StumbleUpon | Jerome's comments & reviews

Links 3/30/09 & naked capitalism

Wed, 27 May 2009 03:28:49 -0700

From the page: "In 2003, police in Warwickshire, England, opened a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. It had been locked in the shed and abandoned. It was dirty and malnourished, and had clearly been abused.

In an act of kindness, the police took the dog, which was a greyhound female, to the nearby Nuneaton and Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, run by a man named Geoff Grewcock and known as a willing haven for animals abandoned, orphaned or otherwise in need.

Geoff Grewcock and the other sanctuary staff went to work with two aims: to restore the dog to full health, and to win her trust. It took several weeks, but eventually both goals were achieved.

They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home.

The dog had other ideas. No-one remembers now how it began, but Jasmine started welcoming all animal arrivals at the sanctuary. It wouldn't matter if it was a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit or, probably, a rhinoceros, Jasmine would peer into the box or cage and, where possible, deliver a welcoming lick.

Geoff Grewcock relates one of the early incidents. "We had two puppies that had been abandoned by a nearby railway line. One was a Lakeland Terrier cross and another was a Jack Russell Doberman cross. They were tiny when they arrived at the centre and Jasmine approached them and grabbed one by the scruff of the neck in her mouth and put him on the settee. Then she fetched the other one and sat down with them, cuddling them."

"But she is like that with all of our animals, even the rabbits. She takes all the stress out of them and it helps them to not only feel close to her but to settle into their new surroundings.

"She has done the same with the fox and badger cubs, she licks the rabbits and guinea pigs and even lets the birds perch on the bridge of her nose."

Jasmine, the timid, abused, deserted waif, became the animal sanctuary's resident surrogate mother, a role for which she might have been born. The list of orphaned and abandoned youngsters she has cared for comprises five fox cubs, four badger cubs, 15 chicks, eight guinea pigs, two stray puppies and 15 rabbits.

And one roe deer fawn. Tiny Bramble, 11 weeks old, was found semi-conscious in a field. Upon arrival at the sanctuary, Jasmine cuddled up to her to keep her warm, and then went into the full foster mum role. Jasmine the greyhound showers Bramble the roe deer with affection and makes sure nothing is matted in her fur.

"They are inseparable," says Geoff Grewcock. "Bramble walks between her legs and they keep kissing each other. They walk together round the sanctuary. It's a real treat to see them."

Jasmine will continue to care for Bramble until she is old enough to be returned to woodland life. When that happens, Jasmine will not be lonely. She will be too busy showering love and affection on the next orphan or victim of abuse."

http://www3.timeoutny.com/chicago/blog/out-and-about/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/obama3.jpg

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 05:20:45 -0700

UrbanSurvival.com Daily News Update

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:27:11 -0800

Tuesday January 20, 2009
A Plane Sync-Wink?

From the page: "I haven't said much about the recent U.S. Airways crash into the Hudson River first because it wasn't an 'economic event' and secondly, I was patiently pondering the event, wondering what to make of it. If I don't have an observation worth sharing, I try to shut up.

But this morning, while I was getting an extra couple of winks, it occurred to me in my half asleep/half awake mode that there was perhaps an interesting message encoded down at the omni-humanity/archetype level: "It's possible to have a successful crash" is what I got to pondering.

The reason I view this as a 'sync-wink' from Universe - a time monk term for noticing and getting meaning from synchronistic events that are often a 'wink' from the Universe - is there is so much 'we're gonna crash' fear out there, that it could be interpreted as a reminder that crashes can be successful. [...]

A synchronistic event and a very small wink; the kind of thing that passes by people almost every day without acknowledging that there's a little more to life and it becomes evident once you start to looking at how the dance is danced."

Israeli ceasefire includes increased US involvement in Israeli occupation - International Middle East Media Center

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 03:55:53 -0800

From the page: "Just before Saturday's decision by Israeli officials to declare a 'ceasefire' in Gaza, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni received a signed assurance from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the US government would provide security and intelligence personnel to assist the Israeli military in its ongoing military occupation of all Palestinian land.

Previously, the US role in the conflict had been limited to material support, including weapons shipments and billions of dollars in financial commitment to Israel each year. Now, the US has committed in writing to the Israeli Foreign Minister (although no Congressional debate or resolution took place), to provide "resources, wherewithal and technology necessary in order to fulfill our part of the bargain", according to Condoleezza Rice.

The "US part of the bargain", according to Rice's spokesperson, thus consists of military and intelligence equipment and personnel with the aim of "inhibit[ing] the ability of Hamas to rearm."

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called a meeting with Condoleezza Rice just two hours before the Israeli cabinet was set to vote on a unilateral ceasefire. But some analysts say that this bold strategic maneuver may have been years in the making. It secures a new role for the US military and intelligence agencies in the region, on the very last day of business for the administration of George W. Bush.

