View allAll Photos Tagged PRESCIENCE
Walking up the driveway in recent weeks, I have often been struck by the beauty of these flowers, but couldn't find a photograph. Today they did me the kindness of offering one for the current #FlickrFriday theme.
With gratitude to Freddie Mercury's prescience.
Happy Flickr Friday!
In a fit of alarming prescience I took this last December on a visit to Bristol. I haven't been close to a city since.
This was how I framed it in the camera, a bit of visual humour based around the sign. How apt then to processed it for this week's Smile on Saturday group's theme Dutch Angle.
Now, should I have kept the streetlamp in or not....
Also for my 100x Monochrome and Toned challenge, but not, alas, suitable for my 20-minute edit challenge :)
Thank you for taking the time to look. I hope you enjoy some fun today. Happy Smile on Saturday, and 100x :)
The crescent moon finds a gap in the clouds as a magnificent sunset lights up over the darkly looming heights of the dunes, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. My youngest son requested a trip to the Dunes in a rented RV for his birthday present a couple of years ago when this photo was made. Bless him for having the prescience to get us all here for this moment.
Back to the current day, a number of wildfires are roiling the typically blue Colorado skies with smoke that is almost as pretty at sunset as the clouds you see here. The downside, of course, is the loss of forest, life, and livelihood. Today the humidity finally increased and it began to rain in some small measure. After the latest conflagration leaped over the Continental Divide, perhaps the forest on the eastern side of Rocky Mountain National Park will not burn too severely, but who can be sure. It is troubling to know that years like this are but the harbinger of what is to come if we do not act quickly to reduce our economic dependence on fossil fuels. Forests have a hard time absorbing carbon from the atmosphere when they are incinerated and become a source of carbon themselves.
“When you think about it, we are completing a journey. Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. All these years later, it’s once again the only option. We need to rediscover how to be sustainable. To move from being apart from nature to becoming a part of nature once again.”
~Sir David Attenborough
(As the narrator in the documentary film ‘David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet)
Sir David Attenborough recently made headlines for his wildly popular Instagram account, which reached one million followers in record time after only four hours of being active. Such popularity of the man reflects the impact of his work in broadcasting and environmentalism for the past 60 years. In his sensitively made recent documentary, “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet” (on Netflix) –which the 93 years old conservationist calls his ‘witness statement’ for the environment– David Attenborough narrates a persuasive case in support of sustaining wilderness and biodiversity to save humanity from its own doings. Laced with top notch wildlife and landscape videography, the documentary simmers in deep humility arising from Attenborough’s decades of fieldwork and his prescience that’s gloom and hope in equal parts. Early on, Attenborough reminds us that the human race has '…broken loose from the restrictions that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals'. Today, we are 'replacing the wild with the tame' where we 8 billion humans and our livestock account for majority of animal biomass on this planet. ’The rest, from mice to whales, make up just 4%’. That is a sobering piece of data for biodiversity or lack thereof. Indeed, Attenborough hauntingly laments, The human beings have overrun the world… completely destroyed the world…’.
Take for example the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. An increase in atmospheric carbon has always destabilized life on earth– yes global warming… y’all must have heard about it. Excess carbon in the atmosphere'was a feature of all five mass extinctions (on earth). In previous events, it had taken volcanic activity up to one million years to dredge up enough carbon from within the earth to trigger a catastrophe. (By burning coal and oil)… we have managed to do so in less than 200'. If humanity remains on its current course, in the next few decades –Attenborough predicts with the grimness of dark dungeons– the warming earth will become largely unhabitable for most, including pollinating insects, thrusting us into a perilous food crises. ’A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. This is a series of one-way doors'. Irreversible.
But all hope is not lost. ‘To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity… We must rewild the world.’ Attenborough then goes on to suggest several means of doing so in the next few decades, most of which you may have already heard of. If we do our parts right, ’we will finally learn how to work with nature rather than against it… This is not about saving our planet. It’s about saving ourselves… We have come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. But to continue, we require more than intelligence. We require wisdom.'
Arguably, among all the living organisms, human beings are the only ones able to imagine the future full-scale. Additionally, thanks to our technology and scientific prowess, we also have the unmatched ability to frame and design the future, at least partially, to our liking. But do we have the wisdom and –more importantly– the will to rise above our shallow egos and short-term gains to choose the best future for our unborn generations?
PS: While processing the above Navajo landmark's image, I was admittedly influenced by my friend Sandra Herber's rich oeuvre, relevant parts of which depict ruins in a minimalist and poignant way to tell how a place looks when gods and humans evacuate it. Thank you, Sandra.
Lo-5's getting High
Calling in a frenzied wake up
from the sublime lo-fi
of a refined circinate dream
sun-kissed colours and blue sky
with which it's memory can gleam
all awakened like a catapult scream
where denial is retrieved in it's revelation
bathing in the open air of life
in realisations live congregation
listening lost in lieu of daily strife
a chant of lust for life becomes chorally rife
swimming the sea of song we note
how one is bounded by all or nothing;
remote emotions drift to berth a well-harboured quote
of stormy sea and forewarned breakwater's betrothing
all is calm when we part with such fear and loathing
the aforesaid age of nautical adventures
criss-crossing the globe of human endeavour
within our Soul shipwrecks of emotive misadventures
those that echo with the spirit of 'now or never'
such things that linger longer than life, forever,
appear larger than life itself amongst the living
the Earth, the altarpiece of all our attention
for any given day of our choosing
just may be pinnacle enough to strengthen
this day a lo-fi-ve getting high, the ambient version-
a confluence of various ethnic mixes flow to the sea of us all;
where Sun and Moon conduct our orchestral moods
we are tidal, tribal, confiding with a Heavenly crawl
to be found within ourselves is all that life alludes
it continually draws nearer, life before death preludes
the tempting of a late fate that simply couldn't wait
today seems absurd it must be agreed
but the prescience of belief absolutely cannot date
remember the ultimate testimony of life is to be forever gloried
by anglia24
12h00: 07/04/2008
©2008anglia24
A heavy police prescience on an empty Mall as workers work long into the night to get all the Union Jacks up on the flag poles and to get the mall ready for the days ahead. All the flags were up by the next day.
February 22, 2016
Foresight:
[fawr-sahyt, fohr-]
noun
1. care or provision for the future; provident care; prudence.
2. the act or power of foreseeing; prevision; prescience.
3. an act of looking forward.
4. knowledge or insight gained by or as by looking forward; a view of the future.
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Today was one of those photography days where a little foresight would have been a good thing. I caught a glimpse of this pileated woodpecker flying overhead and immediately turned and started moving in the direction of the wooded area I saw it go towards.
Normally, that's not an issue... but by the time I spotted him again it was starting to dawn on me that I was knee deep in snow... and I had to go back to work this afternoon.
But I got the shot; and in hindsight, I'd probably do the same thing because I really like the way this turned out and at least spending three hours in soaking wet jeans wasn't for nothing!
Hope everyone has had a good day.
Click "L" for a larger view.
Random thoughts from the other night: I've been staying up to many nights now exploring my own thoughts. I feel like I've got so many questions and so much to say. Yet, none of it really even matters. My biggest problem these days I think is just trust. I have a really hard time trusting anyone. I've heard more promises that fall through than promises kept, just this year alone. It's like the more I sit back and just watch / listen. The more I slowly see who people are, and oddly, it pushes me further away from wanting to associate with anyone anymore. I think I've become so desensitized to people that as soon as I hear someone say that "they will do _______" I instantly think to myself how it's not going to happen. Now, I'm just left with no expectations for anyone because in the end if you don't have any expectations, how will your feelings get hurt? I guess I'm just searching for some clarity with a huge lack of sleep. TLDR: I've got trust issues
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, I deleted my Instagram and personal Facebook account. Although in two weeks I'm going to be going on a dream trip of mine, I don't really see the point of posting it to rub into people's face like I'm something special. There are so many reasons as to why I did this, so I'll give a couple. 1. Social media is just a way that people can share a life that they want people to prescience they're living. 2. The ego boost that social media creates is absolutely unreal. You post on social media for the likes and comments because they make you feel validated and relevant. If you riddle your posts with hashtags you're probably part of the reason I'm disconnecting. 3. I'm leaving simply because I don't like seeing the people I don't have the balls to delete. I've got people that I follow that are just people I used to know and really I don't care to see their shit anymore. With that being said I'm going to keep snapchat because it's how I talk to 95% of my foreign friends. I'll also be keeping this Facebook account because I have been progressively getting more and more business. If you want my number or snapchat, DM me. If not, my personal accounts will probably be back sometime beginning next year with a lot of work and a huge project. I think we all need time to decompress, so I'm taking mine.
Prescience by Charles Houghton Howard
Chairs, L to R: Harry Bertoia Prototype Chair, Charles Eames Wire Chair + Ray Komai Side Chair
Gallery 909
The Met NYC
one of those moments when the pseudo-prescience of random shuffle, headphones, and happenstance mix to form something special...
starring: my dearest jet. ( how her smiles have saved so many days.)
music: les jours tristes, by yann tiersen
[DISCLAIMER: The meaning of any artwork is found in the dialogue between the artist and the viewer. The meanings I suggest here are NOT necessarily those held by Josh Foley.]
You really need to enlarge this shot to begin to see all of Josh Foley's elements in this strange and poignant work.
I'll confess right now, this is my title for this work (so largely my reading of the work). Josh has not given it one, because he likes the viewer to make up his or her own mind. I have chosen this photograph as the last in the series from Josh Foley's exhibition, "Calculating Infinity" for a reason.
To be honest, when I first saw this work I immediately thought of the incredible, pregnant and bizarre paintings in Carl Jung's 'The Red Book'. This is fundamentally an archetypal work. It only works specifically on the unconscious, because this is precisely the realm from which it emerged. As such it is, by definition, prophetic.
I am no philologist, so I can't interpret the mish-mash of scripts on the wall behind. Part Hebrew letters (but some clearly aren't), some ancient Greek, but not explicitly so. It reminds me of a scene from the Bible. You know it by the saying that has come down in most languages today: "The writing is on the wall."
Please follow me. This is very important. The scene in the Book of Daniel chapter 5, is a feast in the court of the evil Babylonian king Belshazzar. Suddenly, a hand appears and begins to write upon the wall. The young Hebrew prophet Daniel (yes the same one who was thrown into a lions den and survived), interpreted the words as signaling the downfall of the mighty Global empire of its day, Babylon.
From that day on, Babylon has become synonymous with evil empires. Subtle because they tempt us with so many materialistic goods and pleasures as the tempting serpent did in the Garden of Eden. Now please look at what is hidden behind the red curtain on the altar. (the curtain was closed, but viewers are allowed to open it for interaction).
There is the Serpent, the Leviathan, the Dragon revealed for all to see. Suddenly Belshazzar's feast was turned from celebration to fear in an instant. The writing is on the wall!
The digital revolution has led us to the verge of Artificial Intelligence once and for all replacing the human soul. We humans have become the creators of our own demise. If that sounds too stark and bizarre a prospect, then welcome to Belshazzar's feast. A New World Order is about to reveal itself. But here is our hope Eternal.
The writing is on the wall! It is finished. The work is almost done.
Now is the time to prepare for the triumph of Light over Darkness, when all souls are held in the balance.
In the 4th century AD, under severe persecution, the Gnostics fled to desert caves in Egypt and hid their beloved texts in clay vessels. In 1945 they were discovered at Nag Hammadi, and for the first time in 1500 years their message was revealed to the world. This is the end of one such text, 'On the Origin of the World':
“The heavens of the gods of chaos will collapse upon one another and their powers will be consumed. Their realms will also be overthrown. The chief creator’s heaven will fall and split in half. His stars in their sphere will fall down to the earth, and the earth will not be able to endure them. They will fall down to the abyss, and the abyss will be overthrown.
Light will overcome the darkness and banish it. Then the darkness will be like something that never was, and the source of darkness will be dissolved…”
I did not want to share this, and this may prove to only be the beginning of the end of worldly kingdoms (and you have every right to disagree if you will!). But I say it to warn you. The writing is on the wall! Every human civilisation stands judged.
Things happen anyway and there's no way to foresee their aftermath.
Some details for this shot: I took a roll of Rollei CR200 35mm slide film, shot it with a modified Holga 120, then went to have it cross processed at my usual lab... What the lab sent back had been processed instead in the wrong chemicals (due to "a distraction of the operator", they wrote); they sent me a letter of excuses and the roll is now in black & white.
I am happy with the results, though, and am prone to see this as another example of happy accident.
.
Camera: Holga
Film: Rollei CR200
See more at my LomoHome: bit.ly/ADGlomo
Jerome Napoleon Charles Bonaparte (1876 - 1945) - the last American Bonaparte. My restoration and colorization of the Harris & Ewing image in the Library of Congress archive. The photo is not dated, but my estimate is that it was shot about 1910.
Here is how he American branch of the Bonaparte dynasty got started:
"In July 1803, Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, then serving as a naval officer, arrived in New York on leave. His brother's fame opened every door. He called on President Jefferson in Washington; he went to a ball in Baltimore. There he met Betsy Patterson. When they danced, a chain on his tunic snagged her gown, and they became much taken with each other. Speaking with unknowing prescience, Betsy declared she would rather be the wife of Jerome Bonaparte for one hour than of any other man for life. As for Jerome, his infatuation was immediate, importunate, and passionate, as only that of the shallow can be. When Betsy made clear the path to her bedroom ran through the chapel, they were married on Christmas Eve 1803 by Bishop Carroll, America's ranking Roman Catholic ecclesiastic.Napoleon ordered Jerome home.
Jerome waited a year before sailing with Betsy in March 1805. At Lisbon, the French ambassador informed them that "Miss Patterson" could not enter France. Jerome persuaded Betsy to continue traveling while he worked things out with his brother. He promised to return and swore his love was eternal.
Napoleon threatened Jerome with imprisonment, having decreed the marriage null and its offspring illegitimate. When Betsy gave birth to a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, on July 7, 1805, Jerome hoped the news might mollify the emperor. Napoleon responded, "Your union with Miss Patterson is null and void in the eyes of both religion and the law." This was not entirely true: The marriage was valid in America, and the pope would not annul it. But Jerome gave in, and Betsy returned to Baltimore after a negotiated settlement with Napoleon involving an annual pension of 60,000 gold francs."
Betsy´s son had two sons. The younger son, Charles Joseph Bonaparte was appointed Secretary of the Navy by Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, and from 1906 to 1909 he served as Roosevelt´s Attorney General. The older brother´s son, Jerome Napoleon Charles Bonaparte (in the picture) became the last Bonaparte in the US. He had inherited a lot of money from his grandmother - who had become very wealthy in the real estate business.
