climate really are, and how they can be remediated, or stopped.
All your twit twat about this emotive personal viewpoint hazing is obviously a diversion, and someone is paying for it, obviously.
Put up a real identity and you can claim some integrity, but not intellectual.
Your silly argument about intellectual integrity and not wanting to be subject to the coercive power of the group is so short sighted, it almost tidily fits the pajoritive meaning of the label ‘academic’ it is so nieve.
Who ever has that option?
Everyone is subject to the pressure of the grpup think, and while it is better to be free from the promptings of the group, you can be, with full disclosure, it is just you are too weak mentally to do so.
Some illusory independence lurks there in your identity, Morocco Bama, not subject to the dynamics of group discussion, even a degree of factionalism arising sends you scurrying for the corner named, ‘you not play fair’.
Grow up, learn to stand on your own two feet in a room with others doing the same.
What are you doing here on this site anyway – you are not contributing anything much at all except disruption, and division?
Your little hobby horse about others answering your demands for your questions, is so hypocritical. Everyone knows you avoid any critical questions, and still claim integrity – what a joke.
Clogg the pages….go on….be a sorry sod, waste you life.
Take the money.
No one listens much to you now except pedants like me just alerting newer readers to your tactics.
Kathy C is right, silence is the best option because you become crystal clear when you have no one to confront.
And now you will play the martyr……the group closing in….like a religion….
Oh please, do something constructive….clean your toilet or something.
Zip.
November 8th, 2012 at 11:10 pm
Morocco Bama
I’m not interested in your real name, only why you feel fear in using it. Being afraid of being tracked down by a psycho wanting to harm you or your family seems a very good reason to me and was what I suspected. As you say, pretty obvious really.
I don’t know why I started using Yorchichan and not my real name on NBL. Certainly it wasn’t for anonymity. Yorchichan was simply a name I invented for online poker, where very few use their real name. I don’t fear being tracked down by a psycho (I’m not in the US after all!) and my real name is Garry Hornby.
In case you are feeling paranoid at this very moment, I do not give my real name in order to trick you into giving up yours. I’m not against you or anyone else on this blog. I agree with much of what you write, but forgive me if I don’t spring to your defense at every opportunity: I only want to comment when I have the time and feel I can contribute or am sufficiently interested.
November 8th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
Kathy C
I had a similar experience with a family member, which I resolved by the same distance method.
For me it was instinctual, and as I did it, the politics of it bacame clear to me, and it was spot on.
If there was to be any real relationship between myself and the other, that other would have to feel the loss of the relationship, call it pain, and reflect as to why that might be. After some testing times, it worked, and we managed to have better relations, without any control or power issues thereafter.
But the key is to keep on track, not giving in, because if the other is not growing, and squirming, they pull out all the ald methods to try to elicit the old responses. That’s right, stay firm. It does work.
I suspect in Morocco Bama and Ivy Mike’s cases, there is no pain to bring on the self-reflective moment, because it is a payed job, without social consequences.
Planting some basil tomorrow.
BTW, I have put about 20 kg of wallaby/kangaroo poo,
(rehydrated with aprox 6 literes of human urine) into my compost heap, remixed it and it is steaming hot already.
That poo is something else, and it is free all around our home, and accross the street at the independent school.
Going over now to collect more…2 hour of poo meditation, and back stretching. Can’t think of anything better on an afternoon like this, with the hooting owl nowhere to be heard.
Any idea how long it takes for basil to sprout from seeds? It is warm enough now at night, no frosts, and about 15 degrees C at minimum.
Cheers.
November 9th, 2012 at 12:37 am
Going over now to collect more…
- OzMan
Wish you could do the same at NBL. :-p
November 9th, 2012 at 12:46 am
OzMan:
If you use desktop Windows, try this very small, free and effective program.
November 9th, 2012 at 3:22 am
Oz the wallaby poo sounds wonderful! Our oversize chicken flock gives us plenty too but we have to feed them to get them to poop.
Basil – I always sprout it inside in small pots. I don’t start too many things inside so I don’t bother with a greenhouse – I just keep them in and a bit warmer until they are up. Then I carry my seedlings outside each day and in at night.
Basil has some sort of coating that makes them sort of rise to the surface I have read. I think that outside that could cause them to move from where you planted them.
“Seed Germination Period
Basil seeds will germinate in soil in approximately 5 to 10 days, but can germinate in as few as 2 or 3 days” per http://herbgardening.com/growingbasil.htm
I think mine usually are about 4 to 5 days. It may vary according to variety of Basil as well. Since I save my own seed and have plenty, I put 5 or more seeds in each pot to guarantee success
November 9th, 2012 at 4:46 am
Robin Datta
I have a theory I have applied since I was a boy. It has several versions but it centres around the desire to avoid shit.
Those who avoid shit are faking it. If you are hyper-hygenic, avoiding shit and germs and dirt, you are cutting yourself off from an area of existence that is necessary to understand and accept.
This was reinforced for me when I travelled in Indonesia in my early Twenties, and had to confront the hygene differential of the cultures.
I also lived in a commune at the end of high school, and had to dig holes and squat to poo. That was enlightening, and I found it a better experience to squat, more natural.
So anyone avoiding shit, or decomposing media, or dirt or decay, has a serious problem. it may not manifest as a problem, but also this amay mean they miss out on an important aspect of existance.
Without the decomposers we would be gone. No decomposers, and no new nutrients etc. etc.
So I have never kept away from poo, dirt, filth, and smelly stuff. I have not , on the other hand gone overboard either, just accepted it as part of life.
As for the poo hanging around here, well, many hands make light work. I do my share.
November 9th, 2012 at 4:49 am
Kathy C
We have these new basil seed packets that have the seeds embedded in a round tissue paper media that decomposes, I plantd 5 of them in separate containers, but I think they are a gimmik, and I will have to get some normal ones. what a take.
Thanks for the tips.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:14 am
.
In case you are feeling paranoid at this very moment, I do not give my real name in order to trick you into giving up yours. I’m not against you or anyone else on this blog. I agree with much of what you write, but forgive me if I don’t spring to your defense at every opportunity: I only want to comment when I have the time and feel I can contribute or am sufficiently interested.
Thanks anyway, but I’m not feeling paranoid at this very moment. Let’s not forget, though, paranoia is not necessarily a negative thing, so long as it’s kept in check. If you treat it like a another sense, and prevent it from riding rough-shod over your critical thinking process, it is a beneficial ingredient in critical thinking, and certainly necessary for survival in this System.
You don’t have to spring to my defense at every opportunity. I don’t want you to do that. My interaction with you thus far indicates that you are an independent thinker who is impartial and objective. That’s what I call intellectually honest, and it’s refreshing to see around here. By the way, since you gave your name, I’ll give mine, I guess. Another reason I don’t use it, is because it’s not a very flattering name. It’s Victor Shakapopulis.
.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:24 am
.
Ozzie,
By virtue of your last post to me, I would say you are clearly insane. There are so many contradictions in that post, I can’t ferret all of them out, nor do I want to waste my life doing so. It used to be you would contradict yourself every other post, but now you’re doing it in the same post. You are not rational, and as much as I loathe the idea of these devices, I’d say you’re a candidate for a straight-jacket.
.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:27 am
.
As for the poo hanging around here, well, many hands make light work. I do my share.
You certainly do. My gawd you must eat all day long as witnessed by how much you poo around here. You’re a prodigious crapper. It’s impressive in all its noxious glory.
.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:44 am
Poodles gone coprophilic; wonders will never cease to amaze the noble wolf.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:52 am
Ozman, yep just get some ordinary seeds. And then let some flowering go on and save the seeds. I usually cut back flowering until I have all my pesto made and frozen. Or just let a few stalks flower right from the start. Cutting back the flowering encourages the leaves – but oh how the bees love the flowers. My husband makes the greatest pesto eggs!
However per http://www.americanmeadows.com/sweet-basil-seeds?crcat=ppc-15-00+product-listing-ads~Bulk+Pricing&crsource=adwords&crkw=Sweet+Basil+Seeds&gclid=CJ3Rlqj2wbMCFVBgMgodLHkAog the seeds can take 14 to 18 days to germinate – I don’t think mine have ever taken that long. Don’t toss the others yet, but pick up a pack of sweet basil seeds anyway. Should be the last year you have to buy it.
November 9th, 2012 at 6:09 am
When busybodies put their efforts into gardening, they once again become tolerable neighbors.
November 9th, 2012 at 6:59 am
Hairshirt Green
A hairshirt is an undergarment worn to induce discomfort, and thereby lead the wearer to spiritual purity, salvation, or atonement for sin.
Similarly, hairshirt environmentalism refers to the belief that denial of material comfort will lead to environmental sustainability.
Hairshirt-green is the simple-minded inverse of 20th-century consumerism. Like the New Age mystic echo of Judaeo-Christianity, hairshirt-green simply changes the polarity of the dominant culture, without truly challenging it in any effective way. It doesn’t do or say anything conceptually novel – nor is it practical, or a working path to a better life.
/wiki/Hairshirt_environmentalism
Source:
Acting Dead, Trading Up and Leaving the Middle Class
by Venkat
Ribbonfarm | December 8, 2011
ribbonfarm.com/2011/12/08/acting-dead-trading-up-and-leaving-the-middle-class/
I think I’ll wear my $1600 Italian silk blazer today while I prowl about; it’s proud regalia befitting a proud Injun chief. indianpridepbs.org
November 9th, 2012 at 7:13 am
Hus·band = House·bond·age
Hus·band·ry = House·bond·age·ry
“Help, help, I’m being repressed!” ~ Dennis the Annoying Peasant | Monty Python, The Holy Grail
November 9th, 2012 at 7:14 am
.
“Everyone be sure to get your flu shot.”
Jackie Gleason
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/flu-shot-myths-busted-195300844.html
.
November 9th, 2012 at 8:06 am
To most all of the regular posters but especially Jennifer and Kathy C.,
Please keep posting because I for one find what you have to contribute to be rational and interesting.Lately I have found it very effective to just scroll past all the unwanted “discussion”, similar to muting the television and reading about what this blog was intended for.
Thank you,
Carol
November 9th, 2012 at 8:27 am
what this blog was intended for
Was it ever intended for strident reproductive anti-choice rhetoric that parrots the other anti-choice fundamentalist zealots?
Funny how my identifying such authoritarian fanaticism is “unwanted.”
And has turned the conformity-bent into groupthinkery wise monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
November 9th, 2012 at 9:30 am
Victor Shakapopulis is a character in the film What’s New Pussycat, played by Woody Allen. Unlike MB, he’s got some funny lines.
November 9th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Carol, thanks
November 9th, 2012 at 10:16 am
One way the Internet can transition on the
way down (and out) is through packet radio.
Information on the Internet is sent and received in packets. The packets can be labelled with an address, an identifier for the message to which they belong, and their sequential position in the message. This allows individual packets to travel by different routes to arrive at the same address out of sequential order; the receiver can request missing or dropped packets until all of them are received. This method is independent of which transmitters or repeaters are up or down along the way. However it does require the capability to hold packets in temporary storage en route while awaiting transmission on the next leg of the journey to maximise use of transmitter time.
The volume of data transmitted will be microscopic by today’s standards, and will move slower than molasses in winter.
With packet radio, there will be a paucity of dedicated nodes of transmitter or repeater stations and limited ability to hold the data in intermediate locations en route. The bandwidth would be restricted to primitive levels. Yet barebones text-based bulletin board services, newsgroups and listservs could be maintained without semiconductor technology. Miniaturised vacuum tubes can be fabricated with basic glass-blowing technology. Magnetic tape and floppies may make a comeback. Manual procedures would replace software-based automation in message handling.
November 9th, 2012 at 10:17 am
Ivy Mike,
You are not the wolf.
You relate to community as wolves relate to prey species. From your Schleidt and Shalte quote: “The closest approximation to human morality we can find in nature is that of the gray wolf, Canis lupus…Wolves’ ability to cooperate in a variety of situations, not only in well coordinated drives in the context of attacking prey, carrying items too heavy for any one individual, provisioning not only their own young but also other pack members, baby sitting, etc., is rivaled only by that of human societies.”
Community=how a wolf pack works. A long way from your approach. Your approach is the approach wolves use to interact with prey species. Your posts show that you have no respect for pack (commenters at NBL generally) and instead wish only to establish yourself as a lone wolf (a predator living outside the bounds of community). As such, however, you risk being shunned by the community.
(Wikipedia)
Lone wolf=
“As an animal, a lone wolf is a wolf that lives independently rather than with others as a member of a pack. … lone wolves are typically older wolves driven from the pack. … Some wolves will simply remain lone wolves; as such, these lone wolves may be stronger, more aggressive and far more dangerous than the average wolf that is a member of a pack. However, lone wolves have difficulty hunting, as wolves’ favorite prey, large ungulates, are nearly impossible for a single wolf to bring down alone. Instead, lone wolves will generally hunt smaller animals and scavenge carrion.
As a person, “(i)n literature, lone wolves are aloof and emotionally unable or unwilling to directly interact with other characters in the story.”
Your incessant yapping at any thought or idea presented here, remind me of a neurotic toy poodle barking furiously, wetting its tail.
You are not the wolf.
Michael Irving
November 9th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Michael, you are not part of a wolf pack, you’re a leftist collectivist, rather more like a caged poodle. Wolf packs are not collectivist. You keep trying to conflate leftist collectivism with cooperation.
Leftists absolutely despise “autonomous and sovereign” individuals, which is how humans lived until the collectivism of civilization. Tribe and band life was not a leftist collective.
“Historically, people in non-state societies are relatively AUTONOMOUS and SOVEREIGN. They generate their own subsistence with little or no assistance from outside sources. They bow to no external political leaders. Nor are they routinely exploited by outsiders.”
~Elman R. Service (1975), Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. New York: Norton.
The exact same phrase Service used is buttressed by a more recent anthropological study of paleolithic band and tribal lifeways that goes against your Leftist collectivist idealism:
“…AUTONOMOUS and SOVEREIGN…”
~Boehm, Christopher. (1999) Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Your Leftist collectivism is just another hell of Civilization, appealing only to oversocialized and foo-foo domesticated poodles who couldn’t survive a month in the wild.
“[I]f we aspire to break the bonds domestication has laid on us, stop being dogs, and become wolves again. ~anthropologist Jason Godesky, Wolves & Dogs | November 13, 2006
HOMO HOMINI LUPUS. ~Plautus (195 BCE)
November 9th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Kathy C
In her biography on Voltaire, Hall wrote the phrase: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (which is often misattributed to Voltaire himself) as an illustration of Voltaire’s beliefs.
Voltaire himself was imprisoned in the Bastille under a lettre de cachet from Louis XV before his exile to England. Some folks who rabidly attempt suppressing expression of opinions and ideas would do the same today. Listen for the howling.
November 9th, 2012 at 10:49 am
Report published today in the journal Science by two researchers from the National Center For Atmospheric Research, J. Fasullo and K. Trenberth.
A November 9, 2012 report from the National Center For Atmospheric Research finds that the highest predictions of earth warming are still too low, according to new methods of modelling of cloud cover in the tropics (Fasullo & Trenberth, 2012). (The report predicts 8 degrees C of warming by 2100 and still does not consider the positive feedback of Arctic methane.)
Fasullo, J.T., & Trenberth, K.E. (2012). Climate change: Constraining cloud feedbacks. Science, 338(6108) 755-756. DOI: 10.1126/science.1231083
Summary at the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/warmer-still-extreme-climate-predictions-appear-most-accurate-study-says/2012/11/08/ebd075c6-29c7-11e2-96b6-8e6a7524553f_story.html
Catastrophic scenarios are being published in response to this new bit of data in several places online today.
November 9th, 2012 at 10:54 am
You are not the wolf. – Michael Irving
Appreciate your insight.
November 9th, 2012 at 10:57 am
West Nile virus is mutating and causing more brain damage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hints-of-a-more-virulent-mutating-west-nile-virus-emerge/2012/11/08/75e37776-2523-11e2-9313-3c7f59038d93_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop
2012 was the worst year ever for West Nile in the U.S. and Canada.
November 9th, 2012 at 11:02 am
RE: packet radio
Robin, go for it! I have my Extra class Amateur Radio license, 12v system powering HF/VHF/UHF rigs, laptop running WINPAC. I specialize in NVIS (cloud-burner), which doesn’t win DX contests, but suits the military well enough, for the same reason it suits me: I can cover a circular region up to 500 miles from my transmitter without skip.
Fact is, I’m on the radio right now, and got the computer here to mess with while I scan for CQs, and having a ball of fun rag-chewing. Scan 160/80/40 meters, see if you can recognize me.
Maybe I should get a vanity call sign like K9WOLF.
Q-R-Zed
November 9th, 2012 at 11:05 am
The report predicts 8 degrees C of warming by 2100 and still does not consider the positive feedback of Arctic methane. BC Nurse Prof
Thanks for the link. Exponential increase in gloom & doom?
November 9th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Robin, my superior wit doesn’t suppress your ability to hit the “submit comment” button. Or are your hands shaking too much from bitter anger?
“I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.” ~HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
November 9th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Robin said: “Listen for the howling.”
Or the yipping.
November 9th, 2012 at 11:29 am
Short a lettre de cachet, lat nothing mute expression.
November 9th, 2012 at 11:58 am
Robin, yes, exponential increase in doom & gloom. Last Friday I told my class all the evidence for total collapse of life on earth by mid-century. They were stunned. One said, “I should just off myself right now.” Since I have not seen an email from our university president that another of our students has died, I assume she didn’t do that. Another student said, “Every week you get more depressing! I don’t know what to do!” and another answered, “Don’t have kids, for a start.” and the mood lightened up for a bit.
At least they can’t say they weren’t warned, now. I have no idea how they will react, or how their thinking will evolve over time, but I have a few more weeks left to help them deal with it. Some students were right there already, quoting Jared Diamond, thinking about what a career in nursing would actually look like in a few years, etc. I’ll have to enlist their help to bring the others up to speed. There will be lots of things for them to learn as the system collapses. Triage might be the most important.
November 9th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
BC nurse – thanks for the links. At least if one is going to be gloomy about the future its helpful to have the facts on the ground start to prove you right. It would be nicer to be proved wrong but at this point we take whatever we can get
you wrote ““Every week you get more depressing! I don’t know what to do!” and another answered, “Don’t have kids, for a start.” and the mood lightened up for a bit.”
Amazing, some people get what I am saying right off the bat! Give that student an A….
If you want to teach your students about triage, I recommend the movie Triage – it illustrates triage in the extreme and will make ordinary triage more palatable. If you don’t mind a plot spoiler you can check out the wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage_(film) if you do mind a plot spoiler you can find it on imdb dot com
November 9th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
“get what I am saying”
Without your extremist anti-choice rhetoric that turns reproductive choice into criminal child abuse—that you parrot from the other anti-choice fundamentalists—any reproductive choice made with good information suits me fine.
November 9th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
.
Ivy Mike,
You’ll get a kick out of this. TRDH posted it in Jennifer’s Part 2 essay on homeschooling in response to a poster who said the following:
Publicly Schooled Says:
July 9th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Librarian,
I’m starting to think you’re just a troll/butt-in-ski. Given that you responded to some of my earlier comments, I’m going to assume that you know that I know that Jennifer has just one child. So, my use of the word “children” would indicate that I’m, indeed, not addressing Jennifer here. And your disambiguation of my usage of “advocating” is nit-picking, at best, since you obviously understand its gist (context is key).
My comments aren’t personal. I’m just trying to offer a viewpoint that stands in contrast with what could be construed as advocacy for home schooling — though that isn’t necessarily the original article’s intent, some later comments certainly steered the discussion that direction.
There’s a great tendency of frequent contributors to this site to agree with one another, seemingly for community’s sake. It can come off as a cult mentality. It’s OK to have different takes on issues, and not be compelled to “come to the aid” of another regular contributor, who happens to be losing a sub-debate (or has left the debate altogether). And denigrating dissent with subjective labels like “hierarchical” and non-”anarchist” smells a bit desperate.
I’m a man, by the way. Not that it matters much.
This is the response from TRDH. Not the bold. Glaringly transparent hypocrisy at it s finest.
The REAL Dr. House Says:
July 9th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
It’s true that many frequent contributors here agree. I really think that’s part of the attraction we have to this site. It’s nice to encounter something other than ridicule and disdain for a change.
That being said, if you read closely, you’ll find that there is frequent dissent among regular contributors, and even with Dr. McPherson. Perhaps it’s not evident because when we discuss things, we try to respect one another and stick to the substance of the issues. Most do our best to support what we say with facts. In short, we debate the issues, not the character of the commenter.
Maybe we do tend to “police” things a bit much, particularly when someone new joins the discussion and isn’t yet aware that we have some unwritten “suggestions” of conduct here. In my opinion, this has led to one of the better sites on the internet with respect to intelligent discussion. The comments section on many other sites quickly devolves into a mud slinging contest. Personally, I don’t have time nor desire to be bothered with such nonsense. That’s why I come here.
I would encourage anyone and everyone who has something to say, please to do so. We may not agree, and we may debate – vigorously – but most will do so in a way that doesn’t make you feel like crap when you read the responses.
To be clear, I’m speaking on my own self-anointed authority. So take what I say with a grain of salt. I have no more say so here than any of the other commenters. As Robin pointed out, it’s Guy’s sandbox.
.
November 9th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
With any action a qualifying adverb is at least as important as the verb. As, constructively criticising modifies the act of criticism. How something is done makes a difference to what is done.
November 9th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Just like rape isn’t about sex, but about the feeling of power over vulnerable; the gleeful doom and gloom isn’t just about information, it’s about the power trip over people.
These are the words of somebody enjoying a power-trip:
“I have not seen an email from our university president that another of our students has died, I assume she didn’t do that.” ~BC “Nurse Ratched” Prof
That flippant “concern” is callously cold, from a hag of hell whose only pleasure is inflicting pain—even thoughts of suicide—on students.
Would the Nursing Board consider suchemotional abuse within your scope of practice, BC?
November 9th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Hey FAKE Dr. House, of “we debate the issues” fame.
Can we discuss the issue of SCOPE OF PRACTICE, as it relates to emotionally abusing people into suicidal thoughts with flippant disregard for their immediate well-being?
November 9th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
In loco parentis (Latin for “in the place of a parent”)
Yet another issue.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I’m too weary to yell this time.
What, may I ask, is wrong with all of you? I used to be able to come to this website and have peaceful and enriching discussions, and now all anyone seems to know how to do is insult each other.
