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[ This entry originated » here. ]

» World-Class Huggers

Oh, this is very cool. Look at the look on this girl's face. Priceless.

You are obviously a good hugger, girly. World-class.

» Lily Looks So Happy

Here's another. This is precious. This makes my heart sing. I can hear it singing.

This girl looks so happy. You can see it all over her face. Who can blame her? They didnt even look this happy when Queen Elizabeth herself stopped by.

Kids are so honest. Whether they are happy or not .. is always plainly evident. They have not yet learned how to be deceptive.

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My heart sank when I saw the news yesterday. It seemed so surreal. The effect of the images that accompanied the story felt like they cut me off at the knees.

The consequences of this attack are profoundly sad on so many levels .. that they seem impossible to fathom. This is why there is mind-blowing aspect to such things.

» Truly Remarkable Responses

Denise Evans wrote a wonderful piece on » Manchester's Resilience. 

And Natalie Shutler wrote another titled » What an Attack at an Ariana Grande Show Means for Teen Girls.

» Hard-Pressed to Find

James Corden said about Manchester that "A more tight-knit group of people you would be hard-pressed to find. Strong, proud, caring people."

Who does not want to grow up in, and call home, a place like that?

This article contains a telling statement:

As graffiti on a disused rail depot not far from Piccadilly train station has it, Manchester sees itself as "a haven for heathens, hoodies and hipsters, hijabis and Hebrews, highbrow intellectuals and however-you-sexuals ... it's home to all."

That sounds like my kind of town .. where they live and let live .. absent the mental illnesses typically associated with repression.

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[ This entry originated » here. ]

Speaking of a lot happening .. I want to mention, ever so briefly, this article by Egan.

I had opened that page in a separate browser tab, but I got distracted and called away before I had a chance to read it.

Some time later, I clicked on the tab and started to scan the text there.

I normally browse the web with a separate dedicated browser with Javascript disabled .. because so many sites go crazy with Javascript, which can consume system resources for no good reason.

The effect of browsing with Javascript disabled .. is that the text sits well below the page title at the top .. separated by a large (un-sized) version of the photo they use.

After reading a few sentences, I was so impressed that I wondered, "Who is writing this?" .. and I scrolled up to the top of the page.

When I saw that it was Egan, I said (out loud), "You are such a fucking ninja."

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At t=3:50 in this video, Joy asks, "How can it be .. that someone can spend three years in Rikers without being convicted of anything?"

She asks a valid question, no?

A long time ago, a dude named Habakkuk posed a similar question. It seems that some things never change. (You know.)

Julia Willoughby Nason, pictured here below, responds to Joy's question by saying,

"Working on this project I learned that Kalief's story is not unusual. The mass incarceration system in this country is a form of social and economic control .. and it's doing exactly what it's designed to do."

You might want to read that again .. or better yet, listen to her say it herself (at t=4:00).

Notice that she didnt say that incarceration in America was about justice, or that it was about preventing crime .. or even about law and order.

Rather she said that the mass incarceration system in America is about » social and economic control.

If jails and prisons and incarceration were really about justice and law-n-order and preventing crime ..

.. then a bunch of those Wall street fraudsters would be sitting in jail right now .. having wrecked the American economy in order to enrich themselves, and who did so much damage to so many hard-working American families.

But they aint. Why do you think this is? Perhaps somebody should ask Larry Summers. I bet that he knows why justice in America comes out perverted.

A poor, black teenager does nothing wrong and he spends 3 years in jail (( most of that time spent in solitary confinement )) which fucked him up so badly that he eventually killed himself.

While rich, old, white men commit fraud on a scale so vast that it brings the entire economy to the brink of collapse, and ruins the lives of millions of Americans .. and our government runs to their aid with truckloads of money and sympathy.

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[ This page continues from » Are We Really Doing This? It's a long, crazy story. Dont try to figure it out, folks. ]

» When Justice Comes Out Perverted

But notice how the context of where God told the prophet Habakkuk to "Write the vision, and make it plain." is that Habakkuk had first cried out and complained to God that » "The law is being ignored. Justice is never upheld. The wicked surround the righteous, and justice » comes out perverted."

I do not know exactly what kind of society Habakkuk found himself in there, but I bet that the wealthy and the powerful of his day could do whatever the fuck they liked ..

.. no matter how much harm and pain and suffering they caused for so many people, and the "Justice" of his day did nothing to punish them, nothing to hold them accountable for their actions.

Au contraire .. you gave them billions and billions of dollars. You actually rewarded them. You rewarded their bad behavior. You made up excuses for them and you used these excuses to reward their bad behavior.

