Astor Piazzolla Oblivion Art by Ryan Woodward Vimeo

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<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/97399111">ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Oblivion (Art by Ryan Woodward)</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user11160215">1972thejourney</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Dream Your Life Post

Write it

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Richard Russo

On who the characters of Everybody's Fool would vote for in this election

I think it's pretty clear that so many of the people that I know and love and have been writing about for a long time, alas, have lined up ... with Mr. Trump. ... I'm heartbroken. ... I think America is changing. It's changing before their eyes and I think that a lot of the angry white men who support Donald Trump have a belief that America has passed them by. And that people who don't look like them are getting ahead in the new America. And I think they all understand in some ways that Donald Trump is speaking in a less coded way than some others in the Republican Party, but he's saying Make America white again, not Make America great again. And I think, unfortunately, working class people have bought that. And that's why my heart is broken.

Richard Russo

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'Everybody's Fool' Author Richard Russo: 'I Find Myself Now ... Having Lived The American Dream' : NPR

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/05/476743466/novelist-richard-russo-i-find-myself-now-having-lived-the-american-dream


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Make America White Again

How many people y'all reckon "believe" climate disruption is real, and is a problem?

How many people y'all reckon "believe" climate disruption is real, and is a problem? There are 243,000,000 souls 16 and over in the U.S. not that young people 8-15 don't count - many of them may have opinions on the subject. Let's just say 250m for easy math. If 50% lean Independent, and 25% each are reds and blues, then... ah fuck I don't know where I'm going with this. Surely half, 125m is way to large a number. I'll venture a gut instinct that it's closer to 50m who are "believers". I bet that's even too high. 30 million? 10% of the total population? Prolly.

So then, amongst 30 million souls… How many do you think or hyper aware and hyper active… To the point that they're actually doing something about their carbon footprint? I'll bet less than 3m, prolly way less.

Things like living off the grid, living in tiny housing, living in cooperative, co-, communal, or otherwise extremely low-energy-consumptive lifestyles. The car-less, cyclists, motorcyclists, EV'ers, walkers, mass transit-ites.

Discount EV'rs who live in large, glass, energy "efficient " energy hogging houses.

Add in PassivHaus, and NetZero dwelling dwellers. I bet there's barely 50,000 of those.

Even with the large metro areas benefitting from mass transit, I'll hold at 3 and 30 million.

My point is this: WE AREN'T DOING JACK SHIT ENOUGH to reduce carbon emissions.

Too many non-believers. Too many cash-strapped and apathetic believers. Retro-fitting a single-family dwelling unit with a heat pump (energy efficient a/c), solar PV panels, energy efficient appliances, hell even only LED light bulbs - it all takes cash. Either folks don't have it (disposable), or they've got other/higher material or experiential priorities.

I'd venture the vast majority are oblivious/unaware, and if they were, they wouldn't give a shit. The health of the planet, and the viability of our children, their children, and on and on, simply are not important enough.

It's sad really. We are killing this wondrous planet. And humanity in the process.

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We'll see

We'll see. As the status quo continues year after year, there will be more and more disenfranchised, getting more and more disgruntled as they struggle to live paycheck to paycheck. As the numbers of "those who have nothing to lose" continue to grow each year, things will continue to unravel. Untenable is not a strong enough word. Hillary is status quo. Our profoundly dysfunctional system of governance, our profoundly unsustainable "growth at all costs myth of perpetual growth", our profoundly dysfunctional society - are all status quo until the illusory "foundations", "ideology" on which they are based - are shaken, destroyed, and rebuilt. I am an idealist and a Cynic, I know. We will likely never, in one fell swoop of 4-8-12 years, never truly madly deeply and dramatically and effectively and meaningfully make the substantial and difficult changes that are necessary to move to a sustainable (and more just and equitable) way of life. FDR did it. I'm sure it's been done before in the history of humanity. My hope is that I will see it occur in my lifetime, before the 16-24-28 year time frame. It may, however, more realistically be an Age of Enlightenment level event - unraveling and unfolding and rebuilding over many decades - possibly many centuries. Likely with another "Dark Ages" thrown into the mix. The one primary caveat being if the planet is still in a position to sustain human life. For that sole reason, time is of the essence - and sooner is better than later. Bernie is sooner. Hillary (et al) is later. I've "known" this in my heart of hearts and in my gut for forty years now. The vast majority, however, still believe everything is just fine the way it is and that as a Nation and a People, that we're on the right track.

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Get involved in your own governance

Here's something I posted on Facebook a while back...on the heels of the voter suppression in the New York primary...add getting involved with your county & state Democratic Party apparatus, and your state election board, and your county registrar of voters...

Y'all do realize… that whoever is elected as POTUS… that the hard work is just beginning… and that we can no longer sit back on our heels and watch as spectators…we are all collectively going to have to get involved in our own governance...writing, emailing, and calling our elected assholes… and marching and demonstrating and flying flags and banners and bumper stickers…and attending and speaking/out (frequently! I propose one night or day each week) and maybe even being ever-so-slightly civilly disobedient and getting off of our collective asses and doing the right thing and doing the thing right to help/show our elected assholes and their minions how it's done and that we will no longer stand for obstruction and mismanagement and misdeeds and falsity...city county state national school boards electrical co-op boards water development boards water control districts citizen police oversight boards economic development boards and citizen boards and entities of all kinds...because, as we all know, it's been very fucked up for a very long time and it's fucked up because of our 50 years of apathy and willful oblivion and chasing dollars above all else and our profound "belusion" (belief/delusion) that our ONE AND ONLY civic responsibility in a democracy is to vote....

