Special c99 Announcement in Today's 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.
“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Good morning good people,
"The first time I saw it, I thought what an ugly specimen. It looked like Grandma’s bathing cap, grown green and small after all these years. I sliced it open and tasted the pale flesh. And gradually she offered herself up leaf by leaf. In her depths she held a tiny, faded star, a spark that fell in the meteor shower over Frank’s garden. I developed a taste for her expensive style: fancy restaurants, wines by candlelight. Sometimes we stayed inside and read by firelight, drinking the leftover melted butter, wiping the grease on shirt sleeves. I introduced her to friends. She had the heart of a Buddha. Green leaves of flame. Everyone adored her, said she was irresistible. Nightly I grasped her like a seashell and listened to the nothing philosophers spend lifetimes writing about. I became accustomed to the look of a chilled vegetable, kept in the icebox all day. Then one evening there were no leftovers. I went to the grocery store. The sales clerk said artichokes are out of season. This is not San Diego. Still I dreamt of her, dipped in lemony butter, scraped carefully with teeth and sucked, the pale cream of flesh, the tender flower, her skirt held up like a cup, each sip bringing me closer to the moon, the vegetable pearl of her insides where the heart fans out fibrous hairs and waits a last mouthful on her green world." ~ Nin Andrews
‘the wanderlust gene’
If an appetite for novelty conferred a survival benefit on our ancestors, perhaps it should show up in our genes. Researchers have recently discovered a variation (allele) of a gene called DRD4-7R – or more arrestingly, ‘the wanderlust gene’. It occurs in about 20 per cent of the population, and appears to be associated with a penchant for exploration and risk. It makes sense that we’d want most members of our tribe to stay at home, follow routine, tend to the hearth. Yet we also need a few others to venture forth on risky expeditions in search of new hunting grounds and unexpected opportunities. ‘We have evidence to suggest that the same allele involved in the personality trait of novelty-seeking and impulsivity was also involved in being pro-risk in financial situations,’ says Richard Paul Ebstein, professor of psychology at the National University of Singapore and one of the leading researchers of DRD4-7R. ‘People who have that allele appear to be more risk-prone.’ Other biologists rightly point out that it’s unlikely that any single gene could control a trait such as risk-taking and novelty-seeking – but a group of genes working together might just do so. ~ Alan Lightman
Katie Paterson has become known for her multidisciplinary and conceptually-driven work with an emphasis on nature, ecology, geology and cosmology. Many of her poetic installations have been the result of intensive research and collaboration with specialists as diverse as astronomers, geneticists, nanotechnologists, jewelers and firework manufacturers.
"The phone call to the glacier was a one-to-one experience: listening to a graveyard of ice. The crisis of global warming doesn’t feel intimate through screens and graphs — yet, of course, it is. Our planet is disappearing. Humans understand the cycle of birth and dying. We need a contemporary approach to what Stephen Hawking called ‘cathedral thinking’: far-reaching vision that is humanly relatable." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01240-4?utm_source=Nature+Bri...
Audubon's prints are available as free high-resolution downloads: https://www.audubon.org/birds-of-america
John James Audubon's Birds of America is a portal into the natural world. Printed between 1827 and 1838, it contains 435 life-size watercolors of North American birds (Havell edition), all reproduced from hand-engraved plates, and is considered to be the archetype of wildlife illustration. Nearly 200 years later, the Audubon prints are coming to life once again, thanks to our vibrant digital library. Roam around below and enjoy one of the most treasured pieces of Audubon's grand and wild legacy.
I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.”
― Tolkien, The Return of the King
Three previously unpublished artworks by JRR Tolkien are to be displayed for the first time as part of a major exhibition coming to the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries this summer.
The three pieces will be among rare paintings and drawings by the author of the fantasy masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, reflecting the fact that his literary genius extended to his visual imagination.https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/24/unpublished-art-by-lord-of...
Our c99 is in need. Announcing the First Annual c99 Fund Drive which we hope to launch Wednesday, May 1, at 3pm Eastern Standard Time.
The simple theme of this endeavor is "What does c99 mean to you?"
Please private message me, smiley7, by Midday this coming Tuesday with a paragraph or two sharing your feelings about our special community. Also, please include artwork, music, poetry, humor or anything you desire and your responses will become the body of our organic fund raising appeal.
The need is critical. The campaign will concentrate on the importance of recurring monthly gifts.
Thank you in advance for lending a writing hand.
