Thursday, November 13, 2014

Salvete, qui legunt -

At present I find myself with three blogs, in effect - this one on Blogger here, http://iohannkn.blogspot.com/;   my Wordpress one http://iohannkn.wordpress.com/  (a left-over from Microsoft's personal pages days);   and now a shared one, the Redwood Stoa site at http://redwoodstoa.wordpress.com/, where I can post as "the Redwood Stoa" along with my co-Stoics.  I'm wondering if I can link all three - the software side of all this, even the user interface side, I usually find somewhat baffling (interface and utility expectations frustrated), so I'll have to poke around a bit.  The alternative is to dump one of the two personal ones. 

When next I post, I want to look at my son's personal Deus ex Machina, "The Four Agreements" of Don Miguel Ruiz, a self-help book with a lot of Stoic parallels. 

Vale valeteque.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Post-Midterm Elections, 2014

"Dear Diary - "

"But every time there's a thunder storm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, 'Dan'l Webster--Dan'l Webster!' the ground'll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake.  And after a while you'll hear a deep voice saying, 'Neighbor, how stands the Union?' Then you better answer the Union stands as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper sheathed, one and indivisible, or he's liable to rear right out of the ground."  --The Devil and Daniel Webster, by Stephen Vincent Benet

It's certainly better that Republicans have their turn than that more of them go underground and turn their backs on the United States' republic itself.  I am content if "the Union stands" and hasn't gone fascist. 

When President Obama was elected back in 2008, the American Right went insane - Birchers, racists, Confederate-sympathizers and conspiracy nuts came out of the woodwork, and the Tea Party spontaneously formed around the hard-assed and dissatisfied among us.  It was a "Yokai Dai Sensou" American-style, and it found itself well-funded and popular, and it went right to work.  In 2012, and after these 2014 Mid-Term Elections last night, I was glad that - at the least - there was no coup attempt, no death-squads, no assassination attempt; that the United States' republic still stood and the rule of law still stood.  Even drowned in Republican super-pac money, the house still stands.

As individuals we have no control over life, over others, or over how others think.  All you can do with regard to political opposites is point out their fallacies, their immoralities, and their hostility to life.  Beyond that, it's all about looking at that life and reviewing your own perceptions against reality and good sense. 

And so on and so forth.  Valete.