Displaying 91 To 120 Of 3,373 Comments That is great. And it sounds like it belongs in Whitman’s poem, doesn’t it? » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 19, 2011 @ 3:02 pm It was painted in as hair-down-there, and only afterwards did I see that it looked like what you describe. Appy loggies to anyone who is offended; twas not my intent. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 19, 2011 @ 2:42 pm That must be a prized possession. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 19, 2011 @ 1:46 am One of the sorriest excuses for a human being, ever. By all accounts he remained defiant, arrogant and unapologetic to the end of his long, comfortable life. If justice is ultimately meted out in this universe, one shudders to contemplate the fate that awaits him. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 19, 2011 @ 1:43 am I SING the Body electric; Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves; The complete poem: » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 6:22 pm Excellent! Thanks, Khirad! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:59 pm AD Freudian slip: “And the thong about the body”… » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:38 pm The other 20% is when you groan and have to push yourself away from the table. To put it in visual terms, it is the hot fudge sundae you can’t refuse. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:30 pm Nice commentary, AD. Thanks. I didn’t know that about oxygen. As you said, ironic. I’m not surprised to hear that our bodies are learning to make better use of the food we feed it. They are amazing things to be sure. As far as our fascination with the outer form, I’m all for it! And as guilty as anyone. I brought up the scuba diving analogy to point out that I think we should go further, though. As a culture we are TOO focused on what bodies LOOK like, and not enough concerned with what they ARE. We inhabit them unconsciously, for the most part. How much sleep? I think you can debate this several ways. For example, our closest relatives, the great apes, get a LOT more sleep than we do. Do they “need” it? I guess you would say they don’t, but nevertheless they enjoy it, and I wouldn’t try to wake a sleeping mountain gorilla. 🙂 I question the wisdom of forcing the body to acquiesce to our stern demands upon its wakefulness, when our cousins are sleeping twice as much. As for pain, I consider that a different thing from “harm”. I push my body when I swim, run, cycle. I love to experience it getting stronger. But dropping bombs on villages, torturing people in prisons, these are NOT examples of pain that humans can grow from, at least not in any good way. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:19 pm Hi KT, I totally agree that the Orientals had a fuller awareness of the body as an organism, not just something we carry around. There were Hindu teachers who shunned the body, though. They taught meditation as a way to escape its limitations. One teacher disliked body fascination so much he referred to them as “shit factories”, something I would never agree with, even though I understand the intent, to help people get over their fascination with them. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:11 pm Hi jkk. I’m no saint when it comes to the body. I get a lot of exercise and try to eat healthy, but I also over-indulge the sweets, caffeine and alcohol. I wrote the piece to say I think we need to really rethink our relationships with our bodies, and especially our larger body, the earth. Because we are destroying so many things that can’t be replaced. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:08 pm Hi Emerald, thanks for your comments. Obesity is a major problem, no way around it. I totally applaud Michelle Obama for her efforts to raise awareness about the need to do something about it. I didn’t know about Christy, but the typical politician is much more fit than the average American is. A recent study about obesity rates blew me away. The state with the lowest obesity rate (Colorado) in 2010 would have had the HIGHEST rate in 1990. That’s how fast the epidemic is spreading, and it is almost completely due to diet. Food chains are not serving what the body needs. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 5:05 pm The poem which I excerpted to begin this piece Musee des Beaux Arts By W.H.Auden 　　About suffering they were never wrong, » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 4:17 am Hiya, Cher! Wooah, that Fox clip was UNREAL, even by their “standards”. They do things like that because they know they can get away with it. Their viewers have now been led to believe that the hacking scandal at their sister company was the same as that of companies that GOT hacked! But for SOME reason, THEY are the ones getting picked on for it while the other companies don’t. It’s right out of Orwell (tip o’ the hat to Kilgore Trout), and their viewers will fall for it. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 18, 2011 @ 6:41 am Weekend Music Thread – Carmageddon! agree muchly! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 17, 2011 @ 5:29 am Great tune, eh? » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 17, 2011 @ 5:27 am X – Los Angeles » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 3:12 pm Being stuck in traffic, one is literally Trapped In a Box » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 2:12 pm Not exactly sure what OSCA is, but it has something to do with sports cars, and this song cooks! » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 2:06 pm Wow, truly sorry to hear about your truly surreal ordeal, 2CCP. It seems like something that George Orwell and Monty Python would have cooked up together. Sleep is a basic need, and I can only imagine what your following day was like after that nightmare. I hope things have improved for you. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 2:50 pm That’s how I always feel after a Tea Party. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 3:33 pm Hamsher is the reincarnation of PT Barnum. This is the lady whose two great claims to fame before becoming a political pundit/screeching banshee were producing the execrable “Natural Born Killers” and then writing a book about how great it/she was. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 3:17 pm I used to have a lot of choot-spa but my brother-in-law raided my refrigerator and ate it all. » Posted By whatsthatsound On July 16, 2011 @ 3:01 pm The Debt Ceiling Crisis Thread from one pain in the ass to another, sleep well! » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 3, 2011 @ 12:58 am