Comments
Just how bad is the videogame industry?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_f_qe1-75w]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT14-lyqofA]
If it's like this in the game industry, I'm sure programming is just as bad. Perhaps I should just stop trying.
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.
My son and i shared a phone conversation about work-place abuse the other day. Sad that it seeps into so many places.
It's not everywhere, thank goodness, and although i know little about the gaming industry, i presume that great teams of talent out there work in the shadows not garnering bad publicity by abusing people. I read wonderful stories about people all over the world making a difference, often in amazing ways.
Thanks for the vids and have a great day.
I would like to be one of those.
My problem is people disgust me. For instance, of all things in the video game industry, THIS makes people angry:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmE_TuekaYU]
No, let's not get angry about the insane microtransactions or the fraud of games, or hell, anything as a service rather than a good. Let's get mad that they threw in a campy ending that still embraces all the jingoistic American Exceptionalist bullshit.
How can anyone make any real difference when the petty bullshit is all that gets the attention?
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, smiley ~~
The Tolkien pieces are stunning. I can only imagine them in person.
I will PM you. This place is invaluable to me.
Have a peaceful 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.
Hopes the desert flowers are smiling this morning with your tea; if you are having tea. Frodo lives by many bedsides and he's never left.
Look forward to your thoughts, thank you.
Have a splendid day and weekend.
Enjoying my tea,
you got that right.
A lovely morning. I watched the sunrise.
"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
A splendid idea smiley
A cultural community drive. With art, poetry, vignettes and music. To raise funds in keeping this site alive. Excellent!
Zionism is a social disease
Good morning, OMS.
Thanks, with all the talent around this community, this should be fun and productive; hope so.
We've beautiful blue skies today, going to be a good one; hoping you've a wonderful day.
Ahh, yes
The skies are clearing here, as well. After a night of thunder boomers. The de-construction engineers set off their charges this morning at precisely 8:00 am. They took down the twin cooling towers left behind by the de-commissioned Brayton Point Power Plant. It was the dirtiest coal burning plant in the Northeast. We felt the rumble 20 miles away. Yeah, less acid rain! Already notice the difference in the fewer burned leaves on the maples.
https://www2.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/04/27/brayton-point-cooling-towe...
Cheers!
Zionism is a social disease
Yea, another coal mine down; Beyond Coal works.
https://content.sierraclub.org/coal/
Remarkable similarity
to the dropping NYS Twin Towers. Controlled demolition. Collapses in their own footprint.
Zionism is a social disease
Candor on message boards is often a mistake, especially if
peer approval and "attaboys" are among one's reasons for posting. But, if I cannot be candid, I personally don't have much of a reason to post.
So, candidly, I just don't think that Bush the Lesser is this good an actor. If so, he REALLY missed his calling because he wasn't good at anything he did, from owning baseball teams to being President. Hell, he couldn't even get being "misunderestimated" right.
I don't put a thing past Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice or the others, though. I just don't think that the man who, in his mind, had the most to gain from convincing the US to go to war with somebody, anybody, knew in advance.
Also candidly, if I wanted to fake an attack on the Twin Towers, I would not have told Bush the Lesser about it in advance precisely because I would not have trusted him to do a good acting job. Talk about the Weakest Link!
But... wasn't it handy that he had reason to be on camera when told about Twin Towers, so we could all see exactly how he did react?
d'accord.
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.
GWB said he saw the FIRST airplane-tower collision on TV
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bush+9%2F11+terrible+pilot
People strain at Trump-era gnats while swallowing multiple 9/11 camels.
this gun, it does not smoke.
sometimes people are just wrong, you know. especially when reconstructing memories of emotionally powerful events.
my son and i were just discussing this with respect to a movie he once watched. the movie was based on a novel. the movie specifically omitted a scene from the novel ... yet my son "remembers" the scene in the movie. that is the power of the brain to construct, reconstruct, confabulate, imagine, deceive, and reconceive.
president reagan, while still in office, had quite famously lost the ability to discern amongst three categories of events:
A. Things that had really happened to other people
B. Things that had really happened to him
C. Things that had only happened in movies he had made
all of which is quite apart from the fact that GWB spoke weird and obvious nonsense as often as not.
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.
Sometimes you just learn to trust
your eyes. And reasoning abilities. Experts notwithstanding.
More so than the obfuscating. At the very least.
