OT ~ Welcome to Saturday!
Sit-a-while
on swinging porch
where tin-dippers and
sweet water
in cool touches
meet lips
from hand dug wells.
"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. ~ John Muir
Good morning, good people,
Keith, at the time, was living in an old warehouse just across the freeway from downtown, right at the exit ramp. There was a long asphalt driveway that ran up to the huge double door that was his front door, and there was one exactly like it across the warehouse; the same kind of door and driveway leading out and down to the street again. For some reason people thought that the front drive was an entrance ramp to the freeway. One scorching day we were sitting in the living room, Keith had both doors open to let what little air there was circulate, and a Jaguar drove through. It was maddening. The Jag ran over the footstool my feet had been resting on. Luckily for me, I was up getting myself a drink of water. But Keith didn’t take this kind of thing sitting down. He put up signs, but vandals tore them down. About the only thing he could do was have the city install a green light with an arrow to point the proper direction; the one thing drivers would pay attention to. But, of course, there was a lot of red tape involved, and besides, we had suspicions that the city fathers wanted Keith out of there so they could tear the warehouse down and build another freeway. There was a light already there, but it was just a regular red, yellow, and green traffic light. And when the light turned green. . . . You guessed it, a car would drive up to the huge double door, and if the door was closed, the driver would lean on the horn until Keith came out and opened the door. They’d drive through the living room and wait for him to open the back door. sometimes asking for a drink of water or a light for their cigarettes. Keith began charging toll, but after being robbed three times in the same night, he thought better of it. The cars kept coming. It was ridiculous! One night, Michael-Sean and I were visiting Keith when we heard a knock on the back door. Keith answered it. It was an old, grizzled man with a hand truck, the kind they used to move things around with in warehouses. He wanted to ride down on the front ramp on the hand truck. Keith let him. “He’s a regular,” he said. ~ Pat Nolan
Visitors to Chile can now take a very long hike—the 1,740-mile Patagonian Route of Parks, which has just opened.
The route takes in three existing hiking routes, but the idea of linking them into one contiguous route was made possible by land donated by Tompkins Conservation, the foundation of former Patagonia (the outdoor clothing company) CEO Kristine Tompkins and her late husband, the North Face and Esprit co-founder Doug Tompkins.
The pair bought many hundreds of thousands of hectares of land in Chile and Argentina, starting in the 1990s, with the purpose of conserving it. Doug Tompkins died in 2015—in a Chilean kayaking accident—but in March 2017 Tompkins Conservation donated 408,000 hectares of land to the Chilean state, to spur the creation of five new national parks.http://fortune.com/2018/09/27/chile-patagonian-route-of-parks-north-face...
http://www.rutadelosparques.org/quienes-somos/
Been in a reclusive mood, news so painful from DC bringing back sordid memories of my first grade molestation by the teenage boy living right next door--Mom and Dad having moved me into town from the farm at the beginning of school--to the little house by the railroad tracks.
Riding my bike in fear all over the little town, not wanting to go home before Mom returned from work at suppertime; knowing what he did was bad in some way, but "I wasn't to tell anyone," and i didn't.
Even in this first writing about the abuse, the words stick, should i write this? I'm an old man now and i did share this news verbally for the first time in my life about two years ago with the first cousin of the teenager, a childhood friend to this day. She knew already; coaxed it out in a way.
As an only child, and Dad never home as he worked and lived in a city, visiting some weekends; i didn't really know if the behavior was normal or not and i suppose i let it go; although i think my Mom knew.
I write this to praise Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, i watched every moment of amazing courage and wish to thank her from afar.
I choose to forget the politics of all this and concentrate on the release her leadership provides millions who by no fault of their own fell also into the seedy traps of men.
May justice come.
Peace
Have a great one, the porch is yours...
Comments
Good morning!
Liked your stories. How does 408,000 hectares of land convert to acres or square miles? Guess I could look it up but maybe you know.
Wealthy people doing charitable works - bless them. Not everyone is led by greed. Cool. The pictures on the second link are spectacular.
