People who get to deal with chronic trauma, extreme stress, all that, know the consequences of falling into complete meltdown. Sometimes, too many, that’s unavoidable, but other times, it can be staved off, at least. I’m hyper-alert, hyper-vigilant, all the hyper, and it’s making it very hard for me to breathe. So, distraction. A glass dish, water, oil, black desk, and a camera. Meltdown Avoidance, click for full size. These are straight out of the camera, no fiddling. Definitely used a flash.
Samuel L. Mitchill.
It’s getting beyond embarrassing to identify as an American. I think I’ll go with Fredish. Why not?
In Vol. VI, Part IV, of the Medical Repository, 1803, pp. 449–50, Dr. Samuel Mitchill, wrote the following under the heading of “Medical and Philosophical News”:
Proposal to the American literati, and to all the citizens of the United States, to employ the following names and epithets for the country and nation to which they belong; which, at the distance of 27 years from the declaration and of 20 years from the acknowledgment of their independence, are to this day destitute of proper geographical and political denominations, whereby they may be aptly distinguished from the other regions and peoples of the earth:
Fredon, the aggregate noun for the whole territory of the United States.
Fredonia, a noun of same import, for rhetorical and poetical use.
Fredonian, a sonorous name for ‘a citizen of the United States’.
Frede, a short and colloquial name for ‘a citizen of the United States’.
Fredish, an adjective to denote the relations and concerns of the United States
Example. Fredon is probably better supplied with the materials of her own history than Britain, France, or any country in the world, and the reason is obvious, for the attention of the Fredonians was much sooner directed, after their settlement, to the collection and preservations of their facts and records than that of the Dutch and Irish. Hence it will happen that the events of Fredish history will be more minutely known and better understood than those of Russian, Turkish, or Arabic. And thereby the time will be noted carefully when a native of this land, on being asked who he is and whence he came, began to answer in one word that he is a Frede, instead of using the tedious circumlocution that he was “a citizen of the United States of America.” And in the like manner notice will be taken of the association of Fredonia and Macedonia and Caledonia as a word equally potent and melodious in sound.
I’m not altogether clear on the preferred pronunciation, but that could be decided by mood, and allow for switches now and then.
Via Wikipedia.
Richard Schmidt.
It was mere days ago that we learned that the Tiny Dictator and Crew plan to stop looking into domestic terrorism and white supremacist factions here in uStates. Then Madame Alternative Facts started lying her ass off about a terrorist action which never took place, then the Tiny Dictator himself lied left, right, up and down about terrorist acts happening and being ignored. That they have been repeatedly refuted, and proven to be lying should go without saying. There’s an absolute insistence on viewing terrorism as an outside, other thing, something which could never, ever be domestic in nature. It’s bullshit on a mean scale, but it’s being poured out at such a rate, people are getting buried by it. Naturally, all the fascists and nazis are thrilled by this insistence and consequent validation. (See the linked post for more.)
As Madame Alternative Facts will not shut the fuck up, and keeps spraying shit in everyone’s faces, let’s take a look at a terrorist action which was averted. The catch was accidental, the feds had been chasing down counterfeit sports jerseys and caps, and what they found was eye-opening, to say the least.
The year was 2012. The place was Bowling Green, Ohio. A federal raid had uncovered what the authorities feared were the makings of a massacre. There were 18 firearms, among them two AR–15 assault rifles, an AR–10 assault rifle and a Remington Model 700 sniper rifle. There was body armor, too, and the authorities counted some 40,000 rounds of ammunition. An extremist had been arrested, and prosecutors suspected that he had been aiming to carry out a wide assortment of killings.
“This defendant, quite simply, was a well-funded, well-armed and focused one-man army of racial and religious hate,” prosecutors said in a court filing.
The man arrested and charged was Richard Schmidt, a middle-aged owner of a sports-memorabilia business at a mall in town. Prosecutors would later call him a white supremacist. His planned targets, federal authorities said, had been African-Americans and Jews. They’d found a list with the names and addresses of those to be assassinated, including the leaders of NAACP chapters in Michigan and Ohio.
It was widely agreed upon, that here was a man who should not have been allowed a single gun, or even a single bullet. No one knew just how he managed to amass such an arsenal, especially as Schmidt was a convicted felon (manslaughter), who was barred by law from owning any firearm. Gosh, that worked well, didn’t it?
