Once again, wandering, thinking - join me for some rumination.
The day after i published my last post (July 3 2016), this appeared in the media:
"The Deputy Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, said on Friday (al-Quds Day), during Iran's commemoration of the country's solidarity with the Palestinian people, that Lebanon has 100,000 missiles ready to strike Israel. "The opportunity to destroy Israel is now better than ever, because tens of thousands of long-range missiles all over the Islamic world are ready to hit Israel immediately upon receiving the order," Salami reportedly said."
(This is just one article, i am sure there were many more, with greater depth than i can quote.)
Sooo... is this just saber rattling?
Israel has it's 'iron dome' as protection:
So what happens if the unthinkable takes place?
(Ever seen the movie 'Dr Strangelove/?
Wars never go the way those who start them think they will. I recall a quote from some general that ends with the question: "... soooo.. tell me how it ends."
Just look at what shit the US has stepped into since 9/11, nothing went as planned, there were no Iraqi WMD, too many middle eastern countries are in shambles, their societies don't have a clue how to be democratic, they have been ruled by religion or dictators for decades if not centuries.
"History never flows in a predictable way. It is always a result of seemingly random currents and incidents, the significance of which can be determined — or, more often, disputed — only in hindsight."
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'We are a world awash in weapons and grievances.'
And Islam is a rather schizophrenic religion - is it really a religion of peace?....
or do they condone and encourage the killing of all infidels? It depends on who you listen to.
"Honor killings"??? This is totally barbaric to western standards, but these people believe in it, & do it.
"The killing has put the spotlight back on so-called honor killings in Pakistan. Each year, hundreds of Pakistani women are killed by relatives angered by behavior they believe has tarnished the family’s reputation, human-rights activists say."
“The accused and the complainant are from the same family and they forgive each other,” ......
“No one is ever prosecuted.”
**Sick, sick, sick**!!! to our western sensibilities.
Her Father Shot Her in the Head, as an ‘Honor Killing’
Nicholas Kristof JAN. 30, 2016
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Once again, wandering, thinking
As always, i look to photography, montage making, to be some sort of positive effort to make sense of things.
At the top, some kind of cosmic powers... channeled into very simple tools. Are we the simple tools who are probably squandering these powers?
I wrote an artist's statement many, many years ago, it stands the test of time:
"I'm obviously interested in things metaphysical - beyond that, it's up to the viewer to decide what's going on. (If I haven't figured them out yet, (and I haven't, not really), why should I presume to explain them to anyone else?)
Many of the pictures just seem to 'happen', because the individual negatives are 'looking' for each other. I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that.
(...But those were always the best kind of parties, right?)
Once again, wandering, thinking - 'incantables' - the rhyme or reason hard to decipher.
I have come across some online discussions that are equally pondering:
Jethro Tulll - Benefit
'.....weaving thru london town, to cry you a song'
RE one of the comments on this track:
Mariaeugenia Mayer wrote:
"incantables" (unsingables) - 'canción' = chanson, song; Some musical pieces, like FM's Oh Well, and Jimi's 3rd Stone from the Sun, are unsingables, meaning they are the very opposite of a sing-along song; they have no melody, apparently, and when you finally detect some "melody" it is bizarrely stretched out, scattered in pieces, hidden within another tune or beat or "bars" etc. I lack the musical education to be able to express myself here. In both songs, however, the lead guitar carries the stretched-out tune, and weaves it in and out of the instrumental tapestry.
Hope I did not bore you Laurel with my attempt....
