s n a p p e r h e a d: February 2021

Ballyhoo How to: Nutrient Stew Containing the Awareness Part of You

Mind health. Consider spending twenty minutes to listen (watching not required) to a snack-sized synopsis on the foundational stoic philosophers: Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aureilus. If something they wrote is perceived by the awareness part of you to be affirmatively beneficial? Dive deeper at your own pace.

Brain health. Listen to ten minutes (watching still not required) of highlights which touch on the key elements required to improve your golova and maintain the nutrient stew of your body's operating system. If something mentioned has been depleted or overlooked? Replenish to improve, repair, and possibly extend your warranty.

additional brain-stuffings:

from whence the hand-octopus-rat came

costumes and taxpayer dollars

philosophy club rules

death and taxes

Beau of the Fifth Column

There is a voice out there, coming from Florida, who talks clearly and intelligently about a wide range of things related to current events, progressive politics, survival, and common sense. His name is Justin King. His scripted, cogent, and rational videos are 96.5%-of-the-time exactly what I already thought or wanted-to-learn about any given issue (currently at a ratio of 38%-knew to 48.5%-learned). His calming, food-for-thought uploads can be found on the Beau of the Fifth Column YouTube channel. I highly recommend listening to him daily.

It was suggested that I try creating videos of my written essays, by someone who dislikes reading my Dense and Difficult to Decipher Ancillary Diatribes (DaD2DAD™). Although my words might reach a larger audience, I'd need an alternative to my face because of my artists are observers adage. So, until I get set-up, whyn't ya listen to Beau? (it's just a thought).

Socrates Taught Plato How to Turn Prehistory Into History

Prehistory did not begin when our universe coalesced, when our galaxy began to rotate together, when gravity caused our star's fusion, or when oceans collected. It also didn't begin when our moon began to spin overhead, when single-cellular life started, or even when complex life evolved. Those events occurred billions of years ago.

We humans easily understand the word year because we have personal reference points, which we can empirically measure. (In the previous 365 days, the covid19 pandemic killed over 500,000 Americans and 2.5 million worldwide.) Some of us might be able to think in terms of a hundred years, because we understand it's possible to live that long. However, when we learn that over a century ago, the 1918 pandemic killed 50 million people, we begin to lose the related-to-me focus. And when we read that more than five centuries ago, the bubonic plague killed maybe 200 million people? We're mentally drifting without a point of personal reference.

And that's only half of a millennium in the past! The numbers: billion (a thousand million) and million (a thousand thousand) are completely non-relatable. Our minds struggle to grasp-comprehend (or even imagine) what it means when we hear:

Prehistory began when millions of years ago, some of our stone-age, bipedal, hominid ancestors crafted tools, buried their dead, worked collectively in order to survive, and decided it would be valuable to start communicating with their future selves.

Those someones thought it would help to augment their memories. And they started marking with chalk or soft stone or charcoal on flat surfaces; tieing knots in rope; cutting gouges in wood; making impressions in mud or clay; burning or dieing on hides; etcetera. This lasted for hundreds of millennia. Time ate all their chalkboards and etch-a-sketches; toys and utensils; caves and corpses, until a confluence of location, luck, and lack-of-liquid (ll&lol™) made it possible for their distant descendants (us) to unearth a few of their grocery lists, calendars, and guidebooks.

Try hopscotching forward—Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, to the Ancient Historical Era. Don't stop skipping until you reach the Modern Era:

The fossil record contains evidence anatomical homo sapiens existed at least 250,000 years ago.
Cave painting and art has been found which has been dated to more than 45,000 years ago.
Earth's magnetic poles reverse (then reverse back 800 years later) about 42,000 years ago.
Sculptures and jewelry have been carbon dated to more than 35,000 years ago.
Standing stones and stone structures date to more than 10,000 years ago.
Cuneiform writing (indentations in clay) date from 5,000 years ago (Bronze Age, starts in areas).
Egyptian pyramids and hieroglyphs date from 4,500 years ago (Ancient Historical Era starts in areas).
Stonehenge stones date from about 4,400 years ago.
Gilgamesh epic poems (Sumeria) on stone/clay tablets from 4,000 years ago.
Chinese logosyllabic writing dates from 3,500 years ago.
Hindu texts began to be written/edited about 3,500 years ago (Iron Age, starts in areas).
Pueblo dwellings and cliff houses date from 3,200 years ago (Stone Age mostly ends).
Hebrew bible began to be written/edited about 2,800 years ago (Bronze Age mostly ends).
Nazca lines (Peru) date from 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Confucius of Zou (China) reportedly lived 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Buddha of Lumbini (Nepal) reportedly lived 2,500 years ago.
Philosopher Socrates of Athens (Greece) reportedly lived 2,400 years ago.
Philosopher Zhuang of Dao (China) began to be written/edited 2,400 years ago.
Philosopher Epicurus of Samos (Greece) reportedly lived 2,300 years ago.
Sandstone city of Petra (Jordan) begun carving in stone cliffs 2,000 years ago.
Philosopher-statesman Seneca of Cordoba (Spain) reportedly lived 1,950 years ago.
Philosopher-slave Epictetus of Hierapolis (Turkey) reportedly lived 1,950 years ago.
Philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius of Rome (Italy) reportedly lived 1,900 years ago.
Christian bible began to be written/edited about 1,800 years ago.
Roman empire began to shrink/collapse about 1,500 years ago (Modern Era begins in areas).
Muslim quran began to be written/edited about 1,400 years ago (Iron Age mostly ends).

