I remember when working at the grocery store there was a customer who made tourtière and he brought us one. It was something like four inches deep. The bits of potato were scarce. The spicing was minimal. And it was one of the best things I can remember eating. Very fond memory of eating that meat pie out back of the store by the wood pallets.
There are certain dishes in which the austerity and sincerity is richness.
Conspiracy theory, or conspiracism, is the anti-journalism in which the narrative decides the facts.
It's a paradoxical thing: the conspiracist maintaining an overarching narrative to which he subordinates malformed and isolated facts, doesn't actually build a grand narrative, but he ends up making a narrative that does nothing but continually subordinates and malforms facts as they happen to come along. Which means that all narrative is squandered in the abuse of facts. Because the narrative refuses to change or develop in light of facts, the narrative is always changing (in order to abuse and neglect them).
The conspiracist actually makes the construction of a real narrative and thus clarity impossible. Because he disrespects facts, he also disrespects any sense of narrative (which in journalism is what reconciles seemingly contradictory facts).
Half-truths don't just exist, like they were waiting around to be made into full truths. Half-truths are half-truths precisely because they are truths that are truncated in order to fit a prepared narrative. The worst form of conspiracism is the Qhristian/Qatholic one. It is worst because it abuses the "narrative" of the Gospel. Conspiracism is anti-Gospel, and those that engage in it will be answerable to God.
Conspiracism is both anti-Gospel and anti-journalism. Christians have been made vulnerable to this through sectarianism: they believe that truth is only what they perceive the "mainstream" as suppressing.
People speak of "going down the rabbit hole", and "Deep" this and that, referring to conspiracy theory. The gist is of this elaborate crazy network of people, symbols, things and events making this grand arc, and that normal people just can't deal with such strong truth. It's the same deal with radtrads who think that their going to Mass in the Extraordinary Form is just too much meat and potatoes for the "Novus Ordo" mewlings.
The conspiracist is just too much for the sheeple to handle: that's what the conspiracist loves to imagine about himself. But the actual reality is that the conspiracist doesn't even get on the diving board. The conspiracist doesn't even put on the diving suit, let alone get on the boat.
The boat and the suit and the diving board are all in on it. And everyone swimming in the pool telling those on the deck to come on in, the water's fine, are all sheeple.
Take Vigano for example. He went into hiding and never made himself available to the scrutiny of the McCarrick investigation. After the report was released, he then whined to Raymond Arroyo in a pre-scripted interview that he - who went into hiding - was never contacted by the Vatican investigation.
It is the isolated conscience. Effectually, all roads of conspiracy theory lead to the Lizard People.
Real journalism is when facts decide the narrative. Or as they say, "Let's see where the story leads."
One could say that Jesus gave his blessing to journalists - real journalists - when he said, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much"
The balanced voluminous masses are pleasing and spiritual, interesting, almost a kind of megalithic yet gentle positivity, a new perspective and presence, just the right note for 2020.
Also love the Space Explorer as one of the Wise Men - who were astrologers. Quite frankly that's genius. Love the sense of caveman-art in the light of the new.
Also totally love the incensed reactions of the bourgeoisie aesthetes: BUT NOOOOOOOO WHERE'S THE BOUGHS OF HOLLYARGGHHHHHH IT HURTS MY EYES!!!! LOL.
Which is fine. Just please don't pretend you're being anything but delicate aesthetes revolving around your own orbit of aesthetics. Don't pretend that you're appealing to some profound beauty. No, these same people who love to tell us that Catholic art isn't mere aesthetics and that we need to be open to the sacramental dimension of art are nothing but 100% pure aesthetes - bourgeoisie aesthetes - mocking what offends their narrow gullet of acceptable aesthetics.
Covid denier: More people die from the flu and the recovery rate is like 99.9% and people are recorded as having died from the virus when it was something else that killed them and it's better if you get the virus then we'll develop herd immunity.
Also Covid denier: YOU SHOULDN'T TAKE THE VACCINE IT'LL GIVE YOU CORONAVIRUS!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Love that phrase. Has a ring to it. Pope Francis used it. It's an opportunity to bring the Gospel to people.
