Saved comments for December 2020
Jan. 1st, 2021 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neonvincentI was a lot more chatty this month than I have been all year with 16 saved comments behind the cut. It must be releasing stress after a long year.
My comments on A Faint Whiff of Lemonade.
"They’re among the intellectual heirs of the Fabian movement, convinced that they can use their own wealth, influence, and position in the collective conversation of our time to get the populace in general to accept social changes that will preserve the dominance of the privileged classes, while giving the masses what the privileged classes think they ought to want."
I'm reminded of Otto Von Bismarck, who created a compulsory health insurance program for the German Empire in 1884. Bismarck was no socialist; in fact, he was considered an arch-conservative. However, he had a good idea of how to compete with the actual socialists to preserve the social order. After all, it was Bismarck who wrote or said "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."
The Archdruid's response: "Bismarck was a political genius, and realized — as of course most industrial nations did over the century after his time — that you can gut the socialist movement by giving citizens the goodies that they want from socialism, without the collective ownership of the means of production that most people really don’t want."
@Justin Patrick Moore "Cataloging a documentary about the Biosphere 2 project at work today" — Is it Spaceship Earth? I ran across it while blogging about the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. It was nominated for Best Archival Documentary and Best Science/Nature Documentary, but didn't win either, losing to MLK/FBI for the first and My Octopus Teacher for the second. That documentary caught my attention because I use Biosphere 2 in my lectures as an example of failing to follow the environmental principle of humility, knowing the limits of one's knowledge. When I return to in-person classes, I plan on referring my students to that movie for more.
Justin Patrick Moore's response: Yup, that’s the documentary: Spaceship Earth. Sounds like you are teaching some good things!
My comment on POUTY DONNIE'S FINAL DAYS?
Translated, the name indeed sounds lame, but don't blame it on Trump. Blame it on Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built it and named it. You can also blame her indirectly for it becoming a "Winter White House." She willed it to the National Park Service for the purpose upon her death in 1973. Unfortunately, neither Nixon nor Carter were interested in it and Congress ended up giving it back to her trust. Trump later bought it. It's now a winter presidential residence, if only for a month-and-a-half more. She got her wish 44 years after her death. The moral is be careful what one wishes for; it might come true!
My comment on The Cat Family: Felidae.
Your comment reminds me of a lyric from "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang: "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel." As for the porn that involves organisms other than mammals, I suspect some of them include snakes, particularly constrictors.
My comment on Swimming With Dinosaurs.
Given the direction of your series on fossil mammals, I'm looking forward to a post of yours in 2023 titled "Eocene (Pt. xx): The Last of the Multituberculates." Speaking of which, may both of us last long enough that you get to write "Permian (Pt. xx): Pelycosaurs" and I get to read it.
My comment on On Myth, History, and Pagan Origins.
I second that suggestion. After I read about "occult detectives," I began working out my own ideas on a series of short stories with mondern occult detectives that would try to introduce more accurate uses of occult techniques to a generation that has been watching "Supernatural," "Dead Files," and "Ghost Adventures." I'm thinking of my daughter and her peers, who moonlight as paranormal investigators, as both the audience and models for the protagonists. I would very much be interested in your thoughts.
My comment on Voyage of the Kinkajous.
Rafting seems to have been an especially successful way for mammal groups to expand their ranges to South American with New World Monkeys, hystricognath rodents, and kinkajous having done so. Do you know of any other mammals that got to South America that way or other island continents where rafting was so successful, such as Africa during the Paleogene?
My comment on Another Dysfunction?
"Is Hanlon related to Mr. Murphy?"
Only to the extent that Robert J. Hanlon, whose posts I used to see on USENET during the late 1990s and early 2000s, also has an Irish surname and Hanlon's Razor is a corollary to Murphy's Law. It also isn't all that original, as Robert A. Heinlein wrote something similar back in 1941.
My comment on Magic Monday for 12/14/20.