The three teenagers here want to go to garage sales this morning. When they were little we bought most clothes and toys at garage sales. The first stop is the estate sale of an artist and collector - ought to be good for some wonderful window shopping.
The discussions about the K nomination have been rather upsetting for me, so now I plan to ignore it all. Not so much at C99, but on Facebook one of my male cousins (a good guy) posted that we should pray for K. I commented "please . . . my dogs know Jesus better than he does" . . . Yikes! I also posted a link to the CCI letter about the Russian trip on my timeline. Along with that I wrote about lying in the media and the need to follow the money in your search for truth. However, I strongly suspect that anytime I post anything on Facebook that is a bit political that only one person sees it. When I post any funny or benign photos of vegetables, etc., there are always plenty of likes and comments. Political things. . . only one. That being while at least a third of my Facebook friends have similar political leanings. I would delete my Facebook account if it wasn't my link to many old friends and family. Sigh.
May all here have a beautiful Saturday. A day to turn our backs on all of the shit, and rather face the light.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Sorry about your bad memories . . .
I too say, "thank you" to all those who speak out.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Cheers, Marilyn, and a good morning to you.
Another article said the donation was roughly the size of Switzerland. Here's a visual:
Agreed, found some comments lacking and have stayed out of those conversations; maybe in time, we all will understand each other, better.
Wish i were there to enjoy the browse, thoughts of Portobello Road near Notting Hill in London come to mind. There was an avant-garde theatre playing 'Once Upon a Time in the West" 24/7 and a roomy in Muswell Hill loved the movie so he and i and others on occasion would travel down and west to the antique market and ramble around closing with a pub visit and the movie.
Have a great one and thanks for being here.
Edit for glaring spelling mistakes.
Good morning, smiley ~~
The suffering one endures
from pain inflicted actions,
does not leave the memory,
nor let the soul find peace.
My husband is a survivor, too. He was severely abused. He’ll never live without therapy. I get to live with the consequences of those horrific actions.
Have a beautiful day, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning, RA ...
Hugs to you both.
I enjoyed the following read:
By Sunlight Foundation Intern, Andrew Berger
"I never really feel like I understand something unless I have a sense of its history. (I once wanted to become a historian; I guess that’s just how I think.) So it’s no surprise that during my internship here at Sunlight, I found myself wanting to know more about the history of transparency. For my research, I decided to focus on efforts to increase transparency in the United States during the early twentieth century, using Louis Brandeis as a guide.
"Brandeis made his famous statement that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” in a 1913 Harper’s Weekly article, entitled “What Publicity Can Do.” But it was an image that had been in his mind for decades. Twenty years earlier, in a letter to his fiance, Brandeis had expressed an interest in writing a “a sort of companion piece” to his influential article on “The Right to Privacy,” but this time he would focus on “The Duty of Publicity.” He had been thinking, he wrote, “about the wickedness of people shielding wrongdoers & passing them off (or at least allowing them to pass themselves off) as honest men.” He then proposed a remedy:
"Interestingly, at that time the word “publicity” referred both to something like what we think of as “public relations” as well to the practice of making information widely available to the public (Stoker and Rawlins, 2005). That latter definition sounds a lot like what we now mean by transparency.
"Curious to know more about Brandeis’ early views, and disappointed to learn that he never wrote the article on publicity he suggested in the letter, I went looking for detailed statements he might have made on transparency from earlier in his career. I eventually found transcripts of several speeches he gave on municipal reform and good government in 1903 and 1904, the longest of which I discuss below. This speech is not just a window onto the past, but a way to see what has and what has not changed in the movement for transparency: a way to see both how far we have come and how far we still have to go.
[...]
"Finally, Brandeis declared that government action, no matter how dedicated, would never be enough to keep the public sufficiently informed: “the individual citizen must in some way collect and spread the information.” This meant not so much individuals acting alone, but nongovernmental organizations such as civic groups who provided information to voters or, even more importantly, the press. Speaking at a time when the only way to reach large audiences on a regular basis was through print, Brandeis saw the press as potentially “the greatest agency of good government”–but only “if the people are sufficiently interested to desire it.”
