Source

I kinda forgot that roller derby even existed once.

On the other hand those cafeteria vending machines lined up in a row brought on instant flashbacks.

***

The main guy I recognized was the one that went on to play Bob Newhart’s dentist friend Jerry.

I think his name was Bonerz, Peter, which is now funny, that I think of it.

Also, was that gun man Peter Boyle? I think so. Guy must have been born bald.

***

Johnny. The photographer, the journalist, the cinematographer with the party, the documentarian whose platform is film, the Reporter–the Witness.

“… And that ain’t cool”, but nor is he uncool.

He is Medium Cool, not warm and not icy. That’s my interpretation of the title.

Do you have an alternative? I’ll bet you do and I’ll bet it’s better than mine.

You don’t share it though.

That is, maybe, the key difference between us.

Or maybe you share it on some heinous platform like Zuck’s, where I won’t go. Fucdo I know.

***

That nurse bird, she had a nice ass.

***

It was preachy, but in the sense that Martin King was too.

It’s not a great movie, but it’s a good one. It’s real art.

***

It was Dobular that reminded me it existed and that I could see it maybe.

They, DD, did two segments; the second one shorter, on the subject of DNC at Chicago, part two, this year.

***

I was a child when the first one happened and the skulls of the cool were cracked by Mayor Daley’s pigthugs. My parents had fled for the suburbs by then and so I never knew anything about what went down, until ten years later and two thousand miles to the west, when I read Abbie Hoffman and friends, who were there and were later tried in court, for the crime of being there.

I’d like to make up for my absence by going this time, this summer at the other end of life.

I don’t think that will happen, or that it would be anything like how it was, should be, if it did.

***

Watching the movie is a two hour commitment, even if you take the trouble to bust through YT’s age-restriction BS, but you can watch the man who made the film, Haskell Wexler, talk about making it, uninterrupted, in 15 minutes.

It’s a movie, filmed on location and in real time, in and around the 1968 Democratic National Party convention.

In Chicago.

You can watch the whole thing here.

I’m about to do that myself.

So far I’ve only got as far as the opening credits, and already I’m suffused with nostalgia for that place, and that time. I was very near the action.

I was six years old.

Later in the day, I’ll be back to share some thoughts about it.

I continue to think a lot about the amount and ways in which I do go rhetorically ballistic.

For comparison purposes, if you are generally for all these wars
(and generally view countries like Russia, China, Iran to be enemies)
… and … especially if you are a Zionist …

Then I would love to know how you feel about

Lindsay Graham’s latest foray into going (somewhat more literally) ballistic

*

Can you possibly agree with him, even if only on some emotional level?

Do you really think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified (I know for a fact that some of you do), and–thus–that dropping a few more nukes to clear up our problems, or Israel’s problems, or Ukraine’s, is equally justified?

Comments are open.

I’m sure they’ll be flooded.

Just before the Dawn, they say, it will get down to about 43 degrees.

Over the next few nights it will only drop to just under 50, and then just more than 50 …

The last half of May is the start of the warm season, just as the last half of October is the start of the cold here. After these couple of last cool gasps, we probably won’t see 50 again for five months, anywhere near Horsehead Crossing. Even when the monsoons decide to ride in on a chilly blast and blow wet, that’s still more like 60.

My single meal is concocted over the course of a couple hours lately. In the first hour, from 4 to 5 tonight, a big bowl of salad. In the second, 5-6, I just had four eggs. I’m getting really good at cooking them well all of a sudden.

Usually there will be real meat with the eggs, or a couple of tortillas. This evening there wasn’t. It seemed to be a matter of mood.

I’ve lost seven inches around the middle and I’m aiming to lose four more at least this way. When I get that far, I will have finally vanquished obesity officially and properly. My BMI will tip just over into the ‘normal’ range. I have no idea what I weigh right now, and I don’t particularly care. It’s that gut measure that matters to me; the number and all that it implies about the syndromes of metabolism.

At the start of the journey some expert equated my ideal belly size with 200 pounds even, for a maleish person of my lofty stature. I feel like it will be a little less, but I’m just guessing.

There’s a great big road trip coming up in a little over two weeks and I am already starting to prepare for it. I jumped-started the van today because I think that’s the vehicle that will take me on the first 90 miles, and the last 90 miles, of thousands of them all told.

I don’t want to go anywhere.

But since I am honor-bound to, I’m going to vaya con mi diosa, with calm and purposeful steps.

Is your mind going a mile a minute? Are you full of mental distractions constantly thinking about the past or the future? Do you depend on outside stimulation for your happiness—movies, gaming, shopping, drinking, smoking, or eating? These qualities of the mind are called rajas in Ayurveda. A rajasic mind is never at rest, it is always distracted, looking forward to the next activity, reward, or accomplishment. While rajas can be disguised as being passionate, people with rajasic minds really just long for peace of mind and a deeper, more sustainable experience of contentment.

