Signal Wave
I've got little to say this week.
Something I'm listening to:
I’m about to rise, I’m about to shine
I’m about to, I’m about to leave this all behind
I’m about to check, I’m about to change
I’m about to realign, connect and rearrange
These sounds come courtesy of USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker), a Canadian band that I'm finding helpful in the current circumstances.
Something I'm reading:
I'm finding that I like these people a lot, which distresses me a bit, Jefferson being a slaveholder and Adams supporting that execrable Aliens and Sedition Act, which is right up there with the 3/5 compromise, the Espionage Act, and the Patriot Acts as the worst laws the U.S. Congress ever passed.
Something I'm learning...
Yes, I'm trying to learn to cook. Re-learn, maybe; I've been living with a partner who's a much better cook than I am for twenty years, so I've forgotten most of what I knew. Also, for the first time in decades, I no longer crave red meat, oily sea fish and dark greens. Perhaps the ongoing barrage of supplements has finally quelled some deficiency that was making me crave those things, or perhaps menopause has rewired me. In any case, I no longer feel like I need meat like I did, so I'll be heading toward a more veggie kind of way. I don't think people ever understood that I felt actually crappy when I wasn't eating red meat, unless I was able to get lots of fresh oily ocean fish and dark greens (on those rare occasions, mostly vacations, I never missed the red meat). Anyway, now I don't have those cravings, so YAY!
Something else I'm (hopefully going to?) learn:
I used to play piano a little, but I never got as comfortable with sight-reading as I should have, and I sat down recently and realized I'd lost my ability to read music at a useful clip. I need to re-learn it, and this time, I want to get it right.
I guess the other way to go would be to give up on the whole play-by-note thing and learn to play by chord. That is what a lot of rock and other popular music artists do. I've always kind of envied it.
Hope you all are doing OK in this crazy world.
Comments
Before the Enlightenment --
"Utopia" was a short document, written in Latin, by Thomas More, a more-or-less "Renaissance man" who had served as Lord High Chancellor of England under Henry (Tudor) the Eighth. 'Course, after Henry Tudor separated from the Catholic Church so he could have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, Thomas More couldn't abide this, so he was executed. In "Utopia," anyway, a fictional island kingdom off of the coast of Brazil was depicted in which the people of the island were so hemmed in by custom and law that they could not help but be well-behaved. "Utopia," then, repeated the pattern set by Plato in the "Republic" (a loose translation of the Greek word Politeia, which actually means something different) -- an imaginary society ruled by Guardians who ostensibly were to lead people to the light of wisdom.
So a "utopia" was an ideal and imaginary place, either decided frivolously (which is what "Cockaigne" was about) or seriously, a city-state or kingdom in which life was good and everyone was well-behaved. The Enlightenment changed all that. After the Enlightenment, "utopia" was to take place over the whole world, through the triumph of Reason (it was capitalized as such to give it a special meaning) over the course of history. This was to occur through the election of governments that would respect human rights. From the US Declaration of Independence:
The real document in which all of this was written up was composed by the Marquis de Condorcet, a participant in the French Revolution, in a document translated into English as the "Sketch for a historical picture of the progress of the human mind," written in 1795 (Condorcet was executed in the Reign of Terror), in which he predicts:
I guess it's stuff like that which is what makes those people appear hip and cool. Don't worry -- they weren't. Well, Condorcet was cool.
"It's time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it" -- Frank Zappa
I like Adams just fine
except that he allowed his fears of the mob--in this case, a French-sympathizing, French-influenced mob--to run the show at a time when he was also pressured by not really having enough political power within his own party. The result of the combination of those two things were the Alien and Sedition Acts.
I sometimes wonder what the U.S. would have been like had Adams and Jefferson agreed sufficiently to be in the same party. At least that piece of shit Hamilton would have had his power curtailed.
Your historical frame is, in a word, enlightening.
I'm critical of the unwarranted optimism of Condorcet and his inheritors, and very critical of the distance between the stated ideals of the Founders and their practices. Nonetheless, Condorcet's argument was and is the best hope for human survival. Basically, if people can't at least partially live up to his hopes, we're looking, at best, at a dystopian Blade Runner-style authoritarian future or, more realistically, at a Mad Max kind of future, or, at worst, extinction.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The bottom line is, nobody's perfect
and that, fundamentally, is the problem with "cancel culture". They demand perfection or you don't exist to them.
Jefferson was only too painfully aware of the evils of slavery - but 1) he couldn't think of any way to get rid of it and 2) he was too attached to his creature comforts to make a start at home (as Robert Carter III actually did).
Adams made a good Vice-President but a not-so-great President. Once the buck stopped on his desk, he made a lot of mistakes - partly through no longer having anyone to answer to. (He should have listened to Abigail more, IMHO.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Yes, he should have listened to her more.
and he certainly made mistakes. But, as I said, he didn't have the full support of his party. There was definite tension between his faction and Hamilton's. Hard to say what he might have accomplished otherwise.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's one of many problems with "cancel culture."
