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A second DoubleQuote from the El Paso / Dayton shootings

Monday, August 5th, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — following on from On the literary transmission of terror: 1: mirroring Twitter-feeds ]
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This one’s a matter of two sisters — onw of whom is a martyr-victim, the other a target-victim:

Giving one’s life to protect one’s kin is an easily understood, deeply honorable affair; getting killed by one’s kin either in vengeance or unintentionally — in haste, with a too-rapid-fire weapon — is saddening and sobering.

May there be less dead sisters, and less dead in mass casualty events, going forward. That’s a prayer.

Two unexpected signs of the same intelligence at work

Wednesday, June 26th, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — two instances in which land is returned to tribal peoples who previously tended it ]
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Sources:

  • Bold Nebraska, In Historic First, Nebraska Farmer Returns Land to Ponca Tribe
  • Forest News, Indonesian president hands over management of forests to indigenous people
  • **

    Wallace Black Elk told me the Americas were his altar, and that on this altar guns are not permitted. He also offered to get me a Lakota passport, which would allow me to fly into US airports without having to pass through customs.

    but these ideas are a bit farther along the timeline, I think, from the two land exchanges detailed above.

    Mind-stuff.. and a thought-experiment

    Wednesday, May 15th, 2019

    [ by Charles Cameron — I’m no longer captivated by chyrons, it seems — and for the next week weeks, it’ll be glass bead games at BrownPundits and my extended examination of advertising as magic here ]
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    Mind-stuff.. mind-stuff that grabs my attention is what I’ll deliver here

    **

    Baghdadi — not meditating — contemplating, perhaps — more mayhem?

    **

    Another pattern to follow:

    It was unclear whether the increase was the result of a shift of Taliban tactics, or just the greatly increased tempo of the war this year, as both sides pushed to improve their positions at the negotiating table.

    Taliban Train Sights on Aid Groups, an Ominous Turn in Afghanistan

    One thinks — I tend to think — of negotiations as leaning away from warfare and violence and towards peace and reconciliation. My pattern language now needs to encompass negotiations as warfare and violence inducing as well as peace and reconciliation leaning.

    For an analytic mind, boggling; for on the ground negotiators, something to bear in mind

    **

    It’s like our scattered space debris, mind-stuff.

    As Patanjali says: Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha — Great Silence quiets the mind-stuff..

    Ah, well..

    I’ll do a post on religions that offer analytic methods shortly..

    **

    And on that topic —

    I have always wondered — I haven’t been here always, but wot the hell, Archie, as Mehitabel would say — always wondered about the parallelism between koans, ie case law precedents in Chan and Zen Buddhist tradition, and case law precedents in Western jurisprudence>

    Now my wish gets new life, as I read Jason Giannetti, Koan and Case Law:

    The Zen koan comes from the Chinese kung-an, meaning a “public case,” as in a legal matter brought before a judge. There are numerous ways in which these koan could be related to law cases. Very straightforwardly, these are public records, the recorded sayings of the early Chan masters that have been passed down and commented upon, just as there may be public legal cases that have authority as precedent and have been commented upon. The koan encounter could be understood as a judgement by a master upon a student based upon the student’s understanding of the “case.” A third way in which the connection could be understood is that the koan tests the student’s understanding of the Dharma. Dharma has many meanings in Buddhism, but one of those meanings is “law.”

    Wheee thanks, Jason!

    **

    Nancy Pelosi’s “self-impeachable” is both a wonderful ouroboros and nonsense — a contradiction in terms. Trump’s “investigating the investigators” is far more (semantically) interesting. It’s a bit like that card game where you call out “War” or “Snap when you see both cards are the same..

