mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Nature of Man
February 23, 2013
— 3 Comments
Is the essential nature of humans greedy or generous? There are two sides to every coin. If it were possible for you to reverse one trend, what would you change? I think I would make it obsolete to ship, process, and package food.
Gradual Decline
January 29, 2013
— 1 Comment
The people who have gone through natural disasters and survived can tell us change is never what we expect. The people who languish in unhappy circumstances often believe that fate has trapped them without options. The appearance of permanence is a mind boggler. The sensory world seems permanent and meaningless, virtually everything it is not. You are an element of change, weather you acknowledge it or not. Some folks imagine they are preserving the world, others think they are destroying, ruling, or upgrading it. If sudden events alter the world around you, you will both adopt new ways of coping and adapt new skills. This is true for gradual change as well.
The median income in the U.S. of all but the top 10% of earners has remained relatively flat since 1967. Not all family groups, but most, own less than they owned three years ago. A small increase in household income is enjoyed by the top 5 percent of earners, but the middle class has lost income since the big crash of 2008. The adaptation to this reality does not look like healthy acceptance and appropriate response. The concept that the future is always better casts a dark economic cloud over real budgets. Spending as if there is no tomorrow usually results in a future of gloom. Paying the piper is inevitable in terms of karmic as well as financial debt. At both a personal and a national level new skills and perspectives are needed to break the cycle of gradual decline.
Cultural Delusion
January 19, 2013
— 4 Comments
Cultural mendacity is a flawed belief system taught and accepted by groups. Plato and Tennessee Williams were very concerned about this subject. Folklore and folk medicine, like belief in the chupacabra, is brought over from the past. Political and commercial propaganda is created daily to influence cultural habits. Pavlov trained his dog to be delusional, consistently. You are trained to think buying Fruit Loops on credit is a fine practice for your budget and your health. The political parties are training you to donate money to feed the status quo without even knowing what the status quo is.
Lance, the psycho bully, Armstrong needs to stand tall as a role model for all of history. Protesting too much is a classic sign of dishonesty. Willful blindness extends to all layers of our society. Most of it is not as harmless (not to indicate that these crimes were petty) as doping cyclists. Mortgage fraud and investment banking fraud, as yet to explained to the victims in clear terms, are examples of cultural delusion. Sick work ethics that ignore misdeeds and reward anti social behavior fall into this category as well. Systems are mendacious, but cultures are easily duped. Like Pavlov’s dog, groupthink salivates at the sound of the bell because it has been taught to associate the bell with food. Pavlov in this experiment plays the part of the government. The bell is congress. The dog is the tax paying citizen. The dog food cupboard is full of imaginary dog food, known as the budget. Mendacity is the system in which we live.
Fortuna, Roman Goddess of Abundance
January 17, 2013
— 1 Comment
The Romans had a pantheon similar to the Greeks. Fortuna represents wealth, commercial success, and abundance of all kinds. She is intimate with the infinite source of wealth, and acts as a conduit, bringing it to life on earth. Lakshmi is busy doing the same thing for the Hindu pantheon. In America, unfortunately, the Puritans have directly linked wealth to purity of behavior (as described by them). This narrow view of abundance is a vicious cycle of a bummer drag. They arrived in Plymouth Colony and were greeted by sophisticated and generous souls. Since the hospitable tribes did not read the Bible the Puritan fathers decided it would be fine to totally rip them off for everything they had. Things have gone downhill from that point.
As a priestess of Fortuna, you are required to make friends with money. She is the power behind all propitious events. It is possible to procure her guidance through meditation. You can ask questions with your dominant hand doing the writing, then pass the pen to Fortuna in your non dominant hand and let her answer. The handwriting may be very bad, but let it go. You are the only one who will read and interpret it. If you really wonder about your fate, your fortune, your lot in life, ask. Ask deeply, and you will find the answer. Oracles did some gas inhaling at you will not need in this exercise, but the concept is the same. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will open. Same deal. Don’t allow some Puritan nerd from the past to rob you of your right to know. Be still, know. The truth will set you free….a whole lot freer than Salem during the witch trials, anyhow. Speak to Fortuna. She has something to tell you.