I don’t get it. Are we under new management or something, and I didn’t get the memo?
November 9th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Liberian, Its the same site, it just has gotten merged with an alien site. All you have to do is page down until you find someone who has something of interest to read and pretend that the rest is written in an alien language and don’t read it. Maybe they will go away, if not we will just get plenty of use of the scroll bar or page down key. It has been suggested that they are paid trolls, hired to disrupt the site. If so it would be a terrible thing to let them win. The way the rest of us can win is to never respond to anything they write no matter how effectively they try to hook us into a battle. Paid or not they are pretty good at hooking people in. DON’T LET THEM WIN. Ignore them.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Librarian, are you that guy in Office Space with all the people skills?
I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people? ~Tom Smykowski (Office Space, 1999)
People Skills – Office Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGS2tKQhdhY
LOL! Anyway, I bring up real issues nobody much wants to address. But the self-congratulatory soirée was boring anyway.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
The epitome of intellectual bankruptcy: “The way the rest of us can win is to never respond to anything they write”
November 9th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Kathy C = FOX NEWS CHANNEL integrity
“It has been suggested that they are…” ~Kathy C
OUTFOXED: Fox News technique: “some people say” How to get away with telling lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYA9ufivbDw
It has been suggested that some people say Kathy C is a FOX NEWS CHANNEL fan! Yeah, baby!
November 9th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
BC Nurse Prof, One said, “I should just off myself right now.” Since I have not seen an email from our university president that another of our students has died, I assume she didn’t do that. Another student said, “Every week you get more depressing!
Should we withhold information because someone might decide to take an action which we or society at large might disagree or find distressful? I seem to recall a rather spirited discussion here some months ago in which suicide was the off-topic topic. A poster was very agitated by some of what was being discussed because he thought that young people and children shouldn’t be told the truth about collapse since it might cause them to commit suicide. I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think he mentioned that someone he knew had committed suicide recently.
Discussing depressing topics with someone who is suicidal would likely contribute to their thoughts of suicide, but not discussing a topic simply because one is afraid how anyone hearing it might react is impractical and probably impossible.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone reading this blog decided to commit suicide – after all, we frequently discuss death and the end of life as we know it. Those are pretty heavy topics. However, it would surprise me greatly if I found out that that same person had no thoughts of suicide prior to reading this blog.
In that same vein, if someone reading this blog did commit suicide, would that be sufficient reason for Guy to shut it down? I certainly don’t think so.
As a physician, I never withhold anything from my patients concerning their health. First, it’s their health we’re discussing, I don’t have a right not to share what I know with them. Second, how can a person make a decision about the future if they don’t have the information they need? In my opinion, that is unethical. Presentation is important, of course, so whether my news is good or bad, I do my best to deliver it professionally and with compassion.
November 9th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
FAKE, if one of your patients expresses Suicidal Ideation based on your conversation with them, do you give a single fuck for their safety within your SCOPE OF PRACTICE?
My, my, how these weasels dodge and weave!
“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.” ~Homer Simpson
November 9th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Make of this whatever you will…
11. Why all the secrecy?
Due to the severity of the situation it is mandatory to maintain public calm for as long as possible. The Earth is dying. Humanity is on the road to extinction – without the Shield mankind will die off with in 20 to 50 years. Most people alive today could live to see this extinction take place. This means that an announcement of the situation we face boils down to telling every man, woman and child on earth that they have no future, they are going to be killed. People would panic. There would be economic collapse, the production and movement of goods would collapse. Millions would die in all cities on earth, riots and violence would reduce civilian centers to rubble within days. Half of the population in dense metropolitan areas would try to leave the cities seeking ‘safety’ in the rural areas thinking that they would be safe. Those left behind in the cities would be at war with their neighbors, fighting for the remaining supplies. We would be telling the world that the world is coming to an end, and even with the Shield the chances of survival are small.
http://www.holmestead.ca/chemtrails/shieldproject.html
November 9th, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Health care “professionals” boasting online how they can induce Suicidal Ideation, and then sit back and watch how successful they were.
That’s pure psychopathic. Zero empathy.
“Extinction ethics” seems to be a pretext for pissing on any modicum of “scope of practice.”
November 9th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Iatrogenic Suicidal Ideation
Discuss.
November 9th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” (Carl Sagan)
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” (André Gide)
I’m pretty certain somebody who used to comment in this space committed suicide. S/he commented here about doing so, and I engaged him/her via email for a couple weeks. Then s/he vanished. I do not hold myself or this website responsible, and I think I acted responsibly.
November 9th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
TRDH & BC Nurse Prof: I have seen folks with mets with what I would call Dalmatian liver on CT who were under the care of oncology but were not aware of a truncated life expectancy. People will hear what they want to hear when the reptilian brain is dominant. Those who get the message will process in in various ways. Some among them will “seize the day”. Some may seize. And then there are those who might cease and decease.
November 9th, 2012 at 7:19 pm
1. When one is receiving pay as a nursing professor and abdicates that responsibility in favor of personal agendas, that’s dereliction of duty. Who wants a new nurse in the hospital taking care of your ill mother who says: “No, I didn’t have time to learn how to insert your IV safely, but hey, ya’ll’r gonna die anyway soon, suckaz.”
2. Health care professionals work under a scope of practice. How does boasting online about Iatrogenic Suicidal Ideation fall under any Scope of Practice?
November 9th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Iatrogenic Suicidal Ideation. Is it client abuse?
“…client abuse — physical, emotional, and sexual — constitutes unprofessional conduct…” ~The Registered Nurse as PATIENT ADVOCATE, California Board of Registered Nursing
“ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY for self for individual nursing action, competence and behavior is a component of practice shared by LPNs and RNs.” ~RN Scope of Practice, North Carolina Board of Nursing
Environmental science professors are excluded.
November 9th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
Robin Datta, you’re right, of course. As we’ve discussed before, we are all in varying stages of denial from time to time.
November 9th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
The weasels here dishonestly accuse people of “denial” as much as church ladies accuse you of being “angry with god.”
All to avoid discussing any real issues. Now that takes a REAL Weasel.
November 9th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Does just the mention of Iatrogenic Suicidal Ideation and Scope of Practice have you feeling uncomfortable?
4 out of 5 doctors prescribe Denyitol® for occasional relief of disagreeable debate topics.
November 9th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
.
Ivy Mike,
You are correct. What you have noted is exactly my impression and reaction when I read BC Nurse Prof’s post…..and neither of us is alone in that reaction. My wife read it and also agrees….and her background and education are in Psychology and Counseling.
.
November 9th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
MB,
Nurse Ratched’s depiction reminds me of Ayn Rand’s callous style. Just that fucking cold.
What nursing college would piss good money away on her fraudulent “services” anyway? Promote your personal agenda on your own time. Except “extinction ethics” is just a pretext for the suspension of ethics, so why not rip off nursing students of what they’re paying for too?
Again, I don’t deny any of the science (which is always the peanut gallery’s false accusation); it’s the sadistic glee with which the hags of hell (Shakespeare, Hen.VI) try to control people and hurt people with their zealotry that is disturbing.
Hey, “The Net” was fabulous. Thanks for that link.
November 9th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
BC Nurse Prof, thank you for being truthful to your students and standing up to silence and lies.
Coping mentally and emotionally is difficult. I don’t agree that it’s better to keep people ignorant and “protected.” That’s not protection. That’s maintaining the gears of empire.
One thing I’ve been forced to learn about suicide is that the ultimate responsibility for that death rests in the hands of the one who commits suicide. Are there external influences? Yes. Should we have compassion for those who are suicidal and try to help them/us? Of course. But it’s not the truth-tellers causing suicide; it’s the situation they’re telling the truth about, both the global situation and the personal one, and deep down, everyone knows that truth already.
Guy, I was wondering about that commenter. Thank you for engaging him/her in conversation. I’m sure you were both truthful and compassionate.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:38 am
Interesting collection of comments here, like a loud party with everyone talking at once including a few who choose to be belligerent and attack everyone else just for the sake of attacking. It’s quite disjointed, but there are common threads being woven together and a common concern about the future or lack thereof.
Thank you Jen for the NY homeschooling link; unfortunately it seems the only group in my area is one of the Christian-only homeschooling groups and I’d probobly not fit into their agenda. Still I appreciate the link and will probably look into some of the other groups on that page. There are a lot of resources out there. Who knows how long the Internet will even exist for us “common people,” so we should take advantage of it while we can. (I still like real books and tangible paper documentation, so if we do lose the amenities of the modern world I’ve got quite a library to share with local people who might be interested. And who knows, maybe it will miraculously survive to provide clues to alien archaeologists who happen upon our planet in the distant future, so all is not lost.)
Kathy C — thanks for the basil gardening guide link!
An thank you Robin Datta for your logical perspective on the purpose of all of this commentary. The future continues to unfold, and everyone is helping to unfold it at his or her own pace. It’s like a never-ending, always-changing fractal pattern, with each person changing it in one way or another.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:45 am
If knowledge that we are going to all die causes people to commit suicide, then we would all commit suicide because we are all going to die whether or not changing climate makes humans go extinct. We are mortals.
If all the fish in the sea knew that their whole life was going to be eating others until they are eaten, would they beach themselves and get it over with? Our big brain lets us know our mortality, while other species are saved that burden. Thus the programs of death denial are necessarily quite strong.
Even when life turns into a living hell as it has by the actions of the US in many countries, most people don’t commit suicide. Anyone who does so at this point because of hearing about peak oil and peak climate probably would have done so anyway.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:16 am
Kathy C
Please spare me your sophomoric ramblings about suicide. You don’t understand the subject, as your ruminations, which read like a high school essay, make clear. Your “just so” intellectual crocheting strongly suggests you have little experience of suicidal thoughts and that you are a “normy,” one who has sailed serenely across the lake of melancholy, your sails filled with the flatulence of complacent self-regard, your matronly breasts billowing before you.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:38 am
Comparing to Ukraine, the ratio of healthy children in Saitama will be only 6% by 2033
Posted by Mochizuki on November 9th, 2012 · 3 Comments
Mr. Kowaka, the chairman of NPO Safety of our foods and life analyzes the contamination situation of Saitama city is the same as Ukraine from the field research conducted from 9/24 to 10/4/2012.
In Ukraina, the ratio of healthy children was 22% in 1992, and it dropped to be 6% in 2008, when 22 years have passed. The ratio of children with chronic malady increased from 20% to 78%.
rest at
http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/comparing-to-ukraine-the-ratio-of-healthy-children-in-saitama-will-be-only-6-by-2033/
November 10th, 2012 at 5:18 am
September 12th, 2012
‘Entire state up for grabs in coal seam gas and mining rules’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/entire-state-up-for-grabs-in-coal-seam-gas-and-mining-rules-20120911-25qnj.html
And now,
November 10th 2012
‘Coal seam gas plan will put 66 wells in south-west’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/coal-seam-gas-plan-will-put-66-wells-in-southwest-20121109-293b4.html
Do I really need to post anything from them, we all seem to be aware of the consequences?
November 10th, 2012 at 5:22 am
I don’t agree that it’s better to keep people ignorant and “protected” either. I just don’t agree with cold sadism.
BC is a sadist.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:27 am
“read like a high school essay”
• “you are a ‘normy’”
• sails filled with the flatulence
Do you talk about yourself like that all day, hag of hell?
Kathy C brays like FOX NEWS CHANNEL.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:40 am
“matronly breasts billowing”
Kathy C obviously hates any normal reproductive female functioning and…breasts. Breasts? Breasts!
Get this shriveled prune some oxytocin, stat!
A Love Drug? Oxytocin Hormone Makes Mothers Kinder
ABC News | Jan. 11, 2012
November 10th, 2012 at 5:57 am
Ivy Mike
A new low, even for you.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:57 am
Martin, you are dead wrong on that one.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:12 am
Braying against breasts (by Kathy C) is a new low, OzMan. But typical of the hags of hell, who bellow against any normal female reproductive traits.
I wonder if she’s against a normally functioning amygdala too.
“Those with a larger amygdala are also thought to experience and express more empathy, perhaps explaining why one of the features of psychopathy is a smaller amygdala…conservatives have a larger amygdala.” ~Discover magazine, Your Brain on Politics
November 10th, 2012 at 6:14 am
Oh, I apologize, Kathy C, it’s Martin braying against breasts. LOL! my bad
November 10th, 2012 at 6:37 am
Got Envy? A functional amygdala: the difference between Leftist and “normals.”
By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism. ~the environmental extremist, Feelings of inferiority, Industrial Society and Its Future
November 10th, 2012 at 6:49 am
On the subject of breasts – There is a book out “Dressed to Kill: The Link between Breast Cancer and Bras”
which per Amazon
Presents evidence supporting the authors’ theory that bras suppress the lymphatic system, causing toxins to accumulate in the tissues of the breasts, leading to a variety of health problems.
I am in the belief that breasts should be freed from the captivity of bras.
I don’t even own a bra anymore. Haven’t for years.
http://www.amazon.com/Dressed-Kill-between-Breast-Cancer/dp/1930858051/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352555041&sr=1-2&keywords=dressed+to+kill
November 10th, 2012 at 7:05 am
.
Please spare me your sophomoric ramblings about suicide. You don’t understand the subject, as your ruminations, which read like a high school essay, make clear. Your “just so” intellectual crocheting strongly suggests you have little experience of suicidal thoughts and that you are a “normy,” one who has sailed serenely across the lake of melancholy, your sails filled with the flatulence of complacent self-regard, your matronly breasts billowing before you.
Unlike you, I will be intellectually honest and give credit where credit is due. This is one of the most poetic and eloquent rebuttals I have ever come across. What beautiful use of the English language.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:23 am
.
Can’t you just feel the love of which Ozzie speaks? This from the thread posted by Guy a while back entitled We’re Done:
OZ man Says:
June 22nd, 2012 at 10:06 am
I suggest we be honest with ourselves as it comes, and strive to choose Love as a way of acting in the face of certain death.
Now, juxtaposing Ozzie’s statement above with his recent comments about his fascination with, and love of poo, a mental picture takes shape, and the video link reflects it nicely. Ozzie as Ginger.
Those who avoid shit are faking it. If you are hyper-hygenic, avoiding shit and germs and dirt, you are cutting yourself off from an area of existence that is necessary to understand and accept.
This was reinforced for me when I travelled in Indonesia in my early Twenties, and had to confront the hygene differential of the cultures.
I also lived in a commune at the end of high school, and had to dig holes and squat to poo. That was enlightening, and I found it a better experience to squat, more natural.
So anyone avoiding shit, or decomposing media, or dirt or decay, has a serious problem. it may not manifest as a problem, but also this amay mean they miss out on an important aspect of existance.
Without the decomposers we would be gone. No decomposers, and no new nutrients etc. etc.
So I have never kept away from poo, dirt, filth, and smelly stuff. I have not , on the other hand gone overboard either, just accepted it as part of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g03ScuSBhuw&feature=related
.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:02 am
Well, Kathy C, wrong I may be, but your emotional unavailability is there for all to see. And, if I am wrong about that too, I will be gracious and accept a simple denial from you.
But let me make a general observation: for a long time this blog commentary has been dominated by emotionally remote people, of which Robin Datta is the most egregious example, and now that emotionally available people such as Morocco Bama, unhinged though he may be, and Ivy Mike, and the venerable ulvfugl, whom I hope will continue to comment here, are in the ascendant, there is grumbling in the wainscoting.
You, Kathy C, have said to just ignore the aforementioned. If that isn’t the last resort of an emotionally unavailable person …
And Librarian, last of the progressives, making a plea for no insults. Here’s the thing, Librarian. It’s only an insult if it isn’t true. The other category of insult, peddled by you and the rest of you PC shills, applies to the world that is already history, that experiment against reality when disparate peoples pretended to like each other so long as money was changing hands.
It’s time for a reckoning.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:05 am
MB: notice how both the Left and Right cherrypick certain risks to civilization:
/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans,_and_planet_Earth
4.1.1 Warfare and mass destruction
4.1.3 Climate change and ecology
Why emphasize just one and ignorantly mock others? Both sides do just that!
It’s because the science isn’t the issue; it’s a control/power issue.
The Right attempts control society through fear of war. The Left attempts to control society through fear of nature. But the science issues are secondary to the sociopolitical issues.
• Is Newt Gingrich’s EMP Doomsday a Reality?
• Could Methane Trigger a Climate Doomsday?
Fear is a social tool of manipulation both Left and Right use.
Fear is one of the most important mechanisms through which “the structures of society are transmitted to individual psychological functions.”
~Norbert Elias (1982) State Formation and Civilization: The Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:18 am
Would BC “Prof” be upset if a teaching colleague harped all day to students about nuclear war/EMP triage from a Newt Gingrich viewpoint?
The science is undeniable.
Broad, William J. (5 June 1981) “Nuclear Pulse (II): Ensuring Delivery of the Doomsday Signal”, Science. 212: 1116–1120
Ross, Lenard H., Jr. and Mihelic, F. Matthew, (November/December 2008.) “Healthcare Vulnerabilities to Electromagnetic Pulse,” American Journal of Disaster Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 321–325.
Nursing professors belaboring a single risk to garner political power through fear are professionally derelict.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:28 am
The problem, Martin Knight, is that it ISN’T true.
You’re making claims for which you provide no substance, most of them portraying us in the most negative light possible. That is insulting behavior.
Then you attempt to rationalize your behavior by calling politeness unnatural to humanity, and accusing other people of being “unavailable.”
I really don’t think learning some graciousness on your part, or giving people the “benefit of the doubt” unless you have evidence of their guilt, is uncalled for here.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:33 am
.
Sometimes I feel something like the following is operating behind the scenes….because, at the moment, it’s the best fit. Not everyone is involved, and it doesn’t even have to be Guy who is involved, but his blog could have been hijacked for gaming purposes, and, what if the goal of the game is to get people to off themselves…as though they were pseudo avatars but with real life, unwitting people. Remember Blake & Duncan? They were involved in the ARG world, and where are they now?
http://kotaku.com/5904831/this-alternate-reality-game-lets-players-control-real-people
I know, I know…paranoia. It can be your friend, or your deep destroyer. But think MK Ultra meets the Internet. That’s a chilling concept.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:37 am
.
and now that emotionally available people such as Morocco Bama, unhinged though he may be
Flattery will get you nowhere, Martin. It’s the greatest compliment you could have given me. Thanks, you softy. See, you really aren’t a meanie, afterall. Those docs know jack shit (calling Ozzie for cleanup in aisle four) about you.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:42 am
Librarian Says: “The problem, Martin Knight, is that it ISN’T true.”
Martin Knight Says: “You, Kathy C, have said to just ignore the aforementioned. If that isn’t the last resort of an emotionally unavailable person…”
Kathy C Says: “…I’ve been ignoring…Refusing to respond is the only way to win…ignore…” (November 8th, 2012 at 11:14 am)
Apologize to Martin Knight immediately, Librarian, for your mistake. Or was it a deliberate lie?
November 10th, 2012 at 8:44 am
Martin Knight : …and the venerable ulvfugl, whom I hope will continue to comment here……have said to just ignore the aforementioned. If that isn’t the last resort of an emotionally unavailable person …..
If it says Morocco Obama, I do not read it. If it says Ivy Mike, I do not read it.
Nothing to do with being ‘emotionally unavailable’, just that I’m not interested in reading crap, anymore than deliberately stepping in it. Time is precious. There’s plenty of interesting valuable stuff always waiting in the queue to be read elsewhere.
When the infantile idiot trolls write most of the comments, it becomes a waste of time coming to this blog at all. Not that it matters, really. As Guy’s comment, it’s all been said. Each individual has to work out their own response.
This blog could be a good helpful resource for people, but as things are, Morocco Bama and Ivy Mike force all other topics off the page, every day, so as to make their own vanity and narcissistic stupidity the main feature. Such kindergarten level garbage is no use to anyone, not even them.
Btw, quite how anyone can be considered ‘emotionally available or unavailable’ when all there is is text on a screen, I fail to see. Seems like a ridiculous idea to me.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Ivy Mike, you misunderstood my argument.
I didn’t say Kathy wasn’t ignoring people. I said she wasn’t emotionally unavailable. They are not the same thing. That’s what I said Martin Knight got wrong, not whether or not she ignores people.
Kathy is only “unavailable” to people who refuse to be respectful of others.
I don’t tell lies, Ivy Mike, and I don’t appreciate unsubstantiated accusations.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:48 am
.
Ivy Mike,
So true and spot on about fear, and it operates on many levels, both consciously, and unconsciously. Take the Group Dynamics at play in the comments section here. As meaningless as this space is in the grand scheme of things, it underscores the immense power of Group Dynamics and the hold it has on people. Even a small, rather insignificant group like this that has coalesced, holds power over naive and unwitting people. The fear of social ostracization and isolation compels most people who post here to conform to the unofficial rules that have developed, and so, intellectual dishonesty and censorship take hold and flourish because challenges to the status quo are met with violent and vitriolic attack. It’s pathetic, but there it is. Predictable. You can be sure it will be met with more “talk to the hand.”
.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:55 am
Morocco Bama, excuse me, that is an inaccurate portrayal of the situation.
We are not responding negatively because your opinion differs. We are responding negatively because you are constantly disrespectful of everyone else, attacking and insulting them.
It’s basic human decency that’s the issue here, not conformity of opinion. You can’t expect to have the privilege of speaking your mind in a group if you seek to hurt others for speaking their minds. Most groups would ask you to leave for being rude, and independence of opinion has nothing to do with it.
Furthermore, I have to confess I’m becoming very frustrated. What is it going to take? Is having manners actually that alien of a concept? How often do I have to explain “be respectful of others with whom you disagree” before you’ll understand the concept? You have the right to disagree with others, but if you attack people using ad hominem arguments, you are being unreasonable.
Now do you get it? I did not attack you, you attacked everyone else at this website. That I am scolding you for attacking people is an act of self-defense, it does not constitute an attack.
Is there some part of this I’m not explaining clearly? Should I be referring you to good books you can use to learn this concept a bit better? What exactly am I leaving out of my explanations that is making this so hard to understand?
November 10th, 2012 at 8:56 am
.
Kathy is only “unavailable” to people who refuse to be respectful of others.