When I enrolled in health insurance through my employer over the weekend, I had to complete an "HR Task" first, which was to complete an online wellness course. At first, it seemed pretty conventional, beginning with a science-based discussion of the spine and limbs and how office work had deleterious effects on health that included instructions on proper posture, both standing and seated. The latter reminded me of your instructions on the proper posture for discursive meditation. That foreshadowed the rest of the course, which discussed yoga techniques and meditation. That part surprised me, as the meditation module included a description of the subtle bodies that looked a lot like the inner planes you've written a lot about in your posts about "The Cosmic Doctrine" and elsewhere — energy body, emotional self or body, and mental body (they skipped over the astral body, which fits with a response to a comment you made in a previous Magic Monday post about how people confuse astral plane activity with mental plane activity), a spiritual plane, and "pure consciousness," which they identified with the higher self. The instructors said that getting in touch with each of these was the goal of meditation. If I hadn't been reading you, I would have been utterly confused and astonished at these concepts. Instead, I was merely surprised that my employer was promoting this material. I was also wondering if this model of the subtle bodies was part of yoga and meditation was part of both when they were imported from India or were added to it from Western occult traditions afterwards. Do you know?
By the way, when the course described different types of meditation, three things struck me. First, they warned about the effects of kundalini meditation, saying that it could result in kundalini syndrome and was not for beginners. Second, that meditation was a good technique for business. Third, even though they instructed the viewers (this was a video course) in the proper sitting posture for working at a desk, they never mentioned discursive meditation.* I was disappointed, but not surprised. You have mentioned that the kind of meditation promoted by the professional middle class is what's good for business as usual, but not for encouraging developing independent thought. So, what do you think of the particular elements of occult thought and their uses that I described as well as their being promoted by business and the public sector to their employees?
*The stress management instructor described a technique for managing anxiety that amounted to a focused use of discursive meditation. She called it a "brain dump" of things to worry about that resulted in a to-do list after 20 minutes. Again, that's a form of meditation that's good for business as usual, but not encouraging independent thought.
JMG's response: This is quite common these days. Watered-down spiritual practices used as nonchemical tranquilizers are all the rage. Discursive meditation will never be popular in such circles, precisely because they teach people to think independently. As for the sources, that's a good question I can't answer without a lot of research; my first guess would be that it's from New Age sources, which means basically warmed-over Theosophy.
My comment on Literary Corner: Theater of the Intellectual Dark Web.
As someone with a Ph.D. who worked hard to be called "Doctor," I hope the fictional Ben Shapiro hears a herd of stampeding rhinoceros thundering in his head during his fit of apoplexy.
My comment on The Grand Mutation: An Astrological Interlude.
"[T]he Grand Trigon...Yes, I know that sounds like something from a science fiction novel." Close. Trigon is a villain in superhero comics and the TV shows derived from them. He is a powerful demon who is the father of the superhero(ine) Raven, a sorceress who is a friend and teammate of Robin in the Teen Titans. That means she's only one step removed from Batman, favorite superhero of yours and mine.
Back to the chart. On the one hand, "governments will gain strength because they alone have the resources to deal with the impacts of technological regress and technologically driven disasters." On the other, "Prosperity will strengthen the hand of the people against the state, as it usually does." Watching the early stages of that dynamic will be something for me to keep an eye on during the rest of this life, while I expect seeing it play out in more mature form will be how I will spend the next life.
My comments on THEY'D DO ANYTHING FOR TRUMP (BUT THEY WON'T DO THAT).
I appreciate the Meat Loaf reference. It reminded me that "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" is my favorite song by him. The second is probably "Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul" from The Rocky Horror Show. Bon appetit!
As for your serious point, whose law is it that conservativism is opposition to whatever liberals believe? I know one of the commenters here will know. Anyone, anyone, Bueller, anyone?
Yes, Cleek's Law. Thank you, WeWantPie!
My comment on Jon Swift Roundup 2020
Paul Wartenberg of You Might Notice A Trend suggested that I submit an entry to you a couple of years ago, but I never followed through. Nonnie9999 suggested that, even though you compiled and posted already, that I should still submit a late entry. Here it is, 'Star Wars' political parodies for Star Wars Day in an election year.
