General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFor whatever it's worth, this is Day Number 666 of trump's so-called "pResidency."
That is all.
TwistOneUp
(1,020 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)2naSalit
(86,536 posts)This is a big astrological day too as both Mercury and Venus appear, from the earth, to be standing still for a few hours with Neptune to appear to do the same thing within the week and a full moon on Tuesday... I'm kind of excited because this looks good for us on a political scale... and really bad for you-know-who.
calimary
(81,220 posts)Thanks for this little tidbit, 2naSalit! I've always been fascinated by astrology.
2naSalit
(86,536 posts)I don't reveal my interest often but the is hugh. I have been an observer of astrology for decades because it's the only way, that I have found, to navigate my truly unusual life and its path.
Contrary to popular belief, astrology is not a belief system. It is the oldest for of timekeeping known to our species. As with any other timekeeping system, this one outlasts all life forms yet can help us understand when to stampede and when to hold our fire and watch for a better option whatever the situation. Right now, and starting on election day, a bunch of configurations are taking place that denote a major shift in our social interactions and how we go about seeking justice in the current governmental environment.
I am confidently hopeful that things will begin to be noticeably better in our general outlook come mid February if not before.
calimary
(81,220 posts)Had friends who were REALLY adept at charts and interpretations. Sometimes it was eerie how accurate some of the indicators turned out to be. Coincidences perhaps. But when coincidences keep happening, are they still coincidences?
It's imbedded deeply in our mitochondria, I think. I've read a bit about this instinct among us humans to identify patterns. Patterns in the weather. Patterns in the sky. Facial patterns. A tendency to want to group things into similarities or recognizable/relatable structures. Babies do that, looking at this configuration of two eyes, a nose farther down in the middle, and a broader moving opening below that. Which equals - a FACE. And along with that comes a desire to make sense of those groupings. Positive or negative? Helpful or harmful? Friend or foe? Benign or threatening? Familiar or unfamiliar? So why wouldn't we notice prominent groupings like constellations high in the heavens, and try to put a shape to it - of something recognizable or relatable down here? And then why wouldn't that carry some sort of significance or relevance to the "down here"?
And as we're observing our surroundings and trying to make sense of it all, why wouldn't we also observe weather patterns that are DIRECTLY relevant, and even predictive - learning that warm seasons follow cold, and you can plant and harvest and eat and survive if you can read the signs of the changing seasons. So if that kind of reasoning would enable you to predict, why wouldn't the same kind of reasoning lead you to look to those patterns in the stars and seek possible predictive effects up there, too?
Atticus
(15,124 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)Different Drummer
(7,613 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)I wonder if anybody's gonna pick up on it.
Often, Brian Williams opens his MSNBC show "The Eleventh Hour" with a day count of the trump "pResidency." Gonna tune in tonight and see if he has a comment about this!
2naSalit
(86,536 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)He mentioned on Tuesday night that it was Day # 663 of the trump administration. I made a point to write that down. I knew what number was coming up pretty soon after that!
PatSeg
(47,399 posts)I hope Trump notices. It should drive him even more crazy.
calimary
(81,220 posts)I feel NO sympathy for the republi-CONS. Who latched onto a world-class CON man and got CONNED.
Hey, donald, YOUR OWN PARTY probably didn't realize it was claiming ownership of this madness of yours, during an earlier convention: "We Built It." (The New Yorker, Aug 28, 2012)
Six weeks ago, speaking off the cuff at a firehouse in Roanoke, Virginia, President Obama argued that economic growth is driven by a dynamic of both individual and collective effort, of both private and public enterprise. Heres part of what he said:
If youve been successful, you didnt get there on your own. You didnt get there on your own. Im always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you somethingthere are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If youve got a businessyou didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didnt get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we dont do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
(snip)
I suppose Obama was guilty, if thats the word, of speaking in a way that the unscrupulous could easily misrepresent. But its clear that the antecedent of the two thats in the second bolded excerpt was not business. It was this unbelievable American system, with its schools and roads and bridges (and its Internet and its firefighters and, by extension, its rule of law and its relatively peaceful, relatively stable, relatively just social order). And its clear that the Presidents point was what he said it was, the point Ive italicized. Thus the oft-repeated film, the essence of which was repeated by speaker after speaker, was not simply a matter of taking some words out of context. It was a conscious lie.
We Built It was the theme of the day, emblazoned on the screens and chanted by the crowd. We Built It is not a lie, exactly, but as a slogan it is built on a lie. Of course we built it. But the Republican we consists solely of the owners of businesses, and the Republican it is not the United States of America in all its messy, variegated, democratic glory.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/we-built-it
They built this alright. Ever since the Powell Memo and Ronald Reagan. They laid the groundwork for all of this. Tilled the soil, planted the seeds, added lots of manure, and nurtured the little shoots and buds that began to sprout. Building and developing through the last few decades - to what has turned out to be a direct and logical conclusion: trump.
PatSeg
(47,399 posts)I agree, that republicans have created this mess and this administration over several decades. They shouldn't be surprised that the monster they've created is now destroying what is left of their party.
Vinca
(50,261 posts)calimary
(81,220 posts)Hence something that came to be called the "Friday Night News Dump". If you in the White House or Justice Department or Congress or corporate America or something had some bad news to cough up, you did it on a Friday evening. The Monday-through-Friday evening network-and-local news block was wrapping up by 7 or 7:30 local time. There wouldn't be anything further til the late night (usually local) half-hour local newscast. So whatever embarrassing or unseemly revelations you were forced to reveal wouldn't get that much attention. Everybody was gonna be off for the weekend in newsrooms big and small, from coast-to-coast. There'd be no news at all, of any import or not, over the weekend until "Meet the Press" and other such Sunday talk shows, and by then, there'd be other matters of greater consequence to report about and pay more attention to.
I remember watching "West Wing" when this was referred to as "Take Out the Trash Night."
But that isn't how it is anymore! Often a whole new and carnivorous news cycle is just getting off the ground on a Friday night. Sometimes, in the last three or so years it seems as though new "Breaking News" rears its ugly head almost on demand! At any hour. Of any day - or night. The sheer number of breaking news events and their rate of acceleration we've seen, just since trump arrived on the scene, has inspired a new metaphor. They don't liken it to "trying to drink out of a fire hose" for nothing.
a kennedy
(29,647 posts)Kicking this.
calimary
(81,220 posts)I sure like that little avatar of yours!