Monday, April 30, 2012

Looking Back



Remembrance
By Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)



1.  

YOU wait, with memories drifting,   
For the something that made life blessed,   
The mighty, the rare, the uplifting,   
The awaking of stones, the rifting   
That opened deeps unguessed.           

The books in your shelves are staring   
Golden and brown, as you muse   
On the lands you crossed in your faring,   
On pictures, on visions unsparing   
Of women you had to lose.           

All at once it comes back: now you know!   
Trembling you rise, all aware   
Of a year once long ago   
With its grandeur and fear and prayer.

                    --Margarete Münsterberg, ed., trans.  A Harvest of German Verse.  1916.


I wanted to save this.  Mr. Rilke is new to me and I wish to look deeper into his work.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sgt Bales vs War

Recent information blows my PTSD theory. Sgt Bales wasn’t suffering the effects of multiple deployments. He re-up’d and saw the military as his calling. It sounds like a deliberate attack. I have a new theory. The only sane response to an irrational and life-threatening situation is to act in an equally irrational manner. U.S. soldiers are trained to fight with ‘discrimination’ and regard for civilian life. However, they’re constantly put into battle with an enemy that fights without such civility. The Taliban are known to place little value on the lives of civilians. The Afghan people live in fear of the Taliban, but the Taliban are there all the time and they know they’ll continue being there after we’re gone. They side with them out of necessity. As a result, U.S. soldiers are operating in a region “..riddled with mistrust and hostility.” In an effort to deprive Taliban fighters of cover, U.S. soldiers routinely bulldoze houses, orchards, and farms. This fuels more hostility. As a result, residents regularly assist the Taliban. They help plant IED’s and U.S. soldiers often find bomb-making material in their homes. The war in Afghanistan has put our troops in an un-winnable situation. I deplore the killing of innocent women and children (any killing for that matter) ..but the civilian population is harbouring and assisting the enemy and the Taliban have no problem getting their compliance out of the barrel of a gun. This is no doubt the case in the Panjwayi district where Sgt Bales and his squad were operating. Perhaps the only way Sgt Bales felt he could deliver a message of strength was to act with equal ruthlessness. It’s been seen before. During the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, orders were given to shoot civilians  “They're all V.C., now go and get them” [ link ]. Instead of prosecuting Sgt Bales, perhaps it’s the U.S. war in Afghanistan that should stand trial.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Federal Reserve Turns Left | The Nation

The Federal Reserve Turns Left | The Nation:

'via Blog this'

nuclear hubris


Chernobyl disaster

26th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster | NUCLEAR "SAFTEY" = NUCLEAR THREAT



26th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

GABRIELA BULISOVA photo - Chernobyl Children International

It was 26 years ago today when a deadly explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Soviet state of Ukraine led to what was then the worst nuclear disaster in history. It sent a cloud of radioactive fallout into Russia, Belarus and over a large portion of Europe.


All nuclear reactors and their waste should be declared illegal, and can be considered crimes against humanity and the ecosphere - all governments and corporations and their officers should be made directly liable for the immediate decommissioning of all nuclear power plants, and for the security, clean up and management of the eternal quagmire of nuclear waste that they have created.

see also: Nuclear Power = Crime Against Humanity


Chernobyl nuclear reactor after the disaster. Reactor 4 (center). Turbine building (lower left). Reactor 3 (center right). This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons

much more at whats up: 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster | NUCLEAR "SAFTEY" = NUCLEAR THREAT


Miraho -Nie chcemy atomu (DiesProduction).avi


we poison our children


Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Hallelujah

the racetrack


The Racetrack Playa, or The Racetrack, is a scenic dry lake feature with "sailing stones" that leave linear "racetrack" imprints. It is located above the northwestern side of Death Valley, in Death Valley National Park, Inyo County, California, U.S..

The sailing stones are a geological phenomenon found in the Racetrack. The stones slowly move across the surface of the playa, leaving a track as they go, without human or animal intervention. They have never been seen or filmed in motion. Racetrack stones only move once every two or three years and most tracks last for three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms wander. (read more)

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Monday, April 23, 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Sensory integration

This garden universe vibrates complete. Some we get a sound so sweet. Vibrations reach on up to become light, and then thru gamma, out of sight. Between the eyes and ears there lay, the sounds of color and the light of a sigh. -  Moody Blues 

Sunday, April 15, 2012

100 years ago today: Titanic


RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909–11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried 2,223 people.


Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in North America. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – slightly more than half of the number traveling on the maiden voyage and one-third her total passenger and crew capacity.


After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland before heading westwards towards New York. On 14 April 1912, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm (ship's time; GMT−3). The glancing collision caused Titanic's hull plates to buckle inwards in a number of locations on her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly filled. A disproportionate number of men – over 90% of those in Second Class – were left aboard due to a "women and children first" protocol followed by the officers loading the lifeboats. Just before 2:20 am Titanic broke up and sank bow-first with over a thousand people still on board. Those in the water died within minutes from hypothermia caused by immersion in the freezing ocean. The 710 survivors were taken aboard from the lifeboats by RMS Carpathia a few hours later. (read more)

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Who Bombed Judi Bari? Documentary


Who Bombed Judi Bari? Documentary Trailer - YouTube

Who Bombed Judi Bari? is a suspenseful story about people who risked their lives to save the California redwoods and took on the FBI for trampling their freedom of speech. It shines a light on an amazing protest movement that succeeded against all odds - with creativity, music, and humor. In 1990, a bomb blew up in the car of two of the most prominent Earth First! redwood activists: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. They were accused of bombing themselves, but twelve years later won their landmark lawsuit against the FBI, proving that officers falsified evidence and intentionally tried to frame them. To date, the real bomber has never even been searched for and remains at-large. Directed/Edited by Mary Liz Thomson, Produced by Darryl Cherney, Executive Producer Elyse Katz, Co-Executive Producer Sheila Laffey, Co-Executive Producers Bill & Laurie Benenson

FDR