In the portrait Jerome Napoleon Charles Bonaparte looks like he would have been satisfied with life, but historians have characterized him as a rather insignificant figure:
"Jerome-Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, born in 1878, was tall, slender, and mustachioed. A New Yorker throughout his adult life, his inherited wealth let him live as he pleased and do as he liked, and so he never held a job or practiced a profession. In 1921, he was informally offered the Albanian crown, as was Harry Sinclair, the multimillionaire oilman. He was interviewed during the intermission of the Lux Radio Theatre's broadcast of Sardou's "Madame Sans-Gene" on December 14, 1936.
Otherwise, as one historian wrote, his was "a singularly unspectacular life," recorded in one-sentence society-page entries, such as "Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte are in Palm Springs" or newspaper photographs of him with his Brussels griffon at the Newport Kennel Club's dog show.
Talleyrand observed that Napoleon's death had not been an event: merely an item of news. Jerome-Napoleon Charles Bonaparte's death was not even that: On November 10, 1945, while walking his wife's dog in Central Park, he tripped over its leash and broke his neck."
(The New York Sun)
“How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!”
This is for this week’s Macro Mondays theme Defining Beauty which seeks a quotation and a corresponding image.
Eeek! That’s well outside my comfort zone what with both a nebulous concept and a pertinent quotation. Who do they think I am? [derranged laughter off-stage]
OK, the quote is a lovely one from the Song of Solomon. Song is a beautiful book in itself and little known partly because it is a love-poem and partly because the protestant prudery of yesteryear tended to suppress it.
Song is attributed to King Solomon, the son of David who was lauded in the Bible for his wisdom, yet it is one of only two books in the Jewish and Christian canons of scripture not to mention God (the other being Esther).
But it’s the topic that caused discomfort in ancient pews, dealing as it does with a warm, positive celebration of human love and sexuality in the context of marriage. Interestingly for more than half the book the "voice" that is talking is that of the girl.
The book is quite erotic in its language once you decipher the poetic metaphor – for example, it frequently refers to wine often as an allusion to sexual activity. Perhaps appreciating the beauty of the poem can restore some dignity to that aspect of modern lives and relationships. That would indeed be wisdom!
But you are not here to listen to me prattle about why I like the Bible. The image, lest you hadn’t guessed, is a selfie. Rare for me, it adds to the digit from the other hand previously disclosed. One of these days you will have collected the complete set I am sure :)
I’ve been married to the same lady for over two-thirds of my life. You’ll note that I don’t say how long, in order to perpetuate the notion, carefully crafted on Flickr, that I am young, tall, dark and handsome (and believe me you would fall about laughing with that if you ever met me!).
I’ve sometimes wondered, without much success I have to say, what the key to a good marriage is. I feel uncomfortable with the notion that it depends on some particular strength of character or other quality.
The quote about marriage that has resonated with me most has been the one that said that the way to a good marriage was marrying the right woman. So true, though it seems to me that as we all lack prescience there is no way to tell when you start out.
For myself, the best I can come up with is that it takes real, long-lasting commitment from both to make a marriage work.
The Hebrew Bible has a word for long-lasting love which it often applies to God. This explains the image I have chosen to go with the quote which you can interpret as saying that long-lasting love is more precious in a marriage than ephemeral (though enjoyable) sexual attraction.
Thank you for taking time to look. I hope you enjoy the image. Happy Macro Mondays!
[On the dining table with a dark card background and directional daylight from a far window; tripod, remote release; manual focus in LiveView, VR off.
Taken on the diagonal to strengthen the composition.
Developed in Lightroom. Changed the yellow saturation and hue to emphasise the gold of the ring, correct the skin tones in red and orange and colour temperature. Reduced the Clarity to smooth the wrinkles (yep, the reality is even worse lol)
Into Affinity Photo for cropping to within the 3-inch guideline (for one so tall I have small hands :) ).
Sharpened using Clarity (perversely) and High Pass filter with Linear Burn (the latter being particularly effective here).
Soft and gentle dark vignette.]
Perhaps.
Interesting word all the same, that pre-science of prescience, when combined with the post-science of prescience, and hey presto voila, infrathin. Who woulda guessed?
Otherwise known as the "science of imaginary solutions", or Pataphysics, even.
From Frank Herbert's seminal Science Fiction novels in the Dune series interplanetary travel is a closely held monopoly controlled by the elusive spacing guild. At the core of the Guild are the Navigators.
"A Guild Navigator was a senior rank of artificially super-evolved humans within the Spacing Guild and for many Guildsmen the pinnacle of their ambitions. Mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice Melange; Navigators are able to use a mentally conditioned and trained form of prescience to safely navigate interstellar and galactic space in long-range starships called Heighliners." Dune Wiki Guild Navigator | Dune Wiki | Fandom
This MOC is build from 1,705 parts and depicts a Navigator, in his tank, being escorted by a group of Guildsmen of various ranks.
Near Métis, Quebec, the Reford Gradens blaze with colour every summer with fields of flowers, natural and cultivated.
... the moon must have cringed when it looked down.
Ah, another song that will be running around my head all day. Right then, one flower, buttercup to be precise, amidst other buttery-bokeh'd flowers (also buttercups), with a hazily blue-green sky thingy going on there in the background. I quite like this one. Yay me and all that. This has nothing sad in it at all so shouldn't be the best candidate for sad bokeh friday except that I made 'build me up buttercup' the subtitle of the group this week in an astounding feat of prescience. How handy!
Oooh, and if you do want to hear one of the very greatest songs ever written, clicky here.
“The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they'd chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
"In this vast and infinitely complex universe, dangers are everywhere. For an ordinary person, the challenge lies in recognizing the pitfalls and avoiding them. Just like other people, I'm not perfect, but my premonitions elevate me to another level of consciousness."
― Norma Cenva, recorded statements (self-translated from "Navigators of Dune", Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson)
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Build for RogueOlympics, Round 2. Topic: "Oops"
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For an explanation of the connection between the topics, check out this article:
roguebricks.de/forum/index.php?thread/5062-dune-steersman...
From Frank Herbert's seminal Science Fiction novels in the Dune series interplanetary travel is a closely held monopoly controlled by the elusive spacing guild. At the core of the Guild are the Navigators.
"A Guild Navigator was a senior rank of artificially super-evolved humans within the Spacing Guild and for many Guildsmen the pinnacle of their ambitions. Mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice Melange; Navigators are able to use a mentally conditioned and trained form of prescience to safely navigate interstellar and galactic space in long-range starships called Heighliners." Dune Wiki Guild Navigator | Dune Wiki | Fandom
This MOC is build from 1,705 parts and depicts a Navigator, in his tank, being escorted by a group of Guildsmen of various ranks.
Lemme tell you a funny story that both predates and involves this shot by Emmanuela (her take on it can be found here):
I was completely exhausted one day after work and simply just plopped down against the wall as I waited for an elevator to take me down so I could get the heck home. I was soon joined by a couple of other staff members.
One of them - long on degrees and initials after her name but well short on either common sense or human decency - smiled, stooped over, actually rubbed my ample gut and said something to the effect of "rubbing the Buddha belly for luck" and laughed.
Since she was a convert to Buddhism, I suspect she thought she was making a friendly gesture in the name of fun. Since I'm very self-conscious about my weight (having not originally been a "big guy") I in fact immediately placed the gesture HIGH on my list of most insensitive and insulting actions directed toward me.
Where, years later, it still ranks today.
We went our separate ways once the elevator arrived - and later professionally as first she then I left the company.
Fast forward to this photo shoot. In her pre-shoot interviews, Emmanuela asks her subjects to list parts of their bodies that the do and do NOT like. Suffice to say, my paunch was on the NOT list.
As is her wont, Emmanuela respected my NOT list throughout the week. With the exception of this picture. She handed me this glass vase, had me sit in the light and fired away.
She wanted to make a point.
"This IS you," she would explain. "And all of you is beautiful. I want you to see that.
"As you look through this crystal, I want you to see that. And I want you to LOVE AND EMBRACE YOUR BUDDHA BELLY." And, no, she didn't know about my elevator experience - until now.
BTW, Emmanuela has a lot of degrees and letters after her name - but there's also a HUGE sense of compassion, prescience, common sense, love and support thrown in.
And she makes damn good points.
DEDICATIONS: Emmanuela, of course. And to the slowly-shrinking gut, which in a way has helped me be more approachable as some sort of "big 'ol teddy bear type" Who knew a body part could actually put people at ease?
And, of course, to Francis Albert Sinatra , who makes the thought of embracing myself and those I love feel like beautiful music to my ears. (Great karaoke song, btw....)
Listening to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s 60 Minutes interview in October 2021, the simplicity and impact of her allegation struck me: Facebook made its money from engagement (the more clicks and comments a post contained, the more money it made). And what caused the most engagement? Anger. Facebook was making millions of dollars financed by our anger. Haugen revealed that Facebook’s internal reports showed the company’s algorithms promoted political discord and anti-vaccination rhetoric, both domestically and internationally (in 2018, Myanmar’s military used Facebook to launch the Rohingya genocide). Company insiders warned Mark Zuckerberg, but he chose profit over the safety and well-being of its users. And despite numerous appearances before Congress, he consistently misled our legislators and us. I use Facebook to stay in contact with friends. I also moderate a cultural and political page as part of my work on the Chamomile Tea Party. I’ve created over 230 posters during the last decade that chronicle the devolution of American political discourse.
I don’t have to tell you, Americans are more polarized than ever. Donald Trump’s presidency and power were built on that divide. The Republican Party’s kowtowing to him, both during his tenure and even now, has created high levels of vigilance and anxiety. No matter where we stand on the political spectrum, we’ve had little power to do anything about it except to yell at each other. Our anger was and continues to be palatable. Trump’s defeat (even as he dangles a 2024 run for the presidency) has given us some room to breathe and to distance ourselves, if ever so slightly, from the precipice. But how have we fallen so far? How did we lose sight of what many believe is American Exceptionalism (a term I find a fabricated national myth)?
As parents of two young adults, my wife and I have found the “terrible twos” had nothing on the clueless early twenties. At 18, our daughters were legally adults. But they had little experience being adults. And with their prefrontal cortexes still developing, they rarely asked for help nor listened when we offered our expertise. Fair enough. I didn’t listen to my parents either at that age. But our challenge in helping them navigate adulthood is complicated because our twenties were so different from theirs. We cannot compare our pasts to their experiences as digital natives. As a technologist and a former teacher of technology, I never taught my students the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the net. In the late 1990s, teachers focused on using programs like Photoshop and PageMaker, not how to be good netizens. We didn’t have to. There was no need—yet.
At the beginning of the internet, the opportunity to meet new people to discuss ideas was a major attraction to me. As a teenager, I had pen pals in countries worldwide, and I saw the internet as an extension of that interest and my curiosity. As an artist, I saw the opportunity to bypass the impediments of gallery representation and the art market to convey my work to new audiences. But at a “town hall” back then, hastily organized to discuss a Washington Post article bemoaning DC’s lackluster arts community, I warned my fellow artists we needed to guard this new resource. If we didn’t make this concerted effort, companies and corporations would turn it into just another marketplace for their goods and services. I feel no pleasure in my prescience.
Enter social media. By the early 2000s, I was a technology strategist and frontend web designer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I helped shepherd our mission to new online audiences. And, in 2002, I proposed doing a blog as a way of posting current information about exhibitions and lectures weekly. Until that time, websites were static. They presented the basics and were rarely updated. But as we recognized the value of engaging these new audiences, we needed to find ways to interact and inform on an ongoing basis. The introduction of content management systems allowed us to create that fresh content easily. In 2005, my idea gained enough traction to launch the first blog at the Smithsonian, Eye Level. Everybody was trying to find ways to engage these new communities. In 2006, Facebook opened its membership to everyone. And in 2008, Twitter did the same. Both of these platforms became part of our museum’s toolkit for social engagement.
These apps heralded a revolution in social interaction. As these platforms grew, they looked to differentiate themselves from one another. When coworkers wondered if Twitter would supplant blogging, I told them, “you tweet to react and blog to reflect.” But the business of social media was developing too. As access and bandwidth increased, these companies grew exponentially. So did their power and their share prices. My ’90s prediction that capital would supplant real societal change came to be. There was money to be made, and by the late 2000s, the net’s fate was set. Net cognoscenti have been advocating for net neutrality ever since.
The internet’s future demanded a robust infrastructure to secure its future. Money poured in from venture capitalists. In Silicon Valley, just about every idea was a good one, that is until the bubble burst in the late 1990s. The wild, wild West was gone, but that didn’t stop the capital from flowing in, albeit with a little more restraint. And it began to coalesce. Companies bought up other companies. And as Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, and author of Sapiens, recently stated on 60 Minutes, platforms like Instagram and What’s App sold for millions. These apps had no tangible assets, so why were they valued so highly? It was their data that made those acquisitions so valuable. Their data on you and me. I decided if others coveted my interests, I wanted a piece of that pie. So, in 1999, I auctioned my personal demographics on eBay. When my children were young, I never mentioned their names or showed photos of them online. I wanted to protect their personal information for as long as possible.
Knowing all about our habits, companies could target content to each of us. Chris Anderson, the former editor of WIRED, called this “the longtail strategy.” Amazon may make a lot of money from the sale of their best sellers, but it was the other 90% of their inventory that made them rich. The number of small sales from a long list of niche books surpassed the volume of more well-known fare. However, Wharton professor, Serguei Netessine, found just the opposite. He felt people overwhelmed with choices would gravitate to bestsellers. The key was personalization. Develop algorithms that use your past searches to create a profile of your interests so that search results could show you precisely what you were looking for (even if you didn’t know what you were looking for).
This is exactly what Facebook does. It knows everything about us. Everything. Harai told Anderson Cooper, “I came out as gay when I was 21. It should’ve been obvious to me when I was 15 that I’m gay. But something in the mind blocked it. Now, if you think about a teenager today, Facebook can know that they are gay or Amazon can know that they are gay long before they do just based on analyzing patterns.” To understand the consequences such knowledge could reveal, Harai asked us to consider what that would mean to LGBT+ communities in Iran, Russia, or any other homophobic country where “the police know that you are gay even before you know it.”
The dystopian message of the film, Minority Report, is coming true. Based loosely on Philip K. Dick’s novel, The Minority Report, a special division of the police called “Precrime” uses “precogs”—psychics—to identify and arrest people before they can commit a crime. Substitute precogs with algorithms, and you have Facebook. The key is, as always, will this power be used for good or evil? Despite Zuckerberg’s assurances he is only interested in the former, Haugen’s purloined documents tell another story.
