[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]
You might want to rethink whether to reuse that 1987 Madonna calendar I gave you for 2015, or to keep it safe and in good condition instead, for look at what I just found on eBay:
$36.78. Buy It Now: Madonna : official danilo / boy toy calendar. Huge madonna collection for sale now. Rare 1987. Original. Very good / excellent condition.Either that or keep it after 2015 for reuse in 2026, 2037, 2043, and 2054, when who knows what it'll be selling for?
The Association of Nicaraguan Working Women in the Sex Industry (Nicaragua RedTraSex) today celebrated seven years of fighting for their rights.
“For seven years we’ve raised our voices together for our rights, and we have achieved great accomplishments,” said RedTraSex in a statement....
In Nicaragua there are 14,486 sex workers, 14% of which are associated with the RedTraSex.
Interesting [Sunday Review: How We Got to Now (TV) & 700 Sundays (theatre on HBO): Strange fruit]. I heard "Strange Fruit" at a Josh White concert back in the early 60's. I always thought he had written it.
This flagrant behavior alone ["Shocking mistake in Darren Wilson grand jury"] is reason enough for the Feds to step in and try both Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown and Bob McCullough for prosecutorial misconduct. I live in Missouri and am familiar with what a travesty our local Police/Justice system is. Even for me, conduct this gross under the scrutiny of the world smacks of an arrogance so heinous even I cannot countenance it. This clip cannot be reposted enough!
The Daily Show: Instigate—reaction to the grand jury decision in Ferguson fish: Excerpt:
I feel you! But, I get what you are saying there. This is an isolated incident. Like the police shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. Or Dante Parker in San Bernadino County. Or Kendrec McDade in Pasadena. Or Armond Bennett in New Orleans. Or John Crawford in … what time does Colbert start? It’s in like a half hour, right? Well, we’ll move on.
The point is, these shootings are clearly not a manifestation of systemic inequality and mistrust between African American community and the somehow always justified police American community. But, these are merely an unending bizarrely similar series of isolated incidents.
But if there is nothing to justify the anger and protests in these communities, why would so many individuals around the country spend their precious hard earned pre-Christmas sale stampeding time protesting a non-existent problem?
Man [black] Stopped For Walking With His Hands In His Pockets. Excerpt:
As if we needed another example of the madness that is our burgeoning police state to surface this week, a man from Michigan was detained Thursday under suspicion of walking with his hands in his pockets in freezing temperatures. If you weren’t aware that walking with your hands in your pockets is a crime, it’s because it isn’t. But that didn’t stop the officer from detaining the man. The incident occurred at 4:30pm on Thanksgiving day in the city of Pontiac, when Brandon McKean was walking on Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, and was detained and questioned by the police officer. The temperature in Pontiac reached a high of 33 degrees on Thanksgiving.
I’m grateful for a place to call home.
The U.S. government could open up parts of the Arctic Ocean to exploratory oil drilling as soon as next year. According to their own analysis, there is a 75 percent chance of a large spill if oil companies like Shell are allowed to develop and produce in Alaska.
At this month’s Arctic Council meeting in Yellowknife, Canada, the U.S. Department of State announced key initiatives that it plans on pursuing when it assumes the two year Chair of the eight-nation council in April 2015.
These initiatives, presented under the theme of “One Arctic: Shared Opportunities, Challenges, and Responsibilities,” will focus largely on reducing the causes of and impacts from climate change and will include projects ranging from reducing emissions of short lived climate pollutants to developing a circumpolar Arctic network of Marine Protected Areas.
The U.S. announced their priority programs in three distinct thematic areas:
- Addressing the Impacts of Climate Change in the Arctic,
- Stewardship of the Arctic Ocean, and
- Improving Economic and Living Conditions in the Arctic.
This swift decline of the population is a direct result of fishing nets. These vaquitas are getting caught in nets, and dying completely preventable deaths. Tell the US government to work with Mexico to ban the gillnets that threaten the future of the vaquita.] remain in the wild, making it the most endangered marine mammal in the world.