"This raises an important question: how do the people become “sufficiently interested”? Brandeis seems to have believed in a symbiotic relationship between an informed and an engaged citizenry. The people had not yet joined the fight against corruption because they did not yet know enough about the situation. They were “ignorant of the facts–ignorant of the specific acts of misgovernment–ignorant of the low character or quality of many of the men by whom in public life they are misrepresented.” https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/05/26/brandeis-and-the-history-of-tr...
Perhaps Dr Ford's courage brings positive change in many ways. One can hope.
Hey, we've rain to trade; not our normal Indian Summer of clear skies here on the mountain. I'm still dog-sitting, so it doesn't matter that much, but some fall sunshine would feel good about now.
Hoping you a wonderful day and thanks for being here.
Hola, Smiley7. It is said that the pain of painful memories
can be purged while leaving the memories intact by mentally re-living and focusing on the lessons learned and knowledge gained. I dunno, having never tried it. Wishing you healing.
Goog news about the land grant. Some other rich dude did something similar yet different in Belize years back.
Pre-dawn Sedona, the center of woo in the US. Already getting warm, so a short day, hopefully full of awe and photos, looms.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Happy trails, el; have fond memories of Flagstaff
And as it's morning, the lovely old, white, train station, home-cooked-meals restaurant on the tracks serving fantastic biscuits and gravy.
Funny how my memories of the abuse sat hidden for decades, the file untouched until the closeness of my childhood friend when returning home to care for mother brought them to the surface.
Mostly the memories i've struggled with most in life tune to Shakespeare's; 'haunted by the ghosts they have deposed.' All the loving relationships, i walked away from breaking hearts as well as the memories of those, who likewise, did same to me.
Not really wishing to make today's post about me; it's the courage of Dr Ford i hope we focus upon, although, i do appreciate your kind words and those of others. Not really sure how those experiences impacted me as they lived subliminally though most off life.
Enjoy those great vistas, my friend, and travel safe with "your eyes on the horizon and your nose in the wind."
A Speech on Mao Zedong and Some Sources
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJPNMmImFjw]
Revisiting the 30 Million Alleged Famine Deaths During The Great Leap Forward
Red Youth
Proletarian Online
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Good morning, Aspie, thank you for the vid and for
being here. Have a great one.
Thanks . . .
About to leave the house now, but will watch these when I get home.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
anyone else notice that comments seem to be appearing
and disappearing in the active thread that has developed from HFK's post, "I don't believe either of them"?
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
hmm, weird, it almost seems like there are two
independent versions of HFK's post, and the second one has different comments (and only a few of them).
compare this link:
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/371447#comment-371447
with this link:
https://caucus99percent.com/content/i-dont-believe-either-them
and you'll see what i mean. the comment doesn't seem to be there when you go to the second link. i was only able to access it from my own comments page -- i clicked on my reply to mimi, and the page loaded with her comment and a few others, but not the bulk of the thread ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
The comments are configured...
for 150 count per page, after 150 a new page starts, see Page 1 and Page 2 links at the bottom of the comment threads. Your first link changed pages.
herp a derp a dum de dum derpa derpa
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane has walked on, RIP.
afternoon smiley...
Thank you for sharing your story and for your support of Dr. Ford. One in three women and one in seven men are sexually abused as children per stats from 1980s. That's a lot and does not take in all the other kinds of abuse. We are walking wounded. But... having said that, the hubris, entitlement and privilege that allows mostly men to think it is even okay to inflict sexual abuse on another is beyond the pale. (Stats again - 90% abusers are male and 90% of those are repeat offenders.)
Incest / child sexual abuse is a show stopper even today - not to be mentioned in social conversation without uncomfortable pauses.