Zionism is a social disease
we need not, to steal somebody else's turn of phrase,
relitigate the matter of 9/11 this afternoon. i merely wished to observe that certain particular kinds of evidence -- in any context -- are especially weak, and few are weaker than rambling recollections burbled by a man famously given to both error of fact and dimwitted misarticulation.
there is a branch of statistics called "Bayesian", which emphasizes that often we can be wrong in both our intuitions, and our calculations, if we do not correctly account for data that at first glance seems external to our analysis. if a man asserts a fact X, such that one of two things must be true:
A. Some other "fact" Y, that is supposed to be true, must instead be false;
or
B. The man is lying or mistaken with respect to X;
... it behooves us to consider, in judging whether Y should now be generally taken as false, what we previously have observed about the man and his assertions; as well as about people and their assertions; and in particular, about people and their assertions of facts concerning remembered moments during highly traumatic events.
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.
Gotcha man
Just saying the controlled destruction of the twin cooling towers in Swansea this morning identically replicated the NYC twin towers implosion, except in NY it was done underground. If one can not see the similarity, oh well. Generally, buildings do not come down like that unless it was a controlled destruction. Just pointing out the obvious.
Zionism is a social disease
controlled destruction
Unless their design was pseudo avant-garde caca, which applies to the Twin Towers. (No interstitial load-bearing walls? Interior structure supported by the facade?)
The Twin Towers were designed to maximize profits over sound engineering, IMHO. We were lucky they lasted until 2001.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
What’s wrong with that phrasing is, neither media nor government
ever allowed anyone to “litigate” 9/11 in free, open, uncontrolled mainstream discussion the first time. As soon as someone questioned anything, they were ridiculed, called names, gaslighted, and shunted to the margins.
Even for first responders and their families, any attempt to raise questions or tell one’s story was blacked out, blocked, or banned. Just ask the Jersey Girls. People were forced to sign lifelong pledges of silence in order to receive monetary compensation.
Can’t “re"-litigate something that the Powers That Be never allowed to be “litigated” properly in the first place.
uh.
it's been "litigated" ad nauseam in the public sphere, starting literally before the dust had settled. it is never going to be resolved, which means it's largely pointless arguing about it.
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.
Governments never lie … Official stories are always right …
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6963313/The-tragic-tale-Slapton...
Nothing to see here, move along.
Good morning
What a beautiful, fantastic, rich OT.
Like many, I love Tolkien and the idea of Tolkien and have since I was in third grade. (I could go on and on about this subject.)
The Beethoven piano concerto #5 is a favorite of mine and the second movement, the Adagio, always strikes me as so unbelievably spectacular.
The Audubon news is very nice.
I have too many chores to do today and have to run but want to come back here midweek and unwind these subjects you presented. You created a mini haven here and I can use the respite, thank you smiley.
"What a beautiful, fantastic, rich OT."
Excellent description of smiley7's Saturday open threads!
Meant to add
smiley, that I hope you are well and your spring is springing.
Oh, I just saw that bit
about a fundraiser, don't know how I missed it but I did. Will PM you later, TY!
Cool, thank you.
Good mornng, smiley. Seriously running out of time here, but
will try to get some sort of pm off to you.
Interesting about the wanderlust gene. We have learned, but seemingly keep forgetting that genes are not solely in and of themselves in charge of shit. Much else goes into the mix, even right down to when, under what circumstances, and how the genes themselves express themselves. We know that epigenetics is a thing and a very powerful thing that we do not fully understand but lose sight of that because of the long history of an over-simplistic explanation and interpretation of genetics that is taught in primary education. This is reinforced by the cloud of PR and propaganda surrounding genetic manipulation and GMOs, whereby the proponents of specific products and of the techniques in general talk as if "we know exactly what this gene does under any and all circumstances and in all environments and host cells". as a foundational underpinning to their sales pitch and who, with an assortment of true believers use the rhetorical club of "science denier" to beat down any who dare to question or challenge this blatantly false assertion. Ah well, /rant off.
Just inhaled 2 coffees and now discern that I failed to thank you for this OT and to thank you in advance for the fundraiser, for which I shall not be present. (As hinted at in my May 1 OT which is one of many already stockpiled and queued up for publication during our next adventure (what the hell do you call a vacation when you no longer work?)). So thanks and double thanks and be sure to have a glorious weekend.
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.
I guess you could call it perambulating, instead of vacationing. Worked well for Gilbert and Sullivan.
Thanks the gene education; beyond my paygrade; but interesting none-the-less. Still overwhelmed by the scientific news i posted a while back that the heart knows before the brain does.