Some people think it's a cryptic Luciferian Freemasonic byword. LOL. You can't say it, like you can't say black lives matter. You really can't win with these nutbars.
With some of these whackjobs you can't get out of bed in the morning without upsetting the order of cosmological symbols. You can't drink a glass of water or receive a vaccine without invoking a pagan deity.
No wonder these guys don't convert anyone (except for those they make twice the children of hell that they themselves are). Their Jesus is so desiccated and fragile and bottled away by their own forceful manipulation that anyone with a nose in front of their face knows they're peddling something, and it ain't Jesus.
Came across this twitter thread (via Sean P. Dailey) that divulges what transpired in that moment during Trump's inauguration when he turned around and Melania's face changed instantly from a big smile to stone cold opposite:
It may not have been their first face to face that day, but it still holds.
The timeline in the GIF that I always saw is way too clipped, and I knew there was something more going on. But I knew that Melania's change in expression was due to something that Trump did when he turned around.
The change in expression wasn't the relaxing of a public posture; it wasn't a rictus smile giving way to regular disgust. I figured he gave her a hard cold look or something, like some kind of sick dominance thing going on. But if you watch the longer
sequences you will see that Trump communicates something to her. He mouths something to her that is the cause in her change of expression.
It is the shocked and humiliated expression of one having received unexpected verbal abuse, out in public, under the circumstances of such an important national ceremony.
It's because Trump mouthed the words "Fuck you".
Think that's a stretch? Like, really, a guy would do that to the First Lady during his inauguration? Isn't that something like Gene Hackman in Absolute Power? If you think it's a stretch, you have no idea of what kind of man Trump is.
Trump is a predator. He knows that how to hurt depends on the when. He doesn't need to think about it; it's all part of his "flow". Abusive words spoken in the context of a private exchange are indeed harmful, but those words or similar will land with far more hurt, far more stunning humiliation, when they are spoken (or mouthed) in a context (such as a presidential inauguration) where they are least expected, even least expected by one who may be used to said verbal abuse, and may even engage in speaking such words herself.
The moment is actually not at all ambiguous. You can see it clearly.
You have to pay attention. The stacked planes make it look like Trump is communicating with Melania right away. But you can see when Trump turns around, he is first exchanging facial communication with Ivanka. Trump is raising his eyebrows in a "wow, look at us" kind of moment, or something like it. You can see this also by the fact that Ivanka responds by also raising her eyebrows in the same fashion.
Trump then turns his face farther back towards Melania and mouths the words, "Fuck you". And then turns his face back forward with the most incredible look of smugness.
One thing that people miss is the look on Ivanka's face at that same moment. Even though half her face is cut off by the screen, you can tell that she sees what Trump mouths to Melania, and her expression too also instantly changes in a similar way. It almost looks like she might cry.
I'll always love Godfrey Reggio, but every now and again when watching his films I wonder if I'm getting a misanthropic tendency. Maybe it's just me. For instance, maybe in the sequence "Beginning" from his 1992 film Anima Mundi,
what I took to be misanthropic is simply an expression of the primordial. It is titled Beginning after all. It could be. I know his films are notorious for audiences chiming in about (and frequently objecting to) what they believe his films are "saying".
The reason I ask is because St. Jacinta and St. Francisco both died from the 1918 influenza pandemic.
I ask this because Mark Mallett, who regularly and indiscriminately carpet-bombs his readers with alleged apparitions and anonymous locutions the world over, cited especially one locutionist who put words into Our Lady's mouth about how one should take certain essential oils to immunize oneself against the virus - the virus that, according to yet another anonymous locutionist, comes from The Enemy.
No words did Our Lady speak to Jacinta and Francisco about essential oils, who both died from the 1918 pandemic. Yet Our Lady took the time to guide them in such temporal matters as to tell them to remove the penitential ropes from around their waists at bedtime, so that they could get their proper sleep at night.
So Our Lady of Fatima did not say anything to Jacinta and Francisco about essential oils and they both died from the pandemic. She told them to remove the ropes from around their waists so they could sleep properly at night. And yet, today allegedly Our Lady is telling one to take essential oils to immunize one against the pandemic.
