Photography: Link to Pennsylvania Landscapes

Link to Pennsylavania Landscapes

Beauty: The Realist Take

"In the psychology of the Victorines, the joy felt in experiencing sensuous harmony was a prolongation of physical pleasure [ital. mine]; it was rooted in the affective life and grounded in an ontologically real correspondence between the structure of the mind and the structure of matter." Umberto Eco Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages

Link to Zoosophy Blog

Link: Zoosophy

Link to 1000 Finger'd World

1000 Finger'd World

New Link at Teafroth

Link to Teafroth

New Post on Sovieta Blog

Link to Sovieta Blog

New Post on Beautiful Day Today

Link to Beautiful Day Today

Thomas Merton Blog: Father Louis

Father Louis (Thomas Merton Blog)

New Essay (click on link below)

How Did We Get Here From There?

What does it mean 'To Know'?

I have been thinking about what 'to know' really means---hence, what true knowledge consists in. To know ('oida': Gk) in Greek the term 'oida' is cognate with 'to see'. In shorthand to see is to know. In fact the vernacular use of seeing as knowing is quite commonly understood. Now imagine you come upon a tick sucking blood (as pictured below). One sees that the tick sucks blood it engorges but one does not know how the tick sucks blood. One knows that the tick sucks blood, in fact one knows how the tick sucks blood. 

But this is not how we teach our young scientists to proceed! We refer to a pentasyllabic word 'hematophagy' invented to describe the blood sucking mechanism. Or we turn to Wikipedia:
Wikipedia: Hematophagy

Presumably one gains a verbal access to explaining the phenomenon under discussion, presumably one better understands, even better 'knows' the phenomenon! This confused sense of knowledge and knowing, separate from seeing is what I deem as the greatest intellectual conundrums of our era.

Let us review the order of the phenomenon---one sees the tick exploded 10x its body size on the back of an innocent dog, in seeing the tick one knows that the tick sucks blood but presumes that one does not know how this little varmint does it! So one asks the question and then proceeds to use the cultural viable means of answering the question---one proceeds 'scientifically'. One refers to books, encyclopedia, Wikipedia, one asks an "expert". Like receiving a diagnosis for a mysterious symptom, the questioner is satisfied to learn that this an example of biological 'hematophagy'---the questioning mind is able to rest.

However, one should note that this is 'sleight of hand'---no understanding has been achieved in the acquisition of the pentasyllabic term! No new knowledge is obtained with the acquisition of this term. As a matter of fact, when one sees that the tick sucks blood, one knows how the tick sucks blood. In knowing that the tick sucks blood, one knows how the tick sucks blood. And this holds true with every other phenomenon!

In knowing that, one knows how. In seeing that such and such occurs, one knows how such and such occurs!

Therefore we must ask, since almost all of what we call knowing depends upon seeking expert diagnoses, and explanations, Wikipedia, and five-syllabled terms---which actually adds no new understanding to the phenomenon grasped, what is the status with regards to truth, concerning all of this so-called knowledge? One thing is for certain, the original grasp of the phenomenon which proceeds individually and by power of one's own eyesight, is routinely downgraded as a source of knowledge, whereas the move to downplay one's own true vision and knowledge is bypassed for a theory of knowledge which depends upon so-called "experts"---a kind of totalitarian-fascist way of knowing, if you ask me!

Philosophical Essay: John-Paul II

Fides et Ratio

I'll Keep it With Mine (b. Dylan) performed by Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention

Andrea Valeri: Sultans of Swing

Flamenco Interpretation of Knopfler's Magic

Mark Knopfler: Sultans of Swing

Unrivalled Guitar Mastery

Better to Live as a Dog....

“May you live in interesting times" is an English expression purporting to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. Despite being so common in English as to be known as "the Chinese curse", the saying is apocryphal and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced.^[1] The nearest relatedChinese expression is "宁为太平犬，莫做乱世人" (níng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luànshì rén) which conveys the sense that it is "better to live as a dog in an era of peace than a man in times of war."

God Only Knows---BBC Production October 2014

One thing we can safely say about the New World Order: when the fashionistas and culture czars of the NWO put their heads together and decide to bestow a platinum candy nugget on the world as with this non-disappointing re-make of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows"---the enormity of the canvas and (I suspect) the recording bill, allows the faithful denizens the whole world over to soak in the luxuriance unmatched since the Rococco while admiring not only the acoustic fanfare and chamber pomp but also the colorful vignettes which populate the theatrical in an unprecedented delivery of the authentic intention of Brian Wilson's mammoth pop beauty. God only knows why Paul McCartney and David Bowie failed to show up for this unparalleled masterpiece in the history of pop music recording.
God Only Knows BBC Production

A New Poem (lyric)-Written in Summer 2014

I ponder as I wander
and wonder at this day---
this jewel, this yellow flower, this puffy bumblebee!

