President Obama meets Pope Francis

'Good To See Ya': Obama, @Pontifex meet for first time in Vatican City http://t.co/FwtoEHvobN pic.twitter.com/gWVl6G66Ik
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 27, 2014

"Obama is the ninth president to make an official visit to the Vatican..."

"It was not entirely a meeting of minds. The Vatican has made clear its concern at the Affordable Care Act, which mandates employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception."

"But although Obama and Pope Francis have differing views on contraception, abortion rights and gay marriage, they have common ground on poverty and social justice – themes at the heart of the president’s 2008 election campaign."

NBC News (video at the link)

wake up exercise song

First a few words helpful to know, all basic useful and all make eminent sense, and they're fun.

hard (difficult) 

tell

feel

hurt 

yourself 

try

think about 

way

do 

life

revolve

force

(power)

(power) 

(power)

oppression

deal with

true

blue

deep blue

won't 

devil

correct

don't have

none

flowers

for

gun

gun:

(two finger gun is cooler)

hip

hippy 

chick (chicken, bird)

girl thumb brushing the cheek once is fine.

Now you are expert, and you do look fine indeed,  and prepared to act out the first two stanzas. I think they're stanzas. Groups. Paragraphs, whatever.

Could there be a better way to start the day? While the coffee is percolating or dripping or whatever your coffee does, and bacon is frying, there you are singing and dancing and doing your moderate exercises and mild concentration and getting your morning coordination on.

It is a good test to see how the day will go.

"But if it had to perish twice"

Fire and Ice

Fire And Ice (1920) 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 

~Robert Frost

From the Wiki:

In an anecdote he recounted in 1960 in a "Science and the Arts" presentation, prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley claims to have inspired "Fire and Ice". Shapley describes an encounter he had with Robert Frost a year before the poem was published in which Frost, noting that Shapley was the astronomer of his day, asks him how the world will end. Shapley responded that either the sun will explode and incinerate the Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end up slowly freezing in deep space. Shapley was surprised at seeing "Fire and Ice" in print a year later, and referred to it as an example of how science can influence the creation of art, or clarify its meaning. Link

Science should inspire art. Full stop.

Bunnies / passion pop-up

↓ This is only showing the interest is in Europe. 

Interest in this card occurs this time of year. It's only a few years old but I notice stats spike, a small spike on barely looked at pages by internet standard, but a spike nonetheless. 

The card was already featured at 'tuther place, it is for a birthday that coincides with Easter. There was a large party co-hosted here at my apartment, the place was filled, and everyone packed momentarily without herding all by themselves on cue somehow into a side bedroom where cards were placed in a pile on a table. 

Birthday boy is an actor. Sensing the large puffy card would be one of my pop-ups, he held off his dramatic presentation for last. Soaking up the attention and holding it as long as possible he opened this card with much flair to the room crammed with people, page by page to eeews and aaahs, very satisfying sounds. One of Paul's friends, a dumpling of a woman I hadn't met and not knowing me, not knowing me standing right there, clamped his arm and said into Paul's ear, "Do you understand how much somebody loves you?" 

That was her perception. None of them could see, and Paul did not know the card tells two stories at once. The second story has separate mechanisms on each page but much smaller and in black and white. Attention is directed to movement and color so the story of Passion is understandably missed, purposefully so. That would come later upon further closer examination, if at all. 

And it's still a bit of a bummer to get a holiday-related card on one's birthday. Barry's birthday coincides with Christmas so they are blended and I always felt sorry for him for that. And here I am doing it. I chastise myself for not doing something non-holiday related, for taking the easier course by not thinking of something outside of Easter. I have no idea how he took this whole theme-linkage, actually, I haven't spoken much to the individual since. And now, this unfortunate bit to admit, I go dark, I do not like this, I'm not proud of it at all, but I did visit and I did linger a good long while in fact, and upon leaving I noticed a collection of ribbons and buttons and gewgaws and such, peered in for a closer look and noticed they are political in nature.

"That is my political history, my mementos."

