Paranoia Kills

 I think my brief comments added to these excerpts from the article are worth a blog post.

https://apple.news/AgcMMVquURzG24N6PgMHzIA

Great article which which makes the point.

Recently a gun  nut for some reason decided to start posting the emoji of hilarious laughter wherever I made a post regarding guns.  He thought it was funny when innocent teenagers were killed or shot. He thought it was hilarious when an Oklahoma lawmaker said he regretted it was no longer possible to lynch Black people.

Finally, he actually responded to me yet with real words and I thought he and I could have a conversation. But he went right back to the same garbage and stopped the conversation after a couple of exchanges.

I would've enjoyed conversing with him but he just wanted to laugh at human tragedy.  That was not acceptable. I blocked him.

>Lester is not just "staunchly right wing," but addicted to "a 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia," including "election-denying conspiracy stuff and COVID conspiracies." Lester's ex-wife told the New York Times, "I was always scared of him," because he was would go into rage fits and smash her things. 

Ludwig is getting trashed by the right on social media, but for many who have helplessly watched older relatives fall down this rabbit hole of right-wing paranoia, his story felt all too familiar.

...But in every case, we have angry, paranoid men with guns harming — or killing — innocent young people who are just trying to live their lives. 

...The leading cause of death to people under 18 years old in America is guns.

... "A lot of our fellow citizens feel like they live in a castle. There is a moat. And anyone who crosses your moat, they need to be murdered." 

...The panacea offered for these imaginary threats isn't just "vote Republican," but also "buy a gun." Or really, buy lots of guns. The handsomely funded marketing campaigns for guns get a huge assist from the GOP...

Gun nuts are overcompensating for their own flaws, but the bullet tears through the flesh either way. Indeed, guns are even more dangerous in the hands of the losers that gun marketers see as their target demographic. Paranoid or jealous people who want to believe the rest of the world is out to get them tend to be trigger-happy. And a favorite target will be young people, who "threaten" them by just being free and rambunctious. <

Africa Is A BIG Place

 Here we go again. This is one of my  bugbears so…

https://www.iflscience.com/netflix-reignites-recurring-controversy-over-cleopatras-identity-68572

Not this nonsense again. Please.

There is zero evidence that Cleopatra was Black. On the contrary, Romans called her every filthy name they could think of because they hated her so much but they never called her Black. This would be like the Ku Klux Klan attacking her and never mentioning that she was Black. It's just not believable.

The article makes the very valid point that we shouldn't try to apply our racial standards to an era that didn't have those racial standards. Still, reality should be part of the discussion, not cherished fantasies.

There was a period of time (about 89 years) when the Nubians had conquered and ruled Egypt. During that period, the pharaohs were Black.

Strangely, this actual fact is ignored in favor of silly fantasies about Cleopatra. What's next? Martha Washington was Black?

Why not?

There is a huge, a vast, history largely unknown to the average American showing the high civilization and great accomplishments of Black sub-Saharan Africans. Historians know about these facts. Black history for some reason ignores them.

Why?

Reality is better than  fantasies -- one of the reasons it's better is because it's real.

My favorite point is one of the greatest authors in human history, still one of the most popular authors in human history, was Black. But nobody ever mentions that, even during Black History Month. I knew it since I was in junior high school because I read the forward to The Three Musketeers. Yes, the author was Alexandre Dumas.

It should also be noted that one of Napoleon's generals was Dumas' father. Also Black. I don't see that in any histories or hear about that during Black History Month do you?

So to sum it up, I'm skipping a large amount of interesting facts about sub-Saharan Africans and their great accomplishments which are not controversial because they are historical fact. We should be discussing those facts.  Instead, some people prefer to make up goofy fantasies about Cleopatra and call it a controversy. This is beneficial to no one. 

Except companies like Netflix that make a buck off of it. 

Whose Sorry Now?

 I'm trying to come back from my struggles to survive and, so far as I can, to function at a better level after my bouts of cancer. Considering that I may now have a third cancer, a rare pancreatic cancer, this may be a wasted endeavor. Nevertheless, I am trying. And this is why I am again making an effort to make at least an occasional post on my blog.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/25/slaves-trade-amends-grenada-laura-trevelyan?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

This article addresses a problem that has come into national focus recently, although it is hardly a new problem. The problem is hardly a simple one. Everyone touched by this must ask themselves what to do about not only public reparations, but also personal and private penance for atrocities committed by your ancestors.

Putting myself at odds with the doctrine of most  Christian sects, I regard the concept of original sin being passed on as morally reprehensible. Children should not be punished for the sins of their ancestors, and we certainly should not be considered to be born sinful and evil, because of what Adam and Eve did 6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden.

Still, being proud of your family history when it is good means it is unreasonable to refuse to be ashamed of your family history when it is bad.

I do not know if any of my ancestors held slaves. I don't know enough of my family history, which is in and of itself a shame, but so it is. And it is possible that some of my ancestors may have been guilty of this crime against humanity. However, I do not know.

After all, my family's Rancho, bordered on the South by the Rio Grande, was a land grant from His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, no less. In other words, it goes back a long time. It was in the family hands until the property was finally sold decades ago. Obviously, it was in Texas , which, upon becoming a state, was a slave owning state.  Prior to that, during the Spanish era, there were Indian slaves held in the region. Did any of my ancestors hold slaves to work the horse ranch? I don't know.

It wasn't a plantation or I would be certain. But I don't know. If they did, I would not be proud of it, and indeed would be ashamed of that element of our history.