Before Haugen revealed herself on 60 Minutes, The Wall Street Journal published an investigation of these documents in a series called The Facebook Files. Here are a couple of the takeaways.
Facebook Says Its Rules Apply to All. Company Documents Reveal a Secret Elite That’s Exempt. While Zuckerberg conveys Facebook’s role as neutrality-based, where the platform treats every user equally, the truth is just the opposite. A special class of high-profile users doesn’t always have to adhere to Facebook’s rules and algorithms. They are part of a program called “Cross Check” or “XCheck.” Facebook’s algorithms and content moderators can’t keep up with the abundance of user-generated content, so they wanted to give special attention to these very visible and vocal VIPs to ensure no PR problems for the company. Yet, many of these “special people” have used their privilege to harass and incite violence. As regular users, their posts would have been taken down and, as many of us have experienced for much lesser “crimes,” thrown into Facebook jail. This confidential review stated, “We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” and it called the company’s actions “a breach of trust.”
Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead. In 2018, the company changed its algorithm to make its platform kinder and gentler. Its goal was to emphasize sharing and resharing posts amongst friends and family. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Political parties and trolls used the algorithm to sensationalize content.
In March 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would use the platform to promote COVID vaccinations. His goal was to get 50 million people to get vaccinated. Despite this altruistic hope, his app’s formula stymied even his efforts by prioritizing resharing. Anti-vaxx comments and mis- and disinformation inundated pro-vaccination content. The Wall Street Journal stated that Facebook's problem was “its users create the content, but their comments, posts, and videos are hard to control.”
In the lead-up to the 2020 elections, Facebook attempted to address these issues by forming the Civic Integrity working group. When Haugen began working at Facebook, she was assigned to this group to help manage the misinformation. But after the election, the company decided to disband this unit. Haugen said, “They told us, ‘We're dissolving Civic Integrity.’ Like, they basically said, ‘Oh good, we made it through the election. There wasn't [sic] riots. We can get rid of Civic Integrity now.’ Fast forward a couple months, we got the insurrection. And when they got rid of Civic Integrity, it was the moment where I was like, ‘I don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.’”
As a moderator on a political page, I often bought ads to promote messages from the posters I designed. Defining my audiences for these ads, I wanted to get the word out without the back and forth animosity and name-calling that was so rampant in most social media “tit-for-tats.” To do that, Facebook allowed me to target my audiences extensively. Building an audience profile was an art form in and of itself. They provided very niche groups I could address. Combining these groups allowed me to pinpoint my messages. For example, I could focus on liberal or conservative movements and interests in many granular ways. However, after the 2020 election, this specificity disappeared. I was only allowed to target more general audiences (“interested in politics” instead of liberal or conservative issues). With the election over, they felt hostilities would cease or, at least, lessen. They have not. My ability to define my audience has taken a big hit. My messages must now be broadcasted to a more general group of people, just perfect for more anger and increased clicks. Sure, I’d like a larger following, but not at this cost. Instead, I’d like a more significant audience. Show me how I can accomplish that, Mark.
In 2017, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, stated, “The thought process that went into building these applications was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments [and more money for the company]. It’s a social-validation feedback loop, exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
I accept Parker’s reasoning. I know what I’m getting and giving up on the platform (and I’m constantly securing my data and watching what information I post). But it angers me that Zuckerberg et al. seem to have so much power with so little understanding and control over their platform. And I’m mad that he is misleading us, but not enough to yell and scream about it on Facebook. While everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how distasteful or wrong I may think it is, no one has a right to spew that opinion on someone else. I live by that dictum. So I do most of my screaming into a pillow.
Above all, I will not let Facebook profit from my anger.
Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).
See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.
Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.
Steamrail Victoria’s S301, T364 & S313 make their prescience known as they roar through Harcourt with the “Australia Day Diesels” tour
The roar of steel echos through the Flathead Range in Coram, MT, signifying the prescience of a train challenging the grade up to Marias Pass. 115 empty grain hoppers make up the traffic for an eastbound BNSF grain train heading up the pass on BNSF’s Hi-Line Subdivision, it’s destination unknown to me. Four big General Electric locomotives power the train with #BNSF4986 [C44-9W] leading. Foreign power in the consist provides a splash of color in the form of #KCS4683 [ES44AC] trailing second.
The trestle pictured here in Coram crosses over the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. The bridge itself dates back to the days of when the former Great Northern mainline was owned by the Burlington Northern, being built in 1984; base remnants of the now-demolished trestle are still present at the location on the east side. The access road from where this photo was taken is where the original alignment of the previous trestle crossed the Flathead River.
•
Coram, MT
BNSF Hi-Line Subdivision
Date: 07/30/2022 | 13:10
ID: [unknown]
Type: Grain
Direction: Eastbound
Car Count: 115
1. BNSF C44-9W #4986
2. KCS ES44AC #4683
3. BNSF C44-9W #4698
4. BNSF ES44DC #7415
•
© Vicente Alonso 2022
From Adbusters #74, Nov-Dec 2007
The Empire of Debt
Money for nothing. Own a home for no money down. Do not pay for your appliances until 2012. This is the new American Dream, and for the last few years, millions have been giddily living it. Dead is the old version, the one historian James Truslow Adams introduced to the world as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Such Puritan ideals – to work hard, to save for a better life – didn’t die from the natural causes of age and obsolescence. We killed them, willfully and purposefully, to create a new gilded age. As a society, we told ourselves we could all get rich, put our feet up on the decks of our new vacation homes, and let our money work for us. Earning is for the unenlightened. Equity is the new golden calf. Sadly, this is a hollow dream. Yes, luxury homes have been hitting new gargantuan heights. Ferrari sales have never been better. But much of the ever-expanding wealth is an illusory façade masking a teetering tower of debt – the greatest the world has seen. It will collapse, in a disaster of our own making.
Distress is already rumbling through Wall Street. Subprime mortgages leapt into the public consciousness this summer, becoming the catchphrase for the season. Hedge fund masterminds who command salaries in the tens of millions for their supposed financial prescience, but have little oversight or governance, bet their investors’ multi-multi-billions on the ability that subprime borrowers – who by very definition have lower incomes and/or rotten credit histories – would miraculously find means to pay back loans far exceeding what they earn. They didn’t, and surging loan defaults are sending shockwaves through the markets. Yet despite the turmoil this collapse is wreaking, it’s just the first ripple to hit the shore. America’s debt crisis runs deep.
How did it come to this? How did America, collectively and as individuals, become a nation addicted to debt, pushed to and over the edge of bankruptcy? The savings rate hangs below zero. Personal bankruptcies are reaching record heights. America’s total debt averages more than $160,000 for every man, woman, and child. On a broader scale, China holds nearly $1 trillion in US debt. Japan and other countries are also owed big.
The story begins with labor. The decades following World War II were boom years. Economic growth was strong and powerful industrial unions made the middle-class dream attainable for working-class citizens. Workers bought homes and cars in such volume they gave rise to the modern suburb. But prosperity for wage earners reached its zenith in the early 1970s. By then, corporate America had begun shredding the implicit social contract it had with its workers for fear of increased foreign competition. Companies cut costs by finding cheap labor overseas, creating a drag on wages.
In 1972, wages reached their peak. According to the US department of Labor Statistics, workers earned $331 a week, in inflation-adjusted 1982 dollars. Since then, it’s been a downward slide. Today, real wages are nearly one-fifth lower – this, despite real GDP per capita doubling over the same period.
Even as wages fell, consumerism was encouraged to continue soaring to unprecedented heights. Buying stuff became a patriotic duty that distinguished citizens from their communist Cold War enemies. In the eighties, consumers’ growing fearlessness towards debt and their hunger for goods were met with Ronald Reagan’s deregulation the lending industry. Credit not only became more easily attainable, it became heavily marketed. Credit card debt, at $880 billion, is now triple what it was in 1988, after adjusting for inflation. Barbecues and TV screens are now the size of small cars. So much the better to fill the average new home, which in 2005 was more than 50 percent larger than the average home in 1973.
This is all great news for the corporate sector, which both earns money from loans to consumers, and profits from their spending. Better still, lower wages means lower costs and higher profits. These factors helped the stock market begin a record boom in the early ‘80s that has continued almost unabated until today.
These conditions created vast riches for one class of individuals in particular: those who control what is known as economic rent, which can be the income “earned” from the ownership of an asset. Some forms of economic rent include dividends from stocks, or capital gains from the sale of stocks or property. The alchemy of this rent is that it requires no effort to produce money.
Governments, for their part, encourage the investors, or rentier class. Economic rent, in the form of capital gains, is taxed at a lower rate than earned income in almost every industrialized country. In the US in particular, capital gains are being taxed at ever-decreasing rates. A person whose job pays $100,000 can owe 35 percent of that in taxes compared to the 15 percent tax rate for someone whose stock portfolio brings home the same amount.
Given a choice between working for diminishing returns and joining the leisurely riches of the rentier, people pursue the latter. If the rentier class is fabulously rich, why can’t everyone become a member? People of all professions sought to have their money work for them, pouring money into investments. This spurred the explosion of the finance industry, people who manage money for others. The now-$10 trillion mutual fund industry is 700 times the size it was in the 1970s. Hedge funds, the money managers for the super-rich, numbered 500 companies in 1990, managing $38 billion in assets. Now there are more than 6,000 hedge firms handling more than $1 trillion dollars in assets.
In recent years, the further enticement of low interest rates has spawned a boom for two kinds of rentiers at the crux of the current debt crisis: home buyers and private equity firms. But it should also be noted that low interest rates are themselves the product of outsourced labor.
America gets goods from China. China gets dollars from the US. In order to keep the value of their currency low so that exports stay cheap, China doesn’t spend those dollars in China, but buys us assets like bonds. China now holds some $900 billion in such US IOUs. This massive borrowing of money from China (and to a lesser extent, from Japan) sent us interest rates to record lows.
Now the hamster wheel really gets spinning. Cheap borrowing costs encouraged millions of Americans to borrow more, buying homes and sending housing prices to record highs. Soaring house prices encouraged banks to loan freely, which sent even more buyers into the market – many who believed the hype that the real estate investment offered a never-ending escalator to riches and borrowed heavily to finance their dreams of getting ahead. People began borrowing against the skyrocketing value of their homes, to buy furniture, appliances, and TVs. These home equity loans added $200 billion to the US economy in 2004 alone.
It was all so utopian. The boom would feed on itself. Nobody would ever have to work again or produce anything of value. All that needed to be done was to keep buying and selling each other’s houses with money borrowed from the Chinese.
On Wall Street, private equity firms played a similar game: buying companies with borrowed billions, sacking employees to cut costs, and then selling the companies to someone else who did the same. These leveraged buyouts inflated share values, minting billionaires all around. The virtues that produce profit – innovation, entrepreneurialism and good management – stopped mattering so long as there were bountiful capital gains.
But the party is coming to a halt. An endless housing boom requires an endless supply of ever-greater suckers to pay more for the same homes. The rich, as Voltaire said, require an abundant supply of poor. Mortgage lenders have mined even deeper into the ranks of the poor to find takers for their loans. Among the practices included teaser loans that promised low interest rates that jumped up after the first few years. Sub-prime borrowers were told the future pain would never come, as they could keep re-financing against the ever-growing value of their homes. Lenders repackaged the shaky loans as bonds to sell to cash-hungry investors like hedge funds.
Of course, the supply of suckers inevitably ran out. Housing prices leveled off, beginning what promises to be a long, downward slide. Just as the housing boom fed upon itself, so too, will its collapse. The first wave of sub-prime borrowers have defaulted. A flood of foreclosures sent housing prices falling further. Lenders somehow got blindsided by news that poor people with bad credit couldn’t pay them back. Frightened, they staunched the flow of easy credit, further depleting the supply of homebuyers and squeezing debt-fueled private equity. Hedge funds that merrily bought sub-prime loans collapsed.
More borrowers will soon be unable to make payments on their homes and credit cards as the supply of rent dries up. Consumer spending, and thus corporate profits, will fall. The shrinking economy will further depress workers’ wages. For most people, the dream of easy money will never come true, because only the truly rich can live it. Everyone else will have to keep working for less, shackled to a mountain of debt.
_Dee Hon is a Vancouver-based writer has contributed to The Tyee and Vancouver magazine.
Adbusters Magazine
The following is a chat log from our April 16th bookclub event. Photo credit: Pauline Clary
__________
Zoe Foodiboo: I think we might be a smaller group today than last week. Two people gave me poems to read on their behalf.
Zoe Foodiboo: But, I think we should start with the people who are present today. Last week we read our poem, told the group why we chose it, then let the group share their thoughts. Shall we follow the same format today or....?
Zoe Foodiboo: Hello Herr Bereznyak, welcome.
Florian Blaisdale: Sure, I also have a youtube clip of my poem
Klaus Bereznyak: Evening all!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Oh, there he went
Pauline Clary: Abend!
Pauline Clary: Sounds good to me, Zoe
Zoe Foodiboo: Great! Who would like to go first?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Oh there you are, Klaus. I thought you'd left us for a minute
Florian Blaisdale: May I go first?
Klaus Bereznyak: I'm hiding in this chair :-)
Florian Blaisdale: Just to get it over with1
Zoe Foodiboo: /me giggles
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me knows the feeling
Zoe Foodiboo: Please do, Herr Blaisdale!
Florian Blaisdale: I have chosen something from 1920s Berlin Cabaret as poetry!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): very good
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh wow
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): excellent
Pauline Clary: great
Florian Blaisdale: A selection from the cabaret song cycle "Lieder eines armen Mädchens" (A Poor Maiden's Songs) by Friedrich Hollaender …
Zoe Foodiboo: oh exciting
Florian Blaisdale: Have you heard of Hollaender?
Zoe Foodiboo: /me shakes her head
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): no
Florian Blaisdale: First a little about Hollaender: He composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt, was very involved in German Kabarett in the 20s, and wrote the film score for "Der blaue Engel"(1929) including the song "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt"("Falling in Love Again") sung by Marlene Dietrich …
Zoe Foodiboo: ohhhh
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): sounded familiar
Florian Blaisdale: He left Germany because of his Jewish descent and emigrated to the USA in 1934, where he wrote music for more than 100 films, including many tunes for Marlene Dietrich, like
both words and music for the rather wry, socially critical songs "Black Market," "Illusions," and "The Ruins of Berlin" in the film "A Foreign Affair"...