(Laurel gets it. At least someone in this thread gets it. I am still a bit lost. I DO know that Mitch Mitchell's drumming carries the day on 3rd stone from the sun, as it does on sooo many Hendrix tracks. Hendrix once introduced him as 'my Elvin Jones' - do a youtube search on that, you'll be glad you did :-) )
Laurel Marshall:
Mariaeugenia Mayer, Not at all, Mariaeugenia Mayer! You said what you were describing very well; I will just have to go back & listen to those songs to see what you mean specifically, so that I can understand better & we can pull it apart & 'look at it'. (That could be very interesting.) Sometimes the rhythm with the drums & bass provide the 'hidden' & 'not so hidden' main structure of the song, which the other instruments (like lead & rhythm guitar & singer's voices) can weave & wrap themselves around, or blend with. Often too, one hears the 'counterpoint' to the song too mixed in with the melody & harmonies so that it can get confusing about 'what is what' in a song; structure-wise...........
Actually IMHO the beginning and end of '3rd stone from the sun' is singable - Jimi is borrowing very nicely from Wes Montgomery.
It is the middle section that is beautifully 'incantable'.
3rd stone from the sun:
(( Eric Johnson does a nice cover of this:
But then again, Eric johnson is always nothing short of brilliant!
Manhattan (sic?):
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'Stand up' - remastered 2001
'it was a new day yesterday, but it's an old day now.'
'When the wheels come down':
'When the wheels come down' - yes, another of the "incantables".
You can interpret this phrase in whatever way you want.
Thank you, Dave Grohl.
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You've heard about stuxnet? - an old headline, but a very current and important topic - cyber security, malware, hacking. I think all this digital stuff, this 'interconnectedness'? ..is a Pandora's box, we've opended it, and will never be able to close it, ever. Stuxnet was a computer malware thing, designed to wreak havoc on Iran's nuclear facilities. It had to have been planted by someone on the inside, a mole who plugged in a thumb drive, none of Iran's nuclear stuff is hooked up to the internet. Somewhere in Iran, someone is very, very scared - if they have not already been caught and executed.
Director Alex Gibney’s “Zero Days,” out July 8, attempts to fills in gaps in the story of what happened with the malware program.
In Gibney’s version of events, the U.S. entered a partnership with Israel to use cyber weaponry largely to keep Israel from starting a war the United States would be called on to finish.
The fallout of Stuxnet was more than a U.S. and Israeli black eye. The blown cover likely released the techniques used to create the worm to the public. And, soon after the attack, Iran is believed to have hacked a number of US properties, including the stock market and major banks.
This story is not over by any means, in fact it is just beginning.
Malware/Hacking into major computer systems?
Can you imagine what would happen if the electrical grid in the US was hacked, brought down?
Think 'apocalypse now' cause that's what it would be. No electricity, no internet, no ATM's.
Grocery stores? closed, no way to do business, all frozen & refrigerated food spoiling.
If you thought the SNL skit from decades ago was funny?
"show me your guns"
...it won't be funny any more, it'll be deadly serious. We'll be in the stone age, every man woman and child for themselves.
But of course we will also be in 'mad' territory = 'Mutually Assured Destruction'. Who knows how many countries have a flotilla of 'technicians' at the ready, to retaliate, to send a signal to unknown submarines and missile silos, to bring out the big guns. I mean the really, REALLY big guns.
Ours? Not below the Pentagon, or at Langley/CIA.
Or in Nevada.
Somewhere deeper and darker than that.
This is what the internet was originally created for - communicating when all else stopped working.
When the big red button got pushed.
"The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.[1] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s."
And when the shit hits the fan, the wheels come down?
This is how we'll feel:
And this is where we may have to relearn everything, once again.
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How complicated has our world become?
By ANNALYN KURTZAUG. 8, 2016 - NY Times
When a Malfunction on Land Keeps a Fleet of Planes From the Sky
Airlines, of course, are only one of many industries with complex systems whose failure can be catastrophic. Many companies, like banks and large financial traders, manage the risk by copying data to service areas powered by different data centers, so they can continue working in the event of an outage.
Delta said the problem was touched off by a power failure about 2:30 a.m. Eastern, shutting down computers and grounding flights for about six hours before Delta began to incrementally bring its systems back online.
Any idea how many lines of code are in the backbone of Delta's computer heart?
I don't even want to think about it, the answer is .... 'incantable'...?
