Tom had sent me this article before it appeared here. In the piece he sent me the last sentence was- Poetry, a last skeleton in John Waters closet.

The wrap up commentary on this movie review is asinine and filled with agenda driven disinformation and factual errors. You talk about “the vast majority of Hollywood films, and public discourse, look like a wasteland of open wounds and lies” and in the very same paragraph referring to Trump you spread a falsehood by stating that ” but our whole society, which experienced a massive trauma and then forgot about it so thoroughly that it turned around and handed public health to the same guy who’d presided over a million dead.” To correct the record in 2020 the last year of Trumps presidency in the pre-vaccine period there was just over 350,000 Covid deaths which is far short of one million. By comparison in the first year of the Biden presidency there was over 415,000 Covid deaths..[See Link]..https://theworlddata.com/covid-19-deaths-by-year-in-us/ “The movie doesn’t delve into Covid politics” I guess we can leave the delving into politics to propagandistic movie reviewers peddling hokum.

Does Dakota Johnson always suck the life out of everything she is in?

Having school dates available ahead of time really helps families prepare for the academic year. A comprehensive school calendar is a simple but valuable planning tool.

Hey I like the Athletic.

Murphy is set to do a series about Lindsay Clancy in 2027.

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The 140-character limit shows how useful constraints can be for keeping digital communication focused; similarly, tracking everyday essentials benefits from concise, timely information like egg rate today for practical context. https://eggratelab.com/

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The article makes a strong case that Twitter’s 140-character limit was part of what made the platform distinctive, much like the concise, instantly recognizable reactions found through sonidos botones in online conversations. https://sonidosbotones.com/

All this stuff about Hollywood! How boring. You should really be writing about how your aristocratic ancestors escaped being poulet a la moutard during the French Revolution. https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/reynard-and-chanticleer

Huh? To say that this has not aged well is wildly premature. It's a factual statement that the 49ers' glory days are well behind them. Their last Super Bowl win was 31 years ago.A 5-0 start does not mean that they will win the Super bowl this season, although I sure hope they do. If this happens I will gladly accept being told that this didn't age well. I rest my case.

Are you talking about talking to someone who had done the EST training or Landmark?

Landmark is not EST. Erhard toned Landmark down in a rebranding effort after all criticism made it impossible to continue with EST. You are talking about a different topic than the one I wrote about.

The off the field drama involving the team owner, head coach and star receiver has not translated to the teams on the field performance. At 5-0 the prognosis that the 49ers "glory days are long gone" seems wildly premature. This article has not aged well.

Clearly the author has talked with no-one who actually did The Training. For us, The Training, the Seminars and the 6-Day were defining moments in our lives that brought us to the place where we are today.

Gawd, this is getting so boring. I'm referring to the violence committed on the day, not to whether the action was planned or not. You have chosen to interpret it in a certain way, but that's not how it was intended. The problem with debating with you is that you seem to want to make it personal all the time. It's not enough that we are having an exchange of views: you have to insult me at the same time. I'm a didactic bore. I'm a liar etc etc. I really do think you need to take a good look at yourself. You know about Jung's concept of the Shadow, I suppose? I think that's what I am to you.

Very convenient (dishonest) of you to cut off your quote just before you wrote what I told you you wrote. This is one reason I refer to what you write as propaganda. So you NEVER said that the Hamas attack was "in the spur of the moment," and I don't really read what you write? Well, I did read this: "There’s one difference between the violence committed by those crazed individuals in their desperate prison break, and the violence proposed by the Israeli government in retaliation: that Hamas’ violence is at least understandable. We can see where it comes from, obscene and regrettable though it was. The Israeli violence is of a different order. It’s a cold and calculated act perpetrated, not in the heat of the moment, but in advance, according to a schedule, on an innocent population, as part of a long-term plan." I repeat — you state that Oct 7 was "in the heat of the moment." Yet you lie and say this: "I never said, at any point, that the October 7 attack was spur of the moment." So go ahead and drop out of this exchange now. You can drop out of it as a liar. You're not even a good liar.

Thanks for the information. Yes I've heard these matters discussed. I'm sure the to regional governments are right not to want to take in Palestinian refugees. Desperate people will do desperate things, dispossessed people will do what they can to recover their possessions. The cause of the violence is down to those who have oppressed their neighbours, who have stolen land, and hope and dignity from the entire population, turning the region into a bloody mess. The problem is Zionism that believes it - literally - has a divine right to the land and that it can do anything that it likes. There's something I've noticed about the way you respond to the things I write: that you don't actually read it. You read till it triggers you, then you fulminate, but you don't take in or acknowledge what I'm trying to say. I never said, at any point, that the October 7 attack was spur of the moment. I think you might be referring to this passage: "There’s one difference between the violence committed by those crazed individuals in their desperate prison break, and the violence proposed by the Israeli government in retaliation: that Hamas’ violence is at least understandable." That doesn't say it wasn't planned. It says that, while carrying out the action, the Hamas militants would be crazed. They probably believed they were going to their deaths. What they didn't know is that the Israeli army had been stood down and that there would be hardly anybody there on the other side of the fence. I'm just using my imagination, that's all, trying to picture what it must have felt like. It's called empathy. I try my best to acknowledge when I make mistakes. I'm not infallible. Not an expert. I try to read widely and gather my information from a variety of sources. Part of the point of this post was to try and get you to step outside your comfort zone and pay attention to what the actual experts are saying. I realise now that it was a vain hope. I read your X entry where you said you were an "Earnest observer of the world." That struck me. It could be a description of me. At this point I think I want to draw this conversation to a close. Earlier on you suggested that the point of the exchange, for me, was "To come out on top and have people see what a fraud I am and how right you are?" That's obviously a projection. That's clearly what you want. In a previous exchange you admitted that you don't even read the things I write. So what's the point? I was trying to have a proper exchange of views, but it's quite clear you're not interested in that, and I doubt very much you'll even read this far. I wish you well in your life Mr Beck. I hope you find the peace you are looking for, which is more that the poor people of Gaza will ever find, as long as they live next door to a monster.