"Happy Star Wars Day and May the Fourth be with you! For today's cosmic cinematic celebration, I am shifting gears because it's an election year to present a post in the spirit of Darth Vader for President and other entertainment leftovers, Chewbacca arrested as Darth Vader campaigns for Mayor of Odessa, Ukraine, Darth Trump, Obi-Wan Kenobi for President and Darth Vader beats Trump but not Clinton, Darth Trump strikes back as The Farce awakens, Silly candidates, real and fictional, for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, and 'Star Wars' attack ads — wow, I've posted a lot of Star Wars political content over the years — I'm sharing Star-Wars-themed political parodies for the 2020 election."
My comment on Prehistoric Mammal Discoveries of 2020.
Happy holidays! After reading this year's entries mostly in reverse since I discovered your blog last month then encountering last year's edition of this post, I realized that the 2019 summary of fossil mammal discoveries served as a preview of coming attractions for a lot of your posts about fossil mammals during the year about to end. Based on that, I know to pay special attention to this entry, because I expect I will see some of these finds examined in more detail in the year to come.
My comment on Oh! Canada!
I dated an American immigrant to Canada for 10 years and that flow chart of how to decide between metric and Imperial units matches how she switched back and forth between them. She had already been in the Great White North for 10 years before I met her, so she had adjusted. The year after we broke up, she moved back to California. That was 12 years ago. I wonder if she has returned to doing things entirely in Imperial units and stopped saying "eh" and "We don't need to clean that much, the Queen isn't coming to visit" in the intervening dozen years.
My comment on D&D Monsters: Griffons and Hippogriffs.
I came over here from your other blog and I'm glad I did. I see your expertise there applies here to fantastic beasts as much to real ones. That adds an extra dimension to your discussion of the subject. I don't know of anyone else who would bring in azhdarchid pterosaurs when describing the flight of griffons and hippogriffs, although I could imagine someone comparing them to actual horses, eagles, and lions.
Off to work my way backwards through this blog. Would you ever consider monsters from the Fiend Folio, which have a U.K. origin?
My comments on A Faint Whiff of Lemonade.
"They’re among the intellectual heirs of the Fabian movement, convinced that they can use their own wealth, influence, and position in the collective conversation of our time to get the populace in general to accept social changes that will preserve the dominance of the privileged classes, while giving the masses what the privileged classes think they ought to want."
I'm reminded of Otto Von Bismarck, who created a compulsory health insurance program for the German Empire in 1884. Bismarck was no socialist; in fact, he was considered an arch-conservative. However, he had a good idea of how to compete with the actual socialists to preserve the social order. After all, it was Bismarck who wrote or said "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."
The Archdruid's response: "Bismarck was a political genius, and realized — as of course most industrial nations did over the century after his time — that you can gut the socialist movement by giving citizens the goodies that they want from socialism, without the collective ownership of the means of production that most people really don’t want."
@Justin Patrick Moore "Cataloging a documentary about the Biosphere 2 project at work today" — Is it Spaceship Earth? I ran across it while blogging about the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards. It was nominated for Best Archival Documentary and Best Science/Nature Documentary, but didn't win either, losing to MLK/FBI for the first and My Octopus Teacher for the second. That documentary caught my attention because I use Biosphere 2 in my lectures as an example of failing to follow the environmental principle of humility, knowing the limits of one's knowledge. When I return to in-person classes, I plan on referring my students to that movie for more.
Justin Patrick Moore's response: Yup, that’s the documentary: Spaceship Earth. Sounds like you are teaching some good things!
My comment on POUTY DONNIE'S FINAL DAYS?
Translated, the name indeed sounds lame, but don't blame it on Trump. Blame it on Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built it and named it. You can also blame her indirectly for it becoming a "Winter White House." She willed it to the National Park Service for the purpose upon her death in 1973. Unfortunately, neither Nixon nor Carter were interested in it and Congress ended up giving it back to her trust. Trump later bought it. It's now a winter presidential residence, if only for a month-and-a-half more. She got her wish 44 years after her death. The moral is be careful what one wishes for; it might come true!