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Meanwhile we have a presidential election coming our way, and one candidate is doing nothing but fanning flames of hatred, stupidity, ignorance ... like we need anymore of that.
'We are a world awash in weapons and grievances.'
Make America Hate Again
The Opinion Pages | Contributing Op-Ed Writer
Timothy Egan JULY 22, 2016
For a campaign now devoted to “law and order,” the launch was mob rule: in spirit, in tone, in words. Long after we’ve forgotten Trump’s closing speech — that paean to self, that nightmare portrait of an America where the lights have gone out — we will remember the savagery just below the surface.
"When the convention closed, fear had won the hall. And we should fear — for the republic, for a democracy facing its gravest peril since the Civil War."
I live in California, something of a crossroads, people come here from around the world seeking something called 'higher ground'?
I know that the battle over immigration, be it legal or illegal, won't end by governmental fiat.
These lands have been fought over, boundaries claimed and lost, for centuries. There is in fact no real border, it's all a construct, constructed by those who know little about the real history of peoples here. No border fence will keep them out.
It's like the lyric in a Warren Zevon song:
'They say love conquers all, you can't start it like a car, you can't stop it with a gun'.
'Searchin for a heart'
'Back in the high life'
In the comments for 'Back in the high life' this post
"I courted death my entire existence on that beautiful blue ball called earth; just look at many of my lyrics. I'm not sure I fully appreciated wearing that human costume, but now I see that I wrote some fine songs and made some nice friends. I knew "death" was always hot breathe on my neck and I referenced it many times. But now, in this expanded version of myself, of course I know there is no death. The lesson: do what you want. It all leads to a fine place." Love, Warren
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All along the watch tower - Jimi Hendrix - audio
Really sweet - women of Ireland - Lizzie Ball (violin), Tal Wilkenfeld (bass) & Jonathan Joseph (drums) - live at Madison Square Garden 2013.
And if you want to clear your head out, listen to some drumming that can't be done by computers, drum machines, auto tune? - Gene Krupa!:
You could also dial up some Keith Moon, John Bonham, Elvin Jones.
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A few things i discovered many years ago about how the world works:
1 - no one is special, not really. we all put our pants on the same way (yes, you ladies do too) We all have to wipe our own butts, ain't no one gonna help w/ that one. I spent 6 years at a most prestigious NE prep school, w/ guys last names like 'Hunt', 'Scribner' ( yes that Scribner = publishing) 'Reedy' ( as in LBJ's press secretary) ... and so on and so on and so on. We all have our foibles. And let it not be forgotten, our good points too.
2 - Treat everyone you meet w/ respect, kindness, be well spoken & polite, and also ready to listen to someone, anyone, else. Treat them as you would like to be treated. You will get back what you dish out, it's called karma. What goes around comes around. I have rubbed elbows w/ the 'high and mighty', and also shown up at a BBQ take-out shack in Old Town Alexandria VA at 2 AM in the mid '70's, being the only white guy there ... and never had any problems. Drop any pretensions you might have about your own importance, no one is really that important. Humanity will have a short span on this planet.. we are already burning thru what we have.
As for "Treat everyone you meet w/ respect, kindness, be well spoken & polite.... "
Sometimes you gotta put that rule aside, take (the late great inimitable) John Belushi's advice, but w/ a a grain of salt:
"Don't take shit from anyone".
Strike a balance between the two above advices, don't play this card unless you really have to.
Choose, think, decide - wisely, carefully.
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SundayReview | Opinion
By MENNO SCHILTHUIZENJULY 23, 2016
"For a long time, biologists thought evolution was a very, very slow process, too tardy to be observed in a human lifetime. But recently, we have come to understand that evolution can happen very quickly, as long as natural selection — the relative benefit that a particular characteristic bestows on its bearer — is strong."
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Well, after 45+ years, i am still a-smokin' as i write this. Perhaps when the wheels come down, it'll be me, Keith Richards, and cockroaches.
