NASA Image of the Day

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Day After

As a shocked U.S. - and a concerned world - reviews its response and electoral duty to maintain  what is supposed to be the best and most possible about recovery, aspiration, and The American Dream, the fondness with which yesteryear is recalled - that feeling of stability and warmth and progress that comes from the best of the traditional - do not include, in 2016, being a Stepford Wife, a doorstop, or that nice lady on the front of the syrup, as an excuse or replacement for being robbed, maimed, tormented, and financially abused. The little old ladies bankrupted by the AGF scandal will not sign to make the transition easy, despite being bullied......again.

The real concern now will be the world's response to the regression of progress.  And it will come, along with a disturbing cultural divide and a widening, saddened gap between the extremes of political viewpoints, unfortunately - just as we had begun to build bridges of understanding.

Let us hope that that does not extend to debate, at a time when the seeking of knowledge to avoid repeated mistakes will be more valuable then ever, from an inexperienced, arrogant, and bewildered non-statesman.

And women, one hopes, will not begin to view themselves as complete once their child-bearing responsibilites have come to an end....and their life as an adult, in an adult world, begins - no matter who insists on keeping us there for their own convenience and ineptness.
 

Sunday, November 6, 2016

"Alive and Kicking" - Simple Minds

https://vimeo.com/65883540

Lyrics to "incandescent blue" by Christian artist and musician, Bruce Cockburn

I sneaked across the border -- it was threatening rain --
So I could stand in this tunnel, waiting for the roaring train
And watch those black kids working out kung fu moves
If you don't want to be the horses' hoofprints you got to be the hooves
Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
And change to white birds as they sail on through
And soar away free into incandescent blue
People getting ready behind all those rectangles of light
"Put on your grin mask, babe, you know we're steppin out tonight"
You hear that sound, like hammers only small?
It's what the people's heads say when they beat them against the wall
Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
And change to white birds as they sail on through
And soar away free into incandescent blue
Concrete vortex sucks down the wind
It's howling like a blinded violin.
Oh -- tongues of fire, come and kiss my brow
If I ever needed you, well I need you now
Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
And change to white birds as they sail on through
And soar away free into incandescent blue

The Case for Hillary Clinton - The Quiet Canadian Speaks

I have pondered, mightily - and with a certain wonderment - why, in these last hours, anyone would find themselves in a quandary, as far as voting for President of the United States.

I think that one must, needs be, examine WHY they are voting, and, in doing so, and with a heart quieted by gentle, firm, and underestimated friendships, affirm, anew, the sensibility, (as we move, somewhat warily, and haltingly, forward) of like beings, within the confines of the human condition, and all its foibles, hopes, trials, strivings, and achievements.

At its simplest, one must seriously examine - like any good committee or observer or interviewer - the candidate for the job. Apart from any personal, traditional, non-traditional, religious or geopolitical "isms", we must simply look with fairness, with shrewdness, and with consideration, at who will DO the job;, who has continued in the midst of difficulty, who has the experience - Proven Experience - who has maintained, despite personal difficulty and setback, a presence and strength within other administrations where the Wheel has been in other hands.....in order to make those hands stronger, in the midst of faltering, and who maintains stability in the midst of trial and tribulation, while, at the same time, seeking counsel, considering it, and using their own considerable and formidable intelligence to find....The Way.

This has provided many doors for others looking for leadership, in ways and in moments of which we may be mightily unaware. It has protected human beings from ego and destruction, in places we cannot imagine, who sought refuge in its strength and comfort in its continuance. This is how human striving works: we strengthen each other in ways of which Wordsworth spoke, in hushed and sacred tones, as "life breath which moves through all things." The glow and the spark and the continuance in the face of true evil, are of God. The vows are real, and the loyalties are continuing, through Test.

When a reasonable human being, considerate and conscious of past work history, personal trials, loyalty, and steadfastness under pressure does this....there is no choice. The choice is Hillary Clinton.

As a woman, I have considered with quiet shrewdness, albeit longing, the idea of "firsts". The first of Indira Ghandi; the first of Joan of Arc; the first Roberta Bondar - astronaut and Anglican, (the last, like me, and yet, unafraid and hopeful).

Firsts are often romantic and idealistic notions of a real hope for progress and achievement beyond walls we cannot hurdle in ignorance, goals we are prevented from achieving, and potentials unrealized, because of barbaric assertions of insecurity and personal weakness on the part of those who promulgate and enforce this sensibility, in all walks of life.

There are first loves, first children, first steps, first failures, first deaths, first.....rejections.

