"Fascism For Dummkopfs" book by G.E. Nordell - cover

Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

THE EXISTENTIAL SEASON [est. 2023]

December 22nd is the first day of the Existential Season which occurs on the day after Winter Solstice; the celebration is intended to increase awareness of the existential nature of the Universe and to remind existentialists, practitioners of zen & mental yoga, objectivists, and stoics to refresh their commitment to objective reality.
Existentialism • Existentialist Film Festival

December 2023 Quotations (52)

"I choose bold. I choose action. I choose what’s right for the people. I choose to make a difference.”
~~ American politician & diplomatWilliam Blaine 'Bill' Richardson III [1947-2023]

"Myth: Climate change will lead to human extinction. Fact: [Artificial intelligence] will get us first."
~~ television writer Jay Katsir

"That which can be destroyed by the truth should be."
~~ fantasy author P.C. Hodgell

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
~~ British author Charles Dickens [1812-70]

"Record profits are unpaid wages."
~~ recent internet meme

"Don't forget to be awesome."
~~ podcaster William Henry 'Hank' Green II

"There is no illusion greater than fear."
~~ Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu [IVth Century BCE]

"Research shows that 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't Happy."
~~ Seb O'Driscoll, in 2009

"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

"So often the case with modern Republicans [is that] every accusation is a confession, and every assertion is projection."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody."
~~ Chinese proverb

"How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days."
~~ John Burroughs [1837-1921]

"You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them."
~~ blogger Shane Parrish - in his new book "Clear Thinking" [10/2023]

"Facebook gnomes are good; Facebook trolls are bad. Progressives and Democrats are gnomes; fascist Republicans are trolls. Be a gnome."
~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell

"Today's technology was yesterday's science fiction."
~~ college professor Rodrigue Rizk

"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."
~~ Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates [470?-399 B.C.E.]

"The principle of self-defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"Come the rewolution you will eat stromberries and cream - and like it!"
~~ Willie Howard [1883-1949], in vaudeville act with Al Kelly [1896-1966]

"The GOP ... [is] a party that is clearly more comfortable with performance art centered on imaginary grievances than with actual governing."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

Hofstadter's Law is "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
~~ Douglas Hofstadter - in "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" [1979]

"Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both."
~~ Dr. John Andrew Holmes [1904-62] - in "Wisdom In Small Doses" [1941]

"To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine [that] a man can give himself."
~~ Henry Miller [1891-1980]

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life."
~~ Beat writer Jack Kerouac [1922-69]

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."
~~ John W. Gardner [1912-2002]

"You know, we don't live in a democracy [but a] Biblical republic."
~~ MAGA Republican Cong. Mike Johnson [GOP LA-04] after being elected as the new House Speaker in October 2023

"When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey."
~~ aviator & author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44]

"Everything [that] you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."
~~ French philosopher Voltaire [1694-1778]

"Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow."
~~ Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]

"The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness."
~~ Erich Fromm [1900-80]

"Beware of being too rational. In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn't become king. He gets lynched."
~~ Aldous Leonard Huxley [1894-1963]

"Reading . . . it's like a holiday in your head . . ."
~~ title character "Matilda" in the musical movie [2022]

"The GOP's descent into fascism, led by Trump, is not [amusing]. There should be a big red flashing light and clanging bells going off in the brains of every right-thinking American. Our country is in real danger, and there's less than a year left to marshal democratic forces to save it." ~~ Teresa Hanafin, staff writer at The Boston Globe

"We will be known forever by the tracks [that] we leave."
~~ Dakota Nation {Native American} proverb

"The first G.O.P. primary debate confirmed the end of the old Republican Party and squelched any hope for a normal presidential election in 2024 . . . Beyond the scorekeeping, what the G.O.P. debate showed is that the Republicans, as a party, don’t care very much about policy, that the G.O.P. contenders remain in the grip of moral cowardice, and that Fox News is just as bad, if not worse, than it’s ever been."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."
~~ Scottish philosopher William Wallace [1844-97]

"We are always changing, sometimes even for the better."
~~ Ross Andersen writes in The Atlantic Magazine

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate and wine in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO - what a ride!'."
~~ Hunter S. Thompson [1937-2005]

"Religion is for people who are afraid of hell, spirituality is for people who have already been there."
~~ Running Hawk, Lakota Nation {Native American}

"Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that you think are important to you."
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

"It hurts Trump to hear the truth about himself."
~~ Daily Kos independent news site [est. 2002]

"Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."
~~ writing advice from Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"The Republicans [backing] Trump are driven by two factors: ambition and delusion."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know."
~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero [106-43 B.C.E.]

