Feminist author Naomi Wolf wrote a rather thought provoking and interesting piece for the UK newspaper, The Guardian. She argues that widespread, court approved sexual humiliation is becoming a routine method to threaten, terrorize and desensitize the American public in order to force political and ideological compliance.
Link: How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses
Jamesetta Hawkins, born January 25, 1938 in Los Angeles to a teenage prostitute, never knew her father and grew up in various foster homes. She became a major recording and performance artist under the name “Etta James”. She passed away on January 20, 2012 in Riverside, California.
Today’s Santa Claus is nothing but a sanitized marketing figure, stripped of all deeper meaning, and sanitized of any mystery. And (perhaps reflective of America), his morbid obesity problem seems to be getting worse from year to year.
Where I grew up, we still have the original Saint Nicholas. The figure is based on Nikolaos of Myra, a 4th century monk and bishop. “Saint Nik”, of course, represents goodness and selfless charity. He promotes quiet introspection and rewards the good.
According to NPR, the nemesis of Santa Claus is now also gaining a foothold in America. Listen or read the transcript:
Horror For The Holidays: Meet The Anti-Santa
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/10/143485735/naughty-or-nice-krampus-horror-for-the-holidays
I’ve been saying for years: It is about time! (See my earlier blog entry). America needs Krampus to cut through all the commerce, carry off some evil people and restore Christmas to its rightful place as a promised time of light, hope and good joy for all mankind.
If you watch the video, you will understand why Austrian and Swiss children do better in school than their American counterparts, and why they never misbehave. (Well, rarely).
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
“Design is not just what it looks like. Design is how it works.”
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to be bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.”
“You can’t just ask customer what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.”
Thank you, sir.
Last weekend I was part of a group making a visit to the Mount Palomar Observatory.
When I was in school (voraciously sucking up astronomy books), Mount Palomar seemed to me like a place of magic and wonder. From its opening in 1949, and until 1992/93, the giant 5.1 m (200 inch) Hale Telescope was the largest and most important telescope in the world. (Actually, there was a larger Soviet telescope of a later design, but it is often omitted because it never functioned quite well).
The compound on the Southern California mountaintop also encompasses several smaller telescopes. Together, they account for most of the groundbreaking discoveries in the entire history of astronomy.
Here are some pictures. (Click to enlarge).
In front of the Hale Telescope dome, Mount Palomar. From left to right: Jed Laderman, Dave Yantis, Robert Lozano, Reinhard Kargl.
Standing under the massive, 200 inch primary mirror of the Hale Telescope.
Looking up to the secondary mirror, toward the top of the dome. In the old days, this is where the observer would have sat in a cage all night long, handling photographic materials. Today, the instruments are photo-electronic. Human observers no longer ride the elevator to the top).
The old control panel, preserved in a perfect vintage look. Doesn't it seem like something from Star Trek? (Today, the telescope operator sits in a heated cabin, insulated from the dome interior. This being on a mountain top, it gets extremely cold in the winter).
View from the Hale dome's circular catwalk. In the distance is the dome of the historic 18 inch Schmidt telescope. Beginning in the 1930s, Fritz Zwicky did his first surveys of supernovae here. The dome is no longer in use today.
More on Fritz Zwicky and the 18 inch Schmidt telescope.
I have a fascination with hidden, forgotten and deserted places. Sometimes, one can find them even in the busiest of places. Here is a picture of an abandoned railroad track in the middle of Los Angeles. I accidentally found this site by following some stray cats in a park. Not far from this place are residences, freeways and traffic jams.
Railroad Tracks. Photo: Reinhard Kargl, 2009. Click to enlarge.
This stock footage was shot in the 1940s.
A book I am currently reading. Great insights into the man, the moon and one of mankind’s greatest journeys.