But Schmidt wound up being sentenced to less than six years in prison, after a federal judge said prosecutors had failed to adequately establish that he was a political terrorist, and he is scheduled for release in February 2018. The foiling of what the government worried was a credible plan for mass murder gained little national attention.
Everyone feeling comforted by the fact this man will soon be out of prison? Anyone want to say it’s okay, because he’s white, he couldn’t possibly be a terrorist? That Americans just can’t be terrorists?
For some concerned about America’s vulnerability to terrorism, the very real, mostly forgotten case of Richard Schmidt in Bowling Green, Ohio, deserves an important place in any debate about what is real and what is fake, what gets reported on by the news media and what doesn’t. Those deeply worried about domestic far-right terrorism believe United States authorities, across many administrations, have regularly underplayed the threat, and that the media has repeatedly underreported it. Perhaps we have become trapped in one view of what constitutes the terrorist threat, and as the case of Schmidt shows, that’s a problem.
Oh it’s a problem, alright, and this is not the first time the government has tossed away and hushed up reports on domestic terrorism. The prime directive seems to be “if we ignore it, it will disappear.” That’s magical thinking on a high level, and there’s no question we will pay for it. Memories are short for most people, and even one of the Tiny Dictator’s minions recently said that the Oklahoma bombing didn’t count, because too long ago. People should be questioning why that is never the case with outside terrorism. Nazism, white nationalism, white supremacy, whatever moniker you assign, is on the rise once again, and they are feeling proud, strong, and validated by the current government, which refuses to face reality. How many people will have to die in order to force a reality check? I don’t want to be one of them. I don’t want anyone to be one of them. Unfortunately, this sort of dedicated ignorance always has a very high cost.
The full article is in-depth, lots of links, highly recommended.
It seems it’s not enough for Bannon to be busy Nazifying everything, he’s a Catholic Nazi, and he’s not a happy camper about the almighty church’s descent in ugly, ruthless power, having been at least somewhat defanged in recent centuries. Not enough, to be sure, as the church is constantly seeking ways to impose its particular brand of brutality, such as now buying hospitals everywhere, in order to impose a compleat lack of autonomy on women, and the “outreaches” in places where the church can handily refuse medical or other help unless someone agrees to convert, and making sure they lie their unholy asses off about life-saving contraceptives, like condoms. Even largely defanged, the Catholic church continues to do as much damage and harm as possible. That’s not even getting into all the child molesting the church handwaves, nor their ongoing protection via shuffling about of rapists. Even though I don’t think Pope Francis is all that different from his predecessors, to many Catholics, it’s seems he’s viewed as close to heretical – globalism! And making noises about caring for the poor. That sort of thing just isn’t on for those who are more than attached to all the wealth the church is sitting on.
At the root of things is the fact that the pope gave the boot to Raymond Cardinal Burke, a theological reactionary and a guy who was born 500 years too late to be the high cleric of his dreams. This touched off a major squabble with the Knights of Malta. They’re serious power brokers within HMC even though they dress like Albanian ushers and despite the fact that just talking about them makes me start hearing “Hail, Hail Freedonia” in my mind. Burke was their chaplain.
There’s a genuine rebellion brewing in HMC, holy obedience be damned, you should pardon the expression. And today, The New York Times adds a bizarre—but completely predictable—bit of information to the story of that rebellion.
In one of the cardinal’s antechambers, amid religious statues and book-lined walls, Cardinal Burke and Mr. Bannon — who is now President Trump’s anti-establishment eminence — bonded over their shared worldview. They saw Islam as threatening to overrun a prostrate West weakened by the erosion of traditional Christian values, and viewed themselves as unjustly ostracized by out-of-touch political elites. “When you recognize someone who has sacrificed in order to remain true to his principles and who is fighting the same kind of battles in the cultural arena, in a different section of the battlefield, I’m not surprised there is a meeting of hearts,” said Benjamin Harnwell, a confidant of Cardinal Burke who arranged the 2014 meeting.
Just as Mr. Bannon has connected with far-right parties threatening to topple governments throughout Western Europe, he has also made common cause with elements in the Roman Catholic Church who oppose the direction Francis is taking them. Many share Mr. Bannon’s suspicion of Pope Francis as a dangerously misguided, and probably socialist, pontiff… For many of the pope’s ideological opponents in and around the Vatican, who are fearful of a pontiff they consider outwardly avuncular but internally a ruthless wielder of absolute political power, this angry moment in history is an opportunity to derail what they see as a disastrous papal agenda. And in Mr. Trump, and more directly in Mr. Bannon, some self-described “Rad Trads” — or radical traditionalists — see an alternate leader who will stand up for traditional Christian values and against Muslim interlopers.
