MIA BABBINO CARO...FOR STAR
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Posted:Oct 7, 2018 4:33 pm
Last Updated:Aug 31, 2019 9:30 pm 2279 Views
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I was listening to Maria Callas singing Puccini's O Mio Babbino Caro this morning and I thought that might be something beautiful we have in common.........
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WILDERNESS....
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Posted:Oct 7, 2018 2:06 pm
Last Updated:May 5, 2020 9:00 pm 2222 Views
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I make my heart a wilderness,
that the wildflowers of Thy love may blossom there.
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ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON THE KAVENAUGH PHENOMENON
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Posted:Oct 6, 2018 12:22 am
Last Updated:May 5, 2020 9:17 pm 2054 Views
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So I have friends and aquaintances in the field of Sociology in Canada and the US. .......These 2 opinions are casual and posted on social media. They are both family men in their 40s......The first opinion is by a Canadian ...a research chair at Queens and the second one is American and is a professor ......I have never met him in person, but our relationship started about 10 years ago when he interviewed me by phone for many hours and we have kept in touch ever since. I thought it might be interesting for some people here.
1...You know the reason why Republican men are angry about the allegations about Brett Kavanaugh, is not that they think they aren't true, it's that they think what he did (and he definitely did BTW) is completely normal. Because they did it too. And their friends and brothers and fathers and uncles did. This is white, male, upper class fraternity culture. It's sports teams, and private schools and elite university drinking societies. It's their society. I know because it was also mine. I'm not American but the British elite education system is only a more hypocritical and 'restrained' version of exactly the same kind of thing. I was brought up inside a training system for colonial, financial and political rulers. This is a culture that teaches you that humility and caring is weakness, that unfeeling and arrogance are strength. It teaches you not just to feel superior but to be superior. Many react against this, we go the other way, we reject all of this. I always hated this system and I still hate it so much... not least because it's still inside me like a persistent virus. It's easy to underestimate how much psychological and emotional energy I have spent in my life trying to get over the damage that was done to me. But it's still inside all of us who went through this, and even the good ones, the nice ones, the ones who reject everything about this, can still find ourselves slipping back into it at the worst times. This man, and men like him who simply accept that this culture is normal and right, are the worst people to be in power, the worst people to be in government, the worst people to be judges, they are everything this world does not need. Burn it all to the ground.
2...Response........This is the conversation that needs to be had, but it seems most only want to identify and exile the monsters. To me, this is a dangerous avoidance of the extent of the problem, minimizing its ubiquity, while determining a singular category for victimizers, and demanding for them complete stigmatization. It just seems troubling in every level. Among feminists, we know that sexual violence it bad, we know what it looks like, we know it's effects, etc, but very many are unclear about how to deal with its ubiquity without falling back on retributive and carceral responses. People socialized as men need to know we're not saints, that we have this "persistent virus" within us, but also know that there are things we can do beyond pretending we aren't infected or be quarantined among the Kavanaughs of the world, where power is consolidated and misogyny is not only tolerated but celebrated.
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MELANIA ON HER I DON'T REALLY CARE, DO YOU? TOUR
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Posted:Oct 5, 2018 1:33 pm
Last Updated:May 5, 2020 9:25 pm 3015 Views
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"Nothing says “goodwill tour” like parading around Africa dressed like you’re the star of some disastrously racist old Hollywood epic, wearing a symbol for empire. Why not stop off in India and talk about how much you love Gunga Din while you’re at it? Really do the grand tour." from the Guardian...
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I USED TO KNOW BRETT KAVANAUGH....
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Posted:Sep 30, 2018 1:39 pm
Last Updated:May 5, 2020 9:42 pm 4698 Views
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Robbin Wood
September 25 at 3:46 PM
David Brock on NBC: “I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps." And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally. Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "bitch."
But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.
Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.
At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke. In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.
When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)
Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.
That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.
But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.
Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by peddling the same garbage at Starr's office.
A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.
Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.
Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.
But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights.
But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us."
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EARLY MORNING SKY AND A CABBAGE
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Posted:Sep 23, 2018 11:52 pm
Last Updated:May 5, 2020 9:54 pm 2467 Views
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This was taken from the first ferry this morning.......The cabbage was on it's way to the Fall Fair.....
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RESPONSE TO RICH'S 50'S BLOG
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Posted:Sep 15, 2018 6:05 pm
Last Updated:Mar 13, 2020 12:08 am 2520 Views
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This was my response to Rich's 59s blog.....In particular his comments about pregnancy and shame.......Apparently he found it too threatening, so he deleted it......
In those days, all the responsibility for pregnancy was put on the girl.......the men got off scott free and were even admired for getting her pregnant.....You can see that attitude in Rich's comments.....He doesn't mention that the men should be ashamed.......
There were lots of abortions in the 50's too, difference is that they were performed in very sketchy circumstances and many women died in agony from abortions and many more were scarred for life.....many became sterile or had pregnancy complications in subsequent pregnancies or became very ill from infections that they were afraid to get medical help for. Sexual abuse of was also rampant in those days....there was a silent acquiescence that ran deep in society in those days. Date-r*pe was not even a thing, nor was spousal r*pe......the Catholic Church, the JWs and many other institutions protected abuse within the organization........Those "Happy Families" of the 50's were often a front for the world, behind which many horrors were perpetrated.
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THE MYSTERIOUS SOUND...........
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Posted:Sep 11, 2018 10:28 pm
Last Updated:Mar 13, 2020 12:24 am 2189 Views
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A man is driving down the road and his car breaks down near a monastery. He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?" The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound. A sound unlike anything he's ever heard before. The Sirens that nearly seduced Odysseus into crashing his ship comes to his mind. He doesn't sleep that night. He tosses and turns trying to figure out what could possibly be making such a seductive sound. The next morning, he asks the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."
Distraught, the man is forced to leave. Years later, after never being able to forget that sound, the man goes back to the monastery and pleads for the answer again. The monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk." The man says, "If the only way I can find out what is making that beautiful sound is to become a monk, then please, make me a monk." The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how many blades of grass there are and the exact number of grains of sand. When you find these answers, you will have become a monk."
The man sets about his task. After years of searching he returns as a gray- haired old man and knocks on the door of the monastery. A monk answers. He is taken before a gathering of all the monks. "In my quest to find what makes that beautiful sound, I traveled the earth and have found what you asked for: By design, the world is in a state of perpetual change. Only God knows what you ask. All a man can know is himself, and only then if he is honest and reflective and willing to strip away self deception." The monks reply, "Congratulations. You have become a monk. We shall now show you the way to the mystery of the sacred sound." The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk says, "The sound is beyond that door."
The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The man is given the key to the stone door and he opens it, only to find a door made of ruby. And so it went that he needed keys to doors of emerald, pearl and diamond. Finally, they come to a door made of solid gold. The sound has become very clear and definite. The monks say, "This is the last key to the last door." The man is apprehensive to no end. His life's wish is behind that door! With trembling hands, he unlocks the door, turns the knob, and slowly pushes the door open. Falling to his knees, he is utterly amazed to discover the source of that haunting and seductive sound...... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... But, of course, I can't tell you what it is because you're not a monk.
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