Why do I say this? I am not anti-Fatima, and I am not anti-essential oils. It's just by way of simple contrast, because you have some locutionist/seer saying Our Lady is telling us to take essential oils to immunize against the coronavirus. It's just one of those things where you go, "Now isn't that odd", and, "Huh, imagine that."
Obviously, the conspiracy theorist answer-for-everything sectarians, subjectively and forcefully wishing their dubious anonymous apparition/locution to be real, would say something like, "Our Lady was wanting them in Heaven immediately - that's why she didn't tell them about essential oils!" LOL. So she effectively remotely man-slaughtered them by mental reservation you say, eh? Okeeydokeey then.
To repeat: I think the apparitions of Fatima are legit and I also take essential oils, typically oregano oil, every so often. But that gets me on another thing. You see, these essential oil fanatics are very irresponsible. They say take this and that without any sort of instruction or detail. For example, you are not supposed to take 100% pure oregano oil, not unless you want to damage your kidneys and liver. You're supposed to take it mixed with another oil, such as the olive oil 3:1 mix.
But these fanatics don't go into such things with their readers. Not only are they spiritually dangerous, they are physically dangerous as well. They are physically dangerous - now isn't that something? Who would have thought, what with their anti-masking anti-safety restrictions anti-vaccine propaganda. And here they are trying to force Our Lady into their death-dealing ways, into their ideology.
--COVID-19 is real. It is a real pandemic, in line with past historic pandemics. It is not like the flu. It is highly contagious and is symptomatically worse, and it gets worse the heavier the viral load. If you survive contracting it, it is not like getting over the flu. You can have lifelong chronic ailments.
--Donald Trump lost the US election. It was a democratic election and there was no voter fraud. He lost in a historic landslide. The people rose up and threw him down. Trump got crushed.
--Pope Francis is the Pope. There is only one Pope, and it is Francis. He has not set his office aside because he signed his name using this title or that title. He has not nullified his office by any action or word.
--The Holy Mass has not been suppressed. It is said everyday in every parish.
--Masks work against the spread of COVID-19, and they work effectively. Social distancing works. Cancelling gatherings works. Economic problems arising thus stem not from the cancelling and shutting down, but stem entirely from the extreme flaws latent in the economic system.
--Vaccines against the virus are the will of God. Science is not opposed to faith.
--Conspiracism is totally anti-Gospel. Conspiracy-minded Christians bear false witness to the Gospel, and they drive people away from Christ. They will be answerable to God.
--Systemic racism is real. Racism is a mortal sin. We have still to reckon with racism.
--Archbishop Vigano is not a whistle-blower. From his 2018 "testimony" to the present, Vigano has been nothing but a fraud. When he heard of McCarrick being stripped of his red hat and being defrocked, his conscience did an overview of his performance as nuncio, and he became afraid.
to my handy dandy meat tenderizer. Haha! Just kidding, though you could tenderize meat with it no problem.
But no, say hello to the carbide-tipped bushing hammer! Love this guy! Been using it for some months now. Don't ask me what it cost. Though really, long term, the price is actually not bad, since if I use it the right way it should last a lifetime, relatively speaking.
You can really dial in the granite (and other stone) with this puppy. But it's finishing, finesse. You don't hammer with it. It took a bit to learn how to use it right. You hold it with both hands with a good deal of tension. The entire spiked surface area needs to make contact dead flat for it to be effective (and also you could ruin the hammer otherwise). You drive-push it, as it were, into the stone. You don't want the hammer bouncing off. It's methodical, slow, and effective. You don't just get a rough finish. You can get totally precise. You can totally level off a piece, completely flat, on all or as many sides as you wish, round off or sharpen corners, if you keep at it. It takes time.
Sometimes when you're chiselling granite or using the bushing hammer on it, the smell is exactly like the smell of a dentist's office when they're doing drilling. The smell of nightmares. Yet when it's with the granite, outside, you're working away - it's somehow good, like I love the smell of napalm in the morning kind of thing.
I first went to Micon on Granville Island. I love that place. Been there since the thirties. They forge their own tools, and they import. I got the carbide-tipped chisels, a pitching tool, the bell hammer and the splitting hammer (love the splitting hammer!) from them. They are absolutely "go-to" for these kinds of tools. You go in there and it's like the front office hasn't been changed since the forties or fifties.