"Trump and his supporters ... are deadly serious about their intentions to take power and destroy democracy."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie."
~~ novelist Khaled Hosseini

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
~~ Brasilian author Paulo Coelho - in "The Alchemist" [1988]

"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him."
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
~~ sociologost Carlos Castañeda [1925-98]

"When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched three fold."
~~ Henry Miller [1891-1980] - in "The Books In My Life" [1952]

"When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love . . ."
~~ Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.] - in "Meditations" [circa IInd Century]

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

"You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

THE GAZA WAR EXPLAINED

Golda Mabovitch Meir [1898-1978] was Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She often complained that the God of the Hebrews assigned His 'chosen people' to the only real estate in the Middle East without fossil fuel deposits underground. That territory includes Palestine's Gaza Strip and West Bank.

That is, until natural gas fields were discovered off the coast of Isreal and the Gaza Strip in 2000. The Palestinian fields are rather small - only 35 billion cubic meters - compared to about 200 BCMs off the Isreali coast. The issue has not been about the amount, but that Israel believes all such resources belong to them. On top of that, Isreal is determined to prevent either the Palestine government or the radical Hamas group in control of Gaza from receiving any revenue, both for general purposes or for possible purchase of weaponry for attacking Israel.

The diplomatic balance was skewed further when Shell/British Gas pulled out in 2018, leaving exploration of Palestine's natural gas fields contracted solely to Gazprom, the large Russian natural gas company.

After the 11-day Isreal-Hamas clash in May 2021, Israel tightened economic and geographic blockades against Palestine, causing great hardship. The military wing of Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Brigades, began to plan an attack on Isreal; Israel intelligence learned of the plan in 2022 but did nothing - best guess: Israel chose to let Hamas attack, which would then justify obliteration of Gaza, essentially the genocide taking place since October 7th.

This whole hazarai is about control of oil revenue.
And of course, the entire history of the area is explained by the observation that "There are no adults in Middle East politics."

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

scared yet?

Wake up, people:
"You know, we don't live in a democracy [but a] Biblical republic." ~~~ MAGA Republican Cong. Mike Johnson (GOP LA-04) after being elected as the new House Speaker
Are you scared yet?

G.E. Nordell
Rio Communities, New Mexico USA
www.GENordell.com

Innocent Intervention

When I lived where fast food places were really busy, I decided not to use my own name because so many other names rhymed. So now, when the cashier order taker asks me to provide a name for the order, I give them a doozie. How special that there is no law against naming the meal anything that you want.

So my list includes Nebuchudnezzer (Biblical king), Bubba, Jawaharlal (Nehru, first president of modern India), Thorstein (Veblen, famous sociologist), Aristotle, Balthazar (one of the Three Wise Men), and Shadnack, Meshak, or Abednego (Book of Daniel).

If I'm in a particular mood, I name my meal Spartacus; then when an employee calls that name, I stand and raise a fist high, and shout "I am Spartacus!".

You are invited to do this also. This very mild form of messing with people is available to all. You might just innocently intervene in another person's day, jolting them awake from the stupor of their humdrum, boring, boring 'normal' life.

Random acts of kindness are interventions.

RECIPE OF THE MONTH: OYSTERS BACHELOR MEAL

1) Choose a deep soup bowl or ramekin dish; recycling cooks might re-use a dish from the Hormel Compleat entrees (to give you an idea on the size).

2) Open a 7-ounce can of mushrooms, sliced or pieces; drain the mushrooms and spread in the bottom of the bowl.

3) Open an 8-ounce can of whole oysters, such as sold by Chicken of The Sea brand; drain and spread atop the mushrooms.

4) Spread lots of butter atop the oysters; sprinkle powdered garlic on top; optionally sprinkle other spice, such as steak seasoning or black pepper.