But...this reaction to The First Madame President shows fear, not strength: weakness, not belief and encouragement, and the final, shared realization by Men of possibility, of new understanding, of true recognition of equality....of Life, when it happens.

It is a nod to the Maternal presence within tribe, the Regal unspoken and readily acknowledged responsibility of duty and expected strength in the cultures of ancient and longheld societies, only recently disrespected and forgotten. It is an easy and strong, linking of arms with Partner and Friend, with a deep understanding of personal weakness, of the appetite of power, but the true and lasting understanding of how we empower and strengthen each other in moments of doubt, even within the most private moments of grief in relationship, in perceived and possibly pitied moments of personal implosion from which we must recover and move ahead, through the excruciating and the malady of misunderstanding that is the pressure of Power. To do so, is to be Extraordinary, and Human.

 Many feminists, ripe with the fresh hurt of acknowledged failure in personal loyalties, misunderstand this - to our weakness, since I am one. Many young feminists take for granted the "normals" that they now enjoy, and so are alienated further from cultures - dangerously - having forgotten repression within their own. Rather than distancing ourselves from these moments, to acknowledge, share, and move through them mean that we recognize the foibles of humanity, and how the weaker among women still persist in believing themselves strong only when we become objects: of desire, of unrealistic platitudes, of decorative, useless function....of the moment.

They graduate beyond these images of themselves, as Hillary Clinton, humble in her pantsuits and spectacles, and bereft of the facade and glitz of a Donald Trump and his "hair sculpt"....which only covers virility, after all (she says, with an affectionate wink) showed us, as women. Her greatest concern was that this might show weakness, when she was, like most of us, intent on ....so many other things, frankly. Alas: the temptation of  glamour demanded the Ronald Reagan, the film star.....the Glamour Girl. Infuriated with its penchant for the Perfect Package, it forgot.....the Rock of Ages. The Rock of Ages made us homemade Halloween costumes, worked a double shift to pay for the school trip, gave us their favourite boots, when we couldn't swing the funds for a new pair, and needed them more.....real moments of real women....who didn't particularly need to call themselves REAL WOMEN....we just knew we were. We still do. We walk, unashamed, expecting respect, and acquiring it, for acknowledged participation, among Men.

We didn't compete with our brothers - we paved the way for them, stood as they walked towards us, walked beside them, spoke of others about their strengths and their suitability, proudly, and without guile, or jealousy, or untruth. We understood that beyond the envy and immaturity that is taught to so many women to prevent them from encouraging each other - and a product of fearful men who cannot share power - we finally understood that to be represented by them, was to finally have a face beyond that nameless, futureless, voiceless one: maimed, dispirited, laden with the wrong sexuality.......invisible.

The vessel is used by God, it is said. It is used by God, or used by Nemesis. Oh, that Nemesis did not steal an ending.

Gratefully, the woman's hand that finds another way, understands the bravado of Men, mourns loss but mourns an inability to Try Again, (often misunderstood within the body, proper), is the one that will not mock my consideration and my understanding.....of all these things, in Life - and my demand, that it is Capable.

Martin Luther King Jr. raises an ironic brow, approvingly, in my heart, in Defiance...in Bravery. It is a sober example of extremities of hope and Hatred, never forgotten. These are still Real in a confused and difficult world, however hopeful, but we must not show Fear in the face of what wants us to Fail, mocked.    

It means that Donald Trump's sudden inspiration in the organization and administration of progressive Immigration policies is a rather late, and somewhat sheepish, realization of the unsuitability of reaction in situations of grave consequence and political stability, however wellmeant and soberly considered. This will help no one in Def Con three.

Honey Boo Boo awaits its result, while the rest of the world quietly, and with renewed vigour, continues with the striving of progress - gritting and gruelling and objectionable as it sometimes gets -  when the Wheel changes Hands, understanding that all around is a deep understanding that that
Hand needs to be STEADY, in the face of unimaginable bullying and taunting.

Not one to bare teeth without followthrough....Mrs. Clinton is up to the task, surrounded by the wise
and the wonderful, the spirited and the destitute....still hoping.

The fear that somehow, Democrats do not defend the free, is simply - intruded upon as it might be at present - UNTRUE. In a room full of people with different views, bullying - no matter who does it - will always show itself to be itself, petty and desperate in its methods and its means, thwarted.  
and the wonderful, the hopeful and the destitute.....still hoping.  Still Dreaming. Still Defended. Still supported.

Still Alive. .....and kicking. Wink.