This is a lie. Ozzie has been disrespectful to me from the very beginning of my posting history here. That disrespect has intensified to the point he is now a rabid, foaming at the mouth dog. And yet, Kathy C is emotionally available to him. You lied, and I’m tapped out of “benefit of the doubt.” There’s none of that left, and many of you posters who have been around a while, and who tacitly support this nonsense and Group Think with your deafening silence, have lost any benefit of the doubt credibility I had given. Kathy C, to the extent it’s even possible for her to be emotionally available, only exhibits it to those who she believes to have status in this Group. Respect and disrespect is not the principle at play.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:00 am
.
We are not responding negatively because your opinion differs. We are responding negatively because you are constantly disrespectful of everyone else, attacking and insulting them.
Another lie. I’m an emotive reactor, not a proactive insulter. I will not attack, unless I’m attacked, or what I perceive to be attacked. You have no more benefit of the doubt with me, Librarian, no credibility, and your latest statements are an example of my thesis about the Group Dynamic at play here.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:00 am
Morocco Bama, I’m not too fond of Ozman’s behavior towards you either, and I have personally defended you several times (against ulvflg for example, which caused the latter to retaliate against me).
November 10th, 2012 at 9:04 am
.
Morocco Bama, excuse me, that is an inaccurate portrayal of the situation.
We are not responding negatively because your opinion differs. We are responding negatively because you are constantly disrespectful of everyone else, attacking and insulting them.
No, it’s not inaccurate. You perceive it as inaccurate because you will lose any status you have with the Group if you believed and stated otherwise. Your use of the word “we” in your comment above underscores that.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:07 am
Morocco Bama, I have been on your side, and SEVERAL FRIGGIN’ TIMES at that. I’m only scolding you now because this time you’re in the wrong.
And I don’t appreciate the constant “mind-reading” of whatever my “true motives” are.
What you see is what you get with em. I am not a support of groupthink, I am not trying to shut your opinion out of the discussion, and I don’t appreciate being portrayed as such.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:08 am
* what you get with me
Fixed typo.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:08 am
ulvfugl, you know very well what I mean. I regret being unkind towards you. As I said, I like your comments and would be happy to continue to see them.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:08 am
The Sufi tradition has a story about a person who met Jesus and spoke insultingly to him. Jesus replied in a conciliatory an friendly tone. Later the disciples asked Jesus why he did so. Jesus replied that he could only give of the coins in his own purse, and that those were the only kinds of coins in it.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:11 am
That sounds like a great story, Robin Datta. How does it end, though? I mean, does the insulting person eventually leave to insult someone else, or does he just keep bugging Jesus?
November 10th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Btw, quite how anyone can be considered ‘emotionally available or unavailable’ when all there is is text on a screen, I fail to see. Seems like a ridiculous idea to me.
Another lie, and this from the ultimate liar. I threw this up in his face once before, because he made this very same comment, and he waffled from it with his typical wishy-washy legalese and basically said that’s not what he meant. What this proves is that the aforementioned individual (if you can call him that) is intellectually dishonest and no amount of evidence could ever substantiate a claim on him. He’ll just change his tune and DENY, as is his habit.
Also, notice how much he invokes my name, even though he presumably doesn’t read my posts. Some advice, you goon. You’d have a wee bit more credibility if you didn’t mention my name so much. I understand, though, you have a man crush. Thanks, but you’re not my type. I like breasts. Like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7loP7OsLZ8
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Martin, I have noticed in life that emoting and emotion are not the same things. I have been told by others that they could not be hospice volunteers because it would be too hard for them when someone died. So who is more helpful to a hospice patient? The one who accepts that we all die and visits and assists dying people, or the one who can’t deal with it and does nothing. Same with nursing homes. Starting at age 16 I regularly visited a local nursing home for the poorer people in our county. I fed a woman who was paralyzed by MS, rubbed shoulders of folks in wheelchairs, pushed wheel chairs outside so people could get fresh air etc. If you were in a nursing home who would you rather have as a friend, myself who can deal with the depressing sites in nursing homes, or someone who emotionally finds it all such a downer that they never visit. In Haiti at the Children’s home, every night a child or two would die. I would just go on with those I could help. So I changed diapers, and helped with feeding. I remember what a pleasure it was to have baby Johnny snuggle into my shoulder when I held him. He had AIDS and few months of life left. Had I let my sadness overwhelm me I could not have given him comfort for those few months he had left. Isn’t it better to just accept that we are all mortal and not let it turn us into a pile of weeping jelly, but rather to do what we can for those around us?
Any rate I expect you would find that none of the people I have helped in my life would describe me as emotionally unavailable. I was available and I cared. Many of the big verbal emoters are unavailable to others.
When I came back from Haiti I struggled with whether I could say what was good anymore. The good of saving lives was the bad of contributing to overpopulation. Despite my life long ability to accept death, questioning good was very traumatic. I went through a deep depression and came out the other side. You can think what you want of me, but the me that I am has done a lot that other people thought was caring.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:19 am
Does the insulting person tell Jesus he’s a big mouth and an indolent layabout whose mission is a tiresome attempt to reform the unreformable, but who, by historical accident, will become an archetypal placeholder for an ideal that will be spread like a virus through the bowels of the dying Roman Empire?
No. That would come later.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:19 am
.
Martin Knight is a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. Something to discuss when you visit the doc next time Martin. You need to make sure you stay hinged.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:31 am
ulvfugl: “force all other topics off the page”
Wrong.
Read this whole comment section. It started out nice UNTIL the snide attacks on me. Or do you consider snide attacks on me to be “on topic,” ulvfugl?
A few posts back, I offered peace; however, I also warned that if Kathy & Co. wanted a flame war, then they could “bring it on.”
“Don’t push it! Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe. Let it go. Let it go!” ~Rambo (First Blood, 1982)
Well, Kathy & Co. and her “KINGSHIT COP” mob pushed. Now the pissant poodles bleating about being beaten at their own flame game.
And all I’ve got to say about it is:
“They drew first blood, not me.” ~Rambo (First Blood, 1982)
Of course, there’s no real blood here; it’s just argument with words. But the power-hungry Leftist collectivist “academic types” are just a bunch of pissant losers at what they imagined arguments with words was their exclusive stronghold.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:39 am
“I was available and I cared.”
Not here, with your bullshit amateur Sovietesque psychiatric diagnosis in a mean-spirited retort to my critique of what you wrote. Unless amateur Soviet psychiatric diagnoses are your way of “caring,” Ministry of Love style.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:42 am
Martin Knight : ulvfugl, you know very well what I mean. I regret being unkind towards you. As I said, I like your comments and would be happy to continue to see them.
No, I do not know what you mean. Being ‘emotionally available’, as I’d understand it, would be something like a degree of intimacy, in someone’s presence, sharing their feelings. If you think that happens via a computer screen, on a public blog, well, I don’t see it myself.
I don’t recall you being ‘unkind’ to me. You seemed to think I was bullying Morocco Bama. He seemed to think I was fighting with him. Neither was true. I was just giving him the opportunity to show the world what he is really like, which he proceeded to do, a mess of hypocrisy, ugliness, paranoia, vindictiveness, confusion, etcetera.
As you said, rather kindly, ‘unhinged’.
Now Librarian and others have fallen into his trap, which is classic infantile attention seeking, where Morocco Obama becomes the topic.
I’m really not the least bit interested in such individuals. There are zillions of them out there, all thinking they are so smart and intelligent and important that the whole world must be fascinated to hear all about their hang ups and delusions. Dunning-Kruger. I regard it as a form of mental illness.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:48 am
Ivy Mike, go fuck yourself. Yapping poodle sums you up perfectly.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:50 am
He who knows and knows he knows
He is a wise man, seek him
He who knows and knows not be knows
He is asleep, wake him
He who knows not and knows he knows not,
He is asleep, wake him
He who knows not and knows not be knows not,
He is a fool, shun him
Also, a hornet’s nest is very emotionally available.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:52 am
Robin Datta, similar story of the Buddha being approached by someone who poured insults and abuse upon him. Asked afterwards why he did not reply in kind, the Buddha said that if the person had brought kindness and gifts, he would have accepted them graciously, but as he brought only hatred and spite, he let the person keep them and take them away again.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:56 am
ulvfugl: …I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…I…classic infantile attention seeking…
LOL! Anywho…
“How shall we fuck off, O Lord?” ~John Cleese, Life of Brian (1979)
November 10th, 2012 at 9:57 am
poured insults and abuse
If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out first.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:00 am
.
Ivy Mike, go fuck yourself. Yapping poodle sums you up perfectly.
The Liar. He is reading what he said he will not read. Who else do you post as here, vulvaflu? Are you Martin, as well. Is Ozzie one of your sockpuppets, too. Now that’s psycho, and that’s why I won’t use my real name. If my suspicions about this are true, there are trult some psychopaths in our midst, because I don’t know what else could describe someone going to those lengths to mess with people.
And Ivy Mike, notice the trend. When their bankruptcy is revealed in all its glory, up pops some posters to put a governor on it. Librarian and Judy come to mind. When I was getting the best of vulvaflu in the past, and had him against the ropes after his attack of me, in come Judy and Librarian to call me off…so vuvlaflu can live another day, and regain any strength he can muster. It’s now a transparent pattern to me, and I believe at this point, it’s quite deliberate.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:00 am
I’m afraid I must disagree with you, ulvfugl. One’s essential emotional disposition readily translates to the screen, and NBL seems to demand a raw honesty of people that is readily apparent in all its ugliness or beauty.
I stand by what I said. Guy linked to an emotional post by someone who was talking about eating a gun, and then Yorchichan posted in response to it, and I quote, ROFL.
Couldn’t be clearer.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Morocco Bama, I have DEFENDED YOU SEVERAL TIMES IN THE PAST!!!
Could that be any clearer? I defended you when ulvfugl was being an ass. But that was in the past.
I have no desire to “govern” you, and I don’t appreciate these constant accusations.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:04 am
.
I stand by what I said. Guy linked to an emotional post by someone who was talking about eating a gun, and then Yorchichan posted in response to it, and I quote, ROFL.
I remember reading those posts, and I was deeply disturbed by this Group’s collective response to it. As Ivy Mike mentioned. it was cold and callous….emotionally unavailable, and with some, it was taunting, like “go ahead, make my day.” WTF? Of course, if an ARG’s at play, it could have been a ruse to set up a real life avatar for the real thing, so who knows.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:06 am
Ministry of Love leftist: “I regard it as a form of mental illness.”
“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.” ~George Orwell, 1984 (chapter 7)
November 10th, 2012 at 10:13 am
I’m sorry, Morocco, I’ve got nothing against you; in fact, I rather like you, but there’s this little niggling problem that won’t go away.
You wrote:
You don’t have to spring to my defense at every opportunity. I don’t want you to do that. My interaction with you thus far indicates that you are an independent thinker who is impartial and objective. That’s what I call intellectually honest, and it’s refreshing to see around here. By the way, since you gave your name, I’ll give mine, I guess. Another reason I don’t use it, is because it’s not a very flattering name. It’s Victor Shakapopulis.
Except the name Victor Shakapopulis is an improbable, nay, preposterous name, not remotely Greek to anyone who has a passing acquaintance with Greek culture, and turns out to be the name of a character in two Woody Allen films.
Care to explain why you so deftly combined an appeal to honesty with a deliberate deception?
November 10th, 2012 at 10:17 am
What could be clearer ?
Morocco Bama and Ivy Mike have a single agenda, which is to wreck this blog.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:22 am
MB:
“It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.” ~George Orwell, 1984
November 10th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Martin, Regarding MB and Woody Allen’s Victor Shakapopulis:
“I see everything twice!” ~Giuseppe, from the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
November 10th, 2012 at 10:24 am
He who knows and knows he knows
He is a wise man, seek him
He who knows and knows not be knows
He is asleep, wake him
He who knows not and knows he knows not,
He is asleep, wake him
He who knows not and knows not be knows not,
He is a fool, shun him
Also, a hornet’s nest is very emotionally available.
Jesus specifically forbade people calling another a fool, and then did exactly that. I can’t tell who is more incompetent: Jesus, or the scribe who failed to spot the yawning chasm between advice and action.
Any road, something tells me it’s too late to give a flying fuck.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:26 am
ulvfugl’s Bitcoin spam was an attempt to sucker people, until I called him on it. Now he’s sullenly spiteful, like any capitalist hoarder.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:31 am
Martin: too late to give a flying fuck
Give me one flying fuck, Vasili. One fuck only, please. ~Captain Ramius (The Hunt for Red October, 1990) [fify, lol]
November 10th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Keep yapping, poodle, show the whole world what a moron Ivy Mike is…
Just like Morocco Bama, proud to be stupid.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:44 am
I don’t know if ulvfugl is a capitalist hoarder, Ivy Mike. Perhaps that is a little unkind. From what I can gather, ulvfugl came into his land fortuitously and with some risk on his part, and that he is grateful for it, and that it gives him some respite from his hardship and a place to be. Not too bad and let’s celebrate that a kindred spirit isn’t in need and has a parcel of land on which he can be kindly to nature, as I’m sure ulvfugl is, even though he does bugger all with it and tries to dress up his laziness with Zen bullshitry.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:48 am
The central message of Buddhism is not “everybody but me is stupid.”
November 10th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Martin, I’m just using the same hyperbole that seems to be the coin of the realm; I realize he’s not competent to be a capitalist.
On eastern “Zen” bullshitry:
“To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn’t even belong on the list, since it doesn’t link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.”
― Daniel Quinn, The Story of B
November 10th, 2012 at 10:57 am
I don’t know if ulvfugl is a capitalist hoarder, Ivy Mike. Perhaps that is a little unkind. From what I can gather, ulvfugl came into his land fortuitously and with some risk on his part, and that he is grateful for it, and that it gives him some respite from his hardship and a place to be. Not too bad and let’s celebrate that a kindred spirit isn’t in need and has a parcel of land on which he can be kindly to nature, as I’m sure ulvfugl is, even though he does bugger all with it and tries to dress up his laziness with Zen bullshitry.
Well, at least you attempt to be amusing, Martin Knight, even if you don’t succeed.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:01 am
As always, Ivy Mike quotes other people to cover over the fact that he does not have any knowledge, wisdom, insight, or understanding of his own. Pathetic. Yap, yap, yap….
November 10th, 2012 at 11:09 am
ulvfugl, I know you can do better. I was very impressed with the post where you described how you knew you were being tested, but that you could gain strength from it.
That was, as I say, impressive, I mean, in so far that you were aware that you were being tested, and that you could benefit from it.
Except you haven’t really, have you? Instead, you did what people always do: look for the faults in the people criticising you, so you don’t have to make the necessary adjustments to your own behaviour.
One of the things I like about this blog is how many of the people I most like and respect are quoted. Heraclitus of Ephesus has been quoted, so let me quote him again:
Man grows from his smallest to his greatest
by removing excess
and remedying deficiency.”
And yet here you are, ulvfugl, still putting a word space in front of an exclamation or question mark, because I didn’t ask you nicely.
DON’T TELL. SHOW.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:22 am
MK : ulvfugl, I know you can do better.
Better than what ?
I was very impressed with the post where you described how you knew you were being tested, but that you could gain strength from it.
That was, as I say, impressive, I mean, in so far that you were aware that you were being tested, and that you could benefit from it.
I have no idea what you are talking about, perhaps you will remind me.
Except you haven’t really, have you? Instead, you did what people always do: look for the faults in the people criticising you, so you don’t have to make the necessary adjustments to your own behaviour.
Again, I have no idea what you are talking about
One of the things I like about this blog is how many of the people I most like and respect are quoted. Heraclitus of Ephesus has been quoted, so let me quote him again:
Man grows from his smallest to his greatest
by removing excess
and remedying deficiency.”
If you find value in that quote, good for you.
And yet here you are, ulvfugl, still putting a word space in front of an exclamation or question mark, because I didn’t ask you nicely.
If you insist upon being a pedant, that’s your choice. I’m not obliged to comply, whether you ask me nicely or not. If you knew a little more about language, syntax, etc, perhaps you’d understand that usage invariably trumps rules.
November 10th, 2012 at 11:23 am
ulvfugl, why U no-likee Daniel Quinn’s quote on Buddhism?
“To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn’t even belong on the list, since it doesn’t link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.”
― Daniel Quinn
Did I bold the most irritating parts?
November 10th, 2012 at 11:31 am
That’s okay, ulvfugl. So, tell me about your loved one …
November 10th, 2012 at 11:35 am
Anyway, can we discuss:
• Iatrogenic Suicidal Ideation
• Scope of Practice
• Patient Advocacy
• Client Abuse
…in relation to BC Nurse Prof’s account of her “caring” about suicidal ideation only enough to flippantly twiddle her thumbs waiting for a notice of death from the university’s president?
Is there anybody competent to address Scope of Practice here?
November 10th, 2012 at 11:39 am
MK : That’s okay, ulvfugl. So, tell me about your loved one …
You’ll have to explain. I have no idea what you are talking about, nor even why I should tell you about anything whatsoever…
November 10th, 2012 at 11:48 am
You don’t have a loved one, do you, ulvfugl? You’ve always been right, always wanted to be right, and, quite a lot of the time, have been right, but have driven everyone away, without quite meaning to, regretfully, perhaps, but here you are, all the same, in your isolated, rainswept pocket of remotest Pembrokeshire, without a nice, warm, cuddly mate.
I don’t have to explain. You’ve failed. You’re a failure (just like me). You’ve been a failure in life (just like me). At least, that’s what the dominant culture calls you. You’ve railed your entire life against the dominant culture (with good reason), except that you haven’t given in to women, who are naturally conservative, and found someone, at least up until this point, who is willing to share their life with you. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re alone. Why not just admit it?
November 10th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
.
Care to explain why you so deftly combined an appeal to honesty with a deliberate deception?
I mix satire with the serious as part of my style. I do it here, as I do it in real life….and believe me, it’s gotten me into trouble more than once. I knew you would pick up on it, Martin, because you’re intelligent, and so, if you think about it, the satire was for you. And Martin, I disagree with you about me being funny. It doesn’t square with my experience IRL. I’ve always had the ability to get people to laugh so hard, they cry. So, I know your insult was an attempt to hurt, but it missed the mark, and it was a lie, just as Ozzie’s remark about my essay was meant to hurt, and was a lie.
While we’re on it, Martin. Why do you want my full name? What does it matter to you? I don’t want your full name, even though you’ve provided it. I don’t care about your full name, or what your status, or lack thereof, is IRL. Your name isn’t who you are. Your word and deed are.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
A human being’s need for “salvation” is similar to the need for transformation when a coiled snake seen in a dimly lit room becomes a coiled rope when the lights are turned on.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
MK : You don’t have a loved one, do you, ulvfugl? You’ve always been right, always wanted to be right, and, quite a lot of the time, have been right, but have driven everyone away, without quite meaning to, regretfully, perhaps, but here you are, all the same, in your isolated, rainswept pocket of remotest Pembrokeshire, without a nice, warm, cuddly mate.
I don’t have to explain. You’ve failed. You’re a failure (just like me). You’ve been a failure in life (just like me). At least, that’s what the dominant culture calls you. You’ve railed your entire life against the dominant culture (with good reason), except that you haven’t given in to women, who are naturally conservative, and found someone, at least up until this point, who is willing to share their life with you. I’m right, aren’t I? You’re alone. Why not just admit it?
Oh, I see. It was a trick question.
I have more loved ones than I could possibly list, this whole mountainside, covered with them, from the dog at my feet to the trees, birds, bats, foxies, ponies and all the rest.
Right ? Right about what ?
I’m very happy in my rainswept corner of the world, I would not swap with anyone, anywhere, I am not the slightest bit lonely or deprived in any way, it’s all your nonsensical fantasy projections.
Failed ? Failed at what ?
I don’t think I have failed at all. I have kept my own self-respect and integrity and never compromised, and of that I can be proud.
Yes, I’ve failed in stopping the destruction of the biosphere, but I did the best I could, and could not do more than that. As far as the dominant culture is concerned, I couldn’t care less how it sees me or my life.
As for women, I’m extremely fortunate to have shared my life with many, all superb and wonderful in their different ways.
So. All in all, your imaginings re my existence are rather silly, a load of bollocks, not worth further comment.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Morocco, all I know is that I always enjoy talking to you. It is like a conversation held in some kind of blinding, sparkling air where I can be myself and leave behind the stale, worn-out past. I promise you, I never meant to hurt.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
.
You don’t have a loved one, do you, ulvfugl?
Sure he does. Check under the house in the crawl space.
http://devibathory.tripod.com/thebloodonmyhands/id6.html
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
God, you’re a worn-out box of rocks, ulfugl. Fuck off. Would you?
November 10th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
.
As for women, I’m extremely fortunate to have shared my life with many, all superb and wonderful in their different ways.
And….if you play your cards right, you may be able to share your life with Judy. She’s already complimented you on what a big book you have.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
MK : …women, who are naturally conservative…
More than one woman I have known who would have torn you to shreds for such a foolish stereotypical remark…
November 10th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
.
And on cue, there’s Robin with another sermon from the Lectern.
If one wants a glass house, throw nuke down sandy street.
Confucius
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Ah, so it’s back to illustrating which of you fools can exceed the other in crass infantile stupidity again. Yawn…
November 10th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
.
More than one woman I have known who would have torn you to shreds for such a foolish stereotypical remark…
Violence often begets violence. By virtue of that, you must have torn her to shreds at some point. Not surprising.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Would she have? I’m married to a graduate of the Vancouver Advanced School of Feminist Lesbianism, but you know what? All I had to do to win her heart was show that I can cook and admit I was wrong, if I was. Fifteen years later, she still loves me and praises my cooking, even when I goof up. So, tell me about your loved one?
November 10th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
.
The central message of Buddhism is not “everybody but me is stupid.”
Exactly. The central message has always been “if you think about Joe Dimaggio strongly enough, you won’t notice the Master’s whip upon your back, and the Master’s boot on your neck.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_jmDscGi7E
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
And note that there’s no word space before the interrogation that closes my last comment, because
NO ONE DOES THAT ANY MORE.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
.
Martin, please tell me don’t strap on a vagina too. That’s going too far, imo.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:41 pm
MK : NO ONE DOES THAT ANY MORE.
How much more childish, petty and ridiculous are you intending to get ? Sorry, but I’ve lost all interest. There are blogs and forums where sensible adult people say sensible stuff that is worth thinking about.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Don’t understand your last comment, MB.
November 10th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Well fuck off to those forums where sensible adult people say sensible stuff that is worth thinking about, such as whether people can CHANGE. I am intensely interested in just this question. CAN PEOPLE CHANGE? Well, can they?
November 10th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
.