However, the land is long gone, and so are the ancestors who may or may not have held slaves. So, I will say again, each individual, each corporation, each university, or any other group which formerly profited from the slave trade, must decide what to do about making amends. 

I don't think there is an algorithm to solve this profound and disturbing moral challenge.

In this, and in all other areas, each and everyone of us must search our own soul and take what action we feel we must.

Why Fight?

A relative posted that she was thankful to her non-Christian friends and family who are not judging her for having become an active Christian. Unfortunately, some have judged her negatively for this change in her life.

Hey kid. Couldn’t stop thinking about your post so I decided to respond to it in more detail.  You know me well enough to know I believe in a great deal of tolerance. Agree or disagree, we all should respect each other‘s opinions and beliefs by not forcing them on each other.
What too many people don’t seem to be willing to understand today is that there are different ways of deciding what is true, how we can know what is true, and even what we can know is true. In philosophy this is called your epistemology.
Generally speaking, in ancient Greece there were considered to be two different epistemologies. Two different ways of knowing truth.  Certainly there were some Greeks who preferred one over the other, but as a general rule, both were considered respectable and mutually interacting, even mutually supportive ways of determining reality. One was logos which means ‘the word’.  It is the basis for logic and empirical science as we know it today. The other was mythos which meant ‘story’.
Evenly highly regarded biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to what he called two magisteria. That is, two different ways of determining truth. Being a scientist, one of course was logos which is what we use is the basis for logic and science today. But the other one, which he equally respected, was mythos. He said each have their own areas where they should be considered to be superior and they should not be seen in conflict.
Mythos may sound  automatically false to us today but to the Greeks it simply meant another way of knowing. Not the logical way but the spiritual emotional way.
Unfortunately, in American society today there are extremists on both sides who want to turn this into some kind of football game or maybe even a war. One side must win and the other side must lose.
To me this makes no sense. The world is a very big place. If someone says I’m going to move and the person to being spoken to asks to the North Pole or the South Pole? You know there’s something wrong with the person who can’t realize there’s an entire planet in between the North and South Poles.
One of my most favorite quotes ever is about people trying to comprehend and make sense of God.
“A dog might as well contemplate the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.“ The very tolerant and thoroughly scientific Charles Darwin said that. It’s a good rule for life in general. God is beyond our comprehension so let us all hope and believe what we can. Also, let’s not fight about it.  ☺️

https://users.manchester.edu/FacStaff/SSNaragon/Kant/LP/Readings/Armstrong,%20Mythos-Logos.html
> In most premodern cultures, there were two recognized ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring knowledge.  The Greeks called them mythos and logos.  Both were essential and neither was considered superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary.  Each had its own sphere of competence, and it was considered unwise to mix the two.  Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world.  It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality.  People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition.  Logos was forward-looking, continually on the lookoout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh.  Logos was essential to the survival of our species.  But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles.  For that people turned to mythos or “myth.”
Today we live in a society of scientific logos, and myth has fallen into disrepute.
In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true.  But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way.  Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos.<

Watering Thoughts

While watering this morning I wrote these  down.  They’re entirely unpolished and I may just leave them as they are or I may pick them up again and change them or expand them. But this is what I thought and felt while I was watering this morning.

Deleted three words from the first poem and added a stanza break. But otherwise exactly as I wrote them with my smart phone in one hand and a hose in the other.

                 Shovel

Shovel 

Shining new and sharp

Shovel

Digger of foundations

Shovel

Layer of the garden

Shovel

Rusting by the grave it dug

Shovel

            Crown of Thorns

This crown of thorns is mine. 

I did not want it 

Hate it so

 But it is mine

 I could rip it off 

And leave the scars to heal 

But it is my blood 

I will shed it where I will

Quasiparticle

Started it last night and then didn’t quite know how to finish. I’m satisfied with it now. It may seem a bit obscure but it makes perfect sense to me.   

              Quasiparticle

Alexia

My Lexi 

My mini kaiju girl

Terror of the styrofoam

I wish to take you fishing

Out on our private bay

We’ll fish up giant plankton

Then toss it all away

And you can gobble cashews

And never eat a one

A heart that loves to share

I used to once hold near

Now these are empty places

Where once you were at home

You are the electron

That’s now a hole within my heart

Rain, Rain

Surprisingly pleasant day today. It was difficult. It had its strains and stresses.  

And then it rained. Not The Rains of Ranchipur, but still, The Rains Came.

I have always loved the rain. I can’t remember a time when it didn’t delight me. When I was very young the bubbles rain would make in the gutters would sail away.  They  were to me strange dome shaped ships. The sound of the rain on an umbrella or a rain hat is one of the most pleasant sounds in the world. And, although it’s a bit hard now, I still feel the urge to stomp and splash in every puddle I see.

Rain rain, go away

Come again another day                                              

Little Johnny wants to play                   

Became for me:

Rain rain, come today

Come and do not go away

Little Jimmy wants to play

Woolley cat sees things differently. He has spent the day sitting on the porch glaring at the rain. He won’t come in the house except for a moment or two. He instead prefers to sit out there to… Intimidate the rain?

Anyway, in spite of having a very difficult morning, I decided to write a brief poem to reflect my pleasure with the weather.

Rain, Rain

Rain

Blessed rain

Giving of life to all the land

Rain 

My friend

Bring your sounds of peace

Rain

Earth’s shower bath

Come make the desert Bloom

Rain

My childhood love

Come heal the wounds of time