But they don't have the bushing hammer! I asked them and they pointed me to Pothier Enterprises in Surrey. By the way, the folks at Micon are very helpful and very much into talking to the customer about using the tools etc. - great customer service. Will definitely be going back to Micon!
Pothier had to order in the bushing hammer from the eastern US. It's something that annoys me from time to time about Canada. Some things here are just weirdly unavailable. Like, point chisel? Check. Wide chisel? Check. Pitching tool? Check. Bell hammer? Check. Splitting hammer? Check. Bushing hammer? Nope, sorry. You can't have that - that's too much of a good thing.
Like come on man!
Going forward I think I'm going to refer to the sacrament of confession as the Great Reset.
Someone will ask, "Hey Paul, where are you going?"
And I'll respond, "I'm off to receive the Great Reset! Did you want to come along? You can get the Great Reset too!"
The Church evangelizes by attraction. I dunno, but all the conspiracists agree that we live in the worst times ever, so why would they be against a Great Reset? Like, are you against Jubilee? The Jubilee is Biblical. Why would you be against debt cancellation? Why would you insist that people carry the undue burden of fraudulent debt?
If so much of our times is evil, as you insist, that we live in confusing times (LOL), then why do you then tell us these times have to persist, and that a Great Reset is a Big Scary Thing. Like huh? You make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Anyone using the term "public mass" (such as saying the "public mass is being suppressed") is someone playing word games and is engaging in manipulation. They are dealing in lies. There is no such thing as a private Mass. All Masses are public, regardless of attendance. Hence, people like Mark Mallett, knowing full well that the Mass is not being suppressed, but desperately wanting to fit a square peg into a round hole, tries to get around factual reality by saying the "public mass" is being suppressed. Word games and manipulation.
COVID deniers do the same thing with the word "lockdown". People like Mallett will say "lockdown" to refer to various restrictions. Knowing that referring to restrictions in themselves won't carry the same bludgeoning, scare-mongering coercion as "lockdown", they will, in full relativistic mode, opt for the word "lockdown" as the smothering blanket term for basic safety measures.
So Mallett will quote someone from the WHO talking about how lockdowns are not, or should not be, the best means of battling the spread of COVID. Which is totally correct. But you see, in saying that, the WHO expert is actually
talking about how we should be doing safety measures, like social distancing,
mask-wearing, etc. And those are all things Mallett slumps willy-nilly into the overarching category of "totalitarianism" and "suppression" and this and that. This is called quoting someone in bad faith. It is manipulation.
Lockdown is something very specific. Safety measures like social distancing, limited occupancy, mask-wearing etc. are not lockdown. He does the same thing with words like "quarantine" and so on.
It reminds me of just the other weekend, after I spent a good few hours working on Saturday, I was waiting at a red light on my way back home, looking forward to the fun of playing with granite stones, and this convoy of vehicles goes through the intersection beeping their horns, and in the windows of their vehicles are sheets of paper taped up with words such as "Un-mask your voice" and "Community hugs" and (the stupidest of all) "Stop the lockdown".
As they drove past one by one, beeping their horns, I was like, "OKAY, BOOMERS". But later I reflected: how much more of a self-evidently self-disproving protest could one make than by driving around with the slogan "Stop the lockdown"?
Like, uh, you're driving around freely, just as the thousands of other motorists around. You will likely stop by the Tim Horton's later on and get yourself a double double with the piece of paper still taped up in your window saying "Stop the lockdown". LOL. Like, okay then. Okeeydokeey there, Boomer.
I'm also reminded of some months ago when I was on my usual evening walk. I noticed, many yards ahead of me, a man had crossed the street and was standing on the sidewalk. Well before I was within proximity to him, I did my due diligence of giving the old wide berth, and since he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, this entailed me going onto the grassy shoulder. As I passed him by (he looked a bit like Joe Rogan, with what in passing appeared to be a similar build - he could have K.O.'ed me no problem), he turns his face to me and says, very directly and very hatefully, "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you piece of shit."
And I was like, "OOOKAAAYYY Paul, just keep on walking". LOL.