    **

    I’m keeping an eye out for security implications of climate chamnge, also “climate migrants” which may well become quite a phenomenon:

  • DoD, FY 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap
  • DoD, National Security Implications of Climate-related Risks and a Changing Climate
  • World Bank, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration
  • Climate & Security, Activities of Agencies to Address Potential Impact on Global Migration
  • DoD, Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense
  • Climate & Security, U.S. GAO Issues 2 Reports in 2 Months Covering Climate and Security
  • **

    To wrap up:

    I was looking for an ilklustration to go with my weaponized thoughts post, To weaponize metaphors.. thoughts as clothes, clothes as thoughts, and I finally — too late — came across this:

    I certainly think that pic could be interpreted as illustrating the assembling and disassembling of thoughts (2nd Amendment, Don’t Tread on Me, Safety First etc) as a function of weaponizing them.

    It comes from an (is it?) anti-gun (as if one can be pro- or anti- gun rather than pro- or anti- certain kinds of access) piece titled Thought Experiment: What might the world be like if there were no guns?.

    But a thought experiment? That’s a refreshing change from arguments pro- or con!

    Rich Pickings

    Wednesday, April 10th, 2019

    [ by Charles Cameron — my laptop keyboard is malfunctioning — my fault — but thanks to MS on-screen keyboard, I’m able to post here ]
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    How’s this for a DoubleQuote?

    I thought I was getting a wee bit tired of screen-grabs from items in my FB, Twitter and newsfeeds, but this one caught me by surprise — too good to miss!

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    And then there were others:

    Alex Jones admitting to psychosis as the explanation for his — extremely profitable, until Twitter banned him this week — conspiracy theories, when his earlier excuse was that he was an entertainer, just kidding.. that too was striking and worth capture.

    Firing squad was one of those five-star ***** instances that I’d want to include in any definitive collection of best war metaphors..

    And a few more:

    That last screen-grab, as you’d have learned from the sound-track, features three inset images for three black churches burned..

    **

    This one’s important:

    Designating a state actor a terrorist organization goes against most definitions of terrorism, which apply the term to non-state actions only, thereby making the compilation of stats for all sorts of comparative purposes, an already difficult task, even more troublesome — for an excellent overview by the leading authority on terrorism definition, see Alex Schmid, The Revised Academic Consensus Definition of Terrorism

    **

    L’affaire Nielsen:

    Neal Katyal, who wrote the Special Counsel rules:

    Then there’s

    President Trump:

    Get rid of judges ..
    Say.. say, Judge, I an’t do it ..

    Then:

    **

    Hardball:

    Chris Matthews:

    He comes off as a football owner who keeps changing managers .. or coaches

    Eating their own..

    You start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying..

    And:

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    All In:

    You’re Fired!

    Chris Hayes:

    One big part of the reason that Donald Trump is our President is because a good number of people believe that the TV character Donald Trump was a real thing, thanks to the years he spent on national TV on our parent network of course, building up a reputation as a successful, self-made tough tycoon, not afraid to make the tough calls when the tough calls needed calling..

    Most of us now know that the reality show Trump is not quite the reality we got. And as we saw yet again today, when it came time to deploy that famous tag-line, there seems to be some stage-fright ..

    There has been so much turnover in just over two years of the Trump administration that the Washington Post was compelled to produce this graphic, which looks like a game of chutes, ladders, and people who will never get their reputations back:

    It’s been 01 day since a high-profile departure from the Trump administration

    And so forth..

    m 55 Michelle Goldberg:The conventional language of American politics are just not up to describing ..

    **

    Rachel Maddow:

    Quite a DoubleQuote, Rachel!

    **

    And from Velshi, 4/9/2019:

    — a sequence on what Trump has offered at the altar of Netanyahu, to help with his election:

    **

    BTW, FB:

    I think that does it.net

    The importance and impotence of language, #28 in the series

    Tuesday, March 26th, 2019

    [ by Charles Cameronmetaphor, that Owen Barfield thing that undergirds Tolkien, who gives us our hero myth at highest, truest pitch — see final section ]
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    One for the arc archive:

    There is not a word in the American lexicon for such gatherings—the semi-spontaneous assembly of people in the wake of tragedy, who are united by both grief and by anger, and whose public mourning serves to reaffirm their civic bond to one another. But we need such a word..

    That’s an important point.

    **

    Look, large events have — what do events do, transpired? no — eventuated, actuellement, actually, which is to say, right about now..