» Posted By whatsthatsound On August 3, 2011 @ 12:34 am Owch, tex! That’s pretty extreme. Things are crazy now, but I think we just need to adjust to some new realities. There is hope for humankind, but it isn’t in the places we’ve looked for it most recently. It isn’t in American “exceptionalism”. Twenty years from now, when China and India are the world’s two biggest economies, who is gonna believe THAT? It isn’t a technological panacea. Really, how can so many people still imagine that? Technology is probably our biggest problem now, or certainly up there. It won’t save us. It isn’t religion. That’s plain enough. It’s probably not aliens coming to rescue us. I mean, when can always HOPE, but…. Frankly, I don’t know what it is. I just know I believe in it. If I didn’t, I’d be right there alongside a son-less, granchildren-less you. 🙂 » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 3, 2011 @ 12:20 am I think the problem is that people have found too MANY leaders. The internet, cable television, etc., have torn down the monolith of information that used to come from the three networks. That was the heyday of the modern president: when they could control the message through the outlets, first radio and then ABC, NBC and CBS. Sure, there were other voices to listen to, but they didn’t have a “bully pulpit”. Nowadays, they do. Rush has as many people who would follow him over a cliff as Obama does. Can you imagine how Ayn Rand would have fared if she were around NOW. Back then she was “only a novelist” and still people flocked around her. She’d be Oprah, Rush, Beck and Stewart combined if she were around today, in terms of influence. I’m gonna give myself nightmares if I think about that anymore! » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 2, 2011 @ 11:35 pm Forgive, Khirad, when I wrote “you”, I didn’t mean YOU you. I was speaking in a more general sense of those who write articles like this, and think that way. The Tea Party will fall, crumble, disintegrate. It’s inevitable. They are just PLAYING being Congresspersons. You could call this “beginner’s luck” in a sense. Drunk with the idea that such a small, inexperienced group could cause so much trouble. Anger is not a policy. » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 2, 2011 @ 11:02 pm Exactly, Cher! Like I wrote in response to what Khirad posted, don’t SAY you’re going to make billionaires and oil companies pony up (he’s STILL saying that) unless you are going to, you know, DO that. » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 2, 2011 @ 10:57 pm Cher, I don’t think it’s that. Let’s just drop all the “he’s a master planner and strategist” stuff. I don’t think very much goes over YOUR head, mon ami. He has problems as a communicator, clearly, as I wrote to Khirad on another thread. When even someone as staunchly devoted to him and supportive of him as you have shown yourself to be numerous times, and admirably, confesses something like this, well, there’s a problem. As I said in my “splunge” piece, the only possible VERY good thing that I can see coming out of this deal, at least in the immediate future, is that it makes the Mice That Roared radioactive, to establishment Republicans, independents, EVERYbody but their most steadfast and willfully ignorant supporters. This was a good chance for the president to work on that message, and he blew it. » Posted By whatsthatsound On August 2, 2011 @ 9:33 pmComments Posted By whatsthatsound
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?
http://www.bartleby.com/142/19.html
🙂
In Japanese they call that “hara hachibun me” which means eighty percent full.
　　The Old Masters: how well they understood
　　Its human position; how it takes place
　　While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
　　along;
　　How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
　　For the miraculous birth, there always must be
　　Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
　　On a pond at the edge of the wood:
　　They never forgot
　　That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
　　Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
　　Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
　　Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
　　In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
　　Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
　　Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
　　But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
　　As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
　　Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
　　Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
　　Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
DISgusting!
As I’ve written before, Japan has a WAY bigger debt problem than the U.S. Their debt is actually larger than ours, while their economy is about a third of ours. Let that rattle around in your head for a bit. This was NO crisis; this was something the Tea Party WANTED. So, make them put up or shut up. Don’t give speeches saying that’s what you’re going to do. DO that.
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