Martin,
It’s satire in the spirit of your satirical response to vulvaflu. Reread it again with that perspective in mind. It’s not meant to hurt…it’s just me playing along with the theme of your last post about cooking. BY the way, I cook, as well, and my wife loves my cooking….and the children, too.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
.
CAN PEOPLE CHANGE? Well, can they?
Yes….and no. If you use the metaphor that people are trees, and as such, if they are committed to growth, they add rings, then there is change, but since the earlier rings remain, they are also the same. I suppose you can say this response is not sensible, but then, I’ve never been interested in sensible. Sensibility is a large part of why we’re even here at this blog discussing the potential for our extinction. Too many people have been too sensible for far too long…say about 12,000 years now.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
.
There are blogs and forums where sensible adult people say sensible stuff that is worth thinking about.
Yeah, like John Michael Greer’s blog where you can talk about magic. You can’t get any more sensible than that. JMG’s comments, highly censored by the way, are about ten males to one female. Imagine that.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
People are trees is a useless metaphor. People are nothing like trees. What is learnt in one generation is forgotten in the next. Grandchildren remember what parents forget.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:07 pm
MK : Well fuck off to those forums where sensible adult people say sensible stuff that is worth thinking about, such as whether people can CHANGE. I am intensely interested in just this question. CAN PEOPLE CHANGE? Well, can they?
I don’t need to fuck off to those forums, I can easily keep several browser pages running concurrently and read and comment where and when, as I see fit…
Are you asking a serious adult question, as a mature individual ?
Can people STAY THE SAME ?
Are you the same as you were ten minutes ago, yesterday, last month, ten years ago ?
It’s obvious to me that some people are stuck, and don’t know how to grow up…. they hate it, hate themselves, but don’t know what to do…
Perhaps it would be helpful if you’d think about your own question, and precisely what you mean by it…
Change ? Change what ? For better ? For worse ? From what ? Into what ?
November 10th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I’m sorry, ulfvfugl, but you should focus your unwanted attention on your lost country, as I’ve tried to warn you before. Maybe you are a drunken mistake, your Mum unwilling, giving birth to you anyway in gritty South Wales, during the good times, when the anthracite was still being mined, put on the trains to Sheffield to stoke the mills, and the bingo halls were humming, ah, your Mum, she was kind, wasn’t she, even though she couldn’t remember your Dad, never mind, he come from a hard country where the streets were mean, not like Bridgend. Take a bus trip into Bridgend. Look at the heroin eyes. The hard-faced pram-pushers. The tattooed drinkers. The left-behinds.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
MK : I’m sorry, ulfvfugl, but you should….
I do as I please, thank you very much, and don’t need your advice.
Your fantasy of life in Wales bears no resemblance whatsoever to my real life in Wales…
November 10th, 2012 at 1:29 pm
So? Tell us what it is like? What do you love? What do you celebrate?
November 10th, 2012 at 1:32 pm
.
People are trees is a useless metaphor.
Not to me, it’s not. Is it a perfect metaphor? No. But then, there is no such thing.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Talking about Welsh conservative girls:
“I am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his kids get out of the mines. My dad got his first job when he was six years old, in a little village in Wales called Nantyffyllon, cleaning bottles at the Colliers Arms.” ~Ann Romney
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/08/28/transcript-ann-romney-remarks/fpG7cCtZxigcX9e4GfAQTJ/story.html
November 10th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
People are nothing like trees. It’s a worthless metaphor, so you should find another metaphor. You know, the willingness to abandon metaphors is probably a test of intelligence, but I don’t care about such things. All I’m interested in is the divide between the claims people make about themselves, and the thin gruel they serve up when others, quite rightly, demand that they demonstrate their claims. Ah, well, thou art not worthy, thou art not worthy.
November 10th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
MK : All I’m interested in is the divide between the claims people make about themselves, and the thin gruel they serve up when others, quite rightly, demand that they demonstrate their claims.
What small-minded self-indulgent self-centred clap trap that is.
Why not sort yourself out first, before passing judgement on others.
Ah, yes, you’re the guy who sees himself as a failure… and I’m supposed to CARE about that ?
November 10th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
What I want to know is, if I meet you, can you draw, or paint, or speak, or write? Do animals like you? What have you made? Or done? Can you draw? Or paint? Do animals or plants grow where you are? Tell me about the bees where you live? Are honeybees around? Or even native British bees? Bumblebees? Do you know? Noticed any patterns? Do you keep hives? Do you steal honey? Are there any fruit trees or shrubs growing where you live? Why haven’t you tried permaculture? I know you haven’t. What’s keeping you? Oh, I know. Tesco! You go to Tesco. You’ve said so. You go to the most predatory, rapacious supermarket company in the UK. To do your weekly shop.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
.
People are nothing like trees. It’s a worthless metaphor, so you should find another metaphor.
That’s your subjective opinion. Nothing more. The metaphor has as much value as the quotes you put up from your esteemed authors….the only friends in your life….because they can’t talk back, and they can’t reject you. If the metaphor came from what you considered to be an authoritative source such as one of your esteemed authors, you’d be gobbling it up like the psychopathic sycophant you are. Now, go strap on your vagina and get in the kitchen where you belong, bitch.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Make like a tree, and leaf.
Even kids get how people are like trees!
November 10th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
All right, Morocco, you’re on. Let’s hear from you. I’m all ears. Provide, without any further delay, examples from literature that bear out the resemblance between people and trees. I expect nothing less than an example from George Eliot or some other literary great, noted, like Eliot, for their insight into people and their facility with the English language.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
.
I say:
If the metaphor came from what you considered to be an authoritative source such as one of your esteemed authors, you’d be gobbling it up like the psychopathic sycophant you are.
Martin responds:
Provide, without any further delay, examples from literature that bear out the resemblance between people and trees. I expect nothing less than an example from George Eliot or some other literary great, noted, like Eliot, for their insight into people and their facility with the English language.
Thank you for proving my point. Incredible! Really, it is. Holy Cow!!
By the way, don’t overcook the haricot vert this time, and I would like my steak medium rare.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
“Our DNA is made of the same DNA as the tree. The tree breaths what we exhale. When the tree exhales, we need what the tree exhales. So we have a common destiny with the tree. We are all from the earth.”
~FLOYD RED CROW WESTERMAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWtVTu6S51M
November 10th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
MK : What I want to know is, if I meet you, can you draw, or paint, or speak, or write? Do animals like you? What have you made? Or done? Can you draw? Or paint? Do animals or plants grow where you are? Tell me about the bees where you live? Are honeybees around? Or even native British bees? Bumblebees? Do you know? Noticed any patterns? Do you keep hives? Do you steal honey? Are there any fruit trees or shrubs growing where you live? Why haven’t you tried permaculture? I know you haven’t. What’s keeping you? Oh, I know. Tesco! You go to Tesco. You’ve said so. You go to the most predatory, rapacious supermarket company in the UK. To do your weekly shop.
Hahahahaha, you are certainly never going to meet me, that’s for sure.
You’re so busy projecting your silly fantasies, you have no clue who you are speaking to here.
Of course I can fucking draw, paint, speak, write… I’ve had exhibitions, sold paintings, won prizes…
Of course animals fucking like me, I’ve had adult wild animals become tame and feed from my hand, I can call the foxes, I’ve kept all kinds of animals and birds, whatever…
I’ve made hundreds of things, large, small, all kinds of materials, much of the stuff in my home… I’ve built houses. For a living. I’ve had businesses making craft goods to sell.
The bees live in the eaves of my house. Honey bees. I provide as wide a variety of habitats for as many species as I possibly can. I live on the side of a fucking mountain. It’s covered with plants, trees, every kind of thing that can live here, frogs, newts, badgers, hedgehogs, buzzards, ravens, kites, more than 50 species of birds I’ve counted here.
You appear to be utterly, totally, clueless, Martin. Yes, I’ve got a field full of fruit tress I’ve planted. I lived for three years with the woman who was the very first person in UK to learn about Permaculture, I’ve been plugging permaculture ever since Mollison’s book was published.
No, I do NOT ‘go to Tesco’. I buy my needs online, there are no shops here. Tesco delivers whatever I order. That makes for a far smaller ecological footprint than any other method. Sure, Tesco are a typical corporation, but they are also extremely efficient and there is no other comparable service available.
Now, instead of forever trying to find fault with ME, whose life is MY responsibility, not YOURS, why do you not sort your OWN self out !
November 10th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
.
Ivy Mike,
Thanks for that tree quote. I love the trees. In fact, so much so, I replanted a couple in my backyard that took root in a small garden too close to the house. It was a bitch digging in the bone-dry Georgia clay with just a standard rounded shovel, but it was worth it. They now stand side by side in another part of the yard, firmly replanted, and hopefully aware (in the way trees are uniquely aware) of the other’s maintained proximity, reaching out to one another via their root structures to be united physically once again.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
.
Of course I can fucking draw, paint, speak, write… I’ve had exhibitions, sold paintings, won prizes…
Jesus, you really have done it all! It’s like I said before, what’s next? You climbed Mount Everest when you were 105? I’m sure Judy’s impressed. Maybe you can give her an autographed copy of one of your paintings and she can sleep with it under her pillow.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
There’s nothing wrong with me, ulv. I’m fine. I wanted to hear. Just for a moment. To hear you. Speak.
I don’t want to hear how your’re better than me. I just want what I asked for. To hear you speak about your life.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
You did say you go to Tesco. I’m not making it up. I was pretty surprised. But you did say you get your supplies from Tesco. You really did.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Morocco Bama, Just because you are a mentally unstable clueless paranoid ex-corporate whore who does nothing worthwhile with your life, wastes their precious time spending all day offending and insulting people and getting banned from blogs, does not mean everyone else in the world is as ignorant, pathetic, confused, and immature as you are.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
MK : I don’t want to hear how your’re better than me. I just want what I asked for. To hear you speak about your life.
I did not say i am better than you or anyone else. I said I’ve kept my integrity, all of my life, without compromising. That’s been incredibly difficult, and I’m very proud of that achievement. It gives me a dignity and self-respect that some of you obviously lack.
It’s just a personal thing. It counts for nothing. The future is just as bleak and awful regardless. But at least I know myself, like myself, and can be happy when I die.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
whore?
“He that is without sin among you, let him be the first to cast a stone.” ~verse 7, chapter 8, of The Jefferson Bible
/wiki/Parallels_between_Gautama_Buddha_and_Jesus
jesusisbuddha.com/
November 10th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Bears no resemblance whatsoooooooooooooooooever, because it is really, really, really possible to live a life differently in the British Isles, would were that were true, while I poke myself with a pen, so very precious is the very special life lived by ulvfugl in the hideous surveillance state that is the great Britain that once was. But, my mistake, ulvfugl has found a place where there are no cameras …
But he hasn’t, though. Has he.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
MK : You did say you go to Tesco. I’m not making it up. I was pretty surprised. But you did say you get your supplies from Tesco. You really did.
So this is so very important to you ? I have never been in a fucking Tesco shop in my whole life. I order stuff online from Tesco and they bring it in a van, any day, between 8 am and 10 pm, for a miniscule charge…
Before computers and internet shopping, I had my food delivered by a frozen food catering company that provided a similar service, with less variety, where I ordered over the phone.
If you want to know why I did that, rather than killing my poultry and eating my own vegetables, it was because I was seriously ill and had major abdominal surgery 2 or three times, so I was unable to do anything much..
Jeez, what else would you like to know ?
November 10th, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Ivy Mike, if you don’t want to feel my fury, don’t quote John or any other text regarding the cast stone.
The story of the cast stone is not well attested.
November 10th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Martin Knight, you are coming across as a total twat. I got as far away from ‘civilisation’ as I possibly could get, given the limitations of living on one of the most densely inhabited places on the planet, I think UK is third, after Hong Kong and Netherlands.
There are certainly wilder, more remote places than this, but this one is special for me, in a thousand different ways.
No, there are no surveillance cameras here. No streetlights, no traffic noise, no ambulance or police sirens, no slamming car doors, none of that shit.
Anything else you really must know about my personal life ?
November 10th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Well, ulvfugl, I can see that you have had difficulties, so I will not bother you further, other than to hope that you are well, and happy.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Lisa Simpson, hag of hell, berating and scowling:
LISA: There is no Springfield 50 years in the future! With global warming trapping the CO2 inside our poisonous atmosphere, our super-heated oceans will rise, drowning our lowlands, leaving what’s left of humanity baking in desert that once fed the world. And in the new Nineveh, darkness falls.
(Lisa’s classmates gape at her, terrified. One boy screams and throws himself out the window.)
“The Good, the Sad and the Drugly,” air date April 19, 2009
THAT’S THE WAY MEAN-SPIRITED ENVIRONMENTALISM IS PERCEIVED: A JOKE
How to change that perception: discuss.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
.
vulvaflu,
You prove yourself a liar, once again. You’re reading my posts and you keep uttering my name, and yet you so smugly announced to the Peanut Gallery that you just scroll past. For someone with such conviction, have some conviction, and at least do as you say.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
.
Martin Knight, you are coming across as a total twat.
I bet you say that to all the girls.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
MK : Well, ulvfugl, I can see that you have had difficulties, so I will not bother you further, other than to hope that you are well, and happy.
And what human being has ever lived who did not have ‘difficulties’ ?
I am happy in the sense that I am well beyond happiness and unhappiness. I cultivate bliss and I cultivate serenity. Mushin is my treasure.
I am never well because I suffer from chronic CH and migraine which is incurable, and intolerable, but for which i am very grateful.
You asked about a person changing. I used to say that if you want to change the world, then start by changing yourself.
I used to think that Enlightenment was an important goal. I don’t think that anymore. When the world is terminally fucked up, as it now is, there’s no time left to pursue enlightenment. It’s a selfish indulgence. Better to grab a bucket and throw some water on the flames. Even clueless people like Bama can do that.
If you want to change, your self, your life, then do it. Begin with the very first thought that enters your head. If you don’t like it, then change it. Keep changing all subsequent thoughts until you’re satisfied that they are the best thoughts that you can entertain. Keep doing that for the rest of your life.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
.
vulvaflu plays the pity card once more. You’re going to run out of ailments if you keep it up. Now it’s abdominal surgeries. What’s next? You’ve had your pancreas removed and you’re somehow miraculously still breathing and typing? Who needs a pancreas anyway besides all of us?
.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Anything else you really must know about my personal life ?
Is there any other kind? Of life?
My guess is that ulvfugl is a busted flush, and we won’t be hearing much more from him.
It doesn’t really matter. ulvfugl is dying, as is his generation, the Boomers, perhaps the greatest failed generation, and certainly the generation that, in the short time we have left, will be spoken about, in barely concealed hatred, as the generation best embodied in the figure of Bill Clinton, and thus, imbued with the greatest promise and such an embarrassing failure.
It’s not the failure, though. It’s not even the promise, and the failure. It’s the promise, then the failure, then the excuses, then the total lack of repentance.
Did you notice that?
Hey, forget the guide ropes that you clung to to make sense of your life. All I can tell you is, some time the world that made sense to you and the now you find yourself are two different things. You work out when you first became aware of this disjuncture.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Morocco Bama, you are an idiot for whom I have no time. If you had anything worth saying, of any value, then I’d read your posts. As it is, I avoid reading them. You ARE the peanut gallery on this blog. When you stop being proud to be an arsehole and start behaving like a mature adult man, with a sense of responsibility and respect for yourself and others, then I may reconsider my attitude towards you, but considering how many millions there are on the internet, I’m unlikely to pay you any attention.
I’m pretty certain it’s a safe bet, that tomorrow you’ll post more inflammatory bait and switch comments and insult everyone, to make sure that this blog descends into the gutter, because that’s what you’ve been doing ever since you arrived. You don’t even know why you do it, do you.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Exponential increase in gloom & doom!
All you Mormons who like cussing, you are going to hell
All you preachers who like fucking, you are going to hell
Little boys that choke the chicken, you are going to hell
It’s the nature of evolution, the dinosaurs went to hell
Hell hell hell it’s a wonderful place
It’s a place of fire and brimstone
The Bastard Fairies – “We’re All Going To Hell”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTOffYj5TxU
November 10th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Martin Knight, you are also an idiot. Don’t worry about my dying. I can take care of myself. The entire biosphere is dying, and that means you and everyone you know.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
I AM NO IDIOT. I SEE. THEN, I GIVE MYSELF PERMISSION TO NOTICE WHAT I SEE. THAT IS ALL.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
So how come the conclusions that you draw are so wildly erroneous ? Why the hell would you need anyone’s ‘permission’ to see or notice anything ? That’s nonsense.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Exponential increase in gloom & doom!
Before You Write Off This Threat … Read This
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that if the U.S. invades the sovereignty of countries like Syria or Iran, it could lead to nuclear war. And see this.
Russia and China have previously stated that an attack on Iran would be considered a direct threat to their national security.
And Iran and Syria have had a mutual defense pact for years. China and Russia might also defend Syria if it is attacked. So an attack on Syria could draw Iran into the war … followed by China and Russia.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-20-19/will-rogue-fundamentalist-christian-military-leaders-start-nuclear-war-middle
Oh, wait.
This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-WAR NUKobi. You’re my only hope. ~Princess Leia, Star Wars (sorta! LOL!)
November 10th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
.
You’re a liar, vulvaflu, through and through. Please, keep saying my name and reading my posts. I get a bonus when you do. Is that the door I hear in the background? Maybe it’s Tesco with their special delivery. You better go check on it if your wheelchair can get there in time.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
ulvfugl, I can easily call your bluff, because I have seen first hand what this dying nation is like. I only have to walk out of my front door. You once said, without any corroborating evidence, that I was projecting, and envied your estate. It’s not true. I’d like it if you reported what you are doing, specifically about bees, or anything else that might be of interest to people like me, who are trying to establish organic gardening.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
.
I can take care of myself.
You lie once more. If Tesco is delivering food to you, you’re not taking care of yourself. Like the privileged goon you are, you’re relying on slave labor to keep you alive.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Actually, you know what? Fuck off. Because you don’t even have a greenhouse or, hang on, shit, I just walked up to your front door and a sheep jumped on me and pleaded with me to take her awaaaaaaaaaaay.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:01 pm
.
Ivy Mike,
You’re welcome concerning The Net documentary. I agree that it is an excellent compilation leading to many trails of further inquiry, hence the Rabbit Hole reference. How about the blowhard, John Brockman, with his Indiana Jones hat? Such an ego. He’s beyond reproach. And to think, people like him have had their hand in forming what we experience in regard to media. It’s no surprise….the end product, is it, considering the character of these egomaniacal characters? And Heinz von Foerster was utterly fascinating.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:05 pm
.
Oh my Gawd, Martin, that last one made me shit my diaper I laughed so hard. You do have a sense of humour…a prodigious one, at that. Here’s to ya, Victor!!
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
MK : ulvfugl, I can easily call your bluff, because I have seen first hand what this dying nation is like. I only have to walk out of my front door. You once said, without any corroborating evidence, that I was projecting, and envied your estate. It’s not true. I’d like it if you reported what you are doing, specifically about bees, or anything else that might be of interest to people like me, who are trying to establish organic gardening.
What ‘bluff’ ? I don’t bluff or lie or mislead anyone. Why would I, when there’s no need.
I thought that everyone on this blog had understood by now, that the future is, basically, GONE.
Climate change and all the other looming catastrophes are what we are all going to have to endure. Nothing like the past, at all.
If you, or anyone else, wants to do permaculture or organic gardening or take up bank robbing, fine, do whatever you want, but it doesn’t fix the problem. The ocean acidification, the changed weather patterns, the loss of biodiversity and collapsing ecosystems, are all baked in now, and can’t be changed, any more than the Arctic ice cap can be repaired.
Sure, keep on fighting. I shall, until I am dead. But that’s just self-respect, not because this mess can be fixed.
If you want practical advice, then I’d say get a Bosch garden shredder, put all your twiggy and leafy stuff through it, and lay it around the base of each fruit tree, to make a thick mulch. If you plant bare root trees, dip them in some of that mycorhizal paste stuff. Get as many wild and cultivated flowers growing as you possibly can, especially stuff that blooms early in the year, for bee food. And for all the other insects. Try to mimic nature as closely as possible, there’s loads of videos about forest gardening, just do it, get totally obsessed and think about it when you go to sleep and when you wake up, so the whole thing is part of you, who and what you are, internalised… plant as many varieties as you can, so some might find the conditions suit… instead of buying expensive grafted trees that are on dwarf stocks, buy the cheap vigorous root stocks with no grafts, they all produce apples and are much stronger and faster growing…
some apple varieties will sprout themselves, just push a good stick into the ground, they’ll make blossom even if the fruit isn’t great….
November 10th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
When did any of you silly children last feed yourself from am meal you’d grown all yourself, eh ? At least Kathy C. knows how to keep chickens, and Guy knows how to keep goats… as for the rest of you… not so much, eh…
November 10th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Yes, yes, certainly, ulvfugl, (shiver), as your dead hand falls,
which, in keeping with the white, sepulchral, freemasonic hierachy …
November 10th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
.
When did any of you silly children last feed yourself from am meal you’d grown all yourself, eh ?
We didn’t brag that we can take care of ourselves. You did, and you lied. Children are not very popular around here, are they? It reminds me of that movie…..the one where there are no children. It was set in the UK. Yeah, that’s it, Children of Men. I bet a number of you, including vulvaflu, sport wood at the possibility of no children as much as you hate them, and the prospect of more of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikEQy1XxDE
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
MK … I just walked up to your front door…
You wouldn’t even get close, the dog would have you and you’d run away squealing for help.
In fact, the neighbours dogs would have had you long before. And anyway, you’d be scared of the dark, no streetlights here, matey.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
last feed yourself from am meal you’d grown all yourself
This morning for breakfast. And Lunch. And supper.
Butter, cheese, yoghurt, beef, eggs, chicken, turkey, potatoes, buckwheat, corn, apples, peaches…
Bought salt. Bought coffee. Bought mustard.
Problem?
And we say grace and we say Ma’am
And if you ain’t into that we don’t give a damn
A Country Boy Can Survive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg
November 10th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
.
no streetlights here, matey.
Ha! But there sure as hell is an internet connection…..your lifeline. My dog will bark to announce an arrival, and then promptly invite them in and lead them to the container that holds her food and ask them to feed her. She’s has a bottomless pit of a stomach and is extremely food-motivated.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I don’t brag, you slimy little corporate arsehole. I don’t need to. Nor do I lie. That’s your speciality.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
.