My comment on The Cat Family: Felidae.
Your comment reminds me of a lyric from "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang: "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel." As for the porn that involves organisms other than mammals, I suspect some of them include snakes, particularly constrictors.
My comment on Swimming With Dinosaurs.
Given the direction of your series on fossil mammals, I'm looking forward to a post of yours in 2023 titled "Eocene (Pt. xx): The Last of the Multituberculates." Speaking of which, may both of us last long enough that you get to write "Permian (Pt. xx): Pelycosaurs" and I get to read it.
My comment on On Myth, History, and Pagan Origins.
I second that suggestion. After I read about "occult detectives," I began working out my own ideas on a series of short stories with mondern occult detectives that would try to introduce more accurate uses of occult techniques to a generation that has been watching "Supernatural," "Dead Files," and "Ghost Adventures." I'm thinking of my daughter and her peers, who moonlight as paranormal investigators, as both the audience and models for the protagonists. I would very much be interested in your thoughts.
My comment on Voyage of the Kinkajous.
Rafting seems to have been an especially successful way for mammal groups to expand their ranges to South American with New World Monkeys, hystricognath rodents, and kinkajous having done so. Do you know of any other mammals that got to South America that way or other island continents where rafting was so successful, such as Africa during the Paleogene?
My comment on Another Dysfunction?
"Is Hanlon related to Mr. Murphy?"
Only to the extent that Robert J. Hanlon, whose posts I used to see on USENET during the late 1990s and early 2000s, also has an Irish surname and Hanlon's Razor is a corollary to Murphy's Law. It also isn't all that original, as Robert A. Heinlein wrote something similar back in 1941.
My comment on Magic Monday for 12/14/20.
When I enrolled in health insurance through my employer over the weekend, I had to complete an "HR Task" first, which was to complete an online wellness course. At first, it seemed pretty conventional, beginning with a science-based discussion of the spine and limbs and how office work had deleterious effects on health that included instructions on proper posture, both standing and seated. The latter reminded me of your instructions on the proper posture for discursive meditation. That foreshadowed the rest of the course, which discussed yoga techniques and meditation. That part surprised me, as the meditation module included a description of the subtle bodies that looked a lot like the inner planes you've written a lot about in your posts about "The Cosmic Doctrine" and elsewhere — energy body, emotional self or body, and mental body (they skipped over the astral body, which fits with a response to a comment you made in a previous Magic Monday post about how people confuse astral plane activity with mental plane activity), a spiritual plane, and "pure consciousness," which they identified with the higher self. The instructors said that getting in touch with each of these was the goal of meditation. If I hadn't been reading you, I would have been utterly confused and astonished at these concepts. Instead, I was merely surprised that my employer was promoting this material. I was also wondering if this model of the subtle bodies was part of yoga and meditation was part of both when they were imported from India or were added to it from Western occult traditions afterwards. Do you know?
By the way, when the course described different types of meditation, three things struck me. First, they warned about the effects of kundalini meditation, saying that it could result in kundalini syndrome and was not for beginners. Second, that meditation was a good technique for business. Third, even though they instructed the viewers (this was a video course) in the proper sitting posture for working at a desk, they never mentioned discursive meditation.* I was disappointed, but not surprised. You have mentioned that the kind of meditation promoted by the professional middle class is what's good for business as usual, but not for encouraging developing independent thought. So, what do you think of the particular elements of occult thought and their uses that I described as well as their being promoted by business and the public sector to their employees?
*The stress management instructor described a technique for managing anxiety that amounted to a focused use of discursive meditation. She called it a "brain dump" of things to worry about that resulted in a to-do list after 20 minutes. Again, that's a form of meditation that's good for business as usual, but not encouraging independent thought.
JMG's response: This is quite common these days. Watered-down spiritual practices used as nonchemical tranquilizers are all the rage. Discursive meditation will never be popular in such circles, precisely because they teach people to think independently. As for the sources, that's a good question I can't answer without a lot of research; my first guess would be that it's from New Age sources, which means basically warmed-over Theosophy.