Rise & fall of the Roman Empire

Spend a few cups of coffee perusing theo-philosophic writings in a down-the-rabbit-hole manner and your wanderings will bring you to the Documentation Vanishing Point. Albeit "vanishing" is only accurate if describing the historical record as if looking back at it and "point" erroneously implies a single point in time exists between history (from written records, which still survive today) and prehistory (before written records were made or have survived).

One of the more famous examples of prehistory becoming history—at the very beginning edge of durable communication—is the Greek philosopher Socrates, who allegedly was born about -470 and died about 71 years later.

Why allegedly? Because if he was a real person—and not just an archetype, invented by others—no words written by him and no books of his have survived (which Socrates might have paid to be stamped onto papyrus). After his death by execution in -399, for the crimes of irreverent disrespect of the State's Gods and for preaching his brand of atheism to other citizens, (citizenship was restricted to Athenian males of the property-owner/slave-owner class) Socrates was either a central character or mentioned in dozens of plays, books, and written 'conversations' (and is still written about today).

If Socrates was merely an author-surrogate character, created by Plato (and used by others like Aristotle, Et al.) to permit writing/talking about things which would otherwise be illegal, documenting "Socrates's Philosophy" shielded authors from punishment. If Socrates was a flesh-and-blood man, he never wrote anything down (the latter is what all surviving documents tell us is the truth.)

In my opinion, Socrates was not actually a man who lived in the -5 century. He was too perfect of a caricature and is credited with too many well-thought-out philosophies (as would any character be, who's an amalgam-pilation of several philosopher-authors imaginations).

His mother was a midwife and his father a stonemason. As an adult, Socrates referrs to himself as a midwife (helping 'birth new ideas' by asking 'what is it?') and he builds/constructs theories using dialectic Q&A's and logical arguments. This is just one example of many contrived coincidences.
He was uniquely ugly, odd, and dressed without care (bulging & askew eyes; a pig nose; short and fat; unkempt/disheveled dress). Staged-contrast: overt visual flaws while speaking flawlessly.
He "exploded into existence" on the pages of many playwrights/authors, but only after his death.
His publicly ordered execution was, in actuality, a calmly accepted suicide (he could have chosen exile, but didn't). He willingly carried out his suicide by drinking hemlock tea. What a hero! What a soliloquy!
Hemlock poison paralyzes the diaphragm and respiratory system. Plato's description of Socrates's death (itself, told from a fictional character's POV) details a growing numbness beginning in his feet and traveling up his body, eventually killing Socrates when it reached his heart. Someone bitten by a cobra might die in this manner. Do we need any more evidence Plato's faux description was fabricated?

I suspect—if Socrates was a real person—he was not at all the figurehead and intellectual powerhouse depicted in "his student's" books. But, since Plato's and Aristotle's (Et al.) words survived, they are considered to be the first to quote what they heard "prehistory say". I think they were creative nonfiction writers (like all successful theo-philosophical authors/editors must become, to reach and hold an audience).

... Socrates showed displeasure with those who thought him to be poor by stating: 'One can be rich, even with very little, on the condition that one has limited his needs. Wealth is just the excess of what one has, over what one requires.' ... — Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, circa 360 (700+ years after Socrates "died")

Redux: "I Cecil You, Too" (First Fortnight in February)

          I have never celebrated the fake holiday in mid-February. It's a scam holiday which businesses use to sell cards, flowers, candy, and all that foolish shit. I give gifts or messages of love whenever the time feels right, not when someone's calendar says I'm supposed to.