5) Cook in microwave, with cover if you have one: the tea setting on my oven is 2 minutes, I cook the oyster meal for 90 seconds.

6) Eat with a spoon; the juice at the bottom is quite tasty.

{{ recipes are not copyrightable }}

August 2023 Quotations (51)

"Never tell a young person that something can not be done. God may have been waiting for centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that thing."
~~ Dr. John Andrew Holmes [1874-1937]

"Stupidity is not the lack of knowledge, it is the illusion of having it."
~~ Grigore Lilian

"In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets." ~~ indep filmmaker Jonas Mekas [1922-2019]

"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and be understood."
~~ Seneca the Younger [4? B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]

"Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe."
~~ Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]

"Aartificial intelligence is as revolutionary as mobile phones and the internet."
~~ Bill Gates

“I think about nuclear war not because I find it fascinating but because I want to prevent it, to make it unthinkable."
~~ Daniel Ellsberg [1931-2023] - in 2023

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." ~~ philosopher-economist Adam Smith [1723-90]

“The child is educated by what the adult is and not by all his talk."
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

“Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see, the world hath more fools in it than ever."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834]

“In communism, man exploits man. But with capitalism, it’s the other way around."
~~ Mark Russell [1932-2023]

“Really to believe in something is the greatest boon, I think, and to believe wholeheartedly in it and to serve it with all your strength and might is salvation."
~~ architect Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959] - in 1958

“I would rather be a rebel than a slave."
~~ British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst [1858-1928]

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
~~ Agatha Christie [1890-1976]

“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost." ~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart."
~~ Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926]

“The art of being happy lies in the power to extract happiness from common things."
~~ Henry Ward Beecher [1813-87]

“Robert Kennedy, Jr. is the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Democratic Party. Both are batsh!t crazy." ~~ G.E. Nordell

“Let us try to recognize the precious nature of each day."
~~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
~~ René Descartes [1596-1650] Page

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."
~~ German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer [1788-1860]

“Writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity." ~~ Japanese writer Haruki Murakami

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."
~~ artist Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world ... would do this, it would change the earth."
~~ William Faulkner [1897-1962]

“The Supreme Court is looking less like a bench and more like an auction house."
~~ Cong. Alexandria 'A.O.C.' Ocasio-Cortez [Dem NY-14]

“When you get beyond the symbols and beliefs about now, beyond thinking about it, beyond efforting or working at it, when you get even beyond merely feeling it, when you get all the way up to observing it, being with it, and finally up to totally experiencing it, the uncertainty about living goes away, because you know the truth in the only way in which a being ever knows the truth – by direct experience."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard

“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."
~~ Walter Winchell [1897-1972]

“It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."
~~ Marlene Dietrich [1901-92]

“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want."
~~ Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu [IVth Century BCE]

“Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]

“Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot."
~~ Greek philosopher Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.] - in his "Nicomachean Ethics"

“Live life as a verb, not as a noun." ~~ abstract painter Agnes Martin [1912-2004]

“And then, one fairy night / May became June." ~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940]

“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly."
~~ poet Pablo Neruda [1904-73]

“At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon."
~~ Edgar Allan Poe [1809-49]

“This is the smell of June, she wanted to write to Christopher . . . honeysuckle, green hay, wet linen hung out to dry . . ."
~~ Lisa Kleypas, in 2010 novel "Love In The Afternoon"

“naming lunatics and shaming poltroons is essential to a healthy democracy."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."
~~ Charles Bukowski [1920-94]

“The psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer higher-order system's as man's existential problems change."
~~ Dr. Clare W. Graves [1914-86]

“We must write where we stand. An imitation of the life we know, however narrow, is our only ground." ~~ author John Updike [1932-2009] - in 1974

“Sometimes I'm consistent and sometimes I'm not." ~~ Pickles daily comic strip [est. 1990]

“You know I believe true balance lies somewhere between rage and serenity."
~~ Professor X, aka Charles Xavier - from X-Men

“There is no greater education than one that is self-driven."
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

“You are what you do, not what you say [that] you will do." ~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

“Sometimes your job as an artist is to be invited somewhere and ensure that they never invite you back." ~~ source not found

“The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [1749-1832]

“The atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass, and beyond that there is a different country." ~~ J. Robert Oppenheimer [1904-67]