This swift decline of the population is a direct result of fishing nets. These vaquitas are getting caught in nets, and dying completely preventable deaths.
This swift decline of the population is a direct result of fishing nets. These vaquitas are getting caught in nets, and dying completely preventable deaths.
To compare dogs and Hummers, I figured that driving the typical 12,000 miles a year in a Hummer would burn around 800 gallons. At 125,000 British thermal units per gallon, that’s 100 million Btus a year. Then, I assumed a stupendously extravagant dog diet of a pound of beef – the most energy-intensive meat--per day. Because dogs need to eat the equivalent of 2 percent of their weight every day, this seems a fair amount, though it fails to give credit the teeny-weeny actual and ecological footprints of Chihuahuas, toy poodles, and other micro-canines. But erring on the side of wolfhounds, a population of some 74 million dogs would consume around 28 billion pounds of beef – roughly all the beef now eaten in the United States.
How much energy would this luxury doggy diet require? According to the latest energy numbers from the USDA, the total energy expended on beef production, shipping, refrigeration, etc. is around 395.5 billion Btus. So even on an all-beef diet, the individual dog’s share would be 5.25 million Btus, or only a bit more than 5 percent of the energy burned by a Hummer in a year.
Hello. Do you know Agent Mary Briggs Florance? I am contacting you to know if you got your Facebook active users compensation bonus from her. Its an empowerment program to help peopl, especially the senior citizen, adult, youth. I have received mine from them already. The Fedex delivery service came to my door step and delivered 150,000 in cash to me in person. I thought you would have received yours from them too because I saw your name on the winners list when the Express Parcel delivery service came to my door step to deliver cash to me in person early last month. Am really positive about this...Yes, it's really me. This is real. I think you should talk to the agent on her Facebook contact link to claim yours from them, and add her as friend. Make sure you do that asap coz I learnt the winnings are closing soon. I reallly want you to get the winning like I got mine too. Really feels good winning such money.
OK, Morris, wait while we check our beneficiaires list so we can confirm your name. If you are ready to get your Cash get back to me with this information below:
Full Name...........We need all the information and you need to choose a Password that you will use to unlock the money when we bring it in a security box. When we bring the money to you we will ask for your password as a secret question to make sure you are the real person, then we give you the money..........
Address............
Male/Female.......................
Deaf or hearing..........
City................
State..............
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Zip-code..............
text or Cell No.........
Age....................
Do u Own a House or Rent?..............
Occupation......
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Pls reply back and once again Congratulations. We need you to fill out those information so we can start your delivery processing.
One of my piano students recently sent me a link to a YouTube video of the female vocalist in this video demonstrating overtone singing, which you can hear in this performance, as well. I was explaining during a lesson the sonic phenomenon of overtones and how it affects the timbre. So, I was pleasantly surprised to hear her again in your video link!
Whistleblower Edward Snowden received several standing ovations in the Swedish parliament after being given the Right Livelihood award for his revelations of the scale of state surveillance.Acceptance speech:
Snowden, who is in exile in Russia, addressed the parliament by video from Moscow. In a symbolic gesture, his family and supporters said no one picked up the award on his behalf in the hope that one day he might be free to travel to Sweden to receive it in person.
Andy Rooney had the gift of saying so much with so few words:
- Life is tough, but I'm tougher.
- Opportunities are never lost, someone will take the ones you miss.
- When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.
- I wish I could have told my mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.
Exactly [Limerick of the week: The bacon-addicted tell themselves lies:...sows confined to reproduce / never long to be let loose....], however, I love bacon!!!
Mmmm bacon
Something I have never forgotten was when my first son was about five years old, we went to an uncle's house for "pig killing day." Made the mistake of walking in that area with my son and a pig was upside down screaming his head off! My son said, "Mom does that pig know he is about to die?" and I thought "I think he does." It was real creepy to witness that!