The commitments made by Rice will hold for the incoming Obama administration as well."

Interview by Bob Marshall, October 22, 1988

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:57:23 -0800

Frank Zappa
Interview by Bob Marshall, October 22, 1988

From part 8: "Bob Marshall: Where I get the idea part is, I remember you did an interview in the L.A. Free Press in the summer of '69 and you mentioned Pauline Oliveri's work with sound, above the audible and below, creating a mass, and you liked that idea.

Frank Zappa: Not that it created a mass. It created something audible. It produced a sum indifference tone which happened to be located within the audible frequency range. By combining something so high you couldn't hear it and something so low you couldn't hear it, it yielded something in the middle that you could hear. Whether or not you like what you hear in the middle is another question. The concept is brilliant.

Bob Marshall: Yeah, because it showed you how physical reality is, or the way it is, right?

Frank Zappa: It's one aspect of it.

Bob Marshall: Are there other aspects you could talk about?

Frank Zappa: If you buy the idea that the vibrational rates translate into matter, and then if you understand the concept of vibrational rates above perception and below perception combining to create a reality, that opens up the door to some pretty science-fiction matter possibilities. If you can create an audible reality by a sine wave above the range of what your ear can hear and another one from below, and you put them together and suddenly it creates something that your ear can detect, is it not possible that solid matter of an unknown origin could manifest periodically because of frequencies of some unknown nature above and below which, for short durations, manifest solid objects? It could explain a lot of strange things that people see.

Bob Marshall: UFO's come to mind immediately.

Frank Zappa: Yeah.
[...]

Bob Marshall: I think it was during that interview where you were talking about the speech-song, "sprechstimme", you were saying you had solved some musical problems. Who had those musical questions? Did Varese have them?

Frank Zappa: No, questions that I have to answer for myself. These are questions about how you get the point across. And oftentimes I've just appropriated the speech-song. When a person sings a word, the idea that is transmitted transcends the word because there's so much other data connected with the word at pitch. Understand?

Bob Marshall: Are you talking about sound?

Frank Zappa: No, the person hearing, receiving the data, is not only receiving the word.

Bob Marshall: The "meaning"?

Frank Zappa: That's right, the text of the word. He is also receiving the pitch data at which it is sung. In other words, that same word sung at a high pitch means something different than the word sung at a low pitch. He is receiving the data of the harmonic climate in which the word exists. He's also receiving the data of the relationship of the pitch of the word to the climate itself. In other words, if you have an A minor chord and the word is sung on a B, then that word is going to stick out because it's not part of the chord. There are three notes in an A minor chord - A, C, E. If you sing that word on any of the notes which are part of the chord, it recedes into the chord. It's part of the background. If the word is sung on a note which is not part of the chord, it steps out from the chord and draws attention to itself and becomes a matter of emphasis. These are the types of extra data that exist when you sing a word. An extra spin gets put on the word if you half say it, half sing it. It makes it even more 3D. It leaps out from the harmonic support and draws even more attention to itself if you've been singing along and you hear this melody and you get to this certain part and you half sing it, half say it. And it sticks out even further if you absolutely say it because it's incongruous in the setting."

http://Jerome.stumbleupon.com/review/28664645/

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:32:46 -0800

The Book of the Samurai
Tsunetomo Yamamoto
(the quotes are from the movie Ghost Dog)

"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead."

"It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this."

"Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall, there was this one: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master Ittei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.""

"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything."

"In the words of the ancients, one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break through to the other side."

"Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, "form is emptiness." That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, "Emptiness is form." One should not think that these are two separate things."

"It is said that what is called "the spirit of an age" is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation."

Historical context (via wiki)

"After his master died, Tsunetomo himself was forbidden to perform tsuifuku, a retainer's ritual suicide, by an edict of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Hagakure may have been written partially in an effort to outline the role of the samurai in a more peaceful society. Several sections refer to the "old days", and imply a dangerous weakening of the samurai class since that time.

The Hagakure was written approximately one hundred years after the start of the Tokugawa era, a time of relative peace. With no major campaigns to fight the samurai were transforming from a warrior to an administrative class. His work represents one approach to the problem of maintaining military preparedness and a proper military mindset in a time when neither has much practical application."

Banks Keep Mum on What They Did with Bailout Cash - Financials * US * News * Story - CNBC.com

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:16:40 -0800

Where's the Dough? Banks Silent on Bailout Cash

From the page: "It's something any bank would demand to know before handing out a loan: Where's the money going?

But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.

"We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it,"' said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. "We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what's the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers.

"We're not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking," said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Some banks said they simply didn't know where the money was going.

"We manage our capital in its aggregate," said Regions Financial spokesman Tim Deighton, who said the Birmingham, Ala.-based company is not tracking how it is spending the $3.5 billion it received as part of the financial bailout.

