For a long time, I have considered Lewis Lapham to be the voice of America's conscience. On the eve of one of the most important points in the history of the United States, Lapham, former editor of Harpers and now editor of Lapham's Quarterly, has published a searing truth-telling essay entitled, "Of America and the Rise of the Stupified Plutocrat."
Here is the link:
Lewis Lapham: Of America and the Rise of the Stupefied Plutocrat
This sums up the important reflections by Kristine Mattis in her article, "Eco Crises: Doom & Gloom, Truth & Consequences."
Yes, this implicates each of us.
A must read from my favorite magazine, THE SUN:
https://thesunmagazine.org/issues/515/unfair-advantage
An important talk by Richard Manning"
Richard Manning on catastrophic agriculture, population overshoot, industrial civilization - YouTube
Hi all,
Here is a link to an important conversation between Peter Kingsley and Murray Stein.
Kingsley's forthcoming book, Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity, will be
a must-read. Pay close attention to Kingsley's insights. Click on the picture below
and follow the link to watch on YouTube.
LAUGHTER ON THE STREET
They call her Stranger
Not because she is one
She’s well known hereabouts
Stranger
Because
She’d tell a joke and end it
with “there’s no line to punch”
and burst out laughing
Because
She’d start a story and in no time
she’d announce “to be continued”
and burst out laughing
Because
She’d issue commands general like
only to shout “At ease! At ease!”
and burst out laughing
Because
She’d make loud purring sounds
taunting the guys to “Pet me! Pet me!”
and burst out laughing
Curious
I sidled up to her
calling out, “Hi Stranger”
and burst out laughing
Curious
You calling me Stranger mister?
what do they call you?
and she burst out laughing
Curious
“Stranger Still,” I said
smiling as best I could
and burst out laughing
Curious
She laughed and laughed
our eyes meeting there
both laughing and laughing
(to be continued)
To be honest...
I’d rather be
in another time
a different place
somewhere else
than here and now
as things have become
Artificial intelligence
machine learning
deep learning
they cannot do this
Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest
and all the rest
cannot do this for me
This is why I’m eager only
for sleep and the dream’s
transportational realities
reconnecting me nightly
with the soul’s geographies
soul’s time explorations
gifting not with empty hope
but with new eyes, new ears
and curiosity for the new day
The Writing on the Wall
The writing was on the wall
Yes, it was. Indeed it was, I recall
No denying that at all
You saw it, right, you saw
It was there for all to see
Yes it was, yes it was
But that was before, I know
Before the Great Replacement
The mandated Law of Erasure
From the new and only holy father
The leader erased the horrible truth
Replaced now with new truths
The language of the newest freedoms
What is this latter-day lexicon?
Free the CO2, free the methane,
Free the toxins, poisons, pathogens
Free the hate, prejudice, lies, injustice
Free intolerance in all its forms
Free ignorance in all its geographies
Free money to flow to just the few
Free now from compassion, empathy
And best of all, free now from love
Free now to revel unrestrained
In the arms of power and to glory there
To make America great again.
Mene, mene, tekel, parsin
Erased now. But the invisible hand
May yet write again on another wall
Keep a lookout, eyes wide open
Watch your dreams.
The beginning of an essay on my father...
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SILLY
A Reverie
I LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE of being silly from my father. His sense of humor was infectious and my earliest memories are colored by an aura of laughter. He could turn anything into jest. I remember endless times in which my stomach would ache and tears would flow from laughter I could not stop. When he chased me down to admonish or punish me in some way, my collie dog, Blackie, would get between us and let out rapid-fire threatening growls at my father until we all ended up rolling on the floor with sides splitting, punishment forgotten—or, perhaps, humor as punishment was lesson enough.
It was the forties and times were simpler. Our first TV, a 1950 Packard-Bell, came with a record-making machine. As fascinating as the TV was in the beginning, and what I remember most is wrestling—Wild Red Berry and Gorgeous George and my grandmother throwing her shoe at the new TV because Red was doing bad things to Gorgeous—what occupied us most was the recording machine. My father set up regular Sunday “broadcasts” duly recorded on those 45-rpm sized vinyl disks. He would announce at the beginning that this was “station FART operating on 10,000 kilosquawts.” Everyone in the family became a reporter and we tried to outdo one another in good old Scot’s scatological “funning,” as we called it. I remember when we would all be laughing hysterically, Blackie would go running in circles, adding to the mirth, but the cats, all silver Persians which we raised for sale, remained untouched and aloof as is the pride of cats.
The dinner table was an arena for food games. My favorite was tossing peas into my sister’s gaping and eager mouth. When my father would make scrambled eggs with squirrel brains, he’d wear a coonskin cap while frying up (he’d been a short-order cooked when he escaped the hills of West Virginia and came to California) and would pose us puzzles to see if we were getting smarter as a result of such fare.