          Anyway—what the fuck is this thing we all have labelled with the word: LOVE? I know what mix of emotions I feel/have felt for those I've loved and do love (not a very large list) but it's amazingly hard to explain how certain fluctuations in my brain's chemicals affect my heart/brain/gut/libido and even harder to understand/compare when others explain their "feelings of love". We just assume everyone must be feeling the same way we feel when we use the same words they use.

          "See that color? That is what I have labelled: Red."
"Oh, that's red? Ok, I'll begin to refer to everything which is colored that way: red. Umm, what about when I feel all these crazy feelings at the same time? I need a label, so that when I am feeling all these feelings I do not need to explain each of them every time."
"That is labelled: Love."
"What about all those same feelings, except one: I don't want to be physically intimate?"
"Still labelled: Love. You could add the word Platonic, but that'll require an explanation because that word has different interpretations."
"What about when I feel all those feelings for my pet?"
          "When I say, I love my cat, Cecil, I think I must be misusing the word 'love'. Instead, I should-maybe find a word which is a compound for the meanings of the words: pride, enjoyment, happiness and admiration."

          I'm proud of Cecil's training and I enjoy his 'loving' attention; he never makes me angry (mostly because he can't communicate with words, has no malice, and enjoys my company); and I admire him for his actions, looks, demeanor, and thoughtfulness (Is he being thoughtful? Am I just anthropomorphizing?). Maybe I should consider his name, Cecil, to be a label for what I feel about him—so when I say: "I Cecil you," I'm currently feeling a combination of pride/enjoyment/happiness/admiration for you.

When I receive an "I love you" I—almost never—respond with an "I love you too".

It's wrong to treat an I love you as if it requires a mandatory reply. It is not supposed to be interpreted as if it were the question: Do you love me? Also, it should not become a replacement phrase for goodbye. When people do that, they cause their incessant I love you's to lose their value. Eventually, it becomes a throw-away line. If said all the time, what do they say when they really want someone to know they have caused a rush of complicated emotions which are identified (when felt all at the same time) as the feeling of love?

Recap: "I Love You"—all three words—are reserved for when the emotion of love is actually being felt. I do not want my I love you to cause an immediate response of I love you too. I prefer either no reply or a response like: "those words make me feel good," or "Thank you," or "I like it when you tell me that," or "those words make me happy," or "when you say that, I get warm inside". It is better that the person you love smiles and says nothing, and some time in the future, if they tell me they are currently feeling the emotion they call love—for me—I know they're feeling love at that moment and I can decide to reply with my present feelings, or not to reply. I appreciate their statement of love when they are feeling it and then I consider what I did to make them feel that way. This is my normal.

When she was young, I tried to encourage my daughter, Denise, to understand and to communicate her feelings of love. It was a long and complicated issue. I found talking about my thoughts to her and her mother, on expressing family love, difficult. I felt there was a lack of love in our family and wanted us to tell each other that we loved each other more often (it worked occasionally). I also wanted us to communicate our love by kissing (which never caught on). The compromise I got from my daughter was cheek-bumps. I failed at explaining to her that bumping cheeks was how people communicated respect to either: an old and feeble relative; someone who was contagious; or (in France and Belgium) because that was their custom.

Denise now says I love you to each of her children many times a day. Each of her kids reply with a I love you too. I see and hear their devotion and their respect. With them, it does not seem to be a "worn out phrase" or a "throw away line". In fact, when a child is upset (and, intentionally, does not reply to their mother's I love you) they—routinely—apologize (later) and remind her that they love her.

I am now an old distant relative with whom respectful cheek bumps may be apropos. And, now, I am adjusting to her normal. Now, I reply to her I love you with an I love you, too.

(original 2018 post)

mor e lov e motion:

canoe-ship vs rowboat-ship

life-love fictional story

from my paramour

shades of love

Flags of Hate

Hundred racist flags & vile banners waved proudly

That first Wednesday of the fortyfifth's last month

Hateful MAGAs built gallows n then prayed loudly

With thirst for foul-play, 'forthwith' incited Trump

Gatecrash, helm bash, Sicknick dead - sky cloudy

Baton burst bearspray election myth power drunk

'Patriot' riot whyn't coup badge of dishonor dowdy

Perverse as Q's savethechildren toxic waste dump

Impeach twice (2mil pardon-price?) '24 vowed he

US worst curse: fortyseventh President Heffalump

hundred racist flags: echoing 'hundred acre wood' from A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh.

