Motley Kamuka

Small minded people will always prey on the weak minded to divide unity in the open democratic society. The world seems to have voted for closed societies, not based on democracy. According to Wikipedia only 6.4% of the population are under a full democracy. 37% of the people in the world are ruled by authoritarian regimes. Finland, Norway and Sweden lead the world in democracy. Afghanistan leads the world in lack of democracy, followed by Myanmar and North Korea.  It's no wonder that someone has the fantasy of a startup tech CEO dictatorship . Not surprisingly the author of the blog touting this brand of monarchy is himself a startup CEO. In the USA he slots right in with the right wing. People like Elon Musk, but most people the shine has worn off his ascent based on reading his tweets. Jeff Bezos has stepped down in favor of riding around in a yacht. Zuckerberg sunk his capital into something even his own employees are not interested in. Steve Jobs is dead, and he gave a Buddhi...

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" • ⁠Treaty of Tripoli "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." • ⁠James Madison "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." • ⁠Thomas Jefferson "Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?"  -John Adams "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." • ⁠Thomas Jefferson "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." • ⁠John Adams "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the co...

I love Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, Star Trek, Orphan Black and The 100. There are other shows that are shorter, like Firefly, they may continue and expand into great series space opera. I'm hoping Dune does and Hunger Games. Lord of the Rings is fantasy, without a hint of sci-fi. Sprawling fantasy shows haven't been as successful in my opinion, the son of Tolkien doesn't like the movies, but they are the height of visual fantasy. Star Wars melds some fantasy aspects. Many of these series have book sources.  They are drama and philosophy and historical parallels. They are about family, love and the subjective. They intersect with abstract universal theoretical questions. Utilitarianism has many ways of looking at things, and ideals and values have many different versions to guide us. There are hawks and doves. People struggle when their version of society isn't enacted, work to subvert authority, right or wrong. You can't always see that far into th...

Voter intimidation is legitimate democratic strategy for Republicans. Call one of the above numbers if you have a problem.  Recently posted about information wars , and that is another way of talking about lying and stealing others power. Had a girlfriend that said lying stole others power. I've always thought about that.  I read an article about how a juror was excused because they admitted they couldn't be impartial in the Trump trial. ( source )  Might have been trying to get off the jury. When I tried to get off the jury, the judge wasn't so sympathetic. I told her I was a teacher and looked at people and could tell if they're guilty or not and the guy was guilty. I could tell by looking at him. (He did look guilty and sheepish, honestly) That excused me from that trial, but not jury duty. Still had to do another day, but they sent me home because there were no other trials that day.  I honest think a MAGA wouldn't admit to that. Nothing is unfair, lying is fine...

  ( source ) Leonard Cohen was born outside of Montreal 1934, and died in 2016 in LA. His mother was a Lithuanian Jew. His Jewish name was Eliezer. "I had a very Messianic childhood. I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest." His father was a clothing store owner, and died when Leonard was 9.  Irving Layton was a mentor at Herzliah High School, though he transferred from that school. He liked Lorca in that time. He formed a band called the Buckskin Boys in high school. His first album came out in 1967. Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah". He had 15 studio albums in the end. He would read his poetry in the clubs of Little Portugal neighborhood in Montreal. He went to McGill in 1951 and published his poetry in the college literary magazines. He graduated in 1955. Yeats is a poet said to influence him, and Henry Miller. His first published book of poetry was Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956). The well-known Canadian literary critic Northr...

The violence inside us projects into the world, and as we move further into the information age, the wars get recast. Consider: If you're going to the World Cup in Qatar, you have to download an app that tracks your every move, and can takeover your phone. ( tweet ) Iran is angry that other countries are supporting the rebellion of women. ( CNN ) There's a right wing candidate in NYC that got money sent from Colorado. ( Daily News ) The dark money of the rich flows into the party that supports their agendas. ( NPR ) Wikipedia is constantly re-edited to rewrite the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ( Gizmodo ) ( Study ) They're predicting social media chaos before the midterms. ( Times of Israel ) With the upcoming midterm elections, we have a choice about democracy, versus a more authoritarian and anti-democratic route. Secular progressive or regressive traditional imprint of a Christian majority. We can support a historically good president, or spin things to destroy his univer...

I went to this movie as a little kid with my grandfather. It was my grandfather's attempt at providing me with some culture. I don't really have any memories beyond going to the movie with my grandfather, but I decided to re-watch the 1956 movie to see what I thought of it now.  First off, I'm fascinated by Buddhism, and how it's represented in the media. This movie seems like a self congratulatory bit of colonialist propaganda. I might have to read the novel or Anna Leonowens' memoirs, and see the updated versions. Of course the 1956 movie won 9 Oscars and was banned in Thailand. I could see how the people from there might not have appreciated the self congratulatory attitude of the movie.  It can be quite a shock when you realize people don't see you the way you see yourself. I would suggest that harmonizing these two things is one of the goals of psychotherapy. Realizing the impact you have on others. Not being beyond this feedback is a crucial skill in life...

