OK, here's a long-shot for ya. Lucky Thirteenth!

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People Get Ready   -   Let's Get Together And Feel Alright   The People's Climate March website is replete with good information. 350 Toronto are coordinating bus transportation from Toronto and lodging in NYC. Please give them your support in this important work. A-and up-front praise for Forest Action Network in Victoria who are asking the RIGHT QUESTION: What Will It Take To Stop The Pipelines?   Have a look at their August Newsletter for an Action Plan that makes sense (to me at least). Gentlemen and Ladies!                                                                                 Get over yourselves! All'a these 'soi distant' smart-guy gurus all'a time sayin' "THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!" OK then, try this on: How about casting Rob Ford as Toronto's St. George?!   I'll look at it later.                                 I'll look at it later.                                 Too late. Gilmar's diagram shows what increasing justice & equality look like when things begin to get really tough. I said long-shot. Right? WTF, Rob Ford is within squeaking distance of re-election so maybe he could be convinced to listen. It's not as if the mealy-mouthed left-libs & right-libs really mean anything they say so even if he just said something positive about any aspect of the looming apocalypse (say, pipelines within municipal boundaries) it would at least show the strength of the citizens lobby. Dunno. I'm just sayin' ... and anyway, I've always had a soft spot for Dennis the Menace (which is what that picture of him up top reminds me of). And if you have watched any of the debates ... please tell me that any of the other contenders really have anything to say. Maybe he won't want to piss off his Granite Club buddies (if he still has any) or the members of whatever club Stan Bharti belongs to. But then ... maybe some of them are beginning to figgure things out. Who knows? How would one go about presenting such an idea to someone like Rob Ford I wonder? Not that this would amount to any substantive action. A PR exercise. A bit of real politik theatre. Nothing more. A bit of fun though eh? A feel-good moment. After elections I wish the voters would just go and fuck themselves! Your excellency, it's rude to speak with your mouth full.

 
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Panem et circenses.

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It's k-k-k-CANADA DAY!  Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott get closer & closer, but there's no kissing (yet): Who compares with these guys? Who is their exemplar? Jacob Zuma?   Yep!   Who endorses rape AND believes that showering after sex prevents Aids. A veritable paradigm for dinosaurs.                 The Eveready Elephant is at the wall. The 'circus' part is losing some of its glow; in Brazil's case the people would prefer education & hospitals, but 'bread' is not far behind. Arab Spring f'rinstance was largely determined by the spike in wheat prices (according to Tom Friedman in 'Years of Living Dangerously') rather than unbridled enthusiasm for social networks. [But ... how could 'Years of Living Dangerously' be generally so lame?] A sidelight on social networks from tOad (and on tOad himself): There's a lot in these two images - not to mention chicken & egg stuff. Sepp Blatter is not a tall man: The FIFA rip-off artists & government freeloaders communicate well. They're on the same wavelength. The protest fizzles out because once the games are on everyone gets excited. It's Brasil ... GOOOOOOL!   And for the next event whatever it is the promoters and the government will just play it a bit softer, behind a few more closed doors. Oh well. Things are evidently changing though - Brazilians never used to protest in English. Fernanda Lima is the official World Cup 'muse'. Her tummy (a few years ago on the cover of Rolling Stone) appears photoshopped BUT it was twins so maybe not. And her impudent modesty takes me back to kinder & gentler days. Her page on Wikipedia is worth a look. She's from Porto Allegre in the south (where it gets cool in the winter if not cold). Porto Allegre is also the home of Luís Fernando Veríssimo.

 
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Worthy.

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Underway
The politicians are what? Fat & corrupt? The electorate is complicit. The labour unions are what? Fat & corrupt? The rank-and-file are complicit. Complicity is what mostly unites us.

(aka: Even to the edge of doom.)