My eyes, full wide awake
in the center of the day;
I am awake in the darkest night
when the stars all fade away.

I don't know when the weekend ends,
I don't know why the river bends,
I don't know how many lives I've spent,
How many yet to come...
I'll meet you at the journey's end,
at the final door,
I'll be there my friend.

Each moment amazes me,
each hour of everyday,
though the world beats faster than a drum.

I don't know how many roads I've gone,
how many yet to come
the world spins fast as a whip
but this moment lingers on.

Amazing Grateful Dead Video

Touch of Grey

Google Places Security Guards in Its Silicon Valley Offices

This post is actually more of an 'apocalypse illustrated' story but I thought I would post it here:

Google Adds Security Guards

Everything is upside down in the US---it is a "cockamamy world"----it's like you introduce the word 'security' and everyone acts like chickens with their heads cut off. So for all of the orthodox capitalist believers I have a question---how is security good for bottom line? How is it good to pay someone to DO NOTHING which cannot possibly 'create wealth'?

One is reminded of Ben Franklin's famous saying; 'those who would exchange liberty for security will have (deserve) neither!"
At the current rate of the growth of the police state and its consequent militarization, pretty soon everyone will be a security guard, then every citizen can arrest every other citizen and lock up the prison on the history of the USA. The doctors, lawyers and ministers of course can stand by rejoicing because they have the hegemony that has always been their guiding goal. The one per centers (one percenters ought not to be considered citizens as their allegiance is to mammon) will rejoice to get the low-bred laborers into a more controllable environment and of course, the White House and the senate can finally fulfill their promises to the New World Order, to package and deliver the US populace all of a piece for the Pharoah-ic enterprise of completing the destruction of the earth. Not bad work for a couple of presidential administrations since W and O have utterly devastated the last traces of Sovereignty in the US---great job---all hail to the chiefs! The world has lost its marbles!!

Since I coined the term 'crunchkin' more than 20 years ago...

I wanted to note that the term 'crunchkin' has been getting a lot of different uses as a search on Google demonstrates! To wit: crunchkin as edible pet greetings, pumpkin seeds, crunch cards, Nestle crunchkins, crunchkin crew puppets, et aliud Since I never took out a copyright, theses players are legally safe in using the term and I am pleased as I had hoped that the term would have a good life! Intellectual property is a leprosy upon artistic and intellectual life and has rendered the artist or thinker a kind of slave or prostitute, selling what they never owned, claiming to possess what was freely given to them in inspiration and of course it enlarges the ignoble domain of the lawyers practice, another scab upon cultural life that festers and won't heal!


Google Search: Crunchkin

New World Order (tm.) Firewheel Production

Added some new verses to this old topical tune!

New World Order (Peter Wolf)

presto

Am-C-G-D

Am-C-E

Am-C-G-D

Am-E-Am

Am-E-Am

refrain: (largo-dreamily)Em-A (x2) Am7-D (x2) Em-A (x2)

v.1

The G8 Summit was really great, you know 

IN GOD WE TRUST

Beyonce

The Illuminati

You follow whomever you must

In the New World Order

In the NWO

v2.

Evacuation schemes, corporate dreams, 

we’re too big too fail

Debt Ceiling oh what a feeling!

Like a puppy chasin his tail 

IN the New World Order

It’s a NWO

v3

We’ve got the NPR and the BBC

Michelle Obama is la-ti-dee

but your taxes are going to pay for our penalty

in the New World Order

It’s a N.W.O.

refrain

Cold call in the middle of the Night

Are you feelin’ a lil uptight?

We gonna save you

but first we must enslave you...

Cold Call in the middle of the Night

Are you feelin a little uptight? (ritard) (a tempo)

instrumental verses and solo

v.4

Play Good cop/Bad cop

Either way we win

Been that way since I don’t know when

ISIS Ebola 

It’s an Idiot Wind blowing 

In the New World Order

v.

The idle mind is the devil’s workshop

our sacred mission is to make your mind stop

Wait the president’s calling me up 

into a New World Order

It’s a New World Order

refrain

and instrumental verse outro. 

Plus, check out this earlier version video from 2012:
New World Order (2012)

Ameritopia by Mark Levin

Read Chapter One of Ameritopia