    From MTP 3/25/2019:

    Chuck Todd:

    At this point it seems pretty clear that, while politically Democrats have been perhaps, if not check-mated, a pretty touch check on the chess board here, politically..

    Chuck Todd:

    None of us have read the Mueller report. None of us have got a single complete sentence of the Mueller report.

    Jake Sherman:

    It’s certain that Democrats run the risk of beating this drum too loud collusion on the collusion thing. The collusion angle, politically, was the singular focus of this investigation. That’s why it started.

    Is this going to be like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, buried in some warehouse in New Mexico?

    If they find something, a hundred of them jump on it — it’s the bandwagon effect ..

    The Beat, Ari Melber:

    Ari: Is Barr departing from those preedents?

    Preet:*****

    He [Mueller] punts to Congress, and then Bill Barr runs on the field, takes the ball, runa in for a touchdown for the President..\

    Holder:

    I think Preet was wrong there..

    Rossi:*****

    Using a football analogy, that’s what Preet did, I want to use a basketball analogy. We have a jump-ball, we’re giving it to Bill Barr, who’s taking the ball, he already decided the possession arrow..

    Preet, Holder, Rossi — a touch of Calvinball, one game becoming another?

    **

    Let’s take a break:

    Malcolm Gladwell, Thresholds of Violence

    Thresholds are — in Latin — limina. Here a shooter threshold, a limen — a red line which, having been crossed, now shifts towards the susceptible:

    The kid .. requires a finely elaborated script in order to carry out his attack .. : the effect of Harris and Klebold’s example was to make it possible for people with far higher thresholds — boys who would ordinarily never think of firing a weapon at their classmates — to join in the riot.

    The caption to the illustration heading Gladwell‘s piece reads:

    In the years since Columbine, school shootings changed; they became ritualized

    That’s what my piece on Tarrant as a follower of Breivik was about.

    Here too, from Gladwell, is a serpent that turns to bite its tail when SWAT arrives:

    I would detonate when people were fleeing, just like the Boston bombings, and blow them up too. Then my plans were to enter and throw Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone and then when the swat comes I would destroy myself.

    **

    And serpentine sinuosity in the Mississippi at English Bend, the great river’s tail not quite bitten? Another border blurred, line receding…

    The plane took off to the north, over Lake Pontchartrain, and looped back toward New Orleans. We picked up the Mississippi at English Turn, the sharp bend that brings the river almost full circle. Then we continued to follow the water as it wound its way into Plaquemines Parish.

    Eh?

    The control of nature? Good luck with that.

    **

    Back to business — a rush of chyrons, with a couple of texts:

    Booker to Ari:

    I have had you on background in many of the rooms I’ve been in

    There must be a lot of thoughts about who the umpire should be ..
    the letter came from somebody who was already suspect and should have recused himself ..

    Booker:

    We’re seeing a lot of dots that seem to be directing us toward a real problem, a potential collusion that continues to seem tom be smoldering and that might result in a real fire..

    Let’s look at the fact pattern ..

    — that last is an interesting phrase —

    Just a couple more from Sen Cory Booker to Ari Melber, then we’ll take a break.

    Sen Booker:

    This is a sacred constitutional moment for us ..

    That’s an excellent quote***** for USian civil religion ..

    A call to creaate what King calls “a more beloved community”

    **

    Barfield on metaphor

    At a later stage in the evolution of consciousness, we find [the principle of living unity] operative in individual poets, enabling them . . . to intuit relationships which their fellows have forgotten-relationships which they must now express as metaphor. Reality, once self-evident, and therefore not conceptually experienced, but which can now only be reached by an effort of individual mind–this is what is contained in a true poetic metaphor; and every metaphor is “true” only in so far as it contains such a reality, or hints at it. The world, like Dionysus, is torn to pieces by pure intellect, but the poet is Zeus; he has swallowed the heart of the world; and he can reproduce it in a living body.

    See here the relationship with Tolkien? with poetry, with HipBone Games?

    **

    Out.


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