I'm also reminded of that film Bird Box. I hated that film, and place it in my "hated films" category which also contains films such as Birdman, Noah, and Joker. Anyways, you may recall in that film there are these "herd immune" satanic figures who drive around trying to remove people's blindfolds to expose them to the force/entity that makes people kill themselves. I mean talk about a prophetic film.
I think about the bullying people have received for wearing masks. I think about people like Taylor Marshall who creepily on the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre tweeted how he was going to have over thirty people gathered at his place for Thanksgiving to flip the bird to the Marxists and Communists. I think about the manipulative sectarian false prophets who in denying COVID are practically proto-eugenicists. I think about the random psycho Joe Rogans and wolves painting their caring neighbours as sheep.
Here's a short prayer you can pray when putting on your mask: "Lord, make me ready for persecution!"
"They are victims only in their own imagination." --Pope Francis
Anyone saying that the Mass has been "suppressed" and the churches have been "closed" is a liar who is calumniating their local bishop and the bishops in general.
The Mass has not been suppressed. The Mass continues to be said everyday at all parishes. The churches have not been closed; they remain open for private prayer. Confessions are available. The bishops remain in close and respectful dialogue with health authorities.
It's interesting, the kind of selfishness in which a person seeks after the imprimatur or approval of their bishop as regards the publication of their locutions, but when it comes to respecting their bishop as regards the factual reality of their bishop's leadership, they just don't give a shit.
The church is for them a candy machine, as they arrogate to themselves the position of prophesying the "shipwreck" of the church, and all other kinds of bullshit doom and gloom.
They are, as Pope Francis says, juvenile.
They are fanatic fundamentalists.
They are incapable of writing words without playing word games.
They have a deep and dense dishonesty problem.
Do not listen to them.
Click unfollow.
Hit unsubscribe.
So I guess the Children of Light didn't pray enough for the US election results to get overturned? No double-whammy day of sudden comeback and shining light? Donald Constantine lost miserably in a historic landslide (and he has known this all along) because of their failure of prayer, is that it?
It's as though God does not answer yes to prayers requesting Trumpian power through election interference, fraudulent litigation and sedition. That is most unfortunate for the Children of Light.
It's almost like false prophecy doesn't just end in itself, but goes towards committing all kinds of other evils to try and make the prophecy come true - like election interference, fraudulent litigation, voter suppression, and sedition, all the while feigning neutrality by loftily saying, "Ah, I'm awaiting the election results" even though the results were clearly already in. LOL.
I guess the guy that SkybalonSiteNews featured - you know the guy who would receive the Eucharist superstitiously in willful disobedience to the priests who told him to knock it off - the guy who predicted way back in the day that Donald Trump would lead the nation back to God - yeah that guy, I guess he was completely wrong and his prophecy was false?
Huh, imagine that.
These people are probably also very disappointed that the promising COVID vaccines don't come from a fetal cell line.
Sore disappointment all around.
And look at that! Transparent face masks! Now you won't be covering the Imago Dei! Huh, no more excuses for you! LOL
but I found it, I finally found it! Just one distributor in B.C. ha!
The revolution in bathroom renovation is here, people. Time to get on board or get the hell outta the way!
One film that I frequently ponder - sort of just gingerly hold in the same imaginative space that tends to give birth to fan fiction - is Rio Bravo. I've watched it near a dozen times over the years, beginning when I was around 18 or so, having learned back then that it was Quentin Tarantino's favourite film.
But more often than thinking about the story or characters, I end up thinking about what it is that makes the film so engrossing. Its "particularity of place" sneaks up on you; it doesn't need to compel. The film navigates its own fully wrought architecture with a continuous ease. Yet it is as though the entire film hangs on the hinges of that old door to the sheriff's office, opened and closed time and again. "Hey Stumpy, I'm coming in!" It has these quiet, insinuating rhythms; they develop into an almost blessed space, both blessed and dangerous. No other film really has this sense of place, of space: it is rarefied, totally set apart, and utterly unique.