A gestation crate, also known as a sow stall, is a metal enclosure used in intensive pig farming, in which a female breeding pig (sow) may be kept during pregnancy, and in effect for most of her adult life. The enclosures measure 6.6 ft × 2.0 ft (2 m × 60 cm) and house sows that weigh up to 900 lbs (408 kg).Uncensored joke: A small boy asks his Dad, "Daddy, what is politics?"
The floors of the crates are made of concrete, and are slatted to allow waste to be collected below. A few days before giving birth, they are moved to farrowing crates, where they are able to lie down to nurse and the piglets have room on the sides to get away from the sow to sleep and play.
The floors of the crates are made of concrete, and are slatted to allow waste to be collected below. A few days before giving birth, they are moved to farrowing crates, where they are able to lie down to nurse and the piglets have room on the sides to get away from the sow to sleep and play.
Opponents of gestation crates believe that they are unhealthy and constitute animal abuse, while proponents argue they are needed because sows, like most animals that live in groups, would develop a social hierarchy and fight between themselves.
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Your mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense."
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. The little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father having sex with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."
The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."
The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit.”
The Consolations of Italy. Excerpt:
ROME — It is always a pleasure to return to Rome and find that some things never change. I dissipated part of my youth here in a trance of happiness and, even at this distance, I find that happiness accessible. As we grow older memory gains in importance, a labyrinth of infinite possibility....Yet another stunning road. Col de Turini, France:
Rush on world, the voice of Rome seems to murmur: ambition will founder, conquest will unravel, riches will be lost, power will be dissipated, palaces will crumble, great loves will end, borders will be redrawn; and you, shed at last of your illusions, will be left to find comfort in beauty, family, your corner of the city, and a steaming plate of bucatini all’amatriciana....
There is nothing that unusual for a Roman about going home for lunch (or even having “la Mamma” prepare it). Resistance to change can also be healthy. It is a buffer against dislocation and loneliness, preserving the ties of family and sociability. Cultural skepticism about change runs deep. Unlike Americans, Italians have no desire to reinvent themselves. Rome restrains the itch to believe all can be changed utterly. Style is its refuge.....
The past year has been sobering. A quarter-century on from the fall of the Berlin Wall we see how deluded we were to imagine, even for a moment, that the old battles of nation-states and rival ideologies would give way to a world driven by enlightened self-interest and the shared embrace of Western liberal democracy and the rule of law.
Al Qaeda, Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Communist Party thought otherwise. Powers still do what they do: seek to further their interests, accumulate resources and advance their ideologies, at the expense of others if necessary. Beheadings and plague have not been banished from the world.
Italians tend to shrug. They knew this all along. There are compelling reasons to prefer beauty to the squalid affairs of the world.
Apparently this "training" has stood a lot of youths in good stead as if you look at the pit stops on F1 racing the majority of the "mechanics" are from the valleys!!!
I looked through scrap books to find some of Cliff's rhymes/poems. This next was written in 2010 for our 18th anniversary:
Precious and cuddly my sweet kitten is,
Has a head on her shoulder for financial biz.
Loving and warm, always ahead of the game,
She comes out on top without any strain.
You're precious beyond words can say-
Oh kitten, how you make my day!
Limerick-inspired verse of the week:
Obama despisers tell themselves lies:
it's not because he's black that we despise,
it's because he's liberal,
so learned and lyrical...
and he's trying to make us socialize.
| Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean |
Thanks for the fish! Madonna half a lifetime ago, sex workers, flagrant behavior in the grand jury room, Instagate, natural assault, too good an offer to be true, more overtone singing, Snowden wins!, The Cat in the Hat on aging, further thoughts on bacon, analogical joke, shrugging Italians, Merthyr [Wales] mechanics, Obama despisers tell themselves lies....
ReplyDeleteGood fish as always.
ReplyDelete