6 Jan 2021: The first Wed of the 45^th President of the US (Trump's) last month in office.

MAGAs: Make America Great Again's; a label for Trump supporters, based on his red hat.

forthwith: Immediately, together with; Trump claimed he would "walk with" the crowd to the US Capitol.

Sicknick: US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the crowd on Jan 6^th.

election myth: For months (with no evidence) Trump promoted the 'big lie' that the Nov 3^rd election was fraudulent.

power drunk: Trump, his administration, followers, and the crowd who attacked the Capitol.

patriot: someone showing support for their country (prior to Jan 6^th). Now, a racist-inssurectionist label.

riot whyn't coup: echoing red white and blue; whyn't (dialectic why don't, from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men).

badge of dishonor: opposite of badge of honor (the label 'patriot' is now stained by association).

dowdy: unfashionable, out-dated.

Q's savethechildren: Q-Anon hijacked the legitimate century-old organization for nefarious deceitful purposes.

Impeach twice: Trump's second impeachment was caused by his orchestration of the Jan 6^th events.

2mil pardon price: Trump's personal lawyer was reportedly selling/attempting to sell Trump pardons.

'24 vowed he: Unless Trump is found guilty by the US Senate, he has vowed a run for president in 2024.

47^th President: If Trump is re-elected in 2024, he will become both the 45^th and the 47^th President.

Heffalump: A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh imaginary nightmare-elephants who cause chaos.

"That's not who we are" — is what it is.

I always cringe when a mature, educated, adult allows the phrase 'it is what it is' to fall out of their brain. Those five succinct words, in that order, jangle-pucker my opinion-of-you muscle like a sharp kick in the gooch. Some part of me refuses to stop thinking about, mentally investigates, attempts to further identify, and wants to maybe-hopefully come up with a better answer—to everything. So, when someone idiomatically declares 'it is whut it is'? I smell a putrefactive-proclamation! They sound like they're saying: all is futile; any further thought or discussion by anyone (which includes me) is a fuckin waste of time; case closed.

Which causes me to want to dig it up and determine why they want it buried. This fantastic article details the 2007 ubiquitous use of the phrase as witnessed by a US Army commander in Iraq.

When I hear i.i.w.i.i. my grey-matter gavels loudly on my sensibility's sounding block and I have difficulty repressing the urge to say: "I hate that phrase" or "I disagree" or (if I'm feeling kind) "I'm always confused by that statement." The new after Jan 6^th me will no longer repress that urge and I will tell you to your face that I hate that fatalistic sentence.

The equivalent idiom du jour: 'that is not who we are' has been ubiquitously uttered by President Biden, dozens of talking heads (from every political party and media outlet), as well as personal friends and neighbors.

Stop saying: "that's not who we are"! When you say it, you sound like you're either a coward with your head buried in the sand, an idiot who denies reality, or both.

Use of the "editorial we" or "royal we" is a nosism [say: Nose-is-um]. During the culmination of the Trump presidency's 'final boss battle' on Jan 6^th (the echoes of insurrectionist's chants may still be pinging and punching around inside our befuddled brainpans today) the racism, bigotry, prejudice, and in-your-face hatred of millions of white-Republican men and women was proudly on display.

That Is Who We All Are - As A Nation. Depending on your daily statements and actions, you may be able to say, "that behavior is not representative of who I, as an individual, am." (From now on, I will require you to prove it. I intend to ask everyone their opinions. Fair warning! Be prepared to defend your statements.) Because, clearly, WE as a country are a collection of hypocritical, terrible, racist, fucktards.

It is who we were before the civil war a century and a half ago.

It is who we were during the civil rights movement 60 years ago.

It is who we were when the Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 when the murderers of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and Eric Garner (ad infinitum up to today) were acquitted or not indited.

It is who we were last month when thousands of hypocrites waved hundreds of flags, like: blue-lives-matter (as they struck and killed Capitol Police officers); Q-Anon (as they chanted 'kill Mike Pence'); as well as the confederate battle flag and flags of the NAZI party (as they chanted U.S.A, USA).

Our hatred is not buried. It's constantly out in the open for all to see. Watch this video and learn why when you say 'it is not who we are' that you're obviously lying to yourself:

Are you now thinking: 'that is not my community'? You're fooling yourself. The vocal few are always surrounded by the silent majority in that city and in every city. For every person who rolled down their window to shout, hundreds more drove by keeping their mouth shut while they were thinking the same thoughts (which Ms Gorman's poem artfully refers to as: 'quiet isn't always peace').