Klaus Bereznyak: Prolific by all accounts!
Florian Blaisdale: That's the background
Florian Blaisdale: Now to Hollaender's 1920s cabaret song cycle and my selected poem: The cycle "Lieder eines armen Mädchens," written in between 1921 and 1924, ingeniously portrays the societal realities of poverty, suffering, depravity, and death from the perspective of a poor orphan girl named Lieschen Puderbach, who speaks/sings in a lower class Berlin dialect. The cycle is very dark, bit not without touches of wry humor here and there. Hollaender borrowed the name "Lieschen Puderbach" from a character in a Else Lasker-Schüler play, but most similarities end there. Now to the song in the cycle I have selected (it was hard to choose just one!), "Wenn ick mal tot bin" ("Once I'm Dead") …
Florian Blaisdale: (you can probably tell I rehearsed today)
Zoe Foodiboo: /me smiles
Florian Blaisdale: In "Wenn ick mal tot bin," orphan Lieschen morbidly fantasizes about her death and funeral, when people will finally pay attention to her. Here's a link if you would like to hear the poem in German: youtu.be/zJBV6ABuY7M The text ends at 1:42.
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods
Florian Blaisdale: (listens to poem)
Florian Blaisdale: When the misc gets loud and clapping starts, the text ends
Florian Blaisdale: This is performed by German actress/singer Meret Becker (aside: I caught Meret once on tour with Nina Hagen singing Brecht/Weill songs)
Zoe Foodiboo: It sounds lighthearted and dreamy
Zoe Foodiboo: I can't understand her of course :P
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): it does
Zoe Foodiboo: almost childlike
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): I speak german fluently but I didn't understand much
Florian Blaisdale: Why I chose this: German cabaret was a field of study of mine as a German grad student
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): no kidding, wow!
Klaus Bereznyak: That struck me too - the childlike voice
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, it was in Berliner dialect and very fast
Florian Blaisdale: Let me explain it a bit
Zoe Foodiboo: /me leans in
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me leans forward curiously
Florian Blaisdale: Let me describe the text you just heard in English stanza by stanza: In the first of five stanzas, Lieschen describes how her whole school class will come out to see her all laid out in her coffin in a white silk dress, and how very nice that will be once she is dead: "Wenn ick mal tot bin, det wird zu scheen!"
Florian Blaisdale: In the following stanza, Pastor Eisenlohr reads Bible verse over her coffin, but Lieschen stays still because now that she's dead she can do what she likes.
Florian Blaisdale: but the most important stanza comes next …
Florian Blaisdale: The most important stanza, I think is the third, which I translate here:
When I am dead, they light candles with yellow flames
And put them right and left of me, very close,
Then a golden glow falls on my dead bones
And our teacher begins to cry terribly!
Only Auntie is very happy, because once I'm dead,
Once I'm dead, I don’t eat anymore.
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): /me nods
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh my god
Zoe Foodiboo: awww
Klaus Bereznyak: Ouch
Florian Blaisdale: There is the most socially critical point in the text
Florian Blaisdale: Two stanzas to go …
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): yes! Wow
Florian Blaisdale: In the following stanza, Lieschen describes how she wills her worldy goods to her friend Truden -her doll without a head, her red hairband, and her mother-of-pearl button - because Truden should think about her once she's dead.
Florian Blaisdale: In the last stanza, Lieschen exclaims: Once I'm dead, then my life finally begins ("wenn ick mal tot bin, fängt erst mein Leben an"). She describes how the angels will sing and the violins play when she floats into heaven and how the saints will all match in to recieiver her. The poem ends with "Wenn ick mal tot bin, is mein schönster Tach" ("Once I'm dead, that will be my finest day).
Florian Blaisdale: *march not match
Florian Blaisdale: That's it!
Zoe Foodiboo: that poor child…
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): so sad
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, what do you all think?
Klaus Bereznyak: And then the music plays!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I love it! Was this in song form?
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): very nice and beautiful
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, Klaus, in several arrangements
Florian Blaisdale: My favorite is by neo-cabaret artist Tim Fischer
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, Scout, too!
Klaus Bereznyak: And this was Cabaret! It always astounds me how dark that "entertainment" wass.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I would love to see this!
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): Very beautiful and also sad. I think it's also naive and childish in a way. Almost self-indulgent?
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, very dark - this was one of the lighter numbers of the cycle
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): frl Foodiboo, when everyone else has recited I may be able to recite one from my memory
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, innocent in a way - a child crying for attention
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): That's kind of party of why I like it
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): part
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods at Galina and smiles okay
Florian Blaisdale: I'm done if we should move on
Klaus Bereznyak: I hear Teruumi, there - It borders on melodrama in my ears.
Klaus Bereznyak: But I liked it, too.
Florian Blaisdale: yes - melpdrama
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): Yes, I agree!
Zoe Foodiboo: Well thank you, Herr Blaisdale. I really enjoyed that!
Florian Blaisdale: Something new for everybody, i hope
Zoe Foodiboo: Klaus, would you like to go next?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Yes! I'm writing this name down. Thank you!
Klaus Bereznyak: Gladly - thank you
Klaus Bereznyak: This will be a different kettle of fish so to speak
Klaus Bereznyak: Perhaps an interesting contrast to go to next
Zoe Foodiboo: /me smiles
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): sounds very promising
Zoe Foodiboo: It's all be great so far
Florian Blaisdale: yes!
Klaus Bereznyak: We ll ... I was curious as to whether our notable professor Herr Einstein could turn his hand to poetry as well as to everyting else.
Klaus Bereznyak: Alas - a few verses can be salvaged from his writing, but they are nothing to write home about.
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods
Klaus Bereznyak: Nevertheless, he has inspired many. So this is apoem by Howard Moss - long time editor of the Poetry section of the New Yorker
Klaus Bereznyak: I'll let it speak for itself and perhaps say one or two comments after
Florian Blaisdale: New Yorker! love it already
-: /me Einstein’s Bathrobe
Zoe Foodiboo: /me helps herself to pie and nods
-: /me BY HOWARD MOSS
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me listens
Klaus Bereznyak: Points at the chat window
-: /me
-: /me I wove myself of many delicious strands
-: /me Of violet islands and sugar-balls of thread
-: /me So faintly green a small white check between
-: /me Balanced the field’s wide lawn, a plaid
-: /me Gathering in loose folds shaped around him
Cliff Eclipse: is offline.
-: /me Those Princeton mornings, slowly stage-lit, when
-: /me The dawn took the horizon by surprise
-: /me And from the marsh long, crayoned birds
-: /me Rose up, ravens, maybe crows, or raw-voiced,
-: /me Spiteful grackles with their clothespin legs,
-: /me Black-winged gossips rising out of mud
-: /me And clattering into sleep. They woke my master
-: /me While, in the dark, I waited, knowing
-: /me Sooner or later he’d reach for me
-: /me And, half asleep, wriggle into my arms.
-: /me Then it seemed a moonish, oblique light
-: /me Would gradually illuminate the room,
-: /me The world turn on its axis at a different slant,
-: /me The furniture a shipwreck, the floor askew,
-: /me And, in old slippers, he’d bumble down the stairs.
-: /me Genius is human and wants its coffee hot—
-: /me I remember mornings when he’d sit
-: /me For hours at breakfast, dawdling over notes,
-: /me Juice and toast at hand, the world awake
-: /me To spring, the smell of honeysuckle
-: /me Filling the kitchen. A silent man,
-: /me Silence became him most. How gently
-: /me He softened the edges of a guessed-at impact
-: /me So no one would keel over from the blow—
-: /me A blow like soft snow falling on a lamb.
-: /me He’d fly down from the heights to tie his shoes
-: /me And cross the seas to get a glass of milk,
-: /me Bismarck with a harp, who’d doff his hat
-: /me (As if he ever wore one!) and softly land
-: /me On nimble feet so not to startle. He walked
-: /me In grandeur much too visible to be seen—
-: /me And how many versions crawled out of the Press!
-: /me A small pre-Raphaelite with too much hair;
-: /me A Frankenstein of test tubes; a “refugee”—
-: /me A shaman full of secrets who could touch
-: /me Physics with a wand and body forth
-: /me The universe’s baby wrapped in stars.
-: /me From signs Phoenicians scratched into the sand
-: /me With sticks he drew the contraries of space:
-: /me Whirlwind Nothing and Volume in its rage
-: /me Of matter racing to undermine itself,
-: /me And when the planets sang, why, he sang back
-: /me The lieder black holes secretly adore.
-: /me
-: /me At tea at Mercer Street every afternoon
-: /me His manners went beyond civility,
-: /me Kindness not having anything to learn;
-: /me I was completely charmed. And fooled.
-: /me What a false view of the universe I had!
-: /me The horsehair sofa, the sagging chairs,
-: /me A fire roaring behind the firesecreen—
-: /me Imagine thinking Princeton was the world!
-: /me Yet I wore prescience like a second skin:
-: /me When Greenwich and Palomar saw eye to eye,
-: /me Time and space having found their rabbi,
-: /me I felt the dawn’s black augurs gather force,
-: /me As if I knew in the New Jersey night
-: /me The downcast sky that was to clamp on Europe,
-: /me That Asia had its future in my pocket.
Klaus Bereznyak: FIN
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): me claps
Zoe Foodiboo: /me applauds
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): /me applauds
Florian Blaisdale: Wonderful!
Pauline Clary: *•.¸'*•.¸ ♥ ¸.•*´¸.•*
Pauline Clary: .•*♥¨`• BRAVO!!!! •¨`♥*•.
Pauline Clary: ¸.•*`¸.•*´ ♥ `*•.¸`*•.¸
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Wow!
Pauline Clary: oops
Zoe Foodiboo: /me grins at Pauline
Klaus Bereznyak: /me smiles appreciatively
Florian Blaisdale: Love all of the Princeton imagery - have seen the statue of Einstein sitting on a park bench in Princeton
Klaus Bereznyak: It's certainly evocative of place and that was its instant appeal for me
Zoe Foodiboo: Nice!
Klaus Bereznyak: Overall, the mundane in the life of a giant
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I love so much of this-- "he'd cross the seas for a glass of milk."
Klaus Bereznyak: But I like the way the poem escalates rapidly to metaphysics - from the humble threads, to the great man's mind
Zoe Foodiboo: I love those types of details, especially from the lives of thinkers and creative types
Klaus Bereznyak: Yes!
Florian Blaisdale: Mu favorite verses: And when the planets sang, why, he sang back
The lieder black holes secretly adore.
Zoe Foodiboo: Wonderful, Herr Bereznyak - thank you for sharing!
Klaus Bereznyak: My pleasure!
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, beautiful!
Zoe Foodiboo: Ruumi went last week so....Pauline? Did you bring a poem?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Thank you!
Zoe Foodiboo: whispers: She might be taking photos
Zoe Foodiboo: Okay, let's go back to her in a bit....Scout?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Okay…
Zoe Foodiboo: It's okay if you didn't bring a poem, by the way :)
Zoe Foodiboo: Oh good.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I think I want to explain why I chose my poem before I read it. Because I don't want my poem choice to make it seem like I'm being a smart aleck.
Zoe Foodiboo: haha
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): My poem is relevant to the 1920s, but isn't German-specific.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I chose this poem because I think it demonstrates pretty well a thing that I love very much about the time we live in.
Pauline Clary: Oh sorry, I was clicking away *giggles*
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): :)
Pauline Clary: No, I didn't bring a poem
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): That is: It's unsentimental, straightforward and witty.
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods
Zoe Foodiboo: Okay
Zoe Foodiboo: Great, Scout!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): In other words, it cuts through the fussy, florid, sentimental Victorian ideals that many of us were raised on.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): You might know it.
Zoe Foodiboo: Ah, IC. okay
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Okay here goes:
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): (Dorothy Parker)
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): That's the whole thing.
Zoe Foodiboo: oh!
Zoe Foodiboo: /me applauds
Klaus Bereznyak: Hurray
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Have any of you read any other Dorothy Parker poems?
Pauline Clary: ★(`'·.¸(`'·.¸ * ¸.·'´)¸.·'´)★
Pauline Clary: APPLAUSE!!!
Pauline Clary: ★(¸.·'´(¸.·'´ * `'·.¸)`'·.¸)★
Klaus Bereznyak: Two truths and a lie?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I think all lies
Klaus Bereznyak: Three lies - four lies?
Florian Blaisdale: I'm sure I have! Lover her witticisms
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): very witty
Klaus Bereznyak: I wanted the first two to be truths but I couldn't run with the third
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Another one.
Klaus Bereznyak: Ha ha
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me smiles.
Florian Blaisdale: Algonquin Round Table wit tonight!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Yes!!
Pauline Clary: What does the last line mean?
Pauline Clary: "And I am Marie of Roumania."
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): It means that: she is NOT Marie of Roumania, and the other things aren't true either.
Pauline Clary: ah ok *taps her own head*
Klaus Bereznyak: Just a celebrity of the time? I wonder - like if I were to say I'm the king of Sweden
Florian Blaisdale: (my ex-partner did a dissertation on Marie of Romania, I think)
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): It helps if you read a bunch of her poems and get a feel for her voice. :)
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): Marie was (is) the queen of Romania
Klaus Bereznyak: Remarkable, Florian!
Florian Blaisdale: Dorothy Parker - what a voice of the 1920s!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): YES!! I love her so much.
Zoe Foodiboo: /me grins
Zoe Foodiboo: Thanks, Scout!
Zoe Foodiboo: Well, Galina, why don't you go next and then I'll read the two from our absent bookworms
Klaus Bereznyak: It's a school night for me! New things to explore!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): yes
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): I'm not going to do any preambling
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): not even going to say who wrote it, maybe you'll recognize
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): it's called "Attitude to a miss"
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): That night was to decide
if she and I
were to be lovers.
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): Under cover
of darkness
no one would see, you see.
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): I bent over her, it’s the truth,
and as I did,
it’s the truth, I swear it,
I said
like a kindly parent:
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): “Passion’s a precipice –
so won’t you please
move away?
Move away,
Please!”
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): the end
Zoe Foodiboo: /me grins and applauds
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): You know who wrote it?
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): /me applauds
Klaus Bereznyak: /me cheers
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): no!
Zoe Foodiboo: Mo?