“Strength comes from choosing your own path and living with the consequences."
~~ fantasy author Jennifer Armintrout

“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time." ~~ writer Sylvia Plath [1932-63]

“It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine."
~~ Pooh character Eeyore, as written by A.A. Milne [1882-1956]

“For Business Opportunity Sellers, ‘A.I.’ Stands for ‘Allegedly Inaccurate’"
~~ U.S. Federal Trade Commission blog post headline, 8/2023

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

NEW POLITICAL TACTIC

Really good action idea at this juncture is to totally skip mentioning Turdball by name.
Just that.
Even journalists. It will help a lot if they gradually reduce actual mention down to once per news show broadcast.
The pronouns that they can use are he & him & sh*thead.

As to replacing all self-assigned titles, I nominate The Orange Clusterf*ck.
Pronouns to be used here are he & him & dipsh*t.

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Working Minds Essay #120: M.A.G.A. Fascists Are Evil

I have recently been invited by a couple of M.A.G.A. fascist trolls to 'debate' with them on Facebook. Not gonna happen.

The 'Make America Great Again' meme was invented in 1926 by the fascist dictator of Italy Benito Mussolini [1883-1945]; of course, he started with 'Make Italy Great Again (Rendere L'Italia di Nuovo Grande)' but by 1927 he was recorded on a British Fox MovieTone sound newsreel asking Italian immigrants in America to help 'Make America Great Again'. That was in 1927, long before the Orange Imbecile was even born.

American voters who advocate the M.A.G.A. platform are fascists, whether they agree to that or not. Fascism is evil, and today's Republican Party is fascism top to bottom.

There is no such thing as actual 'debate' with extremists, and the Chinese and Russians know this quite well. The plan is always to take some aggressive action, do battle for a while, then 'negotiate' a truce, which always has the other side compromising - i.e. conceding something - which gives the extremists an unearned win.

I will not do any such thing as engage in discussion with a fascist troll. The proper response to any brainwashed M.A.G.A. or fascist troll is to call them out as such, to describe the evil troll bastids *AS* evil, and to not play their simplistic anti-democratic game. These cowards may whimper and complain of being bullied, but Facebook Jail is a welcome respite from dealing with online idiots and in no way constitutes a problem.

Coincidentally, two video clips recently showed up on Facebook Reels showing rock musician Frank Zappa [1940-93] predicting that the United States was headed toward a fascist theocracy - the clips are dated 1986 and 1988 - and America was indeed declared to be a fascist theocracy in January 2010 by Justice John Roberts.

Music genius Zappa was very interested in politics, especially in attempts at censorship, and his fearful predictions about American fascism were entirely correct.

The second part of this meme stirs up the question of when your favored American greatness took place: Was it during The Great Depression of the 1930s? During the post-war economic boom of the 1940s & 1950s - when the top income tax rate (1943-63) was 90% of income? Was it the 1960s, during which Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcolm X, RFK, and MLK were assassinated? Was it during the social revolutions of the 1960s & 1970s? Was it during implementation of Reaganomics in the 1980s? Was it during the Dot-Com Crash of 2000? During the economic & cultural panics after September 11, 2001? Or - get real, now - maybe during the pre-Emancipation slavery economy before 1860?

Anyone who wishes for a return to some vague Better Time as a benefit of fascism believes in a myth, in a story that never took place in Objective Reality, and there is no value in a discussion with these deluded people.

watch British Fox MovieTone 1927 sound newsreel footage of Benito Mussolini [7/2016 upload; 01:20] at YouTube

Frank Zappa on "Crossfire" - March 28, 1986
hosted by Tom Braden & Robert Novak; guests John Lofton (Washington Times) & rock musician Frank Zappa
watch segment [21:17] online at YouTube

Frank Zappa interviewed by Charlie Rose on "CBS News Nightwatch" - February 10th, 1988
watch segment [14:42] online at YouTube

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

if I was humble I'd be perfect

on the 2024 primary elections

"Robert Kennedy, Jr. is the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Democratic Party. Both are batsh!t crazy." ~~ G.E. Nordell

happy 4-20 holiday to those who celebrate

WOW!! today was early direct deposit of Social Security check NUMBER 200 !! - barely enough to live on these days, but absolutely prevents me having to sleep under a freeway bridge

