Particularly liked this one from this morning…

Choosing Among Immoralities

Do you have access to wealth and the creation of more of it? Or must you sell your time, your body, and your labor for even the minimal means of your survival? (Rhyd Wildermuth, Here Be Monsters)

… i have been thinking about the morality of being an American, with a middle to upper middle class level of wealth and consumption and, therefore, responsibility for global oppression structures and destruction of the planet… liberal friends who are certain that Donald Trump is evil, might sit out the vote in November because it would be immoral to support Vice President Harris… in their minds, she shares responsibility with President Biden for failing to force Israel to stop it’s Palestinian genocide… this is a luxury they will permit themselves because they live in a state that will reliably vote Democrat and send all its electoral college votes to Harris/Walz… in the meantime they live a comfortable upper middle class existence in America and don’t much question its impact on the globe and its peoples… they also don’t see the importance of making sure Donald Trump is defeated, not narrowly, but massively at every level… what should i say to them?… or do they have an argument i should listen to?…

Lately I’ve been feeling very alone on Micro.blog. My posts are mostly ignored. I post a variety of things, so it can’t all be uninteresting. This place makes me sad more than it makes me happy. Don’t know what to do about that.

An intriguing addition to my Everyday Mandala series…

We went with friends to the [Hammond Museum and Japanese Gardens]((https://www.hammondmuseum.org) yesterday…

… we then had lunch at Purdy’s The Farmer and the Fish which was excellent!

A random encounter on the street…

… a man, tall, lanky, in his late 40’s, early 50’s, calls out to me as i am walking down Elm street to Main Street… he is sitting on top of a picnic table under a tree with a cup of coffee… i can’t make out what he is saying at first and ask him to repeat… he tells me he respects LGBTQ people and that Jesus welcomes everyone to the table… i thank him for his words of support… “God bless you!” he says as i move on… i an a little surprised… i had not thought i was presenting so obviously it could be seen from a distance… still, i am happy to be recognized as LGBTQ… later on, i pass him on Main Street… i have observed him righting a trash can that had been tipped over during the night… he asks me if i tipped it over and says you people up from the city need to be more respectful… i tell him that i live in Beacon and that i didn’t do it… he reaches his hand out and tells me his name is Danny and that he’s lived his whole life in the house with the yellow shutters on Elm street… i have never seen him before… i tell him my name and that i live around the corner from him on Dewindt street… he goes back to expressing his acceptance of LGBTQ people… he tells me he thinks we are angels, we all have wings on our backs… “I hope so,” i say… he says, “i know so,”… i wish him a good day and move on…

From this morning’s walk…

Everlane is having an end of summer sale. I scored the skirt, dress and blouse (without the shorts) at substantial discount. I am a big Everlane fan. Their clothing is well made, reasonably priced (even before sale markdown), and the company centers sustainability in their products and shipping. And, they have plus sizing for most garments.

At the same time I am shopping these elegant heels…

… my wife is shopping for the ever fashionable combat boots to go with her jeans and leather biker jacket… there seems to be a bit of gender role reversal going on.

Rather like this selfie from this morning…

… this version too!

An individual, like a people, like a continent, dies out when he shrinks from both rash plans and rash acts, when, instead of taking risks and hurling himself toward being, he cowers within it, takes refuge there: a metaphysics of regression, a retreat to the primordial! (E. M. Cioran and Richard Howard, The Temptation to Exist)

August 27, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

“For those counting,” legal analyst Andrew Weismann wrote, “FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.”

From this morning’s walk… trying out a new “film” pack in Hipstamatic…

What I Expected, What I Got | In Opposition

The most pleasant surprise of all, however, has been the number of people who have gone out of their way to affirm my feminine forward presentation. A neighbor from a few doors up was driving by and stopped to tell me he thought I had been rocking my outfits lately. Another neighbor I often pass during early morning walks told me she thought my outfits had been really cute lately. A vender in the farmer’s market told me she had been noticing me for a while and that she loved my style.

From this morning’s walk…

The war, of course, furnished many examples of this pattern: the casual fact, the creative imagination, the will to believe, and out of these three elements, a counterfeit of reality to which there was a violent instinctive response. For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities, and that in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond. (Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion)

… sounds vaguely familiar…

In America more than anywhere else, the spectacle of mechanical progress has made so deep an impression, that it has suffused the whole moral code. (Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion)

Experience is an inherently uncertain business that carries risk – a risk without which one can learn nothing. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

Curiosity will never be content… Perhaps there are things, like many others, destined never to be learnt before the world comes to its end. Or perhaps—but here I speculate, here my own curiosity leads me by the nose—the world is so arranged that when all things are learnt, when curiosity is exhausted (so, long live curiosity), that is when the world shall have come to its end. But even if we learn how, and what, and where, and when, will we ever know why? Why, why?” (Patrik Svensson, The Book of Eels)

The worship of death is a central component of patriarchal thinking, whether expressed by women or men. (bell hooks, All About Love)

… what is Deadpool - Wolverine if not a grand opera of death?

True love is unconditional, but to truly flourish it requires an ongoing commitment to constructive struggle and change.¹

I have always thought that if I found the right way of thinking, clouds would dissolve, skies would turn blue, oceans might even part for me to walk through.² If I believe that love is the answer, then I should bring that attitude of love to the cosmos. If I do that, the cosmos will love me back, right? But how does the cosmos love except through living beings? Then an attitude of love will bring love in return from all living beings, right? But that is not how it is. I eat this animal and harvest that plant in order to survive. Sometimes the animals and plants want to eat or harvest me. They need to survive too.

This business of survival is where the strife comes from. The goal is to wrap the strife with love. Good things can happen, though probably not of the clouds dissolving and ocean parting kind.

From this morning’s walk…

Of course my wife had to have this sign…

A nice thing happened today. In the farmer’s market I stopped by the stall of a young woman who makes jewelry. She said hello and immediately told me how much she liked my style which she had, apparently, been observing for a while now. She made my day.

From this morning’s walk…