HISTORY

Alexandre Farto

History, as taught in schools, is endless war (i.e. murder), using religion, economy, and ideology as justification for mutated animal behavior....

RUBBER & REAL DUCKS GO VIRAL IN CHINA

COMMUNISTS AND OLIGARCHS HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR.....

REALITY TV LIFE

I watch "The Voice," "American Idol," "Undercover Boss," etc....for the pain and tears, not for the talent. Like in sports, I don't care who wins, as long as everyone appears to grow. If they reveal themselves, I feel less alone. Death is less scary if we all die, even at different rates. Thank you cynical exploitative producers for allowing us to share each other's suffering, so our own is less unique and intense....I mean it.

Vivienne Flesher

More:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/opinion/sunday/bruni-show-us-your-woe.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130519

A BOULDER OF MUSIC

George Jones died.  He did not pass away.  Anyone who has ever been emotionally moved by carefully-crafted modern country pop music, should listen to his old-fashioned truthful albums.  His songs are shot from his heart into your ears, without dilution by producers, managers, marketeers, or public image ego.

George Jones lived a tortured self-destructive life, but instead of physically killing others or himself, he turned his love and pain into intimate art that he shared courageously with anyone who would listen.  His singing style was not manufactured to win screaming concert fans, or to sell 100 albums he recorded.....Everything in George Jones' songs - his traumatic voice, unequaled precise phrasing, brilliant succinct poetry lyrics - was straight from his soul.  It was not entertainment.  A life was at stake.

SEARCHING

NO GLOBAL WARMING

Kolmanskop, Namibian Desert

ANOTHER ARTIST GONE

LES BLANK, one of the greatest documentary film directors, just died....We are losing so many heroes of cinema !

Born 1935 in Florida, Les Blank graduated Tulane University (BA, English literature; MFA, theatre), Ph.D. film program at USC, and five years freelancing in Los Angeles. To finance his own films, Blank made industrial films from 1967-1972.

ENGLISH DOESN'T TRANSLATE WELL

My short Facebook comment ("Fighting songs are better than funeral songs!") in full support of the "Do You Hear the People Sing" terrific anti-nuclear protest and photos (posted by 曾智偉 and many others), upset some readers....I want to explain what I really meant:

I know some / many of my comments in English are often misunderstood, because I use New York-style dark or absurd humor to twist English words, ideas, and meanings. Sometimes readers may even be hurt or angry, when I use tongue-in-cheek (indirect) or ironic humor to be FRIENDLY and caring. I apologize, seriously. I do not know Chinese, and will never know the beautiful, complex subtleties of Chinese enough to use it creatively.....My positive anti-nuclear protest march comment (above) is an example. "Fighting songs" refers to anti-nuclear protests, AND resistance to the impending take-over (economic, cultural, political, military) of democratic Taiwan by dictatorial China....."Funeral songs" refers to the memorial to Chiang Kai-shek, the losing temporary conqueror of Taiwan, where the people are protesting, AND it refers to the fact that if the Taiwan government builds (allows the building of) another nuclear power plant, there will be a tragic "accident" (human failure or corruption) in the future, and many people will die.....I'm very sorry for any misunderstandings!

REMINDERS

W  H  A  T     I     L  E  A  R  N  E  D

                      

I was a teacher for the past 5 months. Sometimes I think I was a great teacher. (Some of my students wrote me emotional letters...after I gave them grades.) Sometimes I think I was a bad teacher, because there was so much I wanted to communicate, but could not. (Laziness? Language and cultural barriers? Just Life?)

Most of all, I was and always will be, a student....Paid more than my students. Treated with more respect than my students. With more life experience, self-confidence, and the "wisdom" of age (maybe), than my students.

What did I learn? (Of course, as soon as I learn something, I forget it and must continuously re-learn it.).....

I learned that everybody's pain feels the same.

PRO-LIFE IN THE REAL SENSE

200,000+ peaceful Taiwanese, Hakka, Aborigine, and Han protestors in the Capital city, protesting against the building of yet another nuclear power plant on the pristine Taiwan coast, on a major earthquake fault, subject to tsunamis, yearly typhoons, greed, corruption, shoddy workmanship, and guaranteed human error....near Taipei, the largest city.

Unlike China, no army or police beat them ,or fired tear gas and bullets into the crowd.

Young and old, families, students, farmers, workers, fishermen, artists, sat down in front of the President Building, listening to fiery speeches, passionate songs, pleas from the heart, and terrifying scientific facts.

Controlled Western news media covered the story minimally, with headlines reducing the nearly 1/4-Million protestors to only "Tens of Thousands."

NICE MAN

Newt Wallace, age 93...newspaper delivery boy for "The Winters Express" of Winters, California, population 6600. He publishes 2300 copies, and walks through the village distributing them every week since 1947. He does not plan to retire......There's still hope for us.

ART VS. DEATH

   

    25,000 years ago, France

    38,000 years ago, Spain

MEANING OF LIFE

What does it all mean?

The tornadoes, the tsunamis, rebellion against Middle East tyrants, the Tea Party, human rights in China, economic and political collapse in America, football and soccer fanatics, global warming or not?

We already have all the great thinkers we need to assure planetary survival, mental health, freedom, and happiness: op-ed columnists, professors, philosophers, self-help gurus, and thousands of known dead thinkers whose work survives on the same internet as Facebook.

POEMS

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

(vee-SWAHV-ah shimm-BOR-skah)

1923-2/3/2012

Poetess, Poland, Age 88

Noble Prize in Literature

A toddler unfamiliar with the law of gravity

investigates "things that don't move by themselves"...

A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth

They don't all want to go, e.g. the bookshelf,

the cupboard, the unyielding walls, the table.

But the table cloth on the stubborn table

--when well-seized by its hems--

manifests a willingness to travel.

And the glasses, plates,

creamer, spoons, bowl,

are fairly shaking with desire.

Death, from the point of view of a cat who has lost its master...

RELATIVITY

33 people saved.

6901 people killed,

in Iraq/Afghanistan, not including Iraqis and Afghans.

11,773 people killed by drunk drivers.