March 2023 Quotations (52)

"Every day is one of those days . . ."
~~ line from Apple+ movie "Luck"

"The fascist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are all a-dither about possible 'weaponizing' of government oversight. This is one result of the Rethuglicons having long ago weaponized stupidity."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"I am not a man, I am dynamite."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68], in a student newspaper in 1947

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]

"He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows."
~~ Joseph Campbell [1904-87]

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of consid-ering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
~~ Ursula K. Le Guin [1929-2018] Page, in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" [1973]

"Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good."
~~ actor Terrence Mann

"At the end of the day it's better to be an unpleasant winner than a nice loser."
~~ soccer/futball star Giorgio Chiellini

"To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know."
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941]

"Being homosexual isn't a crime . . . It's not a crime. Yes, but it's a sin. Fine, but first let's distinguish between a sin and a crime. It's also a sin to lack charity with one another."
~~ Pope Francis, denouncing laws against homosexuality in an AP interview

"If you feel pain, you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being."
~~ Count Leo Tolstoy [1828-1910] of Russia

"The truth of a proposition has little or nothing to do with its psychodynamics. The notion that 'truth will prevail' is merely a pious wish; history doesn't show it."
~~ Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88], in "Methuselah's Children" [1958]

"No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!"
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"My so-called inventions already existed in the environment. I’ve created nothing. Nobody does."
~~ inventor Thomas Alva Edison [1847-1931]

"Democrats get angry when officials commit treason, Democrats hate fascism, Republitards love both."
~~ Brian J. Harris

"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted . . . but to weigh and consider."
~~ Sir Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not adopt a rational attitude."
~~ philosopher Karl Popper [1902-94]

the Scientific Principle of Parsimony says that things will be created or connected or behave in the simplest or most economical way.

"An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences."
~~ Edith Wharton [1862-1937]

"All spiritual practices are illusions created by illusionists to escape illusion."
~~ Ram Dass

"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose."
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]

"We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."
~~ writer Joan Didion [1934-2021]

"It's how you deal with failure that determines your success."
~~ internet marketer Rick Beneteau

"You never stop learning until there is dirt in your face."
~~ line in the movie "The First Grader"

"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart."
~~ Dr. Maya Angelou [1928-2014]

"I wish I'd a knowed more people. I would've loved 'em all. If I'd a knowed more, I would a loved more."
~~ Toni Morrison [1931-2019], in "The Song of Solomon" [1977]

"Remember that literature was not created to serve life, nor even translate it, but to escape it."
~~ French critic Paul Léautaud [1872-1956]

"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
~~ architect Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959]

"'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' marked the beginning of American literature. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Giving up is simply not an option."
~~ teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg of Stockholm, Sweden

"For this Nation to remain true to its principles, we cannot allow any American's vote to be denied, diluted, or defiled. The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished."
~~ Ronald Reagan [1911-2004]

"Only those who would fail to see the relationship between the fight for civil rights and the struggle for world peace would be surprised to see me. Both fights are the same."
~~ James Baldwin [1924-87]

"We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good."
~~ astronomer Carl Sagan [1934-96]

"We are bound together by the loss and the pain of the days that have gone by. We are also bound together by the hope and the possibilities in the days in front of us."
~~ President Joe Biden, in 2023

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is 'What are you doing for others?'."
~~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor."
~~ Thomas Donahue, President, AFL-CIO (and frequent AFL-CIO slogan)

"I dream my painting and I paint my dream."
~~ Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
~~ American philosopher William James [1842-1910]

"The image of God is your final obstruction to a religious experience.”
~~ Joseph Campbell [1904-87]

"I believe that today’s Trump supporters are people who are making a conscious, knowing, and morally flawed choice to continue supporting a sociopath and a party chock-full of seditionists."
~~ Tom Nichols, in The Atlantic Magazine, March 2023 issue

"[It’s] really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails like that."
~~ Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah

"As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts lasts; what doesn't doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself."
~~ Japanese writer Haruki Murakami

"The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics."
~~ physicist & astronomer Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]

"Color is a power which directly influences the soul."
~~ Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky [1866-1944]

