Response to “We are fighting ‘two pandemics’ Covid-19 and stupidity” meme

I believe the “we” have always been fighting stupidity just as the “they” have always been fighting it too, just a different sort or from a different angle. I saw a headline today about “left-leaning groups” lobbying Biden over the defense budget. When writing and reporting for possibly millions of eyeballs, why don’t we use true descriptive words — like progressive, or ethical, or peaceful, or socially just, or traditional, change-averse, anti-innovation, religious, whatever — when we refer to groups or people associated with certain values, rather than generalizing by saying they are “left” and “right?” Is it because we have lazily allowed ourselves (and the media) to assume that everyone knows what left and right means (“good” and “bad” probably mostly), depending on what side you’re on? Rhetoric. Semantics. Language. La Langue. They are more powerful forces than most realize and we need to deploy them specifically and with great care and attention.  ~ cjzurcher

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Does Sonya Renee Taylor speak for all of us? I think she speaks for me.

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garmen. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” ~ Sonya Renee Taylor

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Is it all just a self-protective device?

It’s probably just, not merely, a dire measure taken by this blessed Earth and creation to protect what is hers, and shed some light on that which is ours, but that which is less than all the intelligence that has been in our hands to do with what we would, and did, from the dawn of creation. What, after all, looking back, would you have done? What did you do? And what were you capable of? Surely nothing as grandiose or magnificent as this. Surely nothing even close. ~ cjz

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Half the world is under stay-at-home orders

It’s comforting to know that I’m one of millions who are having a difficult time truly understanding what it means that half the world is under stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 virus. There’s a feeling of solidarity with those millions that you can, or maybe that you must take for granted. I would think that feeling — the feeling of being a part of a global community that shares the feelings that you’re having — I would think that alone might help ease the feelings, whether they are feelings of fear, anxiety, dread, boredom, or a gazillion other things that are the result of the absolutely unimaginable effects that a microscopic molecule is having on all the human inhabitants of this blue planet of ours.

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Global Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic tests human capacities

COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is a crisis that demands we come together now as a global community (not at 350ppm or after the next great flood, but now); when we are indiscriminately threatened – rich or poor, black or white, Middle Eastern or Asian or Mexican or American. Living on this large ship, Earth, has always been a process of grasping at straws. It’s just a question of how we respond to the severity and the immediacy of the need to help and care for each other that determines how successful we will be keeping the ship afloat and the passengers both safe and peaceful. It’s not a question of who’s got more money. It’s not a question of who has more bombs. It’s an elemental question of how much capacity we have to muster our compassion, sympathy, generosity, humanity.    ~ cjzurcher

 

 

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Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break, and all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” ~ L.R. Knost

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15 Reasons to Avoid the News | Rolf Dobelli

15 reasons to avoid the consumption of news
  • The news lead us systematically to error. …
  • The news are irrelevant. …
  • The news limited understanding. …
  • The news are toxic to our body. …
  • The news may increase the risk of errors in cognitive. …
  • The news inhibits thinking. …
  • The news changed the structure of our brain. …
  • The news have a cost.

A review of a work called “The information Diet” proposed to reduce the consumption of information in order to alleviate the (according to him) harmful effects of consumption of the same.

Then, thanks to the excellent blog Lapidarium notes an article was uncovered written in 2010 by Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli called “Avoid news: towards a healthy news diet.” In it, Dobelli invites us to reduce our consumption of news to maintain a healthy diet of information.

According to Dobelli, the majority of us do not understand that the news is to the mind what sugar is to the body: an ingredient easy to digest, which never seem to be satisfied. The media provide us with small portions of matters which, in reality, are not of interest for our daily life and that do not require a thought developed. And it is for this reason that we do not experience saturation, unlike what happens when we read books or articles in depth.

But the consumption of news has harmful effects on our correct understanding of the world, and even to our health. And Dobelli shows us these effects way of 15 reasons why we should adopt a healthy diet of information.

Read more here: 15 reasons to avoid the consumption of news · mvorganizing.org

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British-Trinidadian dub poet Roger Robinson wins TS Eliot prize

Roger Robinson, the British-Trinidadian dub poet, has won the prestigious TS Eliot prize on his first nomination for his collection A Portable Paradise.

The only poetry award judged solely by established poets, the £25,000 TS Eliot prize has been described by the former poet laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, as “the prize most poets want to win”.

Source: British-Trinidadian dub poet Roger Robinson wins TS Eliot prize | Books | The Guardian

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My as-yet-unpublished letter to the NYTimes about their disgusting Calvin Klein advert

I’m disgusted at the Calvin Klein ad that seems to support the NYT app, in addition to my $8 a month subscription because it could be a picture of the very underage, skeletal, confused, oblivious-looking girl wearing only skimpy flannel undergarments that [Jeffrey] Epstein and his associates might have had sex with. (See below). Do you think those girls enjoyed what they were put through?

Do you think they volunteered for they went through? I wish the NYT, along with many others, would grow a pair of their own and forbid ads that border on depicting and promoting child sex abuse and, instead, stand up against it. For heaven’s sake, what the hell are we thinking?

I’d like you to publicize my concerns, anonymously if you must, and call yourselves on the carpet for whatever you want to call this practice that is just designed to promote immoral thoughts in nasty people, not sell underwear.

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I believe it’s only a matter of time before I get suckered into buying health insurance from a spammy phone call or medication from a spammy email, or conned into giving away my Google or PayPal password to someone telling me my account has been compromised. I guess that by the time I’m senile enough for that to happen, they will be doing much worse things with the data they’re mining.

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Do Not Forget Who You Are…

You are brave
You are strong
You are inspiring
You are a king among all others
Most importantly you are loved
You are cherished
You are appreciated
You are valued
You are someone’s everything.

Couples affirmations -- Print as many as you like, or need. (download)
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