Throw a Dog a Triberr Bone
January 15, 2013
— 6 Comments
The hardest working men in the publishing business have responded, repaired, and restructured the idea tested recently of limiting members’ posts to 6 per week. They truly care about being excellent Chiefs of this Digital Nation. They have graciously served all the free loading members like me who have gathered to suck down services and enjoy the free ride while they beta test the system. They have now generously capitulated to allow 14 posts to non paying members. This is perhaps a dangerous slippery slope for our three musketeers, caving to the whining of the never satisfied. To balance what has become an unfair fight in my estimation, I am going to start my subscription to the newly created Prime Lite. I double dog dare all other members of Triberr to follow suit. Put up, or shut up, as they say.
I do not resent losing the imaginary bones that were created as currency within they system. As Dan explained, since there is no way to spend them, they have been retired…like Green Stamps, or the game at the grocery store with the bingo stickers. Do NOT resent losing the silly bones. They were imaginary….okay? The expenses the Chiefs incur to create our little wonderland are real. So many have expressed opinions about how the system operates, but so few have bothered to pay for it. I personally love to pay for quality. It means that quality can thrive and be there for me next time I want to pay for it. Triberr is a very high quality service. I want to help it to grow and prosper, because it helps me grow and prosper.
I firmly believe that if you have time to write 14 blogs a week worth reading, you also have time to cough up $10 a month to keep the system flowing. Let us find that $10, and show our Chiefs we love what they do for us. If you have $40, I encourage you to just send it. Go Prime…this is probably the only thing in the world that you can do all the way to Prime for just $40 a month. If you have some reason you do not want to pay, I ,very specifically,do not want to hear about it. You can just go be cheap and quiet in your own pitiful corner.
Intelligence vs Negligence
January 4, 2013
— 3 Comments
We have so much negligence that it is necessary to break it down into its various categories:
Negligence per Se is obvious disregard for regulation that harms society. Criminal negligence is a gross deviation from the risk assessment skills of an average person. Gross negligence is failure to act with the slightest degree of care. Concurrant negligence is a group acting without the slightest degree of care. Obstruction of justice is acting to impede the law enforcement system. Seems a bit blurry, but we all know negligence when we see it.
The Latin root word in question here is about discernment and understanding. Intelligence is the ability to discern clearly, and negligence is sloth, injury and injustice. We do not have so many legal categories for intelligence because it is rare. There are laws, and there is the spirit of the law. Intelligent citizens will make the bureaucracy responsible for negligence of every kind. We pay for this negligence, and I think it is a raw deal. Good management practices eliminate negligence and waste of resources. The status quo looks to me a lot like concurrant negligence.
Unite and Lead
January 2, 2013
— 1 Comment
“Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 – 1832)
Capitalism does not require, nor naturally create great a disparity in wealth between the highest and lowest standards of living in a society. To create free markets we do not need to throw regulation out the window to favor a few insiders. We need to harmonize. We need to focus on lifting the entire society out of the sociological and economic gutter. The black plague in Europe sparked the Enlightenment after the Dark Ages. When people saw the oppressive and powerful upper class die at the same rate as all other classes, a great Wizard of Oz moment occurred. The belief in the old order was shattered, and a search for new knowledge was launched. Tyrants are all the same, dividing to conquer. Harmony requires, above all, keen listening skills. Can we use this moment, in which our government is in shambles, to abandon the old order for the good of all mankind? Can we retire the importance of ostensibly winning and loosing for long enough to seek a better way? Could this be the end of the American Empire as we know it?
