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Post by millring on Sept 4, 2023 7:42:04 GMT -5
Who's the artist, Howard? Is that a Depression Era painting or a modern recreation? Thomas Hart Benton
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Post by millring on Sept 4, 2023 7:28:30 GMT -5
That is gut-wrenching on so many levels. And profound.
I once heard a preacher opine that you don't praise kids for doing what's right (he then allowed as how he was exaggerating to make a larger point). If you do praise kids for doing what is right, you're not preparing them for the reality of life -- that doing what you are supposed to do is the baseline. The foundation. And it's the foundation of society. We count on each other to do what's right. Life isn't an balanced equation. Life doesn't often reward you for doing right, but it will always (if only eventually) punish you for not doing right.
The aluminum-stirring story convicts me to the core. In my life I've escaped anything so loathsome -- so much so that I believe I'm currently working hard.
I was discussing with coworkers (as I do almost daily) the post office demise we are witnessing every day. The work load feels overwhelming most days. But a small minority just shut up and shoulder the load. Another minority face it with humor (I told my coworker of a person I know whose practice it is to say "I'm not complaining, I'm just making an observation." every time he complained. Now at the office we refer to complaining as "observing"). But there has been a working crew that appears to have the "we're in this thing together" mentality encapsulated by the concept that as long as there is still anything undelivered, nobody goes home until everyone can go home. That has gotten us through. Not happily or satisfactorily, but functionally. The newest subs aren't catching on. They want to go home. They will quit soon. We can feel it.
We are slaves to survival. We only take away the straw to make bricks when we additionally become slaves to our appetites.
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Post by millring on Sept 4, 2023 6:46:51 GMT -5
taking up banjo.
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Post by millring on Sept 3, 2023 19:16:40 GMT -5
On a side note, if I had to play an entire song kneeling like that with my legs stuck out to the side, first I wouldn’t make it much past the first verse, and two, I’d probably be carried away afterwards. If you looked like her you'd probably get volunteers willing to carry you away.
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Post by millring on Sept 3, 2023 11:42:50 GMT -5
Sweatin' to the Amazon. It's a jungle out there.
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Post by millring on Sept 3, 2023 6:24:20 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Sept 2, 2023 21:57:00 GMT -5
"Well, I guess you're in the 2%."
Dar got a call this morning. She's got a good friend who broke the news that, despite having gone through as drastic a measure as one could imagine -- double mastectomies of two presently healthy breasts because her genetic history just about guaranteed that she too would end up with breast cancer, she nevertheless was told that she is, indeed, terminal.
We're not invincible.
Like most folks our age, Dar's been through this before -- lost other friends. It's sobering.
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Post by millring on Sept 2, 2023 21:51:07 GMT -5
Well, there's about five more people I'd prolly better never play in front of.
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Post by millring on Sept 2, 2023 21:50:14 GMT -5
I don't understand why a cosmetologist would give a crap about the universe.
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Post by millring on Sept 2, 2023 21:26:04 GMT -5
I spent lots of time with my guitar figuring this one out. I loved it the first time I heard it. It inspired me to make a mix tape (yeah, a cassette) of modern day lullabies by contemporaries. Pony Man -- Lightfoot, St Judy's Comet -- Simon, Melt My Heart -- Simon (the other Simon), Daddy's Baby -- Taylor.....I can't remember them all.
I played it tonight for Dar. "That wasn't Cat Stevens?!"
Nope. And Come Monday wasn't Jimmy Webb, no matter how much the brilliant bridge may have sounded like something only Jimmy Webb could have come up with.
Some people of my generation who consider themselves serious about music seemed to have a tendency to dismiss Buffett. I suspect that his marketing ability to build a huge following based on a party music model was part of the reason. But I think the fact that Buffett made fantastic songs sound so natural -- they seemed to come too easy for him -- maybe such serious critics too quickly overlooked what a great writer he was.
Besides, great music isn't always profound. And profound music isn't always great. Jimmy Buffett made some really great music. Some profound. And some profoundly fun.
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Post by millring on Sept 2, 2023 18:18:33 GMT -5
What a fantastic writer. A victim of making it look easy.
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 17:27:09 GMT -5
We are several steps from a democracy. A number of those steps are good ones. Some of them appear to be troublesome, but moreso if one assumes the government that is bigger and more powerful is better government. Wouldn't that be less so? No, I mean moreso. The Constitution limits government and the will of the people. It's an impediment to those who wish a powerful central government.
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 16:19:43 GMT -5
We are several steps from a democracy. A number of those steps are good ones. Some of them appear to be troublesome, but moreso if one assumes the government that is bigger and more powerful is better government.
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 15:52:31 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 15:41:30 GMT -5
It's obvious that more people by far vote in years that include presidential elections than in years that don't. We even refer to the other as "off-year elections". To some (that) extent, we do believe in a royal presidency. That's why the interest peaks in the "real" elections and wanes in the "off-year" elections.
What I can't find is the raw number -- people who voted only for the president in 2020 vs people who voted for the president and congress in 2020. I remember hearing that the president-only vote was historical. It should be an easy enough number to find, but it evades my googling skills.
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:49:56 GMT -5
Who would name a fish "Kevin"?
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:47:33 GMT -5
It seems to me that your second paragraph contradicts your first. If it's about the money, then "people that matter" are a different category from "the people", in which case, the implication is completely different and there IS a class of people "people that matter" that are deciding these things for us, and we have the leadership THEY want, and not what the people want. Maybe?
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:24:24 GMT -5
"So who are these 'people that matter'? ...and why are we powerless to change this?" I don't think there are any hidden power brokers. It's just people and votes. "We" aren't powerless. Biden was the consensus candidate, all things considered, even though (I would guess) most voters had a different preference. I'd have preferred Amy Klobuchar but I could live with Biden. I know a lot of people who would have preferred Bernie Sanders but they could live with Biden. It's all a big compromise. Maybe that's what it has to be. Then it isn't "people that matter", is it? If it as you suggested, it's just "the people", not "the people that matter", right?
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:17:54 GMT -5
President Trump is the only one I can think of who surrounded himself primarily with sycophants and expected absolute obedience. How do you know this? How would he compare in this regard to FDR who by all accounts was utterly authoritarian? (by the way, I do mostly agree with your post. I just don't accept that Trump was different. I do accept that he was reported as different. But I also don't agree that most people don't look at the president as a sovereign king. I think most people DO view him that way. And that's just one of the many things broken about our political life and our government.)
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Post by millring on Aug 31, 2023 11:08:20 GMT -5
too few of the people that matter want anyone else. This is the weird one. Everyone we all know -- without exception -- wants someone else. Maybe that's an exaggeration. I doubt it. Do you really know anyone whose first choice is either Biden or Trump? I don't. And I didn't know anyone thus inclined in 2020. So who are these "people that matter"? ...and why are we powerless to change this?
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