I remember in the early minutes of my first viewing, wondering why this was Tarantino's favourite, even wondering if there was some other film by the same title, and that I might be watching the wrong one, when at some point that question was forgotten entirely, as I was totally absorbed in the film's space and time. The film didn't wow me or stun me: more unexpectedly, it came home to roost. When a film does that, it creates the greatest tension and suspense as well. One does not watch Rio Bravo. Rather, one slips into it, and at which point in the film one has slipped into it is impossible to say.
The film doesn't really begin or end. I mean, the film has a very satisfactory ending, but it doesn't end. Roger Ebert came close to describing what it was when he said in his Great Movies review, "The film is seamless...the 141-minute running time flows past like running water."
I say this too, as one who has always been put off by westerns, both film and tv. I have never been into the genre, and still am not. (And don't even get me started on Bone Tomahawk! Don't watch it! I wish I never had!)
Anyways, the reason I bring it up now is because I was thinking, there's lots of people quarantining, exercising mercy and kindness, and they have access to netflix, and maybe they haven't watched Rio Bravo before, and I'm saying, get down with your favourite drink and snuggle in and watch it. Even as "comfort viewing" it would be a boon.
But more, you may find the film opens up a part of your soul you didn't know was there. Trust me, watch the film. It will do you a world of good.
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I asked myself that question after recently learning that the majority of People's Temple were African-American. So I googled "Jim Jones White Savior" and I found this interview: Jim Jones, deadly white savior: The tragic legacy of the Jonestown massacre.
It's an interview with author Sikivu Hutchinson who wrote a novel about the Jonestown massacre, White Nights, Black Paradise.
I think her words here in particular are very important:
The truth of Jonestown has been lost because it’s been demonized to a certain extent. The impression was that you had these “zombie-esque acolytes running over there and bowing down to this white man.” It just creates a very sordid and unsavory picture. Also, it took place in San Francisco, a city that has always been mythicized as a white space. You had a white pastor, so many white bohemian liberal-to-radical members involved quite prominently and that becomes a big part of the ethos. That this is a “free love” church, that it was a new age-y kind of confab, when it’s really coming from the heart of Pentecostal, charismatic spirituality.
There is a thing called Odious Debt.
Odious Debt is not debt that is unpayable because the debtor is poor or lazy, but it is debt that is unpayable due to the rigging of the lender; the accumulating interest is insupportable to the very nature of transaction. You could say it is perversely disproportionate to human scale.
A loan itself is an extended transaction, and the benefit for the lender is in proportion to the degree of time that they can stretch it out. They don't want the transaction to come to a completion. By doing this with unchecked impunity, Odious Debt breaks and distorts the very proportionality by which we sustain the value of money as such.
Jubilee is not just debt cancellation: it is debt cancellation in recognition that debts extended in time beyond all reason is Odious Debt and will kill everyone, including those who have paid off their debts.
Student loan debt is Odious Debt. It is also doubly Odious Debt because student education in itself is a future economic investment which benefits everyone, however remotely. It's not like someone taking out a loan for a car or for a Jacuzzi. To lump student loan into any other loan category is sick and deplorable. At most, student loans should be interest free, as well as due date free.
Just as the government got people into the country here in Canada by offering to potential immigrants interest free loans to work a piece of land, to be paid back only when the farmers had secured themselves financially and were doing well. Why would the government do that? It's not rocket science: because it was advantageous to the country, economically, and in every other way. Ditto education.
Conservatives wringing their hands about how debt forgiveness wouldn't be fair, and it would be unequal, are invoking the very "socialism" they themselves denounce . Anything to do with equal opportunity these conservatives label as "socialist" or "communism". Yet here they are commanding that people bleed themselves dry to pay what in most cases they have already paid (and in some cases paid multiple times over) and not have it cancelled because otherwise it wouldn't be equal with those who have paid their debts. Conservatives are the worst freaking communists. LOL.
People framing debt forgiveness as though it was socialists forcing the hand of the lender and taking the money that belongs to the lender - LOL.
I ask because one would assume that indoor plumbing will totally malfunction due to the massive reconfiguration of the earth, the demonic violence, and the cataclysmic wrath; all those pipes underground will break and no water will be coming into your house. You might get a few flushes, but after that it will be no good.
And if you're someone who doesn't have indoor plumbing but has an outhouse, well, no one will be able to go outside, unless you want instant death.