Knock Knock
Who’s There?
Tesco
Tesco Who?
Tes Come The Time Fer You Ta Go Home
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
.
Someone’s Knockin at the Door, Somebody’s Ringin the Bell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTy_L5dRyUk&feature=related
I think it’s Tesco for the Big Man who can take care of himself.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Don’t call me matey. I like dogs. I don’t particularly like people who like dogs, but I like dogs.
Once, when I was looking for a place to stay overnight in an arid, cold wilderness, in a strange place in a tough town on the edge of nothing …. I swanned through the gate. There was a dog, but I paid him no heed. I rang the bell.
After some time, a woman appeared. She demanded to know how I had evaded being torn limb from limb by the slavering dog. I replied, evenly, that the dog liked me and was there a room to stay for the night?
She said no, and I should consider myself lucky I had not been savaged.
So much for dogs, or the kind of civilisation they represent.
November 10th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
MK Don’t call me matey.
I’ll call you whatever I effing choose to call you, matey. The general rudeness and stupidity from you, Bama, and the yappy Poodle, puts me in no mood to be polite or courteous to any of you. Why the hell should I show you any respect, you deserve none, you show none for your own selves, your own lives, and none for anyone else, none for this blog, and none for the Earth as a whole. Ozman had a good word for you, a bunch of tossers.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
ulvfugl
Actually, I think I said their ‘viewpoint’ was that of a ‘tosser’, so as to abide by the non personal abuse rules from one who wanted no rules.
How are things in your woods over there?
November 10th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
I chose to be rude to you. It was a test. You failed. I wanted to see if your avowed Zen insight and dispassionate distance availed you something that would afford you insight – and it did not.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
MK : I chose to be rude to you. It was a test. You failed. I wanted to see if your avowed Zen insight and dispassionate distance availed you something that would afford you insight – and it did not.
Well, how about applying your idiotic tests to yourself, perhaps they’d help you to grow up.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Ozman : How are things in your woods over there?
Thanks for asking. Everything is fine and dandy here. The rain falls freely from the sky, bestowing equal blessing upon the evil, the mediocre, and the saintly….
November 10th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
perhaps they’d help you to grow up
Oh, I’m not going to be applying those tests to myself, for the very good reason that I don’t claim any special insight into the human condition.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:29 pm
I suspect many of you have seen this already, but it’s interesting that, according to this study, a long drought ended the Mayan civilization. Is it coincidence that so much of the world is gripped by a multi-year drought at the same time that many believe the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/08/collapse-of-maya-civilization-tied-to-drought-study/
Collapse of Maya civilization tied to drought: study
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, November 8, 2012 20:14 EST
WASHINGTON — A long catastrophic drought led to the collapse of Maya culture, a new study said Thursday, confirming a controversial hypothesis linking its demise to climate change.
The study, published in Friday’s issue of the journal “Science,” involved an international team of researchers.
“The rise and fall of Mayan civilization is an example of a sophisticated civilization failing to adapt successfully to climate change,” said James Baldini of Britain’s Durham University.
“Periods of high rainfall increased the productivity of Maya agricultural systems and led to a population boom and resource overexploitation.”
The progressively drier climate that followed led to the depletion of resources, which in turn sparked political destabilization and war, he noted in a statement.
Then, “after years of hardship, a nearly century-long drought from 1020 sealed the fate of the Classic Maya,” Baldini added.
The researchers came to their conclusion after reconstructing a record of weather in the Maya region — which includes parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras — over the past two thousand years.
They did so by using chemical and mineral analyses of stalagmite layers found in Belize’s Yok Balum cave situated about a mile (1.5 kilometers) from the Classic Period Maya site of Uxbenka and near other major Maya centers that were impacted by the same climate conditions.
Stalagmites are formed in caves by the continuous dripping of calcareous water, which allows for the measurement of precipitation over time.
Considering the Maya kept a meticulous record of political events by inscribing them on stone monuments, the authors of the study were able to “chart how increases in war and unrest were associated with periods of drought,” according to the statement.
The statement also said the role of climate change in the fall of the Maya civilization had previously been suggested but considered controversial “due to dating uncertainties in previous climate records.”
November 10th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
I forgot to point out another interesting quote from the article:
Considering the Maya kept a meticulous record of political events by inscribing them on stone monuments, the authors of the study were able to “chart how increases in war and unrest were associated with periods of drought,” according to the statement.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
TRDH: “increases in war”
Yep, that’s what I’ve been saying.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Morocco Bama
You wrote:
“This is a lie. Ozzie has been disrespectful to me from the very beginning of my posting history here. That disrespect has intensified to the point he is now a rabid, foaming at the mouth dog. And yet, Kathy C is emotionally available to him. You lied, and I’m tapped out of “benefit of the doubt.” There’s none of that left, and many of you posters who have been around a while, and who tacitly support this nonsense and Group Think with your deafening silence, have lost any benefit of the doubt credibility I had given. Kathy C, to the extent it’s even possible for her to be emotionally available, only exhibits it to those who she believes to have status in this Group. Respect and disrespect is not the principle at play.”
This is a good example of being integral with yourself but losing everyone around you, excepting your other payed for comment posters.
How self centred,
“…and I’m tapped out of “benefit of the doubt.””
Why is that?
Something changed, with allthe posters negatively commenting on your online posting behaviour?
And now you have Librarian chasing after your approval, or at least, with respect, your forgivness and achnowledgment.
Look how we are talking about you again, very clever tactics.
Everyone:
Morocco Bama is not happy namy do not accept his views.
Who cares about your views? I care about what you contribute, and that is adding up to zero, if not a big negative on the ‘meaningful and useful’ front.
You will tell yourself, and the readers here, you are the ultimate arbiter of intelectual integrity, because you pull posters up on their inconsistancies, as you see them, and you will say it is only when dialoging with you.
Wow! What a lone sorry thankless task you have set for yourself.
Your latest bit of supreme reasoning is that if it is all over then what is the point of doing anything?
In itself it is a worthy transitory viewpoint to have, and point out, but it quickly morphs into the idea of doing nothing.
No one knows the future on this big issue, so the conclusion to do nothing only servs the the status quo, and TPTB.
Why do you advocate such an action, or inaction.?
You have no answer.
Whereas many wish to assist with the common good, and get on with a better existance for themselves and thier dependents, honourably accounting for all that has been learned, through here and other new infomation, about how the privelaged have oppressed the underprivelaged.
Your attempts to point out the minute hypocracy of others who may ahare these goals, but still live practically for some of the benifits of the ‘System’ are largly devisive and petty attempts to ‘frame’ in a negative light others for new posters to read.
why?
You will not answer that will you?
Zip….
November 10th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Guy,
I’m curious as to what your take is on the recent hijacking of your blog, because this is quickly becoming ridiculous.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:47 pm
That should have been:
“Morocco Bama is not happy many do not accept his views…”
And it is not bad to re-emphasise it either.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
.
I’m curious as to what your take is on the recent hijacking of your blog, because this is quickly becoming ridiculous.
Your use of the word “recent” indicates it has been hijacked before. I agree, it was, and those hijackers have held the plane for quite a while now.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
.
Morocco Bama is not happy many do not accept his views
Not true. Another lie from another liar. If many accepted my views, I know those views would be wrong. My views may still be wrong even if many don’t accept them…..because views are always a work in progress if you’re committed to growth.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Daniel, thanks for asking in this space the question many others have asked via other means. The only nonsensical hijacking I detect is relatively recent, contrary to Morocco Bama’s comment.
I agree that the behavior exhibited by a few who comment here is ridiculous. This space used to be a wonderfully educational forum for discussion of ideas. It has become a ceaseless collection of inexplicable nonsense, hijacked by a few people who would rather insult others than contribute to a meaningful discussion.
I’ve been contemplating a response while hoping the self-absorbed people with too much time and too little wisdom will simply go away. It seems increasingly unlikely my wish will be fulfilled, so I vacillate between (1) no change, consistent with my anarchist views, (2) requiring moderation of each comment and deleting every comment that insults anybody except me, (3) blocking certain individuals, and (4) eliminating this website, which has largely served its purposes. I’m open to comments on these approaches and others I’ve missed.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
But Daniel, your very name is a hijacking. There was no historical Daniel. He is a made-up personage. The book of Daniel is an imposture. It was written to deceive. It was written as though the events it records had happened in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, but the book was written much later, and records events much closer to the Common Era, concerning the hated person of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Abomination of Desecration blah, blah bloody blah.
Christ, if I’d been christened Daniel, I’d have changed my name by now.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
4. Eliminating this website. Do it.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
a few people who would rather insult
That includes Kathy C & Co., correct?
They were the first to hurl insults days ago. And they were the first in this particular thread to insult again. Or are their insults acceptable here?
November 10th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
.
Christ, if I’d been christened Daniel, I’d have changed my name by now.
But the chicks dig it, Martin.
Big Daddy’s got to come to save the day because the Peanut Gallery doesn’t like a taste of their own medicine. More hypocrisy, but I figured that a while back when you gave your tacit support to ulvfugl, Guy. I think it’s clear you can’t handle Anarchy, and as is always the case for those indoctrinated into an authoritarian system, you will revert back to your authoritarian ways, if you really ever left them.
And another thing. If you were incapable of empathy for the majority of your life, then you’re incapable of it now. You may be smart enough to feign it, and pull it off as though you have empathy, but it’s not a substitute for the real thing.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:13 pm
Morocco Bama
Your post here:
Morocco Bama Says:
November 10th, 2012 at 7:23 am
I see nothing inconsistant with these two posts, nor odd.
Firstly, I made a brief statement about resorting to Love as a step in the better path for the future, rather than distrust and conflict.
Secondly, I made light hearted references to the need to acknowledge poo as a unique part of life, and some extended comments about peoples antipithy toward dirt and germs and poo as bordering on pathological, mostly culturally learnt of course.
What a silly attempt at ‘framing’ me as wierd
You need to do better.
I feel a paygrade demotion coming your way.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:17 pm
.
4. Eliminating this website. Do it.
He’s not going to eliminate it. It’s disingenuous for him to even put that as one of his options. He needs the website to promote himself. It will be (3) blocking certain individuals. Watch. And, I will be one of the first to be blocked, and as Ivy Mike mentioned, insults will still be allowed, but only by the Chosen Ones. It’s the same here as it is everywhere out there. I can’t tell you how much it resembles the corporate world I left. People must have their order.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
a few people who would rather insult
Et tu, Brute?
“Thanks for the introduction, asshole. I’m professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.”
2 is equivalent to 4.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
.
This space used to be a wonderfully educational forum for discussion of ideas.
Bullshit!! I tried to discuss ideas here early on until a certain jerk told me to quit whining and others told me “it didn’t matter because it’s lights out and all over anyway.” Of course, you’ll deny that, but it’s there in the record for anyone who has the time and intellectual honesty to review it with an open mind. You sat back and said nothing when Ozzie called me an intelligence agent, and now you’re going to jump in and serve judgment? Whatever.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
insults will still be allowed, but only by the Chosen Ones
Correct, by the “kingshit cops.” (First Blood, 1982)
I was careful not to insult, only to be insulted finally with a Soviet Psychiatric diagnosis from Kathy C, when she didn’t like something I said. Like I said:
“They drew first blood.”
The reason they drew first blood is obvious: the incontrovertible climate science is only a pretext for a sociopolitical power agenda, Kathy C’s reproductive anti-choice rhetoric conflating choice with criminal child abuse being the power agenda that had to be protected.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Oh will you shut up, MB? I’m sure the last thing Guy wishes is for you to have the last say. I for one would be happy to see the end of this blog. I’ve learnt little more from this place than conformation of the misanthropy blossoming in my bosom while I was yet a pup.
What a miserable bunch of sorry wankers are here assembled, complaining to be born. I hope the events you imagine will soon come to pass, soon come to pass, and, believe me, if they do, and I am still alive, I will take great pleasure in stepping over your corpses.
Goodbye.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
.
The only nonsensical hijacking I detect is relatively recent, contrary to Morocco Bama’s comment.
Interesting. Linguistics mean everything. I’m inferring that an older hijacking is plausible, but in your view if it did occur, it wasn’t nonsensical. Of course, it’s YOUR blog, right? So you are the ultimate decider…because it’s YOUR blog. You haven’t really walked away, have you? Maybe a sequel to the first book should be scheduled, because I see you’re still hooked on the trappings of empire, i.e. YOUR blog.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
.
was careful not to insult, only to be insulted finally with a Soviet Psychiatric diagnosis from Kathy C, when she didn’t like something I said. Like I said:
“They drew first blood.”
My experience was exactly the same. Ozzie and ulvfugl drew first blood. I defended myself, and the rest pounced…pinning the blame on me. I could have been a whiner and a wimp and e-mailed Guy about it like all the other backstabbers here are doing, but I don’t need Guy’s protection, and knowing what I now know, I wouldn’t want it.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
“Goodbye.”
“Yawn.” ~Guy McPherson, November 7th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Sorry to insult you there, Martin, but it seems par for the course around here. LoL!
Weirdly, that “yawn” insult was to peer-reviewed science. How’s that work?
I suppose I should have never quoted Jefferson on anarchism, contradicting Guy’s take on TJ. That’s what makes everything I say insulting. LOL!
“The voluntary support of laws, formed by persons of their own choice, distinguishes peculiarly the minds capable of self-government. The contrary spirit is anarchy, which of necessity produces despotism.” ~Thomas Jefferson, to Philadelphia Citizens, 1809
“…repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be perpetual.” ~Thomas Jefferson, Manuscript, 1801
“Our falling into anarchy would decide forever the destinies of mankind, and seal the political heresy that man is incapable of self-government.” ~Thomas Jefferson, to John Hollins, 1811
Go ahead, Guy, block Jefferson quotes. Do it.
November 10th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
the rest pounced
Yep. One pouncer is Daniel himself.
Daniel falsely accused me, without the slightest shred of evidence, of denying both climate change and evolution.
I asked for an apology. None came. Now he’s trying to push momma off the train.
Evidently, some insulters are more equal than others.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Guy, thanks for addressing this and thanks to Daniel for speaking up. I know that you have an anarchist philosophy so I was reluctant to ask you to intervene.
While I don’t comment every day, I visit every day if possible. I have never been involved with a website like I am this one – including my own blog. Even though I intend to disconnect from the grid eventually, I had hoped until that time, I would be able to use this space as a place to share ideas and learn from others.
When I think of how helpful this blog has been to me in my process of understanding collapse, I feel it would be quite a shame if a handful of malcontents ruined the opportunity for others to benefit in the way that I have.
Of course, right now, that’s exactly what has happened. I suspect that many who comment here for the first time are shell shocked, having just figured out or heard about collapse. The last thing they need is some smart ass making them feel like shit by ridiculing their every word. Consequently, comments from new readers (or for that matter any readers other than the aforementioned malcontents) seems to have dwindled to a trickle.
So, I definitely think you should keep the website. As registration isn’t required, I’m not sure how effective it would be to block users, but it might be the least amount of work for you. I think others feel as I do that this is a virtual community. As such, perhaps there’s a way we could all work together to ensure the spirit of this site is maintained.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Daniel is the “smart-ass” “malcontent” who falsely accuses, without a shred of evidence, that I denied climate change and evolution.
Or does bald-faced lying fall within your ethical limits, “dr”?
I called Daniel on his insult, asked him to apologize. Nothing has been forethcoming so far, except his power game here.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Something to chew on, from http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-justice-trap-law-and-the-disempowerment-of-society :
…In such [anti-authoritarian] societies, conflict resolution is subjective, decentralized, diffuse, and carried out by what anarchists would refer to as direct action. On an economic level, incidentally, such societies are usually characterized by mutual aid or the gift economy.
In this model, conflict is subjectively defined. Ideally speaking, the individual identifies conflict for herself, in horizontal collaboration with her peers, through the personal interpretation of non-codified[2] cultural values of what is and is not acceptable behavior. Conflict resolution is decentralized: it does not take place within a singular, ritualized and formalized social space but within multiple ritualized and non-ritualized loci (thus it is impossible to speak of a single or official outcome). And within this model conflict resolution is diffuse and based on direct action: any and every individual has the prerogative to respond to a perceived conflict or breach of good behavior as she sees fit, and social peace is ensured through the sharing rather than the specialization of this duty. Social sanctions are meant to discourage rather than punish antisocial behavior and ideally everyone is empowered to carry out these sanctions.[3] Common sanctions include ridicule, criticism, withholding esteemed social connections (e.g. sex or friendship), all the way up to ostracism and assassination (Boehm, 1993). The sanctions are aimed at the offending individual’s social sensibilities and seem to be based on the assumption that the individual voluntarily wants to be an upstanding member of society. Only the most extreme sanction, assassination, falls outside this logic, but it does not seem to be universally present among societies that resolve conflicts through diverse sanctions, and seems to be reserved for the rare cases when the individual in question poses the danger of destroying the society itself — through repeat homicide or tyrannical behaviors.
(I guess I’m highlighting this because I don’t think I agree that the only anarchist way to proceed is “no change”. But the implications for action in the excerpt above might prove overly onerous in the context of a blog.)
Guy, you could also choose not to add essays or allow further comments, but allow the website as a whole to exist as view-only. (Although I, for one, would be very sad in that case, but hey, I’m sad already.)
You could also experiment with the different approaches you listed and see how it goes.
I was re-reading some previous essays and comments from before the Era of Insults and Irrelevancies. So many fine words there were, and opportunities for engagement. I don’t want to see that replaced with aggressive inanities, or with silence and disconnection.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Daniel, I’m still waiting for your apology. Are you going to man-up or not?
My request to Daniel to apologize for his libel and slander:
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/10/a-curious-course-on-conduct-and-crapulence/#comment-52156
November 10th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for your constructive comment, Jennifer. It’s a fine exception to the numerous hateful, hate-filled comments that have come to characterize this space.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Just to clarify, Guy: Is my quoting Thomas Jefferson “hateful” because his own hand contradicts your political interpretation of Jefferson?
November 10th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Guy, you tell me either:
• Stay
• Leave
I’ll abide by your wishes.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Thanks for the offer, Ivy Mike. Believe it or not, though, you’re not the point. The issue is much broader than you. It’s about slinging insults at those who comment in this space. I’d like to eliminate those comments while still allowing reasoned discussion of ideas.
November 10th, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Guy,
I’d also hate to see you shut it down. This place has been like home to me for the past three years. For what it’s worth, I spent some time saving the archives–essays and comments,from the beginning up to the end of 2011. As word documents. Probably not the most efficient way to do it but I’m not that smart. It’s a big file and would take a while to download. Anyone interested is welcome to contact me through Guy. Or I can send it to Guy and he can relay it. On second thought I suppose it’s likely Guy has this available already so maybe nevermind. Guy–if you do decide to shut it down, good bye all my friends. And may you all find happiness, for as long as you can.
John
November 10th, 2012 at 8:06 pm
I hope you don’t shut it down. I find the conversation very important, even if I don’t contribute much. I am in forums that do ban individuals who indulge in ad hominem attacks. I vote for this as a trial, unless it’s too much work for you.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Guy,
As has been stated, Anarchist theory is devoid of rulers, not rules, and given this is your blog, I understand the inherent hypocrisy associated with moderating/blocking, but I believe some basic ground rules are now unfortunately needed, to weed out obvious malicious obfuscation of this blogs primacy (the reality of the potential threat of near term extinction).
It’s not about alienating those who disagree with the evidence, because I think we can all find plenty to disagree with, given the paucity of reliable data at this point. But IMO, what it most comes down to, is one’s intent. And it is clearly the intent of a few contributors to prevent any kind of salient exchange from happening.
The sheer self-centeredness on display here has become so dreadful, that at this point, I seriously hope they are being paid for their time, because if they’re not, then what a tragic display misguided brilliance. What these highly intelligent individuals can’t seem to emotionally grasp, is that we desperately want them to be right. I would easily give my life, for them to be able to prove that the threat of near term extinction wasn’t a growing probability. But they can’t, so they resort to the same old tactic of ad hominem slander that has dominated the debate surrounding climate change from the very beginning.
I think “we’re” just tired of this behavior, and given the profound raw emotions entailed in finding acceptance of our near term fate, most of us have simply run out of patience for such playground tactics.
So, in regards to where do we go from here? As I’ve stated earlier, it’s really simple: Be good or be gone. If any individual isn’t capable of acting maturely (not resorting to personal attacks and deliberating engaging in endless subjective redirects), that individual is given a warning, and if said behavior persists, then they’re blocked.
And given the fact that I don’t even need to mention who these distracters are by name, for most everyone to know whom I’m referring………………….well, enough said.
I am in full agreement the TRDH and Jennifer H, this blog can be a place for true commiseration concerning the most distressing process any of us are ever going to have to undergo, regardless of our backgrounds. And as Robin D has stated, we can all agree to disagree, but again, it’s the genuine intent of that disagreement that matters most, and one’s intent is pretty easy to deduce, given the language we use.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
.
Daniel’s last post reads like something straight out of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. And you stated yourself earlier, Guy, that it was because of a few posters, to include, I’m sure, Ivy Mike and me. It’s clear you don’t want disagreement, and it’s clear via your tacit approval, that you want some members to have their haughty asses kissed whilst they snidely stomp on others. I have no confidence, whatsoever, that you, or anyone else here, would objectively and fairly moderate comments. It’s impossible. There is far too much prejudice. Children are the only chance. Adults are too damaged, and what I have witnessed and experienced at this site is a prime example of that.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
kathy, describing the invasion of offensive wordy agitators on this blog as alien is apt, imo. as is the advice to ignore them. if they don’t go away, scroll away!
‘I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that someone reading this blog decided to commit suicide – after all, we frequently discuss death and the end of life as we know it. Those are pretty heavy topics. However, it would surprise me greatly if I found out that that same person had no thoughts of suicide prior to reading this blog.’
tsdh, your comments re. suicide have me thinking about trying another feature essay on the subject. for now, briefly, i’ll just say that i’d probably be more depressed/suicidal/alienated/isolated without this blog. it’s nice to share awareness.
November 10th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
one’s intent
Daniel doubles-down on his previous libel and slander with his self-styled mind-reading ability.
Daniel, what if we consider that your intent is to block discussion? I’ve brought up anthropological evidence that contradicts your political viewpoints. You evade that scholarly evidence, and then stoop to ad hominem attacks to protect your belief system.
Seems you’re part of the problem, Daniel.
Again, I’m going to ask you for an apology for your false accusation against me—without a shred of evidence—that I deny climate change and evolution.