The vocal few took planes, buses, trains, and pickup-trucks (chock-a-block full of a cacophony of flags) to DC on Jan 6^th—the silent millions voted for Trump twice, they still think the same racist thoughts, today and they'll vote for him a third time in four years.

more american-isms:

unfriended the old fashioned way

republican vs democrat thought patterns

how to create millions of jobs

Death Decade (2020-2030)

President Biden said two weeks ago, during his incredibly boring inaugural address (which hammered hollowly about the need for the country to do something he called 'unity' without even the slightest hint of an emotional tone): "we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured."

Facts:

February 2020: The WHO recognized Covid19 as a global pandemic. Most countries (with competently functioning CDCs) readily agreed. The virus had been identified several months earlier (late 2019 in China) and labeled: 2019 novel coronavirus disease. World Death Toll (WDT) estimated between 1,000 and 200,000 (huge discrepancies due to Chinese government intentionally down-playing and under-reporting as well as health officials in other countries being unaware Covid19 already existed in their countries). US Death Toll (USDT) between 25 and 200 (discrepancies due to local health officials unawareness).

November 2020: Several international pharmaceutical companies begin to request and receive government approval(s) to release a variety of different messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) injection-based drugs, which they claim will provide "protection from serious illness and death from Covid19". All of these drugs are discussed, on all forms of media, using the term: "vaccine". WDT between 1,500,000 and 2 million; USDT between 250,000 and 300,000.

Definitions and examples:

The commonly understood definition for vaccine is: "...a drug which provides an active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease..." The vaccine for the measles virus is normally administered to very young children with a second booster shot administered a few years later. These two immunizations provide a lifetime immunity to the measles virus (with rare exceptions).

The commonly understood definition for inoculation is: "...the introduction of a pathogen or antigen into a living organism to stimulate the production of antibodies..." Because variants of the influenza virus constantly change, "seasonal flu shot inoculations" are required. To retain life-long, year-round, flu virus immunity, new inoculations are required every year. Pharmaceutical companies test/produce new flu shots every 6 months so as to combat the constant new variants of the flu virus.

January 2021: Governments began to release millions of mRNA inoculations, which stimulate the production of antibodies to "teach the body's immune system" to identify the 'spike proteins' on the surface of the Covid19 virus. WDT between 2.1 and 2.75 million; USDT between 425,000 and half-million.

Manipulation of facts, currently causing confusion:

There are thousands of articles, videos, and news items—on every form of media—with the words "Covid vaccine" wrongfully conjoined and/or mistakenly associated with the words "eliminating the virus" or "reducing the spread" or "acquiring herd immunity, individual immunity, or global immunity".

Because Covid19 inoculations do not prevent infection by the Covid19 virus, no pharmaceutical company has made any claim that their drug will do so. The only claims, made by any of the drug companies (or the clinical trials testing their efficacy) are that these inoculations reduce serious symptoms and eliminate deaths between 60 and 95 percent of the time (with an effective boost in spike-protein antibodies lasting between 6 weeks and 6 months, depending on the drug, the individual, booster shots, and many other variables).

February 2021: The new US federal administration is attempting to fix the US CDC and NIH responses (hampered, nonexistent, or broken by the previous administration) to the Covid19 pandemic. These inoculations/booster shots designed to drastically reduce serious hospitalizations and deaths are optimistically projected to be available to all US citizens "hopefully by summer". WDT between 2.5 and 3 million; USDT between 450,000 and 600,000 (previous US under-counts now being "found" and belatedly reported).

I can find no reporting, discussion, or any research being conducted on a vaccine which imparts lifelong immunity.

Are you—dear citizen of Earth—calmly satisfied with the facts (or even aware of them)? Do you understand everyone needs to wear masks, social distance, receive booster inoculations about every 6 months, and will STILL BECOME INFECTED, ASYMPTOMATICALLY CONTAGIOUS AND STILL COULD INFECT OTHERS ?? Do you realize that, until a lifelong-immunity vaccine is found, everyone will be gambling on not becoming part of the 5 to 40 percent? Can your brain understand this new paradigm? That you'll forever be contributing to the serious illness or death of those who either do not understand these facts or who foolishly choose to not be inoculated?

As pharmaceutical companies rake in tens of trillions from the world's governments over the coming decade, and WDT/USDT shrinks but never, ever, goes away, I will get inoculated (as soon as it's my turn). And I recommend every-one-of-you do the same. But. Covid is here to stay. The decade 2020 to 2030 is, unfortunately, going to be the Death Decade.

rants, comix, poems, warnings:

Curve Deaths

T-Rex

Covid Diary

Art Corvid Poem