Pharma Bro

The favorite essay this past month has been The Poster Child of Capitalism, Martin Shkreli.  The essay has been hovering near the top for months. 

The Twilight Zone

 The old TV program Twilight Zone once aired a show in which the protagonist wakes up one morning and, for some inexplicable reason, finds he has difficulty communicating.

Both Sides Now

Any system that is based on one winner and one loser produces only losers.  The problem is so serious now that there is no longer any way of fixing it. The U. S. government is so far from responsibly governing the country . . .

Well-being

Dinner cooked to perfection, companions should be talented, amusing, the table conversation to be witty and a bit ribald. Well marbled steak, rare with marchand de vin sauce, a good Bordeaux . . .

it starts at the five and dime

We like dinner cooked to perfection, companions should be talented, amusing, the table conversation to be witty and a bit ribald, well marbled steak, rare, with marchand de vin sauce, a good Bordeaux . . .

the scotus play

The play has been staged, the characters have played their competing parts and the votes have been cast. Kavanaugh played a better victim.

the whole picture

Another 9/11 anniversary this week, lest we forget the effect this had and continues to have, I thought I would post an essay written one month after the event:

the laborer’s contributions

Life  is a series of challenges that one must resolve in order to  survive.  Courage is required.  Courage, persistence and personal power. 

sticky fingers

In the midst of reading “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine” by Joe Hagan,

zombie woman terrorizes

Residents at an apartment complex in Florida filmed a terrifying encounter with a woman who was acting strangely and aggressively. It’s unclear what caused the behavior,

ELECTRONIC DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

My EDS started this morning when the computer refused to speak or make any sound.  What’s up?  In an effort to add podcasting to my site, this week I started making test runs . .

A Safe Place

Cookie Cutter World

I’ve placed a new podcast on the page.  It’s taken me a while to get another one up, not because I didn’t have one in mind, but . .

The Ika People

     I’m reading a wonderful book entitled, One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest by Wade Davis

Gore Vidal's Bon Mots

I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.

Alive!

The rut.  That which one slips into without choosing or being aware of, where the world comes in three colors only, red when you become agitated, angry, gray when depressed, or beige, the spiritless life of going through the motions,

support the cave

If you’ll notice this week, I’ve added another podcast, Luhrenloup’s Path.  Much easier to create this time, took a couple of hours, most of it searching the web for intro and outro music. 

podcasting 101

There it is, at the bottom of the page, my first podcast.  When I initially mentioned that I would make recordings, I envisioned sitting down of a afternoon reading off the page, packaging it in an mp3 and that would be it.

Karpman Drama Triangle

I’ve just finished the Rolling Stone/Jann Wenner biography and what I come away with in the near 50 year period that has followed the inception of the 60’s magazine with its celebration of rock and roll, psychedelics,

UBI V AI

In the waning days of summer I ponder the question of universal basic income, or UBI as it is currently labeled, and seriously debated.

beebo’s last ride

His last wish was for a joy ride, “I think I’m gonna try to do a barrel roll and if that goes good, I’m just gonna nose down and call it a night.”

buddy

I went hunting on Google to find AG Sessions speech to high school conservatives, the one in which he reacts to the kids calling out “Lock her up!”

objection to the objective

Ruminations on the ethics of AI’s and concerns, fears, of AI unbounded possibilities.

the great unknown

Matt on YouTube makes videos asserting that we live in a matrix. Does he think there’s a moon? I don’t think so. The eclipse really irritates him. How can this be; it makes no sense at all,  he hammers at his viewers.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE

Political correctness and the waning middle class.

NPc’s, delusionals, pedants

Have you noticed how people have gone completely mad?  I have to be cautious when booting up the computer, a wrong click can expose me to the deranged zombie world we presently find ourselves in.

industry’s aftermath

      I come from a town in Maine that was majorly impacted by the industrial revolution.  Vast textile mills were built in 1850 and the town prospered and grew beyond expectation.  By 1950 . . .

short videos

   Short videos to munch this holiday weekend. See if you can catch the hidden message in the assortment, then what is at stake in them. 

pachamama

Mothers, mothers, everywhere.  Mothers with bouquets of flowers; mothers all dressed up, children by their side, and of course, dad who is making all this possible, taking Mom to brunch.

at last, spring

      I have bought some prizehead curly lettuce plants for which I have no garden to plant them in, thus asserting my spring fever creds.  All snows in my realm have disappeared, at last. 

learned helplessness

     There is a famous 2 part experiment in psychology by Martin Seligman in which he has placed a dog in a crate with an electrical grid floor that emits shocks on an intermittent schedule. 

Slugs v warriors

    My personal power at this late hour is waning.  I have been at my desk for two days and two nights solid futzing.  I changed the slugs on my website pages in order to make them friendlier to search engines . . .

Poster Child of Capitalism

Martin Shkreli was shafted this week with a 7-year prison sentence. The guy had hubris, and the system was unwilling to accept this from someone outside the sacred circle . .

the gender parameters

I had a dream last night about a dress, 3 women, and having to choose the appropriate woman to wear the dress. 