Are you going to man-up to an apology, or not?
November 10th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
.
I’m waiting for an apology from Guy for implying that I didn’t know or experience “hard work,” even after I clarified for him my comment he with which he took umbrage. None has been forthcoming, and none will be. That’s the double standard that will ensue. That’s the double standard that the Chosen Ones are clamoring for, and it’s the double standard they will get. It’s always, and I mean ALWAYS, the case. No exceptions. Watch. It will be codified just as assassinations have been codified under BO. As is above, is below. Simulacra.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
.
Again, I’m going to ask you for an apology for your false accusation against me—without a shred of evidence—that I deny climate change and evolution.
He’s not going to apologize, and in fact, he used it as an insult once again. In his last Orwellian post he said:
What these highly intelligent individuals can’t seem to emotionally grasp, is that we desperately want them to be right. I would easily give my life, for them to be able to prove that the threat of near term extinction wasn’t a growing probability.
He’s calling us Deniers. I was first called that by Jeff S and ulvfugl in a thread way back when we were discussing 9/11. Daniel’s calling me a Denier here again. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve been called, and yet I stand accused. This is nuts.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
it’s clear you don’t want disagreement
Quite so.
I don’t disagree with any of the climate science, nor its dire implications to the biosphere.
However, I’ve brought to the table the science of anthropology. How many times have I quoted Service, Boehm, etal, with ZERO scholarly response? This anthropology controverts political belief systems here. So the believers finally respond by attacking me, and saying I’m “hateful” or “blocking discussion.”
I’ve brought historical evidence. My very first post on this blog was a challenge to Guys’ political viewpoint of Jefferson regarding “anarchy.” Guy responded curtly. Perhaps that gave the long-time regulars permission to do the same, amplified.
So what is happening here, from my viewpoint, is a series of petulant political power plays, the latest by Daniel, to block scholarly evidence that challenges political belief systems completely outside of the climate science, with which I concur.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Morocco Bama awaits an apology for an implication he perceives. For him, and a few others, this space has become a means to distract from important issues via self-absorption. If he’s not getting paid to post here, he’s missing a prime opportunity.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
“didn’t know or experience hard work”
ulfugl pulled that one again this evening on me, claiming I didn’t grow anything.
Let’s see, this morning’s breakfast was pasture eggs, butter I churned, milk I squeezed, cheese I made.
All these false accusations are a means of avoiding discussion of the anthropology and historical evidence I’ve brought to the table that challenges political beliefs here.
It’s just like a Baptist church. Walk into one with Darwin’s Origins under your arm, and you’ll get kicked out for all kinds of conjured pretexts that avoid the real motive.
My quoting scholarly sources like Boehm, Service, Axtell, etal I’ve referenced does the same thing here for the same reason.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Ivy Mike, I haven’t disparaged your scholarly anthropological references. I’ve largely ignored them, because — to me, at least — they seem only marginally relevant to the topics under discussion.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
What important issues?
The climate science? I concur with you.
Drop out, Back to the land? I’m there, full in.
One issue I opposed was conflating reproductive choice with criminal child abuse by using extremist anti-choice rhetoric used by fundamentalists.
My challenge has caused a near riot. So I ask: is parental reproductive choice against the blog’s orthodoxy?
November 10th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
I agree they’re marginally relevant to the climate science, which is your main thrust. But when people bring up a marginally relevant topic like “individualism is the whole problem,” and then I challenge such a political belief with anthropological evidence that paleolithic life was “autonomous and sovereign” (Service 1975, Boehm 1999) and then am accused of “blocking discussion,” what’s really going on here?
Why don’t they get accused of bringing up marginally relative topics? Here’s why:
“Individualism is the whole problem” is as orthodox of a belief here—in spite of the evidence contrary—as The Holy Trinity is to a Baptist Church.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:34 pm
.
Morocco Bama awaits an apology for an implication he perceives. For him, and a few others, this space has become a means to distract from important issues via self-absorption. If he’s not getting paid to post here, he’s missing a prime opportunity.
You can’t even talk at me when you’re insulting me. You have to talk at the class as you mock what you believe to be a dissenting student. Apparently, you can take the prof out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of the prof. Your blog has evolved into self-absorption, and you have the temerity to say I’m self-absorbed. So it’s true, you do believe I’m a paid agent. No wonder you didn’t say anything about Ozzie. Wow, you’re not as intelligent as I thought you were. But now that we’re on the subject, using your logic, you would be the more likely candidate to be an intelligence agent, not me. What better way to shut down the issue of Climate Change and turn people away. Using your logic, of course, which is the logic of insult.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Guy, a clarification:
You said: “I haven’t disparaged your scholarly anthropological references.”
I know you haven’t. Nobody has disparaged your scholarly anthropological references. Nobody even mentions them at all. Hell, they wouldn’t touch them with a 10 foot pole.
What your blog regulars do is what Daniel has done tonight: make false accusations of all sorts, such as Daniel’s whopper false accusation about denying climate science and evolution.
It’s like bringing up science in a creationist debate — and getting accused of being demon-possessed. The science is never questioned or approached, it’s completely circumvented with a conjured fault. The same socio-political shenanigans happen here.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
*”my” anthropological references, rather than “your”
November 10th, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Ivy Mike, your hundred or so comments on this essay within the last three days have covered considerable terrain. Virtually none of that terrain has been related to the posted essay, however, and many of your comments are clearly intended to provoke or insult. Your singular fascination with your own interpretation of other peoples’ comments serves only to squelch, rather than promote, discussion.
Although bringing more people onto an overcrowded planet seems absurdly cruel to me, I’ve given up pointing out that particular absurdity. And, as with many issues, it’s too late to facilitate societal change via education. If somebody wants to have a litter of children, ignorantly or fully aware of our dire straits, I have little interest and even less control over that situation.
I will continue to focus on matters over which I do have a modicum of control. For me, the important matters remain securing clean water, securing healthy food, maintaining body temperature, and contributing to a decent, humane human community. For many years, this website allowed me to focus on these issues. Lately, however, this website is interfering with these pursuits.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:50 pm
Ivy Mike, My challenge has caused a near riot. So I ask: is parental reproductive choice against the blog’s orthodoxy?
Where’s the near riot? I would be hard pressed to verify this for sure since you mention this topic in almost every post you make, but I don’t recall more than one or two people responding to it. Not that I’m implying need my permission, but if you want to disagree with Kathy C, go for it. And if you want to discuss it, have at it.
But, when you bring it up, over and over and over, despite no one else willing to discuss it, then it’s abusive and a waste of everyone else’s time. And that’s what’s going on here.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
singular fascination with your own interpretation of other peoples’ comments
But you don’t address Daniel’s interpretation of other peoples comments, where he somehow divines “one’s intent”? Pure hypocrisy.
clearly intended to provoke
Yes, provoking thought is my intent. Is that a problem?
or insult
I have done that, but only when insulted. Is insulting only bad when I do it in retaliation?
a litter of children
And you insult. Children are not dogs, if you studied any biology, Guy.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
.
Lately, however, this website is interfering with these pursuits.
Why? Why are you overly concerned about the comments section to your blog? I understand tending to your blog to write an essay, or secure and post a guest essay, but why be overly concerned about the comments section? Is it an issue of control? Isn’t that an issue of empire? Isn’t empire all about control? And, I’ll never forget when you posted my essay here, you immediately posted off-topic, and so too did a number of your highly-valued regulars. That was rude, and it makes me wonder. Do you have some kind of sadistic streak? Do you get off inviting someone to post here, and then have them get ripped up, or ignored, in the comments section, because that’s exactly what’s going on with your prized regulars, and yet you choose to overlook and ignore that whilst flogging some easy targets.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
.
And that’s what’s going on here.
No, what’s going on is repeating tropes that are in stark contradiction to what the blog author and his guests post, and now it appears, the blog author is in on it, as well. What hypocrisy to put up a post about being radical, an excellent post by the way, and then to not heed it by claiming, and others repeating the trope ad nauseum, that over-population is the problem. That hypocrisy is so stark, and stinks so noxiously, it simply cannot be left unchecked, and yet, because of stubborn authoritative ego, none of you will back down from it. You want to talk about nonsense. That’s nonsense, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg concerning the memes that are being bandied about here.
.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
My conclusion: Guy himself is his whole “insult” problem.
• He regularly insults, as evidenced by his recent Youtube “asshole” attack.
• He promotes insultive behavior, as evidenced by his admonition to “walk away from all your colleagues, friends, and family”
[note: Such rhetoric is recognized by psychologists as harmful cult behavior. It is totally unnecessary; we kept all our colleagues, friends, and family and are probably more self-sufficient.]
• He preaches about insulting while simultaneously making insults, as evidenced by his gratuitous derogatory terms for children in his last comment.
November 10th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
OK all.
It could be all my fault as Morocco Bama points out.
I complained he was whinging. That was impolite, especially without much history.
But I did later apologise.
Now that apology is not being honoured by Morocco Bama saying that it was I, ( and ulvfugl) that set off a retinue of abuse.
That may be true.
I think Morocco Bama has made a very good point with regard to the original intention by Guy to discuss on this blog the evidence about Climate Change, biosphere destruction and the whole kit’n'kibboodle of environmental destruction by ‘Empire’.
With Guys essay ‘We’re done’ a corner was turned for him, and all those who follow in that conclusion, based on the evidence, that human extinction and the extinction of many other species is immanent, and happening far sooner than expected.
So Morocco Bama asks what is the point in going any further once you reach that conclusion.
Let’s take him seriously about that for now.
Let’s answer that.
With option (4) Guy here acknowledged that this site :
“(4) eliminating this website, which has largely served its purposes. I’m open to comments on these approaches and others I’ve missed.”
So maybe there is a (5) option.
Before I go on I want to say I am not a goner on the extinction thing. I personally have seen and experienced many things that lead me to conclude that there are other forces at work, and I cannot categorise them in any better way than to state that IMO this is a psycho-phisical universe, and therefore, putting up only the evidence from a scientific POV is only part of the equation. I, therefore, cannot agree with the complete conclusion that this extinction scenario will complete itself however, I am agreeing it may be close.
That is my view. It may change I suppose, given the changes in the worldly evidence.
So (5). People, posters, Guy, agree to let go of all the past ‘stuff’, and start again.
Can that work?
Having already apologised to Morocco Bama I am happy to again.
I am sorry Morocco Bama for insulting you. I am sorry for insinuationg you are a payed for comment poster. I retract that assertion. I have no evidence to offer to support that view.
Ivy Mike, likewise I am sorry for doing that to you.
I am sorry if I brought the conversation ‘down’ here. I only take ‘my’ share of the blame, however.
Please forgive me.
I tried in the early posts to contribute something I believed I had learned from my experiences in life.
Some of that I shared by putting the experiences down here, of others I used them to inform me as to an alternative view of the universe, and the human locus of consciousness within it, or as it.
Perhaps that was hubris. I am not a scientist, I am not a mystic, and I am not a nihlist. I believe we are all something wonderful, and therefore, intention, consciousness and free thinking can focus attention such that strange and miraculous things can occur.
That is why I put up the 52 card experience, because by most people’s standards the only conclusion they can come to is that I was lying, (or somehow deluded).
The end of human life may happen. I agree it is a realistic prospect, given these various feedbacks and the progressive evidence.
But it is not done yet!!
So can we (5) each apologise and accept the recent ‘phase’ as something transitory, perhaps coping with Morocco Bama’s point about what do we do since it is all very likely going to crap anyway?
It all could be better her at NBL. It could work.
Either Ivy Mike or Morocco Bama or both have rejected ‘groupthink’ as a limitation on honest discussion. This ‘groupthink’ is a naturally occuring social phenomena where people who converse as a group will usually accept or initiate a process of attaining a consensis of views.
That is normal, but nevertheless not entirely desirable when one central objective is the ‘truth’ of the matter.
So, I propose that we acknowledge that there is such a tendancy there, natural in its own way, and simply debate the points as they arise, and be aware of that tendency.
Claiming a consensus is also not working here. Refering to previous evidence is perhaps the best way to not go over old ground too much, but that is just a suggestion.
How about it?
If there is anyone else I have offended, please tell me.
Are my apologies accepted? They are genuine, and I will not make those mistakes again.
Please achnowledge.
November 11th, 2012 at 2:20 am
Guy
You have asked for comments on what, if anything, should be done about the recent change to the composition of the comments on NBL, so here are my views.
I would hate it if NBL ceased to exist and any form of subjective censorship would be almost as bad. I don’t object to any particular posts but what I do dislike is the huge number of comments posted by a few. I have suggested previously limiting readers to one post per hour. I no longer think that is the best solution because it would kill all dialogue. A better solution would be for you to request that everybody limits their number of posts to X per essay. The value of X is up to you. It would also be helpful if you could have a counter next to the title of each comment to prevent us all becoming accountants.
If everybody stuck to this rule, NBL would be much improved from its present state. If they didn’t, at least everybody would know who to start ignoring and at what point so the culprits could no longer complain about it.
The “immorality” or “cruelty” of having children
Because Ivy Mike has been so persistent, because I agree with him on this one and in the interests of Morocco Bama’s intellectual honesty, I would like to ask Kathy C and Guy this question: “Has there ever been a time in your lives when things were so bad you wished you’d never been born?” Could there ever be such a time? If the answer is “no”, I suggest you cannot argue having children is either immoral or cruel because we are not yet at a point where children are guaranteed a life of suffering from the moment they are born. If the answer is “yes”, I suggest you have not had much joy in your lives.
November 11th, 2012 at 4:55 am
Yorchichan
Want to answer, even though clearly not addressed.
Even as a child, I wished I was never born. Mainly not for personal experience of bad life, but seeing what and how we are behaving.
In teenage times my clear message was never to have children of my “own” as to not add to the “predicament”.
At 21 I had the first child, two years later the second.
Life has been a joy most of the time so far and am grateful for the exceptionable good share.
Life is wonderful and yet, at times I wish I was born a tree 10k years ago.
Talking to my children I try to carefully leave the message of my teenage time, maybe to do the thing I have missed. Is this love?
Peace.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:02 am
The virgin terry.
“it’s nice to share awareness.”
YES.
Refuge since some time now and grateful for that.
Peace
November 11th, 2012 at 5:41 am
.
The insulting in this thread began with the 22nd post, and that post belongs to Ozzie. My comments up to that point were meaningful, constructive and pertinently applied to the topic of the essay. Then along comes Ozzie in the 22nd post with a long-winded, scathingly insulting screed directed at me in which he invokes my name four or five times. It was nonsense of the highest order, and you, Guy, you are a hypocrite for not seeing that, and instead seeing only what you want to see because of your willful prejudice. This is shameful behavior on your part. It’s unprofessional….and ludicrous.
And to call me self-absorbed when any person with any shred of intellectual honesty looking at this situation closely can arrive at the conclusion that it’s not me that’s self-absorbed, but rather you who is self-absorbed. That’s the purpose of this blog, every bit as much as it’s the purpose of Sandy Krolick’s blog. It’s all about yourself and what you’ve done in your life, and I suppose your expectation for the comments section is that all who post here genuflect before your self-absorbed saintliness and never question or reproach the Divine. I don’t have a book. I don’t have a blog. A self-absorbed narcissist would have these things, and they would use their name in order to promote themselves in the true spirit of vanity, and yet you, and others here have the hypocritical temerity to call ME self-absorbed and narcissistic. What a JOKE…and a bad joke, at that.
And you know what, I know you have taken umbrage with my comments to Robin about him calling you Dr. It helps explain the spiteful vindictiveness inherent in your divine judgment. You’re not a doctor any longer if you have truly left Empire, just as surely as I’m no longer a CPA, but I’ll be damned, you still like the feeling that title gives you, don’t you? Dr. …..a title of Civilization….a title of Empire….a title with a reserved seat at the banquet table that’s serving up the potential annihilation of all living things on Earth, but hey, who gives a shit about any of that, when it feels so good to be called Dr. again. I refuse to call you it, just as I refuse to call Dr.’s IRL, Dr.’s. I will not bow and prostrate before your meaningless title of Empire and all it represents and symbolizes. You are no more than me, and I am no more than you, despite your adherence to titles. And don’t give me any shit about how you don’t adhere to titles. If that were true, you would have called Robin out on it, just as you’ve called out Ivy Mike and me on this thread, meaning you’re reading and keeping score, and yet you didn’t say anything to Robin, which means you tacitly approve of being called Dr. ….which makes you a hypocrite. But of course, as has often been the case when you are confronted with the hypocrisy label, you will innocently and coyly say “yes, I’m human, therefore I’m a hypocrite.” Sorry, you can’t conflate those who are not “aware” with your own brand of hypocrisy. They have an excuse. They’re not “aware.” If they’re not “aware,” their actions and words cannot be considered hypocrisy. You, however, are “aware.” In fact, if there is a God of Awareness, surely you are that deity, or at least you are treated as such, and so, you can’t play that conflation card. You have a greater duty and obligation because of your divine “awareness” to be omni-cognizant of your potential hypocrisy and ever vigilant in scrubbing it from the depths of your being. I don’t see that happening. Quite the contrary, actually. Rock on.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:50 am
.
If the answer is “no”, I suggest you cannot argue having children is either immoral or cruel because we are not yet at a point where children are guaranteed a life of suffering from the moment they are born. If the answer is “yes”, I suggest you have not had much joy in your lives.
The irony of this is, Yorchichan, that neither, or any of us for that matter, would have been born at all if their/our ancestors took a similar tack when confronted with seemingly imminent and dooming annihilation. But they want to deny the potential future existence of others, and this is all masked over with concern for the suffering that will ensue. And don’t forget, this is coming from someone who has openly avowed that they are not empathic. There are some other things that could describe the contradiction. One of them is self-hatred and self-loathing that is misplaced and being projected outwards because they are not capable of confronting it personally.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:53 am
Bernhard
I’ve had some very bad things happen to me in my life, but never once have I wished I had never been born. I can understand why someone might wish they were dead, if they were in great pain for instance, but to wish one had never been born is quite a strange thought to me. IMO, a few moments of happiness is worth an awful lot of pain.
Anyway, I hope I wasn’t too hard on Kathy or Guy. I didn’t mean to be and they’ve taken quite enough stick already. Whatever their views on the morality of having children, I know their heart is in the right place.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:54 am
IEA getting closer to NBL
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change
World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change
November 11th, 2012 at 5:57 am
About 100,000 homes and businesses in New York City and Long Island were so damaged by Hurricane Sandy that restoring power to some of them may take months, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
About two-thirds are on Long Island’s south shore, with 36,000 clustered in Staten Island and the Rockaways where the most flooding occurred, Cuomo said yesterday at a news briefing.
“You have some people who have buildings and have homes that you cannot turn on the power until that building or home is repaired or replaced,” Cuomo said. “Those are going to be the most difficult situations.”
Cuomo said electricity has been restored to 96 percent of the region, although that doesn’t include 100,000 power customers whose properties were so damaged it could be months before service is restored.
About 434,140 homes and businesses, mostly in New York and New Jersey, remained without power as of 2 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, 50, said about 240,000 homes and businesses in the state remained without electricity yesterday. Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG) said today 12,700 customers remain without power from Hurricane Sandy, and another 8,300 who lost service this week from the nor’easter storm. The company said it has replaced at least 2,500 poles, 1,000 transformers and cut down 41,000 trees to repair damage.
full story at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-10/100-000-n-y-homes-businesses-face-months-without-power.html
November 11th, 2012 at 5:58 am
Bama.
“But they want to deny the potential future existence of others, and this is all masked over with concern for the suffering that will ensue.”
I believe you are entirely wrong there.
Nevertheless,
Peace.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:00 am
.
Whatever their views on the morality of having children, I know their heart is in the right place.
And so was Eichman’s, depending on who you asked. It’s opne thing to wish you were never born, but it’s entirely another to project that self-loathing onto others and indicate that with harsh and morally admonishing rhetoric.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:05 am
!!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 6:06 am
Yorchichan
“but to wish one had never been born is quite a strange thought to me.”
What does it proof? We all don’t even know to the slightest extent what is going on on a physical way on this earth and even less what may be going on at a psychological way within life.
My memory goes back quite a long stretch into childhood concerning the thought: “Wish I never came here, so many, too many things are wrong.”
To me it is kind of strange to think the opposite way, to never doubt one owns existence, that it may not be such a good idea for various reasons
Peace.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:11 am
Bama.
Well you are stretching this too far now. I think it’s time to cool
down, how about a walk barefoot in the snow or barefoot through some
fresh, cool/ cold water?
If not enough, you may also try stick your head in the later.
Nevertheless my friend,
Peace.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:26 am
.
Pursuant to Ivy Mike’s thesis, and one of the permutations I believe is highly plausible.
http://news.yahoo.com/israel-drawn-syria-fighting-first-time-122327499.html
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel was drawn into the Syrian civil war for the first time on Sunday, firing warning shots into the neighboring country after a stray mortar shell fired from Syrian territory hit an Israeli military post.
The Israeli military said the mortar fire caused no injuries or damage at the post in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and then annexed. But in recent weeks, incidents of errant fire from Syria have multiplied, leading Israel to warn that it holds Syria responsible for fire on Israeli-held territory.
“A short while ago, a mortar shell targeted an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) post in the Golan Heights,” said army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich. “We answered with a warning shot toward Syrian areas. We understand this was a mistake and was not meant to target Israel and then that is why we fired a warning shot in retaliation.”
The Israeli military also said it has filed a complaint through United Nations forces operating in the area, stating that “fire emanating from Syria into Israel will not be tolerated and shall be responded to with severity.”
I believe Israel will make good on their threats in BO’s second term. We’ll see how it plays out. It could get messy…quickly, and if it does, draconian measures will be taken here in the U.S. …. measures that have been in the works for quite some time, just waiting for the Zeitgeist to initiate them. If, and when, that unfolds, I have no doubt they will come for your land….eventually, by hook, crook or drone. The real survival skills at that point will be how to survive in the ghetto. If that’s the case, most everyone here, including myself, is in no way prepared. It will be on-the-job training, and you better be in shape going into it.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:33 am
Bama.
Time to place the Peace flag somewhere in front of the house if you haven’t so already, no?
November 11th, 2012 at 6:39 am
.