Lose weight. Ask me how! Go fuck yourself! Ask me how! Lord give me a judgement like the mensaleiros got: a nice Cadillac, an Armani suit, and any little job in the PT government. Amen. I went looking in the OED for the etymology of 'complacence' (it's from Latin complacere to please, be pleasant) but I hadn't gotten to the root of it when I was distracted by this citation: "1490 Caxton How to Die - "This complacence is vayn glorye." Vainglory: glory that is vain, empty, or worthless; inordinate or unwarranted pride in one's accomplishments or qualities; disposition or tendency to exalt oneself unduly; idle boasting or vaunting. The name 'Caxton' rang a bell sort of and with some poking around I eventually found three versions of 'The Craft of Dying' aka 'The Boke of the crafte of dyenge', his translation of a French work (much recommended by priests and whatnot among the literate classes apparently) which he published in 1490-1, just before his death. At that time, March 31 was year end apparently. That would make April 1st New Year's day. Quite a different paradigm (as they say). You could call Caxton an early blogger in a way. The book is on-line if you're interested: The Book of the Craft of Dying, Frances Comper, 1917. On 'worth' & 'worthy' the OED doesn't offer much to repeat - except to note the relationship with currency and monetary value. Literature turns up some richer (and well composted) material: Wolfram von Eschenbach, 'Parzival': "Parzival, the worthy boy, stood full of rage upon the plain." In Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales': "A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man, that fro the tyme that he first bigan to ryden out, he loved chivalrye, trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye. Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre, and therto hadde he riden (no man ferre) as wel in Cristendom as hethenesse, and ever honoured for his worthinesse." [This 'trouthe' echoes other depths: ‘plight one's troth’ and betroth.] In Launcelot Andrewes' The Revelation of Saint John the Divine we turn up some nuggets, one of them even quoted by Handel to close his 'Messiah': "Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." And Shakespeare gives us: "O no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken." He's talking about love. The cowardly Buddhist: When I see twenty-something Buddhist children - numbers of them - burning themselves up I cannot comprehend and so imagine a statement - something like: "I would rather die horribly than submit to your tyranny." I also have this feeling (even living in oh-so-perfect k-k-k-Canada, imagine!) but, being a coward, I just increase my uptake of Akwesasne cigarettes, indulge less severe self-destructive behaviours than self-immolation, and concoct an array of feckless gestures and let it slide. Oh well. I ask a friend, who knows Buddhist practice better than I do if these monks and nuns are chaste - it seems germane to me - and he answers, yes, for the most part. Nominally 'Honourable' & 'Right Honourable', but really really REALLY un-fricken-worthy: None of them show evident signs of cretinism or madness. ... Oh sure, these pictures they use are dated - generally a decade or two in the past - but that's just vanity. They probably treat their families and friends pretty well - they can afford to. In short, bog-standard humans with big salaries and inflated but meaningless titles. Here is a sweet lullabye for all of them, the dishonourables (and Sid Ryan too): Bona nox! bist a rechta Ochs; bona notte, liebe Lotte; bonne nuit, pfui, pfui; good night, good night, heut müßma noch weit; gute Nacht, gute Nacht, scheiß ins Bett daß' kracht; gute Nacht, schlaf fei g'sund und reck' den Arsch zum Mund. Amadeus Mozart, 1788.         Good night! You are quite an ox; Good night, My dear Lotte; Good night, Phooey, phooey; Good night, good night, We still have far to go today; Good night, good night, Shit in your bed and make it burst; Good night, sleep tight, And stick your ass to your mouth. (Translation from Wikipedia.)   Spruikers & ampsters, barkers, shills, touts, posers & hosers, poseurs & poseuses (no gender bar here), slappers - that's what they are. Integrity? Probity? They ain't got! There is no human court that will deal justice to them for the ecocide they are perpetrating (keeping Ogden Nash in mind :-). I guess that's yet another motivation to invent an almighty seat of justice somewhere else, an imaginary one; say, in heaven? "To the victors belong the spoils," attributed by the cartoonist to then American president Andrew Jackson. Why 'spoils' I wonder? Must be some odd kind of honesty kickin' in to call things you have stolen 'spoiled'. Now if there were some arcane Buddhist practice to take this fat & forgetful old man naked into the moon and stars ... well ... it sure beats burning yourself up eh? (Have'ta look up 'arcane' to make sure of what it means. :-) Gotta love that Alz!) Be well gentle readers. ¿por qué estamos indignados? "This is not an ideological revolution. It is driven by an authentic desire to get what you need." Stéphane Hessel.

 
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