If it wasn’t clear already, it should be now. Stephen Bannon, the last descendant of House Harkonnen, is not someone who wants to “disrupt the elites,” or whatever techie garbage he likes to toss around. He wants to establish himself at the head of a new, worldwide authoritarian elite that will reach into every institution and that will demolish any of those institutions that stand in the way of what he wants. The man is a political thug, and Burke is a theological thug. Marriage made somewhat lower than heaven.
Given the rise of nazism and fascism across the globe, and the fascist grip firmly on uStates, it will pay to watch just where this unholy as fuck union is going to lead. Nowhere good, that’s certain, but when you combine this with the ongoing efforts to quash dissent, we are facing very dark days, and we need to gather our courage and commit to giving voice to every single wrong, every single outrage. Given the Catholic Church’s willingness to be corrupt as all hells, combining that corruption with what now taints many governments, along with the church’s unquenchable thirst for power…regardless of what people think, there are plenty of evil assholes in the church who will happily collaborate with nazis and fascists.
Full story at Esquire.
William Blake‘s illustration of Satan as presented in John Milton‘s Paradise Lost. Illustration was made on c. 1808.
Rick Wiles has decided there’s a Satanic Panic going on, and of course it’s being orchestrated by none other than former President Obama.
“We are witnessing a full-blown Marxist/communist resistance movement, a revolution in America,” Wiles said. “The chief banker funding the Purple Revolution is billionaire George Soros and the chief community organizer directing the insurrection in the streets is none other than Barack Hussein Obama … My gut feeling says Barack Obama is on the phone day and night and he is directing the protests, he is organizing, he is giving clear instructions to the people what to do and how to carry it out.”
Waitaminute, who decided the colour of the revolution? I’m good with purple and all, but we should have been asked. Oooh, it’s Wiles’s gut! I’ll just bet it’s a fact factory, of the alternative sort. I’d love to hear from Pres. Obama! What with being super powerful and stuff, he has my number, right? As for the constant refrain of Soros!, I haven’t seen a bloody penny. If people are getting paid for activism, it’s news to me and everyone else down here in the purple.
Wiles, who repeatedlycalled for Obama to be arrested and imprisoned when he was still in the White House, said that the recent protests against Trump are nothing short of sedition, which is itself inherently satanic.
“This is outright sedition,” he declared, “and we have laws in the United States against sedition…. What the Democrats are doing, and the news media and the Obamanista bureaucrats inside the government agencies, what they are doing is, these are acts of sedition.”
Sedition is so defined: incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government. Sedition is one of those concepts that finds itself entwined on the thorny ground of hallowed free speech. It’s rarely charged, (in uStates) and when it is, most people are acquitted. In 1917, Art Young did this political cartoon (click for full size):
In a conversation, knipling came up, which is a type of lace making. I am, and always have been, in awe of people who can make lace, regardless of technique. It’s one of those skills which elude me. Charly was kind enough to send me a photo of one of his mother’s pieces, which is gorgeous! Definitely click for full size. Charly explains: My mother is skilled at knipling, but she was never that good at making non-abstract designs. I am the opposite – I can make realistic designs, but not abstract ones. So sometimes when she has an idea for something that should resemble reality, she employs my skill. This knipled black swan design I drew for her a few years back from a picture she found on the internet. She then made the actual lace and framed it as a picture.
A beautiful example of art collaboration.
Here’s a bit on knipling, and all I can think is what a mess of it I would make:
Amazing, wonderful work!
In January of 2016, artist Windy Chien devoted herself to learning a new knot every day for a year, tying a total of 366 by December 31st (2016 was a leap year). Although 366 knots might seem like a staggering number, it is nothing compared to the 3,900 included in Chien’s go-to knot manual—The Ashley Book of Knots, which took its author nearly 11 years to compile.
There is just so much to see! Via Wired. * Windy Chien’s Website. * Windy Chien’s Instagram.
Japanese artist Ayumi Shibata uses traditional methods of Japanese paper cutting to create miniature cities within vessels of glass. Her chosen materials reference the delicate relationship humans have with our environment and natural forces of our world, while also relating to the Japanese translation of “paper.” In Japanese, the word for “paper” is “Kami,” which can also mean “god,” “divinity,” or “spirit.” Kami are omnipresent in the Shinto religion, and reside in the sky, ground, trees, and rocks.