I'm more of the Ed Murrow view. If your ideas are strong and your people have good minds, you can interact with anybody else's idea, no matter how shitty. That includes bigoted ideas. No doubt some people would say that just shows how privileged he was, and how elitist I am--or something.
I hasten to add that when I say "interact with," I'm including interactions like "this is bullshit, and this is why" or even, in egregious cases "this is bullshit and everybody knows it" (certain arguments of racist eugenics fall under that rubric; I don't need to assemble evidence to prove that black people are NOT genetically inferior, because there was never evidence of that in the first place. It's kind of like not needing to assemble evidence that I CAN'T start flapping my arms and fly to the moon.)
I should also add that I see actions as distinct from words and thoughts. It would be asinine to say that people should "just interact with" bigoted actions against them--injury, abuse, death. But society has effective ways of dealing with unacceptable actions, if it were only willing to use them. That's what BLM is on about, and what almost always gets ignored by the Blue Lives Matter crowd. The means of dealing with the problems of racist assault, abuse, or murder, already exist; they just aren't being used. There's problems where you haven't figured out the way of dealing with something bad, and then there's problems where you know how to deal with the bad thing, but you don't have enough power to do anything about it, and those who have power also know how to deal with the bad thing, but don't give a shit. Many of the problems arising from bigotry fall into the second category.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good morning, everybody!
Hope everybody is as well and safe as possible, in these times.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I play by ear...
I can use printed notes to slowly work out a melody, but like whistling I can usually squeeze out a tune I've heard. My approach anyway.
So best of luck with your playing!
As to red meat, I found this conversation interesting...
Are Cows The Cause Or Cure For Climate Change?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne4jHo6oGUs]
Have fun cooking. I love our new instant pot.
Take care and be well!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks, Lookout
Always a pleasure to "see" you.
It's too bad the current circumstances prevent our seeing each other in actuality.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good morning CSTMS. Cooking is a fun and interesting
skill and pastime, but it can also be a trap and a time sink. It's funny what you say about red meat and oily fish because they are both answers to certain nutritional needs which can, all the same, also be met in other ways. The actual craving and feeling crappy ws probably quite real, just like there are times when a particular specific food really hits the spot, sometimew without one really knowing that one was craving it. Speaking of which, heh, I'm overdue for breakfast ...
be well and have a good one.
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 --
Which nutritional needs? I'm curious.
It's not iron, because I've never been iron deficient. Could be Vitamin B, maybe?
What were you thinking?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
i'd have guessed
collagen protein, but that doesn't really fit with just 'red meat and oily fish'. doesn't large flake nutritional yeast have almost all of the B vitamins? and iron is in loads of veggies, esp. spinach iirc.
but after i'd torn both my lateral knee menisci, i did start eating bone soup for the collagen, and still poach chicken with bones to use in making soups and stews. and ye gods and little fishes, i did run into giant plastic jars of (i assume) collagen protein and boy were they pricey! imagine glugging down some of that. orange-flavored psyillium seed husks are okay-ish, if you drink them down in a couple gulps before they begin swelling to 100 time their original size.... ; )
I didn't have any specifics in mind, though the fatty fish
are supposed to carry loads of Omega 3 which is supposed to be good stuff. Both are also really good sources of a good slug of protein with heme iron. Heme is more bio-available than plant based iron plus iron has B-12 and zinc. Two things that always come to my mind are fat; animal fat, saturated or not is needed and veggies are, as we all know, low on fat, and that slug of animal protein. You can get "a complete protein" in other ways, but your body has to metabolically build it, cobbling it together from other bits, which takes energy and processing and some of us, for whatever reason, might just function better with the straight stuff. I was also thinking more generally, our gut biome has much more to do with everything we do than we are aware of, it talks to us and orders us around a lot and we do not understand it all that way and it is not that uniform from person to person. It changes and evolves but any individual's biome may be good at dealing with and processing some things and bad/slow/inefficient as to others. We can notice this in a lot of ways without being aware that it is what's going on and all the generalized knowledge about nutrition doesn't really take that into account. I've been made somewhat acutely aware of mine and try to keep it happy and pay attention to it even when that means ignoring various bits of nutritional "wisdom".
be well and have a good one
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 --
About cooking and reading music...
Since I am remote from quality restaurants, I have cooked for myself and others for decades. It has been interesting to be able to cook for the crowd, as it were. I know that crowd with sophisticated palettes, and the crowd that actually likes Burger King, and everything in between.
It has been interesting to learn little tricks. An example is adding a dash of red pepper to any soup or stew, a trick I learned from a chef's recipe book.
As for reading music, I used to be able to sight read an orchestra score. Now, I can sing it in my head, but my hands are not as sure on the keys. Oh, well. Repetition is the key, and I don't have the time.
The John Thompson books are as good as anything out there, so have some fun with it. Repetition.
I spent a couple of hours on my porch, listening to cicadas, tree frogs, birds, the neighbor's cows, and the occasional loud pick up truck passing by.
I am going to head back to the porch, listen to Merle Haggard's 28 Greatest Hits. Ok, I am a classical music gal, but on this Hanna rainy night, after cooking up a sensational rib eye, settling down for a few cold beers, I will let Merle croon away, call it good.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981