Winter of Our Disco Tent
December 31, 2012
— 1 Comment
John Steinbeck wrote American novels that richly described in detail the place and time. His final book was about greed and ethics. The title, Winter of our Discontent, was taken from a line in William Shakespeare’s Richard III. When I look back in history by studying my ancestors I see a constant struggle, sometimes ignorant, sometimes violent, about greed and ethics. Our current crossroads and choices are similar to the ones found in history. “There may be better times, but this one is ours.” J P Sartre. We have to go with what we’ve got.
Since nobody has free time for an epic Greek drama, or even Shakespeare, our morality play has to be formatted for a smart phone and be shorter than 2 minutes to have impact. I admire Alan Simpson as an artist and a scholar. The essence of his distinguished career as a statesman and public servant could not possibly be summed up better than his dance with the can. The medium is the message. He knows how to communicate. Get down on it, Alan.
Passive Agressive Cops Foster Crime
December 30, 2012
— 7 Comments
Joe Bonnano
I live in central Tucson, where we are surrounded with gun dealing, dope dealing, human dealing, and we are not sure what else. Here everyone knows that these illegal businesses are perhaps the strongest part of our economy. Tucson works on that trickle down theory…if we let lots of crime money circulate in the city, somebody will buy something from the legal merchants. We are well aware that cops do not make extra money enforcing laws, but rather by strategically ignoring them.
People in other parts of the country might be shocked by what is called the neighborhood watch program in this city.. Our neighbors have had three visits from the neighborhood watch cop. We had a functional handful of neighbors who regularly e mailed and gave information to each other about crime, safety, and suspicious activity. We met with her to find out how to enhance our skills and coordinate with the TPD. She came but told us we did not meet the requirements she had to follow, so she could not work with us. We went ahead the same way, just using our e mail list to contact each other.
The second meeting set up to form an official watch was a few days before a sales tax election that was of great importance to the officer. Although we had far fewer attendees at the second meeting, she decided that this time we could make it official. So she stayed for an hour and promoted the sales tax and told us we already had no hope of law enforcement, but if the sales tax did not pass she might loose her job. I remember thinking, she really should loose her job since she is out here not doing it at all right now. After the official status was granted I contacted her to help eliminate the extreme flaming crime that we had to tolerate full time in the form of a charity scam operating in our public areas. She refused to help or respond. She told me to call the parking authority to try to remove the log jam of cars that blocked us into our houses while they made donations to the criminals. The parking authority did arrive six months later and ticket a neighbor who had been illegally parked for a decade, but all the neighborhhod had to live with full time fully public crime by three of the thirty houses in our condo village. Since they were in the scam business for years, our property value has been reduced to almost nothing. Nobody would come to look at a property where the residents were fully parked in to their homes with crime traffic.
The third meeting with the officer was even more poorly attended, with only three other homes represented, other than the full time criminals. So, with the threashhold of a minimum of 16 participants, she went ahead with a brief meeting to sanction the tiny, close knit, and full time criminal group who sat before her as our official neighborhood watch. The other homeowners would just be able to watch while their quality of life is trashed by this group. I raised the issue that there were not close to a majority there, which was met with hostility by both the charity scammers and the cop. What they have in common that aligns them is a desire to be hostile rather than aware. I watched a functioning group of neighbors turn into a crime enhancing group of punks under the guidance of the TPD. No exchange of information has been done since she sanctioned the criminal group. They refuse to respond, just like the TPD. I want to recognize the important work being done by this branch of law enforcement, and I want to stop paying for it. It seems to damage society when cops pretend that crime is not their problem. We don’t need to pay tax dollars to extend willful blindness to crime. We already have that.
Saturday Morning Puppet Show
December 29, 2012
— 2 Comments
There is a number to call in the ad above to tell congress if you want to stop living like Jessica Rabbit in a bad cartoon. Tweet them, write them, fax them, call them, and beg for mercy on this country. Each new installment of this congress show is less acceptable than the last. We have gone beyond throwing bums out, and must address the systemic way this all came about in the first place. I think it would be good to know what happened on K Street before lobbyists moved in and started running the Howdy Doody Show.