My comment on Literary Corner: Theater of the Intellectual Dark Web.
As someone with a Ph.D. who worked hard to be called "Doctor," I hope the fictional Ben Shapiro hears a herd of stampeding rhinoceros thundering in his head during his fit of apoplexy.
My comment on The Grand Mutation: An Astrological Interlude.
"[T]he Grand Trigon...Yes, I know that sounds like something from a science fiction novel." Close. Trigon is a villain in superhero comics and the TV shows derived from them. He is a powerful demon who is the father of the superhero(ine) Raven, a sorceress who is a friend and teammate of Robin in the Teen Titans. That means she's only one step removed from Batman, favorite superhero of yours and mine.
Back to the chart. On the one hand, "governments will gain strength because they alone have the resources to deal with the impacts of technological regress and technologically driven disasters." On the other, "Prosperity will strengthen the hand of the people against the state, as it usually does." Watching the early stages of that dynamic will be something for me to keep an eye on during the rest of this life, while I expect seeing it play out in more mature form will be how I will spend the next life.
My comments on THEY'D DO ANYTHING FOR TRUMP (BUT THEY WON'T DO THAT).
I appreciate the Meat Loaf reference. It reminded me that "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" is my favorite song by him. The second is probably "Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul" from The Rocky Horror Show. Bon appetit!
As for your serious point, whose law is it that conservativism is opposition to whatever liberals believe? I know one of the commenters here will know. Anyone, anyone, Bueller, anyone?
Yes, Cleek's Law. Thank you, WeWantPie!
My comment on Jon Swift Roundup 2020
Paul Wartenberg of You Might Notice A Trend suggested that I submit an entry to you a couple of years ago, but I never followed through. Nonnie9999 suggested that, even though you compiled and posted already, that I should still submit a late entry. Here it is, 'Star Wars' political parodies for Star Wars Day in an election year.
"Happy Star Wars Day and May the Fourth be with you! For today's cosmic cinematic celebration, I am shifting gears because it's an election year to present a post in the spirit of Darth Vader for President and other entertainment leftovers, Chewbacca arrested as Darth Vader campaigns for Mayor of Odessa, Ukraine, Darth Trump, Obi-Wan Kenobi for President and Darth Vader beats Trump but not Clinton, Darth Trump strikes back as The Farce awakens, Silly candidates, real and fictional, for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, and 'Star Wars' attack ads — wow, I've posted a lot of Star Wars political content over the years — I'm sharing Star-Wars-themed political parodies for the 2020 election."
My comment on Prehistoric Mammal Discoveries of 2020.
Happy holidays! After reading this year's entries mostly in reverse since I discovered your blog last month then encountering last year's edition of this post, I realized that the 2019 summary of fossil mammal discoveries served as a preview of coming attractions for a lot of your posts about fossil mammals during the year about to end. Based on that, I know to pay special attention to this entry, because I expect I will see some of these finds examined in more detail in the year to come.
My comment on Oh! Canada!
I dated an American immigrant to Canada for 10 years and that flow chart of how to decide between metric and Imperial units matches how she switched back and forth between them. She had already been in the Great White North for 10 years before I met her, so she had adjusted. The year after we broke up, she moved back to California. That was 12 years ago. I wonder if she has returned to doing things entirely in Imperial units and stopped saying "eh" and "We don't need to clean that much, the Queen isn't coming to visit" in the intervening dozen years.
My comment on D&D Monsters: Griffons and Hippogriffs.
I came over here from your other blog and I'm glad I did. I see your expertise there applies here to fantastic beasts as much to real ones. That adds an extra dimension to your discussion of the subject. I don't know of anyone else who would bring in azhdarchid pterosaurs when describing the flight of griffons and hippogriffs, although I could imagine someone comparing them to actual horses, eagles, and lions.
Off to work my way backwards through this blog. Would you ever consider monsters from the Fiend Folio, which have a U.K. origin?