In the previous thread, the first two posts were from Ivy Mike and me to Nadia in relation to the topic of her article. Both posts were constructive, relevant and on topic. Then, third post down, Tom posts an off-topic link. And then the fourth post, he posted another off-topic link. I’m not going to hold that against Tom, and in fact, I responded about one of his links, but the real egregious post was post #10. Here it is:
Ken Barrows Says:
November 2nd, 2012 at 11:52 am
Meh. Too late anyway since life will be extinguished by mid-century. It would be nice, though, if the perpetrators just admitted what they are doing.
In post #15, Kathy C supports the marginalizing and dismissive #10 post with this response:
Tom, I agree with Ken Barrows – all over – humans all gone by mid century if not sooner.
Where was Guy at that point…..the tipping point of the thread devolution? Anyone who is intellectually honest can comb this site, and comb these threads and clearly see this pattern. No one will, and so the myth that it is something else causing all the commotion here will perpetuate.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:45 am
.
Bernhard,
There can be no peace without Justice. I interpret that to mean, that unless you get to the root of the problem, and are thoroughly radical, an environment where peace can flourish is not possible. Flags are meaningless symbols. Look at all the Xenophobes who drape themselves in the “American” flag presumably because it represents, to them at least, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” an yet what’s done under the cover of that flag is directly contrary to that presumption.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 7:28 am
Morocco Bama, Guy has expressed his frustration in the past with how quickly the comments stray from the essay at hand. You would have to do some searching to find it, but I think it was sometime earlier this year that he mentioned it specifically.
I have been known to comment quite a bit “off topic”. So I am as guilty of that as anyone. Frankly, pretty much every regular commenter here posts off topic comments, as do many occasional commenters. However, there’s a big difference between that and what has developed lately.
I reread your essay yesterday along with many of the comments that you had posted previously. I can’t remember if I commented specifically on your essay but it was well written and interesting. Your comments up to that point had been thoughtful and pertinent to the topics covered by this blog, including many of the links you included in your comments. But more importantly, they had been respectful and didn’t include personal attacks. I think that’s the biggest issue with the overwhelming number of posts you’ve been making since then.
Most of us forget ourselves sometimes and get rude with another poster. I’ve done it and I know others have done it. The point is, being rude is 100% counterproductive to having a good discussion. Personal attacks compound the problem and eliminate any hope of having a meaningful discussion.
Once a certain amount of animosity is generated between two people, it is difficult to overcome. And that will be the challenge with respect to you. You’ve insulted so many, repeatedly – and yes, many, including myself, have retaliated in kind – that it will be difficult for that cordial relationship to be reestablished.
Perhaps you disagree and think that all this is nonsense and that we’re all just picking on you and singling you out because you made some comments with which we disagree. If you believe that, then I suppose nothing I say will matter. But, I’ve stated the problem correctly, in my opinion. The only solution I can think of with respect to you is for you to take a break – a few days, a week, you decide. I, for one, would welcome the return of the Morocco Bama who used to post here.
Of course, it’s possible that all this is moot and Guy will shut down the site anyway.
November 11th, 2012 at 7:31 am
Kathy C
That IEA link:
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 7:40 am
Having read this blog for a short while, as I see it, this is a blog where folks can express their opinions, theories, fears and hopes and sometimes even some facts. It’s not a court where we prove who is right or wrong and who is good or bad, who is guilty.
So why don’t we just respect the right of others to have their opinions? Discuss the pros and cons. Leave it at that. Let the readers decide what they think. That too is respectful. Keep it on the high road.
Compared to politics, religion, and economics, physics deals with lots of laws and facts. Should be easier to discuss than those other topics. Seems the problems arise with the reaction to the physics. That’s where wisdom is needed. Let’s support one another, not blame one another.
David Mc.
Wanted to comment for a while now but didn’t need any more trouble. Thought the group could use a farmer and his opinions.
November 11th, 2012 at 7:41 am
It seems that the recent interlopers on this blog are intentionally trying to undermine polite conversation among those who are concerned with the issues commonly discussed here.
As censorship would be inappropriate, imo, I suggest that we simply allow IM and MO to play pseudo-intellectual ping pong with each other and not involve ourselves in their autistic games. Perhaps they will eventually get bored with the comments section and decide to hook-up for a sodomitic tryst in some chain motel which caters to amateur anthropologists.
November 11th, 2012 at 7:49 am
Calling all cars, calling all cars, IEA link, IEA link.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:08 am
dairymandave – I think maybe I know you from another discussion site. We can always use a farmers prospective and if you are the same dairymandave I can say in advance that your comments will be welcome and useful.
In fact perhaps you can comment on this story I saw this AM about farmers feeding cows candy
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/news/economy/farmers-cows-candy-feed/index.html?\
hpt=hp_t3
Many of us here have had our comments distorted by the few who choose to disrupt. I am sure you can figure that out yourself.
Welcome
November 11th, 2012 at 8:10 am
Near term extinction?
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:14 am
Near term extinction.
November 11th, 2012 at 8:27 am
‘The Oak tree and the Cypress grow not in each others shadow.’
‘The Prophet’. Kahlil Gibran.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:40 am
Desiderata
“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.”
Worth contemplating.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:40 am
.
The thread where it all began….and Kathy C led the charge. ulvfugl and Ozzie smelled blood and went in for the kill, but they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, and their prey turned on them, and now they feel a need to call in reinforcements to destroy the reflection of their contradictions. You are disingenuous, Kathy C. You started this, and you kept it going. You unleashed the Hounds of Hell, and now you sit their gloating and taunting. Sorry, House, you didn’t research deep enough and with an objective and open mind. The pattern is there. There was an inflection point….a tipping point, and Kathy C served as the catalyst. You can ride me off and shut me down, but others will come, and the same thing will happen again, because you all are incapable of abiding by the words of Guy’s excellent essay on radicalism. You will not get to the root of the problem.
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/08/what-are-we-fighting-for/
.
November 11th, 2012 at 8:50 am
End of world dissatisfaction
Can lead to extreme kinds of action,
And desperation
Can lead to fixation
On any old kind of distraction.
November 11th, 2012 at 8:52 am
“I am not what I am” Iago.
Othello
William Shakespeare.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:57 am
Ah…hemm?
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 8:58 am
Bama : The thread where it all began….and Kathy C led the charge. ulvfugl and Ozzie….
Everybody else’s fault but never your own…
It began long before that. In your very own words : “…..one umbrella term, and that is ASSHOLE. My family thinks I’m one, and they’ve said so on more than one occasion.”
November 11th, 2012 at 9:03 am
“The unpleasantness we experience when in difficulty
is more often than not caused by our own reactions.”
I ching.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Guy
“Do not try to recover what is lost;
it will return only if it is proper for it to do so.”
I Ching.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:12 am
“Pursuers may attack you;
that is unfortunate,
but the question is:
what can you do about it?”
I Ching.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:13 am
“Do not employ aggression when none is needed.”
I Ching.
(Amen)
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:14 am
For Kathy C:
“You are isolated and in an extremely dangerous situation.
The only way out is to retain one’s composure and wait.”
I Ching.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:22 am
“For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
The Law for the Wolves
Rudyard Kipling
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:24 am
“Are we learning yet?”
John Conner
Terminator II
Judgement Day.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:29 am
“Adversity can make or break us.
If we do not learn from adverse conditions we will be broken.”
I Ching.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:35 am
Now it appears that someone is using OzMan’s online handle as most of these posts with his name on them are not typical of the type of things he says. They seem more consistent with the type of posts that Ivy Mike has been making. Hmmm….
So, I give up. The trolls win. Guy, I’ll check back every couple of weeks to see how things are going and what you’ve decided to do with the site. Who knows? Maybe I’ll just go ahead and disconnect from the internet entirely. It may just be a good time for that.
To all those who are still reading, thanks for all the wonderful stories, thoughts, ideas, and community. Best of luck to all of you!
John
November 11th, 2012 at 9:36 am
“our comments distorted”
Yeah, by you. Such as this distortion:
“Actually have you considered that you made a joke because you couldn’t deal with the future I was projecting? Not an uncommon defense mechanism.” ~Kathy C October 26
You’re the distorter, Kathy C. A rubber-stamped distorter, but a distorter nonetheless.
Have you considered your distortions as a defense mechanism against any rational critique of your extremist anti-choice rhetoric that parrots the other anti-choice fundamentalists who conflate reproductive choice with criminal behavior?
November 11th, 2012 at 9:39 am
Morocco Bama
“There can be no peace without Justice. I interpret that to mean, that unless you get to the root of the problem, and are thoroughly radical, an environment where peace can flourish is not possible.”
Going to the root of the problem – I think that is, or was at least, the intention of NBL. Staying sane at the same time.
To me it is thrilling, or better sobering, how this works out here atm.
George Carlin – Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!
Now realising that the “other half” is not writing here yet /except myself maybe) it’s a frightening thought about how, when they will show up against the inevitable.
Justice. A big word. What is it supposed to be? We as the too clever apes even for the own good, being able to reserve enough space for other species and including our own (then limited!) offspring? Yeah then you begin to talk about justice.
“Flags are meaningless symbols.” A peace flag to me is not a meaningless
symbol. It is the only thing I can do atm. It’s the only one in this town so far.(and has been since Iraq). The peace nuts house, the same house that used to be the green nuts house. Funny is, I’m not green any more because green has become a meaningless excuse to continue as ever (with the promise of change in the future, the future we don’t have, rofl) at least over here. But now people respect for me for having been green.
They won’t accept the peace flag in time to learn that peace is not the enemy I’m afraid though.
All I ask for is to go with some decency (looking at the mess we can’t go decently, I know)
Peace
November 11th, 2012 at 9:41 am
“Hippo & Dog Wimaway”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMY39yGI-5k&feature=related
Ther may not be any Lions, Peaceful Village, nor Jungle after a few more years folks,
so lets just get our shit together, and help everyone in need.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:42 am
Yet another false accusation from the “real dr”, who seems to have no ethical qualms about lying. November 11th, 2012 at 9:36 am was my first post here this morning. OzMan can say what he wants; I guess now I’ll have to read it if he sounds like me! LOL! Apology from a “dr”? Oh no, lying is the approved debate method here. So take your dishonesty and hit the door.
November 11th, 2012 at 9:49 am
The REAL Dr. House
It’s still me,
just a differnt tack nor now.
He He,
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 9:51 am
ulvfual,
You said: “instead of buying expensive grafted trees that are on dwarf stocks, buy the cheap vigorous root stocks with no grafts, they all produce apples and are much stronger and faster growing… some apple varieties will sprout themselves, just push a good stick into the ground, they’ll make blossom even if the fruit isn’t great….”
Question–
Do you have any suggestions for varieties that are more likely to breed true? Or is it just a case of having to plant 100 seeds to get one tree that will give decent fruit. I know that in central Asia, where apples originated, there are hundreds of varieties but most are not really edible. I have one wild (feral?) tree on my place that only produces a few hard green apples. I know that pushing “a good stick into the ground” works for willows but have you had any success with apples? Also, have you ever tried grafting apples onto hawthorns (rose family to rose family)? Or is that just too far in left field?
Michael Irving
November 11th, 2012 at 9:55 am
“Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.”
Aldous Huxley
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 10:03 am
The real problem here isn’t insults, since most of the insults are coming from the regulars.
The problem is thus:
• I’m well-read and better informed about generalist “side-issue” subjects (subjects other than climate science, with which I accept,) and have scholarly references.
• My references contradict “regular posters” opinion, including Guy’s opinions. (E.g., 1. Jefferson’s written views on anarchy. 2. Non-collectivist lifeways of paleolithic people. 3. Climate science related to other risks-to-civilization.)
• I don’t bow my knee to the church-of-no-hope’s mandatory misery. I express a ray of hope and optimism, even in the face of a possible hell. What we have here is a Cult of Melancholia, (which does have a kernel of truth as all cults do, which is what drew me here in the first place) with unwritten rules of lugubrious comportment I’ve obviously flouted.
It’s been a rather informative sociological group behavior study.
November 11th, 2012 at 10:07 am
“You can close your eyes to things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to the things you don’t want to feel.”
Anon.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 10:18 am
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…”
Mark Antony.
Julius Caeserwilliam Shakespeare.
“The power of oratory is all in the delivery of the words, and the wrtten word loses its efficacy when devoid of the human voice”
Anon.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 10:21 am
Ivy Mike, take a look at the archives. Insults were exceedingly rare in this space before this summer. Now they occur many times daily.
November 11th, 2012 at 10:23 am
“…be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” ~Romans 12:2
Is that what happened to you, OzMan?
LOL!
Oh yeah, never, ever quote the most popular and most quoted book in Western Civilization, even if yours parallels the skeptical views of Thomas Jefferson himself, who literally took a knife to the Good Book. That is a faux pax extraordinaire to the dogma of Leftist Inferiority.
“Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males…”
~the convicted environmentalist, Feelings of inferiority: Industrial Society and Its Future
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fc-industrial-society-and-its-future
November 11th, 2012 at 10:24 am
Oh, I’ve looked carefully, Guy.
I am careful to not insult unless insulted.
Its your regulars who started it.
I suggest YOU take a look at the archives, and quit ignoring reality.
November 11th, 2012 at 10:24 am
Hi Michael, and thanks for this unexpected and welcome window of sanity…
Okay. Well, in UK, you can buy apples grafted onto different root stocks. I think they are called M1, M2, M3, ( maybe some others, my memory is not fresh). In USA there are similar stocks, but with different names.
So, e.g. the M3 will grow into a dwarf-ish tree, for a small garden, or for the fruit to be easily picked without a ladder.
What I discovered is that the most vigorous root stock, which will grow fast and large, without any graft, is already a very good apple. I forget the exact variety, google should find it. I was given this tip by a very nice guy whose family have been selling apple trees for a century and more. The good part is that the M1 rootstocks are produced in huge quantities for grafting, so they are very cheap, c. £1.50 in UK money, compared with £15 or £20 for a grafted tree sapling. So, if you have the space, you can more or less use them as a hedge, or as trees for firewood, plus blossom and apples. Most people these days don’t want the larger more vigorous trees and do want fancy varieties, and the vendors never mention the plain M1 because there’s no profit in selling them.
Apples from apple seeds are a different deal altogether. I think apple’s genetic diversity is immense, so you never know what you’ll get. You might get a good tree, but I think the odds are strongly against.
I have one apple tree that will grow from sticks pushed into suitable soil. They sprout roots quite fast. Unfortunately I don’t know what variety, it was already here when I came, it had to be removed because it was an obstruction, but the roots spread far and wide and send up fantastic shoots, and if you cut them off they’ll easily root themselves. But there are some other old varieties that will do it, in England and Ireland, just like willow. Again, google may find info.
I have yet to try any grafting, let along onto hawthorn, but I believe it does work.
Thing is, over previous centuries, all rural areas had their own selected varieties that liked the local conditions ( not just apples, of course, but much else including rare breeds of cattle, pigs, poultry, etc ) so I think it is a good idea to try and preserve those old rarities if possible, against the tide of commercialism. For example, I heard about a single tree, Bardsey, which grows in a very exposed place, quite similar to where I live, and then I bought some of its offspring, they are doing very well but still too young to fruit. I think the situation is similar throughout UK, there are rare varieties that thrive at high altitude, for example.
http://www.bardseyapple.co.uk/tree.html
November 11th, 2012 at 10:39 am
all rural areas had their own selected varieties that liked the local conditions…including rare breeds of cattle…good idea to try and preserve those old rarities if possible, against the tide of commercialism
I concur. That’s what I’ve been doing.
And just this fall, I butchered a 17 month old steer raised 99.9999999999999% on my grass here. He weighed 1100 lbs, (within 20# on the local grain elevator scales) and yielded 57% (short of the 60%+ yield of grainfed, but I don’t care.) The only grain to pass through his lips was a scoop-full I put in the trailer, a sort of Last Supper, at least for him, to get him into the trailer and keep him inside while I secured the trailer door.
Most feedlot farmers would salivate to have that kind of performance, but they keep doing what the university extension agent says to do, who is paid off by Monsanto/Cargill/ADM/etal.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:02 am
Kathy,
Yep, that’s me. Glad to hear that you and your chickens are doing well enough. We’re doing OK here on the farm. Always thought I could transition this place into some sort of community as soon as things collapsed sufficiently. We have lots of land, water, woods. Not sure what goal to set now. So we just keep on going, doing everything for the most part wrong. (There, no one can argue with that!)
November 11th, 2012 at 11:06 am
.
…..one umbrella term, and that is ASSHOLE. My family thinks I’m one, and they’ve said so on more than one occasion.”
Taken out of the context of which it was presented, and if that context is presented in its entirety, it takes on a different perspective than the one you are trying to proffer. But now that you mention it, I’m certain my family would also consider you an ASSHOLE, vulvaflu, and Guy, as well. Considering that, what have you really proven, except that you and Kathy C, in addition to Ozzie and Robin couldn’t just let someone have their opinion. No, the whole lot of you had to jump on Kathy C’s bandwagon and announce your undying support for the rigid and codified rules of Civilization and Empire. I handed every one of you your asses in that debate…because that’s what all of you made it, a debate, not a discussion, and it’s when you broke out what I consider to be the taboo. You told me to go fuck myself. Where was House? Where was Guy? Where were any of you goody-two-shoes who are now crying foul? You were nowhere, but here you are now. In this thread, I said to myself, fuck it, I’m tired of even trying to be decent about this, because these wackamoles keep popping in and out and taking cheap shots, so I’m going all in. I went all in, and you and the rest of them can’t handle it. Talk about tossers, you all take the cake. You’re a bunch of liars, braggarts and frauds.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:10 am
BamaYou’re a bunch of liars, braggarts and frauds.
So, if that’s your opinion of everyone, why, exactly, are YOU here at all ?
November 11th, 2012 at 11:25 am
.
My mission now, goon, is to ferret out and expose this for what it is. You can’t back out now, vulvaflu. You started it, and I’m going to finish it. I originally came here because Guy invited me (unlike you who showed up out of the blue, unannounced and uninvited), and I trusted him. So much so, I gave him my full real life name. I now regret that, and I regret him offering to put my essay up. In fact, if he lets my name slip to anyone, and I mean anyone, and I get wind of it, I will press charges. That’s how much I distrust him at this point. Ironically, when he was ready to post my essay, he asked if I wanted to use my real name, and I told him no, that whereas I trusted him, I couldn’t be sure about those who read and commented to the blog. I was naive. I should have known, and I never should have trusted him, but I’m not going to let it go now until he and the rest of you man/woman up, or he blocks me. You all want to play fuckin games, I’ll play your game.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:28 am
@ Michael Irving, Re the apple rootstock, I think I should probably have said M111 and not M1. It’s some years since I researched that stuff, and the classification of rootstocks is not logical.
http://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/articles/fruit-tree-rootstock-tree-sizes
November 11th, 2012 at 11:31 am
Bama, I’m not the slightest bit interested in playing any sort of game with you.
IMO, you have significant mental problems, perhaps you should seek some professional advice.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:34 am
Morocco Bama
Haven’t been here much the past months I missed your essay and I want to
read it. What is the title? Ah yes, please tell me.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:37 am
.
IMO, you have significant mental problems, perhaps you should seek some professional advice.
Projection on your part. You are obviously the one with the mental problems, and I am quite certain you are not the person you portray yourself to be here. You are the missing link that everyone here is searching for as the cause of all this. It started when you arrived. You are a fraud, but you’ve cracked this thing wide open now, and you’ve helped to reveal the disturbing underbelly of many who post here. That’s not something I would have noticed or observed, perhaps, if you hadn’t arrived and created a hornet’s nest. For that, I will give you credit, and if that was your intent, what a masterful job you’ve done.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:40 am
@ Michael Irving
No, I was wrong again, but I think I have found the right reference now, MM106.
This man was very friendly and helpful, and I think this is the one he meant :
Most rootstocks, if allowed to fruit, produce apples with a bland taste and a texture of cotton wool. An exception is MM106, which has good parentage.
This is an excellent late eating apple, maturing in late November and retaining its crunchy and juicy texture, with good strong flavour, until well after the new year. It’s ready to eat when it gets a brownish blush on one side. They hang late, and should be picked when the first one or two start to fall – usually in late November or early December. They mature about the same time as Allen’s Everlasting or Annie Elizabeth, though it varies a little from year to year. Being green, they don’t attract the attention of birds too much.
MM106 is usually used as a rootstock, but I grow one tree just for its fruit. It is higher in vitamin C than nearly all other apples, which it retains for most of the winter. It’s surprising that no-one sells it as an apple in its own right.
It’s a cross from the East Malling Research Station (1932) of Northern Spy (a dessert apple) with English Broadleaf – another rootstock. There is no common name for it. (Emma-Jane Lamont of Brogdale told me the genealogy ; many thanks)
Unlike M9 and M26, which are small golf-ball size, smooth and yellow, MM106 is quite large and green, ripening to greenish- brown on the sunny side. Some apples are partially covered with russet or netted, usually in a single patch. They store well; in some years they are still good in early May.
http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/mm106.html
November 11th, 2012 at 11:43 am
.
Bernhard,
It’s several pages back and it’s entitled The Last Crusade. Be sure to read the comments, as well, because it provides further clarification of the essay. FYI, we have Tibetan prayer flags hanging over our front door, and my wife, long ago, put a dove out front on the wall next to the front door that says “Peace, Love and Joy Live Here.” But that’s all only a sentiment….a start. It takes much more than that to accomplish it, and one essential ingredient is intellectual honesty.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hello All,
I have read this blog for close to two years.I have only made a comment once but I read it most mornings with my tea.I have greatly appreciated knowing there are others out there that are willing to discuss the future we all face. I have gotten some great insights and a lot of food for thought.I have read comments that led to a change in my thinking as well as comments that I carry into my day long after I shut off the computer. There are two others in the household that don’t read the blog but might as well have for all of the discussion (and actions) that the comments here prompt.
I really appreciate all the different links and the poems,good and bad.
So to Guy,my vote is that you keep the blog up! Since you are going on another round of speaking engagements, NBL would be a useful tool for people who are hearing your message for the first time and want to learn more.
As to the issues of rudeness and anarchy, my housemate had a suggestion. If you changed to a forum format, each individual could decide for themselves who they no longer wished to hear from and they could block that particular person from their own comment list. Others who enjoyed verbal sparring could engage freely.
Whatever you decide, I want to thanks you for all you have done so far.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Kathy C-
What other forums are you on?
To BC Nurse Prof, TRDH, Jennifer, and others who are sane-
We are in the formative stages of putting a homestead together. We have the land. We’re having a problem with our well. Can you suggest other sites that might be useful to us as newbies to this?
Thank you all. It’s been educational.