The answers highlight the secrecy surrounding the Troubled Assets Relief Program, which earmarked $700 billion--about the size of the Netherlands' economy--to help rescue the financial industry. The Treasury Department has been using the money to buy stock in U.S. banks, hoping that the sudden inflow of cash will get banks to start lending money.

There has been no accounting of how banks spend that money. Lawmakers summoned bank executives to Capitol Hill last month and implored them to lend the money--not to hoard it or spend it on corporate bonuses, junkets or to buy other banks. But there is no process in place to make sure that's happening and there are no consequences for banks who don't comply."

t r u t h o u t | Obama's Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:36:59 -0800

Obama's Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling

From the page: "In spite of what Duncan argues, the greatest threat to our children does not come from lowered standards, the absence of privatized choice schemes or the lack of rigid testing measures that offer the aura of accountability. On the contrary, it comes from a society that refuses to view children as a social investment, consigns 13 million children to live in poverty, reduces critical learning to massive testing programs, promotes policies that eliminate most crucial health and public services and defines rugged individualism through the degrading celebration of a gun culture, extreme sports and the spectacles of violence that permeate corporate controlled media industries. Students are not at risk because of the absence of market incentives in the schools. Young people are under siege in American schools because, in the absence of funding, equal opportunity and real accountability, far too many of them have increasingly become institutional breeding grounds for racism, right-wing paramilitary cultures, social intolerance and sexism.[13] We live in a society in which a culture of testing, punishment and intolerance has replaced a culture of social responsibility and compassion."

Pakistan News Service - PakTribune

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:33:00 -0800

A Letter to America
Anwaar Hussain

From the page: "With your election of Barack Hussein Obama, you have almost realized the dream of Martin Luther King. Now truly you have a chance to rise up as a nation and live out the proper meaning of the creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Now you have an opportunity to ensure that `on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners indeed are able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood'. Now is the time to make certain that your great country does really get `transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice'. Now is that moment in time to become color blind forever to the skin tones of not just your countrymen but of all the citizens of our planet. Do that and you have arrived.

But before you can join Barack Obama's sweet lilting voice in singing, Free at last! Free at last!, Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!, you have one last ritual to perform. And that is the killing of the demons of your recent past lest they come back to haunt you yet again. Unless you perform that sacred rite too, this transformation stands incomplete.

Look around yourselves and you will see on your national scene the authors of your misfortunes still strutting about in full vigor. Your dictator president with a God-complex, your conceited leaders with a talent in exploitation, your self-righteous and egotistical political elites who dived to the murkiest depths to perpetuate their villainous rule and your bigoted religious leaders who poured venom in the name of God; all are there.

Switch on a TV channel, read a newspaper report, listen to the radio and you will find that the supporting cast of parasites, plunderers and human lowlifes, who helped your previous masters put on the gaudy show full of blood and gore, are fast camouflaging themselves to ensure the survival of their craft. With the latest change in the political landscape of your country, they are about to merge with the background wherefrom they will stalk your great nation, lying in wait, for a chance to seize its jugular once more; this time for good if they can help."

Continued here.

Wonk Room & Rick Warren: Stopping Evil 'Is The Legitimate Role Of Government'

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:57:58 -0800

Rick Warren: Stopping Evil "Is The Legitimate Role Of Government"

From the page: "Appearing on Fox's Hannity and Colmes last night to promote his new book, Pastor Rick Warren made a brief foray into foreign policy. Responding to Hannity's assertion that "we need to take him [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out," Warren agreed, saying that stopping evil "is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers."

Does Warren really consider it part of his ministry to sanctify the inch-deep theologizing-cum-warmongering of thugs like Sean Hannity? If so, who else does Warren think Jesus would bomb?

I contacted Pastor Warren's office for clarification, specifically to find out where, exactly, the Bible says that "God puts government on earth to punish evildoers" like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They said they'd get back to me. I'll update if and when they do. I suspect Warren was referring to Romans 13, in which the Apostle Paul admonished Christians to submit to governing authorities (Hear that Hannity? Submit!), and also addressed the power of civil government to punish criminals. This has nothing to do, as far as I know, with invading foreign countries and killing their leaders, which is the context in which Warren is speaking.

In any case, if this were a conversation between an Iranian TV host and an ayatollah in which they discussed scriptural justifications for "taking out" high ranking members of the U.S. government, you'd probably see Sean Hannity running the clip on his show -- while slowly shaking his head in pious disapproval -- as evidence of what crazy extremists those Iranians are. As it is, they'll probably be running this on Iranian TV as evidence of what crazy extremists those Americans are."

Yes, he's the anti-gay pastor chosen to deliver invocation at Obama's inauguration.