Have a good one.
the actual mechanics of molecular biology:
of DNA and RNA and chromatin and chromosomes and mRNA and tRNA and histones and acetylation and methylation and phosphorylation and meisosis and mitosis and such, are so incomprehensibly complex that it's astonishing that they can happen. The improbability of it all makes the devotion of some of my fellow primates to the god-meme rather more sympathetic, if not one particle more convincing.
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.
"are so incomprehensibly complex that it's astonishing
As amazing as each eye of billions functions independently filming and recording mini seconds of each moment on this sphere, all different, yet, somehow, we humans still communicate; well sometimes we don't do good work there, but the idea of communication with another set of eyes has always astounded me.
Thank you smiley...
my dear old friend.
Our pleasure, JtC. All thanks go to you for making c99 a daily
reality in our lives; a place of community we 99 percent need.
A late good morning
Had company overnight, then got out the house plants and washed clothes this AM. I'll give some thought to the fund raiser and drop something your way. In the meantime, folks could go ahead and send in some $ now. I'm mailing something this week to JtC.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning, Lookout.
Thank you, we are off to a good start as by pm, we have a new recurring monthly pledge already
this morning.
Hope you've the same beautiful skies down on Lookout Mountain.
The Audubon thing brought to mind an old book
that was lying around my home. It was a reprint of Wildflowers ... I think, the 1961 edition. Maybe the 1974. I don't know because I gave it away to the woman who is always giddily happy to see me. She seems to like flowers. Many of them grow on a rack of shelving in her home, which I've seen once or twice. Also, about 18 and a half months ago, a thing happened that made her sad, and she sent me a link to this
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldoDm2bV04].
The preponderance of the evidence suggested that she would be at least as happy as anybody else on earth, to have a copy of this book, which had languished for years in a box, so I gave it to her.
It contains 364 extraordinary color plates, originally created in the early 1900s. At first, I wasn't certain whether they were photographs or paintings, but a little investigation (starting with reading the blurb on the inside back jacket) revealed that they were indeed photos, produced using a color process I had never heard of, the Lumiere technique, based on starch granules.
So reading the OT, I was thinking to myself, wouldn't it be cool if somebody did the same thing with these wildflower plates that the Audubonistas have done with JJA's illustrations? And guess what? It turns out that this internet thing isn't only about facilitating an economy of micropayments in compensation for sharing, in real time, one's sexual activities -- some people have undertaken to apply it to disseminating our shared cultural treasures.
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.
Cool beans, bookmarked all for two reasons, one for
my edification and the other to send to my son who eats and understands wild edible things, including flowers.
Beautiful photographs. Sure your friend enjoyed as do i from a distance.
Cheers for the good Tom's music as well.
Thank you and have a wonderful day and weekend.
How much needs to be raised? That would help.
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
how about anything above two pennies to the power of 99?
My calculator strikes and my brain too. But it should be enough.
https://www.euronews.com/live
2 cents to the 99th power would be
on the order of $5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
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.
Good afternooon EdMass; good question.
At present, we have a goal of 25 new recurring monthly contributions. No set dollar amount goal set at this writing.
Obviously, one time and sporadic gifts are always welcome, but it's the recurring monthly income that provides the admins better ability to budget and pay the bills, keep the lights on.
This is our first annual fund drive, so naturally, we will learn more as the drive proceeds.
Morning all
Thanks for the great ot...
Good article on XR. Much more after the link.
https://williambowles.info/2019/04/22/update-6-a-new-phase-begins/
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
Hi magi,
Thanks for the good article.
New to me from Nature:
Have a great evening.
For me, I am incredibly late to this thread. However, I do
thank you for it.
As to Caucus99percent it has some of the most intelligent, talented posters I've seen on any message board. To my mind, that is a huge compliment. I don't know that I could add anything by pm.
Good day Henry,
Thanks for the kind words in randtntx thread, you guys make me blush, but my old body and ego are so beaten, you must know how sweet those words are to me.
If i understand you; I may quote you in Wednesday's fund raising launch essay.
Thank you, good friend.
Hi Smiley, to me you are the artist generalissimo par excellence
or in other words, your OTs are the best thing happening within my horizons. Wishing you well and good fortune. Thank you for making JtC happy and C99p surviving through the dry spells.
If I can beat up the German paypal folks something is on its way in the next day.
https://www.euronews.com/live
'ello mimi, manys thanks, my friend
for all your contributions, especially the love you share with so many here.
Well, you know JtC promises to take me fishing, someday.
You're the greatest.
Thank you smiley,
for reminding us to support what we treasure, as well as for your dedication to (as QMS says) 'your higher mind' ; ).