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): haha
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): He also wrote "Conversation with Comrade Lenin"
Zoe Foodiboo: /me giggles
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): /me snickers
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): Vladimir Mayakovsky
Pauline Clary: wow
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): bolshevik poet
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh wow
Zoe Foodiboo: What a wonderful array of poems today!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): a wide range of poets!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): very
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): Indeed!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't recite any poem by Einstein after all
Zoe Foodiboo: aw
Klaus Bereznyak: Oh I shall have to keep looking
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): that would have been very interesting
Klaus Bereznyak: Or write one posthumously on his behalf!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): not that I didn't like the one you recited
Pauline Clary: Yes, very interesting indeed
Pauline Clary: I will ask him
Klaus Bereznyak: Sorry to get your hopes up - the only on by Einstein that I found didn't seem to do him justice
Klaus Bereznyak: Yes please do, Pauline!
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): Do you know him?
Pauline Clary: I work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, so I see him form time to time
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh!
Zoe Foodiboo: ohhh
Klaus Bereznyak: Oh, wow!
Klaus Bereznyak: Raid his waste paper bin if you get the chance - htere may be a poem or two in there!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me nods!
Zoe Foodiboo: haha
Zoe Foodiboo: Welcome, Herr Kondor
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): needle in a haystack
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): welcome!
Steadman Kondor: hallo, pardon i'm blind.
Florian Blaisdale: Look who just got here - Hallo, Steadman!
Zoe Foodiboo: Ah, okay
Zoe Foodiboo: Well, let's see....I'll share Alas's first
Pauline Clary: Hallo Steadman
Steadman Kondor: hallo :)
Klaus Bereznyak: Hallo Steadman
Zoe Foodiboo: She found a poem in German and then translated it with the help of a friend....I think that's what she told me.
Zoe Foodiboo: She didn't have time to send her thoughts though so I'll just read the poem.
Zoe Foodiboo: Let's see....
Zoe Foodiboo: ummmm...hmmm, no title.
Zoe Foodiboo: /me flips the paper over
Zoe Foodiboo: Well, it's by Emmy Hennings
Zoe Foodiboo: Here's the German first:
Zoe Foodiboo: Ich bin so vielfach in den Nächten.
Ich steige aus den dunklen Schächten.
Wie bunt entfaltet sich mein Anderssein.
So selbstverloren in dem Grunde,
Nachtwache ich, bin Traumesrunde
Und Wunder aus dem Heiligenschrein.
Und öffnen sich mir alle Pforten,
Bin ich nicht da, bin ich nicht dorten?
Bin ich entstiegen einem Märchenbuch?
Vielleicht geht ein Gedicht in ferne Weiten.
Vielleicht verwehen meine Vielfachheiten,
Ein einsam flatternd, blasses Fahnentuch . . .
Zoe Foodiboo: /me is visibly impressed by her own pronunciation and preens
Florian Blaisdale: by Emmy Hennings
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me is also impressed by Zoe's German.
Florian Blaisdale: Me too!
Zoe Foodiboo: /me clears her throat and continues reading
Zoe Foodiboo: Here is the English translation…
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): is that needed?
Zoe Foodiboo: I am so often in the nights.
I climb out of the dark shafts.
Zoe Foodiboo: How colorfully my otherness unfolds.
So deeply lost in the depths,
Zoe Foodiboo: I am the nightwatch on the dream sphere,
a miracle of the sacred shrine.
Zoe Foodiboo: When all the gates are opened,
Am I not here, am I not yonder?
Zoe Foodiboo: Am I descended from a fairy tale?
Perhaps a poem come to distant domains.
Zoe Foodiboo: Perhaps blow away my multiplicities,
A solitary fluttering pale bunting…
Zoe Foodiboo: END
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): /me smiles and applauds
Zoe Foodiboo: /me looks up from reading
Florian Blaisdale: Nice!
Steadman Kondor: /me claps
Klaus Bereznyak: Well read!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me claps too
Zoe Foodiboo: Well, that was a good choice, wasn't it....
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Yes! Wow, she translated that?
Pauline Clary: /me claps
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): pretty darn good
Zoe Foodiboo: I think that's what she said?
Steadman Kondor: it's similar to my google translate
Florian Blaisdale: Yes, a good translation
Klaus Bereznyak: " Am I descended from a fairy tale?" a question we could all very well ask!
Zoe Foodiboo: With the help of an RL friend
Steadman Kondor: it is good fun to put it through the google translate then smooth over
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): /me looks up and waves at Gustav
Zoe Foodiboo: oh hello Herr Gustav!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh, that's a good idea
Gustav von Rosenheim (gustav2005 Resident): /me quietly sits
Zoe Foodiboo: Welcome
Florian Blaisdale: Hallo, Gustav!
Gustav von Rosenheim (gustav2005 Resident): hello *waves*
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): welcome Gustav!
Pauline Clary: Hallo Gustav!
Zoe Foodiboo: I have one more poem to read but you can go first if you brought one, Herr Gustav
Steadman Kondor: the Multiplicities got to me
Steadman Kondor: i wonder if there is a older meaning
Steadman Kondor: it has a lot of modern (post modern) connoctation to me
Gustav von Rosenheim (gustav2005 Resident): Oh, no, I haven't, Zoe.
Gustav von Rosenheim (gustav2005 Resident): Please continue.
Zoe Foodiboo: Okay
Klaus Bereznyak: /me ponders the multiplicities
Zoe Foodiboo: Herr Blaisdale, what do you think about that translation of multiplicities?
Galina Eiffel (natbun Resident): So sorry, I have to go now, thank you for the beautiful poems
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): Oh, bye, Galina!
Zoe Foodiboo: bye Galina
Florian Blaisdale: multiplicities? Vielfaeltigkeiten?
Steadman Kondor: /me smiles and turns to herr florian
Steadman Kondor: ja
Florian Blaisdale: Sorry, was a way for a moment
Zoe Foodiboo: that's the correct translation?
Pauline Clary: Ciao, Galina
Florian Blaisdale: it is the translation for intricacies
Zoe Foodiboo: ah, I see
Steadman Kondor: oh that is good
Klaus Bereznyak: Seemingly there's no direct equivalence in English?
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods
Zoe Foodiboo: That's the challenge in translation
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): especially when poetry is about the exact right word choice
Klaus Bereznyak: I have a better impression of the word now though, thank you Florian and Steadman
Zoe Foodiboo: /me nods
Zoe Foodiboo: Great!
Zoe Foodiboo: Okay, last poem?
Florian Blaisdale: Vielzahl seems to also be the German equivalent, but that could mean bounty, surfeit, etc.
Zoe Foodiboo: Abi wrote some notes too
Steadman Kondor: herr abi translated?
Zoe Foodiboo: /me unfolds a piece of paper and reads on behalf of Abi…
Zoe Foodiboo: Oh, I'm not sure? He is taking German classes and he does have Duncan to help him
Zoe Foodiboo: okay, here goes
Zoe Foodiboo: "I've chosen a poem by Henriette Hardenberg.
Zoe Foodiboo: That's actually her pseudonym; she was born in 1894 as Margarete Rosenberg. Henriette Hardenberg is a name she started using in 1913.
Steadman Kondor: (i love the different female poets we are sharing!)
Zoe Foodiboo: I chose her for several reasons: she was a Berliner - at least for the first 25 years of her life or so. After Berlin she moved to Munich, and then to London. She was an expressionist poet who wrote some of her best works in the 1920s and 30s.
Zoe Foodiboo: She was a friend of Rilke's, and had a lot of friends in artistic circles of the time.
Zoe Foodiboo: Coming from a Jewish family, she fled from Germany to England in 1937, and about 10 years later she became a British citizen.
Zoe Foodiboo: Although she stayed in Britain until her death, she kept writing in German.
Zoe Foodiboo: She lived quite long. When she died in 1993 at the age of 99, Die Zeit newspaper called her “the last Expressionist poet”. Sure, by 1993 all the others were long dead.
Pauline Clary: wow
Zoe Foodiboo: Some of her works, especially from the time of the WW1 deal explicitly with the war; they are quite dark, as can be expected.
Zoe Foodiboo: But this one is called Southern Heart (Südliches Herz), which is also the name of one of her best known collections of poems.
Zoe Foodiboo: Here it goes…
Zoe Foodiboo: Blossom deep down,
mountain tops swaying,
wind stretched out in rest,
the tree stands frozen.
Then suddenly a flowering,
and in my heart's center
you burn in me, tree.
Nowhere is there rest in me,
I cry out in flames,
a sea swelling in all things.
Then they too - blossom and
tree - twitch, having already
reddened with sweetness.
Steadman Kondor: /me blushes. Sorry it seems very phallic to me@
Zoe Foodiboo: That's the end of the poem. Then Abi goes on to say....
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): oh i hadn't even thought of that!
Zoe Foodiboo: "I'll admit that when I first read it, I just thought it was a sort of nature poem. And I guess it can be that, but it's also about passion, which occurred to me later. All this symbolism can be seen as an image of ecstasy.
Zoe Foodiboo: "
Zoe Foodiboo: /me looks up from the paper in her hand
Steadman Kondor: /me coughs
Zoe Foodiboo: And that's all he had to say!
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): It does seem quite erotic. It reminds me of a similar poem by Henrikas Radauskas
Zoe Foodiboo: /me blushes faintly
Steadman Kondor: nods. very energetic and vigorous ecstacy... images
Pauline Clary: /me giggles
Florian Blaisdale: ,,, reddened in sweetness
Gustav von Rosenheim (gustav2005 Resident): wow
Steadman Kondor: twitch!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): haha!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): seems obvious now
Zoe Foodiboo: oh my
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me fans self
Klaus Bereznyak: You read it so well, Zoe - didn't falter at all
Steadman Kondor: yes, she doesn't have a dirty mind like some of us
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): haha!
Zoe Foodiboo: /me leans toward Scout, "We'll have to reread this at the next ladies meeting!"
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): /me laughs
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): /me nods seriously
Teruumi Simoneaux (Korina Asamoah): Zoe is a very proper lady
Steadman Kondor: for me this is a clincher, "nowhere is there rest in me!"
Zoe Foodiboo: /me flutters her lashes innocently
Steadman Kondor: one imagines her flailing and flapping about in the throes of emotion
Zoe Foodiboo: Herr Kondor! Really!
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): I'm imagining no such thing!
Steadman Kondor: /me murmurs, "i respond sensitively to poetry"
Scout MacLeod (Maplekey Resident): haha
Zoe Foodiboo: /me tsks at Herr Kondor
Zoe Foodiboo: Well, on that note....thank you all for sharing your wonderful finds! I really enjoyed each and every poem.
No it's not a playboy bunny, it's a Haruhi Bunny Girl - Anime Expo 2009
This girl had an amazing prescience, and I know what you're saying "duh she's dressed like a sexy playboy bunny" but she was really cool and junk.
Macro Mondays - theme: My Favourite Novel (Fiction)
You see a moving sandworm in the heat of the desert planet Arrakis ...
The novel (source: wikipedia - the link doesn't work):
"In the far future, humanity has eschewed advanced computers in favor of adapting their minds to be capable of extremely complex tasks. Much of this is enabled by the spice melange, which is only found on Arrakis, a desert planet with giant sandworms as its most notable native lifeform. Melange improves general health, extends life and can bestow limited prescience, and its rarity makes it a form of currency in the interstellar empire. (...) As this planet is the only source of the oracular spice melange (...), control of Arrakis is a coveted—and dangerous—undertaking."
____________________
Dune by Frank Herbert (published 1965) is one of my all time favourite novels, which I reread many-times.
It's not merely a thrilling science fiction, but still (after 50 years!) a great story of myth and legend, politics and religion, the human condition and its moral dilemmas.
I had to think a lot about a proper way to portray the desert planet Arrakis in a macro picture and first tried soy flour, but it didn't look right. So I used a metallic wrapping paper and an off-focus to produce bokeh to show the sparkle of sand grains - and an intentional blurry srew anchor (dowel) for the shape of the essential and moving sandworm : )
__________________
Ihr seht hier einen sich über den Wüstensand des Planeten Arrakis bewegender Sandwurm : ))
"Der Wüstenplanet" von Frank Herbert ist eines meiner Allzeit-Lieblingsbücher:
Nicht nur ein spannender (wenig technischer) Science Fiction, sondern vor allem eine auch nach 50 Jahren immer noch großartige Geschichte über Mythologien und Legenden, über Gesellschaft, Politik und Religion, über Menschen und ihre moralischen Zwickmühlen.
Nach einigem Grübeln und Fehlversuchen mit Sojamehl habe ich hier nun versucht, das Glitzern des Sandes des Wüstenplaneten Arrakis durch Bokeh abzubilden und die Form und Bewegung des unentbehrlichen Sandwurms über einen absichtlich unscharfen Dübel. : )
Happy Macro Monday !!
© by Laura Matesky. Please do not use this or any of my images without my permission
So, this is Candy with me and today is our birthday!!! Candy and I met when we were 13 and we immediately became close not even knowing that our birthdays fell on the same day....I met up with her yesterday for a nice dinner and a quick lunch and a " VERY " quick photo shoot in the freezing cold on a river called the Connecticut River!
We are Capricorns and the week of dominance.... We are strong willed, rise to the top people, sensitive, caring and deep. Seem to both need to " express " ourselves by communication and expect the return back, often needing depth and compassion, understanding of that person's soul. We will go to great lengths for this. We are loyal and trustworthy. We would put others before ourselves, if needed be . Love to dominate in our immediate environment and you don't want to tick us off for we are quite capable of being tigers...In all aspects of life and love we are passionate and adventurous. We are also psychics!! We find we are all these things...however, I seem to have a little more Sagittarius in me than Candy when it comes to being practical . lol
Those born on January 16.......here you go!
Capricorn Information for January 16
You should embrace: High spirits, a joyful heart, good health
You should avoid: Escapism, irrational behavior, detachment
Capricorns born on January 16 have psychic ability and can channel their inner energy toward facilitation of worldly goals. Although they have the temperament of a loner, they love people. They can indulge materialistic needs without losing the importance of spirituality. Something of an enigma, they have an inner intensity that fuels their actions.
Friends and Lovers
When January 16 individuals cultivate friendships, they want to be challenged emotionally and intellectually. They are equally idealistic in their romantic involvements. They seem drawn to individuals who can expand their life-view or teach them karmic lessons. Even sexual attraction is infused with a spiritual imperative.
Children and Family
January 16 natives are ambivalent regarding their upbringing. While they can appreciate tradition, they have a need to break from their background. They have a fondness for children but may not wish to have any. Playing aunt or uncle suits them.
Health
January 16 natives do not see a division between mind, body, and spirit. So they put as much emphasis on meditation as on exercise and nutrition. They require at least eight hours of sleep. If sleep patterns are disturbed or changed, they can become irritable, even ill.
