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| Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty |
The storms are raging on the rolling seaThe President has been talking a good talk on at least four topics since the midterm elections early this month: climate change agreement (in principle) with China; immigration reform (announced on Thursday evening that he will use his executive powers to prevent deportation of certain classes of undocumented immigrants); Keystone XL Pipeline (the Senate voted against it on Tuesday, relieving President of any further action - for now); and net neutrality - pending.
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing like me yet...
Will President Obama reveal, at this late date, what some die-hard Democrat fans, and a mixed bunch of Republican right wing and Tea Party nut cases still like to believe or hope, is "the real Obama"...a closet leftist with Marxist roots, ready to stand up and fight for what in his heart of hearts he knows to be right or or rather left? I wish I could believe that.
A good piece by John Grant at "This Can't be Happening", also at Counterpunch relates.
Is Lame Duck Obama Ready to fight?
Turing's natal chart with a nutshell size explanation is at astrologer Bob Marks' website HERE.
Interpreting Mona Lisa - by a group of youngsters in a local art class. Husband noticed these on display in the lobby at our local concert hall and snapped 'em. He now wishes he'd stopped to take closer shots of each.
It's not hard, even in this small size (click on it to see a slightly bigger version) to identify seminal rebels among this group of young artists.
Tweet from "God" this week:
It's funny how nearly all the people who believe global warming is a myth also believe I'm not.
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| From 9GAG.COM |
We watched the 1960 film version of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine on Turner Classic Movie channel, Thursday evening. I'd seen it more than once before, and read the book long ago, in my youth. I count the tale as one of the best of its genre, especially as it was first published in 1895.
A refreshers from Wikipedia
Social class was a theme in Wells's The Time Machine in which the Time Traveller speaks of the future world, with its two races, as having evolved from the gradual widening of the present (19th century) merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer ... Even now, does not an East-end (of London) worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth? Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people ... is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in against intrusion.
Wells has this very same Time Traveller, reflecting his own socialist leanings, refer in a tongue-in-cheek manner to an imagined world of stark class division as "perfect" and with no social problem unsolved. His Time Traveller thus highlights how strict class division leads to the eventual downfall of the human race:
Wells has this very same Time Traveller, reflecting his own socialist leanings, refer in a tongue-in-cheek manner to an imagined world of stark class division as "perfect" and with no social problem unsolved. His Time Traveller thus highlights how strict class division leads to the eventual downfall of the human race:
"Once, life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved."
More from another page of Wikipedia on the two ways H.G. Wells imagined humans had evolved in the far distant future:
By the year 802,701 CE, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the child-like, frail group, living a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing and infrastructure for the Eloi. Each class evolved and degenerated from humans. The novel suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes, a theme that reflects Wells' sociopolitical opinions.
The main difference from their earlier ruler-worker state is that, while the Morlocks continue to support the world's infrastructure and serve the Eloi, the Eloi have undergone significant physical and mental deterioration. Having solved all problems that required strength, intelligence, or virtue, they have slowly become dissolute and naive. They are described as being smaller than modern humans, having shoulder-length curly hair, chins that ran to a point, large eyes, small ears, and small mouths with bright red thin lips. They are of sub-human intelligence, though apparently intelligent enough to speak, and they have a primitive language.
While one initially has the impression that the Eloi people live a life of play and toil-less abundance, it is revealed that the Morlocks are attending to the Eloi's needs for the same reason a farmer tends cattle; the Morlocks use the Eloi for food.
More on H.G. Wells and his natal chart at an archived post HERE.
Obama - Only time will tell how that plays for him. He has few party loyalties to concern him at this point. I see our country as schizophrenic...we have our collective concerns, but aren't coherent enough to address our participation in the root causes...delusional to our own demise. We view ourselves as acted-upon, something external initiating distress that threatens us, the we-as-victim mentality, so let's all buy assault rifles to protect us from ourselves. We utilize religion to shield us from the critical facts of science, then accuse the realists of malicious attempts to control our freedoms and commerce. It's like the nasty, mentally unstable, highly disliked individual that claims they get no love when they reach out to others...LOL. We've held-up the mirror in our hands to see our reflection and we see Obama as our surrogate.
ReplyDeleteCumberbatch - I hope you'll watch the "Sherlock" BBC - PBS series. I found it exceptionally entertaining. A very high-quality production that rivals the best of Hollywood studio turn-outs.
Turing is part of the exclusive "people that have achieved, but we dislike them anyway" club. The Native Americans were also code-crackers, but relegated to the alley when it came time for fair treatment...as were the blacks and Mexicans that fought in our wars. Sacrificing their lives was in the call of duty, so long as they didn't expect equal social status should they survive the wars for democracy and freedom.
Mona - I've long been a huge fan of children's art. I've rescued a number of great creations that were blowing around in the streets and-or my yard. Of these particular Mona Lisas, I like the one that she appears to be holding maybe a large, pink bird...and the Picasso-esque, square, green head.
Tweet from god and the American-laws-as-European cartoon - see my comment about Obama, above...we're a crazy bunch.
Wells' "Time Machine" - The turn of the century was peculiar astrologically (your yesterday's post). Society and culture were changing drastically at that time...rural to urban...natural to unnatural...human robots to supply the demands of industrialization. Many authors from that era wrote tomes of civilization's doom through our own folly and divides of the haves and have-nots.
Happy Sagittarius...off to a gallop from the starting-gate with today's new Moon!
mike ~ I see the USA more as DSA (Disunited States of America). I see all the elements you've listed as a general overlay, but underneath there's a razor-sharp divide - on just about any topic one could mention, far more sharply and constantly divided than can be found in most other countries I suspect. Re President Obama - we watch, we wait.
ReplyDeleteI keep intending to discover whether episodes of Sherlock are available on Roku. Will try to remember to do so this weekend.
Turing was (luckily for us, unluckily for him) born before his time. I agree about the many thousands who "did good" but due to attitudes of others, and society in general, have mostly been ignored as an important part of history.
Mona - I like the green square robot-like head too, and the doodle-ish egg-head...lol!
Turn of the century must have been an exciting time to live...if one were not living in poverty or pain.
It's likely that ordinary people didn't quite see it that way though, but we can, with hindsight.
Let's hope Sun's trip through the Centaur's land will be a good one for us all. :-)
Re: Obama, I'm reminded of a lame old nag, last in the race, making a halfhearted effort down the finishing straight. There again, perhaps that's being unfair to equines.
ReplyDeleteRJ Adams ~ LOL! He'll not be off to the knacker's yard afterwards ready to make glue and dog-meat though. He'll be doing very nicely, thank you, with lots of lecture tours and seats on boards, and the money'll keep rolling in.... $$$$$$$$$
ReplyDelete:-/