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Blog post about the myth of perpetual growth and betterment

Blog post about the myth of perpetual growth and betterment

Economy
Dead cities Flint Detroit
Globalization
Shipping jobs overseas
Steel industry
Auto industry
Basically the economic realities that no one is talking about

Derek Thompson The Atlantic NPR bit

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Questions about peace to ask Presidential candidates

Questions about peace to ask presidential candidates:

Will you reset our foreign policy based on international law, human rights and diplomacy? International law includes the requirement per the United Nations charter that the Security Council authorize military action and a ban on torture per the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Will you restore America to be a beacon of human rights as it was when Eleanor Roosevelt helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Will you foster diplomacy and disavow wars of aggression, e.g. NATO 's bombing of Serbia and President George W. Bush's war against Iraq?

Especially since America is a permanent member of the Security Council, will you work to strengthen the effectiveness of the Security Council to perform its global security/policing function to resolve conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Syria?

Will you per the Geneva conventions condemn attacks on civilians and the civilian infrastructure and disavow such attacks, e.g. NATO's bombing of civilians and the civilian infrastructure in Serbia?

Will you end the illegal and immoral drone assassinations in which the President acts as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner over people halfway around the globe?

Will you restore Thomas Jefferson's principle of "peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"?

Will you follow the constitutional requirement that Congress declares war and end presidential wars and any other military engagements or commitments without a declaration of war from Congress?

Will you help break the stranglehold of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about and help end the financial and moral bankruptcy of empire?

Will you help end the spiral of violence in the world today that has come from "might makes right" policies, and disavow such policies, e.g. when NATO chose war over peace in bombing Serbia after it failed to negotiate in good faith at Rambouillet?

Will you speak against war and the horrors of war, e.g. going over the top of trenches into machine gun fire in the hideous insanity of World War I, a senseless conflict between empires and alliances of nations that cast millions to their deaths?

Will you work towards eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world?

Will you support the right of each citizen to be a conscientious objector, to elect on matters of conscience not to serve in a war? The right of the people to exercise their conscience is paramount over the power of the state to enforce a draft. This right leads to the final destination of ending war altogether.

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Marcus Aurelius

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood or birth, but of the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions."

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Finding Vivian Maier - Documentary

So. I feel like this may be the most important thing I have ever or will ever post. I had heard the story of Vivian Maier a while back - I think it might have been this story from 2011 in Mother Jones - http://goo.gl/ORvpzz. At the time, I read the article and looked at the photos and thought "cool" and shared it on Facebook, and then promptly forgot about it.

My darlin' heart Ginny told me about this documentary just last night. I thought about it all day, and then started watching it a little while ago on Netflix. I've only watched about 10 minutes of it, and I've now stopped to write this.

I barely have the words to describe how monumentally important this documentary is, how important this woman's work is (it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I was seeing a few of the images again), how important the story of the discovery of this woman's work (and life) are.

Monumentally important, amazing, Thesaurus dot com lists synonyms for important as: valuable, substantial big critical crucial decisive essential extensive far-reaching great imperative influential large meaningful necessary paramount relevant serious significant urgent vital big-league chief considerable conspicuous determining earnest esteemed exceptional exigent foremost front-page grave heavy importunate marked material mattering much momentous of moment of note of substance ponderous pressing primary principal salient signal something standout weighty. There. I think that about covers it. All of that.

There is also the happenstance, no, the serendipity, of this discovery. *This discovery, by *this particular individual - John Maloof.

I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll stop here. It's available on Netflix and iTunes - perhaps others. There's also at least one book, and I'm sure we'll be hearing more.

I may be over-reacting a bit, I suppose. It's rare that I get this excited about something. Too rare.

Exciting. That's another appropriate descriptive.

Have a good evening, y'all. And thanks to Ginny. Big-time, big thank you. xo darlin'...

Now back to watching...

Here's the trailer:



Full disclosure:



And unfortunately:



Lastly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/arts/design/a-legal-battle-over-vivian-maiers-work.html

#AxeSuperdelegatesFor2020

Houston, do we have a problem? On the subject of the Democratic Party's "Superdelegate" structure in the Presidential primary, wherein these individuals can pledge their vote in a manner contrary to the majority of voters in a State. Do we need to take steps to eliminate the Superdelegate from the Democratic Presidential Primary process?

I think we do, because it's basically saying "We understand that the people/the majority have voted for the candidate they think is the best candidate to run against the Republican candidate, and the candidate the majority ultimately believe will make the best President/'Leader of The Free World'/Commander in Chief, but we think you/the majority, don't really know what's best for the country/what you're doing in this democracy and this election process, therefore, we intend to override the desire/intent of the majority, and cast our delegate pledge for another candidate who did not win the majority in the popular vote for the Democratic candidate in the Presidential Primary Election of this State."

If you think about it, the Superdelegate principle is very Un-Democratic (as in not a Democracy), and is pretty fucking bad for the Country and the Party.

Please get involved in your own governance. There is work to be done. Miles to go before we sleep.

#AxeSuperdelegatesFor2020

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