So maybe our bowel functions will be suspended? After all, there will be certain favoured souls who will be granted the grace of falling into a deep sleep for the Three Days. Certainly their bowel functions will be suspended? You would hope so.
Anyways, I find it rather inconsistent that some believing themselves to be vigilant will be all like, "Do you have your blessed beeswax candles ready?" but they have absolutely nothing to say about having several large buckets on hand. Chamber pots, you know? And you're going to want lids for those buckets.
I suppose one could use the bathtub, but that would get disgusting real quick.
Just some thoughts on TDD.
As with the common use of plastic, the use of concrete/cement as a main building material is going to [have to] get phased out.
Unsurprisingly, Germany's on the ball.
Also, as with the problem of dealing with the plastic pandemic, the answer lies in the garbage itself, such as breaking down all the garbage to produce methane which is then used to create bio-plastics that actually biodegrade, and using fungi; so likewise they can use pollutants from smoke stacks to fabricate limestone...etc, etc. There are so many "alternatives" that are not alternatives but a whole new world opens up.
The world's garbage can become the next currency.
There's always so much we haven't thought about.
In every ideology, every form of fundamentalism, there is always someone, or a group of people, who in a hidden unspoken fashion are turned into sacrificial cardboard cut-outs. I'm not necessarily talking about scapegoats, but people who are cast aside, are rendered and reduced into cardboard, as the result of someone's total ideology/absolutism.
It's not that they positively through words turn them into cardboard cut-outs. The cardboard cut-outs are the equation, so to speak, of their ideology. When encountering sectarian/conspiracy theory/anti-science/reality-denying ideologies, just look for the cardboard cut-outs and think about them.
In the case of false prophets like Mallett, the people who get turned into cardboard cut-outs are nurses, doctors, hospital staff, and caretakers at homes for the elderly.
In the case of false whistle-blowers like Vigano, the people who get turned into cardboard cut-outs are sexual abuse survivors.
In the case of criminal authoritarian cons like Trump, the people who get turned into cardboard cut-outs are the people of colour, women, and everyone who in unprecedented numbers, exercising their democratic right, voted him out of office.
And so on. Just look for those who in these ideological systems have been turned into cardboard cut-outs.
Also, upcoming: as the pandemic gets exponentially worse in the days ahead in the US, which is 100% due to Trump's criminal negligence (and maybe even homicidal intent), look for the false prophets and locutionists who will come out with garbage about how this is happening because of God's displeasure with Biden as president - or some variation thereof.
Look for it, and remember I warned you. It's the mode of operation of Vigano. Take 40 plus years of a scandalous mess, reduce it down (as a means of covering for one's self), and sling it at the man who inherited it. Same thing: the yearlong mess of Trump's criminal negligence which will be 100% inherited by Biden, will be reduced down in the same manner and slung at him.
Also, I don't want to be cranky or come across as pretend tough, but I have precisely zilch sympathy for people moaning about their Thanksgiving/Christmas plans being cancelled. It's barely even a sacrifice, let alone a painful sacrifice.
You want to know what's painful?
Being intubated is painful.
The organs in your body slowly shutting down is painful.
Nurses getting the virus due to serving the sick who denied COVID and in turn dying is painful and a heartbreaking sacrifice.
Watching your relative or friend die on Zoom is painful.
No, not really. Though there are some fearful sectarian nuts who desperately want it to be.
I believe Japan only did partial lockdown measures, if any, and they've done well because they all wear masks, no problem. That's just what people in Japan, and many other Asian countries, voluntarily do when one may have a cold and one goes out in public. It's to prevent others from getting your cold. So they have no problems doing it when it's a highly contagious and deadly virus.
They don't have selfish speculators who talk about masks from the standpoint of the effectiveness of it preventing you from getting the virus from someone else. They start from the standpoint of wearing a mask as a means of preventing others from getting it from yourself - when you don't know if you have it.
The beauty of it is when everyone is looking out for their neighbours, then everyone is wearing a mask out in public, and transmission of the virus goes way, way down.
A 100,000 times more ideological brainwashing goes into the refusal to wear a mask than into choosing to wear a mask.