The back entrance

The internet’s front parlor is great with its designs, colors, its rapid movement, its images, but the back, oh the back.  It is a labyrinth of highways, byways, streets, paths. cul de sacs, dead ends . . .

Npc’s

The term NPC is bandied about on the information superhighway of late. NPC is a term used in video games designating a character controlled by a computer by predetermined or responsive behavior . .

shitholes

Below is an article by Jim Kunstler from Kunstler.com about the "shithole" kerfuffle this week that casts a bit of sanity on the topic. Trump doesn't always realize that he is surrounded by enemies and is . . .

Year’s end

We are shortly to be bombarded by year-end reports of what's been happening in the past year. I've got my own list of what is worth noting and I don't care to regurgitate all the horrible killings . . .

nietzsche

I've been Youtubing a little Nietzsche philosophy. I had taken to him for his statement "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," knowing little else about him except his macho Superman posture . . .

Sex and the matrix

The matrix seeks only and always to maintain itself and to expand. It's an organizational system that optimizes productivity. We, as performing units of production in this system, which I call the matrix .

. .

Women in the Western World

was raised by nuns in a Catholic boarding school. From first grade to eighth, there were 120 of us girls. I was taught that my body was something to be hidden. At some point, I perceived that nuns . . .

The donald’s 1st year

He's rude, bombastic, a thin-skinned bully and, our very own president. Every day we hear from those with a public platform what a disgrace he is to the country. Nobody ever asks why this guy was elected . . .

we are handily maneuvered

Among my stash of recycled library magazines and periodicals, this week was a copy of the NYT Weekly Magazine.  Looking through it is like taking a journey in time to a world no longer valid, an America long gone. 

Odds & ends

was surprised to find that a lot of my readers are techies.  I consider myself two notches above the unsophisticated, those who have never been beyond the door that leads to the internet’s engine room,

The medium is the message

Someone has recently posted that politics is the new religion, and in truth, politics is all you hear about in the media.  Yesteryears’ news programs have been replaced by gossip, opinion and offense; we are offended! 

andrḖ gide

André Gide’s, The Counterfeiters, or as he would have it, Les Faux Monnayeurs was published in 1925; it’s a complex novel with, all told, 29 characters in interlaced relationships.  Mostly it’s about the original, the real as opposed to the copy or the false. 

the queen of Hearts

Apropos of the #MeToo movement and the pussy hats I present the anarchist Emma Goldman’s thoughts on the state, on women’s rights, society, religion and much more:

officially 1984

     The religions have had their holidays these past few weeks.  Of the 3, I would say Muslims are undoubtedly the most observant.  The Jews break up in two camps, the Orthodox, very observant, and the secular who identify as racial rather than religious.  The Christians are not very observant, but Identify as such. 

Oh My America!

A refugee caravan from Central America approaches the US southern border as I write.  Most of them are from Honduras, have been walking for the past 7 days . . .

McCabe, Christmas and Santa

Let’s start with McCabe who is being soundly kicked in the derriere (I would have said ass, but who knows these days what offends . . .

Summer’s Love

So the Oscars tonight, in these dark times there’s not much on Hollywood’s plate, hardly anything Oscar-worthy. I liked the Guillermo del Toro movie, The Shape of Water, but then I like all of del Toro fantasies

It Begins

    A new site, a new life.  I had the bare bones of it done by a website content writer I found on Fiverr. I knew what I wanted, had collected all the images, and a design plan.  Once the Fiverr techie . . .

baduisms

   A strange thing is happening to me, I'm becoming lighthearted.  I even skip like a kid at times.  Today, I bring up the subject of self and self-presentation.  Self for me has been a mixed blessing.  I would say . . .

That oughta do it!

Ah, the troubles! Brings to mind the curse, May you live in interesting times. The women are out today wearing their pink pussy hats and letting the country know that Donald Trump should never have been . . .

robotics

Have you seen Justin Timberlake's new video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA-NDZb29I4? This is it folks, we are looking at our replacements. Twenty five years from now, they will be doing much of the work . . .

la danse

Christmas eve, made the Roquefort dressing, the garlic butter for tomorrow's orgy, and now as the sun sets in cold country, a lovely pink at horizon, then silver grey clouds playing background to jet black tree . . .

the crazies

“The Mentally Ill", I prefer to call them crazies to remove them from the "something is wrong with you" category and placing them in the "outlandish oddball" grouping. These are people who are trapped in . . .

persona

Becoming aware of the different personalities one inhabits. I'm not talking about traits, but complete and separate beings within self that cannot inhabit the same room as they are anathema to each other . . .

the fix

I once counseled a woman who suffered from an obsessive/compulsive disorder. Incidentally, that was the only one so afflicted that I worked with, so not as prevalent as one might think, or it could be that . . . .

Double, Double, toil & trouble

The witch flies on Tuesday! Although smaller and weaker, woman has power over man. She has mesmerized him, has enticed him to take a bite of the proverbial apple expressly forbidden by . . .