Proudly. He had scrounged these things by way of organizing and assembled all the past trinkets collected from political campaigns into a veritable shrine. To his own loyalty. He is bragging in decorative form his political loyalty of which he is quite proud. All Democrat. There was a lot of thought and energy focused on being a loyal Democrat, a loyalty I find ordinarily displaced and when combined with fierceness the combination is stupid. Fiercely uncompromisingly resolutely stupid. Thick-headed. And worse, pridefully thick-headed. He suddenly reminded me of the characteristic I find worst among my East Coast relatives, that stupid prideful resolute thick-headed loyalty. It comes with a smirk that informs your interlocutor is not serious. That altogether creates an impossible situation. And that's all well and good when things are going all well and good but now your displaced loyalty is leading 17.3 trillion debt to 20 trillion debt and you're still Jets vs Sharks, Rams vs Broncos. Loyalty woefully stupidly displaced. I find it intolerably stupid and so my interest departs. That is what happened. 

Why?

After twenty years I lost interest completely. Because he cannot be spoken to as a person, anymore, as a friend. Any serious-minded conversation, anything mind-to-mind is forfeited. My soul cannot reach his soul anymore, it is all me and his party, such is the case so often. This is political-wise, and that should be a small part of the whole picture and not count for much, it should not interfere with everything else, it should not close the door to all other things, but it does because now politics is everything and insincere politics that accepts the type debt and corruption, insists on it, make opponents of friends because fierce party loyalty demands it, abandon reason and logic regarding serious matter for gain in small concerns, fight for corrupt files and for corrupt accounts and for creating areas for graft and empowering people who do not deserve power, is unacceptable and my mind and my soul gently steer me away from that. I did not slam my foot down and decide all this, rather, this is what happened. 

Now I look back at that night. It was a pleasant night, only a few years ago, but I look at all the energy and the expense the effort and communication that went into it and I think, "You silly futile person." 

Let Us Trim Our Hair In Accordance With The Socialist Lifestyle

Says the man with the worst hair style on earth.  And he didn't actually say it as much as he ordered it.

Kim Jong-un, beloved leader of 24 million citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, has ordered that all male university students are now required to get the same haircuts his very own.

Lucky Nork guys.  No more guesswork about hair styles.   Buzz, snip, snip, shave, shave, product, and done.  Every university man looks like Kim.  Sort of.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a genuine workers' state in which all the people are completely liberated from exploitation and oppression. The workers, peasants, soldiers and intellectuals are the true masters of their destiny and are in a unique position to defend their interests.

Says the DPK's official website.

The "liberated from exploitation and oppression" part must not apply to hairstyles, nor does the "masters of their destiny part."  Or maybe it's something lost in translation.  Anyhow, the university guys probably aren't crazy about the mandated haircut.

"Our leader's haircut is very particular, if you will," one source tells Radio Free Asia. "It doesn't always go with everyone since everyone has different face and head shapes." Meanwhile, a North Korean now living in China says the look is actually unpopular at home because people think it resembles Chinese smugglers. "Until the mid-2000s, we called it the 'Chinese smuggler haircut'."

Lucky for the Nork women, they get to choose their hairstyles from any of eighteen government allowable coifs, while university men get the Kim Jong-un 90's grunge hairstyle.

Are tickle here.

You can survive falling through the ice

"Fiat 500L: The Rich Inner Life of a Gutless Clown Car"

"The "North American Fiat 500L delivers excellent performance and great driving pleasure," this person perjured blandly. "These enviable characteristics are made even more interesting by typical European handling and precise, responsive steering."

Hmm, not so much. Actually, the 500L (front-drive, five-door liftback) corners like the world's smallest '65 Pontiac Bonneville. At engine speeds below 2,250 rpm, there is no one home torque-wise. You hit the gas and time stands still, a la "The Matrix." And the six-speed manual gearbox is the vaguest, wobbliest such mechanism I've encountered since I was winning dance contests in my three-piece suit. This thing isn't a transmission. It is an intermission... read more

Fiat 500L

She's not much to drive—mille scusi, anonymous press official—but she's awfully easy to live with. Mom always said, that's what counts.

