A Thought for the Day
Savvy women, who generally though not always are trust-funded or otherwise ‘to the manor born,’ can wield immense power in the erstwhile ‘reproductive marketplace,’ and not only merely in relation to their inherent ‘value’ as a ‘partner,’ but also in terms of striking out on their own and utterly ignoring the men with whom they cavort, treating their common-law mates as largely sperm-donors and little more, a concatenation of independence and disdain for other than themselves that in large measure, perhaps, they have learned from their own fathers, an arch and cavalier dismissiveness toward others’ rights when their own skills and knowledge and fortunes permit them either to collect interest or to sell their labor without selling their souls or their bodies in the bargain.
This Day in History
Today in different realms, many people commemorate the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface in 1969; two thousand three hundred and seventy-three years ago, more or less to the day, a baby boy was born whose royal fate was to rise as the greatest of Alexanders, an imperial kingpin; in Jerusalem four and a quarter centuries, plus one year, thereafter, in 70 CE, Roman imperial forces, in seeking to overthrow the Jewish fortress near the Temple Mount, ended up in dire street fighting with the so-called Zealots; one thousand two hundred and thirty-four years later, in 1304, a male child entered the world in the usual way who would grow up as one of history’s greatest poets and storytellers, Petrarch; MORE HERE
Doc of the Day
"modern life" OR "industrial society" OR "essential technology" OR "key economic sectors" secrecy impossibility OR absurdity OR impossible OR absurd collective OR joint OR collaborative enterprise OR venture OR development = 415,000 results
Nearly Naked Links
Economics Theory – http://www.paulcraigroberts.or
FOIA REquests – https://journalistsresource.or
Data Lobbying – https://journalistsresource.or
Interesting People Places Things of Note
A website that documents in an interesting manner MK ULtra: “Before departing, Richard Helms kept the secrets by ordering the destruction of all files relating to MK-ULTRA. He was a Machiavelli with a mission. An avid proponent of telemetry as a form of low-intensity warfare, Helms commandeered a vast research network in pursuit of such subtle depth persuasion techniques as the transmission of strategic subliminal messages to the brain of enemy populations. He advocated the use of high frequencies to affect memory and even the unconscious. Helms ordered up a scientific cabal to study automata theory. In a memo to the Warren Commission, he made mention of “biological radio communication”. “
General Media & ‘Intellectual Property’ Issues
HST’s Art-of-Journalism Interview
A Paris Review article that introduces readers to the finer points of journalism with the great late Hunter S Thompson: “We talked with Thompson for twelve hours straight. This was nothing out of the ordinary for the host: Owl Farm operates like an eighteenth-century salon, where people from all walks of life congregate in the wee hours for free exchanges about everything from theoretical physics to local water rights, depending on who’s there. Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time, was present during parts of this interview, as were a steady stream of friends. Given the very late hours Thompson keeps, it is fitting that the most prominently posted quote in the room, in Thompson’s hand, twists the last line of Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”: “Rage, rage against the coming of the light.””
Recent Events
Predicting Sanders’ Appalachian Traction
A 11 Days in Appalachia article that looks at Sanders’ popularity in Appalachia: “As March gave way to April and May, however, the Democratic primaries moved north to New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Sanders won significant chunks of Appalachia, including every county in West Virginia. Kentucky was particularly hard-fought, with Clinton winning by fewer than 2,000 votes statewide — with the Bluegrass state’s eastern counties checkerboarded between the two candidates. Clinton’s organizational and fundraising advantages eventually carried her to the Democratic Party nomination, where she suffered defeat at the hands of Donald Trump in November.”
General Past & Present Issues
Baldwin Versus Buckley & Relevance
A Lit Hub look at a historic debate and its continued relevance today: “ Baldwin—visibly somewhat awkward at having to defend a proposition he thought obvious, that “the American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro,” which was the debate’s motion—had begun by making a simple, yet necessary point, one that rings as true today, if not truer, than it did in 1965: that the answer to this question ultimately came down to one’s “system of reality.” That a flag may look the same on the surface to you or me, yet where we store it away inside us—what it means to us—differs so drastically as to make two flags out of one. That all flags, in a sense, are perhaps two, or three.”