“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."
Galileo
The length of the solar flare in this photo is equivalent to the distance between Earth and moon.
Comparatively, Earth's sun is a small star, one of 300 sextillion in the known Universe.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/number-of-stars-in-universe_n_790563.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/number-of-stars-in-universe_n_790563.html
Dear D,
Thanks for your email.
Holder's position -- and, by extension, Obama's -- are, by any principled measure, reprehensible. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=147947061
Similarly, Obama's obeisance before the altar of AIPAC further encourages the tail to wag the dog.
If we "follow the money," the Big Question is whether corporatocracy ossifies the "soft fascism" first taxonomized by Ike when he coined the phrase, "The Military-Industrial Complex." http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9219858826421983682 (Originally, Ike wanted to name The Beast "The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex."
Although I am prepared for screws to tighten, I hope for two things.
On the international front, I hope Obama is playing a game that "requires" bluster-and-threat as prerequisites for earning "tough guy respect" in the persistent "world order" described by FDR at Madison Square Garden in 1936:
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."
The video clip and transcript corresponding to FDR's "I Welcome Their Hatred" speech are embedded at the following blog post - http://paxonbothhouses.
Despite Roosevelt's lofty rhetoric, it is also true that he played hardball, as evidenced by the creation of an American gulag that jailed 110,000 Japanese, most of them U.S. citizens - http://en.wikipedia.org/
Similarly, Hoover accused FDR of "sheer fascism" and did a good job "connecting the dots" - http://en.wikipedia.org/
My second (inter-related) hope is that America's theocratic impulse - "enjoying" a noisy last gasp - is in decline and that we are witnessing national revitalization "from below," the only "ground" in which lasting change roots.
I see this change in my own town, Hillsborough, and in neighboring Chapel Hill and Durham.
Admittedly, the national "scene" looks bleak, but the quality of life as lived "on the ground" is remarkably good.
Even in our big cities, the incidence of violent crime has tumbled and, despite The Great Recession, violence remains remarkably low.
Plugged into the same "monopolistic" energy source, the symbiotic "organism" thus engendered is understandably kin to The Borg.
Now, solar energy is enabling ever more people to withdraw from The Grid.
The conservative noise machine would have us believe solar is "on the way out," but the smart money - i.e., China - has placed a bet that shames the timidity of Obama's tiny investment in Solyndra.
Chesterton observed that the one thing we cannot look at -- the sun -- is the one thing by which we see everything else.
In my view, American corporatists too dim to see this light have been blinded by it.
Within decades - rooftop panels and cooperative solar farms - will impart critical mass to a demographic whose "energy decentralization" - and consequent independence - will evoke social, economic and political creativity reminiscent of Italian city states in the Renaissance.
Of course, it can "all" come undone in a heartbeat, even faster if Netan-yahoo prefers self-destruction to "existential threat" - this perceived threat being the only egg in Zionism's basket.
Israel's premier war historian, Martin van Creveld -- the only non-American whose works are obligatory reading for the U.S. officer corps -- offers eye-popping analysis.
In a September 2003 interview in Elsevier, a Dutch weekly, van Creveld commented on Israel and the dangers it faces from Iran, the Palestinians and world opinion:
"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under." [7]
In the August 21, 2004 edition of the International Herald Tribune van Creveld also wrote, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy." [8]
The craziness is everywhere. And Obama is caught up in it.
Still, my persistent hunch is that Obama is "crazy like a fox."
In this regard, I encourage you to check out "foxes and hedgehogs" who raise their heads near the end of the following NPR report, "Inconsitency: The Real Hobgoblin" - http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/05/147807206/inconsistency-the-real-hobgoblin
Like Chesterton, I am not optimistic... but I am hopeful.
The profoundest truths are paradoxical whilst seemingly self-evident syllogisms skim the surface.
We are adrift in deep waters. And they are moving like never before.
Pax on both houses,
Alan
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 7:50 AM, DM wrote:
While the media is preoccupied with the foolish musings of an unelectable ex-senator from Pennsylvania and the rude bombast of a radio shill, the imperial presidency takes a giant leap forward. Our beloved leader’s stooge at the justice department announced yesterday in Chicago that the president has the authority to take out United States citizens abroad. Can anyone on the left be intellectually honest?Just wondering.Best
D
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