"One simply cannot concern oneself eight or even five hours a day with nonsense-taken-seriously and not be corrupted by it. The corruption lies in the very habits of thought."
~~ author Patricia Highsmith [1921-95]

"I don’t know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment’."
~~ author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]

"Make men and women only sufficiently jealous or fearful or drunken or angry, and the hot red eyes of the cavemen will glare out at us today."
~~ British author H.G. Wells [1866-1946]

"Everyone pretends. And everything is more than we can ever see of it.”
~~ Ian Bogost, contributor at The Atlantic Magazine

"Maybe it’s better to regulate railroads and banks instead of uteruses and drag shows."
~~ New Mexico poet Mary Oishi

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

WAKING UP - a short poem by G.E. Nordell

Inside
I burn with the light of a thousand suns
In the outside world
A tiny few detect the heat produced
And are curious

But mostly
Folks see what they always see
Because their eyes are closed
So very tightly

Burning with the light of suns
Is available to everyone
You just have to declare it so

Waking up makes all the difference

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

ORIGIN OF WUHAN VIRUS SOLVED LONG AGO

Back in September 2021, there was a lot of information about the Wuhan COVID crisis, so I built a timeline page on the subject. Part of that work included sifting thru pieces about the Wuhan Lab and the fish market, leading to the identity of Patient Zero, the first victim of the disease. The evidence is clear.
Wuhan Institute of Virology and Patient Zero

The F.B.I. and other agencies are dilly-dallying for reasons other than science.

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

ZERO TOLERANCE FOR POLLUTION in Rio Communities

The City of Rio Communities, New Mexico Planning & Zoning is supposed to decide whether to recommend rezoning 300 acres of residential (PD) land to HEAVY INDUSTRIAL (I-3). That land is owned by Cibola Land Holdings — a Yates Petroleum Empire company.

SIMPLE SOLUTION: Set up an overlay zone on all industrial properties for the city for ZERO TOLERANCE FOR POLLUTION where ANY air or water pollution gets the business shut down for 30 days, second and further violations include $5000 fine; proof is evidence taken by city/county/state/federal officials on that property, regardless of source.

THEN see who files for zone change . . .

(This also works for Belen and Valencia County)

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Chinese New Year - Year of The Wabbit !

SENIOR SCOUTS

Somebody should create a Senior Scouts group modeled after the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
You could have Merit Badges for peeing & pooping & farting & napping.
You could have local and national Walker Races.
You could have Sympathy Badges for each time you fall down, with oak leaf cluster or gold star if taken to the hospital for overnight or longterm stay; same for each heart attack or stroke.
You could have Medical Condition Badges for official diagnoses of diabetes, macular or glaucoma, cancer (gold star after 5 years cancer free), or dementia.
You could have Scroll Badges for each college degree received after age 65.

The motto could be 'Having fun with decrepitude'.

Copyright 2023 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

January 2023 Quotations (51)

"[We are] in a country that doesn’t care about reality or government or decency or much of anything else."
~~ Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."
~~ Sir Walter Scott [1771-1832]

"The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our sepa-ration from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"Don't let the noise of others's opinions drown out your own inner voice."
~~ Steve Jobs [1955-2011]

"Desire is the cause of all stress."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"How do we make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or disadvantage to anyone?"
~~ R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

"Do not expect justice where might is right."
~~ Greek philosopher Plato [427-347 BCE]

"A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat in case of emergency."
~~ Paddington Bear

"If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books."
~~ author Roald Dahl [1916-90]

"Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours."
~~ Hermann Hesse [1877-1962]

Hey !!
Republicans and other fascists:
Every time that you punch the button to visit the fascist propaganda machine - you know: Fox, QAnon, OANN, fascist Twitter personalities - you kill a bunch of your brain cells. So be careful, you obviously have only a small number of brain cells left.
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Ya gotta remember always: Fifty percent of the population is below average. And it is even worse on Facebook. (And now we know that it is worse than that on Twitter.)"
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Joy is not in things - It is in us."
~~ Richard Wagner [1813-83]

"The universe is what it is, not what I choose that it should be."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970], in "The Freethinker’s Universe" [1951]

"A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader."
~~ Vladimir Nabokov [1899-1977]