(via WSJ)

Fire and Ice

Offered as a parallel reaction to Chip's post of the dramatic fire rescue in Houston. This dramatic ice rescue was captured on film in D.W. Griffith's "Way Down East."

Please turn down the sound in this clip to better enjoy it.

A Sinkhole

 

A sinkhole, also known as a sink-hole, sink, swallow hole, shakehole, swallet or doline, is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Some are caused by karst processes—for example, the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Wikipedia

"A list of 97 taxes Americans pay every year"

"Americans will fork over nearly 30 percent of what they earn to pay their income taxes, but that is only a small part of the story. As you will see below, there are dozens of other taxes that Americans pay every year. Of course not everyone pays all of these taxes, but without a doubt we are all being taxed into oblivion. It is like death by a thousand paper cuts. Our politicians have become extremely creative in finding ways to extract money from all of us, and most Americans don't even realize what is being done to them. By the time it is all said and done, a significant portion of the population ends up paying more than half of what they earn to the government. That is fundamentally wrong, but nothing will be done about it until people start demanding change." 

"The following is a list of 97 taxes Americans pay every year..."

(#54 is now considered the new normal)

Religion

Pfffft, meant to type "hair-raising fire rescue", I don't know why "religion" came out.

KLEM FM

Think ahead

Cut-up and Paste-up: The First Lady's Praise Non-Praise of America

In another installment, where I take/cut different texts and put it back/paste together, in an attempt to... irritate and confuse you, says the George Costansa, Oppositarian, tyrannous (small t) Magnus in me (small m). I took the fist lady's statements in China, a Jezebel Post called Sorry not Sorry: How to Non-Apologize and ...

And my story isn’t unusual in America. Some of our most famous athletes, like LeBron James, and artists, like the singer Janelle Monae, came from struggling families like mine, as do many business leaders -- like Howard Schultz. He’s the head of a company called Starbucks, which many of you may have heard of. When Mr. Schultz was a boy his father lost his job, leaving their family destitute. But Mr. Schultz worked hard. He got a scholarship to a university, and eventually built the largest coffeehouse company in the world.

Being called out on your shit is the worst. It can be humiliating, frustrating, and hurtful. When it happens, the natural reaction is often to be dismissive, defensive, or to complain that the other party just "doesn't get it/you/jokes". I say, go with that feeling. Because if lots of people are telling you that you're dead wrong, you definitely don't want to stop and examine why that is... 

And then there’s this other guy I know who was raised by a single mother who sometimes struggled to afford food for their family. But like me, this guy got scholarships and loans to attend universities. He became a lawyer and a professor, and then he was a state senator and then a national senator. And then, he became President of the United States. This guy I’m talking about is my husband, Barack Obama. (Applause.)

If you want to issue an effective non-apology, it's not that hard. Actually, it's the easiest and fastest thing to do in a difficult situation. Like Robert Frost said*, fuck a road less traveled — let's take the easy way out!
Since authentic apologies are direct, specific, and truthful, your non-apology should be obscure, unclear, and completely miss the point.
1. Quick tip: if "sorry" is immediately followed by the word "if", "you", or "you're", then you are most likely not apologizing.

But warned that not everything is perfect. "Now of course, living up to these ideals isn’t always easy.  And there have been times in our history where we have fallen short.  Many decades ago, there were actually laws in America that allowed discrimination against black people like me, who are a minority in the United States.  But over time, ordinary citizens decided that those laws were unfair.  So they held peaceful protests and marches.  They called on government officials to change those laws, and they voted to elect new officials who shared their views," she said.

Isn't it funny how the pain and misery causers, the one percent, like LeBron James and Starbucks Howard Schultz, millionaresandbillionares, not paying their fair-share, are also, at the same time, an inspiration, what America represents for the first lady. I want to tell her to stop shifting scripts, at home, and abroad. Is that too much to ask?