COVID science denial, including speculating about the number of deaths from COVID and whether it was COVID that killed them, as well as biased speculation about the effectiveness of wearing masks dressed up as journalism, is all at bottom predatory opportunism, lying in wait, and nourishing itself into something extraordinarily malignant.
It is not seeking truth; it
is not concerned with freedom. It is an entrenched, nasty, predatory
opportunism; the refusal of the exercise of mercy in a bid for power.
They approach a crisis this way: as vultures, like those in a pyramid
scheme. The fact that they don't even realize this about themselves
because their motives are not nefarious only speaks to how brainwashed
they are, and how much they are content to stew in the relativism of
ambiguity, the dictatorship of relativism.
They project this despairing power grab from the contented darkness of ambiguity (where any and all conspiracy theories are valid) onto others. Their capitulation to right-wing nuttery and sectarian fantasies - their defeat in surrendering to the politicization of the pandemic for the sake of their own comfort (including the comfortable illusion that they are prophets of the wilderness) - they project onto those complying with safety measures: they lie through their teeth about "defeated and fearful" eyes peering out above their masks.
This image is a total fabrication they weave out of their own desperate, private, wishful thinking.
Wearing a mask in public places, one only encounters this: kind eyes, humour, lots of solid eye contact, and a sense of fraternity. All the bullshit about "fearful and defeated" eyes peering out from above their masks is one of the flat-earthers' little preciouses they will never give up, no matter how much reality says otherwise.
The thought of people simply shouldering a rather mild burden and changing things up to accommodate the lives of others, and not have hospitals overwhelmed, thinking about all the nurses and doctors and hospital staff who would get heavy viral loads if the hospitals are overwhelmed (as clearly happened in Italy among other places) - and that people would do this and simply remain normal - no, this is too much for the sectarian nutbars. We all have to be fearful sheeple staring with round eyes of despair above our strangling masks as we are herded like steer into the vaccination barns.
It's amazing how much they love and cling to this fantasy over and above all observable reality to the contrary.
It's really quite something. But maybe observable reality is just a hologram? It's part of the COVID-21 Hologram? Now that would be something. Holy shit.
"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
"She [the Church] of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality." --Pope Benedict XVI, in the book-length interview Holy Father We Ask For Clarity
The early days of the pandemic I was trying to fall asleep one night and just as I was beginning to slip I remembered I had done this drawing back in April 2019.
I lay there and said, "Huh, that's kind of strange". Some days later I looked up the drawing again. I had forgotten those breath-lines coming violently out of the mouth of that fear-filled face, and then I noticed that the formation of heads at the top make a sort of coronavirus molecule image, with sorts of protrusions. As much as I tell myself, "Ah, that's par for the course for art - it's a mystery!" I still recall the drawing once in a while and go, "Seriously, WTF?"
Then I started recalling other drawings I did in 2019 from when before the pandemic was even a blip on the radar. I've started titling them. LOL.
There are others more generally leaning in that direction, like this one, and this one, and maybe this one?
Funny, too, when I did this drawing in March (found at this post),
I had no intention whose face it was going to be. I was just drawing a face and seeing where it would lead. After I finished it, I said, "Huh, that kind of looks like Joe Biden." I mean, it doesn't technically look like him, but to me it has his "feel" so to speak.
So now I have titled that drawing "On Eagles Wings".
Anyways, I kind of have a crush on Kamala. It's all innocent. I know she's married. LOL. But man, especially that moment debating Pence, and she was like, "I'm speaking", I kind of just went head over heels. Which is why I love this meme so much:
LOL
And again, in that interview with the woman trying to peg her into an ideological corner (isn't it weird how the paranoia about someone being "socialist" is itself the rawest sort of ideological colonization?), asking her if she's going to act with a socialist agenda and so forth, and Kamala just responded by basically going, "BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!"
But the way she laughed, it was not at all condemnatory, it was not scorn-filled - it was just refreshing and life-filled. Both her and Joe (who I like and cannot help but liking - a good Catholic guy) have a certain ordinary...I almost want to call it a goofiness that is at the same time totally cool. Anyways, get ready for the chivalrous white knights to attack Kamala like 5000 times more than they attack Biden over the years because You Know Why.
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| Dancing in the waters of life |