I LOVE the fact that this is coming out as a national conversation. I am not following it per se but it is all over the news as I "search and destroy" the interwebs for more news abt climate change. Damn, it just make me happy to see so many people talking about it. My hope is that the conversation continues and carries into the upcoming election. Apparently Strumpette little-hands has been instructed to not twit about it bc it will bring women out to vote in the Nov election. I have noticed a remarkable silence in that direction. May be the silence is too little too late. One can hope.
Have a good one...
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
Good afternoon, magi.
Watching Global Citizen Festival; looks like a beautiful fall day in Central Park. I first published today's OT without the abuse paragraphs; wasn't sure how they may be read. No doubt in my mind as to why incidents go unreported or why people freeze in traumatic situations. I, too, am happy for the national conversation in hopes the bar to betterment moves a little or hell, a lot.
Don't know much about Global Citizen, but i'm enjoying learning and seeing the beautiful young people making a difference.
Trump appears to be off his usual self lately, i also smell that's something's up behind his screens.
Always good to see you and hoping you've a great west coast evening.
Good day smiley and 99%'ers
It's late in the day but I wanted to thank smiley for sharing his childhood experience with us. I am continually amazed at how many people in the country were molested as children, including a friend of mine who was molested by her step father. It is just criminal.
Last night was our fourth Friday gallery walk here in Brevard. The show at the local arts council was really good and we spent longer than usual there viewing it and talking to some of the artists, most of whom had never shown there before.
The hummingbirds are still passing through in large numbers. All are females which means the migration should be over soon. Last week I went through one and a half times the normal nectar in less than four days. I suspect that by the end of this week, most will be gone and only a few stragglers will come by. I usually leave the feeder up for a week after I have seen the last bird.
Today I saw another gorgeous rose breasted grosbeak at my seed feeder. He was a juvenile like the one I saw the other day, but his breast was a deep rose instead of the orange on the other bird. He did not yet have the fully black head of an adult male yet, but he was still gorgeous.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Good afternoon, gg.
Thanks go to the thousands who took to social media in sharing this week, an inspiration.
John Legend singing to the soul on TV's coverage of Global Citizen, MSNBC, right now.
Hey, we have Friday night artwalks, too.
Haven't been in a while, but my fellow dwellers share an art's co-op down the street, upstairs, and i have often ended up there for conversations.
Seeing the tiny hummers, still. Enduring daily rains and a cloudy environment for a week or so, need some Carolina Blue.
Thanks for being here and hoping you've a wonderful evening.
Hi, Smiley--'thank you' for sharing
what has to be a distressful and traumatic memory. I hope time will greatly ease your pain.
I totally agree that 'politics' needs to be mostly sidelined in this discussion; although, in light of the parade of lawmakers and partisan 'talking heads' on Cable News, I doubt seriously that it can be achieved. Especially, since the entire process has been so poorly handled from the beginning.
Because of the nature of the topic, I'm personally choosing to try to stick with discussing the legal process, by relating it to my own experience in federal litigation.
I'm happy that the FBI will conduct an independent investigation. Although, I'm a little bit leery of that Agency (now) since the Russia Ruse, IMO, it's better than going solely on the basis of what 'partisan, preening, and self-interested lawmakers' can provide.
If their findings show that Kavanaugh assaulted Dr Blasey Ford, he should not only be denied a promotion, he should promptly be relieved of his current judgeship, IMO.
Hey, will try to get back here with info on general changes to Medicare Part D, sometime by mid-October. There will likely be quite a number of name brand drugs dropped from formularies. And, there are rule changes to the length of the notification period (of such actions) starting in 2019.
Have a nice rest of your weekend!
Blue Onyx
"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
FBI not permitted to investigate the claims of Julie Swetnick
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna915061?__twitter_impression=true
Never a silver lining, eh Mollie? This breaking news seems to say that that Trump tied FBI's hands, so, there is more work to do.
Please travel safely as i read you are traveling. Enjoying this Global Citizen Festival music on MSNBC. Good music of you've the time.
Thanks for being here and wishing you the greatest evening.
Thank you, Smiley. We had to
leave for a while, but, now we've tuned in to the GCF.
Thanks for the heads up!
Blue Onyx
"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.