Career and Finances
People born on this date need to use their imaginative power in their work. They can see the totality of a project at its conception. They enjoy spending money on beautiful things but are not good at managing their finances. Generosity is the problem; they loan money to friends and relatives.
Dreams and Goals
Learning to use their psychic awareness in a positive way can be a challenge to January 16 people, who tend to be afraid of their abilities. Once they discover their prescience can help them and others, they are more confident about using their special talents. When they set their sights on achievement, they stick with it.
Happy Birthday Woman!! xoxo Love you!!!
Some call it Tudorey Wooodery, we (today's pronoun) prefer Tudorbethan. This is a photograph of Marcel, taken whilst visiting Sir John Dee. Luckily, he had brought his fully charged iPhone 15 (Pro Max) with him. Sir John hadn't seen that coming, even considering his famed prescience.
Just goes to show really.
At one point Marcel bifurcated into Rrose and himself, in front of Sir John, that show-off, and both appeared together as a pair of long-in-the-tooth 'ingenues', having survived their double suicide attempt to live into jaded old age, manifesting as Romeo and Juliet.
Currently awaiting the arrival of said photograph to put up here. It's in the works, so to speak. Communications with the 16th century appear to be somewhat patchy today.
Portrait of Marcel by Sir John Dee (1587).
Marcel was dressed by Lanech for this Infrathin excursion. His hand-furniture, rings, bracelets etcetera (invisible details) would have given Liberace a run for his money.
You will have to trust me on that one.
Humans are amazingly complex. The combination of knowledge, intelligence, emotions and prescience makes for humans' incredible potential.
Consider how humans have been able to create spectacular civilizations, works of art and scientific discoveries. Yet there are things that humans, without the aid of instruments are quite poor at perceiving.
For example, humans have a very poor ability to detect temperature. At first this seems very surprising. Afterall, ice definitely feels cold and fire feels very hot. Consider however stepping out of the shower in the morning. It is much more comfortable to step on the floor mat than the bare ceraminc tiles. The floor mat is nice and warm. The tiles are cold! BRR! But wait. They are the same temperature! One's feet do not detect the temperature of the two items at all. One's feet only detect the temperature flow either into or out of the body. Silly feet.
There are several other things that humans are poor at detecting. Most noticeable is the passage of time. Fun times seem to go quickly, boring times seem very slow. I once spent two hours on a treadmill and only half an hour passed.
On the other hand, I have had many experiences where it would seem the hands on the clocks were spinning. Good times!
The KOM League
Flash Report
For
September 18, 2020
For those who have inclination to torture themselves, another Flash Report is posted on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/50353241978/
This is quote from the concluding paragraph of the last report. “It will take, however, a couple of readers to send a comment in order for this old guy to dust off the keyboard and try to write another report in a week or two.” Surprisingly, a “couple” of responses were received and they are the nucleus of this report, following the obituaries.
How can a person write about the death of someone on September 9 and the person didn’t pass away until September 13? Well, prescience isn’t something with which this old guy is blessed. The major trait possessed is being slow. When thumbing through the list of former KOM leaguers known to be alive in 2019, or part of it, a surprise was looming. In short order the obituary of a former Bartlesville Pirate was found. It wasn’t under his first and middle names but rather the initials for those names. Upon first glance it was assumed the deceased passed away in 2020 but paying closer attention it was discovered the obituary had occurred the previous year.
A couple of links follow. Clicking on the links will add a great deal to the enjoyment of this report. In the comments section of this story is a video link I’m sure any sports fan will enjoy. So, when you get there don’t miss checking it out.
The Passing of Ernest Cleo Leslie Jr.
www.legacy.com/obituaries/lubbockonline/obituary.aspx?n=e...
www.kcbd.com/2019/09/14/former-lubbock-isd-superintendent...
Lubbock- Dr. E. C. Leslie, Jr. passed away on September 13, 2019, following a brief illness. The family will host a time of fellowship and remembrance from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Friday, September 20, 2019, at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers. Family and friends will gather to celebrate his life of 88 years at 11:00 am on Saturday, September 21, 2019, at Monterey Church of Christ. Family and friends are invited to share memories and expressions of sympathy, and view Dr. E. C. Leslie's life tribute at www.memorialdesigners.net.
E. C. was born February 12, 1931, to Ernest Cleo and Estelle Deason Leslie in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from Paseo High School in Kansas City, MO, in 1947 and then went on to attend Central Missouri State, where he received his Bachelor of Science in 1952. E. C. married Johnnie Kaneaster in Kansas City, Missouri. He received his Master's degree in Education at Texas Tech University in 1957, and his Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Texas Tech University in 1970.
At the age of 19, he signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in their minor league system for two years. His baseball career was cut short by the Korean War as he was called to serve in the U.S. Army in 1952. He returned to baseball and played for two additional years in the minor leagues. During this time with the Lubbock Hubbers, he and his wife decided to make Lubbock their home.
Dr. E.C. Leslie served with the Lubbock Independent School District for more than 30 years. He began his career in 1957 as an American history teacher and baseball coach at Lubbock High School. In 1961 he became a counselor at Lubbock High and later served as the school's Assistant Principal and Principal. After serving as the principal of Lubbock High for four years, he became Assistant Superintendent for Lubbock ISD. In 1984 he was named Lubbock ISD Superintendent and served in that role until his retirement in 1989.
E.C. was a founding member of Monterey Church of Christ, where he served as an elder, deacon, bible school teacher, and Christian mentor. He was involved in many community and professional activities, contributing both as a member and as President on the boards of numerous civic organizations. He was honored with multiple awards from the communities he served. Although he received much recognition, he valued his relationship with God and family as the highest possible achievement.
In his free time, he could be found on the tennis court, at a ballgame, or playing bridge. He loved watching his grandkids play sports and weekly coffee and laughs with his Wisdom Club. Late in his life, he became the primary caretaker for his wife, Johnnie, who had dementia. He was a model of love, patience, commitment, and humility to all who knew him. He has run the race and received the ultimate prize of heaven, finally rejoining the love of his life.
Those left to cherish his memories include his children; Leigh Leslie and husband, Fred Curdts of Silver Spring, MD; Tim Leslie and wife, Susan of Lubbock, TX; grandchildren, Logan Leslie and wife, Courtney; Brent Leslie and wife, Kyleigh; Evan Curdts, Lydia Curdts; and sister, Judy Denney.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Ernest Cleo, Sr. and Estelle Leslie; wife, Johnnie Leslie; and sister, Marilyn Klick.
Special thanks to Legacy of the South Plains and Hospice of Lubbock who lovingly cared for him during the last months of his life.
In lieu of flowers, the family of Dr. E. C. Leslie has requested memorial donations be made to Lubbock Christian University/ E.C. Leslie Family Endowed Scholarship, Lubbock Christian University Advancement, 5601 19th Street, Lubbock, Texas 79407, lcu.edu/support-lcu/student-scholarship/, or the Children's Home of Lubbock, P.O. Box 2824, Lubbock, Texas 79408, childshome.org/giving/.
Ed comments:
E. C. played on the 1950 and 1951 Bartlesville Pirate teams. In 1950 he played in 115 games and hit .265. He split his time between playing second base and shortstop. In 1951 he returned to play the bulk of his games at second base. He hit .271 that season and managed to play in 210 official games in the KOM league without losing a baseball by hitting it over the fence, in fair territory.
For a video of Leslie’s life click here. It is an excellent synopsis of his life. vimeo.com/343543783
Leslie played his two seasons for the same manager, Tedd Gullic. Three of his teammates at Bartlesville later played with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Those playing at the big league level were Ed Wolfe, Brandy Davis and Ronnie Kline. Among that group Wolfe made it into three games, Davis 67 and Kline had 736 appearances. All three of those fellows were with the Pittsburgh Pirates for part of the 1952 season. Wolfe and Kline were then gone by 1953 for military duty. Davis was a former Marine who had served his country prior to signing with the Pirates.
After the Korean War Kline returned to pitch for nine big league teams in a 17 year career. The clubs were the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators, Minnesota Twins, San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves. www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=kline-...
When the research began to document the KOM league Kline was contacted and generously shared many photos and recollections of his time at Bartlesville, Oklahoma for parts of the 1950 and 1951 seasons. He regretted not being able to finish the 1951 season with Bartlesville for they were fighting for a pennant and New Orleans, where he and Brandy Davis were sent in mid-August was going nowhere. Brandy Davis didn’t relish leaving that KOM league club either.
A funny story arose as to how Kline and Davis were contacted to report to New Orleans. It has been shared in many of my previous writings and if you have the book “Majoring in The Minors” your task is to look it up. For those of you who didn’t invest in that magnificent tome you will have to request a “Special showing” of that story. The basic story is how Al Solenberger hung up, three times on Branch Rickey when the Pirate GM called their hotel room in Pittsburg, Kansas. Gee, now I’ve done gone and told the story.
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Howard Powles 1948 Carthage Cardinals.
www.crainsonline.com/obituaries/Howard-Powles/#!/Obituary
A photo of Powles, in his later years, is on the aforementioned site.
Official Obituary
Howard Powles, 93, of Dongola (Ill.), formerly of Tamms, passed away Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at the Illinois Veteran’s Home in Anna.
Howard was born June 30, 1927 to Roy and Lorene Powles of Mill Creek. His passion in life was baseball. Howard signed with the St. Louis Cardinals and later the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was a lifelong Cardinal fan. He was a WWII veteran having served in Japan. Howard was a longtime hardware salesman and worked for both Belknap Hardware and Witte Hardware. He was also a volunteer firefighter with the Tamms Fire Department.
Howard is survived by sons, Stan (Alison) Powles of Golconda and Jeff Powles of Anna; daughter, Betty Powles of Anna; stepchildren, Kerry Hunter, Lisa (Wayne) Downs, Kyle (Laura) Hunter; grandchildren, Hilary Powles, Emily Powles, Fred (April) Terbrak, Martina Terbrak, Justin Hunter, Kendra Miller, Kayla Hunter, Dereck Hunter, Melissa Lowry, and Emily Downs; sisters, Louise “Tyne” (Bob) Thompson of Mill Creek, Fern Thompson of Dongola, Imogene Lynn of Marion; several great and great-great grandchildren, nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his first wife, Mary Ella Albright and his second wife, Charlene Hunter Powles; daughters, Treva Powles and Sandra Terbrak; parents, Roy and Lorene Powles; sister, Delores “Toots” Wilson; brother, Frank Powles; brothers-in-law, Don Lynn and Jack Wilson; granddaughter, Crystal Terbrak and grandson, Nicholas Downs.
Visitation will be held from 11:00am-1:00pm on Saturday, August 22, 2020 at Crain Funeral Home in Tamms. Funeral Services will be at 1:00pm on Saturday at the funeral home with Rev. Brent Gordon officiating. Interment will follow at Beechwood Cemetery in Mounds with full Military Honors by the Illinois Honor Guard and local veterans.
Groups of 50 people at a time will be allowed in to pay their respects. Those attending the visitation and funeral service are requested to observe customarily accepted social distancing procedures. All attendees are reminded that, in accordance with recently announced State of Illinois guidelines, masks or face coverings are required in public spaces.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Veteran’s Honor Flight of Southern Illinois and can be mailed to 10400 Terminal Drive, Suite 200, Marion, Illinois 62959.
Ed comments:
Howard Raymond Powles was a lefthanded pitcher who showed up at Carthage at the start of the 1948 season and was released to May 10th. He had initially been signed by the St. Louis Cardinals who shuttled him around in 1947. He began that season on the Fresno, Calif. roster and he was then assigned to Lenoir, NC. At the end of the 1947 season he was assigned to the Winston Salem, NC club who retained his contract for 1948. That is how he wound up in Carthage to start the 1948 campaign.
Following his release by Carthage his time with the St. Louis Cardinal organization was concluded. He didn’t play in 1949 but he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers who assigned him to Cairo, Ill. They optioned him to Centralia, Ill. on June 19, 1950 and four days later he was released outright. Anyone caring to follow his career can do so by viewing this link. digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/85010/...
There aren’t many details this writer can add to what is contained in the obituary. Only one conversation was ever conducted with the deceased and his time was so brief, with Carthage, that he didn’t have any significant memories of the town or his teammates.
With Powles passing there are only three remaining members of the 1948 Carthage Cardinals. Namely; William Hall Hatch, James Koukl and Arthur Lee Wilson. None of those guys were born in California but according to personal detective work it is believed they are all residing in the “Rolling Blackout State.” Hatch was from St. Louis, MO while Arthur Lee Wilson was from New Albany, Indiana. Contact has never been established with either of that pair. However, Koukl has been located and lot of communication has gone back and forth with the Chicago native.
Had there been space a thorough review would have been done on Wilson. He is a fellow who can be traced through the Sporting News index cards. Yes, it’s plural. His United States playing days and his Mexican league experience is on separate cards. Check it out if you are a fact checker.
digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/35442/...
digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/174300...
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Ralph Tielsch and a former teammate.
Upon speaking with Ralph Tielsch once more, following an 18-year absence of so, I decided to share this with Robert Schwarz of Orchard Park, New York. “Contact has been attempted to reach all the living members of the 1950-51 Iola Indians informing them of the passing of Howard Hunt. Ralph Tielsch and I talked for about an hour this morning and he said to tell you "Hello." I told him I was going to contact you today and pass along his telephone number.
He had great stories about you guys returning home at the close of the 1950 season. If you would like to get in touch his number is 724 327-______.
There aren't many of the Iola players still around so I'm counting on you to hang in there.
Belated response
John, I JUST opened this email of yours with Tielsch’s phone number in it. To the point, I just got off the phone with him. WOW!!!! Thanks so much for ‘making it happen. Of course, I told him how memorable it was for me to have won the batting crown that year: 1950; and batted .360. Ha Ha ‘Quite a guy, Ralph Tielsch. Happy Labor Day. Bob s
Ed reply:
Glad you two celebrated Labor Day together. The last game you two ever played together was Labor Day of 1950. Since that time I see your batting average went up 100 points and Tielsch's ERA went down by a comparative amount.
Schwarz’s response
So long, John. ‘Been nice for me, a ‘hacker’ who spent ‘umph, how short a time in the K O M. In my book, you “led the league in all important STATS” To you and your handsome family, I (think I’m) signing off. ‘Just had my 93rd b’day. That’s the trte (truth).
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Word from a former Iola batboy.
Thanks for the information on Bill Wigle. He was one of the older members of our team, but I always enjoyed him. He roomed a few doors from where we lived along with the other Canuck, John Brkich.