Having done the Landmark Forum at 54, I have one regret: that I wasn't old enough to have done the original EST training. This article illustrates something important to me: the difference between describing a training from the outside and understanding what it is designed to accomplish from having experienced it yourself. The central point of the training, as I experienced its principles, was never to deny that people are victimized, or to blame them for what others do to them. It was to give people access to something profoundly different: the freedom to take responsibility for their experience without making themselves wrong for what happened to them. There is a world of difference between saying, "You are responsible for what someone did to you," and saying, "You can take responsibility for the meaning you have made of what happened, and reclaim your freedom from the conclusions you drew about yourself." I spent much of my life believing I was stupid, incapable, and worthless because of how I was treated growing up. The experiences were real. The pain was real. But I had unconsciously turned those experiences into conclusions about who I was. Landmark gave me the distinctions to see that what happened and what I made it mean about myself were not the same thing. That changed my life. Another central aspect of the training is facing what I would call -the void-: the place where the familiar explanations, justifications, identities, and interpretations no longer provide an answer. Even during Landmark seminars, I have watched how intelligently people construct explanations and excuses to avoid confronting that place. The training provides distinctions and a technology for recognizing those patterns and moving beyond them. What becomes possible on the other side is a freedom that cannot be adequately conveyed by describing the process from the outside. The same applies to the principle I consider essential: ruthless compassion. Ruthless in dismantling the stories, inherited beliefs, and social and cultural conditioning that keep a person powerless. Compassionate in what that dismantling makes possible: the freedom to be a human being without being imprisoned by conclusions about who one is supposed to be. I understand that some people may have experienced aspects of est negatively, and I am not claiming that every practice was beyond criticism, because I wasn't there. But I do question whether an account built around other people's complaints can adequately explain a training whose central purpose, as I understand it, is to confront the very interpretations through which we construct our experience. I am not asking anyone to agree with my experience, and I don't feel compelled to rescue est's reputation. I simply know what these principles made possible in my life. They did not teach me to deny what happened to me. They taught me that what happened to me did not have to determine who I am or how I live. For someone who has searched for years for a way out of suffering and has found no help elsewhere, that distinction can be life-changing. You can criticize a training's methods. But to understand what it offers, you have to distinguish the method from the possibility it is designed to open. And to know what that possibility can mean, there is no substitute for encountering it yourself.

Also, as I mentioned before, you made the false claim that the October 7th attack was spur of the moment when Hamas actually planned it for a year. That's common knowledge. Why do you refuse to respond when I called you out for spreading this disinformation? Can't admit it when you're wrong?

You consume the vast variety of media of all points of view which you claim—without knowing anything about what I do—that I don't consume, yet you have no idea why nobody will take in the Palestinians? How can a person of your expertise on this matter make such an admission? You couldn't even find one link to explain it for you? Or you found a bunch of links that didn't fit your narrative? And you actually believe that you have to be privy to privileged, inside information to gain an understanding of this widely discussed matter? You can't be serious. There's nothing top secret about it. You're right about the millions of Palestinian refugees scattered around the Middle East. They don't want any more of them because they fear that they could empower islamist militant groups, inflame domestic opposition, and create new sources of internal conflict. That's the hard truth that you don't want to accept. Lebanon and Jordan in particular have had bad experiences with Palestinian refugees. They worry that taking in more refugees could threaten the authority of their state.

I've got no idea why governments aren't taking in Palestinians. I'm not privy to that kind of information as I don't hang around in government circles. My guess is that -- as this is an ethnic cleansing operation -- they are worried they will be landed with a whole new population of refugees, many of them with physical and mental damage, including the largest group of child amputees in modern history. There are already millions of Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the neighbouring countries, ethnically cleansed in 1948. How about you? You obviously think you know the answer. I'd be interested to hear what it is.

There is an Aimee Mann station on Siriusxm https://www.siriusxm.com/player/artist-station/entity/6b19da47-a7c4-3fe8-a8a7-8811926473b9

One of the musicians to have actually appeared - as herself - in "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer."

I really enjoyed the interview. Great job making Johns feel comfortable while asking interesting questions, both technical and "spiritual". Will hunt down the book. 🙂

On "Coffee with Scott Adams" today (11/11) Scott Adams says, in discussing how to persuade people, you should watch Cheryl Hines on podcasts, and in particular this episode, if you want to know how to be on a podcast.

That and GQ?

I think seeing The Sting as a young teen or pre-teen helped turn me gay. THAT was a hot couple!

Trump has won twice, but neither of these guys have the slightest idea of why that happened. Try harder, Splice Today.

Hard to imagine thinking that Marc Maron has any real insights into the future of American politics. He's a good comedian and decent interviewer, but his talent stops there. And in this clip, he's talking to a fellow insufferably smug progressive, Sam Seder, who hasn't had an original thought in decades. Posting such material is a total waste of time. Thanks for nothing.

Actually the second littlest one was not her son because he was younger than my dad, i unfortunately don’t remember which cousin he was but the tallest boy was my great aunt’s son.

They are not going to school, my grandfather filmed this. It was a leisurely trip to the end of the line by lake Roland. The little blondie in white was my dad and the dark haired second tallest boy in stripes was my uncle. The lady that was on camera before they boarded was my aunt Bea and the two other boys I think were her sons

Such a great song. So sad youngin's don't know our music in the 60's and 70's was SO much better than their music is.

"If you only know a cup this way, you don't know the cup." David Thomas threw off sparks every time he opened his mouth.