November 11th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Bama : I am quite certain you are not the person you portray yourself to be here.
Okay. Sue me. Preposterous delusional idiot.
Quite apart from being published in DM2, and my years of comments on Ran Prieur’s forum, I have a record on the internet going back 15 years. Anybody who wants can check out my credentials and verify my honesty and authenticity.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
RE: forum format
That’s a good idea, and there are some freebies out there.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
@ Michael Irving
Here’s one reference to apples that will grow from cuttings.
FOXTON’S PRIDE#
Also known as ‘Foxton’s Favourite’ – a small cooking apple, a few trees of which are found in the Leicestershire village of Foxton, of lock fame. The tree is said to propagate easily from cuttings; quite unusual for an apple.
http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/apple10.html
November 11th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
.
Anybody who wants can check out my credentials and verify my honesty and authenticity.
Of course they could. But first they would have to get past the dogs and then there’s the issue of no street lights. Yet another contradiction. They flow from you like honey. And the wording you used sounds quite familiar, goon. “Sue me.” Gee, where have I heard that before?
.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Bama : Of course they could.
Good, I am glad that you accept that anyone can verify my honesty and authenticity, and I’m glad you have withdrawn your foolish offensive lies, and that you now accept that you owe me yet another apology.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:49 pm
.
I suppose this is why you fit in here so well. You’re attracted to crazy people and misfits. And, you give them free psychological and medical advice. You are deeply disturbed. You have no business masquerading as a professional, and yet here you are, on the internet, offering advice to potential crazy people as though you have credentials. You are a fraud, and you are a liar. Yes, an authentic and honest to gawd liar and fake.
status offlinewolfbird #22 [-]
Posts: 369
(02/04/09 03:56:16)
Reply
Quote
More
I’ve always been attracted to crazy people and misfits. They always seemed much more interesting than the dull conformists. I’ve spent half my life talking to folks about their personal concerns. I really don’t like those ugly words, ‘bi-polar’, ‘schizophrenic’, ‘personality disorder’, etc. I don’t think they help anybody at all. I think the best remedy for mental distress is to get somewhere very quiet and peaceful, and to wind down, and then do some serious work assessing one’s own being. Most of us are victims of a crude, brutal ( so-called ) civilisation, damaged by indoctrination and education and all the rest. It is very hard to get free. It’s a big struggle, but anybody can do it, if that’s what they want to do. You make your own daily life into your therapy. You make it your life, on your terms. It’s the only one you have got, so it’s precious. It helps to make stuff. Things like pottery or baskets or drawings, because there’s connections there to our ancient roots. Gardening is wonderful…
.
November 11th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
@ Michael Irving
Here’s another apple variety, Irish, Ballyvaughan Seedling, that will grow from cuttings.
Easy to propagate — you just put a cutting in the ground and it takes root.
http://www.cooksinfo.com/ballyvaughan-seedling-apple#ixzz2BwhZO0qo
November 11th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Bama,
Anybody who reads that can judge for themselves. Thanks for proving my point here, regarding my honesty, integrity, and authenticity, and saving me the trouble of digging up references.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
.
Yes, anyone with intellectual honesty can judge that you are a liar and a fraud. You called me mentally disturbed. I’m not, at least not any more mentally disturbed than your average civilian, but hypothetically, let’s take your insult as fact. This is how you treat the mentally disturbed to whom you are attracted? You tell them to go fuck themselves, you tell them they’re nine year olds, that they’re infantile, that they’re idiots and all manner of insult, and that they’re waste of your time. Wow, that’s some kind of therapy you’re offering. Also, you don’t like terms like Bi-Polar and Schizophrenia, yet you call the mentally disturbed “crazy people” in the same post. You are not only a liar and a fake, but you’re also a walking contradiction….and I believe, a psychopath.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Bama …and I believe, a psychopath.
Fine, now that you, a failed accountant, doing nothing whatsoever of any merit or value with your time, wasting every day trolling this site to annoy everyone, have ‘diagnosed’ ME, you can be satisfied. Infantile boring stupidity, from Morocco Bama, as ever. Yawn.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
On second thought, don’t post the forum here, Kathy C. Maybe Guy would be so good as to give you my email address. I would welcome hearing from you.
November 11th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
ulvfual,
Thanks for the info. I’m off to help a neighbor split wood and so will not get to digest it until later.
Michael Irving
November 11th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
You’re welcome, Michael.
The Story. In two minutes.
http://youtu.be/MrqqD_Tsy4Q
November 11th, 2012 at 2:02 pm
.
From one of Guy’s earlier essays:
Appreciation for diversity
Most of us claim to tolerate other races, creeds, and points of view. But that claim comes up well short, in many of my experiences.
And tolerance isn’t nearly as much fun as appreciation. Here, we appreciate diversity in its myriad forms. My favorite example is the combination New Year’s Eve and house-warming party I crashed a couple years ago. About 20 of us were attending another party. Two of party-goers had been invited to a party at the home of the financially wealthy literary agents up the road. So we all went.
We were welcomed, of course. The party was attended by 150 or more people. At one point during the festivities, I happened to notice one of the well-dressed hosts chatting with a cowboy from the cattle company. The cowboy was dressed to the proverbial nines, including the requisite felt hat, pearl-button cowboy shirt, vest, starched blue jeans, and ostrich-skin boots. I suspect you’d be hard pressed to find two people in this country with more disparate political views. They were joined by a man from the land trust. His dress and personal hygiene reflected his living arrangements, with limited access to fiat currency and water. The three men continued an animated, thoughtful conversation for 30 minutes or so, as if they care about each other. Which they do.
I’m not suggesting it’s all rainbows and butterflies here, much less that the years ahead will bring nothing but good times. We have our differences, thankfully, even here on this hectare.
There are many attributes that could keep us apart. But there are even more that can hold us together, if we allow. I’d like to believe the latter is stronger than the former, despite the tendency of civilized humans to find an “other” in our midst.
My review of the earlier comments, before this summer, indicates a complete lack of diversity. They are repetitive, dull, uninspiring, and predictable….as though it were validating propaganda. You’re not learning and growing of you’re not challenging yourself and your ideas, and it appears, very few here want to challenge their newly accepted paradigm.
It is clear from the What Are We Fighting For thread, that most of you claim to tolerate other races, creeds, and points of view. But that claim comes up well short, in many of my experiences here. It is clear that here, you don’t appreciate diversity in its myriad forms. Ans so it goes.
.
November 11th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
dairymandave: So we just keep on going, doing everything for the most part wrong. (There, no one can argue with that!)
I’ll argue that Dave deserves a Pulitzer Prize! Love it!
I’ve done my share of shoveling corn silage down the silo, trying to get the automatic unloader unstuck. And dipping a pint of cream out of the bulk tank in the morning before the stir paddles got turned on. Got tie stalls or a parlor setup?
November 11th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Despite a cool October, U.S. on track for its warmest year on record
By Dr. Jeff Masters
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
November 11th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Dave, glad to hear that you are you. Nice to make contact with old friends from other blogs. Others here have hoped their sufficiency plans would attract other interested folks and have not had much success. Guess things have to get really really bad before people wake up.
Do you still do mostly grazing (if I remember correctly) or do you feed any grain. My friend in the hog industry says the industry is in panic mode because of the poor corn crop. Now I hear that winter wheat is not germinating due to drought. 2013 is going to be a year of famine for many in the world…still trying to cull our flock down because of the potential not only of high prices but also the potential of feed shortages. 40 down, 60 to go to get down to 60.
November 11th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
hog industry…panic mode
Easiest way to measure pain is corn-hog ratio; anything below 20 means the hog barn doesn’t smell like money anymore.
Today: $81/$7.42 = 11
Ethanol has lots to do with it; feeding Buicks is now as important as feeding Babies.
November 11th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Ivy, I still do the forking of corn silage every day, just for heifers, and deal with the automatic silo unloaders for the main herd (4 of them). We run 300-400 acres (some rented), keep 84 cows tie stall and 75 youngstock. Had to scrounge around for an extra 100 acres of hay this summer due to lack of rain but we are fine with a good harvest of shelled corn. Will finish that tomorrow. Love this warm weather…but don’t feel too good about it. Sandy missed us here in central New York.
Kathy, We mostly feed a total mixed ration of haylage, corn, and protein supplements. As things decline, we would probably transition back to grazing as a step down to what…who knows. I do expect industrial ag to keep going strong as folks spend more of their income on high priced food. We don’t make any more money but we do make some profits or we don’t do it at all. Our inputs follow closely the price of oil of course. Food is just another energy business and will take priority over other energy uses. I’m 69 and still put in 16/7 most of the time. But it’s fun most of the time and I don’t want to quit. It’s a good feeling to have a piece of Earth that I can take care of. We have made special efforts to build up organic matter and have stopped erosion. As I said, I did have plans for the future. I was going to beat this thing.
It is very important to me to be able to share this “adventure” with others who understand. After 11 years I still haven’t found any person who I can talk face to face with about these matters.
David
November 11th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Guy McPherson Says:
November 11th, 2012 at 10:21 am
Ivy Mike, take a look at the archives. Insults were exceedingly rare in this space before this summer. Now they occur many times daily.
(above)
==
20. June 2012
228 Comments
We’re done
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/06/were-done/
==
I’m too new here to judge, but: any connection?
November 11th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
wildwoman,
You said: “We’re having a problem with our well.”
Care to amplify that? I’m NOT a well guy but do have a well and so does everyone else around here. Maybe some extra information would stir some ideas.
I may not be sane either, so you take your chances.
Michael Irving
November 11th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
“And just this fall, I butchered a 17 month old steer….”
Killer … Murderer … Slayer … Death-bringer …
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Pondering….
Why does Morocco Bama keep referring to me a Ozzie? (I presume its me)
He must not realise that the name OzMan refers not to the continent I reside in, and was born on, Australia, for I hold no attachment to that concept, but have grown to love the land itself and the creatures that co-habit with me.
The name OzMan, which I sense Guy has twigged to, refers to the man behind the curtain in the now famous motion picture, “The wizard of Oz”.
A wake up moment for many now aging boomers in the western world about obedience to authority and the manipulation of Empire constantly going on.
A koan of sorts, and I’ll leave it at that.
!!!
November 11th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
I am such a hedonist! LOL
“As you say of yourself, I TOO AM AN EPICUREAN. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing every thing rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.”
~Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, October 31, 1819
“And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.”
~verse 51, chapter 9, The Jefferson Bible
November 11th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Adding “y” or “ie” to a name makes it a term of endearment. *wink* But I always thought you were a rocker that got to sing with all the hot babes!
Ozzy Osbourne & Lita Ford – Close My Eyes Forever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy3fJ8Nmzyw
November 11th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Or
http://www.ozzieandharriet.com/
November 11th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Which Way Do You Sway?
• EPICUREAN (a school of Hedonism)
- Pleasure is the greatest good.
- Live modestly, limit one’s desires.
• STOIC
- Moral and intellectual perfection.
- Virtue is sufficient for happiness.
I lean with Jefferson, who also copied the hedonist philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s phrase, “pursuit of happiness,” to replace “property” in Locke’s tripartite motto found in the D.o.I.
November 11th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Kathy C, MB might be too young to remember that, but I think we can safely assume OzMan is just as dashing as Ozzie himself.
November 11th, 2012 at 6:41 pm
ulvfugl,
The Orange Pippin website is very interesting. For example, on the page about “Fruit trees on their own roots” there was this about seedlings:
“As a general rule, the first seedlings to fruit from a batch of seeds are often flowering crabs, around year three to four. The next to flower are more likely to be good cropping diploid varieties. Seedlings that take six years or more to flower and fruit are usually moderate cropping diploid varieties. Triploid varieties are usually the last to flower and fruit which can take ten years.”
Thanks again for your help. By the way, I currently have five apple varieties on my place, but all on rootstocks.
Michael Irving
November 11th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Katheryn:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506351/the-most-important-education-technology-in-200-years/
November 11th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Ivy Mike
“…I think we can safely assume OzMan is just as dashing as Ozzie himself.”
Don’t count on it, buddy.
November 12th, 2012 at 12:28 am
Tom,
I had a look at the website you posted about online education, and in many ways it is way cool to study online, and I am considdering it at the moment. The webisite is to me a little bit messy, I can’t say why, but, it looks disorganised.
However, the online degree will not supply the student with many traditional aspects of going to campus education. Most of us can think of a few obvious differences.
To me the most significant difference I can imagine is not meeting anyone new, and anyone who has a significantly different experience of life to oneself. That is a big negative IMO.
Of course one can attend a university and not encounter ‘other’ types of people, however one defines that. it is easy, just don’t be interested, and it most likely will not happen.
Online education is obviously narrowed to purely the vocational aspects of going about being educated, and for the most part divests itself of any social dimension, save for perhaps some comments from a supervisor.
Some courses require an attendence at a campus for a few weeks, and that is some contact, but not in the same league, IMO.
One would be loathe to pass any kind of judgment on the online vs oncampus alternatives, some will like either or, or none Isuppose.
However, there will be IMO a lot of the infrastructure in place if the online education really kicks in, and centralised electricity keeps running, to make a small shift from this to the ‘telescreen’ and oppressive requirements of Orwell’s 1984. I could invisage the circumstances in that distopia applying to those who want to get educated, and all the rest just have some other arrangments, equally oppressive. Kind of like a mixture of Blade Runner, 1984, Starship Troopers and Hunger Games.
Perhaps that sounds like a few bets each way, but it may happen.
My experience as a mature age student at art school in 2000 and on for the next 4 years was that many more fresher students had abi=out 5 things going at once. A job, a social life, a phone, the course and any number of things that didn’t appear to be so crowded as when i attended uni in the early 1980′s. Having reflected on this what stands out to me , if I can distill some experiences and people I remember from then into a conclusion, is that now, students appear less able or willing to give their full attention to the studies. That is an overstatment, but the movement of tertiary education supply is as a service business, an as such it becomes user centred, and the ultimate scenario, is home delivered, or actually delivery to a screen portal, wherever that is.
That is a far cry from a social education tagged on, and in some cases, even driving student choices.
I knew of one guy who chose his undergraduate humanities subjects by the hot girls he wanted to, eh.. get aquainted with. he ended up studying phuilosophy and doing a masters, (maybe furthe) and looked set to go in to teaching it, and all because he chased a girl.
Anyhow, a good link thanks.
!!!
November 12th, 2012 at 1:32 am
Ozman, what is “oppressive” about the society Heinlein depicted in Starship Troopers in which:
1. The military is prohibited by law from voting.
2. Compulsory service (the draft) is illegal.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:17 am
Ivy Mike
Do you remember the shower scene where one guy asks all the recruits why they joined up?
Well, the access to being a politician, lawyer, writer and military officer, comes through citizenship. Citizenship only comes through military service, if you survive.
Oh, and the licence to have babies, too.
I was going to put up the video link to the shower scene but it is restricted to 18 and over due to nudity, so I will pass on that one. Look it up yourself.
Military service is the way to full citizenship, and elite power.
Note the big ‘dumb’ farm boy is the first casualty in training.
“More meat for the grinder, eh?”
If that is not oppressive, show me what is?
November 12th, 2012 at 4:44 am
@ Michael Irving
I planted about 60 fruit trees, mostly apples, about five years ago, intended as the basis of a forest garden, from which I myself will be unlikely to get much benefit because such things take a long time to become well-established, but a satisfying and rewarding project none the less. I’m 800ft above sea level which some people think is unsuitable, but the aspect is is direct south and apples do fine. I’ve even grown some peaches outside, sheltered against a wall. Microclimates is the key.
One of the great tragedies of this sad world is the Tien Shan Fruit Forest. As so often, any and every wonder of the natural world gets ruined by human stupidity.
….genetic comparisons showed that all sweet apples were relatives of the malus sieversii family.
This flourishes uniquely in the northern reaches of the Tian Shan, more sheltered from the harsh sun and deserts of the south.
Dr Juniper believes the first large, sweet varieties were chosen and spread by bears – who have a sweet tooth, like Winnie the Pooh – and then taken to the West by horses, which were first domesticated in what is now Kazakhstan.
But the Soviet Union’s agricultural policies claimed most of the forests. Stalin ordered the Kazakhs, who were largely nomadic, to settle and form collective farms. This caused famine and led desperate people to strip the woodlands for food and firewood.
Then Stalin murdered Nikolai Vavilov, the great Russian botanist, who first surveyed and collected the forests’ variety of wild fruit samples.
In the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev cleared the land for intensive farming as part of his campaign to open up “virgin lands”. That turned Kazakhstan into a bread-basket, but was no less ecologically destructive.
By the end of the last century, 80 per cent of the apple forests in the Trans-Ili Alatau range had disappeared, said Tatiana Salova, the lead researcher at the Kazakh Laboratory of Gene Pool Research.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/kazakhstan/6068161/Struggle-to-save-the-apples-Asian-birthplace.html
November 12th, 2012 at 4:47 am
More…
North America may have once harbored a dazzling array of absolutely delicious apples, but the magnitude of Kazakhstan’s current apple diversity dwarfs anything that this continent has ever known, since apples have been evolving in Central Asia for upwards of 4.5 million years. Apples, however, do not comprise all of Kazakhstan’s bounty. Dzangaliev and Salova have estimated that within Kazakhstan’s flora of 6,000 species, at least 157 are either the direct precursors or close wild relatives of domesticated crops. Aimak and Tatiana believe that 90 percent of all cultivated fruits of the world’s temperate zones were historically found in Kazakhstan’s forests, confirming the country’s status—first suggested by Vavilov—as a center of origin for many of the planet’s major fruit tree crops.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2961/
November 12th, 2012 at 5:31 am
What the U.S. election map would have looked like if only white men could vote.
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/11/what-the-election-map-would-ha.html
November 12th, 2012 at 5:43 am
International Remembrance Day for Lost Species.
http://youtu.be/eggO2uVXz2s
November 12th, 2012 at 5:44 am
Ah, OzMan, I spoke of Heinlein’s novel, not the movie.
The movie was indeed horrendous, inserting garbage never found in the novel. Since the director boasted of not reading the novel, crapulence happens. However, you remain true to the novel in the following aspect:
Voting privileges were only granted to retired veterans of “Federal Service.”
“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.”
[Ch. XII, p.144]
“We ensure that all who wield [sovereign franchise] accept the ultimate in social responsibility—we require each person who wishes to exert control over the state to wager his own life—and lose it, if need be—to save the life of the state.” [Ch. XII, p.146]
While eschewing the mandatory service, and proffering a voluntary scheme to military service, Heinlein’s inspiration for his novel of how a nation built on a citizen-soldier was Switzerland.
If you consider Switzerland’s citizen-soldiers a dystopia, have at it.
November 12th, 2012 at 5:59 am
ulvfugl, you swiped, it means you’re still reading me, even though you loudly boast you don’t. LOL!
“You can’t stop the signal, Mal.” ~Mr. Universe, Serenity (2005)
Pleas note that Heinlein’s novel included men, women, and all races in his novel, all citizens.
Rico, the main character, is Filipino, speaking Tagalog. Definitely not a white.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:22 am
.
Actually, this one’s a better fit, Ivy Mike. It has all the key words that fit what’s going on here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3c3gsjgdXA
the chosen one
Telling people their desire
Is it the end, my friend?
People running ’cause they’re scared
The people better go and beware!
.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:38 am
Guy, I’m glad you brought up the subject of insults.
Yesterday, immediately after you insulted me (and I retorted ever so cleverly, which has been my strategy) one of your website contributors unleashed a carpet-bombing of invectives on the scale of Richard “Tricky Dickie” Nixon’s Operation Linebacker.
Now, I’m not requesting that you address him, because I know you don’t have that sort of integrity.
But what I’m asking is this: If I am truly to be scapegoated for the sins of your chosen ones, then I want a full ceremonial sacrifice, where I get crucified and say the line:
Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?”
*which is translated*
“My Guy, My Guy, why hast thou forsaken me?”
And yes, Mel Gibson is angling for the film rights, because scapegoating is the greatest show on earth.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:51 am
With thanks to Katheryn Rivas and Sherry Ackerman, I’ve posted a new essay by the latter author. It’s here.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:03 am
.
Ivy MIke,
Note the pattern of what you mentioned. Ulvfual (the latest misspelling of his name via Michael Irving….and I bet he gets a kick out of that…I know I do) unleashed his characteristic invective on me, and in trots Michael Irving to engage in “Civil” discussion with ulvfual. This tactic is to show that ulvfual is a constructive and valuable member of the group, and thus his violent and psychopathic tendencies and past transgressions are wiped away and forgotten, or in the least, overlooked. “Look how knowledgeable he is about so many things”….and he manages all of this whilst he’s a paraplegic……planting fruit trees, managing a vast garden, sheering and banging his father’s sheep…..and posting to the internet 24/7 for 15 years running now whilst Tesco delivers groceries to his door because he hasn’t the physical strength to carry himself to the store. This guy’s such a well-read superman….and Judy swoops in to underscore his status. I’m not buying any of it, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. Like I said, I can play this game too, now that I know it’s a game. And hey, why not, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands since I’m a “failed accountant.”
Another tactic I’m contemplating, is to elect myself blog sheriff and start handing out symbolic cyber fines to all those that break the rules here as outlined by House, Kathy C, Guy, Daniel and a few select others. Transgressions will include insults, intent to insult (which will mean Robin will be bankrupt in no time because his entire existence on this blog is intent to insult), and off-topic commenting to include talk of fruit trees. I think that about covers it. Since this thread is blown, I will start it in the next posted essay. They want to play games, alright, let’s play….and let’s see how long any of you can play by your own rules. I’m betting you can’t do it for even five minutes, let alone five seconds.
.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:11 pm
Seems like the comment dialogs have fallen down a slippery slope. When raising my to kids, my wife and I decided to homeschool. Although we started with some attempts with a curriculum, within a few years formality had largely dissolved, and we assumed more of facilitator roles. By letting go of preconceptions of “what a child needs to know” and embracing an atmosphere of discovery, both of self and society, we-with some trepidation, let them go. Their teachers were libraries, the internet, theater, 4-H, nursing homes, animals (cats, dogs, sheep, horses, snakes…). We did not need to report what was being taught, just that they were getting the number of hours required. Both kids are now adults, one doing graduate work, another working on her own business. Both, fully and successfully meeting the challenges that all us adults face. I do think the biggest way we (as parents) can help our children, whatever “school” they are involved in, is to be fully engaged- to participate, to be supportive and non-judgmental.