—lifespa/Douillard

 

A sattvic mind is at peace, easily able to cope with stress, and content without the need of external stimulation.
A rajasic mind is only satisfied when externally stimulated and rewarded, or stressed in the way we can become when challenged.
And a tamasic mind is protective and withdrawn, even burnt out.

In nature, these three forces balance each other. Sattva balances out the stimulating forces of rajas, which create change, and the protective forces of tamas, which when out of balance can create obstruction.

The goal in life and in nature is not to be 100 percent sattvic,
but to bring rajas + tamas into balance with sattva.
(Living a life full of generosity and compassion can lead to longevity, boosted moods, a healthier immune system, and better gut health.)

—lifespa/Douillard, but a different article

 

rajah (n.) also raja,
“king or prince in India,” ruling either independently or as a feudatory.

1550s, from Hindi, from Sanskrit rajan “king,” related to raj “kingdom, kingship,” rajati “he rules,” and cognate with Latin rex, Old Irish rig “king” (from PIE root *reg- “move in a straight line,” with derivatives meaning “to direct in a straight line,” thus “to lead, rule”).

—etymonline

***

Without further comment? Yes … almost.

I am very definitely ruled by rajas; rajasic energy–it very strongly correlates to my mind with ‘vata’ energy as opposed to pitta and kapha. (I can sure see a parallel with kapha and the lethargic nature of tamas; I don’t know if there’s a similar connection between pitta and sattva.)

To live anarchically means to live without rulers, and to me that is the kind of ideal that can be aspired to, but maybe never fully reached–at least not ‘permanently’.

In the meantime, knowing one’s rulers inside and out is obviously gonna be real important. This is true in the societal/political sense, out in the world.

It is even more essential (I think) in the interior, intra-personal, spiritual way.

I study my Raja/s, my ruler, with great care and intensity of late.

(I think I’ll stop numbering these now … It will just upgrade to a kind of episode. Without Further Comment, or at least with not much.)

***

Glenn Greenwald, in a fast 25 minutes, lays out for us what’s really bad about the sudden new wave of censorship laws, particularly in the US and Canada.

***

Chris Cuomo ADMITS He’s Taking Ivermectin

***

Perfect example of … a smart, well put-together patriot who is nevertheless completely fucked up in the moral sense.
(I’m talking about the guy in the clip who speaks briefly at the very beginning of the video)

*

From later in the same footage:

Did it come from a broad?

The Crocus City Hall terrorist attacks took place on March 23.

Victoria Nuland suddenly left her government post at the end of March. The Ukrainian Interior Minister resigned abruptly in that same week.

None of which proves anything at all.

Just mulling.

A really good rant.

See, what I’m doing there is linking it off–mostly without comment, or even context.

That’s not challenging, either to write or to read.

Maybe there’s some hope.

For me.

As a … pundit, or something.

After all.

I had a great, long talk today with one of my most dedicated readers.

Hell for all I know she’s my only reader, heh.

She said some very nice things about the work I do here, and for that I am lifelong grateful.

She also said that reading what I do is real hard. Challenging work to read, just as it is to write.

True that and no doubt.

There are so many changes happening in my life right now and they are almost universally good ones.

I’m in a generous mood and willing to … consider certain alterations.

I know I’ve said in the past that I’m not going to talk about politics. When I said it, in all good faith, I meant it, and I did try. But I failed–you could even said I lied.

Today we start over in honesty.

I am going to write about politics, and related subjects like anarchism, and I’m going to keep doing it, without regard to the costs, fiscal or otherwise. If shit needs saying, I’m gonna be the bitch who says it.

But I will try to be a little more constructive about it.

Maybe I already have been, and no one noticed, not even me.

The main reason that being constructive is a whole ‘nother kind of hard is:

I live these days without hope, and I blame you all for it. You all, in the collective sense, humanity. You just don’t give me any rational reason to hope, you fickle selfish greedy narcissistic bastards.

However.

Living without hope turns out to be … not as bad as it sounds.

I’ve begun to see hope as a kind of drug, and to ask myself if I am not better off without it.

Could it really be kicked? Without dismal consequence? With conceivably even some benefit?

Not enough data to answer that yet, but, on a completely unrelated note …

I am down to two cups of coffee a day, and I had no intention at all of moderating my intake.

I just don’t need as much caffeine as I used to need, and …

I’m only drinking it for enjoyment now.

Maybe I’ve been on a similar path, with the hopium, and the copium. Maybe I’m still on the path, and getting further along it every day, barely noticing.

Tell me what you need to hear.

I won’t promise to provide it, especially if it’s bullshit.

But I’ll listen.

To you.

My audience.

raggedy, adj., from Old Norse raggaðr “shaggy”,
via Norwegian ragget (“shaggy”) and Old English raggig “shaggy, bristly, rough”

also:
“Ragged was used of the devil from c. 1300 in reference to his “shaggy” appearance”.

Conclusion:
Raggedy and Shaggy are the same word
with the possible whimsical difference that
I am a Shaggy Man, with a Raggedy Cat.