Are there any of this team still above ground?
Vernis and I celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary on May 1st. Not much of a celebration due to the virus but we’re doing fine.
I enjoy your Flash reports and admire your amazing memory and writing.
Hope that you are well. Thanks--Larry Flottman—Lawrence, Kansas
Ed comment:
All the names of the living former members of the 1952 Iola Indians were shared with Flottman. One person named was Vic Damon. He asked if it would be possible to share his address or e-mail. It was and I did. In that same e-mail he said, “I have a picture of him with Chuck Sisson that I would forward to him or you. I think that I sent you copies earlier.
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Enjoyed banana girl
I had never heard of the "banana girl" before so I found that to be quite interesting. Curtis Heider
Ed reply:
My goal is to come up with stuff no one today knows anything about. I hate to parrot what others are reporting.
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Exceeded expectations
,
I believe I have passed your “test to see if anyone is really on the receiving end of these missives” as I just enjoyed a fun read of your latest Flash Report!
The “History of the Wigle Family and their Descendants” published in 1931 has provided me with some ideas about writing some my own family history. However, like you, I will no doubt have a supply of unclaimed copies of my efforts when I finally get it done.
I for one, believe that you have exceeded your goals for the Flash Reports. Your way of telling the stories about KOM League players, managers and communities which hosted the teams is very entertaining and so well researched.
Keep on keeping the memories alive John, as your recollections of the “good old days” is very much enjoyed!
Have a great long weekend and stay healthy & safe. Tom Ashcraft--Tucson, Arizona—(Ed note.) Long time member of the administration at Arizona State Univ. and son-in-law of the man who lived longer than any former KOM leaguer—Shannon Deniston.
Ed reply:
Congratulations on making it through the report. A number of people commented about some aspect of it. All my weekends are extended since I retired and all the English Cockers went to heaven.
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Bowers of the Whiz Kids not Bowers of Bartlesville
Hey John. I'm Steve Bowers I used to be in Branson and you were looking for another fellow named Bowers in Branson.
I thought you might like a story. My step dad, Paul Epps, grew up in West Plains in the '30s and '40s until he joined the navy for late WWII. He grew up with or went to school with Bill Virdon, had a band on the radio opposite Porter Wagner and the people that became famous after leaving the Ozarks.
Paul was short and stocky tried to play a little softball in Springfield wasn't real good at it, he was much better selling cars for Don Wessel when everyone liked big shiny bumpers and fancy flashy hubcaps. I got to meet Mickey Mantle one afternoon, he was a friend of Don Wessel and he came to Springfield to buy his wife (new wife?) a fancy Delta 88 Olds if I remember right. Got to shake his hand (I) could not ask for a signed ball they had business to take care of.
Mickey Owen got Paul a ball signed on a trip to New York while still Sheriff in Greene County.
Paul got several balls from Bill and Mrs. Virdon who he stayed friends with. I still have the Pirates and Astros balls, they bring back memories.
I read your Flash Report down here in Mountain View, Arkansas where am living now. Steve Bowers
Ed reply:
Good hearing from you again. I never have heard from Eugene Kyle Bowers but I know where he lives.
All those names sound familiar including Don Wessel.
If Mantle was buying a new car for anyone and it wasn't Merlyn then it was a girlfriend. He never married a second time.
Your step-father was well known for singing in a quartet known as Three Sharps and a Flat with Porter in high school.
A few moments later
It just came to me. The Jim Bowers I called you about was a former member of the Baxter Springs Whiz Kids. He had played with that team when the Heavin boys were on it.
Ed comment:
For those who are curious as to who Paul Epps was and who his famous friends were this link to his obituary will take you to a front row seat. www.legacy.com/obituaries/news-leader/obituary.aspx?n=pau...
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Former Kansas City A’s batboy makes contact, twice
Jim Jay of Kansas City and their A’s batboy in 1956-57, made a comment regarding some of the items in previous Flash Reports and was surprised to learn of the death of Delores Liston. She was the lady who kept her husband Warren, from playing competitive baseball decades after he had to give up the professional version of the game.
Equally, surprising to me was a note Jay sent a few days later about the death of a doctor here in Columbia, Missouri. Here was his note. “John: my high school buddy passed away Sept. 5 in Columbia, Dr. Jerry Foote. He also was the visiting team bat boy in 1955-56. He got me my bat boy job with the A's. I've known Jerry since grade school. We are coming to his service this Friday 1-3. Can you and Noel meet Jeanne and I about 11:15 to 11:30 at your favorite eatery? We can visit briefly. We would like to see you both. Maybe you've seen the obit, it mentions two baseball greats that Jerry had been around.”
In honor of the former visiting Kansas City A’s batboy this old batboy will meet the Jay’s for lunch today (9/18/). The following link contains the obituary for Dr. Foote. It makes for great reading. www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/columbia-mo/jerry-foot...
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Heavin of Baxter Springs
.
There were some nice comments about the identifying the remains of Hadley Heavin who had two brothers who became teammates of Mickey Mantle after WWII. The intent of one comment on that subject wasn’t determined so no response was attempted. Here is the comment that was understandable. “I was moved by the story of Hadley Heavin (I think I got that right). It took 4 years longer than I've been alive to find him and return him home, but they did it. 79 years since Pearl Harbor and the story is still not done. Jerry Hogan—Fayetteville, Ark.
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A late breaking story
As this report was about to be tucked into bed an e-mail was received containing this question. “John, Is this the Jim Snyders who played for the Independence Browns in 1952?
www.legacy.com/obituaries/argusleader/obituary.aspx?n=jam... Thanks, Jack Morris”-Baseball necrologist
This is the content of the reply to the aforementioned inquiry. “That’s my buddy. At our very first KOM league reunion he was the first one to show up and I became his chauffeur for a few days. At that time he was a widower at the next reunion Lorraine came with him. It is odd that I was checking on him yesterday since I hadn’t heard from him for a while.”
Shortly after that reply another question as well as an additional obituary site was shared by Jack Morris. This one said “His obituary on the funeral home website give more details - www.jurrensfuneralhome.com/obituary/james-jim-snyders
Is that a picture of him as a player in the background or is that just a stock photo for former baseball players’ obits?
Ed reply:
That is a real photo of him taken in 1952. He gave me one of those photos and I think a copy of it is in one of my books. His individual photo is on page 289 of the long forgotten book, Majoring in The Minors. That uniform was a 1947 hand-me-down from the New York Yankees. When the Browns franchise was transferred from Pittsburg to Independence in 1952 they wore those old Yankee uniforms with a St. Louis Browns patch attached to the right sleeve.
When Bartlesville transferred their franchise to Pittsburg, in mid-1952, they wore their old uniforms until the owners vacated the team and took everything, including the uniforms. Pittsburg then borrowed the 1949 Chicago Cub uniforms Carthage had worn in 1950 and 1951.
Is the answer to your question sufficient?
Snyders’ obituary:
James "Jim" Snyders
Sioux Falls, SD Larchwood, IA - James P. (Peter) Snyders, age 90, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota formerly of Larchwood, Iowa passed away Monday, September 14, 2020 at Dow-Rummel Village Health Center in Sioux Falls.
A private family Mass of Christian Burial will be Thursday, September 17, 2020 at The Church of St. Mary in Larchwood with Ftr. Sunny Dominic, celebrating. Burial will follow in the Larchwood Cemetery.
There is a livestream link available to view the service at www.jurrensfuneralhome.com
The service will be available to be viewed for 90 days. (Ed note: If anyone views it, let me know.)
James "Jim" Snyders was born on November 26, 1929 in Larchwood, IA to Joseph and Lorena (Ripperda) Snyders. He attended St. Mary's Catholic School in Larchwood, where he met his high school sweetheart, Ruth Krier, and graduated in 1947. On April 11, 1950, Jim and Ruth were united in marriage at St. Mary's Catholic Church. From his early childhood, Jim began growing his baseball career and was often seen in the park playing with his brothers and friends.
Jim was a dedicated father and husband to his wife and nine children, working at John Morrells from 1953 to 1983 and starting Snyders Sanitary Service in Larchwood in 1968, before retiring in 1992. After Ruth passed away in 1994, Jim married Lorraine Young in 2000 and moved to Sioux Falls, where they spent their lives together. Surviving years of cancer, Jim spent his retirement watching his grandchildren play ball and gathering with his children. Jim was a member of the Church of St. Mary in Larchwood and became a member of the St. Lamberts Church in Sioux Falls.
Left to cherish his memory are, his wife, Lorraine Snyders of Sioux Falls, SD; his children, Mike (Glenda) Snyders of Sioux Falls, SD, Larry (Peggy) Snyders of Sioux Falls, SD, Shelley (Jeff) Gerber of Queen Creek, AZ, Randy (Denise) Snyders of Sioux Falls, SD, Robin Baranowski of Solomons, MD, Joe (Deb) Snyders of Larchwood IA, Sandra (Paul) Lundberg of Brandon, SD; son-in-law, Mike Metzger of Larchwood, IA; 24 grandchildren; 27 great grandchildren; sister Dorothy Kelly of Mesa, AZ; sisters-in-law, Karen Viereck, Mariel Krier, Bonnie Krier; and countless friends.
Welcoming him into heaven is his wife Ruth Snyders; son, Mark Snyders, daughter, Cheryl Metzger; parents, Joseph and Lorena Snyders; brothers, John, Bernard, Robert, and Raymond; and sisters, Veronica Scholten and Theresa Bruggeman.Condolences may be sent to The James Snyders Family at 409 N Westview Drive Brandon, SD 57005.
Ed comments:
Snyders first signed a contract with the St. Louis Browns organization in 1948. He didn’t play professionally after that until 1952. The Sporting News index card shows a career of mostly player transactions. digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/130668...
His ball playing days were mostly in the amateur ranks and he played well into his golden years in senior leagues. As recent as the late 1990’s he would send along items he had won as a member of national champion teams. He was proud of the fact he could still play. Snyders was a sturdy built guy who looked like he should have been a catcher. When relating that feeling to him he stated that he didn’t care for that kind of torture.
Playing senior baseball is how Snyders came to know that the KOM league was being remembered by an old guy in Missouri. While attending a game at Lesterville, South Dakota he became engaged in conversation with a gentleman by the name of Ray Scherschligt. As they compared notes on their past each mentioned they had played in the KOM league. Scherschligt, a member of the 1948 Ponca City Dodgers, told Snyders someone was looking for former KOM leaguers and shortly thereafter he was on the telephone relating his experiences regarding the 1952 Independence, Kansas Browns.
With great trepidation Scherschligt’s name is mentioned. The last word from him was that he was residing in Alpena, South Dakota. One of his teammates from Ponca City, Dick McCoy, has been trying to make contact with him for a couple of years. He has solicited my assistance and that hasn’t reaped any rresults. Scherschligt was 95 years on the 1st day of February and it is speculated that he is in a nursing home in Alpena where his wife, Mary Jane, passed away in 2017. If anyone has a clue as how to get in touch with him, let me know and in turn McCoy will be notified.
HOLD ON!!! A telephone number has just been found that is attributed to Scherschligt and it looks like he could be in a town other than Alpena. That will be revealed in the next report after a “trip” is made to Mitchell, South Dakota to check it out. Since Dick McCoy lives in Omaha, Nebr. which is a lot closer to South Dakota, than here in the Missouri “Badlands,” he should be the one who gets the assignment to contact his former teammate.
Top photo: Leo Russell
Middle photo: Steph Goralnick
Bottom photo: Leo Russell
From Adbusters #74, Nov-Dec 2007
The Empire of Debt
Money for nothing. Own a home for no money down. Do not pay for your appliances until 2012. This is the new American Dream, and for the last few years, millions have been giddily living it. Dead is the old version, the one historian James Truslow Adams introduced to the world as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Such Puritan ideals – to work hard, to save for a better life – didn’t die from the natural causes of age and obsolescence. We killed them, willfully and purposefully, to create a new gilded age. As a society, we told ourselves we could all get rich, put our feet up on the decks of our new vacation homes, and let our money work for us. Earning is for the unenlightened. Equity is the new golden calf. Sadly, this is a hollow dream. Yes, luxury homes have been hitting new gargantuan heights. Ferrari sales have never been better. But much of the ever-expanding wealth is an illusory façade masking a teetering tower of debt – the greatest the world has seen. It will collapse, in a disaster of our own making.
Distress is already rumbling through Wall Street. Subprime mortgages leapt into the public consciousness this summer, becoming the catchphrase for the season. Hedge fund masterminds who command salaries in the tens of millions for their supposed financial prescience, but have little oversight or governance, bet their investors’ multi-multi-billions on the ability that subprime borrowers – who by very definition have lower incomes and/or rotten credit histories – would miraculously find means to pay back loans far exceeding what they earn. They didn’t, and surging loan defaults are sending shockwaves through the markets. Yet despite the turmoil this collapse is wreaking, it’s just the first ripple to hit the shore. America’s debt crisis runs deep.
How did it come to this? How did America, collectively and as individuals, become a nation addicted to debt, pushed to and over the edge of bankruptcy? The savings rate hangs below zero. Personal bankruptcies are reaching record heights. America’s total debt averages more than $160,000 for every man, woman, and child. On a broader scale, China holds nearly $1 trillion in US debt. Japan and other countries are also owed big.
The story begins with labor. The decades following World War II were boom years. Economic growth was strong and powerful industrial unions made the middle-class dream attainable for working-class citizens. Workers bought homes and cars in such volume they gave rise to the modern suburb. But prosperity for wage earners reached its zenith in the early 1970s. By then, corporate America had begun shredding the implicit social contract it had with its workers for fear of increased foreign competition. Companies cut costs by finding cheap labor overseas, creating a drag on wages.
In 1972, wages reached their peak. According to the US department of Labor Statistics, workers earned $331 a week, in inflation-adjusted 1982 dollars. Since then, it’s been a downward slide. Today, real wages are nearly one-fifth lower – this, despite real GDP per capita doubling over the same period.
Even as wages fell, consumerism was encouraged to continue soaring to unprecedented heights. Buying stuff became a patriotic duty that distinguished citizens from their communist Cold War enemies. In the eighties, consumers’ growing fearlessness towards debt and their hunger for goods were met with Ronald Reagan’s deregulation the lending industry. Credit not only became more easily attainable, it became heavily marketed. Credit card debt, at $880 billion, is now triple what it was in 1988, after adjusting for inflation. Barbecues and TV screens are now the size of small cars. So much the better to fill the average new home, which in 2005 was more than 50 percent larger than the average home in 1973.