“Kami move freely beyond time, universe and places, appearing during events, as well as in our houses and our bodies,” said Shibata on her website. “These spirits also dwell in paper. In the religion of Shinto, white paper is considered a sacred material.”
Using this charged material, Shibata attempts to construct a sculptural dialogue about how we relate and respond to our natural world.
Beautiful and mindful work here. You can see and read more at Colossal.
Noun.
1. Opposition to the spread of knowledge: a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public.
2a. A style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. b: an act or instance of obscurantism.
-obscurantist noun or adjective. (1834)
“Yes. Because once you get away from the original words, the purest of theories just become rumours. Then we don’t know anything. From one approximation to another inaccuracy, the truth unravels and obscurantism takes over.” – The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, Fred Vargas.
Snowing again. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
A bit of the Blue Jay fracas over who gets the new suet cake. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
A timely reminder. We need one another, we need humanity, we need truth.
Via Pharyngula.
This sixth grade student is held to a higher standard than the United States Department of Health and Human Services. CREDIT: AP Photo/Ty Wright.
The devil is in the details, so it’s said. There’s such a constant thower of thit, to quote Igor, that it’s very easy to miss the smaller things, the fine mitht of the thit thower, as Igor might say. First is the news that our current health regulators aren’t good at math. At all.
…Thus, for example, a fifth grade student is expected to understand that the number “3.49” is greater than the number “3.” The Trump administration, however, appears to be struggling with this concept.
Under the Affordable Care Act, “the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health insurance coverage offered in the individual or small group market . . . shall not vary by more than 3 to 1 for adults” due to the age of the person seeking insurance. In other words, insurers may charge older consumers (who tend to have more health problems and thus are more expensive to cover) up to three times more than younger individuals, but no more than three times as much.
Nevertheless, according to the Huffington Post’s Jonathan Cohn, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) submitted a proposal which would permit insurers to charge older customers premiums that are “3.49 times as large as those for younger customers.” This proposal would be a federal rule, not a new law, so HHS apparently hopes to implement it without changing the law saying that insurers can only charge older customers 3 times as much, not 3.49 times as much.
According to Cohn, HHS would argue that this is okay because “3.49 ‘rounds down’ to three.”
If you find yourself prone to shrugging over this, have a second think. 3 and 3.49 might not seem like a big deal, but when you’re going to be charged that difference financially, it’s a big difference. It’s a difference which could determine whether or not you can afford healthcare. Full story at Think Progress.
Prepaid cash and credit cards have been a gold rush for the financial industry — and not everyone in the business plays fair with customers. CREDIT: AP Photo/Swayne B. Hall, File.
In a very quiet move, consumer protections are going to be removed from pre-paid debit cards, and this will disproportionately affect those who are poor. We all know how much the GOP cares about poor people.
…But prepaid debit card companies are suddenly holding a get-out-of-jail-free card, courtesy of Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Perdue is pushing legislation to override and permanently derail the CFPB’s three-month-old rules package for the cards, reviving even the most deceptive practices over expert advice to the contrary.
Prepaid debit cards now account for tens of billions of dollars in financial activity each year, creating a giant profit opportunity for the financial companies that issue cards to consumers. One Federal Reserve report in 2014 found the average customer pays $15 to $17 in fees each month on the cards, and that fees skew higher for customers who are black, younger than 15, widowed, or living in areas with relatively high rates of violent crime.
[…]
Only one major provider of prepaid cards charges overdraft fees. NetSpend, which does most of its business by partnering with storefront payday lenders, is uniquely reliant on the most deceitful species of fee-for-service practices.
Again, CFPB’s rule doesn’t bar the overdraft charges; it just forces companies to be honest and forthright about them. NetSpend couldn’t stand that sunlight. NetSpend and its parent company, Georgia-based TSYS, say they would lose some $80 million a year if consumers were finally protected from its policies.
Perdue and his co-sponsors say their move to end consumer protections for prepaid cards is about preserving access for consumers. The fact that it is also an $80 million favor to an unsavory financial company based in his state—and a thumb in the eye of the millions of people who have turned to the cards as a substitute for traditional bank accounts — is apparently a coincidence.
This will have a devastating effect on way too many people, and it’s doubtful most people will even be aware of this, and won’t be able to employ more vigilance against those looking to rob the poor and mire them into never-ending debt. Think Progress has the full story.