[straightwalker]

@DR_D
Well done. Long may you rant!

[straightwalker]

@ teri
Thank you, teri. I saw it. Not too long. The problem here is that the government is controlled by a relatively small group of people who don’t care about the public. The elections which might allow for change are rigged. The public is politically powerless. Progressives are cheated out of primaries and scorned by main stream media owned by those in power. This cannot end well. The only hope for change is some last straw that brings overwhelming rebellion in some (hopefully) non-violent way.
At the moment, the major concern is about whether Biden or Trump will be president. Meanwhile, an opportunity to expose and possibly reform the electoral system slides by. The democrats may cheer if Biden is sworn in. But if the voting machine manipulation is ignored, the baby is gone with the bath water (as use to be said). Follow Sydney Powell’s suits; she has the evidence. It is my opinion that truth and a society of laws (however imperfect) is at risk. We’ll see.

[straightwalker]

@Dave_Note
I’m with you, Pard.
Not just the MMW, all the power players behind them, fine with rigged elections as long as they are doing the rigging (some of them, shareholders in Dominion, et al,, even profiting directly).

[straightwalker]

Thanks for this post. In the last few years have had many good moments at Monastiraki. First time in Greece, I came up to street level from the Athens metro and realized that my wallet was gone. I saw the Parthenon and said to Pam: Look at that! Wow! Ground zero for western civilization. This is a great day!! What is three hundred evros? It is someone else’s celebration.

Filothei reminds me of Dmitra on Amorgos. Greek women! I’m learning to paint. Can’t wait to return. Sorry for such a small donation.
straightwalker

[straightwalker]

@geppetto
“I wish I could take those words back…”
You just did. For all of us.

[straightwalker]

@Maxwell-Quest
I agree. Listening to Sydney Powell is like drinking clear water. Aux Armes!

[straightwalker]

@zerosum
I don’t understand. Did Dr D mention God? I thought it was a rant about taking personal responsibility for changing our situation. No?

[straightwalker]

@MaxwellQuest

I agree.. Although, I would expand “crime family” to include the large number of politicians who cheat and steal one way or another. The group normalizes the behavior, seduces new comers, provides protection, and makes it hard to change or escape. Power can be extremely addictive.

A real, but human, mess. “There but for fortune…”

[straightwalker]

@John Day
I second geppetto.
You have to answer these questions to your own satisfaction (relief), of course, but there are clues.
Many of Jung’s patients were older. He said that most of their difficulties were, in the last analysis, religious (in “Memories, Dreams, & Reflections”?). Feynman’s quote, a couple of days ago, gets at it in his funny faux flippant way: “No one ever figured out what life’s all about. And it doesn’t matter anyway.”
The willfulness, that enables us to get things done, can also interfere with accepting our unknowable place in the unknowable. I have lots of trouble with that. But to trust that one has a place is quite wonderful.

[straightwalker]

@John Day
Thanks, John, for “Walking in Beauty.” Great stuff. Much to learn and absorb.

[straightwalker]

@madamski
Thanks. A few hundred years ago Francis Bacon said, “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” That seemed right when I read it, a great observation, but I couldn’t leave it at that. I used the quote as an epigram in a book I wrote. I kept thinking about beauty: what is it? Why are we so affected by it?
Finally, I gave up trying to find words. It’s hopeless, I thought.
Then I had an idea. Stop thinking and do something. Try and make something beautiful and see if you learn anything that way.
Iain Oughtred, on the Isle of Skye, designs gorgeous small wooden boats. My son needed a dinghy. Neither of us had built a boat, but Finn is good with tools, had (has) a garage, and could help when I was over my head. I sent for plans.

A year or so later the hull (Oughtred’s “Auk”) was done and turned right side up so I could work on the inside stuff. I was admiring the great lines and also noticing the
mistakes and choices that I made along the way. I realized that no two boats built from these plans would be the same. It was unique. The mistakes were the strangeness in the proportion. The lines were universal. Got it. That’s beauty (the components). The marriage of unique and universal. I think the definition scales to any culture or medium.

So, a long explanation, but I thought it might be interesting. The words didn’t just pop into my head.
Finn loves his boat.

[straightwalker]

I think that Dr D is right about the drawing. Wikipedia notes Da Vinci’s long interest and expertise with camera obscura(s?). But V. Arnold’s “unspeakable beauty” is all Da Vinci. He simplified and coordinated from his natural sense of balance between the unique and the universal (my definition of the essence of beauty). Beauty integrates the unique and the universal, our most disparate selves. Beauty matters.
Thanks again, Raul.

[straightwalker]

The unwillingness of people like Obama (name your pol) to defend Assange is beyond depressing. So much easier to let him die than to suffer inconvenient blowback from true believers in the narrative. “Narrative” has become a euphemism for lies.

I think that the power people bear the most responsibility. But the enabling media establishment is right behind. They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They know the twin towers and building 7 in N.Y. were taken down by thermal demolition. They know that Russia did not provide Wikileaks with damaging emails. They know Seth Rich was silenced by murder. They know the Covid virus was engineered in “gain of function” experimentation. They know or strongly suspect the various false flag operations blamed on Assad or Putin. They know that there are inexpensive and effective drugs for high risk outpatients in the first few days of Covid infection; they support the FDA declaration that HCQ is dangerous in the face of world wide use. They say nothing.

They make me ashamed to be a U.S. citizen.

Anyone who seriously threatens the power structure will be dealt with, one way or another. This is a fact which must be taken seriously. I suggest a silent slow withdrawal. Don’t play their game. An ongoing barely perceptible general strike. We will suffer, but a better concensus will build in small groups here and there, gradually spreading. Support your neighbors. Keep your head down.

Maybe someone can come up with a more direct approach. I’d love to hear it.

p.s. thanks, Raul, for the daily image, a great selection!

[straightwalker]

Hi,
It’s up to us, really.
I propose a slogan:

Go Rogue
Tell The Truth

Put it on coffee mugs, bumper stickers, t-shirts—be free, spread the word. It isn’t easy to tell the truth, but, in the long run, slowly, it will find a better balance, bring us together, and leave the present situation behind.

[straightwalker]

Raul,

Thank you for all your hard work. The Automatic Earth has been automatic reading for me for years. I’ve especially enjoyed the daily art piece and your steady broadcasting of truth tellers like Yanis Varofakis, Julian Assange, and so many others.
I expect that you will continue your positive efforts in one form or another. Please take your time reassessing and preparing for the next phase; change is easier in a quiet place. Many of us will be glad to hear from you when you return.

straightwalker

[straightwalker]

Beauty integrates the unique and the universal, our most disparate selves. That is why we both relax and wake up in its presence. It demonstrates a way forward: there is nothing we do that cannot be done more beautifully. To appreciate beauty and to strive toward it is a sure guide through life’s wild pantheon of choices.

I wrote the above after many years of pondering Francis Bacon’s observation, “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” I loved that quote, used it as an epigram in one of my books, but I didn’t understand it until my son and I built a wooden dinghy to gorgeous plans by Iain Oughtred. When I noticed my screw ups and the various choices I’d made during the building, I realized that it was the uniqueness (the strangeness) married to the universal curves that made the boat beautiful.

In my opinion, this understanding of beauty scales to any media or event or endeavor.

Thanks so much for The Automatic Earth. I read it every day.
John Moncure Wetterau

[straightwalker]

Almost anyone would be a bit of a letdown after the impressionists in their golden age, but Hopper is no slouch. He captured the shortcomings and emptiness of modern American culture better than anyone. It is a lot easier to paint lighthouses and fall foliage. This painting shows all you need to know about Hollywood.

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