This is all great news for the corporate sector, which both earns money from loans to consumers, and profits from their spending. Better still, lower wages means lower costs and higher profits. These factors helped the stock market begin a record boom in the early ‘80s that has continued almost unabated until today.
These conditions created vast riches for one class of individuals in particular: those who control what is known as economic rent, which can be the income “earned” from the ownership of an asset. Some forms of economic rent include dividends from stocks, or capital gains from the sale of stocks or property. The alchemy of this rent is that it requires no effort to produce money.
Governments, for their part, encourage the investors, or rentier class. Economic rent, in the form of capital gains, is taxed at a lower rate than earned income in almost every industrialized country. In the US in particular, capital gains are being taxed at ever-decreasing rates. A person whose job pays $100,000 can owe 35 percent of that in taxes compared to the 15 percent tax rate for someone whose stock portfolio brings home the same amount.
Given a choice between working for diminishing returns and joining the leisurely riches of the rentier, people pursue the latter. If the rentier class is fabulously rich, why can’t everyone become a member? People of all professions sought to have their money work for them, pouring money into investments. This spurred the explosion of the finance industry, people who manage money for others. The now-$10 trillion mutual fund industry is 700 times the size it was in the 1970s. Hedge funds, the money managers for the super-rich, numbered 500 companies in 1990, managing $38 billion in assets. Now there are more than 6,000 hedge firms handling more than $1 trillion dollars in assets.
In recent years, the further enticement of low interest rates has spawned a boom for two kinds of rentiers at the crux of the current debt crisis: home buyers and private equity firms. But it should also be noted that low interest rates are themselves the product of outsourced labor.
America gets goods from China. China gets dollars from the US. In order to keep the value of their currency low so that exports stay cheap, China doesn’t spend those dollars in China, but buys us assets like bonds. China now holds some $900 billion in such US IOUs. This massive borrowing of money from China (and to a lesser extent, from Japan) sent us interest rates to record lows.
Now the hamster wheel really gets spinning. Cheap borrowing costs encouraged millions of Americans to borrow more, buying homes and sending housing prices to record highs. Soaring house prices encouraged banks to loan freely, which sent even more buyers into the market – many who believed the hype that the real estate investment offered a never-ending escalator to riches and borrowed heavily to finance their dreams of getting ahead. People began borrowing against the skyrocketing value of their homes, to buy furniture, appliances, and TVs. These home equity loans added $200 billion to the US economy in 2004 alone.
It was all so utopian. The boom would feed on itself. Nobody would ever have to work again or produce anything of value. All that needed to be done was to keep buying and selling each other’s houses with money borrowed from the Chinese.
On Wall Street, private equity firms played a similar game: buying companies with borrowed billions, sacking employees to cut costs, and then selling the companies to someone else who did the same. These leveraged buyouts inflated share values, minting billionaires all around. The virtues that produce profit – innovation, entrepreneurialism and good management – stopped mattering so long as there were bountiful capital gains.
But the party is coming to a halt. An endless housing boom requires an endless supply of ever-greater suckers to pay more for the same homes. The rich, as Voltaire said, require an abundant supply of poor. Mortgage lenders have mined even deeper into the ranks of the poor to find takers for their loans. Among the practices included teaser loans that promised low interest rates that jumped up after the first few years. Sub-prime borrowers were told the future pain would never come, as they could keep re-financing against the ever-growing value of their homes. Lenders repackaged the shaky loans as bonds to sell to cash-hungry investors like hedge funds.
Of course, the supply of suckers inevitably ran out. Housing prices leveled off, beginning what promises to be a long, downward slide. Just as the housing boom fed upon itself, so too, will its collapse. The first wave of sub-prime borrowers have defaulted. A flood of foreclosures sent housing prices falling further. Lenders somehow got blindsided by news that poor people with bad credit couldn’t pay them back. Frightened, they staunched the flow of easy credit, further depleting the supply of homebuyers and squeezing debt-fueled private equity. Hedge funds that merrily bought sub-prime loans collapsed.
More borrowers will soon be unable to make payments on their homes and credit cards as the supply of rent dries up. Consumer spending, and thus corporate profits, will fall. The shrinking economy will further depress workers’ wages. For most people, the dream of easy money will never come true, because only the truly rich can live it. Everyone else will have to keep working for less, shackled to a mountain of debt.
_Dee Hon is a Vancouver-based writer has contributed to The Tyee and Vancouver magazine.
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Two Brown Quail expedite their withdrawal from the would-be photographer's precinct. Found at the Fyshwick Sewerage Ponds around sunset on Monday. The small story ... I was walking with an experienced bird person who had just introduced me to some interesting ducks that inhabit the ponds. I was thinking ducks and waterbirds as we walked back to the car, but in a flash of random prescience asked Experienced Birder if he had ever managed to see a quail hiding on the ground before it flushed (and scattered into the distance). At the exact moment the question was finished, two quail flushed at our feet and disappeared into the sun. We then found four more that refused to fly and tried to get some photos as they ducked for cover.
Mahatma Gandhi
Born:
02/10/1869
Died:
30/01/1948
Birthplace:
Porbandar, Gujarat, India
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as ‘Mahatma’ (meaning ‘Great Soul’) was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, in North West India, on 2nd October 1869, into a Hindu Modh family. His father was the Chief Minister of Porbandar, and his mother’s religious devotion meant that his upbringing was infused with the Jain pacifist teachings of mutual tolerance, non-injury to living beings and vegetarianism.
Born into a privileged caste, Gandhi was fortunate to receive a comprehensive education, but proved a mediocre student. In May 1883, aged 13, Gandhi was married to Kasturba Makhanji, a girl also aged 13, through the arrangement of their respective parents, as is customary in India. Following his entry into Samaldas College, at the University of Bombay, she bore him the first of four sons, in 1888. Gandhi was unhappy at college, following his parent’s wishes to take the bar, and when he was offered the opportunity of furthering his studies overseas, at University College London, aged 18, he accepted with alacrity, starting there in September 1888.
Determined to adhere to Hindu principles, which included vegetarianism as well as alcohol and sexual abstinence, he found London restrictive initially, but once he had found kindred spirits he flourished, and pursued the philosophical study of religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and others, having professed no particular interest in religion up until then. Following admission to the English Bar, and his return to India, he found work difficult to come by and, in 1893, accepted a year’s contract to work for an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa.
Although not yet enshrined in law, the system of ‘apartheid’ was very much in evidence in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century. Despite arriving on a year’s contract, Gandhi spent the next 21 years living in South Africa, and railed against the injustice of racial segregation. On one occasion he was thrown from a first class train carriage, despite being in possession of a valid ticket. Witnessing the racial bias experienced by his countrymen served as a catalyst for his later activism, and he attempted to fight segregation at all levels. He founded a political movement, known as the Natal Indian Congress, and developed his theoretical belief in non-violent civil protest into a tangible political stance, when he opposed the introduction of registration for all Indians, within South Africa, via non-cooperation with the relevant civic authorities.
On his return to India in 1916, Gandhi developed his practice of non-violent civic disobedience still further, raising awareness of oppressive practices in Bihar, in 1918, which saw the local populace oppressed by their largely British masters. He also encouraged oppressed villagers to improve their own circumstances, leading peaceful strikes and protests. His fame spread, and he became widely referred to as ‘Mahatma’ or ‘Great Soul’.
As his fame spread, so his political influence increased: by 1921 he was leading the Indian National Congress, and reorganising the party’s constitution around the principle of ‘Swaraj’, or complete political independence from the British. He also instigated a boycott of British goods and institutions, and his encouragement of mass civil disobedience led to his arrest, on 10th March 1922, and trial on sedition charges, for which he served 2 years, of a 6-year prison sentence.
The Indian National Congress began to splinter during his incarceration, and he remained largely out of the public eye following his release from prison in February 1924, returning four years later, in 1928, to campaign for the granting of ‘dominion status’ to India by the British. When the British introduced a tax on salt in 1930, he famously led a 250-mile march to the sea to collect his own salt. Recognising his political influence nationally, the British authorities were forced to negotiate various settlements with Gandhi over the following years, which resulted in the alleviation of poverty, granted status to the ‘untouchables’, enshrined rights for women, and led inexorably to Gandhi’s goal of ‘Swaraj’: political independence from Britain.
Gandhi suffered six known assassination attempts during the course of his life. The first attempt came on 25th June 1934, when he was in Pune delivering a speech, together with his wife, Kasturba. Travelling in a motorcade of two cars, they were in the second car, which was delayed by the appearance of a train at a railway level crossing, causing the two vehicles to separate. When the first vehicle arrived at the speech venue, a bomb was thrown at the car, which exploded and injured several people. No investigations were carried out at the time, and no arrests were made, although many attribute the attack to Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fundamentalist implacably opposed to Gandhi’s non-violent acceptance and tolerance of all religions, which he felt compromised the supremacy of the Hindu religion. Godse was the person responsible for the eventual assassination of Gandhi in January 1948, 14 years later.
During the first years of the Second World War, Gandhi’s mission to achieve independence from Britain reached its zenith: he saw no reason why Indians should fight for British sovereignty, in other parts of the world, when they were subjugated at home, which led to the worst instances of civil uprising under his direction, through his ‘Quit India’ movement. As a result, he was arrested on 9th August 1942, and held for two years at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. In February 1944, 3 months before his release, his wife Kasturbai died in the same prison.
May 1944, the time of his release from prison, saw the second attempt made on his life, this time certainly led by Nathuram Godse, although the attempt was fairly half-hearted. When word reached Godse that Gandhi was staying in a hill station near Pune, recovering from his prison ordeal, he organised a group of like-minded individuals who descended on the area, and mounted a vocal anti-Gandhi protest. When invited to speak to Gandhi, Godse declined, but he attended a prayer meeting later that day, where he rushed towards Gandhi, brandishing a dagger and shouting anti-Gandhi slogans. He was overpowered swiftly by fellow worshippers, and came nowhere near achieving his goal. Godse was not prosecuted at the time.
Four months later, in September 1944, Godse led a group of Hindu activist demonstrators who accosted Gandhi at a train station, on his return from political talks. Godse was again found to be in possession of a dagger that, although not drawn, was assumed to be the means by which he would again seek to assassinate Gandhi. It was officially regarded as the third assassination attempt, by the commission set up to investigate Gandhi’s death in 1948.
The British plan to partition what had been British-ruled India, into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, was vehemently opposed by Gandhi, who foresaw the problems that would result from the split. Nevertheless, the Congress Party ignored his concerns, and accepted the partition proposals put forward by the British.
The fourth attempt on Gandhi’s life took the form of a planned train derailment. On 29th June 1946, a train called the ‘Gandhi Special’, carrying him and his entourage, was derailed near Bombay, by means of boulders, which had been piled up on the tracks. Since the train was the only one scheduled at that time, it seems likely that the intended target of derailment was Gandhi himself. He was not injured in the accident. At a prayer meeting after the event Gandhi is quoted as saying:
“I have not hurt anybody nor do I consider anybody to be my enemy, I can’t understand why there are so many attempts on my life. Yesterday’s attempt on my life has failed. I will not die just yet; I aim to live till the age of 125.”
Sadly, he had only eighteen months to live.
Placed under increasing pressure, by his political contemporaries, to accept Partition as the only way to avoid civil war in India, Gandhi reluctantly concurred with its political necessity, and India celebrated its Independence Day on 15th August 1947. Keenly recognising the need for political unity, Gandhi spent the next few months working tirelessly for Hindu-Muslim peace, fearing the build-up of animosity between the two fledgling states, showing remarkable prescience, given the turbulence of their relationship over the following half-century.
Unfortunately, his efforts to unite the opposing forces proved his undoing. He championed the paying of restitution to Pakistan for lost territories, as outlined in the Partition agreement, which parties in India, fearing that Pakistan would use the payment as a means to build a war arsenal, had opposed. He began a fast in support of the payment, which Hindu radicals, Nathuram Godse among them, viewed as traitorous. When the political effect of his fast secured the payment to Pakistan, it secured with it the fifth attempt on his life.
On 20th January a gang of seven Hindu radicals, which included Nathuram Godse, gained access to Birla House, in Delhi, a venue at which Gandhi was due to give an address. One of the men, Madanla Pahwa, managed to gain access to the speaker’s podium, and planted a bomb, encased in a cotton ball, on the wall behind the podium. The plan was to explode the bomb during the speech, causing pandemonium, which would give two other gang members, Digambar Bagde and Shankar Kishtaiyya, an opportunity to shoot Gandhi, and escape in the ensuing chaos. The bomb exploded prematurely, before the conference was underway, and Madanla Pahwa was captured, while the others, including Godse, managed to escape.
Pahwa admitted the plot under interrogation, but Delhi police were unable to confirm the participation and whereabouts of Godse, although they did try to ascertain his whereabouts through the Bombay police.
After the failed attempt at Birla House, Nathuram Godse and another of the seven, Narayan Apte, returned to Pune, via Bombay, where they purchased a Beretta automatic pistol, before returning once more to Delhi.
On 30th January 1948, whilst Gandhi was on his way to a prayer meeting at Birla House in Delhi, Nathuram Godse managed to get close enough to him in the crowd to be able to shoot him three times in the chest, at point-blank range. Gandhi’s dying words were claimed to be “Hé Rām”, which translates as “Oh God”, although some witnesses claim he spoke no words at all.
When news of Gandhi’s death reached the various strongholds of Hindu radicalism, in Pune and other areas throughout India, there was reputedly celebration in the streets. Sweets were distributed publicly, as at a festival. The rest of the world was horrified by the death of a man nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Godse, who had made no attempt to flee following the assassination, and his co-conspirator, Narayan Apte, were both imprisoned until their trial on 8th November 1949. They were convicted of Gandhi’s killing, and both were executed, a week later, at Ambala Jail, on 15th November 1949. The supposed architect of the plot, a Hindu extremist named Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Gandhi was cremated as per Hindu custom, and his ashes are interred at the Aga Khan’s palace in Pune, the site of his incarceration in 1942, and the place his wife had also died.
Gandhi's memorial bears the epigraph “Hé Rām” (“Oh God”) although there is no conclusive proof that he uttered these words before death.
Although Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, he never received it. In the year of his death, 1948, the Prize was not awarded, the stated reason being that “there was no suitable living candidate” that year.
Gandhi's life and teachings have inspired many liberationists of the 20th Century, including Dr. Martin Luther King in the United States, Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko in South Africa, and Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar.
His birthday, 2nd October, is celebrated as a National Holiday in India every year.