"When it’s all been said or done, did we live for truth or for treasure?"
~~ David French, contributing writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions in philosophy. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions . . . I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970], in 'My Opinions' — preface to "The Bertrand Russell Dictionary of Mind, Matter, and Morals" [1952]

"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"When I wake up in the morning I want to feel hungry for life. Desire is what drives me. When I go to sleep, I feel I have experienced a small death, so that I can wake up in the morning renewed and reborn."
~~ French actor Jean-Louis Barrault [1910-94]

"This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat."
~~ Eric Hoffer [1902-83], in "The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature of Mass Movements" [1951]

"The more [that] you pursue permanence, the more [that] you feel the impermanence of things."
~~ Alan W. Watts [1915-73]

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
~~ George Carlin [1937-2008]

"To be wealthy in an unjust society is a disgrace."
~~ Chinese philosopher Confucius / Kong Qiu [551-479 BCE]

"The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook."
~~ American philosopher William James [1842-1910]

"Money does not make people wealthy. In fact, some people are so poor [that] all they have is money."
~~ futbol/soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal

"I got to tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized [January 6th], we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed."
~~ Cong. Marjorie Taylor Greene [QAnon GA-14], speaking in December 2022 to the New York Young Republican Club about the events of January 6th

"A first novel is like spring lamb, tender and pink."
~~ Benjamin Lytal

"The question of justice will be front and center next year."
~~ Teresa Hanafin, Boston Globe staff writer

"Really: somebody should make Elon Musk take a drug screen test, same as the one that the V.A. requires me to take. I am not kidding, the gazillionare is off the rails."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"It's so obvious to the point of cliche at this point that Trump is in this for one person and one person alone, himself. He steals fundraising, picks lousy candidates, and is an anchor in competitive races, so one would wonder how much longer the party tolerates this loser nonsense."
~~ Rory Cooper, once a top aide to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor

"Being born a woman is my awful tragedy . . . Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars – to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording – all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night . . ."
~~ writer Sylvia Plath [1932-63]

"Tell me, what is it [that] you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
~~ American poet Mary Oliver [1935-2019]

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."
~~ Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh [1853-90]

"When an executive told me he was so busy he never took a vacation, I replied, 'You mean to tell me that you can handle an $80 million project but can't manage to plan two weeks for some rest and rejuvenation?' "
~~ automobile executive Lee Iacocca [1924-2019]

"The danger of civilization, / of course, is that you will / piss away your life / on nonsense."
~~ Jim Harrison [1936-2016]

"I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable."
~~ actor William Shatner

"The only reason that I exist is so my shadow has something to do."
~~ comedian Steven Wright

"The future isn't as far away as it used to be."
~~ Mark Sumner, writer on Daily Kos

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing."
~~ philosopher John Stuart Mill [1806-73]

"Societies and individuals that continue to foster manipulative one-upmanship roles (power over the computer or a human) are destined to fail; societies of rational interchange of ideas (power from the computer and from other humans) are destined to succeed."
~~ G.E. Nordell, in The Los Angeles Times September 1982

"I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."
~~ Anaïs Nin [1903-77]

"You have power over your mind, not outside events, realize this and you will find strength."
~~ Roman emperor & philosopher Marcus Aurelius [121-180 CE]

"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people."
~~ Abraham Joshua Heschel [1907-72]

"Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny."
~~ movie producer Christopher Markus

"Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality."
~~ Werner Erhard

"The world may seem like a mess today, but lookin' on the bright side . . . it's still not as bad as it's gonna be tomorrow."
~~ "Ziggy" daily cartoon panel 1/2023 - drawn by Tom Wilson & Tom II

"Life is an existential fandango. If you make it so."
~~ G.E. Nordell

ME: wanna hear a really bad joke ??
whoever: okay
ME: ... the Republican Party !!!
~~ G.E. Nordell

"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."
~~ businessman Max De Pree [1924-2017]

"The main lesson of thirty-five years of A.I. {artificial intelligence} research is that the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard."
~~ cognitive scientist Steven Pinker

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

BAD JOKE

ME: wanna hear a really bad joke ??
whoever: okay
ME: the Republican Party !!!
>>>>>>>> G.E. Nordell