There was simply not the time to cast it into rhyme or metre, to take care with assonance and ambiguity. Poetry had to be as hasty and rough as eating, sleep or sex. Jury-rigged and not as graceful as it might have been. But it did the job; put the truth on record. “Truth" I mean, in the sense of attainable accuracy. No metaphysics. Poetry is not communication with angels or with the “subconscious.” It is communication with the guts, genitals and five portals of sense. Nothing more. P. 350

“Inside many a fat middle-aged man is a randy little thin one trying to get out,” the scholar Derek Brewer wrote in his 1978 book “Chaucer and His World,” referring to what he called the “strange case” of Chaumpaigne. “Perhaps he” — Chaucer — “sometimes did.” ( NY Times ) In some legal papers they used the phrase "raptus" which is taken to mean rapist. But unsealing some ancient documents from 1379 that we stored in a salt mine in Cheshire, the documents seem to indicate that he was trying to stop the poaching of a servant during a plague.  Much of the feminist writing about misogyny isn't touched by the removal of this fact, but we now don't know that he was a rapist, indeed, he probably wasn't based on what we know now. The story goes that The Wife of Bath is perhaps the first feminist writing, in a way prompted by sexual misconduct, Chaucer perhaps examined his beliefs and became more open minded about women and empathetic.  Removing rape from his bio makes t...

As the case of Brett Favre shows, the wealthy can be just as much welfare queens, as single mothers living in poverty. Their wealth makes it even more reprehensible than people who just want to eat. ( ESPN , CBS , NY Times ) The penis exposing quarterback got a million dollars to talk, and 5 million dollars in federal money earmarked for the poor of Mississippi, for a volleyball court for his daughter's volleyball team. Now Elon Musk, the Logan Act violator ( Newsweek ), now wants Pentagon to pay for his Starlink services. ( CNN ) What is essentially a PR write off for Musk, who needs PR to float his colossal ego, suddenly he is not into the price tag. I prefer to let the PR of him cutting it off be the result of his behavior, not the USA government to bail him out, I'd prefer feeding poor people if we're going to help anyone at all. America is ambivalent about helping others, but if we're not going to help others, we can really save some money by chopping off corporat...

Personality. Some like to put their kids out into a hurricane with them crying to build character, knowing they're not in any real danger. Some people wish their children well when they are struggling as adults. There's no one way to be, but politicizing toughness and obedience over expressions of love in a messy world, that's not really getting any further traction in helping us to unlock this country. In fact it's the partisan bickering that is holding us back. No one way of being, personality wise, is superior. Some people like to emphasize the toughness you need, some people like to provide empathy. Some people like empathy, and some people like tough love. Whether we want a smaller or a more activist government is also something that comes out of the cauldron of the mind. Some people are tired of being out-woke by intelligent people, and sometimes people trust authorities too much, ignore their instincts. There's all kinds of situations.   The culture wars and ...

I'm watching Monty Python, which I absolutely loved on reruns in college. The episodes on Netflix in the USA right now are labeled 1974, and they began probably in 1969. Then they made films: Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983). I saw the Meaning of Life in the theater, and loved it. The glutton who blows up from eating too much is just disgusting. The sexual education where the wife comes in and he, assumes the foreplay as read, is hilarious. Can we have your liver? Since then I've consumed it over and over, watched their watered down specials, and I even think Brazil by Terry Gilliam is brilliant. I've enjoyed Idle's What About Dick ? Transvestism is absurd, religion is absurd, culture is absurd. I'm watching Cowboy Bebop and there's a quality not of exoticism of transgender experience, but just the wide range the world has. There's black face, even if it's to make fun of the British empire, is just not done any...

Introduction: My cousin thought it was an interesting book but also pretentious, it confounded him. Made me intrigued about the book. When people call a book pretentious, I sometimes agree, and sometimes, I guess I'm pretentious and enjoy the book. But that got me curious about this one.  Also the book is supposed to be about the midwest, Topeka Kansas in particular, not the Madison Wisconsin I grew up in, but you know, maybe I could identify the soft knowledge of what it meant to be a midwesterner. Have I finally assimilated New York? Or am I just an oddball? Ben Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College. He has an impressive resume with lots of awards.  Thoughts while reading: Madonna and Child by Duccio is referred to on p. 46 of the hardback. The focus is Darren, Adam, Darren, Johnathan (1st person). I tolerate not knowing how it all fits together. I think Johnathan might be Adam's father.  The Menninger Clinic is a famous clinic that used to be in Topeka Kansas, but moved...

I wish I could write a play where Chogyam Trungpa is begged to begin recovery by his followers who are harden AA people.  I love Moon for Misbegotten, Waiting for Godot, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I have a biography of Beckett. I could read one of Albee and I think I'd take a pass on the addiction of O'Neil, and go to Miller. I have Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare on my shelf, but I'd love to really read about all the other ones around that time: Marlowe, Fletcher, Middleton, Kyd, Jonson. I'm reading Lear , about Green Tara , Tibetan Mysticism, the archetypal Buddhas, Topeka School , Secular Buddhism, Morbo  and V . No time to pick up a new book, need to finish some of the ones I'm reading. Reading is so linear, it's frustrating. Mostly I watch movies or TV, write. Life is too rich at times, and not enough at others. Bonus: Pirate books discussed on Reddit