Now, are you really somehow not expecting them to do it again? After you have classically conditioned them to do exactly that?

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[ This entry continues from this page » here. ]

» How to Reboot Civilization After the Apocalypse

This guy here, Lewis Darnell, his whole gig is to research what we, as a civilization, will need, to get things going again .. after the apocalypse.

Does this fact not strike you as curious? I mean, in an existential sort of way.

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[ This entry continues from » here. I simply could not resist breaking out this page with such a cool title. I am very much into cool titles. ]

See, I am just writing this thing .. this dangerous thing .. this crazy thing, this dangerously crazy thing .. as it comes.

And sometimes I will say to the writer in me, "Are we really doing this? I see where you are going with this thing. How far are you planning to take this? You really fixin' to wrap this rodeo? You're right .. I never wouldve believed such a thing. Not in a million years. This is indeed a fearful thing. You werent joking."

Maybe it means nothing. Maybe this is not really the end of all things. Let's hope. Let's hope he's bluffing. Let's hope I'm wrong.

Because my experience has been that he doesnt bluff. He's not a bluffer (.. like the Donald).

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[ Note » this entry originated from another page. ]

I have actually been working on this other entry the last few days .. chronicling the end of the world. It's already at four full pages. And Page Two could easily be broken into two full pages. (Now done.)

It's not as easy to chronicle the end of the world as I had imagined it would be. It is proving to be far more difficult.

It will require more than just a page or two. A lot more.

I cannot work for very long on stuff like that .. chronicling the end of all things. That's why I like to take a break from that and come over here and flirt with you.

In this way, girly .. you are like my respite from the ugliness of the world.

» The Prophets were Seeking to Know

I was reading this thing recently that Peter wrote .. where he talks about how (in v10 & 11) the prophets were » "seeking to know what person or time...".

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Rad note » previous page » Page Three. You are now reading Page Four.

» Resonating with Like-Minded Souls

One of the things that pundits talk about today in our extremely and increasingly polarized society .. as a cause of this fracturing and polarization .. is how everybody lives in their own echo chamber, where they only listen to ideas coming from people with whom they resonate.

This is such an obvious point, and so widely accepted, that I neednt cite the evidence for it .. the overwhelmingly obvious evidence.

Some of our elected officials claim that both sides need to listen to the other side's points-of-view .. as a way to try to bridge the vast gap between the two sides.

I would argue here .. I would contend here .. that while Americans may indeed opt to live in an echo chamber of their choosing, where they listen to people with whom they resonate .. they have indeed listened to arguments presented by the other side.

They simply do not agree with those arguments.

A friend recently told me, while referring to the Donald Trump the presidential candidate, "I heard him speak with my own ears. I was not listening to something that somebody else told me about him that he said. With my own ears I heard this guy talking with his own mouth. I heard the things that he himself was saying."

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[ Previous page » Page Two - Part B. ]

» Maureen with a Bloody Sword

Speaking of mistakes .. Maureen says that » Hillary should have spent less time collecting money on Wall Street and more time collecting votes in Wisconsin.

Amen to that, sister. Well said. I could not agree more.

She is so fucking good .. doncha think, Blow? I kinda wanted to have sex with her while I was reading that. (Just being honest. I admit that I am attracted to powerful women.)

She actually reminded me of Uma with a sword in Kill Bill. You do not want be on her shit-list.

» Welcome to the Apocalypse of 2016

On behalf of Maureen and myself, I want to say "Thanks for everything, Hil. I'm sure that you'll be well taken care of wherever it is that you are going .. with all your hundreds of thousands of dollars .. from giving those pretty speeches to all your friends there on Wall street. You obviously deserve this money .. because you worked so very hard for it. But the rest of us left behind here in America .. eh, not so fortunate like you. We're stuck here in Trumpland with Herr Donald. And who knows what that means? No palm trees and endless private beaches for us. The term you used, if I recall correctly, was » apocalypse. Welcome to apocalypse, Hil. We have you to thank for helping to bring us this apocalypse. You made this possible for us-the-people. The little people, who do not get 'paid' hundreds of thousands of dollars for talking to people and telling them all the pretty things that they want to hear. You and Debbie and the whole DNC helped to bring us this apocalypse. We couldnt have gotten here without all your help. When faced with a decision between you and the apocalypse, half the nation said, 'I'll try my luck with the apocalypse'. You know the half I'm talking about. They sound desperate for change, dont they? This is why I say to you, 'Take your hundreds of thousands of dollars and go fuck yourself'."

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